Plato believed that the human soul was composed of three parts - reason, will, and appetite - which corresponded to the head, chest, and abdomen respectively. He also proposed that an ideal state would have three social classes determined by one's dominant soul attribute: philosophers who ruled with reason, auxiliaries with courage of will, and workers with temperate appetite. Further, Plato advocated for women's rights and believed that women were equally capable of reason and governance as men given the same opportunities.

1. Keian Amina and Emily Cossar
Sophie’S World preSentationS
Plato
Myth of the cave
When people see a shadow, they automatically think that there is something there
casting the shadow. If they do not recognise the shadow, they will often have a look
around to see what the shadow could be. Plato thought that everything in life was just a
shadow for something bigger. He believes that there is something hidden behind the
shadows of all natural aspects of life. The Myth of the Cave is a myth which can illustrate
the life of people who do not look beyond the shadows. The myth is about three prisoners
that were chained inside a cave in a way that all they could see was the back wall of the
cave. Behind them, was a fire emitting some light and between the prisoners and the fire,
there was a walkway. Everyday people would go across this walkway and the prisoners
could only see the shadows and hear the sounds that came with them. They were like this
since they were born, so the shadows were all they knew. In the myth, one of the
prisoners is freed and after having adjusted to the light, was able to see the real world. All
he was used to seeing was blurry colorless outlines of things passing behind him. Now he
could see everything so clearly with color and lots of details. He then runs back to the
cave to explain to rest of the prisoners about the real world and they don’t believe him.
The prisoners killed him in the end for trying to tell them about the real world because
they knew the shadows were all there was. Plato tried to use this myth to show a relation
between the natural word and the world or ideas. He believed that everything in the
natural world was just a blurry image in comparison to the clarity of ideas that lie behind

2. it. He also made a relation between the prisoner that was killed to Socrates who got killed
because he was going against everyone’s thoughts and beliefs and trying to lead them to
true insight.
Tripartite State
Plato believed that the human body was formed up of three sections; the head, the
chest and the abdomen. He than proposed that each section is associated to an aptitude of
the soul; reason belongs to the head; will to the chest; and appetite to the abdomen. In
addition, he further explained that each aptitude of the soul leads to an ideal or otherwise
known as “virtue”. With reason comes wisdom, with will comes courage, and with
appetite comes temperance. When the three parts of the body work in harmony with each
other, we get a virtuous individual. We must first learn to control our appetite, then
develop some courage to further thrive in life and finally reason leads to wisdom. Plato
then related the different parts of the human body to three social classes. The people with
the most reason and wisdom were the rulers (rationalist), those who were courageous
became auxiliaries or soldiers, and finally the people who had a lot of temperance were
the laborers or workers. According to Plato, a good state is a state that governed by
philosophers because they use their reason as their main source of knowledge which is
what makes them rationalists. To conclude, Plato supposed that a state governed by
philosophers would be an “ideal state”. It would be an imaginary flawless region with a
happy population. The tripartite state, is very similar to the Hindu caste system in India,
(caste: social group limited to persons of the same rank) which is a system of social
stratification, meaning the classification of a group of people into certain groups based on

3. their socioeconomic status. The concept of this system was that each person had a
particular function for the good of the whole group.
Men versus women
The great philosopher Plato had been known to be a feminist, meaning that he
advocated social and political rights for women. He thought that women could govern
just as well as men could because of the simple fact that a good ruler governs with their
reason. If women were given the same training and opportunities as men and weren’t
forced to stay and work at home they would have the exact same powers of reason and
common sense as men. The reason for this is that he believed that the body and mind
existed separately and were independent of each other, therefore if one is not affected by
the other the body (whether it’s a women or man) should not determine what the mind is
like. He also believed that for a state to be at its best it must educate and support women
as well as men. Plato compared a state that does not train women to a man that only trains
his right arm. Taking into account the time that he lived in, Plato had a very positive view
on women and their rights. In one of his dialogues called Symposium, he talks about a
wise woman his tutor Socrates meets named Diotima of Mantinea. She was a well known
prostitute in ancient Greece. Socrates came to her seeking sex however she ended up
teaching him and opening his eyes up to the concept of love.
Works Cited
Books:
Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy. New York:
The Berkeley Publishing Group, March 1996
Web Sites:

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<http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/plato/themes.html>
“Plato’s Tripartite Theory of Soul” Wikipedia 21 Feb. 2012. 15 Feb. 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_tripartite_theory_of_soul>
Symposium (plato). “Context” Wikipedia 9 Feb. 2012. 16 Feb. 2012.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symposium_%28Plato%29>
Tutor2u Admin. “Plato’s Body/Mind Distinction” tutor2u 27 Jan. 2009. 21 Feb. 2012.
<http://tutor2u.net/blog/index.php/religious-studies/comments/platos-body-soul-
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