Neoplatonism

The term “Neoplatonism” refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3rd to the middle of the 7th century. In consequence of the demise of ancient materialist or corporealist thought such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, Neoplatonism became the dominant philosophical ideology of the period, offering a comprehensive understanding of the universe and the individual human being’s place in it. However, in contrast to labels such as “Stoic”, “Peripatetic” or “Platonic”, the designation “Neoplatonic” is of modern coinage and to some extent a misnomer. Late antique philosophers now counted among “the Neoplatonists” did not think of themselves as engaged in some sort of effort specifically to revive the spirit and the letter of Plato’s dialogues. To be sure, they did call themselves “Platonists” and held Plato’s views, which they understood as a positive system of philosophical doctrine, in higher esteem than the tenets of the pre-Socratics, Aristotle, or any other subsequent thinker. However, and more importantly, their signature project is more accurately described as a grand synthesis of an intellectual heritage that was by then exceedingly rich and profound. In effect, they absorbed, appropriated, and creatively harmonized almost the entire Hellenic tradition of philosophy, religion, and even literature—with the exceptions of Epicureanism, which they roundly rejected, and the thoroughgoing corporealism of the Stoics. The result of this effort was a grandiose and powerfully persuasive system of thought that reflected upon a millennium of intellectual culture and brought the scientific and moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the ethics of the Stoics into fruitful dialogue with literature, myth, and religious practice. In virtue of their inherent respect for the writings of many of their predecessors, the Neoplatonists together offered a kind of meta-discourse and reflection on the sum-total of ideas produced over centuries of sustained inquiry into the human condition.
As a natural consequence of their insistence on the undiminished relevance of the past, the Neoplatonists developed their characteristically speculative brand of philosophical enquiry in which empirical facts tended to serve as illustrations rather than heuristic starting points or test cases. Today, the Neoplatonic system may strike one as lofty, counterintuitive, and implausible, but to dismiss it out of hand is difficult, especially if one is prepared to take seriously a few fundamental assumptions that are at least not obviously wrong and may possibly be right.
The most fundamental of these assumptions, which the Neoplatonists shared with the majority of intellectuals of the ancient world, including most pre-Socratic thinkers as well as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and their followers, is that mindful consciousness (nous, often translated as thought, intelligence, or intellect) is in an important sense ontologically prior to the physical realm typically taken for ultimate reality (Mind over Matter). There existed a dispute between Plato and Aristotle over whether or not the objects of mindful consciousness (abstract concepts, Platonic or otherwise, numbers, geometrical properties, and so forth) are also ontologically prior, but the Neoplatonists regarded this fact as a matter of inconsequential detail. And so, following a venerable and abiding tradition of Mind over Matter, Neoplatonism inevitably turned out to be an idealist type of philosophy.
The second assumption, which the Neoplatonists shared with the Stoics and the Hermetists (an influential group of Egyptian religious thinkers that predate the rise of Neoplatonism), was that reality, in all its cognitive and physical manifestations, depended on a highest principle which is unitary and singular. Neoplatonic philosophy is a strict form of principle-monism that strives to understand everything on the basis of a single cause that they considered divine, and indiscriminately referred to as “the First”, “the One”, or “the Good”. Since it is reasonable to assume, as the Neoplatonists did, that any efficient cause is ontologically prior to, and hence more real, than its effect, then, in the hierarchy of being, the first principle, whatever it is, cannot be less “real” than the phenomena it is supposed to explain. Given the veracity of the first assumption (the ontological priority of intelligence and consciousness), it follows at once that the first principle must be a principle of consciousness. In consequence, the fundamental challenge all Neoplatonists struggled to meet was essentially the following: How are we to understand and describe the emergence of the universe, with all its diverse phenomena, as the effect of a singular principle of consciousness? In particular—and in this regard Neoplatonism shares certain concerns with modern cosmology—how is it possible to understand the emergence of the physical, material universe from a singularity that is in every sense unlike this universe? Their answer to this question was entirely new, and went far beyond any prior cosmic aetiology, including that of Plato’s Timaeus, in elegance and sophistication.

[size=30]1. Historical Orientation: Antiquity

Rightly or wrongly, the Egyptian-born Plotinus (204/5–270) is commonly regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. He was a pupil of the Alexandrian philosopher Ammonius Saccas (3ndcentury), who reportedly did not publish anything and remains one of the most enigmatic philosophers of all antiquity. Around 245, at the age of 40, Plotinus moved from Alexandria to Rome and founded a school of philosophy there. At first, his instruction too was entirely oral, until his most talented pupil, Porphyry, persuaded him to commit his seminars to the page. After Plotinus’ death, Porphyry edited and published these writings, having arranged them in a collection of six books consisting of nine essays each (the so-called “Enneads” or “nines”).
By any standard of intellectual prowess, Plotinus is one of the intellectual giants of antiquity, on a par with the likes of Plato, Aristotle, and Chrysippus, even if modernity is still hesitant to accord him such an exalted status. As in the case of his preeminent precursors, Plotinus’ philosophical system combines innovation with tradition. The question of precisely which predecessors inspired him is still unclear and in need of further investigation. Carefully selected passages from Plato’s dialogues and Aristotle’s Metaphysics often serve him as starting points for his own speculations; Stoic ethics is very much in evidence, as are the views of the Peripatetic philosopher Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd-3rd centuries). A general intellectual background is provided by the so-called Middle Platonists, above all Numenius of Apamea (2nd century). Moreover, it is not impossible that Gnosticism (which Plotinus vehemently opposed) as well as the writings circulating under the name of Hermes Trismegistus confirmed or even informed his metaphysical monism. Lastly, Plotinus may have been well aware of the rise of Christianity, but if so, he was not as alarmed by it as his pupil Porphyry.
In the course of its history in late antiquity, Neoplatonism proved to be adaptable, fluid and dynamic, much more so than the system of the Stoics, the dominant philosophy during Hellenistic times. It appealed to the mundane literati as much as to the religious zealot, to the die-hard pagan as much as to the up-start Christian who needed a philosophical background to parse the theological fine points which would eventually distinguish the orthodox from the heretic. Important figures of late antique Neoplatonism were the already mentioned pupil of Plotinus, Porphyry, his pupil Iamblichus, Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus, Proclus, Simplicius, Damascius, Ammonius Hermeiou, John Philoponus, Olympiodorus, and Stephanus of Alexandria, to name but the most important. All of them, in different and fascinating ways, contributed to the development and internal diversification of the school’s doctrines. (Some of these philosophers have their own entries in this encyclopedia; see the Related Entries section below.)
Importantly, the new direction Plotinus, and presumably Ammonius Saccas before him, had given to Greek philosophy gradually acquired traction among the Greco-Roman elites. Ironically, it may have contributed to the acceptance of Christianity among the educated, thereby elevating the religious sentiments of the empire’s misfits and downtrodden to the ideology of a political system sanctified by the will of god. Evidence for the increasing Neoplatonization of Christianity is abundant: The brilliant Christian theologian Origen, some twenty years older than Plotinus, may also have been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas; the Cappadocian Fathers Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus spent their youth in philosophical study in Athens in the 4th century, where they most certainly were exposed to Neoplatonism, while Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was intimately familiar with the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry. The cut-throat debates about transubstantiation (in the Eucharist), the hypostases of the Trinity, or the divine/human nature of Christ, could not even be followed without a thorough training in current Greek philosophical discourse. By the end of the 5th century, the audience in the philosophical classrooms in Alexandria was predominantly Christian, and Neoplatonism continued to be taught in some form or other in Athens, Alexandria, Constantinople, Baghdad, Mistra, and other pockets of learning until its triumphant revival in Renaissance Italy.[/size]

Neoplatonism

[size=30]1. Historical Orientation: Antiquity

Neoplatonism :: تعاليق

Neoplatonism