GUIDE TO THE PHILOSOPHY 1938 - 1947.pdf - Rare Books at ...

54 ETHICS AND POLITICS: THE GREEKS
a sufficiently acute political insight, be able to divine the
ground plan from die acts.
Now in this case it is, I think, obvious that the appro*
priatc conception is not that of "parts" coming together
to form a whole, but that of a whole or unity, a ground
plan, as I have called it, which expresses itself in a variety
of aspects. It is of this conception that Plato's theory of the
soul makes use. The soul, he holds, is fundamentally a
unity, but it is a unity which expresses itself in a variety
of aspects or, as we should now say, a unity which exhibits
a plurality of functions. The soul is, therefore, to use his
own expression, neither a One, as Socrates had seemed to
suggest, nor just an uncoordinated Many, but a One and a
Many, or a One which expresses itself in Many aspects.
Plato's Division of the Soul* Of these many aspects,
Plato distinguishes three. There is the reasoning "part" or
aspect; the "part" which is made up of the higher and
nobler emotions; and the "part" which is made up of
the appetites and passions.
The differentiation of the soul into these three "parts"
for the sake ofconvenience I propose to use the traditional
of the
expression is effected by the simple application
law of contradiction. There is, Plato points out, a contra-
diction between the course of action which we know to
be right or good, and the courses which appetite demands
or passion inspires. That which knows course X to be right
and good cannot, therefore, be the same as that which
inclines us to course Y. The reasoning part of the soul
which, as Socrates would say, knows and desires to pursue
the Good cannot, in other words, be the same as the
purely appetitive part which is concerned its own satisfaction.
only to secure
Now in different people different parts of the soul
predominate, and the general character of an individual's
conduct will be determined by the activity of
the predominating part. Individuals may, therefore, be
allocated to one or other of three categories, the allocation