What do you think?
Rate this book
Timaeus/Critias
'The god wanted everything to be good, marred by as little imperfection as possible.'
Timaeus, one of Plato's acknowledged masterpieces, is an attempt to construct the universe and explain its contents by means of as few axioms as possible. The result is a brilliant, bizarre, and surreal cosmos - the product of the rational thinking of a creator god and his astral assistants, and of purely mechanistic causes based on the behaviour of the four elements. At times dazzlingly clear, at times intriguingly opaque, this was state-of-the-art science in the middle of the fourth century BC. The world is presented as a battlefield of forces that are unified only by the will of God, who had to do the best he could with recalcitrant building materials.
The unfinished companion piece, Critias, is the foundational text for the story of Atlantis. It tells how a model society became corrupt, and how a lost race of Athenians defeated the aggression of the invading Atlanteans. This new edition combines the clearest translation yet of these crucial ancient texts with an illuminating introduction and diagrams.
Timaeus, one of Plato's acknowledged masterpieces, is an attempt to construct the universe and explain its contents by means of as few axioms as possible. The result is a brilliant, bizarre, and surreal cosmos - the product of the rational thinking of a creator god and his astral assistants, and of purely mechanistic causes based on the behaviour of the four elements. At times dazzlingly clear, at times intriguingly opaque, this was state-of-the-art science in the middle of the fourth century BC. The world is presented as a battlefield of forces that are unified only by the will of God, who had to do the best he could with recalcitrant building materials.
The unfinished companion piece, Critias, is the foundational text for the story of Atlantis. It tells how a model society became corrupt, and how a lost race of Athenians defeated the aggression of the invading Atlanteans. This new edition combines the clearest translation yet of these crucial ancient texts with an illuminating introduction and diagrams.
Hardcover
First published January 1, 361
358 people are currently reading
3360 people want to read
About the author
Plato
5,346 books8,741 followersPlato (Greek: Πλάτων), born Aristocles (c. 427 – 348 BC), was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the written dialogue and dialectic forms. He raised problems for what became all the major areas of both theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, and was the founder of the Platonic Academy, a philosophical school in Athens where Plato taught the doctrines that would later become known as Platonism.
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
Plato's most famous contribution is the theory of forms (or ideas), which has been interpreted as advancing a solution to what is now known as the problem of universals. He was decisively influenced by the pre-Socratic thinkers Pythagoras, Heraclitus, and Parmenides, although much of what is known about them is derived from Plato himself.
Along with his teacher Socrates, and Aristotle, his student, Plato is a central figure in the history of philosophy. Plato's entire body of work is believed to have survived intact for over 2,400 years—unlike that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Although their popularity has fluctuated, they have consistently been read and studied through the ages. Through Neoplatonism, he also greatly influenced both Christian and Islamic philosophy. In modern times, Alfred North Whitehead famously said: "the safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
October 4, 2018
Done, phew !!
Well this was a tough read and no mistake for such a small book. I had hoped there was more Greek myths in the content, especially given that part of it was supposed to be about Atlantis. Unfortunately there was little mythology involved. Whether it was unfinished on purpose or else part of the book has been lost over the years (centuries) who knows, but the end result is that of the 3 monologues this book was intending to show case, only the first survives in its entirety.
This first monologue of almost 90 pages is Timaeus' contribution to this book. At times this monologue was, shall we say a little boring, at others it was remarkably modern thinking regarding the composition of matter, for a book written almost 2500 years old.
The second part, to be a monologue by Critias, regarding the Fall of Atlantis (to me probably the most interesting) only lasts a few pages and then that's it, just as it's about to get interesting, doh !
A Platonic text that influenced and continues to influence Western thought and doctrine, hmmm maybe, a difficult book to read with some interesting ideas, well yes. Am I pleased I read it, I think that has to be a yes as well.
Well this was a tough read and no mistake for such a small book. I had hoped there was more Greek myths in the content, especially given that part of it was supposed to be about Atlantis. Unfortunately there was little mythology involved. Whether it was unfinished on purpose or else part of the book has been lost over the years (centuries) who knows, but the end result is that of the 3 monologues this book was intending to show case, only the first survives in its entirety.
This first monologue of almost 90 pages is Timaeus' contribution to this book. At times this monologue was, shall we say a little boring, at others it was remarkably modern thinking regarding the composition of matter, for a book written almost 2500 years old.
The second part, to be a monologue by Critias, regarding the Fall of Atlantis (to me probably the most interesting) only lasts a few pages and then that's it, just as it's about to get interesting, doh !
A Platonic text that influenced and continues to influence Western thought and doctrine, hmmm maybe, a difficult book to read with some interesting ideas, well yes. Am I pleased I read it, I think that has to be a yes as well.
July 31, 2018
I don't believe there are words that can do justice to any of Plato's writings. I'll say one thing, though: the platonic dialogue of Timaeus and its story about Atlantis was one of the most pivotal nudges I got towards becoming a novelist.
If you're not into philosophy and Greek philosophy at that, it will be hard to enjoy this book.
Otherwise, I cannot recommend it enough. ***
If you're not into philosophy and Greek philosophy at that, it will be hard to enjoy this book.
Otherwise, I cannot recommend it enough. ***
January 7, 2019
This is how the world began according to Plato.
Out of Chaos rose the stars and planets, rose man and the four elements—fire, air, water, and earth—based on four of the five convex regular polyhedra (the Platonic solids). All was created by a Demiurge looking to an eternal, perfect model. We hear how the senses function (for example, how we see: by sending out our own fire through our eyes and having it react with the fire reflected off objects), and how the human body was purposefully designed (the head, which contains the purest part of the soul, is separated off from other, viler parts). It is worth reading Timaeus just for the creativity and historical importance of Plato's imaginative explanations.
The book is in traditional dialogic form and it is unfinished. Four characters are present: Socrates, Timaeus, Critias, and another. Socrates takes on a minor role at the beginning, questioning the group about their intended stories, but then Timaeus proceeds to give Plato's cosmogony in a virtually unbroken monologue. Critias follows up with a story of the legendary Atlantis, but only manages to get started before the text is cut off.
The introduction and editor's notes offer indispensable contextual information.
Out of Chaos rose the stars and planets, rose man and the four elements—fire, air, water, and earth—based on four of the five convex regular polyhedra (the Platonic solids). All was created by a Demiurge looking to an eternal, perfect model. We hear how the senses function (for example, how we see: by sending out our own fire through our eyes and having it react with the fire reflected off objects), and how the human body was purposefully designed (the head, which contains the purest part of the soul, is separated off from other, viler parts). It is worth reading Timaeus just for the creativity and historical importance of Plato's imaginative explanations.
The book is in traditional dialogic form and it is unfinished. Four characters are present: Socrates, Timaeus, Critias, and another. Socrates takes on a minor role at the beginning, questioning the group about their intended stories, but then Timaeus proceeds to give Plato's cosmogony in a virtually unbroken monologue. Critias follows up with a story of the legendary Atlantis, but only manages to get started before the text is cut off.
The introduction and editor's notes offer indispensable contextual information.
June 2, 2016
In this introduction to my copy of the Timaeus, Benjamin Jowett says: “Of all the writings of Plato the Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive to the modern reader”—and he is, unfortunately, correct. This dialogue was very tiresome to read, and it was only through force of will and a few long train rides that I made it to the end. There is little to hold the attention, and much to baffle the sense.
I was originally drawn to the Timaeus for two reasons: I’d heard that it was the only dialogue of Plato available to the medievals, and Aristotle frequently makes mention of this dialogue (mostly to disagree with it) in his writings on natural philosophy. What a surprise and disappointment to be greeted with one of Plato’s worst works; indeed, the difference in reactions between the ancients and medievals—who regarded it with wonder and respect—and us moderns is, perhaps, an interesting diagnostic of our changing world views. That it could even be taken seriously—much less with the mysticism of ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval thinkers—is nowadays hard to believe; today, it reads like a mediocre just-so story.
To call either the Timaeus or the Critias a ‘dialogue’ is misleading; for both works, though they begin with some dialogue, are primarily monologues by their titular characters. As the translator Benjamin Jowett notes, Plato’s prose (in the original, and mirrored in the translation) is here far below his usual heights. Jowett attributes this to Plato not having sufficiently precise Greek terms for the subject of natural philosophy, nor any suitable preexistent models for his work; by way of an apology, Jowett also notes—as a polite understatement—that Plato’s mastery of the material is “imperfect.”
Speaking for myself, one of the reasons I so admire Plato is for his mastery of the dialogue form; at his best, Plato manages to encapsulate the thrill of an excited (perhaps overexcited) philosophical discussion. Plato’s verbal sparing with imaginary characters is so stunning because it is both engaging and perfectly suited to the material.
The monologue form is dead and deadening in Plato’s hands; the works are clumsy and, at times, even amateurish. The Timaeus goes on and on, moving from topic to topic with little plan or coherence, addressing tremendously complex subjects in a few paragraphs. Where Plato does give an argument, it is cursory; and more often Plato omits argument altogether, instead opting for a kind of myth format. How Timaeus could possibly know any of the information here presented, and why the beleaguered reader should believe any of it, is hardly addressed. Here is a sample:
To be fair, it is ambiguous to what extent Plato actually endorsed the views put forward in this work. As Jowett notes, Plato puts the entire text of the Timaeus into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher; Socrates is only a listener. One should also note that the views here expressed are not totally original with Plato; in his natural philosophy, Plato weaves his system out of the systems of his predecessors, mixed with the myths of his heritage. For example, Plato, as is well known, divides up reality into the unchanging world of forms and the chaotic world of matter; the former is the subject of knowledge, the latter of opinion. This view is a seamless elision of the views of Parmenides, who believed that change was impossible, and Heraclitus, who believed that change was ceaseless. Plato merely creates one changeless world, and another changing. Plato also endorses the Pythagorean view that mathematics is the basis of reality, while combining it with a belief in the four elements—earth, fire, water, and air. To do this, Plato just explains that the four elements are four of the geometrical Platonic solids, and that they are combined in perfect ratios.
Ironically enough, reading this made me realize what a giant leap forward was Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Plato makes hardly any attempt at argument, and most often simply states his views one after another. Aristotle, though often wrong, at least attempts to be systematic, to address criticisms, to put forward cogent arguments, and, every so often, to base his views on observations. I can only imagine Aristotle sitting in Plato's Academy, squirming in his seat, as the old philosopher went on about his natural philosophy. Aristotle’s hand would shoot up every few minutes to voice a concern or a question, and Plato would merely smile, perhaps realizing what a promising pupil he had.
I suppose I should say something about the Critias. It’s much shorter, and less fantastical, than the first dialogue. The descriptions of Atlantis I found surprisingly dry; I’m not sure exactly why that old myth has exhibited such a pull on the imagination for so long.
I was originally drawn to the Timaeus for two reasons: I’d heard that it was the only dialogue of Plato available to the medievals, and Aristotle frequently makes mention of this dialogue (mostly to disagree with it) in his writings on natural philosophy. What a surprise and disappointment to be greeted with one of Plato’s worst works; indeed, the difference in reactions between the ancients and medievals—who regarded it with wonder and respect—and us moderns is, perhaps, an interesting diagnostic of our changing world views. That it could even be taken seriously—much less with the mysticism of ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval thinkers—is nowadays hard to believe; today, it reads like a mediocre just-so story.
To call either the Timaeus or the Critias a ‘dialogue’ is misleading; for both works, though they begin with some dialogue, are primarily monologues by their titular characters. As the translator Benjamin Jowett notes, Plato’s prose (in the original, and mirrored in the translation) is here far below his usual heights. Jowett attributes this to Plato not having sufficiently precise Greek terms for the subject of natural philosophy, nor any suitable preexistent models for his work; by way of an apology, Jowett also notes—as a polite understatement—that Plato’s mastery of the material is “imperfect.”
Speaking for myself, one of the reasons I so admire Plato is for his mastery of the dialogue form; at his best, Plato manages to encapsulate the thrill of an excited (perhaps overexcited) philosophical discussion. Plato’s verbal sparing with imaginary characters is so stunning because it is both engaging and perfectly suited to the material.
The monologue form is dead and deadening in Plato’s hands; the works are clumsy and, at times, even amateurish. The Timaeus goes on and on, moving from topic to topic with little plan or coherence, addressing tremendously complex subjects in a few paragraphs. Where Plato does give an argument, it is cursory; and more often Plato omits argument altogether, instead opting for a kind of myth format. How Timaeus could possibly know any of the information here presented, and why the beleaguered reader should believe any of it, is hardly addressed. Here is a sample:
Inflammations of the body come from burnings and inflamings, and all of them originate in bile. When bile finds a means of discharge, it boils up and sends forth all sorts of tumours; but when imprisoned within, it generates many inflammatory diseases, above all when mingled with pure blood; since it then displaces the fibres which are scattered about in the blood and are designed to maintain the balance of rare and dense, in order that the blood may not be so liquefied by heat as to exude from the pores of the body, nor again become too dense and thus find a difficulty in circulating through veins.
To be fair, it is ambiguous to what extent Plato actually endorsed the views put forward in this work. As Jowett notes, Plato puts the entire text of the Timaeus into the mouth of a Pythagorean philosopher; Socrates is only a listener. One should also note that the views here expressed are not totally original with Plato; in his natural philosophy, Plato weaves his system out of the systems of his predecessors, mixed with the myths of his heritage. For example, Plato, as is well known, divides up reality into the unchanging world of forms and the chaotic world of matter; the former is the subject of knowledge, the latter of opinion. This view is a seamless elision of the views of Parmenides, who believed that change was impossible, and Heraclitus, who believed that change was ceaseless. Plato merely creates one changeless world, and another changing. Plato also endorses the Pythagorean view that mathematics is the basis of reality, while combining it with a belief in the four elements—earth, fire, water, and air. To do this, Plato just explains that the four elements are four of the geometrical Platonic solids, and that they are combined in perfect ratios.
Ironically enough, reading this made me realize what a giant leap forward was Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Plato makes hardly any attempt at argument, and most often simply states his views one after another. Aristotle, though often wrong, at least attempts to be systematic, to address criticisms, to put forward cogent arguments, and, every so often, to base his views on observations. I can only imagine Aristotle sitting in Plato's Academy, squirming in his seat, as the old philosopher went on about his natural philosophy. Aristotle’s hand would shoot up every few minutes to voice a concern or a question, and Plato would merely smile, perhaps realizing what a promising pupil he had.
I suppose I should say something about the Critias. It’s much shorter, and less fantastical, than the first dialogue. The descriptions of Atlantis I found surprisingly dry; I’m not sure exactly why that old myth has exhibited such a pull on the imagination for so long.
January 11, 2026
My motivation was clear. I approached this book with an eye to a further Derrida treatment next weekend. That said, I was surprised by what I found. Not only is Timaeus cosmological treatise but it features reincarnation and apparently the first detailed study of Atlantis. It must be said that for a Socratic dialogue there isn’t much discussion nor synthesis. What we have is explication. There’s thus a theological bend to this one which again caught me by surprise.
I do like the images here. The admixture of elements is rather prescient even if the blind watchmaker of the deists is here a cosmic Tony Bourdain taking a bump of blow before constructing the concentric circles of existence.
Desmond Lee provides a maddening introduction and appendix. He was likely wary of the Chariots of the Gods crowd crashing his erudition.
I do like the images here. The admixture of elements is rather prescient even if the blind watchmaker of the deists is here a cosmic Tony Bourdain taking a bump of blow before constructing the concentric circles of existence.
Desmond Lee provides a maddening introduction and appendix. He was likely wary of the Chariots of the Gods crowd crashing his erudition.
March 22, 2021
The best part of this is reading the what-ifs of Atlantis :D
May 17, 2020
Timaeus of Locri, in real life, may have been a Pythagorean philosopher of the 5th century B.C. – or maybe he was just a literary character invented by Plato. Critias seems to have been a relative of Plato’s, though scholars are not quite sure just how he was related to Plato. But be all that as it may, the two are Socrates’ main interlocutors for an intriguing pair of Platonic dialogues that, among other things, provide the classical world’s most complete and tantalizing picture of the legend of Atlantis.
Indeed, for the modern reader, the Atlantean passages of the Timaeus and the Critias may be more intriguing than the somewhat awkward attempts at Platonic particle physics that take up a great deal of the Timaeus in particular. Early in the Timaeus, a dialogue that seems to follow upon Socrates’ description of the ideal state in the Republic, Critias tells Socrates that he is going to provide the background history of a long-ago great war in which Athens, then the best of all city-states, defeated Atlantis, “a great power which arrogantly advanced from its base in the Atlantic ocean to attack the cities of Europe and Asia” (p. 14).
Critias describes Atlantis as follows:
There was an island opposite the strait which you call (so you say) the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined; from it travellers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the whole opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called “the ocean.”…On this island of Atlantis had arisen a powerful and remarkable dynasty of kings, which ruled the whole island, and many other islands as well and parts of the continent; in addition it controlled, within the strait, Libya up to the borders of Egypt and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. (pp. 14-15)
After summing up the Athenian victory over the Atlanteans, Critias adds that “At a later time, there were earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence, and in a single dreadful day and night…the island of Atlantis was…swallowed up by the sea and vanished; this is why the sea in that area is to this day impassable to navigation, which is hindered by mud just below the surface, the remains of the sunken island” (p. 15). Here, we have the original description of a once-great, now sunken city, an archetype that has inspired cultural artifacts as diverse as Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem “The City in the Sea,” rock singer Donovan’s 1969 song “Atlantis,” and the Aquaman character that made his first comic-book appearance in 1941.
So, where did Plato get this intriguing idea? It is possible that he was drawing on old accounts of the Thera eruption, a volcanic disaster that devastated the island of Thera around 1600 B.C. The entire center of the island collapsed into a deep caldera that visitors to modern Santorini can still see today, and an entire Minoan city-state was destroyed. It is easy to imagine how this long-ago calamity might have inspired stories about the legendary Atlantis; but whatever their source, the Atlantean passages of the Timaeus are delightful.
But then a rather awkward transition occurs, as Timaeus declares that “everything that becomes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause” (p. 17). His subsequent declaration that “it is in every way necessary that this world is a likeness of something” (p. 18) leads to a question: “What was the living being in the likeness of which the creator constructed the world?” (p. 20)
We learn, in accordance with Plato’s emphasis upon the idea of a World of Forms that is inconceivably above and beyond the lesser reality in which most people conventionally live, that the gods make the mortal souls of humans; the immortal souls of the gods, by contrast, have to be crafted by a demiurge. This concept of the demiurge as a sort of lesser deity, a figure who fashions the universe from materials created by a higher and ultimate creator, proved extremely influential in later periods of the history of the West, with a number of Christian heresies drawing from it, and the Gnostics making the concept of the demiurge a particularly important part of their philosophy.
We also learn about the creation of the human body and senses. When it comes to the basic building blocks of life, Timaeus talks a great deal about how the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) combine with elaborations of the three kinds of triangles (scalene, isosceles, and equilateral) to make up all things. The fundamental particles, Timaeus claims, are the 4-sided tetrahedron for fire, the 6-sided cube for earth, the 8-sided octahedron for air, and the 20-sided icosahedron for water. By this time, I was actively longing for a return to Atlantis.
Things did get more interesting when Timaeus discussed human growth, disease, decay, and death. Reincarnation is emphasized, and the reader learns that “The men of the first generation who lived cowardly or unjust lives were…reborn in the second generation as women” (p. 89). Really, Timaeus? Really? It seems that coming into existence as anything other than a Greek-speaking man can be explained in terms of divine punishment, as Timaeus tells Socrates and his other interlocutors that
The race of birds was produced by a process of transformation, whereby feathers grew, instead of hair, from harmless, empty-headed men, who were interested in the heavens but were silly enough to think that the most certain astronomical demonstrations proceed through observation. Wild land animals have come from men who made no use of philosophy and never in any way considered the nature of the heavens because they had ceased to use the circles in the head and followed the leadership of the parts of the soul in the breast. (pp. 89-90)
Things do sound more traditionally Platonic when Timaeus writes that “[I]t is unjust to blame overindulgence in pleasure as if wrongdoing were voluntary; no one is bad voluntarily, but a bad man becomes bad because of a pernicious bodily condition and an uneducated upbringing, evils which nobody wants to befall him” (p. 84). It follows then that “we must try with all our might by education, by practice, and by study to avoid evil and grasp its contrary” (p. 85). The idea that balance and proportion constitute the basis on which to build a virtuous life receives appropriate emphasis here.
Then it’s on to the Critias -- where Critias finally gets back to the Atlantis story. We hear about how the gods created the Greek world, and about the justice with which Athens administered its affairs – highly reminiscent of Plato’s descriptions of the ideal state in the Republic – and then Critias turns our attention back to Atlantis.
We learn, among other things, that “the furthest part of the island toward the Pillars of Heracles” was “facing the district now called Gadira” (p. 102)– meaning the modern-day city of Cadiz, Spain. This helpful geographical designation gives us a very strong sense of where the people of classical Greece thought Atlantis had been – and also lets us know that those readers of Charles Berlitz’s paranormal best-seller The Bermuda Triangle (1974) who may have been expecting to find a real-life Atlantis in the western-Atlantic triangle formed by Bermuda, Cape Florida, and Puerto Rico were probably looking in the wrong place.
The Atlanteans, we are told, mined their own unique material called orichalc, and built a magnificent city with an acropolis surrounded by three rings of water, in a manner that reminds one of the old Aztec capital at Tenochtitlan. It had a palace covered with silver, “gold statues of the god [Poseidon] standing in a chariot drawn by six winged horses…and round him, riding on dolphins, a hundred Nereids”, with “gold statues of all the wives and descendants of the ten kings” of Atlantis (p. 104). It was the best place in the world for agriculture, “full of trees of marvelous beauty and height”, with “mountains…celebrated as being more numerous, higher, and more beautiful than any which exist today; and in them were numerous villages and a wealthy population” (pp. 105-06).
In short, it sounds like an earthly paradise. Unfortunately, though, just as Critias is about to tell us how the Atlanteans lost favour with the gods and degenerated toward eventual ruin, the dialogue ends! – for it is incomplete.
The Timaeus in particular is important among Plato’s dialogues; in Raphael’s painting The School of Athens (1509-11), it is the dialogue that an elderly, white-bearded Plato is shown holding while, pointing upward toward the World of Forms, he disputes with a youthful Aristotle who points downward toward the Earth. These two dialogues provide valuable insights into how the philosophers of classical Greece viewed both history and material reality. I just wish Plato had been able to give Critias more time in which to tell us more about Atlantis.
Indeed, for the modern reader, the Atlantean passages of the Timaeus and the Critias may be more intriguing than the somewhat awkward attempts at Platonic particle physics that take up a great deal of the Timaeus in particular. Early in the Timaeus, a dialogue that seems to follow upon Socrates’ description of the ideal state in the Republic, Critias tells Socrates that he is going to provide the background history of a long-ago great war in which Athens, then the best of all city-states, defeated Atlantis, “a great power which arrogantly advanced from its base in the Atlantic ocean to attack the cities of Europe and Asia” (p. 14).
Critias describes Atlantis as follows:
There was an island opposite the strait which you call (so you say) the Pillars of Heracles, an island larger than Libya and Asia combined; from it travellers could in those days reach the other islands, and from them the whole opposite continent which surrounds what can truly be called “the ocean.”…On this island of Atlantis had arisen a powerful and remarkable dynasty of kings, which ruled the whole island, and many other islands as well and parts of the continent; in addition it controlled, within the strait, Libya up to the borders of Egypt and Europe as far as Tyrrhenia. (pp. 14-15)
After summing up the Athenian victory over the Atlanteans, Critias adds that “At a later time, there were earthquakes and floods of extraordinary violence, and in a single dreadful day and night…the island of Atlantis was…swallowed up by the sea and vanished; this is why the sea in that area is to this day impassable to navigation, which is hindered by mud just below the surface, the remains of the sunken island” (p. 15). Here, we have the original description of a once-great, now sunken city, an archetype that has inspired cultural artifacts as diverse as Edgar Allan Poe’s 1845 poem “The City in the Sea,” rock singer Donovan’s 1969 song “Atlantis,” and the Aquaman character that made his first comic-book appearance in 1941.
So, where did Plato get this intriguing idea? It is possible that he was drawing on old accounts of the Thera eruption, a volcanic disaster that devastated the island of Thera around 1600 B.C. The entire center of the island collapsed into a deep caldera that visitors to modern Santorini can still see today, and an entire Minoan city-state was destroyed. It is easy to imagine how this long-ago calamity might have inspired stories about the legendary Atlantis; but whatever their source, the Atlantean passages of the Timaeus are delightful.
But then a rather awkward transition occurs, as Timaeus declares that “everything that becomes must do so owing to some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause” (p. 17). His subsequent declaration that “it is in every way necessary that this world is a likeness of something” (p. 18) leads to a question: “What was the living being in the likeness of which the creator constructed the world?” (p. 20)
We learn, in accordance with Plato’s emphasis upon the idea of a World of Forms that is inconceivably above and beyond the lesser reality in which most people conventionally live, that the gods make the mortal souls of humans; the immortal souls of the gods, by contrast, have to be crafted by a demiurge. This concept of the demiurge as a sort of lesser deity, a figure who fashions the universe from materials created by a higher and ultimate creator, proved extremely influential in later periods of the history of the West, with a number of Christian heresies drawing from it, and the Gnostics making the concept of the demiurge a particularly important part of their philosophy.
We also learn about the creation of the human body and senses. When it comes to the basic building blocks of life, Timaeus talks a great deal about how the four classical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) combine with elaborations of the three kinds of triangles (scalene, isosceles, and equilateral) to make up all things. The fundamental particles, Timaeus claims, are the 4-sided tetrahedron for fire, the 6-sided cube for earth, the 8-sided octahedron for air, and the 20-sided icosahedron for water. By this time, I was actively longing for a return to Atlantis.
Things did get more interesting when Timaeus discussed human growth, disease, decay, and death. Reincarnation is emphasized, and the reader learns that “The men of the first generation who lived cowardly or unjust lives were…reborn in the second generation as women” (p. 89). Really, Timaeus? Really? It seems that coming into existence as anything other than a Greek-speaking man can be explained in terms of divine punishment, as Timaeus tells Socrates and his other interlocutors that
The race of birds was produced by a process of transformation, whereby feathers grew, instead of hair, from harmless, empty-headed men, who were interested in the heavens but were silly enough to think that the most certain astronomical demonstrations proceed through observation. Wild land animals have come from men who made no use of philosophy and never in any way considered the nature of the heavens because they had ceased to use the circles in the head and followed the leadership of the parts of the soul in the breast. (pp. 89-90)
Things do sound more traditionally Platonic when Timaeus writes that “[I]t is unjust to blame overindulgence in pleasure as if wrongdoing were voluntary; no one is bad voluntarily, but a bad man becomes bad because of a pernicious bodily condition and an uneducated upbringing, evils which nobody wants to befall him” (p. 84). It follows then that “we must try with all our might by education, by practice, and by study to avoid evil and grasp its contrary” (p. 85). The idea that balance and proportion constitute the basis on which to build a virtuous life receives appropriate emphasis here.
Then it’s on to the Critias -- where Critias finally gets back to the Atlantis story. We hear about how the gods created the Greek world, and about the justice with which Athens administered its affairs – highly reminiscent of Plato’s descriptions of the ideal state in the Republic – and then Critias turns our attention back to Atlantis.
We learn, among other things, that “the furthest part of the island toward the Pillars of Heracles” was “facing the district now called Gadira” (p. 102)– meaning the modern-day city of Cadiz, Spain. This helpful geographical designation gives us a very strong sense of where the people of classical Greece thought Atlantis had been – and also lets us know that those readers of Charles Berlitz’s paranormal best-seller The Bermuda Triangle (1974) who may have been expecting to find a real-life Atlantis in the western-Atlantic triangle formed by Bermuda, Cape Florida, and Puerto Rico were probably looking in the wrong place.
The Atlanteans, we are told, mined their own unique material called orichalc, and built a magnificent city with an acropolis surrounded by three rings of water, in a manner that reminds one of the old Aztec capital at Tenochtitlan. It had a palace covered with silver, “gold statues of the god [Poseidon] standing in a chariot drawn by six winged horses…and round him, riding on dolphins, a hundred Nereids”, with “gold statues of all the wives and descendants of the ten kings” of Atlantis (p. 104). It was the best place in the world for agriculture, “full of trees of marvelous beauty and height”, with “mountains…celebrated as being more numerous, higher, and more beautiful than any which exist today; and in them were numerous villages and a wealthy population” (pp. 105-06).
In short, it sounds like an earthly paradise. Unfortunately, though, just as Critias is about to tell us how the Atlanteans lost favour with the gods and degenerated toward eventual ruin, the dialogue ends! – for it is incomplete.
The Timaeus in particular is important among Plato’s dialogues; in Raphael’s painting The School of Athens (1509-11), it is the dialogue that an elderly, white-bearded Plato is shown holding while, pointing upward toward the World of Forms, he disputes with a youthful Aristotle who points downward toward the Earth. These two dialogues provide valuable insights into how the philosophers of classical Greece viewed both history and material reality. I just wish Plato had been able to give Critias more time in which to tell us more about Atlantis.
June 25, 2025
Everything is triangles!
After having read a lot of literature on how influential Timaeus was for Neoplatonists and Christian Platonists, I decided to go ad fontes. Desmond Lee's introduction was helpful, but even after reading his comments I wasn't quite prepared for how relatively brief the relevant section of the dialogue is. The heavy focus on στοιχεῖα and anatomy in the latter half is entertaining, though not particularly relevant either to Christian metaphysics or modern science (I did enjoy the section on anatomical analogues to the tripartite soul). It goes without saying that Lee was correct when he wrote that "what is of more interest than the question how Plato was wrong, is the rather different question of why he was wrong."
This certainly feels like a dialogue that I will need to return to several times to get a full grasp of it. I think Benjamin Jowett was likely correct when he said that "Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive writing to modern readers of Plato." It's certainly not a good introduction to Plato (I would still suggest Republic, Gorgias, Phaedo, or even Apology), and especially not to the literary Socrates. Perhaps that is the greatest indicator that this dialogue is the literary invention of Plato - there's no way that the Socrates we know could go this long without speaking!
After having read a lot of literature on how influential Timaeus was for Neoplatonists and Christian Platonists, I decided to go ad fontes. Desmond Lee's introduction was helpful, but even after reading his comments I wasn't quite prepared for how relatively brief the relevant section of the dialogue is. The heavy focus on στοιχεῖα and anatomy in the latter half is entertaining, though not particularly relevant either to Christian metaphysics or modern science (I did enjoy the section on anatomical analogues to the tripartite soul). It goes without saying that Lee was correct when he wrote that "what is of more interest than the question how Plato was wrong, is the rather different question of why he was wrong."
This certainly feels like a dialogue that I will need to return to several times to get a full grasp of it. I think Benjamin Jowett was likely correct when he said that "Timaeus is the most obscure and repulsive writing to modern readers of Plato." It's certainly not a good introduction to Plato (I would still suggest Republic, Gorgias, Phaedo, or even Apology), and especially not to the literary Socrates. Perhaps that is the greatest indicator that this dialogue is the literary invention of Plato - there's no way that the Socrates we know could go this long without speaking!
August 12, 2012
This is a great cosmogonical journey through our earth. Plato is God's "philosophical Moses", if you will. This great couplet of stories is inspiring and thought-provoking to the max . I was annotating almost every page. Sometimes eerie the "allusions" Plato makes to Christian cosmogonical ideas are, although Christianity did not reach Greece by this time, let alone did it exist. Timaeus is the precursor to the modern thought on cosmology, cosmogony, and astrology. Critias is a great work as well; it is quite interesting how Plato explains how Atlantis ("the place of Atlas") was at first a great nation but then eventually tread to its downfall in morals, values, social stature, etc. I would recommend these two works to anybody whose mind is perplexed and tingled by the abstruseness of Mother Nature and Her birth and growth.
February 7, 2009
I enjoy Plato, and this was the first of his works that I really got familiar with. The story of Atlantis is fascinating. Of course, being Plato, some patience is required while reading this, but it is rewarding I think and well worth the struggles and rereading that is sometimes required. Just a heads up, you will have "what the hell did I just read?" moments. Sorry, that's just part of Plato.
Read
September 27, 2023Plato is wrong. A more perfect universe is one where I don't have to read 500 pages of philosophy in 2 days!
September 17, 2015
These two works together were meant to be a trilogy about Athens, Greeks and their place in the world. Unfortunately, the 3rd book was lost, or never written, and the 2nd book, Critias only survives as a fragment. Still, interesting. The three men, speak to Socartes about the nature of everything, highlighting the Other of the Greeks, the Egyptians, as being part of the primary source needed to complete the story.
The first book, Timaeus is interesting because he speaks of how the universe started before man was made... how man was made rationally with intention, and all that. With Timaeus you see how Plato tries to ground everything, the 4 elements for example, into Being, with ideas being the root... (as the 4 elements are basically tiny shapes, and what's more pure as an idea than a shape?) From this, you get the idea that once everything is built up from Truth, we should then, with the history of Atlantis in Critias, and the lost 3rd book, come to a systematic understanding of the way in which Athens has developed and should develop... with an eye on purity and rightness.
The idea is simple. If there was a way we were made, a reason for us being the way we are, then there too is a way for us to be, an intented way for us to live, and a right way for us to not go against our nature.
Only in a democracy like Athens can someone like Plato have existed... Plato who feared the nihilism of the Sophists, in which their collectively disordered wisdom threatened to destroy the inherent meaning and values that made Athens what it is. He of course, wrote his entire life, to try and find coherence; find Being which could bind those disorderly ideas, and bring them up from negating each other, so that we can have values, so that we can have orderly society. So that we can be a people with a moral and ethical content we could be proud of and exhibit.
At least, that's how I see this book within the larger scheme of what Plato was doing.
The first book, Timaeus is interesting because he speaks of how the universe started before man was made... how man was made rationally with intention, and all that. With Timaeus you see how Plato tries to ground everything, the 4 elements for example, into Being, with ideas being the root... (as the 4 elements are basically tiny shapes, and what's more pure as an idea than a shape?) From this, you get the idea that once everything is built up from Truth, we should then, with the history of Atlantis in Critias, and the lost 3rd book, come to a systematic understanding of the way in which Athens has developed and should develop... with an eye on purity and rightness.
The idea is simple. If there was a way we were made, a reason for us being the way we are, then there too is a way for us to be, an intented way for us to live, and a right way for us to not go against our nature.
Only in a democracy like Athens can someone like Plato have existed... Plato who feared the nihilism of the Sophists, in which their collectively disordered wisdom threatened to destroy the inherent meaning and values that made Athens what it is. He of course, wrote his entire life, to try and find coherence; find Being which could bind those disorderly ideas, and bring them up from negating each other, so that we can have values, so that we can have orderly society. So that we can be a people with a moral and ethical content we could be proud of and exhibit.
At least, that's how I see this book within the larger scheme of what Plato was doing.
Read
May 15, 2025Οὐ μνημονεύω Χριστόν τί ἀνέγνωκα. Ὁ λόγος ἐστίν, ὅτι ἔλαβον ἵνα ἀναγνῶ τὸν μῦθον τῆς Ἀτλαντίδος ἐκ τῆς πηγῆς αὐτῆς. Ἐχόντος πρόσφατα ἀναγνώσει τὴν πτώσιν τοῦ Νουμενόρος καὶ πῶς ὁ μῦθος ἐπηρεάσθη ὑπὸ τοῦ μύθου τῆς Ἀτλαντίδος, εὗρον τοὺς δύο διαλόγους τοῦ Πλάτωνος, οὓς ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀναφέρεται. Ἀλλ' ἔπειτα τούτου οὐ μνημονεύω καὶ τί ἄλλο συζητοῦν οἱ χαρακτῆρες ἐν τοῖς διαλόγοις. Ἐννοῶ ὅτι τὸ βιβλίον ἔγλυψα ὡς γλάρος καὶ οὐκ ἐχάρην ἢ ἐχρησάμην ὅσον ἔδει. Ἀλλ' εἰπεῖν καὶ τοῦ στραβοῦ τὸ δίκαιον, ἐγὼ ἔλαβον αὐτὸ διὰ τὴν Ἀτλαντίδα, ἡ ὁποία ἐποίησεν 10 μόνον σελίδας ἐκ τῶν 150 τινῶν. Ὅθεν ὀλίγον δυσχερές ἵνα μνημονεύω τὸ ὑπόλοιπον.
January 18, 2023
1.5 idk. Breaking: once again an annoying old white man (plato) is wrong about everything (the creation of the universe) and yet I’m still forced to read it (professors stop sucking plato off challenge!)
March 24, 2022
Oh man... The parts of this book that cover the Atlantis myth are superb. It is fitting that Critias, the second part, is unfinished.
The people of Atlantis as described in Critias appear to have not been consumed by avarice. Their society, despite their exorbitant wealth, sought the common good and collective prosperity, which as Plato describes, led to all round growth. I quote:
"So they bore the burden of their wealth and possessions lightly, and did not let their high standard of living intoxicate them or make them lose their self-control, but saw soberly and clearly that all these things flourish only on a soil of common goodwill and individual character, and if pushed too eagerly and overvalued destroy themselves and morality with them. So long as these principles and their divine nature remained unimpaired, the prosperity which we have described continued to grow."
It ends on such a cliffhanger. It is almost funny how much you want it to continue but realise that is sort of the point. I like to believe the idea that Atlantis was lost to a cataclysmic event and is thus since been wiped off the face of earth. Many cultures hold the deluge myths and meteor cataclysms within their texts and teachings. Plato's dating of the Atlas people is around 11,600 years ago, which has been attributed to a period of time where asteroids did hit the earth, not too far from the supposed location of Atlantis.
I hope we still keep on looking into ancient sites and take time to consider broader perspectives on our past and present to positively effectuate our future.
Anyways, I digress...
Timaeus is also an interesting piece and it takes up the majority of the book. The discussions of the body, mind spirituality, and the cosmos are interesting and impressive given Plato's lack of modern tools of examination. Unfortunately, this book is tinged with misogyny. Many deeply intelligent people are flawed, Plato was a product of his environment and ergo some of his views on male dominance over specifically intellectual fields are certainly outdated. Nevertheless, this should not detract too much from his overall objectives, which are for the most part well thought out. I cannot lie, when he linked the four elements to triangles, I was slightly lost.
This was a very interesting book and I would recommend it.
The people of Atlantis as described in Critias appear to have not been consumed by avarice. Their society, despite their exorbitant wealth, sought the common good and collective prosperity, which as Plato describes, led to all round growth. I quote:
"So they bore the burden of their wealth and possessions lightly, and did not let their high standard of living intoxicate them or make them lose their self-control, but saw soberly and clearly that all these things flourish only on a soil of common goodwill and individual character, and if pushed too eagerly and overvalued destroy themselves and morality with them. So long as these principles and their divine nature remained unimpaired, the prosperity which we have described continued to grow."
It ends on such a cliffhanger. It is almost funny how much you want it to continue but realise that is sort of the point. I like to believe the idea that Atlantis was lost to a cataclysmic event and is thus since been wiped off the face of earth. Many cultures hold the deluge myths and meteor cataclysms within their texts and teachings. Plato's dating of the Atlas people is around 11,600 years ago, which has been attributed to a period of time where asteroids did hit the earth, not too far from the supposed location of Atlantis.
I hope we still keep on looking into ancient sites and take time to consider broader perspectives on our past and present to positively effectuate our future.
Anyways, I digress...
Timaeus is also an interesting piece and it takes up the majority of the book. The discussions of the body, mind spirituality, and the cosmos are interesting and impressive given Plato's lack of modern tools of examination. Unfortunately, this book is tinged with misogyny. Many deeply intelligent people are flawed, Plato was a product of his environment and ergo some of his views on male dominance over specifically intellectual fields are certainly outdated. Nevertheless, this should not detract too much from his overall objectives, which are for the most part well thought out. I cannot lie, when he linked the four elements to triangles, I was slightly lost.
This was a very interesting book and I would recommend it.
March 20, 2013
To be honest, I only started this book because I wanted to know more about the stories of Atlantis. If that is all you are interested in, I recommend only reading Critias as that focuses on the topic of Atlantis while Timaeus only mentions it briefly. However, I was pleasantly surprised at how much I got out of Timaeus. Focusing primarily on cosmology, Timaeus gave me a much greater understanding of how the Ancient Greeks viewed the universe and their role in it. Furthermore, it was helpful to me as a medievalist to read how Plato's understanding of the universe influenced the medieval Church's cosmology. Because Plato (via the dialogue of Timaeus) spoke of a single cosmic God that created the universe and everything it in, the medieval Church regarded Plato as a pagan whose wisdom had led him to Christian truths, and therefore his writings on how the universe was organized was widely accepted in medieval Christian cosmology. So much so, that the Church had real trouble letting go of Platonic cosmology when Copernicus and others discovered mistakes in his universal model.
December 31, 2019
An interesting read, especially when one realizes that this is probably the only direct access to Plato's writings that most medieval thinkers had until after 1000. The Timaeus contains Plato's account of the creation of the universe, mankind, and all living creatures. The Critias is his account of the fall of Atlantis.
June 27, 2024
Es imprecionante la actualidad de los Escritos de Platón. Cada día la frase "La historia de la filosofía es un comentario a las obras de Platón " se actualiza y se confirma. Sumamente profundos y disfrutables.
November 15, 2024
I must confess that I found the Timaeus difficult to follow at times, and in order to make heads-or-tails of it I relied heavily upon Andrew Gregory’s introduction in my Oxford World’s Classics edition—which is, thankfully, fantastic.
Plato, of course, is known for his dialogues, in which there are usually multiple interlocutors presenting arguments and challenging those of their peers, and to which there isn’t always a straightforward conclusion. Timaeus is different. It’s not really a dialogue; Socrates introduces Timaeus as a renowned astronomer, gives him a full-hearted endorsement, and then disappears. What follows is a long, uninterrupted monologue in which Timaeus presents a teleological account of all natural phenomena.
It should be emphasized that Timaeus is not a work of natural science as we would typically understand the term. The question it is most interested in answering is not so much a “how” question as it is a “why” question: by taking a teleological approach—that is, by attempting to explain natural phenomena by the “ends” or “purposes” they serve (which, of course, presupposes the existence of a purposeful agency behind them)—Plato is attempting to explain the underlying ontological principles or conditions necessary for the cosmos to come to be in its actually-existing state. Why (according to what irreducible principles) is the cosmos structured the way it is—or structured at all, for that matter?
Plato likely wanted to provide an alternative to the naturalistic cosmologies of atomistic philosophers like Leucippus and Democritus, for whom the “why” question was entirely moot. According to the atomists, existence is an infinite void, and an infinity of atoms in an infinity of shapes fall aimlessly through the vacuum. By pure, random chance, some of these atoms group together in vortices, and from these vortices more complex entities emerge, which in turn swirl together in cosmic eddies of randomly-constituted composites. The entire cosmos as we know it emerged from this purposeless process of accumulation, and our universe is just one of an infinity of potential outcomes that could have materialized, or perhaps have done so on other planes.
Adherents of a teleological cosmogony, like Plato, thought it implausible that such random accumulation could produce a universe with the harmonies and contiguities of our own. The atomists did believe in a type of sorting mechanism governed by a “like-to-like” principle: atoms of similar shapes and properties combined with one another, allowing for the separation of heaven and earth and the division of the elements. But Plato saw the cosmos not merely as a collection of discrete elements, but rather as a “harmonious blending of opposites”. A like-to-like principle could explain the separated colors on the artist’s palette, but it couldn’t explain the painting, in which the colors were blended together and the brush strokes arranged in such proportionality that the canvas was no longer an incoherent jumble of color but a harmonious, intelligible whole.
According to Plato, there had to be an artist or craftsman who arbitrarily imposed cosmic order on a preexisting chaos. This Divine Craftsman, known as the Demiurge, intervened in a profoundly chaotic original state, ordered disparate particles of matter into the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and ordered the cosmos according to the telos of goodness as geometric simplicity.
The cosmos and everything in it were crafted in the image of geometric models. The universe and the earth were modeled on the sphere, which was considered by Plato to be the most perfect figure because it contains the “mean” of all other figures. The ultimate particle—the most basic building block—of each of the four elements is an atom with a particular three-dimensional shape chosen by the Demiurge to produce order and balance between them. Thus the ultimate particle of fire is the tetrahedron, that of air is the octahedron, that of water is the icosahedron, and that of earth is the cube. These four figures, along with the dodecahedron, which most resembles a sphere and is thus likened to the universe itself, are still known today as the Platonic Solids.
Because the Demiurge itself is a superintelligence, and intelligence is necessary to make judgements about the proper ordering of things based on observations of sameness, being, and difference; and because intelligence must be nested in a soul which must inhabit a living body; and because the world (according to Plato) has intelligence insofar as it makes “judgments” about the sameness, difference, or being of the entities it encounters; the world itself can properly be described as a living, intelligent creature endowed with a world-soul, within which the souls of everything in the world, including human beings, are encapsulated. The world is a type of demigod; a self-sufficient intelligence modeled on perfection.
Human beings occupy a curious place in this cosmos. Like the world, they are endowed with soul and intelligence; but whereas the intelligence of the world-soul is perfect and the judgments it makes are always correct, the intelligence of the human soul is somewhat corrupted due to the mercurial sensuality of the body in which it is implanted. The revolutions of the human mind are disturbed by the senses; particularly in one’s younger years, during which one’s capacity for reason is underdeveloped. It is only through the process of cultivating one’s reason and using it to subordinate the senses and thereby bring order and proportionality to the soul that the human soul can be brought into conformity with the perfection of the world-soul, and thus share in the intellectual perfection of the Demiurge itself. This is a necessary achievement in order to live a just and reasoned life, and to prevent the transmigration of the intellectual portion of one’s soul, which is eternal, to the body of a lesser being after one’s death.
It isn’t altogether clear to me why it is only the intelligence of human beings that is corrupted, but the chaotic state of the human soul before the cultivation of reason may be analogous to the chaotic state of existence before the intervention of the Demiurge. Just as the Demiurge imposed order on the cosmos, so a human being must use reason to impose order on the irrational wanderings of the mind. In the human soul as well as in the soul of the cosmos itself, eternal reason must rule like a god over the ephemeral kingdom of the senses. Thus, when we use reason to sort through the chaos of our lives and put our concerns into perspective, we are in fact imitating the Divine Craftsman’s creation of the world in microcosm.
Far out.
Plato, of course, is known for his dialogues, in which there are usually multiple interlocutors presenting arguments and challenging those of their peers, and to which there isn’t always a straightforward conclusion. Timaeus is different. It’s not really a dialogue; Socrates introduces Timaeus as a renowned astronomer, gives him a full-hearted endorsement, and then disappears. What follows is a long, uninterrupted monologue in which Timaeus presents a teleological account of all natural phenomena.
It should be emphasized that Timaeus is not a work of natural science as we would typically understand the term. The question it is most interested in answering is not so much a “how” question as it is a “why” question: by taking a teleological approach—that is, by attempting to explain natural phenomena by the “ends” or “purposes” they serve (which, of course, presupposes the existence of a purposeful agency behind them)—Plato is attempting to explain the underlying ontological principles or conditions necessary for the cosmos to come to be in its actually-existing state. Why (according to what irreducible principles) is the cosmos structured the way it is—or structured at all, for that matter?
Plato likely wanted to provide an alternative to the naturalistic cosmologies of atomistic philosophers like Leucippus and Democritus, for whom the “why” question was entirely moot. According to the atomists, existence is an infinite void, and an infinity of atoms in an infinity of shapes fall aimlessly through the vacuum. By pure, random chance, some of these atoms group together in vortices, and from these vortices more complex entities emerge, which in turn swirl together in cosmic eddies of randomly-constituted composites. The entire cosmos as we know it emerged from this purposeless process of accumulation, and our universe is just one of an infinity of potential outcomes that could have materialized, or perhaps have done so on other planes.
Adherents of a teleological cosmogony, like Plato, thought it implausible that such random accumulation could produce a universe with the harmonies and contiguities of our own. The atomists did believe in a type of sorting mechanism governed by a “like-to-like” principle: atoms of similar shapes and properties combined with one another, allowing for the separation of heaven and earth and the division of the elements. But Plato saw the cosmos not merely as a collection of discrete elements, but rather as a “harmonious blending of opposites”. A like-to-like principle could explain the separated colors on the artist’s palette, but it couldn’t explain the painting, in which the colors were blended together and the brush strokes arranged in such proportionality that the canvas was no longer an incoherent jumble of color but a harmonious, intelligible whole.
According to Plato, there had to be an artist or craftsman who arbitrarily imposed cosmic order on a preexisting chaos. This Divine Craftsman, known as the Demiurge, intervened in a profoundly chaotic original state, ordered disparate particles of matter into the four elements—earth, air, fire, and water—and ordered the cosmos according to the telos of goodness as geometric simplicity.
The cosmos and everything in it were crafted in the image of geometric models. The universe and the earth were modeled on the sphere, which was considered by Plato to be the most perfect figure because it contains the “mean” of all other figures. The ultimate particle—the most basic building block—of each of the four elements is an atom with a particular three-dimensional shape chosen by the Demiurge to produce order and balance between them. Thus the ultimate particle of fire is the tetrahedron, that of air is the octahedron, that of water is the icosahedron, and that of earth is the cube. These four figures, along with the dodecahedron, which most resembles a sphere and is thus likened to the universe itself, are still known today as the Platonic Solids.
Because the Demiurge itself is a superintelligence, and intelligence is necessary to make judgements about the proper ordering of things based on observations of sameness, being, and difference; and because intelligence must be nested in a soul which must inhabit a living body; and because the world (according to Plato) has intelligence insofar as it makes “judgments” about the sameness, difference, or being of the entities it encounters; the world itself can properly be described as a living, intelligent creature endowed with a world-soul, within which the souls of everything in the world, including human beings, are encapsulated. The world is a type of demigod; a self-sufficient intelligence modeled on perfection.
Human beings occupy a curious place in this cosmos. Like the world, they are endowed with soul and intelligence; but whereas the intelligence of the world-soul is perfect and the judgments it makes are always correct, the intelligence of the human soul is somewhat corrupted due to the mercurial sensuality of the body in which it is implanted. The revolutions of the human mind are disturbed by the senses; particularly in one’s younger years, during which one’s capacity for reason is underdeveloped. It is only through the process of cultivating one’s reason and using it to subordinate the senses and thereby bring order and proportionality to the soul that the human soul can be brought into conformity with the perfection of the world-soul, and thus share in the intellectual perfection of the Demiurge itself. This is a necessary achievement in order to live a just and reasoned life, and to prevent the transmigration of the intellectual portion of one’s soul, which is eternal, to the body of a lesser being after one’s death.
It isn’t altogether clear to me why it is only the intelligence of human beings that is corrupted, but the chaotic state of the human soul before the cultivation of reason may be analogous to the chaotic state of existence before the intervention of the Demiurge. Just as the Demiurge imposed order on the cosmos, so a human being must use reason to impose order on the irrational wanderings of the mind. In the human soul as well as in the soul of the cosmos itself, eternal reason must rule like a god over the ephemeral kingdom of the senses. Thus, when we use reason to sort through the chaos of our lives and put our concerns into perspective, we are in fact imitating the Divine Craftsman’s creation of the world in microcosm.
Far out.
July 19, 2021
Ok spicy ones! I was looking forward to Timaeus and wasn't disappointed. Critias I read on a whim, as it continues from T.
So I'm thinking mostly of Timaeus here. I think it's the text which makes Plato the most difficult to reconcile with for Christian orthodoxies a few centuries later. But there are plenty of shared ideas with contemporary Jewish metaphysics, it seems to me. Certainly the image of the Demiurge and the immortal as fiery circles brought to mind the apparition of angels in the blazing opening of Ezekiel.
Critias is mostly about Atlantis - for those that weren't aware, these dialogues are (I think?) the originary sources on the topic. This is why depictions of Atlantis in pop culture tend to have a Grecian aesthetic. I think Critias would be most fruitfully read against the Republic? It wasn't the more riveting of the two.
The metaphysics of Timaeus are an awful lot. Was impressed. There are passages here that I see in very contemporary philosophy - 'being is to becoming what truth is to belief'.
We are circles upon circles. O you who turn the wheel etc etc. The divine form. EZ again: I will overturn, overturn, overturn.
The text is rather down on women in more peculiar ways than we are accustomed to from texts of its type: 'He who lived well would return to his native star, and would there have a blessed existence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of a woman, and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness of some animal'. Besides this being frankly bizarre, I think one could draw interesting inferences about gender from the conception of 'woman as purgatory'.
So I'm thinking mostly of Timaeus here. I think it's the text which makes Plato the most difficult to reconcile with for Christian orthodoxies a few centuries later. But there are plenty of shared ideas with contemporary Jewish metaphysics, it seems to me. Certainly the image of the Demiurge and the immortal as fiery circles brought to mind the apparition of angels in the blazing opening of Ezekiel.
Critias is mostly about Atlantis - for those that weren't aware, these dialogues are (I think?) the originary sources on the topic. This is why depictions of Atlantis in pop culture tend to have a Grecian aesthetic. I think Critias would be most fruitfully read against the Republic? It wasn't the more riveting of the two.
The metaphysics of Timaeus are an awful lot. Was impressed. There are passages here that I see in very contemporary philosophy - 'being is to becoming what truth is to belief'.
We are circles upon circles. O you who turn the wheel etc etc. The divine form. EZ again: I will overturn, overturn, overturn.
The text is rather down on women in more peculiar ways than we are accustomed to from texts of its type: 'He who lived well would return to his native star, and would there have a blessed existence; but, if he lived ill, he would pass into the nature of a woman, and if he did not then alter his evil ways, into the likeness of some animal'. Besides this being frankly bizarre, I think one could draw interesting inferences about gender from the conception of 'woman as purgatory'.
September 6, 2024
I think I was a LITTLE in over my head on this one. Very difficult and esoteric, especially the middle portion of the Timaeus that deals with the relationship between earth, fire, air, and water.
A little sad to see Plato basically abandon the dialogue format that characterizes his earlier work. Both the Timaeus and the Critias are almost entirely monologues from their titular orator. Makes for a less dynamic and engaging read then, say, the Apology or the Republic.
Still thought provoking. I would love to take a class on this or be walked through it by someone who knows what’s going on.
A little sad to see Plato basically abandon the dialogue format that characterizes his earlier work. Both the Timaeus and the Critias are almost entirely monologues from their titular orator. Makes for a less dynamic and engaging read then, say, the Apology or the Republic.
Still thought provoking. I would love to take a class on this or be walked through it by someone who knows what’s going on.
April 6, 2025
Expected more I guess, and less rambling
February 23, 2020
Book Review of Timaeus and Critias, by Plato
In Timaeus, we find interlocutors distinguish between the physical-world and the eternal-world, an expansion of Plato’s theory of forms, wherein what is physical is merely a ‘likeness’ of the eternal. Much of Timaeus is concerned with a depiction of the world as one guided by Reason, or the ‘world-soul,’ and that all that inhabit it are microcosms of what is perfect and eternal. Timaeus regards the four elements—earth, air, fire and water—as dependent upon each other and expounds upon how they work in conjunction so that the perceived world is manifest.
The interconnectivity of the physical processes and manifestations of the cosmos with that of the human body manifest a macro- to microcosmic relationship between the two, engineered by what Plato calls the Demiurge, which acts as an engineer of what may be called the ‘divine will.’ Much as the four elements are interrelated, so too are the mechanisms of the human body; that is, how the senses interact with and interpret each other, and how they in turn work with the elemental world to harmonize the ‘eternal’ cosmos with the mortality of the physical-world.
Timaeus further expands on macro-/microcosmic relationship through an analysis of the world’s living organisms, which are specified as gods, humans, plants and animals. Though each function individually, the ultimate design is one of interconnectivity. In much the same fashion, Plato details the divisions of the soul, that of ‘reason,’ ‘spirit’ and ‘appetite,’ wherein ‘reason’ is stressed as the ‘divine’ aspect of the soul, while ‘spirit’ and ‘appetite’ work in conjunction to form the ‘mortal’ aspect, all of which are embodied in specific organs, the function of which determines the ability of a person to work in union with the world-soul.
In both Plato’s Timaeus and Critias, we find what many presume to be the first account of the submerged island of Atlantis, which Timaeus accredits to Solon, who recounted to the Greeks what he had been told by the Egyptians. Though briefly described in Timaeus, a more complete account is depicted in Critias, which details the history of the conflict between the city of Athens and the island of Atlantis, which was formed by the sea-god, Poseidon, so as to settle the children borne to him by mortal women.
Critias details Atlantis’s nomenclature, its cities and buildings, the general geography of the island, its required military service, the political and legal authorities, and finally the degeneration, punishment and ultimate destruction of the island. In Critias, it is made clear that Atlantis, rather than the utopic society represented in the popular culture of today, is actually more of a dystopic society that, though more technologically advanced and physically superior than their counterpart Athens, comes to ruin through arrogance and iniquity.
In Timaeus, we find interlocutors distinguish between the physical-world and the eternal-world, an expansion of Plato’s theory of forms, wherein what is physical is merely a ‘likeness’ of the eternal. Much of Timaeus is concerned with a depiction of the world as one guided by Reason, or the ‘world-soul,’ and that all that inhabit it are microcosms of what is perfect and eternal. Timaeus regards the four elements—earth, air, fire and water—as dependent upon each other and expounds upon how they work in conjunction so that the perceived world is manifest.
The interconnectivity of the physical processes and manifestations of the cosmos with that of the human body manifest a macro- to microcosmic relationship between the two, engineered by what Plato calls the Demiurge, which acts as an engineer of what may be called the ‘divine will.’ Much as the four elements are interrelated, so too are the mechanisms of the human body; that is, how the senses interact with and interpret each other, and how they in turn work with the elemental world to harmonize the ‘eternal’ cosmos with the mortality of the physical-world.
Timaeus further expands on macro-/microcosmic relationship through an analysis of the world’s living organisms, which are specified as gods, humans, plants and animals. Though each function individually, the ultimate design is one of interconnectivity. In much the same fashion, Plato details the divisions of the soul, that of ‘reason,’ ‘spirit’ and ‘appetite,’ wherein ‘reason’ is stressed as the ‘divine’ aspect of the soul, while ‘spirit’ and ‘appetite’ work in conjunction to form the ‘mortal’ aspect, all of which are embodied in specific organs, the function of which determines the ability of a person to work in union with the world-soul.
In both Plato’s Timaeus and Critias, we find what many presume to be the first account of the submerged island of Atlantis, which Timaeus accredits to Solon, who recounted to the Greeks what he had been told by the Egyptians. Though briefly described in Timaeus, a more complete account is depicted in Critias, which details the history of the conflict between the city of Athens and the island of Atlantis, which was formed by the sea-god, Poseidon, so as to settle the children borne to him by mortal women.
Critias details Atlantis’s nomenclature, its cities and buildings, the general geography of the island, its required military service, the political and legal authorities, and finally the degeneration, punishment and ultimate destruction of the island. In Critias, it is made clear that Atlantis, rather than the utopic society represented in the popular culture of today, is actually more of a dystopic society that, though more technologically advanced and physically superior than their counterpart Athens, comes to ruin through arrogance and iniquity.
December 1, 2024
The Timeaus is sometimes profound, sometimes baffling, and sometimes wrong, but it is above all else exactly what it is not known for nowadays: an attempt to explain everything. Here the explanation comes not from Plato or even his usual ironizing mouthpiece (Socrates), but from some rube named Timaeus. Nevertheless, this Timaeus really lays it all out, soup to nuts. It’s all here. In its vast scope it reminds me of a neoplatonic text, except of course it cannot be; it’s paleoneoplatinism.
In this regard it is the foundation text and building block for what we might call the higher register of esotericism: Hermeticism, alchemy, the Great Work all stem from the Timaeus. When Proclus said that all books were harmful except the Timaeus and the Chaldaean oracles, he knew what he was talking about (for certain limited meanings of the word harmful).
The great irony is that the Timaeus also gives us one of the basics of the lower register of esotericism: Atlantis—perhaps the dumbest, most easily disprovable, and also most pulpy fun section of the New Age bookstore.
This dichotomy—the wellspring of the higher and lower registers—is perfectly on-brand! As the Timaeus reminds us—for the first time, although hardly in these words—as above, so below.
In this regard it is the foundation text and building block for what we might call the higher register of esotericism: Hermeticism, alchemy, the Great Work all stem from the Timaeus. When Proclus said that all books were harmful except the Timaeus and the Chaldaean oracles, he knew what he was talking about (for certain limited meanings of the word harmful).
The great irony is that the Timaeus also gives us one of the basics of the lower register of esotericism: Atlantis—perhaps the dumbest, most easily disprovable, and also most pulpy fun section of the New Age bookstore.
This dichotomy—the wellspring of the higher and lower registers—is perfectly on-brand! As the Timaeus reminds us—for the first time, although hardly in these words—as above, so below.
February 17, 2021
I disagree with the earlier Christian claim that Plato stole from Moses. Moses's cosmogony is infinitely more interesting and better-written. The claim is not far-off, though. Plato clearly took his work from ancient Egypt--he says as much (I have no problem with the claim that both Moses and Plato, at least in Moses' secular learning, drew from similar and ancient Egyptian sources).
It has the basic Platonic elements in it: time as a moving image of eternity; this world as a pale copy of the Eternal, etc.
The editor has an interesting argument for the historicity of Atlantis. Whenever Plato is considering himself to be describing something real and historic in his dialogues, he goes to great pains, like he does with the Atlantis narrative in "Critias," to be rather specific concerning dates, personalities, locations, etc. People who are making up myth usually say "Screw it" when it comes to the specifics.
Plato did date Atlantis 9,000 years before his time. We should not read too much in his dating, the editor suggests, since the Greeks were usually off about time. Fair enough, but we should also acknowledge the fact that Plato *is* being rather specific.
It has the basic Platonic elements in it: time as a moving image of eternity; this world as a pale copy of the Eternal, etc.
The editor has an interesting argument for the historicity of Atlantis. Whenever Plato is considering himself to be describing something real and historic in his dialogues, he goes to great pains, like he does with the Atlantis narrative in "Critias," to be rather specific concerning dates, personalities, locations, etc. People who are making up myth usually say "Screw it" when it comes to the specifics.
Plato did date Atlantis 9,000 years before his time. We should not read too much in his dating, the editor suggests, since the Greeks were usually off about time. Fair enough, but we should also acknowledge the fact that Plato *is* being rather specific.
June 1, 2011
Have never read any of Plato's writing and the only purpose for picking up "Timaeus and Critias" was simply because of the frequent reference to the book by authors writing about Atlantis.
Am I glad I did, for apart from Critias and the description of the lost civilization of Atlantis, this classic in fact presents great many pleasant surprises especially within the dialogue of Timaeus, were he related how the Cosmos is likely to have come about and how the cosmic intelligence employs mathematics,geometry and harmony in the construction of the Universe. And how stars,sun, moon and planets move with regular circular motions, and that the elements of earth, water, air and fire are conceived of as having specific, ideals shapes, and the ultimate building blocks for all matter and creation.
Though some of the facts in the text have now been proven inaccurate, it still offers an interesting read to find the many parallels in its understanding with certain ancient Indian Ayuvedic principles and for those familiar with the writing of Rudolf Steiner's "An Occult Physiology" will certainly enjoy and appreciate the depth of Plato's insight even more...
Am I glad I did, for apart from Critias and the description of the lost civilization of Atlantis, this classic in fact presents great many pleasant surprises especially within the dialogue of Timaeus, were he related how the Cosmos is likely to have come about and how the cosmic intelligence employs mathematics,geometry and harmony in the construction of the Universe. And how stars,sun, moon and planets move with regular circular motions, and that the elements of earth, water, air and fire are conceived of as having specific, ideals shapes, and the ultimate building blocks for all matter and creation.
Though some of the facts in the text have now been proven inaccurate, it still offers an interesting read to find the many parallels in its understanding with certain ancient Indian Ayuvedic principles and for those familiar with the writing of Rudolf Steiner's "An Occult Physiology" will certainly enjoy and appreciate the depth of Plato's insight even more...
September 18, 2023
These two texts are fascinating and challenging. The translators’ introduction and notes are very helpful for getting me into these two very important Platonic texts for the Western and Middle Eastern worlds. As the introduction notes, the philosophy of Platonic solids and cosmology was extremely important to the entire history of philosophy in the western and middle eastern worlds for centuries. Timaeus is a challenging piece to get through in particular because of its geometric portions. But it is rewarding once one takes the plunge. I imagine I will find myself coming back to this one some day.
September 30, 2018
Not one of Plato's better reads. Much of it has to do with his thoughts on Biology and Physics which are interesting as a way of understanding how ancient people thought. This novelty wears thin long before the book ends, however.
It is also considered one of the origins of the Atlantis myth, although Critias, the dialogue primarily concerned with Atlantis is incomplete. Just after the physical description of what Atlantis looks like the dialogue ends, lost to time.
It is also considered one of the origins of the Atlantis myth, although Critias, the dialogue primarily concerned with Atlantis is incomplete. Just after the physical description of what Atlantis looks like the dialogue ends, lost to time.
May 27, 2016
This is probably, to modern readers, the most bizarre, difficult and unusual of Plato's dialogues (although it's scarcely a dialogue). The fact that its ancient audience thought it his most important underlines the way expectations of what the work of a philosopher entails have changed, and is something to bear in mind and be wary of as we approach the interpretation of his other work.
September 3, 2019
This is easily my least favorite dialogue. I struggled through Timaeus and his odd ramblings about the geometry of the physical makeup of the universe and everything in it. I like my Plato otherworldly, thank you very much. Critias and the description of Atlantis was where it was starting to get good. I won’t spoil the ending for you if you haven’t read it; but let me just say...
Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews