Beginning or Beginnings? Plutarch on Platonic Cosmogony and Cosmic Cycles

In the first extant ‘monograph’ on Platonic cosmology Plutarch of Chaeronea sets out his interpretation of Plato’s account on the demiurgic generation of the world soul (Timaeus 35A-36B). In this treatise, aptly entitled On the generation of soul in the Timaeus, Plutarch attempts to combine a literal reading of Timaeus’ cosmogonical account with a defence of Plato’s consistency throughout the dialogues. One of the most compelling challenges of this endeavour is the integration of Plato’s Statesman myth. On Plutarch’s own interpretative terms, one would expect the cyclic cosmology of the Statesman, according to which ‘the god himself sometimes accompanies [the universe] […], while at other times he lets it go’ (269C; tr. Rowe), to be incompatible with the linear orientation of Timaeus’ cosmology. Does the cosmos have a single beginning, as Plutarch’s interpretation of the Timaeus suggests, or does the Statesman myth, which suggests a cycle of beginnings and destructions, take precedence after all? By combining three approaches, this paper offers a detailed analysis of how Plutarch deals with this issue. (1) First discussing On the generation of the soul itself, I argue that Plutarch’s interpretation of the Statesman myth serves his theodicy by minimising the responsibility of the demiurge for the reversal of the cosmos. Moreover, Plutarch interprets the myth in a way which yields a more optimistic view of the current state of the cosmos, thus changing its function. Both strategies bring the Statesman myth closer to the Timaeus, but the treatise ultimately leaves the tension between the two cosmological accounts unresolved. (2) Therefore, I turn to the occurrences of cosmic cycles in the rest of Plutarch’s oeuvre, esp. to the criticism of the Stoics’ cyclic cosmology of ekpyrôseis and diakosmêseis in the Stoic polemics and to the apparent defence of such a cosmology in passages of the Delphic dialogues. I conclude that Plutarch’s problem with (Stoic) cyclic cosmology is not the cyclic aspect per se, but the immanentism and physicalism which underlies it: it is the incompleteness which makes a one-sided cyclic cosmology wrong overall. (3) Finally, in order to broaden the view, Plutarch’s interpretation is briefly confronted with other Middle-Platonic interpretations of the Timaeus and Statesman (by Numenius, Atticus and Alcinous) and with later criticism of Plutarch’s approach (by Proclus). The conclusion emerging from these three approaches involves a reassessment of Plutarch’s view on the cosmic beginning(s). Whether we speak of the beginning or the beginnings of the cosmos, turns out to be a matter of perspective. The paper concludes with a short discussion of what Plutarch’s thoughts on the subject have to offer for current scholarly debates on Platonic cosmogony and the interpretation of the Timaeus and Statesman.status: accepte