Abstract

Plato's Timaeus is unique among his dialogues with respect both to its subject matter and to the variety of interpretations to which it has been subjected. The aim of this dissertation is to show from the language and structure of the text that the Timaeus has to do with foundational ethical questions. ;My thesis is that the Timaeus is a formal construct in which four spheres of being: ideal, cosmic, human, and political, are related by means of analogy, the purpose of which construct is to provide the fundamental principles of ethics, and to present human nature and the political sphere as oriented toward the good. ;This analogy is developed primarily by means of the metaphor of the zoion. Ostensibly the cosmology presents the causality of the kosmos which the demiourgos forms after the likeness of the ideal living creature. The individual human being is to imitate the demiourgos and realize in his/her own life a likeness to the cosmic zoion. The fruit of participating in this divine causality in oneself is the happy life, the actualization of oneself as a microcosm after the cosmic model, the perfect and happy god. ;The analogy is developed not merely between the cosmic zoion and the human zoion, however. It is thoroughly mediated by the political zoion and this is what is distinctive. ;Socrates first introduces the metaphor of zoia kala in the prologue to the cosmology in order to describe the ideal city in action, showing its arete. Thus the metaphor of zoia kala is primarily a metaphor for virtue, arete. Within the cosmological context of the analogy, however, what is ordinarily taken to be political is transformed to include destiny beyond the polis. Such a vision links the realization of the political good to the achievement of moral and ethical excellence. This is arete understood in a new sense. ;Thus, by means of the four-level analogy, the Timaeus shows a complete correspondence between the intentionality of the myth as expressed in the prologue and the intrinsic purpose attributed to the macrocosm and microcosm through the cosmology