# Tripartite division of the soul



## Davidius (Mar 22, 2007)

For those of you who have read Plato, I was wondering if you could help me with regard to his tripartite division of the soul. My primary source is Book 4 of Republic.

In the book, Plato (through Socrates) uses what my professor refers to as a _Principle of Opposites (PO)_ to argue that the human soul must be divided into three parts because humans experience related yet conflicting desires. In his commentary, Dr. Reeve (my prof) states that "PO is simply the principle of noncontradiction, formulated in terms of properties rather than propositions, and restricted to properties that are relational forms." I'll quote some of Plato (with some of my own paraphrasing) to flesh this out a little.



> It is clear that the same thing cannot do or undergo opposite things; not, at any rate, in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, at the same time. So, if we ever find that happening here, we will know that we are not dealing with one and the same thing, but with many.
> 
> It is not possible for the same thing, at the same time, and in the same respect, to be standing still and moving. If one were to say that this were true of a spinning top, we would say that objects of this sort have multiple axes and that, while the object is moving with regard to one axis, it is still with regard to the other.
> 
> ...



Socrates to go on in saying that there is yet a third division of the soul, the spirited part. This part is sensitive to things such as honor, anger, valor, shame, etc. I won't go into too much detail with this part unless someone asks. I'm mainly interested in dealing with the PO, the very premise for the entire deal. At one point, Socrates states that the entire things falls apart if this premise can be proven false. I've read several articles, one of the best of which was by John Murray, on a scriptural response to trichotomy but I was wondering if anyone can help me answer Plato's philosophical argument from a philosophical standpoint. If a man wants to commit adultery because of sexual urges (appetitive) but also does not want to because of moral or other reasons, does this reasoning on his part prove that his soul is ontologically divided? I'm currently writing a paper in response to another paper on the "spirited element" of the soul and I'd like to refute the entire notion of trichotomy while also showing inconsistencies with the writer of the paper's notions of the spirited element and Plato's.


----------



## Dieter Schneider (Mar 22, 2007)

CarolinaCalvinist said:


> For those of you who have read Plato, I was wondering if you could help me with regard to his tripartite division of the soul. My primary source is Book 4 of Republic.
> 
> In the book, Plato (through Socrates) uses what my professor refers to as a _Principle of Opposites (PO)_ to argue that the human soul must be divided into three parts because humans experience related yet conflicting desires. In his commentary, Dr. Reeve (my prof) states that "PO is simply the principle of noncontradiction, formulated in terms of properties rather than propositions, and restricted to properties that are relational forms." I'll quote some of Plato (with some of my own paraphrasing) to flesh this out a little.
> 
> ...



Are you familiar with http://www.thirdmill.org/sermons/compile_topic.asp/site/iiim/category/subjects/topic/Nature of Man also see http://www.monergism.com/directory/...imple&search_kind=and&phrase=trichotomy&B1=Go


----------



## VanVos (Mar 22, 2007)

See here also for a paper by Dr.Bahnsen on the mind/body problem

http://www.cmfnow.com/articles/pa143.htm


----------



## Davidius (Mar 22, 2007)

Thanks, guys! Anyone else?


----------



## bookslover (Mar 22, 2007)

When I was a boy, I had several cans of Plato, which came in various colors. Never tried to eat the stuff, though, like some kids.


----------



## Davidius (Mar 23, 2007)

bookslover said:


> When I was a boy, I had several cans of Plato, which came in various colors. Never tried to eat the stuff, though, like some kids.



har har har


----------

