Overview

This book examines the relationship between Plato's views on psychology and his political philosophy, focusing on his reflections on the spirited part of the tripartite soul, or thumos, and spirited motivation over the course of his career. Spirit is the distinctively social or political part of the human soul for Plato, in the sense that it is the source of the desires, emotions, and sensitivities that make it possible for people to form relationships with one another, interact politically, and cooperate together in and protect their communities. Such emotions prominently include not only the aggressive or competitive qualities for which thumos is well known, but also the feelings of attachment, love, friendship, and civic fellowship that bind families and communities together and make cities possible in the first place. Moreover, as spirit is the political part of the soul in this sense, two social and political challenges that occupy Plato throughout his works--namely, how to educate citizens properly in virtue and how to maintain unity and stability in political communities--cannot be addressed and resolved, on his view, without proper attention to the spirited aspects of human psychology.

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9780198861867

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This volume offers a comprehensive account of spirited motivations in Plato's dialogues...this is a book that everyone interested in Plato's moral psychology and political philosophy should read. * Cinzia Arruzza, GNOMON 96 *

Author Information

Josh Wilburn is an Associate Professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. He.received his B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin in 2005 and his Ph.D. in Classical Philosophy at Princeton University in 2011.

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