The analysis of total loss of consciousness illustrates the varied ways in which the different authors resolved - in their corresponding periods and contexts - the tension between body and soul. Despite their diverse approaches, all the medical writers under scrutiny took for granted the existence of a soul, its intervention in this kind of conditions, and its bonds to the body as determiner of the clinical presentation. Particularly, they grappled to organise the mental capacities and explain how they were affected in the different forms of impaired consciousness.

Post-Hellenistic authors took some Hippocratic ideas and terminology to build their own theories about the different forms of losing consciousness, and about the relationship between body and soul. Also, they presented a clearer distinction between the two forms of total loss of consciousness (to the extent that they described a new disease, where the body was primarily affected but not the soul). Celsus’ description of fainting suggests that his idea of soul was influenced by Epicurean corpuscular theories with a rational and an irrational component. Aretaeus, in his turn, was majorly concerned with the mechanisms that produced fainting, where he included a tangle of ideas that included loss of heat, loss of tension, affection in the blood or in the heart, and sometimes, the separation of the soul. However, his idea of psuchê was rather erratic, and his way of organizing mental capacities was not consistent throughout the treatise.

This chapter considers when the government’s speech violates the Equal Protection Clause. It starts with an illustrative sketch of the government’s wide-ranging speech about equality that features heroes, villains, and some that are hard to characterize. It then explores three different approaches to the Equal Protection Clause problems sometimes triggered by the government’s speech, approaches that consider the consequences of, and the motivations underlying, the government’s speech. First, does the government’s speech disadvantage its targets’ opportunities based on race (or other protected characteristic), and does the Clause bar the government from causing that disadvantage? Next, does the government’s speech inflict expressive harm by communicating hostility to or disrespect for its targets based on race (or other protected characteristic), and does the Clause bar the government from inflicting that harm? Finally, is the government’s speech motivated by animus, and does the Clause bar the government from speaking for that reason? The chapter closes by applying these approaches to several problems, including governments’ display of the Confederate flag.