The Divided Soul
	Philosophers have never agreed on the nature of the soul.  Although it may be the most necessary aspect of human existence, its form, faculties, substance, origin, purpose, and goal are as unclear today as they were to the ancients.  However, one aspect they do seem agree upon is that it was divided, and that one part was associated with reasoning, rationality, and intellect, and the other with the senses, worldly pleasures, and irrationality.  Yet by our modern conception, the soul is one of the few things that is not divided-- despite its relation to the body, the soul is pure and absolute, indifferent to the moment.  If we assume that the soul is a real philosophical entity and not simply the piece of human existence which happens to not be captured by other English terms, such as essence, self, or spirit, then this presents a difficult problem.  Is the soul divided, why, and how?
	One of the goals of this essay is to develop a definition of the soul, but it is useful to explore the customary definition, both as a basis to work off of and to measure how the ancient philosophers' definitions differed.  Our concept of the soul is connect to but distinguishable from religion.  The soul is considered to embody the internal supernatural or spiritual forces of a human being.  In this sense, the soul is the source of moral principles and the motivating factor which makes life.  The soul is also spoken of as a kind of essence or the substrate of life.  Although the substance of the soul does not contribute to the matter of life, such a substance is supposed to exist and its role sense to be in the imbuing or enhancing of matter with life.  Another connotation of the term deals with our concept of self.  Many philosophers argue that matter artificially organized to match that of a person will not be an equivalent person, or similarly that the reprogramming of the brain with a new history will not change some fundamental aspect such that they will still be the same person, somehow.  This aspect is called the soul.  Finally, a word used almost as a synonym for soul is spirit.  Spirit has the same religious connotations, yet it seems more vital and ``flickering'' than the soul.  Where the soul is a steady powerful, spirit is a wavery, almost animal-like entity.  The spirit is an embodiment of life, the soul is the essence of life, and as such is a lower, simpler form: spirit exists because of the soul, yet the soul exists alone.  One functional philosophical definition of the soul is the fundamental essence of life founded in the metaphisical origin of a human being.
	In some ways, we believe the soul is unaffected by the world.  As a supernatural aspect, the soul remains pure, working constantly against wrong doing.  As the essence of life, it may dim with difficulty, but its function and identity remain the same.  However, we also speak of the corruption of the soul.  The soul can be impaired or damaged by our decisions and experiences in the world.  Moral implications for the soul come from the belief that the soul comes from a morally good God.  As such, it has a moral purpose and corruption of this purpose is immoral.  It is not a clear truth of human existence that the metaphysical origin of the human being necessarily is this moral origin, and it is in this topic of reflection of the world on the soul that ancient philosophers can give us considerable insight.
	In the Republic, Plato argues that the soul is composed of the interrelated parts: logos, the reasoning part of the soul; thumos, the spirited part; and epithumia, the desiring part.  Each of these parts has a separate personality and goal associated with it.  The epithumia is like a low form of life or the CEO of a company: its goals are entirely tied to this world and to the effects this world has on life here.  Plato's example for the thumos is a loyal dog, where the goal is honor, which seems internal but only significant in the context of the world.  Finally, the logos, like the philosopher, escapes the world, by placing its emphasis on those things within the mind and reason.
	Reason is the pathway to the truth.  Plato does try to turn away from the world as we know it, because our world does not have real truth.  We believe that such things as justice, courage, and other virtues are real and the most significant of the things to have truth about, yet we do not find them in the world.  The only way to ``see'' them is to reason about them, and this is the realm of the logos.
	In another dialogue, Plato argues that the soul is indivisible.  The division in it comes from Plato's model for society.  However, both of these are true.  The soul can not be separated into parts, because the different parts of soul and a society rely on each other.  One of the major points Plato makes in the Republic is that the ideal society would be ruled by the philosophers, and thus the ideal soul would be ruled by the logos.  By viewing the soul as a society, a unit where one part can rule other parts, the soul becomes a single unit once again, working together for not three goals, but one.
	The reasoning part, however, given appropriate opportunities, can see the one and approach the true.  Like a government, any part of the soul can rule the other parts and force them to follow its lead.  The way to the good is for the soul to follow the lead of reason.
	Aristotle also uses a divided soul, but it is divided upon different lines.  The two parts of the soul are the rational part and the irrational part.  Aristotle uses the soul as almost a reasoning device, like the mind, claiming that ``reason is in the soul'' (1.6).  He also says that the soul contains ``passions, faculties, and states of character'' (2.5).  Clearly this is a more dynamic and daily useful soul than the one portrayed in Plato or known to us today.
	One fundamental aspect of Aristotle's philosophy was that everything had a proper place or end, and that it naturally grows toward that end.  Applied to human beings, we also have an end which is a state of character which Aristotle believe is very close to the mean in all things.  The soul, by holding the identity of a person and as the essence of life growing towards its absolute end, must change as the person slants his character towards the mean.
	Aristotle said ``the function of man is an activity of soul which follows or implies a rational principle'' and that ``human good turns out to be activity of soul in accordance with virtue'' (1.7).  The rational part of the soul, then, is that which echos the rational principle behind virtue.  The distinction here is between intelligence and wisdom.  Intelligence is the capacity to make conceptual connections.  Wisdom is the ability to make decisions based on those conceptual connections.  The soul in this sense is wise, and its wisdom is based on rationality, but it performs no rational thought.  Aristotle notes that ``psychical actions and activities [relate] to soul,'' but they are not therein performed (1.8).
	Although morality for Aristotle is different than it is for us, the soul is equally founded in moral principles.  By representing a metaphysical form of the self, it must have a moral purpose if we as human beings are to have one.
	What can we say of the other side to Aristotle's soul, the irrational aspect?  Although rationality usually leads to the good, irrationality can work to further or hinder this journey.  Aristotle mentions a ``vegetative'' part of the soul which is not morally significant (though it is another region of the soul), but the other part of the irrationality of the soul he calls ``appetitive'' or the ``desiring element'' (1.13).  Aristotle emphasizes that the true good is intertwined with the nature of the soul.  He claims that while ``goods'' are of three different types, those ``that relate to soul'' are the most true and the ``external'' goods, while necessary, are less (1.8).  Pleasure, as the seemingly obvious external good, can actual be a good or evil.  Aristotle says that pleasure is a ``state of the soul'' (1.8) and that happiness is an ``activity of the soul'' (1.13).  He also argues that pleasure and pain are the root of evil, because these have the ability to influence.  What the influence is the desiring part of the soul, the irrational part.  If pleasure or pain is used to influence it toward good and rationality, it will benefit that cause; otherwise, it will hinder it.
	Thus division within the soul, between the rational and irrational parts, is unnecessary.  One major theme in Aristotle that the soul ought to be united.  The good man ``desires the same things with all his soul,'' and ``his opinions are harmonious'' (9.4).  The ``incontinent'' man, however, has a soul ``rent by faction,'' such that he does not even agree with himself (9.4).
	As I said above, the three aspects in the soul for Aristotle are ``passions, faculties, and states of character.''  Passions include all the kinds of emotions and the effects of pleasure and pain.  These simply do not employ reason, so they have no relation to the rational part of the soul.  Faculties are aspects of potentiality.  States of character, according to Aristotle, ``arise out of like activities.''  To incorporate all these aspect harmoniously, the passions must be for a common goal, the faculties must be used to their fullest toward that goal, and the state of character must be formed of activities reaching toward the goal.  That goal, naturally, is the good.  As one approaches this ideal, the divided soul converges together.
	For Plotinus, the soul is once again divided, but its ability to recombine into one unit seems at once closer at hand and more difficult to achieve.  The soul for Plotinus is not so much divided as in a divided context.  Within each person is the realm of the intellect and the realm of the senses.  Like a ball in water, half floating above the surface and half below, the soul neither moves up toward the intellect nor down toward the senses.  Although it can bob back and forth, it seems tied to each.
	The division of the soul in Plotinus seems to be an inherent duality in the nature of the soul.  In one sense, all souls, by fitting into the same category, are the same things.  Plotinus draws this even further, claiming that there is an actual entity called ``the Soul.''  Plotinus believed that the soul was the source of structure or pattern in the universe.  However, pattern cannot exist without variation of the particular.  Intelligence is the source of form while soul is its embodiment.  The soul as we know it is tied to the particular because something of the entity which leads to form must be part of the form itself.
	Here ``pattern'' is very like the purpose for Aristotle.  Everything has a place is the cosmic pattern.  In order for thinking things to know their place, they must look to the One, the absolute unification of all things.  Plotinus has other entities that fit into this system.  The Intelligence, the most direct product, contemplates the One.  Plotinus says that the Intelligence is the form of the Soul.  Individual souls try to reach back to the one Soul, and re-take its form, given it by the Intelligence.  The purpose of the individual soul is to take a place in the cosmic pattern.
	The other side of the soul, that tied to the senses, can be either beneficial or detrimentary.  It looks toward the world and not towards the One.  However, in as much as the world is derived from the One, it is no different.  Once again, this other part of the soul is worrisome, but not disastrous.
	Plotinus's soul is divided by the facts of the world, and yet one toward its purpose.  The two parts of Aristotle's soul can act differently, but when in their best form do not.  Each region of Plato's soul has a different internal life, but in the rule of the purest part, all work together to one end.
	The modern definition above named the soul as a kind of essence.  These ancient philosophers see the soul as a much more active then, with a specific purpose, and an internal conflict.  The internal conflict is fundamental to human existence, because the human purpose is not clear.  Within this conflict and in the context of a clear purpose for the soul, another definite aspect to the soul appears: choice.  Choice is such a natural part of modern thought today, that we do not see it, but it comes naturally from a life founded in purpose.  The conflict can be resolved only by choice, and this is the true significance of the soul: it is the source of free-will.