Philosophy as a Chain of ‘Poetic’ Emotions? Plato and Beyond

This contribution takes its cue from the Ion's magnet simile, which famously depicts a chain of emotions binding together Muse, poet, performer and audience. Strikingly, Plato’s Symposium applies the very same model of communication to philosophy: the key-point is that philosophical communication is modelled on the highly emotional paradigm provided by rhapsodic poetry, which provides important clues as to how philosophy is conceptualized in the Platonic dialogues. This paves the way to a fresh look at comparable phenomena, ranging from archaic poetry to late antiquity and to the Byzantines, including Plotinus, Proclus and Psellus.