In late antiquity the work On the Nature of the Cosmos and of the Soul attributed to Timaeus of Locri was thought to be a Pythagorean text used by Plato when he wrote the Timaeus. The attribution, archaizing language, and similarity of contents of the work suggest this. However, the linguistic and philosophical anachronisms to be found in it show it to be a post-Platonic forgery. It summarizes the Timaeus, simplifying and "demythologizing" the dialogue in a didactic way. It also (...) on occasion departs enough from its source to constitute an interpretation of the dialogue. Baltes in his introduction notes that this is all done along lines characteristic of Middle Platonic treatments of Plato, and he suggests that the work may have been written by a pupil of Eudorus of Alexandria since it seems to depend on Eudorus’s interpretation of the Timaeus. Having introduced the work, Baltes then provides a line-by-line commentary in which he deals with philological questions, analyzes the sequence of thought, and attempts to determine for each passage the extent to which the work echoes the Timaeus or departs from it. In the latter case, he provides helpful references to parallel and possible source texts in Hellenistic philosophy. An index of terms would have made this valuable commentary more accessible. For the original Greek text we must turn to the edition published by W. Marg in the same series. Baltes’s commentary can be recommended to anyone interested in Plato’s Academy, in Middle Platonism, and in the subjects discussed in the Timaeus as understood and developed in Hellenistic philosophy.—D.O. (shrink)

Following the structuring hints given by Plato in his Timaeus you find, that the dialogue – actually Timaeus' lecture – falls in two parts, not in three as Cornford, Brisson and others suggest. The main division follows the two invocations of the gods (27c, 48d). The first part presents the world in its noetic form, poetically described as the work of the demiurg. Timaeus opens this part giving first his premises in the form of an introduction, which lead his presentation. (...) At the end of this part he remarks that the given premises are not enough for his aim, to explain the nature of man. Therefore he adds other guiding principles for the second part in form of a second introduction like in the first part. We need a third principle beside the real beings (the ideas) and the things we perceive. He names it chora and the new form of "`causation"' ananke, necessity. These supplementary principles anable Timaeus to describe the world under our everyday conditions, they mediate the noetic world with the world of our senses. Here is the point we can see a surprising parallel in Kant's work. The Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft correspond to the first part of the Timaeus, because here Kant exposes too the metyphysical foundation of the sciences. Later, in his last years he remarks, that there is a gap between these metaphysical principles and the physics (say of Newton or other). He seeks for a mediating principle and finds it in the "Äther" or "Wärmestoff." Kant was no more able to bring his idea to an end, we only have a lot of variating attempts, named by editors Opus postumum. But the aim of them is clear – and near by the aim that Plato aimed at – to mediate the noetic structure of the world with our everyday world. And this is evidently equivalent with the second introduction in the Timaeus. -/- Here some pages of the book-version: Erwin Sonderegger, Zur Funktion der Chora in Platons Timaios und des Äthers in Kants Übergangsschrift, Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2015. ISBN 978-3-8260-5837-0. Für allfällige Zitierungen bitte ich nur die gedruckte Ausgabe zu verwenden. Danke. (shrink)

This volume is a study of the influence of Timaeus on the development of Western cosmology in three axial periods of European culture: Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and Renaissance.

So much has been written on this vexed issue, that one hesitates to reopen it. Yet one has no other choice when one finds scholars accepting as generally agreed a view which rests on altogether insufficient evidence. I propose, therefore, to examine the main grounds on which recent authorities interpret the disorderly motion of Tm 30a, 52d–53b, and 69b as a mythical symbol. They are four: I. That the Timaios is a myth; II. The testimony of the Academy; III. (...) That motion could not antecede the creation of time; IV. That motion could not antecede the creation of soul. (shrink)

Die Bedeutung Platons für die Mathematik und die von Beginn der Neuzeit an entstehenden mathematischen Naturwissenschaften ist unbestritten. Ebenso unbestritten ist, dass Platon selbst der Mathematik einen hohen Stellenwert in allen Bereichen seines philosophischen Denkens zugemessen hat. Insbesondere hat die mathematische Konzeption seiner im Dialog Timaios dargestellten Naturphilosophie herausragende Beachtung gefunden, nicht nur, weil der Timaios die einzige über das Mittelalter hinweg kontinuierlich im Abendland überlieferte Schrift Platons war, sondern auch, weil gerade hier der die Naturwissenschaften der Neuzeit (...) leitende Gedanke, die materielle Natur sei in sich selbst nach mathematischen Strukturen verfasst, von Platon umfassend entwickelt worden ist. (shrink)

Die ionischen Griechen schreckten davor zurück, konkrete Inhalte ihres Glaubens an eine hohe jenseitige Welt in schriftlicher Form festzuhalten, und sie sahen insbesondere davon ab, ihre Glaubensüberzeugungen in einer zusammenhängenden Form schriftlich niederzulegen. Selbst wenn ionische Philosophen in öffentlichen Diskussionen und Vorträgen auf die geistigen Ursachen der materiellen Schöpfung zu sprechen kamen, präsentierten sie ihren Glauben weder in unverschlüsselter Form noch in einer zusammenhängenden Art und Weise, sondern sie beschränkten sich darauf, einige Hinweise zu platzieren, wobei sie sich meist einer (...) sinnbildlichen Sprache bedienten. Ein Paradebeispiel dafür bildet der Vortrag des ionischen Philosophen Timaios, den dieser um 409 v. Chr. im Kreise von Sokrates, Kritias und Hermokrates hielt und dessen Inhalt uns dank Platon überliefert wurde. Um ein vollständigeres und präziseres Bild von der philosophischen und religiösen Sichtweise der Ionier zu erhalten, muss man den Inhalt der philosophischen Gespräche berücksichtigen, den der Ionier Sokrates mit zahlreichen seiner Zeitgenossen geführt hatte und die uns ebenfalls dank Platon überliefert wurden, denn diese Dialoge enthalten an zahlreichen Stellen Hinweise auf den Inhalt des ionischen Glaubensverständnisses von Sokrates, oft in stark verschlüsselter Form. Ziel des Buches ist, die Kernpunkte des ionischen Glaubens an eine hohe jenseitige Welt und ihr Verhältnis zur irdischen Welt gestützt auf den Vortrag von Timaios und die sokratischen Dialoge darzustellen."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Wenn unsere faktische Erfahrung auf etwas beruhen muss, das nicht selbst wieder Erfahrung ist, drängt sich die Frage auf, wie die Vermittlung beider Bereiche zustandekomme. Sowohl Platon als auch Kant haben diese Vermittlung thematisiert, jener im Timaios, dieser im Opus postumum. Platons Dialog ist durch zwei Götteranrufungen in zwei Teile geteilt, denen nach Inhalt und Funktion zwei Werke Kants zugeordnet werden können. Dem ersten Teil, der die Welt unter rein noetischen Voraussetzungen zeigt, entspricht Kants Werk Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. (...) In der Einleitung zum zweiten Teil des Dialogs führt Platon die Chora und einen neuen Typ von Grund ein. Dem entspricht im Opus postumum die Einführung des Äthers, der es erlaubt, von der Metaphysik zur Physik überzugehen, wie es die Chora erlaubt, von der rein noetischen zum empirischen Welt überzugehen. ************ If our factual experience must be based on something that is not itself experience, the question arises as to how the mediation of both areas comes about. Both Plato and Kant addressed this mediation, the former in the Timaeus, the latter in the Opus postumum. Plato’s dialogue is divided into two parts by two invocations to the gods, to which two of Kant’s works can be assigned in terms of content and function. The first part, which shows the world un- der noetic conditions, corresponds to Kant’s work Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwis- senschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science), and in the introduction to the second part of the dialog Plato introduces the chora and a new type of reason. In the Opus postumum, this corresponds to the introduction of the ether, which makes it possible to move from metaphysics to physics, just as the chora makes it possible to move from the purely noetic to the empirical world. (shrink)

The paper discusses Timaeus 27d5-29b1, i.e. part of the proem of Timaeus' lecture. This passage contains the exposition of three principles (27d5-28b2) and their application to certain questions intended to lay the foundations for the subsequent cosmology (28b2-29b1). I argue that one of the main results Timaeus wants to deduce from his principles, i.e. the claim that the cosmos has been constructed by a divine craftsman, is not warranted by his principles and rests on a rather conspicuous flaw in the (...) argument. I further discuss the question whether this mistake should be attributed to Plato or whether Plato deliberately has Timaeus commit this mistake; I argue for the second alternative. (shrink)

In welchem Verhaltnis steht die Seelenlehre zur Kosmologie in Platons Phaidon?

This is the second volume of a two-volume survey of the long and complicated controversy which took place in Antiquity over whether the world in Plato's Timaeus is generated or is eternal. In the first volume, Baltes traced this controversy from its beginnings in Aristotle's criticism of the Tim., through Middle Platonism, up to Neoplatonism, setting aside Proclus however for separate treatment which he now provides in this second volume. This arrangement seems inevitable, since Proclus's discussion of the issue, in (...) his enormous Commentary on the Timaeus, is by far the fullest which has reached us from Antiquity and could hardly have been covered adequately in the first volume. Baltes's analysis of Proclus's treatment of the issue takes the form of a detailed commentary on those sections of Proclus's Commentary having to do with the some twenty-eight texts in the Timaeus which are relevant. Baltes attempts to sort out the train of thought in Proclus's comments, and brings out both Proclus's debt to Porphyry's Commentary on the Timaeus and Proclus's disagreements with Porphyry. In a Conclusion which is too brief to take full advantage of his commentary on Proclus, Baltes makes some useful points about the character of Proclus's Commentary, accounting convincingly for its repetitive quality and its mixing of philological with philosophical exegesis. As an appendix, Baltes gives in German translation eighteen arguments for the eternity of the world which derive from a lost work by Proclus and which are preserved in several Arabic Medieval translations and in John Philoponus's De aeternitate mundi. Baltes's two volumes constitute a valuable historical survey of a major and long-lived controversy in Greek philosophy and we might wish that, if he has the courage, he might complete his survey with a study of the controversy as it was renewed by Philoponus and Simplicius in a polemic less tied to the interpretation of the Timaeus and which anticipated, as G. Verbeke has suggested, the eternity of the world controversy in the Latin West in the thirteenth century.--Dominic O'Meara, Catholic University of America. (shrink)