Unity and Multiplicity in Plato’s Psychology

Observations upon the Problem Concerning the Unity of Perceptive Experience at the Light of Theaetetus 182d8-e11; 184d1-5

Abstract

The present work makes a joint interpretation of two passages of the platonic dialogue Theaetetus (cf. 182d8-e11; 184d1-5). Specifically, it aims at showing the temporal background that lies under Plato’s thesis according to which it is necessary that the agent of perception plays a unifying role, a role without which the very perceptive experience could not be as it is. Said temporal background consists of showing, on the one hand (cf. 182d8-e11), that simultaneous perceptions need to converge in una common “place” that synthesizes them, whereas, on the other hand, it consists of emphasizing that, despite of perception taking place in the manner of a certain flux, necessarily there has to be certain permanence in it, not just so that things perceived exhibit some stability through time for the observer himself, but also so that there can be such “himself” to whom those things could appear.