An Apology for Mythology
An Apology for Mythology By Joseph Dalton Wright Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of Bachelor Arts in the Integral Curriculum of Liberal Arts at Saint Mary’s College April 16, 2012 Advisor: Ms. Theodora Carlile Wright, 1 “Whence a lover of myth, too, is in a sense a philosopher, for a myth is composed of wonders” -Aristotle, Metaphysics1 1 Metaphysics, Book A, Chapter Two (Aristotle 1966) Wright, 2 Introduction What is the self, how does it operate? This question is the theme of Socrates’ final conversation in Plato’s dialogue Phaedo. The first word of the dialogue is αὐτός2 (self), and in the first sentence Plato connects this issue with the mixture of opposites. “Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did you hear about it from someone else?” (Phaedo, 57A) Socrates drank the hemlock and fulfilled the Athenian court’s verdict. Plato uses the word φάρµακον3, which in Greek can mean both medicine and poison. If the φάρµακον is medicine, then Socrates is actually curing an illness, and liberating himself from disease, but is the hemlock medicine or poison? The φάρµακον embodies a critical question: how can opposites reconcile and collaborate? The opposing meanings meet, mix, and coordinate in the Φάρµακον; a unity-in-opposition of medicine and poison. Plato knows relationships like this are troubling, but the agony is beneficial, for the test reveals how our consciousness connects and creates. Socrates presents several opposites as candidates for reconciliation throughout the dialogue, such as pleasure and pain, and one and many.
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