I'm going Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Lever Hume Trust, online at

W.W. History of Philosophy.net. Today's episode, On the Horizon,

Platinus on the soul.

Wouldn't it be fun to invite an assortment of ancient philosophers to a screening of the

Wizard of Oz?

Just picture the scene. The Stoics would be muttering critically about the tin man's deplorable

desire to get in touch with his emotions, and pointing out that if the Scarecrow wants to be clever,

he should wish for a heart and not a brain.

Aristotle would be sitting at the back, taking notes on the winged monkeys for his zoological

writings. Galen and the anatomists of Alexandria would tap their toes as the

cowardly lion launches into their favorite tune, if I only had the nerve.

Thales would feel vindicated by the fact that the heroes win the day by using a bucket of water.

Meanwhile the Pythagoreanians would be trying to get everyone to be quiet. And Plitinus? I think his favorite scene would come at the end

when Dorothy says, and I quote, If I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because

if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with.

Dorothy's observation might well remind Platinus of something he says in one of his own treatises.

One might be unaware that one has something holding on to it more powerfully than if one did know.

He is describing the way that the human soul relates to the things it has seen in the

intelligible realm, the realm of the forms.

Following Plato, he believes that the soul is eternal and has seen the wondrous

beauty and truth of this realm before it came to be in a body. Yet the embodied soul retains a memory of these realities and Platinus here suggests

that the deeply buried memory of the forms is possessed more intensely

...