 The philosophical analysis of emotions was introduced by Plato and developed further by Aristotle. In the fourth Book of his Republic, Plato famously divided the soul into three parts: the rational part (logistikon), the spirited part (thumoeides), and the appetitive part (epithumêtikon). This terminology was also used by Aristotle and later ancient philosophers, even though its philosophical background assumptions varied. The Latin terms for the corresponding parts were intellectus, irascibilis and concupiscibilis. Plato’s view of emotions was basically negative, with the exception of love in the Phaedrus and the educational capacity of the spirited part in the Republic and the Laws. He regarded the emotions as irrational reactions of the lower psychosomatic levels of the soul, of which the appetitive part sought sensual pleasure and avoided suffering and the spirited part was the seat of self-affirmation and aggression. The immaterial reasoning part was the subject of knowledge and rational will. It was meant to govern the emotional parts by reducing the activity of the appetitive part as much as possible and controlling spontaneous suggestions of the spirited part and habituating it to supporting good conduct. Plato supplied the emotional parts with a measure of non-intellectual cognitive evaluation with respect to perceptual representations and took them to be accompanied by pleasant or unpleasant feelings and related action-initiating impulses. Plato’s main reason for this tripartition was the phenomenon of acrasy: while the undisturbed knowledge of right conduct makes people behave accordingly, uncontrolled lower impulses may draw them in other directions, most typically toward immediate pleasures or aggression. 