The World Soul in Ancient Cosmology and Contemporary Thought

David Fideler, Alexandria journal

When Pythagoras first called the universe a kosmos, he did so because the universe is an embodiment of both order and beauty. This order and beauty is rooted in harmonia -- the "fitting together" of opposites, a union which is accomplished through the principle of logos or proportion. Through the use of proportion, natural structures achieve a working union between the part and the whole, and the natural proportions embodied in living things allow them to function in the best possible way.

Drawing on Pythagorean ideas, Plato concluded that there is an intrinsic relationship between proportion, goodness, and beauty. In his cosmological dialogue the Timaeus, Plato presents a Pythagorean creation myth that explains the underlying structure of the cosmos. In order to account for the underlying harmonious structure of living things and the greater universe, Plato describes the nature of the World Soul, which embodies the principles of harmony, proportion, and relatedness between the part and the whole. This paper will describe what Plato meant by the World Soul, and I will show with slides how the archetypal harmonies of the World Soul -- Sameness and Difference united by Proportion -- are incorporated in living, natural structures. The study of nature's proportions clearly demonstrates that there is no dichotomy between the "ideal" and the "pragmatic," because nature uses ideal proportions, which allow things to function in the best possible way. In this way, the natural world possesses intrinsic value, because natural structures embody virtue, goodness, and beauty.

This paper will survey the history of the idea of the World Soul in Western thought, the epistemologies associated with it, how it went into eclipse with the rise of the mechanistic worldview of the Scientific Revolution, and how it is now reemerging as a cosmological, psychological, and cultural idea.

For Plato, the World Soul is the a priori, metaphysical principle of relatedness in which the order, beauty, and goodness of the cosmos are rooted. But in addition to the cosmological dimension, the idea of the World Soul suggests an "epistemology of sameness" in which we are able to know the universe only because we are an embodiment of living nature itself. In this sense, the harmony of the World Soul points toward an inclusive worldview in which aesthetics, ecology, ethics, mathematics, economics, science, art, and epistemology are not separate, but inherently related areas.