The ethics of celestial physics in late antique Platonism

In Thomas Buchheim, David Meissner & Nora Wachsmann (eds.), Sōma: Körperkonzepte und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag. pp. 183-97 (2016)
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Abstract

Plato's Tim. 90b1-c6 describes a pathway to the soul's salvation via the study of the heavens. This paper poses three questions about this theme in Platonism: 1. The epistemological question: How is the paradigmatic function of the visible heavenly bodies to be reconciled with various Platonic misgivings about the faculty of perception? 2. The metaphysical question: How can »assimilation« to the motions of bodies in the realm of Becoming provide for the salvation of souls when souls are »higher«- a mid-point between Being and Becoming? 3. The psychological question: What can it mean for an incorporeal soul to utilise the motions of a body for an ethical and cognitive paradigm? And provides an account of how Proclus and some of his fellow Neoplatonists answered these questions.

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Dirk Baltzly
University of Tasmania

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Plato: Complete Works.J. M. Cooper (ed.) - 1997 - Hackett.
Proclus on Plato's timaeus 89e3–90c7.Rüdiger Arnzen - 2013 - Arabic Sciences and Philosophy 23 (1):1-45.

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