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Plato's theory of soul
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Plato's theory of soul, which was inspired by the teachings of Socrates, considered the psyche (ψυχή) to be the essence of a person, being that which decides how people behave. Plato considered this essence to be an incorporeal, eternal occupant of a person's being. Plato said that even after death, the soul exists and is able to think. He believed that as bodies die, the soul is continually reborn (metempsychosis) in subsequent bodies. Plato divided the soul into three parts: the logistikon (reason), the thymoeides (spirit), and the epithymetikon (appetite).
The conception of the soul[edit]
Plato was the first person in the history of philosophy to believe that the soul was both the source of life and the mind.[1] In Plato's dialogues, we find the soul playing many disparate roles. 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. 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). The soul is also the mind: it is that which thinks in us.
We see this casual oscillation between different roles of the soul in many dialogues. First of all, in the Republic:
The Phaedo most famously caused problems to scholars who were trying to make sense of this aspect of Plato's theory of the soul.
Accordingly, the Phaedo presents a real challenge to commentators through the way that Plato oscillates between different conceptions of the soul.
In the cyclical and Form-of-life arguments, for instance, the soul is presented as something connected with life, where, in particular in the final argument, this connection is spelled out concretely by means of the soul's conceptual connection with life. This connection is further developed in the Phaedrus and Laws where the definition of soul is given as self-motion. Rocks, for instance, do not move unless something else moves them; inanimate, unliving objects are always said to behave this way. In contrast, living things are capable of moving themselves. Plato uses this observation to illustrate his famous doctrine that the soul is a self-mover: life is self-motion, and the soul brings life to a body by moving it.
Meanwhile, in the recollection and affinity arguments, the connection with life is not explicated or used at all. These two arguments present the soul as a knower (i.e., a mind). This is most clear in the affinity argument, where the soul is said to be immortal in virtue of its affinity with the Forms that we observe in acts of cognition.
It is not at all clear how these two roles of the soul are related to each other. Sarah Broadie famously complained that “readers of the Phaedo sometimes take Plato to task for confusing soul as mind or that which thinks, with soul as that which animates the body."[3] Others included II.M. Crombie and Dorothea Frede.[4]
More-recent scholarship has overturned this accusation, arguing that part of the novelty of Plato's theory of the soul is that it was the first to unite the different features and powers of the soul that became commonplace in later ancient and medieval philosophy.[1] For Plato, the soul moves things by means of its thoughts, as one scholar puts it, and accordingly, the soul is both a mover (i.e., the principle of life, where life is conceived of as self-motion) and a thinker.[1]
The tripartite soul[edit]
The Platonic soul consists of three parts which are located in different regions of the body:[5][6]
- the logos (λογιστικόν), or logistikon, located in the head, is related to reason and regulates the other parts.
- the thymos (θυμοειδές), or thumoeides, located near the chest region, is related to spirit.
- the eros (ἐπιθυμητικόν), or epithumetikon, located in the stomach, is related to one's desires.
In his treatise the Republic, and also with the chariot allegory in Phaedrus, Plato asserted that the three parts of the psyche also correspond to the three classes of a society (viz. the rulers, the military, and the ordinary citizens).[7] The function of the epithymetikon is to produce and seek pleasure. The function of the logistikon is to gently rule through the love of learning. The function of the thymoeides is to obey the directions of the logistikon while ferociously defending the whole from external invasion and internal disorder.
Whether in a city or an individual, justice (δικαιοσύνη,dikaiosyne) is declared to be the state of the whole in which each part fulfills its function, while temperance is the state of the whole where each part does not attempt to interfere in the functions of the others.[8] Injustice (ἀδικία, adikia) is the contrary state of the whole, often taking the specific form in which the spirited is obedient to the appetitive, while they together either ignore the logical entirely or employ it in their pursuits of pleasure.
In the Republic
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