Pub Date : 2024-04-05DOI: 10.1163/18725473-bja10039
Paolo Colizzi
The purpose of this paper is 1) to focus on the last section of the In Parmenidem, analyzing Proclus’ reflection on the relationship between the First God and what he calls the “axioms of contradiction”, accompanied by an attempt to harmonize in a subordinate sense the Aristotelian perspective with the Platonic one; 2) to analyze the reception of this idea in Nicholas of Cusa, the first Latin author to be systematically influenced by the In Parmenidem. It will be possible to show how Cusanus develops a perspective that, on the one hand, finds its explicit antecedent in Proclus and, on the other, how he radicalizes Proclus’ perspective, developing theoretical tensions that we can find unsystematically in Proclus’ own thought. Proclus is aware that the Principle of all reality—and of science itself—must be conceived as in itself unknowable. At the same time, he seeks to save the ability of human knowledge to describe reality. Starting from an idea of the relationship between God and the laws of contradiction close to that of Proclus, Cusanus develops an epistemology that, on the one hand, recognizes the principle of contradiction as the ultimate principle of reason and, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion of a separation between thought and reality outside thought.
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Pub Date : 2024-03-22DOI: 10.1163/18725473-bja10038
Edward Watts
Historians of philosophy are often challenged to discern the relative impacts of the ideas and the actions of ancient philosophers. The ideas of these thinkers often stand alone in an almost disembodied fashion, set apart from the physicality of a philosopher, his or her personality, and even their intellectual development over time. This article considers the tension between the people, the ideas, and the social context in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria and investigates the way in which genial and difficult personalities influence the fate of Neoplatonic schools in the two cities in the late fifth and early sixth centuries AD.
{"title":"The Friend, the Eccentric, and the Grouch","authors":"Edward Watts","doi":"10.1163/18725473-bja10038","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725473-bja10038","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Historians of philosophy are often challenged to discern the relative impacts of the ideas and the actions of ancient philosophers. The ideas of these thinkers often stand alone in an almost disembodied fashion, set apart from the physicality of a philosopher, his or her personality, and even their intellectual development over time. This article considers the tension between the people, the ideas, and the social context in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria and investigates the way in which genial and difficult personalities influence the fate of Neoplatonic schools in the two cities in the late fifth and early sixth centuries AD.","PeriodicalId":513117,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":" 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140387455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-08DOI: 10.1163/18725473-bja10034
Marilena Vlad
This article discusses the problem of the ineffable in Damascius’ treatises De principiis and In Parmenidem. I argue that the ineffable—which is the ultimate principle proposed by Damascius—is also the theme that underlies the whole frame of the reality, in his perspective. Each level of reality that he discusses comes into play on the background of the original attempt to suggest the ineffable principle. Each of them—One, unified, soul, material forms, matter and sensible realm—tries to approximate and suggest the previous level and thus, eventually, the ineffable itself. Consequently, each level of reality develops its own degree of ineffability, and therefore presents itself to our mind in an aporetical manner. It is impossible for our mind to reveal in an exhaustive and noncontradictory fashion even the levels closest to us. The aporiai that are specific for every part of reality are eventually consequences of the original aporia of an absolute and unique principle that governs everything.
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Pub Date : 2024-03-08DOI: 10.1163/18725473-bja10040
I. Viltanioti
The central place of Plato’s Timaeus in Plotinus’ Enneads has long been acknowledged. However, the importance of Timaeus 90 a for Plotinus’ psychology and theory of Intellect has not until now been properly recognized. This paper argues that, in Plato’s Timaeus 90 a, Plotinus sees his own distinction between the Hypostasis Intellect and human intellect, that is, our higher soul, which Plato in the Timaeus calls a daimon and which Plotinus takes to remain in the intelligible realm, interpreting it along the same lines as “our allotted guardian spirit” (Ennead III.4). The way Timaeus 90 a is combined with passages drawn from other Platonic dialogues as well as with Peripatetic doctrine provides the framework for a case study on how Plotinus handles and interprets Platonic material.
柏拉图的《蒂迈欧篇》在普罗提诺的《启示录》中的核心地位早已得到公认。然而，《蒂迈欧篇》第 90 a 节对于普罗提诺的心理学和智性理论的重要性直到现在才得到正确的认识。本文认为，在柏拉图的《蒂迈欧篇》第 90 a 节中，普罗提诺看到了自己对 "本体智性"（Hypostasis Intellect）与人类智性（即我们的高级灵魂）之间的区别，柏拉图在《蒂迈欧篇》中称后者为 "大魔神"（daimon），而普罗提诺则将其视为停留在可理解的领域，并将其解释为与 "我们分配的守护灵"（《启示录》III.4）相同的概念。Timaeus 90 a 与其他柏拉图对话中的段落以及 Peripatetic 学说相结合的方式，为普罗提诺如何处理和解释柏拉图材料的案例研究提供了一个框架。
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Pub Date : 2024-02-06DOI: 10.1163/18725473-bja10035
Pantelis Golitsis
Damascius of Damascus, last ‘Platonic successor’ in Athens, is rarely compared to one of his masters, namely Ammonius, the philosopher of Alexandria. When scholars do compare the two Neoplatonist philosophers, they usually focus on the negative picture of Ammonius, which is drawn by Damascius in his Philosophical History. In this paper, I argue that Damascius admired Ammonius’ intellectual endeavours and espoused a basic feature of the philosophical exegesis of his master, namely his concordism regarding the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, as is evident in Damascius’ surviving work on Plato and his (fragmentarily preserved) treatise On Time. Damascius’ downgrading of Ammonius came about rather as a disappointment, which is however by no means fully justified.
{"title":"From Athens to Alexandria: What Damascius Learned from Ammonius","authors":"Pantelis Golitsis","doi":"10.1163/18725473-bja10035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725473-bja10035","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Damascius of Damascus, last ‘Platonic successor’ in Athens, is rarely compared to one of his masters, namely Ammonius, the philosopher of Alexandria. When scholars do compare the two Neoplatonist philosophers, they usually focus on the negative picture of Ammonius, which is drawn by Damascius in his Philosophical History. In this paper, I argue that Damascius admired Ammonius’ intellectual endeavours and espoused a basic feature of the philosophical exegesis of his master, namely his concordism regarding the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, as is evident in Damascius’ surviving work on Plato and his (fragmentarily preserved) treatise On Time. Damascius’ downgrading of Ammonius came about rather as a disappointment, which is however by no means fully justified.","PeriodicalId":513117,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"67 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140461041","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-25DOI: 10.1163/18725473-12341556
John Dillon
{"title":"The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson & James Wilberding","authors":"John Dillon","doi":"10.1163/18725473-12341556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725473-12341556","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":513117,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"13 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139597754","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-22DOI: 10.1163/18725473-12341557
Péter Lautner
{"title":"World-Soul across the Ages","authors":"Péter Lautner","doi":"10.1163/18725473-12341557","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18725473-12341557","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":513117,"journal":{"name":"The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition","volume":"37 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139523155","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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