Flow and Flux in Plato's Philosophy by Andrew J. Mason

Author:Andrew J. Mason [Mason, Andrew J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, Ancient, General
ISBN: 9781317421870
Google: wlqpCwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-03-02T16:13:10+00:00

4

Flux and flow in the Timaeus

In this chapter and the next our focus returns to the cosmological dimension of Plato’s thought, beginning with the Timaeus.1 Inasmuch as it is premised on the antithesis of being (Forms) and becoming (sensibles) (27d–28a), the Timaeus reads like a middle dialogue, but this distinction is now set within a broader framework, freeing Plato not to over-rely on Forms. First and foremost the Timaeus is Plato’s rehabilitation of the nous doctrine. In the Phaedo it was because Plato could not yet see how to ground that doctrine that he resorted to the ‘makeshift’ of Forms as causes.2 While there is something of this in the Timaeus, the real role of Forms here is that of ‘models’ that the divine craftsman ‘looks to’ in his creative, ordering activity (28a). This cause (nous) is set off against a purely material one, which Plato calls ‘necessity’ (ἀνάγκη). This is a retrieval of the distinction between intelligent cause and material condition which the Phaedo (99a–b) had insisted on before resorting to the makeshift. Since both nous and necessity are characterised by motion, a key advantage of this new framework is that it frees Plato from the awkward claim that motionless, unchanging Forms cause ever-moving and changing sensibles.

I will argue that the nous-necessity distinction also retrieves something from the dialogue immediately before the Phaedo, the Cratylus – namely the two sides of flow. The Timaeus in effect hives off flow’s errant aspect to the side of necessity, while the regular one corresponds to nous, or more precisely the motion of cosmic soul and body in conformity with nous. It then seeks to subsume the negative under the positive, with nous ‘controlling’ necessity by ‘persuading’ it ‘to lead what is generated for the most part towards the best’ (νοῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν: 48a). My thesis is that flow is present not only in necessity by itself but in its compliance with nous. In other words, its relevance is teleological, not just physical. At the same time, necessity has also to do with elemental flux, and we will need both to distinguish its flux and flow aspects and to grasp their relation.

This approach is admittedly not directly supported by Plato’s terminology. Strangely, while ῥοή, etc., is central to Timaeus’ accounts of human physiology and perception (see sections 2 and 3), it sees almost no cosmological service. Where it does appear it denotes the fluidity of water (49c) or of metals (58e), specifically under the influence of fire (61b), rather than any encompassing cosmic motion. We have seen that both before the Timaeus (in Cratylus 2) and after it (in the Laws) flow has a cosmological place that is connected with nous, relates to soul as well as matter, and is irreducible to flux. My surmise is that this is covertly in play in the Timaeus cosmology too. Flow helps to establish the nous-necessity distinction (in the cosmos) while remaining in the background.

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