Divination in Plutarch and his Age: New perspectives on the Platonic Tradition

This postdoctoral project focuses on the relationship between divination and philosophy in the Platonic reflection of the early imperial age (‘Middle Platonism’). It explores:

• connections between divination and cosmological-theological conceptions, also taking into account the influence of Oriental religions;
• overlaps between divination and science, thus expanding the analysis to other authors (Cicero, Epictetus, Galen, Ptolemy);
• the parallelism between divination and literary-philosophical hermeneutics, as similarly aimed at decoding revealed signs and at discovering hidden contents, in light of the increasing importance of the exegesis of ancient authoritative texts within the philosophy of the first centuries AD.