Plato: Philosophy of Science

Plato’s Philebus has often been said to lack unity as a dialogue. In particular, what is the relation between the methodological and metaphysical reflections early in the dialogue and the investigations of pleasure and knowledge that constitutes its main subject matter? This chapter argues that Plato’s Philebus provides a division of knowledge (epistēmē), which satisfies the methodological norms explained earlier in the dialogue. In order to make this claim, Socrates is shown to provide an example of a cross-cutting division not (...) unlike those found in the Gorgias and Sophist. With this account of the division in place, we are able to better appreciate how the divine method of inquiry ensures the unity of all forms of knowledge. (shrink)

The main idea of this allegory is the difference between people who simply experience their sensory experiences, and call that knowledge, and those who understand real knowledge by seeing the truth. The allegory actually digs into some deep philosophy, which is not surprising since it comes from Plato. Its main idea is the discussion of how humans perceive reality and if human existence has a higher truth. It explores the theme of belief versus knowledge. The Perception Plato theorizes that the (...) group of people tied up in the cave would assume that the shadows they see on the wall are reality. Plato's theory further states that the echoing sounds the prisoners hear are perceived as reality. This false reality is all that the people in the cave know. They have no true knowledge of the real world. However, they fully believe that what they see on the cave wall is reality, and even try to name the shadows they see passing by. Plato's cave allegory further proposes that one of the prisoners escapes or gains freedom from the cave. The freed prisoner moves toward the fire, which temporarily blinds him. As he gains his eyesight and moves into the real world, he gains a greater sense of reality. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine three significant periods of the cosmological argument which exemplify the importance of contestation: first, Plato’s and Aristotle’s formulation of it, second, Philoponus’ own reactions and influence, third, the contemporary state of such discourses. Contestation has an inestimable role in philosophical development and reflection, as will be demonstrated through the examination of such periods.

The book "Theory of Forms: The Construction of Plato and Aristotle’s Criticism" focuses on two main aspects, construction and criticism. The constriction of Forms theory is the basis on which Plato built all of his philosophy and which influenced all forms of ideas philosophy that emerged after Plato. The research topic was completed by adding Aristotle's critique of the theory of Forms in order to put a clear picture in front of the reader, which was presented by Plato himself and (...) Aristotle's criticism of this theory. -/- Therefore, the book consists four chapters, the first chapter covers the following topics; The philosophical roots of Plato's theory of Forms, The numbers in the Pythagorean school, The Heraclitus' idea of change, Anaxagoras’ idea of Mind, Sophists. Chapter two, Plato's theory of Forms. Definitions of the Forms. The importance of the Forms, The existential and logical significance, Evidence of Forms, Evidence that knowledge is remembering. Chapter Three, Forms and Levels of Knowledge, Dialectic ,Inferential knowledge, Mental knowledge The fourth chapter, The nature of the Forms existence and its being Causes. Forms as numbers and their relationship to movement. The problem of Participation. The final Evaluation of Forms. (shrink)

At Plato’s Phaedrus 270c, Socrates asks whether one can know souls without knowing ‘the whole.’ Phaedrus answers that ‘according to Hippocrates’ the same demand on knowing the whole applies to bodies. What parallel is intended between soul-knowledge and body-knowledge and which medical passages illustrate the analogy have been much debated. Three dominant interpretations read ‘the whole’ as respectively (1) environment, (2) kosmos, and (3) individual soul or body; and adduce supporting Hippocratic passages. But none of these interpretations accounts for the (...) Phaedrus’ rhetorical method. A better reading sees the whole as the genos ‘soul,’ as the Phaedrus’ taxonomies divide that genus. (shrink)

Readers of Plato since antiquity have generally taken Socrates’ intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo as a signal of his turn away from the study of natural philosophy. They have turned instead to characters such as Timaeus for evidence of Plato’s pursuit of physics. This article argues that Plato’s Socrates himself developed a philosophy of nature in his criticism of Anaxagoras and his subsequent philosophic pursuits. Socrates’ autobiography places the study of nature in a foundational position within the development of his (...) philosophic method. In the Apology, Socrates further elaborated his investigation into nature through his understanding of theology. Finally, in the Phaedrus, Socrates connects the study of nature with the study of rhetoric as tools for virtue. Therefore, Plato’s Socrates does not reject or abandon physics, as has often been suggested, but rather, he incorporates it into his own philosophic project and challenges its practitioners to connect their own inquiries with human affairs. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new reading of Phaedo 99b6-d2. My main thesis is that in 99c6-9, Socrates does not refer to the teleological αἰτία but to the αἰτία that will be provided by a stronger ‘Atlas’ (99c4-5). This means that the passage offers no evidence that Socrates abandons teleology or modifies his views about it. He acknowledges, instead, that he could not find or learn any αἰτία stronger than the teleological one. This, I suggest, allows an interpretation of (...) the Phaedo in which Socrates offers a consistent account of the αἰτία of generation and destruction. (shrink)

What does Socrates mean by suggesting that no one can understand the nature of the soul "without the nature of the whole" (Phaedrus 270c)? I raise epistemological and metaphysical questions for Mary Louise Gill's proposal that he means us to consider the whole environment, and I make a case for the old-fashioned interpretation that he means us to consider the whole cosmos.

Although a great deal has been written on Plato's ethics, his cosmology has not received so much attention in recent times and its importance for his ethical thought has remained underexplored. By offering accounts of Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus and Laws X, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between the cosmic and human sphere. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with structure and intrinsic value, which both urges our respect (...) and calls for our responsible intervention. Humans are thus seen as citizens of a university that can provide a context for their flourishing even in the absence of good political institutions. The book sheds light on many intricate metaphysical issues in late Plato and brings out the close connections between his cosmology and the development of his ethics. (shrink)

How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first (...) three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return. (shrink)

Contrairement à la majorité des interprètes du Timée de Platon, nous ne croyons pas que la figure du démiurge représente réellement une cause productrice. Ce type de causalité, explicitement attribué au νοῦς dans le Phédon, ne peut, selon nous, être associé qu’à l’activité de l’âme du monde et des dieux de la tradition. Le démiurge joue un autre rôle. Représentant le meilleur des êtres intelligibles éternels (37a), un dieu éternel (34a), le démiurge ne peut, à ce titre, être un principe (...) de mouvement, puisque l’intelligible, selon Platon, n’exerce qu’une causalité paradigmatique. La figure du démiurge est, en fait, la représentation mythique de la causalité paradigmatique. Le démiurge représente, plus précisément, à titre de « fabricant » de l’espèce des dieux, la forme intelligible du dieu. Certaines caractéristiques du démiurge (sa corporéité, ses pensées et son activité productrice) sont indissociables de l’analogie employée pour représenter la dépendance des dieux à l’égard des formes intelligibles : le travail artisanal. Le démiurge, en tant que cause productrice, n’a pas de valeur ontologique réelle. Néanmoins, ce qu’il représente, la forme intelligible du dieu, constitue, selon Platon, la cause qui fonde l’immortalité de l’univers et des dieux de la tradition, une cause qui permet ainsi au νοῦς de ces divinités d’exercer leur causalité productrice. (shrink)

Plato’s Timaeus was his only cosmological dialogue and for almost thirteen hundred years it provided the basis in the West for educated people’s general view of the natural world. The author provides a translation of this important work, together with the Critias – the source of the legendary tale of Atlantis. He has taken particular care to provide an accurate rendering of Plato’s words and to avoid putting his own or any other interpretation on the works.

Ian Crombie’s impressive volumes provide a comprehensive interpretation of Plato’s doctrines. Volume 2 deals with more technical philosophical topics, including the theory of knowledge, philosophy of nature, and the methodology of science and philosophy. Each volume is self-contained.

Plato’s Timaeus–Critias juxtaposes a long description of our universe in the making with a discourse on human nature. The latter, confined to Critias, flanks Timaeus’ full-blown cosmogony without clearly articulating how, if at all, do the apparently so different stories fit together. By contrast to many precedent efforts at articulating their relation, the article tries to take seriously Timaeus’ distinction between the two kinds of divinities, whereby he opposes celestial bodies together with the ensouled physical universe to the traditional gods. (...) It seems possible that the two kinds of gods correspond to the duality of human nature itself, and thus to its peculiar position at the juncture of the immortal and mortal parts of the universe. Plato’s recourse to gods distinct from the celestial objects of intellectual assimilation then has nothing to do with theology in some doctrinal sense, but serves to indicate a link between divine and human capacities of deliberation and practical action. Reread in this light, the story told by Critias and several passages from the speech of Timaeus indicate the limits of theoretical knowledge and point towards the problematic ontology of the deliberating mind and the puzzling status of artefacts including man and the universe.In this context, the article re-examines the issue of human civilization and war, and also the question of great cataclysms. Presented by Critias, these issues are revelatory of the Platonic conception of human city not as an expression of man’s natural gregariousness but as a carefully composed artefact. The article concludes that, under the overlays of pseudo-history and cosmology, Socratic colours may well be more prominent than we usually assume. (shrink)

From antiquity on, the status of Critias' account has been the subject of intense debate. Is the Atlantis story 'real history'? The dialogue invites us to raise this question but also to reflect on its terms. In this paper I shall argue that the story should be seen as 'history' only in a special Platonic sense: it is a story which is fabricated about the past in order to reflect a general truth about how ideal citizens would behave in action.

This article concerns the so-called irrigation system in the Timaeus’ biology (77a-81e), which replenishes our body’s tissues with resources from food delivered as blood. I argue that this system functions mainly by the natural like-to-like motion of the elements and that the circulation of blood is an important case study of Plato’s physics. We are forced to revise the view that the elements attract their like. Instead, similar elements merely tend to coalesce with each other in virtue of their tactile (...) features as the atomists describe. The notion of attraction is replaced with this notion of mere coalescence. I begin by outlining how blood is made from food. I then argue that an understanding of health and disease compels us to read Plato as if he were an atomist and to abandon the popular scholarly interpretations according to which the elements attract each other. (shrink)

I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally. A novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that denies the entailment that the soul is corporeal. I conclude by examining Aristotle’s objection to the Timaeus’ psychology and then the intellectual history of this reading of Plato.

I argue that, according to Plato, the body is the sole cause of psychic disorders. This view is expressed at Timaeus 86b in an ambiguous sentence that has been widely misunderstood by translators and commentators. The goal of this article is to offer a new understanding of Plato’s text and view. In the first section, I argue that although the body is the result of the gods’ best efforts, their sub-optimal materials meant that the soul is constantly vulnerable to the (...) body’s influences. In the second section, I argue that every psychic disorder is a disruption of the motions of the inner psychic circles by the body; moreover, I defend my translation of 86b. In the final section, I argue that the goal of education is to restore the circles to their original orbits, and I disarm a possible objection that bad education is also a cause of psychic disorder. (shrink)

I argue that Plato believes that the soul must be both the principle of motion and the subject of cognition because it moves things specifically by means of its thoughts. I begin by arguing that the soul moves things by means of such acts as examination and deliberation, and that this view is developed in response to Anaxagoras. I then argue that every kind of soul enjoys a kind of cognition, with even plant souls having a form of Aristotelian discrimination (...) (krisis), and that there is therefore no completely unintelligent, evil soul in the cosmos that can explain disorderly motions; as a result, the soul is not the principle of all motion but only motion in the cosmos after it has been ordered by the Demiurge. (shrink)

Plato's comments on astronomy and the education of the guardians at Republic 528e ff have been hotly disputed, and have provoked much criticism from those who have interpreted them as a rejection or denigration of observational astronomy. Here I argue that the key to interpreting these comments lies in the relationship between the conception of enquiry that is implicit in the epistemological allegories, and the programme for the education of the guardians that Plato subsequently proposes. We have, I suggest, been (...) too eager to stress the similarities here, when recognition of the differences may supply us with the tools required for a better understanding of 528e ff, one that to a large extent disarms the anti-empirical critique. My discussion proceeds in three stages. Firstly, Plato takes great care to place his comments on astronomy in the context of the preceding epistemological allegories. Is there any evidence here, where Plato might be thought to discuss enquiry in general, that he rejected or denigrated observation? I argue that even if Plato advocated a 'Two Worlds' (TW) ontology, he still envisaged a dynamic process of enquiry, interrelating sensibles and intelligibles, the investigation of each being necessary but not sufficient to achieve the overall aim. Secondly, Plato appears to be deriving how we ought to go about educating the guardians from how we ought to conduct our enquiries. While the two are intimately related there are important differences, recognition of which turns the supposed rejection of observation into an affirmation of the need for an initial empirical approach. I contend that this makes good sense of the internal structure of 528e ff, and of its relations to other parts of the Republic. Thirdly, I discuss the Republic in relation to the evidence offered by later works on the question of astronomy and observation, and raise the question of whether Plato's views on the imperfection of the sensible world necessarily lead to the denigration of careful and prolonged empirical work. (shrink)

In one of the most disputed passages of Greek literature Plato in the Republic, 7. 528e–530c prescribes astronomy as the fourth study in the education of the Guardians. But what sort of astronomy? According to one school of thought it is a purely speculative study of bodies in motion having no relation to the celestial objects that we see. While this interpretation has rejoiced the hearts of Plato's detractors, who regard him as an obstacle to the progress of science, it (...) has dismayed his admirers. Another school of thought holds that what Plato meant was that astronomers must get to know the real motions of the heavenly bodies as opposed to their apparent motions as seen by us on earth. The opposed interpretations may be set out in the following representative citations from Sir Thomas Heath and John Burnet. (shrink)

The figure of the cordial host of the Academy, who invited the most gifted mathematicians and cultivated pure research, whose keen intellect was able if not to solve the particular problem then at least to show the method for its solution: this figure is quite familiar to students of Greek science. But was the Academy as such a center of scientific research, and did Plato really set for mathematicians and astronomers the problems they should study and methods they should use? (...) Our sources tell about Plato's friendship or at least acquaintance with many brilliant mathematicians of his day (Theodorus, Archytas, Theaetetus), but they were never his pupils, rather vice versa -- he learned much from them and actively used this knowledge in developing his philosophy. There is no reliable evidence that Eudoxus, Menaechmus, Dinostratus, Theudius, and others, whom many scholars unite into the group of so-called "Academic mathematicians," ever were his pupils or close associates. Our analysis of the relevant passages (Eratosthenes' Platonicus, Sosigenes ap. Simplicius, Proclus' "Catalogue of geometers", and Philodemus' "History of the Academy", etc.) shows that the very tendency of portraying Plato as the architect of science goes back to the early Academy and is born out of interpretations of his dialogues. (shrink)

This article concerns the so-called irrigation system in the Timaeus’ biology (77a-81e), which replenishes our body’s tissues with resources from food delivered as blood. I argue that this system functions mainly by the natural like-to-like motion of the elements and that the circulation of blood is an important case study of Plato’s physics. We are forced to revise the view that the elements attract their like. Instead, similar elements merely tend to coalesce with each other in virtue of their tactile (...) features as the atomists describe. The notion of attraction is replaced with this notion of mere coalescence. I begin by outlining how blood is made from food. I then argue that an understanding of health and disease compels us to read Plato as if he were an atomist and to abandon the popular scholarly interpretations according to which the elements attract each other. (shrink)