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  • Chapter 3 - The truth of tripartition

  • from Part I - The Republic
  • Myles Burnyeat, All Souls College, Oxford
  • Prepared for publication by Carol Atack, Newnham College, Cambridge, Malcolm Schofield, University of Cambridge, David Sedley, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    Explorations in Ancient and Modern Philosophy
    Published online:
    24 March 2022
    Print publication:
    31 March 2022, pp 78-95

  • Summary

    Since the arguments that Plato provides in the Republic for the thesis that the human soul consists of three parts (reason, spirit, appetite) are notoriously problematic, I propose other reasons for accepting tripartition: reasons that we too could endorse, or at least entertain with some sympathy. To wit, (a) the appetitive part of Plato’s divided soul houses desires and tendencies we have because we are animal bodies programmed to survive (as individuals and as a species) in disequilibrium with a variegated, often varying environment, (b) the spirited middle part houses status concerns that belong to us as social animals, while (c) what makes us rational animals is a faculty of reason, conceived in strikingly non-Humean terms, which determines what is best all things considered. Other psychic tendencies may then be explained in terms of the education and mutual interaction of the three parts we are ‘programmed’ for from birth.