Chapter 7 - Views of Soul by Socrates

In our previous chapters, we had delved to some extent the general characteristics of soul and the opinions of various Greek philosophers.
Now, we are going to know the views held by three famous Greek philosophers - viz. Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. We can call them as trio, as there are vital relationships between these three philosophers. Plato was Boswell to Socrates the Johnson and Plato was the most ardent disciple of Socrates who had recorded all his dialogues, speeches and arguments in great graphic details. The world would not have known the greatness of Socrates, if Plato had not brought out Socrates’ literary thoughts in written format and that too, in such minute forms.

Socrates was unlettered like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the Guru of Swami Vivekananda, but they were born genius and well knowledgeable. The futility of mere education has been well proved by these two great souls.
Aristotle was the disciple of Plato. Theories about soul as expended by these three Great Greek Philosophers could be said to be the best in so far as their scientific treatment of the most obscure subjects.

Aristotle treatment on Soul in his famous book “On Soul” is really quite comprehensive enough to have a deeper insight compared to Plato’s Republic. But, all those three philosophers had their own judgments in dealing with the soul – human soul in particular and soul in general.

Let us start with Socrates.

Socrates said that the soul is immortal and that the soul also knows the truths of its separation from the body at the time of death. This argument confronts head-on the widespread theory like Cebes, that the soul is a material thing and is destroyed by being dispersed like breath or smoke. Soul, according to Socrates, is divine, formless, intelligible, part-less and impermissible. In fine, body and soul differ in kind, the one being perceptible and perishable, the other being intelligible and exempt from destruction.

According to Plato, the Soul has a role to play in making the body to take proper judgments. The Soul is said to control the senses and hence there are ‘wise soul’ and ‘devil soul’. Perhaps, we call these souls as conscious guidance. However, it should be clear that the soul is not simply the mind, as we conceive of it. The soul is immortal because it has life essentially the way fire has heat essentially. It is plain that these arguments apply to the souls of all living things, including plants.

The Plato’s Republic also puts forward a new theory of soul. It is stated that the embodied human soul has at least three parts or aspects, namely reason, spirit and appetite.

Socrates begins by enunciating a principle to the effect that opposite actions, affections and states cannot be assigned to one thing in respect of the same part of it, in relation to the same object and at the same time.

Desiring and being averse are opposites, and hence that desiring to do something and being averse to doing that same thing are opposites in relation to the same object. But it does frequently happen, Socrates points out that the soul desires to do something and at the same time is averse to doing that same thing.

This happens, for instance, when a person is thirsty and on that basis wants to drink, but at the same time wishes not to drink, on the basis of some calculation or deliberation, and in fact succeeds in refraining from drinking, thirsty though they are. It follows from the premises stated that the human soul must have at least two parts, so that one opposite (the desire to drink) can be assigned to one part of the soul and the other (the aversion to drinking) can be assigned to the other.

Having thus identified reason and appetite as distinct parts of the soul, Socrates draws attention to other kinds of conflict between desires, which bring to light spirit, the third part of the soul.