Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror

by Joan K u n g t (Milwaukee)

Although many authors write as if Plato likens or should have

likened the receptacle in the Timaeus to a mirror,1 he never does.
Indeed he seems deliberately to avoid doing so at 50c4-6, as Steven
Strange has noted. "If he did have in mind something like a mirror,
why would he say the τρόπος of the imaging of Forms in it is δύσφρασ-
τος and θαυμαστός, when he has already discussed how mirrors
work?"2 A brief look at his treatment of the optics of mirrors in
the Timaeus can help us to see why such a comparison would be
inappropriate.
The explanation of mirrors comes as an addendum to the account
of vision given at 45b4—d2. In outline, sight occurs when fine grade
intra-ocular fire pyramids filter through the pupil and coalesce with
kindred (αδελφός) fire pyramids to form a single body stretching from
the eyes to the object seen (Fig. 1). This body then passes on the
motions of the objects it encounters to the human body, which, in
turn, affects psychic motions, thus producing the perception we call
seeing.
What happens when we look at a mirror? Plato considers first a
plane mirror (Fig. 2).
All such appearances necessarily result from the combination of the
inner and outer fire each time they unite at the smooth surface and
1
See e.g. P.M. Cornford, Plato's Cosmology (London: Roulledge and Kcgan
Paul, 1937), p. 184; Τ. Μ. Robinson, Plato's Psychology (Toronto, 1970), p. 93;
R. D. Mohr, The Platonic Cosmology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), pp. 92-93.
2
Strange points out that είς αύθις μέτιμεν at 50c6, whatever it refers to, cannot
be a reference to the discussion of mirrors (personal communications, June 18
and Oct. 17, 1986). What this line does refer to is not clear. It is not mentioned
in the material we have from the ancients. Archer-Hind suggests it may refer to
52c (see R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato, trans, with intro. and notes
[New York: Arno, 1973, reprint of the 1888 edition], p. 177, n. 11). Taylor says
it is "a mere polite formula for the dismissal of a subject," as it often is elsewhere
in Plato (A. E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato's Timaeus [Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1928], p. 324.) The problem deferred here seems to me to be an instance
of the general difficulty of specifying the participation rclalion(s).

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168 Joan Kung

arc in various ways changed in form, owing to the fire of the face
coalescing with the fire of the vision at the smooth and bright
surface. Left appears right because opposite parts come into contact
with opposite parts of the visual ray contrary to the usual mode of
collision. (46a6 — b7)
The fires from inside and outside here are probably the intra-ocular
fire and the daylight, which he has just been discussing. Plato also
mentions a fire of the face, which is commonly and, I believe, correctly
assumed to be the face seen, whether one's own or another's, as
opposed to a face in the mirror. The mirrors of this time were made
of bronze and probably of nothing else.3 According to Plato's physical
theory, bronze contains no fire particles. All metals are primarily forms
of water, and bronze contains in addition some earth cubes. Thus, a
face or image of a face literally in the mirror would not contain fire
unless the fire came from somewhere else. But it is unlikely that fire
from somewhere else would form a face in the mirror. Bronze is a
hard, light metal. It is light because it has large interstices (διαλείμματα)
due to the process by which it is formed and hard because the particles
in it are tightly compacted and include relatively immobile earth-cubes
(62b6 — c3).4 When fire falls on a mirror, most of it is likely to be
reflected. Some of it will presumably enter the interstices, but there is
no reason to expect any particular configuration in those interstices or
any dissolutions they may yield. I conclude that it is more plausible to
read the fire of the face as the fire of the face seen and as not involving
some face in the mirror. There is then the further question whether the
fire is emitted from the face itself or is reflected daylight. In some cases
both can occur. Flesh does contain and could emit fire (74c5 —dl), but
it also contains earth-cubes and water-icosahedra and could reflect
fire. However, it cannot be that all cases involve fire emitted from the
body seen because not all visible bodies contain fire. For my purposes
the important point is that the object seen is an active causal agent in
the process described, whether it emits or reflects fire-tetrahedra.
Plato goes on to consider two cases of a concave mirror that is half
a cylinder cut lengthwise (Figs. 3 and 4). When this mirror is held

3
In poetry orichalc is sometimes mentioned and it is conjectured that this too is
bronze or some imaginary metal. I am indebted to Barbara Fowler of the Dept.
of Classics, Univ. of Wisconsin for this information.
4
I owe notice of this to William Pohle. See his "Dimensional Concepts and the
Interpretation of Plato's Physics" in E. N. Lee et #/., edd. Exegesis and Argument
(Assen, the Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1973).

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Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror 169

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170 Joan Kung

upright, i. c. with the long side perpendicular to the ground, the object's
left and right will appear as in direct vision because the concave surface
"throws the right part of the visual ray to the left and the left to the
right" (46cl -3). When the cylinder is turned on its side with its axis
parallel to the ground, left becomes up and right becomes down, so
up and down will be reversed in the same manner. 5
From this treatment of plane and concave mirrors we can glean at
least three reasons for not likening the receptacle to a mirror.
The first stems from Plato's metaphysics. The original object plays
an active role in the case of the mirror. In the example either some of
the fire particles of daylight are caused to change course by the face,
or fire particles that are originally part of the face stream off it and
with daylight and the fire from the eye constitute a causal chain that
acts on the mirror and finally the observer. In either case the object
seen acts on something. Platonic Forms, however, are consistently
portrayed by Plato as unchanging and not such as to act on other
things, 6 which is not to deny that they have some role to play in causal
explanation. 7 These eternal (άίδιος) beings are "always invariantly in
the same state" (αεί κατά ταύτα και ωσαύτως έχει, Phaedo 78c6, see
also 78d6-7, 79a9-10, 79d2, 80bl-3, Rep. 479a2-3, e7-8, Soph.
249bll, Tim. 28al, 29al, 52al, Phil. 59c3-4, 61e2-3. The "always"
is sometimes omitted in contexts in which it is clearly understood.) The
objects of intelligence are not called Forms in the Sophist and Philebus,
but even if we suppose Plato's theory of Forms underwent significant
alteration in these dialogues, it does not alter with regard to that
feature. 8 Thus to claim that the relation between object seen and mirror

5
See H. Martin's commentary for details, Etudes sur le Timee de Platon (New
York: Arno, 1976, reprint of the 1841 edition of Ladrange, Paris), vol. ii, pp.
163-171.
6
This is the case regardless of whether his theory changes in other ways. See e. g.
Phaedo 78dl -9; Rep. 478e7-479a8, e7-9; Soph. 249bl2-d4; Tim. 28e6-29a5,
51e6 —52a4; Phil. 59all—c6, 61dlO — e4. Forms are not mentioned by name in
the Sophist and Philebus.
1
Someone may hold, for example, that all explanatory theories in science contain
number theory as a sub-theory and that numbers are objects that do not themsel-
ves act on other things. This is at least not obviously mistaken. See Mark Steiner,
Mathematical Knowledge (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell, 1975), ch. IV.
8
It is sometimes alleged in interpreting Soph. 248d4 —e4 that Plato comes to think
the Forms are changed in being known. For a refutation see "Appendix I:, On
the Interpretation of Sph. 248d4—e4" to Gregory Vlastos, "An Ambiguity in the
Sophist" in Platonic Studies, Second Edition (Princeton, 1981), pp. 309-317.
Note that even if it were correct that Plato came to think the Forms could be
changed in this way, that would not show that they in turn produced change.

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 Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror 171

is analogous to that between Form and receptacle would be misleading

in this respect. Note that the comparison to models or paradigms gets
this right. The craftsman is the active producer, though he does not
produce a representation without a model. Plato also likens the Form
to a father at 50d ff. and it may seem at first glance that in doing so
he is not concerned to avoid attributing a dynamic function to the
Forms, after all. However, souls are being deliberately excluded from
the picture in this passage, and in reproduction as viewed by Plato,
the father is both the model and the producer, that from which the
child "is copied and produced" (το δ' όθεν άφομοιούμενον φύεται το
γιγνόμενον, 50dl -2). Cornford translates "the model in whose like-
ness that which becomes is born." When these roles are separated, it
is the model and not the producer to which the Forms are made
analogous, as in his earlier comparison of the Demiurge to a father (o
γεννήσας πατήρ, 37c7). Plato may wish here to stress the point that
without Forms nothing is a likeness no matter how produced.9
Movement and change in the finished cosmos are brought about
either by direct action of soul or by disequilibrium (άνωμαλότης)
dependent on inequality (άνισότης), which is in turn sustained by the
action of the world-soul (Tim. 57e6 —58c4). Disequilibrium is also
present in the precosmic receptacle (e. g., 52e3). Thus, we should expect
the likenesses there to be the chance product of motions engendered
by disequilibrium (Tim. 58al, cp. 52el —5). The summary at 69b2 —c3
indicates that this is indeed the case, for the contents of the receptacle
are discribed as "in disorder," not measurable and without proportion

9
This makes sense in context. On one plausible reading of Theaeteius 181 a4 — 183c4
Plato argues that without Forms the world would be undepictable, unintelligible,
and indescribable. It is sometimes thought that Forms are not in the background
here and that relatively stable items will suffice, but I doubt it. If squareness can
come to be sphericity or soul or red, whether this happens quickly or only after
squareness has remained squareness for a considerable length of time, what does
"squareness" tell us at a given moment, unless the change is in turn rooted in
some invariant law or relation of properties or other abstract items? That Plato
is alluding to Forms is further suggested by the surely deliberate similarity to
Cratylus 439cff., a passage which most commentators agree is about the Forms.
Plato speaks of "natures" in the Cratylus but it is implausible to suppose these
are not Forms, because it is unlikely that a pioneer theorist had an array of
abstract items in view. Aristotle sees that some of Plato's arguments do not
establish the existence of Forms and proposes an alternative sort of abstract
s items. I am not denying of course that Plato's theory of Forms underwent some
development and change. (I am grateful to Terry Penncr for discussion of these
points.)

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l 72 J o a n K ting

hy chance" and "not worthy of the names we now use such as

Tire' and 'water' and the rest." They arc called "traces" (ίχνη), a word
which in Homer and Hesiod means "track" or "footprint" and here
may suggest irregular configurations approximating tetrahedra, which
we can retrospectively regard as "traces" of fire, and similarly for the
others. Plato also speaks of them as "visible" and this must be a
retrospective description if creation is understood literally.10 Presum-
ably their irregularity would ensure their continued motion. It is only
with respect to the finished cosmos that the question arises why the
(now well-formed) bodies do not sort into kinds, pack or become as
nearly packed as their geometry permits, and stop moving (Tim.
58c2-4, Laws X.892a2-8, 895a6-9). At creation, again it is not the
Forms which act on the receptacle to produce their images. Rather,
the Demiurge looking to an unchanging model "took over all that is
visible, not at rest, but in discordant and unordered motion — and
brought it from disorder into order" (Tim. 30a4 — 6), created the har-
monically ordered world-soul (30a8 — cl, 35a2 — c5) and directed subor-
dinate deities to construct other self-moving souls (41a7 — d4).n
Second, likening the receptacle to a mirror would be epistemologi-
cally misleading. Plato insists that the receptacle is amorphous and of
no definite kind. The reason given for this is that the images of
intelligible and eternal things would otherwise be distorted by their
recipient (50dl — 51a3, following Cook Wilson's conjecture at 51al).
This shows that Plato thinks it important that the receptacle does not
distort the images it receives. A mirror, however, does distort that
which it reflects. In direct vision the left side of the person facing us

10
It may be that the original contents of the precosmic receptacle are to be thought
of as unequal, indivisible lines which then enclose or grow into surfaces, but
there is not sufficient evidence to tell. My conjecture is based on Laws X.894al — 5
with Tim. 48b5 — c5, and the fact that Aristotle criticizes Plato for his arbitrariness
in carrying his analysis only as far as lines (Met. 992alOf., De Caelo 299a2ff.).
He is reported by Aristotle and other ancients to have regarded points as
"geometrical fictions." Xenocrates developed a theory of "indivisible lines" of
which some ancients say Plato approved.
11
It is sometimes suggested that the Demiurge should be identified with the One,
which is the Form of the Good, in which case one might be tempted to suppose
that Form at least is a moving cause. However, such a view seems to misrepresent
the relation of the One or Good to other Forms and to perceptibies, has np firm
textual support, and is at odds with passages in which Plato indicates that both
divine and human craftsmen work by looking to Ideas or Forms which are
independent of them. See e. g. Tim. 28a, Pol 284d, 292c, Laws 965b, c, Gorg.
503e, 504dff., Crat. 389b.

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 Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror 173

is on our right, but the person seen via the plane mirror appears to
have his right side on our right. With an upright concave mirror, once
again "right appears right and left left" as in direct vision, but this is
actually the result of a double distortion (46b6-c3).
Far from illustrating something, which receives true images, the
mirror is used by Plato to illustrate one way false δόξα can arise. In
the Theaetetus one case of έτεροδοξία involves the misfitting of mem-
ory imprint to perception, as when a man seeing both indistinctly
mistakes Theaetetus, whom he knows, for Theodorus, whom he also
knows, and vice versa. Plato continues:
I attach the seeing of each one to the imprint which belongs to the
other, like people who put their shoes on the wrong feet, or alterna-
tively my going wrong is because the same sort of thing happens to
me as happens to sight in mirrors, when it flows in such a way as
to transpose left and right. It's then that different-judging and
the making of false judgements occur." (Theaet. 193c6 —d2, trans.
McDowell)
Some may view this passage with suspicion since Plato later rejects
έτεροδοξία as a general account of the basis of false δόξα, but it is by
no means clear that he also holds the stronger view that the account
is to be rejected in toto.
In the Timaeus a similar case is introduced at 43e4 —44a3 where Plato
is clearly putting forth his own view. He is describing the disruption of
the circles and proportions in the soul of the newborn infant, but the
example shows that we may suppose that similar, perhaps less violent,
distortions have similar effects in later life.
It was as when someone is upside down, resting his head on the
earth and holding his feet up by thrusting them against something.
In this state right and left both of the man and of the onlookers
appear reversed to each. The revolutions [of soul] experience vio-
lently this same and other similar effects, and when they meel with
something outside either in the class of the same or the class of the
different, they call it the same as this or different from that, opposite
to the truth, and they are false12 and without understanding.

12
It may strike the modern reader as absurd to speak of anything but sentences or
propositions as true or false, but Plato's use of these terms is less limited. He
speaks, for example, of false pleasures at Philebus 36c (T. and of the objects cast mg
shadows in the cave as "more true" than the shadows a! Republic M.V16, qr
515c2, 516a3. It can be argued that on his view representations in hiinuin souls

12 Arch. Gcsch. Philosophic Btl. 70

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1 74 Joan Kung

Nolc thai when someone is upside clown the motions arriving at the
left eye will he from the left of the person seen, as in the case of the
plane mirror (Figs. 1 and 2).
'There is at least one more reason for not likening the receptacle to
a mirror, which is especially strong if we believe Aristotle. The mirror
neither contains nor constitutes images. It causes the rays of fire to
change their form (μεταρρυθμισ&έντος, 46bl) and reverse their route.
A combination (κοινωνίας) of the fires occurs at the surface and Plato
is willing to speak of this as an είδωλοποιία but it is not an entity
which exists in addition to the combination of fires, and it is not
received by the mirror, but in part caused by it. In contrast, on most
interpretations the becomers are either in the receptacle or portions of
it are enclosed by the surfaces of bodies and move with them, and the
receptacle does not by its action create the images.
The question of the nature of the receptacle is difficult. On one
common reading, it is thought to be Euclidean space. According to
another appealingview, it is a medium through which the images move,
as a wave or ripple moves through water without carrying the water
with it. These two readings are usually contrasted with one according
to which the receptacle is some tenuous stuff, matter (ύλη) or extension
(διάστημα),13 the interpretation offered by Aristotle.
It is on the first two of these that the temptation to liken the
receptacle to a mirror arises. Cornford, for example, questionably
translates έκμαγεΐον, used for the receptacle at 50c2, as "matrix," and

and in nature generally are not limited to items that have sentential structure,
although the latter are included among them. See my "The Cognitive Psychology
of Plato's Timaeus" forthcoming for the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient
Philosophy.
13
Simplicius holds that Aristotle's prime matter should be regarded as three-
dimensional extension which is part of bodies, and bases his view on this same
passage. He also reports that according to Porphyry, the middle Platonist,
Moderates, offered this sort of account of the receptacle in Plato's Timaeus
(Simplicius, in Phys. 231, 5ff.). Simplicius thinks of Aristotelian prime matter,
so construed, as the subject of properties. However, one need not take this step
in Plato's case and indeed I think it would be a mistake to interpret the relation
between portions of the receptacle and the shapes imposed on them as a relation
of Aristotelian predication. I owe notice of this interpretation of Simplicius to
Richard Sorabji. See his "Analyses of Matter, Ancient and Modern" in Ar. Soc.
Proc. 86 (1985-86), esp. pp. 4-7.
It is interesting to note that in a letter to More, Descartes says, "in my opinion
impenetrability can be shown to belong to the essence of extension and not to
that of anything else" (15 April 1649) in A. Kenny, Descartes: Philosophical
Letters (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), p. 249.

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 Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror \ 75

he describes the receptacle as a medium, which he likens to a mirror

(pp. 177, 194, PC). The copy, he says, "needs the support of a medium,
just as a reflection requires a mirror to hold it." (P. 177.) As they stand,
these views are open to the objection noted above that images are not
strictly in the mirror, whereas the becomers are in the receptacle.
However, one adopting such an interpretation may be tempted to
suppose that this is a minor point of disanalogy in an otherwise apt
metaphor, so it may be worth pursuing a bit further.
The impetus for interpreting the receptacle as Euclidean space or as
a medium through which bodies move stems, I think, mainly from the
following aspects of Plato's treatment of it: (1) the "copies of the things
which always are (των όντων αεί)" are described as τα είσιόντα και
έξιόντα (Tim. 50c4-5); (2) the receptacle is "amorphous" (Tim. 50d7)
and devoid of all forms (είδη) or ideas (ίδέαι) which it receives
(50b8-c2, 50d7-el, 50e4-5, 51al-3); (3) on one reasonable inter-
pretation, the point of the well-known analogy with gold at 50a5 — c6
is to emphasize the unchanging permanence of the receptacle, and the
fact that gold is matter is irrelevant or even misleading; (4) it is called
χώρα, sometimes seeming to mean all of it (52a8, d3), sometimes some
part(52b4-5).
Do these four points establish conclusively that Aristotle is mistaken
in thinking the receptacle is akin to what he calls matter?
It is worth nothing at the outset that even if the receptacle is some
extended stuff, it will have very few features of its own and will be
unlike Aristotelian matter in at least two major ways. The first is that
it is a thing in its own right, a "this." The second is that the amount
and variety of work it performs in the physical theory are much less.
Proximate matter is of immense importance in Aristotle's theory of
nature. He repeatedly emphasizes the restrictions placed by form on
the specific matter in which it can be embodied, and he attributes to
various materials a plethora of active and passive causal powers. This
represents a dramatic departure from Plato even if we suppose, as
Aristotle did, that the triangles are imposed on some minimal matter.
There will be no difference in this from one triangle or body to another.
The work in Plato's physical theory is done almost entirely not by this
tenuous stuff common to all bodies and compounds but by features
which are amenable to geometrical and arithmetical treatment with a
few supplementary principles.
We should note also that it is doubtful that the receptacle is precisely
Euclidean space because it is evidently not infinite in extent (Tim.
33bl-34a7), so I shall speak of quasi-Euclidean space. There is no
12»
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176 Joan K ung

direct textual evidence for calling it a medium through which hollow

bodies pass, and 1 shall not linger on this reading because it seems that
if the receptacle is granted that much substance, Aristotle's description
should not be seen as altogether untoward. Nevertheless, the main
bone of contention in the secondary literature seems to be whether
portions of the receptacle move with the bodies, and Aristotle's view
of it as matter does seem to involve that as well (see Gen. et Corr.
329al4-24, Phys. 209b6-13).
The first point above does not show Aristotle is mistaken, for Plato uses "impres-
sions" (τυπωθέντα) in apposition with τα είσιόντα and τα έξιόντα at 50c4—6, and
he is willing to speak of shapes coming to be in gold (ένεγίγνετο, 50b3), then being
remolded. This means that Plato's use of τα είσιόντα and τα έξιόντα need not imply
that the figures merely pass in and out of the receptacle without bounding portions
of it which move with them.14
The second need not be read as requiring the receptacle to be devoid of all
features, as some have claimed, but only of those of the likenesses of Forms that
come to be in it. Not all the configurations which appear in the receptacle are images
of Forms. I am not suggesting that there are irregular bodies, but that images also
include patterns traced out over time, and the trajectories of the flame of a bonfire
blown in the wind or of splashing water need not be images of Forms. We do well
to remember that Plato does not have the idea that a mathematical equation can
be written for any curve or figure. That is presumably why he emphasizes that the
study of the paths of the heavenly bodies, which are regular and, he hopes,
mathematically treatable, helps to set us on the road to philosophy (Tim. 47a4—b2).
What features might the receptacle have? We have noted that it is said explicitly to
move and shake in the precosmos. In the finished cosmos it may be that it is
responsible for the impenetrability of the bodies, which is required by the principle
of circular thrust, which figures prominently in Plato's physics. (By impenetrability,
I mean that two portions or two bodies cannot be in the same place at the same
time). There may not be sufficient textual evidence to decide whether it is the
surfaces or the receptacle to which this task is assigned, but the point is that the
latter is not ruled out by the receptacle's amorphousness. What is important,

14
The basic triangles probably do not in the finished cosmos go in and out on
either interpretation, but Plato is speaking here of the bodies formed from them.
Plato says parts (presumably equilateral right triangles) of earth, which has been
dissolved, "drift about" (φέροιτ' αν) until they meet others of their kind and are
again fitted together (77m. 56dl —6). It is usually assumed also that his account
of the transformation of bodies and other interactions requires that there be a
constant number of persistent triangles. His talk of the parts of earth drifting
about has seemed worrisome to some space-advocates. However, I have teen
assured by David Malament, who knows far more about these matters than I,
that it is not incoherent to suppose two-dimensional objects existing on their
own even in three-dimensional space.

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 Why the Receptacle is not a Mirror 177

according to Plato, is that it should not distort the images coming to be in it of the
"eternal and intelligible things" (50dl-51a3). This criterion does not require the
receptacle to be quasi-Euclidean space and does not settle what it is.
Third, suppose the point of the analogy with gold is to emphasize its permanence
or, as 1 should prefer to say, to emphasize that it, like the Forms and rather than
the becomers, deserves to be called a this. The becomers are only such as fire, etc. 15
This does not preclude the receptacle's being matter-like, nor does it require us to
view the triangular shapes imposed on it as predicated of it. One might think of the
receptacle as a tenuous stuff and the triangles as structured building blocks.16
Finally, Plato does call the receptacle χώρα, "room" or "area," often also
translated "space." But we cannot infer from this that it is quasi-Euclidean space.
Much of the discussion of the nature of the receptacle has assumed that if it is
space, it must lack what would now be called physical features. However, such a
conclusion may be too hasty and parochial. Plato's χώρα is sometimes compared
to later conceptions of space or ether, according to which it is reasonable to speak
of these things as endowed with some physical properties.17
One of the most striking things about Plato's treatment of the receptacle is that
he is willing both to call it χώρα and to speak of it as comparable to a plastic
material, gold, a perfume base, a recipient, a seat, a nurse and a mother. William
Pohle remarks also that "for Plato the names 'earth,' fcair,' Tire,' and 'water' are
both regional and generic designations, so that one may speak of the main masses
of earth, water, etc. as distinct regions ,.."18 It seems that Plato does not suppose
that carefully distinguishing space and matter is important for his purposes (which
is not to say he had any clearly distinct notions of them). Perhaps he is right. The
major function of the receptacle is to make it possible for there to come to be many
copies of one form (52a8 —c8, cp. 51al—3). Perhaps this function could be served
by something like Euclidean space or by some impenetrable stuff which is used in
the construction of the bodies at creation and fills up the cosmos as far as is
geometrically possible.
It is, on the other hand, important to Aristotle to distinguish at least place and
matter and, by his lights, Plato conflates matter (ύλη), room (χώρα), place (τόπος),
and full (πλεΐον) and void (κενόν).19 At 209bll-12 he claims that Plato says in
the Timaeus that matter and space are the same thing. In the preceding lines he

15
The best recent defense of such an interpretation is offered by Mary Louise Gill
in "Matter and Flux in Plato's Timaeus" (forthcoming in Phronesis).
16
This possibility was suggested to me by some remarks of William Charlton,
although he would prefer not to regard the receptacle as matter-like.
17
See John C. Graves, The Conceptual Foundations of Contemporary Relativity
Theory, ch. 2 (Boston: MIT Press, 1971) and Albert Einstein, "Hthcr and the
Theory of Relativity" in Sidelights on Relativity (New York: Dover, 1983. reprint
of 1923 edition of E. P. Dutton), pp. 3-24.
18
19
s op. cit., p. 311.
On this see further David Keyfs helpful article, "Aristotle on Plain's Recepladr"
in Am.J. of PhiloL 82(1962).

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178 Joan Kung

mentions a conception of place as "the extension (διάστημα) of the magnitude" and

says that on that conception it is the matter. He describes it as
that which is surrounded and bounded by the form as by a surface and a limit;
and it is this kind of thing that matter and the indefinite are. For when the limit
and the properties of the sphere are removed, nothing is left but the matter. That
is why Plato, too, says in the Timaeus that matter and space are the same thing,
for 'the participative' and space are one and the same thing. (Phys. 209b7 —13,
trans. Williams)
If an interpretation of the receptacle as impenetrable extension or some tenuous
stuff will allow it to do the work Plato allots to it, it seems to me preferable to
understand it along those lines. It is by no means clear that a conception of Euclidean
or Newtonian space or any close relative was one that even Aristotle had firmly in
hand or made use of.20 On the other hand, Plato's predecessors did have working
notions of material stuffs, and we know it was important to Plato to show that an
adequate ontology must include more.
Some weight also should be given to Aristotle's testimony. Although Aristotle
often redescribes the views of his predecessors in terms of his own theories and his
merits as an historian are disputed, surely a reasonable interpretation on which his
remarks and criticisms make sense is preferable to one on which he appears stupid,
uninformed, or malicious. If Aristotle is right, then there is another important
reason not to liken the receptacle to a mirror.
In any analogy there will be points in which the items being compared
differ, but these three potentially misleading disanalogies between the
receptacle and the mirror should suffice to show us that in avoiding
that comparison, Plato was wiser than many of his interpreters have
been.21

20
I am indebted to Ian Mueller for showing me that this is a real question.
21
I am grateful to Steven Strange for helpful comments and criticisms on an earlier
draft of this paper.

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