Thales of Miletus and the semantic possibilities of his view of the soul

Abstract

In this paper, a thesis about the soul attributed, according to Diogenes Laërtius, to Thales of Miletus by Aristotle and Hippias is reviewed both by means of the machinery provided by standard logical calculus and from the semantic framework of the mental models theory. The conclusions are that, while it is very hard to capture the sense of that thesis using the logical forms of standard calculus, the mental models theory can easily show its exact meaning and the particular semantic possibilities to which it refers. In the same way, a possible objection against the arguments proposed in this direction is responded.