rivages Outils de lecture

This study attempts to reinterpret Plato's conception of the body in a manner that eventually leads to its recuperation. This is by recognizing its right to exist, providing it with care and veneration, and recognizing its faculties and abilities. To do this, we will proceed from the critique of the "stereotyped image" according to which the body has been reduced to the corpse as a form. As shall be demonstrated, this misunderstanding of Plato is the outcome of researchers’ limitation almost exclusively to the «Phaedon dialogue» and their overlooking of the qualitative development of Plato's vision of the body in the «old age dialogues». Thus, the study concludes by asserting that the body is not something that is always condemned; rather, it has become a sign and a witness as well. It is no longer an obstacle that prevents the mind from its «hunt for realities»; on the contrary, it works to awaken the soul and push it to remember, as remembrance is the «royal path» towards realizing the world of ideals and discover the essence of things. Finally, the body is no longer filth and vice, but has become the soul’s purifier from its sins and its savior from its diseases, specifically the injustice prevailing in the hell world. The body does this through the pains and the various types of torment that it suffers and endures in order to be cured.