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تاريخ التسجيل : 26/10/2009
وســــــــــام النشــــــــــــــاط : 6
 | |  Ethics | |
As human beings we are, with our bodies, part of the material world; but importantly, we are living organisms that can place ourselves in opposition to the needs and concerns of the body and reflect upon our own condition. Nothing just material would be able do that, according to the Neoplatonists, and therefore we have what the ancients called a “soul”. Moreover, our souls operate on a level of consciousness and intelligence that surpasses the cognition of all other creatures. Finally, just as everything else that has being, we are individual units and participate, again, as the Neoplatonists would express it, in the form of Unity.Looked at from this point of view, human existence is a striking representation of the cosmos as a whole, a microcosm in which all levels of being (Unity, Consciousness, Soul, Nature, Matter) are combined into one organic individual. The Neoplatonists took this to be a clear indication that we, just like the entire cosmic edifice, “came from above”. A human being is therefore in the first instance not a social or political being, but a divine being, and life’s purpose was seen not so much in the exercise and rehearsal of the traditional virtues that give meaning and quality to our interaction with others, but in seeking “to bring back the god in us to the divine in the All”, as Plotinus pressed upon his followers on the very point of his death (Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 2).Neoplatonic ethics recognizes the social importance and value of the so-called cardinal virtues (justice, prudence, temperance, and courage), but the virtues’ main function lies in purifying and preparing us for a much more momentous individual relationship, that with divine Consciousness and, ultimately, the first principle itself. Necessarily, then, the moral precepts of the Neoplatonists concern the individual person, the goal being not the mundane fulfillment of life within the bounds of what is humanly possible, but nothing less than eudaimonia in its most expansive sense, deification. Unsurprisingly, the route to salvation turned out to be the philosophic life, a sincere and arduous effort of the mind to return to the One and forever abrogate any concerns for the body. It was on this basis that the Neoplatonists would most vehemently protest against the latter-day Christian dogma that human salvation has already been accomplished vicariously through the life and death of a man revered as the son of god.7. Later Developments in AntiquityAt a time when the considered wisdom of Greece and Rome came under increasing pressure to re-articulate its commitments in the face of waves of novel movements that lay claim to revelatory truth, the Neoplatonists too strove to refine their teachings and to delineate the metaphysical architecture of the world as they saw it. No longer would it suffice to hold forth on philosophical issues, as Plato, Cicero, and to some extent Plotinus had done, in a serious yet exploratory and protreptic spirit. In order to be heard in an increasingly competitive marketplace of ideas teeming with holy men of every kind and temperament, views had to be laid out clearly and in systematic fashion. In some of its later manifestations, like Stoicism and Epicureanism before it, Neoplatonism drifted towards scholasticism and reveled in dogmatic system building.Along the way, all kinds of refinements and modifications of nomenclature were introduced. Distinctions were drawn up within the hypostases of Consciousness and Soul in order to try to articulate the transitions from one level of Being to another. An entire industry of teaching and commenting sprang up to interpret a millennium of Hellenic philosophy in the light of the core commitments of Neoplatonism. Certain philosophic predecessors were elevated to the status of nearly infallible authorities, and the texts of Plato and Aristotle were comprehensively read, diligently analyzed, and ruthlessly harmonized. Finally, in an effort to stem the rising tide of all kinds of new salvation-peddling cults then inundating the Roman Empire, the ancient religious traditions of the Greeks and especially the Egyptians were brought into the fold and given new significance and meaning. But after the untimely death of Emperor Julian (363), a Neoplatonist himself, none of these efforts could any longer withstand the tidal wave of Christendom.The most vigorous group of Neoplatonists, living in Athens and still adhering to the old rituals, disbanded in the aftermath of Emperor Justinian’s legislation of 529, which resulted in the closing of the Platonist academy. Hellenic philosophy and the teaching of its attendant disciplines went on in Alexandria and Constantinople until the end of the 6th century, but were now being taught by people who had either embraced or otherwise come to terms with the new religion. The Arab conquest in the 7th century obliterated and appropriated in equal measure, but the real revival of Neoplatonism occurred when humanists made the treasures of late antique Greece available to the Renaissance intelligentsia of Italy, France, and Germany. | |
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