Plato Republic 7.530

Paul Shorey (Translator)

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Republic. Plato. Paul Shorey (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1935-37.

Sponsored by Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Funding provided by The Annenberg CPB/Project.

Current edition Perseus

Republic (English) (Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 5-6. Shorey, Paul, translator. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1935-37 (printing).)

Editions (1)
Πολιτεία Perseus (Platonis Opera Tomus IV: Tetralogia VIII. Burnet, John, editor. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.) — 7.530 focus

Notes on the current edition

Republic

1. δημιουργῷ: an anticipation of the Timaeus.
2. Cf. Bruno apud Höffding, History of Modern Philosophy, i. 125 and 128, and Galileo, ibid. i. 178; also Lucretius v. 302-305.
3. Plato was right against the view that Aristotle imposed on the world for centuries. We should not therefore say with Adam that he would have attached little significance to the perturbations of Neptune and the consequent discovery of Uranus. It is to Plato that tradition attributes the problem of accounting by the simplest hypothesis for the movement of the heavenly bodies and saving the phenomena. The alleged contradiction between this and Laws 821 B ff. and Tim. 41 A is due to a misapprehension. That the stars in their movements do not perfectly express the exactness of mathematical conceptions is no more than modern astronomers say. In the Laws passage Plato protests against the idea that there is no law and order governing the movement of the planets, but that they are wandering stars, as irregular in their movements as they seem. In the Timaeus he is saying that astronomy or science took its beginning from the sight and observation of the heavenly bodies and the changing seasons. In the Republic Plato’s purpose is to predict and encourage a purely mathematical astronomy and the indicate its place in the type of education which he wishes to give his guardians. There is not the slightest contradiction or change of opinion in the three passages if interpreted rightly in their entire context.
4. The meaning is not appreciably affected by a slight doubt as to the construction of ζητεῖν. It is usually taken with ἄτοπον (regarded as neuter), the meaning being that the Philosophic astronomer will think it strange to look for the absolute truth in these things. This double use of ἄτοπον is strained and it either makes παντὶ τρόπῳ awkward or attributes to Plato the intention of decrying the concrete study of astronomy. I think ζητεῖν etc. are added by a trailing anacoluthon such as occurs elsewhere in the Republic. Their subject is the real astronomer who, using the stars only as diagrams or patterns (529 D), seeks to learn a higher exacter mathematical truth than mere observation could yield. Madvig’s ζητήσει implies a like view of the meaning but smooths out the construction. But my interpretation of the passage as a whole does not depend on this construction. If we make ζητεῖν depend on ἄτοπον (neuter) ἡγήσεται, the meaning will be that he thinks it absurd to expect to get that higher truth from mere observation. At all events Plato is not here objecting to observation as a suggestion for mathematical studies but to its substitution for them, as the next sentence shows.
5. That is just what the mathematical astronomy of today does, and it is a πολλαπλάσιον ἔργον compared with the merely observational astronomy of Plato’s day. Cf. the interesting remarks of Sir James Jeans, apud S. J. Woolf, Drawn from Life, p. 74:
The day is gone when the astronomer’s work is carried on only at the eyepiece of a telescope. Naturally, observations must be made, but these must be recorded by men who are trained for that purpose, and I am not one of them,
etc. Adam’s quotation of Browning’s Abt Vogler in connection with this passage will only confirm the opinion of those who regard Plato as a sentimental enemy of science.
6. Cf. also Phileb. 59 A, Aristot. Met. 997 b 35
οὐδὲ περὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν ἡ ἀστρολογία τόνδε
. This intentional Ruskinian boutade has given great scandal. The Platonist, we are told ad nauseam, deduces the world from his inner consciousness. This is of course not true (Cf. Unity of Plato’s Thought, p. 45). But Plato, like some lesser writers, loves to emphasize his thought by paradox and surprise, and his postulation and of a mathematical astronomy required emphasis. Cf. my Platonism and the History of Science, pp. 171-174. This and similar passages cannot be used to prove that Plato was unscientific, as many hostile or thoughtless critics have attempted to do. Cf. e.g. the severe strictures of Arthur Platt, Nine Essays, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1921, pp. 12-16, especially p. 16:
Plato being first and foremost a metaphysician with a sort of religious system would not have us study anything but metaphysics and a kind of mystic religion.
Woodbridge Riley, From Myth to Reason, p. 47:
. . . Plato...was largely responsible for turning back the clock of scientific progress. To explain the wonders of the world he preferred imagination to observation.
Cf. also Benn, Greek Philosophers, vol. i. pp. 173 and 327, Herrick, The Thinking Machine, p. 335, f. C. s. Schiller, Plato and he Predecessors, p. 81:
. . . that Plato’s anti-empirical bias renders him profoundly anti-scientific, and that his influence has always, openly or subtly, counteracted and thwarted the scientific impulse, or at least diverted it into unprofitable channels.
Dampier-Whetham, A History of Science, pp. 27-28:
Plato was a great philosopher but in the history of experimental science he must be counted a disaster.
Such statements disregard the entire context of the Platonic passages they exploit, and take no account of Plato’s purpose or of other passages which counteract his seemingly unscientific remarks. Equally unfair is the practice of comparing Plato unfavorably with Aristotle in this respect, as Grote e.g. frequently does (Cf. Aristotle, p. 233). Plato was an artist and Aristotle an encyclopaedist; but Plato as a whole is far nearer the point of view of recent science than Aristotle. Cf. my Platonism and the History of Science, p. 163; also 532 A and on 529 A, p. 180, note a and What Plato Said, p. 236.
7. Cf. Phaedr. 272 B
καίτοι οὐ σμικρόν γε φαίνεται ἔργον
.
8. Plato here generalizes motion as a subject of science.
9. The modesty is in the tone of the Timaeus.
10. For πέπηγεν cf. 605 A.
11. The similar statement attributed to Archytas, Diels i.3 p. 331, is probably an imitation of this.
12. Pythagoras is a great name, but little is known of him. Pythagoreans in later usage sometimes means mystics, sometimes mathematical physicists, sometimes both. Plato makes use of both traditions but is dominated by neither. For Erich Frank’s recent book, Plato und die sogenannten Pythagoreer, cf. my article in Class. Phil. vol. xxiii. ( 1928) pp. 347 ff. The student of Plato will do well to turn the page when he meets the name Pythagoras in a commentator.
13. For this turn of phrase cf. Vol. I. p. 333, 424 C, Protag. 316 A, Symp. 186 E.
14. For the reference to experts Cf. 400 B, 424 C. Cf. also What Plato Said, p. 484, on Laches 184 D-E.
15. παρά of course here means throughout and not contrary.
16. I take the word ἀτελές etymologically (cf. pp. 66-67, note b, on 500 A), with reference to the end in view. Others take it in the ordinary Greek sense, imperfect, incomplete.

Commentary

Commentary on Plato, Republic (Plato. The Republic, Vol 1-2. Adam, James, editor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1902-1903.) focus

τῷ ὄντι δὴ κτλ. It has been conjectured by Brandt ( z. Entw. d. plat. Lehr. v. d. Seelenteilen p. 8) that Plato is thinking of Eudoxus; but there is nothing to suggest a specific reference here, as there was in 528 B, C, and as Eudoxus, “the father of scientific astronomical observation in Greece” was preeminently “a practical observer” (Allman Gk. Geometry etc. p. 142), he would hardly be described by Plato in this passage as τῷ ὄντι ἀστρονομικός. See also Hirmer Entst. u. Komp. d. plat. Pol. p. 667.

τὰ τοιαῦτα : i.e. ὁρατά, σωματοειδῆ.

τῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ δημιουργῷ : the Demiurgus of the Timaeus.

τὴν δὲ νυκτὸς κτλ. : with which astronomical observation is concerned. Plato's tone is very different in the Timaeus (47 A ff.) as Grote points out ( Plato III p. 235 note, where also an amusing parallel is quoted from Malebranche); but it should be remembered that it is with the educational value of astronomy as a preparation for Dialectic that we are here concerned (note εἰ μέλλομεν—ποιήσειν in B, and see App. II).

τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων : ‘the other stars’ (Schneider), as ταῦτα shews, not ‘the stars besides’ (as Stallbaum).

ταῦτα : viz. the Sun and Moon, which make day, night, year, and month.

παραλλάττειν ‐‐ ὁρώμενα is a cardinal principle with Plato: see Tim. 28 A , B, 37 D and especially Pol. 269 D , E. παράλλαξις is used half-technically of any change or deviation in the courses of the heavenly bodies, as for example in the legend of Atreus ( Pol. 269 A ): cf. Tim. 22 C .

ζητεῖν depends on ἄτοπον ἡγήσεται, ἄτοπον being now taken as neuter. A reference to 525 B note will shew that Madvig's ζητήσει (or ζητεῖν δεῖν), and Richards' ζητοῦντα, with other conjectures, are wholly beside the mark. J. and C. (following Stallbaum) say ζητεῖν “depends on νομίζοντα with the common ellipse of δεῖν”: but δεῖν is not commonly omitted. In ζητεῖν—λαβεῖν there is a slight suggestion of something like the historical Socrates' distrust of astronomy ( Xen. Mem. IV 7. 6 ).

προβλήμασιν κτλ. Some have cited in illustration “Leverrier and Adams calculating an unknown planet into existence by enormous heaps of algebra” (De Morgan, quoted by Bosanquet p. 293: cf. Lutoslawski Plato's Logic p. 300). The example is striking but inapposite; for, according to this passage, the visible perturbations of Uranus, which occasioned the search for Neptune, would not have seemed to Plato anything very extraordinary. Unless he is greatly exaggerating here, and I do not deny that throughout this passage there is a touch of γενναῖον πάθος, ὥσπερ ὑπὸ μανίας τινὸς καὶ πνεύματος ἐνθουσιαστικῶς ἐκπνέον καὶ οἱονεὶ φοιβάζον τοὺς λόγους (Longinus περὶ ὕψους 8. 4), Plato's views on law in the heavens must have undergone considerable modification before he wrote the Laws: see the striking passage 821 B ff., and Tim. 47 A ff.

τὰ δ’ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἐάσομεν : ‘we will dispense with the starry heavens.’ There is a touch of fine audacity, not to say impiety, in Plato's phrase. Greater than the starry heavens is the mind of man. Nettleship ( Lect. and Rem. II pp. 271— 277) and Bosanquet ( Companion pp. 290—293) are, as it seems to me, unduly anxious throughout the whole of this episode to minimise and explain away Plato's depreciation of the senses and their objects, although by so doing they can make his theories harmonize more nearly with the views of certain modern philosophers, and possibly also with the truth. Krohn ( Pl. St. pp. 170—174) inclines to the opposite error, although, except perhaps on verbal grounds, Plato would not quarrel with his definition of Platonic astronomy as “die Wissenschaft von den Bewegungen intelligiblen Körper.” Plato's Astronomy is in fact a kind of idealised Kinematics, with occasional illustrations from the visible movements of the heavenly bodies ( τῇ περὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν ποικιλίᾳ παραδείγμασι χρηστέον κτλ. 529 D).

οἶμαι δέ γε κτλ. 526 C note

ἀλλὰ γὰρ κτλ. Socrates means: If you criticise my curriculum (as in ἦ πολλαπλάσιον—προστάττεις), you are doubtless ready with suggestions of your own: hence I appeal to you: ‘what suitable study can you suggest?’ ‘I cannot,’ says Glauco, ‘make any suggestion straight off.’ ἀλλὰ γάρ (‘however’ as in Theaet. 144 B , Symp. 220 E ) goes closely with the previous sentence; if it were otherwise, Plato would have added ἦν δ’ ἐγώ or the like. The reading ἀλλὰ γάρ τι ( q Vind. F, Hermann etc.) can hardly stand; nor is Steinhart's ἄλλο γάρ τι κτλ., or Richards' ἀλλὰ γὰρ <ἄλλο> τι (or ἀλλὰ γὰρ <ἔτι> τι) pleasing or probable. I formerly suggested ἀλλὰ γάρ τι ἔχεις <σὺ> ὑπομνῆσαι κτλ., the other subjects having all been suggested by Socrates and not Glauco, with the partial exception of geometry 526 C; but now believe (with Schneider) that the text is sound.

πλείω κτλ . φορά is (according to both Plato and Aristotle) a specific variety of κίνησις, being in fact, ἡ κατὰ τόπον κίνησις. Of the genus κίνησις Plato enumerates ten varieties in Laws 893 B ff.; of φορά in particular some specific εἴδη are mentioned by Arist. Eth. Nic. X 3 1174^{a} 30 ff.

πρὸς τούτῳ : “praeter astronomicum φορᾶς s. motus genus” (Stallbaum).

ὡς πρὸς ἀστρονομίαν κτλ . ἀστρονομία is φορὰ βάθους (528 E note), and appeals to the eye in the same way as ἐναρμόνιος φορά, or movement in accordance with the laws of ἁρμονία (III 397 B, 398 D, E notes), appeals to the ear. In ἐναρμόνιος φορά the air moves more or less quickly etc., and this accounts for the different pitch etc. of notes: see Tim. 67 B , 80 A ff. and Theo Smyrn. p. 50 Hiller, where this—Pythagorean as well as Platonic—theory of sound is very clearly explained. Cf. also von Jan Musici Scriptores Graeci pp. 130 ff.

ἀδελφαί τινες . Cf. [Archytas] in Mullach Frag. Phil. Graec. I p. 564 περί τε δὴ τᾶς τῶν ἄστρων ταχυτᾶτος καὶ ἐπιτολᾶν καὶ δυσίων παρέδωκαν ἁμῖν διάγνωσιν καὶ περὶ γαμετρίας καὶ ἀριθμῶν καὶ οὐχ ἥκιστα περὶ μωσικῆς· ταῦτα γὰρ τὰ μαθήματα δοκοῦντι εἶμεν ἀδελφά, ib. p. 565 and (with J. and C.) Tim. 47 B , C. The sisterhood of Music and Astronomy is best seen in the ‘harmony of the Spheres’: see X 617 B note and RP^{7}. 68 B notes

ἐκείνων πευσόμεθα κτλ. Plato does not claim to be a specialist in musical matters: cf. III 400 A. The words καὶ εἴ τι ἄλλο πρὸς τούτοις look like a general acknowledgment of obligation throughout this part of the Republic to the Pythagoreans. See App. II.

ἐξῆκον κτλ. The MS reading ἀεί, οἷ gives a weightier and better meaning than οἷ ἀεί, which Richards proposes. For ἀφήκειν Eusebius ( Praep. Ev. XIV 13. 5) has ἀνήκειν, also a rare word: Stephanus conjectured ἐφήκειν. ἀφήκειν is better, though rarer, than either: cf. (with Schneider) ἀφίκηται in 531 D. The reference in ἄρτι is to 529 A ff.