In this paper I examine a much discussed passage of the Timaeus. This passage contains one of the most important descriptions of Plato's ontology to be found in all the dialogues. The ontological scheme there described differs from that presented in the middle Platonic dialogues in that a third sort of entity, the Receptacle or space, is added to the two classes of things familiar to readers of the Phaedo and Republic: Being and Becoming. The introduction of the Receptacle into (...) Plato's ontology enables Plato to clarify the relation between the orders of Being and Becoming in a way not otherwise possible. When the relation between the Forms and their phenomenal counterparts has been clarified, I shall argue, it becomes clear that the Theory of Forms as presented in the Timaeus is in fact a coherent metaphysical theory, one which is not susceptible to the Third Man Argument. This fact in turn bears on the vexed question of the place of the Timaeus in the chronology of Plato's works. (shrink)

This paper aims at analysing the ancient Greek notions of catharsis (clearing up, cleaning), to holon (the whole) and therapeia (therapy, treatment, healing) to assess whether they may be of help in addressing a set of questions concerning the didactics of medical ethics: What do medical students actually experience and learn when they attend classes of medical ethics? How should teachers of medical ethics proceed didactically to make students benefit morally from their teaching? And finally, to what extent and in (...) what forms and formats can the kind of cathartic treatment envisaged by Plato still be considered a necessary preliminary to moral learning? The three questions will be addressed by means of a reconstructive analysis and assessment of the Platonic notions of catharsis and holistic therapy present in the Charmides and the Sophist. Besides, the didactic potential of Plato’s dialogue form and moral regimen will be tried out. The ultimate aim is to investigate the possibilities of developing a therapeutic conception of medical ethics. (shrink)

Ever since Proclus wrote his commentary on Plato's Republic, repeated attempts have been made to find a hidden number of cosmic significance in Rep. 8.546. For the Neo-Platonist it was natural to look for esoteric secrets in ancient works; among the men of the New Learning at the end of the Middle Ages there were enough astrologers and necromancers to ensure respect for the proposition; we are now again enamoured of irrationality. But the scholars who attempted such calculations around 1900 (...) must have considered Plato himself a mystery-monger. In this article I propose: to show why such attempts are mistaken, to discuss what early writers who mention the passage say about its meaning, to provide a mathematician's translation that fits the context, and to comment on it; for the currently accepted explanation is unsatisfactory. ‘There is fairly widespread agreement that the geometrical number is 12,960,000 = 3,6002 = 4,800 × 2,700, but on the method by which this number is reached the widest divergence exists’ or, from an earlier, different guess: ‘…one can, so to speak, state a priori that Plato's number is a multiple of 19 ten thousands’, i.e. the text is approached with a ready-made answer in mind. There are three further objections to the conventional view, It takes the text out of its context as if it had strayed from the Timaeus. (shrink)

One of the distinctions that Plato in the Laws stresses most heavily in his discussion of the proper relation between the individual citizen and the laws of the city is that between persuasion and compulsion. Law, Plato believes, should try to persuade rather than compel the citizens. Near the end of the fourth book of the Laws, the Athenian Stranger, Plato's spokesman in this dialogue, asks whether the lawgiver for their new city of Magnesia should in making laws ‘explain straightaway (...) what must and must not be done, add the threat of a penalty, and turn to another law, without adding a single bit of encouragement or persuasion [παραμυθας δ κα πειθος … ν] to his legislative edicts’ . A few lines later, the Athenian Stranger himself condemns such a procedure as ‘the worse and more savage alternative’ . The better method is for the laws themselves to try to persuade the citizens to act in the manner that they prescribe. And as a means of doing this, Plato proposes attaching preludes to particular laws and to the legal code as a whole: such preludes will supplement the sanctions attached to the laws and will aim at persuading the citizens to act in the way that the laws direct for reasons other than fear of the penalties attached to the law. Such a practice, Plato believes, is an innovation: it is something that no lawgiver has ever thought of doing before . And we have no reason to think that Plato is here excluding his earlier self, e.g. the Plato of the Republic and the Politicus, from this criticism. (shrink)

In his paper “Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Berkeley Missed and Descartes Saw,” Myles Burnyeat purports to show not only that idealism was not endorsed by any ancient philosopher, but also that it could not have been endorsed before Descartes; Greek philosophy was dominated by an “unquestioned, unquestioning assumption of realism.” By ‘idealism,’ Burnyeat means mainly Berkeley’s immaterialism, but he also extends his demonstration to something more akin to Kant’s transcendental idealism. After arguing that this last version has more historical (...) credentials to the title of idealism than Berkeley’s doctrine, I compare Burnyeat’s reading to Natorp’s interpretation in Platos Ideenlehre, subtitled “An Introduction to Idealism.” Natorp argues that there is, on the contrary, a kind of underlying idealism in Greek philosophy, one that can be discerned on the basis of an interpretation of the meaning of the verb ‘to be’ which has found support in more recent research. (shrink)

Ever since Proclus wrote his commentary on Plato's Republic, repeated attempts have been made to find a hidden number of cosmic significance in Rep. 8.546. For the Neo-Platonist it was natural to look for esoteric secrets in ancient works; among the men of the New Learning at the end of the Middle Ages there were enough astrologers and necromancers to ensure respect for the proposition; we are now again enamoured of irrationality. But the scholars who attempted such calculations around 1900 (...) must have considered Plato himself a mystery-monger. In this article I propose: to show why such attempts are mistaken, to discuss what early writers who mention the passage say about its meaning, to provide a mathematician's translation that fits the context, and to comment on it; for the currently accepted explanation is unsatisfactory. ‘There is fairly widespread agreement that the geometrical number is 12,960,000 = 3,6002 = 4,800 × 2,700, but on the method by which this number is reached the widest divergence exists’ or, from an earlier, different guess: ‘…one can, so to speak, state a priori that Plato's number is a multiple of 19 ten thousands’, i.e. the text is approached with a ready-made answer in mind. There are three further objections to the conventional view, It takes the text out of its context as if it had strayed from the Timaeus. (shrink)

At Statesman (Plt.) 291a–c and 303c–d, Plato compares the so-called statesmen of all existing constitutions to a motley crew of lions, centaurs, satyrs, and other beasts, and the entire section of the Statesman devoted to law and constitutions (291c–303c) to a satyr-play of sorts. This paper argues that these thought-provoking images are best understood as literary devices which, in addition to other dramatic elements in the Theaetetus and Sophist, help to bolster the unity of the Theaetetus-Sophist-Statesman trilogy and its apologetic (...) agenda concerning Socrates. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.3, 995a7–8, there are people who will take seriously the arguments of a speaker only if a poet can be cited as a ‘witness’ in support of them. Aristotle's passing observation sharply reminds us that Greek philosophy had developed within, and was surrounded by, a culture which extensively valued the authority of the poetic word and the poet's ‘voice’ from which it emanated. The currency of ideas, values, and images disseminated through familiarity with poetry had always (...) been a force with which philosophy, in its various manifestations, needed to reckon. As a mode of thought and discourse which proclaimed its aspiration to wisdom, philosophy could not easily eschew some degree of dialogue with an art whose practitioners had traditionally been ranked prominently among the sophoi. Even Aristotle, who keeps aloof from the assumption that philosophical contentions stand in need of poetic support, cites and quotes poetry regularly in his own writings in ways which indicate the influence on him of a prevailing mentality that regarded poets and philosophers as pursuers, up to a point at least, of a common wisdom. (shrink)

According to Aristotle, Metaphysics 2.3, 995a7–8, there are people who will take seriously the arguments of a speaker only if a poet can be cited as a ‘witness’ in support of them. Aristotle's passing observation sharply reminds us that Greek philosophy had developed within, and was surrounded by, a culture which extensively valued the authority of the poetic word and the poet's ‘voice’ from which it emanated. The currency of ideas, values, and images disseminated through familiarity with poetry had always (...) been a force with which philosophy, in its various manifestations, needed to reckon. As a mode of thought and discourse which proclaimed its aspiration to wisdom, philosophy could not easily eschew some degree of dialogue with an art whose practitioners had traditionally been ranked prominently among the sophoi. Even Aristotle, who keeps aloof from the assumption that philosophical contentions stand in need of poetic support, cites and quotes poetry regularly in his own writings in ways which indicate the influence on him of a prevailing mentality that regarded poets and philosophers as pursuers, up to a point at least, of a common wisdom. (shrink)