thymos

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Thumos (also commonly spelled "thymos") (Greek: θυμός) is an Ancient Greek word expressing the concept of "spiritedness". The word indicates a physical association with breath or blood. The word is also used to express the human desire for recognition.

In Homer's works, thumos was used to denote emotions, desire, or an internal urge. Thumos was a permanent possession of living man, to which his thinking and feeling belonged. When a Homeric hero is under emotional stress he may externalize his thumos, conversing with it or scolding it [1].

Plato's dialogue Phaedrus and longer work The Republic discuss thumos as one of the three constituent parts of the human psyche, along with logos and eros. In the Phaedrus, Plato depicts logos as a charioteer driving the two horses of eros and thumos (i.e. love and spiritedness were to be guided by rationality). In the Republic's Book IV, the soul is divided into nous ("intellect"), thumos ("passion"), and epithumia (ἐπιθυμία - "appetite"). Thumos is the emotional element in virtue of which anger and fear are felt [2].

Cultural impact

• The Phi Theta Kappa honor society took the letter theta for thumos, representing the "aspiration" that they seek in their potential members.
• Thymos is the name of an academic Journal of Boyhood Studies [3].

Francis Fukuyama

In his book The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama mentions Thymos in relation to Liberal Democracy and recognition. He relates Socrates' ideas about Thymos and desire to how people want to be recognized within their government. Problems emerge when other people do not recognize another's Thymos and therefore do not provide the justice that it requires. Fukuyama explains how Thymos relates to history with the example of anti-communism in relation to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China. He states, "We cannot understand the totality of the revolutionary phenomenon unless we appreciate the working of thymotic anger and the demand for recognition that accompanied communism's economic crisis"^[1] Francis Fukuyama is thought to have inspired the use of Thymos as an argument for liberal democracy by Georg Hegel's work.^{[citation needed]}

Notes

See also

• Manliness, a book by Harvey Mansfield (he discusses "thumos" in his 2007 Jefferson Lecture as well [4])
• Megalothymia and Isothymia
• Motivation
• Passion
• Urge
• Will: the conscious mental act that produces physical results.
• The Will to Power

External link

• Christopher A. Faraone, "Thumos as Masculine Ideal and Social Pathology in Ancient Greek Magical Spells," in Ancient Anger: Perspectives from Homer to Galen, edited by Susanna Braund and Glenn W. Most (Cambridge University Press, 2003), limited preview.