Description:
This study argues that traditional approaches to Plato's thought, which centre on Forms and their opposition to sensible flux, leave something essential out of account. There is in Plato a notion of 'flow' which is distinct from material 'flux'. It applies both to souls and concrete sensible things (including the cosmos), is compatible with rather than opposed to 'being', and has a close relation to the notion of nous (intelligence). This notion is not only in play in many important developments in Plato's later thought, especially in cosmology. It may even be the driving force behind them. This volume is the first to offer a study of these notions of 'flow' and 'flux' in Plato's thought.
Review Quotes:
Andrew J. Mason's book systematically develops the compelling idea that the early and middle Plato conflates flow and flux when opposing the changing world of sensible things to what truly is: while flow can be characterized as the continuous, directed motion and change of something, flux indicates a chaotic, intrinsic alteration that transform some fleetingly existent thing into something else. In the late Plato Mason finds traces of such a distinction that also show that only flux, but not flow, is incompatible with being. Mason's investigation is very rich in its wide scope: not only does he look at a broad range of Platonic dialogues, and at the linguistic, cosmological, as well as ethical dimension of the distinction between flow and flux, he also persuasively situates Plato's usage of the words "¿¿¿" and "¿¿¿" in the wider context of Pre-Platonic philosophers and poets.
- Barbara Settler, St. Andrews, UK