The Problematic Third Speech of the Phaedrus and Ficino’s Neoplatonic Reinterpretation

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document in English

humanities/philosophy

term papers

published 24/04/2007

review : Completed

level : Advanced

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Summary

There has been much scholarly debate concerning the relative merit of the three speeches in Plato’s Phaedrus; the third speech, in particular, is much contested. While the first two speeches are undeniably mired in self-contradiction and materialism, the third speech, though mythical in content and focusing on the power of the soul, arguably still commits the error of entrapping the soul in empirical concerns. Despite, or perhaps because of, this failing, the allegory of the charioteer had an immense impact on the 15th-century Italian scholar Marsilio Ficino. His Neoplatonic reinterpretation of the myth, which evolved over the course of his life, was plagued by the ontological confusion of Plato’s original; ultimately, however, Ficino was able to reconcile the relationship of body, mind and soul through a Christian application of the concepts of will from St. Augustine and charity from St. Paul.

Though prima facie this account describes a focus on the transcendent, upon closer examination it is clear that the opposite is true
When intimacy is established and the loved one has grown used to being near his friend and touching him in the gymnasium and elsewhere
This is precisely, then, Narcissus, in love with his own image reflected in the pool
What is more, the horses should not even be joining in the ascent in the first place
Despite all these problems in the description of how a soul ascends into the heavens, the central paragraph concerning the Forms is consonant with the rest of Plato's teaching, although it still raises a few questions
This passage correctly acknowledges the inability of language to express this pure, divine knowledge, and its description of the Forms is similar to that of the Symposium 210E
So the problem of the opposites has been solved, as well as that of attunement or the ‘tempering' of the horses.
Ficino, in his metaphysics in general, generally disregards the horses in the conceptualization of the soul, preferring instead to transfer the two drives of intellect and will to a wing each