PLATO: (427-347BC)

The nature of man is seen in the metaphysical dichotomy between the body and soul.

The body is material; it cannot live and move apart from the soul; it is mutable and destructible.

The soul is immaterial; it can exist apart from the body; it is immutable and indestructible.

Plato contends that the soul is a substance because it exists and can exist independently of the body; nevertheless, it is temporarily incarcerated in the body. What leads Plato to say this is his conviction that the soul existed prior to the body. Plato concludes that man is a soul using a body.

Plato believes that virtue is knowledge and the source of knowledge is virtue. It is not abstract but concrete knowledge, not theoretical but practical knowledge. Man must know what is good so that he may do so. Plato elaborated this by illustrating the four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage or fortitude, temperance and justice.

Man is a knower and a possessor of an immortality of the soul. Plato believes that the body dies and disintegrates. The soul continuous to live forever after the death of the body. The soul migrates to the realm of the pure forms.

1.

2.

3.

Rational part located in the head, specifically in the brain. This enables man to think, to reflect and to draw conclusions and to analyze. Appetitive part located in the abdomen. It drives man to experience thirst, hunger, and other physical wants. Spiritual part located in the chest. It makes man assert and experience abomination and anger.

Plato believed that the rational part of the soul is the most important and the highest. For Plato, is it the rational part that specifically distinguishes man from the brutes. Man can control his appetite and selfassertion of spirit through Reason. For example, when a person is hungry and yet, he does not eat the available food because he knows or doubts that it has poison.

Plato

contends that there is something in the mind of the person that leads him to crave for food and another thing that prohibits him from eating the poisoned food. The principle which drives the person to eat the food is what he calls Appetite while the principle which forbids the person to eat the available food because it is poisoned is Reason. Reason for Plato controls both Spirit and Appetite. When this happens man will have a wellbalanced personality.

 Man

is a rational animal. Unlike his master Plato, Aristotle maintains that there is no dichotomy between mans body and mans soul. Body and soul are in a state of unity. In this unity, the soul acts as the perfect or full realization of the body while the body is a material entity which has a potentiality for life.

Per se, the body has no life. It can only possess life when it is united with the soul. In this regard, Aristotle speaks of man as a single essence composed of body and soul (as mans matter and form principles). Mans body matter and mans soul form. That is why he speaks of soul as the bodys perfect realization because form for him is the perfect realization of matter.

Man as a rational animal

He is not the center of the universe. The focal point is the cosmos. Man is only a part of the universe. Aristotle believed that mans actions and endeavors are motivated by the possession of the good. There are many goods. For Aristotle, the very goal of human life is happiness.

Kinds of soul
Vegetative soul plants possess this. It feeds itself, it grows and it reproduces. 2. Sensitive soul exists in animals. It feeds itself, it grows, it reproduces and it has feelings (particularly pain and
1. 3.

pleasure because it has a nervous system).

Rational soul exists only in man. It assumes the functions of the vegetative and sensitive souls. It is capable of thinking, reasoning, and willing. Man is higher than the brutes, animals and plants. Man is capable of thinking and judging.