Abstract
There is a widely-quoted line from Goethe’s Faust, ‘In the beginning is the act’ 1 By that is meant that the full development of anything is largely determined in its inaugural stages. (Cf. Rep. 377a.) The same is true of Plato’s view of qualities. Their character is fixed at the outset by the nature of the primary bodies which originate them, and which, in turn, they express.
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References
Goethe, Faust, Part I, Scene iii (tr. Bayard Taylor; Boston, 1870; I, 51).
As, e.g., Milhaud, Les Philosophes-Géomètres de la Grèce, pp. 348-9, and Field, The Philosophy of Plato, p. 140.
‘The affections so far as perceptible’, (τὰ παθήματα ὅσα αἰσθητικά), 61c.
This is brought out by the terms employed in each case. The former is spoken of as a doer (δρών) 62b; cause (αίτία) 63e (twice), 64a, 65b, 67b, c, e; and agent (τό ποιήσαν) 64b. The effect or affection (passive sense) is called πάθος (62b, 64b, c, d, 65b, 66b, 68a) or πάθημα (61c, d — second mention, 62a, 63e — first mention, 64a — first mention, 65b, 66b, c, 67b, e). πάθος in 61e is used in an active sense; πάθος appears to be used in an external, active sense in 61d — first mention, 64a — second mention, and 64d. Note Plato’s purpose at the opening of the discussion on qualities: ‘…to elucidate the Causes which account for … affective qualities’. (61c)
Although chemistry as a science did not come into existence until many centuries after Plato, he is in this case giving an explanation which is in chemical terms. It is properly said that in this he shows a conception far in advance not only of his predecessors, but of Aristotle as well (Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary Cognition from Alcmaeon to Aristotle] Oxford, 1906; pp. 172-3).
Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (London, 1935), p. 49, citing Jackson, in Journal of Philology, XIII, 250 ff. and Burnet, Greek Philosophy, Part I (London, 1924), p. 242. Archer-Hind held the same view (The Timaeus of Plato, p. 21).
Campbell, The Theaetetus of Plato (Oxford, 1883), pp. 59–60n.
Joachim, in Journal of Philology, XXIX, 57; 72-7, 81, 84.
Reference to this aspect of Plato’s view is made in Ritter, The Essence of Plato’s Philosophy (New York, 1933), p. 209; Robin, Études sur la signification et la Place de la Physique dans la Philosophie de Platon (Paris, 1919), p. 50; and Robin, Platon (Paris, 1938), pp. 238, 332.
Beare, op. cit., pp. 214-5.
Joachim, in Aristotle, On Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Oxford, 1922), p. 75n.
Plato said, in 56ab, that the other elements do have the property of sharpness, but in a less degree than fire.
Cf. Cornford, op. cit., p. 265.
παθήματα, 57c, 63e.
It is interesting to compare this with Newton’s theory of mutual attraction, namely, that two bodies attract each other in direct proportion to their joint mass, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The so-called ‘Law of Gravity’ is a deduction from this larger principle. Granted that Plato has no notion of the distance ratio, of density, nor of the attraction of all bodies; he does at least have a rudimentary intuition of the general principle on which Newton’s ‘Law of Gravity” is based. In view of this, and of Plato’s other serious contributions, it is unfortunate that the Timaeus is sometimes pictured as a fantastic dream. Cf. Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science (Baltimore, 1925), I, 113, and Dampier, A History of Science (ed. 3, New York, 1943), PP 31-2.
τὸ βεβηϰέναι ϰα1F77; μένειν (De Caelo 307a9), for ἀϰινητοτάτη (Tim. 55de).
The first cause mentioned here only employs shape as a means. The basic principle is attraction, not the particular given shapes.
R.G. Bury in Plato Timaeus (Loeb ed.), p. 158n.
61c. This doubtless excluded Ideas, which are neither tangible nor in place.
Cf. Mansion, Introduction a la Physique Aristotélicienne (ed. 2; Louvain, 1946), pp.217-223.
With its tendency to subjectivism, cf. Beare, op. cit., pp. 63, 205-8.
Cf. Mansion, op. cit., p. 338 f.
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© 1954 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Claghorn, G.S. (1954). Aristotle’s Criticism of Qualities. In: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s ‘Timaeus’. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8839-5_4
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