Timaeus. Commentary by A. F. Losev

One of the strong points of Plato’s objective idealism was the dialectic of ideas in the “Sophist” and “Parmenides.” But Plato would not have been an ancient philosopher if he had limited himself to abstract dialectics of ideas alone.

For both Plato and all ancient philosophy, the only concrete and absolute being was the cosmos—visible, audible, and generally perceptible by the senses, that is, first of all the sky with its uniform movement of visible constellations and the irregular movement of the planets. Already in the “Theaetetus,” the dialectic of ideas sets itself concrete cognitive goals, and this epistemology, of which Plato’s objective idealism was in great need, must be considered a major achievement. Plato repeatedly extended his dialectic of ideas into the moral sphere, as well as into socio-political constructions, as we know well from the “Republic.” The “Philebus” also makes a major contribution to Plato’s conception, filling the doctrine of ideas with substantial psychological and aesthetic content. And yet none of these dialogues, apart from certain hints in the “Phaedrus,” “Phaedo,” “Republic,” and elsewhere, posed the problem of the cosmos in a systematic form.