Kouremenos, Theokritos (Author)
de Gruyter
Physical Details: 152
Language: English
Plato's view that mathematics paves the way for his philosophy of forms is well known. This book attempts to flesh out the relationship between mathematics and philosophy as Plato conceived them by proposing that in his view, although it is philosophy that came up with the concept of beings, which he calls forms, and highlighted their importance, first to natural philosophy and then to ethics, the things that do qualify as beings are inchoately revealed by mathematics as the raw materials that must be further processed by philosophy (mathematicians, to use Plato's simile in the Euthedemus, do not invent the theorems they prove but discover beings and, like hunters who must hand over what they catch to chefs if it is going to turn into something useful, they must hand over their discoveries to philosophers). Even those forms that do not bear names of mathematical objects, such as the famous forms of beauty and goodness, are in fact forms of mathematical objects. The first chapter is an attempt to defend this thesis. The second argues that for Plato philosophy's crucial task of investigating the exfoliation of the forms into the sensible world, including the sphere of human private and public life, is already foreshadowed in one of its branches, astronomy.
...MoreReview Luca Simeoni (2020) Review of "Plato's Forms, Mathematics and Astronomy". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 864-866).
Review Luca Simeoni (2020) Review of "Plato's Forms, Mathematics and Astronomy". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 864-866).
Similar Citations
Book
Ward, Ann;
(2009)
Matter and Form: From Natural Science to Political Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001201150/)
Book
Giuseppe Cambiano;
(2006)
Figure, macchine, sogni. Saggi sulla scienza antica
(/isis/citation/CBB013124835/)
Article
Michael Wiitala;
(2018)
The Argument against the Friends of the Forms Revisited: Sophist 248a4–249d5
(/isis/citation/CBB663541639/)
Article
Martinez, Joel A.;
(2011)
Rethinking Plato's Conception of Knowledge: The Non-Philosopher and the Forms
(/isis/citation/CBB001250018/)
Article
Reynolds, Joshua J.;
(2008)
How Is the Third Kind in Plato's Timaeus a Receptacle?
(/isis/citation/CBB001211434/)
Book
Luis Arturo Guichard;
García Alonso, Juan Luis;
María Paz Hoz (de);
(2014)
The Alexandrian Tradition: Interactions between Science, Religion, and Literature
(/isis/citation/CBB875455759/)
Article
Viktor Ilievski;
(2018)
Theodicy and Moral Responsibility in the Myth of Er
(/isis/citation/CBB142199590/)
Article
Wolfsdorf, David;
(2011-12)
Plato's Conception of Knowledge
(/isis/citation/CBB001231746/)
Article
Nicholas R. Baima;
(2018)
Playing with Intoxication: On the Cultivation of Shame and Virtue in Plato’s Laws
(/isis/citation/CBB840474327/)
Article
Meyer, Martin F.;
(2004)
Platon und das Sokratische Pragma
(/isis/citation/CBB000933642/)
Book
Fine, Gail;
(1999)
Plato 2: Ethics, politics, religion and the soul
(/isis/citation/CBB000110607/)
Chapter
Francesco Fronterotta;
(2022)
La metafora eraclitea del fiume e la sua interpretazione in Platone e Aristotele
(/isis/citation/CBB047222730/)
Article
Sharpe, Matthew;
(2009)
Hunting Plato's Agalmata
(/isis/citation/CBB001030478/)
Article
Franklin, Lee;
(2011)
Particular and Universal: Hypothesis in Plato's Divided Line
(/isis/citation/CBB001250023/)
Article
Reshotko, Naomi;
(2014)
Plato on the Ordinary Person and the Forms
(/isis/citation/CBB001214198/)
Article
Bernard, Alain;
(2010)
The Significance of Ptolemy's Almagest for Its Early Readers
(/isis/citation/CBB001252110/)
Article
Gregory, Andrew;
(2012)
Kennedy and Stichometry---Some Methodological Considerations
(/isis/citation/CBB001251229/)
Book
Horky, Phillip Sidney;
(2013)
Plato and Pythagoreanism
(/isis/citation/CBB001421742/)
Article
Grams, Laura W.;
(2012)
The Eleatic Visitor's Method of Division
(/isis/citation/CBB001251228/)
Book
Vuillemin, Jules;
(2001)
Mathématiques pythagoriciennes et platoniciennes
(/isis/citation/CBB000503093/)
Be the first to comment!