Aristotelian philosophy played an important part in the history of 19th century philosophy and science but has been largely neglected by researchers. A key element in the newly emerging historiography of ancient philosophy, Aristotelian philosophy served at the same time as a corrective guide in a wide range of projects in philosophy. This volume examines both aspects of this reception history.

The conceptualization of the vital force of living beings as a kind of breath and heat is at least as old as Homer. The assumptions that life and living things were somehow causally related to 'heat' and 'breath' (pneuma) would go on to inform much of ancient medicine and philosophy. This is the first volume to consider the relationship of the notions of heat, breath (pneuma), and soul in ancient Greek philosophy and science from the Presocratics to Aristotle. Bringing together specialists both on early Greek philosophy and on Aristotle, it brings an approach drawn from the history of science to the study of both fields. The chapters give fresh and detailed interpretations of the theory of soul in Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Diogenes of Appolonia, and Democritus, as well as in the Hippocratic Corpus, Plato's Timaeus, and various works of Aristotle.

The occupation with objects from antiquity and the development of methods for this led both to the creation of a modern discipline of Classical Studies and to decisive impetuses for a re-orientation of other subjects such as theology and historical linguistics. In the present volume, leading scholars of antiquity visit the history of their disciplines from the perspective of present-day research by examining their historical, institutional and theoretical roots in 19th century Berlin a " one of the main centres of this development.

"Individualitat" und "Selbstbestimmung" sind zwei grundlegende Begriffe der Philosophie, auf die eine angemessene Selbstbeschreibung des Menschen nicht verzichten kann. Menschen unterscheiden sich nicht nur so wie andere Dinge voneinander, sondern sie wollen ihre Individualitat auch auspragen, indem sie nach ihren eigenen Vorstellungen zu leben versuchen. Da diese individuelle Selbstbestimmung ihre Grenze an der Selbstbestimmung von und der Fremdbestimmung durch andere findet, kommt den beiden grundlegenden Begriffen eine gesellschaftlich-politische Bedeutung zu. Sie spielen jedoch nicht nur in der praktischen Philosophie eine wichtige Rolle, sondern sind auch fur die Klarung erkenntnistheoretischer und metaphysischer Fragen von Bedeutung. So lasst sich beispielsweise im Anschluss an Kant die Auffassung vertreten, dass jede Erkenntnis eines anderen Dinges eine Selbsterkenntnis einschliesst, durch die der Mensch sein Dasein theoretisch selbst bestimmt. Und so wie wir uns selbst als Individuen begreifen, lasst sich moglicherweise auch die Welt als ganze nur als etwas Individuelles begreifen. Der Sammelband vereint Beitrage prominenter Autoren, die in historischer oder systematischer Hinsicht Aspekte der Individualitat und der Selbstbestimmung und ihres Zusammenhangs untersuchen."

The conceptualization of the vital force of living beings as a kind of breath and heat is at least as old as Homer. The assumptions that life and living things were somehow causally related to 'heat' and 'breath' (pneuma) would go on to inform much of ancient medicine and philosophy. This is the first volume to consider the relationship of the notions of heat, breath (pneuma), and soul in ancient Greek philosophy and science from the Presocratics to Aristotle. Bringing together specialists both on early Greek philosophy and on Aristotle, it brings an approach drawn from the history of science to the study of both fields. The chapters give fresh and detailed interpretations of the theory of soul in Heraclitus, Empedocles, Parmenides, Diogenes of Appolonia, and Democritus, as well as in the Hippocratic Corpus, Plato's Timaeus, and various works of Aristotle.