A review in Notre Dame Philosophical Review of Thomas Johansen's recent book on the Timaeus and Critias may be found here.
Comments on the review and the book are welcome.
The reviewer (Andrea Falcon, Virginia Tech) observes that Johansen wishes to document the continuity between Platonic and Aristotelian teleological natural philosophy. But he claims that there are two discontinuities, not sufficiently commented upon by Johansen:
1. Plato regarded the teleological study of nature as immediately relevant to moral philosophy, since, for Plato, we should conceive of the ethical life as an imposition of reason upon necessity, not unlike the Demiurge's creative task. But telelogical natural philosophy, it seems, does not play the same role for Aristotle, who regarded ethics as an autonomous discipline.
2. Although Platonic cosmology is indeed teleological, Plato's use of teleology is sporadic and improvised. Aristotle in contrast, perhaps as a result of his interest in all phenomena of life, gives a general and detailed analysis of teleology (in Physics II).
(I'm not sure what the upshot of point 2. is supposed to be.)
02 March 2005
Johansen on Plato's Natural Philosophy
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1 comments:
I disagree with J about #1 since Socrates doesn't spend his days in the groves of the "Phaedrus" but in the marketplace with men. Nature isn't terribly nice to men and seems rather indifferent to their existence altogether (I'm thinking of the Eleatic Stranger's ugly myths in the "Statesman"). Aristotle is a bit more optimistic in this regard.
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