Search Results for 'Hugo Grotius'

Plato’s dialogue Timaeus has bequeathed to us a famous phrase, eik?s muthos or “likely story.” Today we use the idiom “a likely story” to dismiss what we are told as a “tall tale.” But, here in the 4th century BC, the phrase refers to an articulation of possibility or a plausible report like a myth or a fable that offers an explanation for some mystery by way of stories and images. It makes perfect sense this phrase appears prominently in the Timaeus, for that dialogue is a story about the formation of the universe; of course, there are no eyewitnesses to that event to whom we can turn for a description.