How the Body Helps Man Become Like God in Plato

Major Paper

Philosophy 6311

Dr. Harrington

William Stigall, M.D.

5/2/2005

Assumptions and The School of Athens

Raphael’s The School of Athens speaks with veiled force. Its richness of colors, the magnitude of

scale, and the figures’ detail demand attention, contemplation, and analysis. Its full significance is

perhaps lost on us, as it has become part of a shared heritage shaping our notions of reality more than we

are aware. Glenn Most, in a commentary on the piece, remarks that even its most novel aspect is

obscured by our familiarity.

The fifty-eight figures who occupy this architectural space impressive for its grandeur, luxury, and sobriety are all busily doing precisely what philosophers always do when they are acting as philosophers: they are reading, writing, lecturing, arguing, demonstrating, questioning, listening, pondering, admiring, doubting. If this seems to us a self-evident choice, it is only because Raphael’s image has embedded itself so deeply in our visual unconscious. It requires an effort of the historical imagination to recognize that this was not an inevitable, or even a likely, way to represent philosophy in the first decade of the sixteenth century – indeed, that the fundamental conception of The School of Athens is entirely without precedent in the tradition of European art (Most 146).

Prior to The School of Athens, philosophy was depicted as Dame Philosophy surrounded by the seven

liberal arts in allegorical images. The use of specific figures in philosophy to represent their ideas was

unknown, with perhaps only a few exceptions, such as the use of the image of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Most goes on to link the allure of the painting with its demand for inquisition coyly combined

with the lack of subsequent rejoinder.

The scene we view in The School of Athens is highly dramatic, filled with intensely vital characters energetically communicating with one another. Yet so silent is their discourse, so void of specific content, that with very few exceptions – Plato’s and Aristotle’s books (Timaeus and Ethics), Pythagoras’s tablet, the geometer’s problem – we cannot hear what they are saying and cannot ascertain any determinate meaning in those gestures that seem so full of significance but are in fact so empty (Most 180-181).

What seems obvious to the critical eye of Most though is:

Evidently, Plato and Aristotle are being thought of as the two complementary alternatives that in their harmonious opposition describe the essence of all Greek philosophy: physics and moral philosophy, the Timeo and the Etica, the finger pointing up and the open outstretched hand… (Most 165).

What will follow will be an attempt to show the even this “evidentiary” assumption about Plato,

which has been placed on our collective philosophic unconscious as a watermark, that of the philosopher

concerned only with another world, disparaging this one, and especially this body, is perhaps amiss.

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Though neglected by modern philosophy, the notion that “becoming like God” is the telos of Platonism

will be discussed and how the body relates to this becoming will be developed. What will be shown is the

assumption that Plato is the philosopher with his finger pointed toward the heavens obscures the vital

aspect the body plays in becoming like God.

First will be an explanation of what piety and man’s relationship with God are. Following this

will be a discussion of what role the body plays in Platonic dialogues and how the body and soul interact.

Finally, different interpretations of what it means to become like God will be compared with a focus on

how the body should be viewed as integral to the end of becoming like God.

Piety in Euthyphro

The Socratic dialogues Euthyphro and Apology show piety to be in the service of the gods to help

them give man the greatest good he can possibly achieve. Euthyphro shows the development of this

definition in true dialectic. Euthyphro opens with the conflation of the terms of “piety” and “godliness”

such that Socrates is assuming they are one in the same.

So tell me now, by Zeus, what you just now maintained you clearly knew: what kind of thing do you say that godliness and ungodliness are…or is the pious not the same and alike in every action, and the impious the opposite of all that is pious… (Euthyphro 5c-d).

This conflation, while perhaps obvious, serves notice that piety will not be something only in terms of

external behaviors, but involves internal qualities. Godliness is distinct from both acting only

superficially in God-like ways and from perfunctorily giving an outward deference.

Following this, Socrates presses Euthyphro for ever more exact definitions of piety as Euthyphro

is a self proclaimed expert. Euthyphro’s first definition is no definition at all but an example of what a

pious action might be: “to prosecute the wrongdoer, be it about murder or temple robbery or anything

else, whether the wrongdoer is your father or your mother or anyone else; not to prosecute is impious”

(Euthyphro 5d-e). The important point the first attempt makes is that Euthyphro defends his actions by

showing their parallels to the war among the gods (Zeus’s binding and castrating his father, for example).

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Socrates finds it “hard to accept things like that being said about the gods…” (Euthyphro 6b). For

Socrates, the gods and, therefore, piety, will be objective, unchanging, and noncontradictory.

The second definition “what is dear to the gods is pious, what is not is impious” (Euthyphro 7a) is

clarified to the third that “the pious is what all the gods love, and the opposite, what all the gods hate, is

impious” (Euthyphro 9e). This clarification occurs when Socrates points out that warring gods would

“consider different things to be just, beautiful, ugly, good, and bad” (Euthyphro 7e). Socrates then

reinforces the idea that the pious must be something objective by drawing the distinction between the

gods loving the pious as an instantiation of piety and an action being pious solely because it is loved by

the gods; “…the pious has the quality of being loved by all the gods, but you have not yet told me what

the pious is” (emphasis added) (Euthyphro 11b).

The fourth definition of piety comes closest to giving a clear meaning of piety, without explicitly

doing so. Socrates himself asks Euthyphro to see “whether you think all that is pious is of necessity just”

(Euthyphro 11e). Once agreed, the distinction between justice and piety is made: “…the godly and pious

is the part of the just that is concerned with the care of the gods, while that concerned with the care of

men is the remaining part of justice” (Euthyphro 12e). The “care” of men and gods is not the same. The

care of men “aims at the good and the benefit of the object cared for” (Euthyphro 13b), while the care of

the gods is like “that slaves take of their masters” (Euthyphro 13d) which Socrates says is “likely to be a

kind of service of the gods” (Euthyphro 13d).

At the moment where a discussion of the “excellent aim that the gods achieve, using us as their

servants” (Euthyphro 13e) is about to begin, Euthyphro changes course, frustrating Socrates, and

degenerates the definition of piety to one of “a sort of trading skill between gods and men” (Euthyphro

14e). When the fallacy that men could offer anything to the gods that they would need is exposed,

Euthyphro recedes further and regurgitates the second definition “what is dear to the gods”.

Euthyphro gives a clear notion of what piety is: a service to the gods in some excellent aim that

they use humans to achieve. Piety also appears to be related to justice in a way that makes piety’s

inclusion as an independent virtue difficult to maintain.

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Piety Clarified in Apology

In the Apology, the aim of the gods using pious servants is made clear, and the notion that piety is

independent of the other virtues is even more difficult to maintain. In his defense against the charge of

the impiety of atheism, Socrates shows that the gods want humans to be as good as possible, and piety is

manifest by being as good as possible and serving the gods to make others as good as possible. If piety is

the well working of the other virtues, the virtue of the virtues, it no longer can be independent of the rest

of the virtues. Also important in the Apology is the relationship between revelation and reason. The

intellect is given rightful command, but not in such a way that denies the veracity of mystical supernatural

events.

Socrates tells the jury that the Oracle at Delphi, in service to Apollo, had told Chaerephon that no

man was wiser than Socrates. Socrates’ reply to this revelation says much about the relationship between

the intellect and revelation.

‘Whatever does the god mean? What is his riddle? I am very conscious that I am not wise at all; what then does he mean by saying that I am the wisest? For surely he does not lie; it is not legitimate for him to do so.’ For a long time I was at a loss as to his meaning; then I very reluctantly turned to some such investigation as this; I went to one of those reputed wise, thinking that there, if anywhere, I could refute the oracle and say to it: ‘This man is wiser than I, but you said I was’ (Apology 21b-c).

Socrates does not take the revelation solely at face value; rather, he subjects it to his reason to

interpret. He assumes that the god could not be the cause of a lie, so any error would lie with Socrates’

interpretation or with the Oracle. Following his perplexity, Socrates turns to men thought wise around

him for assistance in interpreting the message or disproving it. In finding other wise men deficient,

Socrates came to understand the Oracle’s message from Apollo.

Then when I examined this man…I thought he appeared wise to many people and especially to himself, but he was not. I then tried to show him that he thought himself wise, but that he was not. As a result he came to dislike me, and so did many of the bystanders. So I withdrew and thought to myself: ‘I am wiser than this man; it is likely that neither of us knows anything worthwhile, but he thinks he knows something when he does not, whereas when I do not know, neither do I think I know; so I am likely to be wiser than he to this small extent, that I do not think I know what I do not know.

After that I proceeded systematically. I realized, to my sorrow and alarm, that I was getting unpopular, but I thought that I must attach the greatest importance to the god’s

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oracle, so I must go to all those had had any reputation for knowledge to examine its meaning...in my investigation in the service of the god I found that those who had the highest reputation were nearly the most deficient… (Apology 21c-22a).

Socrates calls this investigation “in the service of the god” (Apology 22a) which he only realized

was his mission by seeking out understanding of the divination. Socrates regards the declaration that he

is the wisest of men only to mean that he “understands that his wisdom is worthless” (Apology 23b). “So

even now I continue this investigation as the god bade me – and I go around seeking out anyone, citizen

or stranger whom I think wise. Then if I do not think he is, I come to the assistance of the god and show

that he is not wise” (Apology 23b).

The full revelation only came from the actual working out through Socrates’ mission. His

bidding is to be in the assistance of the god to show others that human wisdom is worthless. Revelation is

the source of the command, but the actual working out comes from reason within and from external

relationships with other humans, in this lifetime.

Socrates then goes to the politicians, the poets, and the craftsmen in turn and finds the same

trouble – the wise only thinking they were. With poets, seers, and prophets, the distinction between

revelation and reason is further clarified.

Almost all the bystanders might have explained the poems better than their authors could. I soon realized that the poets do not compose their poems with knowledge, but by some inborn talent and by inspiration, like seers and prophets who also say many fine things without any understanding of what they say (Apology 22b-c).

Neither the veracity of reason nor revelation is doubted, but revelation requires rationalizing for it to be

knowledge for the divinizer. The actual revelation itself is wisdom from the gods but that alone does not

make a man wise. Just as with Socrates’ mission, providing a logical account is the source of personal

wisdom.

The goal of Socrates’ dialectic is to persuade

both young and old among you not to care your body or your wealth in preference to or a strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: ‘Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively (Apology 30a-b).

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The goal is explicitly about this incarnation, this lifetime. The contemporaneous aspect of the

reward of the mission is reinforced by the prophecy of punishment in their lifetime to those who

condemned Socrates and by the pronouncement at the end that “a good man cannot be harmed either in

life or in death, and that his affairs are not neglected by the gods” (Apology 41d). Rewards and

punishments will be visited upon man in this life and following.

Vlastos’ Socratic Piety

Gregory Vlastos in Socratic Piety makes the claim that Socrates put

all his energies into ethical inquiry, he took no more interest in natural philosophy than in metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, or any other branch of investigation that falls outside the domain of moral philosophy (Vlastos 60).

This preoccupation with the moral abjuring all other inquiries causes the production of moral philosophy

(contra Aristophanes’ slander regarding a natural philosophy) and a moral theology. Vlastos calls

Socrates’ piety a “rationalist programme in theology” (Vlastos 63), whose essence is that the “entailment

of virtue by wisdom binds gods no less than men” (Vlastos 63). Just as in man where wisdom is the

cause of goodness, it is all the more so for the gods, supremely wise and, therefore, supremely good.

Vlastos cites Republic 2, 379b where the gods are declared truly good and therefore only the cause of

good, but could have also cited Apology 21b as above where “legitimate” activities are prescribed of the

gods.

Vlastos sees the Socratic mission as filling the gap between revelation and reason. The gods,

being supremely wise and good, only wish for man’s betterment. To assist man the gods

could send them signs to that effect, dreams and oracles galore. But unless they brought the right beliefs to the interpretation of those signs they would not be able to read them correctly. And they could not have come by those right beliefs unless they had already engaged in the quest for moral truth. So the god is stuck…He must, therefore, depend on someone who does have the right beliefs and can read signs correctly to assist the god by doing on his behalf…what the god in his boundless good will…would be doing for himself in person, if he only could (Vlastos 73).

Man and the gods desire the same thing: the good of man. The difference is that man’s wisdom is

worthless, while the gods’ is supreme; consequently, man’s notion of virtue is also corrupted, while the

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gods’ notion is pure. Due to this convergence of ends “In the practice of Socratic piety man would not

pray to god ‘My will be done by thee,’ but ‘Thy will be done by me’” (Vlastos 76).

Socratic piety should be seen to be the working out of the gods’ will for man by man through

reason interpreting revelation. This reasoning isn’t a solitary activity. Socrates engages himself initially

but then discovers the fullness of his philosophic mission is to engage everyone. In doing so, Socrates

assists the gods in making man wiser and therefore more virtuous. The gods in their supreme goodness

reward the good in man and punish the wicked. What is clear is that this moral theology involves the here

and now and due to the frailty of human wisdom to independently interpret revelation, assisting the gods

entails attending to one’s fellow man. The independent status of piety as a virtue is difficult to maintain

when piety regards all the virtues in their well working. The relationship between justice and piety could

either be viewed as only exemplifying piety’s role in the other virtues or something unique between piety

and justice.

Body, Soul, and the Good Life in Timaeus – Body as Metaphor

Carlos Steel in The Moral Purpose of the Human Body: A Reading of Timaeus 69-72 echoes the

idea that the dialogues should fundamentally be read as moral treatises whatever the apparent subject may

be.

…the intent of his whole philosophical project was always ethical-political. It is from that ethical perspective that the Timaeus too must be understood…What he wants to show is how this world and the human beings existing therein have been created by the divine Demiurge aiming ‘at the best.’ It is precisely via this teleology that his whole cosmology is situated within an ethical perspective. For it is not possible to explain what is ‘better’ or ‘best’ in the universe without referring to the human beings existing in this universe and to the goals they try to achieve (Steel 105-106).

Evidence given that Timaeus, specifically, should be taken in this context includes the political

prologues of the recounting of the Republic and the anticipation of Critias; the fact that Timaeus, while

being a natural philosopher, also is a politician; and “that the cosmogony terminates in an anthropogony,

with the creation of the human soul and human body…the cosmological discourse seems to be but a long

preface to the political discussion that will follow” (Steel 106). The first cosmological attempt of

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explanation from divine reason alone falters and then recommences with the second account from

necessity. A final interweaving of the two in the third section is done by explaining

the anatomy and the function of the human organism in full detail. The very structure of Timaeus’ discourse confirms that the distinction between divine causality and necessity is introduced with reference to human life and its goals (Steel 111).

Using the moral lens to interpret Timaeus yields a respect of the body as being the effect of both

the divine cause and necessity. By looking at the effects evident in the universe, Timaeus is able to create

an account of the likely causes. Likewise, by viewing what is said about the universe in the light of moral

terms, notions of the status of the body can be inferred.

Timaeus 29e-30c begins with explaining the Demiurge’s motivation for creating the universe.

Simply put, the Demiurge is purely good and desired every thing to be as much like him as was possible.

His motivation must be pure as “it wasn’t permitted (nor is it now) for that one who is supremely good

should do anything but what is best” (Timaeus 30a-b). Intelligence is better than unintelligence and

intelligence requires soul, so “he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body” (Timaeus 30b). Though body

is posterior in creation and excellence to soul, it is still better than the disorder the universe began in;

otherwise it would not have been created by the supremely good Demiurge. The human body, then, is not

just a necessary evil, but has divine origins, as well.

Beginning at Timaeus 31, the perfect completeness of the universe is detailed. The universe is

solitary (31a-b), has a perfect spherical shape internally complete in its experience and sufficiency (33a-

d), and experiences only one of the seven motions (34a).

And he set it to turn in a circle, a single solitary universe, whose very excellence enables it to keep its own company without requiring anything else. For its knowledge of and friendship with itself is enough (Timaeus 34b).

Comparing this description to the human body the necessity of the body for the perfection of the universe

becomes clear. Human bodies are multiple implying an inherent incompleteness and lack of self-

sufficiency. The embodiment itself can be seen to show that by design humans will need things beyond

themselves for completeness and continuance. The body is also designed to move in and experience all

seven motions, which as detailed later does serve to set the soul adrift, but also would be necessary to

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experience all that bodies must. The lack of excellence of the human body obviates any ability to shun a

societal existence. The universe may be able to acquire its knowledge and friendship from within, but

humans, given the stark contrast in body alone, should be seen as to require these from without.

Man, as embodied, inherently has a certain lack of excellence but is given explicit instruction in

Timaeus for achieving perfection. Perfection is achieved through imitation of higher beings. The

Demiurge looks to the eternal model and to himself to create a perfect universe. The universe is as

perfect as the perceptible can be as evidenced by its shape, motion, and self-sufficiency. The universe,

for its perfection looks to itself as there are no higher visible beings.

The lesser gods are given the task of completing the universe with mortal living things and once

“they had received the immortal principle of the mortal living thing, they began to imitate the craftsman

who had made them” (Timaeus 42e). The lesser gods were given “the task of ruling over these mortal

living things and of giving them the finest, the best possible guidance they could give…” (Timaeus 42e).

The immortal soul of humans was given by the Demiurge and is “something described as divine and

ruling within those of them who always consent to follow after justice and after you…” (Timaeus 41d).

Taking the analogy to its completion, it is clear that the perfection of man will come from

following, consenting to, and imitating the gods; just as the perfection of the gods comes from their

following and imitating the Demiurge. What do the gods do? At least in part, the gods follow the

Demiurge and are active in the perfection of the visible universe. To perfect themselves humans should

be involved with the visible and with each other seeking knowledge and experience from without. This is

both by design and by necessity.

The indissoluble nature of the divine and the necessary extend to the pursuit of knowledge, as

well.

…we must distinguish two forms of cause, the divine and the necessary. First, the divine, for which we must search in all things if we are to gain a life of happiness to the extent that our nature allows, and second, the necessary, for which we must search for the sake of the divine. Our reason is that without the necessary, those other objects, about which we are serious, cannot on their own be discerned, and hence cannot be comprehended or partaken of in any other way (Timaeus 68e-69a).

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Steel uses this model to explain why the physics of Timaeus only serve to point toward the moral

meaning of the cosmos. While the necessary cause needs to be elucidated to understand the divine, it is

only in the acquisition of knowledge of the divine causes that brings happiness. Were one to remain

preoccupied with the realm of necessity one would lack excellence and happiness.

So if a man has become absorbed in his appetites or his ambitions and takes great pains to further them, all his thoughts are bound to become merely mortal.… seeing that he has cultivated his mortality all along. On the other hand, if a man has seriously devoted himself to the love of learning and to true wisdom, if he has exercised these aspects of himself above all, then there is absolutely no way that his thoughts can fail to be immortal and divine, should truth come within his grasp. And to the extent that human nature can partake of immortality, he can in no way fail to achieve this: constantly caring for his divine part as he does, keeping well-ordered the guiding spirit that lives within him, he must indeed be supremely happy. Now there is but one way to care for anything, and that is to provide for it the nourishment and the motions that are proper to it. And the motions that have an affinity to the divine part within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. These, surely, are the ones which each of us should follow. We should redirect the revolutions in our heads that were thrown off course at our birth by coming to learn the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, and so bring into conformity with its objects our faculty of understanding, as it was in its original conditions. And when this conformity is complete, we shall have achieved our goal: that most excellent life offered to humankind by the gods, both now and forevermore (Timaeus 90b-d).

Even with this final invocation to better the intellect, a contemporaneous reward is due along with one in

the afterlife.

Body, Soul, and the Good Life in Timaeus – Literal Physics

While Steel sees the physics of Timaeus as shallow cover for the real meaning, Thomas Johansen

in Body, Soul, and Tripartition in Plato’s Timaeus adopts a literalist interpretation. Against a quoted

denigration of the body from the Phaedo, Johansen aims to show that the Timaeus

offers a more complex and often more constructive view of the role of the body and the contribution it can make to our rationality and happiness. (He) hope(s) to show that readers of Plato who ignore the Timaeus risk getting a seriously incomplete picture of his thought on soul and body (Johansen 87).

Johansen begins by explaining why such an elaborate account of motion was given by Timaeus. The

“‘kinetic’ reading…is supposed to explain the soul as a principle of motion. On the ‘cognitive’ reading,

the point of the mixtures is to account for the world soul’s ability to make different sorts of judgment”

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(Johansen 89). “There is really no need to choose between the cognitive and the kinetic readings. The

point of the composition of the soul is to show how the soul moves when it thinks and thinks when it

moves” (Johansen 90).

Though a dualist by reputation and by self-ascription, Plato’s dualism is shown not to fall to the

same criticism as Cartesian dualism. Taking the language of thought as movement as literally implying

spatial extension, there is no longer a mind-body problem. Perceptibility distinguishes body from soul,

not spatial extension. Johansen quotes Timaeus 36e “the body of the heaven as been created visible; but

the soul is invisible.” Perceptibility is then defined as having extension in three dimensions. The soul

only has circular motion, lacking depth. “Because both body and soul move in space we can see how the

motions of the soul may affect the motions of the body and vice versa. Body and soul may have different

spatial properties … but there is no fundamental ontological difference between the two” (Johansen 92).

The soul literally moves in space according to the same sort of mathematical regularities that govern the motions of bodies. If we find this proposal so difficult to imagine (let alone accept), it may be because of another Cartesian influence, the association of spatial extension with body to the exclusion of mind (Johansen 92-93).

Johansen goes on to interpret the physiology and psychology of the embodied soul in terms of

necessity and design. Of necessity, embodiment creates affections that will disrupt the soul’s natural

movements leading to irrationality. However, the lesser gods tripartition the soul given to them by the

Demiurge in a “way in which the necessary affections are put to good use” (Johansen 100) by dividing

the immortal soul from the mortal soul, further dividing the mortal soul into the spirited and appetitive

parts, and placing these three in unique locations in the body.

(This) shows how the body is so constructed as to aid the intellect in maintaining control over itself and the mortal soul…The body is so composed as to ensure that the different parts of the soul are able to do their proper job without interference from the other parts. The impression is that without a tripartite physiology to go with the tripartite psychology the soul would be the forum of a disorganized and motley set of more or less irrational affections (Johansen 101).

The marrow is the point of interaction between the circular motions of the soul and the rectilinear

motions of the body and is designed to accommodate both types of movements being “divided into shapes

that were at once round and elongated” (Timaeus 73d). The human body by necessity requires rectilinear

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movement, but the marrow allows the circular movements of the soul to modify those movements.

Conversely, the rectilinear movements of the body can and do disrupt the movements of the soul.

The distinction Johansen makes is not between rectilinear and circular movements as the source

of disorder but between self-motion and imposed motion. The rational soul through the heart and

vasculature can control the spirited soul which in turn can control the appetitive soul. However, the

movements of these parts are not intrinsically disordered, but are necessary for the embodied soul. The

liver is the source of divine revelation (Timaeus 71e), the appetite regulates nourishment. Similarly,

necessary movement of the body can be brought under rational control through the marrow.

Each of the three parts of the soul thus has its own motions, which should be tended to (89 E 3-90 A 2). Our aim should not be to eradicate the motions of the mortal parts of the soul but to regulate each part so that its proper motion neither overwhelms nor is overwhelmed by the motions of other parts. The rational order of the soul, after embodiment, is not one in which only the emotions of the intellect thrive but a complex order in which other psychic motions operate alongside those of the intellect in common pursuit of the human good (Johansen 104).

The body should not be viewed as the enemy of the intellect. Rather, as the intellect of humans is

necessarily embodied in order to perfect the universe, and is done so with the care of the gods, the body

should be harnessed to the aid of the intellect. Attending to the different parts of the body and soul in due

degree will allow the harmonization of each part individually and to the service of the intellect. If

knowledge and experience for humans comes primarily through the interaction with other bodies and

understanding the visible cosmos, then movements beyond circular motion will be required. While these

movements can be disruptive, they can also be harnessed to aid the intellect in achieving harmonic

movements and rationality.

While it would be better, individually, to be pure souls with perfect intelligence, on the whole, the

universe requires mortals to bring about complete perfection. While it would be better to not have the

potential for irrationality that the body affords, given the necessity with which the Demiurge and the

lesser gods faces, the design of the body shows that the best possible compromise was reached. “The

dialogue forces us to rethink the image of Plato as the enemy of the body” (Johansen 111).

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Timaeus in Context – What of the Republic and Phaedo?

Johansen seeks to show that while the Timaeus paints a different view of the body, it is a

difference in perspective rather than in kind. In the Republic the parts of the tripartite soul are

distinguished by their proper objects of desire: the intellect for truth, the spirited part for esteem, and the

appetitive part for bodily gratification. These desires are exemplified as in opposition. Johansen lessens

the conflict by pointing out that

the Republic by no means always presents the lower parts of the soul as being in conflict with the intellect…The argument to show that the individual will be happy only if all the parts of the soul are harmonized under the rule of reason surely presupposes that the lower parts of the soul are fundamentally able to co-operate with ends that been determined by reason (Johansen 106).

The Republic account serves to show that the body can be in conflict with reason, the Timaeus serves to

show that harmonizing the conflict out is necessary for happiness.

The Phaedo offers stronger resistance in its denigration of the body. In his defiance of the fear of

death, Socrates calls “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for

dying and death” (Phaedo 64a). A philosopher’s “concern is not with the body but that, as far as he can,

he turns away from the body towards the soul…the philosopher more than other men frees the soul form

association with the body as much as possible” (Phaedo 64e-65). Philosophers are detached so as the

reason is most clear apart from the senses (Phaedo 65c) and only apart from the senses can the Forms be

grasped (Phaedo 65e). The Phaedo goes beyond a state of benign neglect for the body to purify the soul,

but in the rebuttal against the soul as a harmony of the body argument, the soul is seen as the master of

the unruly subjects of the passions opposing them and punishing them (Phaedo 94b-e).

George Boys-Stones in Phaedo of Elis and Plato on the Soul writes:

Phaedo of Elis was well-known as a writer of Socratic dialogues, and it seems inconceivable that Plato could have been innocent of intertextuality when…he made him the narrator of one of his own: the Phaedo. In fact the psychological model outlined by Socrates in this dialogue converges with the evidence we have…for Phaedo’s own beliefs about the soul. Specifically, Phaedo seems to have thought that non-rational desires were ineliminable epiphenomena of the body, that reason was something distinct, and that the purpose of philosophy was its ‘cure’ and ‘purification’. If Plato’s intention with the Phaedo is to assert the separability and immortality of reason (whatever one might think about desire and pleasure), then Phaedo provides a useful standpoint for him…At the

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same time as allying himself with Phaedo, however, Plato is able to improve on him by adding to the demonstration that reason is independent a proof that it is actually immortal (Boys-Stones 1).

Boys-Stones shows that “what is distinctive about Plato’s psychology as presented in the Phaedo is

precisely what was distinctive about the psychology of the historical Phaedo” (Boys-Stones 14). This

strategy is employed because

the Phaedo is not just an exploration of the soul…it is, more specifically, a discussion of its immortality and part of the reason why Plato presents the psychological model that he does (or in the way that he does) must be that he thinks it allows him to argue the soul’s immortality more clearly or more securely (Boys-Stones 15).

Simmias’ argument is roundly defeated using Phaedo’s psychology, but Phaedo is an Iolaus in

need of a Heracles to defeat Cebes’. The doctrine of the Forms allows the disputation of Cebes, and this

is the improvement Plato offers over Phaedo.

The reasoning about the distinctive psychology of Phaedo can be extended to its distinctive

physiology. Looking at reason as radically independent more easily proves a point that the moderated

interactionist account of Timaeus supports. Likewise, the extreme view of the body in opposition to the

soul of Phaedo can be tempered if it is taken as perspective rather than dogma.

Becoming Like God – David Sedley

The self labeled “digression” of Theaetetus begins with a contrast of “the man who has been

knocking about in law courts and such places ever since he was a boy” and “the man brought up in

philosophy, in the life of a student” (Theaetetus 172c-d). Philosophers are free men with their minds on

the abstract, while men of the courts are slaves to their toil of thinking about the practical and mundane.

Contemplation on the abstract yields ignorance of the concrete and causes the philosopher to appear

buffoonish to his fellow citizens. This focus is nothing to scoff at though. It turns out to be the meaning

of existence.

That is why a man should make all haste to escape from earth to heaven; and escape means becoming as like God as possible; and a man becomes like God when he becomes just and pure, with understanding (Theaetetus 176b).

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David Sedley in “The Ideal of Godlikeness” calls the digression “the locus classicus” (Fine 311) of “the

official moral goal, or telos” (Fine 309) of Platonism.

Sedley also proposes that this Platonic telos was obvious to the ancients but is treated as

insignificant by modern philosophy. He argues that the influence of this goal “on Plato’s successors,

above all Aristotle, is so far reaching that we risk seriously misunderstanding them if we do not make due

allowance to it” (Fine 309). Divinization through progressive incarnations as a recovery from a fall from

an original divine state is nothing unique or novel in Plato. Instead, what is most novel compared with

the Pythagorean idea of reincarnation and divinization, is that “the goal of ‘becoming like God so far as is

possible’ falls strictly within the confines of an incarnate life, and governs the way in which that life is to

be led. We are urged to achieve assimilation to God, if at all, within our present lifespan” (Fine 310).

Sedley claims the debut of the telos is found in Symposium when Socrates recounts Diotima’s

speech to him on the nature of Love. Diotima tells Socrates that “in a word, then, love is wanting to

possess the good forever” (Symposium 206a). Lovers pursue the object of love, the good, by “giving birth

in beauty, whether in body or in soul” (Symposium 206b). What Love wants is

reproduction and birth in beauty…Now, why reproduction? It’s because reproduction goes on forever; it is what mortals have in place of immortality. A lover must desire immortality along with the good, if what we agreed earlier was right, that Love wants to possess the good forever. It follows from our argument that Love must desire immortality (Symposium 206e-207a).

Further, “mortal nature seeks so far as possible to live forever and be immortal. And this is possible in

one way only: by reproduction, because it always leaves behind a new young one in place of the old”

(Symposium 207d). Others pursue reproduction not in body, but in soul

and these are pregnant with what is fitting for a soul to bear and bring to birth. And what is fitting? Wisdom and the rest of virtue…but by far the greatest and most beautiful part of wisdom deals with the proper ordering of cities and households, and that is called moderation and justice (Symposium 209).

The immortality of bodily reproduction is less desirable than the immortality of fame, and even these pale

to the immortality achieved by scaling Diotima’s Ladder of Love. The ladder begins:

one goes always upwards for the sake of this Beauty, starting out from beautiful things and using them like rising stairs: from one body to two and from two to all beautiful

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bodies, then from beautiful bodies to beautiful customs, and from customs to learning beautiful things, and from these lessons he arrives in the end at this lesson, which is learning of this very Beauty, so that in the end he comes to know just what it is to be beautiful (Symposium 211c).

Only then will it become possible for him to give birth not to images of virtue (because he’s in touch with no images), but to true virtue (because he is in touch with true Beauty). The love of the gods belongs to anyone who has given birth to true virtue and nourished it, and if any human being could become immortal, it would be he (Symposium 212a).

Immortality is achievable in this life and is done so by the ladder of love by reproduction, fame,

engendering the virtues in the polity, and most importantly by seeking the Good, itself.

Prior to the digression in Theaetetus, the Protagarean claim of “man is the measure of all things”

had been rebuffed on 2 counts. First, the statement could not be valid for areas of expertise such as

navigation or medicine and second, the statement fails to be valid concerning itself. Having dispatched

the outer lines, Socrates moves to consider the heart of relativism – values.

Then consider political questions. Some of these are questions of what may or may not fittingly be done, of just and unjust, of what is sanctioned by religion and what is not…In such matters neither any individual nor any city can claim superior wisdom (Theaetetus 172a).

Relativism acquires its force from just these 3 areas: aesthetics, morality, and piety. The digression is a

response from faith that even these areas have an objective grounding in God. The digression, then, is no

digression at all.

The escape to heaven by becoming like God occurs when a man “becomes just and pure, with

understanding” (Theaetetus 176b). This last part, ‘with understanding’, Sedley translates as ‘with

wisdom’ and makes clear in his commentary on Theaetetus, The Midwife of Platonism, that wisdom is not

just another virtue listed alongside of justice and purity. The term ‘with wisdom’ instead is Socrates’

“standard marker-phrase for authentic, because intellectualized, virtues” (Sedley 75). “The only thing

that is underivatively good is wisdom itself, to whose guidance other things owe whatever goodness they

may possess” (Sedley 75). This is most explicit in the Meno where Socrates says “all that the soul

undertakes and endures, if directed by wisdom, ends in happiness, but if directed by ignorance it ends in

the opposite” (Meno 88b). Sedley recounts similar passages in Euthydemus (278e3-282e5), Phaedo

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(68c5-69e4), and Republic (591b5-7, 621c5-6, 619c6-d1). Guided by wisdom, when man seeks

understanding of justice and purity, he becomes just and pure and this is becoming like God.

Just as the ascent to becoming like God occurs in this lifetime as the intellectualized virtues are

then embodied in just and pure men, the punishments for not becoming like God are also visited upon

man in this lifetime. Socrates tells Theodorus:

My friend, there are two patterns set up in reality. One is divine and supremely happy; the other has nothing of God in it, and is the pattern of the deepest unhappiness. This truth the evildoer does not see; blinded by folly and utter lack of understanding, he fails to perceive that the effect of his unjust practices is to make him grow more and more like the one, and less and less like the other. For this he pays the penalty of living the life that corresponds to the pattern he is coming to resemble (Theaetetus 176e-177a).

Sedley opines that the two patterns mentioned by Socrates should be taken as Plato’s linking the

Forms to Socratic piety. Plato shows Socrates to resist empiricism, materialism, and relativism without

the benefit of the Forms through his faith in God. For Socrates, the absolute standard of justice is not the

Form of Justice, but God, Himself. In this way Plato is able to show how the Forms are not of Socrates,

but can be viewed as a development from Socrates’ midwifery.

Becoming like God would seem to be linked to holiness or piety, but Sedley notes that Theaetetus

is notable for the reappearance of piety as a virtue having been included in earlier dialogues but later

dropped as Plato “moved out of his Socratic phase” (Fine 313). The early dialogues contain 5 cardinal

virtues: justice, moderation, wisdom, courage, and holiness. The virtues cited in the Republic contain

only 4 with holiness absent. Sedley explains the reappearance as a support of the notion that God is not

necessarily the creator of the virtues, but is the perfect embodiment of them. “Holiness is the virtue that

concerns service to God. Since God is essentially good, to serve God is the same thing as to lead a good

life. Hence the skill which enables us to serve God simply is the skill of being just, courageous,

moderate, and wise” (Fine 313-314). Wisdom has been conflated with the other virtues as what gives

them their goodness, which is a similar role that piety has been given in Euthyphro and Apology. In

addition, the independence of piety from justice was also questioned. The explanation that God would be

the embodiment of all the virtues explains the overlap coherently.

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As God is the perfect embodiment of these virtues, becoming like Him, will assure man of

rewards now and in the afterlife. The conclusion to 10 books of philosophic discourse in the Republic

hinges on rewards and punishment from the gods. Even when a just person is visited by evil events in

this life we can be assured

that this will end well for him, either during his lifetime or afterwards, for the gods never neglect anyone who eagerly wishes to become just and who makes himself as much like a god as a human can by adopting a virtuous way of life. It makes sense that such a person not be neglected by anyone who is like him (Republic 613a-b).

Sedley notes that this assurance that the gods honor their own concludes Diotima’s speech in Symposium,

the Apology, and most strikingly, Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 10.8.

In his analysis of Timaeus, Sedley explicitly denies that ‘becoming like God’ carries only

instrumental force. That is, God, who is the perfect instantiation of the Forms, objectively does exist and

therefore ‘becoming like God’ is not a notion that only serves to focus man’s ascent to the Forms. By

viewing the movement of the stars and planets which actually are the movements of the World Soul,

humans can see the perfection of the Demiurge and his creation.

The soul, moving when it thinks and thinking when it moves, causes Sedley to make the insight:

“the divine world-soul and our own souls, akin in their very origins, are structured in such a way as to

enable us, via the study of astronomy and mathematics, to share God’s own thoughts” (Fine 316). The

movements of the planets are actually the World Soul’s thoughts and these thoughts are close to the

Demiurge’s own thoughts being most uniform. The thesis is delineated at Timaeus 90b-e.

Sedley then addresses the question of whether the whole soul or only the rational part is involved

in becoming like God. Plotinus famously sees the ascent only possible for the rational part whereby all

thoughts of becoming are jettisoned and the rational part unites with the One. For Plotinus, the moral

virtues that affect the body are “barely more than quasi-virtues, drummed in by habituation, a mere

political expedient in the interests of a well-run society” (Fine 322). Sedley is sympathetic recalling

Republic 7 518d-e: “Hence the other so-called virtues of the soul look likely to be close to those of the

body…whereas the virtue of wisdom really does prove to belong, it seems, to something more divine.”

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For Plotinus, becoming like God is becoming God. For Sedley, becoming like God involves an ascent

from this world but its force is in this lifetime rather than over a process of successive reincarnations.

Sedley’s reinforces his claim that Plato’s predecessors recognized this telos by looking at

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle solves the tension created by Plato’s Demiurge being the

perfect intellect, yet enmeshed in world government by explaining that the gods are in no way moved.

Their only action is contemplation (N.E. 1178b23). Aristotle then echoes the Platonic telos. The intellect

is the part of the soul that is divine and “its activity according to its proper virtue would be perfect

happiness” (N.E. 1177a15). Later in the Nicomachean Ethics we read:

thus we should not follow the recommendation of thinkers who say that those who are men should think only of human things and that mortals should think of mortal things, but we should try as far as possible to partake of immortality and to make every effort to live according to the best part of the soul in us (N.E. 1177b30).

Though, not verbatim to the ‘becoming like God’ of Theaetetus, the thought is equivalent.

So if contemplation is ‘becoming like God’ for both Plato and Aristotle, what is contemplation?

Sedley recounts the first century Platonist Eudorus’ tripartition of philosophy into physics, ethics, and

logic as the Platonic answer to ‘what is contemplation’. God’s thoughts on physics are in the Timaeus, on

ethics are in the Republic, and on logic are in the Theaetetus. For Aristotle’s answer, Sedley looks to

what Aristotle busied himself with: philosophy, zoology, mathematics, and studying the relations of

genera and species. For Aristotle, God’s thoughts are the essences of things. Sedley concludes:

Although Aristotelian essences may not have the same metaphysical status as Platonic Forms, and although Aristotelian research methods may differ from those favoured in the Academy, there is every reason to believe that mutatis mutandis, Platonic and Aristotelian contemplation are very much the same intellectual activity (Fine 328).

The purpose of the ‘digression’ and the purpose of all of Platonism, is becoming like God. For

Sedley, God only thinks and we can share these thoughts first by recognizing them as the movement of

His creation and then by harmonizing our own thoughts to those movements. In this way, we attain

immortality, the telos of all things mortal. While there is a cyclical quality to this end, it foremost is to be

seen as the force of this lifetime, this incarnation. Our reward and punishment for this life and next

depend on our ‘becoming like God’, here and now.

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Becoming Like God – Julia Annas

Julia Annas in Platonic Ethics, Old and New, takes an even stronger otherworldly view of

becoming like God.

Becoming like God or assimilating oneself to God, is not meant as an alternative to the idea that we seek happiness; it is just a specification of what happiness is…(it is) not intended as an alternative to the idea that virtue is sufficient for happiness…(it) is what becoming virtuous is. But whereas most…texts…contain the idea that virtue transforms a human life, by revision our values and priorities, we seem here to have the idea that virtue turns a human life into something different in kind (Annas 53).

Annas takes exception with the middle Platonist Plutarch who treats becoming like God as the “vague

cliché” (Annas 59) of obeying reason.

But the Theaetetus passage is not a cliché, and there was a reason why it became so famous. In it the idea of becoming like God is associated with the idea that this is a flight from human life, from earth to heaven; becoming virtuous is an escape from the inevitable mix of good and bad that characterizes human life, to a state were there is no evil (Annas 59).

Annas develops this notion of flight by heavy reference to Phaedo and seeing a

rift in Plato’s thought, as he is torn between conceptions of virtue as, on the one hand, an uncompromising but committed engagement with the world and, on the other, a flight from and rejection of it…it is not possible to combine these strands in a single set of ideas; one or other will suffer too much strain (Annas 70-71).

For Annas, becoming like God means a flight from this world and a perfection of human nature

that changes human nature into some other kind of nature. The person who becomes most like God

would then be least like man. If this person were to be involved in the things of this world, it would only

be in the ways that God would be. The strain between engagement and flight , Annas takes as evidence

of irreconcilable thoughts in Plato.

Becoming Like God – John Armstrong

Perhaps Annas assumes too much that Plato is neither internally coherent nor can the two strands

be intertwined. John Armstrong in After the Ascent: Plato on Becoming like God argues that

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Plato’s identification of god with nous or intelligence in the Timaeus, Philebus, and Laws influences his conception of assimilation to god. Rather than fleeing from the sensible world, becoming like this god commits one to improving it (Armstrong 171).

In Philebus, Armstrong identifies four aspects of Intelligence. First, Intelligence is an efficient

cause that always causes for the best. Second, Intelligence is God. Third, the intelligence that is used to

promote forms of order on a small scale is a part of the Intelligence that orders the universe as a whole.

Fourth, Intelligence is wisdom. Like gods, humans are agents and efficient causes, but unlike the gods,

humans are only more or less intelligent and, therefore, human effects are limited. However, becoming

like God is to imitate God as the supreme exemplar of effecting order.

In Timaeus, Armstrong views the difference in presentation of Intelligence as that to be

contemplated to still have implicit in it the call for action. By looking at what divine intelligence does in

creating the universe and what the lesser intelligences do in creating human bodies, human intelligence

should direct itself in perfecting the visible.

In Laws, there is an explicit mixture of the contemplative and active aspects of becoming like

God “suggesting that both appealed to Plato in his late years” (Armstrong 177). “The guardians grasp the

highest objects of knowledge and know how to apply and explain what they understand. Both sides of

godlikeness are manifest in their lives” (Armstrong 177). The gods are intimately involved in human

affairs and “seek to order the world in the best way possible” (Armstrong 178). Becoming like God for

the ordinary citizen involves the ordering of one’s own soul. This is done by respecting the law as proxy

for Intelligence. The guardians attain a closer assimilation as they

imitate on the social level what god does at the cosmic level. As the demiurge of the Timaeus looked to an eternal model before creating our world (Tim. 29A), the guardians too combine knowledge and practice. Contemplation and action are harmonious aspects of the ideal life (Armstrong 179).

How the Body Helps Man Become Like God

Socratic piety should be seen as a service to the gods in the excellent aim of improving man’s lot.

The derivation of how to improve this condition is fully revealed by the actual actions dedicated to the

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service along with the primacy of reason necessary to interpret revelation. The lack of self-sufficiency in

the human intellect and the social nature of the service to the gods make piety an interactive encounter

between man and God and man and man.

The body should be seen in the lens of the moral acknowledging that this incarnation, while not

affording the perfection of the gods or the Demiurge, is not from necessity alone. The human body is by

design a moral instrument and the physics of the soul-body interaction ensure that the body will affect the

soul and the soul will affect the body. The affections can be disruptive or harmonizing but with dedicated

service to the gods harmony will be achieved.

Becoming like God can be viewed with an eye to another reality, to transcendence of human

nature, as solely an intellectual ascent. However, the notion that becoming like God very much involves

the here and now, that the soul is inevitably affected by the body, and that human perfection comes

through the instrumentality of both reason and other humans, lends credence to the understanding that

becoming like God is an affair of this world, this time, this incarnation, and this body.

Glenn Most recounts Goethe’s first impression of The School of Athens in 1786:

So far I have seen the loggias of Raphael and the great paintings of the School of Athens etc. only once, and it is as though one were supposed to study Homer in a partially obliterated, damaged manuscript. The pleasure of the first impression is incomplete, the delight only becomes whole when one has gradually examined and studied everything (Most 145-146).

By understanding the central telos of Platonism to incorporate a role for the body, the impression

of Plato walking and talking with Aristotle is better formed as one of comparison rather than contrast. By

examining the role of every part of humanity a complete picture of human nature and purpose unfolds.

Man is to become like God, so far as possible, in every way as possible, with every part of his being as

possible, body and soul.

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Works Cited

Apostle, H. and Gerson, L. Aristotle Selected Works. 3rd Edition. Grinnell, Iowa: The Peripatetic

Press, 1991.

Annas, Julia. “Becoming Like God: Ethics, Human Nature, and the Divine.” Platonic Ethics, Old and

New. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Armstrong, John. After the Ascent: Plato on Becoming Like God. Oxford Studies in Ancient

Philosophy, Vol 26, Summer 2004. Oxford University Press, 2004.

Boys-Stones, George. Phaedo of Elis and Plato on the Soul. Phronesis, Vol 49, 1. Feb. 2004. Brill,

2004.

Cooper, John M. Ed. Plato Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997

Johansen, Thomas. Body, Soul, and Tripartition in Plato’s Timaeus. Oxford Studies in Ancient

Philosophy, Winter 2000. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Most, Glenn. Reading Raphael: The School of Athens and Its Pre-Text. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 23.

Autumn 1996. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Sedley, David. “The Ideal of Godlikeness” Plato 2 Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Ed. Gail

Fine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Sedley, David. The Midwife of Platonism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Steel, Carlos. The Moral Purpose of the Human Body A Reading of Timaeus 69-7. Phronesis, Vol 46, 2.

April 2001. Brill, 2001.

Vlastos, Gregory. “Socratic Piety” Plato 2 Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul. Ed. Gail Fine.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

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