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The Disorderly Motion in the Timaios

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Gregory Vlastos
Affiliation:
Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Extract

So much has been written on this vexed issue, that one hesitates to reopen it. Yet one has no other choice when one finds scholars accepting as generally agreed a view which rests on altogether insufficient evidence. I propose, therefore, to examine the main grounds on which recent authorities interpret the disorderly motion of Tm 30a, 52d–53b, and 69b as a mythical symbol. They are four:

I. That the Timaios is a myth;

II. The testimony of the Academy;

III. That motion could not antecede the creation of time;

IV. That motion could not antecede the creation of soul.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1939

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References

page 71 note 1 For references to opposing authorities in the last century see Zeller, , Plato and the Older Academy (English transl., London, 1876, p. 364, n. 5)Google Scholar. Some post-war authorities who take the ambiview that the pre-existing chaos must not be taken literally:

Wilamowitz, , Platan, Vol. i, 1917, pp. 597–8Google Scholar.

Ritter, C., Platon, Vol. ii, 1923, pp. 415–7Google Scholar.

Theiler, W., Zur Geschichte der telcologischen Naturbetrachtung, 1924Google Scholar, section on Plato.

Taylor, A. E., Plato, 1926, pp. 442 ff.Google Scholar, and Commentary on the Timaeus, 1928, pp. 66–69 et passim.

Frutiger, P., Let Mythes de Platon, 1930Google Scholar, passim.

Robin, Lëon, Platon, 1935, p. 191Google Scholar.

Grube, G. M. A., Plato's Thought, 1935, pp. 168 ffGoogle Scholar.

Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology, 1937, pp. 37, 176, 203Google Scholaret passim.

page 71 note 2 Diels B. 6, where, significantly enough, these physical substances are given the names of divinities. Conversely, the anthropomorphic elements, Love and Strife, are conceived as corporeal forces. See Bailey, Cyril, The Greek Atomists and Epicurus, p. 31Google Scholar; and Cornford, in chapter xv of vol. iv of Cambridge Ancient History: ‘In Empedocles Love and Strife belong at once to the world of mythical imagery and to the world of scientific concepts.’ This ambiview valence of myth and science, very different from didactic metaphor or allegory, is the proper mood of the Timaios. It was used unconsciously by Empedocles, consciously by Plato. Ci. μῦθος in Sophist. 242C· 3.

page 71 note 3 Summarizing in paraphrase Tm 48b 1–d 4.

page 71 note 4 Bailey, Cyril, op. cit., pp. 31, 32Google Scholar.

page 71 note 5 Aristotle, , Phys. 250b 25, 26Google Scholar.

page 71 note 6 Diogenes Laertius, ix, 31, 32; Aristotle, , Phys. 196a 24Google Scholar.

page 71 note 7 Frutiger, op. cit., classes all these together as ‘parascientific’ myths.

page 71 note 8 In the Gorgias the story begins with ὤσπερ γὰρ Ὅμηρος λέγει (523a); Homer's witness is called in again in 525c The story contains such figures and places as the Isles of the Blessed and Tartaros; Minos, Rhadamanthos, Aiakos; Tantalos, Sisyphos, Tityos.

In the Phaidon: λέγεται δὲ οὕτως … (107d); … ὡσ ἐγὼ ὑπό τινος πὲπεισμαι (108c); Δέγεται … (110b); καὶ ϰρὴ τὰ τοιαῦτα ὥσπερ ἐπάδειν ἑαɛτῷ…(114d). The detailed geography is clearly mythological.

In the myth of Er we have clearly an otherworldly experience; and in the Phaidros a literary exercise: παλιῳδία, τά τε ἄλλα καὶ τοῖσ, ὀνόμασιν ἠναγκασμένη ποιητικοῖς τισιν διὰ φαῖδρον εἰρῆσθαι(257a).

page 72 note 1 Except in verbs describing the activity of the Demiurge, where he is forced into anthropomorphism, Timaios indulges rarely in poetic metaphors. The κρατήρ of 46d is the only important one; and there it occurs with the scientist's characteristic carelessness for literary detail: he thinks he has used it before (ἐπὶ τὸν πρότερον κρατῆρα) when he actually has not. Expressions which he knows to be poetic Timaios expressly qualifies as similes: ἐμβιβάσας ὡς ἐς ὄϰνμα (41e); this is a vestige of the imaginative figure of the Phaidros, where it had prebeen used without qualification: Ζεύσ, ἐλαύνων πτηνὸν ἅρμα (246e); θεῶν ὀϰήματα ἰσορρόπως εὐήνια (247b); there the mood is mythology, and to qualify would be pedantry.

page 72 note 2 About irony: see especially Taylor's, Commentary on 40d 6–e 2Google Scholar.

page 72 note 3 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, X. ii. 100Google Scholar.

page 72 note 4 I.e. that he accepts the forms of traditional worship, and wishes to preserve them intact, without the slightest alteration (Laws v 738b, c; cf also Rep. iv 427b, c, and Laws iv 716c-718b, v 7593–7608; viii 828a–d).

page 72 note 5 I e. Laws iv 717a, viii 828c, xii 958d.

page 72 note 6 Rep. iii 392a, iv 427b; Laws iv 717b, v 734d, vii 818c, x 910a.

page 72 note 7 ἄνεɛ τε εἰκότων καὶ ἀναγκαὶων ἀποδεὶξεων λέγοɛσιν (40e).

page 72 note 8 59c, 68d, 69c.

page 72 note 9 30b, 34c, 44d, 48c, 48d, 49f, 53d, 55d, 56a, 56d, 57d, 59c, 68d, 72d, 90e.

page 72 note 10 Further qualified immediately by the prebeen face, παλαιὸς … λόγος οὑ μεμνήμεθα … (70c).

page 73 note 1 The account is ‘akin’ to the ‘image’ it describes: εἰκόνος εἰκότας (sc. λόγοɛς) 20c.

page 73 note 2 Cornford, F. M., Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. vi, Chap, xi, p. 330Google Scholar.

page 73 note 3 Tm 52b,c: ὑπὸ ταύτης τῆς ὀειρώξεως …

page 73 note 4 Taylor, A. E., Commentary, p. 69Google Scholar. So much is clear from the Greek commentaries, listed by Heinze, , Xenokrates, pp. 179180Google Scholar:

simpl.: δοκεῖ μὲν πρὸς Ξενοκράτην μάλιστα καὶ τοὺς Πλατωνικοὺς ὁ λόγος …

Schol. cod. Coisl. 166: τοὺτο πρὸς Ξενοκράτη εἴρηται ἀπολογούμενον ὑπὲρ Φλάτωνος … )

Schol. cod. Reg. 1853: ὁ Ξενοκράτη καὶ ὁ Σπεύσιπποσ ἐφιϰειροῦντες βονθῆςαι τῷ Φλάτωνι ἔλεγον …

and from Plutarch, de animat procreatione in Timaeo, 1013a, where the reference is Xenokrates, Krantor, and their followers.

page 73 note5 It is true that we have this interpretation applied to Plato's doctrine without reference to the mediation of Xenokrates in Theophrastos, Phys. Opin. Fr. 11 (quoted in Taylor's, Commentary, p. 69, n. 1)Google Scholar. But neither does Theophrastos say that this is Plato's own teaching about the Timaios. He merely records this interpretation as a possible one.

page 73 note 6 Proklos, quoted by Taylor, , Commentary, p. 68Google Scholar.

page 73 note 7 Taylor, , Commentary, p. 69Google Scholar.

page 73 note 8 I.e. de Caelo 280a 29, Phys. 251b 14, Met. 1072a 2. A reference to the Timatos in de Anima 406b 26 ff. is interesting, even though it does not relate to the pre-existing chaos: τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ ὁ τίμαιος φɛσιολογεῖ τὴν ψɛϰὴν κινεῖν τὸ σῶμα. That is how Aristotle thlinks of the Timaios: φɛσιολογεῖ. This is important, when one remembers how φɛσιολόγνμα suggests the most emphatic opposition to μɛθολόγτμα. E.g. Epicurus ii. 87. 8 … ἐκ παντὸς ἐκπίπτει φɛσιολογήατος, ἐπὶ δὲ τὸν μῦθον καταρρεῖ. Same contrast in Epic. K.D. xii. One ought to think twice before ridiculing Aristotle for taking Seriously the Timaios' doctrine of the soul, as does Frutiger, , op. cit, p. 202Google Scholar. Plato, who believes, with all other Greek philosophers, that sensation involves a physiological process, must explain how the soul is ‘shaken’ and ‘moved’ in sensation (Phileb. 33d, 34a). The theory of the Timaios that the soul is a pattern of circular motion is a serious attempt to provide such an explanation. Aristotle is quite right in objecting that this implies a spatial conception of the soul.His objection would hold just as much against the Philebos as against the ‘mythical’ Timtuos.

page 74 not 1 Taylor, , Commentary, p. 69Google Scholar.

page 74 not 2 Phys. 251b 14–18.

page 74 not 3 de Caclo 279b 12, 13.

page 74 not 4 Met. 1071b 31–33.

page 74 not 5 de Caelo 280a 29, 30; Mit. 1072a 12.

page 74 not 6 Taylor, , Commentary, p 69Google Scholar.

page 75 note 1 He proves the first as follows:

(i) θᾶττον or βραδύτερον; is predicable of every motion

(ii) θᾶττον implies the idea of πρότερον;

(iii) πρότερον implies distance from ‘now’;

(iv) ‘now’ implies time (τὰ νῦν ἑν ϰρόνῷ) (Phys.222b 31–223a 8).

He proves the second:

(i) time can neither be nor be conceived apart from ‘now’;

(ii) any ‘now’ is a μεσότης between past and future;

(iii) any past is a ‘now’;

(iv) therefore, any past has a past (Phys. 251b 19–26).

page 75 note 2 Met. 1072a I, 2.

page 75 note 3 Phys. 223a 4–8; 251b 10, 11.

page 75 note 4 Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology, p. 103Google Scholar, q.v.

page 75 note 5 He holds that rectilinear motion is not uniform, ‘since (according to him) when it is κατὰ φύσιν it becomes faster as bodies near their proper place, and when it is παρὰ φύσιν it becomes slower as the impressed force becomes exhausted. The circular motion of the heavenly bodies is the only change which by its nature proceeds uniformly.’ Ross, , Aristotle's Physics, p. 612Google Scholar. Hence his doctrine that ὁμαλῆ (sc. κίνησιν) ἐνδέϰηται εἶναι τὴν κύκλῳμόνην, Phys. 265b 11.

page 75 note 6 And we could add: If it should ever happen that the heavenly revolutions should cease, so would time. Cf. Marlowes Dr. Favstus.

Stand still, ye ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come.

This is good Aristotelian (and Platonic) doctrine.

page 76 note 1 Phys. 222b 33–2233 2: Δέγω δὲ θᾶττον κινεῖσθαι τὸ πρότερον μεταβάλλον εἰς τὸ ὑποκείμενον κατὰ τό αὐτὸ διάστημα καὶ ὁ μ α λ ὴ ν κίνησιν κινούμενον.

page 76 note 2 I say ‘the Timaios,’ rather than ‘Plato,’ in view of Parm. 151e–157b, to which Professor Cornford has called my attention. There time is conceived in the more general terms of before and after—τοῦ εοτὲ … καὶ τοῦ ἔπειτα καὶ τοῦ νῦν, 155d. There Plato is thinking of a different aspect of the problem: he is contrasting ϰρόνοσ as the spread of either motion or rest with the durationless ἐξαίφνης (156c-e), while in the Timaios he is contrasting ϰρόνοσ as periodic form with the formlessness of random process. What the Demiurge creates in the Timaios is temporal form, not temporal spread. We must not confuse the two. Contrast, for example, parm. 151e, 7, 8, where τὸ εἰναι implies ϰρόνον τὀν παρόντα, with Tm 37e–38b, where τὸ ἔστιν implies a state to which ϰρόνος does not apply.

page 76 note 3 Cf. 4ie 5 and 42d 5: ὄργανα ϰρόνων, ὄργανα ϰρόνον of moon and other stars.

page 76 note 4 39d: ϰρόνων ὄντα τὰς τούτων πλάνας. Cf. Aristotle's statement in Phys. 218a 34, οἱ μὲν γὰρ τὴν τοῦ ὅλοɛ κίνησιν εἰναι φασι (sc. τὀν ϰρόνον), where οἱ μὲν are identified with Plato by Eudemos, Theophrastos. and Alexander (Simpl. 700. 18; reference given in Ross's Aristotle's Physics, ad loc). To combat this view Aristotle has to fall back on rather weak arguments in Phys. 218b 1–5.

page 76 note 5 38b, c; also 37c, d.

page 77 note 1 This idea is not peculiar to the Timaios. E.g. Phil. 30c: ἔπειρον … ἐν τῷ παντὶι πολύ, καὶ πέρας ἱκανόν, καὶ τις ἐπ' αὐτοῖς αἰτύα. Notice the force of ἐπ' αὐτοῖς Notice also how distinct is αἰτύα from πέρας: πρὸς τρισὶ καὶ τέτταρτον … rpos rpurl γένος (26e), τὴν αἰτύαν ὡς ἱκανῶς ἔτερον ἐκείνων δεδηλωμένον (27b).

page 77 note 2 I cannot agree with Brochard's bold attempt to identify matter with tbe Other of the Timaios and thus with the non-being of the Sophist. (Brocbard et Dauriac, Le Devenir dans la Philosophie de Platen, Cong. Int. de Phil., 1902.) This is hardly the place to argue the matter out. But estabhis assumption that the κοινωνία of Being, Same, Other, Motion, and Rest in the Sophist covers the relation of forms to material things is eflectively answered in Cornford's, Plato's Theory of Knowledge, p. 297Google Scholar. Robin's thesis that ‘la distinction de l'intelligible et du sensible se fonde sur la pureté ou l'exactitude plus ou moins the grandes des relations qui les conséquent, et que ce n'est, par consequent, qu'une différence de degré;’ (La Physiqui āe Platan, RevPhil, ., Vol. 86, 1918, second half, p. 398Google Scholar), is attractive, but, I think, much too Leibnizian an interpretation of Plato. The difficulty with it appears in such a harmless little phrase as ‘à la complexité infinies et perpétuellement instables’ (p. 410), which Robin uses to describe sensible things. Why ‘instables’? Does mere increase of complexity cause instability? Why should it? To estabhislish his thesis Robin should be able to explain how Plato's doctrine of process can be reduced to a doctrine of increasing complexity of formal relations.

page 77 note 3 53b 2: ἴϰνη … ἄττα.

page 78 note 1 The ἀτάκτως καὶ ἀλόγως of the infant's disorder reminds one most forcefully of πλημμελῶς καὶ ἀτάκτως (30a) and ἀλόγως καὶ ἀμέτρως (53a) of the world-chaos.

page 78 note 2 Note the force of τὰ τῶν προσπιπτόντων παθήματα (43b), πɛρὶ προσκρούσειε τὸ σῶμα … διὰ τοῦ σώματος αἱ κινήςεις ἐπὶ τὴν ψɛϰὴν φερόμεναι προσπίπτοιεν (43c), … σφοδρῶς σείοɛσαι τὰς τῆς ψɛϰῆς περιόδοɛς (43d). Note the repetition of ἔξωθεν 44a 1, 5.

page 78 note 3 For the very good reason that there is nothing outside it. The world was made one to exclude violent incursions upon it ἔξωθεν, which προσπίπτοντα ἀκαίρως λύει καὶ νόσοɛς γῆρας τε ἐπάγοντα φθίνειν ποιεῖ (33a).For νόσος as disorder of reason see 86b, d; 88a, b.

page 78 note 4 It has only the motion τῶν ὲπτὰ τὴν περὶ νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν μάλιστα οὖσαν (34a vs. 43b).

page 78 note 5 898c. The whole of 896d to 898b is nothing more than an elaborate propounding of the question: ‘If soul is cause of everything, good and bad, and order implies a good soul, whereas disorder implies an evil soul, consider the ouranos and decide: Does it suggest the best soul or its contrary?’ Therefore, it is a mistake to quote any part of this passage in support of the view that Plato believed in an evil world-soul.

page 79 note 1 πρὸς τὴν σωτηρίαν καὶἀρετὴν τοῖ ὅλοɛ παντ' ἐστὶ σɛντεταγμὲνα (903b ff.). It is the organic principle (‘the part exists exists for the sake of the whole’), the same in the order of the unverse as in the order of the state. Cf. Rep. 420d 4, 5

page 79 note 2 Laws x 892a, c; 896a; 904a; xii 967d.

page 79 note 3 Soul has no part in fire, air, water, earth, the constituents of the world of ‘second’ causes, though it does partake of the περή τὰ σώματα γιγνομένη μεριστὴ οὐσία (35a). That the soul is a motion is plain from the account of the Same and the Other. A mental event is always a motion for Plato:

αἱ τοῦ παντὸς διανοήσεις καὶ περιφοραί (90c, d). τὰς… ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ διεφθαρμένας περιόδοɛς ἐξορθοῦντα(90d).

στρεφομένη, θείαν ἀρχὴν ἤρξατο ἀπαύστοɛ καὶ ἔμφρονος βίοɛ (36e).

ί τῆς μιᾶς καὶ φρονιμωτάτης κɛκλήσεως περίοδος(39c).

Ῐνα τὰς έν οὐραν? τοῦ νοῦ κατιδόντες περιόδοɛς χρησαίμεθα ἐπὶ τὰς περιφορὰς τῆς παρ' ἡμῆν διανοήσεως (47b).

Those who ‘don't use their heads’: διὰ το μηκέτι τὰς ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ χρῆσθαι περιίδοɛς (91e).

page 79 note 4 όπότε δὴ σώμασιν ἐμφɛθεῖεν έξ ἀνάγκης, καὶ τὸ μέν προσίοι, τὸ δ' άπίοι τοῦ σώματος αὐτŵν then follow sensation. eros and the passions (42a). In 69c, d again pleasure, passions, sensation come to the immortal soul with the subsidiary mortal sonl which, in turn. comes with the mortal body: … θνητὸν ςŵμαὐτῇ (i.e. τῇ ἀθανάτψ Ψɛχῇ) περιετόρνεɛσαν … ἄλλο τε εἷδος ἐν αὐτ? (i.e. τ? σώματι) ψɛχῆς προσόμοɛν τό θνητόν. Sensation occurs when διὰ τοῦ σώματος αἱ κινήσεις ἐπὶ τὴν ψɛχὴν χερόμεναι προσπίπτοιεν (43c), whence Plato derives αἴσθησις (is it from αἴσσω, whch Cornford thinks the more probable of those given by Proclos? Or from ἀσθμαίνω suggested by J. I. Beare in Greek Theories of Elemntary Cognition, 1906?) See also 45d I, 2 and 64b 4–6, and cf. with Philebos, where sensation is a ‘tremor’ of soul and body (33d), and note its formal definition in 34a. (σεισμός is the word used in the myth of the Politikos of the chaotic disorder of the counter-spin: 273a 3, 6; and in the Timaios of the primitive chaos: 52e, 532.)

page 79 note 5 νοσοῦσαν καὶ ἄphi;ρονα ἴσχειν ὑπὀ τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψɛχήν (86d). Further 87a: phlegms and humours blend their vapours with the motion of the soul: τὴν ἀφ' αὑτŵν ἀτμίδ7alpha; τῇ τῇς ψɛχῆς φορᾷ σɛμμείξαντες. NOtice the force of προσπίπτη in 87a 5, and cf. with use of same word in 33a 4, 5 and 43b 7 and 43c 5.

page 80 note 1 E.g. in 86c, d. where we are given a definite physicological cause for ὲλεῖν ἀκαίρως.

page 80 note 2 In de animae procrcatione in Timaeo.

page 80 note 3 This is presumably the reference of ἐν δὲ τοῖς Nὁμοις ἄντικρɛ ψɛχὴν ῔τακτον εἴρηκε καὶ κακοποιόν, ibid, 1014e. Per contra, see above, n.5. P. 8; Taylor's Commentary, p. 116; and Robin's Platon, pp. 226–7.

page 80 note 4 Cf. ἐξ ἀνάγκης Polit. 269d 2, 3.

page 80 note 5 Tm 46e. Plutarch himself puts no stock on είμαρμένη but refers to it as ἀνάγκη. Clearly είμαρμένη in Polit. 272e cannot be the will of the ‘captain’, for he has just let go of the helm; it is the disorder her had kept under control which is now asserting itself. That the realm of secondary causes includes a necessary element of disorder when sepaated from the overlordship of nous is clear from Tm 46e 5.

page 80 note 6 The same applies to 273b I, 2: the ‘instruction’ was not given to a primitive bad soul, but to the god-made soul that marked the end of chaos and the beginning of cosmos.

page 80 note 7 For the Timaios see especially 66a-d. The soul of the philosopher must be ‘released’ from the ‘fetters’ of the dody (67d; cf. Rep. 515c); it must be ‘purified’ from the ‘contamination’of the body (Phaid. 67c 5 and Tm 69d 6; cf. Symp. 211e 1, 2 and Rep. 611c 3). The body is a tomb' (Phaidr. 250c; Gorg. 493a).

page 80 note 8 Cornford comments in a footnote: ‘Obviously the mover cannot be the soul, which belongs to a hgher order of existence. It could not be spoken of as either heterogeneous and unequal, or homogeneous and equal. with the moved.’ op. cit. p. 240. Cf. also 58c 2–4 and 57a 2–4.

page 81 note 1 Cf. the phrase of Pol. 273d, e τὸν τῆς ἀνομοιότητος ἄπειρον ὄντα πόντον to which the world would revert if it persisted in its ‘counter-revolution.‘

page 81 note 2 This is not in contradiction with Phaidr. 245d, e πάντα τε οὐρανὸν πᾶσαν τε γῆν εἰς ἒν σɛμ πεσοῦσαν στῆναι. The disastrous standstill envisaged in the Phaidros concerns the created heavens and earth, which do have a soul, and could not move without it.

page 81 note 3 34a: τὰς δὲ ἔξὲ ἀπάσας κινήσεις ἀφεῖλεν καὶ ἀπλανὲς ἀπηρλάσατο ἐκείνων

page 81 note 4 See Rep. iii 412c for the axiomatic belief that the old must rule. The whole of the laws is dominated by this idea.

page 81 note 5 E.g. 896c: ψɛχὴν μὲν προτέραν, σῶμα δὲ δεύτερόν τε καὶ ὕστερον ψνχῆς ἀρχούσης, ἀρχόμενον κατὰ φύσιν, whence it follows in 896d: ψɛχὴν δὴ διοικοῦσαν καὶ ἑνοικοῦσν ἐν ᾃπασι … καὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν διεικεῖν. Again 895b: ἀρχὴν … καὶ πρώτην … ἀναγκαίως εἶναι πρεςβɛτάτην καὶ κρατίστην. The double-edged meaning of precedence is always assumed, never argued. E.g. 892a: ὡς ἐν πρώτοις ἐστί (simple assertion of precedence, immediately broken into temporal priority) σωμάτων ἔμπροσθεν πάντων γενομένη (and ontological supremacy) καὶ μεταβολῆς τε αĐτῶν καὶ μετακοσμήσεως ἁπάσης ἄρχει παντὸς μᾶλλον.

page 81 note 6 Laws 892c: ἐν πρώτοις γεγενημένη

page 82 note 1 I am leaving out of this discussion the additional complication that in the Phaidros the idea of the soul as ἀρχὴ καὶ πηγὴ κινήσεως serves at once to prove that the soul is ungenerated: εἰ γὰρ ἔκ τοɛ ἀρχὴ γ ίγνοιτθ, οὐκ ἂν ἔτι ἀρχὴ γίγνοιτο (245d). In the Laws the meaning of the premiss must have changes, else the conclusion could not have been contradicted, as it is in the frequent references of the Laws to the soul as generated (see above, n. 2, p. 79). 'Aρχή is a ‘weasel-word’ in Plato. It may mean any, or all, of (i) beginning, (ii) source, (iii) cause, (iv) ruling principle, (v) ruling power. It should be noted that the mythological interpretation of the pre-existing chaos and of its associated doctrine of creation could take the chronological ‘firstness’ of the soul no more literally; cf. Plutarch: εἰ γὰρ ἀγένητος ὁ κόσμος ἐστίν, οἴχεται τῷ Πλάτωνι τὸ πρεσβύτερος τοῦ σώματος τὴν ψɛχὴν οὖσαν ἐξάρχειν μεταβολῆς καὶ κινήσεως πάσης. de an. proc. in Tim. 1013 f.

page 82 note 2 Note that the hypothesis of the universal standstill (Laws 895a, b), against which Plato's argument of the soul as first mover is so effective, is enemy territory. It was they (οἱ πλεῖστοι τῶν τοιούτων), not Plato, who ‘dare’ affirm it. Likewise in the Phaidros the supposition of all motion of heaven and earth coming to an absolute stop is the apodosis of a per impossibile hypothesis.

page 82 note 3 We must never forget that Plato thinks of mechanism as disorderly, except in so far as it is teleologically ordered: e.g. Tm 46e, where the ‘second’ causes, unmistakably identified with mechanical causes in 46e 1, 2, are said to be ὄσαι μονωθεῖςαι φρονήσεως τὸ τɛχὸν ὲκάστοτε ἐξεργάζονται. That mechanism nevertheless does contain an order of its own is part of the contradiction in Plato's thinking noted above, p. 77.

page 82 note 4 An easy solution is to animate the chaos; then the Demiurge would only need to ‘persuade’ its bad soul, and this would seem to make better sense of such expressions as 48a 2, 4, or 56c 5. But this is only postponing the difficulty. If the Demiurge persuades the evil soul, the reformed soul would then have to persuade its disorderly body—and the difficulty turns up again. At some point final cause must meet efficient cause. To insert intermediary souls only puts off the inevitable encounter of soul with body.

page 82 note 5 See above, nn. 2 and 3, p. 78.

page 82 note 6 Tm 42b 2.