Plato on Philosophic Character

Plato on Philosophic Character RICHARD PATTERSON IN BOOKIX of the Republic(esp. 58od-58 lc) Socrates gives full and emphatic recognition to the important fact, left implicit in his tripartition of the soul in book IV (435b-44tc), that all three parts or aspects (v.i6vl,435b, c, e, 439e; ~}VVl, 441c, 443d; ~QVl, 44~b, c; cf. 439b, c, d) and not just that labelled "appetitive" (~ ~0vbt~lTtX6v), have desires and pleasures peculiar, even natural, to them. Further, proper enjoyment of learning by the reasoning part, of victory and good repute by the spirited part, of food, drink, and so on by the appetitive part, reinforce the psychic harmony called justice in Book IV, since each part not only has and sticks to its own job, but positively enjoys doing so. Further still, these natural and proper pleasures, including those of the lowliest sector now contribute significantly--as benefits accruing to the just person simply through the presence of justice in his soul, whether or not its presence is known to gods or men--to the victory of the just life over the unjust (e.g., 588a, 589b-c). This amplification of Plato's celebrated tripartite psychology is important also for the explanation of human action--for explaining why philosophers philosophize and soldiers soldier as well as why gourmandizers gourmandize . Desire can now enter explicitly into the explanation: reason desires and delights in learning, straining always to know where the truth lies (581b); spirit seeks, and takes pleasure in, victory, dominance, and good repute (58 la-b); "appetite" or "lower appetite" desires, most conspicuously, food, drink, and the pleasures of Aphrodite (58oe). 1Such developments are philosophically healthy ones, but Plato's upgrading in book IX of the status of at least natural pleasures, especially those of reason, creates a number of interPlato had not made any secret of reason's desires, however: see, e.g., his description (49ob) in highly charged sexual terms of the philosopher's union with true being. Recall also the love of learning and truth requisite for philosophy (475b, 485a). For further references to this theme see below, n. 2. [325] 326 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:3 JULY 1987 esting complications about which little or nothing is said in either Book IV or IX. ~ For example, once the reasoning part itself includes rational desire, there would exist at least a theoretical possibility that reason's appetite for truth might lead it astray, tempting it to seek truth in an inefficient or even self-defeating manner. This is not the sort of thing that occurs to the reader of Plato's encomia upon reason as our only rightful ruler, our only hope of salvation in a very imperfect world (549b, 5o5e-5o6a; cf. 463a-b, 52 lb, ff.). Nonetheless I would suggest that the possibility of trouble in paradise is not merely academic, that factors internal to reason (as opposed to corruption, domination, or interference from outside by some other psychic part--the sort of difficulty that/s discussed explicitly and at length in Republic IV and VIII-IX) do sometimes lead reason astray. If this is so, the seeker after truth will require relevant virtues (self-control, courage, and others) within the realm of philosophic activity itself. The Platonic philosopher will need, To stress the existence and importance of rational appetite is hardly original, and I take the fact of desire on the part of ~ ~.oytozt~v as a relatively uncontroversial starting point for this first section. One does sometimes encounter a certain reluctance to bring reason and desire into quite such close conjunction: see the generally magnificent Chapter VII of Dodd's The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), which is concerned to preserve the "perfect unity" of the "transcendent rational self," or W. K. C. Guthrie's "Plato's Views on the Nature of the Soul" (collected, with Dodd's chapter, in Plato H, Gregory Vlastos, ed., [Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1971]), which likewise insists on the purity and simplicity of the Platonic intellect. Most of the key passages for this question will be either cited or quoted as the discussion of philosophic character proceeds...