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    Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine
    Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine
    Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine
    Ebook81 pages57 minutes

    Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine

    By George Grote

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine

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      Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine - George Grote

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of

      the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine, by George Grote

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

      Title: Plato's Doctrine respecting the rotation of the Earth and Aristotle's Comment upon that Doctrine

      Author: George Grote

      Release Date: August 7, 2012 [EBook #40439]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PLATO'S DOCTRINE--ROTATION OF EARTH ***

      Produced by Ed Brandon as part of the on-line Grote Project

      PLATO’S DOCTRINE

      RESPECTING THE

      ROTATION OF THE EARTH,

      AND

      ARISTOTLE’S COMMENT UPON THAT DOCTRINE.

      BY GEORGE GROTE, ESQ.

      LONDON:

      JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.

      1860.

      The right of Translation is reserved.

      LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET,

      AND CHARING CROSS.

      EXAMINATION OF THE THREE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:—

      1. WHETHER THE DOCTRINE OF THE EARTH’S ROTATION IS AFFIRMED OR IMPLIED IN THE PLATONIC TIMÆUS?

      2. IF AFFIRMED OR IMPLIED, IN WHAT SENSE?

      3. WHAT IS THE COSMICAL FUNCTION WHICH PLATO ASSIGNS TO THE EARTH IN THE TIMÆUS?

      PREFACE.

      The following paper was originally intended as an explanatory note on the Platonic Timæus, in the work which I am now preparing on Plato and Aristotle. Interpreting, differently from others, the much debated passage in which Plato describes the cosmical function of the Earth, I found it indispensable to give my reasons for this new view. But I soon discovered that those reasons could not be comprised within the limits of a note. Accordingly I here publish them in a separate Dissertation. The manner in which the Earth’s rotation was conceived, illustrates the scientific character of the Platonic and Aristotelian age, as contrasted with the subsequent development and improvement of astronomy.

      PLATO — ON THE EARTH’S ROTATION.

      In Plato, Timæus, p. 40 B, we read the following words — Γῆν δὲ τροφὸν μὲν ἡμετέραν, εἱλλομένην δὲ περὶ τὸν διὰ παντὸς πόλον τεταμένον φύλακα καὶ δημιουργὸν νυκτός τε καὶ ἡμέρας ἐμηχανήσατο, πρώτην καὶ πρεσβυτάτην θεῶν, ὅσοι ἐντὸς οὐράνου γεγόνασι. I give the text as it stands in Stallbaum’s edition.

      The obscurity of this passage is amply attested by the numerous differences of opinion to which it has given rise, both in ancient and in modern times. Various contemporaries of Plato (ἔνιοι — Aristot. De Coelo, II. 13, p. 293 b. 30) understood it as asserting or implying the rotatory movement of the earth in the centre of the Kosmos, and adhered to this doctrine as their own. Aristotle himself alludes to these contemporaries without naming them, and adopts their interpretation of the passage; but dissents from the doctrine, and proceeds to impugn it by arguments. Cicero mentions (Academic II. 39) that there were persons who believed Plato to have indicated the same doctrine obscurely, in his Timaeus: this passage must undoubtedly be meant. Plutarch devotes a critical chapter to the enquiry, what was Plato’s real doctrine as to the cosmical function of the earth — its movement or rest (Quaestion. Platonic. VII. 3, p. 1006.)

      There exists a treatise, in Doric dialect, entitled Τίμαίω

      τῶ Λόκρω Περὶ Ψυχᾶς Κόσμω καὶ Φύσιος, which is usually published along with the works of Plato. This treatise was supposed in ancient times to be a genuine production of the Lokrian Timaeus, whom Plato introduces as his spokesman in the dialogue so called. As such, it was considered to be of much authority in settling questions of interpretation as to the Platonic Timaeus. But modern critics hold, I believe unanimously, that it is the work of some later Pythagorean or Platonist, excerpted or copied from the Platonic Timaeus. This treatise represents the earth as being in the centre and at rest. But its language, besides being dark and metaphorical, departs widely from the phraseology of the Platonic Timaeus: especially in this — that it makes no mention of the cosmical axis, nor of the word ἰλλομένην or εἱλουμένην.

      Alexander of Aphrodisias (as we learn from Simplikius ad Aristot. De Coelo, fol. 126) followed the construction of Plato given by Aristotle. It was improbable (he said) that Aristotle could be ignorant either what the word signified, or what was Plato’s purpose (ἀλλὰ τῷ Ἀριστοτέλει, φησὶν, οὕτω λέγοντι ἴλλεσθαι, οὐκ εὔλογον ἀντιλέγειν· ὡς ἀληθῶς γὰρ οὔτε τῆς λέξεως τὸ σημαινόμενον εἰκὸς ἦν ἀγνοεῖν αὐτὸν, οὔτε τὸν Πλάτωνος σκοπόν. This passage is not given in the Scholia of Brandis). Alexander therefore construed ἰλλομένην as meaning or implying rotatory movement, though in so doing he perverted (so Simplikius says) the true meaning to make it consonant with his own suppositions.

      Proklus maintains that Aristotle has interpreted the passage erroneously, — that ἰλλομένην is equivalent to σφιγγομένην or ξυνεχομένην — and that Plato intends by it to affirm the

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