Allan Silverman

Language is the third in a series of volumes edited by Stephen Everson devoted to the examination of a special topic in philosophy from its origins in the pre-Socratic thinkers through to Late Antiquity. In keeping with its predecessors, Epistemology and Psychology, this is a collection of essays whose audience is primarily Anglo-American philosophers of an analytic bent. “This new series of Companions is intended particularly for students of ancient thought who will be reading the texts in translation but approaching them with the analytical skills of modern philosophy and with an eye to their contemporary as well as their historical significance”. This volume also features an up-to-date, thematically arranged bibliography, which, along with appendices of names and passages cited, will prove to be a useful resource to readers and scholars. The distinguished group of authors survey most of the major figures/schools. There is, however, next to nothing about the pre-Socratic thinkers and nothing on later Platonism. Perhaps the emphasis on contemporary analytic philosophy of language meshes less well with the distinctive views of these philosophical writers.

At 47e–53c of the Timaeus Plato presents his most detailed metaphysical analysis of particulars. We are told about the construction of the physical universe, the ways we can and cannot talk about the phenomena produced, and about the two causes – Necessity and Intelligence – which govern the processes and results of production. It seems to me that we are told too much and too little: too much, because we have two accounts of the generation of phenomenal particulars – one, the ‘formal account’, which makes use of the receptacle, Forms and form-copies, and a second, the ‘geometrical account’, which appeals to geometrical shapes, the Demiurge and, apparently, matter; too little, because there is insufficient guidance as to how to relate the two accounts

This short comment on Professor Sauvé Meyer’s paper attempts to draw attention to two issues that influence our understanding of Divine responsibility in the Timaeus. The first concerns the question of the literalness of the argument. If there is no creation, per much of the ancient tradition of commentators on the Timaeus, then there can be no divine responsibility. The second is the Timaeus’ account of the origin of non-human animals. Since they come from ‘fallen humans,’ and since they are necessary in order for the Demiurgic creation to be complete or perfect, in some sense they, and the fall of humans, must be part of the divine plan.