One of the hardest questions to answer for a (Neo)platonist is to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge. My dissertation is a study of the answer given to that question by the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. I present a new explanation of Proclus’ concept of nature and show that philosophy of nature consists of several related subdisciplines matching the ontological stratification (...) of nature. Moreover, I demonstrate that for Proclus philosophy of nature is a science, albeit a hypothetical one, which takes geometry as its methodological paradigm. I also offer an explanation of Proclus’ view of what is later called the mathematization of physics, i.e. the role of the substance of mathematics, as opposed to its method, in explaining the natural world. Finally, I discuss Proclus’ views of the discourse of philosophy of nature and its iconic character. (shrink)

In Plato’s Timaeus, two different theories – the Receptacle theory and the geometrical particle theory – are presented to explain change in the natural world. In this paper, I argue that there is tension between the two theories. After examining several possible solutions for this tension, I conclude that Plato does not present it as something ready to be solved within the dialogue but, rather, as something to be understood in a way that maintains both theories. Finally, I also argue (...) that the contrast between the two theories in the Timaeus derives from a similar contrast in the Phaedo. (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)

Burnet's text at Pl. Ti. 55c7–d6 is at least questionable, and opting for a different reading at 55d5 would shed light on an intriguing argumentative aspect of Plato's cosmological account: God confirms the metaphysical reasons why there is just one perfect world.

It is a notion commonly acknowledged that in his work Timaeus the Athenian philosopher Plato laid down an early chemical theory of the creation, structure and phenomena of the universe. There is much truth in this acknowledgement because Plato’s “chemistry” gives a description of the material world in mathematical terms, an approach that marks an outstanding advancement over cosmologic doctrines put forward by his predecessors, and which was very influential on western culture for many centuries. In the present article, I (...) discuss inter-transformations among Plato’s four types as well as the interpretation they received in the literature. I find that scientists and scholars generally emphasized mathematical aspects of these “reactions” over the philosophical ones. I argue that Plato’s “chemistry” in fact bears on crucial topics of his philosophical system, such as Forms, Becoming, causation and teleology. I propose that consideration of these doctrines help to understand not only the sense of his “chemical” reactions, but also the reason why their stoichiometry is by surface balance and is restricted only to types that come to be and pass away but not to those that provoke the inter-transformations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The Gorgias presents us with a mystery and an enigma: Who was Callicles? And, what was Plato trying to accomplish in this dialogue? While searching for the identity of Callicles, we gain a better understanding of Plato's purpose for this dialogue, which is to use justice as a means for staking out the boundaries of four types of rhetoric. This article argues that Plato uses the Gorgias to reveal the deficiencies of sophistic nomos-centered rhetorics and an unjust sophistic phusis-centered (...) rhetoric, opening the door for a “true” rhetoric that he articulates in the Phaedrus and a universal justice based on virtue that he describes in the Republic. (shrink)

The present paper focuses on some aspects of the Neoplatonist literary-metaphysical theory, which has clearly been expressed in the anony­mous Prolegomena to Plato’s philosophy and further confirmed in Proclus’ exegesis of the Timaeus. Thus, this contribution, examines and compares several passages from the Prolegomena and from Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus with a view to showing that it is legiti­mate to speak of a certain cosmogony of the Platonic dialogue that is analogous to that of the macrocosm. Moreover, the analogy (...) between macrocosm and microcosm makes it possible to further investigate the similarity between the λόγος-ζῷον of the Demiurge and that of Timaeus, on the one hand, and the reality which the λόγος expresses, on the other. This similarity turns out to be both structural/morphological and content-related/semantic. Thus, by combining the natural and theo­logical science, the analysis of the “generation” of the macrocosm and microcosm brings out the strongly analogical nature of Plato’s dialogues, which is particularly visible in the Timaeus. (shrink)

Timaios diyalogu, genellikle Platon’un kozmolojik ve teolojik bir metni olarak ele alınır. Metin ilk bakışta evrenin ve insanın kökeni sorununu Tanrı’nın mahiyeti çerçevesinde ele alan bir diyalog olmasına karşın temelde etik-politik değerlerin kozmik bir anlatıya ve Tanrı’nın varlık ve niteliğine dayanılarak savunulmasını içerir. Bununla birlikte Platon’un metafizik sisteminde insan-polis-kozmos birbirinden kopmaz bir şekilde bağlantılı bir duruma sahiptir. Bundan ötürüdür ki Timaios diyalogu etik-politikanın kozmoloji ve teolojiyle iç içe geçtiği bir metindir. Bizim göstermek istediğimiz evrenin kuruluş sürecinin nasılından ziyade bu anlatının (...) ‘niçin’i ve kozmostaki düzenliliğin ereği ile Platoncu etik-politik kavrayışın kopmaz ilişkisidir. (shrink)

The focus of this essay is on Xenophanes’ criticism of anthropomorphic representation of the gods, famously sounding like a declaration of war against a constituent part of the Greek religion, and adopting terms and a tone that are unequalled amongst “pre-Socratic” authors for their directness and explicitness. While the main features of Xenophanes’ polemic are well known thanks to some of the most studied fragments of the pre-Socratic tradition, a different line of enquiry from the usual one is attempted by (...) considering the multi-layered background of the religious beliefs revolving around the idea that the gods have human form as outlined in the tradition of epic poetry or represented in cult statues: in the light of this consideration Xenophanes’ text can take on some new characteristics. In the second part of the article, emphasis is put on the importance of the correlation Xenophanes established between the issue of the appearance of the gods and that of the certainty of knowledge, in terms that have exerted tremendous influence on later thought, most notably on Plato in the Timaeus. (shrink)

This is a study of the correspondence between Forms and particulars in Plato. The aim is to determine whether they exhibit an ontological symmetry, in other words, whether there is always one where there is the other. This points to two questions, one on the existence of things that do not have corresponding Forms, the other on the existence of Forms that do not have corresponding things. Both questions have come up before. But the answers have not been sufficiently sensitive (...) to the intricacies of the questions. Nor have they been adequately resourceful with what little evidence there is in the original sources. The intention here is to make up for that deficiency, not just with better answers but also with better insight into the questions. (shrink)

_ 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.

In his opening speech, Timaeus argues that the cosmos must be the product of a craftsman looking to an eternal paradigm. Yet his premises seem at best to justify only that the world could have been made by such a craftsman. This paper seeks to clarify Timaeus’ justification for his stronger conclusion. It is argued that Timaeus sees a necessary role for craftsmanship as a cause that makes becoming like being.

RESUMEN Este artículo apunta a someter a consideración si existe o no un fundamento histórico-filosófico para la hipótesis de una homonimia no azarosa entre "escala de tiempo" y "escala musical". Un examen minucioso de ciertos pasajes del diálogo Timeo muestra que Platón fue el primero en sentar las bases para el concepto de tiempo, definido como número, al incorporar el concepto de 'analogía' o proporción, el cual fue desarrollado por los pitagóricos en el marco místico y teórico de los principios (...) emergentes de la armonía tonal. La teoría pitagórico-platónica de proporciones subyace -como intentaré probar- en el concepto aristotélico de tiempo y, en cuanto tal, en la representación tradicional del tiempo como parámetro y escala del movimiento. ABSTRACT This article aims to unpack the query of whether or not there is a historical- philosophical basis for the hypothesis of a non-random homonymy between 'time scale' and 'musical scale.' A deeper look into certain passages of Plato's dialog Timaios, shows that he first laid the foundation for the concept of time, defined as number, by incorporating the concept of 'proportion' or 'analogy', which was developed by the Pythagoreans in the mystical and theoretical frame of the rising principles of tonal harmony. The pythagorean-platonic theory of proportion underlies -as I will try to prove- the aristotelian concept of time, and thus the traditional representation of time as a parameter and scale of movements. (shrink)

This dissertation explores Aristotle’s use of teleology as a principle of explanation, especially as it is used in the natural treatises. Its main purposes are, first, to determine the function, structure, and explanatory power of teleological explanations in four of Aristotle’s natural treatises, that is, in Physica (book II), De Anima, De Partibus Animalium (including the practice in books II-IV), and De Caelo (book II). Its second purpose is to confront these findings about Aristotle’s practice in the natural treatises with (...) the theoretical picture of the structure of teleological explanations gained from Aristotle’s theory of scientific demonstration. For this purpose a new interpretation of Analytica Posteriora II.11 is presented. This study thereby contributes to recent scholarship on the relation between Aristotle’s philosophy of science and his philosophy of nature, while at the same time adding to our knowledge of Aristotle’s notion of teleology in terms of its explanatory merits and limits. (shrink)

This article endeavors to ascertain whether Plato may be regarded as a prophet. This involves defining what a prophet is and examining a number of literary sources in order to uncover the needed evidence and to make appropriate comparisons with known prophets from ancient times. Thus, this treatise includes evidence obtained from several classic texts, plus excerpts of Plato’s writings, life experiences, influence from Socrates, and Plato’s foreign travels. Also considered are biblical passages about prophets from the Old Testament. Thereby, (...) a philosophical and theosophical investigation is undertaken to examine the extent to which Plato satisfies the criteria for being considered to have been a prophet in the classical sense. (shrink)

This thesis regards the ancient Pythagorean-Platonic idea of heavenly harmony as a philosophical paradox: stars are silent, music is not. The idea of ‘star music’ contains several potential opposites, including imagination and sense perception, the temporal and the eternal, transcendence and theophany, and others. The idea of ‘star music’ as a paradox can become a gateway to a different understanding of the universe, and a vehicle for a shift to a new – and yet very ancient – form of consciousness. (...) The ancient Greeks had a holistic form of consciousness, which was continually intermingling with a transpersonal dimension. This ancient state of consciousness was related to a musical understanding of the world, the Pythagorean-Platonic experience of the universe as an ordered cosmos. My research is approached from two angles, namely from the history of ideas and from musicianship, exploring how music is reflected in the world of thought. By reflexive re-reading of the sources, new insights into the nature of musical consciousness are explored. The idea of ‘star music’ can be found throughout the history of music and thought in the West, including Plato’s works and that of other ancient philosophers, through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Romantic era and the twentieth century up to contemporary New Age music. As a conclusion, the paradox of ‘star music’ is connected to an experience of a shared transcendent meaning of music, which can be present in the moment of a musical performance. ‘Star music’ is a living paradox. (shrink)

A generally ignored feature of Plato’s celebrated image of the cave in Republic VII is that the ascent from the cave is, in its initial stages, said to be brought about by force. What kind of ‘force’ is this, and why is it necessary? This paper considers three possible interpretations, and argues that each may have a role to play.

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)

ABSTRACTWithin the Platonic dualistic conception of body and soul the difference between maleness and femaleness might appear to be a difference which only concerns the body, that is a difference which is not essential for determining who a certain human is. One might argue that, since humans are essentially their souls and souls are genderless, men and women are essentially equal. As my paper shows, though, Plato's and Proclus’ writings set out two ways of conceptualizing human souls themselves as ‘sexed’ (...) and of doing this in a way that female souls are determined to be inferior to male souls. By Plato's account, souls are indeed genderless in terms of their essence, but they attain maleness through virtuous and femaleness through vicious activities. Proclus, by contrast, conceptualizes souls as essentially ‘male’ or ‘female’. A soul in whose essence the Different predominates is female, while a soul in whose substance the Same predominates is male. And since the attainment and... (shrink)

The rhetorical career of Libanius of Antioch spanned the reigns of a number of fourth-century emperors. Like many orators, he used the trope of the emperor as a pilot, steering the ship of state. He did this for his imperial exemplar Julian and in fact for his predecessor Constantius II as well. Julian sought to craft an identity for himself as a theocratic king. He and his supporters cast him as an earthly parallel to the Christ-like versions of Heracles and (...) Asclepius he constructed, which was arguably a co-opting of Christian and particularly Constantinian themes. In a public oration, Julian even placed himself in the role of Christ in the Temptation in the Wilderness. This kind of overtly Christian metaphor was not Libanius’ preferred idiom, however, and he wrote of Julian as another kind of chosen and divine saviour-figure, one with its roots in the golden age of Greek philosophy. The figure of the κυβερνήτης, the ‘pilot’ or ‘helmsman’, is a philosophical concept with roots in the thought of the pre-Socratics but most familiar from Plato. The uses of this metaphor by Julian and Libanius highlight the rhetorical strategy and self-presentation the emperor employed during his reign. (shrink)

In a recent article written by Mr. G. E. L. Owen to prove that contrary to the general current opinion the composition of theTimaeusmust have antedated that of theParmenidesand its dialectical successors, it is contended that when theTimaeuswas written the analysis of negation given in theSophistcould not yet have been worked out. ‘For’, Mr. Owen writes, ‘the tenet on which the whole new account of negation is based, namely thatτὸ μὴ ὄν ἔστιν ὄντως μὴ ὄν, is contradicted unreservedly by Timaeus' (...) assertion that it is illegitimate to sayτὸ μὴ ὄν ἔστι μὴ ὄν; and thereby theTimaeusat once ranks itself with theRepublicandEuthydemus.'After brushing aside Cornford's attempt to reconcile this passage of theTimaeuswith theSophist, Mr. Owen concludes his treatment of it with the words: ‘So theTimaeusdoes not tally with even a fragment of the argument in theSophist.That argument is successful against exactly the Eleatic error which, for lack of the later challenge to Father Parmenides, persists in theTimaeus.’An examination of the other arguments put forward by Mr. Owen in support of his thesis concerning the relative chronology of theTimaeusI reserve for another place. Here I propose to consider only the meaning of this one passage and whether it really does imply that theTimaeusmust have been written before Plato had conceived the doctrine enunciated in theSophist.It is a question not now raised for the first time. More than half a century ago Otto Apelt asserted that this passage of theTimaeusis enough to prove that work earlier than theSophists.His assertion did not go unchallenged; and Apelt himself appears to have lost his original confidence in it, for in his later writings on the relative chronology of the two dialogues he did not again refer to it. (shrink)

After a hundred and thirty years of controversy, the interpretation of thePrometheus Boundis still the subject of debate. To the romantic poets of the revolutionary era, the Titan tortured by Zeus for his services to mankind appeared as a symbol of the human spirit in its struggle to throw off the chains which priests and kings had forged for it. But to the distinguished Hellenists who after the fall of Napoleon laid the foundations of the great century of German scholarship, (...) no such naïve and one-sided view of thePrometheusseemed tolerable. It was partly, perhaps, that the political atmosphere discouraged an interpretation adverse to authority; but the other writings of Aeschylus himself seemed to offer strong evidence against this view. Elsewhere in Aeschylus, they could argue, Zeus was treated with profound respect. In theSupplices, he is continually appealed to by the chorus of Danaids, who miss no opportunity to extol the supremacy of his power. Zeus' omnipotence is the burden of a celebrated section of the first chorus of theAgamemnon; although scholars have differed widely in the details of their interpretation of this passage, most are agreed that it expresses theological doctrines that are at once subtle and sublime, and many have discovered profound significance in its puzzling allusions to ‘learning by suffering’ and to aχάριςthat comes to men from the gods. Chiefly upon evidence derived from these two plays, many scholars have credited their author with the invention of a peculiar personal religion, tending to exalt Zeus at the expense of the other members of the Olympic pantheon, and crediting him with the purpose of perfecting men in goodness through the discipline of suffering. Some have gone so far as to detect tendencies to monotheism in Aeschylus. A fair specimen of the usual kind of view is that of Nilsson, who begins by hesitating to pronounce Aeschylus a monotheist; Aeschylus, he warns us, is not a religious innovator preaching a new form of religion, but a profoundly pious poet; but later, he comes dangerously near to this view. The power of Zeus, he argues, is so much magnified that at one point he seems more a principle than a personal god. (shrink)

As his writings tend to prioritize the incorporeal over the corporeal, Plato seems an unlikely authority on medicine. He does not appear to have engaged in any systematic investigation of the body through direct examination of animal anatomy, like his pupil Aristotle. Notwithstanding Plato's apparent lack of interest in anatomical research, modern scholars view his dialogues as valuable witnesses for earlier and contemporary theories about the body. Famously, the Phaedrus mentions Hippocrates’ holistic approach to studying the body. Out of all (...) his dialogues, the Timaeus offers the most extensive comments about the nature of the body and its functions. Many of its physiological ideas, however, seem to derive from earlier medical and philosophical authorities such as Alcmaeon of Croton, Empedocles and Philistion of Locri rather than from Plato himself. (shrink)

In the fifth book of Plato's Laws, the Athenian stranger concedes that some requirements posed in the description of the ideal city might be unrealistically demanding. The passage quotes the due limits fixed with regard to wealth and the regulations about the number of children and the size of the family, as well as the rules to be observed in the allocation of houses in the city and in the countryside. The latter requirement is recalled at 746a6–7, where the word (...) μεσότης is unanimously understood as indicating a geographic notion of ‘middle’, with regard to either the position of the houses in the ideal city, or that of the city in the territory. (shrink)

Galen'sOn the Elements according to Hippocratesis an important source for physical doctrines circulating in late antiquity. The variety of atomistic doctrines that Galen brings into the discussion, as well as his arguments aimed at refuting them, were closely studied by the early kalām atomists. Of particular interest are the summaries of this text, which seem to have been written many centuries after Galen; some of them are products of early Islamicate culture. In this paper, we present an edition, translation, and (...) study of a hitherto unknown summary, extent in a unique manuscript where it is attributed to Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Like the other summaries, it presents a doxography of physical doctrines, not always repeating precisely what Galen says, but rather reflecting the discourse of its period.RésuméL'ouvrage galéniqueSur les Éléments selon Hippocrateest une importante source d'information concernant les théories physiques de l'antiquité tardive. Les diverses doctrines atomistes discutées par Galien ainsi que les arguments employés par lui pour les réfuter ont été étudiés de près par les premiersMutakallimūn.Les abrégés de cet ouvrage, qui semblent avoir été écrits plusieurs siècles après Galien, et dont certains remontent aux débuts de la culture islamique, présentent un intérêt particulier. Dans cet article, nous donnons une édition, une traduction et une étude d'un abrégé inconnu jusqu'ici, conservé dans un unique manuscrit, qui l'attribue à Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. Comme les autres abrégés, il s'agit en fait d'une doxographie de théories physiques qui ne reproduit pas toujours précisément ce que Galien a dit, mais qui reflète le discours de l'époque où elle a été rédigée. (shrink)

The publication of Mr. R. S. Bluck's stimulating Phaedo prompts me to ask the following questions concerning the traditional interpretation of the cosmographical passage beginning 108 e. Do the terms of 108 e-109 a in combination with 110 b 5 ff. and Timaeus 40 b-c and 62 d ff. prove conclusively that in the Phaedo Plato thinks of the earth as a spherical body? Granted that he does, need his description of the earth, as a setting for his eschatological myth, (...) conform with the spherical theory? (shrink)

The publication of Mr. R. S. Bluck's stimulating Phaedo prompts me to ask the following questions concerning the traditional interpretation of the cosmographical passage beginning 108 e. Do the terms of 108 e-109 a in combination with 110 b 5 ff. and Timaeus 40 b-c and 62 d ff. prove conclusively that in the Phaedo Plato thinks of the earth as a spherical body? Granted that he does, need his description of the earth, as a setting for his eschatological myth, (...) conform with the spherical theory? (shrink)

By an ancient and honourable tradition, which began last year when I spared you this exercise, the President gives a Presidential Address only once during his term of office, on retirement. A presidential address in the summer season is a privileged occasion. Coming at the end of an active day, it is not the moment for a massive account of research. Rather it is an occasion when one may indulge with privilege in some directed impressionism, and that is what I (...) propose to do. (shrink)

Roger Bacon has often been victimized by his friends, who have exaggerated and distorted his place in the history of mathematics. He has too often been viewed as the first, or one of the first, to grasp the possibilities and promote the cause of modern mathematical physics. Even those who have noticed that Bacon was more given to the praise than to the practice of mathematics have seen in his programmatic statements an anticipation of seventeenth-century achievements. But if we judge (...) Bacon by twentieth-century criteria and pronounce him an anticipator of modern science, we will fail totally to understand his true contributions; for Bacon was not looking to the future, but responding to the past; he was grappling with ancient traditions and attempting to apply the truth thus gained to the needs of thirteenth-century Christendom. If we wish to understand Bacon, therefore, we must take a backward, rather than a forward, look; we must view him in relation to his predecessors and contemporaries rather than his successors; we must consider not his influence, but his sources and the use to which he put them. (shrink)

On the face of it, Plato's treatment of aisthesis is decidedly ambiguous. Sometimes he treats aisthesis as a faculty which, though distinct from all rational capacities, is nonetheless capable of forming judgments such as ‘This stick is bent’ or ‘The same thing is hard and soft’. In the Theaetetus, however, he appears to separate aisthesis from judgment, isolating the former from all prepositional, identificatory and recognitional capacities. The dilemma is easily expressed: Is perception a judgmental or cognitive capacity, or is (...) it a non-judgmental, non-cognitive capacity? If the former, how does perception differ from belief? If the latter, is perception a faculty of the rational or irrational soul? Not surprisingly, the topic has received much scrutiny over the years. And equally unsurprisingly, the debate has turned as much on what it means for a capacity to be judgmental, cognitive, non-judgmental or non-cognitive, as on whether Plato says that it is of either kind. (shrink)

It hardly needs to be said that the parallel between mental and physical health plays an important part in Plato's moral philosophy. One of the central claims of the Republicis that justice is to the soul what health is to the body.1 Similar points are made in other dialogues.2 This analogy between health and sickness on the one hand and virtue and vice on the other is closely connected to the so–called Socratic paradoxes. Throughout his life Plato seems to have (...) clung in some sense to the ideas that justice is our greatest good, that the unjust man is correspondingly miserable and that no one is therefore willingly unjust. It follows from these ideas that the unjust man, like the sick man, is in a wretched state which is not of his own choosing. (shrink)