This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theories
in the wake of Aristotle’s physics. It offers fourteen
separate studies of how the concept of pneuma was
used in a range of physical, physiological, psychological, cosmological and ethical inquiries. The focus is
on individual thinkers ...
This volume explores the versatility of the concept of pneuma in philosophical and medical theories
in the wake of Aristotle’s physics. It offers fourteen
separate studies of how the concept of pneuma was
used in a range of physical, physiological, psychological, cosmological and ethical inquiries. The focus is
on individual thinkers or traditions and the specific
questions they sought to address, including early
Peripatetic sources, the Stoics, the major Hellenistic
medical traditions, Galen, as well as Proclus in Late
Antiquity and John Zacharias Aktouarios in the early
14th century. Building on new scholarly approaches
and on recent advancements in our understanding of
Graeco-Roman philosophy and medicine, the volume prompts a profound re-evaluation of this fluid
and adaptable, but crucially important, substance, in
antiquity and beyond.
