Nature and Divinity in Plato's Timaeus bySarah Broadie. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. 2012. Pp. viii,305.

442 PHOENIX One of Plutarch’s strengths, as has recently been shown elsewhere, is his recognition that moral action is complex and that real life seldom fits nicely into the rigidity of philosophical theorising (see, e.g., G. Roskam and L. van der Stockt [eds.], Virtues for the People: Aspects of Plutarchan Ethics [Leuven 2011]). Beneker’s work adds nicely to this picture, particularly in his analysis of Alexander’s abandonment of sophrosyne late in his life once his eros for military glory has been thwarted. Beneker argues here that the rigid view of the habituation of sophrosyne presented in On Moral Virtue is set aside for the more practical approach found in Xenophon’s Memorabilia, where the view is that sophrosyne needs always to be practised to be maintained. University of Calgary Noreen Humble Nature and Divinity in Plato's TIMAEUS. By Sarah Broadie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2012. Pp. viii, 305. In order for there to be a real distinction between the intelligible realm and the structure of nature in Plato’s Timaeus, or to avoid a conflation between these two spheres as had happened in the theories of Empedocles and Diogenes of Apollonia, the Demiurge as cause needs to be truly separate from the cosmos. So argues Sarah Broadie in this impressive study. This separateness of the Demiurge is also needed, she claims, to assure that reason in human beings is an individualized source of responsibility and autonomy. In order for there to be a real connection between intelligent cause and nature, on the other hand, it is also crucial that the four elements, as the basic building blocks of the world, do not have a self-sufficient identity so that (a) they cannot by themselves account for the order of nature and (b) they are amenable to being harnessed to this order. These two theses, of a separate Demiurge and the relation between the elements and the Receptacle, direct Broadie’s inquiry. We can add a third cluster of core ideas (Chapter Five), about the modes of discourse represented by Plato in this work: Plato wants to create room for the value of inquiries into history and nature as distinct yet complementary to Socrates’ mode of inquiry. Yet in playing out the reality for the characters in the work—who seem to be operating in a world in which, for instance, the battle of Marathon never occurred—against the reality of his readers, Plato also creates a cautionary tale about accounts that pretend to be rooted in actual history by depicting his character Critias as an anti-Socrates. In what follows I will engage in greater detail with a set of claims that pertain to the second thesis mentioned above, about the elements’ lack of self-sufficiency. Against the grain of most interpretations of Plato’s Timaeus, Broadie boldly and with great acumen asserts that the function of the Receptacle is not primarily an ontological, but a cosmological one. That is, it is not meant, for instance, to help solve puzzles pertaining to the exact relation between sensible things and intelligible Forms. Its role is much more focused and specific, in assuring that the elements cannot have self-sufficient identities, which could jeopardize their subjugation to the Demiurge’s ordering influence. The substantial merit of Broadie’s analysis is that it makes readers of the Timaeus reconsider carefully what they mean by an ontological interpretation of the role of the Receptacle. Broadie argues convincingly (Chapter Six) that Plato does not introduce the Receptacle to explain how sensible things come about by participating in the Forms, but rather, he starts from sensible reality, and uses the role of the Receptacle in the BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 443 specific case of the elements to argue for the existence of the Forms and to strengthen the distinction between sensible and intelligible reality. To this illuminating reading, one could, however, respond that (i) even if Plato focuses on the case of the elements, his conclusions may apply to all sensible things; (ii) if Plato’s argument is meant to reinforce the distinction between sensible things and intelligible Forms, that too would allow for an ontological interpretation, albeit a different one...

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