¹ See Owen, G. E. L., ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato's Dialogues’, CQ NS 3 (1953), 79–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Irwin, T., ‘Plato's Heracliteanism’, PQ 27 (1977), 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cooper, J., Plato's Theaetetus (New York, 1990), pp. 88–116.Google Scholar

² The qualification is from Zeyl, D., ‘Plato and Talk of a World in Flux’, HSCP 79 (1975), 125–48, p. 126Google Scholar. Gill, M. L., ‘Matter and Flux in Plato's Timaeus’, Phronesis 32 (1971), 34–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, uses ‘in itself’ (p. 40) to qualify the physical particulars. Both use these phrases in describing what they take to be Cherniss' position (see next note). By ‘as such’, I mean particulars as independent entities, entities which are more than their properties.

³ The leading reconstructionist is Cherniss, H., ‘The Sources of Evil According to Plato’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 98 (1954), 23–30Google Scholar; ‘A Much Misread Passage of the Timaeus (Timaeus 49c7–50b5)’, AJP 75 (1954), 113–30Google Scholar; ‘The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato's Later Dialogues’, AJP 88 (1957), 225–66Google Scholar. All three papers are reprinted in Cherniss, H., Selected Papers, ed. Tar´n, L. (Leiden, 1977)Google Scholar. Hereafter they will be referred to as SE, MM, and RT, respectively, and page numbers will be given in both their original and reprinted versions, e.g. SE 23/253. The articles develop claims advanced in Cherniss, H., Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Early Academy, i (Baltimore, 1944)Google Scholar, hereafter A C P A; Other reconstructionists include E. Lee, N., ‘On the Metaphysics of the Image in Plato's Timaeus’, Monist 50 (1966), 341–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘On Plato's Timaeus, 49d4–e7’, AJP 88 (1967), 1–28Google Scholar; Mills, K. W., ‘Some Aspects of Plato's Theory of Forms: Timaeus 49cff.’, Phronesis 13 (1968) 145–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some traditionalists are Gully, N., ‘The Interpretation of Plato, Timaeus 49d–e’, AJP 81 (1960), 53–64Google Scholar; Mohr, R. D., ‘Image, Flux and Space in Plato's Timaeus’, Phoenix 34 (1980), 138–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Strange, S., ‘The Double Explanation in the Timaeus’, Ancient Philosophy 5 (1987), 23–39Google Scholar; and the authors mentioned in notes 1 and 2.

⁴ I enroll in the tradition of treating the γιγνόμενα as particulars and refer to them indifferently as ‘phenomena’ or ‘particulars’. I consider the cosmos to be a particular, the biggest one. Other particulars are the parts of the cosmos such as you and I. The parts of us are particulars, e.g. my hand, the flesh and bones of my hand, and the corpuscles, whether conceived of as triangles or earth, which constitute the flesh and bone. I will sometimes speak of the properties of particulars, e.g. the pallor of my skin. These particular properties can be thought of as property-tokens. They are not to be treated as phenomenal particulars of the sort at issue. I do not consider Forms, Souls or the Receptacle particulars, though I will sometimes speak of particular souls, e.g. the world-soul, particular forms, e.g. the Form of Fire, and particular regions of the receptacle. Particulars are involved in becoming, γένεσις perhaps to the point of always ‘becoming’. Cf. Frede, M., ‘Being and Becoming in Plato’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Supplementary Volume, 1988, 36–52.Google Scholar

⁵ …τό δ ποιον τι, θερμόν ἢ λευκòν ἢ κα τιον τν ναντίων, κα πάνθ᾽ ὃσα κ τούτων…

⁶ MM 128/361.

⁷ Art. cit.

⁸ Lee (1967), 4 and n. 9.

⁹ The notion that we can reconstrue our referential practices without altering our ontology seems to me to be a dubious one, especially when the reconstrual is of the sort envisaged by Zeyl. However, perhaps all Zeyl means is that while the suggested reconstrual occasions a change in our ontology, the new ontology leaves phenomenal particulars, as such, to be the referents of our names.

¹⁰ Cf. Gill 41 n. 15.

¹¹ See 48e, 49a, 52a. For the charge see Gulley 63–4, Zeyl 134, Gill 41. Cf. Lee (1966), 367–8.

¹² The remarks at 48c2–48el do not preclude this interpretation. The refusal to speak now about a ‘first principle or principles or whatever’ (48c2–4) looks forward both to the introduction of the triangles, cf. Timaeus' remarks at 54, and to the introduction of Forms and form-copies. With respect to the on-going account, it would be out of place for Timaeus to speculate on the nature and number of Forms and form-copies.

¹³ Forms do not enter into any relations with the receptacle. They ‘beget’ form-copies or recurrent characteristics which enter and exit the receptacle. For the moment, I shall treat these form-copies as primitives.

¹⁴ Zeyl 126.

¹⁵ MM 129/362.

¹⁶ Ibid. The passage continues: ‘Plato, having said that what fire is cannot be said to be “this” or “that” phase of the phenomenal flux but only to be the perpetually self-identical characteristic that is the determining factor of the indeterminable affection, neither says nor suggests, as he is often said to do, either that the unidentifiable phases of phenomenal flux can be called τοιοτον, “such as” the perpetually self-identical characteristic, or that this characteristic can be called τοιοτον, “such as“ the unidentifiable phase of phenomenal flux.’

¹⁷ RL 247.

¹⁸ SE 254–5, esp. n. 18; ACPA 453–4, 114–15, 152–3.

¹⁹ In this paper the relation between a Form and its essence is not at issue. I use the formula ‘property constituted by the Form’ as a matter of convenience. Each Form is logically distinct, at least in so far as it has a unique definition, λόγος. I assume that since the Form is logically distinct, the form-copy of a given Form is too.

²⁰ SE 255.

²¹ ὔλη does occur at Tim. 69a6, but there it has its non-philosophical meaning, namely wood or material.

²² Cf. Strange 29 (and passim): ‘But the Necessity of the Timaeus is given its own proper domain of explananda: on its own, unpersuaded, it is the cause of everything disordered and random (46e5).’ This is reading too much into the remark at 46e5–6. As a matter of logic, the claim is that everything produced by this kind of cause is disordered and random, not that everything disordered and random is produced by this kind of cause. Nor do I think that this remark, given its context, implies that Necessity ever operates on its own in the ordered cosmos. Bracketed by statements that Necessity is an accessory cause, it would be odd for Plato to assert here that it is an independent cause of anything in the cosmos.

²³ ACPA 420, SE 24/254, Gill 37.

²⁴ The behaviour classified as chaotic is likely to include the mechanistic aspects of a complex organism whose actions or gross behaviour is fully governed by intelligence. The mechanistic aspects are those that derive from the ‘material’ or geometrical properties of the bodies which comprise, in part, the complex organism.

²⁵ Suppose that we have determined that a large stone was placed on top of a table and that we know that only Bill and John were in a position to put it there. We test John's strength to see if he could do it alone and find that he could not. If we thereupon infer that Bill put it there, we would obviously err. The stone might have required their joint efforts. Cf. Strange 27.

²⁶ Mohr, R., The Platonic Cosmogony, p. 109Google Scholar; Crombie, I. M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrines (London, 1962–1963), ii.219–23Google Scholar. Cornford's attack on this ‘Democritean’ reading of the Timaeus, in Plato's Cosmology (London, 1937), esp. pp. 198–206Google Scholar is, I think, definitive.

²⁷ Gill 47 and especially 48–53.

²⁸ Mohr 109. I am unable to determine whether Mohr places form-copies of the traditional Forms in the precosmos, along with the deviantly shaped particles. For that matter, if there are geometric Forms, then it seems that they too should have form-copies in the precosmic chaos side by side with the deviant particles.

²⁹ Gill 52.

³⁰ Gill 47: ‘What gives permanence to physical objects such that language can get a grip on them is, after all, their matter. But the matter of physical objects is not, as so many have thought, the receptacle. On the contrary, the matter of physical objects is a set of principles which the deity finds already present in the receptacle and uses in constructing bodies of the four elements.’

³¹ Ibid. 51, ‘They are eternal: a simple is altogether and always such as the Form which is its cause.’

³² I share the conviction that an αἰτία or an αἴτιον (for Plato and Aristotle) is to be treated as an explanatory factor or even explanation, rather than a cause. In some cases, of course, it is a causal explanation. Nonetheless, I, like others, will sometimes speak of ‘causes’. Cf. Vlastos, G., ‘Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo’, Philosophical Review 78 (1969), 291–325CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Frede, M., ‘The Original Notion of Cause’, in Schofield, M. et al. (edd.), Doubt and Dogmatism (Oxford, 1980), 217–49Google Scholar; Annas, J., ‘Aristotle on Inefficient Causes’, Philosophical Quarterly 32 (1982), 311–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and S. Strange, art. cit.

³³ This is, I think, the intuition that has guided non-literalists to insist that chaos is an abstraction from the present, organized physical world. ‘It follows that chaos is, in some sense, an abstraction – a picture of some part of the cosmos, as it exists at all times, with the works of reason left out,‥’ Cornford 203; cf. Cherniss, , A C P A 420, 444.Google Scholar

³⁴ Even so, it might be objected here that Plato does indulge in this kind of argument when we arguing on behalf of Forms. He cannot say what a Form is, but he nonetheless concludes that there must be such a Form. The objection does not strike home. Plato does engage in something like this form of argument. But he insists that Forms have certain natures or essences (he also contends that all Forms, as such, have other properties or characteristics, e.g. atemporality, unchangingness etc.). If initially we can specify a Form only as ‘whatever it is to be’, e.g. Justice, after dialectical and philosophical (and scientific) inquiry we can arrive at the definition, e.g. ‘doing one's own’. (See, for example, Nexshamas, A., ‘Self-Predication and Plato's Theory of Forms’, American Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1979), 93–103Google Scholar, and my ‘Synonymy and Self-Predication’, Ancient Philosophy 10 (1990), 193–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar) In the case of the ultimate material principles, however, not only does there seem to be no such nature or essence, but it seems that Plato is committed to the premise that even if there is such a nature, he cannot know what it is. Timaeus' disclaimers about the necessity of the triangles indicate not that further scientific inquiry will turn up the certifiably primitive shapes, but rather that it is possible to construct the bodies of the four elements, and hence everything in the physical cosmos, from a number of different shapes. The commitment to a singular, necessary and specifiable essence prominent in Plato's consideration of Forms is absent from his consideration of matter.

³⁵ Those who would treat the stuff of the precosmos as deviant shapes awaiting geometric perfection assign to the particles the geometrical properties of the perfected geometrized bodies. It is primitive matter which has or acquires these deviant shapes.

³⁶ Gill 51.

³⁷ I would argue that claims of this type should be understood to assert that the Form is identical with its essence. In the middle period, the simplicity of the Forms is captured by the Greek μονοειδς. See, for example, Phaedo 78d5. Some contend that Forms, at this point in Plato's development, consisted of exactly one property, namely the property it constitutes. In the later period, when Forms seem to possess properties, their simplicity would consist in the special relation they bear to their respective essences.

³⁸ Here the fire and snow of the Phaedo 103c–105b comes to mind. They are necessarily hot and cold, respectively, in virtue of what it is to be fire and what it is to be snow.

³⁹ If one were adamant, one could claim that each material simple has essentially the one property it is endowed with. There is, however, hardly a shred of textual or philosophical evidence that Plato allows material simples, or any phenomenal material particular, to have an essence.

⁴⁰ Gill 51.

⁴¹ Ibid. 47–8.

⁴² Ibid. 52.

⁴³ When the division of causes is introduced at 46d5–e6, the language seems to indicate that the typical Platonic view is at work. First we are to seek the causes due to Intelligence and Knowledge, notions which belong only to soul. Second, we are to pursue those causes which belong ‘to things which are moved by others and of necessity set yet others in motion.’ (Cornford transl. p. 157) The ‘others’ which are in motion, ὃσαι δ ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων μν κινομένων (45el), are either bodies or souls. According to the typical doctrine, if they are bodies, then eventually what sets these bodies, or the bodies which move these bodies, initially in motion must be soul. So the typical doctrine does not consider the causes of Necessity to be wholly free of Intelligence. If this passage is to support an independent realm for Necessity, these ‘others’ must be bodies whose motion is not due to soul. And since any motions of organized bodies caused by other organized bodies would still import Intelligence as a cause, the only option for those who would allot an independent domain to Necessity are the motions of the matter in the primordial chaos.

⁴⁴ See Vlastos, G., ‘The Disorderly Motion in the Timaeus’, CQ 33 (1939), 71–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Allen, R. E. ed., Studies in Plato's Metaphysics (London, 1965), 379–99Google Scholar; p. 396 (pagination from Allen). Cf. Tarán, L., ‘The Creation Myth in Plato's Timaeus’, in Anton, J. and Kustas, G. (eds), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, 1971), 372–407Google Scholar, especially p. 385.

⁴⁵ I thus am not persuaded by Mohr's attempt (art. cit.) to revive the interpretation of chaos as consisting of Democritean particles with objective weight.

⁴⁶ Without committing Plato to any specifics, this is to suggest that his matter is similar to Aristotle's, at least with respect to all Aristotelian matter besides prime matter.

⁴⁷ See Morrow, G., ‘Necessity and Persuasion in Plato's Timaeus’, Philosophical Review 59 (1950), 147–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; reprinted in Allen, op. cit., 421–37, pp. 426–8 (pagination from Allen).

⁴⁸ Ibid. 433.

⁴⁹ Perhaps these Forms are to be identified with certain geometric Forms. This issue is not clear in Morrow's account.

⁵⁰ Morrow 433.

⁵¹ This is the view of S. Strange, art. cit. Although Strange recognizes that the Demiurge is responsible for the creation of the triangles, it is unclear whether the precosmic chaos is Necessity's own Domain.

⁵² Strange 35; cf. Morrow 433.

⁵³ I leave aside the vexed question whether Fire and Snow are Forms here. Cf. Strange 33, Vlastos (1969), 316–24.

⁵⁴ Strange 33: ‘These constraints on Reason are intimately connected with the corporeality of the physical world. This is strikingly illustrated by the passage on the pre-cosmic chaos (52d–53c). Here we are to consider the receptacle as containing only traces or ἴΧνη of the most basic Forms (Fire, Air, Earth and Water) “before” the Demiurge's shaping and organizing activity begins. This indicates that Plato does not think of Reason as the cause of the participation in these Forms: the Demiurge merely takes over these pre-existing formal elements and brings them to participate in better, higher Forms.’ Strange 38 n. 32 cites Morrow with approval here. Clearly the Demiurge or Reason is not responsible for anything's participation in a Form in the precosmos. However, it is not clear that anything in the precosmos participates in a Form at all. Were it to do so, it would not be a trace, but a full-fledged instance. Moreover, even if the Demiurge is responsible for something's participation in a Form, it would be participation in a geometrical Form. Throughout the preceding pages, the Demiurge is not responsible for the exits and entrances of form-copies. It seems that Strange is identifying Fire with a certain geometrical configuration, or generally identifying traditional Forms with geometrical Forms, when he claims that the Demiurge is responsible for something's participation in a Form.

⁵⁵ Strange 33.

⁵⁶ Ibid. 35.

⁵⁷ Were human beings able to be different from what we are, say our sight could be vastly keener if air and not fire were emitted, then the presence of fire in our eyes could be classified as bad.

⁵⁸ There is also a related flaw. These interpretations appear to confuse the Necessity with which Intelligence effects a compromise with the Necessity that the generated physical cosmos be deficient or imperfect vis-à-vis Forms. Being the kind of creator he is, it is necessary that he choose as his model the Form of the Animal Itself and that he instantiate in the generated cosmos images of the Forms (29d–31b). He effects no compromise with this Necessity. In a similar fashion, it is necessary that the physical world, as an image of the Forms, be deficient with respect to the Forms. Here I allude to the fact that the physical objects will necessarily exemplify certain properties because they are and must be material objects, i.e. images in matter. The Triangle itself does not consist of lines which have breadth, but all triangles in the physical world have lines and all lines have breadth. It is necessary that all the material objects constructed by the Demiurge have whatever properties necessarily belong to matter. Yet here too the Demiurge effects no compromise with Necessity.

⁵⁹ On the constraints confronting the Demiurge, see Sellars, W., ‘The Soul as Craftsman’, in Philosophical Perspectives: History of Philosophy (Ridgeview, 1967), 5–22.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Strange 37 n. 15.

⁶¹ Cf. Strange 37 n. 15 and Cherniss, , ACPA 114 and 152–3.Google Scholar

⁶² For a defence of the notion that Phaedan particulars have some properties essentially, see Nehamas, A., ‘Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World’, American Philosophical Quarterly 12 (1975), 105–77Google Scholar; White, F. C., Plato's Theory of Particulars (New York, 1981)Google Scholar. For the notion that particulars lack any essential properties, see Frede, art. cit. (n. 4), and Code, A., ‘Essence and Accident’, in Grandy, R. and Warner, R. (eds), Philosophical Grounds of Rationality, (Oxford, 1986, 411–39)Google Scholar. I leave aside the question of how the soul figures in Plato's conception of a particular (at any stage of his development).

⁶³ That is, what appears to us, appears to us to be at some place. The actual bearer will be the material particular which occupies that place.

⁶⁴ Thus no particular will have any property essentially. Forms alone will bear (or be) essences.

⁶⁵ Cf. Frede, (1986), 50.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Recall that the particulars in question are bits or instances of fire, water, air and complex things comprised of the elements. The names in question are general terms, not proper names such as ‘Socrates’. On names and naming in Plato, see my ‘Plato's Cratylus: the Nature of Naming and the Naming of Nature’, forthcoming, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.

⁶⁷ Cf. Frede (1986), passim and Cherniss, SE 23/253–25/255.

⁶⁸ Versions of this paper have been read at Columbus, Ann Arbor and Toronto. Comments from those in attendance caused me to rethink much that I had then believed. Special thanks are owed to Dan Farrell, Calvin Normore, Alan Code, Sally Haslanger and the editors of this journal. Of course, none of them should be assumed to share my view on all, or any, of the topics discussed in this paper.