The faculties of the soul are the individual characteristics attributed to a soul. There have been different attempts to define them over the centuries.
Plato defined the faculties of the soul in terms of a three-fold division: the intellect (noûs), the nobler affections (thumós), and the appetites or passions (epithumetikón) Aristotle also made a three-fold division of natural faculties, into vegetative, appetitive and rational elements,[1] though he later distinguished further divisions in the rational faculty, such as the faculty of judgement and that of cleverness .[2]
Islamic philosophers continued his three-fold division;[3] but later Scholastic philosophers defined five groups of faculties:[4]
John Calvin opposed the scholastic philosophers, favoring a two-fold division of the soul, consisting of intellect and of will.[5]
The secularisation of the Age of Enlightenment produced a faculty psychology of different but inherent mental powers such as intelligence or memory, distinct (as in Aristotelianism) from the acquired habits.[6]