Essay on Plato's tripartite nature of the soul

How successful is Plato’s line of reasoning for the claim that the soul has three (and only three?) parts or aspects?

The argument for the tripartite nature of the soul is part of the central argument in The Republic identifying justice (dikaiosune) in the individual. The process begins in (369) where the search for justice starts in the community on the basis that:
1. It will be easier to recognise in the community because it is larger than the individual
2. What holds true for the larger case will do likewise for the smaller (assumed here, but explicitly stated in (433a-b))
Justice is defined as the quality of minding one’s own business and doing the job for which one is naturally fitted. In 434d Plato reiterates the parallel that he is seeking between justice in the state and justice in the individual. However the implication is that this is not seen by him as a priori or a fait accompli. In fact, in 435d Plato indicates his own reservations about his methodology.
It is taken as an unargued truth that the elements and traits that belong to a state must also exist in the individuals that comprise it (435e). This argument for innate traits of ethnic groups are definitely not the sorts of racial stereotypes that we would unreservedly accept today. These generalisations also cut across the class boundaries of Guardians, Auxiliaries and Producers that Plato has already identified.

The argument for the existence of three parts of the soul takes the following form:

1. simultaneous opposite actions cannot be performed by a unitary physical entity in relation to the same object (436b-437a).
2. states of mind are analogous to physical actions and have contrary states (437b-c).
3. desire is a state of mind (437c-d).
4. desires are unqualified cravings for the associated object (437e-439b)
5. the action of the mind in resisting a desire proves that there is another element within the mind which he labels reason (439c-d)
6. there is an element labelled spirit which can be in conflict with desire (439e-440a)
7. spirit is never in conflict with reason (440b-440d)
8. spirit is separate from reason (441a-c)

Plato’s initial premise, which is variously called the Principle of Non-Contradiction or the Principle of Conflict[1] is acknowledged by Plato as the premise which underpins his whole analysis (437a). Whilst this premise does seem to hold for the physical world it does not necessarily follow that Plato’s conception of the non-physical soul or mind should obey these same rules. It is also conceivable that the mind is a single stream of consciousness that simply oscillates between the two competing and contradictory states of mind that are never held simultaneously despite our perception that they are.

Plato’s definition of desires as unthinking biological urges (437e-439b) is required to counter the argument that the action of the mind resisting a desire is merely because the object in question does not fully satisfy the more complex desire. In the example of the thirsty man who does not drink, the reasons for him not doing so are not enunciated. We will presume that it is because he knows that the water is poisoned. In such a case if his thirst is defined in terms of a desire for potable water then there is no requirement for a faculty called reason to exist to explain the man’s action in not drinking the water. Plato avoids this problem by limiting the scope of desires and defining them as simple. This conflicts with his usage of the term to describe more complex desires such as ogling corpses or craving money (which is only a means for gratification rather than an end).
Also ‘the desiring part is said to ‘agree’ to being ruled (442c,d) so it cannot be completely unreasoning’.[2]

Having now made the case for two parts of the soul to his satisfaction, Plato assumes without argument that this element of the mind that is competing with the ‘irrational appetite’ of desire is of a different ‘reflective’ nature. A equally valid interpretation of this conflict is that the human mind consists of many different competing desires. For instance in the example of a thirsty man not drinking because the water is poisoned then what Plato labels reason could easily be labelled self-interest or self-preservation (441e). As such this higher intellect is no more than what is possessed by any animal that acts in it’s own interests by non-potable water. However Plato says that animals do not have reason (441a-c) and this is clearly not the status which he attaches to reason elsewhere in the text.

Plato has a bigger problem with making the case for the third element in the Platonic soul - spirit. In fact Plato himself seems less than fully convinced by his own argument (440e-441a). The Leonitius anecdote (439e-440a) only serves to define an element which opposes desire. It does not differentiate spirit from reason. It is explicitly stated that spirit is never in conflict with reason (440b-d). Although this is later qualified by the proviso ‘unless corrupted by bad upbringing’ (441a), the only argument for its separation from reason is that it exists in children and animals, who do not have reason (441a-c). This is just stated as a fact which is assumed to be true (and unquestioningly accepted in this catechism).

Plato’s argument for three and only three aspects to the soul is only argued on a superficial and unconvincing level in Book IV of The Republic. The fact that Plato’s structure of the human soul so neatly matches his ideal three-tiered hierarchical society seems more than serendipitous. However, although there may be disagreement on the number of entities in Plato’s soul and/or their categorisation, the proposition that all our actions do not have a single locus of motivation is successfully argued and is something that pervades all current thought.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Annas, Julia, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford, 1981.

Plato, The Republic, trans. D. Lee, London, 1987.
[1] Julia Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic, Oxford, 1981, p. 137.
[2] Ibid. p. 129.