Plato's PHAEDRUS

PHAEDRUS

Socrates 2^nd Speech (‘the palinode’ or ‘recantation’)

(Translated by Benjamin Jowett circa 1850)

[242 d]  SOCRATES: That was a dreadful speech which you brought with you, and you made me utter one as bad.

PHAEDRUS: How so?

SOCRATES: It was foolish, I say,—to a certain extent, impious; can anything be more dreadful?

PHAEDRUS: Nothing, if the speech was really such as you describe.

SOCRATES: Well, and is not Eros the son of Aphrodite, and a god?

PHAEDRUS: So men say.

SOCRATES: But that was not acknowledged by Lysias in his speech, nor by you in that other speech which you by a charm drew from my lips. For if love be, as he surely is, a divinity, he cannot be evil. Yet this was the error of both the speeches. There was also a simplicity about them which was refreshing; having no truth or honesty in them, nevertheless they pretended to be something, hoping to succeed in deceiving the manikins of earth and gain celebrity among them. Wherefore I must have a purgation. And I bethink me of an ancient purgation of mythological error which was devised, not by Homer, for he never had the wit to discover why he was blind, but by Stesichorus, who was a philosopher and knew the reason why; and therefore, when he lost his eyes, for that was the penalty which was inflicted upon him for reviling the lovely Helen, he at once purged himself. And the purgation was a recantation, which began thus:

'False is that word of mine—the truth is that thou didst not embark in ships, nor ever go to the walls of Troy;'

and when he had completed his poem, which is called 'the recantation,' immediately his sight returned to him. Now I will be wiser than either Stesichorus or Homer, in that I am going to make my recantation for reviling love before I suffer; and this I will attempt, not as before, veiled and ashamed, but with forehead bold and bare.

PHAEDRUS: Nothing could be more agreeable to me than to hear you say so.

SOCRATES: Only think, my good Phaedrus, what an utter want of delicacy was shown in the two discourses; I mean, in my own and in that which you recited out of the book. Would not any one who was himself of a noble and gentle nature, and who loved or ever had loved a nature like his own, when we tell of the petty causes of lovers' jealousies, and of their exceeding animosities, and of the injuries which they do to their beloved, have imagined that our ideas of love were taken from some haunt of sailors to which good manners were unknown—he would certainly never have admitted the justice of our censure?

PHAEDRUS: I dare say not, Socrates.

SOCRATES: Therefore, because I blush at the thought of this person, and also because I am afraid of Love himself, I desire to wash the brine out of my ears with water from the spring; and I would counsel Lysias not to delay, but to write another discourse, which shall prove that 'ceteris paribus' the lover ought to be accepted rather than the non-lover.

PHAEDRUS: Be assured that he shall. You shall speak the praises of the lover, and Lysias shall be compelled by me to write another discourse on the same theme.

SOCRATES: You will be true to your nature in that, and therefore I believe you.

PHAEDRUS: Speak, and fear not.

SOCRATES: But where is the fair youth whom I was addressing before, and who ought to listen now; lest, if he hear me not, he should accept a non-lover before he knows what he is doing?

PHAEDRUS: He is close at hand, and always at your service.

SOCRATES: Know then, fair youth, that the former discourse was the word of Phaedrus, the son of Vain Man, who dwells in the city of Myrrhina (Myrrhinusius). And this which I am about to utter is the recantation of Stesichorus the son of Godly Man (Euphemus), who comes from the town of Desire (Himera), and is to the following effect: 'I told a lie when I said' that the beloved ought to accept the non-lover when he might have the lover, because the one is sane, and the other mad. It might be so if madness were simply an evil; but there is also a madness which is a divine gift, and the source of the chiefest blessings granted to men. For prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at Delphi and the priestesses at Dodona when out of their senses have conferred great benefits on Hellas, both in public and private life, but when in their senses few or none. And I might also tell you how the Sibyl and other inspired persons have given to many an one many an intimation of the future which has saved them from falling. But it would be tedious to speak of what every one knows.

There will be more reason in appealing to the ancient inventors of names (compare Cratylus), who would never have connected prophecy (mantike) which foretells the future and is the noblest of arts, with madness (manike), or called them both by the same name, if they had deemed madness to be a disgrace or dishonour;—they must have thought that there was an inspired madness which was a noble thing; for the two words, mantike and manike, are really the same, and the letter tau is only a modern and tasteless insertion. And this is confirmed by the name which was given by them to the rational investigation of futurity, whether made by the help of birds or of other signs—this, for as much as it is an art which supplies from the reasoning faculty mind (nous) and information (istoria) to human thought (oiesis) they originally termed oionoistike, but the word has been lately altered and made sonorous by the modern introduction of the letter Omega (oionoistike and oionistike), and in proportion as prophecy (mantike) is more perfect and august than augury, both in name and fact, in the same proportion, as the ancients testify, is madness superior to a sane mind (sophrosune) for the one is only of human, but the other of divine origin. Again, where plagues and mightiest woes have bred in certain families, owing to some ancient blood-guiltiness, there madness has entered with holy prayers and rites, and by inspired utterances found a way of deliverance for those who are in need; and he who has part in this gift, and is truly possessed and duly out of his mind, is by the use of purifications and mysteries made whole and exempt from evil, future as well as present, and has a release from the calamity which was afflicting him. The third kind is the madness of those who are possessed by the Muses; which taking hold of a delicate and virgin soul, and there inspiring frenzy, awakens lyrical and all other numbers; with these adorning the myriad actions of ancient heroes for the instruction of posterity. But he who, having no touch of the Muses' madness in his soul, comes to the door and thinks that he will get into the temple by the help of art—he, I say, and his poetry are not admitted; the sane man disappears and is nowhere when he enters into rivalry with the madman.

I might tell of many other noble deeds which have sprung from inspired madness. And therefore, let no one frighten or flutter us by saying that the temperate friend is to be chosen rather than the inspired, but let him further show that love is not sent by the gods for any good to lover or beloved; if he can do so we will allow him to carry off the palm. And we, on our part, will prove in answer to him that the madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings, and the proof shall be one which the wise will receive, and the witling disbelieve. But first of all, let us view the affections and actions of the soul divine and human, and try to ascertain the truth about them. The beginning of our proof is as follows:

The soul through all her being is immortal, for that which is ever in motion is immortal; but that which moves another and is moved by another, in ceasing to move ceases also to live. Only the self-moving, never leaving self, never ceases to move, and is the fountain and beginning of motion to all that moves besides. Now, the beginning is unbegotten, for that which is begotten has a beginning; but the beginning is begotten of nothing, for if it were begotten of something, then the begotten would not come from a beginning. But if unbegotten, it must also be indestructible; for if beginning were destroyed, there could be no beginning out of anything, nor anything out of a beginning; and all things must have a beginning. And therefore the self-moving is the beginning of motion; and this can neither be destroyed nor begotten, else the whole heavens and all creation would collapse and stand still, and never again have motion or birth. But if the self-moving is proved to be immortal, he who affirms that self-motion is the very idea and essence of the soul will not be put to confusion. For the body which is moved from without is soulless; but that which is moved from within has a soul, for such is the nature of the soul. But if this be true, must not the soul be the self-moving, and therefore of necessity unbegotten and immortal? Enough of the soul's immortality.

Of the nature of the soul, though her true form be ever a theme of large and more than mortal discourse, let me speak briefly, and in a figure. And let the figure be composite—a pair of winged horses and a charioteer. Now the winged horses and the charioteers of the gods are all of them noble and of noble descent, but those of other races are mixed; the human charioteer drives his in a pair; and one of them is noble and of noble breed, and the other is ignoble and of ignoble breed; and the driving of them of necessity gives a great deal of trouble to him. I will endeavour to explain to you in what way the mortal differs from the immortal creature. The soul in her totality has the care of inanimate being everywhere, and traverses the whole heaven in divers forms appearing—when perfect and fully winged she soars upward, and orders the whole world; whereas the imperfect soul, losing her wings and drooping in her flight at last settles on the solid ground—there, finding a home, she receives an earthly frame which appears to be self-moved, but is really moved by her power; and this composition of soul and body is called a living and mortal creature. For immortal no such union can be reasonably believed to be; although fancy, not having seen nor surely known the nature of God, may imagine an immortal creature having both a body and also a soul which are united throughout all time. Let that, however, be as God wills, and be spoken of acceptably to him. And now let us ask the reason why the soul loses her wings!

The wing is the corporeal element which is most akin to the divine, and which by nature tends to soar aloft and carry that which gravitates downwards into the upper region, which is the habitation of the gods. The divine is beauty, wisdom, goodness, and the like; and by these the wing of the soul is nourished, and grows apace; but when fed upon evil and foulness and the opposite of good, wastes and falls away. Zeus, the mighty lord, holding the reins of a winged chariot, leads the way in heaven, ordering all and taking care of all; and there follows him the array of gods and demi-gods, marshalled in eleven bands; Hestia alone abides at home in the house of heaven; of the rest they who are reckoned among the princely twelve march in their appointed order. They see many blessed sights in the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro, along which the blessed gods are passing, every one doing his own work; he may follow who will and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial choir. But when they go to banquet and festival, then they move up the steep to the top of the vault of heaven. The chariots of the gods in even poise, obeying the rein, glide rapidly; but the others labour, for the vicious steed goes heavily, weighing down the charioteer to the earth when his steed has not been thoroughly trained:—and this is the hour of agony and extremest conflict for the soul. For the immortals, when they are at the end of their course, go forth and stand upon the outside of heaven, and the revolution of the spheres carries them round, and they behold the things beyond. But of the heaven which is above the heavens, what earthly poet ever did or ever will sing worthily? It is such as I will describe; for I must dare to speak the truth, when truth is my theme. There abides the very being with which true knowledge is concerned; the colourless, formless, intangible essence, visible only to mind, the pilot of the soul. The divine intelligence, being nurtured upon mind and pure knowledge, and the intelligence of every soul which is capable of receiving the food proper to it, rejoices at beholding reality, and once more gazing upon truth, is replenished and made glad, until the revolution of the worlds brings her round again to the same place. In the revolution she beholds justice, and temperance, and knowledge absolute, not in the form of generation or of relation, which men call existence, but knowledge absolute in existence absolute; and beholding the other true existences in like manner, and feasting upon them, she passes down into the interior of the heavens and returns home; and there the charioteer putting up his horses at the stall, gives them ambrosia to eat and nectar to drink.

Such is the life of the gods; but of other souls, that which follows God best and is likest to him lifts the head of the charioteer into the outer world, and is carried round in the revolution, troubled indeed by the steeds, and with difficulty beholding true being; while another only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world and they all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the surface, plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first; and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort; and many of them are lamed or have their wings broken through the ill-driving of the charioteers; and all of them after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon opinion. The reason why the souls exhibit this exceeding eagerness to behold the plain of truth is that pasturage is found there, which is suited to the highest part of the soul; and the wing on which the soul soars is nourished with this. And there is a law of Destiny, that the soul which attains any vision of truth in company with a god is preserved from harm until the next period, and if attaining always is always unharmed. But when she is unable to follow, and fails to behold the truth, and through some ill-hap sinks beneath the double load of forgetfulness and vice, and her wings fall from her and she drops to the ground, then the law ordains that this soul shall at her first birth pass, not into any other animal, but only into man; and the soul which has seen most of truth shall come to the birth as a philosopher, or artist, or some musical and loving nature; that which has seen truth in the second degree shall be some righteous king or warrior chief; the soul which is of the third class shall be a politician, or economist, or trader; the fourth shall be a lover of gymnastic toils, or a physician; the fifth shall lead the life of a prophet or hierophant; to the sixth the character of poet or some other imitative artist will be assigned; to the seventh the life of an artisan or husbandman; to the eighth that of a sophist or demagogue; to the ninth that of a tyrant—all these are states of probation, in which he who does righteously improves, and he who does unrighteously, deteriorates his lot.

Ten thousand years must elapse before the soul of each one can return to the place from whence she came, for she cannot grow her wings in less; only the soul of a philosopher, guileless and true, or the soul of a lover, who is not devoid of philosophy, may acquire wings in the third of the recurring periods of a thousand years; he is distinguished from the ordinary good man who gains wings in three thousand years:—and they who choose this life three times in succession have wings given them, and go away at the end of three thousand years. But the others (The philosopher alone is not subject to judgment (krisis), for he has never lost the vision of truth.) receive judgment when they have completed their first life, and after the judgment they go, some of them to the houses of correction which are under the earth, and are punished; others to some place in heaven whither they are lightly borne by justice, and there they live in a manner worthy of the life which they led here when in the form of men. And at the end of the first thousand years the good souls and also the evil souls both come to draw lots and choose their second life, and they may take any which they please. The soul of a man may pass into the life of a beast, or from the beast return again into the man. But the soul which has never seen the truth will not pass into the human form. For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason;—this is the recollection of those things which our soul once saw while following God—when regardless of that which we now call being she raised her head up towards the true being. And therefore the mind of the philosopher alone has wings; and this is just, for he is always, according to the measure of his abilities, clinging in recollection to those things in which God abides, and in beholding which He is what He is. And he who employs aright these memories is ever being initiated into perfect mysteries and alone becomes truly perfect. But, as he forgets earthly interests and is rapt in the divine, the vulgar deem him mad, and rebuke him; they do not see that he is inspired.

Thus far I have been speaking of the fourth and last kind of madness, which is imputed to him who, when he sees the beauty of earth, is transported with the recollection of the true beauty; he would like to fly away, but he cannot; he is like a bird fluttering and looking upward and careless of the world below; and he is therefore thought to be mad. And I have shown this of all inspirations to be the noblest and highest and the offspring of the highest to him who has or shares in it, and that he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it. For, as has been already said, every soul of man has in the way of nature beheld true being; this was the condition of her passing into the form of man. But all souls do not easily recall the things of the other world; they may have seen them for a short time only, or they may have been unfortunate in their earthly lot, and, having had their hearts turned to unrighteousness through some corrupting influence, they may have lost the memory of the holy things which once they saw. Few only retain an adequate remembrance of them; and they, when they behold here any image of that other world, are rapt in amazement; but they are ignorant of what this rapture means, because they do not clearly perceive. For there is no light of justice or temperance or any of the higher ideas which are precious to souls in the earthly copies of them: they are seen through a glass dimly; and there are few who, going to the images, behold in them the realities, and these only with difficulty. There was a time when with the rest of the happy band they saw beauty shining in brightness,—we philosophers following in the train of Zeus, others in company with other gods; and then we beheld the beatific vision and were initiated into a mystery which may be truly called most blessed, celebrated by us in our state of innocence, before we had any experience of evils to come, when we were admitted to the sight of apparitions innocent and simple and calm and happy, which we beheld shining in pure light, pure ourselves and not yet enshrined in that living tomb which we carry about, now that we are imprisoned in the body, like an oyster in his shell. Let me linger over the memory of scenes which have passed away.

But of beauty, I repeat again that we saw her there shining in company with the celestial forms; and coming to earth we find her here too, shining in clearness through the clearest aperture of sense. For sight is the most piercing of our bodily senses; though not by that is wisdom seen; her loveliness would have been transporting if there had been a visible image of her, and the other ideas, if they had visible counterparts, would be equally lovely. But this is the privilege of beauty, that being the loveliest she is also the most palpable to sight. Now he who is not newly initiated or who has become corrupted, does not easily rise out of this world to the sight of true beauty in the other; he looks only at her earthly namesake, and instead of being awed at the sight of her, he is given over to pleasure, and like a brutish beast he rushes on to enjoy and beget; he consorts with wantonness, and is not afraid or ashamed of pursuing pleasure in violation of nature. But he whose initiation is recent, and who has been the spectator of many glories in the other world, is amazed when he sees any one having a godlike face or form, which is the expression of divine beauty; and at first a shudder runs through him, and again the old awe steals over him; then looking upon the face of his beloved as of a god he reverences him, and if he were not afraid of being thought a downright madman, he would sacrifice to his beloved as to the image of a god; then while he gazes on him there is a sort of reaction, and the shudder passes into an unusual heat and perspiration; for, as he receives the effluence of beauty through the eyes, the wing moistens and he warms. And as he warms, the parts out of which the wing grew, and which had been hitherto closed and rigid, and had prevented the wing from shooting forth, are melted, and as nourishment streams upon him, the lower end of the wing begins to swell and grow from the root upwards; and the growth extends under the whole soul—for once the whole was winged. During this process the whole soul is all in a state of ebullition and effervescence,—which may be compared to the irritation and uneasiness in the gums at the time of cutting teeth,—bubbles up, and has a feeling of uneasiness and tickling; but when in like manner the soul is beginning to grow wings, the beauty of the beloved meets her eye and she receives the sensible warm motion of particles which flow towards her, therefore called emotion (imeros), and is refreshed and warmed by them, and then she ceases from her pain with joy. But when she is parted from her beloved and her moisture fails, then the orifices of the passage out of which the wing shoots dry up and close, and intercept the germ of the wing; which, being shut up with the emotion, throbbing as with the pulsations of an artery, pricks the aperture which is nearest, until at length the entire soul is pierced and maddened and pained, and at the recollection of beauty is again delighted. And from both of them together the soul is oppressed at the strangeness of her condition, and is in a great strait and excitement, and in her madness can neither sleep by night nor abide in her place by day. And wherever she thinks that she will behold the beautiful one, thither in her desire she runs. And when she has seen him, and bathed herself in the waters of beauty, her constraint is loosened, and she is refreshed, and has no more pangs and pains; and this is the sweetest of all pleasures at the time, and is the reason why the soul of the lover will never forsake his beautiful one, whom he esteems above all; he has forgotten mother and brethren and companions, and he thinks nothing of the neglect and loss of his property; the rules and proprieties of life, on which he formerly prided himself, he now despises, and is ready to sleep like a servant, wherever he is allowed, as near as he can to his desired one, who is the object of his worship, and the physician who can alone assuage the greatness of his pain. And this state, my dear imaginary youth to whom I am talking, is by men called love, and among the gods has a name at which you, in your simplicity, may be inclined to mock; there are two lines in the apocryphal writings of Homer in which the name occurs. One of them is rather outrageous, and not altogether metrical. They are as follows:

'Mortals call him fluttering love, But the immortals call him winged one, Because the growing of wings (Or, reading pterothoiton, 'the movement of wings.') is a necessity to him.'

You may believe this, but not unless you like. At any rate the loves of lovers and their causes are such as I have described.

Now the lover who is taken to be the attendant of Zeus is better able to bear the winged god, and can endure a heavier burden; but the attendants and companions of Ares, when under the influence of love, if they fancy that they have been at all wronged, are ready to kill and put an end to themselves and their beloved. And he who follows in the train of any other god, while he is unspoiled and the impression lasts, honours and imitates him, as far as he is able; and after the manner of his God he behaves in his intercourse with his beloved and with the rest of the world during the first period of his earthly existence. Every one chooses his love from the ranks of beauty according to his character, and this he makes his god, and fashions and adorns as a sort of image which he is to fall down and worship. The followers of Zeus desire that their beloved should have a soul like him; and therefore they seek out some one of a philosophical and imperial nature, and when they have found him and loved him, they do all they can to confirm such a nature in him, and if they have no experience of such a disposition hitherto, they learn of any one who can teach them, and themselves follow in the same way. And they have the less difficulty in finding the nature of their own god in themselves, because they have been compelled to gaze intensely on him; their recollection clings to him, and they become possessed of him, and receive from him their character and disposition, so far as man can participate in God. The qualities of their god they attribute to the beloved, wherefore they love him all the more, and if, like the Bacchic Nymphs, they draw inspiration from Zeus, they pour out their own fountain upon him, wanting to make him as like as possible to their own god. But those who are the followers of Here seek a royal love, and when they have found him they do just the same with him; and in like manner the followers of Apollo, and of every other god walking in the ways of their god, seek a love who is to be made like him whom they serve, and when they have found him, they themselves imitate their god, and persuade their love to do the same, and educate him into the manner and nature of the god as far as they each can; for no feelings of envy or jealousy are entertained by them towards their beloved, but they do their utmost to create in him the greatest likeness of themselves and of the god whom they honour. Thus fair and blissful to the beloved is the desire of the inspired lover, and the initiation of which I speak into the mysteries of true love, if he be captured by the lover and their purpose is effected. Now the beloved is taken captive in the following manner:—

As I said at the beginning of this tale, I divided each soul into three—two horses and a charioteer; and one of the horses was good and the other bad: the division may remain, but I have not yet explained in what the goodness or badness of either consists, and to that I will now proceed. The right-hand horse is upright and cleanly made; he has a lofty neck and an aquiline nose; his colour is white, and his eyes dark; he is a lover of honour and modesty and temperance, and the follower of true glory; he needs no touch of the whip, but is guided by word and admonition only. The other is a crooked lumbering animal, put together anyhow; he has a short thick neck; he is flat-faced and of a dark colour, with grey eyes and blood-red complexion (Or with grey and blood-shot eyes.); the mate of insolence and pride, shag-eared and deaf, hardly yielding to whip and spur. Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly oppose him and will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; but at last, when he persists in plaguing them, they yield and agree to do as he bids them. And now they are at the spot and behold the flashing beauty of the beloved; which when the charioteer sees, his memory is carried to the true beauty, whom he beholds in company with Modesty like an image placed upon a holy pedestal. He sees her, but he is afraid and falls backwards in adoration, and by his fall is compelled to pull back the reins with such violence as to bring both the steeds on their haunches, the one willing and unresisting, the unruly one very unwilling; and when they have gone back a little, the one is overcome with shame and wonder, and his whole soul is bathed in perspiration; the other, when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had given him, having with difficulty taken breath, is full of wrath and reproaches, which he heaps upon the charioteer and his fellow-steed, for want of courage and manhood, declaring that they have been false to their agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they refuse, and again he urges them on, and will scarce yield to their prayer that he would wait until another time. When the appointed hour comes, they make as if they had forgotten, and he reminds them, fighting and neighing and dragging them on, until at length he on the same thoughts intent, forces them to draw near again. And when they are near he stoops his head and puts up his tail, and takes the bit in his teeth and pulls shamelessly. Then the charioteer is worse off than ever; he falls back like a racer at the barrier, and with a still more violent wrench drags the bit out of the teeth of the wild steed and covers his abusive tongue and jaws with blood, and forces his legs and haunches to the ground and punishes him sorely. And when this has happened several times and the villain has ceased from his wanton way, he is tamed and humbled, and follows the will of the charioteer, and when he sees the beautiful one he is ready to die of fear. And from that time forward the soul of the lover follows the beloved in modesty and holy fear.

And so the beloved who, like a god, has received every true and loyal service from his lover, not in pretence but in reality, being also himself of a nature friendly to his admirer, if in former days he has blushed to own his passion and turned away his lover, because his youthful companions or others slanderously told him that he would be disgraced, now as years advance, at the appointed age and time, is led to receive him into communion. For fate which has ordained that there shall be no friendship among the evil has also ordained that there shall ever be friendship among the good. And the beloved when he has received him into communion and intimacy, is quite amazed at the good-will of the lover; he recognises that the inspired friend is worth all other friends or kinsmen; they have nothing of friendship in them worthy to be compared with his. And when this feeling continues and he is nearer to him and embraces him, in gymnastic exercises and at other times of meeting, then the fountain of that stream, which Zeus when he was in love with Ganymede named Desire, overflows upon the lover, and some enters into his soul, and some when he is filled flows out again; and as a breeze or an echo rebounds from the smooth rocks and returns whence it came, so does the stream of beauty, passing through the eyes which are the windows of the soul, come back to the beautiful one; there arriving and quickening the passages of the wings, watering them and inclining them to grow, and filling the soul of the beloved also with love. And thus he loves, but he knows not what; he does not understand and cannot explain his own state; he appears to have caught the infection of blindness from another; the lover is his mirror in whom he is beholding himself, but he is not aware of this. When he is with the lover, both cease from their pain, but when he is away then he longs as he is longed for, and has love's image, love for love (Anteros) lodging in his breast, which he calls and believes to be not love but friendship only, and his desire is as the desire of the other, but weaker; he wants to see him, touch him, kiss him, embrace him, and probably not long afterwards his desire is accomplished. When they meet, the wanton steed of the lover has a word to say to the charioteer; he would like to have a little pleasure in return for many pains, but the wanton steed of the beloved says not a word, for he is bursting with passion which he understands not;—he throws his arms round the lover and embraces him as his dearest friend; and, when they are side by side, he is not in a state in which he can refuse the lover anything, if he ask him; although his fellow-steed and the charioteer oppose him with the arguments of shame and reason. After this their happiness depends upon their self-control; if the better elements of the mind which lead to order and philosophy prevail, then they pass their life here in happiness and harmony—masters of themselves and orderly—enslaving the vicious and emancipating the virtuous elements of the soul; and when the end comes, they are light and winged for flight, having conquered in one of the three heavenly or truly Olympian victories; nor can human discipline or divine inspiration confer any greater blessing on man than this. If, on the other hand, they leave philosophy and lead the lower life of ambition, then probably, after wine or in some other careless hour, the two wanton animals take the two souls when off their guard and bring them together, and they accomplish that desire of their hearts which to the many is bliss; and this having once enjoyed they continue to enjoy, yet rarely because they have not the approval of the whole soul. They too are dear, but not so dear to one another as the others, either at the time of their love or afterwards. They consider that they have given and taken from each other the most sacred pledges, and they may not break them and fall into enmity. At last they pass out of the body, unwinged, but eager to soar, and thus obtain no mean reward of love and madness. For those who have once begun the heavenward pilgrimage may not go down again to darkness and the journey beneath the earth, but they live in light always; happy companions in their pilgrimage, and when the time comes at which they receive their wings they have the same plumage because of their love.

Thus great are the heavenly blessings which the friendship of a lover will confer upon you, my youth. Whereas the attachment of the non-lover, which is alloyed with a worldly prudence and has worldly and niggardly ways of doling out benefits, will breed in your soul those vulgar qualities which the populace applaud, will send you bowling round the earth during a period of nine thousand years, and leave you a fool in the world below.

And thus, dear Eros, I have made and paid my recantation, as well and as fairly as I could; more especially in the matter of the poetical figures which I was compelled to use, because Phaedrus would have them. And now forgive the past and accept the present, and be gracious and merciful to me, and do not in thine anger deprive me of sight, or take from me the art of love which thou hast given me, but grant that I may be yet more esteemed in the eyes of the fair. And if Phaedrus or I myself said anything rude in our first speeches, blame Lysias, who is the father of the brat, and let us have no more of his progeny; bid him study philosophy, like his brother Polemarchus; and then his lover Phaedrus will no longer halt between two opinions, but will dedicate himself wholly to love and to philosophical discourses.

PHAEDRUS: I join in the prayer, Socrates, and say with you, if this be for my good, may your words come to pass. But why did you make your second oration so much finer than the first? I wonder why. And I begin to be afraid that I shall lose conceit of Lysias, and that he will appear tame in comparison, even if he be willing to put another as fine and as long as yours into the field, which I doubt. For quite lately one of your politicians was abusing him on this very account; and called him a 'speech writer' again and again. So that a feeling of pride may probably induce him to give up writing speeches.

Plato in A Single Nutshell - by Tim Addey

'Plato In A Single Nutshell'

 By Tim Addey of the Prometheus Trust

It is said, that when he was near his death, Plato had a dream in which he saw himself changed into a swan, and that as this swan he flew from tree to tree giving his pursuing followers the greatest difficulty in trying to net him: I don’t think we need much imagination to see that the symbolism of this romantic tale is most apt. Of all the philosophers whose writings have survived more or less intact, Plato is, I think, the most difficult to feel one has him and his meaning properly netted and secure. This is for three reasons: firstly, the presentation of his teachings in dialogue form gives a remarkable fluidity to the truths that Plato wants us to consider; secondly he writes as a poet, and has the same approach to words as the best of poets – compressing layers of meaning into seemingly simple sentences; thirdly, he makes it very clear in both the Phaedrus and his letters that he considers the written word to be inferior to that spoken between master and pupil – so that even when we feel that we have understood any particular written doctrine, we must still wonder whether or not this was Plato’s final position on the matter.

One further consideration is needed before I attempt to force Plato into my nutshell tonight: such is the extraordinary luminosity of this philosopher who after almost two and a half thousand years still speaks and questions his readers concerning the most fundamental matters of reality and selfhood, that it is all too easy to see him as a single isolated phenomena – in the same manner as the light of the sun blots out any view of its fellow stars during the day. But this is trap which will immediately run us into trouble: one thing is certain, Plato would not have considered himself a Platonist. Every dialogue pays tribute to earlier thinkers – some obviously, such as Socrates, Aristophanes, Zeno and Parmenides who are actually given parts in the dialogues, some less obviously, such as Anaxagoras and Empedocles who are named in passing, some largely by implication such as Pythagoras and his disciples, whose doctrines concerning number underlie such works as the Timaeus; and some much more mysteriously, such as the founders of the mystery cults, the tellers of mythic stories, and poets. When one steps back to see Plato within a pre-existing tradition, it then becomes equally obvious that he was also expecting his writings to be a part of a continuing tradition. So although I will concentrate upon trying to summarize Plato, I will allow myself a slightly wider focus and consider where two or three of his more puzzling assertions led ancient Platonists.

So much for my approach and excuses for not quite fitting Plato and only Plato into a nutshell tonight. I will divide the rest of my talk into three main sections: metaphysics, psychology and ethics.

Metaphysics

The orthodox view of Plato’s philosophy is that the whole scheme rests on a reasonably clear distinction between two kinds of reality – the intelligible and the sensible. This is an adequate starting point, but it will require important modifications if we are to grasp the full extent of his metaphysics, which is more subtle than such an over simplification allows: indeed we miss an all-important principle if we do not press further towards its half-hidden unity. But let us start with a twofold reality:

There are many places where Plato makes this distinction, and describes the characteristic of the two states. In the Timaeus, for example, when Timaeus himself introduces his teachings concerning the cosmos, he says "In the first place, therefore, as it appears to me, it is necessary to define what that is which is always real being, but is without generation; and what that is which is generated indeed, or consists in a state of becoming to be, but which never really is. The former of these indeed is apprehended by intelligence in conjunction with reason, since it always subsists according to same. But the latter is perceived by opinion in conjunction with irrational sense; since it subsists in a state of generation and corruption, and never truly is."

The intelligible, then, is that which is always the same, possesses real being, and is perceived by the mind; while the sensible is in a constant movement towards and away from being but never quite attains the status of real being, and is perceived by the sense. From one point of view this distinction is quite easy to understand: on the one hand the abstract idea of the even is always even, the abstract idea of straight is always absolutely straight, and the abstract idea of two is never varied; on the other hand, I can see two apple blossoms which will move through various states, budding and growing towards something which is recognisably two apples: but at no point are the apples perfect, for a microscopic examination of them will undoubtedly reveal flaws of disease or accidental damage. Of course we will call them apples, and communicate with each other using an approximation which allows everyday life to proceed – ignoring the fact that they are more properly speaking "almost apples" rather than true apples. In the Theaetetus, at (183a ff), Socrates makes this very point: if knowledge is based on sensible perception then true thought, and consequently language, is subverted. At what point in its movement towards appleness is an apple an apple, and at what point in its decay does it cease to be apple? How many defects are we to allow an apple before we deny the name to it? And why do we call one physical thing an apple when it is observably different from another physical thing which we will also call an apple? At best the application of a common name to a number of physical things is a useful lie, at worst a deception which avoids proper thought.

But our constant use of the intelligible two never wears it out – otherwise in our computing age it would now, surely, be more like 1.9, or perhaps it might have gathered accretions like an old boat, and be closer to 2.1. Mathematics was deemed useful by ancient Platonists as a way of introducing the would-be philosopher to an easily recognisable set of unchanging abstractions, and numbers and mathematical concepts are still the best way of avoiding controversy in the Platonic theory of intelligibles, since "twoness" can be agreed upon by all. This is not quite the case with other intelligibles which Plato puts forward as further examples – absolute justice, beauty, goodness, and so on. Once Plato suggests that justice is as constant as twoness we must look carefully at what he means by intelligible.

An intelligible is something which has real being. In other words it is, rather than something which is becoming. As a dynamic cause Plato calls this real being a form, or idea. But here we must make a clear distinction between a Platonic idea and a human concept: the former is unchanging and independent of human understanding or even recognition, the latter is a relative thing which is subject to modification. In other words the idea of justice is what it is, but the human concept of justice is a constantly shifting value judgment – a thing which may deem the execution of a person for petty theft to be just in one century, and may then deem all executions to be unjust no matter what the crime in the following century. I will return a little later to discuss our own relation to forms or eternal ideas when I cover Platonic psychology.

To understand what Plato means by Idea, we might usefully read Proclus here, in his Commentary on the Parmenides (at 731) where he writes, "By no means, therefore, must it be said, that forms which subsist by themselves, which are established on a sacred foundation, and are immaterial and eternal, are the same with material forms of posterior origin, and which are full of variety and habitude. . . But ideas subsist in energy always the same, and are essentially intellectual."

Now according to Plato there is a clear relationship of abstract forms (or intelligibles) to material things (or sensibles) – a relationship of cause to effect. Everything we sense in any way, either directly through our unaided senses, or indirectly through instruments which amplify sense data is, according to Plato, an image of one or more ideas – material instances of entirely immaterial paradigms. The form is a dynamic causal agent, the particular instance a receptive patient. The form is a universal in the sense that it can, under the right conditions and with the necessary material to hand, act as the model for numberless further copies, each adapted for the particular time, place and condition; it is not, however, a universal in the sense that this term has been used in more recent centuries – a product of a faculty of human mind which more or less arbitrarily groups sets of particulars into perceived genus and species.

The great Platonic description of the creation of the manifested universe in the Timaeus, has the divine intellect, or the Demiurge, creating all things from a pre-existing intelligible pattern, or Animal Itself as Plato calls it. And, indeed, when a human is attempting to be creative, he or she must follow the same path – that is to say, the human creator must in some way and at some level find within a form which will allow the construction of a society, a symphony, a business, a table or whatever which manifests an immaterial idea into the material. For Plato, it is the participation in an idea which allows a physical object to be what it is – an entirely top down relationship: thus a thing can only be a unity because the idea of unity is participated by it, a thing can only be beautiful because the idea of beauty is participated, it can only live because the idea of life is participated.

We need to be very clear, however, that there is no causal effect from the material back to the immaterial: the form is not affected in any way by its manifestations – two is always two, no matter how many instances of twoness there are in the universe, and no matter what happens to those instances. The idea is also unaffected by its own non-manifestation: that is to say, even if there were no instances of twoness, the idea of two would remain exactly what it is, and if there were no living things in the universe, there would still be the same idea of life, awaiting a suitable time, place and condition to manifest again.

This, then, in brief is an outline of the most obvious twofold division of reality for which Platonism is known, with its associated theory of forms. However, this is, as I have said, too simplified and will lead us to numerous inconsistencies if we consider this to be the complete Platonic metaphysics. There are three significant points we must explore before we can leave this outline to fend for itself:

By far the most important addition to this duadic plan is most clearly articulated in the sixth book of the Republic (509b-c) where in discussing being and the things that are intelligible because of their possession of being, Socrates points out that there is a overarching principle which gives things their intelligibility and essence – this first principle he calls The Good (and elsewhere he calls it The One). His words are, "We may say, therefore, that things which are known have not only this from The Good, that they are known, but likewise that their being and essence are thence derived, whilst The Good itself is not essence, but beyond essence, transcending it both in dignity and in power.

" This principle which is greater than being is compared to the sun, and in the same way that all visible things on earth are ruled over by the sun", so, he says, this super-essential One: "reigns over the intelligible genus and place."

The vast implications of this teaching are left largely unwritten by Plato, and it was not until a more pressing time arose when Platonic philosophy was facing a crisis caused by the rise of a form of Christianity which was both anti-philosophical and politically strong that the Platonists of late antiquity began to unfold these implications in their writings. The most complete formulation of Platonic metaphysics based on the truth that oneness is greater in dignity and power than being is to be found in the writings of Proclus – but others, such as Syrianus, Damascius, Olympiodorus and Simplicius took this as the basis for fifth and sixth century Platonism. If we take Plato’s second epistle as genuine, a matter of controversy amongst modern scholars, we will clearly see that this doctrine was primarily one of those of the oral variety, for he writes (312e):

"All things are situated about the king of all things; and all things subsist for his sake, and he is the cause of all beautiful things. But second things are situated about that which is second; and such as are third in gradation about that which is third." 

^{But whereas Plato’s writings are an extended discussion of things second (intelligibles) and third (sensibles), his epistle continues (314a) "as it appears to me, there are scarcely any particulars which will appear more ridiculous to the multitude than these [teachings about The One]; nor again, any which will appear more wonderful and enthusiastic to those that are well born. But when often repeated and continually heard, and this for many years, they are scarcely at length, with great labour, purified like gold. . . . Looking therefore to this, be careful lest you repent of what you have now unworthily uttered [concering this doctrine]. But the greatest means of defence in this case, consists not in writing, but learning: for things which are written cannot be kept from the public view. On this account, I have never at any time written any thing about these particulars. Nor is there any book [concerning them] professedly composed by Plato, nor will there be."}

To explore the writings of the late Platonists is well beyond the writ of this talk, although we should note especially here, the profound writings of Plotinus are entirely built upon what is commonly called the "three hypostases" of the One, Intellect and Soul – in which soul is seen as the principle of moving manifestation, intellect as that of stable being, and the One as the principle of principles. It was Plotinus who, in response to the circumstances of his era, began the written exposition of the One and explicitly draws attention to the pure unity that pervades all things, but yet transcends all things. So that, for example he says (En. III, viii, 10):

"Intellect indeed is beautiful, and the most beautiful of all things, being situated in a pure light and in a pure splendour, and comprehending in itself the nature of beings, of which indeed this our beautiful material world is but the shadow and image; but intellect, that true intelligible world, is situated in universal splendour, living in itself a blessed life, and containing nothing unintelligible, nothing dark, nothing without measure; which divine world whoever perceives, will be immediately astonished, if, as is requisite, he profoundly and intimately merges himself into its inmost recesses, and becomes one, with its all-beauteous nature. And as he who diligently surveys the heavens, and contemplates the splendour of the stars, should immediately think upon and search after their artificer, so it is requisite that he who beholds and admires the intelligible world, should diligently inquire after its author, investigating who he is, where he resides, and how he produced such an offspring as intellect, a son beautiful and pure, and full of his ineffable sire. But his father is neither intellect nor a son, but superior to both."

But to return to Plato and his writings: we can, I think, look at a couple of places where Plato finds in necessary to touch upon some initial implications of this more comprehensive "oneness-intelligible-sensisible" structure, even if his intention is to keep a fuller exposition to an inner oral tradition. In the Philebus, Plato explores how a simple transcendent one can give rise to being. For, he says (at 23c-d), we can see manifested two principles the bound and the infinite, the latter allows things to have an indefinite variety of degrees and expressions, the former gives them a stability and a permanent identity. When these two principles are mixed, he says (27c), they produce being. Thus intelligibles, or eternal forms, or real beings, are a result of combining bound and infinite: remove the infinite, and they would lose their power to manifest in unlimited ways in the world of becoming, remove the bound and they would lose their power to remain eternally what they are despite their infinite manifestations.

For Plato, then, we have a mathematical plan of reality: from the One arises the indefinite duad (bound and unbound), and when the One forces the duad to co-exist in one being we have the multiplicity of 'real' beings: its worth noting that in ancient Greek the plural was not used until three was reached, it having a singular and a duadic case. In other words the One gives rise to being through the principles of the bound and the infinite, and therefore each Platonic Idea is both transcendant (by virtue of the bound) and immanent (by virtue of the infinite).

The second place where Plato guardedly begins outlining the necessary metaphyisical consequences of The One being above being is in the Parmenides, where the attributes of being are removed from any accurate description of The One: fundamental ideas such as sameness, difference, motion, rest, essence, similarity and dissimilarity are all denied of The One. Plato poses a silent question in this dialogue – how does being acquire such attributes, if they are absent from The One; but in conformity to his assertion in the second epistle, not only is the question hidden under a game of logic, but the answer, too, is only to be discovered in the silence of the philosopher’s deepest meditations.

Two further factors must be seen in Plato’s metaphysical scheme: almost as difficult to fathom as the nature of the pre-ontological One, is the truth concerning matter. And just as every formal attribute must be taken away from The One, so every characteristic must be removed from matter – for all we ever perceive is matter informed by ideas, never the pure passivity of matter without form. The only thing we can say about this proto-matter is that it is infinitely receptive – Plato calls it the "nurse of all" in the Timaeus (at 52b) for referring back to passage in which he makes a division of all things into two types, Timaeus says:

"But it is necessary that the beginning of our present disputation should receive a more ample division than the former one. For then we made a distribution into two species: but now a third sort must be added. In the former disputation two species were sufficient; one of which was established as the form of an exemplar, intelligible and always subsisting according to same; but the other was nothing more than the imitation of the paradigm, generated and visible. But we did not then distribute a third, because we considered these two as sufficient. However, now reason seems to urge as a thing necessary, that we should endeavour to render apparent by our discourse the species which subsists as difficult and obscure. What apprehension then can we form of its power and nature? Shall we say that it is in an eminent degree the receptacle, and as it were nurse, of all generation?"

And later he expands on this by saying:

"For it never departs from its own proper power, but perpetually receives all things; and never contracts any form in any respect similar to any one of the intromitted forms. It lies indeed in subjection to the forming power of every nature, becoming agitated and figured through the supernally intromitted forms: and through these it exhibits a different appearance at different times. . . . and it is necessary, that the receptacle which is destined to receive all possible forms should itself be destitute of every form . . . we should call it a certain invisible species, and a formless universal recipient, which in the most dubious and scarcely explicable manner participates of an intelligible nature. Of itself, indeed, we cannot speak without deception. . ."

So we see that the whole of Platonic metaphysics is strung, so to speak, between two natures neither of which we can properly describe, or even think about, except in the most approximate manner. Above all, things arise from The One, ineffable, and superior to every characteristic of being, below all, things are settled upon pure matter, unthinkable, and inferior to every characteristic of being. It is the perfect receptivity of this last layer of reality which allows a reflection of the goodness of the One to be created and, in some mysterious manner, to complete the movement of the universe in a convertive re-ascent. As Proclus says in his 35th proposition in his Elements of Theology, "Every thing caused, abides in, proceeds from, and returns, or is converted to, its cause." The metaphysical universe Plato describes in not one of a merely downward and outward movement – a failing and ever-weakening procession ending in nothingness – but, rather, one that allows the infinite goodness of The Good to circulate (and pervade) down and back up through the levels of reality.

One final major component of this scheme remains to be put in place: soul. In the simple division between the eternal intelligibles and the temporal sensibles where does Plato place the soul – which is, after all, his point of focus? The answer is in neither set. In the Phaedo (79a ff) Socrates once again draws a distinction between intelligibles ("the invisible") and sensibles ("the visible") and then suggests that the soul is "most similar" to intelligibles – but notice he does not call it the same as intelligibles, merely most similar. This is in conformity to the Timaeus, which speaks of the soul being part of a temporal creation, but being woven from the "mortal and immortal" (41c). The soul, upon its creation, is shown the laws of fate and the nature of the universe (41e) – a vision that is only available to a creature which in some sense has the capacity to embrace the all of time.

We may say, therefore, that for Plato there exists between the eternal and the temporal states an intermediate state, the perpetual. The soul, being perpetual, has the everlastingness of the eternal, but not its immutability. The beauty of the Platonic tradition’s world view is that everything proceeds from transcendentally simple One to the inexhaustible multiplicity of the whole of manifestation through a series of ordered steps characterised by ratio – and it is the function of soul in the system of Plato to provide a middle term between the two ontological realms.

The whole system is succinctly summarised by the story of the cave, in which the mutable human self starts as a prisoner held by a illusion that the shadows projected before him on the cave wall are reality – but shadows have little substance, and the wall will take whatever shape is projected by the furniture and statues passing between it and the light from the fire. Once the prisoner is freed from his bench he can move outside the cave of shadows and see, eventually, not only the real things which exist outside the cave but also the ruling sun, from which, he realizes, "governs all things." Within the cave there are only shadows and copies of things (which stand for the world which is made of those things which are continually becoming but never are), above the cave real things (symbolising that which truly is) and their illuminating source. The prisoner is the intermediary which like the soul woven from the mortal and the immortal can perceive both sensible things and, when liberated from the false belief about the lower realm, intelligible things.

To summarize, the simple dualistic theory (ideas and material) beings attributed to Platonic metaphysics fails to take account of a number of unitive affirmations found within Plato’s writings: 

Firstly, that there is an overarching One which is no more confined to the world of ideas, or real beings, than it is to the world of generated material things.

Secondly, even in the twofold scheme, materiality is a reflection of the immaterial, and therefore there is a real relation connecting the two.

Thirdly, the lowest unfoldment of the One – pure passive uninformed matter – carries with it some profound likeness to the first principle, in that it cannot be described in terms of possessed qualities.

Fourthly, that there is a constant movement in the Platonic universe so that apart from an abiding stability in causes, there is also a procession outwards through similarity, and a return of all effects back to the original cause, also through similarity.

And fifthly, there is a intermediate actor which embraces both intellect and material, stability and movement – soul, which has true ratios as its very substance, whose function is to provide a living link between the worlds of eternity and time.

Psychology

This moves us on to a consideration of the psychology of Plato. What is the soul according to Plato and his tradition? We need to go back to the simplest terms here: psyche in Greek means breath – the signal of life, our earthly life is measured from the first breath to our last. So for the Greek psyche is the life giver, the thing which makes otherwise inanimate matter live. It is even more obvious in the Latin, for anima is what animates matter. There are clearly three forms of earthly life – that of plants, that of irrational animals, and that of rational human life. According to Aristotle’s De Anima, each form of life must have a different form of soul, for as the old Platonists point out, we must judge an essence by its energies, or the nature of a thing by its activities.

For a life to be rational, there must be a soul which is rational, for it is impossible for an essence to be less than its energies. Thus it is in the First Alcibiades when Alcibiades and Socrates are looking to come to a simple understanding of what is happening as they converse, Socrates says (at 130e) that, "This therefore was our meaning when we said a little before, that Socrates discoursed with Alcibiades, making use of reason: we meant, it seems, that he directed his words and arguments, not to your outward person, but to Alcibiades himself, that is to the soul."

Leaving aside then other forms of soul, let us survey what Plato says of the human soul, or, if you like, the rational soul. The soul is the self, not the possession of the self. It is the soul which possesses body, not the body which possesses the soul. According to Plato the soul may detach itself from the earthly body and remain a viable unity (see especially the Phaedo, 66b ff) – in fact he claims that the soul detached from body is more itself, and more rational, than when attached to body.

The rational soul has within itself, in some sense, all the reasons or forms which underlie the entire manifested universe, so that there is nothing it cannot understand, so long as it gives each thing the proper attention: Photius, in his Life of Pythagoras, asserts that it was one of the important teachings of Pythagoras that man is a microcosm, a compendium of the whole universe because "he contains all the powers of the cosmos."

This teaching is echoed in the Timaeus, where it said that "the motions which are allied to the divine part of our nature are the dianoetic energies and circulations of the universe" and that we should restore the "revolutions in our head through diligently considering the harmonies and circulations of the universe, that the intellective power may become assimilated to the object of intelligence, according to its original nature." Even if modern science no longer considers the mechanism of the manifested world to be driven by the circulations of the heavenly bodies, we can see that the underlying principle still holds: by studying the universe and its laws, we come to understand the self, or the soul which is a microcosm of the universe and which is governed by the same laws.

As I have said, the Timaeus presents the soul at its coming into being, as being shown the nature of the universe, and in the Phaedrus (at 246a ff) Socrates tells a story of how in her pristine condition the soul rides in her chariot in procession with the Gods through the heavens glimpsing the eternal ideas which are the lights of the heavens – but being of a mixed condition and driving two differing horses she is unable to sustain this flight and falls to earth, with but the faintest memory of the nature of eternal ideas, which are further obliterated by the confusion caused by her contact with materiality. For Plato learning is the recovery of these ideas: in other words the child is not a blank tablet upon which anything can be written but a soul with a host of beautiful reasons waiting to be reborn when introduced to the reflections of ideas in the material life.

This theory of innate ideas is explored and demonstrated in the Meno, where a slave boy with the minimum of mathematical learning is shown to have the knowledge how one may draw a rectangle double the area of an already existing one. At the start of Socrates’ examination of the boy’s knowledge the slave gave the wrong answer, but once he had been questioned in the right way the correct geometry emerge from him with no information being passed from Socrates to the boy. In other words we have a certain distant memory of such things as true justice and absolute beauty – both purely immaterial things – but require the experiences of earthly life to draw these memories into conscious possessions. The whole thrust of Plato’s philosophic system which asks every aspiring philosopher to look at examples of ideas in manifestation and then consider what is an adhering incidental to the idea itself, and what is truly the idea.

This theory is an elegant solution to the question of how it is we go through a process of learning: if we knew everything when born we would certainly not have to learn anything, on the other hand if we knew nothing, then how, when we discover a truth, would we know that it was a truth? How could we go through a process of classification – so basic to science as we know it – if we did not possess the ideas of sameness and difference, similarity and dissimilarity, the equal and the unequal? What is often missed when Plato’s theory of innate ideas is considered is the all-important view of the pristine station of the soul, in which pure forms are glimpsed: the reminiscence of ideas is the result of her life before conjunction with the earthly body, not, primarily, the result of previous earthly experiences. An obvious point, I think, and one that Plato makes clear – if this were not the case, the very problem of how it is we learn would not be addressed by the doctrine, and the scholars’ who claim that the theory is "mire in infinite regress" would be correct.

So starting with the first affirmation that human beings know the fundamental and universal ideas which underlie manifestation, Plato then goes through the different levels of reality and correlates different forms of perception to them. At the lowest level we have sense perception (together with a unifying faculty that allows a multitude of external perceptions to be considered as one thing); then we have doxa, or opinion, that allows us to affirm various facts (or supposed facts) – to say that a thing is, without being able to say why it is; then we have dianoia or ordinary reason, that allows us to investigate the relationship between abstract ideas and other abstract ideas and between abstract ideas and material things; finally we have intellect proper (or intuition) which knows pure ideas not in terms of process or in terms of relationships, but as themselves. It is the goal of Plato’s philosophical system to exercise this highest faculty which allows the soul to understand without being tied to external things which, as we have seen, he considers to be in a constant state of flux. At each succeeding level of knowledge the soul becomes more and more similar to the eternal which is beyond all change – both our knowledge and our very self becomes more unified, intelligible and stable as we rise up through these levels.

Even the form of the writings of Plato, where the emphasis is so often of question and answer, is designed, I would suggest, to stimulate reason and intellect. Socratic questioning, or if you like, Socratic dialectic, first liberates the reader from the worst of all ignorances – that of double ignorance, where we are ignorant of our own ignorance; it then excites the mind to investigate truth; it finally moves the dialectician to a new level of certainty, as it reawakens the soul to its own memory of those intelligibles which subsist according to the same – eternal ideas.

It is this essential core of unchanging knowledge, this "divine part" which defines the soul’s relationship with its eternal source. And it this essence which leads Plato to assert that the soul is immortal, able, in the closing words of the Republic, "to bear all evil and all good" – for that which is most similar to the eternal is indestructible, even though it may appear to go through decay and death. In the Phaedo Socrates, even as he takes the poison allotted to him by the Athenian court, has achieved a consciousness that shows birth and death not to be beginning and end, but a mere change of circumstance of something infinitely more endurable than the shadowy body which is sometimes mistaken for the self.

While the soul provides the inner unity for the whole human organism – it is the soul which thinks, feels, judges, wills – Plato also considers the soul to have three primary faculties: logos, thumos, and epithumos sometimes translated as reason, anger and desire. The reason is the faculty by which the soul learns and knows, desire is the faculty by which the soul moves towards what is identified as good and beautiful, and anger (sometimes translated as the spirited part) is the connecting faculty which endeavours to direct the activities set in motion by desire in the light of the knowledge held by reason. In theRepublic the initial discussion concerns how the different parts of the human whole act with justice, but the consideration of justice is expanded and transferred to how it acts within a city-state because a city provides a parallel which is easier to inspect. Plato divides the inhabitants of his ideal republic into governors, auxiliaries and producers: the governors are, like reason, those charged with pursuing wisdom; the auxiliaries are those who defend and enforce the laws enacted by the governors; the producers are those who pursue wealth.

The same pattern is used in the Phaedrus where the soul in its pristine condition is portrayed as a winged chariot processing through the heavens: the chariot has a charioteer (the reason), a well bred horse responsive to the reigns (the spirited part) and an ill bred horse which pulls against the reigns and makes the chariot move erratically (desire).

A superficial reading of the dialogues may lead the student to believe that Plato wishes the faculty of desire to be extinguished, and that he was the forerunner of the dualistic separation of body and mind which has so marked the past two thousand years. But this view cannot be sustained in a closer reading, in which we see that in the Phaedrus the horse of desire is the very thing which drags the whole chariot, charioteer and partner horse and all, towards the beautiful. Furthermore in the Symposium, Plato marks out a path to the final state of contemplation of absolute beauty starting with the love of one body. In other words Platonism does not reject materiality nor the body, but honours them because they are the recipient of eternal forms, and the means by which the pure form is remembered. Of course, where the material invades the essentially intellectual soul and overwhelms its ability to know and contemplate ideas, then Plato does seek purification.

There is, I think, an interesting passage in the ninth book of the Republic which shows how a balance between desire and reason is the practical ideal of our philosopher, rather than the repression of desires. It reads: "when a man is in health, and lives temperately, and goes to sleep, having excited the rational part, and feasted it with worthy reasonings and inquiries, coming to an unanimity with himself; and allowing that part of the soul which is desiderative neither to be starved nor glutted, that it may lie quiet, and give no disturbance to the part which is best, either by its joy or grief, but suffer it by itself alone and pure to inquire, and desire to apprehend what it knows not, either something of what has existed, or of what now exists, or what will exist hereafter; and having likewise soothed the irascible part, not suffering it to be hurried by any thing, to transports of anger, and to fall asleep with agitated passion: but having quieted these two parts of the soul, and excited the third part, in which wisdom resides, shall in this manner take rest; - by such an one you know the truth is chiefly apprehended . . ." So we must note that Plato does not recommend the suppression of the irrational faculties – but instead, seeks to bring them under the direction of reason, and allow them to act with temperance.  And, of course, in the Symposium Socrates is to be found describing Love – that is to say Eros, or desire – as a might semi-divine creature which connects us with the very highest. The transformative powers of love are underlined by this dialogue, in which the festival of Dionysus is celebrated by an evening during which speeches in praise of Love are to be given: it should not escape the notice of the perceptive reader that whereas the first six speeches do indeed praise Love, the seventh (from Alcibiades), given after Socrates has taken his listeners through a series of initiations concerning the reality of the "mighty daemon love", is a speech in praise of Socrates himself. Plato’s model philosopher, then, is portrayed as an embodiment of Eros. For those who read the speech of Alcibiades carefully, there are numerous clues to Plato’s serious intentions in the culmination of the dialogue, in which Alcibiades himself is seen as acting as the inspired mouthpiece of the God, Dionysus.

So the message of Platonic psychology is this: that the soul has within itself an essential correspondence to the eternal world of ideas, and to the divine; that its is also capable of being embodied; further, that these two things are not mutually exclusive – as rational souls we need to avoid an over-identification with the movement and changes of the body, but that the embodied Socrates passes through the initiation of the mysteries of love and appears as the paradigm of the enlightened soul, full of intellectual life.

As Proclus says, "Through the circular conversion therefore, of the soul to itself, its creator effected its gnostic peculiarity, and which Plato in what he says in the Timaeus, more clearly manifests. For in order to show how the soul knows all things, he says, that it revolves in itself, and thus revolving, began to live a wise and intellectual life. Hence, it is immediately evident, that the conversion to itself, is the knowledge of itself, and of every thing in, prior to and proceeding from itself. For all knowledge is a conversion to the object of knowledge, and an alliance and adaptation to it. And on this account also, truth is an agreement of that which knows with the thing known. Since however, conversion or regression is twofold, the one returning as to The Good, but the other as to being, hence the vital conversion of all things is directed to The Good, but the gnostic to being. Hence too, the former when converted, is said to have The Good, but the latter to have being."

Ethics

Finally let me turn to a brief consideration of Plato’s ethics. Of course the direction of his ethical system is based on Plato’s view of the nature of the human self and its destiny: if we are, as he thinks, immortal and intellectual creatures unfolding our potential in the world of time, then the pursuit of material wealth and temporal security is of little value. The whole of society and all aspects of human intercourse should be directed towards the goal of spiritual growth – or the full consciousness of our own immortal and intellectual nature. So even though enlightenment is of the philosophic individual, at no point does Plato advocate the removal of responsibility of those who are enlightened (or approaching that state) to serve their fellow citizens. Quite the reverse: after the description of how the former prisoner of the Cave has contemplated the highest vision of the ruling sun, this is what Socrates says of his plans for his Republic:

"It is our business then, said I, to oblige those of the inhabitants who have the best geniuses, to apply to that learning which we formerly said was the greatest, both to viewThe Good, and to ascend that ascent; and when they have ascended, and sufficiently viewed it, we are not to allow them what is now allowed them."

"What is that?"

"To continue there," said I, "and be unwilling to descend again to those fettered men, or share with them in their toils and honours, whether more trifling or more important."

"Shall we then," said he, "act unjustly towards them, and make them live a worse life when they have it in their power to live a better?"

"You have again forgot, friend," said I, "that this is not the legislator's concern, in what manner any one tribe in the city shall live remarkably happy; but this he endeavours to effectuate in the whole city, connecting the citizens together; and by necessity, and by persuasion, making them share the advantage with one another . ."

The life of the soul is not simply intellectual – if it were so, it would have no need to descend from its pristine state – but it is both gnostic and vital, and her purpose, as stated in the Timaeus, is to bring order and beauty to the manifest world. The path of the soul which has embraced philosophy is not only to contemplate beautiful ideas, but to attempt to make them a part of its life and a part of that portion of the universe over which it has an influence. The experience of this attempt is for its own sake, and this is a fundamental of Platonic ethics.

The Republic, an extended discourse on justice and the other virtues, continually emphases that living the good life – that is to say a life which is directed towards the true good, rather than its shadowy appearance – should be done because each just action is good in itself: all thoughts of future reward should be dismissed. Of course doing good does indeed tend towards future reward, and the final half of the final book of the Republicdoes explore the principles of what is now known as karma: but by the time the philosopher has followed the arguments of the Republic the intrinsic worth of justice should have been clearly established in his or her mind.

The aim, then, of Platonic ethics is a parallel to that of Platonic psychology – wherever there is a community there must be an exploration of the good, in order to disclose what is truly good rather than apparently good. After this every effort must be made to direct the whole towards the genuine good: Plato’s famous assertion that no community is happy unless philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers is equally applicable to the individual life: No one can become happy unless their ruling part, reason, become directive of the whole organism.

Every faculty of the soul has its virtue – in Greek the word is arête, or excellence – the unfoldment of which leads to its fullest manifestation. The four cardinal virtues for Plato are wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice: by wisdom the rational faculty is perfected, and the governing powers of the community are enabled to discern the truly good; byfortitude the spirited part is perfected, and the ordinative powers of the community are enabled to fulfil their role; by temperance the faculty of desire is perfected, and the mercantile and productive class is enabled to pursue its goals within the confines of moderation; finally by justice the different faculties of the individual can work together exchanging their merits with each other in order to bring the whole into harmony, and in the community, too, the individual participants and the various classes and associations within the community can bring about a fair exchange of benefits, for the harmonious and progressive life of all.

The philosophy of Plato as presented in his dialogues, attempts to stimulate and awaken both the intellectual powers of the soul, as well as the living activities of virtue. As Hierocles of Alexandria says of this philosophy, "it is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine likeness. To effect these two is the province of Virtue and Truth; the former exterminating the immoderation of the passions; and the latter introducing the divine form to those who are naturally adapted to its reception."

The re-ascent to "divine likeness" is for the soul through intellect – but just as the metaphysics of Platonism is not dualistic, so neither is its ethics: the pursuit of true Platonic dialectic arrives not a separated out intellectualism, but at unity, for as the main speaker in the Sophist says, "For, O excellent young man, to endeavour to separate every thing from every thing, is both inelegant, and the province of one rude and destitute of philosophy."

In the love of wisdom, we cultivate our reasons as our own images of eternal ideas, which are the divine offspring of the Gods. As Proclus says: "For the soul when looking at things posterior to herself [i.e. at material things], beholds the shadows and images of beings, but when she converts herself to herself she evolves her own essence, and the reasons which she contains. And at first indeed, she only as it were beholds herself; but, when she penetrates more profoundly into the knowledge of herself, she finds in herself both intellect, and the orders of beings. When however, she proceeds into her interior recesses, and into the adytum as it were of the soul, she perceives with her eye closed, the genus of the Gods, and the unities of beings. For all things are in us psychically, and through this we are naturally capable of knowing all things, by exciting the powers and the images of wholes which we contain."

As a life-giving creature descending into the world of body, the soul’s task is to imitate the providence of the Gods, those unities above even eternity. In this ultimate ethical activity, says Proclus, "the providential energies of souls do not consist in reasonings conjectural of futurity, like those of human political characters, but in illuminations in the one of the soul derived from the Gods. Hence, being surrounded with the transcendently united splendour of deity, they see that which is in time untemporally, that which is divisible indivisibly, and everything which is in place unlocally; and they energise not from themselves, but from the powers by which they are illuminated."

Such, then, in an all too brief summary is an outline of Platonic teaching, so far as I have caught hold of a least a feather or two of that difficult-to-net swan.

Although from some points of view, human understanding has moved on in the last 2,400 years, yet I think that in the most important areas of philosophic enquiry, Plato still poses the questions that really stretch us, and points out the directions in which we may find satisfactory answers. Platonism was, I think, the greatest flowering of philosophy in the ancient west, and in late antiquity the only coherent voice raised against the anti-philosophical version of Christianity which took hold of the Europe. It sees every human being as a rational, self motive and self conscious creature – in potential, at least – and each human as a microcosm and so having a clear right to make its own place in the universe without the mediation of any institution. The counterbalance to this right, as far as Plato was concerned, was the responsibility of each individual to deal with the whole of manifestation in a just manner, in order to act as a part of a living universe. I think that this sunlit vision of humankind has much to commend it, and at the very least provides an intelligent alternative to the two great clashing movements of today’s world – that of blind mechanistic science, and that of religious literalism.

Platonic philosophy, when properly understood, is a path to the greatest possible life, the greatest possible happiness – beautifully indicated by these words of Proclus:

'And this is the best employment of our energy, to be extended to a divine nature itself, having our powers at rest, to revolve harmoniously round it, to excite all the multitude of the soul to this union, and laying aside all such things as are posterior to The One, to become seated and conjoined with that which is ineffable, and beyond all things.'