Plato’s Allegory of the Soul

In Phaedrus, Socrates converses with Phaedrus and in that dialogue Plato gives his allegory of the soul. This allegory explains Plato’s view on human nature. The allegory, as I understood it,  involves a chariot driver with two horses. One horse is white and represents the rightness and goodness of the forms, the other is black and represents mortality. THe driver represents us on our journey through humanity. Some have relative ease controlling the black horse which often tries to steer the driver off course and isn’t obedient. Others have a lot of trouble controlling the black horse. I think the nature that Plato is trying to describe is that we as humans are appetite driven. We mainly just want to do things that satisfy our appetites for food, sex, and other physical pleasures. In Plato’s view we should strive to be Philosophers who love what is good.  I think there is some truth to Plato’s view, but at the same time we are just mortal humans who are fairly appetite driven. I believe that for the most part we all have good souls, even if we do go after our appetites.

HR: online research and discussion from ethics class.