Talk:Timaeus (dialogue)

The World Soul
I've reworked (and added quotations directly from the Timaeus) the "World Soul" section of this page, as whoever wrote the previous entry had clearly not read Plato's text very carefuly (if at all). 128.205.73.127 (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In Wikipedia, we use sentence case for headings. Is "The Creation of the World Soul" an actual chapter in Timaeus? If not, this and similar headings need to go to sentence case. Thanks! 17:45, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

Ex nihilo
The section below in quotation marks is not relevent to the article. The Christian Doctrine of Creatio Ex Nihilo was not developed until the councils expounded it. The section has the appearance of a Christian polemic and I've therefore removed it.

"For Plato, the demiurge lacked the supernatural ability to create ex nihilo or out of nothing. Not being omnipotent the demiurge was able to only organize to a limited extent the "ananke" (αναγκη) or necessity."

Purpose of the universe
I cancelled the remark about some Christian sects differring with creation ex nihilo because they did not exist at Plato's time and therefore are not relevant to the article. While the reference to the Bible position is important also because the "Timaeus" has been used to interpret the Genesis by medioeval Christian philosophers who indeed refused the original idea of eternal matter and introduced the creation ex nihilo. Benio76 22:01, 17 February 2007 (UTC)


 * To the person who wrote about the interpretation of the creation in Genesis as an "organisation" and not a "creation ex nihilo". I reverted your edit because:


 * 1/ it is not sourced. You propose an interpretation of the Genesis which is different from the current one and is based on the translation of a world from ancient Hebrew: so, you have to quote first of all a dictionary for the translation and then a critical source supporting and explaining the interpretation. Otherwise, your contribution is original research and does not follow WP guidelines (see WP:NOR);


 * 2/ as I already wrote, the reference to this interpretation will be pertinent if connected to Plato's times: was this interpretation already existing when the Timaeus was written? Are there relations between Hebrews and Christians supporting this interpretation and the Timaeus? I explained why my reference to the standard interpretation is relevant to the history of the Timaeus, please do the same. Otherwise, I think that Genesis or other articles connected to creation are more appropriate articles for your contributions.


 * In general, please make propositions in the talk page and discuss them with the other editors before editing. If you source your contribution and explain the pertinence, I have no problem with accepting it. Thanks. Benio76 16:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

So why does the article say "the Bible account"? Why not briefly mention these medieval theologians? Dan 05:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi! I added that the article is speaking of the traditional interpetation. The medieval theologians are already mentioned at the end of the article. Benio76 14:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 13:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Demiurge Never Used in the Writings
I just checked all of the external links and nowhere is the word "Demiurge", ever used by Plato.MPA 00:48, 17 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by MPA (talk • contribs)

"Demiurge" is in fact used in the Timaeus, as well as in some other dialogues. You can find references under definition of the word in LSJ. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.210.47.193 (talk) 04:02, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps this seeming conflict is due to differences in translated versions? --Geekdiva (talk) 01:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

What Plato "thinks"
I am sure that this is a common problem for articles written about the writings of Plato, but this article says things like "Plato assumes" and "Plato posits" as if it is clear that the author actually thinks what the characters think. Plato never made overt claims in his own name, at least not in the Socratic dialogues. Every such instance should be replaced with "Timaeus describes" (as is accurately used in most of the article. Rugbyhelp (talk) 17:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I know it's years late to the discussion, but I think this could help for future instances. In the case of many of the doctrines developed in this dialogue, as it happens with the proposition of a rational creator (the demiurge), the elemental constitution of the universe (earth, wind, fire and water as the basic manifestation of the physical realm, which shouldn't be confused with being its principle or cause, as it happens in atomism), or it's geometrical structure (e.g. the existence and requirement of "space"), we can find parallels of said doctrines in other texts. For example, the notion of a creator is atheme present in dialogues such as The Statesman, Philebus and The Sophist in a similar manner as its appearance in Timaeus. 179.60.95.33 (talk) 01:39, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Erroneous .GIF (a.k.a. Pedantic Observation)
It appears the spinning object labeled "Tetrahedron.gif" in The Elements section is actually a 3D pyramid, and not a tetrahedron.


 * A tetrahedron is a pyramid.  RJC  TalkContribs 00:19, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Golden Section
The last comment about the Golden mean is wrong: the golden mean is never mentioned at all, even indirectly. Also Plato speaks of 'God' (in the singular) not 'the demiurge', There is no discussion in the article of the lengthy discursus on physiology, disease and sensation, which is by far the longest discussion in the Dialogue. Also there is no mention in this article of the Creator God's creation of the other gods, nor of the role of necessity in the creation. Overall, I'd say that the article needs a complete rewrite. Eluard (talk) 02:38, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

He speaks of both "the god", "the gods", and "the demiurge". There is no "God" for the ancient Greeks as far as I know. More importantly as someone else noted, Plato never speaks in this nor in any other dialogue. And I think you will have a hard time showing Timaeus the astronomer and politician of all people to be a mouthpiece for Plato. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.210.47.193 (talk) 04:11, 21 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I didn't understand it to mean the golden ratio either. It appears as though it is just describing convergence as the average is applied repeatedly between two things (fire and earth). metric (talk) 14:43, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

Help request for Timaeus (dialog) at Wikisource
Do to personal limitations, I can't fix some problems I stumbled onto at Timaeus at Wikisource. I did point out the problems I saw at:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Talk:Timaeus#Help_request:_Remove_or_continue_the_partial_paragraph_numbers.3F

Please help if you can! Thanks! --Geekdiva (talk) 01:21, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

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