Timaeus 38A8–B5

In a recent article written by Mr. G. E. L. Owen to prove that contrary to the general current opinion the composition of theTimaeusmust have antedated that of theParmenidesand its dialectical successors, it is contended that when theTimaeuswas written the analysis of negation given in theSophistcould not yet have been worked out. ‘For’, Mr. Owen writes, ‘the tenet on which the whole new account of negation is based, namely thatτὸ μὴ ὄν ἔστιν ὄντως μὴ ὄν(Soph.254D1), is contradicted unreservedly by Timaeus' assertion that it is illegitimate to sayτὸ μὴ ὄν ἔστι μὴ ὄν(38B2–3); and thereby theTimaeusat once ranks itself with theRepublicandEuthydemus.'After brushing aside Cornford's attempt to reconcile this passage of theTimaeuswith theSophist, Mr. Owen concludes his treatment of it with the words: ‘So theTimaeusdoes not tally with even a fragment of the argument in theSophist.That argument is successful against exactly the Eleatic error which, for lack of the later challenge to Father Parmenides, persists in theTimaeus.’An examination of the other arguments put forward by Mr. Owen in support of his thesis concerning the relative chronology of theTimaeusI reserve for another place. Here I propose to consider only the meaning of this one passage and whether it really does imply that theTimaeusmust have been written before Plato had conceived the doctrine enunciated in theSophist.It is a question not now raised for the first time. More than half a century ago Otto Apelt asserted that this passage of theTimaeusis enough to prove that work earlier than theSophists.His assertion did not go unchallenged; and Apelt himself appears to have lost his original confidence in it, for in his later writings on the relative chronology of the two dialogues he did not again refer to it.