A bit of a tangent here, but I’ve encountered physis and ousia before as they (along with prosopon) featured heavily in the fifth century duophysite/monophysite/Nestorian controversies that led to the Council of Chalcedon and the schism with the Oriental Orthodox Church. “Confusing to follow” is putting it mildly. The one thing that was clear to me was that what each side claimed the other sides believed was very different from how those sides actually described their own beliefs. All of them believed Jesus had a human ‘X’ and a divine ‘X’ united without confusion in a single ‘Y’, but they disagreed on which words to use for X and Y. If I were a Greek scholar, I might have a strong opinion about who was right. Since I’m not, I suspect that maybe much of the disagreement was down to differences in European and Middle Eastern Greek dialects. Seeing how differently Plato was using those words in this text reinforces my suspicion.
Interesting. This trigger a memory from a college where the professor claimed that Aristotle’s Metaphysics was basically more correctly translated as “about physis” instead of “beyond physis”. Words do matter, and these nuances can sometimes flip upside down the whole meaning.
I always thought it was “after the Physics,” i.e., some later editors didn’t know what to call the books, so called them “ta meta ta physika,” i.e., “the [books] after the Physics.” It’s also worth pointing out that Newton completely changed our understanding of what “physics” means, and that Aristotle took his topic to be “physis,” which means “nature,” which means “the rock-bottom basic principles from which all things are purportedly derived.” That basically makes his subject very similar in extension to what we now call metaphysics.
That make more sense.
It also explains why so many writers almost have to define their vocabulary first because words have associated baggage with them.
I don’t think it would be correct to say they disbelieve in Plato’s concept of the soul, but they clearly ascribe less importance to it than the Athenian. They believe a man’s reason, will, emotion, desires, etc. all have their origins in his material body. Disproving this assertion is the Athenian’s primary aim.
The pure materialistic account of the universe cannot explain the cosmic order. This reminds me of the text from Timaeus where he elaborates the same idea. You can’t get order out of disorder without an Order Maker / Divine Benevolent Intelligence. He does seem to go beyond just the order of the universe this time, and also claim the same for justice and law.
Is the seed of the reliability of logic and reason and even sense experience argument in here? In other words, if our universe is just the result of chance, time and matter, why would we trust our mind, our sense or even logic? Even the fact that we are able to comprehend and make sense of the universe is in itself something extraordinary. Or of course, other similar arguments about the origins of consciousness and self-awareness.
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