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1
Pendrick, G. J. "Plato, Timaeus 52c2-5." Classical Quarterly 48, no. 02 (1998): 556–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cq/48.2.556.
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Kraaij, Joachim. "Plato Timaeus 40b4-6." Mnemosyne 69, no. 5 (2016): 843–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1568525x-12342096.
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Kandic, Aleksandar. "Plato and modern natural sciences." Theoria, Beograd 62, no. 3 (2019): 17–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/theo1903017k.
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There are almost irreconcilable differences between Plato?s notion of science (episteme) and the modern notion, but also certain similarities. In the late dialogues such as The Theaetetus, The Philebus, and The Timaeus, Plato redefines his own notion of knowledge developed in The Republic to some extent. Genuine knowledge does not refer solely to the unchangeable aspects of reality. Plato?s characterization of cosmology as an eikos logos (?likely story?) in The Timaeus is an anticipation of the concept of falsifiability that dominates modern philosophy of science. Experience and observation, as well as mathematical, psychological and biological concepts, occupy a significant, indispensable place within the structure of Timaeus? cosmological model.
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German, Andy. "Cosmic Mathematics, Human Erōs: A Comparison of Plato’s Timaeus and Symposium." International Philosophical Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2020): 373–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ipq20201120156.
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In her 2014 monograph, Sarah Broadie argues that Timaeus’s cosmology points to a radical Platonic insight: the full rationality of the cosmos requires the existence of individualized, autonomous, and finite beings like us. Only human life makes the cosmos truly complete. But can Timaeus do full justice to the uniquely human way of being and hence to his own insight? My paper argues that he cannot and that Plato means for us to see that he cannot, by showing how Timaeus treats a famous Platonic theme: eros. Timaeus describes human perfection as assimilation to the mathematical proportions of the cosmos, but by comparing Timaeus with the Symposium I show that, given his deeply mathematized conception of reason, Timaeus cannot provide what Diotima can: a phenomenologically satisfactory account of how we come to identify ourselves with this perfection. Such identification is a transformation in our self-understanding explicable only because of the desirous and reflexive character of the soul. Expressing this character, however, requires combining the mathematical with a poetic, or even mantic, register. Only these sensibilities together grant access to Plato’s cosmology in its fullness.
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Johansen, Thomas Kjeller. "Why the Cosmos Needs a Craftsman: Plato, Timaeus 27d5-29b1." Phronesis 59, no. 4 (2014): 297–320. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341270.
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In his opening speech, Timaeus (Timaeus27d5-29b1) argues that the cosmos must be the product of a craftsman looking to an eternal paradigm. Yet his premises seem at best to justify only that the world could have been made by such a craftsman. This paper seeks to clarify Timaeus’ justification for his stronger conclusion. It is argued that Timaeus sees a necessary role for craftsmanship as a cause that makes becoming like being.
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Campbell, Douglas R. "Located in Space." Ancient Philosophy 42, no. 2 (2022): 419–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ancientphil202242229.
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I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally. A novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that denies the entailment that the soul is corporeal. I conclude by examining Aristotle’s objection to the Timaeus’ psychology and then the intellectual history of this reading of Plato.
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Kandic, Aleksandar. "Mathematical model of explanation of the world’s structure in Plato’s Timaeus." Theoria, Beograd 62, no. 2 (2019): 163–88. http://dx.doi.org/10.2298/theo1902163k.
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Plato?s cosmological dialogue The Timaeus initiates, among other things, the question of the status of mathematical entities: do they exist completely independently of the physical world whose structure they supposedly explain, are they present in a certain sense within the physical world, or are they, perhaps, exclusively psychological in nature. The author of the paper critically examines Johansen?s interpretation according to which the inherent structure of the human psyche, in the case of Plato?s Timaeus, is already mathematically ideal. Although Johansen?s interpretation is pervasive and well-grounded, the relationship between mathematical and sensory entities is considered mainly in the context of astronomy, disregarding Plato?s theory of micro-structures (the so-called geometric atomism). Thus, the author confronts Johansen?s interpretation with the opinions of other influential researchers of ancient philosophy, such as Cornford, Vlastos, Popper, Lloyd, Brisson, as well as the philosophers of the ancient era, Proclus, Aristotle, and others, in an effort to develop an interpretation that is as close as possible to the whole of Plato?s text. It seems that, when it comes to Plato?s Timaeus, one cannot discuss about the psychological origin of the mathematical model of explanation of natural phenomena without realizing that, in a quite complicated way, such mathematical model possesses a physical aspect as well. Plato himself, at the end of The Timaeus, claims that psychological disorders are caused by disruptions of the mathematically ideal proportions of bodily parts of the human organism (86b), which is only one of his claims that points to the psychophysical nature of mathematical entities.
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Marinescu, Rareș Ilie. "Plato on Self-Motion in Laws X." Rhizomata 9, no. 1 (2021): 96–122. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2021-0005.
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Abstract In this paper, I argue that Plato conceives self-motion as non-spatial in Laws X. I demonstrate this by focusing on the textual evidence and by refuting interpretations according to which self-motion either is a specific type of spatial motion (e. g. circular motion) or is said to require space as a necessary condition for its occurrence. Moreover, I show that this non-spatial understanding differs from the identification of the soul’s motion with locomotion in the Timaeus. Consequently, I provide an explanation for this difference between the Timaeus and Laws X by considering developmentalist and contextualist viewpoints.
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Brisson, Luc, and Salomon Ofman. "The Mathematical Anti-atomism of Plato’s Timaeus." Ancient Philosophy 42, no. 1 (2022): 121–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ancientphil20224215.
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In Plato’s eponymous dialogue, Timaeus, the main character presents the universe as an (almost) perfect sphere filled by tiny, invisible particles having the form of four regular polyhedrons. At first glance, such a construction may seem close to an atomistic theory. However, one does not find any text in Antiquity that links Timaeus’ cosmology to the atomists, while Aristotle opposes clearly Plato to the latter. Nevertheless, Plato is commonly presented in contemporary literature as some sort of atomist, sometimes as supporting a form of so-called ‘mathematical atomism’. However, the term ‘atomism’ is rarely defined when applied to Plato. Since it covers many different theories, it seems that this term has almost as different meanings as different authors. The purpose of this article is to consider whether it is correct to connect Timaeus’ cosmology to some kind of ‘atomism’, however this term may be understood. Its purpose is double: to obtain a better understanding of the cosmology of the Timaeus, and to consider the different modern ‘atomistic’ interpretations of this cosmology. In short, we would like to show that such a claim, in any form whatsoever, is misleading, an impediment to the understanding of the dialogue, and more generally of Plato’s philosophy.
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Maso, Stefano. "Providential Disorder in Plato’s Timaeus?" Peitho. Examina Antiqua 9, no. 1 (2018): 37–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2018.1.3.
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Plato tries to explain the becoming of the cosmos by referring to the concepts of order and disorder. Scholars have usually focused on the relationship between the cosmos and the demiurge that Plato puts forward to explain the reasonable (i.e., well-ordered) development. Along these lines, scholarship has examined the providential role played by both the demiurge and the soul of the world. Yet, an interesting problem still remains open: what exactly is the function of disorder? What is the sense of the concept of a perfectly established order if we do not know the manner in which it is achieved, since we have no understanding of the conditions that make it possible? Pursuing this line of thought, one may point to a providential role of the disorder given the balance of forces that operates in Plato’s cosmic becoming.
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Nilsen, Fredrik. "Kvinnens overflødighet hos Platon." Nordlit, no. 33 (November 16, 2014): 99. http://dx.doi.org/10.7557/13.3182.
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<em>The Superfluity of Women in Plato. </em>In her article «Plato’s problematic women» Kristin Sampson argues that Plato has two different views on women in the <em>Republic</em> and the <em>Timaeus </em>respectively. In the <em>Republic</em> Plato operates with some sort of equality of status between the two genders, at least in the leaders’ and the soldiers’ classes, whereas in the mythology of the <em>Timaeus</em> women are depicted as reincarnations of men who earlier had lived an unmoral and bad life. According to my interpretation, these two views must be seen as two aspects of one common Greek thought or, as Vigdis Songe-Møller puts it, one common Greek dream, «the dream of the women’s superfluity». In the <em>Republic</em> Plato tries to rule out differences between genders by making the women as similar to men as possible, while in the <em>Timaeus</em> he describes them as something completely different from the norm, the man, and actually as a punishment to men with bad moral behaviour, something that society ideally should do without.
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Paparazzo, Ernesto. "Viewing the World from Different Angles: Plato’s Timaeus 54E-55A." Apeiron 46, no. 3 (2013): 244–69. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/apeiron-2012-0052.
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Abstract The present article investigates a passage of the Timaeus in which Plato describes the construction of the pyramid. Scholars traditionally interpreted it as involving that the solid angle at the vertex of the pyramid is equal, or nearly so, to 180°, a value which they took to be that of the most obtuse of plane angles. I argue that this interpretation is not warranted, because it conflicts with both the geometrical principles which Plato in all probability knew and the context of the Timaeus. As well as recalling the definitions and properties of plane angles and solid angles in Euclid’s Elements, I offer an alternative interpretation, which in my opinion improves the comprehension of the passage, and makes it consistent with both the immediate and wider context of the Timaeus. I suggest that the passage marks a transition from plane geometry to solid geometry within Plato’s account of the universe.
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Engler, M. R. "Rezension von Altman, W. The Guardians in Action: Plato the Teacher and the Post-Republic Dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus (2016)." Revista Archai, no. 27 (September 1, 2019): e02713. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/1984-249x_27_13.
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Dillon, John. "Tampering with the Timaeus: Ideological Emendations in Plato, with Special Reference to the Timaeus." American Journal of Philology 110, no. 1 (1989): 50. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/294952.
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McCready-Flora, Ian. "Affect and Sensation: Plato’s Embodied Cognition." Phronesis 63, no. 2 (2018): 117–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685284-12341344.
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Abstract I argue that Plato, in the Timaeus, draws deep theoretical distinctions between sensation and affect, which comprises pleasure, pain, desire and emotion. Sensation (but not affect) is both ‘fine-grained’ (having orderly causal connections with its fundamental explanatory items) and ‘immediate’ (being provoked absent any mediating psychological state). Emotions, by contrast, are mediated and coarse-grained. Pleasure and pain are coarse-grained but, in a range of important cases, immediate. The Theaetetus assimilates affect to sensation in a way the Timaeus does not. Smell frustrates Timaeus because it is coarse-grained, although unlike pleasure and pain it is so by accident of physiology.
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Emerton, N. E., and D. T. Runia. "Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato." Vetus Testamentum 37, no. 4 (1987): 498. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1517582.
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Winston, David. "Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato." Ancient Philosophy 12, no. 1 (1992): 222–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/ancientphil199212167.
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den Boeft, J., and D. T. Runia. "Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato." Vigiliae Christianae 44, no. 1 (1990): 83. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1584249.
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Fidora, Alexander M. A., and Andreas M. A. Niederberger. "International Conference on the Legacy of Platos Timaeus." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 5 (December 31, 2000): 230–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/bpjam.5.14fid.
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Dillon, J. M. "Philo of Alexandria and the "Timaeus" of Plato (review)." Journal of the History of Philosophy 26, no. 4 (1988): 658–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/hph.1988.0087.
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Robinson, T. M. "Platón, Einstein y el triunfo de la imaginatividad cosmológica." Theoría. Revista del Colegio de Filosofía, no. 6 (November 1, 1998): 87–98. http://dx.doi.org/10.22201/ffyl.16656415p.1998.6.199.
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This article argues the following five claims: 1. Plato’s description of the origins of cosmos in the Timaeus is not a myth, nor something unlikely: when he called it an eikos mythos or eikos logos, he meant a likely or trustworthy account on this very subject. 2. Among the details in this account, the following are prominent and surprising: a) the world was fashioned in time, in that precise point that was the beginning of time; b) several kinds of duration can be distinguished in cosmology (mainly eternity, sempiternity, perpetuity and time); and c) space is an entity characterized by movement and tension. 3. In the Statesman, Plato repeats much the same thing, adding this time the strange notion that the universe’s circular movement is periodically reversed. 4. In spite of the important differences in detail, there is a striking similarity between Plato’s account of the origins of the world and the explanation adopted by much of modern cosmology. 5. What Plato shares with so many instances of recent thought is here termed “cosmological imaginativity”. A first section of the paper deals exclusively with the Timaeus. Claims 1 and 2a are supported by a revision of the meanings of mythos and logos, followed by brief reference and discussion of the argument at Timaeus 27d, leading to the conclusion that Plato affirms that the ever-changing world has indeed had a beginning in time. Claim 2b describes five different types of duration, corresponding to Forms, the Demiurge, Space, the [empirical] world and its contents, physical objects. The second section is concerned with the myth in the Statesman, discussing it as a parallel and describing its peculiar turn to the Timaeus’ cosmology and cosmogony, a complex spheric and dynamic model. After digressing into some important ideas in modern cosmology, touching especially on affinities of some of Einstein’s ideas with of Plato’s own, the paper closes with a discussion of cosmological imaginativity, oriented to recover and recognize fully Plato’s greatness as a cosmologist.
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Nakamura, Takeshi. "Two Theories of Change in Plato’s Timaeus." Ancient Philosophy Today 4, no. 1 (2022): 4–29. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/anph.2022.0058.
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In Plato’s Timaeus, two different theories – the Receptacle theory and the geometrical particle theory – are presented to explain change in the natural world. In this paper, I argue that there is tension between the two theories. After examining several possible solutions for this tension, I conclude that Plato does not present it as something ready to be solved within the dialogue but, rather, as something to be understood in a way that maintains both theories. Finally, I also argue that the contrast between the two theories in the Timaeus derives from a similar contrast in the Phaedo.
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Stegman, Casey. "Remembering Atlantis." Political Theory 45, no. 2 (2016): 240–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0090591715594661.
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There has been much scholarly disagreement concerning Plato’s participation in the mid-fourth century debates over Athens’s ancestral constitution ( patrios politeia). This disunity stems from contrasting views about the relationship between philosophy and Athenian politics in Plato’s writings. Recently, several political theorists have reoriented our general understanding about Plato’s complex involvement with Athenian politics. However, these discussions do not discuss Plato’s specific relationship with patrios politeia. In order to bridge this gap, I turn to two dialogues within the later Platonic corpus: Timaeus and Critias. By examining the Atlantis myth that spans both dialogues, I discuss how Plato uses the story both to comment on and critique the democratic Athenian constitution. At the same time, however, Plato also advances a unique veneration of democracy by asserting that it is the politeia of the gods. In this way, I argue that Timaeus-Critias contributes a valuable new perspective in the ongoing debate regarding the relationship between Plato’s philosophy and democracy.
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Salamone, Maria. "The Two Supreme Principles of Plato’s Cosmos—the One and the Indefinite Dyad—the Division of a Straight Line into Extreme and Mean Ratio, and Pingala’s Mātrāmeru." Symmetry 11, no. 1 (2019): 98. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/sym11010098.
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The objective of this paper is to propose a mathematical interpretation of the continuous geometric proportion (Timaeus, 32a) with which Plato accomplishes the goal to unify, harmonically and symmetrically, the Two Opposite Elements of Timaeus Cosmos—Fire and Earth—through the Mean Ratio. As we know, from the algebraic point of view, it is possible to compose a continuous geometric proportion just starting from two different quantities a (Fire) and b (Earth); their sum would be the third term, so that we would obtain the continuous geometric proportion par excellence, which carries out the agreement of opposites most perfectly: (a + b)/a = a/b. This equal proportion, applied to linear geometry, corresponds to what Euclid called the Division into Extreme and Mean Ratio (DEMR) or The Golden Proportion. In fact, according to my mathematical interpretation, in the Timaeus 32b and in the Epinomis 991 a–b, Plato uses Pingala’s Mātrāmeru or The First Analogy of the Double to mould the body of the Cosmos as a whole, to the point of identifying the two supreme principles of the Cosmos—the One (1) and the Indefinite Dyad (Φ and1/Φ)—with the DEMR. In effect, Fire and Earth are joined not by a single Mean Ratio but by two (namely, Air and Water). Moreover, using the Platonic approach to analyse the geometric properties of the shape of the Cosmos as a whole, I think that Timaeus constructed the 12 pentagonal faces of Dodecahedron by means of elementary Golden Triangles (a/b = Φ) and the Mātrāmeru sequence. And, this would prove that my mathematical interpretation of the platonic texts is at least plausible.
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Tarrant, Harold. "On Hastily Declaring Platonic Dialogues Spurious: the Case of Critias." Méthexis 31, no. 1 (2019): 47–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/24680974-03101003.
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This paper takes issue with the thesis of Rashed and Auffret that the Critias that has come down to us is not a genuine dialogue of Plato. Authors do not consider the style of the Critias, which should be a factor in any complete study of authorship. It observes the widespread consensus that the style of the Timaeus and Critias are virtually inseparable. It surveys a wide range of stylistic studies that have tended to confirm this, before answering a possible objection that cites the similarity of style between the genuine Laws and Philip of Opus’ Epinomis. Since the main argument used by Rashed and Auffret relies on an inconsistency between Timaeus and Critias consideration is given to the types of inconsistency found within Platonic dialogues and sequences of dialogues, particularly the hiatus-avoiding dialogues including Timaeus itself and Laws. Finally, alternative explanations of the alleged inconsistency are offered.
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Baltzly, Dirk. "Plato's "Timaeus" as Cultural Icon. Gretchen J. Reydams-Schils , Plato." Speculum 80, no. 3 (2005): 963–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0038713400008757.
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Browning, Gary K. "Transitions to and from Nature in Hegel and Plato." Hegel Bulletin 13, no. 02 (1992): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0263523200002834.
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The philosophical understanding of nature is a key concern of both Plato and Hegel. Their elaborations of the identity and status of nature within their respective philosophies exhibit significant affinities to which Hegel himself draws attention in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. Hegel and Plato, indeed, are fundamentally at one in theorizing nature as both displaying and obscuring the principles of reason which they take as providing the foundations of a coherent explanation of reality. In his lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel takes great pains to emphasize the profundity of Plato's idealism as residing in its identification of the objectively real with the rational. Plato, according to Hegel, is to be revered, above all, for having “… grasped in all its truth Socrates' great principle that ultimate reality lies in consciousness, since according to him the absolute is in thought and all reality is thought.” The Timaeus, for Hegel, articulates how the world of nature is necessarily structured by reason, just as the Republic is seen by Hegel as providing a philosophical explanation of the rationality of the traditional, organic community of the Greek polis. Hegel's recognition of the Platonic foundations of his own version of “absolute” idealism in which the universality of thought assumes an explanatory priority over the material phenomena of nature as well as informing the spiritual activities of human beings has been noted, rightly, by a number of subsequent commentators. Michael Rosen, for instance, in his book, Hegel's Dialectic and Its Criticism, while carefully distinguishing between aspects of Hegel's and Plato's conceptions of nature, intimates the continuity of Hegel's idealism with Plato's by observing how Hegel's language in effecting a transition from the categories of pure thought in the Logic to the material world of nature constitutes an “… echo of Plato's Timaeus.” Certainly, Hegel's cryptic account of the transition from the Absolute Idea, the categorial terminus of the Logic's interrogation of the determinations of pure thought, to the externality and materiality of nature evokes Plato's construal of the construction of the world in the Timaeus, both by the indeterminate character of the God which is invoked, as well as by the clear subordination of material phenomena to a separately articulable order of reason. In the account of the construction of the world developed in the Timaeus, Plato deploys the image of the divine demiurge imparting order to the world by referring to a pre-existing pattern of ideas. Hegel conceives of the Absolute Idea which at the outset of the Philosophy of Nature he likens to God, as, “… freely releasing itself…” into the externality of space and time, in which movement the Idea is seen as suffering neither a transition within nor a deepening of its character such as the mediated categories of the Logic incur in the process of their integration within the Absolute Idea.
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Buzzetti, Eric. "Plato Through Homer: Poetry and Philosophy in the Cosmological Dialogues." Canadian Journal of Political Science 37, no. 3 (2004): 775–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008423904420101.
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Plato Through Homer: Poetry and Philosophy in the Cosmological Dialogues, Zdravko Planinc, Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2003, pp. xii, 134Professor Planinc analyzes in this monograph three of Plato's dialogues: the Timaeus, the Critias and the Phaedrus. His primary aim is to show that their structure and poetic imagery is modelled after that of important episodes of Homer's Odyssey. In Planinc's words, Plato consciously “refigures” the “literary tropes” of the Odyssey, and this fact is of central importance to interpreting these dialogues properly (13).
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Campbell, Douglas R. "The Soul’s Tool: Plato on the Usefulness of the Body." Elenchos 43, no. 1 (2022): 7–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/elen-2022-0002.
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Abstract This paper concerns Plato’s characterization of the body as the soul’s tool. I take perception as an example of the body’s usefulness. I explore the Timaeus’ view that perception provides us with models of orderliness. Then, I argue that perception of confusing sensible objects is necessary for our cognitive development too. Lastly, I consider the instrumentality relationship more generally and its place in Plato’s teleological worldview.
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Pacewicz, Artur. "Plato and the Classical Theory of Knowledge." Folia Philosophica 42, no. 2 (2019): 91–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.31261/fp.8515.
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In this paper, the notion of the classical theory of knowledge is analysed with reference to its primary source – the philosophy of Plato. A point of departure for this analysis is the description of the classical theory of knowledge presented by Jan Woleński in his book Epistemology (but it can be also found in the works of other researchers devoted to epistemology). His statements about Plato are examined in the context of Plato’s thought. The dialogues Apology, Gorgias, Meno, fragments of the Republic, Theaetetus, Timaeus and the testimonies about the so-called agrapha dogmata are especially taken into consideration.
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Spinelli, Emidio. "The Question of God and the Quest for God: Hans Jonas, Plato, and Beyond…" Peitho. Examina Antiqua 11, no. 1 (2020): 185–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2020.1.8.
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In reconstructing the conceptual universe of Jonas’s philosophy, a privileged place can, or indeed must, be reserved for his relationship with the classical heritage. More specifically, a crucial role is played by Plato, especially because, as Jonas strongly underlines, “with Plato (...) you have to go back a much greater distance to make him applicable to the present. But of course Plato is the greater one, the one we have to study again and again from scratch, the one we must discover (...). With Plato, you’re never finished, that’s the great foundation for all of Western philosophy”. In the light of this premise, this article will focus on the highly original use made in Jonas’s Der Gottesbegriff nach Auschwitz of the Platonic heritage, associated with the mythical figure of the Demiurge in the Timaeus.
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Stalley, R. F. "Punishment and the physiology of the Timaeus." Classical Quarterly 46, no. 2 (1996): 357–70. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/cq/46.2.357.
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It hardly needs to be said that the parallel between mental and physical health plays an important part in Plato's moral philosophy. One of the central claims of the Republicis that justice is to the soul what health is to the body (443b–444e).1 Similar points are made in other dialogues.2 This analogy between health and sickness on the one hand and virtue and vice on the other is closely connected to the so–called Socratic paradoxes. Throughout his life Plato seems to have clung in some sense to the ideas that justice is our greatest good, that the unjust man is correspondingly miserable and that no one is therefore willingly unjust. It follows from these ideas that the unjust man, like the sick man, is in a wretched state which is not of his own choosing.
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Fronterotta, Francesco. "L’οὐσία et ses degrés dans le Timée de Platon". Chôra 18 (2020): 73–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/chora2020/202118/194.
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This article examines the problem of the status of the different degrees of being that Plato, in the Timaeus, seems to attribute to the different kinds of reality that he distinguishes. In what sense and under what conditions is it possible to state that the intelligible forms, the sensible things and the spatial and material substratum of the chora “are” and “exist” ?
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Casella, Federico. "Platone e il vegetarianismo nel Timeo." PLATO JOURNAL 21 (January 28, 2021): 111–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_21_8.
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L’articolo analizza la descrizione della natura delle piante e la tacita giustificazione del vegetarianismo fornite da Platone nel Timeo. Tale pratica alimentare sembra assumere un’utilità esclusivamente fisiologica: potrebbe darsi che Platone si fosse opposto a quanti professavano il vegetarianismo in qualità di mezzo necessario per purificare l’anima e per raggiungere la felicità, come gli orfici, i pitagorici, Empedocle ma anche il suo discepolo Senocrate. Attraverso il particolare valore attribuito a una dieta vegetariana, Platone priva di validità la pretesa degli altri filosofi: solo lo studio delle idee permette di ottenere la felicità. Abstract. The aim of this paper is to analyse Plato’s description of plants and his tacit justification of vegetarianism in the Timaeus. This practice seems to possess exclusively a physiological relevance: I argue that Plato is opposing the idea of vegetarianism as a superior way to purify one’s soul and achieve happiness, how it was being professed by the Orphics, the Pythagoreans, Empedocles, and even by his disciple Xenocrates. In the Timaeus, with the justification of vegetarianism only for physiological purposes, Plato is discrediting other philosophers’ conception of vegetarianism and perfect life: only the study of the noetic world grants ultimate happiness.
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Trizio, Emiliano. "Husserl’s Timaeus. Plato’s Creation Myth and the Phenomenological Concept of Metaphysics as the Teleological Science of the World." Studia Phaenomenologica 20 (2020): 77–100. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/studphaen2020204.
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According to Husserl, Plato played a fundamental role in the development of the notion of teleology, so much so that Husserl viewed the myth narrated in the Timaeus as a fundamental stage in the long history that he hoped would eventually lead to a teleological science of the world grounded in transcendental phenomenology. This article explores this interpretation of Plato’s legacy in light of Husserl’s thesis that Plato was the initiator of the ideal of genuine science. It also outlines how Husserl sought conceptual resources within transcendental phenomenology to turn the key elements of Plato’s creation myth into rigorous scientific ideas.
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Terezis, Christos, and Elias Tempelis. "Proclus’ prolegomena on the ontological status of time." Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 17 (December 31, 2014): 27–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/bpjam.17.02ter.
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This paper attempts at showing the basic principles according to which the Neoplatonist philosopher Proclus (412–485) formulated his theory on time. The argumentation basically focuses on his methodology, since whatever is included in this analysis is used by the Neoplatonist philosopher in almost all his references to the notion of time. His basic position is that time is not simply a cosmological factor, but possesses properties which connect it closely with the metaphysical world. Also, that it is essential to examine its relation with the Soul, as an ontological factor which connects the metaphysical with the natural world, and that this examination is necessary, so that the production of the natural world can be clarified with due exactness. The topics dealt with are included in Proclus’ treatise In Platonis Timaeum, i.e. his extensive commentary on the Platonic dialogue Timaeus, on the basis of the new scientific and philosophical finds, which had became available since the time of Plato.
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Volkova, Nadezhda P. "Plato’s Theory of the Elemental Bodies in the Timaeus." History of Philosophy Yearbook 27 (December 28, 2022): 147–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.21146/0134-8655-2022-37-147-180.
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This article focuses on problems of interpretation of Plato’s theory of the elemental bodies in the Timaeus. The purpose of the study is to present Plato’s doctrine of the elements as particles consisting of primary triangles. Our special attention will be given to the following topics. First, to the question of the pre-cosmic state of the elemental bodies, namely: (1) whether the elements were qualities of the receptacle or independent powers (δυνάμεις), (2) what language of description Plato considers preferable (i.e. whether it is worth calling them by names “fire”, “water”, etc.), (3) whether the elements were images of forms and (4) had a corpuscular structure. Second, to the question concerning primary triangles from which the surfaces of the elemental bodies are constructed: (1) are they bodies or not, (2) in what relation do they stand with the nature of the receptacle, and (3) whether they differ in size. And third, to the question of the correspondence of the forms of the elements with their natural properties. We show that (1) the elements were always thought of by Plato as images of intelligible forms and had a corpuscular structure, (2) that all the secondary properties of the elements are reduced to their geometric structure, (3) that the primary triangles are the same bodies as the elements, (4) that the primary triangles are not identical with the receptacle and (5) differ from each other in species but do not vary in size within each species.
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Stefanides, Panagiotis. "Panagiotis Chr.Stefanides Invited to 4th TECHNIUM International Conference - Recognition of career." Technium: Romanian Journal of Applied Sciences and Technology 2, no. 3 (2020): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.47577/technium.v2i3.454.
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As I anticipate, it concerns another genus of Polyhedron, a very Special one Ontologically, and this is very important Ι understand:
 “....Στερεὰ δὲ σώματα λέγεσθαι χρὴ …. πέντε, ……., τὸ δὲ ἄλλο γένος ἅπαν ἔχει μορφὴν μίαν·…..…ψυχῆς γένος" 
 http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/philosophes/platon/cousin/epinomisgrec.htm
 [..there are .. five solid bodies…. the other genus which in total has one form …the genus of the soul…] Plato’s Epinomis 981b. In 981a, of this work, Plato states that the composition of, soul and body bares a single form.
 Similarly, Plato in Timaeus [53 E] refers to the solids having each its own genus and in his Republic makes reference to the Construction of the Universal Planets [XIV 616 E -617A].
 Interpretation for γένος genus – form] Proposed By Panagiotis Stefanides is the “Generator Polyhedron”, ohis recent Abstract. Searching, for many years, Plato's Timaeus Work, geometry related to 
 the creation of the world- soul of the world] and presenting it to conferences nationally and internationally, I searched in the Liddell and Scott reference for the word “γένος” found in Plato's "Epinomis" 981b Discovered [Invention [ 03 April 2017].https://www.linkedin.com/…/generator-polyhedron-platonic-e…/ .
 “Generator Polyhedron” refers to the geometric characteristics of this Solid found to be the root upon which other Solid Polyhedra are based i.e. the Platonic/Eucleidean Solids [Icosahedron Dodecahedron etc.] The Geometry of this paper is part of book: [ISBN 978 – 618 – 83169 – 0 - 4], National Library of Greece , 04/05/2017, by Panagiotis Ch. Stefanides.
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Szlezák, Thomas Alexander. "The Dokounta of the Platonic Dialectician. On Plato’s distinction between the insufficient "present discussion" and a satisfactory future one." Peitho. Examina Antiqua, no. 1(6) (February 9, 2016): 13–24. http://dx.doi.org/10.14746/pea.2015.1.1.
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It is a recurring pattern in Plato´s dialogues that the dialectician leads the discussion to a certain point where he identifies further, more fundamental problems, on which he claims to have his own view (to emoi dokoun, vel sim.), which he does not communicate. Such passages are briefly analyzed from five dialogues (Timaeus, Sophist, Politicus, Parmenides, Republic). It is shown that this seemingly strange behaviour of the dialectician corresponds exactly to the way a philosopher should behave according to the Phaedrus. The recurring cases of reticence of the leading figure in dialogue have to be understood as Plato´s written reference to his own unwritten philosophy.
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Narbonne, Jean-Marc. "Le réceptacle platonicien: nature, fonction, contenu." Dialogue 36, no. 2 (1997): 253–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0012217300009501.
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AbstractThis paper will attempt to show that the interlude on necessity in the Timaeus narrative introduces a dualism into the Platonic cosmology, and that it is the material principle which is the positive cause of the disorder in the world. Furthermore, one can notice that in this work Plato is heading toward a concept of sensible substance that is close to the one which Aristotle will be defending.
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Paparazzo, Ernesto. "A NOTE ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE WITH SCALENE ELEMENTARY TRIANGLES IN PLATO'S TIMAEUS: PL. TI. 54A-B." Classical Quarterly 65, no. 2 (2015): 552–58. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0009838815000221.
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In the Timaeus Plato says that, among the infinite number of right-angled scalene elementary triangles, the best (τὸ κάλλιστον) is that ἐξ οὗ τὸ ἰσόπλευρον ἐκ τρίτου συνέστηκε. Apart from few exceptions to be mentioned shortly, the translations of the Timaeus, which I am aware of spanning the period from the second half of the nineteenth century up to recent times, have usually rendered this passage as meaning that such an elementary triangle is that which, when two are combined, the equilateral triangle forms as a third figure. For instance, Bury and Zeyl respectively translate: out of which, when two are conjoined, the equilateral triangle is constructed as a third. and from [a pair of] which the equilateral triangle is constructed as a third figure. I shall refer to this sort of translation as the Prevailing Translation (hereafter PT).
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Merskey, Harold, and Paul Potter. "The Womb Lay Still in Ancient Egypt." British Journal of Psychiatry 154, no. 6 (1989): 751–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.154.6.751.
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Any reader of the handbooks of medical history will know that among the ancient Greeks, the womb was on occasion held to cause various complaints by moving about the body. A particularly graphic account is to be found in the Timaeus (91b–c), where, in likening sexual desire to an actual animal, Plato first mentions “… in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful like an animal disobedient to reason”, and then alludes to:
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Reis, Maria Dulce. "PLATÃO: AS PAIXÕES DA UNIDADE "CORPOALMA" SEGUNDO O TIMEU." Sapere Aude 10, no. 19 (2019): 31–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.5752/p.2177-6342.2019v10n19p31-42.
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Uma das últimas obras escritas por Platão, o Timeu, nos parece um dos textos mais ricos para identificarmos o estatuto das paixões na filosofia de Platão: a origem dessas paixões/afecções, suas propriedades, seu papel no equilíbrio psíquico e na condução das ações humanas. Tal riqueza, profundidade e extensão teórica constituiu grande parte de nossa tese de doutoramento, que visou demonstrar a articulação entre Psicologia, Ética e Política nos diálogos República, Timeu e Leis. No presente texto, nos limitaremos a apresentar nossa interpretação a respeito de passagens da cosmologia do Timeu dedicadas a tratar da constituição da unidade corpoalma humana, o que inclui suas afecções. Nosso recorte limita-se a mostrar que as afecções – próprias ao que há de apetitivo, irascível e racional na unidade corpoalma humana – decorrem da encarnação, e o seu direcionamento psíquico é capaz de conduzir os seres humanos à saúde ou à doença, à virtude ou ao vício.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Platão. Filosofia Antiga. Psicologia. Páthos. ABSTRACT:One of the last works written by Plato, the Timaeus, seems to us one of the richest texts to identify the status of passions in Plato's philosophy: The origin of the passions/affections, their properties, their role in the psychic balance and the conduct of human actions. Such wealth, depth and theoretical extension constituted a large part of our doctoral thesis, that aimed to demonstrate the articulation between Psychology, Ethics, and Politics in the dialogues Republic, Timaeus, and Laws. In the present text, we shall confine ourselves to our interpretation of passages in the cosmology of the Timaeus devoted to the constitution of the human body-soul unity, which includes its affections. Our clipping is limited to showing that the affections - proper to that which is appetitive, irascible and rational in the human body-soul unity - elapsed from the incarnation and its psychic direction are capable of leading human beings to health or sickness, into virtue or vice.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Platão. Filosofia Antiga. Psicologia. Páthos.
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Thein, Karel. "Reason and Dreaming in Republic IX and the Timaeus." Rhizomata 7, no. 1 (2019): 1–32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/rhiz-2019-0001.
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Abstract The article discusses two passages, Republic IX 571d6–572b1, and Timaeus 71a3–72b5, where Plato does not use dream as a metaphor for the soul’s deficit in knowledge but, instead, focuses on the actual process of dreaming during sleep, and the origin and nature of the images involved. In both texts, Plato’s account is closely connected to the soul’s tripartition, with the resulting emphasis on reason’s capacity to control, and even to create, the dream images that influence the lower parts of the soul. While taking a closer look at the differences between the two accounts (and, therefore, at the physiology of dreaming described only in the Timaeus), the article concludes that, despite these differences, both dialogues agree on the possible alliance between reason and dreaming, an alliance that presupposes a virtuous character and further reinforces the reason’s dominance over appetite. Republic IX and the Timaeus thus converge on the idea that dreams, in virtue of their continuity with waking thoughts, can convey and fortify a certain kind of knowledge, and especially self-knowledge, which is of an ethical rather than strictly epistemic relevance. This is also why Plato’s two accounts of rational dreaming anticipate the issue of our moral responsibility for the content of our dreams.
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Nercam, Nathalie. "L’introduction problématique du Timée (17a-27a)." PLATO JOURNAL 15 (December 30, 2015): 41–57. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_15_3.
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The purpose of this article is to reconsider the Timaeus’ introduction (17a-27a) in order to show that Plato invites the reader to demystify the discourses of the Greek political elite of the fifth century. Dreamy land, in the autochtony myth, or ocean of nightmare, in Atlantis, khôra is the aporia of the story of Critias. Compared with Republic, this khôra is in fact the phobic projection of the aristocracy’s annoyed desires.
 http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/2183-4105_15_3
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Zoller, Coleen Patricia. "Plato and Equality for Women across Social Class." Journal of Ancient Philosophy 15, no. 1 (2021): 35–62. http://dx.doi.org/10.11606/issn.1981-9471.v15i1p35-62.
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This essay will marshal evidence for Plato’s extension of equal education and professional opportunity to all women, including artisan women who are not his ideal city’s philosopher-queens. I examine the explicit commentary in the Republic, Timaeus, and Laws about women in artisan professions, and I link it together with the three of the core principles advanced in the Republic, particularly (1) the principle of specialization (R. 369b-370c), (2) the principle of irrelevant reproductive differences (R. 454b-e, 456b), and (3) the principle of children’s potential (R. 415a-c, 423c-d) that arises from the myth of metals. Plato uses his Socrates and the Athenian to argue against gender discrimination because it violates these principles. Plato offering a theory of equal opportunity for women across all classes ought to be highlighted as one of the central achievements of the Republic.
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Wilberding, James. "Plato’s Embryology." Early Science and Medicine 20, no. 2 (2015): 150–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15733823-00202p03.
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Embryology was a subject that inspired great cross-disciplinary discussion in antiquity, and Plato’s Timaeus made an important contribution to this discussion, though Plato’s precise views have remained a matter of controversy, especially regarding three key questions pertaining to the generation and nature of the seed: whether there is a female seed; what the nature of seed is; and whether the seed contains a preformed human being. In this paper I argue that Plato’s positions on these three issues can be adequately determined, even if some other aspects of his theory cannot. In particular, it is argued that (i) Plato subscribes to the encephalo-myelogenic theory of seed, though he places particular emphasis on the soul being the true seed; (ii) Plato is a two-seed theorist, yet the female seed appears to make no contribution to reproduction; and (iii) Plato cannot be an advocate of preformationism.
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Boureau, Mai‑Lan. "Une occasion manquée? La critique implicite de la chôra dans le livre III du De caelo d’Aristote." Chôra 20 (2022): 71–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/chora2022205.
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Book III of Aristotle’s De caelo does not feature the Platonic concept of χώρα as a main protagonist. Through mere scarce allusions, Aristotle tends to treat it as just another concept of matter, reminiscent in many respects of those of Presocratic philosophers. In this paper, I argue that this biased presentation should be interpreted as Aristotle’s implicit refusal to acknowledge the role of the χώρα in Plato’s reform of participation, which is expounded in the Timaeus. I refer this refusal to Aristotle’s complex epistemological and methodological criticisms of Platonic paradigmatism. Reconstructing this implicit dialogue between Plato and Aristotle also sheds a new light on the stakes and consistency of book III of De caelo, which had remained elusive in earlier approaches. I suggest that book III does not aim to propose a consistent account of the four elements or of generation, but to build a new Aristotelian framework as an answer to the aporiai of Plato’s Timaeus.
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Dutmer, Evan. "Scipio’s Rome and Critias’ Athens: Utopian Mythmaking in Cicero’s De Republica and Plato’s Timaeus." New England Classical Journal 48, no. 1 (2021): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.52284/necj/48.1/article/dutmer.
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Scholarly debate on the relationship between Cicero’s De republica (On the Republic) and De Legibus (On the Laws) and the thought of Plato tends to focus on the supposed congruities or incongruities of the De republica and De legibus with Plato’s own Republic and Laws. Still, Plato’s discussion of ideal constitutions is not constrained to the Republic and Laws. In this essay I propose that we look to another of Plato’s dialogues for fruitful comparison: the Timaeus-Critias duology. In this essay I bring these two texts into substantive dialogue to illuminate mysterious features of both. Sketched in these complementary passages, I think, is an outline for a particular kind of approach to political theory, one proposed as novel by Cicero’s Laelius, but, as this essay hopes to show, with an interesting forerunner in Plato. I’ve called this approach ‘retrospective ideal political philosophy’ (RIPP). I end my essay with a few prospective theoretical notes on how this approach binds these two texts together.
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Marren, Marina. "The Ancient Knowledge of Sais or See Yourselves in the Xenoi: Plato’s Message to the Greeks." Akropolis: Journal of Hellenic Studies 3 (December 8, 2019): 130–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.35296/jhs.v3i0.28.
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It is easier to criticize others and their foreign way of life, than to turn the mirror of critical reflection upon one’s own customs and laws. I argue that Plato follows this basic premise in the Timaeus when he constructs a story about Atlantis, which Solon, the Athenian, learns during his travels to Egypt. The reason why Plato appeals to the distinction that his Greek audience makes between themselves and the ξένοι is pedagogical. On the example of the conflict between Atlantis—a mythical and, therefore, a foreign polis— and ancient Athens, Plato seeks to remind the Greeks what even a mighty polis stands to lose if it pursues expansionist war. On the example of the failure that befalls the mythical Atlantis, and on the basis of the religious similarity between ancient Athens and ancient Sais (21e), Plato bridges the distance between the Greeks and the Egyptians, who would have been seen as actual (as opposed to mythical) ξένοι. The next step that Plato encourages his contemporaries to take is this: look at the history of Egypt (8 – 7BC) and the internal conflicts that led to the demise of the last bastion of Egyptian power—Sais—and recognize in the internal political intrigues of the “Athens-loving” (21e) ξένοι the pattern of the destructive actions of the Greeks. Plato moves from the less to the more familiar—from the story about a mythic past and Atlantis, to ancient Athenians, to ancient Egyptians, to the Egyptians and Athenians of Solon’s time. The meeting between the ξένοι—the Egyptians at Sais—and the quintessentially Athenian Greek, Solon (7BC – 6BC), undeniably problematizes the customs, national identity, and political dealings of Plato’s contemporaries, the Greeks in the 5BC – 4BC.
 By the time that Plato writes the Timaeus, circa 360BC, in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, Athens is all but undone. However, the fate of Greece is not yet sealed. Why turn to Egypt? Toby Wilkinson’s (2013) description of the Egyptian kingdom offers a clue: “The monarchy had sunk to an all-time low. Devoid of respect and stripped of mystique, it was but a pale imitation of past pharaonic glories” (The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt 431). The Greeks face that same prospect, but how to make them see? Direct criticism (the Philippic addresses of Demosthenes, for example) fails. Plato devises a decoy—make Greeks reflect on the repercussions of their poor political decisions by seeing them reflected in the actions and the history of the Egyptians—the Greek-loving and, by Plato’s time, defeated ξένοι.