Time and Astronomy in Plato’s Timaeus

Abstract

I argue that “time” (χρόνος) in Plato’s Timaeus is the observable astronomical event that consists of the coordinated movements of the sun, the moon, the five observable planets and the earth. This celestial parade forms a unified event that imitates eternity through the uniformity of its movements, its unity in multiplicity, and its never-ending duration (sempiternity a parte post). Therefore, it is a mistake to conceive of time in Timaeus as a celestial clock, the type of movements involved in the celestial parade, an epiphenomenon of those movements, simple duration, absolute time, an intuition, a number or any other formal or metaphysical entity.

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