Abstract
In the Timaeus, Plato starts his cosmogony, or more likely his cosmology, with describing the Creator's work, saying, "the god took over all that is visible (ορατον)-not at rest, but in discordant and unordered motion (κινουμενον πλημμελωζ και ατακτωζ)-and brought it from disorder into order "(30A transl by Cornford) Now what is meant here the so-called 'disorderly motion' ? It comes to our mind first of all that in Plato in his works subsequent to the 'Phaedt us' the cause of motion was always nothing but ψυχη Are we, then, to follow e g Plutarch and Martin, who admitting so to say a temporal creation, argue since ψυχη is the αρχη κιχησεωζ, if there be pre-existing disorderly motion, the cause of this sort of motion should only be to the soul not yet reduced to order, or to follow e g Cornford, who insists on the uncreated world of κοσμοζ, and accepts at the same time a sort of disorderly motion in this very κοσμοζ, thus concluding that the World-Soul should not be completely rational ? These opinions, however, might be put in question, for the text tells us that the "chaos" existed before the creation of the World-Soul, and the ψυχη seems to be described here as being wholly rational and divine exactly as in the Phaedo Besides there is to be found no explicit allusion to ψυχη in its description there as the cause of motion Another possible solution might thus suggest itself Since ψυχη is the ορχη κινησεωζ, and ψυχη is rational, so there is no room left for any irrational motion at all This argument, held by Archer-Hind and Taylor, was, however, open to attack for entirely eliminating the irrational element from the scheme of Plato's sensible world, introducing thereby the idea of Jewish-Christian omnipotent God into Plato's Demiurge Thus comes the third alternative, i e, the attempt to ascribe the cause of the disorderly motion to something else than ψυχη This opinion, held by Aristotle, by Proclus, and recently by Hackforth, seems to be incompatible with Plato's fundamental doctrine that ψυχη is exactly the αρχη κινησεωζ Something, it seems to us, is still left in the text to be examined more carefully concerning the 'chaotic motion' The disorderly motion is described as one wherein the perceptible qualities are moving and tending like to like in space, and different kinds are coming to different regions, just as dense and rare corns are being shaken in a winnowing basket And it seems that such a motion would necessarily cease to be, as soon as the process of separation would have finished, as suggested in 53 A 6 ff and 58 A 2 ff Is such a chaos to be conceived of as being animated by some self-moving, living soul, as Cornford says ? The chaotic motion, I should say, is described in the text as being completely deprived of the ψυχη which is animating, guiding and rational So that the principles opposing to each other in the Timaeus would not be the rational and the irrational within the ψυχη itself as defined as the cause of all motion, but the animating rational ψυχη and the resisting chaotic bodily motion which, if left alone, would lead everything into destruction But one may raise a further question Why did Plato start with chaotic motion at all, instead of starting with something static ? With this regard we should like to refer to the Theaetetus, in which sensible objects are reduced to sensible qualities, and sensible qualities to change or motion (κινησιζ) So if Plato presupposes something chaotic and material (ορατον) at the outset of his cosmology, it was probably natural that he should describe it as being m chaotic 'motion' In this sense the 'pre-existing' chaos should certainly have been in discordant motion only it could not be due to self moving rational ψυχη
