Eleanor

“This picture implies, though, that reason has a kind of internal hold on the other parts – it asks them, so to speak, to do things in terms that they can understand and agree to. But then won’t the parts other than reason have to have a kind of reason of their own, in order to understand and go along with what the reason part demands? And then won’t all the parts have to have their own reasons? – which makes it unclear how we are supposed to have found a part of the soul which is separate from reason.”
― Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

“Academy, Plato’s own school, for hundreds of years – until it came to an end in the first century BC – took its task to be that of arguing against the views of others without relying on a position of one’s own.”
― Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

“Writing this way is not just for literary effect; the dialogue form formally distances Plato from the views of anyone in the dialogue, and this forces the reader to think for herself what positions are being discussed, and what the upshot is, rather than accepting what is said on Plato’s authority.”
― Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction

“argument goes, the same thing can’t be thus affected in opposing ways at the same time, so it must be that it is not the person as a whole who is in this contradictory state, but different parts of him which do the pulling in opposite directions. When I reflect correctly, then, I can see that I don’t want to drink and want not to drink; rather, part of me, which Plato calls desire, wants to drink, and another part of me, which is reason (my ability to grasp and act on reasons), is motivated to refrain.”
― Julia Annas, Ancient Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction