The Timaeus: Plato's Cosmos

In the Timaeus, Plato offers an account of how the universe came to be. A divine craftsman, the Demiurge, looks to the eternal Forms and shapes pre-existing chaotic material into an ordered, living cosmos with a world soul. Plato links the four elements to geometric solids: fire to the tetrahedron, air to the octahedron, water to the icosahedron and earth to the cube. He calls his account only a 'likely story', since the changing physical world cannot be known with the certainty of the Forms.

The Timaeus also introduces, along with the Critias, the story of Atlantis, which most scholars regard as Plato's invention. Its influence was enormous: for much of the early Middle Ages, a partial Latin translation of the Timaeus was the main work of Plato available in Western Europe. The dialogue shows Plato trying to combine mathematics, purpose and divine design in one explanation of nature.