This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony."--BOOK JACKET.

Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato's own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients are correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato's teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of (...) the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism." Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato--Plato's own Platonism, so to speak--was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato's Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation.". (shrink)

Knowing Persons is an original study of Plato's account of personhood. For Plato, embodied persons are images of a disembodied ideal. The ideal person is a knower. Hence, the lives of embodied persons need to be understood according to Plato's metaphysics of imagery. For Gerson, Plato's account of embodied personhood is not accurately conflated with Cartesian dualism. Plato's dualism is more appropriately seen in the contrast between the ideal disembodied person and the embodied one than in the contrast between mind (...) or soul and body. (shrink)

In this international and interdisciplinary collection of critical essays, distinguished contributors examine a crucial premise of traditional readings of Plato's dialogues: that Plato's own doctrines and arguments can be read off the statements made in the dialogues by Socrates and other leading characters. The authors argue in general and with reference to specific dialogues, that no character should be taken to be Plato's mouthpiece. This is essential reading for students and scholars of Plato.

This is the first title in the Key Themes in Ancient Philosophy series, which provides concise books, written by major scholars and accessible to non-specialists, on important themes in ancient philosophy which remain of philosophical interest today. In this book, Professor Gerson explores ancient accounts of the nature of knowledge and belief from the Presocratics up to the Platonists of late antiquity. He argues that ancient philosophers generally held a naturalistic view of knowledge as well as of belief. Hence, knowledge (...) was not viewed as a stipulated or semantically determined type of belief but was rather a real or objectively determinable achievement. In fact, its attainment was identical with the highest possible cognitive achievement, namely wisdom. It was this naturalistic view of knowledge at which the ancient Skeptics took aim. The book concludes by comparing the ancient naturalistic epistemology with some contemporary versions. (shrink)

Lives of the stoics (Zeno, Aristo, Herillus, Cleanthes, Sphaerus, Chrysippus) on philosophy -- Logic and theory of knowledge -- Perception, knowledge, and sceptical attack -- The stoic-academic debate and Cicero's testimony -- Conceptions and rationality -- Physics -- Theology -- Bodily and non-bodily realities -- Structures and powers -- The soul -- Fate -- Ethics -- The general account in Diogenes Lartius -- The account preserved by Stobaeus -- The account in Cicero on goals -- Other evidence for stoic ethics (...) -- Passions and the goal : criticism within the stoic school and the evidence of Galen -- A critique from the academic-peripatetic point of view -- Pyrrhonist critique of basic ethical concepts -- Later stoic ethics : a sampler -- Musonius Rufus -- Seneca -- Epictetus. (shrink)

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction The ancient biography of Epicurus The extant letters Ancient collections of maxims Doxographical reports The testimony of Cicero The testimony of Lucretius The polemic of Plutarch Short fragments and testimonia from known works: * From On Nature * From the Puzzles * From On the Goal * From the Symposium * From Against Theophrastus * Fragments of Epicurus' letters Short fragments and testimonia from uncertain works: * Logic and epistemology * Physics and theology * Ethics Index.

Covers the philosophy of 200-800 CE and its place in literature, science, and religion. Includes a digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during the period.

In this paper, I explore the origins of the ‘problem of universals’. I argue that the problem has come to be badly formulated and that consideration of it has been impeded by falsely supposing that Platonic Forms were ever intended as an alternative to Aristotelian universals. In fact, the role that Forms are supposed by Plato to fulfill is independent of the function of a universal. I briefly consider the gradual mutation of the problem in the Academy, in Alexander of (...) Aphrodisias, and among some of the major Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle, including Porphyry and Boethius. (shrink)

"An account of the central tradition in the history of philosophy, Platonism, along with the class of philosophical positions collectively known as Naturalism and the 'anti-Platonism' of Naturalism both in antiquity and in contemporary philosophy"--.

THE PRE-SOCRATIC ORIGINS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY § INTRODUCTION St Augustine informs us that pagan philosophers divided theology into three parts: () civic ...

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Plotinus was the greatest philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine. He thought of himself as a disciple (...) of Plato, but in his efforts to defend Platonism against Aristotelians, Stoics, and others, he actually produced a reinvigorated version of Platonism that later came to be known as 'Neoplatonism'. In this volume, sixteen leading scholars introduce and explain the many facets of Plotinus' complex system. They place Plotinus in the history of ancient philosophy while showing that he was a founder of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine the problem of the so-called Mathematical Objects within the context of the Divided Line. I argue that Plato believes that there are such objects but their distinctness and the mode of cognition relative to them can only be understood in relation to the superordinate, unhypothetical first principle of all, the Idea of the Good. The objects of mathematics or διάνοια are, unlike the objects of intellection or νόησις, cognized independently of the Good.

ONE FREQUENTLY READS CASUAL REFERENCES to Neo-Platonic metaphysics as emanationist. It is somewhat less common to find analyses of the term "emanation" so used. In this paper I shall be concerned solely with Plotinus. I hereby set aside all questions regarding any common denominator one might suppose between Plotinus and, say, Proclus.

This set reprints key articles on Aristotle's logic, metaphysics, physics, cosmology, biology, psychology, ethics, politics, rhetoric, and aesthetics, discussing the major issues of concern in contemporary Aristotelian scholarship.

In this paper, I examine what is for Plato and all those who follow in his footsteps the ne plus ultra of cognition, namely, intuition (nous or noēsis). This is the paradigm of cognition, meaning that all forms of human (and even animal) cognition are inferior manifestations of this. Intuition is mental seeing, analogous to physical seeing. Among embodied souls, it is seeing a unity of some sort manifested in some diversity or plurality. Thus, someone who sees that the Morning (...) Star is the Evening Star, or that S at t1 is identical with S at t2, or that f = ma, etc., sees the unity ‘behind’ the diversity. The disembodied intellect that is the Demiurge (or, for Aristotle, the Unmoved Mover) sees paradigmatically the diversity of all intelligible being as a unity. Because mental seeing or intuition is paradigmatic for all cognition, cognition is essentially a unificatory process. Plato's method of collection and division displays both this process and its reverse. In the light of this core doctrine, I examine some of the insights that Platonists, especially Plotinus and Proclus, arrived at regarding a host of issues, including the nature of the first principle of all and the nature of normativity. (shrink)

The question posed in the title of this paper is an historical one. I am not, for example, primarily interested in the term 'Platonism' as used by modern philosophers to stand for a particular theory under discussion – a theory, which it is typically acknowledged, no one may have actually held.1 I am rather concerned to understand and articulate on an historical basis the core position of that 'school' of thought prominent in antiquity from the time of the 'founder' up (...) until at least the middle of the 6th century C.E.2 Platonism was unquestionably the dominant philosophical position in the ancient world over a period of more than 800 years. Epicureanism is perhaps the sole major exception to the rule that in the ancient world all philosophers took Platonism as the starting-point for speculation, including those who thought their first task was to refute Platonism. Basically, Platonism sent the ancient philosophical agenda. Given this fact, understanding with some precision the nature of Platonism is obviously a desirable thing for the historian of ancient philosophy. (shrink)

Hylomorphism is almost universally claimed to be a staple doctrine of Aristotle. In this paper, I discuss a wide range of texts from the dialogues of Plato that straightforwardly display hylomorphism. Both Plato and Aristotle rest their cognitive realism on their hylomorphism. The crucial difference between Aristotle’s hylomorphism and Plato’s is that Aristotle believes that hylomorphism supports and is supported by essentialism whereas Plato does not. Plotinus presents arguments against Aristotle’s essentialism at the same time as he defends Platonic hylomorphism (...) and his cognitive realism. (shrink)

There are, very broadly speaking, two interpretative approaches to the study of Plato. Let us call the first the “Protestant” approach and the second the “Catholic” approach. According to the first, the fundamental principle of interpretation is sola scriptura, adherence to the texts of the dialogues as the only vehicle providing access to Plato’s philosophy. On this approach, putative evidence for Plato’s thinking drawn from Academic testimony or the indirect tradition is to be either excluded altogether or, if given any (...) evidentiary value, strictly subordinated to the “control” of the dialogues. Thus, the contents of the dialogues always trump testimony. According to the second approach, the dialogues are only .. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the centrality of διάνοια in Plotinus’ philosophy. Plotinus says that the real “we” is found to be the subject of διάνοια and “upwards.” This fundamental definition elicits several pressing questions. First, how is the subject of discursive reasoning related to the subject of appetitive and affective states? Second, how does the subject of discursive reasoning come to recognize its ultimate destiny as an undescended and disembodied intellect? Finally, why should we think that, as Plotinus says, (...) there is “no falsity” in discursive thinking? The answers to these questions begins with Plotinus’ reflections on Plato’s Divided Line and the sharp distinction between διάνοια and δόξα. I argue that διάνοια is the embodied expression of disembodied νοῦς. It is the focus of our ambiguous and conflicted personal identity. (shrink)

In primo luogo l'A. distingue fra autoevidenza, autoriflessività e introspezione. Esamina poi il tema dell'auto-riflessività in Platone, Aristotele, Plotino e Proclo. Nell'ultima parte dello studio illustra il tema nel pensiero di Agostino - distinguendo l'auto-riflessività dall'argomento si fallor sum - nello Pseudo Dionigi - soffermandosi sul commento dell'Aquinate al passaggio del De divinis nominibus sul movimento circolare dell'anima - e infine nella versione latina del Liber de causis.

In this paper I explore Plato's reasons for his rejection of the so-called standard analysis of knowledge as justified true belief. I argue that Plato held that knowledge is an infallible mental state in which (a) the knowable is present in the knower and (b) the knower is aware of this presence. Accordingly, knowledge (epistm) is non-propositional. Since there are no infallible belief states, the standard analysis, which assumes that knowledge is a type of belief, cannot be correct. In addition, (...) I argue that Plato held that belief (doxa) is only possible for the sort of being capable of knowledge. This is because self-reflexivity is necessary for infallible knowledge and self-reflexivity is only possible if the intellect is immaterial. This capacity for self-reflexivity is also essential for belief, since beliefs are, paradigmatically, not dispositions but self-reflexive mental states. (shrink)

Each volume of this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Plotinus was the greatest philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine. He thought of himself as a disciple (...) of Plato, but in his efforts to defend Platonism against Aristotelians, Stoics, and others, he actually produced a reinvigorated version of Platonism that later came to be known as 'Neoplatonism'. In this volume, sixteen leading scholars introduce and explain the many facets of Plotinus' complex system. They place Plotinus in the history of ancient philosophy while showing that he was a founder of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

At first glance, Plotinus’ arguments for the immortality of the human soul, principally in Ennead IV 7 (2), constitute a straightforward defense of Plato against Peripatetic and Stoic attacks. And yet, his close reading of his predecessors, especially Aristotle and Alexander of Aphrodisias, led him to confront the following deep problem. The best arguments for immortality rest upon the immateriality of intellect and hence its immunity from destruction along with the body. But, following Aristotle, Plotinus maintains that the nature of (...) intellection is such that the contents of the objects of intellection both identify the agent of intellection and further will be identical for every disembodied intellect. For this reason, it is not clear what it would mean to insist on the personal immortality of anyone. Without personal immortality, though, the ethical dimension of Platonism is, for Plotinus, severely undermined. In the light of this difficulty Plotinus developed an apparently original doctrine that was repudiated by virtually all his successors. He argued that there are Forms of individuals, that is, of individual intellects, and that, since they are eternal Forms, they are ‘undescended’. He argued that the personal identity of any human soul is found paradigmatically in an undescended intellect. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 1, pp 65 - 94 In his highly influential 1928 article ‘The _Parmenides_ of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic “One”,’ E.R. Dodds argued, _inter alia_, that among the so-called Neoplatonists Plotinus was the first to interpret Plato’s _Parmenides_ in terms of the distinctive three ‘hypostases’, One, Intellect, and Soul. Dodds argued that this interpretation was embraced and extensively developed by Proclus, among others. In this paper, I argue that although Plotinus took _Parmenides_ to (...) contain a sort of outline of the true metaphysical principles, he understood the One of the first hypothesis of the second part of the dialogue in a way importantly different from the way that Proclus understood it. The characterization of this One, especially its identity with the Idea of the Good of _Republic_, has significant ramification for Plotinus’ philosophy that set it apart from Proclus’ philosophy in ways hitherto infrequently noted. The widely accepted reasons for rejecting Proclus’ interpretation do not apply to the interpretation of Plotinus. The two different interpretations help explain why Proclus’ notorious proliferation of entities in the intelligible realm is not found in Plotinus. (shrink)

Among the concepts central to Plato's metaphysical vision are those of identity, sameness, and difference. For example, it is on the basis of a claim about putative cases of sameness among different things that Plato postulates the existence of separate Forms. It is owing to the apparent sameness between instances of Forms and the Forms themselves that Plato is compelled somehow to take account of potentially destructive vicious infinite regress arguments. Further, in reflecting on the Forms and their relations among (...) themselves, it is their self-identity that seems to be threatened or at least compromised. And in providing an account of the possibility of cognition in Timaeus, Plato evidently sees the need to incorporate principles of identity and difference into the soul's very fabric. In this paper, I propose to explore some of the systematic connections between these concepts. Translators have sometimes obscured the fact that there are such connections. The Greek terms taujtovn, e{teron, and o{moion (ajnovmoion) are variously rendered, often in ways that obscure the metaphysics. For example, taujtovn is most commonly rendered in English as "same," which, predictably, leads o{moion to be translated as "like" or "similar." This has suggested to some that if two things are "like" or "similar," then they are not "the same." But "like" and "similar" are not, as I shall show, well-formed or perspicuous metaphysical concepts. There is no justification for foisting them on Plato; rendering the terms thus often leads scholars to miss the force of Plato's arguments. In addition, translating taujtovn as "same" threatens to trivialize a fundamental concept in Plato, leading to complaints that to say that something is "the same as itself" is to say nothing at all. (shrink)

All those who profess ancient philosophy will no doubt have received from students requests for a reliable introductory monograph on Plato. It is a request that many—myself included—find somewhat embarrassing. For it is extremely difficult to think of an introductory book on Plato in English that is at once accessible to beginners, reasonably comprehensive, exegetically accurate, and philosophically sophisticated. But if these four desiderata are not met, any recommendation may actually do more harm than good. It is not difficult to (...) show that the introductions by Andrew Mason, J. C. B. Gosling, G. M. A. Grube, and A. E. Taylor fall short according to one or more of these... (shrink)

Research Articles Lloyd P. Gerson, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.