Few philosophic devices have proved as influential or enduring as the tripartition of the soul in Plato's Republic. For all its virtues, however, we are mistaken to believe that the tripartite model is sufficient to convey, or that it was meant to convey, all the elements of the dialogue's psychological teaching. What is needed is an interpretation that takes fuller account of the soul's forces, and not just its “parts” (which are metaphorical anyway). This article outlines the basic elements of such an interpretation. After considering the virtues and limits of the tripartite model and of the structural perspective from it arises, the article examineseros and spiritedness, the soul's chief and most politically consequential forces, both in themselves and in their (surprising) relation to one another.
Few philosophic devices have proved as influential or enduring as the tripartition of the soul in Plato's Republic. The division of the psyché into the rational, spirited, and desiring parts, first introduced by Socrates in book 4, established the terms of psychological thought not only for the remainder of the Republic but for a great part of Western thought even to the present day. Perhaps even more important than the particular content of this schema has been the mode of analysis that it exemplifies. With Plato began a tradition of considering the soul as a differentiated structure whose respective parts perform specific, assignable functions.