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leo

strauss

philosophy

as rigorous science and political

philosophy 10

Jacob klein

21

seth

64

John

the myth

benardete a.

wettergreen

of virgil's aeneid timaeus'

on plato's timaeus and

note on the

intention

political art

martinus

nijhoff, the hague

edited at

queens college of

of new york

the city university

of

science

fiction

james harrington's

interpretation a

journal

of political

philosophy issue

volume 2

i

editors

seth g.

hilail

benardete

gildin

consulting

w.

wilhelm

hennis

erich

hula

michael oakeshott

leo

strauss

thompson

interpretation is

a

its a serious

white

editors

john hallowell

kenneth

howard b.

executive editor

journal devoted to

the

study of political philosophy. it appears three times a year.

editors welcome contributions

interest in

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from

all

regardless of

those

who

take

their orientation.

all manuscripts and editorial correspondence

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martinus nijhoff 9-1 1

lange

voorhout

p.o.b.

269

the

hague

netherlands.

PHILOSOPHY AS RIGOROUS SCIENCE AND POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHY*

Leo Strauss

Whoever is concerned with political philosophy must face the fact that in the last two generations political phUosophy has lost its credibility. Political philosophy has lost its credibUity in proportion as politics itself has become more phUosophic than its whole history political philosophy

ever

in

Almost throughout

a sense.

was universal while politics was par

ticular. Political philosophy

was concerned with the best or just order of society which is by nature best or just everywhere or always, while politics is concerned with the being and well-being of this or that particular society

(a polis, a nation, an empire) that is in being time. Not a few men have dreamt of rule over but they

selves or others

phUosophers. versal.

In

Unrest in

what

Hanoi, London, the linkage is

for

by

some

them

dreamers or at least regarded as such by the other hand politics has in fact become uni not to

repercussions

and other

human beings

the

is loosely,

American city has

of an

were

our age on

at a given place all

far away

demagogically, called the ghetto Moscow, Peking, Johannesburg,

say

in

places and

admitted or not makes no

is linked

difference.

them;

whether

Simultaneously

political

with

phUosophy has disappeared. This is quite obvious in the East where the Communists themselves caU their doctrine their ideology. As for the con

temporary West,

the intellectual powers peculiar to it are

and existentialism.

influence

Positivism

surpasses existentialism

and existentialism surpasses positivism

Positivism may be described

knowledge is validate or

as the view

by

neo-positivism

far in

academic

by far in popular influence.

according to

which

only

scientific

knowledge; since scienitfic knowledge is unable to invalidate any value judgments, and political philosophy most genuine

certainly is concerned with the invalidation of unsound ones,

validation of sound value

judgments

and the

positivism must reject political

philosophy radically unscientific. Existentialism appears in a great variety of guises but one wiU not be far wide of the mark if one defines it in contradistinction as

to

positivism as

and

of action

human decision kind

the view according to

are

of genuine

no other

understanding

ground than

groundless

fateful dispensation: science, far from being the only knowledge, is ultimately not more than one form among or

of viewing the world, according to existentialism

many

indicated,

which all principles of

historical, i.e. have

existentialism

all all

these forms

having

the same dignity. Since

human thought is historical in the

must reject political

philosophy

as

sense

radically

un

historical. *

of

This essay was originally written as a Shlomo Pines (Hebrew University) in

translation.

contribution

which

it

to the Festschrift in honor

was

published

in

a

Hebrew

Interpretation

2

"movement"

Existentialism is

flabby periphery

and a

To that thought

which

a

hard

That

center.

like

center

alone existentialism owes

aU such movements

is the thought

its importance

or

has

a

Heidegger.

of

inteUectual

respectabUity. There is no room for political philosophy in Heidegger's room in question is work, and this may weU be due to the fact that the occupied by gods or the gods. This does not mean that Heidegger is whoUy alien to politics: he welcomed Hitler's revolution in 1933 and he, who had never praised socialism

long

national contemporary political effort, stiU praised had been Hitler Heil and muted Hitler had been

other

any

after

transformed into Heil Unheil. We cannot

Heidegger. Moreover, radicaUy if one does not

these facts against

help holding

is bound to misunderstand Heidegger's thought see their intimate connection with the core of his

one

thought.

philosophic proper

I

as

basis for the

see, he is of the

can

his foUowers has

none of

understood

I believe that he is right, for is the same not also true, more outstanding thinkers? This does not dispense us, however, stand toward him, for we do this at any rate implicitly; in

adequately.

less,

or

that none of his critics and

too small a

afford

his thought. As far

of

understanding

opinion

him

Nevertheless, they

of aU

from taking

doing

a

it explicitly,

cule and perhaps

we run no greater risk than some needed

receiving

exposing

ourselves

to

ridi

instruction.

the many things that make Heidegger's thought so appealing to so many contemporaries is his accepting the premise that whUe human life and thought is radically historical, History is not a rational process.

Among

consequence, he denies that one

As

a

he

understood

himself

wiU understand an earlier

can understand a

he

and even as

understood

thinker better than

himself:

thinker of rank creatively,

i.e.

a great thinker

by transforming

his thought, and hence by understanding him differently than he under stood himself. One could hardly observe this transformation if one could not see the original prior

form. Above all, according to Heidegger

to him have been oblivious

fundamental respect

abyss.

Heidegger

This

of

ground of

implies the

assertion

understands

the true

his

great

all

claim that

predecessors

all thinkers

grounds, the

in the decisive

better than they

understood themselves.

In his

order to understand

Heidegger's thought

posture toward politics and political

the work

of

his teacher Husserl. The

and

therefore in

phUosophy,

Husserl is

access to

particular

one must not neglect

not rendered

difficult

by any false step like those taken by Heidegger in 1933 and 1953. I have heard it said though that the Husserlian equivalent was his con version, not proceeding from conviction, to Christianity. If this were proven to be the case, it would become a task for a casuist the dissimilarities and similarities

to

consider

to

weigh their respective

When I time was

demerits

was still almost a a

doubting

and

of

Marburg

school

boy, Husserl

dubious

begins

with

of acts and

and merits.

to me who at that

explained

adherent

of

the

neo-Kantianism, the characteristic of his own work

"the

of exceptional gifts

the two kinds

Marburg

in

school

of

about these terms:

the roof, whUe I begin with the foun-

Philosophy as

Rigorous Science

and

3

Political Philosophy

dation."

This meant that for the school of Marburg the sole task of the fundamental part of phUosophy was the theory of scientific experience, the Husserl however had

analysis of scientific thought.

realized more profound

than anybody else that the scientific understanding of the world, far

ly

from

being

the perfection

the latter in the

of

from much

of our natural

understanding,

as to make us oblivious of

way

scientific understanding:

our common

the

of

such a

all phUosophic

understanding

of

is derivative from

the very foundations

understanding

must start

the world, from our understanding

sensibly perceived prior to all theorizing. Heidegger went further than Husserl in the same direction: the primary theme is not world as

of perception but the fuU thing as experienced as part of the individual human context, the individual world to which it belongs.1 The fuU thing is what it is not only in virtue of the primary and secondary

the object

in the ordinary meaning of that but also of qualities like sacred or profane: the full phenomenon of a cow is for a Hindu constituted much more by the sacredness of the cow than by any other quality or aspect. This implies that one can no longer qualities as weU as the value qualities

term

"natural"

speak of our

the world

of

understanding

the one human reason

languages. the

the

historicity

there arises the philosophic task

of aU

to aU historical

standing

of

a

the

way

by

guided

to a

essentiaUy belonging historical period. The character stood as

of

of

"made,"

not

understanding

Yet if the insight

historical

worlds must

be

accom

that insight. This means that the under

essential structure of aU

to the character

worlds.2

back behind

thought is to be preserved, the understanding of

universal or essential structure of all

in

go

"grown"

Accordingly

panied and

the world; every understanding

Correspondingly, one must to the multiplicity of historical,

universal structure common

into the

of

"historical."

is

of

historical

worlds must

be

under

historical context, to a specific the historicist insight must correspond

specific

the period to which it belongs.

The historicist insight

is the final insight in the sense that it reveals all earlier thought as radically defective in the decisive respect and that there is no possibility of another legitimate change in the future which would render obsolete or as it were mediatise the historicist insight. As the absolute insight it must belong to the absolute moment in history. In a word, the difficulty indicated com Heidegger to elaborate, sketch or suggest what in the other man would be caUed his philosophy of history.

pels

case

of

any

may be the absolute moment simply or the ab history. That it is the absolute moment sim contention of Hegel. His system of philosophy, the final been the had ply philosophy, the perfect solution of aU philosophic problems belongs to the

The

absolute moment

solute moment of aU previous

moment when mankind

2

cf.

Zeit

Cf. Sein

und

For this

and what

339-40;

pp.

XIX

sect.

has

in

principle

its

political problem

by

21 (pp. 98-99).

follows

and

solved

505

see of

H. G. Gadamer, Wahrheit

the second edition.

und

Methode, 233-34;

Interpretation

4

first state to recognize the establishing the post-revolutionary state, the absolute peak of history, This such. as equal dignity of every human being

being

the

history, is

end of

the

at

final

of the

beginning

time the

same

Spengler has merely brought out the ultimate con re clusion of Hegel's thought. No wonder therefore that almost everyone belled against Hegel. No one did this more effectively than Marx. Marx

decline. In this

claimed to

respect

have laid bare

finality

with

which was

bound to

of aU

the

also

history, including the

of

outline

order

be

which and through which men would

in

come and

the mystery

future, but

the present and the imminent

for the first time to lead truly human lives. More pre has cisely, for Marx human history, so far from having been completed, humanity. of not even begun; what we caU history is only the pre-history the settlement which Hegel had regarded as rational, he able or compeUed

Questioning

foUowed the forever the

Orient; society

complete

deeply

the

over

vision of a world

victory

rooted,

the members

free

are

all

cialization,

and

the

of

which presupposes and establishes

the town

the country, of

over

and are so

equal, of

labor, has

the mobile

the Occident over the spirit of the

spirit of

is

the world society which

of

division

society

of

in the last

given

no

longer

analysis

a political

because

aU spe

way to the full development

of

everyone.

Regardless

of

the communist

questioned

identified the man

in his

harshness

or not

whether

man

of

the communist

without

society

this he denied that the future

determined. The

alternative to

surpassing

nobUity; the

overcoming

vision. saw of

in

Like

Owing

impossible. In

the human race is pre

of

is the over-man,

human types in ruled

a

type

of man

greatness

invisibly by

and

the phUo

to its radical anti-egalitarianism Nietzsche's

future is in a sense more profoundly political than Continental European conservative Nietzsche

vision of a possible Marx'

man

previous

the future will be

over-men of

the future.

sophers of

the last

all

He

else.

as

and greatness are

accordance with

and

writings, he

anyone

the last man, as "specialization," without the

world

limitation, human nobility

of

radicaUy than

more

vision

degradation:

utmost

of

Marx'

Nietzsche knew

the typical

communism

only the

completion of

the liberalistic demand for freedom

democratic

which

is

not a

egalitarianism and

"freedom

for"

but

from."

But in contradistinction to those conservatives only a "freedom he held that conservatism as such is doomed, since all merely defensive positions, seemed

Nietzsche century.

merely backward

all

to be with

He

democracy

incompatible

as

saw

exercised

dented iron governments

the

by age

of

with what

doomed. The future

Both

were regarded

he held to be the task

of

by

the twentieth

leading up have a future, that rule would have to a united Europe. The enormous tasks of this unprece could not possibly be discharged by weak and unstable man were

depending

to

upon public opinion.

emergence of a new

nobUity

endeavors are

and nationalism.

the twentieth century as an age of world wars

to planetary rule. If

be

looking

the over-men.

nobility Nietzsche -

The

new situation called

for

nobUity formed by a new ideal: the claimed to have discovered with finalia

Philosophy as Rigorous ty the mystery

of aU

which now confronts

Science

and

history, including

man,

of the utmost


i.e. the

the present,

degradation

and

the

5

alternative

highest

exal

tation. The possibUity of surpassing and overcoming aU previous human types reveals itself to the present, less because the present is superior to all past ages than because it is the moment of the greatest danger and

chiefly for this

reason of the greatest

Heidegger's phUosophy Nietzsche's: the

in

hope.

history has

of

the

same structure as

Marx'

and

the final insight is arriving opens the eschatological prospect. But Heidegger is much closer to Nietzsche than to Marx. Both thinkers regard as decisive the nihilism which moment

to them began in Plato (or

the people

which

and whose ultimate

-

according only Platonism for consequence is the present decay. Hitherto

before)

-

Christianity being

humanity grew out of Bodenstaandigkeit (rootedness Yet the great age of classical Greece gave birth to a way of thinking which in principle endangered Bodenstaendigkeit from the be ginning and in its ultimate contemporary consequences is about to destroy the last relics of that condition of human greatness. Heidegger's phUosophy belongs to the infinitely dangerous moment when man is in a greater danger than ever before of losing his humanity and therefore danger great age of

every in the

soU).

-

and salvation

tributing

belonging

together

toward the recovery

of

preparing an entirely digkeit beyond the most the most extreme

novel

-

philosophy can have the task of con of Bodenstaendigkeit or rather

or return

kind

of

Bodenstaendigkeit:

a

Bodenstaen

Bodenlosigkeit, a being at home beyond homelessness. Nay, there are reasons for thinking that extreme

according to Heidegger the world has never yet been in order, or thought has never yet been simply human. A dialogue between the most profound thinkers of the Occident and the most profound thinkers of the Orient and in particular East Asia may lead to the consummation prepared, ac companied

or

followed

by

a

return

of

the

gods.

everything that it entaUs, but surely not political perhaps the Heidegger severs the connection way.3

That dialogue

action of of

the

and

any kind, is

vision with poli

tics more radically than either Marx or Nietzsche. One is inclined to say that Heidegger has learned the lesson of 1933 more thoroughly than any other man.

Let

Surely

us turn

he leaves

no place whatever

from these fantastic

hopes,

political

political philosophy.

be

from phUosophers, to Husserl. Let us phUosophy is left in Husserl's philosophy.

sionaries than

for

for

more to

expected

from

vi

see whether a place

What I

am going to say is based on a re-reading, after many years of neglect, of Husserl's programmatic essay "PhUosophy as Rigorous Scien The essay was first published in 1911, and Husserl's thought under

ce."

went

many important

utterance on

3

the

changes

afterward.

Yet it is his

Was heisst Denken? 31, 153-54; Der Satz vom Grund 101; 28; Wegmarken 250-52; Gelassenheit 16-26.

Metaphysik

most

important

question with which we are concerned.

Einfiihrung

in die

Interpretation

6 No

in

one

century has

our

the call for philosophy as a rigorous

raised

"From its clarity, purity, vigor, and breadth as Husserl. first beginnings philosophy has raised the claim to be a rigorous science; science with such

precisely, it has

more

the

raised

to be the

claim

science

the highest theoretical needs and in regard to

life

possible a

regulated

by

This

pure rational norms.

[Yet] in

that

would

satisfy

ethics and religion render claim

...

has

never

its development has

of

been completely abandoned. science philosophy been capable of satisfying the claim to be a rigorous contra [in begun In yet science has not philosophy Philosophy as no epoch

.

distinction to the sciences] everything is Husserl found the most important text the difference between that way of

in the

thinking

stop the victorious itself that cannot

of

either

This

At the

Husserl

is forms

(modern)

itself

keeping

As

same

alive

understands

the

natural

"physical"

(logical,

for Husserl's supply the

of

naturalism

or

nature,

science.

This

being

is

"philo

a

necessarUy

it is

naturalism

ethical and so on).

a mere

foundation

of

dependent

ob

is is

variable

accompaniment."

both the

That form

consciousness

and

of naturalism which called

logic, theory

ethics, and pedagogic. That psychology

every

the

paraUel

special attention was experimental

scientific

which

understood as

that everything that

means

"psychic"

if it is

according to

view

"nature"

part of

consequence,

all norms

merit and

of science

Surely

the notion

time he holds that

"naturalizes"

a

philosophy

its

to the traditional notion of philo

opposition

the physical, "in the best case a secondary

of

of

constitutes

objectivity.5

naturalism

that

thing ject

all

in

up"

"system."

By

foundation

a new

alive.

its force. Perhaps the idea

of

especially for

ground

as

destroys

fully

present con

is unimportant.) In

nothing can course of science which in its ideal completion is Reason tolerate any authority at its side or above it. Husserl

naturalism

sophy from the

sophy

deal

is

the most powerful idea in modern life.

altogether

respects

(In the

naturalism."

the intention toward

at the same time a great

the contrast between

of

example

naturalism and positivism

spirit of rigorous science

.

controversial."4

in "the reigning

claim and achievement

.

claimed

psychology of

as meant to

knowledge,

esthetics,

to be the science of the

"the psychic i.e. of that which excludes in order to look for "the true, objective, or for the nature which presents itself in the phenomena,"

themselves,

phenomena physics

in

principle

or of

nature,"

physically-exact

phenomena.

secondary

Stated in very imprecise language, psychology deals

qualities as such which excludes.

mary qualities,

4

Philosophie

have

als

made use of

the Crisis of

strenge

In

physics, solely

more precise

Wissenschaft

the English translation

ed.

by

language,

W. Szilasi,

Lauer in

Philosophy, Harper Torch Books

Sects. 7-8, 11, 13, 14, 17, 65.

concerned with

pp.

one would

with the

the

pri

have to

sects. 1, 2, 4 and 5. I Husserl, Phenomenology and

71-147.

Philosophy say that the

Rigorous Science

as

and

precisely because they

psychic phenomena

1


are phenomena

nature.6

are not

As theory

knowledge

of

naturalism must give an account

of natural

science, of its truth or validity. But every natural science accepts nature in the sense in which nature is intended by natural science, as given, as

in

"being the

on

itself."

same

is

incapable

Hence

"givenness"

psychology which is based is completely blind

of

naturalism

of nature.

granted of nature

is

one, and the latter is as

preceded

in

much

the first. Hence an adequate

by

It is constitutionally

The

of a radical critique of experience as such.

taking for

scientific

true

of course

inherent in the

to the riddles

or

The

science of physical nature.

and

scientific

based

upon

positing the pre

need of radical clarification as

cannot be based on the theory in any sense of nature. The adequate theory be based on scientific knowledge of the consciousness of

knowledge

naive acceptance of nature of

knowledge

as

such, for

constitute

must

which nature and

themselves in

"nature"

being

"being"

must

or

nence";

are correlates or

and through consciousness

be

intended

that

intelligible."

"completely

made

objects

alone, in pure "imma

Such

a radical clarification of every possible object of consciousness can be the task only of a phenomenology of the consciousness in contra distinction to the naturalistic science of psychic phenomena. Only pheno

menology

its

and

supply that fundamental

can

acts

the lack

unscientific, for the latter constantly makes use

from every-day

having

experience without

the consciousness

clarification of

of which makes so-called exact

psychology radically

of concepts which stem

examined

them as to their ade

quacy.7

According

to Husserl it is absurd to ascribe to phenomena a nature: flux,"

in an "absolute Yet precisely because

phenomena appear

ture is

have no

eternal."

essences.

way

Phenomenology is

mind as practiced

by

a more original and

the study

be

In

of existence.

of

phenomena

accordance with this the

If this is so, the study

also

which under

the

order.

It includes

not

only

The

man who possesses such experience on a

is

sects. sects.

s

sects.

they

of essences and

study

of

in

the life of the

of

inquiry

of men's religious

life

than must

of

historicism

by

was about to

Weltanschauung is life-expe experience of

the world but

practical-technical etc. experience.

and

7

"na

threatened in the second place

influence

religious, esthetic, ethical, political,

said

whUe

natures,

than the study of nature.

as rigorous science was

high

no

the thoughtful historians offers to the phUosopher

thinking way turn into mere Weltans'chauungsphilosophie. rience of a

have

therefore more fundamental material

nature.8

of

a

flux,"

"eternal

essentially the study

of greater philosophic relevance

Philosophy

an

very high level is

caUed wise

to possess a Weltanschauung. Husserl can therefore speak of

14, 15, 19, 42, 46-48. 20-27, 29, 30, 32-42. 49-50, 54, 56, 57, 59, 72.

8

Interpretation Weltanschauung."

"wisdom

schauung is we mean

ingredient

an essential

the idea of perfect

by

Weltanschauungsphilosophie to conceptualize

wisdom or

to give it the form

to

the results

use

when

sophy,

presents the

taking

the

sciousness

is

science

ideas

two

"we

philosophies

kind

of rigorous

from

remain

they

Weltanschauung

the

other

had

modern

not con

of wisdom and of rigorous science

epoch

might think

would approach each other

separated

to

for

aU eternity.

epoch while

the idea

of

that the realizations of the

asymptotically in the infinite. Yet

wait"; we need "exaltation and to live

and

Weltan-

the objectives of

the

But for the

henceforth

differs from

One

life

time

same

on

of phUo

the great systems,

since

science

one another.

the ideas

and

the

at

were

separation of

of system

or, more simply,

This kind

other of

scientific phUosophies

separated

supra-temporal.

cannot

some

a

which

humanity.

of

most perfect solution of the riddles of

fact

the

has become The idea of

habitus

the attempt is made

elaboration

special sciences as materials.

the one hand and

been clearly

yet

into

comes

idea

by the being when or

virtue

Weltan

or

wisdom

still more valuable

to give it a logical

schauungsphilosophien and wisdom on

that

the form of one or the

on

relatively

The traditional

world.

of

science; this ordinarily goes together with the attempt

of of

to him

According

or

consolation"

now;

by; only Weltanschauung

or

we need

Weltanschauungs

demands.9 satisfy these justified Surely philosophy as rigo satisfy them: it has barely begun, it wUl need centuries,

philosophie can

rous science cannot

if

not

a

life

until

millennia, regulated

by

it "renders

possible

norms,"

pure rational

in

regard to ethics and religion

if it is

not at all

times essentially

incomplete and in need of radical revisions. Hence the temptation to forsake it in favor of Weltanschauungsphilosophie is very great. From Husserl's point of view one would have to say that Heidegger proved un able to resist that

The

belongs to the

being

temptation.

reflection on

Husserl's

wonder

the relation

sphere of

contribution

whether

science would not

the

that kind

the two kinds

of

philosophy obviously It comes closest to

as rigorous science.

to political philosophy. He did not go on to

single-minded

have

which most men need

ideas

of

philosophy

pursuit

an adverse effect on

to live

by

and

hence

of phUosophy as rigorous Weltanschauungsphilosophie

on

the actualization

of

the

philosophy serves, in the first place in the prac titioners of philosophy as rigorous science but secondarily also in all those who are impressed by those practitioners. He seems to have taken it for granted that there will always be a variety of Weltanschauungsphilosophien which

of

that peacefully coexist within one and the same society. He did not pay at tention to societies that impose a single Weltanschauung or Weltan schauungsphilosophie on all their members and

tolerate phUosophy as rigorous

sects.

science.

13, 67, 75-79, 81, 82, 90, 91.

for this

Nor did he

reason wUl

consider

that

not

even a

Philosophy

as

society that tolerates

Rigorous Science

and

Political

9

Philosophy

many Weltanschauungen does this Weltanschauung.

indefinitely

virtue of one particular

by

Husserl in a manner continued, he surely modified the reflection we have been speaking about, under the impact of events which could not be overlooked or overheard. In a lecture delivered in Prague in 1935 he

said:

"Those

the circle the fight

who are

of phUosophic

wiU

conservatively contented with the tradition and human beings wUl fight one another, and surely

take place in the

sphere of political power.

of

all empirical

powers."10

rigorous science and

In

order

in the be live toward

Already

phUosophy persecution sets in. The men those ideas [of phUosophy] are outlawed. And yet: ideas

ginnings

who

are stronger than

to see the relation between phUosophy as

the alternative to it clearly, one must look at the poli

tical conflict between the two antagonists, i.e. at the essential character of

that conflict. If one faUs to do so, one cannot reach clarity on the

sential character of what

10

Die Krisis der

Husserl

europaeischen

menologie, second edition,

calls

"phUosophy

Wissenschaften

Haag 1962, 335.

und

es

science."

as rigorous

die tranzendentale

Phaeno-

10 THE MYTH OF VIRGIL'S

AENEID*

Jacob Klein It is impossible to

read the

Aeneid

the Iliad and the Odyssey. Nor

of

ing and and

the

aware that

being

without

can one read

intends to glorify Rome

poem

constantly

the Aeneid

reminded

without

becom

Rome's imperial

and

pacifying power under Caesar Octavian Augustus. All of you, I think, also all VirgU commentators agree on these points. Let me quote two

ancient ones.

Servius, 4th century A.D., has imitate Homer

this to

"This is Virgil's

say:

Augustus in the light

and to praise

of

Vergilii haec est, Homerum imitari et Augustum laudare Macrobius, 5th century, explains: VirgU

but

also

intently

eyes

Homer in

upon

order

to

emulate not

its

the simplicity and power of his diction and

multifarious magnificence

intervention

of

the various

way of expressing passions; hence the

hence the

elevation

of

tracing back

his metaphors; hence

diction; hence

the

This "sweet

imitation,"

climactic splendor of single

says

imitating Homer's

the

a parentibus).

only Homer's

quiet majesty.

greatness

Hence the

heroes; hence the details; hence the natural

among his

personages

gods; hence the weight of mythical

of the

to

(Inten

tio

held his

purpose:

ancestors"

his

of

the origin of monuments;

ringing

sound

his rolling

of

incidents.

Macrobius, leads Virgil

to the point

of even

vices.

We have to note that these ancient commentators attribute to VirgU a double purpose: not only is it his intention to praise Augustus, his imitation Homer is, according to them, also an end in itself. Let me give you a series of examples of what these commentators call Virgil's imitation of Homer. I shall quote, in an English version, lines from the Iliad and the Odyssey and corresponding lines, again in an English version, from the Aeneid. of

Odyss. XII, 403: "But

when we

left that island

and

no

other

land

appeared, but only sky and sea, then verily the son of Kronos set a black it." cloud above the hollow ship, and the sea grew dark beneath Aen.

Ill, 192: "After

our ships gained

is seen, but sky on all sides loomed overhead, bringing darkling."

tion

Zeus,

This is

repeated

the son of

the

deep,

and on all sides night and

and now no

longer any land

sea, then a murky rain-cloud

tempest,

while the wave shuddered

in Aen. V, 8. (Note that Virgil does

not men

Kronos.)

Iliad VIII, 16: "Tartaros. as far beneath Hades Tartarus' Aen. VI, 578: 'While self above the .

as

.

heaven is high

earth."

descent

*

and stretches twice as

A lecture

given at

far, down through

gapes with abrupt

the shades, as the heaven-

St. John's College in Annapolis, Md.,

on

February 25, 1966.

11

The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid ward

looks up to Olympus

eye

gazing change from

a one to one ratio to a

Iliad VI, 305: Theano, break

fall

now

the

wife of

that dost

"Lady Athene,

prays:

spear of

Diomedes,

before the Scaean implore Juno: "O mighty in arms,

Antenor,

him

prone

to

spear of

earth

and

firmament."

(Note

the

priestess of

Aen.

mistress

Athene in Troy,

city, fairest among goddesses,

and grant

gates."

thine hand the

the

two to one ratio.)

guard our

headlong

with

and

furthermore that himself may XI, 483: The Latin matrons

in war, Tritonian maid, break [that is, of Aeneas], hurl

the Phrygian pirate

stretch

him

beneath

prostrate

our

lofty

gates."

Iliad I, 234: AchUles swears, in enmity towards Agamemnon: "verily by this staff, that shall no more put forth leaves or shoots since at the first it left its stump among the mountains, neither shall it again grow green Aen. XII, 206: Latinus swears, in friendship towards Aeneas: "even as .

this

scepter

branch

shall never again

and

since once

shade,

be dressed in light foliage in the forest it

was

put

and

hewn from

.

forth

the nether

"

stem

Iliad

249: "So

XVI,

seUor, heard

him,

spake

and a part

he [AchiUes] in prayer, and Zeus, the coundenied." the Father granted him, and a part

Aen. XI, 794: "Phoebus heard [the prayer of Arruns about Camilla], and in thought vouchsafed that part of his vow should prosper; the other breezes."

he scattered to the flying Iliad TV, 122: "And he [Pandarus] drew the bow, clutching at once the notched arrow and the string of ox's sinew: the string he brought to his breast and to the bow the iron arrow-head. But when he had drawn

part

the great bow into a round, the bow twanged and the string sang aloud, leapt"

(namely towards Menelaus who is not killed). Aen. XI, 858: The goddess Opis, sent by Diana, "drew the fleet arrow from the golden quiver, stretched the bow with grim intent, and drew it afar, till the curving ends met each with other, and at length, with leveUed and

the keen arrow

hands,

touched the pointed steel with her

she

bow-string."

left, her breast

with

her

Arruns who is kUled.) Odyss. XI, 206: "Thrice I [Odysseus] sprang towards her [his mother], and my heart bade me clasp her, and thrice she flitted from my arms like heart." Aen. VI, a shadow or a dream, and pain grew ever sharper at my 699: "Thrice, where he [Aeneas] stood, he assayed to throw his arms

right and with the

round

his

neck

hands that

[his father's

But

792:

[the

aims at

neck]:

thrice

the

phantom

fled through the

in vain, light as the winds and fleet as the pinions can also read in the second book of the Aeneid, verse

clutched

sleep."

of

(She

we

then I

"Thrice,

Aeneas'

neck of

vain, fled through my

[Aeneas]

strove

wife's shadow]:

hands, light

as

to throw my arms round her neck thrice the form, that I clasped in

the winds and fleet as the pinions

of

sleep."

Odyss. XIX, 562: "For two is fashioned

of

gate of sawn

But

horn

ivory

and one of

shadowy dreams, and one ivory. Those dreams that pass through the

are the gates of

deceive men, bringing words that find no fulfilment. forth through the gate of polished horn bring true

those that come

12

Interpretation them."

(Penelope is saying these issues to pass, when any mortal sees of Sleep:-of gates two 892: "There are Aen. horn, fame teUs, words.) VI, the one, through which the spirits of truth find an easy passage; the other, wrought smooth-gleaming with sheen of ivory, but false the dreams that the nether powers speed therefrom

is saying this.) These examples no point

for

can

be

above."

to the heaven

(VirgU,

the author,

many, many times. There would be But let us take notice of the fact that

multiplied

me to continue quoting.

some weighty difference embedded in the otherwise completely analogous phrasing and imagery. However the similarity between the Iliad and the Odyssey on the one hand and the Aeneid on the other goes far beyond phrasing and imagery.

there is almost always

Let me

is

give you another series of examples of what

called

VirgU's imita

tion of Homer.

When Odysseus with mist so

arrives

Ithaca, Pallas Athene fUls

in

the countryside

that Odysseus cannot recognize it. When Aeneas arrives in

Carthage, Venus conveys him in a cloud so that nobody can see him. Be fore meeting with Penelope Odysseus is beautified by Pallas Athene. Before meeting Dido Aeneas is beautified by Venus. A young man, Elpenor, faUs from the roof of Circe's house; Odysseus sees his shade in Hades and buries Aeneas' the corpse when he returns to the light of day. The pUot of fleet,

Palinurus, falls from his ship and is subsequently kUled by a barbarous tribe; his shade is seen by Aeneas in the nether world and his corpse buried later on. Diomedes and Odysseus, two seasoned warriors, engage in a spy

ing mission

at

night, kill a quantity of

Trojans

and

their enterprise to

bring

Nisus and Euryalus, two young men, try to break through the enemy lines at night, kUl a quantity of Latins and die gloriously but unsuccessfuUy at the end. The shade of Ajax keeps a con temptuous silence when facing Odysseus in Hades. So does the shade of Di do when confronted by Aeneas in the nether world. In point of fact, innu a successful and glorious end.

in the Aeneid have their

merable episodes

Odyssey. There addressed to

Aeneas,

in Book IX

and the role of

the transformation

in many himself (I, 491). There is on

the

appears

the one

hand,

and

classical

of the

parallelism

and

PaUas

pairs.

between Achilles on

the

other,

To the catalogue

and

again

of ships

in

of

games

in honor

of

on

whatever

the

the second

Patroklos

Anchises. Three times does Achilles

pursuit of

Hector,

while

Aeneas

into

mermaids

not

is

and

to

be found in by VirgU

mentioned

and their relationships.

Patroklos

the catalogue of the Latin armies in the

To the funeral

ships

Camilla. CamUla has her

between Menelaus, Paris, and Helen and Lavinia on the other, whatever

the difference between these personages parallelism

Trojan

Greek texts

Turnus, Aeneas

the

although

who,

in the Iliad or the diverse prophecies

analogues

instance,

warrior maid

however, in Penthesilea

analogue,

Homer,

as, for

are exceptions,

covers

There is

and

Aeneas

difference between these

book

of

seventh

the Iliad corresponds

book

correspond

circle the

five

hand,

the one

of

the Aeneid.

the games in honor

city

of

Priam in hot

circles on the plain around

the

13

The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid

of Latinus in hot pursuit of Turnus. To the shield of Achilles fashioned Hephaistos upon the insistence of AchUles's mother corresponds the by shield of Aeneas fashioned by Vulcan upon the insistence of Aeneas's mother. But the difference here is great: on AchUles's shield are moulded Heaven and Earth, Peace and War, Marriage and Litigation, Work and

city

Leisure, and

bounties

all the

deeds

glorious

of

What is the

the

of the earth; on Aeneas's shield are shown the Romans culminating in Octavian's victory at Actium.

this

significance of

"imitation"? In

other

Bucolics, VirgU

also

detaUed,

persistent and

yet unfaithful

before the Aeneid, especially in the imitated his Greek predecessors, especially Theocri poems,

written

tus. But this imitation involved only the general pattern, the general mood and style of the poems and hardly any of their detaUs. The tradition teUs us

Virgil, in his

that

devoted to

younger

years, conceived the

to write an

plan

epic

Rome but that he gave up that plan because glory he found the task too difficult. In his later years he took it up again, prod ded by Augustus, perhaps, and worked on the Aeneid for eleven years until his death. It is in this period that what is called his imitation of poem

the

of

-

Homer flourished

supremely. The question we face is just this: why was it necessary for VirgU to imitate Homer to the extent he did? The ancient commentators I quoted in the beginning were late commentators. Their

that one

opinion

and their

of

implied

the purposes

by

were not shared

worthy

that

opinion

of

the

poem was

an

such

the imitation

undertaking

Virgil's contemporaries,

temporaries reproached him for

borrowing

was

of

in itself

we are told.

Homer praise

His

con

from Homer. VirgU is

too much

have answered them, proudly and enigmaticaUy, that it was to steal from Neptune his trident and from Hercules his club than to

reported to easier

steal a verse

Let

from Homer. What did he

us go

praise of

back to the

Augustus

the

and

mean

by

that?

unquestionable purpose of

the Aeneid. It is the

projection of an exalted vision of

the Roman

What is the background of this praise and this projection? The answer is: a century of civU disorders and wars, beginning in 133 B.C, world.

after

the

end of

the Punic and Spanish wars, and a passionate and wide

desire for

spread

31. Let

Peace is

peace.

me quote

from

finally

modern

a

restored

by

Octavian in

the year

critic, Edward Kennard Rand: "To

VirgU's contemporaries, hardly any religious or political event could have Janus' temple had a more spectacular importance than the closing of [which act signified peace] twice in the reign of Augustus, once after the

Only once victory of Actium [over Antony] and once in the year 25 before in all Roman history had this happy event occurred, namely, at War." the completion of the First Punic .

This

is based

peace

origin of

But how to

is

Roman the

rule under

great subject of

attack so vast a subject?

ment.

We, today, have

praise

deeds

meeting

on

this Roman rule

or

or an

an

events, we

easy way caU them

historical battle took

Let of

.

.

Ceasar Augustus. And the VirgU's

epic endeavor.

us understand

dealing

VirgU's

predica

with such a subject.

"historical."

We

place on such or such a

To

historical day. In saying

say: an

14

Interpretation

this we mean to pay tribute to the importance of that meeting or that "historical"

battle. The

is

adjective

used

a superlative which confers

as

to an event a transcendent rank and the laurel of undying glory. But to

VirgU

to him alone

and not

-

the

-

is

medium of praise

not

History

but

Myth. For only the glowing light of a myth is able to Uluminate the intrin sic

unintelligibility

on

the

Greek

of

grandeur of

familiar to

word

Most

are

myths

horizon

human deeds

Virgil,

figures that

it

means

to

They

are

anonymous.

human lives

of

and sufferings.

Rome means, therefore, to

bring to

with

Can

one

pass wondrous and awesome events. "mythmakers,"

mentioned

of

in

theirs? Did

shall

VirgU

use a

fact, did

with

But there

are also

as, for example, to these mythmakers?

those mythmakers I have

just

merely imitate or modify or trans before them, just as the Greek tragedians

they

long

existence

How, then,

legends

In

myths?

invent

pose myths

did?

"new"

invent

To

there, Ming, mirror-like, the dark or sometimes terrifying

names, to names of to Hesiod, to Plato. Can one compete

myths attached to

Homer,

write an epic poem

uu6oTtoLtv.

or

splendid

To

construct a myth.

not

it? Virgil has before him

go about

related to various sites and monuments

in Rome

a plethora

and

Italy. The

Aeneas himself, of Aeneas the Trojan, the source of Roman stock, is well known in Roman lands. Can these legends lend themselves to form the nucleus of the myth Virgil is after? Must not other myths be

legend

of

taken into of

the

consideration?

VirgU himself

the ages of mankind.

succession of

Hesiod teUs it in his Works so

far

men

as

at

have

golden

the age

are

in

of

bronze,

terrible and strong,

when men were

other; then Zeus created the fourth generation

each also

fought before perish

briefly.

generations of men

one, in Kronos's time, when gods, abundantly, without hard work or pain,

came

stroying who

to have cherished the myth

us consider this myth

if they were suffering from old age; then the gods created the second genera sUver, far worse than the first, shortlived, troublesome, lacking pie

lived

tion, of ty; then

Let

Days. Five

first the

succeeded each other:

without

and

seems

called

half-gods; they besieged sake of lovely-haired

for the

Troy

carnage and war were settled

the extreme

end of

the world, with

iron, in

of

seven-gated

Helen;

those

by Zeus in the islands

de

hero-men,

Thebes and who did not

of the

Kronos, freed from bondage,

blessed, as their

live now, in which the sense king; finaUy of right and wrong has been almost entirely lost, in which force reigns and vengeance and weariness; but Zeus will destroy this generation of mor came the age of

tals

also.

Daniel,

This story

supposedly

of

the ages

written

which we

be found in the Book of before VirgU and in aU symptomatic for the myth's univer

of men can also

some

hundred

years

probabUity unknown to him, but still sality and influence. In the second chapter a

dream

King

Nebuchadnezzar had had.

of

strength and

glory; it will be

in turn

this

Nebuchadnezzar is the kingdom

the kingdom

which

of

wUl

succeeded

be followed

fourth kingdom, that

of

iron

by

and

a

book Daniel interprets to this interpretation

According

of

gold,

of

power and

by

another, presumably of silver, kingdom of brass; then will come a

clay, in

which

kingdom

men

"shaU

not

15

The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid cleave one to

another,

heaven

set

of

wiU

then, for the

myth of

But VirgU

iron is

even as

kingdom

a

up the

not mixed with

which wiU

at last the God forever. So much,

clay";

stand

ages of mankind.

knew the oriental and Greek doctrines of the Great Year. The Great Year is the time it takes for all stars and aU planets also

to return to the same position, with respect to us, that they once occupied. This time constitutes an age, an odcbv. Once this age reaches its com odcbv

a palingenesis occurs and a new

pletion,

identical

begins,

with

the

This doctrine was also preserved in the coUection of oracles preceding of the Cumaean Sibyl, which oracles constitute the books of SibyUine songs widely diffused among the people. The cycle of cosmic life, the aicov, was divided into ten great months. The end of each of these months and the transition into a new one was supposed to be announced one.

by

The

a celestial sign.

it is

and

reported that

sun grew pale after

the

rendered to the victim was end of

or

five

during

between the doctrine

ages of mankind must

by a soothsayer to beginning of the tenth.

of cosmic cycles and

have

occurred

in the

Caesar,

the funeral honors

interpreted

the ninth cosmic month and the

gamation

the murder of Julius

apparition of a comet

the

indicate the Some

myth of

course of

amal

the four

time. Each

witness

ages, from the golden to the iron one. We this in Virgil's fourth Eclogue in the Bucolics, which, I hope, most

of you

have

the

cycle repeats

succession of

Let

read.

last

age of the

last

of

of

me quote a

Cumae;

few lines form it: "Now is

come the

the great line of the centuries begins anew.

song Now the Virgin too returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new gene high." ration descends from heaven on The Virgin is Astraea or Justice, cated year

the immortals to leave the earth. The eclogue is addressed and dedi

to Asinius

41

PoUio,

and played a

a patron of

decisive

role

Virgil, in the

who was elected consul

in the

between the two

reconciliation

mighty leaders, Marc Antony and Octavian, at Brundisium in the year 40. But the emphasis in the ecologue is on a chUd "in whom the iron brood shall first cease and a golden race spring up throughout the The new age shaU begin in the consulship of Pollio and the mighty months world."

wiU then commence their march.

life

The babe shall have the gift of divine his father's virtues. His cradle

and rule over a world pacified through

forth flowers for his delight. Goats

shall pour

unbidden

and

the

ox

lie down

with

wUl

the lion. "On

to the milking brambles shall

come wUd

honey."

the stubborn oak shall distU

dewy The serpent wUl be no more, and the false poison-plant perish. Any linger ing traces of human crime shall gradually disappear. In the beginning in saUings across the seas, in the building these traces wUl still be visible

hang

the

purple

grape,

and

-

of walls around

Argo

shall

be

AchiUes be the trader not

towns, in the cleaving

manned

sent

to

shall quit

feel the harrow,

to

seek

Troy."

the sea, nor

.

the

.

the

But

.

when

every land

vine

of

the

earth with

furrows. Another

fleece, "and again shall the child will have become

golden

shall

the pruning

bear

hook;

all

fruits.

.

.

.The

a great a

man,

earth shall

the sturdy ploughman,

too,

16

Interpretation loose his

shall now

from the

oxen

yoke.

Wools

learn to

shall no more

counterfeit

hues, but of himself the ram in the meadows shall change his fleece, now to sweetly blushing purple, now to saffron yellow; of its own will shall scarlet clothe

varied

the grazing lambs.

This

prophetic poem

troversial

subject

in the

cognize ed

is

written

the SibyUine songs. The

haps,

Christ,

role of

and

Dante's

reflecting the

imitating, per

preponderant opinion

tends to

Asinius PoUio. Christian interpreters

guide and mentor

the Capitol in the

vein,

the chUd has remained a con re

consider

a pagan

that the Sibylline oracles, with

The

and oracular

of

prophecy of the Messiah, saw in the chUd Jesus, Isaiah. Not by chance does VirgU play the

a

in VirgU

dark

a

identity

scholars.

among

child a son of

the fourth Eclogue as

the

in

in Hell

year

83,

Purgatory. It is

and

re-assembled after

conceivable

the genuine ones had burned

have contained some Jewish oracles Isaiah's prophecy and that Virgil

might

spirit and the substance of

have experienced their spell. What seems indubitable is that the fourth Eclogue expresses the overwhelming longing for a New Beginning,

might

Peace. The

a new age of

seems ever-present to

We thus

Virgil's

the aegis

of

ancestor of

of

the completion of a cosmic

of

happy

Kronos,

factors

which

determine the

Rome

and

Caesar Augustus. The legend

Roman power,

of rebirth which

tells

the days of

of

Saturn,

mind.

glories of

perceive the

A eneid devoted to the

idea days

mythical

cycle and of a return to the

would

of the

become

the return of the

and

part

days

after completion of a cosmic cycle and the

composition of the

bounties of Peace under Trojan hero Aeneas, the

to the

parcel of

Saturn,

of

beginning

of

the myth

the golden age,

of a new cricbv.

Aeneas wUl land on Saturnian soU, in Latium. King Latinus, who rules "over lands and towns in the calm of a long and himself descends from Saturn, will teU Aeneas, an offspring of Jupiter: "be not unaware peace"

that the Latins

are

Saturn's race,

controlled of

their own free

Evander, the

"good

Aeneas

self with

at

man,"

In these

woodlands

sprung from trunks

knew tree

branches

Olympus realm. gave

how to

not

them

were

of

the native Fauns of

yoke

trees

a

the golden

and chose

safe

by Arcadians,

little by little then crept in and the passion for gain.

or

laws, but

self-

god."

is going to aUy him

shall

stand,

wiU recount

rule:

and

Nymphs

once

huntsman's

the

dwelt,

no

and a race of men

rule or art of

Jove

and exiled

the unruly race, scattered over mountain that the land be called

Latium, verb

tell of: in such perfect peace a race of worse

sort and

life,

and

busband their gains; but fare. First from heavenly

to

savage

weapons of

hiding-place [from the Latin

ages men

who

Rome

hardy oak, who had or to lay up stores, or

Saturn, fleeing from

laws,

the

and

the ox

by bond

the custom of their ancient

spot where

Saturnian

gathered together

he had found

of

nurtured them and the

came

He

king

precisely the

to Aeneas the origins

righteous not

wUl and

since

from his lost

heights,

latere]. Under his he

duller

reign

the nations; till the frenzy of war,

ruled

hue,

and

in these borders

17

The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid

And before the final triumph

of Aeneas, Juno, Aeneas's implacable enemy, but will request this from Jove: "command not the destiny, Latins to change their ancient name, nor to become Trojans and

to

wUl yield

native

be

Teucrians,

caUed

to change their tongue and alter

nor

their

attire:

let Latium be, let Alban kings endure through ages, let be a Roman stock, strong in Italian valour: faUen is Troy, and fallen let her be, together with her Jove wUl grant Juno's wish, and Rome's future will be name."

Under Caesar Augustus the

secure.

But is

Roman

begin

anew.

composition

the great

of

Is this the myth of the Aeneid? Have we not over point in the very conception of the poem, to wit, that the

epic poem?

looked

a crucial

itself,

epic poem

whUe

it belongs to? But Do

reign of peace will

this sufficient to account for the

all

in

not

embodying

each of them

with respect

a

cannot

myth,

help

the great cosmic cycles, the

are not

Argo,

the

Troy,

and

and

reflecting the age alcovec,, identical?

Caesar

to this point that a Platonic myth becomes

It is

reappear?

impor

of utmost

tance to Virgil. It

can be found in Plato's dialogue The Statesman. The interlocutors in this dialogue are the Stranger from Elea young man, a namesake of Socrates. The Stranger teUs a myth:

During

a certain epoch god

course, but of

at another

himself

epoch,

when

the allotted time, he lets it go,

it is

fashioned it in the beginning.

Thus,

a

further, "the

we read

is

and

is

universe

at

length

own accord

living being

direction,

him

since

its

and of

universe as guide

have

the cycles

opposite who

the

goes with

it

at

in its revolving

reached

the measure

turns backwards in the

endowed

guided

and a

with

one

intelligence

time

by

an

by

ex

trinsic divine cause, acquiring the power of living again and receiving renewed immortality from the divine artisan, and at another time it is left to itself and then moves

"But

revolution or

No,

by its

in

Kronos

The Stranger

ours?"

but this

also

belonged to the

and supervised

the universe

over, the

the

whole

were

divided

fruits

animals were

distributed

by

and

there

The Stranger man

And

in that

under

for they

goes on

asks:

period of

revolution,

beginning,

god

ruled parts

among

species

among them,

the earth sprang up of

and

nor

them, and, more flocks among inferior deities as the independent guardian of the

gods who

was

any

ruled

wild, nor did

they

eat

one

strife whatsoever.

to describe how god himself was the shepherd of

age.

his

all

was no war

Socrates

previous period of

again, in the same way, all the

divine shepherds, each of whom was in all respect creatures under his own care, so that no creature another,

of

For them, in the

and so

regions

Young

.

in that

to the present

at all

previous one.

by

.

answers:

belong

revolution,

.

...

the life about which you ask, when all the

their own accord for men, did not

of

own motion

the life in the reign of

was

care

came

there

to life

were

no

again

states,

out

of

nor

the

did

earth,

men

possess wives or

with

no

recollection

children; of

their

18

Interpretation

former lives. So there from the trees

and other

from

without

help

without

clothing

the abundant

Socrates,

is

the

families, but they had fruits in furnished them

earth

And they lived for the

bedding; for

that

or

states which

plants,

agriculture.

or

grass

its

said

The Stranger

to be the

age of

Zeus,

you

his tale in the

summarizes

know

by

plenty accord,

open

for their comfort,

up out of the earth furnished them soft in the reign of Kronos: but the life

grew

own

in the

most part

climate was tempered

the

of

the life of men

was

which

age,

no

were

couches.

the

of

air, and

That,

present

your own experience.

foUowing way:

long as the world was nurturing the animals within itself under the guidance Pilot, it produced little evil and great good; but in becoming separated from him it always got on most excellently during the time immediately after it was let go, but as time went on and it grew forgetful, the ancient condition of dis Now

as

the

of

order

prevailed

height,

more

and

more

towards

and

the universe, mingling but little

and

was

in danger

the

god,

of

destruction for itself the

made

who

of

order

and

the

the

good

much of

the

it. Therefore

those within

that

perceived

universe,

time

the

of

end

with

reached

opposite

its

sort,

at

that

moment

it

was

in dire

trouble, and fearing that it might founder in the tempest of confusion and sink in the boundless sea of diversity, he took again his place as its helmsman, reversed whatever

had become

world was

left to

unsound

itself,

set

the

and

unsettled

in the

in order,

world

previous

it

restored

period

and made

when

the

it immortal

and ageless.

This is the read to you

cles,

myth of the

only

themselves

which repeat

DiagrammaticaUy Old

this

can

be

and remain shown as

in

identical,

a significant way.

foUows:

pattern:

Platonic

The

Stranger in Plato's Statesman, of which I have It changes the old myth of the cosmic cy

a small part.

pattern:

identity

mittent. ginnings

of

And the of

the cycles in the Platonic pattern reversal

of

the direction

can

is,

it were, inter

as

be best

seen

at

the be

two consecutive cycles. What is important for us to see is

this: to be able to accomplish his work, VirgU has to adopt this Platonic myth and to adoption

disregard its

determines the

VirgU's true

relation to

highly

comical and

composition of

Homer. The

age of

reached

to be

in the Punic

understood as a

versal of

Homer is the

by calamitous expeditions, beginning is reflected in the Iliad

age characterized

diversity. Its

wars.

derived

the preceding age of

reverse this reversal. single episodes of

It

The

self-refuting

the Aeneid and,

context.

age of

disastrous wars, and

the

Zeus,

an

anarchical

Odyssey, its

Homeric

the

This

by implication,

climax

has What underlies this content is the re Kronos. Virgil's epic of Rome wiU have to content

of

poems

one.

cannot avoid

reproducing the

the Greek work, but it

main

wUl reverse

features

and

the

their order, shift the

19

The Myth of Virgil's Aeneid emphasis

in them,

sonages; for the

exchange the nature and

the role

of

the

leading

per

Jove is but a mirror-image of the age of Saturn. Does that mean that VirgU is bound to imitate Homer? No, on the con trary, it is Homer who cannot help imitating Virgil or, if you please, can not help imitating the epic poet of the preceding Saturnian age, who is identical with VirgU. That is why there has to be so much unfaithful re semblance

the

age of

between the A eneid

myth of

that it than

and

Homer's

Virgil's

the preceding age constitutes, it

to steal the club

was easier

of

Hercules

to steal a verse from Homer. A

is incapable Jovian

work.

own relation to

to me, Virgil's the Aeneid. This is what he must have meant when he declared

epic poem of

of

stealing

verses

from

seems

the trident

and

poet of

Jovian poet, however

a

Neptune

of

the god-led Saturnian age excellent

this

may be. It might be objected that the Platonic myth, as a Greek myth, adopted by Virgil, is itself a product of the Jovian age. I venture to think that Vir poet

gU considered words of

the dominion rus and

sages,

in

of the age

Elysium

words of philosophers as not subjugated

which

these words were uttered, just

sway of the ages. It may be hand has inscribed into a

are outside the

report to you what an unknown

as

to

Tarta

worth while

to

manuscript of

Donatus's Life of Virgil (Donatus himself wrote in the fourth century A.D.): "... although he [Virgil] seems to have put the opinions of diverse philosophers into his writings with most serious intent, he himself was a devotee Let

of

the

Academy; for he

briefly

me sketch

in VirgU's

plished

poem.

preferred

Plato's

views to all the

others."

the way the reversal of the Jovian order is accom First of all, the Odyssey precedes the Iliad here,

every commentator since Servius has remarked. But, as we shall see in moment, the first six books, which correspond to the Odyssey, still be long to the old Homeric age. When Aeneas and his men arrive in Carthage, as

a

they face

a

bas-relief

on

the temple

of

Juno

which

described in the Iliad. Their

depicts the Trojan

war

is before them. But this sojourn in Carthage. Aeneas falls in past also casts a shadow on love with Dido, who corresponds to both Calypso and Circe and resembles Aeneas' passion for this woman shows his both Medea and Cleopatra. the

and all

events

past

Aeneas'

lingering nal

foe,

affinity to the Jovian age, to which Carthage itself, Rome's eter belongs. A violent separation from Dido becomes necessary, a

separation consummated

to

Proserpine, is

planted

golden of

bough,

the land

of

the gift

joy,

the

There, in Elysium, Aeneas sees the shade of his father, while Odysseus, in Hades, meets the shade of his mother. There Aeneas is shown by Anchises the future of Rome, while Odysseus, in Hades, is told of the past and the present, except for the pro phecy of the seer Teiresias. When Aeneas is leaving Elysium, a decisive abode of the

blest in the

only in Elysium, when the Aeneas on the threshold

by

nether world.

event occurs, challenging our imagination. I quoted earlier the passage in the 19th book of the Odyssey and the corresponding passage at the end

of the

6th book

through

which

of

the Aeneid

about

the two gates

true dreams pass and one of

ivory

of

sleep,

one of

horn

through which false

Interpretation

20

issue forth. Anchises dismisses the Sibyl and Aeneas by emittit eburna). How shaU we understand these

visions and shades

the

ivory

(portaque

gate

Is Aeneas, the

words?

dream? Is the

choly Ulusion? Or do poem,

Aeneas, led on by divine power, Rome, Aeneas's treasure and burden, a

pious

grandeur of

"fulfilment"

the nether

false

melan

these words, uttered at the very center of the

not

in the

rather symbolize a cosmic reversal

marking the transition from the age "horn" and for Greek, the words for of

a

"deception."

and of

world a changed man.

of

"ivory"

Not

A

structure of

Jove to the so

reign

Saturn? In

are attuned to the

in Latin. Aeneas

re-birth

the universe,

of

has taken

meaning

emerges

place.

from

His passing

of ivory transmutes its function. From now on the poem its character, too. As the poet himself says: "Greater is the order things that opens before me; greater is the task I The task is greater indeed. The poem has to describe the beginning of

through the gate changes

essay."

of

the golden age.

This

beginning

is

marred

by

the inherited features

of

the

iron one. Violence fury display preceding Under Turnus's leadership, Amata's predilections and Juno's help, the Latins and their allies wiU oppose the Trojans, aided by the Arcadians and one, the

and

Etruscans. A

new

wiU end with

the victory of

AchUles. After and

Trojan

war wUl rage

Aeneas,

in

themselves.

wUl

a reversed order.

the new

Hector,

over

This time it

Turnus,

the new

victory there wUl be recondliation between the Trojans the Latins according to the terms agreed on by Jove and Juno. There this

wUl

be

wUl

begin its tumultuous ascent,

reconcUiation

between Jove

and

Saturn,

too. From then

until she reaches

the

height

of

on

Rome

Augustean

peace.

The tradition has it

that

Virgil,

when

he had finished (or

almost

finish

ed) writing the Aeneid, wanted to burn all he had written. Augustus him self is said to have prevented this from happening. We may surmise that

VirgU knew this

much about his myth: its truth depended on the actual Rome. And, prophet that he was, he foresaw the future pax romana, the future Roman peace, more often than not immersed in a sea of corruption, of monstrous crimes and dismal anarchy. We should be grateful to Augustus, though. For even if the gate of ivory may have pre served its Homeric character, the nobUity of VirgU's attempt and the bold ness of his mythical vision make us bow our heads and raise our minds.

destiny

of

21 ON PLATO'S TIMAEUS AND SCIENCE FICTION

TIMAEUS'

Seth Benardete

(17al-b4).

Socrates

counts out loud. He makes himself out to be some (cf. Rep. 522c5-d9). He does not say, "There are three four." of you; there should be Nor does he say, "We are all here except Timaeus?" so-and-so. Where is he, (cf. Epin. 973al-2, Legs. 654d6). So

what ridiculous

crates

there

discovers the missing fourth by a counting, as though he knew that be four but did not know which one of them was missing. He

should

if his only

speaks as

were with

acquaintance with

anonymous

Timaeus, Hermocrates,

"Fourth"

ones.

that completes and makes whole a

is

an

series.1

ordinal

Each

of

Critias

and

number,

a

number

the others is

indiffe

fourth is because of his absence diffe rently any other, rent. He is the completor only because he is absent. Although he belongs to yesterday's guests and today's hosts (cf. Rep. 345c5, 421b3), he belongs whereas the absent

with

along

"us."

Socrates to

hosts,

He, therefore, in decreasing

the number

Socrates the fourth party-member. Socrates does not count himself because he is not counting the members of the party. He is a one unlike the others, but in light of which the others are related to one another. He counts without being counted. Political phUosophy, it seems, is a part of phUosophy whUe still being apart from cosmology. of

today's

makes

Justice requires that three complete by themselves the task which So had assigned the day before to four. They cannot wait until the ab sent fourth recovers from his Ulness. Whatever strain this may put on their crates

Socrates'

injunction it does not abUity to carry out 6). A change in circumstances does not lessen their

they

owe.

rence,

from

no

There

are

difference

doing

perfectly

four

possibUities.

worth

a

mentioning,

they

what

The

promised

excuse them

duty

makes no

difference that to

do,

or all

20c5-

.

to give back what

fourth

absent

(cf

diffe

prevents them

difference in

the

the world. He cannot make aU the difference without Socrates

being

unjust

Timaeus stupid, blind as he then would be to the incapacity of himself and the other two; and if he makes no difference or no difference worth mentioning, Socrates in turn must be charged with stupidity for asking a and

question

which, if

Socrates,

and we should wait

in

Socrates'

which

then,

and

comes to

the

other

the

answer

hosts

would

then

1

-

it is

and

been, "He

wUl

him,"

would not perform

come

have

a

little later,

affected the

their collective task.

way

Timaeus,

two wiU not perform perfectly (cf. 27b7). Their justice

light in the element rank; but

rank

an accidental and

deficiency. It first comes to light in a some distinguishes between multiplicity one, two, itself only appears because of absence (and

of

what ridiculous speech which

three

had

for

low

-

rank).

Cf. E. Benveniste, Noms d'agent

et noms

d'action

en

I-E, 144-168.

22

Interpretation Socrates'

(17b5-6).

injunction,

be limited to their The others generation of man. Appa

out to

turns

which

setting the best city into motion, is not exactly expand it to include the visible whole and the Socrates

what

rently in

wartime.

in

motion

be

had

They

the deeds and

of

imaginary

an

embassies

to this. But how

agreed

differ from

among the four which his city would carry out

a conversation

expected was

have told him

would

complied with.

imaginary

would an

Once in

at rest?

city

city

the city

motion

therefore, unless imaginary motion were possible, it would no longer be imaginary. Is imaginary motion possible? Is not imaginary motion precisely the subject matter of the science Socra would

decay,

subject to

tes makes the third

Republic? And is of

has

solids

been

whether

Timaeus'

(17b7-c5). more

Socrates'

it

he

as

deliver is

wUl

he

goes

to

remind

along

them

were not

not

so

instructions. He talks

chance

the

a necessity.

at

of

entirely

that it wiU

first

as

if

anything they

very

complicated.

Timaeus have forgotten? Timaeus

perhaps

is

way to inform Socrates that there has been a change of plans; but this change is ultimately due to the character of the Republic. If the best city is literally impossible, the best city in motion is equally impossi ble; and the discussion among Timaeus and the others must have been as

looking

to how

for

Socrates'

the

Critias'

speech

can correct

long

discipline in

as the mathematics

these two sciences does not

of

instructions, however,

them could

part of

if the

as

later have

would

have forgotten. What

to

conform

exactly

Socrates

the non-avaUability

least that he

as

(Rep. 528b4-5)? One begins to

out

worked

Timaeus talks or at

mathematical

impossible

and, to a less extent,

speech

prepared;

then the fourth

and

not such a science

not yet

then,

wonder, make

and

a

they were

fies the

request

interpretation; public so as

to

to understand

Socrates'

request.

imperfectly, they

and

his

approval can

summary, then,

be

only

confirm whether or not

Socrates'

that can

now need

set

in

would

motion.

the philosopher-kings

Since

come after

they have

be intended to

His summary,

at

Critias'

Socrates'

story approval

he has

retold

understood give them a

any rate,

of

him

their

the Re

correctly.

city in

omits

satis

speech

the rule

of

and the still-undiscovered sciences needed to educate

them.

Three

pre-Socratic

found

extent

did they

The

understand speeches of

(17c6-19b2).

account of the

understand

which would remain a

they

philosophers, for

Socrates'

sophy.

its

5) 7)

the

3)

tool of

Socrates'

taste. To what

and

in motion? Did Glaucon understood it?

even when set

understanding as Socrates

or as

Critias

these questions.

"idealism"

Timaeus

answer

summary is in all

others;

seven parts:

2)

the communism of property;

communism of women

the regulations

there is no political phUo

regime to their

the best regime as a tool of understanding,

the city's future warriors from warriors;

whom

best

and

that determine

1)

the separation

of

the nature and nurture of the

4) the equality of the sexes; 6) the marriage regulations;

chUdren;

Socrates'

class

changes.

summary is

On Plato's Timaeus

Timaeus'

and

23

Science

masterly, for he

aUudes in it to every major difficulty that the Republic Far from easing the task of Timaeus and the others, Socrates puts the same obstacles in their way that they had before. Although they are now three, he does not make it any easier for them to be just. He leaves it unclear, for example, whether the warriors have an art; for where as in the artisan class the art assigned to each is in accordance with his

presents.

nature, in the case

the warriors, their nature is one

of

another; for their

nurture

includes three arts,

nurture

thing

and

their

gymnastics

for

for gentleness, and polemics as their proper craft. Socrates thus indicates the fundamental difficulty of the Republic: the structure of

harshness,

music

the city based soul.

on the arts does not coincide with its structure based on the He simultaneously indicates the nobility and the falseness of the noble

he: the

warriors

friends, but they

are

are

gentle

to their

subjects who

harsh in battle to their

their enemies. Socrates is sUent about the

barbarians,

In assigning to the ness, Socrates

Glaucon in

who are

their

by by nature

nature

to satisfy Glaucon's martial temper. phUosophic nature the cause of their gentle

guardians'

corrects

his former account, in

which

equaUy be the cause of their gentleness bl). And yet even then Socrates left it open supplement

nature

order

would

had to

by

thereby indicates that he had

the Greeks (Rep. 470c5-d2). He

enemies of

made concessions to

are

enemies who are not

their phUosophic nature

losophy"

twofold

and

the philosophic nature

harshness (Rep.

whether or not

376a5-

spiritedness

(Rep. 376bll-c5). But if "phi

spiritedness would temper, Socrates might have been in suggesting such a possibUity, Timaeus seems to take it literally (87e6-88a7). He seems to take initial anger against Socrates and Polemarchus as genuine anger (cf. Phdr. 267c7-dl). Timaeus, for aU his talk of images

can produce

be possible;

and

a

however

philosophic

playful

Thrasymachus'

and

imitation,

The

seems to

know nothing

feigning.

of

of its truth, that they have be called, even if it is, their own. Communism rests on a series of "as ifs"; it rests on the pretense that be" like" "to (cf. Rep. 463c5-7). To put in motion is the same as "to be become" the terms of such an equation would entaU that "to is the same

guardians

no private

as

to

are

believe,

regardless

possessions, nothing that

can

"to become like"; and such an equation seems to be in accord with of the "ideas": whatever becomes something only becomes

the doctrine

hke

each

something in

which

it

participates.

The ground, then,

on which

the best city rests is false phUosophically however effective it may be politically; and this ground when set in motion is possibly true philosophi

cally without its becoming any the more city in motion does not become through its

effective politically.

motion grounded

Socrates'

in the truth.

"metaphysics."

His city in motion does not iUustrate his The guardians receive as if they were moderate men.

is

sUent as

They

seem not

to

to who their masters are, and

their minding their own business

-

the pay suitable for wholly to the city, for Socrates their exclusive care for virtue

mercenaries

belong would

-

leave them

the city (cf. A p. S. 30a7-b4). The city is communized

no

in

time to care for such a

way

as to

24

Interpretation

for

guardians'

communize

To

the

concern

in

participate

is to

virtue

to

cease

virtue to

participate

itself

not

indispensable

as the

ground

that the city is the image extent that the city is the city it is not

in the city, for the city, participation in virtue,

guardians'

though the indispensable ground for the

does

participate

in

To the

virtue.

it is not the city; the image of virtue.

to the

and

of virtue

extent

the city.

exclusion of

the

Socrates'

city

Timaeus'

be the model for understanding of the visible whole. Timaeus seems to diverge most sharply from Socrates with regard to the equality of the sexes, for Timaeus makes man as superior to woman as the father-demiurge is to the mother-space. And yet Socrates speaks in such seems to

a

way

as

to leave it dark as to how

of women's natures as

if

women's

natures

mind, Socrates physician and

women are the equal of men.

He

men and not the natures of

resembling found in their

are

souls, and

soul

speaks

men; and

is the

same

as

be saying something as true as it is trivial: "The male the female physician have with respect to their soul the same would

(Rep. 454d2-3). Timaeus, however, whUe compeUed to agree with this, denies that the woman's soul is like the man's even after sexual gene ration has been provided for. He apparently ascribes eros only to the male, and the male's eros is of generation simply and not, as is the epithumia of women, of the procreation of chUdren (91b2-d5). The male nature"

seed flow out, but he does not naturaUy desire to have it fertilize the female. Through his manic desires he tries to dominate everything; and everything includes not only other men but the highest

desires to have his

lowest things as weU. Socrates does not deal in the Republic with such differences (unless the tyrant as the embodiment of eros can only be a man); and Timaeus may weU be, in seemingly departing from the literal and

teaching

of

rate, has the

for on

the

Republic, in

basis

Neither here fail to

selves.

Such

bodily

nor

conjectures could

look

light

and

an

necks chained

one another, or are

difference could arise or no be the basis for identification. The one

would

would yield

for his part,

explain

in

the

such a

bred

city"

admits,

how

parents

another.

An image

as to

be

to a single

difference

no

number,"

bringing into

again

longer understood

same results as a non-existent

speaks of generation as a

way

true

"cave", then, literaUy

solution, and the "nuptial

be

so

perceptible

no

understood,

image

"true

offspring by their resemblance to them only be suppressed if the citizens live to

have their

at or touch

type that ever

any

the arts, no women.

in the Republic does Socrates

understood, would be

terally

by

at

as much without the need

recognize their own

gether without

could

Socrates. Timaeus,

Socrates'

of needs satisfiable

cannot

unable to

with

is originaUy to satisfy it as

procreation and the art

the

agreement

gods make a man who

the

li as

Timaeus, light (91d4); but

science.

in the human, as opposed to the nonhuman, face (91e8-92al); indeed, he never discusses the face as a whole but presents the making of the first skuU in such a way as to suggest that

he

never speaks

the

skull's

of variations

is due to a degeneration, and as if he did not have had eye-sockets as weU as other apertures:

present shape

know that it too

must

Timaeus'

On Plato's Timaeus

Timaeus

gives

the

25

Science

and

for the

spherical skull a single aperture

attachment of

the spine (73e6-74al). He does not deign to describe the making

the

of

(cf. 75d5-e2).

nose

Socrates

speaks as

if the

in

number of places

fixed,

each class were

and

there could only be descent from a higher to a lower place if someone at the same time ascended from a lower to a higher place. This perfect

balance between first

acted on

ing

of

-

by

the whole feeds art

on

(33c6-dl); but

its

Timaeus'

to be equally true

the interchange among the four

account of

no waste

motion and order seems

own wastes

bodies, in and

-

of

there

is

acts and

is

which

the whole

this is before Timaeus introduces the mak

the soul, which upsets that

balance,

and

before he

excludes

earth

from undergoing any transformation except into itself. The whole would be perfect if it only consisted of bodies of the same type, just as Socrates'

first city is likewise

perfect

because it ignores the Timaeus'

needs of

demiurge

the human

his

soul

making by bodies. he tries to put together his making the kosmos like its paradigm and his making it hke himself. In making a place for himself in the kosmos he resembles Glaucon in his disgust at finding no place for himself in

that

are not satisfied

upsets

own

when

Socrates'

"true Socrates stops his summary before he introduced the philosopher-king; he stops, more precisely, just before he had returned to the question of city."

among human beings as among other in order to explain to Glau

whether communism were as possible

he had in tarn

a question

animals,

postponed

how his city would engage in warfare Socrates now wishes to repudi ate the concessions he had then made to Glaucon in order to hear from others a purer typology of war, less infected with Glaucon's private inter con

what was obvious

-

to himself

(Rep. 466el-471c3). It is

ests,

or whether

himself

"son"

(24c7-dl). But Socrates

Glaucon;

unclear whether

in the company

as the true

-

of non-Athenians

such strains are

inherent in the city

of warfare cannot consist with the

Since

he

wishes to present

the war-loving and wisdom-loving Athena did not just botch his city in order to appease of

itself, for

and

equality in the

women are more valuable than men

the requirements of women.

communism

perspective of the city's

future, one would always be reluctant to send any able-bodied front, to say nothing of those pregnant, especially since one

the

pect, if the

any time

marriage regulations

pregnant.

Everything

woman

to

would ex

work, that the best breeders would be at break down if the best female war

would

best breeders, for then two classes of women would have to be maintained; and in that case there would be no need for the class of women warriors: even Socrates admits that women would be on the whole weaker than men. These obstacles to setting the best city in motion are independent of Glaucon's request that the hero on the battle riors were not the same as the

field be

awarded sexual

favors, for

riage arrangements unless the

To

that would

brave

be fatal to the

warrior were always Socrates'

set

the best city in motion, then, is to purify biases; but to purify it of these biases

interlocutors'

does

the

city's mar good ruler.

account of

not

his

leave the city

Interpretation

26 Socrates had

pure.

His city

mit of a solution.

It is merely

Timaeus

set

that

(19b3-20c3).

Socrates

does in

betrayals

differ from the desire to

three distinctions:

in the Republic. The

that

between

ani

and that

two,

living

animal move

Motion

Socrates had

omitted

of a science that

kinematics is

clearest example of two-dimensional

in

which as an action

construction,

So

about.

and

a

see

and

betray;

hearing

not ad

principles.

see a picture of an animal move.

the possibility

the plane suggests

be

worth

imitation. The desire to

and

geometrical

betraying its

that between three dimensions

"reality"

not

would

almost erases

does

others a problem that

cannot go to war without

other

inanimate,

and

between

the

a question of which principles one chooses to

crates suspects

mate

and

Socrates had

speech

caUed

indispensable (Rep. 527a6-bl). The necessity of math construction lies in the need to make evident to ourselves what

both laughable ematical

and

by nature; and its ridiculousness lies in the unresolved tension between theory (gnosis) and practice (cf. Arist. Met. 1051a2133). Is Plato's Republic like that? Is the construction in speech of the best Socrates' city at odds with the contemplation of the best city in itself? Is summary here of its regime, which resembles a theorem without the proof, at odds with the constructive proof that the Republic imperfectly supplies is it

evident

reveals

(cf. 435c9-d5, 484a5-bl)? Do Socrates and the the sake of practice or theory? If for practice,

others

found the city for

its

then

impossibUity,

as

in the construction, does away with the theorem; and if for theory, the theorem turns out to be the impossibUity of such a theorem.

shown

Socrates

speaks

in his

comparison of

beautiful

If the

animals.

plural

is

taken as strictly applicable to what Socrates wants to hear about, then the

best city Socrates

surrounded

motion.

And if

by

other cities

the very

good eliminates

one again takes the comparison

to see beautiful animals

want

equally

to hear about. Beautiful cities together would

wants

mals?

But if

might

desire to

fighting

literally,

beautiful

thing be in

would one ever

with each other or other uglier ani

one modifies the comparison and takes see

never

animals

it to

mean

that

one

their own work, would one

doing

then want to see them generating? If no animal however beautiful is com

it does

by itself,

plete

follow that in its

not

attempt

to complete itself it

be equally beautiful, let alone more beautiful, to behold (cf. Hipp. Mai. 299al-b2). If motion necessarUy enhances the beauty of anything, the objects of the non-existent science of solids in motion would be more

would

beautiful than the to

"reality"

could of

Socrates'

his desire to

dians'

ful

is the

highest

desire to see the

virtue

Socrates'

animal

is

saying that he

the best city in motion be explicable in terms

best city art of

made more

fighting,

beautiful.

would

Only

they become

if the

more

guar

beauti

blood (cf. Xen. Cyrop. 4.4.3).

alternative

applied

for

see

is the

when covered with

If

Only if closer approximation determining the degree of beauty in things,

objects of solid geometry. criterion

to his

between

account of

either made an

a

"truly

living"

animal and a painted

the best city, then

imitation

Socrates

would

be

"real"

of

the

city

or made

the

On Plato's Timaeus "real"

Either the

city.

beauty

the

of

"reality"

of

the best city in

Timaeus'

and

the best city

speech might

27

Science would

be in speech, or being in speech,

be due to its

from

which one could not infer that it would retain that beauty if it were in deed (cf. Rep. 472d4-473a4). Socrates seems to exclude a third possibi hty: the best city in speech, precisely because it came to be in speech, is

inferior to the best city

idle but

rather

as

through its

than either the city in deed

the best city

points to the

is

not

more resembles a Timaeus'

haunts

living whole in Socrates

in

is

eidetic motion

the city in both its

being

in

being "real"

more

speech and

its

idea (592b2), though he had not excluded the idea (472b7-d3). His alternative here, in any paradox of the ideas: the truly living animal in the

was not an

possibUity that justice case,

or

this best city is far from

and

through speech. Socrates had implied in the Republic that

coming-to-be

strict sense

"idea";

participation

was an

the

in deed but the

animal

"real"

animal's

idea,

which

painting than it does any animal in deed. This paradox entire account of the demiurge's making the visible and

imitation

of

the eidetic and non-living whole.

in his

almost erases

speech a

fourth distinction: that between

hearing. The visible in speech does not differ from the audible; seeing but the visible in deed is not as such audible and perhaps not even capable and

of

being

him to

into

put

speech.

a place where

he

Socrates

can see

his hosts to transport

cannot expect

would the paradigm the best city at war though Critias does his best in the Critias

laid up in heaven be at war? to point to visible features of Attica. Timaeus, on the other hand, cannot simply point to the visible world as it now is, for his kosmos in speech in -

cludes a

kind

91al). The only is in

leading

of man

that

ceased

coming-to-be of the

to

exist after

kosmos in

with

"truly"

speech

speech

leads to

a

kosmos that

Timaeus himself asserts that speech is systematically mis regard to both being and becoming (37e3-38b5, 49b2-e4).

speech:

What Socrates hears from Timaeus bears what

the first generation (90e6-

is

at rest or what

bears. The

visible

"really"

kosmos is

as

no more or

is in

less

motion

refractory to

relation

than

to

either

Socrates'

speech as

own

the best city

in

speech is refractory to becoming visible. Socrates knows that he is incapable of praising adequately the best city and its men; and to praise them adequately is the same as to report what they did and said before and during a war. Socrates denies that he can

do for the best city

what

he

can

do for Eros: to tell the truth

the best city in wartime, and with this as a foundation beautiful parts of the truth and arrange them in the most

select

about

the most

suitable manner

(Symp. 198d3-6). He cannot do for the best city what he does not have On the basis of Republic 607a one would be to do for the "true inclined to say that what Socrates wants is to hear from a chaste Homer, a Homer bred in the best city and himself living during such a war or learning about it exactly by hearsay. No poet of this kind is known to So crates; and since he cannot exist before the best city exists, and the best city."

city cannot exist unless one of its founders is at least as competent a poet Homer was, in order to nourish his fellow citizens on the proper stories,

as

Interpretation

28

imitate

and since no poet can

be

sumes

no

in time. If its first

this is not enough, for it

take

would

could not

land to

if

and even

dispense

the

several generations

a war that

for

be the

able manner. with

up

the

The

time, the city enough extra

peace

its future

be the

model

would

so

guardians.

as

for the

think the city

it is

poetry The Iliad

war would

as

be

cannot

of

certainly in a suit

inextricably bound

with the problem of

Socrates has in

poem

To say nothing

entered upon

for the best city is

problem of war

communism of women.

the

it

Socrates

problem of

obtain

a

education of

war which

to

deserved to be

long

have

the fact that this assumes a mature population, that not

unless one as

original act of war that gave

one could

with

the

support

poet,

best city but becomes best ten who are fortunate enough

to fight

of natures which one would want

celebrated;

such a

before they in turn have had chUdren, perhaps in poet could arise who would satisfy Socrates. But

war

the second generation a

kinds

been bred to, there

not

as the

citizens are children under

have to face

not to

he has

being

possibUity of there ever that the best city does not begin

seems to

even

well what

the equality and

necessarily to

and yet seems

mind.

It is easier, according to Socrates, to be a good imitator in deed than in has not been bred to. It is easier to be a just man than

speech of what one

a good poet of

the deeds that not

easily

the just in

belong to

represent

imitation in deed between it

guish

deceive not

unless

the

"real"

can practice

the

in his fatherland

592a7-b6); but the poet can

deeds

of

the

best

it imitates, the less one thing; but the perfectly

city.

The

closer an

can or should

made

Ulusion

distin would

be the less an illusion. And yet, though Zeuxis deceived the birds, the boy who held the grapes

grapes of

deceive them

its

maker

NH 35.66). No

(Pliny

forgets himself

is the only barrier to the

edge

that

in his fatherland

comes to what and

Socrates

city.

everyone and still would not

the painted

did

bad

a

the best city (cf. Rep.

they

as

perfect

illusion,

are the masters of

made

he beholds his

Ulusion;

are

Ulusion

can

own making.

and the

only partly

be

perfect

Self-knowl

sophists, who pretend

aware of their own

self-

delusion. It is what makes them, according to the Eleatic Stranger, ironic (Sph. 268al-8). The poets can imitate what is their own without being able beyond their own;

and the sophists can make up beautiful speeches everything except about what is their own, for there is nothing that is their own if they have no grasp of either phUosophers or politicians, of

to

go

about

all

the things that

understand

severally do and say in wartime. The sophists (and hence of the city) because, in the belief

each would

nothing

of war

that there need not be compulsion,

they

(cf. Arist. EN 1180b35-1181a23). The

subordinate politics

the sophists not rooted enough; Socrates the

heaven (90a6-7), ledge

without

and

self-knowledge the

ledge with

the

philosopher

politicians are not articulate enough.

universality is the

faUing

of

to rhetoric

in the local, has his roots in

poets are too rooted

Self-know

the poet, universality without the sophist; to be without either self-know

failing

of

universality is the faUing of the politician, and to be equipped both the faUing of Socrates. The proper but seemingly impossible or

combination of

Socrates'

faUing

with

the politician's

faUing is,

in the

ab-

On Plato's Timaeus sence of

and

Timaeus'

29

Science

the best city's poet, the only avaUable way to fulfill

Socrates'

re

quest.

Socrates presents Timaeus as the complete opposite of himself. He be longs to a most law-abiding city, Socrates to an almost lawless democracy. He is as rich as the richest man; Socrates lives in ten-thousandfold poverty. He is

as nobly born as the noblest; Socrates comes from an undistinguished famUy. He has handled the highest offices of Locris; Socrates wUl hold office only once. He is most competent in astronomy and cosmology

(27a3-5); Socrates And he has

his

now

devotes his

ignorance. Timaeus

own

entire

reached the peak of phUosophy; seems

study to the human things. Socrates knows nothing except

to be the perfect

in both

gentleman

(88b5-6). The gap between appearance and reality, truth and opinion, is in his case closed. He would therefore be just the man to set in motion a city in speech. the lowest

and

(20d7-21a3). Critias is "law"

as

highest

the

sense

Socrates'

summary

preceded

Socrates

by

caUs

of

the best regime;

summary;

it, is preceded by

Book I

of

what

Socrates'

can proceed without what

he

wiU

hear;

the

prooemion

teUing,

"historical"

truth,

and

the

Timaeus

avows that

his

account would

Republic; Re Critias;

Timaeus'

of

summary too problem

problem

Polemarchus dropped his father's definition

and

his

ap So

the

of

Critias'

of

of

(357a2). There

prooemion, the three prooemia concern respectively the and since

and perhaps

the Republic as a foretaste

indeed, he called it

Timaeus'

problem

the

full account, or Socrates calls its prooemion

and

be, then, seven parts to the three dialogues: Book I public II-X; summary of Republic II-V; summary "law"; Critias. If one treats prooemion; tice, the

Republic;

the

Timaeus'

(27d4-6). Neither Critias nor Timaeus proval; they have to give him a taste of crates too gave them

by

preceded

was

Critias'

own account wUl

of

of

as a

jus

cosmology;

justice as truthlack total truthful say that the bond of

be beside self-contradictory, one could dialogues is truth: from justice without truth-teUing to three the among Between the im first a "truthful (26e4-5) and then a "likely ness and will

tale."

tale"

possible and the probable stands the who wiU aUow

Critias to

eulogize

Mother

Athens

of the

"justly

Muses (Critias 108d2), truly."

and

Socrates understands the deed to be retold by Critias as some but really done. He thereby suggests three other possibi deed recorded and reaUy done, a deed neither recorded nor reaUy

(21a4-6).

thing

not recorded

lities:

a

done,

or a

deed

recorded

but

Timaeus'

not

exemplify the first, third. The closest Socrates had

reaUy done.

Thucydides'

history

would

the second, and Greek mythology the ever come to speaking of what was

account

reaUy done was in describing the degeneration of the into timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny, where he its later had asked the Muses to instruct him in the "nuptial generation of stasis in the various regimes. If the best and the forgetting, perregime is aUowed to have once existed, Socrates shows himself to be neither recorded nor

best

regime

number,"

Interpretation

30

fectly

to describe the worse regimes at war within themselves and

able

their corresponding soul-types. Socrates can blame

the internal motions of cities, but he

in

cannot so praise

the best city. His Muses know nothing more about bad souls in motion than about

a suitable manner

the

of such praise.

of

Solon found himself in

(21a7-26el). he

crates:

forced to

was

about which

stasis,

he

also

Socrates

intervened,

not

abandon

good

bodies in

somewhat

found time to

motion

to

know

motion.

So

devote himself to If

write poems.

have had to

seems

the same position as

a national epic and

would not

external

He

had

compulsion

his

make

Ti

request of

others; he would already have had, according to Critias, just the poem he wants; or if he had traveled as widely as Solon, he could have perhaps learnt the Egyptian story at first hand. Socrates does know an

maeus and the

Egyptian story about the discovery of letters; but since that story told him only about the disadvantages of writing, he would never have asked sacred writings, nor accepted their as Solon did about the selfsophistic interpretation of the Phaethon-story, for without complete Egyptians'

knowledge he

could not

know

whether

such a

story

referred

to a "me

teorological,"

like

aU

does

not

memory

divine, or psychic phenomenon. Socrates would seem to be, Greeks, young in soul. But the short memory of the Greeks

the

truly

make them

the

reveals

young, for the Egyptians declare that their longer

eternal.

Progress

in the large. It is the

of progress

devoted to their

within a short

Greeks, then,

own remembered past as

if it

interval

who are

were

the

lack

conceals

old, for they

unique past.

are

They

ignorant of the eternal return of the same. Their ignorance, however, does make them children in another respect: they are forever fearful of are

universal

there

destruction. Their fear, however, is groundless: not only have been and always wUl be men, but there have always been

always

Athenians, Egyptians, earth;

and

and

every

other race everywhere on

the Egyptians were always

saved

the inhabitable

from destruction in

order

to

everything noble, great, or exceptional that has ever been done anywhere. National types seem to be the Egyptian equivalent to Platonic record

soul-types.

the

Patriotism is

eternal.

And

records are safe

and the

yet

from

citizens of

rooted

in the

eternal

and the written records of

the Egyptians do not offer an easy comfort: their cataclysmic rains and

fires but

Atlantis have disappeared

not

from earthquakes; A people's

without a trace.

sempiternity ultimately depends on their continued piety and not on the of their land. Egyptian piety, however, has nothing to do with

nature

happiness but only with survival: the earthquake that sank Atlantis swal lowed up the whole Athenian army. The best in deed is always precarious and

only

survives

in speech. Attica

her

because she observed that intelligent men; but it was because she was war-loving that the Athenians became like her in that respect as well: she discovered weaponry. Critias aU but says that the love (27a2-27b6).

its

Athena

moderate climate

chose

would yield

as

own

the most

On Plato's Timaeus of wisdom

is due to

nature and

tinction resembles that

and

Timaeus'

the love

between the

31

Science

of war to

the gods. Such a dis

visible whole made on the model of

the ideas and the visible whole made like the demiurge. Does the de

miurge, then, import

honor his

Socrates'

into the visible whole? Cannot hosts before they have shown that war is of cosmic signifi Empedocles' War and Strife would suggest a pre-Socra

request

Heraclitus'

cance?

war

tic background to the program of

Critias thinks

he

Socrates'

hosts. Socrates'

merely take over superbly edu Timaeus' cated men; they must first come into being in speech; and then, though their education has preceded their birth, he can, "according to the speech and law of present them to his fellow judges and have that

cannot

Solon,"

them of

"made"

that

citizens of the old

time."

To

set

though

it only

city in

speech nor as

Athens, "as if they

the best city in

motion

is to

were the

Athenians

it in time;

and time, light in speech, is neither as illusory as the best as what is neither in time nor just in speech.

comes to

put

"real"

The temporaUy

sequence, however

correct

Critias'

Timaeus'

Socrates'

speech,

-

Socrates'

and then speech of yesterday was was impossible, for indispensable for reminding Critias of the story he had heard when he was ten. Only Socrates can link Timaeus with Critias. Only the city that -

belongs

neither

beginning

to what is nor to what becomes can link what was at the

of time with what was nine

in the Athens

of

today

thousand years ago.

presented an

outline

of

an

missing in the story the Egyptian priests told; and Critias could supply it (cf. 89d7-el). One can make

Socrates'

speech

education

neither

one's

that was

Timaeus

nor

way toward the

but one can begin neither at the beginning nor with the ancestral (cf. 29b2-3, Phdr. 237b7-c2). The beginning is not first for us and the ancestral as such forbids the search for the beginning (cf. Pit. 299b2-dl). Socrates' temporaUy rooted speech about the eternal truth of political life

beginning

is the image

for bringing together that which is the eternally moving eternity with the temporaUy rooted deed of the best city in The truth of time cannot fit with the human understanding of

means of

motion.

time without

pohtical philosophy.

(27d5-28b2). equaUy in

mic criterion: opined

by

Since that which is and that which becomes both share Timaeus cannot distinguish them apart from an episte if it is comprehended by intellect with speech, it is; if it is

"always,"

opinion with

ever, to be

comprehends

Or is

becoming

is?

ceases to

Timaeus'

irrational perception, it becomes.

both

coming-to-be

and

ceasing-to-be.

Becoming, how All that

comes

be. Is it true, then, that becoming itself never perishes? merely a class-name in just the way that being apparently

becoming

account of

if there is knowledge

of

its

cause or

pays no attention at

first to cause, for

causes, it is noetically comprehensible,

is causally accountable in becoming is not becoming itself. Becoming itself would then be as causeless as being; only when becoming is made to become something and then cease to be that something, would unless what

there be

need

for

cause.

This is

a necessity.

Timaeus does

not speak of

Interpretation

32

relation to being: why there are these beings and not others be known. Since becoming is indifferent to what it becomes, and being never becomes, there must be someone or something that chooses what is to become. It is, however, unclear whether it is becoming or being

necessity in cannot

that becomes through a

become, in

since

be,

order to

since

Either

cause.

in itself it is

in itself it is

being

becoming;

without

without

needs a or

cause

becoming

in

order

to

needs a cause

being.

What is the necessity that, if the model is always, the copy be beautiful? Is to be always the same as to be beautiful? Or rather is it the case that the beautiful is as such the copy of the eternal? It could be a copy in one or beautiful

more of three ways: the

embodies

the eternal; the beautiful re

the eternal; the beautiful approaches the

minds one of

eternal.

If the

crafts

model; copy but but if he does his job less than perfectly, there is room for improvement, even though in a sense his botched making would stUl be beautiful. If the

man

does

a perfect

job, he

a second

would make not a

copy is beautiful it is lovable; and if it is lovable, one wants it to be one's own forever. Does the craftsman make the copy in order that he can have it? Since the eternal allows for its contemplation but not for its possession, the demiurge

would

have turned away from contemplation in The visible whole

to have something that was exclusively his own.

order

thus have been made out of his resentment at noetic being. The demiurge would have given up the noetic for something he can caU his Timaeus seems to be saying, "given own. "Haven't you too, up the endless quest for the ideas in order that you could have your own would

Socrates,"

city?"

The his

ma).

is only in

The

not

directly

be the

together;

Only

only in

do there

a

blueprint

cannot nor

be

idea. It is

content with

lovable.

seem

Only

a

paradeig-

ingredients out of first translate the noetic into effect such a translation, for

there are no prior

mathematics can

the noetic: points,

and not an

is

craftsman must

the realizable noetic.

construction of

model

and since

it is constituted, the mathematics

he contemplates for his model; always (toiouton ti because the eternal gives no clue as

use what

a sense such as what

eternal cannot

to how it is put which

does

craftsman

model

to be noetic parts that enter into the

lines, planes, and ones. The model is logos; but the craftsman as craftsman

this speech, for the blueprint is

neither

the visible in the strict sense of visible can

beautiful

be both; but

then the best city in speech

faUs to be either beautiful or lovable; and Socrates did not sacrifice the quest for the ideas in speaking of the best city, for he began by looking at becoming and not being. The "true

city"

was

founded

although

is the true

whole.

(28b2-29d3). never

on

Soul

with

"reaUy"

At this

completely

Timaeus

the need to satisfy

Timaeus too begins

point

by art the needs body, he cannot say

comes

of

the

that

body;

and

such a whole

first.

Timaeus introduces an ambiguity that he in his speech. Critias had said that

resolves anywhere

would speak about

the

genesis

of

the

kosmos; Timaeus began

On Plato's Timaeus with

a question

(ouranos),

about

kosmos,

or

"the or

Timaeus'

and

33

Science

whole"

and speaks

"the

of

heaven

whole

accept."

whatever

name one

would

most

If

the sky it is visible and a part; but if it means kosmos it is neither, for the distinction between heaven and earth is perceptible, ouranos means

but their unity as 28c6-8). Timaeus

a

kosmos

cannot

can

only be thought (cf.

40e5, 52b5; Phlb.

therefore conclude in the way he does that the

kosmos is generated, for if means no more than not to

one

Proclus that to be

says with

be^one's

own

principle, then any

generated

number more

than two would be equally generated. In any ordinary sense, moreover, the ouranos is no less untouchable than the kosmos in principle is neither

touchable

nor visible.

be

whole speech can

Timaeus, however, is

(cf. 91d6-el). Its faultiness becomes the kosmos within which aU

ing

as

any

of

obvious when

becoming

faulty

Timaeus

prooemion

asserts that

in becom

occurs shares as much

becoming does. The fact that every

part of

this; indeed, his

weU aware of

to correct his

viewed as an attempt

change needs a cause

means that that which comprehends all changes also needs a cause;

but

follows if that which comprehends is perceived in the same way as everything it comprehends is perceived. later introduction of "space," which is "grasped by a bastard kind of reasoning without per this only

Timaeus'

ception,"

this

corrects and

kosmos,

which occasions

important truth: the

by

"error."

same.

the indifferent use of

yet

principles of what

be the

nature must

And

this error, allows Timaeus to

The

is first for

celestial

does

not

lay

ouranos

down

an

is first differ in principle from us and of what

the terrestrial: mortal animal belongs as much as immortal animal to the noetic animal. Timaeus'

How this truth

can consist with

"visible,"

visible and touchable.

visible

of

smells,

is the theme

of

Something,

and

body

is

moreover,

an

are not on

inference from its

might

be

bodily

without

the

being being

There is thus no necessity that the whole be be bodily; it could even be merely potentially visible becoming visible, for light can either be an essential ingre

a smeU

for

because it

without ever

dient

error

"somatic"

"touchable,"

The three terms same level, for that something has visible,

that

"law."

body

example.

must

or an addition

one would

to body. If the whole were made

take delight in

it, but

one would not

of pleasant

love it

or

find it

in us the recognition of a lack; we would not be turned toward it (cf. Phlb. 51el-2). The whole was made visibly beautiful in order to make us aware of our need for something of which we should otherwise have been unaware. (cf. Rep. The demiurge is maker (poet) and father of "this

beautiful, for it

would

not awaken

whole"

to know the paradigm according but he would need someone to be the into to which the being; akin to himself. Timaeus says to be would have in turn and she mother; "father" cannot later suggests that and he the about here mother, nothing perhaps be strictly understood (50d2-3). The demiurge, however, is to

330c3-4). As father he

would not need

whole came

be strictly

kosmos,

understood as a maker.

or more

emphatically, the

He is best

a good craftsman of a of

causes of

beautiful

the most beautiful

Interpretation

34

has become. The distinction between beautiful and good seems on the way we talk about a certain kind of maker: we caU

of what

to be based

Homer

beautiful

a good poet of a

We love the

poem.2

poem and not the

The poet, Timaeus says, can be understood though it is difficult; the poem cannot be understood, though the man of the meanest capacity and demiurge himself both agree that it is beautiful (cf. 80b5-8). Since the bodUy whole comprehends all bodies it is on the highest of the lowest steps poet.

Diotima's ladder

of

being

without

love. But why

of

beautiful? It

would

should not

be, for

then

the whole be just good

example, like medicine,

It

so

likewise mething not have to be visible except in speech. Something can be an image of something else only if it is itself and another (cf. Arist. de memoria 450b but

one would need

otherwise

hold in

revulsion.

would

20-27). The whole, then, insofar as it is itself would not be beautiful; and Its beauty is as it is another, it would be beautiful but not not and cannot be coextensive with its being. But this lack of being would seem to deprive it of its being good, for something is not good if it merely "be."

insofar

has the

show of goodness.

The abiding has its

No

one wants

speeches

that are

speeches.

These image-speeches

that

extent

from

they

being

about

it but

are and are not about the

image

are speeches about the

beautiful

speeches about

Ulusory happiness.

in abiding speeches; but its image has themselves images and in proportion to the abiding explanation

the image

as

the image as

is;

about the paradigm.

The

are as

far

they

are

beautiful, but they

are

more

image. To the

image they

to the extent that

and

image they

not as

faithfully

are not

the image-speech re

flects the doubleness of the image, the less it teUs where its truthfulness hes. One is reminded of Hesiod's Muses, who told lies like the truth and, whenever

told the truth.

they wished,

Only

to the

extent

perhaps

the copy wants to be the paradigm is the image-speech true; but one never sal

know, according

to

teleology is impossible. Timaeus

proportion of the

day before

one could read off

since

as

image it is

not

speech,

of that want.

replaces opinion with trust were

speeches that constitute

in

A

can

univer

Socrates'

wholly an image, its paradigm; but

wholly an image, there is trust in it as "the it does not admit of being accounted for.

of which

Timaeus'

will speak

the boundaries

because if the image

from it the

but in terms

reality,"

he

Timaeus,

that

therefore,

both from

wUl

be imprecise

within and without

and self-contradictory, for the cave, but he wiU not teU

us, partly because he cannot,

when he is in one place or the other. The contemporary translation of image-speech would be "science fic tion"; but whereas modern science fiction deals with the future and rests

on

the proposition that human knowledge is power for the conquest Timaeus'

nature,

2

deals

with

Comford in his translation is fairly

tinction (his justificaton cannot remain so when

rests on an

he

comes

of

the past and rests on the proposition that

consistent

appeal

in

to LXX

blurring

Greek,

to translating 87c4-5.

p.

throughout this dis

22,

note

2); but he

On Plato's Timaeus

and

Timaeus'

35

Science

divine knowledge is "know-how" for the persuasion of necessity. The demiurge's know-how is no more contemplative wisdom Timaeus never calls him wise than its modern equivalent; but Timaeus must deny that we could ever have access to such know-how, for the made whole remains -

-

only through the demiurge's wiU. We must be content with imagefaU short of the paradigm not only because they are speeches

eternal

speeches that

image but because they do not teU us how to make or unmake are made like the image and prove to be indispensable for the coming to be of the image; we are not made to the same degree like the image-maker. about an

the image. We

(29d7-30cl).

The

visible whole was

originally lifeless

becoming; it became an image of being through the demiurge, whose goodness solely was

like himself naturaUy Socrates'

as

gence

and not

like being. The

and

an

and

its

paradigm

intelligent kosmos

in his making it intelligence only makes

consisted

presence of

things more beautiful, and not ideas, pictures, statues, or in speech. The demiurge, moreover, must understand intelli city his own kind of inteUigence, the intelligence of making. The visible

whole, in becoming intelligent, becomes good; but it becomes beautiful through any likeness to the demiurge but through the necessity that

not

as an

image

a matter of

the

of

it has to be beautiful. Its

eternal

the demiurge's wiU; but its

becoming

becoming

good was

alive was a

necessity,

though it was not the same necessity that compelled

it to become beauti ful. It had to have soul in order for it to have intelligence, but the demiurge neither wanted it to be alive nor did its life as such add to either its that intelligence with beauty or its goodness. The demiurge "figured out"

out soul was impossible. Neither his contemplation of the ideas nor his own desire told him that. Its discovery was more a result of reasoning than was his belief that to bring order into disordered motion was better. Timaeus

does

not now

say

whether

motion or ordered rest.

whole

hke the

the

If it

picture of

order

the demiurge brought was

was ordered

beautiful

rest, he

animals

would

have

ordered

made the

to which Socrates compared

Disordered rest, on the other hand, seems to be excluded, though Timaeus later admits that disordered rest, or rather or dered rest without kosmos, as well as disordered motion, are both indis the best city in

pensable motion

digm,

is

speech.

for kosmos. The possible.

the

difficulty

now,

If the kosmos is to be

however, is

whether

as close as possible to

ordered

the para

demiurge, one might suppose, would do the best he can and forever; but the necessity to introduce soul eliminates such a

then stop it

possibUity despite its

at the

same

time that

class-structure

being

it

reveals

that the best city in speech, the soul, is closer to body

modelled on

Timaeus'

hence that, in the reasoning of demiurge, Socrates' two-dimensional desire to see it in motion is to see it alive kinematics is impossible. This conclusion, however, is valid only if the best than to soul,

and

-

and intelligent; and Socrates was city in speech is both naturally visible in his summary about the phUosopher-king and never proved that

sUent

36

Interpretation

the city

had

by

was possible

the

made

nature.

it

move as near as

Be this

as

inteUigent animal,

whole an could

it may, the demiurge, once he could have left it to itself to

to the paradigm; he

could

have, in

short, made

way toward the ideas. But if the demiurge paradigm as he could, simultaneously made it with intellect as close to the he made the kosmos purposelessly alive; for it would be forever moving it like

a

baby

in frustrated

its

its maker; it could the demiurge

man as

individuaUy

own

impossibUity of ever

awareness of the

The kosmos,

paradigm. sent

to work

of ever

If the kosmos had

be, like its

not

maker,

toward it.

moving been

closer

to

help

ungrudgingly was

to the

but

good

Man, however, the ideas, for he

re

toward

deprived

not

was made mortal.

but like man,

made unique

not

as

closer

could not

these circumstances,

under

was

getting any

kind

a

with

in

finitely many individuals reproducing each other over time, the demiurge could have dispensed with man and had the kosmos take on the task of itself happy (cf. 34b8). There were several obstacles to such chief among them was the fact that the inteUigence of the but the plan, kosmos was made like the demiurge's so that the activity of its inteUect necessarUy consisted in a kind of making, inferior to the demiurge's but no

becoming by a

more

directed to its

making

of

improvement

own

as a

than the demiurge's

whole

the kosmos enhanced his understanding of the ideas.

(30c2-31b3).

The demiurge

to

try

must now

fit

together soul with para

digm, for once he realized that it was impossible to make every noetic being visibly beautiful, he was forced to look to himself, in whom he found life and intelligence; and thus equipped he turned back to the ideas with the question:

Which

cal answer

is

of

there is no idea this paradox;

of

the

perfect and

be

which completes

intelligence, for Timaeus, however, never faces

has

noetic animal

or mind.

either soul

instead, he introduces

tiful means to be

that that

them lends itself to life and inteUigence? The paradoxi

animal:

life

neither

a new criterion of

nor

beauty. To be beau

complete; and perfect completeness of

higher

rank

than, though

of

the

requires

same

kind

as, the things which it completes. The comprehensive must be the same as the perfect, for otherwise, if perfection alone defined beauty, everything except the highest kind would be dispensable; but if comprehensiveness alone

defined beauty, the

mal, is not in

need of another

the unceasing generation requires a

ble. The

equivalence of

for if the

kosmos,

proof,

which

visible

a part of the

but this highest

of

kosmos in

kosmoi. It

kosmos could

kosmos

part would

and

be

(cf. 30c5), for the

themselves regardless of unlike

any

other ani

to find its completeness in

be unique; but that it is unique kosmos is visi ouranos is now fatal to such a proof, can

not supply, that this

be

to be the same as the inferred

the whole

be dispensable. And

objection to such an equivalence.

were perfect

order

shown

would

by

kosmos, then,

Timaeus does

kosmos

kinds

collection of

their rank would suffice. The visible

The

visible

stars are so

kosmos

yet

and

everything

this is not the only

kosmos does

not

look

as

if it

unevenly distributed in it that

On Plato's Timaeus

they

the appearance

give

and not part of a

of

their

kosmos (cf. 48a

Timaeus'

and

its

being

37

Science

(kosmoi)

complex ornaments

6-7).3

If the parts of the complete and perfect kosmos are four, the kosmos is the fifth; and there would have to be a sixth to comprehend these five; but if the kosmos is nothing but its four parts, it is not alive. The kosmos, then, must be one of the four despite what we have said. The problem is like that of the relation of the four parts of virtue to virtue, which Plato's Athenian Stranger left to

however,

virtues,

In the

a nocturnal councU to solve.

its

each of

parts seems

be,

to

when

case of

the

strictly understood,

but if virtue is wisdom, and justice, moderation, and in their turn wisdom, there would only be three virtues the fourth as their togetherness. If, then, ouranos is the

the whole of virtue; courage are each with wisdom

cosmic equivalent

to wisdom (cf. Epin.

976e4-977a4),

one would

to distinguish between ouranos in the weak sense from

strong sense, on the one hand, in the imprecises sense,

and

ouranos

would

be the

same as

on

in the

ouranos

the other. In the

kosmos; but in

the precise

precise

weak

ouranos

sense,

it

sense

have

in the sense from

ouranos

be the

would

in the strong sense ouranos would be heaven as opposed to earth; but in the imprecise sense it would be the same as the three other kinds that in their togetherness constitute the kosmos. In this same as soul; and again

light,

one can see

why Timaeus

to the earthly kind but is are

stiU a

asserts

that,

heavenly

the dweUing-place for man's

soul

plant, and,

but

hand,

the one

on

on

man

belongs

the other, the stars

all other animals are

his degene

rate offspring.

(31b4-32c4).

The

being seen cannot be beautifully brought being solid except by a bond that makes them

cause of

together with the cause of

coextensive; but in cannot

be

cause of same as

a

order

catalyst; it

that the bond too be as beautiful as possible,

must not

being solid, it must make becoming of itself as a

the

translation

becoming

of

this

assumes

make

only

the cause

becoming

the

(sexual generation,

least, is

at

one

of

by

being

seen

it

the

the visible solid the

of

Timaeus'

bond. Now if

that the squaring

of

mathematical a

magnitude resembles

one),

if

and

we generalize

Timaeus'

the necessary condition for solidity, and hence assign the necessary condition for heat to fire, for gaseousness to air, and for liquidity to water, then the proportions fire : air :: air : water:

from

making

earth

-

earth

-

can

be

viewed as

generates a

gas,

for

seems

a

does

liquid not

quite

the

and

to be

a

sohd

with

the

for fire

as

agree

are alternative means

stating that the

earth

being

tion that the bonds

sequence, where

make earth visible.

into the

other

of perception are

air

and

The

reason

never see a solid as a solid

Timaeus, therefore, in later denying

transformed

same as

the

for

the possibility of

bonds

Cf. Maimonides, Guide of the Perplexed (tr. S. Pines), II.9.

water

but only

three elements, abandons the

the

liquid

liquid, however,

"haptic"

sequence,

light to

a

to a solid generates a

"optic"

this difference lies in the fact that we as a set of surfaces.

This

gas.

heat to

application of

application of a gas

of

asser

becoming.

38

Interpretation

He thereby allows the demiurge to make solids he pays is high: the somatic kosmos, in a

price

longer be

can no

beautifully

for Pythagoras is

harmony

together.

put

out of surfaces;

but the

non-mathematical

Timaeus'

sacrifice of

sense,

Empedocles

He can only now pretend that perfect between them because he has not yet considered the to body. the twin priority of soul and not pure gain.

can exist

"space"

consequences of

(32c5-34a7).

That the demiurge completely

bodies in the

the

composition of

but

eternal

healthy

assigns to

The

not alive.

the

visible

has

sphere comprehends all other

up

each of

paraUel

the primary

to the complete

animal; but that this makes the visible

in the

no parallel

spherical

whole, is

is

visible whole

ness and uniqueness of the noetic whole ageless and

uses

noetic

shape, moreover,

not supplied

figures

by

without

animal, for it is

which

the noetic of them

any

the demiurge

animal, for the

being

a part of

it. The demiurge is thus forced to sacrifice wholeness for the sake of com prehensiveness in the ordinary sense; and even when he replaces the sphere with the

dodecahedron, he is

pentagonal

face is

no

made cannot

better off, for the be

similar

triangle out of which

its

to the triangle out of which the

pyramid, the octahedron, and eikosahedron are made. The kosmos retains three functions of the human

animal:

it thinks, it

moves, it feeds. The bond between its thinking and its nutrition is its ro tation: the circulation of its bodies in itself is like the self-completeness of thought. But

where does the likeness leave off and the difference between non-body begin? If the likeness extends to the homogeneity of the sphere, being would be, as for Parmenides; one; but if the likeness does not point to the oneness of being, the model for the somatic kosmos

body

and

would not good"

or

be the

noetic animal

"the idea

of

the

Only

too participates in the good,

it. The

noetic

noetic

which

is beyond

being

-

"the

would

be

to the extent that the noetic animal

the sphericity

of

the kosmos be akin to

just because it is noetic over just because it is somatic when it comes to the good. the kosmos would not be beautiful; and without the

seems

against the somatic

Without the

but that

good."

not

to

privUeged

demiurge's willingness to hold back nothing of himself the kosmos would not be a thinking animal; but the shape of the kosmos is independent of either model. Its goodness, in this respect at least, would seem not to be Ulusory. And yet, if the soul envelops the kosmos, the kosmos is not only invisible but shapeless, and its sphericity is just an Ulusion.

(34bl0-36d7).

The priority of soul to body is the copy; and

body does

its priority to beginning body is as much due to his beginning with being and its image (eikon) as his own participation in the random (eikei). To have begun with soul would have meant not to begin with paradigm and image, for soul is made out of other that

not entail

Timaeus'

of which

with

first because Timaeus Socratic question; but his account of soul is entirely pre-Socratic, in which he assumes that to know what soul consists of explains what soul is. This assumption, things but not

began

copied

with a what-is

from

anything.

Body

question; he began with

was

a

however,

On Plato's Timaeus

and

Timaeus'

undercuts the soul's

priority, for it is essentially

ing

and somatic

being

of noetic

39

Science

posterior

to the double be

it is composed. becoming Timaeus finds himself in somewhat the same situation Socrates got into in the Republic. Socrates had to account for justice in the individual; but he began with the city in its bodUy aspect and then, through the imposition of out of which

it, came to the soul, with the result that he bypassed individual. Timaeus likewise begins with the body of the kosmos and then has the demiurge make its soul; but he then cannot return to the a class-structure on

the

kosmos

with which

he began, the

clearest sign of which

to assert later with the same assurance as he had at one

kosmos.

The any

being his inability

first that there is only

soul consists of

in

being being

parts,

the rest

of

three

blended together, only one of which has in turn of the blending of two

parts

it;

and since each part consists

in

the strictest sense comprises

it is

not noetic

in any

way.

only

one-sixth of

Soul, therefore,

cannot

soul,

whUe

be known

by

inteUect with speech or opinion with irrational perception. Is soul, "space," "grasped with imperception by a bastard kind of rea then, like Timaeus, in any case, does not explain what meaning one should

either

soning?"

assign

to indivisible sameness and otherness, on the one

sameness and

otherness,

and partial

is that if

parts, i.e., if the paradigm is blended with its image, the ideas in the soul cease to be ideas, for they are no longer separate from everything that participates in them. The soul noetic

wholes

are

blended

hand,

the other. AU one can safely say

on

thus partly seems to be its Timaeus'

with

somatic

own model and

therefore not beautiful. It would

way saying that the soul is that which moves itself (cf. Phdr. 255d3-6). But even if this correctly explains the blending of being be

of

Timaeus casually assigns being even before it is for the double blending in sameness and otherness. The only possible guide to it lies so far in the fourfold charac terization of the ouranos. The ouranos as kosmos would be indivisible and

becoming

(to

which

blended), it does

not account

opposition to earth it would be would be indivisible otherness (nonit divisible would aU of it be divisible sameness (body). and as the kinds animals body) What has to be forced together, according to Timaeus, would thus be the blending of heaven-soul with &o,w2o,y-animals. The weak and precise sen ses of ouranos would not beautifully fit with its strong and imprecise sen

sameness

(non-body), but (body);

otherness

as

heaven in

as soul

ses, any more than man whose soul lives on the stars and who is an earthly kind beautifully fits with man as a heavenly plant who is the source of aU other animals. Neither soul nor man is as beautifully bound together as

body by itself

can

be. Timaeus'

The difference between the first and second parts of seems to be expressable as the difference between arithmetic try: the soul

triangles out magnitudes.

into

speech and geome

whUe the elementary contain irrational composed bodies are of which the primary for soul is under so the difference is not But the absolute,

is

articulated

pure-number ratios

stood as a continuous magnitude and not as a

unity

of

discrete

numbers.

40

Interpretation

have pre part, then, is indispensable for the first and should of the second part. it in light aU of never revises but Timaeus it; He revises his account of body but not of soul. What then compelled Timaeus to begin not with a likely speech but with a false speech? Was the

The

second

ceded

false the

speech about soul unrevisable?

answer

never

The circle of the in itself. Other

lation

-

to one

not

differ in itself from the

circle of the

(48a6, 55dl,

and same when applied to

identical things

are merely do differ, however, in the way they are placed in another and the motions they are given. That the trans

(36c4-5).

of soul

does

"reaUy"

(ontos) so, 48d3, 49a6-

does in the first part

same

is

cf.

than once there of saying what

more

other

relation

this question

Ti wholly determines one's interpretation of the Timaeus greater truthfulness of the second part by indicates the plainly

something that he 7, 55e3).

names

one answers

-

maeus most

speaking

However

They

into

soul of the

kosmos

-

a translation that resembles

that

of

requires that the demiurge do to only one part blueprint soul what he could have done to both parts, explains why the eternity the kosmos depends on the demiurge's will. No inner necessity keeps

idea into

an

of of

the circle motion

helical

a

of

of

-

the same unsplit; and when

the

motion

its

motion

combines

with

the

(the ecliptic), which alone makes life possible, the that results is no longer simple rotation (39a5-b2), the mo other

tion appropriate to the corporeal kosmos and most closely related to thinking (34al-5). Soul though necessary for thinking interferes with think

(cf. 40a7-b2), and, though perhaps not equaUy necessary for body, body from doing its job perfectly.

ing

prevents

(36d8-39e2). account of

form

motion

different and

Aristotle did

not raise all possible objections to

to the

Timaeus does not ascribe eternally uni he introduces time, for the soul cannot have it can stop, turn its attention to something else,

soul until

cognitions unless

then start up again; but the soul

begin to

Timaeus'

the soul's cognition.

separate out

being

in

from the

doing this would necessarUy becoming of which it is com

capable of coexisting with kosmos. The demiurge therefore is compelled to restore to the kosmos in some way its eidetic character, which the introduction of thinking soul had upset. He now has to make the kosmos in its motion an image; but time, in more

posed,

and

hence

the

cease

to be

nearly assimilating the kosmos to its

paradigm

(i.e., conferring

on what otherwise would tend to separate), puts an end to

coherence

cognition, for

speech cannot arise in an image. Time unifies the corporeal kosmos it destroys the thinking kosmos. It is an imperfect bond between soul and paradigm. The kosmos, it seems, can no more than the city satisfy

true as

the

needs of the mind.

Time another

be open-ended, its another; but Timaeus

seems to

character

and

says

image

both ends, for it is

an

magnitude comes to

light in

of

that

like that of the infinite infinite time is closed

the abiding one.

what soul

Number

apart

counts; but the numbers of

-

at

from

time,

On Plato's Timaeus though

all

present,

or

of

the "parts time"

Timaeus'

41

Science

images of one, never come to light for us without the past, future. Time so temporalizes all being that the abiding one

looks like the

by

and

one of time"

of

the

instantaneous

from taking

(37e3-4). Cosmological

permanent markers of time

now. We are rescued, however, bearings exclusively by the "forms uranian time corrects soul-time. The

our

or

sun, moon, planets,

-

toward the truth that to be means to be always.

and

Only

stars

turn us

-

the coextensiveness

heaven and time can overcome the inbred delusion of soul that it is the (cf. 40c9-d2, 41d4-7).4 Timaeus, however, admits that few men un derstand what the planets are for, which the demiurge set as a of

whole

problem

for

us.

"see"

everyone can

apparently look like a kosmos. Not that the demiurge looked to being in making it. Cos

The kosmos

as ouranos

does

not

mology must begin by appealing to sight, even as it must end with it (cf. 40d2-3), but what links its beginning to its end is not aesthetic. Ti image-speech is not on the same level as either the visible kosmos or its visible imitations. maeus'

(41a7-42d2). The demiurge makes two speeches, one in direct, the other in indirect discourse. The one in direct discourse is spoken to the cosmic the other to

gods,

human

but tells them

the whole

that to live them that

justly

consists

souls.

The demiurge laws

about the

in the

of

shows them

their

conquest of their

the

nature of

fate. He tells them passions; he does not tell own

wiUingly follow the lesser gods, about whom they never hear. He teUs them of the doubleness of human nature but not that the gods wUl buUd into the better part what will be needed by the worse (76d3-e4). He teUs them about their possible bestialization but not that the

they

be incomplete

whole would

but

they become bestial. He

unless

warns them

the necessity for sin that not all can achieve without destroying the beauty of the kosmos. He tells them that

against sin

happiness

must

not against

-

bodies but not that they are now also incomplete in The indirect discourse of the demiurge is a noble lie, but it is not the same as Socrates', for the equality with which all the souls start out, as well as the possibility that they all could equally lose their best condition, Socrates leaves as one of the darkest secrets of the city. And yet the advantage does not all lie with the demiurge. He has to suppress Socrates' the truth in lie that some wUl have to occupy inferior stations in order for the whole to be in order. The politicaUy noble lie is closer to the

they

must acquire

their

souls.

cosmic truth than

1

the

One

in this way begin to

should

becoming

of

the

before the making time", the time and after.

the noble lie

of

which

kosmos,

how time only

comes

the kosmos. Before cosmological time there

This time solely depends

as

the

from

uniformly moving

number of motion

on whatever

harmonize the

numbers someone else counts off

were a

understand

The necessity for the to

be

yet there was chaotic motion of visible

and

Aristotle defines

not allow one to equate or

if there

the demiurge.

of

body

that

moving

body;

"relativistic

according to before

one

numbers counted off

another

body

moving

was

with

bodies

observes; it does

from it

with

the

that could only be done

comprehended all

bodies.

42

Interpretation

city to have a class-structure in order to allow for the realization of man's higher potentialities, bears some relation to the necessity for the kosmos to be beautiful through evU; but what end that evU serves, apart from making the kosmos happy, Timaeus does not stiU think even if no man ever sinned. The good

explain.

The

seems not

stars

would

to come to light

in human things.

except

(42e5-47e2).

The theme

Timaeus'

parts of

the

of

is

speech

between the first

transition

in the world,

man's orientation Timaeus'

two most striking Ulustrations are human brain to the imaginings of a man Timaeus'

(43e4-8),

and

seemingly

(46a2-c6). When

head

facing

whUe

his head

someone

one's own right appears opposite the other's right without one's own position.

on

standing

gratuitous explanation of mirror-images

stands on one's

one

the

the disoriented

comparison of

when

and second

of which

In the topsy-turvy

does

position one

else,

correcting for

not need to

reflect;

remaining wholly ignorant of its ground. One is illustration remains singular but insignificant untU he

one speaks the truth whUe Timaeus'

Oedipus.

implies toward the

that we are

end

by

nature upside

down (90a5-bl). We

in the whole, for trust is not as What happens if one faUs to observe the difference

always remain unaware of our own place eradicable as opinion.

Timaeus'

between trust

account of mirror

and opinion

images

shows.

His

before, for it ignores the nature of the mirror itself. Timaeus correctly does not distinguish between the reversal of one's own right and left in a mirror and the re is

account

as

inadequate

as

everything that has

versal of another's whom one

faces. As

that the

into

case

mirror makes oneself

it is

an

image

and

in the

gone

they

reversals

another

other not an

is left

the same, but

are

out of account.

image that

In

one

Timaeus'

one sees.

upsidereasoning does not differ from the correct speech of the down man. Both are due to a self-forgetting the excessive absorption by contemplation into what it contemplates the correction of which is the

correct

-

-

burden about

of

Timaeus'

second speech.

cussion of

thinking acquire

can

for the investigation

intelligence leads to

that capacity;

It is through his

a position

and

conscious

Body,

on

the

lack

discover other

of soul

to

things were made in

this teleological investigation depends a

lover

of mind and

to know what he needs to have them.

with self-knowledge can

come ordered.

The capacity

of causes.

a consideration of what

the fact that the investigator is himself

gence.

necessity is a speech light in a dis

come to

only

body. In the first part, soul was presented as indispensable for being itself neither good nor beautiful; but soul now be

order to actualize

ing

speech about

whUe

comes the model

on

His

self-knowledge, for self-knowledge

ends

hand,

Only

and, in cannot

of science and

inteUigence an

inteUi

he is in end-directed be that

discoveering ends,

by itself

acquire

be

inteUi

can never be wholly ordered. It is recalcitrant to rule because it does not rule itself. Order is impossible without self-knowledge, the know ledge of one's own good; but body must be capable of following orders; it

gence; it

must

be,

as

the demiurge

made

it,

part of soul.

On Plato's Timaeus

(47e3-48b3). ings

Timaeus

of necessity.

He

and

Timaeus'

43

Science

opposes the crafted works of mind to the

(dedemiourgemena)

opposes a perfect

(gignomena) participle. The most

becom

to a present

obvious sign of the presence of mind

in

anything is its completed state; and the most obvious sign of the presence of necessity in anything is its incompleteness. The mixture of completeness and incompleteness is this kosmos. What leads, however, becomings to the best is necessity, once it has been persuaded mind; mind cannot do it for it

by itself,

be incapable

seems to

for itself. The

nature of

of

by devising any

irrational

necessity is to carry (pherein);

she

is

co-workers persuaded

to drive

(again). Pherein and agein characterize when put together the to tal destruction of a country by an enemy, where pherein refers to inani mate things and agein to men and cattle. Necessity, then, is persuaded to drive living beings toward the best, which from the point of view of the driven is stiU a compulsion; it is compulsion itself that has been directed to the

good.

Necessity

thus partly

ceases to wander

but it

never ceases to

compel.

(48b3-52dl). knew

what

The

mistake of the

fire,

air, earth,

"pre-Timaeans"

was

were; the mistake

and water

to

of

speak as

Timaeus

if

we

was to

beheve that paradigm and image were enough, as if we knew what an image was. The discovery of necessity is merely the discovery of what was there

all

never

is whoUy

has the capacity to be an image because it it images. "The image-speech with necessity", in terms of which Timaeus constructs body (53d5), is his way of describing the doubleness of any image. That an image is peculiarly difficult to under is

along, that

which

what

Timaeus'

by

constant use of images to describe necessity is necessity precisely that part of an image that never becomes image of anything. The image-speech about necessity is and is not an

stand

revealed

even though

an

image of necessity. Timaeus has to tackle

another difficulty before he can explain how necessity is the receptacle of becoming. Can there be a science of body? Such a science would have to be about what is here and now, and yet as a science could not be about what is here and now. A science of corporeal be

be

ing

cannot

did

not understand.

perceptible

by

about corporeal

both

rank than

I

is

what

anything

character of

though the

for they

saw

of

cannot

imaginary

be the

cannot

it becomes phenomenally, for

accurate

not

to

would

appear

to be the same as though

even

water5

to translate phantazomenon,

more

body

"pre-Timaeans"

they

started

that it becomes. That which we

something else becomes. Phenomenal

else

"phenomenal"

"imaginary",

not,"

the

what

body, then, "is",

becoming

see

and what

use

took the principles

perceptible

asserting that it "is

caU water and

5

They

body; but

becoming. This is

and

be confusing,

imaginary

principle

have

a

of

higher

phenomenal water

not

phainomenon,

for

it is precisely the that Timaeus wants to explain. since

44

Interpretation

has become just

its

establishes

has ice

which

as much as

cycle

everything

genesis,

steam

and

does

phenomenal water

in

of

its

as

not give

cannot

The

manifestations.

it

from it. Once

which comes

phenomenal water

be the

greater

being, for

the privilege of

one

being

amount

all of

it

of

can

become something else. If, however, the ground of phenome becomings is a real water, then everything would have a twofold structure. Phenomenal man, for example, would be the combination

principle

nal water's noetic

of eidetic man with eidetic

bodies; but he does

assume; but the principles

they

shapes

Timaeus does and yet

The

body. Timaeus

not

describe,

the science of

body

science of

asserts the existence of eidetic

not give an account of them

body

can

only

if

It

one accepts the

can

only

exist

"bodies"

the

science of

body is

not

really

Timaeus

expresses

image (in his

account of

example of

truth"

account of

body

about real

the difference between his

body and his solution to the problem of body "what is safest by far to say of

eidetic

bodies;

if

hypotheses

one

of the

inserts between

neither

but

shares

in

Unless science of body; but body, there can be no mathematics.

body.

science of

light

the mathematical

of the

phenomenal body and eidetic body something that is both: the quasi-eidetic, quasi-fantastic of phenomenal body is not real body there can be no unless

of

science of these mathematical shapes.

exist

mathematicians non-hypotheticaUy.

but

these mathematical shapes, which

the principles

are not

is the

of

apart

of

solution to the problem of

image

by labeUing his account (49d3-4) and his "what is safest by far to say in body is more daring than the

hypothetically"

gold)

(50M-2). The account of image because it involves the assertion, contrary to speech, of from phenomenal body (cf. 53cl), whereas to assert the exis

tence of triangle apart from the triangular is in accordance with

(cf. 51c5). In

for

speech

Timaeus'

hypothesis to be as safe as his hypothetical statement, the difference between real body and phenomenal body would have to be just like the difference between thought triangle and phenomenal triangle. The science of body, however, as Timaeus deve lops it, implies that this is not the case, for the triangles out of which body is composed are not the same as the triangles of mathematics (cf. 73b5-8). order

non-

The

relation between water and the watery is far more complex than that between triangle and the triangular. Shape is closer than body to idea (cf.

50c2-3, If

e2).

body

something

as

idea does

else

that

not mix with man as

allows the noetic

beings

idea (52a 1-4), there out of which

must

be

things are made

to mix with noetic beings which answer the question "What is?". Space was first introduced to explain how an image is other than the imaged, but it ends

up explaining how two different kinds

combine

noetically,

because it

can

combines

be

of noetic

beings

which cannot

An image is an image be otherwise combined.

combined aesthetically.

phenomenally what cannot illustrate the difference between form and matter, and it can be used insofar as it is an image to illustrate "essence;" but the way in which it illustrates essence is not the same as the way it Ulustrates

A

statue can

be

used to

On Plato's Timaeus

form

It is

Timaeus'

and

45

Science

form that it is essence but rather its own to its form. Timaeus, however, says that though noetically they are different aesthetically they are the same. The tenuous hold an image has on being is due to contradiction. The com bination of being and non-being in an image makes its look like its and matter.

is its

essence

not as

matter as

opposed

being

its non-being look like what it is an image of; but the truth is that its being is its non-being as an image whUe its non-being is its being as body. This inversion is the effect of space. That this inversion, however, does not complicate Timaeus' speech past all comprehension is primarUy

body

and

due to the

demiurge; for

difference between his fashioning something body fashioning something to be an image of something seems not to be as great a difference as it is. solution to the problem of body leads him to say that that "something" which one points to whenever one points at what is misnamed out of

as a maker the

his

and

Timaeus'

is the receptacle; anything

that that

and

is

one points at

which one

talks of

again the receptacle.

And

whenever one

yet we cannot

talks of

talk

of

it,

it. The triangle, for example, one is talking about is always other than the triangle one is pointing at, for one's speech is always pointing to being. If, however, one speaks accurately and makes the "this" point at the receptacle, one is not pointing at being, for it hardly "is." "this" If the is triangle, one speaks of being but does not point; if "this" the is receptacle, one points but does not speak of being. There is

i.e.,

give an account of

"this,"

The permanently present of which we are "explained" to us, is parallel and not entirely unaware even after it is paraUel to our incorrect speech about time (cf. 52b3-5). Space is to time as kosmos as itself is to kosmos as image. We insert into the series, no

science of

space.

"is"

if

"once,"

"now,"

in time; but and "at a later (eis authis), though they do not apply to being strictly understood, imitate being strictly understood. Our temporalized speech past, present,

and

future,

as

being

were

time"

imitates

being

without

it imitates; but the receptacle,

differences,

thing; but the

of, do not

spoken

another.

being

aware either

it imitates or that "this" of imitate the

of what

anything does

not

which nonetheless underlies our speech about anything.

manifold of spatial

the same

our

our speech about

they

manifold

refer to one

What is the

as

same

of

are spoken

temporal

of,

refer

differences,

The

to one and as

they

are

thing but to another and manifests itself as different (bo

and the same

(space)

always

is different (time) always manifests itself as same because it is an image of what is the same (being), and what is same (space) mani fests itself as different because any image that appears in it looks like it. The indivisible same is space, for that which looks other than it is the same as it; and the indivisible other is time, for that which looks the same as

dies),

but

what

is body, which looks like what is is image, which looks like the other than time; and the divisible and time) look as if they belong two indivisibles (space same of space. The together but do not while the divisibles (image and body) do not look as it is

other

than

it; but

the divisible

same

other

if they

belong

together

but do. For this

reason the

demiurge had to

use

46

Interpretation

force to fit them together in The ambiguity in the acter of

soul.

word

necessity exactly

the puzzling char

expresses

the receptable: the ground of all accidents is not itself an accident.

It therefore has more in common with being than with becoming (51a7b2). It is the ground of our dreaming whUe being itself no dream. Without

it, being would be in becoming and becoming would no longer be an image, "since that very thing (e.g., the idea man) on which condition it (i.e., phe nomenal man) has come to be (viz., to be an image) does not even belong to

itself,

only its

for this

and

in

being

reason

another

it is

that it be in something

proper

it to be

allows

not

of

for

other,"

itself but the image

of

(52c2-dl). The receptable, which can be pointed at (tode), turns out to be when spoken of (touto) a toiouton, something like what one is "here" (tode) proves speaking of. What is in the sphere of the speaker as a

another

to

be,

when

it is

put

in the

sphere of

the

in

(touto),

to

one spoken

"Here"

no

longer

into loses its very character, even though what it is universally is the ground for its being locally precise. The "water here," "here" drops out, even universalized, becomes "the watery"; the though it is the indispensable ground for "the watery"; but when this capable of

being

exactly

"everywhere"

ground

is brought to

watery"

or

anything

blance to the

of.

being

universalized

"anywhere"

and

indispensable

spoken

else.

reason that

The

light, it

receptacle

Socrates

gave

for

be any longer "the

cannot

bears

thus

poets

a

certain

being incapable

of

resem

imitat

ing well in speech that which they have not been bred to. The inabUity to universalize is ultimately due to their rootedness in necessity

poets'

Timaeus'

space; explain

tribe

so

the

account of space can

be

Socrates had

universal ground of poetry.

or

regarded as an attempt to

then contrasted the

the sophists, a

of poets with

wandering (planeton) class, who are not looks like the wandering cause, but its effect is just the opposite; reason is the cause of order, but in its effects it looks as if it does the opposite, for reason arranged the seemingly wandering planets to be the markers and guardians of time (38c5-6). The difference, rooted anywhere.

Necessity

then, between sophists and poets the contrary ways in which the cause of looks hke the cause of its opposite is the human counterpart to the Timaeus' difference in two speeches about the kosmos. And to reconcUe his two speeches would show the way to overcome the faUings of both -

each

-

Timaeus thus holds out the hope that some future So live to hear a poet praise the best may city in motion. Timaeus seems to assume that if the mold of space were not capable of

poets and sophists. crates

perfect

impressions it

appearances would racter of mind, thing. Timaeus

body occurs outside

be

which

would

be

would not all

has to be

impressions,

but

to attribute to space the cha

characterless

if it is to understand every

therefore have to

phenomenaUy in

being's

seems

order

the phenomenal range of

buted the

a receiver of

there are. He

to

body

show

exclude

that the possible range of

the

possibUity that

(cf. 50e5-8). If

space

lies

space always contri

same something of itself to everything that entered into it ("gra vity", for example), any phenomenal body would undergo the same kind

On Plato's Timaeus of distortion as any other, and longed to space and what to

Timaeus

characterless as

Timaeus'

be certain body. If, moreover,

real

is,

one of

the

47

Science

one could never

it

says

and

main

as

to

what

be

were as

space

for the

arguments

the ideas would be undercut. Their

existence is partly in ferred from the fact that everything appears to be a bad impression of it self. Every being is self-evidently incomplete. Timaeus, however, has the demiurge make the first man complete; and one wonders whether his in

existence

of

sistence on

the purity of space does not arise from his

plation seems

infecting

mind with

His implicit denial to mind of the purity of contem to force him to attribute mind's purity to space. This mis-

capacity to

the

make.

his former confusion between soul and mind. Once Timaeus had the demiurge realize that he could not give mind to body

attribution resembles

without

giving it soul, he

never

to the making of the human

If there is

order

in the

visible

at work?

Anaxagoras

seems

plainly distinguishes them until he comes Is mind just ordered soul (cf. 44a8)?

soul.

kosmos to

can one conclude

that mind

have thought so; but Socrates

is there

objected

that only the presence of good along with order points to the working of Timaeus' the mind. The first part of speech is Anaxagorean, for he cannot

there

show the goodness

of

the whole while

the whole to be the way it is (cf.

he

the necessity for

shows

Maimonides, Guide, 11.19). The thinking,

in any case, which Timaeus assigns to the soul of the whole has nothing to do with reasoning about causes (cf. Rep. 516b4-c2). Its cognition of same leads it to

The paradox, then, be that in the first part he demotes mind to soul in order to have the kosmos beautiful, and in the second part he elevates space to mind in order to make it good. and other never

put two and two together.

Timaeus'

whole speech would

of

(52d2-53c3).

Space is like

a mother

mother, for her offspring never fully into the hght. If they could

be

kosmos but

part of the

Timaeus'

revised.

Space

it is. It

said

water,

shakes

earth and

must contribute

from its

it like sion.

being

fully into

the works

a catalyst

for but

and

thus

sorts

the

from it

light,

not a

it

out, like

bond

space would not

of

ideas

have to be

the kosmos. As

receives as a

not a

never come

as the paternal

of mind would not

not as neutral to what

up

ideas; but it is

from her; they

a

Timaeus had

winnowing-basket,

fire,

That it f oUows indeed

air whUe still unshaped and non-arithmeticized.

something besides

like

a

mold, for

a

room

to what

perfectly

it

contains

elastic smoothness would make

liquid, which would in turn prevent it from retaining any impres Permanence, no matter how fleeting, requires, as Socrates in the a

Theaetetus says, and

be

would

moreover, it is

bond,

come

as much apart

speech about

and

are,

to the paternal

get separated

everything

to which,

a certain

were visible

hardness. If the kosmos

but

touchable,

were

two-dimensional, be like a mirror,

space could

never compares it. Three-dimensionality re less like mind than Timaeus pretends it to be. Its seis has nothing in common with rotation.

however, Timaeus

quires that space be mic motion

not

48

Interpretation

The distinction Timaeus draws between

(58a4-58c4).

seems to

noetic

non-body before it

depend

on the

necessity that

body and body be put

noetic

noetic

nonbecome itself phenomenaUy, whereas noetic body does not first have to assume a shape and number before entering into the kosmos. This distinction, however, could be Ulusory, for noetic ani mal lacks soul just as much as noetic body lacks shape; and it would take

in

can

order

much

subtlety

from the

body

of

paradox

There is

the capacity

to the

to give

for

appear

a

traces of non-body to

kosmos. In

which

and

is

its

never apart

Timaeus'

one

has become

whole

account of

in

-

from

to aUow

incapacity

in it before the

to understand

order

to lie elsewhere

seems

body, demiurge,

of the

bodies into

of

to fish no less than a cycle

man

to

order

the

oppose

even

cannot

transmutabUity

from

space, without the interference even

One

Their difference

water.

of space

paradox of animal without soul

shape.

without

a cycle of animal

from fire to

body

distinguish the

of animal species

separateness

another. of

of thought to

body

has to

one

distinguish three coexisting states of the whole, two of which are not in the kosmos what they would be apart from the kosmos. The first is the kosmos insofar as it is a living image of noetic animal; the second is the the whole would have if space were

order

non-cosmic power

its fuU

aUowed

to shake out the four bodies into their several regions;

but to

the two together into the kosmos requires a third ingredient: the

disordered

have been

order

by

so

which

found

bring

join its

Not only

all

the interpenetration of the various various

about the change of one

own

can

bodies together. Bodies that the imposition of

packed together

tightly

in turn could, in persuading the

shapes,

each could

order.

first

at

space would compel

that reason several

the whole

motion of

must

(58a4-c4). Chaos is

chaos not

whole of parts without

an

bodies to

body

into

a

of persuasion coincide with the goodness of necessity.

no

chaos,

bodies the

rest as soon as

most

and

so

before

condition

for

be overcome, but there would be, if it unity. There can only be kosmos if the

were,

Were there

bodies,

assume their

another

indispensable

limits

various

put

original

the demiurge had contrived to give to the

beautiful

of

surfaces, the

whole would

the now-beautiful bodies had occupied their

own

come to

territory.

whole would then consist of four kinds minding their own business. Each would be at rest. It would be as if four cities were on the earth and "just" had no business with one another. In order for these bodies to

The

form go

a

to

kosmos they

same place.

One

proper region

the

one another.

demiurge had

war against each

does

not

fight

order to get to

necessity, their

If,

on

not made

the whole,

which would

ful bodies

each

the

to

in its

other; but

are superimposed on one another and

body

but in

persuasion of

into

must go

they

war unless

the

in

order

own proper

mutual warfare

other

hand,

to

cannot

occupy the

occupy the

other's

region; and yet, through results in their changing

there was chaos at

first but the

the bodies alike enough to change into one another,

be

without

own place.

wUlingness of each

another

its

they

body

unity,

The

beauti is precisely this:

would not even consist of

persuasion of

when weaker

to

body

let itself be overcome

by

a

Timaeus'

On Plato's Timaeus

and

49

Science

body (57b2). Fire, air, and water do not fight to the death in order They prefer to acquire a shape not their own even at the cost of losing their own being. The only body which prefers suicide to surrender is earth. model for body is political. He distin stronger

to maintain themselves.

Timaeus'

it were, between the city as regime and the city as fatherland. have each been persuaded to be more attached to any air, form whatsoever than to what they are in themselves. They have been per suaded to forget their own past and acknowledge the of the as

guishes,

Fire,

and water

"justice"

stronger.

They

sion with

another, the form it has perfectly

it does

law. When

are under the rule of

is

one

stronger

agrees with the

being

a colli

it is,

and

any other form or body to exist but into itself. There are, however, two limits

not then respect the rights of

tries to change every other body to this imperialism. Earth has only been persuaded to take she

shape;

in

has

been

not

on a

cubic

persuaded when confronted with another stronger

to lose her being at the price of retaining a shape; she never forgets her past; and when she is stronger she does not force the weaker body to become part of herself. The love of her own keeps herself just even as it

body

limits the injustice strength of each

of

others.

in the

body

The

limitation

second

original chaos

is

neither

must

be that the

exactly the same, for

incorrectly

otherwise the cycle of change would come to a standstill, nor

equal, for

in the

proper sequence.

its shaking keeps the rants

bodies would neither dominate nor be dominated The cause of this limitation is space, which through

otherwise the

whole unbalanced and

excessive amount of

any

purifier of

to

its

draws

off

own region.

if

apparent confusion

body

is

not

only

between

an attempt

it

that if fire

cannot

be that

body

earth could not

"essence"

of

the four

they have in

that makes us

into

were

be that the

which

common

war

constant

body

in the ordinary

"bodies"

Timaeus'

problem of potentiality:

body

of

body

changes;

beings

and

mathe-

body but to point a body changes, rather, body must

too. If

imaginary body

different kinds

one another.

be

have in common;

common with

think that

that

sense

to distinguish between the

maticizable and the non-mathematicizable properties of out

the occasion

Space is the

the kosmos.

Timaeus'

geometric

body

and what -

they have in It is

surface.

are all

bodies

surface

and change

are his way of stating the become something is not yet

elementary triangles

how that

which will

that something but stUl must be like it. The elementary triangles repre sent the non-being of becoming; from which it follows that the non-being of

becoming

is dianoetic

and therefore

has

more

being

than

becoming

it

One has to distinguish, then, the essences of fire, water, air, and earth, which it is incorrect but convenient to call noetic bodies, from both the ground of becoming (space) and the non-being of becoming (triangles). The science of body is thus the study of the non-being of becoming in its self.

interaction

"body"

with

the essence of

science confronts gy.

and

the

ground of

becoming. This

two major difficulties when it tries to become a cosmolo

The possibility

of

image is due to space; but the possibility of image as (kosmos) is due to image apart from the ground

a stable and ordered whole

50 of

Interpretation

its

possibUity.

There is

between

a tension

by itself,

image-speech

the

for the reality of kosmos, and the image-speech with necessity that allows for the possibUity of image but by itself destroys the possibUity of the reality of kosmos. The science of body

is false, but

which

which alone allows

why heaven is exempt from change: "Earth is the first and (40c2-3). The have become within the of body must as difficulty Timaeus himself raises. If the science

cannot explain

ouranos"

oldest of aU the gods who second sume

that

fire

and the other

bodies have essences,

and a

being

is partly de

fined as that which has no need of another, then one cannot prove that there is only one kosmos. If no noetic body is essentially related to any other,

each of

with this

be in

them could

kosmos in

kosmos

a

they

which

are

by itself;

accidentaUy

the five kosmoi that, Timaeus admits, could

and these

four together

together would constitute

exist.

The

difficulty

their pos

cosmology is that it undercuts the necessity that the kosmos be perfect and complete. If there were a kosmos of fire, the stars and planets above the moon could exist but no men or beasts; and if there sible existence causes

were a

kosmos

of

earth,

beasts

men and

could exist

but there

be

would

nothing for man to look up to and so correct his belief that to be means to be in place and in time. The science of body, then, is the obstacle to proving either the eternity (59c5-d2).

Cosmology,

a result of our

or

the uniqueness of the kosmos.

is nothing but

which

relaxing from the

serious

a

mythology, comes to be of the

study

beings;

and

yet,

as

ac

cording to Timaeus, the playful and pleasurable investigation of necessity is indispensable for our happiness, which consists in the understanding of the divine (68e6-c9a5). Dialectics depends on a pseudo-physics. In the

Statesman,

the Eleatic Stranger

which gives pleasure

because

of

suggests

that every Platonic

apparent

completeness, is a

its

dialogue,

compromise

the primary goal of discovering the beings and whatever disco is the ostensible goal of the dialogue (286d4-287a6, cf. 302b5-9). very There are more direct ways than the one the Stranger chose to discover the political scientist; but there is no direct way to discover the phUosopher

between

(cf. Sph. 216c2-d2). He therefore had to put political science in a certain hght in order to make use of it for dialectics, even though his procedure distorted the nature of both dialectics and political science. This double

distortion, however, led pleasure.

The

to the

Statesman,

mythical character of

apparent attainment of wholeness noetic whole while

is

necessarily

a pseudo-whole that gives us

Timaeus'

speech

its

apparent

being dependent

on

is likewise due to its

independence from the

it. Its

pseudo-wholeness

analogous and perhaps more than analogous to the pseudo-wholes that

characterize political and

life is

manifest

human life. The

in the variety

completely the nature

of

of man.

over, have their counterpart in where the false completeness of own god and thus

turning

regimes,

These

pseudo-wholeness of political

each of which claims

conventional

pseudo-wholes,

Socrates'

second each

human

soul

to satisfy

speech of

the

is due to its

more

Phaedrus,

foUowing

its

away from the ideas. The human soul, though

On Plato's Timaeus

informed by to the

its

ideas,

the

ideas; it is

own god even

speech

is

always

does not, directed

though without

an attempt to give

The

cause

the kosmos is alive but

is

body

science of

a

The Republic

rhetoric

however,

The

could not go to the

however, is

because

a

reason

Socrates'

only be The

not

psychology,

persuades necessity.

discovery

of rhetoric.

It

of political phUosophy.

does

body

only deal

not

with simple

also with their perceptible qualities.

requires an account of

perception,

which

The priority Timaeus

and soul are combined.

Timaeus'

ideas.

that knows the limitations

on

science of

bodies but

it

the Timaeus.

must precede

(61c3-65b3). compound

eros

eros

cosmology,

therefore ultimately depends

51

Science

in the best case, go directly back away from the ideas and toward

even

by

Timaeus'

the cosmological equivalent to the Phaedrus

myth.

core of this

and

only

now gives

and

The perceptible,

arises when

body

to the perceptible

the priority he had formerly given he had wrongly begun with body. He acknowledges that perception must be presupposed but not that it has priority. The relation between them is one of mutual interdependence; but the perceptible has priority in his account because it arises from simple over against perception seems to reverse

to soul over against

and compound

body

bodies,

after

which

do have

an absolute

priority

over

the compo

body and soul (cf. Arist. de anima 402M0-16). The false beginning with body in the first part becomes the true beginning with body in the second. The body of the kosmos precedes the making of the mortal soul site of

(69b8-c3). Timaeus begins Our

with

touch.

the keenness of

perception of

In the

fire is

a non-distorted reflection of

its

perception, in the most literal sense, is knowledge; indeed, since Greeks originally spoke of heat as a cutting-up (thermon from a non-extant kermon), such knowledge is the same as lan pyramidal nature.

guage.

Timaeus had denied that fire

or a syUable

of

They

refer at

and

best to

dictionary

would

be

be

an

could

a

very

entry.

Heat

cutting-up done

by

one's

body

held,

as

words

dictionary. Not and

cold

are

solidification

in

be

of

automatically

even

in the

body

human perception, make a

heat's opposite, the same

ratio

to one

from the cold, though the

by heat, is not experienced as a freezing is to experience

experience

it

a particular

"elements"

the

of such words would not partial

tion but as a trembling. To ter-attack

letter

should not

they likened cor take the likeness literally

qualities within the range of

fire to water; but the

opposite of the

it

erred when

so, if the likeness

and to make a

another as

whether

"pre-Timaeans"

The

logos. It cold,

regarded as either a

should

human language; only

be

letters because they did not have realized that letters form

poreal principles to

enough.

should

the whole; but he left it open

regarded as a word.

could

heat,

case of

attempts to return to

its

natural

solidifica

the coun

state, for life

Perception here plays us false, for whUe we feel the heat passively and hence, like space, take a perfect impression of it, we feel cold in fighting against it, and hence our engagement with it alters our perception of its cause. Cold is the name for both agent and patient.

is hot rather

than cold.

52

Interpretation the perceptible, then, contains at least two different layers: equation of perception with knowledge, the other denies

The

science of

one

justifies the

it and

examines

those perceptions our nature gives rise to when confronted

with what threatens

Our the

third layer in the science of

heavy and light reveals a They are our experience of

perceptible.

kosmos

whole as

heavy

it.

experience of

and the whole as space.

light "subjective":

and

the difference between the

Timaeus does

is up to

whatever

not want

is light

you

to make

and whatever

is heavy. As long as we are on the earth this wUl suffice; but the sphericity of the kosmos does not allow us to determine weight by

is down to direction

everywhere.

fire has its

where of

you

natural

earth, the larger

more capable of

would

weights

lump

then,

vary

like hard

from

our

The

it

seem

and

lighter, for it

would

be

their volumes, for the larger volume

outside as

light

its

they

are

natural place.

both

are

Heavy

and

light,

according to is that they belong

measured

important

trait

the result

of our

something puts up to our to force it out of its place; but what

resistance which

attempt

the region

balance two lumps

a

returning to its natural home. If we fire while still in the region of fire, their

their more

and

in

weighed

and

insofar

but

there

to

transported

we were

be up

with

forcing

and soft

Heavy

to the unnatural. nature.

and

would

directly

their capacity to resist us;

to

home

two pieces of

would more resist our

are

moreover,

overcoming fire

however,

weighed,

If,

acting contrary lifting it arises we

do merely

making of the kosmos. There could be no ordered whole un less there were in it unnatural forces, the constraints both chaos and the demiurge put upon the four bodies to remain apart from their natural homes. Nature had first to be forced before it could be persuaded. If the

reflects the

whole

were

bodies

and

space,

four bodies; an

otherwise

become for

entirely natural, and

the result

vary

directly

weight would measure

stable system.

kosmos,

i.e.,

weight would

weight no

But

once

longer

what was

of

anything became the

already

mutual

the degree

nature was

of

for

force

reformed

shaking each of

with

of unnatural

application

The study

under unnatural constraint.

of

of

the

applied to

in

vary directly had already been buUt in;

could always

unnatural constraints and motions

weighing

of the

with volume

order

to

volume, and our

constraint to

weight, then,

the study of force, is the study of the unnatural within the natural, in which the tension between the reason of kosmos and the necessity of as

space consists. spherical

space

by

There is, however, a curious by itself does away with

kosmos itself

harmony

between them. The

up and down; and among the four bodies, for matter its size, would prove

a natural

cannot give the ratios of weight

in any other region but its own, each body, light when balanced against a body of the that region. Space grants us a

translate; kosmos

grants

us a

locally

no

that belonged to down that we cannot

same volume

correct

and

up universally correct

center

that we cannot

its naturalness, does not admit of universality; and Space, kosmos, for all its unnaturalness, is the ground of universality, even though the universality it establishes cannot be fitted with our perceptions. Nature perceive.

for

all

Timaeus'

On Plato's Timaeus cannot

dispense

53

Science

and

with either.

(64a2-67a6). Timaeus' account of pleasure and pain is at first glance simple. Pleasure arises when we are aware of the restoration of our na ture, pain in any conscious departure from it. Taste and smell, however, his

complicate

and returns

account.

it to its

The sweet is what smooths the roughened tongue (cf. 60a8-b3), for the present condition of the

nature

tongue is not its nature. Before the tongue was smooth, and taste was serves to remind us

taste

fall, in

never

of what

it

the first generation of men, the after

pleasant;

was

like

the

fall,

a pleasant

when we were perfect and

the kosmos was incomplete. Not only was the most intense pleasure absent from the beginning, for there were no women, but the sweetest of tastes was also

missing, for there were no bees. The

friendliness

imaginary

salt

beginning, for the tongue must first get can cleanse before salt it; but since it cannot stay clean, we dirty gently have only glimpses of our past, when salt was not "a body dear to the law" (60el-2). Our present nature, then, gods according to the speech of has for

is

us again recaUs us to

that

a condition

nature would

gives

the

to the whole its nature. To

the kosmos as

destroy

image

an

to

return

in

the complete return of bodies to their natural places would, them from the constraint within which

its body. We

ourselves experience

the

persuasion

is

alone

annihUation of

our own

animal, just as

of noetic

possible,

kosmos

freeing destroy

through our

pain; it is anything connected to least for all its the degree, instrument, sensitivity with kinds (eide). The greatest pleasures, as Timaeus calls them (65al-6), are ours in the half-genus (hemigenes) world of irregular solids, when

Our

nose.

from

apart

nose never smells

pleasure and

perceptual

has the

neither air nor water

we neither

desire

when

suggests what the whole was with

but faint traces

beings

of

it,

shape assigned

do

we

not

like

have it

when

when space shook out the

themselves into their

lose it,

we

primary bodies

natural places.

"If

all

discriminate"

Heraclitus says, "the

smoke,"

were

smeU, which

and a pleasant

nor regret

nose would

the

(fr.

fr. 98). A shapeless world without force pleases us but does not awaken in us any longing for it. Kosmos is too much a part of us for nature without necessity to enchant us; but it is not surprising that less intelligent

87,

cf.

animals

have

keener

a

Timaeus'

(67c4-68d7). to

Socrates,

ever

tragic

know the

various colors. of

things,

the

the

measures

unlike

after

ratios

the

causes

ratios of soul

are a

any

or

wholly

absolute size.

baffling

acknowledges

of

neither

the proportions among

sides of right-angled

never mentions

them,

or

it has been persuaded, the

is Empedoclean; it

account of color

(Meno 76e3). Timaeus

Measure belongs to

pure-number

ever

sense of smell.

measures

necessity

things,

to the

nor

cannot

operations

cannot contribute

triangles

have to

is, according

that no man could

that make up the mind, for the sizes

be traced to of

anything

more than

one another.

Dimensional numbers,

either

necessity which,

Timaeus

as physicists caU

ingredient in the translation

of

the

one

into

54

Interpretation

the many,

They

is their disappearance

as

even

the

resemble

specify how many had

gods

for the

Guide, III. 2b). There is

one.

had to

Pythagorean

whatever

collapse

law,

speech a

the way things

about

law. It is

of positive

Timaeiis'

label

perhaps to

but

in the

mix

the gods

if the

(cf. Arist. EN 11 34b 1 8-24; Maimonides,

an arbitrariness

enactments

which

chose would

they

number

chosen another number

looks like the

law, in

one must sacrifice;

victims

reason we should give

the many

when

prescriptions of sacred

what

Timaeus himself

and

that

arc

Socrates

prompted

when speak

(83e4-5). The Platonic dialo

nature"

ing

disease to invoke "the laws

of

cosmology but

was compelled of

because,

given

to delve into

again,

given

compelled to

his

treat

choice to

of

are

still

consider

not

just because it

choice to examine

details that

remark on

the

of seriousness

Athenian Stranger's denigration

803c2-804cl). Socrates

legal code;

he

was

in his

62a5-6).

Indeed, Ti

speech reminds one of which

the

deserves

hardly

legislation necessarily extends to it (Lgs. ask the question, "Whal is law?", but he can

dialogue

seriousness a

in themselves a

province regardless of whether

the human race,

of

for

too presents

legislation, he

problems of cosmology,

things that fall into its

the lack

maeus'

are not

indispensable

throw any light on the highest principles (cf.

they

the

Plato's

all sorts of

the highest importance but

and

Laws,

to the Timaeus is the

gue closest a

of

on

can

bring himself to draw up legislation; and he always asks the question, "What is?", but he never presents a physics. The closest he ever comes

not

is in the Philebus, where the pleasure cannot be decided

contest

between the

goods

of mind and of

And yet, even there, Socrates merely raises the issue of cosmology, which Aristotle agrees is the problem of the infinite (de caelo 271bl-6), but docs not settle it: the Philebus has man and

the light

the

beginning

Timaeus

they

which

no

of solid

either

even

seriously

the highest

That Socrates

man

not to

always

affects

necessarily

principles.

Timaeus

begins

with

the way in

explains change

in

bodies in motion; but according to Socrates has not yet been perfected Timaeus never men

body

inscribed in

a sphere

been dreamed. Timaeus

(69a6-70a2). soluble

with

the necessity that there bc only five

capacity to be not

end

geometric

science of solid

tions

cosmology.

and no end.

now will

understand

without

be

at

times too

Timaeus

problem; he

-

and the

regular

true

takes the

perhaps

playful about

bodies

or

their

science of motion visible

has

kosmos too

it.

his account of the perceptible with an in turns, in somewhat the same way the young

ended

now

Socrates had turned away from Anaxagoras, to man. In terms of ordinary Timaeus' speech, what remains is the head to the tale; but in terms of own

speech,

us and our

what remains

therefore

concealed

head. We think

of

the

is the

from

body

body us

as

of man.

the true the

Necessity has inverted for

relation

container

between

is primarily a conveyance for the head (cf. 44d8-45a3), it has is meant to serve the circuits of the brain. The in his head. The highest

part of man

both

our

body and body

for the soul; but the

literally

and

and whatever

life

"heart"

of man

is

metaphorically is

On Plato's Timaeus the

Timaeus'

and

What we find most lovable in

same.

is truly

the

body

55

Science

individual

of an

contains

lovable in him, for the head as skuU imitates the bodUy shape of the kosmos even as it holds what imitates the soul of the kosmos. To love a human individual is to be already on one's way to loving the whole. The humanly beautiful entirely agrees with the divinely beautiful what

most

(cf. 88b5-dl). Virtue

be for Timaeus

cannot

what

it is for Socrates,

a

problem.

It

has eight things mixed in it, because the same mixture has only been made to occupy different places in the body. Were it not for body, spiritedness and desire would be the same: spiritedness only listens to reason because it is nearer the head. To the extent that this is true, the that the mortal kind

would seem

and that

it has two different

of soul

parts

have imitated the demiurge, who in making the soul everything together before he split it into two, gave them different places, and labelled one the same and one the other. Timaeus, however, cosmic gods would

mixed

separates two of

the

ingredients

eight

fear,

pleasure, pain, confidence,

of soul

from the

spiritedness, and

other six.

hope

but not all perception and eros, he implies, are them. Passion does not always follow perception, and eros is

perception and eros; with

AU

thing

more than the

was neither escape

the

love

of victory.

pleasure which

There

leads

would

be

six

-

are mixed with

-

an eros of

mixed some

daring

that

us to evil nor the pain that makes us

from good; there would be an eros that did not give us unreasonable for either confidence or fear; and there would be an eros that can

grounds

be

never

either

context of

dissuaded

denigrating

easily led astray (cf. 88a8-b2). Within the

or

the mortal soul of man Timaeus covertly compli

ments the phUosophical eros of

in

necessities

(70a2-73a8).

mortal soul and not

Spiritedness has the

virtue of courage.

because they

Socrates. He limits himself here to the to its graces

are

It

wants

(cf. 42a3-bl).

character of almost

being by nature

to win and therefore win over the

bad but because it

wants

to be

first; it

desires,

the not

wants recognition

obedience is rewarded and it its ambition, however, is entirely unde termined by itself. It acts in concert with logos in order to restrain by force the desires; but it has nothing to do in itself with what is outside the body. It just wants to punish desire; it is not concerned with saving the body. It

at

any

fears

price

and

punishment.

therefore obeys, for its

The

is through the heart, the

body,

that the

content of

which

boiling

is the

of

source of all

thymos,

the blood coursing through injustice to

which a speech about an

has caused, makes every perceptive part of the body obey and let logos rule. The heart attaches thymos to the body, to which thymos itself is indifferent. It is the source of self-sacrifice and self-forgetting. the

body

The logos it obeys,

as

the

to the

necessarUy belong The language with ric

and

poetic; the

though the

liver that

body

which

the

metaphor of

it

akropolis

suggests, does not

occupies.

Timaeus describes thymos is

highly

language that describes desire is free controls

it

controls

of

metapho

metaphors,

it through images. The difference

56

Interpretation

between them

seems

to be related to the difference between a metaphor

Thymos, in wanting

and a simile.

it to what is inanimate things is

to

than

be first, transfers itself

itself,

without

being

in

anger

of which our animation

aware of

other

of

the clearest example; but the desire for

drink, precisely because it is directed to nizes the distance between itself and the close this

is

what

other than

other even whUe

the other. To

food

and

itself, recog

it

attempts to

in the language

of the gap demiurge's making of the cosmic soul, thymos is sameness in otherness (falsely), desire otherness in sameness (truly). Desire is connected with the and assimUate

of body has; nothing was said about nature when thymos, for desire is needed in order that the mortal be immortal. Their relation to mind, moreover, is also diffe

that the nature

needs

Timaeus

spoke of

race of men

Mind

rent.

report

itself to thymos

reveals

"reason"

is given;

-a

as a revealer

is

speak

a soothsayer

-

Thymos has

given.

itself to it logos

except

as

in the form

-

itself to desire of

or

images,

by

a

as a threat or "reason"

and no

something that never shows speeches: Timaeus only

reverence and awe of

in exhortatory

accompanied

command

a

and mind reveals

threatening

speaking of thymos. Thymos is in no way it allows the best to rule, but it does not like knowledge; desire allow the best to deliberate about the good unless it has a hand in it (70d5). Mind has a natural gentleness that it brings out in the liver; mind

uses

and never nous when

connected with

has nothing in common desire is good; but since

with thymos.

It

liver

controls the

is incapable

directly

when

is moving touching contrary to its own nature, it needs thymos to threaten desire when it is bad. The liver in pain receives angry colors; but, according to Timaeus, we can never know whether or not colors are images of anything. The liver of

or

to have a good nature; it seems to be

seems not

it is bitter

whether

mind

and rough or sweet or smooth.

what

neutral with regard

When it becomes

through the operation of mind and therefore capable like a mirror

it

images,

to

smooth of re

its true looks (idea). This tension between the neutrality of the liver and its good nature that alone allows it to be neutral reproduces the tension between space as the neutral ground of all ceiving

accidents alone

(images) it

makes

thymos, water

attains

which

space as part of the order of the

and

for the kosmos to image the imitates in its obedience the willingness possible

to sacrifice themselves in

becoming

one

kosmos,

noetic. of

and

another,

which

Between

fire, air, and desire, which

in the liver imitates the duality of space, the lesser gods have succeeded in copying the kosmos in the mortal soul. The copy, however, is not beauti ful, for the lesser gods looked at what has come into being. They were too obedient to the commands

of

the demiurge to

imitate

what

he had

imitated. The liver

keep

clean

needs

its

together suffice to at

the trough

they had

not

the

spleen to

mirror-surface

of

regulate our

the

besides

belly

do for it

desires. The

would never

given us a

what space

(cf. 50c2). But

lower

wUd

have let

belly

does for itself: to liver and spleen

not even

beast the

us

turn to

and spiraUed the

gods

tethered

phUosophy if intestines. The

On Plato's Timaeus gods seem not to

and

Timaeus'

Science

57

have done their

work well. If they knew that we were have so regulated our desire for food and drink that we would only desire the indispensable. Even then the intestines would have had to have been spiralled if we were ever to be satisfied; but the lower belly corrects an error in desire itself that is beyond the liver's capabilities. The lower marks the limit for the

fated to be

insatiate, they

should

belly

power of mind over

necessity in soul: what had to be accommodated be cause it could never be overcome. It is, like necessity itself, called a receptacle; it is at the opposite pole from the intestines whose spiral shape imitates the motion of same and other in the whole (39a6). The intestines the contribution

are

mind; the contribution of space is split among three it is the lower belly, as receiver of images the liver, necessity and as wiper the spleen. Timaeus later says that the greatest human beauty consists in a symmetry between body and soul (87c4-d3); he never speaks of a symmetry between either thymos and desire or mortal and immortal soul. The contradiction between noetic "bodies" and noetic "whats" reappears in that between thymos, which wUlingly obeys but does not of

organs: as

grasp the truth,

desire,

and

even when we are

(73bl-76e6).

one

If

thinks

have below the head

we

of a

making

by

only be enchanted but asleep images the truth.

which can

completeness and

of

Aristophanes'

men, the

spherical

would not seem

cosmic gods.

points to

Everything

be

to

explicable as

shape

the result

in the kosmos has so far been five regular solids and invi

made either round and visible or one of the sible.

Timaeus himself

seems to acknowledge

the

difficulty in now

speaking he discusses the reason for our life-span being the length it is (75b8). The marrow, moreover, inside the skull does not differ from the marrow inside the rest of our bones; they only differ by name: spherical marrow the demiurge calls of

"the

brain,

god"

and

only returning to the

cylindrical marrow

essential sameness recaUs

same word

calls marrow.

This

nominal

the sameness in composition

different

same and other to which

the

he

plural when

(epephemisen)

names were given;

in both

cases

of

difference but the circles of

indeed, Timaeus

(36c4). The brain

and

uses skull

imitate

the shape of the kosmos; but the spine imitates the shape of the before its ends were joined together into world-soul. The soul was then just a strip, which if rotated lengthwise would produce a soul

cylinder.6

Timaeus,

unlike

the human

Aristophanes,

shape.

right posture a

We

copy

are

Timaeus

making the

of

speaks

the

not need the

head

In

a

copy

of

our

sphericity (cf. 90a7-bl). We need

soul

Olympian

gods to explain

the kosmos and in our up we

are

beautiful,

our mortal

in

our

soul, which

is

of the power of the other when he describes the if Proclus is right, that there are thirty-four terms in (and hence thirty-three intervals), the number would agree

mysteriously

the vertebrae; and

articulation of

with

our

of soul.

straightness we are good

6

in

does

number of vertebrae

in

the spine of a child.

58

Interpretation

anchored on

to our

the spine, to

the circuits

put

brain in

of our

bodily

horses,

than charioteer and

cannot

Aristophanes,'

Eros in his account, as in The maker of our flesh has succeeded in

done: to

make

a year-round

felt to

protect us against

and of

linen for

falls

clothing; for if he had flesh

feres

our

with

remark, in

farming,

also

for toenaUs

and

have

and

for

as

no

the

ourselves can make.

from the

winter cold

commentators

Man's future

use

arts

of

quasi-natural

(cf. Lgs. 889d4-6), Timaeus

never men

He has

the works of reason and necessity.

fingernails; but he is arms (cheires) were

of

it inter hair. The ex

where now

needed

say that hands and feet (skele) for locomotion (45a2-3). Man is

except to

not yet

the invention

not anticipate

be understood, apart

and medicine

art as a supplement to

an explanation

does

should

the fire we

in

fall.

our

has

art

what

have been thinner

must

ignored; indeed,

gymnastics,

tions any

god

could

(74c3)

contrast with

fire is

of

covering

sensibUity, and we fire"

"this

doing

madness

that combined the advantages of

with the advantages of wool

heat. The

summer

one another

is due to

phUosophy.

pression

soul's shape

for the divine

account

Timaeus

order.

Socrates faUs in the Phaedrus, in linking our shape; but sphere and cylinder in being closer to

where

succeeds,

silent about

made

hands,

the

legs

with

along

inteUigent, according

to

Anaxagoras, because he has hands; but according to Aristotle he has hands because he is intelligent; and one would expect in so detaUed a some indication of how the hands Ulustrate mind, teleology as Timaeus'

since

especially

kosmos

the makers

of

both immortal

nothing but craftsmen, the lowest class of the best city. are

who

and

would

take if

belong

to assign them (cf. Rep.

necessity,

rise

up to

claim the

highest

looks like

position

the revenge

Socrates

now, free from

seemed political

Timaeus,

gods as their models.

concentrates all

Timaeus'

abstraction

from human

abstraction

from

Socrates'

which was a

lowly 496b5-6; 522b4-7); so

they

the

making in the gods only so that they can make like the kosmos but not like themselves (cf. 69a6). And what makes

however, us

they

speech

could on

the

of

parts

according to Socrates to

Timaeus'

the artisans

mortal

What kind

art all the stranger

in the

Republic,

to make it possible to understand the

of arts.

city

eros

city"

as

whoUy

can

for the "true and flection on Plato's Statesman city"

unfit

Skin, hair,

"true

Timaeus deny both eros and art to does he have the gods produce, who without

How, then,

of man

is that he imitates

the major reason for

without eros unfit could

supply

for

phUosophy?

man? art

Only

is

re

an adequate answer.

in

double way, according Skin, however, is the first part of the according that the gods do not it is the first time that Timaeus indicates make; body the difference between natural becoming and artful making (cf. 53bl). Skin grows and joins together with itself by itself; and once it has enveloped and nails

are each

to necessity and

the

skull

given

it

allows

Timaeus,

a

to mind.

for "the

divine"

to man in anticipation

beasts.

explained

the

of

commentators

nails; but it is hard to

see

to produce hair and nails.

his degeneration into

how that

believe,

refers to women

serves a

divine

NaUs

women and

end.

were other

fighting

If, however,

with

one

Timaeus'

On Plato's Timaeus

and

59

Science

thinks

of skin, hair, and nails together, one comes to think of the ritual mourning, in which men and women cut their hair and women rake their cheeks. Death would thus come to light along with natural becoming; and the unwritten law of burial would have its source in nature. That hair and nails both grow after death would also make Timaeus ascribe their

of

becoming

to necessity.

Timaeus,

flesh, body (74el; see Cornford cription of

its

moreover, first mentions death in his des

the god used to

which

loc). Flesh is

ad

above"

from

"bury

the rest of the necessity, for

an unwelcome

incompatibility sensitivity forced the gods to choose for us the shorter though better life. Since flesh, unlike marrow, bone, and sinew, lacks air as an ingredient, Timaeus seems to identify, as far as the body goes, breathing with life (78e5); and since air is also needed for bone

with

and

impossibility for flesh to aUow us to hear that keep our head relatively unprotected. Timaeus, at any rate, almost identifies the insensitivity we should have if much flesh covered the skuU with lack of hearing (74e9, 75b2, e7). The gods thus hearing, it

would

compeUed

the gods to

made

it

possible

both human count of

and

be the

for

be

would

his lifeless flesh

as much

benefited

hair,

and nails

As

a

Pythagorean, Timaeus diet; and since

to be part of man's original

he is instructed to

have

could not

there were

ac

his

cope with wisdom.

allowed meat

no other

if he

Law

On

aware of

is indispensable for

them. Learning by suffering (pathei mathos) Necessity seems to be altogether good.

(76e7-77c5).

obey.

as reasoning.

becomes

man experiences pain and

mortality; but through his skin,

but to

speak to one another

only to

us not

divine

animals

in the beginning, he had to provide for man's first necessary crime from being cannibalism (cf. Epin. 975a5-7). Lawful food must have been from the start naturally available. And yet Timaeus' account of plants seems to square badly with either part of his plant-food

"law". Plants

are animals;

noetic animal of which the

in

earth and

kind

a

participate

in

without

double

one of which

If,

on the other

is

suitable

for

"body"

patible with noetic "bodies"

degenerates akin to

man's nature

over, is least

if it

can

are

"a different

The kosmos animal,

would

be

cannibalism

being,

animal

while the other

is

com

be those beings in which noetic hardest to distinguish. No man ever

seem

are

become

Plants

to the

to the idea of

are part of earth's

paradigm,

Plants

they belong

belong

noetic

kosmos'

noetic

so much as to

to

to prevent

necessity if there is to be chorismos),

a

the

"whats"

and

animal".

belong

hand, they

(perhaps

or

noetic animal.

them; but if they

character

whether

image

an

but "not different from

a necessity.

has

way

unclear

animal"

of

impossible

is

no

but it is kosmos is

was

a

to

plant,

be the

even

source of

connected with soul; and

if

no

though

his

its

nature must

survival.

living thing

Flesh,

must

be

more

be kUled,

be the only way to avoid kUling and eating one's ground of vegetarianism own kin; but if the kinship of all life is not the that lifeless flesh should not support us since it but rather the opposite interferes as such with our higher faculties, then man must be herbivorous. carnivorousness

would

-

60

Interpretation

In the

kinship,

perspective of natural

hibited

and

lack

of

kinship

The

second unwritten

reversing the

law Timaeus has built into

interpretation

usual

vegetarianism, false

moreover,

and

bad

of

it. True is

cannibalism

man thus rests

and

only have unleashed the original wUdness of man's desires him savage; but farming, in domesticating plants, all of which

It

man's self-education.

this kosmos

same

is

would

its

more complete than

seem,

time as it

"education"

of

that only because that men can imitate the

however,

paradigm

the kosmos and complete his own nature. The gods were more

of

demiurge,

generous than the

73c7

is

Hunting,

carnivorousness.

originally wild, forced man to imitate their rest at the forced him to attend to the motions of heaven. Man's

soul

his

on

cannibalism

good

were

is

pro

could

and made

plants

be

should

vegetarianism

then,

encouraged; in the perspective of mind, i.e., the between flesh and mind, cannibalism should be prohibited.

cannibalism

beneficent than the ideas (cf.

nature more

77c8).

with

(77e7-81e5).

Timaeus'

One

account of

misunderstands

eating

and

breath

its complexities are primarily due to the absence of The diagrams. double-funnelled weel of air and fire the gods make must be literally understood. They first make the being-at-work (energeia) of

ing

if

thinks

one

breathing before they any

apart even

fit it to the body. As

potentiality.

from its functioning;

though we

lieve. The are

in

moment

less

rounds

gods

not make

significant

We, however, is

what

live

could not

do

a constant are

a minute

if

bodUy

breathing

in the flesh. Timaeus

conditions

body

for

be

breathing

itself. Not the flesh that

sur

determines the

circulation

so much abstracts

at

to be ours,

we were as enclosed as we

the air determines its circulation, but its

openings

regard our

outside the skin seems not

this error. The

to them than

activity, it is not

inclined to

from everything

bodily

indispensable for understanding rib-cage, heart, lungs, and muscle that the hfe we live is hardly our own: holding our breath cannot prevent

not

-

-

transpiration through the body. He

being-at-work suicide.

The

as

gods,

thereby

however,

can

only

combines

the divine

as possible with

closely

an

illustration

prohibition

of

against

make the weel's web complete

be

cause, in abstracting from the body, they abstract as weU from time. A single movement of air into and out of the mouth, foUowed by another movement of air

the

unwilled

into

and out of the

continuity

transpired through the

of

life

body

repeat the same pattern; and

-

the pleasure

7

There is

breathing

of

no

and

life partly

need

for

of

only in time woven

breathing

complete

in

itself; for

purposes

the moment of

dying (cf.

to examine

digestion imitates the way in

in

the air

order to

can this repetition occur.

at

thus proves to be

the pleasure of

our

this double movement assures

-

be

must then return to the mouth

weel, then, only gets completely

death. The being-at-work

body

cannot

which

our

The

our natural

dying,

and

81d4-e2).7

in detail how human life the whole

was

as

ordered, but

On Plato's Timaeus

Timaeus'

and

61

Science

(81e6-86a8). Timaeus seems to deal at too great length with disease. Not only should its causes be "plain by now to (cf. 53c5), but though "it is more just to hold greater discourse about the good things everyone"

than about the

bad"

(87c3-4), Timaeus

himself is far briefer

treatment of diseases than about the causes of diseases.

about the

Timaeus,

more

over, in classifying diseases, almost imitates the disorder that diseases re present (see Taylor, p. 599). Diseases are not altogether unnatural; "they

look like the

somehow

"laws

against the

animals"

nature of nature"

(83e4-5).

of

(89b5-6), however much they if "that

Only

is the

which

go

same

increases and diminishes in the same way and in proportion can that which is the same as itself remain healthy and sound". The body cannot meet this condition for two reasons. 1) Since we were made herbi vorous and not carnivorous, the body grows through the additions of bodies the

as

same

like it but

not

(81c4-6); and 2) the lower belly was made desire, and the intestines were spiralled from constant desire; but only if we ate all the time as we lost bodies to the environment, i.e., only if the

the same as it

to take care of the soul's excessive

in

order

to check us

and at the same rate

not been accommodated to the necessity of soul, could we be The health of the soul is incompatible with the health of healthy. perfectly the body (cf. Lgs. 728d3-c5); but that our makers looked first to the soul

body

had

working of mind. Disease is a necessary part of a teleological design (cf. 85a5-bl; Arist. de somno 475a9-10). Three of the primary bodies were persuaded to change into one another; but they were not persuaded to change in any sequence. Whichever of reveals the

them happened to be

stronger

the others. In the human

bone,

sinew, and flesh have

sequence

if there is

to change

by

gods and

into

order

of

in

the

bone, flesh,

just the

and sinew),

know

with

of

in

marrow,

definite

a

gods made

in

in

with

the absence

Timaeus

to

seems

the demiurge made which

food,

come

opposite and almost

for the

which

order

The demiurge did not begin by blood is formed (82c3-4), and from which nature.

with

another

their rule.

reversal with

something similar, for the the secondary bodies is the reverse

marrow, but

one

order of genesis we

its

propose

be

in transforming

the secondary bodies

be disease. Plato's Eleatic Stranger suggests in whole was essentially indifferent to the order of be

coming; and he connects the the rule

encounter succeeded

not to

the Statesman that the

of

in any

body, however,

sinew, order

they

come to

out of which

the

flesh, bone, and of rank (marrow,

the fire network,

which corpo

and thereby abstracted from really is the blood stream, in its being-at-work being-at-work. Teleologically, this makes good the material cause of its

sense; but

into

one

since plants

do

Timaeus merely to state that each

in both

: network

not

another, Timaeus

cases.

The

(plokanon)

belong

assigns

fire.

the

essential

to chaos, space,

chief proportion

of air and

to the animals which get transformed

must make

and

is this: kosmos:

priority

kosmos the space

of being-at-

same roles

(plokanon):

to

: animal

62

Interpretation

work

into

strain

of

cause of of

does

living according to both at once, Timaeus disease. As an artifact, marrow is marrow,

the second

ascribes

it

and what

consists

it to anything else, any more than a soup ladle is cognate because it too is made of wood; but as the product of becom

not relate

with a chair

ing,

priority as weU. Being-at-work must therefore be an its priority over natural becoming, which puts us under the

a temporal

and to

artifact;

necessarUy becomes bound can no longer be expressly

marrow

these origins

its

with

origins; and

corporeal

for

constituted

it, for they

also

flesh. The god made marrow out of the most perfect solids; but he thereby made it inevi table that marrow, in being repaired by less perfect solids, would never be again what it was at first (82d2-e2; cf. 77a6 with 86e2). Neither sweat nor serve at the same time as the source of

tears has any place

in the

order of

they purify daily the body and disease, for they too are a kind

bone,

sinew,

making; but in the order of

The

of phlegm.

(cf. Rep. 344e2-8); what partly of its secondary bodies minded its

natural

saves

when each

own

directly

one another.

disease; in

body is

it is its

always

artful

of

in

a

origin,

business perfectly

and

to the whole animal without contributing anything to

Timaeus

the

becoming

therefore easUy become the instruments

morbid state

contributed

and

flesh to bone

refers to what glues of

making

them he is sUent about their

when

he discusses

bond.8

(86bl-92c3). Timaeus discusses the diseases of body that come from body (81e6-86a8), the diseases of soul that come from body (86bl-87b9), the diseases of body that come from soul (87e6-88a7), and he presents the diseases of soul that come from soul as women and the other animals (90e6-92c3). Mindlessness of various degrees is indispensable for the of the kosmos; but since mindlessness is a disease, disease too necessarily belongs to its beauty. To cure the kosmos of this disease would be to destroy the kosmos; but the disease is incurable. The best one can

beauty

do is to harmonize

kosmos;

animal as priate

8

in the

to its

and

does

beautiful. And

and

between, for

kind

affect

flesh); diseases

of

with one

second

yet a

and

example, head

in imitation

the homogeneous

like every

dog

third kinds and

bone

of

each

of

kind

the of

a soul appro

other

diseases

as parts of

the

parts of

the third kind affect particular

beast

largely

the

must

consists

body. Diseases

body (marrow, bones, sinew, in the body, and most

places

them, unlike the second kind, become manifest externally; and again unlike the kind they are mixtures. The confusion in classification arises accord Timaeus'

second

ingly from

the fact that the heterogeneous parts of

the homogeneous parts, same as

be

another

itself. Disease in beauty: a dog with

soul with

not preclude

The difference between the

of the second

soul

harmonize

whole

body is

in the difference

of

body

one cannot

any dissimilar

remineed of the

faction

of

the

each of which part's which

has its

own

it corporeally

difference between the "true

needs of

the parts of the soul.

the

body

and

body are entirely composed of function that is not wholly the

constitutes.

One

cannot

help

but

city"

founded

the best city ordered

into

on

the artful satis

classes

according to

On Plato's Timaeus cease

Timaeus'

and

to be beautiful if it is to reverse the cycle

of

degeneration from

Socrates is necessarUy ugly. To atrophy the two lower parts of the soul would be best; but since they are inseparably linked with them to rest is to invite one's own death. Mindlessness always foUows which

it

63

Science

came.

beauty, war and death always follow mind. The need to imitate the motion the body, and the body cannot be at rest without being destroyed, to bring of space perfect

in

order

imitation

to

of

imitate the

to our ancestral nature, before of

motions of

the

ouranos

precludes

the ouranos. The best human life consists in a generation

had

corrupted

the

return

the highest part

ourselves; it is best not to be born (cf. 90d5-6 with Lgs. 801e7-8). The

Timaeus pays for his accounting entirely for terms is despair: the beautiful is the standard for the

price

out political

ings

by

the

phUosophy cosmology

political.

always runs

man

in

good

(87c4-5). With

the risk

of

cosmological

taking its bear

64 NOTE ON THE INTENTION OF JAMES HARRINGTON'S POLITICAL ART

John A. Wettergreen

San Jose State College

James Harrington begins Oceana*

by describing

(England)

they

as

his

major

Commonwealth

The

work,

the natural resources

the

of

empire

in 1656. That is, Harrington describes the

stand

of

Oceana

of

cha

Oceana, Marpesia (Scotland), and Panopaea (Ireland). This description is the "Introduction, or Order of the land

and of

main

body

racter of the

Work."

The

the ordering a

perfect,

immortal it

no one

(for

the Oceana

of

aught that

commonwealth."

presents

in human

Oceana's

the fundamental laws for

laws, Harrington

can

political order

have the power; thus, in Oceana

claims, "make

be foreseen) is perfect because can

prudence

interest

the power to subvert can have the

having

interest

with the

peoples of

these resources. These

of

and

the

an

by

and no one

no gentleman

"ought

to own a shame for preferring his own interest before that of a whole nation".1

Oceana is free from the fear

be destroyed from without, armed nation. Since there world,2

the Oceana ends

republic which

Oceana

Our

for the

practical

author's

gain conviction

replaced with

for the

wholly

would

Earth

out the

sole at

intention

subversion.

flood, hope

in her

of

nations

clear.

gloriously

only better

a

armed of a

in the

ordered

Quite literally, the

this empire, "Who

Liberty, Tooke seems

by

can

or

empire.

legislator

She

plague

be better

not

whole world

ing the Kingdomes of the Heav'nsby Violence."3

internal

earthquake,

by holding

holds the

ends with praise

by

of

the Kingdome

He

writes

in

sett

of

order

the

to

that England's old monarchic orders must be

view

new republican orders.

A

second and

derivative

prac

tical intention becomes clear well before the end of the Oceana. Harrington wishes

to gain conviction for the

view

that a republican England wiU

conquer all the corrupt continental monarchies

At first at

holding

first, Oceana

would then

All

references

institute wholly

Asian

ones.

Rome held

SicUy

and even the

republican

forms in

each pro

bear them.

vince which could

*

-

these conquests provincially, perhaps as

to The Commonwealth of Oceana

James Harrington's Oceana

(Heidelberg, 1924). All

are

other

to S.B. Liljegren references

are

(ed.),

to James

Harrington, Works: The Oceana and Other Works with an Account His Life by John Toland (reprint of London, 1771 edition; Dormstadt, 1963). 1 Works, p. 278. See Oceana, pp. 51-52, 193-198; Works, pp. 256-261, 264-269. 3 Oceana, p. 226. The structure of the Oceana may imitate that of the Histories of

Polybius. If

one

does

preparatory chapters,

not

a main

count Harrington's introduction, the Oceana has body divided into thirty, and a corollary.

two

Note

65

the Intention of James Harrington's Political Art

on

Whom does Harrington wish to convince? Everyone. He says, "There is nothing I so much desire, next the favor of God, as to be popularly under But for Harrington the voice of God is the voice of the people. Harrington argues that the people is more powerful, not to say more stood."

Moses" proposed the authoritative, than God. For example, "God or "ten so that they might be "voted the people of by Israel." In the wUdemess, the people passed them. In case they had not commandments"

been passed, they

The

be laws. Our

would not

author proposes

orders proposed would create perfect republics.

the interest

upon

of the whole people and

and rule of

any one interest is the cause good reason

they

are

In

or of

few

or

and

wUling for him to hope that his

popularly

in his Oceana.

orders go

therefore

orders wiU

as

Harrington claims, actions, there is

of all

be instituted

as soon as

understood.

order to propagate

his

proposal

for England's

future,

Harrington first

The Commonwealth of Oceana. All of his other works his most occasional tracts and leaflets and his posthumously

including

wrote

systematic work

wholly

the interest

opposed to

are

few. If,

some of

all

Such

are apologies

-

the Oceana. Some

for,

restatements

of,

published

or elaborations on

his critics; some arc commentaries on the laws for Oceana; there is one dialogue. We refer to his political writings, not to his writings on and translations of Vergil. As far as I can tell, Harrington never changed any of his proposals during the time he

was

of

these works are answers to

speaking

and

writing

about politics

in public,

during

the

Interregnum. What Harrington may have said, done, or proposed against Charles II, if indeed he did enter into a conspiracy after the Restoration, cannot be judged. As far as I can tell, all of Harrington's political writings, except perhaps

in short

and

the posthumously published System of

easy

The Oceana is a perfect

Aphorisms, were

written

Politics, Delineated

during the rule of

the Cromwells.

Accordingly, it was written to present nation. This nation is not presented as in any way an "imagined Modern Utopias are meant to be effectual. The Oceana is meant a modern utopia.

republic."

and even in many non-readers for a to effect hope in every reader known (or knowable) future. In order to indicate how effectual the Oceana is meant to be, its author claims that it was written about 1715 or fifty years after it was published. This book is meant to appear as, not a pro -

posal and

-

for England's future, but a history, i.e., a record, of England's future past insofar as it is relevant to the acceptance of the Harringtonian

her

backward;"

The point of view of the Oceana is "looking ton does not wish Oceana to appear as a projection or ton's reluctance to place much hope in the future is hardly the orders.

prediction.4

tic disposition

1

of a modern Utopian.

He thinks that

republican

orders

In

of

order

some

Harring Harring

characteris

to understand the problem of

kind

are

inevitable for England:

53; Works, pp. 367, 439-442, 446, 461-463, 562-563, 566. Cf. System Politics. Works, p. 467 (aphorism #5).

Oceana,

p.

of

66

Interpretation

Oceana's

briefly

appearance, we

Utopian

compare

it

Bacon's New

with

A tlantis.5 Although this theless

dern

is not directly suggested by the text, never if only because Bacon is the founder of mo In addition, we have the testimony of Harrington's bio

comparison

it may be

utopianism.

warranted

grapher, admirer, and editor; John Toland

New Atlantis,

"in imitation

was written

over, Harrington himself getic restratement

of

remarks

of

to suggest such a

seems

Oceana, The Art

titles of the two works suggest this

of

Oceana, like

that the

Plato's Atlantic

More

story."

comparison

Lawgiving.6

in his

Indeed,

apolo

the very

comparison.

Both Bensalem, Bacon's utopia, and Oceana are islands. But to reach Bacon's feigned commonwealth a long, dangerous, or at any rate difficult voyage through as yet uncharted waters is necessary. Oceana is here. It is

has been changed. For Oceana, there is no need science, like the triumph of the science of naviga growth of Oceana tion necessary for return voyages to Bensalem; The uncertainties represented by the sea, the un gives law to the certainties of chance and nature, cannot prevent the actualization of Oce ana. By faking the publication date, by making his book so plainly a histo

England; only for

a

the

name

future triumph

of

"

.

.

.the

sea."7

England, by presenting the actual written constitution of the perfect immortal commonwealth, and by certain other devices, Harrington in dicates that the actualization of Oceana depends not at aU on the passage of time, on the future or the further conquest of nature/chance. Oceana is

ry

of

and

not remote.

the case

We

Thus the Oceana is the New Atlantis.

a completed

work; nothing is

see that

in Bensalem

science of

technology is

pervasive.

"goals and tools of scientific Bensalem. Inventors are the most honored

as is

and scientists rule

New Atlantis

ends with

Solomon's House, in

Especially,

a

which

The very

power."8

names of things refer to the

floods

lacking

with

speech

by

the head scientist,

the wonders

of

her technology

Science

men there.

the Father are

of

described.

the scientists may be able to overcome plagues, earthquakes, like acts of nature. Indeed it seems that men themselves

and such

have been transformed there may be

In Oceana,

by

the rule of science and scientists; in Bensalem

neither war nor commerce. not science

but the law is

pervasive.

The

names

here

conjure

up the character of those to whom they are given. The Virgin Queen now "Parthenia." The two universities are renamed after the muses of is called history and poetry. The most honored man in Oceana is Olphaus Megaletor who

5

founded her

The

repubhcan

comparison was

Orders. The Oceana

inspired

by

ends with an elaborate

Howard B. White, Peace Among the Willows: pp. 93-166.

The Political Philosophy of Francis Bacon (The Hague, 1968), 6 Works, p. 436. 7

8

Oceana, p. 11. White, p. 102.

Note praise of


on

67

him. Oceana is

ruled by law, not by men or scientists. We see gready changed; Oceana is buUt for war and expansion. Oceana is probably as wealthy as Bensalem, but she is not free from pla gue. The laws for Oceana may make men good, for "good laws make good

that

men are not

men;"

the laws do not provide for the advancement nor

science,

This

for the

comparison might

of Oceana is

wealth

lead the

not a part of

monwealth presented

experimental

reader to conclude that

nor

The Common

the modern Utopian tradition. The com

by Harrington is

rous, healthful society,

of

to natural catastrophe.

end

not

primarily the peaceful,

the society made possible

prospe

by technology,

which

is usuaUy associated with modern Utopian writings. In his Seven Models of a Commonwealth, Harrington argues that Oceana is as much one of those "chimaeras or

Utopias"

as

any description

the laws and orders of an his

of

torical nation; Oceana is no more an utopia than Livy's

Rome. Compared

to Bensalem and all other modern Utopias, the proposal

does indeed

appear

war, make profits

very

moderate.

take

and

the moderate (but

losses,

In Oceana

get

sick,

of

men wiU still

and

the Oceana

work,

go to

die. So the Oceana holds

from the point of view of the ancient Utopians extravagant) hope for a glorious England whose empire shall have no limits and which shaU exist forever. Harrington seems to use the Utopian form for Machiavellian reasons, for purposes of propagation. Harrington judged that his Utopian form out

-

-

be especiaUy attractive to the intellectuals of his day. There is evi dence that this judgment was And when some complained that Oceana was too learned, Harrington wrote Valerius and Publicola. This dialogue is distinguished by its lack of learned quotations, Latin phrases, and historical examples. Rather the interlocutors mean to "begin upon some known and to pro namely "AU power is in the would

correct.9

principle,"

people,"

ceed to extract the perfect commonwealth

logue form

because, if it is

was selected

"ex

standing republics

his

The dia

managed, this form "is the man's sense into the under

well

for conveying a The Seven Models, which epitomizes seven Oceana, is meant to show that "the whole,

clearest and most effectual of

puris

naturalibus."

reader."

including

highest lowest capacity

or eight

and the

mysterys"

Utopian

form was essential

by

possibUity.

9

republican

debate."

form is sought

government may be brought "to the Harrington did not think, then, that the especiaUy necessary to his practical plan; but the Utopian to Bacon's intention because the society predicted or of

of vulgar

New Atlantis

be Harrington's Oceana is cannot

presented

-

even

presented as a

today

distinct

-

as a

distinct

present

possi-

p. xxi; Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Dick (Ann Arbor, 125; David Masson, The Life of John Milton: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time, Vol. V (London, 1877), pp. 484-486. For the reaction of the philosopher of his time, see Aubrey,

See Works,

1957),

p.

124.

p.

68

Interpretation early in the Oceana are Oceana may be instituted here, today. No further developments of science including political

bUity. If the

principles of government presented

sound, then the and

now,

science

by

necessary for the Oceanic order,

are

-

civU order presented

nor are

they

encouraged

by

the Oceana.

If Harrington uses the Utopian form merely as a device, if there is no necessary connection between Harrington's immediate practical proposal and its Utopian expression, then whatever does our author mean by The Commonwealth of Oceana? That is, why "Oceana"0 Why not "Eng land," since it is obvious to every reader that Oceana is England and since the Oceana is nothing if it is not a without

Harrington's

Protector,10

mina:

is the

it

name on

for England? Harrington

proposal

On the first title

our attention to these questions.

Oceana,

page of

and without the

caUs

the one

dedication to the Lord

"Tantalus a labris, fugientia captat Flunomine, de te Fabula Why does Har

work's motto:

narratur."

Quid

rides? mutato

rington change names?

Name-changing is one.11

save

he does

the most obvious

libel

not

in

living

of

who ruled not

men

king (Henry

thing does

keep

storm

VII)? The

judgment

names;

some

their names.

We

changed names on

men,

we

must

"Morpheus"?

monarchy be

account

for

and some

the

in the Oceana

consists of an

introduction

and

four

"The Preliminaries, shewing the principles of explicitiy divides this chapter into two sections. The first principles of government

appear on "

according to the

I believe that Harrington

to dedicate

Works,

with

the

to Cromwell.

the p.

second

547.

name where

"Parts"

or

government."

interference

named

to conceal

not seem

ters. The passage in question occurs in the first chapter which is

10

Eng

for the

the context of that passage. Consider the broad outline

Oceana. This book

well's

is

name

Englishmen,

turn now to the passage

they

consider

that the

case

consistently reveal some Yet Harrington

even some

Therefore,

writes of name-changing.

are.

do

But

more

their owner's character.

Harrington

First,

of civU war than

changed names

changes as

of

not the

Besides,

"Oceana"

On the contrary, the

not change aU

It is

who attempted to consolidate the

of the author's

countries

changed.

are

not use names.

caUs comic.

innocent. It is manifest that but Hobbes? What better

the lull before the

the

"Panurgus"

anything.

This

the Oceana.

"Leviathan"

be

could

Harrington

a work which

changed names protect the

king

of

in Oceana because he does

anyone

than the names

Should

device

used

this remark occurs

land. Who

literary

in Oceana; it is not even aUuded to in his other works, In contrasting himself with his adversary, Harrington notes that

device is only

meant

ancients and

No

other

Harrington

section

treats the

the principles

of

Oceana anonymously, but Crom him to decide to reveal authorship and works are dedicated. The motto does not

to

publish

presses caused

title page. See

chap

entitled

Works,

pp.

xvi-xvii, 547.

Note

in

government

the Intention of James

on

Harrington's Political Art

according to Harrington's "own the first chapter treats the late governments general or

ond section of

69

way."

of

The sec Oceana and

in treating them reveals the modern principles of government. Because Harrington claims to side with the ancients against the moderns, we may conclude that the first section of the "Preli using Harrington's terms Prudence" Prudence." treats "Antient and the second "Modern The passage on name-changing is in the second section. At the begin -

-

minaries"

ning of the Declination

Harrington discusses the "Rise, Progresse, and The beginning of modern prudence was the end of the Roman Empire. However much the "Arms of may have weakened Rome by bringing on the rule of emperors, still it was the victory of the barbarians that founded modern prudence. Those "inundations of Goths, Vandals, Huns, and Lombards"12 finaUy and to second section

Modern

of

Prudence."

Caesar"

tally

removed

prudence from the world. But because "Nemo Harrington briefly discusses the ways in which the itself so that it could be so easUy ruined by the vigorous,

ancient

nocetur nisi ex

se,"

Empire weakened

but coarse, northerners. In conquering the

whole Empire, the Vandals, Huns, Saxons, Lombards, and Franks overwhelmed also "ancient Langua ges, Learning, Prudence, Manners, Cities Almost as though the bar .

barians

Harrington

Men."

Geoffrey."

diately before

This

Rivers,

of

the

gives an example:

be

"Edmund, Richard,

name-changing comes imme changing names becomes espe

mention and example of

the author's own practice

What is its

noticeable.

came to

the ancient world,

"the Names

Harrington

Pompey"

cially

.

adds that the conquerors also changed

Countries, Seas, Mountains, and names "Camillus, Caesar, and and

.

were not content to wipe out the vestiges of

According to Harrington, ended ancient names.

The

of

significance?

those who put

an end

to ancient prudence also

Yet Harrington uses them. In fact, we note that Harrington does not change any ancient names. For example, he discusses the rise, progress, and destruction of the governments of Oceana we stUl

know some

by considering Romans, the

new names are a sign of a new prudence.

of the ancient names.

the changes brought about "Teutons"

(Saxons),

the

by

the various conquests of the

"Scandians"

(Danes),

and

the

"Neustrians"

conquerors

(Normans). Harrington changes the names of the only. The Romans keep their name. The case is the

modern same

in

Hobbes, caUed a modern by Harrington, has his name altered. But Machiavelli, not caUed a modern, keeps his name. So do Aristotle, Plato, Xenophon, Cicero, and all other ancient writers. Bacon's other matters.

name

12

is only partiaUy

Oceana,

the Empire's

took

p.

42. In the

during

arms

place when

"strong

changed

the

Garrison"

same

the

well-armed and

guards

"ancientized"

say

-

our author remarks

context, rule

in Rome "and

held hereditarily. These

we might

-

Constantine

to "Verula-

that the reordering

of

decisive. This reordering dangerous Praetorians were removed from their distributed into divers which they of

were,

was

Provinces"

so

to speak, replaced

by barbarians.

70

Interpretation

mius."

All the

red who

lived in "ancient

Harrington the same,

except

of Oceana.^ rington with

have their

Oceana,

names changed.

in

author

only

Ethel-

Only

when

save

his

support of

posi

Selden, Hooker, Bracton, Coke) does he leave the

in the

Bacon. Harrington does

case of

From this

his

in the

contemporary

name, but this is in the

by

mentioned

times,"13

cites a modern or

tion (for examples,

once

England

rulers of

in

margin and also

pattern of

name-changing

Hobbes

refer to

support of

name

the position

that Har

we conclude

to do something like what the barbarians

major work aims

did. But

what did they do? The barbarians ended the Roman Empire

and at

the

same

time ended

the already weakened ancient prudence. They did not simply and by themselves destroy Rome and ancient prudence. Republican Rome, that "Paragon"

of ancient prudence, had been greatly weakened long before the barbarian flood. But above all, the Caesars especially Julius, Augus -

"interposed"

Constantine though "there is no

tas,

and

Prudence,

that

the A

with

Ancient years

-

she should ever still

thereafter,

did

have been

so

of

or

that,

able to come

and

up

not show

so powerful was

itself in the

world

for

over

even

Moderne

constitution of

Grapple

the barbarians were able to strike the death

ncient,"

prudence

in the bulk

appearance

necessity"

"something

blow.

thousand

a

that necessity.

Harrington imitates the barbarians. He is the vigorous opponent of mo dern prudence, which he says has already been greatly weakened by

Henry

VII

barbarians Can it

also.

Yet

and

Henry

VIII

requires also the

be, then,

Richelieu. But the full imitation of the giving of new names; this Harrington does

and

that Harrington means to restore ancient

has been utterly wrecked, hardly a Caesar and the barbarians have ruined

ancient prudence

What the rington,

arms of

armed

with a

only dence have been erased,

pen,

restore?

what will

be the

means to eradicate modern prudence

If both

prudence?

vestige remains. can

James Har

ancient and modern pru

character of politics?

from the face

of

Our

author

the earth as the

barbarians did to

ancient prudence. But the giving of new names suggests further politically theoretic intention. Reflection on a single literary device would suggest that Harrington intends either to restore ancient some

prudence, or

or

to establish some new non-ancient, non-modern prudence,

to put forth some non-prudential understanding

prudence,

new

prudence, no prudence,

whatever

of

politics.

Restored

fulfills Harrington's

politi

cally theoretic intention, that intention must be consistent with his more practical intention to establish the Oceanic order in England. A sign of this consistency

13

14 15

Oceana, Oceana, But

adopted

is, then,

p.

42.

p.

207.

consider

quickly

nation adopts

that Harrington changes only modern English

Oceana,

some

p.

other

first holds the

197. Here it is theatened that if the nation, probably

world

in its

France,

empire.

will

do

so

names.15

orders

are not

first. Whichever

Note A


on

immortal

perfect and

commonwealth cannot

be

established

by

71 modern

prudence.

To

Harrington's politically theoretic intention, we must begin explaining what he means by prudence, ancient and modern. Ancient prudence is not prudence as understood by the ancients. That is, Harrington does not wish to restore the understanding of prudence pre expose

by

sented

by

for the

prudent man

the tradition

He does not long Harrington defines prudence

of classical political philosophy.

described

Aristotle.16

by

in the

second section of

history

England up to the time of Oceana, Harrington says that the is ready for a republican government; a republic is "already in the

nation

nature of the

(the

the first chapter.

Having

recounted the political

of

[population]."

All that is

"republic"

author uses

lacking

bring

to

"commonwealth"

and

about a republic

interchangeably) is

"time (which is slow and dangerous) or art (which would be more Art is to be preferred. "But this Art is Prudence; and that part of Prudence, which regards the present work [scU. the found the insti ing of a commonwealth], is nothing else but the skill of either

secure)."

quick and

.

.

.

raising"

tutions natural to the character population can an

a

art,

be known

skill, part

a nation.

The

produce

Now

day-to-day

governments, in England.

republic

not

the population. The character the proper form

of which produces

other parts are

conducting the

of

Aristotle,

the

of

Prudence is government for

with almost mathematical precision.

skiU of

leading

of

it

"Time"

produced a population

the tradition

in

armies and the skiU

affairs of civil government.

even as

nor

the

of classical

also

may naturally fit for

political

a

philosophy,

taught that prudence was art. The ancients sharply distinguished prudence from art, because the prudent man (including the founder), but not ne

cessarily the artist, is also the morally virtuous man. But the traditional identified prudence and art insofar as both were con

classic position also

cerned with contingencies.

it does man

understands prudence to

Thus Harrington

"contemplates"

moral virtue and

the product us good

deal

Harrington

not presuppose moral virtue.

of good

laws, is

men, in

the maxim of a

with contingencies.

It is

that

fact, "Give

demagog."

laws

good

us good

says

men,

an

art;

are not and

Nor does the

not an excellence of

be

that the prudent

necessarUy they will make

art of prudence

deliberation. Harrington

his reader all too clearly how little contingency concerns the prudent showing how a decision to wage agressive war is taken under the Orders of Oceana: shows

by

About the

one and

their Annuall was

of

fortieth

Customs,

year of

reported

Commonwealth, of

Nilus [the

the

Censors according to count], by which it

census

found that the People increased very near one third. Whereupon was appointed by the Senate to bring in a State of War

War

16

the

the Pillar

For

the

Council

....

purposes

prudence with

the

of

this paper,

position of

I have identified Aristotle's

classic

defense

the tradition of classical political philosophy.

of

72

Interpretation

Harrington's deal

political art

tain as those

of

Thus, "... he not to

science.

be

it does

not presuppose moral virtue and

Prudence is

were

indicate that it is mathematical."17

by this art, demonstrates by nature, by fancy, but by demonstration out of

that demonstrates

contradicted

not

to principles as cer

called an art to

science, but it is demonstrable "as if it

a practical

is

any

does

Rather, it proceeds according

with contingencies.

and

nature.'*is

Harrington's understanding of prudence appears very much like that of MachiaveUi. (It is good to remember at this point that our author caUs the Florentine

an

ancient.) From MachiaveUi's

"Aristotle did

point of view,

founder to his human

not see that the relation of the

is

matter

funda

not

mentally different from the relation of the smith to his iron or his inani mate matter: Aristotle did not realize to what extent man is maUeable, and in particular maUeable by Harrington would agree with this man."19

ancient criticism of an

ancient, this MachiaveUian

criticism

of

Aristotle.

He follows the ancients, but he also goes his own Harrington foUows MachiaveUi, but at the same time he goes beyond him. From Harrington's way.'-0

point of

is

is the

ing

not even

view,

malleable

by

Machiavelli

Machiavelli did

man.

animate matter of the

Iron rusts; men What is ancient prudence

paper

the

how

extent

to which man

much more

founder than the inanimate

unchang

matter of

the

reproduce.'21

smith:

define

understood not realize

and

distinguish

that he avoids

and modern prudence?

Harrington does

not

in his Oceana. We only assert in this definition in his major work because he wishes

these terms

such

to make use of the ordinary understanding

of

the ancient as the authoritati

vely traditional. In his most important apologetic work, The Prerogative of Popular Government, he flatly declares his definition:

By

antient prudence

prudence

Vandals

and

or

.

.

prudence

republics and

dence,

skill

understand

upon the ruin

western countries

Ancient

I

king, lords,

that of

in

the policy of

and

of

commons,

the Roman

a

commonwealth,

which

was

and

introduced

empire, and has since

by

by

modern

the Goths

reign'd

in these

.

is

republican

prudence,

skill

in

founding

and

governing

their armies. Modern prudence in monarchic pru

leading founding and maintaining

"regulated"

monarchies.

In

order

monarchies, and

especially

mixed

that a reader have no doubts about

his definition, Harrington explains that the government established by Jo seph in ancient Egypt was of the same form as that preferred by modern prudence.23

" 18 19

20 21 22

23

Works, p. 559. Works, p. 560. Leo Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, 111., 1958), Oceana, p. 14. Consider Oceana, pp. 64, 53, 133-139; Works, pp. 466-470. Works, p. 221. Works, p. 253.

p.

253.

Note

on the

Does Harrington the ancient

Intention of James Harrington's Political Art

understanding

the ancients. He does nated

blican

government.

in this such a

for

He

respect.

Relish

of

of government which

by

domi

of

Harrington's intention is identical with MachiaveUi's regrets the fact that the West, which has "ever had

liberty,"

thousand

over a

the form

history in its vigorous youth and in its ma infancy and old age. He wishes to restore repu

to its

as opposed

not wish to restore

of politics or ancient politics as understood

wish to restore

the ancient period

turity,

He does

wish to restore prudence?

73

has

years.

the establishment

continued

The

in the

"Gothic"

grips of

publication and propagation

monarchy Oceana

of

its

orders will end forever modern prudence and But to attempt to end forever any order and to establish another which wiU last forever free from all internal tumult, no less would be a laughable or unsuccessful project from MachiaveUi's point of view. StiU Harrington hopes to bring forth an immortal common and

its

of

characteristic policies.

-

-

disorder,"

wealth, a republic free from all "intestine that he has discovered the true principles of

because he believes More precisely,

government.

Harrington

means to teach an exact, non-controversial practical science

of politics.

In this respect, his intention is the

Hobbes's exact,

non-controversial science

same as

of politics

Hobbes's. Yet

culminated

in the

demand for monarchy, certainly not for a republic ruled "by laws, not Harrington's theoretical-political intention seems clear: the propa

men."

gation of an exact, non-controversial art of politics capable of effecting the reintroduction of the whole world eternally to the republican form of government. But this intention presupposes the fulfillment of still another.

The Oceana is meant to overcome, to improve upon the doctrines of Harrington's two great teachers, Hobbes and Machiavelli. Harrington's admiration for Machiavelli can hardly go unnoticed. Ma chiavelli is caUed "the Prince of "the greatest Artist in the World," modern "the onely Polititian of later the "incomparable Patron of the Harrington appears to have known very well the Polititians,"

Ages,"

People."

the Discourses

Prince,

(admiring

had studied), the Art of War, Machiavelli is mentioned by

As I count, MachiaveUi is to know

In the

whether or not

the

books; by

down 24

But

som

see

the remark

of

(Oceana,

p.

p.

Works,

barely

Oceana,

p.

Livy's

p.

was aware of

Machiavelli's

presented as a sober

republican,

the ancient world,

the

reminds

53. For the art of

Livy (Oceana, 212). See

153. 25

Harrington

than any man or author. in that book also. It is difficult

often

reader of

482.

also

p.

the

same

writing

223),

meaning,

(Oceana,

and

about

remark about

p.

rhetoric.24

a

prince."25

consider

216),

Oceana,

about

of old

p.

(Oceana,

The

set ap-

139. See

Machiavelli's inter

Machiavelli's "handsome

Cicero

devoted

a ponderer

"ah those black maxims

politicians, particularly Machiavel in his

about

pretation

name more

political practice of

Harrington

book more than anything he Florentine Histories. In the Oceana,

second

quoted more often

Machiavelli is

Oceana,

student of

the

and the

p.

Caveat"

38). Cf. Strauss,

74

Interpretation

pearance of Hobbes in Oceana is quite different from that of MachiaveUi. If MachiaveUi is the hero of Oceana, if he is ancient prudence incarnate,

Hobbes is the dence by justifying then

Hobbes "goes

viUain.

in the

body

mention appears to

the Oceana

of

Hobbes is

monarchy.

Every

about

these

and

be

to

But

ancient pru

relatively few times in the first chapter.

mentioned

mentions

polemical.

destroy"

are

are not

appearances

some

Hobbes in Oceana is toward its end Harrington does not change his name. After the

times deceiving? The last

mention of

in the margin, where whole of the Orders for Oceana have been reader

to conclude that the order

out of

the chaos

of view of

opposition

I have

of new

down, Harrington

allows the

be judged

"beautifuU"

from the

point

Thomas Hobbes and God as described by Plato. Harrington's to Hobbes is not simple. This is how he explains it:

opposed the politics of

his treatises

The

of civU war would

set

those fundamental laws brought

which

lights,

Mr. Hobbes, to

human nature,

of

and those which

appearance of

and

of

show

liberty

I have follow'd,

and

him

what

necessity,

and shall

he taught me,

they

are

...

for

the greatest

follow.26

MachiaveUi is likewise deceiving. WeU before Oceana

ends, Harrington has disputed

perhaps

-

disproved

-

MachiaveUi's

analysis

few, his doctrine that solid civil orders have criminal beginnings, his representations of Sparta, Rome, Athens, and other histori the many and the

of

cal

that a defensive foreign policy is the result of many other MachiaveUian essentials. A consideration disputes would involve us too deeply in Harrington's teaching, as

regimes, his

teaching

"imagination"

and

of these

opposed to

his intention.

From the point ment again a

"has

admires

him because he

choiceworthy form. Thus ancient

the peak of ancient

made republican govern

our author says

retrieve"

about to

gon

peak of modern

In

Oceana, MachiaveUi is

of view of the

prudence; Harrington

prudence.

that MachiaveUi

Hobbes

prudence; he presents the best defense

fact, Hobbes is

the only writer, as opposed to ruler,

represents

the

of

monarchy.

whom

Harrington

caUs a modern.

It is especially Hobbes's to

explain

"politics"

that Harrington opposes. In order

this opposition we must mention a certain

Imitating MachiaveUi, either monarchic

our

author

or republican.

Harringtonian teaching.

teaches and shows that ah states are

In teaching this, Harrington

the few cannot possibly rule in their own right or ways set

up

a

(regulated)

ton calls them, are

among the the

king.27

inherently

These

monarchies

unstable;

shows

that

by themselves, but al by nobles, as Harring

they tend to become either wars But, according to Harrington,

nobles or absolute monarchies.

creation of a

23

Works,

p.

27

This is

most

third estate

-

the

landed clergy

241. clearly

seen

by Works,

pp.

467, 481.

or

lords

spiritual

has

Note

on


made possible a regulated

is the

estate

result of the

Caesars (see

monarchy

"something

which

75

is relatively stable. The third introduced and fostered

necessity"

of

barbarians'

The creation of the third estate, which stands somehow between the many and the few or between the sub jects and the lords temporal, ensures the continued existence of the natu "Gothic" rally unstable regulated monarchy. Such monarchies, called by Harrington, are the worst possible form of government because they depend

by

the

more than

above).

form

other

any

the fear

on

death for their

of

the Church has declined

But

stabUity.28

as

the

has the authority and power of the authority third estate; this is in true England since Henry VII and in France especiaUy of

since

Richelieu. Without the

long.

Therefore,

were

it

the

so

third estate, no monarchy

nobles can stand

its

own accord

intrusions"

for the fact that "certain

not

by

end of modern prudence would come of

expedients

were

and

discovered which made regulated monarchy "to appear or be call'd abso lute." Certain politicians, including Hobbes, have discovered means to the regulated monarchy even without the landed Hobbes and the Hobbesians may make the claim that the traditional

dern monarchy vernments, part of

So

clergy.29

maintain

be the

can

most stable, the most

commodious,

mo

of aU go

the monarchy of the Turk. An important is meant to show that no monarchy can be

even more stable than

Harrington's teaching

as stable as a well-ordered republic.

In

order

blican

this, Harrington

to show

for their lack

not praise republics

of

commotions were a sign of political

MachiaveUi "makes

who

health. As the Oceana

did

puts

that the people in

[republics] are so Gentleman they kUl

beheve,

us

MachiaveUi,

must oppose

tumults but rather taught that repu

it,

en

him."

them, that where they meet a Now Harrington begins at the same point that MachiaveUi did in his raged against

con

sideration of republics:

There is started was

not a more

Whether

between the Senate

Harrington's

li's,

noble, or usefull

by Machiavil,

even

more, it

answer

if it is

could

and

means

the

may be

not so noble.

have been

question were

people

said

in the Politics, then that

to be found whereby the

of

Rome,

might

which

Enmity

have been

is

that

removed.30

to be much more useful than Machiavel

The enmity

could

ended with republican

have been ended;

forms

or without

what

is

resorting to

defensive foreign policy with its characteristicly oppressive domestic poli Nevertheless Machiavelli's greatness is secure. He started this question: Not that Machiavelli was the first to wonder at the commotions in Rome, a

cy.

rather

28

of

Machiavelh

The

subjects

was

fear death

the lords temporal 29

See Works,

himself develops 30

Oceana,

p.

the first to undertake a class analysis

pp.

and

472

not

by

and

only

133.

hands

of

the

king, but

(Roman)

also at

the hands

the authority of the lords spiritual.

especially 481. See

"expedients"

some

at the

of

and

also

Works,

is thanked for it

pp.

248-264. Harrington

by Hobbesians.

76

Interpretation

in

politics

preference to a regime

The

analysis.

in his

alternative point

regime analysis of

But

works.32

analysis.31

the classics

having

Harrington

barely

accepted

accepts

the class

appears as a rejected

the MachiaveUian starting

to accept the regime analysis would be ineffectual because that

-

in the presentation of an imagined Harrington draws very different conclusions from it. By showing that the dispute between the many and the few could be ended, or (using Harrington's expression) by showing that the few can be analysis

necessarUy

republic or

comes to an end

principality

included in the many, Harrington is as stable a

form

We have we

by

able to show that a republic

is

least

at

as a monarchy.

to Harrington's teaching. But

now come altogether too close

may say that Harrington is able to resolve the many-few class conflict showing that the difference between princes and peoples is not natural,

Machiavelli had

even as

between the

that the differences between princes,

suggested

few,

the

one and

were not natural or qualitative.

Instead Har

difference among men in the or servants. The doctrine for and success at land to, ability acquiring which Harrington is best known, the doctrine of the balance of domestic traces the difference to

rington

a quantitative

of government naturaUy follows or is de land (or servants) held among the one, the "gentlemen" and the few are the who having

empire, teaches that the form termined

few,

by

the

proportion of

and the people.

The

acquired more servants off

one

others'

live

off

the sweat

brows. The

of

people

live

the sweat of their own.

In coming to a conclusion, we may say that our author begins with Machiavelli's understanding. That is, he accepts Machiavelli's typology of governments, the analysis

of

the many and the few presupposed

by

that

typology, especially the resulting definition of republican government "so ordered that rule should not faU into the hands of a prince or a and

-

nobles."

On the basis

small number of

we

suggest, Harrington

much

did he

would

admire republican

But Machiavelli's

was not

have

Rome

the only

controversial political science

raw

According

account as

31

I

32

Works,

wish

compared 33

to

Hobbes,

See

cunning.

any

part

Hobbes

raised

p.

286

justified monarchy,

Oceana,

p.

.

.that

Harvey C. Mansfield,

that he did

with other passages on

monarchy.

is,

even

especiaUy two the exact,

Christian

is little better than

[of true knowledge]

suggests

so

monarchy.33

the republican preference was dictated

Prudence is only experience,

to thank Professor

for England,

detest the Christian

Harrington's day.

prudence compared to science

animal

Gothic

and

the republican preference is not scientific. That

First,

dence;

the Machiavellian evidence alone,

evidence.

objections against the republicans of

chy.

of

proposed a republic

consider

and

original

non-

monar

by

pru

superstition

or

"we are not to knowledge caUed

Jr. for teaching

me

this.

the classical alternative when

it is

the same subject.

139. In addition, Harrington

prefers even oriental

depotism to

Note experience, in

defective. an

as

which consisteth

And further, the

reasoning."3*

They

are

that in their youth

Grecian which

Roman

and

books the

having

books

commonwealths

by

ever so cruel as a popular of

read

better sort, that had been so educated, by famous men of the ancient

written

concerning their polity

popular government

monarchy disgraced

and

because it is not attained by the English republicans is very

prudence:

experience of

great number of men of the

exceeding

77

Intention of James Harrington's Political Art

on the

was extolled

by

tyranny [and

the name

assembly"]

.

actions; in

great

and

glorious

liberty,

name

"no tyrant

even though

thereby in love

.became

.

that

was

their form

with

government.35

Second, Hobbes

objected that republics are

inherently unstable. He thought

that no bearer of sovereignty could be expected to prefer the public inte rest to his own interest or that of his family. He concluded that one man

best unify

rule could citizen

has

public and private

some part of

that republics are always led chiavelli

confessed,

and threatened

Harrington

by

interest. But in

sovereignty; this part is

by

invariably

few demagogues;

one or a

republics are

republics

constantly

even as

the factious

by

plagued

every

given over so

civU war.

presents

his teaching

against

these two

objections.

He

argues

that prudence, the practical science or art of politics, is demonstrable.

is, Harrington

demonstration from

attempts to show that

cluding from what is or was to demonstration requires an hoti that."

Ma spirit

reason

Harrington

otherwise and

is so

what ought to and

reasons as

a

dioti,

be

-

experience

is

possible.

"that"

a

and

a

follows: What has been

and not otherwise will

be

so and not

-

That con

Such

a

"for the

so and not

otherwise, "except

The Oceana presents why it may be an unexampled example, a perfectly stable republic free of the factious spirit.37 The presentation of Harrington's general teaching in the "Preli is, therefore, a presentation of reasons why republics may be otherwise."36

a man can give a reason

minaries"

other than

they have

always

Harrington's doctrines republics

(including

been.

are meant

to

show

that the

the "Commonwealth of

fault with founded

all previous

Israel"

by

"Moses

he is the maker of them, rather than the with monarchies is inherent, in its very matter, for matter. But the fault of or proportion land servants held by lords as against the the balance defective. The balance is the matter, the is of people the monarchy or

God") has been

with man as

-

-

foundation,

of aU

a republican

governments.36

foundation,

By

erecting

Michael Oakeshott

31

Hobbes, Leviathan,

ed.

35

Compounded from

Hobbes, Behemoth,

1963),

pp.

6, 31.

Harrington

especially Works, p. 223. 3 Works, p. 559.

proper republican orders on

the few may be permanently dissolved into the

knew

of

(Oxford, 1955),

ed.

similar

Wm.

pp.

435-436.

Molesworth

passages

dn

earlier

(New

York,

works.

See

78

Interpretation

What Harrington had

many.

assert

confidently

the quiet

Machiavelli

against

shown

of republics

him to

allows

Hobbes. If the few (in

against

cluding the one) all come to have precisely the same interest people, and if interest is the cause of aU wUling, then how can

have the interest

have the inte

the power (if some deviant happens to

or

the

as

anyone

rest) to overthrow the government of the people?

Harrington's for

an end

practical

to the type

intention, his desire for

of politics

a republican

England

that had dominated the West for a

and

miUen-

nium, led him to study and then to oppose the teachings of Hobbes and MachiaveUi. From Harrington's point of view, both Hobbes and Machia velli, both ancients and moderns, have this in common: Both think that in

every nation one part necessarily rules some other part. That is, both think that in every nation one, few, or some of few necessarUy prevaU over the

Harrington,

others.

sition of

the

that the

law,

velli, of

no

the

on

not

population makes

prevent

other

hand,

claims to

the interest

dominates the

in itself may be

in the best

rules

men,

less than Hobbes

or even

ally himself with the po Harrington teaches

Oceana, on

the

But for Machia

ordered nations.

classics,39

the question

the law? The Orders of Oceana

or wiU of

from making law. In nation works its will ple

the

tradition of classical political philosophy:

any

any no

part

one,

one,

-

other part.

few,

some of

few, many True enough, the

no

no

is, What

are

few,

rule.

part

designed to

No

or

many

part of

spirit of

-

the

the peo

Oceana, but the spirit of the people considered be, "What care I for him? I can live without

whole of said

to

him."40

Certain difficulties

remain

for my interpretation. Nevertheless, I believe

that James Harrington's political art aims to put an

37

38 39

of

Oceana, p. 33. This is, then, Works, pp. 466-467. We

abstract

here from the

another reason

end

to rule.

for the book's

question of whether

Utopian character.

will, not reason, is the source

law. *

Works,

p.

580. Cf. Oceana,

pp.

154-158, 128-129, 141; Works,

pp.

271, 247.

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