Ancient Greek Psychology and the Modern Mind-Body Debate

We shall try to answer two questions. First, is Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy of psyche and nous at all relevant for the modern debate on the notion of mind? Is Plato or Aristotle dealing with the same (or a similar) problem as we are. Or as Descartes was? Second, if the answer to the above is positive, do Plato and Aristotle then have something useful to say on the mind-body issue? We can dub the first question the relevance question and the second the usefulness question. As for relevance, it has been argued!) that the Greeks simply failed to see the mind-body problem. In that case they can hardly have had the same notion of soul (mind) as Descartes. But in order to evaluate this claim it will be necessary to look first (sec. I) at some criteria of the mental, Cartesian and, more generally, post Cartesian, i.e. modern. With these in mind we look next (sec. II) at some possibly relevant contrasts drawn in Plato. This should then enable us to answer the question (assuming that Plato remained a dualist of some kind): What kind(s) of dualism does Plato espouse or is he committed to (sec. III)? This again prepares the way for a comparison with Descartes (sec. IV) and finally with today's discussion (sec. V). The usefulness question will be dealt with in section V.