_Reading Proclus and the_ Book of Causes: _Western Scholarly Networks and Debates, Volume 1_ provides a fresh account, based on previously unknown documents, of the diffusion of Hellenic and Islamic thought in the Latin West (12th -16th centuries).

Les Prolegomenes a la Philosophie de Platon sont un manuel d'ecole neoplatonicien. Il s'inspire d'un modele dont Proclus a du etre l'auteur, mais l'origine de ce texte est presque surement alexandrine et doit dater de la premiere moitie du Vle siecle. Cette oeuvre est essentielle pour comprendre comment etait diffuse l'enseignement platonicien, et pour mieux saisir le mouvement des idees de l'Antiquite finissante. Dans une importante introduction, L. O. Westerink a retrace l'histoire de l'ecole d'Alexandrie et celle du genre litteraire (...) de ces introductions a Platon et a Aristote. (shrink)

This study of the practices and principles of a wide range of ancient scholars dealing with philosophical, scientific, biblical and other authors is an ...

This book, a history of a religious category of ancient philosophy, is the first synthesis on the notion of daimōn in the Platonic tradition. It focuses on the relationship between demonology and, respectively, cosmology, the philosophical hermeneutics of religion and theories of the soul. Histoire d’une catégorie religieuse de la philosophie ancienne, ce livre représente la première synthèse sur la notion de daimōn dans la tradition platonicienne. Il étudie les relations de la démonologie avec la cosmologie, l’herméneutique philosophique de la (...) religion et les théories de l’âme. (shrink)

Einleitung Erstes Kapitel. Die Bedeutung des Neuplatonismus für Hegels Denkentwicklung. § 1. Erste Begegnungen - § 2. Eusebios und der Mittelplatonismus - § 3. Spuren mittel- und neuplatonischer Metaphysik in Hegels Frankfurter Schriften - § 4. Die Bedeutung des Neuplatonismus für Hegels Jenaer Grundlegung seiner Dialektik Zweites Kapitel. Die geschichtliche und systematische Ortsbestimmung des Neuplatonismus in Hegels Philosophie des absoluten Geistes. § 1. Die Geschichte der Philosophie als das Zu-sich-Kommen des absoluten Geistes - § 2. Der Neuplatonismus als Intellektualsystem und (...) Vollendung der antiken Philosophie - § 3. Neuplatonismus und Christentum: Trinität als Struktur des absoluten Geistes - § 4. Neuplatonismus und griechische Religion: Metaphysik und Mythos Drittes Kapitel. Der Neuplatonismus und seine Quellen in Hegels Sicht: Spekulative Synthese von Platonismus, Aristotelismus und Pythagoreismus. § 1. Der synthetische Charakter des Neuplatonismus - § 2. Die Trinität im Pythagoreismus: Die spekulative Idee des Absoluten in Platons Prinzipienlehre - § 3. Die einfache Idee des Geistes bei Platon: Hegels spekulative Deutung des Timaios - § 4. Der platonische Charakter des Neuplatonismus aus den Perspektiven Hegels und der neueren Forschung Viertes Kapitel. Die Metaphysik des Einen bei Plotin und ihre Deutung durch Hegel. § 1. Philosophie als Transzendieren: Der dialektische Aufstieg zum Einen - § 2. Das Eine selbst als absolute Transzendenz bei Plotin und seine Umdeutung bei Hegel - § 3. Hegels Auseinandersetzung mit der negativen Theologie Fünftes Kapitel. Konstitution und Struktur der Noushypostase bei Plotin und ihre Deutung durch Hegel. § 1. Die Paradoxie des absoluten Ursprungs - § 2. Der Urakt des Denkens: Die Konstitution des Nous - § 3. Der Nous als einheitliche Fülle der Ideen - § 4. Die triadische Einheit des Sich-Denkens bei Plotin und bei Hegel Sechstes Kapitel. Dialektik und Triadik: Hegel und Proklos. § 1. Die Philosophie des Proklo. (shrink)

Bd. 1. Die geschichtlichen Wurzeln des Platonismus (Bausteine 1-35) -- Bd. 2. Der hellenistische Rahmen des kaiserzeitlichen Platonismus (Bausteine 36-72) -- Bd. 3. Der Platonismus im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert nach Christus (Bausteine 73-100) -- Bd. 4. Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus (Bausteine 101-124) -- Bd. 5. Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus (Bausteine 125-150) -- Bd. 6. Die philosophische Lehre des Platonismus (2 v.; Bausteine 151-181) -- Index zu den Bänden 1-4.

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Bedeutung des Mythos für die Philosophie Platons und das nachplatonische, antike Denken. Dabei konzentriert sie sich auf den Schlußmythos der Politeia und den Kommentar des Neuplatonikers Proklos zu diesem Text. Auf dieser Grundlage sind ihr allgemeine Aussagen zu Funktion und Stellung des Mythos in der Philosophie möglich. Anders als in vergleichbaren Publikationen wird der platonische Mythos weder historisch noch als Dialogelement isoliert. So kann sein Verhältnis zum philosophischen Denken in der Antike neu reflektiert werden: Aus (...) der Reformulierung des mit ihm verbundenen Dialogs entsteht die 'Rationalität' des Mythischen. (shrink)

Focusing on the problem of the Prime Matter in the Philoponus' Contra Proclum (Book XI), this study offers the first translation, in French, extensively annoted and commented in the context of the 'quaestio disputata' of the Neoplatonic ...

INTRODUCTION The present volume is a study of the extant commentaries on a number of Plato's dialogues which were written by Neoplatonist philosophers of ...

Proclus, an early figure in the tradition ascribing mathematical intermediates to Plato, has been neglected by more recent proponents of this interpretation. We argue that Proclus’ position should be reconsidered, for he anticipated significant problems arising from what has come to be the typical view of intermediates. To address these concerns, Proclus distinguishes between the intermediates studied in mathematics and the objects described by mathematical theorems.

Proclus defends the Platonic view that the heavens consist in (the highest gradations) of all four elements. He attacks Aristotle's view that the heavens consist in a distinct, fifth element.

The Platonic dialogues contain passages that seem to point in quite opposite directions on the question of the moral equality of women with men. Rep. V defends the view that sexual difference need not be relevant to a person’s capacity for philosophy and thus for virtue. Tim. 42a-c, however, makes incarnation in a female body a punishment for failure to master the challenges of embodiment. This paper examines the different ways in which two subsequent Platonists, Proclus (d. 485 CE) and (...) Theodore of Asine (d. c. 360 CE), dealt with this tension. (shrink)

One of the most interesting recent attempts to interpret the peculiarities of Plotinus's philosophy is that of Bréhier in his ‘La Philosophie de Plotin’. His thesis, contained in the last four chapters of the work, is that Plotinus, instead of being simply the continuator of the Greek rationalist tradition, is the founder of modern European Idealism, or, perhaps more accurately, Pantheism. ‘Avec Plotin nous saisissons done le premier chatnon d'une tradition religieuse qui n'est pas moins puissante au fond en Occident (...) que la tradition chretienne …’. He is the spiritual ancestor of Spinoza and Hegel. It is interesting in passing to compare this view with that of Dean Inge, for whom Plotinus is the spiritual begetter of S. Thomas Aquinas. The divergences of modern interpreters of the Plotinian metaphysic are often both amusing and suggestive. (shrink)

How was the world generated and how does matter continue to be ordered so that the world can continue functioning? Questions like these have existed as long as humanity has been capable of rational thought. In antiquity, Plato's Timaeus introduced the concept of the Demiurge, or Craftsman-god, to answer them. This lucid and wide-ranging book argues that the concept of the Demiurge was highly influential on the many discussions operating in Middle Platonist, Gnostic, Hermetic and Christian contexts in the first (...) three centuries AD. It explores key metaphysical problems such as the origin of evil, the relationship between matter and the First Principle and the deployment of ever-increasing numbers of secondary deities to insulate the First Principle from the sensible world. It also focuses on the decreasing importance of demiurgy in Neoplatonism, with its postulation of procession and return. (shrink)

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato s innatist approach and Aristotle s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias ) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th century (...) AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition.". (shrink)

Ursula Coope presents a ground-breaking study of the philosophy of the Neoplatonists. She explores their understanding of freedom and responsibility: an entity is free to the extent that it is wholly in control of itself, self-determining, self-constituting, and self-knowing - which only a non-bodily thing can be.

This book is a philosophical study of two major thinkers who span the period of late antiquity: Plotinus, who establishes many of the central themes for later debate and establishes strategies of argument and interpretation, and Proclus, who develops a grand philosophical synthesis and provides original insights into a number of important problems regarding being and thinking, matter and evil.

Proclus, head of the Philosophy School at Athens for fifty years, was one of the leading philosophical figures in Late Antiquity. Lucas Siorvanes here introduces Proclus to English-language readers, discussing his metaphysics and theory of knowledge and focusing in particular on his Neo-Platonism. Proclus lived in the turbulent fifth century A.D., a time of struggles among Christians, Jews, and pagans, the invasion of Attila the Hun, the fall of the Western Roman Empire, and the rise of the Eastern Roman Empire (...) in Byzantium. While Late Antiquity has been regarded as a time of superstition and forbiddingly complex philosophies, recent scholarship has shown it to be full of cultural and intellectual vigor. During Proclus's tenure as head of the Philosophy School, he systematized Neo-Platonism as the summit of ancient Greek thought, brought it to its peak of influence, and became responsible for the form in which it was transmitted to the Byzantine, Western European, and Islamic civilizations. Siorvanes's extensive original research presents Proclus as much more than just a metaphysician. He surveys all of Proclus's philosophical interests—including religion, physics, astronomy, mathematics, and poetry—revealing the philosopher's central concern with the problems of being and knowledge and relating the ideas of Proclus to those of such other major thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolemy. To help the newcomer, Siorvanes supplies more than 200 quotations from Proclus's works. He also traces the impact of Proclus's Neo-Platonism across cultures, religions, and centuries, in such diverse areas as Christian and Islamic theologies, Renaissance art, Kepler's astronomy, Romantic poetry, Emerson's thought, modern philosophy and science, and current popular phrases. (shrink)

his volume investigates Proclus' own thought and his wide-ranging influence within late Neoplatonic, Alexandrine and Byzantinian philosophy and theology. It further explores how Procline metaphysics and doctrines of causality influence and transition into Arabic and Islamic thought, up until Richard Hooker in England, Spinoza in Holland and Pico in Italy. John Dillon provides a helpful overview of Proclus' thought, Harold Tarrant discusses Proclus' influence within Alexandrian philosophy and Tzvi Langermann presents ground breaking work on the Jewish reception of Proclus, focusing (...) on the work of Joseph Solomon Delmedigo (1591-1655), while Stephen Gersh presents a comprehensive synopsis of Proclus' reception throughout Christendom. The volume also presents works from notable scholars like Helen Lang, Sarah Wear and Crystal Addey and has a considerable strength in its presentation of Pseudo-Dionysius, Proclus' transmission and development in Arabic philosophy and the problem of the eternity of the world. It will be important for anyone interested in the development and transition of ideas from the late ancient world onwards. (shrink)

This paper studies moral education in Proclus and Iamblichus. The first section analyses Proclus’ theory of moral education and its psychological underpinnings. Especially important in this context is the identification of the faculty of choice with the passive or teachable intellect. The second section investigates the implementation of this theory into practice with the help of Iamblichus’ Letter to Sopater: On Bringing up Children. The final section demonstrates how Proclus’ famous tripartite division of poetry should be understood in the context (...) of his program of moral education. (shrink)

In his commentary on Plato’sCratylus, Proclus interprets the dialogue not as a mere work on logic or linguistics, but as having a full psychological and theological import.Late ancient Platonists had already proposed a similar reading for another Platonic dialogue,i.e.theParmenides. In that case too they rejected the logical interpretation, and aimed to find in the text the description of the hierarchy of reality, particularly of the highest beings. As a result, theParmenideswas seen as the accomplished expression of Plato’s theology.Proclus too draws (...) a comparison between theCratylusand theParmenidesin order to stress their theological significance. He also contrasts Plato’s dialectic with Aristotle’s dialectic. Proclus’ interpretation of dialectic is best understood if it is compared to the doctrines of his master Syrianus and of one of his co-disciples,i.e.Hermeias, at the Platonic school of Athens in the 5th centuryad.Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, in this milieu Platonists were not always committed to the task of reconciling the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. As it happens, they could strongly disagree with and even attack Aristotle, and side with Plato. In particular, they greatly valued Plato’s dialectic, which they viewed as the correct form of reasoning and at the same time as a theory of the utmost theological significance. On the other hand, Aristotle’s dialectic was considered as “bare” logic,i.e.as a mere set of logical rules and arguments with no specific contents.On the basis of a problematicCratylus’passage Proclus defends a theory of truth according to which not only propositions, but also names can be true or false. This allows him to view names as substitutes of propositions. This is particularly the case in the application of the four dialectical methods of definition, division, demonstration and analysis. Proclus’ approach arguably provides a basis—to pagan as well as Christian tradition—for the study of divine names as a part of theology, for the name of a god is held to reveal its attributes. (shrink)

According to the well known Platonic distinction of different types of knowing, discursive thought (διάνοια) is second to intellect (νοῦς), and above opinion (δόξα). Intellection intelligizes the entire intelligible cosmos, all at once (ἀθρόως), in an undivided manner. Discursive thought, involving temporal thinking, articulates into plurality the indivisible character of the intellectual life. I argue in this paper that Proclus does not reduce discursive thought to discursivity. Discursive thought is thought, i.e. intellection (διά‑νοια) before being discursive (διά‑νοια), intellection of Psychic (...) Forms, and intellection in the manner of the soul. (shrink)

In hisCommentary on the AlcibiadesiProclus often discusses and links the peculiar epistemological category of “double ignorance” with evil and grievous error. To understand this more fully, the following analyzes Proclus’ concept of double ignorance, its characteristics and its causes. Markedly, due to his understanding of double ignorance, Proclus offers a response to the “Socratic” idea that no one willingly errs as this particular category of not-knowing enables him to explain how individuals, despite desiring and in some sense knowing the good, (...) fail or ‘miss the mark’ in articulating and doing the good. (shrink)

This is the first book to provide an account of the influence of Proclus, a member of the Athenian Neoplatonic School, during more than one thousand years of European history. Proclus was the most important philosopher of late antiquity, a dominant voice in Byzantine thought, the second most influential Greek philosopher in the later western Middle Ages, and a major figure in the revival of Greek philosophy in the Renaissance. Proclus was also intensively studied in the Islamic world of the (...) Middle Ages and was a major influence on the thought of medieval Georgia. The volume begins with a substantial essay by the editor summarizing the entire history of Proclus' reception. This is followed by the essays of more than a dozen of the world's leading authorities in the various specific areas covered. (shrink)

In "De malorum subsistentia" chs 30-7, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. I,8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good, because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter-evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does (...) not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that to posit a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism, or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to be able to escape the latter consequence, if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian tenets. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his "Commentary on the Categories." It is possible that lamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. (shrink)

"Aristotle versus Plato. For a long time that is the angle from which the tale has been told, in textbooks on the history of philosophy and to university students. Aristotle's philosophy, so the story goes, was au fond in opposition to Plato's. But it was not always thus."--from the Introduction In a wide-ranging book likely to cause controversy, Lloyd P. Gerson sets out the case for the "harmony" of Platonism and Aristotelianism, the standard view in late antiquity. He aims to (...) show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed. Gerson examines the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle based on their principle of harmony. In considering ancient studies of Aristotle's Categories, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, the author shows how the principle of harmony allows us to understand numerous texts that otherwise appear intractable. Gerson also explains how these "esoteric" treatises can be seen not to conflict with the early "exoteric" and admittedly Platonic dialogues of Aristotle. Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony. (shrink)

While commonly referring to us as ‘human’, ‘particular’, or ‘rational’ souls, in one striking passage, Proclus instead describes us asτὸ πολυπλανὲς καὶ μέχρι τοῦ Ταρτάρου κατιὸν καὶ αὖθις ἀνεγειρόμενον παντοῖά τε εἴδη ζωῆς ἀνελίττον ἤθεσί τε χρώμενον ποικίλοις καὶ πάθεσιν ἄλλοτε ἄλλοις καὶ μορφὰς ζῴων ἀλλαττόμενον πολυειδεῖς, δαιμονίας ἀνθρωπίνας ἀλόγους, κατευθυνόμενον δ’ οὖν ὅμως ὑπὸ τῆς Δίκης καὶ εἰς οὐρανὸν ἀπὸ γῆς ἀνατρέχον καὶ εἰς νοῦν ἀπὸ τῆς ὕλης περιαγόμενον κατὰ δή τινας τεταγμένας τῶν ὅλων περιόδους.a far-wanderer, who descends all (...) the way to Tartarus only to be raised up again, who unfolds all possible forms of life, making use of diverse manners and suffering one passion after another, who takes on the forms of living beings of every sort, daemons, men and irrational creatures, and yet is guided by Justice, ascending from earth to heaven and from matter to intellect, being led round and round in accordance with certain prescribed revolutions of the universe. (shrink)