Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue
given by the titular character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward
speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings and is
followed by the dialogue Critias. Participants in the dialogue include
Socrates, Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, and Critias. Some scholars believe that
it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who is appearing in this
dialogue, but his grandfather, who is also named Critias. It has been
suggested that Timaeus influenced a book about Pythagoras, written by Philolaus.
Introduction The dialogue takes place the day after
Socrates described his ideal state. In Plato's works such a discussion occurs
in the Republic. Socrates feels that his description of the ideal state wasn't
sufficient for the purposes of entertainment and that "I would be glad
to hear some account of it engaging in transactions with other states".
Hermocrates wishes to oblige Socrates and mentions that Critias knows just the
account to do so. Critias proceeds to tell the story of Solon's journey to
Egypt where he hears the story of Atlantis, and how Athens used to be an
ideal state that subsequently waged war against Atlantis. Critias believes that
he is getting ahead of himself, and mentions that Timaeus will tell part of
the account from the origin of the universe to man. The history of Atlantis
is postponed to Critias. The main content of the dialogue, the exposition
by Timaeus, follows. Synopsis of Timaeus' account
= Nature of the physical world= Timaeus begins with a distinction
between the physical world, and the eternal world. The physical one is the
world which changes and perishes: therefore it is the object of opinion
and unreasoned sensation. The eternal one never changes: therefore it is
apprehended by reason. The speeches about the two worlds are
conditioned by the different nature of their objects. Indeed, "a description of
what is changeless, fixed and clearly intelligible will be changeless and
fixed,", while a description of what changes and is likely, will also change
and be just likely. "As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief".
Therefore, in a description of the physical world, one "should not look for
anything more than a likely story". Timaeus suggests that since nothing
"becomes or changes" without cause, then the cause of the universe must be a
demiurge or a god, a figure Timaeus refers to as the father and maker of the
universe. And since the universe is fair, the demiurge must have looked to
the eternal model to make it, and not to the perishable one. Hence, using the
eternal and perfect world of "forms" or ideals as a template, he set about
creating our world, which formerly only existed in a state of disorder.
= Purpose of the universe= Timaeus continues with an explanation of
the creation of the universe, which he ascribes to the handiwork of a divine
craftsman. The demiurge, being good, wanted there to be as much good as was
the world. The demiurge is said to bring order out of substance by imitating an
unchanging and eternal model. The ananke, often translated as 'necessity',
was the only other co-existent element or presence in Plato's cosmogony. Later
Platonists clarified that the eternal model existed in the mind of the
Demiurge. (Later in history the term "demiurge"
became a term of vilification by Gnostics who purported that the demiurge
was a fallen and ignorant god creating a flawed universe, but this was not how
Plato was using the term.) = Properties of the universe=
Timaeus describes the substance as a lack of homogeneity or balance, in which
the four elements were shapeless, mixed and in constant motion. Considering that
order is favourable over disorder, the essential act of the creator was to
bring order and clarity to this substance. Therefore, all the properties
of the world are to be explained by the demiurge's choice of what is fair and
good; or, the idea of a dichotomy between good and evil.
First of all, the world is a living creature. Since the unintelligent
creatures are in their appearance less fair than intelligent creatures, and
since intelligence needs to be settled in a soul, the demiurge "put
intelligence in soul, and soul in body" in order to make a living and
intelligent whole. "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". Then, since the part is imperfect
compared to the whole, the world had to be one and only. Therefore, the demiurge
did not create several worlds, but a single unique world.
The creator decided also to make the perceptible body of the universe by four
elements, in order to render it proportioned. Indeed, in addition to
fire and earth, which make bodies visible and solid, a third element was
required as a mean: "two things cannot be rightly put together without a third;
there must be some bond of union between them". Moreover, since the world is not
a surface but a solid, a fourth mean was needed to reach harmony: therefore, the
creator placed water and air between fire and earth. "And for these reasons,
and out of such elements which are in number four, the body of the world was
created, and it was harmonised by proportion".
As for the figure, the demiurge created the world in the geometric form of a
globe. Indeed, the round figure is the most perfect one, because it comprehends
or averages all the other figures and it is the most omnimorphic of all figures:
"he [the demiurge] considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the
unlike". The creator assigned then to the world a
rotatory or circular movement, which is the "most appropriate to mind and
intelligence" on account of its being the most uniform.
Finally, he created the soul of the world, placed that soul in the center of
the world's body and diffused it in every direction. Having thus been
created as a perfect, self-sufficient and intelligent being, the world is a
god. = The creation of the World Soul=
Timaeus then explains how the soul of the world was created. The demiurge
combined three elements: two varieties of Sameness, two varieties of
Difference, and two types of Being. From this emerged three compound substances,
intermediate Being, intermediate Sameness, and intermediate Difference.
From this compound one final substance resulted, the World Soul. He then
divided following precise mathematical proportions, cutting the compound
lengthways, fixed the resulting two bands in their middle, like in the
letter Χ, and connected them at their ends, to have two crossing circles. The
demiurge imparted on them a circular movement on their axis: the outer circle
was assigned Sameness and turned horizontally to the right, while the
inner circle was assigned to Difference and turned diagonally and to the left.
The demiurge gave the primacy to the motion of Sameness and left it
undivided; but he divided the motion of Difference in six parts, to have seven
unequal circles. He prescribed these circles to move in opposite directions,
three of them with equal speeds, the others with unequal speeds, but always
in proportion. These circles are the orbits of the heavenly bodies: the three
moving at equal speeds are the Sun, Venus and Mercury, while the four moving
at unequal speeds are the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. The complicated
pattern of these movements is bound to be repeated again after a period called
a 'complete' or 'perfect' year. Then, the demiurge connected the body
and the soul of the universe: he diffused the soul from the center of the
body to its extremities in every direction, allowing the invisible soul
to envelop the visible body. The soul began to rotate and this was the
beginning of its eternal and rational life.
Therefore, having been composed by Sameness, Difference and Existence, and
formed in right proportions, the soul declares the sameness or difference of
every object it meets: when it is a sensible object, the inner circle of the
Diverse transmit its movement to the soul, where opinions arise, but when it
is an intellectual object, the circle of the Same turns perfectly round and true
knowledge arises. = The Elements=
Timaeus claims that the minute particle of each element had a special geometric
shape: tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, and cube.
universe: earth, water, air, and fire. Timaeus links each of these elements to
a certain Platonic solid: the element of earth would be a cube, of air an
octahedron, of water an icosahedron, and of fire a tetrahedron. Each of these
perfect The Timaeus makes conjectures on the composition of the four elements
which some ancient Greeks thought constituted the physical polyhedra would
be in turn composed of triangular faces the 30-60-90 and the 45-45-90 triangles.
The faces of each element could be broken down into its component
right-angled triangles, either isosceles or scalene, which could then be put
together to form all of physical matter. Particular characteristics of matter,
such as water's capacity to extinguish fire, was then related to shape and size
of the constituent triangles. The fifth element was the dodecahedron, whose
faces are not triangular, and which was taken to represent the shape of the
Universe as a whole, possibly because of all the elements it most approximates a
sphere, which Timaeus has already noted was the shape into which God had formed
the Universe. The extensive final part of the dialogue
addresses the creation of humans, including the soul, anatomy, perception,
and transmigration of the soul. = Golden ratio=
According to Mary Ritter Beard, Theano, the wife of Pythagoras told Hippodamus
of Thurium, the treatise On Virtue, she wrote, contains the doctrine of the
golden mean. "For whenever in any three numbers,
whether cube or square, there is a mean, which is to the last term what the first
term is to it; and again, when the mean is to the first term as the last term is
to the mean—then the mean becoming first and last, and the first and last both
becoming means, they will all of them of necessity come to be the same, and
having become the same with one another will be all one"; thereby he implies the
aesthetically perfect proportion known as golden ratio or golden mean.
Later influence The Timaeus was translated into Latin by
Cicero, and the first part was again translated by Calcidius circa 321 AD.
Calcidius' partial translation of the Timaeus was the only Platonic dialogue,
and one of the few works of classical natural philosophy, available to Latin
readers in the early Middle Ages. Thus it had a strong influence on medieval
Neoplatonic cosmology and was commented on particularly by 12th century
Christian philosophers of the Chartres School, such as Thierry of Chartres and
William of Conches, who interpreting it in the light of the Christian faith
understood the dialogue to refer to a creatio ex nihilo.
See also Sophist
Statesman Philebus
Johannes Kepler Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Plotinus Esoteric cosmology
Khôra Religious cosmology
Creation myth Teleological argument
Atlantis Notes
References Cornford, Francis Macdonald [1935].
Plato's Cosmology: the Timaeus of Plato, Translated with a Running Commentary.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. ISBN 0-87220-386-7.
Martin, Thomas Henry [1841]. Études sur le Timée de Platon. Paris: Librairie
philosophique J. Vrin. Sallis, John. Chorology: On Beginning in
Plato's "Timaeus". Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21308-8.
Taylor, Alfred E.. A commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Oxford: Clarendon.
K. Sarah-Jane Murray. From Plato to Lancelot: A Preface to Chretien de
Troyes. Syracuse University Press. ISBN 0-8156-3160-X.
External links Project Gutenberg edition
York University edition Jowett's text with all words linked and
concordance Bilingual Edition of Plato's Timaeus in
English and Greek side by side Plato's Timaeus entry by Donald Zeyl in
the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy "Platonic Solids and Plato's Theory of
Everything" at MathPages.com. Digby 23 Project at Baylor University