CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

1. The Platonic Drama-Two elements to be distinguished in it: Argumentative

Conversation and Myth

Pages 1-4

2. General remarks on uveología, or Story-telling-Primitive Story-telling

described as ἀνθρωπολογία καὶ ζωολογία—Stories, or Myths, are (1) Simply

Anthropological and Zoological; (2) Aetiological; (3) Eschatological-A

Myth, as distinguished from an Allegory, has no Moral or Other-

meaning.

4-20

3. Plato's Myths distinguished from Allegories-To what experience, to what

"Part of the Soul," does the Platonic Myth appeal? To that part which

expresses itself, not in "theoretic judgments," but in "value-judgments,"

or rather "value-feelings "-The effect produced in us by the Platonic

Myth is essentially that produced by Poetry; "Transcendental Feeling,"

the sense of the overshadowing presence of "That which was, and is, and

ever shall be," is awakened in us-Passages from the Poets, quoted to

exemplify the production of this effect.

20-39

4. "Transcendental Feeling" explained genetically as the reflection in Conscious-

ness of the Life of the "Vegetative Part of the Soul," the fundamental

principle in us, and in all living creatures, which silently, in timeless

sleep, makes the assumption on which the whole rational life of Conduct

and Science rests, the assumption that "Life is worth living," that there is

a Cosmos, in which, and of which, it is good to be—“Transcendental

Feeling" is thus Solemn Sense of Timeless Being, and Conviction that

Life is good, and is the beginning and end of Metaphysics-It is with the

production of the first of these two phases of "Transcendental Feeling"

that the Platonic Myth, and Poetry generally, are chiefly concerned-

The Platonic Myth rouses and regulates this mode of "Transcendental

Feeling" for the use of Conduct and Science

39-42

5. The Platonic Myth rouses and regulates "Transcendental Feeling" by

(1) Imaginative Representation of Ideas of Reason," and (2) Imaginative

Deduction of "Categories of the Understanding" and "Moral Virtues"

-Distinction between "Ideas" and "Categories" implicit in Plato-

Kant's distinction explained-Why does Plato employ Myth when he

"represents" Ideas of Reason, Soul, Cosmos, God, and when he

"deduces" Categories of the Understanding and Moral Virtues ?

6. Plato's treatment of the "Idea of God"

42-51

51-60

7. Plato's treatment of the "Idea of Soul"-Agnosticism of Plato's day with

regard to the Immortality of the Soul-Influence of Orphic Belief as felt

by Pindar and Plato-Plato's Eschatological Myths plainly reproduce the

matter of Orphic teaching

Pages 60-71

8. Summary of Introductory Observations in the form of a defence of Plato

against a charge brought against him by Kant, Kritik d. reinen Vernunft,

Einleitung, § 3-Plato's Myths (roughly distinguished as (1) representing

Ideas of Reason, or Ideals, and (2) deducing Categories, Faculties,

Virtues, i.e. tracing them back to their origins) will be taken in the

following order: (a) as representing Ideas of Reason, the Phaedo Myth,

the Gorgias Myth, the Myth of Er (the three Eschatological Myths par

excellence), the Politicus Myth together with the Myth of the Golden Age,

the Protagoras Myth (Aetiological Myths), and the Discourse of Timaeus ;

(b) as chiefly concerned with the deduction of Categories or Virtues, the

Phaedrus Myth, the Meno Myth, and the Myth told by Aristophanes

and Discourse of Diotima in the Symposium; (c) the Atlantis Myth

and the Myth of the Earth-born, which respectively represent the

Ideals and deduce the Categories of the Nation, as distinguished from

the Individual.

72-76

THE PHAEDO MYTH✔

Context of the Myth

Translation

77

79-93

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHAEDO MYTH

1. Plato's method of giving verisimilitude to Myth, by bringing it into conform-

ity with the "Modern Science" of his day, illustrated from the Phaedo,

and paralleled from Henry More

94-101

2. The subject of the last section further illustrated by reference to the parallel

between Plato's Geography of Tartarus and the "True Surface of the

Earth" and Dante's Geography of Hell, Purgatory, and the Earthly

Paradise The parallelism between Plato and Dante dwelt on chiefly

with the view of suggesting the method by which we may best under-

stand the function of Myth in the Platonic Philosophy, the method of

sealing the impression made on us by the Myth of one great master

by the study of the Myth of another with whom we may happen to be

in closer sympathy

101-113

3. The distinction between Dogma and Myth insisted upon by Socrates,

Phaedo, 114 D-"Moral Responsibility" the motif of the Phaedo

Myth

113-114

Context

Translation

THE GORGIAS MYTH

✓

115

117-125

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, xóλaσis, not as being the

mere victim of vengeance, Tiμwpía-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 κá apois 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? .

3. Resurrection and Metempsychosis

197-198

198-200

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

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 "teleological" 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

Museum.

228-229 5. The difference between Myth and Allegory-Sketch of the History of Allegorical 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 Allegory 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 Understanding-But it also sets forth the Ideas of Reason 337-339

INTRODUCTION

1. THE PLATONIC DRAMA

THE Platonic Dialogue may be broadly described as a Drama in which speech is the action,' 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