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Concept

Autozōon

αὐτοζῷον · autozōon

TimaeusParadigmFormscosmology

‘The Living Being Itself’ — the intelligible Animal that is the model of the cosmos.

The Living Being Itself

In the Timaeus the Demiurge shapes the world by looking to the autozōon, the intelligible Living Being that holds within itself the Forms of all living kinds; the visible cosmos is made a single living creature in its image. For the Neoplatonists this model is the very content of the intelligible world, the fullness of Forms alive in Intellect.

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