Letters From An Enthusiast

Plato's Revolution

Plato, Kronos of the philosophical pantheon, completed his magnum opus in 360 BC. It is with irony (and a mistranslation from Cicero’s Latin) that modern readers know it as the Republic. Cicero’s translation meant affairs (things) of the people. Plato, on the other hand, entitled his work the Πολιτεία, which more accurately means the way in which an individual lives and functions within his πόλις. Under the lens of proper translation, it is easy to see that Plato was not writing about a government or a collective, but instead on an individual and the proper way in which he ought to live. This in fact seems more suitable to the ever-questioning, γνῶθι σεαυτόν Socrates. For indeed, when discussing the issue of justice, happiness, and the good life in the Πολιτεία I 352d-354a, Socrates leads Thrasymachus to an understanding of how best to live ones life in order to arrive at happiness. More abstractly, Plato uses this passage to further demonstrate his idea that everything has a form, that every form has a function, and that the proper state of the form is realized when the function is followed. What is most remarkable about this passage, however, is that it represents the first known case in Western history where ethics became internalized, and happiness could be found within the self.

  Socrates begins the passage by questioning if the good or just life is a happy life, and therefore if the bad or unjust life is an unhappy life. To frame his argument to Thrasymachus, Socrates brings up the issue of work or function. He states that everything has a work, such as an eye, the function of which is seeing. Careful attention must be paid, however, to the original Greek for work. One translation of εργονεργον is, “probably [an] archaic word from ερδο-to work, do, accomplish.” What Socrates is really saying is that an eye has a specific thing which it does, and that in doing this it accomplishes what it was intended to do. He continues that the εργον of a thing is that which it can only do or that which it does best. But everything that has a function also has a virtue of the function, or more properly in the Greek, an αρετη. Thus everything that can do or accomplish something, can either do or accomplish it horribly or excellently (αρετη). If the eyes are blind, then they do not possess the virtue or excellence of the function or work. With this basis, Socrates moves into the realm of human action. He conjectures, then, that the soul too has a function and a virtue. The function of the soul is best summarized as life (though Socrates also uses the terms management, deliberation, and rule). The virtue of the soul would then be justice. The conclusion, according to Socrates, is that the just soul is the soul that lives excellently, and the soul that lives excellently is blest and happy. Therefore, the blest or happy soul is more advantageous than the miserable soul, meaning that justice is always more advantageous than injustice. But in typical Socratic fashion, Socrates stresses that one must know the definition of justice before they may begin to become happy. As Adam states, “Socrates sums up regretfully: until we know what Justice is, we are not likely to discover whether it is a virtue or a vice, and whether its possessor is happy or unhappy.” indeed seems to be work, as in that which a farmer or laborer does. A more proper translation, though, is offered by Liddell and Scott, who state that

One can see in this dialogue the typical way in which Socrates tries to prove something. He begins with a more formal and abstract statement, which could be called point A. Socrates states, “Would you be willing to define the work of a horse or of anything else to be that which one can do only with it or best with it?” Thrasymachus, as is typical for the victim of Socrates, does not understand. Socrates then clarifies his position with a host of different examples. With the point having been more clearly understood, Socrates again offers a more abstract definition, point B, stating, “Do you not also think that there is a specific virtue or excellence of everything for which a specific work or function is appointed?” Again Socrates clarifies his position with countless examples. In his examples, he links point A and point B by stating, “Could the eyes possibly fulfill their function well if they lacked their own proper excellence and had in its stead the defect?” This connection, replete with further examples, allows Socrates to bring the discussion to the core issue of the topic: the work and function of the soul. The abundance of examples combined with a solid grasp of points A and B enables Socrates to quickly wrap up the discussion in his conclusion, proclaiming that, “Never, then, most worshipful Thrasymachus, can injustice be more profitable than justice.” Socrates thus brilliantly led Thrasymachus through his discussion in order to reach what he intended to prove, that justice is profitable.

Though Socrates was only a certain and distinct issue within the realm off ethics, points A and B clearly indicate that Plato was trying to prove something much more abstract. Central to Platonic metaphysics is the concept of Forms, and it is here in this passage that we can see Plato trying to link his metaphysics with his ethics. In points A and B, the idea of forms is presented (and accepted by Thrasymachus) as a fact. This can be better understood in Socrates’ examples of horse and eye. There exists, independently, the forms “horse” and “eye”, unique from any other form. Εργον is the link between Plato’s abstractions and Socrates’ concretes. Plato thus states that every form must have a function, or εργον, and every function may be performed either in a good manner or a bad manner. When the form functions in a good manner, the form is fulfilling its nature. Likewise, when the form functions in a bad manner, the form is rejecting its nature. Thus it seems that Plato offers a way to categorize the forms-by definition. This definition is a collection of the attributes of the form and the function of the form (i.e. for a flower: gain nutrition by water and nutrients via the roots and from the sun via photosynthesis, soft and flimsy, leaves, roots, and the flower). A form acting in contradiction to its nature leads to a termination of that form. Αρετη, then, is the proper functioning of the form that leads it to a state of harmony or well-being.

  Digging more deeply, one can see that an eye does not choose to go blind, but merely goes blind based upon chance. Of interest in Plato’s ethics is the concept of volition. For indeed, it is not Μοιρα who sways men from justice to injustice, but man himself who, via volition, chooses to engage in his function either excellently or poorly. Thus the happy man is the one who engages in his function excellently, of his own volition. Man, as opposed to every other form, must inquire within in order to determine what his function is and how he might perform his function excellently. Man has the tool, philosophy, by which he can inquire first into his nature, or even nature itself (metaphysics), and then use this knowledge and apply it to his life and actions (ethics). Plato proves within this passage that his ethics can indeed be integrated with his metaphysics.

The significance of this passage is far greater than an understanding of justice and happiness (Socrates) or a link between metaphysics and ethics within a philosophical system (Plato). It is that, for the first time in Western history, a philosopher has posited the idea that man can understand his nature by inquiring within, and from this knowledge act in a manner which allows him to attain a state of happiness. Put more simply, Plato internalized ethics. A simple way to prove this is to examine the ethical philosophies of philosophers before and after Plato.

Homer represents the first major work of Greek thinking. In the Iliad, Achilles is faced with a moral dilemma. On the one hand, he can go fight at Troy and receive immortal happiness and renown via his glory and conquests. On the other, he can stay at home and wither away, miserable and unknown for the rest of his life. When he decided to go fight at Troy, Achilles’ mother Thetis cried out to him, “You should be spending your time here by your ships happily and untroubled by tears, since life is short for you, all too brief. Now you’re destined for both an early death and misery beyond compare” (Il. 1-434-437). Clearly she believed that happiness was freedom from fear or imperturbability, and unhappiness was living in a state of fear. Achilles believed the opposite. Regardless, both viewed happiness as attainable externally, be it glory, riches, and fame (Achilles) or imperturbability and tranquility (Thetis).

When Pythagoras was asked by his followers, as recorded by the late 5^th century Italian Pythagoreans, “What is most just?”, he supposedly replied, “Sacrificing” (Iamblichus xviii 81-87). Thus the just, or right thing to do, was to sacrifice (be it to the gods in a figurative sense, or to others in an altruistic sense). Once again, happiness was not found internally via actions, but externally via actions.

As recorded by Cicero, the philosopher and “scientist” Democritus supposedly lived his life as he taught, “…to have blinded himself…in search of what else if not a happy life? And although he located such a life in the knowledge of things, nevertheless he wanted his inquiry into nature to put him into a good frame of mind-for the highest good he called contentment and, often, imperturbability” (Cicero V, xxix, 87). Akin to Homer (or Thetis), Democritus stated that the highest good via which the happy life could be found was imperturbability. He even went so far as to detach himself from this reality (in a sense, by removing some of his perception of it) and found happiness by strictly knowing that it was contentment or freedom from fear which led from happiness. This cannot be mistaken with Plato’s internalization for ethics; the teleological end of Democritus’ ethics was imperturbability achieved by means of not perceiving any object of fear, as opposed to Plato’s teleological end of justice or happiness achieved by means of congruence of function to form. Thus, again, a pre-Socratic philosopher sought happiness and ethics externally.

One final example is Thales, man of the water. As reported by Diogenes Laertius in his Lives of the Philosophers, “Supposedly about Thales, when asked, ‘How can we live best and most justly? –If we do not ourselves do the things we blame others for doing. Who is happy? –One who has a healthy body, a well-stocked soul and a cultivated nature’” (1 33-40). To Thales, happiness was found in health and knowledge, or more specifically, to have a “well-stocked soul” (a soul full of lessons from life) and a cultivated nature (knowledge of community and others, of tradition). It is quite apparent, then, that Thales also sought happiness outside of the individual and in the external world.

When Plato wrote the Πολιτεία, he drastically changed the nature of ethics. No longer did man have to be free of fear, have large quantities of glory, be healthy and well cultivated, or sacrifice to the gods or other people. Instead man was free to examine himself (remember, γνῶθι σεαυτόν), to derive an understanding of his function (who he was, and how was he supposed to act), and then act accordingly in order to become happy. In true Greek tradition (for indeed it was they who first truly anthropomorphisized the gods), Plato made ethics human-centered and individual-centered, allowing mankind finally to begin his quest to understand who he was and how he should act. Ethics was no longer the realm of the king or god, but the individual. This is not to say that every single philosopher after him agreed with him, or that one could notfocus, in the starting point or origin-goods, sacrifice, and the external were not the prime focal point; man was. To further prove and solidify this dramatic shift in Western thought, it would be proper to examine subsequent ethical views. find happiness in the external world. Rather, it was a shift in

Aristotle was undoubtedly Plato’s greatest and most influential student. Almost directly echoing his teacher, Aristotle states in his Ethica Nicomachea:

“Presumably, however, to say that happiness is the chief good seems a platitude, and a clearer  account of what it is is still desired. This might perhaps be given, if we could first ascertain the  function of man. For just as for a flute-player, a sculptor, or any artist, and, in general, for all  things that have a function or activity, the good and the ‘well’ is thought to reside in the  function, so would it seem to be for man, if he has a function…Now if the function of man is an activity of  soul which follows or implies a rational principle, and if we say ‘a so-and-so’ and ‘a good so-and- so’ have a function which is the same in kind…human good turns out to be activity of soul in  accordance with virtue and if there are more than one virtue, in accordance with the best and most  complete” (1097 b23-1098 a16).

Ethics, or the pursuit of the good and happy life, was realized when the individual understood his function. Aristotle, like Plato before him, did not view man as a slave to the outside world, suckling the teat of material goods or the gods in order to achieve happiness. When Aristotle paints a portrait of his magnanimous man later on in his Ethics, the image is almost romantic-a strong, bold, independent man who stood on his own two feet, approaching the world confidently with his mind.

In the Roman times, the Stoic philosopher Seneca, in his Epistles, more succinctly stated, “Therefore, man's highest good is attained, if he has fulfilled the good for which nature designed him at birth.  And what is it which this reason demands of him?  The easiest thing in the world, to live in accordance with his own nature” (XLI). As was typical of Stoic philosophy, man had a nature, which when actualized, led to the good life. Though this is more general than Socrates’ judgment, the essence (or formation) of the argument is the same: identify the form, identify the function, act accordingly and reap the rewards thereof.

In more modern times, the philosopher Nietzsche poetically proclaimed in his work Beyond Good and Evil:

“It is not actions that prove him [the noble man]-actions are always open to many interpretations,  always unfathomable-nor is it “works”. Among artists and scholars today one finds enough of  those who betray by their works how they are impelled by a profound desire for what is noble; but  just this need for what is noble is fundamentally different from the needs of the noble soul itself  and actually the eloquent and dangerous mark of its lack. It is not the works, it is the faith that is  decisive here, that determines the order of rank-to take up again an ancient religious formula in a  new and more profound sense: some fundamental certainty that a noble soul has about itself,  something that cannot be sought, nor found, nor perhaps lost.

The noble soul has reverence for itself (287, emphasis the authors).

Nietzsche here seems to directly attack Plato’s view; even putting the term works into quotations (Nietzsche himself was a Classical Philologist). But even in his disagreement with methodology (that it is works or function which leads to happiness), Nietzsche still accepts the Platonic view of ethics. His ending statement obviously states that the soul does not find happiness or the good life externally, but instead it is its own source of the good (an internal concept). Ironic it is that in trying to disprove Plato, he accepts the assumptions of Plato in order to disprove him!

Finally, and most recently, the controversial philosopher Ayn Rand even paid homage to the views of Plato. In her work, The Virtue of Selfishness, she states:

“The simpler organisms, such as plants, can survive by means of their automatic physical  functions. The higher organisms, such as animals and man, cannot: their needs are more complex and the range of their actions is wider. The physical functions of their bodies can perform  automatically only the task of using fuel, but cannot obtain that fuel. To obtain it, the higher  organisms need the faculty of consciousness. A plant can obtain its food from the soil in which it  grows. An animal has to hunt for it. Man has to produce it” (19).

Here we see a very similar formula to that of Socrates (Plato). Ayn Rand identifies that every organism has a function, and it is that function which leads to the survival (or the good) of the organism. In her terms, to be ethical (to live the good and happy life), man (the organism) must use his mind, or reason (the function) in order to achieve a state of good. As recently as the 1960s, philosophers still debate the nuances of Plato’s historical revolution.

The evidence almost speaks for itself: the pre-Socratics viewed ethics externally, the post-Socratics (or Platonist) viewed ethics internally. Plato’s revolution was ultimately a fundamental shift in thought and focus which allowed all subsequent philosophers to debate the details: Who gave man the form and function? God, the gods, or evolution? (Metaphysics) What is man’s function? Reason, faith? (Epistemology) What are man’s virtues which allows him to act excellently in regards to his function? (Ethics). How ought man to apply these virtues in regards to other people? Tyranny, Oligarchy, Democracy? (Politics). Plato gave his own view under the name of Socrates.

It is rare, however, when an individual comes along who changes the very basic, fundamental methodology under which every other subsequent person, for thousands of years, operates. But what is certain is that Plato’s method struck such a nerve within the philosophical community that, to this day, philosophers still march and fight under the banner of Plato’s revolution.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Adam, James. The

Republic

of

Plato

. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1902.

Aristotle. Ethica Nicomachea. Trans. J.a.k. Thomson. London: Allen and Unwin, 1953.

Barnes, Jonathan, trans. Early Greek Philosophy. New York: Penguin, 1987.

Homer. Iliad. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Company, 1997.

Liddell, Henry, and Robert Scott. Greek-English Lexicon. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1891.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966.

Plato. Great Dialogues of Plato. Trans. W.h.d. Rouse. New York: Penguin, 1956.

Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. New York: Penguin, 1961.

 

Seneca, Lucius A. Moral Epistles. Trans. Richard M. Gummere. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1917.

Dr Me: Medicine, the Tripartite Soul, and Psychic Health

    Plato’s concept of the tripartite soul has been extensively written about and studied by scholars throughout the ages. It influenced Aristotle (in his De Anima) and all other subsequent Greek and Roman philosophers. Augustine and the Christians cherished it as a means of showing the innate sinfulness (the appetitive) as well as our innate divinity (made in His own image, or the cogitative). Even people as modern as Freud borrowed the tripartite nature of the soul to develop his own theories of Id, Ego, and Supergo[1], as well as modern cognitive psychologist who have taken Plato’s faculty psychology to heart[2]. One possible explanation for the widespread popularity and the everlasting nature of Plato’s theories on the soul lies not as much in the theory itself (for indeed, Plato himself evolved or fixed the mistakes in regards to his concept of the tripartite soul from the Phaedo to the Republic to the Timaeus), but in the very conception of what the soul was or how to interact with it. At times of rapid development in the sciences and technologies, philosophers sometimes tend to mirror their philosophies on these changes (such as Spencer and Social Darwinism). Plato lived not only in a time of rapid philosophical and artistic development, but also in the birth of the scientific tradition. More importantly, this birth and triumph of reason and science took man out of the clouds of the mystical and placed him within the realm of the world, able to be scrutinized and understood by science. This notion was especially true in regards to medicine, where men first began to rationally look at their own diseases and find worldly cures for them. Plato took this rational, scientific, and medicinal optimism and applied it to his own philosophy. For the first time in history, Plato set forth the concept that not only was the soul real, but it also was able to be treated of its illnesses and diseases in much the same was as the body. The wrongdoer was not possessed by demons, but sick, and as such could be cured of his sickness by introspecting and prescribing his own cure or by a doctor (judge) who, if the illness were serious enough, could help him as well. His worldly, medical view of the soul is most evident in the Republic, especially in Book IV, for it is within book IV that Plato fleshes out his idea of the tripartite soul. Yet hidden throughout the book in scattered parts, it is also possible to pick out the proper modus operandi and cure from the Asklepios of the soul himself. For each part of the soul, it appears as if Plato provided a proper medical behavior in response; of course though, like all medicine, these treatments or behaviors could overlap. Nevertheless, Asklepian Plato set mankind down the path to achieve psychic health.

    Though Plato hints at his tripartite division of the soul in the Phaedo[3], it was not until the RepublicRepublic is 435b-441e, as well as a further discussion at 611b-612a5. In sections 435b-441e, Plato divides the soul up into three distinct parts: the appetitive (τό έπιθυμητικόν), the spirited (θυμοειδές), and the cogitative (τό λογιστικόν). His discovery or justification for this distinction is quite unique in the history of Western logical thought. For at 439b5-7, Plato introduced what scholars call the Principle of Opposites[4], stating, “For it cannot be, we say, that the same thing with the same part of itself at the same time acts in opposite ways about the same thing.”[5] Plato used this principle to deduce the differences between the three parts. The logic of this principle, of course, was not fully fleshed out until Aristotle wrote his Metaphysics[6], but nevertheless, the Principle of Opposites allowed Plato to differentiate not between two obvious parts of the soul (the appetitive and the cogitative), but to create or discover the third part which had previously been linked with either the appetitive or the cogitative, or had just been dismissed as madness or possession (the rage of Achilles, the insanity of Medusa, etc.). Thus Plato was also the first intellectual in Western history to fully flesh out an emotional theory. Now with this tool in hand and the three parts identified, Plato was able to flesh out the three parts. that Plato fully fleshed his theory out, describing in detail each of the three parts. The critical section of analysis in the

    The first part of the soul that he identified is the appetitive (τό έπιθυμητικόν), which of course is the most obvious or self evident to humans due to the fact that it is the inescapable natural impulses that we have. Plato himself states at 437d that the most obvious of these desires are thirst and hunger, though Plato also includes willingness or wishing. Obviously a more complete list would include all volitional or semi-volitional operations of human biology (from sex to urination to breathing). The text, however, is ambiguous about biological needs that are out of our ability to control. It only states at 437e3-5 that, “That is so…each desire in itself is of that thing only of which it is in its nature to be. The epithets belong to the quality-such or such.”[7] It is safe to assume, however, that in a work of an ethical nature, as well as in such a primitive state of the development of psychology, Plato was only speaking of those things which our body desires which are in our control to pursue or not. For example, we are not able to stop our body from digesting food, but we can choose whether to eat or not; or, we are not able to stop our body from processing oxygen, but we can hold our breath underwater and choose not to allow oxygen into our system. This means that, of the elements of our body which we have the ability to control, these elements desiring a certain thing, we have the ability to give in to said desire or not (this choice is fundamental to the tripartite soul). The combination of these desires forms the first part, the basis of, and indeed the largest part of the soul.

    The reasoning behind the appetitive being classified as the first or base part of the soul is quite clear. When the hierarchy of life is observed, one can see that from the very basic living organisms, including plants (though these are not volitional beings), to the more advanced living organisms such as animals (though once again, these are not volitional beings), to man, the appetitive element is a common element. A tree, a dog, and a human all desire water and food. Freed from the shackles of the supernatural unknown, Plato was able to see the common element amongst all living organism (though it was not until Aristotle that the science of biology exploded in the ancient world). Thus the appetitive element of the soul is purely corporeal and purely animalistic. The proper functioning of every living organism requires a fulfillment of the appetitive desire. Plato, however, understands than man has the ability to choose the object that relinquishes his desire. At 438a-438d Plato brings up that others might state that the desire of denotes the desire of something good and spends a considerable amount of time defending this position. His response, tersely, is that the desire of something is just the desire of that particular entity, good or bad and much or less being mere attributes of that entity. With this view of the appetitive, it is clear why Plato placed so much emphasis on the cogitative. The appetitive desires drink: what to drink or how much of something to drink (drunkenness versus teetotalism); the appetitive desires sex: with whom to have sex or in what way (sexual monogamy versus sexual orgies); it is the cogitative which directs and guides the appetitive into the proper venue of action.

    It is clear, then, that the appetitive can be either healthy (desiring the right things, at the right times, for the right reasons) or unhealthy (desiring the wrong things, at the wrong times, for the wrong reasons). It is also evident that the cogitative guides the appetitive to a proper course of desire. What is not evident, however, is the relationship between the appetitive and the cogitative, or more specifically, how the cogitative guides the appetitive to a proper course of desire. Plato does not truly give an answer, merely stating at 439b that the cogitative merely pulls the appetitive back from its desires. It would be possible, however, to look ahead to Plato’s prescription for the cogitative and trace it backwards to the appetitive: or, it is also possible that the answer lies before the very discussion of the tripartite soul. Either way, the answer remains the same: education. Yet it is outside of the nature of the appetitive to be educated, for education lies within the realm of reason. A closer examination of how education is a therapy for the mind reveals the key: it is not so much the discovery of the new that is important here, but the affirmation of the tried and true. Or put more simply, it is through overwhelming evidence that the mind takes an idea and turns it into an educational law, staying with the individual as if it were permanent (notice how, through a change in modern values and the modern education system, Rome is thrown out as a copycat empire of engineers as opposed to the more ‘sophisticated’ Greeks-a view quite modern indeed![8]). Translated into the language of the appetitive, education would be better understood as habituation. The cogitative simply directing the appetitive to not have a desire for drunkenness may be powerful enough one time, or a few times; it is not powerful enough, however, to curb the impulses. To curb such an impulse, an individual must create a habit of not drinking to get drunk by repeatedly, over a long period of time, guiding the appetitive away from five drinks, to four, to three, to two, and eventually reinforcing one as a proper modus operandi. Akin to training a dog, this action repeated over and over and over again will eventually yield a habit of drinking in moderation. Though this does not eradicate the impulse itself (one could argue that it is impossible to eradicate impulses), habituation serves as a very powerful tool of the cogitative by which, in most cases, it can easily overcome an impulse. From this it is also clear that the stronger the impulse, the more diligent the cogitative must be in creating habits (walls) strong enough to withstand the onslaught of impulse. Clearly, then, a healthy appetitive can be attained through a proper creation of good habits.

    Plato then brings back the Principle of Opposites in order to reveal the spirited part of the soul (θυμοειδές). At 439E, Plato brings up the issue of the temper or the high spirit. To help explain the difference between the cogitative and the spirited, he introduces the story of Leontios. The man Leontios was supposedly torn between his desire to see a pile of dead bodies and his disgust at the bodies and at such an action. Thus we see a conflict between the innate appetitive desire to see the bodies and the spirited, emotional disgust at such an action. Since it is clear that such an emotional reaction is not a part of the reasoning element (for Leontios did not sit down upon a rock and muse for a few minutes as to how to feel or respond to this action), the Principle of Opposites requires that this indeed be a separate element of the soul. Plato thus called this the spirited element (θυμοειδές). The spirited is seemingly problematic, however, due to the fact that it seems as if Plato had begun a theory of emotions, yet stopped after just a few. Nowhere does Plato incorporate sadness or happiness or any other emotion into the spirited. It seems as if the spirited has its special place as temper or anger. Plato even offers two other examples; one of Odysseus restraining his anger upon site of the suitors at his house; the other of an infant born into the world containing the appetitive and the spirited (a temper, as Glaucon says; an anger). A possible solution lies in the correlation between the purpose for which a just spirited part acts. The spirited element is supposed to be the “soldier” as opposed to the “general”, the cogitative, aiding it in whatever it needs aiding and reinforcing the cogitative in its battle with the appetitive. Regardless, what is evident is that there is a second element of the soul, the spirited, and that its function is to assist the cogitative.

    The health of the spirited at first glance seems quite elusive. It is truly not possible to form a habit from the spirited, because the spirited has more of a reactionary nature (by reacting to something, the spirited is ultimately dependent upon that with which it reacts, and because each incident for which the reaction occurs will be different, the spirited in turn will act in a differing manner, being only related by the common element of anger or temper). The answer to the problem of spirited health, it seems, lies in two elements of Platonic education: music and gymnastics. Music especially plays a key role in relation to the spirited element, and it is possible that a deeper understanding of this connection could further elucidate the shadowy figure of the spirited part of the soul. In a later commentary on the Republic by the Muslim scholar Averroes, the image of war in regards to the spirited element is brought up:

    “It is also evident in that spiritedness often wars against desire and rules over it as though it were  an instrument of ascendancy         [by] which it rules over them. Hence it is that we frequently grow angry at what the desires bring [us] to thoughtlessly…And the         spirited kind will obey and submit to it, heatedly arouse by it [and] battling with the other kind. This harmony in the individual         soul is achieved through music…music renders it disciplined, submissive to cogitation.”[9]

According to Averroes, music then is the tool by which the cogitative forces the wild spirited part into submission (even in the Phaedrus, Plato uses the image of horses to describe the appetitive and spirited, with the cogitative charioteer rearing in and steering the wild beasts). Though Averroes uses a more war-like vocabulary than Plato (understandable), the element remains the same: the relationship between the different parts of the soul is a relationship of tension, much akin to the relationship between the different notes in a unified chord. Plato himself hints at the link between music and the spirited at 411d, when he states:

   “But what if he does nothing but this [gymnastics] and has no contact with the Muse in any way, is not the result that even  if             there was some principle of the love of knowledge [the cogitative] in his soul, since it tastes of no instruction nor of any inquiry         and does not participate in any discussion or any other form of culture, it becomes feeble, deaf, and blind, because it is not              aroused or fed nor are its perceptions purified and quickened…and so such a man, I take it, becomes a misologist and stranger         to the Muses.”[10]

As well as at 441e-442a:

     “Then is it not, as we said, the blending of music and gymnastics that will render         them concordant, intensifying and fostering the one with fair words and       teachings     and relaxing and soothing and making gentle the other by harmony and       rhythm?”[11]

Music thus plays two roles: it unifies or brings into harmony the tension between the different parts of the soul, as well as soothes or guides the spirited element, aiding it in its purpose. Speaking more broadly, the spirited element is not only the aid of reason, carrying out its commands in directing the appetitive, but also it enjoys a seeming symbiotic relationship with the cogitative in that it fuels the fire, so to speak, culturing or refining the intellect and grounding it into this world. Plato hints that the person who does not listen to music, and thus does not cultivate the spirited within him, will not have the proper link between his appetitive, corporeal, worldliness and his cogitative, incorporeal, divineness.[12] What one can see, however, in the evolution of or the change in Plato’s beliefs regarding the soul from the Phaedo to the Republic and Phaedrus to the Timaeus is a distinct break from the pre-Socratic view of Pythagoras and Heraclitus concerning the soul and harmonia to a more modern, medical view of the soul, begun in the Republic and finished in the Timaeus. Ironically, it appears as if Plato is stating that, were the spirited ever to become diseased, the answer would lie in a deep immersion into proper music (for of course, like habituation and education, these healing processes take time). Nevertheless, the importance of the spirited in controlling the appetitive and in nourishing the cogitative is undeniable.

The highest part of the tripartite soul is the cogitative (τό λογιστικόν), the lofty seat of reason reigning supreme above the more barbaric appetitive and spirited. Unlike the largest section, the appetitive, or the middle section, the spirited, the cogitative is the smallest element within the tripartite soul. Plato speaks very briefly of the cogitative, in part because most Greeks at the time would have been very familiar with reason (it was indeed the new religion), and also in part because he had written about it so extensively before. Thus the cogitative did not need much explanation because it was taken as self-evident or repetitive. What he does say of the cogitative part in terms of explanation he reveals in a very peculiar fashion. At 439b, Plato states that if there is something within the soul that pulls back a man from his natural impulse for water, this thing that is pulling back must indeed be a distinct entity from the impulse for water. He uses this as a preface for the Principle of Opposites, but also, taking volition as self evident, states that if you have the choice to do something contrary to an impulse, this must be the cogitative part which is doing the pulling away (by aid of the spirited).

The cogitative soul thus has only one function: to rule via reason, or more appropriately, to use its power of reason to calculate out the best venue to pursue within the appetitive via the spirited.[13] The cogitative soul is the last part of the soul that is developed (Glaucon even remarks that some people never develop it), and is particular to humans. In the Republic, however, Plato depicts a cogitative that is not as much the charioteer as in the Timaeus, but rather is more of a lighthouse that, through education, guides the appetitive and the spirited to the right path. Indeed, the cogitative could actually be likened more to the legislative branch of modern democracies, which discovers and debates what the laws should be, and then passes them into effect; by listening to the other parts, as well as listening to and learning from education, the laws of the body are put in place. The spirited could be seen more as the executive branch; the enforcer of the laws that the cogitative has put into place. Though this comparison may sound antithetical to Plato, it is not to be taken literally. Rather, one must look at the function of the guardians, or the spirited, and see that this can be compared to what now is our leader today (which indeed could be a fascinating area of study: if the executive is meant to be the head of the state, or the legislative, especially in regards to the Platonic theory of the soul or individual and the polis or the state). Perched atop its throne, the cogitative guided or negotiated with the other parts of the soul in order to lead the body as a whole to its proper course.

The health of the cogitative has been discussed in short earlier. The modus operandi of the healthy soul would be a dedication of its reasoning powers to education. Indeed, in many places in the Republic, Plato stresses the importance of education and learning. Beginning at section 376c-414a, Plato discusses the proper education for a guardian in the Republic. He includes music and gymnastics and later on, at 503b, includes knowledge of the “good”. His description here of music is different than his descriptions of music earlier; it seems as if Plato, by including story telling, was accepting the bard tradition of poetry and incorporating it into his music. This would indeed make sense due to the fact that Homer, a bard whose poetry was recited to music, would have been the standard fair education of most boys in Greece. But what would Homer and Aesop (another standard faire story teller), and much later on, the Seven Sages and philosophy do for the cogitative? Both Homer and Aesop wrote their literature in such a way that they could be used as a guidebook for moral action. As it is today, that children find the stories of Aesop and Homer fascinating, so too in the Greek world. Children would probably have picked up sticks trying to gorge the eye of the evil Polyphemus, while parents at home would quote lines from Homer as moral lessons for the children to remember. At 395d, Plato states, “Imitations, if they are practiced continually from youth onwards, become established as habits and nature, in body and in thought.” Thus it is evident that education is the means by which the mind is molded, shaped, and strengthened to become the master of the other parts of the soul.

Whether Plato began the medical view of the soul movement or not is unclear. It is known that, after Plato’s death, many schools of philosophy (the Stoics and Epicureans especially) had a belief in pneuma, the Greek word for breath. In the views of these schools, pneuma was actually a physical organ within the body that contained the elements of the soul.[14] What this belief makes clear, though, is that the Greeks had certainly brought the soul out of the sky as some mystical entity and placed it within the realm of the world, free to be observed, diagnosed, and treated. Any vice, or disease, could find its appropriate cure in order to achieve a state of absolute health, or virtue. In addition, Plato laid out in his Republic the proper means by which each element of the tripartite soul should act in order to maintain a healthy course. Plato’s ideal city was not only ideal but also real. His prescription for a healthy soul was taking place every day all over the Greek world (music and Homer were even elements of the education of children in Sparta, a city known for its disdain of philosophy and the arts). Growing up around Plato were bright and healthy men of the soul who would continue the world down a path of amazing intellectual and technological advancement. Plato was the first, however, to begin the philosophical analysis of the soul in a non-mystical or religious way. His division of the soul into three parts could be considered the first psychological theory in human history. Thus it is Plato whom we have to thank for freeing us from the shackles of religion and allowing us to introspect within ourselves, to observe and understand ourselves, and to realize what is needed in order to overcome and cure the diseases of our own souls.

 


Works Cited

 

Annas, Julia. Hellenistic Philosophy of Mind. Berkeley: University of California P, 1992.

 

Averroes. On Plato's Republic. Trans. Ralph Lerner. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1974.

 

Blossner, Norbert. "The City-Soul Analogy." The

Cambridge

Companion to Plato's Republic. Ed. G.r.f. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 345-385.

 

Ferrari, G.r.f. "The Three-Part Soul." The

Cambridge

Companion to Plato's Republic. Ed. G.r.f. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 165-201.

 

Finamore, John. "The Tripartite Soul in Plato's Republic and Phaedrus." History of Platonism: Plato Redivivus. Ed. John Finamore and Robert Berchman. New Orleans: University P of the South, 2005. 35-52.

 

Gruber, Gwen. "Immortality Vs. Tripartition: the Soul in Plato." History of Platonism: Plato Redivivus. Ed. John Finamore and Robert Berchman. New Orleans: University P of the South, 2005. 19-34.

 

Hall, Robert W. "Plato and Totalitarianism." Plato. Ed. John Dunn and Ian Harris. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. 378-387.

 

Hampshire, Stuart. Justice is Conflict. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000.

 

Kenny, A.j.p. "Mental Health in Plato's Republic." Plato. Ed. John Dunn and Ian Harris. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. 342-366.

 

Martin, Raymond, and John Barresi. The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self.

New York

:

Columbia

UP, 2006.

 

Nettleship, Richard L. Lectures on the Republic of Plato. London: MacMillan and Co, 1963.

 

Parry, Richard D. "The Unhappy Tyrant and the Craft of Inner Rule." The

Cambridge

Companion to Plato's Republic. Ed. G.r.f. Ferrari. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007. 386-414.

 

Shields, Christopher. "Simple Souls." Essays on Plato's Psychology. Ed. Ellen Wagner. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 137-156.

 

Smith, Nicholas D. "Plato's Analogy of Soul and State." Essays on Plato's Psychology. Ed. Ellen Wagner. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 115-136.

Taylor, C.c.w. "The Arguments in the Phaedo Concerning the Thesis That the Soul is a Harmonia." Essays on Plato's Psychology. Ed. Ellen Wagner. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 51-68.

 

Vlastos, Gregory. "Justice and Psychic Harmony in the Republic." Plato. Ed. John Dunn and Ian Harris. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. 367-385.

 

Wagner, Ellen. "Supervenience and the Thesis That the Soul is a Harmonia." Essays on Plato's Psychology. Ed. Ellen Wagner. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 69-90.

 

Williams, Bernard. "The Analogy of City and Soul in Plato's Republic." Essays on Plato's Psychology. Ed. Ellen Wagner. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2001. 157-168.

 

Woods, Michael, and Ian Harris. "Plato's Division of the Soul." Plato. Ed. John Dunn. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. 353-377.

 

---

[1] The comparison between Plato’s tripartite soul and Freud’s Id, Ego, and Supergo was discussed in Ferrari, 176-178.

[2] Martin and Barresi, 18.

[3] Some scholars argue that the Phaedo depicts a unified soul, and it was not until the Republic and the Phaedrus that Plato fully fleshed out his tripartite model. See Martin and Barresi, 17.

[4] For a more detailed discussion of the Principle of Opposites, see Woods, 360; Nettleship, 155, though he identifies this as the Law of Identity and Contradiction.

[5] The text reads, “Ού γάρ δή, φαμέν, τό γε αύτό τώι αύτώι έατου πέρι τό αύτό ‘άμ’ ‘ά<ν> τάναντία πράττοι”.

[6] Aristotle states in his Metaphysics, 1005b12-20: “He who examines the most general features of existence, must investigate also the principles of reasoning. For he who gets the best grasp of his respective subject will be most able to discuss its basic principles. So that he who gets the best grasp of existing things qua existing must be able to discuss the basic principles of all existence; and he is the philosopher. And the most certain principle of all is that about which it is impossible to be mistaken... It is clear, then, that such a principle is the most certain of all and we can state it thus: "It is impossible for the same thing at the same time to belong and not belong to the same thing at the same time and in the same respect."

[7] The text reads, “οὕτως, ἔφη, αὐτή γε ἡ ἐπιθυμία ἑκάστη αὐτοῦ μόνον ἑκάστου οὗ πέφυκεν, τοῦ δὲ τοίου ἢ τοίου τὰ προσγιγνόμενα.”

[8] See the book, The Culture of Classicism by Caroline Winterer (Baltimore: John Hopkins UP, 2002) for a more detailed description of this fundamental shift in thought. For a more general account of the decline in the Classics in education, see Who Killed Homer by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 1998).

[9] Averroes, 51.20-52.28.

[10] The text reads: “τί δὲ ἐπειδὰν ἄλλο μηδὲν πράττῃ μηδὲ κοινωνῇ Μούσης μηδαμῇ; οὐκ εἴ τι καὶ ἐνῆν αὐτοῦ φιλομαθὲς ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ, ἅτε οὔτε μαθήματος γευόμενον οὐδενὸς οὔτε ζητήματος, οὔτε λόγου μετίσχον οὔτε τῆς ἄλλης μουσικῆς, ἀσθενές τε καὶ κωφὸν καὶ τυφλὸν γίγνεται, ἅτε οὐκ ἐγειρόμενον οὐδὲ τρεφόμενον οὐδὲ διακαθαιρομένων τῶν αἰσθήσεων αὐτοῦ… μισόλογος δὴ οἶμαι ὁ τοιοῦτος γίγνεται καὶ ἄμουσος, καὶ πειθοῖ μὲν διὰ λόγων οὐδὲν ἔτι χρῆται.”

[11] The text reads: “ἆρ᾽ οὖν οὐχ, ὥσπερ ἐλέγομεν, μουσικῆς καὶ γυμναστικῆς κρᾶσις σύμφωνα αὐτὰ ποιήσει, τὸ μὲν ἐπιτείνουσα καὶ τρέφουσα λόγοις τε καλοῖς καὶ μαθήμασιν, τὸ δὲ ἀνιεῖσα παραμυθουμένη, ἡμεροῦσα ἁρμονίᾳ τε καὶ ῥυθμῷ;”

[12] Many scholars, however, have debated this due to Plato’s ever-changing description of the soul. In the Phaedo, Plato depicts a uniform soul, existing in a state of harmonia. See Finamore, 48; Taylor, 51-68, who discusses more about the concept of harmonia and its relationship to Pythagoreanism and music; and Wagner, 69-90 for a more detailed discussion of harmonia in the Phaedo and the unified soul. Plato seems to have found it difficult to rectify his belief in the immortality of the soul and the tripartite nature of the soul. For more on this, see Gruber, 19-34.

[13] Ferrari, 175, likens the cogitative to a negotiator who in fact has to take the demands of the appetitive and the spirited and negotiate a solution based upon its acculturation or education. This leads him to believe that the cogitative is in fact very weak, being only strengthened by education, which could explain Plato’s heavy emphasis upon education.

[14] See Annas, 20-33 for a discussion of the origins of Pneuma.

I'm coming back...

That's right.  I'm coming back for good, and lots of changes are on the way (I know, I know-I've said that before).

This time though, I'm sticking to the blogging-no .Mac, no Website, no Media (for now at least).

I'd always wanted to return, but my life has been quite hectic for about 2 years.  Now, however, I feel like I have the time and energy to return.

I'll kick things off with two articles I wrote concerning Plato and his influences upon the world.  Hopefully you guys will like them :).