Introduction:

In his dialogue Timaeus, Plato presents an original cosmogony, theogony and anthropogony. The World, Kosmos, identified to the Sky (Ouranos), is the first and the most excellent visible divine being created by the Demiurge: he has a spherical body and a soul of absolute wisdom and virtue, which is the reason of his perfect circular movement. He includes all other gods and mortal beings, which live harmoniously in him. Especially humans are called to consider the cosmic perfection as a model for their own behaviour. Their cities are to be submitted to the same rational law of the divine intellect that governs the entire universe, in view of the common good. Thus, the Platonic vision of the natural world presents surprising ethical and political functions, based essentially on religious and metaphysical doctrines concerning the gods and the divine soul. The author proposes here to explore these connections, astonishing for the modern mind, and to inquire if they might provide us with any material for further reflexion about our actual relations with the natural environment.