Note 29 — Chapter XIII · PLATO

Rp. x, 611 A–E (c. 11), shows clearly that the reason which made Plato abandon his conception (given in the first sketch of the Rep. and still maintained in the Phaedrus) of the natural trichotomy of the soul into parts or divisions was the consideration of its immortality and vocation to intercourse with the θεῖον καὶ ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀεὶ ὄν.—The emotions and passions by which the soul is “fettered” ὑπὸ τοῦ σώματος, explain its tendency to clothe itself in another body after death, Phd. 83 C ff. If the emotions and passions were indissolubly linked to the soul the latter could never escape from the cycle of rebirths.—On the other hand, if only the λογιστικόν, as the only independently existing side of the soul, goes into the place of judgment in the other world there would seem to be no reason that should tempt this simple uncompounded soul to renewed ἐνσωμάτωσις, a process which implies materiality and desire. (This difficulty troubled Plotinos too.) Plato takes into view the possibility of an inner corruption of the pure and undivided intellectual soul which makes a future state of punishment and purgatory possible and intelligible and explains the existence (until a complete return to purity is achieved) of a tendency or constraint to renewed ἐνσωμάτωσις even without a permanent association with the θυμοειδές and the ἐπιθυμητικόν.