The Metaphor of Mixture in the Platonic Dialogues Sophist and Philebus

The central Platonic concept of the mixture is to be situated in the entire transmission of Methexis: ascending from the level of the participation of the sensible things in the forms to the participation of the forms and finally to the participation of the two Platonic Principles. “Mixture” designates on the one hand the relation between the μ γιστα γ νη in the Sophist and on the other hand the one between the Limit and the Unlimited in the Philebus (Part I). Thereupon the essence of the Mixture is to be examined and rehabilitated as metaphor, namely as transformation of a sensible image in a philosophical one (Part II). Our guiding question will be: W hy can the Mixture (between the “greatest kinds”) be legitimated as a better candidate than the Methexis in the frame of the Sophist? The Mixture is to be regarded as well-founded transformation of Methexis in the context of the equioriginal “greatest kinds” (Parts III–IV). In our interpretation of the Philebus that restores the disputed unity of this Platonic dialogue, we are about to show how the philosopher Plato “saves” the beautiful phenomena: The fourfold division (Phil. 23–27) is to be construed as the place where the beautiful appearances are generated. To them does the philosopher return after his ascent to the σ μφυτον two Platonic Principles. They are no longer degraded as “rolling about in the midregion between being and not-being” (Politeia 479d), but are rather reevaluated as “procreation” (Parts V–VII).