Universe: Platonic
Universe: Platonic
| Topics: |  Cosmology |
Introduction
Platonic cosmology has a primordial state called "Prime Matter" endowed with an indissolvable combination of matter and latent form so that all that was needed was a "Prime Mover" to unleash the potential forms and give them substance. According to Plato's writings from the "Timaeus," the universe is a spherical, living creature possessing soul and reason. It is complete unto itself with no exterior. Its creation was the mixed result of Necessity and Reason.
The matter of the visible, sensible world has a nature invisible and characterless, but partaking in some very puzzling way of the intelligible, and the very hard to apprehend.
In "On the heavens," Aristotle writes that the universe is changeless and eternal. It is an incorruptible perfection which has existed for all time in the past, and for all times in the future. It, therefore, was not created.
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External Links
- Aristotle's Natural Philosophy - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Leonardo Da Vinci and Platonic Solids - Rasko Jovanovic`s World of Mathematics. (Home page.)
- On the Heavens By Aristotle Written 350 B.C.E. Translated by J. L. Stocks - The Internet Classics Archive by Daniel C. Stevenson, Web Atomics. (Classics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)
- On the Heavens - Wikipedia.
- Plato's Timaeus - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Timaeus By Plato. Written 360 B.C.E. Translated by Benjamin Jowett - The Internet Classics Archive by Daniel C. Stevenson, Web Atomics. (Classics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.)
- Timaeus (dialogue) - Wikipedia.
Preview Image
The fifth Platonic Solid, the dodecahedron, Plato obscurely remarks, "...the god used for arranging the constellations on the whole heaven." (Timaeus 55 ). (Source: Radoslav Rasko Jovanovic / CC BY 3.0)
Citation
Odenwald, Sten, Ph.D. (Contributing Author); Bernard Haisch (Topic Editor). 2009. "Universe: Platonic." In: Encyclopedia of the Cosmos. Eds. Bernard Haisch and Joakim F. Lindblom (Redwood City, CA: Digital Universe Foundation). [First published February 14, 2008].
<http://www.cosmosportal.org/articles/view/138909/>
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