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Catherine Malabou’s “Odysseus’ Changed Soul: A Contemporary Reading of the Myth of Er” examines the political and ontological meaning of Odysseus’ choice of a private life in the Myth of Er of Book X of Plato’s Republic. In this Myth, when it is Odysseus’ turn to choose the paradigm of his next life, he picks the life of a private person who minds his own business. This unexpected choice, echoing the philosopher’s return to the Cave in Book VII, gives a model for deconstructing sovereignty without assuming total impotency. Departing from Agamben’s discussions of the homo sacer, Malabou links together the departures and returns of Odysseus, Socrates, and Er. Malabou casts Socrates as the anti-Bartleby, who by means of φρόνησις‎ simultaneously rejects tyranny and complacent impotency.

Differences between Porphyry and Iamblichus on how the soul experienced temporal salvation in the present life led to significant differences concerning its ultimate destiny. Whereas Porphyry emphasized purification of the rational soul by philosophy in order to escape corporeal reality and permanent union with the One, Iamblichus stressed the importance of theurgical rituals and understood temporal existence as a positive, integrative part of the composite salvific process. Porphyry’s views can thus be described as an “eschatology of ascent,” and those of Iamblichus, an “eschatology of descent.” The differences can be explained as being due to different interpretations given to Plato’s eschatological myths by Neoplatonic philosophers, which developed into a sharp disagreement between Porphyry and Iamblichus and the latter’s eventual departure from Rome.

This essay traces striking parallels between Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara and Plato’s Republic as a way of revealing unexplored allusions and meanings in the modern play and illuminating how classical themes were modernized by Shaw.

This chapter studies the first of three of Plato’s afterlife myths treated in this book, namely the Spindle of Necessity from the Myth of Er in the Republic. The Spindle is a representation of the planetary orbits, along with the sound they are said to produce, which we know as the harmony of the spheres. The author argues against the traditional interpretation of this harmony as an octave scale, arguing instead for the Spindle as an anticipation of the harmonic series. In this she has called upon evidence for ancient recognition of tones as composite, and for the use of harmonics in ancient performance practice. This is important because, as she argues, Plato is striving toward an abstract, mathematical framework for consonance, which, further, carries ethical connotations. Combining as it does astronomy and music, the Spindle represents the role of sound and vision in shaping our understanding of the cosmos of which the soul is a part. Musical concord acts as a blueprint for the souls’ right ethical conduct during incarnation, which ought to follow natural laws, among which is the law of harmony. In the Myth of Er, the human soul is privileged to a vision of concord, in order to understand what to strive for.

While Italian farmers looked to the stars as seasonal markers and signifiers of weather-change, educated Romans knew directly or indirectly the Platonic Myth of Er and the celestial map of Aratus. There is a division between their imaginative mythical and poetic worlds and the theories of Greek philosophy and science. In scientific mode, Cicero saw the stars as part of the divine cosmos and presented a sound vision of the stellar system; however, wise and virtuous souls were also divine, and apotheosis included catasterism. The Stoics believed in stars as signifiers sent by providence to warn mankind; and the alien art of astrology presented the conjunction of stars at a man’s birth as foretelling and controlling his destiny. But while astrology grew in popular influence, sources from Cicero to Seneca to the elder Pliny marginalize it, presenting arguments to repudiate any causal nexus between stars and human life.

Cephalus more or less begins the Republic; Odysseus more or less ends it. The two are seldom compared, yet each is portrayed as making good life choices despite being ignorant of philosophy. This chapter argues that the reason for this is that experience is being recognized as having an important role to play in craft knowledge and so in the wisdom of the philosopher-kings. The chapter also discusses the dramatis personae of the Republic and their importance.