Taurus of Beirut: The Other Side of Middle Platonism [Paperback]

This volume is the first monograph devoted to the philosophy of Taurus of Beirut, and provides a long-awaited analysis of his texts and their first English translation. Through close examination of the extant witnesses, Petrucci gives a new account of Middle Platonism based on a fresh approach to the theological and cosmological view of Taurus. In this way, the book contributes substantially to the debate on Post-Hellenistic Platonism from the point of view of both exegetical methods and philosophical doctrines, and offers a starting point for a new understanding of many aspects of ancient thought.

Preface, Abbreviations, Introduction, Chapter 1: Taurus in Context, Chapter 2: Taurus on Platos Cosmogony. Middle Platonism and Literalism, Chapter 3: Taurus Cosmology. The Other Side of Middle Platonism, Chapter 4: Taurus and Middle Platonist Exegesis, Epilogue, Appendix: Taurus of Beirut: A New Collection of Texts with English Translation, Concordances, Bibliography, Index

This book is the first monograph devoted to Taurus fragments as a whole, and will provide a long-awaited analysis of the fragments and their first English translation.

Federico M. Petrucci is a Junior Research Fellow at the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, UK.

Federico M. Petrucci offers a lucid and fascinating overview of Calvenus Taurus, a thinker who played an important, and so far unnoticed, role in the history of post-Hellenistic philosophy. Through a fresh analysis of extant sources, he brilliantly shows that Taurus did radically reshape the coordinates of Platonism, especially in the fields of cosmology and theology, and at the same time makes a case for the existence of a distinctive methodological core of Middle Platonist exegesis. Written in a clear style and singularly rich in its conclusions, thislS,