All in favor say I? In the Republic, the human soul is divided into three parts: reason, spirit, and appetitive. Socrates then explains how people are made from gold, sliver, and bronze and how each of these categories correspond to the three classes of city the rulers (gold), soldiers (sliver), and the working class (bronze). I will begin by summarizing Plato’s understanding of the three parts of the soul. Then I will disprove Plato’s view and confirm that the Stoics view is superior to Plato’s interpretation of the human soul. I will consider how Plato might respond but suggest that he’s view is useless. Plato’s understanding of the human soul fails to see the rational side of Leontius, which confuses the contrasts between the ability
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Second, the appetitive soul is what instinctual drives a pleasure, food, and the desire to want and to feel things. Lastly, the spirited soul seeks to honor, and the ability to carry out the reasons of the rational soul in real life. Plato then presents a story that explains the divisions in the mind of Leontius. “Leontius was walking outside of the North Wall by an executioner, and saw corpses on the grounded.” (Republic IV. 127e5) When he saw the pile of dead bodies part of his soul wanted to see them and the other part of him wanted to turn away. However, he gave in and took a look at the bodies. When Leontius soul was thinking about the dead bodies there was a rational decision that was made in not wanting to look at the corpses, but the spirited soul took control, which resulted in …show more content…
Since we approve that the human soul can have conflicted motives this indicates that the person is made up of different parts. For example, if I know that eating fast food makes me sick but the appetitive soul would say that fast food taste really good then we should rely on the spirited soul to carry out the orders of our reason and say that I should not eat fast food. If every ruler, soldier, and working class sticks to what they are label as, then the rational soul (ruler) should be in charge in determining all decisions and the system should not be ruled by desire nor
Second, the appetitive soul is what instinctual drives a pleasure, food, and the desire to want and to feel things. Lastly, the spirited soul seeks to honor, and the ability to carry out the reasons of the rational soul in real life. Plato then presents a story that explains the divisions in the mind of Leontius. “Leontius was walking outside of the North Wall by an executioner, and saw corpses on the grounded.” (Republic IV. 127e5) When he saw the pile of dead bodies part of his soul wanted to see them and the other part of him wanted to turn away. However, he gave in and took a look at the bodies. When Leontius soul was thinking about the dead bodies there was a rational decision that was made in not wanting to look at the corpses, but the spirited soul took control, which resulted in …show more content…
Since we approve that the human soul can have conflicted motives this indicates that the person is made up of different parts. For example, if I know that eating fast food makes me sick but the appetitive soul would say that fast food taste really good then we should rely on the spirited soul to carry out the orders of our reason and say that I should not eat fast food. If every ruler, soldier, and working class sticks to what they are label as, then the rational soul (ruler) should be in charge in determining all decisions and the system should not be ruled by desire nor