The Tripartite Soul in the Republic
The following was a paper I turned in for class. There are footnotes, but they don't copy over for whatever reason. Socrates argues that the soul has three parts, the appetite, the spirit, and reason. “Part” refers to a faculty that moves us to act. Since there are movements of the human soul that desire contradictory things, the origins of those desires must therefore be distinct. He argues for this by first putting forth the principle of noncontradiction when he says a thing cannot want or do contradictory things. If the soul wanted to do something contradictory, like to drink and not to drink, then we would be dealing with something else other than a whole unified soul. We would be dealing with some part of the soul instead. In further establishing this approach, Socrates deals with some possible counter examples, such as a moving man or a spinning top. In the case of a man who may move his arms and legs, this is dealt with by distinguishing the parts of the man which move...