In Plato’s Timaeus we find a breathtaking vision of the entire cosmos and man’s place in it. We read of a creator God and the many lower spirits that organize the universe. We read of the eternal Forms and their manifestation in the constantly changing, constantly perishing world of human experience. We read of the soul, its relationship to the body, and its desire to be like God. Because large portions of the Timaeus were translated into Latin much earlier than the rest of Plato’s writings, this book became one of the most influential texts throughout the ancient and medieval world, and aspects of its cosmic vision loom large in authors all the way from Cicero and Seneca to Dante and Shakespeare. Please join us for a five-week deep dive into this strange and beautiful, baffling and compelling universe.
- Teacher: Dan Sheffler