James Wood

Contrary to common belief, the Timaeus does not support a dualistic metaphysics. Careful examination of each facet of Timaeus’s cosmology shows that the activity of cosmic ordering depends on the ongoing interaction of various metaphysical factors, with the soul as the central integrating agent of demiurgic generation and formation. Soul is both the expression of demiurgic causality in the cosmos and the representation of the form of living being that gives life to the cosmic body. Soul bridges the gap between metaphysical opposites and so allows for the indivisible forms to exist and be at work within divisible bodies, informing those bodies with determinate qualities. At the same time, generative intellect acts through proportionately ordered soul to bring proportionate order to the elemental bodies through geometrical shapes (triangles) and in turn to the bodies composed of those shapes. In sum, rational soul generates beings by bringing together immaterial qualities and geometrical concepts in space.

This paper takes a nuanced stance against an intellectualist position that is strong in the literature on the Philebus by arguing that pleasure’s goodness is inherent but not independent. Pleasure is worth pursuing together with intellectual activity in the mixed life because pleasure is the sensual manifestation, direct or indirect, of growth in goodness. Pleasure as the expression of this growth is the sensual component of the mixture that Socrates in this dialogue defends as the good for human beings. But if pleasure’s contribution to the overall goodness of a human life is not to be outweighed by some corresponding badness, it must reflect an accurate assessment of the goodness of our experiences and either proceed directly from the right kind of intellectual or psychic activity or else be subordinated to the rational ordering activity of intellect according to the standards of virtue, moderation, and health.

The _Philebus _is the only Platonic dialogue that takes as its central theme the fundamental Socratic question of the good, understood as that which makes for the best or happiest life. This predominantly ethical theme not only involves an extended psychological and epistemological investigation of topics such as sensation, memory, desire, anticipation, the truth and falsity of pleasures, and types and gradations of knowledge, but also a methodological exposition of dialectic and a metaphysical schema, found nowhere else in the dialogues, that is intended to illuminate the nature of mixture. In its interweaving of ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological topics, the _Philebus_ offers a unique opportunity to assess the relation of these topics in Plato’s mature thought and so to gain insight into his philosophical vision as a whole. An introduction that provides guidance in the reading of Platonic dialogues and of this dialogue in particular. Following the translation is an appendix of parallel passages from other Platonic dialogues as well as related material from Aristotle, the Stoics, and Epicurus.

This paper examines the errant cause in the Timaeus. After eliminating the material elements, matter, chōra, and irrational soul, I show that the source of cosmic disorder lies in the manifestation of difference in genesis. This disorder is a necessary feature of demiurgic formation, which requires generated beings to fall short of their paradigmatic forms and to encounter each other in destabilizing motions. Errancy is thus a threat to generated beings, but it also presents an opportunity and a task to those beings capable of bringing sameness to difference in themselves in imitation of the demiurge and cosmic soul