Sunday, January 25, 2009
Phaedrus
During the second speech, when Socrates begins describing the nature of the soul, there are strikingly similar images to my mind as that of angels, especially when he mentions the development of wings. Of course I keep in mind that he mentions prior that he will describe this situation in metaphor (what it is like), at least according to the footnote (246A). Though I wonder if this is a partial inspiration for the angelic images found throughout Christian literature/thought. I am also curious if the angels referred to in the Old Testament (the Jewish angelic hierarchy could have also been inspired by Babylonian/Zoroastrian concepts which may have surfaced a few hundred years before Plato) appeared before Phaedrus. I'm willing to bet that concepts of the divine coupled with the notion of wings appeared before Plato conjured up this idea. This also brings to question as to whether Plato considers the soul (or whatever one wants to call it) divine. Within his metaphorical analysis of the soul, it appears one's soul can be either bodily or divine, and this at least draws a distinction between two states (which the soul can adhere to). He explains the struggle a soul goes through when encountering a situation (love) that can swing the soul in either direction (to the body or the divine) depending on the labor and will of the driver of the soul. This concept is central to the mysteries, and laboring to unite one's soul with the divine, rather than the body is the aim of the initiate. This tells me that, even if the overarching theme of this dialogue is rhetoric or education, this tale about the immortal soul and how to shift it toward the divine in such a confusing situation as love is no less important, at least for initiates (Plato and others). And to shift the dialogue to a theme of rhetoric, may have been strategic for the majority (non-initiates) to easily latch onto and undermine the philosophic love speech.
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2 comments:
The winged chariot/souls of Phaedrus are surely one source of inspiration for later Christian angelic iconography, though as you note independent traditions may well have analogous imagery of wings. I don't recall angels flying in Hebrew scripture, though metaphors of sky and elevation as symoblic of divinity are practically universal, particularly in the middle east/mediterranean region.
Woodruff and Nahamas raise the interesting question whether by the time of the composition of Phaedrus Plato still subscribes to the epistemological views of the second speech, or rather treats them as heuristically attractive but ultimately untenable. We might ask the same question of the mythic images he employs there.
I assume you are referring to the idea of Forms? It is difficult to have a perception of what Plato meant by Forms, as opposed to charioteers with winged horses, which is simple to imagine, and I cannot see an analogy between the two, even if Plato never subscribed to such views (Forms, souls with wings) as literally correct, but rather as metaphorical (explaining this as "like something", to explain this as close as possible to the truth of the matter; as seen throughout Timaeus) methods for "heuristic" purposes, as you say. Both ideas, though Forms more so, carry a subtle, intuitive understanding with them, and therefore require metaphorical explainations, sometimes for the purpose of wishing to awaken one's understanding (as seen in myths, rituals, etc.) when it is impossible to spread this gnosis through methods of pure reason.
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