Plotinus the Platonist

Plotinus the Platonist PDF Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472575237
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
In this insightful new book David J. Yount argues, against received wisdom, that there are no essential differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus. Yount covers the core principles of Plotinian thought: The One or Good, Intellect, and All-Soul (the Three Hypostases), Beauty, God(s), Forms, Emanation, Matter, and Evil. After addressing the interpretive issues that surround the authenticity of Plato's works, Plotinus: The Platonist deftly argues against the commonly held view that Plotinus is best interpreted as a Neo-Platonist, proposing he should be thought of as a Platonist proper. Yount presents thorough explanations and quotations from the works of each classical philosopher to demonstrate his thesis, concluding comprehensively that Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on their metaphysical conceptions. This is an ideal text for Plato and Plotinus scholars and academics, and excellent supplementary reading for upper-level undergraduates students and postgraduate students of ancient philosophy.

Plotinus the Platonist

Plotinus the Platonist PDF Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472575237
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
In this insightful new book David J. Yount argues, against received wisdom, that there are no essential differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus. Yount covers the core principles of Plotinian thought: The One or Good, Intellect, and All-Soul (the Three Hypostases), Beauty, God(s), Forms, Emanation, Matter, and Evil. After addressing the interpretive issues that surround the authenticity of Plato's works, Plotinus: The Platonist deftly argues against the commonly held view that Plotinus is best interpreted as a Neo-Platonist, proposing he should be thought of as a Platonist proper. Yount presents thorough explanations and quotations from the works of each classical philosopher to demonstrate his thesis, concluding comprehensively that Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on their metaphysical conceptions. This is an ideal text for Plato and Plotinus scholars and academics, and excellent supplementary reading for upper-level undergraduates students and postgraduate students of ancient philosophy.

Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics

Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics PDF Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474298443
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
This book argues against the common view that there are no essential differences between Plato and the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus, on the issues of mysticism, epistemology, and ethics. Beginning by examining the ways in which Plato and Plotinus claim that it is possible to have an ultimate experience that answers the most significant philosophical questions, David J. Yount provides an extended analysis of why we should interpret both philosophers as mystics. The book then moves on to demonstrate that both philosophers share a belief in non-discursive knowledge and the methods to attain it, including dialectic and recollection, and shows that they do not essentially differ on any significant views on ethics. Making extensive use of primary and secondary sources, Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology and Ethics shows the similarities between the thought of these two philosophers on a variety of philosophical questions, such as meditation, divination, wisdom, knowledge, truth, happiness and love.

From Plato to Platonism

From Plato to Platonism PDF Author: Lloyd P. Gerson
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801469171
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 360

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Book Description
Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients are correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism." Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

Plotinus the Platonist

Plotinus the Platonist PDF Author: David J. Yount
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472575229
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

Get Book

Book Description
In this insightful new book David J. Yount argues, against received wisdom, that there are no essential differences between the metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus. Yount covers the core principles of Plotinian thought: The One or Good, Intellect, and All-Soul (the Three Hypostases), Beauty, God(s), Forms, Emanation, Matter, and Evil. After addressing the interpretive issues that surround the authenticity of Plato's works, Plotinus: The Platonist deftly argues against the commonly held view that Plotinus is best interpreted as a Neo-Platonist, proposing he should be thought of as a Platonist proper. Yount presents thorough explanations and quotations from the works of each classical philosopher to demonstrate his thesis, concluding comprehensively that Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on their metaphysical conceptions. This is an ideal text for Plato and Plotinus scholars and academics, and excellent supplementary reading for upper-level undergraduates students and postgraduate students of ancient philosophy.

Plotinus on Number

Plotinus on Number PDF Author: Svetla Slaveva-Griffin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199703744
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Plotinus on Number studies the fundamental role which number plays in the architecture of the universe in Neoplatonic philosophy. This book draws attention to Platinus' concept as a necesscary and fundamental link between the Platonic and the late Neoplatonic theories of number.

The Essence of Plotinus

The Essence of Plotinus PDF Author: * Plotinus
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1556356145
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description


Plotinus' Legacy

Plotinus' Legacy PDF Author: Stephen Gersh
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Using a series of case-studies from across European philosophical traditions, this book traces the influence of Neoplatonism over the centuries.

Philosophic Silence and the ‘One' in Plotinus

Philosophic Silence and the ‘One' in Plotinus PDF Author: Nicholas Banner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108688748
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Plotinus, the greatest philosopher of Late Antiquity, discusses at length a first principle of reality - the One - which, he tells us, cannot be expressed in words or grasped in thought. How and why, then, does Plotinus write about it at all? This book explores this act of writing the unwritable. Seeking to explain what seems to be an insoluble paradox in the very practice of late Platonist writing, it examines not only the philosophical concerns involved, but the cultural and rhetorical aspects of the question. The discussion outlines an ancient practice of ‛philosophical silence' which determined the themes and tropes of public secrecy appropriate to Late Platonist philosophy. Through philosophic silence, public secrecy and silence flow into one another, and the unsaid space of the text becomes an initiatory secret. Understanding this mode of discourse allows us to resolve many apparent contradictions in Plotinus' thought.

The Essential Plotinus

The Essential Plotinus PDF Author: Plotinus
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780915144099
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
'The Essential Plotinus is a lifesaver. For many years my students in Greek and Roman Religion have depended on it to understand the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages. The translation is crisp and clear, and the excerpts are just right for an introduction to Plotionus's many-layered view of the world and humankind's place in it' - F. E. Romer, University of Arizona

Eros and Psyche

Eros and Psyche PDF Author: John M. Rist
Publisher: University of Toronto Press c1964.
ISBN:
Category : Erōs (The Greek word)
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
"This study makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the development of ancient Platonism and of the influence of Greek philosophy on Christian thought. The author examines a number of themes such as Eros, Virtue and Knowledge in the writings of Plato himself, and shows that, in our interpretation of them, we must recognize certain latent contradictions; his successors, however, attempted not always successfully, to form a synthesis of Platonic theory based on the genuinely Platonic motif of the attaining of likeness to God. The author demonstrates that Plato's thought contained within itself unresolved, but philosophically fruitful divergences of opinion on the highest topics: the Good, the nature of love, the aim of the life of virtue. The author suggests that the unity of Plato's thought consists only in certain general beliefs, such as that there are supra-sensible realities and that some aspect of the human soul is immortal. He protests, in passing, against those who look on Plato as the author of a series of tracts: one on the Theory of Forms, one on Aesthetics, another on Statesmanship, and so on." -- Book jacket.