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Plato, Timaeus 52c2-5*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

G. J. Pendrick
G. J. Pendrick*
Affiliation:
Decatur, GA
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Extract

In a long and important sentence in the Timaeus (52b6–dl), Plato explains that, whereas that which truly or really is () cannot come to be in anything else, sensible things, being mere images, must necessarily come to be in something else, on pain of not existing at all:

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , December 1998 , pp. 556 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1998

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank CQ's anonymous referee for several suggested improvements.

References

1 References to dialogues of the first and second tetralogies follow the new OCT of Duke, E. A. et al., Platonis Opera i (Oxford, 1995); all other dialogues are cited from the edition of Burnet.Google Scholar

2 Cherniss, H., ‘Timaeus 52 C 2–5’, in Melanges de philosophic grecque offerts à Mgr. Diès (Paris, 1956), pp. 49–60, reprinted in his Selected Papers (Leiden, 1977), pp. 364–75, hereafter referred to as ‘Cherniss’.Google Scholar

3 Cf. Cherniss 50–7 = 365–72.

4 Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology (London, 1937), pp. 192 n. 4, 370–1.Google Scholar

5 Cf. Cherniss 54–5 = 369–70.

6 Cf. Cherniss 58–9 = 373–4.

7 Cf. further LSJ, s.v. B: hoc enim terminum significat, illud rem ad quam terminus refertur etc.’ (cited by Cherniss 58 n. 2 = 373 n. 2).

8 in order to emphasize the transitory nature of the image, which comes to signify what it signifies ‘only at the moment of its appearance’ (Cherniss 59 n. 7 = 374 n. 7).

9 Cf. Cherniss 58 with n. 4 = 373 with n. 4.

10 Cf. Brisson, L., Le meme et I'autre dans la structure ontologique du Timee de Platon (Paris, 1974), p. 195 Google Scholarwith n. 2 (who, however, translates ambiguously: ‘puisque cela meme par rapport a quoi elle vient a I'etre ne lui appartient pas en propre’); Lee, E. N., Monist 50 (1966), 359 with n. 42;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Gill, M. L., Phronesis 32 (1987), 49 with n. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Patterson, R., Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics (Indianapolis, 1985), pp. 44–6, 84–5.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Cook, J. Wilson, On the Interpretation of Plato's Timaeus (London, 1889), pp. 109–10Google Scholar; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, Platon3 ii (Dublin and Zurich,1962), pp. 391–2;Google Scholar Taylor, A. E., A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford, 1928), pp. 347–8.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Cornford (n. 4), 370 and Cherniss 53–4 = 368–9.

14 Prior, W. J., Unity and Development in Plato's Metaphysics (La Salle, 1985), p. 114 with n. 28.Google Scholar

15 Zekl, H. G., Platon: Timaios (Hamburg, 1992), p. 85 Google Scholar

16 Cf. Cornford (n. 4), 370 and Cherniss 53 = 368

17 For such unannounced changes of subject cf. Cherniss 59 n. 6 = 374 n. 6, with the reference to Gildersleeve, B. L., Syntax of Classical Greek i (New York, 1900), p. 36;Google Scholar Cornford (n. 4), 371; de Vries, G. J., Mnemosyne 12 (1959), 64; 18 (1965), 242–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Neither Burnet nor the Bude editor Rivaud records any variants. At Simplicius, in Ph. 539.28 (Diels), where the passage of Ti. is quoted, Diels reports that the MSS offer, which Stephanus in fact proposed to read (cf. Cherniss 50 n. 3 = 365 n. 3). Yet Simplicius quotes the passage also at in Ph. 225.10 (Diels), where the MSS offer. There is no good reason to suspect the text.

19 Cf. Cherniss 50 n. 3 = 365 n. 3; Kühner, R. and Gerth, B., Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache II: Satzlehre3 i (Hannover and Leipzig, 1898), p. 562 Google Scholar

20 Cf. Wilamowitz (n. 12), 392: ‘Keine Erklärung, die das Reflexivum halt, darf als Subjekt aufgeben’.

21 Cf. Kühner-Gerth (n. 19), i.334, Anm. 2.

22 Note the chiastic arrangement in the

23 For this sense cf. Denniston, J. D., Greek Particles2 (Oxford, 1954), p. 196 Google Scholar

24 Cf. Cook Wilson (n. 12), 109 and Cherniss 53, 54 = 368, 369.

25 Denniston (n. 23), 195; cf. the similar use of (ibid. 295–6)

26 On the sense of here cf. Cherniss 59 n. 7 = 374 n. 7