CriticaLink | Plato: Phaedrus | Terms

arche

The Greek word arche means "origin" or "source"; our word archetype incorporates the Greek term. In his discussion of the immortality of the soul in the Phaedrus, Socrates refers to the soul's movement as the ultimate arche of all other movement. This arche has no origin outside of itself and cannot be destroyed. In Plato's idealist philosophy, the Forms are the eternal sources--archetypes--of their corresponding phenomena in the physical world.