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Plato on Soul and Body Plato on Soul and Body A Dissertationfor the Ph.D. Degree submitted to the Faculty ofArts, University of Glasgow by Maria Giannakopoulou Glasgow,April 2002 - Abstract This thesis examinesthe developmentof Plato's thought on the subject of the soul-body relation. I will not attemptto cover ever3ýing that Plato saysabout the soul - for exampleI will discuss'proofs' of immortalityonly in so far as they havea bearingon the interpretation of soul and body. In this life at least human beings have both a soul and a body; as a result, the soul by necessityinteracts with the body. This interaction, though, is not simply an interrelation between two completely different and separate entities; rather the relation betweensoul and body is far more complicated. The purpose of the introduction is to presenta preliminary view of the soul, in that way we could better understandthe background that Plato had to take under consideration. Within the introduction the Apology is used so as to show the importance of the idea of the soul in Socratic ethics, and to indicate that the Socratic idea that we should care for the soul rather than the body, becomescrucial within Plato's philosophy. The dialogues that follow, the Gorgias and the Meno, provide early indications of the complex relation required between soul and body, for Plato's moral, metaphysical and epistemological concerns. Thus, although Plato, in these dialogues, does not give us a clear definition of the soul's nature and its relation to the body, the perplexity and ambiguity concerning the soul's nature leadsto the more detailed analysisof it in later dialogues. The Phaedo appearsto offer a view of the soul as a simple immaterial entity wholly distinct from the body. Even within this dialogue, though, there are signs that this simple view of the soul is not adequatefor Plato's moral and metaphysical concerns, this becomesevident as well in the Symposium. i The first dialogue where the notion of the tripartite soul is introduced is the Republic. The chapter concernedwith the relevant books of the Republic - books IV, IX, and X- shows that the tripartite soul is in accordwith Plato's moral and metaphysicalconcerns. The soul is explicitly presentedas tripartite and because of this, it requires a close relation to the body. What is not yet achieved, though, in this dialogue'is the presentationof the particular relation required between soul and body. Although the tripartite theory implies a close relation between the lower parts of the soul and the body, Plato does nothing to explain exactly how the soul and the body are related. This is the task that the next chapteris set to accomplish. This is done through looking at the Timaeus. In the TimaeusI look at the detailed construction of the human being. The parts of the soul are located in the body. There is also some account of how bodily events affect the soul, and how the soul affects the body. The languageused by Plato shows that soul and body cannot be treated as simply two elementsthat are accidentally connected. The relation portrayed then betweenthe two is that of mutual dependence. In the final chapter, thus, I am concernedwith the crucial question whether Plato is a dualist or not. To arguethat Plato cannot fall under the categoryof Cartesiandualism, I discuss Descartes and Aristotle's views on the soul-body relation to show their differences. In particular by using Aristotle's view as an intermediate one, and by bringing forward a number of points discussed earlier in the thesis regarding Plato's view, I show that the key notion of Cartesiandualism cannot apply to Plato's theory. ii Acknowledgments I would like to thank my supervisor,Professor Richard F. StalleY, for his guidance and constructivecriticism. His patienceand tolerancetaught me not only how good a professorhe is, but alsowhat a valuableperson to know. My family who have been a constant source of encouragement. My parents for caring enoughto let me pursue my dream,my grandmotherfor her belief in me, and my sisters for establishingthat family bond not affected by distance. Numerous are the personswhose help was more than valuable during theseyears and I thank them wholeheartedly: Sakura Kamimura helped me to adjust through the first very important year of my research. My former flatmates and good friends Alexandros Alexiou, Eunice Stefanou and Nikolas Magriplis for being presentin good and bad times. My dear friends Kalli Mantala, Ekaterina Dimopoulou and Nikos Kosmas whose help proved as valuable as their friendship will always be. I would like to thank Dr. ConstantineHajivassiliou and Mrs. Eva, for their support and understanding. A big thanks goes to Danae and Maria for their love. Through their innocent eyesthey have shown me a better way to look at things. I would also like to thankmy Scottish'mother' Mrs. NancyDickinson who, like a true mother, was there for me whenever I neededher. A special thanks has to be given to Mr. Ian Dickinson for his patience,kindness and consideration. iii Finally, I would like to thank Rev. C. Papageorgiouand his family for all their help and support throughout theseyears. iv Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Souland Body in the Gorgias 19 2.1 Socratesand Polus: Health Analogy 19 2.2 Punishment 23 2.3 The TreatmentAgainst Wickedness 29 2.4 Socratesand Callicles: Harmony/Order Within Oneself 38 2.5 Death 49 3. Meno 52 3.1 Virtue 53 3.2 The RecollectionArgument 55 3.3 Virtue andKnowledge 68 3.4 Conclusion 72 4. Phaedo 74 4.1 The CyclicalArgument 75 4.2 The RecollectionArgument 81 4.3 TheAffinity Argument 92 4.4 Simmiasand Cebes' Objections 100 4.5 Socrates'Reply to Cebes 108 4.6 The Final Argument 112 4.7 Plato'sMyth 115 4.8 Conclusion 117 5. The TripartiteNotion of the Soulin the Republic 123 5.1 RepublicIV 123 5.2 RepublicIX 136 5.3 RepublicX 152 5.3.1The Myth of Er 162 5.4 Conclusion 169 V 6. Timaeus 178 6.1 Introduction 178 6.2 Doctrine of Creation 178 6.3 World-Body and World-Soul 183 6.4 The CreatedWorld and The Human Being 191 6.5 Human soul-body Relation 196 6.6 Conclusion 215 221 7. Is Plato a Dualist? 7.1 Introduction 221 7.2 Descartes'Dualism 222 228 7.3 Aristotle on Soul-Body Relation 7.4 Plato, Aristotle and Descartes 230 7.5 Conclusion 239 Bibliography 242 vi Introduction Writing a thesis on Plato's view about the relation of soul and body, one has firstly to examine Plato's view of the soul. Plato, throughout the dialogues, presentsus with a numberof possiblereadings regarding the soul's nature,but a moredetailed reading of the dialogues can show that there is a development of thought from a simple soul, that is seen as reason, towards a tripartite soul. This change from a simple soul to a tripartite one may be seen as a random one, but I would like to argue that Plato's thought progressed towards the tripartite soul because of his metaphysical and epistemological concerns. Plato's notion of soul moreover, as it progresses,shapes his view of the relation between soul and body. To talk about the soul-body relation, then, requires also to establish the philosophical background in so far as it concerns the various views on the soul, qmXT).Such a background will show views that directly or indirectly influenced Plato. One of the essentialbeliefs of the ancient Greeks regarding the soul, OXTI, is that OXTI is what makes something 'living'; the possession or not of soul determines what is animate and what is inanimate. A characteristic example of the notion that soul is the source of life is Thales' philosophy. He held that whatever exhibited some kind of motion must have possessed soul: 'Thales, too, seems from what they relate, to have supposed that the soul was something kinetic, if he said that the [magnesian] stone possesses soul because it moves iron' (Aristotle de anima A2,405al9, K. Rý S. 89)'. But there is much more than this to the notion of qwXTI '. Within the philological tradition, the first reference to soul as an aetherial element is that given by Homer. One All the quotations regarding the Presocraticsare taken from G. S. Kirk, J. E. Raven and M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers Cambridge University Press 1983, unless otherwise stated. I might ask what is the needfor presentingHomer's notion of the soul. Well, although Homer doesnot strictly belong to the philosophicalbackground of Plato, his works were consideredas authoritativeteachings among the ancient Greeks. Moreover, Plato's insistenceon using the Homeric epics to draw examples,and his usual argumentationagainst the validity of Homer'steachings in relationto moral concerns, indicatesthat Homeris a valid referenceas regardsthe shapingof people'sview of the soul. Homer,then, refersto soul as that which distinguishesthe living from the dead. In particular,he treatsthe soul as a ghost-likeshade. In fact, as Gulley puts it, any thoughtof survivalafter deathwas naturallyassociated with soul, sinceit wasthe soul, as the breath of life, which desertedthe body at deathý. A striking featureof the Homericview of soul is that the soulsare dream-likeshadows which in orderto show any mental capacity, need to drink blood. A view of this kind implies that the souls, although they are immaterial representationsof the people they were before they die, they are not fully conscious after death. As Bernard Williams says, 'psyche stands for Homer as something that is mentioned only when someoneis fainting, dying, or dead. When the person is dead, it is pictured as existing in a very flimsy, deprived, and unenviable condition A. His argument goes finther; he argues that the fact that the figures encounteredin the underworld bear the names of dead people does not show that they are, straightforwardly, those peoples.
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