Luca Gili

Vilnius University

Luca Gili is an Assistant professor of Ancient Philosophy at Università di Chieti & Pescara, as well as a MSCA post-doc at Vilnius University. Previously, he was Professeur régulier of Philosophy at Université du Québec à Montréal. He has published ἕτερόν τι τῶν κειμένων. The Reception of Aristotle’s Logic in Late Antiquity (Carabba, 2024), Aquinas on Change and Time. A Philosophical Analysis of the Commentary on Aristotle's Physics III and IV (Georg Olms, 2024), La sillogistica di Alessandro di Afrodisia (Georg Olms, 2011), co-edited Foreign Influences. The Circulation of Knowledge in Antiquity (Brepols, 2024), translated with introduction and notes I Topici di Aristotele. Libri Z-H (Aracne, 2010) and published numerous articles on ancient logic in Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron, Méthexis, Classical Quarterly and elsewhere.

Abstract 

Unpacking the Meaning of ‘Being’: A Dialectical Approach in Plato’s Timaeus and Sophist

In the present contribution, I restrict my analysis to two passages from two of Plato’s major works, in which I believe we can discern overlooked insights into both the nature of “being” and the discursive strategies required to speak meaningfully about it. Despite this narrow focus, I find it necessary to declare from the outset my alignment—at least in general terms—with the third interpretive orientation. Indeed, I maintain that any plausible reconstruction of even a few lines of Plato demands a broader hermeneutic framework. I take Plato to be a metaphysician concerned with the scientific understanding of the sensible world. He seems to argue that the path toward such understanding lies in a collaborative dialectical process of the sort dramatized in the dialogues. No immediate or intuitive access to first principles is granted; rather, every assumption derived from sense perception or reliant on empirical foundations must be subjected to critical revision. Accordingly, I contend that the conclusions reached in Plato’s dialogues are contextually valid—emerging organically from the specific dialectical setting in which they are produced—and that it is through engagement in this process that readers are invited to approach truth themselves. Did Plato believe in the Ideas? Undoubtedly. Are the Ideas transcendent principles above the sensible realm? Certainly—but only within certain dialectical games. If we extend the conversation to include Aristotle as an interlocutor, then the argument leading to postulate the existence of Ideas would qualify them immanent, enmattered forms. So, what did Plato really think? He clearly held that the Ideas are indispensable for explaining the sensible world, and that their ontological status is to be progressively disclosed through dialectic. In this sense, the divergent metaphysical positions developed by Speusippus and Aristotle can both be understood as authentically “Platonic” continuations, as they would both look at Ideas in precisely this way. It is certainly reasonable to suppose that Plato maintained that the principles of the sensible world possess mind-independent existence, while nonetheless resisting the notion that they are enmattered. But ultimately, Plato’s inquiry into “being” is, first and foremost, a linguistic and logical investigation—designed to address and dismantle the paradoxes posed by Parmenides and the Sophists.

One of the fascinating aspects of Plato is that his texts are susceptible of such different interpretations. Think about “being”. While the verb has many meanings in ancient Greek, though it is essentially used only in copulative constructions, literalists are more prone to quickly translate its participle form with “existing thing” or “what exists”. Similarly, scholars who look at Plato’s enterprise as focusing mostly on the way we arrive at a conclusion rather than at the conclusion itself (be they to be counted in group (b) or (c)) would probably look at it in a more nuanced way and consider the many meanings of “being” as something that can be exploited in dialectical contexts. And yes, each of the interpretative frameworks can make sense of each statement that we find in Plato’s oeuvre, so that it is a daunting enterprise to single out a given overarching interpretation as preferable.