Plutarch’s Cosmological Ethics

Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 45-120 CE) is the most prolific and influential moral philosopher in the Platonic tradition. This book is a fundamental reappraisal of Plutarch’s ethical thought. It shows how Plutarch based his ethics on his particular interpretation of Plato’s cosmology: our quest for the good life should start by considering the good cosmos in which we live. The practical consequences of this cosmological foundation permeate various domains of Greco-Roman life: the musician, the organiser of a drinking party, and the politician should all be guided by cosmology. After exploring these domains, this book offers in-depth interpretations of two works which can only be fully understood by paying attention to cosmological aspects: 'Dialogue on Love' and 'On Tranquillity of Mind'.

Moral Virtue as a Requisite for Illumination in the Platonic Tradition

This paper traces the development of the idea that we must cultivate moral virtue in order to attain some degree of illumination regarding the nature of reality. I use the term “illumination” to cover a range of meanings intended by the philosophers I discuss, such as the “acquisition of wisdom” (Phaedo, 65a), the “sight” of divine beauty (Symposium, 210d–212b), or a mystical experience involving God or divine reality. Although this theme appears in many texts from the Platonic tradition, I focus on three major stages of its development. First, I show how Plato provides the basic framework of the idea that moral virtue is necessary for illumination, especially in his Phaedo and Symposium. Then, I explain how Plotinus synthesizes and substantially develops Plato’s discussions of this idea. Finally, I discuss the Cappadocian Fathers’ (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory Nazianzen) Christianization of this Platonic theme. In other words, Plotinus develops the basic framework of this argument first set forth by Plato, and the Cappadocians then adapt and modify Plotinus’ views to fit their Christian commitments.

Schatten des Lichts

Shadows of Light. Giordano Bruno’s Promethean Dialectic This article examines the status of shadows, in particular in Giordano Bruno’s ars memorativa. As ›traces of light‹, shadows not only embody the universal substrate of an infinitely extended material universe, but human action, thought and communication also necessarily depend on the medium of the shadow. Bruno’s mnemonics teaches the targeted, deliberately steered – if not even deceitful – handling of the shadows. In contrast to the Platonic tradition, he ascribes shadows a status that is independent of Platonic ideas. This article argues that Bruno thus develops out of a Platonic dialectic a specifically Promethean poetics, a universal art of the shadow. This, in turn, enables the embodied individual to shift the boundaries of knowledge and to arrange the things of this world.

Being Alive, Living a Life. The Unity of the Concept of Life in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

The writings of Corpus Dionysiacum present a concept of life which is different from the one that we profess nowadays. Its view is backed up mainly by the Platonic tradition, which since the times of Plato has tended to see life as an intellectual principle. Therefore, in the Neoplatonic system we can find the conviction that life, in its fullest sense, is intellectual and at its peak is a vision of the One. In the system of Proclus, life, apart from being a principle, is also a god and the main principle of the whole world of intellectual and intellective gods. Pseudo-Dionysius in his writings exploits the concept of the unparticipable and participable principle, and since God is for him Trinity completely beyond participation and knowledge, the divine names play the role of participable henads. However, for Dionysius, names are neither hypostases nor living gods, which is clearly visible in case of the name of Life. All things participate in the name of life and in this name God is the only principle of life in the universe. However, life is not a property to own, but rather a constant struggle to approach the Trinity. Therefore, by committing a sin, an angel or a man loses life, which in the case of a man can be regained through sacramental activity. An analysis of the thoughts of Pseudo-Dionysius reveals a conception of life which is unified contrary to its shattered modern understanding. While biological, mental, moral lives fundamentally differ for us, for Dionysius those are merely aspects of the same thing, and therefore in his view life can be lost and regained not only in the metaphorical, but also the ontological sense.

The Union of Substances

In this chapter, on Human Nature 2–5, Nemesius denies that the soul is a body, a harmony, a mixture, or a quality. His cosmopolitan anthropology rests on the conviction that the human soul is an incorporeal and immortal substance. Yet this creates two acute problems for the bishop. First, how is an incorporeal soul united to a body? And second, is it possible for an immortal soul to be united to a non-human body? In settling the first question, Nemesius draws on both Plato and Galen. ‘The body is an instrument of the soul’, he writes. This is a concept which underlies his physiology and psychology. In his handling of the second question, though, Nemesius uses Galen’s medical philosophy to refute Platonic theories of reincarnation. This is a far-reaching decision: it means that Nemesius’ idea of human nature, as such—as an idea—diverges from much of the Platonic tradition in late antiquity.

The World Soul in the Platonic Tradition

This chapter explores Plato’s concept of the world soul and the ways in which the concept was developed by subsequent Platonists over the following millennium. In section 1.1, Plato’s arguments for the existence of the world soul are explored, and some of the tensions and puzzles in Plato’s account(s) are set out. Sections 1.2 and 1.3 examine two different approaches to coming to terms with these tensions, both of which involve moving away from the notion of a single monolithic world soul. Whereas Platonists such as Plutarch of Chaeronea developed a more dualistic conception of the world soul that envisioned a primitive, irrational, and evil soul giving way to the rational cosmic soul (section 1.2), Plotinus proposed a stratified conception of the world soul, with each subsequent stratum engaged in a more derivative form of contemplation than its upper neighbor and involved in a more direct form of administration of the world (section 1.3).

‘It's all in Plato’: Platonism, Cambridge Platonism, and C.S. Lewis

In 1924 C.S. Lewis began work on a doctoral dissertation, the subject of which was to be the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614–1687). A number of scholars gloss this important moment in Lewis's intellectual and spiritual journey, and some offer penetrating, if cursory, analysis of how Lewis's close reading of More would have helped to shape the young scholar's philosophical and theological imagination. These important contributions notwithstanding, the influence of More and, by extension, the Platonic tradition longue durée are not properly understood in Lewis scholarship. This article argues that Cambridge Platonism and Henry More in particular were a crucial part of Lewis's initiation into, and appropriation of, the Platonic tradition. The tradition of Platonism to which the Cambridge Platonists introduced Lewis shaped the way he thought about a number of topics central to his own moral, philosophical, and religious outlook, including the relationship between the moral and the numinous, and imagination and reality, but also pneumatology, angelology, and his understanding of the supernatural, miracles, prophetic wisdom, and, especially, the nature of love.