Abstract

This book is published as part of a series catering mainly to the undergraduate and is written on a fairly general, vulgarizing level. However, Schlanger—author of a monograph on the Medieval Jewish Neoplatonist Ibn Gabirol —takes the occasion to provide some reflections on the essence of philosophy and on the interpretation of its history. Of the two sections of the book, the first analyzes what is essential, non-contingent, in any philosophical system, and the second describes the essential aspect of a Plotinian-type philosophy. Philosophy, for Schlanger, is a never-ending effort of "réadéquation" between what is and what is thought concerning what is. This effort gives rise in history to philosophical "systems" representing various sets of formulations which seek to give an "ideal" interpretation of reality. These systems relate to specific socio-cultural contexts, and their "truth" is contingent to the degree that it is related to contingent contexts. However, the systems also embody various possible "ideal" attitudes to reality. Behind each philosophical system, stripped of its contingency and temporality, lies an ideal attitude, a "structure métaphysique." The history of philosophy can therefore be considered as constituting an "inventory" of "structures métaphysiques," and it is in the study of this inventory that Schlanger finds the philosophical importance of the study of the history of philosophy. By studying this inventory, the historian is able to provide philosophy with an array of possible "ideal" attitudes applicable in any socio-cultural context. The constituent elements of a "structure métaphysique" are listed as follows: ideal intuitions ; ideal methodological intuitions ; analogical intuitions ; preferred disciplines ; way of life. In the second section of the book, Schlanger provides an illustration of all this by describing the "structure métaphysique" essential to Plotinian-type philosophical systems. Of the Plotinian "ideal intuitions" he lists the unicity of being, emanation of being, derivation of being from non-being, the hierarchial order of being, the conception of two worlds, the "conversion" of soul, man as microcosm. These ideal intuitions are particular "ideal" reactions to specific existential situations; they are not interdependent, do not logically cohere with each other and can contradict each other. In discussing Plotinian-type "methodological intuitions," Schlanger notes the ontological status of knowledge in "Plotinisme" and the idea that there are different levels of knowledge corresponding to different levels of being. The Plotinian "analogical intuitions" include the images of the sphere and its circular motion, and of the sun and its rays. The "preferred discipline" in "Plotinisme" is psychology, a "practical science" designed to lead the soul to union with the One. This is indeed the Plotinian "way of life," a life directed towards the "salvation" of the soul through a process of purification and transcendence in which the soul reaches union with the One. Schlanger concludes in a "Postface" with some useful remarks on the nature and significance of the interpretation of philosophical texts.