Theory of man, the problem of the soul and psychology in Plato.

 In Western history there have been, fundamentally, two concepts of the soul:

1. As a principle of life (Aristotle)

2. As a principle of rational knowledge (Plato)

The doctrine about the soul has to be understood from the theory of ideas. The rationality of the soul resides in the knowledge of ideas; the soul naturally belongs to the world of ideas and feels driven to it.

The most important thing is its faculty of knowledge: the soul places itself in relationship with the eternal, with the only thing that truly is, with ideas.

The soul has an intermediate situation between two worlds: by its divine origin it is related to Ideas, but it is not an Idea. While ideas remain eternally immutable and inaccessible, belonging to the supersensible world, the soul, for a time, is within a perishable body that hinders its divine origin.

It has the following characteristics:

§  Is immortal

§  The immortality of the soul, since the body is corruptible and perishable, implies the pre-existence and subsequent existence of the former with respect to the latter.

§  The union with the body is purely accidental, it is a transitory state, the union with the body is not an essential state of the soul; moreover, it can be described as unnatural, since the proper place of the soul is the world of ideas, and its most proper activity is the contemplation of these.

§  If the proper place of the soul is the world of ideas and its most proper activity is the contemplation of these, the soul is fundamentally conceived as a principle of rational knowledge.

§  If it is not its natural place, the body will be a prison for the soul, a punishment (like a shell inside the oyster); it is an evil, due to the needs it creates in the soul and prevents it from seeking the truth: illnesses, desires, fears, passions, senses,…; It is a heavy burden that you have to get rid of little by little; It is the one that forces the soul to have material possessions, to ambition things of the sensible world, it impels the man to the wars and the violence; it is grave. Radical dualism between soul and body.

§  Consequently, the fundamental task of the soul while it remains united to the body is to purify itself, to prepare itself for the contemplation of ideas. The salvation of the soul is achieved with the acquisition of knowledge, of the science of true reality.

§  It distinguishes three types of soul or three parts: rational, irascible and concupiscible (reason, feelings and appetites). Platonic dualism has its origin in Socrates and the Pythagoreans. The reason for the division of the soul is due to the experience of internal conflicts. It is manifested in self-control, in self-control (radically Socratic). Indeed, the word self-control implies the presence of two elements inside oneself: the one that controls and the one that must be controlled (Vehemently wanting the class to end and yet controlling so that it is not noticed). It is a part of the soul, the reason, the one that faces another part of it, the appetite. Plato's argument for this division consists of the following two premises:

1.      Experience of internal conflict: the same person wants and does not want one thing at a time.

2.      Principle of non-contradiction

Therefore, it is not the same soul that wants and does not want at the same time, but two different parts of the soul.

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