BEN- GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV

THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

Order and Disorder: The Music of the Cosmos and the Life of Philosophy

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE (M.A)

Noam Cohen

Under the Supervision of Dr. Andrew German and Prof. Ido Geiger

March 2017

BEN- GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV

THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

Order and Disorder: The Music of the Cosmos and the Life of Philosophy

THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE (M.A)

Noam Cohen

Under the Supervision of Dr. Andrew German and Prof. Ido Geiger

Signature of student:______Date:______

Signature of supervisor: ______Date:______

Signature of chairperson of the committee for graduate studies:

______Date:______

March 2017

Abstract

In the following study, I focus on an ancient philosophical problem, as it unfolds in Plato’s

Timaeus and Philebus, concerning the possibility of successfully leading a good life through the guidance of reason, despite the fact that human nature is not completely rational. Because the irrational elements of the human soul cannot, by definition, perceive rational principles, it is unclear how they might still obey the authority of a rational order, allowing human beings to wholly embrace the best principles of a morally good life. Is a harmonious unity of reason and the other parts of the human soul, under the same intelligible good order, at all possible if the human being lacks internal harmony by nature?

Through an in-depth inquiry of the Timaeus and the Philebus, I determine the nature of the relations between irrationality and rational order, and argue that these texts suggest a certain philosophical life which makes an internal unity of rationality and irrationality possible, in a framework which encompasses both contemplation and action.

The first chapter of this study discusses the status and function of Timaeus’ speech, while giving due consideration to the manner in which it is performed. Since Timaeus mixes scientific claims with poetic imagery, I attempt not only to ascertain the epistemological status of his speech, but also its literary function. In this context, I claim that the disjointed form of the speech reflects the structure of the cosmos, and that it is not only a scientific account but also an educational poem promoting virtue.

The second chapter proceeds to analyze the relations between necessity and intellect in

Timaeus’ account, first by examining the complex construction of the universe by the divine craftsman, and then by analyzing its implications for the human sphere. Accordingly, I argue that in the cosmic level, the relation of intellect to necessity is twofold, consisting in a level of force

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and a level of persuasion, depending on the version of necessity and stage of creation. In the human realm, in analogy to the cosmic ordering, the human being can also order his own soul on the foundation of force and persuasion, which, in turn, correspond to the function of the spirited part of the soul and to education in the form of dialectic.

Since, however, our analysis of the Timaeus falls short of delineating the manner in which dialectic relates to the sensible aspects of the human soul, the third chapter of this thesis seeks a different perspective on the problem, in the Philebus. Through a critical reading of the latter dialogue, I explore the implications of dialectic for human life in general, in order to determine, on this basis, the possible practical relations of philosophical knowledge of cosmic order to the sensuous aspects of the human soul. On this basis, I argue that the education of the irrational elements in the human soul is an integral part of dialectic itself, since the latter entails intelligent agency in the everyday world, in all areas of human life. Philosophy not only implies a life of contemplation, but also a life of active engagement with the human world. Perceiving it as such is the key to making intelligible the ideal image of unity between reason and the passions.

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I would like to thank Dr. Andy German for years of extensive professional and personal guidance, invaluable advice, and for his enthusiasm for Greek philosophy to which I owe my own fascination with the wondrous persistence of ancient questions.

I also wish to thank Prof. Ido Geiger for his generous support, without which I could not have continued to explore and discuss the thought of Hegel, simultaneously and despite writing a research thesis about Plato.

This thesis reflects four years of personal philosophical development, under the auspices of the Department of Philosophy in Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. I am indebted to each and every member of its academic staff, from whom I have learned a great deal about the rigors of philosophical reasoning. And I am exceptionally grateful for its remarkable support throughout my M.A. studies.

Lastly, I wish to thank my loving family, who wholeheartedly supports my philosophical pursuits, in such practical times. Most importantly, I am indebted to my greatest supporter and skeptic challenger, Nitzan Tal, who reminds me time and again of the importance of clarity.

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INTRODUCTION 1

1. THE TIMAEUS: A PRELUDE 5

1.1 BEING AND BECOMING 6 1.2 THE CRAFTSMAN 8 1.3 THE BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECTION 11 1.4 THE KNOWLEDGE OF NATURE AND ITS LIMITS 13 1.5 THE PURPOSE AND FUNCTION OF TIMAEUS’ MYTH 16

2. THE TIMAEUS: INTELLECT AND NECESSITY 20

2.1 THE ORDER OF INTELLECT 26 2.1.1 THE COSMIC BODY 29 2.1.2 THE COSMIC SOUL 32 2.2 FORCE, PERSUASION AND NECESSITY 42 2.3 FORCE, PERSUASION AND MUSIC 47 2.4 ORDER AND THE HUMAN BEING 50

3. DIALECTIC IN THE PHILEBUS 59

3.1 THE SETTING OF THE PHILEBUS 60 3.2 THE GIFT OF PROMETHEUS 64 3.3 ONTOLOGY 66 3.4 DIALECTIC AS A PATH, OR WAY OF LIFE 70 3.5 DIALECTIC AND THE IRRATIONAL 75

CONCLUSION 78

BIBLIOGRAPHY 82

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Introduction

“How one ought to live” is a ubiquitous question, both in daily life and, naturally, in the history of philosophy. In the works of Plato, the answer to this question is intimately linked to the possibility of attaining, through philosophical inquiry, knowledge of the good. This conception of the human good emphasizes, no doubt, the essentiality of reason, as the means to attaining the knowledge crucial for living a good life. It raises, however, many serious difficulties regarding the nature of this knowledge, the nature of the world, and, perhaps most importantly, the nature of the human psyche. In the following study, I tackle one of these difficulties, which concerns the possibility of successfully leading a good life through the guidance of reason, despite the glaring fact that human nature is not completely rational. Since the human soul is composite, consisting in both rational and irrational elements, it seems that the feasibility of living only according to rational principles is, from the start, a dubious contention. That is to say, because the irrational elements of the human soul cannot, by definition, perceive rational principles, it is unclear how they might still obey the authority of a rational order, thus allowing human beings to wholly embrace the best principles of a morally good life. Is a harmonious unity of reason and the other parts of the human soul, under the same intelligible good order, at all possible if the human being lacks internal harmony by nature?

It is not insignificant, anyone would agree, that throughout Plato’s dialogues the relations between the different parts of the soul always stand in the light of a broader universal metaphysical scheme. This is especially evident in the Timaeus, which gives an account of human nature in the larger framework of the creation of the cosmos. It is precisely in this dialogue where the problematic condition of the human soul emerges in the framework of an overarching cooperation between two apparently opposing forces, intellect and necessity. In order to understand ourselves,

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Timaeus repeatedly intimates, we must first understand the constitution and order of the world in general. And this understanding holds within itself a great deal of moral significance; it itself is supposed to make a human being’s life good. Accordingly, through an in-depth inquiry of the

Timaeus, I intend to ascertain the relations between irrationality and rational order, starting from the grand scheme of the cosmos, and proceeding, from this foundation, into the human sphere.

Much has been written about Plato’s Timaeus. Many different philosophers and scholars have inquired into a vast and diverse array of questions concerning the contents of the dialogue. It seems, therefore, hardly justifiable to produce yet again another diligent study of its passages.

Nevertheless, the following inquiry sets out to explore a question, which may have been asked many times in the context of the Timaeus, but has not, I maintain, been sufficiently answered with due consideration of certain aspects of the text itself. As Howland has pointed out,1 most commentators have largely ignored the fact that Timaeus’ speech is indeed part of a dialogue.

Plato’s literary choice of writing dialogues rather than treatises has already been noted and discussed as having far-reaching interpretive implications.2 In this study, I attempt to think about the question I have presented without losing sight of this textual fact. The dialogue form adds a mimetical dimension which is lacking in other philosophical genres, and thus requires us to pay attention not only to the explicit statements of its protagonists, but also to their actions, that is, to the context and manner in which their words are said. The first chapter of this study, accordingly, seeks to explore the status and function of Timaeus’ speech, while giving due consideration to the manner in which it is performed. Its chief characteristic, a constant weaving of scientific claims with poetic imagery, requires that we try to ascertain both the epistemological status of Timaeus’

1 Jacob Howland, “Love of Wisdom and Will to Order in Plato’s Timaeus: On Peter Kalkavage’s Translation,” Interpretation 30, 1 (2002): 94-95. 2 Jacob Klein, A Commentary on Plato’s Meno, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 3-31.

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speech as well as its literary function. In this context, I will claim that the disjointed form of his speech reflects the structure of the cosmos, and that it is not only a scientific account but also an educational poem promoting virtue.

The second chapter proceeds to analyze in depth the relations between necessity and intellect in the cosmic sphere, by examining the complex construction of the universe by the divine craftsman. Ultimately I will argue that the relation of intellect to necessity is twofold, consisting in a level of force and a level of persuasion, depending on the version of necessity and stage of creation. Later we will see that the main principles of this construction constitute the terms in which Timaeus introduces the human condition, defined in relation to the cosmic order. In analogy to the stages of cosmic ordering, the human being can also order his own soul on the foundation of force and persuasion, which, in turn, correspond to the function of the spirited part of the soul and to education in the form of dialectic. At the end of our analysis of the Timaeus, however, the exact nature of this education will not be sufficiently clear. In particular, we will remain with a question about the manner in which dialectic relates to the sensible aspects of the human soul.

Thus, I will look beyond the borders of the Timaeus to another dialogue, the Philebus, which gives a thorough account of dialectic in the broad context of an argument over the identity of the best human life. My approach to the Philebus will be similar, taking into account that it is a dialogue which does not always convey certain philosophical views directly. Against this background, I will seek to explore the implications of dialectic for human life in general, in order to determine, on this basis, the possible practical relations of philosophical knowledge of cosmic order to the sensuous aspects of the human soul. I will claim that the education of the irrational elements in the human soul is an integral part of dialectic itself, since the latter entails intelligent agency in the everyday world in all areas of human life.

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In general, therefore, I aim to demonstrate that within the framework of a philosophical life, suggested by the Timaeus and Philebus, an internal unity of rationality and irrationality is possible. It will turn out, however, that this life is far from being purely theoretical, in the sense of merely contemplating the unchanging world order. As my argument gradually unfolds, an image of philosophy encompassing both θεωρία and πρᾶξις will emerge. The philosopher, as the embodiment of unity between divine reason and mortal passions, not only looks at the unchanging order of the world, but also actively works to make this order as present as possible in the imperfect human realm of soul, society and state.

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1. The Timaeus: A Prelude

In the Timaeus, Socrates, after giving an account of the ideal city, is affected by its beauty.

He desires to hear further speeches about its struggle against other cities, to see a heroic

demonstration of its virtue in deed and in speech, in war and in negotiations with its rivals.1 In

response, Critias tells a brief story of Athens’ ancient and forgotten days of greatness and glory,

and then presents to Socrates the following surprising arrangement of speeches. First, Timaeus,

regarded by Critias as “the most astronomical” amongst those present and as one who has made

“his main job to know about the nature of all,”2 is to tell of the generation of the cosmos and about

the nature of humanity. Only after this prolonged cosmological account, will Critias continue the

story of humankind, focusing on the virtuous citizens of a beautiful city resembling the mythical

Athens of ancient times.3

From the beginning, it seems that rather than being a straightforward scientific treatise,

Timaeus’ speech plays a peculiar function. It is only secondary to the political theory previously

manifested by Socrates, and to the speech expected from Critias.4 That is, the account of the

cosmos’ formation is a preface to the mythical portrayal of the ideal state in action, perhaps

indicating, as Cornford suggests, that Plato was chiefly interested in the field of morals and politics,

rather than in physical speculation;5 or even, in the words of Johansen, that Plato claimed that

cosmology can teach us how to better live our lives.6 In any case, this peculiarity of Timaeus’

1 Plato, Timaeus, trans. Peter Kalkavage, (Indianapolis: Focus, 2001), 49. 19c: “How she made a fitting entrance into war and rendered appropriate payment to her education and upbringing in her dealings with each of the cities, by the way she acted in her deeds and negotiated in her speeches.” 2 27a: “…the most astronomical of us and the one who’s made it his main job to know about the nature of the all”. 3 27b. 4 Alfred E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1928), 59. 5 Francis M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), 20. 6 Thomas Kjeller Johansen, Plato’s Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus-Critias, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 1.

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speech undoubtedly suggests that we should put into question its whole content, in order to carefully determine the manner in which we are to properly understand it. Thus, as a prerequisite for our particular inquiry into the dialogue, it is first necessary to make clear the limits and validity of Timaeus’ account of the cosmos. This will consist, first in clarifying its ontological and epistemological presuppositions, and secondly, in determining the purpose and function of

Timaeus’ speech within the context of the dialogue. For the meantime, I put aside the broader question of Plato’s genuine views, and focus strictly on Timaeus’ position as conveyed in the text.

1.1 Being and Becoming

Timaeus opens with a prelude,7 which lays down the basic principles guiding his whole speech. First, he declares the necessity of invoking the gods, while also asserting that it is necessary to invoke all those present, for the success of his speech.8 However, there is no explicit customary invocation of the gods which follows this declaration, as if the setting down of philosophical principles is supposed to constitute both invocations. John Sallis sharply observes that this referral to the gods, which is in fact a reliance on one’s own rational capacities, intimates “a kind of impious piety,”9 since it rejects the dependence on the gods implied by customary invocation.10

Divine authority, for Timaeus, means the basic principles which govern any attempt to think and understand the cosmos. Thus, the necessity of acknowledging such authority is actually a logical and metaphysical necessity.

7 29d: Socrates: “…so now we’ve received your prelude…” 8 27c. 9 John Sallis, Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus, (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999), 46. 10 This might bring to mind Socrates’ attempt to refute the Delphic oracle’s divine words regarding his wisdom in Plato’s Apology. In his quest to refute the oracle, Socrates both undermines the high status of the traditional gods, and establishes the superiority of reason over divination. Thomas G. West and Grace Starry West, trans. Four Texts on Socrates: Plato’s Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito and Aristophanes’ Clouds, (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998), 21b; 23b.

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Accordingly, Timaeus distinguishes between two fundamental ontological categories. The higher order is the sphere of eternal and unchanging Being, characterized by intelligibility, i.e.

“grasped by intellection accompanied by a rational account.”11 This sphere includes the Forms and mathematical objects, understood with absolute finality and precision through the rational discursive arguments of dialectic or mathematics. In contrast, the lower order consists in the sphere of Becoming, namely, the sensible world of things which come to be and then perish, constantly moving and changing. According to Timaeus, one cannot say that this world is in a genuine sense.

That is, the processes of change are essentially distinct from the static eternal presence of Being.

That which is always changing, the things constituting the world of Becoming, are “opined by opinion accompanied by irrational sensation,”12 that is to say, they are apprehended by sense perception, which consists in belief founded upon sensation. Sense perception is irrational, since it apprehends things only as they appear, lacking an ability to know their true shape and nature, and most importantly, because it can never know the reason for the things it apprehends.

Becoming, according to Timaeus, consisting in sensible things, is a sphere of flux, ever-changing.

If something essentially changes, all accounts of it are provisional, and even not completely self- consistent.13

Here it is important to clarify that we are not to understand the realm of becoming merely as an aggregation of sense-data in our own minds, caused by physical bodies beyond the grasp of our senses.14 The physical world is not hidden behind a veil, and thus the philosopher of nature, according to Timaeus, does not aim to find his way behind it. Rather, he seeks for a complete

11 28a. 12 Ibid. 13 Timaeus’ view accords with Aristotle’s remark in the Metaphysics that Plato, “having in his youth become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean doctrines (that all sensible things are always in a state of flux and that no science of them exists), he continued to believe these even in his later years.” Aristotle. Metaphysics, trans. Hippocrates G. Apostle, (Des Moines: The Peripatetic Press, 1979), 23. 987a. 14 Taylor (1928), 61.

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rational explanation for the existence of physical bodies as such. This is not to say that there are no physical elements beyond our perception. To the contrary, later in the dialogue Timaeus asserts that the physical cosmos is indeed comprised of elementary solids.15 But even if we managed to perceive these basic elements, we would still be facing the challenge of grasping the reason of the sensible or physical, which can be done only with rational thought. In order to truly understand the physical world we must look for a rational account, which in itself, essentially, is not sensible. In other words, since the physical world is essentially sensible, we must always turn to a higher ontological order in order to understand it. However, in doing so we necessarily lose the concrete here and now of perception. Later we will see that this severely limits our possibility to know physical nature, in itself, with precision.

1.2 The Craftsman

Against this background, Timaeus, without any philosophical argument or justification, almost in passing, introduces a mysterious craftsman (δημιουργὸς), demiurge, as the source of the whole sphere of becoming. Whether Timaeus refers to an actual god figure, or merely to a mythical allegory, he does not explicitly say. However, most commentators agree that the demiurge, either literally or metaphorically, embodies, in some way, the work of reason for good ends.16 For

15 31b-32c; 53b-57c. 16 The controversy between a literal or metaphorical understanding of the demiurge and the creation account is almost as old as the dialogue itself. The debate centers around the question of whether or not the cosmos had a beginning in time. For instance, it seems that Aristotle interpreted the account of creation literally, when discussing time, saying that “Plato alone makes it come into being.” Aristotle, Aristotle’s Physics: A Guided Study, trans. with commentary Joe Sachs (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1995), 190. 251b19. In contrast, Xenocrates, third head of the Academy, in an attempt to defend Plato’s views’ apparently claimed that the account is only metaphorical, and thus that the story of creation is only a pedagogical device: Aristotle, On the Heavens, trans. William K. C. Guthrie, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 279b32-280a1. Proclus held a metaphorical view as well, and reports that a similar view was maintained by Xenocrates’ successor Crantor, though the two were opposed regarding the exact sense in which the cosmos is generated. In any case, metaphorical interpretations remained the dominant view among Platonists down to the time of Plotinus. Nevertheless, Plutarch and Atticus, two great Platonists of antiquity, championed the literal view: John F. Phillips, “Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato’s Cosmogony (Timaeus 27C-28C),” Journal of the History of Philosophy 35, 2 (1997): 173-197. In modern times, both views continue to compete with each other. Prominent examples for the metaphorical view are: Cornford (1997), 27; Taylor (1928), 66-70; Leonardo Taran. “The Creation Myth in Plato’s Timaeus,” in Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, ed. John P. Anton & George

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although Timaeus himself explicitly doubts the possibility of speaking clearly about this god,17 by postulating the demiurge he still offers us a chance to grasp the essential aspects of the principles at work behind the existence of the visible cosmos.

Later on in Timaeus’ monologue, we arrive at a new beginning (ἀρχή) of the story. There we learn that the birth of the cosmos is actually mixed, originating not only in intellect (νοῦς), but also in necessity (ἀνάγκη).18 Hence, in addition to an account of creation through intellect, according to Timaeus, “one must also set down beside the account the things that come to be through necessity.”19 Whereas intellect governs the cosmos with rational order, aiming at the beautiful and the good, necessity effects disorder, and cannot be understood in rational terms.20

This bifurcation of the world is already present, I argue, in the figure of the demiurge, introduced by Timaeus in his prelude. Although the demiurge embodies reason which looks to an eternal model, and creates order and beauty, he is nonetheless also bound by senseless necessity.

By naming the god “the poet and father of this all,”21 Timaeus breaks the usual opposition between making and begetting, and thus forges the two causal principles of intellect and necessity into one divine figure. Whereas a poet creates with intentional intelligence, a father begets his children without any artfulness, skill or knowledge. Procreation is a blind necessity. The demiurge,

Kustas (Albany: SUNY Press, 1971), 372-407; and for the literal view: Gregory Vlastos, “The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus,” in Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics, ed, Reginald E. Allen, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965) 379-399; Reginald Hackforth, “Plato’s Cosmogony,” Classical Quarterly 9, 1 (1959): 17-22; Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 272-275. Johansen (2004), 69-76; For a philological focus on this issue see: John Whitaker. “Textual Comments on Timaeus 27C-D,” Phoenix 27, 4 (1973): 387-391. Whitaker claims, based on philological evidence, that in the phrase τί τὸ γιγνόμενον μὲν ἀεί, appearing in John Burnet’s text, the word ἀεί, meaning ‘always,’ was originally absent. In his words, the word ἀεί is “a tendentious interpolation inserted into the text in later antiquity in support of the non-literal interpretation of Plato’s account in the Timaeus of the creation of the universe.” (387). 17 28c: “Now to discover the poet and father of this all is quite a task, and even if one discovered him, to speak of him to all men is impossible.” 18 48a. 19 47e. 20 46e. 21 28c.

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however, discloses both intelligent design and the driving procreative force of eros (ἔρως). On one hand, Timaeus explains the order of the cosmos with reference to a cause which is “grasped by reason and prudence and is in a self-same condition.”22 The reason for the world’s good order is rational. But on the other hand, the physical world, according to Timaeus, is bound to its cause by necessity; “for what comes to be, it is necessary that it come to be by some cause.”23 The generated, that which comes to be, is from necessity, by the force of necessity (ἐξ ἀνάγκης).24 The conception of the physical world, regardless of its good design, is a function of blind necessity, just as the natural generation of offspring. Eros is a mark of that necessity which binds the physical world to its primary cause.

One could object to this reading, by pointing out that in his prelude, Timaeus seems to mainly refer to the intellective aspects of the demiurge, rather than discussing the role played by blind necessity. The demiurge is named good, and the best of causes,25 an embodiment of intellect which aspires to fulfill good ends. The prominent aspect of intellect which comes to the fore here is craftsmanship, presented as the making of things in accordance with a paradigm. In order to make his products, a craftsman utilizes a model for his production. That is, a created product resulting from intelligent design imitates an original model. The craftsman builds and perfects his works according to a certain design, which defines the essence and function of all its copies. With this image Timaeus intimates that the coming to being of the sensible world occurs in accordance with an ontologically prior paradigm.

22 29a. 23 28c. My emphasis. 24 Sallis, (1999), 50. 25 29a.

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But, as implied above, the language of eros and necessity is not completely absent. “The cosmos is the most beautiful of things born,”26 declares Timaeus, not merely made. And continuing further, the argument states that “there’s every necessity that this cosmos here be the likeness of something.”27 Thus, as mentioned above, intelligent causality is bound to the physical world by the power of necessity. The work of imitation is also generated by the blind force of eros, which spurs its conception. Accordingly, the causal principle underlying the sphere of Becoming, exemplified in Timaeus’ speech as the creative act of making, discloses two essential relations between the physical world and its governing order. A relation of production, manifested in an intelligent design after an intelligible model, and a relation of fatherhood, manifested in the natural necessity of procreation. This co-presence of intellect and necessity, as we will see, has significant consequences in the process of ordering the world.

1.3 The Beautiful and Perfection

It is not insignificant nor coincidental that both relations, of production and of procreation, emphasize the prominence of beauty. The beautiful plays a central role in the Timaean universe.

Intellect strives to perfect its creations, and sets out to fulfil good order as best as possible, on the foundation of the beautiful, in the sense of being well-ordered. And eros is naturally drawn to that which is beautiful, striving to give birth to something which is in accordance with it.28

Timaeus asserts that it isn’t right, even impious, for anyone to say that the world is unbeautiful,29 since it is clear that “the cosmos is the most beautiful of things born and its craftsman

26 29a. My emphasis. 27 29a-b. My emphasis. 28 An illustration of this point can be found in the Symposium. In that dialogue, Diotima of Mantinea teaches Socrates that love, eros, is a drive to give birth in the beautiful, which in turn is an aspect of the divine. A father is he who was necessarily drawn to beauty, and through it, gave birth to a beautiful offspring. 206b-207a. Plato, The Symposium, trans. with comment R. E. Allen, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991). 29 In response to the question: “to which of the two models the builder looked when he fashioned it – to the one that’s in a self-same condition and consistent, or to the one that has come to be”? (29a). Either the sensible world is constructed according to an eternal intelligible model, or it is fashioned after a changing sensible one. If the world is

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the best of causes.”30 The physical world is beautiful, in the sense that it follows a uniform order, and it consists in tangible, recognizable things, which are contrasted with mere shadows or dreams.

The sensible world, though in constant movement, still holds within itself constancy and structure with, albeit limited, intelligibility. Since the world’s sensible nature constrains the possibilities of knowing it, however, the possibility to discern order in the world, and to know it as a unified whole, can only rest on an eternal noetic structure lying beyond it.31 Accordingly, the demiurge organizes the physical world with the sphere of Being in view, creating a beautiful, harmonious order, which is imposed on a prior state of incoherent disorder.32 From the perspective of eros, one can say that the demiurge acts on a drive to give birth in the beautiful. His creation is not only an act of pure intellect, but also a result of the necessary movement of love. The image of the intelligible paradigm is beautiful as a result of the craftsman’s love for the beautiful, expressed in the production of the cosmos.

At any rate, it is clear that the relationship between image and original emphasizes the imperfection of the image. An artist works according to a perfect vision of his product appearing within his intellect. When this vision is in the intellect alone, it remains perfect, stable and uncontaminated, but unfulfilled. Fulfilment is attained by carrying out the perfect vision in production, thus endowing it with tangible existence. The sensed cosmos, accordingly, is an image, in the sense that it is a fulfilment of an idea.33 However, with fulfilment in time and space, in the

beautiful, says Timaeus, and its maker is good, then undoubtedly its model lies in the realm of eternal Being. Beauty is associated here with order and stability. If the opposite is true, however, then the model itself is inherently subject to change. 30 29a. 31 Hans-Georg Gadamer, “Idea and Reality in Plato’s Timaeus,” Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato, trans. P. Christopher Smith, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 161-162. 32 30a. “The god thus took over all that was visible, and, since it did not keep its peace but moved unmusically and without order, he brought it into order from disorder, since he regarded the former to be in all ways better than the latter.” 33 Peter Kalkavage, “The Song of Timaeus,” The St. John’s Review 36, 1 (1985): 59.

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sphere of becoming, there also comes imperfection. The attempt to actualize in the physical world an eternal intelligible vision necessarily means that the image must be inferior, in terms of purity and order, to its original. Therefore, the actualization of the demiurge’s model is ambivalent. On one hand, it endows the world with an existence, which is beautiful and orderly, but on the other, the fulfilment of an intelligible model in a sensible dimension contaminates the purity of its intelligible being. The motivation to create a beautiful thing in the image of the eternally beautiful is never completely satisfied, since the physical world is essentially imperfect.

1.4 The Knowledge of Nature and its Limits

As mentioned above, we are able to speak of the cosmos, only because it is a copy of a higher order, of which it is possible to speak with the highest precision. When we refer exclusively to the physical world, our speech is only a distant echo of that speech of noetic things. In the words of Timaeus, “just as Being is to Becoming, so is truth to trust.”34 Accounts share in the ontological status of their objects. Whereas accounts of things that are unchanging and intelligible, such as the objects of mathematics or dialectic, are themselves unchanging and precise, accounts of things that are a likeness of something else are, as their own objects, likenesses as well. Different subject matters allow different degrees of certainty, and different kindred soul states.35 And since the sensible world is only a likeness, a copy, of the real world, any attempt to explain it can be nothing more than a probable estimation. Therefore, when one speaks about nature, his words are at best only likely (εἰκός), in the sense of being probable or plausible.36

34 29c. 35 Johansen, (2004), 56. 36 Cornford (1997), 30.

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Aware of these limitations, of both the physical world and human nature, Timaeus asks

Socrates not to expect an exact and coherent account of the cosmos.37 Instead, Timaeus is to

“provide likelihoods inferior to none,”38 which is to say that he and his audience are to be satisfied with “a likely story,”39 a probable myth, abandoning any aspiration to go beyond it in search of a better account. So it is clear that the ontological status of the physical cosmos directly affects the epistemological reliability of Timaeus’ account of it. Can we still regard it, then, as a work of science, or rather should we view it simply as a pleasurable fable?

A. E. Taylor remarks that “it is not ‘science’ but ‘myth’, not in the sense that it is baseless fiction, but in the sense that it is the nearest approximation which can ‘provisionally’ be made to exact truth.”40 Though physics has its limits of intelligibility, Taylor says, it is always improving upon the results, in light of newly discovered facts and more accurate measurements.41 Cornford, on the other hand, holds this view to be too modern, since it assumes an exact truth in physics, which we can steadily approximate.42 In other words, Taylor’s account blurs the radical distinction between Becoming and Being, i.e. the sensible contra the intelligible. Assuming that there is in principle an exact truth of physics, which is beyond our reach only due to practical limitations, fails to acknowledge Timaeus’ determination that the sensible things are, in principle, perceived only by the senses accompanied by opinion.

Thus, Cornford suggests that the nearness to truth, the plausibility, of Timaeus’ account should not be understood in terms of a modern notion of approximation.43 According to his view,

37 29c-d. “So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we become incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t wonder.” 38 29d. 39 Ibid. τὸν εἰκότα μῦθον. 40 Taylor (1928), 59. 41 Ibid. 42 Cornford (1997), 29. 43 Ibid. 30.

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the likely story should not be understood literally, for it is likely in the sense that it is only metaphorically true.44 However, Johansen points out that Timaeus is careful to distinguish between his account and mere metaphorical images within his speech,45 for instance when Timaeus likens the receptacle to a mother.46 Thus, Johansen rejects a metaphorical view, and suggests that we understand the meaning of εἰκός as an argument that establishes conclusions without having conclusive supporting evidence.47 Such arguments are not demonstrative, he says, but consist in reasoning by analogy, in order to establish a likeness between a likeness and its original.48 But although this view does not contradict Timaeus’ words, it narrows the scope of their meaning, by oversimplifying our understanding of his mode of speech. Not only is Timaeus’ account not formulated as a scientific treatise which seeks to speak of things with precision, it also utilizes different mediums of expression, weaving literary devices together with logical and mathematical principles. Claiming that the likeness of Timaeus’ speech merely implies an inconclusive argument cannot account for its carefully constructed literary form, which “in fairy tale fashion, is peculiarly loose, incoherent, and allusive.”49 Epistemic principles are just one strand of the story.

Likeness, εἰκός, in the sense of probability, is the neuter perfect participle of the verb ἔοικα, which primarily means “to be similar”.50 This implies that the likelihood of Timaeus’ story is not only a matter of probability, but it also entails resemblance, as conveyed in the word εἰκών, in the sense of image. Timaeus plays with this double meaning, saying that: “as for accounts of something made as a likeness of something else – since it is a likeness – it is fitting that they, in

44 Ibid. 31-32. 45 Johansen, (2004), 51-52. 46 50d. 47 Johansen, (2004). 52. 48 Ibid. 60. 49 Gadamer, (1980). 160. 50 David C. Hoffman, “Concerning Eikos: Social Expectation and Verisimilitude in Early Attic Rhetoric,” Rhetorica: A Journal for the History of Rhetoric 26, 1, (2008): 1-29. In his article, Hoffman argues that “to be similar” is the core meaning of the word ἔοικα, and thus that all other forms of it can be seen as extensions of this primary sense.

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proportion to their objects, be likenesses.”51 Likelihood is a property of accounts which corresponds to the likeness of Becoming to Being, but, likely accounts are also likenesses themselves, both of precise accounts and of the physical world. An account is an image of its object. In this sense, the poetic words of Timaeus are not simply an allegorical veil, but rather they imitate their subject matter. The content of Timaeus’ speech, the sensible world and its genesis, thus necessitates its special form. Therefore, the weaving of poetical together with logical and metaphysical language bears a mimetic significance. In order to paint a complete picture of the world, Timaeus must take into consideration the bifurcation of the world into two distinct, but interwoven, causal forces: intellect and necessity. And since his account is an image of an image, it is not unreasonable to say that its disjointed form reflects this cosmic structure.

1.5 The Purpose and Function of Timaeus’ Myth

Referring to the double nature of Plato’s dialogues, Jacob Klein emphasizes that “within the dialogue, the logos thus has two functions. One is mimetic, the other argumentative.”52 That is, in a Platonic dialogue, it is necessary to be attentive to two levels of interpretation. Not only do we have to attend to the arguments which the text directly communicates to us, but we must also be aware of its imitative function, its dramatic aspects. Timaeus’ speech, accordingly, is not merely an account of the making of the universe. It is also a text which plays out, reenacts, imitates, that primordial production of an ordered world.

Socrates responds to Timaeus’ prelude with enthusiasm, and then implores him to go on, to do “what comes next in order and perform the song itself.”53 Wholeheartedly accepting

51 29c. τοὺς δὲ τοῦ πρὸς μὲν ἐκεῖνο ἀπεικασθέντος, ὄντος δὲ εἰκόνος εἰκότας ἀνὰ λόγον τε ἐκείνων ὄντας. 52 Jacob Klein (1979), 18. 53 29d. τὸ μὲν οὖν προοίμιον θαυμασίως ἀπεδεξάμεθά σου, τὸν δὲ δὴ νόμον ἡμῖν ἐφεξῆς πέραινε. This brings to mind a passage from book VII of the Republic, where Socrates rhetorically asks “don’t we know that all of this is a prelude to the song itself which must be learned?” Plato, The Republic, trans. Allan Bloom, (New York: Basic Books, 1991), 531d. ἢ οὐκ ἴσμεν ὅτι πάντα ταῦτα προοίμιά ἐστιν αὐτοῦ τοῦ νόμου ὃν δεῖ μαθεῖν;

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Timaeus’ introductory reservations, Socrates refers to his interlocutor’s subsequent speech as a

νόμος, a word with many meanings, which in this context can mean either law or song. The political framework of the dialogue, together with Timaeus’ reference to his own speech as a myth, suggest that both meanings are intended. Since a story of creation is necessarily a story of artfulness, it is fitting to call it a νόμος, a word which encompasses two forms of artfulness, that of music and that of politics.54

The first sense of νόμος, interpreted as law, suggests that Timaeus’ speech sets down principles which govern the world and its movements, and are thus responsible for its beauty. Later on, Timaeus decisively makes clear that “all the good is beautiful, and the beautiful is not disproportionate,”55 implying that beauty involves order, proportion and measure. Just as a beautiful city is well-governed, consisting of virtuous citizens with well-ordered souls, so is the beautiful cosmos founded upon a well-proportioned order which governs its course. Moreover, since Timaeus’ words are bound to the political context of the whole discussion, they also concern virtue and the question of the good human life. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the story of the Timaeus is not merely an attempt to explain the cosmos, nor simply an entertaining song but a prescription for a certain way of life, taking into account humanity’s place in and relation to the world.

The second sense of νόμος, song, obviously emphasizes its musical character. In general, music has two main aspects. On the one hand, it consists of audible sounds, resulting from vibration of air in certain proportions, determined, for example, by different lengths of strings. In this respect, music is sensible. However, audible sounds are only imperfect representations of intelligible mathematical principles. Those who study only the sensible aspect of music, in the

54 Kalkavage, (1985), 56. 55 87c. πᾶν δὴ τὸ ἀγαθὸν καλόν, τὸ δὲ καλὸν οὐκ ἄμετρον.

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words of Socrates, “put ears before the intelligence.”56 Thus on the other hand, the true science of music is independent of experiments and observations. Music, in essence, is an order of intelligible entities which constitute mathematical consonances.57 It is known through certain mathematical proportions and ratios. Therefore, music is chiefly intelligible, but simultaneously exemplified in a sensible manner through audible sounds. Speaking to different faculties of the soul, music is known by intellect, and due to its sensibility, also influences the passions and can arouse an endless array of affections.

As a song, therefore, Timaeus’ speech penetrates the listener’s soul, speaking both to his intellect and to his passions. And in accordance with the legislative, normative, meanings of νόμος, music is to be understood here with an emphasis on its educational power. As Socrates says in the

Republic, “rhythm and harmony most of all insinuate themselves into the inmost part of the soul and most vigorously lay hold of it in bringing grace with them.”58 Music is a powerful force pervading the soul, which holds the potential, when executed correctly, to educate towards true virtue. Timaeus’ speech reenacts the creation of a world order, while stirring the souls of his audience, thus drawing them as well to the beautiful and the good.

In conclusion, Timaeus’ speech is meant to inspire within us the will to live in accordance with the beautiful cosmic order it presents and represents. Its claimed musicality consists in reflecting this order in words, thus speaking both to the rational and irrational aspects of the human soul. Any understanding of physical nature is ontologically incomplete, as reflected in the dialogue, but since human beings are forced to live in a sensible world, they must relate to it, while

56 Republic, 531b. 57 Sir Thomas Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, Vol. 1, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 286. 58 Republic, 401d.

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aspiring to do so in the best possible way.59 And in addition to perfecting the mind by pursuing knowledge of the intelligible eternal order, a care of the irrational soul and the body is indispensable. That is, thinking presupposes that all bodily desires are taken care of, that they, at the very least, do not disrupt thought. In the following sections, I will demonstrate that Timaeus portrays a vision of harmony between the intellect and the passions, in which both soul and body arrange themselves in the correct proportion, responding to the beautiful music of the cosmos. This music in the form of beautiful order, is also what ultimately makes possible the unity of intellect and necessity, on the cosmic level. The legislative song of Timaeus thus portrays the cosmos in such a way as to evoke the highest possible ambition for both aspects of the human soul: to live in agreement with the divine beautiful order. This ambition entails the pursuit of an internal unity of the intellect and the passions.

59 The necessity of life in the physical realm is a central theme in recent work on the Timaeus done by Sarah Broadie. In this context, she focuses on two connected thoughts related to this issue, specifically concerning the complex relations between divinity and mortality. First, she emphasizes that it is a central fact about human beings that though they are necessarily bound to a given place and to a given time, and encountering the outer world at first only by limited sense perception, they are still capable of assuming with their minds a standpoint which transcends time and place, so as to consider nature as a whole in abstraction from any particularities of human history. This, she determines, is a prerequisite for any kind of engagement in natural philosophy. Second, she intriguingly argues that the physical cosmos as such crucially depends on mortal animals with the ability to think comprehensively about physical nature, in order to be complete. That is to say, the wholeness of the universe depends on the mortal existence of human beings. Sarah Broadie, Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

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2. The Timaeus: Intellect and Necessity

In the previous section, I claimed that while the demiurge is indeed an agent of intellect,

he nonetheless also submits to necessity. Relying on Timaeus’ designation of the god not only as

a craftsman, but also as a father, I demonstrated how the craftsmanship of the demiurge differs

from ordinary craftsmanship by relating to his creations also through the power of eros. Despite

this demonstration, the tension in the demiurge’s dual role as poet and father remains implicit in

the frame of Timaeus’ prelude. It is only later on in the story that Timaeus explicitly states that

“mixed indeed was the birth of this cosmos here, and begotten from a standing-together of

necessity and intellect.”1 Only then, are we familiarized with the central challenge in creating the

cosmos: to bring together two distinct forces of causality in order to make a coherent, beautiful

and well-ordered whole.

Following his determination that the cosmos is built of two distinct causal principles,

intellect and necessity, Timaeus portrays the relations between them, which make possible the

good formation of the cosmos: “as intellect was ruling over necessity by persuading her to lead

most of what comes to be toward what’s best, in this way accordingly was this all constructed at

the beginning: through necessity worsted by thoughtful persuasion.”2 The correct interpretation of

these words is the key to determining how, and to what extent, reason and the irrational form a

coherent unity on the cosmic level. In this passage, Timaeus says that the physical cosmos is the

result of intellect “persuading” necessity to yield to its good design. It is not clear, at first glance,

what Timaeus intends to convey by “persuasion”. For how can necessity be persuaded? If taken

literally, the persuasion of necessary natural processes seems like a blatant contradiction. This

1 48a. 2 Ibid.

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suggests a metaphorical meaning of persuasion, which, following Glenn Morrow,3 I believe makes sense only in light of the grand problem Plato faces in the Timaeus.

Any attempt to explain the cosmos in terms of the good and the beautiful, that is, in teleological terms, has to settle an apparent conflict between two schemes of causality. First, there is the mechanistic view of causality, which construes nature to be built upon elements with certain determinate properties, which in turn give rise to certain processes. From this view, we can explain the existence of things or a certain course of events only by referring to relevant natural properties or processes ungoverned by any predetermined purpose. A prominent example of this view is that of Leucippus and Democritus. According to the ancient atomistic theory,

the nature of the eternal things consists of small substances infinite in number; these he [Democritus] places in space, separate from them and infinite in extent… Now from these as elements he generates the visible and perceptible bodies. He says that they conflict with one another and travel about in the void because of their unlikeness and the other differences which have been mentioned, and as they travel about they collide and entangle with one another, and that entanglement makes them touch and be near one another… He thinks that they hang on to one another and remain together until some stronger necessity, approaching from the surroundings, shakes the complex part and disperses it.4

That is to say, the atomists described the cosmos as comprised of particles eternally moving in a void, which entangle with one another or scatter after random collisions, governed only by their difference in shape, order and position. In this cosmos, everything happens necessarily, but without any purpose or prior design.

On the other hand, the teleological view of the world sets out to explain things in terms of purposes and ends, i.e. with view to the good. As Timaeus tells us, the first cause of the cosmos is the good intention of the demiurge,

3 Glenn Morrow, “Necessity and Persuasion in Plato’s Timaeus,” The Philosophical Review, 59, 2 (1950): 147-163. 4 Simplicius, Commentary on De Caelo, 294.33-295.36, in Cristopher C. W. Taylor, The Atomists Leucippus and Democritus: Fragments, A Text And Translation With A Commentary, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 70-71.

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For since he wanted all things to be good and, to the best of his power, nothing to be shoddy, the god thus took over all that was visible, and, since it did not keep its peace but moved unmusically and without order, he brought it into order from disorder, since he regarded the former to be in all ways better than the latter.5

That is, in Timaeus’ account of the creation of the physical cosmos, the first cause prior to the ordering of the universe is the will of the craftsman that all things be good. A purely mechanistic view, such as the atomist theory, clearly does not acknowledge the good, or even ends in general, as true ontological principles, which primarily determine the essence of things and courses of events. Therefore, at first glance, these two views are incompatible. However, a firm teleological view must preserve within it the mechanistic dimension of causality, while also maintaining an overarching intelligent design according to the demands of the good. The problem, therefore, is to make intelligent causality intelligible alongside mechanistic causal sequence.6

A telling illustration of this point is found in a well-known passage of the Phaedo,7 where

Socrates distinguishes precisely between these two kinds of causes. Similar to the distinction we have just made, Socrates speaks of a genuine cause, in contrast to “that without which the cause wouldn’t be a cause.”8 As an example, he refers to his bones and sinews as necessary causes for his sitting in prison, but emphasizes that the true cause for his conduct is that he judged it better and more just to do so.9 That is to say, on one hand, Socrates regards mechanistic or materialist explanations as indispensable in attempting to understand phenomena. On the other, however, these explanations are not complete. They only denote the necessary conditions for the appearance of certain phenomena, but fall short of giving a complete account. Such an account can only be

5 30a. 6 Morrow, (1950), 149. 7 Phaedo, 96a-99c. 8 Plato, Phaedo, trans. Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, Eric Salem, (Indianapolis: Focus, 1998), 79. 99b. 9 Ibid. 78-79. 98e-99a; 99a: “If somebody should say that that I wouldn’t be able to do what seemed best to me without having such things as bones and sinews and whatever else I’ve got, he’d be speaking the truth.”

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given in terms of that which is best. Since there is a clear analogy between the explanation of

Socrates’ actions and the explanation of the cosmos, ultimately, a comprehensive grasp of nature also must take into account both its necessary conditions of existence, and its primary cause in the form of the good, which “truly binds and holds things together.”10

This distinction between necessary conditions and a genuine causation in terms of the good, is maintained in the Timaeus, in the form of intellect and necessity. Intellect is the primary cause of the universe, the overarching principle of its design, which motivates the divine craftsman’s construction of the intelligible order of the cosmos. Its main manifestations are purpose and unity, both in individual things and in the cosmos as a whole. For example, Timaeus explains the reason for our eyes’ existence in terms of their beneficence for humanity: “sight has come to be the cause of the greatest benefit for us, since none of the accounts we’re now giving about the all would ever have been uttered if we had seen neither the stars nor the Sun nor heaven.”11 However, this great good which human beings possess is not only dependent upon the cosmic plan constituted of ends; in order to physically be present, the existence of the eyes depend upon “assistant causes”;12 i.e. necessity as the conditions which enable the fulfilment of their end. Thus, prior to the explanation of the eyes in relation to the good they bring humanity, Timaeus gives a lengthy anatomical description of the eyes and the way they function, which includes their structure and elements.13

Assistant or auxiliary causes are the necessary conditions of physical existence, the materials of the demiurge, which are “moved by others and come to be movers of other things only out of necessity”.14 As in the atomistic worldview, the effects of necessity in themselves possess no

10 Ibid. 99c. 11 47a. 12 46c. 13 45b-46c. 14 46e.

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intelligence or purpose. They are merely the result of moving elements with inherent qualities.

Similar to what was said in the Phaedo, most people hold the mistaken opinion that assistant causes are in fact the true causes of all things, “by cooling and heating, coalescing and dissolving, and by fashioning all such effects.”15 But although these qualities indeed constrain the demiurge’s possibilities for production, they fall short of coercing a determinate state of events. The ultimate cause is the demiurge himself, in particular his intellect which aims at producing good things.

Thus, the full understanding of nature requires taking account of both types of causes, “on one side those which, with the aid of intellect, are craftsmen of things beautiful and good, on the other side those which, bereft of prudence, produce on each occasion a disordered, chance effect.”16 The causal force of intellect is responsible for the beautiful and good structure of things, whereas necessity makes possible the carrying out of intellect’s plans.

We are still lacking, however, an explanation of how the intelligent purpose relates to the essentially different order of mechanistic causality. Here we must return to Timaeus’ metaphor of persuasion, which is supposed to imply the way in which this cooperation takes place. But against the background of creating the universe, the term seems alien. It is familiar to us, from other dialogues of Plato, in apparently completely different contexts of rhetoric and education.

Accordingly, Morrow reads persuasion as suggesting the practice of rhetoric. Relying on the

Phaedrus, which lays out the principles of a genuine art of rhetoric, distinguished from sophistic rhetoric, he claims that persuasion is a certain technique of intelligence which serves as a means for accomplishing what it wills from others, “by understanding them so thoroughly that we can use the forces inherent in them to bring about the end we desire.”17 That is, the persuasion of

15 46d. 16 46e. 17 Morrow, (1950), 156.

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intellect consists in a certain craft of juxtaposing certain materials with each other, while considering their given qualities, in a manner which brings about the desired good effects. It is the knowledge of each element’s powers and the ability to mix different powers in such a way that fulfills the good. For without the craftsman’s guidance, the qualities of the world’s material elements have no unifying order, only giving rise to isolated and unrelated effects, thus being disordered and random. This stresses two important aspects of persuasion. The first is a thorough, perfect, knowledge of the numerous qualities and powers which comprise the causality of necessity. And the second is the necessary reliability of these qualities. A craftsman must be able to rely on his materials, to know that they produce certain effects in certain situations.18

Morrow’s interpretation clarifies the relations between intellect and necessity to a great extent, and opens the possibility of better understanding the dialogue as a whole. Nevertheless, I believe that his reading of the text can be reinforced and even elaborated upon, by explaining further the prerequisites for persuasion. Departing from former interpretations, I propose a new understanding of cosmic agency that is analogical to an important aspect of Platonic education; the education of irrational elements of the soul in accordance with rational ends, through music.

The education of the irrational parts of the soul is widely discussed in the Republic, where Socrates emphasizes the psychological effects of music and in particular, its potential pedagogic advantages. Music, he says, can administer beautiful order even in the irrational parts of the soul, which pay no heed to reason.19 In Timaeus’ myth of creation, analogically, when intellect wishes to persuade irrational elements, it utilizes a certain form of music.20 This symbolizes the basic order of the cosmos, which, I will argue, holds two basic aspects of active ordering. In this

18 Johansen, (2004), 95. 19 Republic. 401c-402a. 20 35b-36b. Cornford, (1997), 66-72.

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framework, however, persuasion is only one aspect of the cosmic order, i.e. a final stage of ordering, building on previous acts of force.

In order to demonstrate this claim, I will analyze the nature of intellect, particularly the construction of the cosmic body and soul, while giving special attention to the musical ordering of the latter. Then, I will give a detailed characterization of necessity, which appears in the Timaeus in three different versions, and relate it to the notion of intelligent agency. Lastly in this chapter, I will outline the human condition, according to Timaeus, and explore the possibility for human beings to resolve their imperfect psychic situation through procedures analogical to the cosmic ordering.

2.1 The Order of Intellect

Timaeus asserts that the constructor of the cosmos was good, and consequently, since he lacks any grudge or jealousy, he willed that everything be good as himself, as much as possible.21

The primary cause for the existence of the universe, is a final cause, 22 the good. Now, from the start, and already implied in the prelude, this good is portrayed in terms of a beautiful and musical order, where beauty and musicality are identified with intellect. The creation of the world began when the god “took over all that was visible, and, since it did not keep its peace but moved unmusically and without order, he brought it into order from disorder.”23 The divine intellect of the demiurge saves the world from an unmusical and chaotic primordial state of disorder by endowing it with an intelligent order which causes the cosmos to strive for perfection and wholeness. In other words, the demiurge does not create the physical cosmos ex nihilo, but from an already existing state of disorder, with the aim of producing an order which resembles the

21 29e. 22 In contradistinction to other possible primary causes, for example intellect as merely an efficient cause. 23 30a.

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eternal paradigm of Being. The activity of the divine craftsman consists first in a theoretical act, discerning the eternal intelligible order of Being, followed by a practical one, imposing the perceived beautiful order upon the chaotic heap of the physical sphere.24

Aiming to create the best order, the demiurge, through calculation, discovers that of all the sensible things of the physical world, things which are intelligent are the most beautiful.25 That is, none of the things lacking νοῦς are ever more beautiful than those possessing it. Timaeus does not say precisely how the god arrived at this conclusion. However, it is clear that only intellect thinks and creates. Thus, only an intelligent being can look to an eternal paradigm, with the aim of producing a good and beautiful image. Such a being would therefore embody the condition for beautiful things to be brought forth at all.26 Accordingly, the demiurge seeks to construct the cosmos as an entity possessing intellect. And since, according to Timaeus, it is impossible for intellect to be present in things apart from soul, the demiurge constructs intellect within soul, and soul within a body. He molds and shapes the unorderly raw matter thus to create an animal with soul and intellect.27 Not only does the cosmos consist in a rational order, but it itself is living, is an organic intelligent whole.

Moreover, it seems that a living animal, more than any other kind of entity, displays integral unity and wholeness to an exemplary degree. In this regard, claims Timaeus, the most perfect of

24 Gabriela Roxana Carone. Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 29. 25 30b. 26 John Sallis, (1999), 57. 27 30b-c; The characterization of the cosmos as an animal should also remind us of Socrates’ words regarding the way he is affected by the beauty of the ideal regime. As mentioned above, the main reason for the taking place of Timaeus’ speech is Socrates’ desire to see an image of the ideal city in heroic action. Intriguingly, he introduces his desire, his affection, through a peculiar analogy: “it’s as if someone who gazed upon beautiful animals (ζῷα) somewhere, either produced by the art of painting or truly living but keeping their peace, were to get a desire to gaze upon them moving and contending in some struggle that seemed appropriate to their bodies” (19b-c). The word ζῷον has two meanings in Greek. It denotes either an animal, or a painted image of a living being, not necessarily of an animal. See: Remi Brague, “The Body of the Speech: A New Hypothesis on the Compositional Structure of Timaeus’ Monologue,” in Platonic Investigations, ed. Dominic J. O’Meara (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 53-84.

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all visible animals, is the cosmos itself, since it is unsurpassed in its uniqueness and wholeness.

However, it is important to emphasize that it is only an imitation of an ontologically higher paradigm, i.e. an image of an eternal intelligible form of an animal. This intelligible form encompasses all types of intelligent life,28 “that of which the others, individually and according to kind, are parts.”29 In other words, it is a kind consisting of sub-kinds. As such, it is unique in the realm of forms, since there can only be one, all-inclusive, whole kind. Correspondingly, the living sensible world, in imitation of its eternal model, embraces within itself all physical sub-kinds of life, and thus is one whole. There is and can be only one cosmos, says Timaeus. If the sensible world is modeled after the eternal, all-inclusive, form of intelligent life, then it is one as well.

It is important to note here that Timaeus’ argument is teleological. Although it is not logically impossible to imagine numerous copies of an overarching principle of life,30 the final cause of making what is best determines that there be only one physical cosmos. A plurality of copies would lack fidelity to their original, for they would not constitute a true and unique whole.

28 Cornford, (1997), 41; Later on Timaeus enumerates four kinds of life, which receive their Being and intelligibility from this unchanging paradigm. 39e-40a. 29 30c. 30 In general, there is no obvious logical necessity that there can be only one copy of a model. However, the argument still states that since the intelligible Form of intelligent life is unique, its copy must also be unique. This has been a matter of debate between interpreters. For instance, according to David Keyt, the creation of the cosmos in the Timaeus suffers from a fallacy of division, that is, the demiurge fails to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant features of his paradigm, and thus, copies also the irrelevant ones into his work. Whereas the Form of living creature has one essential property, a soul in a body, its other qualities, such as uniqueness, timelessness, and intelligibility, are generic (232). Thus, one cannot attribute the latter properties to the copy of the Form. In other words, uniqueness is a property belonging to a Form qua Form. Timaeus commits a logical fallacy, says Keyt, by attributing to a copy a property which is common to all Forms only in virtue of their being Forms. David Keyt. “The Mad Craftsman of the Timaeus,” Philosophical Review 80 (1971): 230-235.; In contrast, Richard D. Parry claims that the uniqueness of the Form of life in the Timaeus is a property that the Form possesses because it is a certain kind of Form, and not simply because it is a Form. Its uniqueness results from its being a Form of life which embraces all other Forms of life, which constitute a part of it. Thus, it is safe to say that not every Form is unique in this sense. The uniqueness of the ultimate intelligible Animal results from its being a whole of which all other intelligible Animals are constituents. Thus, if the physical cosmos is indeed meant to be a beautiful copy of its paradigm, then it too is a whole which embraces all kinds of life. As the intelligible Animal embraces all intelligible living creatures, so does the living cosmos embrace all sensible living creatures. And both form organic entities, in which the constituents contribute to the life of the whole. In order to be all-embracing, one must be a true whole; and there can necessarily be only one whole. Richard D. Parry, “The Unique World of the Timaeus,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 17 (1979): 1-10.

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In this spirit, Timaeus emphasizes that “in order that this cosmos might be similar to the altogether perfect Animal in uniqueness, for this reason the maker did not make two or indefinitely many cosmoses.”31 The cosmos is one organic unity of body, soul and intellect, giving rise to all other forms of life, and as such is the most perfect of all animals.

2.1.1 The Cosmic Body

The body of the cosmos, as part of the sensible realm of becoming, is founded upon the four material elements, intended to give it the highest measure of unity, as required by its uniqueness.32 Later, in the second part of the dialogue, the elements are formed by the imposition of perfect geometrical shapes of solids upon a primordial state of disorder.33 Here, however,

Timaeus does not explicitly refer to the elements as geometrical solids. The demiurge carries out his task merely by setting given elements in a correct proportion. First, the god proceeds to construct the body of the cosmos out of fire, responsible for its visibility, and earth, responsible for its solidity. However, in order to beautifully bind these two elements, there is need for an additional mediating thing.34 The need for mediating elements ultimately gives rises to two binding material elements, water and air. According to Timaeus, if the body of the cosmos consisted in a plane lacking depth, then one mediating element would be enough to connect the other two elements. However, since the body of the cosmos is a three dimensional solid, it is necessary that there be another mediating element, and thus there are two elements mediating between the fundamental elements.35

31 31b. My emphasis. 32 Cornford, (1997), 43. 33 53b-55c. 34 31b-c. 35 32a-b.

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In order to attain true unity between the elements, it is necessary to bind them according to a particular ratio, as Timaeus says: “the most beautiful of these bonds is that which, as much as possible, makes itself and the things bound together one, and proportion is suited by nature to accomplish this most beautifully.”36 Foreshadowing the construction of soul, Timaeus implies that the order of the cosmos, which is responsible for its organic unity, is perceived in terms of mathematical proportions. That is, material elements alone cannot come together to form a unity.

Unity is attained only through the binding force of mathematical order. It is also significant to mention that much later in the dialogue, Timaeus declares that “all the good is beautiful, and the beautiful is not disproportionate,”37 identifying beauty with proportion and measure. In the case of the cosmic body, the beautiful proportion is a middle term between two other numbers,

…such that as the first is to it so is it to the last – and again, conversely, as the last is to the middle so is this middle to the first – then the middle term becomes first and last, while the last and first in turn both become middle terms, so that of necessity it will turn out that all the terms will be the same; and once they’ve come to be the same in relation to each other, all will be one.38

In this passage Timaeus refers to geometrical means (ἀναλογία), with reference to the planes and solids mentioned above. That is, he simply gives a definition of a continued geometrical proportion with three terms.39 The understanding of number (ἀριθμός) in geometrical terms is a key characteristic of Greek mathematics. Numbers, for the Greeks, were composed of monads, i.e. they were results of a successive reproduction of a basic unit.40 The monads are the most basic, irreducible, elements which make counting possible. The Pythagoreans regarded these basic units as the fundamental elements of the world, and as such having bodily extension.41 In this passage

36 31c. 37 87c. 38 32a. 39 Cornford, (1997), 45. 40 Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origin of Algebra, New York: Dover Publications, 1992, 51-52. 41 Ibid. 67.

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as well, it is clear that Timaeus refers to magnitudes and means in a geometrical sense which emphasizes their responsibility for the essential constitution of the elemental materials. By planes and solids Timaeus refers to square and cube numbers, so that between two square numbers there is one mean, and between two cube numbers there are two means.42 Although the exact interpretation of this passage is controversial,43 it is still evident that Timaeus emphasizes the central role played both by middle terms, which mediate between elements, and by sameness, in order to constitute unity.

Thus the guiding principle of the construction of the cosmos is unity and self-sameness.44

The demiurge considers that the “similar is vastly more beautiful than dissimilar.”45 Accordingly, he shapes the body of the cosmos as a sphere, since it is a figure equidistant from its center to its extremities in all directions, thus being the most perfect and the most similar to itself.46 In other words, the figure of the sphere is a physical expression of the principles of unity and harmony which necessitate the order created by the demiurge.47 The body of the world, constituted by four elements whose quantities are proportioned perfectly, is one unity, in concord with itself. This sets the tone for the further construction of the cosmic soul.

42 Sir Thomas Heath, (1921), 297. 43 For a summary of the different views, and a proposed alternative see: Paul Pritchard, “The Meaning of Dunamis at “Timaeus” 31c,” Phronesis 35, 2 (1990): 182-193. 44 32b-c. “For these reasons and out of such terms as these, four in number, the body of this cosmos was begotten to agree with itself through proportion, and from them came to have friendship, so that having come together with itself in self-sameness, it was born indissoluble by none other save him who bound it together.” 45 33c. 46 33b-c. 47 Lynne Ballew, “Straight and Circular in Parmenides and the Timaeus,” Phronesis 19, 3 (1974): 189-209; Brague (1985) has claimed, in this context, that the model which Timaeus’ speech attempts to imitate is not the cosmos, but in fact the human body. That is, he asserts that the structure of the dialogue, with its two parts dealing with intellect and necessity, does not correspond to the perfect spherical shape of the cosmic body, but to the two parts which comprise the human body, i.e. the head and the trunk. He also rejects the traditional division of the dialogue into three parts, where the first deals with intellect, the second with necessity, and the third with their cooperation. Thus, he views the essential change in the text at 69a as an internal division within the second section, marking the midriff in the human body. I, in contrast, claim that it is precisely the disjointed form of the dialogue which imitates the cosmos as it is in Plato’s eyes.

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The round shape of the cosmos is justified through the negation of organs which, though present in many known animals, are superfluous in the case of the cosmic animal. This is done in a rigorous order, which intriguingly corresponds to the description of a human body. Timaeus eliminates the eyes, the ears, the mouth, the arms, the legs, and the feet, methodically scanning the human body from head to toe.48 The cosmos is described, therefore, in comparison to the human body, or put differently, in terms of the human body. The shape of the world, which is part of the order of intellect, is established by determining that it is chiefly not a human being.49 This naturally emphasizes the imperfection of humanity in contrast to the cosmos as a self-sufficient whole.

However, despite the negation of most of the human organs, the cosmos and human beings still share one significant thing in common: the round shape of the head. When Timaeus speaks of the creation of human beings, he explicitly says that the motions of thought were “bound within a spheroform body, thus imitating the figure of the all, which was rounded – the body to which we now give the name “head,” which is most divine and dominates all the parts within us.”50 That is, the human head imitates the divine figure of the cosmos, implying that to the extent that the head is round, human beings do partake in the perfection of the divine. This perfection arises from the same principle. The order of intellect determines that both the shape of the cosmos and the shape of the human head shall be round, in order to embody, in both cases, the beauty of measured unity.

2.1.2 The Cosmic Soul

Although he states earlier that intellect is in soul, and soul is in body,51 following the portrayal of the construction of the cosmic body, Timaeus determines that the soul, after being put at the center of body, is then stretched out completely throughout it, “even to the point of covering

48 33c-34a; Brague, (1985), 57. 49 Brague, (1985), 58. 50 44d. 51 30b.

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the body on the outside with her as a veil,”52 so that now body is in fact within soul, “as a circle turning within a circle.”53 This, according to Timaeus, constitutes the self-sufficiency of the cosmos, implying that it is the soul which supports and sustains the body. In other words, the soul is a higher causal principle than body, in the sense that it is the true principle of life. And indeed,

Timaeus asserts that the demiurge “constructed soul as prior to the body in both birth and excellence and as its elder, since she was to be mistress and ruler of body, and it was to be ruled.”54

The words ‘elder’ and ‘prior’ should not necessarily be understood as implying a temporal priority.

Their emphatic meaning is rather an ontological priority, in the sense that the soul gives rise to the world as we know it.

The constitution of the soul is perhaps one of the most perplexing and controversial passages of the dialogue. From the outset, it appears that Plato did not give a clear explanation of its meaning, for it was already subject to disagreement between Xenocrates, third head of the

Academy, and Crantor, his pupil.55 However, we can still derive some central principles which govern the composition and structure of the world soul, and human souls as well. The construction of the soul consists in three stages. First, the god blends foundational elements to make the basic compound of soul.56 Second, he molds this compound into a divided strip with certain proportions, corresponding to a musical scale.57 And third, he cuts this fabric into two circuits which govern

52 34b. 53 Ibid. 54 34c; The priority of soul to the body is also put forward in the Laws, Book X, 892a-b: “It is soul, comrade, that almost all of them have dared to misunderstand: what sort of thing it happens to be, what power it has, and, among other things about it, how it comes into being – how it is among the first things, how it comes into being before all bodies, and how it is, more than anything, the ruling cause of their change and of all their reordering. And if these things are so, isn’t it necessarily the case that the things akin to soul would come into being before the things belonging to body, since it is elder than body?”, Plato, The Laws of Plato, trans. Thomas L. Pangle (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), 289. 55 Taylor, (1928), 106. For a detailed review of ancient interpretations of this passage: Taylor, (1928), 109-136. 56 35a-b. 57 35b-36b.

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the movement of the cosmos. One of these circles is then cut into seven strips, in order to form the paths of the heavenly bodies, which in turn are interpreted as the revolutions of thought and opinion.58

2.1.2.1 The Compound of Soul

The composition of the world soul is based upon three ontological ingredients, and in the end, is the result of a mix of mixtures.59 The basic constituents are Being, Same, and Other. Each ontological category has two modes: a completely indivisible and self-same form corresponding to the intelligible world on one hand, and a divisible form which applies to the tangible world of bodies on the other hand. In this context, indivisibility clearly does not imply an immutability of a body with extension in space. For example, a form is not physical nor sensible. Rather, it is a purely intelligible entity, indivisible in the sense that it is simple, and not composite, hence truly definable, giving rise to things which partake in its being. It is also indivisible in the sense that it is unique, and cannot be multiplied. In contrast, divisibility does imply complexity and plurality, not to mention bodily divisibility. In the first stage of mixing, the demiurge blends both modes of each ontological category to create a third form, a mix of, or mediation between, indivisibility and divisibility, i.e. perfect wholeness and plurality.

In the framework of the first stage, the first mixture is made up of indivisible eternal Being and divisible Being which constitutes the realm of Becoming. The mixture of the two orders of being creates an intermediate compound, which constitutes a third kind of entity partaking in both realms. Thus the world soul, and the human soul, belong both to the eternal world and to the physical world. As indivisible and eternal, the soul is immortal, and takes part in the unchanging intelligible world of Being. There is also a sense in which every soul is unique and simple, i.e.

58 36b-37c. 59 Cornford, (1997), 59-66.

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indivisible. But the soul differs from the static world of Being, in that it is a principle of intelligence and life, which both require movement. Thus, it is necessarily also part of the changing world of generation and corruption. From this perspective, the soul takes part in bodily extension, through the bodies in which it inheres. To this extent, it also takes part in the divisibility of the body.

The second mixture of the Same mediates between two orders of sameness, analogical to the mix of Being. On one hand, there is simple intelligible sameness, which is possessed only by eternal entities of the world of Being. Pure sameness can exist only in a world devoid of change and plurality. As mentioned, an intelligible form is eternal, simple and unique. But on the other hand, sameness also has a divisible form, that is, it manifests itself also in the physical world of change and plurality. In this world, things are never purely identical to themselves, due to the sheer fact of constant flux. However, there is still a sense in which multiple things can be similar to each other, or even said to be ‘the same’, though they all exist separately. A mixture of these two orders of sameness is, as in the case of Being, a mediation between the two realms, which allows the soul to take part in both. In the same fashion, the third mixture of Other brings together the strict difference of intelligible entities from each other and the blurred, indistinct, differences which characterize sensible things. The result, is a category of difference which balances two kinds of otherness, strict difference on the one hand, and ‘chaotic’ difference, a mark of unordered flux, on the other. These two blends give rise to the possibility of individuation in a physical world of change. Physical things are in one sense copies of intelligible models. As such, they resemble their original, and are different from other things which partake in other forms. But qua physical, they are only one out of many particular manifestations of their model. As such, they are identical only to their own empirical selves, and different from all other manifestations. In this sense, sameness and difference are divisible.

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In the second stage of blending, the demiurge takes all three mediating blends to create

“one entire look”.60 That is, the demiurge blends all of the previous mixes into one unity, which will constitute soul. However, this blend does not take place easily and smoothly, for as Timaeus tells of the demiurge, “since the nature of the Other was loath to mix, he joined it to the Same with force.”61 Once the attempt to manifest the intelligible in bodily form is made, there are problems which cannot be solved in simple terms, thus requiring the use of force. There is a natural dissonance between Other and Same. The form, or ontological category, of Other naturally resists being mixed with Same, for it is, in essence and by definition, the exact opposite of Same, it is difference in itself. Bringing Other together with Same leads to a contradiction, which is intolerable in an ideal intelligible world, but necessary in a world of becoming which constantly displays change, i.e. a world of things which are self-same and different at the same time.62 Since the soul takes place both in Being and in Becoming it must suffer this duality, which betrays the laws of pure logic. Thus, the creation of the soul displays the demiurge’s compelling need to face the recalcitrance of intelligible forms to take part in physical nature. We will see that this

“impurity” is present also in the tuning of the cosmic scale, in the form of a lack of perfect wholeness.

2.1.2.2 Cognition

Despite the difficulty of this passage, we can make sense of the peculiar composition of soul in terms of its basic function of intelligence and cognition. Of any real and particular thing,

60 35a. μίαν πάντα ἰδέαν. 61 35a-b. My emphasis. 62 It is intriguing to compare this problem to Hegel’s words: “The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead. These forms are not just distinguished from one another, they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible. Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is as necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole.” G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 2.

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we can obviously say that this thing exists, that it is identical with itself, and that it is different from all that is not itself. In other words, these three categories are exhaustive with regard to all reality. Accordingly, the composition of the soul with elements common to all reality, makes possible the existence of knowledge, which, at least in the case of the world-soul, is ultimately self-knowledge. That is, the soul is made of the same basic constituents as the objects which it knows. According to Aristotle, Plato “in the Timaeus, makes the soul be composed out of the elements; it is posited that like is known by like and that things are composed from the primordial principles.”63 As mentioned, these elements, or primordial principles, which we have referred to, all disclose two forms, the one corresponding to eternal being, whereas the other to becoming.

Thus the soul combines the characters of the eternal and the generated, and this alone allows it to know and apprehend both the intelligible sphere of Being and the flux of Becoming, for what knows must be like that which it knows. Aristotle’s point is reinforced in 37a, where Timaeus asserts that whenever the soul,

…touches on something that has its Being dispersed or, again, something whose Being is non-partitioned, she is moved throughout her whole self and tells what that thing is the same as and what it’s other than, and in what exact relation and where and how and when it turns out that particular things are and are affected, both for what comes to be and for what’s always in the same condition. The account that arises is similarly true whether it has to do with either the Other or the Same.64

All knowledge arises from a process in which the soul touches upon elements, or modifications of these elements, and, as a result, is moved so as to recognize what it has touched, and learn of its similarities, differences and numerous relations. These elements are exactly those which comprise the soul itself, and thanks to this correspondence the soul can know both what eternally is, and what comes to be as well. Thus, the basic principle of cognition depends on the

63 Aristotle, De Anima, trans. with introduction and notes by Mark Shiffman (Newsburyport: Focus Publishing, 2011). Book I, 404b. 64 37a-b.

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fact that the soul and its objects share common basic ontological elements. Opinions and beliefs arise when soul is concerned with Being that is “dispersed”, in the sensible realm, while intellection concerns “non-partitioned” Being, i.e. the intelligible realm. These two kinds of cognition are exhaustive, and happen only in soul.65

2.1.2.3 The Cosmic Musical Scale

The second stage of the construction of soul consists in dividing and ordering the compound of the soul, in a mathematical form which is tantamount to tuning a musical scale. Now this ordering, or tuning, is the primary source of ordered movement in the cosmos.66 It starts with a continuous division of the compound of the soul into certain portions which form two sets of numbers: 1, 2, 4, 8 and 1, 3, 9, 27.67 Each set constitutes a quaternary (τετρακτύς), which, for the

Pythagoreans, outlines the entire nature of the universe, such as the elements, magnitudes, ages of man, cognition, seasons, and more.68 These two quaternaries form two geometric progressions, the same as those used in the ordering of the cosmic body, which correspond to certain ratios that also constitute musical intervals.69 When we convert accordingly these numbers into musical pitches and arrange them from highest note to lowest, we form a Pythagorean musical scale of four octaves and a major sixth.70

65 37c. 66 This ordered movement consequently gives rise to time. Time in itself, however, plays a relatively modest role in the ordering of the Timaean universe. According to Timaeus, it is “a certain moving likeness of eternity; and just as he’s [the demiurge] putting heaven in array, he makes of eternity, which abides in unity, an eternal likeness that goes according to number, that very thing we have named time” (37d-e). Although time in the Timaeus is a feature of the cosmic order which imitates an eternal model, it derives from the motion of the heavenly spheres. The fact that temporal terms, for instance, days, nights, months and years did not exist before the creation of the heavenly bodies demonstrates that time is an order which derives from the previously made structure of the soul. The steady circular celestial motions dictate the passage of time, while imitating an eternal paradigm. Time is thus an epiphenomenon. It merely manifests the work of the cosmic soul, which demonstrates its order in the movement of the planets and stars. 67 35b-c; Kalkavage, (2001), 149. 68 Theon of Smyrna, Mathematics Useful for Understanding Plato, trans. R. and D. Lawlor (San Diego: Wizards Bookshelf, 1979), 62-66. 69 Based upon the Pythagorean discovery that musical intervals can be represented by the ratios of string lengths. Ernest G. McClain, The Pythagorean Plato: Prelude to the Song Itself, (York Beach: Nicolas-Hays, 1984), 58-63. 70 Kalkavage, (2001), 150.

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The division of the soul proceeds with the demiurge’s attempt to fill in these musical intervals. He does this by inserting arithmetic and harmonic means.71 The first mean is the average of two numbers, and the second mean is the number which has the same proportional difference with regard to both of its extremes.72 The harmonic division of the octave yields a perfect fourth, while the arithmetic division of the octave yields the perfect fifth. After this division, the god continues to fill also the newly created intervals, perfect fourths and a perfect fifth, with whole tones. Judging from this process of construction, it seems that the demiurge attempts to create a

Pythagorean octave of the diatonic order, on the basis of a perfect set of basic units,73 i.e. ratios corresponding to whole tones.

However, here a slight problem arises. After this complex division and filling, there still remains a gap, corresponding to the ratio 256:243, which is an undersized semitone, a λεῖμμα

(literally ‘left-over’).74 The Greeks understood the octave of the diatonic order as consisting of two tetrachords, i.e. two perfect fourths joined by a whole tone.75 In such a scale, each fourth necessarily contains the semi-tone. As I have just remarked, however, the demiurge in Timaeus’ account utilizes the whole tone as the basic building block of the whole scale, from the very beginning of division. In this framework, the semi-tone is an inconvenience which impinges on the initial vision of a perfect whole made out of perfect symmetrical parts. That is to say, despite his good intentions, the god is unfortunately left with an inconvenient λεῖμμα, a remainder of his division which is not commensurate with the perfect whole unit. Perfect wholeness is, again, necessarily breached.

71 McClain, (1984), 59. 72 Kalkavage, (2001), 150. 73 μίαν μοῖραν, “one portion”. 35b. 74 McClain (1984), 60; Theon of Smyrna (1979), 43-47. 75 Kalkavage (2001), 151.

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The construction of the cosmic soul demonstrates that the perfect whole, here in the form of the octave, is incompatible with a set of perfect monads, in the form of whole tones.

Accordingly, the cosmos is not a perfect whole made of equally portioned, identical, parts.

Concordance is not always maintained. In this sense, the structure of the universe is flawed in principle. This was already evident in the necessity of employing force. The recalcitrance of the pure units to form a perfect scale reminds us of the reluctance of Other to blend with the Same.

Even in creating the order of intellect, the demiurge must face the necessities which are coerced by his materials, in this case tones or ratios. Therefore, ultimately, his achievement is a compromise. It seems that Timaeus is trying to say that any attempt to achieve complete perfection and wholeness in the physical realm is destined to failure. One can only create beautiful approximations of true perfection.76

Nevertheless, Timaeus implicitly counsels against despair, by cleverly using musical form to point to the proper disposition one should assume against disorder. The scale which the demiurge builds is comprised of Dorian tetrachords, 77 corresponding to the formal definition of the Greek Dorian mode.78 In the Republic, Socrates and Glaucon discuss the different musical modes, while searching for those which are most proper for their ideal city. In this framework, the

Dorian mode is associated with θυμός, courage and readiness for war, for it imitates “the sounds and accents of a man who is courageous in warlike deeds and every violent work, and who in failure or when going to face wounds or death or falling into some other disaster, in the face of all

76 To finish the construction of soul, the divine craftsman cuts the whole fabric of soul into two strips, attaching each other at the middle to form the shape of an X, and then bending each to make two moving circles (36b-c). He endows the outer circle with the nature of the Same, and the inner circle with the nature of the Other. While both circuits orbit, only the Same has mastery over this motion, for it alone is whole (36c-d). The inner circuit of Other is split into seven smaller circles unequal in size. The demiurge orders them to go in contrary directions. Then he orders three to move in the same speed, while the other four move in different speeds which share a common ratio (36d). These are the paths of the heavenly spheres, which express in their motion the function of thought and opinion discussed above. 77 McClain (1984), 60. 78 Kalkavage (2001), 151.

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these things stands up firmly and patiently against chance.”79 This mode, along with the Phrygian, are the only two modes allowed in the just city.80 In the context of the Timaeus, the warlike temperament of the Dorian scale expresses the primordial relation between intellect and necessity.

Since the latter is reluctant to submit to perfect order, the former must force itself upon it, at least at the beginning, waging war against disorder and irrationality.81

The Dorian aspect of the cosmic music implies that the demiurge himself acts, at times, through a thumotic dimension. That is, the most primary intelligent agency, that which constitutes the cosmos, is not purely rational, since it possesses an element of action which in essence works similarly to the θυμός in the human soul. Intellect, in the Timaeus, not only consists in pure reason, but also expresses itself in forceful measures, indicating the presence of a warlike dimension which is rational only to the extent that it carries out intellect’s plans. It should be made clear, however, that while θυμός in the human soul is directed inward, chiefly consisting in subduing and restraining the numerous bodily desires,82 the thumotic aspect of the divine is directed outward, fighting the basic causes of disorder in the cosmos. Though the demiurge, as I claimed earlier, is also related to his creation through eros, he definitely does not possess the bodily desires of mortals. His love for the beautiful, and his spirited disposition against disorder, are immortal incorporeal aspects of the divine, i.e. the intelligent agency creating and sustaining the world.

79 Republic. 399a-b; A similar opinion is portrayed in Aristotle’s Politics, Book VIII, 7: “As for the Dorian, everyone agrees that it is the steadiest and has a more courageous character than any other. Besides, we praise what is in a mean between two extremes, and say that it is what we should pursue. So, since the Dorian has this nature, when compared to the other harmonies, it is evident that Dorian melodies are more suitable for the education of the younger people.” Aristotle, Politics, trans. C. D. C. Reeve, (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1998), 241. 1342b. 80 Republic. 399a. 81 This aspect of ordering the cosmos seems not far from being properly suited for Socrates’ desire to see the beautiful city in war. 19c. 82 70a-b.

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2.2 Force, Persuasion and Necessity

One could object, however, by asking in what sense, then, does intellect persuade necessity? Whereas θυμός most clearly implies the use of force, persuasion contrarily implies rational discourse which lacks coercion. It might seem, accordingly, that the interpretation of the cosmic order as warlike is incompatible with Timaeus’ assertion that intellect persuaded necessity.

In what follows, however, I attempt to demonstrate precisely how these two aspects, the spiritedness of intellect and the persuasion of necessity, are actually compatible.

Up to this point, we have conceptualized necessity as mainly consisting in assistant causes, that is, necessary conditions for the fulfilment of intellect’s plans. In this context, we characterized the assistant causes as those without which a teleological design cannot come into existence. But it is significant to note that, in fact, necessity appears in the Timaeus in three versions, corresponding to three different relations to intellect. The first version is the one we have just studied, namely, the result of intellect’s imposition of unity and purpose. Against this background, the numerous material processes of necessity are assistant, or auxiliary, causes. They contribute to the implementation of ends. The second version of necessity, in contrast, has unity to a lesser degree and lacks purpose. Timaeus names it accordingly the “wandering cause,”83 in the sense of an aimless wandering, with an intelligible structure limited only to the regular conjunction of certain causes with certain effects. That is, the numerous possible patterns of material processes do not accord with any ends of an intelligent cause, and if they happen to be in such agreement, it

83 48a; In the following passage, I interpret ‘wandering’ in agreement with Johansen (2004), which is opposed to the view that Timaeus thus introduces an element of causal indeterminacy into the explanation of the universe. The latter view is suggested by Cornford (1997), 171-172. This view is untenable, since the elements and processes of necessity are the materials out of which the craftsmen makes the cosmos, and as such, they must have determinate properties, in order to be reliable contributory causes. I also disagree with Taylor (1928), 300, that interprets the wandering cause as wandering and aimless merely in the sense of apparent contingency, resulting from our own limited knowledge.

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is only by chance. Therefore, we can think of the material causes of necessity as either assisting in the fulfilment of an end, or as moving and producing effects in random.

Though in both cases order is present, there is an important distinction, in this regard, between teleological order and the mere regularity by which cause and effect appear together.84

Regularity is a property of relations between certain causes and certain effects, which does not determine a specific end or outcome. Teleological order, on the other hand, determines certain kinds of goals as good, and directs things towards it. These two kinds of order correspond to different levels or stages of intelligent design in the Timaeus.

Teleological order is the result of the last stage of intelligent design, which, as previously stated, necessarily relies on the regular conjunction of cause and effect. It is only on the basis of reliable material properties that teleological order can come about. This is, as we have seen, the essence of persuasion,85 consisting in purposeful ordering, according to knowledge of the basic properties of relevant materials. Prior to it, therefore, is the creation of persuasion’s necessary condition, the reliability and regularity of cause and effect in the physical elements. This creation is the first stage of intelligent ordering, and accordingly it faces a primordial chaotic state of disorder, the third version of necessity. In this state, all things

…were in a condition that was without ratio and measure; and when the attempt was made to array the all, at first fire and water and earth and air – although they had certain traces of themselves – were yet altogether disposed as is likely for everything to be whenever god is absent from anything.86

Not only does the primordial cosmos have no purpose, but it also completely lacks the basic conditions for it, i.e. the constant definite properties of the material elements. In order to prepare the ground for the implementation of unity and purpose, therefore, the god must mold and

84 Johansen (2004), 94. 85 Morrow, (1950). Johansen, (2004). 86 53a-b.

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configure the original disorder of the world, so as to create the assistant causes. In order to assess the nature of this primordial ordering, then, we must examine the nature of the third version of necessity, characterized by complete disarray.

Heretofore, within the framework of intellect, the account of creation relied on the ontological division between paradigm and product, i.e. intelligible form and physical imitation of that form. But in the new beginning of the creation story, Timaeus tells us of a third ontological element, which antedates every process of ordering, while also making such a process possible.

This is χώρα, “the mother and receptacle of that which has been born visible and in all ways sensed,”87 serving as the precondition for the whole realm of necessity. It functions as a neutral, shapeless, element in which everything is made.88 As such, it is neither an element nor made of elements, rather it itself, says Timaeus, is shapeless and insensible, “partaking somehow of the intelligible in a most perplexing way and most hard-to-capture.”89

On the one hand, the receptacle always subsists through change, taking upon itself any imaginable shape while always staying its own self behind the sensible. On the other, since it takes

87 51a. 88 Ancient and modern scholarship is divided regarding the answer to the question of the exact nature of the receptacle. There are roughly four views in this debate: (1) The claim that the receptacle is, in some sense, matter. (2) The claim that the receptacle is, in some sense, space. (3) The claim that the receptacle is both. (4) The claim that the receptacle is neither, and thus has some peculiar traits of its own. For a detailed review of the different views see: Dana R. Miller, The Third Kind in Plato’s Timaeus, (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 2003), 19-36.; John Sallis claims that the word χώρα, is untranslatable in ordinary terms, in principle, due to its fluidity and formless nature. “Inasmuch as χώρα has no meaning – at least not in this classical sense – it is intrinsically untranslatable. It is such as to disrupt the very operation of translation, yielding to it perhaps even less than does a proper name, to which it is to this extent akin.” Sallis (1999), 115.; From a different perspective, it is intriguing to note that the function of space as a receptacle for images is replicated, or imitated, by the liver in the human body. The liver is a passive medium of images, playing an important part in the relation between human intellect and human desires. In analogy, perhaps one can say that space is a passive medium of images as well, thus enabling the mediation between intellect and the material causes of necessity. As part of the creation of human beings, the gods also constructed a part of the soul that is “desirous of food and drink and all those things it needs because of the nature of the body.” (70d). This part of the soul, thus, is that part which cares for the simple material necessities of human life. However, it is a “wild beast” (70e), completely unable to understand reason, falling “readily under the spell of images and phantasms.” (71a-b). In order to control it, therefore, intellect projects images and patterns on the liver as in a mirror, for the irrational soul to look at (71b1-7). These images can affect the mood of the irrational soul, and also, communicate to it some sense of truth, that is, an image of truth, through divination (71b-e). 89 51b.

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upon itself all forms, it is “outside of all forms,”90 that is, it is beyond any kind of intelligibility.

Thus, it is, but in a peculiar way, it is beyond being.91 Accordingly, the receptacle is neither sensible, nor intelligible in the simple sense. It is invisible both for the eyes and for the mind. One can only take hold of it through incoherent reasoning, a fact which implies that there is no other option but to resort to mythical imagery.

The extreme versatility of χώρα, says Timaeus, the fact that it can suffer any kind of shape and affection, is not only a cause of epistemological puzzlement, but also a cause of great ontological imbalance. On its own, “she sways irregularly in every direction, she herself is shaken by those kinds and, being moved, in turn shakes them back,”92 that is, the endless affections which

χώρα suffers naturally pull it to and fro, lacking any apparent regularity, except for one principle which separates the dissimilar and conjoins the similar.93 As mentioned, the receptacle in its primordial state lacks structured, intelligible, order, containing only “traces” of the basic elements.

It seems, accordingly, that though χώρα has the capability of separating the dissimilar and similar in preparation for the reception of order, its extreme flexibility defies any notion of clear and distinct boundaries. In order to array the chaotic heap of space, therefore, the divine craftsman must rigidify an element which is essentially evasively fluid. He does so “by means of forms and numbers,”94 endowing reality with distinct boundary, shape, power and properties. This meeting of opposites clearly implies the initial use of nothing other than force. For how else can such an ontological category, essentially defying all definitions and determinations, be wedded with intelligent ordering which necessarily relies on unchanging intelligible structures?

90 50e. 91 Sallis (1999), 113. 92 52e. 93 53a. 94 53b.

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Now, since the demiurge forcefully imposes form and number on primordial necessity, one can suspect that there is a certain correlation, in respect to the levels or stages of creation, between this primal stage of ordering and the construction, by means of musical ratios and circular forms, of the cosmic soul. A possible objection to such a supposition might point out that in the first ordering the craftsman focused on the material elements, whereas in the latter he was dealing with the cosmos’ principle of movement and intelligence. This is supposedly enough to undermine any claim of association between the two phases of creation, since they apparently differ in their realm of action. Despite the obvious differences between creating the elements and constructing the soul, however, I still argue that they both belong to the same phase or level of creation, which entails imposition of number and form by means of force. Both in attempting to order indeterminate space, and when attempting to blend Same and Other to construct the soul, the demiurge faces the recalcitrance of disorder to take upon itself an overarching system of order. This situation necessitates the employment of force and the cultivation of a spirited warlike disposition as a result.

The forceful ordering of the world then subsequently serves as a necessary condition for the final ordering of the cosmos according to purpose, which amounts to “persuasion,” since it no longer requires the use of force.

When we previously went through the creation of the cosmic body, we focused on the way by which the demiurge employed the four elements, regarding the latter as though they were simply awaiting utilization. But now we can undoubtedly see that the demiurge himself ordered these elements as well, in preparation for a final stage of ordering. The basic composition of the elements, therefore, is necessarily prior to their subsequent use in building the universe. Another prominent priority, in this regard, belongs to the soul. One must not forget, that the demiurge

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“constructed soul as prior to the body in both birth and excellence and as its elder,”95 that is, its construction was temporally and is ontologically prior.96 This correlation, I argue, is far from being coincidental. Rather, it designates the primordial stage of ordering the cosmos, which deals with total disorder. On all fronts, it thus must employ force to create the solid ground on which further teleological ordering can take place. Since completely irrational, unordered elements, are naturally uncooperative and intractable, the initial attempt to impose order upon them requires a thumotic, warlike, quality on behalf of the basic cosmic order. And it is only on the foundation of this first level of ordering, that the second can take place by means of forceless persuasion alone.

In conclusion, intellect’s relation to necessity consists in two stages or levels. In the first level, intellect faces raw necessity, a primordial state which predates, or always lies under the surface of,97 the cosmos. At this stage necessity is inherently recalcitrant to order, and thus intellect must engage in a forceful coercion, corresponding to the thumotic character of its soul, in order to implement basic structure. In the second stage, intellect manipulates this already tamed version of necessity, relying on its previously ordered characteristics. Here intellect can unify and give things purpose without the use of force, since at this stage necessity is predisposed towards rational order.

Accordingly, persuasion corresponds only to the latter stage of ordering.

2.3 Force, Persuasion and Music

It is evident, then, that the Dorian scale of the soul gives rise to the basic order of the cosmos, by incorporating a spirited element that carries it out. The Doric warlike temperament marks the mastery of the primordial irrationality of necessity, in a basic stage of ordering, which antedates the final ordering according to intelligent ends. Music, however, does not only play a

95 34c. 96 Temporally and ontologically if one accepts the literal interpretation of the creation story, or only ontologically if one accepts the metaphorical view. 97 Depending on our choice of either a literal or metaphorical interpretation. See note 17.

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warlike role, but is also conducive to the promotion of teleological order in the world. Its continual motion, in the form of the eternal movement of the cosmos, manifests the order of the world as a beautiful and good whole, thus implementing and preserving unity and purpose. As such, the employment of music is also significant for understanding the metaphor of persuasion which, I have argued, concerns only the final ordering of the cosmos in accordance with intelligent ends.

Music in the context of persuasion, i.e. the ordering of the soul and the body without the use of force, is thoroughly discussed in the Republic. It is helpful, therefore, to review briefly the discussion of musical education in that dialogue, in order to further characterize the nature of musical persuasion. In the context of educating the young, Socrates views music as a means of forming the soul, which is portrayed almost as a malleable material in the hands of rhythm and harmony.98 The effects of musical education are described in physical terms,99 but the important result is clearly psychic. Through a good musical upbringing one can acquire the capacity to acknowledge, love and receive into his own soul that which is beautiful.100 This is chiefly the cultivation of an erotic love for beauty in any form, whether it appears in poetry, paintings, buildings, or in the orderly movements of the heavenly bodies.101 It is important to note that this education concerns primarily the acquisition of a habit, rather than a rational capacity.102 That is, a youth correctly brought up through music would love beauty and hate the ugly, even “before he’s able to grasp reasonable speech.”103 Music thus targets the irrational parts of the child’s soul, leading him, without him being aware, “to likeness and friendship as well as accord.”104 As

98 Republic. 401d: “Isn’t this why rearing in music is most sovereign? Because rhythm and harmony most of all insinuate themselves into the inmost part of the soul and most vigorously lay hold of it in bringing grace with them.” 99 Francesco Pelosi, Plato on Music, Soul and the Body, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 20. 100 Republic. 401d-402a. 101 Gabriel Richardson Lear, “Plato on Learning to Love Beauty,” in The Blackwell Guide to Plato’s Republic, ed. Gerasimos Santas, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 104-105.; Republic. 401a-d; 529c-530a. 102 Pelosi, 20. 103 Republic. 402a. 104 Ibid. 401d.

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Glaucon says of this education, music “educated the guardians through habits, transmitting by harmony a certain harmoniousness, not knowledge, and by rhythm a certain rhythmicalness.”105

Music, therefore, is a powerful craft which orders and harmonizes the irrational elements of a human soul, if conducted properly.

Though the Dorian aspect of music vanquishes primordial irrationality by force, there still remains the act of harmonizing different elements into one whole with a determinate purpose. For the latter task, force is inadequate. In order to overcome irrationality in the sense of aimlessness, one must order preexisting intelligible elements with beautiful and good proportions. On the basis of the basic order established by force, musical persuasion endows the processes of necessity with unified structure and aim. Just as in the human soul, where the right music can instill the love of beauty in its audience who would otherwise randomly pursue their desires, also in the cosmic sphere, music leads its recipient to the midst of a beautiful order which accords with the intelligible, saving it from unmusical movement.106 It is significant to point out, however, that in the education of human beings music is directed inward, to the depths of the soul, while in the musical ordering of the cosmos, it is directed outward, to the cosmos as a whole.

In sum, the order of intellect which governs the structure of the cosmic body and soul emphasizes the aspiration for establishing a beautifully ordered whole, while confronting problems which require determination and compromise, and taking into account two basic kinds of disorder.

Since there are two kinds of irrationality in the Timaean universe, therefore, music accordingly has two levels of order implementation. These two modes of ordering irrationality, by force and by persuasion, both inhere in the cosmic music, each corresponding to a different ontological level of disorder.

105 Ibid. 522a. 106 30a. πλημμελῶς – out of tune.

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2.4 Order and the Human Being

At this stage, it is important to remind ourselves of the status of Timaeus’ poem. Rather than being an exact scientific treatise, it is a νόμος, a law and a song, meant to inspire within us a beautiful course of living. Thus, Timaeus himself speaks to our deepest passions through a form of music,107 which means to instill beauty and love for beauty in its listeners’ soul. Against this background, he beautifully portrays a certain twofold disposition, one that not only characterizes divine agency, but is also best for confronting the challenges of human life. It consists first of a spirited perseverance which always aims at forceful victory, but in addition also includes the ability to harmonize and unify in a purely rational manner. Timaeus sings in praise of order and music, taking into account the constant presence of disorder, in its two basic forms, and the moral obligation to subdue it with prudence.

Notwithstanding Timaeus’ call for a musical life of order, one must not forget that the analogy between the cosmic and the human sphere is far from perfect. We have already noted that the shape of the universe, although described in relation to the human body, corresponds only to the human head. Furthermore, Timaeus himself unambiguously states that human nature, from its beginnings, is corrupt. First of all, although the human soul is composed of the same ingredients as the world soul, it is not blended to the same extent of purity.108 But even more so, the embodiment of human souls by necessity, is the main cause of the difference between the world soul and the human soul, since “soul first becomes unintelligent whenever she’s bound within a mortal body.”109 When the lesser gods put the soul in a human body, the bodily processes of sensation and nutrition expose the circular movements of the soul to linear motions which disturb

107 In the broad sense, of course, of the “art of the Muses”. 108 41d-e. 109 44b.

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their regular course. These rectilinear motions forcibly move the body in six different directions, left and right, up and down, forwards and backwards, “in whatever disorderly way it might happen to progress, and irrationally.”110 The interplay between rationality and irrationality is depicted, therefore, in terms of an interaction between circular and linear motions.111 In particular, as a result of these contrary movements, the circle of the Same stops in its tracks completely, while the circle of the Other is twisted and confounded into moving in all directions, without any rational order.112

Timaeus uses the image of a “prodigious river,”113 in order to illustrate the impact of the forceful movements of the body on the soul, in the framework of which the harmonious circular movements of reason lose their smooth sequence under the impact of a linear current. This, according to

Timaeus, is the cause of “the greatest disease,”114 i.e. ignorance or stupidity.115

The possibility of living according to the rational order, then, depends on the extent to which bodily movements disturb the circuits of the soul. Despite the bodily condition which besets them, human beings can still partake in thought and reason. When the linear movements of the body decrease to a certain point, the orbits of the soul can function so as to endow the human soul with true thoughtfulness.116 This ideal state of being human necessarily depends on two aspects of ordering, which analogically correspond to the two aspects of the cosmic music in Timaeus’ song.

The first aspect is spirit, θυμός, as it is manifested in human beings, i.e. a psychic element which aims at mastery and victory in every sort of undertaking, chiefly expressed in anger, ambition for success and love of power.117 It is mentioned as a human psychological power in the

110 43b. 111 Thomas Kjeller Johansen, “Body, Soul and Tripartition in Plato’s Timaeus”, in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XIX, ed. David Sedley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 94. 112 43c-e. 113 43a. 114 44b. 115 88b. ἀμαθία. 116 44b. 117 Taylor (1928), 502.; Cornford (1997), 284.

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Timaeus when the reader encounters the human body and its binding necessity.118 According to

Timaeus, it can “hearken to reason and, making common cause with it, forcibly keep down the class of desires, whenever they might in no way wish to give willing obedience to the command and word from the citadel.”119 On its own, intellect can master the passions only with great difficulty. Although the mind can project images on the liver in an attempt to communicate restraint, these are not always adhered to, on account of various pleasures and pains which easily seduce the desires. Accordingly, in order to ensure the existence of proper foundations for fully implementing rational order in the human soul, intellect requires the alliance of θυμός, which, although itself not reasonable, can partake to some degree in reason through obedience to its orders. By forcefully mastering the desires according to reason’s command, with its characteristic courageousness and warlike temperament it prepares the ground for a further harmonization of the human soul by intellect, allowing the desires to be susceptible to education.

The second aspect of ordering, building on the taming of lawless desires by θυμός, involves correct education, which, says Timaeus, assists humans in becoming “perfectly sound and healthy,”120 that is, thoughtful as a result of proper movement of the soul’s circuits. Human beings must be educated in a certain way, in order to allow their circuits of rational thought to orbit perfectly. It seems that such an education should ensure two necessary conditions of rational thought. First, it should habituate the body in such a way that moderates the impact of the linear motions on the circuits of the soul (or even habituate the body to harmonize these motions with its

118 42b, 69c-d. 119 70a-b; The spirited part of the soul sits in the heart, between the seat of the mind, the head, and the rest of the body with its numerous desires (70a-b). This symbolizes its important function as mediating between intellect and desire. But even the heart’s physiological function, in itself, serves the role of spirit. Since the heart is “the junction of the veins and wellspring of the blood that vigorously sweeps around through all the limbs,” (70b) whenever reason chooses to call upon its service, it has access via the vessels to every area of the body, thus exhorting and threatening every possible sense-faculty. 120 44b.

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circular motions). And second, it should strengthen and reinforce the movements of its two circuits of thought (Same and Other).

Although the Timaeus does not discuss education in depth, it does supply certain clues regarding the nature of the proper education we are looking for. When discussing the main cause of creating the eyes, in terms of the benefit vision brings to human beings, Timaeus emphasizes their redeeming effects. Vision gives human beings the ability to deduce the notion of time and number from the constant movements of the heavenly bodies. These concepts, in turn, allow one to make a leap from sensible vision to noetic vision, that is, to the study of the intelligible structure of the cosmos.121 In this regard, Timaeus states that

…by observing the circuits of intellect in heaven, we might use them for the orbits of the thinking within us, which are akin to those, the disturbed to the undisturbed; and, by having thoroughly learned them and partaken of the natural correctness in their calculations, thus imitating the utterly unwandering circuits of the god, we might stabilize the wander-stricken circuits in ourselves.122

That is to say, one way in which human beings can remedy their inferior condition, caused by exposure to linear irrational bodily movements, is to study closely the eternal movement of the circuits of the world soul. A thorough understanding of these movements, it seems, positively affects the inner workings of the human soul. When one partakes, with his own individual intellect, in the intelligible motion of the world soul through understanding, one in a sense imitates this movement. That is, the act of understanding the movements of the world soul entails the renewal of similar elements in the soul of the one who understands. This, according to Timaeus, stabilizes and reinforces the circular movements of the soul against the disturbing linear motions of the body.

Already in the case of the world soul, the basic principle behind the possibility of cognition was

121 It is important to mention in this context that in the Republic, 529c-e, Socrates speaks of the visible heavens as diagrams in aid of those wishing to learn the intelligible eternal movements. 122 47b-c.

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that like is known by like. Here as well, the same principle is at play, not only allowing cognition, but also endowing human beings with well-being. The act of truly knowing an eternal structure, which one shares to some degree with the intelligible cosmic order, leads to strengthening this structure within oneself.123

It is not enough, however, to only reinforce the circular motions of the mind. As mentioned above, one must also tend to the linear motions of the mortal soul, in an attempt to somehow harmonize them with the orbits of intellect, or at least moderate their negative effects. Evidently aware of this fact, Timaeus also discusses, in addition to the benefits of vision, the beneficial effects of sound and hearing on the irrational elements of the human soul. Both vision and sound, when directed to the cosmic order, lead the human soul to an inner harmony which corresponds to the harmony of the cosmic music.124 In this respect, the art of the Muses, encompassing both poetic speech and music, contributes to the same end as does vision, i.e. “attunement,”125 through a capacity to communicate order also to the sensible parts of the soul. Music, in particular, is “an ally to the circuit of the soul within us once it’s become untuned, for the purpose of bringing the soul into arrangement and concord with herself.”126 Up to this point, the cosmic music of the

Timaeus was strictly intelligible, mathematical and insensible. In this context, however, Timaeus introduces us to the fact that such music can also manifest itself in sound, by differentiating between two kinds of sensible music. One which serves the corrupt purpose of irrational pleasure, and another conducive to good education, a music subordinated to the order of intellect.127

123 47c; 90d: “making the part that understands similar to that which is understood.” 124 In the Republic, 530d, Socrates says that “as the eyes are fixed on astronomy, so the ears are fixed on harmonic movement, and these two kinds of knowledge are in a way akin.” Sensible motion, which is only a pattern or diagram for the sake of learning the true intelligible movements, presents itself in more than one form (529c-530d). 125 47d. ἁρμονία. 126 47d-e. 127 47d.

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In order to fully understand the meaning of music’s subordination to intellect, it is useful to consider what Socrates says about the proper study of harmonics in the Republic. The wrong students of music, the Pythagoreans being a prime example, “put ears before the intelligence,”128 and “seek the numbers in these heard accords and don’t rise to problems, to the consideration of which numbers are concordant and which not, and why in each case.”129 That is, whereas the

Pythagoreans established sensible concordance as their main object of mathematical study, and thus regarded sensible pleasure as primary, the proper understanding of music should stress the intelligible concordance which enables sensible harmonies to exist in the first place.130 From the latter perspective, sensible music is a mere instantiation of higher intelligible principles of concordant proportions, and therefore, it is intelligible standards which determine the extent to which music is good, not the sensible pleasure it arouses. Once again, it seems, by favoring such music for the purpose of education, Timaeus stresses the centrality of knowledge of the eternal intelligible structure of the cosmos.

Nevertheless, the fact that Timaeus speaks here of sensible music clearly implies that it not only targets the rational elements of the human soul, but rather aims as well at its irrational parts.131

The sounds of this music are sensuous realizations of the intelligible concords of the divine attunement in the world soul.132 Much like the habituation of children for the love of beauty in the

128 Republic. 531b. 129 Ibid. 531c. 130 Myles F. Burnyeat, “Plato On Why Mathematics is Good for the Soul,” in Mathematics and Necessity: Essays in the History of Philosophy, ed. Timothy Smiley (London: British Academy, 2000), 47. 131 Andrew Barker has similarly argued that the benefits of intelligent music for the listener appear to arise in the presence of its sensible form, in the act of listening itself, not only in the detached contemplation of mathematical principles. This leads him to offer an account of the bodily mechanism responsible for this. He argues that the lower part of the soul, the liver, experiences music in terms of images, and these are received and appreciated intelligently by the rational mind, through a cyclic process akin to divination which interprets images and dreams. The intelligent soul, however, interprets the images on the liver by means of its framework provided by knowledge of the cosmic music. Andrew Barker, “Timaeus on Music and the Liver,” in Reason and Necessity: Essays on Plato’s Timaeus, ed. M. R. Wright (London: Gerald Duckworth, 2000), 85-99. 132 Burnyeat (2000), 53.

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Republic, such music can habituate the irrational elements of the soul, in order to support certain psychic motions which are beneficial for intellective activity. In other words, it can remedy the malaise of bodily existence, bringing the irrational parts of the soul to their best arrangement, by moderating the severity of linear bodily motions which do not support the circular motions of intellect. By expressing the “divine concord born within mortal coursings,”133 its aim is to educate human desires to take pleasure only in beautiful orders, so that the bodily motions will eventually support the circularity of the soul. The proper education of the soul, therefore, consists in communicating the eternal rational order of the cosmos both in intelligible and sensible terms, to the rational and irrational parts of the human soul.

Both of the benefits of vision and hearing Timaeus speaks of fall under a single unitary

Platonic science of concordance and attunement. Within the framework of the Timaeus, relations of harmony do not exist between sounds alone. On the contrary, as shown above, the concordance between sounds is governed by an intelligible principle, the same which determines the sensible being of the visible order in the heavens. From the beginning of Timaeus’ story of creation, the principle governing the processes of making and ordering is unity or concord in terms of mathematical proportions. Not only is it present in music, or only in the physical order of the cosmos, but also in the psychic structure of a virtuous human being, or in the ideal social order.

Concord and attunement, therefore, manifest themselves in many levels of being and in many different media.134 As such, they are accessible not only by intellect, but also by the irrational elements of the human soul, which are an inseparable part of human life and reality, having the potential capacity to respond to order and beauty. This is precisely the sense in which Socrates, before Timaeus’ speech, says he is affected by the beautiful regime. The objects of Socrates’

133 80b. 134 Burnyeat (2000), 55.

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desires, the beautiful animals, are beautiful orders, which he longs to see in action, in all of their forms. With his intellect he seeks to grasp these eternal orders, but simultaneously, he also desires to take pleasure in their beauty. Thus he desires to listen to Timaeus’ song, in order to be affected by the beauty of the cosmic music, which provides “good cheer for the thoughtful.”135

It remains, however, for us to determine in greater detail the relations between the two main aspects of the science of the cosmic order, i.e. intelligibility and sensibility, in the context of true education. From the above it is evident that the primary knowledge of order is a science of intelligible entities, which we can accordingly denote as “dialectic,”136 seeking to discover the eternal structure of the universe so as to use it as a model for ordering the human soul. Part of this process, we learned, involves some sort of communication in sensible form to sensuous psychic elements. The cultivation of human intellect must be accompanied by a cultivation of the sensible and irrational aspects of the human soul, in order to moderate their linear movements, and to ultimately make them supportive of the circular movement of the rational mind. Now, while it is clear how reason can relate to the rational order, the process through which the sensuous, irrational, aspects of human beings relate to it is much more vague. Here we encounter the question of the relation between dialectic and the irrational faculties of the soul in the harmonious human life.

135 80b. 136 It is significant, in this regard, that Timaeus speaks of our soul as though it is a musical instrument which requires tuning from time to time. Similar imagery, speaking of the soul in musical terms, is used in the Republic as well (For example, 410d-412a, 591d). In imitating the cosmic order, the human being strives to play the cosmic scale as perfectly as he can within the circuits of his own soul. To play the cosmic scale within is to order the soul according to the same principles of attunement which govern the cosmos. Intriguingly, in accordance with this musical theme, Socrates, in the Republic, speaks of a song that dialectic performs (532a). Socrates’ exact word is nomos, which, as discussed above, can also mean ‘law’. This song, he says, “is in the realm of the intelligible, but it is imitated by the power of sight.” (532a). Through argument and discussion, which leave behind the aid of the senses, dialectic brings to presence the intelligible song, or law, which the visible realm imitates, the primary principle of the cosmic order. In this sense, one could metaphorically say that dialectic is like playing a discursive musical instrument, whose music aims at finding and reenacting the cosmic scale. It is an art that discovers the eternal order of the cosmos, thus, in accordance with Timaeus’ words, assimilating the circles of human intellect to the circuits of the universe. Another striking reference to the cosmological framework of the Timaeus, of course, is to “the craftsman of heaven.” (530a).

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How, and to what extent, is dialectic, qua pure science of intelligible forms, reflected in sensible education so as to enable human desires to support and take pleasure in the cosmic order?

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3. Dialectic in the Philebus

An unequivocal answer to the above question is given, I propose, in the Philebus. In that

dialogue, Socrates speaks of a certain dialectical art,1 a gift from the gods,2 which holds the key to

settling any kind of baffling inquiry. In the following section, I will argue that this form of dialectic

is much more than an intellectual or scientific method. It is a holistic way of life, encompassing

both contemplation and action, and having the harmonious ordering of the soul and the world as

its main goal. Against this background, it will thus turn out that the education, or ordering, of the

irrational elements in the human soul is integral to dialectic itself.

Much has been written about the Philebus, including both its portrayal of dialectics, and

the central place the irrational elements of the soul, in particular pleasures, have within its vision

of the good life. Naturally, therefore, many issues in the dialogue are subject to heated debates

about, inter alia, the proper interpretation of dialectic. Most scholars identify dialectic as a kind of

method, and differ on its specific function. Some construe it as a method of ontological division,3

while others, emphasizing the presence of Pythagorean concepts in the dialogue, understand

1 In what follows, I use the word “dialectic” to denote what Socrates introduces as the gift from Prometheus, understood as a practice concerning primary principles. Although Socrates does not explicitly call this art “dialectic,” he does say that through it “the separation has been made between our talking with one another dialectically and eristically.” Philebus, 17a. Moreover, the inquiry into primary principles is commonly referred to in Plato’s writings as dialectic. For instance, in the Republic, the analogy of the divided line states that dialectic makes “the hypotheses not beginnings but really hypotheses – that is, stepping stones and springboards – in order to reach what is free from hypothesis at the beginning of the whole.” Republic, 511b. It is quite reasonable, therefore, to identify the gift of Prometheus as dialectic. However, I do not necessarily identify dialectic with collection and division, as some commentators have previously done, based on other dialogues, mainly the Sophist and the Statesman. In any case, it is important to emphasize that for our current study this is only a terminological issue, and thus my arguments stand regardless. 2 Plato, The Tragedy and Comedy of Life: Plato’s Philebus, trans. with commentary Seth Benardete, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). 16c. 3 E. Benitez, Forms in Plato’s Philebus, (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1990); R. Hackforth, Plato’s Examination of Pleasure: A Translation of the Philebus with Introduction and Commentary, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954); C. Hampton, Pleasure, Knowledge and Being, An Analysis of Plato’s Philebus (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990); C. Meinwald, “Prometheus’ Bounds: Peras and Apeiron in Plato’s Philebus,” Method in Ancient Philosophy, ed. J. Gentzler (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 165-180; K. Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).

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dialectic as mainly a mathematical method of classification.4 Yet another interpretive attitude interprets the gift of Prometheus mainly as providing principles for the correct blending of mixtures, which basically explain the unity found in plurality.5 While I agree that dialectic’s main concern is indeed unity, I interpret it in a broader sense. In response to all of these views, I argue that dialectic in the Philebus is far from being a mere scientific tool or method. If the gift of

Prometheus is in fact a method, it is not such in the modern sense of the word, but in the original sense of the Greek word μέθοδος, a ‘following after,’ or ‘pursuit,’ with emphasis on ὁδός, a way, after the good. It is a mode of knowing, with respect to the beautiful order of the cosmos, which answers Timaeus’ edifying call for a harmonious life.

3.1 The Setting of the Philebus

The Philebus begins in the middle of an ongoing debate. Socrates, the champion of thought and reason, has apparently contested with Philebus the matter of the character of the best human life. The latter has obstinately claimed that pleasure is the highest good, whereas Socrates insists that thought is the highest.6 But this is merely a recapitulation of an event which the reader himself has not witnessed. For the written dialogue begins with Socrates’ entreaty of Protarchus, a young follower of Philebus, to take over the argument. In response, Protarchus says that “to accept is a necessity, for the beautiful Philebus has given up on us and failed to go the distance.”7 It seems that Philebus, after whom the dialogue is named, has grown tired of the ensuing argument, and

4 J. Gosling, Philebus, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975); J. R. Trevaskis, “Classification in the Philebus,” Phronesis 5, (1960): 39-44.; C. Meinwald, “Plato’s Pythagoreanism,” Ancient Philosophy 22, 1, (2002): 87-101. Meinwald does emphasize the Pythagorean element of Prometheus’ gift, but also maintains that it consists in some form of division and collection.; 5 Verity Harte, Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002); Donald Davidson, Plato’s Philebus, (New York: Routledge, 1990); Christine J. Thomas, “Plato’s Prometheanism,” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 31, ed. David Sedley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 203-231. 6 11b-c. 7 11d. Seth Benardete points out that this sentence is a pun, playing on the similarity of the Greek words ἀπειρηκέναι (to have given up) and ἄπειρον (the unlimited). Benardete (2009), 2.

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indeed, his voice is rarely heard throughout the following lengthy and complicated discussion. The silence of Philebus is stressed, therefore, by the dialogue’s title. Although this title is never mentioned in the known writings of Plato’s contemporaries, there isn’t an apparent reason to doubt its authenticity, and given the limited appearances of Philebus in the dialogue, it is far from obvious that it should be named after him. Under these circumstances, it seems that only Plato could have deliberately chosen this title.8

Before we proceed to the main issue at hand, therefore, it is important to give due attention to Philebus’ withdrawal from the discussion, and to his almost complete silence throughout it.

Hans Georg Gadamer has suggested that through his silence, Philebus demonstrates the impossibility of justifying absolute hedonism. In the words of Gadamer, “that one should argue for this principle in rational statement and answer would seem to be self-contradictory, and hence it is entirely consistent that those who do advocate it do indeed resist giving justification of their position in this way.”9 That is, justification, in itself, presupposes rationality. Since the absolute hedonist contends that pleasure is superior to reason, he cannot use rational means to justify his position. Philebus, in principle, abstains from rational justifications, since it is the life of pleasure and pleasure alone, which he holds as the highest good. In lieu of rational arguments, Philebus only dogmatically declares that he will always hold on to his personal opinion,10 before retiring from the discussion almost completely. The few remaining appearances of Philebus only serve to demonstrate his consistent intransigence.11

8 Jacob Klein, “About Plato’s Philebus,” Interpretation, 2, 1972, 157-182. 9 Hans Georg Gadamer, The Idea of the Good in Platonic- Aristotelian Philosophy, trans. P. Christopher Smith (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), 105. 10 12a. 11 18a; 18d-e; 22c; 27e-28b.

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Protarchus, on the other hand, is gradually introduced, one could even say initiated, step by step into the process of justification. He says: “Once you handed the speech over to us, Philebus, you would no longer have any authority over my agreement with Socrates, or maybe the contrary.”12 From the start, though perhaps unknowingly at first, Protarchus enters a realm where the great lures of hedonism no longer have absolute power. By choosing to actively carry out arguments, he surrenders the power to decide upon the best way of life to logos, i.e. to reason. But, it is important to preemptively mention, that early in the dialogue Socrates also concedes that the life of pure reason alone, “in possession of thought, mind, knowledge, and an entire memory of everything, but without any share in pleasure, either great or small, any more than in pain,”13 is not a choice-worthy life. That is, a life which consists only in the activities of the faculties of the mind, excellent as those may be, lacking both pleasure and pain, is not the best life for human beings, any more than the life of total hedonism. Neither mind nor pleasure are in themselves complete or self-sufficient. Accordingly, Protarchus goes as far as determining that no one would willingly choose either.14 One suspects that Socrates, cleverly adjusting his mode of speech to a discussion with youths, had this fact in mind all along, but ironically kept it to himself, in order to let the discussion itself reveal this self-evident truth of the human condition. Human life can neither relinquish its desires, nor eliminate its faculties of reason, if it is to continue being human.15 It is not long before the discussion leads to the conclusion that the only life one can choose is a mixture of both thought and pleasure.16 The most important issue in the dialogue, therefore, is not the

12 12a. 13 21d-e. 14 21e. 15 22a-b; 62a-d; Hans Georg Gadamer, Plato’s Dialectical Ethics: Phenomenological Interpretations Relating to the Philebus, trans. Robert M. Wallace (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991), 128-129. 16 Which, as Protarchus says, everyone chooses without exception. 22a.

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quarrel between two mutually incompatible ways of life, but the question of the good human life amidst a necessary duality of psychic elements.

Once this duality is agreed upon, Socrates outlines the task which will take up most of the remaining dialogue; to determine which aspect has priority over the other as the main cause of a good human life which consists in both.17 The attempt to settle this dispute takes numerous, at times peculiar, forms.18 Following a dense and tortuous discourse, the interlocutors ultimately determine that the central element which governs human life is neither thought nor pleasure.

According to Socrates, concerning every blend or mixture, “if it does not get measure and the commensurate nature, destroys of necessity the things being blended and first itself.”19 That is, the thing which most determines the character of a mixture is measure. And since Socrates associates measure with true beauty and virtue,20 it turns out that we can find the good of human life in three things: beauty, commensuration, and truth.21 All of these three characteristics, together constituting true measure, are responsible for the goodness of a mixture. Therefore, they are naturally the cause of good in the blending of elements which is human life. Needless to say, we find the same cause of good in the Timaeus.22 In both dialogues, the good results from an order which is valuable in virtue of measure and commensuration.

This, I will argue, is the most important aspect of the Promethean art, dialectic, and for this reason it is much more than a mere scientific tool of eidetic inquiry. Rather, it has the power to

17 22d. 18 This is part of the famous problem of the transitions in the Philebus, which has caused some, in the past, to doubt the actual unity of the dialogue. For instance, Paul Shorey, What Plato Said (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1933); Others, on the other hand, such as Klein (1972); Gosling (1975); Benardete (2009); Davidson (1990), read the dialogue as a unified whole, and interpret it accordingly. The latter view has recently become the dominant one in the scholarship. 19 64d-e. 20 64e. 21 65a. κάλλει καὶ συμμετρίᾳ καὶ ἀληθείᾳ. 22 Dominic O’Meara, “The Beauty of the World in Plato’s Timaeus,” Schole: A Journal of the Center for Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition, 8, 1 (2014): 24-33.

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constitute precisely that which is required for a good life, measure. In what follows, I will inquire into the nature of dialectic in the Philebus, with the aim of grasping how it orders not only the intelligible, but also the sensible and irrational aspects of the human soul. Upon resolving this issue, we will hopefully reach an answer to the problem of order and irrationality in the human soul that troubled us in the Timaeus.

3.2 The Gift of Prometheus

Socrates, at a quite early stage of the dialogue, suggests that the argument take a new path, in order to rescue it from total confusion.23 As he states, “everything connected with and dependent on art was always discovered through it and has become manifest.”24 In other words, all arts are revealed by the kind of discourse which Socrates is about to introduce. This is the path of dialectic, which essentially tries to capture the primary principles constituting Being and Becoming in general. And the structure which dialectic pursues is, ultimately, an ontological prerequisite for the appearance of anything which relies on order.

As mentioned above, much has been written in an attempt to interpret the gift of

Prometheus, and most issues are still subject to deep controversy. Many scholarly treatments, however, while focusing on the particular philosophical method of inquiry which Socrates proposes, have downplayed the broader implications of his suggestion for the constitution of a complete way of life.25 Such interpretations paint only a partial picture of the whole meaning of

Socrates’ proposal. Put differently, our modern notion of method does not allow us to fully

23 Socrates remarkably says, in this context, that there is not “nor would there be, a more beautiful way than the one of which I am always a lover, although it has often before now escaped me and left me deserted, pathless, and perplexed” (16b). Previous commentaries tend to downplay this assertion. But Socrates, in these words, emphasizes his erotic disposition towards the way which he is about to introduce. Not only does this imply his dedication to dialectic, but it foreshadows that dialectic concerns also sensuous and desirous aspects of the soul. 24 16c. 25 A few exceptions are Gadamer (1991); Klein (1972) Benardete (2009); and James Wood, “Politics and Dialogue in the Philebus,” Interpretation 34, 2 (2007):109-128.

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comprehend the existential implications of Socrates’ suggestion. We must accordingly reexamine dialectic, not only as a theoretical discipline, but also as a practice, in search for its ethical reverberations in human life more generally. This view of dialectic is similar in some respects to the conception of philosophy as a way of life, governed by the ideal of becoming like god.26 The ideal of ὁμοίωσις θεῷ obviously entails the conception of philosophy as being not a mere method or art, but a way of life. In this framework, dialectic is a practice which aspires to assimilate human life to the divine order of the cosmos, as much as possible.

Bearing these notions in mind, we are now ready to begin our examination of dialectic, which Socrates introduces as follows:

It’s a gift of the gods to human beings, as it appears to me; it was thrown by the gods from somewhere or other along with some most brilliant fire through some Prometheus; and the ancients, being superior to us and dwelling nearer to the gods, passed it on as a report, ‘whatever are the things that are said to be, they are out of one and many, and they have in themselves an innate limit and unlimitedness.’ It intimates, then, that we must, since these things have been arranged in this kind of order, always set down on each occasion a single look about anything and go on to search for it – and since it is in it, we’ll find it they say – and then if we get it, we must examine two after one, whether they are in some way or other, and if not, three or some different number, and once more, likewise, [we must examine] each of those ones, until one sees how many the original one also is, and not just that it is one and many and unlimited; and we must not apply the look of the unlimited to the manifold before one catches sight of its entire number between the unlimited and the one, and then at that time dismiss them all and let each and every one of them to go to the unlimited. Now the gods passed it on to us, as I said, that it was in this way that we were to examine and learn and teach one another; but human beings nowadays – those who are wise –

26 For the general approach see: Julia Annas, Platonic Ethics, Old and New (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999), 52-71; David Sedley, “The Ideal of Godlikeness,” Plato 2: Ethics, Politics, Religion, and the Soul, ed. Gail Fine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 309-328; More particularly, in accordance with the following main argument, commentators on the Philebus have shown that a conception of godlike rational agency, implying much more than fleeing the sensible world, can be found in the dialogue: D. Russel, “Virtue as “Likeness to God” in Plato and Seneca,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, 42, 3 (2004): 241-260; John M. Armstrong, “After the Ascent: Plato on Becoming Like God,” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XXVI, ed. David Sedley, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 171-184; C. Thomas, (2006); Both Thomas and Armstrong advocate an interpretation which emphasizes that becoming like god entails action which extends beyond the ordering of one’s soul to concern for the order of human affairs, in the form of an active effort to improve the world. Another article dealing with this issue in relation to the Philebus, but from a different angle is: Suzanne Obdrzalek, “Next to Godliness: Pleasure and Assimilation in God in the Philebus,” Apeiron 45 (2012): 1-31. Obdrzalek tries to explain the consistency of living a life of pleasure with a life of assimilation to god, by emphasizing that pleasure is a necessary mark of human imperfection, which the gods themselves obviously lack. She does not pay due attention, however, to the cosmological function of intellect as general cause of unity in the world, and overlooks the fact that it is ultimately this intellect, which is identified with the divine.

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make one and many haphazardly and any which way, faster and shorter than they ought to, and immediately after the one they make things unlimited, but the middle things escape them. It is by the middle things that the separation has been made between our talking with one another dialectically and eristically.27

The first thing which strikes us is that Socrates denotes his path as a gift from the gods, in particular as a gift from Prometheus. Hesiod tells us that Prometheus gave humankind the gift of fire, and his version of the story does not make it clear whether the gift was indeed beneficial.28 In

Aeschylus’s play Prometheus Bound, however, the god brought human beings not only fire, but also the gift of intelligence, in order to relieve their suffering.29 Prometheus, in Aeschylus’ version, is responsible for number, language, and all the arts. In the Philebus, similarly, Socrates claims to offer divine knowledge, and as in Aeschylus’ play, not one which merely ensures the survival of man, but one which gives rise to possibilities which extend beyond the mortal sphere. In other words, knowledge which transcends the realm of necessity, by endowing human beings the ability to order their world in light of the divine.

3.3 Ontology

A phrase, which according to Socrates has been passed down to us by the ancients, epitomizes the nature of this order, determining that “whatever are the things that are said to be, they are out of one and many, and they have in themselves an innate limit and unlimitedness.”30

This sentence indicates two aspects of beings in general. First, that things are both one and many, i.e. they simultaneously constitute a unity and a plurality; and second, that they possess both limit and unlimitedness, namely, definite structure and indeterminacy. Although this ontological claim

27 16c-17a. 28 Hesiod, Theogony, Works and Days, Testimonia, ed. & trans. Glenn W. Most (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 43-53. [507-616]. 29 Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, trans. David Grene, in Greek Tragedies I, ed. David Grene and Richmond Lattimore (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2013). In both Aeschylus’ and Hesiod’s story, Zeus punishes Prometheus for bringing down from the heavens knowledge which is divine, and for his deceitful actions. However, no mention of punishment is made in the Philebus. 30 16c.

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remains obscure, it nevertheless determines the structure of the path he proposes. Therefore, it is crucial to fully understand the ontological presuppositions of Socrates’ discourse, before we proceed to examine its implications for praxis.

In fact, Socrates offers dialectic as a way out of a confusion which arises in a discussion of the problem of the one and the many. The dialogue itself, therefore, demonstrates that dialectic arises from a certain confounding characteristic of reality itself. The discourse between Protarchus and Socrates reveals, early on, that the objects of inquiry are both one and many. That is, although each thing is one whole, it is constituted out of many parts. This finding concerns, at first, only pleasure and thought, which are both complex unities. There are “many unlike pleasures and many different sciences,”31 which is to say that pleasure comes in many different forms as does knowledge. But this ontological characteristic is much broader in its scope. Pleasure and knowledge are merely instances of it.

“That the many are one and the one many is an amazing utterance, and it’s easy to take a stand on either side against anyone who posits either one of them,”32 says Socrates. All things can be designated as either one or many. When we consider this fact in the sensible realm, it is easily understood. All sensible objects are subjects of multiple and even opposing properties, for instance, one may say that a person is both tall and short.33 Another example for this are composite wholes, which are both one, in virtue of their being a whole, and many, in virtue of their being comprised of numerous parts.34 Socrates does not give much thought to these cases, claiming that they are mere childish impediments to a real argument. It seems that this is because we can resolve, at least potentially, any argument in the realm of becoming, by means of clarifying the concept

31 14a. 32 14c. 33 14d. 34 14e.

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which unifies the whole we are speaking about. In other words, we can always look towards a higher intelligible principle in order to make sense of the essential structure of sensible things. The truly severe problem of one and many, therefore, reveals itself in the intelligible realm of Being, where it is no longer obvious what higher principle is responsible for unity.

When we attempt to speak of the eternal, imperishable, forms - “human being as one and ox as one and the beautiful as one and the good as one,”35 - as kinds which encompass sub-kinds, their clarity and intelligibility is in serious danger of falling into obscurity. This is due to the fact that the complexity of a kind seems to conflict with, even contradict, the pure notion of eternal unity. A similar puzzle also exists with regard to the relation between forms, both kinds and sub- kinds, and their spatiotemporal instances.36 The conundrum lies in the troubling thought that many physical objects are indeed as such in virtue of one unifying intelligible principle. Both cases share a common basic question: how can a complex thing constitute a unified whole?

This is exactly the problem which dialectic sets out to solve. The key to solving it is in understanding that the structure of a thing as one and many consists in its being a mixture of limit and unlimited. Socrates designates this mixture, in fact, as the third part of a fourfold ontological categorization.37 According to Socrates, we can categorize all things in the cosmos in one of four categories: limit, unlimited, a mixture of both, and the cause of such a mixture. The unlimited constitutes pairs in terms of more and less, such as the hotter or colder,38 without an end or determinant quantity, in principle. In contrast, limit is that which puts “a stop to the things that are contrarily at odds with one another, and by the insertion of number render them commensurate

35 15a. 36 15b. 37 23c-d. 38 24a-b.

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and consonant.”39 That is, things which belong to the genus of limit are ratios of whole numbers,

“the equal and equality, and after the equal the double, and anything that is related as number to number or measure to measure.”40 The combination of limit and unlimited, that is, the imposition of determinate ratios upon an unending sequence, gives rise to mixtures, which constitute the third ontological category.

The mixing of these elements, is in fact generation, i.e. the process of becoming.41 The relations between limit and unlimited, therefore govern all becoming. In a manner which reminds us of the prelude in the Timaeus, however, Socrates points out that necessarily “all the things that come into being come into being on account of some cause.”42 That is to say, the relations between limit and unlimited derive from a primary cause, which ultimately is that which determines the character of becoming and its final product. Again, as in the Timaeus, Socrates defines this cause as “the crafter of all these things,”43 and later denotes it as intellect.44 When the causation of intellect is carried out properly, limit and unlimited generate beautiful things both in human beings and in the world in general. This takes the form of a harmonizing imposition of proportions on a vast range of unlimited and formless movements or matter, resulting, for example, in health,45 music,46 the seasons,47 animal bodies, and the cosmos.48 Certain proportions are involved in every beautiful thing as its primary unifying principle.49 As we saw in the Timaeus,50 certain ratios

39 25e. 40 25a-b. 41 25e. 42 26e. Cf., Timaeus, 28a; 28c. 43 27b. Cf., Timaeus, 28a; 28c-29a. 44 30e. 45 25e. 46 26a; 17b. 47 26b. 48 28d. 49 26b. 50 Timaeus. 31b-36d.

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determine the construction of a beautiful order, with the aim of endowing the universe with unity.

As mentioned above, measure, beauty and truth constitute the goodness of a mixture,51 which are thus a result of a determinate imposition of limit, in the form of proportion, upon the unlimited, in a manner which manifests reason.

3.4 Dialectic as a Path, or Way of Life

Dialectic divides reality according to the intelligible principles underlying it, in order to gain knowledge of their structure. At the same time, it sets out to discover the sources of this structure’s unity. Dialectic, however, does not end with scientific observations of the order of the cosmos. Since human intellect is derivative of the highest intellect,52 which is the cause of every beautiful mixture,53 the discovery of, and partaking in, the unchanging intelligible structure of the cosmos is in fact self-knowledge. This means that as the divine intellect is an efficient cause of unity and harmony in the world, so are we. Human beings, at least potentially, have the ability to create mixtures of beautiful proportion in the world, and to bring forth that which is truly good.

The good in the human sphere chiefly depends, therefore, on our capacity to master the principles which govern intellective causation in general. The good human life lies precisely in the practice of these principles. The gift of Prometheus, therefore, consists in both a theoretical and a practical aspect. On one hand, it endeavors to grasp the eidetic structure and unifying principles of reality.

And on the other, it attempts to imitate the cause of these principles, divine intellect, by aspiring to promote and perfect the implementation of beautiful order in the mixture of human life. In what follows, we will see how the former entails the latter.

51 64e-65a. 52 30a-c. 53 26e-27b.

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Commenting on his own exposition of the gift from Prometheus, Socrates remarks that its manner of employment “is the same thing, moreover, that in fact makes each of us musical.”54

That is to say, the theory of music, which the Philebus treats explicitly only in its sensible form, is significantly similar to philosophic dialectic. An expert in music can “grasp how many numerable intervals there are in respect to the highness and lowness of the sound, and what kinds they are, and the boundaries of the intervals, and how many scales have come to be out of them.”55 That is, the expert knows the number and sorts of different sub-kinds of intervals, which compose the interval as one sole universal kind. But this ability to identify the different elements of music is not enough. In addition the expert also knows what determines the nature of each interval, and the different possibilities combining and relating them, in the form of musical scales. The practice of dialectic, in similar fashion, proceeds to identify the number and sorts of sub-kinds, but then must also grasp that which gives unity to this plurality of sub-kinds, in the form of proportion or measure.

According to Socrates’ characterization of dialectic, one must begin with a single form, and when it has been found, proceed to discover the number of sub-kinds constituting this form.

Socrates thus emphasizes the importance of “middle things,”56 which mediate between the unity of a kind and its plurality. These are the sub-kinds, which enumerate the elements structuring a kind. However, this still only amounts to mere division, an anatomical description of the structure of a kind. Although this process is invaluable for giving essential definitions of things, and thus greater clarity, it does not yet account for the unity of a kind. That is, the mere enumeration of sub- kinds does not explain the reason for their unity. As in music, where one must know the harmonic

54 17b. 55 17c-d. 56 17a.

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principle which unifies all ratios into musical intervals, dialectic too must reveal the principle or cause of unification of its objects in the realm of ontology.

We have seen that the unifying principle of mixtures is measure, according to the dictation of reason. That is, a harmonious unity of compositions is the result of certain proportions, and therefore, for a mixture to be harmonious, its blend must be proportioned according to harmonious ratios. Dialectic, therefore, not only divides and categorizes reality according to essential kinds and sub-kinds, but in fact mainly concerns the source of unity in the world. It aims at mastering the proportions which are responsible for unity.

In this context we can understand in what sense “everything connected with and dependent on art was always discovered through it [the gift of Prometheus] and has become manifest.”57 Any form of ordered science or art relies on unchanging principles of proportion and unity for knowledgeable calculation and manipulation. The utilization of arts, therefore, presupposes a certain notion of unity. However, it is only the full practice of dialectic that reveals these principles in their entirety, i.e. makes them explicit.

Among commentators who agree that division and collection are not enough for explaining unity, and thus do not constitute the whole of dialectic, the exact nature of knowledge of unity is a matter of dispute. Donald Davidson claims that one needs ‘combination,’ in addition to collection and division, in order to yield judgments of value which are necessary for knowing how to choose the good life. That is, combination explains unity, by giving rise to normative judgments.

Combination takes the fruits of collection and division, i.e. clarified kinds and sub-kinds, assigns each its value, and then proceeds to produce good mixtures.58 Davidson is vague, however, when it concerns the exact element responsible for unity. He stresses the role of normative judgments in

57 16c. 58 Davidson (1990), 119-135.

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dialectic, rather than discussing a common principle of unity. Christine J. Thomas, in response, asserts that unity is specifically a result of mathematical proportions. Accordingly, she views the required knowledge as one which focuses on mathematical principles of unity that, in addition to division and collection, are required for complete dialectical knowledge, encompassing not only the structure of things but also their cause of unity. One must aspire to discover these mathematical principles of unity, through a knowledgeable life which encapsulates all of the arts and sciences, including even empirical observations.59

I agree, of course, with both scholars that collection and division are not sufficient to explain unity. However, I propose a different understanding of the kind of knowledge required for explaining unity. It is clear enough that in the Philebus the unifying principle of mixtures is measure, in the sense of correct proportions. However, the meaning of ‘measure’ denotes a certain kind of order, which cannot be necessarily narrowed into quantitative terms. Beautiful proportions can indeed come in the form of numerical ratios, as in science or music,60 but also in other forms, such as health.61 The crux of good measure is not number in itself, but concordance. Once again we see that dialectic, therefore, is a science of order, encompassing all possible manifestations of measure. In the terms of the Timaeus, dialectic seeks knowledge of the cosmic music, which unifies and orders all realms of being in nature.

Now both the Timaeus and the Philebus make clear that human intellect is a particular manifestation of the cosmic intellect, which is the primary source of unity and purpose in the cosmos. As a result, the search for knowledge of the universal forms of beautiful unity is, in fact, self-knowledge, to the extent that our own soul partakes in thought and intellect. And since divine

59 Thomas (2006), 221; Harte (2002) shares a similar view, when emphasizing that structure in the Philebus is mathematical, 209. 60 26a. 61 26b.

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intellect is the cause of beautiful mixtures,62 that is, since it is the primary cause of measured unity, then our own human intellect possesses, at least potentially, the capacity to bring about such mixtures as well. Just as intellect is a cosmic principle ordering the world, so can the human intellect act as a source of unity and harmony. In fact, the imitation of the circuits of intellect, described in the Timaeus,63 amounts exactly to this sort of action. The discovery of ordering principles of unity, then, entails their practice in everyday life. Thus not only does the philosopher’s soul learn to gaze at the eternal patterns of the intelligible heavens, but in addition it attempts to reenact the cosmic music through action in accordance with its harmonious proportions, in a such a way that orders both world and soul.

It is important to make clear, however, that the imitation of the divine principles does not simply consist, as in other scientific crafts, in first recognizing a model, and then proceeding to produce a product. As Gadamer has remarked: “unlike an artisan who is smart at selecting his materials, we do not stand at a distance from the components of our life, our drives and our intelligence. On the contrary, we ourselves are both of these.”64 That is, the contents of our lives are not simply objects which one can easily manipulate. Since we ourselves are these contents, we are both the object of inquiry and the subject conducting it. Therefore, the gift of Prometheus is not simply a method one applies to objects, but it is a complete way of life which cannot be separated from its practice. Just as we cannot separate a performer of music from his performance, thus we also cannot separate the Promethean art from a life of measure. In order to have a good life, a good soul, one must be this cosmic order. Since the good life is a matter of consonant proportions in the soul, the soul itself must bring about this harmony within it. This is far from

62 26e-27b; 28c-e. 63 Timaeus. 47b-c; 90c-d. 64 Gadamer (1986), 110-111.

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easy. It differs greatly from the ordering of objects, since the ordering of the human soul is a reflective act. That is, the ordered soul is both the cause and the result of its own harmony. In our attempt to explain this phenomenon, it is difficult not to fall into a circular argument. I think, however, that the general notion of music, already referred to throughout this study, offers us the key to understanding the nature and uniqueness of the good human life.

If we emphasize the musicality of the cosmic order, as in the Timaeus, then the ordering of the human soul amounts to the act of attunement, in accordance with the cosmic music. This is a process by which the human soul gradually opens itself up to the affections of this music. Being affected by the cosmic music entails not only intellectual understanding, but reverberations in all psychic levels as well. As stated above, however, the ordering does not end with passive affections.

The true ordering of the soul, as an imitation of the divine order, must lead to an active state of independent ordering. That is, the full affection of the soul by the cosmic music leads to a constant reenactment of that music. The human soul truly orders itself and its world when it plays the scale of the cosmic music, that is, maintains a concordant psychological state, and acts so as to implement a similar state in its environment, i.e. the broader social context in which it exists.

3.5 Dialectic and the Irrational

Now, finally, we are ready to answer our guiding question thus far. Recalling our analysis of the human condition portrayed in the Timaeus, we asked: how is it that dialectic, qua pure science of intelligible forms, can be reflected in sensible education so as to enable human desires to take pleasure in the cosmic order?

Dialectic, we learn, concerns itself with principles of unity which pervade human life itself.

It consists first in the clarification of concepts, and the formulation of their unifying principle, but then ultimately with the higher aim of assisting the overarching cosmic order of intellect in

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implementing its principles in physical reality in a more wholesome way. The highest unifying principle is measure, which, I have claimed, means orderliness and proportion in various different aspects. Since dialectic concerns proportions in all realms, it also finds expression in the everyday human world, and thus amongst the desires and pleasures of human life.

The Philebus teaches us that human life as a whole is a mixture with numerous ingredients, which differ in kind. Now, mixtures in general are found throughout all ranges and kinds of being.65 Just as music has an intelligible and a sensible form, so does the cosmic order manifest itself in both intelligible and sensible ways. Since intellect is chiefly a cause of proportion in beautiful mixtures, the full imitation of the divine intellect entails the active attempt at being such a cause of measure and proportion. Accordingly, the proportioning of the mixture of human life is a matter of bringing both thought and pleasure under the influence of the cosmic music. In particular, it implies instilling correct proportion between the rational and the irrational elements of the human soul, which means that ultimately the soul as a whole must be able to play out the music of the cosmos.

Nevertheless, it is significant to note that since human beings live in a world of constant change, effecting order is an unending task. At the end of the dialogue, Protarchus’ refusal to let

Socrates go demonstrates that the inquiry remains incomplete. “What still remains, Socrates, is a small thing, and surely you of all people will not give up before we do and fail to go the distance, and I’ll remind you of the remainder,”66 he says. Even though Socrates and Protarchus have clarified the different constituents of a good human life, and established that correct measure is the ultimate source of goodness and unity, the task of implementing this order in the everyday flux of becoming remains. In fact, I argue, it perpetually awaits completion. For the world, and our soul

65 26b; 64d-e. 66 67b.

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within it, constantly changes and thus is always in need of reordering. Thus, the practice of living with measure always faces new particular challenges. Lastly, in this context we should also recall that the dialogue does not have a straightforward beginning, but starts abruptly in the middle of an ongoing debate. The whole dialogue, it seems, is an act of applying limit to the unlimited, applying proportion to things which seem at first to be at odds with each other, in order to render them concordant and commensurate.67 Life is a mixture of, at times, contrary elements, which depend on measure and proportion for their unity. And the introduction of such concordance into human life is a practice which never ends.

67 25e.

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Conclusion

Throughout this thesis I have made an attempt to examine the extent to which the irrational elements of the human soul can partake in a rational order, guided by the premise that human psychological nature, at least in Plato’s eyes, decisively derives from the broader structure of universal principles while also being separated from that structure because of humanity’s imperfect rationality.

A great deal of this study, accordingly, has delved deep into the complex relations between the two causal forces constituting the Timaean universe, intellect and necessity. As the creation of the cosmos proceeds, the divine craftsman increasingly develops its structure in terms of wholeness, beauty and goodness, conjoining order and disorder, so as to constitute a harmonious whole. The basic order of the cosmos, in Timaeus’ creation story, is a musical scale, which, I have argued, manifests two layers of ordering, corresponding to two ontological levels of relation between intellect and necessity.

Numerous aspects of Timaeus’ speech suggest that the ordering of the cosmos, from its inception, is bound by necessity in such a way that undermines the perfection of the world. The demiurge is not only a poet, but also a father; Other is reluctant to blend with Same; Space exists beyond perception and intelligibility; and the constitutive order of the soul is not composed of equally perfect parts. These details from Timaeus’ story testify to an essential primordial conflict between the opposing forces of intellect and necessity. In the beginning, necessity amounts to a chaotic state of total disorder, completely blind to reason. Intellect’s first attempt to order it, therefore, can only be understood and explained in terms of the utilization of physical force.

On this foundation, however, emerges a second level of ordering. Intellect, having molded necessity by means of forms and mathematical concepts, is able consequently to arrange reality,

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now predisposed to definite and distinct order, in a teleological manner. Since force is unnecessary at this stage, Timaeus names it “persuasion,” in the sense of bringing purpose and unity into a design which has already been made receptive to rational order.

In light of this cosmic system, human beings, though essentially less perfect than the physical cosmos as a whole, can take analogical actions in an attempt to harmonize their own selves. Like the cosmos, the human soul too consists in opposing forces of rationality and irrationality, which are essentially in conflict. In order to basically subdue the bestial desires, accordingly, intellect must use the help of θυμός, a warlike psychological element, i.e. an expression of force within the human psyche, parallel to the thumotic aspect of the cosmic music.

This, however, is only a basic stage of ordering oneself, which leaves the human soul still incomplete with regard to true well-being. It only prepares the desires for a further complementary cultivation of the soul through forceless measures of persuasion, in the form of proper education.

Good education, in the Timaeus, seeks to cultivate the capacity to “tune in” to the cosmic music, so as to bring the soul to a state of attunement and to renew the circular movements of the mind. The key for understanding its nature, accordingly, is in explaining its conduciveness, first to the ability to discover the cosmic order, and then to the capacity to implement it in human life.

Since the governing principle of concordance in the universe can be expressed in various sensible, as well as intelligible forms, such as the heavens, music, or the good state, I argued that the required knowledge, though chiefly dealing with primary intelligible forms, must also somehow relate to the sensible aspects of the soul.

At this point, I associated this knowledge with dialectic, since its objects are the primary intelligible principles of the cosmos. This, however, left us with the challenge of determining the manner and extent to which such dialectic can be reflected in sensible education. In attempting to

79

answer this question, I examined the role of dialectic in the Philebus, with particular focus on its ethical implications for human life as a whole. It was in this framework that I argued that, from a theoretical standpoint, dialectic is mainly concerned with primary principles of unity, which amount to knowledge of measure qua concordance. From a practical standpoint, since human intellect is a manifestation of divine intellect, i.e. the principle cause of such concordance, this knowledge naturally entails active implementation of concordance in all parts of the human soul and its world. Thus, ordering the sensible aspects of the human soul is just another aspect of imitating the role of divine intellect in the universe. In other words, through dialectic, humans can assimilate themselves to the primary cause of order in the cosmos, thus actively establishing and maintaining (endlessly, it seems) both psychological states of concordance and beautiful social and political orders.

Space considerations prevented me from addressing the potential political program such a praxis-oriented view of dialectic might entail. Being an active cause of unity and order in the world naturally implies actions which are political in nature. However, whereas attaining unity and order within the soul seems to be straightforwardly a combination of thumotic force and intellectual pursuits, it is not clear how one should formulate an analogical program in the social and political sphere. Though Plato conveyed the construction of explicit political structures in the Republic and the Laws, the extent to which these dialogues indeed reflect such principles of ordering is yet undetermined. A further study into this matter, accordingly, should try to formulate a Platonic strategy for political action, based on the principles of dialectic discussed in this thesis, generally prescribing the proper proportions of force and persuasion in the attempt to order the polis.

At any rate, it is clear from this study that, for Plato, the good human life and the eternal constitution of the cosmos are tightly bound to each other, in the emphatic sense that to be good

80

not only means to live according to the primary cosmic order, but also to be an auxiliary cause of order, practically implementing beautiful unified structures in all regions of the human realm. This entails, of course, an active imitation of the two basic layers of ordering in the universe – the level of force and the level of persuasion – wherever it is required. Timaeus’ song calls precisely for this mimesis in human life, “legislating” guidelines of beauty and goodness in the form of good measure. “All the good is beautiful, and the beautiful is not disproportionate,”1 Timaeus says. He thus expresses the basic principle which leads the divine in its mastery of disorder and which should lead human life to true well-being, in its constant struggle against irrationality.

1 Timaeus. 87c.

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תוכן עניינים:

מבוא 1

1. "טימאיוס": פתיחה 5

1.1 הוויה והתהוות 6 1.2 בעל המלאכה 8 1.3 היפה ושלמות 11 1.4 ידיעת הטבע ומגבלותיה 13 1.5 מטרת ותפקיד המיתוס של טימאיוס 16

2. "טימאיוס": תבונה והכרח 20

2.1 סדר התבונה 26 2.1.1 גוף הקוסמוס 29 2.1.2 נפש הקוסמוס 32 2.2 כוח, שכנוע והכרח 42 2.3 כוח, שכנוע ומוסיקה 47 2.4 האדם וסדר 50

3. דיאלקטיקה ב"פילבוס" 59

3.1 הרקע הדרמטי של ה"פילבוס" 60 3.2 מתנתו של פרומתאוס 64 3.3 אונטולוגיה 66 3.4 דיאלקטיקה כדרך, או אורח חיים 70 3.5 דיאלקטיקה והאי-רציונאלי 75

סיכום 78

ביבליוגרפיה 82

תקציר

בעבודת מחקר זו, אני מתמקד בבעיה פילוסופית עתיקת יומין, כפי שהיא נפרשת בדיאלוגים "טימאיוס" ו"פילבוס" של אפלטון, הקשורה לאפשרות לחיות בהצלחה חיים טובים בהנחיית התבונה, אף על פי שהאדם מטבעו אינו רציונאלי במלואו. מאחר והיסודות האי-רציונאליים של נפש האדם אינם יכולים, מעצם הגדרתם, לתפוס עקרונות תבוניים, אין זה ברור כיצד בכל זאת הם עשויים לציית לסמכותו של סדר תבוני, באופן שמאפשר לאדם לאמץ את עקרונותיהם המוסריים של החיים הטובים ביותר. האם אחדות הרמונית של התבונה וחלקיה האחרים של נפש האדם תחת אותו סדר טוב אינטליגיבילי, בהתחשב בכך שהנפש חצויה מטבעה, בכלל בגדר האפשר? באמצעות חקירה מעמיקה אל תוך נבכיהם של הדיאלוגים "טימאיוס" ו-"פילבוס", אני משרטט את מהות היחסים בין אי-רציונאליות לסדר רציונאלי, וכן טוען כי מתוך הטקסטים הנידונים עולה תמונה של חיים פילוסופיים מסוימים המביאים לכדי אפשרות אחדות פנימית של רציונאליות ואי-רציונאליות, במסגרת הכוללת הן עיון והן מעשה. הפרק הראשון של מחקר זה דן במעמד ובתפקיד נאומו של טימאיוס, תוך שימת לב לחשיבות של היבטיו הדרמטיים השונים. הואיל וטימאיוס משלב בין טענות מדעיות לדימויים ספרותיים פואטיים, אני קובע לא רק את מעמדו האפיסטמי של הנאום, אלא גם את משמעותו בבחינת יצירה ספרותית. בהקשר זה, טענתי היא כי צורתו הבלתי רציפה של הנאום משקפת את מבנה הקוסמוס המורכב מפעולתם של שני כוחות שונים, וכי הנאום מתפקד לא רק כהסבר מדעי אלא גם כפואמה חינוכית שמטרה לתאר את המידה הטובה ולקדם את יישומה. הפרק השני ממשיך בניתוח היחסים בין הכרח ותבונה בהסבר של טימאיוס, ראשית על ידי בחינת הבנייה המורכבת של הקוסמוס בידי בעל המלאכה האלוהי, ושנית על ידי ניתוח משמעויותיה הנגזרות עבור האדם. בהתאם לכך, אני טוען כי ברמה הקוסמית, קיים יחס דו-שלבי בין תבונה להכרח, הכולל רובד של כוח ורובד של שכנוע, בהתאם למופעיו השונים של הכרח ולשלב יצירת העולם. מאידך, ברמה האנושית, באנלוגיה ליצירת הסדר הקוסמי, האדם יכול לסדר את נפשו שלו גם על בסיס של כוח ושכנוע, שבאים לידי ביטוי, בהתאמה, בפעילות של עוז הרוח בנפש ובחינוך על ידי דיאלקטיקה. עם זאת, עקב עמידה על כך שניתוח זה, המתבצע במסגרת ה"טימאיוס" בלבד, צר מכדי לתאר באופן שיטתי את האופן שבו דיאלקטיקה מתייחסת להיבטים החושניים של נפש האדם, הפרק השלישי של תזה זו תר אחר פרספקטיבה נוספת על הבעיה, ב"פילבוס". באמצעות קריאה ביקורתית של דיאלוג זה, אני בוחן את ההשלכות שעשויות להיות לדיאלקטיקה על החיים האנושיים, זאת על מנת לקבוע את היחסים המעשיים של

ידע פילוסופי אודות סדר הקוסמוס להיבטים החושניים של נפש האדם. על בסיס זה, אני טוען כי חינוך היסודות האי-רציונאליים של נפש האדם מהווה חלק בלתי נפרד מדיאלקטיקה גופא, במובן שבו היא גוררת פעילות תבונית בעולם היומיום, בכל תחומי החיים האנושיים. במלים אחרות, פילוסופיה משמעה לא רק חיי עיון, אלא גם חיים של ביאה במגע, באופן פעיל, עם העולם האנושי. תפיסה בלתי שגרתית זו של חיי הפילוסופיה היא המפתח להבנת התמונה האידיאלית של אחדות בין התבונה לתשוקות.

אוניברסיטת בן גוריון בנגב

הפקולטה למדעי הרוח והחברה

המחלקה לפילוסופיה

סדר ואי סדר: המוסיקה של הקוסמוס וחיי הפילוסופיה

חיבור זה מהווה חלק מהדרישות לקבלת התואר "מוסמך למדעי הרוח והחברה" ).M.A(

מאת: נועם כהן

בהנחיית: ד"ר אנדי גרמן ופרופ' עדו גייגר

חתימת הסטודנט: ______תאריך:______

חתימת המנחה: ______תאריך:______

חתימת יו"ר הועדה המחלקתית: ______תאריך:______

אדר תשע"ז March 2017

אוניברסיטת בן גוריון בנגב

הפקולטה למדעי הרוח והחברה

המחלקה לפילוסופיה

סדר ואי סדר: המוסיקה של הקוסמוס וחיי הפילוסופיה

חיבור זה מהווה חלק מהדרישות לקבלת התואר "מוסמך למדעי הרוח והחברה" ).M.A(

מאת: נועם כהן

בהנחיית: ד"ר אנדי גרמן ופרופ' עדו גייגר

אדר תשע"ז March 2017