Porque há luta, há ente: pólemos entre Platão e Heidegger

Abstract

This dissertation’s objective is to interpret the passage 433 d of The Republic. There, Plato affirms that Justice, virtue wich he investigates on the dialogue, rivals (pólemos) with the virtues of wisdom, temperance and bravery. So to understand what this ‘war’ means, we can find a path in Heidegger’s interpretation of Heráclito. Heidegger interprets pólemos as an originary fight, as an announcement of the difference between Being and beings. By saying that difference, by remaining together with the question of Being of being, Heraclitus was considered an original thinker. Unlike Heraclitus, Plato’s doctrine analyzed by Heidegger doesn’t give him a place among the original thinkers: he places Plato as the one who initiated metaphysics. That happens because, according to the german philosopher, Plato would have promoted a transformation on the essence of truth: the truth loses its unveiling character for a corresponding one. The origin of this transformation can be identified on “allegory of the cave”. Plato tells, on this myth, how the cave’s prisoner exceeds the scoupes of unveiling towards what is maximally present, the Idea. As narrated on the myth, the prisoner deals with the shadows, what is not constant in itself, and, after breaking free, he meets the Idea, what is properly being, the apparent. Knowing the Idea, the prisoner realize that the shadows are less real (less being) than it; realize that the Idea, the more constant, the more present, is the ground of all of the things in which he dealt with in the cave (the shadows). By saying that the ground is more present, Plato would have promoted an identification of the Being with the beings, losing sight, thus, of the difference. Even if we could bring the heideggerian interpretation of pólemos to conduct us on the reading and interpretation of the passage of the platonic dialogue, which is relative to Justice and to war between the virtues, we are prevented of silencing ourselves regarding his interpretation of Plato. Therefore, we evaluate it and suggest an alternative path to it, a path that sought from the relation between Justice, pólemos and Good (concepts presented in The Republic), aids to think Plato as an original philosopher.