Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's Timaeus
eBook - PDF

Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's Timaeus

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's Timaeus

About this book

This first full-length study of the Arabic reception of Plato's Timaeus considers the role of Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 216 CE) in shaping medieval perceptions of the text as transgressing disciplinary norms. It argues that Galen appealed to the entangled cosmological scheme of the dialogue, where different relations connect the body, soul, and cosmos, to expand the boundaries of medicine in his pursuit for epistemic authority – the right to define and explain natural reality. Aileen Das situates Galen's work on disciplinary boundaries in the context of medicine's ancient rivalry with philosophy, whose professionals were long seen as superior knowers of the cosmos vis-à-vis doctors. Her case studies show how Galen and four of the most important Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers in the Arabic Middle Ages creatively interpreted key doctrines from the Timaeus to reimagine medicine and philosophy as well as their own intellectual identities.

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Yes, you can access Galen and the Arabic Reception of Plato's Timaeus by Aileen R. Das in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Philosophie & Antike & klassische Philosophie. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Half-title page
  3. Title page
  4. Copyright page
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. List of Figures
  8. Acknowledgements
  9. Notes on Texts, Translations, and Transliterations
  10. List of Abbreviations
  11. Introduction: Plato’s Timaeus as Universal Text
  12. Chapter 1 Galen and the ‘Medical’ Timaeus
  13. Chapter 2 From the Heavens to the Body: Ḥunayn’s Ophthalmology
  14. Chapter 3 Al-Rāzī: The ‘Arab Galen’ and his Plato, New Disciplinary Ideals
  15. Chapter 4 Laying Down the Law: Avicenna and his Medical Project
  16. Chapter 5 Uprooting the Timaeus: Maimonides and the Re-medicalization of Galenism
  17. Conclusion: Medicine Disciplined
  18. References
  19. Index Locorum
  20. General Index