Thumos and doxa as intermediates in the Republic

Abstract

Broadly speaking, something can be called intermediate for Plato insofar as it occupies a place between two objects, poles, places, time, or principles. But this broad meaning of the intermediate has been eclipsed by the Aristotelian critique of the intermediate objects of the dianoia, so that it has become more difficult to think of the intermediates as functions of the soul. The aim of this paper is to show how, in the Republic, thumos is analogously treated as an intermediate with other kinds of intermediate objects, and tentatively to relate this psychological intermediate in a broader theory with doxa, as its epistemological ground in the course of action.