ABSTRACT
§ 1 . Plato does not review, as does Aristotle, the psychological work of earlier thinkers. It is, however, obvious from such references as he gives and from the nature of his work as a whole, that he is strongly influenced by previous theories. The account we have given of his psychology so far recalls many points of earlier doctrine; but from Thales to Democritus we look in vain for any adequate treatment of cognition, of the psychical as distinct from the physical. Plato is alive to the importance of purely psychic phenomena, and proposes to describe and account for them. In so far as he describes them we have an analytic theory of the soul; when he attempts further to account for them, difficulties arise; the border between analysis and hypothesis is crossed; and his theory of the soul, becoming transcendental, absorbs the speculations of Orphism and Pythagorism. The term “psychology” in its strict sense does not include these speculations, but it is not possible to explain Plato’s views without these metaphysical and theological notions.
