Plato’s dialogues. Part II: On the soul Plato Plato’s Academy Contents 1. Symposium 2 1.1. Prologue 3 1.2. The Speech of Phaedrus 4 1.3. The Speech of Pausanias 5 1.4. The Speech of Eryximachus 7 1.5. The Speech of Aristophanes 8 1.6. Socrates and Agathon 10 1.7. The Speech of Agathon 10 1.8. Socrates 11 1.8.1. The Nature and Origin of Love 13 1.8.2. The Cause and Effect of Love 14 1.8.3. The Ascent Passage 15 1.9. Alcibiades 16 1.9.1. The Entry of Alcibiades 16 1.9.2. The Speech of Alcibiades 17 1.10. Conclusion 20 2. Phaedrus 20 2.1. The Speech of Lysias 22 2.2. The First Interlude 23 2.3. The First Speech of Socrates 24 2.4. The Second Interlude. The Palinode 26 2.5. The Second Speech of Socrates 27 2.6. The Myth of the Cicadas 31 2.7. Knowledge and the True Art of Rhetoric 32 2.8. Collection and Division, or Dialectic 35 2.9. Rhetoric, the False Art and the True 35 2.10. Speech and Writing 38 2.11. Conclusion 39 3. The Republic 40 3.1. Some Current Views of Justice 41 3.1.1. Cephalus. Justice as Honesty in Word and Deed 41 3.1.2. Polemarchus. Justice as Helping Friends and Harming Enemies 42 3.1.3. Thrasymachus. Justice as the Interest of the Stronger 44 3.1.4. Thrasymachus. Is Injustice More Profitable than Justice? 49 3.2. Justice in the State and in the Individual 52 3.2.1. The Problem Stated 52 3.2.2. The Rudiments of Social Organization 56 3.2.3. The Luxurious State 58 3.2.4. The Guardian’s Temperament 59 3.2.5. Primary Education of the Guardians 60 3.2.6. Selection of Rulers: The Guardian’s Manner of Living 74 3.2.7. The Virtues in the State 77 3.2.8. The Three Parts of the Soul 80 3.2.9. The Virtues in the Individual 83 3.3. The Position of Women and the Usages of War 85 3.3.1. The Equality of Women 85 3.3.2. Abolition of the Family for the Guardians 88 3.3.3. Usages of War 93 3.4. The Philosopher King 95 3.4.1. The Paradox: Philosophers Must Be Kings 95 3.4.2. Definition of the Philosopher. The Two Worlds 96 3.4.3. The Philosopher’s Fitness to Rule 98 3.4.4. Why the Philosophic Nature Is Useless or Corrupted in Existing Society 100 3.4.5. A Philosophic Ruler Is Not an Impossibility 104 3.4.6. The Good as the Highest Object of Knowledge 106 2 3.4.7. Four Stages of Cognition. The Line 109 3.4.8. The Allegory of the Cave 110 3.4.9. Higher Education 112 3.4.10. Dialectic 117 3.4.11. Programme of Study 118 3.5. The Decline of Society and of the Soul. 120 3.5.1. The Fall of the Ideal State. Timocracy and the Timocratic Man 120 3.5.2. Oligarchy (Plutocracy) and the Oligarchic Man 123 3.5.3. Democracy and the Democratic Man 125 3.5.4. Despotism and the Despotic Man 128 3.5.5. The Just and Unjust Lives Compared in Respect of Happiness 133 3.5.6. Justice, Not Injustice, Is Profitable 139 3.6. The Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry 140 3.6.1. How Representation in Art Is Related to Truth 140 3.6.2. Dramatic Poetry Appeals to the Emotions, Not to the Reason 144 3.6.3. The Effect of Dramatic Poetry on Character 145 3.7. Immortality and the Rewards of Justice 146 3.7.1. A Proof of Immortality 146 3.7.2. The Rewards of Justice in this Life 148 3.7.3. The Rewards of Justice after Death. The Myth of Er 148 4. Phaedo 151 4.1. Prologue 151 4.2. Death and the Philosopher 152 4.3. The Cycle of Opposites Argument 156 4.4. The Recollection Argument 157 4.5. The Affinity Argument 159 4.6. The Doctrines Concerning Body and Soul 161 4.7. Simmias’ Objection – The Harmony and Lyre 162 4.8. Cebes’ Objection – The Man and Cloak 163 4.9. Interlude. The Warning Against Misology 164 4.10. Socrates’ Reply to Simmias 165 4.11. Socrates’ Reply to Cebes: The Causes of Generation and Destruction 166 4.12. Socrates’ Reply to Cebes: Socrates’ Theory of Causation. Forms as Causes 168 4.13. Socrates’ Reply to Cebes: The Soul in Particular 170 4.14. The Myth of the Afterlife 171 4.15. The Death Scene 174 1. SYMPOSIUM Your informant, Glaucon, I said, must have been very in- distinct indeed, if you imagine that the occasion was recent; PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Apollodorus, who repeats or that I could have been of the party. to his companion the dialogue which he had heard from Aris- Why, yes, he replied, I thought so. todemus, and had already once narrated to Glaucon. Phaedrus, Impossible: I said. Are you ignorant that for many years Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, Agathon has not resided at Athens; and not three have elapsed Alcibiades, A Troop of Revellers. since I became acquainted with Socrates, and have made it my SCENE: The House of Agathon. daily business to know all that he says and does. There was a APOLLODORUS: Concerning the things about which you time when I was running about the world, fancying myself to ask to be informed I believe that I am not ill-prepared with be well employed, but I was really a most wretched being, no an answer. For the day before yesterday I was coming from better than you are now. I thought that I ought to do anything my own home at Phalerum to the city, and one of my acquain- rather than be a philosopher. tance, who had caught a sight of me from behind, calling out Well, he said, jesting apart, tell me when the meeting oc- playfully in the distance, said: Apollodorus, O thou Phale- curred. rian (Probably a play of words on (Greek), ’bald-headed.’) In our boyhood, I replied, when Agathon won the prize with man, halt! So I did as I was bid; and then he said, I was his first tragedy, on the day after that on which he and his looking for you, Apollodorus, only just now, that I might ask chorus offered the sacrifice of victory. you about the speeches in praise of love, which were deliv- Then it must have been a long while ago, he said; and who ered by Socrates, Alcibiades, and others, at Agathon’s supper. told you–did Socrates? Phoenix, the son of Philip, told another person who told me No indeed, I replied, but the same person who told of them; his narrative was very indistinct, but he said that you Phoenix;–he was a little fellow, who never wore any shoes, knew, and I wish that you would give me an account of them. Aristodemus, of the deme of Cydathenaeum. He had been at Who, if not you, should be the reporter of the words of your Agathon’s feast; and I think that in those days there was no friend? And first tell me, he said, were you present at this one who was a more devoted admirer of Socrates. Moreover, meeting? I have asked Socrates about the truth of some parts of his nar- 3 rative, and he confirmed them. Then, said Glaucon, let us have I rather fear, Socrates, said Aristodemus, lest this may still the tale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for con- be my case; and that, like Menelaus in Homer, I shall be the versation? And so we walked, and talked of the discourses on inferior person, who love; and therefore, as I said at first, I am not ill-prepared to comply with your request, and will have another rehearsal of ’To the feasts of the wise unbidden goes.’ them if you like. For to speak or to hear others speak of phi- But I shall say that I was bidden of you, and then you will losophy always gives me the greatest pleasure, to say nothing have to make an excuse. of the profit. But when I hear another strain, especially that of you rich men and traders, such conversation displeases me; ’Two going together,’ and I pity you who are my companions, because you think he replied, in Homeric fashion, one or other of them may in- that you are doing something when in reality you are doing nothing. And I dare say that you pity me in return, whom vent an excuse by the way (Iliad). This was the style of their conversation as they went along. you regard as an unhappy creature, and very probably you are right. But I certainly know of you what you only think of Socrates dropped behind in a fit of abstraction, and desired Aristodemus, who was waiting, to go on before him. When he me–there is the difference. reached the house of Agathon he found the doors wide open, COMPANION: I see, Apollodorus, that you are just the and a comical thing happened. A servant coming out met same–always speaking evil of yourself, and of others; and I do believe that you pity all mankind, with the exception of him, and led him at once into the banqueting-hall in which the guests were reclining, for the banquet was about to be- Socrates, yourself first of all, true in this to your old name, gin.