Monstrosity and Philosophy: Radical Otherness in Greek and Latin Culture

This is a research in the field of ancient philosophy, carried on by developing a continental approach to the history of Greek and Latin culture, both pagan and early Christian, on and around all the major aspects related to the concept of monstrosity. Does order come from, and put an end to, chaos or is chaos the monstrous destiny of any supposed order? Is monstrosity a positive sign of the divine or is it its negation and perversion? Does everything, in nature have a meaning and a purpose and, if so, what is the purpose of monsters? Is monstrosity what we call the lowest level of nature's reassuring hierarchy or does it, more threateningly, speak about the absence of such a hierarchy and the illusion of axiology? These are only some of the questions that ancient authors discussed across the centuries, from the early mythical cosmogonies, through the classic and hellenistic period, up to late antiquity and early Christianism. This book offers a fundamental reading not only of the different answers to these questions, but also of the reasons why and the manners in which they have been asked in different cultural and intellectual contexts. The analysis is comprehensive and systematic, with in-depth coverage of all the major figures in ancient thought, from Hesiod to Augustine, through Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and Lucretius, Stoicism and Scepticism, up to Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism and the early Fathers, in particular Galen and Lactantius.