platonic

I have been reading "Sophie's World" recently and it give me insights to the greatest philosophical ideas in the human histories. Well I have been into philosophy lately. Perhaps after "Sophie's World," I will try to read Bertrand Russell's "A History of Western Philosophy" which is more "academical"

I came across Plato's idea of human body, the tripartite view of human body. Here's the excerpt from Sophie's World:

According to Plato, the human body is composed of three parts: the head, the chest, and the abdomen. For each of these three parts there is a corresponding faculty of the soul. Reason belongs to the head, will belongs to the chest, and appetite belongs to the abdomen. Each of these soul faculties also has an ideal, or "virtue." Reason aspires to wisdom, Will aspires to courage, and Appetite must be curbed so that temperance can be exercised. Only when the three parts of the body function together as a unity do we get a harmonious or "virtuous" individual. At school, a child must first learn to curb its appetites, then it must develop courage, and finally reason leads to wisdom.

Therefore Plato saw the link between each faculties in the body, to the soul, to virtue, and furthermore he linked them to the idea of ideal state or nation as well. It's further illustrated by the following table:

BODY	SOUL	VIRTUE	STATE
head	reason	wisdom	rulers
chest	will	courage	auxiliaries
abdomen	appetite	temperance	laborers

In this Platonic view, one's reason controls one's will, and one's will controls one's appetite or passions. Plato put reason or human ratio at the topmost of this tripartite view, however he did not answer the question on who should control this reason.

However Christianity offers a radically different view: Holy Spirit which is in us controls every aspect of our life: reason, will, and passions. Therefore it's very true that self control is one of the fruit of the Spirit.

And perhaps one will ask, how could reason controls one's will or one's feeling or emotion?

There was a famous Chinese general Han Xin, that served under Liu Bang. Once when he was young, a delinquent saw him with his sword and challenged him to use it to fight with him and decapitate him, or crawl between his legs. Han Xin knew that the delinquent was stronger than him, thus he chose to face public humiliation and crawl under his legs.

As we can see from Han Xin, he is a kind of man who never have reacted on just a brave impulse or emotion for the sake of a brief moment of satisfaction. His action was controlled by reason although in the end he suffered from humiliation.

Another short reflection from Seminar on 28-29 May 2010.