AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHIC DISINTEGRATION IN PLATO'S GORGIAS

Studies of Platonic psychology usually focus on dialogues such as die Republic and Phaedrus where we find die famous threefold division of die soul, which Plato, as he grew older, readdressed and reformulated in die Timaeus. Laws and Statesman. If we can take as certain that in these latter dialogues is found a psychology that advances beyond die Socratic "care for die soul", it is also certain that we can trace in diem some vestiges back to die former dialogues which, according to die usual chronology, are earlier. In this paper we aim to show to what extent die Gorgias constitutes a sketch of what will appear as die later division of die soul, as well as of its occurrence in die Socratic theory of action known as "Socratic intellectualism".