Soul as 3-Part Partition

Socrates is believed to be one of the greatest philosophers of all time and he is credited as being the founder of western philosophy. This paper will explain some of his views to the most fundamental questions of today’s age. These questions will include topics about morality, the human condition, solution, and death. After Socrates’ views on these topics are explained, a critique will be done on his answers. I will start out by explaining exactly who Socrates is, and the time that he lived in. To start out, we will first examine Socrates’ view on morality.

According to Socrates one of the most important things that identify with human being is their desire. Socrates argues that desire that can change people minds quickly and very abnormally. The three-part division of the soul is crucial to Plato’s overall project of offering the same sort of explication of justice whether applied to societies or individuals.

In the Resemblance Argument Socrates lays out his explanation for the immortality of the soul by asking his interlocutors to consider what sorts of things hold together and what sorts of things scatter. Socrates himself claims that there are both composite parts, which are compounds by nature and can be divided into their composite parts, as well as non-composite parts, which cannot be

Plato concludes Book IV by asserting that Socrates’s argument reveals justness to be more profitable to the individual than unjustness. By being a just individual, one has a healthy soul, and by being an unjust individual, one has an unhealthy soul. If health is something an individual desires to have, then it only makes sense that being just is most profitable. Before it is possible to assess Socrates’ argument, it must first be explained how he views the human soul and it’s components. Socrates defines three parts to the human soul: rational, spirited and appetitive.

Socrates third argument for the immortality of the soul is The Affinity Argument. This argument does not prove the immortality of the soul, it only shows that it is somewhat likely. Socrates makes a distinction between things that are immaterial, invisible, and immortal, and things that are material, visible, and decomposable. The soul falls in the former category while the body falls in the latter category. This distinction suggests that the soul should be able to survive death. The idea is that the soul has a likeness to a higher level of reality.

The same rule he applied to distinguish Spirit from Appetite is also the same rule that he used to separate Rational Thought from Appetite--something cannot do two opposite things at once. He already used this argument to set up a dichotomous relationship between Appetite and Rational Thought, therefore using distinguishing Spirit from Appetite in identical fashion puts it in the same place as Reason. To prove that Reason and Spirit are different, Socrates notes that Spirit will sometimes act in absence of Rational

Hunter Smith Phil 111 Professor Yong 24 February 2017 Essay 1 Plato expresses his personal convictions and beliefs through the dialogues of his teacher, Socrates. In the Phaedo dialogue, Plato presents four arguments to support his idea that the soul is immortal, and will live on after the body no longer exists. The four arguments presented in Phaedo are the argument of Opposites, Recollection, Affinity, and the final argument of The Forms. These arguments have been analyzed throughout the ages receiving not only praise, but at times, criticism for seeming insufficient and weak. On the contrary, the strongest of the arguments for the immortality of the soul presented by Plato are the arguments of Affinity and The Forms.

In this paper I will be discussing the tripartite (three parts) of the soul that Socrates discussed in chapter 6 of Plato’s Republic, and I will compare and contrast them to that of Aristotle and Anthony Kenny. In Plato’s Republic the three parts of the soul consist of the rational, spirited and, desire. In this dialogue the three parts of the soul go hand and hand with three parts of a just society.

In this paper I will argue that Socrates’s argument at 30a-b of the Apology that the best possible state of the soul is the most important thing in life means to eliminate false beliefs and to have virtue. Specifically, I will show why Socrates wants to eliminate false beliefs and why he insist on having virtue is important in life. Then I will demonstrate why Socrates’ argument is incorrect because he fails to identify the true catalyst that drives his happiness. I conclude Socrates’s reasoning behind his arguments are logical and sound, however he made the mistake of thinking that whatever drives his happiness will drive others as well.

In the Republic, Plato composes a theory of the psyche, the tripartite soul. Plato asserted that the ψυχή (soul) is divided into three parts; the λογιστικός (logical), θυμοειδές (spirited), and the ἐπιθυμητικόν (appetitive). In Book IV of the Republic, Plato attempts to answer whether the soul is one or made of parts. Plato states, “We seem to perceive the soul behaving in contradictory ways or reflecting two opposing states at once, we must conclude that the soul is many and not one.”

In this conversation, they are separating and attempting to define and order the body and the soul based on importance. Socrates and Cebes agree that the body is mortal and sinful, and the soul is immortal and divine; separating upon the death of the body. Socrates says “Look at it also this way: when the soul and the body are together, nature orders the one to be subject and to be ruled, and the other to rule and be master.” Aristotle may argue that the combination of body and soul is what makes an entire human, a distinct third being, with no one mastering the other. Socrates and Cebes are separating two parts of the human and failing to acknowledging the one whole as an individual and complete entity.

Plato’s Republic introduces a multitude of important and interesting concepts, of topics ranging from music, to gender equality, to political regime. For this reason, many philosophers and scholars still look back to The Republic in spite of its age. Yet one part that stands out in particular is Plato’s discussion of the soul in the fourth book of the Republic. Not only is this section interesting, but it was also extremely important for all proceeding moral philosophy, as Plato’s definition has been used ever since as a standard since then. Plato’s confabulation on the soul contains three main portions: defining each of the three parts and explanation of their functions, description of the interaction of the parts, and then how the the

"...I spend all of my time going about trying to persuade you, young and old, to make your first and chief concern not for your bodies nor for your possessions, but for the highest welfare of your souls..." (Plato 62). He bases his arguments in an understanding that people can only be wise when their souls are free from their bodies, because the senses interfere with inquiry (Plato 131). Socrates admits, however, that throughout life the body and the soul are connected. They only separate at death, which he explains as "...the separate condition by itself of the soul when released from the body" (Plato 108). Based on this assumption, Socrates encourages people to give up bodily pleasures such as food, sex, and fancy clothes so that their souls can be as free as possible from their sensual bodies (Plato 108). Siddhartha uses the term Self to express the concept of the soul and the body. In order to free himself of the influences of the body on his soul, Siddhartha attempts "...to become empty, to become empty of thirst, desire, dreams, pleasure, and sorrow-to let the Self die" (Hesse 14). However, he too finds it impossible to completely separate the soul and the body so that he can discover truth.

In this dialogue Socrates and the philosophers explore several arguments for this idea of an immortal soul. These arguments were to illustrate and verify that death is not the dying of body and soul collectively, but when the body dies the soul continues to live on. Socrates offers readers four main arguments: The Cyclical Argument, which is the idea that forms are fixed and external. The soul is the sole purpose of life in this argument, and therefore cannot die and it is also to be seen as virtually never-ending. Next is The Theory of Recollection, which insists that at birth everyone has knowledge that the soul experienced in another life. Meaning that the soul would have had to be existent before birth to bear this said knowledge.

As Plato advocates that soul belongs to different order from body, so it cannot be set alongside the body as homogeneous entity. The soul’s penchant is towards another world. It becomes evident, why the senses are envisaged, not as windows but as bars, since so far as the physical nature of man is concerned it is not just a matter of noting, ontologically, the finite character of its existence, but rather one making an ethical and religious value-judgment on this earthly life form the viewpoint of higher destiny. Only when the soul has undergone an inner transformation and been duly prepared for this it can looks at the body in a fresh light, as it were, and so discover as meaningful affinity between soul and body, which serves to orientate man towards the higher reality.