Platonismo

This page is read only. You can view the source, but not change it. Ask your administrator if you think this is wrong.
===== 6,1 (IV, 8, 1) — INTERROGAÇÃO SOBRE AS CONDIÇÕES DA DESCIDA DA ALMA NO CORPO =====
<tabbox Míguez>
1. Frecuentemente me despierto a mí mismo huyendo de mi cuerpo. Y, ajeno entonces a todo lo demás, dentro ya de mí mismo, contemplo, en la medida de lo posible, una maravillosa belleza. Creo sobre todo, en ese momento, que me corresponde un destino superior, ya que por la índole de mi actividad alcanzo el más alto grado de vida y me uno también al ser divino, situándome en él por esa acción y colocándome incluso por encima de los seres inteligibles. Sin embargo, luego de este descanso en el ser divino y una vez descendido de la inteligencia al pensamiento reflexivo, debo preguntarme cómo verifico este descenso y cómo pudo penetrar el alma en el cuerpo, estando ella en sí misma, como a mí me ha parecido, aunque verdaderamente se encuentre en un cuerpo.

Heráclito, que nos anima a la búsqueda, postula la necesidad de alternativas entre los contrarios. Habla, por ejemplo, de "un camino hacia arriba y hacia abajo", diciendo que "al cambiar permanece en reposo", por lo cual "es penoso para ellos afanarse y volver a empezar". Esas son las imágenes que emplea, aunque haya desdeñado el hacernos claras sus palabras, pensando tal vez que también podemos encontrar por nosotros mismos lo que él ha encontrado a través de su búsqueda.

Empédocles, por su parte, dice que es ley para las almas pecadoras el descender hasta aquí, y que él mismo, "huido de la mansión de los dioses", ha llegado a este mundo "obediente a la locura de la disputa". Con esto hace, a mi juicio, tantas revelaciones como Pitágoras, que sus discípulos han interpretado enigmáticamente tanto en este punto como en otros pasajes. Digamos, sin embargo, que por su estilo poético no se manifestaba con claridad. Nos queda por considerar ahora el divino Platón, que dijo acerca del alma muchas y hermosas cosas, hablando en muchos lugares de sus obras de su venida a este mundo hasta hacernos concebir la esperanza de que algo claro podemos obtener de ellos. Pero, ¿qué es en realidad lo que dice este filósofo? Parece, verdaderamente, que no dice siempre lo mismo para que no se advierta fácilmente cuál es su verdadera intención. Siempre, no obstante, desprecia todo lo sensible y reprocha al alma su unión con el cuerpo. Y así, afirma que el alma se encuentra en una prisión y que está en el cuerpo como en una tumba, con lo cual en los misterios se pronuncia una gran palabra al decir que el alma se halla en una cárcel. La caverna, en él, es lo mismo que el antro en Empédocles. A mi parecer, esta caverna simboliza nuestro mundo, en el que la marcha hacia el mundo inteligible, según él dice, significa para el alma la liberación de sus cadenas y su ascensión fuera de la caverna. En el Fedro, la pérdida de sus alas es la causa de que el alma llegue a este mundo, aunque pueda remontar esta coyuntura y el cumplimiento de su misma revolución la traiga otra vez hasta aquí. Son realmente juicios, o lotes sacados a la suerte, o las vicisitudes de la fortuna, o la misma necesidad, las que precipitan a las otras almas en este mundo. Así, según lo que se afirma en todos estos pasajes, la venida del alma al cuerpo debe ser motivo de reprensión, aunque hablando en el Timeo del universo sensible haga (Platón) el elogio del mundo y declare asimismo que se trata de un dios bienaventurado. El alma, en este caso, viene a ser una donación bondadosa del demiurgo que introduce a la inteligencia en el universo, porque es claro que tiene necesidad de una inteligencia, cosa que no sería posible de no contar con un alma.

He ahí el porqué el alma del universo ha sido enviada a éste, lo mismo que a cada uno de nosotros, por condescendencia de la divinidad, para que el universo no deje de ser perfecto. Pues debe haber en el mundo sensible tantas especies de seres animados como hay en el mundo inteligible.

<tabbox Bouillet>
I. Souvent, m’éveillant du sommeil du corps pour revenir à moi, et détournant mon attention des choses extérieures pour la concentrer en moi-même, j’y aperçois une admirable beauté, et je reconnais que j’ai une noble condition : car je vis alors d’une vie excellente, je m’identifie avec Dieu, et, édifié en lui, j’arrive à cet acte qui m’élève au-dessus de tout intelligible. Mais si, après m’être ainsi reposé au sein de la Divinité, je redescends de l’intelligence à l’exercice du raisonnement, je me demande comment je puis ainsi m’abaisser actuellement, et comment mon âme a pu jadis entrer dans un corps, puisque, quoiqu’elle soit actuellement dans le corps, elle possède encore en elle-même toute la perfection que j’y découvre.

Héraclite, qui nous recommande de faire cette recherche, admet qu’il y a des changements nécessaires des contraires les uns dans les autres, parle d’ascension et de descente, dit que c’est un repos de changer, une fatigue de faire toujours les mêmes travaux et d’obéir : il nous réduit ainsi à des conjectures, faute de s’expliquer clairement, et il nous oblige de chercher comment il est arrivé lui-même à découvrir ce qu’il avance.

Empédocle enseigne que c’est une loi pour les âmes qui ont péché de tomber ici-bas, que lui-même, s’étant éloigné de Dieu, est venu sur la terre pour y être l’esclave de la Discorde furieuse. Il s’est contenté, je crois, de dévoiler les idées que Pythagore et ses sectateurs exprimaient en général par des symboles sur ce sujet et sur beaucoup d’autres. Empédocle est d’ailleurs obscur parce qu’il emploie le langage de la poésie.

Reste le divin Platon, qui a dit tant de belles choses sur l’âme. Il a dans ses dialogues souvent parlé de la descente de l’âme dans le corps, en sorte que nous avons le droit d’espérer de lui quelque éclaircissement. Que dit-il donc ? Il n’est point partout assez d’accord avec lui-même pour qu’on puisse aisément saisir sa pensée. En général, il rabaisse les choses sensibles, déplore le commerce de l’âme avec le corps, affirme qu’elle y est enchaînée, qu’elle s’y trouve ensevelie comme dans un tombeau ; il attache beaucoup d’importance à cette maxime enseignée dans les mystères que l’âme est ici-bas comme dans une prison. Ce que Platon appelle la caverne, et Empédocle l’autre, c’est, je crois, le monde sensible ; briser ses chaînes et sortir de la caverne, c’est, pour l’âme, s’élever au monde intelligible. Dans le Phèdre, Platon affirme que la cause de la chute de l’âme, c’est la perte de ses ailes, qu’après être remontée là-haut, elle est ramenée ici-bas par les périodes , qu’il y a des âmes envoyées sur la terre par les jugements, les sorts, les conditions, la nécessité ; en même temps, il blâme la descente de l’âme dans le corps. Mais, dans le Timée, en parlant de l’univers, il loue le monde et l’appelle un dieu bienheureux ; il dit que le Démiurge, étant bon, lui a donné une âme pour le rendre intelligent, parce que, sans âme, l’univers n’aurait pu être intelligent comme il devait l’être. Donc, si l’Âme universelle a été introduite par Dieu dans le monde, si chacune de nos âmes y a été également envoyée, c’était pour qu’il fût parfait : car il fallait que le monde sensible contînt des espèces d’animaux semblables et en pareil nombre à celles que contient le monde intelligible.

<tabbox Guthrie>
THE EXPERIENCE OF ECSTASY LEADS TO QUESTIONS.

1. On waking from the slumber of the body to return to myself, and on turning my attention from exterior things so as to concentrate it on myself, I often observe an alluring beauty, and I become conscious of an innate nobility. Then I live out a higher life, and I experience atonement with the divinity. Fortifying myself within it, I arrive at that actualization which raises me above the intelligible. But if, after this sojourn with the divinity, I descend once more from Intelligence to the exercise of my reasoning powers, I am wont to ask myself how I ever could actually again descend, and how my soul ever could have entered into a body, since, although she actually abides in the body, she still possesses within herself all the perfection I discover in her.

HERACLITUS, THE ORIGINATOR OF THESE QUESTIONS, ANSWERS THEM OBSCURELY.

Heraclitus, who recommends this research, asserts that "there are necessary changes of contraries into each other;" he speaks of "ascenscions" and of a "descent," says that it is "a rest to change, a fatigue to continue unremittingly in the same kinds of work, and to be overwrought. He thus reduces us to conjectures because he does not explain himself definitely; and he would even force us to ask how he himself came to discover what he propounds.

EMPEDOCLES, AS A POET, TELLS OF PYTHAGOREAN MYTHS.

Empedocles teaches that "it is a law for souls that have sinned to fall down here below;" and that "he himself, having withdrawn from the divinity, came down to the earth to become the slave of furious discord." It would seem that he limited himself to advancing the ideas that Pythagoras and his followers generally expressed by symbols, both on this and other subjects. Besides Empedocles is obscure because he uses the language of poetry.

PLATO SAYS MANY CONTRADICTORY THINGS THAT ARE BEAUTIFUL AND TRUE.

Last, we have the divine Plato, who has said so many beautiful things about the soul. In his dialogues he often spoke of the descent of the soul into the body, so that we have the right to expect from him something clearer. Unfortunately, he is not always sufficiently in agreement with himself to enable one to follow his thought. In general, he depreciates corporeal things; he deplores the dealings between the soul and the body; insists that the soul is chained down to it, and that she is buried in it as in a tomb. He attaches much importance to the maxim taught in the mysteries that the soul here below is as in a prison. What Plato calls the "cavern" and Empedocles calls the "grotto," means no doubt the sense-world. To break her chains, and to issue from the cavern, means the soul's rising to the intelligible world. In the Phaedrus, Plato asserts that the cause of the fall of the soul is the loss of her wings; that after having once more ascended on high, she is brought back here below by the periods; that there are souls sent down into this world by judgments, fates, conditions, and necessity; still, at the same time, he finds fault with the "descent" of the soul into the body. But, speaking of the universe in the Timaeus, he praises the world, and calls it a blissful divinity. He states that the demiurgic creator, being good, gave it a soul to make it intelligent, because without the soul, the universe could not have been as intelligent as it ought to have been. Consequently, the purpose of the introduction of the universal Soul into the world, and similarly of each of our souls was only to achieve the perfection of the world; for it was necessary for the sense-world to contain animals equal in kind and numbers to those contained in the intelligible world.

<tabbox MacKenna>
1. Many times it has happened: Lifted out of the body into myself; becoming external to all other things and self-encentered; beholding a marvellous beauty; then, more than ever, assured of community with the loftiest order; enacting the noblest life, acquiring identity with the divine; stationing within It by having attained that activity; poised above whatsoever within the Intellectual is less than the Supreme: yet, there comes the moment of descent from intellection to reasoning, and after that sojourn in the divine, I ask myself how it happens that I can now be descending, and how did the soul ever enter into my body, the soul which, even within the body, is the high thing it has shown itself to be.

Heraclitus, who urges the examination of this matter, tells of compulsory alternation from contrary to contrary, speaks of ascent and descent, says that "change reposes," and that "it is weariness to keep toiling at the same things and always beginning again"; but he seems to teach by metaphor, not concerning himself about making his doctrine clear to us, probably with the idea that it is for us to seek within ourselves as he sought for himself and found.

Empedocles — where he says that it is law for faulty souls to descend to this sphere, and that he himself was here because he turned a deserter, wandered from God, in slavery to a raving discord — reveals neither more nor less than Pythagoras and his school seem to me to convey on this as on many other matters; but in his case, versification has some part in the obscurity.

We have to fall back on the illustrious Plato, who uttered many noble sayings about the soul, and has in many places dwelt upon its entry into body so that we may well hope to get some light from him.

What do we learn from this philosopher?

We will not find him so consistent throughout that it is easy to discover his mind.

Everywhere, no doubt, he expresses contempt for all that is of sense, blames the commerce of the soul with body as an enchainment, an entombment, and upholds as a great truth the saying of the Mysteries that the soul is here a prisoner. In the Cavern of Plato and in the Cave of Empedocles, I discern this universe, where the breaking of the fetters and the ascent from the depths are figures of the wayfaring toward the Intellectual Realm.

In the Phaedrus he makes a failing of the wings the cause of the entry to this realm: and there are Periods which send back the soul after it has risen; there are judgements and lots and fates and necessities driving other souls down to this order.

In all these explanations, he finds guilt in the arrival of the soul at body, But treating, in the Timaeus, of our universe he exalts the kosmos and entitles it a blessed god, and holds that the soul was given by the goodness of the creator to the end that the total of things might be possessed of intellect, for thus intellectual it was planned to be, and thus it cannot be except through soul. There is a reason, then, why the soul of this All should be sent into it from God: in the same way the soul of each single one of us is sent, that the universe may be complete; it was necessary that all beings of the Intellectual should be tallied by just so many forms of living creatures here in the realm of sense.

</tabbox>