Plato

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PLATO

PLATO . Plato (c. 428–348 bce), a Greek philosopher and founder of the Athenian Academy, was an Athenian citizen of high birth who grew up during the Peloponnesian War (431–404 bce). He was a member of the circle of young men who surrounded the charismatic Socrates (469–399 bce). After Socrates died, Plato withdrew from public life. He traveled to southern Italy and Sicily, where he not only met the tyrant Dionysius I and began a lifelong involvement with Dion of Syracuse, but also came in contact with the Pythagorean school that flourished in southern Italy. Soon after his return to Athens (c. 387 bce) Plato began meeting with colleagues and pupils at his home near the grove of Academus outside the walls of Athens. The rest of his life—apart from two ill-starred visits to Syracuse at the behest of Dion—was devoted to teaching and inquiry in this community, where, in dialogue between teacher and pupils, the mathematical disciplines were pursued for the sake of their contribution to an understanding of the foundations of moral and political life (see Republic 526d–532c). Plato used the dialogue form in writing, not only to portray Socrates himself (in the so-called early dialogues, such as Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, and Laches ), but also to present the outlines of his own growing and changing thought. In the great dialogues of the middle period—Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus —Plato develops the basic themes of his philosophical vision. In the late dialogues, he pursues a variety of insights and difficulties concerning the nature of knowledge and of being (Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist), produces a treatise on the structures of the visible cosmos (Timaeus), and offers reconsidered accounts of the best constitution for a city-state (Statesman, Laws).

Plato's Doctrine

The main feature that characterizes traditional Greek religion before Plato is the distinction between gods and human beings, or immortals and mortals. Inspired by minority religious beliefs, Plato reacted against this presupposition and assigned to human beings the goal of assimilating themselves to god. This radical reversal, to which the Platonic tradition was to lay claim throughout antiquity, was based on a twofold opposition: first, between intelligible realities and sensible things, which participate in the intelligible; and secondly, between soul and body. Soul accounts for the spontaneous movement of a living body, yet it can separate itself from its original body in order to transfer itself into another one.

Plato maintained the existence of "Forms" (eide ) in order to explain how this world, where everything is in constant change, presents enough permanence and stability for human beings to be able to know it, act upon it, and talk about it. In the belief that such stability and permanence were not to be found in the sensible world, Plato therefore postulated the existence of a reality of another kind that would fulfill these requirements and explain why, within that which never stops changing, there is something that does not change. In the Phaedo (79b), Socrates admits "that there exist two species of beings: on the one hand, the visible species, and on the other the invisible species." In fact, these two species of beings are separate. Nevertheless, the separation between the "intelligible" and the "sensible" cannot be complete, simply because the existence of the "Forms" must contribute a solution to the paradoxes that "sensible" particulars never cease generating. "Sensible" realities receive their names from "intelligible" realities. Above all, "sensible" can be truly known only through the intermediary of the "intelligible."

Sensible things are bodies, which, as is explained in the Timaeus, are made up of the four elements—fire, air, water, and earth—and of them alone. Because the body (soma ) has come into being, no body is indestructible in itself (Timaeus 28a3). Nevertheless, a distinction must be made between the bodies that receive their motion from outside and those that move spontaneously because they are endowed with a soul (psyche ) that can be directed by a higher faculty: the intellect (nous ). The intellect enables the perception of the intelligible realities in which sensible things participate.

The soul is defined as the self-moving principle of all motion, physical as well as psychic (Laws X, 896e–897a). The immediate consequence of this definition is as follows: we must attribute immortality (Phaedrus 245a–d) to the soul as a whole, which, by definition, can have no beginning or end. Particular souls, and namely those of mortal beings (those of human beings, which can transfer into other human bodies and even into the bodies of animals), are, as shall be seen, subject to cycles of ten thousand years, at the end of which they lose the features that characterize them. In the course of the following cycle, they acquire new characteristics.

What Plato Understands by "God" (Theos )

If we wish to speak of religion in Plato, we must first ask ourselves what Plato understands by "god" (theos ), that is, by "immortal." When, in the Phaedrus (246c–d), he tries to describe what a god is, Plato shows himself to be very prudent. He begins by situating his discourse not on the level of logos, which is based on argued knowledge that makes a claim to truth, but on that of mythos, or a story that remains likely; and he concludes by an appeal for benevolence on the part of the divinity, which takes the form of a prayer. There is, however, a definition that will not vary: a god is an immortal living being.

It follows that since the intelligible realities (including the Good) are defined as intelligible forms, they cannot be considered as gods. Since they are incorporeal, these intelligible forms cannot have a body, and since they are immutable, they can neither be nor have a soul, which, by definition, is a motion that moves itself. In addition, Plato never qualifies an intelligible form—even the highest one, that of the Good—as a god (theos ), although it may happen that the intelligible is qualified as "divine" (theion ) as it is in the Phaedo (81a3, 83e1, 84a1), the Republic (VI 500e3, VII 517d5, X 611e2), the Statesman (269d6), the Theaetetus (176e4), the Parmenides (134e4), and the Philebus (22c6, 62a8). Here, the adjective has a hyperbolic value, which implies opposition with regard to "human" (anthropinon). Theion designates what is perfect in its kind as a function of its relation with that which bestows this perfection: the intelligible, which is therefore also theion. The intelligible brings the god its nourishment and its very divinity (Phaedrus 247d). Thus, to imitate the god, who is wise (he is a sophos ), human beings must seek to become wise themselves (philosophoi ) and to tend toward that wisdom that is conferred by the contemplation of the intelligible.

For Plato, a living being is one endowed with a body and a soul. Among living beings, however, some are mortal and others are not. Since the soul is by definition immortal (Phaedrus 245a–d), a living being can therefore be declared to be "mortal" only as a function of its body. Those living beings whose body can be destroyed are mortal, and as a consequence the soul can separate itself from the body it moves (see Timaeus 85e). This is the case for mankind and all the beings that inhabit the air, the earth, and the waters (see Timaeus 90e–92c). However, there are living beings whose soul and body are united forever because their body cannot be destroyed. The body of these living bodies is not in itself indestructible, for, according to an axiom of Greek thought, all that is born is liable to perish (see Timaeus 28a and 38b). It is the goodness of he who has fabricated them that ensures that they will not be destroyed (Timaeus 41a–c).

In addition to being endowed with an indissoluble body, the gods possess a soul, whose higher faculty—intellect (nous )—is constantly active and seizes its object (that is, intelligible reality) immediately and without obstacles. Once his soul is incarnated, the human being can accede to the intelligible only through the intermediary of his senses, at the end of the complex process to which Plato gives the name of reminiscence (anamnesis ), which enables the soul to remember the intelligible realities it contemplated when it was separated from all earthly bodies. Ultimately, it is the quality of this contemplation that makes a god a god. In brief, for Plato a god is a living being endowed with a body that is indestructible, not in itself but through the will of the demiurge, and with a soul that possesses a perfect intellect.

As compounds of a body and a soul, the gods form part of an extremely vast hierarchical structure. They are situated at the summit, together with the demons (see Symposium 202d), the most famous of whom is Eros. Then come human beings, men and women; then the animals that live in the air, on earth, and in the water, in which human beings may come to be incarnated by virtue of the quality of their intellectual activity; at the very bottom, we must range the plants (Timaeus 76e–77a). Two criteria enable the gods to be isolated from all the rest of living beings: their indestructibility and the quality of their intellect. This being the case, let us draw up an inventory of the beings that may be qualified as "gods."

Beings That May Qualify as "Gods"

First, there is the universe, whose constitution is described in the Timaeus. The body of the world, which is unique, has the appearance of a vast sphere, bereft of organs and of members. This sphere includes within itself the totality of elements so that nothing can come to attack it from outside, and it is therefore exempt from illness and death. What is more, the demiurge, because of his goodness, does not wish the universe to be subject to corruption. Within this body he placed a soul, which is situated between the sensible and the intelligible and is endowed with a mathematical structure. In fact, its structure is twofold: motor, since it moves bodies as a whole, including the celestial bodies; and cognitive, insofar as it is Providence. The motion that animates the world is as simple as possible: that of a sphere rotating around its axis, from west to east, on the spot. This physical motion is associated in turn with a twofold cognitive faculty, which seems to deal with the intelligible and the sensible; this is a necessary condition if one admits that the world soul must rule over the universe. The world soul, associated with an indestructible body that it dominates, is in addition endowed with an intellect that is perfect and whose activity is incessant. How, then, can we avoid concluding that the universe is a blessed god (Laws VII 821a)?

The celestial bodies (made up of fire) and the earth (made up, above all, of earth) are qualified as "divine" because they meet the criteria stated above. They are indeed immortal living beings that consist of a body that cannot be destroyed, and of their own soul, endowed with an intellect. A hierarchy is established between the celestial bodies, associated with their motion, to which the passage mentioned bears witness. The fixed stars proceed from east to west in a perfectly uniform way, for the motion of their soul does not give rise to any interference. The soul governing the wandering stars introduces anomalies in the motion of their trajectories. The earth, for its part, remains at rest at the center of the universe simply because in it conflicting types of motion cancel each other out.

The traditional gods are mentioned in an enigmatic passage: "Thus, when all the gods, both those whose circular motions we observe, and those who show themselves only when they so wish, the begetter of this universe spoke to them" (Timaeus 41a). These are also living immortal beings, endowed with a soul and a body, although it is hard to know what the body of the traditional gods is made of. We can suppose it is fire, since we find in the Timaeus a passage where the different species of living beings are associated with an element: the gods with fire, the birds with air, the living beings that walk or crawl with earth, and fish with water (Timaeus 39e–40a). One might think that the association of the divinity with fire holds only for celestial bodies, but it is, it seems, permissible to extrapolate to the traditional gods for two reasons: (1) in the next paragraphs the celestial bodies are mentioned first (Timaeus 40a–d), then the traditional gods (Timaeus 40d–e); and (2) the demiurge then addresses the totality of these gods (Timaeus 41a–c).

The soul of the traditional gods is in every point similar in structure to that of human beings (see Phaedrus 246a–d); this is why the gods can be subject to aggressiveness and experience feelings and passions. Unlike that of human beings, the soul of the gods is always good because their soul is permanently guided by their intellect, which perfectly contemplates the intelligible (Phaedrus 247c–e). In this magnificent passage, we find a constant mixture between tradition and novelty, myth and philosophy, where myth is the object of a transposition. The gods, whom the poets describe as leading a life of banquets on Olympus, where they feed on special food, nectar and ambrosia, are described in the Phaedrus as nourishing their soul with the intelligible. We should also note their peculiar language, which is more correct than that of men, probably because of the quality of their contemplation.

This contemplation enables assimilation to the god: "Such is the life of the gods. Let us move on to the other souls. That which is the best, because it follows the god and seeks to resemble it …" (Phaedrus 247e–249a). This is the sense in which we must understand that the intelligible forms are qualified as "divine." However, the motion that animates the traditional gods is less uniform than that which animates the celestial bodies. In the central myth of the Phaedrus, they rise and fall, although many of the verbs that describe these movements feature the idea of circularity.

There remains the most controversial case: the demiourgos of the Timaeus, to whom we must assimilate the phutourgos of the Republic. He who fashions the universe in the Timaeus is explicitly qualified as a "god": "Thus, in conformity with an explanation which is merely probable, we must say that this world (cosmos ), which is a living being provided with a soul that is endowed with an intellect, was truly engendered as a result of the reflective decision of a god" (Timaeus 30b–c). This god is, however, described as a worker who thinks, has feelings, speaks, and acts. At Timaeus 29e30b it becomes clear that the demiurge is a god endowed with an intellect: he "reasons" and "reflects"; he "takes things into consideration" and he "foresees," and he is author of acts of "will." His responsibility is engaged; he "speaks"; and when he contemplates his works, he "rejoices." In addition, the description of his activity is scarcely compatible with the absence of a body. Besides being qualified as a "father," the personage who causes the universe to appear is qualified as "demiurge," "maker," wax-modeller, and carpenter, and he is a builder whose most important function is assembling. Moreover, if one considers the verbs that metaphorically describe his action, one realizes that the demiurge carries out several activities that are typical of some arts and crafts.

However, nowhere is it said that the demiurge has a soul and a body simply because it is he who fashioned soul and body in their totality. This is probably the reason some commentators have maintained that the demiurge cannot be separated from the soul, of which he must, one way or another, be like the intellect. Yet it seems very difficult to accept this position, for this would amount to pulling up the ladder one has just used. In summary, Plato describes the demiurge, even if only metaphorically, as a god endowed with a body and a soul.

At the summit of the divine Platonic hierarchy, then, we find the demiurge, who fashions the other gods. He is thus considered as the god who always is, and he is in a paradoxical situation with regard to the soul and the body he is supposed to fashion. Then we find the universe, which comes into being as a result of the demiurge's action; this god takes on the appearance of the most perfect form in that he rotates on the spot. Then there come the fixed stars and the planets, whose body is also spherical: but the fixed stars take on a circular motion that is perfectly regular if we compare it to that of the planets, which feature certain irregularities. The status of the earth is also problematic; bereft of motion, it rests at the center of the universe and presents an imperfectly spherical form. The traditional gods, for their part, are subject to motions that are not only circular but also linear, for they can rise and descend in the heavens.

In brief, whether one looks at traditional mythology, at Plato, at Aristotle, at the Stoics or the Epicureans, the gods are always considered as living immortal beings, endowed with an indestructible body and a soul that possesses an intellect. The idea that there may be gods who do not possess either a soul or a body is, it seems, contemporary with the efforts made by the Middle Platonists to ensure the preeminence of the first god. In this divinity, they saw both the Demiurge of the Timaeus, and the Good of the Republic, which they considered as an intellect in actuality, whose intelligible forms were the thoughts. In addition, it bears the mark of the definitive assimilation carried out by Plotinus between the Intellect and the Intelligible that all the later Neoplatonists were to follow. Even in this context, however, there remained an important place for the lower gods, endowed with a soul and a body. The same holds true for the Neoplatonists.

Since the gods possess a soul whose highest faculty, the intellect (nous ), is constantly active, and this intellect grasps its object, the Forms (eide ), immediately and without obstacles, they are necessarily good (agathoi ), since evil is equivalent to ignorance; hence the saying that "No one commits evil willingly." One can understand, then, why Plato condemns the poets who describe the gods indulging in unjust or indecent acts. Since every god is good, it follows that none can be responsible for any evil (Republic X 617e). Thus, in the myth of the Statesman, as in Book X of the Laws, the possibility of divinities opposing one another is rejected. This amounts to a condemnation of dualism.

Mortal Living Beings

Beneath the gods in the hierarchy are souls that possess an intellect like the gods but are liable to be attached to a body that, unlike that of the gods, is destructible. These inferior souls are subject to temporality; their existence is marked by cycles of ten thousand years, imposed by destiny, which involve a system of retribution based on reincarnation.

In order to account for the soul's relations with an indestructible body, Plato, beginning with the Republic, distinguishes three powers within the soul, the first of which is in itself immortal, whereas the two others enjoy immortality only as long as the body over which they reign is indestructible. The immortal power of soul—that is, the intellect (nous )—contemplates the intelligible realities, of which sensible things are mere images. By its means, human beings are akin to a god, or rather to a daimon. The other two powers are: (1) the spirit (thumos ) that enables mortal living beings to defend themselves, and (2) the desire (epithumia ) that enables them to remain alive and reproduce. Whereas the intellect can be said to be immortal, these two powers are declared to be mortal because they are associated with functions that enable the survival of the sensible body to which the soul is attached, albeit only for a lifetime.

When applied to mortal living beings, and in particular to human beings, the psychic tripartition just mentioned is associated with one that is corporeal and even social. In the Timaeus, Plato associates each power of soul with a place in the body. The lowest or desiring power, which ensures the functions of survival (by provoking the desire for food) and of reproduction (by provoking sexual desire), is situated under the diaphragm, in the area of the liver. Above the diaphragm, in the area of the heart, is the spirited power, which enables human beings to remain alive by ensuring defensive functions, both within and without. This second power enables a mediation between the desiring power and reason, situated in the head, which is responsible for all the processes of knowledge that can be expressed in speech. In human beings, only reason is immortal, for the spirited power and the desiring power are restricted to ensuring the functions that enable destructible bodies to maintain themselves in good working order for a specific time. When this body is destroyed, the spirited power and the desiring power associated with it can only disappear, and this is why they are qualified as "mortal" (Timaeus 69d).

This psychic tripartition, associated with a corporeal one, is in addition related to a functional tripartition in a social context. At the end of Book II of the Republic, Plato proposes an organization in which individuals are distributed in functional groups in accordance with this hierarchy, based on the predominance in the human individual of one of three powers: intellect (nous ), spirit (thumos ), or desire (epithumia ). The most numerous group, responsible for ensuring the production of food and of wealth, is made up of farmers and craftsmen. This group is protected by guardians, or warriors, responsible for ensuring the maintenance of order, both within and outside the city. Insofar as they can possess neither property nor money, the guardians are completely separated from the producers, who, in exchange for the protection they receive from the guardians, must feed them and ensure their upkeep. From these functional groups, a very small number of individuals are chosen, those who are intended for higher education and the government of the city.

Soul, as an incorporeal whole, is immortal; yet one individual soul can be attached to a particular body, which is, for its part, subject to destruction. However, the soul is recycled every ten thousand years; in this way, Plato's thought on soul is not so different from Asian (particularly Hindu) doctrines on reincarnation. We now turn to consider the soul's wanderings.

During the first millennium (Phaedrus 245d–248c), the soul is separated from all destructible bodies, whereas during the following nine millennia (Phaedrus 248c–e), it passes from body to body as a function of the moral value of its previous existence, which is determined by the quality of its intellectual activity. This intellectual activity is a reminiscence (anamnesis ), or memory, of the soul's contemplation of intelligible realities when it was separated from all terrestrial bodies. At the end of this first millennium, all souls that are worthy of being associated with a sensible body inhabit the body of a man—that is, a male, even though the sexual organs are still missing; and this association remains valid for the following millennium. A man who loves knowledge or beauty and who has chosen an upright life for three consecutive millennia will be able to escape from the cycle of reincarnations and rise back up to the heavens. The others will voyage from one body to another, beginning with the third millennium (Timaeus 90e–92c). The first category of bodies in which these imperfect souls may be incarnated is that of women: whoever displays cowardice enters into the body of a woman, since virility is associated with war in ancient Greece. Only in the course of this millennium does the distinction of the sexes appear, thus allowing sexual reproduction. Then come incarnations in various kinds of what we call "animals," although there is no specific term in ancient Greek to designate this category of living beings. They are classified as a function of the elements (beginning with the air, since fire is reserved for the gods), in a vertical order. At the top, birds fly through the air. Then come the living beings that inhabit the surface of the earth; these are the quadrupeds, insects, and reptiles. Finally, there are the aquatic animals: fish, shellfish, and others, which are the most stupid.

In fact, Plato describes a psychic continuum in which one finds a hierarchical order of gods, demons, human beings, and the animals that live in the air, on the earth, and in the water—and even, as shall be seen, plants. Intellectual activity, conceived as the intuition of intelligible forms, constitutes the criterion that enables a distinction to be made between all these souls. Gods and demons contemplate the intelligible forms directly, and, as it were, incessantly. Human beings share this privilege only during a certain period of their existence, when their souls are separated from all bodies. Once human souls have been incarnated, their contemplation of the intelligible forms is mediate, since it must pass through the intermediary of the senses; above all, it is more or less uncertain. By contrast, animals use their intellect less and less as one goes down the scale of beings.

Within the psychic scale mentioned above, one notes two discontinuities: (1) a discontinuity between the souls of gods and of demons (which never fall into a body subject to destruction) and the souls of human beings and animals (which inhabit destructible bodies with diverse appearances); and (2) a discontinuity between the souls of human beings and animals (which are endowed with a rational power) and the souls of plants (which are reduced to the desiring power).

Let us consider one by one the consequences of these two discontinuities.

In this hierarchical system, only souls endowed with an intellect are subject to a retributive system, which makes them rise or fall on the scale of souls, incarnated according to the quality of their intellectual activity. Gods and demons are above this class, and plants are beneath it. Gods and plants thus always remain at their level, at the highest or the lowest extremity.
As a result, human beings, who are situated at the uppermost limit of the class of incarnate souls, must have as their goal assimilation to the gods and the demons by seeking contemplation of the intelligible forms. Hence the theme of the assimilation to the divinity by the philosopher, who tends toward the knowledge, that is, the contemplation of the intelligible forms, or true reality.
The hierarchy of human beings and animals, which is a function of the exercise of intellectual activity, is materialized by the body. The body, in which the soul is situated, illustrates the quality of that soul's intellectual activity; in short, the body is a "state of the soul."
Like human beings, whether men or women, the soul of animals is endowed with a rational power, and this is true even if animals are what they are because they make little or no use of their intellect. In any case, nothing prevents an animal, whatever it may be, from climbing back up the scale to become a human being.

It follows that changing the destiny of an animal may imply eating the soul of a former human being. How, in this case, can the survival of human beings, who need to feed themselves, be ensured without turning them into "anthropophagi"? By giving them as food a kind of living being that is not endowed with intellect—namely, vegetables. After mentioning the four types of living beings that populate the universe—the gods associated with fire; demons; human beings; and the birds, the animals, and the aquatic beasts—Timaeus rapidly mentions the origin of vegetables, which he associates with the third, or desiring power of soul. However, this call for vegetarianism enters into conflict with the traditional sacrifice (thusia ) of the city, which implies slaughtering victims and consuming their flesh. Scarcely mentioned in the Republic, this kind of sacrifice seems to play an important role in the city of the Laws. Does Plato accept this contradiction, or does he give a wider meaning to thusia ? It is impossible to say.

Transmigration of the Soul

Scholars usually consider that the transmigration of the soul was a dogma among the Orphics and the Pythagoreans and that Plato made it his own. The stakes here are important, insofar as the transmigration of the soul is the basis of the doctrine of reminiscence, which itself implies the notion of a separate intelligible form that can be contemplated by the soul even when separated from the body.

However, none of the testimonies advanced to prove that the Pythagoreans preached the doctrine of transmigration is decisive: whether it is that of Diogenes Laertios, who claims to cite verses by Xenophanes that he attributes to Pythagoras (Diogenes Laertios VIII 36 = Diels-Kranz 21B7); of Aristotle (De anima I 3, 407b20 = Diels-Kranz 59 B39; cf. also II 2, 414a22) on the soul's entry into the body; of Dicearchus on the dogmas that Pythagoras was the first to introduce into Greece (Dicearchus, fr. 33 Wehrli = Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica 19); or of Herodotus (IV 95–96), who affirms that the Greeks living in the region of the Black Sea attributed to Pythagoras the practices for obtaining immortality current among the Getae (Getai athanatizontes ). There is every reason to believe that modern and contemporary historians of religions, following in the path of the Neopythagoreans, often project Plato's doctrine of the soul on the teachings of Pythagoras, about which, objectively, we know nothing.

In addition, no ancient testimony attributes explicitly the doctrine of transmigration to Orphism. All that is explicitly attributed to Orphism is the doctrine of the soul's preexistence (a preexistence that is not necessarily individual), and that of retribution in the next world. On this point as well, the testimonies of Plato (Cratylus 400b–c; Phaedo 62b; Republic II 364e–365a; Laws IX 870d-e) and that of Aristotle (De anima I5, 410b27) are insufficient to inspire persuasion.

The only way to affirm that Orphism maintains the transmigration of the soul would be to think that the priests and priestesses Plato mentions in the Meno (81a–e) are Orphic, or to slant in this direction the testimony of Herodotus (II 123), who refers the doctrine of transmigration to the Egyptians. It is presumptuous to supply names that Herodotus will not even reveal and say that the people in question are Orphics. In addition, the passage from the Meno (81b–c) in which are cited a few verses traditionally attributed to Pindar (fr. 133 Bergk = 126 Bowra) does indeed evoke the doctrine of transmigration but refers it to priests and priestesses intent on being able to account for the functions they fulfill; his goal is to make not only Pindar but also poets the spokesmen for this doctrine. The interpretation of this passage, where the names of Orpheus or of the Orphics never appear, remains debatable.

In the face of so many confusions and uncertainties, the only valid hypothesis at the present time is as follows: Pindar, Empedocles, Herodotus, and Plato were aware of the existence of religious movements that maintained the doctrine of transmigration. These movements seem to have had an influence on Pythagoreanism and on Orphism. In this perspective, the question of which group—Orphics or Pythagoreans—influenced the other is meaningless. Pythagoreanism and Orphism, like Plato, accepted and rejected some of the prohibitions and doctrinal points of these religious movements, which it is impossible to identify.

From this perspective, all human beings and animals that inhabit air, earth, and water constitute a vast system of symbols—symbols from the point of view of appearances, but also from the viewpoint of behavior, which justifies the recourse to a number of comparisons, images, and metaphors in which animals play a role. In the Timaeus these symbols refer to different types of soul, whose moral quality is ultimately determined by their contemplation of the intelligible, according to a number of details that may seem ironic or ridiculous but that can be interpreted only in this sense: birds are naive astronomers, who think that sight is the ultimate source of knowledge; quadrupeds need four feet in order to support their skull, which has been elongated by the deformations of the revolutions of the circles of its rational power. Stupid terrestrial animals crawl; fish are even more stupid, and the worst ignorance is that of shellfish.

Plato and Traditional Religion

Plato thus agrees with traditional mythology, particularly when he maintains that the gods have a body. However, even on this point he differs from his contemporaries. He can endure neither the idea that the gods have a corporeal aspect or a behavior that renders them akin to human beings (since the gods can only be good) nor the idea that the gods may change in corporeal appearance or in opinion. The violent criticisms that constitute Books II and III of the Republic, and the denunciation of the poets in Book X, are clear proof of this. Only a mythology fabricated by poets under the control of those who know—that is, the philosophers—is permitted. Myths of this kind can be used, together with a kind of rhetoric, as means of persuasion in the preambles to the laws for dissuading in advance those who might be thinking of breaking a law, as is explained by the Athenian Stranger in Book IV of the Laws.

A similar position can be observed in Book X of the Laws, where the goal is to demonstrate to young atheists that: (1) the gods exist, (2) they are interested in the fate of human beings, and (3) they are insensitive to all attempts to influence their judgment. This last point has the consequence of rendering traditional religion obsolete. In this context there can no longer be any question of making prayers or offering sacrifices in an attempt to sway any particular god. The only goal of the cult is to glorify the gods, with a view to assimilating oneself to them by one's contemplation.

In summary, although he takes up many ideas concerning the gods in ancient Greece, Plato appears as a revolutionary when he assigns to human beings the goal of assimilating themselves to god, seeks to submit the myths that narrate the deeds and exploits of the gods to the control of the philosopher, and attributes to cultic acts and ceremonies the original finality of the mere glorification of the gods.

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