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anatomy of the city-soul analogy". 5 It also involves religious preaching,
psychological analysis, philosophical reasoning, mystical inference,
and some sort of threatening advice for self-responsibility
when making a choice of lifetime Necessity. However, Wang adds,
that the Platonic conception of morality depends on the nurture of
the inward aspects of the psyche that usually take their root in the
soil of such cardinal virtues as wisdom, courage, temperance and justice."
6 If every citizen is aware of all this, it is certain to be a bliss
for himself, for others, and for the city-state or polis as a whole.
However, according to the same author, Plato's depiction of the
psyche through allegories is not merely morally symbolic, but also
philosophically inspiring. In practice, the Platonic way of story-telling
and philosophizing seems to be interwoven in a close, sophisticated
and dramatic knot. It is all intended for a metaphorical reveal
of philosophical speculation with the help of poetic tradition in its
original sense. As a matter of fact Wang utilizes Plato's philosophizing
features and poetic wisdom because they make possible to invent
relevant analogies to make his philosophical discourse more
engaging and appealing, better, to create a discourse shift from
cross-questioning to mythos-telling, leading the audience to take in
conventional beliefs and even agreeable opinions. The philosopher
of Beijing succinctly points out that Plato takes into due consideration
the educational legacy and background of the ancient Greeks as
his intended readers, and deliberately adopts a principle of communicative
ethics by adapting his speech style and rhetorical expertise
into the cultural environment. Actually, this serves Wang's double
purpose: to produce an involving ambiance for efficient communication
and to evoke rethinking because the allegorical descriptions
as such are, semantically speaking, almost always open to organic
polysemy.
Keping Wang is both sincere and bold thinker in accepting Plato's
efficient communication and the polysemy of allegorical descriptions
in the New Movement that took place in China since
1920. As he puts it in his paper: “Plato's Allegorical Descriptions
of the Psyche", “most of Chinese thinkers tend to reflect on the
possibility of reconstructing the indigenous culture upon the model
of its occidental counterpart. They have been preoccupied with this
ambition to rebuild the country and national identity as well. In this
5 “Plato's Allegorical Exposition of the Psyche", Skepsis XVIII/i—ii, 2007,
p. 257.
6 Ibid.
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