Plato

P R OB L E MS A B OUT HUMA N R E A S ON
I shall consider two problems arising from the fact that Timaeus presents human reason as a sort of
junior and vastly inferior sister to the cosmic reason that moves the stars.
The first problem, which I shall state in a moment, arises because Timaeus also draws on our
general understanding of craftsmanship in order to get the cosmology off the ground: we are
invited to think out what sort of world the best of craftsmen would make (see Chapter 2, section
2.2). And in the previous section I pressed further the parallel between successful human reason and
the divine Demiurge, in speaking of the victory of reason on two different fronts, intra-mundane
and transcendent. Thus human reason is a term in two resemblances, with the Demiurge and the
cosmic soul as the other term respectively.