Treatise on the Soul

Lluís Vives (1492-1540) was one of the most outstanding humanists and philosophers of the Renaissance. He is considered a conciliator between ancient and medieval culture, precursor of many aspects of modern thought.
His writings, all in Latin, number about sixty. The variety of his work, and his innovative spirit, reveals the deep human quality of Lluís Vives. Our author insists on problems of method, demonstrating that, above all, he is a pedagogue and a psychologist.
The most transcendental work of Vives in the philosophical field is this Treatise on the soul (Tratado del alma) (1538), which we present here. It is divided into three books in which the study of the senses, of intellectual and rational activities, of feelings and passions, is linked with that of physiology and the examination of the corresponding philosophical and ethical problems.

• In the first book, Vives addresses topics such as feelings in general, inner knowledge, rational life and knowledge of the soul.
• In the second book of this treatise he devotes chapters to elucubrar on simple and compound intelligence. It is followed by reflections on memory and remembrance, reason, judgment, ingenuity, language, the way of learning, knowledge, reflection, will, the soul in general, sleep and daydreams, habit, death, immortality, etc.
• And in the third book he reflects on the theme of passions.

In his treatise, Vives, while following Aristotle and defending the immortality of the soul, attributes to psychology the empirical study of spiritual processes. He studies the theory of affects, memory and the association of ideas. This new way of approaching these philosophical issues made him a forerunner of seventeenth-century anthropology and modern psychology.

Translation by José Ontañón Arias.