Chapter 1 - Playing with Plato

Summary

Plato’s tripartite theory is used as a lens to increase our understanding of Dialogical Self Theory (DST) and to stimulate the further exploration of its personal, social, and societal possibilities. Plato creates links between (a) body parts (head, chest, belly), (b) faculties of the soul (logos, thymos, eros), and (c) societal groups (philosophers, military, artisans). Whereas in Plato’s vision, three main body parts are distinguished, DST is based on the assumption of a multiplicity of body parts that are linked to a multiplicity of embodied I-positions. Furthermore, whereas Plato puts reason (logos) structurally above emotion (eros), DST sees reason and emotion as equivalent and “cooperative” systems. The assumption of reason-with-emotion, instead of reason-above-emotion, creates room for the emergence of dialogical relationships among these central faculties. Finally, whereas Plato distinguishes three hierarchically organized societal groups, DST, as a multipartite theory, interiorizes a broader variety of social groups as participants in a multivoiced democratically organized self.