The third problem matters most: that of keeping a balance between a black-letter

legalistic approach and one which focusses on the objectives of the disputing parties
and on Isaeus forensic techniques. Here I have qualms, for while C.G. oers much on
the values of the oikos, the crucial steps in this long-drawn-out inheritance dispute,
though of course taken within a framework of law and procedure, all comprised
behavioural choices which have to be understood socially, not just explained legally.
This applies even to the initial adoption in 412/11, which only makes sense as an
extra-legal bargain (thus rightly Wyse, Isaeus, p. 414): the process of epidikasia, of
which C.G. makes much, was simply a legal gleaf. Likewise the adoptees attempt
to split the opposition by buying o its main spokesman ( 13), rightly termed
extragiudiziale (p. 168), does indeed follow a judicial act, a conviction for false
witness ( 12), but one best viewed as part of a sequence of trials of strength and
public opinion, not within the legal requirement to convict more than half the
witnesses. Likewise, even more forcibly, with the out-of-court fudge narrated so
disingenuously in 1419, where Isaeus prime task is to camouage the fact that the
all-important clause was not in the document (Wyse, Isaeus, p. 404, citing 25).
Explicit recognition that Athenian law courts were a public stage on which private
enmities were played out (R. Osborne, JHS 105 [1985], 53) would have helped to
temper C.G.s over-legalistic approach in this otherwise thorough and praiseworthy
edition.
University of Liverpool J. K. DAVIES
j.k.davies@liverpool.ac.uk
PLATONIC COMPOSITION
H:1r (V.) Plato on Parts and Wholes: the Metaphysics of Structure.
Pp. x + 311. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002. Cased, 48. ISBN:
978-0-19-823675-7.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X06003015
Under what circumstances do many things compose one thing? How can a single
whole arise from its many parts in such a way that it is a unied individual and not a
mere collection? According to H., there are two strands of thinking to trace in Platos
attempts to answer such questions. The rst problematises the idea that composition
just is the identity of a whole with its parts. The second develops and defends a model
of composition according to which wholes are structures, and the parts of such
wholes exist only as parts, only in so far as they belong to the structures they
compose. The problematic account of composition is on display primarily in the
Theaetetus and Parmenides. The alternative model is developed in the Sophist,
Philebus and Timaeus. H. does not defend a developmental thesis. The problematic
model is not endorsed by Plato at some points only to be rejected later; it is there to
be problematised all along.
At the heart of Platos ruminations lies the question of whether or not composition
is ontologically committing. According to the rejected model, composition is
innocent. The one just is the many. But the model borders on incoherence. How can
many things be one thing? The Platonic alternative requires that composition yields or
creates a one from many. A whole just is a complete, single entity created from many
parts. For Plato, composition requires ontological commitment. Of course, not just
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The Classical Review vol. 57 no. 1 The Classical Association 2007; all rights reserved
any relation among many things is sucient to compose a single whole. Composition
is restricted. There are wholes only when certain types of structural, individuating
relations obtain between distinct parts and between those parts and the whole they
compose.
The picture H. sets out is attractive and well-defended. The argument to show that
Plato problematises the model of composition as identity is detailed and convincing.
The unveiling of the metaphysics of structure via careful attention to the dicult
Philebus and the slightly more accessible Timaeus is impressive. Much as I admire H.s
eorts, however, I believe that an important phase in Platos thinking about
composition goes unrecognised in her exegesis. There is a third alternative to which
Plato sometimes seems attracted. On her view, Platonic composition always proceeds
from the top down: wholes come rst; and parts only thereafter (p. 277). But there is
evidence that composition sometimes occurs when many things, which are identiable
prior to their composing a whole, enter into certain kinds of relations to produce a
new unity. Sometimes composition is from the bottom up.
The key dialogue is the Sophist. H. interprets Platos examples of the mixing and
weaving of letters, kinds and syntactic elements to illustrate though not obviously to
advocate a metaphysics of structure according to which parts are identied only in
virtue of the wholes they compose. But the metaphysics of structure so conceived
seems less at home in the Sophist than in the Philebus or Timaeus (where
mathematical blending principles are explicitly employed). Consider the example of
composition from letters. According to the example, vowels run through the other
letters like a bond; without vowels it is impossible for the other letters to t together
(Soph. 253a5). H. resists the idea, defended by Moravcsik and others, that vowels act
as glue-like elements, special parts of the wholes they help to compose. According to
H., vowels are necessary for the combination of letters, but not sucient.
But surely Plato is looking to isolate the cause of combination, not simply a
necessary condition, when he suggests that the expert (the one who can provide a
causal explanatory account of letters and their combinations) is the one who will
identify the vowels and distinguish them from the other letters. If letters can be
identied independently of the items they compose, and if vowels are glue-like
elements acting as unifying principles, then the vowel example probably models
composition that occurs from the bottom up. Composition, in this case, would treat
syllables and words (and ultimately kinds) as wholes composed of parts in the way a
house might be a whole composed of bricks and mortar.
In a second example from the Sophist, a logos is formed when a name and a verb
are woven together. Composition occurs when names (signs for things performing
actions) and verbs (signs for actions performed) t together. The statement man
learns is a complex unity. H. interprets this example as an account of structured
syntactic space. This syntactic space has name-shaped slots and verb-shaped slots,
and those slots are dened by the functions their occupants must carry out. Syntactic
space is structure abstractly conceived. Well-formed sentences like man learns are
structured wholes.
Though it is appealing to view this example as highlighting structure, it is less clear
that it is an example of top-down composition rather than bottom-up composition.
Names and verbs seem readily identiable as such before they become parts of
sentences. Indeed, the examples of failed attempts to produce a logos (e.g. man lion
horse) depend on the possibility of identifying names or verbs independently of the
complex unities they can, in successful cases, come to compose. The composition of a
logos seems better modelled on the assembling of a jigsaw puzzle. Only certain
34 1nr ci:ssi c:i rvi rv
attempts to t various pieces together will yield the whole puzzle. Still, the pieces can
be identied independently of their roles as parts. On this model of composition,
elements can be sorted by means of intrinsic dierences (e.g. shape) which then
ground dierent but complementary combinatorial powers. In the syntactic case,
names and verbs would be sorted by their capacity to act as dierent kinds of signs.
The dierence in signifying capacity would then ground dierent, but complementary
syntactic capacities.
Though Plato experiments with the bottom-up models outlined, I do not mean to
suggest that he strictly embraces either one. H. is right, I think, that Platos favoured
metaphysics of composition is ultimately to be found in the operations of the unifying
mathematical proportions of the Philebus and Timaeus. Fortunately, the challenging
and rewarding insights into composition to be found in those dialogues are keenly
explicated and masterfully explored in this excellent book.
Dartmouth College CHRISTINE J. THOMAS
christine.j.thomas@dartmouth.edu
THE PHAEDO AND TIMAEUS
K:ri x (F.) Die Beseelung des Kosmos. Untersuchungen zur
Kosmologie, Seelenlehre und Theologie in Platons Phaidon und
Timaios. (Beitrge zur Altertumskunde 199.) Pp. 293. Munich and
Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2004. Cased, 89. ISBN: 978-3-598-77811-7.
doi:10.1017/S0009840X06003027
This book is concerned with Platos cosmology, and explores Platos conception
of the relation between soul, world and god. In seeking to show that there
exists an intimate connection between the Platonic psychology, cosmology and
theology, K. selects the dialogues Phaedo and Timaeus. At rst sight, this would
suggest: (1) that the books contents are as rich as its systematic scope is vast, and (2)
that the Phaedo and the Timaeus will play more or less equal roles. But a closer look
at K.s work reveals his title and preface to be somewhat misleading in these two
respects. It should also be noted that the book is not a monograph, but a collection
of essays.
The book is divided into four main sections, the rst two on the Phaedo, the last
two on the Timaeus. These sections take the form of long individual papers. Versions
of the two studies on the Phaedo were previously published, and the rst study on the
Timaeus is an interpretation of one extraordinarily dicult line of Greek text, Ti.
41a7. They are followed by a bibliography, an index locorum and an index nominum.
The fourth and last section, on the doctrine of motion in the Timaeus, has three
appendices, making it by far the longest (it makes up more than a third of the entire
book). In contrast, the two studies of the Phaedo take up only a little over a quarter of
the space allotted to all four studies. Hence, one might quibble with the fact that the
central theme, the theory of motion, is not adequately reected in the books title.
Moreover, the theme of motion and the other topics treated by K., such as aspects of
the Timean theology, are certainly of wide-ranging importance, but more limited than
the announced scope. Lastly, this book on Platos cosmology is for the most part
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The Classical Review vol. 57 no. 1 The Classical Association 2007; all rights reserved