Plato, polytheism, and the metaphysics of intersubjectivity

The quintessentially polytheistic moment in Plato is in the Timaeus, when one God, gazing upon another, gives order to the cosmos. Though this moment can be reformulated as one God perceiving him/herself as other, it is originally a moment of divine intersubjectivity. This moment is echoed in the Phaedrus, in which the forms of the virtues are perceived by the Gods in one another at the divine symposium. And it is echoed down here when we perceive virtues in one another, and when we come to understanding through dialogue with one another. Thus, Plato was the first to bring intersubjectivity into metaphysics. The principles (limit, unlimited, mixture, causality) are then derived from this original intersubjective situation. The origination of the principles is thus similar to how they arise for us in dialectical inquiry. The prime moment, for Plato, however, is the perception of beauty, all of the virtues being subsumed as elements of Beauty. This perception is originarily between living beings, and it is in this form that it is most ontically productive.