PHIL 80.16 Plato's (Super)Naturalism

Platonists, ancient and contemporary alike, commit themselves to the existence of abstract, nonphysical, intelligible beings (e.g. numbers, properties, propositions) in addition to concrete, spatiotemporal, perceptibles (e.g. horses, vases, mountains) . For Plato, in particular, changeless, intelligible beings are metaphysically and epistemologically prior to changing, perceptibles.  The supernatural is prior to the natural. We will attempt to reconstruct and to assess (a) Plato’s reasons for positing and privileging supernatural entities; (b) his view of how, if at all, the “two worlds” interact; (c) his view of how, if at all, we are to understand or to explain the natural in terms of the supernatural; and (d) the prospects for “natural science” as Plato understands them.

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Requires the permission of the instructor.

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