The Gospel of Hellas - Research Institute for Waldorf Education

the rise of philosophy
Countless and unsurpassable are the examples of beauty, wisdom and
dignity within the compositions of the Platonic dialogues. One among
hundreds which we might cite appears in his Charmides with its discussion of
temperance or sophrosyne. What is temperance? A sevenfold answer is given:
Temperance may be called quietness, or modesty; it may appear as doing good;
as self-knowledge; as knowledge of what man knows and of what he does
not know. Finally and seventhly, temperance is knowledge of knowledge, the
highest consciousness of good and evil! Herein Plato proved himself a mystic,
for this composition reveals the power of an awakening to the goal of selfcognition,
to the knowledge of knowledge, to the inmost roots of existence.
In Phaedo Socrates spoke of the “glorious truth that the soul is immortal,
having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist ... for
all inquiry and all learning are but recollection.” The same idea of pre-existence
of the soul and reincarnation of the spirit appears in Meno, in Phaedrus and in
the Republic. In the Republic Plato tells us the vision of Er, the son of Armenius,
who while “dead” for twelve days in a sleep of initiation descended to the three
Fates: Lachesis of the past, Clotho of the present and Atropos of the future.
The following words definitely hint at the doctrine of reincarnation: “Hear the
words of Lachesis, the daughter of necessity: Mortal soul, behold a new cycle
of life and mortality. Your genius will not be allotted to you; you will choose
your genius.”
In his Phaedrus he declared the true light of the soul to be the recollection
of the past. It is plainly evident that Plato gained his insight from sources of
Oriental and Egyptian wisdom when he introduced the dialogue with the tale
of Teuth, the inventor of writing, to whom the god Thamus (Amon), king of
Thebes, said, in speaking of the Hellenes: “They will appear to be omniscient
and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the
show of wisdom without the reality.” In this dialogue, Plato gave the first
indication of the threefold division of the human soul as it appeared in the
history of philosophy, when he pictured the forces of the soul as two winged
horses guided by a charioteer. The intellectual or mind-soul is the charioteer
or pilot. He discriminates between two origins of the soul when he speaks of
psyche logistike (the spiritual soul with the ability of free reason, and freedom