The aim of this paper is to explore how the cosmic soul works and how it accomplishes its providential and demiurgic tasks in Chrysippus’ system. Drawing on (i) the analogy Chrysippus establishes between the individuum and the cosmos and (ii) biological and medical theories of respiration, digestion, and pulse, I will show that the movements of Chrysippus’ cosmic soul reproduce the processes of digestion, pulse, and respiration at a cosmic level. My claim is that Chrysippus, in addition to adopting Praxagoras’ (...) notion that inhaled air nourishes pneuma—well established in the scholarship—appropriated Aristotle’s complex mechanism of respiration and digestion based on the teleological role of cold air, crucial for preserving vital heat. So understood, Chrysippus’ application of biological notions to cosmology allows him to endow the active principle with effective causation throughout the cosmos. (shrink)

R. Saadia Ga'on, which is known to have been substantially influenced by Saadia, in fine is also indebted to Stoic philosophy and physics.

R. Saadia Ga'on (882–942) de Baghdad tâchait d'éviter l'anthropomorphisme en avançant que les versets bibliques qui semblent attribuer des traits matériels à Dieu portent non sur Dieu Lui-même, mais sur une entité créée, la Gloire de Dieu, que Saadia décrivait comme un “air” extrêmement subtil. Cet article s'efforce de montrer que la conception saadienne d'un air quasi divin, par lequel Dieu accomplit Ses actes dans le monde matériel, est redevable à la doctrine stoïcienne dupneuma. Il s'ensuit que la théologie immanentiste (...) desḤasidey Ashkenaz(Piétistes allemands), que l'on sait avoir été trés influencée par Saadia, est un prolongement lointain de la philosophic et de la physique stoïciennes. (shrink)

It might seem quite commonplace to say that Aristotle identifies fire, air, water and earth as the στοιχεῖα, or ‘elements’ – or, to be more precise, as the elements of bodies that are subject to generation and corruption. Yet there is a tradition of interpretation, already evident in the work of the sixth-century commentator John Philoponus and widespread, indeed prevalent, today, according to which Aristotle does not really believe that fire, air, water and earth are truly elemental. The basic premise (...) of this interpretation is that Aristotle takes fire, air, water and earth to be, in some sense, composite bodies and, as such, analysable into simpler constituents. But, of course, an element of bodies is defined by Aristotle himself as something into which bodies can be analysed, and which does not admit further analysis . So if fire, air, water and earth can be analysed into simpler or more basic constituents, then it would seem to follow that the latter ought to be considered Aristotle's true elements. These are usually identified as the primary contraries hot and cold, dry and wet; many, perhaps most, commentators would insist also upon prime matter as the subject upon which these contraries act. (shrink)

This paper reexamines Theophrastus’ Metaphysics 11a18–26, an obscure testimony about Speusippus, the second head of the Platonic Academy. As opposed to the traditional interpretation, which takes this passage as Theophrastus’ polemic against Speusippus’ doctrine of value, I argue that he here dialectically takes advantage of, rather than launches an attack on, the Platonist. Based on this new reading, I further propose a revision and a reassessment of the ‘gloomy metaphysics’ of Speusippus which will shed new light on his ethics.