This paper defends Plotinus’ reading ofSophist248e-249d as an expression of the togetherness or unity-in-duality of intellect and intelligible being. Throughout the dialogues Plato consistently presents knowledge as a togetherness of knower and known, expressing this through the myth of recollection and through metaphors of grasping, eating, and sexual union. He indicates that an intelligible paradigm is in the thought that apprehends it, and regularly regards the forms not as extrinsic “objects” but as the contents of living intelligence. A meticulous reading (...) ofSophist248e-249d shows that the “motion” attributed to intelligible being is not temporal change but the activity of intellectual apprehension. Aristotle’s doctrines of knowledge as identity of intellect and the intelligible, and of divine intellect as thinking itself, are therefore in continuity with Plato, and Plotinus’ doctrine of intellect and being is continuous with both Plato and Aristotle. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the origins of the ‘problem of universals’. I argue that the problem has come to be badly formulated and that consideration of it has been impeded by falsely supposing that Platonic Forms were ever intended as an alternative to Aristotelian universals. In fact, the role that Forms are supposed by Plato to fulfill is independent of the function of a universal. I briefly consider the gradual mutation of the problem in the Academy, in Alexander of (...) Aphrodisias, and among some of the major Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle, including Porphyry and Boethius. (shrink)

There are only two places in which Plato explicitly offers a critique of the sort of theory of forms presented in the Phaedo and Republic: at the beginning of the Parmenides and in the argument against the Friends of the Forms in the Sophist. An accurate account of the argument against the Friends, therefore, is crucial to a proper understanding of Plato’s metaphysics. How the argument against the Friends ought to be construed and what it aims to accomplish, however, are (...) matters of considerable controversy. My aim in this article is twofold. First, I show that the two readings of the argument against the Friends that dominate the contemporary literature – the “Cambridge Change” reading and the “Becoming-is-Being” reading – lack sufficient textual support. Second, I offer an alternative reading of the argument against the Friends that better explains both the text of 248a4–249d5 and the role the argument plays within the Stranger’s wider project of demonstrating that non-being is. My thesis is that the Stranger’s argument against the Friends seeks to demonstrate that the forms must be both at rest and moved, where “moved” has the sense of “affected.” To participate in a form is to be affected by that form. I argue that since, according to the Stranger, every form participates in some other forms, every form is “moved” in the sense that it is affected by the forms in which it participates. Likewise, I argue that every form is at rest in the sense that its unique nature remains unaffected by the other forms in which it participates. (shrink)

In the proem that precedes the account of the generation of the world, Timaeus provides very important elements for understanding the discourse he is about to delivery. It is a complex text that displays at least three different levels: dialectical, analogical (or metaphorical) and epistemological. In the dialectical section, Timaeus establishes that the sensible universe is a generated reality and as such has a cause; in the metaphorical section, he indicates the analogical schemes he will use to explain the genesis (...) of the cosmos (technical and biological) and the causes on which it depends. Finally, in the epistemological section he explains the reason why this exposition cannot achieve truth but must be content with likeness. (shrink)

Plato claimed that the regular solids are the building blocks of all matter. His views, commonly referred to as the geometric atomistic model, had enormous impact on human thought despite the fact that four of the five Platonic solids can not fill space without gaps. In this paper we quantify these gaps, showing that the errors in Plato’s estimates were quite small. We also develop a mean field approximation to convex honeycombs using a generalized version of Plato’s idea. This approximation (...) not only admits to view convex mosaics in$$d=3$$d=3dimensions as a continuum but we also find that it is quite accurate, showing that Plato’s geometric intuition may have been remarkable. (shrink)

The work analyses the meaning of the concept of beauty in Aristotle's philosophy, in particular in theoretical sciences: physics, mathematics, first philosophy.