La prima prova dell'immortalità dell'anima del Fedone e le tavolette orfiche di Olbia : orfismo e platonismo a confronto

The aim of this paper is to analyse some significant convergences between Orphic doctrines and the first proof of the immortality of the soul advanced by Plato in Phaedo. More precisely, a bone tablet found in Olbia, a Greek colony on the Black Sea, schematically presents the life-death-life sequence as a truth that initiates must accept if they wish to be considered authentically Orphic. In the same way, Plato's first proof insists on the alternation of life, death, and life again. I will then try to show how Plato was well aware of the Orphic doctrines and why he decided to allude to them in his Phaedo. He tried to assimilate other conceptions arguing for the immortality of the soul in the light of the fundamental assumptions of his philosophy, i.e., his theory of ideas. [Publisher's text]