Flight

As a conclusion, the chapter ‘Flight. Towards an Ecofilmology’ offers a synoptic view of the characteristics of the five tensive motifs, carrying out a general anatomy of the strategies used to generate cinematic tension with particular reference to their narrative role in the light of the embodied simulation hypothesis. The fundamental aspect highlighted is the link between the different ways in which the tensive motifs embody intentionality and the dynamic of disembodying-reembodying involved. Accordingly, the motifs can be understood as a means of negotiation between the desire for vertigo and excess and the necessity of bringing overstimulation back beneath the threshold that assures the legibility and reception of the film, in perceptual as well as moral, social, and commercial terms.

Plato on Divinization and the Divinity of the Rational Part of the Soul

Three distinct reasons that Plato calls the rational part of the soul “divine” are analyzed: (1) its metaphysical kinship with the Forms, (2) its epistemological ability to know the Forms, and (3) its ethical capacity to live by them. Supposing these three divine aspects of the rational part are unified in the life of each person, they naturally suggest a process of divinization or “becoming like god” according to which a person (specifically, a philosopher), by (3) living more virtuously, which requires (2) increasingly better knowledge of the Forms, gradually (1) becomes united with them. This process of divinization is in fact found throughout the middle and late dialogues, including the Phaedo, Republic, Symposium, Phaedrus, Timaeus, and the Laws. This synoptic view of the Platonic idea(l) of divinization provides a standard according to which misplaced emphasis, flaws, and tension created by other interpretations are criticized and corrected.