This week’s friday question comes from QUB Undergraduate Christopher Corbett.
Plato had a great many ideas about the soul and how it was constituted, in what form it existed and for what length of time it would exist. These ideas can seem deep and baffling at first but they are very rewarding once properly understood. At the very least, if you take nothing else from this, you can sound profound the next time you talk to your friends.
Firstly, Plato argued that our souls were constituted of a tripartite Form (Forms were what Plato saw as the true reality, beyond the material manifestations of the physical, that could only be understood through pure thought). In basic terms this means that it consists of three parts – the appetitive, the rational and the spirited. Plato believed that these three aspects were what made each person an individual. Here is a quick sketch of each;
- Appetitive – This aspect of the soul governs the necessary and unnecessary cravings within our bodies. The necessary cravings being eating, drinking, etc. Whilst Plato considered the unnecessary cravings to be sexual excess and over-indulging in necessary cravings.
- Rational – This is the aspect of the soul that seeks truth and reality; what Plato called the Forms. Since you’re reading this you are currently feeding the rational aspect of your soul, well done.
- Spirited – This aspect of the soul enforces the rest of the soul, ideals such as justice and morality would be characteristics of this. It would also ensure that all three aspects of the soul were functioning as they should (Plato defined this as just).
Plato made a comparison between the soul and how a state should be run. In ‘The Republic’ he refers to workers, auxiliaries and guardians within a state. Each of these had a specific role in order that the state could function properly. The workers (appetitive) performed manual, brutish tasks, the guardians (rational) governed the people and the auxiliaries (spirited) enforced the other two, ensuring they performed their tasks properly and adequately. It is easy to see the comparison Plato makes between the perfect state and the perfect soul; a tripartite system that ensures the proper functionality of each separate part. However, it is interesting to speculate as to which of these he first conceived. Did he first imagine the perfect state and then apply it to his concept of the soul or vice versa?
When it comes to the length our souls remain in existence, Plato also has an interesting theory. Again, in its most basic form, Plato argued that souls never go out of existence. He saw the world as a series of opposites that come from opposites. Trees (which are large) come from nuts (which are small) which come from trees (which are large), etc. This too was how he viewed life and death. Death is the opposite of life and the process by which we die is called dying. However, Plato also believed that these processes had their opposites and so from dying there is coming-to-life. Essentially, Plato believed the soul existed in a perpetual cycle of coming-to-life, life, dying, death and then back round to coming-to-life. This means that the soul of Plato himself would still exist today in another body; perhaps that soul resides in someone reading this right now.
Now that I have discussed the basics perhaps you will pay more attention to your soul (if you even believe it exists). Do these theories seem ridiculous or do they strike a chord with you? Are modern scientific breakthroughs such as evolution, neuroscience and the Big Bang Theory (thus, giving the Universe a beginning unlike Plato’s concept of a continual cycle), too much for this theory to compete with? I would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Nice post Christopher thanks. I was thinking about certain theories and concepts being useful instrumentally. There is a line of thinking in philosophy of mind regarding ‘folk psychology’ that insists on retaining the concepts of folk psychology because they are useful; they have instrumental value (perhaps even stronger, that we cannot do without them for our social interactions). The sorts of concepts I am talking about are things like ‘beliefs’ and ‘desires’ (mental states generally), so the thought goes that even if these concepts are apparently incompatible with developments in cognitive science and neuro-biology etc. we should still retain the theory because it helps us to do things like predict behaviour and so on. I think the issues here might be loosely analogous in the sense that one might say that thinking about souls and the organisation of our souls into ordered parts is just a useful way of thinking about ourselves. Specifically with regards to your question, I think that Plato’s theory is almost definately false but despite this i’ve always quite liked entertaining the idea of souls and the organisation of some sort of ‘psyche’ (in other words it does strike a chord with me). The problem with this line of thinking is that, firstly one would need to cash out exactly how and why Plato’s theory is, in fact, useful and secondly, whether we really should be hanging on to theories that we are pretty sure are blatently false. Do you have any thoughts on these issues? Do you think that Plato’s theory might have some instrumental value or that if we are really sure that it is false, we ought to discard it?
Hi Chris,
Cheers for this! So Matthew asked the follow-up question that I was going to ask, while at the same time revealing his sympathies, so maybe I’ll push one question his way and one your way.
Matthew – you think Plato’s theory is blatantly false. What is it you object to, specifically? Is it the kookiness of Platonic entities (the Forms, non-spatiotemporal stuff generally)? Is it the anti-monism; perhaps you think a divided self is no self at all (something gets lost in the divisions)? Or is it the particular commitment to a never-ending cyclically immortal part of the self? Chris’ post prompted you to wonder whether there might be some part of the Platonic story which can still be useful (hence your question to him); I guess maybe the kooky bits might get dropped, but we’ll still hang on to some other part of the picture. One thing seems clear: we (the folk) have a pervasive tendency to want to divide up the self (Helen de Cruz has a neat post about it here – she talks about evidence which suggests its cross-culturally ubiquitous). So sure, the folk might be wrong about dividing things up, but they can’t help themselves. But is this the bit you want to call ‘blatantly false’, or are you happier to hang that badge on one of the other bits of his theory?
Chris – so Matthew wonders whether you think that bits of Plato’s theory could be false, but nevertheless useful. It’s a neat thought: lots of false things can make our lives easier in loads of ways. The usual example is: when dealing with their normal materials (e.g. not super-tiny or super-massive) moving at their normal speeds (e.g. not near to the speed of light), engineers can use Newtonian mechanics for their calculations, since while they’ll be using a physical theory that can be considered strictly false, nevertheless they’ll get the right answers (to within the required tolerances), and moreover they’ll find it a lot easier to get to those answers. So Matthew wonders: can you think of a sense in which some part of Plato’s theory can still be useful, even if it’s false?
My question for you is related: do you think that a false theory can ever be used to explain something? It seems that in the engineering example, if the engineer was asked why their bridge is able to balance certain loads so well, and they said ‘because of X’ (where X is some part of Newton’s theory, and is strictly false), then it’s a bit like they’ve just identified something which doesn’t explain the thing that they wanted to explain. In the same way, if someone asked me why satsumas taste so sharp, and I said ‘because satsumas are made of tiny bits of glass’, well, perhaps I’ve not really given an explanation at all (even if I do, mistakenly, believe it), since what I’ve said is false. So the link here with Matthew’s question is obvious: do you think any part of Plato’s theory can still be useful (he asks), and do you think false things can explain?
Relatedly, to both of you and anyone else who’s reading: do you think it’s possible for some parts of Plato’s theory to be OK (true and/or useful) while the rest of it isn’t, or do you think we shouldn’t attempt to just slice off a bit that we like and dump the rest?
So, I guess I was definately too expansive when saying that ‘Plato’s theory is blatently false’, I suppose nothing is ‘blatent’ is such an unqualified way. Anyway so yes, my objections would be of the usual sort, against immaterial stuff in general and certainly a problem with immaterial substances interacting with material substances (Jaegwon Kim presents the sort of arguments that I have in mind here, such as ‘The Pairing Problem’). I’m only using ‘immaterial’ in a rough and ready way, it could be non-physical or non-spatio-temporal, hopefully the point comes across. Also there is the issue that applies to dividing up anything neatly, in this case, why do we stop at three parts of the soul? Where is the non-arbitrary distinction between different parts. (I remember that Plato does have some arguments for this but I forget at this point – something to do with spinning tops maybe??) I seem to remember thinking that Plato’s theory of the soul was probably a fudge for his theory of the state and that, really, this is why there are three parts to the Platonic soul – to make the analogy run smoothly.
I think that we can slice off parts of theories that seem like they might have some worth whilst discarding the rest of the theory, I suppose you might think that untangling parts of theories from their other assumptions and context might be a little problematic but I think we are at least at liberty to try. In this instance I don’t see why you couldn’t hold on to a tri-partite soul whilst disregarding the arguments for it and other parts of the theory, provided that there were some better arguments to be had to replace Plato’s orginal ones.
For me, the explanation issue is the most interesting part of your comment here Joe. For now maybe i’ll leave Christopher to offer a response but there is definately an interesting problem here with regards to whether or not we can (or should) use false theories in our explanations. Maybe a good starting place is to think about what criterion we use for acceptable explanations, for example if we are just looking to ‘save the phenomena’ (in the Van Fraassen vein) then perhaps it might be ok to use false theories, if we want something more, like ‘truth’ or something scary like that, then it does not seem like false theories are going to be good candidates for explanations. Van Fraassen won’t be much help with immaterial souls I suppose, as there is no empirical phenomena to be saved, Perhaps I am constructing this all wrong? I certainly don’t know that much about explanations, maybe you have some thoughts that can set me on a better road here?
Aww man, i do love Plato. To be honest, i like the Forms theory, it makes sense on some conceptual level.
Sadly, since i don’t believe in the soul at all, i can’t agree with Plato’s ideas on that. And (as i said in a philosophical parody song i once made), “Plato’s opposites don’t work”. I love it, but it’s nonsense. There’s no reason things must come from their opposite, unless we cash out “opposite” in a way such that something existing is the opposite of its not having existed before, so that everything is currently in a state opposite to its previous state simply because it exists. But that would serve little purpose. And i can’t imagine any other way the opposites theory could be rescued. Moreover, that is certainly not what Plato was saying anyway.
Chris, as for what you say about the link b/n the individual and the state, i can say two things. Firstly, that was the kind of way Greeks looked at things generally. Aristotle begins his discusasion of the “polis” with one on the household, and then builds up. So it was a really good way of doing things at the time. As for whather it’s still useful i can’t say.
Secondly, dont forget Plato pretty much threw out the Republic when he wrote the (much more tedious to read) “Laws”.
As for the discussion on the worth of false theories, i can say 3 things.
Firstly, if x is false, we oughtn’t to use x to explain things. That seems intuitive.
Secondly, with regards to what Matthew said concerning Folk Psychology, i tend to think it’s useful, because i think it’s true.
Thirdly, i guess whether or not a theory is false depends on how the individual views the theory in their subjective reality.
Well, there’s my completely unstructured jumbled input.
Apologies for my tardy response, I’ve been finishing up my Human Nature assignment. Thanks for all the great responses, I’ll do my best to address all of them.
Matthew – Thanks Matthew, I actually feel that although Plato’s theory is false, in my opinion, I do very much feel that it can have great benefits to us. Although I find the concept of the soul a little far fetched I do think that Plato’s theory of tripartition can go a long way to helping us understand the human psyche. These three parts of ourselves, although rather limiting, do go a long way to helping us understand, and as you say, predict human behaviour.
Joe – Thanks Joe, what you’re saying there is incredibly interesting. The idea that engineers/scientists can use theories that are false to help further their research and understanding of a particular topic. As I mentioned above to Matthew I do feel that false theories can go very far in helping us develop our knowledge in particular areas of learning. There is the obvious explanation of trial and error when referring to false theories increasing our learning, but I also believe that these false theories in themselves can be useful too in beginning understanding a particular topic. Learning what is false, finding aspects of value in it, and then using these aspects to develop your own theory seems to me an invaluable method of learning. Plato’s ideas of tripartition in the soul and state give us a great framework when attempting to kick start our search for understanding of the soul/mind.
Dean – Thanks Dean, your very unstructured, jumbled input is very enlightening. I didn’t actually realise Plato began his argument in the household and then built up. That shows how he sees a connection between the soul and all aspects of human society, not just the state as a whole. I also have to agree with you, although I find Plato’s theories incredibly interesting and helpful, I also find it very difficult to believe any of it, whether it be the tripartition of the soul or his idea of the Forms beyond the physical reality we perceive.