Timaeus

In this profound and influential dialogue, Plato presents a grand account of the origin and structure of the cosmos, describing how a divine craftsman shaped the universe according to eternal patterns of order and beauty, and offering theories of matter, the soul, and the human body. Dense and visionary, the Timaeus was for centuries the most widely known of Plato’s works in the West and deeply shaped medieval and Renaissance thought about nature and creation. It also contains the famous first mention of the lost island of Atlantis. Ambitious and mysterious, the Timaeus is Plato’s great cosmological vision, a foundational text in the history of science and philosophy.