On Saturday 10 March 2012 the Centre hosted a one–day workshop on Plato’s Timaeus and its relation to current physics. This event, which issued from our weekly reading seminar, and was attended by philosophers, philosophers of science, physicists, chemists and mathematicians, among others, was organized around a set of themes, or Timaean Theses: included among these were issues about laws of nature, the existence and status of abstract entities, the nature of space and time, order and lack of order and the geometrical structure of the elements.

Programme

INTRODUCTORY SESSION (Introduction to Plato’s Timaeus trough the Timaean Theses)

SESSION I: PHYSICS, LAWS OF NATURE, MATH (GEOMETRY) AND ABSTRACT ENTITIES

SESSION II: SPACE AND TIME

SESSION III: ORDER AND LACK OF ORDER I – REASON AND NECESSITY

SESSION IV: ORDER AND LACK OF ORDER II – THE MATERIAL ELEMENTS AND THEIR GEOMETRICAL CONSTRUCTION