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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2021
In the Phaedrus, Plato composes another dialogue on love and beauty. Once again, he foregrounds metaphysical desire and shows how it lifts the soul to the Form of Beauty. He also represents the philosopher seeing an epiphany of divine Beauty. However, Plato offers a different conception of the soul in this text than he did in the Symposium: the soul is immortal, tripartite, and self-moving (245c–e). As the only “self-moving” entity in the cosmos, the soul initiates the motion in bodies. In addition, all souls have eros for the Forms, including the gods (who are divine souls). Because the gods themselves possess eros, I will refer to philosophic eros as “divine desire.” Finally, in the Phaedrus, the divine souls of the gods govern the physical cosmos and play an important role in human life.
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