Introduction

(sections 1-3) (pp. 29-40)

Characters: Timaeus, Critias, Hermocrates, Socrates

• True morality is based on the order and harmony of the macrocosm, as revealed to the soul before birth.
• Plans for a trilogy by Plato: Republic (ideal state in outline), Timaeus (creation from gods down to men), "Atlantis?" (the ideal state in action).
• The views and capacities of poets, sophists, and philosophers.
• Critias: Atlantis Myth (20e-27a)
• Timaeus' Prelude: Physics as a "likely story" (eikos muthos)

Main Section I: The Work of Reason

29d-47e, (sections 4-14) (pp. 40-65)

• A. The creation and creator (Demiurge) 29d-31b His motives (29d-30c) and model (30c-31a); one world, not many
• B. The body of the world 31b-34b Four primary bodies (31b-c), wholeness (32b- c), sphere (33b-34a), central soul (34b)
• C. The World-Soul 35a-39e Composition: being, becoming, same, different (35a); division into harmonic intervals (35b-36b); circles of the Same and the Different, and planetary circles and motions (36b-d); Time=the moving image of eternity (37c-38c); planets as instruments of time (38c-39e).
• D. Further broad details 39e-40d The four kinds of living creature (39e-40b): heavenly gods, winged things, water creatures, creatures of the land; the earth's rotation (40b-c); other heavenly bodies too complicated to describe here (40c-d).
• E. Human soul 40d-44d The traditional gods, their creation and destruction (40d-41a); the Demiurge instructs the gods to make lesser creatures (mortals) (41a-d); composition of human souls (41d-42d), with each soul assigned to a star; destiny, incarnation, and reincarnation (42d-44d)
• F. Human body (44d-47e) Head given limbs (44d-45b); eyes and the mechanism of vision (45b-46a); mirror images; the purposes of seeing and hearing (46c-47e)

Main Section II: The Work of Necessity

47e-69a (sections 15-36; pp. 66-95)

• A. The "straying cause" (47e-48e)
• B. The "receptacle" (48e-49a)
• C. Preliminary account of the four elements (49a-50d)
• D. The ideal figures
• E. Motion and Rest (57d-58c)
• F. Elemental Varieties and Compounds (58d-61c)
• G. Sensations (tactile, pleasure and pain, tastes, smells, sounds, colors) (61c- 69a)

Main Section III: Necessity and Reason Combined

68e-92c (sections 37-50; pp. 96-124)

• A. Subordinate gods; mortal parts of soul (68e-73a)
• B. Human frame and "externals" (hair, etc.) (73b-76e)
• C. Plants (77a--b)
• D. Digestion/Respiration; growth/decay (77c-81e)
• E. Diseases of body/diseases of mind (82a-87c)
• F. Balance and fitness of body and mind (87c-90d)
• G. The sexes (90e-92b)
• H. Conclusion (92b)