Du demiurgai

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Aristotelis; Būtis; Demiurgas; Dieviškasis demiurgas; Dirbinys; Diskursas; Heideggeris, Martinas; Mąstymas; Pasaulis; Platonas; Techne; Timajas; Žmogiškasis demiurgas; Aristotle; Being; Craftwork; Demiurge; Discourse; Divine demiurge; Heidegger, Martin; Human demiurge; Plato; Platonas; Techne; Thinking; Timaeus; World.

ENThe paper reconstructs Plato’s conception of making a craftwork. Although Plato does not consider the nature of craftwork comprehensively in any of his dialogues, he touches upon it in one way or other in many texts while examining other issues. Plato’s thought appears to proceed by two mutually complementary countermoves: on the one hand, he constructs a conception of the emergence of the world as brought about by the purposeful cause, relying on the craftsman’s experience of making a craftwork, while on the other hand, the craftsman’s work is examined and evaluated in a juxtaposition with the activity of the divine demiurge. The conception of making a craftwork draws on the notions of imitation and representation. Yet these notions themselves include a moment of creativity that comes across as the first envisioning of the invisible primary ground which is also the bestowing a shape on the shapeless source. This leads to the issue of the substratum of craft making, the matter, which in Plato remains implicit but is explicated in Aristotle. An inquiry into Plato’s rather sporadic descriptions of craft making foregrounds yet another perspective: a shift from the matter as such (or the Aristotelian materia prima) to specific materials and to the consideration of their significance to the modification and diversification of the eidetic structures of the world. This shift, barely sketched out in Plato, turns into the core perspective of the modern thought on the production of a craftwork. [From the publication]