| Description |
1 online resource (iv, 426 pages) |
| Contents |
Intro -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 The Myth and the Logos -- Order and Chaos -- Mythical Battlefi elds: Monstrosity as a Weapon -- Causality and Monstrosity: Challenging Zeus -- 2 The Pre-Platonic Philosophers -- Anaxagoras: A Material Origin for Life and Monstrosity -- Empedocles: Wonders to Behold -- Democritus: Agonism within Matter -- 3 Plato -- 4 Aristotle -- 5 Epicurus and Lucretius -- An Immanent Causality for an Infinite Universe -- Zoogony, Monstrosity and Nature's Normativity -- Concourses of Nature -- Lucretius's Impact on the Augustan Age -- 6 Stoicism -- Nominalism |
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Good and Evil, Beauty and Ugliness -- Providence, God and Teleology -- 7 Scepticism -- The Tropes and the Critique of Essentialism -- To What Purpose? -- 8 Middle and Neoplatonism -- The Material World and the Rediscovery of Transcendence -- Demons -- The World Order -- Bibliography -- Index Locorum -- Index Verborum -- Index Rerum -- Index Nominum |
| Summary |
"Amazons and giants, snakes and gorgons, centaurs and gryphons: monsters abounded in ancient culture. They raise enduring philosophical questions: about chaos and order; about divinity and perversion; about meaning and purpose; about the hierarchy of nature or its absence. Del Lucchese grapples with the concept of monstrosity, showing how ancient philosophers explored metaphysics, ontology, theology and politics to respond to the challenge of radical otherness in nature and in thought. Each chapter explores the emergence of monstrosity in a set of authors and theories. In chapter 1, monsters rise as the challenging adversaries of the new gods of the early cosmogonies. But they can also be powerful productive forces that support building the new order or ambiguous characters that catalyse the unfolding of the tragic universe. In chapter 2, the Pre-Platonic systems of Anaxagoras, Empedocle and Democritus pave the way for the recognition of the philosophical status of monstrosity. This status becomes central in Attic philosophy, first with Plato's mythological monstrosities and then with the construction of a hierarchical structure of the universe: taken up in chapter 3. Chapter 4 focuses on Aristotle's study of physical monstrosity and its role within his metaphysical and aetiological framework. Chapters 5 to 7 deal with the extraordinarily elaborate responses to Attic philosophy by the major Hellenistic systems: Epicureanism, Stoicism and Scepticism. The final chapter looks at the Middle and Neoplatonist response to Hellenism and explores the richness of late-antiquity's reflection on monstrosity up to its absorption and reworking by early Christian thought."-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 326-393) and indexes |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
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digitized 2023. HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
| Subject |
Other (Philosophy)
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Philosophy, Ancient.
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Monsters -- Philosophy
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08.21 Ancient philosophy.
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Philosophy -- History & Surveys -- Ancient & Classical.
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Other (Philosophy)
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Philosophy, Ancient.
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08.21 Ancient philosophy.
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HISTORY / Ancient / Greece
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9781474456234 |
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1474456235 |
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9781474456227 |
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1474456227 |
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