L’anima alata di Platone e la sua missione soteriologica. Esegesi neoplatoniche sul Fedro

Purpose at which this paper aims is to discuss the privileged connection which some souls possess with the transcendent world in virtue of which they can in their descent reveal truth and bring about the return of souls that have fallen from the intelligible world. Starting from the Platonic Phaedrus and Plotinus’ exegesis, we will examine some texts of Iamblichus, Proclus and Hermias in order to consider the incidence that the Neoplatonic interpretation of the myth in Plato’s Phaedrus has on the Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. Iamblichus distinguishes between different sorts of souls, Proclus discusses the different degrees in the descent of the soul in the world and draws the souls who do descend, but remain pure, and Hermias asserts that some souls are ‘not fallen’, but ‘sent down’ into material world. What is also interesting is the possibility that the Neoplatonic psychology, expressed by these commentators, is used for the divine image of Plato described in the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. Here the Anonymous stresses the divine origin of Plato’s soul and his spiritual rather bodily genealogy. The theory of superior souls seems to determine the break with the classical mythical tradition which declared Plato’s divinity in virtue of his birth from a mortal woman and a god. Only through the Neoplatonic interpretation of the myth of Phaedrus the Anonymous can suggest that Plato’s soul in descent has superior knowledge inspired by the gods and therefore a soteriological mission.