Intrapsychic Taxonomy: Mind
In Plato’s three-part soul, mind is reason, the rational part of the soul. Reason, he asserted, is a native knowing of truth, and this truth can be obscured by the passions of the appetites (Thorne and Henley, 2005). Much of early psychology was devoted to this aspect of self. Introspection, structuralism, functionalism, and cognitivism have been focused on this part of self.
Mind is the focus of our consciousness, the site of our knowledge, the agency by which we solve our problems and conceive plans and goals. Mind, generally, is the agency by which we determine how to satisfy the body’s needs. Needs of the mind are perhaps best described in terms of motivation to learn, curiosity, and other phenomena associated with the desire or drive to learn simply for the sake of learning. For many, the desire to acquire and use knowledge is conceived of as a need.