An Odd Sort of Mind
I think it’s pretty safe to say that Plato’s philosophy evolved through time, and his masterwork, The Republic, marks the transition between his early work (heavily inspired by the thinking of Socrates) to a middle period (where he started to explore more ideas). In The Republic, Plato continued his examination into the ideas of justice, beauty, virtue and compassion, and tried to get a handle on how those appeared in human minds.
To that end, Plato thought it might help to examine what sort of society might best produce human beings capable of perceiving those ideas and acting in accordance with them. Since human beings form human societies, Plato argued, a society defined as “just” and “good” could provide insight into how human beings perceived the idea of justice.
Plato’s examination into the human mind resulted in a definition of human psychology that seems somewhat strange and rather simplistic to modern readers, given our exposure to much more sophisticated examinations into the intricacies of human behavior that have taken place since Freud and Jung. While we have a much greater awareness of the complexities of human psychological development, these days, Plato’s observations nevertheless do provide insights that, while limited, do have some utility.
In the Republic, Plato wrote that human minds had three essential divisions – the intellect, the will (or thumos) and the appetites (or passions), each of which shaped the personality. The intellect comprised that rational aspect of the mind that valued truth and accuracy in all things. The will, or thumos (the Greek term) provided strength of character and motivation to action. The remaining aspect of the human mind sought pleasure by fulfilling appetites and passions – not just for sex or food and drink, but also for love, music, art and aesthetics.
Plato wrote that a healthy human mind possessed all three aspects, but each lay in proper balance with the other two. To achieve that balance, Plato said, the intellect must have supremacy, although a healthy mind also required will and passion in proper proportion.
Those addicted to too much alcohol, or sex, or other pleasures had minds in which passions held sway, at the expense of will and intellect. In essence, Plato said, people who could not control their passions and appetites would up consumed by them, in a cycle of self-destructive behavior. These were the drunks, or gluttons or those who spent all of their money on prostitutes or fine clothes or scented oils, and beggared themselves. By contrast, a mind that knew love and understood the aesthetics of artistry experienced passions anchored by intellect.
On the other hand, hot-heads who acted without thinking had an excess of thumos. They had little patience for thoughtful analysis or prudent reserve. They wanted things done, and they wanted them done now, and wound up rushing into situations that created problems for themselves and others. A vital attribute for soldiers, it frequently got them into trouble in more peaceful circumstances, in which they couldn’t balance temperament with cool reserve.
As a philosopher, Plato unsurprisingly argued that even an excess of intellect created the fewest problems of any, although it did create some. Without an adequate amount of motivation, the intellect really accomplished little other than navel-gazing. Moreover, without the positive sorts of passions — empathy and compassion — the mind could behave with a cold ruthlessness that caused pain to others. Plato also noted that denial of all appetites resulted in skewed, unhealthy personalities with empty lives.
While Plato’s observations lack sophisticated nuance (he had little understanding of the “nature versus nurture” argument, in which modern psychologists and psychiatrists study how much of the personality is founded in genetics, and how much is shaped by the environment, and how much depends on individual choices, and how each of those interacts with the other), they do provide a sometimes-useful shorthand for the discussion of personalities. In addition, enough people identify the pattern so easily that this particular trinity of the mind keeps cropping up in popular culture.
During an introduction to Philosophy course I took while at Metropolitan State College of Denver, the professor (a red-bearded guy who only wore black, whose class I enjoyed immensely but whose name I can no longer remember) pointed out how frequently Plato’s trinity crops up in movies and television.
For instance, Gene Roddenberry used the notion as the basis for the creation of six of the most recognizable characters in all of science fiction. In the original Star Trek series that ran from 1966-68, the trinity of Kirk, Spock and McCoy represented Roddenberry’s notion of thumos, intellect and compassion, and the frequent arguments between Spock and McCoy symbolized the psychological conflict between intellect and passion. However, Star Trek was very much pitched as a “space cowboy” television series, and that meant the strong-willed Kirk (played by William Shatner) commanded the ship and had the lead role.
Twenty years later, the success of the original series, and the movies that followed in the 1980s, gave Roddenberry a lot more clout when it came time to create Star Trek: the Next Generation (ST:TNG). In that series, Roddenberry was able to realize his vision to such an extent that the command crew of the Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) essentially became The Republic in space.
In ST: TNG, Capt. Jean-Luc Picard commanded with keen intellect, balanced by his second in command, the obviously-named “Will” Riker, and the compassionate, empathic ship’s counselor, Deanna Troi. Lots of people seemed to think the presence of Troi on the bridge (portrayed by the lovely British-American actress of Greek ancestry, Marina Sirtis) provided only eye-candy, but that simply wasn’t the case. Given the importance of compassion in Plato’s understanding of the healthy mind, Troi’s presence on the command deck served to warm Picard’s cool intellect and balanced Riker’s willingness to go in with guns blazing.
(Roddenberry died in 1991, and his absence from the helm of the franchise explains some of the criticism lodged at the Star Trek reboots helmed by J.J. Abrams. When Paramount Pictures decided to reboot the franchise with Christopher Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban as Kirk, Spock and McCoy, they specifically said they wanted space shoot-‘em-up adventures that would appeal to a broad audience, and not philosophical inquiries into ethical questions that would only interest Star Trek fans. That’s exactly what Abrams has delivered.)
A corrupted form of Plato’s trinity also helped writer Mario Puzo and director Francis Ford Coppola create three of the most darkly fascinating characters in the history of cinema. In The Godfather, Michael Corleone symbolized corrupted intellect, Sonny Corleone embodied hot-headed, thoughtless anger, and Fredo Corleone was destroyed by his own appetites. As a twisted version of Plato’s trinity of intellect, will and appetite, the Corleone brothers helped make The Godfather a successful novel, and one of the finest films ever made.
As an examination of human psychology, Plato’s trinity of mind counts as a decent “first attempt” by someone born more than 2000 years before anybody knew much of anything about the conditions – either genetic or environmental – that shape human behavior. While it provides an interesting set of personality-types still used in storytelling of all sorts, it doesn’t provide much in the way of accurate insights into the human psyche.
Still, it makes for interesting reading.
Links:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/#SH5d
https://thehumanist.com/features/interviews/humanist-interview-gene-roddenberry