18.
Write an essay on the
relation of emotion to virtue in Plato.
RW: Previous years’ answers were strong. I didn’t tweak much.
Karl: Of the texts we’ve read, Plato discusses the
emotions the most in the Republic. In it, he says that the emotions can
either support or overpower reason.
This view is exemplified in his discussions of fear in the Phaedo (in which fear overpowers reason)
and of perceptive understanding supporting reason in the erotic philosopher of the
Symposium.
I)
The Soul, Emotion, and Virtue (cf.
the Republic)
A)
Tripartite soul -- In understanding Plato on emotion and
virtue, one must understand Plato’s tripartite account of the human soul.
1) The education of the guardians (both
musical and gymnastic) is done for the sake of the soul, “for the spirited
part.” So part of the education of
the guardians is to give them the right emotions.
2) The three parts of the soul
(a) The reasoning part (το
λογιστικον)
(b) The spirited part (το
θυμοειδες)
(c) The appetitive part (desires –το
επιθυμητικον)
B)
Emotion and the soul -- The emotions, broadly conceived, are associated with the spirited part
of the soul.
1) Emotions are distinct
from reason and appetites/desires in that they are responsive to belief and
less brutish.
C)
Virtue and the Soul -- The cardinal virtues in Plato are
based on the functions of the three parts of the soul and their interaction.
1) Wisdom is the
virtue of the reasoning part. It is the knowledge of what is advantageous for
each of the three parts. (442c)
2) Moderation is
the virtue of the appetitive part; it “is… a kind
of order, the mastery of certain kinds of pleasures and desires.” (430e)
3) Courage is the
virtue of the spirited part of the soul.
(a) This is the spirited part of the
soul, “fighting, following its leader, and carrying
out the leader’s decisions through its courage.” (442b)
(b) “We call a single
individual courageous… when [he] preserves through pains and pleasures the
declarations of reason about what is to be feared and what isn’t.” (442c)
4) Justice is
achieved by having the parts of the soul rightly ordered
(a) The spirited and appetitive parts ought
to be in submission to reason (with the spirited part acting as a sort of
ruled-ruler over the appetites).
(b) When spirited part dominates, we
get the timocratic man and state – ruled by passion for honor
II)
The submission of emotion to reason
A)
The accounts of courage and
justice given above show that
emotions are to be in submission to the rational part.
1) Like the guardians of the city who
are to be in submission to the philosopher-kings, emotions must be in submission to the reasoning aspect of the soul.
B)
Two accounts of the relationship
between emotion and reason.
1) Suppression: Sometimes Plato
describes reason suppressing emotions
and ruling over them because they are untrustworthy.
(a) Example – (Phaedo) The need to suppress emotional attachment to the pleasures
and pains of this world known through the senses.
(i) “The soul of the
philosopher achieves a calm from such emotions,
it follows reason and ever stays with it contemplating the true, the divine,
which is not the object of opinion.” [84a]
(b) Example—(Republic) Mimetic poetry is problematic because it can arouse the
passions in ways contrary to reason.
(i) But Plato allows for the possibility
of a philosophical poetry in which poetry helps people live well (607d-e)
2) Harmony: Other times Plato talks of
there being a true harmony between
reason and emotions – no need for suppression.
(a) Example – (Laws, beginning of book II) the Athenian says that the role of
education is to train the emotions to be in harmony with reason.
(i) “…the earliest
sensations that a child feels in infancy are of pleasure and pain, and this is
the route by which virtue and vice person or the soul... I call ‘education’ the
initial acquisition of virtue by the child, when the feelings of pleasure and
affection, pain and hatred, that well up in his soul are channeled in the right
courses before he can understand the reason why. Then when he does understand,
his reason and his emotions agree and telling him that he has been properly
trained by inculcation of appropriate habits. Virtue is this general concord of reason and emotion. But there is
one element you could isolate in any account you give [of education], and this
is the correct formation of our feelings of pleasure and pain, which makes us
hate what we ought to hate from first to last, and love what we ought to love.”
[653b-c]
(b) Example – (Theaetetus, digression)
the philosopher is contrasted with the sophist, with each one’s intellectual character (i.e., virtue, properly
functioning reason) being largely a matter of sentimental (i.e., emotional)
education (not suppression). [See
Roberts’ Theaetetus notes, p. 8
ff.] Reason requires caring about
the right things (i.e., emotional attachment).
III)
Emotion, Virtue, and knowledge of the
good [Roberts’ Symposium notes]
A)
In
the Symposium, it seems that virtue for Plato is based on knowledge of the
Beautiful. It has often been stated that for Plato, ethics is inherently dependent on epistemology, and epistemology is dependent on virtue.
Summary of the argument:
1) Virtue requires knowledge via insight.
2) Knowledge via insight requires emotional attachment.
3) :. Virtue requires emotional attachment
B)
(Premise 1) Virtue requires knowledge via insight
1) Knowledge is
not just judgment (belief), or even fully justified belief, but a kind of
perceptual contact with reality.
2) It is perhaps what we would call insight, a kind of conceptual
seeing-into. This perception has at the same time the character of understanding, as is suggested by the
fact that it is acquired through dialectic.
3) Knowledge is a matter of going into a
subject, penetrating through the appearances to something that is not available
to the less knowing.
C)
(Premise 2) Knowledge via insight requires emotional attachment
1) In the Symposium it is love/attraction that drives the philosopher (who by
name is a lover of this contact with reality), so we are perhaps justified in
thinking that this intellectual
perception or perceptive
understanding is also a matter of emotion.
2) Knowledge of the good is not an
indifferent contact with reality, but an appreciation,
a joy, a satisfaction.
3) Someone who does not take emotional
pleasure in the truth would not, on Plato’s understanding of knowledge, be in
the fullest sense a knower. Why not? Because the truth is good, beautiful.
Without the pleasure in the apprehension, this crucial feature of reality would
be missed.
D)
(Conclusion) Therefore, virtue requires emotional attachment.
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