Proclus's Theory of the Soul

Proclus thinks that religious teachings are necessary for us, in part because of the limitations on what human souls can know. He rejects Plotinus' idea that some part of our soul is undescended, permanently connected to the divine intellect. Proclus builds this into a sophisticated theory according to which the soul always has within it, images of the forms in the divine intellectual world. The fact that the forms are in us illustrates yet another general rule of Proclus' metaphysics.