Il corpo vivente: tracce di biologia in Plotino

Although Plotinus does not explicitly address the main problems of the biology, nevertheless the way in which he deals with the philosophical questions has got important consequences in the biological field, too. Ploti- nus dwells on the description of the somatic life’s characters, trying to answer at three fundamental questions: the first one, concerning the structure of the living organism and the organization of bodily functions; the second one, relating to a very complex subject concerning the psychophysical unity of the individual; the third one concerning the reflection on the embryology. In this contribution I will try to show how, starting from the analysis of the notion of life in an ontological sense, and, in particular, from the attempt to answer questions concerning psychol- ogy and the relationship between the soul and the body, Plotinus comes to delineate a sort of philosophy of biology.