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Zeus and Philosophy in The Myth of Plato’s Phaedrus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. Dyson
M. Dyson
Affiliation:
University of Queensland
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Extract

The matter which I wish to discuss is a discrepancy between two accounts of the origin of the philosopher in the myth of Plato's Phaedrus. Before their incarnation the souls of all humans are imagined as having enjoyed the vision of reality, but not all in the same company or to the same degree. For, in the first place, the souls are distributed among the companies that severally follow eleven different gods, 247 a-b, a distribution which is regarded as important for the type of character an embodied soul will subsequently have, 252d. In the second place, some souls are more successful than others in following their god, and accordingly they manage to see more of reality than do the others, and on this variation depends the sort of life each soul will subsequently have on earth, 248 d-e. And here arises the problem about the philosopher, corresponding to the two differences of company and degree in the soul's pre-natal vision of reality.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , December 1982 , pp. 307 - 311
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1982

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References

1 Hackforth, R., Plato's Phaedrus (Cambridge, 1952), p. 101.Google Scholar See also Thompson, W. H., The Phaedrus of Plato (London, 1868), p. 79,Google Scholar and Rist, J. M., Eros and Psyche (Toronto, 1964), p. 19: ‘In this passage, Plato speaks also of the “followers” of other gods: of Hera, Ares, and Apollo. That such persons are inferior to the “followers” of Zeus is certain. They are not philosophers, perhaps they are deficient intellectually, but they have practised ⋯μο⋯ωσις θε***) as far as their inferior potentialities allow.’ Rist suggests that, in the Republic, the guardians may be followers of Zeus, the ⋯π⋯κονρι of Ares or of Hera, and ‘even the artisans in the Ideal Republic are possibly the followers of some lesser divinity’.Google Scholar

2 op. cit. p. 100 n. 3.

3 Vries, G. De, Commentary on the Phaedrus of Plato (Amsterdam, 1969), ad loc.; Thompson, ad loc.Google Scholar

4 ‘Appetitive’ is hard to improve on. It has what may seem to be weaknesses, suggesting essential affinity with the appetitive part of the tripartite soul, and making the Platonic lover sound self-seeking. This he must of course be, in view of the fundamental analysis of eras as lack in Symposium 200a ff., and, rightly seen, this is one of the strengths of Plato's theory, if he can satisfactorily explain the proceative and benevolent aspects. Further, eros cannot be felt except by a mortal, a compound of body and psyche, and as such it is intimately concerned with sexual desires, which in Republic 4 Plato confines to the epithymetic part of the psyche; all men are ‘fertile’ both in body and in soul, Symp. 206c. This, too, is a strength, provided that some mechanism of sublimation or redirection of energy is available. The term ‘appetitive’, then, captures some of the paradoxes of eros.

5 Phaedrus 252e has of course been used before by scholars to exemplify a ‘down-flowing’ eros into which self-seeking eros is transformed, see Rist, op. cit. p. 36, with reference to A. H. Armstrong, Downside Review (1961), p. 108. My version is, I believe, closer to Plato's intention in that it distinguishes between the procreative or creative aspects on the one hand, and the benevolent on the other, and also in that it recognises the importance of a range of ideal human types. Thus it follows closely the emphasis of the dialogues.

6 Despite the difficulty of reconciling Plato's gods with the planets, astrology looks a likely source. According to Capelle, W., Hermes 60 (1925), 373 ff., astrological influences before Plato occur in Hippocrates Regimen 4. 89 (medical prognosis from dreams), Democritus, DK 55 A 86 (Babylonian star-triad) and Ctesias in Nicolaus of Damascus fr. 8 ff. (political forecasts).Google Scholar

7 By ‘personification’ (and ‘symbolises’ below) I do not mean to imply that Plato regards his gods as fictions useful for summing up facts of human psychology, and not as existing beings. But Greek gods traditionally have their own individuality besides presiding over important features of human psychology and society, and Plato writes in this tradition.

8 The perfect appropriateness of this interpretation of ⋯με***ς250 b, to the rhetorical context renders unnecessary any speculation as to the patron gods of Socrates, Plato or Phaedrus. For the speech is addressed to a handsome youth, as we are reminded both at beginning and at end, and if we might imagine such a one being stirred by the ideas he has heard, no better stimulus could be found to urge him on to a life of philosophic love than the hint that he has shared experiences in the past with his admirer, that he has a natural capacity for philosophy, and that - since a wrong choice costs nine thousand years of senseless wandering, 257 a - he is in his first incarnation, and may well have the forms handy for recollection, cf. 248e-249a, 251 a.

9 I wish to express my gratitude to Dr H. Gottschalk of Leeds University for the benefit of his criticism on a draft of this essay.