Dialogue

  1 Intro|     ANALYSIS~Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most
  2 Intro|         variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired
  3 Intro|       another—between Aristotle and Plato, or between the serious
  4 Intro|             the serious thoughts of Plato and his passing fancies.
  5 Intro|           at all. Yet the genius of Plato and Greek philosophy reacted
  6 Intro|          with the interpretation of Plato, and in spirit they are
  7 Intro|          the so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising
  8 Intro|         with modern interpreters of Plato is the tendency to regard
  9 Intro|          system. We do not know how Plato would have arranged his
 10 Intro|             in the Phaedo. Nor does Plato himself attribute any importance
 11 Intro|             can hardly suppose that Plato would have preferred the
 12 Intro|           in the other dialogues of Plato, and he himself regards
 13 Intro|        divine mind (Phil.) which in Plato is hardly separable from
 14 Intro|            passages like these that Plato is referring when he speaks
 15 Intro|          his own age.~We are led by Plato himself to regard the Timaeus,
 16 Intro|            we are uncertain whether Plato is expressing his own opinions,
 17 Intro|            of imagination, in which Plato, without naming them, gathers
 18 Intro|              and for some growth in Plato’s own mind, the discrepancy
 19 Intro|          some passages sublime. But Plato has not the same mastery
 20 Intro|        clumsiness in the Timaeus of Plato which characterizes the
 21 Intro|           repetition than occurs in Plato’s earlier writings. The
 22 Intro|         attribute the want of plan. Plato had not the command of his
 23 Intro|           not easy to determine how Plato’s cosmos may be presented
 24 Intro|         significance to the mind of Plato than language of a neutral
 25 Intro|             presented themselves to Plato and his age, and the elements
 26 Intro|   psychology, (6) the physiology of Plato, and (7) his analysis of
 27 Intro|          may examine in what points Plato approaches or anticipates
 28 Intro|           Heraclitean fanatics whom Plato has ridiculed in the Theaetetus,
 29 Intro|             But the contemporary of Plato and Socrates was incapable
 30 Intro|            Nor are there wanting in Plato, who was himself too often
 31 Intro|          subject, and against which Plato in his later dialogues seems
 32 Intro|             tended to perplex them. Plato’s doctrine of the same and
 33 Intro|           observation were limited. Plato probably did more for physical
 34 Intro| requirements of thought.~Section 3.~Plato’s account of the soul is
 35 Intro|           discuss at length how far Plato agrees in the later Jewish
 36 Intro|            with ideas. According to Plato in the Timaeus, God took
 37 Intro|          there is no truth of which Plato is more firmly convinced
 38 Intro|         spontaneity. The Creator in Plato is still subject to a remnant
 39 Intro|          remains in his own nature. Plato is more sensible than the
 40 Intro|           is in reality, whether in Plato or in Kant, a mere negative
 41 Intro|              1) that to the mind of Plato subject and object were
 42 Intro|         again that we cannot follow Plato in all his inconsistencies,
 43 Intro|           can we hope to understand Plato from his own point of view;
 44 Intro|          for thought in the view of Plato is equivalent to truth or
 45 Intro|        disease in man.~But what did Plato mean by essence, (Greek),
 46 Intro|             world, was lingering in Plato’s mind. The Other is the
 47 Intro|         itself.—So far the words of Plato may perhaps find an intelligible
 48 Intro|          have already remarked that Plato was not acquainted with
 49 Intro|          words the parable in which Plato has wrapped up his conception
 50 Intro|             to the Pythagoreans and Plato; (2) the order and distances
 51 Intro|           Martin, who supposes that Plato is only speaking of surfaces
 52 Intro|           may be objected, (1) that Plato nowhere says that his proportion
 53 Intro|      numbers was known to him. What Plato chiefly intends to express
 54 Intro|          prosperity of mortals. But Plato delights to think of God
 55 Intro|          the ideal and the sensible Plato interposes the two natures
 56 Intro|          extension. (We remark that Plato does away with the above
 57 Intro|           and were very familiar to Plato, as we gather from the Parmenides.
 58 Intro|          his mind.~Space is said by Plato to be the ‘containing vessel
 59 Intro|         that sort of consistency to Plato which has been given to
 60 Intro|            Latin ‘spatium.’ Neither Plato nor any other Greek would
 61 Intro|            even eternal nature; and Plato seems more willing to admit
 62 Intro|            Hence it was natural for Plato to conceive of it as eternal.
 63 Intro|       traces of the elements. These Plato, like Empedocles, supposed
 64 Intro|    confusion (Greek) which preceded Plato does not attempt further
 65 Intro|        surfaces which he has formed Plato proceeds to generate the
 66 Intro|           of another kind. Probably Plato notices this as the only
 67 Intro|             universe.’ According to Plato earth was composed of cubes,
 68 Intro|          however Laws). Yet perhaps Plato may regard these sides or
 69 Intro|             therefore, according to Plato, a particle of water when
 70 Intro|       reunion of them in new forms. Plato himself proposes the question,
 71 Intro|       physical phenomena from which Plato has gathered his views of
 72 Intro|           to water, earth to earth. Plato’s doctrine of attraction
 73 Intro|           summed up as follows: (1) Plato supposes the greater masses
 74 Intro|          Greek). Like the atomists, Plato attributes the differences
 75 Intro|         Section 4.~The astronomy of Plato is based on the two principles
 76 Intro|       unable to expel, and of which Plato cannot tell us the origin.
 77 Intro|            origin. The creation, in Plato’s sense, is really the creation
 78 Intro|             to attribute to many of Plato’s words in the Timaeus any
 79 Intro|      forming the soul of the world.~Plato was struck by the phenomenon
 80 Intro|          spot around an axis, which Plato calls the movement of thought
 81 Intro|             the wandering stars, as Plato himself terms them in the
 82 Intro|         perfect or intelligent. Yet Plato also speaks of an ‘annus
 83 Intro|      produced by the seven planets. Plato seems to confuse the actual
 84 Intro|            immobility of the earth. Plato’s doctrine on this subject
 85 Intro|             Aristotle attributed to Plato the doctrine of the rotation
 86 Intro|        which it may be replied that Plato never says that the earth
 87 Intro|           difficult to imagine that Plato was unaware of the consequence.
 88 Intro|           and obvious, is just what Plato often seems to be ignorant
 89 Intro|            if, as Mr Grote assumes, Plato did not see that the rotation
 90 Intro|             more in accordance with Plato’s other writings than the
 91 Intro|           the earth. The silence of Plato in these and in some other
 92 Intro|         literally true according to Plato’s view. For the alternation
 93 Intro|           either of the doctrine of Plato or of the sense which he
 94 Intro|        Greek). For the citations of Plato in Aristotle are frequently
 95 Intro|         from which we are defending Plato.~After weighing one against
 96 Intro|            are inclined to believe, Plato thought that the earth was
 97 Intro|           how they were imagined by Plato, if he had any fixed or
 98 Intro|         anthropomorphism blend with Plato’s highest flights of idealism.
 99 Intro|           the third degree; by this Plato expresses the measure of
100 Intro|        however, an inconsistency in Plato’s manner of conceiving the
101 Intro|      together the opposite poles of Plato’s system, we find that,
102 Intro|            The liver is imagined by Plato to be a smooth and bright
103 Intro|      intimations of the future. But Plato is careful to observe that
104 Intro|         same irony which appears in Plato’s remark, that ‘the men
105 Intro|             the council chamber, as Plato graphically calls the head,
106 Intro|       physiological speculations of Plato either with ancient or modern
107 Intro|      generated in an inverse order.~Plato found heat and air within
108 Intro|       description is figurative, as Plato himself implies when he
109 Intro|      principles largely employed by Plato in explaining the operations
110 Intro|          air to permeate the flesh.~Plato’s account of digestion and
111 Intro|          the veins are replenished. Plato does not enquire how the
112 Intro|      supervene.~As in the Republic, Plato is still the enemy of the
113 Intro|    physicians. May we not claim for Plato an anticipation of modern
114 Intro|             possible.~Section 7.~In Plato’s explanation of sensation
115 Intro|           red with white and black. Plato himself tells us that he
116 Intro|            the tongue to the heart. Plato has a lively sense of the
117 Intro|            superficial observation, Plato remarks that the more sensitive
118 Intro|           any of these speculations Plato approximated to the discoveries
119 Intro|        should consider not how much Plato actually knew, but how far
120 Intro|        intermediate class, in which Plato falls short of the truths
121 Intro|           any rate, the language of Plato has been the language of
122 Intro|       between theology and science. Plato also approaches very near
123 Intro|        experimented: in the Timaeus Plato seems to have thought that
124 Intro|           of figure and number; and Plato is not wrong in attributing
125 Intro|             of the Pythagoreans and Plato suggested to Kepler that
126 Intro|     Democritus and the triangles of Plato? The ancients should not
127 Intro|          the doctrine of equipoise. Plato affirms, almost in so many
128 Intro|             and development, but to Plato this is the beginning and
129 Intro|           gravitation, according to Plato, is a law, not only of the
130 Intro|           of the world, and of this Plato may be thought to have had
131 Intro|           principle of geology.~(2) Plato is perfectly aware—and he
132 Intro|           to the other dialogues of Plato and to the previous philosophy; (
133 Intro|             we are in doubt how far Plato is expressing his own sentiments.
134 Intro|           no reason to suppose that Plato intended his scattered thoughts
135 Intro|          refer to the successors of Plato,—for the elucidation of
136 Intro|           Pythagorean philosophers. Plato does not look out upon the
137 Intro|               Phaedo; Arist. Met.). Plato, following his master, affirms
138 Intro|          and these are connected by Plato in the Timaeus, but in accordance
139 Intro|              But unlike Anaxagoras, Plato made the sun and stars living
140 Intro|           constructed into figures. Plato adopted their speculations
141 Intro|          resembled the triangles of Plato in being too small to be
142 Intro|          they are either ignored by Plato or referred to with a secret
143 Intro|         were already some who, like Plato, made the earth their centre.
144 Intro|             much of a syncretist is Plato, though not after the manner
145 Intro|             we find fewer traces in Plato of early Ionic or Eleatic
146 Intro|            to us from the Phaedo of Plato as a Pythagorean philosopher
147 Intro|           about him. The story that Plato had purchased three books
148 Intro|          the earth, approximates to Plato’s sphere of the Same and
149 Intro|         Same and of the Other. Like Plato (Tim.), he denied the above
150 Intro|       neither is there any trace in Plato, who makes the earth the
151 Intro|            found in the writings of Plato, although the importance
152 Intro|            mind. Both Philolaus and Plato agree in making the world
153 Intro|     confusion and indistinctness in Plato’s account both of man and
154 Intro|           We cannot tell (nor could Plato himself have told) where
155 Intro|           cannot explain (nor could Plato himself have explained to
156 Intro|        reflection of the other. For Plato never clearly saw that both
157 Intro|             repeated by us. But, as Plato would say, ‘there is no
158 Intro|      presentiment of ideas. Even in Plato they still retain their
159 Intro|           consistent whole.~Lastly, Plato, though an idealist philosopher,
160 Intro|         with the other dialogues of Plato.~(b) The Timaeus contains
161 Intro|           to have an ideal of which Plato is unable to tell us the
162 Intro|             him from an evil world. Plato is sensible of the difficulty;
163 Intro|             to be the most perfect. Plato, like Anaxagoras, while
164 Intro|            it. The difficulty which Plato feels, is that which all
165 Intro|      self-inflicted. And here, like Plato (the insertion of a note
166 Intro|            we too hastily said that Plato in the Timaeus regarded
167 Intro|          upon them, are regarded by Plato as involuntary rather than
168 Intro|         Something like this is what Plato means when he speaks of
169 Intro|          criticizing the Timaeus of Plato, in pointing out the inconsistencies
170 Intro|          that a few pages of one of Plato’s dialogues have grown into
171 Intro|          whether the description in Plato agreed with the locality
172 Intro|            permanent value:—~1. Did Plato derive the legend of Atlantis
173 Intro|           in any writer previous to Plato; neither in Homer, nor in
174 Intro|             years after the time of Plato, had been transferred to
175 Intro|             a generation later than Plato, and therefore may have
176 Intro|            to have been invented by Plato than to have been brought
177 Intro|            part of his legend which Plato also seeks to impose upon
178 Intro|             rather to the genius of Plato? Or when the Egyptian says—‘
179 Intro|             literary trick by which Plato sets off his narrative?
180 Intro|          stated in the narrative of Plato? And whence came the tradition
181 Intro|          unfinished Egyptian poem’ (Plato). But are probabilities
182 Intro|            in antiquity? or why did Plato, if the whole narrative
183 Intro|        except in the imagination of Plato. Martin is of opinion that
184 Intro|           Martin is of opinion that Plato would have been terrified
185 Intro|             whether the Atlantis of Plato in any degree held out a
186 Intro|           by the great authority of Plato, and therefore the legend
187 Intro|           discovery.~The Timaeus of Plato, like the Protagoras and
188 Intro|     thinking, not of the context in Plato, but of the contemporary
189 Intro|             to the understanding of Plato, it throws an interesting
190 Intro|          analysis of the Timaeus of Plato, omitting the introduction
191 Intro|          simplified the language of Plato, in a few others he has
192 Intro|         from the other dialogues of Plato, we may still gather a few
193 Intro|         reader. There is nothing in Plato grander and simpler than
194 Intro|             verisimilitude by which Plato insinuates into the mind
195 Intro|             implying to the mind of Plato a divine reality. The slight
196 Intro|           is very characteristic of Plato.~
197 Timae|           before ours (Observe that Plato gives the same date (9000