Everlastingness in the Timaeus
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Date
03/07/2017Item status
Restricted AccessAuthor
Johns, Jeffrey Matthew
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Abstract
My aim in this thesis is to show how Plato differentiates the everlastingness of eternity
from the everlastingness of time in the cosmogony of his Timaeus, where time is classified
as the everlasting ‘moving image’ of ‘eternity-remaining-in-unity’ (Tim. 37c 6-d 7). Of
course, as many scholars know, this distinction between eternity and time follows from his
distinction between unchanging Being and ever-changing Becoming, so much so that our
understanding of what it is that makes time the ‘image’ of eternity—and yet also something
other than eternity—proves fundamental to our understanding of Platonic ontology.
However, our understanding of Being and Becoming and the relation between them is
complicated by the view that what exists in time was and is and will be, whereas what exists
in eternity ‘is’ alone (Tim. 37e 4-38a 8). Does this mean that eternity is temporal, given that
it ‘is’ in some sense? Or is eternity atemporal, given that it is itself distinguishable from
time? Also, if eternity is atemporal, how should one conceive of atemporality in this
particular respect? Does this entail existing altogether apart from time? Or can one speak
of eternity as just another type of time, a timeless time, as it were? Not surprisingly, it has
long been a matter of controversy among scholars whether the eternal ‘is’ is actually tensed
or tenseless, temporal or timeless. So too, the very fact that eternity is said to be ‘remaining
in unity’ has led some scholars to conceive of eternity as durational, and thus temporal in
some sense, on the assumption that duration entails temporality. But then again, still other
scholars speak of eternity as an ‘eternal present’ which is non-durational, precisely because it
has its being ‘in unity’.
By contrast, I argue that the Platonic distinction between Being and Becoming entails a
twofold notion of everlastingness, the one temporal, the other extra-temporal, where the latter
is signifying timelessness unqualifiedly. For I show that Plato conceives of time and
temporal passage as the imperfectly everlasting image (aiônios eikôn) of eternity whilst
understanding eternity to be perfectly everlasting (diaiônios), since eternal Being is subject to
no passage from its essential being. Only in this way can one explain how the temporality of
Becoming is akin to—yet also distinguishable from—the extra-temporality of Being, and
then again why it is that both should be thought of as durational. Hence the scholarly
assumption that duration entails temporality, an assumption commonly encountered in
modern thought, is foreign to Plato. Nor again does it make sense to speak of an ‘eternal
present’ apart from everlastingness, and thence apart from duration. So as to clarify this twofold notion of everlastingness it has proven necessary for my
argument to touch upon another controversy surrounding the cosmogony of the Timaeus,
namely, whether the universe, the realm of Becoming, has had a beginning at some time in
the remote past (i.e., at the very first moment of time) or has had no single beginning, at
least in a temporal sense (i.e., that it will have come into being ‘always’ (aei)). Scholars have
given various arguments for both of these readings. However, I argue that one can resolve
this issue by more closely analysing the possible meanings of the verb gegonen (viz. ‘It has
come into being’), which is said of the universe as well as time (Tim. 28b 7, 38b 6). With
respect to gegonen, the temporal ambiguity of its perfect aspect means that it might refer to a
past event in the immediate past no less than in the remote past. Hence one can speak of
the generation of time and the universe as everlasting, as a process of genesis having no
single, distinct beginning at a time or even in time, but infinitely many beginnings,
extending from the infinite past into the ever-emerging present. And that gegonen is
ambiguous between past and present time is shown by the cosmological argument at Tim.
28b 2-c 2 and the status of god relative to creation. All in all, this reveals that time, being
generate, is a feature of Becoming, not Being. It also reveals that time and the universe
need not have had a beginning at some first moment of time.