History 2074 paper #1

The Reason of Plato’s Cosmological Cosmogony
History 2074
Nathan Buchanan
B00160130
The centrality of logic and reason as precepts for the knowing of nature led to
Timaeus, Plato’s dialogue about physics and the universe. Those platonic dialogues with
the sophist Timaeus show both elements of cosmogony and cosmology, creating what
could be termed a cosmological cosmogony. When Critias introduced Timaeus into the
dialogue, he was the primary astronomer of the Athens school, and thought to be best
equipped to explain both the nature of the universe and its origin.1 Timaeus followed
through on this expectation and gave his account of the creation of the universe, and how
it works using logical reasoning.
First, however, to examine this idea of a cosmological cosmogony, the terms
cosmology and cosmogeny need definition for their application in this context.
Cosmogony is “a theory or story of the origin and development of the universe, the solar
system, or the earth-moon system,”2 while cosmology is “the branch of astronomy that
deals with the general structure and evolution of the universe” and also with the
universe’s “parts, elements, and laws, and esp[ecially] with such of its characteristics as
space, time, causality, and freedom.”3 To focus the definitions more tightly, a
cosmogony is primarily concerned with the origin of things, while cosmology is
primarily concerned with its structure.
1
Plato “Timaeus” in Plato: The Collected Dialogues (Princeton University Press). 27a
2
cosmogony. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cosmogony (accessed: October 27, 2009).
3
cosmology. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cosmology (accessed: October 27, 2009).
-1-
Timaeus’ universe is one with a primal force: a creator — the demiurge — that
began all things. The universe also follows laws: those of nature. It was centrally
important in his mind that all of creation follows these rules even from the beginning of
all things, or as stated by Timaeus “should be according to nature.” 4 There was no
dichotomy between having the divine creative force and it working within the laws of
nature because of the way he thought the laws of causality worked: “everything that
becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause.”5 Therefore,
something made the universe become what it is, but the force, the creator himself has
always been and is unchangeable.
Now, following the force of logic, the creation of the world must result in a real
and physical object. Timaeus said “that which is created is of necessity corporeal, and
also visible and tangible.”6 Following this, he posited that elemental earth and fire were
necessarily part of this created universe because “nothing is visible where there is no fire”
and “nothing is solid without earth.”7 These two elements were the quintessence of the
ideas of visibility, since fire provides light; and solidity, since earth is solid. Then by
necessity, these elements became the body of the universe created by the divine creator.
Now with two elements being necessarily part of the universe, Timaeus asserts
“two things cannot be rightly put together without a third.”8 Those two items, the
elements of earth and fire, need another to bind them. Turning to mathematics, he used
the principal that when you have three items there is always a mean — an average of the
4
Plato. 29b
5
Plato. 28a
6
Plato. 31b
7
Plato. 31b
8
Plato. 31b & c
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items. Therefore, the mean of earth and fire would be air and water; the universe being
three-dimensional requires two means, not just the one required by a planar surface.9
With his theory of the composition of the universe created, Timaeus looked to the
form of the universe, and concluded that the world must be a sphere. He considered it a
perfect shape, that “which was suitable and also natural … the most perfect and the most
like itself of all the figures.”10 The creator also created a spherical and otherwise
featureless animal to reside on the spherical universe; a spherical creature would be able
to move about on the perfect sphere without need of senses or limbs to achieve
locomotion.11 Thus, God had made a universal system of a circle moving in a circle.12
This system still did not account for the variation in the world and for the ability
to truly change. Therefore, Timaeus said:
The nurse of generation moistened by water and inflamed

by fire, and receiving the forms of earth and air …
presented a strange variety of appearances, and being full
of powers which were neither similar nor equally balanced,
was never in any part in a state of equipoise … [and] by its
motion again shook them and the elements when moved
were separated and carried continually in one way, some
another … In this manner, the four kinds or elements were
then shaken … [and] scattered far away from one another.13
This disorder then began to reorder itself, but the scattering and separation of the
elements, that formed the world as it is today, lent themselves to another question how
could the elements separate?
The final piece of his universal system was in this question of how those elements
could reform and separate. The solution is reducible thusly: solid bodies such as the
9
Plato. 31c to 32 b
10
Plato. 33b
11
Plato. 33c to 34a
12
Plato. 34b
13
Plato. 52d to 53a
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elements have surfaces, and surfaces have shapes. Triangles in series can form any
possible shape. These triangles can create regular geometric figures such as the regular
triangle or square, and those figures combined to make the five regular solids (now often
called the Platonic solids because of this work: the tetrahedron, the cube, the octahedron,
the icosahedron and the dodecahedron,)14 he was able to make three-dimensional shapes
to be building blocks of the world. The shapes he assigned the elements he feels match
characteristics with it (e.g. earth to cubes, fire to tetrahedrons, etc.)15 Now with the
elements assigned to shapes, there is an ability of dissolution, the ability of change from
one element to another, for “when many small bodies are dissolved into their triangles …
they can form one large mass of another kind. So much for their passage into one
another.”16 Thus, again, Timaeus used mathematics, and thus reason accounts for the
world.
Plato’s Timaeus accounts that at each turn, reason and logic are necessarily
required to create an account for the creation of the world, and that reason will follow its
course to show not just the beginning of creation, but the structure down to the tiniest
elemental atom. The proper creation of a cosmogony through reason will itself create the
logical cosmology to go with it.
14
Plato. 53c to 55c
15
Plato. 55e to 56c
16
Plato. 54d
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The Reason of Plato’s Cosmological Cosmogony

it works using logical reasoning.

First, however, to examine this idea of a cosmological cosmogony, the terms

cosmogony is primarily concerned with the origin of things, while cosmology is

primarily concerned with its structure.

all things, or as stated by Timaeus “should be according to nature.” 4 There was no

becomes or is created must of necessity be created by some cause.”5 Therefore,

always been and is unchangeable.

to truly change. Therefore, Timaeus said:

The nurse of generation moistened by water and inflamed

could the elements separate?

logical cosmology to go with it.

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