  Plutarch's significance as a philosopher, on which this article concentrates, lies in his attempt to do justice to Plato's work as a whole, and to create a coherent and credible philosophical system out of it, as Plotinus will also do later (204–270 CE). Two moves are crucial in this regard. First, Plutarch respects both the skeptical/aporetic element in Plato (as marked by the tentativeness with which Socrates and the other main speakers in his dialogues regularly advance their views) and the views apparently endorsed by the main speakers of the dialogues, which were widely regarded as Plato's own doctrines (e.g. Diogenes Laertius 3.51–2). Second, Plutarch focuses primarily and quite strongly on the Timaeus for his understanding of Plato's “doctrines,” and his interpretation of this dialogue shapes his understanding of the entire Plato. Plutarch maintains a literal interpretation of the Timaeus, according to which the world has come about in time from two principles, the creator god and the “Indefinite Dyad”. While the Dyad accounts for disorder and multiplicity, such as that of disordered matter before the creation of the ordered physical world, of which pre-cosmic stage Timaeus appears to speak in the Timaeus, god accounts for order and the nature and identity of objects and properties in the world.