Part 1 was published  here

4) Gods and human beings

The birth of any animal is due to a soul losing its wings, i.e., to a process of decadence of the soul itself from its original condition. The wings are nurtured by beauty, wisdom, goodness and all the entities of that kind. The wings, on the other hand, are ruined by foulness and by ugliness. The allegory gives therefore precise indications as regards the factors which nurture the soul and the factors which damage the soul.

The human soul can lose the wings; it is possible for the human soul to degenerate, i.e., to lose the level in which the soul itself is born. Constitutively, the human soul can degenerate. Plato then goes on in his description of the life of the souls in the following way:

‘Now Zeus, the great commander in heaven, drives his winged chariot first in the procession, looking after everything and putting all things in order. Following him is an army of gods and spirits arranged in eleven sections. Hestia is the only one who remains at the home of the gods; all the rest of the twelve are lined up in formation, each god in command of the unit to which he is assigned. Inside heaven are many wonderful places from which to look and many aisles which the blessed gods take up and back, each seeing to his own work, while anyone who is able and wishes to do so follows along, since jealousy has no place in the gods’ chorus. When they go to feast at the banquet they have a steep climb to the high tier at the rim of heaven; on this slope the gods’ chariots move easily, since they are balanced and well under control, but the other chariots barely make it. The heaviness of the bad horse drags its charioteer toward the earth and weighs him down if he has failed to train it well, and this causes the most extreme toil and struggle that a soul will face[1]. But when the souls we call immortals reach the top, they move outward and take their stand on the high ridge of heaven, where its circular motion carries them around as they stand while they gaze upon what is outside heaven.’ (Phaedrus 246e4–247c2)

[1] It is not an accident, therefore, that the individual has difficulties in his own life. The individual will always have to cope with the component of the bad horse and with the influence represented by the bad horse. The individual will always be exposed to the risk of decadence, both before the fall of the soul and after winning back the original dimension

An implicit attribution of responsibility for the human soul is expressed in the assertion that the black horse exercises a bad influence if it is not trained. The human being ought to train the bad horse since this horse can hinder the ascent to the vision of the entities that really are. We know therewith that the human being is constitutively compelled to face and to cope with problems. Then, the further image of the procession of the souls is introduced by Plato. The procession of the souls is led by the gods. The route of the procession is fulfilled easily by the gods. On the contrary, the souls of the other entities have difficulties during the procession. The bad horse of the soul of the human being represents the obstacle during the procession.

The main difference between gods and human beings is therewith described. The difference in the procession will have consequences for the development of the human soul. Through the procession, the souls have the opportunity to contemplate what is outside heaven. This possibility cannot be used in the same way, though, by gods and by human souls. This is the consequence of the constitutive difference between the gods’ souls and the human souls. Plato describes the vision of the entities of the contemplation in the following way:

‘The place beyond heaven — none of our earthly poets has ever sung or ever will sing its praises enough! Still, this is the way it is — risky as it may be, you see, I must attempt to speak the truth, especially since the truth is my subject. What is in this place is without color and without shape and without solidity, a being that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible only to intelligence, the soul’s steersman. Now a god’s mind is nourished by intelligence and pure knowledge, as is the mind of any soul that is concerned to take in what is appropriate to it, and so it is delighted at last to be seeing what is real and watching what is true, feeding on all this and feeling wonderful, until the circular motion brings it around to where it started. On the way around it has a view of Justice as it is; it has a view of Self-control; it has a view of Knowledge — not the knowledge that is close to change, that becomes different as it knows the different things which we consider real down here. No, it is the knowledge of what really is what it is. And when the soul has seen all the things that are as they are and feasted on them, it sinks back inside heaven and goes home. On its arrival, the charioteer stables the horses by the manger, throws in ambrosia, and gives them nectar to drink besides.’ (Phaedrus 247c3–e6)

Plato is describing the place outside the heaven:

• The entities which are in this place are the entities that really are.
• These entities are the objects of the true, really founded knowledge.
• These entities are accessible only to the intellect, which is the charioteer of the image of the soul.
• Gods’s minds are nourished by intelligence and by pure knowledge. It contemplates what is and what is true.
• Gods’s minds can see justice, can see self-control, and can see knowledge connected to that which really is.
• The contemplation activity of the gods is without defects.

5) The development of the individuals

Plato then describes the vision of the souls which have failures in their own structures. The following one is the condition of the human soul:

‘Now that is the life of the gods. As for the other souls, one that follows a god most closely, making itself most like that god, raises the head of its charioteer up to the place outside and is carried around in the circular motion with the others. Although distracted by the horses, this soul does have a view of Reality, just barely. Another soul rises at one time and falls at another, and because its horses pull it violently in different directions, it sees some real things and misses others. The remaining souls are all eagerly straining to keep up, but are unable to rise; they are carried around below the surface, trampling and striking one another as each tries to get ahead of the others. The result is terribly noisy, very sweaty, and disorderly. Many souls are crippled by the incompetence of the drivers, and many wings break much of their plumage. After so much trouble, they all leave without having seen reality, uninitiated, and when they have gone they will depend on what they think is nourishment — their own opinions.’ (Phaedrus 248a1–b5)

Plato introduces in this passage the description of the different degrees of contemplation of the authentic reality which the human souls can reach. Due to the imperfection of the human soul a such, the level of contemplation reached by the human souls cannot be the same as the level of contemplation of the gods. The human souls are characterised by constitutive limitations.

• The souls of the human beings who are next to the gods reach a better level of contemplation than the souls which are more distant from the gods during the procession.
• For whatever human soul, the contemplation of the entities that really are is limited. Some human souls reach a better contemplation; some human souls reach a worse contemplation, and some human souls do not see anything. No human soul reaches a perfect contemplation.
• As a consequence of the difficulties in the procession, it happens that some souls do not have contacts with the authentic reality. These souls remain in the sphere of the opinion.
• The individual learns the essence of entities which exist independently of him.
• Truth and opinion are for the human souls life dimensions.

Not every soul can make himself next to God. To make oneself next to God means that the bad horse does not exercise an influence or, at least, not so great an influence. If it is not so, the human soul will not reach the correct vision of the reality and will fall prey to the opinion. Truth and the other entities which are connected to the human soul’s contemplation are such that they are the nurture of the best part of the soul. Knowledge constitutes the appropriate nurture of a part of the soul. Knowledge makes the soul better; knowledge has a direct influence on the development of the human soul.

‘The reason there is so much eagerness to see the plain where truth stands is that this pasture has the grass that is the right food for the best part of the soul, and it is the nature of the wings that lift up the soul to be nourished by it. Besides, the law of Destiny is this: If any soul becomes a companion to a god and catches sight of any true thing, it will be unharmed until the next circuit; and if it is able to do this every time, it will always be safe. If, on the other hand, it does not see anything true because it could not keep up, and by some accident takes on a burden of forgetfulness and wrongdoing, then it is weighed down, sheds its wings and falls to earth. At that point, according to the law, the soul is not born into a wild animal in its first incarnation; but a soul that has seen the most will be planted in the seed of a man who will become a lover of wisdom or of beauty, or who will be cultivated in the arts and prone to erotic love. The second sort of soul will be put into someone who will be a lawful king or warlike commander; the third, a statesman, a manager of a household, or a financier; the fourth will be a trainer who loves exercise or a doctor who cures the body; the fifth will lead the life of a prophet or priest of the mysteries. To the sixth the life of a poet or some other representational artist is properly assigned; to the seventh the life of a manual laborer or farmer; to the eighth the career of a sophist or demagogue, and to the ninth a tyrant.’ (Phaedrus 248b5–e7)

All souls wish to see the entities of the plain of truth, but the access to vision within the plain of truth is not possible for all souls. The reason why all souls wish to see the entities of the plain of truth is that the entities of the plain of truth represent the appropriate nurture for the best part of the soul.

If the human soul sees the true entities, it is safe. If the human soul does not see the true entities, it will be subject to decadence. The image suggests that human souls will be always under exam. The procession of the souls takes place periodically. Whereas gods do not have difficulties in fulfilling the route of the procession, human souls have constitutive difficulties in fulfilling the track. Therefore, they will always be at risk of decadence since they are constitutively not able to reach complete knowledge.

If human beings had no limits, there would be neither decadence nor the risk of decadence. The decadence of the soul happens since human beings are constitutively limited entities. The primitive condition of the soul is without the body. The union with the body is the consequence of the fall of the soul; there would be no union between soul and body if the soul did not fall.

The law of Destiny establishes that the souls which are able to contemplate the true entities are safe up to the next procession. If a soul is able to contemplate the true entities in every procession, it will remain in the condition in which it is. The souls which are not able to see the true entities will lose their wings and will be joined to a body. The consequent chain of rebirths is due to the absence or to the insufficiency of knowledge. Hence, knowledge has a precise function: knowledge is the nurture of the soul; the lack of knowledge represents the fall of the soul. Knowledge is for the soul both the instrument for the human soul to remain in the dimension in which the soul originally is and the instrument of the soul’s coming back to the original dimension after decadence. Thus, knowledge proves to be for the soul the way of remaining in the original dimension and of coming back to the original dimension. Knowledge is in any case decisive.

To have a body is the consequence of decadence; it is not the cause of decadence. The cause of decadence consists in the very constitution of the soul before decadence. The development of the soul is not due to the body. The union of the soul with the body is the consequence of tendencies which are active in the soul before its union with the body. Therefore, the development of the soul depends on the soul alone.

Depending on the degree reached in the insufficient contemplation, the different human souls which, due to their fall from their original condition, are joined to a body will become, in descending order of value, lovers of wisdom or of beauty, lawful kings or warlike commanders, statesmen, managers of a household or financiers, trainers loving exercise or doctors curing the body, prophets or priests of the mysteries, poets or representational artists, manual labourers or farmers, sophists or demagogues, and tyrants. The difference in the capacity of contemplation of the true entities turns out to be the cause of a decadence of the soul. Decadence is also moral, since the last member of the incorporation is the tyrant.

end of part 2 of 3

part 1 is  here

part 3 is here

Autori: Bouvot Kathrin – Segalerba Gianluigi