Θυμοειδές (thumos)
Spirited part — chest, above the diaphragm
Thumos — the spirited part: the seat of righteous anger, of indignation, of the love of honour. Republic IV.440e introduces it via the figure of Leontius, who turns away from corpses in disgust and then forces himself to look — a moment Socrates uses to show that thumos and appetite are distinct, since thumos here is angry at appetite. Properly trained, thumos is 'the auxiliary of reason' (440e); untrained, it allies itself with appetite against reason. Timaeus 70a–b locates it 'between the diaphragm and the neck, that being situated near the head it might hearken to reason and join with it in restraining the appetites'. The lung is given a remarkable role: it is described as 'soft and bloodless and porous like a sponge' so that, when thumos boils with anger, the heart's heat may be cooled by the air drawn into the chest. We anchor the rendered point at mid-sternum / heart-centre, the canonical Timaean position for the immortal-mortal interface in the chest cavity.
Point 2 of 3 in Plato's Tripartite Soul (Republic IV)
Cross-tradition overlaps
No overlapping points are registered for this point.
Sources
Plato, Republic IV.440e (primary_canonical)
“Anger seems to be the auxiliary of reason in the soul's civil war, when reason is not corrupted by ill nurture.”
Plato, Timaeus 70a–b (primary_canonical)
“The part of the soul which partakes of courage and spirit, since it is a lover of victory, they planted nearer to the head, between the midriff and the neck, in order that it might hearken to the reason.”