Animism and purposiveness in Plato’s cosmology - The psychological foundations of ancient metaphysics

Abstract

Plato´s theory of cosmos and world originates in animistic, magical, teleological, theological, and finalistic categories and conceptions. God, world soul, and morals make and control the course of the world. Souls cause movements and incidents shaping the running of the cosmos. This worldview was shared by most other ancient and medieval philosophers and ended only during the early modern times. The mechanical philosophy of the 17th century replaced this animistic philosophy by the mechanical one with its core concepts matter, empirical causality, chance, mechanical movement, and physical law. Developmental psychology found that the preoperational stage causes the magical-animistic view of the ancients, while the formal operational stage completely matches to the accomplishments and traits of the 17th philosophy and its succeeding epochs. A lot of authors such as J. Piaget, R. Garcia, R. Fetz, U. Wenzel, and DeCaprona reconstructed Aristotle´s physics in terms of stages already, following the starting ideas Piaget developed already in 1927. However, it is also possible and necessary to reconstruct Plato´s cosmology in terms of psychological stages. The developmental approach then delivers a key to reconstruct the whole history of philosophy. Hegel´s idea the history of philosophy might manifest the advancement of mind seems to gain a surprising confirmation.