(Greek, logikos, or belonging to the reason).132
Since the World-soul obtains its reality from the Intellect, it is the bearer of the reason (Greek, logos) which works in on the whole cosmos. Due to this indwelling rationality, the cosmos is ordered and lawful. For Plato the World-soul precedes the existence of the corporeal world, just as it is itself preceded by the Demiurge (or Intellect). The World-soul is intermediate between the Forms and matter, and is thus the agency through which matter participates in the Forms.133 Soul is invisible, Plato adds, and is the most excellent of all things begotten by the Demiurge (Tim, 36e–37a).
In the dialogue Timaeus, Plato introduces a ‘third kind’ (in addition to being and becoming) that pre-exists the cosmos: “The earlier two [kinds] sufficed for our previous account: one was proposed as a model, intelligible and always changeless, a second as an imitation of the model, something that possesses becoming and is visible. Now, however, it appears that our account compels us to attempt to illuminate in words a kind that is difficult and vague. What must we suppose it to do and to be? This above all: it is a receptacle (hypodochē) of all becoming—its wetnurse, as it were” (48e–49a). The three kinds are summarized as follows: “For the moment, we need to keep in mind three types of things: that which comes to be [i.e., sensible objects], that in which it comes to be [i.e., the receptacle], and that after which the thing coming to be is modelled, and which is the source of its coming to be [i.e., the Forms]. It is in fact appropriate to compare the receiving thing to a mother, the source to a father, and the nature between them to their offspring” (50c–d). Plato also describes this third kind as space, which provides a fixed state for all things that come to be (52a–b). It has been commented that since the created world is visible and tangible, Plato is required to postulate a three-dimensional ‘field’ in which the universe may subsist.134 The receptacle of becoming fills this need, for the Greek prefix hypo means ‘under,’ so that the receptacle is that which underlies the world of becoming.
Plato then proceeds to sketch the nature of the receptacle: “This is why the thing that is to receive in itself all the elemental kinds must be totally devoid of any characteristics. In the same way, then, if the thing that is to receive repeatedly throughout its whole self the likeness of the intelligible objects, the things which always are—if it is to do so successfully, then it ought to be devoid of any inherent characteristics of its own. But if we speak of it as an invisible and characterless sort of thing, one that receives all things and shares in a most perplexing way in what is intelligible, a thing extremely difficult to comprehend, we shall not be misled” (Tim, 50b–51b).
This description affirms that Plato’s receptacle of becoming is formless or pre-formed matter, out of which the physical world arises. It is therefore similar to the Aristotelian hylē and the Scholastic materia, which are not identical to the modern, reductionist view of matter, as René Guénon remarks, but are in fact related to the traditional Indo-European concept of universal substance (Sanskrit, Prakriti). As a universal principle the latter is pure potentiality, in which nothing is actualized and which underlies all physical manifestation. The Latin term for substance, substantia, is derived from sub stare, which means that which stand beneath (as is the case with the Greek hypostasis).135 As universal substance, the receptacle of becoming gives rise to the world of phenomena through the various elements: “Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Mind, Reason, and Ego—thus eightfold is my Prakriti divided” (Bhagavad Gita, 7.4).
It has been commented that Plato’s receptacle is not that ‘out of which’ things are made, but rather that ‘in which’ qualities appear. It is therefore these qualities, not the receptacle as such, which constitute the sensible world.136 And in his Commentary on Timaeus, Proclus adds to Plato’s account as follows: “Perhaps it is better to say that the term ‘things that pass in and out’ is applied not only to the qualities, but also to the forms immersed in matter; for these, not the qualities, are likenesses of the intelligible things.”137 In other words, the invisible receptacle of becoming receives the imprints of the Forms and thereby produces the visible qualities that we observe in the cosmos.
The Platonic cosmology, in terms of which God creates the world through the imposition of order onto pre-cosmic disorder, appears to be at least partially compatible with the biblical cosmology. Before the commencement of God’s creative activity, “The Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2–3). As Alan Watts comments on this text, before He made anything else, God made matter (Latin, materia, which is cognate to mater, mother) as the maternal womb of the universe, for it is a general principle in mythology that matter is the feminine component and spirit the masculine, their respective symbols being water or earth and air or fire. Thus, “In the beginning the Spirit conceived, the waters gave birth, and the world which was born from their conjunction was the first material image of the Word, of God the Son, the Logos who was the ideal pattern after which the creation was modeled.”138
The biblical depiction of the Earth as being formless and void suggests the formless pre-matter out of which the world was to be created, or its ‘astonishing emptiness’ in the words of Philaret of Moscow. As further explained by his countryman Hilarion Alfeyev, this pre-matter is “a chaotic primary substance containing the pledge of future beauty and cosmic harmony.” The ‘darkness’ and ‘deep’ indicate the formlessness of matter, while ‘water’ suggests its plasticity. And the ‘hovering’ of the Spirit denotes its protection and animation of the material world, by breathing life into it.139 This view of primordial chaos evokes Plato’s description of the receptacle of becoming, while its animation by Spirit echoes the role of Intellect, which transforms pre-cosmic chaos into cosmic order.
Evidently, for Plato the sensible world is produced by the interaction between the principle of form and formless matter. As commented by Philip Sherrard, this does not entail an absolute duality, since the principle of form (the Demiurge) is not the absolute reality, but a determination of the transcendent Good (the One). Furthermore, in Plato’s understanding, formless matter (which he also calls space, chōra) is not the substance out of which things are made, but it precedes substance as the receptacle in which sensible things originate. Also, this formless matter (the receptacle) does not pre-exist the cosmos like Aristotle’s matter (hylē), but originates and participates (‘in a most obscure way,’ Plato admits) in the pre-formal Reality from which the principle of form derives (Tim, 50c–51b). Thus, both Form and formless matter originate in the supreme Reality of the One.140
Plato held further that Soul is the only source of motion and thereby of the cosmic order. Therefore, motion is not caused by one or more of the four primary elements, as some earlier philosophers had taught (Tim, 46d). Soul is not only the source of motion, Plato writes elsewhere (in the Laws), but it is more specifically the first cause of the birth and destruction of all physical things (891e), the main cause of their alterations and transformations (892a), and the cause of all change in things (896a). Moreover, the physical world obtains its orderly arrangement (which is the meaning of the Greek noun kosmos) through the activity of Soul, for it is Soul that ‘implants’ the reason-principles (logoi) into matter.
We could say that the reality of Soul affirms the reality of both being and becoming, while also preventing a dichotomy between the intelligible and sensible realms. Plato argued that the true philosopher will reject both notions, namely that everything is at rest (the being of Parmenides) or that reality changes in every way (the becoming of Heraclitus). Instead, “He has to be like a child begging for ‘both,’ and say that that which is—everything—is both the unchanging and that which changes” (Sophist, 249c–d). In view of this clear statement, we should again note the error of the oft-repeated charge that Plato espoused a static cosmology and a dualistic metaphysics.
In the Platonic understanding, the human being is a (temporary) composite of a mortal body and an immortal soul. It thus involves a duality of substances, which is not the same thing as to assert an anthropological dualism. The difference between duality and dualism has been lucidly explained by René Guénon: “Dualism (of which
