Abstract

In Timaeus 49 d-e Plato refers to the construction of the physical world and the appropriate ways to name the phainomena. Concerning these lines –considered “A much misread passage in Plato’s Timaeus” by H. Cherniss- is notable the interpretative disagreement between scholars. In this paper I will review the main exegetical lines adopted by specialists since the last century and, on this basis, try to determine which could have been the reading assumed by Plotinus on this subject when in some passages of his Enneads seems to remit to this section of the Timaeus.