Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Department of Philosophy - Philosophy, Science and the Sciences

Dissertation: Uncrafted Nature in Plato’s Creationism

This dissertation investigates the relation between nature and craft in Plato’s cosmology. The background for this investigation is the debate between creationism and anti-creationism. On the one hand, anti-creationists such as the atheists in Laws X and Aristotle posit an antithesis between nature and craft. This antithesis entails inter alia that nature is uncrafted. On the other hand, while Plato is a creationist, it is not obvious how he thinks nature relates to craft. A ready option might seem to be that Plato’s creationism commits him to dissolving the nature/craft antithesis, and in particular, to denying that there is any uncrafted nature. I argue that this is not the case. Instead, Plato leaves room for uncrafted nature in his cosmology as articulated in the Timaeus. This uncrafted nature is the nature (sic) of fire, water, earth and air in the precosmos. It consists in sensible fire, water, earth and air being imitations of corresponding Forms in the Receptacle. The picture that emerges from this investigation is the following. Plato takes over from the anti-creationists the theme of uncrafted nature and renovates it in an idiosyncratically Platonic way: he ‘metaphysicalizes’ it.

      This result allows us to appreciate Plato’s precosmos as a creative contribution to the debate between creationism and its critics. Moreover, it challenges certain common assumptions about the Timaeus. One such assumption is that explanations at play in Plato’s precosmos are ‘materialistic’ or ‘mechanistic’. It seems to me that this way of characterizing these explanations masks the extent to which they are laden with Platonic metaphysics. Another assumption is that Platonic Forms are causally inert, which means that they have no impact on the sensible realm unless used as models by the Demiurge. I show instead that Forms exert causal influence on the sensible realm independently from the Demiurge.

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Research

I currently work on Plato’s cosmology, metaphysics, and psychology, especially in dialogue with early Greek philosophy and medicine as well as with Aristotle. My research is motivated by a broader interest in forms of materialism and reactions to them. Besides, I am working my way towards exploring resources in Plato, Aristotle, and Stoicism that are potentially relevant to thinking about the free will.

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CV

Education

Employment

Service

Co-organizer of the 4^th Central European Graduate Conference in Ancient Philosophy (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 14-16 June 2024)

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Contact

zhixi.wang@hu-berlin.de