appetites
Appetite occupies a structurally foundational position across the depth-psychology corpus, serving as the primary category through which classical, patristic, and modern psychological writers theorize the non-rational dimensions of human motivation. The term enters the corpus primarily through Plato and Aristotle, for whom it designates a distinct, non-rational part or faculty of the soul oriented toward pleasure and bodily satisfaction — irreducible to reason or spirit yet capable of being shaped by them over time through habituation. Aristotle’s treatment, elaborated in depth by Lorenz, distinguishes appetitive desire from spirited desire and wish, grounding appetite in perception and phantasia while insisting it cannot of itself grasp means-end relations or engage in practical reasoning. Plato’s tripartite soul, by contrast, uses appetite as evidence of genuine psychic division: its conflict with reason is the diagnostic sign of an internally differentiated soul. John of Damascus transplants this structure into Orthodox theological anthropology, distinguishing rational will from the irrational appetite of creatures without reason. Marion Woodman brings the term into clinical depth psychology, tracing appetite’s hypothalamic regulation and its symbolic distortion in obesity and anorexia. Shaw reads appetite theologically as God-given desire capable of idolatrous misdirection. The central tension across the corpus is whether appetite is irredeemably sub-rational — to be controlled or sublimated — or whether it participates, however partially, in the soul’s orientation toward genuine good.
mind is never found producing movement without appetite (for wish is a form of appetite; and when movement is produced according to calculation it is also according to wish), but appetite can originate movement contrary to calculation
Aristotle establishes appetite as the irreducible motor of animal movement, capable of overriding rational calculation and therefore constitutively distinct from mind.
, On the Soul (De Anima), -350thesis
In the virtuous person, appetite and spirit have come to be in perfect harmony with reason (1102b 28). The virtuous person’s appetitive desires are as they are not because reason has managed to persuade the non-rational part
Lorenz argues that for Aristotle virtuous appetite is not the product of rational persuasion but of cultivated pleasure-response, making habituation, not argument, the true educator of appetite.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006thesis
Plato’s theory of the tripartite soul is coherent only if he conceives of appetite as non-rational. Chapter 1 is introductory. It lays out in some detail what the rest of Part 1 is meant to establish
Lorenz identifies the non-rationality of appetite as the necessary condition for the coherence of Plato’s entire tripartite psychological theory.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006thesis
we learn with one part of our nature, are angry with another, and with a third part desire the satisfaction of our natural appetites; or whether the whole soul comes into play in each sort of action—to determine that is the difficulty
Plato poses the foundational problem of whether appetite is a discrete part of the soul or a function of the whole, generating the argument for tripartition.
, Republic, -380thesis
Socrates does seem to allow that further parts may come to light in addition to the three parts he introduces (443 D 7–8), he does not even hint at the possibility that any one of the three parts he argues for might turn out to be not a basic part after all
Lorenz demonstrates that Plato treats appetite as a basic, irreducible part of the soul, not a composite derivative of other faculties.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006thesis
desire comprises appetitive desire, spirited desire, and wish. And all animals have at least one of the senses, touch. For that which has perception, there is both pleasure and pain, and both the pleasant and the painful; and where there are these, there also is appetitive desire
Aristotle grounds appetitive desire biologically in perception and the capacity for pleasure and pain, making it the most universal form of desire across animal life.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006thesis
while anger in a mature and ordinarily conditioned human being depends on, and gives expression to, a general evaluative outlook that derives from, and perhaps is sustained by, correct reason, there is no way at all in which appetite’s general evaluative o
Lorenz articulates Aristotle’s key distinction: spirit can be rationalized through its connection to a reason-derived evaluative outlook, whereas appetite’s evaluative orientation is wholly insulated from reason.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006thesis
the appetite of creatures without reason is irrational, and they are ruled by their natural appetite. Hence, neither the names of will or wish are applicable to the appetite of creatures without reason. For will is rational, free and natural desire
John of Damascus transposes the Platonic-Aristotelian distinction between appetite and rational will into patristic anthropology, reserving freedom and will exclusively for the rational human appetite.
, Saint John of Damascus Collection, 2016thesis
Plato contrasts appetite (epithumia), as being directed at pleasure, with boulēsis, which is directed at good. There is an analogous acknowledgement later in the Republic: Leontius does not think it better to look at the corpses at the moment he gives in to that appetite
Sorabji traces Plato’s early and middle dialogues to show appetite’s consistent orientation toward pleasure rather than the good, distinguished structurally from rational wish.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000supporting
as far as appetite is concerned, the availability of some source of pleasure may be indicated to it by thought, as when one thinks about how to obtain cigarettes and works out that the thing to do in the circumstances is to go to the shop around the corner
Lorenz illustrates how appetite can receive cognitive inputs from practical thought without itself engaging in reasoning, maintaining its non-rational character while remaining action-relevant.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
appetite is in no position to grasp the fact that going to the shop is a means to satisfying its desire to smoke. So it is hard to see how appetite could respond to the situation by forming a desire specifically to go to the shop around the corner
Lorenz demonstrates Plato’s commitment to appetite’s cognitive limitation: it cannot represent means-end relations, only respond to presented objects of pleasure.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
all that is done contrary to sensual appetite (which aims at the pleasant) is painful. Therefore all that is done contrary to sensual appetite is forced, therefore involuntary.
Adkins reconstructs Aristotle’s analysis of incontinence, showing how appetite’s orientation to pleasure creates a logical paradox about the voluntariness of incontinent action.
, Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values, 1960supporting
mania is contrasted with sophrosune, the state of soul in which intellect rules securely over the other elements. It is linked particularly with the dominance of erotic appetite.
Nussbaum identifies erotic appetite as the paradigm case of irrational domination in Plato’s psychology, the form of appetite most threatening to rational self-governance.
, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, 1986supporting
Affections suitably prepare the organic parts, desire [sc. suitably prepares] affections, phantasia [sc. suitably prepares] desire; and phantasia arises through thought or through perception
Lorenz cites Aristotle’s ‘chain of movers’ to establish phantasia as the indispensable cognitive mediator between perception and the formation of appetitive desire leading to locomotion.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
appetite has some kind of cognitive access to reason’s judgement that the way to obtain cigarettes in the circumstances is by going to the shop around the corner and buying them there
Lorenz proposes that appetite can receive representational inputs from reason without possessing rationality itself, explaining how it can be influenced without being transformed.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
some instances of appetite and anger involve pleasure, some distress, and some both. So one cannot classify anger or appetite as a whole as falling under one of his two genera, either under pleasure or under distress.
Sorabji records Aspasius’s recognition that appetite resists clean classification under pleasure or distress, pointing to the need for desire as an independent genus.
, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation, 2000supporting
the vital or appetitive faculties are will and choice. Now, to make what has been said clearer, let us consider these things more closely
John of Damascus categorizes appetite among the soul’s vital faculties alongside will and choice, integrating classical psychology into Orthodox theological anthropology.
, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 2021supporting
One more God-given, spiritual appetite is the desire to worship something or someone… Christian substance abusers and addicts have a worship problem (called idolatry) in that they seek to fulfill temporary appetites with temporary pleasures
Shaw extends the category of appetite into theological-pastoral psychology, reading addiction as the misdirection of a divinely implanted appetitive structure toward idolatrous objects.
, The Heart of Addiction: A Biblical Perspective, 2008supporting
The hypothalamus, an area of the brain just above and connected to the pituitary gland, coordinates the action of all the hormones in the body, including those which control appetite and the menstrual cycle.
Woodman grounds appetite in hypothalamic neurobiology, providing the somatic substrate for the depth-psychological analysis of eating disorders as distorted appetite-regulation.
, The Owl Was a Baker’s Daughter: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Repressed Feminine: a Psychological Study, 1980supporting
The introduction of such appearances is a significant development in Plato’s psychological theory. It resolves the Timaeus’ problem about appetite’s ability to enjoy the benefits of receiving communications from reason.
Lorenz traces Plato’s evolving account of how appetite can be reached by reason-generated appearances, marking a developmental refinement in Plato’s psychology.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
Aristotle accepts that human desire comes in three forms, namely… phantasia… has significant Platonic antecedents. Aristotle is unfortunately not as clear as one would wish him to be about what phantasia is and how it is involved in non-rational motivation.
Lorenz situates Aristotle’s tripartite desire theory in relation to Platonic antecedents, foregrounding phantasia as the key explanatory concept for non-rational, appetitive motivation.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006supporting
Socrates seems to be fully prepared to accept a consequence of his account, namely that newborn babies could not form desires like hunger or thirst, in so far as they do not yet possess the impressions that would enable them to make cognitive contact with the relevant kinds of replenishment.
Lorenz notes that Plato’s memory-dependent account of desire has the counterintuitive implication that neonates cannot experience hunger or thirst as properly formed appetites.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006aside
The difference between a healthy, hungry lion and a sick or sated one will not lie in what prospects they can envisage, but presumably in which ones they find pleasurable and thus desirable.
Lorenz uses the example of the lion to illustrate how appetite’s motivational force varies with the animal’s physiological state rather than with its cognitive envisioning of prospects.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006aside
The distinct forms of motivation can interact harmoniously, with each one of them fulfilling its proper function. The person whose motivations are disposed in this harmonious way is, according to Plato’s theory, virtuous.
Lorenz summarizes Plato’s normative ideal: virtue consists in the harmonious integration of appetite, spirit, and reason rather than the suppression of the lower forms of motivation.
, The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle, 2006aside