Samuel Meister

In this paper, I first reconstruct Socrates’ argument concerning desire in the Philebus and then glean his definition of desire from it. I argue that this definition does not contain any reference to body, and that therefore, desire is not (essentially) psychophysical. But I also argue that the body plays a crucial role in Socrates’ discussion of desire as the cause of the occurrence of desires. I close with a verdict on the comparison with Aristotle: although certain parts of the Phileban account of desire can be appropriated by Aristotle, especially the thought that its „principle“ (ἀρχή) belongs to the soul, the primary outcome is disagreement. For Aristotle not only rejects the Phileban view that the soul is the subject of desire, but he also thinks that desire is (essentially) psychophysical, contrary to the account offered by Socrates.

Platon gilt vielen als ‚Begründer‘ der Psychologie. Mit dieser Aussage ist dann aber häufig nicht viel mehr gemeint, als dass Platon als erster ausdrücklich die Seele zum Thema der Diskussion gemacht und in seinen Schriften teils ausführlich verschiedene Ansichten über die Natur und Beschaffenheit der Seele zur Sprache gebracht hat. Wir unterscheiden hier grob drei Hauptfunktionen und Kontexte der Rede von der Seele bei Platon: (i) Seele als Prinzip von Bewegung und Lebendig-Sein, (ii) Seele als Erkenntnis- und Strebesubjekt, (iii) Seele als moralischer Akteur, der gut oder schlecht sein, bzw. werden, kann. / Plato is often considered the ‘founder’ of psychology. But this claim tends to mean little more than that Plato was the first to explicitly discuss the soul while expressing various views about its nature and constitution. Here, we distinguish roughly three functions or contexts in which Plato speaks of the soul: (i) the soul as the principle of motion and life, (ii) the soul as subject of cognition and desire, (iii) the soul as a moral agent that may be or become good or bad.

Although Plato is regarded by many as the ‘founder’ of psychology, it is a matter of debate to what extent his various discussions of the soul constitute a genuine psychological theory. In this volume, based on the 2024 Tübinger Platon-Tage, thirteen international researchers examine various aspects of Plato’s treatment of the soul that can be described as ‘psychological’ in a narrower sense, such as his theories of perception, desire, pleasure or imagination. / Obschon Platon vielen als ‚Begründer‘ der Psychologie gilt, ist es umstritten, inwiefern sich Platons verschiedenen Ausführungen zur Seele zu einer eigentlichen psychologischen Theorie zusammensetzen. In diesem Band, der auf die Tübinger Platon-Tage 2024 zurückgeht, untersuchen dreizehn internationale Forscherinnen und Forscher verschiedene Aspekte von Platons Behandlung der Seele, die in einem engeren Sinn ‚psychologisch‘ genannt werden können, wie etwa seine Theorie der Wahrnehmung, der Begierde, der Lust oder der Vorstellung.

Theophrastus’ so-called Metaphysics presents a series of difficulties for various accounts of first principles, including Platonist ones but also – and especially – Aristotle’s. Hence, many scholars think that Theophrastus abandons some of his teacher’s core commitments, such as the prime mover or natural teleology. Other interpreters, by contrast, emphasize the aporematic character of the work and do not take Theophrastus to be truly critical of Aristotle. In the author’s view, neither reading captures the character of the treatise. For, as argued in this Element, Theophrastus probes the Aristotelian account of first principles in earnest. But this is not to say that he abandons it. Rather, Theophrastus is an internal critic of an Aristotelian framework to which he himself is committed but of which he thinks that it requires further elaboration.

In Metaphysics Λ, Aristotle appeals to the prime mover: an unmoved mover that is the first moving cause of the world. Elsewhere, he calls the science concerned with the prime mover ‘theology’ (Meta. E.1, 1026a19). But what is the point of this science? On a common view, its purpose is to give an account of the prime mover itself, and especially to prove its existence. By contrast, I argue that Aristotle’s theology in Metaphysics Λ is ‘nature-bound’: it ultimately aims at explaining facts about the perceptible world, in particular the motion of heavenly bodies and the cycle of generation of perishable substances.

Contrary to recent work on the topic, I argue that, in the Sophist, Plato's Visitor does not posit any negative kinds or forms, such as the kind or form of the not-beautiful or not-being. My argument has a textual and a philosophical side. On the textual side, I argue that the Visitor does not posit negative kinds or forms. On the philosophical side, I argue that the Visitor does not need to posit any such entities because he can reach his goals by appeal to difference. The latter conclusion suggests that an appeal to negative kinds or forms would be gratuitous and hence weaken the Visitor’s account. The textual result implies that we need not saddle him with this unsatisfactory view. Rather, by appeal to difference, the Visitor offers a unified account of ‘is not’ claims and false speech that relies on remarkably economical ontological resources.

Discussions of Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z tend to treat it either as an independent treatise on substance and essence or as preliminary to the main conclusions of the Metaphysics. I argue instead that Z is central to Aristotle’s project of first philosophy in the Metaphysics: the first philosopher seeks the first causes of being qua being, especially substances, and in Z, Aristotle establishes that essences or forms are the first causes of being of perceptible substances. I also argue that the centrality of Z to first philosophy is compatible with its status as theology.

In the Timaeus, Plato’s Timaeus offers an account of the sensible world in terms of “images” of forms. Often, images are taken to be particulars: either objects or particular property instances (tropes). Contrary to this trend, I argue that images are general characteristics which are immanent in the receptacle, or bundles of such characteristics. Thus, the entire sensible world can be analysed in terms of immanent general characteristics, the receptacle, and forms. Hence, for Timaeus, fundamentally, there are no sensible particulars. I end by arguing that my interpretation is compatible with Timaeus’ construction of sensible entities from triangles.

The third deduction in Plato’s Parmenides is often given a constructive reading on which Plato’s Parmenides, or even Plato himself, presents us with a positive account of the relation between parts and wholes. However, I argue that there is a hitch in the third deduction which threatens to undermine the mereology of the third deduction by the lights of the dialogue. Roughly, even if the Others partake of the One, the account of the third deduction leads to an ontology of gunk, that is, an ontology on which there are no mereological atoms (except for the One). Hence, it is unclear whether the participation relation between the Others and the One is sufficient to impose the sort of structure on the Others which, in the context of this deduction, Parmenides (or Plato) seems to hope for. Instead of the constructive reading of the third deduction, I therefore offer an aporetic reading on which the third deduction raises further difficulties for the participation relation at the heart of young Socrates’ theory of Forms.

Aristotle analyses a large range of objects as composites of matter and form. But how exactly should we understand the relation between the matter and form of a composite? Some commentators have argued that forms themselves are somehow material, that is, forms are impure. Others have denied that claim and argued for the purity of forms. In this paper, I develop a new purist interpretation of Metaphysics Z.10-11, a text central to the debate, which I call 'hierarchical purism'. I argue that hierarchical purism can overcome the difficulties faced by previous versions of purism as well as by impurism. Roughly, on hierarchical purism, each composite can be considered and defined in two different ways: From the perspective of metaphysics, composites are considered only insofar as they have forms and defined purely formally. From the perspective of physics, composites are considered insofar as they have forms and matter and defined with reference to both. Moreover, while the metaphysical definition is a definition in the strict sense of 'definition', the physical definition is a definition in a loose sense. Analogous points hold for intelligible composites and geometry. Finally, neither sort of definitional practice implies that, for Aristotle, forms are impure.