Logos and Psyche in the Phaedo

Jesse I. Bailey

• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Year: 2018
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9798216272441
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Philosophy

This book offers an original interpretation and close reading of Plato's Phaedo, focusing on the relation between logos and the soul in order to illuminate the ethical and political dimensions of philosophy as "care of the soul." Jesse I. Bailey argues that the central issue of the dialogue is the relation between logos and the defining activity of the soul. The soul, in accord with logos, gathers the multiplicity of phenomena into the intelligible wholes of experience. This definitive activity also applies to the soul itself, as the soul gathers itself to itself in logos. Ethical living demands the development of a harmonious unity in the self through this activity. Thus, the book argues that the traditional "pillars" of Platonism—the immortality of the soul and the Forms—are presented not as fully-developed theories to be accepted by the reader whole cloth, but rather as provocations for thought.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Questions of the Self
• 2 Λόγος and the Minotaur
• 3 Arguments and Assumptions about the Soul
• 4 Recollection and the Activity of the Soul “Itself through Itself”
• 5 Images of the Soul
• 6 The Turn to the Λόγος
• 7 Forms, Causes, and Μέθεξις
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author