Winnie Hoh

Professor Greenberg
Philosophy 1
23 October 2016
The Tripartition
In the Republic, Socrates seeks to define justice in an individual. To do so, he
establishes by observing justice within a society is easier and it would lead to
observing justice within an individual. He asserts that a society consists of three
main classes: the guardians, auxiliaries, and the common people. These three
classes work together to create a just society by having the right relationships
between each other, for example, they are not to meddle with each others work
because this could be the greatest harm created in a society and the act of
exchanging and meddling is considered injustice (434b7-c5). Therefore, Socrates
asserts that since there are three classes within a society, or a city, then there must
be three distinct parts within the soul. These parts are: the rational, spirited, and
appetitive.

With this analogy, Socrates reasons that since a just city consists of

the three classes, then a just individual must consists of the three parts of the soul.
Socrates claims that there are four virtues in a city: wise, courageous,
moderate, and just. He also argues that if the first three components are identified,
then it would be enough to recognize the fourth component: just (427e6-428a4). In
a city, wise is corresponded to the desire for knowledge, courageous is
corresponded to honor, and moderate is corresponded to self-control. These three
components also describe the three classes within the society. For example,

wisdom is defined as good judgement with respects to political matters which are
often found in guardians (438a11-429a1), militaries pursue honor because they
possess the power to preserve beliefs about what is to be feared (429b7-c1), and
the common people pursue self-control in regards of their pleasures and desires.
Once these three parts are found within a city, then justice is obtained. Because
these three classes are doing their own work, and not imitating nor meddling with
each others work, everyone is contributing wisdom, moderation, and courage to
the virtue of the city which makes it just.
Socrates argues that the soul is divided into rational, spirited, and appetitive
parts respectively. He asserts that the rational part is responsible for ones rational
calculation, learning, and knowledge; spirited part is in relation with courage and
anger; and the appetitive part demonstrate an individuals thirst, hunger, desire for
sex, and insatiable for money (442a6). Socrates describes the relationship between
these three parts as opposites. For example, appetites and rational thinking are
opposite because if oneself has a desire to drink due to extreme thirst but he also
know that by drinking too much water will kill him so he refrain himself from
quenching his thirst, then this inner conflict between desire and rational thoughts is
opposites of each other. Next, between appetites and spirited part, Socrates
present the example of Leontius in that he has the desire to look at corpses he
refrained himself from looking because of his anger but in the end, he gave into his
desire and is forced to look at the corpses. Next, Socrates reasons that the spirited
part of the soul is opposite of the rational part as well. He uses the story of
Odysseus who returned home to Ithaca and he was in disguised when he saw his
palace is full of naked women, he wanted to kill all of them due to his anger but he
struck his chest and spoke to his heart (441b4). Odysseus has calculated what is
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best and worse for him by rational thinking before his anger gets to him which could
eventually ruined his plan. Socrates finally concludes that his examples as to why
these three parts of soul are opposite and each of them has their own role, it is
agreed that an individual is just like a city, which consists of the same number of
parts of divisions within them respectively.
The three parts of the soul correspond to the three classes in the just city.
The rational part is most prominent in the guardians of the city; the spirited -part is
most dominant in the auxiliaries; and the appetitive part is mostly presented in the
common people. These three parts of the soul serves as a mirror for the three
classes because in an individual, reason rules the soul and makes the person wise,
the spirited part guards the soul and makes the person courageous, and both
reason and spirited guard the appetites and keep it in line. This is a reflection as
how the guardians are the perfect ruler out of the classes, the auxiliaries act as the
helper for the guardians to help keep the common people in line. If one part of the
souls dominated the other two, for instance, in an entirely rational-occupied soul,
the individual aims at only obtaining more knowledge; in a soul ruled by spirited
part, the individual aims at only achieving honor and being courageous; and in a
soul ruled by appetites, the individuals only objective is to fulfill ones hunger,
thirst, sex, and/or money desire, then the soul is unjust. In just individuals, their
parts of the soul are harmonized so that they regulate well what is their own and
rules themselves without meddling without another peoples works. In addition,
whenever they are doing something, they believe the action is just that preserves
and helps achieve the inner harmony because their desire is geared by reason.

By using the idea of reflection, Socrates successfully develops justice within

an individual by mirroring its three components with the three parts that make up a
just city.