HARMONY AND ARYTHMOS IN THE SOUL: NOTES ON PLATO'S PHILEBUS

We aim to demonstrate that for Plato the beings that appear to the senses (ta phainomena) are based on two opposite principles, the limited and the unlimited, and that everything generated is both something as such and something in motion towards not being. From this point of view, the Philebus investigates the meaning of pleasure and pain as they are "in" motion. Music (stricto sensu) depends as much on harmony (calculation and number) as any generation does, and the discovery of the better way to eudaimonia is not possible without an investigation into the essence of harmony.