Timaeus

Timaeus is a dialogue attributed to Plato, likely composed in the 4th century BCE. It features Timaeus of Locri as the principal speaker, presenting a comprehensive account of the nature of the physical world, human beings, and the fate of the cosmos. The dialogue is set within an exchange among Socrates’ circle, including Critias and Hermocrates, and it serves as a precursor to the subsequent Critias, which is unfinished and largely concerns the legendary island of Atlantis.

In its central account, Timaeus describes a cosmos designed by a benevolent creator, often called the Demiurge, who imposes order on chaotic preexisting matter by fashioning it after the eternal, perfect forms. The result is a living, rational World Soul that governs the ordered universe. Time is introduced as the moving image of eternity, and the cosmos is seen as a synthetic whole, composed of sensible matter structured by mathematical principles.

The material world is explained through the four classical elements—earth, air, fire, and water—each associated with a Platonic solid (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron), with a fifth substance, aether, completing the cosmic arrangement. The dialogue also surveys the nature of human beings: a composite of body and soul, with a tripartite psychology that blends rational, spirited, and appetitive aspects; the human soul is linked to the larger order of the World Soul, and mortality is attributed to its mortal body.

Timaeus has exerted substantial influence on later philosophical and theological thought, shaping discussions of cosmology, metaphysics, and natural philosophy in both the Platonic tradition and Neoplatonism, as well as on medieval and Renaissance science.