Timaeus of Tauromenium (350–260 BC) wrote the authoritative work on the Greeks in the Western Mediterranean and was important through his research into chronology and his influence on Roman ...historiography. Like almost all the Hellenistic historians, however, his work survives only in fragments. This book provides an up-to-date study of his work and shows that both the nature of the evidence and modern assumptions about historical writing in the Hellenistic period have skewed our treatment and judgement of lost historians. For Timaeus, much of our evidence is preserved in the polemical context of Polybius' Book 12. When we move outside that framework and examine the fragments of Timaeus in their proper context, we gain a greater appreciation for his method and his achievement, including his use of polemical invective and his composition of speeches. This has important implications for our broader understanding of the major lines of Hellenistic historiography.
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.
Plato's 'Timaeus' brings together a number of studies from both leading Plato specialists and up-and-coming researchers from across Europe. The contributions cover a wide variety of topics, ranging ...from the literary form of the work to the ontology of sense perception and the status of medicine in Timaeus' account. Although informed by a commitment to methodological diversity, the collection as a whole forms an organic unity, opening fresh perspectives on widely read passages, while shedding new light on less frequently discussed topics. The volume thus provides a valuable resource for students and researchers at all levels, whether their interest bears on the Timaeus as a whole or on a particular passage.
The aim of this paper is to provide a new reading of Plato’s precosmos (
. 52d2–53c3). More specifically, I shall argue that the precosmos is populated by bodies deriving from random complexes of ...properties, and that this is the effect of the Receptacle’s full precosmic participation in the Paradigm. This will turn out to be consistent with a robust notion of ‘precosmic generation’ and will reveal why Plato may have sought to refer to this otherwise puzzling scenario: representing the precosmos in this way allows Plato to effectively justify why the Demiurge is responsible
for the goodness and perfection of the universe, and why it is properly the best possible cause.
This study presents a revision of Proclus' natural philosophy, starting from the Commentary on Plato's Timaeus. It provides new insight into Proclus' metaphysics of nature, his surprisingly ...peripatetic philosophy of science, the role of mathematics, and the nature of discourse.
This paper concerns Plato’s characterization of the body as the soul’s tool. I take perception as an example of the body’s usefulness. I explore the
’ view that perception provides us with models of ...orderliness. Then, I argue that perception of confusing sensible objects is necessary for our cognitive development too. Lastly, I consider the instrumentality relationship more generally and its place in Plato’s teleological worldview.
The paper analyzes in Plato the integration/συναμφότερον between the human soul and body in Charmides and Timaeus exploring the ideas of health/ὑγίεια and disease/νόσος and how they originate in man. ...The thesis is that in Plato’s thought there is a strong presence of an integrated view of man, the relationship between the constitutive instances (soul and body) being psychosomatic, since both suffer (πάσχω) influence from each other. The nuances of the soulbody relationship are also considered with regard to the psychophysical aspects of this compound. As a consequence, it goes beyond the dualistic interpretation erroneously propagated by philosophy manuals, which insist that in Plato the soul must despise the body. In other words, what “seems” in Plato’s texts to be a reference to a strong tension between soul and body is in fact a warning by the philosopher of the need for a balanced integration between both.
The paper analyzes in Plato the integration/συναμφότερον between the human soul and body in Charmides and Timaeus exploring the ideas of health/ὑγίεια and disease/νόσος and how they originate in man. ...The thesis is that in Plato’s thought there is a strong presence of an integrated view of man, the relationship between the constitutive instances (soul and body) being psychosomatic, since both suffer (πάσχω) influence from each other. The nuances of the soulbody relationship are also considered with regard to the psychophysical aspects of this compound. As a consequence, it goes beyond the dualistic interpretation erroneously propagated by philosophy manuals, which insist that in Plato the soul must despise the body. In other words, what “seems” in Plato’s texts to be a reference to a strong tension between soul and body is in fact a warning by the philosopher of the need for a balanced integration between both.
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