The psycho-physiological analysis of pain in the Timaeus .

— The Timaeus offers a definition of pain

and pleasure as affections of the body endowed with a soul. This definition is made following a
clarification on what is sensitive and insensitive. Our body being subject to the movements that
external objects give it, it undergoes affections ( παθήματα ) from them , which will only become
true sensations, in other words which will only become sensitive, when these movements
impressed on a part of the body are transmitted to the soul. This transmission is entirely
dependent on the composition of the affected body part. If the organ concerned is composed
mainly of very mobile primary bodies which are fire (composed of tetrahedral particles according to
the Timaeus ) and air (octahedral particles), then the movement will be very easily transmitted,
which is the case for organs of sight and hearing; conversely, if the organ is composed of less
mobile or even highly immobile primary bodies such as water (icosahedral particles) and earth
(cubic particles, with a firm base), then the conditions which affect it are more transmitted to the
soul with difficulty, if at all, as is the case for bones and hair composed essentially of earth (64c).
Pain and pleasure must be thought of in relation to this distinction of the sensible and of the
insensible related to the degree of mobility of the components of the body: an extremely mobile
organ, like the igneous organ of sight, will excellently provide sensations but will not be the support
of an affection of pain or pleasure, for the reason that being very mobile, the movements that
external objects impart to it are made without any resistance, therefore without any violence, and
therefore without any pain; a highly immobile organ like hair will not support pain either, because
the The conditions that affect him are not sensitive in any case. Pain can only appear in the
intermediary between the extremely sensitive organ and the totally insensitive organ. Pain is in fact
defined thus: “The unnatural and forced affection ( πάθος ) which occurs suddenly [= in a short
time] ( ἁ θρόον ) in us is painful ( ἀ λγεινόν )” ( Timaeus , 64c -d); there must be both a
transmitted movement, which requires an organ which transmits the movements and which can
experience them in a restricted manner 5 , and a violence in this movement, which can only be
found when the organ offers by itself a certain resistance, which implies a certain fixity of its
components contrary to the high transmissibility of the affections. As for pleasure, it is defined
right after and in close correlation with pain: “the affection which returns suddenly ( ἁ θρόον ) back
towards the natural state ( ε ἰ ς φύσιν ) is pleasant” ( Timaeus , 64c-d).

 6 See Timaeus , 35 ff., 41d, and the explanations of L. Brisson, The same and the other in the structure o
(...)

 7 The description of the lover's torment in the Phaedrus confirms the idea that love is linked to faith (...)

8 This entire psycho-physiology of pain and pleasure is based on movement, on its transmission or
non-transmission, and on its orientation towards an unnatural state or, on the contrary, a return to
the natural state. There is no pain or pleasure strictly speaking unless actually felt by the soul,
which means that in all physical pain, there is an encounter between a movement coming from the
body and the soul, which is itself even composed of movements. The Timaeus has in fact described
the way in which a demiurge constructs individual souls on the same model as that which by its
movements drives the fixed sky and the planets. Each soul is thus endowed with a circle called the
circle of the same, whose revolution is towards the right, and a circle of the other, whose
revolution is towards the left and which is concentrically subdivided into seven other circles
showing a combination of relative movements. The whole presents by nature a harmony structured
by mathematical proportions 6 . The incarnation of each soul in a body (which must be thought of
as occurring at the moment of conception or at the latest at birth) subjects it to the disordered
movements of the nourishing flows which irrigate it. This encounter is at first overwhelming, the
proportions and circles which constitute the soul are twisted, broken, destroyed as much as
possible, its movements are then crooked, which makes it totally senseless ( ἄ νους , 43a-44a).
Subsequently, the soul gradually regains the upper hand and regains its natural rectitude (44b).
But in the course of her life, she will never be safe from further upheaval through strong
movements which will disturb her. Of this order are excessive pains and pleasures, the action of
which paralyzes all reasoning: "when a human being experiences great joy, or on the contrary
when he is afflicted by pain, while he strives against the times to catch one and flee from the
other, he cannot see or hear anything straight, but on the contrary becomes enraged and then
finds himself in the least capable of taking part in reasoning” ( Timaeus , 86bc) . Pleasure and pain
in their excess are “the greatest of diseases for the soul” (86b). All psychological illness, according
to Timaeus, amounts to the state of madness ( ἄ νοια ), which is subdivided into two species,
madness ( μανία ) and ignorance or absence of instruction ( ἀ μάθια ) (86b). The rest of the
presentation presents pleasure coming from the body as a source of madness, and it is erotic
pleasure (always mixed with pain, however) which is clearly taken as an exemplary case 7 (86c-d);
then pain coming from the body is this time the cause of ignorance when it reaches the place of
the rational soul, because it installs forgetfulness in it and makes it refractory to instruction; it also
causes bad humor and despondency when it reaches the seat of the appetitive soul, and temerity
or cowardice when it touches the impetuous species. Timaeus describes precisely by what
mechanism the body in pleasure or pain causes a disease of the soul. Both for erotic pleasure and
for pain, it exposes the way in which the internal flows of the body (the flow of semen in the first
case, phlegm and humors in the second), in their disruption or their wandering, act to unhealthy
way on the soul. These are bodily movements which hinder or pervert the proper movements of
the soul by mingling with them (see in particular 86e5-87a2).

 8 That the body is a source of illness for the soul is explicitly affirmed (notably 86a2,86d1-2,86e (...)

 9 See Phaedrus , 251-252; Philebe , 47th; Gorgias , 494d-e (very likely allusion to sexual pleasure) known
(...)

 10 This association of pain and dissolution is confirmed by the Cratylus , but the idea of ha (...)

 11 The Phaedo confirms the idea that pain only hinders the soul's own movements: there is (...)

9 It is under the influence of the body that the soul becomes ill, 8 and in particular under the
influence of the excessive pleasures and pains it provides.