Ancienl Philosophy 23 (2003)

cr;)Mathesis Publications
Phileban Gods
Amber Carpenter
93
Philebus and Protarchus have encountered Socrates at one of his more pious
moments. Socrates opens his manoeuvres against the hedonist camp by asserting
the traditional humility in naming the gods. 'So now I address Aphrodite by
whatever title pleases her' (12c3-4). But this pious formula is made pointed by
the sentence which introduces it. Remarking that Philebus claims Aphrodite's
truest name is pleasure, Socrates adds, 'But I, Protarchus, always feel more than
human dread over what names to use for the gods-it surpasses the greatest fear'
(l2c 1-3). These are strong words in a dialogue so generally lacking in melo-
drama-and we are barely one page into it.
But this outspoken restraint voiced at the beginning of the dialogue does not
prevent Socrates later from asserting what should by all accounts be a most irrev-
erent claim. Earlier in the dialogue (20c-22b), the lives of mindless pleasure, of
pleasureless thinking, and the life mixed of the two were delineated from one
another. Recalling the pleasureless life of mind, Socrates says,
It was one of the conditions agreed on in our comparison of
lives that the person who chooses the life of reason and intelli-
gence must not enjoy pleasures either large or small ... He may
then live in this fashion, and perhaps there would be nothing
absurd if this life turns out to be the most godlike. (33b2-7)
Earlier argument had already shown that such a life devoid of pleasure was not fit
for a human being; divine may be the only thing left for such a life to be, if it is
even possible for it to be a life. But it is not, at any rate, the way one would usu-
ally characterise Aphrodite, whatever name one may use for her. And now
Protarchus, who began the dialogue as a rather conventional well-heeled young
man, rejoins, 'It is at any rate not likely that the gods experience either pleasure
or the opposite.' And Socrates confirms, 'It is certainly not likely. For either of
these states would be quite unseemly in their case' (33b8-1 I). Denying that the
life of the gods is a supremcly pleasant one is certainly non-standard, especially
if the gods we have in mind are Aphrodite and family, and we arc perhaps sup-
posed to be startled both by the claim and by Protarchus' ready acceptance of it. I
I Euthyphro's outraging of conventional sensibilities presumably does not consist in his defini-
tion of piety as 'what is pleasing to the gods': ' I say that if a man knows how to say and do what is
pleasing (KEXaptcr/.u:va) to the gods at prayer and sacrifice, those are pious actions such as preserve
both private houses and public affairs of state. The opposite of these pleasing actions
(KExaptcrlLEvOlV) are impious and overturn and destroy everything' (Euth. 14b2-5). Compare
Socrates' gloss on Philebus' definition of the good as 'for all creatures to enjoy themselves (XalpflV),
94
Protarchus, as representative of the hedonist cause and of conventional morality,
should presume that the divine life-perhaps even by definition-is the most
pleasant. So this denial of pleasure to the gods is not what we might otherwise
have expected. But in the intervening pages Plato has slowly and surreptitiously
introduced a different notion of the divine, one very much in contrast to the tradi-
tional Olympian pantheon.
The unnerving ambiguity we are familiar with from Plato, in the way that he
characterises Socrates' feelings towards the traditional gods of Athens (see
EUfhyphro e.g. 6b-c, Apol. 26b-c, PhaeJo 118a, Phaedrus 229c ff.), and divinity
generally, turns up throughout the Philehlls.
2
Thus we have, cutting through the
middle of the explicitly 'philosophical' work of the first third of the dialogue, a
curious episode in which Socrates relates a simplistic way of resolving the squab-
ble between the hedonist and his opponent. He tells Protarchus,
Some memory has come to my mind that one of the gods
seems to have sent me to help us ... It is a doctrine that once
upon a time I had in a dream-or perhaps I was awake-that I
remember now, concerning pleasure and knowledge. (20b3-4,
6-7)
About the story that follows, there are many questions to ask: how seriously does
Socrates intend the argument embedded in a dream and how seriously does he
expect it to be taken? How much philosophical work does Plato think the dream
argument does') Why does Plato have Socrates disavow authority for the content
of the dream? How committed are we meant to be to the conclusions? And why
does Plato interrupt the technical philosophical discussion with divine inspira-
tion?3
Although he opens the debate with the hedonist by calling upon Aphrodite, and
although he marks the beginning of the conclusion of the discussion by calling
upon 'Dionysus or Hephaestus or any other deity who is in charge of presiding
over such mixtures' (61 cl-2), most of Socrates' references to the divine are even
more indeterminate than those.
4
There is one very pointed remark to Philebus at
the conclusion of the exposition of the first kind of being-apeiron.
It is the goddess herself, fair Philebus, who recognises how
excess and the overabundance of our wickedness allow for no
limit in our pleasures and their fulfilment, and she therefore
to be pleased and delighted' (Frede trans. here and throughout. unless otherwise noted). Even Aristo-
tle's less anthropomorphic God 'always enjoys a single and simple pleasure' (NE vii 14.1154b26).
2 E.g. 16c5-7, e3 (Divine Method), ISb6-7 (Theuth). 20b3-4 (The Dream). 22c5-6 (divine mind),
2Sb-c (prayer for the mixed class). 26b7-cl (goddess saves pleasure), 2Sa4-30d4 (cosmology), 33b
(Divine Life), 3ge-40b (Good Man Argument), 61b-c (mixing the good life). 66bS-6 (ranking rea-
son), 66c-d (Orpheus and Zeus the Saviour).
3 For some suggestions of general answers, sec e.g. Taylor 1956. 35.
4 There is, of course. the approach to reading a Platonic dialogue which would dismiss any qlch
comments as just so much literary window-dre"ing. Through close attention to the use and effeet of
these references, I hope to dispel this inclination and to show how taking the 'literary flourishes' seri-
ously can payoff philosophically.
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imposes law and order as a limit on them. (26b7 -10)
Frede 1993, 23n 1 claims plausibly, against Hackforth 1945, 48n3, that the god-
dess in question must be Aphrodite-she, at any rate, was claimed as the patron
saint of the hedonists at the beginning of the contest. But this remark is very
obviously made for the benefit of the hedonist, addressed by name-who has
lapsed into silence for the last seven pages. Although it has intimations for the
treatment of pleasure to come, it hardly amounts to argument or evidence, nor
would this be the place for such. Again, the comment is pregnant with ambiguity.
Are we to suppose that Socrates really believes in a goddess who is responsible
for making pleasure thus and SO?5 Are we supposed to assume that his concep-
tion of 'the goddess' is one shared with Philebus, when the hedonist invokes the
goddess Aphrodite as 'Hedone'? For all we are told, anything would count as
'the goddess' if only it were responsible for what Socrates already takes to be
good-namely, imposing order on disordered pleasure.
6
Euthyphro and the
causes of 'the pious' may not be far from our minds'? Indeed, I should like firstly
to show that in the Philebus, what counts as good is prior to and responsible for
what will count as 'divine'. Secondly, I shall argue, the notion of the divine at
work here has less to do with personified deities, and more to do with the ratio-
nalist position Socrates is keen to defend. I shall take this pair of claims in
reverse order.
I. Who or What is(are) Plato's god(s)?
We should get our first clue to this last point by taking seriously the starting
point that Plato has Socrates choose. 'We must do our best, making our start with
the goddess herself' (l2b6). This turns out to be the first step in setting up a par-
allelism between the arguments on behalf of mind and of pleasure which will run
through the course of the dialogue. Attention will alternate, taking each candidate
for the good in human life in turn. This happens for the first time at the end of the
'opening skirmish', when Socrates wins Protarchus' support for the principle that
pleasure is 'complex' or 'of many kinds' by subjecting his own candidate,
'knowing, understanding, and remembering, and what belongs with them, right
judgement and true calculations' (11 b6-c1), to the same argument, arguing that
it, too, is complex (I3d-14b). The implicit promissory note to take up in turn the
deity 'mind, knowledge, judgement' in its own right is not, however, made good
until we are some way into the dialogue-first at 24a ff., when it is classified
according to its kind, and then finally in detail at 55c-59d.
Socrates' candidate, as the above list indicates, is indeed complex. It may be
5 Vlastos 1991, 158 tells us that Socrates. at least, 'subscribes unquestioningly to the age-old
view that side by side with the physical world accessible to our senses, there exists another, populated
by mysterious beings, personal like ourselves'.
6 This may explain Hackforth's conjecture that the goddess referred to may be Harmonia.
7 In the Euthyphro. Socrates is concerned at lOa-lib with the question of whether 'the good' is
whatever the gods happen to love, or whether instead the gods are made. by the goodness of good
things, to love them.
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wondered whether there is any unity at alii to the goods that he prefers to Phile-
bus' pleasures as sources of value in a human life. Certainly, unlike pleasure, he
seems never to treat his own candidate as a whole. in such a way as to show that
it is a whole. And this is an odd thing for Plato simply to 'forget' - for one major
theme of the Philehus is the difference between complex wholes. which have
unity as well as multiplieity,8 and heaps of fragmentsY It is, after all, its crucial
lack of unity which shows the mindless life of passing pleasures to be no human
life at all (21 c-e). When they have finished their long inquiry into pleasure,
Socrates directs the attention of his interlocutor back to the rival contestant for
the source of good in life. 'Now, let us not undertake to give pleasure every pos-
sible test, while going very lightly with reason and knowledge' (55c4-6). But
Socrates, in addressing his own candidate explicitly there, very frustratingly
looks rapidly only at different kinds of knowledge. Nowhere in what purports to
be the equivalent treatment of the second candidate do we find an analysis of
judgement, or of thinking, reasoning, or mind.
It might be that Plato takes all of these as more self-evidently of a piece than
we, comfortable with our modern conceptions and distinctions, would be
inclined to allow. In this case, I think this an inadequate explanation. Rather, as
we shall see as the dialogue unfolds, the inclusion of that indeterminate hybrid,
dialectic, as a kind of 'knowledge' gives some indication of the unity 'thinking,
knowing and judging' Plato thinks Socrates' candidate has. And it may be that he
would not be mistaken to suppose there to be some such unity. But however inti-
mately interrelated they may be, Plato does at least indicate that 'mind' and
'knowledge' arc distinct enough to be deserving of different treatment. He shows
this simply in the fact that the two do come in. separately, for quite different anal-
yses.
While explicit treatment of Socrates' candidate has been reserved for the latter
part of the dialogue, there are ways in which the dialogue could not get even that
far without having dealt with some aspects of the issue already, The discussion of
pleasure began with a statement of what pleasure was, where it was found and
what brought it about. Only after this, and based upon this conception of plea-
sure, did the partners embark on a dissection of the various kinds of pleasure pos-
sible. When we turn to knowledge, by contrast. Socrates can begin with the
analysis of kinds of knowledge, skipping over the statement of what kind of thing
knowledge is, because we have already discussed the nature of knowledge in the
methodology and epistemology of the first third of the dialogue.
After wringing from Protarchus the concession that pleasures are various,
Socrates headed off on what appears to be a tangent. Suggesting that 'we give
8 Bodies of knowledge and other intelligible entities in the epistemology and methodology of
l5a-18d; 'right combinations of opposites' in the metaphysics of 23c-27b.
9 Disconnected or irrelevant bits of 'knowledge' that youths and sophists use to torment their
victims (l5e, l7a); non-entities such as hot and cold, double, or random concatenations of such things
in the metaphysics-which, perhaps, could not properly even be said to be heaps of parts, because
unti I there is a whole, they cannot have come to be any thing at all.
97
even stronger support to this principle' (l4c 1-2), Socrates introduced the notori-
ous problem of 'the one and many', as well as his preferred solution to the gen-
uine difficulties raised by the plurality and unity of complex, abstract wholes.
But the solution which followed, as we saw, was no algorithm for unknotting
sophistical riddles: it was instead nothing less than a comprehensive statement
about the kind of thing knowledge is. While it was prcscnted as a method on
account of which 'everything in any field of art that has ever been discovered has
come to light' (16c2-3), what we were given in the requirements for. and the
application and results of, the method was a model of knowledge, of 'what makes
us knowledgeable' (17b6). Did the method proposed not end in laying out the
requirements for knowledge, it would not be able to serve as the necessary bridge
between the genuine difficulties about complex abstract wholes, and the' solu-
tion' to those difficulties. There is no algorithm for resolving disputes about com-
plexity and unity generally; but once we see what kind of thing would count as
knowledge, we can see how to go about resolving these disputes in each instance.
Being a first stab at an elucidation of Socrates' candidate, it is no accident that
the method is introduced as 'a gift of the gods to men' (16c5).
That this attribution of divine origins is not just hyperbole becomes plausible
when we look finally at the first description of 'mind'. Looking in earnest now
for the source of goodness in human life, Socrates has divided 'everything exist-
ing now in the universe' into four kinds-limit, the unlimited, the mixture of the
two, and the cause of the mixture of the two. Limit is 'whatever is related as
number to number or measure to measure' (25a8-b2). When this is joined up with
the unlimited, which in itself has no measure and-like hot and cold- is partially
defined by what it is not-then 'certain generations result' (25e4). These right
combinations (25e7) of limit and unlimitedness include health (25e8), music
(26a2-4), and climate or seasons (26a6-8). The fourth class, 'cause', gets a com-
paratively succinct description-about half a page (26e-27b) out of four is
devoted to describing it. The main point is that nothing (at least nothing complex)
is the cause of itself (or at least not the cause of its own complexity). 10 Thus we
find Socrates claiming in the Phaedo that
anything that is composite and a compound by nature [is 1 liable
to be split up in its component parts, and only that which is
non-composite. if anything, is not likely to be split up. (78c 1-4)
There is less argument here than uncontested assertion, and we might be wary of
importing into the Philehlls principles from the Phaedo. But we can at least
gather from this that there must, in Plato's view, be at least some account of the
cause of any sustained, unchanging complex unity. Things put together are likely
to come apart at the seams, unless there is some reason for them not to do so. In
the Philebus, the point is more metaphysical than physical. Unity and wholeness
cannot be ensured or explained simply by the conjunction of various pieces.
Without some account of the wholeness of the whole- that is, of the nature and
10 Cf. Sedley 1998 which brings the point out nicely.
98
integrity of the whole itself-we are liable to end up with scattered and dispersed
pieces, perhaps wholes in their own right, but no longer pal1s working together to
comprise some unity. Complex unities as such are not necessarily changing
things, or even changcable; still, as they are mixtures of pems and apeiron-
because, that is, they have internal complexity-they must 'come into being'
through some cause. There must be some cause to account for their unity, some
explanation of the wholeness of the whole.
There has been some discussion about why Socrates at 23dll, rejects as unnec-
essary the 'fifth kind' kindly offered him by Protarchus.
11
There has been even
more discussion about whether the 'things' mixed out of peras and apeiron are
meant to be physical particulars, or whether the description is supposed at least to
apply to physical particulars. The strength of the supposition that-against all
appearances and however out of place in the overall discussion-Plato must aftcr
all be referring to sensible particulars rests on his description of these mixturcs as
'certain generations' (YfVEGli;, 25e4) and as 'a coming-into-being' (YEVG1V,
26d8).12 And of course, we are very familiar with thc fact that genesis applies to
particulars, ollsia to Forms.
13
The question of just what 'certain generations' are, however. is not unrelated to
the rejection of a fifth kind. Seeing these together provides a further reason why
the common view of geneseis as 'sensible particulars' will not work.
14
For, if the
kind of genesis - of wh ich the fourth kind is meant to be the cause - is physical
generation. then we will certainly need a fifth category to account for physical
decay. IS If, however, the kind of 'generation' at stake here is atemporal-if, that
is, mixtures are called 'generations' for some other reason and they are, as seems
likely by the examples (health, climate, music
I6
), the same as the unchanging
monads from earlier in the dialogue (l5al-7)-then it is clear that we will not
II Taylor 1956 says that the suggestion is a joke. because mind causes everything. even destruc-
tion. while Hackforth 1945, 44nl maintains that it must be meant seriously. Frede 1993. 19n1 claims
that the causes of disintegration are simply too manifold to be classified.
I, The second occurrence is the much cited YEVEcrtV E i ~ OUOlcn'. about the significance of which
commentators are divided. Hackforth 1945, 49n2 calls Grube as all ally. to argue that not too much
weight should be laid on this peculiar phrase- 'genesis cis ousiall need not mean an) thing more than
genesis alone'. Frede 1993. hii n3 grants we ought not make too lllueh of the expression, but I think
rightly replies that we should also not make too little of it.
I' Cf. e.g. Bolton 1975. We might think of the distinction as codified at Timaeus 28a-29c.
I. Because of the difficulty caused in reconciling the dialogue's two discussions of limit (peras)
and uillimtcdness (or indeterminacy, apeiron) if either discussion is taken to be primarily concerned
with sensible particulars (or the problem, from the Parmenides. of their 'participation' in Forms), we
may already be moved to suppose an alternative account preferable. But the full extent and conse-
quences of the alternative reading of genesis will not become clear until the discussion of false plea-
sure.
15 After all, if the same thing (mind, in this case) explains one thing (generation) and its opposite
(decay), then we have not found the actual explanation at all (ef. Hankinson 1998).
16 One of the prominent examples of a thing suitable for treatment by the Divine Method
(17b l1-e6), music is redescribed in similar terms as metaphysically a combination of limit and unlim-
itedness of particular kinds at 26a.
99
need a fifth category to account for their coming apart. Such monads do not come
apart. 17 Although they also do not come-to-be in time, their coming to be a gen-
uine unity is dependent upon some cause; their unity is not self-explanatory.
More than that is not brought out in the first explanation of cause. But with these
divisions in hand, Socrates goes about the next task of locating each of the candi-
dates for the good life within their appropriate category of being.
There arc now, somewhat awkwardly, three candidates for the good life, not all
of the same sort nor seeking the same prize. The 'good life for human beings' has
already gone to the dark horse- the mixed life (22a); the original two contestants
are now vying for the honour of being the reason .lor the goodness of a good life
(22d-e). All three, however, will find their place within the four-fold ontological
framework Socrates has introduced. Locating the first two, the mixed life and
pleasure, is-even if not adequately argued for here-at least undramatic
enough. The mixed life fits, unsurprisingly, into the mixed class (27d), while
pleasure-with the help of Philebus-is identified as ape iron (27e-28a). But the
whole business of classifying Socrates' candidate looks thoroughly odd from
beginning to end. This is because it is finally time to make good on the promise
implicit in the opening of the dialogue. We have addressed ourselves to the hedo-
nist's sort of divinity; now it is time to turn to Socrates' god.
As to assigning intelligence, knowledge, and reason to one of
our aforesaid kinds, how can we avoid the danger of blas-
phemy, Protarehus and Philebus? (28a4-6)
Philehus responds contemptuously, 'Really now, you are extolling your own god,
Socrates' (28b I), thereby serving Plato's purpose of ensuring that the readers do
not miss the inference from blasphemy to divinity-if the danger of blasphemy
threatens, this could only be because the matters under discussion are somehow
divine. Protarehus is duly intimidated, and Philebus now drops out of the discus-
sion with his unsympathetic, 'Didn't you choose to speak instead of me?' (28b6)
directed at Protarchus. But Socrates seems to back down, claiming it was his lit-
tle joke. 'Did my playful exaltation really confuse you, as Philebus claims, when
I asked to what kind reason and knowledge belonged?' (28c2-4). What follows,
however, is a lengthy cosmological argument, strangely out of keeping with the
otherwise practical and technical aims of the dialogue.
1
s
17 It will be clcar. then. that I am considering the monads or the methodological discllssion (1 Sa
ff.) to be the same as the 'mixtures' of the metaphysical-ontological discussion (23 ff.). or course this
is a controvcrsial matter which I cannot defend fully here. In passing. I might only point out that
perCH (presumably the next-best candidate for the category, if any, that the monads fall into) is some-
thing rOllnd 'naturally together with apeiron' within each single thing that can be said to be (16clO).
If later the monads were to be the very same as 'limit', then a perplexing, unaccounted for and appar-
ently unnecessary (even counter-productive) shift would have to have taken place.
18 Or perhaps not so strange or out of place, if we follow Vlastos 1991, 164 in supposing that for
Socrates 'the highest form of wisdom is not theoretical but practical'.
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II. The Cosmological Argument
In outline, the cosmological argument is simple enough to rehearse. There is
fire in the cosmos and fire in each of us (29b8-1O); the cosmic fire is responsible
for the individual instantiations and not vice versa (29c5-8). As with fire, so with
each of the material elements (29dl-3); and if with each of the material elements
things are thus, then the same holds for elements in combination - the body of
the cosmos is responsible for our bodies, and not the other way about (2ge5-7).
But this means that the cosmos 'will turn out to be a body in the same sense' as
our own bodies (2ge2); and (this is only implicit in the argument) that it is, there-
fore, not just a heap (otherwise, we would have to regard our own bodies as
heaps, that is, as disorganised). But if there is body comparable to our own in
kind, then it must be ensouled (30a5-7). Otherwise our soul, and the very fact that
we are living organisms, would be no more than merely accidental and contin-
gent-that is, there would be no explanation at all for the organisation which
makes a body. And if en souled, then the body of the cosmos, as our own, must be
endowed with an intelligence responsible for the organisation and maintenance
of the whole (30b 1-7). And since this intelligence causes the identity and conti-
nuity of the whole cosmos, or of any living being at all, 'mind' belongs rightly in
the category of 'cause' (30c4-7).
This is not, at first glance, the most satisfying of arguments. But if we take
trouble to look more closely at how the argument works-and what Plato does
not have Socrates advocate-we shall have some better understanding both of
the notion of mind or intelligence at work in the Philebus, and of the significance
of the divine throughout the dialogue. 19
The first thing to take note of is the general shape of the argument, across two
different axes. There is the relation of microcosm to macrocosm, on the one
hand, and the movement from fire to intellect, on the other.
2o
Each of these rela-
tions involves some ontological priority, asserted apparently on the basis (or at
least on the basis) of explanatory priority. Thus the fire of the cosmos at large is
supposed to be responsible for the fire in each of us. This is not because the cos-
mic fire is larger than our own, although it is that, too. At the end of the discus-
sion of pleasures we are told in the strongest terms that quantity does not bestow
quality, worth, or power.21 Nor is it because the cosmic fire lights the fire exist-
ing in each of us-although the claim that the cosmic fire 'nourishes' our own
22
19 Divinity generally, that is, as opposed to the particular personified deities of the traditional
pantheon.
20 In what follows, I am indebted to the discussion of these issues, in McCabe 2000, ch. 6.
21 'How can there be purity in the case of whiteness', Socrates asks. 'Is it the greatest quantity or
amount, or is it rather the complete lack of any admixture, that is, where there is not the slightest part
of any other kind contained in this colour?' (53a5-7). Endorsing Protarchus' choice for the latter,
Socrates adds that the purest is 'the truest and most beautiful of all instances of white, rather than
what is greatest in quantity or amount' (53a9-b2). The same will hold of pleasure (53b lO-c2).
22 The actual claim is put rhetorically: 'is not the fire that belongs to us small in amount, feeble
and poor, while the fire in the universe overwhelms us by its size and beauty and by the display of all
101
may be open to the bald material interpretation, according to which it is the sun
which is responsible in some respect for our existence.
The reason cosmic fire is 'more beautiful' than our own is anticipated in the
negative remarks about our own status, leading into the example of fire.
Protarchus should realise
that the amount of each of these elements [earth, air, water,
fire] in us is small and insignificant, that it does not possess in
the very least the purity or the power that is worthy of its
nature. (29b6-8)
The comparative beauty of the cosmic fire comes from its purity-just as later,
the spot of unadulterated white will be a more beautiful white, and more truly
white, than a whole field of mottled or off-white (53b4-6).23 But if it is fire's
purity that is at issue, we can better see how it is supposed to be related to, and
prior to, any particular instantiation of fire. For to be purely fire, as opposed to
only approximately or impurely so, will be a matter of being fire through and
through - that is, being what it is to be fire, and nothing else. And the claim,
although still strong, could be put in more familiar terms. Each of the particular
instances of fire, and all of them together, are not what go into, add up to, or con-
stitute fire itself, or what it is to be fire. If we want to know what fire at large, or
as a whole, is, we will not arrive at that by going about adding up each particular
instance of fire, one onto the other. This will most likely be for the reason famil-
iar from other dialogues, that we will not be sure whether something is to count
as an instance of fire until we know what fire is.24 And this is not just an accident
of our knowledge-for it is equally true that something cannot be, (or fail to be),
or be similar in some respects to fire, unless there is already something that it is
to be fire, (or to fail to be). The priority of the macrocosm over the microcosm
generally is one way of asserting, against the 'bottom-up' theorist, that explana-
tion and ordered reality itself cannot be built up out of an accumulation of pieces.
It is important to keep in mind, then, that the discussion here takes place
against some imaginary 'formidable' opponent who would 'deny it [cosmic
order] and argue that disorder rules' (29a3-4). This may not be the same position
as the one held by someone thinking 'that the universe and the whole world order
its power? .. Is the fire in the universe generated, nourished, and ruled by the fire that belongs to us,
or is it not quite the reverse, that your heat and mine, and that in every animal, owe all this to the cos-
mic fire?' (29c).
23 Purity, it should be noted, will take on increasing significance as the dialogue progresses.
24 Famously, in the MenD, Socrates claims not to know what virtue is by being given a whole
swarm of virtues (72b-d), and in the Theaetetus, the young mathematician is commended for his gen-
erosity, but not for his helpfulness, in naming several different kinds of knowledge (l46d-e). The
problem in each case with this approach is presumably not that we might learn nothing by reflecting
upon particular kinds of the thing in question - Socrates himself uses this method, using cobblers and
cooks to illustrate his points, much to the annoyance of Callicles. The inadequacy of these answers
seems rather to lie in the fact that what is to count as an instance, and why all of these should do so,
will not become any clearer by looking at the instances (that is, the various kinds or 'parts') them-
selves.
102
are ruled by unreason and irregularity, as chance would have it' (28d5-7).
Protarchus endorses the self-congratulatory presumptions of the wise, who
assume that intelligence orders the uni verse, against those who might argue that
the cosmos all came about through chance. Socrates, for his part, allies himself
with this view-intelligence is indeed the cause of order in the universe-but
defines his position against a subtler opponent.
25
Because he is concerned not so
much about the physical origins of the universe, but about how we are to go
about understanding it, or anything in it, here and now, Socrates must insist that,
whatever the story of the origins of the cosmos, it is not the case that disorder
reigns here and now.
Socrates' aim, then-in contrast to that of Protarchus and his authorities-is
not to fathom the mysterious purposes of some omnipotent creator, in order to
understand the unfolding of the universe as the expression of God's ultimate
intentions.
26
This sort of teleological explanation presents an understanding of
the universe which can only offer some notion of order-of what is to count as
order-after the fact, as a consequence of however one has happened to find the
various bits and pieces of cosmos lying about.
27
To such a view of teleology-no
less than to a strict materialist - an account of order could add nothing, for
'order' could only ever be a name hung on whatever arrangement chance, or
divine whim, happened to have turned up.
For a teleologist of Plato's stripe. however, a notion of order can actually do
some work. It is the fact that order exists which makes it possible for us to find
order around us-more particularly, it is the fact that fire exists, and is thus and
so, which makes it possible for there to be particular things which will count as
instances of fire. But this is just a reiteration of a claim we should recall from the
discussion of the Divine Method. Parts are posterior to wholes in the particular
sense that, at the most fundamental level, parts only have whatever identity they
do have in virtue of the fact that they are located in a certain way within a certain
whole. As with fire, so with the other clements; and as with the elements sepa-
rately, so with the elements in combination-the particulars are in need of an
account, and they can be accounted for. They do not occur randomly, but for
some reason. And the explanation of the smaller, of the instance or part, will be
in terms of the larger, of the thing itself in its purity or as a whole.
28
25 This technique of making a pragmatic alliance with someone whose position is importantly
distinct from his own will recur in the discussion of false pleasures. At 44d Protarchus is invited to
take the extreme haters-of-pleasure as allies at 44d7 echoing the of
although Socrates is careful not to endorse their views.
26 This might seem a more likely description of the project of the Timaeus. I think. though, that
the Timaells shares the Philebus' principle of priority when it sets about inferring what any creator's
intentions must have been by trying to discern in the first place what is good and reasonable (cf.
Timaeus 30a ff.).
27 This would be to take the alternative offered in the Euthyphro that pious is just whatever the
gods happen to love. Whatever it is we discover the gods love, we will call that pious.
28 The discussion of whiteness at 53a If. aligns 'purity' with a thing being itself-and the kath'
hauto language, used in earlier dialogues to describe the nature of Forms, reappears here (cf. Fine
103
This leads directly, then, to the second dimension of explanation embedded in
the cosmological argument. It is not for mere ease of comprehension that Plato
proceeds from 'fire' to all clements generally, from there to body, from body to
soul, and soul to intellect. It is not just the pure sort of something which accounts
for the various impure sorts. However pure, different kinds of things do not
explain wholes simply by appearing together on stage at the same time. Such
chance co-existence would be no explanation at all. If clements co-existing are to
amount to a body. then it will be not in virtue of those clements themselves, but
in virtue of the body, which dictates by its definition what is to count as a con-
stituent of a body, and what will not. But the principle of organisation in a living
body - that in virtue of which it is a living body - is the soul. And soul itself is
able to do its work of maintaining order among elements of a living body in
virtue ofthe intelligence in it. If, then, we have genuine living bodies, and are not
ourselves just bundles of elements, then there must be some principle of organi-
sation, establishing the order which is to count as a living body. And, by the
macro-microcosm argument, if there is a type of bodily organisation proper to us,
this is in virtue of the fact that there is-really in the universe. and indeed consti-
tutive of the universe - something which counts simply as body as such. Then
again, the same in turn for the soul-if psyche is what keeps body together, then
psyche is what keeps body together generally, and not just our own. But many
individual souls do not add up to a force capable of holding the universe
together-they are instead only able to be what they are and do what they do in
virtue of the fact that the universe itself has a soul; it has, that is. a principle of
organisation ensuring that everything in it (including ourselves) is held together.
Then similarly again, in tum, for intellect.
This last move, of course, may give us moment to pause. Plato seems here to
be eonflating soul and intelligence. psyche and nous. At 30c9, he claims straight-
forwardly that 'there could be no wisdom and reason without a soul' -but this is
not the problem. We might dispute it, if we thought there could or should be
something such as free-floating intellect: but there is no reason to suppose that
Plato should have to subscribe to such a view, or that he would not have argu-
ments against it. Much more troubling, however, would be the identity in the
opposite direction-the claim that whatever had soul, thereby also had intellect.
For then we would find ourselves in the awkward position of either denying soul
to animals. or else ascribing intelligence to them-and each of these claims
seems at least out of keeping with, if not directly denied by. Plato's view of the
cosmos and the living beings in it.
29
If Plato does claim here that 'where there is
1984, esp. 60-61, Owcn 19(5). While it is true of anything that ils identity will be captured in its
being exactly and only what it is, with complex entities the 'purity' thus involved seems less obvious,
or even downright problematic. Considering its parts, or components, a complex entity will seem not
to be simply and purely what it is. It is only when the complexity involved is considered as a unified
whole-with its own identity in its own right (and not merely derived from parts being added to one
another), that the complex unity can be considered to have its own purity.
29 Depending, of course, upon how one reads the account of reincarnation in Timaeus 90e-92c,
104
soul, there too is intellect', he does not do it nearly so candidly as he makes the
converse claim. In a rather convoluted and long-winded step in the argument,
Socrates appeals to the four-fold division of everything existing; here, if any-
where, will be found his claim that soul necessarily implies intellect.
Socrates: We surely cannot maintain this assumption, with
respect to our four classes (limit, the unlimited, their mixture,
and their cause - which is present in everythi ng): that this
cause is recognised as all-encompassing wisdom, since among
us it imports soul and provides training for the body and
medicine for its ailments and in other cases order and restitu-
tion, but that it should fail to be responsible for the same things
on a large scale in the whole universe (things that are, in addi-
tion, beautiful and pure), for the contrivance of what has so fair
and wonderful a nature.
Protarchus: That would make no sense at all. (30a9-cl)
The argument seems to start by taking ourselves as a mixture; otherwise it is
difficult to see why we should be talking about the four genera just now, and why
we should be looking for a cause of our own well-being. We should be a mixture
of limit and unlimitedness, if we are talking about the relevant kind of mixture
and supposing some account of the cause of the mixture to be outstanding.
Apparently the 'unlimited' in this case would be the particular elements that
compose the body. Does 'soul', then, count as the 'limit' of these clements when
they come together? The notion of a soul as the proper relations between parts is
not entirely foreign to Plato's thought.
3D
At any rate. being a mixture of the rele-
vant sort, there must be some cause of this mixture, or this kind of mixture, com-
ing into being and remaining in a well-ordered state. Although the limits are the
right ones to set for this kind of mixture, they themselves are responsible neither
for their own appropriateness, nor for the resultant stability, The former aspect
will be accounted for only much later in the dialogue;3l the latter aspect, how-
which purports to explain all non-human animals as degenerate incarations of the indestructible bits
of human souls. The indestructible soul created by the Demiurge includes at least intellect (41 b-d),
which would seem to imply that even fish (91 b) and other lowly creatures (42c-d) possess intellect
(even though they do not-even cannot-use it?), There may be also a difference between something
which 'possesses intellect' by being a well-ordered unity, and something which 'possesses intellect'
by being a well-ordered unity which, in virtue of its good order, is itself capable of creating good
order. (In an inversion of the Aristotelian senses of the terms. the first would be intellect manifested
[actually existingJ, expressed in the unity of the organism, while the intellect of human souls is both
of this kind and of another 'potential' kind, in virtue of its existing also as a capacity for creating and
recognising good order.)
,0 In the Phaedo, a version of the idea is introduced by Simmias (85e-86d) and rejected by
Socrates (92a-95a),
31 In the final ranking of goods, or causes of goodness (66a-c), it seems that the normative
notions of measure, proportion, due measure and the like arc supposed to do the work, together with
mind, which presumably is able to be a cause of goodness by making its judgements with reference to
such normative principles,
105
ever, stability, looks to some cause.
32
In the case of living beings, while the soul
may be the order imposed on body, it is the aspect of the intellect in the soul
which is responsible for the maintenance of that order,33 even if perhaps it is so
responsible through the soul. (This last seems to be the force of the point that we
cannot have intellect without soul.) This is especially clear in the case of human
soul; the maintenance of order in a human soul consists in making of one's life a
unified whole. Conceiving of-and then arranging-a life as a well-ordered
whole requires an active intellect (even if it also requires much else besides).
Through ordering the soul, one is able to create a 'life' -a genuine unity-which
in turn supports the healthy unity of the soul.
But then this does sound like an argument to the effect that wherever there is
ensouled body, there must also be intellect. In addition, the macro-microcosm
argument would seem to need this premise, if we are to arrive at the conclusion
(as we do) that mind is the cause of everything. For we have shown so far only
that the body of the cosmos must have a soul-all of the elements, that is, form
an ordered whole. But unless souls, by their nature, imply intellect, then the mere
conjunction of the two in the case of human beings may be ascribed to chance,
and said to defy any further explanation. If, on the other hand, there is to be some
explanation for the fact that our souls fit our bodies, it will be the fact that intel-
lect governs them both. And if there is to be some explanation for the fact that
intellect is the thing capable of making of body and soul a consistent whole, it
will be found in the nature of intellect itself. Thus it is that intellect as a whole is
responsible for the order of the universe as a whole. And it is thereby responsible
for the intellect and order in US.
34
Being intelligible-having intellect actually at
work - is what makes something a unity, a thing, a 'this', or a whole. Whatever is
32 Aristotle's investigation into substance in Metaphysics vii-ix insists that it is not a search into
being or into unity, but into the cause of anything's 'being one' or unified-being a 'this' is a com-
plex affair, whose complexity demands an explanation, or cause.
JJ This is another indication that the' cause of these generations' is not the efficient cause of
physical coming-into-being; my intellect, after all, does not bring it about-efficient causation-that
I am born.
34 In answer to the dilemma set out earlier: it is to be noted that one crucial step in the argument
was that souls qua souls implied intellect, and this throws us back upon the choice between soulless
and intellective animals. Contrary to McCabe 2000, esp. 171-172, who argues that 'soul' is meant
here in a quite restrictive sense, I would rather impale myself on the second horn. On the one hand,
we can gather from the TimaeLls that the notion that animals have some sort of intellect in their soul
could not have been absolute anathema to Plato. More pertinent to the passage under discussion, how-
ever, if it is not the case that bodies-in order to be living bodies at all-must have souls, then it is
difficult to see how the macro-microcosm argument is to get started. We are agreed already that intel-
lect is implied by having soul; if, in addition, soul is implied by having body, then to use soul in a
restricted sense would amount to denying animals soul. And this, it seems, would have to end by
denying animals bodies properly so-called-for whatever had body, had soul. If there is no soul, then
there is no body, and the good order of the universe looks as if it is getting rather thin. Does this mean
a down-graded sense of intellect? Perhaps it implies an intellect that is not reflective and self-aware,
yet nonetheless is effective-it effectively ensures order without self-consciously reflecting upon it,
or deliberating and choosing it over disorder.
106
utterly devoid of intelligence could not come forth as a 'thing' at all.
It is at this point that one might feel the parallel lines of the macrocosm and
microcosm converge. For, one of the reasons that our naturc (who and how we
are) will be accounted for by the nature of the univcrsc as a whole is that we are,
in fact, parts of the universe. We are not outside of thc natural order, but part of
its being well-ordered and functioning well. For its intellect to ensure continuing
harmony of its clements just is for the intellect of the world-soul to ensure that
we are appropriately equipped to maintain our own good order. Although this
means that mind will be prior in order of significancc and goodncss to any other
kind of constitutive part-limit, unlimited, mixture- this does not make the
causc of the universe, mind, external to the universe itself any more than our own
intellects are 'external' to us. Ontologically distinct, intellect nonetheless permc-
atcs the cosmos and does not stand outsidc of it. Intellect just is that on account of
which everything else is able to be as it is. From this, it is a short step to Socrates'
triumphant conclusion:
You will therefore say that in the nature of Zeus there is a soul
of a king, as well as a king's reason, in virtue of this power dis-
played by thc cause, while paying tribute for othcr fine quali-
ties in the other divinities, in conformity with the names by
which they like to be addressed ... [This] comes as a support
lGuJlf.uxxoc;-ally] for the thinkers of old who held the view
that reason is forever the ruler over the uni verse. (30d l-dS)
In the end, then. Socrates makes a nod to orthodoxy. He allows Protarchus to
keep his allcgiance to Zeus. But what is important about Zeus, what makes him
'king' of the universe, has been reconceived and articulated according to
Socrates' values. It is 'in virtue of his power displayed by the cause' , from which
we can infer a 'kingly' mind and soul, that Zeus reigns supreme. Socrates there-
fore puts a question mark almost immediately after his concession, by summing
up the productive discussion, which succeeded in locating 'mind' in the category
of 'cause', with: 'Sometimes joking is a relief from seriousness' (30e6-7). For as
he has just made clear, what he understands by Zeus is not the thunderbolt-hurl-
ing philanderer of Greek mythology.35 In fact, Socrates' 'Zeus' barely has any
character at all. It is merely a formal characteristic of thc cosmos, which can be
inferred from the order of things, from Plato's metaphysics in thc Philebus, and
required by any teleological account. Something must be rcsponsible for things
being as thcy are. For if there is nothing doing this work, then the world is disor-
dered and knowledge-and even inquiry-is futile; and if thc 'something' hold-
ing the universe together is 'chance', then there is no guarantee that the order we
happen to find will also be an intelligible one, well-put-together-an order capa-
ble of making it clear to us why things are as they are. So whatever is going to be
responsible for real order, must be either an intelligent being, or simply intclli-
35 This echoes his earlier reluctance to go along with the conventional identification of
Aphrodite as the goddess of Pleasure.
107
gence itself. Plato, in the Philebus, chooses the latter, thereby preserving the
unity and integrity of the cosmos as a whole.
36
With such an account of divinity,
it is no wonder that talk of pleasure would be out of place (33b3-11), no matter
what your account of pleasureY
We can also appreciate now the full force of Socrates' observation that it
would hardly be surprising if the mindful life devoid of pleasure turned out to be
the most divine-in fact, divine mind (en souled, and so alive) just is such a life.
And although both formal and not standing outside the cosmos as a whole, still
the divine as conceived by Socrates is, in comparison with, say, evolutionary the-
ory and the Modern Scientific World View, certainly a notion of divinity.38 The
whole of the cosmos is rationally put together and maintained, and although our
reason is akin to-and thus capable of grasping-this rational order, this is less a
feature of human understanding and more a feature of the cosmos. 'Order' is not
whatever is comprehensible to human minds; rather, human minds are capable of
grasping order at all because they are a living part of mind as such, which perme-
ates the whole of the universe, including our own souls.
Thus the requirements on intelligibility, and the principle of normativity of
wholes-that identity and ideal standards are established by the unity of the
whole, and only thereby conferred on the parts-joins with the simple observa-
tion that things really are intelligible to us. Reality is the sort of thing that is
intelligible, and it is intelligible to us. We, in turn, are within this framework of
intelligibility, and in virtue of it, capable of grasping the order around us, and
within us.
39
III. What Comes first-the Good or God?
But for all that divine mind might grant us a rationally ordered universe, it does
little, of itself, towards explaining why a rationally ordered cosmos should also
be a well-ordered cosmos. Is this not just the familiar rationalist prejudice?
36 Cf. Hackforth 1965, who takes the opposite view.
37 Of course, this does not account for why Protarchus-or someone similarly inclined-would
think it unseemly; even though his comment occurs after the cosmological argument, it would be a bit
much to presume that we are to take Protarchus to have been wholly converted to Socrates' way of
considering god. Protarchus' reasons for denying that the gods experience pleasure has much more to
do with the particular conception of pleasure expounded by Socrates, and would thus be vulnerable to
challenges by-say-Aristotie, that pleasure is in fact something quite different, and therefore suited
to godliness.
38 It is interesting to consider whether Daniel Dennett's defence of evolutionary theory (Dennett
1995) might in fact leave space for such isomorphism between the structure of thought and the struc-
ture of reality. Evolutionary theory needs, on his account, to posit for organisms 'an innate capacity to
recognize (and stay with) a Good Trick when they stumble upon it' (78)- but this capacity to recog-
nise, retain and (eventually) desire the good just is reason,
39 The way that this makes mind pervasive within us has consequences for the nature of plea-
sure-and so for both the hedonist and rationalist positions explored in the Philebus-which I cannot
get into here. As pointed out above, 'mind' and its cognates will on to carry off the third prize of five
in the 'good-making' contest; as a unity within and around us, it thus forms a vital axis between our
particular circumstances and the nature of reality.
108
Plato, in fact, does try to give some arguments about why rational order will
also be good order. They may not be satisfactory, but they will help us to see why
with all his piety, Socrates does not consider mind itself the ultimate source (or
ground) of all goodness (contra Hampton 1990). Even rationalism is only good in
virtue of the relation of reason to goodness itself.
Knowing, Plato has argued earlier, is constituted by knowing the measures of
and relations between parts comprising any whole. This is so, of course, because
reality is suitably constructed. But the counterpart to this claim - not made out-
right, but still required by the introduction of peras and apeiron-is the observa-
tion that arbitrary and changing amounts are the antithesis of measure. But what
is arbitrary, unreliable, and changeable cannot be responsible for, cause or
explain the continuous, connected, and inter-related stability that we do confront.
In fact, it could not explain anything at all. If common sense allows that there is
much that is chaotic surrounding us, which seems to defy understanding, this is
only against a background of finding reality more or less reliably constant, day
after day. Messy particulars only look messy, and show up as particulars, in a
world that is largely comprehensible. Moreover, if we do allow that both order
and disorder surround us (and I do not say that Plato does),40 then it is easy
enough to see that what is chaotic could in no way account for regularity;
whereas an account of regularity may allow room for disorder, or at least leave it
no less comprehensible than otherwise. Tn these ways, then, we might begin to
see how measure and stability take precedence over arbitrariness and changeabil-
ity.
It is, at any rate measure, proportion, and what has measure or is proportioned
that become the ultimate source of goodness in any good life.
41
Even on the ratio-
nalist account, mind and reason only come in third after these (66a-c). Mind, that
is, only counts as good and worthwhile in virtue of the fact that it is just mind that
is the sort of thing well-suited to grasping and therefore also creating measure
and order. Divine as it may be, and responsible as it may be on the cosmic level
for the introduction and continued existence of anything well-proportioned, fit-
ting and in measured relation-still, while this allows it to count as divine, this is
not itself enough to guarantee goodness. Only if we add to this the fact that there
is something that it means to be better and worse, that there is something true and
good for the divine mind to understand, does the intellect of the world-soul (and
40 Does the receptacle of Timaeus 49a IT provide a standing source of disorganisation') Or once
order has been introduced does it merely provide the opportunity and limits of change from one
ordered state to another?
41 In the surprise ending. !'irst prize goes to 'what is somchow connected with measure' (66a8),
whilc second prize is awarded to 'the well-proportioned and bcautiful, the perfcct, the self-sufficient,
and whatever else belongs in that family' (66bl-2). This does not mean that the actual source is not
the good itself', after all. The ranking of sources of value at the end of the Philebus is an attempt to
make the route to. and sources of goodness as articu lated as possible. Thev are not exactly an attempt
to define the good. but rather one articulation of thc relevant features of the good and our relations to
it. which is perhaps as abstract and sophisticated-therefore as explanatory-as one can get without
invoking the (transparently true, but rather unhelpful) good itself.
109
thus the world-soul itself) become itself-as is only fitting-something good.
But this means that although god is immanent in the universe and everything that
is, it is still dependent for its value on measure and proportion themselves being
good. Pious though he is, in his own way and for good reason, Socrates does not
rely on an invocation of the gods in his explanations. Instead, god-and what can
count as divine-will be determined by whatever holds a certain place within an
entire view of the cosmos, the good, and the well-ordered universe.
If we look back over the dialogue with the notion of the divine in mind, some
interesting things emerge. The last invocation of divinity, before Socrates began
to classify mind, occurred just as he introduced the third ontological kind, mix-
ture (25b8-12). In that immediate context, the reference to divine help seems odd.
But if mind is responsible for mixtures, and mind just is the rationalist's concep-
tion of the divine, then turning to 'one of the gods' for assistance in illuminating
the third kind amounts to relying on intellect to be responsible for the description
of mixture, whose cause is intellect. It is thus entirely fitting that divine sources
should assist with making 'mixture' intelligible. Again, we should recall the very
peculiar way in which Socrates suddenly recollects a dream about pleasure,
knowledge and goodness. Whether he was dreaming when he heard it or awake
(20b6-7), the recollection of the account was brought by some god (' Some mem-
ory has come to my mind that one of the gods seems to have sent to me to help
us' [20b3-4]). And it is this god's intervention which introduces the mixed life,
which quickly wins the competition, into the conversation in the first place. Once
again, it is the divine - on Socrates' view reason itself-that is responsible for
introducing mixture. This point is picked up later (61 b 11-c2), when the character
of the mixed life is finally articulated, based on the conclusions about pleasure
and knowledge. Before turning his hands to the mixing, Socrates-again, appar-
ently apropos of nothing-invokes divine assistance. Reason, characterised as
divine, is relied upon to be responsible for the mixture's being a good one-that
is, being a genuine mixture. Finally, almost as peculiarly set-up as the sudden
dream-recollection that introduces the Trial of Lives, there is the Divine Method
itself. This method handed down by the gods is responsible specifically for any
knowledge of abstract, complex unities, 'for everything in any field of art that
has ever been discovered' (16c2-3). And it is specifically responsible for a whole
methodological-epistemological framework in which it not only becomes intelli-
gi ble how we can know complex wholes, but also - by interweaving with an
account of metaphysics and mind-makes it doubtful whether we could ever
know anything else, or in any other way.
IV. Plato's Theism
There is always the option of the flat-footed reading of Socrates' piety. Plato
presents Socrates as a Good Man. All Good Men are Pious. Therefore, Socrates
is Pious. And piety consists in nothing other than being respectful of the city's
gods, and adhering generally to conventional forms of religion. Thus, in Phae-
drus 229c-230a, Socrates will not even go so far as to depersonify the North
110
Wind. But his explicit refusal to do so gives the lie to the reading of Plato which
would suppose that it never occurred to him to challenge conventional morality.
The question is. on what level is it appropriate and significant to challenge con-
ceptions of divinity'l Accepting the Olympic pantheon strictly as it was given
would sit ill with the project Plato sets out in the dialogues. in which anything
must eventually be held up to rational scrutiny, and made to give an account of
itself.
42
Accepting a modified pantheon of mysterious spirits 'personal like our-
selves. but. unlike ourselves, having the power to invade at will the causal order
to which our own actions are confined, effecting in it changcs of incalculable
extent to cause us great benefit, or, where they to choose otherwise, total devasta-
tion and ruin' (Vlastos 1991, 158) would fit no better the holistic view of thc cos-
mos, as an integrated, well-related unity.
But even allowing that Plato did not accept, and could not have accepted, the
vivid characters of the Homeric gods at face value, still the assumption might be
made that Plato accepted another, equally straightforward, account of the divine.
For Plato, we might suppose from the Timaeus, believed in an (almost) omnipo-
tent Creator-god. transcendent and existing apart from the universe:
n
And it is,
presumably. on this hook that his idealist ethics hang. as well as his peculiar
metaphysics. Call this 'reading Plato's ethics through the ReplIblic. Placing god,
the source of goodness. outside of the natural order, living well becomes a matter
of the intellectual intuition of a separate and perfcct realm (but sec Fine 1984 and
1989). A literal reading of the Phaedrus, for example, might reinforce this view
of Plato's approach to ethics and divinity, as would certain readings of the myth
of the world-cycles in the Politicus.
44
But, in the Politicus, the world-cycle that we are in is explicitly the one in
which the 'divine hand' is no longer guiding the course of events.
45
For us, right
now, whatever order or intelligence or reason there is in the universe is within the
fabric of the universe (cf. McCabe 1997), there to be found, and not some force
standing outside and above it
46
Similarly, the Philebus is singularly uninterested
42 Vlastos 1991 presents an interesting attempt to reconcile Socrates' rationalism with his piety.
Inasmuch as it is by making the gods morally rational (that is, good and consistent, and not just clever
and powerful) that Socrates is supposed to achieve this synthesis, this scems in keeping with the
approach Plato presents Socrates as taking in the Philebus. However, if the Pizi/eims is addressing
such a view at all. it is by insisting that the distinction between 'morally rational' and 'merely ratio-
nal' is mistaken. Hence thc prominent role of the epistemology and metaphysics in the account of rea-
son and judgemcnt.
43 This is Hackforth's view of the Timaeus (in Hackforth 19(5). into which he fits the account of
mind in the Plziiehus.
44 Both the traditional reading of the myth, which supposes the age of Kronos is regarded wist-
fully and nostalgically, and the revised reading advocated by Brisson 1995 support the transcendent,
divine-shepherd view of Plato's notion of the divine. See also Rowe 1995, which endorses Brisson's
reading. On the latter view, the time of Zeus (under which we live) is marked by the governance of a
god unconcerned with human affairs, a transcendent god withdrawn (cL Erler 1995).
45 In this I am unpersuaded by Brisson', reading.
46 In the Timaeus, even when the physicist-astronomer makes his account of the universe more
complex (at 48e), the Craftsman-creator does not appear amongst the kinds of existing things.
III
in the origins of the order in the cosmos. However it was generated, the intelligi-
ble order graspable by intellect is there now, latent within the universe, responsi-
ble by its presence for whatever sense, rhyme and reason, we can make of things.
Because his concern is with-and his commitment is to-reason, intelligibil-
ity, and judgement as such, Plato can play freely with whatever stories are told
about the temporal generation of these things and their products. Although much
of Socratic ethics would reject it, there is no necessity that the gods of Mt. Olym-
pus, or the Divine Craftsman of the Timaeus, or the process of natural selection
not be genuine accounts of cosmogony. We have, however, the evidence of the
very existence of reason itself as our guide to evaluate the plausibility of these
claims, and to set limits on what can be claimed.
V. Conclusion
Applying the principles of unity and plurality, set out in the methodology and
metaphysics, to everything existing, we thus get a picture of what it means for
human beings to be part of the universe as a whole, and for reason, in a different
way, to be part of that same whole. Neither reason, nor human beings, are extra
appendages or afterthoughts in the intelligible order-overlaid on top of, or else
placed within, some independent, pre-fabricated universe (cf. McDowell 1994).
Because it is reason running through the universe which grants it unity, we are
justified both in our attempts to understand-and to take that understanding to be
of reality, a grasping and not a creating-and in conceiving of ourselves as
ordered after that same pattern that we find in the universe. This will not mean
that we ought to model our lives on that of the Divine mind so far as is possible-
on the contrary, it gives us good grounds for supposing this would be inappropri-
ate. What it does mean is that we are justified in relying upon reason to give us
some standard of measure that is not arbitrary, idiosyncratic or irrelevant. How
and why reason and intellect in our souls is able to do that, and the consequences
of this, must be the topic of another article.
Magdalen College, Oxford
Oxford OXI 4AU
UK
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