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Footnotes to Footnotes: Whitehead's Plato City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2018 Footnotes to Footnotes: Whitehead's Plato Nathan Oglesby The Graduate Center, CUNY How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2449 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] FOOTNOTES TO FOOTNOTES: WHITEHEAD’S PLATO by NATHAN DUFOUR OGLESBY A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Classics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 i © 2018 NATHAN DUFOUR OGLESBY All Rights Reserved ii Footnotes to Footnotes: Whitehead’s Plato by Nathan Dufour Oglesby This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Classics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________________ _________________________________ Date Peter L.P. Simpson _____________________ _________________________________ Date Dee L. Clayman Supervisory Committee: Peter L. P. Simpson Nickolas Pappas Liv Yarrow THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Footnotes to Footnotes: Whitehead’s Plato Advisor: Peter L. P. Simpson This dissertation examines the presence of Plato in the philosophical expressions of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). It was Whitehead who issued the well-known remark that “the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists in a series of footnotes to Plato"1 -- the purpose of this project is to examine the manner in which Whitehead positioned himself as one such footnote, with respect to his thought itself, and its origins, presentation and reception. This examination involves: first, an explication of Whitehead’s cosmology and metaphysics and their ostensibly Platonic elements (consisting chiefly in the Timaeus); second, investigation of what motivated his interpretation and appropriation of Platonic cosmology (I emphasize the influence of A.E. Taylor’s Commentary on the Timaeus); third, analysis of the aforementioned “footnote” remark, and of how Whitehead foregrounded Plato as symbolic of philosophy’s ideal goals and methodologies; fourth, discussion of the reception of Whitehead’s reading of Plato, and how in some connections it has impeded the reception of his thought, and in others (Process philosophy) has received further (especially theological) development; fifth, exploration of how Whitehead’s reading of Plato applies to philosophical interpretations of modern science (e.g. relativity theory, Big Bang cosmology, quantum physics). 1Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (New York: Free Press, 1985), 39. iv Several themes emerge in these examinations. – One is that an assessment of the validity of Whitehead’s reading of Plato involves ambiguities that have their root in inherent ambiguities in the Timaeus, and Plato’s writing and Platonism at large. – Whitehead celebrates the Timaeus’ success in revealing the “forms” in the flux of cosmic process – but is a non-hierarchical Platonism with non-transcendent forms really a Platonism at all? Another theme is that just as there is an arbitrariness involved in Platonic interpretation, so is there arbitrariness in applying those interpretations (or those of other ancient philosophers) to modern science. Interpreting modern science through a Platonic lens may be at once helpful and illustrative, and problematic and unfavorable. More generally, presenting a novel system of thought as “Platonic” involves one in inextricable associations that may complicate and compromise the reception of that system, as has been, in some respects, the case with Whitehead. v PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My experience as a graduate student had been characterized by considerable topical wavering and ambiguity of emphasis, until I began gradually to form a preoccupation with ancient philosophy, and in particular with Plato – one would think that so conspicuous an object of preoccupation might have bludgeoned me with less delay; but he was hidden in plain sight, or perhaps obscured amidst the hectic flux of my experience. But I might never have arrived at anything to add to the plenitude of things that have been thought and said about Plato if I had not encountered Whitehead, and I might not have encountered Whitehead (at least not in time to write a dissertation about him) if it had not been for my friend Kenny Meyer, who introduced me to Adventures of Ideas after a day of hiking and conversation outside Altadena, California, and so set in motion my ideological adventure. Not long after, when I had returned to New York, I was reading that book in the Graduate Center library, and someone approached me and said, “That’s the greatest book you’ll ever read.” Then he disappeared, only to return moments later with a stack of nearly all the works of Whitehead’s that would come to occupy this dissertation. That was Jamie Lennox, whose conversation has helped me understand Whitehead a great deal more than I would otherwise, and whose understanding of him still far surpasses my own. And so, I’d like to acknowledge both Kenny and Jamie, without whose chance intersection of recommendations this study would not exist, and neither would my doctorate. I would also like to acknowledge my advisory committee. Professor Simpson guided me through this process with a combination of directive clarity and calm and kindness that I would aspire to should I ever become a dissertation advisor myself. Professor Pappas’ conversation has enriched my understanding of Plato, and increased my confidence in writing about philosophy qua philosophy though I’m trained in Classics. Professor Yarrow was instrumental in helping me vi form a theoretical framework from which to proceed, as she has done in past projects, and has also given me valuable guidance about what in the world to do with myself now that this is done. I thank also my family, and my friends Alicia Papanek, Aramis López, Jeremy March, Nathaniel Ralston, Alessandra Migliara, Alessandro Zammataro and Hila Perry for their protracted psychical support and encouragement, over the course of however long it took to do this. Aramis and Jeremy and I were in a race to see who would finish their dissertation first: the stakes were that the losers would be compelled to tattoo the title of the winner’s dissertation on their bodies. I have won, but I congratulate them on the fact that relative to most dissertation titles mine is mercifully short. And anyway, as discussed, I am prepared to accept the terms of an alternative arrangement. Lastly I’d like to say that while I don’t seek in this writing to espouse agreement with Whitehead’s doctrines, I do have an appreciation for him that transcends the question of whether I think he’s right or not in thus and such a way. And the same goes for Plato. The reason is this: Whitehead asserts of Plato, in effect, that regardless of any preconceived distaste you may have for Plato on the basis of apparent hierarchism, mysticism or totalitarianism, or whatever other suspicions may have first arisen, understandably, if and when someone made you read the Republic in high school or as an undergraduate – regardless of all this, there is something in Plato that fundamentally has to do with patterns of relation that arise organically in the process of the universe. All things big and small, mental and physical, alive and apparently not, are related to one another, and that relation is what everything starts from and returns to, and the characteristics of those relations, and their source, are worth investigating. If that’s in Plato and that’s in Whitehead, unspecific as it is, then I do agree with them in that; and arriving at vii whatever’s implied by that agreement has begun for me the unfolding pleasure of orienting myself to the boundless whole of which I’m a part, in this writing and in general. viii FOOTNOTES TO FOOTNOTES: WHITEHEAD’S PLATO TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Preface and Acknowledgments vi Introduction 1 Chapter One: Whitehead’s Plato 10 A Brief Summary of Whitehead’s Thought 11 Explicitness of Whitehead’s Debt to Plato in Presenting his System 13 General Correspondence and the Theme of “Organicism” 17 The Platonic Forms and Whitehead’s Eternal Objects 20 Whitehead’s Eternal Objects 21 Platonic Basis for the Eternal Objects 24 Whitehead’s Criticism of Platonic Forms 30 Plato’s Demiurge and Whitehead’s God 41 Whitehead’s God - General Characteristics 41 Correspondence of Whitehead’s God with Plato’s Demiurge 45 Whitehead’s “Creativity”, and Platonic “Necessity” and “Eros” 53 Correspondence of Creativity and Platonic Necessity 54 Correspondence of Creativity and Platonic Eros and Harmony 57 Whitehead and the Receptacle 60 Plato and Newton: Considerations of Space 63 Articulating the Receptacle 65 Whitehead’s Adaptation of Timaeus 48d-51b 67 Being as Power 70 Context of the Passage in the Sophist 71 Whitehead’s Interpretation of the Passage’s Significance 74 “No System of Metaphysics”: Methodological Sympathies 76 Plato as Unsystematic Philosopher 78 Unsystematic vs. Systematic Philosophers 80 Plato as Inherently Unsystematic 81 Chapter Two: Conception of Whitehead’s Plato Biographical Considerations and Interpretive Influences 85 ix Plato in Whitehead’s
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