Plato's Threefold City and Soul

Weinstein argues that Plato's 'fighting spirit' in the Republic plays an essential role in rational agency.

Joshua I. Weinstein (Author)

9781316621332, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 17 December 2020

300 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.408 kg

'… Weinstein presents an elegant and coherent argument that salvages the Republic from age–old interpretations that charge it with structural flaws.' Orestis Karatzoglo, Religious Studies Review

Plato's 'Republic' constructs an ideal city composed of three parts, parallel to the soul's reason, appetites, and fighting spirit. But confusion and controversy have long surrounded this three-way division and especially the prominent role it assigns to angry and competitive spirit. In Plato's Three-fold City and Soul, Joshua I. Weinstein argues that, for Plato, determination and fortitude are not just expressions of our passionate or emotional natures, but also play an essential role in the rational agency of persons and polities. In the Republic's account, human life requires spirited courage as much as reasoned thought and nutritious food. The discussion ranges over Plato's explication of the logical and metaphysical foundations of justice and injustice, the failures of incomplete and dysfunctional cities, and the productive synergy of our tendencies and capacities that becomes fully evident only in the justice of a self-sufficient political community.

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. Injustice as opposition of characters: 1. Opposition yields bipartition
2. The argument from character
3. Opposition of characters
4. Interim conclusions
Part II. Justice as Function in City and Soul: 5. Preliminaries and foreshadowing
6. The city seeks self-sufficiency
7. Economics, technê and the market
8. Luxury and art
9. War
10. The guards
11. Language, education and reason
12. Philosopher-kings
13. Justice as threefold function in the soul
Part III. Thumos and Control through Time: 14. Preventing indulgence
15. Thumotic work
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Social & political philosophy [HPS], Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP], Humanities [H]