_ 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)

Many philosophers in the ancient world shared a unitary vision of philosophy – meaning 'love of wisdom' – not just as a theoretical discipline, but as a way of life. Specifically, for the late Neoplatonic thinkers, philosophy began with self-knowledge, which led to a person's inner conversion or transformation into a lover, a human being erotically striving toward the totality of the real. This metamorphosis amounted to a complete existential conversion. It was initiated by learned guides who cultivated higher (...) and higher levels of virtue in their students, leading, in the end, to their vision of the Good, or the One. In this book, James M. Ambury closely analyses two central texts in this tradition: the commentaries by Proclus (412–485 AD) and Olympiodorus (495–560 AD) on the Platonic Alcibiades I. Ambury's powerful study illuminates the way philosophy was conceived during a crucial period of its history, in the lecture halls of late antiquity. (shrink)

The relative neglect of Greek commentary by modern Aristotelian scholarship could be justified, if only the neglectors had sufficient knowledge of the material they disdain. The curt dismissal of ancient views on the active intellect by W. D. Ross is perhaps a paradigm case of misplaced condemnation, for he evidently failed to take account of what their authors were about. It would be open to those who wish to discount these commentators to argue that they were, to a greater or (...) lesser extent, influenced by their Neoplatonism, and that this impairs their judgment on Aristotelian problems. But that would not be sufficient ground for total neglect: it merely indicates the need for careful utilization. One might go so far as to ask whether it is not perfectly possible for a commentator who happened to be a Neoplatonist to offer straightforward and reasonably unbiased commentary on Aristotle. Even if the answer to that question were negative, is it not likely that such Neoplatonic views as he read into Aristotle would at least be slanted towards Aristotelianism? (shrink)

This work argues that Anselm was a Christian neoplatonist of the Augustinian variety, and that thus he was the inheritor of a powerful and systematic metaphysics and epistemology. The view that the world is an image of the divine mind and its ideas, a fragmented and temporal copy of of the perfect, eternal unity which is God, led Anselm to a strong exemplarism on the doctrine of the universals, and ultimately to a theistic idealism. This discussion concludes with a (...) class='Hi'>neoplatonic interpretation and defence of his work, the Proslogion, proof for the existence of God. (shrink)

In The Neoplatonic Socrates, leading scholars in classics and philosophy address this gap by examining Neoplatonic attitudes toward the Socratic method, Socratic love, Socrates's divine mission and moral example, and the much-debated issue of moral rectitude. Collectively, they demonstrate the importance of Socrates for the majority of Neoplatonists, a point that has often been questioned owing to the comparative neglect of surviving commentaries on the Alcibiades, Gorgias, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, in favor of dialogues dealing explicitly with metaphysical issues. (...) Supplemented with a contextualizing introduction and a substantial appendix detailing where evidence for Socrates can be found in the extant literature, The Neoplatonic Socrates makes a clear case for the significant place Socrates held in the education and philosophy of late antiquity. (shrink)

I argue that in his commentary on Epictetus’ Encheiridion, Simplicius derives a method by which his students can enter into the process of self-constitution, which is only achieved through completion of the study of Plato’s dialogues. The result of following the method is the attainment of a perspective consonant with the level of political virtue, which I call ‘political subjectivity’. This is a speculative interpretation of the effect the student would. experience in following the method, accomplished through analyses of Simplicius’ (...) interpretation of Epictetus’ concept of to eph’ hēmīn and the related prohairesis. I complement this with an analysis of the metaphysical foundation Simplicius gives the method in light of Charles Taylor’s notion of ‘strong evaluation’. In this way, I show how Simplicius adapts these concepts to his Neoplatonic psychology and virtue theory to make the method serve as preparation for the development of virtue prior to study of Plato. (shrink)

These two texts are fundamental for the understanding not only of Neoplatonism but also of the conventions of biography in late antiquity. Neither has received such extensive annotation before in English, and this new commentary makes full use of recent scholarship. The long introduction is intended both as a beginner’s guide to Neoplatonism and as a survey of ancient biographical writing.

Neoplatonic Exegeses of Plato's Cosmogony JOHN F. PHILLIPS AMONG THE MANY CONTROVERSIES to which the long history of interpretation of Plato's Timaeus has given rise, that concerning the eternity of the cosmos is one of the most enduring and complex, and the source of almost continuous debate from the time of Xenocrates to the present. The importance to all Platonists of a doctrinally consistent answer to the question of whether or not the universe had a beginning in time is (...) made amply clear in the statement attributed to Iamblichus by Proclus that proper understand- ing of the creation of the world is crucial for the entire theory of Nature. Iamblichus here refers obliquely to the orthodox Platonist position that the universe is not a temporal being subject to decay and destruction. The princi- pal problem for all of them, of course, was that, taken literally, Plato's account of the creation in the Timaeus, particularly the passage 27C-a8C, appears to be an unequivocal affirmation of a temporal beginning to the cosmos. Espe- cially troublesome was Plato's use of the verb y~yovev in Timaeus 28b 7, which seems to be an explicit claim for an &QX1] in time. That this passage did indeed refer to a temporal beginning was a point that was made repeatedly and forcefully by the chief opponents of the Platonists on this issue, the Peripa- tetics, who, following Aristotle, read the Timaeus creation account literally.' To.. (shrink)

Neoplatonic Demons and Angels is a collection of studies which examine the place reserved for angels and demons not only by the main Neoplatonic philosophers, but also in Gnosticism, the Chaldaean Oracles and Christian Neoplatonism.

Neoplatonism is alive and well today. It expresses itself in New Thought and the mind-cure movements derived from it. However, to avoid many ancient errors, Neoplatonism needs to be modernized. The One is just the simple origin from which all complex things evolve. The Good, which is not the One, is the best of all possible propositions. A cosmological argument is given for the One and an ontological argument for the Good. The presence of the Good in every thing is (...) Spirit. Spirit sits in the logical center of every body; it is surrounded by the regulatory forms of that body. Striving for the Good, Spirit seeks to correct the errors in its surrounding forms. To correct the errors in biological texts, modern Neoplatonists turn to the experimental method. This Neoplatonism is pantheistic not because of some theoretical definition of God but rather because of its practical focus on the shaping of Spirit. (shrink)

The most comprehensive collection of Neoplatonic writings available in English, this volume provides translations of the central texts of four major figures of the Neoplatonic tradition: Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. The general Introduction gives an overview of the period and takes a brief but revealing look at the history of ancient philosophy from the viewpoint of the Neoplatonists. Historical background--essential for understanding these powerful, difficult, and sometimes obscure thinkers--is provided in extensive footnotes, which also include cross-references to (...) other works relevant to particular passages. (shrink)

IN A WELL-KNOWN ESSAY, Charles Kahn has addressed the question of “why existence does not emerge as a distinct concept in ancient Greek philosophy.” The assumption that gives rise to this question— namely, that the Greeks did not distinctly address the concept of existence—may seem puzzling. After all, οὐσία is one of the central terms of ancient metaphysics, and the Greeks engaged in endless wrangles over what deserves to be honored by that term and on what grounds the distinction is (...) to be awarded. Aristotle goes so far as to call the οὐσία of each thing the “cause of its being” and to argue on this basis that the οὐσία of a thing must be its form. Far from proving that there is no such lacuna in Greek metaphysics, however, Aristotle’s argument actually illustrates it. Form is the cause of the being of something only in the sense that it makes the thing to be that thing, rather than something else; it is the source of the thing’s specificity, of its existence qua entity of that type. Kahn’s point is that the Greeks do not address the nature of existence as such, as opposed to the existence qua a particular type of thing that is imparted by form. (shrink)

This article deals with the complex relation between providence and descent in Neoplatonism, with particular reference to Proclus and especially his Commentary on the First Alcibiades. At least according to this work, descent is only a species of providence, because there can be providence without any descent. Whereas the gods provide for our cosmos without descending to it, a large group of souls provide for our cosmos by descending to it. The former kind of providence is better than the latter, (...) even if it is necessary that souls descend in order to give existence to the beautiful cosmos. The following study deals with providence as descent, looking at it from two angles. In the first section I show that Proclus designates this form of providence in two rather surprising ways. One term he uses for it, which will be well known to readers of Plotinus, is τόλµα —this despite the word’s negative connotations due to its Neopythagorean and Gnostic origin. A second name for descended providence is ἐπιστροφή. Again, this may be surprising, since we usually expect this term to express the ‘turning back’ of a lower effect to its cause. In Proclus, the word ἐπιστροφή too can have negative connotations, but he also uses it in a positive way when applying it to providence. In the second part of the paper, I explain how Socrates’ providence for Alcibiades can be undefiled, even if Socrates necessarily descends as he offers providential guidance. Proclus’ comparison of Socrates with Hercules, who went to the Underworld in order to save Theseus, serves as a positive illustration of Socrates’ divinelike providence, and marks the deficiency of Socrates compared to the transcendent and undefiled providence of Neoplatonic divinities. (shrink)

본 논문은 심플리키오스의 저작으로 알려져 있는 『영혼론 주해』 (CAG XI)에나타난 프리스키아노스의 지성론에 대한 연구이다. 프리스키아노스는 아리스토텔레스의 『영혼론』을 풀이하면서 자신의 고유한 신플라톤주의적인 사상을 적극개진하고 있다. 본 논문은 『영혼론』에서 지성의 발전단계와 표상력 및 수동지성에관한 논의와 그에 대한 해석을 중심으로 프리스키아노스의 이론을 알아보고자한다. 따라서 본 논문은 아리스토텔레스의 『영혼론』의 신플라톤주의적인 해석과수용에 대한 한 가지 사례연구가 될 수 있다. 아리스토텔레스의 지성의 세 가지의 발전단계는 프리스키아노스의 인간 지성론에서의 신플라톤주의적인 삼중구조에 상응한다. 프리스키아노스에 따르면 인간의지성은 인간의 정신활동의 원인인 실체적 지성과 실체적 지성에서 유출된 발출지성으로 구성된다. 발출지성은 인식대상의 존재론적 (...) 지위에 따라 다시금 미완성 상태와완성 상태로 나뉜다. 인간의 지성은 미완성 상태에서 완성상태로 옮아가고, 그리고현실적으로 사유함으로써 실체적 지성과 동일하게 되는 것을 목표로 하는 발전과정으로 이해된다. 프리스키아노스는 인간의 표상력과 신체와의 결합을 감각기관에 대한 표상력의 전적인 종속으로 보지 않고, 감각기관을 규정하는 형상적 능력으로 이해한다. 또한 수동지성의 소멸은 신체의 소멸에 동반되는 소멸이 아니라, 유출된 자기 자신을 원인으로서의 자기 자신으로 되돌아가기 위해 지양한다는 의미에서의 소멸로 이해한다. 표상력과 수동지성에 대한 새로운 이해를 통해 프리스키아노스는 아리스토텔레스의 인간 지성의 발전단계를 신플라톤주의 체계 안에서의 지성의존재론적인 발전단계로 해석하는 데에 성공한다. (shrink)

The Absolute is a basic and fundamental issue for philosophy as such. I present different concepts of the Absolute (substantialism, energetism, escapism, methodologism). We can say that contemporary European philosophy “orphaned” the neo-Platonic tradition. Thereafter Russian philosophy developed in an intensive and turbulent as well as relatively uniform fashion, in view of the well-established Neo-Platonist context. This makes Russian philosophy not only part of a lasting universally acknowledged tradition; not only has Russian philosophy continued to develop currents of thought abandoned (...) by modern European philosophiers, but it is also heir to a philosophical tradition of particular quality and value in the universal history of thought. (shrink)

What is the ontological status of mathematical structures? Michael Resnic, Stewart Shapiro and Gianluigi Oliveri, are contemporaries of American philosophers on mathematics, they give Platonic answers on this question.

This book shows otherwise. John Martin rehabilitates Neoplatonism, founded by Plotinus and brought into Christianity by St. Augustine.

The Arabic version of the Enneads is the earliest datable text in which appears the term "anniyya", that features in Avicenna’s metaphysics and lies in the background of the Latin definition of the Causa prima as esse tantum, typical of the Liber de Causis. This paper examines some examples of the use of "to be" in the Arabic translation of the Enneads. It also discusses the description of the First Cause as ‘pure Being’ or ‘first Being’ in the Arabic Plotinus, (...) and compares it with the Divine Names of the pseudo-Dionysius. icona . (shrink)

Situates Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite as a Neoplatonic philosopher in the tradition of Plotinus and Proclus.

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

The Opening Chapter of De Anima II, in which Aristotle outlines an extremely general and universally applicable characterization of the soul (κοινότατος λόγος), closes with a perplexing comparison, which seems to contradict the general drift of that definiens1. After carefully arguing that the body-soul relation is a token of the hylomorphic model, which accounts for the substantial unity of every natural compound, Aristotle writes, “[F]urther, it remains unclear [ἄδηλον] whether the soul may not be the actuality of its body in (...) the sense in which the sailor is the actuality of the ship” (413a8–9).2 Far from being found in the body as the functional organization of its matter, this remark suggests that the soul .. (shrink)

This article is the first to bring into scientific discussion and to provide a historico-philosophical analysis of a manuscript “Neoplatonic Philosophy from the archive of Pamfil Danylovych Yurkevych (1826–1874). The reviewed manuscript belongs to P. D. Yurkevych’s handwritten nachlass stored in the funds of the Institute of Manuscript of V. I. Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine in the city of Kyiv. Additional archival materials (in particular, programs of P. D. Yurkevych’s lectures that took place in 1850s – beginning of (...) 1860s in Kyiv Theological Academy) are involved to answer several research questions. The author of this article provides arguments in favor of proving that the manuscript is to be attributed to P. D. Yurkevych’s own handwriting, to be dated circa 1856, and that the purposing of its content is to be qualified as didactic. As it is established in the article, textual content of the manuscript in question is an original concise description and analysis of neoplatonic philosophy, which belongs to the set of materials created by P. D. Yurkevych in preparation for teaching the course on Ancient Philosophy in Kyiv Theological Academy during Kyivan period of his work. Turning to the inner critique of the manuscript, author of this article emphasizes an analysis that P. D. Yurkevych conducts concerning Plotinus’s ideas of the process of emanation of the world from the One and the role that philosophy has in true cognition. While comparing the manuscript “Neoplatonic Philosophy” with one of P. D. Yurkevych’s substantial philosophical works “Idea” (1859), additional light is shed upon the prosess of genesis and development of Christian-Platonic worldview of the thinker. Furthermore, it is established that the manuscript in question played a major role in P. D. Yurkevych’s own schooling, particulary concerning his view on the philosophy of Plotinus, and his general reception of the Platonic tradition. (shrink)

In De Mysteriis VIII Iamblichus gives two orderings of first principles, one in purely Neoplatonic terms drawn from his own philosophical system, and the other in the form of several Egyptian gods, glossed with Neoplatonic language again taken from his own system. The first ordering or taxis includes the Simple One and the One Existent, two of the elements of Iamblichus' realm of the One. The second taxis includes the Egyptian (H)eikton, which has now been identified with the (...) god of magic, Heka, glossed as the One Existent. The Egyptian god Kmeph is also a member of this taxis, and is the Egyptian Kematef, a god of creation associated with the solar Amun-Re. Iamblichus refers to this god also as the Hegemon of the celestial gods, which should be equated to Helios, specifically the noeric Helios as described by Julian in his Hymn to Helios. Iamblichus describes Kmeph as an “intellect knowing himself”, and so the noeric Kmeph/Helios should also be seen as the Paternal Demiurgic Zeus, explicitly described also by Proclus as an intellect knowing himself. This notion of a self-thinking intellect may offer a solution to the problematic formulation by Proclus in his Timaeus commentary of Iamblichus' view of the Demiurgy encompassing all the noeric realm. The identification of Kmeph as the noeric Helios now also allows the first direct parallels to de Mysteriis to be found in extant Hermetica. In addition it can be inferred from the specific Neoplatonic terminology employed that the noetic Father of Demiurges, Kronos, appears, as well as the secondary Demiurgic triad of Zeus, Poseidon, and Pluto, in the forms of the Egyptian Amun, Ptah, and Osiris, thus raising the question that much of the theology documented only in Proclus might appear already to have been established by Iamblichus. (shrink)

El ser en su riqueza se expresa en el lenguaje que emana también del ser. El lenguaje emergió de su olvido en la filosofía griega, gracias a las ideas cristianas de encarnación y trinidad que le hicieron más justicia. El mayor milagro del lenguaje no estriba en que la palabra aparezca en su ser externo, sino en el hecho de que lo que emerge y se manifiesta sea siempre palabra. La vuelta de Gadamer al final de Verdad y método, en (...) torno a la evidencia de que el ser de lo bello consiste en presentarse, ilustra la estructura universal del ser mismo. Apalabrar a lo que es el ser mismo. Lo que determina y hace posible la interpretación es el presentarse del ser de lo que es. Being in its richness expresses itself in language, which itself emanates from Being. Language emerged from its oblivion in Greek philosophy thanks to the Christian ideas of incarnation and trinity, which did it more justice. Language's greatest miracle does not rest on the fact that the word appears in its external being, but on the fact that that which emerges and manifests itself is always word. Gadamer's turn at the end of Truth and Method, regarding the evidence according to which beauty's being consists of presenting itself, illustrates the universal structure of Being itself. Bespeaking what is Being itself. What determines and make possible interpretation is the presentation itself of the being of what is. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Ausgehend von modernen religionswissenschaftlichen Diskussionen um ‚religi⃶se Bildung‘ wird im Artikel der Frage nach Medien religi⃶ser Bildung im philosophischen Heidentum der Sp⃤tantike nachgegangen: inwiefern k⃶nnen die zwei neuplatonischen Pythagorasviten als Instrumente religi⃶ser Bildung in einer Zeit verst⃤rkter Konfrontation mit dem Christentum gelesen werden? Die Ergebnisse zeigen die Vielfalt und Individualit⃤t der neuplatonischen Szene auf, die als einer der sch⃤rfer konturierten Bereiche paganer Religiosit⃤t gelten kann: während Porphyrios Pythagoras in seiner Philosophiegeschichte lediglich als einen Philosophen der Vergangenheit festh⃤lt, benutzt ihn (...) Iamblich zur Konkretisierung und Kommunikation einer Lebensform, welche philosophische Bet⃤tigung und traditionelle religi⃶se Praxis miteinander verbindet. (shrink)