The Chariot Allegory

What Does It Mean?

• Metaphor for the soul and its journey
• Humans must work to "enslave the vicious and emancipate the virtuous elements of the soul"
• Life is a constant struggle for truth and beauty

Important Ideas

• The fate of some souls: "while another only rises and falls, and sees, and again fails to see by reason of the unruliness of the steeds. The rest of the souls are also longing after the upper world and they all follow, but not being strong enough they are carried round below the surface, rises and falls plunging, treading on one another, each striving to be first; and there is confusion and perspiration and the extremity of effort; and many of them are lamed or have their wings broken through the ill-driving of the charioteers; and all of them after a fruitless toil, not having attained to the mysteries of true being, go away, and feed upon opinion." --> the struggle for truth
• "Now when the charioteer beholds the vision of love, and has his whole soul warmed through sense, and is full of the prickings and ticklings the dark horse of desire, the obedient steed, then as always under the government of shame, refrains from leaping on the beloved; but the other, heedless of the pricks and of the blows of the whip, plunges and runs away, giving all manner of trouble to his companion and the charioteer, whom he forces to approach the beloved and to remember the joys of love. They at first indignantly oppose him and struggle will not be urged on to do terrible and unlawful deeds; but at last, when he persists in plaguing them, they yield and agree to do as he bids them." --> love (not necesssarily romantic, often described as platonic) encourages one to seek truth and the divine to be a better lover

The Allegory

The Black Horse

• Ignoble
• Desirous
• Frenzied

The White Horse

The Charioteer

• Noble
• needs no touch of the whip --> guided by word and admonition only.

• Reason and Logic
• Only after an extreme battle with the black horse can the charioteer finally gain control

Plato

Wings

• Wings are the element closest to the divine because they allow the soul to get near to heaven
• Truth, beauty, wisdom, and goodness nourish the wings of the soul while evil and foulness cause decay
• If evil overpowers the charioteer, his wings become useless and he falls to the earth

--> he then must work over a long period of time to rise again

--> it is easiest for philosophers to rebound*

• Greek philosopher
• 427—347 B.C.E.
• Student of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle
• Although he was most heavily influenced by Socrates, Plato was also influenced by Heraclitus
• Most famous works include the dialogues and Republic
• What we know of the world is only an imitation of form
• Wrote Phaedrus, which contains the allegory

The Chariot Allegory

Miranda Romano

http://www.iep.utm.edu/plato/

http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/plato3.htm#chariot