Richard Seaford on the Origins of the Soul

In this episode of the SHWEP podcast, host Earl Fontainelle interviews Professor Richard Seaford about the intellectual history of the Axial Age and the birth of the concept of the soul. They discuss the meaning of the Axial Age, its timeframe, and the common intellectual developments across different civilizations. Seaford explains how the concept of the "inner self" or soul evolved in Greece and India, contrasting pre-philosophical views in Homeric Greece and the Rig Veda with later philosophical developments in pre-Socratic philosophy, Plato, and the Upanishads. They explore the transition from having no bounded, comprehensive organ of consciousness to the emergence of the soul as a central concept. The conversation touches on the influence of these ideas on Western thought, the views of philosophers like David Hume and Derek Parfit, and anthropological perspectives on the existence of the inner self, as well as the impact of Western economic models and individual property on the belief in a bounded individual self.