Cognitive studies of Graeco-Roman antiquity may draw on a wide range of ancient and modern theories of mind. Particularly fruitful modern approaches for the study of ancient science include conceptual metaphor theory, theories of social cognition (particularly in animals), memory studies, and “4E cognition” (embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended) theories, suggesting that cognitive activities may depend in part on embodied experience, environmental cues, or external objects. While these theories have only recently been articulated by scholars identifying as cognitive scientists, ancient authors’ analyses of mind and thought processes offer many parallels as well as additional perspectives.Cognitive science is the study of the mind and mental processes, in its modern incarnation drawing together insights from psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, anthropology, philosophy, and other disciplines. “Cognitive science” is of course a modern term, but studies in the “cognitive humanities” suggest several productive avenues for applying cognitive science concepts to the study of classics (see .
Thymos (or thumos), cognate with Indo-European words meaning “smoke,” is one of a number of terms in Greek which associate psychological activity with air and breath. In the Homeric poems, thymos is one of a family of terms associated with internal psychological process of thought, emotion, volition, and motivation. Though the range of the term’s applications in Homer is wide, that in itself gives us a sense of the unity of cognitive, affective, and desiderative processes in Homeric psychology. No post-Homeric author can rival that range, but something of the richness of the Homeric conception of thymos as an interrelated set of motivations re-emerges in Plato’s conception of the tripartite soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus. Plato’s thymos represents a pared-down model of human agency typified by one central desire or aim in life but also exhibiting whatever further capacities of persons are necessary to enable it to pursue that aim in interaction with the other elements of the personality. As in Homer, the metaphorical agency of Plato’s thymos does not detract from the notion of the individual as the real centre of agency.
