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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2009
Much has been made of Plato's influence of medieval minds, yet as Raymond Klibansky reminds us, much remains to be learned. The twelfth-century Platonist writings are notably various: Brian Stock and Winthrop Weatherbee have examined the effect of Platonic tradition on twelfth-century poetry and Tullio Gregory and Richard Lemay have added to our understanding of its effect on philosophical and theoretical thought in this period. The rich accretions of Hermetic and astrological material have been studied along with the older Plotinian interpretations and the whole complicated orchestration of these various themes has received minute attention. Moreover, in this diversity of Platonic writings, a strongly imaginative quality is often present. Indeed, as Peter Dronke says,
They are achievements not only of the rational intellect but of the active imagination. Their cosmological insights are nourished by imaginative springs as much as by the disciplined sources of abstract thinking. Theirs is a realm where sacred visions and profane myth can combine with analytic thought, poetic fantasy with physical and metaphysical speculation. In terms of scholarship it is a realm which, because it is at the borders of several genres, is still in many ways a neglected one.
1 See Klibansky, Raymond, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition During the Middle Ages, London, 1939Google Scholar. Also see Stock, Brian, Myth and Science in the Twelfth Century: A Study of Bernard Silvester, Princeton, 1972Google Scholar; Gregory, Tullio, Anima Mundi: La Filosofia di Guglielmo De Conches e La Scula Di Chartres, Firenza, 1955Google Scholar, and Platonismo medievale, Firenze, 1958Google Scholar; Lemay, Richard, Abu M'shar and Latin Aristotelianism in the Twelfth Century, Beirut, 1962Google Scholar; Dronke, Peter, ‘New Approaches to the School of Chartres’ in Anuario de estudios medievales, Barcelona, 1969Google Scholar; Häring, N. M., ‘The Creation and Creator of the World According to Thierry of Chartres and Clarenbaldus of Arras’ in Archives d'hist. doctr. et litt, du moyen âge 22, 1955, 137–216Google Scholar; Commentaries on Boethius by Thierry of Chartres and His School, edited with introduction by Häring, N. M., Toronto, 1971Google Scholar; Jeauneau, Edouard, ‘Note sur l'école de Chartres’ in Studi medievali, 1964, 1–45Google Scholar; and ‘Quelque aspects du platonisme de Thierry de Chartres’ in Association Guillaume Budé, Congrès de Tours etc., Paris, 1954, 289–292Google Scholar; Chenu, M. D., ‘La théologie au douziéme siècle’ in Etudes de philosophie medievale 45, Paris, 1957Google Scholar, Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century, English translation by Taylor, J. and Little, L. K., Chicago, 1968Google Scholar; ‘La nouvelle idée de nature et de savoir scientifique du XIIe siècle’ by Gregory, Tullio in The Cultural Context of Medieval Learning, ed. Murdoch, J. E. and Sylla, E. D., Dordrecht, 1975, 192–218.Google Scholar
2 Dronke, Peter, Fabula: Explorations into the Uses of Myth in Medieval Plantonism, Leiden, 1974, Introduction, p. 1.Google Scholar
3 For a full account of the dispersion of the Chalcidius translation during the middle ages see the preface to Klibansky, Raymond, ed., Plato Latinus, vol. ivGoogle Scholar, Timaeus A Calcidio Translatus Commentarioque Instructus, ed. Waszink, J. H., Warburg Institute, London, 1962Google Scholar. Other partial sources for knowledge of the Timaeus in the middle ages were The Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and Macrobius' exposition of Cicero's Somnium Scipionis. For information on the early sources of Greek science see Clagett, Marshall, Greek Science in Antiquity, New York, 1976, especially p. 185Google Scholar ff. This study relies chiefly on the following works: William of Conches, Glosae super Platonem, Texte Philosophique de Moyen Age, vol. xiii, avec introduction, notes et tables, ed. Jeauneau, E., Paris, 1965Google Scholar. Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, translated by Taylor, Jerome, New York, 1968Google Scholar. Adelard of Bath, Quaestiones naturales, ed. Müller, M., Beiträge, Bd. xxxi, Munich, 1934Google Scholar. Thierry of Chartres, De sex dierum operibus, ed. Häring, N. M., Toronto, 1971Google Scholar. Abelard, Peter, Theologia Christiana, Migne, Patrologia latina, Paris, CLXXVIII, 1123–1330.Google Scholar
4 R. W. Southern believes that these men did not, in fact, constitute a School of Chartres as Raymond Klibansky and others have long held. He does think that the men we are here concerned with were probably familiar with each other's work and consequently there is some value in considering them collectively. See his monograph Platonism, Scholastic Method and the School of Chartres, Reading, 1979.Google Scholar
5 See my article, ‘The Heresy of Science: A Twelfth Century Conceptual Revolution’, Isis, 1977. Vol. 68, 347–362.Google Scholar
6 It is not inconceivable that these works were pondered over by Copernicus himself in the Renaissance. To illustrate this point, we might think for a moment of Francis Bacon, who, although he did not contribute to any substantive scientific work, was, in the eyes of the men who founded the Royal Society, the prophet of scientific methodology.
7 The use of the term moderni at this point is significant: it suggests a psychological readiness to dissociate one's thinking from the traditional wisdom of the auctores. For a discussion of this point, see my article ‘Science, Reason and Faith in the Twelfth Century: The Cosmologists' Attack on Tradition’, Journal of European Studies, 1965, vol. vi, 1–16.Google Scholar
8 For a lively account of this phenomenon see Murray, Alexander, Reason and Society in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1978, especially Chapter 10.Google Scholar
9 On the literary uses of ‘nature’ see Curtius, Ernst Robert, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, New York, 1953Google Scholar. Also see Economou, George D., The Goddess Natura in Medieval Literature, Cambridge, Mass., 1972Google Scholar. On the great question of why a particular era sees nature as it does, A. C. Crombie says, “The commitments of a period to dominant general beliefs about nature and science make certain kinds of question appear cogent and gives certain kinds of explanation their power to convince … because they establish … the kind of world supposed to be there to be discovered. It may be supposed to be a product of divine economy … a system of mechanisms, or a manifestation of probabilities. Such beliefs establish the kind of explanation that will give satisfaction …” “Historical Commitments of Biology” in The British Journal for the History of Science, 1966, Vol. iii, 98Google Scholar. The particular frame of reference used in the Timaeus made this work peculiarly appropriate to the cast of mind of the western European in the early twelfth century.
10 William, & Conches, , De philosophia mundi, PL 172–3–102, IV, 32.Google Scholar
11 Adelard of Bath, De eodem et diverso, ed. Willner, H., BGPM, IV, Münster, 1904, p. 13, 1.20.Google Scholar
12 Robert of Melun, Sententiae I, I, 28, ed. Gillet, Martin, Louvain, 1952.Google Scholar
13 John of Salisbury, Policraticus VII, 6, ed. Webb, I. C. C., Oxford, 1969.Google Scholar
14 See Glosae, Introduction, p. 24Google Scholar, fn. 1. (note 3 above).
15 For information on the extent and number of manuscripts of William's commentary see Jeaneau, Ėdouard, ed., Glosae super Platonem (note 3 above)Google Scholar. For information and elucidation on William's efforts to digest neoplatonic doctrine in his commentary on the Timaeus and also those he wrote on Macrobius, I refer the reader to footnote 3; see especially Tullio Gregory.
16 On the subject of the development in the teaching of the trivium—grammar, dialectic and rhetoric—Murphy, James J. tells us that ‘Twelfth Century grammarians like William of Conches … endeavoured to accommodate dialectical methods with traditional grammatical studies.…’ Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, Berkeley, 1974, p. 153.Google Scholar
17 Prologus in Eptatheucon, ed. Jeauneau, E. in Med. Stud., 1954, xvi, p. 174.Google Scholar
18 Didasc., I (see note 3 above).Google Scholar
19 William, 's Commentary on Macrobius Ms Berne 266, fol. 3 va. See Appendix 6Google Scholar. William is concerned to accommodate Plato to Christian beliefs, e.g., his effort to suggest equating the anima mundi with the holy spirit, as do Peter Abelard and others. For details on this see Tullio Gregory, above, footnote 3.
20 Theol. christ., I, 5Google Scholar. See Appendix 6. For a thorough analysis of William's handling of the term ‘integumentum’, see Jeauneau, E., ‘L'usage de la notion d'‘integumentum’ a travers les gloses de Guillaume de Conches’ in Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litteraire du moyen age, 1957, xxic, 35–100.Google Scholar
21 Commentary of Bernardus Silvestris on Martianus Capella Cambridge University Library, Ms, Mm 1.18 ff 1–28). See Appendix 6a.Google Scholar
22 ‘Exposita igitur summa integumenti, ad literam veniamus.’ Glosae, 156Google Scholar. William also discusses the integumentum in his Glosae super Boethium. See Appendix 6A. For a discussion of this literary device see Chenu, M.-D., ‘Involucrum: Le mythe selon les theologiens medievaux,’ in Archives, 22, 1955, 75–79Google Scholar. Also Brinkman, H., ‘Verhullung (Integumentum) als literarische Darstellungsform im Mittelalter,’ in Miscellanea Mediaevalia 8: Der Begriff der im Mittelalter: Stellvertretung, Symbol, Zeichen, Bild., Berlin, 1971, 314 ff.Google Scholar
23 Quod satis Plato insinuat in suis libris per assumptionem in metaphorismorum, multa enim per lumen intellectuale vidit, quae sermone proprio nequivit experimere.’ Dante, , LetterGoogle Scholar, translation and notes by Toynbee, P., Dantis Alagherii Epistolae, Oxford, 1966.Google Scholar
24 Glos., p. 72Google Scholar. See Appendix. William of Conches was impressed by Plato's dictum that ‘everything that exists necessarily does so owing to some cause, for nothing can come to exist without a cause.’ (Tim., 28AGoogle Scholar). Peter Abelard cites this passage to prove that the cosmos is not governed by chance but by reason, in Theologia Christiana V, coll. 318AGoogle Scholar. John of Salisbury speaks of the Timaeus as a work ‘which most subtly investigates causes in nature’. Policraticus, VII, 5.Google Scholar
25 Henderson, G., Style and Civilization, Early Medieval Harmondsworth, 1972, p. 78.Google Scholar
26 Hugh of St. Victor, Didascalicon, II, p. 71, edited and translated by Taylor, Jerome, New York, 1968.Google Scholar
27 Glosae, 103. See Appendix 1.Google Scholar
28 Op. cit., 108, 109. See Appendix 5.Google Scholar
29 Didasc. II, 17, p. 73.Google Scholar
30 On this subject see Vlastos, Gregory, Plato's Universe (Seattle, 1975), p. 66 ff.Google Scholar
31 ‘Sed creatio numerorum rerum est creatio.’ De sex dierum operibus, XXXVI, 1.46.Google Scholar
32 ‘Plato enim, ut Pythagoricus, sciens maximam in numeris perfectionem … quippe cum nullatenus creatura sine numero possit existere….’ Glosae, p. 305.Google Scholar
33 And for late twentieth-century readers it appears to be suggestive still. Efforts to synthesize the DNA molecule include a recent success in the synthesis of a molecular dodecahedron: ‘… the last of the five regular Platonic solids [as described in the Timaeus, 55 ffGoogle Scholar] to be synthesized … the high degree of symmetry of the Platonic molecules makes it possible to investigate the properties of chemical bonds in great detail.’ Scientific American, 01 1983, p. 72.Google Scholar
35 Glosae, p. 137. See Appendix 3.Google Scholar
35 Dragmaticon, 28DGoogle Scholar. See Appendix 3. For William's use of the term elementum see Silverstein, T.'s ‘Elementum: Its Appearance among the Twelfth-Century Cosmologists,’ Med. Stud., (1954, XVI., 156–162Google Scholar. Also see Flatten, H., Die Philosophie des Wilhelm von Conches, Koblenz, 1929, pp. 105–122.Google Scholar
36 Glosae, p. 252Google Scholar. See Appendix 4. Gregory Vlastos, after recapitulating the Greek beginnings of a theory of celestial motions, writes ‘… well before Plato's time … the role of observation had changed drastically in Greek astronomy since the days when rational inquiry into the heavens had begun in Miletus as a branch of physiologia.’ He retraces the discovery of the planets and suggests that this was established before the Republic was written. Vlastos sees this discovery as evidence of a breakthrough in the area of empirical investigation and goes on to say that ‘The creation story of the Timaeus, despite its allegorical tincture, attests Plato's assimilation of the results obtained by the [empirical] science in which theory and practice were now successfully interacting.’ An analysis of Plato's demonstration of his grasp of contemporary astronomy in this dialogue follows. Plato's Universe, op. cit., pp. 40 ff.Google Scholar
37 Glosae, 296, App. A. See Appendix 4.Google Scholar
38 Glosae, 252. See Appendix 4.Google Scholar
39 William, writes, ‘Dixerat primordiam materiam nullo nomine debere nominari propter mutabilitatem qualitatum circa ipsam. Hoc probat per simile, et hoc per ipothesim id est per positionem re quae nunquam visa est.’ Glosae, 274.Google Scholar
40 De eodem et diverso, p. 13, lines 19–21Google Scholar. See above, footnote 11. See also Appendix 5.
41 On the subject of the element of uncertainty that is a necessary part of Plato's science, John of Salisbury writes that Plato's followers ‘declare themselves uncertain, some about everything, some about everything which is not self-evident or incapable of being doubted.’ Meta., Bk. III, Oxford, 1929, 94 in the Webb edition. See Appendix 5–5A–5B.Google Scholar
42 He goes on to say that in the Timaeus ‘the cause (aitiai) of physical … phenomena are … derived synthetically from the structure of the atom. And what is claimed for them is not uncertainty, but verisimilitude, the atomic theory itself being presented as no more than a plausible hypothesis having no more than aesthetic elegance and the saving of the phenomena to recommend it.’ Vlastos, G., ‘Reason and Causes in the Phaedo,’ in Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Vlastos, (New York, 1971), Vol. I, pp. 132–166CrossRefGoogle Scholar. William of Conches writes that knowledge of corpora, opinio, must necessarily be of a provisional nature, uncertain and subject to revision because it deals with material phenomena as opposed to the incorporeal, fixed truths available to men via the divine intellectus. Glosae, p. 281 ffGoogle Scholar. See Appendix, p.5. The capacity to question and challenge conventional notions presupposes an awareness of the distinction between probability and certainty. G. E. R. Lloyd has en enlightening discussion on the Greek predilection for such original thinking in Socrates' day in Magic, Reason and Experience: the Origin and Development of Greek Science (Cambridge, 1979)Google Scholar; see especially p. 252 ff.
43 Timaeus, 27DGoogle Scholar, translated by Lee, Desmond, 1977, HarmondsworthGoogle Scholar. Timaeus claims that his story is second to none in probability (also see 44ed, 48d, 67d). Vlastos' belief is that the Timaeus was especially designed for those for whom a purely Democritean materialism was unacceptable. ‘For these [readers] the Timaeus offered a brilliant alternative. If you cannot expunge the supernatural, you can rationalize it … restricting its operation to a single primordial creative act which insures that the physical world would not be chaos but cosmos forever after. This Plato accomplished by vesting all supernatural power in a Creator who was informed by intelligence and was moved to create our world by his love and beauty and by his pure, unenvying goodness … He gave rational men a pious faith to live by in two millenia all through which science was more prophecy than reality’ (Vlastos, , op. cit. note 42, p. 97).Google Scholar
44 On the whole problem of the function and purpose of Plato's mythmaking Gottschalk writes, ‘For Plato, eschatology was an adjunct of ethics and the theory of knowledge. Vivid though his myths are, they tell us very little about the soul or its fate outside the body which is not directly relevant to its functions and duties while on earth.’ Gottschalk, H. B., Heraclides of Pontus, Oxford, 1980Google Scholar. It is Plato's habit in his myths to convey a moral by giving an account of something … about which he knows himself to be ignorant. We are expected to understand that the moral significance, so to speak, of the myth is to be taken seriously, but no more than that.’ Crombie, I. M., An Examination of Plato's Doctrine II, p. 199, London, 1963.Google Scholar
45 See Dales, Richard C., ‘Discussions of the Eternity of the World during the First Half of the Twelfth Century’ in Speculum, 1982, vol. 57, 502–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
46 Glosae, p. 210, 211. See Appendix 6A.Google Scholar
47 Glosae, p. 254. See Appendix 7Google Scholar. Many scholars of our own day think that the Timaeus was written to form a continuum with the Republic. It was designed to appeal to the physiologoi—the physici of Athens who were intrigued by the new science of Anaxagoras and the other scientists—so as to entice them toward the widening of their perception of science and its uses. G. E. R. Lloyd points out, ‘… the spheres of law and justice provide models of cosmic order. The notion that the world-whole is a cosmos, that natural phenomena are regular and subject to orderly and determinate sequences of cause and effect, is expressed [in Plato's Greece] partly by means of images and analogies from the legal and political domain’ (Lloyd, , op. cit., p. 247).Google Scholar
48 A modern Plato scholar seems to think somewhat similarly: Claghorn, George in Aristotle's Criticisms of Plato's Timaeus, The Hague, 1954CrossRefGoogle Scholar, says ‘Purpose is to be found in every individual thing and in the universe as a whole. [The Timaeus shows] man possesses his physical endowments in order to live the moral life [41d–42d, e] … Plato did not wish men to forsake science. He urged them to do all the research possible into earthly causes, but then to see the ultimate unity and rationality. Science was not to be for its own sake, but for the welfare and betterment of mankind’ [47b–3, 68e–69a], p. 128. Claghorn believes that Plato has never had his due in the history of science: ‘He has not only been misunderstood, but grossly underestimated’, p. 135.Google Scholar
49 Glosae, p. 297. See also Appendix 7a.Google Scholar
50 The frequent use of the analogy between the ‘macrocosmos’—the universe—and the ‘microcosmos’—man—used by the poet Bernard Silvestris and other twelfth-century writers comes via the Timaeus, although the metaphor itself is older; see, for example, Silvestris, Bernard, The Cosmographia, translated by Wetherbee, W., New York, 1973.Google Scholar
