Plato: Timaeus

A standard interpretation of Plato’s metaphysics holds that sensible particulars are images of Forms. Such particulars are fairly independent, like Aristotelian substances. I argue that this is incorrect: Platonic particulars are not Form images but aggregates of Form images, which are property-instances. Timaeus 49e-50a focuses on “this-suches” and even goes so far as to claim that they compose other things. I argue that Form images are this-suches, which are tropes. I also examine the geometrical account, showing that the geometrical constituents (...) of the elements are also Form images. Thus everything in the sensible world is composed of tropes. (shrink)

I offer a comparison between Plato’s discussion of χώρα in the Timaeus at 48A–53C and Aristotle’s discussion of τόπος in Physics Book IV, arguing that the two accounts have more in common than has been suggested by Continental scholars. Τόπος and χώρα both signal what I call the impasse of place as the question of that which cannot be reduced to either the sensible or the intelligible, and which grounds such categories. Identifying this impasse reveals Plato’s and Aristotle’s accounts of (...) “place” as strikingly dissimilar from the Newtonian category of Absolute Space; and it also suggests new ways of thinking the relationships between bodies, motion, place and nature. (shrink)

This paper develops a structural parallel between the maternal/feminine body in Greek mythology and the figure of the body in Plato’s Timaeus. HistoricallyPlato is often portrayed as a thinker who is concerned with the corporeal only insofar as philosophy is engaged in transcending bodily limitations. Yet the Timaeus is not engaged in producing a dualistic opposition between the intelligible and the sensible, nor is Platonic philosophy a rejection of life in favor of the perfect wisdom that comes with death. The (...) following work will suggest that the Timaeus is a dialogue deeply concerned with the question of birth and corporeality and that this concern is disclosed in and through Timaeus’s evocation of the body. (shrink)

Although a great deal has been written on Plato's ethics, his cosmology has not received so much attention in recent times and its importance for his ethical thought has remained underexplored. By offering accounts of Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus and Laws X, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between the cosmic and human sphere. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with structure and intrinsic value, which both urges our respect (...) and calls for our responsible intervention. Humans are thus seen as citizens of a university that can provide a context for their flourishing even in the absence of good political institutions. The book sheds light on many intricate metaphysical issues in late Plato and brings out the close connections between his cosmology and the development of his ethics. (shrink)

This paper will attempt to show that the interlude on necessity in the Timaeus narrative introduces a dualism into the Platonic cosmology, and that it is the material principle which is the positive cause of the disorder in the world. Furthermore, one can notice that in this work Plato is heading toward a concept of sensible substance that is close to the one which Aristotle will be defending.

This University of Münster dissertation deals with the problem of how to interpret the coming-into-being of the world as described in the Timaeus: does Plato really mean that the world was generated or is his account merely a mythical expression of the composition of a world which is eternal? Scheffel shows how this issue has divided both ancient and modern interpreters: Aristotle, Vlastos, and Hackforth, for example, taking the former view; Xenocrates and the Academy, A. E. Taylor, Cherniss, and Cornford (...) taking the latter. In this book Scheffel argues for the "Aristotelian" view and develops the positions of Vlastos and Hackforth. In a preparatory section he briefly presents two ancient proponents of his position, Aristotle and Plutarch, noting that Plato's Laws does not support Plutarch's conception of an evil soul animating the unordered chaos of the Timaeus. In the main part of the book Scheffel comments on the text of the Timaeus, organizing his exposition into chapters on "The Exposition of the Cosmogony," "The Concept of Space in the Timaeus," "The Doctrine of Movement in the Timaeus," "The Concept of Soul in the Timaeus," "The Platonic Distinction between First and Second Causes." Some subordinate issues are also discussed, in particular that of the possible contradiction between the eternal soul of the Phaedrus and the generated soul of the Timaeus. Scheffel's final position on the main issue is that Plato in the Timaeus means that the world is generated, not in time, but in an "einmalige überzeitliche Formungsakt" by the demiurge. This is perhaps not all that distant from the old position which concluded that to be generated outside time is to be causally dependent in some non-temporal way on the eternal. Scheffel does not appear, however, to have thought out what an "einmalige überzeitliche Formungsakt" might turn out to be. His argument is not always very convincing and this is unlikely to be the last word on an interesting and important problem.--D.O. (shrink)

It seems that the Timaeus is independent of the Critias, that the Critias is incomplete, and that the two dialogues are parts of a tetralogy contemplated but not completed by Plato. As Welliver remarks, most commentators have taken these seeming facts to be facts; some have proffered outlines of the supposed tetralogy; some have explained its supposed incompleteness by making Plato old and weary. Welliver believes that the Timaeus-Critias is a complete dramatic work, and most of his book represents an (...) attempt to justify this belief. (shrink)

The eschatological myth in the tenth book of the Laws contains a paragraph which purports to explain why, in the next world, efficient treatmentof souls according to their deserts is ‘marvellously easy’.

This paper has two main aims: first, to set forth an analysis of Timaeus 48E-52D and then to explore the significance of those pages for our understanding of Plato’s metaphysics. Students of the “Receptacle” in Plato’s Timaeus have given close attention to the many metaphors he offers in his explanation of its nature. Less attention has been given to the overall structure of the passage in which he presents it. In this paper, I attempt to show that Plato’s exposition there (...) exhibits a coherent and very careful design. But once that design is grasped, it can be seen that his extended account of the Receptacle must properly be understood to treat a rather different subject: the nature of an image, rather than the nature of the Receptacle, is the focal concern uniting the whole of 48E-52D. (shrink)

A reprint of the Routledge edition of 1935.

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence that the Form of the Good (as we know it from the Republic) is still present in the Timaeus and is ontologically independent from the Demiurge and his Paradigm. This claim is supported by selected passages from Timaeus’ text, but it is also based on Phaedo’s theory of causation and on the simile of the sun in Republic. It is also highlighted after a detailed comparison between the philosopher-kings and the Demiurge, (...) and after the emergence of their striking similarities. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to discuss Aristotle’s account of homonymy. The major thesis advocated here is that Aristotle considers both entities and words to be homonymous, depending on the object of his criticism. Thus, when he takes issue with Plato, he tends to view homonymy more ontologically, upon which it is entities that become homonymous. When, on the other hand, he gainsays the exegetes or the sophists, he is inclined to perceive homonymy more semantically, upon which it is (...) words that become homonymous. Subsequently, this article shows that Aristotle values homonymy negatively in dialectical discussions, but positively in rhetorical and poetic arts. Finally, the present paper demonstrates that Aristotle regards systematic homonymy as a very useful theoretical tool that makes it possible to critically examine the basic terminological assumptions of any philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is less ambitious than its title might suggest, since it does not deal with everything that Plato has said on time and on eternity. Rather, it attempts to clarify some issues which have arisen in the controversy as to whether Parmenides or Plato was the first Western philosopher to grasp the notion of atemporal eternity. It is particularly concerned with some publications on the subject that have appeared within the last twelve years or so. G. (...) E. L. Owen, in a paper published in this journal, has defended his earlier interpretation that Parmenides discovered the notion of atemporal eternity. J. Whittaker for his part has contended that both Parmenides and Plato failed to grasp it, and would ascribe its discovery to some later thinker. Yet another scholar, G. Reale, believes that there is no essential difference between the position of Parmenides as reconstructed by Owen and others and that of Melissus. For Reale maintains that Melissus’ formula “it is and always was and always will be” does not exclude atemporality, that it means the same thing as the alleged tenseless ‘is’ predicated of Parmenides’ Being. (shrink)

Some statements couched in the present tense have no reference to time. They are, if you like, grammatically tensed but logically tenseless. Mathematical statements such as ‘twice two is four’ or ‘there is a prime number between 125 and 128’ are of this sort. So is the statement I have just made. To ask in good faith whether there is still the prime number there used to be between 125 and 128 would be to show that one did not understand (...) the use of such statements, and so would any attempt to answer the question. It is tempting to take another step and talk of such timeless statements as statements about timeless entities. If the number 4 neither continues nor ceases to be twice two this is, surely, because the number 4 has no history of any kind, not even the being a day older today than yesterday. Other timeless statements might shake our confidence in this inference: ‘clocks are devices for measuring time’ is a timeless statement, but it is not about a class of timeless clocks. But, given a preoccupation with a favoured set of examples and a stage of thought at which men did not distinguish the properties of statements from the properties of the things they are about, we can expect timeless entities to appear as the natural proxies of timeless statements. (shrink)

In this paper the Platonic concepts of Goodness, Belief and Will as they appear in the passage 29d–30a of the Timeaus, are examined . The main intention is, through this examination, to explore whether –and, if yes, why- these notions constitute essential elements of Plato’s theology.

This paper examines the errant cause in the Timaeus. After eliminating the material elements, matter, chōra, and irrational soul, I show that the source of cosmic disorder lies in the manifestation of difference in genesis. This disorder is a necessary feature of demiurgic formation, which requires generated beings to fall short of their paradigmatic forms and to encounter each other in destabilizing motions. Errancy is thus a threat to generated beings, but it also presents an opportunity and a task to (...) those beings capable of bringing sameness to difference in themselves in imitation of the demiurge and cosmic soul. (shrink)

This books delves into the major tenets of Syrianus' philosophical teachings on the Timaeus and Parmenides based on the testimonia of Proclus, as found in Proclus' commentaries on Plato's Timaeus and Parmenides , and Damascius, as reported in his On First Principles and commentary on Plato's Parmenides.