The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition, 2008

One of the major puzzling themes in the history of Platonism is how theology is integrated with philosophy. In particular, one may well wonder how Plato's superordinate first principle of all, Idea of the Good, comes to be understood by his disciples as a mind or in some way possessing personal attributes. In what sense is the Good supposed to be God? In this paper I explore some Platonic accounts of the first principle of all in order to understand where the integration of the personal into the metaphysical is organic and where it is not. I conclude that the “ontological” and the “henological” construals of the first principle of all differ in their openness to “intellectualizing” that principle.

Diotima: Review of Philosophical Research (Hellenic Society for Philosophical Studies, Athens), 2011

Book Proposal for: Bound by Goodness, Ruled by Reason: Plato's Theology and the Foundations of his Cosmology Theology constitutes both the core content of Plato’s cosmology and a key metaphysical foundation for Platonic cosmology as such. To put it another way, when Plato seeks to describe the most essential structures and functions of the sensible world he gives an account of gods; when Plato seeks to explain how it is possible for there to be perpetually beautiful, rational, and living divinities in a sensible world of otherwise constant and unstable generation and destruction, there too his answer looks to god. This book attempts to develop and detail an accurate and coherent account of Plato’s theology and to identify the several philosophical problems Plato devised it to address. It carefully reconstructs his views about the various kinds of entities identified by him as gods, their relationships to one another and the universe as a whole, and the roles they serve in his overall worldview. Such a study is very much needed, for while interest in Plato’s theology has been steadily growing, no full-length, systematic treatment of the subject has been written in English. This is the first book of its kind to give a thorough treatment of all the relevant texts from across Plato’s corpus; to examine all the relevant features or “parts” of his theology: the World-soul and other cosmic souls, “Nous” (i.e. reason or intellect), the Demiurge (Craftsman), the Form of the GOOD; and to attempts to organize the interpretation of all of these into a new, coherent narrative situating Plato’s theology centrally within his late thought. Moreover, while several good books and articles have been written on the subject, nearly all the work that has been done on Plato’s theology for the last 80 years has recapitulated or offered only minor variations on one of the same three or four inadequate interpretative schemes, all of which were developed before the Second World War. Thus progress on the topic has been at a standstill for more than three quarters of a century. This book offers to break this deadlock and to offer a novel interpretation by resolving the central dilemma over Plato’s theology that has made fully coherent and well-motivated interpretations impossible. To do so, it rejects the identification of the Craftsman god (Demiurge) of his Timaeus and other dialogues with “Nous” (reason or intellect)—an identification that is the common, shared assumption of all of the unsuccessful contemporary interpretations as well as of nearly every historical interpretation of Plato’s theology in the long history of its reception. While I am proposing to do away with an interpretive orthodoxy, the result is a clearer view of the Demiurge, Nous, and their respective key roles in Plato’s late metaphysics and cosmology. Table of Contents PART I – FOREGROUND AND BACKGROUND Chapter 1. Introduction to Plato’s Theology: Themes, Questions, and Methods Chapter 2. The Ancient Quarrel: Traditional Greek religion and its philosophical critics PART II – IMMANENT THEOLOGY Chapter 3. The Goals of Plato’s Public Theology Chapter 4. The Implementation Problem and the Panpsychic Solution Chapter 5. The World, the World-soul, and other cosmic gods PART III – TRANSCENDENT THEOLOGY Chapter 6. The Demiurge is the GOOD Chapter 7. The Demiurge is not Nous Chapter 8. Pre-panpsychic Intellect?: Cosmic Intellect and the World-soul in the Philebus PART IV – INTERSTITIALS AND INTERCESSORIES Chapter 9. Culture-Heroes, Daemons, and the Gods of Tradition Conclusion

The Daimon in the Myth of Er (Resp. 10 617E-620E) In Book 2 of Republic Socrates critiques traditional theology by asserting that “god is altogether simple and true in deed and word, and neither changes himself nor deceives others (382E-383A)”, absolving divinity of responsibility for human evil. While Socrates’ discussion remains primarily negative, the myth of Er in Book 10 offers a complementary perspective. This myth elucidates the soul’s journey after death and its selection of a future life for embodiment, attributing sole responsibility to the soul. Consistently with Socrates’ theological critique, divinity is absolved of accountability for human suffering: theos is anaitios (Resp. 10 617E). No daimon casts the lot but the soul chooses its own daimon. Moreover, the daimon is later depicted as apoplērōtēs, fulfilling the soul’s choice for embodied existence. This paper endeavors to elucidate these references and explores the role of Er’s daimon in human life, tackling the question of how the daimon can be held unaccountable while fulfilling the soul’s choice. Initially, it examines daimons’ functions in Symposium, Phaedo, and Apology, highlighting their intermediary role between gods and humans, facilitating communication, harmonizing cosmic realms, and guiding souls through them—all elements that differentiate them from gods. Notably, individuals deemed “daimonic” possess privileged insight, exemplified by Socrates in Apology, who attributes his moral guidance to a lifelong internal daimonic influence restraining him from acting on certain thoughts. The paper contends that in the myth of Er, the daimon assumes a dual role: guiding souls through the afterlife while also binding them to their chosen destinies in embodied existence by restraining them from acting otherwise—an interference which absolves the daimon of accountability. But unlike Socrates’ daimon in Apology, which merely restrains from evil and is, so to speak, idiosyncratic (see Resp. 6 496C), Er’s daimon prevents all actions contrary to the chosen life, thus facilitating the enactment of the soul’s fate, whether virtuous or malevolent. The myth not only underscores the separation of divinity from human evil but also portrays the daimons as exclusive demi-divine entities accompanying souls inexorably toward their chosen paths, sealing their fates beyond escape.

G. Fine (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Plato, 2nd edn, 2019

This chapter examines Plato's views on theology. Plato inherited Socrates's conviction that a proper understanding of the divine nature is essential to human virtue and happi ness. Hence, god's essential goodness is the thesis that runs most prominently through all his theological arguments. Since this supreme goodness is manifested above all in the cosmic structures created by divine intelligence, it is understandable if Plato turns out to stick resolutely to his insistence that, for all its appearances of imperfection, from a glob al perspective ours is the best physical world that could ever have been created, even by a supremely powerful being. On the other hand, Plato shows less interest than Socrates did in the idea of divine intervention in individual human lives. To that extent his work in theology points forward to Aristotle, who would insulate god entirely from concern with the sublunary world.