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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2015
At Timaeus 48e2–52d4 Timaeus sets out to establish that there are three principles or kinds (γένη) underlying the creation of the cosmos, not just the two he acknowledged earlier (27d–28a). The way he does so is not simply by adding an account of the third kind to the accounts of being and becoming that he has already given. Rather he does so by showing how each of the three differs from the others. It has not been noticed how this procedure structures the receptacle passage. The passage divides up into three parts, each punctuated by a list of the three kinds in a significant order. If we take X, Y and Z to stand for ‘becoming’, ‘being’ and ‘receptacle’ (or ‘space’, χώρα)’ respectively, the structure is (1) X≠Z, (2) X≠Y, (3) Y≠Z. By showing the distinctness of each pair, Timaeus demonstrates that all the kinds are distinct and that they are indeed three in number.
1 Cf. Ti. 52d2–4: Οὗτος μὲν οὖν δὴ παρὰ τῆς ἐμῆς ψήφου λογισθεὶς ἐν κεφαλαίῳ δεδόσθω λόγος, ὄν τε καὶ χώραν καὶ γένεσιν εἶναι, τρία τριχῇ. Archer-Hind, R.D. (ed.), The Timaeus of Plato (London, 1888), 186Google Scholar, says that τρία τριχῇ ‘seems to mean no more than “three things with three different distinct natures”’, quoting as a parallel Ti. 89e4–5, τρία τριχῇ ψυχῆς ἐν ἡμῖν εἴδη κατῴκισται. However, there may be more to the addition of τριχῇ to τρία than Archer-Hind allows. At 89e4–5 τριχῇ is motivated by the thought that there are three kinds of soul which have been settled in three different parts (τριχῇ) of the body. At 52d4 τριχῇ may be taken with λογισθείς, suggesting that the reckoning of the three has been given in three different ways. (Archer-Hind claims that the form τρία τριχῇ is a ‘favourite phrase of Plato’ [336], but the parallel he gives, δύο διχῇ at Soph. 266d5, seems to be the only one outside of the Timaeus.)
2 I am presupposing a standard interpretation of the passage of the sort argued for by Gill, M.L., ‘Matter and flux in Plato's Timaeus ’, Phronesis 32 (1987), 34–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Zeyl, D.J. (ed.), Plato: Timaeus (Indianapolis, 2000)Google Scholar. However, one might accept H. Cherniss's interpretation of 49d–50a (‘A much misread passage of the Timaeus [Timaeus 49 C 7–50 B]’, AJPh 75 [1954], 113–30), while still granting that the conclusion of the passage at 50b5–c6 serves to distinguish becoming from the receptacle. It is not the claim of this note, after all, that each of the three sections only refers to two of the terms, but that it aims to distinguish two of the terms seriatim.
3 Cornford, F.M., Plato's Cosmology. The Timaeus of Plato (London, 1937), 193Google Scholar.
4 Cornford (n. 3), 194.
5 I am grateful to Dana Miller and CQ's anonymous reader for comments.