By Penny Theodorakopoulou,
In the previous part, we made an introduction in regards to how the world is created according to Plato’s Timaeus (c. 360 BC). This time, as we mentioned at the very end of the previous article, we will elaborate on Statesman’s (c. 366-362 BC) inverted circles of the world.
The Statesman is the third part of a tetralogy by Plato, which includes Theaetetus (c. 369 BC), Sophist (c. 360 BC), Statesman, and Philosopher, although the latter was never written. In the dialogue that we will examine shortly, its main topic is the definition of a politician. We could say that it is a continuation of the Republic (c. 375 BC), but without examining the political system or the existing regimes. The Stranger, one of the four characters in the dialogue (along with Socrates, a person named Socrates and is mentioned as “Socrates the Young”, and a mathematician named Theodorus), tells the young Socrates a myth from his childhood in order to give his own opinion about the creation of the world.
As said a little earlier, the Statesman is not entirely devoted to how the world came to be, compared to Timaeus. The specific dialogue devotes only a few verses to expressing his own view on the complicated question of the creation of the world. So, the narration begins with a reminder of the myth with the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes. According to that myth, the rising and setting of the sun and the stars were not always as we know them today: where the sun now rises, there it set before, and where the sun sets, it rose before. God wanted to change this, to show his sympathy and weakness to Atreus, and so we have the current situation as we know it well.
The above myth, together with the myths of the reign of Cronus, and of the earliest men who sprang from the earth and did not beget each other, arises from the same fact, according to the Stranger, which is the cause of all things. This fact is as follows: two kinds of things happen in the universe: either god moves it and moves and rotates with it, or it reaches the end of its period and god leaves it free to move on its own. In this case, because the world is free to turn in any direction it wishes, it chooses — for a reason that we will mention in a moment — to move in the opposite direction from that of the god. This is because the world has life within it and wisdom, which he has “inherited” from god.
This, however, also has its drawbacks, as the Stranger adds below. Only divine beings can remain immutable forever, while a being that has a body cannot but be immutable. The same is true with the universe. The heaven and the world, besides the life and wisdom that they received from god, also received a body, and for this reason, they are not entirely free from change; and because it has a body, it has nevertheless been adorned with several blessed characteristics by god. God, as we mentioned above earlier, makes the least movement that a being with a body can make and the beginning of change: moving in one direction, in a circular direction. However, it is impossible for a being that has a body to be constantly moving by itself. The Stranger comes to the following conclusion: the universe is sometimes guided by god, from where it receives new life and immortality, and sometimes it moves by itself.
The cause of everything, therefore, is, according to the words quoted by the Stranger in Statesman, the different rotations that the world makes, one from the current direction and one from the opposite; and this is because it is the greatest change. Changes also occur both in us humans and in animals; that is, in beings that possess life and have within them the principle of change. At this point, the inverted circles of the world are introduced. According to them, when the world is directed by god, everything is perfect: all living things seem to be related to each other and their differences are blurred. Nature is calm and friendly, no shocking changes occur, and the climate is mild for life. Living creatures live in harmony with each other, and food is abundant for each, a situation that softens the competitiveness and enmity between them.
The most important and noticeable feature is that there is an inverted direction of life. Animals are born in a state of aging and, as they grow older, they slowly approach youth, where they end up as seeds in the earth. A similar situation prevails with humans: humans are under the auspices of the gods, where they are naked and spend most of their free time in the open air. Being able to talk with animals, people sit with them and talk about various topics, from stories and myths to philosophical issues.
This perfect state changes dramatically when god is not involved and the universe directs itself. Extreme natural phenomena prevail, such as strong earthquakes, which stop at a point and then, species of animals begin to disappear, people do not grow from the earth, but one gives birth to another; women and children belong, in a sense, to men, thus creating patriarchal families; food is scarce, a situation which exacerbates competition and hostility, and the world undergoes extreme climate changes.
In the last part, we will compare the two cosmogonies when it comes to the creation of the world as we saw and analyzed in the previous article and the current one.
References
- Πλάτων, Πολιτικός, εισαγωγή – μετάφραση – ερμηνευτικά σχόλια Ι.Σ. Χριστοδούλου, εκδόσεις Ζήτρος, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2003
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Statesman (dialogue), wikipedia.org, Available here
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Plato’s Theory of Forms includes the Form of the Good. Can you give your personal thoughts on the Form of the Good?, quora.com, Available here
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PAGEL, W. (1957). The Philosophy of Circles–Cesalpino–Harvey: A Penultimate Assessment. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 12(2), 140–157, jstor.org, Available here
