2014 Mason 2014 on the Status of Nous in the Philebus

8/11/2019 2014 Mason 2014 on the Status of Nous in the Philebus

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brill.com/phro

On the Status of Nousin the PhilebusAndrew J. Mason

Saera Omiya Koen B-305, Bonsai Cho 2-32 Kita Ku, Saitama City,

Saitama Prefecture 331-0805. Japan.

[email protected]

Abstract

Hackforth and Menn make a strong case for the identity of nousand the demiurge in

Plato, but I argue that it does not hold in the case of the Philebus, where the demiurge

is kept in the background, and the world-soul is in fact the referent in the passage

assigning nousto the class of cause as governor of the universe. In the Statesman, the

world-soul had had to own the problem of natural catastrophe, and I suggest that in

the Philebusthe role and functions of the world-soul are enhanced in an attempt to

make it the basis for a solution to that problem.

Keywords

Plato Philebus nous world-soul demiurge

1 Introduction

According to the thesis proposed by Hackforth and developed by Menn,nous (which both translate reason) is not just a pre-eminent characteris-tic of Platos craftsman god but his true identity. The demiurge is a mythical

I prefer intelligence. Accepting broadly Menns arguments inPlato on God as Nousch. 3 that

nous in Plato does not mean mind but a virtuewhich exists independently and in which

ensouled things can participate, doubtless this virtue hinges largely on a capacity for logicalreasoning from Form to Form. But even more fundamental is the capacity to seeForms in the

rst place, be it in themselves or in their sensuous instantiations. It is particularly in the latter

respect that Plato makes his own what von Fritz identied as the original sense of noein, that

of discerning the true nature of a situation, person or action (1974, 23-5). Reason does not

cover this aspect, whereas intelligence covers both.


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equivalent (Hackforth 1936, 4) of a god that is nous pure and simple, tran-scending not only the visible and bodily but soul as well. This now inuen-tial thesis, I think, has much to recommend it. It meets the objection that

Plato seems to say (e.g.Philebus30c, Timaeus30b) that there can only be nousin soul, by showing that what he claims is only that nouscannot come to bein any generated thing unless it has soul (Hackforth 1936, 7; Menn 1995, 19-20);an ungenerated demiurge who just is nousdoes not need this prerequisite foracquiring it. It also seems to clarify the nature and necessity, for Plato, of thedistinction between demiurge and world-soul, between a transcendent nousthat establishes cosmic order and an immanent one that maintains it. We neednot ght with Platos text to reduce the one to the other, like Cornford (1935,

37-8) or Carone (2005, ch. 2). Plato evidently feels he needs botha gener-ated exemplar we can model ourselves on, and a transcendent guarantor ofits exemplarityand that the world-soul partakesof the nousthe demiurge isseems a convincingly Platonic way of meeting this need.

However, both Hackforth and Menn draw on thePhilebusin support of theirthesis, and in doing so, I will argue, they misconstrue what Plato is doing inthis work, particularly in the argument at 30a-e. This argument culminates along discussion (conventionally known as the metaphysical passage) of thefour basic classes comprising everything that now exists in the All (23c): theunlimited, limit, the mixed class of things generated by the imposition of limiton the unlimited, and the cause responsible for this. The purpose of the dis-cussion is to show that intelligence belongs in the class of cause (and thushas a greater kinship to the Good than does pleasure, which will be locatedin the rst class), and at 30e Socrates proclaims that the argument has proventhis. Earlier (28a) he had suggested that deciding which class nousbelongs toruns the risk of impiety. This obviously implies its divinity, but the questionis at what level this applies, given the three tiers of divinity of the Timaeus:

the demiurge, the world-soul, and the celestial bodies. As I will seek to show,although the demiurge is twice alluded to at 30a-e, the nousactually at issuethere, and (less obviously) in the metaphysical passage overall, is that of theworld-soul, which has a much greater scope of responsibility in the Philebusthan in the Timaeus. Plato is here reallocating to it several of the demiurgesfunctions. This goes unrecognised by Hackforth and Menn, who overplay theparallels between the two works, and also, I think, tend to overstate the unity

My approach is close to McCabes view that the Philebusexplains cosmic order by the intel-

ligence of the cosmos itself, rather than by a god external to it (2000, 175), but difers from it

on many other counts, most basically in holding that the demiurge remains in the wings as

the transcendent cause of this immanent one.


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of Platos late-period theology more generally. In the last section I will addresswhere the direction taken in the Philebus ts in the development of Platoslate-period cosmotheology.

By way of opening up the issue, let us return to the gambit at 23c. If thewhole passage concerns the four classes which make up everything present , in the All, this must apply to the cause under discussion. This seemsin principle to rule out the demiurge, who is necessarily separate from the cos-mos he produces as from the materials from which he does so. This separa-tion is not just a consequence of the craftsman analogy but explains Platosrecourse to it; the demiurges proper abode (Timaeus42e) is beyond the physi-cal cosmos from which he withdraws once his work is done (Statesman272e).

Admittedly, at 23c Socrates refers only to the rst three classes (the need fora fourth is rst mentioned at 23d). This might suggest that the cause is to bediferentiated from them as transcending the cosmos. But if the text leavesroom for that here, in other places it directly rules it out. The phrase echoes through the Philebus, particularly at 30a-e and in the nal part of thework, where it has signicant work to do. But its recurrence at 30c is especiallyimportant. The nousnamed here as the cause of temporal order is expresslyreferred to as . Similarly at 30b the cause is specied as ,existing in everything taken as a whole. This passage needs detailed analysis,but in advance of that it may be said that a nousin the All is more plausiblylinked with Platos world-soul than his demiurge.

2 The Expanded Role of the World-Soul in the Argument at 30a-e

This argument comprises eight steps, which I here paraphrase in simple termsand break down where necessary to delineate its logic and direction:

Cf. Broadie 2012, 9-10. Menn (1995, 7, 11) and Hackforth agree that the demiurge is separate,

but for Hackforth he is also immanent in the sense that the life of the universe is hislife just

because his activity is necessarily . . . one that goes outside himself . . . a projection of himself

(1936, 8-9). The latter point is fair enough, given that the demiurge wanted his creation to

be good like himself (Timaeus29e). But it does not follow that he is immanent in the cos-mos or that its life is his. Were the demiurge not absolutely separate, when Plato nds (as in

the Statesman) that the occurrence of disorder in a world governed by nouscannot just be

ascribed to vicissitudes of matter, he would not have the option of ascribing this to defects in

the world-soul without at the same time implying a faulty demiurge or nousas such.


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1. Our bodies have a soul (30a3).2(a) The body of the world has a soul; 2(b) we get our souls from theworld-soul (just as our bodies are derived from the world-body) (30a5-8).

3(a) (implied:) In relation to body, soul is a cause, a wisely ordering andhealing power, both in us and the cosmos; 3(b) our souls are provided bythe world-soul, but the world-soul in turn is provided by an unnamed,still higher cause which may be presumed to be the demiurge. Both oursouls and the worlds are thus caused causes (30b1-9).4. (with reference to 3(a):) Therefore, by virtue of its being responsiblefor such things as the ordering and co-ordinating of years, seasons andmonths, the cause that exists in the universewarrants being called wis-

dom and nous(30c4-7).5. Wisdom and nouscan never come into being without soul (30c9-10).6(a) (implied:) Zeus = the cosmos; 6(b) (tying 6(a) with steps 3-5:) there-fore, in being supplied with a kingly nousby the unnamed higher causeimplied in 3(b), Zeus was at the same time supplied with a kingly soul(30d1-3).7. In saying this we ght side by side with the wise men of old whodeclared that nousforever rules the universe (30d6-8).8. Thus nousbelongs to that class which was called the cause of all things(30d10-e3).

This breakdown diverges from the interpretations of Hackforth and Menn atsteps 3 and 4. As what is actually said at step 3 is particularly contentious, it willbe useful rst to establish how much I think no one would contest.

The task of step 3 is to vindicate the double proposal at step 2: that the worldhas a soul and that this is the condition of our having souls. Thus this longand complex sentence is structured by a men . . . de construction playing of

the presence of soul in our bodies ( : 30b2) and in the four greatmasses constituting the world-body ( : 30b8). The minimal gist is thatit is perverse to suppose that, while our bodies have souls which regulate them,this does not apply also to the cosmic body, in which the same bodily elementsare present but much more ne and pure (30b7-8, cf. 29c, 30a). But the sen-tence has more to say than this, chiey because it is also concerned to aver acausal sequence between (and beyond) these terms. In the Timaeusthe demi-urge was the cause of both the worlds soul and ours, and Hackforth and many

others take this to hold here as well. He translates the core message of 30b thus:we cannot imagine that the cause, while it provides our human bodies with asoul, does not devise that which is fairest and most precious in the body of theuniverse, namely, itssoul (1936, 4).


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There are two serious problems with this reading. The rst goes back to mypoint that the cause in question is (30b1). That is not to say thedemiurge is altogether absent, but he is not the cause referred to at b1, and at

b2 with . Rather, he is implied at b8-9 as the cause of thiscause, i.e. ofthe world-soul. To clarify this, let me turn to the second point, which con-cerns the medio-passive perfect innitive at b8. This has the pas-sive sense that soul has been built into () the cosmic body. The unnamedagent is the demiurge, who in the Timaeus constructed (: 30b)soul in the cosmic body. The metaphor is the same demiurgic one: the dif-ference in voice is due to the fact that the demiurge took centre-stage there,whereas in the Philebus he is kept in the background. But Hackforth reads

as middle-voiced with an activesense (devise), with . . . (i.e. soul) at b9 as its direct object and (= the fourth class, the cause)at b2 as its subject. Textually I do not think this stands up, however well itcoheres with the Timaeus. In the menclause, is the subject of four activeparticiples and a passive main verb, . It seems natural, at leastprima facie, that the main verb in - in the declause should mirror this pas-sive sense. Admittedly, according to the active perfect is notfound after Homer, so even if Plato intended an active sense he would presum-ably have had to use the sthaiform. On the other hand, according to Smyth(1956, 813d), is among the words that buck the trend of deponentverbs and use the perfect middle in the middle or passive rather than activesense. Since a middle sense is out of the question here (Plato would of coursenever say that soul has built itself into the cosmos), that leaves the passive.Moreover, as we will see, a passive innitive is used at 30d to make what willturn out to be exactly the same point Plato is intimating here. For there Zeus

As remarked by the Andrew (S.) Mason with whom Plato scholars will be more familiar (2010,285, 287), there is disagreement over whether the world-soul at 30b is cause or efect. My

interpretation seeks to explain why it is both. Masons own approach is that thePhilebussup-

ports the view of the demiurge as a transcendent soulas well as nous. I do not have room to

discuss this here, but I argue for a reading of both 30b and 30d which does not entail it.

As does McCabe (2000, 171), but in service to a very diferent interpretative strategy. For her

aitiaat 30b is a generic term, which seems supported by the reference of toutoback to the

classof cause. However, if the subject of the menand declauses is a generic aitia, such that

our own nousprovides our soul and a cosmic nouscontrives soul in the cosmos, I cannot

see either how that squares with step 5 or which part of the sentence at step 2 is left over tosay that the cosmic nousis responsiblefor ours, not just analogous to it. At 30c it is a specic

cause that is at issue, and since this phrase is intended synonymously with

, we are entitled, I think, to see with a shift from the class to a specic imma-

nent cause, the world-soul.


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signies the cosmos itself, in whose nature a kingly soul-nous is implantedby a cause that transcends it. If is passive, and if here the generalrule applies that the subject of an innitive takes the accusative, . . .

is a passive subjectof this verb with the same referent as . While isthe active subject of the participles of its clause, in the last clause, after all theintervening complications of the sentence, it has had to be restated in the form . . . as the passive subject of .

These considerations support the following translation of the sentence(underlining the main verbs in the menand declauses and italicising the vari-ous expressions of their subject):

For surely we do not suppose, Protarchus, that of those four classestheunlimited, limit, their combination, andthe class of causewhich is pres-ent in everything taken as a wholethis fourth one, which provides ourbodies with souls, inspires us with bodily exercises and arts of healingwhen the body is out of sorts, and composes and heals in all other ways,is called the sum of all wisdom, and yet even though these same things[which make up our bodies] are present in the whole cosmos in greatmagnitude and are moreover ne and pure, the nest and most valuablenature of all[soul] has not been built into them.

I cannot agree with Rudebusch (forthcoming, 275) that all four classes form the subject of

this verb and that it is anacoluthic to change the subject to just the fourth one. There is no

such change; the fourth is the subject of the whole men . . . deconjunction, and all four are

only named at the start of the sentence so as to focus attention on it. Rudebuschs rendering

have achieved also overlooks the parallel with Timaeus30b.

refers to the four elements making up our bodies and the worlds

(discussed at 29a-e and referred back to at 30a7), not to the four classes mentioned at thestart of this sentence.

. Hackforth 1972, 56 explains the use of the plural

to qualify on the basis that Plato wavers between a sin-

gle world-soul and a plurality of souls. Like Rudebusch (forthcoming, 275) I do not nd this

convincing, but for diferent reasons. Plato wavers on this between dialogues, not within the

Philebusitself. I am unconvinced by Rudebuschs own view that the argument requires that

the nest and most precious refers to three things: soul, mind, and wisdom. While the argu-

ment will go on to link these three, this sentence does not provide a context in which it

would make sense for to have that reference. For it to establishits essential point, has to denote the world-soul, which is ner still than any of the

physical natures whose neness in the cosmos has just been rearmed. The plural genitives

may be (idiomatically?) partitive, as per Fowlers translation: that nature which is the fairest

and most precious of all.


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In brief, the world-soul introduced at step 2 is the cause present in everythingtaken as a whole, and itis what provides our bodies with souls, but it in turnis built into the cosmic body by an unnamed higher cause who can only be

the demiurge. It may seem bizarre to say that Plato now makes the world-soulthe cause of our souls, in dramatic departure from the Timaeus, but it cohereswith the actual argument. Step 2(b) says that we can have received () oursouls from nowhere else ( ) but the world-soul. In isola-tion, this might be taken to mean only that the demiurge formed our souls

from the same ingredientshe used for the world-soul (cf. Timaeus41d). But itis not only what is said at step 3 that speaks against this. Step 2 is ventured asan analogue to the prior argument at 29a-e that we get our bodilyconstituents

from the world-body, and it was said that these derive not only nourishmentand growth butgeneration(: 29c) from their cosmic counterparts. Thisargument, as McCabe says (2000, 169), establishes both a symmetry betweenre (etc.) in our bodies and in the cosmic body, and an order of dependence;but the latter, paceMcCabe, is causal, not just explanatory. Step 2(b) is meantin the same way where soul is concerned. Plato may be less clear here thanelsewhere about the relationbetween intelligent and material causes, but heintends the dependence causally in each case. As the re in us is generatedfrom the cosmic re, so the souls we receive from the world-soul the lattergives. Step 3 conrms this; the cause in the All provides () our bodieswith souls.

That the Philebusdeparts from the Timaeus in this respect may seem lessstrange once we recognise that this is not the only function it transfers fromthe demiurge to the world-soul. In the concern to map out a causal sequenceat 30b (our souls the world-soul [the demiurge])what gets somewhatlost is the tenet that soul is a cause of order in the body it inhabits. Plato doesnot say expressly that the world-soul organises the world-body, just as he

does not say that our own soul, while inspired () by it with techniquesto train or heal our body, is the cause that carries this out. But he means it.Besides helping us heal ourselves, the cause present throughout the cosmos isdescribed as composing and healing in all other ways. This points to an exten-sion of its powers to the creative ordering or composing () of the greatparts of the cosmic body, as well as the recovery of its own bodily health. Inthe Timaeusthe world-soul did no more than maintainorder. Besides its rota-tional self-motion, its activity was contained in two verbs, and :

PaceMcCabe 2000, 170 n. 20, I do not think this causal cast of 30a is misleading. Note further

that McCabe has to suppress at 29c to hold that the responsibility of the world-body

for the constituents of our bodies is not causal.


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coming into contact with things in traversing its body, and telling itself how itsbody is the same or diferent here in comparison with there, or here now withhere then, and how it is that whatever is going on here and there occurs (37a-b).

Note also, however, that the expansion of its role in the Philebusresponds toa tension latent in the Timaeus. When Timaeus says, regarding the winnow-ing motion of necessity whereby the four bodies were already separated intoregions prior to the demiurges ordering, that the receptacle was able to moveitself ( : 53a), this implies the presence of soul,the sine qua nonof self-motion for Plato. The point is not of course that theworld-soul pre-exists the demiurges intervention. It is simply that Plato pre-sumably saw the contradiction, wanted to hold on to the idea of an inherent

cosmic proclivity to order-production, and made good on this by attributing itto the world-soul.At step 4 this expansion of the world-souls role becomes fully explicit. Here

the focus shifts from the physical aspect of cosmic order to the ordering ofyears, seasons and months. Again, in the Timaeusthe demiurge was the causeof this, but now, as previously mentioned, this cause which warrants beingcalled wisdom and intelligence ( ) is stated to be inaddition to () the unlimited and limit. Yet Hackforth assumes that here signies the demiurge or transcendent cause. Menn, at onepoint, seems to concede that what is said here is that sophia and nous are pres-ent in the cosmos (1995, 19), yet he adduces 30c as evidence for the identity ofnousand the demiurge (8), and is generally intent on upholding Hackforthsview that the phrase refers to the demiurge. This is the purpose of his elabo-rate argument (16-17) that, since nousis doubletted with the virtue of sophiahere, as with others likephronsiselsewhere, it is a virtue too; and because thePlatonic virtues exist themselves by themselves nousqua virtue must be tran-scendent. Whatever its merit in connection with other dialogues, this argu-

ment does not overrule what is said in situ in the text to which it responds.I can only assume that Menn believes that the sense of the text, that it is acosmic intelligence that orders and co-ordinates temporal periods, does notoverride the fact that in the Timaeusthe demiurge performs this role. Yet whyshould it not, if the Philebus is seeking to enhance the world-souls functionsand responsibilities?

It is not just what is plainly said at step 4 that entitles us to take theworld-soul as the referent of , but the way this step connects with

This sense is textually reinforced by at 30c5. At 29c the re in us was called

feeble in comparison with that in the All, and likewise here the implicit point is to

distinguish the by no means feeble cause in the All from that in ourselves.


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the preceding one and those that follow. The sentence begins with therefore(). Given what is said at step 3, the inference seems to be this: since thesoul built into the world-body is a wise cause of order that organises and heals

that body, this same cause is responsible for the temporal measures whichreect and ensure the diachronic maintenance of such order (climatic balanceover the yearly cycle being grasped as the macrocosmic analogue of health),for which reason it may most justly be called wisdom and intelligence. Thereis no place for here unless the cause named has the same referent atboth places.

This also makes sense of the following steps. Soul is not specied at step 4,and it is the task of step 5 to reinforce this connection explicitly: where there

is nous in a generated thing, there must be soul. From there we can expect astraightforward conclusion of the syllogism: the cosmos, insofar as it has nous,must have a soul. From the fact that this is just what is concluded at step 6 itis clear that what step 4 is concerned with is establishing that the universehas nous. Hackforth rightly insists that this is the point at step 5, but there isno basis for his claim that, whereas refers to the cosmos here,at step 4 it refers to its creator (1936, 7; 1972, 56-7). Plato has been speakingof the Universe all along. The world that has nous and soul at step 6 is theone that has an intelligence as cause at step 4, and a soul as cause at step 3. Thefact that this is a caused cause, and that the demiurge underlies it, changesnone of this. It does not mean the demiurge is the cause actually discussed atstep 3 or the nousactually referred to at step 4.

I said that step 6 completes the syllogism, but that is not all it does. It alsoimplies that Zeus is in truth nothing but the cosmos: Therefore you wouldsay that a kingly soul and a kingly nousare implanted in the nature of Zeusthrough the power of the cause (

That the cause is described here as being (rather than having) nous need not greatly

concern us. Plato is not using sophia and nous in the terminologically precise way

demanded by a strict distinction between being intelligent and being intelligence; the

argument, as he admits at 30e, is rather more playful.

Hackforth 1972, 56 endorses Zellers reading along these lines, but does not seem to me

to grasp its implications, in particular for Philebus30b. With some exceptions, such as

Carone (2005, 232 n. 64 and 256 n. 28), the point often goes unrecognised; for example,

Rudebusch 2009, 216 and Watereld 1982, 84 n. 1 take Zeus in his customary role as

supreme god or ruler ofthe cosmos, rather than as the ensouled cosmos itself, which asFicino said (1985, 18) is repeatedly claimed by Platos followers. A. S. Mason (2010, 290)

reads Zeus as the cause as a soul distinct from and prior to the world-soul. Yet both the

evidence of the Statesmanand the logic of the Philebuspassage point, I will argue, to an

identication of Zeus with the ensouled cosmos rather than the demiurge.


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, ). That the soulof Zeus and the world-soul are the same is suggested, rst, by the way passiveinnitives are used for each; as the world-soul was built into the cosmic body,

so Zeus soul was implanted () in his nature by a higher cause thatis now, if not identied, at least referred to explicitly, not just implied by thepassive as at 30b. And that Zeus soul-nous, like the worlds, is a caused causeis clear from the description kingly; Plato more or less equates causing withruling at 27a (I will return to this point in Section 3 below).

Yet why does this parallel between 30b and 30d not just mean that theworld-soul and the soul of Zeus are two distinctcauses caused by the demi-urge? That Plato is in fact still talking about the same, functionally souped-up

world-soul is signposted by the which again introduces step 6. Thistherefore does not just relate to step 5 and sanction a claim that if Zeus hasnoushe must have soul. It has to carry a sense of whyZeus is being mentioned.Evidently the link is world-rule, but does merely allow us to slide fromthe world-soul to the customary view of Zeus as ruler of the universe, withoutany indication of how they might be related? Hardly. We are being invited tosee these two as one and the same. Step 6, however allusively, ties the wholeargument together. The syllogism it completes, strictly speaking, is:

The All has an intelligence built into it (by the demiurge) whereby itself-orders;but any generated thing that has intelligence must have a soul;therefore the All has a soul.

The form in which the conclusion is actually statedtherefore a kingly souland intelligence were implanted in the nature of Zeus (by the demiurge)simply does not follow unless Zeus just is the All.

Cf. Fowlers translation. Here as at 30b Waterelds translation distorts the sense of the

text in suppressing the passives in both places, in keeping with his view that at

30b just means that the class of cause engenders soul in a logical sense, thus simply

that soul is a cause (1982, 83). At 30d he renders because of his

function as a cause, but to do so he has to extract from the phrase and force it

to mean attribute, thus to qualify , you would say.

McCabe 2000, 172 says rightly that Zeus is not the demiurge, but seems averse toacknowledging that the cause that implanted soul and nousin Zeus cannot be anything

else. Hackforth is right that step 6 draws a distinction between a transcendent cause or

nousand an immanent one (1972, 56-7); his error lies in parcelling these out at steps 4 and

5, when in both cases refers to the world-soul.


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This identication is not just a curiosity, added only as a mythical way ofexpressing his point at step 6. It is also insinuated in the Statesman, and it haswork to do here. Step 6 above all has to justify the conclusion reached at step 7.

Clearly 6(b) (that the cosmos has a kinglysoul-nous) enables Socrates to saythat his account ghts side by side [] with the wise men of old whodeclared that nousforever rules[] the All. But it is important to recognisethe extent to which 6(a) (that Zeus = the cosmos) is also conducive to step 7. Ofall the wise men who can be said to have held some version of this doctrine,I cannot but think that the remark at step 7 is made with Heraclitus foremostin mind. For Heraclitus allegorises Zeus in a way that speaks to the very stepPlato has just taken: The One, the alone wise, is unwilling and yet willing to

be called by the name Zeus [] (22 B32 ). What this means, in light ofthe impersonal nature of the One (Heraclitus pointedly uses the neuter form) and the ambiguity of Zn (meaning both Zeus in the Ionic dialect andto live, or life as a nominal innitive), is that the One is unwilling to be calledZeus qua personal god, but willing if Zeus is conceived otherwise. The othersense ofZnis an important pointer here, since life (: B48), life-force (:B52), and everliving re ( , identied with in B30) are all usedto denote the One in other fragments. Plato, I suggest, is here allying himselfabove all with Heraclitus, and taking up his reinscription of Zeus in the wayhis own thought makes available, by grasping Zeus as the ensouled cosmos.For all the diferences in their conceptions of the cosmos (starting from theabsence of cosmogony in Heraclitus), their agreement established on the basisofstep 6 only makes sense if the intelligence that rules the cosmos is that of thecosmos itself.

Of the two alternating ages or cycles the Statesmanposits, the one in which the cosmosis steered by its creator is called the age of Kronos, who is identied with the demiurge

(comparing 269c, 270a and 271d-e). The other, which begins when the god lets go (269c)

and the cosmos moves by itself (270a), reversing the direction of its rotation of its own

accord (269c-d), is said to be the age of Zeus ( : 272b). If it is

the age of Zeus, then Zeus just is the cosmos. Plato emphatically denies that the cosmos

is turned contrariwise by a diferentgod in this other cycle; that contravenes the principle

that the gods are not antithetically minded to each other (270a). The reversal is put down

to the worlds own volition, be this phronsis(269d) or innate desire (272e).

Lesher 1995, 133f. proposes six besides Anaxagoras himself: Heraclitus, Xenophanes,Diogenes of Apollonia, Parmenides, Anaximander and Thales. The wise men may also

cover Orphic thought, whether it be in the pantheistic form that Zeus is all things or the

version Plato will slightly misquote atLaws715e: that Zeus is the middle, the shared root

of earth and sky and thence of all things.


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We come then to step 8, the nal conclusion that nousis of the class thatis the cause of all things ( not of theAll, ). Note rst that this implies that other things belong in this class

besides nous. The Philebusdoes not spell this out: it may be leaving room formaterial causes auxiliary to intelligent ones ( laTimaeus), or for various othermotions of soulwhich do notrun in league with nous (Laws897b). If the latter,it may be leaning towards the Laws tenet that soulis the cause of all things,both good and bad (896d). If so, inasmuch as the concept of the unlimited inthe Philebustakes up the necessity of the Timaeus, the tension between thismetaphysical tenet that soul is the ultimate source of all motion and Platosphysics apropos the pre-existing motion of necessity, which Vlastos (1965,

390f.) nds betweenthe Timaeusand the Laws, would be present withinthePhilebus. The most this physics could justify here is a claim that nousbelongs tothe class that is the cause of all the things in the mixedclass, which are gener-ated through the imposition of limit on the (uncaused) unlimited.

The second and more important point for us here is that, whatever elsemay belong in the class of cause, nousitself has to be a class concept at step 8for the preceding argument to support the conclusion. It has to include atleast two members: the demiurge twice hinted at, and the nous actuallyspecied, that of the world-soul. The latter has been deemed the cause of sev-eral things in the Philebus, beyond its remit in the Timaeus, but it is not thecause of itself, and is no more the cause of all things than is the demiurgewho is itscause. The two points seem blurred together in the formulation ofstep 8. The implication that other things belong in the class of cause besidesnousand the kind of soul that has nous seems to me a kind of Ersatz for amore painstaking exposition of the members of the class of nous itself thanthe argument has ofered. In any case, since thisclass is not exhausted by thedemiurge, a straightforward identication of nouswith the demiurge is not

supported by step 8 any more than by the preceding steps.When Protarchus says the argument has proven which class nousbelongs

to without him realising it, Socrates agrees and curiously adds: for sometimeschilds play is an uplifting rest from seriousness ( : 30e). I agree with Rudebusch (against Delcomminette)that this remark does not entitle us to dismiss the whole argument as unseri-ous, and that, excepting the identication of bodily unity with the order of thefour elements, the rest of the arguments premises and inferences are plau-

sible (Rudebusch 2009, 215). But it is not true that Socrates play pertains onlyto his unargued suggestion at 28a-b that nousis divine, not his rigorous proof

The celestial bodies, the third tier in the Timaeus, play no role in the Philebus.


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at 30a-e. If it was by dint of an uplifting rest from painstaking philosophicaldiscussion that the proof came behind Protarchus back, since it did so throughthe argument at 30a-e, the playnecessarily relates to that argument. It does

so in at least two ways. The contrast with seriousness speaks to the mythicalrather than strictly dialectical dimension of the argument, the allegorisationof Zeus. The latter is not playful in itselfPlato is quite serious about itbutthere is play in the coyness with which it is intimated by the parallel with 30band the underlying logic of the passage. Secondly, the argument is playful inthat its ultimate conclusion hinges on a factor it has only alluded to in thebarest possible way. It has focussed on the world-soul as cause, but the claimat step 8, to be complete, requires emphasis on the demiurge as itscause, and

a more serious philosophical discussion would surely have had a great dealmore to say about this terminus a quowhere the proverbial buck of causedcauses stops.

But beyond these points the reference to childs play has more to say. Letus ask why play can involve, not just a little time out from serious philoso-phy, but an elevated repose, -, in which insights come unexpectedly.A plausible answer is that we get weighed down when we pursue philosophyin disconnection from the world, a disconnection we reinforce when we curseit for constantly intruding on our thought process. A more playful mode ofthought may involve an uplifting rest because it puts us in touch with, or letsus inhabit, the relative repose of the All itself . The Heraclitean cosmos restsin changing (B84a), and the Philebus connects what is good both in manand in the All with the most turmoil-free [] mixture (63e-64a). This diverges from Heraclitus in that for him such turmoil, the strife ofwarring contraries (which is the sense of ), is indispensible for therest; without it there would just be stagnation and disintegration. Yet Platoaccepts all of this at Timaeus57a-58c, and in the Philebuswe see him, I think,

at his most Heraclitean, his closest to Heraclitus actual thought of unity inchange. Moreover, let us not forget that for Heraclitus not only repose but

One important instance of this, which I cannot develop here, relates to what Sayre has

argued (mostly convincingly) is Platos changed theory of Forms in the Philebus. What

I have in mind is his claim (1983, 181), extrapolated from Goslings interpretation of the

conception of health at 25e, that the complex Form Man is constituted by a set of

proportions relating to such things as heat, solidity and size which changeas a personages, so that it is precisely by changing that one continues to embody that Form, which

itself has those changes encoded in itself. A rapprochement between the theory of Forms

and Heraclitus thought of unity in and through change seems implicit here. I will touch

later on the way Plato takes up the theme oflowat 43a.


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It is similarly overhasty to see in the armation that nousrules the world at28c-e an unequivocal reference to the demiurge. For Menn (1995, 8) it is appar-ently enough to recognise that the attributes and functions of the demiurge

in the Timaeusand Statesmanare the same as those ascribed to nous in thePhilebus, Phaedoand Laws. But neither of the two basic functions of nousatPhilebus28c-e, ruling and ordering, suce to establish this if we take what issaid in context.

At 28c nousis called king of heaven and earth, and at 28d its rule is describedin terms of steering () the cosmos. Menn points to parallels for bothmotifs in the demiurge of the Statesman(at 274e-275a, 272e and 273c), but he isquite cavalier in the way he draws on the Statesmans testimony and airbrushes

the fact that it difers from the Timaeusin just these respects. To address whatPlato is doing here against the background of these dialogues, it is necessaryrst to expose the latent ambiguity in the association of causing with ruling at26e-27b; clearly one can cause something without ruling it, and rule it withouthaving caused it. Importantly, this distinction corresponds to the one betweendemiurge and world-soul in the Timaeus. The demiurge causes the cosmos tobe so ordered that necessity complies for the most part with the rule of nous(48a), but he leaves the actual regulation of the cosmos to its own soul. Thushere nousas cause of the cosmos and as its ruler and pilot do not coincide in asingle gure. In the Statesmanthe situation is diferent. The demiurge doesdirectly rule (: 271d) and pilot the world during one of its twoalternatingcycles, leaving the world to steer itself in the other. But all this really showsis that the evidence of the Statesmanis inconclusive. The fact that nousin thePhilebusis king and pilot of the universe in no way entails, on the basis of thatevidence, that it denotes the demiurge rather than the world-soul. It could inprinciple be either, and I suggest that at 27a Plato glossed over the diferencebetween causing and ruling in order to remain non-committal at 28c-e about

this, at least at the level of explicit statements. But beyond this, we may alreadysuspect that, since there is nothing in the Philebusto suggest it maintains theStatesmans thesis of two cycles, and since it is only there that Plato speaks of

We should not be misled by the word at Timaeus 34a. The demiurge led

around the cosmos for the purpose of initiating the rotation that the cosmos will

henceforth take over as its own proper motion, qua intelligent creature, in constantlycircling back upon itself ( : 37a).

Menns point that at 274e-275a the demiurge is called king relies on the identication

of king with shepherd later in the sentence when the demiurge is in question. This is

challenged at 275c but rearmed from 276a.


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the demiurge ruling and steering the world, it is the world-soul that has thesefunctions in thePhilebus.

There are several further reasons to think that the noussaid to rule and steer

the world at 28c-d is the world-soul. A rst point is that king, in relation to thedivine, is a term of worship. Cornford (1935, 35) rightly pointed out that thedemiurge is never singled out as an object of worship in Plato (even if he drewthe wrong conclusion from this). In contrast, as Broadie (2012, 13-14) observes,Timaeuspraysto the cosmic god (Critias106a-b), uses decidedly hymnic lan-guage in its regard (Timaeus92c), and adapts a classic ritual phrase to it: theheaven, or cosmos, or whatever other name is most acceptable to it (Timaeus28b). Secondly, and decisively in my view, there is the testimony of Philebus

30d. There the kingly nous is that ofZeus qua the cosmos, not the transcendentcause that implanted it. Plato may not at 28c expressly equate the nousthatis king of heaven and earth with the world-soul, but he could hardly give us aclearer clue that it is not the demiurge.

Thirdly, it is crucial that, as at 30d, Socrates is arming the nousdoctrinein accord withhis philosophical forebears (all the wise: 28c; our forefathers:28d). None of these can be said to have posited something akin to Platosdemiurge, which has hitherto been his way of distinguishing his own ver-sion of the doctrine from those of the phusikoi, most notably Anaxagoras. ForAnaxagoras nous, while not mixed with anything and diferent in kind fromwhat it arranges (59 B12), is nowhere other than where all the other thingsalso are (B14). Unlike the demiurge, it rules the cosmos from within, where itinitiates and sustains the revolution that separates things out from the originalcommixture of all in all. Again, as at 30d, of the otherphusikoiPlato takes toarm the doctrine the one that looms largest here is Heraclitus, who uses boththe word king (: B53) and verbs of steering (: B41; :

At 28c Socrates remarks that the wise men vaunt themselves in proclaiming that nous

rules the world. While this may give us pause, it is not enough, in light of his unqualied

willingness to ght side by side with them at 30d, to argue against broadly identifying

Socrates view with theirs (McCabe 2000, 167-8). For McCabe (2000, 178) the diference is

that the wise men hold that a transcendent god rules the universe, rather than explaining

the cosmos on its own terms. This seems rather outr. Was not the latter the point of being

a phusikos? And when they appealed to gods, were they not incorporated into their all-

encompassing, self-regulating nature, as Vlastos says (1991, 159), rather than intervening

from without? It is rather Platos Socrates who is keeping a transcendent god up his sleevein case he is neededa kind of Mr Wizard to the world-souls Touch Turtle.

That Plato knows this is clear from the way, at Timaeus52d-53a, in line with his critique of

Anaxagoras in thePhaedo, he treats this immanent motion that Anaxagoras saysis due to

nousas occurring through mere material necessity,priorto the real work of nous.


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B64) with reference to his One or cosmic god. Whatever the diferences, thisresonates with Platos world-soul a great deal more than it ever could with hisdemiurge. It is true, as Hackforth says (1936, 7), that at 28d both all things and

the cosmos as a whole are distinguished from the nouswhich steers its course.Even if we accept that only the rst distinction applies in Heraclitus, thisdoes not mean that nousmust be beyondthe cosmos, as the case of Anaxagorasshows. It only means that the doctrine is expressed at 28d in a deliberatelybroad way to cover the diversity of forms in which diferentphusikoiarm it aswell asthe radically new one elaborated in the Timaeus. In thePhilebusPlatostone towards thephusikoiis far more conciliatory than, say, in the PhaedoandLaws10. He is at pains to stress what they share in common in the ght against

those who hold that the world is ruled by chance (28d). A natural conse-quence of his resolve to accentuate what they share will be to foreground hisworld-soul and keep his demiurge in the background, which is just what hedoes at 30a-e.

A fourth argument relates to Menns claim that the nous that is king of heavenand earth is the virtue of nous (1995, 16). While I am persuaded by his generalargument that nousfor Platois a virtue, this claim is problematic as a readingof 28c, which speaks of what all the wise agree about. How can the phusikoi,who are not instructed in the doctrine that Forms exist in their own right apartfrom their instantiations, be said to agree that the nous that rules the world isa universal principle or virtue rather than a divine individual soul (1995, 17)?And are these the only alternatives? It is not clear why Anaxagoras must haveregarded nousin this way. What is certain is that what rules Heraclitus worldis not Wisdom as such, existing itself by itself, but that which has this virtueas nothing else does; the One is that which is wise ( : B108), thealone wise ( : B32), and being impersonal it is not an individualsoul either. Heraclitus may arm a common nousin which men can partake,

but that is hardly to say that he shares the metaphysical principles of the the-ory of Forms. His common nousis the nousof the cosmic god.

This is not necessarily the case, if Heraclitus One is not just the cosmos but at the

same time the unifying force holding sway throughout it. From that point of view it

can be distinguished not only from all things (as Heraclitus frequently says) but at least

analytically from the cosmos, and Heraclitus himself seems to do this in B52, where the

cosmos is evidently the kingdom of the One qua life-force (ain).

Thus at 28c he is willing to go along with a claim that nousis king of heaven and earth,even though this is a rather un-Platonic formulation if it implies that the universe is

divided into two mutually exclusive regions (this view is dismissed at Timaeus62c). Since

for Plato heaven () is synonymous with and includes earth at its centre, it

suces that nousbe called king of the whole heaven.


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Menns other reason for equating the nousof 28c-e with the demiurge, thatit ordersthe cosmos, is no more convincing. While the demiurge has this role inthe Timaeusand Statesman, we have seen it pass to the world-soul at Philebus

30a-e in at least two respects: the ordering of the world-body, and of temporalperiods. Since the orderliness of years, seasons and months is indissociablefrom the orderly motions of the heavenly bodies and the cosmos, we mighteven wonder whether the world-soul is meant when these motions are said tobe ordered by nousat 28e. Be that as it may, these later arguments suggest thatthe ordering function of nousat 28c-e, like its ruling and steering one, pertainsto the world-soul.

It should be added that, as at 30a-e, nous ordering has a creative sense in

the earlier passage, not just the sense of maintaining order. This is especiallythe case at 28d, where ordering () relates bothto the cosmic whole( ) and all things taken together ( ); this naturally suggeststhat things are actively brought to order and hence that order itself is cre-ated. This is not always the case in Plato. At Phaedrus246e, Zeus is called the who orders and takes care of everything ( ). But Zeus ordering and his rule within the heaven pre-supposes the cosmic rotation: when he and the other gods proceed outsidethe heaven for a refresher course on the Forms, they stand on its back and arepassively carried around with its rotation (247c). He is in efect an intracosmichousekeeper. This is suggested not only by , which has a diferent sig-nication once an outside is posited, but by the remark at 246b-c that, in itsperfect or divine form, soul . By using the verb (from , house), Plato suggests a specic kind of governing, a managing ofthe cosmic household. Thus at 246e Plato uses Anaxagoras verb ina way that need not entail anything more than ensuring that the cosmic houseremains in order. Returning toPhilebus28c-e, the creativenessof nous ordering

would suggest the demiurge, if the Timaeuswere our guide, whereas the laterremarks in thePhilebusentail the world-soul. As I see it, it is integral to Platosstrategy at 28c-e to remain non-committal about the identity of nouswhileinviting us to infer that he is leaning more towards the world-soul.

Zeus is still Olympian here; Plato has not yet arrived at his world-soul thesis, nor his

recasting of Zeus as the world-soul. In connection with this, in this passage

does not mean the same as the that features in the Philebus. Zeus and theother Olympians have their own housewithinthe cosmos (247a), perhaps in the form of

a central re within the central earth (I cannot go into this here). The world-soul is

in a diferent sense. It is extended throughout the cosmos from the centre and made

to envelop it (Timaeus34b), so that it at once houses and is housed by it.


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There is one further remark in the metaphysical passage that warrantsattention here: the cryptic reference at 26b to a goddess who established lawand order ( ). Waterelds view (1982, 76; cf. 53) that she is

Aphrodite, while plausible prima facie (Aphrodite is the only goddess previ-ously mentioned, and Socrates is speaking here to Philebus, whose personaldeity Aphrodite is), is based on a claim that Socrates makes a sharp distinc-tion between Aphrodite (as a deity on the side of order) and Pleasure whichis not borne out by the text. Alternative suggestions as to her identity havebeen tendered, for example, by Fowler (Mousike) and Hackforth (Harmonia),both of whom add that a goddess is only specied in counterpoint to Philebus.What is overlooked is that she may be the grammatically feminine soul of the

All ( : cf. Timaeus41a). This depends on law and order havinga cosmic sense here, which at rst seems ruled out by the ethical context; sheintervened because there was no limit of pleasures or of indulgence in them.But both the surrounding context (the talk has just been of the creation of theseasons and the various ne things of our world: 26a-b), and the fact that theStatesmanrefers to the original condition of the worldnot just as disorder butharshness and injustice ( : 273b), point to a cosmic referencefor the thoroughgoing wickedness ( ) prevailing hic et ubiquebefore her act (26b). While it was the demiurge who corrected this situationin the Statesmanand the Timaeus, this goddess cannot be the demiurge, whois not only grammatically masculine but referred to as Father (Timaeus28b,Statesman273b) and always as he. The world-soul, however, is quite plausible,especially given the way 26a-b presages the claim at 30c that the world-soulorders seasons.

In summary, then, neither the word at 27b, nor nous ruling andordering functions at 28c-e, allow us unequivocally to identify nouswith thedemiurge, and there are sucient clues at 28c-e for us to infer that already

there Plato is speaking with the world-soul in mind. For the sake of complete-ness I should add that Menns last two parallels with the demiurge (1995, 8)

Socrates remarks at 12b-c leave no doubt that he identies the two. So too his statement

at 22c that (since pleasure is not the good) Philebus deity must not be considered the

same as the good. While it might be possible to read Philebus interpretationof his deity

here, this way out is closed by the comment at 28b that Philebus overestimates his

goddess. How can an overestimated goddess be the saviour referred to at 26b-c? Outsideof Orphism, where it can denote Dionysus, the of the Greeks is of course Zeus (as

in the third libation, deployed rhetorically atPhilebus66d), and in the PhilebusZeus = the

world-soul.

Fowler 1925, 252-3.; Hackforth 1972, 48.


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are also inconclusive. First, although the Philebusdoes not say explicitly thatnousacts for the best, I agree that this is implicit; the things adduced as createdthrough the proper combination (25e) of limit and the unlimited are gener-

ally good things characterised by due measure and proportion (26a), such ashealth and a regulated climate. But acting for the best is characteristic of noustout courtfor Plato, which is why in the PhaedoSocrates can support his claimthat the nousdoctrine entails this by analogy with his own doing what his nousdeems is best. The same applies to the world-soul. It may apply most purelyto him who is nothing but nous (our nous can be overridden by decienciesof a physical or psychical nature, and in the Statesmanthis holds also for theworld-soul), but while these deciencies may stie or cloud our nous, they do

not changeit. Nousis never, and never becomes, base or disgraceful (Philebus65e). Inasmuch as we or the world-soul do what we do guided by it, we toonecessarily act for the best.

Similarly, imposing limit on the unlimited is what any creative nousdoes.Thus in the earlier methodological passage Socrates ascribes the inventionof the alphabet, through the delimitation of the unlimited of vocal sound,to some god, or god-like man (18b), and that of the musical system to ourpredecessors, the Pythagoreans (17d). Such imposition of limit is evidentlyintegral to cosmic order for Plato, and in the Timaeus, again, the demiurge isresponsible for it, for example when he makes the four bodies better instan-tiate their Forms by establishing geometrically rational kinds of particles foreach. But in the Philebus, since it is the world-soul that imposes at least thetemporal limits mentioned at 30c, this function too does not entail that nous=the demiurge here.

4 Volition in the World-Soul. The Place of thePhilebusin Platos

Late Period

The remaining question iswhythePhilebusexpands the role of the world-soul.To answer this we must consider the place of the Philebusamong the late dia-logues, and the underlying philosophical dramas that drive Plato rst to mod-ify the Timaeusscheme in diferent ways in the Statesmanand Philebus, andthen to replace it with the vaguer cosmotheology ofLaws10. There is, I think, alikely tale to be told here, but it cannot be told if we assume the identication

of nouswith the demiurge holds across all the late dialogues as the cornerstoneof a unied late-Platonic theology. Menn (1995, 8-9) avers that Plato cannotbelieve both the Timaeus myth and the Statesman myth, since they are not con-sistent, and adds that to understand Platos philosophical teaching we do not


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have to know which of the diferent likely stories Plato believed to be true, butonly why he thought they were likely. Such an approach tends to factor devel-opment over time out of Platos later thought. It is important to understand

why he believes now this, now that story, and to try to discern the backgroundproblems such changes respond to and howthey respond, which is to say, to dis-cern which stories or arguments tackle those problems and which avoid them.

The driving force behind these changes, in my view, is largely the problemof natural catastrophe. While this theme was broached in the preamble of theTimaeus, it was avoided in its cosmology, which did no more than imply thatwhat disorder there is in the world is to be imputed to the residual recalci-trance of matter: necessity only complies with nousfor the most part (48a).

Although the Statesmanadopts this fallback position at 273b, it does not takemuch scratching at the surface to see that Plato has grown dissatised withit. In two distinct ways the Statesman imputes cosmic disorder to defects inthe world-soul. First, the reversal of the cosmic rotation which inauguratesthe Zeus-cycle, producing widespread upheaval and destruction, is putdown to the world-creatures innate desire ( : 272e). In thePhaedrus innate desire, qua irrational (: 238a), is opposed to acquiredconviction which strives for the best (237d). It must also be deemed irrationalin the Statesman, not only in view of its consequences but because it turnscounter to the motion given the world by him who is nouspure and simple.We see the acquired conviction when the world regains order by recallingthe demiurges teachings (273b). But after that, secondly, it becomes increas-inglyforgetful( : 273c) and loses control to the point wherethe demiurge must intervene to prevent the cosmos breaking apart. Plato isless than clear about the relation between this shortcoming in the worldssoul and those pertaining to its material constitution. At rst (273b) he makesthe latter the reason for the world-souls increasing dullness or carelessness

(), but at 273c the sense is that the ancient condition of disorderinherent in the world-body came increasingly to prevail when and because theworld-soul which had hitherto kept it in check through its god-given intelli-gence grew forgetful.

More precisely, fate [] and innate desire. Plato presumably means that it is fated

that the world-creatures quest for autonomy (it is enjoined by the demiurge to be masterof its own course: 274a) must come at a tremendous initial cost. In Hegelian terms we

might say that the cosmos has to make its law a for itself rather than an in itself, but

to do that it rst has to rebel against the law imposed on it, to become for-itself in the

incipient form of desire.


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The Philebus does not impute such aws to the world-soul, and does notaddress the issue of natural disaster, but in a way it can be seen as respond-ing to it. What it shares with the Statesman myth is a greater (if diferently

loaded) emphasis onvolitionin the world-soul. In the Timaeusthe world-soulhad no real choices to make; it simply monitored the goings-on within its body,and in its incessant discourse with itself there was about as much in the wayof personality as there is in an instruction manual for a household appliance.The world-soul of the Statesmanis more recognisably creaturely, and to thisis added, in the Philebus, a direct relationship to us, when it implants into oursouls, as if in a breathless whisper, just what the doctor ordered when our bod-ies are out of sorts (30b). But whereas in the Statesmanthe world-souls voli-

tion served the purpose of accounting for natural disaster (qua desire), for there-establishment of order (as a will to recollect the teachings), and for its sub-sequent loss (in the absence of such will through forgetfulness), the Philebusseeks to develop this in a positive way. It is as if Plato is saying to himself here:Well then, if the world-soul must bear responsibility for the problem of natu-ral disaster, let us see if we can make itthe linchpin of a cosmology which atleast limits that problem. Let us keep the demiurge in the wings as much aspossible and see if the world-soul does not have in itself the resources neededto surmount the defects avowed in the Statesman.

There are intimations of this decision-making world-soul in the metaphysi-cal passage: the goddess who chooses to intervene at 26b (if I am right to seeher as the world-soul), and the Zeus reference at 30d. It is perhaps no accidentthat its volitional character is developed in the two dialogues which identifyit with Zeus. This is no longer the Zeus of tradition, but if there is a feature ofthe latter that can explain why it is Zeus that is recast as the world-soul, it isnot just that he is the chief god but that he is such because his will is bindingand dictates the course of the world; as we know from Homer, once Zeus nods

his decision cannot be undone. But it is not until the end of the work that theworld-souls volition is expressly articulated. Where the metaphysical passagetells us thatthe world-soul orders its own body and temporality, 66a efectivelytells uswhy: because it has chosenmeasure, moderation and timeliness ( : 66a) above all other thingsfor itself.

This interpretation relies rst on reading (with Bury, Fowler and Hackforth) in the long-disputed text at 66a, and secondly (withFowler) on taking as middle rather than passive-voiced and as mean-

Hackforth 1939, 28 rejects as an addition by someone who thought

required a substantive, and that [in ms. T] is a corruption of it. I am not so sure. If

the world is the intended referent, this is more securely denominated by ,


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ing that the eternal (nature) has chosen for itself . . ., not has been capturedby . . .. To justify the rst point we need to trace the argument leading up to theranking of goods at 66a-c. At 63e-64a Socrates dened the aim of the discus-

sion as that of learning whatever is by nature good both in man and in theAll. The argument at 29a-30e gives this the sense that what is good in the Allgrounds the good in man, and this seems implicit in the description of themix constituting the good life at 64b as a kind of incorporeal order []nobly ruling a living [ensouled: ] body. At 64c Socrates proposes thatafter the most valuable element of the mixture has been determined, theycan ask whether it is more bound up with pleasure or intelligence .Having established the Formof the Good as the unity of neness, proportion

and truth, Socrates proceeds at 65b-66a to secure Protarchus agreement thatall three are more akin to nousin us. As there has been no reference to the Allhere, there is nowhere else for this to come but in the nal ranking. For it todo so we must read . . . at 66a, and we must take the eternalnature as the ensouled cosmos which is everlasting once created (Timaeus36e), being Platos word to denote the immortality of the soul (e.g.Phaedo106d, Republic611b). Admittedly, at Timaeus29a it is reserved for theForm Living Thing, which is eternal in a way the generated cosmos is not. Thelatters everlastingness in timeimitates the true eternity of the model, whichis referred to at 39e as the eternal nature: . But in thePhilebus, where this framework is kept in the background, the world-soul stepsforth into this mantle.

On the sense of (), it is true that capture corresponds to theverbs of hunting and catching used in relation to the good at 65a and 20d. Butit is also true, as Bury recognises (1897, 173), that has been used through-out the Philebus (18e, 22a-b, 33b, 55a) in the sense of what kind of life onechooses, and that is the issue at 66a, only not primarily in relation to us. There

is a natural t between the world-soul choosing measure before all else and theenhancement of its role in thePhilebusto take in the creation of cosmic order.

particularly recalling that denoted the world-soul at 30b and Zeus qua the ensouled

cosmos at 30d.

For Bury 1897, 174 the eternal nature is the good, not purely qua Form but as the cosmic

whole that receives it into itself. I agree, except that the world does not receive this

passively but actively chooses it. There is no room for this in Hackforths interpretation,according to which is neither the subject nor object of but a cognate

accusative (1939, 28-9). If 66a says only that the rst ranked good has been secured for

everlasting tenure in the region of measure, without any cosmic reference, Plato has

simply failed to do what he promised at 64c.


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There would be something superuous about its choice of measure if it did notcreate cosmic order to realise that choice, and equally the transfer of causalresponsibility to it would just be a gesture without it making that choice.

Conversely, we are bound to be surprised by the fact that nousonly comesin third in the world-souls list, especially since we have been told in the meta-physical passage that an intelligent cause is the sine qua non of measure andmoderation (and of its second choice, neness and proportion). Yet there maybe a simple explanation. If the world-soul chose nousrst and foremost, itsoverriding concern would be to know absolutely everything that occurs at alltimes within the cosmic body. That is how Timaeus37a-c presents it, but in thePhilebusPlato has, it seems, thought better of this. The notion of a neutral state

between pleasure and pain is crucial for his attempt here to determine thegood life. For such a state to be possible as an abidingway of life, it is necessarythat we be oblivious () to the myriad small changes constantly going onin our bodies (43b-c), and if oversensitivity to the small stuf is unconduciveto this state, so too is a hunger for knowledge (52a). Now the analyses of plea-sure and intelligence do not admittedly address the world-soul, but both thepreceding argument at 29a-30b deriving our bodies and souls from the worlds,and the subsequent remarks regarding the good in the All (starting with itslinkage to the most turmoil-free mixture at 63e-64a) necessarily provoke thequestion as to whether the cosmicgood life similarly hinges on the neutral stateand the obliviousness to small changes necessary to sustain it. Plato efectivelyanswers this at 66a-c when he has the world-soul choose measure above whatmakes it possible. Its choices are geared to the maintenance of its equanimity,which thinking too much no less than feeling too much can disturb. It choosesnousinsofar as it is conducive to what it cares most about.

The very diferent scheme sketched out in theLaws, which above all quietlygets rid of the world-soul in favour of a league of divine souls headed by the

caretaker of the cosmos (903b), who may or may not be the demiurge, indi-

This is not made clear, but there is more in favour of it than against it. The caretaker is

compared with a craftsman (among other human analogues) at 902e and 903c, and it

is notable that when such comparisons are roundly rejected at 906e demiurge is not

mentioned. The essential demiurgic activity of fashioning the cosmos is apparent in the

remark at 903b that the caretaker set everything in order with a view to the preservation

and excellence of the whole. And his relationship to the ruling powers to whom he

delegates control of the parts (903b) mirrors that between the demiurge and lesser godsduring the age of Kronos at Statesman272e. The main argument against identifying the

two (see Mohr 1985, 185) is that the demiurge ordered the world in the best possible way

given the constraints of his material, whereas the caretaker is omnipotent and arranges

everything down to the nest detail (903a-b). But this is best seen, I think, as a change in


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cates that Plato was ultimately dissatised by the direction in which he hadmodied the Timaeus scheme in the Philebus. The reason, I suggest, is thatthe problem of natural disaster still lurks unresolved in the background there.

The obliviousness appealed to at 43b-c recalls the world-souls forgetfulness atStatesman273c (it is the same word, , in each case). How might we unfoldthis with regard to the world-soul? One way is to suppose that from its point ofview such things as earthquakes are too small to register on its radar. Another,more in keeping with the Statesman, I think, is that in its obliviousness to smallchanges the world-soul fails to deal with a thing while it is still nothing (toquoteDao De Ching2.64), before it snowballs.

It is notable that the remark at 43b-c comes directly after a reference to the

supposed Heraclitean doctrine that everything ows (43a). This notion can,and for Plato often does, mean that things are without any stability or order,are unwholesome and like leaky pots (Cratylus440d). But ow can also sig-nify in Plato the regular motion of matter in conformitywith nousand soul,as for example at Laws966e. The ever-owing being that soul is here said tobring about in taking charge of becoming undoubtedly refers to the cosmicrotation and the orbits of the heavenly bodies, in conformity with the motionof nous, as armed in Laws10. However, ow has an ineradicable errant facealongside this one, and the world-souls forgetfulness may be understood interms of a sliding from the regular to the errant one. For a world-soul that caresmost about its equanimity, it would be the easy thing to entrust itself to theow that has come about by its bringing the cosmic body into compliance withthe rule of nous. That ow may relectthe law it recollected and made its own,but insofar as the world-soul entrusts itself to it, rather than keeping its focuson the law it reects, it would end up following a simulacrum of the law, and inthis ow state it may be oblivious to small changes that are the rst stirringsof much bigger ones.

I suggest that Plato came to the conclusion that his approach in the Philebusdid not ofer an adequate way of containing the problem of natural disaster,

Platos conception of the demiurge, arrived at in reaction, perhaps overreaction, to the

upshot of his previous dialogues. Mohrs other argument, that the demiurge works for

an epistemological end rather than that of cosmic order, disregards the passage in the

Timaeus(29e-30b) that declares what that end is. He wanted the world to be good, and

thereforebrought it to order and gave it intelligence. In this regard I depart from my earlier view (A. J. Mason 2013) that the problem, and

more broadly the deciency of the world-soul, is deliberately insinuated by Plato in

the Philebus. The problem is there, but I think Plato more probably came to see it there

retrospectively.


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and that in the Lawshe reacted against it with a classic case of overkill, doingaway with the world-soul in order, efectively, to do away with the problem,and placing the cosmos in the care of a god who, unlike that of the Timaeus,

is omnipotent. The problem of natural disaster is thereby avoided, not merelyin a passive but an active way; it is sequestered into the category of evil soul,outside of the divine confederacy, so as not to be dealt with again. The previousapproach, in which a singular world-soul had to own both the exemplary anderrant motions hypostasised as good and bad kinds of soul in the Laws, seemsto me the more philosophically interesting.

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