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BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 2°7
ANGELA HOBBS. Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and
the Impersonal Good. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000. Pp. xvii + 280. ISBN 0-521-41733-3.
As the subtitle of Angela Hobbs's challenging and ultimately rewarding
book implies, the author sets out to examine the somewhat problematic
role that andreia ("courage" or "manliness") plays within the Platonic
dialogues. primarily the Republic. Given the Republic's argument that
the human psuche is comprised of the rational (the logistikon), the appetitive
(the epithumetikon) and the spirited (the thumoeides. or the
thumos), one of Hobbs's main tenets is that this tripartite division is not
simply ad hoc. as some critics have claimed. but is essential to the Republic's
fundamental question of how one should live one's life. Hobbs
argues that the Republic's response to this central ethical question must
be based upon a proper understanding of human psychology, itself best
accounted for in terms of a tripartite division of the psuche. rather than
a bipartite one (rational v. non-rational) as given. for example. in the
Phaedo. And in order to defend the essential role of the thumos within
this tripartite schema. Hobbs must in turn examine the complex relationship
that exists between the thumos and andreia.
In Chapter One. "The puzzle of Plato's thumos," Hobbs acknowledges
that Plato's thumos, although based in part upon the Homeric one
(defined as "an essentially limitless life-force" [260]), is far more complex
and appears to include at least the following (3):
anger, aggression and courage: self-disgust and shame; a sense of justice.
indignation and the desire for revenge; obedience to the political
authorities though not necessarily to one's father: a longing for honour.
glory and worldly success: some interest in the arts but a fear of
intellectualism: a preference for war over peace and increasing meanness
over money.
In the preliminary survey of the relevant books of the Republic, Hobbs
notes that andreia cannot exist without thumos (9). Yet, whereas the
Homeric thumos may arguably have been sufficient for andreia in the
case of the Homeric hero. for Plato's more broadly defined conception.
mere possession of thumos is not. In other words, the task of Hobbs's
project may in part be encapsulated by asking what are the necessary
and sufficient conditions for the possession of andreia. Hobbs sees as a
"major development in Plato's thinking" his acknowledgement that the
thumos is "crucial for the exercise of andreia" (9). That knowledge and
thumos are minimally required for the constitution of andreia is now
clear, but their precise admixture remains to be seen. Hobbs next examines
in greater detail the thumoeidic aspect of the human psuche. in
particular, the tricky question of precisely how to control its "necessary