RECOVERING PAIN THROUGH THE PLATONIC WA

Abstract

This paper is dedicated to represent the concepts and the various forms, in which the problem of pain is dealt with in Plato’s work. Fundamental passages of Protagoras, Phaedo, Philebus, Timaeus and Laws are discussed. Attending to pain therapeutically seems to be the primary issue in these texts, as it is constituted as an evil that has to be resolved and, additionally, as an inevitable phenomenon of life that can also take it to its own destruction. However, the alternative of extracting the affiction does not seem to be possible in most cases, even if we have an arsenal of rational tools to contain it; rather, the strategy would be to regain our capacity to measure emotions, examine their presence and, in the same way we do when we scratch, turning them into a factor in our favor. Facing our contemporary tendency to extract every pain from our life, Plato, especially in his last works, leads us, curiously enough, to think about the possibility of regaining it, so it will allow us to build a safer path towards an integral wellbeing in our life.