In the Timaeus, Plato introduces an ontological principle as the mediating instance between the Forms and their instantiations (49a5-6, 52a8-b2). Namely, the receptacle, the place where the inscription of the Model Forms on their sensible copies takes place. It is neither sensible nor intelligible. It can only be apprehended by a numbness of the senses and a spurious use of reason. Its existence can only be trusted, not deduced or perceived. Some have argued that the receptacle stands for matter, some that it stands for space, and some others that it stands for both. In any case, the everlasting consequences of these identifications are hard to overstate. Even though Plato himself never explicitly identifies the receptacle with matter, Aristotle suggests that receptacle and matter are the same (Physics IV 2, 209b11-16). Plotinus takes up Aristotle’s suggestion and develops his own theory of matter as source of evil in On the Impassibility of Incorporeal Natures. Even Augustine’s theory of evil can be understood as a response to the cosmogony of the Timaeus. In this dissertation I am interested in tracing the textual evidence that justifies or denies the existence of a specifically platonic rationale for the Western association of matter with evilness.
