Sequentiality and Discontinuity in the Constitution of Appearing according to Plato’s Philebus

Abstract

This article focus on one of the problems discussed in Philebus 33c-41a. This problem involves a) the meaning of the concepts aisthesis, mneme, anamnesis, logismos and doxazein, b) the specific nature of the perspectives sc. of the type of presentation that, in each case, corresponds to these concepts, c) the relationship among these different perspectives and, also, d) the question of knowing how our own perspective, sc. the presentation we have, is constituted or “assembled”. From a methodological point of view, we take Philebus 33c-41a as a sort of challenge to the usual understanding of  “appearing” – dominated by the idea that this is something constituted “en bloc” and in an immediate form, arising purely and simply through “our opening our eyes” – and consider the alternative understanding outlined in this passage. In fact, our reading of Philebus leads us to think that “appearing” has, to tell the truth, a composite character and corresponds to the cumulative effect of successive stages of revelation which go beyond and modify each other. It is this multiplicity of ways of appearing that are irreducible to each other and separated by jumps or discontinuities that is precisely at stake in the analyses of aisthesis, mneme, anamnesis, logismos and doxazein (represented by the scribe figure). Lastly, these analyses end up stressing that all our presentations are rooted in doxazein – so that (to use the image in 38e) our aistheseis, our mnemai, etc. are intrinsically related to this “scribe” in us, who, with the help of a “painter”, is continuously writing the “book” of our very own life.