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Hendrik Lorenz. The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 240. Cloth, $74.00.
In this fine study, Hendrik Lorenz revisits Plato's argument for a tripartite soul in Republic IV. He proposes an interpretation that seeks to explain how the Principle of Opposites ("the same thing will not be willing to do or undergo opposites in the same respect in relation to the same thing, and at the same time," Rep. 436b8-9) when supplemented by examples of motivational conflict, can show that reason, spirit, and appetite are basic, non-composite parts of the human soul.
The discussion of parts of soul is merely a prelude to Lorenz's discussion of non-rational cognition in Plato and Aristotle in the final two parts of the book. Even readers who wish to quibble with Lorenz's analysis of psychic parts are likely to find his detailed and textually astute analysis of non-rational cognition intrinsically rewarding. Here is how the themes connect: Lorenz holds that in order to prevent the principle of opposites from running amok, yielding a number of psychic subparts, Plato must deny the ability to reason, or even to understand the deliverances of reason, to...