Key Arguments

• Premise: 'the individual soul, like the State, has been divided ... into three principles'; each has corresponding pleasures, desires, and ruling powers.
• Appetitive is 'money-loving' and concerned with 'gain'; spirited is 'contentious or ambitious' set on rule, conquest, and fame; rational is 'lover of wisdom' and truth.
• Three classes of men—lovers of gain, honor, wisdom—each praises his own life’s pleasure and depreciates the others.
• Criterion for true judgment is 'experience and wisdom and reason,' not merely wealth or honor.
• The philosopher has 'double experience'—he necessarily knows the other pleasures, while money-lovers lack experience of 'the sweetness of learning and knowing truth'; honor-lovers know honor’s pleasure but not 'the knowledge of true being.'
• Only the philosopher possesses the judging faculty—'Reason'—as his proper instrument.
• Conclusion: 'pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest,' hence 'the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three' and the life ruled by it is the most pleasant.

Source Quotes

What is that? The second proof is derived from the nature of the soul: seeing that the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles, the division may, I think, furnish a new demonstration. Of what nature?

Of what nature? It seems to me that to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers. How do you mean? he said.

How do you mean? he said. There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money. That is true, he said.

True. Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious—would the term be suitable? Extremely suitable.

Far less. 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul? Certainly.

Yes. Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain? Exactly.

Well, but what ought to be the criterion? Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason? There cannot be a better, he said.

Again, has he greater experience of the pleasures of honour, or the lover of honour of the pleasures of wisdom? Nay, he said, all three are honoured in proportion as they attain their object; for the rich man and the brave man and the wise man alike have their crowd of admirers, and as they all receive honour they all have experience of the pleasures of honour; but the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only. His experience, then, will enable him to judge better than any one?

What faculty? Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest. Yes.

Clearly. But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges— The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life.

But since experience and wisdom and reason are the judges— The only inference possible, he replied, is that pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest. And so we arrive at the result, that the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three, and that he of us in whom this is the ruling principle has the pleasantest life.

Key Concepts

• the individual soul, like the State, has been divided by us into three principles
• to these three principles three pleasures correspond; also three desires and governing powers.
• There is one principle with which, as we were saying, a man learns, another with which he is angry; the third, having many forms, has no special name, but is denoted by the general term appetitive, from the extraordinary strength and vehemence of the desires of eating and drinking and the other sensual appetites which are the main elements of it; also money-loving, because such desires are generally satisfied by the help of money.
• Suppose we call it the contentious or ambitious—would the term be suitable?
• 'Lover of wisdom,' 'lover of knowledge,' are titles which we may fitly apply to that part of the soul?
• there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?
• Is any better than experience and wisdom and reason?
• the delight which is to be found in the knowledge of true being is known to the philosopher only.
• Reason, with whom, as we were saying, the decision ought to rest.
• pleasures which are approved by the lover of wisdom and reason are the truest.
• the pleasure of the intelligent part of the soul is the pleasantest of the three

Context

Socrates introduces a 'second proof' for ranking lives by tying pleasures to soul-parts and arguing epistemic authority of the philosopher’s judgment (Part 9).

Perspectives

Plato

Confirms the methodological link between psychology and value: rational rule validates both the truth-status and superiority of philosophical pleasure.

Socrates

Builds a cumulative case: tripartition → distinct pleasures → epistemic criterion → philosopher’s comprehensive experience → rational pleasure as truest and best.