Summary

• Those who adopt a dualist approach claim that the soul exists independently of and is superior to the body
• There are two worlds:

  • the world in which we live, which is a world of appearances
  • the world of the Forms, which is the real world, eternal, perfect and changeless
• Forms= Plato's view that all things in the world of sense perception are particular instances of universal Forms
• Allegory of the cave:

  Metaphor about people being changed and unable to look beyond the shadows being cast on the wall from behind them. Being unable to move, they think the shadows are reality. This is because they have never experienced anything beyond the shadows.
• The soul is superior to and separate from the body and belongs to the world of the Forms
• The soul is eternal, which means that, unlike the body, it does not die
• The soul comes to earth and is imprisoned within a body
• At death, the soul escapes the body and returns to the world of the Forms, after which it is either born again into another body or remains to contemplate the Form of the Good
• Soul is divided into three parts:

  1. Rational: immortal, searches for the truth and keeps the other two aspects of the soul under control
  2. Spirited part (thumos): includes emotions and character traits
  3. Appetitive part: dies with the body and is concerned with the basic human drives for sex, food and drink
• The role of reason is to keep in check and in balance desires
• Thumos= the part of the soul that corresponds to emotions and desires and should be subject to the rational part