SELF AND BODY IN PLATO: PHAEDO, REPUBLIC, TIMAEUS BY ORESTIS KARATZOGLOU DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Classical Philology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2019 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Kirk Sanders, Chair Professor Antony Augoustakis Associate Professor Angeliki Tzanetou Assistant Professor Daniel William Leon Ruiz ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the role of the body in the fashioning of the self in Plato’s Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus. Even though it is usually argued that for Plato the real self is simply the soul and that the body is merely a hindrance toward realization of the ideal self, my analysis of these dialogues shows that the body may be assigned a constructive rather than obstructive role in the attempt to become a unified self. The Phaedo shows awareness that the indeterminacy inherent in the body infects the validity of any scientific argument but also provides the subject of inquiry with the ability to actualize, to the extent possible, the ideal self. The Republic locates bodily desires and needs in the soul, which is conceived of as a tripartite entity that enjoys at least minimum intelligible unity. Admittedly, achievement of maximal unity is dependent upon successful training of the rational part of the soul, as envisaged in the curriculum of Book 7. There is reason to suppose, however, that the earlier curriculum of Books 2 and 3, which aims at instilling a pre-reflectively virtuous disposition in the lower parts of the soul, is a prerequisite for the advanced studies of Republic 7. The Timaeus is most generous in the influence it accords the body. The world soul is fashioned out of Being, Sameness, and Difference: coupled with Aristotle’s observations, an examination of the Sophist and the Parmenides reveals that Difference is to be identified with the Timaeus’ third ontological principle, namely the Receptacle. Being thought of as space or matter, the Receptacle thus emerges as the quasi-material component that provides each individual soul with the alloplastic capacity for psychological growth and alteration. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Kirk Sanders, for assisting me with the formulation of my argument in its earlier stages, for being subtle about providing feedback without ever imposing his approach (the leash was long), and for being particularly responsive in practical matters. I am also greatly indebted to the members of my committee, especially Dan Leon, who was always keen to read the first drafts and to offer comments that made me narrow down the scope of my research and get a better grip on my own argument. I am grateful to Antony Augoustakis and Angeliki Tzanetou for their guidance and support during my years in Champaign- Urbana. I would also like to thank my former professor, Theokritos Kouremenos, for having introduced me to the field of ancient philosophy and for being to this day a source of inspiration. Special thanks to my friends Kostas Arampapaslis, Maria Goldshtein, Leon Wash, and Giorgos Rovatsos: to Kostas for being an ideal roommate as well as for our endless conversations in Champaign, Thessaloniki, and Berlin; to Maria and Leon for reading parts of the manuscript and always being willing to discuss all and everything; to Giorgos for his help in mathematics. Last but not least, I would like to thank my parents and my brother: none of this would have been possible without the financial and emotional support of Tasos, Sofia, and Sofoklis (deus). iii To my parents χρὴ δ᾿ ἄνδρα τοκεῦσιν φέρειν βαθύδοξον αἶσαν. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: PHAEDO ................................................................................................. 6 1.1 Metaphors About Death ............................................................................................ 8 1.2 Ordinary Vs. Socratic Conceptions of Death ........................................................... 20 1.3 The Nature of Socrates’ ἐλπίς .................................................................................. 32 1.4 Soothing the Inner Child ......................................................................................... 59 1.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 71 CHAPTER 2: REPUBLIC ............................................................................................. 73 2.1 Tripartition in Book 4 .............................................................................................. 74 2.2 Beliefs and the Non-Rational Soul........................................................................... 89 2.3 Reason and Separation .......................................................................................... 105 2.3.1 Reason and the Inner Human ........................................................................ 110 2.3.2 Reason and the Sea-God Glaucus ................................................................. 114 2.4 Types of Virtue ..................................................................................................... 117 2.4.1 Natural and Artificial Virtue ......................................................................... 120 2.4.2 Pre- and Post-Reflective Artificial Virtue ..................................................... 129 2.5 Maximizing Unity ................................................................................................. 133 2.5.1 Non-Philosophers ......................................................................................... 136 2.5.2 Philosophers ................................................................................................. 142 2.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 150 CHAPTER 3: TIMAEUS ............................................................................................. 153 3.1 Necessity as a Cause ............................................................................................. 156 3.2 Receptacle and Sameness ...................................................................................... 163 3.3 Receptacle in the Precosmos ................................................................................. 170 3.3.1 Protoelements ............................................................................................... 171 3.3.2 Receptacle, Motion, and Difference .............................................................. 176 3.4 Creation of the Immortal Part of the Soul .............................................................. 183 3.4.1 Being, Sameness, and Difference in the Sophist ............................................ 189 3.4.2 Difference in the Parmenides........................................................................ 197 3.5 Aristotle’s Testimony ............................................................................................ 203 3.6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 208 FINAL CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................................ 211 APPENDIX A: BODY AND THE PROBLEM OF SOUL INDIVIDUATION ........... 214 v BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 230 vi INTRODUCTION It is standard Platonic doctrine that soul and body are distinct and that, in ideal conditions, the former should hold sway over the latter. Indeed, several dialogues canvass the view that the soul reaches its purity only when it is itself by itself, a condition that allows it to commune with the unalterable entities of the Platonic realm, namely the Forms. In conceiving of the self in non- physical terms, the Platonic notion falls in line with at least one aspect of the secular conception of personhood which dates back to Descartes and specifies that persons are immaterial and, as such, are to be dissociated from anything bodily.1 Yet, this Cartesian conception of personhood has been criticized, and it has been suggested that the body may constitute a necessary condition for personal identity.2 This dissertation aims at bringing to the fore the role of the body and the bodily in the constitution of Platonic selves: in pursuing the same line of thought with regard to the Platonic conception of selfhood, I have found that the Platonic corpus contains several approaches to the problem which contradict the apparent doctrine by allotting a necessary role to the body. In Chapter 1, I focus on the Phaedo, which argues more directly and forcefully than any other Platonic work for the existence of an immaterial, incomposite, eternal, and essentially rational soul that is separated from the body at the time of death. Given the significance of the 1 Of course, there is a perhaps insurmountable gap between what is designated by the terms “mind” and “soul,” the most conspicuous difference being that the latter was conceived of almost universally by Greek philosophers not as merely the locus of consciousness or intentionality but also as the principle of growth and movement. See Everson (1991). Additionally, it need not be mentioned that there are differences