Abstract
In his much-explored argument for the tripartition of the soul in book IV of the Republic, Socrates makes use of two principles, which I shall call the principle of opposition and the principle of qualification. The aim of the present paper is to explain, in particular, the second of these principles, so as to reveal its role in that argument and in the conception of an appetite and of the appetitive part that is central to the larger argument of the Republic as a whole. Section 1 briefly introduces the principle of opposition, analyzes the principle of qualification, and presents the argument for tripartition. Section 2 uses the analysis of the principle of qualification to interpret a claim Socrates makes about the soul and its relation to the good, which seems at odds with the account of appetites uncovered in Sect. 1. Then, in Sect. 3, the relevance of the principle of qualification to Socratic intellectualism—the view that knowledge is sufficient for virtue—is explored. In Sect. 4, appetites are returned to with the focus now on the varieties of them that Socrates recognizes. In Sect. 5, a view is put forward about the nature of the appetitive part (Appetite), its beliefs, and its ability to be persuaded by the rational part (Reason). In Sect. 6, it is argued that Appetite and Reason are both souls, capable of working in harmony, but also of being opposed, thereby underwriting an important part of the analogy between the polis and the soul on which much of the Republic relies.
This paper is a small token of my gratitude to Fred Miller for his inspiring work on Aristotle’s Politics, for his translation of De Anima and Parva Naturalia, and for his personal kindness. Readers are encouraged to consult his excellent paper on the parts of the soul, Miller (1999).
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Notes
- 1.
I cite and translate the Oxford Classical Texts editions of Plato’s and (in one instance) Aristotle’s works. Unidentified references are to the Republic.
- 2.
At this point, the latter two are called “auxiliaries” and “complete guardians” (414b1–5), since the philosopher-kings are not introduced until book VII (535a6–536d1).
- 3.
An excellent discussion of the principle of opposites, and of rival interpretations of what Plato intends it to do, is Christopher Bobonich (2002), pp. 219–35.
- 4.
We find Aristotle arguing in a similar way at NE 1102b16–25.
- 5.
It is generally neglected in discussions of tripartition. My own attempt to analyze it in (1988), pp. 120–21, was less than a success.
- 6.
Aristotle may have this sort of text in mind when he writes: “A [Platonic] form seems to be said in relation to a form—for example, appetite itself for pleasant itself and wish itself for good itself” (Top 147a7–9).
- 7.
Notice the role of kath’ hoson at 340d8, 342d5, e8, and its bearing on the exact accounts of the things in question.
- 8.
“In part,” because opposite relatives, such as thirst and an aversion to drink, have the same natural objects. See Matthew Duncombe (2015), p. 38.
- 9.
Likewise, gnoston and doxaston are the natural objects of knowledge and belief (notice pephuken at 478a4–5) and so are (partially) definitive of knowledge and belief, as relational powers (477c6–d6).
- 10.
In Katja Maria Vogt (2017), p. 103, these two quite different points are confused with each other: “Qualified hunger/thirst is for qualified—good, hot, etc.—food/drink. Unqualified hunger/thirst are psychological phenomena: at times, a person simply is hungry/thirsty for food/drink. In qualified hunger/thirst, both unqualified and qualified hunger/thirst are psychologically real: a person who is, say, thirsty for hot drink, is also unqualifiedly thirsty.” A person with a caldo thirst has a thirst but he is not unqualifiedly thirsty, since his thirst is precisely a caldo one—one that would, for example, move him away from a cold drink, not toward it, as an unqualified thirst would.
- 11.
In the Laws, we may note, it is occurrent “wishing, investigating, supervising, deliberating, believing correctly or falsely, enjoying, being pained, being confident, fearing, hating, and loving” that are “akin to movements (kinēseis)” (897a1–4).
- 12.
The spirited part, kept largely off stage in the present essay, is discussed in my (2013), pp. 93–100.
- 13.
Jessica Moss (forthcoming) rightly notices that chrestos is not agathos, and complains that many translations elide the difference by translating both as “good.” But the shift to agathōn in the second justificatory sentence, implies that the two are—as they often are—pretty much equivalent here. For everyone’s appetite is for good things even when the appetite is a sexual one, but sexual appetites are not for things wholesome in the way food and drink are. Nonetheless, translations certainly should not prejudge the issue. Indeed, an advantage of chrestos is that it makes it clear that agathōn means in particular “things that are good for one,” and not, for example, “good or pleasant tasting.”
- 14.
Terence Irwin (1977) anticipates part of this view, referring to appetites as “good-independent” (p. 193), while in (1995) he refers to them as explaining animal action “without any reference to the animal’s conception of its good” (pp. 210–211). I have benefitted from both these probing discussions. However, neither work explicitly notices the role of the principle of qualification as a general principle applying to all relatives, in grounding—via natural objects—the precise definition of appetites as a (natural) kind, as 437d1–2 requires (notice eidos).
- 15.
As Irwin (1995), p. 211, astutely notices.
- 16.
- 17.
For example, the money-loving oligarch is described in a way that explicitly capitalizes on the analogy: “someone like that wouldn’t be entirely free from internal faction, and wouldn’t be a single person but somehow a twofold one” (554d9–e1).
- 18.
In addition to my earlier self (1988), pp. 131–35, some of whose views I take the opportunity to correct here, the believers include: Nicholas White (1979), pp. 124–50; Terence Penner (1971), pp. 106–07; Gregory Vlastos (1988), p. 99; C. C. W. Taylor (1991), p. 203; Thomas Brickhouse and Nicholas Smith (1994), pp. 90–96; Terence Irwin (1995), p. 209; Paul Hoffman (2003); and Hendrik Lorenz (2006), p. 28.
- 19.
As he seems to do again at 538d6–539c3. Notice, in particular, ti esti to kalon at 538d7, elengchōn at 538d8, and elengchthōsi at 538d8, 539c1.
- 20.
- 21.
Also Apology 25d8–26a7, Gorgias 475d4–e2.
- 22.
(2) allows the substitution provided we recognize that A believes (1) and so cannot be ignorant that “worse” (“less good”) and “less pleasant” come to the same thing. For what happens otherwise, see C. C. W. Taylor (1991), pp. 180–81.
- 23.
At 572c1–2, these are referred to as “the appetites that make money (tas chrēmatistikas epithumias).” The characterization of Appetite as “by nature most insatiable for money” (442a6–7) shows that these appetites, while necessary, do not necessarily conduce to temperance where things besides the natural objects of the appetites are concerned.
- 24.
Plato uses the word eikasia only here and at 511e2, though it does also occur in the pseudo-Platonic Sisyphus at 390c4. However, the cognate adjective eikastikos is used in the Laws to apply to “image-making” crafts—such as music (668a6) that “produce likenesses (homoiōn)” (667c6), so that in the Sophist painting is such a craft (235d6).
- 25.
This passage and others are discussed in Jessica Moss (2008), pp. 46–49.
- 26.
I borrow the term from Moss (2008), pp. 50–57, while offering a different account than it does.
- 27.
On which, see Elijah Millgram (1997).
- 28.
David Keyt reminded me of the similarity between this passage and Leporello’s catalog aria in Mozart’s Don Giovanni.
- 29.
Cf., Lg. 653a5–7: “Children’s first childish perception is that of pleasure and pain, and it is in these that virtue and vice first develop in our souls.”
- 30.
See, in particular, the discussion of temperance in Nicomachean Ethics III.10.
- 31.
In Kallipolis citizens will “utter in concord the words … ‘my such-and-such is doing well’ or ‘my so-and-so is doing badly’” because “this belief (dogmatos) and way of talking are accompanied by having pleasures and pains in common” (464e4–464a6).
- 32.
On what persuasion involves, notice: “Objects seen from a distance, however, cause blurry vision in almost everyone, especially in children, but the legislator will make our belief into the contrary of this, by removing the obscurity. And because just things and unjust ones are like illusionist paintings, he will persuade us somehow or other, by habits, praises, or arguments. The unjust ones appear to be the opposite of what they appear to be to the just person. From the point of view of the unjust and evil one, they look pleasant, and the just ones most unpleasant, whereas from that of the just one all of them look in every respect the opposite in both cases” (Lg. 663b6–c5). This passage merits comparison with Republic 602c1–603a7.
- 33.
An idea proposed in Julia Annas (1981), pp. 129–30, 139, Jon Moline (1981), pp. 52–78, Glen Lesses (1987), and endorsed in Bobonich (2002), p. 220, 243–44. Rachana Kamtekar (2017) rightly points out that “Socrates justifies calling the appetitive part money-loving on the grounds that money is (rather than is believed by the appetitive part to be) the means to the satisfaction of its appetites” (p. 146). Notice also 604d8 where what is (or includes) the appetitive part is explicitly said to “lack rational calculation (alogiston).”
- 34.
See Raphael Woolf (2012), p. 151.
- 35.
In the Phaedo the soul is “likely to be completely indissoluble, or something close to it” (80b10–11), while in the Timaeus, though we are “neither completely immortal nor completely exempt from dissolution,” we are assured by the Demiurge that “only someone evil would consent to the dissolution of what has been beautifully fitted together and is in good condition” (41a7–b5).
- 36.
Predecessors of some of the components of this paper benefited greatly from discussions with Philip Bold at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, from comments by Roy Lee at the Knowledge and Value Conference at Stanford (April 22–24, 2022), and from members of the audience there, especially David Charles, as well as from various anonymous referees. I express my warm thanks to all of them, as I do to David Keyt and Fred Miller for their thoughtful comments on the present version.
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Reeve, C.D.C. (2024). Appetites, Akrasia, and the Appetitive Part of the Soul in Plato’s Republic. In: Keyt, D., Shields, C. (eds) Principles and Praxis in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 155. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-51146-2_6
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