[13] Of the three εἴδη or γένη—the ὄν, the γιγνόμενον and the ἐν ᾧ γίγνεται (the χώρα) of Tim. 48 E f., 52 ABD)—the third at any rate is quite foreign to the soul. Like the World-Soul (Tim. 35 A), along with which it is “mixed” (41 D), the individual soul also is a middle term between the ἄμερες of the Idea and the κατὰ τὰ σώματα μεριστόν, having a share in both.
[14] True, unalterable Being belongs only to the ἀειδές and therefore also to the soul: Phd. 79 A f.
[15] Phd. c. 54–6 (105 B–107 B).
[16] ὁμοιότερον ψυχὴ σώματός ἐστι τῷ ἀειδεῖ (and that = τῷ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντι), Phd. 79 B. τῷ θείῳ καὶ ἀθανάτῳ καὶ νοητῷ καὶμονοειδεῖ καὶ ἀδιαλύτῳ καὶ ὡσαύτως κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχοντι ἑαυτῷ ὁμοιότατον ψυχή, 80 AB.
[17] ἀγένητον, Phdr. c. 24, 245 D (ἀΐδιος simply, Rp. 611 B). The creation of the souls in Tim. is only intended to represent the origin of the spiritual from the δημιουργός (not the coming into being of the soul in time): see Siebeck, Ges. d. Psychol. i, 1, 275 ff. Still, it remains impossible to say whether Plato whenever he speaks of the pre-existence of the soul always means that the soul existed without beginning.
[18] As to the relation of the individual soul to the soul of the universe, neither the mythical account in Timaeus nor the briefer allusion in Phileb. 30 A allows us to conclude that the soul of our body is “taken from” the soul of the σῶμα τοῦ παντός. In reality the fiction of a “World-Soul” is intended to serve quite other purposes than the derivation of the individual soul from a single common source.
[19] Tim. 34 C; Lg. 891 A–896 C.
[20] Acc. to the account in Phdr. 246 C, the soul suffers its downfall into the earthly existence if ὁ τῆς κάκης ἵππος, i.e. the ἐπιθυμία in the soul, tends towards the earth—247 B. It must, therefore, be the result of the preponderance of the appetitive impulses. This, however, can only happen if the λογιστικόν of the soul has become too weak to drive the soul-chariot any longer as its duty was. Hence the supporting wings, i.e. the νόησις, of the soul-horse fall off. It is thus a weakening of the cognitive part of the soul that causes its downfall into materiality (just as it is the measure of their capacity for knowledge that determines [480] the character of the ἐνσωμάτωσις of the souls, and their return to the τόπος ὑπερουράνιος is equally determined by their recovery of the purer form of knowledge: 248 C ff., 249 AC). Thus it is not, as in Empedokles, a religio-moral transgression that leads to the incarnation of the souls, but a failure of intellect, an intellectual fall in sin.
[21] The soul is, acc. to the account in Tim., created in order that by animating and governing a body, it may complete the sum of creation: without the ζῷα the οὐρανός (the universe) would be ἀτελής, Tim. 41 B ff. Acc. to this teleological motivation of the being and the ἐνσωμάτωσις of the soul, this latter, the ἐνσωμάτωσις, would have belonged to the original plan of the δημιουργός and there would be no purpose in the creation of the souls (by the δημιουργός and the inferior gods) unless they were destined to the animation of the ζῷα and conjunction with σώματα. But it is obviously inconsistent with all this that the object of the soul’s endeavour should be to separate itself as soon as possible and as completely as possible from the body and everything material in order to get back again to immaterial life without any body—42 BD. This is a relic of the original theological view of the relation between body and soul. In Phd. (and usually in Plato) it displays itself unconcealed; but it was far too closely bound up with the whole of Plato’s ethic and metaphysics not to make its illicit appearance even when as in Tim. he wished to keep the physiological side to the fore.
[22] Phdr. 245 C–246 A. The soul is τὸ αὑτὸ κινοῦν, and indeed continually, ἀεικίνητον, it is τοῖς ἄλλοις ὅσα κινεῖται πηγὴ καὶ ἀρχὴ κινήσεως (the body only seems to move itself, but it is really the soul within which moves it—246 C). If the soul were to perish, πᾶς οὐρανὸς πᾶσά τε γένεσις would be at a standstill. The conception of the “soul” as the ἀεικίνητον was already well and long established in Plato’s time (see above, chap. xii, [n. 150]). In the form in which he introduces it here (as a proof of the imperishability of the soul) he may have modelled his conception on that of Alkmaion (Arist., An. 405a, 29): see Hirzel, Hermes, xi, 244. But Plato here and throughout Phdr. is speaking of the individual soul (ψυχή collective singular). So too in Lg. 894 E ff., 896 A ff. (λόγος of the soul: ἡ δυναμένη αὐτὴ αὑτὴν κινεῖν κίνησις. It is the αιτία and the issue of all movement in the world, the source of life; for life belongs to that which αὐτό αὑτὸ κινεῖ 895 C.) As distinguished from the ψυχὴ ἐνοικοῦσα ἐν ἅπασι τοῖς κινουμένοις we do not hear of the (double) World-Soul until 896 E. There is in fact κίνησις in plenty in the world besides that of the animated organisms.