Abstract

The key to successful interpretation of a Platonic dialogue is in the distinguishing of the dramatic context and in the distinction between reader and interlocutor. These methodological distinctions represent in practice the more general epistemological and ontological need to see images as images and, as a result, the relation of Ideas to human being. The images within the Republic, the construction of the ideal city, the Cave, the Line, etc. as well as the description of the "studies" of the future philosopher-ruler, provide insight into the relation of knower and known and paradigms of the correct production and interpretation of images in general. ;The notions of separation and difference given in the Phaedo provide a deeper understanding of both soul and Idea in the relation of logos to lexis. Soul is seen as active in separating, and the identity of Ideas as manifested in a praxis. This activity is grounded in the Presence and Communion of the non-visible in the lived experience of an interpreted world. Dialectic has as its Ideal the completion in principle of the circle of interpretation. ;The thesis of this work then, simply put, is that the ontology of the Ideas in the Republic and the Phaedo is inseparable from the ontology of human being, that is, from the structure and life of the soul. Furthermore, that if my interpretation of these two dialogues is correct, then we are led to a rather different view of the supposed independence of the Ideas and the eternality of the soul, and of the relation of the two. I argue that there is a necessary triadic relationship between the world as rational experience, the soul as a producer and interpreter of images and the noetic elements with which and out of which a 'world' is produced. On this interpretation, the Ideas are seen as indeed objective and 'independent' but as in a sense also a 'product' of the permanent dialectical relationship between these three aspects. It follows that the Ideas in this interpretation do not have any real independent existence outside of this human triad, which is not to say that they are merely normative, or mere concepts