Is Leontius an Incontinent Man? Spirit and Appetite in Plato’s Republic

Abstract

Forced by his appetitive desire to look at some corpses, Leontius can not resist and, furiously, yields to the temptation and looks at them (Republic 439e–440a). The episode tries to show that the spirited and the appetitive are two different parts of the soul. If there is no intervention of rationality, the question is: according to which parameter the thymósconsiders that looking at the corpses is something that must not be done? If, like some scholars believe, thymós is guided by values given by the logistikón, then Leontius would be an incontinent agent. In this paper we shall try to show that, according to several passages of books VIII and IX of the Republic , Leontius is not an incontinent agent since the spirited part of his soul challenges the appetitive part not because of rational principles but because the values it defends on itself.