THE STRUCTURE OF BOOK 3 OF PROCLUS’ COMMENTARY

The portion of Proclus’ commentary translated in this volume takes in Timaeus 31b–34b in which Plato describes the body of the universe. However, Book 3 of Proclus’ commentary – equivalent to volume II of the Teubner text of the in Timaeum – spans Timaeus 31a to 37c and thus includes Timaeus’ discourse on the construction the World Soul and its union with the body of the universe. Because of the wealth of detail involved in Book 3 as a whole, the translators have taken the decision to dedicate a volume each to the body and soul of the universe (volumes III and IV respectively). The final volume of our series (volume V) will condense into one the translation of Books 4 and 5 of Proclus’ commentary – equivalent to the third volume in the Teubner series of Proclus’ text.

The question of the skopos or target of the Timaeus in general is taken up in the introduction to volume I. Notionally, the skopos of the dialogue is supposed to be physiologia or the study of the realm of nature (I. 1.17– 20). ‘Nature’ here should be given its Aristotelian sense: what is at issue is the realm of things that change. This will include the body of the world as well as its soul, the individual heavenly gods such as stars and planets, as well as the kinds and individuals that inhabit the sublunary realm. However, we must remember Proclus’ views on (what he takes to be) the characteristically Platonic manner of explaining things in the realm of nature by reference to productive, paradigmatic and final causes (I. 2.1– 9). By his lights, Plato's exploration of the subject matter of physiologia traces the explanation of these things back up to the Demiurge, the paradigm of the All-Perfect Living Being, and the Good. Moreover, the universe that is described as if it came to be in the Timaeus is itself a ‘visible god’ (34ab). Thus from Proclus’ point of view, the Timaeus is actually a profoundly theological work.

Introduction: the ten gifts of the Demiurge

The account looks at the cosmos in two ways. In the first way, it looks at the cosmos according to the wholeness (holotês) that is in it and by virtue of which it is also similar to the All-Perfect Living Being (30c3) and has become itself an ensouled living thing, possessed of intellect and uniquely generated (30b8). But in the second way, it looks at the cosmos according to the divisions that are drawn within it. It reviews when the soul is distinguished from the body and when the order (taxis) of things that are more like form is distinguished from those things allotted a more material nature, and it examines, on the one hand, how that which is corporeal (to sômatoeides) has been established and what kind of order it possessed, and on the other, it looks at how the psychic realm (platos) has proceeded from the creation and in accord with what sort of ratios.

Since the cosmos has been exhibited to be ‘an ensouled living thing possessed of intellect’, there will be three things in it: body, soul and intellect. Now Intellect is entirely ungenerated, having been allotted both an eternal essence (ousia) and eternal activity (energeia). The world's body is entirely generated since it has been established as temporal through and through. Soul, however, has an essence of an intermediate nature. So just as it is arranged as intermedi ate between divisible and indivisible things, in this manner it is also the boundary between generated and ungenerated things, having a beginning that is generated in relation to intellect but being ungenerated in relation to corporeal nature. It also has this status by being the limit of eternal beings but the very first among the things that have been generated.

On account of these facts, therefore, Plato provides a varied generation of the body [of the universe], producing the whole thing out of what is foreign to the body itself. The Soul he produces from itself, as well as producing it from the total creation and process of enlivening (zôiogonikês).

This book came into existence by accident. My graduate training (at Oxford and UCLA) was not in ancient philosophy, but primarily in the philosophy of language. My first job out of graduate school was at Florida State University, where I taught courses on descriptivism, direct reference, and propositional attitude reports. For a year or so after I was hired, I searched for a new project, without much success. Then, in January 1997, I decided to attend a graduate seminar on the Parmenides taught by my then colleague, Russ Dancy. I remembered that my college mentor, Warren Goldfarb, had once discussed what he called a “third man” argument purporting to show that what accounts for the unity of a proposition cannot, on pain of infinite regress, be part of the proposition. I knew that the name for this argument had come from the Parmenides, and this sparked my interest in the seminar. Russ, with his wealth of erudition and sharp intellect, listened patiently and provided encouragement as I struggled to give voice to naïve suggestions that more often than not simply led nowhere. But by the end of the semester, I realized that I was called to the study of Plato and sat down to write “How Parmenides Saved the Theory of Forms.”

The project of writing this book began with the realization that my article had provided a cursory, and in the end inaccurate, interpretation of the second half of the Parmenides.

In the previous chapter, we saw that there is a method to the Deductions that occupy Parmenides (and his interlocutor, Aristotle) for the rest of the dialogue. The point of the Deductions is to establish eight sorts of results, beginning with the first: that if the one is, then the one is both not F and not con-F in relation to itself and in relation to the others. In the next four chapters, I provide a complete logical reconstruction of all eight Deductions (along with a complete reconstruction of the Appendix to the first two). In this chapter, I concentrate on the First.

Let me begin by highlighting two principles that will play a significant role in the reasoning to be analyzed. Recall that, according to BP, itself a corollary of C, for anything other than the F, partaking of the F is both necessary and sufficient for being F, i.e., X partakes of the F if and only if X is F (see p. 31). The first principle is a stronger version of BP (call it “SBP”):

1. (SBP) To say that X partakes of the F is to say that X is F.

It should be evident that SBP is stronger than (i.e., entails) BP, but not vice versa. According to SBP, the propositions expressed by “X partakes of the F” and “X is F” are more than merely materially equivalent: they are identical.

The Socrates of the early dialogues devotes his attention to the search for definitions of morally significant forms, but never asks after the fundamental ontological and epistemological status of these entities. For example, Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide him with a definition of piety (Euthyphro 5d), Charmides to provide him with a definition of temperance (Charmides 159a), and both Nicias and Laches to provide him with a definition of courage (Laches 190d–e). In all these cases, what Socrates asks his interlocutors to define is something he calls a “form,” namely whatever it is by virtue of which persons and actions are pious, temperate, or courageous. Although Socrates reveals that he has opinions about what some of these forms are like and about what all forms must be like, he never suggests that these opinions rise to the level of knowledge. More importantly, he never so much as speculates about whether forms are or are not the sorts of things that can be perceived by means of the senses, whether they have parts or are indivisible wholes, whether they are eternal and indestructible or whether they come to be or perish, whether they can undergo any sort of change (whether in the form of translation, rotation, or alteration), whether they are perfect or in some way deficient, or whether they are such as to be humanly knowable.

It is in the dialogues of the middle period, principally the Phaedo and the Republic, that Plato begins to ask and answer these questions.

THE SETTING

Among scholars of ancient philosophy, there is disagreement over whether the Platonic corpus exhibits thematic unity or thematic development. According to “unitarians,” Plato's dialogues present a single, consistent, synoptic philosophical system of which each dialogue gives us a partial or proleptic glimpse. According to “developmentalists,” the same dialogues can be arranged in thematic order that likely corresponds with the order in which they were written.

The main lines of argument that favor developmentalism are these. The “early” dialogues (Apology, Crito, Euthyphro, Charmides, Ion, Hippias Minor, Menexenus, Protagoras, Euthydemus, Lysis, Laches, and Republic I) hew (more or less) to the following paradigm: Socrates (always the protagonist) extracts from his interlocutor a definition or characterization of a morally significant topic (typically, one of the canonical parts of human virtue), proceeds to criticize this definition or characterization “elenctically” by pointing out that the interlocutor's beliefs on the relevant subject are logically inconsistent, and wraps up the discussion by getting the interlocutor to admit to utter confusion (aporia) and ignorance. At no point in these dialogues does Socrates propose or defend his own definition of the parts of human virtue.

The fundamental lesson of the Parmenides, I claim, is that RP, P, NCC, and U should be excised from the higher theory of forms. But, as developmentalists agree, the Parmenides is succeeded by (at least) five dialogues: Theaetetus, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws. Do any of these dialogues contain evidence that supports the interpretive conclusion for which I have argued?

Even in the absence of a complete interpretation of Plato's late dialogues, I believe that this question may be answered affirmatively. If my interpretation of the Parmenides is largely accurate, then, as I argue below, we can explain (ⅰ) why P, RP, and NCC are abandoned in the Sophist, and why RP is abandoned in the Philebus, (ⅱ) why the epistemological investigation in the Theaetetus takes the surprising form it does, and (ⅲ) why there is a methodological turn towards division and collection in the late dialogues, particularly in the Sophist and Statesman.

It is also worth asking what remains of the higher theory once all offending principles have been abandoned. The answer, as we will see, is that while the substance of the theory and the method of dialectical investigation have changed, the arguments of the Parmenides have not forced Plato to abandon the forms altogether. The forms remain, but they are no longer the “perfect, and simple, and unshakeable, and blissful” objects in a place “beyond heaven” (Phaedrus 250c2–3, 247c3).

The Second Deduction is by far the longest stretch of reasoning in the Parmenides. It consists of thirty-three separate arguments covering close to fourteen Stephanus pages (142b1–155e3), which represents roughly one-third of the dialogue. The purpose of D2 is to establish results of the form: If the one is, then the one is both F and con-F (in relation to itself and in relation to the others). So if D2 succeeds, Parmenides will have shown that if the one is, then RP is false.

D2A1 (142b1–c7)

D2A1 establishes two conclusions, (C1) that if the one is, then the one partakes of being, and (C2) that if the one is, then the one is not the same as being.

Recall first that, by SBP, to say that X partakes of being is to say that X is. This entails (C1) that if the one is, then the one partakes of being.

Now assume (P1) that if X partakes of the F, then the F is, (P2) that if the F is and the G is the same as the F, then to say that X partakes of the F is to say that X partakes of the G, and (P3) that to say that X is is not to say that X is one. By P1, if the one partakes of being, then being is. So C1 and P1 together entail (L1) that if the one is, then being is.