Class Reflections: Plato's Republic book 4
thinking about the parts of our souls or personalities and how they figure into our own happiness or misery
We’re now in week 3 of the semester here at Marquette University, the last week we’ll spend on Plato’s texts (though we’ll reference some key ideas from his thought as me move on to other thinkers). This week, we’re looking at some portions of his Republic, specifically book 4 today and then books 6-7 next class session.
Book 4 is where we get the analogy between the City (or political community, the polis) and the human soul (the psychē), and the corresponding distinction between three main “parts of the city” or classes of citizens, and three main parts of the soul.
This is one of my favorite texts to lead students through, not least because there are so many ideas here that are eminently relatable to present-day young people. That’s not a factor specific to this current generation, of course. The ideas have remained relevant to people throughout the centuries, which is precisely why and how this became a “classic work” of philosophy.
As we look at what Plato thinks a city, or really any functional community, requires in order to do well by its members, I ask the students what kind of people they think we need, and we talk about the differences between people who manage or run things well and people who screw up the job. These turn out to involve competency and knowledge, but also a number of needed moral traits as well. We then talk about the vast class of “everybody else”, the many professionals and workers that a city, a community, an organization requires in order to function, and the importance of each of them doing their job well.
The part of the city I always find most interesting to discuss with them is the people who Plato calls the “auxiliaries” or “lesser guardians”. I ask them what else we need for a city to function, and it is rather telling that they almost immediately mention the police. It is unsurprising given what a massive presence and lopsided power police forces have in our contemporary American society. And then I ask them: who else has to stand up against fear, to protect people, to enter into danger. They’ll usually bring up the military and firefighters, and occasionally people like EMTs.
Plato famously associates each of these three groups with different sorts of dispositions and capacities. You want rulers who are actually intelligent people, driven to acquire knowledge, but also to make decisions, to prioritize, to plan,to address problems well. You want the ordinary people to do their jobs well, to desire to enjoy what they consider to be the good things in life, like creature comforts, a healthy bank account, opportunities to do their chosen work, and so on.
What about the auxiliaries? You need people who like to fight and compete, who are willing to face danger and protect their fellow citizens even at the risk of their own lives. Not everyone is cut out for that. And here is where I remind them of something we already discussed briefly when looking at the Meno. Plato is what we call a “proto-feminist,” that is, he thinks that men and women have the same capacities for developing their intellects, cultivating the virtues, and doing their work in society, and that anyone who would relegate women to just doing traditional “women’s work” is rather stupid.
Some women can make excellent soldiers, police officers, firefighters, or the like precisely because in them that energetic, spirited element of their soul, what Plato called thumos, predominates. A lot of men lack that, even though some people associate that with masculinity and its facsimiles. Likewise, some women are cut out for the intellectual development and rulership characteristic of the guardian class, as are some men. The vast majority of people, in Plato’s view, men and women alike, fall into the class of “everybody else”.
When we start looking at the soul itself, or as I tell my students, if that word “soul” sounds too theological for them, they can think of it as the personality, we follow out the line of exposition Plato provides in the Republic. According to his analysis, we can say we have different parts of the soul because we notice them wanting, demanding, or bidding us to do different things.
We start by discussing the appetites or desires (epithumiai), which for Plato are both multiple and irrational. It’s always a source of amusement to me how difficult it is to get students to name certain of their desires and pleasures. Sleeping in on a cold fall day? That’s easy. Foods they like? They’ll bring that up right away. Various non-alcoholic drinks? Sure. After a while, they’ll cop to enjoying alcohol, and even other intoxicants. But sexual desire and pleasure? That nearly always comes last.
We talk about the need for the virtue of Temperance,
which they almost always know not by that name but as “self-control” or “moderation”, and why developing that is so important if they plan to make it through all four years of college. And that leads us to the next part of the soul. The appetites can’t really limit themselves, and they do a pretty poor job in limiting each other. If you’re not pursuing every attractive person you run across, that’s good, but if you’re only doing it because having sex with them would interfere with stuffing your face (satisfying a different desire), you’re pretty badly off!
Plato calls this higher part of ourselves the rational part. It’s the part of ourselves that desires and enjoys knowledge, learning, thinking, figuring things out. When properly developed to the point that it actually contains some measure of Wisdom, it can say No to the appetites, or if not denying them altogether, it can limit them. “You get this amount and no more”, it can say to them. And when they complain, it can say “more than that would be bad for you, or actually for all of us, all the parts of this person”.
So far we have two parts. There are quite a few philosophical psychologies that understand the human being along these lines. And then we get to something that is distinctively Platonic, a viewpoint on the soul and its parts that we see not only in Plato but in his followers centuries later. This is that thumotic part we mentioned earlier, the part that gets riled up, that responds to threats and danger, the part that seeks honor and victory.
That’s the part that can say No to the appetites as well. And unlike the rational part, thumos has the power, the energy, the force to back that negation up. It can say: “It’s time to do the arduous job, not time to eat, drink, and screw!” In fact, this middle part plays a really important role in enforcing the rules and requirements of reason onto the otherwise disobedient appetites. This is the place within us where the virtue of Courage can be developed, or if we don’t do that, perhaps its opposed vice of Cowardice will take root.
Plato thinks that every single one of us has these three parts within us. In many of us one of these will predominate. In my case, since childhood, it was that middle thumotic part, despite the fact that the higher rational part was also quite strong in me. Some of my students, as I explain that, nod along. In others, the lower parts might be less driving and determining for them than the higher, rational part. In other people, it will be the desires or appetites that really do call the shots.
We finish up by talking about how these parts can be individually underdeveloped or messed up, or in good shape and functioning well. And they also can be in conflict with each other or ordered properly within the human being. This proper arrangement, development, and workings of these distinct parts is what Plato calls “justice” within us. We need this not just to do the right things and keep ourselves from doing wrong, but also in order to be happy in our own lives, with who we are as persons.
Rather facetiously I asked who would volunteer to be the villain for our class, and after a moment one young woman raised her hand. I asked how many pizzas we’d need to feed my 30-odd students if I was to throw them a pizza party. They suggested six, which seems pretty reasonable. Then we talked about how many slices each person might get. And then, I told a story in which my student boldly walked in, closed the boxes on three of the pizzas, put them under her arm, and walked out saying “so long, suckers!” And then I asked her why she was committing injustice like that. “I’m greedy” she said, and we talked a bit about what part of the soul could be driving her decision to commit injustice like that (obviously the intemperate appetites). And that’s where we finished up for the day