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Will desire and freedom

Reason anger and desire

ratio, ira, concupiscentia, cupiditas, libido

Ratio, ira, and concupiscentia name reason, anger, and desire in a three-power scheme.

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordRatio, ira, and concupiscentia name reason, anger, and desire in a three-power scheme.
  • In the Platonic TheologyThe discussion of twelve human lives rests on three powers associated with brain, heart, and liver.
  • In this editionThe English uses desire for concupiscentia, cupiditas, and libido across the permutations; the change of Latin noun should be visible without inventing three extra faculties.
  • A place to readThe three powers receive bodily assignments and are said to operate in combinations.

Meaning

Ratio, ira, and concupiscentia name reason, anger, and desire in a three-power scheme. Cupiditas and libido also express the desiring power locally. Their arrangement determines modes of life, not three anatomical substances inferred by modern science.

The comparative adverbs magis, minus, minime, multum, parum, paululum, and paulum make the enumeration readable. These adverbs describe differing predominance rather than twelve wholly different faculties.

Use in the book

The discussion of twelve human lives rests on three powers associated with brain, heart, and liver. Ficino argues that an embodied human cannot live by reason alone, and that anger or desire likewise cannot operate entirely alone. He then derives six lives from the different rankings of all three powers and six more from paired combinations in which one predominates. “Lives” here denotes modes of living ordered by dominant faculties, not twelve reincarnations or twelve chronological stages. The scheme is part of the Pythagorean numerical interlude linking earthly and celestial arrangements. It differs from the three functional levels of cosmic soul described in Chapter 2, although both accounts use ratio. The organic assignments belong to Ficino's historical psychology. The several words rendered as desire vary within this passage, while the structure of predominance and subordination is the essential explanatory feature.

IV.1.44 first rules out using none or only one of the three powers. The six three-power lives are then permutations of predominance, followed by six two-power lives distinguished by which of the pair governs. This is a combinatorial moral-psychological example within the Pythagorean excursion. It is not an assertion that a living human can actually discard all embodied dependence and use reason alone. In the sixth three-power case, ira parum, paulum ratione needs reading against the ordered series. That contextual ranking is a reason for explaining the enumeration, not by itself a confirmed mistranslation.

Further passage references. IV.1.44–IV.1.50234567; apparatus

IV.1.44–47234: the impossibility of isolated faculties precedes the six three-power rankings IV.1.48–492: each two-power pair is counted in both orders of dominance

Places to read

  1. IV.1.44The three powers receive bodily assignments and are said to operate in combinations.
  2. IV.1.45–4723Six rankings arise from the joint use of all three powers.
  3. IV.1.48–492Six additional rankings arise from paired powers.
  4. IV.1.50The twelvefold analogy is extended into the cosmic hierarchy.

Translation in this edition

The English uses desire for concupiscentia, cupiditas, and libido across the permutations; the change of Latin noun should be visible without inventing three extra faculties. “Twelve modes of human life” clarifies duodecim vitae: these are ranked combinations of powers, not reincarnations or successive ages. The brain–heart–liver assignments are Ficino’s historical psychology.

The sixth case has “little anger, and little reason.” The Latin uses parum and paulum; the expected ranking follows from the sequence, while a strict invariant lexical difference should not be invented.

magis / minus / minime

magis / minus / minime. Printed forms: magis; minime; minimum; minus.

More, less, least. These relative degrees generate different rankings of the same three faculties, rather than new faculties. References: IV.1.45, IV.1.46. See Reason anger and desire.

parum / paululum / paulum

parum / paululum / paulum. Printed forms: parum; paululum; paulum.

Little or a small amount, with contextual degrees. The fifth and sixth lives complete the ordered three-faculty series; contextual ranking does not establish an invariant lexical distinction between the adverbs. References: IV.1.47. See Reason anger and desire.

servire / depravare

servire / depravare. Printed forms: depravata; servit.

To serve; to corrupt or distort. Anger serves reason or desire; desire is reinforced by corrupted reason or anger, excluding the proposed isolation of one power. References: IV.1.44. See Reason anger and desire.

spirare

spirare. Printed forms: spirabit.

To breathe. The impossibility of using none of the three powers is stressed by saying such a person would not even breathe. References: IV.1.44. See Reason anger and desire.

superare / e converso

superare / e converso. Printed forms: e converso; superat.

To surpass; conversely or with the order reversed. The paired two-faculty lives are counted separately according to which member dominates. References: IV.1.48, IV.1.49. See Reason anger and desire.

uti / usus

uti / usus. Printed forms: usu; uti; utitur.

To employ a power; its use. The twelve-life scheme counts patterns of using faculties together, excluding the isolated use of only one. References: IV.1.44, IV.1.45, IV.1.47. See Reason anger and desire.