  Plutarch, as a Platonist, regards soul as responsible for all life and all motion of any kind. The world and all living beings have soul. While in Plato soul sometimes includes (or is even restricted to) intellect (e.g. Phaedo 94b) and sometimes not (e.g. Phaedrus 247c, Timaeus 69c–e), Plutarch distinguishes sharply between soul and intellect. For Plutarch soul is essentially non-rational and yet receptive of reason that stems from the intellect (De virtute morali 441F). Plutarch criticizes the Stoics who analyze the nature of man in two parts only, body and soul, for disregarding the intellect (De facie 943A–B; see Alt 1993, 94–6). For Plutarch the threefold distinction of the individual person (body, soul, and intellect) has its equivalent in the universe at large. As the human soul is intermediary between body and intellect, similarly, Plutarch claims, the world soul is intermediary between earth and sun (De facie 943A, 945A, De virtute morali 441D; see Deuse 1985, 45–47, Opsomer 1994). In both the human being and the world, the intellect is external to the soul (cf. Phaedrus 247c–d); the world soul is informed by the reason of the creator god, the demiurge, while in the case of humans the intellect amounts to the “daimôn” assigned to each of us (De genio Socratis 591E), which is what Republic 620d and, especially, Timaeus 90a-d suggest. Ultimately both the world soul and the human souls are informed by reason and become rational by coming into contact with the divine intellect. Plutarch argues that all ensouled beings, including animals, exhibit the presence of the divine intellect (De Iside 382A–B). However, as I said above (sect. 4.1), an element of non-rationality always remains in souls (De an. procr. 1027A), but Plutarch claims that this happens in different degrees, depending on how much a soul partakes of intellect (De genio Socratis 588 D, 591D–E). On this basis Plutarch argues, against the Stoics, that animals also share in reason (De sollertia animalium esp. 960B). The extent to which a soul partakes of reason largely depends on the training and the habits of that soul itself. Strong emotions, for instance, distance soul from intellect and increase its non-rationality (De genio Socratis 591D; see Dillon 1977, 212–213).