Materiality and Cosmology in Plato and the Platonic Tradition

The tentative title of this project which is going to culminate in a monograph published with a reputable publisher is Materiality and Cosmology in Plato and the Platonic Tradition.

My investigations will focus on Platos concepts of Necessity (anank) and Space (chra), the latter of which was traditionally identified with Platonic matter. The monograph will consist of two parts. In the first, I shall critically analyze the theories of matter expounded by Plutarch, Plotinus, and Proclus.

Their perspectives are based on differing readings of Platos Necessity and Space, nevertheless heavily informed by Aristotles doctrine of hyl.

The Platonists saw Platonic Space as identical with Aristotelian matter, while their interpretations of Necessity varied widely.

The discussion developed in the first part is primarily meant to aid the reader in discerning what Plato really said, through the process of sifting out Aristotelian and other influences.

In the second part, I shall turn to Platos view on materiality and its cosmological role, as presented in the Timaeus, but also elsewhere.

In it, I shall demonstrate clearly and decisively the following points. a) If we were to designate something in the Timaeus as Plato's causa materialis, that something would be anank, not chra; nevertheless, such an attribution would be anachronistic, for Plato did not operate with a notion of matter, but with that of corporeality instead. b) Consequently, it is impossible for chra, which is manifestly different from anank, to play that role.

That is, chra cannot be something out of which, but only that in which the world has been fashioned.

I shall also discuss some debated corollaries and conclude that i) Necessity proper arises only after the demiurgic intervention and is not present in the pre-cosmic chaos; ii) Necessity is identical with the Errant Cause; iii) Plato's Space is not sheer extension like Newton's, but a full-fledged entity and a plenum of perhaps undisclosed content.