Plato Cosmogony Study Materials

Plato Cosmogony The Timaeus, which Cicero translated into Latin and hence became the sole discourse known in the West during the Middle Ages, contains Plato's cosmogony. It is interesting that, compared to Plato's other writings, it had greater effect in Neoplatonism both then and earlier, despite having a higher proportion of absurdity. It is trivial as philosophy, but historically it had such an impact that careful consideration is needed. In the Timaeus, a Pythagorean assumes Socrates' position from the earlier conversations, and the school's beliefs—such as the idea that numbers explain the universe—are largely accepted. An overview of the first five books of the Republic is presented first, followed by the story of Atlantis, which is supposed to have been a bigger island than both Asia and Libya combined and located off the Pillars of Hercules. The Pythagorean astronomer Timaeus then goes on to describe the history of the world up until the creation of man. In summary, what he says is as follows. Intelligence and reason are able to recognize the constants, whereas opinion is able to recognize the changeable. Since the world is sensible and cannot exist forever, God has to have created it. God, being good, created the world according to the pattern of the eternal; devoid of jealousy, he desired for everything to resemble him as much as possible. "God, to the greatest extent possible, desired that everything be good and nothing bad." "Observing that the entire observable sphere was not stationary, but rather moving in an irregular and disorderly manner, he brought order out of chaos." (Thus, it would seem that Plato's God rearranges preexisting material rather than creating the universe from nothing, as opposed to the Jewish and Christian Gods.) He imbued the body with intellect, and the soul with intelligence. He gave the entire planet a soul and intellect, turning it into a living being. There is just one world, not several, as some pre-Socratics had claimed. This is because the world is a replica that is made to resemble the everlasting original that God has captured as precisely as possible. The entire universe is one visible animal that includes every other species in its fullness. It is a globe because only a globe is the same everywhere because like is more equitable than unlike. It rotates because circular motion is the most ideal, and since it simply needs to revolve, it doesn't require hands or feet. The four elements—fire, air, water, and earth—are in continual proportion to one another; that is, fire is to air as air is to water, and water is to earth. Each element is seemingly represented by a number. Since God combined all the components to create the world, it is flawless and immune to illness or aging. It has a spirit of friendliness due to its proportional harmonization, which makes it indissoluble except by God. God created the body after creating the soul. The soul is a third and intermediate sort of essence, made up of the indivisible-unchangeable and the divisible-changeable. This is a Pythagorean description of the planets that leads to an explanation of how time began: Upon witnessing the animated and alive being he had created—the replica of the everlasting gods—the father and creator exulted and resolved to further enhance the resemblance between the two creations. Since the original was everlasting, he endeavored to extend the universe's lifespan to the greatest extent possible. The perfect being was eternal by nature, yet it was not possible to give a creature this quality in its entirety. He therefore decided to create a moving representation of eternity, which we refer to as Time. After he organized the heavens, he created an eternal but numerically moving representation of eternity, but eternity itself remains in unity. There were no days or nights before this. It is incorrect to suggest that the eternal essence was or will be something other than what it is. It is inferred that it is accurate to state that the "moving image of eternity" was and will continue to be. The creation of the sky and time occurred simultaneously. God created the sun so that animals may learn math; it is assumed that mankind would not have conceived of numbers if there had not been a day and night cycle. The passage of time—day and night, months and years—has given us an understanding of numbers and time, which has led to the development of philosophy. The biggest benefit that sight has given us is this. There are four categories of creatures (aside from the earth itself): fish, land animals, birds, and gods. The fixed stars are creatures that are divine and immortal, while the gods are mostly fire. Although he could destroy them, the Creator promised the gods he would not. After creating the heavenly and eternal portion, he left it to them to create the mortal portion of every other animal. (This and other Plato texts concerning the gods may not be taken too seriously. Timaeus states from the outset that he can only seek probability and cannot be certain. Clearly, many of the facts are fictitious and not intended literally.) Timaeus claims that the Creator created one soul for every star. Anger, fear, and love are the emotions that souls experience; if they can get over them, they live moral lives; if not, they do not. If a guy leads a good life, he will live happily ever after in his star. However, if he leads a poor life, he will become a woman in the next incarnation; if he or she continues to commit evil, they will turn into brutes and experience several transmigrations until reason finally wins. God placed some souls on Earth, others on the moon, and some on other planets and stars, leaving the gods to determine how those souls would manifest physically. There are two types of causes: intelligent causes and causes that, after been moved by someone else, feel obligated to move someone else. The latter create random results devoid of order or purpose, whereas the former are equipped with minds and are the workers of things just and good. Studying both types is necessary since the production is hybrid, consisting of both necessity and intention. (Note that God's power is not applicable to need.) Timaeus now moves on to discuss the portion that necessity contributed. Earth, air, fire, and water are not even the initial syllables or compounds; they are not even the first principles, letters, or components. For example, fire is better described as such rather than as this; in other words, it is a condition of substance rather than a substance itself. This begs the question: Are names all that constitute an intelligible essence? We are informed that the answer depends on whether real opinion and mind are the same thing. If not, knowledge would have to be the knowledge of essences, and essences could not just be names. real opinion and mind are undoubtedly different from one other. While real opinion is shared by all people, mind is a quality only possessed by a select few among gods. One is ingrained via education, while the other is acquired by persuasion. This gives rise to an interesting explanation of space, which views it as a medium between the world of essence and the world of fleeting sensory objects. There is a certain type of existence that never changes, is uncreated, and unbreakable; it never takes anything from outside itself or gives anything away to anybody; it is simply invisible and undetectable to the senses, and only intellect is able to think about it. Additionally, there is another nature of the same name that is similar to it, sense-perceived, formed, always in motion, appearing in one location and then disappearing from it again, and sense- and opinion-apprehended. There is a third nature that we see as if it were a dream, where everything must necessarily exist in some location and occupy some space, but nothing exists that is neither in heaven nor on earth. This third nature is space, and it is eternal, does not admit of destruction, and gives all created things a place to live. It is also apprehended without the aid of senses, by a kind of spurious reason, and is scarcely real. This is an extremely challenging paragraph that I do not claim to fully comprehend. I believe the idea presented must have come from contemplation on geometry, which seemed to be a subject of pure reason, akin to math, but related to space, an element of the perceptible world. Finding parallels with subsequent thinkers is often absurd, but I can't help but believe that Kant must have found this perspective on space to be reminiscent of his own. According to Timaeus, the two types of right-angled triangles—the half-square and the halfequilateral triangle—are the actual constituents of the material universe, not earth, air, fire, and water. "The various elements had different places before they were arranged so as to form the universe," and at first everything was in disarray. God, however, "made them as far as possible the fairest and best, out of things which were not fair and good," after shaping them according to shape and number. We am taught that because the two types of triangles mentioned above are the most attractive, God employed them to create matter. Four of the five regular solids may be created using these two triangles, and every atom of one of the four elements is a regular solid. Earth's atoms are cubes, fire's are tetrahedra, air's are octahedra, and water's are icosahedra. (I will soon get to the dodecahedron.) In Plato's day, the idea of the regular solids, which is presented in the twelfth book of Euclid, was a relatively new discovery. Theaetetus, who appears in the discourse that bears his name as a very young man, finished it. Tradition holds that it was he who discovered the octahedron and the icosahedron and established that there are only five types of regular solids. As opposed to the dodecahedron, which can only be built with Plato's two triangles because it contains regular pentagons, the regular tetrahedron, octahedron, and icosahedron all have equilateral triangles for their faces. He does not employ it in relation to the four components because of this. Only "there was yet a fifth combination which God used in the delineation of the universe," according to Plato, about the dodecahedron. This is unclear and implies that the cosmos is a dodecahedron, while there are other claims claiming it is a spherical. The Pythagoreans, who dubbed it "Health" and utilized it as a sign of acknowledging other brothers, are credited with the pentagram's longstanding popularity in magic. The dodecahedron, which has pentagons for faces and is, in a way, a symbol of the cosmos, appears to be the source of its features. Although there is a lot that is unclear about this issue, it is an appealing one. Timaeus discusses sensation before going on to describe how humans have two souls—one immortal and the other mortal, created by God and the gods, respectively. The gods mixed irrational sense and all-daring love according to necessary laws, and thus framed men. The mortal soul is "subject to terrible and irresistible affections—first of all, pleasure, the greatest incitement to evil; then pain, which deters from good; also rashness and fear, two foolish counsellors, anger hard to be appeased, and hope easily led astray.” The mortal is in the breast, while the eternal is in the head. There are two accounts of transmigration, one of which describes the peculiar physiology in which the intestines' function is to store food in order to avoid gluttony. Men who are wicked or cowardly will become women in the hereafter. Those with no philosophical background will become wild land animals, those with innocent minds who believe astronomy can be learned by stargazing without any mathematical background will become fish, and those with no philosophical background will become birds. The dialogue's final paragraph summarizes everything: We may now declare the discussion on the nature of the cosmos to be over. The universe has been filled with animals, both mortal and eternal, and has turned into a visible animal holding the visible—the sensible God, the embodiment of intelligence, the greatest, finest, loveliest, and most ideal—the one and only heaven. Knowing what to consider a flight of imagination and what to take seriously in the Timaeus may be challenging. The creation story, which describes how order was brought into chaos via creation, should be taken very seriously, in my opinion. This also applies to the relationship between the four elements and the regular solids and the triangles that make them up. Plato's beliefs on time and space, as well as his belief that the created universe is a replica of an eternal archetype, are undeniably true. Most Greeks had the concept that there is a combination of purpose and necessity in the universe, which predates the development of philosophy. Plato agreed with this view and skirted the issue of evil, which confounds Christian theology. I guess he really means the world-animal. However, I believe that the information on transmigration, the portion ascribed to the gods, and other nonessentials are just included to provide some potential concreteness. As previously said, the conversation as a whole merits study due to its significant impact on medieval and ancient philosophy, which extends beyond the most fantastical ideas.