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Timaeus
First published in Complete Works , Donald J. Zeyl's masterful translation of Timaeus is presented along with his 75 page introductory essay, which discusses points of contemporary interest in the Timaeus , deals at length with long-standing and current issues of interpretation, and provides a consecutive commentary on the work as a whole. Includes an analytic table of contents and a select bibliography.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 361
About the author
Plato
5,144 books7,378 followers427 BC-347 BC
The Republic , the best known of these many dialogues with Socrates, mentor, as the central character, expounds idealism of noted Greek philosopher Plato and describes a hypothetical utopian state that thinkers rule; he taught and wrote for much his life at the Academy, which he founded near Athens around 386 BC. Platonism, the philosophy of Plato, especially asserts the phenomena of the world as an imperfect and transitory reflection of ideal forms, an absolute and eternal reality.
Plato said that Atlantis, a legendary island, west of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic Ocean sank beneath the sea during an earthquake.
Aristotle began as a pupil of Plato.
Plotinus and his successors at Alexandria in the 3rd century developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts.
Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinascombined Neoplatonism with the doctrines of Aristotle within a context of Christian thought.
This classical mathematician and student started the first institution of higher learning in the western world. Alongside his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the western science.
Plato of the most important western exerted influence on virtually every figure and authored the first comprehensive work on politics. Plato also contributed to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Aristotle, his extremely influential student, also tutored Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
The Republic , the best known of these many dialogues with Socrates, mentor, as the central character, expounds idealism of noted Greek philosopher Plato and describes a hypothetical utopian state that thinkers rule; he taught and wrote for much his life at the Academy, which he founded near Athens around 386 BC. Platonism, the philosophy of Plato, especially asserts the phenomena of the world as an imperfect and transitory reflection of ideal forms, an absolute and eternal reality.
Plato said that Atlantis, a legendary island, west of Gibraltar, in the Atlantic Ocean sank beneath the sea during an earthquake.
Aristotle began as a pupil of Plato.
Plotinus and his successors at Alexandria in the 3rd century developed Neoplatonism, a philosophical system, based on Platonism with elements of mysticism and some Judaic and Christian concepts.
Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinascombined Neoplatonism with the doctrines of Aristotle within a context of Christian thought.
This classical mathematician and student started the first institution of higher learning in the western world. Alongside his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the western science.
Plato of the most important western exerted influence on virtually every figure and authored the first comprehensive work on politics. Plato also contributed to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology. Aristotle, his extremely influential student, also tutored Alexander the Great of Macedonia.
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March 29, 2024
One of the best ancient descriptions of the Kingdom of Atlantis - before its catastrophic submersion - you're likely to find.
The first time I read it was over fifty years ago in my university freshman year.
My brain had been set to simmer by the heady atmosphere of Philosophy 101, and was now resting on the back burner during the long train ride home for Thanksgiving.
I had needed some brain food for Canadian National’s grinding but nonetheless - for a young dreamer like me - strangely soothing train ride up North.
So I’d grabbed Timaeus at the Douglas Library and hurriedly borrowed it.
I’d heard it was somewhat mystical, and I wanted to relive the same type of
Rêverie as Valery’s méditations on seashells had produced in me a week or so earlier!
Well, it started out quaintly enough, but soon devolved into incomprehensible geometrical and mathematical discussions.
But so relaxed was I by being free of course work for the weekend, and the lulling, gentle rhythm of the train, I kept on reading. Lost in space, even though the thread of Socrates’ argument was also lost on me!
Peeking out of the large window too, from time to time, to savour the reds, oranges and yellows of the autumn leaves...
Why do so many literary-minded philosophers love math?
Beats me!
For Plato just made me dream technicolor dreams.
Then, as the text progressed, Socrates went Gnostic - giving us a creation myth that's odd but, and this is the good part, mystical indeed. Like the classic part about men and women originally being one person.
You think spouses have arguments NOW!? Well, back in the old days..!
But I was firmly ensconced in Lala-land during during that train ride, like Prufrock...
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
With seagirls wreathed in seaweed, red and brown
Till human voices wake us - and we drown!
And wake me up they did!
When I arrived back home, the world of mundane matters once again seized the foreground of my mind and took centre stage, as my parents quizzed me.
Endless questions about new friends, work habits, and professors.
The real world never lets up, does it?
But if I had learned anything from Plato, it was this: inspiration. The inspiration of dreams.
That now seems nearly a lifetime ago. I have changed from being a continuous dreamer to become a Christian humanist.
My dreams have all dreamed themselves out, like a reversible jacket that, suddenly totally aware of itself, has turned itself completely outside in:
And my dreaming life is now very much like my daylight hours! We old folks get to a point where our LIfe Itself becomes an everyday dream...
Around me, the world has utterly changed too. Intelligent dreamers are passé.
Two lifetimes ago T.S. Eliot bemoaned the world’s modern tendency to run on its “metalled rails of appetency.”
NOW those rails and that appetency are digitalized and sacrosanct, enshrined in the constitution.
It’s become a surface world.
When I took the train, that day so many years ago, it was a world of hidden depths, though...
But although my Faith has long been what’s sacrosanct for me, those depths have largely discharged assorted wreckage and useless junk upon the beach of so many of my friends’ old age, in abhorrently cold depression.
A trade-off with faith would have by now yielded peace, joy and what used to be called Wisdom, when the mystery of the deep was exposed as an ersatz truism.
Well, it’s enough.
It’s been a respectably long life in this tinsel world - and I’m ready for the next!
But I am still haunted by old books.
Their magic. Their mystery. Their WONDER.
And you know, by the end of that first long-ago semester I had won the University Prize for first-year English.
And now, with the help of my books, I can finally say I KNOW myself and the world reasonably well.
Which just goes to show you - don’t diss your dreams, kids!
They’ll take you far, if you let them.
But, you know... Plato’s Atlantan complexity is STILL Greek to me, even now:
But the dreams he evoked powered my life strongly enough to lead me to my Journey’s End - safely.
The first time I read it was over fifty years ago in my university freshman year.
My brain had been set to simmer by the heady atmosphere of Philosophy 101, and was now resting on the back burner during the long train ride home for Thanksgiving.
I had needed some brain food for Canadian National’s grinding but nonetheless - for a young dreamer like me - strangely soothing train ride up North.
So I’d grabbed Timaeus at the Douglas Library and hurriedly borrowed it.
I’d heard it was somewhat mystical, and I wanted to relive the same type of
Rêverie as Valery’s méditations on seashells had produced in me a week or so earlier!
Well, it started out quaintly enough, but soon devolved into incomprehensible geometrical and mathematical discussions.
But so relaxed was I by being free of course work for the weekend, and the lulling, gentle rhythm of the train, I kept on reading. Lost in space, even though the thread of Socrates’ argument was also lost on me!
Peeking out of the large window too, from time to time, to savour the reds, oranges and yellows of the autumn leaves...
Why do so many literary-minded philosophers love math?
Beats me!
For Plato just made me dream technicolor dreams.
Then, as the text progressed, Socrates went Gnostic - giving us a creation myth that's odd but, and this is the good part, mystical indeed. Like the classic part about men and women originally being one person.
You think spouses have arguments NOW!? Well, back in the old days..!
But I was firmly ensconced in Lala-land during during that train ride, like Prufrock...
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
With seagirls wreathed in seaweed, red and brown
Till human voices wake us - and we drown!
And wake me up they did!
When I arrived back home, the world of mundane matters once again seized the foreground of my mind and took centre stage, as my parents quizzed me.
Endless questions about new friends, work habits, and professors.
The real world never lets up, does it?
But if I had learned anything from Plato, it was this: inspiration. The inspiration of dreams.
That now seems nearly a lifetime ago. I have changed from being a continuous dreamer to become a Christian humanist.
My dreams have all dreamed themselves out, like a reversible jacket that, suddenly totally aware of itself, has turned itself completely outside in:
And my dreaming life is now very much like my daylight hours! We old folks get to a point where our LIfe Itself becomes an everyday dream...
Around me, the world has utterly changed too. Intelligent dreamers are passé.
Two lifetimes ago T.S. Eliot bemoaned the world’s modern tendency to run on its “metalled rails of appetency.”
NOW those rails and that appetency are digitalized and sacrosanct, enshrined in the constitution.
It’s become a surface world.
When I took the train, that day so many years ago, it was a world of hidden depths, though...
But although my Faith has long been what’s sacrosanct for me, those depths have largely discharged assorted wreckage and useless junk upon the beach of so many of my friends’ old age, in abhorrently cold depression.
A trade-off with faith would have by now yielded peace, joy and what used to be called Wisdom, when the mystery of the deep was exposed as an ersatz truism.
Well, it’s enough.
It’s been a respectably long life in this tinsel world - and I’m ready for the next!
But I am still haunted by old books.
Their magic. Their mystery. Their WONDER.
And you know, by the end of that first long-ago semester I had won the University Prize for first-year English.
And now, with the help of my books, I can finally say I KNOW myself and the world reasonably well.
Which just goes to show you - don’t diss your dreams, kids!
They’ll take you far, if you let them.
But, you know... Plato’s Atlantan complexity is STILL Greek to me, even now:
But the dreams he evoked powered my life strongly enough to lead me to my Journey’s End - safely.
July 31, 2021
The book opens with a brief dialog between Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias, which swiftly retrogrades into a long monologue by Timaeus himself, during which time Socrates sits quietly and listens.
Timaeus, from Locri, Italy, is a fictional character and his monologue is in fact Plato's lecture, but the philosophy presented bears a resemblance to the one of Pythagoras.
Plato (c.427-347 BCE) in Timaeus c.360 BCE discusses the origins and principles of cosmology; from the creation of the cosmos to the nature of things and humans physiology, sensory perceptions, and the well-being and maladies of the body and soul.
In Timaeus, Demiurge is the artisan that brings the cosmos from a disorderly state to an orderly harmony. The creator, Demiurge, is good and he builds a cosmos similar to himself. Timaeus' cosmos is beautiful, perfect, and a visible living being, like an organism, that is created on insightful principles in which Demiurge placed the mind into the soul and the soul into the body.
Timaeus believes that only a single spherical universe exists with a round rotating floating Earth at its center. A universe in which the Earth and all the other heavenly bodies are created and immortal and the earthly beings created but mortal.
The elements that constitute matter: water (fluid), air (gas), earth (solid), and fire (plasma) are shaped in various geometrical bodies (Platonic solids) in which the triangles they are composed of are the elementary particles of nature.
Timaeus' cosmos is mechanistic and emerged from mathematical knowledge that is governed by necessity and the divine. A universe in which energy remains constant and the observable moving image of eternal space flows to the pulse of a number that we call time.
Plato's Timaeus reads like a mythical prose poem which was apparently influenced by the “three Pythagorean books” published by Philolaus that Plato bought and Timon of Phlius said: "Well, you too, Plato, were obsessed with the desire to acquire followers; and because of it, for much money, you bought a small book, and from it, you learned to write Timaeus." Fact of fiction, we'll never know, but I like to think that Timaeus is a product of Plato's and Pythagorean philosophy.
Timaeus, from Locri, Italy, is a fictional character and his monologue is in fact Plato's lecture, but the philosophy presented bears a resemblance to the one of Pythagoras.
Plato (c.427-347 BCE) in Timaeus c.360 BCE discusses the origins and principles of cosmology; from the creation of the cosmos to the nature of things and humans physiology, sensory perceptions, and the well-being and maladies of the body and soul.
In Timaeus, Demiurge is the artisan that brings the cosmos from a disorderly state to an orderly harmony. The creator, Demiurge, is good and he builds a cosmos similar to himself. Timaeus' cosmos is beautiful, perfect, and a visible living being, like an organism, that is created on insightful principles in which Demiurge placed the mind into the soul and the soul into the body.
Timaeus believes that only a single spherical universe exists with a round rotating floating Earth at its center. A universe in which the Earth and all the other heavenly bodies are created and immortal and the earthly beings created but mortal.
The elements that constitute matter: water (fluid), air (gas), earth (solid), and fire (plasma) are shaped in various geometrical bodies (Platonic solids) in which the triangles they are composed of are the elementary particles of nature.
Timaeus' cosmos is mechanistic and emerged from mathematical knowledge that is governed by necessity and the divine. A universe in which energy remains constant and the observable moving image of eternal space flows to the pulse of a number that we call time.
Plato's Timaeus reads like a mythical prose poem which was apparently influenced by the “three Pythagorean books” published by Philolaus that Plato bought and Timon of Phlius said: "Well, you too, Plato, were obsessed with the desire to acquire followers; and because of it, for much money, you bought a small book, and from it, you learned to write Timaeus." Fact of fiction, we'll never know, but I like to think that Timaeus is a product of Plato's and Pythagorean philosophy.
July 23, 2019
رسالهٔ تيمائوس، خلاصهايست از جهانبينى افلاطون، كه حاوى بخش ابتدايى اسطورهاى، بخش كوچكى در فلسفه و بخش بزرگى در طبيعيات است. بخش فلسفى مخصوصاً به دليل طرح مباحثى كه بعداً توسط ارسطو تكميل شد و به صورت نظريهٔ معروف صورت و ماده درآمد اهميت دارد. بخش اسطورهای بعدها توسط نوافلاطونیها، گنوسیها و مانویها گسترش یافت و تا مدتها اساس تفکر عرفانی در خاورمیانه، مصر و اروپا را رقم زد.
مكالمه شبى پس از مكالمهٔ جمهور واقع میشود، و اين بار سقراط شنونده است و تيمائوس گوينده و از آفرينش جهان و انسان سخن مىگويد.
١. آفرينش جهان
جهان، از دو بخش تشکیل شده: بخشی محسوس و تغییرپذیر، و بخشی نامحسوس و تغییرناپذیر. آن چه که حقیقت را میسازد بخش تغییرناپذیر است که حاوی صورتهای جاودان همه چیز است.
روزی روزگاری یک «دمیورگوس» یا صانع، خواست از روی آن حقایق نامحسوس و جاودان، جهانی مادی بسازد. برای این مقصود به مادهٔ اوليهای نیاز داشت. اين مادهٔ اوليه بر خلاف تصور عموم، خاك و آب و باد و آتش نيست، چرا كه اولاً خود اين عناصر به يكديگر تبديل مىشوند، پس خود مادهاى مشترک دارند، و ثانياً مادهٔ اوليه بايد عارى از هر صورتى باشد، اما عناصر اربعه صور خاص خود دارند؛ بلكه مادهٔ اوليه، مادهایست بى شكل و قابل پذيرش اشكال مختلف، و چنين مادهٔ بى شكلى تنها با عقل قابل ادراك است نه با حس.
پس «صانع» به سراغ آن مادهٔ مطلقاً بی شکل رفت و به آن صورت جهان بخشيد، که کاملترین صورت ممکن بود: كره. اين كره، که میتوان آن را کرهٔ آسمان نامید، به گرد خويش مىچرخد و چرخش ستارگان و روز و شب را ايجاد مىكند.
٢. آفرينش موجودات
صانع سپس ساكنان جهان را خلق نمود.
نخست خدايان را آفريد: موجوداتى جاودانى به كاملرين شكل ممكن (كره) كه هميشه حركتى ثابت دارند و دستخوش تغيير نمىشوند: ستارگان.
پس از آن كه صانع، خدايان را ساخت، آفرينش انسان را به ايشان محوّل كرد. به اين ترتيب كه جزء روحانى و جاودانى انسان را خود ساخت، و ساختن جزء جسمانى و فانى او را به خدايان سپرد.
سر انسان كه كاملترين عضو و جايگاه جزء روحانى است، باز به صورت كاملترين شكل ممكن (كره) است، و تن در حقيقت مَركَب سر است تا به وسيلهٔ آن حركت كند و نيازهايش را تأمين نمايد.
٣. طبيعيات
بخش پایانی رساله بحث مفصلى است دربارهٔ كيفيت خلق و خصوصيات هر یک از موجودات، به خصوص عناصر اربعه، و اعضاى بدن انسان.
مكالمه شبى پس از مكالمهٔ جمهور واقع میشود، و اين بار سقراط شنونده است و تيمائوس گوينده و از آفرينش جهان و انسان سخن مىگويد.
١. آفرينش جهان
جهان، از دو بخش تشکیل شده: بخشی محسوس و تغییرپذیر، و بخشی نامحسوس و تغییرناپذیر. آن چه که حقیقت را میسازد بخش تغییرناپذیر است که حاوی صورتهای جاودان همه چیز است.
روزی روزگاری یک «دمیورگوس» یا صانع، خواست از روی آن حقایق نامحسوس و جاودان، جهانی مادی بسازد. برای این مقصود به مادهٔ اوليهای نیاز داشت. اين مادهٔ اوليه بر خلاف تصور عموم، خاك و آب و باد و آتش نيست، چرا كه اولاً خود اين عناصر به يكديگر تبديل مىشوند، پس خود مادهاى مشترک دارند، و ثانياً مادهٔ اوليه بايد عارى از هر صورتى باشد، اما عناصر اربعه صور خاص خود دارند؛ بلكه مادهٔ اوليه، مادهایست بى شكل و قابل پذيرش اشكال مختلف، و چنين مادهٔ بى شكلى تنها با عقل قابل ادراك است نه با حس.
پس «صانع» به سراغ آن مادهٔ مطلقاً بی شکل رفت و به آن صورت جهان بخشيد، که کاملترین صورت ممکن بود: كره. اين كره، که میتوان آن را کرهٔ آسمان نامید، به گرد خويش مىچرخد و چرخش ستارگان و روز و شب را ايجاد مىكند.
٢. آفرينش موجودات
صانع سپس ساكنان جهان را خلق نمود.
نخست خدايان را آفريد: موجوداتى جاودانى به كاملرين شكل ممكن (كره) كه هميشه حركتى ثابت دارند و دستخوش تغيير نمىشوند: ستارگان.
پس از آن كه صانع، خدايان را ساخت، آفرينش انسان را به ايشان محوّل كرد. به اين ترتيب كه جزء روحانى و جاودانى انسان را خود ساخت، و ساختن جزء جسمانى و فانى او را به خدايان سپرد.
سر انسان كه كاملترين عضو و جايگاه جزء روحانى است، باز به صورت كاملترين شكل ممكن (كره) است، و تن در حقيقت مَركَب سر است تا به وسيلهٔ آن حركت كند و نيازهايش را تأمين نمايد.
٣. طبيعيات
بخش پایانی رساله بحث مفصلى است دربارهٔ كيفيت خلق و خصوصيات هر یک از موجودات، به خصوص عناصر اربعه، و اعضاى بدن انسان.
October 5, 2015
The sources for the myth of Atlantis are two: Plato's dialogs Timaeus and Critias, primarily the latter. That's it. The rest is much more modern invention.
Cornford's Plato books are usually detailed and excellent, albeit perhaps too detailed and technical for some readers. In this edition he did the translation as well as an introduction and preface, apparently abstracted from his longer Plato's Cosmology. Since the Timaeus is primarily a geometricized cosmology, something pretty alien to modern thinking, the commentary is welcome.
Cornford's Plato books are usually detailed and excellent, albeit perhaps too detailed and technical for some readers. In this edition he did the translation as well as an introduction and preface, apparently abstracted from his longer Plato's Cosmology. Since the Timaeus is primarily a geometricized cosmology, something pretty alien to modern thinking, the commentary is welcome.
December 16, 2018
Socrates and Science
15 December 2018 – Perth
This book is famous for all the wrong reasons, and it basically has something to do with a city that for some reason Jason Moma seems to have a very strong connection to. Yet, while this is generally known as the Atlantis dialogue, in reality it isn’t, that accolade goes to the partner dialogue, the Critias. However, at the start, there is this discussion on this city named Atlantis, and how Critias came to learn of its existence, however, at this stage I’ll leave it with Jason Moma and move on to what this text is actually about.
You could say that this is Plato’s scientific text, namely it is the dialogue where he explores how things work, how the world was created, and why things are the way they are. To say that he is completely and utterly wrong is an understatement in and of itself, but the thing is that we are talking about some guy writing something like two and a half thousand years ago, so we can sort of give him a little bit of slack.
However, the problem I faced is that having read Lucretius, I just simply got this feeling that Plato, well, simply was not a scientist. Sure, when it comes to political and ethical theory, then he certainly excels in that department, but it seems that what he is doing is attempting to cram quite a lot of information, information that is expanded by the works of three people down the track – Ptolemy, Galen, and Lucretius – that the text itself really does seem to be a bit rushed.
Look, when I first read it, I thought it was amazing, and kept on raising the question that if the Greeks were this insightful, why is it that they didn’t develop technology faster than it was actually developed? Well, it seems that the editor does try to answer that question, and no, it has something to do with the idea that a slave society had no need for tools and equipment to make their lives easier. Apparently, in the twilight of the Roman Empire, there were some experiments in developing a rudimentary assembly line, namely for producing bread. No, the suggestion was that there were a lot technologies that we have, such as cast iron and gunpowder among many others, that were simply not available to the Greeks.
Yet what about the scientific method. Well, that wasn’t something that was necessarily developed until the era of Isaac Newton, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Plato, nor the others, weren’t going about inquiring as to the nature of the universe the wrong way. The thing is that what we are seeing here is the beginning of this idea that there are reasons that things happen in this world, and these things aren’t happening because some randy God is throwing a trantrum because he didn’t get his own way. What we are seeing is that people are beginning to observe things, starting to see patterns, and beginning to question the reasons behind these patterns.
However, one thing that does bug me is that I am not entirely sure if this is actually Plato. I’m not saying that Plato didn’t necessarily write this dialogue, but rather my feeling is that Plato is espousing things that no doubt were handed down to him from other sources. There is a suggestion that Timeaus may never have existed, but just because we don’t have any external references to him does not mean that he didn’t exist. I should also note that Critias happens to be Plato’s grandfather, so there is certainly a connection there (as well as there being a connection through Socrates).
In the end though, what the whole dialogue is about is that Plato is continuing to explore this idea of a perfect system of government, a dialogue that started back in the Republic. This is clear from the opening discussion at the beginning. Yet, for some reason, Plato then seems to diverge from this topic and delve into a scientific exploration of the origins of the universe. The editor suggested that Plato is simply laying the groundwork for his discussion on Atlantis in the next dialogue, but honestly, I’m not all that convinced.
15 December 2018 – Perth
This book is famous for all the wrong reasons, and it basically has something to do with a city that for some reason Jason Moma seems to have a very strong connection to. Yet, while this is generally known as the Atlantis dialogue, in reality it isn’t, that accolade goes to the partner dialogue, the Critias. However, at the start, there is this discussion on this city named Atlantis, and how Critias came to learn of its existence, however, at this stage I’ll leave it with Jason Moma and move on to what this text is actually about.
You could say that this is Plato’s scientific text, namely it is the dialogue where he explores how things work, how the world was created, and why things are the way they are. To say that he is completely and utterly wrong is an understatement in and of itself, but the thing is that we are talking about some guy writing something like two and a half thousand years ago, so we can sort of give him a little bit of slack.
However, the problem I faced is that having read Lucretius, I just simply got this feeling that Plato, well, simply was not a scientist. Sure, when it comes to political and ethical theory, then he certainly excels in that department, but it seems that what he is doing is attempting to cram quite a lot of information, information that is expanded by the works of three people down the track – Ptolemy, Galen, and Lucretius – that the text itself really does seem to be a bit rushed.
Look, when I first read it, I thought it was amazing, and kept on raising the question that if the Greeks were this insightful, why is it that they didn’t develop technology faster than it was actually developed? Well, it seems that the editor does try to answer that question, and no, it has something to do with the idea that a slave society had no need for tools and equipment to make their lives easier. Apparently, in the twilight of the Roman Empire, there were some experiments in developing a rudimentary assembly line, namely for producing bread. No, the suggestion was that there were a lot technologies that we have, such as cast iron and gunpowder among many others, that were simply not available to the Greeks.
Yet what about the scientific method. Well, that wasn’t something that was necessarily developed until the era of Isaac Newton, but that didn’t necessarily mean that Plato, nor the others, weren’t going about inquiring as to the nature of the universe the wrong way. The thing is that what we are seeing here is the beginning of this idea that there are reasons that things happen in this world, and these things aren’t happening because some randy God is throwing a trantrum because he didn’t get his own way. What we are seeing is that people are beginning to observe things, starting to see patterns, and beginning to question the reasons behind these patterns.
However, one thing that does bug me is that I am not entirely sure if this is actually Plato. I’m not saying that Plato didn’t necessarily write this dialogue, but rather my feeling is that Plato is espousing things that no doubt were handed down to him from other sources. There is a suggestion that Timeaus may never have existed, but just because we don’t have any external references to him does not mean that he didn’t exist. I should also note that Critias happens to be Plato’s grandfather, so there is certainly a connection there (as well as there being a connection through Socrates).
In the end though, what the whole dialogue is about is that Plato is continuing to explore this idea of a perfect system of government, a dialogue that started back in the Republic. This is clear from the opening discussion at the beginning. Yet, for some reason, Plato then seems to diverge from this topic and delve into a scientific exploration of the origins of the universe. The editor suggested that Plato is simply laying the groundwork for his discussion on Atlantis in the next dialogue, but honestly, I’m not all that convinced.
November 1, 2019
1) Da, Atlantida. Kritija se seća detinjst(a)va. (59)
2) Kosmos je najlepši od svega što je postalo (68), a Tvorac je dobar, sve postoji postoji da bi ličilo njemu samom i kosmos je živo biće obdareno dušom i umom. (70)
3) Noć i dan su stvoreni da bi postojala neka vidljiva mera za odnos sporosti i brzine nebeskih tela. (78)
4) Tvorac zapovedi da se prave živa bića i smeša u peharu dušu svemira. (80)
5) Jedan kosmos ili više kosmosa?
6) Stvori se glava i telo glavi da joj bude olakšica za putovanje – zato je telo dobilo visinu, a izrasla su mu i 4 izdužena i savitljiva uda. (83-84)
7) Oči su vatra koja nema osobinu da gori – unutrašnja vatra ističe kroz oči u gustom i glatkom mlazu, a očna jabučica je zgusnuta da bi sprečila krupnije čestice. (84) Kapci su prirodna zaštita oka – „susprežu silu unutrašnje vatre”. Ukoliko je mirovanje kapaka veliko – nastaje san. (85) San je, dakle, suspregnutost vatre. Sluh postoji da bi se pojmila harmonija unutar kretanja duše, a ritam nam je dat da nas čuva od nedostataka mera i oskudice u ljupkosti svojstvene većini ljudi. (87) [Pogledati obavezno Osnovno načelo Laze Kostića.]
8) Prostor ne podleže propadanju a pruža boravište svemu što postaje (93)
9) Razvijanje dihotomija – hrapavo/glatko, zadovoljstvo/bol. (107) Hrapavo je gorko, glatko je kiselo. (109)
10) U trupu se nalazi smrtni deo duše. (114) Srce predstavlja telesnu stražu (kao opomena za strasti) (114), a pluća su rashladni uređaj srca (115). Slezina je sunđer jetre. (117)
11) Moždina čini koren smrtnog roda, a mozak je deo moždine predodređen da kao oranica primi božje seme. (118)
12) Ono što nas spolja okružuje neprekidno nas razara i razdvaja odašiljući otkinute deliće svaki prema srodnoj vrsti. (126)
13) Bolest je neodgovarajući raspored elemenata. (127) Žuč je uvek vezana za upale. (131) Groznica za višak vatre. (132) I nezajažljivost u ljubavnoj strasti je bolest duše. (133)
14) Niko nije zao ni rđav svojom voljom već čovek postaje takav zbog lošeg telesnog sklopa ili odgoja. (133)
15) Priroda stidnih delova muškaraca je nepokorna – ključa živototvorna težnja za izlivanjem. (138)
16) Krajnje antropocentrična i geocentrična vizija sveta. Životinje su nastale od ljudi koji nisu skloni umnim radom. Budući da su bliži zemlji, bog im je dao i više oslonaca. (139)
2) Kosmos je najlepši od svega što je postalo (68), a Tvorac je dobar, sve postoji postoji da bi ličilo njemu samom i kosmos je živo biće obdareno dušom i umom. (70)
3) Noć i dan su stvoreni da bi postojala neka vidljiva mera za odnos sporosti i brzine nebeskih tela. (78)
4) Tvorac zapovedi da se prave živa bića i smeša u peharu dušu svemira. (80)
5) Jedan kosmos ili više kosmosa?
6) Stvori se glava i telo glavi da joj bude olakšica za putovanje – zato je telo dobilo visinu, a izrasla su mu i 4 izdužena i savitljiva uda. (83-84)
7) Oči su vatra koja nema osobinu da gori – unutrašnja vatra ističe kroz oči u gustom i glatkom mlazu, a očna jabučica je zgusnuta da bi sprečila krupnije čestice. (84) Kapci su prirodna zaštita oka – „susprežu silu unutrašnje vatre”. Ukoliko je mirovanje kapaka veliko – nastaje san. (85) San je, dakle, suspregnutost vatre. Sluh postoji da bi se pojmila harmonija unutar kretanja duše, a ritam nam je dat da nas čuva od nedostataka mera i oskudice u ljupkosti svojstvene većini ljudi. (87) [Pogledati obavezno Osnovno načelo Laze Kostića.]
8) Prostor ne podleže propadanju a pruža boravište svemu što postaje (93)
9) Razvijanje dihotomija – hrapavo/glatko, zadovoljstvo/bol. (107) Hrapavo je gorko, glatko je kiselo. (109)
10) U trupu se nalazi smrtni deo duše. (114) Srce predstavlja telesnu stražu (kao opomena za strasti) (114), a pluća su rashladni uređaj srca (115). Slezina je sunđer jetre. (117)
11) Moždina čini koren smrtnog roda, a mozak je deo moždine predodređen da kao oranica primi božje seme. (118)
12) Ono što nas spolja okružuje neprekidno nas razara i razdvaja odašiljući otkinute deliće svaki prema srodnoj vrsti. (126)
13) Bolest je neodgovarajući raspored elemenata. (127) Žuč je uvek vezana za upale. (131) Groznica za višak vatre. (132) I nezajažljivost u ljubavnoj strasti je bolest duše. (133)
14) Niko nije zao ni rđav svojom voljom već čovek postaje takav zbog lošeg telesnog sklopa ili odgoja. (133)
15) Priroda stidnih delova muškaraca je nepokorna – ključa živototvorna težnja za izlivanjem. (138)
16) Krajnje antropocentrična i geocentrična vizija sveta. Životinje su nastale od ljudi koji nisu skloni umnim radom. Budući da su bliži zemlji, bog im je dao i više oslonaca. (139)
December 29, 2022
One WILD cosmogenic ride through astronomy, geometry, mechanics, 4-element chemistry, psychology, physiology and what not! Genesis seems relatively tame. A noticeable shift in history of origin of world from reproduction analogies to a craftsman analogy (deliberate creation). Appears to be like baking the cosmos-dodecahedron from cubes (earth), air (octahedron), fire (pyramid), and water (icosahedron) in A Bowl.
Besides craziness and basic disappointments from modern science perspectives, many highlights.
a) Transmigration of soul (the link of soul - motion strengthens connection with 1st law of thermodynamics & reminds more of Buddhist than Western scriptures)
b) first steps toward Kantian metaphysics/ epistemology/ language by distinguishing between World of Being (Platonic forms) and World of Becoming (sensory perceived things), wherein forms exist in themselves.
c) the microcosm and macrocosm parallelism we find again in Christian medieval cosmology
d) the Demiurge as not omnipotent and not equated with the supreme God or pantheon (different from God of Genesis).
The visual perception accounts are UnHiNGeD; if modern science/ psychology were as creative I probably would enjoy my degree more ngl.
Not much cool stuff about the physiology and medicine paragraphs besides wtf okay. Thanks for diagnosing me with seed in marrow overflowing, Plato, delightful.
Besides craziness and basic disappointments from modern science perspectives, many highlights.
a) Transmigration of soul (the link of soul - motion strengthens connection with 1st law of thermodynamics & reminds more of Buddhist than Western scriptures)
b) first steps toward Kantian metaphysics/ epistemology/ language by distinguishing between World of Being (Platonic forms) and World of Becoming (sensory perceived things), wherein forms exist in themselves.
c) the microcosm and macrocosm parallelism we find again in Christian medieval cosmology
d) the Demiurge as not omnipotent and not equated with the supreme God or pantheon (different from God of Genesis).
The visual perception accounts are UnHiNGeD; if modern science/ psychology were as creative I probably would enjoy my degree more ngl.
Not much cool stuff about the physiology and medicine paragraphs besides wtf okay. Thanks for diagnosing me with seed in marrow overflowing, Plato, delightful.
October 30, 2021
Это диалоги о космосе – происхождении звезд, неба, солнца, земли, воздуха, человека, его тела и души. Платон считал, что демиург устроил ум в душе, а душу в теле и что наш космос – есть живое существо, наделенное умом и душой. Современные представления о мироздании сильно отличаются. Но благодаря этому труду, мы можем знать, какие представления были у древних. Это первоисточник для изучения истории мысли.
February 11, 2019
The universe and souls and our bodies and geometry.
Read
November 1, 2015خوشا درسی که رفرنسش تو باشی.
April 28, 2017
This was an intriguing account of, well, EVERYTHING. Plato is certainly a genius in uniting diverse aspects of reality together, yet although it's a dialogue, except for the very beginning, it's pretty much just a monologue from Timaeus recounting to his friends (Socrates and co.) about what a man had told him when he was a boy. The start of Timaeus's account was the highlight for me, because at about the point where the triangles that underlie all existence are introduced (which I tried to draw but just couldn't fit them together properly), as well as the explanation about human physiology (which seemed so far fetched and was very long), it got to be pretty tedious. But still, The Timaeus forms much of the basis of Plotinus's works, and apart from the triangles, isn't that hard to understand.
October 26, 2018
A very wide ranging speculation, presented as fact, covering everything from the origin of the universe, to medicine, ethics, prehistory and the physical sciences. Perhaps the most valuable reflections relate to chemistry, encompassing the notion that matter is made up of combinations of more elementary building blocks capable of recombination. Plato's signature argument for creation from eternal templates is given novel and trenchant presentation.
September 13, 2015
Sleep-inducing New Age crap. But maybe Plato was just kidding.
Currently reading
October 11, 2021
April 5, 2019
I’ve been working my way through medieval literature and my dad was in Santorini last week so it seemed like a good time to revisit the Timaeus.
Plato begins with a recap of The Republic and has Socrates state that he would like an example of just such an organized state and what it was like when it went to war. But before his companions agree to do that, they decide that they must begin at creation, speculate about that for a bit, work their way to mankind, and from mankind tell the story of how the perfect example of Socrates’ city (which turns out to be ancient, ancient, Athens, of course) goes to war against the evil Atlantis. Why do they need to start at creation?
Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them.
From this passage I am guessing that he wants to tie his city from The Republic to greater wisdom than he alone can provide, and the greatest wisdom could only come from a great organizer, the creator. His idea needs to fit in the grand scheme of things and this is the beginning of an attempt to do that.
The companions follow their plan and Timaeus begins a long monologue about creation, but the dialogue ends up collapsing under the weight of it’s subjects. He does somehow manage to cover “the whole order of things”, but in such a short dialogue there was no way for him to do it satisfactorily (ancient science aside). It is interesting to read, though, because knowledge today has become so compartmentalized. Everyone is a specialist and stays in his/her own area. I think it is valuable that Plato reminds us to look at the big picture and see how our ideas (in his case, his ideal city) fit in a comprehensive view.
Plato begins with a recap of The Republic and has Socrates state that he would like an example of just such an organized state and what it was like when it went to war. But before his companions agree to do that, they decide that they must begin at creation, speculate about that for a bit, work their way to mankind, and from mankind tell the story of how the perfect example of Socrates’ city (which turns out to be ancient, ancient, Athens, of course) goes to war against the evil Atlantis. Why do they need to start at creation?
Then as to wisdom, do you observe how our law from the very first made a study of the whole order of things, extending even to prophecy and medicine which gives health, out of these divine elements deriving what was needful for human life, and adding every sort of knowledge which was akin to them.
From this passage I am guessing that he wants to tie his city from The Republic to greater wisdom than he alone can provide, and the greatest wisdom could only come from a great organizer, the creator. His idea needs to fit in the grand scheme of things and this is the beginning of an attempt to do that.
The companions follow their plan and Timaeus begins a long monologue about creation, but the dialogue ends up collapsing under the weight of it’s subjects. He does somehow manage to cover “the whole order of things”, but in such a short dialogue there was no way for him to do it satisfactorily (ancient science aside). It is interesting to read, though, because knowledge today has become so compartmentalized. Everyone is a specialist and stays in his/her own area. I think it is valuable that Plato reminds us to look at the big picture and see how our ideas (in his case, his ideal city) fit in a comprehensive view.
Shelved as 'abandoned'
April 24, 2022One might be tempted to read more of this in instances of insomnia, but Plato's understanding of society and humanity is so egregiously faulty that I cannot get through a single sentence without outrage or at least an attempt at mordant humor. File this under What Not to Read. It does make me wonder, though, what one author from today will still be in print and possibly even read 2500 years from now, and how embarrassed would we all be to be represented by that body of work?
April 20, 2017
The Timaeus is usually considered the platonic dialogue that deals with cosmology. However, although in a cosmological environment, it could be considered as a treatise on human physiology, explained in relation to the cosmos and making continual use of final causes to explain things.
The Timaeus is divided into three parts: the first explains the form and origin of the cosmos (including a proof that the multiverse cannot exist) and uses this information to explain the shape of the human head and the difference between the anterior and the posterior parts of the body.
The second explains the composition of the cosmos with a very curious theory, no doubt of Pythagorean origin, which considers that the basis of everything are two rectangular triangles: one isosceles and one scalene, the result of dividing in two an equilateral triangle. This theory is then used to explain human sensitivity.
The third part is devoted to explaining the various parts of the body, and the respiratory, circulatory and excretory functions, including a theory of health and disease. There is also a theory about prophetic dreams, largely superseded by Aristotle, who in a small treatise gives a surprisingly modern explanation.
Critias is an incomplete dialog where the legend of Atlantis first appeared, although there is a summary at the beginning of Timaeus.
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El Timeo se considera usualmente el diálogo platónico que trata de cosmología. Sin embargo, aunque en un entorno cosmológico, podría considerarse como un tratado de fisiología humana que se explica en relación con el cosmos y haciendo uso continuamente de causas finales para explicar las cosas.
El Timeo se divide en tres partes: en la primera se explica la forma y el origen del cosmos (incluida una demostración de que no puede existir el multiverso), y se hace uso de esta información para explicar la forma de la cabeza humana y la diferencia entre la parte anterior y la posterior del cuerpo.
En la segunda se explica la composición del cosmos con una teoría curiosísima, sin duda de origen pitagórico, que considera que la base de todo son dos triángulos rectángulos: uno isósceles y otro escaleno, resultado de dividir en dos un triángulo equilátero. A continuación se utiliza esta teoría para explicar la sensibilidad humana.
La tercera se dedica a explicar las diversas partes del cuerpo y las funciones respiratoria, circulatoria y excretora, así como una teoría de la salud y de la enfermedad. Hay también una teoría sobre el sueño adivinatorio ampliamente superada por Aristóteles, que en un pequeño tratado da una explicación sorprendentemente moderna.
Critias es un diálogo incompleto en el que apareció por primera vez la leyenda de la Atlántida, aunque hay también un resumen al principio del Timeo.
The Timaeus is divided into three parts: the first explains the form and origin of the cosmos (including a proof that the multiverse cannot exist) and uses this information to explain the shape of the human head and the difference between the anterior and the posterior parts of the body.
The second explains the composition of the cosmos with a very curious theory, no doubt of Pythagorean origin, which considers that the basis of everything are two rectangular triangles: one isosceles and one scalene, the result of dividing in two an equilateral triangle. This theory is then used to explain human sensitivity.
The third part is devoted to explaining the various parts of the body, and the respiratory, circulatory and excretory functions, including a theory of health and disease. There is also a theory about prophetic dreams, largely superseded by Aristotle, who in a small treatise gives a surprisingly modern explanation.
Critias is an incomplete dialog where the legend of Atlantis first appeared, although there is a summary at the beginning of Timaeus.
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El Timeo se considera usualmente el diálogo platónico que trata de cosmología. Sin embargo, aunque en un entorno cosmológico, podría considerarse como un tratado de fisiología humana que se explica en relación con el cosmos y haciendo uso continuamente de causas finales para explicar las cosas.
El Timeo se divide en tres partes: en la primera se explica la forma y el origen del cosmos (incluida una demostración de que no puede existir el multiverso), y se hace uso de esta información para explicar la forma de la cabeza humana y la diferencia entre la parte anterior y la posterior del cuerpo.
En la segunda se explica la composición del cosmos con una teoría curiosísima, sin duda de origen pitagórico, que considera que la base de todo son dos triángulos rectángulos: uno isósceles y otro escaleno, resultado de dividir en dos un triángulo equilátero. A continuación se utiliza esta teoría para explicar la sensibilidad humana.
La tercera se dedica a explicar las diversas partes del cuerpo y las funciones respiratoria, circulatoria y excretora, así como una teoría de la salud y de la enfermedad. Hay también una teoría sobre el sueño adivinatorio ampliamente superada por Aristóteles, que en un pequeño tratado da una explicación sorprendentemente moderna.
Critias es un diálogo incompleto en el que apareció por primera vez la leyenda de la Atlántida, aunque hay también un resumen al principio del Timeo.
May 23, 2020
Notes on Timaios
1. I am not a big fan of Platón the metaphysician. For all the complex system he created to explain the nature of reality, there is always a certain flimsiness about it, a view that is too esoteric for its own good. Unfortunately, the Timaios is all about that esoterism. More a lengthy monologue than a real dialogue, Platón writes the Timaios as a sort of exposition instead of a discussion. What his goal is, that is hard to say, since the whole thing seems awfully inconsequential. After a brief introduction in which a group of characters discuss Sócrates take on the ideal state (see Politeia), the dialogue becomes two monologues: the short myth of Atlantis and the long (almost unbearably so) cosmogony of our 'titular character'.
2. What to make of this cosmogony? Hard to say. The beginning of this section is a further reaffirmation of the Platonic Forms and it is tied beautifully with previous dialogues such as Parmenides and Phaidōn. But while those works accompanied the exposition of such a complex metaphysical system with discussion, this one is just interested in the exposition, a long groundwork for a discussion that never comes. Timaios feels notoriously less rich than previous works because of this. As pseudo science is curious at best and incomprehensible at worst, and its lack of a clear argumentative goal makes it one of the least interesting in the rich Platonic oeuvre.
1. I am not a big fan of Platón the metaphysician. For all the complex system he created to explain the nature of reality, there is always a certain flimsiness about it, a view that is too esoteric for its own good. Unfortunately, the Timaios is all about that esoterism. More a lengthy monologue than a real dialogue, Platón writes the Timaios as a sort of exposition instead of a discussion. What his goal is, that is hard to say, since the whole thing seems awfully inconsequential. After a brief introduction in which a group of characters discuss Sócrates take on the ideal state (see Politeia), the dialogue becomes two monologues: the short myth of Atlantis and the long (almost unbearably so) cosmogony of our 'titular character'.
2. What to make of this cosmogony? Hard to say. The beginning of this section is a further reaffirmation of the Platonic Forms and it is tied beautifully with previous dialogues such as Parmenides and Phaidōn. But while those works accompanied the exposition of such a complex metaphysical system with discussion, this one is just interested in the exposition, a long groundwork for a discussion that never comes. Timaios feels notoriously less rich than previous works because of this. As pseudo science is curious at best and incomprehensible at worst, and its lack of a clear argumentative goal makes it one of the least interesting in the rich Platonic oeuvre.
July 4, 2021
A fun and sometimes difficult read... a strange book to review. It presents itself as a sort of science textbook, "the story of the universe so far as to the generation of man", Timaeus (the main character) says toward the end. And were I reviewing it as a modern science textbook, I would have to say "uh, LOADS of what this guy says we now think are incorrect, do not read!". However, as a book written in 360 BC by a smart man who had reason, basic observations about the world, and some theology to guide him, it is quite interesting and more than once has remarkable parallels to what modern science does teach us about the world... discussing those parallels could be a whole book in itself, and surely is somewhere. (It's also often quite funny, particularly when Timaeus is dismissing people who think other than he!)
I actually heard the book recommended at a classical Christian schooling conference as "science teachers should read this". Why? For one, Plato's method of reasoning is interesting to follow, even as we (with much better observations now than he had) would not agree with his conclusions. But he does also take the position that the Demiurge and subsidiary gods created the universe to be intelligible, and that it is a "divine" activity of man to study and reflect upon that intelligibility. There is something for Christians to appreciate in his mindset, therefore.
I actually heard the book recommended at a classical Christian schooling conference as "science teachers should read this". Why? For one, Plato's method of reasoning is interesting to follow, even as we (with much better observations now than he had) would not agree with his conclusions. But he does also take the position that the Demiurge and subsidiary gods created the universe to be intelligible, and that it is a "divine" activity of man to study and reflect upon that intelligibility. There is something for Christians to appreciate in his mindset, therefore.
November 14, 2022
يحتاج إلى قراءة ثانية وثالثة... إلى عاشرة لبعض المواضيع بالذات!!
January 4, 2019
Demasiado para una sola lectura, con un gran número de "cosas" entre líneas y el trabajo de diferenciar entre las metáforas y las afirmaciones literales.
Me gustó bastante pero necesito releerlo.
Me gustó bastante pero necesito releerlo.
June 9, 2023
Teleological metaphysics built on mind and necessity. Creation myth, natural philosophy, idealist speculation.
November 17, 2022
timaeus, it’s ok to stop and take a breath yknow
September 10, 2023
My dude was on some serious drugs
June 7, 2021
Jag måste ha haft en annan utgåva, för denna var definitivt inte 100 sidor lång. Snarare dryga 20 sidor mytologisk smörja.
November 9, 2018
PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: Socrates, Critias, Timaeus, Hermocrates.
Atlantis...
Many great and wonderful deeds are recorded of your state in our histories. But one of them exceeds all the rest in greatness and valour. For these histories tell of a mighty power which unprovoked made an expedition against the whole of Europe and Asia, and to which your city put an end. This power came forth out of the Atlantic Ocean, for in those days the Atlantic was navigable; and there was an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Heracles; the island was larger than Libya and Asia put together, and was the way to other islands, and from these you might pass to the whole of the opposite continent which surrounded the true ocean; for this sea which is within the Straits of Heracles is only a harbour, having a narrow entrance, but that other is a real sea, and the surrounding land may be most truly called a boundless continent. Now in this island of Atlantis there was a great and wonderful empire which had rule over the whole island and several others, and over parts of the continent, and, furthermore, the men of Atlantis had subjected the parts of Libya within the columns of Heracles as far as Egypt, and of Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. This vast power, gathered into one, endeavoured to subdue at a blow our country and yours and the whole of the region within the straits; and then, Solon, your country shone forth, in the excellence of her virtue and strength, among all mankind. She was pre-eminent in courage and military skill, and was the leader of the Hellenes. And when the rest fell off from her, being compelled to stand alone, after having undergone the very extremity of danger, she defeated and triumphed over the invaders, and preserved from slavery those who were not yet subjugated, and generously liberated all the rest of us who dwell within the pillars. But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.
Memories...
Truly, as is often said, the lessons of our childhood make a wonderful impression on our memories; for I am not sure that I could remember all the discourse of yesterday, but I should be much surprised if I forgot any of these things which I have heard very long ago. I listened at the time with childlike interest to the old man's narrative; he was very ready to teach me, and I asked him again and again to repeat his words, so that like an indelible picture they were branded into my mind. As soon as the day broke, I rehearsed them as he spoke them to my companions, that they, as well as myself, might have something to say. And now, Socrates, to make an end of my preface, I am ready to tell you the whole tale. I will give you not only the general heads, but the particulars, as they were told to me.
Miniture Table of Contents...
CRITIAS: Let me proceed to explain to you, Socrates, the order in which we have arranged our entertainment. Our intention is, that Timaeus, who is the most of an astronomer amongst us, and has made the nature of the universe his special study, should speak first, beginning with the generation of the world and going down to the creation of man; next, I am to receive the men whom he has created
Cause...
Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect.
With or Without Beginning?...
Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name—assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything—was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body, and therefore sensible; and all sensible things are apprehended by opinion and sense and are in a process of creation and created. Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause.
World of Generation...
Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable. Wherefore also finding the whole visible sphere not at rest, but moving in an irregular and disorderly fashion, out of disorder he brought order, considering that this was in every way better than the other. Now the deeds of the best could never be or have been other than the fairest; and the creator, reflecting on the things which are by nature visible, found that no unintelligent creature taken as a whole was fairer than the intelligent taken as a whole; and that intelligence could not be present in anything which was devoid of soul. For which reason, when he was framing the universe, he put intelligence in soul, and soul in body, that he might be the creator of a work which was by nature fairest and best. Wherefore, using the language of probability, we may say that the world became a living creature truly endowed with soul and intelligence by the providence of God.
This being supposed, let us proceed to the next stage: In the likeness of what animal did the Creator make the world?
Only One World and Heaven...
Are we right in saying that there is one world, or that they are many and infinite? There must be one only, if the created copy is to accord with the original. For that which includes all other intelligible creatures cannot have a second or companion; in that case there would be need of another living being which would include both, and of which they would be parts, and the likeness would be more truly said to resemble not them, but that other which included them. In order then that the world might be solitary, like the perfect animal, the creator made not two worlds or an infinite number of them; but there is and ever will be one only-begotten and created heaven.
Tangible Heaven...
If the universal frame had been created a surface only and having no depth, a single mean would have sufficed to bind together itself and the other terms; but now, as the world must be solid, and solid bodies are always compacted not by one mean but by two, God placed water and air in the mean between fire and earth, and made them to have the same proportion so far as was possible (as fire is to air so is air to water, and as air is to water so is water to earth); and thus he bound and put together a visible and tangible heaven. And for these reasons, and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was created, and it was harmonized by proportion, and therefore has the spirit of friendship; and having been reconciled to itself, it was indissoluble by the hand of any other than the framer.
Creation of Perfect World...
Now the creation took up the whole of each of the four elements; for the Creator compounded the world out of all the fire and all the water and all the air and all the earth, leaving no part of any of them nor any power of them outside. His intention was, in the first place, that the animal should be as far as possible a perfect whole and of perfect parts: secondly, that it should be one, leaving no remnants out of which another such world might be created: and also that it should be free from old age and unaffected by disease. Considering that if heat and cold and other powerful forces which unite bodies surround and attack them from without when they are unprepared, they decompose them, and by bringing diseases and old age upon them, make them waste away—for this cause and on these grounds he made the world one whole, having every part entire, and being therefore perfect and not liable to old age and disease. And he gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural.
Self-Sufficient Man...
Now to the animal which was to comprehend all animals, that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Wherefore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. This he finished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons; in the first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet.
Time & Heaven...
Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving,—in seven orbits seven stars.
Man...
And having made it, he divided the whole mixture into souls equal in number to the stars, and assigned each soul to a star; and having there placed them as in a chariot, he showed them the nature of the universe, and declared to them the laws of destiny, according to which their first birth would be one and the same for all,—no one should suffer a disadvantage at his hands; they were to be sown in the instruments of time severally adapted to them, and to come forth the most religious of animals; and as human nature was of two kinds, the superior race would hereafter be called man.
Sleep/Eyes...
But when night comes on and the external and kindred fire departs, then the stream of vision is cut off; for going forth to an unlike element it is changed and extinguished, being no longer of one nature with the surrounding atmosphere which is now deprived of fire: and so the eye no longer sees, and we feel disposed to sleep. For when the eyelids, which the gods invented for the preservation of sight, are closed, they keep in the internal fire; and the power of the fire diffuses and equalizes the inward motions; when they are equalized, there is rest, and when the rest is profound, sleep comes over us scarce disturbed by dreams; but where the greater motions still remain, of whatever nature and in whatever locality, they engender corresponding visions in dreams, which are remembered by us when we are awake and in the external world.
Derivation of Philosophy...
But now the sight of day and night, and the months and the revolutions of the years, have created number, and have given us a conception of time, and the power of enquiring about the nature of the universe; and from this source we have derived philosophy, than which no greater good ever was or will be given by the gods to mortal man.
Regeneration/Cycle of Elements...
In the first place, we see that what we just now called water, by condensation, I suppose, becomes stone and earth; and this same element, when melted and dispersed, passes into vapour and air. Air, again, when inflamed, becomes fire; and again fire, when condensed and extinguished, passes once more into the form of air; and once more, air, when collected and condensed, produces cloud and mist; and from these, when still more compressed, comes flowing water, and from water comes earth and stones once more; and thus generation appears to be transmitted from one to the other in a circle. Thus, then, as the several elements never present themselves in the same form, how can any one have the assurance to assert positively that any of them, whatever it may be, is one thing rather than another? No one can. But much the safest plan is to speak of them as follows:—Anything which we see to be continually changing, as, for example, fire, we must not call 'this' or 'that,' but rather say that it is 'of such a nature'; nor let us speak of water as 'this'; but always as 'such'; nor must we imply that there is any stability in any of those things which we indicate by the use of the words 'this' and 'that,' supposing ourselves to signify something thereby; for they are too volatile to be detained in any such expressions as 'this,' or 'that,' or 'relative to this,' or any other mode of speaking which represents them as permanent.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 20, 2018
“And so far as it is at all possible for a man to become thoroughly mortal, he cannot help but fully succeed in this, seeing that he has cultivated his mortality all along. On the other hand, if a man has seriously devoted himself to the love of learning and to true wisdom, if he has exercised these aspects of himself above all, then there is absolutely no way that his thoughts can fail to be immortal and divine, should truth come within his grasp.”
*
On Plato:
Well it started out sort of interesting where the demiurge creates everything who is this single, perfect immortal being and so exerts perfect will and reason. But even that is really just caught up in Timaeus' astronomical leanings which, to me, are Plato's harmony by another name. Harmony is even mentioned explicitly at the end so I don't think I'm wrong in that. Then after that it devolves into a mathematical reasoning of the physical world and living beings and I'm sure there's some interesting stuff about the early development of biological thought but it was a bit lost on me. I'm curious as to the overlap with Hippocrates. And I also detected some influence on Lucretius? Maybe?
Overall this was a pretty boring dialogue. Although it did have its moments, it had little for me to grab onto and run with. Like so many dialogues that have really memorable passages, the Timaeus also fell victim to being merely about the demiurge and it's actually got a lot more to it. Just not a lot more that I can say much about.
On Donald J Zeyl:
I don't want to call him completely incompetent, but I found his footnotes asinine and his intro and explanations woefully inadequate. Sure, they gave a decent overview of past scholarship but they had absolutely no life or interpretative vigor to them. And to my sensibilities, they were way off the mark. He's perfectly happy to say Plato is advancing such and such a doctrine and even in this “late” dialogue I find that to be, at worst, patently false, at best, grievously errant-a product of calcified, uncritical Platonic scholarship. It's disappointing really, because normally Hackett has great Plato translations and commentaries, but for a more obscure dialogue like the Timaeus, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.
To temper my disgust a bit, he does hit the main points. But I had to stop reading his footnotes to appreciate the dialogue and I had to skip around the commentary to retain my sanity which I hardly ever do.
Random other stuff:
Zeyl makes a huge point about the Greek verb gigonen and to be and coming to be and translations thereof. None of it is clear or helpful. To use another person's words “that's extremely cryptic and not at all helpful.” Hmph.
One of the first big things is whether the creation story is literal or metaphorical. Ugh this is just exactly the sort of obsolete thing I'm talking about. But hey it's what all the big guys have talked about so it must be THE THING to talk about.
An interesting thing Zeyl seems not to realize the importance of: that the entire passage is called a “likely account.” There's even a fun bit of reasoning Timaeus does that says hey well we don't have the absolute truth so we must accept the likeliest thing; here's what I think is the likeliest! Zeyl uses a bunch of big words to make it seem like this is just Plato doing lip service to the limits of the various disciplines he's combining to give an account of reality. But this brings up another really terrible aspect of Zeyl. He continuously refers to all of the arguments, all of Timaeus' arguments in his speech as Plato's. Sigh. Mistake number one buddy. Mouthpiece Shmouthpiece, let alone some wayward astronomer.
And actually now that I'm remember there is the cool story at the beginning about Atlantis and Egypt and Solon that has an odd touch of Euhemerism to it, if I can use that term not too anachronistically here.
There's also a neat bit about color that goes through what combinations of colors make other colors. Ancient colors, cool!
I really did like Timaeus' bit about likely accounts: “what being is to becoming, truth is to convincingness.”
It's funny that this whole speech about the creation of the universe and such is supposed to be the introduction to a speech about talking about how cities will act in competition with others. Timaeus makes a stray comment like we don't have enough time to address x important topic, as is so often the case and I wonder whether that might pertain to his whole speech-that's it's a digression that suits him and not really the topic at hand. “Perhaps later on we could at our leisure give this subject the exposition it deserves.” But the comment is about more PLANETS that the ASTRONOMER doesn't want to go on about.
“And what is more, we also say things like these: that what has come to be is what has come to be, that what is coming to be is what is coming to be, and also that what will come to be is what will come to be, and that what is not is what is not. None of these expressions of ours is accurate. But I don't suppose this is a good time right now to be too meticulous about these matters.”
I suppose I got bogged down in the bulky end of Timaeus speech where he's just describing things and there's not really much to say about it.
Zeyl: “It is a cardinal doctrine of Plato's metaphysics that nothing in the world of sense experience retains its character permanently.” I hate this man SO MUCH.
Okay I'm not gonna lie I skipped over a lot of his serious engagement with the math and science of Timaeus otherworldly ramblings. I'm sure there is something to be gained by taking it seriously. But I just couldn't take this man seriously who continuously insisted on saying that Timaeus is spouting the honest-to-Zeus truth about what Plato's metaphysics is. So since I abhor this guy and his interpretation so much I'll just go ahead and reveal my secret: I don't believe that Plato EVER advances a positive metaphysics in any of his dialogues. Of course he had one and yes it was probably some form of realism like what he talks about in his dialogues. But I insist that it is an entirely vain enterprise to try to deduce Plato's metaphysics is from the dialogues-they are merely theories to be contemplated and made use of.
Well, my last crazy thought is that most of Plato's dialogues are trying to make someone look stupid and that person here is obviously Timaeus. Without Socrates as a dominant interlocutor its hard to know exactly in what way Timaeus is being stupid, but I have some theories and it's half mooning over astronomy and half being an expert medical man of science.
It's apparent enough that I don't buy any of this dialogue being a treatise on Plato's metpahysic, but since I held that opinion before I read the dialogue and even that sometimes isn't enough I would like to clearly state: After having read the Timaeus, I am not convinced that it indicates anything solid about Plato's metaphysics.
I guess I'm gonna have to read the Critias to see if that connects any of the dots here (as it's part of the alleged trilogy with the hypothesized and nonexistent Hermocrates).
Oh and of course, the last shoutout is to Judeo-Christian theology which plundered this dialogue for all sorts of fun theology that I'm not even going to approach except to mention it here with a flippant final flourish of fireworks flare! After all, in Raphael's School of Athens, is not Plato pointing upwards to the heavens (Heaven) and holding his best dialogue the Timaeus (Italian: Timeo) which features the number one deity, the demiurge (God)??!!
By Zeus, what have I done?!
*
On Plato:
Well it started out sort of interesting where the demiurge creates everything who is this single, perfect immortal being and so exerts perfect will and reason. But even that is really just caught up in Timaeus' astronomical leanings which, to me, are Plato's harmony by another name. Harmony is even mentioned explicitly at the end so I don't think I'm wrong in that. Then after that it devolves into a mathematical reasoning of the physical world and living beings and I'm sure there's some interesting stuff about the early development of biological thought but it was a bit lost on me. I'm curious as to the overlap with Hippocrates. And I also detected some influence on Lucretius? Maybe?
Overall this was a pretty boring dialogue. Although it did have its moments, it had little for me to grab onto and run with. Like so many dialogues that have really memorable passages, the Timaeus also fell victim to being merely about the demiurge and it's actually got a lot more to it. Just not a lot more that I can say much about.
On Donald J Zeyl:
I don't want to call him completely incompetent, but I found his footnotes asinine and his intro and explanations woefully inadequate. Sure, they gave a decent overview of past scholarship but they had absolutely no life or interpretative vigor to them. And to my sensibilities, they were way off the mark. He's perfectly happy to say Plato is advancing such and such a doctrine and even in this “late” dialogue I find that to be, at worst, patently false, at best, grievously errant-a product of calcified, uncritical Platonic scholarship. It's disappointing really, because normally Hackett has great Plato translations and commentaries, but for a more obscure dialogue like the Timaeus, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised.
To temper my disgust a bit, he does hit the main points. But I had to stop reading his footnotes to appreciate the dialogue and I had to skip around the commentary to retain my sanity which I hardly ever do.
Random other stuff:
Zeyl makes a huge point about the Greek verb gigonen and to be and coming to be and translations thereof. None of it is clear or helpful. To use another person's words “that's extremely cryptic and not at all helpful.” Hmph.
One of the first big things is whether the creation story is literal or metaphorical. Ugh this is just exactly the sort of obsolete thing I'm talking about. But hey it's what all the big guys have talked about so it must be THE THING to talk about.
An interesting thing Zeyl seems not to realize the importance of: that the entire passage is called a “likely account.” There's even a fun bit of reasoning Timaeus does that says hey well we don't have the absolute truth so we must accept the likeliest thing; here's what I think is the likeliest! Zeyl uses a bunch of big words to make it seem like this is just Plato doing lip service to the limits of the various disciplines he's combining to give an account of reality. But this brings up another really terrible aspect of Zeyl. He continuously refers to all of the arguments, all of Timaeus' arguments in his speech as Plato's. Sigh. Mistake number one buddy. Mouthpiece Shmouthpiece, let alone some wayward astronomer.
And actually now that I'm remember there is the cool story at the beginning about Atlantis and Egypt and Solon that has an odd touch of Euhemerism to it, if I can use that term not too anachronistically here.
There's also a neat bit about color that goes through what combinations of colors make other colors. Ancient colors, cool!
I really did like Timaeus' bit about likely accounts: “what being is to becoming, truth is to convincingness.”
It's funny that this whole speech about the creation of the universe and such is supposed to be the introduction to a speech about talking about how cities will act in competition with others. Timaeus makes a stray comment like we don't have enough time to address x important topic, as is so often the case and I wonder whether that might pertain to his whole speech-that's it's a digression that suits him and not really the topic at hand. “Perhaps later on we could at our leisure give this subject the exposition it deserves.” But the comment is about more PLANETS that the ASTRONOMER doesn't want to go on about.
“And what is more, we also say things like these: that what has come to be is what has come to be, that what is coming to be is what is coming to be, and also that what will come to be is what will come to be, and that what is not is what is not. None of these expressions of ours is accurate. But I don't suppose this is a good time right now to be too meticulous about these matters.”
I suppose I got bogged down in the bulky end of Timaeus speech where he's just describing things and there's not really much to say about it.
Zeyl: “It is a cardinal doctrine of Plato's metaphysics that nothing in the world of sense experience retains its character permanently.” I hate this man SO MUCH.
Okay I'm not gonna lie I skipped over a lot of his serious engagement with the math and science of Timaeus otherworldly ramblings. I'm sure there is something to be gained by taking it seriously. But I just couldn't take this man seriously who continuously insisted on saying that Timaeus is spouting the honest-to-Zeus truth about what Plato's metaphysics is. So since I abhor this guy and his interpretation so much I'll just go ahead and reveal my secret: I don't believe that Plato EVER advances a positive metaphysics in any of his dialogues. Of course he had one and yes it was probably some form of realism like what he talks about in his dialogues. But I insist that it is an entirely vain enterprise to try to deduce Plato's metaphysics is from the dialogues-they are merely theories to be contemplated and made use of.
Well, my last crazy thought is that most of Plato's dialogues are trying to make someone look stupid and that person here is obviously Timaeus. Without Socrates as a dominant interlocutor its hard to know exactly in what way Timaeus is being stupid, but I have some theories and it's half mooning over astronomy and half being an expert medical man of science.
It's apparent enough that I don't buy any of this dialogue being a treatise on Plato's metpahysic, but since I held that opinion before I read the dialogue and even that sometimes isn't enough I would like to clearly state: After having read the Timaeus, I am not convinced that it indicates anything solid about Plato's metaphysics.
I guess I'm gonna have to read the Critias to see if that connects any of the dots here (as it's part of the alleged trilogy with the hypothesized and nonexistent Hermocrates).
Oh and of course, the last shoutout is to Judeo-Christian theology which plundered this dialogue for all sorts of fun theology that I'm not even going to approach except to mention it here with a flippant final flourish of fireworks flare! After all, in Raphael's School of Athens, is not Plato pointing upwards to the heavens (Heaven) and holding his best dialogue the Timaeus (Italian: Timeo) which features the number one deity, the demiurge (God)??!!
By Zeus, what have I done?!
April 7, 2019
Probably the most difficult Platonic dialogue I've read; it's not exactly philosophical and it's not exactly a dialogue. Timaeus is about a mathematical / mythical origin tale of the cosmos, and almost all of it went completely over my head.
I decided that I was interested in reading Plotinus, and opened the first Ennead, which began in ruminations on the soul. I hadn't really thought much about souls in a long time - some vague understanding of psychology had made the soul obsolete in my mental vocabulary. To facilitate my understanding of Plotinus' understanding of the soul, I decided to read Aristotle's De Anima. Aristotle is difficult but pleasurable in a pure pedagogical sense; I rarely enjoy the experience of reading him but always feel like I've come away with a lot to think about. Aristotle's grounded proto-scientific account of the soul was interesting, although from what I knew of Plotinus I knew a keen understanding of Greek proto-scientific theories would not strictly be relevant, for he is more mystical.
So I said I'd go back to Plato, try and read some dialogues related to the soul among other things I could expect to appear in Plotinus. Timaeus itself was another roadblock to that ambition. My knowledge of maths is woefully limited as I was taught particularly badly in secondary school, but I know enough about science to know how primitive theories of the four elements are. This dialogue was uniquely challenging because I just didn't know how to read it. I had to take the discussions of geometry and such at face value, while trying to understand the elements of natural science I knew to be outdated within a broader context. This proved to be even more difficult than Aristotle, because I was always mindful of the poetic and literary elements of Plato's style, which on the whole made me wonder just what I was reading, what I was supposed to think.
I think I'll try reading again, because I would like to penetrate the shallow perspective I have of the dialogue, but perhaps first I'll move to something more on familiar ground.
I decided that I was interested in reading Plotinus, and opened the first Ennead, which began in ruminations on the soul. I hadn't really thought much about souls in a long time - some vague understanding of psychology had made the soul obsolete in my mental vocabulary. To facilitate my understanding of Plotinus' understanding of the soul, I decided to read Aristotle's De Anima. Aristotle is difficult but pleasurable in a pure pedagogical sense; I rarely enjoy the experience of reading him but always feel like I've come away with a lot to think about. Aristotle's grounded proto-scientific account of the soul was interesting, although from what I knew of Plotinus I knew a keen understanding of Greek proto-scientific theories would not strictly be relevant, for he is more mystical.
So I said I'd go back to Plato, try and read some dialogues related to the soul among other things I could expect to appear in Plotinus. Timaeus itself was another roadblock to that ambition. My knowledge of maths is woefully limited as I was taught particularly badly in secondary school, but I know enough about science to know how primitive theories of the four elements are. This dialogue was uniquely challenging because I just didn't know how to read it. I had to take the discussions of geometry and such at face value, while trying to understand the elements of natural science I knew to be outdated within a broader context. This proved to be even more difficult than Aristotle, because I was always mindful of the poetic and literary elements of Plato's style, which on the whole made me wonder just what I was reading, what I was supposed to think.
I think I'll try reading again, because I would like to penetrate the shallow perspective I have of the dialogue, but perhaps first I'll move to something more on familiar ground.
December 8, 2014
In the introduction to the Timaeus Benjamin Jowett wrote: “The influence with the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is due partly to a misunderstanding. In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, and out of them they elicited doctrines quite at variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired by the Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses, they seemed to find in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word, the Church, the creation of the world in a Jewish sense, as they really found the personality of God or of mind, and the immortality of the soul. All religions and philosophies met and mingled in the schools of Alexandria, and the Neo-Platonists had a method of interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words. They were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another— between Aristotle and Plato, or between the serious thoughts of Plato and his passing fancies. They were absorbed in his theology and were under the dominion of his name, while that which was truly great and truly characteristic in him, his effort to realize and connect abstractions, was not understood by them at all. Yet the genius of Plato and Greek philosophy reacted upon the East, and a Greek element of thought and language overlaid and partly reduced to order the chaos of Orientalism. And kindred spirits, like St. Augustine, even though they were acquainted with his writings only through the medium of a Latin translation, were profoundly affected by them, seeming to find 'God and his word everywhere insinuated' in them”
My reason for reading the Timaeus was because I am doing some research on the influence of Greek thought on Christian theology. I definitely saw some of the parts of the dialog that would have drawn the attention of Jews and Christian, whom I could imagine in a polytheistic world, maybe found an ally in Plato. I wonder if possibly the seeming points of agreement of Plato's metaphysics with their own, opened them up to be influenced by Plato's concept of an timeless, immutable, impassible, ineffable supreme being, that ran in the face of the the passionate, emotional, relational and dynamic God of the Hebrew scriptures.
So yes, Plato has Timaeus share what started out, sounding to me as if it could have come from a Christian apologetic book on the cosmological argument for God. He wrote: “Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name—assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything—was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body.”
Concerning seeming parallels with Genesis chapter 1. “When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced” without thinking of Genesis chapter one.
Also “Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving,—in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth”
And speaking of the creation of the world “At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and good.”
Clement of Alexandria even wondered if Plato plagiarized Moses.
I wonder is some of the following passages had an influence on some Christians about the nature of God. Plato wrote concerning the Timelessness of God “For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he 'was,' he 'is,' he 'will be,' but the truth is that 'is' alone is properly attributed to him, and that 'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause.
Concerning the ineffability of God, Plato then wrote: “Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.”
Concerning the immutability and impassibility of God? “Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only.” I was a bit confused by the context of this passage, so I could be wrong, in whether Plato was referring to God or not.
Concerning the immortality of the soul “the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created.”
I'll finish with some other quotes that caught my attention:
“Every one will see that he must have looked to the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something.”
“Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.”
“But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy.”
The following two show how intellectuals have been hashing out bad ideas for a long time.
“And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body... evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject.”
“And what about the procreation of children? Or rather was not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, and those of a younger, children and grandchildren.”
My reason for reading the Timaeus was because I am doing some research on the influence of Greek thought on Christian theology. I definitely saw some of the parts of the dialog that would have drawn the attention of Jews and Christian, whom I could imagine in a polytheistic world, maybe found an ally in Plato. I wonder if possibly the seeming points of agreement of Plato's metaphysics with their own, opened them up to be influenced by Plato's concept of an timeless, immutable, impassible, ineffable supreme being, that ran in the face of the the passionate, emotional, relational and dynamic God of the Hebrew scriptures.
So yes, Plato has Timaeus share what started out, sounding to me as if it could have come from a Christian apologetic book on the cosmological argument for God. He wrote: “Now everything that becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause, for without a cause nothing can be created. The work of the creator, whenever he looks to the unchangeable and fashions the form and nature of his work after an unchangeable pattern, must necessarily be made fair and perfect; but when he looks to the created only, and uses a created pattern, it is not fair or perfect. Was the heaven then or the world, whether called by this or by any other more appropriate name—assuming the name, I am asking a question which has to be asked at the beginning of an enquiry about anything—was the world, I say, always in existence and without beginning? or created, and had it a beginning? Created, I reply, being visible and tangible and having a body.”
Concerning seeming parallels with Genesis chapter 1. “When the father and creator saw the creature which he had made moving and living, the created image of the eternal gods, he rejoiced” without thinking of Genesis chapter one.
Also “Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving,—in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth”
And speaking of the creation of the world “At first, they were all without reason and measure. But when the world began to get into order, fire and water and earth and air had only certain faint traces of themselves, and were altogether such as everything might be expected to be in the absence of God; this, I say, was their nature at that time, and God fashioned them by form and number. Let it be consistently maintained by us in all that we say that God made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and good.”
Clement of Alexandria even wondered if Plato plagiarized Moses.
I wonder is some of the following passages had an influence on some Christians about the nature of God. Plato wrote concerning the Timelessness of God “For there were no days and nights and months and years before the heaven was created, but when he constructed the heaven he created them also. They are all parts of time, and the past and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously but wrongly transfer to the eternal essence; for we say that he 'was,' he 'is,' he 'will be,' but the truth is that 'is' alone is properly attributed to him, and that 'was' and 'will be' are only to be spoken of becoming in time, for they are motions, but that which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older or younger, nor is subject at all to any of those states which affect moving and sensible things and of which generation is the cause.
Concerning the ineffability of God, Plato then wrote: “Now that which is created must, as we affirm, of necessity be created by a cause. But the father and maker of all this universe is past finding out; and even if we found him, to tell of him to all men would be impossible.”
Concerning the immutability and impassibility of God? “Wherefore also we must acknowledge that there is one kind of being which is always the same, uncreated and indestructible, never receiving anything into itself from without, nor itself going out to any other, but invisible and imperceptible by any sense, and of which the contemplation is granted to intelligence only.” I was a bit confused by the context of this passage, so I could be wrong, in whether Plato was referring to God or not.
Concerning the immortality of the soul “the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony, and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting natures, is the best of things created.”
I'll finish with some other quotes that caught my attention:
“Every one will see that he must have looked to the eternal; for the world is the fairest of creations and he is the best of causes. And having been created in this way, the world has been framed in the likeness of that which is apprehended by reason and mind and is unchangeable, and must therefore of necessity, if this is admitted, be a copy of something.”
“Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.”
“But he who has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom, and has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him, must have thoughts immortal and divine, if he attain truth, and in so far as human nature is capable of sharing in immortality, he must altogether be immortal; and since he is ever cherishing the divine power, and has the divinity within him in perfect order, he will be perfectly happy.”
The following two show how intellectuals have been hashing out bad ideas for a long time.
“And in general, all that which is termed the incontinence of pleasure and is deemed a reproach under the idea that the wicked voluntarily do wrong is not justly a matter for reproach. For no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of an ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will. And in the case of pain too in like manner the soul suffers much evil from the body. For where the acid and briny phlegm and other bitter and bilious humours wander about in the body... evils, then all of us who are bad become bad from two causes which are entirely beyond our control. In such cases the planters are to blame rather than the plants, the educators rather than the educated. But however that may be, we should endeavour as far as we can by education, and studies, and learning, to avoid vice and attain virtue; this, however, is part of another subject.”
“And what about the procreation of children? Or rather was not the proposal too singular to be forgotten? for all wives and children were to be in common, to the intent that no one should ever know his own child, but they were to imagine that they were all one family; those who were within a suitable limit of age were to be brothers and sisters, those who were of an elder generation parents and grandparents, and those of a younger, children and grandchildren.”
April 18, 2022
Timaeus by Plato
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I read this dialogue as part of the Online Great Books program. Once again, I am grateful that I am participating in that program because Timaeus, like Theatetus, was nowhere on my radar despite the fact that I've read a good number of Platonic dialogues.
Moreover, I would have probably written this dialogue off as dated and absurd after reading the dialogue. However, after the OGB discussion, it finally dawned on me that this text is the foundational text of Platonism as an input into Judeo-Christian theology.
The dialogue opens up with Plato meeting several friends the day after the discussion that became the Republic. The friends seek to entertain Socrates with a speech about the origin of the universe. Approximately 90% of the dialogue consists of Timaeus's speech on the subject.
The dialogue opens with an account of Atlantis. This is the dialogue that is the basis of the canard that Plato wrote about Atlantis. Of course, in fact, it is Plato's fictional interlocutor who is recounting a family tradition about a great-grandfather who spoke to Solon who spoke to an unnamed Egyptian priest who was recounting a story from 9,000 years ago. As a personal note, I wonder where else the Atlantis story can be found?
Timaeus starts with a Demiurge who imposes order on chaos according to a plan. A distinction is made between Being and Becoming with the world fashioned by the Demiurge being put in the latter category. Anyone with a grounding in classical theology will see the Logos and elements that inform historical theology.
Timaeus also provides an account of the material form of the universe, particularly genders and the human body. A lot of this seems silly to our modern ears, such as the explanation for why humans have certain body parts. However, a participant in the OGB discussion pointed out that each of these explanations had a moral dimension, e.g., intestines exist to restrain gluttony. OK, we can laugh at that, but that isn't far off from a traditional way some Early Church Fathers had for interpreting scripture.
Of course, I can't leave without mentioning Plato's theory of Resurrection, whereby men are formed with reason, but if a man is cowardly or filled with vice, he will be reincarnated as a woman, and if she misbehaves, she will be resurrected as an animal.
Now, that's funny! (Time to non-person Plato, I guess.)
In short, this is an important text (apart from that reincarnation part) from a theological standpoint. If you know, Thomism or Aristotle, you can see the roots of some major ideas in this text.
Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
I read this dialogue as part of the Online Great Books program. Once again, I am grateful that I am participating in that program because Timaeus, like Theatetus, was nowhere on my radar despite the fact that I've read a good number of Platonic dialogues.
Moreover, I would have probably written this dialogue off as dated and absurd after reading the dialogue. However, after the OGB discussion, it finally dawned on me that this text is the foundational text of Platonism as an input into Judeo-Christian theology.
The dialogue opens up with Plato meeting several friends the day after the discussion that became the Republic. The friends seek to entertain Socrates with a speech about the origin of the universe. Approximately 90% of the dialogue consists of Timaeus's speech on the subject.
The dialogue opens with an account of Atlantis. This is the dialogue that is the basis of the canard that Plato wrote about Atlantis. Of course, in fact, it is Plato's fictional interlocutor who is recounting a family tradition about a great-grandfather who spoke to Solon who spoke to an unnamed Egyptian priest who was recounting a story from 9,000 years ago. As a personal note, I wonder where else the Atlantis story can be found?
Timaeus starts with a Demiurge who imposes order on chaos according to a plan. A distinction is made between Being and Becoming with the world fashioned by the Demiurge being put in the latter category. Anyone with a grounding in classical theology will see the Logos and elements that inform historical theology.
Timaeus also provides an account of the material form of the universe, particularly genders and the human body. A lot of this seems silly to our modern ears, such as the explanation for why humans have certain body parts. However, a participant in the OGB discussion pointed out that each of these explanations had a moral dimension, e.g., intestines exist to restrain gluttony. OK, we can laugh at that, but that isn't far off from a traditional way some Early Church Fathers had for interpreting scripture.
Of course, I can't leave without mentioning Plato's theory of Resurrection, whereby men are formed with reason, but if a man is cowardly or filled with vice, he will be reincarnated as a woman, and if she misbehaves, she will be resurrected as an animal.
Now, that's funny! (Time to non-person Plato, I guess.)
In short, this is an important text (apart from that reincarnation part) from a theological standpoint. If you know, Thomism or Aristotle, you can see the roots of some major ideas in this text.
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