[...]... importantly different kinds of thing that people focus their attention and desires on and that they structure their minds and lives around: wealth, honour (or esteem), and wisdom; and that, correspondingly, there are three kinds of people, naturally finding themselves leading three kinds of life: the life of business or money-making, the life of political or military excellence and prominence, and, much less... concerning the status of the three ‘kinds’ in the soul that Socrates and Glaucon have already identified, namely the ‘spirited’ kind, the learning-loving kind, and the money-loving kind According to one candidate answer, they are features or tendencies (or something like that) of a unitary soul that, on each occasion, acts or is active as a whole According to another view, which is the one Socrates is going... drinking, Socrates says that it must be one thing in the soul that thirsts and a different thing that draws back from drinking; he then offers the following comparison: In the same way, I suppose, to say of the archer that his hands at the same time push the ~ bow away and draw it towards him is not to speak well (οS καλω Oχ,ι λNγ,ιν).⁵ Rather, we ought to say that the one hand pushes it away and the. .. be what Plato has in mind, his reference to the top’s internal complexity is by itself no good reason to think that he is meaning to analyse the case of a spinning top by attributing motion to one part of it and rest to another The Argument for Tripartition 25 these involves identifying parts of the subject that are the bearers of the predicates in question The second way relies on introducing different... opposites in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, and at the same time (2) Desiring and being averse are opposites; desiring to , and being averse to -ing, are opposites in relation to the same thing (3) It happens that the soul desires to , and at the same time is averse to -ing І(4) The soul has at least two parts Before we go on, a number of comments should be made about this part of the argument... contact between Plato and Aristotle are, first, that rational motivation depends on thoughts to the effect that something or other is good, and, secondly, that it brings into play desires of a very special kind These spring from, and are informed by, the subject’s grasp of means–end, or ‘for the sake of ’, relations The formation of such desires involves the transmission of desire from A to B in such a way... moreover, that Plato takes desire for, and aversion to, one and the same thing to exemplify a pair of opposite predicates that apply in the same respect and in relation to the same thing He plainly accepts, furthermore, that it is a common occurrence for someone to desire, and at the same time to be averse to, one and the same thing According to my interpretation, he is committed to the view that such... Principle of Opposites (PO): It is clear that the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same respect, in relation to the same thing, and at the same time (Republic 436 B 8–9) He adds that ‘if we ever find this happening in the soul, we’ll know that we aren’t dealing with one thing but many’ That is to say that if they ever find the soul doing or undergoing opposites, in the. .. which says that the same thing cannot at the same time do opposites in the same respect and in relation to the same thing I shall argue that the context of the overall argument makes it clear that what this principle is supposed to mean is that the same thing cannot at the same time be the proper subject of opposite predicates that apply in the same respect and in relation to the same thing I shall show,... respects in which the subject as a whole is the bearer of both predicates.¹⁵ When Socrates turns to the case of desire and simultaneous aversion towards the same thing (in this case, drinking), he could hardly be clearer about which way he thinks this should be analysed He says that it must be one thing in the soul that desires and pulls, and a different thing that is averse and pulls the other way . Data Lorenz, Hendrik. The brute within : appetitive desire in Plato and Aristotle / Hendrik Lorenz. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Plato. 2. Aristotle. 3. Soul. 4. Desire. I. Title. B395 lion, and another of a human being. But make the first much the largest and the other second to it in size. Now join the three of them into one, so that they somehow grow together naturally. Then,. student at Oxford in 1996. The bulk of the book was written at Princeton between 2002 and 2004. In the course of thinking and writing about Plato s and Aristotle s psychological theories, I have