Marsilio Ficino on Plato's Pythagorean Eye

Abstract

In course of his long commentary on Plato's Philebus, Florentine Neoplatonist, Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), refers to a striking but unusual component what we might now call Plato myth: Among wisest men of Greece arose that Plato had three eyes: one with which he looked at human another at natural and another at things. The last was his forehead, while others were under his forehead.1 Ficino has just been discussing theory of Platonic Ideas and affirming their existence over and against such ancient sceptics as Aristophanes, Diogenes Cynic, and Aristotle. He concludes that the universal objects of intelligence must be more true and exist more absolutely than sensible objects to degree that intellect is superior to sense. The objects of intellect are by which you may distinguish between truth and falsity of sensible objects, and recognize defects of existence. Therefore they exist and exist more truly and absolutely than all else.2 The rules here are Ideas, divine things, and since they can be perceived by intellect alone, eye in Plato's forehead is therefore intellect. Ficino sharpens his focus on ancient saying by referring to a reported anecdote. Diogenes had complained like a good empiricist that he could not Ideas; Plato had cuttingly reported that he obviously did not possess intelligence (mens) with which to see them.3 The notion of Plato's third eye has, as far as I can discover, only two ancient sources, neither of which has hitherto been noted. Ficino is most unlikely to have known one of two, but since it is more instructive, let me deal with it first.