Plato’s Social Psychology

Plato divides the human psyche into three parts. I explain the interpretation of this trisection which I favour: that he is distinguishing types of motivation, and that he attributes to us aims and feelings as essentially social beings. What I call his ‘social psychology’ is his use of this idea. I examine three uses he makes of it: in his depiction of different types of society and different types of individual in the Republic, in his definition of statesmanship in the Statesman, and in his educational proposals. And I compare what he says sympathetically with what is said by later thinkers and widely held today.

Social psychology is defined by G W Allport as ‘the scientific study of how people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours are influenced by the actual, imagined or implied presence of others.’ (Allport 1985) Plato has plenty to say about this, but he also thought that there is a social element in the individual psyche, something not recognised either by modern psychology or by modern economics. This appears in his writing under the name to thumoeides, a phrase often translated ‘the spirited part’. It is one of the three parts into which he divides the soul, the others being ‘the calculating’ (logistikon) and the ‘desiring’ (epithumêtikon). Plato’s trisection has been much discussed in recent times, but the discussion has centred on Republic 4 where it is introduced, and on the two questions ‘What does it mean?’ – that is, ‘What are these parts? What is the principle of division?’ - and ‘Is it defensible?’ I must try to make clear the interpretation I favour, but shall be concerned principally with the use of the doctrine in Republic 8-9 and in Plato’s teaching on statesmanship and on education. These uses have received little attention from critical readers – chiefly, perhaps, because they have either failed to grasp the notion of a social element in the psyche, or thought it fanciful.