“We must pronounce the soul to be the only thing there is that properly possesses understanding. The soul is the invisible, whereas fire, water, earth, and air have all come to be as visible bodies. So anyone who is a lover of understanding and knowledge must of necessity pursue as primary causes those that belong to intelligent nature, and as secondary all those belonging to things that are moved by others and that set still others in motion by necessity. We too, surely, must do likewise: we must describe both types of causes, distinguishing those which possess understanding and thus fashion what is beautiful and good, from those which, when deserted by intelligence, produce only haphazard and disorderly effects every time.
“Let us conclude, then, our discussion of the accompanying auxiliary causes that gave our eyes the power which they now possess. We must next speak of that supremely beneficial function for which the god gave them to us. As my account has it, our sight has indeed proved to be of supreme benefit to us, in that none of my present statements about the universe could ever have been made if we had never seen any stars, sun, or heaven. As it is, our ability to see the periods of day-and-night, of months, and of years, of equinoxes and solstices, had led to the invention of number, and has given us the idea of time and opened the path to inquiry into the nature of the universe. These pursuits have given us philosophy, a gift from the gods to the mortal race whose value neither has been nor ever will be surpassed. I’m quite prepared to declare this to be the supreme good that our eye sight offers us. Why then should we exalt all the lesser good things, which a non-philosopher struck blind, would ‘lament and bewail in vain?’ Let us declare rather that the cause and purpose of this supreme good is this: the god invented sight and gave it to us so that we might observe the orbits of intelligence in the universe and apply them to the revolutions of our own understanding. For there is a kinship between them, even though our revolutions are disturbed, whereas the universal orbits are undisturbed. So once we have come to know them and to share in the ability to make correct calculations according to nature, we should stabilize the straying revolutions within ourselves by imitating the unstraying revolutions of the god.
“Likewise, the same account goes for sound and hearing—these too are the gods’ gifts, given for the same purpose and intended to achieve the same result. Speech was designed for this very purpose—it plays the greatest part in its achievement. And all such composition as lends itself to making audible music sound is given in order to express harmony, and so serves this purpose well. And harmony, whose movements are akin to the orbits within our souls, is a gift of the Muses, if our dealings with them are guided by understanding, not for irrational pleasure, for which people nowadays seem to make use of it, but to serve as an ally in the fight to bring order to any orbit in our souls that has become unharmonized, and to make it concordant with itself. Rhythm, too, has likewise been given us by the Muses for the same purpose, to assist us. For with most of us our condition is such that we have lost all sense of measure, and are lacking in grace.”
Thursday, February 20, 2014
PLATO "TIMAEUS"...EXCERPT
PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS, “TIMAEUS,” edited by John M. Cooper (Hackett Pub., Indianapolis, IN: 1995), 1249-1250
“We must pronounce the soul to be the only thing there is that properly possesses understanding. The soul is the invisible, whereas fire, water, earth, and air have all come to be as visible bodies. So anyone who is a lover of understanding and knowledge must of necessity pursue as primary causes those that belong to intelligent nature, and as secondary all those belonging to things that are moved by others and that set still others in motion by necessity. We too, surely, must do likewise: we must describe both types of causes, distinguishing those which possess understanding and thus fashion what is beautiful and good, from those which, when deserted by intelligence, produce only haphazard and disorderly effects every time.
“Let us conclude, then, our discussion of the accompanying auxiliary causes that gave our eyes the power which they now possess. We must next speak of that supremely beneficial function for which the god gave them to us. As my account has it, our sight has indeed proved to be of supreme benefit to us, in that none of my present statements about the universe could ever have been made if we had never seen any stars, sun, or heaven. As it is, our ability to see the periods of day-and-night, of months, and of years, of equinoxes and solstices, had led to the invention of number, and has given us the idea of time and opened the path to inquiry into the nature of the universe. These pursuits have given us philosophy, a gift from the gods to the mortal race whose value neither has been nor ever will be surpassed. I’m quite prepared to declare this to be the supreme good that our eye sight offers us. Why then should we exalt all the lesser good things, which a non-philosopher struck blind, would ‘lament and bewail in vain?’ Let us declare rather that the cause and purpose of this supreme good is this: the god invented sight and gave it to us so that we might observe the orbits of intelligence in the universe and apply them to the revolutions of our own understanding. For there is a kinship between them, even though our revolutions are disturbed, whereas the universal orbits are undisturbed. So once we have come to know them and to share in the ability to make correct calculations according to nature, we should stabilize the straying revolutions within ourselves by imitating the unstraying revolutions of the god.
“Likewise, the same account goes for sound and hearing—these too are the gods’ gifts, given for the same purpose and intended to achieve the same result. Speech was designed for this very purpose—it plays the greatest part in its achievement. And all such composition as lends itself to making audible music sound is given in order to express harmony, and so serves this purpose well. And harmony, whose movements are akin to the orbits within our souls, is a gift of the Muses, if our dealings with them are guided by understanding, not for irrational pleasure, for which people nowadays seem to make use of it, but to serve as an ally in the fight to bring order to any orbit in our souls that has become unharmonized, and to make it concordant with itself. Rhythm, too, has likewise been given us by the Muses for the same purpose, to assist us. For with most of us our condition is such that we have lost all sense of measure, and are lacking in grace.”
“We must pronounce the soul to be the only thing there is that properly possesses understanding. The soul is the invisible, whereas fire, water, earth, and air have all come to be as visible bodies. So anyone who is a lover of understanding and knowledge must of necessity pursue as primary causes those that belong to intelligent nature, and as secondary all those belonging to things that are moved by others and that set still others in motion by necessity. We too, surely, must do likewise: we must describe both types of causes, distinguishing those which possess understanding and thus fashion what is beautiful and good, from those which, when deserted by intelligence, produce only haphazard and disorderly effects every time.
“Let us conclude, then, our discussion of the accompanying auxiliary causes that gave our eyes the power which they now possess. We must next speak of that supremely beneficial function for which the god gave them to us. As my account has it, our sight has indeed proved to be of supreme benefit to us, in that none of my present statements about the universe could ever have been made if we had never seen any stars, sun, or heaven. As it is, our ability to see the periods of day-and-night, of months, and of years, of equinoxes and solstices, had led to the invention of number, and has given us the idea of time and opened the path to inquiry into the nature of the universe. These pursuits have given us philosophy, a gift from the gods to the mortal race whose value neither has been nor ever will be surpassed. I’m quite prepared to declare this to be the supreme good that our eye sight offers us. Why then should we exalt all the lesser good things, which a non-philosopher struck blind, would ‘lament and bewail in vain?’ Let us declare rather that the cause and purpose of this supreme good is this: the god invented sight and gave it to us so that we might observe the orbits of intelligence in the universe and apply them to the revolutions of our own understanding. For there is a kinship between them, even though our revolutions are disturbed, whereas the universal orbits are undisturbed. So once we have come to know them and to share in the ability to make correct calculations according to nature, we should stabilize the straying revolutions within ourselves by imitating the unstraying revolutions of the god.
“Likewise, the same account goes for sound and hearing—these too are the gods’ gifts, given for the same purpose and intended to achieve the same result. Speech was designed for this very purpose—it plays the greatest part in its achievement. And all such composition as lends itself to making audible music sound is given in order to express harmony, and so serves this purpose well. And harmony, whose movements are akin to the orbits within our souls, is a gift of the Muses, if our dealings with them are guided by understanding, not for irrational pleasure, for which people nowadays seem to make use of it, but to serve as an ally in the fight to bring order to any orbit in our souls that has become unharmonized, and to make it concordant with itself. Rhythm, too, has likewise been given us by the Muses for the same purpose, to assist us. For with most of us our condition is such that we have lost all sense of measure, and are lacking in grace.”