This paper examines a passage in the Theaetetus where Plato distinguishes knowledge from true belief by appealing to the example of a jury hearing a case. While the jurors may have true belief, Socrates puts forward two reasons why they cannot achieve knowledge. The reasons for this nescience have typically been taken to be in tension with each other . This paper proposes a solution to the putative difficulty by arguing that what links the two cases of nescience is that (...) in neither case do the jurors act from an epistemic virtue and that doing so is a necessary condition of knowledge. Appreciating that it is a necessary condition of knowledge that it be the result of an epistemic agent's agency in a distinctive way provides a satisfying solution to the difficulty Burnyeat detected and also does justice to an otherwise neglected aspect of Plato's epistemology: his talk of cognitive capacities and virtues and his focus on what it is that is active and passive in epistemic processes. (shrink)

In the tripartite psychology of the Republic, Plato characterizes the “spirited” part of the soul as the “ally of reason”: like the auxiliaries of the just city, whose distinctive job is to support the policies and judgments passed down by the rulers, spirit’s distinctive “job” in the soul is to support and defend the practical decisions and commands of the reasoning part. This is to include not only defense against external enemies who might interfere with those commands, but also, and (...) most importantly, defense against unruly appetites within the individual’s own soul.1 Spirit, according to this picture, is by nature reason’s faithful auxiliary in the soul, while appetite is always a potential enemy to be watched .. (shrink)

One of the hardest questions to answer for a (Neo)platonist is to what extent and how the changing and unreliable world of sense perception can itself be an object of scientific knowledge. My dissertation is a study of the answer given to that question by the Neoplatonist Proclus (Athens, 411-485) in his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. I present a new explanation of Proclus’ concept of nature and show that philosophy of nature consists of several related subdisciplines matching the ontological stratification (...) of nature. Moreover, I demonstrate that for Proclus philosophy of nature is a science, albeit a hypothetical one, which takes geometry as its methodological paradigm. I also offer an explanation of Proclus’ view of what is later called the mathematization of physics, i.e. the role of the substance of mathematics, as opposed to its method, in explaining the natural world. Finally, I discuss Proclus’ views of the discourse of philosophy of nature and its iconic character. (shrink)

Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such it is ontologically inferior to the father's nature. Thus, the seed (...) does not strictly speaking contain a full-fledged vegetative soul. Rather, it acquires its vegetative soul only while it is being actualized by an actual vegetative soul. This actualization takes place primarily at conception, where the seed as it were reverts back and becomes obedient to the mother's nature, but continues through the period of gestation. In this way, Porphyry can account both for maternal resemblance and for ideoplasty. He uses the Stoic language of complete blending to describe the mother's relation to the seed and embryo, and this reveals that he thinks of individuals as having their own unique individual natures (as opposed to sharing in a single universal nature). In the course of developing this theory, Porphyry makes significant revisions to his philosophical predecessors' views in both embryology and botany. He revises Aristotle's verdict on the relative importance of the female in generation as well as Theophrastus' explanation of the biological mechanics of grafting. Although Plotinus nowhere addresses embryology in the same detail as Porphyry does, we can conclude from his remarks on seeds and plants that his own views were similar to those of his student. (shrink)

I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several (...) popular and long-standing interpretations, namely, that sunaitia correspond to Aristotle’s idea of hypothetical necessity, that sunaitia are the ‘how’ in an explanation (whereas the true cause is the ‘why’), and that Plato’s causal views should be read through Aristotle’s fourfold schema. I conclude the article by surveying the history of sunaitia after Plato’s usage. (shrink)

I defend, against its more recent critics, a literal, factual, and consistent interpretation of Timaeus’ creation of the cosmos and time. My main purpose is to clarify the assumptions under which a literal interpretation of Timaeus’ cosmology becomes philosophically attractive. I propose five exegetical principles that guide my interpretation. Unlike previous literalists, I argue that assuming a “pre-cosmic time” is a mistake. Instead, I challenge the exegetical assumptions scholars impose on the text and argue that for Timaeus, a mere succession (...) of events and the relations derived from it (before, after, simultaneous with) imply no time, given the narrow definition of the term used in the dialogue. For Timaeus, I explain, time is measurable, regular, and dependent on the motion of the celestial bodies. A mere succession of events like the one needed to understand the creation story and the pre-cosmos requires none of these elements. Readers of Plato erroneously assume that a succession of events implies time, but that is to impose a conception of time absent in the text. The chapter offers a detailed reconstruction of the pre-cosmic stage under a literalist interpretation and argues how it is compatible with the immutable relationship between the Demiurge and the cosmos. -/- This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC 4.0 license. chapter 4. (shrink)

This article concerns the place of Plato’s eschatology in his philosophy. I argue that the theory of reincarnation appeals to Plato due to its power to explain how non-human animals came to be. Further, the outlines of this theory are entailed by other commitments, such as that embodiment disrupts psychic functioning, that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished, and that the soul is immortal. I conclude by arguing that Plato develops a view of reincarnation as the chief tool that (...) the gods have to ensure that virtue is victorious over vice throughout the whole cosmos. (shrink)

I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally. A novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that denies the entailment that the soul is corporeal. I conclude by examining Aristotle’s objection to the Timaeus’ psychology and then the intellectual history of this reading of Plato.

Corrective intervention in Plato's metaphysics replacing the standard view of Plato as a metaphysical dualist with a novel and revolutionary paradigm of unitary pluralism in a single reality built on ontological diversity.

This paper aims to clarify Plato’s notions of the natural and the neutral state in relation to hedonic properties. Contra two extreme trends among scholars—people either conflate one state with the other, or keep them apart as to establish an unsurmount- able gap between both states, I argue that neither view accurately reflects Plato’s position because the natural state is real and can coincide with the neutral state in part, whereas the latter, as an umbrella term, can also be realized (...) in a non-natural condition. The clarification of the relation between the two states will shed light on the degree to which Plato admits and constrains the hedonic value for a good human life; further, this will call attention to some (not well explored) parallel thoughts in the medical tradition to which Plato is indebted. (shrink)

Many scholars have denied that Plato’s argument about desire at Philebus 34c10–35d7 is related to his recollection arguments in the Meno and Phaedo, because it is concerned only with postnatal experiences of pleasure. This paper argues against their denial by showing that the desire argument in question is intended to prove the soul’s possession of innate memory of pleasure. This innateness interpretation will be supported by a close analysis of the Timaeus, where Plato suggests that our inborn desires for food (...) and drink derive from the primitive experiences of pleasure that have naturally been incorporated into the appetitive part of the soul. (shrink)

This is a study of the correspondence between Forms and particulars in Plato. The aim is to determine whether they exhibit an ontological symmetry, in other words, whether there is always one where there is the other. This points to two questions, one on the existence of things that do not have corresponding Forms, the other on the existence of Forms that do not have corresponding things. Both questions have come up before. But the answers have not been sufficiently sensitive (...) to the intricacies of the questions. Nor have they been adequately resourceful with what little evidence there is in the original sources. The intention here is to make up for that deficiency, not just with better answers but also with better insight into the questions. (shrink)

In the Timaeus, Plato makes a distinction between reason and necessity. This distinction is often accounted for as a distinction between two types of causation: purpose oriented causation and mechanistic causation. While reason is associated with the soul and taken to bring about its effects with the good and the beautiful as the end, necessity is understood in terms of a set of natural laws pertaining to material things. In this paper I shall suggest that there are reasons to reconsider (...) the latter part of this account and argue for a non-mechanistic understanding of necessity. I will first outline how the notion of necessity is introduced in the dialogue. I will then show how a mechanistic account of necessity fails to capture Plato’s purpose of treating it as a causal factor; and, finally, argue that this purpose is better understood as an attempt, on Plato’s part, to account for the causal origin of disorder and irrationality, an origin articulated in terms of a pre-cosmic situation and the notoriously difficult notion of the third kind. (shrink)

In this paper I show that Proclus is an adherent of the Classical Model of Science as set out elsewhere in this issue (de Jong and Betti 2008), and that he adjusts certain conditions of the Model to his Neoplatonic epistemology and metaphysics. In order to show this, I develop a case study concerning philosophy of nature, which, despite its unstable subject matter, Proclus considers to be a science. To give this science a firm foundation Proclus distills from Plato’s Timaeus (...) the basic concepts Being and Becoming and a number of basic propositions, among others the quasi-definitions of the basic concepts. He subsequently explains the use of these quasi-definitions, that are actually epistemic guides, in such a way that he obtains a connection between a rational and an empirical approach to the natural world. A crucial task in establishing the connection is performed by the faculty of doxa and by geometrical conversion. The result is that Proclus secures a universal, necessary and known foundation for all of philosophy of nature. (shrink)

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)

Recent scholarship has recognized some thematic connections related to onto-cosmological issues between two late Platonic dialogues, such as Philebus and Timaeus, and has tried to explain them in different ways. The aim of this paper is to contribute to such a debate by analysing an ancient exegesis of Timaeus 35a1-b4, that of Plutarch of Chaeronea, which made use of the ontological sections of the Philebus in his treatise on the cosmogony of the Timaeus. More specifically, this analysis will show that (...) the notions of ‘limit’ and ‘unlimitedness’ played a decisive role in the shaping of the “essence” of the world-soul according to Plutarch. (shrink)

The paper considers Plato’s theory of language through the prism of the Timaeus’ metaphysics. It is argued that the apparent contradictions of Plato’s philosophy of language are the consequence of the two-fold nature of language, and that the metaphysical scheme proposed by Plato in the Timaeus can shed a light on his coherent theory of language. The linguo-metaphysical isomorphism of the Timaeus presupposes that (1) words and material elements have their own meaning and nature respectively; (2) they can be reduced (...) to an infinite variety of amorphic sounds and receptacle; (3) the participation in truth is possible only at the level of narrative and universe. According to this scheme the universe (κόσμος), as well as any speech (λόγος), can be explained by the reduction to its constituent elements, but it will be only necessary explanation. Whereas for Plato, the true understanding of cosmos and logos is possible only on the level of the coherent unity of the whole, which represents the ideal paradigm in the best possible way. (shrink)

Plato wonders why a good God might allow the existence of evil. This problem is especially pertinent to his dialogue Timaeus, in which Plato describes the creation of the cosmos by a benevolent divine craftsman called the Demiurge. A justification for why God allows evil to exist is called a theodicy. Readers of the Timaeus have interpreted the theodicy of this dialogue in many ways. After showing the shortcomings of some common interpretations, I offer a largely original interpretation of the (...) theodicy of the Timaeus. I claim that in the Timaeus evil is caused by conflict between souls, and this conflict is something that the good (but not omnipotent) Demiurge could not avoid. However, I think that Plato’s Demiurge may have made the best of this imperfect situation by placing souls in a cycle of reincarnation that functions as a rehabilitative punishment, and thereby ordering the cosmos for their redemption. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to examine the implications of Plato’s use of the term stoicheion, since his awareness of stoicheion’s polysemy reveals his view of the origin, the complexity and, at the same time, the order of reality. Moreover, his use of stoicheion allowed him both to inherit and to detach himself from his predecessors. I begin by presenting the history of the notion of stoicheion; then, since one of the meanings of stoicheion is ‘letter of the alphabet’, (...) I focus on the Cratylus, which contains the first of several passages where Plato employs the alphabet as a paradigm for the structure of a complex system. Finally, I turn to the Theaetetus, where Plato, for the first time, uses stoicheion in the sense of ‘element’ and where, through the relation letters/syllables, Plato clarifies that enumeration and juxtaposition are not sufficient to attain the real knowledge. I will argue that only thanks to these steps can we understand the occurrences of stoicheion in the Timaeus, where Plato first states that air, earth, fire and water are not stoicheia tou pantos, and then reveals that, instead, the basic triangles are ‘the elements of the universe’. (shrink)

There are two types ofaisthēsisin theTimaeus, which involve distinct physiological processes and different kinds of soul, appetite and reason respectively. This distinction explains Timaeus’ ambivalent attitude towardsaisthēsis: on the one hand, it is one of the main causes of the disruption of the orbits of the immortal soul upon embodiment; on the other hand, it plays a central role in restoring the immortal soul to its original, god-like condition.

Near the end of his speech, Timaeus outlines a theory of bodily health and disease which has seemed to many commentators loosely unified or even inconsistent . But this section is better unified than it has appeared, and gives us at least one important insight into the workings of physical causality in the Timaeus. I argue first that the apparent disorder in Timaeus’s theory of disease is likely a deliberate effect planned by the author. Second, the taxonomy of disease in (...) the passage consists of one genus subsuming two species. Third, in Timaeus’s theory, health lies between perfect stability and a chaos of all possible motions; this indicates a conception of health as the activation of the body's powers in the right way. A power is a property directed towards bringing about some change. Fourth, the activation of these powers can change depending on the location of their possessors. This last point shows that causation among the physical items in the Timaeus involves structures as well as pushes. (shrink)