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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
In a long and important sentence in the Timaeus (52b6–dl), Plato explains that, whereas that which truly or really is (
) cannot come to be in anything else, sensible things, being mere images, must necessarily come to be in something else, on pain of not existing at all:
1 References to dialogues of the first and second tetralogies follow the new OCT of Duke, E. A.et al., Platonis Opera i (Oxford, 1995); all other dialogues are cited from the edition of Burnet.Google Scholar
2 Cherniss, H., ‘Timaeus 52 C 2–5’, in Melanges de philosophic grecque offerts à Mgr. Diès (Paris, 1956), pp. 49–60, reprinted in his Selected Papers (Leiden, 1977), pp. 364–75, hereafter referred to as ‘Cherniss’.Google Scholar
3 Cf. Cherniss 50–7 = 365–72.
4 Cornford, F. M., Plato's Cosmology (London, 1937), pp. 192 n. 4, 370–1.Google Scholar
5 Cf. Cherniss 54–5 = 369–70.
6 Cf. Cherniss 58–9 = 373–4.
7 Cf. further LSJ, s.v. 
B III.5 with the passages there cited, as well as Aristotle, APr. 31b4–5 
with the comment of Waitz, T., Aristotelis organon graece i (Leipzig, 1844), p. 398: ‘
B non idem est quod 
B: hoc enim terminum significat, illud rem ad quam terminus refertur etc.’ (cited by Cherniss 58 n. 2 = 373 n. 2).Google Scholar
8 
is used here instead of 
in order to emphasize the transitory nature of the image, which comes to signify what it signifies ‘only at the moment of its appearance’ (Cherniss 59 n. 7 = 374 n. 7).
9 Cf. Cherniss 58 with n. 4 = 373 with n. 4.
10 Cf.Brisson, L., Le meme et I'autre dans la structure ontologique du Timee de Platon (Paris, 1974), p. 195Google Scholarwith n. 2 (who, however, translates ambiguously: ‘puisque cela meme par rapport a quoi elle vient a I'etre ne lui appartient pas en propre’); Lee, E. N., Monist 50 (1966), 359 with n. 42;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGill, M. L., Phronesis 32 (1987), 49 with n. 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Patterson, R., Image and Reality in Plato's Metaphysics (Indianapolis, 1985), pp. 44–6, 84–5.Google Scholar
12 Cf. Cook, J.Wilson, On the Interpretation of Plato's Timaeus (London, 1889), pp. 109–10Google Scholar; Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von, Platon3 ii (Dublin and Zurich,1962), pp. 391–2;Google ScholarTaylor, A. E., A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus (Oxford, 1928), pp. 347–8.Google Scholar
13 Cf. Cornford (n. 4), 370 and Cherniss 53–4 = 368–9.
14 Prior, W. J., Unity and Development in Plato's Metaphysics (La Salle, 1985), p. 114 with n. 28.Google Scholar
15 Zekl, H. G., Platon: Timaios (Hamburg, 1992), p. 85Google Scholar
16 Cf. Cornford (n. 4), 370 and Cherniss 53 = 368
17 For such unannounced changes of subject cf. Cherniss 59 n. 6 = 374 n. 6, with the reference to Gildersleeve, B. L., Syntax of Classical Greek i (New York, 1900), p. 36;Google Scholar Cornford (n. 4), 371; de Vries, G. J., Mnemosyne 12 (1959), 64; 18 (1965), 242–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18 Neither Burnet nor the Bude editor Rivaud records any variants. At Simplicius, in Ph. 539.28 (Diels), where the passage of Ti. is quoted, Diels reports that the MSS offer 
, which Stephanus in fact proposed to read (cf. Cherniss 50 n. 3 = 365 n. 3). Yet Simplicius quotes the passage also at in Ph. 225.10 (Diels), where the MSS offer 
. There is no good reason to suspect the text.
19 Cf. Cherniss 50 n. 3 = 365 n. 3; Kühner, R. and Gerth, B., Ausführliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache II: Satzlehre3 i (Hannover and Leipzig, 1898), p. 562Google Scholar
20 Cf. Wilamowitz (n. 12), 392: ‘Keine Erklärung, die das Reflexivum halt, darf 
als Subjekt aufgeben’.
21 Cf. Kühner-Gerth (n. 19), i.334, Anm. 2.
22 Note the chiastic arrangement in the 
-clause as a whole, which balances 
with 
(both predicates of 
), 
with 
, and 
with 
.
23 For this sense cf. Denniston, J. D., Greek Particles2 (Oxford, 1954), p. 196Google Scholar
24 Cf. Cook Wilson (n. 12), 109 and Cherniss 53, 54 = 368, 369.
25 Denniston (n. 23), 195; cf. the similar use of 
(ibid. 295–6)
26 On the sense of 
here cf. Cherniss 59 n. 7 = 374 n. 7