It is a notion commonly acknowledged that in his work Timaeus the Athenian philosopher Plato (_c_. 429–347 BC) laid down an early chemical theory of the creation, structure and phenomena of the universe. There is much truth in this acknowledgement because Plato’s “chemistry” gives a description of the material world in mathematical terms, an approach that marks an outstanding advancement over cosmologic doctrines put forward by his predecessors, and which was very influential on western culture for many centuries. In the (...) present article, I discuss inter-transformations among Plato’s four types (fire, air, water, and earth) as well as the interpretation they received in the literature. I find that scientists and scholars generally emphasized (and often misunderstood) mathematical aspects of these “reactions” over the philosophical ones. I argue that Plato’s “chemistry” in fact bears on crucial topics of his philosophical system, such as Forms, Becoming, causation and teleology. I propose that consideration of these doctrines help to understand not only the sense of his “chemical” reactions, but also the reason why their stoichiometry is by surface balance and is restricted only to types that come to be and pass away but not to those that provoke the inter-transformations. (shrink)

Given Plutarch’s fragmentary piece on Aristophanes and Menander, a piece of Table Talk on almost the same topic and various attacks on comic poets scattered through the Lives, one might believe that Plutarch is a staid, conservative and humourless author. But several other instances in his writings reveal a playful, facetious, witty and humorous Plutarch. This paper will focus on the Quaestiones Convivales, which bear ample witness to this aspect of Plutarch’s personality and authorial technique. It will examine the ways (...) in which he introduces and describes the various interlocutors, discuss certain comments with which he tries to ridicule his philosophical opponents, notably the Stoics and the Epicureans, try to distinguish the various manifestations of Plutarch’s humour and finally suggest that Plutarch’s stance and attitude towards playfulness, comic situations and laughter may ultimately be affected, at least in part, by his allegiance to Plato. (shrink)

This essay examines the relationship between Eric Voegelin and Leo Strauss in order to show the central themes necessary to elucidate their philosophical positions. The essay reveals the centrality of the figure of Plato as a point of departure to understand the agreement and the disagreement concerning fundamental questions (such as the way of reading ancient texts, the importance of the historical perspective or the importance of the study of the past in order to orient the modern science) which revolves (...) around the issue of the relation between revelation and philosophy. The work concludes with an identification of the common core of both thinkers that allows us to understand their differences (homogeneity or heterogeneity of reality and the human) and, moreover, identifies both perspectives with a «foundational» (Voegelin) or «negative» (Strauss) interpretation of Plato’s thought. (shrink)

The Timaeus is the dialogue that was for many centuries the most influential of Plato’s works. Among its readers we find Descartes, Boyle, Kepler and Heisenberg. In the first division of Timaeus Plato deals with the theory of celestial motion, in the second he presents us with the first mathematical theory of the structure of matter. Here, in a gigantic step forward with respect to the preceding Democritean atomistic theory with its unalterable micro-entities, he introduces the intertransformability of elementary corpuscles (...) and with that the first “chemical” reactions in history. Plato’s geometrical interpretation of Empedocles’ elements and his geometrical atomism is described at the molecular, atomic and sub-atomic level. The “chemical” reactions reported in Timaeus are written in the enlightening chemical symbolism, analogies with modern chemistry are noticed throughout. (shrink)

This paper argues that the concepts of writing and authorship in Plato are associated with monologism and absence rather than presence. The Phaedrus objects to writing precisely insofar as it creates that unre sponsive figure in the field of discursive which we have subsequently called the 'author'. The dialectical preference for question-and-answer is designed to resist anything resembling an author from entering the field of knowledge: the Socratic method resists monologism on epistemological and ethical grounds. However, the Platonic dialogues are (...) split in their signature between a Socrates who speaks and a Socrates who writes. As the Platonic oeuvre increases, so it moves from graphic representation of the oral methods of Socrates to the status of a writing in its own terms. The Phaedrus is a crucial statement in this cultural tran sition. So, far from simply condemning writing, the dialogue accepts Plato's growth as an author of written compositions and his growing sense of himself as an author. What tradition has registered as 'the Socratic problem' can be reviewed according to this competition between the orality of the master and the writerly practices of his pupil. Between dialogism and monologism, speech and writing, absence and presence, Socrates and Plato, the concept of the author is generated. The Plato of the Phaedrus wants to grasp, to theorize, this new figure emerg ing on the chirographic horizons, one whom he would recognize less in Socrates, 'Homer' or Pythagoras than in the mirror of his own text. (shrink)

In a 1985 article entitled “The Art of Glaukos,” Diskin Clay suggested that the enigmatic passage at the beginning of the geological myth in Phaedoreferred toRepublic10, where the soul is likened to the sea-creature Glaucus whose true nature, like the soul’s, is obscured by the distortions imposed by underwater life. Starting with a defense of Clay’s ingenious suggestion, my purpose is to compare Phaedoto Glaucus, with its true nature obscured by traditional assumptions about the order in which Plato composed his (...) dialogues, and thus how they should be read. At least part of the reason that Clay’s thesis has not been embraced is because it clashes with the dogma that Phaedocannot refer back to Republic; I want to challenge that dogma. Borrowing from Catherine Zuckert the notion that, since Phaedocomes at the end of Socrates’ story, it can usefully be read as the culmination of the Platonic dialogues, I will show how a “late” Phaedo—i.e., a reading of the dialogue that is open to the possibility that it refers to more than one dialogue generally considered to be later than it with respect to composition—recovers its true nature, presently encrusted with the oysters and seaweed of an outdated developmentalism that has obscured this culminating masterpiece of Plato’s dramatic and philosophical art. (shrink)