Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato

Page 21

Original Greek (transliterated): Pandechea, presbeiran, oron peri pasi titheiran, / Atropon, akamatou, dekada kleiousi min agnen, / Athanatoi to theoi kai gegeneeis anthropoi. This refers to the Pythagorean "Decad" or the number ten, viewed as a divine organizing principle of the universe.

And such is the mode of their subsistence according to Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato. Or if it be requisite to speak in more familiar language, an intellect In Platonic philosophy, "Intellect" (Nous) refers to a divine, eternal Mind that contains the perfect blueprints of all things. sufficient to itself, and which is a most perfect cause, presides over the wholes of the universe, and through these governs all its parts; but at the same time that it fabricates all mundane natures, and benefits them by its providential energies, it preserves its own most divine and immaculate purity; and while it illuminates all things, is not mingled with the natures which it illuminates. This intellect, therefore, comprehending in the depths of its essence an ideal world, replete with all various forms, excludes privation of cause and casual subsistence, from its energy. But as it imparts every good and all possible beauty to its fabrications, it converts the universe to itself, and renders it similar to its own omniform Having every possible form or shape within it. nature. Its energy, too, is such as its intellection; but it understands all things, since it is most perfect. Hence there is not any thing which ranks among true beings, that is not comprehended in the essence of intellect; but it always establishes in itself ideas, which are not different from itself and its essence, but give completion to it, and introduce to the whole of things, a cause which is at the same time productive, paradigmatic, and final. For it energizes as intellect, and the ideas which it contains are paradigmatic A "paradigm" is the original model or pattern after which something is made., as being forms; and they energize from themselves, and according to their own exuberant goodness. And such are the Platonic dogmas concerning ideas, which sophistry and ignorance may indeed oppose, but will never be able to confute.

From this intelligible world, replete with omniform ideas, this sensible world The physical world that we can perceive through our senses (sight, touch, etc.)., according to Plato, perpetually flows, depending on its artificer intellect, in the same manner as shadow on its forming substance. For as a deity of an intellectual characteristic is its fabricator, and both the essence and energy of intellect are established in eternity the sensible universe, which is the effect or production of such an energy, must be consubsistent with its cause, or in other words, must be a perpetual emanation from it. This will be evident from considering that every thing which is generated, is either generated by art or by nature, or according to power. It is necessary, therefore, that every thing operating according to nature or art should be prior to the things produced; but that things operating according to power should have their productions coexistent with themselves; just as the sun produces light coexistent with itself; fire, heat; and snow, coldness. If therefore the artificer of the universe produced it by art, he would not cause it simply to be, but to be in some particular manner; for all art produces form. Whence therefore does the world derive its being? If he produced it from nature, since that which makes by nature imparts something of itself to its productions, and the maker of the world is incorporeal, it would be necessary that the world, the offspring of such an energy, should be incorporeal. It remains therefore, that the demiurgus The "Demiurge" is the divine Craftsman or Creator who shapes the physical world using the eternal Ideas as a guide. produced the universe by power alone; but every thing generated by power subsists together with the cause containing this power: and hence production of this kind cannot be destroyed unless the producing cause is deprived of power. The divine intellect therefore that produced the sensible universe caused it to be coexistent with himself.

This world thus depending on its divine artificer, who is himself an intelligible world replete with the archetypal ideas of all things, considered according to its corporeal nature, is perpetually flowing, and perpetually advancing to being Original Greek: en to gignesthai, meaning "in the state of becoming" or "in generation.", and compared with its paradigm, has no stability or reality of being. However, considered as animated by a divine soul, and as receiving the illuminations of all the supermundane gods, and being itself the receptacle of divinities from whom bodies are suspended, it is said by Plato in the Timaeus to be a blessed god. The great body of this world too, which subsists in a perpetual dispersion of temporal extension, may be properly called a whole with a total subsistence, on account of the perpetuity of its duration, though this is nothing more than a flowing eternity. And hence Plato calls it a whole of wholes; by the other wholes which are comprehended in its meaning, the celestial spheres, the sphere of fire, the whole of air considered as one great orb; the whole earth, and the whole sea. These spheres, which are called by Platonic writers parts with a total subsistence, are considered by Plato as aggregately perpetual. For if the body of this world is perpetual, this also must be the case with its larger parts, on account of their...