Reason vs Passion: Comparing Aristotle and Plato
Introduction
It must be well known among all students and scholars of philosophy that both Plato and Aristotle have a high regard for reason. But what is their view on passion? It might be surprising to learn that neither philosopher holds a negative view of passion in and of itself—what both do, however, point out is that passion should be subservient to reason. Passion that is governed by reason is certainly not a bad thing, for either philosopher, and what is more important is that some passions or emotions should be promoted over others (Urmson; Taylor).
The problem that most moderns have when it comes to understanding what passion means is that they are defining the term according to all-or-nothing terms, applying a kind of either/or approach to the issue of whether one should live one’s life by using the head or the heart. Both Plato and Aristotle supported some degree of combination of usage—i.e., that head and heart should be in alignment in order for happiness to be achieved, and that both head and heart should be oriented towards the good. For moderns, influenced by the philosophy of the Romantic Era, the meaning of passion is associated with unrestrained feeling or with feeling (the heart) being the soul guide and arbiter of action. Understanding the ways in which Aristotle and Plato understood passion and emotion and how they associated it with reason is important then to understanding the nature of the relationship between reason and passion.
The Conflict
What Should Rule, the Head or Heart?
The conflict between whether the head or the heart should be the governing voice of action is one that has been particularly of concern in the modern era, as it was the Romantic Age that gave such support to the heart in response to the Enlightenment Age which advocated solely for Reason. It was the French Revolution, after all, that enshrined Reason and deified in a show of total submission to the concept that man need nothing more than logic. It is not surprising that humanity, sympathy, empathy and compassion were utterly absent during the Reign of Terror that followed. The Revolution showed that when man gives himself over wholly to Reason, neglecting the impulses of the heart, there can be an absolute horror that follows. The bloodletting that transpired during the Reign of Terror in Paris substantially bears this out.
At the same time, the Romantic Age went in the opposite direction, essentially deifying feeling and emotion as that which should guide life. Feelings so long as they were passionately felt, were all that mattered—and this in turn led to its own set of problems and horrors for the individuals who followed this line of thinking. Percy Bysshe Shelley, for example, left a string of deaths in his wake as he pursued the grand feelings and emotions he identified in his poetry. His wife, Mary Shelley, turned Percy’s pursuit of feeling into the basis of her gothic horror novel Frankenstein, which told of a man consumed by a passion, which in turn begets a monster who destroys the life and work of the man.
In both ages—the Enlightenment Age in which Reason was upheld above all else, and in the Romantic Age in which Passion was upheld above all else as the guiding force for life—unspeakable horrors resulted, indicating that the all-or-nothing approach to whether the head or heart should rule was too extreme. Neither Plato nor Aristotle advocated such an extreme approach to the question of what should rule, the head or the heart, reason or passion. On the contrary, each in his own way advocated for a balance, or at least an alignment between the two in which both were oriented towards the higher ideal of goodness. Though each philosopher differed in his approach to this balance in terms of how reason should be viewed (as an end in itself or as a tool to be applied to daily life), the essence of their perspectives was that reason should govern passion or that passion, at least, should be oriented towards reason.
Plato
The Importance of the Soul
To understand Plato’s approach to this question, it is necessary to understand his view of human nature. Plato believed that man had a soul and that the soul was what animated man in his entirety. The soul possessed qualities that were manifested in the man’s approach to life. The soul had knowledge written upon it, had impulses that could be driven by base desires, and had a spirit that could be described as good or bad depending on how close in proximity it was towards the Good.
John Cooper points out Plato’s depiction of the soul by explaining that the soul’s three, basic characteristics: “reason, spirit and appetite” (3). According to Plato, these three distinct parts may be independent of one another but they are actually meant to act harmoniously—“that is to say, there are desires of reason as well as bodily appetites and impulses of a spirited nature” (Cooper 5). By identifying the aspects of the soul in this way, Plato is not meaning to draw them into competition with one another but rather to show how they are all sides of human life—aspects of the human will and motivating force of life. Reason and passion (whether spiritual or physical) are not to be thought of as conflicting or contradictory because the point for Plato is that they can be mutually reinforcing. In other words, they can and should work together, and when they do just that, the human life achieves a harmonious balance—the type of balance that people are meant to enjoy.
Spirit
With that said, the opposite can also occur if one let’s feeling dominate or run amok. Plato gives some energy in describing the meaning of these two aspects of the soul and juxtaposing them with reason in order to show how they are in fact different. Taylor states that “the difference between…Reason vs Passion: Comparing Aristotle and Plato
Introduction
It must be well known among all students and scholars of philosophy that both Plato and Aristotle have a high regard for reason. But what is their view on passion? It might be surprising to learn that neither philosopher holds a negative view of passion in and of itself—what both do, however, point out is that passion should be subservient to reason. Passion that is governed by reason is certainly not a bad thing, for either philosopher, and what is more important is that some passions or emotions should be promoted over others (Urmson; Taylor).
The problem that most moderns have when it comes to understanding what passion means is that they are defining the term according to all-or-nothing terms, applying a kind of either/or approach to the issue of whether one should live one’s life by using the head or the heart. Both Plato and Aristotle supported some degree of combination of usage—i.e., that head and heart should be in alignment in order for happiness to be achieved, and that both head and heart should be oriented towards the good. For moderns, influenced by the philosophy of the Romantic Era, the meaning of passion is associated with unrestrained feeling or with feeling (the heart) being the soul guide and arbiter of action. Understanding the ways in which Aristotle and Plato understood passion and emotion and how they associated it with reason is important then to understanding the nature of the relationship between reason and passion.
The Conflict
What Should Rule, the Head or Heart?
The conflict between whether the head or the heart should be the governing voice of action is one that has been particularly of concern in the modern era, as it was the Romantic Age that gave such support to the heart in response to the Enlightenment Age which advocated solely for Reason. It was the French Revolution, after all, that enshrined Reason and deified in a show of total submission to the concept that man need nothing more than logic. It is not surprising that humanity, sympathy, empathy and compassion were utterly absent during the Reign of Terror that followed. The Revolution showed that when man gives himself over wholly to Reason, neglecting the impulses of the heart, there can be an absolute horror that follows. The bloodletting that transpired during the Reign of Terror in Paris substantially bears this out.
At the same time, the Romantic Age went in the opposite direction, essentially deifying feeling and emotion as that which should guide life. Feelings so long as they were passionately felt, were all that mattered—and this in turn led to its own set of problems and horrors for the individuals who followed this line of thinking. Percy Bysshe Shelley, for example, left a string of deaths in his wake as he pursued the grand feelings and emotions he identified in his poetry. His wife, Mary Shelley, turned Percy’s pursuit of feeling into the basis of her gothic…Reason vs Passion: Comparing Aristotle and Plato
Introduction
It must be well known among all students and scholars of philosophy that both Plato and Aristotle have a high regard for reason. But what is their view on passion? It might be surprising to learn that neither philosopher holds a negative view of passion in and of itself—what both do, however, point out is that passion should be subservient to reason. Passion that is governed by reason is certainly not a bad thing, for either philosopher, and what is more important is that some passions or emotions should be promoted over others (Urmson; Taylor).
The problem that most moderns have when it comes to understanding what passion means is that they are defining the term according to all-or-nothing terms, applying a kind of either/or approach to the issue of whether one should live one’s life by using the head or the heart. Both Plato and Aristotle supported some degree of combination of usage—i.e., that head and heart should be in alignment in order for happiness to be achieved, and that both head and heart should be oriented towards the good. For moderns, influenced by the philosophy of the Romantic Era, the meaning of passion is associated with unrestrained feeling or with feeling (the heart) being the soul guide and arbiter of action. Understanding the ways in which Aristotle and Plato understood passion and emotion and how they associated it with reason is important then to understanding the nature of the relationship between reason and passion.
The Conflict
What Should Rule, the Head or Heart?
The conflict between whether the head or the heart should be the governing voice of action is one that has been particularly of concern in the modern era, as it was the Romantic Age that gave such support to the heart in response to the Enlightenment Age which advocated solely for Reason. It was the French Revolution, after all, that enshrined Reason and deified in a show of total submission to the concept that man need nothing more than logic. It is not surprising that humanity, sympathy, empathy and compassion were utterly absent during the Reign of Terror that followed. The Revolution showed that when man gives himself over wholly to Reason, neglecting the impulses of the heart, there can be an absolute horror that follows. The bloodletting that transpired during the Reign of Terror in Paris substantially bears this out.
At the same time, the Romantic Age went in the opposite direction, essentially deifying feeling and emotion as that which should guide life. Feelings so long as they were passionately felt, were all that mattered—and this in turn led to its own set of problems and horrors for the individuals who followed this line of t.......and feelings and emotions he identified in his poetry. His wife, Mary Shelley, turned Percy’s pursuit of feeling into the basis of her gothic horror novel Frankenstein, which told of a man consumed by a passion, which in turn begets a monster who destroys the life and work of the man.
In both ages—the Enlightenment Age in which Reason was upheld above all else, and in the Romantic Age in which Passion was upheld above all else as the guiding force for life—unspeakable horrors resulted, indicating that the all-or-nothing approach to whether the head or heart should rule was too extreme. Neither Plato nor Aristotle advocated such an extreme approach to the question of what should rule, the head or the heart, reason or passion. On the contrary, each in his own way advocated for a balance, or at least an alignment between the two in which both were oriented towards the higher ideal of goodness. Though each philosopher differed in his approach to this balance in terms of how reason should be viewed (as an end in itself or as a tool to be applied to daily life), the essence of their perspectives was that reason should govern passion or that passion, at least, should be oriented towards reason.
Plato
The Importance of the Soul
To understand Plato’s approach to this question, it is necessary to understand his view of human nature. Plato believed that man had a soul and that the soul was what animated man in his entirety. The soul possessed qualities that were manifested in the man’s approach to life. The soul had knowledge written upon it, had impulses that could be driven by base desires, and had a spirit that could be described as good or bad depending on how close in proximity it was towards the Good.
John Cooper points out Plato’s depiction of the soul by explaining that the soul’s three, basic characteristics: “reason, spirit and appetite” (3). According to Plato, these three distinct parts may be independent of one another but they are actually meant to act harmoniously—“that is to say, there are desires of reason as well as bodily appetites and impulses of a spirited nature” (Cooper 5). By identifying the aspects of the soul in this way, Plato is not meaning to draw them into competition with one another but rather to show how they are all sides of human life—aspects of the human will and motivating force of life. Reason and passion (whether spiritual or physical) are not to be thought of as conflicting or contradictory because the point for Plato is that they can be mutually reinforcing. In other words, they can and should work together, and when they do just that, the human life achieves a harmonious balance—the type of balance that people are meant to enjoy.
Spirit
With that said, the opposite can also occur if one let’s feeling dominate or run amok. Plato gives some energy in describing the meaning of these two aspects of the soul and juxtaposing them with reason in order to show how they are in fact different. Taylor states that “the difference between the treatments of appetite and spirit (thumos) is instructive” (12). Spirit is not defined simply or in a manner that can be viewed as wholly good or wholly bad. It is rather like what like Aristotle describes as the overall character of a person. For Plato, it is not comprised of so neat a description but rather loosely defined by way of analogy.
For instance, Plato gives the example of Odysseus as the rational man who on occasion allows his spirited qualities to take possession of him. Using this example, Plato shows that “spirit is a complex form of motivation whose primitive form is anger, and whose conceptual core is a sense of self?worth which manifests itself in such emotions as pride, shame, and indignation” (Taylor 13). For spirit to be good, it has to be monitored and measured, for, “like bodily appetites, these emotions too can be recalcitrant to reason, as in the case of Odysseus, whose anger at the outrageous conduct of Penelope’s maidservants with the suitors threatens to carry him away and has to be checked by his better judgment (441b–c)” (Taylor 13). Spirit must be able to work with one’s “better judgment”—i.e., one’s reason in order to ensure that the Good is always made possible.
The simple fact that spirit is something that can be checked by reason shows that what Plato believed was precisely what has been asserted here: passion is part of the human experience and is not bad in and of itself as it is partly what serves as the motivating force of life—but it must be governed by reason, as reason is like the head. The head must govern the heart and master its emotions lest the emotions get the rest of the body into trouble, as surely would have been the case had Odysseus allowed his offended pride to take him of him in the heat of the moment.
As it was, Odysseus gained mastery of his emotions and then set about concocting a plot to ensnare the suitors and win back his home, as Plato shows. Passion thus served to motivate him—but reason was used to guide the passion and make it as productive as possible. Without the spirit and appetite qualities of the soul, Odysseus would have been like a disembodied head—all reason and no heart. But mankind has both head and heart, which, of course, is Plato’s point. The heart and the head must work in unison and one should not be trusted without
