 Philolaus thus recognizes four distinct psychic faculties. He makes a clear distinction between intellect (nous), which is limited to human beings, and perception, which animals possess as well. He has no word for the soul as a whole and uses psychê, which serves this function in Plato and Aristotle, for the psychic functions shared by humans and animals. Some have argued that for Philolaus psychê only meant “life,” a common use in the fifth century (Burkert 1972, 270). However, since plants are alive and psychê is not assigned to them, “life” is not a good translation. Parallels in Herodotus suggest that for Philolaus psychê was the seat of emotions and desires, which was closely connected to perception (Huffman 2009). The third psychic faculty is responsible for nutrition and growth and the fourth governs generation and the sowing of seed. This hierarchy of four faculties is strikingly associated with the hierarchy of living beings (human, animal, plant) as well as a hierarchy of parts of the body (head, heart, navel, genitals). In identifying the head as the seat of intellect, Philolaus is siding with his fellow townsman, Alcmaeon, against those like Empedocles who championed the heart. He goes beyond this controversy to locate each faculty in a part of the body and thus anticipates a similar attempt by Plato to assign psychic faculties to regions of the body in the Timaeus. Philolaus makes a significant advance over earlier Presocratics by making a firm distinction between thinking and perception. His systematization of psychic faculties goes beyond anything found in his predecessors and is the recognizable precursor of Aristotle’s distinction between the faculties for nutrition, appetite, sensation, movement and thought (de An. 414a31–2). Riedweg notes that three of the seats of the psychic faculties (brain, heart and genitals) in animals are forbidden to be eaten in the acousmata, so that it may be that a connection can be seen here between scientific and religious strands in Pythagoreanism (2005, 110).