_Plato's 'Timaeus'_ brings together a number of studies from both leading Plato specialists and up-and-coming researchers from across Europe, opening new perspectives on familiar problems, while shedding light on less well-known passages.

The paper examines the account of the mortal parts of the human soul in theTimaeus. What is their nature? What is their relationship to the immortal part of the soul and its inner structure on the one hand, and to the body and its organs and their functioning on the other? Are they incorporeal or corporeal? What kind of movement do they have? In what sense precisely are they ‘another kind of soul’ ?

The author emphasizes the fact that the largest part of Plato’s Timaeus deals with human nature and offers a detailed account of the constitution of the human body. He then lists the parallels and the differences between the constitution of the world body and the human body. The central part of the paper deals with Plato’s explanation of the persistence of the human body within a bodily environment which causes its dissolution. The author pays a special attention to Plato’s theory (...) of the apparatus which keeps running the processes of respiration, digestion and blood circulation. In the concluding section, the author raises thequestion of the relationship between human body and human soul. He shows that, in Plato’s Timaeus, the human body functions to a large extent independently from human soul. One possible reason for this theory is Plato’s conception of the immortal soul. While the human body exists in order to harbour the immortal soul, the latter does not produce and preserve it nor does it cause its dissolution. It only exercises cognitive and ruling functions in it as long as the body is able to hold together and to detain the soul. (shrink)

The paper deals with a series of writings on Plato and Platonism issued by Jan Patočka in the immediate post-war period. In Eternity and Historicity, he contrasts Platonism as metaphysics of being with Socratism as questioning the meaning of human existence, and criticizes modern forms of Platonism of ethical values interpreted as objectively valid norms. In lectures on Plato, he explains Plato’s theory of Forms in terms of Husserl’s theory of horizontal intentionality and Heidegger’s theory of ontological difference. Similarly, in (...) Negative Platonism he interprets Plato’s theory of Forms in terms of a distinction he makes between between the eidetic contents and the transcendental character of the Platonic Idea. The latter is the necessary condition of the former but it does not constitute an intelligible object of its own. Patočka suggests retaining the Platonic notion of transcendence while dissociating it from the metaphysics of intelligible Forms. The paper puts these post-war writings on Plato and Platonism into the context of Patočka’s search for his own position as a phenomenologist. (shrink)

Po disputacích k tématům Filosofie nepředmětnosti Ladislava Hejdánka a Nekonečnost konečnosti podle Ivana Chvatíka uspořádala Katedra filosofie Evangelické teologické fakulty UK v Praze dne 29. června 2009 v pořadí již třetí pokus o výměnu mezi domácími filosofy. Tentokrát však nebyl východiskem diskusí programový text některého z účastníků, ale Platónův výklad o nejvyšších rodech v dialogu Sofistés. Tomuto textu se zde dostalo trojí velmi odlišné interpretace, kterou bychom snad mohli vzdáleně přirovnat k liternímu, morálnímu a alegorickému neboli naukovému pochopení posvátného textu (...) Písma. Filip Karfík nabízí co možná přesný výklad Platónova textu, Štěpán Špinka sleduje etické implikace Platónovy ontologie, konečně Pavlu Koubovi je pasáž ze Sofisty záminkou pro velmi zajímavé vyrovnání s Heideggerovým pojetím bytí v jeho rozštěpu na bytí jsoucna výskytového a bytí pobytu, o to zajímavější, že je provedeno prostředky Heideggerova vlastního výkladu dialogu Sofistés. Na příspěvek Pavla Kouby navazuje diskuse o zdánlivě dílčím aspektu jeho výkladu, totiž o otázce, zda identitu chceme, nebo nechceme chápat pouze jako dějství diferujících vztahů. V zájmu historické věrnosti třeba poznamenat, že tato diskuse proběhla na disputaci samé jen částečně, zato se zde odehrálo mnoho pozoruhodných diskusí dalších, které nebylo možné svěřit písemnému zachycení. Mnohé se nicméně podařilo zachytit médiem jiným, totiž na fotografiích Věry Koubové, jež jsou uveřejněny na stránkách katedry. (shrink)

Review on James Wilberding, Plotinus’ Cosmology. A Study of Ennead II.1 . Text, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006.

The paper raises the question of the relationship between the description of the soul as logos and the description of its cognitive activities as logismos in Plotinus’ Enneads V, 1 [10] et IV, 3 [27]. It first offers an interpretation of the definition of the soul as a logos of the intellect in V, 1 [10]. Then it scrutinises the use of the terms logismos and logizesthai in the same treatise and compares it to a similar use of these terms (...) in IV, 3 [27]. In both treatises, these terms refer to two distinct cognitive activities of the soul, one of which is the activity of a soul remaining in the intelligible realm and contemplating the cognitive contents of the divine intellect, while the other one denotes the defective cognitive activity of an embodied soul. In its concluding section the paper deals with Plotinus’ explanation, in IV, 3 [27], 30, of how the accomplished cognitive activity atthe level of the soul as logos of the intellect becomes a defective logismos at the level of an embodied soul. The author stresses the role of the embodied soul’s faculty of representation. (shrink)

The paper raises the question of the relationship between the description of the soul as logos and the description of its cognitive activities as logismos in Plotinus’ Enneads V, 1 [10] et IV, 3 [27]. It first offers an interpretation of the definition of the soul as a logos of the intellect in V, 1 [10]. Then it scrutinises the use of the terms logismos and logizesthai in the same treatise and compares it to a similar use of these terms (...) in IV, 3 [27]. In both treatises, these terms refer to two distinct cognitive activities of the soul, one of which is the activity of a soul remaining in the intelligible realm and contemplating the cognitive contents of the divine intellect, while the other one denotes the defective cognitive activity of an embodied soul. In its concluding section the paper deals with Plotinus’ explanation, in IV, 3 [27], 30, of how the accomplished cognitive activity atthe level of the soul as logos of the intellect becomes a defective logismos at the level of an embodied soul. The author stresses the role of the embodied soul’s faculty of representation. (shrink)

There is a remarkable difference between the accounts of time in Plotinus' Enneads vi 5 [23] 11, iv 4 [28] 15-16 and iii 7 [45] 11. In vi 5 [23] 11, Plotinus does not introduce time into soul, nor into a part or power of it because he holds that soul belongs to the sort of being which has no extension, spatial or temporal. In iv 4 [28] 15-16, he considers the thesis that time, in its very existence, is linked (...) to the soul but he rejects the idea that there is time in the World Soul. In iii 7 [45] 11, however, he affirms that time exists only in soul, more precisely in a part or power of it, and suggests that it is first and foremost the World Soul that makes itself temporal. It seems that Plotinus' philosophy of time developed over the years. From the emphasis laid on the thesis that soul has no spatial extension, characteristic of his earlier writings, Plotinus interest shifted gradually to the question whether or not it has a temporal extension. He also seems to have changed his mind on the question of the temporality of the World Soul. Finally, while speaking, in iii 7 [45] 11, of the soul's making itself temporal, he apparently contends that just a specific part or power of soul ± be it the World Soul or the human soul - is doing so. (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)

This last chapter presents highlights from the history of the reception of Proclus’ thought. It starts with the reception in late antiquity and the Middle Ages, and subsequently discusses Renaissance and modernity. For the Greek tradition, the authors show how Damascius and pseudo-Dionysius adopt and adapt Proclus’ thought, and briefly touch on a Byzantine critic of Proclus: Nicholas of Methone. For the Arabic reception the authors show how the Discourse on the Pure Good adjusts Proclean metaphysics to Muslim and Christian (...) revelation. For the Latin tradition, Thomas Aquinas’ ‘triangulation’ between different sources, and the fourteenth-century German reworking of Proclus are presented. The authors then discuss the fascinating manuscript tradition of the Renaissance, the metaphysical/theological revival of Neoplatonism in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, the reception of Proclus’ mathematics and astronomy in early modern thought, and finally another revival of Neoplatonic metaphysics, in German Idealism. (shrink)