Resurrection: The Hope of Worms Enrica Ruaro Iamblichus and the Intermediate Nature of the Human Soul John F.

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1 Table des matières Préface... 1 Jean-Marc Narbonne The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato s Republic Aristotle to Plotinus on the Status of Nous: The Passage from Dualism to Monism Mark J. Nyvlt The role of the electronic lexicography in the research on Plotinus: the meaning of logos in its relationships with the Aristotelian nous Emmanuele Vimercati Plotinus on Celestial Motion Andrea Falcon Sympathy and Likeness in Plotinus Gabriela Bal Matter Is Not Place According to Plotinus: A Small Rectification Jean-Marc Narbonne Providence et libertédans le néoplatonisme Jean-Michel Charrue The Young Gods: The Stars and Planets in Platonic Treatment of Fate Marilynn Lawrence

2 VIII Table des matières Resurrection: The Hope of Worms Enrica Ruaro Iamblichus and the Intermediate Nature of the Human Soul John F. Finamore Perspective pédagogique et exégèse de l implicite chez les néoplatoniciens tardifs : le cas d Olympiodore d Alexandrie François Renaud Flēbĭlĭs heū maēstōs cōgŏr ĭnīrĕ mŏdōs: Boethius and Rhythm s Raw Power Stephen J. Blackwood Augustine: Time and Early Concepts of the Soul Charlotte Gross Traditions of Self-Knowledge from Socrates to Suhrawardi Sara Ahbel-Rappe Nous And Geist: Aristotle, Plotinus and Hegel on Truth, Knowledge, and Being Robert M. Berchman Plotinus and Whitehead on the Interweaving of Forms Atsushi Sumi Evaluating Pierre Hadot s Criticism of Plotinian Mysticism James Bryson Jean-Luc Marion s Dionysian Neoplatonism for Neoplatonism and Contemporary Philosophy Wayne J. Hankey

3 The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato s Republic 4 Agnes Scott College In Republic 4, Socrates lays down the Principle of Opposites by which he will argue for the parts of the soul. (I) It is obvious that the same thing will never do or undergo opposite things in the same respect in relation to the same thing at the same time (436b). While there is agreement among commentators that Socrates uses it to establish parts of the soul, there is dispute about nearly everything else. 1 There is one dispute in particular I would like to address in this paper. Some commentators construe the argument so that it establishes parts of the soul as independent agents. In this sort of interpretation, each part is able to form beliefs, reason to some extent, and even choose. However, I will argue that Socrates does not fragment the soul into independent agents. In his argument, he carefully observes a distinction between what the soul does and what the parts do. 2 Translations are based on Shorey s translation in the Loeb Classical Library edition of The Republic. I have, for the most part, made minor changes. Where major changes have been made, I have noted them. 1. One can find a good review of most of these positions in H. Lorenz, Desire and Reason in Plato s Republic Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2004) 27: This interpretation has strong theoretical affinities with that of J. Moravcsik, in that parts of the soul are sources of action while the soul is the sole

4 4 This distinction allows us to introduce another distinction, between choice and motivation. The soul chooses and the parts provide motivation. In this way, only the soul is an agent. While, many commentators recognize the role of motivations in this argument, what is not often recognized is that we can distinguish motivations from choices as well. 3 In what follows we will assume the following distinction: (A) A motivation is a source of possible motion or action in the soul; choice is the definitive direction of the soul. While I might have a motivation, impulse, or inclination to drink a cup of wine, I need not choose to drink. If I act on the motivation, I choose to drink. The motivation, so to speak, has passed over into action. Motivation, then, moves one to choose. One can also have contending motivations. Finally, choice sets the direction of the soul. After the Principle of Opposites, Socrates secures Glaucon s agreement to a list of opposite psychological states. (II) Assent (epineuein) is opposed to dissent (ananeuein), striving after something (ephiesthai) to rejecting (aparneisthai), embracing (prosagesthai) to repelling (apôthesthai); these are opposites either in the category of action or of passion (437b-c). This list of opposites seems fashioned to fit the opposites mentioned in the Principle of Opposites. However, whether or how one is to specify (I) with the opposites mentioned in (II) is not exactly clear. Instead of specifying in this way, Socrates goes in another direction. What Socrates says next can be seen to introduce the idea of choice into this account. He asks, What about hunger and thirst, agent of action. Cp. his Inner Harmony and the Human Ideal, The Journal of Ethics (2001) 5: However, my interpretation depends on an elaboration of the distinction between motivation and choosing, which I show is found in the argument of Republic T. Penner, Thought and Desire in Plato Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Double Day, 1971) vol.2, 105; J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 133-7; R.F. Stalley, Plato s Argument for the Division of the Reasoning and Appetitive Elements within the Soul Phronesis XXI (1976) 124; J. Cooper, Reason and Emotion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) 121 ff.

5 The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato s Republic 4 5 and the appetites (epithumiai) in general, and further wanting (ethelein) and wishing (boulesthai)? In the first place, he isolates the positive side of the pairs of opposite states. So he is not talking about contending motivations but about one direction for the soul. Second, he adds another, and more abstract, terminology to striving after, embracing, and assenting: appetites (epithumiai), then wanting (ethelein) and wishing (boulesthai). He says that they should put all of these somewhere in the class of things they were just talking about. The somewhere indicates a qualification to the way they are classified, suggesting that epithumiai, and especially ethelein and boulesthai are not exactly the same as assenting, dissenting, striving after, rejecting, embracing, and repelling. With these refinements made, Socrates then says: (III) The soul of the one desiring (epithumountos) either (êtoi) strives after (ephiesthai) what it desires (epithumê(i)), or (ê) embraces (prosagesthai) what it wishes (boulêtai) to have, or (ê), insofar as it wants (ethelei) something to be provided to it, it assents (epineuein) within itself to having this thing as though someone were asking a question stretching towards its attainment (437c-d). The first thing to notice is the relation between the actions of striving after, embracing, and assenting, on the one hand, and desiring (epithumein), wishing for (boulesthai) and wanting or willing (ethelein), on the other. As expressions of the soul s desire, wish, and want, they are choices. However, there is no word (like prohairêsis) for choice. 4 The expression for choice is the formula embraces what it wishes to have and insofar as it wants something to be provided to it, it assents within itself to having this thing. The soul is not embracing or assenting to having such general goods as beauty and health, as in Gorgias and Meno. Presumably, it already wants these and need not embrace or assent to having them. As the rest of the passage shows, what the soul is embracing or assenting to having are particular things, such as this drink or this food. In fact, it is hard not to see boulesthai and ethelein, in combination with embrace and assent, as describing a choice, or even a 4. Cf. Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics (1112a a15).

6 6 decision. If the soul of the desiring person, wishing to have some wine, embraces it, then one would drink. If the soul of the desiring person, insofar as it wants or wills wine to be provided to it, assents within itself to having wine, as though someone were asking a question [ Would you like some wine? ] one would drink. Suppose the opposite. The soul of the desiring person, wishing to have wine, embraces it; but one does not drink. The soul of the desiring person, insofar as it wants or wills wine to be provided to it, assents within itself to having wine, as though someone were asking a question; but one does not drink. Something has happened. Perhaps this person has changed her mind or has been denied what she wants. So, when the soul, wishing to have something, embraces it, it has taken a definitive direction. The use of ethelein and boulesthai has another function besides marking out choice. It also introduces into this argument an idea that has an important role in Socratic moral teaching. 5 In the Meno, Socrates argues that no one wishes for (boulesthai) bad things, knowing them to be bad. Everyone desires (epithumein) good things. 6 This theme is also found in the Gorgias where Socrates argues that we wish for (boulometha) good things when we do anything. So when people take medicine, which is neither good nor bad in itself, what they wish for (boulesthai) is health, which is something good (Gor. 467c ff). So the use of boulesthai in the present context raises anew the idea that its object is the good. We have good reason to take seriously the fact that Socrates uses boulesthai in this passage. If he had wanted to change its association with the good, he could have done so; after all, he will change the association of epithumein with the good. We are left to conclude that the association of boulesthai and ethelein with the good remains in tact. Moreover, since wish and want, in conjunction with embracing and assenting, are focused on particular objects, these 5. Cf. Irwin, Plato s Ethics, Meno 77b-78b. In this passage Socrates makes no distinction between boulesthai and epithumein. In our passage from the Republic, he specifically qualifies epthumein.