Since Renee Descartes, if not since the rise of Christianity to cultural dominance, we Westerners have tended to divide reality into two realms: the physical and the spiritual.
We perceive that which is physical with our eyes, ears, noses, hands, and tongues. That which we cannot perceive with our physical senses we call spiritual. We know what is spiritual, if we know it at all, by faith in those to whom it was revealed.
In this Western dualistic view, the human body, part of physical realm, became an object of science. The human spirit, part of the spiritual realm, became an object of religious faith and theology.
However, this dualistic view of reality is culturally and historically limited to Western civilization. It has never been the view of everyone on the planet. Neither has it always been the view of Westerners. Today, in modern Western science, it is an antiquated view surpassed by modern physics.
Ancient Greeks, among others, viewed the human spirit (thumos) as quasi-physical. It was both unseen and physically located in the body, specifically in the chest, in and around the thymus gland. It was associated with the lungs and even more so with the breath.
If the spirit left the body temporarily, fainting occurred. If it left permanently, death occurred.
Its varying degrees determined a person's physical weakness and strength. It also had both cognitive and emotional functions.
In the view of the Ancient Greeks spirit and body were so closely connected that they did not exist apart from each other.
The Ancient Greek view of spirit informs the Thumotic perspective.
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