Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism (also
Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of
philosophy that took shape in the
3rd century AD, based on the teachings of
Plato and earlier
Platonists. Neoplatonists considered themselves simply "Platonists", and the modern distinction is due to the perception that their philosophy contained enough unique interpretations of Plato to make it substantively different from what Plato wrote and believed.
Neoplatonism took definitive shape with the philosopher
Plotinus, who claimed to have received his teachings from
Ammonius Saccas, a dock worker and philosopher in
Alexandria. Plotinus's student
Porphyry assembled his teachings into the six
Enneads.
Subsequent Neoplatonic philosophers included
Hypatia of Alexandria,
Iamblichus,
Proclus,
Hierocles of Alexandria,
Simplicius of Cilicia, and
Damascius, who wrote
On First Principles. Born in
Damascus, he was the last teacher of Neoplatonism at
Athens. Neoplatonism strongly influenced Christian thinkers (such as
Augustine,
Boethius,
Pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus
Eriugena, and
Bonaventura). Neoplatonism was also present in medieval Islamic and Jewish thinkers such as
al-Farabi and
Maimonides, and experienced a revival in the Renaissance with the acquisition and translation of Greek and Arabic Neoplatonic texts.
Neoplatonism is a form of
idealistic monism and
Polytheism. Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and
transcendent One, from which
emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially
Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate gods, angels and demons, and other beings as emanations between the One and humanity.
Neoplatonists believed human perfection and happiness were attainable in this world, without awaiting an
afterlife. Perfection and happiness— seen as synonymous— could be achieved through philosophical
contemplation.
They did not believe in an independent existence of
evil. They compared it to darkness, which does not exist in itself, but only as the absence of light. So too, evil is simply the absence of good. Things are good insofar as they exist. They are evil only insofar as they are imperfect, lacking some good that they should have. It is also a cornerstone of Neoplatonism to teach that all people return to the Source. The Source, Absolute or One, is what all things spring from and as a superconsciousness is where all things return. It can be said that all consciousness is wiped clean and returned to a
blank slate when returning to the source.
Ideas of Neoplatonism such as evil as the privation of good influenced
Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo, upon learning about it, to abandon
dualistic Manichaeism and convert to Christianity. When, three or four years after his
387 baptism, he wrote his treatise
On True Religion, he was still thinking of
Christianity in Neoplatonic terms. However, after he was ordained priest and bishop and had acquired greater familiarity with
Scripture, he noted contradictions between Neoplatonism and Christianity.
Nevertheless, many Christians were influenced by Neoplatonism. They identified the One as
God. The most important and influential of them was the fifth century author known as
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. His works were significant for both
Eastern Orthodox and Western branches of Christiantiy.
John Scotus's ninth century
Latin translation of the writing of pseudo-Dionysius was widely studied during the
Middle Ages. Neoplatonism also had links with the belief systems known as
Gnosticism. Plotinus, however, rebuked Gnosticism in the ninth tractate of the second
Enneads: "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of The Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself to Be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against The Gnostics"). Being grounded in platonic thought, the Neoplatonists would have rejected the gnostic vilification of Plato's
demiurge, a deity discussed in
Timaeus.
In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonist ideas influenced the thinking of Jewish
Kabbalists, such as
Isaac the Blind. However, the Kabbalists modified Neoplatonism according to their own monotheistic belief. A famous Jewish Neoplatonic philosopher from the early Middle Ages was
Solomon ibn Gabirol. During this period, Neoplatonist ideas also influenced
Islamic and
Sufi thinkers such as
al Farabi and through him
Avicenna.
Neoplatonism survived in the Eastern Christian Church as an independent tradition and was reintroduced to the west by
Plethon.
In western Europe, Neoplatonism was revived in the
Italian Renaissance by figures such as
Marsilio Ficino, the
Medici and
Sandro Botticelli.
Thomas Taylor, "The English Platonist", wrote extensively on Platonism and translated almost the entire Platonic and Plotinian corpora into English.
In the essay "Inner and Outer Realities: Jean Gebser in a Cultural/Historical Perspective",
Integral philosopher Allan Combs claims that ten modern thinkers can be called Neo-Platonists:
Goethe,
Schiller,
Schelling,
Hegel,
Coleridge,
Emerson,
Rudolf Steiner,
Carl Jung,
Jean Gebser and the modern theorist
Brian Goodwin. He sees these thinkers as participating in a tradition that can be distinguished from the
empiricist,
rationalist,
dualist and
materialist Western philosophical traditions[
1].
As Plotinus claimed that, since the academy and Plato taught via dialectical interaction between student and teacher, his works were the writing down of a long oral tradition. This remark has been given renewed attention due to some scholars calling into question
The Anonymous Commentary on Plato's 'Parmenides' as being authored after Plotinus by his student
Porphyry. It has recently been presented that the text is pre-Plotinian and pre-Porphyryian in origin by
Kevin Corrigan of the University of Saskatchewan and this conclusion is supported by Professor
John D Turner. This text contains a great many ideas that have been attributed to Plotinus and his students exclusively. If the text was pre Plotinus then much of what is considered Neoplatonic would indeed be pre Plotinus.
*
Ammonius Saccas*
Plotinus*
Porphyry*
Numenius of Apamea*
Proclus*
Iamblichus* Ruelle, an edition of
On First Principles, (Paris, 1889)
* Whittaker,
The Neo-Platonists, (Cambridge, 1901)
* Cambridge Companion to Plotinus. Ed. L.P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)
* Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings. Trans. and ed. by John Dillon and Lloyd P. Gerson, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2004)
*
International Society for Neoplatonic Studies*
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Neoplatonism*
The Neoplatonic Church
