Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon Peter Lautner Gretchen J. Reydams-Schils (ed.). Plato's Timaeus as Cultural Icon. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame, 2003. Pp. xiv, 334. $59.95 (hb.). ISBN 0-268-03871-6; $29.95 (pb.). ISBN 0-268-03872-4. It seems that the Timaeus is on the way to regaining the popularity and respect it had in antiquity. In the last decade we saw a great number of colloquia and workshops devoted to this work. The thirteen articles in this volume are papers originally presented in 2000 at a conference at Notre Dame. Two of them deal with some intrinsic problems of the dialogue itself, while the rest depict the various phases of its fortuna up to Schelling. We learn how to set the Timaeus within the context of Plato's later dialogues. The book has two layers, one for those who are not yet initiated, another signalling a "longer way" to reach the order based on the ideas, which relies on doctrines we find primarily in the Philebus. The notion of cÒra reflects on problems raised in the Parmenides, which, along with the problems on the interrelations of the elements, may have been an unsuccessful attempt to give a coherent picture of cosmogony. The essays on the aftermath of the Timaeus in antiquity concentrate on the development of the theory of the principles One and Indefinite Dyad in the Old Academy, and discuss the Middle Platonic context of the notion of the fall of the soul in the Chaldaean Oracles and the way Philo of Alexandria adopted a theory of matter that was intimately tied to the acceptance or refusal of the notion of creatio ex nihilo. We can also read a fine assessment of Cicero's partial translation of the dialogue, a survey of the mind-body relationship in Galen and the critique of his position in some Neoplatonists, and an analysis of the allegory of the soul's ascent and descent in Martianus Capella. The other group of papers focuses on reminiscences in the later period. There is a good study on the manuscript tradition of Calcidius' commentary, raising the question of the original extent of the commentary. Another fine paper is concerned with the adaptation of the dialogue in early Arabic philosophy, where the Greek Neoplatonic mediation must be emphasized. The importance of Ficino's commentary for later Renaissance science, especially in mathematics and the interpretation of the myth of the Demiurge, is also properly stressed. The next essay dwells on Kepler's dealing with some crucial doctrines in Plato's text, such as the primacy of geometric patterns and the creative activity of the Demiurge. Finally, we have a paper on the way in which the young Schelling adopted the Platonic views on the limited and unlimited, as well as on the theory of ideas. Later on, Schelling questioned the authenticity of the Timaeus, but his doubts in this matter did not impede him from considering the dialogue an important source of inspiration. One can raise only few queries concerning the papers. There might be some doubts whether Iamblichus' De Communi Mathematica Scientia IV, 15.6–18.12 refers to Speusippus. It is true that Speusippus is never called by name in that passage, but he is not mentioned anywhere else in the [End Page 81] whole work either. One may also supplement the account of the mind-body relationship in later Neoplatonists. Damascius' commentary on the Phaedo contains an analysis of Cebes' idea that the soul is a harmony of bodily ingredients (1.361–406, 2.45–54). He both refers to earlier criticisms of the argument by Aristotle, Porphyry, and Proclus, and adds his own reconstruction of Socrates' answer in syllogistic form. The volume is furnished with an extensive bibliography, an index of passages cited, and a general index. This is a handsome book having only one painful error on the back cover. It is not Aristotle who holds the Timaeus in Raphael's painting; it is Plato! The overall quality of the papers is far better than average for a volume of this sort. They deserve to be read by all advanced...