Consolation Of Philosophy

These are among the key philosophical ideas of Plato, which inform Consolation. Plato held that the material world is a mere copy or shadow of the ideal spiritual world, and that attaining knowledge and wisdom implied ascending step by step from material things to a knowledge of the perfect good, who is God.

This doctrine was complemented by the doctrine of recollection. Plato held that human beings have the truth naturally imprinted on their souls but being born in a material world makes them forget these transcendental truths. Thus, searching for truth is simply a matter of helping the soul recall things that it has forgotten. This doctrine is reflected in the Socratic method of philosophical discussion, whereby the teacher asks questions of the student to draw the truth that he has deep within himself.

We see these Platonic doctrines reflected throughout Consolation: In the dialogue form of the book, in the discussion of the highest good in Book 3, in Philosophy's attempt to make Boethius remember his forgotten philosophical ideas, and in many of the poems, such as the one from Book 3, Chapter 11:

Whoever deeply searches out the truth

And will not be decoyed down by false by-ways,

Shall turn unto himself his inward gaze,

Shall bring his wandering thoughts in circle home

And teach his heart that what it seeks abroad

It holds in its own treasuries within (77).