From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordMoral concord is agreement of the soul’s activities with reason.
- In the Platonic TheologyMusical harmony admits degrees: better-concording strings yield more harmony.
- In this editionFrom Neque concoquet onward, the robber’s soul remains the subject throughout.
- A place to readMore harmony, more soul and more life lead to the rejected catalogue of predicted differences.
Meaning
Moral concord is agreement of the soul’s activities with reason. The good or just person is contrasted with the wicked person or robber. “More soul” and “more life” are consequences drawn from the disputed harmony thesis, not Ficino’s accepted measures of human worth.
Use in the book
Musical harmony admits degrees: better-concording strings yield more harmony. The wicked soul has conflicting appetites and a sense at odds with reason; the good soul accords. If soul were harmony, the good person would therefore have more soul, and since soul is a kind of life, more life. Ficino tests the resulting prediction against the broad range of organic and cognitive activities.
The robber would digest less well, generate offspring less effectively, support and move bodily members less adequately, discover less acutely, remember less firmly, speak less elegantly, attack less boldly and breathe less long than the just person. The catalogue is not a promised empirical rule that virtuous people enjoy better health or longer lives. It is the implausible package generated when degrees of moral agreement are identified with degrees of the substance or principle of life.
The example also explains why ordinary virtues or skills cannot be indiscriminately merged. Bold undertaking, ingenuity, memory and eloquence can serve a bad agent. Their possession does not establish moral goodness. The next chapter changes the angle from degree to identity: discordant opinions and affections do not stop the soul being a soul. The two arguments cooperate without saying that moral discord is harmless to a person’s life in every respect.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
From Neque concoquet onward, the robber’s soul remains the subject throughout. The edition keeps both sustinebit and vibrabit: supporting bodily members and setting them moving are separate actions. Magis here belongs to the reductio, not an editorial assertion of greater substantial humanity.
aggredi / spirare
aggredi / spirare. Printed forms: aggredietur; spirabit.
To undertake or attack, and to breathe. Bold action and continued breathing extend the reductio across practical and elementary vital activities. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
concentus / concinere
concentus / concinere. Printed forms: concentu; concinentibus; concinit.
Concord and greater or lesser harmonizing. Degrees of musical agreement produce the reductio from more harmony to more soul and more life. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
concoquere / generare prolem
concoquere / generare prolem. Printed forms: concoquet; generabit prolem.
To digest food and produce offspring. The robber’s supposed inferiority in these vital acts exposes the implausibility of deriving degree of life from moral concord. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
dissentire / pugnare / appetitus
dissentire / pugnare / appetitus. Printed forms: appetitus; Dissentit; Pugnant.
Disagreement with reason and conflict among appetites. These mark the wicked soul’s moral discord while leaving it a soul and a principle of ordinary life. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
invenire / reminisci / loqui
invenire / reminisci / loqui. Printed forms: inveniet; loquetur; reminiscetur.
To discover, remember and speak. Acute discovery, firm memory and elegant speech are capacities that need not coincide with the agent’s moral goodness. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
magis anima / magis vita
magis anima / magis vita. Printed forms: anima magis; magis vita.
More soul and more life as proposed consequences of more harmony. The graded-harmony account illegitimately converts moral accord into degree of the living principle itself. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
nequam / probus / iustus / latro
nequam / probus / iustus / latro. Printed forms: iusti; latronis; nequissimi; probi.
Wicked, good, just, and robber as moral contrasts. The example does not infer that moral goodness guarantees bodily vigor or cognitive skill; that is the absurd consequence being tested. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
sustinere / vibrare
sustinere / vibrare. Printed forms: sustinebit vibrabitque.
To support bodily members and set them moving. Both operations belong to the continuing subject, the robber’s soul, in the catalogue of rejected predictions. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.
vivax / audens / robustus
vivax / audens / robustus. Printed forms: audentior; robustior; Vivacior.
Livelier, bolder and more robust. These are predicted advantages of the just person only within the rejected reductio, not promises made by Ficino to virtuous readers. References: VII.14.1. See Moral concord and the robber.