エイコース・ロゴス : 「チマイオス」篇の一解釈として

Abstract

As an attempt of interpretation of Plato's Timaeus, this paper intends to reconsider what sort of unique role the 'Eikos Logos' could play in this dialogue. About this problem of the 'Eikos Logos' A. E. Taylor and F. M. Cornford set up their own opinions from different view-points, but I did not much linger in this paper upon their views. I rather tried to find an approach of my own in order to find out the real significance of 'Eikos Logos' by examining the text carefully with particular accent on the consideration of the contents of the 'Eikos Logos' itself. Since the 'Eikos Logos' was introduced as the basic frame or form exactly to meet the entire intellectual substance intended in the Timaeus, I could not take up this problem of form without coming to speak about the very spirit of the work. My conclusion thus drawn runs roughly as follows: The reason why the 'Logos' in the Timaeus was bound to be 'Eikos' is to be attributed not only to the fact that the main scheme of the 'Logos' in the Timaeus consists in dealing with the 'Becoming of nature', as is stated by Cornford, but also to the following points. 1) It is a human being that tells the Logos, and not God, human being provided with nature much limited in its ability. 2) Nevertheless, when he speaks about natural phenomena, be would not be satisfied with speaking, solely dependent upon the method consisting in 'Experiences', but he would further try to contemplate the 'Good' -- the very object of God's creation, yet unseen to the human being -- embodied and co-mingled in natural phenomena by God, in the light of which he would see and study those natural phenomena in order to know finally the supreme purpose and deliberate will of God Himself. In other words 'Eikos' had to be an inevitably negative condition of human being, finite and mortal, when he wants to learn what is the 'Good' intended by God in this cosmos, because the 'Good', though evident to God, remains all the same for human beings something never to be seen.