In the light of this reconstruction, Plato’s theory of odours appears to pave the way to a more developed Aristotle’s theory of smell. Unlike colors, sounds and juices (which retain their identity even being mixed with other elements: color – with fire, taste – with water, sound – with air) odours have a half-formed, mixed, nature. Reconstructing the theory of the sense of smell as a part of the whole theory of perception, the author comes to the conclusion that odours have no species and names because they don’t belong to the one idea of the element.
The author accepts the view that odours are mixtures of water and air (Vlastos). The author tried to present the question of the sense of smell in the Timaeus as a consistent theory, which can be placed in the context of the theories of his predecessors, such as Alcmaeon, Empedocles and Democritus, and his followers, first of all Aristotle. Despite the fact that the problem of the sense of smell is not among the central themes in Plato's cosmology, it turns out to be connected with many of them: the problem of the correspondence elements to forms of regular polyhedra, the problem of division into species of elements, the question of the structure of surfaces of regular polyhedra, etc. In this article, author discusses the works of such famous scholars of Plato’s philosophy as Francis Cornford, Gregory Vlastos, Denis O’Brien and others. Any study of Plato’s doctrines requires first of all an examination of the rich tradition of the exegesis of his texts. The article is devoted to the problem of the sense of smell in Plato’s Timaeus. An extensive commentary that accompanies the translation helps to situate the treatise in the context of ancient medical and philosophical literature. The translation is prepared on the basis of a new commented edition by T. The final chapter of the treatise is unfortunately not preserved, but the answer given by the philosopher is clear: a particular soul enters an appropriate body immediately after its birth and harmonically attuned to it for the rest of the bodily life.
Finally Porphyry argues that, regardless the time of its entry, the self-moving soul comes from outside, not from the parents.
The second set of arguments is aimed to show that they are not animals even potentially. Are the embryos already in possession of the self-moving descended souls and thus already living beings? In order to answer the question Porphyry first tries to show that embryos are not actually animals and thus can more properly be compared with plants. 234–305) addresses the question, problematic to every Platonic philosopher, this of agency of the preexistent human soul. Original publication ΣΧΟΛΗ 7.1 (2013) 176–238 In this small treatise the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry (c.
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