ABSTRACT
The idea that the human psyche has structure goes back to Plato. In the Republic, Socrates argues that we should think of the human psyche – or soul – as composed of three distinct parts.1 Appetite consists of elemental desires for food, sex and other bodily pleasures. Spirit (or thumos) is what we would today call a narcissistic component: it seeks honor, recognition, the love and admiration of others.2 Finally, reason is that part of the psyche which desires truth. Freud’s division of the psyche into id, ego and superego does not precisely match this one. But what matters to us now is the method of division. Socrates divides the psyche not on the basis of some mystical intuition, but by observing people in their ordinary lives.
