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Plato's Theology of Divine Names

Publication |
2022

Abstract

The paper claims that the question of the correctness of divine names cannot be resolved by reference to the authority of the poets or by a certain semantic theory, but by turning to metaphysics. Socrates proceeds from revision of beliefs of the poets, through the formulation of the principle of "genetic synonymy", which yet does not apply without exception, to the discovery of the cosmology and the metaphysics of principles hidden behind the theology of the names of the highest divine triad Zeus - Kronos - Uranos.

However, it is, on the one hand, the current context of the debate shaped by the Aristophanic comic, and, on the other hand, the decision not to communicate the most important doctrines in the text that prevents Socrates to present these teachings explicitly; yet a number of intertextual references and allusions as well as the indirect Platonic tradition can help complete the whole picture.