Gigantomachia

——the Politics of Mind-Body Dualism based on the Greek Vision of the Universe——

Abstract

The growing interest in the human body as a philosophical subject might be construed as an indication that the mind-body dualism developed by ancient Greek philosophy has already been abolished. However, I am sceptical about the apparent collapse of this dualism. I regard the Symposium held in May 2012 at Osaka University as the kind of Gigantomachia that appears in Plato's Sophist, — namely the debate between materialists and immaterialists, which Plato compares with the battle of the Olympian deities and the Titans. In this paper, I shall vindicate the reality of the soul and also illuminate what may have lain behind the mind-body dualism, focussing on the development of the Greek vision of the universe from Homer to Plato. Moreover, I shall reassess the Greek concept of the body observed in Homer and discuss what Socrates' body might have indicated in Aristophanes' Clouds, Plato's Symposium and the Phaedo. Finally I shall cast new light on the concept of the body derived from Plato's Timaeus and argue the de facto indestructibility of the body of the universe.