Galen: Writings on Plato's Timaeus
Galen: Writings on Plato's <i>Timaeus<i/>
Pauline Koetschet, Institut Français du Proche-Orient
Mark Schiefsky, Harvard University, Massachusetts
$130.00
USDTo Galen, Plato was the great authority in philosophy but also had important things to say on health, disease, and the human body. The Timaeus was of enormous significance to Galen's thought on the body's structure and functioning as well as being a key source of inspiration for his teleological world view, in which the idea of cosmic design by a personified creative Nature, the Craftsman, plays a fundamental role. This volume provides critical English translations of key readings of the Timaeus by Galen that were previously accessible only in fragmentary Greek and Arabic and Arabo-Latin versions. The introductions highlight Galen's creative interpretations of the dialogue, especially compared to other imperial explanations, and show how his works informed medieval Islamicate writers' understanding of it. The book should provoke fresh attention to texts that have been unjustly marginalized in the history of Platonism in both the west and Middle East.
- Makes these key texts accessible to a wider readership for the first time
- Places Galen's interpretations of the Timaeus within the context of his other works on philosophy and medicine as well as within imperial Platonic exegesis
- Illuminates the reception of the Timaeus within the Islamicate world and the creative interpretations of its medieval Arabic readers
Product details
October 2025Hardback
9781009552677
385 pages
229 × 152 mm
Not yet published - available from October 2025
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Translation
- List of departures from the editions of Walzer/Kraus, Schröder et al
- List of titles, abbreviations, editions and online resources of Galenic works
- Bibliography
- English-Arabic glossary to the compendium and the commentary
- Arabic word index to the compendium
- Greek word index to the commentary
- Arabic word index to the commentary
- Index of names
- Index of texts and passages cited
- General index.
