Plato’s Concept of the Self

Plato’s concept of the self can be gleaned from his notion of the soul. This is because, and it must be noted from the outset, we cannot find in Plato a full articulation of the concept of the “self”.

In fact, in ancient Greek philosophy, we could not find any systematic articulation of the concept of self. What we can find when we study the ancient Greek’s conception of the self are questions like “What is the fundamental truth about human nature?” or “What defines the fundamental identity of an individual?”. These questions, however, give us an idea of how the ancient Greek philosophers understood the “self”, that is, as human persons capable of reason and action. And if one is quite familiar with ancient Greek philosophy, these aspects of the human person (that is, the capacity to think and act) point to the idea of the “soul”.

Again, this explains why we always refer to the soul when we study Plato’s concept of the self. As a matter of fact, in many of his dialogues, Plato contends that the true self of the human person is the “rational soul”, that is, the reason or the intellect that constitutes the person’s soul, and which is separable from the body.

So, how does Plato conceive of the soul as the true self of humans?

Plato conceives of the self as a knower. Hence, for Plato, the concepts of the self and knowledge are inextricably linked. This is because Plato’s concept of the self is practically constructed on the basis of his reflections on the nature of the rational soul as the highest form of cognition.

But it must be noted that for Plato, the human person is composed of body and soul. In other words, the human person is a dichotomy of body and soul. The body is the material and destructible part of the human person, while the soul is the immaterial and indestructible part. Plato argues that the soul is really an entity distinct from the body. Indeed, for Plato, the soul is the self.

As we can see, the body and the soul can be separated. In fact, Plato believes that the soul is just residing in the body temporarily. Thus, in Plato’s concept of the self, we have the idea that when the human person dies, the soul departs from the body leaving the latter to decompose. And because the soul is immaterial and indestructible, it cannot die. It is eternal.

According to Plato, the soul, conceived of as self, has three parts, namely: 

1) the rational soul, 

2) the spiritual soul, and 

3) the appetitive soul

For Plato, the rational soul is located in the head. Being located in the head, the rational soul enables the human person to think, reflect, analyze, and do other cognitive functions.

The spiritual soul, on the other hand, is located in the chest. It enables the person to experience happiness, joy, sadness, abomination, anger, and other emotional feelings.

Lastly, the appetitive soul is located in the abdomen. This is the part of the soul that drives the human person to experience physical pain, hunger, thirst, and other physical wants.

Now, according to Plato, the rational soul is superior to the spiritual soul and appetitive soul as it serves as their moral and rational guide.

In the Allegory of the Chariot, which Plato developed in his work Phaedrus, Plato illustrated the role of the rational soul as the charioteer. The charioteer’s role is to drive his horses onward and upward, keeping his team working together in harmony towards the realm of the gods, a place of illumination, reality and truth.

As narrated in the Phaedrus, the chariot is pulled by two winged horses, one mortal and the other immortal.

On the one hand, the mortal horse is deformed and obstinate. Plato describes it as a “crooked lumbering animal, of a dark color, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur”.

On the other hand, the immortal horse is noble and game, “upright and cleanly made…his color is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honor and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only”.

In the driver’s seat is the charioteer whose task is to control both horses, guiding and harnessing them to propel the chariot with speed and efficiency. Plato says that the destination of the charioteer is the ridge of heaven, beyond which he may behold the “Forms”, that is, the essences of things like Beauty, Wisdom, Courage, Justice, and Goodness.

Now, the white horse wishes to rise and reach the destination, but the dark horse pulls the chariot back towards the earth. They pull in opposite directions. As we can see, the two horses are very different and they struggled against each other. For this reason, the task of the charioteer is difficult and troublesome. But if the charioteer wishes to reach his destination, then he must harmonize the two horses by controlling them.

In relation to the self, Plato shows that the black and white horses represent desire and spirit respectively, while the charioteer represents the person’s reason or the rational soul. And as the rational soul, the charioteer must have a vision and purpose. He must know where he is heading. And he must know and understand the nature of the two horses if he wishes to properly harness the chariot and reach his destination.

The rational soul as the true self, therefore, must at all times control the spiritual and appetitive soul. And according to Plato, if the rational soul is successful in controlling the spiritual and appetitive souls, that is, if the charioteer is able to harmonize the two horses, a well-balanced personality is attained. Indeed, this is, in a nutshell, how Plato views the true self.