Plato Madness Research Paper

Madness is defined as a state of severe mental illness. It is seen as how you think and/or act with another person or thing. In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates, while saying his Great Speech, lists two types of madness and four types of “divine madness.” In this speech, he establishes many different thoughts and beliefs. One of the most important statements Socrates claimed is that madness is shown to be of utmost importance in life. We have all experienced different types of madness in our lives. Of course no human being is the same so the affects and reactions vary. I believe that if we do not have madness in our lives then our lives would be boring. There would be no passion and no excitement. It is sometimes nice to have something different

occur in our lives, something out of the ordinary. Just as us humans experience madness, so do animals. Although there may be a separation between humans and animals, madness is one of the few things that we both share, and in light of that we are bound in some kind of way. While animals can experience madness, they cannot experience divine madness.
In Socrates’ Great Speech, he talks about how it is important to have eros in your life, which is also known as love.

Socrates says that madness that comes from love is the best kind of madness. While speaking to Phaedrus he states that there are two types of madness and four types of divine madness. He tells Phaedrus that the two kinds of madness are “produced by human illness, and the other by a divinely inspired release from normally accepted behavior” (Plato, 265a). What he means by this is that our madness can stem from us being sick, mentally and/or physically. We can also become mad by just being ourselves. The four kinds of divine madness come from “the inspiration of the prophet to Apollo, of the mystic to Dionysus, of the poet to the Muses, and the fourth part of madness to Aphrodite and to Love” (Plato, 265b). Socrates states that the first type of divine madness guides cities and individuals. The second type of divine madness is the one that consoles or relieves you from any type of hardship or stress. He states that this can happen in the form of prayers, purification, mystic rites, and in the form of prophecies. The divine madness coming from the Muses awakens the soul to a “Bacchic frenzy of songs and poetry” (Plato, 245a). This implies that this type of divine madness enters into our virgin and innocent souls and stirs it up so much that chaos occurs. Lastly, divine madness coming from Aphrodite and Eros is love. Yet, even after Socrates described all of

the different types of madness, not everything can be regarded as divine madness. For something to be considered as divine madness it has to philosophical. Human madness can be pathological. Therefore madness is not always divine. For example, if someone is experiencing a type of mental illness it is considered as a sort of madness but not divine because it is not philosophical. The mental illness is considered pathological. In Phaedrus, madness does not denote an evil demeanor; instead it signifies a philosophical inspiration.
Madness is something that is in our system, in our bodies; it is a natural reaction we get when we experience something that is unplanned or unusual.

Animals also can experience madness. They can experience just as much as human beings do, but they do not experience divine madness because they are not philosophical. Animals can understand themselves think. For example a dog knows when you are arriving, but these thoughts are not considered self-conscious thoughts. Animals go mad when a tragedy occurs or when they are put in different settings and environments. Although animals and humans are different when it comes to what type of madness we experience we both share the madness that love brings us. Throughout Socrates’ Great Speech, he emphasized that love, or eros, was the best kind of madness. He also claimed that wisdom comes from love. He declares that if we seek wisdom we will receive love. He continues to state that when we encounter eros, it is so powerful that we can feel love and are reminded that we were souls, and that we have wings. As mammals, we have all encountered some type of love, whether it comes from your family or friends or pets, we have all experienced it. Animals go mad when a loved one gets hurt or when they are run out of their homes due to natural causes or human activities. Due to animals’ maternal and paternal instincts they automatically take care of their young just as we humans do. Animals have the ability to go mad because they can feel

certain emotions. They are living beings and they are aware of things that occur around them. The reactions they have would not happen if they did not feel any emotions.
Since animals do not think self-consciously they cannot experience divine madness, therefore this reinforces the separation between human and non-human animals. Socrates establishes a new idea of how our soul works. He compares our soul to a chariot with two horses and a charioteer. He states “the gods have horses and charioteers that are themselves all good and come from good stock besides, while everyone else has a mixture” (Plato, 246b). This signifies that gods automatically have good souls while human beings have a choice to have a good or bad soul. Humans have a decision to lead a good or bad life. Socrates explains the good and bad horse by saying “one who is obedient to the charioteer is still controlled…. The other one, however, no longer responds to the whip or the goad of the charioteer; it…does everything to aggravate its yokemate and its charioteer” (Plato, 254a). In order for humans to have a good soul they have to be able to control their actions and let the good horse take the lead. If humans let temptation in, their souls would take longer to get to heaven than the other good souls. Socrates declares that a human who controls their soul will be granted an early return to heaven after three thousand years instead on ten thousand years. Animals are not self-conscious thinkers so they do not have a good or bad horse. Therefore this proves the separation between human and non-human animals.
In Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates explained how there are two types of madness and four types of divine madness. In doing that Socrates made it clear that in order to provide and nourish our soul with great benefits we must have madness in our lives. We must welcome it and we must be able to control it. The main idea of his Great Speech is that madness cannot be considered a bad thing if it comes out of love. Madness is not an evil especially if it comes from the gods and is also the correct and true characterization of the love when the lover is a philosopher. Socrates truly believed that wisdom came from love and because of that humans are able to experience madness and divine madness more frequently than animals.