Demiurge, an anglicized form of δημιουργός, the ordinary Greek word for a workman, craftsman, or artificer, is commonly used in Greek literature from Homer onward. In Homer it is applied to heralds, soothsayers, and physicians as well as to manual workers; but in later Greek it primarily means a craftsman or maker, such as a carpenter or a smith. Its importance in the history of philosophy derives almost entirely from Plato's Timaeus, in which a Demiurge, or Craftsman, is represented as ordering and arranging the physical world and bringing it as far as possible into conformity with the best and most rational pattern. In two other places (Republic 530A and Sophist 265C) Plato uses the word δημιουργος, or the corresponding verb, in connection with divine creation; and it occurs in one passage in Xenophon's Socratic discourses (Memorabilia 1.4.9), but these are all casual and isolated references. For our understanding of Plato's...