Abstract
Plato used the soul to explain motivations in humans and other life. He provided the first clear delineation of vegetable, animal, and rational life, attributing souls or soul aspects to each. The appetitive soul, present in all living things, drives desires of the flesh. The spirited soul, present in animals, allows them to move and be moved. The rational soul, present in humans, seeks wisdom and proportion. All three reflect a continuum connecting changeable matter (the world of becoming) to ideal forms. All three have physical aspects, though the rational soul aspired to perfect, eternal life. Plato’s system featured both mortal and immortal souls, but his immortal, rational souls and accounts of the afterlife have received the most attention.
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Notes
- 1.
Recall that the daimon was reincarnated in Empedocles , while Plato is clear that the psyche returns.
- 2.
It is worth looking at the full text, which includes allusions to former soul concepts. “We must believe, my friend, that this bodily element is heavy, ponderous, earthy and visible. Through it, such a psyche has become heavy and is dragged back to the visible region in fear of the unseen and of Hades . It wanders, as we are told, around graves and monuments, where shadowy phantoms, images that such souls produce, have been seen, souls that have not been freed and purified but share in the visible, and are therefore seen” (81c–d).
- 3.
- 4.
Plato begins by saying there are two roads to this knowledge (435c–d). The shorter path, arguing from the city and from internal conflict is spelled out and appears in my description. The longer and better path is never fully articulated. Buchheim (2006) explores the topic and we will return to his conclusions below in the section on achieving harmony within the soul.
- 5.
436a–441a. The lower desires have no proportion. We desire simply to eat, drink, etc. We have anger or sadness. It is only in our desire for wisdom that we know proportion. Self-control, that is the ruling function of our rational soul , allows us to eat and drink in moderation and to avoid being overcome by grief.
- 6.
The appetitive soul has also been referred to as animating soul (Broadie 2001), the function or image of desire (Buchheim 2006), the concupiscible soul (e.g., Crivellato and Ribatti 2007), and simply desire (e.g., Lorenz 2009). The name can be misleading, as all three souls produce desires. Lorenz (2006, p. 46) suggests that it is the strength and lack of proportion of desires in the appetitive soul that warrant its name. I would propose as an alternative, that the appetitive soul, being present in animals and vegetables, is the simplest soul—or simplest aspect of a soul—associated with desire at the most basic level. The spirited and rational souls produce more rarified desires.
- 7.
- 8.
- 9.
For a recent review and multiple perspectives on this perennial question, see Barney et al. (2012). Common themes include a greater understanding of multiple threads throughout Plato (rather than appealing to radical developments in subsequent writings), recognition of a divided self (rather than a unitary control center), and appreciation of what we might call cognitive or psychological components to the appetitive soul.
- 10.
Republic 410d–e. Orderly is κόσμιον and soft μαλακώτερον. Cp Timaeus 87e–88a. All references to Plato's Greek come from Plato 1903.
- 11.
Timaeus 35ab–b. Buchheim (2006).
- 12.
The word I am rendering Creator is demiurge (δημιουργὸς), the same word for skilled worker applied to the lowest class of citizens in the Republic. I have labeled it Creator from tradition and in connection with Plato nic and Aristotelian notions of the first agent . It matches Christian notions of God only to the extent that Christians adopted Platonic concepts. Note that the visible, closest to what we think of as physical matter , already existed; the demiurge shapes the disordered visible into soma , psyche , and nous (Timaeus 30a–b).
- 13.
See also: Phaedrus 246b, Euthydemus 302e, and Laws 898c–899d.
- 14.
Likewise, the spleen exists to keep the liver clear and clean, while the intestines slow the passage of food, so that humans need not eat continuously. For commentary on the role of the liver in reason-appetite communication, see Lorenz (2006, pp. 98–101).
References
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Lorenz, Hendrik. The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
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Mix, L.J. (2018). Strangely Moved: Appetitive Souls in Plato. In: Life Concepts from Aristotle to Darwin. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96047-0_3
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