Ancient Greece · c. 427–347 BCE
The conflict that arises within me is not failure, but a tug of war between three horses to become a better me.
Five complete deep essays
Have you ever held back even though you were so thirsty because you thought, 'If I drink the polluted water on the side of the road now, I'll get an upset stomach?' This is the moment when the instinctive impulse to ‘want to drink’ (desire) and the brakes to ‘not drink (reason)’ collide head-on in a person’s mind. Starting from this simple everyday experience, Plato proposed the Tripartite Soul, which states that 'the human soul is not a single mass but is made up of three different parts.'
The famous anecdote that Plato cites in Book 4 of the Republic is the story of ‘Leonthios.’ Leontius, a young man passing under the walls of the execution room, is violently conflicted between his curiosity to see the corpses strewn on the floor and his disgust that he should not see such terrible things. In the end, he ran to the corpse with his eyes wide open and said to his own eyes, 'Damn your eyes, look where you want!' And I yell at myself.
The crucial point that Plato noted here is that ‘he was angry about his own base desires.’ This anger and pride that scolds and shames desire is not a base instinct such as appetite or sexual desire, but a third force, or ‘Thymos,’ that stands on the side of reason and protects moral dignity.
Plato also surprisingly intuitively described where the three parts of the soul reside in our body.
'Reason', a cool-headed judge, lives in the highest place, 'Head' and loves wisdom. ‘Pride (pride, courage)’, a bodyguard who cannot tolerate injustice, takes up residence in the ‘chest’ where the heart beats and blood boils, and guards the commands of reason. And the primal 'desire' to eat, drink and rest is likened to an untamed beast chained to the 'belly and liver' side below the diaphragm.
When you are treated unfairly, your heart is pounding and your fists are clenched, these are physical signs that the bodyguard in your heart is boiling with a sense of justice after hearing the warnings of reason. Plato understood 2,300 years ago that emotions are not just floating ideas, but living, breathing, organic reactions directly linked to our body's blood flow and heartbeat.
The parable of the ‘winged chariot’ that appears in 『Phaedrus』 is the most beautiful and powerful philosophical fable in the history of Western civilization. Our soul is a carriage drawn by two horses. The subject who directs and controls is the wise ‘horseman (reason)’.
The horse on the right pulling the carriage is a ‘white horse’ with a straight neck, a sharp nose, and pure white fur. This horse knows honor, temperance, and shame, and obeys only the gentle voice of its driver. On the other hand, the horse on the left is a rough 'black horse (desire)' with a thick neck, shaggy hair, and running wild. The black horse must be controlled with a whip and a pitchfork, and when it sees sweet prey in front of it, it will try to drag the carriage to the edge of a cliff.
� The most important insight here: Plato didn't say 'throw the dark horse to death'! Without horses, a carriage is just a lump of scrap metal that cannot move forward even an inch. Emotions are the only driving force in our lives. When the wise coachman encourages the white horse and skillfully balances the black horse's harsh energy, the chariot of the soul soars high into the sky and offers a glimpse of eternal truth.
Many people misunderstand that ‘philosophy only worships cold, impersonal logic.’ However, Plato praised true love (Eros, Erōs) as the most holy ‘divine madness (Theia Mania)’ that leads humans to wisdom.
In the Feast, Socrates explains the ‘ladder of love’ by borrowing the words of the priestess Diotima. Love begins with a physical attraction that makes your heart flutter as you fall in love with the appearance of a beautiful person. But a mature soul does not stop there. We come to love the beautiful soul and character beyond appearances, and this sublimates into a noble passion that longs for a just system, wisdom, and the ultimate ‘beauty itself.’
In other words, for Plato, emotions are not weeds that need to be suppressed, dried up, and killed, but rather, they are a sacred flame that waters the wings that sprout in the soul and allows it to soar to a higher and sublime level.
Modern people often blame themselves by being trapped in the frame of ‘emotional person = immature and mentally weak person’. However, from Plato's perspective, the swirling emotions are proof that the two horses within me are alive and well and breathing.
The anger I feel at my boss's unfair treatment is evidence that my pride (white horse) is alive, and the laziness of wanting to lie down in bed and rest after work is also a natural instinct to maintain life (the black horse).
The problem is not the emotions themselves, but the driver (reason) being distracted by a smartphone or momentary stimulus and letting go of the reins. Don't hate the words inside me. Holding their hands, holding the reins tightly, and directing that mighty energy to the destination in life that I really want to reach—that is the true inner peace (Harmonia) that Plato taught me.