OBSERVATIONS ON THE GORGIAS MYTH

1. "Moral Responsibility" is the motif of the Gorgias Myth, as it is of the

Phaedo Myth-The Gorgias Myth sets forth, in a Vision of Judgment,

Penance, and Purification, the continuity and sameness of the Active,

as distinguished from the Passive, Self, the Self as actively developing its

native power under the discipline of correction, kóλaσis, not as being the

mere victim of vengeance, Tμwpla-Death as Philosopher Pages 126-128

2. The mystery of the infinite difference between Vice with Large Opportunity

and Vice with Narrow Opportunity

129-130

3. Observations on Tablets affixed to the Judged Souls, on the Meadow of

Judgment, and on the Three Ways

130-132

Context.

Translation

THE MYTH OF ER

133

135-151

OBSERVATIONS ON THE MYTH OF ER

152-154

1. Cosmography and Geography of the Myth.

2. Dante's Lethe and Eunoè taken in connection with the Orphic Ritual and

Mythology, to which Plato is largely indebted for his account of the

Soul's kábαpois as a Process of Forgetting and Remembering

154-161

3. More about the Cosmography and Geography of the Myth-The Pillar of

Light, the Spindle of Necessity, the Model of the Cosmos in the lap

of Necessity

162-169

4. The great philosophical question raised and solved in the Myth, How to

reconcile "Free Will" with the "Reign of Law"

169-172

196-197

1. Relation of the Politicus Myth to the "Science" of Plato's day.

2. Is Plato "in earnest" in supposing that God, from time to time, withdraws

from the government of the World?

197-198

198-200

3. Resurrection and Metempsychosis

4. "The Problem of Evil" raised in the Politicus Myth-How does Plato

suppose the solution of this problem to be furthered by an Aetiological

Myth like that of the Politicus?—The value of Aetiological Myth as

helping us to "solve" a "universal difficulty" as distinguished from a

"particular difficulty"-It helps us to "put by" the former kind of

difficulty-The Kalewala quoted to illustrate the function of Aetiological

Myth-The Story of the Birth of Iron-Transition from the Politicus

Myth to the "Creation Myths" strictly so called, the Protagoras Myth,

and the Discourse of Timaeus

Pages 200-211

THE PROTAGORAS MYTH

Context of the Myth

Translation

212-213

215-219

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROTAGORAS MYTH

1. Is it a "Platonic Myth," or only a "Sophistic Apologue" ?—It is a true Myth,

as setting forth a priori elements in man's experience.

220-222

2. It sets forth the distinction between the "mechanical" and the "teleo-

logical" explanation of the World and its parts-It raises the question

discussed in Kant's Critique of Judgment

222-226

3. Account given in the Myth of the Origin of Virtue as distinguished from

Art

226-228

4. A Sculptured Myth, the Prometheus Sarcophagus in the Capitoline

5. The difference between Myth and Allegory-Sketch of the History of Alle-

gorical Interpretation—The interpreters of Homer and of Greek Mythology

-Philo-The Christian Fathers-The Neo-Platonists-Dante-Plato's

Allegory of the Cave (which is a Myth as well as an Allegory)-His Alle-

gory of the Disorderly Crew-Allegory and Myth compared with

Ritual

230-258

2. The Phaedrus Myth as giving a "Deduction" of the Categories of the Under-

standing-But it also sets forth the Ideas of Reason
337-339

3. The doctrines of 'Aváμvnois, 'Epws, Immortality-The Meno Myth translated,

and compared with the Phaedrus Myth-In what sense is the "Doctrine

of Ideas" "mythical"?.

4. The Number 729

Pages 339-349

349-350

5. The celestial, or astronomical, mise en scène of the "History of the Soul" in

the Phaedrus Myth, and the importance of that mise en scène for sub-

sequent philosophical and religious thought down to Dante

350-381

1. The Discourse at once an Allegory and a Myth-May be taken as a study of

the Prophetic Temperament-The nature of Prophecy.

2. The History of the Doctrine of Daemons

428-434

434-450

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON MYTHS

WHICH SET FORTH THE NATION'S, AS DISTINGUISHED FROM

THE INDIVIDUAL'S, IDEALS AND CATEGORIES

Myths in which we have the spectacle of a Nation's life, (a) led on by a Vision

of its Future, (b) conditioned by its Past. These are (a) the Atlantis

Myth in the Timaeus and Critias, which, taken in connection with the

account of the Ideal State in the Republic, sets forth the Vision of an

Hellenic Empire; (b) the Myth of the Earth-born in the Republic 451-456

Translation

THE MYTH OF THE EARTH-BORN

Note on the Myth of the Earth-born

Pages 471-473 474

CONCLUSION-THE MYTHOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS OF THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS

The "Cambridge Platonists" represent Plato the Mythologist, or Prophet, rather than Plato the Dialectician, or Reasoner, and in this respect are important for the understanding of our modern English "Idealists," who, it is contended, are "Platonists" of the same kind as Cudworth and his associates 475-519

INTRODUCTION

1. THE PLATONIC DRAMA

THE Platonic Dialogue may be broadly described as a Drama in which speech is the action,1 and Socrates and his companions are the actors. The speech in which the action consists is mainly that of argumentative conversation in which, although Socrates or another may take a leading part, yet everybody has his say. The conversation or argument is always about matters which can be profitably discussed—that is, matters on which men form workaday opinions which discussion may show to be right or wrong, wholly or in part.

But it is only mainly that the Platonic Drama consists in argumentative conversation. It contains another element, the Myth, which, though not ostensibly present in some Dialogues, is so striking in others, some of them the greatest, that we are compelled to regard it, equally with the argumentative conversation, as essential to Plato's philosophical style.

The Myth is a fanciful tale, sometimes traditional, sometimes newly invented, with which Socrates or some other interlocutor interrupts or concludes the argumentative conversation in which the movement of the Drama mainly consists.

The object of this work is to examine the examples of the Platonic Myth in order to discover its function in the organism of the Platonic Drama. That Myth is an organic part of the Platonic Drama, not an added ornament, is a point about which the experienced reader of Plato can have no doubt. The Sophists probably ornamented their discourses and made

1 Cf. Cratylus, 387 Β, τὸ λέγειν μία τίς ἐστι τῶν πράξεων.

B