Anarchic Souls: Plato’s Depiction of the ‘Democratic Man’
Phronesis 58 (2):139-59 (2013)
Abstract
In books 8 and 9 of Plato’s Republic, Socrates provides a detailed account of the nature and origins of four main kinds of vice found in political constitutions and in the kinds of people that correspond to them. The third of the four corrupt kinds of person he describes is the ‘democratic man’. In this paper, I ask what ‘rules’ in the democratic man’s soul. It is commonly thought that his soul is ruled in some way by its appetitive part, or by a particular class of appetitive desires. I reject this view, and argue instead that his soul is ruled by a succession of desires of a full range of different kinds. I show how this view helps us better understand Plato’s depiction of corrupt souls in the Republic more generally, and with it his views on the rule of the soul, appetitive desire, and the nature of vice.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1163/15685284-12341245
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Citations of this work
Tyrannized Souls: Plato's Depiction of the ‘Tyrannical Man’.Mark A. Johnstone - 2015 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23 (3):423-437.
Plato on the Enslavement of Reason.Mark A. Johnstone - 2020 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (3):382-394.
Two Theories of Natural Justice in Plato’s Gorgias.Leo Catana - 2021 - Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 42 (2):209-228.
References found in this work
The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle.Hendrik Lorenz - 2006 - Oxford University Press.