Plato’s differing accounts of body and soul
Table of Contents
- Questioning the universal truth of the soul's ability to rule.
- Problems with Socrates's body-soul conception.
- Account of psychological conflict offered by Socrates.
- The discussion of psychological conflict.
- Socrates's additional partitioning of the soul into the spirited part.
SummaryIn both the Phaedo and Republic 4, Socrates offers an account of the nature of psychological conflict in the context of a discussion about the soul. Different conceptions of the soul and body emerge from these accounts, each of which takes on a markedly different tenor. I will exposit and criticize the account presented in the Phaedo, and then, in the course of expositing the second account, turn to the similarities and differences between the two accounts. I will then argue that one should prefer the conception offered in Republic 4, for the reason that it offers a more coherent picture of the soul and a more plausible account of psychological conflict.
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