Platão (em
grego
antigo: Πλάτων, transl.
Plátōn, "amplo",[1] Atenas,[nota 1] 428/427[nota 2] – Atenas, 348/347 a.C.) foi um filósofo e matemático do período
clássico da Grécia Antiga, autor de diversos
diálogos filosóficos e fundador da Academia
em Atenas, a primeira instituição de
educação
superior do mundo
ocidental. Juntamente com seu mentor, Sócrates, e seu pupilo, Aristóteles, Platão ajudou a
construir os alicerces da filosofia natural, da ciência e da filosofia
ocidental.[10] Acredita-se que seu
nome verdadeiro tenha sido Arístocles[11].
Platão era um racionalista, realista,
idealista e dualista e a ele tem sido
associadas muitas das ideias que inspiraram essas filosofias mais tarde.[12]
Vida
Origem
A mãe de Platão era Perictíone, cuja família
gabava-se de um relacionamento com o famoso ateniense legislador e poeta lírico
Sólon[13]. Perictíone era irmã
de Cármides e sobrinha de Crítias,
ambas as figuras proeminentes na época da Tirania dos
Trinta, a breve oligarquia
que se seguiu sobre o colapso de Atenas no final da Guerra do
Peloponeso (404–403 a.C).[14] Além do próprio
Platão, Aristão e Perictíone tiveram
outros três filhos, estes foram Adimanto e Glaucão, e uma filha Potone, a mãe
de Espeusipo (então o sobrinho e
sucessor de Platão como chefe de sua Academia
filosófica).[14] De acordo com A República, Adimanto e
Glaucão eram mais velhos que Platão.[15] No entanto, em Memorabilia,
Xenofonte apresenta Glaucão como
sendo mais novo que Platão.[16]
Aristão[17] parece ter morrido na
infância de Platão, embora a data exata de sua morte seja desconhecida[18]. Perictíone então
casou-se com Perilampes, irmão de sua mãe[19] que tinha servido
muitas vezes como embaixador para acorte persa
e era um amigo de Péricles,
líder da facção democrática em Atenas.[20]
Em contraste com a sua reticência sobre si mesmo,
Platão muitas vezes introduziu seus ilustres parentes em seus diálogos, ou a
eles referenciou com alguma precisão: Cármides tem um diálogo com o seu nome;
Crítias fala tanto em Cármides
quanto emProtágoras
e Adimanto e Glaucão têm trechos importantes em A República.[21] Estas e outras
referências sugerem uma quantidade considerável de orgulho da família e nos
permitem reconstruir a árvore
genealógica de Platão. De acordo com Burnet, "a cena de
abertura de Cármides é uma glorificação de toda [família] ligação... os
diálogos de Platão não são apenas um memorial para Sócrates, mas também sobre
os dias mais felizes de sua própria família."[22].
Infância e juventude
Platão nasceu em Atenas[23], provavelmente em 427-428 a.C.[24] (no sétimo dia do mês Thargêliốn[25]), cerca de um ano após
a morte do estadista Péricles[24], e morreu em 348 a.C.[24] (no primeiro ano da
108a Olimpíada[26]).
A data tradicional do nascimento de Platão (428/427)
é baseada em uma interpretação dúbia de Diógenes Laércio que afirma:
"Quando Sócrates foi embora, Platão se juntou a Crátilo e Hermógenes, que
filosofou à maneira de Parmênides. Então, aos vinte e oito anos, segundo
Hermodoro, Platão foi para Euclides em Megara."[27] Em sua Sétima Carta,
Platão observa que a sua idade coincidiu com a tomada do poder pelos Trinta
Tiranos, comentando: "Mas um jovem com idade inferior a vinte seria motivo
de chacota se tentasse entrar na arena política". Assim, a data de
nascimento de Platão seria 424/423[27].
De acordo com Diógenes
Laércio, o filósofo foi nomeado Aristócles como seu avô, mas
seu treinador de luta, Aristão de Argos, o
apelidou de Platon, que significa "grande", por conta de sua figura
robusta.[28] De acordo com as
fontes mencionadas por Diógenes (todos datam do período
alexandrino), Platão derivou seu nome a partir da
"amplitude" (platytês) de sua eloquência, ou então, porque
possuía a fronte (platýs) larga.[29] Estudiosos recentes
têm argumentado que a lenda sobre seu nome ser Aristocles originou-se no
período helenístico.[30]Platão era um
nome comum, dos quais 31 casos são conhecidos apenas em Atenas.[31] A juventude de Platão
transcorreu em meio a agitações políticas e a desordens devido à Guerra do
Peloponeso, à instabilidade política reinante na cidade de Atenas
que foi tomada pela Oligarquia
dos Quatrocentos e assim submeteu-se ao governo dos Trinta
Tiranos.[32]
Apuleio nos
informa que Espeusipo elogiou a rapidez mental e a modéstia de Platão como os
"primeiros frutos de sua juventude infundidos com muito trabalho e amor ao
estudo".[33] Platão deve ter sido
instruído em gramática, música e ginástica pelos professores mais
ilustres do seu tempo.[34] Dicearco foi mais
longe a ponto de dizer que Platão lutou nos jogos de Jogos Ístmicos.[35] Platão também tinha
frequentado cursos de filosofia, antes de conhecer Sócrates, primeiro ele se
familiarizou com Crátilo (um
discípulo de Heráclito,
um proeminente filósofo grego pré-socrático)
e as doutrinas de Heráclito.[36]
Afastamento da política e primeira viagem
A execução de Sócrates em 399 abalou
Platão profundamente, ele avaliou essa ação do Estado como uma depravação moral
e evidência de um sistema político defeituoso.
Após o término da guerra em Atenas, cerca de 404, auxiliado
pelo reinado espartano vitorioso, o terror da Tirania dos Trinta começou, o que
incluía parentes de Platão: o primo e o irmão de sua mãe, Crítias e Cármides,
participaram do governo,[32] ele foi convidado
a participar da vida política, mas recusou porque considerou o então regime
criminoso.[37] Mas, a situação
política após a restauração da democracia ateniense em 403 também o desagradou,
um ponto de viragem na vida de Platão foi a execução de Sócrates em 399, que o abalou profundamente, ele avaliou a ação
do Estado contra seu professor, como uma expressão de depravação moral e
evidência de um defeito fundamental no sistema político. Ele viu em Atenas a
possibilidade e a necessidade de uma maior participação filosófica na vida
política e tornou-se um crítico agudo. Essas experiências levaram-no a aprovar
a demanda por um estado governado por filósofos.[38]
Depois de 399, Platão foi para Megara com alguns
outros socráticos, como hóspedes de Euclides (provavelmente para evitar
possíveis perseguições que lhe poderiam sobrevir pelo fato de ter feito parte
do círculo socrático). Diógenes Laércio conta "foi a Cirene, juntar-se a
Teodoro, o matemático, depois à Itália, com os pitagóricos Filolau e Eurito. E
daí para o Egito, avistar-se com os profetas, ele tinha decidido encontrar-se
também com os magos, mas a guerras da Ásia o fez renunciar a isso",[39] é posto em dúvida se
Platão foi mesmo ao Egito, há evidências de que a estadia foi inventada no
Egito, para aproximar Platão à tradição de sabedoria egípcia.[40][41]
Primeira viagem à Sicília
Por volta de 388 Platão empreendeu sua primeira
viagem para a Sicília.[42] Em Taranto, Platão conheceu os
pitagóricos, e o mais proeminentes e politicamente bem sucedido entre eles o
estadista Arquitas que o hospedou e
protegeu, a mais famosa fonte da história do resgate de Platão por Arquitas
está na Sétima Carta, onde Platão descreve seu envolvimento nos
incidentes de seu amigo Dion de Siracusa e Dionísio I, o tirano de Siracusa,[43] Platão esperava
influenciar o tirano sobre o ideal do rei-filósofo (exposto em Górgias, anterior à sua
viagem), mas logo entrou em conflito com o tirano e sua corte, mesmo assim
cultivou grande amizade com Díon[44], parente do tirano, a
quem pensou que este pudesse ser um discípulo capaz de se tornar um
rei-filósofo.[45] Dionísio I se irritou
tanto com Platão a ponto de vendê-lo como escravo[nota 3] a um embaixador
espartano de Egina, felizmente tendo sido resgatado por Anicérides de Cirene,
que estava em Egina[46], ou ainda, o navio em
que retornava foi capturado por espartanos o que o fez se mantido como um
escravo.[47]
Este relatos sobre a primeira estadia em Siracusa são
em grande parte controversos, os historiadores tradicionais consideram os
detalhes do encontro entre Platão e o tirano e posterior ruptura com ceticismo.[48][49] Em todo caso, Platão
teve contato com Dionísio e o resultado foi desfavorável para o filósofo já que
sua sinceridade parece ter irritado o governante.[50]
Fundação da escola e ensino
Depois de sua primeira viagem à Sicília, por volta de
388 a.C,
aos 40 anos, decepcionado com o luxo e os costumes da corte de Dionísio I de
Siracusa e de lá é expulso, Platão compra um ginásio perto de Colona, a
nordeste de Atenas, nas vizinhanças de um bosque de oliveiras em homenagem ao
herói Academo. Ele amplia a propriedade
e constrói alojamentos para os estudantes.[42]
Os membros da Academia não eram estudantes no sentido
moderno da palavra, aos jovens, juntavam-se também anciãos; provavelmente todos
deviam contribuir para o financiamento das despesas; ademais, o objetivo último
da Academia era o saber pelo seu valor ético-político.[51]
Durante duas décadas, Platão assumiu suas funções na
Academia e escreveu, nesse período, os diálogos chamados "da
maturidade": Fédon,
Fedro, Banquete, Menexêno, Eutidemo, Crátilo; começou também a
redação de A República.[52]
Segunda viagem à Sicília
Em 366/367, com a morte de Dionísio
e encorajado por Dion, Platão transmite a direção da Academia a Eudóxio e
retorna à Sicília.[52] O velho Dionísio
morrera em 367, logo após ter sabido que sua peça O resgate de Heitor,
tinha recebido o primeiro prêmio no festival das Lenaias em Atenas. Seu filho
Dionísio II sucedeu-lhe o trono e Dion era seu conselheiro. Dion teve trabalho em convencer Platão
a voltar para Siracusa, ele insistiu com argumentos como a paixão do jovem
tirano pela filosofia e educação e que a morte do velho tirano poderia ser o
"destino divino" necessário para que enfim se realizasse a felicidade
de um povo livre sob boas leis. Platão por fim, embarcou em 366, para sua
segunda viagem à Sicília.[53]
No início a influência de Platão sobre Dionísio
II teve algum progresso, mas pouco durou, o jovem era um pouco rude
e não possuía o vigor mental para aguentar um prolongado tratamento educacional,
além de ser, pessoalmente desagradável. Invejoso da influência de Dion e de sua
amizade com Platão, o obrigou a se exiliar, Platão então regressou a Atenas.[54]
Terceira viagem à Sicília
Em 361
a.C, Platão viaja novamente para Siracusa com seus
alunos Espeusipo e Xenócrates em um navio enviado por Dionísio II,[55] numa tentativa final
de pôr ordem as coisas. Passou quase um ano tentando elaborar algumas medidas
práticas para unir os gregos da Sicília em face do perigo cartaginês. No final, a má
vontade da facção conservadora provou ser um obstáculo insuperável.[56] Platão conseguiu
partir para Atenas em 360, não sem antes correr algum perigo de morte. Em
seguida, Dion recuperou sua posição à força, mas apesar de advertências de
Platão, mostrou-se um governante imprudente e acabou assassinado. Ainda assim,
Platão incitou os seguidores de Dion a prosseguirem com a antiga política, mas
os seus conselhos não foram ouvidos. O destino final da Sicília foi ser
conquistada pelos estrangeiros, como Platão previra.[24]
Platão escreveu sobre a morte de seu amigo
comparando-o a um navegante que antecipa corretamente uma tempestade mas
subestima sua força de destruição: "que eram perversos os homens que o
puseram por terra, ele sabia, mas não a extensão de sua ignorância, de sua
depravação e avidez"[24][57]
Velhice e morte
Ao regressar em 360, Platão voltou a ensinar e
escrever na Academia permanecendo como um autor ativo até o fim da vida[24] em 348/347 a.C. aos
oitenta anos de idade;[32] conta-se que fora
sepultado no terreno da Academia, para dentro do muro de demarcação da
propriedade,[58] ou ainda no jardim da
Academia.[59] Com sua morte a
academia passou a ser dirigida por Espeusipo, forte simpatizante do
aspecto matemático da filosofia de Platão.[24]
Obra
Houve um período na Idade Média em que quase todas as
suas obras eram desconhecidas, mas, antes disso e depois da redescoberta de
seus textos (Petrarca no século XIV tinha um manuscrito de Platão), ele foi
lido e tomado como ponto de referência.[60]
Tradição e autenticidade
Todas as obras de Platão que eram conhecidas na
antiguidade foram preservadas, com exceção da palestra sobre o bem, a partir do
qual houve um pós-escrito de Aristóteles, se encontra perdida. Há também obras
que foram distribuídas sob o nome de Platão, mas possivelmente ou definitivamente
não são genuínas, elas também pertencem ao Corpus Platonicum (o conjunto
das obras tradicionalmente atribuída a Platão), apesar de sua falsidade ser
reconhecida mesmo nos tempos antigos. Um total de 47 obras são reconhecidas por
terem sido escritas por Platão ou para o qual ele tomado como o autor.[61]
O Corpus platonicum é constituído de diálogos
(incluindo Crítias de final inacabado),
a Apologia
de Sócrates, uma coleção de 13 cartas[60] e uma coleção de
definições, o Horoi. Fora do corpus há uma coleção de dieresis,
mais duas cartas, 32 epigramas e um fragmento de poema (7 hexâmetros) que com
exceção de uma parte desses poemas, não são obras de Platão.[62]
É importante notar que na Antiguidade, vários
diálogos considerados como falsamente atribuídos a Platão eram considerados
genuínos, e alguns desses fazem parte do Canon de Trásilo, um filósofo e
astrólogo alexandrino que serviu na corte de Tibério. Trásilo organizou os
Diálogos de modo sistemático em nove grupos, chamados de Tetralogias,[63], cujos escritos foram
aceites como de Platão.[64] Segundo Diógenes
Laércio(III, 61), se encontravam na nona tetralogia "uma carta a
Aristodemo [de fato a Aristodoro]" (X), duas a Arquitas (IX, XII), quatro
a Dionísio II (I, II, III, IV), uma a Hérmias, Erastos e Coriscos (VI), uma a
Leodamas (XI), uma a Dion (IV), uma a Perdicas (V) e duas aos parentes de Dion
(VII, VIII)".[65] Trásilo criou a
seguinte organização:[66]
Eutífron
Apologia
Críton
Fédon
Crátilo
Teeteto
Sofista
Político
Parmênides
Filebo
O Banquete
Fedro
Alcibíades I
Alcibíades II
Hiparco
Amantes Rivais
Teages
Cármides
Laques
Lísis
Eutidemo
Protágoras
Górgias
Mênon
Hípias menor
Hípias maior
Íon
Menexêno
Clitofon
A República
Timeu
Crítias
Forma literária
Com exceção de Epístolas e Apologia
todas as outras obras não foram escritas em forma de poemas didáticos ou
tratados - como eram escritos a maioria dos escritos filosóficos, - mas em
forma de diálogos, a Apologia contém passagens ocasionais de diálogos,
onde há um personagem principal, Sócrates e diferentes interlocutores em
debates filosóficos separados por inserções e discursos indiretos, digressões
ou passagens mitológicas. Além disso, outros alunos de Sócrates como Xenofonte, Ésquines, Antístenes, Euclides de
Megara e Fédon de Elis
têm obras escritas na forma de diálogo socrático (Σωκρατικοὶ λόγοι Sokratikoì
logoi).[67]
Platão foi certamente o representante desse gênero
literário muito superior a todos os outros e, mesmo, o único representante,
pois comenta neles se pode reconhecer a natureza autêntica do filosofar
socrático que nos outros escritores degenerou em maneirismos.[40]; assim, o diálogo, em
Platão é muito mais que um gênero literário, é sua forma de fazer filosofia.[68] Nem todos os trabalhos
no Corpus de Platão são diálogos. A Apologia parece ser o
relatório da defesa de Sócrates e
seu julgamento e Menêxeno é um pronunciamento para funeral. As treze
cartas são ditas serem de Platão mas a maioria são rejeitadas pelos
pesquisadores modernos como sendo ilegítimas. A Sétima Carta ou Carta
VII é uma das mais importantes cuja disputa permanece por dois motivos: (a)
oferece detalhes biográficos de Platão e (b) coloca afirmações filosóficas sem
paralelos em outros diálogos. Provavelmente a Sétima Carta é uma obra
ilegítima e portanto não é uma fonte confiável para a biografia e filosofia de
Platão.[49]
Cronologia
A questão da cronologia ainda continua a gerar
opiniões conflitantes. Análises estilo-métricas[69] dos diálogos
demonstram que eles podem ser agrupados em três categorias definidas como obras
do período Inicial, Médio e Tardio, embora exista este consenso comum, não há
nenhum consenso sobre a ordem que as obras devem figurar em seus respectivos
grupos. Outro método usado para determinar a ordem cronológica dos diálogos se
baseia na conexão entre os vários trabalhos. Os estudiosos têm usado a
evidência de pontos de vista filosóficos similares nos diálogos para sugerir
uma ordem cronológica interna. As referências textuais dentro dos diálogos
também ajudam a construir uma cronologia, ainda há pouquíssimos casos de um
diálogo se referir a outro. Finalmente, a cronologia pode ser determinada a
partir do testemunho de fontes antigas.[70]
Filosofia
Para Reale, os três grandes pontos
focais da filosofia de Platão são a Teoria das Idéias, dos Princípios
e do Demiurgo. A obra Fédon
engloba todo o quadro da metafísica platônica e enfatiza essas três teorias,
mas Platão advertiu os leitores de sua obra sobre a dificuldade existente em
compreendê-las.[71]
Política
Platão em sua obra "A República", faz
critica a forma de governo de sua época, pois afirma que os governantes
deveriam brigar para não governar, como brigam para chegar ao poder. Diz,
ainda, que o verdadeiro chefe não nasce para atender os interesses de si
próprio, mas sim de toda a coletividade a ele subordinada.
Dessa forma, entende-se que a critica de Platão
estava ligada ao governo que fazia leis visando seus interesses, e os
determinando como justo, entretanto, punindo como injusto aquele que
transgredir suas regras, uma vez que o elegido para governar poderia ser o mais
votado, mas não sendo, portanto, o mais preparado para aquela função.
Nesse sentido Platão afirma que " Efetivamente,
arriscar-nos-íamos, se houvesse um Estado de homens de bem, a que houvesse
competições para não governar, como agora as há para alcançar o poder, e
tornar-se-ia, então evidente do verdadeiro chefe não nasceu para velar pela sua
conveniência, mas pela dos seus subordinados. (Platão, A República, p.
34)".[72]
Conclui-se que, deve se buscar uma harmonia entre o
governante e o seus subordinados, em outras palavras, o ideal de Estado deveria
corresponder ao ideal de homem.
Teoria das Ideias
A Teoria das Ideias ou Teoria das Formas
afirma que formas (ou ideias) abstratas não-materiais (mas substanciais e
imutáveis) é que possuem o tipo mais alto e mais fundamental da realidade e não
o mundo material mutável conhecido por nós através da sensação.[73] Em uma analogia de
Reale, as coisas que captamos com os "olhos do corpo" são formas
físicas, as coisas que captamos com os "olhos da alma" são as formas
não-físicas;[74] o ver da inteligência
capta formas inteligíveis que são as essências puras. As Ideias são as
essências eternas do bem, do belo etc. Para Platão há uma conexão metafísica
entre a visão do olho da alma e o objeto em razão do qual tal visão não existe.[75] Este "mais real
do que o que vemos habitualmente" é descrito em sua Alegoria da caverna.[76]
Epistemologia
Muitos têm interpretado que Platão afirma — e mesmo
foi o primeiro a escrever — que conhecimento é crença
verdadeira justificada, uma visão influente que informou o
desenvolvimentos futuro da epistemologia.[77] Esta interpretação é
parcialmente baseada na uma leitura do Teeteto no qual Platão
argumenta que o conhecimento se distingue da mera crença verdadeira porque o
conhecedor deve ter uma "conta" do objeto de sua crença verdadeira (Teeteto
201C-d). E essa teoria pode novamente ser visto no Mênon, onde é sugerido que a
crença verdadeira pode ser aumentada para o nível de conhecimento, se está
ligada a uma conta quanto à questão do "por que" o objeto da
verdadeira crença é assim definido (Mênon 97d-98a).[78] Muitos anos depois,
Edmund Gettier demonstraria os problemas das crenças verdadeiras justificadas
no contexto do conhecimento.[79][80]
Dialética
A dialética de Platão não é um método simples e
linear, mas um conjunto de procedimentos, conhecimentos e comportamentos
desenvolvidos sempre em relação a determinados problemas ou
"conteúdos" filosóficos.[81] O papel de dialética no pensamento de Platão
é contestada, mas existem duas interpretações principais, um tipo de raciocínio
e um método de intuição.[82] Simon Blackburn adota
o primeiro, dizendo que a dialética de Platão é "o processo de extrair a
verdade por meio de perguntas destinadas a abrir o que já é implicitamente
conhecida, ou de expor as contradições e confusões de posição de um
oponente".[83] Karl Popper afirma que
a dialética é a arte da intuição para "visualizar os originais divinos, as
formas ou idéias, de desvendar o grande mistério por trás do comum mundo das
aparências do cotidiano do homem."[84]
Ética e justiça
Na República, Platão define a justiça como a
vontade de um cidadão de exercer sua profissão e atingir seu nível
pré-determinado e não interferir em outros assuntos,[85] Para que a justiça
tenha alguma validade, ela terá que ser uma virtude e, portando,
contribuidora de modo constitutivo para a boa vida de quem é justo.[86]
Na filosofia de Platão, é possível visualizar duas
modalidades de justiça: uma, absoluta, e outra, relativa. A justiça relativa é
a justiça humana que espelha-se nos princípios da alma e tenta dela se
aproximar.[87] Platão situa a justiça
humana como uma virtude indispensável à vida em comunidade, é ela que propicia
a convivência harmônica e cooperativa entre os seres humanos em coletividade.[88]
Conceitos
Anima mundi
Considerada por Platão como o princípio do cosmos e fonte de todas as almas individuais,[89] o termo é um conceito
cosmológico de uma alma compartilhada ou força regente do universo pela qual o
pensamento divino pode se manisfestar em leis que afetam a matéria. O termo foi
criado por Platão pela primeira vez na obra República[90] ou ainda na obra Timeu.[91]
Demiurgo
O uso filosófico e o substantivo próprio derivam do
diálogo Timeu,[92] a causa do universo[93], de acordo com a
exigência de que tudo que sofre transformação ou geração (genesis)
sofre-a em virtude de uma causa.[93] A meta perseguida pelo
demiurgo platônico é o bem do universo que ele tenta construir[94]. Este bem é recorrentemente
descrito em termos de ordem,[95] Platão descreve o
demiurgo como uma figura neutra (não-dualista), indiferente ao bem ou
ao mal,[96]
Legado
Apesar de sua popularidade ter flutuado ao longo dos
anos, as obras de Platão nunca ficaram sem leitores, desde o tempo em que foram
escritas.[97] O pensamento de Platão
é muitas vezes comparado com a de seu aluno mais famoso, Aristóteles, cuja reputação,
durante a Idade Média ocidental, eclipsou tão completamente a reputação de
Platão que os filósofos escolásticos referiam-se a Aristóteles como "o
Filósofo". No entanto, no Império Bizantino, o estudo de Platão continuou.
Os filósofos escolásticos medievais não tinham acesso
à maioria das obras de Platão, nem o conhecimento de grego necessário para lê-los. Os
escritos originais de Platão estavam essencialmente perdidos para a civilização
ocidental, até que foram trazidos de Constantinopla no século de sua
queda, por Gemisto Pletão.
Acredita-se que Platão passou uma cópia dos diálogos
platônicos para Cosme de
Médici em 1438/39 durante o Conselho de Ferrara,[98] quando foi chamado
para unificar as Igrejas grega e latina e então foi transferido para Florença
onde fez uma palestra sobre a relação e as diferenças de Platão e Aristóteles,
Pletão teria assim influenciado Cosme com seu entusiasmo.[99]
Durante a Era de Ouro Islâmica, estudiosos persas e árabes traduziram muito de Platão para o árabe e
escreveu comentários e interpretações sobre Platão, Aristóteles e obras de
outros filósofos Platonistas (ver Al-Farabi, Avicena, Averróis, Hunayn ibn Ishaq). Muitos desses
comentários sobre Platão foram traduzidos do árabe para o latim e, como tal,
influenciou filósofos escolásticos medievais.[100]
Filósofos ocidentais notáveis continuaram a
recorrer a obra de Platão desde aquela época. A influência de Platão tem sido
especialmente forte em matemática e ciências. Ele ajudou a fazer a distinção
entre a matemática
pura e a matemática
aplicada, ampliando o fosso entre a "aritmética", agora
chamada de teoria dos
números e "logística", agora chamada de aritmética. Ele considerou
logística como apropriado para homens de negócios enquanto os homens de guerra
"devem aprender a arte de números ou ele não vai saber como reunir suas
tropas", e a aritmética era apropriada para os filósofos "porque
precisa emergir do mar de mudanças e lançar mão do verdadeiro ser".[101]
Segundo Stephen Körner, o platonismo é
"tendência natural do matemático", o que pode ser confirmado por
nomes destacados de matemáticos que e reconhecem platônicos como Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, A. N.
Whitehead, Heinrich Scholz, Kurt Gödel, Alonzo Church, Georg Cantor etc. Partindo de Galileu, existe uma extensa
tradição do platonismo fisicalista que vai até Werner Heisenberg, Roger Penrose, Frank Tipler, Stephen Hawking e muitos outros.[102]
Gödel, responsável por alguns dos mais importantes
resultados da lógica
matemática do século XX, por exemplo, foi um platonista da velha
escola, como Platão, Gödel acreditava na existência independente de formas
matemáticas que ele identificou aos conceitos matemáticos, como os de
conjuntos, número real etc.[103]
Leo Strauss
é considerado por alguns como o principal pensador envolvido na recuperação do
pensamento platônico em sua forma mais política e menos metafísica.
Profundamente influenciado por Nietzsche e Heidegger, Strauss, no entanto
rejeita a condenação de Platão e olha para seus diálogos como uma solução para
o que todos os três pensadores reconhecem como "a crise do Ocidente".[104] Ele também era contra
a disseminação maciça do conhecimento baseando-se em Platão, já que as pessoas
não tendo a vocação para lidar com a verdade, apoiariam propostas antiéticas.[105]
Hobbes considerou
Platão como o melhor filósofo da Antiguidade clássica, pela razão de sua
filosofia ter como como ponto de partida ideias, enquanto que Aristóteles
partia de palavras. Para Hobbes, Platão
estaria apto a elaborar uma filosofia política por evitar conclusões falaciosas
acerca do "o que é", "o que foi", "o que deveria
ser".[106][107]
No século XX, os metafísicos René Guénon e Frithjof Schuon, francês o
primeiro e suíço-alemão o segundo, foram dois influentes autores que
re-elaboraram e atualizaram em linguagem contemporânea o pensamento universal e
perene de Platão, por eles visto como um eminente representante da Filosofia Perene. Nos livros de
ambos, como em A Crise
do Mundo Moderno e O Reino da Quantidade, de Guénon, e A Unidade
Transcendente das Religiões[108], Forma e
Substância nas Religões[109] e O Homem no
Universo, de Schuon, as ideias de Platão são expostas e discutidas em profundidade.
OBRAS:
Eutífron
Apologia
Críton
Fédon
Crátilo
Teeteto
Sofista
Político
Parmênides
Filebo
O Banquete
Fedro
Alcibíades I †
Alcibíades II ¤
Hiparco¤
Amantes Rivais ¤
Teages ¤
Cármides
Laques
Lísis
Eutidemo
Protágoras
Górgias
Mênon
Hípias menor
Hípias maior†
Íon
Menexêno
Clitofon †
A República
Timeu
Crítias
Minos ¤
Leis
Epínomis ¤
Epístolas ‡
Apócrifos ou não de
Platão: Axíoco, Definições, Da Justiça, Da Virtude, Demódoco, Sísifo, Hálcion, Eríxias
- ¤ Não é da autoria de Platão segundo a maioria dos estudiosos
- † Não é geralmente aceito pelos estudiosos
- ‡ Somente trechos têm a autoria comprovada
Cármides é um diálogo platônico que ocupa-se
com o tema da ética, mediante
discussão do conceito de σωφροσύνη, isto é, sofrósina. A data exata
sobre a criação do texto ainda é incerta, porém alguns críticos como Johann
Gottfried Stallbaum acreditam ser do período anterior ao domínio dos Trinta
Tiranos, enquanto outros (a maioria) afirmam datar de uma época posterior, após
a morte de Sócrates.
Lísis é um
diálogo platônico que ocupa-se com o conceito de phylia (amizade, amor).
Pertence à série conhecida como "primeiros diálogos", composto na
época em que o autor ainda era jovem.
Esse texto é essencialmente um monólogo de Sócrates,
com o objetivo de cativar o interesse do público; sobre o discurso da ideia de
"amor, amizade"; composto pelos jovens Menexeno e Lísis.
Provavelmente composto depois de Cármides e Laques por causa dos elementos
fundamentais do sistema platônico visíveis durante o texto.
Os personagens são Sócrates, Hipotalés (admirador
secreto de Lísis), Ctesipo, Menexeno e Lísis.
Laques (em grego: Λάχης) é um diálogo socrático de autoria de Platão. Seus participantes apresentam definições concorrentes
sobre o conceito de coragem.
Protágoras[1] é um diálogo platônico que ocupa-se com a
natureza da virtude, discutindo,
basicamente, se a virtude é ou não ensinável.
Eutidemo
(em grego
antigo: ἀνάμνησις Euthydemos) escrito por volta de 384 a.C., é um diálogo de Platão que satiriza o que Platão
apresenta como falácias
lógicas dos sofistas[1] e manipulação dos
discurso.[2] é um diálogo aporético,
ou seja, onde não se chega a um consenso.[3]
No Eutidemo, Platão transcreve como o sofista
Eutidemo se empenha em provar que o pai de Sócrates não é o pai de Sócrates.[4] Sócrates observa que os
bens reconhecidos pelos mortais se transformam em males se administrados por
imprudentes.[5]
Crátilo ( do grego antigo
Κρατύλος, Kratulos) é o nome de um diálogo platónico. A maioria dos
académicos contemporâneos acreditam ter sido essencialmente escrito no período
intermédio de Platão[1] No diálogo, Sócrates é questionado por dois homens, Crátilo e Hermógenes, sobre se os nomes são
"convencionais" ou "naturais", isto é, se a linguagem é um sistema de símbolos arbitrários ou se as palavras
possuem uma relação intrínseca com as coisas que elas significam. Ao fazer
isto, este texto tornou-se numa das primeiras obras filosóficas do período
clássico grego a tratar de matérias como a etimologia e a linguística.
Fedro
(em grego: Φαῖδρος),
escrito por Platão, é um diálogo entre o protagonista principal de Platão, Sócrates, e Fedro, um interlocutor em diversos diálogos.
Fedro foi possivelmente composto por volta de 370 aC, mesmo período que A República de Platão e O Banquete. Embora ostensivamente
sobre o tema do amor, a discussão no diálogo gira em torno
da arte da retórica e como deve
ser praticada, e apoia-se sobre temas tão diversos quanto a metempsicose (a tradição grega da reencarnação) e o amor erótico.
Íon é um diálogo platônico que ocupa-se com a poesia, tentando compreender se esta decorre da inspiração divina
ou se é produto do conhecimento.
O Banquete, também conhecido
como Simpósio (em grego
antigo: Συμπόσιον, transl. Sympósion) é um diálogo
platônico escrito por volta de 380 a.C.. Constitui-se
basicamente de uma série de discursos sobre a natureza e as qualidades do amor
(eros). O Banquete
é, juntamente com o Fedro, um dos dois
diálogos de Platão em que o tema principal é o amor. A interpretação de Leo Strauss e de Stanley Rosen destaca o aspecto tragicômico deste diálogo, que
é, na verdade, a resposta de Platão às acusações da Cidade contra a filosofia.
Mênon é um
dos diálogos de
Platão que ocupa-se com a virtude. Neste, Platão investiga a natureza do conhecimento, argumentando que a mente, ou a alma, tem
atravessado muitas existências, tanto dentro como fora dos corpos. O
conhecimento consiste em lembrar-se destas experiências anteriores.
Eutífron
(em grego
clássico: Εὐθύφρων; transl.: Euthuphrōn) é um
dos primeiros diálogos de Platão,[1] datando de cerca de 399 a.C. Ele apresenta o filósofo grego Socrates e Eutifro, conhecido
como sendo um esperto religioso.
Eles tentam estabelecer uma definição para piedade sem
chegarem a um consenso, ou seja, trata-se de um diálogo aporético.[2]
Apologia de Sócrates (por vezes simplesmente Apologia) (em grego
antigo: Ἀπολογία Σωκράτους Apologia
Socratis[1]) é a versão de Platão de um discurso dado por Sócrates em cerca de 399 a.C..[2] A obra é considerado o
segundo livro da tetralogia formada pelos seguintes diálogos: Eutífron, em que vê-se o
filósofo, ainda livre, indo para o tribunal a fim de conhecer as acusações que
lhe foram movidas pelo jovem Meleto; a Apologia, com a descrição do
processo; o Críton, com a visita de seu
amigo mais querido ao cárcere; o Fédon, com os últimos
instantes de vida e o discurso sobre a imortalidade da alma.
Em Apologia de Sócrates, o mesmo faz sua
defesa sobre as acusações de "corromper a juventude, não acreditar nos deuses e criar a nova
Deidade".
Críton (em grego antigo: Κρίτων) (ou Do
dever) é um diálogo entre Sócrates e seu amigo rico Críton em matéria
de justiça (δικη), injustiça (αδικια), e a resposta apropriada a injustiça.
Sócrates acha que a injustiça não pode ser respondida com a injustiça e se
recusa a oferta de Críton de financiar sua fuga da prisão. Este diálogo contém
uma declaração antiga da teoria do contrato
social do governo.
Fédon
(ou Fedão; em grego: Φαίδων, transl.
Phaídon) é um dos grandes diálogos de Platão de seu período médio,
juntamente com a A República
e O Banquete[1]. Fédon, que retrata a
morte de Sócrates, também é o quarto e
último diálogo de Platão a detalhar os últimos dias do filósofo depois das
obras Eutífron, Apologia
de Sócrates e Críton.
O tema da obra Fédon é considerado ser a imortalidade da alma.[2]
O Fédon foi traduzido pela primeira vez do
grego para latim por Henry Aristippus em 1155.[3]
Górgias é um diálogo de Platão, filósofo grego do século V
a.C..Deverá ter sido escrito depois da primeira viagem de Platão
à Sicília, em 387 a.C.
Situam-no na acmé (maturidade) da vida: depois dos quarenta anos, isso
significa que, pela boca de Sócrates fala já o próprio [Platão].
República (em grego:
Πολιτεία, transl.
Politeía) é um diálogo
socrático escrito por Platão, filósofo grego, no século IV a.C.. Todo o diálogo é
narrado, em primeira pessoa, por Sócrates. O tema central da obra
é a justiça.
No decorrer da obra é imaginada uma república na
cidade de Calípole, Kallipolis, que significa "cidade bela".
O diálogo tem uma extensão considerável, articulada
pelos tópicos do debate e por elementos dramáticos. Exteriormente, está
dividido em dez livros, subdividida em capítulos e com a numeração de páginas
do humanista Stéphanus
da tradição manuscrita e impressa.
Timeu (em grego
clássico: Τίμαιος; transl.: Timaios; em latim: Timaeus), é um
dos diálogos de Platão,
principalmente na forma de um longo monólogo do personagem-título, escrito por
volta de 360 a.C.
O trabalho apresenta a especulação sobre a natureza do mundo físico e os seres
humanos. É seguido pelo diálogo Crítias.
Falantes do diálogo são Sócrates, Timeu de Locros, Hermócrates e Crítias. Alguns estudiosos
acreditam que Crítias que aparece no diálogo não é o mesmo Crítias da Tirania dos
Trinta, mas seu avô, que também era chamado Crítias.[1][2][3]
Crítias
(Κριτίας) ou Atlântida (Ἀτλαντικός) é um dos últimos diálogos de
Platão. Parece ser uma continuação de A República e do Timeu.[1] O caráter inconclusivo
de seu conteúdo descreve a guerra entre a Atenas pré-helênica e Atlântida,
hipotético império ocidental e ilha misteriosa descrito por Crítias. O sofista argumenta que
a Atlântida existiu em um período
remoto, em lugares "muito além dos Pilares de
Hércules". Esta ilha mitologia foi engolida pelo mar e se
perdeu para sempre.[2]
Parménides (português europeu) ou Parmênides
(português brasileiro) (em grego antigo: Παρμενίδης Parmenides) é um dos diálogos de Platão. No diálogo é
apresentado eminentemente questões referentes à tese das formas inteligíveis, à
ontologia platônica e ao Um (ou "Uno").
O Teeteto (em grego, Θεαίτητος)
é um diálogo platônico sobre a natureza
do conhecimento. Nele aparece,
talvez pela primeira vez explicitamente na Filosofia, o confronto entre
verdade e relativismo.
Sofista
(em grego
antigo: Σοφιστής, em latim: Sophista[1]) é um diálogo platônico
que ocupa-se com os conceitos de sofista,
homem político e filósofo. Além disso, o diálogo aborda a questão do não-ser. Nesta obra encontra-se
uma posição de Platão sobre o conhecimento e também uma explicitação detalhada
do método da investigação filosófica.[2]
Político
(em grego
antigo: Πολιτικός Politikos, em latimPoliticus[1]) é um diálogo platônico
que ocupa-se, como o nome indica, com o perfil do homem político. O diálogo
visa indicar o conhecimento necessário ao político para que ele exerça um
governo justo e bom.[2][3]
Filebo (em
grego
antigo: Φίληβος) é um diálogo platônico que ocupa-se com a dialética e ontologia.[1]
Leis é um diálogo platônico que ocupa-se com
uma vasta gama de assuntos. A discussão das Leis, a fim de compreender a
conduta do cidadão e da promulgação de leis, perpassa por elementos da psicologia, gnosiologia, ética, política, ontologia e mesmo astronomia e matemática. É o último
diálogo de Platão e também o mais
extenso.
Epístolas é um conjunto de treze cartas
tradicionalmente creditadas ao filósofo grego Platão. A autencidade
destas cartas é tema de controvérsia entre os estudiosos e acadêmicos.
·
Menexêno
Menexêno é um diálogo
platônico que ocupa-se com a morte no campo de batalha.
·
Hípias menor
Hípias menor é um diálogo
platônico que ocupa-se com a ação correta.
Plato (427—347 B.C.E.)
Plato is one of
the world's best known and most widely read and studied philosophers. He was
the student of Socrates and the teacher of Aristotle, and he wrote in
the middle of the fourth century B.C.E. in ancient Greece. Though influenced primarily
by Socrates, to the extent that Socrates is usually the main character in many
of Plato's writings, he was also influenced by Heraclitus, Parmenides, and the Pythagoreans.
There are varying
degrees of controversy over which of Plato's works are authentic, and in what
order they were written, due to their antiquity and the manner of their
preservation through time. Nonetheless, his earliest works are generally
regarded as the most reliable of the ancient sources on Socrates, and the
character Socrates that we know through these writings is considered to be one
of the greatest of the ancient philosophers.
Plato's middle to
later works, including his most famous work, the Republic, are generally regarded as providing Plato's own
philosophy, where the main character in effect speaks for Plato himself. These
works blend ethics, political
philosophy, moral psychology, epistemology, and metaphysics
into an interconnected and systematic philosophy. It is most of all from Plato
that we get the theory of Forms, according to which the world we know through
the senses is only an imitation of the pure, eternal, and unchanging world of
the Forms. Plato's works also contain the origins of the familiar complaint
that the arts work by inflaming the passions, and are mere illusions. We also
are introduced to the ideal of "Platonic love:" Plato saw love as
motivated by a longing for the highest Form of beauty—The Beautiful Itself, and
love as the motivational power through which the highest of achievements are
possible. Because they tended to distract us into accepting less than our
highest potentials, however, Plato mistrusted and generally advised against
physical expressions of love.
Table of Contents
- Biography
- Influences on Plato
- Plato's Writings
- Plato's Dialogues and the Historical Socrates
- Dating Plato's Dialogues
- Transmission of Plato's Works
- Other Works Attributed to Plato
- The Early Dialogues
- Historical Accuracy
- Plato's Characterization of Socrates
- Ethical Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Psychological Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Religious Positions in the Early Dialogues
- Methodological and Epistemological Positions in the Early Dialogues
- The Middle Dialogues
- Differences between the Early and Middle Dialogues
- The Theory of Forms
- Immortality and Reincarnation
- Moral Psychology
- Critique of the Arts
- Platonic Love
- Late Transitional and Late Dialogues
- Philosophical Methodology
- Critique of the Earlier Theory of Forms
- The Myth of Atlantis
- The Creation of the Universe
- The Laws
- References and Further Reading
1. Biography
a. Birth
It is widely
accepted that Plato, the Athenian philosopher, was born in 428-7 B.C.E and died
at the age of eighty or eighty-one at 348-7 B.C.E. These dates, however, are
not entirely certain, for according to Diogenes Laertius (D.L.), following
Apollodorus' chronology, Plato was born the year Pericles died, was six years
younger than Isocrates, and died at the age of eighty-four (D.L. 3.2-3.3). If
Plato's date of death is correct in Apollodorus' version, Plato would have been
born in 430 or 431. Diogenes' claim that Plato was born the year Pericles died
would put his birth in 429. Later (at 3.6), Diogenes says that Plato was
twenty-eight when Socrates was put to death (in 399), which would, again, put
his year of birth at 427. In
spite of the confusion, the dates of Plato's life we gave above, which are
based upon Eratosthenes' calculations, have traditionally been accepted as
accurate.
b. Family
Little can be
known about Plato's early life. According to Diogenes, whose testimony is
notoriously unreliable, Plato's parents were Ariston and Perictione (or
Potone—see D. L. 3.1). Both sides of the family claimed to trace their ancestry
back to Poseidon (D.L. 3.1). Diogenes' report that Plato's birth was the result
of Ariston's rape of Perictione (D.L. 3.1) is a good example of the unconfirmed
gossip in which Diogenes so often indulges. We can be confident that Plato also
had two older brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, and a sister, Potone, by the
same parents (see D.L. 3.4). (W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, vol. 4, 10 n. 4 argues
plausibly that Glaucon and Adeimantus were Plato's older siblings.) After
Ariston's death, Plato's mother married her uncle, Pyrilampes (in Plato's Charmides, we are told that Pyrilampes
was Charmides' uncle, and Charmides was Plato's mother's brother), with whom
she had another son, Antiphon, Plato's half-brother (see Plato, Parmenides 126a-b).
Plato came from
one of the wealthiest and most politically active families in Athens. Their political activities, however,
are not seen as laudable ones by historians. One of Plato's uncles (Charmides)
was a member of the notorious "Thirty Tyrants," who overthrew the
Athenian democracy in 404 B.C.E. Charmides' own uncle, Critias, was the leader
of the Thirty. Plato's relatives were not exclusively associated with the
oligarchic faction in Athens,
however. His stepfather Pyrilampes was said to have been a close associate of
Pericles, when he was the leader of the democratic faction.
Plato's actual
given name was apparently Aristocles, after his grandfather. "Plato"
seems to have started as a nickname (for platos,
or "broad"), perhaps first given to him by his wrestling
teacher for his physique, or for the breadth of his style, or even the breadth
of his forehead (all given in D.L. 3.4). Although the name Aristocles was still
given as Plato's name on one of the two epitaphs on his tomb (see D.L. 3.43),
history knows him as Plato.
c. Early Travels and the Founding of the Academy
When Socrates
died, Plato left Athens, staying first in Megara, but then going on to several other places,
including perhaps Cyrene, Italy, Sicily,
and even Egypt.
Strabo (17.29) claims that he was shown where Plato lived when he visited Heliopolis in Egypt. Plato occasionally mentions Egypt in his
works, but not in ways that reveal much of any consequence (see, for examples, Phaedrus 274c-275b; Philebus 19b).
Better evidence
may be found for his visits to Italy
and Sicily,
especially in the Seventh Letter. According
to the account given there, Plato first went to Italy
and Sicily
when he was "about forty" (324a). While he stayed in Syracuse, he became the instructor to Dion,
brother-in-law of the tyrant Dionysius I. According to doubtful stories from
later antiquity, Dionysius became annoyed with Plato at some point during this
visit, and arranged to have the philosopher sold into slavery (Diod. 15.7;
Plut. Dion 5; D.L. 3.19-21).
In any event,
Plato returned to Athens
and founded a school, known as the Academy. (This is where we get our
word, "academic." The Academy got its name from its location, a grove
of trees sacred to the hero Academus—or Hecademus [see D.L. 3.7]—a mile or so
outside the Athenian walls; the site can still be visited in modern Athens, but
visitors will find it depressingly void of interesting monuments or features.)
Except for two more trips to Sicily,
the Academy seems to have been Plato's home base for the remainder of his life.
d. Later Trips to Sicily and Death
The first of
Plato's remaining two Sicilian adventures came after Dionysius I died and his
young son, Dionysius II, ascended to the throne. His uncle/brother-in-law Dion
persuaded the young tyrant to invite Plato to come to help him become a
philosopher-ruler of the sort described in the Republic. Although the philosopher (now in his sixties) was
not entirely persuaded of this possibility (Seventh
Letter 328b-c), he agreed to go. This trip, like the last one,
however, did not go well at all. Within months, the younger Dionysius had Dion
sent into exile for sedition (Seventh
Letter 329c, Third Letter 316c-d),
and Plato became effectively under house arrest as the "personal
guest" of the dictator (Seventh Letter
329c-330b).
Plato eventually
managed to gain the tyrant's permission to return to Athens (Seventh
Letter 338a), and he and Dion were reunited at the Academy (Plut. Dion 17). Dionysius agreed that
"after the war" (Seventh Letter 338a;
perhaps the Lucanian War in 365 B.C.E.), he would invite Plato and Dion back to
Syracuse (Third Letter 316e-317a, Seventh Letter 338a-b). Dion and Plato
stayed in Athens
for the next four years (c. 365-361 B.C.E.). Dionysius then summoned Plato, but
wished for Dion to wait a while longer. Dion accepted the condition and
encouraged Plato to go immediately anyway (Third
Letter 317a-b, Seventh Letter
338b-c), but Plato refused the invitation, much to the consternation of both
Syracusans (Third Letter 317a, Seventh Letter 338c). Hardly a year had
passed, however, before Dionysius sent a ship, with one of Plato's Pythagorean
friends (Archedemus, an associate of Archytas—see Seventh Letter 339a-b and next section) on board begging
Plato to return to Syracuse.
Partly because of his friend Dion's enthusiasm for the plan, Plato departed one
more time to Syracuse.
Once again, however, things in Syracuse
were not at all to Plato's liking. Dionysius once again effectively imprisoned
Plato in Syracuse,
and the latter was only able to escape again with help from his Tarentine
friends ( Seventh Letter 350a-b).
Dion subsequently
gathered an army of mercenaries and invaded his own homeland. But his success
was short-lived: he was assassinated and Sicily
was reduced to chaos. Plato, perhaps now completely disgusted with politics,
returned to his beloved Academy, where he lived out the last thirteen years of
his life. According to Diogenes, Plato was buried at the school he founded
(D.L. 3.41). His grave, however, has not yet been discovered by archeological
investigations.
2. Influences on Plato
a. Heraclitus
Aristotle and Diogenes
agree that Plato had some early association with either the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, or with one or
more of that philosopher's followers (see Aristotle Metaph. 987a32, D.L.
3.4-3.5). The effects of this influence can perhaps be seen in the mature
Plato's conception of the sensible world as ceaselessly changing.
b. Parmenides and Zeno
There can be no
doubt that Plato was also strongly influenced by Parmenides and Zeno (both of Elea), in Plato's theory of the Forms, which are plainly
intended to satisfy the Parmenidean requirement of metaphysical unity and stability
in knowable reality. Parmenides and Zeno also appear as characters in his
dialogue, the Parmenides.
Diogenes Laertius also notes other important influences:
He mixed together
in his works the arguments of Heracleitus, the Pythagoreans, and Socrates.
Regarding the sensibles, he borrows from Heraclitus; regarding the
intelligibles, from Pythagoras; and regarding politics, from Socrates. (D.L.
3.8)
A little later,
Diogenes makes a series of comparisons intended to show how much Plato owed to
the comic poet, Epicharmus (3.9-3.17).
c. The Pythagoreans
Diogenes Laertius
(3.6) claims that Plato visited several Pythagoreans in Southern
Italy (one of whom, Theodorus, is also mentioned as a friend to
Socrates in Plato's Theaetetus). In the Seventh Letter, we learn that Plato was a
friend of Archytas of Tarentum, a well-known Pythagorean statesman and thinker
(see 339d-e), and in the Phaedo, Plato
has Echecrates, another Pythagorean, in the group around Socrates on his final
day in prison. Plato's Pythagorean influences seem especially evident in his
fascination with mathematics, and in some of his political ideals (see Plato's
political philosophy), expressed in various ways in several dialogues.
d. Socrates
Nonetheless, it is
plain that no influence on Plato was greater than that of Socrates. This is
evident not only in many of the doctrines and arguments we find in Plato's
dialogues, but perhaps most obviously in Plato's choice of Socrates as the main
character in most of his works. According to the Seventh Letter, Plato counted Socrates "the justest man
alive" (324e). According to Diogenes Laertius, the respect was mutual
(3.5).
3. Plato's Writings
a. Plato's Dialogues and the Historical Socrates
Supposedly
possessed of outstanding intellectual and artistic ability even from his youth,
according to Diogenes, Plato began his career as a writer of tragedies, but
hearing Socrates talk, he wholly abandoned that path, and even burned a tragedy
he had hoped to enter in a dramatic competition (D.L. 3.5). Whether or not any
of these stories is true, there can be no question of Plato's mastery of
dialogue, characterization, and dramatic context. He may, indeed, have written
some epigrams; of the surviving epigrams attributed to him in antiquity, some
may be genuine.
Plato was not the
only writer of dialogues in which Socrates appears as a principal character and
speaker. Others, including Alexamenos of Teos (Aristotle Poetics 1447b11; De Poetis fr. 3 Ross
[=Rose2 72]), Aeschines (D.L. 2.60-63, 3.36, Plato Apology 33e), Antisthenes (D.L. 3.35, 6;
Plato, Phaedo 59b; Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.4.5,
3.2.17), Aristippus (D.L. 2.65-104, 3.36, Plato Phaedo 59c), Eucleides (D.L. 2.106-112),
Phaedo (D.L. 2.105; Plato, Phaedo
passim), Simon (D.L. 122-124), and especially Xenophon (see D.L. 2.48-59,
3.34), were also well-known "Socratics" who composed such works. A
recent study of these, by Charles H. Kahn (1996, 1-35), concludes that the very
existence of the genre—and all of the conflicting images of Socrates we find
given by the various authors—shows that we cannot trust as historically
reliable any of the accounts of Socrates given in antiquity, including those
given by Plato.
But it is one
thing to claim that Plato was not the only one to write Socratic dialogues, and
quite another to hold that Plato was only following the rules of some genre of
writings in his own work. Such a claim, at any rate, is hardly established
simply by the existence of these other writers and their writings. We may still
wish to ask whether Plato's own use of Socrates as his main character has
anything at all to do with the historical Socrates. The question has led to a
number of seemingly irresolvable scholarly disputes. At least one important
ancient source, Aristotle, suggests that at least some of the doctrines Plato
puts into the mouth of the "Socrates" of the "early" or
"Socrates" dialogues are the very ones espoused by the historical
Socrates. Because Aristotle has no reason not to be truthful about this issue,
many scholars believe that his testimony provides a solid basis for
distinguishing the "Socrates" of the "early" dialogues from
the character by that name in Plato's supposedly later works, whose views and
arguments Aristotle suggests are Plato's own.
b. Dating Plato's Dialogues
One way to
approach this issue has been to find some way to arrange the dialogues into at
least relative dates. It has frequently been assumed that if we can establish a
relative chronology for when Plato wrote each of the dialogues, we can provide
some objective test for the claim that Plato represented Socrates more
accurately in the earlier dialogues, and less accurately in the later
dialogues.
In antiquity, the
ordering of Plato's dialogues was given entirely along thematic lines. The best
reports of these orderings (see Diogenes Laertius' discussion at 3.56-62)
included many works whose authenticity is now either disputed or unanimously
rejected. The uncontroversial internal and external historical evidence for a
chronological ordering is relatively slight. Aristotle (Politics 2.6.1264b24-27), Diogenes
Laertius (3.37), and Olympiodorus (Prol. 6.24) state that Plato wrote the Laws after the Republic. Internal references in the Sophist (217a) and the Statesman (also known as the Politicus; 257a, 258b) show the Statesman to come after the Sophist. The Timaeus (17b-19b) may refer to Republic as coming before it, and more clearly mentions the Critias as following it (27a). Similarly,
internal references in the Sophist (216a,
217c) and the Theaetetus (183e)
may be thought to show the intended order of three dialogues: Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophist. Even so, it does not follow that
these dialogues were actually written in that order. At Theaetetus 143c, Plato announces through
his characters that he will abandon the somewhat cumbersome dialogue form that
is employed in his other writings. Since the form does not appear in a number
of other writings, it is reasonable to infer that those in which it does not
appear were written after the Theaetetus.
Scholars have
sought to augment this fairly scant evidence by employing different methods of
ordering the remaining dialogues. One such method is that of stylometry, by
which various aspects of Plato's diction in each dialogue are measured against
their uses and frequencies in other dialogues. Originally done by laborious
study by individuals, stylometry can now be done more efficiently with
assistance by computers. Another, even more popular, way to sort and group the
dialogues is what is called "content analysis," which works by
finding and enumerating apparent commonalities or differences in the
philosophical style and content of the various dialogues. Neither of these
general approaches has commanded unanimous assent among scholars, and it is
unlikely that debates about this topic can ever be put entirely to rest.
Nonetheless, most recent scholarship seems to assume that Plato's dialogues can
be sorted into different groups, and it is not unusual for books and articles
on the philosophy of Socrates to state that by "Socrates" they mean
to refer to the character in Plato's "early" or Socratic dialogues,
as if this Socrates was as close to the historical Socrates as we are likely to
get. (We have more to say on this subject in the next section.) Perhaps the
most thorough examination of this sort can be found in Gregory Vlastos's, Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge
and Cornell, 1991, chapters 2-4), where ten significant differences between the
"Socrates" of Plato's "early" dialogues and the character
by that name in the later dialogues are noted. Our own view of the probable
dates and groups of dialogues, which to some extent combine the results of
stylometry and content analysis, is as follows (all lists but the last in
alphabetical order):
Early
(All after the death of Socrates, but before Plato's first trip to Sicily in 387 B.C.E.):
(All after the death of Socrates, but before Plato's first trip to Sicily in 387 B.C.E.):
Apology,
Charmides, Crito, Euthydemus, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Major, Hippias Minor,
Ion, Laches, Lysis, Protagoras, Republic Bk. I.
Early-Transitional
(Either at the end of the early group or at the beginning of the middle group, c. 387-380 B.C.E.):
(Either at the end of the early group or at the beginning of the middle group, c. 387-380 B.C.E.):
Cratylus,
Menexenus, Meno
Middle
(c. 380-360 B.C.E.)
(c. 380-360 B.C.E.)
Phaedo, Republic Bks. II-X, Symposium
Late-Transitional
(Either at the end of the middle group, or the beginning of the late group, c. 360-355 B.C.E.)
(Either at the end of the middle group, or the beginning of the late group, c. 360-355 B.C.E.)
Parmenides,
Theaetetus, Phaedrus
Late
(c. 355-347 B.C.E.; possibly in chronological order)
(c. 355-347 B.C.E.; possibly in chronological order)
Sophist,
Statesman, Philebus, Timaeus, Critias, Laws
c. Transmission of Plato's Works
Except for the Timaeus, all of Plato's works were lost
to the Western world until medieval times, preserved only by Moslem scholars in
the Middle East. In 1578 Henri Estienne (whose
Latinized name was Stephanus) published an edition of the dialogues in which
each page of the text is separated into five sections (labeled a, b, c, d, and
e). The standard style of citation for Platonic texts includes the name of the
text, followed by Stephanus page and section numbers (e.g. Republic 511d). Scholars sometimes also
add numbers after the Stephanus section letters, which refer to line numbers
within the Stephanus sections in the standard Greek edition of the dialogues,
the Oxford Classical texts.
4. Other Works Attributed to Plato
a. Spuria
Several other
works, including thirteen letters and eighteen epigrams, have been attributed
to Plato. These other works are generally called the spuria and the dubia. The spuria were collected among the works of Plato but suspected
as frauds even in antiquity. The dubia are
those presumed authentic in later antiquity, but which have more recently been
doubted.
Ten of the spuria are mentioned by Diogenes Laertius
at 3.62. Five of these are no longer extant: the Midon or Horse-breeder,
Phaeacians, Chelidon, Seventh Day, and Epimenides. Five others do exist: the Halcyon, Axiochus, Demodocus, Eryxias, and
Sisyphus. To the ten Diogenes
Laertius lists, we may uncontroversially add On
Justice, On Virtue, and the Definitions,
which was included in the medieval manuscripts of Plato's work, but
not mentioned in antiquity.
Works whose
authenticity was also doubted in antiquity include the Second Alcibiades (or Alcibiades II), Epinomis, Hipparchus, and Rival Lovers (also known as either Rivals or Lovers), and these are sometimes defended as authentic
today. If any are of these are authentic, the
Epinomis would be in the late group, and the others would go with
the early or early transitional groups.
b. Epigrams
Seventeen or
eighteen epigrams (poems appropriate to funerary monuments or other
dedications) are also attributed to Plato by various ancient authors. Most of
these are almost certainly not by Plato, but some few may be authentic. Of the
ones that could be authentic (Cooper 1997, 1742 names 1, 2, 7, and especially 3
as possibly authentic), one (1) is a love poem dedicated to a student of
astronomy, perhaps at the Academy, another (2) appears to be a funerary
inscription for that same student, another (3) is a funerary inscription for
Plato's Syracusan friend, Dion (in which the author confesses that Dion "maddened
my heart with erôs"), and
the last (7) is a love poem to a young woman or girl. None appear to provide
anything of great philosophical interest.
c. Dubia
The dubia present special risks to scholars:
On the one hand, any decision not to include them among the authentic dialogues
creates the risk of losing valuable evidence for Plato's (or perhaps Socrates')
philosophy; on the other hand, any decision to include them creates the risk of
obfuscating the correct view of Plato's (or Socrates') philosophy, by including
non-Platonic (or non-Socratic) elements within that philosophy. The dubia include the First Alcibiades (or Alcibiades I), Minos, and Theages, all of which, if authentic, would probably go with
the early or early transitional groups, the Cleitophon,
which might be early, early transitional, or middle, and the
letters, of which the Seventh
seems the best candidate for authenticity. Some scholars have also suggested
the possibility that the Third may
also be genuine. If any are authentic, the letters would appear to be works of
the late period, with the possible exception of the Thirteenth Letter, which could be from the middle period.
Nearly all of the
dialogues now accepted as genuine have been challenged as inauthentic by some
scholar or another. In the 19th Century in particular, scholars often
considered arguments for and against the authenticity of dialogues whose
authenticity is now only rarely doubted. Of those we listed as authentic, above
(in the early group), only the Hippias
Major continues occasionally to be listed as inauthentic. The
strongest evidence against the authenticity of the Hippias Major is the fact that it is never mentioned in any
of the ancient sources. However, relative to how much was actually written in
antiquity, so little now remains that our lack of ancient references to this
dialogue does not seem to be an adequate reason to doubt its authenticity. In
style and content, it seems to most contemporary scholars to fit well with the
other Platonic dialogues.
5. The Early Dialogues
a. Historical Accuracy
Although no one
thinks that Plato simply recorded the actual words or speeches of Socrates
verbatim, the argument has been made that there is nothing in the speeches
Socrates makes in the Apology
that he could have not uttered at the historical trial. At any rate, it is
fairly common for scholars to treat Plato's Apology
as the most reliable of the ancient sources on the historical
Socrates. The other early dialogues are certainly Plato's own creations. But as
we have said, most scholars treat these as representing more or less accurately
the philosophy and behavior of the historical Socrates—even if they do not
provide literal historical records of actual Socratic conversations. Some of
the early dialogues include anachronisms that prove their historical
inaccuracy.
It is possible, of
course, that the dialogues are all wholly Plato's inventions and have nothing
at all to do with the historical Socrates. Contemporary scholars generally
endorse one of the following four views about the dialogues and their
representation of Socrates:
- The Unitarian View:
This view, more
popular early in the 20th Century than it is now, holds that there is but a
single philosophy to be found in all of Plato's works (of any period, if such
periods can even be identified reliably). There is no reason, according to the
Unitarian scholar, ever to talk about "Socratic philosophy" (at least
from anything to be found in Plato—everything in Plato's dialogues is Platonic philosophy, according to the
Unitarian). One recent version of this view has been argued by Charles H. Kahn
(1996). Most later, but still ancient, interpretations of Plato were
essentially Unitarian in their approach. Aristotle,
however, was a notable exception.
- The Literary Atomist View:
We call this
approach the "literary atomist view," because those who propose this
view treat each dialogue as a complete literary whole, whose proper
interpretation must be achieved without reference to any of Plato's other
works. Those who endorse this view reject completely any relevance or validity
of sorting or grouping the dialogues into groups, on the ground that any such
sorting is of no value to the proper interpretation of any given dialogue. In
this view, too, there is no reason to make any distinction between
"Socratic philosophy" and "Platonic philosophy." According
to the literary atomist, all philosophy to be found in the works of Plato
should be attributed only to Plato.
- The Developmentalist View:
According to this
view, the most widely held of all of the interpretative approaches, the
differences between the early and later dialogues represent developments in
Plato's own philosophical and literary career. These may or may not be related
to his attempting in any of the dialogues to preserve the memory of the
historical Socrates (see approach 4); such differences may only represent
changes in Plato's own philosophical views. Developmentalists may generally
identify the earlier positions or works as "Socratic" and the later
ones "Platonic," but may be agnostic about the relationship of the
"Socratic" views and works to the actual historical Socrates.
- The Historicist View:
Perhaps the most
common of the Developmentalist positions is the view that the
"development" noticeable between the early and later dialogues may be
attributed to Plato's attempt, in the early dialogues, to represent the
historical Socrates more or less accurately. Later on, however (perhaps because
of the development of the genre of "Socratic writings," within which
other authors were making no attempt at historical fidelity), Plato began more
freely to put his own views into the mouth of the character,
"Socrates," in his works. Plato's own student, Aristotle, seems to
have understood the dialogues in this way.
Now, some scholars
who are skeptical about the entire program of dating the dialogues into
chronological groups, and who are thus strictly speaking not historicists (see,
for example, Cooper 1997, xii-xvii) nonetheless accept the view that the
"early" works are "Socratic" in tone and content. With few
exceptions, however, scholars agreed that if we are unable to distinguish any
group of dialogues as early or "Socratic," or even if we can
distinguish a separate set of "Socratic" works but cannot identify a
coherent philosophy within those works, it makes little sense to talk about
"the philosophy of historical Socrates" at all. There is just too
little (and too little that is at all interesting) to be found that could
reliably be attributed to Socrates from any other ancient authors. Any serious
philosophical interest in Socrates, then, must be pursued through study of
Plato's early or "Socratic" dialogues.
b. Plato's Characterization of Socrates
In the dialogues
generally accepted as early (or "Socratic"), the main character is always
Socrates. Socrates is represented as extremely agile in question-and-answer,
which has come to be known as "the Socratic method of teaching," or
"the elenchus" (or elenchos,
from the Greek term for refutation), with Socrates nearly always playing the role
as questioner, for he claimed to have no wisdom of his own to share with
others. Plato's Socrates, in this period, was adept at reducing even the most
difficult and recalcitrant interlocutors to confusion and self-contradiction.
In the Apology, Socrates
explains that the embarrassment he has thus caused to so many of his
contemporaries is the result of a Delphic oracle given to Socrates' friend
Chaerephon (Apology 21a-23b),
according to which no one was wiser than Socrates. As a result of his attempt to
discern the true meaning of this oracle, Socrates gained a divinely ordained
mission in Athens
to expose the false conceit of wisdom. The embarrassment his
"investigations" have caused to so many of his contemporaries—which
Socrates claims was the root cause of his being brought up on charges (Apology 23c-24b)—is thus no one's fault
but his "victims," for having chosen to live "the unexamined
life" (see 38a).
The way that
Plato's represents Socrates going about his "mission" in Athens provides a
plausible explanation both of why the Athenians would have brought him to trial
and convicted him in the troubled years after the end of the Peloponnesian War,
and also of why Socrates was not really guilty of the charges he faced. Even
more importantly, however, Plato's early dialogues provide intriguing arguments
and refutations of proposed philosophical positions that interest and challenge
philosophical readers. Platonic dialogues continue to be included among the
required readings in introductory and advanced philosophy classes, not only for
their ready accessibility, but also because they raise many of the most basic
problems of philosophy. Unlike most other philosophical works, moreover, Plato
frames the discussions he represents in dramatic settings that make the content
of these discussions especially compelling. So, for example, in the Crito, we find Socrates discussing the
citizen's duty to obey the laws of the state as he awaits his own legally
mandated execution in jail, condemned by what he and Crito both agree was a
terribly wrong verdict, the result of the most egregious misapplication of the
very laws they are discussing. The dramatic features of Plato's works have
earned attention even from literary scholars relatively uninterested in
philosophy as such. Whatever their value for specifically historical research,
therefore, Plato's dialogues will continue to be read and debated by students
and scholars, and the Socrates we find in the early or "Socratic"
dialogues will continue to be counted among the greatest Western philosophers.
c. Ethical Positions in the Early Dialogues
The philosophical
positions most scholars agree can be found directly endorsed or at least
suggested in the early or "Socratic" dialogues include the following
moral or ethical views:
- A rejection of retaliation, or the return of harm for harm or evil for evil (Crito 48b-c, 49c-d; Republic I.335a-e);
- The claim that doing injustice harms one's soul, the thing that is most precious to one, and, hence, that it is better to suffer injustice than to do it (Crito 47d-48a; Gorgias 478c-e, 511c-512b; Republic I.353d-354a);
- Some form of what is called "eudaimonism," that is, that goodness is to be understood in terms of conduciveness to human happiness, well-being, or flourishing, which may also be understood as "living well," or "doing well" (Crito 48b; Euthydemus 278e, 282a; Republic I. 354a);
- The view that only virtue is good just by itself; anything else that is good is good only insofar as it serves or is used for or by virtue (Apology 30b; Euthydemus 281d-e);
- The view that there is some kind of unity among the virtues: In some sense, all of the virtues are the same (Protagoras 329b-333b, 361a-b);
- The view that the citizen who has agreed to live in a state must always obey the laws of that state, or else persuade the state to change its laws, or leave the state (Crito 51b-c, 52a-d).
d. Psychological Positions in the Early Dialogues
Socrates also
appears to argue for, or directly makes a number of related psychological
views:
- All wrongdoing is done in ignorance, for everyone desires only what is good (Protagoras 352a-c; Gorgias 468b; Meno 77e-78b);
- In some sense, everyone actually believes certain moral principles, even though some may think they do not have such beliefs, and may disavow them in argument (Gorgias 472b, 475e-476a).
e. Religious Positions in the Early Dialogues
In these
dialogues, we also find Socrates represented as holding certain religious
beliefs, such as:
- The gods are completely wise and good (Apology 28a; Euthyphro 6a, 15a; Meno 99b-100b);
- Ever since his childhood (see Apology 31d) Socrates has experienced a certain "divine something" (Apology 31c-d; 40a; Euthyphro 3b; see also Phaedrus 242b), which consists in a "voice" (Apology 31d; see also Phaedrus 242c), or "sign" (Apology 40c, 41d; Euthydemus 272e; see also Republic VI.496c; Phaedrus 242b) that opposes him when he is about to do something wrong (Apology 40a, 40c);
- Various forms of divination can allow human beings to come to recognize the will of the gods (Apology 21a-23b, 33c);
- Poets and rhapsodes are able to write and do the wonderful things they write and do, not from knowledge or expertise, but from some kind of divine inspiration. The same canbe said of diviners and seers, although they do seem to have some kind of expertise—perhaps only some technique by which to put them in a state of appropriate receptivity to the divine (Apology 22b-c; Laches 198e-199a; Ion 533d-536a, 538d-e; Meno 99c);
- No one really knows what happens after death, but it is reasonable to think that death is not an evil; there may be an afterlife, in which the souls of the good are rewarded, and the souls of the wicked are punished (Apology 40c-41c; Crito 54b-c; Gorgias 523a-527a).
f. Methodological and Epistemological Positions in the Early Dialogues
In addition,
Plato's Socrates in the early dialogues may plausibly be regarded as having
certain methodological or epistemological convictions, including:
- Definitional knowledge of ethical terms is at least a necessary condition of reliable judging of specific instances of the values they name (Euthyphro 4e-5d, 6e; Laches 189e-190b; Lysis 223b; Greater Hippias 304d-e; Meno 71a-b, 100b; Republic I.354b-c);
- A mere list of examples of some ethical value—even if all are authentic cases of that value—would never provide an adequate analysis of what the value is, nor would it provide an adequate definition of the value term that refers to the value. Proper definitions must state what is common to all examples of the value (Euthyphro 6d-e; Meno 72c-d);
- Those with expert knowledge or wisdom on a given subject do not err in their judgments on that subject (Euthyphro 4e-5a; Euthydemus 279d-280b), go about their business in their area of expertise in a rational and regular way (Gorgias 503e-504b), and can teach and explain their subject (Gorgias 465a, 500e-501b, 514a-b; Laches 185b, 185e, 1889e-190b); Protagoras 319b-c).
6. The Middle Dialogues
a. Differences between the Early and Middle Dialogues
Scholarly attempts
to provide relative chronological orderings of the early transitional and
middle dialogues are problematical because all agree that the main dialogue of
the middle period, the Republic,
has several features that make dating it precisely especially difficult. As we
have already said, many scholars count the first book of the Republic as among the early group of
dialogues. But those who read the entire Republic
will also see that the first book also provides a natural and effective
introduction to the remaining books of the work. A recent study by Debra Nails
("The Dramatic Date of Plato's Republic,"
The Classical Journal 93.4, 1998, 383-396) notes several
anachronisms that suggest that the process of writing (and perhaps re-editing)
the work may have continued over a very long period. If this central work of
the period is difficult to place into a specific context, there can be no great
assurance in positioning any other works relative to this one.
Nonetheless, it
does not take especially careful study of the transitional and middle period
dialogues to notice clear differences in style and philosophical content from
the early dialogues. The most obvious change is the way in which Plato seems to
characterize Socrates: In the early dialogues, we find Socrates simply asking
questions, exposing his interlocutors' confusions, all the while professing his
own inability to shed any positive light on the subject, whereas in the middle
period dialogues, Socrates suddenly emerges as a kind of positive expert,
willing to affirm and defend his own theories about many important subjects. In
the early dialogues, moreover, Socrates discusses mainly ethical subjects with
his interlocutors—with some related religious, methodological, and
epistemological views scattered within the primarily ethical discussions. In
the middle period, Plato's Socrates' interests expand outward into nearly every
area of inquiry known to humankind. The philosophical positions Socrates
advances in these dialogues are vastly more systematical, including broad
theoretical inquiries into the connections between language and reality (in the
Cratylus), knowledge and
explanation (in the Phaedo and Republic, Books V-VII). Unlike the
Socrates of the early period, who was the "wisest of men" only
because he recognized the full extent of his own ignorance, the Socrates of the
middle period acknowledges the possibility of infallible human knowledge
(especially in the famous similes of light, the simile of the sun and good and
the simile of the divided line in Book VI and the parable of the cave in Book
VII of the Republic), and this
becomes possible in virtue of a special sort of cognitive contact with the
Forms or Ideas (eidê ), which
exist in a supra-sensible realm available only to thought. This theory of
Forms, introduced and explained in various contexts in each of the middle
period dialogues, is perhaps the single best-known and most definitive aspect
of what has come to be known as Platonism.
b. The Theory of Forms
In many of his
dialogues, Plato mentions supra-sensible entities he calls "Forms"
(or "Ideas"). So, for example, in the Phaedo, we are told that particular sensible equal
things—for example, equal sticks or stones (see Phaedo 74a-75d)—are equal because of their
"participation" or "sharing" in the character of the Form
of Equality, which is absolutely, changelessly, perfectly, and essentially
equal. Plato sometimes characterizes this participation in the Form as a kind
of imaging, or approximation of the Form. The same may be said of the many
things that are greater or smaller and the Forms of Great and Small (Phaedo 75c-d), or the many tall things
and the Form of Tall (Phaedo
100e), or the many beautiful things and the Form of Beauty (Phaedo 75c-d, Symposium 211e, Republic
V.476c). When Plato writes about instances of Forms "approximating"
Forms, it is easy to infer that, for Plato, Forms are exemplars. If so, Plato
believes that The Form of Beauty is perfect beauty, the Form of Justice is
perfect justice, and so forth. Conceiving of Forms in this way was important to
Plato because it enabled the philosopher who grasps the entities to be best
able to judge to what extent sensible instances of the Forms are good examples
of the Forms they approximate.
Scholars disagree
about the scope of what is often called "the theory of Forms," and
question whether Plato began holding that there are only Forms for a small
range of properties, such as tallness, equality, justice, beauty, and so on,
and then widened the scope to include Forms corresponding to every term that
can be applied to a multiplicity of instances. In the Republic, he writes as if there may be a
great multiplicity of Forms—for example, in Book X of that work, we find him
writing about the Form of Bed (see Republic
X.596b). He may have come to believe that for any set of things that shares
some property, there is a Form that gives unity to the set of things (and
univocity to the term by which we refer to members of that set of things).
Knowledge involves the recognition of the Forms (Republic V.475e-480a), and any reliable application of this
knowledge will involve the ability to compare the particular sensible
instantiations of a property to the Form.
c. Immortality and Reincarnation
In the early
transitional dialogue, the Meno, Plato
has Socrates introduce the Orphic and Pythagorean idea that souls are immortal
and existed before our births. All knowledge, he explains, is actually
recollected from this prior existence. In perhaps the most famous passage in
this dialogue, Socrates elicits recollection about geometry from one of Meno's
slaves (Meno 81a-86b).
Socrates' apparent interest in, and fairly sophisticated knowledge of,
mathematics appears wholly new in this dialogue. It is an interest, however,
that shows up plainly in the middle period dialogues, especially in the middle
books of the Republic.
Several arguments
for the immortality of the soul, and the idea that souls are reincarnated into
different life forms, are also featured in Plato's Phaedo (which also includes the famous scene in which
Socrates drinks the hemlock and utters his last words). Stylometry has tended
to count the Phaedo among the
early dialogues, whereas analysis of philosophical content has tended to place
it at the beginning of the middle period. Similar accounts of the
transmigration of souls may be found, with somewhat different details, in Book
X of the Republic and in the Phaedrus, as well as in several dialogues
of the late period, including the Timaeus
and the Laws. No traces of the
doctrine of recollection, or the theory of reincarnation or transmigration of
souls, are to be found in the dialogues we listed above as those of the early
period.
d. Moral Psychology
The moral
psychology of the middle period dialogues also seems to be quite different from
what we find in the early period. In the early dialogues, Plato's Socrates is
an intellectualist—that is, he
claims that people always act in the way they believe is best for them (at the
time of action, at any rate). Hence, all wrongdoing reflects some cognitive
error. But in the middle period, Plato conceives of the soul as having (at
least) three parts:
- a rational part (the part that loves truth, which should rule over the other parts of the soul through the use of reason),
- a spirited part (which loves honor and victory), and
- an appetitive part (which desires food, drink, and sex),
and justice will
be that condition of the soul in which each of these three parts "does its
own work," and does not interfere in the workings of the other parts (see
esp. Republic IV.435b-445b). It
seems clear from the way Plato describes what can go wrong in a soul, however,
that in this new picture of moral psychology, the appetitive part of the soul
can simply overrule reason's judgments. One may suffer, in this account of
psychology, from what is called akrasia or
"moral weakness"—in which one finds oneself doing something that one
actually believes is not the right thing to do (see especially Republic IV.439e-440b). In the early
period, Socrates denied that akrasia was
possible: One might change one's mind at the last minute about what one ought
to do—and could perhaps change one's mind again later to regret doing what one
has done—but one could never do what one actually believed was wrong, at the
time of acting.
e. Critique of the Arts
The Republic also introduces Plato's
notorious critique of the visual and imitative arts. In the early period works,
Socrates contends that the poets lack wisdom, but he also grants that they
"say many fine things." In the Republic,
on the contrary, it seems that there is little that is fine in poetry or any of
the other fine arts. Most of poetry and the other fine arts are to be censored
out of existence in the "noble state" (kallipolis) Plato sketches in the Republic, as merely imitating appearances
(rather than realities), and as arousing excessive and unnatural emotions and
appetites (see esp.
Republic
X.595b-608b).
f. Platonic Love
In the Symposium, which is normally dated at the
beginning of the middle period, and in the Phaedrus,
which is dated at the end of the middle period or later yet, Plato
introduces his theory of erôs (usually
translated as "love"). Several passages and images from these
dialogues continued to show up in Western culture—for example, the image of two
lovers as being each other's "other half," which Plato assigns to
Aristophanes in the Symposium.
Also in that dialogue, we are told of the "ladder of love," by which
the lover can ascend to direct cognitive contact with (usually compared to a
kind of vision of) Beauty Itself. In the Phaedrus,
love is revealed to be the great "divine madness" through which the
wings of the lover's soul may sprout, allowing the lover to take flight to all
of the highest aspirations and achievements possible for humankind. In both of
these dialogues, Plato clearly regards actual physical or sexual contact
between lovers as degraded and wasteful forms of erotic expression. Because the
true goal of erôs is real
beauty and real beauty is the Form of Beauty, what Plato calls Beauty Itself, erôs finds its fulfillment only in
Platonic philosophy. Unless it channels its power of love into "higher
pursuits," which culminate in the knowledge of the Form of Beauty, erôs is doomed to frustration. For this
reason, Plato thinks that most people sadly squander the real power of love by
limiting themselves to the mere pleasures of physical beauty.
7. Late Transitional and Late Dialogues
a. Philosophical Methodology
One of the
novelties of the dialogues after those of the middle period is the introduction
of a new philosophical method. This method was introduced probably either late
in the middle period or in the transition to the late period, but was
increasingly important in the late period. In the early period dialogues, as we
have said, the mode of philosophizing was refutative question-and-answer
(called elenchos or the
"Socratic method"). Although the middle period dialogues continue to
show Socrates asking questions, the questioning in these dialogues becomes much
more overtly leading and didactic. The highest method of philosophizing
discussed in the middle period dialogues, called "dialectic," is
never very well explained (at best, it is just barely sketched in the divided
line image at the end of Book VI of the Republic).
The correct method for doing philosophy, we are now told in the later works, is
what Plato identifies as "collection and division," which is perhaps
first referred to at Phaedrus
265e. In this method, the philosopher collects all of the instances of some
generic category that seem to have common characteristics, and then divides
them into specific kinds until they cannot be further subdivided. This method
is explicitly and extensively on display in the Sophist, Statesman, and Philebus.
b. Critique of the Earlier Theory of Forms
One of the most
puzzling features of the late dialogues is the strong suggestion in them that
Plato has reconsidered his theory of Forms in some way. Although there seems
still in the late dialogues to be a theory of Forms (although the theory is,
quite strikingly, wholly unmentioned in the Theaetetus,
a later dialogue on the nature of knowledge), where it does appear
in the later dialogues, it seems in several ways to have been modified from its
conception in the middle period works. Perhaps the most dramatic signal of such
a change in the theory appears first in the Parmenides,
which appears to subject the middle period version of the theory to
a kind of "Socratic" refutation, only this time, the main refuter is
the older Eleatic philosopher Parmenides, and the hapless victim of the
refutation is a youthful Socrates. The most famous (and apparently fatal) of
the arguments provided by Parmenides in this dialogue has come to be known as
the "Third Man Argument," which suggests that the conception of
participation (by which individual objects take on the characters of the Forms)
falls prey to an infinite regress: If individual male things are male in virtue
of participation in the Form of Man, and the Form of Man is itself male, then
what is common to both The Form of Man and the particular male things must be
that they all participate in some (other) Form, say, Man 2. But then, if Man 2
is male, then what it has in common with the other male things is participation
in some further Form, Man 3, and so on. That Plato's theory is open to this
problem gains support from the notion, mentioned above, that Forms are
exemplars. If the Form of Man is itself a (perfect) male, then the Form shares
a property in common with the males that participate in it. But since the
Theory requires that for any group of entities with a common property, there is
a Form to explain the commonality, it appears that the theory does indeed give
rise to the vicious regress.
There has been
considerable controversy for many years over whether Plato believed that the
Theory of Forms was vulnerable to the "Third Man" argument, as
Aristotle believed it was, and so uses the Parmenides
to announce his rejection of the Theory of Forms, or instead believed that the
Third Man argument can be avoided by making adjustments to the Theory of Forms.
Of relevance to this discussion is the relative dating of the Timaeus and the Parmenides, since the Theory of Forms
very much as it appears in the middle period works plays a prominent role in
the Timaeus. Thus, the
assignment of a later date to the Timaeus
shows that Plato did not regard the objection to the Theory of Forms raised in
the Parmenides as in any way
decisive. In any event, it is agreed on all sides that Plato's interest in the
Theory shifted in the Sophist and
Stateman to the exploration of
the logical relations that hold between abstract entities. In the Laws, Plato's last (and unfinished) work,
the Theory of Forms appears to have dropped out altogether. Whatever value
Plato believed that knowledge of abstract entities has for the proper conduct
of philosophy, he no longer seems to have believed that such knowledge is
necessary for the proper running of a political community.
c. The "Eclipse" of Socrates
In several of the
late dialogues, Socrates is even further marginalized. He is either represented
as a mostly mute bystander (in the Sophist and
Statesman), or else absent
altogether from the cast of characters (in the Laws and Critias).
In the Theaetetus and Philebus, however, we find Socrates in
the familiar leading role. The so-called "eclipse" of Socrates in
several of the later dialogues has been a subject of much scholarly discussion.
d. The Myth of Atlantis
Plato's famous
myth of Atlantis is first given in the Timaeus,
which scholars now generally agree is quite late, despite being
dramatically placed on the day after the discussion recounted in the Republic. The myth of Atlantis is
continued in the unfinished dialogue intended to be the sequel to the Timaeus, the Critias.
e. The Creation of the Universe
The Timaeus is also famous for its account of
the creation of the universe by the Demiurge. Unlike the creation by the God of
medieval theologians, Plato's Demiurge does not create ex nihilo, but rather orders the cosmos
out of chaotic elemental matter, imitating the eternal Forms. Plato takes the
four elements, fire, air, water, and earth (which Plato proclaims to be
composed of various aggregates of triangles), making various compounds of these
into what he calls the Body of the Universe. Of all of Plato's works, the Timaeus provides the most detailed
conjectures in the areas we now regard as the natural sciences: physics,
astronomy, chemistry, and biology.
f. The Laws
In the Laws, Plato's last work, the philosopher
returns once again to the question of how a society ought best to be organized.
Unlike his earlier treatment in the Republic,
however, the Laws appears to
concern itself less with what a best possible state might be like, and much
more squarely with the project of designing a genuinely practicable, if
admittedly not ideal, form of government. The founders of the community
sketched in the Laws concern
themselves with the empirical details of statecraft, fashioning rules to meet
the multitude of contingencies that are apt to arise in the "real
world" of human affairs. A work enormous length and complexity, running
some 345 Stephanus pages, the Laws was
unfinished at the time of Plato's death. According to Diogenes Laertius (3.37),
it was left written on wax tablets.
8. References and Further Reading
a. Greek Texts
- Platonis Opera (in 5 volumes) - The Oxford Classical Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press):
- Volume I (E. A. Duke et al., eds., 1995): Euthyphro, Apologia Socratis, Crito, Phaedo, Cratylus, Theaetetus, Sophista, Politicus.
- Volume II (John Burnet, ed., 1901): Parmenides, Philebus, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades I, Alcibiades II, Hipparchus, Amatores.
- Volume III (John Burnet, ed., 1903): Theages, Charmides, Laches, Lysis, Euthydemus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Meno, Hippias Maior, Hippias Minor, Io, Menexenus.
- Volume IV (John Burnet, ed., 1978): Clitopho, Respublica, Timaeus, Critias.
- Volume V (John Burnet, ed. 1907): Minos, Leges, Epinomis, Epistulae, Definitiones, De Iusto, De Virtute, Demodocus, Sisyphus, Eryxias, Axiochus.
- The Oxford Classical Texts are the standard Greek texts of Plato's works, including all of the spuria and dubia except for the epigrams, the Greek texts of which may be found in Hermann Beckby (ed.), Anthologia Graeca (Munich: Heimeran, 1957).
b. Translations into English
- Cooper, J. M. (ed.), Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997).
- Contains very recent translations of all of the Platonic works, dubia, spuria, and epigrams. Now generally regarded as the standard for English translations.
c. Plato's Socrates and the Historical Socrates
- Kahn, Charles H., Plato and the Socratic Dialogue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- Kahn's own version of the "unitarian" reading of Plato's dialogues. Although scholars have not widely accepted Kahn's positions, Kahn offers several arguments for rejecting the more established held "developmentalist" position.
- Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991).
- Chapters 2 and 3 of this book are invariably cited as providing the most influential recent arguments for the "historicist" version of the "developmentalist" position.
d. Socrates and Plato's Early Period Dialogues
- Benson, Hugh H. (ed.), Essays on the Philosophy of Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
- A collection of previously published articles by various authors on Socrates and Plato's early dialogues.
- Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, Plato's Socrates (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
- Six chapters, each on different topics in the study of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Brickhouse, Thomas C. and Nicholas D. Smith, The Philosophy of Socrates (Boulder: Westview, 2000).
- Seven chapters, each on different topics in the study of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues. Some changes in views from those offered in their 1994 book.
- Prior, William (ed.), Socrates: Critical Assessments (London and New York, 1996) in four volumes: I: The Socratic Problem and Socratic Ignorance; II: Issues Arising from the Trial of Socrates; III: Socratic Method; IV: Happiness and Virtue.
- A collection of previously published articles by various authors on Socrates and Plato's early dialogues.
- Santas, Gerasimos Xenophon, Socrates: Philosophy in Plato's Early Dialogues (Boston and London: Routledge, 1979).
- Eight chapters, each on different topics in the study of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Taylor, C. C. W. Socrates: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
- Very short, indeed, but nicely written and generally very reliable.
- Vlastos, Gregory, Socrates, Ironist and Moral Philosopher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991). (Also cited in VIII.3, above.)
- Eight chapters, each on different topics in the study of Plato's early or Socratic dialogues.
- Vlastos, Gregory, Socratic Studies (ed. Myles Burnyeat; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
- Edited and published after Vlastos's death. A collection of Vlastos's papers on Socrates not published in Vlastos's 1991 book.
- Vlastos, Gregory (ed.) The Philosophy of Socrates (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980).
- A collection of papers by various authors on Socrates and Plato's early dialogues. Although now somewhat dated, several articles in this collection continue to be widely cited and studied.
e. General Books on Plato
- Cherniss, Harold, The Riddle of the Early Academy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1945).
- A study of reports in the Early Academy, following Plato's death, of the so-called "unwritten doctrines" of Plato.
- Fine, Gail (ed.), Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology and Plato II: Ethics, Politics, Religion and the Soul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
- A collection of previously published papers by various authors, mostly on Plato's middle and later periods.
- Grote, George, Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates 2nd ed. 3 vols. (London: J. Murray, 1867).
- 3-volume collection with general discussion of "the Socratics" other than Plato, as well as specific discussions of each of Plato's works.
- Guthrie, W. K. C., A History of Greek Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) vols. 3 (1969), 4 (1975) and 5 (1978).
- Volume 3 is on the Sophists and Socrates; volume 4 is on Plato's early dialogues and continues with chapters on Phaedo, Symposium, and Phaedrus, and then a final chapter on the Republic.
- Irwin, Terence, Plato's Ethics (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
- Systematic discussion of the ethical thought in Plato's works.
- Kraut, Richard (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
- A collection of original discussions of various general topics about Plato and the dialogues.
- Smith, Nicholas D. (ed.), Plato: Critical Assessments (London and New York: Routledge, 1998) in four volumes: I: General Issues of Interpretation; II: Plato's Middle Period: Metaphysics and Epistemology; III: Plato's Middle Period: Psychology and Value Theory; IV: Plato's Later Works.
- A collection of previously published articles by various authors on interpretive problems and on Plato's middle and later periods. Plato's early period dialogues are covered in this series by Prior 1996 (see VIII.4).
- Vlastos, Gregory, Platonic Studies 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
- A collection of Vlastos's papers on Plato, including some important earlier work on the early dialogues.
- Vlastos, Gregory, Plato I: Metaphysics and Epistemology and Plato II: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art and Religion (South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).
- A collection of papers by various authors on Plato's middle period and later dialogues. Although now somewhat dated, several articles in this collection continue to be widely cited and studied.
Author Information
and
Plato: The Academy
The Academy (Academia) was originally a public garden
or grove in the suburbs of Athens, about six stadia from the city, named from
Academus or Hecademus, who left it to the citizens for gymnastics (Paus. i.
29). It was surrounded with a wall by Hipparchus, adorned with statues,
temples, and sepulchres of illustrious men; planted with olive and plane trees,
and watered by the Cephisus. The olive-trees, according to Athenian fables,
were reared from layers taken from the sacred olive in the Erechtheum, and
afforded the oil given as a prize to victors at the Panathenean festival. The
Academy suffered severely during the siege of Athens by Sylla, many trees being cut down to
supply timber for machines of war.Few retreats could be more favorable to
philosophy and the Muses. Within this enclosure Plato possessed, as part of his
patrimony, a small garden, in which he opened a school for the reception of those
inclined to attend his instructions. Hence arose the Academic sect, and hence
the term Academy has descended to our times. The nameAcademia is frequently used in
philosophical writings, especially in Cicero,
as indicative of the Academic sect.
Sextus Empiricus
enumerates five divisions of the followers of Plato. He makes Plato founder of
the first Academy, Aresilaus of the second, Carneades of the third,
Philo and Charmides of the fourth, Antiochus of the fifth. Cicero recognizes only two Academies, the Old
and the New, and makes the latter commence as above with Arcesilaus. In enumerating
those of the old Academy, he begins, not with Plato, but Democritus, and gives
them in the following order: Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides,
Xenophanes, Socrates, Plato, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, and
Crantor. In the New, or Younger, he mentions Arcesilaus, Lacydes, Evander,
Hegesinus, Carneades, Clitomachus, and Philo (Acad. Quaest. iv. 5). If we follow the distinction laid down
by Diogenes, and alluded to above, the Old Academy will consist of those
followers of Plato who taught the doctrine of their master without mixture or
corruption; the Middle will embrace those who, by certain innovations in the
manner of philosophizing, in some measure receded from the Platonic system
without entirely deserting it; while the New will begin with those who
relinquished the more questionable tenets of Arcesilaus, and restored, in come
measure, the declining reputation of the Platonic school.
Views of the New
Academy. The New Academy
begins with Carnades (i.e. the Third
Academy for Diogenes) and
was largely skeptical in its teachings. They denied the possibility of aiming
at absolute truth or at any certain criterion of truth. Carneades argued that
if there were any such criterion it must exist in reason or sensation or
conception; but as reason depends on conception and this in turn on sensation,
and as we have no means of deciding whether our sensations really correspond to
the objects that produce them, the basis of all knowledge is always uncertain.
Hence, all that we can attain to is a high degree of probability, which we must
accept as the nearest possible approximation to the truth. The New Academy
teaching represents the spirit of an age when religion was decaying, and
philosophy itself, losing its earnest and serious spirit, was becoming merely a
vehicle for rhetoric and dialectical ingenuity. Cicero's speculative philosophy was in the
main in accord with the teachings of Carneades, looking rather to the probable
(illud probabile) than to
certain truth (see his Academica).
Author Information
The author of this
article is anonymous. The IEP is actively seeking an author who will write a
replacement article.
Middle Platonism
The period
designated by historians of philosophy as the "Middle Platonic"
begins with Antiochus of Ascalon
(ca. 130-68 B.C.E.) and ends with Plotinus (204-70 C.E.), who is considered
the founder of Neoplatonism. The Middle Platonic
philosophers inherited the exegetical and speculative problems of the Old Academy,
established by Plato and continued by his
successors Speusippus (ca.
407-339 B.C.E.), Xenocrates
(ca. 396-314 B.C.E.) , and Polemo
(ca. 350-267 B.C.E.). Many of these problems centered about the interpretation
of Plato's so-called Unwritten Doctrines, inspired by Pythagorean philosophy
and involving a primordial, generative pair of first principles—the One and
the Dyad—and how to square this doctrine with the account of creation given in
the Timaeus dialogue. This was
also the main concern of the Neopythagorean philosophy that emerged with the
work of Ocellus Lucanus in the
second century B.C., whose treatise On the
Nature of the Universe shows the influence of both Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions.
The Academy took a
new turn after the founding of the Stoic school by Zeno of Citium (334-262 B.C.), a pupil of
Polemo. Arcesilaus (ca. 315-241
B.C.E.) is regarded as the founder of the New Academy,
known for its skepticism. Later, Antiochus asserted the fundamental harmony of
the Platonic, Peripatetic (Aristotelian), and Stoic philosophies, and Eudorus of Alexandria (fl. ca. 25 B.C.E.)
elucidated the highly influential teleological dogma of Platonism:
"likeness to god as far as possible" (Plato, Theaetetus 176b). Other important Middle
Platonists were Philo of Alexandria (ca. 30 B.C.E.—45
C.E.), who interpreted Hebrew Scripture along Platonic lines, exercising an
immense influence on developing Christianity; Plutarch of Chaeronea (ca. 45-125 A.D.) whose treatise De Iside et Osiride ("On Isis and
Osiris"), with its Greco-Egyptian syncretism, is an important example of
the religious tendencies of later Middle Platonic philosophy; and Numenius of Apamea (fl. 150-176 C.E.) whose highly
syncretic philosophy exercised a profound influence on Plotinus, who was
accused of plagiarizing Numenius.
In addition to
these "mainstream" philosophers, the Middle Platonic period includes
the more esoteric systems of the Gnostics, the Corpus Hermeticum and the Chaldaean
Oracles. All of these involved an "astral piety" with a
notion of planetary powers and intra-cosmic daemons mediating between humanity
and the highest cosmic deities.
Table of Contents
- Plato's "Unwritten Doctrines"
- The Old Academy
- Skepticism and the New Academy
- The Beginning of Middle Platonism
- Neopythagorean Philosophy
- Later Middle Platonism
- "Esoteric" Platonism
- Conclusion
- References and Further Reading
1. Plato's "Unwritten Doctrines"
Platonic
philosophy did not originate solely with the Dialogues
of Plato. There is ample evidence from antiquity that Plato taught
certain doctrines within the Academy that he did not write down; moreover,
these doctrines were sufficiently vague as to cause divergent interpretations
even among the first three successors of Plato in the Academy. It is these
doctrines -- perhaps even moreso than the Dialogues
(excepting the Timaeus)
- from which are derived the problems and approaches characteristic of Middle
Platonic thought. A basic outline of these doctrines follows.
Drawing upon
Pythagorean mathematical theory, Plato began his metaphysical schema with a
pair of opposed first principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad. The One is
the active principle which imposes limit on the indefinite or unlimited Dyad,
thereby laying the ground for the orderly construction of the cosmos. Through
this influence of the One upon the Dyad numbers are generated, that is, the
Decad, which in turn generates all other numbers. The most important of these
primordial numbers is the tetraktys,
numbers one through four, the sum total of which is ten, the Decad. The tetraktys also was interpreted by Plato
as generating the four mathematical dimensions, with the number one corresponding
to the point, two to the line, three to the plane, and four to the solid.
Between the Ideal-Numbers or Decad Plato places the World-Soul, corresponding
roughly to the Demiurge of the Timaeus.
The World-Soul mediates between the Ideal realm and matter, projecting the four
dimensions on base matter in order to form the four elements, Fire, Air, Water,
and Earth. This basic schema of a first and second principle, and third
intellectual and craftsmanly principle responsible for forming the cosmos, was to
have an immense influence on the history of Greek philosophy, especially the
period reviewed in this article. The following cryptic passage from the
Platonic Second Letter
(generally accepted as from Plato's hand in antiquity) had a profound effect on
the imagination of Platonic and Pythagorean philosophers of the Middle and
Neoplatonic periods. This passage, though more than likely written by a student
of Plato, nevertheless provides a hint of what the teacher's more esoteric
teachings may have been like.
Upon the king of
all do all things turn; he is the end of all things and the cause of all good.
Things of the second order turn upon the second principle, and those of the
third order upon the third (312e, tr. G.R. Morrow, in J.M. Cooper, ed., 1997).
Among the many
problems inherited by Plato's successors and their students and colleagues are
included the questions of whether the creation of the cosmos, as described in
the Timaeus, took place in time
or is atemporal, and the manner in which Demiurge of that dialogue relates to
the World-Soul of the unwritten doctrines.
2. The Old Academy
The term "Old Academy"
is used to refer to the educational institution established by Plato in Athens, and run by his
three immediate successors. This is to differentiate it from the "New Academy,"
so-called because of its turn toward a more sceptical mode of philosophizing.
a. Speusippus
After the death of
Plato the headship of the Academy passed to his nephew Speusippus (ca. 407-339
B.C.), according to Plato's wishes. Speusippus seems to have revised Plato's
doctrine of the One and the Dyad by placing the One above Intellect, declaring
that it is superior to Being and "free[ing] it even from the status of a
principle" (fragment in Klibansky 1953, tr. Dillon 1977, p. 12). In this
he differed, as Dillon observes, "with all official Platonism up to
Plotinus" (p. 18). The result of this difference is that the Dyad is now
considered the sole productive source of multiplicity, from which all other
levels of reality derive. Speusippus elaborated a multi-layered cosmic schema
in ten stages or "grades" (Zeller 1955, p. 169) of Being: 1.) the
supreme One beyond Being, 2.) the Indefinite Dyad or the Many (producer of
multiplicity), 3.) Number (beginning with three, the first stage of multiplicity),
4.) the Soul, source of all geometrical extension, 5.) the celestial bodies,
6.) all ensouled beings, including irrational animals and plants, 7.) Thought,
and the seven planets and the seven Greek vowels, 8.) instinct and the
passions, 9.) motion, 10.) the Good, and repose. By locating the Good at the
end of this emanative process - which is properly understood, as Zeller (1955,
p. 169) writes, as "eternal principles of things and their stages of
development" - Speusippus is not denying the ontological supremacy of the
One, rather he is recognizing the One as the most simplex and primordial of all
realities, and as "the cause of goodness and being for all other
things" (Dillon 1977, p. 12). According to Speusippus the cosmos is eternally
generated; therefore, he interpreted the creation account in the Timaeus as intended for purposes of
instruction, and not to be taken literally. In the sphere of ethics Speusippus
seems to have taught that happiness is leading a moral life, which likely meant
for him a median between pleasure and pain, both of which, according to Aulus
Gellius (Noctes Atticae IX,
5.4), Speusippus considered to be evils.
b. Xenocrates
Xenocrates (ca.
396-314 B.C.) succeeded Speusippus as headmaster of the Academy, and held that post
for a quarter of a century (339-314 B.C.), until his death. He departed from
Speusippus in identifying the One as Intellect or Nous, which he also named
"Father"; the Dyad he called "Mother." There is evidence
that Xenocrates identified the Dyad with primordial Matter (fragment 28; Dillon
1977, p. 24), and considered it an "evil and disorderly principle"
(Dillon, p. 26). Xenocrates divided the sensible universe into the realm above
the moon (the supra-lunar) and the realm below the moon (the sub-lunar). It is
unclear whether he added a further division to include a purely intelligible
realm, or considered the One and the Dyad as occupying the highest sphere above
the stars. Above the moon there exists the seven planets, which Xenocrates
considered to be divine, along with the stars and the pure fire that is the
base element of the universe. The realm below the moon he believed to be
occupied by daemons. He held a theory that there are two types of gods,
Olympians and Titans, the former born of heaven and the latter of earth
(fragments 18 and 20; Dillon, pp. 26-27, also see Zeller 1955, p. 170).
Theophrastus, the pupil of Aristotle, gave credit to Xenocrates for his
exhaustive account of the cosmos, distinguishing him from Speusippus and others
who only provided an account of the One and the Dyad, barely touching upon
anything else besides numbers and geometrical shapes. Xenocrates, he says,
discoursed not only on divine things and mathematicals, but on objects of
sense-perception as well (Theophrastus, Metaphysics
6a.23-6b.9). Perhaps the most important contribution of Xenocrates to the
history of Platonism (and all of philosophy as well) is the doctrine that the
Ideas are thoughts in the mind of the One (Dillon, p. 29). Xenocrates made a
distinction between practical and scientific wisdom, and taught that happiness
is to be found in virtue and the means conducive to it (Zeller, p. 170).
c. Polemo
Xenocrates was
succeeded by Polemo (ca. 350-267 B.C.), who became headmaster of the Academy
upon the latter's death in 314. Eduard Zeller, in his seminal work on the
history of Greek philosophy, remarks that there is a scarcity of original
thinking in the work of Polemo (Zeller 1955, p. 170). This is unfair, not only
because we do not possess any works of Polemo by which to accurately judge him,
but because if one looks carefully at the surviving evidence, Polemo's
importance for the emergence and development of Stoic philosophy will be seen.
While it is true that Polemo's metaphysical schema was likely dependent upon
his predecessors, with little or no development, he did make at least two
important contributions to ethics, both of which influenced emerging Stoicism.
The first is the concept of self-sufficiency (autarkheia), which Polemo identified as the key to happiness.
He understood self-sufficiency in respect of virtue, and not in terms of
material wealth or bodily pleasure, teaching that one could be happy even in
the absence of all physical comfort, provided that one had achieved virtue. The
second is the concept of conciliation or appropriation (oikeiôsis), which was of immense
importance for later Stoic philosophers. The basic presumption of this doctrine
is that all living beings strive for conciliation with their environment, and
that this necessarily involves an existence in accordance with nature which,
for human beings, is a virtuous existence. There is evidence in Cicero that Polemo taught
such a doctrine, but we have no way of knowing whether he actually used the
term oikeiôsis.
d. Other Important Members of the Old Academy
Besides the
headmasters of the Old
Academy discussed above,
other pupils of Plato made contributions to Platonic philosophy. The astronomer
and mathematician Philip of Opus,
believed by most scholars to be the author of the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Epinomis, taught that the greatest wisdom
is to be attained through contemplation of the divine celestial bodies.
However, he placed importance as well on the intermediary capacity of the
daemons in this endeavor. Following Plato in the Laws (896e-898d) he taught a doctrine of an evil World-Soul.
Eudoxus of Cnidus was a pupil
of Plato as well as of the Pythagorean Archytas. He believed that the Forms
reside in material mixtures, and that pleasure is the highest good. It is
likely that Plato wrote his Philebus
in response to Eudoxus' theory of pleasure. Heraclides
of Pontus was an astronomer who borrowed the Pythagorean theory of
the diurnal revolution of the earth, and revised it with his own theory that
Mercury and Venus revolve around the sun. He held a materialistic view of the
soul, believing it to be composed of aether, the purest element. Finally, Crantor of Soloe (ca. 330-270 B.C.)
achieved fame as author of the first commentary on Plato's Timaeus, and for his widely read treatise
On Grief, an early example of
the consolation genre of writing found much later in Boethius. Against the
Stoics he argued that all pain, including grief, is a necessity, and is to be
controlled rather than eradicated (Dillon, p. 42, Zeller pp. 171-172). He followed
Plato and the Pythagoreans in regarding life as a punishment, and philosophy as
practice for death.
3. Skepticism and the New Academy
The designation
"New Academy" is intended to represent
the shift away from exegesis of Plato's doctrines and metaphysical speculation,
toward a more sceptical mode of philosophizing. The following two philosophers
are its major representatives.
a. Arcesilaus
Scholars generally
consider the "New
Academy" to have
begun with Arcesilaus (ca. 315-240 B.C.) who, under the influence of Pyrrhonian
skepticism called into question the idea that knowledge and certainty is
obtainable through sense-perception, denying that even reason or understanding
is capable of arriving at uncontestable truth. In this he was attacking Stoic
cosmology and theology, with its belief in an eternally ordered universe
pervaded by reason. His skepticism was so thorough that he refused even to
declare the validity of his own sceptical stance. He did not, however, do away
with all criteria for living a proper life, considering perception as linked to
the will, and rational activity as following a judgment based on probability of
desired effect.
b. Carneades
Carneades (214-129
B.C.) followed Arcesilaus in his sceptical approach, and honed the latter's
notion of probability, recognizing three "grades" of probability
involving increasing levels of validation based on mutual confirmation of
related representations (Zeller, p. 264). Carneades, like Arcesilaus, attacked
Stoic doctrine, especially the idea of "conceptual representations" (phantasia katalêptikê), arguing that
there exists no representation that cannot be convincingly reproduced by
artificials means; therefore, we can never be certain that the representation
we are experiencing is true or authentic. He likely followed Arcesilaus in the
realm of ethics, adopting judgment based on probability as the guide for
practical life.
4. The Beginning of Middle Platonism
Scholars generally
consider the Middle Platonic period to have begun with the work of Antiochus of
Ascalon (d. 68 B.C.), who was responsible for overhauling the increasingly
stifling skepticism of the New
Academy. His teacher was
Philo of Larissa (fl. 88-79 B.C.), who also taught Cicero. We will examine briefly the teachings
of Philo, before moving on to Antiochus. We will then discuss Posidonius who,
though a Stoic rather than a Platonist, contributed much to the development of
Middle Platonic philosophy.
a. Philo of Larissa
Unlike his
predecessors in the New
Academy, Philo of Larissa
did not consider knowledge an impossibility, although he did follow them in
criticizing the Stoic doctrine of "conceptual representations" as the
key to knowledge. However, he sought not to deny all possibility of knowledge,
but rather to establish a middle course between mere probability, and
knowledge. He believed that there is a level of obviousness where skepticism
must give way to conviction, although this conviction must not be regarded as
absolute knowledge. Philo's main concern was with ethics, and he used his
middle ground approach to formulate a detailed ethical theory in a manner never
attempted by Arcesilaus or Carneades.
b. Antiochus of Ascalon
The fundamental
agreement of Platonic, Stoic, and Peripatetic philosophy was asserted by
Antiochus of Ascalon, who returned to the basic approach, if not the actual
doctrines, of the Old
Academy. This notion of
agreement of the earlier philosophers on matters of doctrine served as a way
for Antiochus to get past the skepticism of his teacher, in order to establish
his own philosophical stance. What we know of Antiochus' doctrines is contained
in various writings of Cicero,
usually placed in the mouth of Antiochus' influential pupil Varro. No writings
of Antiochus survive; therefore, as with all of the philosophers discussed so
far - with the exception of Plato - we must rely solely on reports by
contemporaries, near contemporaries, and later writers. Nevertheless, it is
possible to reconstruct with some confidence the doctrines put forth by
Antiochus.
Antiochus, likely
for the first time since the advent of academic skepticism, busied himself with
the interpretation of Plato's dialogues, notably the Timaeus, as the Old Academics had done,
thereby providing us with the first example of what would later become a full-fledged
systematic approach in the later Middle Platonists. Antiochus rejected the
Aristotelian "fifth element" and returned to the four basic elements
- Fire, Air, Water, and Earth - as the primary material principles of the
cosmos. Matter (hulê) is the substrate
of these elements. Following Stoic philosophy, Antiochus taught that the stars
and planets, as well as minds, are composed of the purest fire. Even god is
composed of this fire and does not transcend the cosmos, but occupies its
highest reaches. He combined the Demiurge of the Timaeus and the World-Soul of the Unwritten Doctrines into
an intra-cosmic, unitive, rational force which he termed Logos. Antiochus
denied that the Platonic Ideas or Forms transcend the cosmos, asserting instead
that they are conceptions common to all humanity, constructed by way of
analogies (similitudines, analogiai), and existing only within the
mind of each rational being, including god (Cicero, De oratore 8 ff.). Like Xenocrates earlier, Antiochus
understood the Ideas as thoughts in the mind of god (Dillon, pp. 94-95).
With the rise of
Stoicism as the most influential dogmatic philosophy of the Hellenistic era,
the problem of fate versus free will came to the fore, and Antiochus responded
by rejecting fate (heimarmenê)
as an efficient cause, relegating it to the class of "material cause"
(aition prokatarktikon), along
with time, matter, and other things that are necessary, but not sufficient, to
produce an effect. This allowed for efficient causes to arise from human initiative,
and preserved the freedom of human activity, or at least response, within an
ordered cosmos.
Again following
Xenocrates, Antiochus expressed a belief in daemons, who inhabit the sub-lunar
realm (the supra-lunar realm being reserved for the divine celestial bodies).
He also appears to have believed in divination, not only through the motion of
the celestial bodies, but by way of dreams, oracles, beasts, and even inanimate
objects (Cicero, De divinatione
I.12 ff.; Dillon, p. 89).
While not a
strikingly brilliant philosopher - at least as far as we can tell from
surviving accounts of his doctrines - Antiochus is responsible for articulating
themes that would later become prominent in Platonic philosophy. His notion of
the Ideas as thoughts in the mind of god was accepted as authentic Platonic
doctrine by Philo of Alexandria, who gave it his own unique spin, as we shall
see; the problem of the Demiurge and the World-Soul was taken up by Numenius in
rather gnosticizing fashion, as we will discuss; and Antiochus' teaching
regarding divination and daemons is a precedent of the Neoplatonic system of
Iamblichus (who, due to his later date, will not be discussed in this article).
c. Posidonius
Although not a
Platonist, strictly speaking, but a Stoic, Posidonius (135-51 B.C.)
nevertheless exercised an immense influence on the development of Middle
Platonic thought. Among his many works, all unfortunately lost except for a few
scant fragments, is a commentary on the Timaeus,
which was likely the main source of his influence on Platonism. Posidonius
recognized two principles in the cosmos, one active and one passive: god and
matter, respectively. In this he was following Plato's doctrine of the mixing
bowl, as put forth in the Timaeus.
In his cosmology, Posidonius posited, as did Platonists like Xenocrates and
Antiochus, a bipartite cosmos consisting of a supra- and a sub-lunar realm. He
considered the supra-lunar realm to be imperishable, and the sub-lunar
perishable, dissolving into the void (kenon)
outside the cosmos during the conflagration (ekpurôsis),
after which it is reconstituted anew (this being a variation of standard Stoic
doctrine going back to Chrysippus). Posidonius understood human beings as
forming a bridge between these two realms, and theorized that souls originate
in the sun and travel to earth by way of the moon (Zeller, pp. 269-270). Some
of these souls become humans while others become daemons or heroes, a doctrine
developed in his treatise On Heroes and
Demons, which had an immense influence on later Platonists,
especially Plutarch.
Posidonius
believed that the cosmos is held together by cosmic sympathy (sumpatheia), and this formed the basis
for his ideas concerning fate and divination (cf. Cicero, De
divinatione I, and De fato).
He believed the cosmos to be controlled by three forces, Zeus, Nature, and
Fate, and that human beings cannot escape the causality that is the source of
cosmic unity. This led Posidonius naturally to a belief in astrology, and there is
ample evidence that he practiced it as well (fragments 111, 112,
Edelstein-Kidd). He also theorized regarding other forms of divination, and
from his doctrine of cosmic sympathy arrived at the conclusion that all life
and events in the cosmos are connected, making divination from an animal's
liver, for example, possible. Posidonius asserted the immortality of the soul
and its ability to exist apart from the body. In ethics he largely followed
Plato, teaching that the passions are not to be eradicated but controlled
(Zeller, p. 270, Dillon, pp. 109-112).
5. Neopythagorean Philosophy
During the late
second century and early first century B.C. a number of writings began to
appear that were attributed to various historical followers of Pythagoras. This
renewed interest in Pythagorean philosophy likely grew out of the desire to
find harmony between the three major philosophical schools of the era. The
writings compromising the Pseudo-Pythagorica,
as the collection of about ninety treatises by fifty authors is often called,
contain elements of Platonism, Stoicism, and Peripatetic philosophy, as well as
typical Pythagorean number theory and cosmological motifs, such as the eternity
of the world. There is little, in fact, to differentiate Neopythagoreanism from
Middle Platonism, as one can easily find Pythagorean elements in the work of
thinkers commonly designated as Platonists, and vice-versa. Following John
Dillon in his definitive study of Middle Platonism, however, I am making the
distinction for the sake of scholarly rigor.
a. Ocellus Lucanus
Of the writings of
Ocellus Lucanus (second century B.C.) we possess a treatise On the Nature of the Universe and a
fragment of a lost treatise On Laws.
Ocellus was concerned with maintaining the doctrine of the eternity of the
world against the Stoic doctrine of periodic conflagration and reconstitution
of the universe. Since there are only two types of generation - from a lesser
to a greater state and vice-versa - Ocellus argued that it is just as absurd to
state that the universe began in a lesser state and progressed to a greater, as
it is to state the opposite, for both statements imply either a growth or a
diminution, and since the cosmos is whole and self-contained (so he insisted)
there is no place into which it can either grow or diminish. Posidonius'
doctrine of a void into which the cosmos periodically dissolves held no place
in Ocellus' philosophy.
Although positing
the eternity of the cosmos, Ocellus nevertheless admitted the obvious, that
generation and dissolution occurs here on earth. Like Xenocrates and other
Platonists, Ocellus understood the cosmos as divided in two parts, the
supra-lunar and the sub-lunar, the gods existing in the former and daemons and
humans in the latter. It is only in the sub-lunar regions, he argued, that
generation and decay occurs, for it is in this region that
"nonessential" beings undergo alteration according to nature. The
generation that occurs in the sub-lunar realm is produced by the supra-lunar
realm, the primary cause being the sun, and the secondary causes the planets.
He apparently did not believe in a transcendent realm beyond the material
cosmos.
Ocellus' work is
one of the earliest examples of Hellenistic-era astrological doctrine. At the
end of his On the Nature of the Universe
he entreats prospective parents to be attentive in choosing times of
conception, so that their children may be born noble and graceful; and in the
fragment On Laws he declares
that the active supra-lunar realm governs the passive sub-lunar realm. In his
ethical doctrine Ocellus adhered to strict Pythagorean asceticism, holding that
sexual intercourse is to be reserved for reproductive purposes only, and that
alchoholic beverages are to be avoided.
b. Timaeus Locrus
Scholars are not
certain whether the eponymous Timaeus Locrus of Plato's dialogue ever really
existed. In any case, the treatise On the
World and the Soul attributed to this person is an early to
mid-first century B.C. work containing an epitome of the Timaeus dialogue, though with some
omissions. Given the renewed interest in Pythagorean philosophy in this period,
it is likely that the work was widely read. Though containing clear Pythagorean
motifs, such as a table of musical tones and their respective numbers, and a
section elaborating the geometrical construction of the cosmos, the treatise
is, as Thomas Tobin (1985) has demonstrated, a Middle Platonic interpretation
of the highly Pythagorean-influenced Timaeus
dialogue.
According to
"Timaeus" the universe has two causes: Mind, which governs rational
beings, and Necessity, which governs bodies and all irrational beings.
Interpreting Plato literally, "Timaeus" affirmed the temporal
creation of the cosmos, and while stating that the cosmos is capable of being
destroyed by the one who created it (the Demiurge), he denied that it would
ever actually be destroyed, since it is divine and the Demiurge, being good and
divine himself, would never destroy divinity. In what is possibly a later
addition to the text, "Timaeus" assigns numerical values to the
various proportions produced by the mixture of the Same and the Different
(these being the two opposing forces, productive of all motion, growth, and
change in the cosmos, as discussed in the Timaeus
dialogue). The substratum of all generated things is matter, and their
reason-principle or logos is
ideal-form. "Timaeus" then proceeds with an account of the
geometrical proportions of the cosmos, finally declaring that the image of the
cosmos is the dodecahedron, since that is the closest approximation to the
perfect sphere, which is the image of purely intellectual reality.
According to
"Timaeus," the Demiurge initiated the creation of souls, but then
handed over completion of the task to Nature (hypostatized in the feminine) who
completed their creation and introduced them into into the cosmos, some by way
of the sun, others the moon, and yet more from the planets that wander
according to the principle of the Different (the source of the irrational part
of the soul). Each soul, however, received a portion of the principle of
Sameness, which became the rational part of the soul. A soul who received more
of this principle would have a happier fate than one receiving less. Here
again, as in Ocellus, we have a relatively early witness of astrological
doctrine within Hellenistic philosophy. The ethical doctrine of
"Timaeus" involved a taming of the passions and the moderation of
bodily pleasures, the final goal being a state of repose conducive to the
contemplation of divine things.
c. Archytas
Several fragments
purporting to be from the hand of Plato's contemporary, the Pythagorean
Archytas of Tarentum (though in fact composed some time during the late second
or early first century B.C.) are of importance for Middle Platonic philosophy,
notably the fragments of a treatise On
First Principles where a principle is posited above the One and the
Dyad, out of which the primordial pair is said to have emerged.
"Archytas" places mind above soul as the most divine part in man,
though he departs from standard Pythagoreanism by assigning the circle rather
than the tetragon as the representation of the soul, since the soul is
self-moved (the circle, with no definite beginning or end point, symbolized
endless movement). He believed that there is a space outside of the material
cosmos in which the cosmos is contained. Time, according to
"Archytas" is continuous, not a series of units or parts as in
number, speech, and music, and he apparently made some distinction between
psychic time (pertaining to the soul) and natural time, though what this
distinction entailed is not clear. In ethics he is no innovator, simply stating
the standard notion that happiness depends on virtue, but virtue is independent
of all other things.
d. Eudorus of Alexandria
Eudorus of Alexandria
(fl. ca. 50-25 B.C.) was much concerned with ethics, which he considered the
first subject of philosophy to be studied. He defined ethics not in terms of
existence in accordance with nature, but rather in terms of striving for a
proper end (telos), which he
considered to be "likeness to god as far as possible" (homoiôsis theô kata to dunaton). This
phrase is from Plato's Theaetetus
(176b) where the qualification "as far as possible" simply means to
the extent that a mortal can achieve a divine state. Eudorus, however,
interpreted it as referring to the intellect, that part of the soul most
closely akin to the divine (cf. Dillon, pp. 122-123). This conception of ethics
led Eudorus to depart from earlier Platonists like Antiochus who considered
physical pleasures as contributing to, or at least enhancing, the happiness
that depends on virtue, and declare that true happiness is of the intellect
alone, although he does seem to have allowed a preliminary role for physical
pleasure in achieving happiness (Dillon, p. 124).
In metaphysics and
cosmology Eudorus follows largely Pythagorean lines, though some Stoic
conceptions are present in his thought. He departed from earlier Pythagorean
philosophy and, in a move likely inspired by "Archytas," posited a
supreme principle above the One and the Dyad, even positing this principle as
the producer of matter. Traditional Pythagorean philosophy posited a primordial
pair of principles, Limit and Unlimited, with no supreme One above this pair.
The monism of Eudorus' doctrine was particularly attractive to the Jewish
Platonist Philo of Alexandria in his quest to square Old Testament theology
with Platonic philosophy.
Eudorus rejected
the Aristotelian "fifth element" and followed Stoic cosmology in
positing pure fire as the base element of he heavens. He considered the stars
and planets to be divine, and insisted that the world is eternal. Eudorus
brought together the apparently opposing views of Xenocrates and Crantor
regarding the origin of numbers; the former stating that they are produced by
the One and the Dyad, the latter that they are produced in the mind of the
World-Soul as he contemplates the Forms. Eudorus taught that number was
generated simultaneously with the World-Soul, who was responsible for
translating the smallest multiplicity (the number three) into solid bodies (the
number four).
Finally, we must
note Eudorus' revision of Aristotle's Categories,
which was to exercise an immense influence on later Platonists, especially
Porphyry, who endeavored to find a harmony of doctrine in Plato and Aristotle.
Eudorus interpreted substance (ousia)
as strictly material substance,
and concluded that Aristotle's categories only apply to the physical world, not
to the purely intellectual realm, where Platonists have always located supreme
reality.
6. Later Middle Platonism
Notable Middle
Platonists after Eudorus include Moderatus
of Gades (first century A.D.), a self-conscious Pythagorean who
considered Plato a mere student of Pythagoras. During the same period Thrasyllus, Nero's court astrologer,
prepared a new edition of Plato's Dialogues,
arranged in tetralogies, as well as an edition of the collected works of
Democritus. Interesting in a different manner is Apollonius of Tyana, who had the reptuation of a magician
and wonder-worker, and is a prime example of the prophet-figures influenced by
Platonism, Pythagoreanism, and sundry other intellectual streams. Another
example of such a figure is Simon Magus
(mid-first century A.D.) who wandered about working miracles with a prostitute
claiming to be Divine Wisdom Herself. Simon was considered the first Gnostic by
the early Christian heresiologists.
The most important
Middle Platonists after Eudorus are Philo
of Alexandria (ca. 30 B.C. - 45 A.D.) and Plutarch
of Chaeronea (ca. 45-125
A.D.). Numenius of
Apamea (fl. ca. 150-176
A.D.), though more of a Neopythagorean than a Platonist
(to the extent that such a distinction can be made in this period), had a
profound influence on the emergence of Neoplatonism, not least in the deep and
abiding influence his thought had on the philosophical development of Plotinus,
who was actually accused of plagiarizing Numenius. Finally, we will discuss Albinus (fl. ca. 149-157) whose handbook
of Platonic philosophy is an interesting example of Middle Platonic eclecticism
(in the best sense of that term).
a. Philo of Alexandria
The work of Philo
of Alexandria (also called Philo Judaeus) is the most prominent and
philosophically accomplished example of the Jewish-Hellenistic syncretism that
flourished at Alexandria beginning at least as early as the translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (the Septuagint), during the reign of Ptolemy II
Philedelphus (285-247 B.C.). We already detect the influence of Hellenistic
philosophy on Jewish thought in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, and the
later apocryphal work Wisdom of Sirach
(ca. 30 B.C.) displays Platonic and Pythagorean affinities. So it is clear that
by Philo's time Jewish thinkers of the Diaspora were quite comfortable with
Greek philosophy. In the work of Philo himself there is an attempt to square
Old Testament theology with the Greek philosophical tradition, leading Philo to
posit Moses as the first sage and teacher of the venerable ancients of the
Greek tradition. The work of Philo was to have an immense influence on emerging
Christian philosophy, especially in the work of Origen.
According to
Philo, God transcends all first principles, including the Monad, is incorporeal
and cannot even be said to occupy a space or place; He is eternal, changeless,
self-sufficient and free from all constraint or necessity (cf. Tripolitis 1978,
pp. 5-6 ff.). God freely willed the creation of the cosmos, first in a purely
intellectual manner, and then, through the agency of His Logos (Philo's
philosophical term for the Wisdom figure of Proverbs 8:22) He brought forth the
physical cosmos. Philo describes the Logos in a two-fold manner, first as the
sum total of the thoughts of God, and then as a hypostatization of those
thoughts for the purpose of physical creation. Thus we see Philo linking the
cosmos to the intellectual realm by way of a mediating figure rather like the
Platonic World-Soul. Borrowing a term from Stoic philosophy, Philo calls the
thoughts of the Logos "rational seeds" (logoi spermatikoi), and describes them as having a role in
the production of the cosmos which, he insists, was brought into being out of
non-being by the agency of God.
Philo adhered to
standard Platonism when he declared that the cosmos is a copy of the purely
intellectual realm. However, he taught, following biblical doctrine, that the
cosmos was created in time, but went on to state that, although having a
temporal creation, the cosmos will exist eternally, since it is the result of
God's outpouring of love. The rational beings dwelling in the cosmos are
divided by Philo into three types: the purely intellectual souls (created first
by God), all animals (created second), and finally man (last of all rational
creation, combining the attributes of the first two). Of the purely intellectual
and incorporeal souls, Philo recognized varying degrees of perfection; some of
the souls aid humanity, for example, providing guidance and giving signs, while
other fell into vice themselves, and aim to lead man astray. These are the
beings called angels by the Jews and daemons by the Greeks.
Philo's ethical
doctrine emphasized the free will of human beings. According to Philo, the
meaning of the biblical statement that humanity is created in the image and
likeness of God is that although sometimes constrained by external forces, all
human souls are capable of overcoming these constraints and attaining freedom.
He further adds, in a formulation that was to have a profound influence on
Origen, that God aids souls in their quest for freedom in proportion to their
love and devotion for Him and for their fellows.
b. Plutarch of Chaeronea
Plutarch was
intensely interested in religion, and his philosophy bears the stamp of a
profound religious piety. Like Eudorus, Plutarch understood the highest goal of
existence as achieving likeness to god, yet he had little confidence in the
ability of human reason to adequately contemplate and understand divinity,
believing instead in the possibility of divine revelations. Plutarch considered
all the religions of his time as bearing witness to one eternal truth, though
expressed in different ways. His ability to use allegory in order to prove this
assertion is most evident in his treatise On
Isis and Osiris.
Plutarch did not,
like Archytas and Eudorus, posit a principle higher than the Pythagorean One,
which Plutarch also called, in Platonic fashion, the Good. The Dyad was
considered by Plutarch as a disruptive or even downright evil principle, which
the One or Monad had to struggle to control. This tension at the highest ontological
level translates into a dualistic cosmology where the principle of reason is
described as being in constant strife with unreason. The rational principle,
Logos, is both transcendent and immanent. In its former aspect the Logos is
understood by Plutarch as the sum-total of thoughts in the mind of god; in its
latter aspect, Logos is understood allegorically as Osiris, whose body is
routinely torn apart by Typhon, only to be reassembled ever again by Isis.
Osiris' body parts are interpreted as the Ideas dispersed throughout the
material realm, and rationally maintained by Isis
in her demiurgic role as cosmic steward.
Plutarch departed
from standard Pythagorean doctrine in declaring the creation of the cosmos in
time. In keeping with his Zoroastrian-style dualism, Plutarch posited a
simultaneous intellectual conception of the created cosmos in the minds of both
the One and its evil counterpart, the Dyad. Thus we see a dualism at the
highest level of his thought; however, a dualism that is not akin to Gnosticism,
for Plutarch's opposing principles are equi-primordial, unlike the subversive
Sophia in Gnostic mythology, who introduces a disruptive element into the
intellectual realm.
Plutarch accepted
the immortality of the soul, excepting only the notion of transmigration or
reincarnation, and made the distinction, found again later in Origen, between
mind (nous) and soul (psukhê). In the realm of ethics, Plutarch
defended free will against fatalism, understanding divine providence (pronoia) as involving a co-operation
between human will and divine agency (cf. Dillon, pp. 199-203 ff.; also Zeller,
pp. 306-308), another notion later adopted by Origen.
c. Numenius of Apamea
Numenius has been
called both a pythagorizing Platonist and a platonizing Pythagorean. However,
the key to his attitude toward philosophy is summed up in his own statement
that "Plato pythagorizes" (P. Henry 1991, p. lxx). He took the
mysterious passage about the three kings in the Platonic Second Letter as coming from Socrates,
and he likely used this passage as support for the triad of gods which he
posited as first principles. Plato and Pythagoras were considered by him as the
twin sources of philosophical truth, with which the traditions of the Hebrews,
Egyptians, the Zoroastrian Magi, and even the Brahmins were all in agreement.
Numenius' triad of
gods begins with the First God, called also the Good, who is eternal,
immutable, and at rest, concerned only with the intellectual realm. He is
likened by Numenius to the owner of a farm who, after having sown the fields,
leaves it up to his farmhands to cultivate the crops. The Second God, called
Mind and Demiurge is responsible for translating the things of the intellectual
realm to the realm of matter, thereby establishing a cosmos. In this capacity
the Second God is called World-Soul. However, once this Soul comes into contact
with matter, the source of all evil according to Numenius, it becomes divided
into a rational and an irrational part, the former remaining in contemplation
of the divine realm, and the latter immersing itself in the material realm. It
is not clear whether Numenius intended to posit two World-Souls (one good, one
evil) or if he had in mind simply a division within that Soul of an irrational
and a rational part. If Numenius' triad involves a strict separation of three
distinct divinities (and this is a matter of interpretation) then we should
speak of a separate World-Soul that is evil. If the triad is intended to imply
a three-fold series of activities emanating from the divine realm, then we are
correct in assuming that Numenius posited a single World-Soul with two warring
parts. Due to the fragmentary nature of his surviving writings, however, it is
impossible to know for sure what he intended.
Human souls were
described by Numenius as divine fragments of the Demiurge, each one a microcosm
of both the intellectual and the physical realm (Tripolitis, pp. 26-30). He
taught that all souls contain both a rational and an irrational element, the
former derived from the Second God, the latter from association with the
material realm. Numenius taught that souls enter the cosmos by way of the
Tropic of Cancer, acquiring various characteristics as they pass through the
seven planetary spheres. The soul that leads a virtuous life - which for
Numenius meant living a contemplative life detached from bodily things - will
re-ascend to heaven (the sphere of the fixed stars) by way of the Tropic of
Capricorn. The soul that fails to lead a correct life will enter Hades (located
by Numenius in the mists above the world) where it will undergo chastisement
until reincarnated in another body suitable to its nature. Numenius taught that
certain souls may become so corrupted that they will enter the bodies of
animals. In a doctrine that likely influenced Origen (in his doctrine of
multiple ages), Numenius taught that the series of reincarnations are finite,
and will eventually lead the soul back to the divine realm, though how this is
accomplished for a soul existing in animal bodies is not entirely clear, since
such a soul is presumably not susceptible to any rational exhortations to
virtue.
No overtly ethical
fragments of Numenius' works survive, but we do know that he considered
existence in this realm a struggle, with the irrational part of the soul in
constant strife with the rational. Salvation from this state only takes place
when the soul leaves the material realm for the divine. One is reminded of St. Paul's lament in
Romans 7:18-23 where he describes the war taking place between his flesh (body,
matter) and his mind. His mind knows the good, he says, but his flesh
continually prevents him from achieving this good. It is possible that Numenius
read St. Paul,
but more likely that the two thinkers simply were responding to a shared
intellectual milieu consisting not only of Platonic philosophy, but Gnostic and
Hermetic doctrines as well.
The influence of
Numenius extended well beyond his life-time; his doctrines are recorded in the
writings of later Neoplatonists like Porphyry and Proclus, and Plotinus himself
was at one point accused of plagiarizing Numenius (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 17). In the case of
Plotinus, we see a clear Numenian influence regarding the triadic arrangement
of principles, although Plotinus developed this basic notion in a quite
original way. Plotinus also responded to Numenius' doctrine of an evil
World-Soul, developing in the process a quite sophisticated doctrine concerning
matter and the nature of evil.
d. Albinus
Albinus (fl. ca.
149-157) left behind two complete works, excellent sources of first-century
A.D. Platonism, the Isagogê (an
introduction to Platonic philosophy) and the Didaskalikos
(a summary of Plato's philosophy). As an interpreter of Plato, Albinus relied
heavily on Aristotle and, to a lesser extent, Stoicism. Like Numenius, Albinus
posited a triadic set of principles: First God (also Mind and Good), Second God
or Universal Intellect, and World-Soul. The First God is not described as
creating the others, but rather as generating them from his mind as he thinks
upon his own thoughts (cf. Tripolitis, pp. 31-36). This conception of divine
emanation is present later in the philosophy of Plotinus and, in a more
developed fashion, in Proclus. The First God is described along the lines of
Aristotle's Unmoved Mover, and is said to produce motion through the desire he
inspires in the second and third gods. Albinus employs negative or apophatic
language when describing the First God, a method of theologizing that would
become of immense importance for later Christian Neoplatonists, especially
Pseudo-Dionysius.
Individual human
souls, according to Albinus, were created in the same manner as the second and
third gods, that is, by a hypostatization of thoughts in the divine mind. Once
generated, the souls enter the sphere of the fixed stars, where each soul is
allotted its own star and set in a chariot or vehicle (okhêma). Following the myth of the soul
in the Phaedrus, Albinus states
that the duty of the soul in the material realm is to place unreason in
subjection to reason, and to steer one's chariot to the rim of heaven where
one's allotted star is waiting to receive the perfected soul.
Although Albinus
describes the life of the soul as one of constant strife between the rational
and the irrational parts, he does not posit, as did Numenius, an evil
World-Soul, nor does he totally degrade all material embodiment as the source
of evil. Albinus described the union of body and soul as akin to that of fire
and asphalt, meaning that the one is the vehicle of the other. In the realm of
ethics Albinus held the by-now-standard Platonic line of "likeness to
god" as the highest goal of existence. He taught a doctrine of
reincarnation including the entrance of the soul into animal bodies. As in
Numenius, it is unclear how souls, once so incarnated, will ever attain to the
reason requisite for salvation (cf. R.E. Witt 1937, p. 139).
Albinus
anticipated Plotinus in the prime role he allotted to contemplation in the
ideal existence of the soul, and Origen in his doctrine of the intellectual
generation of souls by the godhead.
7. "Esoteric" Platonism
This final section
will be devoted to a brief discussion of a branch or offshoot of Middle
Platonic thought that I hesitantly labelled "esoteric," in spite of
the fact that these schools of thought or sects (or whatever one should call
them) were quite widespread during this period, Gnosticism especially. However,
though widespread, they were veiled in mystery and secrecy, leading John Dillon
to refer to them in the perhaps more apt phrase "the Platonic
Underworld." We will be discussing three examples of this
"underworld": Hermeticism, Gnosticism, and the Chaldaean Oracles. The writings
comprising the Corpus Hermeticum,
so-called because of its supposed derivation from the teachings of the legendary
sage Hermes Trismegistus, bear the marks of a variety of philosophies,
Platonism and Neopythagoreanism being the most prominent. Hermetic ideas are
found in Christianity as early as the writings of St. Paul, and Gnostic elements are to be
discerned in John's Gospel as well as in Paul. The earliest Christian
theologians were Gnostics, and the most prominent among them, Valentinus,
nearly became pope. The systems of the Gnostics, especially Valentinus,
attempted (among other things) to solve certain problems of Platonic and
related philosophies by employing mythological language, astrological
symbolism, and elements of alchemy and ritual magic. Finally, the Chaldaean Oracles, a mysterious
composition melding Platonic and Neopythagorean philosophy with a revelatory
religiosity, was a major source of inspiration for later Neoplatonists.
a. Hermeticism
Hermeticism is a
loose label for collections of texts on various subjects bearing the name
Hermes Trismegistus, "Thrice-great Hermes," who was believed to have
been a sage of remote antiquity. According to the third-century B.C. historian
Manetho of Sebennytos, a tradition existed in which Thoth-Hermes was said to
have written down his teachings on tablets before the Flood. These tablets were
said to be kept by the Egyptian priests, who later translated them into Greek.
The earliest Hermetic writings are called the "technical Hermetica"
and can be dated back to the early- to mid-second century B.C. These texts
contain astrological material and information on the magical properties of
gems. The co-called "philosophical Hermetica," that is, the treatises
comprising what today is called the Corpus
Hermeticum, began to be written down a bit later, the earliest
probably in the mid-first century B.C.
The most important
treatise in this collection (at least for the history of Platonism) is the Poimandres. This text begins with the
appearance of Poimandres (a name suggesting "Shepherd of Men" in
Greek), the Divine Intellect, who reveals to the unknown author of the text a
vision displaying the generation of the cosmos. The cosmos is described as
beginning with a darkness coiling downward from the light (the intellectual
realm) like a snake. It is at first indiscernible and disturbing, but then
divine reason descends upon it and imposes order, and the earth comes into
being. This account is dependent on both Plato's Timaeus and the book of Genesis (especially as these two
works were interpreted by Philo, whom our author likely read). The image of the
descending darkness implies an evil or irrational principle, or World-Soul, as
in Numenius, that must be brought under control by reason. Other affinities
with Numenius, as well as Albinus, include the direct generation of souls by
the Demiurge, and the descent and ascent of souls through the planetary
spheres. One important difference is that both Numenius and Albinus considered
the highest attainment of the soul as "likeness to god." The Poimandres, however, declares that the
souls who make the ascent to the divine realm actually become gods themselves,
an idea that was to become central in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition,
with its concept of deification or theôsis.
It is highly likely that Numenius was acquainted with, if not the Poimandres itself, another text or texts
similar in content. He was also most certainly familiar with Gnosticism, to a
discussion of which we now turn.
b. Gnosticism
The writings
called "gnostic" vary in content, style, date, and region of origin,
to such a degree that certain modern scholars have called for a moratorium on
the term (cf. M.A. Williams 1996). Yet there are certain basic elements common
to most so-called Gnostic systems,
as opposed to stray texts the provenance of which is unknown or dubious. The
most important of these systems is that of Basilides and Valentinus, two early
Christian theologians who are influenced heavily by Middle Platonic thought.
(For a more in-depth discussion, see Gnosticism.)
The system of Basilides (fl. ca. 132-135 A.D.) begins with the
engendering of Intellect (Nous) by the First (unengendered) Parent. From this
Intellect, Logos is generated, and Logos in turn generates Prudence (phronêsis) who then generates Wisdom
(Sophia) and Power (dunamis).
This is a mythological elaboration of the standard Middle Platonic emanation
schemas that we have encountered in Eudorus and later philosophers, like
Numenius, who have posited a supreme principle above Intellect. Basilides
apparently attempted to "flesh out" the standard triadic schemas of
the more mainstream Middle Platonists by adding certain anthropomorphic
attributes like "prudence" to the mix. Basilides was among the first
Christian thinkers besides John the Evangelist to explicitly identify Jesus as
the earthly manifestation of the Divine Intellect. He also dabbled in astrology, revising
practices current in his time to suit his own peculiar cosmology. Using
numerology, he identified the ruler of the celestial realm as
"Abrasax" or "Abraxas," a name used in the practice of
ritual magic, the numerical value of which is (according to Greek numerology)
365, corresponding to the number of "heavens" believed by Gnostics
and other to exist above the familiar spheres of the seven planets.
Valentinus (ca. 100-175 A.D.) begins his system,
in Pythagorean fashion, not with a unity but a primal duality, the members of
which he calls the Ineffable and Silence. The primal duality produces a second
duality called the Parent and Truth, from which spring a quartet consisting of
Logos, Life, Primal Man, and the Church. As a Christian, Valentinus held a
rather peculiar notion of the nature and role of Christ in the cosmos,
considering Him to have been engendered along with a "shadow" (matter)
that it was His responsibility to control. Here again we see an elaboration on
a particular aspect of Middle Platonism, namely the manner in which unwieldy
matter is brought under control by a rationalizing force. Valentinus was
apparently the first Christian theologian to refer to the Trinity in terms of
persons, and he affirmed the eternity and immortality of souls, implying a
notion of pre-existence of souls such as we find later in Origen.
Gnosticism had an
immense influence not only on the development of Christianity but on emerging
Neoplatonism as well. Plotinus, for example, was forced to respond to the
increasingly vocal, it seems, Gnostics attending his lectures. Later,
Iamblichus posited a One even higher than the Plotinian One, in a manner similar
to Gnostics like Basilides and Valentinus who, as we have seen, separated their
highest principles from all others by positing an unengendered parent, and a
primal duality productive of a second duality, respectively.
c. The Chaldaean Oracles
The writings known
as the Chaldaean Oracles were
very likely composed by a certain Julian the Theurgist, who served in the Roman
army during Marcus Aurelius' campaign against the Quadi, and claimed to have
saved the Roman camp from fiery destruction by causing a rainstorm (Dillon, pp.
392-393). The circumstances surrounding the writing of the Oracles is mysterious, the most likely
explanation being that Julian uttered them after inducing a sort of trance akin
to that of the classical oracles of Greece (E.R. Dodds 1973, p. 284). There is
much Platonic content in the Oracles, resembling very closely the philosophy of
Numenius, which is why they are of interest in this survey of Middle Platonism.
The metaphysical
schema of the Chaldaean Oracles
begins with an absolutely transcendent deity called Father, with whom resides
Power, a productive principle, it seems, whence proceeds Intellect. This
Intellect has a two-fold function, to contemplate the Forms of the purely
intellectual realm of the Father, and to craft and govern the material realm.
In this latter capacity the Intellect is Demiurge. The Oracles further posits a barrier between
the intellectual and the material realm, personified as Hecate. In the capacity
of barrier, or more properly "membrane" (hupezôkôs humên), Hecate separates the two
"fires," that is, the purely intellectual fire of the Father, and the
material fire from which the cosmos is created, and mediates all divine
influence upon the lower realm. From Hecate is derived the World-Soul, which in
turn emanates Nature, the governor of the sub-lunar realm (Dillon, p. 394-395).
From Nature is derived Fate, which is capable of enslaving the lower part of
the human soul. The goal of existence then is to purify the lower soul of all
contact with Nature and Fate, by living a life of austerity and contemplation.
Salvation is achieved by an ascent through the planetary spheres, during which
the soul casts off the various aspects of its lower soul, and becomes pure
intellect.
8. Conclusion
It is evident,
even from a brief survey such as this one, that the thinkers comprising the
philosophy generally referred to as Middle Platonism held widely varying and
sometimes even divergent ideas, not only on relatively minor points like the
role of physical pleasure in happiness, but on major points like the eternity
of the world or the number of first principles. A student encountering Middle
Platonism for the first time, armed only with a knowledge of Plato's Dialogues, will likely wonder why we even
call some of these thinkers Platonists at all. That is understandable. However,
it must be remembered that Plato did not bequeath a set of doctrines on his
students and successors; his legacy is rather a series of problems that have
exercised the minds of philosophers for over two millennia. Platonism,
therefore, should not be thought of a simple elucidation of Plato's doctrines,
but rather as a creative engagement with Plato's texts and with certain
doctrines handed down by the Academy as belonging to Plato. Middle Platonism ends
with Origen of Alexandria and his younger contemporary Plotinus, both of whom
were deeply indebted to many of the philosophers discussed in this article, yet
moved in directions uniquely their own. It is with them that Neoplatonism
begins.
9. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
- Albinus, Didaskalikos, ed. P. Louis, in Albinos. Épitomé (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1945).
- Antiochus of Ascalon, Fragmenta, in Der Akademiker Antiochus, ed. G. Luck (Bern: Haupt 1953).
- Arcesilaus, Fragmenta, in Supplementum Hellenisticum, ed. H. Lloyd-Jones, P. Parsons (Berlin: De Gruyter 1983).
- Archytas (pseudo-), Fragmenta, in The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, ed. H. Thesleff (Abo: Abo Akademi 1965).
- Cicero, The Nature of the Gods and On Divination, tr. C.D. Yonge (New York: Prometheus Books 1997).
- The Chaldean Oracles, tr. G.R.S. Mead (Montana: Kessinger Publishing, no date).
- Numenius, Numénius. Fragments, ed. É. des Places (Paris: Les Belles Lettres 1974).
- Ocellus Lucanus, De universi natura and Fragmenta, in Neue philologische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, ed. R. Harder (Berlin: Weidmann 1926).
- Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the World (De opificio Mundi), Allegorical Interpretation (Legum allegoria), tr. F.H. Colson, G.H. Whitaker, in Philo, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1929).
- Plato, Plato: Complete Works, ed. J.M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett 1997).
- Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, in Plutarchi moralia, vol. 2.3, ed. W. Sieveking (Leipzing: Teubner 1935).
- Posidonius, Posidonius. Die Fragmente, vol. 1, ed. W. Theiler (Berlin: De Gruyter 1982).
- Speusippus, Fragmenta, in Speusippus of Athens, ed. L. Tarán (Philosophia Antiqua 39; Leiden: Brill 1981).
- Timaeus Locrus, Fragmenta et titulus, in The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, ed. H. Thesleff (Abo: Abo Akademi 1965).
- Xenocrates, Testimonia, doctrina et fragmenta, in Senocrate-Ermodoro. Frammenti, ed. M.I. Parente (Naples: Bibliopolis 1982).
b. Secondary Sources
- Billings, T.H., The Platonism of Philo Judaeus (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1919).
- Brehier, E., The History of Philosophy, vol. 2: The Hellenistic and Roman Age, tr. W. Baskin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1958).
- Copenhaver, B.P., tr., Hermetica (New York: Cambridge University Press 1992).
- Copleston, F., A History of Philosophy, vol. 1, part 2: Greece and Rome (New York: Image Books 1962).
- Dillon, J.M., The Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1977).
- Dillon, J.M., Long, A.A., ed., The Question of "Eclecticism": Studies in Later Greek Philosophy (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1988).
- Dodds, E.R., The Greeks and the Irrational (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1973).
- Festugiere, A-J, Personal Religion Among the Greeks (Los Angeles: University of California Press 1954).
- Fowden, G., The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (New York: Cambridge University Press 1986).
- Guthrie, K.S., The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library (Grand Rapids: Phanes Press 1988).
- Henry, P., "The Place of Plotinus in the History of Thought" in Plotinus, The Enneads, tr. S. MacKenna (New York: Penguin Books 1991).
- Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion, third edition (Boston: Beacon Press 2001).
- Layton, B., The Gnostic Scriptures (New York: Doubleday 1987).
- Lovejoy, A.O., The Great Chain of Being (New York: Harper and Row 1965).
- Tripolitis, A., The Doctrine of the Soul in the Thought of Plotinus and Origen (New York: Libra 1978).
- Williams, M.A., Rethinking "Gnosticism": An Argument for Dismantling a Dubious Category (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1996).
- Witt, R.E., Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1937).
- Zeller, E., Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy, tr. L.R. Palmer (New York: Meridian Books 1955).
Author Information
Plato: Organicism
Organicism is the
position that the universe is orderly and alive, much like an organism.
According to Plato, the Demiurge creates a
living and intelligent universe because life is better than non-life and
intelligent life is better than mere life. It is the perfect animal.
In contrast with the Darwinian view that the emergence of life and mind
are accidents of evolution, the Timaeus
holds that the universe, the world, is necessarily
alive and intelligent. And mortal organisms are a microcosm of the great
macrocosm.
Although Plato is
most famous today for his theory of Forms and for the utopian and elitist
political philosophy in his Republic,
his later writings promote an organicist cosmology which, prima facie, conflicts with aspects of
his theory of Forms and of his signature political philosophy. The organicism
is found primarily in the Timaeus,
but also in the Philebus, Statesman, and Laws.
Because the Timaeus was the only major dialogue of
Plato available in the West during most of the Middle Ages, during much of that
period his cosmology was assumed by scholars to represent the mature philosophy
of Plato, and when many Medieval philosophers refer to Platonism they mean his
organicist cosmology, not his theory of Forms. Despite this, Plato’s
organicist cosmology is largely unknown to contemporary philosophers, although
many scholars have recently begun to show renewed interest.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Plato’s Cosmogony and Cosmology
- Creation of the World Animal
- The Mortal Organism as Microcosm of the Macrocosm
- Creation as Procreation
- Emergence of Kosmos from Chaos
- Relevance to Plato’s Philosophy
- Relevance to Plato’s Aesthetics
- Relevance to Plato’s Ethics
- Relevance to Plato’s Political Philosophy
- Relevance to Plato’s Account of Health and Medicine
- Relevance to Plato’s Theory of Forms
- Influence of Plato’s Cosmology
- References and Further Reading
1. Introduction
a. Whitehead’s Reading of Plato
In his 1927-28
Gifford Lectures, Whitehead (1978) makes the startling
suggestion that Plato’s philosophy is akin to a philosophy of organism. This is
surprising to many scholars because Plato’s signature doctrine, the theory of
Forms, would seem to be as far removed from a philosophy of organism as
possible. On the usual understanding of the theory of Forms, reality is divided
into a perfect, eternal, unchanging, world of Forms or universals, and a
separate, finite, imperfect world of perceptible particulars, where the latter
is an image of the former and is, in some obscure way, unreal, or less real,
than the Forms. Since living things requires growth and change, and
since, according to the theory of Forms, these are mere images of the only
genuine realities, the Forms, it would seem there can be no fundamental place
for living organisms in Plato’s ontology.
The case for
Whitehead’s thesis is based on Plato’s Timaeus,
where he compares the kosmos
to a living organism, but also, to a lesser degree, on the Laws, Statesman,
Philebus and Critias. Since the Timaeus is concerned with the temporal
world, generally thought to be denigrated by the “other-worldly” Plato, its
relevance to Plato’s philosophy has been doubted. First, the
cosmology of the Timaeus is not
even presented by Socrates, but by Timaeus, a 5th century
Pythagorean. Second, the Timaeus
represents its organicist cosmology as a mere probable story.
Third, although Plato employs myths in most of his dialogues, these are
generally combined with discursive argument, but the Timaeus is “myth from beginning to end”
(Robin, 1996). For these reasons, many scholars hold that the Timaeus represents a digression into
physical speculations that have more to do with the natural sciences per se than they do with philosophy
proper (Taylor, 1928). Russell (1945) allows that the Timaeus deserves to be studied because it
has had such great influence on the history of ideas, but holds that “as
philosophy it is unimportant.” The case is further complicated by the
controversy over the longstanding view that the Timaeus is a later period dialogue. For a discussion
of these stylometric and chronological disputes see Kraut (1992), Brandwood
(1992), and Meinwald (1992).
It is worth
remembering, however, that throughout most of the Middle Ages, the Timaeus was the only Platonic dialogues
widely available in the West and most scholars at that time assumed that it
represents Plato’s mature views (Knowles, 1989). Second, the
dialogue in the Timaeus appears
to take up where that of the Republic
leaves off, suggesting that Plato himself saw a continuity between the views in
the two works. It is also worth pointing out that some physicists, such
as Heisenberg (1958), have claimed that the Timaeus provided inspiration for their rejection of the
materialism of Democritus in favor of the mathematical forms of Plato and the
Pythagoreans (see also Brisson and Meyerstein, 1995). For these and
other reasons, a growing number of scholars have, despite the controversies,
begun to return to the Timaeus
with renewed philosophical interest (Vlastos, 1975; Ostenfield, 1982; Annas,
1999; Sallis, 1999; Carone, 2000; and so forth.).
b. Greek Organicism
In his
introduction to Plato’s works, Cairns
(1961) points out that the Greek view, as far back as we have
records, is that the world is orderly and alive. From this perspective,
the failure to appreciate Plato’s organicism is part and parcel of a failure to
appreciate Greek organicism more generally. For example, whereas modern
scholars view the Milesians as forerunners of modern materialism (Jeans, 1958),
the Milesians held that matter is alive (Cornford, 1965; Robin, 1996).
Similarly, Anaximenes did not hold that air is the
basis of all things in the same sense, or for the same reasons, that a modern
materialist might hold such a view. He views air as breath and sees air as the basis of all
things because he sees the world as a living thing and therefore “wants it to
breath” (Robin, 1996; Cornford, 1966). Pythagoras too, who exerted great
influence on Plato, saw the world as a living breathing being (Robinson,
1968). Cornford (1966) notes that Plato’s description in the Timaeus of his world animal as a “well
rounded sphere” has been seen by some scholars as the best commentary on Parmenides’ comparison of
his One Being to a perfect sphere (raising the possibility of a Parmenidean
organicism). Finally, by stressing that fire is the basis of
all things, Heraclitus did not mean that fire is
the material out of which all things are made. His fire is an “ever
living” fire (Burnet, 1971). Similar points could be made about other
pre-Socratic philosophers. The Greek tendency to view the world as
a living thing is rooted in the fact that the early Greek notion of nature, physis, was closer in meaning to life
than to matter (Cornford, 1965). This is why, as far back as
Hesiod, procreation plays such a prominent role in Greek creation stories, as
it does in the Timaeus (Section
2c.). From this perspective, it is not surprising that Plato
develops an organicist cosmology. It would be surprising if
he did not have one.
2. Plato’s Cosmogony and Cosmology
a. Creation of the World Animal
The Timaeus describes the world (kosmos) as a created living being.
The world is created by the “Demiurge [ho
demiourgos]” who follows an “eternal pattern” reminiscent of
Plato’s Forms (Carone, 2000). The materials out of which the kosmos is fashioned are already present.
The eternal patterns or Forms, the Demiurge himself, and the
materials, all pre-exist the creation. Thus, Plato’s Demiurge is not
omnipotent, but is more like a craftsman,
limited both by the eternal patterns and by the prior matter. The
creative act consists in putting “intelligence in soul and soul in body” in
accord with the eternal patterns. The soul in the Timaeus and Laws is understood as the principle of self-motion.
The pre-existing
materials are described as “chaos.” By “chaos” Plato does not mean
the complete absence of order, but a kind of order, perhaps even a mechanical
order, opposed to Reason. This “chaotic” tendency survives the
imposition of Form and is always threatening to break out and undermine the
rational order of the world. For this reason Plato’s kosmos exhibits a dynamical quality quite
alien to modern thought.
The Demiurge
creates a living and intelligent world because life is better than non-life and
intelligent life is better than mere life. It is “the perfect animal.”
In contrast with the Darwinian view that the emergence of life and mind
are accidents of evolution, the Timaeus
holds that the world is necessarily
alive and intelligent.
The Timaeus identifies three different kinds
of souls, the rational (eternal) soul, the spirited soul, and the plantlike
soul capable of sensation but not of genuine self-motion. The
world-animal possesses the highest and most perfect kind of soul, the rational
soul, but it also shares in the two lower types of soul as well. The
world may be the perfect animal,
but it is not a perfect being
because it possesses the lower types of soul. The presence of these lower
types of soul helps to explain the imperfection in the world.
The Timaeus holds that the world is
“solitary.” The Demiurge only creates one world, not because he is
stingy, but because he can only create the best and there can only be one best
world. Since it is solitary, there is nowhere for it to go and
nothing for it to perceive. The perfect-animal has, therefore, no
external limbs or sense organs.
The Demiurge gives
the world the most suitable shape, that is, it is a sphere with each point on the circumference equidistant from
the center. Since
it has no need of sense organs or limbs, it is perfectly smooth. Although
the pre-existing visible body is also a sphere, it turns out that a sphere is
also the most suitable choice of shape for the perfect animal (Sect. 4c).
The Demiurge imposes an order on that pre-existing material sphere that makes
it suitable for the introduction of a soul. Thus, Plato does
not deny that there are material or mechanical conditions for life and
mind. He only insists that these are subordinated in the world to the
more basic rule by reason (McDonough, 1991).
The Demiurge makes
the perfect animal in the shape of a sphere since a sphere “is the most like
itself of all figures” and that makes for the most beautiful figure.
Unlike the modern view that values are a subjective coloring imposed by the
human mind (Putnam, 1990), Plato’s kosmos
is intrinsically beautiful and good. Plato’s science of nature does
not seek to strip things of value in order to see them “objectively”, but,
rather, to describe the intrinsic values writ large in the perfect visible
cosmic organism (Sect. 3a-3c).
The Demiurge puts
the soul in the center of the sphere, but it “diffuses” throughout
the entire sphere. The Demiurge synchronizes the two spheres
“center to center.” Thus, Plato distinguishes between the organism’s
spiritual center and its bodily center, and holds that these must be made,
by the Demiurge, to correspond with each other. This is an early
version of the “correlation thesis” (Putnam, 1981), the view that there must be
a correspondence between the mental and material states of the
organism. That which is produced directly by intelligence may
only have a teleological explanation, while that caused by matter not
controlled by intelligence may have only a physical explanation, but that
which is produced by the informing of matter by intelligence admits of both
a teleological and a physical explanation. In that case, the
teleological and physical “spheres” must correspond with each other.
The world-animal is One in the sense that it possesses an organic
unity by virtue of its central order-imposing soul.
Since the kosmos is a perfect animal, and
since an animal has parts, the world is ”a perfect whole of perfect
parts.” The kosmos
is a whole of parts because it is “the very image of that whole of which all
the animals and their tribes are portions.” The “whole” of which the kosmos is an image is called “the Form of
the Intelligible Animal."
The Form of the
Intelligible Animal contains “all intelligible beings, just as this [visible]
world contains all other visible creatures.” The perfect animal must
embrace all possible species of “intelligible beings.” Thus,
Plato’s world-animal is actually a whole
ecosystem of interrelated animals. It should not,
however, be assumed that the cosmic animal is not also a single
organism. Although the human body is, in one sense, a single
organism, it is, in another sense, a whole system of interrelated organisms
(the individual cells of the body), which combine to form one more perfect
organism.
The view that the
Form of the intelligible animal contains all intelligible beings suggests that only animals are intelligible.
Matter as such is not intelligible. A material thing is only
intelligible because it instantiates a Form. The Timaeus suggests that the total recipe
for the instantiation of the Forms is a living organism. The ideas that
only living things are intelligible and that matter per se is unintelligible are foreign to the modern
mind. Nonetheless, Plato sees a close connection between life and
intelligibility.
Since there is
nothing outside the perfect animal, it exists “in itself.” Since it
exists “in itself,” it is self sufficient in the visible world. It does
depend on the Forms, but it does not depend on anything more basic in the
perceptible world. Since it moves, but is an image of the
self-sufficient Forms, it moves in the most self-sufficient way, that is, it is
self- moving. Since there is nothing outside it, it can only move
“within its own limits,” that is, it can only rotate around its own axis.
The circular motion of the perfect animal is the best perceptible image of the
perfection and self-sameness of the eternal Forms.
Since the perfect
animal is intelligent, it thinks. Since it is self-moving, it is a
self-moving thinker. Since it is self-sufficient in the visible
world, it is, in that realm, absolute spontaneity. Plato’s
characterization of the perfect animal as a “sensible God” expresses the fact
that it possesses these divine qualities of self-sufficiency, self movement,
and absolute spontaneity deriving from its participation in an eternal pattern.
The Timaeus presents a complex
mathematical account, involving the mixing of various types of being, in
various precise proportions, of the creation of the “spherical envelope to the
body of the universe,” that is, the heavens. The more orderly movements
of the heavenly bodies are better suited than earthly bodies to represent the
eternal patterns, but they are not completely ordered. In addition
to the perfect circular movements of the stars, there is also the less orderly
movement of the planets. Plato distinguishes these as “the same” and “the
different.” Whereas the stars display invariable circular
movements, the planets move in diverse manners, a different motion for each of
the seven planets. Thus, the movement of the stars is “undivided,”
while that of the plants is divided into separate diverse
motions. Since the former is superior, the movements of the
different are subordinated to those of “the same.” The entirely regular
movement of “the same” is the perfect image of the eternal patterns, while the
movement of “the different” is a manifestation of the imperfect material
body of the kosmos.
Nevertheless, since “the different” are in the heavens, they are
still much more orderly than the “chaotic” movements of bodies on
earth. Although this account is plainly unbelievable, it sheds
light on his concept of an organism and his views about intelligence.
To take one
example, Plato invokes the dichotomy of “the same” and “the different” to
explain the origins of knowledge and true belief. Because the soul
is composed of both “the same” and “the different,” she is capable of
recognizing the sameness or difference in anything that “has being.” Both
knowledge and true opinion achieve truth, for “reason works with equal truth
whether she is in the sphere of the diverse or of the same,” but intelligence
and knowledge, the work of “the same,” are still superior to true belief, the
work of “the different." Insofar as the heavens display the
movements of “the same,” the world animal achieves intelligence and knowledge,
but insofar as “the circle of the diverse” imparts the “intimations of
sense” to the soul mere true belief is achieved. Plato is, in
effect, describing a kind of celestial
mechanism to explain the origins of the perfect animal’s knowledge
on the one hand and true belief on the other. His view implies that
an organism must be imperfect if it is to have true beliefs about a
corporeal world and that these imperfections must be reflected in its
“mechanism” of belief.
Because of their
perfect circular motions, the heavens are better suited than earthly movements
to measure time. Thus, time is “the moving image of
eternity.” This temporal “image of eternity” is eternal and “moves in
accord with number” while eternity itself “rests in unity." But time
is not a representation of just any Form. It is an image of the Form of
the Intelligible Animal. Since time is measured by the movement of
the perfect bodies in the heavens, and since that movement constitutes the life
of the perfect animal, time is measured by the movement of the perfect life on
display in the heavens, establishing a connection between time and life carried
down to Bergson (1983).
b. The Mortal Organism as Microcosm of the Macrocosm
The Demiurge
creates the world-animal, but leaves the creation of mortal animals to the
"created gods,” by which Plato may mean the earth (female) and the sun
(male). Since the created gods imitate the creator, mortal animals are
also copies of the world-animal. Thus, man is a microcosm of the macrocosm, a view that extends from the pre-Socratics
(Robinson, 1968), through Scholastic philosophy (Wulf, 1956) and the
Renaissance (Cassirer, 1979), to Leibniz (1968), Wittgenstein (1966), Whitehead
(1978), and others.
Although plants
and the lesser animals are briefly discussed in the Timaeus, the only mortal organism described in detail is
man. Since imperfections are introduced at each stage of copying, man is
less perfect than the cosmic-animal, the lesser animals are less perfect than
man, and plants are less perfect than the lesser animals. This yields a
hierarchy of organisms, a “great chain of being,” arranged from the most
perfect world-animal at the top to the least perfect organisms at the bottom
(Lovejoy, 1964).
Since an ordinary
organism is a microcosm of the macrocosm, the structure of a mortal
organism parallels that of the macrocosm. Since the structure of the
macrocosm is the structure of the heavens (broadly construed to include the
earth at the center of the heavenly spheres), one need not rely on empirical
studies of ordinary biological organisms. Since the Timaeus holds that the archetype of an
organism is “writ large” in the heavens, the science of astronomy is the
primary guide to the understanding of living things. In this respect, our
modern view owes more to Aristotle, who accorded greater
dignity to the empirical study of ordinary living things (Hamilton, 1964, p. 32).
Since the
macrocosm is a sphere with the airy parts at the periphery and the earth at the
center, ordinary organisms also have a spherical structure with the airy parts
at the periphery and the heavier elements at the center. Since an
ordinary organism is less perfect than the world animal, its spherical shape is
distorted. Although there are three kinds of souls, these are
housed in separate bodily spheres. The rational, or immortal, soul
is located in the sphere of the head. The two mortal souls are encased in
the sphere of the thorax and the sphere of the abdomen. The
division of the mortal soul into two parts is compared with the division of a
household into the male and female “quarters.”
The head contains
the first principle of life. The soul is united with the body at its
center. Since Plato uses “marrow” as a general term for the material at
the center of a seed, the head contains the brain “marrow” suited to house the
most divine soul. There are other kinds of “marrows” at the centers of
the chest and abdomen. The sphere is the natural shape for an
animal because the principle of generation takes the same form as a seed, and
most seeds are spherical. The head is a “seed” that gives birth to
immortal thoughts. The thorax and abdomen are “seeds” that give birth to
their own appropriate motions.
The motions in the
various organic systems imitate the circular motions of the
heavens. Respiration is compared to “the rotation of a
wheel." Since there can be no vacuum, air taken in at
one part forces the air already there to move out of its place, which forces
the air further down to move, and so on. Plato gives a similar account of
the circulatory system. The blood is compelled to move by the action of
the heart in the center of the chest. “[T]he particles of the blood …
which are contained within the frame of the animal as in a sort of heaven, are
compelled to imitate the motion of the universe.” The blood
circulates around the central heart just as the stars circulate around the
central earth. Similar accounts are given of ingestion and
evacuation. The action of the lungs, heart, and so forth,
constitutes the bodily mechanism that implements the organic telos. In the Phaedo and Laws, Plato compares the Earth, the “true mother of us all,”
to an organism with its own circulatory systems of subterranean rivers of water
and lava. The organic model of the heavens is the template for an organic
model of the geological structure of the earth.
Since the perfect
animal has no limbs or sense organs, “the other six [the non-circular] motions
were taken away from him.” Since there is no eternal pattern for these
chaotic motions associated with animal life, they are treated as
unintelligible. There is, for Plato, no science of chaos. His
remarks are consistent with the view that there can be a mechanics of the
non-circular bodily motions, but since such a mechanics cannot give the all-
important reason for the motion it so does not qualify as a science in Plato’s
sense.
Since the rise of
the mechanistic world view in the 18th century, it has been
impossible for modern thinkers to take Plato’s cosmology seriously. It
cannot, however, be denied that it is a breathtaking vision. If
nothing else, it is a startling reminder how differently ancient thinkers
viewed the universe. According to the Timaeus, we on earth live at the center of one unique
perfect cosmic organism, in whose image we have been created, and whose nature
and destiny has been ordained by imperceptible transcendent forces from
eternity. When we look up at the night sky, we are not seeing mere
physical bodies moving in accord with blind mechanical laws, but, rather, are,
quite literally, seeing the radiant airy periphery of that single perfect
cosmic life, the image of our own (better) selves, from which we draw our
being, our guidance, and our destiny.
Finally, Plato is,
in the Timaeus, fashioning
important components of our concept of an organism, a concept which survives
even when his specific quaint theories, do not. For example, biologists
have noted that animals, especially those, like Plato’s perfect animal, that have
no need of external sense organs or limbs, tend towards a spherical shape
organized around a center (Buchsbaum, 1957). Indeed, central state
materialism, the modern view that the intelligence is causally traceable to the
neural center, is, arguably, a conceptual descendent of Plato’s notion of an
organism organized around a center.
c. Creation as Procreation
Whereas in his
earlier dialogues Plato had distinguished Forms and perceptible objects, the
latter copies of the former, the Timaeus
announces the need to posit yet another kind of being, “the Receptacle,” or
“nurse of all generation.” The Receptacle is like the Forms insofar as it
is a “universal nature” and is always “the same,” but it must be “formless” so
that it can “take every variety of form.” The Receptacle is likened
to “the mother” of all generation, while “the source or spring” of generation,
the Demiurge, is likened to the father. In the Timaeus, the creation of the world is not
a purely intellectual act, but, following the sexual motif in pre-Socratic
cosmogony, it is modeled on sexual generation.
Plato’s argument
for positing the Receptacle is that since visible objects do not exist in
themselves, and since they do not exist in the Forms, they must exist “in
another,” and the Receptacle is this “other” in which visible objects exist,
that is, the argument for positing the Receptacle is premised on the
ontologically dependent
status of visible objects.
Since the perfect
motion is circular, generation too moves in a circle. This is true of the
generation of the basic elements, earth, air, fire, and water, out of each
other, but it is also true of animal generation. Since the parents of a
certain type only generate offspring of the same type, the cycle of procreation
always returns, in a circular movement, to the same point from which it
started It is only in creating a copy of themselves, which
then go on to do that same, that mortal creatures partake of the eternal
(Essentially the same picture is found in Plato’s Symposium and in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals). Since the sexual act
presupposes the prior existence of the male and female principles, the
procreation model also explains why Plato’s Demiurge does not create from
nothing.
Plato identifies
the Receptacle with space, but also suggests that the basic matters, such as
fire, are part of its nature, so it cannot be mere space. Although
Plato admits that it somehow “partakes of the intelligible,” he also states
that it “is hardly real” and that we only behold it “as in a
dream.” Despite the importance of this view in the Timaeus, Plato is clearly puzzled, and
concludes that the Receptacle is only apprehended by a kind of “spurious
reason.” Given his comparison of the receptacle to the female
principle, he may think that visible objects are dependent on “another” in
something like the sense in which a foetus is dependent on the mother’s
womb. On the other hand, Plato admits that these are murky waters and it
is doubtful that the sexual imagery can be taken literally.
d. Emergence of Kosmos from Chaos
The Western
intellectual tradition begins, arguably, with the cosmogony in Hesiod’s Theogony, according to which the world
emerges from chaos. A similar story is found in Plato’s creation story in
the Timaeus, where, in the
beginning, everything is in “disorder” and any “proportion” between things is
accidental. None of the kinds, such as fire, water, and so forth,
exist. These had to be “first set in order” by God, who then, out of
them, creates the cosmic animal. Since the root meaning of the
Greek “kosmos” is orderly
arrangement, the Timaeus
presents a classic picture of the emergence of order out of chaos.
The doctrine of
emergent evolution, associated with Bergson (1983), Alexander (1920), and
Morgan (1923), is the view that the laws of nature evolve over time (Nagel,
1979). Since, in the Timaeus,
the laws of nature are not fixed by the conditions in the primordial “chaos,”
but only arise, under the supervision of the Demiurge, in a temporal process,
Plato’s cosmology appears to anticipate these later views. Mourelatos
(1986) argues that emergentism is present in the later pre-Socratic
philosophers. Although emergentism has been out of fashion for some time,
it has recently been enjoying a revival (See Kim, Beckermann, and Flores, 1992;
McDonough, 2002; Clayton and Davies, 2006, and so forth).
3. Relevance to Plato’s Philosophy
a. Relevance to Plato’s Aesthetics
Since reason
dictates that the best creation is the perfect animal, the living kosmos is the most beautiful created
thing. Since the perfect animal is a combination of soul and body,
these must be combined in the right proportion. The correct
proportion of these constitutes the organic unity of the organism.
Thus, the beauty of an organism consists in its organic unity.
Since other mortal organisms are microcosms of the macrocosm, the
standard of beauty for a mortal organism is set by the beauty of the kosmos. The beauty of a human
being is, in effect, modeled on the beauty of a world.
There is a link
between beauty and pleasure, but pleasure is derivative. Since beauty is
a matter of rational proportion, a rational person naturally finds the
sight of beauty pleasurable. Thus, a rational person finds a well
proportioned organism beautiful, where the relevant proportions include not
merely physical proportions but the most basic proportion between body and
soul. Finally, since an organism has an organic unity, rationality,
beauty, health and virtue can only occur together. Thus,
Plato’s aesthetics shades into his ethics, his view of medicine, and his
conception of philosophy itself.
b. Relevance to Plato’s Ethics
Perhaps the most
basic objection to Plato’s ethics is the charge that his view that the Forms
are patterns for conduct is empty of content. What can it mean for
a changeable, corporeal, mortal, living creature to imitate a non-living
immaterial, eternal, unchanging, abstract object? Plato’s
organicist cosmology addresses this gap in his ethical theory.
Since the kosmos is copied from the Form of the
Intelligible Animal, and since man is a microcosm of the macrocosm, there is a
kinship between the rational part of man and the cosmic life on display in the
heavens. There is a close link, foreign to the modern mind, between
ethics and astronomy (Carone, 2000). This explains why, in the Theaetetus, Socrates states
that the philosopher spends their time “searching the heavens.”
Specifically, the
ethical individual must strive to imitate the self-sufficiency of the kosmos. Since the most fundamental
dimension of self-sufficiency is self-movement, the ethical individual must
strive to be self-moving (like the heavenly bodies). Since the eternal
soul is the rational soul, not the animal or vegetable soul, the ethical
individual aims at the life of self-moving rational contemplation. Since
the highest form of the rational life is the life of philosophy, the ethical
life coincides with the life of philosophy.
As self-moving,
the ethical individual is not moved by external forces, but by the “laws of
destiny.” One must not interpret this in a modern sense. Plato’s
ethical individual is not a cosmic rebel. The ethical individual
does not have their own individualistic destiny. Since a mortal living
being is a microcosm of the macrocosm, it shares in the single law of destiny
of the kosmos. Socrates
had earlier stated the analogous view in the Meno
that “all nature is akin.” There is a harmony between man’s law of
destiny and that of the kosmos.
Because of their corrupt bodily nature, human beings have fallen away from
their cosmic destiny. Thus, the fundamental ethical imperative is
that human beings must strive to reunite with the universal cosmic life from
which they have fallen away, the archetype of which is displayed in the
heavens. The ethical law for man is but a special case of the
universal law of destiny that applies to all life in the universe.
The bad life is
the unbalanced life. A life is unbalanced when it falls short of
the ideal organic unity. Thus, evil is a kind of disease of the
soul. Since the body is the inferior partner in the union of soul
and body, evil results from the undue influence of the body on the soul
Since body and soul are part of an organic unity, and since the soul does not
move without the body and vice versa, the diseases of the soul are diseases of
the body and vice versa. Due regard must be given to the bodily needs,
but since the soul is the superior partner in that union, the proper proportion
is achieved when the rational soul rules the body. The recipe for a
good life is the same as the recipe for a healthy organism. Thus,
the ethics of the Timaeus
shades into an account of health and medicine (Sect. 3c). Since the
ethical individual is the philosopher, the account of all of these shades in to
account of the philosopher as well. The ethical individual, the
healthy individual, the beautiful individual, and the philosopher are one and
the same.
The cosmology of
the Timaeus may also serve to
counterbalance the elitism in Plato’s earlier ethical views. Whereas, in
Plato’s middle period dialogues, it is implied that goodness and wisdom are
only possible for the best human beings (philosophers), the Timaeus suggests the more egalitarian
view that since human life is a microcosm of the macrocosm, ethical salvation
is possible for all human beings (Carone, 2000).
Plato’s organicism
also suggests a more optimistic view of ethical life than is associated with
orthodox Platonism. Whereas, in Plato’s middle period dialogues, the
ethical person is represented to be at the mercy of an evil world, and unlikely
to be rewarded for their good efforts, the Timaeus
posits a “cosmic mechanism” in which virtue is its own reward (Carone, 2000).
Although Socrates may be victimized by unjust men, the ultimate justice is
meted out, not in the human law courts, but in the single universal cosmic
life.
On the more
negative side, Plato’s celestial organicism does commit him to a kind of
astrology: The Demiurge “assigned to each soul a star, and having there
placed them as in a chariot, he … declared to them the laws of destiny.”
Taken literally, this opens Plato to easy caricature, but taken symbolically,
as it may well be intended, it is a return to the Pythagorean idea that ethical
salvation is achieved, not by setting oneself up in individual opposition to
the world, but by reuniting with the cosmic rhythm from which one has fallen
away (Allen, 1966). Although this may look more like a cult or
religion to modern thinkers, it is worth noting that it does anticipate the
criticism of the human-centered vision of ethics by the modern “deep
ecology” movement (Naess, 1990).
c. Relevance to Plato’s Political Philosophy
Since Plato sees
an analogy between the polis and the kosmos
(Carone, 2000), and since the kosmos
is a living organism, Plato’s concept of organism illuminates his account of
the polis. Just as
the kosmos is a combination of
Reason (Nous) and Necessity (chaos), so too is the polis. Just
as Demiurge brings the kosmos
into being by making the primordial chaos submit to Reason, so too, the
Statesman brings the polis into being by making the chaos of human life submit
to reason. Carone (2000) suggests that politics, for Plato, is itself is
a synthesis of Reason and Necessity. It is, in this connection,
significant, that in Greek, the word “Demiurge” can mean magistrate (Carone,
2000). See Plato's Political Philosophy.
d. Relevance to Plato’s Account of Health and Medicine
Since an organism
is an organic whole, beauty, virtue, wisdom, and health must occur
together. Just as Plato’s organicism issues in an aesthetics and an
ethics, it also issues in an account of medicine. Health is a state
of orderly bodily motions induced by the soul, while disease is a state of
disorder induced by the chaos of the body. The diseases of the
soul, such as sexual intemperance, are caused by the undue influence of the
body on the soul, with the consequence that a person who is foolish is not so
voluntarily.
Since an organism
is an organic whole, one does not treat the heart in order to cure the
person. One treats the whole person in order to cure the heart.
Since the union of body and soul is fundamental, health requires the
correct proportion between them. Since the enemy of health is the chaos
of the body, health is achieved by imitating the rational pattern of the
heavens. Since the heavens are self-moving, that motion is the best
which is self-produced. Thus, a self-imposed “regimen” of rational
discipline and gymnastic, including the arts and all philosophy, is the optimal
way to manage disease.
Unfortunately,
most professors of medicine fail to see that disease is a natural part of
life. Although mortal organisms live within limits, professors of
medicine are committed to the impossible task of contravening these limits by
external force, medications, surgery, and so forth. By ignoring an
organism’s inherent limits, they fail to respect the inner laws of harmony and
proportion in nature. Just as self-movement is, in general, good,
movement caused by some external agency is, in general, bad. Since
an organism is a self-moving rational ordering with its own inherent limits,
the best course is to identify the unhealthy habits that have led to the malady
and institute a “regimen” to restore the organism to its natural
cycles. In a concession to common sense, however, Plato does allow
that intervention by external force may be permissible when the disease is
“very dangerous.”
Plato’s view of
medicine may seem quaint, but since, on his view, beauty, health, virtue, and
wisdom are aspects of (or, perhaps, flow from) a fundamental condition of
organic unity, his views on medicine shed light on his aesthetics, ethics, and
his conception of philosophy. Health is, in various Platonic
dialogues (Republic 444c-d, Laws, 733e, and so forth.), associated
with the philosophical and virtuous life. The fact that the Timaeus’ recipe for health includes a
strong dose of “all philosophy” betokens Plato’s view that health, like wisdom
and virtue, are specific states of an organism that derive, and can only
derive, from a certain central unifying power of the philosophic soul.
e. Relevance to Plato’s Theory of Forms
Although it may
seem that Plato’s organicism is irrelevant to his theory of Forms, or even that
it is incompatible with it, it is arguable that it supplements and strengthens
the theory of Forms. The three main tenets of the theory of Forms are that
(1) the world of Forms is separate from the world of perceptible objects (the
two-world view), (2) perceptible objects are images or copies of the
Forms, and (3) perceptible objects are unreal or “less real” than the
Forms.
With regard to the
first thesis, there appears to be a tension between Plato’s organicism and the
two-world view. f the kosmos
is perfect and beautiful, not infer that the Forms are not separate from the kosmos but are present in it?
On the other hand, since Aristotle says in the Metaphysics that Plato never abandoned
the two-world theory, it is prudent to leave the first thesis unchanged.
Even if Plato’s organicism undercuts some of the original motivations for the two-world view, it
does not require its rejection (Sect. 4b).
Although Plato’s
organicism does not require a rejection of the second thesis, the view that
perceptible objects are images of the Forms, it puts it in a different light.
Rather, it suggests that perceptible objects are not images of Forms in the
sense in which a photograph is an image of a man, but in something like the
sense in which a child is an image of its parents (Sect. 2c). From
this perspective, the orthodox reading of Plato relies on a one-sided view of
the image-model and thereby makes Plato’s theory of Forms appear to denigrate
the perceptible world more than it really must do (Patterson, 1985).
Plato’s organicism
also puts the third thesis, the view that perceptible objects are less real
than the Forms, in a new light. Since most philosophers see the
picture of degrees of reality as absurd, Plato’s views are open to easy
ridicule. However, Plato’s organicism suggests that this objection
is based on a confusion. On this view, when Plato states
or implies that some items are less real than others, he is arranging them in a
hierarchy based on to the degree in which they measure up to a certain ideal of
organic unity. On this scale, a man has more “being” than a tomato
because a man has a higher degree of organic unity than a
tomato. That has nothing to do with the absurd view that
tomatoes do not exist or that they only exist to a lesser degree.
The view that Plato is committed to these absurd ideas derives from an
equivocation of Plato’s notion of “being” (roughly organic unity) with the
notion of existence denoted by the existential quantifier.
Rather than being
either irrelevant to Plato’s philosophy or incompatible with it, Plato’s
organicism provides new interpretations of certain concepts in those
theories. Indeed, it suggests that some of the standard criticisms
of Plato’s views are based on equivocations.
4. Influence of Plato’s Cosmology
a. Transition to Aristotle’s Organicism
Although Plato’s
organicism does seem to be consistent with a theory of Forms, it does not come
without a price for that theory. The theory of Forms had been posited to
act as causes, as standards, and as objects of knowledge (Prior, 1985), and
Plato’s organicism does undermine some of the original motivations for the theory of
Forms. For example, Plato’s argument that the Forms are needed as
standards requires a depreciation of the perceptible world. If living organisms
are not merely an image of perfection and beauty, but are themselves perfect
and beautiful, then these can act as intelligible standards and there is no
special need to posit another separate world of superior intelligible
existence. Similar arguments can be extended to the view that Forms are needed
as causes and as objects of knowledge. If one enriches the perceptible
world by populating it with intelligible
entities, that is, living organisms possessed of their own internal
idea, there is no need to look
for intelligible standards, causes, or objects of knowledge, in a separate
Platonic realm. In that case, positing a world of separate Forms is an
unnecessary metaphysical hypothesis. This is precisely the direction
taken by Aristotle.
Aristotle follows
Plato in speaking of form and matter, but, unlike Plato, he does not separate
the form from the perceptible objects. Aristotle holds that what is real are
substances, roughly, individual packages of formed matter. However, not just
any perceptible entity is a substance. In the Metaphysics (1032a15-20), Aristotle states that “animals and
plants and things of that kind” are substances “if anything is.” On
this view, part of the importance of the Timaeus
is that it is intermediary between Plato’s orthodox theory of Forms and
Aristotle’s theory substance (Johansen, 2004), a point which is lost if the Timaeus is dismissed as a mere literary
work with no philosophical significance. See Sellars (1967), Furth (1987), and
McDonough (2000) for further discussions of Aristotle’s organicism.
b. Importance for Contemporary Philosophy
Since Plato’s
organicist cosmology includes many plainly unbelievable views (Russell, 1945),
the question arises why modern philosophers should take it seriously. Several
important points of importance for contemporary philosophy have emerged.
First, Plato’s organicist cosmology is relevant to the interpretation of his
theory of Forms by providing new interpretations of key terms in that pivotal
theory, and it may even provide an escape from some of the standard objections
of that theory (Sect. 4b). Second, Plato’s organicism is intimately linked to
his notion of man as the microcosm, a view which appears again in Whitehead’s
process philosophy, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus,
and others. Third, Plato’s organicism illuminates his ethical views (Sect.
3.2). Fourth, since Plato conceives of the polis
on analogy with an organism, it sheds light on his political philosophy (Sect.
3d). Fifth, Plato’s organicism illuminates his account of health and medicine
(Sect. 3d), which, in turn, is the classical inspiration for modern holistic
views of health and medicine. Sixth, the concept of an organism as, roughly, a
sphere organized around a causal center, of which modern “central state
materialism is a conceptual descendent, traces, arguably, to Plato’s Timaeus (Sect. 2b). Seventh, the Timaeus deserves to be recognized for its
contribution to the history of emergentism, which has again become topical in
the philosophy of mind (Sect. 2d). Eighth, Aristotle’s theory of substance
bears certain conceptual and historical connections to Plato’s organicism
(Sect. 4b). To the degree that these views are important to contemporary
philosophy, and history of philosophy, Plato’s organicism is important as well.
5. References and Further Reading
a. Primary Sources
- Aristotle. 1951. Metaphysics. Trans. W.D. Ross. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Ed.Richard McKeon. Pp. 689-933.
- Aristotle. 1953. Generation of Animals. A.L. Peck, Trans. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press & London, England: William Heinemann, Ltd.
- Plato. 1968. Republic. Trans., Alan Bloom. New York and London: Basic Books.
- Plato. 1969. Apology. Hugh Tredennick, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp.3-26.
- Plato. 1969. Phaedo. Hugh Tredennick, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 40-98.
- Plato. 1969. Gorgias. W.D. Woodhead, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 229-307.
- Plato. 1969. Protagoras. W.K.C. Guthrie, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 308-352.
- Plato. 1969. Theaetetus. F.M. Cornford, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 957-1017.
- Plato. 1969. Sophist. F.M. Cornford, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 845-919.
- Plato. 1969. Philebus. R. Hackforth, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 1086-1150.
- Plato. 1969. Timaeus. Benjamin Jowett, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 1151-1211.
- Plato. 1969. Laws. A.E. Taylor, Trans. Collected Dialogues of Plato. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. 1225-1516.
- Plato. 1997. Symposium. Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff, Trans. Plato: Complete Works. John Cooper, Ed. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett. Pp. 457-505.
b. Secondary Sources
- Allen, Reginald E. 1966. Introduction to Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle. Ed. Reginald E. Allen. New York: The Free Press. Pp. 1-23.
- Alexander, S. I. 1920. Space, Time, and Deity, 2 vols. London: Macmillan.
- Bergson, Henri. 1983. Creative Evolution. A. Mitchell, Trans. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
- Brandwood, Leonard. 1992. “Stylometry and Chronology.” The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 90-120.
- Brisson, Luc, and Meyerstein, F. Walter. 1995. Inventing the Universe: Plato's Timaeus, the Big Bang, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge. Albany: State University of New York Press.
- Buchsbaum, Ralph. 1957. Animals Without Backbones. Vol. I. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.
- Burnet, John. 1971. Early Greek Philosophy. London: Adam and Charles Black.
- Cairns, Huntington. 1961. Introduction to The Collected Dialogues of Plato. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Pp. xiii-xxv.
- Cassirer, Ernst. 1979. The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. Trans. Mario Domandi. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Cornford. F.M. 1965. From Religion to Philosophy: A Study in the Origins of Western Speculation. New York: Harper and Row.
- Cornford. F.M. 1966. Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato. The Liberal Arts Press.
- Cornford. F.M. 1997. Introduction to Plato: Timaeus. Indianapolis: Hackett. Pp. ix-xv.
- Carone, Gabriela Roxana. 2005. Plato’s Cosmology and its Ethical Dimensions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Clayton, Philip, and Davies, Paul., Ed’s. 2006. The Re-Emergence of Emergence: The Emergentist Hypothesis from Science to Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Furth, Montgomery. 1988. Substance, Form, and Psyche: An Aristotelian Metaphysics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hamilton, Edith. 1964. The Greek Way. New York: The W.W. Norton Co.
- Heisenberg, Werner. 1958. Physics and Philosophy. London: George Allen and Unwin.
- Johansen, Thomas Kjeller. 2004. Plato’s Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus-Critias. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Kim, Jaegwon, Beckermann, Angsar, and Flores, Hans, Ed’s. 1992. Emergence or Reduction? Berlin: De Gruyter.
- Knowles, David. 1989. Evolution of Medieval Thought. United Kingdom: Longman.
- Kraut, Richard. 1992. “Introduction to the Study of Plato.” The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 1-50.
- Leibniz, G.W. 1968. “Principles of Nature and Grace." Leibniz: Philosophical Writings. Trans, Mary Morris. New York: Dutton & London: Dent. Pp. 21-31.
- Lovejoy, A.O. 1964. The Great Chain of Being. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- McDonough, Richard. 1991. “Plato’s not to Blame for Cognitive Science.” Ancient Philosophy. Vol. 11. 1991. Pp. 301-314.
- McDonough, Richard. 2000. "Aristotle's Critique of Functionalist Theories of Mind." Idealistic Studies. Vol. 30. No. 3. pp. 209-232.
- McDonough, Richard. 2002. “Emergence and Creativity: Five Degrees of Freedom” (including a discussion with the editor). In Creativity, Cognition and Knowledge. Terry Dartnall, Ed. London: Praeger. Pp. 283-320.
- Meinwald, Constance C. 1992. “Goodbye to the Third Man.” The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 365-396.
- Morgan, Lloyd. 1923. Emergent Evolution. London: Williams and Norgate, 1923.
- Mourelatos, A. 1986. “Quality, Structure, and Emergence in Later Pre-Socratic Philosophy.” Proceedings of the Boston Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. 2, Pp. 127-194.
- Muirhead, John H. 1931. The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philosophy. New York: The Macmillan Company & London: George Allen & Unwin.
- Naess, Arne. 1990. Ecology, Community, Lifestyle: Outelines of an Ecosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Nagel, Ernst. 1979. The Structure of Science. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Patterson, Richard. 1985. Image and Reality in Plato’s Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett.
- Prior, William J. 1985. The Unity and Development of Plato’s Metaphysics. LaSalle, Illinois: Open Court.
- Putnam, Hilary. 1981. Reason, Truth, and History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Putnam, Hilary. 1990. Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Robin, Leon. 1996. Greek Thought and the Origins of the Scientific Spirit. London and New York: Routledge.
- Robinson, John Mansley. 1968. An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy. Houghton Mifflin College Division.
- Russell, Bertrand. 1945. A History of Western Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
- Sallis, John. 1999. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
- Sellars, Wilfrid. 1967. “Raw Materials, Subjects, and Substrata.” Philosophical Perspectives. Springfield, Illinois: Charles C. Thomas, Publisher. Pp. 137-152.
- Taylor, A.E. 1928. A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Vlastos, Gregory. 1975. Plato’s Universe. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
- Whitehead, A. N. 1978. Process and Reality (Corrected Edition). New York: Macmillan and London: Collier Macmillan.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1966. Tractatus-logico-philosophicus. Trans, D F. Pears and B. F. McGuiness. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd.
- Wulf, Maurice De. 1956. Scholastic Philosophy. New York: Dover Publications.
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