Reason, Feeling, and the Will and Their Interaction in Action

If, in contrast to modern philosophy of consciousness, one does not set out from consciousness and the certitude of the “I think” as the fundament of cognition, but, instead, recognizes this fundament in the act of discrimination, a completely different picture of our different psychic activities emerges. For Plato, these activities do not simply represent different states, “modifications” of a consciousness that underlies all of them in the same uniform way. Rather, they represent either different types of discrimination or complex activities built up on the foundation of one or more acts of discrimination — activities of the one soul of man. In this way, a fundamentally different possibility of understanding the unity of the plurality of forms of activity and of defining the unity of personality, the continuity of the human “I” or self, and the specific individuality of a particular human being opens up.

Moreover, this approach also provides us a rational and pragmatic way of overcoming the radical division of human intellect into a rational conscious calculative reason and a subjective and unconscious emotional faculty. When we speak of thought in the sense of consciousness, we mean a faculty that is not itself perception, feeling, and volition, but rather, a faculty that only becomes conscious of these acts and takes a stance toward them.