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Animals, Gods and Humans - Chapter 10

The beasts of Plato In the Republic, Plato describes the essential nature of the soul and the inner workings of the human person, and he does it “by forming in speech an image of the soul” (Republic, 588b–589b). According to this image, the human soul has three parts. | 10 INTERNAL ANIMALS AND BESTIAL DEMONS The beasts of Plato In the Republic Plato describes the essential nature of the soul and the inner workings of the human person and he does it by forming in speech an image of the soul Republic 588b 589b . According to this image the human soul has three parts. It is a composite consisting of a many-headed and intricate beast having in a ring the heads of tame and wild beasts able to metamorphose and make grow from itself all these things . These animals are the desires epithymia . In addition the soul comprises a lion and a man which are the spirited and active element respectively in man his emotional side thymos and his reason nous . Mary Midgley has fittingly characterized Plato as the first active exponent of the Beast within Midgley 1995 43 . Two alternative attitudes towards these animals are described by Plato. An unjust man feeds the manifold beast but starves the interior man so that he is made weak and is drawn to wherever one of the beasts might lead him. And the beasts bite and devour each other. Unlike the unjust man a just man is completely in control of the inner man and takes charge so that the many-headed creature nourishes the tame animals and keeps the wild ones from growing like a farmer who cherishes and trains the cultivated plants but checks the growth of the wild Republic 589b . In this way he cares for the animals within his soul and makes them friends to each other and to himself. His attitude towards them reflects the ambition to subject body and soul to the controlling power of reason which was a main project in antiquity. The lion has a special position in relation to the other beasts because man makes an ally of the lion s nature thus making use of the spirited part of his soul to control its appetites. Plato s concern is to dominate the bestial within the human soul. The description of the soul as a collection of beasts and the identification of the human goal as the taming or conquest of these