Apeiron 28 (2):113 - 140 (
1995)
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Abstract
In Republic VI 508e-9b Plato has Socrates claim that the Good is the cause
(αίτίαν) of truth and knowledge as well as the very being of the Forms.
Consequently, as causes must be distinct from and superior to their
effects, the Good is neither truth nor knowledge nor even being, but
exceeds them all in beauty (509a), as well as in honour and power (509b).
No other passage in Plato has had a more intoxicating effect on its
readers. To take just one example, James Adam was moved to quote St.
Paul when he remarked about this passage that, 'it is highly characteristic
of Plato's whole attitude that he finds the true keystone of the
Universe — the ultimate fountain from which both Knowledge and
Existence flow — in no cold and colourless ontological abstraction, like
Being, but in that for which "all creation groans and labours".