Abstract

The essay examines the articulation of the figure of the beast in Plato’s thought on the city and soul, in the Republic and other dialogues. The constitutive correspondence or homology of the city and soul comprises Platonic psycho-politics, a space defined by the thērion: monster and animal at once. The thērion operates within the tripartite division of the soul and the tripartite division of the city. Its various figurations, from wolf to hydra, seem to constrict this figure to the margins of metaphor; the trope of this liquid metaphor however guides the Platonic psycho-political project. It is a project of a metamorphosis, an open transformation, undertaken in order not merely to define, but to effectuate justice in the city and soul.