Utilitarianism is often rejected on the grounds that it fails to respect the separateness of persons, instead treating people as mere “receptacles of value”. I develop several different versions of this objection, and argue that, despite their prima facie plausibility, they are all mistaken. Although there are crude forms of utilitarianism that run afoul of these objections, I advance a new form of the view—‘token-pluralistic utilitarianism’—that does not.

This essay undertakes a reexamination of the notion of the receptacle/chōra in Plato's Timaeus, asking what its value may be to feminists seeking to understand the topology of the feminine in Western philosophy. As the source of cosmic motion as well as a restless figurality, labile and polyvocal, the receptacle/chōra offers a fecund zone of destabilization that allows for an immanent critique of ancient metaphysics. Engaging with Derridean, Irigarayan, and Kristevan analyses, Bianchi explores whether receptacle/chōra can exceed (...) its reduction to the maternal-feminine, and remain answerable to contemporary theoretical concerns. (shrink)

This essay undertakes a reexamination of the notion of the receptacle/chōra in Plato's Timaeus, asking what its value may be to feminists seeking to understand the topology of the feminine in Western philosophy. As the source of cosmic motion as well as a restless figurality, labile and polyvocal, the receptacle/chōra offers a fecund zone of destabilization that allows for an immanent critique of ancient metaphysics. Engaging with Derridean, Irigarayan, and Kristevan analyses, Bianchi explores whether receptacle/chōra can exceed (...) its reduction to the maternal-feminine, and remain answerable to contemporary theoretical concerns. (shrink)

This essay undertakes a reexamination of the notion of the receptacle/chōra in Plato's Timaeus, asking what its value may be to feminists seeking to understand the topology of the feminine in Western philosophy. As the source of cosmic motion as well as a restless figurality, labile and polyvocal, the receptacle/chōra offers a fecund zone of destabilization that allows for an immanent critique of ancient metaphysics. Engaging with Derridean, Irigarayan, and Kristevan analyses, Bianchi explores whether receptacle/chōra can exceed (...) its reduction to the maternal-feminine, and remain answerable to contemporary theoretical concerns. (shrink)

After rejecting Carruthers' conflation of levels of consciousness as implausible and conceptually muddled, and Carruthers' claim that nonhumans are automata as undermined by evolutionary and ethological considerations, we develop a general criticism of contemporary philosophical approaches which, though recognizing nonhuman consciousness, still see animals as mere receptacles of experiences. This is, we argue, due to the fact that, while in the case of humans we grant a self - something that has not only a descriptive but also a prescriptive side, (...) requiring at least non-interference - in the case of nonhumans we focus only on the descriptive aspects. Consequently, we treat humans as equals whatever their capacities, but we order nonhumans in a hierarchy based on their cognitive level. We conclude that such double standards are not only inconsistent but also self-serving. (shrink)

This paper looks at the question of what regions of space are possibly exactly occupied by a material object.

The Receptacle of the title is, of course, the ‘Receptacle of all becoming’ in Plato’s Timaeus. Plato likens it to a ‘nurse’, and even calls it a ‘mother’. He speaks of it as that in which its contents come to be, only in their turn to disappear from it. He compares it to a mass of gold which someone incessantly remoulds into different shape. He declares it completely unchanging: ‘it does not depart from its own character in any (...) way'. What is its character? It is the character of possessing and acquiring no character similar to that of any of the objects said to enter it and disappear from it. Plato says too that it is space; the receptacle is what makes it true that each of those objects is somewhere. And finally, as if he had not already given us far too much to digest of this very rich subject, Plato adds that the Receptacle shakes its contents with a sort of winnowing motion, and in fact was already doing this even before the craftsman god had formed this world of ours. The question of this paper is: what is the function of this multifariously conceived entity, or principle, the Receptacle? I shall approach by asking what its contents are. (shrink)

This note concerns a recent paper by Hud Hudson on the nature of 'receptacles'. It simplifies the mathematics in Hudson's paper, and it eliminates almost all of the topology in Hudson's arguments.

This paper aims to show that—and how—Plato’s notion of the receptacle in the Timaeus provides the conditions for developing a mathematical as well as a physical space without itself being space. In response to the debate whether Plato’s receptacle is a conception of space or of matter, I suggest employing criteria from topology and the theory of metric spaces as the most basic ones available. I show that the receptacle fulfils its main task–allowing the elements qua images (...) of the Forms to exist as sensible things by being that in which the elements appear, change and move–in virtue of being pure continuity. All further qualifications required for a full notion of space are derived solely from the content of the receptacle. (shrink)

The ‘traditional’ interpretation of the Receptacle in Plato’s Timaeus maintains that its parts act as substrata to ordinary particulars such as dogs and tables: particulars are form-matter compounds to which Forms supply properties and the Receptacle supplies a substratum, as well as a space in which these compounds come to be. I argue, against this view, that parts of the Receptacle cannot act as substrata for those particulars. I also argue, making use of contemporary discussions of supersubstantivalism, (...) against a substratum interpretation that separates substratum and space in the Timaeus. (shrink)

Ueshiba Morihei (1883-1969), créateur de l’aikidō, fonde son « budō » (voie martiale) avec Deguchi Onisaburō (1871-1948), dirigeant de l’Ōmoto-kyō, l’une des « nouvelles religions » japonaises. Ils conçoivent le budō comme « la voie de création et d’ordonnancement de l’univers » en opposition aux « budō corporels » influencés par le modèle occidental du sport. Selon eux, l’Occident, « matérialiste », a profondément modifié les pratiques japonaises de telle sorte que le vécu du corps comme shintai, comme réceptacle des (...) kami (esprits ou divinités) lors des transes de possession est en voie de se perdre, et avec lui tout un monde. Le corps de possession rend communiquant les mondes : avec sa perte, il n’y a plus de transgressions possibles des frontières ontologiques ; l’homme ne peut plus s’unir à sa racine et retrouver sa totalité ; les animaux, les plantes et les pierres ne parlent plus et le dieu originel unique devient inaccessible, caché dans « l’imperceptible de l’imperceptible ». (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to describe Whitehead’s specific interpretation of what was originally Plato’s concept of the "receptacle". Whitehead, in line with his own process philosophy, understands Plato’s concept of the "receptacle" as a personal unity that, in its structural character, expresses the general principle that determines the constitution of the whole of our reality. The author of this paper begins by briefly describing Plato’s concept of hypodoché. The author then goes on to present Whitehead’s specific (...) interpretation of this concept, which allows him to elaborate the potential parallels between Whitehead’s interpretation of hypodoché and his concept of "eternal objects". Finally, the author attempts to find the answer to a fundamental philosophical question: what in reality corresponds to Whitehead’s concept of "eternal objects". He suggests that a possible answer may be found in the General Systems Theory of Ludwig von Bertalanffy. (shrink)

One short passage on what is called the Receptacle in Plato’s Timaeus has been the subject of much controversy since Cherniss presented an alternative reading of it in 1954. In this paper, I criticize an influential argument presented by Zeyl for a traditional reading, and propose a new interpretation which adopts the alternative reading on important sentences of the passage, but is not accompanied by the defects of Cherniss’ interpretation.

The chora is one of the most perplexing as well as neglected concepts in Whitehead's metaphysics. Explicitly drawing on Plato's Receptacle, Whitehead reinterprets the chora as the place, in between physics and metaphysics, where connections among actual entities happen. However, the relation between Whitehead's and Plato's choral remains widely unexplored. This article aims to correct this oversight By comparing the two philosophers, I intend to argue that, differences aside, the two philosophers adopted the chora to answer the common question (...) as to how things can be identified in the flux of events. In this way, I hope not only to clarify the obscure role of the chora in Whitehead's metaphysics and its relation to Plato, but also to explore the complex process of identification. (shrink)

At Timaeus 48e2–52d4 Timaeus sets out to establish that there are three principles or kinds underlying the creation of the cosmos, not just the two he acknowledged earlier. The way he does so is not simply by adding an account of the third kind to the accounts of being and becoming that he has already given. Rather he does so by showing how each of the three differs from the others. It has not been noticed how this procedure structures the (...) receptacle passage. The passage divides up into three parts, each punctuated by a list of the three kinds in a significant order. If we take X, Y and Z to stand for ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘receptacle’ ’ respectively, the structure is X≠Z, X≠Y, Y≠Z. By showing the distinctness of each pair, Timaeus demonstrates that all the kinds are distinct and that they are indeed three in number. (shrink)

In the Timaeus, Plato’s Timaeus offers an account of the sensible world in terms of “images” of forms. Often, images are taken to be particulars: either objects or particular property instances (tropes). Contrary to this trend, I argue that images are general characteristics which are immanent in the receptacle, or bundles of such characteristics. Thus, the entire sensible world can be analysed in terms of immanent general characteristics, the receptacle, and forms. Hence, for Timaeus, fundamentally, there are no (...) sensible particulars. I end by arguing that my interpretation is compatible with Timaeus’ construction of sensible entities from triangles. (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)

In this article I argue that "Timaeus" 48e-52d, the passage in which Plato introduces the receptacle into his ontology, Contains the material for a satisfactory response to the third man argument. Plato's use of "this" and "such" to distinguish the receptacle, Becoming, And the forms clarifies the nature of his ontology and indicates that the forms are not, In general, self-predicative. This result removes one argument against regarding the "Timaeus" as a late dialogue.

The aim of this paper is to provide a new reading of Plato’s precosmos (Ti. 52d2–53c3). More specifically, I shall argue that the precosmos is populated by bodies deriving from random complexes of properties, and that this is the effect of the Receptacle’s full precosmic participation in the Paradigm. This will turn out to be consistent with a robust notion of ‘precosmic generation’ and will reveal why Plato may have sought to refer to this otherwise puzzling scenario: representing the (...) precosmos in this way allows Plato to effectively justify why the Demiurge is responsible only for the goodness and perfection of the universe, and why it is properly the best possible cause. (shrink)

Singer’s much-discussed replaceability argument states that non-self-conscious animals may be killed and replaced by new animals that will lead equally valuable lives. If sound, this argument can be used to justify the cycle of raising and killing animals for food. Thus, many have argued that Singer’s theory, and utilitarianism in general, while committed to this argument, offers inadequate protection to animals. However, some utilitarians reject the argument and Singer himself was rather tentative in preventing its additional application to self-conscious beings. (...) This tension, within utilitarianism, about how to best deal with the argument is the core of what I call ‘the problem of replaceability’. My main goal here is to provide a precise description of this problem. Firstly, I distinguish between the general question of replacement permissibility and the specific question of whether (a certain version of) utilitarianism implies the replaceability argument. Focusing on the specific question I set the problem apart from other known objections to utilitarianism, like the value receptacles objection and some replacement-like difficulties. I also compare two versions of the replaceability argument and advance a better one. Finally, I point out how different interpretations of the argument affect the way out of the problem. I hope this understanding of the problem offers helpful insight to possible solutions and to further investigate its importance to animal food production and animals’ moral status. (shrink)

In the Timaeus, Plato famously acknowledges the receptacle as extremely difficult to comprehend. It is neither intelligible (which is reserved exclusively for the Forms) nor sense-perceptible (as it is a principle far too basic). Instead, as Plato proposes, the receptacle can only be apprehended through a “bastard” sort of “reasoning” (νόθος λογισμός, Tim. 52b1-2.). This paper explores an exegesis of Plato’s claim as offered by Calcidius, the 4th century translator of and commentator on the Timaeus. I identify two (...) distinctive methods Calcidius advances when grappling with the knowability of the material substratum that underpins our world. The first method – analysis (resolutio) – traces its intellectual lineage to earlier philosophical tradition, and Calcidius primarily uses it to uncover the proper nature and ontological characteristics of matter. Conversely, the second method corresponds to the only cognitive grasp of matter Calcidius believes humans are capable of. In his view, we can neither sense-perceive nor rationally understand matter. Instead, matter yields itself only to the cognitive mode of suspicion (suspicio). The paper provides a detailed analysis of Calcidius’ suspicio, delving into its intricacies and exploring the interrelationships between suspicio and resolutio. As such it offers a pioneering and comprehensive exploration of Calcidius’ account of the knowability of matter. (shrink)

How does Plotinus interpret the chora in Plato’s Timaeus? For him, Timaeus 48e‑52d deals with matter (hyle). The identification of chora with hyle goes back to Aristotle’s Physics IV.2. Aristotle’s interpretation of Plato’s chora as matter was echoed by Theophrastus and the Stoics and prevailed in Middle‑Platonist, neo‑Pythagorean and early Christian authors. In addition to the identification of chora with hyle, the ancient interpreters of the Timaeus conflated hyle with Plato’s ananke (Tim. 47e‑48a). Plato himself distinguishes between chora and ananke. (...) The latter denotes everything that appears in the “receptacle” prior to the ordering of the world by the demiurge, while chora is another name for the receptacle itself. In Plato, the receptacle accounts for the fact both that there are transient images of intelligible beings and that these images appear to occupy a place, i.e. that they are spatially extended. This is why the receptacle is given its alternative name “ground” (chora) and why it is also called “place” (topos) and “seat” (hedra). Although the receptacle itself cannot be spatially extended in the same way as that which appears “in it”, it is the cause of spatial extension. For Plotinus, two characteristics of matter are of primary importance : lack of size and impassibility. In the treatise II.4.[12].2‑5, he highlights the former, and in III.6[26].7‑19 he elaborates on the latter, while commenting once again on the former. In III.6[26].7‑19, he argues that this conception of matter is in line with how Plato conceives of it in the Timaeus. The “receptacle” cannot be acted upon (paschein) nor can it possess any size (megethos). Only the images of true beings “in” it can. In doing so, however, they make matter appear to “stretch out” alongside themselves. But this is not actually the case, because matter itself has no extension. On one point, however, Plotinus’ account differs from Plato’s. According to Plotinus, not only does matter not possess size, but it is not the cause of size either. The size of the appearances derives from the formulas (logoi) of which these appearances are images. Each formula encompasses within itself the measure of the size that its image will assume : the formula of horse encompasses the size of a particular horse, the formula of human being the size of a particular human being. Plotinus describes in more detail how a formula, in unfolding out of the soul, “stretches out”, thus acquiring size. He also makes a comparison between this process and the way in which formulas in the human soul display images of themselves in our image‑making faculty. He characterises this process as a motion starting from the formula and resulting in its “division” (merismos). This is what makes the image of the formula extended, i.e. divided partes extra partes, when it appears against the invisible background of matter. Since matter neither possesses size nor is the cause of it, it can be called “ground” (chora), “place” (topos) or “seat” (hedra) only in an improper way. (shrink)

argues that when reproduction is sexual, natural selection can explain why individual organisms possess the traits they do. In stating his argument Matthen makes use of a conception of individual organisms as receptacles for collections of genes—a conception that cannot do the work Matthen requires of it. Either these receptacles are abstract objects, such as bare possibilities for organisms, or they are concrete. The first reading is too weak, since it allows selection to explain individual traits in both sexual and (...) asexual contexts. The only concrete entities we might think of as receptacles for collections of genes are male or female gametes. It is true that in the sexual context selection explains why an individual gamete combines with a second gamete of one type rather than another; however, this is not to say that selection explains why an individual organism has the traits it does. (shrink)

Hud Hudson offers a fascinating examination of philosophical reasons to believe in hyperspace. He explores non-theistic reasons in the first chapter and theistic ones towards the end; in the intervening sections he inquires into a variety of puzzles in the metaphysics of material objects that are either generated by the hypothesis of hyperspace or else informed by it, with discussions of receptacles, boundaries, contact, occupation, and superluminal motion. Anyone engaged with contemporary metaphysics, and many philosophers of religion, will find much (...) to stimulate them here. (shrink)

In Esther Bick’s psychoanalytic theory, the infant’s relation to the world is mediated by the skin’s capacity to serve as a container for experience. As the infant develops, containment increasingly expresses cohesion of self, as fostered by the continued interaction with the caretaker. Through an emphasis on particular forms of interaction — forms that specifically involve skin-to-skin touch — an infant is given the receptacle necessary for eventual interactive self-sufficiency. But what if the skin were not a container? What (...) if the skin were not a limit at which self begins and ends? What if the skin were a porous, topological surfacing of myriad potential strata that field the relation between different milieus, each of them a multiplicity of insides and outsides? This article explores these questions through Daniel Stern’s account of infancy. (shrink)

Ockham's razor is popularly phrased as a prohibition against multiplying entities beyond necessity. This prohibition should extend to the receptacle for these entities. To state my thesis more positively and precisely, both qualitative and quantitative parsimony apply to space, time, and possibility. All other things equal, we ought to prefer a hypothesis that postulates less space. Smaller is better. Admittedly, scientists are ambivalent about economizing on the void. They praise simplicity. Yet astronomers have a history of helping themselves to (...) as much empty space as they wish—staggering common sense with the vastness of the universe. This largesse is abetted by an aesthetic bias for sublime hypotheses. Whereas abductions based on beauty converge with parsimony, abductions based on the sublime diverge from parsimony. Awe stifles our inner accountant. Both types of abduction are popular. Both are dubious because we lack independent assurance that the universe is beautiful or sublime. The analogy between space and time supports an extension of parsimony to time. Uniformitarian geologists regarded time as a free resource. However, geologists and cosmologists must justify their postulation of an immense past. Possibility follows suit. Contrary to David Lewis, possible worlds should be minimized. Parsimony about possibilities provides a rationale for parsimony about absences. Absences are possibilities that are not actual. So proliferation of absences entails proliferation of possibilities. We should admit only those absences which do explanatory work. (shrink)

One often hears a complaint about “bare particulars”. This complaint has bugged me for years. I know it bugs others too, but no one seems to have vented in print, so that is what I propose to do. (I hope also to say a few constructive things along the way.) The complaint is aimed at the substratum theory, which says that particulars are, in a certain sense, separate from their universals. If universals and particulars are separate, connected to each other (...) only by a relation of instantiation, then, it is said, the nature of these particulars becomes mysterious. In themselves, they do not have any properties at all. They are nothing but a pincushion into which universals may be poked. They are Locke’s “I know not what” (1689, II, xxiii, §2); they are Plato’s receptacles (Timaeus 48c–53c); they are “bare particulars”.1 Against substratum theory there is the bundle theory, according to which particulars are just bundles of universals. The substratum and bundle theories agree on much. They agree that both universals and particulars exist. And they agree that a particular in some sense has universals. (I use phrases like ‘particular P has universal U ’ and ‘particular P ’s universals’ neutrally as between the substratum and bundle theories.) But the bundle theory says that a particular is exhaustively composed of (i.e., is a mereological fusion of) its universals. The substratum theory, on the other hand, denies this. Take a particular, and mereologically subtract away its universals. Is anything left? According to the bundle theory, no. But according to the substratum theory, something is indeed left. Call this remaining something a thin particular. The thin particular does not contain the universals as parts; it instantiates them. (shrink)

Plato's Timaeus is one of the most influential and challenging works of ancient philosophy to have come down to us. Sarah Broadie's rich and compelling study proposes new interpretations of major elements of the Timaeus, including the separate Demiurge, the cosmic 'beginning', the 'second mixing', the Receptacle and the Atlantis story. Broadie shows how Plato deploys the mythic themes of the Timaeus to convey fundamental philosophical insights and examines the profoundly differing methods of interpretation which have been brought to (...) bear on the work. Her book is for everyone interested in Ancient Greek philosophy, cosmology and mythology, whether classicists, philosophers, historians of ideas or historians of science. It offers new findings to scholars familiar with the material, but it is also a clear and reliable resource for anyone coming to it for the first time. (shrink)

Plato's Timaeus contains a powerful and influential myth, of the construction of the universe by a divine craftsman. A god imposes reason on necessity, to bring order from a primeval 'receptacle' of disordered matter. There results the 'child' that is the cosmos - a copy of an eternally-existing perfect model. Here eight new essays from a distinguished international cast, explore aspects of this challenging work: the principles of the mythical narrative, how the world soul and human body are formed, (...) implications for illness - mental and physical, the importance of music and harmonious proportion. Later developments are also treated: Aristotle's theory of generation, the commentary of Proclus and elements of modern evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Where do we come from? Are we merely a cluster of elementary particles in a gigantic world receptacle? And what does it all mean? In this highly original new book, the philosopher Markus Gabriel challenges our notion of what exists and what it means to exist. He questions the idea that there is a world that encompasses everything like a container life, the universe, and everything else. This all-inclusive being does not exist and cannot exist. For the world itself (...) is not found in the world. And even when we think about the world, the world about which we think is obviously not identical with the world in which we think. For, as we are thinking about the world, this is only a very small event in the world. Besides this, there are still innumerable other objects and events: rain showers, toothaches and the World Cup. Drawing on the recent history of philosophy, Gabriel asserts that the world cannot exist at all, because it is not found in the world. Yet with the exception of the world, everything else exists; even unicorns on the far side of the moon wearing police uniforms. Revelling in witty thought experiments, word play, and the courage of provocation, Markus Gabriel demonstrates the necessity of a questioning mind and the role that humour can play in coming to terms with the abyss of human existence. (shrink)

By considering the museum itself as art, rather than as a receptacle, Hein's Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently argues for an improved understanding of the role museums play in shaping public discourse.

God -- On the cognitivity of mystical experiences -- The problem of evil -- God eternal and Paul helm -- A new cosmological argument, co-authored with Alexander Pruss -- A response to oppy and to Davey and Clifton -- Co-authored with Alexander Pruss -- The ecumenicalism of William James -- Time -- Is it now now? -- McTaggart's analysis of time -- The egocentric particular and token-reflexive analyses of tense -- The impossibility of backward causation -- An identity theory of (...) the A- and B-series -- Co-authored with Michelle Beer -- Disanalogies between space and time -- Nonbeing -- Negative statements -- On what there isn't -- Nonbeing and the receptacle -- Could logical space be empty? (shrink)

Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the archaeologist Christopher Witmore, who defend radical positions in their respective fields. Against a current and pervasive conviction that reality consists of an unceasing flux-a view associated in philosophy with New Materialism-object-oriented ontology asserts that objects of all varieties are the bedrock of reality from which time emerges. And against the narrative convictions of time as the (...) course of historical events, the objects and encounters associated with archaeology push back against the very temporal delimitations which defined the field and its objects ever since its professionalization in the nineteenth century. In a study ranging from the ruins of ancient Corinth, Mycenae, and Troy to debates over time from Aristotle and al-Ash'ari through Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, the authors draw on alternative conceptions of time as retroactive, percolating, topological, cyclical, and generational, as consisting of countercurrents or of a surface tension between objects and their own qualities. Objects Untimely invites us to reconsider the modern notion of objects as inert matter serving as a receptacle for human categories"-. (shrink)

Newtonian mechanics has a container conception of space. Space is regarded as an empty receptacle in which all material bodies exist. For a long time, most defenders of this view claimed that it must be mind-dependent. Anton Marty is the first modern philosopher to argue both that physical space is mind-independent and that it has the features characteristic of Newtonian physical space. Moreover, he works out a number of metaphysical implications of this view. Therefore, Marty ought to be given (...) a prominent place in the history of conceptions of space. As shown by Graham Nerlich, a container conception can be defended even after the twentieth-century revolutions in physics. By bringing Marty and Nerlich together, the paper claims that a container conception of space/space-time should even today be taken seriously in the philosophy of physics. (shrink)

This book argues that, rather than being conceived merely as a hindrance, the body contributes constructively in the fashioning of a Platonic unified self. The Phaedo shows awareness that the indeterminacy inherent in the body infects the validity of any scientific argument but also provides the subject of inquiry with the ability to actualize, to the extent possible, the ideal self. The Republic locates bodily desires and needs in the tripartite soul. Achievement of maximal unity is dependent upon successful training (...) of the rational part of the soul, but the earlier curriculum of Books 2 and 3, which aims at instilling a pre-reflectively virtuous disposition in the lower parts of the soul, is a prerequisite for the advanced studies of Republic 7. In the Timaeus, the world soul is fashioned out of Being, Sameness, and Difference: an examination of the Sophist and the Parmenides reveals that Difference is to be identified with the Timaeus Receptacle, the third ontological principle which emerges as the quasi-material component that provides each individual soul with the alloplastic capacity for psychological growth and alteration. (shrink)

Because of the widespread feminine priority that makes it the receptacle of śakti, India is definitely “one of the last bastions of the Mother,” as is pointed out in a recent book. If in fact there is a “maternalistic” culture it is certainly that of India, in spite of the legal regime, in which the element of affectionate magic characterizing all life and all organic intimacy is affirmed through the warm symbiosis of mother-child love. A miracle of that absolute (...) love incarnated with a natural serenity by millions of mothers dispensing a felicitous affectionate security, instilled in the Indian soul throughout its entire life. The traits of the Hindu personality and the principle content of its culture are organized and ordered around this center, characterized by an extraordinary coherence. Since its construction begins with this “dual unity” the Hindu personality has necessarily the popolarity of fusion-separation as a pivot. This is the central theme of S. Kakar, who, basing his conclusions on results of clinical psychoanalyses of Hindu individuals as well as on contributions from the collective imagination (folklore and myths) claims to discern the ontogenetic source of the supreme ideal of deliverance (mokṣa) in early childhood and, more specifically, in the strong unconscious desire to find again the benevolent presence of the “good mother”. (shrink)

Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented (...) upon are Plato's concepts of 'necessity' and 'teleology', the nature of the 'receptacle', the relationship between the soul and the body, the use of perception in cosmology, and the work's peculiar monologue form. The unifying theme is teleology: Plato's attempt to show the cosmos to be organised for the good. A central lesson which emerges is that the Timaeus is closer to Aristotle's physics than previously thought. (shrink)