God and Forms in Plato [Paperback]

Richard D. Mohr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2005

This book is a collection of dovetailing essays which together interpret and assess the chief arguments and texts which make up Plato's cosmology. Arguments in the "Timaeus", "Sophist", "Statesman", "Philebus", and "Laws X" are analysed with an eye to problems which affect the wider understanding of Plato's metaphysics, theology, epistemology, psychology, and physics. New interpretations are given to Plato's views on the role and characteristics of his craftsman God, the nature and status of Forms, the nature of time and eternity, the status and nature of space and the phenomenal realm, and the nature of and relations between reason, souls, bodies, and motion. The book is critically sympathetic to the Platonic project, at least to the extent that it argues that many (though not all) features of the Platonic cosmology are more intelligible and coherent than usually supposed by critics. It defends the view that for Plato God makes the world in the way that a carpenter cuts a board to be exactly a yard long - by applying a yard stick to the board and removing the excess wood. This view of a making requires that there be standards or measures that exist independently both of the agent who creates and the world on which he works. These standards are Plato's Forms. Transcendent Forms cannot be excised from the Platonic metaphysics as many modern critics have been trying to do in an attempt to make Plato respectable by today's criteria of philosophical decency. This work presents a revised and updated edition of the author's 1985 book "The Platonic Cosmology" (E J Brill, Leiden) together with four revised and updated essays by the author on Plato's metaphysics, and a wholly new essay, "Extensions", which expands the themes of the book into wider philosophical contexts.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The... book [is] perhaps the most acutely argued and intelligent treatment extant of the consequences of a literal view of the Timaeus - that is, a view which accepts the existence of the Demiurge, and the reality of a temporal creation of the world, with which existence is bound up. As one who does not accept this view of the Timaeus, I find myself nevertheless able to applaud the acuity with which Mohr pursues its implications, frequently setting right in the process such giants of Platonic scholarship as Comford, Cherniss, Vlastos and Owen, as well as other very competent authorities such as J.B. Skemp, T. M. Robinson (his own teacher), Hans Herter or Leonardo Taran.... Mohr does a great service... in exposing these difficulties with intelligence and clarity. John Dillon Trinity College, Dublin"

About the Author

Richard D. Mohr is Professor of Philosophy and of the Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of a series of works on social issues - Gays/Justice: A Study of Ethics, Society, and Law (1988); Gay Ideas: Outing and Other Controversies (1992); A More Perfect Union (1994); Pottery, Politics, Art: George Ohr and the Brothers Kirkpatrick (2003); The Long Arc of Justice: Lesbian and Gay Marriage, Equality, and Rights (2005)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Parmenides Publishing; Original edition (December 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930972016
• ISBN-13: 978-1930972018
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,528,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richard D. Mohr's God and Forms in Plato, April 11, 2007

By 

Anait Keuchguerian "Brutian" (Montreal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: God and Forms in Plato (Paperback)

This book is a revised and expanded editon of a 1985 book The Platonic Cosmology by the same author. As explained on p.ix of the preface to the 2005 edition, the author attempts to "place Plato's cosmological commitments in the Timaeus, Statesman, and Philebus into a wider metaphysical context." A sequence of highly imformative essays allows the author to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of Plato's physics, psychology, epistemology, and theology. Unlike many Anglo-American critics of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, who chose to ignore the important aspects of late Platonism, the author takles issues relating to Time and Eternity, Space and Phenomenal World, Reason and God. The nature and characteristics of Plato's Craftsman God (Timaeus 28a6,29a3,41a7, 42e8, 62e2, 69c3; Philebus 27b1) or Maker (Timaeus 28c3; Philebus 27a5)are discussed and explained not through the lens of Aristotle's Physics II or Metaphysics XII but to put it in layman's terms, as Plato would have explained it, if he were alive today. A well-documented and thoughtfully written book indeed!!!