Chapter 3 Towards the Quadrivium: the Role of the Timaeus in the Constitution of a Corpus of Mathematical Sciences

In: The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus
Author:
Federico M. Petrucci
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Chapter
Pages:
77–105
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004705838_004

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Abstract

It is often assumed that the fundamental text for the constitution of the corpus of four exact sciences, which would later become the quadrivium, is Republic VII (especially through Nicomachus). This chapter argues that this is not a satisfactory interpretation, and that the Middle Platonist exegesis of the Timaeus played a crucial role. While the Republic provides a sort of formal and abstract scheme for the quadrivium, the Timaeus indicates, at least in the exegetes’ view, the way in which exact sciences interact in the study of the physical world, and that their objects are functionally interwoven. This is demonstrated by focusing on the Middle Platonists Theon of Smyrna and Nicomachus of Gerasa, who provide extensive technical discussions of the disciplines of the quadrivium in a perspective revealing a strong appeal to the cosmology of the Timaeus.

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The Legacy of Plato's Timaeus

Cosmology, Music, Medicine, and Architecture from Antiquity to the Seventeenth Century

Series:  Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, Volume: 353
Cover The Legacy of Plato's <i>Timaeus</i>
E-Book ISBN:
9789004705838
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
16 Dec 2024
Front Matter
Chapter 1 Introduction: from Plato’s Text to the Beginnings of Modern Science – towards a New Understanding of the Disciplinary Inheritance of Plato’s Timaeus
Part 1 The Timaeus and its Reception in Late Antiquity
Part 2 The Medieval Timaeus
Part 3 The Timaeus in the Renaissance
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