ABSTRACT
Causation in the myth in the Statesman has received little detailed scholarly attention. Yet, it is clear that there is a complex and multilayered causal story at work. First, according to the myth, there is a cyclical, causal relationship between the god and the cosmos; at times, the Stranger tells us, the god guides the cosmos in one direction; at others, it lets the cosmos go and the cosmos rotates on its own in the opposite direction until such time as it is appropriate for the god to take charge again and revert to guiding the cosmos in the opposite direction. Second, the direction of the cosmos determines the kind of causation that happens inside the cosmos. When it turns in one direction, for example, men start life with white hair and wrinkled skin and their hair becomes coloured and their skin smoother, in contrast with biological ageing in the cosmos when it revolves in the other direction, which works in the way we are familiar. In this chapter, we examine this complex causal story. We argue that not only does it yield an interesting and consistent causal account, but it reveals different kinds of causes that interact in complex ways. Furthermore, some of these causes do not feature anywhere else in the Platonic corpus.
