The struggle over reason and passion is something we deal with in everyday life. Not only is it dealt with through decisions we make, but also through moral debates regarding humanity and its inherent selfishness. While there is no right answer, Plato and Euripides expand on the issues of reason and passion, relating them to how one acquires and maintains a virtuous persona. In Plato’s Republic, Socrates emphasizes reason and passion as harmonious in the virtuous soul, while Euripides, in The Bacchae, suggests that reason and passion are contradictory forces.
Plato spends much of Republic referencing justice and in one part in particular, the importance of harmony between reason and passion. He explains the virtuous soul is a tripartite soul,
His main example of the war between reason and passion is the main character of Pentheus. Pentheus starts out as a very logical individual, his frustration with Dionysus comes from the women’s actions of “[leaving] their homes and [running] away” (Euripides 217). His frustration stems from his lack of control, especially due to the fact that Pentheus is a ruler, over the women. As the story progresses, his logical frustration turns into uncontrolled, passionate rage. This is shown as he ponders what he will do with the women when he captures them, claiming the women “deserve to die” (Euripides 797) for their actions. Never in the story does Pentheus experience passion while being reasonable and logical. Near the end of the story, before his death, Pentheus has finally lost all reason while dressed in “women’s gear” (Euripides 915) and hallucinating and “seeing two suns… seeing double… [seeing] new horns sprouted on [Dionysus’] head” (Euripides 918). The action of wearing female clothing and seeing things that are not there mark Pentheus’ descent into madness, overtaking logic. This makes Pentheus a prime example of how passion and reason are contradictory
Euripdies' The Bacchae is known for its celebration of women's rebellion and patriarchial overthrow, claims which hold truth if not supremely. The Thebans, along with other women, pursue the rituals and culture of Dionysus’s cult which enacts their rebellion against men and the laws of their community. However, this motion to go aginst feminine norms is short lived as they lose power. When Agave comes to her epiphany, Dionysus is the one who is triumphant over Pentheus's death, not Agave or her sisters These women must be punished for their rebellion against both men and community. This female power is weakened and the rebellion muted in order to bring back social order and also to provide the story with a close. Female rebellion actually becomes oppressed through The Bacchae due to its conseqences and leading events of the play. This alludes to the message that women who do not follow traditional roles of femininity are subject to the destruction of an established society.
For these two articles that we read in Crito and Apology by Plato, we could know Socrates is an enduring person with imagination, because he presents us with a mass of contradictions: Most eloquent men, yet he never wrote a word; ugliest yet most profoundly attractive; ignorant yet wise; wrongfully convicted, yet unwilling to avoid his unjust execution. Behind these conundrums is a contradiction less often explored: Socrates is at once the most Athenian, most local, citizenly, and patriotic of philosophers; and yet the most self-regarding of Athenians. Exploring that contradiction, between Socrates the loyal Athenian citizen and Socrates the philosophical critic of Athenian society, will help to position Plato's Socrates in an Athenian legal and historical context; it allows us to reunite Socrates the literary character and Athens the democratic city that tried and executed him. Moreover, those help us to understand Plato¡¦s presentation of the strange legal and ethical drama.
The Bacchae indicates that Dionysus is not concerned with morality since his way of controlling people and seeking revenge is viewed as corrupt. Dionysus is a god born of a mortal mother, therefore the people of Thebes deny he’s a god. He sought revenge against those who denied him as a god by murdering and driving them insane. Pentheus denied his status as a god and failed to honor him as such. Dionysus got revenge by forcing Pentheus’s mother to kill his own son. The women of Thebes denied his status as a god, therefore, he drove them insane. The way the women worshipped Dionysus is viewed as immoral and cruel since they are controlled without their own will. Dionysus is the god of wine; wine represents celebration and festivities. Although wine can help people relieve their worries, it can cause them to experience drunkenness. Once someone is drunk they can be destructive and lose control of their thoughts and judgment. Once they are controlled by Dionysus they do not always know the difference between what is
Plato's philosophy of government sees the State as a larger version of the individual, and the soul of an individual is comprised of three parts. Plato states that these three parts include the appetite, the spirit, and reason (167), and these parts have goals and desires that pertain only to them. For example, reason finds fulfillment in the study ...
Plato’s Republic focuses on one particular question: is it better to be just or unjust? Thrasymachus introduces this question in book I by suggesting that justice is established as an advantage to the stronger, who may act unjustly, so that the weak will “act justly” by serving in their interests. Therefore, he claims that justice is “stronger, freer, and more masterly than justice” (Plato, Republic 344c). Plato begins to argue that injustice is never more profitable to a person than justice and Thrasymachus withdraws from the argument, granting Plato’s response. Glaucon, however, is not satisfied and proposes a challenge to Plato to prove that justice is intrinsically valuable and that living a just life is always superior. This paper will explain Glaucon’s challenge to Plato regarding the value of justice, followed by Plato’s response in which he argues that his theory of justice, explained by three parts of the soul, proves the intrinsic value of justice and that a just life is preeminent. Finally, it will be shown that Plato’s response succeeds in answering Glaucon’s challenge.
In Plato's Republic democracy made a controversial issue in a critique by Socrates. The theory of the soul accounts for the controversy as it states that the soul is divided into three parts: the rational, the spirited, and the appetite which are ranked respectively. The idea of the soul's three parts and the soul being ruled by a dominant part is used as the basis for identifying justice and virtue. However, the theory of the soul is not only used to identify justice and virtue, but also used to show that the virtue within a city reflects that of its inhabitants.
Many different interpretations can be derived from themes in Euripides's The Bacchae, most of which assume that, in order to punish the women of Thebes for their impudence, the god Dionysus drove them mad. However, there is evidence to believe that another factor played into this confrontation. Because of the trend of male dominance in Greek society, women suffered in oppression and bore a social stigma which led to their own vulnerability in becoming Dionysus's target. In essence, the Thebian women practically fostered Dionysian insanity through their longing to rebel against social norms. Their debilitating conditions as women prompted them to search for a way to transfigure themselves with male qualities in order to abandon their social subordination.
Plato presents this to explain the diminished role of the philosopher in the government and express his grievances with the Greek democracy model. This is similar in some regards to the analogy of the chariot, when the horses of passion and appetite threaten to overtake the weaker horse of reason. The horse of reason is able to steer much like the navigator. However, it being the weakest horse, passion and appetite may lead the chariot astray in the pursuit of pleasure. (elaborate a little on their overlap, soul vs state? conclude more solidly)
Cadmus carefully tries to persuade his grandson by adding, 'For even if you are right and this God is not a God, why say it? Why not call him one? You have everything to gain from such a lie'(20). Pentheus shows no respect for the elderly or their wisdom by replying, 'Go! Run to your Bacchic revels. I want none of your senile folly rubbing off on me!'(21). This response alone reveals a great deal about his disposition. He will not let any 'old fools' tell him what to do. However, it is ironic that Pentheus' rejection of the advice of these 'old fools' proves to be his first step towards his fatal end.
...ativity or modesty leading to insecurity. This correlates to Plato’s argument because it is a good example of appetites not being controlled by rationality. All of these good traits, left unchecked by rationality become self destructive qualities. If you’re self destructive you are not happy. But using Plato’s guidelines or definition to a just soul or a just person this transformation of seemingly good virtues into vice can be prevented.
The meaning of eudaimonia, etymologically, is ‘good spirit’ and it is generally translated as ‘happiness’; in Aristotelian terms, ‘happiness’ represents the highest human good and it is also the representation of the soul’s virtues. The identification of the soul parts as the contributors and main elements for the function of the most important human activity (reasoning), marks the inevitable psychological asset of Aristotle’s thinking; specifically, the classification of human virtues derives from the analysis of the soul’s types, attributing to human beings the ability of reasoning which distinguishes human beings from the rest of ‘natural bodies.’ Indeed, reason exists in two parts of the soul, namely the rational and the appetitive (desires or passions), and so it expresses within two different virtues, the moral and intellectual ones.
The story that is found in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro proposes a dilemma that has since been a very controversial subject. When Socrates encounters Euthyphyo, he is on his way to trail to face charges against his own father. His father had been accused o...
The Republic is an examination of the "Good Life"; the harmony reached by applying pure reason and justice. The ideas and arguments of Plato center on the social settings of an ideal republic - those that lead each person to the most perfect possible life for him. Socrates was Plato's early mentor in real life. As a tribute to his teacher, Plato uses Socrates in several of his works and dialogues. Socrates moderates the discussion throughout, as Plato's mouthpiece. Through Socrates' powerful and brilliant questions and explanations on a series of topics, the reader comes to understand what Plato's model society would look like. The basic plan of the Republic is to draw an analogy between the operation of society as a whole and the life of any individual human being. In this paper I will present Plato’s argument that the soul is divides into three parts. I will examine what these parts are, and I will also explain his arguments behind this conclusion. Finally, I will describe how Plato relates the three parts of the soul to a city the different social classes within that city.
...ses to be virtuous in one virtue. If all people in a society posses all of the virtues that Plato states, along with love and emotion, all the people of the society will have the same moral outlook on life. Therefore a balanced society will be obtained and everyone would be in harmony with each other. The four Platonic virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice are the foundation of Plato’s Republic. He not only revolves his city around them, but also his people. Plato tries to instill virtues onto certain classes, without thinking about what the "republic" would be like if he gave all people ALL the virtues. Virtue is something that individual people possess out of their own willingness to be virtuous. Virtues are not characteristics that can be isolated and dispensed individually. They are complimentary. In order to have one; you must possess the others.
In The Republic, Plato questioned what justice is. It’s noteworthy in the way he used how he views an individual’s soul to be an analogy for justice. He addressed his question heads-on with an answer stating that there are two types of justice. There’s an individual justice and a social justice. He believes that the individual’s justice has our rationality ruling over out appetites and emotional attachments. Social justice is the same exact thing. It has the rational parts (the leaders i.e. the philosophers) that rule over the appetites (workers) and the spirit (warriors). He says “the state is a man writ large,” which basically means, the state is a big person, it also has its own three parts and each part must be in balance. Plato’s answer to having two types of justice is very naturalistic, meaning the virtues aren’t created by people, but is discovered “out there.” He believes that someone who understands what each of the three parts of government does should be the leader (in other words, the philosophers). In order to keep the leader from doing the wrong thing, one must not select the wrong leader. He does not believe in having a check on the leader because we must select the right leaders and give them the power. To be a good citizen, the person should do what they are best suited for and they should be valuable to society. In his world, he wanted to give children tests to see what they were good at and that would be