Cosmology and Biology in Ancient Philosophy

Ricardo Salles is a researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. His recent books include: Los Filósofos Estoicos. Ontología, Lógica, Física y Ética (with Marcelo Boeri, 2014) and Alejandro de Afrodisias. De la Mixtura y el Crecimiento (with José Molina, 2020). He is the editor of Metaphysics, Soul and Ethics. Themes from the Work of Richard Sorabji (2005) and of God and Cosmos in Stoicism (2009).

• Introduction. The intersection of biology and cosmology in ancient philosophy Ricardo Salles; 1. Souls and cosmos before Plato: five short doxographical studies André Laks; 2. The ensouled cosmos in Plato's Timaeus: biological science as a guide to cosmology? Barbara Sattler; 3. Platonic 'desmology' and the body of the World Animal (Tim. 30c-34a) Dimitri el Murr; 4. The world-soul takes command. The doctrine of the world-soul in the Epinomis of Philip of Opus and in the Academy of Polemon John Dillon; 5. Begotten and made: creation as cosmogony in Middle Platonism George Boys-Stones; 6. The De Motu Animalium on the movement of the heavens John M. Cooper; 7. Biology and cosmology in Aristotle James G. Lennox; 8. Recapitulation theory and transcendental morphology in antiquity James Wilberding; 9. The Stoics' empiricist model of divine thought George Boys-Stones; 10. Why is the cosmos intelligent? Stoic cosmology and Plato, Timaeus 30a2-c1 Ricardo Salles; 11. Cardiology and cosmology in post-Chrysippean Stoicism Emmanuele Vimercati; 12. The agency of the world Katja Maria Vogt; 13. God and the material world: biology and cosmology in Galen's physiology R. J. Hankinson; 14. At the intersection of cosmology and biology: Plotinus on nature Lloyd P. Gerson; 15. Is the heaven an animal? Avicenna's celestial psychology between cosmology and biology Tomasso Alpina.

'For all its value and richness, [this] is definitely a book very much worth reading for every historian of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy.' Damian Fernandez Beanato, Metascience