Plato’s Cosmology and Platonism in Modern Cosmology
This article discusses the fundamental asymmetry between the notion oftime and spatial medium (receptacle) in Plato’s cosmology. Space, in contradistinctionwith time, reveals itself as a necessary preexisting element of cosmology which givesrise to the sensible realm involved in temporal flux. It is demonstrated, on the basis ofa model of quantum cosmology by S. Hawking, that all modern theories of the originof the visible universe claiming to be able to explain the causal principle of the worldhave to appeal to some pre-existent entities closely resembling the space (receptacle)of Plato as such an initial and highly symmetrical type of being which is required forphysics to be able to function at all. The conclusion is drawn that Platonism in moderncosmology, being a sort of reproduction of Plato’s thinking in building a theory ofthe world’s origin, is de facto a transcendental delimiter inevitably appearing in allattempts to model the origin of the universe.