What a Wonderful World
The Metaphysical Monism of Plato under the Two-Level Model of Holger Thesleff
Keywords:
Plato, Plato's ontology, Plato's Forms, Monism versus Dualism, Holger Thesleff, Two-Level ModelAbstract
This paper is an appraisal of the two-level model of Holger Thesleff for the interpretation of Plato. The primary emphasis is on the metaphysics of the model, which revolves around the idea of a single world composed of two levels complementing each other in a productive relationship. The ultimate goal is to show that the monism of two levels in one world is a better alternative than the metaphysical dualism traditionally attributed to Plato to account for the transcendence typically associated with his Forms, which ipso facto become separated from the very reality they are supposed to fashion and regulate. While the segregation alone might automatically count against the postulation of a separate world for the Forms, the trick in promoting a solitary world instead is to retain some semblance of transcendence, or an acceptable alternative to it, while compressing everything into the same reality. The present initiative shows that it is not a trick of any sort, certainly not in the sense of a ruse, but a philosophical vision originating with Plato himself.References
Alican, Necip Fikri. 2017. “Ontological Symmetry in Plato: Formless Things and Empty Forms.” Analysis and Metaphysics 16: 7–51. Revised and reprinted as chapter 5 of One over Many: The Unitary Pluralism of Plato’s World. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021, 169–223.
Alican, Necip Fikri. 2021. One over Many: The Unitary Pluralism of Plato’s World. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Alican, Necip Fikri, and Holger Thesleff. 2013. “Rethinking Plato’s Forms.” Arctos: Acta Philologica Fennica 47: 11–47. Revised and reprinted as chapter 2 of One over Many: The Unitary Pluralism of Plato’s World. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2021, 73–112.
Allen, Reginald Edgar. 1960. “Participation and Predication in Plato’s Middle Dialogues.” The Philosophical Review 69:2 (April): 147–164. Reprinted as chapter 4 of Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics. Edited by Reginald Edgar Allen. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965, 43–60.
Aristotle. 1831–1870. Aristotelis Opera. Five volumes. Greek text of the complete works of Aristotle, prepared by the Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, under the general editorship of August Immanuel Bekker. Berlin: Georg Reimer (Walter de Gruyter).
Aristotle. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Two volumes. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press. The standard English translation of the Aristotelian corpus, originally published in twelve volumes, bearing the common title, The Works of Aristotle, also known as the Oxford translation of Aristotle. Edited by John Alexander Smith and William David Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1908–1952.
Brentlinger, John Allen. 1972. “Incomplete Predicates and the Two-World Theory of the Phaedo.” Phronesis 17:1: 61–79.
Broadie, Sarah Jean, and Anthony John Patrick Kenny. 2004. “The Creation of the World.” Part 1 (65–79): Broadie: “Plato’s Intelligible World.” Part 2 (81–92): Kenny: “Seven Concepts of Creation.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Supplementary volume) 78:1 (July): 65–92.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 2000. “Superstar” (episode no. 73 [season 4, episode 17], production code 4ABB17). Written by Jane Espenson and directed by David Grossman. Seventeenth episode of the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a television series created by Joss Whedon and produced by Mutant Enemy Productions. The episode was originally broadcast on The WB network on 4 April 2000.
Butler, Travis. 2007. “On Today’s Two-Worlds Interpretation: Knowledge and True Belief in Plato.” The Southern Journal of Philosophy 45:1 (Spring): 31–56.
Crombie, Ian MacHattie. 1963. An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines: II. Plato on Knowledge and Reality. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Dancy, Russell M. 1991. Two Studies in the Early Academy. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dancy, Russell M. 2004. Plato’s Introduction of Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
de Vogel, Cornelia Johanna. 1986. Rethinking Plato and Platonism. Mnemosyne: Bibliotheca Classica Batava. Supplementum 92. Leiden: Brill.
Devereux, Daniel T. 1994. “Separation and Immanence in Plato’s Theory of Forms.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 12: 63–90.
Diogenes Laërtius. 2020. Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Various editions. (1) Cambridge (Greek): Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Edited with an introduction by Tiziano Dorandi. Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries 50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. (2) Teubner (Greek): Vitae Philosophorum. Three volumes. First two volumes edited by Miroslav Marcovich (1999), third volume, dedicated exclusively to indexes, edited by Hans Gärtner (2002). Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Munich and Leipzig: Teubner (K. G. Saur = Walter de Gruyter). (3) Loeb (Greek and English): Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Two volumes. Greek text with parallel English translation by Robert Drew Hicks. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925. Reprinted with an introduction by Herbert Strainge Long, 1972. (4) Oxford (English): Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch. Edited by James Miller. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. (5) Cambridge (English): Lives of Eminent Philosophers: An Edited Translation. Edited and translated by Stephen White. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. The main texts consulted in the preparation of the present volume were the Cambridge edition (2013), serving as a guide for marginal line numbers, and the Cambridge translation (2020), serving as a source for direct quotations.
Ferguson, Alexander Stewart. 1921. “On a Supposed Instance of Dualism in Plato.” The Philosophical Review 30:3 (May): 221–237.
Findlay, John Niemeyer. 1974. Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Findlay, John Niemeyer. 1978. Plato and Platonism: An Introduction. New York: Times Books.
Findlay, John Niemeyer. 1983. “Plato’s Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small.” The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter 113: 1–18.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1978. “Knowledge and Belief in Republic V.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 60:2: 121–139. Reprinted as chapter 3 of the author’s collection: Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, 66–84.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1980. “The One over Many.” The Philosophical Review 89:2 (April): 197–240. Revised and reprinted as “The One over Many Argument: Forms and Predication,” constituting chapter 8 of the author’s On Ideas: Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Forms. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, 103–119.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1984. “Separation.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2: 31–87. Reprinted as chapter 11 of the author’s collection: Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, 252–300.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1985. “Separation: A Reply to Morrison.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3: 159–165.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1986. “Immanence.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4: 71–97. Reprinted as chapter 12 of the author’s collection: Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, 301–325.
Fine, Gail Judith. 1990. “Knowledge and Belief in Republic V–VII.” Chapter 5 of Epistemology. Edited by Stephen Everson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 85–115. Reprinted as chapter 4 of the author’s collection: Plato on Knowledge and Forms: Selected Essays. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003, 85–116.
Fine, Gail Judith. 2016. “The ‘Two Worlds’ Theory in the Phaedo.” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24:4: 557–572.
Fine, Gail Judith. 2022. “The ‘Two Worlds Theory’ in the Philebus.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 63 (Winter): 1–48.
Frede, Dorothea. 1999. “Plato on What the Body’s Eye Tells the Mind’s Eye.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (New Series) 99: 191–209.
Freydberg, Bernard. 1997. The Play of the Platonic Dialogues. Literature and the Sciences of Man 12. New York: Peter Lang.
Gonzalez, Francisco J. (ed.). 1995. The Third Way: New Directions in Platonic Studies. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Gonzalez, Francisco J. 1996. “Propositions or Objects? A Critique of Gail Fine on Knowledge and Belief in Republic V.” Phronesis 41:3: 245–275.
Kahn, Charles H. 1996. Plato and the Socratic Dialogue: The Philosophical Use of a Literary Form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. 1781/1787. Kritik der reinen Vernunft (KrV). Riga: Johann Friedrich Hartknoch, 1781. Second edition, 1787. The critical edition is in volumes 3 (both editions together) and 4 (first edition alone) of Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften (29 vols.), edited by the Königlich Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (vols. 1–22) and its successors, including the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (vol. 23) and the Niedersächsische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen (vols. 24–29). Scholarly references traditionally use the pagination in volume 3 of the Akademie collection (KrV 3:1–552), with the standard A/B notation denoting the first (1781) and second (1787) editions. Numerous English translations (Critique of Pure Reason), including those by Norman Kemp Smith (London: Macmillan and Company, 1929), Werner Schrutka Pluhar (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996), and Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Kelsey, Sean. 2004. “Causation in the Phaedo.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85:1 (March): 21–43.
Klagge, James C., and Nicholas D. Smith (eds.). 1992. Methods of Interpreting Plato and His Dialogues. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Supplementary volume. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Lewis, David Kellogg. 1986. On The Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Lewis, Frank A. 1979. “Parmenides on Separation and the Knowability of the Forms: Plato Parmenides 133a ff.” Philosophical Studies 35:2 (February): 105–127.
Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken. 1936. The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea. The William James lectures delivered by the author at Harvard University, 1933. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mabbott, John David. 1926. “Aristotle and the Xωρισμός of Plato.” The Classical Quarterly 20:2 (April): 72–79.
Matthen, Mohan. 1984. “Forms and Participants in Plato’s Phaedo.” Noûs 18:2 (May): 281–297.
Maula, Erkka. 1967. “On Plato and Plenitude.” Ajatus 29: 12–50.
Meinong, Alexius. 1904. “Über Gegenstandstheorie.” Chapter 1 of Untersuchungen zur Gegenstandstheorie und Psychologie (Investigations in Theory of Objects and Psychology), a scholarly collection edited by Meinong himself. Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1–51. English translation, by Isaac Levi, D. B. Terrell, and Roderick M. Chisholm, published as “The Theory of Objects” in chapter 4 of Realism and the Background of Phenomenology. Edited by Roderick M. Chisholm. Glencoe: Free Press, 1960, 76–117.
Moravcsik, Julius Matthew Emil. 1992. Plato and Platonism: Plato’s Conception of Appearance and Reality in Ontology, Epistemology and Ethics, and Its Modern Echoes. London: Blackwell.
Morrison, Donald Ray. 1985a. “Χωριστός in Aristotle.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 89 (1985): 89–105.
Morrison, Donald Ray. 1985b. “Separation in Aristotle’s Metaphysics.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3: 125–157.
Morrison, Donald Ray. 1985c. “Separation: A Reply to Fine.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3: 167–173.
Nails, Debra. 2013. “Two Dogmas of Platonism.” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 28: 77–101, 110–112.
Nehamas, Alexander. 1975. “Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World.” American Philosophical Quarterly 12:2 (April): 105–117.
Nummenmaa, Tapio. 1998. Divine Motions and Human Emotions in the Philebus and in the Laws. Plato’s Theory of Psychic Powers. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 112. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.
Perl, Eric D. 1997. “Sense-Perception and Intellect in Plato.” Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 15:1: 15–34.
Perl, Eric D. 1999. “The Presence of the Paradigm: Immanence and Transcendence in Plato’s Theory of Forms.” The Review of Metaphysics 53:2 (December): 339–362.
Plantinga, Alvin Carl. 1974. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: Oxford University Pres
Plantinga, Alvin Carl. 1976. “Actualism and Possible Worlds.” Theoria 42:1–3 (April): 139—160.
Plantinga, Alvin Carl. 1987. “Two Concepts of Modality: Modal Realism and Modal Reductionism.” Philosophical Perspectives 1 (Metaphysics): 189–231.
Plato. 1900–1907. Platonis Opera. Five volumes. Critical texts with introductions and notes. Edited by John Burnet. Oxford Classical Texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reprinted 1967–1968. New edition underway since 1995.
Plato. 1997. Complete Works. English translations by various hands. Edited, with an introduction and notes, by John Madison Cooper. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Press, Gerald Alan. 1995. “Knowledge as Vision in Plato’s Dialogues.” Journal of Neoplatonic Studies 3: 61–89.
Press, Gerald Alan (ed.). 2000. Who Speaks for Plato? Studies in Platonic Anonymity. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers.
Rist, John Michael. 1964. “The Immanence and Transcendence of the Platonic Form.” Philologus 108:1/2 (December): 217–232.
Robjant, David. 2012. “The Earthy Realism of Plato’s Metaphysics, or: What Shall We Do with Iris Murdoch?” Philosophical Investigations 35:1 (January): 43–67.
Rohr, Michael David. 1978. “Empty Forms in Plato.” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 60:3: 268–283. Shortened version of an essay written earlier but published later in Reforging the Great Chain of Being: Studies of the History of Modal Theories. Edited by Simo Knuuttila. Synthese Historical Library 20. Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company (Springer), 1981, 19–56.
Rowe, Christopher J. 2005. “What Difference Do Forms Make for Platonic Epistemology?” Chapter 10 of Virtue, Norms, and Objectivity: Issues in Ancient and Modern Ethics. Edited by Christopher Gill. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 215–232.
Smith, Nicholas D. 2000. “Plato on Knowledge as a Power.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 38:2 (April): 145–168.
Smith, Nicholas D. 2012. “Plato on the Power of Ignorance.” In Virtue and Happiness: Essays in Honour of Julia Annas. Edited by Rachana Kamtekar. Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (Special Issue). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 51–73.
Smith, Nicholas D. 2019. Summoning Knowledge in Plato’s Republic. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Spellman, Lynne. 1995. “The Separation of Platonic Forms.” Chapter 1 of the author’s Substance and Separation in Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 5–20.
Star Trek. 1966–1999. Star Trek (later: Star Trek: The Original Series), is a television series created by Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, produced by Norway Productions in association with Desilu Studios (later: Paramount Television), and broadcast by the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). The series gradually spawned an entertainment franchise comprising multiple live action series, several animated series, and more than a dozen feature films, in addition to various novels, audio books, comic books, and video games, as well as countless episodes of fan fiction.
Taylor, Alfred Edward. 1908. Plato. London: Archibald Constable and Company. Reprinted as The Mind of Plato, 1922.
Taylor, Alfred Edward. 1926. Plato: The Man and His Work. London: Methuen and Company. Numerous editions, four in the author’s lifetime, six in total. Second edition, 1927. Third edition, 1929. Fourth edition, 1937. Fifth edition, 1948. Sixth edition, 1949.
Thesleff, Holger. 1982. Studies in Platonic Chronology. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Reprinted as part of the author’s Platonic Patterns. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2009, 143–382.
Thesleff, Holger. 1984. “Plato and Inequality.” Contribution to Equality and Inequality of Man in Ancient Thought: Papers Read at the Colloquium in Connection with the Assemblée Generale of the Federation Internationale des Études Classiques Held in Helsinki in August 1982. Edited by Iiro Kajanto. Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 75. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 17–29.
Thesleff, Holger. 1989a. Platon. Originally written in Swedish, but first published in Finnish, as translated by Marja Itkonen-Kaila. Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. Subsequently published in Swedish from the original manuscript. Lund: Förlagsaktiebolaget Pegas, 1990.
Thesleff, Holger. 1989b. “Platonic Chronology.” Phronesis 34:1–3: 1–26.
Thesleff, Holger. 1993. “Looking for Clues: An Interpretation of Some Literary Aspects of Plato’s ‘Two-Level Model.’” Chapter 2 of Plato’s Dialogues: New Studies and Interpretations. Edited by Gerald Alan Press. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 17–45.
Thesleff, Holger. 1999. Studies in Plato’s Two-Level Model. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica. Reprinted as part of the author’s Platonic Patterns. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2009, 383–506.
Thesleff, Holger. 2002. “An Introduction to Studies in Plato’s Two-Level Model.” Plato: The Internet Journal of the International Plato Society (later: Plato Journal) 2 (January): 1–7. http://gramata.univ-paris1.fr/Plato/article33.html (posted: January 2008; accessed: 10 September 2012).
Thesleff, Holger. 2009. Platonic Patterns: A Collection of Studies by Holger Thesleff. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing. A selection of Thesleff’s previously published contributions to Plato scholarship, three books and four articles, reprinted here with the original pagination indicated in the margins. Books: Studies in the Styles of Plato (1967); Studies in Platonic Chronology (1982); Studies in Plato’s Two-Level Model (1999). Articles: “Theaitetos and Theodoros” (1990); “The Early Version of Plato’s Republic” (1997); “Plato and His Public” (2002); “A Symptomatic Text Corruption: Plato, Gorgias 448a5” (2003).
Thesleff, Holger. 2011. Platonin Arvoitus (Plato’s Riddle). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press (Gaudeamus).
Thesleff, Holger. 2017. “Pivotal Play and Irony in Platonic Dialogues.” Arctos: Acta Philologica Fennica 51: 179–220.
Thesleff, Holger. 2023. “Afterthoughts on ‘School Accumulation’ in Plato’s Academy.” Published posthumously as chapter 1 of The Making of the Platonic Corpus. Edited by Olga Alieva in collaboration with Debra Nails and Harold Tarrant. Leiden: Brill, 1–14.
Vlastos, Gregory. 1969. “Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo.” The Philosophical Review 78:3 (July): 291–325. Reprinted as chapter 4 of the author’s Platonic Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973, 76–110.
Vlastos, Gregory. 1987. “‘Separation’ in Plato.” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 5: 187–196.
Wood, James L. 2017. “The Unorthodox Theory of Forms in Plato’s Philebus.” Journal of Ancient Philosophy 11:2: 45–81.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Necip Fikri Alican
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
