There is a huge literature concerning Timaeus and Critias, so this bibliography is very selective. It gives only works in English, and mixes the most useful current work with some important classics in the interpretation of Timaeus and Critias. In the Introduction and Explanatory Notes I have had to give a single view on many points that are subject to considerable controversy. This bibliography gives some of the important literature to introduce the reader to those controversies. The standard text for Plato in the original Greek is J. Burnet, Platonis Opera, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1900–7), and all of Plato’s works can be found in the Loeb Classical Library series, with Greek text and a facing English translation.
G. Fine (ed.), Plato, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
R. Kraut (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Plato (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
N. D. Smith (ed.), Plato: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. (London: Routledge, 1998).
Kraut is the best single-volume introduction to Plato, and has an extensive bibliography. The other two books contain many classic papers on the interpretation of Plato’s philosophy.
J. M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson, Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis: Hackett 1997).
E. Hamilton and H. Cairns, Plato: The Collected Dialogues (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989).
F. M. Cornford, Plato’s Cosmology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1937).
C. Gill, Plato: The Atlantis Story (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1980;2nd edn. in preparation).
D. Zeyl, Plato: Timaeus (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000).
A. E. Taylor, A Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (London: Oxford University Press, 1928).
Taylor does not give a running translation, but has many interesting points on specific issues of translation and has a huge amount of background material. His view that Timaeus was inspired by Pythagorean theories has now been largely discredited. Cornford’s commentary is in many ways the standard work, though it is now a little dated, and is certainly opinionated on several issues.
R. G. Bury, Plato: Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Menexenus, Epistles (Cambridge, Mass.: 1929 = Loeb Classical Library no. 234; vol. 9 of the Loeb Plato).
P. Kalkavage, Plato’s Timaeus (Newburyport, Mass.: Focus, 2001).
H. D. P. Lee, Plato: Timaeus and Critias (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971).
NB for the sake of economy papers printed in the following collections have not been listed elsewhere in the bibliography.
J. P. Anton (ed.), Science and the Sciences in Plato (New York: Eidos, 1980).
T. Calvo and L. Brisson (eds.), Interpreting the Timaeus and Critias (Sankt Augustin: Academia, 1997).
R. D. Mohr, The Platonic Cosmology (Leiden: Brill, 1985); rev. edn. = God and Forms in Plato (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005).
G. J. Reydams-Schils (ed.), Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003).
R. W. Sharples and A. Sheppard (eds.) Ancient Approaches to Plato’s Timaeus, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, suppl. 78 (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 2003).
M. R. Wright (ed.), Reason and Necessity: Essays on Plato’s Timaeus
(London and Swansea: Duckworth/Classical Press of Wales, 2000).
G. S. Claghorn, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Timaeus (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1954).
I. M. Crombie, ‘Cosmology and Theory of Nature’, in An Examination of Plato’s Doctrines, vol. 2: Plato on Knowledge and Reality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963), 153–246.
D. Furley, The Greek Cosmologists, vol. 1: The Formation of the Atomic Theory and its Earliest Critics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
A. Gregory, Plato’s Philosophy of Science (London: Duckworth, 2000).
—— Ancient Greek Cosmogony (London: Duckworth, 2007), ch. 9 on Plato.
T. K. Johansen, Plato’s Natural Philosophy: A Study of the Timaeus–Critias (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
R. Patterson, Image and Reality in Plato’s Metaphysics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985).
E. E. Pender, Images of Persons Unseen: Plato’s Metaphors for the Gods and the Soul (Sankt Augustin: Academia, 2000).
W. J. Prior, Unity and Development in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Croom Helm, 1985).
E. S. Ramage, Atlantis: Fact or Fiction? (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978).
D. Sedley, Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007).
A. Silverman, The Dialectic of Essence: A Study of Plato’s Metaphysics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).
J. B. Skemp, The Theory of Motion in Plato’s Later Dialogues (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1942).
P. Vidal-Naquet, The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato’s Myth, trans. J. Lloyd (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2007).
G. Vlastos, Plato’s Universe (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1975).
M. R. Wright, Cosmology in Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1995).
D. Clay, ‘Plato’s Atlantis: The Anatomy of a Fiction’, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy, 15 (1999), 1–21.
C. Gill, ‘The Genre of the Atlantis Story’, Classical Philology, 72 (1977), 287–304.
—— ‘Plato’s Atlantis Story and the Birth of Fiction’, Philosophy and Literature, 3 (1979), 64–78.
G. Gill, ‘Plato and Politics: The Critias and Politicus’, Phronesis, 24 (1979), 148–67.
K. A. Morgan, ‘Designer History: Plato’s Atlantis Story and Fourth century Ideology’, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 118 (1998), 101–18.
G. Naddaf, ‘The Atlantis Myth: An Introduction to Plato’s Later Philosophy of History’, Phoenix, 48 (1994), 189–209.
T. G. Rosenmeyer, ‘Plato’s Atlantis Myth: Timaeus or Critias?’, Phoenix, 10 (1956), 163–72.
S. Broadie, ‘Theodicy and Pseudo-history in the Timaeus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 21 (2001), 1–28.
M. F. Burnyeat, ‘Eikos Mythos’, Rhizai 2 (2005), 7–29.
V. Harte, ‘The Timaeus: Structures Within Structures’, in Plato on Parts and Wholes: The Metaphysics of Structure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 212–66.
G. E. R. Lloyd, ‘Plato on Mathematics and Nature, Myth and Science’, in Methods and Problems in Greek Science: Selected Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 333–51.
C. Osborne, ‘Topography in the Timaeus: Plato and Augustine on Mankind’s Place in the Natural World’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, NS 34 (1988), 104–14.
—— ‘Space, Time, Shape, and Direction: Creative Discourse in the Timaeus’, in C. Gill and M. M. McCabe (eds.), Form and Argument in Late Plato (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 179–211.
T. M. Robinson, ‘Understanding the Timaeus’, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy, 2 (1986), 103–19.
C. J. Rowe, ‘Myth, History, and Dialectic in Plato’s Republic and Timaeus–Critias’, in R. Buxton (ed.), From Myth to Reason? Studies in the Development of Greek Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 263–78.
J. G. Lennox, ‘Plato’s Unnatural Teleology’, in D. J. O’Meara (ed.), Platonic Investigations (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1985), 195–218.
H. F. Cherniss, ‘The Relation of the Timaeus to Plato’s Later Dialogues’, American Journal of Philology, 78 (1957), 225-66; repr. In R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 339–78; and in H. F. Cherniss, Selected Papers (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 298–338.
G. E. L. Owen, ‘The Place of the Timaeus in Plato’s Dialogues’, Classical Quarterly, NS 3 (1953), 79–95; repr. in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 313–38; and in G. E. L. Owen, Logic, Science and Dialectic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), 65–84.
D. Nails, The People of Plato: A Prosopography of Plato and Other Socratics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002).
K. M. Sayre, ‘On the Stylometric Dating of the Timaeus and the Parmenides’, in Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 2nd edn. (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005), 256–67.
A. D. Gregory, ‘Astronomy and Observation in Plato’s Republic’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 25 (1996), 451–71.
—— ‘Plato and Aristotle on Eclipses’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 31 (2000), 245–59.
D. L. Guetter, ‘Celestial Circles in the Timaeus’, Apeiron, 36 (2003), 189–203.
W. Knorr, ‘Plato and Eudoxus on the Planetary Motions’, Journal for the History of Astronomy, 21 (1990), 313–29.
A. P. D. Mourelatos, ‘Astronomy and Kinematics in Plato’s Project of Rationalist Explanation’, Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science, 12 (1981), 1–32.
B. L. van der Waerden, ‘The Motion of Venus, Mercury and the Sun in Early Greek Astronomy’, Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences, 26 (1982), 99–113.
G. R. Carone, ‘Creation in the Timaeus: The Middle Way’, Apeiron, 37 (2004), 211–26.
R. Hackforth, ‘Plato’s Cosmogony (Timaeus 27d ff.)’, Classical Quarterly, NS 9 (1959), 17–22.
L. Tarán, ‘The Creation Myth in Plato’s Timaeus’, in J. Anton and G. Kustas (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1971), 372–407.
G. Vlastos, ‘Creation in the Timaeus: Is it a Fiction?’, in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 401–19; repr. in G. Vlastos (ed.), Studies in Greek Philosophy, vol. 2: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 265–79.
R. Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum (London: Duckworth, 1983).
H. F. Cherniss, ‘The Sources of Evil According to Plato’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 98 (1954), 23–30; repr. In G. Vlastos (ed.), Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays, vol. 2: Ethics, Politics, and Philosophy of Art and Religion (New York: Doubleday, 1971), 244–58.
L. P. Gerson, ‘Imagery and Demiurgic Activity in Plato’s Timaeus’, Journal of Neoplatonic Studies, 4 (1997), 1–32.
R. Hackforth, ‘Plato’s Theism’, Classical Quarterly, 30 (1936), 4–9; repr. in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 439–47.
R. D. Mohr, ‘Plato’s Theology Reconsidered: What the Demiurge Does’, in J. P. Anton and A. Preus (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, vol. 3: Plato (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), 293–307.
J. B. Skemp, ‘The Disorderly Motion Again’, in A. Gotthelf (ed.), Aristotle on Nature and Living Things: Philosophical and Historical Studies Presented to David M. Balme on His Seventieth Birthday (Pittsburgh and Bristol: Mathesis/Bristol Classical Press, 1985), 289–99.
G. Vlastos, ‘Disorderly Motion in Plato’s Timaeus’, Classical Quarterly, 33 (1939), 71–83; repr. in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 379–99; and in G. Vlastos (ed.), Studies in Greek Philosophy, vol. 2: Socrates, Plato, and Their Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 247–64.
H. F. Cherniss, ‘A Much Misread Passage in the Timaeus (49c7–50b5)’, American Journal of Philology, 75 (1954), 113–30; repr. in H. F. Cherniss, Selected Papers (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 346–63.
M. L. Gill, ‘Matter and Flux in Plato’s Timaeus’, Phronesis, 32 (1987), 34–53.
J. Kung, ‘Why the Receptacle Is Not a Mirror’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 70 (1988), 167–78.
E. N. Lee, ‘On the Metaphysics of the Image in Plato’s Timaeus’, The Monist, 50 (1966), 341–68.
—— ‘On Plato’s Timaeus 49d4–e7’, American Journal of Philology, 88 (1967), 1–28.
—— ‘On the “Gold-example” in Plato’s Timaeus (50a5–b5)’, in J. Anton and G. Kustas (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1971), 219–35.
G. R. Morrow, ‘Necessity and Persuasion in Plato’s Timaeus’, Philosophical Review, 59 (1950), 147–60; repr. in R. E. Allen (ed.), Studies in Plato’s Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965), 421–37.
N. H. Reed, ‘Plato on Flux, Perception and Language’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, NS 18 (1972), 65–77.
A. Silverman, ‘Timaean Particulars’, Classical Quarterly, NS 42 (1992), 87–113.
D. J. Zeyl, ‘Plato and Talk of a World in Flux: Timaeus 49a6–50b5’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 79 (1975), 125–48.
B. Artmann and L. Schäfer, ‘On Plato’s “Fairest triangles” (Timaeus 54a)’, Historia Mathematica, 20 (1993), 255–64.
J. Visentainer, ‘A Potential Infinity of Triangle Types: On the Chemistry of Plato’s Timaeus’, Hyle, 4 (1998), 117–28.
G. Vlastos, ‘Plato’s Supposed Theory of Irregular Atomic Figures’, Isis, 58 (1967), 204–9; repr. in G. Vlastos, Platonic Studies, 2nd edn. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 366–73.
K. W. Mills, ‘Some Aspects of Plato’s Theory of Forms: Timaeus 49c ff.’, Phronesis, 13 (1968), 145–70.
W. J. Prior, ‘Timaeus 48e–52d and the Third Man Argument’, in F. J. Pelletier and J. King-Farlow (eds.), New Essays on Plato (Guelph: Canadian Association for Publishing in Philosophy, 1983 = Canadian Journal of Philosophy, suppl. vol. 9), 123–47.
K. M. Sayre, ‘The Role of the Timaeus in the Development of Plato’s Late Ontology’, Ancient Philosophy, 18 (1998), 93–124.
D. Keyt, ‘The Mad Craftsman of the Timaeus’, Philosophical Review, 80 (1971), 230–5.
R. D. Parry, ‘The Unique World of the Timaeus’, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 17 (1979), 1–10.
R. Patterson, ‘The Unique Worlds of the Timaeus’, Phoenix, 35 (1981), 105–19.
R. Bolton, ‘Plato’s Distinction Between Being and Becoming’, Review of Metaphysics, 29 (1975–6), 66–95.
M. Frede, ‘Being and Becoming in Plato’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. (1988), 37–52.
R. G. Turnbull, ‘Becoming and Intelligibility’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, suppl. vol. (1988), 1–14.
M. J. Adair, ‘Plato’s View of the “Wandering Uterus”’, Classical Journal, 91 (1995–6), 153–63.
G. R. Carone, ‘Akrasia and the Structure of the Passions in Plato’s Timaeus’, in C. Bobonich and P. Destrée (eds.), Akrasia in Greek Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 101–18.
D. Frede, ‘The Philosophical Economy of Plato’s Psychology: Rationality and Common Concepts in the Timaeus’, in M. Frede and G. Striker (eds.), Rationality in Greek Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 29–58.
J. Kung, ‘Mathematics and Virtue in Plato’s Timaeus’, in J. P. Anton and A. Preus (eds.), Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy, vol. 3: Plato (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989), 309–39.
T. Mahoney, ‘Moral Virtue and Assimilation to God in Plato’s Timaeus’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 28 (2005), 77–91.
J. V. Robinson, ‘The Tripartite Soul in the Timaeus’, Phronesis, 35 (1990), 103–10.
T. M. Robinson, Plato’s Psychology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970).
R. F. Stalley, ‘Punishment and the Physiology of the Timaeus’, Classical Quarterly, NS 46 (1996), 357–70.
C. Steel, ‘The Moral Purpose of the Human Body: A Reading of Timaeus 69–72’, Phronesis, 46 (2001), 113–28.
Plato, Defence of Socrates, Euthyphro, Crito, trans. David Gallop.
—— Gorgias, trans. Robin Waterfield.
—— Meno and other Dialogues, trans. Robin Waterfield.
—— Phaedo, trans. David Gallop.
—— Phaedrus, trans. Robin Waterfield.
—— Protagoras, trans. C. C. W. Taylor.
—— Republic, trans. Robin Waterfield.
—— Selected Myths, ed. Catalin Partenie.
—— Symposium, trans. Robin Waterfield.