NATURE AND DIVINITY IN PLATO S TIMAEUS Plato s Timaeus is one of the most influential and challenging works of ancient philosophy to have come down to us. s rich and compelling study proposes new interpretations of its major elements, including the separate Demiurge, the cosmic beginning, the second mixing, the Receptacle, and the Atlantis story. Broadie shows how Plato deploys the mythic themes of the Timaeus to convey fundamental philosophical insights, and examines the profoundly differing methods of interpretation which have been brought to bear on the work. Her book is for everyone interested in Ancient Greek philosophy, cosmology, and mythology, whether classicists, philosophers, historians of ideas, or historians of science. It offers new findings to scholars familiar with the material, but it is also a clear and reliable resource for anyone coming to it for the first time. sarah broadie is Professor of Moral Philosophy and Wardlaw Professor at the University of St Andrews. She is the author of Ethics with Aristotle (1991), and (with Christopher Rowe) of Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics (2002); also (as Sarah Waterlow) of Passage and Possibility: A Study of Aristotle s Modal Concepts (1984), and Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle s Physics: A Philosophical Study (1984).
NATURE AND DIVINITY IN PLATO S TIMAEUS SARAH BROADIE
cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York Information on this title: /9781107012066 2011 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2011 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Broadie, Sarah. Nature and divinity in Plato s Timaeus /. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-107-01206-6 1. Plato. Timaeus. I. Title. B387.B76 2011 113 dc23 2011023916 isbn 978-1-107-01206-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
To John Waterlow, Judith Waterlow, and Richard Gray in loving memory
Contents Acknowledgements page viii What lies ahead 1 1 The separateness of the Demiurge 7 2 Paradigms and epistemic possibilities 27 3 The metaphysics of the paradigm 60 4 Immortal intellect under mortal conditions 84 5 The Timaeus Critias complex 115 6 The genesis of the four elements 173 7 Divine and natural causation 243 In conclusion 278 Appendix on parts of the paradigm 284 References 286 General index 293 Index locorum 296 vii
Acknowledgements Some of the ideas for this book took root when I was invited to give the Nellie Wallace lectures at the University of Oxford in 2003. I warmly thank the Oxford Faculty of Philosophy for the invitation and for the hospitality I enjoyed while I was there. Several scholars have helped improve the work by their encouragement and criticism. My greatest debts are to Myles Burnyeat, Christopher Rowe, and an anonymous reader for the Press for their extensive comments on an earlier version. I am also grateful to Christopher Gill for his comments on a version of Chapter 5. These critics have forced me to address a variety of faults and inadequacies. I am conscious that many remain, and I even know what some of those are. For instance, one might reasonably wish that I had dealt more fully with the wealth of relevant scholarship. But so be it for now: this book has already more than once in the writing threatened to become a web of Penelope. I must ask readers to forgive its intricacy, complexity, and no doubt at times a certain heaviness. I have tried as best I could to simplify and lighten the arguments and presentations; but the topics of the Timaeus Critias are not ones that exactly lend themselves to lightness and simplicity. For parts of this book I have reworked material from the following publications: * (2001) Theodicy and Pseudo-history in the Timaeus, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 21, 1 28 (Chapter 5) * (2004) Plato s Intelligible World?, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 78, 65 79 (Chapters 1 and 3) * (2007) Why no Platonistic Ideas of Artefacts?, in Maieusis: Essays in Ancient Philosophy in Honour of Myles Burnyeat, ed. D. Scott, Oxford, 232 53 (Chapter 7) * (2008) Theological Sidelights from Plato s Timaeus, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 82, 1 17 (Chapters 1 and 4) viii
Acknowledgements * (2010) Divine and Natural Causation in the Timaeus: The Case of Mortal Animals, La Scienza e le Cause a partire dalla Metafisica di Aristotele, a cura di F. Fronterotta, Bibliopolis (C. N. R., Istituto per il Lessico Intellettuale Europeo e Storia delle Idee), 73 92 (Chapter 7) * (Forthcoming) Fifth-century Bugbears in the Timaeus, in Presocratics and Plato: A Festschrift in Honor of Charles Kahn, ed. A. Hermann, V. Karismanis, and R. Patterson, Las Vegas (Chapters 4 and 6) ix