La teoria dei minimi corporei, intellegibili e psicologici e l’eternità dell’anima umana in Senocrate

The Theory of Corporeal, Intelligible, and Psychological Minima and the Eternity of Human Souls in Xenocrates. The aim of this paper is to investigate Xenocrates’ theory of minima. Plato’s disciple and future leader of the Academy postulated the existence of ultimate and indissoluble parts of the sensible world, which can be identified either with elementary triangles (a theory derived from Plato’s Timaeus) or indivisible lines. Since these parts represent the limit beyond which the sensible world cannot be broken down, they are eternal and grant eternity to the sensible world itself. Similarly, the intelligible world can be divided into minima, i.e., single ideas, which are simple, indivisible, and eternal. The paper will try to show that this conception can be extended also to the psychic level: in other words, the rational and irrational parts of the soul constitute psychological minima; since they are minima, they are eternal. In this way, Xenocrates’ peculiar theory of the immortality of the whole soul – of both its rational and irrational parts – can be conveniently justified. Finally, the paper will try to examine a possible ethical corollary of this theory: for Xenocrates, humans must take care of their rational and irrational dimensions and thus of their bodies because rationality and irrationality are structural parts of the soul, and so they cannot be eliminated.