It has long been thought that the ancient Greeks did not take mechanics seriously as part of the workings of nature, and that therefore their natural philosophy was both primitive and marginal. In this book Sylvia Berryman challenges that assumption, arguing that the idea that the world works 'like a machine' can be found in ancient Greek thought, predating the early modern philosophy with which it is most closely associated. Her discussion ranges over topics including balancing and equilibrium, lifting water, (...) sphere-making and models of the heavens, and ancient Greek pneumatic theory, with detailed analysis of thinkers such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Hero of Alexandria. Her book shows scholars of ancient Greek philosophy why it is necessary to pay attention to mechanics, and shows historians of science why the differences between ancient and modern reactions to mechanics are not as great as was generally thought. (shrink)

La conception du corps exposee dans le Timee rompt radicalement avec celle contenue dans la premiere philosophie platonicienne. L'interpretation courante ne retient du corps que sa negativite en le presentant comme un obstacle. Or la problematique du Timee instaure un rapport etroit entre mathematique et univers, et propose une etude reelle du corps l'envisageant comme globalite. Quelle est la structure du corps, en tant qu'entite physique? Cette structure repond-elle a une finalite, le corps et l'ame devant former l'homme? Quelle est (...) alors la signification du corps et comment passe-t-il de la neutralite a l'acquisition d'une valeur? Enfin quels sont sa place, son role et son influence dans la vie humaine? (shrink)

In this paper I ask how Timaeus explains change within the trianglebased part of his cosmos. Two common views are that change among physical items is somehow caused or enabled by either the forms or the demiurge. I argue for a competing view, on which the physical items are capable of bringing about change by themselves, prior to the intervention of the demiurge, and prior to their being turned into imitations of the forms. I outline three problems for the view (...) that physical things depend on the forms for their causal powers, and show how the view I propose solves each. I then add further arguments for my view, based on (a) statements by Timaeus that seem to favor my view directly, (b) implications of Timaeus’ positions that favor the view, and (c) Timaeus’ explanatory practice in the second half of his speech. (shrink)

Plato’s Timaeus provides a significant, original account of diseases afflicting the body and soul. The causes of disease are explained according to the same physical principles that account for the motion of the four elements in the universe. As a result, medical expertise concerning the microcosm of the human body depends on cosmological expertise concerning the macrocosm of the universe. in addition, the methods of division and collection (diairesis and sunagōgē) that Plato uses in other late dialogues are employed in (...) the Timaeus to classify ailments according to differences in their dunamis. Each of the three main kinds of disease is caused by a unique kind of bodily motion, which explains why the same body parts, humours, and elements are involved in multiple kinds of disease. (shrink)