On the Soul's Vehicle in Proclus

[endymions_bower]

 A friend recently asked me about the doctrine of the soul vehicle in Neoplatonism. I'd never looked much into the issue, so my first stop was Dodds' appendix on the subject in his edition of the Elements of Theology, where he cites a couple of passages from the Timaeus and one from the Republic commentary, which all refer to Phaedo 113d, because it establishes that souls are using their vehicles in Hades' realm. 

 

At In Tim. 3.235f, which seems to be the most significant passage, he reasons from this fact as follows: "Whether therefore, will a partial soul be better prior to the suspension of a vehicle from it, or worse? For if better, it will be more divine than total souls, to which the Demiurge gave vehicles. But if worse, how is it that the Demiurge immediately after it was generated caused it to ascend into a vehicle? For things that are perpetual do not begin from a preternatural, but from a natural condition of being." 

 

I understand Proclus to be saying here that the soul is neither better, nor worse, for the suspension of a vehicle from it, because it is natural for it to have such a vehicle. So then what, my friend wondered, is Socrates talking about relinquishing when he speaks in the Phaedo about philosophy as training for death (67e)? Proclus says at IT 3.237 that "the summits of the irrational life … being extended and distributed into parts, make this life which is woven by the junior Gods, and which is mortal, because it is necessary that the soul should lay aside this distribution when, having obtained purification, it is restored to its pristine state of felicity." 

 

The passage goes on for a bit. What I gathered from it is that while in Hades' realm, and on the Meadow where we shall choose our next life, we have a vehicle, and are thus in some sense a complete person, even with passions, because we see that these play into the choice we make, but what we have relinquished is essentially the factical disposition of parts, in favor of a perspective which is universal, in a sense, even if it is a passionate perspective. We give up what we couldn't possibly hold onto in any case, basically, namely being just *this* historically-situated person with *these* particular relations. The interesting part is that we remain ourselves even to the fallible affectations, which means that our work on ourselves has to continue even after we have left the body. The robustness of the soul's vehicle in Proclus allows for me to retain much more of "myself", even out of the body and released from my factical persona, than in accounts lacking this mediation between the corporeal and the incorporeal state.