Abstract

The matter which I wish to discuss is a discrepancy between two accounts of the origin of the philosopher in the myth of Plato's Phaedrus. Before their incarnation the souls of all humans are imagined as having enjoyed the vision of reality, but not all in the same company or to the same degree. For, in the first place, the souls are distributed among the companies that severally follow eleven different gods, 247 a-b, a distribution which is regarded as important for the type of character an embodied soul will subsequently have, 252d. In the second place, some souls are more successful than others in following their god, and accordingly they manage to see more of reality than do the others, and on this variation depends the sort of life each soul will subsequently have on earth, 248 d-e. And here arises the problem about the philosopher, corresponding to the two differences of company and degree in the soul's pre-natal vision of reality.