Are the Parts of the Soul Three or Nine According to Plato?

Abstract

The present paper discusses the question of whether the manifoldness of the soul is restricted to its three known parts or whether those three parts can further be divided into individual parts. According to the Republic 580d7-8 the three parts of the soul correspond to the three kinds of pleasure, so each part of the soul corresponds to its proper pleasure. It is not only the pleasure that is nuanced, according to each part of the soul and its particular nature, but also the spirited (ἐπιθυμίαι) and the rational part (ἀρχαὶ) of the soul are nuanced in the same way. Thus, it becomes clear that each of the three main parts of the soul include three powers: the cognitive, the spirited, and the appetitive, so that we can rightly argue that there are nine powers of the soul in total. This happens because, for example, the cognitive power is as a proper kind a single unified power, but it is also divided in three further powers, according to the particular nature of each of the three main parts of the soul. And, of course, same goes for the other two parts of the soul, the spirited and the appetitive part.