Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-fbnjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:47:23.384Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - The cognition of appetite in Plato's Timaeus

from Part III - After the Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

Rachel Barney
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Tad Brennan
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Charles Brittain
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Get access

Summary

This chapter describes some of the cognitive accomplishments with which appetite in the Timaeus is credited. It addresses the question how the Timaeus can account for those accomplishments in terms of the cognitive resources that it ascribes to the mortal soul-parts. There is good reason to think that the Timaeus' version of tripartition allows and indeed requires communication between reason and the non-rational parts: reason can share information with spirit, and it can issue directives to both of the non-rational parts, which they may or may not obey. Plato can have the Philebus' images in the soul and the Timaeus' images on the liver's surface. The psychological theory that emerges takes reason and appetite to be closely integrated with one another. The thought processes of reason, the theory holds, tend to be accompanied by exercises of the sensory imagination which illustrate reason's accounts, assertions, and denials in a sensory mode.
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×