SEDLEY, D.,
Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity.
University of California Press,, Berkely (...), 2007. XVII,269p. Half cloth wrps. Versions of what today we call the 'creationist' option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle himself excluded any role for divine intervention, in this respect aligning himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members - the atomists - sought to show how a world just like ours would inevitably form by sheer accident given olny the infinity of space and matter. This study examines the ideas of Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle and the Stoics on this issue. An epilogue considers their debate from the viewpoint of Galen, the great second-centurey A.D. doctor who was also a leading voice of creationism. (Publisher's information). 'Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity organizes a double debate. It reconstructs a past debate (or series of debates, if what I've said above holds water) with as much openness, fairness and honesty as ingenuity and boldness; in so doing it irresistibly provokes an ongoing debate with the reader. For the seasoned and critically minded (but not necessarily specialist) reader, this is likely to be a most enlightening and entertaining experience.' (BÖRJE BYDÉN in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.05.16).
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