What about living? Will we deny that this is a function of the soul? Is there any function of the soul that you could not accomplish with anything else, such as taking care of something ( epimeleisthai), ruling, and deliberating, and other such things? Could we correctly assign these things to anything besides the soul, and say that they are characteristic ( idia) of it? We see this casual oscillation between different roles of the soul in many dialogues. The soul is also the mind: it is that which thinks in us. He also thinks that the soul is the bearer of moral properties (i.e., when I am virtuous, it is my soul that is virtuous as opposed to, say, my body). Among other things, Plato believes that the soul is what gives life to the body (which was articulated most of all in the Laws and Phaedrus) in terms of self-motion: to be alive is to be capable of moving yourself the soul is a self-mover. In Plato's dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles. Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind.

Plato divided the soul into three parts: the logistikon (reason), the thymoeides (spirit), and the epithymetikon (appetite).

He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn ( metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being. Plato's theory of soul, which was inspired by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche ( Ancient Greek: ψῡχή, romanized: psūkhḗ, lit.'breath') to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave.

Four thousand souls