TimaeusOne of the dialogues authored by the Greek philosopher Plato (c. 428-348
BCE), and the only known writing of his to ever deal at length with natural
science. This document, which so influenced Western thinkers into and
beyond the Middle Ages, is essentially an explanatory account of the creation of
the universe. By analogy, Plato argued that just as the physical triangle
is simply an imitation of the intelligible, ideal form “triangle,” so the
physical universe itself is merely a changing likeness of the ideal, eternal,
unchanging universe, and that human thinking can only present an approximation,
a “likely story,” of the true nature of the cosmos.
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Contributed
by: Marty Maddox/ CTNS
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