Plato
Plato's theory of the soul is found in The Republic, where it is part of a response to the Sophists as to why one ought to live morally. The Sophists in Plato's time were men who used philosophy for profit. For a fee they would teach others the art of negotiation and argument. They also would create moral loopholes to excuse what would otherwise be immoral behavior. The skeptics ask Plato why one ought to be moral when morality is apparently a social device for maintaining order. They argue that if there are no consequences to acting unjustly or immorally, then there is no motivational pressure for morality. Plato answers by claiming that morality is a necessary cause of happiness and that one's happiness correlates to one's moral behavior. Therefore, an immoral person would be motivates to be moral in he wants to be happy. The happy person, according to Plato, is the just person. He proves this two ways:1. If X person is happy, then X is just.2. If X person is just, then X is happy. The response of the skeptics is to claim that the daily reality disproves Plato. They go on to say that contrary to number one, tyrants, motivated by unjust principles, may be found to be happy. Moreover, they argue that saints are k
A person can therefore suffer externally and remain happy because there is harmony internally, in their soul. In a city, one group may be overindulged, like if a farmer was given purple robes or the guardians luxurious houses, but this would cause the city as a whole to become much less happy. A just soul is similar to a just city. So the final way to know when a soul is just is to see if it is happy. nown to suffer, rather than to be happy. When the lower passions are ordered by reason, there is a harmony. In response to the skeptics, Plato argues that the tyrant therefore, truly happy, and that this can be seen through his behavior. Plato is careful to make the distinction between reason governing the soul, and reason dominating it, just as he shows that the guardians in a city must rule, but not usurp the privileges and tyrannize the money-makers in the city, even if they are able to do so. It is not only the appetites that should not become too powerful in workings of the soul. He argues to the contrary that the three basic energies of the soul must be in order for a person to be happy. Moreover, Plato agues, the suffering saint who is ruled by reason. He may suffer but his soul is in order. For example, if a particular appetite were overindulged, then one would become fat, or obsessed, or drunk, or some other unhappy state depending on which appetite was overindulged. A just soul, then, is a soul whose parts each perform their proper function in harmony with one another, is in the just city. As noted above, if the spirit or reason is overindulged, other unhappy conditions will come as a result.
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