What is the human being? That is one of the classic questions in the history of philosophy. Like all great philosophical questions, it has a rich history of formulations and attempted answers. In this lecture, Brian Gregor surveys ancient Greek conceptions of the human soul—specifically the Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Epicurean understandings—and details why these, though meritorious in many ways, ultimately fail to provide sturdy grounding for a full ontology of personhood.

Brian Gregor (PhD, Boston College) is Associate Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at California State University, Dominguez Hills. He is the author of A Philosophical Anthropology of the Cross: The Cruciform Self (Indiana University Press, 2013), Ricoeur's Hermeneutics of Religion: Rebirth of the Capable Self (Lexington Books, 2019), and with Rankin Wilbourne,The Cross Before Me: Reimagining the Way to the Good Life (David C. Cook, 2019). He is President of the Society for Ricoeur Studies and is currently working on a short history of philosophical life.