A constituição do si de acordo com o segundo discurso de Sócrates no Fedro

Abstract

This article analyses the Phaedrus, 246css. and the characterisation it makes of the human ψυχή based on the image of a charioteer and two horses. It attempts to understand not only the meaning and implications of this image, the functions of each of its elements and the relations between them, but also a whole set of ideas to which this image appears to be linked: those of wings, striving, «supercelestial place», weight, confusion, conflict and falling. In this context the Phaedrus stresses that each human ψυχή tends from the start towards something superlative, unsurpassable (or towards what is termed «ὑπερουράνιος τόπος» sc. «ἀληθείας πεδίον») but also that this striving is obstructed by the opposite, i.e., by λήθη — and, to tell the truth, by a very wide variety of factors of λήθη. The analysis of the Phaedrus thus ends up demonstrating that the human ψυχή is intrinsically marked by the — at the same time constant and variable — mixing of ἀλήθεια with λήθη.