PKU4 HUMAN NATURE 1 Plato on Human Nature
Plato on Human Nature
Introduction:
Plato (428?-348? BCE) was one of the most influential Western thinkers of all time.
Here he explains how he sees human nature. and the diseases (literally, “not at ease”) to
which it is subject.
The physical qualities Plato evokes, such as dry and moist, light and heavy, sound
as if they have considerable overlap with terms used in early Chinese thinking about the
relation of disease to the larger universe. But one should be cautious, because Chinese
holistic concepts and Western ideas based on binary distinctions rarely coincide either
in their presumptions or in their implications [link: four elements vs. five phases]. It is typical of
Western thinking, however, that once the psychĕ is perceived as divided into parts,
these parts act in opposition to each other. For a definition of psychĕ as particular to the
Greeks, see below [link: text]
Note that chariots are used for warfare: choosing a chariot for one’s principal
metaphor is vastly different from the Yellow Emperor’s attitude toward nature. The
Westerner focuses on an instrument of domination whereas the Chinese sage wants to
open up to natural energy forces.
Plato’s analysis of intangible diseases (of the psychĕ), such as madness and
lovesickness, represents the beginnings of what would eventually grow into Western
psychology [link: the 19th-century emergence of psychology].
First Text:
How Diseases Originate
Now everyone can see whence diseases arise. There are four natures (“elements”) out
of which the body is compacted, earth and fire and water and air, and the unnatural
excess or defect of these, or the change of any of them from its own natural place into
another, or – since there are more kinds than one of fire and of the other elements – the
assumption by any of these of a wrong kind, or any similar irregularity, produces
disorders and diseases; for when any of them is produced or changed in a manner
contrary to nature, the parts which were previously cool grow warm, and those which
were dry become moist, and the light become heavy, and the heavy light; all sorts of
changes occur. . . .
Such is the manner in which diseases of the body arise; the disorders of the psychĕ
which depend upon the body, originate as follows. We must acknowledge disease of the
mind to be a want of intelligence; and of this there are two kinds; to wit, madness and
ignorance. In whatever state a man experiences either of them, that state may be called
disease; and excessive pains and pleasures are justly to be regarded as the greatest
diseases to which the soul is liable. For a man who is in great joy or in great pain, in his
unseasonable eagerness to attain the one and to avoid the other, is not able to see or to
hear anything rightly; but he is mad, and is at the time utterly incapable of any
participation in reason.
[Source: Plato, Timaeus, translated by Benjamin Jowett, slightly modernized,
http://www.textfiles.com/etext/AUTHORS/PLATO/plato-timaeus-360.txt, 070531.]
Study questions:
1. In the first paragraph, Plato mentions all sorts of “changes” that may occur, all of
which seem to be associated with diseases. What is it about change that he finds so
threatening?
2. Early in the second paragraph, Plato ties disorders of the psychĕ to “lack of
intelligence.” What does he mean? Do you agree or disagree? Why or why not?
3. Plato here gives some instances of body affecting “psychĕ.” Does he also seem to
believe that “psychĕ” can affect the body? In what ways, if any, would his views be
compatible with Chinese thinking with its emphasis on heart-mind (xin)?
Second text:
The Human Charioteer
Of the nature of the psychĕ . . . let me speak briefly, and in a figure (a metaphor). And
let the figure be composite – a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged
horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but
those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his (horses) in a pair; and
one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed;
and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him. . . .
I divided each psychĕ into three – two horses and a charioteer; and one of the
horses was good and the other bad. . . . The right-hand horse is upright and cleanly
made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline (eagle-like) nose; 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. The
other is a crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he
is flat-faced and of a dark color, with gray eyes and blood-red complexion; the mate of
insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur.
Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed
through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, the obedient steed,
then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved;
but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs
away, giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces
to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly
oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; but at last, when
he persists in plaguing them, they yield and agree to do as he bids them.
[Source: Plato, Phaedrus, translated by Benjamin Jowett, slightly modernized.
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/p/plato/p71phs/phaedrus.html, 070531]
Study questions:
1. Notice the disposition of the horses (good to right, bad to left) and their colors (good is
white, bad is “dark”). To what extent does the Chinese tradition use the same or
different correlations with colors and sidedness?
2. Why does Plato depict the appeal of “love” so negatively? What is Plato’s implicit
understanding of “love”? What is “the government of shame”? Does the unruly horse
always have to win when it comes to desire?
Excerpt from Western Civilization with Chinese Comparisons, 3rd ed.
(Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2010), 199-201.