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Summary "The Demiurge" is the name that scholars have given to the divine entity who creates the world in Plato's Timaeus. The word 'demiurge' comes from the Greek word 'demiourgos', which means 'craftsman'. The Demiurge is the craftsman who creates the world.  There are too many scholarly questions about the Demiurge to properly capture in one brief description, but it suffices to say that some of the major areas of research concerning the Demiurge revolve around his motivation for creating the world as well as whether he is separate from the world and whether his nous (reason) is able to exist separately from anything else, body and soul.
Key works See Johansen 2014 for a discussion of why the cosmos needs a craftsman at all. See the first chapter of Broadie 2011 for a discussion of the separateness of the Demiurge from the world. See Menn 1995 for a landmark study of whether nous can exist separately from any body. The second chapter of Carone 2005 discusses both kinds of separateness. These important pieces of scholarship also broach the question of the Demiurge's motivation for creating the world.
Introductions Cornford 1935 is an invaluable resource for virtually every topic of the Timaeus, and the Demiurge is no exception. Similarly, the relevant chapters of Johansen 2004 are worthwhile.
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  1. Irrigating Blood: Plato on the Circulatory System, the Cosmos, and Elemental Motion.Douglas Campbell - forthcoming - Journal of the History of Philosophy.
    This article concerns the so-called irrigation system in the Timaeus’ biology (77a-81e), which replenishes our body’s tissues with resources from food delivered as blood. I argue that this system functions mainly by the natural like-to-like motion of the elements and that the circulation of blood is an important case study of Plato’s physics. We are forced to revise the view that the elements attract their like. Instead, similar elements merely tend to coalesce with each other in virtue of their tactile (...)
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  2. Biology in the Timaeus’ Account of Nous and Cognitive Life.Douglas R. Campbell - forthcoming - In Melina G. Mouzala (ed.), Cognition in Ancient Greek Philosophy and its Reception: Intedisciplinary Approaches. Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag/Nomos. pp. 145-172.
    I develop an account of the role that biology plays in the Timaeus’ view of nous and other aspects of cognitive life. I begin by outlining the biology of human cognition. I then argue that these biological views shine an important light on different aspects of the soul. I then argue that the human body is particularly friendly to nous, paying special attention to the heart and the liver. I next consider the ways that the body fails to protect our (...)
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  3. Beauty of Order and Symmetry in Minerals: Bridging Ancient Greek Philosophy with Modern Science.Chiara Elmi & Dani L. Goodman - forthcoming - Foundations of Science:1-13.
    Scientific observation has led to the discovery of recurring patterns in nature. Symmetry is the property of an object showing regularity in parts on a plane or around an axis. There are several types of symmetries observed in the natural world and the most common are mirror symmetry, radial symmetry, and translational symmetry. Symmetries can be continuous or discrete. A discrete symmetry is a symmetry that describes non-continuous changes in an object. A continuous symmetry is a repetition of an object (...)
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  4. Traditional and Cosmic Gods in Later Plato and the Early Academy.Vilius Bartninkas - 2023 - Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    This book sheds new light on Plato's cosmology in relation to Greek religion by examining the contested distinction between the traditional and cosmic gods. A close reading of the later dialogues shows that the two families of gods are routinely deployed to organise and structure Plato's accounts of the origins of the universe and of humanity and its social institutions, and to illuminate the moral and political ideals of philosophical utopias. Vilius Bartninkas argues that the presence of the two kinds (...)
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  5. What Timaeus Can Teach Us: The Importance of Plato’s Timaeus in the 21st Century.Douglas R. Campbell - 2023 - Athena 18:58-73.
    In this article, I make the case for the continued relevance of Plato’s Timaeus. I begin by sketching Allan Bloom’s picture of the natural sciences today in The Closing of the American Mind, according to which the natural sciences are, objectionably, increasingly specialized and have ejected humans qua humans from their purview. I argue that Plato’s Timaeus, despite the falsity of virtually all of its scientific claims, provides a model for how we can pursue scientific questions in a comprehensive way (...)
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  6. Plato on Sunaitia.Douglas R. Campbell - 2023 - Apeiron 56 (4):739-768.
    I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several (...)
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  7. On Plato’s Precosmos ( Ti. 52d2–53c3).Federico M. Petrucci - 2023 - Elenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 44 (1):45-64.
    The aim of this paper is to provide a new reading of Plato’s precosmos (Ti. 52d2–53c3). More specifically, I shall argue that the precosmos is populated by bodies deriving from random complexes of properties, and that this is the effect of the Receptacle’s full precosmic participation in the Paradigm. This will turn out to be consistent with a robust notion of ‘precosmic generation’ and will reveal why Plato may have sought to refer to this otherwise puzzling scenario: representing the precosmos (...)
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  8. Plato's Theory of Reincarnation: Eschatology and Natural Philosophy.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Review of Metaphysics 75 (4):643-665.
    This article concerns the place of Plato’s eschatology in his philosophy. I argue that the theory of reincarnation appeals to Plato due to its power to explain how non-human animals came to be. Further, the outlines of this theory are entailed by other commitments, such as that embodiment disrupts psychic functioning, that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished, and that the soul is immortal. I conclude by arguing that Plato develops a view of reincarnation as the chief tool that (...)
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  9. The Soul’s Tomb: Plato on the Body as the Cause of Psychic Disorders.Douglas R. Campbell - 2022 - Apeiron 55 (1):119-139.
    I argue that, according to Plato, the body is the sole cause of psychic disorders. This view is expressed at Timaeus 86b in an ambiguous sentence that has been widely misunderstood by translators and commentators. The goal of this article is to offer a new understanding of Plato’s text and view. In the first section, I argue that although the body is the result of the gods’ best efforts, their sub-optimal materials meant that the soul is constantly vulnerable to the (...)
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  10. Mind and Necessity in Timaeus’ Hepatology.Evan Coulter - 2022 - Ancient Philosophy 42 (1):105-119.
    Analogies between the human and the cosmos run throughout Plato’s Timaeus. Timaeus claims that the cosmos came to be as mind’s “persuasion of necessity.” This paper argues that an anthropological equivalent to this “persuasion” can be found in Timaeus’ suggestive account of the human liver. Mediating between intellect and desire, the organ shows the problem of mind and necessity reflected in the human soul.
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  11. Intuition in Plato and the Platonic tradition.Lloyd P. Gerson - 2022 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 31 (4):579-596.
    In this paper, I examine what is for Plato and all those who follow in his footsteps the ne plus ultra of cognition, namely, intuition (nous or noēsis). This is the paradigm of cognition, meaning that all forms of human (and even animal) cognition are inferior manifestations of this. Intuition is mental seeing, analogous to physical seeing. Among embodied souls, it is seeing a unity of some sort manifested in some diversity or plurality. Thus, someone who sees that the Morning (...)
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  12. Evil, Demiurgy, and the Taming of Necessity in Plato’s Timaeus.Elizabeth Jelinek & Casey Hall - 2022 - International Philosophical Quarterly 62 (1):5-21.
    Plato’s Timaeus reveals a cosmos governed by Necessity and Intellect; commentators have debated the relationship between them. Non-literalists hold that the demiurge, having carte blanche in taming Necessity, is omnipotent. But this omnipotence, alongside the attributes of benevolence and omniscience, creates problems when non-literalists address the problem of evil. We take the demiurge rather as limited by Necessity. This position is supported by episodes within the text, and by its larger consonance with Plato’s philosophy of evil and responsibility. By recognizing (...)
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  13. Demiurge, Good, Forms. Some Reflections on a Crucial Problem of Plato’s Metaphysics.Francisco L. Lisi - 2022 - In Giovanni Giorgini & Elena Irrera (eds.), God, Religion and Society in Ancient Thought: From Early Greek Philosophy to Augustine. Academia – ein Verlag in der Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. pp. 155-168.
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  14. Why Is Plato’s Good Good?Aidan R. Nathan - 2022 - Peitho 13 (1):125-136.
    The form of the Good in Plato’s Phaedo and Republic seems, by our standards, to do too much: it is presented as the metaphysical princi­ple, the epistemological principle and the principle of ethics. Yet this seemingly chimerical object makes good sense in the broader context of Plato’s philosophical project. He sought certain knowledge of neces­sary truths (in sharp contrast to the contingent truth of modern science). Thus, to be knowable the cosmos must be informed by timeless princi­ples; and this leads (...)
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  15. Cosmology and Anankê in the Timaeus and Our Knowledge of the Forms.Naomi Reshotko - 2022 - Apeiron 55 (4):509-535.
    At Tm. 47e, Timaeus steps back from his discussion of what came about through noûs and turns toward an account of what came about through anankê. Broadie, 2012, Nature and Divinity in Plato’s Timaeus, sketches out two routes for the interpretation of this ‘new beginning.’ The ‘metaphysical’ approach uses perceptibles qua imitations of intelligibles in order to glimpse the intelligibles (just as we look at our reflection in a mirror in order to view ourselves). The ‘cosmological’ reading assumes we use (...)
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  16. Before the Creation of Time in Plato’s Timaeus.Daniel Vázquez - 2022 - In Daniel Vázquez & Alberto Ross (eds.), Time and Cosmology in Plato and the Platonic Tradition. pp. 111–133.
    I defend, against its more recent critics, a literal, factual, and consistent interpretation of Timaeus’ creation of the cosmos and time. My main purpose is to clarify the assumptions under which a literal interpretation of Timaeus’ cosmology becomes philosophically attractive. I propose five exegetical principles that guide my interpretation. Unlike previous literalists, I argue that assuming a “pre-cosmic time” is a mistake. Instead, I challenge the exegetical assumptions scholars impose on the text and argue that for Timaeus, a mere succession (...)
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  17. Numenio interprete del Timeo. Note sull’ esegesi del verbo βλέπω (frr. 11, 12, 18 Des Places).Enrico Volpe - 2022 - Archai: Revista de Estudos Sobre as Origens Do Pensamento Ocidental 32:e-03235.
    Numenio appartiene all’ambito degli interpreti medioplatonici dei dialoghi di Platone; nel Medioplatonismo, infatti, si diffuse la tendenza a interpretare la filosofia di Platone come in chiave sistematica. Il dialogo più rilevante per questa operazione esegetica nel Medioplatonismo fu certamente il Timeo. In questo contributo intendo concentrarmi sull’interpretazione delle pagine 28a-29a del Timeo da parte di Numenio di Apamea ed esaminarne l’esegesi alla luce della sua prospettiva onto-teologica. Nel Timeo, l’utilizzo del verbo βλέπω ha la funzione di descrivere il fatto che (...)
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  18. Self‐Motion and Cognition: Plato's Theory of the Soul.Douglas R. Campbell - 2021 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 (4):523-544.
    I argue that Plato believes that the soul must be both the principle of motion and the subject of cognition because it moves things specifically by means of its thoughts. I begin by arguing that the soul moves things by means of such acts as examination and deliberation, and that this view is developed in response to Anaxagoras. I then argue that every kind of soul enjoys a kind of cognition, with even plant souls having a form of Aristotelian discrimination (...)
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  19. Reincarnation and Rehabilitation: the Theodicy of Plato's Timaeus.John Garrett - 2021 - Dissertation, Georgia State University
    Plato wonders why a good God might allow the existence of evil. This problem is especially pertinent to his dialogue Timaeus, in which Plato describes the creation of the cosmos by a benevolent divine craftsman called the Demiurge. A justification for why God allows evil to exist is called a theodicy. Readers of the Timaeus have interpreted the theodicy of this dialogue in many ways. After showing the shortcomings of some common interpretations, I offer a largely original interpretation of the (...)
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  20. Pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas d’'me du monde dans le dialogue de Numénius Sur le Bien?Fabienne Jourdan - 2021 - Philosophie Antique 21:233-264.
    Dans son dialogue Sur le Bien (19 F = fr. 11 dP), Numénius écrit que le dieu qui est « deuxième et troisième est un ». Par là, il désigne un dieu considéré selon deux aspects qui correspondent à la double orientation de son attention. Dans le second, il est tourné vers le monde et joue le rôle de démiurge. Selon la plupart des chercheurs, ce démiurge serait à identifier à l’âme du monde que les fragments parvenus du dialogue ne (...)
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  21. La question cosmologique: Platon, Lemaître et l'origine de l'Univers.Lendja Ngnemzué & Ange Bergson - 2021 - Paris: L'Harmattan.
    Le démiurge de Platon et l'atome primitif de Lemaître sont deux intuitions inédites, artifices théoriques d'astronomie anti-observationnelle. La genèse de ces artifices remonte à la thématisation présocratique de l'unité cosmique. Platon institutionnalise les Formes intelligibles et platonise les présocratiques. Lemaître, contemporain d'Einstein, est tributaire d'une unité cosmique marquée par la gravitation relativiste, qui disqualifie le système classique ayant, en son temps, déclassé les substances et le mouvement aristotéliciens. La théorisation montre comment Platon fait du démiurge le concept axial de son (...)
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  22. Divine Confirmation: Plato, Timaeus 55c7–d6.Federico M. Petrucci - 2021 - Classical Quarterly 71 (2):886-891.
    Burnet's text at Pl. Ti. 55c7–d6 is at least questionable, and opting for a different reading at 55d5 would shed light on an intriguing argumentative aspect of Plato's cosmological account: God confirms the metaphysical reasons why there is just one perfect world.
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  23. God in Plato's Philosophy.Tayebeh Shaddel, Mansour Imanpour & Hossein Atrak - 2021 - Philosophical Investigations 15 (34):178-197.
    There are different meanings of the word “God” that have been used by philosophers throughout the history of philosophy, such as theism, pantheism, panentheism, deism, and etc. The subject of this paper is the concept of “God” in Plato’s philosophy. Considering Plato’s different treatises that have the most theological material, it can be said that he has not meant a single concept of this word. In The Republic, given the characteristics that have been attributed to God, like simplicity, transcendental, it (...)
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  24. Divine causal agency in classical Greek philosophy.Donald J. Zyl - 2021 - In Gregory E. Ganssle (ed.), Philosophical Essays on Divine Causation. Routledge.
    Donald J. Zeyl begins the historical section of the book by tracing divine causation throughout classical Greek philosophy. Some of the Pre-Socratics held to a single god as the source of rational order or change. These views suggested that the cosmos may be explained teleologically. Plato takes up that suggested promise in his Phaedo and finds it wanting. Instead, he looks to Forms as (formal) causes of natural processes. This direction of inquiry leads him to postulate, in the Republic, the (...)
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  25. From Craft to Nature: The Emergence of Natural Teleology.Thomas Johansen - 2020 - In Liba Taub (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Science. Cambridge University Press. pp. 102-120.
    A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of an end or a purpose. So saying that ‘X came about for the sake of Y’ is a teleological account of X. It is a striking feature of ancient Greek philosophy that many thinkers accepted that the world should be explained in this way. However, before Aristotle, teleological explanations of the cosmos were generally based on the idea that it had been created by a divine intelligence. If an intelligent power made (...)
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  26. Can One Speak of Teleology in Plato?Luc Brisson - 2019 - Les Cahiers Philosophiques de Strasbourg 45:117-138.
    Chez les interprètes récents du Timée de Platon, le terme « téléologie », inventé au xviiie siècle, a pris une place déterminante. Mais l’usage de ce terme trahit une interprétation aristotélicienne de la figure du démiurge qu’il s’agit d’assimiler au premier moteur, dans le contexte de la cause finale. On s’interrogera ici sur l’origine de ce terme, et sur la pertinence de son usage pour comprendre le rôle que joue le démiurge dans le Timée.
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  27. The Demiurge in Ancient Thought: Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators, written by O’Brien, C.S.Dylan M. Burns - 2019 - International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 13 (1):108-110.
  28. The Tomb of the Artisan God: On Plato's Timaeus.Serge Margel - 2019 - Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
    A far-reaching reinterpretation of Plato’s Timaeus and its engagement with time, eternity, body, and soul that in its original French edition profoundly influenced Derrida The Tomb of the Artisan God provides a radical rereading of Timaeus, Plato’s metaphysical text on time, eternity, and the relationship between soul and body. First published in French in 1995, the original edition of Serge Margel’s book included an extensive introductory essay by Jacques Derrida, who drew on Margel’s insights in developing his own concepts of (...)
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  29. Putting Cosmogony into Words: The Neoplatonists on Metaphysics and Discourse.Anna Motta - 2019 - Peitho 10 (1):113-132.
    The present paper focuses on some aspects of the Neoplatonist literary-metaphysical theory, which has clearly been expressed in the anony­mous Prolegomena to Plato’s philosophy and further confirmed in Proclus’ exegesis of the Timaeus. Thus, this contribution, examines and compares several passages from the Prolegomena and from Proclus’ Commentary on the Timaeus with a view to showing that it is legiti­mate to speak of a certain cosmogony of the Platonic dialogue that is analogous to that of the macrocosm. Moreover, the analogy (...)
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  30. The Urge to Write: Of Murdoch on Plato’s Demiurge.David Robjant - 2019 - In Nora Hämäläinen & Gillian Dooley (eds.), Reading Iris Murdoch’s Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. Springer Verlag. pp. 227-242.
    The Timaeus is difficult, and Murdoch has two strands of thought about it. On the one hand she thinks it a defence of Forms, and on the other hand she thinks it is an allegory on the inspiration and limitations of the artist, or creative literary writer. Arguing that the two strands get in each other’s way, and that one is mistaken, I will defend and expand on ‘Plato’s portrait of the artist’.
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  31. Cosmic and Human Cognition in the Timaeus.Gábor Betegh - 2018 - In Philosophy of Mind in Antiquity. London: Routledge. pp. 120-140.
  32. Aristotle on God's life-generating power and on pneuma as its vehicle.Abraham P. Bos - 2018 - Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
    Proposes an innovative rethinking of Aristotle’s work as a system that integrates his theology with his doctrine of reproduction and life. In this deep rethinking of Aristotle’s work, Abraham P. Bos argues that scholarship on Aristotle’s philosophy has erred since antiquity in denying the connection between his theology and his doctrine of reproduction and life in the earthly sphere. Beginning with an analysis of God’s role in the Aristotelian system, Bos explores how this relates to other elements of his philosophy, (...)
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  33. Os Princípios Explicativos no Timeu de Platão.Luciana Valesca Fabião Chachá - 2018 - Dissertation, Ufrj, Brazil
  34. O’BRIEN, CARL SÉAN, The Demiurge in Ancient Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015, 346 pp. [REVIEW]Roger Ferrer Ventosa - 2018 - Anuario Filosófico 51 (1):196-199.
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  35. “Do the Gods Play Dice?”. Sensible Sequentialism and Fuzzy Logic in Plato’s Timaeus.Francesco Fronterotta - 2018 - Discipline Filosofiche 28 (1):13-32.
    In this paper I propose a reconstruction of the onto-cosmological perspective of Plato’s Timaeus and suggest an interpretation of it in the light of some contemporary approaches to ontology and logic, i.e. “ontological sequentialism” and “fuzzy logic”, attempting to use the categories and language of present-day ontology and logic to examine from a different point of view some aspects of the Timaeus onto-cosmology and of its logical scaffolding.
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  36. Providential Disorder in Plato’s Timaeus?Stefano Maso - 2018 - Peitho 9 (1):37-52.
    Plato tries to explain the becoming of the cosmos by referring to the concepts of order and disorder. Scholars have usually focused on the relationship between the cosmos and the demiurge that Plato puts forward to explain the reasonable development. Along these lines, scholarship has examined the providential role played by both the demiurge and the soul of the world. Yet, an interesting prob­lem still remains open: what exactly is the function of disorder? What is the sense of the concept (...)
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  37. Worldly and otherworldly virtue: Likeness to God as educational ideal in Plato, Plotinus, and today.Marie-Élise Zovko - 2018 - Educational Philosophy and Theory 50 (6-7):586-596.
    In Plato, ‘Becoming like God’ constitutes the telos of the philosophical life. Our ‘likeness to God’ is rooted in the relationship of the divine paradeigma to its image established in the generation of the Cosmos. This relationship makes knowledge and virtue possible, and informs Plato’s theory of education. Related concepts preexist in Judeo-Christian and other traditions and continue to inform our thought on moral and ethical issues, particularly as regards our understanding of what it means to be human. From the (...)
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  38. The Demiurge in Ancient Thought: Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators. [REVIEW]Cristina Ionescu - 2017 - Ancient Philosophy 37 (1):233-237.
  39. Plato’s Theodicy in the Timaeus.Komarov Viktor IlievskiCorresponding authorVladimir & Skopje - 2016 - Rhizomata 4 (2).
  40. The demiurge. C.s. O'Brien the demiurge in ancient thought. Secondary gods and divine mediators. Pp. XVI + 333. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2015. Cased, £65, us$99. Isbn: 978-1-107-07536-8. [REVIEW]Dirk Baltzly - 2016 - The Classical Review 66 (2):375-377.
  41. Making the World Body Whole and Complete: Plato's Timaeus, 32c5-33b1.Brad Berman - 2016 - International Journal of the Platonic Tradition 10 (2):168-192.
    Plato’s demiurge makes a series of questionable decisions in creating the world. Most notoriously, he endeavors to replicate, to the extent possible, some of the features that his model possesses just insofar as it is a Form. This has provoked the colorful complaint that the demiurge is as raving mad as a general contractor who constructs a house of vellum to better realize the architect’s vellum plans (Keyt 1971). The present paper considers the sanity of the demiurge’s reasoning in light (...)
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  42. The Intellect and the cosmos.Luc Brisson - 2016 - Methodos 16.
    La figure complexe et même contradictoire du démiurge dans le Timée de Platon a suscité plusieurs interprétations de l’Antiquité jusqu’à nos jours, même si habituellement le démiurge est considéré comme un intellect : intellect de l’âme du monde, activité productrice des Formes, Premier Moteur, divinité réalisant un plan déterminée comme le dieu de la Genèse, instrument du Bien. Le débat se poursuit, mais il est important d’insister sur l’originalité du Timée : c’est la première cosmologie dans l’Antiquité, qui fait intervenir (...)
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  43. Corporeal gods, with Reference to Plato and Aristotle.Sarah Jean Broadie - 2016 - In Thomas Buchheim & David Meißner (eds.), SOMA: Körperkonzepte und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. pp. 159-182.
  44. Le démiurge du Timée de Platon ou la représentation mythique de la causalité paradigmatique de la forme du dieu.Daniel Larose - 2016 - Methodos 16.
    Contrairement à la majorité des interprètes du Timée de Platon, nous ne croyons pas que la figure du démiurge représente réellement une cause productrice. Ce type de causalité, explicitement attribué au νοῦς dans le Phédon, ne peut, selon nous, être associé qu’à l’activité de l’âme du monde et des dieux de la tradition. Le démiurge joue un autre rôle. Représentant le meilleur des êtres intelligibles éternels (37a), un dieu éternel (34a), le démiurge ne peut, à ce titre, être un principe (...)
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  45. O'Brien The Demiurge in Ancient Thought: Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. xvi + 333. £65./$99. 9781107075368. [REVIEW]Alex Long - 2016 - Journal of Hellenic Studies 136:280-281.
  46. Argumentative Strategies for Interpreting Plato’s Cosmogony: Taurus and the Issue of Literalism in Antiquity.Federico M. Petrucci - 2016 - Phronesis 61 (1):43-59.
    _ Source: _Volume 61, Issue 1, pp 43 - 59 Contemporary debate on Plato’s cosmogony often assumes that the ‘literal’ reading of the _Timaeus_ yields an account of creation, while the view that the cosmos always existed is non-literal. In antiquity, Taurus has been seen as a forerunner of the ‘non-literal’ interpretation. This paper shows, on the contrary, that Taurus’ argument for the sempiternity of the cosmos is a literalist one, relying on a strict linguistic analysis of _Timaeus_ 28b6-8.
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  47. The Cosmological Argument & the place of Contestation in Philosophical Discourse: From Plato & Aristotle to Contemporary Debates.Scott Ventureyra - 2016 - Maritain Studies/Etudes Maritainiennes 32 (1):51-70.
    In this paper, I examine three significant periods of the cosmological argument which exemplify the importance of contestation: first, Plato’s and Aristotle’s formulation of it, second, Philoponus’ own reactions and influence, third, the contemporary state of such discourses. Contestation has an inestimable role in philosophical development and reflection, as will be demonstrated through the examination of such periods.
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  48. Plato’s cosmological medicine in the discourse of Eryximachus in the Symposium. The responsibility of a harmonic techne.Laura Candiotto - 2015 - Plato Journal 15:81-93.
    By comparing the role of harmony in Eryximachus’ discourse with other Platonic passages, especially from the Timaeus, this article aims to provide textual evidence concerning Plato’s conception of cosmological medicine as “harmonic techne”. The comparison with other dialogues will enable us to demonstrate how Eryximachus’ thesis is consistent with Plato’s cosmology — a cosmology which cannot be reduced to a physical conception of reality but represents the expression of a dialectical, and erotic cosmos, characterized by the agreement of parts. Arguably, (...)
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  49. The Demiurge in Ancient Thought: Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators.Carl Séan O'Brien - 2015 - Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
    How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first (...)
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  50. C.S. O’Brien, The Demiurge in Ancient Thought. Secondary Gods and Divine Mediators.Federico M. Petrucci - 2015 - Elenchos 36 (1):173-179.
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