Plato's City

Downey now looks at the soul as a whole from Plato’s perspective in The Republic. In The Republic Plato divides the city and the soul into three different parts: eros, thumos, and logos, all three of which Downey has now described in his previous chapters.

“Eros” is the desire to own.  To both be seen and not be seen as was discussed in the very first chapter.  This desire tells us what we want at the most basic level, and is also the cause of the fear to lose our status, reputation, etc.

“Thumos” is the desire for revenge against injustices done against us.  Injustices that we ourselves define.  This desire is silently guided by eros because we can only define injustice by the things we desire.  If someone takes something that we did not desire, then we are not alarmed by it.  Thumos leads humans to do unthinkable things in the desire to seek our own conceptions of justice.

“Logos” is the desire for knowledge.  Downey agrees with Plato in saying that the human soul, or in Plato’s case the city, is ordered imperfectly.  Logos is the only desire who’s fear leads it back to the desire.  In other words, if one fears that he does not have enough knowledge or the right knowledge, he simply seeks more of it.  If the soul is correctly ordered than it will allow logos to rule all other desires of the soul. Logos can check the desires of eros, and can reason when it is right to use our thumotic passion for the right kind of justice.

I actually do agree with this.  I believe that people often act on emotion and make decisions that they regret whether it be buying an outfit or marrying the wrong person.  If one stops and thinks, a lot of passion-driven decisions can be cut off before they are made.  However, I do have two problems with this.

The first is that, too much reliance on reason is just as detrimental as too much reliance on passion.  There are times when emotion and desire must trump reason.  Entrepreneurs or innovators are a good example of this.  These people often do what is unreasonable simply because they are doing what has never been done before.  Logos must be used to ensure that these decisions are being made for the correct reason, but there must also be a good portion of passion involved otherwise the person would not go for it at all, and we would still be lighting fire with rocks.

The second reason is that besides passion, reason must also be checked by faith.  I believe that sometimes God puts us into impossible situations simply to see how much we will trust Him to take care of us.  People miss out on incredible miracles by relying on their own fallible judgement.