About the project
How can mathematics whose objects are eternal, changeless, and intelligible help account for a world that is perceptible, changing, and material?
It was Plato who first answered this question in his cosmological work, the Timaeus, in which he explains the creation of the physical world.
This project considers how Plato concluded that the natural world is mathematically structured by adapting Pythagorean principles and harmonic theory. The evidence of Plato’s Early Academy plays a key role in showing how he came to think that a mathematical physics is possible.
The project also investigates the extent of Plato’s mathematical vision across a full range of physical and biological phenomena.
Purpose
The project will show why and how the early Pythagoreans and Plato conceived the natural world to be mathematically structured. It will become clear how Plato adopted Pythagorean principles and harmonic theory to explain the basic properties of material bodies, including change and materiality.
The project will also demonstrate the general scope of mathematical structure in the natural world in Plato’s Timaeus and shed light on the metaphysical underpinnings of Plato’s mathematical physics.
The evidence of Plato's Early Academy will be used to generate new readings of the Timaeus, and related Platonic dialogues.
Research team and associates
Research team: Prof. Thomas Kjeller Johansen (PI), Dr Matilde Berti, Dr Zihao Guo, Dr Filippo Sirianni (Post-Doctoral Fellows), Francis Moskvil and Cesare Pellicano (PhD Fellows).
Research associates: Prof. Laura Castelli (Cambridge), Prof. Phillip Horky (Durham), Prof. Dana Miller (Fordham), Prof. Federico Petrucci (Turin), Prof. Barbara Sattler (Bochum).
