Abstract
Plutarch’s De animae procreatione is, by the author’s own admission, an unusual account of the cosmogony in the Timaeus, yet what is most original about it is often overlooked. The philosopher and biographer has a relatively positive view of women’s intellectual capabilities, including their ability to attain virtue, and as such the suggestion that the feminine principle of the cosmos is the origin of sublunary evil presents both an ethical and a metaphysical problem. Plutarch attempts to solve this problem by separating Matter from its movement, thus theorising a third kind, disorderly motion that ultimately causes evil. Even so, he maintains a close relationship between Motion and Matter by stressing their acosmic interaction, which allows for a degree of scepticism regarding the feminine and the female while creating space for the virtue of women. He does so by incorporating Matter and Motion into a single acosmic principle of disorder, the Indefinite Dyad. This division of kinds is apparent also in De Iside, where it becomes clear that Plutarch intends to frame the feminine as a potentially positive force in the cosmos.
Highlights
In De animae procreatione in Timaeo Plutarch names three first principles, real existence, space, and becoming (1024c)
The second part allows for a measure of scepticism regarding women’s ability to attain virtue in practice. It is clear in both De animae procreatione and De Iside that Plutarch intends to separate the feminine from misconceptions that attribute to it the origin of evil
It is unlikely that the Indefinite Dyad is a principle that is higher on the ontological scale than Matter and Motion, instead of an encompassing principle of disorder represented by Isis and Typhon
Summary
In De animae procreatione in Timaeo Plutarch names three first principles, real existence, space, and becoming (1024c). 376 The Feminine, Evil and Matter in Plutarch disorderly motion as the cause of evil but denied that there is in Plato an acosmic ‘evil’ soul akin to that found in Plutarch’s metaphysics.
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