Méthexis X (/997) p. 45-49 Articulos

PLATO ON METEMPSYCHOSIS AND THE CONCEPT OF APPROPRIATE DEGRADATION

THOMAS M. ROBINSON

This paper will be generally concemed with the concept of metempsychosis, and more specifically with the topic of the relationship between humans and other animaIs in the thinking of Plato, with an excursus into the question of his apparent views on the specific reason for gender-difference among humans. ln an extraordinary, not to say hair-raising passage towards the end of the Ti­ maeus, Plato states, as part of his so-called "Iikely tale" about how the universe we know and ail the living things it contains began, either (on one interpretation) that the first generation of humans was sexless and physically ungendered, or (on another interpretation) that, while being physically ungendered, it consisted none­ theless of creatures sexually distinguishable as males and females. 1 For purposes of the present paper it makes little difference which of the two interpretations is adopted; the more important thing is Plato's next move in the argument. That next move involves discussion of a) the origin of(physically gendered) women and b) the origins ofthe animal world, and both views have the distinction ofbeing very startling and very little known. To talk first ofhow he viewed the origin ofwom­ en: the second generation of women, it seems, consisted, at least in part,2 of erstwhile men undergoing punishment for the moral quality of the previous life they had lived as men; specifically, for a Iife showing features of cowardice and injustice (90e). As far as 1 know, this view is found for the first time in Greek thought in the writings of Plato. The discussion of life as a woman as sorne sort of punishment for a cowardly and unjust previous life as a man is, as it happens, simply in Timaeus's account

1 The first interpretation is that of Taylor, followed most recently by Brisson; the second is that of Comford. The difference between them is however slighter than might at tirst sight appear, since Comford, understanding the term eras at 42a7 as evidence of sexual differentiation, rather than sim­ ply desire for anything deemed aga/han, is prepared to detine creatures that are without sexual or­ gans as male amd female while Taylor and Brisson are no!. More important is the frequent mistrans­ lation of kreillan at 42a2 as "better" or "superior" ("meilleure", Brisson). Taylor, it seems to me, is a better guide here in his tirst reading of it as "stronger" (cf. PI. Resp. 338c5). In this way Timaeus stands absolved of the apparent contradiction of c1aiming both that males were by nature better than/superior to females From the beginning and that both were in an equally advantageous position from the beginning (41e3-4). As the argument of the Republic had made c1ear. Plato did not believe that, given appropriate genetic background and education, women were in any significant way dis­ advantaged by their greater physical weakness than men from attaining the highest virtue and gover­ ning a Just Society. 2 If Taylor and Brisson are right. any proto-males of the first generation who show cowardice and other moral fault will be re-incamated as (gendered) females; those who are virtuous will presuma­ bly be re-incamated as (gendered) males (cf. Tim. 9Ie). What happens to the proto-females of the first generation is not mentioned by Timaeus, but it seems a natural assumption that he thought that they too would be re-incarnated as gendered females. 46 Thomas M. Robinson the prelude to his discussion of transformation into animais. These are catego­ rised into four classes: birds, footed animais, crawling animais, and sea creatures, from fish to shell fish. The first c1ass, birds, were, to quote the text directly, "made by transformation: growing feathers instead of hair, they came from harm­ less but Iight-witted men, who studied the heavens but imagined in their simplici­ ty that the surest evidence in these matters cornes through the eye" (91 d-e). The reference to "men" is, it should be noted, gender-specific (andron = "males"); Timaeus is saying that ail or sorne of the first generation of (gendered) women on earth, and apparently ail of the first generation of animais on earth, consisted of men undergoing punishment for shortcomings of sorne sort in their previous Iife as men. After mentioning how the punishment of the Iight-witted amongst that first ge­ neration of men was to be re-incamated as members of that most light-witted of classes of creature, birds, Timaeus then mentions the punishment administered to those amongst that first generation who, in basically never looking up at the sky, never got to understand mathematics and philosophy. For ignorance of course gets punished, in the Platonic scheme of things, not simply what most people would describe as moral fault. Appropriately, it was another punishment to fit the crime, this time transformation into footed or hooved land-animais, a feature Pla­ to the teleologist sees as being particularly conducive to drawing the creature down towards the earth - which was of course the entire object of our erstwhile male's attention - and keeping it there. Further features in these creatures suggest­ ing earth-bound inclination, says Plato, are a) fore-limbs and heads that hang down towards the ground and b) heads that tend to be elongated or to sorne other degree awkwardly fashioned, rather than being, as ours are, more or less spher­ ical in shape, to best house the spherical shapes of psychic Sameness and Differ­ ence. What 1 have been describing can 1 think be conveniently named Plato's doctri­ ne of "appropriate degradation" amongst the various forms in the animal king­ dom. It differs significantly from standard teleological description in that it says nothing about the putative role of animais as such in either the general scheme of things or the particular scheme of their relationships with one another or with hu­ mans. Indeed, if the description of them in the Timaeus is to be taken more or less at face value (and 1 am assuming, for lack of evidence to the contrary, that it is), animais in origin functioned primarily if not totally as appropriately structu­ red prison-houses for erstwhile men ofvarying degrees ofstupidity. On the assumption - drawn from a reading of such dialogues as the Gorgias, Republic and Phaedrus - that Plato tended to favour a "punishment" interpreta­ tion of metempsychosis, the above account also fits weil with a general under­ standing of animal form as being for Plato one of "appropriate degradation" for the accommodation of ail future generations, not just the first one, of delinquent male human souls. As Timaeus puts it, in concluding the passage we have just been examining: "These are the principles on which, now as then, ail living crea­ tures change into one another, shifting their place with the loss or gain of under-