_ Source: _Volume 61, Issue 1, pp 43 - 59 Contemporary debate on Plato’s cosmogony often assumes that the ‘literal’ reading of the _Timaeus_ yields an account of creation, while the view that the cosmos always existed is non-literal. In antiquity, Taurus has been seen as a forerunner of the ‘non-literal’ interpretation. This paper shows, on the contrary, that Taurus’ argument for the sempiternity of the cosmos is a literalist one, relying on a strict linguistic analysis of _Timaeus_ 28b6-8.

_ Source: _Volume 63, Issue 4, pp 449 - 476 While we know that the interpretation of the ‘soul’s pilot’ found in Hermias’ _Scholia on Plato’s Phaedrus_ differs considerably from that of Syrianus and Proclus, this difference has not shifted the prevailing opinion that the _Scholia_ are a faithful transcript of Syrianus’ lectures on the _Phaedrus_. I argue, however, that the difference over the soul’s pilot is only the first in a series of elements which are difficult, if not impossible, (...) to ascribe to Syrianus. This, I believe, is compelling evidence that the _Scholia_ contain the ideas of both Syrianus and Hermias. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has recognized some thematic connections related to onto-cosmological issues between two late Platonic dialogues, such as Philebus and Timaeus, and has tried to explain them in different ways. The aim of this paper is to contribute to such a debate by analysing an ancient exegesis of Timaeus 35a1-b4, that of Plutarch of Chaeronea, which made use of the ontological sections of the Philebus in his treatise on the cosmogony of the Timaeus. More specifically, this analysis will show that (...) the notions of ‘limit’ and ‘unlimitedness’ played a decisive role in the shaping of the “essence” of the world-soul according to Plutarch. (shrink)

Plato’s demiurge makes a series of questionable decisions in creating the world. Most notoriously, he endeavors to replicate, to the extent possible, some of the features that his model possesses just insofar as it is a Form. This has provoked the colorful complaint that the demiurge is as raving mad as a general contractor who constructs a house of vellum to better realize the architect’s vellum plans (Keyt 1971). The present paper considers the sanity of the demiurge’s reasoning in light (...) of Timaeus 32c5-33b1, where he invokes considerations of wholeness, completeness, uniqueness, and eternality in deciding to build the body of the world from all of each of the simple bodies. Since the passage makes no appeal to the demiurge’s intelligible model, one can mine it for indications of the value that the demiurge takes those features to have independent of mimetic goals. I argue that, for Plato, those features are intrinsically good-making and, thus, that it is not only appropriate for them to characterize Forms qua Forms but also that it is appropriate for the demiurge to aim at replicating them, to the extent possible, in his creation. In particular, I argue that the demiurge’s success in instilling a circumscribed version of each feature in his creation helps to qualify it as a genuine being despite the fact that it comes to be. (shrink)

The aim of this thesis is to explore the relationship between Achilles Tatius' novel Leucippe and Cleitophon and the Platonic corpus. I have searched for Platonic allusions of various natures and purposes and grouped them into thematic chapters. I have also compared instances of similar uses of Plato in contemporary authors in order to classify both the individual cases and the place of Achilles Tatius' novel in its literary environment, including the intended readership. In my introduction I have argued that (...) through the combination in his works of philosophy and literary excellence Plato was an extremely important figure to the Greeks of the second sophistic. However, despite the increasingly influential opinion that Greek novel readership was not dissimilar to that of other works, the possibility that the Greek novelists used Plato in a more than cosmetic fashion has been relatively neglected. The uses of Plato on which I have concentrated are the employment of Platonic names as allusions to their namesakes; Platonic narrative technique as the model for the dialogue form and open-endedness of Leucippe and Cleitophon with the integration of this technique into the broader question of the discrepancies between the beginning and the end; the allusion to a particularly famous passage of the Phaedrus in the name of the heroine; the repeated allusions to the Phaedran flow of beauty, their purposes and the light they shed on the characterisation of Cleitophon; and the Phaedran scene-setting, indulged in by many other writers, which Achilles Tatius uses in two significant passages. The conclusions I have reached are that Achilles Tatius uses Plato far more extensively and imaginatively than hitherto realised; that such an intimate engagement can shed light on other issues, such as psychological characterisation and the question of humour; that Achilles Tatius wrote something of an "anti-Platonic" novel; and that his work displays many similarities with other works whose sophistication is less in doubt. (shrink)