Returning to the Heavens: Plato’s Socrates on Anaxagoras and Natural Philosophy
-
Samuel Ortencio Flores
Abstract
Readers of Plato since antiquity have generally taken Socrates’ intellectual autobiography in the Phaedo as a signal of his turn away from the study of natural philosophy. They have turned instead to characters such as Timaeus for evidence of Plato’s pursuit of physics. This article argues that Plato’s Socrates himself developed a philosophy of nature in his criticism of Anaxagoras and his subsequent philosophic pursuits. Socrates’ autobiography places the study of nature in a foundational position within the development of his philosophic method. In the Apology, Socrates further elaborated his investigation into nature through his understanding of theology. Finally, in the Phaedrus, Socrates connects the study of nature with the study of rhetoric as tools for virtue. Therefore, Plato’s Socrates does not reject or abandon physics, as has often been suggested, but rather, he incorporates it into his own philosophic project and challenges its practitioners to connect their own inquiries with human affairs.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the editors and anonymous referees of Apeiron for their useful and insightful comments and suggestions. I would also like to thank Andrew Alwine, Benjamin McCloskey, and Christopher Paone for their help in reviewing this piece at multiple stages.
References
Aristophanes. 1907. Comoediae, vol. 2. edited by F. W. Hall and W. M. Geldart. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1924. Metaphysics, edited by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/oseo/instance.00263632Search in Google Scholar
Babbitt, Frank Cole, trans. 1936. Plutarch: Moralia V. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Brill, Sara. 2009. “The Geography of Finitude: Myth and Earth in Plato’s Phaedo.” International Philosophical Quarterly 49 (1): 5–23.10.5840/ipq20094912Search in Google Scholar
Broackes, Justin. 2009. “Αὐτὸς καθ᾽Αὑτόν in the Clouds: Was Socrates Himself a Defender of Separable Soul and Separate Forms?” Classical Quarterly 59 (1): 46–59.10.1017/S0009838809000044Search in Google Scholar
Broadie, Sarah. 2012. Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511997815Search in Google Scholar
Bromberg, Jacques A. 2018. “A Sage on Stage: Socrates and Athenian Old Comedy.” In Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue, edited by Stavru, Alessandro, and Christopher Moore, 31–63. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004341227_003Search in Google Scholar
Bruell, Christopher. 1999. On Socratic Education: An Introduction to the Shorter Platonic Dialogues. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar
Capra, Andrea. 2018. “Aristophanes’ Iconic Socrates.” In Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue, edited by Stavru, Alessandro, and Christopher Moore, 64–83. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004341227_004Search in Google Scholar
Cicero. 1918. Tusculanae Disputationes, Ed. M. Pohlenz. Leipzig: Teubner.Search in Google Scholar
Cicero. 1922. Rhetorica, edited by A. S. Wilkins. Oxford: Clarendon.Search in Google Scholar
Curd, Patricia, ed. and trans. 2007. Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.10.3138/9781442684027Search in Google Scholar
Danzig, Gabriel. 2010. Apologizing for Socrates: How Plato and Xenophon Created Our Socrates. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Search in Google Scholar
Dover, Kenneth J., ed. 1968. Aristophanes: Clouds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Dover, Kenneth J. 1972. Aristophanic Comedy. Berkeley: University of California Press.Search in Google Scholar
Filonik, Jacob. 2013. “Athenian Impiety Trials: A Reappraisal.” Dike 14: 11–96.Search in Google Scholar
Gregory, George. 2009. “Of Socrates, Aristophanes, and Rumors.” In Reexamining Socrates in the Apology, edited by Patricia Fagan, and John Russon, 35–61. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.10.2307/j.ctv2dswnt.7Search in Google Scholar
Isocrates. 1980. Isocrates, vol. 2. edited by George Norlin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Jedrkiewicz, Stefano. 2008. “Socrates, the Sun, and the Moon (Plat. Ap. 26b8–E5.” Lexis 26: 189–203.Search in Google Scholar
Johansen, Thomas Kjeller. 2004. Plato’s Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus-Critias. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511518478Search in Google Scholar
Lampert, Laurence. 2010. How Philosophy Became Socratic: A Study of Plato’s Protagoras, Charmides, and Republic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226470979.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Leibowitz, David. 2010. The Ironic Defense of Socrates: Plato’s Apology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511761829Search in Google Scholar
Mansfield, J. 1979. “The Chronology of Anaxagoras’ Athenian Period and the Date of His Trial.” Mnemosyne 32: 39–69.10.1163/156852579X00219Search in Google Scholar
Mason, Andrew. 2013. “The Nous Doctrine in Plato’s Thought.” Apeiron 46 (3): 201–28.10.1515/apeiron-2012-0068Search in Google Scholar
McCloskey, Benjamin. 2017. “Xenophon the Philosopher: E Pluribus Unum.” American Journal of Philology 138 (4): 605–640.10.1353/ajp.2017.0033Search in Google Scholar
Müller, Jörn. 2018. “Socrates and Natural Philosophy: The Testimony of Plato’s Phaedo.” In Socrates and the Socratic Dialogue, edited by Stavru, Alessandro, and Christopher Moore, 348–68. Leiden: Brill.10.1163/9789004341227_018Search in Google Scholar
Naddaf, Gerard. 2005. The Greek Concept of Nature. Albany: State University of New York Press.Search in Google Scholar
Nightingale, Andrea Wilson. 1995. Genres in Dialogue: Plato and the Construct of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511582677Search in Google Scholar
Osorio, José Manuel. 2016. “Teleology in the Phaedo’s Biographical Account.” Gnosis 15 (1): 4–16.Search in Google Scholar
Plato. 1900. Opera, vol. 1. edited by John Burnet. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Plato. 1901. Opera, vol. 2. edited by John Burnet. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Plutarch. 1916. Lives, vol. 3. edited by Bernadotte Perin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Powers, Nathan. 2009. “The Natural Theology of Xenophon’s Socrates.” Ancient Philosophy 29: 249–66.10.5840/ancientphil200929225Search in Google Scholar
Rashed, Marwan. 2009. “Aristophanes and the Socrates of the Phaedo.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 36: 107–36.Search in Google Scholar
Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. 2016. “Teaching Pericles: Cicero on the Study of Nature.” In Roman Reflections: Studies in Latin Philosophy, edited by G. D. Williams, and K. Volk, 91–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199999767.003.0005Search in Google Scholar
Rowe, C. J., ed. 1993a. Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Rowe, C. J. 1993b. “Explanation in Phaedo 99c6–102a1.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 9: 49–69.Search in Google Scholar
Rowe, C. J. 2007. Plato and the Art of Philosophical Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511482625Search in Google Scholar
Sallis, John. 2016. The Figure of Nature: On Greek Origins. Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.10.2307/j.ctt2005rzzSearch in Google Scholar
Schultz, Anne-Marie. 2013. Plato’s Socrates as Narrator: A Philosophical Muse. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.Search in Google Scholar
Sebell, Dustin. 2016. The Socratic Turn: Knowledge of Good and Evil in an Age of Science. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.10.9783/9780812292244Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David. 2007. Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/9780520934368Search in Google Scholar
Sedley, David, and Alex Long, eds. and trans. 2010. Plato: Phaedo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Sharma, Ravi. 2009. “Socrates’ New Aitia: Causal and Metaphysical Explanations in Plato’s Phaedo.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 36: 137–77.Search in Google Scholar
Too, Yun Lee. 2008. A Commentary on Isocrates’ Antidosis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Viano, Cristina. 2001. “La cosmologie de Socrate dans les Memorables de Xenophon.” In Socrate et les Socratiques, edited by G. R. Dherby, and J.-B. Gourinat, 97–119. Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Virin.Search in Google Scholar
Waterfield, Robin, trans. 1990. Xenophon: Conversations of Socrates. London: Penguin Books.Search in Google Scholar
Woodbury, Leonard. 1981. “Anaxagoras and Athens.” Phoenix 35 (4): 295–315.10.2307/1087925Search in Google Scholar
Xenophon. 1921. Opera Omnia, vol. 2. edited by E. C. Marchant. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Search in Google Scholar
Yunis, Harvey, ed. 2011. Plato: Phaedrus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 2004. “The Socratic Turn.” History of Political Thought 25 (2): 189–219.Search in Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 2009a. Plato’s Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.10.7208/chicago/9780226993386.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Zuckert, Catherine. 2009b. “Becoming Socrates.” In Reexamining Socrates in the Apology, edited by Fagan, Patricia, and John Russon, 209–49. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.10.2307/j.ctv2dswnt.14Search in Google Scholar
© 2020 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin
