Soul and body in Plato

Abstract

In this essay I shall explore the relation between human soul and body in the philosophy of Plato. My aim is to focus mostly on the dialogue Phaedo, the central theme of which is the immortality of the soul. Plato's conception of the soul in the Phaedo is quite different from that in the Republic. In the former the incomposite nature of the soul is asserted in emphatic terms. In the Republic we have a long and carefully elaborated argument for three parts of soul. What we should call moral conflict is, for the Phaedo, a conflict between the soul, conceived as wholly good and rational, and the irrational passions and desires of the body. In the Phaedo, the soul appears to be the opponent of the body's fears and desires while the body is presented as a hindrance for the rational capacity of the soul. I shall try to show that this conception of the soul confronts great problems. Because of that, Plato proposes in the Republic a new theory of the soul that permits internal conflicts. A further development we can find in the Timaeus where Plato examines also the problem of psychic and psycosomatic illnesses.