Citations of:
Plato's Cosmology [Book Review]
Journal of Philosophy 34 (26):717 (1937)
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) |
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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. |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) |
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_ 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. |
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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. |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) |
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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, (...) No categories |
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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. (...) No categories |
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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. |
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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 (...) |
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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’ (...) |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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' (...) |
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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, (...) |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) |
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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, (...) |
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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, (...) No categories |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) |
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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 (...) No categories |
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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 (...) No categories |
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