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Authors: Arthur Koestler
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over-concretization – as if the author of the line "this world is a vale of tears" were to proceed with a factual survey of the distribution of tear-drops in the vale.
Once again one must remember, that in the surrealistic cosmogony of the Timaeus it is impossible to draw the line between philosophy and poetry, metaphorical and factual statement; and that long passages in the Parmenides virtually destroy the doctrine that the world is a copy of models in heaven. But if some of my previous paragraphs sound like a harsh and one-sided view of what Plato meant, this is essentially what he came to mean to a long row of future generations – the one-sided shadow that he threw. We shall also see that the second Platonic revival, in the fifteenth century, highlighted a quite different side of Plato, and threw his shadow into the opposite direction. But that turn is still a long way ahead.
2.
Rise of the Circular Dogma
I must now turn to Plato's contribution to astronomy – which insofar as concrete advances are concerned, is nil; for he understood little of astronomy, and was evidently bored by it. The few passages where he feels moved to broach the subject are so muddled, ambiguous or self-contradictory, that all scholarly efforts have failed to explain their meaning. 11
However, by a process of metaphysical and a priori reasoning, Plato came to certain general conclusions regarding the shape and motions of the universe. These conclusions, of paramount importance for everything which follows, were that the shape of the world must be a perfect sphere, and that all motion must be in perfect circles at uniform speed .
"And he gave the universe the figure which is proper and natural... Wherefore he turned it, as in a lathe, round and spherical, with its extremities equidistant in all directions from the centre, the figure of all figures most perfect and most like to itself, for he deemed the like more beautiful than the unlike. To the whole he gave, on the outside round about, a surface perfectly finished and smooth, for many reasons. It had no need of eyes, for nothing visible was left outside it; nor of hearing, for there was nothing audible outside it; and there was no breath outside it requiring to be inhaled... He allotted to it the motion which was proper to its bodily form, that motion of the seven motions which is most bound up with understanding and intelligence. Wherefore, turning it round in one and the same place upon itself, he made it move with circular rotation; all the other six motions [i.e., straight motion up and down, forward and back, right and left] he took away from it and made it exempt from their wanderings. And since for this revolution it had no need of feet, he created it without legs and without feet... Smooth and even and everywhere equidistant from the centre, a body whole and perfect, made up of perfect bodies..." 12
Accordingly, the task of the mathematicians was now to design a system which would reduce the apparent irregularities in the motions of the planets to regular motions in perfectly regular circles. This task kept them busy for the next two thousand years. With his poetic and innocent demand, Plato laid a curse on astronomy, whose effects were to last till the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Kepler proved that planets move in oval, and not circular orbits. There is perhaps no other example in the history of thought of such dogged, obsessional persistence in error, as the circular fallacy which bedevilled astronomy for two millennia.
But here again, Plato had merely thrown out, in semi-allegorical language, a suggestion which was quite in keeping with the Pythagorean tradition; it was Aristotle who promoted the idea of circular motion to a dogma of astronomy.
3.
The Fear of Change
In Plato's world the boundaries between the metaphorical and the factual are fluid; all such ambiguity disappears as Aristotle takes over. With pedantic thoroughness the vision is dissected, its
Once again one must remember, that in the surrealistic cosmogony of the Timaeus it is impossible to draw the line between philosophy and poetry, metaphorical and factual statement; and that long passages in the Parmenides virtually destroy the doctrine that the world is a copy of models in heaven. But if some of my previous paragraphs sound like a harsh and one-sided view of what Plato meant, this is essentially what he came to mean to a long row of future generations – the one-sided shadow that he threw. We shall also see that the second Platonic revival, in the fifteenth century, highlighted a quite different side of Plato, and threw his shadow into the opposite direction. But that turn is still a long way ahead.
2.
Rise of the Circular Dogma
I must now turn to Plato's contribution to astronomy – which insofar as concrete advances are concerned, is nil; for he understood little of astronomy, and was evidently bored by it. The few passages where he feels moved to broach the subject are so muddled, ambiguous or self-contradictory, that all scholarly efforts have failed to explain their meaning. 11
However, by a process of metaphysical and a priori reasoning, Plato came to certain general conclusions regarding the shape and motions of the universe. These conclusions, of paramount importance for everything which follows, were that the shape of the world must be a perfect sphere, and that all motion must be in perfect circles at uniform speed .
"And he gave the universe the figure which is proper and natural... Wherefore he turned it, as in a lathe, round and spherical, with its extremities equidistant in all directions from the centre, the figure of all figures most perfect and most like to itself, for he deemed the like more beautiful than the unlike. To the whole he gave, on the outside round about, a surface perfectly finished and smooth, for many reasons. It had no need of eyes, for nothing visible was left outside it; nor of hearing, for there was nothing audible outside it; and there was no breath outside it requiring to be inhaled... He allotted to it the motion which was proper to its bodily form, that motion of the seven motions which is most bound up with understanding and intelligence. Wherefore, turning it round in one and the same place upon itself, he made it move with circular rotation; all the other six motions [i.e., straight motion up and down, forward and back, right and left] he took away from it and made it exempt from their wanderings. And since for this revolution it had no need of feet, he created it without legs and without feet... Smooth and even and everywhere equidistant from the centre, a body whole and perfect, made up of perfect bodies..." 12
Accordingly, the task of the mathematicians was now to design a system which would reduce the apparent irregularities in the motions of the planets to regular motions in perfectly regular circles. This task kept them busy for the next two thousand years. With his poetic and innocent demand, Plato laid a curse on astronomy, whose effects were to last till the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Kepler proved that planets move in oval, and not circular orbits. There is perhaps no other example in the history of thought of such dogged, obsessional persistence in error, as the circular fallacy which bedevilled astronomy for two millennia.
But here again, Plato had merely thrown out, in semi-allegorical language, a suggestion which was quite in keeping with the Pythagorean tradition; it was Aristotle who promoted the idea of circular motion to a dogma of astronomy.
3.
The Fear of Change
In Plato's world the boundaries between the metaphorical and the factual are fluid; all such ambiguity disappears as Aristotle takes over. With pedantic thoroughness the vision is dissected, its
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