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Interpreting Plato's Cosmology

2008 Ford Scholars Project Description

Description of the Project:

We will undertake a collaborative reading of works on Plato's cosmology, focused especially on the dialogue Timaeus, together with an ongoing conversation about the fit of the ideas of the Timaeus with a constellation of ideas from several other Platonic dialogues.  The student and I will work out a two-part bibliography.  One part will consist of the Timaeus and several major secondary works.  The other part will consist of selections from a cluster of other Platonic dialogues, the Parmenides, Statesman, Philebus, as well as Aristotle's report in Metaphysics A6 of Plato's "so-called 'unwritten teachings'."  My student collaborator will begin with the second part, primarily for background purposes, completing that reading in a week or so.  Then he or she will work through the first part of the list, writing synoptic exegeses of each work.  We will converse at regular intervals, determined by the rhythm of reading we set up for him/her, about his/her exegeses and whatever relations there may be between the complex of ideas offered by the set of readings in the first part of the bibliography and each book that (s)he studies and digests.

Background: I have been working on the metaphysics of Plato's cosmology, with a special interest in understanding what fit there may be between the Timaeus and the seminal and much briefer ontological accounts in the Parmenides (with its treatment of the Great and the Small), the Statesman (with its account of cosmic periods marked by the reversal of time and of a tendency towards chaos), the Philebus (with its account of the cosmos as a mixture of limit and unlimited), and the "unwritten teachings" reported by Aristotle. Establishing this fit is a problem for two reasons.  First, the Timaeus offers an account of the origins and composition of the world as a whole, invoking the figure of a divine Craftsman who looks to the Forms (roughly, the timeless and immaterial paradigms or essences of things) and then, over a stretch of time, fashions the body and soul of the world and the rational souls of the living beings that dwell within the world.  In the other dialogues just mentioned, however, Plato appears to criticize and offer more rational, less mythopoeic alternatives to a number of the central features of this picture.  How, if at all, are we to reconcile the Timaeus with these criticisms and alternatives?  Second, the vivid narrative and illuminating analysis in the Timaeus have seized the imagination of the best commentators, and many of them, including those in #8 below, have too quickly rejected the criticisms implied in the Parmenides/Statesman/Philebus.  So the effort to discover the fit gets little support from the best secondary work.  In our collaboration, the student and I will have as our double goal both to learn as much as possible from the best recent secondary works, immersing ourselves in what they offer in their analyses, and to recognize and probe the tension between the divergent standpoints of the Timaeus (together with the secondary accounts that operate within its terms and framework) and the Parmenides/Statesman/Philebus.

Anticipated Summer Activities:  The student will begin with a reading of the whole of the Timaeus and selected passages from the Parmenides, Statesman, and Philebus, then move on to read and write synoptic exegeses of secondary works including T.K. Johansen, Plato's Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus-Critias (Cambridge University, 2004); T. M. Robinson, Cosmos as Art Object (Global Academic, 2004); Richard Mohr, The Platonic Cosmology (Parmenides Publishing, 2007); Luc Brisson, Inventing the universe: Plato's Timaeus, the big bang, and the problem of scientific knowledge (SUNY, 1995); and Gabriela Roxana Carone, Plato's Cosmology and its Ethical Implications (Cambridge University, 2005).  The student will submit exegeses as s/he completes his/her reading of each text, and we will converse regularly by phone, probably at weekly intervals.

Preferred Student Qualifications/Skills:
A background of reading Plato and secondary texts (ideally but not necessarily on the basis of my Plato seminar) and, if possible, a reading ability in ancient Greek.

Possible Follow-up Teaching/Professional Activity for the Student:
I plan to teach the Timaeus in a 300-level seminar in the fall, and if all goes well, I would like to invite the student to team-teach with me for one or two meetings, probably at the end of fall semester.