THE APPETITIVE:
The appetitive part of the soul is where we experience love, hunger, and other desires. Desires that correlate with this are reproduction and the desire to make money. The appetite can not tell if something is good or bad, that is the reasons job to do so. For example, if you have the desire to drink something the appetitive part will tell you, but it will not be a specific desire to drink something cold or hot. It will simply be a desire to drink something, then the reason part of the soul will come in and tell you whether it is a cold drink or hot drink that you would like. This part of the soul is also the side that gets what it wants, which Plato refers it to as the money loving side. But Plato also refers to the appetitve side as irrational and unreasonable.
As stated in my first post, Plato thought that the soul was separated into three sections, the rational, the spirit and the appetitive, similar to how the state was divided. Is government still looked at like this? How did Plato know or come up with this theory and have it make it make so much sense? Is it completely right or completely wrong ? I guess we will never know entirely what Plato was thinking unless he came back from the past and talked to us in detail about his views, maybe it would be much easier to understand how everything worked and functioned according to his point of view and theories.
Similar to Plato comparing the tripartite soul to state, a very popular movie that can relate to Plato's philosophy of a tripartite soul is The Wizard of Oz. When you think about it Dorothy's quest is able to be reached because of the scarecrow, lion, and the tin woodsman working together in correlation. They can be looked as, wisdom, courage, and temperance. This makes me wonder, what other movies or even a story line in a book are related to Plato's theory of the soul.
Plato makes a very good point of view on how the soul is divided and how they each have a certain job and without one another they do not function as well. I think that the correlation of each function makes sense and a good theory but my question is, how can you know that everyone's soul works this specific way. For example, if a thief robs a store does his rational side not tell him that this is a bad choice and prevent him to not do so? Well I guess everyone's interpretation of what is good or bad is different, like as to what makes you happy or sad. I also think that each part of the soul must function accordingly in order to have a well rounded spirit and not leaning to either the spirited, the reason, or the appetitve side to much.
Plato was making a lot of it up. But it's true, we each have different talents and strengths and weaknesses. Members of a healthy and functional community, like Dorothy and her pals, are mutually supportive. They pick each other up, they cover one another's weaknesses and encourage one another's strengths. They help each other grow. They don't limit one another's possibilities or restrict each other's autonomy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how far we can carry Plato's analogy, when analyzing the "soul". But mutual support does tend to patch holes in individual psyches.