Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Science

"This volume brings together studies on heat, pneuma and soul - three concepts which, though the provenance of each is different, co-occur in ancient philosophy and science in a constellation of problems ranging from cosmology to animal physiology. Though much work has been done on their histories, this introduction will focus on the explanatory role of these concepts and the notions of causality associated with them. We may begin with consideration of heat and soul as perhaps the earliest conceptual framwork for explanations of life; it seems that pneuma would be invoked as an explanatory term in these contexts somewhat later.2"--