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Galiet & Galiet
its light, causes sight and the existence of objects of sight, the Good in the intelligible world, by its truth, causes knowledge and the existence of objects of knowledge: the Forms. In this sense, the prisoner’s vision, by his ascension, becomes corrected and improved.
Given Plato’s visual correction, aletheia ceases to be fundamentally a natural characteristic of beings or entities. Instead, Heidegger criticizes, aletheia becomes ‘yoked’ to the soul in its progressive ascension towards light.68 Aletheia and the soul become, thus, unified in likeness to one another as homoiosis, which then becomes a semantic conception of truth, originally attributed to Aristotle, as ‘adaequatio,’ then ‘agreement,’ or ‘correspondence,’ that is, a proposition is T if there is correspondence between what it signifies and the signified.69 Once Truth becomes correctness, it neglects its ‘elbow-room (Spielraum),’ the open.70 Indeed, Plato assumes two types of existence: a changing visible, lesser reality associated to twilight (inside the cave) and an unchanging, true, invisible one associated to Light (outside the cave).71 The visible one, associated with the body, conforms to the multiple, sensible realm of appearances and is perceived by the senses; the invisible one, associated with the soul, conforms to the supra-sensible realm of the Forms and is perceived by the soul or mind.72 Plato believes the senses confuse the soul:73 they mislead and deceive it, given that things pertaining to the body are not only subject to constant change, care and decay but also to endless appetites, desires and fears. However, when the soul is simply by itself74 dwelling in the realm of the pure, ever-existing and immortal Forms it never strays and experiences wisdom.75 This wisdom and truth, Plato posits, cannot be fully attained by the senses since they keep one too busy. They instigate endless distractions that prevent philosophical contemplation.76 Given that the body cannot think, one can approximate true
68 Cited too in Inwood, Michael. A Heidegger Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999.
It is important to add that Plato’s tripartite soul consists of logos, thumos and epithumia. All parts interact, but thumos has to side with logos. Thumos, the spirited part feels that which bids us (appetite) and that which forbids us (reason), hence it sides with Plato’s rational part of the soul. The spirited part too is distinct from the appetitive part as exemplified in the story of Leontius and the Corpses. Plato. Republic. Book IV. 434d-441d. See also Republic. Book IX. 572d. Plato. Complete Works. Republic. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
69 For Aristotle, to say of that which is, that is not or to say of that which is not, that it is, is false. To say of that which is that it is and to say of that which is not, that it is not, is truth. Aristotle. Met. 1 7, 1011 b 26-8. Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Metaphysics. Ed. Richard McKeon. New York: The Modern Library, 2001.
70 Vol. 65: Beitrage zur Philosophie. Vom Ereignis. Ed. F.W. von Hermann, 1989. Manuscripts of 1936-8. 198, 329. As cited in Inwood, Michael. A Heidegger Dictionary. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1999. 14
71 Plato. Phaedo. 78e-79a This must be seen too in relation to Plato’s Cavern and Plato’s Line.
72 Plato. Phaedo. 79a-c. Plato. Complete Works. Phaedo. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
73 Plato. Phaedo. 79c-d. Plato. Complete Works. Phaedo. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
74 Hence, to attain pure knowledge, he argues, one must escape one’s body. Only after death, he posits, and not in life, one can grasp, in its totality, true, objective knowledge [of the forms] and wisdom. For only in death, the soul is separated and free from bodily bonds.
75 Plato. Phaedo. 79d-e. Plato. Complete Works. Phaedo. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
76 Plato. Phaedo. 66b-66e. Plato. Complete Works. Phaedo. Ed. John M. Cooper. Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing, 1997.
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