Tripartite and bipolar structure of the soul in Plato

Abstract

When Plato deals with the “affections and the forms which
she [the soul] takes in this present life” (Republic X, 612 A), he describes it under a tripartite scheme, as it appears also in the exposure of their genres in the Republic (IV, 437 B-441 C). In the Timaeus, in undertaking the longest route to expose the nature of the soul, Plato presents the Idea of cosmic soul as a mixture of three intermediate ideas coming from a bipolar principle. Just as the soul of the world, also the human soul has a hierarchical tripartite structure using the same bipolar principle that runs the reality. The article shows that these perspectives are not contradictory but complementary in the Platonic work.