“The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”
–Alfred North Whitehead


Category: Plato

  • The Science of Life

    Daniel Dennett says biology is engineering. He argues that living organisms are machines, flattening the classical Aristotelian difference between natural and artificial. For Aristotle, natural things had their form and purpose internal to themselves, while artificial things were designed from without for a purpose other than themselves. Of course, the beauty of human art (film,…


  • Timaeus, or the Universe as a Living Thing

    Cosmology is an art that involves speaking about the whole: to do cosmology, I must share stories with others concerning what we all belong to. This can be done in many languages –some musical, others mathematical– and if I succeed, perhaps in English text. The universe is a body, according to Plato– a Living Thing.…