Nature and Divinity in Plato's Timaeus

Brings Plato's ideas to life, proposing new interpretations of major elements including the cosmic 'beginning' and the Atlantis story.

Sarah Broadie (Author)

9781107686199, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 June 2014

316 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.43 kg

"Every stance which the author develops reward its reader. This study is truly a major accomplishment, and it is bound to set the term of the debates about Plato's Timaeus for a long time to come." --Phoenix

Plato's Timaeus is one of the most influential and challenging works of ancient philosophy to have come down to us. Sarah Broadie's rich and compelling study proposes new interpretations of major elements of the Timaeus, including the separate Demiurge, the cosmic 'beginning', the 'second mixing', the Receptacle and the Atlantis story. Broadie shows how Plato deploys the mythic themes of the Timaeus to convey fundamental philosophical insights and examines the profoundly differing methods of interpretation which have been brought to bear on the work. Her book is for everyone interested in Ancient Greek philosophy, cosmology and mythology, whether classicists, philosophers, historians of ideas or historians of science. It offers new findings to scholars familiar with the material, but it is also a clear and reliable resource for anyone coming to it for the first time.

What lies ahead
1. The separateness of the demiurge
2. Paradigms and epistemic possibilities
3. The metaphysics of the paradigm
4. Immortal intellect under mortal conditions
5. The Timaeus–Critias Complex
6. The genesis of the four elements
7. Divine and natural causation
In conclusion.

Subject Areas: Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA]