path: root/plato_time_notes.otx

% chapter i
\defpnote{0.1}{A.N. Whitehead, \bt{Process and Reality} 
  (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941), p. 63.}
\defpnote{0,2}{W.H. Walsh, 
  \et{Plato and the Philosophy of History: History and Theory in the Republic,}
  \jt{History and Theory}
  (The Hague: Mouton \& Co., 1962), II, 1, pp. 1--16.}
\defpnote{0.3}{K.R. Popper,
  \bt{The Open Society and its Enemies}
  (2 vols.; 2\tss{nd} ed. rev.; London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952).}
\defpnote{0.4}{Walsh, op. cit., p. 6.}
\defpnote{0.5}{See, for example. R.L. Nettleship, 
\bt{Lectures on the Republic of Plato }
(New York: The Macmillan Company, 
1955), and E. Barker, 
\bt{Political Thought of Plato and Aristotle}
(New York: Dover Publications, Imnc., 1959). 
Both of these authors make slight reference to the \bt{Timaeus} while discussing Plato's \dq{Political Philosophy.}}
\defpnote{0.6}{R.G. Bury, 
\et{Plato and History,}
\jt{Classical Quarterly,}
New Series, 1--2, pp. 86--94.}
\defpnote{0.7}{Edward MacKinnon, S.J., 
\et{Time in Contemporary Physics,}
\jt{International Philosophical Quarterly,}
II, 3, (September, 1962), p. 429.}
\defpnote{0.8}{Hermann Gauss,
\bt{Philosophischer Handkommentar zu den Dialogen Platos},
vol. III part 2 (Bern: Herbart Lang, 1961)}
\defpnote{0.9}{Bertrand Russell, 
\bt{Mysticism and Logic}
(Garden City, New York: Doubleday \& Co., 1917). }
\defpnote{0.10}{Whitehead, loc, cit.}
\defpnote{0.11}{Werner Heisenberg,
\bt{Physics and Philosophy}
(New York: Harper \& Brothers, 1955), ch. 4.}
\defpnote{0.12}{See, for example. F.M. Cornford, 
\bt{From Religion to Philosophy}
(New York: Harper \& Brothers, 1957).}
\defpnote{0.13}{F.M. Cornford, 
\bt{Plato's Cosmology},
(London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1937), p. 8.}
\defpnote{0.14}{Carl G. Hempel, 
\et{Fundamentals of Concept Formation in Empirical Science,}
\bt{International Encyclopaedia of Unified Science},
vols. I and IT; 
\ul{Foundations of the Unity of Science}
vol. II, no. 7 (University of Chicago Press, 1952)}
\defpnote{0.15}{Hans Meyerhoff, ed., 
\bt{The Philosophy of History in Our Time}
(New York: Doubleday \& Co., 1959), 
which contains a valuable anthology of the important authors in this field and some of their most representative views.}

% chapter ii

\defpnote{1.1}{A.E. Taylor, 
\bt{Commentary on Plato's Timaeus}
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), p. 4.}
\defpnote{1.2}{F.M. Cornford,
\bt{Plato's Cosmology},
p. viii.}
\defpnote{1.3}{Werner Jaeger, 
\bt{Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture}
(3 vols.; New York: Oxford University Press, 1943), II, pp. 77--78. }
\defpnote{1.4}{Ibid., p. 78.}
\defpnote{1.5}{Ibid., p. 79.}
\defpnote{1.6}{C.F. Hermann, 
\bt{Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie}
(Heidelberg: 1839), in Jaeger, 
op. cit., p. 79}
\defpnote{1.7}{Jaeger, op. cit., p. 79.}
\defpnote{1.8}{Ibid., p. 80.}
\defpnote{1.9}{Theodor Gompers,
\bt{Greek Thinkers},
trans. G.G. Berry 
(London: John Murray, 1905).}
\defpnote{1.10}{Ibid., p. 275.}
\defpnote{1.11}{Ibid., p. 278.}
\defpnote{1.12}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.13}{Ibid., pp. 279, 283.}
\defpnote{1.14}{Ibid., p. 284.}
\defpnote{1.15}{Ibid., p. 285.}
\defpnote{1.16}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.17}{Ibid., p. 286.}
\defpnote{1.18}{Ibid., p. 287.}
\defpnote{1.19}{Jaeger, loc. cit.}
\defpnote{1.20}{L. Campbell, 
\et{Plato,}
\bt{Encyclopaedia Britannica,}
11\tss{th} ed., Vol. XXI, pp. 808--824.}
\defpnote{1.21}{Ibid., p. 810.}
\defpnote{1.22}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.23}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.24}{U.V. Wilamowitz-Moellendorff,
\bt{Platon}, I,
(2\tss{nd} ed.; 
Berlin: Weidman, 1920), in Jaeger, op. cit., p. 80.}
\defpnote{1.25}{Jaeger, op. cit., p. 84.}
\defpnote{1.26}{A.E. Taylor, 
\et{Plato,}
\bt{Encyclopaedia Britannica},
XVIII (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., 1957), 
p. 49.}
\defpnote{1.27}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.28}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 4.}
\defpnote{1.29}{A.E. Taylor, 
\bt{Plato: The Man and His Work}
(6\tss{th} ed.; 5\tss{th} print.; New York: Meridian Books, Inc., 1959), 
p. 346}
\defpnote{1.30}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 4.}
\defpnote{1.31}{Constantin Ritter, 
\bt{The Essence of Plato's Philosophy},
trans. Adam Alles (London: George Allen \& Unwin, Ltd., 1933).}
\defpnote{1.32}{W. Lutoslawski, 
\bt{Origin and Growth of Plato's Logic}
(New York: Longmans, 1928.)}
\defpnote{1.33}{John Burnet, 
\bt{Greek Philosophy}
(London: Macmillan \& Co., Ltd., 1914), Part I, p. 212.}
\defpnote{1.34}{Cornford, op, cit.}
\defpnote{1.35}{Wilamowitz, \bt{Platon}, I, p. 591, in Jaeger, 
op. cit., p. 8O.}
\defpnote{1.36}{Constantin Ritter, 
\bt{Neue Untersuchungen uber Platon}
(Munich: 1910), p. 181.}
\defpnote{1.37}{Ritter, \bt{The Essence of Plato's Philosophy}, p. 9.}
\defpnote{1.38}{Ibid., p. 27.}
\defpnote{1.39}{Ibid., pp. 29--30.}
\defpnote{1.40}{G.C. Field, \bt{Plato and His Contemporaries: A Study in Fourth-Century Life and Thought} (London: Methuen \& Co., Ltd., 1930), p. 68.}
\defpnote{1.41}{Ross has summarized these results in tabular 
form: see Appendix A.}
\defpnote{1.42}{A.E. Taylor, \et{Plato,} \bt{Encyclopaedia Britannica}, 
pp. 48--64.}
\defpnote{1.43}{Field, op. cit., p. 4.}
\defpnote{1.44}{According to Field, Plato's benefactor was 
Archytas (Field, op. cit., p. 16), but according to 
Gompers it was Anniceria (Gompers, op. cit., p. 261).}
\defpnote{1.45}{Field, op. cit., p. 18.}
\defpnote{1.46}{Gompers, op, cit., p. 261.}
\defpnote{1.47}{Ritter, 
\bt{The Essence of Plato's Philosophy},
pp. 21--22.}
\defpnote{1.48}{Ibid., p. 22.}
\defpnote{1.49}{Ibid., p. 23.}
\defpnote{1.50}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{1.51}{Ibid., p. 24.}
\defpnote{1.52}{Ibid., p. 25.}
\defpnote{1.53}{Ibid., pe 26.}
\defpnote{1.54}{Ibid., p. 27.}
\defpnote{1.55}{Ritter op. cit., pp. 329 ff.; 
\bt{Untersuchungen uber Platon}
(Stutheeres 1888), pp. 88 ff.}
\defpnote{1.56}{J. Harward, \bt{The Platonic Epistles} (Cambridge: 
The University Press, 1932).}
\defpnote{1.57}{Harward, op, cit., p. 60.}
\defpnote{1.58}{B. Jowett, 
\bt{The Dialogues of Plato}
(3\tss{rd} ed.; New York: Scribner, Armstrong, \& Co., 1878) preface.}
\defpnote{1.59}{H.T. Karsten,
\bt{De Epistolis quae feruntur Platonicis}
(Utrecht: 1864), in Harward, op, cit., p. 61.}
\defpnote{1.60}{Harward, op. cit., pp. 71--72.}
\defpnote{1.61}{Field, op. cit., p. 16.}
\defpnote{1.62}{Harward, op. cit., p. 76.}
\defpnote{1.63}{Ibid., pp. 86--96.}
\defpnote{1.64}{Ibid., p. 86.}
\defpnote{1.65}{Ritter, 
\bt{Neue Untersuchungen uber Platon}, p. 408.}
\defpnote{1.66}{\bt{Tusc, Disp.} V, 35, in Harward, op. cit., p. 189.}
\defpnote{1.67}{Harward, op. cit., p. 192.}
\defpnote{1.68}{Not \e{learned.} Plato is talking about the 
communication of philosophy, not the stating of it, nor 
the acquisition of it, but the process in which, so to 
speak, philosophy happens.}
\defpnote{1.69}{See the Cave Allegory of the \bt{Republic} 507.}
\defpnote{1.70}{i.e., it is in all probability not a posthumous 
edition.}

% ch iii
% ch iv


\defpnote{2.1}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Plato: The Man and His Work}, p. 2.}
\defpnote{2.2}{Cornford, \bt{Plato's Cosmology}, p. 2.}

\defpnote{2.3}{Gauss, \bt{Philosophischer Handkommentar zu den Dialogen Platos}, p. 157}
\defpnote{2.4}{Cornford, op. cit., appendix, p. 365.}
\defpnote{2.5}{P. Frutiger, \bt{Les Myths de Platon}, (Paris: 1930), pp. 244 ff.}

\defpnote{2.6}{Cornford, op. cit., p. 14.}

\defpnote{2.7}{Q. Lauer, S.J., \et{The Being of Non-Being in Plato's Sophist} (unpublished manuscript; New York: Fordham University).}

\defpnote{2.8}{Cornford, op. cit., p. 8.}

\defpnote{2.9}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Plato: The Man and His Work}, p. 440.}
\defpnote{2.10}{Cf., V.J. Gioscia, \et{A Perspective for Role Theory,} \jt{The American Catholic Sociological Review,} XXII, 2 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1961), pp. 143 ff.}

\defpnote{2.11}{Cornford, op. cit., p. 24.}

\defpnote{2.12}{Ibid., p. 28.}
\defpnote{2.13}{Ibid., p. 30.}

\defpnote{2.14}{Ibid., pp. 31--32.}

\defpnote{2.15}{R.D. Archer-Hind, \bt{Commentary on the Timaeus}, (London: The Macmillan Company, 1888), p. 86, n, 14.}

\defpnote{2.16}{T.T. Taylor, \bt{The Timaeus and Critias of Plato},
(Washington: Pantheon Books Inc., 1952), p. 112. }

\defpnote{2.17}{Ibid., p. 17.}

\defpnote{2.18}{Bury, \bt{Plato and History},\ednote{book or essay?} p. 5.}

\defpnote{2.19}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 73.}

\defpnote{2.20}{Ibid.}
\defpnote{2.21}{Ibid., p. 74.}
\defpnote{2.22}{Ibid.}

\defpnote{2.23}{Ibid., p. 19.}
\defpnote{2.24}{Cornford, op. cit., p. x.}
\defpnote{2.25}{Ibid., pp. 11--12.}

% ch 5
\defpnote{3.1}{Cornford, \bt{Plato's Cosmology}, p. 31.}

\defpnote{3.2}{One is tempted to restore the hiatus which Cornford habitually tries to remove as \dq{intolerable.} Then the passage would read, \dq{he desired that all things should come as near as possible to being, like himself.}}

\defpnote{3.3}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 37.}

\defpnote{3.4}{Ibid., p. 78.}

\defpnote{3.5}{T.T. Taylor, 
\bt{The Timaeus and Critias of Plato}, pp. 29 ff.}

\defpnote{3.6}{e.g., Alexandre Koyre, \bt{From the Closed World to the
Infinite Universe}, (New York: Harper \& Brothers, 1958).}

\defpnote{3.7}{E.R. Dodds, \bt{The Greeks and the Irrational}
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).}

\defpnote{3.8}{George S. Claghorn, \bt{Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's 
\sq{Timaeus}} (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1954), p. 87.}

\defpnote{3.9}{Cornford, op, cit., p. 59.}
\defpnote{3.10}{Ibid., p. 61.}
\defpnote{3.11}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 128.}

\defpnote{3.12}{Cornford, loc. cit., "Kinds" is a peculiar expression which is repeated here only to assure an accurate representation of Cornford's view.}

\defpnote{3.13}{T.T. Taylor, op. cit., \et{Introduction.}}
\defpnote{3.14}{According to T.T. Taylor, loc. cit.}
\defpnote{3.15}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, Appendix.}
\defpnote{3.16}{Heisenberg, \bt{Physics and Philosophy}, ch. 4. See 
also MacKinnon, \bt{Time in Contemporary Physics}, pp. 428--457.}

\defpnote{3.17}{Dodds, op. cit.}
\defpnote{3.18}{A.E. Taylor, \bt{Commentary}, p. 113.}

\defpnote{3.19}{A.E. Taylor, Cornford, Archer-Hind, Bury.}

\defpnote{3.20}{Cornford has \dq{So.}}

\defpnote{3.21}{Cornford, op. cit.}

\defpnote{3.22}{They do not really wander; see \bt{Laws} 822a.}
\defpnote{3.23}{Cornford has \dq{circuits.}}

CHAPTER VI 
TIME AND SOCIETY 


While it has not escaped the attention of the 
scholars whose interest leads them to the Timaeus that its 
doctrine of Time is inseparable from the doctrine of the 
eternal model, the purpose or role of Plato's Time image 
is frequently overlooked. ! Similarly, while it is true that 
Plato fashions his image of Time with great care and is 
conscious throughout his formulation of a desire not to 
distort the ineffable while yet speaking of it, it seems 
that insufficient attention has been paid to the relevance 
of the introductory remarks in the opening section of the 
Gialogue to this image, and the relation of these remarks 
to Plato's doctrine of Time. 


To rectify this oversight, it is only necessary to 


recall the opening passages of the Timaeus where Socrates 
had agreed to the plans which Timaeus and Critias had made 
for their talk: Timaeus intends to describe the origin of 
the Universe and to carry on his account until it had 

reached the time when man made his appearance; thereafter, 


Critias intends to take up the account and to describe 


' For example, in his chapter on the doctrine of the 


Timaeus, Ross (W.D. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas 
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951).) discusses the role of 
Time not at all. 



ancient Athens; both of these accounts are to be given so 
that Socrates may fulfill his wish to hear an account of a 
real city, not an imaginary one; not a tale of "some noble 
creatures in a painting, or perhaps of real animals, alive 
but motionless" but an account of real creatures, "in 
motion, and actively exercising the powers promised by their 
form" (19c). In this way, Plato gently suggests that the 
power to describe the actual origins of the best society 
are beyond Socrates, and it must be the task of others to 
supply it. This is the meaning of the obviously inadequate 
recapitulation of the doctrines of the Republic, which are 
mUch too briefly summarized in the opening passages of the 
Timaeus. There is no need to look for deeper or more arcane 
meanings in Socrates' confession of inability to construct 
such an account; it is not the absence of opinion on 


Socrates part, as it was in the Theatetus. In the Timaeus, 


Socrates does not say that he is "only" an opinionless 
midwife who must deliver the philosophical offspring of 
those pregnant with the truth; on the contrary, he says 
quite openly that he is not up to the task, and that the 
power to tell such a story is beyond him. It has been 
generally agreed among the scholars that the opening 
passages of the Timaeus "recapitulate" the Republic, © and 


most of those who do not agree on the order of the 


2 Gauss, Philosophischer Handkommentar zu_ den 
Dialogen Platos, p. Le 



dialogues as they have been described in chapter II agree 


that the Timaeus must be later than the Republic for this 


interpretative reason. And it has long been agreed that 
the Republic is the work in which Plato reveals a political 
philosophy, or, as we call it, a philosophy of society. 

But if we take separate conclusions, on which the scholars 
agree, and, if we attempt to see them in relation to each 
other, we shall arrive at a simple and yet, to the best of 
my knowledge, an uncommon conclusion. If (1) 1t is true 
that the Republic is a dialogue in which Plato has attempted to see the powers of the soul "writ large," that is, 

if the Republic is a dialogue in which the state is seen 

as a magnification of the soul; and, together with this, 

4f (2) we see that the Timaeus is a dialogue in which the 
"alive but motionless," society of the Republic is recapitulated, and, if we add to this (3) the fact that the 
Timaeus first develops a doctrine of Time before setting 
out the details of the best form of society, we may draw a 
startling conclusion; Plato has made the doctrine of Time 
the basis of a new Platonic sociology. Where the Republic 
describes a State based on the view that only the eternal 
is real and all else is mere becoming, the Timaeus describes 
a society based on the perfection which Time confers on 


the discordant motions of a primordial chaos. Plato has 


3 Jowett, Ihe Dialogues of Plato, II, pp. 456~7. 



shifted the basis of his sociology from the eternal to the 
temporal; no longer is it his view that the realms of 
eternity and becoming are separated by an unbridgeable 
chasm; now, in the Timaeus, through the gradual process we 
described in Chapter II, Plato has arrived at the formulation of a doctrine in which Time is, so to speak, the 
bridge between these two realms. 

But this image of Time as a bridge falls short of 
Plato's meaning. It would be better to say that the 
Universe which the Timaeus reveals is a proportional unity 
of many levels, and that Time is the proportion between 
eternal being and incessant becoming. But further, it is 
necessary to recall that Plato does not use this sort of 
intellectually precise language; he prefers to say that 
Time is the moving image of eternity, because the richness 
and allegorical suggestiveness of the phrase "moving image" 
captures two very different levels of meaning, i.e., both 
the ineffable truth of the eternal model of the Universe, 
and the magnificent beauty of the concrete relations within 
the visible Universe. 

To the best of my knowledge, Bury is the only writer 
who has seen that the Republic is Plato's first Philosophy 
of History, and that in the Timaeus Plato modifies this 


view. But Bury nevertheless concludes that there has been 


4 Bury, "Plato and History," p. 5. 


() 



no growth of Plato's doctrine, and that the conclusions of 
the Timgeus are implicit in the views stated in the Republic, 
This seems to stretch the meaning of the term "implicit" 
beyond reasonable bounds, for, on this basis, we should 
have to conclude that Plato's movement from an eternal 
basis to a temporal basis is no development, but merely an 
explication of former views. It is difficult to see how one 
can say that the basis of society in one dialogue is 
eternity and the basis of society in another dialogue is 
Time, and that the one view is "4mplicit" in the other. 

Similarly, it 1s hard to see the grounds for A.E. 


Taylor's assertion that the Timaeus is only an introduction 


to the Critias, since, as we said above, such a view would 


so linearize Plato's philosophy that we should have to 
view the Laws as the only source of Plato's mature philosophy. One should not ignore the early works of a genius 
such as Plato when one reads his later works, since this 
procedure deprives one of the measure of the man and the 
gradual maturity which he was able to reveal in his late 
writings. 

It seems to us more reasonable to follow Cornford 


into the opinion that the Timaeus was the first of a 


projected trilogy of dialogues, which were to have revealed 
Plato's reflections concerning the basis of the best 
possible form of society, after a life-long concern for 


this subject. If it 1s true that Plato's Sicilian adventures 


were of such a nature as to discourage and disillusion the 



great man from his life-long hopes to bring about good 
government, we should expect to see bitterness and pessimism in the works written after these experiences. But we 
find no shallow despair in the Seventh Letter or in the 


Timaeus; rather we confront a dialogue which is written 


in a style especially designed to appeal to those whose 
philosophical training was not so arduous nor so disciplined as Plato's own. Plato does not become a disdainful 
elitist, nor is the Timaeus a children's allegory, 

written by a sour old grandfather, for there is a great 
deal in it which requires strenuous philosophical reflection and painstaking attention. Yet, even those without 
philosophical training and exacting logical skill can be 


moved by the poetry which Plato has made in the Timaeus. 


It is both a mature philosophy and a beautiful myth which 
seems to be designed as well for the elite philosopher as 
for the untutored statesman. | 

Thus it seems pointless to criticise the Timaeus as 
an uneven dialogue which skips about from the level of 
thought to the level of myth, and, on the basis of such a 
criticism, to prefer to look to other dialogues for more 
philosophical meanings because the style of earlier dialogues 4s more even and their philosophy more exactly 
stated. This is not unlike preferring to look in the 
pantry for the broom only because there is a light in the 
pantry, when, in fact, the broom is in a darker but more 


'spacious room in the attic. 





If it is true that the Timaeus was written after 


Plato's later and more mature reflections on the requisites 
for the best possible society, as we tried to establish in 
the third chapter, one should not ook to the Republic for 
Plato's most mature doctrines of society. And yet those 
writers who wish to discuss Plato's philosophy of society 
as a philosophy of history or as a political philosophy 
seem more drawn to the Republic, and few of them go to 
the Timaeus as the source of Plato's teaching on this 
subject." 

This is not to complain that scholarly inattention 


plagues the Timaeus, for the Timaeus has not gone without 


@ great deal of comment by writers in almost every century 
in the West. Yet it has not been viewed as the dialogue in 
which Plato makes his most explicit statements on the basis 
for the best possible form of society, and no writer in the 
modern era has seen in it the culmination of Plato's gradual 
development beyond the doctrine of eternity in the Republic. 
And yet this seems to be precisely what Plato has done. 
This 1s not the place to examine and comment in 
detail on the elements which, according to Plato, would 


characterize the best form of society, since these 


) Walsh, Plato and the Philosophy of History. See 
also Barker, Politica ought of Plato and istotle, 


Nettleship, Lectures on the Republic of Pilato, 
Popper, The Open Society and ite Bpentes, and numerous 
anthologies which present Plato's Republic but seldom if 


ever present the Timaeus. 





specifications are to be found in part in the Critias and in 


great detail in the Laws. It 1s not our purpose here to 
describe exhaustively Plato's later sociology. The issue 
here is the role of Plato's image of Time as a basis for 
his later sociology, insofar as this can be ascertained 


by a careful reading of the Timaeus in its chronological 


and doctrinal context. The Timaeus seems to be unequivocally 
clear on this issue, for Plato shows repeatedly in this 
dialogue that the basis for a sound understanding of his 
sociology is the role of Time in the nature of the Universe. 
Thus, betore Critias can accomplish his promise to furnish 
Socrates with an account of ancient Athens in her prime of 
social life, Timaeus speaks a monologue which comprises 
almost the entire work which bears his name. In the first 
half of the dialogue, which discusses the Universe insofar 
as it is due to the Work of Reason, Plato leads gradually 
and ineluctably to the basis of the rational perfections 
which are brought to the Universe by time. In the Republic 
the perfections of society derive from a participation of 
the state in eternal justice; in the Timaeus, society is 
perfected by ame, which brings order to chaos. 

The most serious objection to our conclusion is the 
claim that Plato only speaks of the gradual construction 
of the Universe as if it were gradually brought into 
existence, when his actual meaning remains hidden between 
the lines. A.E, Taylor adopts this view, when he says that 


Plato believes the Universe is eternal, and therefore it 



does not actually have a temporal character (Archer-Hind also holds this view). In short, Taylor claims that 
Plato described the Universe as if it were gradually 
brought into being because it would be easier for Plato's 
readers to comprehend his meaning in this way.° 

Happily, Plato himself seems to upset this view in 

the Timaeus, when he distinguishes quite carefully between 
the eternal and the becoming, between a false image and a 
genuine image, between a mere myth and a genuine myth. If 


the Timaeus were only a myth designed to create the appearance of the truth but not to reveal the actual truth, it 
would follow that Plato has cast his whole account of the 
origin of the Universe into the deceptively simple mold of 
orderly succession. But the discrepancy between the 
deliberately temporal image which Plato has created and 
the calm stillness of the eternal, which he recurrently 
describes, seems too wide to support the interpretation 
that Plato remained an eternalist in the midst of a 
temporalist account. ¢ 

It seems better to view Plato's statements about the 


temporality of the Universe as the basis of its perfection, 


6 A.E. Taylor, Commentary, pp. 689 ff. 


f J.F. Callahan, Four Views of Time in Ancient 
Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), 
r tly says that A.E. Taylor errs here because of his 
adoption of Aristotle's notion of Time. 



and to reject the assertion that Plato's Universe is 
actually eternal even though he says it is temporal. But 
there is a deeper point, and it is this; to continue to 
distinguish so sharply between eternity and Time after 
reading the Timaeus is to miss a major doctrine of the 
Timaeus, which describes philosophically-mythologically 
the proportional relation between the realms of eternity and 
becoming, and to view the role of Time as the mediator 
between these realms, such that they are no longer as 
separate as they were described to be in the Republic, but 
are aspects of a proportionally united Universe. The 
assertion that Plato separates eternity and Time ignores 
Plato's description of their relation in the Timaeus, where 
Time is said to be the proportional unification of becoming 
and eternity. By viewing Plato's doctrine of Time as the 
"mediation" of becoming, one can reach the basis of Plato's 
late sociology, since Plato repeatedly has Timaeus say that 
the gradual origin of man must be sought in the gradual 
origin of the Universe, and it is precisely Timaeus' 
function to reveal Plato's doctrine of Time so that Critias 
can take up the account of man. To assert that Plato held 
a static view of the Universe but spoke of it as a gradual 
process, because he was unable to discuss the whole 
Universe at once, seems to misinterpret the crucial 
significance of Plato's definition of Time as an image. 

For the Image is the whole Universe, and, furthermore, it 


ia deliberately described as a moving image. As we have 



said repeatedly above, Plato was not unable to describe 
the whole Universe at once; he did so in an image, and 
while it is true that he gradually reveals the elements 
and aspects of the image in a serialized description, he 
nevertheless insists that the Universe is one image. In 
short, Plato no longer impales himself on the horns of a 
dilemma by separating eternity and Time; he has transcended 
such an impasse by describing a Universe which is both 
hierarchical and processual, yet neither in isolation. 

One may continue to dissect logically Plato's Universe 
into one part hierarchy and one part process, but it 
seems to see that it is the dissector and not Plato who s0 
bifurcates the Platonic Universe. That is, one may analyze 
the Platonic Universe into logically discrete categories, 
and focus now on the hierarchic aspect and now on the 
processual aspect, but one can also say that Plato's 
Universe is a proportional unity in which the temporal 
hierarchy (or the hierarchical temporality) are concretely 
related. Thus one could reject A.E. Taylor's view that 
Plato believed the Universe to be eternal but described it 
as if it were temporal, so that Plato could communicate 
better to the philosophically ill-equipped. 

However, it should be borne in mind that the Timaeus 


does not itself contain a new sociology, but presents the 


basis for one, for we must look to the Critias and the Laws 


for the details of Plato's later view of society. It is our 
contention here that this later view is unintelligible 


oe 



without a sound interpretation of Plato's moving image 
of eternity. 
It follows that the entire basis of society and the 
communal life of man is not to be found completely within 
those aspects of the Universe which are due to the orderly 


perfections which derive from Time. For our analysis has 


stopped midway in the monologue of Timaeus; we have 


described, up to this point, only the works of reason, and 
have not presented any discussion of those aspects of the 
Universe which derive from necessity. Plato has not 
described the demiurge as absolutely omnipotent, for even 
the demiurge must attempt to persuade necessity, not force 
it, to yield to the urgings of Time and order.® 
The admission that Time itself is not all powerful, 


but must confront, so to speak, the cosmological inertia 


of necessity, serves to strengthen, not weaken, the 


8 There are several aspects of Plato's discussion 
of Time and Society which bear a marked resemblance to 
some aspects of the philosophy of Anaximander, but a 
discription of these similarities and differences would 
require a lengthy discussion which would take us into 
the origin of Plato's doctrines, whereas it is only our 
purpose here to present and examine Plato's doctrine. 
For example, while it would be instructive to investigate 
the extent of Plato's indebtedness to Anaximande:''s 
dark saying about the reparation which things offer in 
Time for their injustices, (see, for example, John 
Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (4th ed.; London: Adam 
and Charles Black; New York: Tne Macmillan Co., 1930), 
pp. 52-53.) it would necessitate more comment than 
we have room to present here. 



conclusion that Time brings perfection. Whereas it was 
once possible to say that Plato viewed the eternal as the 
only source of perfection and viewed the temporal realm 
of becoming as the source of imperfection, it now emerges 
that Plato has made a sharp distinction between incessant 
becoming, which is indeed less than perfect, and 'time, 
which brings perfection even to becoming. When becoming 
1s ordered by Time it is no longer merely incessant, nor 
only a ceaseless and perpetual fluxion of chaotic changes, 
but an ordered motion which is perfected by Time, the source 
of orderly motion. Necessity belongs to mere becoming; 
Time belongs to reason and eternity. 

It follows that a society will be perfect insofar as 
it regards Time as the paradigm of its style of life, and 
that society will be imperfect insofar as it regards mere 
becoming as the model for its political flux. And these 
are exactly the doctrines which Plato develops in the 


Critias and the Laws. The Critias, as much as we have of 


it, describes the "mythical" kingdom of Atlantis, and we 
have a brief foretaste of this description in the opening 


passages of the Timaeus. In the third book of the Laws, we 


have what the moderns would call a philosophy of history, 
or, in other terms, what could well be described as an 
incipient philosophical anthropology. The third book of 

the Laws dwells at aveat length on the questions which 

we are now examining; it is concerned with "immense periods 


of Time" and "thousands of cities" which came to be and 




have now disappeared from memory, and puts the question 
to itself whether there may not be a discernible pattern 
in the rise and fall of these cities. Or, to see the 
matter from another point of view, one could point to the 
tenth book of the Laws where questions about what we 
might call divine providence are raised and discussed, in 
a context which is explicity temporal. Or again, one could 
cite quotation after quotation from almost any book of the 
Laws which would show that Plato was much interested in 
the relative durations of various things, from constitutions to kingdoms and from mountains to men. 

But these investigations must be left to another 
time when they can be treated with the exhaustive documentation they deserve. It has been our purpose to spell out 
in detail the reasons for adopting the view that there is 
a Platonic philosophy of time and that this philosophy is 
inseparable from Plato's concern for the best possible 
society. 

Before the final words are written, however, it 
seems appropriate to state a few opinions which have emerged during the course of this study. While it would be 
impossible to draw final conclusions about the relevance 
of Plato's philosophy of time to the intellectual pursuits of the modern world without at the same time presente 
ing a history of Platonic scholarship for all of the 
intervening years between Plato's era and our own, it is 


possible to state a few opinions which have been reached 



on this subject, providing caution is advised about the 
extent to which we may derive philosophical satisfaction 
from a careful reading of Plato's works. 

Perhaps the most persistent opinion which comes to 
mind concerning Plato's philosophy of time is the frequents 
ly stated view that the Greeks viewed the world as closed 
and that their view of history was in sharp contrast to 
our modern view of the open Universe. While it is not 
possible to state that this view of the Greek world as 
closed is without any foundation, it is not only possible 
but necessary to confront the closed view with the import 
of the doctrine of time which we find in the Timaeus. It 
is simply incorrect and therefore, unscholarly to repeat 


the naive eternalism of the Republic, if the Timaeus is as 


late a work as it seems to be. One should not continue to 
separate the eternal from the temporal after one has 


studied the Timaeus, and one could say with some accuracy 


that the whole import of the Timaeus has been to remove 
this intolerable dichotomy by revealing the manner of 
relation of these two aspects of the Universe. 
This is not to assert that Plato came in the end to 

a simple monism in which all things are merely becoming. 
As we have said repeatedly, time perfects becoming. But 
there is an ineluctable gradualism in the Universe the 
Timaeus describes which cannot be ignored, and, while 

it is true to say that our modern notion of process is 


'richer by far and more concrete than ever a Greek could 



imagine, it 1s also true to say that there was some 
degree of openness in the Greek Universe and that it 
would be false to state simply that it was a closed world. 

The political implications of this openness deserve 
some attention although it is only possible to suggest 
some more obvious points here. If the Universe is closed 
and is in some way a completed whole, it becomes the 
business of the statesman to discern those Laws by which 
the Universe attains its style of perfection and to fashion 
human laws in such a way that human perfection is sought 
in copying the perfection of the Universe. In this way 
the constitution of the state should be only a copy and 
an imitation of the Universe. 

If, on the other hand, the Universe is open ard is 
in some way incomplete and unfinished, it becomes the 
business of the statesman to model his constitution as far 
as possible on the pertection of the Universe and thereafter to improvise and invent those measures which seem 
best under the circumstances. If such a statesman can 
be found, he will understand that the sources of imperfection are not solely derived from the failure of the citizens to model themselves on the eternal forms, but might 
result from the very incompletion of the statesman's 
actions. In other words, it follows from a completed world 
that its citizens must adjust themselves to its patterns; 
4t follows from an incomplete world that its citizens 


play a part in its completion. It does not follow that 



the citizens of an incomplete world must live ina 
totalitarian regime where all law emanates from an elite 
few who claim to have discovered the basis of all law. To 
put the matter differently, it can be said that a closed 
Universe has no room for human innovation, whether it be 
political, scientific, or philosophical; the converse 
statement would read that only in an open Universe can the 
citizenry aspire to creative participation in the processes 
of the state. 

Unfortunately, this simple division of worlds into 
those that are closed and those that are open is not 
applicable to Plato's Universe, since it is a world in 
which there are eternal models as well as incomplete 
republics. Something of a similar view obtains in current 
anthropology in which one may read many statements to the 
effect that there are some basic exigencies of human nature 
which must be met in any culture, but that there are a 
number of ways in which cultures can set about handling 
these exigencies in their own respective styles. Plato's 
Universe is neither simply open or simply closed; nor does 
it suffice to say that it is both. The Platonic philosophy 
handles this question in a different way, for it describes 
a world in which there are stages of completion and degrees 
of openness. Thus for Plato it is possible to claim the 
best of both possible worlds, for he can assert that there 


are eternal models for human political action and that 



there are necessary innovations and inventions which the 
statesman must create. To the extent that the human 
invention resembles the temporal order which the Universe 
achieves, to that extent is it good. In other language, 
one can say that the Platonic conception of perfection 
which appears in the Timaeus is a gradualist notion, such 
that a thing is perfect if it is as good as it can be at 
a given time. Perfection then is a stage concept which 
refers itself inevitably to a basic pace at which perfec~ 
tion is achievable. 

In this way, one can see that the Platonic Universe 
is neither simply open nor simply closed, and that he who 
uses the paradigm "open or closed" really uses a spatial 
idea, not a temporal one, and is therefore guilty of a 
species of philosophical reductionism. The question is not 
whether the Universe is closed or open but whether there is 
in the Universe sufficient ground for the gradual attainment of perfection. Even this last statement seems to put 
perfection at the end of the process, whereas in fact it is 
possible to say in the Platonic idiom that a thing is as 
perfect as it can be while it is proceeding at its proper 
pace of attainment. In this way, one does not need to 
assert that perfection is attainable only in some otherworldly realm, or that only those things which have 
achieved release from the quagmire of time have entered 
into eternity. On the contrary, those things which have 
nothing of time in them but share only in the incessant 



flux of becoming have no measure of eternity in them 
precisely because eternity can be brought to becoming only 
by time. 

To use another perspective, the same point can be 
made in another way. In a Universe in which the eternal is 
removed from the temporal by a radical division, only those 
things which have transcended the Aaviaton may properly be 
called eternal. Thus, no individuality can be claimed for 
any person who has not transcended time and achieved 
eternity. But in Plato's Universe, each person who finds 
his proper pace of achievement may be said to be as eternal 
as he can be at the moment, or that his perfection consists 
of the entire process of attainment. It is therefore 
necessary for the citizens of the Republic to model thenselves entirely upon the eternal forms or be called failures, where the citizens of the realm founded on the philosophy of the Timaeus may be said to posess individuality 


insofar as they attain perfection to the extent that it is 
possible to attain it at the time. In this way, another of 
the frequently asserted opinions about the world of the 
Greeks is found wanting. In conversation with philosophers, 
'one frequently hears that there were no genuine individuals 
in the Greek world, since genuine individuality would 
scandalize the Greek notion of an ordered and predictable 
world. We must clarify the statement that there is individuality in the Greek world; a more accurate statement would 


read that there is a genuine basis of individuality in the 



philosophy which Plato reveals in the Timaeus, but this 
statement must be quickly followed by the statement that 
there were few Greek individuals. While it is true on the 
one hand to state that most Greeks felt the Universe to be 
closed, it is nonetheless true that Plato's Timaeus does 
not reveal such a Universe. 

This creates something of a problem for the historian 
who would like to see one ethos in the age which produced 
both Plato and Aristotle. If the Timaeus reveals the | 
philosophy herein described, we must separate Plato from 
his pupil even more widely than is sometimes the practice, 
for it does seem to be true that Aristotle's Universe is 
closed, since it is a world in which time is described as 
an accident. Surely this is far from Plato's view of time 
as the source of the perfections which make it possible for 
him to regard the Universe as a shrine. It is necessary to 
state that the gap between the moving image of eternity and 
the measure of motion is even wider than it has usually 
been described, if the viewpoint herein adopted is credible. 

Again, this is not the place to discourse upon a 
philosophical prejudice, nor is it claimed that the 
philosophy of Plato is superior to the philosophy of 
Aristotle. Such statements do violence to the historical 
view which regards philosophies as different because they 
were written by different men in different times with 


different needs. Aristotle was not confronted with the 



same political realities that confronted Plato, and to 
that extent, at least, we should, expect their political 
philosophies to differ. However, it remains true that 
Plato placed time at the very heart of his doctrine and 
that Aristotle placed time at the accidental periphery of 
his. To that extent, Plato's philosophy of time is more 
congenial to the modern mind which occupies itself with 
questions of historical process and temporal being. 

Viewed in this light, it becomes possible to see 
the basis of Whitehead's remark that Plato has spawned 
almost the entire philosophical heritage of the West. 


Furthermore, it becomes possible to compare Science in 


the Modern jiorld to the Timaeus, since the authors of both 


works attempted not only to write a history of contemporary 
science but also to show in their discussions of the 
scientific theories prevalent in their respective eras 
that beyond the reach of the sciences there were insights 
upon which the sciences unknowingly depended. 

In that same spirit, I have attempted to write of 
Plato's image of time, since it is my conviction that every 
age, and not only Plato's or even Whitehead's, depends 
unknowlingly on a view of time and derives its basic 
cognitive orientation from its time-view. 

If 4t 18 true that Plato matured until the last, and 
that he sought in the end to plumb the awesome mystery of 
time and eternity, I felt that his search could only 


enlighten the attempts of a working sociologist to make 



some sense out of his own era by viewing it, in the last 
analysis, as a moving image of eternity. 

There is one aspect of the temporal perfection of 
the Universe which deserves special attention in the light 
of modern interests, and that is the special perfection 
which develops in the individual man in time. We pointed 
out in chapter three that Plato made frequent use of the 
age of the speaker in several dialogues, sometimes accusing 
the speaker of naivete because of his youth and sometimes 
praising the venerable age of the speaker and the wisdom 
which came to him because of his age. For example, in the 


Parmenides, Socrates is very young and Parmenides is very 


old, and Plato implies clearly that the very young do not 
yet have the requisite insight for profound subjects. This 


is again true in the Theatetus wherein Socrates is now 


the old and wise man, as opposed to the young and malleable Theatetus. In view of the fact that the Timaeus casts 
the whole middle doctrine of individual reminiscence into 
\& more generalized sociological frame of reference, it 
should be pointed out that Plato has not abandoned his 
reminiscence theory in the later dialogues: actually, he 
has fortified it by showing that there is a cosmological 
basis for the sort of memory which a society must have 
in order to be as fully societal as it is possible to be. 
Thus, just as the society develops in time, so the 
individual citizen develops in time, and in time, the | 


citizen not only ages, but he matures and grows wise. It 



is this very maturity of insight which Plato himself 
experienced with his own advancing years, and it is therefore unsurprising that we find in the later dialogues a 
doctrine in to which the perfection of reason is attained 
by those individuals who have participated more fully in 
time than those younger philosophers whose maturity is yet 
unreached. 

To put the matter somewhat more technically, Plato 
has so closely related cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis 
by reason of their mutual participation in time that it 
is also possible to relate the ontogenesis of the individual citizen to the same basis in time. While it was always 
possible to say with Plato that the older man is probably 
the wiser man, it 1s possible, after a careful reading of 
the later dialogues, to assert that the older man ought to 
pe the wiser because of his fuller participation in time. 
Or to put the matter in more modern language, the gradual 
development of the individual person takes place not only 
according to psychological processes, but also according 
to sociological and cosmological processes, since all of 
these processes may be seen as particular manifestations 
of the pertections which Time brings to the Universe. 

Therefore, I assert that a careful reading of the 
Timaeus in its doctrinal and chronological context leads to 
the following conclusions. 

Plato's final formulation of a doctrine of Time was 


revealed in his Timaeus. In that work, he tells us that 



Time is the basis of society, from which the society 
derives the perfections of life and mind in motion. Thus 
it is false to divide eternity and time from each other 
since Time delivers perfections and perfects mere becoming 
s0 that it most resembles the source of perfections. It is 
g00d to regard Time as a moving image of eternity since 
this phrase indicates the mediatory role of time. The 
simple division of eternity versus time is false, since 
eternity differs most from mere becoming. Time perfects 
becoming by relating it concretely to eternity. In this 
way, the things of the Universe may achieve individuality 
since they need not be either completely eternal nor 
merely becoming but may be best what they are by being as 
fully as possible what they are when they are. Thus, from 
the early formedoctrine of the middle dialogues, Plato has 
advanced to a new position. It is neither a renunciation of 
the Form-doctrine nor a simple extension or reapplication 


of it. In the Timaeus, the Forms are paradigms and have 


reality only to the extent to which the things modelled 
upon them derive their perfections from them. The earlier 
Form-doctrine described a number of perfect Forms from 
which things differed by reason of their imperfection; the 
later form-doctrine describes a set of Forms which are 
originative, such that they give of their perfection in a 
process called Time. 

In such a world, society is not a realm removed from 


@ penultimate world of silent and unspeaking self posession, 



but becomes the way in which eternal perfection discloses 


itself, which Plato calls the moving image of eternity. 





APPENDIX A 


Ross! gives a tabular presentation of the order 
of the dialogues according to "five leading students" 
of the subject. Since the order of the early works is 
not in question here, the table is abbreviated to show 
the order of the dialogues starting with the Republic, 
on which there is wide agreement. However it should be 
noted that Ross does not distinguish between stylistic 
criteria and stylometric criteria and uses the two 
interchangeably in his chapter on the order of the 
dialogues. With the exception of the Phacdrus, the 


scholars cited by Ross give substantially the order I 
have adopted as the most probable. 


Arnim _ Lutoslawski Raeder Ritter Wilamowitz 
Rep. 2-10 Rep. 2=10 Rep. Rep. Rep. 
Theaet. Phaedr. Phaedr. Phaedr. Phaedr. 
Parm. Theaet. Theaet. Theaet. Parn. 
Phaedr. Parn. Parn. Parn. Theaet. 
Soph. Soph. Soph. Soph. Soph. 
Pol. Pol. Pol. Pol. Pol. 
Phil. Phil. Phil. Tin. Tin. 
Tin. Tim. Critias Critias 
Critias Critias Phil. Phil. 
Laws Laws Laws Laws Laws 
Epin. 


' wep. Ross, Plato's Theory of Ideas (Oxford: 
Clarendon Press, 1951), p. 2. 



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ABSTRACT 


Victor Joseph Gioscia 
B.S8., Fordham College 
M.A., Fordham University 
Plato's Image of Time 
Dissertation directed by J. Quentin Lauer, Ph.D. 


The most explicit formulation which Plato made of 
his philosophy of Time is found in his Timaeus. In this 


dialogue, he reexamines some of the doctrines he had 
formulated in the Republic. 

By reference to a wide concensus of scholarly 
opinion, it is established that the timaeus is very probably 
the last dialogue Plato completed and edited, that it is 
tollowed only by the incomplete Critias and the unedited 
Laws. These facts, taken together with the fact that the 


Timaeus recapitulates some doctrines of the Republic, 


Give the Timaeus a central importance in Plato's reflections 
on society. 


This means that the Timaeus contains a "later" 


doctrine than the Republic and that in the Timaeus we 


rind a reflective advance over the doctrines ot the 
"early" and "middle" dialogues of Plato. 
The study traces the evolution of the three themes 
of eternity, image, and time anda shows that Plato discussed 


them in an increasingly generalized fashion as he grew 


older. It traces the development or these themes from 
the Republic through the Parmenides, Theatetus, Sopnist, 
Statesman, and Philebus. 
| The study espouses the view that the Timaeus contains 
Plato's most mature reflections on the themes of eternity, 
image, and time, and that the formulation in the Timaeus 
reformulates some of the doctrines of the Republic, and 
therefore one ought not to regard the Republic as the 
final trormulation of Plato's pnilosophy of eternity, image, 
and time. | 
Further, the themes of eternity, image, and time 
are treated in the Timaeus in an explicitly sociological 
framework, and are said to be part and parcel or the 
4nquiry into the best society and its basis in time. 
Plato included cosmology and sociology within a 
larger perspective, in which the origin of the Universe 
and the origin of society were seen as stages in a temporal 


process. His account of these matters in the Timaeus is 


preceded by statements to the erfect that it is only on 
the broad canvass of the entire Universe that the best 
account of society's origins can be painted. 

The use ot such metaphorical phraseology is not 
arbitrary, and one must frequently deal in metaphor to 
explain Plato's meaning because Plato makes extensive use 
of metaphor throughout his Timaeus, indeed, throughout 
most of his philosophy. Plato's discussion of temporal 


processes contains a definition whose central term is the 
word image (eikon not eidolon). Since Plato defines time as 
an image, it becomes the problem of the commentator to 
reveal as clearly as possible the significance or this 
definition and the use of image as one of its principal 
terms. 

the study concludes that Plato viewed the entire 


Universe as an Image and sees Time as the Life of Society. 


VITA 


Victor Joseph Gioscia, son of Joseph and Anne 
D'Onofrio Gioscia, was born June 13, 1930, in New York, 

New York. He attended Xavier High School, New York City, 
and was graduated in June 1948. 

He entered Springhill College in September 1948, 
transferred to Fordham College in September 1950, and 
received the degree of Bachelor of Science in June 1952. 

He received the Hughes Award in Philosophy and an 
Assistantship in Philosophy. He was accepted as a 

graduate student and was given a Research Assistantship 

in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Fordham 
University in September of 1956. He majored in Theoretical 
Sociology under the mentorship of Professor N.S. Timasheff 
and received the degree of Master of Arts in February 1957. 

He was employed as a Lecturer in Sociology nt Fordham 
College in 1958, as an Instructor in Sociology at Fordham 
University School of Education in 1959, and as a Lecturer 
in Anthropology-Sociology at Queens College of the City 
University of New York in 1961 and 1962. 

He was accepted as a graduate student in the Graduate 
School of Arts and Sciences of Fordham University in 
February 1957, where he majored in the Philosophy of 
Society under the mentorship of Professor J. Quentin 


Laver, S.d.