Ontology
is a fairly recent word, first coined
in the seventeenth century, and its central subject is the nature of existence.
Cosmogony (in our particular context used interchangeably with the word Cosmology) is an account of the origin of the world. The two words are
obviously different in their meaning, but there is also an unbreakable bond
between these terms, to the extent that cosmology has no philosophical point
without an accompanying ontology, while the latter is utterly incomplete
without an accompanying and corresponding cosmogony, which, under all
circumstances, must be presented in ontology as a key part of the explanation
of the nature of existence.
Platonism
naturally includes both an ontology and a cosmology, and so does pre-Socratic
philosophy. But it might be very interesting to connect the two disciplines not
within each one’s own domain but “crosswise,”
as suggested in my title, and this is exactly how I wish to proceed.
Bertrand
Russell names cosmology as the fourth most significant area of Plato’s
philosophical inquiry (see my entry The
Hybrid Genius Of Philosophy, posted on this blog on April 2nd,
2014). (In the said entry I made a preference for the
word ontology instead of cosmology, but subsequently I have come
up with what I think is a better idea.) He makes an introductory remark
on Plato’s cosmogony, emphasizing its historical ,rather than philosophical
interest, which I find interesting enough to quote, rather than to
recapitulate, here:
Plato’s cosmogony is set forth in the Timaeus, which was
translated into Latin by Cicero, and consequently was the only one of the Dialogues
known in the West in the Middle Ages. Both then and in Neo-Platonism
earlier, it had more influence than anything else in Plato, which is curious,
since it certainly contains more that is simply silly than is to be found in
his other writings. As philosophy, it is unimportant. Historically, however, it
was so influential that it must be considered in some detail.
It
is time now to hear it from the horse’s mouth, that is, from the mouth of Timaeus the Pythagorean, who naturally
sees the explanation of the world in numbers. It is quite possible that the “silliness”
that Russell is talking about results from Plato’s effort to combine his own
Pythagorean-based doctrine with a more or less faithful, on his part, representation
of Pythagoreanism, as he sees it, for the sake of desired authenticity. (To
check my impression, I read the Timaeus again, under this angle, and, so
far, have not changed my mind.) Needless to say, I am quoting Timaeus in patchy
excerpts, recommending that my reader read this Dialogue by himself, either in
my Plato subfolder in the Sources & Comments folder, or in
the normal good old book form, which
is how I myself would have preferred it, as I love the mystique of holding
and reading actual books, rather than getting my reading from the Internet,
or in a likewise modern fashion.
So
here is what Timaeus has to say about it in this Platonic cameo embedded in a
pre-Socratic broche. (Can you expect anything else from Plato’s choice of a
Pythagorean?)
First we must ask: What is always and has no becoming; and what is
always becoming and never is? What is apprehended by intelligence and reason is
always the same, but what is conceived by opinion, helped by sensation, and
without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing, and never
really is. Now, everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be
created by some cause, without a cause, nothing can be created. The work of the
creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable, and fashions the form and
nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must be fair and perfect, but
when he looks to the created only and uses a created pattern, it is not
perfect. Was the world always in existence and without beginning, or created,
and had it a beginning? Created, I say, being visible and tangible and having a
body, and, thus, sensible; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion
and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now, what is created
must of necessity be created by a cause. But the maker of this universe is past
finding out; and there is still a question,-- Which of the patterns had the
artificer in view, when he made the world,-- the pattern of the unchangeable,
or of what is created? If the world be fair and the artificer good, he must
have looked to what is eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and
he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has
been framed in the likeness of what is apprehended by reason and is unchangeable
and must of necessity be a copy of something. Now it’s all-important that the
beginning of everything should be according to nature. And speaking of the copy
and the original, we may assume that words are akin to the matter they describe.
When they relate to the lasting, and the permanent, and the intelligible, they
must be lasting and unalterable, irrefutable and immovable. But when they
express only the copy, or a likeness and not the eternal things themselves,
they need only be likely and analogous to the real words. As being is to
becoming, so is truth to belief.
Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation.
He was good, and he desired all things to be good, and nothing bad, so far as
this was attainable. Wherefore, also finding the whole visible sphere not at
rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he
brought order. (So, this is not
a creation ex nihilo, but out of a pre-existent matter, which was in a
state of chaos, so that creation was an act of bringing order to the
world.)
When he (the creator) was framing the universe, he put intelligence
in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by
nature fairest and best. Wherefore, in the language of probability we may say
that the world became a living creature, endowed with soul and intelligence by
the providence of God. Are we right in saying that there is one world, or that
they are many, and infinite? There must be one only, if the created copy is to
agree with the original; for what includes all intelligible creatures can’t
have a second or companion. In order that the world might be solitary, like the
perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them;
but there is and ever will be one.
Following
Heraclitus, Plato asserts that, in creating the world, God used the four
Heraclitean elements: fire, air, water, and earth, harmonized by Pythagorean
proportions, so that only the spirit of amity would dwell within it. God made the soul prior to, and older than, the body, to be
the ruler and mistress, while the body was to be the subject. And he made her
out of the indivisible and unchangeable, and also out of that which is
divisible and has to do with material bodies, he made a third, intermediate kind
of essence, partaking of the nature of the same and of the other, and this he
put in a mean between the indivisible and the divisible and material. He took
the three elements of the same, the other, and the essence, and mingled them
into one single form, compressing by force the reluctant and unsociable nature
of the other into the same. When he had mingled them with the essence, and out
of three made one, he, again, divided this whole into as many portions as was
fitting, each portion being a compound of the same, the other, and the essence.
When the father creator saw the creature he had made, moving and
living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced and determined to
make the copy more like the original; and as this was eternal, he sought to
make the universe eternal so far as might be. The nature of the ideal being was
everlasting, but to bestow this attribute in its fullness upon a creature was
impossible; whereupon he resolved to have a moving image of eternity and when
he set in order the heaven he made this image eternal but moving according to
number while eternity itself rests in unity; and this image we call Time. Time
and the heaven came into being at the same instant so that having been created
together, if there was ever to be a dissolution of them they might be dissolved
together.
There
are two kinds of causes: those which are intelligent and endowed with mind, and
those which, being moved by others, cause the movement of others. The latter
causes do not produce good and fair results, but cause chance effects without
order or design. Thus Creation carries both these elements: intelligent design
and necessity, the latter not being under God’s control.
And
finally, on the origin and nature of space, Plato engages in a
quintessentially esoteric rumination that Russell himself candidly admits to
have a dim understanding of: There is one kind of
being that is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving
anything into itself from without, nor, itself, going out to any other, but
invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is
granted to intelligence only. And there is another nature of the same name with
it, and like to it, perceived by sense, created, always in motion, becoming in
place and, again, vanishing out of place, which is apprehended by opinion and
sense. There is, yet, a third nature, which is space, and is eternal, and
admits not of destruction, and provides a home for all created things,
apprehended without the help of sense, by a kind of spurious reason, and is
hardly real; which we beholding as in a dream, say of all existence that it
must, of necessity, be in some place and occupy a space, but that what is
neither in heaven nor in earth has no existence.
Plato’s
cosmogony is a very interesting subject. So far in this entry I have prepared a
reference base for my further study, which I intend to engage in, at a later
time. In the meantime, what comes out clearly from the Timaeus is an
organic connection of Plato’s cosmogony to the pre-Socratic (Pythagorean,
Heraclitean, etc.) ontology, which the chosen excerpts, as I am convinced, have
succeeded in demonstrating.
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