Shen 神  and Psychē: Chinese and Greek Accounts of Embodied Spirits

Lisa Raphals (University of California Riverside/ University of Edinburgh)

Friday 30 October, 3:30–5:00pm GMT

Location: Needham Research institute, Cambridge
Joint event with the Needham Research Institute seminar series

Abstract: This paper uses medical texts from Wuwei (Gansu), Dunhuang, and the Hippocratic corpus to compare Chinese and Greek medico-philosophical views of “spirit” (Chinese shen 神) and “soul” (Greek psyche) from three points of view: (1) as the basic for life, without which a person dies, (2) as distributed in the body, and (3) as the focus of “self cultivation” or “care of the self” practices.

Bio: Lisa RAPHALS (瑞麗) is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate Division at the University of California Riverside and Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh. She studies the cultures of early China and Classical Greece, with interests in comparative philosophy, history of medicine, gender and science fiction studies. She is the author of five books: Knowing Words: Wisdom and Cunning in the Classical Traditions of China and Greece (Cornell, 1992), Sharing the Light: Representations of Women and Virtue in Early China (SUNY, 1998), Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece(Cambridge, 2013), A Tripartite Self: Body, Mind and Spirit in Early China (Oxford, 2023), and Mind and Psychology in Early China (Cambridge, 2026), as well as two co-edited volumes and author of many shorter studies. She has served as the president of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy (2021-2023) and as an affiliate of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies (2021-2026).