Major Works

• Timaeus

  - Recommended translation: Timaeus, trans. Peter Kalkavage (Focus, 2001).
  Excerpt: Socrates One, two, three,—but where, my dear Timaeus, is the fourth of our guests of yesterday, our hosts of today? Timaeus Some sickness has befallen him, Socrates; for he would never have stayed away from our gathering of his own free will.… More

Commentary

• On Plato’s Timaeus and Timaeus’ Science Fiction

  - Benardete, Seth, "On Plato's Timaeus and Timaeus' Science Fiction," Interpretation 2, no. 1, (Summer 1971), 21-65.
  Excerpt: (17a1-b4). Socrates counts out loud. He makes himself out to be somewhat ridiculous. He does not say, “There are three of you; there should be four.” Nor does he say, We are all here except so-and-so. Where is he Timaeus?” Socrates… More

• Physique et poesie dans le ‘Timee’ de Platon

  - Hadot, Pierre, "Physique et poesie dans le 'Timee' de Platon," Revue de theologie et de philosophie 115 (1983), 113-33.

• The Body of the Speech: A New Hypothesis on the Compositional Structure of Timaeus’ Monologue

  - Brague, Remi, "The Body of the Speech: A New Hypothesis on the Compositional Structure of Timaeus' Monologue," Platonic Investigations, ed. Dominic J. O'Meara, Catholic University of America Press, 1986.

• The Whole as Setting for Man: On Plato’s Timaeus

  - Cropsey, Joseph, "The Whole as Setting for Man: On Plato's Timaeus," Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 17, no. 2 (Winter 1989-90), 165-92.
  Excerpt: Plato’s Timaeus brings together Socrates and three of the four people who had requested, and received, on the preceding day, an account by him of his views on the polity. The review that Socrates gives “today” of the account that… More

• Time in the Timaeus

  - Brann, Eva, "Time in the Timaeus," The Music of the Republic: Essays on Socrates' Conversations and Plato's Writings, Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2004, 273-77.
  Excerpt: In the dialogue named after him, Timaeus has the divine Craftsman, who is making the heavens, say: He thought of making a certain movable image of eternity, and, at once with ordering heaven, he made an eternal image going according to number, that… More

• Metaphysics and Method in Plato’s Statesman

  - Sayre, Kenneth M., Metaphysics and Method in Plato's Statesman, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
  Excerpt: The Statesman begins with Socrates thanking Theodorus for introducing him to Theaetetus and the Stranger from Elea. After a bantering interchange on the relative values of sophistry, statesmanship, and philosophy, and after acquiescing to the… More

• Timaeus-Critias: Completing or Challenging Socratic Political Philosophy?

  - Zuckert, Catherine H., "Timaeus-Critias: Completing or Challenging Socratic Political Philosophy?," Plato's Philosophers: The Coherence of the Dialogues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, 420-81.
  Excerpt: Socrates concluded his discussion of the city in speech, which he proposed in the Republic, by observing that it did not matter whether this city ever actually came into being, because it would serve as “a paradigm laid up in heaven for the… More

• On the Timaeus

  - Benardete, Seth, "On the Timaeus," The Argument of the Action: Essays on Greek Poetry and Philosophy, ed. Ronna Burger and Michael Davis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 376-95.
  Excerpt: Thirty years ago, when I submitted a paper to Leo Strauss on Timaeus’s science fiction, he wrote back to say that Plato’s Timaeus for him had always been sealed with 77 seals, but he thought he saw two things clearly: Timaeus’s… More

Multimedia

• David Roochnik: Introduction to Greek Philosophy

  - Roochnik, David, "Introduction to Greek Philosophy," Audio lectures, The Great Courses, 24 lectures.
  Course description: The first philosophers in Western history—the ancient Greeks—asked the most fundamental questions about human beings and their relationship to the world. More than 2,500 years later, the issues they pondered continue to challenge,… More

• Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

  - O'Connor, David, "Ancient and Medieval Philosophy," Podcast,  iTunes University.
  Course description: This course, led by Professor David O’Connor (Notre Dame), will concentrate on major figures and persistent themes in ancient and medieval philosophy. A balance will be sought between scope and depth, the latter ensured by a close… More