Timaeus Notes 1

(Originally written July 21, 2018 in Book 17)

Timaeus & Critias
Plato

The Timaeus was the first Ancient Greek text to give an account of creation of the world by a divine creator. Other, earlier Greek accounts were either mythical, centering around sexual reproduction or treated as a haphazard evolution.

"The primary purpose of the Timaeus is theological, that is to say, to give a religious and teleological account of the origin of the world and of the phenomena of nature" (Plato, 7).

On a side note, the teleological has been widely discarded by science. But, I wonder, if we are simply matter and synapses and electrical currents then we are exactly like what the rest of the cosmos is in terms of stuff. But, we, as human beings, obviously do things with a purpose. Thus, we are teleological beings. If we are merely stuff like everything in the cosmos then that stuff is teleological. If matter is then teleological then why is it limited to human beings? That would seem an arbitrary statement.

The creation account of the Timaeus is not a god synonymous with the Christian God or even other Greek gods.

The philosophical basis for the Timaeus begins with Plato's distinction between Being and Becoming.  The world of Being contains the Platonic Forms, the principles of logic and mathematics - that which can be known by reason. The world of Becoming is what we perceive by the senses.

"The function of the creator is to account for the intelligibility of the universe" (Plato, 110. Plato believed the cosmos was something we could understand and it could be understood because there is an intelligent force underlying it.

Plato argues that there is a goodness inherent in the actions of the Creator. Thus, when we see traces of divine design  we can infer goodness.

The Timaeus and the Critias belong to the late period of Plato's works. They are probably his penultimate works before he wrote the Laws, which he left unfinished on account of his death in 348 BC.

Timaeus

Socrates begins by summarizing the ideal society
- separating the people by occupation/craft/class
- each class gets a single occupation appropriate to it
- the ruling class would thus, only be rulers and have no other occupation
- the rulers must be gentle to their subjects
- the rulers must be trained physically and mentally
- the rulers must not have private property
- no marriage among the rulers. all children were to be children to all and not now their parents. The good men should be assigned to the good women (and the bad paired up) by secret, fixed ways

Critias then begins to tell a story about the travels of Solon. Solon went to Egypt, to the city of Sais. There, Solon learned from the priests about antiquity.

Solon learns about Deucalion and Pyrrha who survived a great flood. But, the old priest criticizes Solon for childish thinking and small-thinking. "You remember only one deluge, though there have been many, and you do not know that the finest and best race of men that every existed lived in your country; you and your fellow citizens are descended from the few survivors that remained" (Plato, 36).

Then Timaeus speaks. He intends to speak an account of how the universe began.

First we must distinguish between "that which always is and never becomes from that which is always becoming but never is" (Plato, 40). Distinguishes between Being and Becoming.

Being is knowable by reason and intellect. Becoming is understood through opinion and irrational sensation. Being has no cause. Becoming always has a cause.

The cosmos falls into the category of becoming because it can be sensed. Since it is sensible it has a cause.

Why did the creator choose to create the cosmos? The creator is good and therefore wishes all things to be as like him as possible. "God thererfore, wishing that all things should be good, and so far as possible nothing be imperfect" (Plato, 42). The creator took the chaos and reduced it to order.

The Creator created the cosmos to have soul in it, not in any indiviudal part, but in its entirety. That soul is diffuse throughout its entirety.