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• W132632823 abstract "DOES PLATO ADMIT AN ARCHE KAKOU, a source or principle of evil? One or more than one? If he does, is principle of evil matter, soul, a god or gods, some combination of these, or something else entirely? Or, is evil merely a human phenomenon? Just what does Plato understand by evil anyway? These questions have been repeatedly addressed by Plato's commentators, but by no means has a consensus been reached on any of them. One reason for confusion is that Plato discusses different metaphysical principles in different places, and another is that Plato has very little to say explicitly about evil (as opposed to good) from a metaphysical (as opposed to an ethical) perspective. I intend to address second difficulty first, by deriving notion of an arche kakou from what Plato says about arche agathou (principle of good), (1) and first by interpreting relevant principles from perspective of their relation to good and evil so conceived. The position of present paper can be summarized as follows. In a strict sense there is no metaphysical or divine evil in Plato, because evil metaphysically conceived reduces to pure negativity or indeterminacy, which as such lacks independent reality. The various concepts that are posited as competing principles of evil in Plato (matter, nonbeing, difference, indeterminacy) will be shown in light of their relationship to being and goodness to be essentially commensurable aspects of generative order of good. (2) It is only on an ethical level that evil acquires positive reality, and there only by conjunction of negativity in human nature with decision to submit to it. In what follows I intend to defend this stance by an analysis of key metaphysical passages in several Platonic dialogues, and in process I will address central disputes in scholarship on present topic. I begin with idea of good in Republic in order to elicit, by contrast, concept of an arche kakou, and negativity of this notion will be developed through discussion of me on (nonbeing) and thateron (difference) in Sophist. I turn then to Philebus, where negativity is conceived as unlimited or indeterminate (apeiron), and evil is realized in embrace of unlimited in hedonism, pursuit of pleasure, and particularly pleasure of body. In next section I show with reference to key passages in Statesman and Timaeus that what seems to be a competing principle of evil, bodily element (to somatoeides), in fact is a metaphysically derivative notion referring back to generative cosmic order and specifically to relative negativity, thateron, that makes genesis possible. Finally, I consider possibility of psychic evil on cosmic level in discussion of an evil cosmic soul in Laws. Throughout I will show that positive evil lies only in defection of intellect from its responsibility to generate our being as good. II However one might define evil, it is opposed to good. Hence metaphysical evil must be understood in opposition to metaphysical good. Now, while it is doubtful whether Plato conceives of a principle of evil, there is no doubt that he conceives of a principle of good, most famously in Republic (the good in Philebus will be discussed in part III). In Book 6, Socrates describes good first of all as that in relation to which all good things are good, or in other words as idea of goodness, without knowledge or possession of which nothing else is worth knowing or possessing. (3) In addition, by analogy to sun and its light, he calls it the cause of knowledge and truth, that which furnishes truth to things known and gives to know to knower, and as such is greater still than they are. (4) Finally, just as sun gives not only light but also generation, nourishment, and growth to visible things, though it is not itself generation (genesin), good is said to provide being (to einai te kai ten ousian) to objects of knowledge: although good is not being, but still beyond being, exceeding it in rank and power (ouk ousias ontos tou agathou, all' eti epekeina tes ousias presbeiai kai dunamei huperechontos). …" @default.
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• W132632823 date "2009-05-01" @default.
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• W132632823 title "Is There an Arche Kakou in Plato" @default.
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