Shaken to the Chora
The Timaeus begins with Socrates’ desire to see the city he creates in the Republic at war. He wants to see the city in action. The story of the city in the Republic is incomplete. It is a city created by intellect without necessity, that is, a city without chance and contingency. A city that could never be.
The fixed intelligible world, the world of Forms, is not the whole of the story. The Forms are part of a whole that is indeterminate, a whole in which there is contingency and chance. Sensible things are not as they are simply because they are likenesses of Forms. They are as they are because of the random actions they are involved with in the chora. By being shaken the chora both acts on and is acted on by what is in it.
Timaeus introduces the divine craftsman he calls “poet and father'' of all that comes to be. (28c [correction])
He does not attempt to demonstrate or prove or defend the existence of the craftsman. We are led to ask how Timaeus knows of him. The suspicion is that Timaeus is the craftsman, the poet and father, of the divine craftsman.
It is one of the many likely stories (ton eikota mython) he tells:
So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).
His imprecision is seen here as well:
As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).
Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?
We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding.
Socrates approves and urges him to perform the song (nomos). Nomos means not only song but law and custom or convention. In the absence of truth there is nomos. But not just any song, it is one that is regarded as best to accept because it is told with an eye to what is best. One that harmonizes being and becoming.
Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible.
In addition to Forms and sensible things, Timaeus introduces a “third kind” (triton genos, 48e), the chora (????).
The three kinds are:
… that which comes to be, that in which it comes to be, and that from which what comes to be sprouts as something copied. And what’s more, it’s fitting to liken the receiver to a mother , the ‘from which’ to a father, and the nature between these to an offspring (50d).
Like intelligible things, the chora always is. But unlike intelligible things, it is changeable. (52a) Unlike sensible things it does not perish. Befitting its indeterminacy, the chora does not yield to simple definition.
It is said to be the seat of all that has birth. (52b)
He calls it:
… a receptacle for all becoming, a sort of wet nurse.
The chora does not take the shape of anything it receives but is:
… both moved and thoroughly configured by whatever things come into it; and because of these, it appears different at different times ... (50c)
And because she is filled with powers neither similar nor equally balanced, but rather as she sways irregularly in every direction, she herself is shaken by those kinds and, being moved, are always swept along this way and that and are dispersed - just like the particles shaken and winnowed out by sieves and other instruments used for purifying grain … ( 52e)
The chora is not itself active, but due to what is active within it, it moves and thus contributes to the movement of what is in it. Like a sieve, it is not active but by being acted on it acts on what is in it.
The chora, to the extent it is understood, is grasped by:
… some bastard reasoning with the aid of insensibility, hardly to be trusted, the very thing we look to when we dream and affirm that it’s somehow necessary for everything that is to be in some region [topos] and occupy some space [chora] and that what is neither on earth nor somewhere in heaven is nothing (52b-c).
To be clear, it is not that the chora is posited as the result of bastard reasoning. It is the attempt to understand it that relies on bastard reasoning. We cannot understand the chora itself. We rely on images of space and place. In dreams we mistake images for their originals (Republic 476c), but the chora is not some thing with its own properties and identity. Reasoning about it cannot make use of the image/original distinction. It is indeterminate and something thought of only in terms of images.
The image of chora as mother and the father as that “from which” the offspring come raises the problem of paternity. Both the divine craftsman and the Forms have been identified as the father of what comes to be.
In this likely story the offspring are the sensible beings. Any inquiry into the beginning cannot start at the beginning. Timaeus’ likely story, like all such stories, is not to be trusted. It is imprecise and contradictory, just as he said it would be. It is the work of a human craftsman . The beginning remains inaccessible to us. Perhaps what Plato is suggesting is that the offspring of origin stories, including those found in Plato’s dialogues, are the result of bastard reasoning and illegitimate.
A central concern for Timaeus is the beginning of all things (48c):
But by safeguarding what we declared at the very beginning - the power of likely accounts - I’ll attempt to give an account not less likely but more so and to speak, as before from the beginning about things individually and together as a whole. (48d)
Timaeus begins with a likely account of the beginning, which is to say, not at the beginning, but with where he is able to begin. The inability to identify the true father, the origin, the beginning, leads to bastard reasoning. Our reasoning is on the basis of likeness in the double sense of sensible things being a likeness without ever having what belongs to that which it is a likeness of (52c) and, a likeness in the sense of being likely or like what it is without being what it is that it is like. And, of course, without access to the original we cannot say just how likely the story is to be true.
In a dream we fail to distinguish between things and images. We should not mistake our images of the chora for the chora itself. It is not something sensed but it is not an intelligible either. It is a third kind, one that cannot be fully explicated. One that points to the mystery and indeterminacy of what is at play in the world.
The image of the city at war is an image of a place or space, a chora, in which there is both intelligible order and chance, harmony and disharmony. Where things stand both together and in opposition.
Forms and Chora are an indeterminate dyad. Together they order all that comes to be through intellect and necessity, that is, according to paradigm and chance, order and disorder, determinacy and indeterminacy.
For more on the indeterminate dyad: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11903/platos-metaphysics/p1
The fixed intelligible world, the world of Forms, is not the whole of the story. The Forms are part of a whole that is indeterminate, a whole in which there is contingency and chance. Sensible things are not as they are simply because they are likenesses of Forms. They are as they are because of the random actions they are involved with in the chora. By being shaken the chora both acts on and is acted on by what is in it.
Timaeus introduces the divine craftsman he calls “poet and father'' of all that comes to be. (28c [correction])
He does not attempt to demonstrate or prove or defend the existence of the craftsman. We are led to ask how Timaeus knows of him. The suspicion is that Timaeus is the craftsman, the poet and father, of the divine craftsman.
It is one of the many likely stories (ton eikota mython) he tells:
So then, Socrates, if, in saying many things on many topics concerning gods and the birth of the all, we prove to be incapable of rendering speeches that are always and in all respects in agreement with themselves and drawn with precision, don’t be surprised. But if we provide likelihoods inferior to none, we should be well-pleased with them, remembering that I who speak as well as you my judges have a human nature, so that it’s fitting for us to be receptive to the likely story about these things and not search further for anything beyond it. (29c-d).
His imprecision is seen here as well:
As for all the heaven (or cosmos, or whatever else it might be most receptive to being called, let us call it that) … (28b).
Why not be more precise? Isn’t it imperative to be precise in matters of metaphysics and cosmogony?
We are human beings, capable of telling likely stories, but incapable of discerning the truth of such things. In line with the dialogues theme of what is best, Timaeus proposes it is best to accept likely stories and not search for what is beyond the limits of our understanding.
Socrates approves and urges him to perform the song (nomos). Nomos means not only song but law and custom or convention. In the absence of truth there is nomos. But not just any song, it is one that is regarded as best to accept because it is told with an eye to what is best. One that harmonizes being and becoming.
Timaeus identifies two kinds of cause, intelligence and necessity, nous and ananke. Necessity covers such things as physical processes, contingency, chance, motion, power, and the chora. What is by necessity is without nous or intellect. It is called the “wandering cause” (48a). It can act contrary to nous. The sensible world, the world of becoming, is neither regulated by intellect nor fully intelligible.
In addition to Forms and sensible things, Timaeus introduces a “third kind” (triton genos, 48e), the chora (????).
The three kinds are:
… that which comes to be, that in which it comes to be, and that from which what comes to be sprouts as something copied. And what’s more, it’s fitting to liken the receiver to a mother , the ‘from which’ to a father, and the nature between these to an offspring (50d).
Like intelligible things, the chora always is. But unlike intelligible things, it is changeable. (52a) Unlike sensible things it does not perish. Befitting its indeterminacy, the chora does not yield to simple definition.
It is said to be the seat of all that has birth. (52b)
He calls it:
… a receptacle for all becoming, a sort of wet nurse.
The chora does not take the shape of anything it receives but is:
… both moved and thoroughly configured by whatever things come into it; and because of these, it appears different at different times ... (50c)
And because she is filled with powers neither similar nor equally balanced, but rather as she sways irregularly in every direction, she herself is shaken by those kinds and, being moved, are always swept along this way and that and are dispersed - just like the particles shaken and winnowed out by sieves and other instruments used for purifying grain … ( 52e)
The chora is not itself active, but due to what is active within it, it moves and thus contributes to the movement of what is in it. Like a sieve, it is not active but by being acted on it acts on what is in it.
The chora, to the extent it is understood, is grasped by:
… some bastard reasoning with the aid of insensibility, hardly to be trusted, the very thing we look to when we dream and affirm that it’s somehow necessary for everything that is to be in some region [topos] and occupy some space [chora] and that what is neither on earth nor somewhere in heaven is nothing (52b-c).
To be clear, it is not that the chora is posited as the result of bastard reasoning. It is the attempt to understand it that relies on bastard reasoning. We cannot understand the chora itself. We rely on images of space and place. In dreams we mistake images for their originals (Republic 476c), but the chora is not some thing with its own properties and identity. Reasoning about it cannot make use of the image/original distinction. It is indeterminate and something thought of only in terms of images.
The image of chora as mother and the father as that “from which” the offspring come raises the problem of paternity. Both the divine craftsman and the Forms have been identified as the father of what comes to be.
In this likely story the offspring are the sensible beings. Any inquiry into the beginning cannot start at the beginning. Timaeus’ likely story, like all such stories, is not to be trusted. It is imprecise and contradictory, just as he said it would be. It is the work of a human craftsman . The beginning remains inaccessible to us. Perhaps what Plato is suggesting is that the offspring of origin stories, including those found in Plato’s dialogues, are the result of bastard reasoning and illegitimate.
A central concern for Timaeus is the beginning of all things (48c):
But by safeguarding what we declared at the very beginning - the power of likely accounts - I’ll attempt to give an account not less likely but more so and to speak, as before from the beginning about things individually and together as a whole. (48d)
Timaeus begins with a likely account of the beginning, which is to say, not at the beginning, but with where he is able to begin. The inability to identify the true father, the origin, the beginning, leads to bastard reasoning. Our reasoning is on the basis of likeness in the double sense of sensible things being a likeness without ever having what belongs to that which it is a likeness of (52c) and, a likeness in the sense of being likely or like what it is without being what it is that it is like. And, of course, without access to the original we cannot say just how likely the story is to be true.
In a dream we fail to distinguish between things and images. We should not mistake our images of the chora for the chora itself. It is not something sensed but it is not an intelligible either. It is a third kind, one that cannot be fully explicated. One that points to the mystery and indeterminacy of what is at play in the world.
The image of the city at war is an image of a place or space, a chora, in which there is both intelligible order and chance, harmony and disharmony. Where things stand both together and in opposition.
Forms and Chora are an indeterminate dyad. Together they order all that comes to be through intellect and necessity, that is, according to paradigm and chance, order and disorder, determinacy and indeterminacy.
For more on the indeterminate dyad: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11903/platos-metaphysics/p1
Comments (57)
Interesting post.
A few questions though:
Where did you find “Timaeus 28e”?
Is this from any particular translation, or your own?
From what I understand, Timaeus is a literary figure. If there is any "suspicion" or doubt regarding the authorship of the story, should it not be put to rest by the fact that Plato is the author of the dialogue?
:up:
Cool post.
OK, so you corrected the "28e" bit.
However, I can’t find a single English translation that has “poet”. All of them have “maker”:
Lamb’s translation says:
The primary meaning of poietes is “maker” from poieo, “to make”.
Greek-English lexicons like Liddle & Scott explicitly give Plato’s Republic 597d and Timaeus 28c as examples:
https://lsj.gr/wiki/???????
A poietes is someone who makes things, for example, a maker of furniture, a law-maker, a speech-maker, etc. and by extension, as a secondary meaning, a verse-maker or poet.
In the context of Timaeus 28c it cannot mean anything other than Maker. At 76c it says:
Conceivably, the Creator-God could create the Universe through poetry if he so desired. But this is NOT what he is doing.
Clearly, we cannot substitute “poet” for “maker” in this context. The Creator is described as a craftsman and architect, hence “demiurge”, not as a “poet”. It doesn’t make sense to say “the Poet of the Universe” when no “poetic” activity is involved in the process described.
If you insert concepts into the text that are not there and then construct arguments based on them, then I think you should inform us that this is what you are doing.
Metaphysics for Plato was speculative and contemplative play, a form of poiesis, the making of images of the whole and parts. Without knowledge of beginnings that are forever lost to us he is saying that we cannot take any of this too seriously as true accounts. But that is not to say that we should not take such play seriously.
The question of whether we live in a beautiful, well-ordered cosmos is a serious and important question, one that is challenged in the Timaeus. We cannot provide a definitive answer to this question, but how we choose to answer is important.
It may appear as though the Timaeus is a departure for Plato, but it is consistent with Socratic skepticism. An indeterminate world, one where chance and contingency play a role, is a world that cannot be known. An indeterminate world of chance and contingency is one where the unknowable, the mystical dimension of life, is not flattened and destroyed.
Excellent post. Thanks for the reply.
In the Phaedo Socrates calls the hypothesis of Forms “safe and ignorant” (105c). In addition to the Forms, he later recognizes the necessity of admitting physical causes such as fire and fever (105c).
In what he calls his “second sailing” he investigates the “truth of beings” by means of accounts. The Forms are said to be hypothetical and the beings are not the Forms but the sensible things, to be navigated by means of the hypothetical Forms (99d-100a).
As to the causal relationship between Forms and sensible things, he says:
Plato is well aware of what is known as the participation problem, but offers no solution to it. The precise nature of the relationship is not something he is able to articulate. If the relationship between Forms and things remains in question then the hypothesis of Forms remains questionable.
In the Philebus Plato introduces what Aristotle refers to as the indeterminate dyad, the limited (peras) and unlimited (apieron). Contrary to the fixed, unchanging nature of the Forms, indeterminacy is an ineliminable element of Plato’s metaphysics.
As Jacob Klein puts it:
They are not simply two because there is one and one, but because each is together with its other, thus both are two in a double sense
Each element of the dyad stands together with and apart from the other. There is not one without the other.
The Forms are each said to be one, but the Forms and things of that Form are an indeterminate dyad, one and indeterminate many.
Consequently, even if knowledge of the Forms is possible it cannot give us knowledge of the sensible world.
Quoting Fooloso4
So it sounds like Plato had the sceptic and mystic elements in his thoughts on the world, human life and the gods.
This is maybe a bit more helpful with an idea of how the Greeks of the period conceptualized space, and their distinction between magnitude and multitude in mathematics, but that's a bit of a digression, and we have to reconstruct such a view through Aristotle and his quotations anyhow.
A helpful comparison to a more discussed concept occurs in Book IV of Aristotle's "Physics."
[I]This is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter and space are the same; for the 'participant' and space are identical. (It is true, indeed, that the account he gives there of the 'participant' is different from what he says in his so-called 'unwritten teaching'. Nevertheless, he did identify place and space.) I mention Plato because, while all hold place to be something, he alone tried to say what it is.[/I]*
Matter for Aristotle is potentiality, and prime matter (nothing but matter) is sheer indeterminate potency. Matter is what "stays the same" when things change. For example, it helps to resolve Plato's Meno Paradox because we can explain that we know things [I]potentially[/I] before we know them actually.
Prime matter never exists without form. If a thing is any thing at all it has some form/eidos. So, similarly for Aristotle, the approach to "knowing of it" is indirect.
Anyhow, an interesting comparison in approach here is Plotinus. Plotinus wants to extend Plato, but he doesn't pick up on the approach here (i.e., stories within stories). But neither can the approach be direct. Rather, it relies on affirmation and negation, saying something (normally of the One) and then denying it in any normal terms (this is arguably more confusing than Plato, and it makes it impossible to cite short passages decisively). This also plays off Aristotle's use of analogy, and some of his other work, although it also offers stark corrections, implying a sort of dunamis in God (as opposed to Aristotle's "pure act"), but then this dunamis isn't the same as Aristotle's and often gets rendered as "power" instead of "potency/potentiality."
Anyhow, what I think is interesting and informative for these later developments that relate to the OP involves questions of both method and theory.
In terms of method, there is the idea that these questions cannot be tackled head on. The author of the Seventh Letter (presumably Plato) speaks to this difficulty directly and "talks shop" about trying to teach such things. Aristotle appears to differ from Plato in some key respects, often drawing a distinction between "the Platonists''' position and his own, but the methodological difficulties remain. Later inheritors of both the Platonic and Aristotlean tradition would try to develop this a bit. For example, St. Thomas draws on Aristotle and Boethius to make the case that natural philosophy (what we often call science), mathematics, and metaphysics each involve different acts of the mind. In the commentary on Boethius' De Trinitate he will claim that metaphysics involves an act of "separation" that entails separating things that in reality can never be distinct, and matter/indeterminate space would be one of the things approached in such a way.
However, Plato's technique of images would remain popular. We might consider as examples St. Bonaventure's series of images in Itinerarium Mentis in Deum, or Dante's implementation of philosophy in images in the Divine Comedy.
Theory wise, the one development I wanted to point out lies in Eriugena, "who distinguishes “nothing through privation” (nihil per privationem), and “nothing on account of excellence” (nihil per excellentiam). Basically, is something nothing on account of total absence or lack, or nothing because it contains everything and so is indeterminate as any one thing? The metaphor I like here is a sound wave. We might imagine the total absence of sound in a classical vacuum. But then we can also consider a sound wave of infinite amplitude and frequency. As the waves get ever closer together, approaching infinite frequency, the peaks and troughs cancel each other out, resulting in silence. But this is a pregnant silence (a womb), one that can actualize any possible sound through substraction, not addition. Yet such a substraction requires something else—the "father"—and this sort of difficulty shows up in a lot of thought, for instance, Plotinus' desire to affirm freedom for the One but not multiplicity or a composite nature.
*Notably, Aristotle often refers to "the Platonists," but here refers to "Plato." Although, this could simply be due to the fact that he is quoting a specific work.
The term'mystic' has been used to mean what is beyond our knowledge and understanding and also to mean what the mystic knows through transcendent experience,. I think Plato points to the former and provides a myth about the latter.
What first struck me when I began reading the Timaeus is how odd it all seemed. Not the least of which is Socrates uncharacteristic silence throughout most of the dialogue. When at the beginning he says that in his opinion Timaeus has reached the very peak of all philosophy (20a) is he being sincere or ironic?
When Timaeus says:
(29c-d).
Socrates responds:
(29d)
Why must likely but contradictory stories concerning the gods and the birth of the all be accepted? How many different likely stories should be accepted? This one is inferior to none, but that does not mean it is superior to all others.
Since the chora, this third kind in addition to Forms and sensible things, is graspable by some bastard reasoning with the aid of insensibility, as in a dream, and is hardly to be trusted, is it reasonable to treat it reasonably in the same way we do Forms and sensible things?
The "chora itself" is not like a Form or a thing itself. It is like something to be looked to as in a dream, but it is not like the images of things seen in a dream. In attempting to reason about it we cannot make use of the image/original distinction.
An interesting point. But I am not sure if matter and space are the same. Matter can only exist in space. And mind can only exist in the biological body. Mind cannot exist in another mind. Human body cannot exist in another human body. Mind and body are totally different entity. Then matter and space must be different entity. If X exists in Y, then X and Y must be independent entities or existences.
Matter has mass and weight. Space doesn't seem to have them. So how can they be the same? Would you agree Aristotle was wrong on his claim in his Physics?
ChatGPT seems to suggest that Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer were all inspired by Plato's theory of Forms and mysticism in their philosophical systems. For instance could Kant's Thing-in-itself and the transcendental philosophy be reflecting Plato's Form in some sense?
Well, Aristotle's notion of matter is much different from modern physics, and is perhaps more usefully likened to energy.
But, the "void," space, does seem to "weigh." Frank Wilzek's "The Lightness of Being," is a really great book on the properties of "empty space," and he makes the argument that theories of aether might be usefully employed for understanding this "metric field."
It also has one of the more accessible introductions to quantum chromodynamics I've seen.
Energy is from the motions or changes of matter e.g. flying baseball carries energy to break window when it hit the window, heat generates from burning woods etc. Matter has potential for being energy suppose.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
I googled for how to weigh void or space, but they just listed weighing mass in space, rather than weighing the space itself. How do you weigh space? :)
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Thanks for the info on the book. Will try to get the book.
First, there is the passage from Timaeus that is being considered:
Quoting Plato, Timaeus, 48e, translated by Horan
The difficulty described by Timaeus is that the language of correspondence does not serve us as readily as it did in the other two models. The other difficulty is that third entity is prior to the other entities as a fundamental ground of natural being. The new beginning is in that sense a second sailing as taken in the Phaedo (to which Fooloso4 often refers to).
A scholar who takes that perspective seriously is John Sallis. He takes issue with Aristotle's interpretation of Plato's passage:
What makes the passage from Physics even more convoluted is that Aristotle is not actually agreeing with the view he ascribes to Plato regarding whether 'place' belongs to a being as its form and matter do:
:up: I find this an interesting topic. Chora is a new concept to me. It sounds abstract and daunting to understand the concept due to all the background situation with Timaeus. However, it certainly is one of the interesting topic in the ancient Greek philosophy.
I was doing a quick reasoning on space, and noticed that space contains matter, but matter also contains space.
Notice most of the spaces perceptible are actually contained in the matter? e.g. the space in the boxes, rooms, houses, airplanes, cars, ships, pubs, in the lunch boxes, bags ..... etc. Therefore could it be the case the open space into the sky and to the whole universe could be contained in some gigantic matter? Could the matter which contains the whole universe be then, the Chora?
That is how some have interpreted the 'nesting' quality of Aristotle's description of 'places within places.' That interpretation, however, runs afoul of Aristotle saying 'place' is not a material or formal limit:
It is difficult for us Moderns to approach the idea because we tend to accept the idea of space as infinite extension in the manner of Descartes and Pascal. It may help to look at how the words involved were used before approaching Aristotle and Sallis' objections to his interpretation of Timaeus.
The first meaning given in the Lexicon for ???? is:
As you look down the list of entries, you will find many combinations of ????? and ???? used together, one sense of "location" qualifying the other as needed. Here is a sentence in Plato that has all of the three words used by Aristotle in the Physics passage in one place:
Quoting Plato, Laws, 705c
???? is just wood, ????? is district or region, and ????? means 'status' or 'condition.'
This comparison validates Sallis' criticism of Aristotle's statement but leaves us a long distance to go toward understanding what is meant in the Timaeus or the Physics. The reference to "unwritten teachings" is more than a little maddening.
A place is made of space with boundary around it, hence it sounds place is always artificial entity. Space is a natural and transcendent entity which covers the whole universe. Is space a matter? or is it non-matter? It looks space is not mental for sure, but is not matter either.
Matter has mass, but space doesn't have mass. So how had space been created, and started to exist in the universe?
Okay. Sallis requires careful reading of Timaeus to be of any value. I suggest starting there.
Before addressing your description of place, I think we have to approach why Plato says it is so difficult to talk about.
Aristotle's Topos has anything to do with Chora? What are the differences between Chora and Topos? Or are they related to each other?
There is still a lot of work to be done understanding what Aristotle was intending to say for me to rely too much upon the lexicon used in histories of philosophy.
If you search this topic on Google Scholar, there is a fair sample of the range of opinions of those who read Aristotle closely for the purpose of gleaning his intentions.
If you read the Sallis book, you will find people who closely read Plato that way too.
Maybe the collision of those two endeavors requires its own OP. That is above my pay grade.
You are well over my pay grade on these concepts. If you think it is worth a topic, and would start its own OP, I would follow the discussion reading and learning about them. Chora and Topos seem to be both interesting concepts in that they would expand the path of discussion into the idealism vs. realism direction, hence would help us to see the world in more accurate way, as it is.
There is no such a thing as the world as it is it might seem to the Humean vulgars, but it is a gradual concept i.e. which unfolds from the imagination, dreams, illusions, fantasies, and daily ordinary lives to the objective physical world which can be mapped into the mathematical formulas and scientific principles, to which we try to arrive via the philosophical arguments and insights.
I find the general category of "idealism vs. realism" unhelpful when reading ancient texts. It retrojects later interpretations on to authors that had their own problems and concerns.
Reading to understand the latter is always difficult and is an act of interpretation as well. But it is different from placing ideas into a model unused by previous thinkers.
And another point is, I am not sure if idealism vs realism argument is only for the later and contemporary interpretations. After all, Plato was propounding the material world is false,and the ideal world is real and true, to which Aristotle retorted no, that is not the case. From Aristotle's point of view the actual particulars are true and real, which was the foundation of nominalism and realism.
Therefore neither it would be a wrong interpretation, nor placing ideas into a model unused by previous thinkers.
Which is why it is only possible to misread Plato in one direction or another to a lesser or greater extent. Scholars' translations and readings are slanted as ethicist, moralist, mathematical, humanist, historical, literary, or holist. Each gives a picture yet none of them feel quite right for the others. Plato actively encouraged this diversity by exploring aspects of philosophy from the perspective of other philosophers (deliberately interpreted with a slant). I imagine his Academians were also vociferously divided.
Wow an old thread, almost forgotten, but nice to see it back. Thank you for your reply.
Quoting magritte
Interesting point. I used to interpret the classic philosophers original writings from my own subjective point of view. But it often created acute disagreements on the interpretations from other readers.
What is your opinion on the subjectivity and objectivity of interpretations? Is it possible for philosophical interpretations on the original texts totally objective? Would it not be inevitable that all interpretations are somewhat subjective?
A few years back I had to invade the library of a local seminary in search of an expensive Plato commentary. When I asked for help the young librarians instantly assumed that I was searching for God infusing Forms into Chora. So I figure this thread might be worth reviving.
Quoting Corvus
The analytic philosophers of the last century tried to do that and they made amazing progress. But it left many readers wondering whether Plato was somehow lost in the process.
Quoting Corvus
I don't see how that can ever be avoided if even the most solid translations mislead their readers in key passages of the text. Following up on previous comments,
Quoting Plato, Timaeus, 48d, translated by Horan
What's the difference and does it matter?
The sentence before this one belabored the perils of probabilistic guessing about the heavenly order imposed by a perfectly good god of reason. ("Remembering what I said at first about probability, I will do my best to give as probable an explanation as any other--or rather, more probable")
Therefore it is the Pythagorean theoretician who is in need of saving through divine inspiration and not us. God is not our savior but the savior of the true philosopher.
So, which translation should I start with?
The range of possible active agency is represented to some extent by those different translations.
In regard to the discussion of Sallis' work (immediately preceding your comment), the issue was how to understand the "what" that is acted upon by Forms. Sallis focuses upon how Aristotle puts forward a function of "substrate" that is at odds with how Plato approached the idea.
Or, if not at odds, then something else to be described.
Quoting Paine
Describing chora as a place or as an extension is un-Platonic primarily because these are plainer ideas that stray too far from the complexities of text. Aristotle and Gerson attempt to assimilate what is taken to be Plato's word into their own simplified Aristotelian philosophical mindset. Plato is hard to read because the dialogues should force us to step outside of our practical self-serving schemas. If we don't take that step then we are left behind.
More importantly from my perspective, the metaphysical requirements of the chora as a theoretical entity override mere geometric (place) or dimensional (extent) considerations. The chora needs to be an indefinitely active maelstrom, a background that cannot be sensed in any way that randomly moves and changes itself and everything in it. Otherwise Plato's philosophy doesn't work for him.
Quoting Paine
I agree with that take as it applies to chora and even to Plato's atomism. For one, the chora is too big and the atoms are too small to correspond to anything that we care to name given their ancient setting. OK, modern physics has caught up with language like universe, energy, forces, atoms and molecules but that cannot count except as conceptual crutches for us moderns.
Quoting Paine
Yes, the chora must predate the gods and the entire creation story, just as the Forms must. Otherwise the demiurge has nothing to work with in creating the physical world, such as it seems. I'm not sure how that relates the heavens of the gods to the world though.
No surprise. Analytic philosophy cannot cross over the dictionary meanings of words, suppose.
Quoting magritte
Good idea.
Quoting magritte
I am not well read on Plato, and even on the other ancient Greek philosophers, so I am not the best one to answer the question. But I like Jowett best for clarity and simplicity.
I bought a few old books on Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Lucretius and Heraclitus recently, so will do some reading on them.
A place or extension didn't quite make sense to me either. I chose the topic to study in order to understand Plato better, but perhaps it was a wrong topic, as it feels an advanced topic rather than basic or common topic. Hence the reason why I bought the Sallis book to read, but it wasn't much help in understanding the concept.
I was thinking on chora in the direction of the substrate of forms. Because forms must come from somewhere too. Forms have hierarchy, hence why not substrate? But then, I couldn't locate further intelligible resources for the information on the point, at which the inferring pursuit was left.
What is your definition, or rather, understanding of chora?
If they did they would lose an objective common ground of communication. The lexicon has its own biases as well but where would we be without it? Plato resorted to dramatics, personalities, irony, and metaphors to paint over large gaps with a broad brush where the fine strokes of reason lacked.
Quoting Corvus
I need to do the same. Boundless apeiron and fundamental material substances as arche originated with those early physicists and I often wonder what that lost book by Heraclitus would read like.
A definition might be too strict for something that mostly does not exist to be defined, it is an extended boundless dynamic field of inter-penetrating proto-substances constantly moving and changing into each other. According to ancient physics, if substances are self-generating and self-moving then they are necessarily imbued with soul and must be alive in some sense.
Well observed. That it takes "bastard reasoning" to approach the chora puts any effort toward a systematic view of the whole into question. For instance, Cornford's framing of a Theory of the Forms assumes a level of explanation that may not be on offer.
Quoting magritte
I am not sure either.
One feature that does not appear in the pure substrate model is the "wet nurse" role of the "receptacle".
Aristotle seems to find nurture as a reflection of the active agency and teleological aspect of Coming to Be. What is decided to be "prior" in the Timaeus, as a matter of likely stories, does not appear to satisfy Aristotle's view of time and place. Is that a disagreement about creation per se or a different view of Nous/ Not Nous?
A valid point. We use lexicon and analytic philosophy as a tool for clarification of ambiguous words or sentences in the arguments. But they are just a tool, not the end or goal of philosophy. Many eminent and deep philosophical ideas lie in the realm of chora beyond the words. :)
Quoting magritte
I picked up these old books from the 2nd hand book shop for cheap, but they look very interesting books. I also thought that some of Platonic concepts could be coming from his predecessors like Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras, but it was just an idea.
It sounds like Chora does things, moves, changes, generates imbued with souls and lives on, like God creates and time flows, but it may not exist in the material world for us to be able to perceive or sense.
Do you mean his explanation for the exclusion of Forms from the Theaetetus? Cornford was a unitarian with respect to Plato's underlying metaphysics and believed that beyond the many things said there was deeper coherence. He also consciously excluded later Aristotelian interpretative influence. There is a review (here).
Plato seems to have deliberately hidden his metaphysics by sparingly spreading it throughout the dialogues, I have the strange impression that since Plato was his own editor and publisher, he periodically revised earlier dialogues stashing key pieces here and there. Consequently early readers like Aristotle could genuinely be obsoleted without their awareness. Furthermore the Academics might have had a later more complete copy of the works than the Lyceum.
Cornford's 'Platonist' sought out the metaphysical fragments then reread the entirety with an unerring guidance from that knowledge. Unfortunately only advanced scholars have the mental capacity to follow that plan. Certainly not me.
Quoting Paine
That opens up Pandora's box.
The demiurge creates natural things by informing the chaotic substrate. I say things that are images, copies of their forms, that become, move, change, and perish like the substrate, yet retain formal identity. Things interact by kind, and have identity and temporal properties that can potentially be sensed. Things are less real than their perfect Forms and cannot be known because they move and change constantly.
The receptacle must contain and nourish objective things.
What pops out is the puzzle of subjective sensation and the objects of perception as contrasted to the things of the chora.
A Platonic reading recognizes this distinction, an Aristotelian reading does not. Aristotle sees substantial objects where Plato sees dynamic things and perceived objects.
Yes. Quite different from an empty infinite space or a container of sorts.
Interestingly there is a modern quantum version of the World Soul. The idea is that the universe is quantum computer busy calculating its and our future
So Plato might have been talking about the world soul and parallel universe 2300 years ago. That sounds interesting. Quantum computing is trying to find out what it was all about.
In regard to Cornford, we talked about this two years ago in this thread.
I need to ponder the Pandora box you opened before replying.
The quantum universe is proposed to be whole, and an intelligent agent in a Platonic sense. It is supposed to be acting instantaneously beyond our 3-D spacetime. Tempting sci-fi speculation but it hasn't been shown to be impossible partly because of real physics theories of extra space and time dimensions.
Could the quantum universe be in a possible world? Or would it be a legitimate existence in the universe?
You mentioned about "the World Soul". What is the World Soul? Do humans have souls?
Quoting magritte
The quantum universe is just another description of the physical universe but at the smallest quantum level. Consequent observable that change at human scales are the cumulative effect of countless quantum events. Just as the river is the sum of all the waters flowing by another name. It isn't any existence but the entire makeup of the whole of what can be.
Quoting Corvus
Here, my only interest in Plato's World Soul is as a rational intelligent agent that after the original divine origin, continues to create natural observable things by mixing definite finite forms with indefinite primal substantial elements. Of course, human agency, people with intelligent souls can do the same as craftsmen. This is part of the metaphysical mechanism the passes formal identity and properties to objects, and in turn recognizes things in this or that form as objects.
:ok:
Found an info page on Chora (Khora) in Wiki, which looks good. I am sure you must have seen the page if your main interest is Plato's philosophy. Do you agree with the content on the page?
Aristotle is known to have rejected the idea of Khora, and came up with his own version of the idea called hyle, as in this page Hylomorphism.
Alternatively, one could read the actual text.
Good point. But when the actual text is abstruse, preliminary readings on the academic commentaries and even ChatGPT sessions do help accessing the text later?
I don't want to broadly condemn any approach to reading texts.
I have found much value with starting with the original before reading other reactions. It makes it more of a matter of my perplexity approaching what is said.
My style of notetaking involves noticing connections and divergences that sometimes get picked up by others and sometimes not. Those notes connect me to texts I read decades ago. I still do not know the answer to a lot of those questions.
Happened with Kant's CPR. Tried start reading the original texts, but they were hard to bite in with convoluted archaic writing styles and word meanings from different versions of translated texts, which got me nowhere.
Put down the original texts, and read several academic commentaries, articles and ChatGpt sessions on the topic. They gave me clearer understanding on the whole picture of CPR, and now I am ready to get back to original texts.
I like the two well-chosen Plato quotes there from the Timaeus.
I complained before about the necessity of bringing a point of view to reading Plato. Even in the original, one can't tell whether a speech or argument is actually Plato's belief or just that of the dramatic speaker in the dialogue. Is the receptacle part of Plato's overall scheme or is it a tall tale from the Pythagorean sophist Timaeus? When it is emphasized as likely, is likely to be taken positively or negatively?
This sort of judgment needs to have its own justification on some basis, be it dramatic, psychological, political, historical, religious, or whatever might seem relevant to the reader. I try to base my reading on coherence to other things Plato said elsewhere in other dialogues hoping that his philosophy was logically founded.
My preference is for something like the SEP article Timaeus written by two experts who have a definite approach to Plato. Their view however is still only their view.
Plato's original texts had been written in archaic Greek, which even Greek folks living now don't understand unless they study the archaic language.
So for us non Greek readers of Plato in English translated copies, they must be translated from the original archaic Greek to modern Greek, then translated again from modern Greek to English. Hence unless one reads them in the original archaic Greek, could it be seen as reading the actual text?
Quoting magritte
When I read the classic philosophical texts, I try to read them interpreting from my own view rather than trying to understand them under officially accepted interpretation. Not sure if this is good way of reading them.
Quoting magritte
That looks a good article for the topic too. Thank for the info.
Derrida mentions Khora as the images we see in our dreams, which sounds interesting. Is that where our dreams come from?
Where did you read that?
Those are good questions. I think there is a relationship between Timaeus and the Sophist in this regard. The Stranger brings into question the absolute separation of Being and Becoming put forward in the Timaeus. But the contrast does not resolve as one ground closer to the truth than another. That is what made Cornford's head explode.
This book has a chapter titled "Khora".
I will look for it.
John Sallis refers to that text in his Verge of Philosophy, saying: