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Timaeus Vs Plato

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Timaeus Vs Plato
The differing views of the world and motion in Aristotle 's
On the Heavens and Plato 's Timaeus

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Our fascination with explaining the universe is not a modern concept, and historically, Aristotle and Plato, whilst they differed in their views of the world, both assembled compelling arguments to respectively portray this. This essay will serve to demonstrate the concept of 'world ' and 'worlds ' in the work of Plato and Aristotle, and how they differentiate and coincide to define their individual philosophies of nature. I will also contrast and compare the way in which each of these texts address the concept of motion in their respective worlds. …show more content…
According to Plato, the physical world we exist in is “a copy” (p8, Timaeus) of the spiritual world, consisting of 'forms '. These 'forms ' were constructed by the essence of all things physical in its purest form, representative in mathematical truths, which is the most eternal of all forms. This was substantiated by his reference to the spherical quality of the cosmos which is the most 'perfect ' and 'uniform ' shape. His concept of motion was also governed by this, he believed in the four elements earth, air, fire and water, which were classified into platonic solids – for example, fire was tetrahedronal in shape. These shapes all exhibited a 'golden ratio ' whereby each face would summate to constitute physical
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