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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
Containing the material cosmos: Tim. 36d8–e1
When the entire psychic composite had come about in accordance with the intellect (kata noun) of the one who created it, after this he framed allthat is corporeal inside of it. (Tim. 36d8–e1)
The first chapter of the discourse on the soul, as we said earlier (125.12) concerns the nature of its existence (hyparxis), while the second chapter is concerned with its harmony. The third chapter deals with the shape, and the fourth with the soul's powers. The fifth chapter deals with its activities. In all the other subjects, therefore, the philosopher has taught us most completely, but this final chapter was about the activities of the soul which he surely appends in these words. But since the form of activities in the soul is two-fold – I mean those pertain to knowing (gnôstikos) and those that are to do with motion (kinêtikos) – he will give one account that is specific to the motive powers and another one that is specific to the cognitive powers. So he will convey to us both how it moves other things by moving itself, and also how, in knowing itself, it knows the things that are prior to it and also those that are posterior to it. Such, therefore, is the purpose (skopos) of the words before us.
He did not, however, present us with any teaching about a plurality of souls in what has gone before, as some would have it, who say that the first part concerning the soul's essence dealt with what they call the unrelated (aschetos) soul, while the chapter on harmony dealt with what they call the related soul (tên en schesei), and the chapter on shape dealt with the soul that is coordinated with the body (tên en katataxei). Nor [does this part of the Timaeus deal with a multitude of souls in another sense], as others have written, saying that it introduces a single soul and seven hypercosmic souls (II. 273.26–33). That nothing like this is the case has, I think, been made sufficiently clear through what Timaeus says. For the soul that has been created by the Father in accordance with his intellect, he conjoins to the universe, arranging that which is corporeal within it.
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