1.96
The gods war amongst each other.
This means there’s no final arbiter.
Without casting poets out of the republic,[1] without the transition from many to one god (Judaism-Christianity-Islam), without the transition to the cogito — if the gods war amongst each other, or even if there just are many gods,[2] the Western (philosophical) tradition would be vastly different.
[1] Plato, “The Republic,” in Great Dialogues of Plato: Complete Texts of The Republic, The Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Ion, Meno, Symposium, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (New York: Signet Classic, 2008). In Books II, III, and X, Plato speaks variously of the censorship or banishment of poets. He doesn’t advocate casting all poets out; instead, he censors or refuses entrance to imitative poets: p. 224–5, 480, 482–3. Pertinently, he also prohibits poets from claiming that “gods war against gods” (p. 199; see discussion on p. 197–207).
[2] Thales reportedly said all things are full of gods. Aristotle, fr. 4, trans. Richard D. McKirahan, in A Presocratics Reader (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996), from On the Soul, p. 11.