Apollonian/Dionysian Distinction and Plato's Tripartite Soul

[Anonymous No.20760301]

Is there a fruitful relationship between Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy and Plato's tripartite soul? I feel like there might be, but it's not clear cut.
>Dionysian-->epithymia/eros + thumos... think a cyclical interplay between mother worship and frenzied violence
>Apollonian-->thumos + logos... think willful self-denial for a greater payoff in the future, like an evolutionary force
What it doesn't explain is how the Apollonian aspect of the soul eventually degrades into decadence. Maybe because without a payoff, without rewarding the lower parts of the soul, the rest of the personality rebels, throwing off their shackles and giving up on evolution?

I personally would have a hard time explaining how Apollonian societies, in absence of the Dionysian, reduce themselves to a safe pursuit of pleasure. Pleasure always seems Dionysius-oriented, like what we're going through today. What are your thoughts?

[Anonymous No.20760326]

>>20760301
>When estoteric fags take good philosophy and reduce it to absurdity.

[Anonymous No.20760354]

>>20760326
There's no distinction between good philosophy and esotericism. Every philosopher worth their salt was an esotericist. Here's a 110 page appendix so you can be irrecoverably BTFO forever
https://press.uchicago.edu/sites/melzer/melzer_appendix.pdf

[Anonymous No.20760404]

>>20760301
No the triparite soul is a trichotomy, related to the three gunas, rajas, tamas, and sattva, and respectively

>The sattvic and rajasic aspects of tama-pradhana-prakriti together produce the subtle body in both their macrocosmic and microcosmic aspects.

>The sattvic aspect of tama-pradhana-prakriti produces the five jnanendriyas (perceptive organs), manas (mind), buddhi (intellect), citta (memory), and ahamkara (ego).

>The rajasic aspect of tama-pradhana-prakriti produces the five karmendriyas (active organs) and the five pranas (physiological systems).

>The tamasic aspect of tama-pradhana-prakriti produces the gross elements and, thus, accounts for both the body of the apparent individual and the entire array of physical forms obtaining within the manifest universe.

The three drives or powers correspond to the three shaktis of the trimurti respectively, what is called carnal desire on you image there is incorrect, rather power is Desire,
And the three powers of the trimurti are Knowledge, Action, Desire,
Or Wisdom, Strength, Beauty, etc. Or in whatever other form,
Now since that has been clearly established, we know that each of the powers correspond to a shakti which is the soul of Deity, in this case Zeus, Poseidon and Hades,

Zeus is Logistikon and his Shakti is Aphrodite,
Lakshmī is the Shakti of Vishnu; Sarasvatī or Vāch is that of Brahmā; Pārvatī is that of Shiva.
Wisdom is Sarasvatī, Strength is Pārvatī, and Beauty is Lakshmī,
We therefore can see that Sarasvatī is equivalent to Aphrodite, whose consort is Brahma/Zeus,
Epithumetikon, would then correspond to Lakshmī and Vishnu,
Thumetikon, to Pārvatī and Shiva,

Of course I am not saying it is so, but something similar could follow.

[Anonymous No.20760406]

>>20760404
*rather carnal desire the power of epithumetikon listed there is Desire.

[Anonymous No.20760411]

>>20760406
well this is taken from the Republic, which has a bit of a "depleted" tripartite soul. in other dialogues like Phaedrus, epithymia is replaced by eros, which is obviously more general for desire than mere carnal desires.

[Anonymous No.20760418]

>>20760301
Nietzsche was an atheist who made up the Dionysian ideology to pass hedonism as legitimate to his atheist rat audience

[Anonymous No.20760423]

>>20760411
>in other dialogues like Phaedrus, epithymia is replaced by eros, which is obviously more general for desire than mere carnal desires.
That is only natural. And of course there would have been many different interpretations, schools or whatever, all are equally valid, the gunas are the most natural parralel, in fact its the same concept obviously of some primordial origin.

[Anonymous No.20760436]

>>20760418
Nietzsche's critique of Apollonianism was that it eventually degenerates into nihilistic hedonism

[Anonymous No.20760611]

>>20760436
Modern discipline is subservient to hedonistic goals like achieving mental peace. Asceticism is mostly practiced in the service of something like that. The "Apollonian" aspects we do have still serve "Dionysus". Neither inherently degenerates but as it is we're not heading anywhere we want to be, feeding a degenerative process.

[Anonymous No.20760644]

>>20760611
Where should we be heading then?

[Anonymous No.20760668]

>>20760644
Somewhere productive/creative instead of degenerative. Creation is the expression of will and the only imperative passed down to us from before time.
For creativity you need a stable base to experiment from, everything can't be experimental or there is nothing to build on and no progress will be made to create anything.

[Anonymous No.20760712]

>>20760668
The most creative areas in history all had two or more stable entities meeting in a place of chaos. The creative process feeds on the blood of both and kills them in the end. There is something to be said about limiting the rate at which the process consumes but the old dying is ultimately unavoidable. This will happen on all levels so everything you love and work so hard for will ultimately serve an entity you barely understand or relate to.

[Anonymous No.20760720]

>>20760668
Sounds like something that will sort itself out in time. Everything becomes experimental, which exhausts the grounds of experimentation, after becoming exhausted it stabilizes, creating a stable ground for a new creative impulse to begin experimenting.

[Anonymous No.20760744]

>>20760301
Reason - The Holy Ghost
Spirit - The Father
Appetite - The Son

[Anonymous No.20760750]

>>20760720
Yep but living through it may not be pleasant or helpful for you individually. If you get too caught up in it you might wake up from the hysteria to a realization that you cut your own dick off for example.
On an individual or familial level the same principles apply so the conservative and safe answer is to find a golden balance for yourself independent of the wider chaos. Create your own small scale, local creative process.
That balanced conservative guy won't be the guy that leads us to the next level though. Being that guy is completely reasonable but he's the tight rope walker the clown jumps over.

[Anonymous No.20760867]

>>20760436
It seems that the Anglo world is the prime example of this. From the Enlightenment and Victorian era to Deanos and Norf bellies.

[Anonymous No.20760915]

>>20760867
Englishmen are really 3-4 different races crudely shuffled together under the facade of being one people for national expediency. I don't deny that England isn't what it once was, but you can fairly easily pick out the Saxons from the Normans from the Britons to this day in most cases.

[Anonymous No.20760955]

>>20760867
A focus on individualism from vikangz like expressed in the Norman traditions that lead to slavery being abolished. It works when your primary concerns are things like taming the land on an individual level and progressing but not when the main concerns are about building productive civilizations with common goals. There the Chinese rule.
I don't think slavery is productive but that's not the reason it was abolished. Anglos used their ideal of the sacred individual to do it. The "will" of the Norf belly is sacred despite being degenerate and purely based in sin.
The will of the lowest, no matter how scummy they are being sacred and ultimately the highest authority under democracy gives manipulators of plebs all the power and the real will is theirs.

[Anonymous No.20761015]

>>20760867
Yeah but isn't just saying that strict Apollonian morality eventually returns to Dionysian morality, like a kind of pendulum? Or is there more nuance to it, in the sense that the Dionysian impulses are always there, but they themselves lose vitality. And once the Apollonian edifice crumbles, often because the driving purpose is gone, the lesser Dionysian impulses are all that remains. In that case, Apollonian drives are never truly "bad" or never fully detached from Dionysian drives, but they need consistent heights to shoot for, meaning to find, or else the Apollonian impulse will fall apart.

[Anonymous No.20761078]

>>20760744
>Spirit
>not the Spirit

[Anonymous No.20761086]

>>20760744
I'd switch the Holy Spirit and the Son around.

[Anonymous No.20761122]

>>20761015
Organisms need opposition or they degrade. Everything that distinguishes us from flatworms is there to fight. If the fight is completely removed we degrade in a trend heading lower than flatworms.
If part of the fight is removed the organism degrades until a new kind of adversity is revealed that's a result of the degradation. Often the new threat is something they can't deal with at all so they die out like commonly happens when you introduce a new prey species to an empty island with not predators. The threat there is basically overpopulation. There isn't an absolute rule that the pendulum swings back, sometimes everything just dies.

[Anonymous No.20761172]

>>20760744
Reason - Holy Ghost - The mind - Apollo - The Bible - Logos
Spirit - The Father - The heavens - Creation/Zeus - Ideas external to the mind, math - Telos
Appetite - The Son - The earth - Dionysus - The physical brain - Pathos

[Anonymous No.20761247]

>>20761172
Is
Ought
Want

[Anonymous No.20761250]

>>20760744
>>20761172
sell me on why Eros matches with the Son and not the Holy Spirit

[Anonymous No.20761302]

>>20761250
The Son is the earthly representation of the triune God. He even had a dick presumably, no matter how holy that dick was.
Eros, emotion and all that are part of the earthly domain but the mind itself is not physical. All the emotions serve physical aims, they physically evolved but the ability for physical things to perceive is somehow fundamental to reality, it's the third plane of existence. Even if you don't get what I'm referencing you can also transcend the physically evolved impulses through reason using the mind which creates a categorical separation between the earthly beast and the holy man.

[Anonymous No.20761329]

>>20761302
Fascinating. I think I'm being sold on it. But here is a little bit of a counterfactual. It makes sense that the Father is associated with the spirited part of the soul. But why is the spirited part of the soul the "intermediate" part of the soul, given that it is the creator? Why must the cycle see the spirit "fall" to the appetite before the appetite "rises" to reason? I hope that is enough exposition to make sense.

Finally, how would you associate Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva together with the Holy Trinity, if possible?

[Anonymous No.20761403]

>>20761329
>Why must the cycle see the spirit "fall" to the appetite before the appetite "rises" to reason?
We start life as flesh. I'm not sure I get what you mean but there aren't many attempts made to explain the reason for the fall. We the united God/Brahma or whatever just apparently decided to see what it would be like if we weren't omnipotent. You can say "why didn't God just think of the consequences first in his mind before trying it for real?" but that may be exactly what you're experiencing right now.
I guess Brahma would be the Father, Vishnu the Holy Ghost and Shiva the Son. Jesus as a destroyer of worlds is interesting, both in the productive sense and the purely destructive. He ultimately did destroy a lot of stuff that's not unreasonable to feel regret for. The earthly plane is the only one where things get destroyed at all. The mind is eternal like the Father, only the flesh burns.

[Anonymous No.20761487]

>>20761403
I would have associated Christ with Vishnu and the Holy Spirit with Shiva. Christ came to deliver the promise of eternal life, and the appetite, when balanced, preserves us and allows life to flourish. The Holy Spirit polarizes the world, driving history and ultimately destroying evil.

[Anonymous No.20761782]

>>20761487
I enjoy this stuff basically whatever way you go with it and obviously these are all very interconnected ideas. The best poetry has a million layers of interpretation but also some core thing being discussed in all those layers. Some Hebrew scholar on youtube told me original Hebrew was constructed specifically for this purpose and we can barely scratch the surface of the original layers.
>deliver the promise
But the Son itself as earthly flesh died, the words, actions and spirit are what lasted not the physicality. The promise was the Word/Logos/meaning/reason which was delivered by the Word embodied in flesh but the flesh itself is not the eternal Word, it just embodies it in actions and words. When we use the word Christ we're usually talking about the physical man instead of the Word but Christ didn't live for the flesh, he lived to embody the Word which is not physical. As man or example for men Christ devoted his life entirely to higher ideals based on reason or at least communicated using reason as demonstrated when he argues based on scripture. The flesh points to reason and meaning which points to God.
>eternal life
Demonstrating through action how to operate the flesh as a vehicle points to the eternal life that you already had access to but the flesh always dies.
The appetite and life flourishing etc are all ideas bound to the earth. The mind can flourish independently of material flourishing.
"Evil" won't be destroyed until the earth/physical reality is and the final battle ends in the cliche about forgiving your enemies, cycles repeat. The fall wasn't reversed it was redeemed, it's not an error and God is in the trenches with you. The rules didn't really change. If you step on snek you'll get bitten in the process. Live by the sword, die by the sword. The difference is the redemption, the soldier can know what he is, see both the evil inside and the parts that won't be burned. There is no need for guilt or sacrifices to atone for the evil but there are good reasons to try to follow the path that lasts and transcend the evil/fall/death.

[Anonymous No.20761845]

>>20761487
I don't know Hindu stuff well. I'm just going by associations from what I've read here and there.
I associate Shiva with transformation which is very physical, it's within the realm of time and space while Brahma is very heavenly and Vishnu I associate with spirits and demons. As I see it that fits the idea of the three planes of existence, earth, heaven, mind.

[Anonymous No.20762006]

>>20761782
Same!
>>20761845
Honestly, the more I try to translate the trimurti to the Holy Trinity, the more I feel like every person of the Holy Trinity could play the role of creator, preserver, or destroyer. So it's rather indeterminate, and all our interpretations are correct.

[Anonymous No.20762105]

Simply look at paranoiacs, at overly catious people whose planning and concern turn out fruitless time and time again, if not even explicitly harmfull. What was before a moving force in the acqusition of the original goal turns on itself and becomes harmfull to its own pursuit.
The Apollonian rations his meals more and more as time goes by awestruck by initial sucess, he contends himself with breadcrumbs when enough time passes, unwilling to venture a full meal, unwilling to die, and so he at once remains in a state of unyielding malnutrition. Eventually he even forgets what satiation even is. He dooms himself to a poor life, the rich and fruitfull life is inconcieveable and incomprehendable to him and so he truly becomes a decadant, stuck between life and death until the spiral breaks, usually by death.

[Anonymous No.20762145]

>>20762105
I am a classic overgrown Apollonian lol. It's a pussified mentality. How the hell are Apollonian cults supposed to be "Indo-European warrior spirit", I have no idea.

[Anonymous No.20762195]

>>20761172
>>20760744

Yea putting the Holy Ghost above the Father shows that you dont know your Trinity.
Please don't respond to my post, for I have already left the thread

[Anonymous No.20762250]

>>20762105
>>20762145

The Apollonian element shines in leadership, warfare, natural disasters or other external threats. Anything which requires strict social order and collective action. Excessive individual competition can lead to it becoming a pathology. And a loss of moral beliefs in the public or political legitimacy in government leads to violent mob behavior which also endangers the Apollonian tendency. It's good when society is well structured, bad when it's falling apart (up until it is finally needed again). Horus castrates Set and rules, until Set recovers and blinds Horus, and this exchange occurs over and over again endlessly

[Anonymous No.20762251]

>>20762195
Don't be a retard. The reason why he did that was because he was pointing out a relationship with Plato's conception of the soul. And Plato's conception of the soul has the hierarchy of logos, thumos, and eros in that order.

You could have contributed something valuable, either in showing how Plato's theory of the soul errs in its understanding of psychology, or how it proves that thumos (which bears right opinion and the courage to prove it) may be most essential to faith, how the counterparts of Plato's soul should be re-ordered, or whatever it may suit you.

But you didn't. Because you're obnoxious.

[Anonymous No.20762302]

>>20762195
In relation to the pyramid Plato presents which is about social hierarchy the mind is highest. I would say that's because reason is how we organize approaching God, we have to go through the mind as a group. The warrior caste is pure action which is how God the Father operates.
Everything is contained in and rests on the Father so in that sense he is the body instead of the head despite being the highest. The parts that touch the earth are the feet. The mind is the link between the two.

[Anonymous No.20762331]

>>20762302
well, if you think about it, it's hard to apply the hierarchical structure of the tripartite city to God. remember, it's also a metaphor for the soul as well. God is omniscient (logos), omnipotent (thumos), AND omnibenevolent (eros). And one can make the argument that "maxing out" one part of the soul necessarily maxes out everything else. For how can somebody be omnipotent without being omniscient, how can somebody be omniscient without being omnibenevolent, etc. They are simply multiple faces of the same Good, making them equal partners.

However, I also know that trinitarian Christianity tends to emphasize the ordinal nature of the Holy Trinity: (1) the father; (2) the son; and (3) the Holy Spirit. So, if we assigned the father to thumos correctly, does that suggest that thumos has a special role to play in the heart of the Christian?

[Anonymous No.20762394]

>>20762331
Logos Is Mind
Thumos Ought Qualia
Eros Want Brain

There are many associations between "qualia" or whatever you call it with God the Father, Schuon the hipster perennialist thinks that way. I have heard supposed Buddhists claim that the real meaning of reincarnation is that the qualia is universal, shared by everyone. I've heard supposed Orthodox Christians say that's the meaning of "image of God". We're basically experiencing the perspective of God as embodied in limited vessels.
The mind is different, it's the logic that could be replicated in computers. The brain is yet another thing, it's the specific physical implementation of your mind.

[Anonymous No.20762483]

>>20760744
Holy shit shut the fuck up christcuck

[Anonymous No.20762538]

The older cultures of warriors are also the actual fathers of the later cultures where intellectuals take power.
The reversal is described in the story of Jacob and Esau. The older brother is blessed by God without effort, a fully formed hunter/warrior that everything comes easily to without need for intermediary steps.
The younger brother needs to wrestle with God and his limitations but after the wrestling he can harvest even more blessings. Reason takes the place of revelation.

[Anonymous No.20762978]

>>20762538
>intellectuals take power.
this is a bad thing. just look at our society. do we need to go back in time?

[Anonymous No.20763067]

>Appetite (Plato) / The Power (God The Father) / The Will to Power (Schopenhauer & Nietzsche)
Precedes
>Spirit (Plato) / The Glory (The Holy Ghost/Spirit)
Bring Forth
>Reason (Plato) / The Kingdom/The Logos/The Word of God (The Son)

[Anonymous No.20763080]

>>20762978
The intellectuals just need to lift more and ride horses in space or something. You're making the classic mistake of the spoiled prince. Resenting the good father that built your house because his successes spoiled you. The spoiled prince has more options, more power over the world. When the goal is expanding that power you can't resent that you've been given too much. The fact that you're a little bitch that can't handle power is the real problem. It's the very real and immediate problem we all have.

[Anonymous No.20763094]

>>20760326
It's a damn shame to see.

[Anonymous No.20763171]

>>20763094
Imagine being this shamelessly retarded while appealing to shame.

[Anonymous No.20763452]

An entire thread talking about the tripartite souls of the Republic and Phaedrus, even using the correct Greek words, and no one describes anything like what Plato ascribes to any part or their relations, either ideally or in the myriad worse cases. Astounding, take a bow all.

[Anonymous No.20763494]

>>20763452
An entire post saying nothing instead of spending as many words hinting to what the important missing piece of the puzzle is.

[Anonymous No.20763918]

>>20763452
we probably used the wrong Greeks words anon. I know for a fact that the Republic doesn't use logos, but rather uses logistikon or some shit like that. so, way to pseud it up with your bullshit flex.

[Anonymous No.20764352]

>>20763918
>we probably used the wrong Greeks words anon. I know for a fact that the Republic doesn't use logos, but rather uses logistikon
Literally fourth post fag
>>20760404
>Zeus is Logistikon

>>20763494
>posts that compare 3 things to other 3 things are helpful, because any 3 things are all 3 things, thank god for perennialism where you never need an argument proving anything

[Anonymous No.20764378]

>>20764352
The premise of the thread is about trying to relate abstract ideas together, it's harder to relate Nietzsche to Plato than Plato to Christianity. Pairs often reflect some kind of forces in opposition and triplets often seem to relate to the three planes of reality that are all needed to account for our experience.

[Anonymous No.20764411]

>>20764378
Sure, but there's a difference between making a comparison and working out whether it's apt based on what an author actually says, and flinging shit at the wall, yes? Epithumia is a part of soul that needs dried out to keep it from overgrowing, a comparison with any part of the trinity suggests that part is a source of vice, nor is it true that logistikon = nous, since logistikon is narrow calculation and not thinking in narrow and broad senses, etc. These comparisons are pointless if it's just at the level of "match 3 things with 3 things".

[Anonymous No.20764632]

>>20764411
I read the Republic in my own language when I was young and none of it stuck. Later I found got more out of exploring ideas like this speculatively and then returning to texts with clear questions.
Vice is earthly, through the common relation to the three planes it relates to the Son who came to earth more than the other parts of the Trinity.
The distinctions between the other two parts are less clear. The obvious way to relate it as pictured to the three planes is to place the head/reason as the mind but that puts God/Zeus in the mind instead of the heavens.

[Anonymous No.20764788]

>>20764632
If you'd like to actually work out the comparisons/relations, that's a conversation worth having.

An immediate difficulty would be preserving the specific relations of each part, both for the trinity, and the tripartite soul. From the perspective of the Bible (or, given how contentious understanding the trinity can be, at least *a possible* perspective of the Bible), the Father is a cause of creation, the revealer of law, and the judge of the dead; the spirit seems to be that by which the Father acts; the Son is somehow the Father in a human body, mortal and subject to sin. Now, with that observation on the Son, we can also go further and see identification of Spirit with the Father and with the Son (if, in fact, Spirit is that by which creation is made, then the Son, by the opening of John, seems to also somehow be identified with the Spirit.

In the Republic, there's Logistikon, Thumos (sometimes Thumoedes), and Epithymia. Logistikon is sometimes translated as "reason", but "calculation" is more accurate, it's an arithmetical term. Thumos is translated accurately as "spirit", but also means "anger, indignation", hence why in the Republic it's so often related to the attitude of warriors, love of hono, and love of victory. Epithymia can be accurately translated as "desire", but is less broad than Eros, it's much more like "appetites" that need to be satisfied. (In Phaedrus, the three parts are the parts of a chariot: the rider, who is explicitly identified with Nous, "mind", the black horse, which is explicitly Eros, and the white horse, which, oddly, doesn't really get a specific designation. It shares a love of honor with Thumos, but it's defining feature is moderation, which Thumos has to be tamed toward in the Republic, so it's much less determined there.)

In the Republic, initially Logistikon and Epithymia are split, ostensibly because Logistikon is means-oriented, and Epithymia is ends-oriented. Thumos is then split from both sides, and the Leontius story is told to justify the split between Thumos and Epithymia. The tendency is to rank them from high to low as Logistikon, Thumos, Epithymia, but it becomes clear that Thumos is the real driver of the soul. It'd be hard to argue that as in the trinity, either Logistikon or Thumos are causes of the other parts; you could maybe say that Logistikon is responsible for developing laws, but it seems to rely on Thumos to do that (which corresponds with the Father working through the Spirit?). The identification of the Son with appetite is hard because sin is broader than an appetitive attitude, pride or the desire to be a god, for example aren't the same as "much thirst, much hunger, much sex" with Epithymia. The other problem there is that while the Son, because a mortal body, is susceptible to the temptation of appetites, vices, sin, the Son doesn't necessarily fall prey to any of those; the Son is still distinct from all men by being God instantiated.

[Anonymous No.20764809]

>>20760301
>tfw Freud just ripped off Plato
Damn what a hack

[Anonymous No.20764850]

>>20760301
Nietzsche's Dionysian became his will to power idea later in his life, which consumed the Apollonian as well for him. So the question should really be how does will to power match up with Plato.

[Anonymous No.20764920]

>>20764788
>In the Republic, there's Logistikon, Thumos (sometimes Thumoedes), and Epithymia. Logistikon is sometimes translated as "reason", but "calculation" is more accurate, it's an arithmetical term. Thumos is translated accurately as "spirit", but also means "anger, indignation", hence why in the Republic it's so often related to the attitude of warriors, love of hono, and love of victory. Epithymia can be accurately translated as "desire", but is less broad than Eros, it's much more like "appetites" that need to be satisfied. (In Phaedrus, the three parts are the parts of a chariot: the rider, who is explicitly identified with Nous, "mind", the black horse, which is explicitly Eros, and the white horse, which, oddly, doesn't really get a specific designation. It shares a love of honor with Thumos, but it's defining feature is moderation, which Thumos has to be tamed toward in the Republic, so it's much less determined there.)
Isn't it interesting that, in The Republic, two parts of the soul, nous and eros, are given "depleted" forms, logistikon and epithymia, while thumos remains in full force? I think it suggests something important about the nature of thumos. Perhaps thumos is truly in charge of the soul.

[Anonymous No.20764923]

>>20764850
The comparison there (with lots of qualifications) might be that Eros is to Plato what Will to Power is to Nietzsche.

[Anonymous No.20764935]

>>20764920
Oh, it's totally fascinating. There's hints that the reason the soul comes to light the way it does is because of Thunos operating in the background the whole time, and that it might be because of Thumos specificaly that Eros is reduced to an appetite.

(There's a very good study of the Republic by the classicist Seth Benardete that looks closely at that, but he's very hard to read himself. His student Ronna Burger has a very accessible essay on it called something like The Thumotic and Erotic Soul: https://www.academia.edu/49275327/The_Thumotic_and_the_Erotic_Soul_Seth_Benardete_on_Platonic_Psychology))

[Anonymous No.20764936]

>>20764788

>In the Republic, there's Logistikon, Thumos (sometimes Thumoedes), and Epithymia. Logistikon is sometimes translated as "reason", but "calculation" is more accurate, it's an arithmetical term. Thumos is translated accurately as "spirit", but also means "anger, indignation", hence why in the Republic it's so often related to the attitude of warriors, love of hono, and love of victory. Epithymia can be accurately translated as "desire", but is less broad than Eros, it's much more like "appetites" that need to be satisfied. (In Phaedrus, the three parts are the parts of a chariot: the rider, who is explicitly identified with Nous, "mind", the black horse, which is explicitly Eros, and the white horse, which, oddly, doesn't really get a specific designation. It shares a love of honor with Thumos, but it's defining feature is moderation, which Thumos has to be tamed toward in the Republic, so it's much less determined there.)
Isn't it interesting that, in The Republic, two parts of the soul, nous and eros, are given "depleted" forms, logistikon and epithymia, while thumos remains in full force? I think it suggests something important about the nature of thumos. That immediately suggests to me that thumos is truly in charge of the soul, at least in a practical sense. You point that out later. But is still striking that nous, thumos, and eros are all present in Phaedrus, and nous clearly is supposed to dominate there (and gains additional functions... I'm immediately reminded of Neoplatonism with nous instead of mere calculation). What do you think about that?
>The identification of the Son with appetite is hard because sin is broader than an appetitive attitude, pride or the desire to be a god, for example aren't the same as "much thirst, much hunger, much sex" with Epithymia. The other problem there is that while the Son, because a mortal body, is susceptible to the temptation of appetites, vices, sin, the Son doesn't necessarily fall prey to any of those; the Son is still distinct from all men by being God instantiated.
Suppose you identified the Son with eros, especially after climbing Diotima's ladder and gaining knowledge of the form of Beauty. How does that change everything?

[Anonymous No.20764942]

>>20764809
Plotinus as well, with him having a similar idea to the unconscious; Hobbes also says something similar in regards to the psyche and has similar views on dreams.

[Anonymous No.20764944]

>>20764850
>>20764923
I always associated the will to power with thumos exclusively. But Apollonian is thumos allied with logistikon while Dionysian is thumos allied with epithymia. Will to power can be expressed in all kinds of ways. Even the philosophers had a will to power despite categorically leaning against the Dionysian spirit.

[Anonymous No.20764974]

>>20764936
>But is still striking that nous, thumos, and eros are all present in Phaedrus, and nous clearly is supposed to dominate there (and gains additional functions... I'm immediately reminded of Neoplatonism with nous instead of mere calculation). What do you think about that?
Hmm, I'm hard pressed to say. Nous in Phaedrus is responsible for seeing the hyperuranians and directing the chariot to ascend to them, but it seems to share something then with Eros, since Socrates at some point in the myth points out that the black horse's running to the beloved is an indirect way of seeing the Beautiful (which is highlighted as one of the hyperuranians that we have access to outside of that realm). But that makes the relationship between Nous and Eros a bit confusing. Nous is identified with gathering the many visions into one idea, which is better than Logistikon. But I always get stuck with Socrates' discussion of Nous in Philebus, where it also seems somehow destructive.

>Suppose you identified the Son with eros, especially after climbing Diotima's ladder and gaining knowledge of the form of Beauty. How does that change everything?
I think if you modulate the tripartite soul so that Epithymia is replaced by Eros, the comparison works much better, allowing for both noble and base desires, both of appetites and the non-appetitive.

[Anonymous No.20764979]

>>20764935
It's funny how Fukuyama today is advocating that thumos ought to be almost totally eradicated then. It's virtually impossible to have civic virtue in a Last Man democracy, to say nothing of their ability of their soul to ascend in other ways.
>that it might be because of Thumos specificaly that Eros is reduced to an appetite.
What does it mean for an entire part of the soul to be "reduced"? If nous is reduced to logistikon, what happens? If Eros is reduced to appetite, what happens?

[Anonymous No.20764986]

>>20764979
I also notice that I can't recall thumos ever being "reduced" to a lesser form in any Socratic Dialogue.

[Anonymous No.20765002]

>>20764944
With Will to Power, I think of some sporadic passages where Nietzsche seems to suggest both that it's the "instinct of instincts" and what nature in general does, and in that I thinkbof the passage about Eros between the genealogy and the ladder of love where Diotima talks about Eros in animals and poets. Maybe the really hard question is how Eros and Thumos relate in Plato. Eros is obviously in the erotic dialogues (Symposium, Phaedrus, but also Lysis), while Thumos is most obvious in Republic and Gorgias (possibly also the Laws and any dialogues focused on sophists?) One area that might be interesting to consider is the short dialogue Rival Lovers where both Eros and Thumos seem to come into play.

[Anonymous No.20765025]

>>20764979
>What does it mean for an entire part of the soul to be "reduced"? If nous is reduced to logistikon, what happens? If Eros is reduced to appetite, what happens?
A very simple answer: the Republic!

To say more, it seems that Thumos has more in it that "reasons" and "desires", but because it's whole attitude is contesting, it denies any of it of itself. The Leontius story in the Republic is interesting here, because the corpses that Leontius wants to look at, ostensibly because of Epithymia, are the corpses of the justly executed, and that sounds much more like Thumos in denial about what its attitude result in than Epithymia, since Thumos would be the part of soul demanding justice and the execution of the unjust.

[Anonymous No.20765053]

>>20765002
>Maybe the really hard question is how Eros and Thumos relate in Plato.
They're in conflict when it comes to The Republic, with epithymia and thumos battling against each other in Leontius. Overall, the entire dialogue seems to be a struggle to overcome the perfect vision of the Good, the perfect order, etc., from falling apart due to the forces of corrupted epithymia. It begins with the perfect education, the eradication of lesser things, etc., but it only takes one swerve before aristocracy begins to evolve into timocracy, and then the city is off to the races with the devolution of the regime.
>To say more, it seems that Thumos has more in it that "reasons" and "desires", but because it's whole attitude is contesting, it denies any of it of itself. The Leontius story in the Republic is interesting here, because the corpses that Leontius wants to look at, ostensibly because of Epithymia, are the corpses of the justly executed, and that sounds much more like Thumos in denial about what its attitude result in than Epithymia, since Thumos would be the part of soul demanding justice and the execution of the Epithymia.
I always wondered why Leontius was so disgusted with himself for merely being curious. Unless there was something more at stake. Thumos wanted justice, dignity, composure, etc. and did not care for unpleasant things. Epithymia was curious and eventually undermined thumos. Or... eventually convinced thumos to look. Was thumos more than simply justice-loving, but also bloodthirsty too?

[Anonymous No.20765134]

>>20765053
>I always wondered why Leontius was so disgusted with himself for merely being curious. Unless there was something more at stake. Thumos wanted justice, dignity, composure, etc. and did not care for unpleasant things. Epithymia was curious and eventually undermined thumos. Or... eventually convinced thumos to look. Was thumos more than simply justice-loving, but also bloodthirsty too?
Honestly, I take it that Epithymia only has an ostensive role in the Leontius story, meant to make it easier to accept the split between it and Thumos while actually pointing to Thumos. I think the disgust has to do with the Beautiful there, and maybe that's an area where Eros and Thumos can be investigated. The Beautiful for Eros can be both Beautiful in the aesthetic sense, but also in the sense of the morally Beautiful, while perhaps Thumos only looks to the morally Beautiful. The disgust seems to be located in how Thumos wants to take Justice; it wants to identify the Just with the Beautiful, but the punishment of Justice is ugly. Thumos definitely has bloodlust to it insofar as it loves Justice and victory, but Thumos also seems to be that part of soul most concerned with opinions, insofar as it's honor loving, and so concerned about reputation. But that might also be what makes it valuable; Eros wants to get beyond opinion or seeming fame for immortality or what's actually Good and true, but Socrates in the Phaedo, in his little autobiography, talks about his second sailing as investigating the beings through opinion. I guess you could argue that without opinion as a starting point, Eros just spirals into something absurd, if it doesn't have the constraint of opinions to investigate the truth of.

[Anonymous No.20765149]

>>20765134
Maybe another way to put it, re: Thumos and the Beauty of Justice, is that even when punishment is "right", something about it still doesn't seem "right" to Thumos.

[Anonymous No.20765196]

>>20765053
>>20765134
>>20765149
And part of the hint here about Epithymia and Thumos is that the word for Thumos is already in the word Epithymia; Thumos and appetite aren't perfectly separable the way the Leontius story wants to have it.

[Anonymous No.20765201]

>>20765134
>Honestly, I take it that Epithymia only has an ostensive role in the Leontius story, meant to make it easier to accept the split between it and Thumos while actually pointing to Thumos. I think the disgust has to do with the Beautiful there, and maybe that's an area where Eros and Thumos can be investigated.
Disgust for the dead bodies? Or disgust for the people who were executed? It could just be that simple. Why does epithymia even want to look at something like that? Growing accustomed to the sight of dead bodies, or even desiring them, is not something you want to condition the appetitive part of the soul towards. If meting out justice was so ugly, then why is it always praised, especially in the best of cases like, idk, a defensive war?
>I guess you could argue that without opinion as a starting point, Eros just spirals into something absurd, if it doesn't have the constraint of opinions to investigate the truth of.
That's interesting. Could you expand a little bit further there?
>>20765196
Honestly? I would have called it prothymia. Why the hell is it called epithymia?

[Anonymous No.20765914]

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[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20765919]

>>20760301
>Is there a fruitful relationship between Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy and Plato's tripartite soul?

Yes —they are resolved in the Athenian aspect, obviously.


The gift of the cultivation of wisdom is prognosis of season/s; the reward of the farmer's revolution is his harvest.

[Anonymous No.20765935]

>>20765919
>Yes —they are resolved in the Athenian aspect, obviously.
What do you mean by this?

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766045]

>>20765935


The Athenian aspect is characterized by optimal vision, thus, by being the highest aspect, it represents the vertical equilibration of the other two aspects.

[Anonymous No.20766062]

>>20766045
What are the other two aspects that you refer to? Why do you call it Athenian? Also, why do my threads keep attracting you kek.

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766081]

>>20766062
>What are the other two aspects that you refer to?


The Dionysian, and the Apollonian, ones...

[Anonymous No.20766091]

>>20766081
My question is whether Apollonian and Dionysian aspects can be broken down even further into their constituent parts, as I posited in the OP.

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766214]

>>20766091


1. That is not what you posited in the original post.

2. "Broken down" to what end? there is a difference between unsettlement/deductional splitting —as would be the case in a schizopathic Dionysian(/)Apollonian society—, and resettlement/surgical splitting —as would be the case in an autistic society—: the former tends toward disintegration, whilst the latter tends toward Athenian integration —via prudent renovation/adjustment of a vertically innovated equilibrium.

3. Not all pleasure must be perverse.

[Anonymous No.20766252]

>>20766214
>1. That is not what you posited in the original post.
I apologize if there's any lack of clarity. But I asked if there was a relationship Plato's tripartite soul and Nietzsche's Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy. So, I wanted to break down Nietzsche's concepts into Plato's concepts. Then I offered my own attempt at a breakdown, where I thought Apollonian was logos + thumos and Dionysian was thumos + eros.
>2. Broken down" to what end?
For understanding. Suppose Nietzsche is right in that the Apollonian and Dionysian drives are in conflict and also self-destructive. How can that be reconciled? Perhaps the Platonic understanding of the soul can give us some insight into this problem.

[Anonymous No.20766379]

>>20765201
>Disgust for the dead bodies? Or disgust for the people who were executed? It could just be that simple. Why does epithymia even want to look at something like that?
I think disgust over the needfulness of dead bodies sometimes being an end product of Justice. We want Justice to be simply Beautiful and, as such, noble, but it's hard to argue that corpses are a noble end product.

With Epithymia, I don't think it desires to see corpses, because while "much sight" could *maybe* be speciously argued to be an appetite, "much sight of x" is already excluded from analysis, because "much thirst" Socrates argues is indifferent to whatever object might quench that thirst, and so a desire to see corpses wouldn't be coherent with Epithymia.

>Why the hell is it called epithymia?
Peculiarity of how the Greeks formed words? The literal meaning does seem to be something like "by Thumos".

[Anonymous No.20766417]

>>20766379
>With Epithymia, I don't think it desires to see corpses,
So what is being desired then, and what would it satisfy? There is still an oppositional conflict going on between thumos and epithymia, which thumos eventually loses.
>Peculiarity of how the Greeks formed words? The literal meaning does seem to be something like "by Thumos".
What if it's rational? What if they're describing the very nature of the soul? I often look towards etymology to find clarity in philosophical terms, especially in ancient ones. Heidegger alerted me to that heuristic.

I think it's really interesting and highly unexamined that, in The Republic, thumos stands out above everything else, as the other parts of the soul are reduced to merely auxiliary parts. Imagine a dialogue where nous stands out or eros stands out, with the other corresponding parts reduced to auxiliary parts. Or Phaedrus where they're all standing on their own two feet in their greatest form.

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766446]

>>20766252


The Apollonian aspect, by itself, lacks the theotical vision of the Athenian aspect which is necessary to optimally actuallize logos, hence the conflict.

In terms of Plato's tripartite scheme, the Athenian aspect constitutes the theotical synthesis between the other three parts of the soul.

[Anonymous No.20766452]

>>20766446
So is the Apollonian aspect only thumos? But what makes it separate from the Dionysian aspect then?

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766490]

>>20766452
>So is the Apollonian aspect only thumos?

No; logos also pertains to it, but not necessarily theos.

[Anonymous No.20766521]

>>20766490
Hmmm, interesting. So one might say that it's a calculative logos that's involved in the Apollonian spirit maybe. Like logistikon. Thumos takes on a vision of order, albeit imperfect, and harnesses the power of logos for those means. Logos isn't fully ascended in this state. And eros is probably left aside, completely neglected, maybe even feeling betrayed.

I really like your images anon, especially this one here: >>20766045 Is this based on the kabbalah and the tree of life?

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766654]

>>20766521
>Thumos takes on a vision of order, albeit imperfect, and harnesses the power of logos for those means. Logos isn't fully ascended in this state.

Rather: when it overponderates in one, one harnesses the power of bios, and may consciously, or unconsciously, but cordiologically, move in concord with logos, attaining its revolutionary pattern, until one may realize that the theotic aspect is necessary to move higher.


>Is this based on the kabbalah and the tree of life?

No.

[Anonymous No.20766672]

>>20766654
> No.
Really? What is it based on then?

[Anonymous No.20766673]

>>20760326
fpbp

[× I V R I V S × !!GgBWHLRiayD No.20766704]

>>20766672


On a double terminated emerald/polygonal onyx.

[Anonymous No.20766764]

>>20766417
>So what is being desired then, and what would it satisfy? There is still an oppositional conflict going on between thumos and epithymia, which thumos eventually loses.
I think I'm not quite being as clear as I coul, but I don't think there's tension between Thumos and Epithymia, because I don't think they're actually separable except as Thumos demands out of shamefulness.

[Anonymous No.20766815]

>>20766764
Wait, that’s a bold claim. Let’s run with it. Then what is sublimation of appetite then? What is pride? What is spiritedness? How does shame arise? What about logistikon and thumos?

Also, how does the political side of the city-soul analogy work, then? If guardians and workers are really the same? If epithymia is truly in charge, then why is it (and the workers) given a diminutive treatment in The Republic?

[Anonymous No.20766910]

>>20761172
>>20760744
John 1 you fucking larpers

[Anonymous No.20766934]

>>20766910
Is addressed many times in the discussion you mindless shithead. The physical flesh is not the Logos. The flesh embodies the Logos like Paul later says the church can embody it.

[Anonymous No.20767211]

>>20766934
fuck you, i'll continue not to read the rest of this thread just to spite you.

[Anonymous No.20767505]

>>20767211
nobody cares. mald more white boi

[Anonymous No.20768180]

>>20767505
cope

[Anonymous No.20768804]

>>20766764
I've been thinking about this insight earlier. And, bear with me here, I can see where you're coming from, if you're willing to entertain some Scholastic commentary. In his commentary on Aristotle, St. Aquinas resurrects "epithymia" and "thumos" (despite not having access to the requisite works of Plato) by reinterpreting Aristotle through the lens of "concupiscible" and "irascible" forces respectively. He then relegates them under the category of sense appetites and notices that they are also tightly linked. And, of course, through intellect, the appetites can be made "rational" (will) and ascend to greater heights, similar to how thumos allies with logistikon or how eros can climb Diotima's ladder. If you want a well-produced primer and have the time, check out the following videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_t7nW6MZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnpycBrUB3U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIEmOFkggjQ
It's fascinating to see Platonic resonance (obviously through the echoes of Aristotle and Neoplatonism) over 1500 years later, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.20769173]

bump

[Anonymous No.20769215]

>>20768804
Here's an even better summary of the passions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opFDXRIiu_Q
I wonder if one main difference between epithymia and thumos is thinking about time, with the former being instantaneous grasping of goods at any given moment, and the latter being projected into the future. Thumos's restraining action on epithymia related to the ability of thumos to project a certain doxa into the future.

[Anonymous No.20770147]

>>20766815
>>20768804
>>20769215
I think you may be right about the temporal dimension of Thumos as being capable of considering the future; that would go some way to explaining why honor is something Thumos is after, since honor is something to seek for in the future (when you don't have it) and to maintain perpetually (when you do).

The Aquinas parallels are great, and remind me to look into the role of Thumos (which I think appears primarily as Thumoedes in Aristotle; interestingly, while Thumos is common in Homer, it had largely been replaced by Thumoedes in Plato's time, and Thumos itself was reserved for horses) in Aristotle, which I haven't really explored at all.

To attempt to address your earlier questions, I'd wonder if honor itself is a kind of sublimation of baser concrete appetites (and it points to why I think the hint in Republic is that Thumos and Epithymia aren't as separable as presented, because Thumos desires things; this is tied to Glaucon's challenge to the city of pigs, he doesn't just wat foods but fancier foods with relishes and nice couches to sit on while he eats them, and nice tables for them to be placed on; i.e. he wants a kind of ritual, and if the desire for food indifferent to what kind of food is a trait of Epithymia, it's a trait of Thumos to want a kind of food, and this shows that Thumos, as opposed to how it wants to present itself, desires things.).

With Logistikon, I think they get tied together through Thrasymachus, but to say more, first a seeming tangent.

If you look at the three speakers of Book I, they all look like precursors of a sort of the three parts of soul, Cephalus = Logistikon (he spends his time wondering if he has debts to pay off in order to have a good afterlife; his name means "head"), Polemarchus = Thumos (his definition of Justice is benefitting friends and harming enemies; his name means "war leader"), and the temptation is to say that Thrasymachus = Epithymia (he praises getting what one wants; his name means "bold/brash in battle), but as with the soul analysis, here's where it falls apart, because Cephalus is concerned with an afterlife punishment, which Logistikon is indifferent to, and he lacks appetites not because of reasoning but because he's old; Polemarchus is immediately fascinated and open to Socrates' arguments (it's said in Phaedrus that he made a turn to philosophy, so while he seems to stand in for Thumos, he might actually be Erotic); and Thrasymachus seems to be responsible for the tying together of Thumos and math throughout the diaogue by his demand that Socrates "speak precisely". That he's not simply appetite is already confirmed by Socrates' own narration during the argument; he wants to win a victory and gain honors in front of an audience.

So while it's still a bit mysterious to me why it should be so, it seems clear to me that Thumos is responsible for the reduction or transformation of Logos and Nous into Logistikon.

[Anonymous No.20770170]

>>20770147
To add to that last bit, consider the relation of Thumos to math (Logistikon being a mathematical term) this way: the mathematicians' arguments are also seeking honors of a kind, and might be just as well prompted by wanting to win victory over another (consider how we talk about anons arguing autistically here).

[Anonymous No.20770569]

>>20760354
Fantastic contribution. Posts like yours are why I still come to this board. Bless.

[Anonymous No.20770603]

>>20770147
Does nous have a desirous dimension, then?

[Anonymous No.20770629]

>>20760301
angloids be like:
>I will translate the Επιθυμητικόν as 'Epithumetikon' and then translate that shit as 'Appetite'
How do you people understand anything of the philosophy when the names of your terms are all messed up like this?
Επιθυμητικόν is not exactly an appetite, it's a desire or maybe a longing.

[Anonymous No.20770660]

>>20770629
tell me the difference nigger

[Anonymous No.20770823]

>>20770629
It's *can* mean desire in a more general way, like Eros, but it's specifically appetite in the Republic because that's how Socrates describes it, i.e., not as a general desire, but of hunger, thirst, sex.

[Anonymous No.20770957]

>>20760326
Esoteric fags are the lowest IQ cattle in history

[Anonymous No.20770964]

>>20770629
Stupid frogposter. OP uses both terms to capture the broad spectrum of meaning, and OP's pic-related refers to its use in Plato's Republic.
>>20770823
This.

[Anonymous No.20771022]

>>20770660
>Επιθυμητικόν is not exactly an appetite, it's a desire or maybe a longing.
so it is the same to you does that mean your only longing in live has been to eat something? american mutt detected.

[Anonymous No.20771033]

>>20771022
Επιθυμητικόν as its used in the Republic is solely relegated to carnal and material appetites you fucking retard.

[Anonymous No.20771085]

>>20771033
I thought that was what anon at >>20771022 was getting at.

[Anonymous No.20771094]

>>20771085
The point is that "appetite" is an appropriate translation for the use of the "desirous" part of the soul in The Republic. It's obviously not the end all be all of desire. Otherwise Plato wouldn't have written other works such as Phaedrus, the Symposium, Philebus, etc.

[Anonymous No.20771461]

>>20771094
I know, I'm the one who wrote >>20770823, I just took it that >>20771022 was being sarcastic to >>20770629.

[Anonymous No.20772274]

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[Anonymous No.20772814]

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[Anonymous No.20773655]

bump

[Anonymous No.20774882]

>>20760326
You just hate to see it.

[Anonymous No.20775048]

>>20760326
how low IQ and fun-averse do you have to be to make or agree with a post like that?

[Anonymous No.20775214]

>>20771022
I’ve been wondering about the difference between the kind of Eros that exists on account of a lack, unlike being attracted to unlike, and the other kind of attraction he describes, like being attracted to like. Cephalus thought he was doing well because he figured out a way to get rid of his Eros (but his name still means dickhead, sort of). This seems to be the goal of some Apollonian approaches to virtue. If I remember correctly, this a cool point in which Socrates shows the necessity of integrating the Dionysian aspects of the self as opposed to repressing them. Philosophy, the love of wisdom, many times, is fueled by a lack of wisdom, and in relation to this, philosophy is an erotic art. Is the experience of a lack of wisdom rooted in the experience of that that occurs in the ‘lower’ parts of the soul? If Eros is the dominant principle down under, do we lose some of what drives us to seek wisdom if we try to repress Eros altogether? Is it better for the pursuit of philosophy to build the power of Eros in the soul, as opposed to diminishing it, for the purpose of intensifying the experience of Eros in the pursuit of wisdom? I’m trying to think of any one of the people that I consider to be philosophers that do not seem Dionysian. In the idea of a philosopher king, it seems as though the expression can mean, Dionysian Apollonian, in that the philosopher is of an erotic, Dionysian, character (compare the description of ship captain and the stargazers in Republic/statesman). Actually, now that I think about it, in the stargazer story, Socrates is describing the kind of person that is best to lead, even though the description describe the opposite of how some people understand the qualifications of a king. I was thinking of saying that the Apollonian would characterize the king aspect, but now I don’t know if it has any use apart from being a filter we use to organize and interpret the contents of consciousness that stream in through our Dionysian openness to ideas and unconscious influences. I’m sorry if I seem to be a bit loose with terminology. I’m waking up exploring ideas for myself, don’t feel a need to respond to this. And I’m harsh on the Apollonian because I feel as though people have made a Christ out of Apollo and left the wine-making liberation hero in the Devil’s den.

[Anonymous No.20775288]

>>20775214
Great insights.
>And I’m harsh on the Apollonian because I feel as though people have made a Christ out of Apollo and left the wine-making liberation hero in the Devil’s den.
I think the main struggle between Eros and Thumos can be reduced to time preference. Eros is concerned with the here and now, while Thumos is concerned with the long-term, often suppressing Eros through (what I feel like, based on my own personal experience) tyranny and occasionally persuasion. But time preference alone cannot be satisfactory alone, because what are holding out for? Thus eros must be elevated in some way so that it can recognize the good, especially that which is infinitely and eternally good, in the here and now. Apollonian societies fail to accomplish that balancing act, so they eventually find themselves lost in purpose once they reach the promised land and find that all their discipline was for naught. I also see this as a problem with contemporary Christianity, especially with hardcore evangelicals who essentially treat our life on Earth as akin to a mortal prison, a mere testing ground, and not an experience that be rich and enjoyable with the right spiritual goods.

[Anonymous No.20775386]

>>20775214
>>20775288
Excellent posts anons.

I will say re: the temporal dimension to Eros thst while Epithymia is certainly concerned with the here and now, Diotima claims that Eros of the Good is an Eros to possess it forever, which leads into the account about the poets, people in general, and animals birthing things in order to have some measure of immortality. So there's something there in Eros desiring not just satisfaction of the now, but perpetually. Maybe that's in common with Thumos?

[Anonymous No.20775459]

>>20775386
I think the main tension for me is that Eros could have the quality of possessing the eternal, the infinite, etc. But we are usually more concerned with temporal things, e.g. epithymia. Elevating the soul to possess the Eros of the Good seems to be a laborious process, since from a certain vantage point, everything appears "shiny." To indulge in something is to generate a desire for more of that thing. And we don't even have the luxury of remaining completely pure because we are mortal. We will always need to nourish ourselves through food and drink, we will always need to procreate, and we will always need goods to accomplish great tasks that evoke the Eros of the Good, so the material world will always remain relevant. We cannot simply fast, remain celibate, etc., to remain pure and contemplate the Eros of the Good, because then we will die and have nobody to pass the knowledge onto. So Eros seems doomed to be trapped between the immediate and the eternal, in need of constant mediation. And that mediation is granted by Thumos.

But what about Nous? We've spoke much about what Eros desires and a little bit about what Thumos desires. But what does Nous desire?

[Anonymous No.20775550]

>>20775459
>But what about Nous? We've spoke much about what Eros desires and a little bit about what Thumos desires. But what does Nous desire?
I'm not sure if Nous has the same standing to Plato as Thumos and Eros; it's important, obviously, but it doesn't seem to be the same as a motivational drive like the other two. It sometimes seems as though it might be instrumental or "that by which" understanding happens. In Phaedrus, Nous as the charioteer seems to be the passive recipient of the vision of the hyperuranians, while the black horse as Eros actively pursues the beloved out of love of the Beautiful. But on the other hand, it's hard to say why the charioteer as Nous wants to see the hyperuranians at all, unless the difference between the charioteer and black horse are separated for the sake of the myth. Maybe that's a hypohesis that could be worked out: is Nous the same as Eros, the unity of Eros and Thumos, or some wholly separate thing? I honestly don't know.

[Anonymous No.20776120]

bump

[Anonymous No.20776851]

Apollonian society might fall prey to idol worship of academics or be prone to educational manipulation. If you control the intelligentsia of a society and you have subversive motives and are crafty and methodical you could manipulate an Apollonian society to think within your own defined parameter but not how to look outside of ones intellectual parameters.

[Anonymous No.20776889]

>>20776851
The intellectuals lost thumos, never had thumos to begin, or were worried about the lack of eros.

[Anonymous No.20776973]

>>20776889
Look at the world we live in today. It is 'apollonian' oriented in the sense its more material oriented and rational. The deification of material. At the cost of the over inundation of 1st world comforts, it has made the western people weaker. Take the average plebbitor out of their house in the middle of the night and drop them off in a large forest with just a backpack of a few canned goods, a tarp, knife, and some matches. They will go into heavy withdrawal. The thumos is over indulged and distracted with these creature comforts, intoxicants and the dopamine rush of narcissism through social media. Its not that they necessarily have to lose it or are not born with it, its just mostly overwhelmed and maleficently sublimated with modernity and the immediacy and ubiquitousness of cheap gratification

[Anonymous No.20776987]

>>20776973
I should point out that the western world's most easily discernable Appollonian traits are the maladaptive traits of it- over intellectualizing, heady, obsessively neurotic and pathologically inclined towards the more negative mercurial traits of the intellectual aspect of what would be understood as the Apollonian-oriented way of living.

[Anonymous No.20777205]

>>20776973
>>20776987
Misuse of technology killed thumos.

[Anonymous No.20778482]

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[Anonymous No.20779094]

>>20760301
>solitude ... beast/man ... or a philosopher
>GOM, Laws of Manu
Reason here is in a constellation of drives, one that made itself king at the expense of others, all within a table of values favoring its rise. Super/post-'human all to human' will set it back among the others in proper relation to one another (for all its utility, it's the weapon of last resort and of the weaker part[y] that can't act imperiously). The Pythagorean/Platonic monad if true is of less interest than its emanations hence Nietzche's fascination with the Orphic, auto-generative self-sacrifice - or immolation, per the Persian This Apollonian degeneration into hedonism makes an offering to the gods out of themselves. And why not, when you're one of the shards of light according to your book (unlike those 'beasts of the field') ...

>What it doesn't explain is how the Apollonian aspect of the soul eventually degrades into decadence
The solar Apollonian: knowledge, revelation, thaumaturgy, signs & divination, narrative/world-as-text teleology that only need be parsed to be 'read into' the Providential hidden hand guiding events

The chthonic Dionysian/Orphic: apophaticism, theurgy, direct experience/communion, transformative embodiment of the gods or being brought into their direct presence

>>20765002
>>20775214
>...Will to Power... sporadic passages where Nietzsche...suggests both that it's the "instinct of instincts" and what nature in general does...passage about Eros... where Diotima talks about Eros in animals and poets. Maybe the really hard question is how Eros and Thumos relate in Plato.
Crucible.

>being a filter we use to organize and interpret the contents of consciousness that stream in through our Dionysian openness to ideas and unconscious influences
Philosopher's stone as one's own sphere to one's own, apart from the caprice of 'the gods' and heavenly bodies; they apprehend the actions of these forces on others and themselves (and their own sway in that calculation). The alternative is by-the-numbers ritual observances and trusting your priests' haruspexy rather than one's own judgement and 'gut feeling'/disciplined instinct. We are gelding the future in service of technology as an end in itself by actively suppressing healthy, natural instincts and their insurrection against it. The 'gene transfection technology' and the propensity of the cytotoxic spike protein it induces production of, concentrating in the gonads, may prove to be an evolutionary filter in the eusocial direction (at least for higher life and art)

>>20777205
Bingo. Tech has gotten away from us to the point of 'the singularity' being its hylic acolytes' demonic secularized eschaton.

>>20761782
>ome Hebrew scholar on youtube told me original Hebrew was constructed specifically for this purpose and we can barely scratch the surface of the original layers.
picrel

[Anonymous No.20779102]

>>20761782
>*actual picrel

[Anonymous No.20780007]

>>20779094
>Bingo. Tech has gotten away from us to the point of 'the singularity' being its hylic acolytes' demonic secularized eschaton
What do we do to resist? What can stop a catastrophic singularity from happening?

[Anonymous No.20780093]

>>20780007
people are hedonist, and the mental ramblings like >>20779094
>>20760301
are exactly hedonism. Freedom of speech and freedom of thought were a big mistake

[Anonymous No.20781123]

>>20780093
how much worse can it get?

[Anonymous No.20781608]

>>20760354
ePub version where?

[Anonymous No.20782575]

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[Anonymous No.20783542]

>>20781608
why would you need an epub? and how are you gonna get an epub anyway... it's not a book.

[Anonymous No.20783630]

>>20760326
this and the seething proves it

[Anonymous No.20783639]

>>20783630
It's weird to think that Plato and Nietzsche would be against esotericism. They easily make the shortlist of esoteric-friendly mainstream philosophers.

[Anonymous No.20785080]

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[Anonymous No.20786116]

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[Anonymous No.20786874]

last bump

[Anonymous No.20787045]

>>20781608
convert in calibre