Philebus

The cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the Republic, Book Eight, five hundred and forty-six, is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state.

In some passages, we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind, thirty-seven C, or of that divine mind, compare Philebus twenty-two D, which in Plato is hardly separable from it.

The characteristics of men are transferred to the world animal, as for example, when intelligence and knowledge are said to be perfected by the circle of the same, and true opinion by the circle of the other.

And conversely, the motions of the world animal reappear in men.

Everywhere we find traces of the Platonic theory of knowledge expressed in an objective form, which by us has to be translated into the subjective before we can attach any meaning to it.

And this theory is exhibited in so many different points of view that we cannot with any certainty interpret one dialogue by another.

For example, the Timaeus by the Parmenides or Phaedrus or Philebus.

The soul of the world may also be conceived as the personification of the numbers and figures in which the heavenly bodies move.

All the greatest minds, except when living in an age of reaction against them, have unconsciously fallen under their power.

The account of the Platonic ideas in the Meno is the simplest and clearest, and we shall best illustrate their nature by giving this first and then comparing the manner in which they are described elsewhere, example, in the Phaedrus, Phaedo, Republic, to which may be added the criticism of them in the Parmenides, the personal form which is attributed to them in the Timaeus, the logical character which they assume in the Sophist and the Philebus, and the allusion to them in the Laws.

In the Cratylus, they dawn upon him with the freshness of a newly discovered thought.

The Meno goes back to a former state of existence in which men did and suffered good and evil, and received the reward or punishment of them until their sin was purged away, and they were allowed to return to earth.

In the Sophist, the theory of ideas is spoken of as a doctrine held not by Plato, but by another set of philosophers called the Friends of Ideas, probably the Megarians, who are very distinct from him, if not opposed to him, Sophist.

Nor in what may be termed Plato's abridgment of the history of philosophy, Sophocles, is any mention made, such as we find in the first book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, of the derivation of such a theory, or any part of it from the Pythagoreans, the Eleatics, the Heracleiteans, or even from Socrates.

In the Philebus, probably one of the latest of the Platonic dialogues, the conception of a personal or semi-personal deity, expressed under the figure of mind, the king of all, who is also the cause, is retained.

The one and many of the Phaedrus and Theaetetus is still working in the mind of Plato, and a correlation of ideas, not of all with all, but of some with some, is asserted and explained.

For they either use the common name God indefinitely, or with some such addition as that of Maker of all things, the Creator of heaven and earth, he who sent down to the human race those good men to whose names that of God being added, certain mighty works are wrought among men, and much more besides might be said on the subject of names against those who think that we ought to be indifferent as to our use of them.

And if the remark of Plato in the Philebus should surprise us when he says, quote, My fear, O Protagoras, about the names of the gods is no small one, end quote, seeing Philebus in his discussion with Socrates had called pleasure a god, how shall we not rather approve the piety of the Christians who apply none of the names used in the mythologies to the Creator of the world? And now enough on this subject for the present.

But let us see the manner in which this Celsus, who professes to know everything, brings a false accusation against the Jews when he alleges that, quote, they worship angels and are addicted to sorcery, in which Moses was their instructor, end quote.

Now, in what part of the writings of Moses he found the lawgiver laying down the worship of angels, let him tell, who professes to know all about Christianity and Judaism, and let him show also how sorcery can exist among those who have accepted the Mosaic law and read the injunction, quote, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them, end quote.

But The Law- we are very confident that The Laws is late.

It might not be the latest because it might be just as late as the Philebus or Timaeus or something.

I w- in which case, I guess you could still say The Laws is the latest, but it's tied for latest.

But the point remains that, like, we're very, very, very confident that The Laws represents late Plato writing style, but we're not so confident about what counts as early, what counts as early.

The Republic of Plato is the longest of his works with the exception of the laws, and is certainly the greatest of them.

There are nearer approaches to modern metaphysics in the Philebus and in the Sophist.

The Politicus, or statesman, is more ideal.

The form and institutions of the state are more clearly drawn out in the laws.

Um, we have to assume, based on the fact that we know he's was a pretty intelligent guy, that he was aware of the irony of this, and this was on purpose, right? And a lot of his dialogues are like that.

You see the same sort of thing happening in the Philebus, in the Republic, in many places, um, where it can't be the case that Plato's just kind of ham-fistedly using a character to advance some argument he's making, so he must be doing something else.

And so there's been s- the, the tradition of reading Plato as doing something else than what it seems like he straightforwardly, uh, arguing for in the text is as old as Plato himself.

Yeah.

Uh, but you don't really, you don't think we should see Plato in this kind of way, or?

Well, I don't know that I wanna exactly state my position.

I mean, I do read Plato as arguing indirectly a lot, and I was in that same seminar on the Philebus with you, and we read quite a bit of papers arguing for a more esoteric approach to-

I don't, I don't, I don't remember that.

Matter being the same, the eternal, for any of these terms being almost vacant of meaning, is equally suitable to express indefinite existence, are compared or united with the other or diverse, and out of the union or comparison is elicited the idea of intelligence, the one in many, brighter than any Promethean fire.

Compare Philebus 16c.

Which coexisting with them and so forming a new existence is or becomes the intelligible world.

So we may perhaps venture to paraphrase or interpret or put into other words the parable in which Plato has wrapped up his conception of the creation of the world.

We must remember further that in his attempt to realize either space or matter, the two abstract ideas of weight and extension, which are familiar to us, had never passed before his mind.

Thus far God, working according to an eternal pattern, out of his goodness has created the same, the other, and the essence.

Compare the three principles of the Philebus, the finite, the infinite, and the union of the two.

And out of them has formed the outer circle of the fixed stars and the inner circle of the planets, divided according to certain musical intervals.

The cyclic year serves as the connection between the world of absolute being and of generation, just as the number of population in the Republic, Book VIII, five hundred and forty-six, is the expression or symbol of the transition from the ideal to the actual state.

In some passages, we are uncertain whether we are reading a description of astronomical facts or contemplating processes of the human mind, 37c, or of that divine mind, compare Philebus 22d, which in Plato is hardly separable from it.

The characteristics of men are transferred to the world animal, as, for example, when intelligence and knowledge are said to be perfected by the circle of the same, and true opinion by the circle of the other, and conversely, the motions of the world animal reappear in men.

Its amorphous state continues in the child, 44, and in both, disorder and chaos are gradually succeeded by stability and order.

Everywhere we find traces of the Platonic theory of knowledge expressed in an objective form, which by us has to be translated into the subjective before we can attach any meaning to it.

And this theory is exhibited in so many different points of view that we cannot with any certainty interpret one dialogue by another.

For example, the Timaeus by the Parmenides or Phaedrus or Philebus.

The soul of the world may also be conceived as the personification of the numbers and figures in which the heavenly bodies move.