P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions Although a great deal has been written on Plato’s ethics, his cos- mology has not received so much attention in recent times, and its importance for his ethical thought has remained underexplored. By offering integrated accounts of Timaeus, Philebus, Politicus, and Laws X, the book reveals a strongly symbiotic relation between the cosmic and the human sphere. It is argued that in his late period Plato presents a picture of an organic universe, endowed with struc- ture and intrinsic value, which both urges our respect and calls for our responsible intervention. Humans are thus seen as citizens of a universe that can provide a context for their flourishing even in the absence of good political institutions. The book sheds new light on many intricate metaphysical issues in late Plato, and brings out the close connections between his cosmology and the development of his ethics. Gabriela Roxana Carone teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is a Fellow of the Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies. i P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 ii P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions GABRIELA ROXANA CARONE University of Colorado at Boulder and Harvard University Center for Hellenic Studies iii P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, S˜aoPaulo Cambridge University Press 40 West 20th Street, New York, ny 10011-4211, usa www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521845601 C Cambridge University Press 2005 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2005 Printed in the United States of America A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Carone, Gabriela Roxana. Plato’s cosmology and its ethical dimensions / Gabriela Roxana Carone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0-521-84560-2 1. Plato. 2. Cosmology, Ancient. 3. Ethics, Ancient. I. Title. b398.c67c37 2005 113 .092–dc22 2005046970 isbn-13 978-0-521-84560-1 hardback isbn-10 0-521-84560-2 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. iv P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 A Rosa Mazzini, en mi recuerdo v P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 vi P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 Contents Preface page ix 1 Introduction 1 I. Why Cosmology and Ethics? 1 II. Plato’s Cosmology in the Context of the Dynamics of Plato’s Thought 7 III. Plato’s Cosmology and the Interpretation of Plato’s Dialogues 13 IV. The Plan of this Book 18 V. The Order of the Dialogues 22 2 Demiurgy in the Timaeus 24 I. Introduction 24 II. The Philosophical Meaning of the Demiurge 29 III. The Ontological Status of the Demiurge 42 IV. Conclusion 51 3 Cosmic God and Human Reason in the Timaeus 53 I. The Cosmic God as a Model for Human Reason 54 II. Divine and Human Demiurgy 62 III. The Ethical Function of Astronomy 68 IV. Conclusion 78 4 Creating Mixtures in the Philebus 79 I. The Dialectical Prelude and the Context for the Cosmological Discussion 81 II. Cosmology and the Fourfold Classification 85 III. Conclusion 102 vii P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 viii Contents 5 Happiness in the Universe of the Philebus 103 I. Pleasure, God, and Human Life 104 II. Happiness for All Humans: The Socratic Revival and the Philebus’ Educational Suggestions 116 III. Conclusion 122 6 Reversing the Myth of the Politicus 124 I. Understanding the Politicus Myth: Why does It Matter? 125 II. Some Gaps in the Traditional Interpretation 129 III. The States of the Cosmos Successively Presented in the Text 132 IV. Autonomy and Divine Guidance 141 V. Conclusion 144 7 Cosmic and Human Drama in the Politicus 146 I. The Cosmological Significance of the Myth 147 II. The Ethical and Political Meaning of the Myth 153 III. Conclusion 160 8 Laws X: First Causes and the Origin of Evil 162 I. The Priority of Soul over Body 164 II. What is the Evil Soul? Some Questions 170 III. The Scope of “Soul” at Laws 896e–897b 172 IV. The Status of an Evil Soul at a Cosmic Level 174 V. Humans, Evil, and Teleology 178 9 Conclusion 189 Notes 197 Bibliographical References 265 Index Locorum 281 General Index 305 P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 Preface This book is the result of many years of thought and research, and has taken on several different shapes before reaching its final version. It started as a project based on (and soon took off beyond) my Ph.D. thesis, written between 1992 and 1995.Myresearch on Plato’s cosmology goes back somewhat further, and I am happy that, as this book is coming to fruition, my La nocion´ de dios en el Timeo de Platon´ , originally published in Buenos Aires in 1991,isdue to appear in its second edition for a Spanish-speaking readership. Proper acknowledgements were made in both those productions to scholars and institutions, in Argentina and in England, which contributed to my research then. But I would like here to thank David Sedley and Richard Sorabji for their keen criticism early on. Iamalso grateful to Christopher Shields and Raphael Woolf, who com- mented on different chapters of the book, and to the anonymous refer- ees for Cambridge University Press for their helpful suggestions. It is my pleasure to thank, in addition, the National Endowment for the Human- ities for generous financial support, and the Center for Human Values at Princeton University, which has allowed me to finalise the manuscript in optimal research conditions and in an excellent collegial environment. Previous versions of sections of this book have appeared as follows: Chapter 2, Section II.2 is based on Carone (2004c); Chapter 3, Section III is based on Carone (1997); parts of Chapter 5, Section I are based on Carone (2000); Chapter 6 is based on Carone (2004a); parts of Chapter 7 are based on Carone (1993); and parts of Chapter 8 are based on Carone (1994). I am grateful to the editors of those outlets for permission to reprint this material. Princeton, February 2004 ix P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 x P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 Plato’s Cosmology and Its Ethical Dimensions xi P1: JZZ 0521845602agg.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 26, 2005 18:27 xii P1: JZX 0521845602c01.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 24, 2005 16:37 1 Introduction i. why cosmology and ethics? This book is a study of Plato’s late cosmology and its relation to Plato’s ethics. The combination might strike one as odd. Indeed, it might seem far from obvious, first, that Plato has any coherent cosmological story to tell; second, that even if he does, it would deserve any special attention beyond historical curiosity, still less as a necessary background for un- derstanding his ethical thinking. In the modern literature, it has in fact been quite common to investigate Plato’s ethics, but much less common to delve into his cosmology. At any rate, these two undertakings have usually been carried out in isolation from each other. Thus, for example, Terence Irwin’s extensive treatment in Plato’s Ethics contains no section on the Timaeus, and virtually no allusion to Plato’s cosmology and theol- ogy. Even more striking in this regard is Christopher Bobonich’s recent book on Plato’s later ethics and politics, Plato’s Utopia Recast, which, de- spite occupying more than 600 pages of exegetical treatment, does not for the most part consider it necessary, for its purposes, to take a stand on cosmological issues.1 Certainly, some fresh air has been brought to these topics in a few recent contributions, though an extensive treatment of Plato’s late cos- mology in relation to his ethics is lacking to this day. Julia Annas, for example, devotes a chapter of her Platonic Ethics, Old and New to the issue of assimilation with god, but does not do much in terms of inte- grating this aspect of Plato with other aspects of his ethical thinking, and is at any rate quite comfortable with the thought that Plato’s ethics can be understood independently of his metaphysical commitments.2 And, 1 P1: JZX 0521845602c01.xml CY531/Carone 0521 84560 2 August 24, 2005 16:37 2 Introduction more generally, even when the issue of assimilation with god has been addressed,3 it has been somewhat detached from an examination of what Plato means by “god” in those cases, and of how such an issue may relate to his wider views about nature.