OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDRUS MYTH

I

I think it necessary, at the outset of my observations on the Phaedrus Myth, to take notice-let it be brief of the tolerant, nay sympathetic, way in which Plato speaks (256 c-E) of the eρwτikỳ μavía of those who are not "true lovers." He speaks eloquently of it as a bond which unites aspiring souls in the after life. He speaks of those united by this bond as getting wings of the same feather in Heaven for their love's sake. His language is as sympathetic as the language in which Dante expresses his own sympathy, and awakens ours, with a very different pair of winged lovers-Francesca and Paolo flying together like storm-driven birds in Hell1 It is astounding that Plato should allow himself to speak in this way. The explanation offered by Thompson 2 does not enable me to abate my astonishment:-The concluding portion of the Myth, he tells us, "which stands more in need of apology," ought to be considered in connection with the fact that the entire Discourse is intended as a pattern of philosophical Rhetoric, and is adapted, as all true Rhetoric must be, to the capacity of the hearer-in this case, of Phaedrus, who is somewhat of a sensualist. It is still to me astounding that Plato -even as dramatist in sympathy with the sensualism of one of his dramatis personae, the youth to whom his "Socrates" addresses this Rhetorical Paradigm, if that is what the Phaedrus Myth is should have ventured to speak, as he does here, of what he indeed elsewhere condemns as unequivocally as Aristotle condemns it."

The reflection, in most cases a trite one, that even the best men are apt to become tolerant of the evil which prevails in the manners of their age, is hardly, in this case, a trite reflection, for it is such an oppressively sad one.

1 Inferno, v.

2 Phaedrus, p. 163.

I entirely dissent from the view that this Myth is merely a pattern of philosophical Rhetoric; and also from the consequential view (Thompson's Introduction to Phaedrus, p. xix.), that it is mostly "a deliberate allegory," unlike, it is added, other Platonic Myths in which the sign and the thing signified are blended, and sometimes confused. See infra, p. 339. 4 Laws, viii. 841 D.

5 E. N. vii. 5. 3. 1148 b 29.

II

In passing to the Phaedrus Myth (with which the Meno Myth must be associated), we pass to a Myth in which the "Deduction of the Categories of the Understanding" occupies perhaps a more prominent place, by the side of the "Representation of Ideas of Reason," than has been assigned to it even in the Timaeus.

The mythological treatment of Categories of the Understanding stands on a different footing from that of "Ideas of Reason" in this important respect, that it is not the only treatment of which these Categories are capable. The Ideas of Reason, Soul, Cosmos, and God, if represented at all, must be represented in Myth; and it is futile to attempt to extract the truth of fact, by a rationalising process, out of any representation of them, however convincing, as a representation, it may appear to our deepest instinct. On the other hand, Categories of the Understanding (e.g. the notions of Substance and of Cause), though, as a priori conditions of sensible experience, they cannot be treated as if they were data of that experience, are yet fully realised, for what they are, in that experience, and only in it. Hence, while their a priori character may be set forth in Myth, the fact that, unlike the Ideas of Reason, they are fully realised in sensible experience, makes them also capable of logical treatment. That they are capable of such treatment is obvious, when one considers the advance, sound and great as measured by influence in the physical sciences, which Logic has brought about in our interpretation of the Notion, or Category, of Cause, and that by discussions carried on quite apart from the question of whether the Notion is present a priori, or is of a posteriori origin. We may say, however, that treatment of Categories of the Understanding tends to become less mythological and more logical as time goes on; but yet the mythological treatment of them can never become obsoleteit still remains the legitimate expression of a natural impulse, the power of which-for evil-Kant recognises in his Transcendental Dialectic. I call the mythological expression of this impulse legitimate, because it is mythological, and not pseudo-scientific.

Ꮓ

I take the Phaedrus Myth, along with the Meno Myth, as an example of the Mythological Deduction of Categories of the Understanding. The Eternal Forms seen by the Soul in its prenatal life, as "remembered" in this life when objects of sense present themselves, are Categories, although the list of them is redundant and defective if we look at it with Kant's eyes, which I do not think we need do.

But although the Phaedrus Myth deduces Categories, it represents Ideas as well. Plato, as I have been careful to point out, does not anywhere distinguish Categories and Ideas formally; and the Phaedrus Myth, in particular, is one of the most complex, as well as comprehensive, in the whole list of the Platonic Myths. It deduces Categories, sets forth the Ideas of Soul, Cosmos, and God, is Aetiological and Eschatological, and, though a true Myth, is very largely composed of elements which are Allegories. Its complexity and comprehensiveness are indeed so great that they have suggested the theory that of Düring,' with which, however, I cannot agree that the Myth is a Programme-a general view of a whole consistent Eschatological Doctrine, which is worked out in detail in the Gorgias, Phaedo, and Republic Myths.2 In the Phaedrus Myth alone, Düring maintains, we have a complete account of the whole History of the Soul-its condition before incarnation, the cause of its incarnation, and the stages of its life, incarnate, and disembodied, till it returns to its original disembodied state. All this, he argues, is so summarily sketched in the Phaedrus that we have to go to the other Dialogues mentioned, in order to understand some things in the Phaedrus rightly. In the Phaedrus Myth, in short, we have "eine compendiarische Darstellung einer in grösserer Ausfürlichkeit vorschwebenden Conception." The Phaedrus Myth thus dealing, for whatever reason, with everything that can be dealt with by a Myth, we shall do well not to separate its Deduction of Categories, or Doctrine of ȧváμvnois, too sharply from the other elements of the composition.

1 Die eschat. Myth. Platos, p. 476 (Archiv für Gesch. d. Philos. vi. (1893), pp. 475 ff.).

2 Cf. Jowett and Campbell's Republic, vol. iii. p. 468. "The attempts of Numenius, Proclus, and others to connect the Myth of Er with those in Gorg., Phaed., Phaedr., Tim., so as to get a complete and consistent view of Plato's supra-mundane theories, only show the futility of such a method."

This Myth is part of the Discourse which Socrates delivers, by way of recantation, in praise of Love. The nonlover, indeed, is sane, but the madness of the lover is far better than the other's sanity. Madness is the source of all that is good and great in human effort. There are four kinds of it1(1) the Prophet's madness; (2) the madness of the Initiated; (3) the madness of the Poet; and (4) the madness of the True Lover who is the True Philosopher. It is the Transcendental History of the Soul as aspiring after this True Love that is the main burden of the Myth. And here let me say a few words, in passing, on the view maintained by Thompson in his Introduction to the Phaedrus (p. xix.),2 that this Myth is, for the most part, "a deliberate Allegory." With this view I cannot agree. It ignores the fact that a Myth is normally composed of elements which are Allegories. The Chariot, with the Charioteer and two Horses, is allegorical-it puts in pictorial form a result already obtained by Plato's psychological analysis, which has distinguished Reason, Spirit, and Appetite as "Parts of the Soul." But if the Chariot itself is allegorical, its Path through the Heavens is mythic. Allegory employed as rough material for Myth is frequent in the work of the Great Masters, as notably in the greatest of all Myths-in the Divina Commedia. A striking instance there is the Procession, symbolic of the connection between the Old Dispensation and the New, which passes before the Poet in the Earthly Paradise (Purg. xxix. ff.). The Visions of Ezekiel, to which Dante is here indebted for some of his imagery, may also be mentioned as instances of mythological compositions built largely out of elements which are allegories. It is enthusiasm and a living faith which, indeed, inspire the mythopoeic or prophetic architect to build at all; but his creative enthusiasm is often served by a curious diligence in the elaboration of the parts.

III

I have identified the prenatal impression produced in the Soul by the Eternal Forms seen in the Super-Celestial place

1 Phaedrus, 244.

2 Alluded to supra, p. 336,

with Categories, or a priori conditions of sensible experience, and regarded the "recollection" in this life of these Forms seen in the prenatal life as equivalent to the effective operation of a priori Categories, or functions of the Understanding, on the occasion of the presentation of objects of sense. I wish now to meet an objection which may be brought against this identification. Let us first look at the list of Eternal Forms given in the Myth (247 c, and 250 B). They are an δικαιοσύνη—Justice Itself; αὐτὴ σωφροσύνη-Temperance Itself; ἀληθὴς ἐπιστήμη—True Knowledge; αὐτὸ κάλλος— Beauty Itself; and are described as ovтa ovтws-really existent, and ἀχρώματοί τε καὶ ἀσχημάτιστοι καὶ ἀναφεῖς ovoía-without colour, without shape, intangible. Now Justice Itself and Temperance Itself in this list cannot be called Categories of the Understanding. They would seem to correspond rather to "Categorical Imperative." 'Aλnons ̓Αληθής ÉTIστýμη, on the other hand, does cover the ground occupied by Categories of the Understanding, if it does not cover more. 'ETIOτnun is distinguished in the Meno (97, 98), as knowledge of the effect through its cause, from opeǹ Sóğa, empirical knowledge of the detached effect; and the recognition of necessary causal connection, thus identified with éπɩotýμn, is expressly said (98 A) to be ȧváμvnois. If we consider how close the Myth of ȧváμvnois in the Meno (81 B) stands to the Phaedrus Myth, we are bound to conclude that the anons ἐπιστήμη, mentioned as one of the οὐσίαι seen by the Soul in the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος, covers the a priori Category of Cause, and, it is fair to add, the other Categories of the Understanding by the use of which, within the limits of possible experience, scientific truth (πioτýμn) is attained. Further, while the presence or aλnons éπiornμn among the Eternal Essences or Forms entitles us to speak of a priori Categories as domiciled in the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος, of the Phaedrus Myth, we need not quarrel with the presence of auth δικαιοσύνη, αὐτὴ σωφροσύνη, and αὐτὸ κάλλος in a list of Categories; the distinction between Categories of the Understanding and Ideas of Reason, as I have pointed out, is not provided for in Plato's philosophical language, and it is to 1 These are "Categories which are already in things," to use Professor Pringle-Pattison's expression (Scottish Philosophy, p. 140).