Философия как посвящение в таинства: роль памяти в преодолении страха смерти

Abstract

The present paper examines the extent to which the mystery practices of the Classical period may have influenced Plato's philosophical views. The many quotations from dialogues of different periods give a clear picture of the fact that Plato's conception of philosophy was shaped by the mysterial experience. The notion of the mysterial experience itself is of course in need of serious reconstruction. However, on the basis of literary and archaeological evidence it is accepted as a working hypothesis in the article that the mysterial experience can be understood as overcoming corporeality, but not in the sense of rejecting the body, but in the sense of overcoming those cognitive distortions which are due to corporeality. In a religious context, the mysterial experience may have provided the initiate with some information about posthumous existence, but for Plato this was only a starting point. By going further and applying often poetic and religious expressions to describe his cognitive experience Plato extends the realm of the mysterial experience to knowledge of the true world order. Particular attention is paid to the notion of philosophy as a kind of divine frenzy. Thus, Plato appears to us as a philosopher interested, among other things, in the inner world of man. Plato's interest in personal experience, the notion of the soul and the awareness of his own mortality betrays a tendency to penetrate into the deeper layers of consciousness, revealing a mystical Plato.