Latest / Mahon McCann / The Tripartite Psyche and Inner-conflict: Plato's Republic, Book 4

Transcript

The Tripartite Psyche and Inner-conflict: Plato's Republic, Book 4 · Mahon McCann

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is part four of a lecture series on Plato's Republic.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode,
• 0:04
  we're going to be discussing Plato's tripartite psyche and the
• 0:07
  four cardinal
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: virtues.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't seen the previous episode,
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: check it out and I'll link it in the description below.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Plato observes that we suffer a thing called inner conflict.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we have competing motivations.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, part of me wants to go out and hang out with my friends.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: The other part of me wants to write my essay that's due next week.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Since we can have this inner conflict,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: there must be different centers in the psyche,
• 0:28
  different parts of ourselves that want different things that
• 0:32
  can come into conflict
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: with each other.
• 0:34
  Plato proposes a tripartite model of the psyche in order to
• 0:38
  explain this inner conflict.
• 0:39
  This tripartite division comes up repeatedly in future theories
• 0:42
  like Freud's
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: theory,
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: the triune brain in the 90s,
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: the levels of the generative model and predictive processing,
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: particularly in the theory of motivation and control.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Plato is proposing the first theory of the psyche.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's basically starting the subject of psychology.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first part he discusses is the appetite.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The appetite is like a monster.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It desires things.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just wants food.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It wants drink.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: It makes things salient to us.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So they stand out against the world and call to us.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you're really hungry and you see some food, it's like glowing.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, whoa, this thing is just sucking me in like a tractor beam.
• 1:17
  And so Plato sees the appetite as working in terms of like
• 1:21
  immediate goals.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't want things in the future.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: It wants things right now.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it works in terms of pleasure and pain.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that would be nice to eat the food.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It'll feel good.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to go and exercise because it hurts.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Functions in terms of just pleasure and pain.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Approach and avoidance.
• 1:39
  You could probably root it in the neurocircuitry and the reward
• 1:41
  system of dopamine.
• 1:43
  It offers rewards for pursuit behavior and corresponding
• 1:46
  punishments for pursuing
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: things that aren't rewarding.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: The counterbalance of the appetite,
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: the highest layer of this tripartite psyche,
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: is the rational self.
• 1:54
  The rational self can inhibit or block desires based on
• 1:58
  long-term consequences.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: The rational self cares about truth and falsity, right and wrong.
• 2:04
  It's the human ability to set long-term abstract goals and
• 2:08
  trade off short-term
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: desires in order to achieve.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, to delay gratification.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So like, I want to eat the chocolate cake now because I'm really hungry.
• 2:17
  I can offset that with the rational self thinking,
• 2:20
  no,
• 2:20
  I want to be healthy.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And if I keep eating a chocolate cake, I'm going to have a heart attack.
• 2:25
  So as you can tell,
• 2:27
  the rational self is motivationally weak compared to the
• 2:30
  appetite.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: The appetite is stronger and has an advantage that it occurs first.
• 2:34
  Things become salient and then we rationally reflect on in
• 2:38
  order to change the motivation.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: The neural circuitry of this would be the prefrontal cortex.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The third part of Plato's psyche is absent from a lot of models.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about Aristotle's bipartite psyche,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: which is just that we're rational animals,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: you have the animal self in terms of the appetite,
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: and then the rational self is the human bit on top of it,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: the rider on the elephant,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: as it's often described in cognitive psychology.
• 2:59
  Plato adds a third part to this,
• 3:00
  which doesn't have a good translation in English.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's translated as spirit, sometimes as emotion.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: We'll just use the Greek term, which is thymos.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: He derives this spirit from...
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: the ability that anger overcomes desire.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you want something,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: but you can become angry and the anger actually overcomes the desire.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a more powerful motivation.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's correct in that in neural circuitry,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: anger and fear are in a different circuit to pleasure and pain.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he's picking up on something very real here.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thymos in this sense is a sociocultural part of the self.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's about other people.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about relationships.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's about social esteem and standing.
• 3:39
  It's concerned with honor,
• 3:41
  shame,
• 3:42
  anger,
• 3:42
  fear,
• 3:43
  cooperating,
• 3:44
  competing with other people.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Tymos sits between instant gratification and theoretical abstraction.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so it can focus on goals in the kind of midterm.
• 3:52
  If you think about it,
• 3:53
  like you can trade off pleasures and pains for social
• 3:57
  achievement.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's, this is what Plato is getting at.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: So example would be like,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: rather than avoiding the chocolate cake,
• 4:03
  I join an exercise group that motivates me to go and train
• 4:07
  instead of eating.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:10
  Thymos is concerned with the social pressure that can cause us
• 4:13
  to trade off
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: pleasures and pains.
• 4:15
  So as you can imagine,
• 4:15
  there's a lot of conflict between these three psyches.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: They all work by different normativities.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: The rational part is concerned with truth and falsity.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's concerned with right and wrong.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The appetite just wants pleasure and avoid pain,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: whereas thymos wants social esteem,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: reputation,
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: honor.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So they're motivated by totally different things,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: and they can easily come into conflict with each other.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The appetite wants the chocolate cake.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thymos wants to look good in the exercise class.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: The rational self wants to be healthy in the long run.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've got conflict.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the optimal relationship of these three parts?
• 4:51
  We can think about these parts of the tripartite psyche as
• 4:54
  optimized for different
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: time scales,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: from short-term salience to longer-term abstract goals.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the rational part can deal with the future,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: with what's coming down the line,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: whereas the appetite just wants short-term salience now.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And you can think about that they're all important.
• 5:09
  If you didn't have that short-term salience,
• 5:11
  you wouldn't drink water when you're thirsty.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't eat food when you're hungry.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: You would die.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is sometimes it comes ahead of us.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so you end up with these conflicts that go on.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And each layer of the psyche manifests as a kind of attention.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So conflicts between the layers manifest as divided attention.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You think about it like you're trying to focus on writing the essay.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you graduate from college and your attention is drawn to,
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: ordering pizza or something like that.
• 5:36
  It's like there's a conflict for each one to kind of control
• 5:39
  your attention.
• 5:40
  And this this situation of multiple attentions optimized for
• 5:43
  different time frames
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: leaves us with a coordination problem for adaptive behavior.
• 5:48
  If one lets the psyche simply run and doesn't do any effort to
• 5:51
  organize it,
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: the result is inner conflict.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And one,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: as John Verbeke puts it,
• 5:56
  becomes caught in patterns of self-deceptive and
• 5:59
  self-destructive behavior,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: which reduce agency and the ability to pursue goals,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: what's called foolishness.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And really foolishness is not a lack of knowledge, it's a lack of wisdom.
• 6:10
  It's a lack of ability to bind your salience to what is
• 6:14
  relevant to your long-term
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: projects of meaning and self-making.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: What's the optimal arrangement of these guys?
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And really this optimal arrangement is what Plato is calling justice.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's psychological integration or psychological unity.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the way Plato proposes that we align the psyche,
• 6:32
  which is that rational parts can abstract future goal states
• 6:35
  that change behavior
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: now.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So,
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm locked in on the chocolate cake,
• 6:40
  but if I can imagine the abstract future goal state of me with
• 6:44
  my six-pack abs
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: looking good that I want to get,
• 6:46
  that motivation can offset the salience of the chocolate cake
• 6:52
  so that I don't eat
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if these goal states are socially motivating...
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I get the six pack abs and,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: everybody on the beach is going to think,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: this guy looks great.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that's socially motivating.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then that in turn adds extra weight to the rational side.
• 7:08
  So you get the rational and the spirit together in order to
• 7:11
  train and tame the appetite.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Because the appetite is very powerful, but it's misguided.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: It can't aim at the long term good.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it needs to be trained accordingly.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: by your rational capacity.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And think about the word rational comes in the Greek ratio,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: which means proportionality,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: which is properly proportioning your attention to what's relevant,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: to what matters,
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: but then also the social circumstances.
• 7:32
  So social success has to be aimed at helping you align your
• 7:38
  appetite to the long-term good.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the result of this essentially is the ability to delay gratification.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: To set and achieve long-term productive goals,
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: which is part and parcel really of what we would call maturity.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Being a mature, fully functional adult.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: What happens if we don't get this?
• 7:54
  If this appetite salience machinery is disconnected from the
• 7:58
  concern about what's
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: good,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: what's true,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: we become fundamentally egocentric.
• 8:03
  We're just doing things that make us feel good,
• 8:06
  no matter the consequences.
• 8:08
  And when we're doing that,
• 8:09
  we're actually getting worse at training the appetite.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: The inner conflict creates a negative feedback loop.
• 8:15
  The basis of this obviously is addiction is this kind of
• 8:19
  reciprocal narrowing
• 8:20
  whereby you're pursuing one salient thing at the cost of all
• 8:23
  other salient things.
• 8:24
  And in turn,
• 8:25
  that's training your reward circuitry to tag that thing as
• 8:28
  particularly important.
• 8:31
  This is like a person who does say like a amphetamine or
• 8:34
  something like that,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: and then gets a massive reward from it.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so the brain says, okay, well, there's no bigger reward than this.
• 8:40
  So you need more of that and you do more and more and more of
• 8:43
  it and you gather
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: more of a tolerance.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you need more and more of it in order to feel the same effects.
• 8:48
  And gradually everything else becomes less relevant than that
• 8:51
  highly rewarding,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: reinforcing drug of choice.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a real risk for human beings that Plato's pointing out here,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: which is that because our appetite comes before all the other things,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: because we're driven by this,
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: pursue pleasure,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: avoid pain,
• 9:07
  we're very vulnerable to these kind of feedback cycles and
• 9:11
  getting stuck in them,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: which is what he defines as injustice,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: inharmony in the psyche,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: conflict between the parts of the psyche and the inner civil war.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the opposite is possible.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: what John Verveke calls reciprocal opening.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So as inner conflict goes down,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: the rational part and thymos get better at training the appetite.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So the appetite actually starts to desire the long-term things.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Naturally, it desires the healthier options.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's been trained well.
• 9:40
  Then we become less blinded by salience,
• 9:42
  less deceptive,
• 9:43
  less egocentric.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so we pick up on more real patterns in the world,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: which in turn we can use to train the appetite and the spirit even more,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: resulting in less inner conflict.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like the more inner harmony you get,
• 9:55
  the more you can use that inner harmony in order to train the
• 9:59
  whole psyche better
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: into connecting to what's real,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: what's valuable,
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: what's true.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is like the opposite of addiction.
• 10:05
  In the same way that addiction narrows the salience landscape
• 10:09
  just to one point,
• 10:10
  reciprocal opening is that you can start to take joy and
• 10:14
  pleasure from everything.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Reciprocal opening to all of the possibilities in your life.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this is essentially what Plato's whole ethics is pointing at.
• 10:23
  Really,
• 10:23
  his journey out of the cave that we'll meet in book seven is
• 10:26
  this...
• 10:27
  is a guide,
• 10:28
  a sense,
• 10:28
  a dramatic map to how to undergo this transformation.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So now we can return to justice.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Plato's account of justice is inner harmony.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the reduction of this inner conflict.
• 10:38
  So the rational part,
• 10:40
  the spirited part,
• 10:41
  and the appetite are all in alignment with each other.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they're connected together.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And because they're not self-deceptive,
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: blinded by salience,
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: you're actually more connected to reality.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Plato has what's called a virtue epistemology.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So as your inner conflict goes down,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: you're actually seeing more clearly into what's really real.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're not blinded by salience.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how we get in touch with reality.
• 11:04
  So injustice in the psyche,
• 11:06
  inner conflict leads to disconnection from reality.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see this with a person who's heavily addicted.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: They can't think about anything else.
• 11:14
  They're completely blinded by that addiction versus somebody
• 11:17
  who would be like a
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: sage or a saint is completely capable of dealing with whatever comes.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: They aren't fixated on this one, one pleasurable thing.
• 11:27
  So justice for Plato in this case is an intrinsic good in that
• 11:31
  it's intrinsically
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: desirable,
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: like health.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: You just want to be healthy for the sake of being healthy.
• 11:36
  But also it's consequentially good because the inner conflict
• 11:41
  leads to better outcomes for you.
• 11:43
  And if you remember the entire point of the Republic really is
• 11:45
  Socrates replying to
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: the argument of why it's better to be just than to be unjust.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: If injustice can benefit you,
• 11:54
  in so many ways,
• 11:55
  like raise your social status,
• 11:57
  make you more powerful,
• 11:58
  give you more money.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Why not just be unjust?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Plato is giving this account of the psyche to be like,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: no,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: if you are unjust,
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: you're going to imbalance your psyche.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You create inner conflict.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this in turn disconnects you from reality.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's real consequences of it, whether you get caught or not.
• 12:14
  If you think about the myth of Gyges that he talks about,
• 12:17
  the ring of Gyges,
• 12:19
  In that sense,
• 12:19
  Gyges is invisible,
• 12:21
  so he commits injustice because nobody can see him.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even if he's invisible,
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: he's going to suffer the consequences of inner conflict and imbalance and
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: disconnection from reality.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to become addicted, essentially.
• 12:33
  So this is a huge piece of Plato's argument for why justice is
• 12:38
  always better than
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: injustice,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: which we will continue in the next book.