Plato’s Idea, Essay Example

Plato’s Idea of the Three Parts of the Soul as Psychological Theory

The Soul and Psychology

Plato’s legendary breakdown of the human soul into three parts, detailed in argument form in his Republic, has essentially enabled debate and speculation regarding the primal elements of humanity ever since. The Socratic view as presented by Plato goes to logic or reason, spirit, and appetite as composing this trio, and it is difficult to deny the immense significance of each part, or identify an aspect of the soul equally primary and omitted here. Validating the idea further, however, is how this ancient assessment reflects modern understanding and theories of the human mind and human drives.  The three parts are each both distinct and multifaceted; they represent a specific kind of functioning, yet they also encompass varying elements within each function, and psychology very much parallels the complexity and interactive nature of the Platonic idea.  Beyond this, however, Plato’s idea of the soul reflects psychological theory in one critical and consistent way; with Plato, the three parts of the soul are in a kind of perpetual struggle for dominance, and psychological theory ranging from Freud to Jung supports such conflict as being integral to human internal existence.

As noted, the Platonic soul is composed of logic, spirit, and appetite, and these are drives easily identified as common, if not universally basic, to all humanity.  When these parts are examined, what is revealed is a powerful resemblance to psychology, yet one more based on philosophical contexts and frames of reference. For example, logic or reason is identified in modern terms as higher brain functioning.  In Plato and elsewhere, this is the element of the individual that is drawn to, or generates, thought which exists to promote more thought and attain knowledge. In basic psychological terms, Plato’s reason is essentially cognition. With Plato, however, there is a difference because even this function is an effort or drive of the soul; it is not the mind’s reasoning as promoting itself, but the soul’s need to find truth that is the foundation.  Similarly, psychological thinking would alter the Platonic concept of spirit, and far more view it as the channels of emotive response and feeling within individuals. Plato’s spirit is more a matter of temper or passions, or the overthrow of reason; in psychology, emotion has more “weight” as a kind of intelligence itself.

With regard to appetite, there is a further distance between the psychological and the Platonic idea, chiefly because Plato’s sets parameters around his agents psychology is less willing to construct. With Plato, appetite seems to be both similar to spirit and more base; its very nature is visceral and, in the correct Platonic term, an antithesis to reason.  It also creates a kind of check on itself, in that a strong appetite for one thing will divert other appetites (Plato 178).  In the Socratic dialogues regarding appetite, in fact, there is a sense that a “beast” is being discussed, or at least a human drive very much removed from the more elevated parts of the soul.  Plato acknowledges the necessity for appetite, but he also presents it as something of a necessary evil.  With psychology, and as with spirit or emotion, there is a greater emphasis on an intrinsic validity to appetites as inextricably linked to emotional and cognitive states. This difference in general perception, again, derives from differing foundations. It must be reiterated that Plato’s concern is the soul, while psychology veers from any such spiritual agenda and focuses instead on the knowable totality of the human mind.

It is this difference in perspective or agenda, however, that then all the more underscores how Plato’s idea actually reflects psychological theory.  The thrust of the Socratic argument lies in determining the best way to achieve the most valuable soul, and this is believed to exist when spirit aligns with reason to control the rogue element of appetite.  The soul attains strength, in fact, when appetite is restrained, which reinforces the Platonic unease regarding appetite.  More to the point, however, is that this achievement of the just soul is an elusive process at best.  There is frequently no harmony between the parts of the soul, or rather Socrates fully acknowledges how one part will “go to war” with another, or various partnerships arise within the individual’s soul.  For example, he cites the desired occurrence of appetite as violating reason, and how there is then a support of the spirit joining with the reason to condemn the pursuit of appetite (128).  Appetite is strong, if dangerous, and always seeks to dominate. Reason, it seems, is constantly at risk of being overthrown, and this is disastrous for the soul.  The tripartite conflict is then always in place to some extent, and the soul perpetually battles within itself.

When the word “soul” is removed from this assessment, what remains is an idea corroborated by multiple psychological theories, with the most obvious being the groundbreaking work of Freud. The id of Freud actually expands the more pragmatic view of appetite, rendering it a diffuse and greatly powerful force as strong, if not stronger, than any more conscious drive.  In Freud, the id as primary translates to appetite unchecked, and often as not even appetite as consciously known.  Similar to Plato’s idea of reason is then Freud’s ego, in which all rational and cognitive functions come together to accept and address reality.  It is logic, but it is more the logic of the individual mind concerned with the individual’s needs and roles, whereas the Platonic reason extends more beyond concerns of the self.  Freud has no parallel for Plato’s spirit; the super-ego is largely emotive, but it is more conditioned response based on experience and perceptions of what should create emotion or feeling, whereas Plato’s spirit is more primal. What is of import here, however, is that Freud’s trio of agents is as consistently drawn into conflict as those of Plato. In each structure, elements collide in an ongoing rivalry, as in each visceral desires clash with external realities and the recognition of elements beyond the self.  If he does not express the whole as a “soul,” Freud nonetheless then mirrors Plato’s idea of the human as complex and intrinsically conflicted within their own being.

More in accord with Plato is Jung, a fact all the more interesting because of Jung’s early support of Freud.  More exactly, Jung’s psychological theory is distanced from Freud’s due to the former’s issues with Freud’s emphasis on the unconscious, or id, as so powerful a force, and this reflects Jung’s emphasis on something beyond all human drives.  This in itself may be translated as an acceptance of the human soul. In any such acceptance, Platonic or otherwise, there is the inescapable aspect of the divine at play, and Jung holds to such a force as at the core of the deepest human drives.  This is Platonic thought, as he too points to a need in humans to seek what is above the mortal, and move the soul nearer to what is divine and perfect (317). In Jung, in fact, psychology and Plato come together.  Jung proposes individuation as the harmonious meeting of the conscious and unconscious, which reflects the Platonic ideal of reason and spirit as mastering appetite, but he also incorporates the soul because he holds to a universal consciousness above the individual.

No matter the idea, Platonic or psychological, any such generally broad breakdown of the human state leaves much unaccounted for, simply because there are psychological variations too extreme to be explained by it.  More exactly, concepts of reason, emotion, and appetite here succeed only because, their adversarial relationships aside, they co-exist.  They are each viewed as potent enough to influence the others, the degrees of temporary dominance of one notwithstanding.  No matter the soul’s or person’s development, there is the totality of the components, and this ignores those cases in which reason, emotion, or appetite not only have authority, but exist virtually independently.  Plato, for example, would likely be at a loss if confronted by a pure hedonist.  He can appreciate that appetite can overwhelm, but he is not prepared to accept sole appetite.  Similarly, the person ruled by emotion is beyond his idea because the case negates two irrefutable agents.  Put another way, Plato’s idea succeeds well, and in psychological terms too, when ordinary variations of human behavior are the subject.  The extreme, as in the sociopath driven solely by appetite or the analytical individual denying all emotion, defies the idea because the entirety of the soul is not relevant.

Morality

With his concept of the soul neatly established, Plato is perfectly enabled to envision an ideal morality.  It is formulaic, in fact.  The human who determines, through effort, the order of their own soul achieves the balance between feeling, thinking, and desire that goes to the ideal person.  There is the belief that, minor conflicts aside, the order will remain and no single element will disrupt the harmony of the whole.  When such a state is achieved, human beings have no incentive to behave immorally and are all the more driven to promote goodness.  Then, such individuals as a collective reinforce the understood morality, so the good is further validated as such and the society is provided with a stronger moral foundation.  What renders this attractive and reasonable, however, is also what weakens it as a concept.  That is, this thinking relies on an embracing of a certain morality that can only be determined by a certain balance, and what is truly just may escape, at least for a time, such an ordered process. Plato’s idea of morality, in fact, depends on its definition as supported completely by faith in the infallibility of its own arrangement.  It is too limited a concept, in plain terms.  It is necessary to note that what is believed to be truly just shifts, as changes in thinking occur through often disruptive processes.  The balanced soul, for example, may reject a moral idea merely because it is alien.  Then, and importantly, such balance overlooks the occasional need for one drive to dominate because it it is itself driven by a need beyond the range of the others.  What, for example, is Plato’s well-ordered soul to do with the individual who is guided by nothing more than a passionate spirit that something is wrong? The point is valid because, historically, such spirits have defied and revised established moralities and generated actual changes in reasoning.  Put another way, and to reiterate, Plato’s idea of the well-ordered soul as establishing morality works only within the parameters of existing morality, and it must be remembered that what is just often presents itself as incomprehensible within established frameworks.

Plato. Republic. Trans. C. D. C.  Reeve. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004. Print.