Neoplatonism

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Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. The term was first coined by Thomas Taylor,^[1] in his translation of Plotinus' Enneads. Taylor was the first to translate Plotinus' works into English.^[2] Neoplatonists would have 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. The Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Porphyry has been referred to as really being orthodox (neo)Platonic philosophy by scholars like Professor John D. Turner. This distinction provides a contrast with later movements of Neoplatonism, such as those of Iamblichus and Proclus. Movements which embraced magical practices or theurgy as part of the soul's development in the process of the soul's return to the Source. This could also be due to one possible motive of Plotinus, being to clarify some of the traditions in the teachings of Plato that had been misrepresented before Iamblichus (see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism).

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.^[3] Plotinus was also influenced by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Numenius of Apamea. 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.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Platonism and Neoplatonism 3 Teachings 3.1 The One 3.2 Nous 3.3 The world-soul 3.4 The phenomenal world 3.5 Practice 3.6 Celestial hierarchy 3.7 Salvation 4 Neoplatonist philosophers 4.1 Ammonius Saccas 4.2 Plotinus 4.3 Porphyry 4.4 Iamblichus 4.5 Proclus 4.6 Emperor Julian 4.7 Simplicius 4.8 Gemistus Pletho 5 Early Christian and Medieval Neoplatonism 6 Renaissance Neoplatonism 7 Cambridge Platonists 8 Modern Neoplatonism 9 See also 10 Further reading 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Origins

The most important forerunners of Neoplatonism, are the Middle Platonists, such as Plutarch, and the Neopythagoreans, especially Numenius of Apamea. We also see a forerunner of Neoplatonism in Philo who translated Judaism into the terms of Stoic, Platonic and Neopythagorean elements, and held that God is "supra rational," who can be reached only through "ecstasy", and that the oracles of God supply the material of moral and religious knowledge. The earliest Christian philosophers, such as Justin and Athenagoras, who attempted to connect Christianity with Platonism, and the Christian Gnostics of Alexandria, especially Valentinus and the followers of Basilides, also anticipated elements of Neoplatonism, albeit without its rigorous self-consistency. There is, however, no evidence in Plotinus for any actual influence of Jewish and Christian philosophy, and undoubtably, Alexandria, where Neoplatonism originated, was bathed in eastern methods of worship which were accessible to everyone. It is only the later Neoplatonism, from Iamblichus onwards, that offers striking and deep-rooted parallels to Philo and the Gnostics.

[edit] Platonism and Neoplatonism

The philosophers called Neoplatonists did not found a school as much as attempt to preserve the teachings of Plato. They regarded themselves as Platonists, pure and simple. The concept of the One was not as clearly defined in Plato's Timaeus (the good above the demiurge) as it later was by Plotinus' Enneads. The afterlife as defined by Socrates in Phaedo is also different than the afterlife of the person or soul in the Enneads. The soul returns to the Monad or One in the Plotinus' works, whereas in Phaedo there are different afterlifes: one could be re-incarnated, one could receive punishment, or one could go to Hades to be with the heroes of old (Socrates' ideal afterlife for philosophers).

[edit] Teachings

Neoplatonism is generally a religious philosophy. Neoplatonism is a form of idealistic monism (also called theistic monism) and combines elements of Polytheism (see Monistic-polytheism).

Although the founder of Neoplatonism is supposed to have been Ammonius Saccas, the Enneads of his pupil Plotinus are the primary and classical document of Neoplatonism. As a form of mysticism, it contains theoretical and practical parts, the first dealing with the high origin of the human soul showing how it has departed from its first estate, and the second showing the way by which the soul may again return to the Eternal and Supreme. The system can be divided between the invisible world and the phenomenal world, the former containing the transcendent One from which emanates an eternal, perfect, essence (nous), which, in turn, produces the world-soul.

[edit] The One

The primeval Being is the One and the Infinite, as opposed to the many and the finite. It is the source of all life, and therefore absolute causality and the only real existence. It is, moreover, the Good, in so far as all finite things have their purpose in it, and ought to flow back to it. But one cannot attach moral attributes to the original Being itself, because these would imply limitation. It has no attributes of any kind; it is being without magnitude, without life, without thought; in strict propriety, indeed, we ought not to speak of it as existing; it is "above existence," "above goodness." It is also active force without a substratum; as active force the primeval Being is perpetually producing something else, without alteration, or motion, or diminution of itself. This production is not a physical process, but an emission of force; and, since the product has real existence only in virtue of the original existence working in it, Neoplatonism may be described as a species of dynamic pantheism. Directly or indirectly, everything is brought forth by the "One." In it all things, so far as they have being, are divine, and God is all in all. Derived existence, however, is not like the original Being itself, but is subject to a law of diminishing completeness. It is indeed an image and reflection of the first Being; but the further the line of successive projections is prolonged the smaller is its share in the true existence. The totality of being may thus be conceived as a series of concentric circles, fading away towards the verge of non-existence, the force of the original Being in the outermost circle being a vanishing quantity. Each lower stage of being is united with the "One" by all the higher stages, and receives its share of reality only by transmission through them. All derived existence, however, has a drift towards, a longing for, the higher, and bends towards it so far as its nature will permit.

[edit] Nous

The original Being first of all throws out the nous, which is a perfect image of the One and the archetype of all existing things. It is at once being and thought, ideal world and idea. As image, the nous corresponds perfectly to the One, but as derived it is entirely different. What Plotinus understands by the nous is the highest sphere accessible to the human mind, and, along with that, pure thought itself.

[edit] The world-soul

The image and product of the motionless nous is the world-soul, which, according to Plotinus, is, like the nous, immaterial. Its relation to the nous is the same as that of the nous to the One. It stands between the nous and the phenomenal world, is permeated and illuminated by the former, but is also in contact with the latter. The nous is indivisible; the world-soul may preserve its unity and remain in the nous, but at the same time it has the power of uniting with the corporeal world and thus being disintegrated. It therefore occupies an intermediate position. As a single world-soul it belongs in essence and destination to the intelligible world; but it also embraces innumerable individual souls; and these can either submit to be ruled by the nous, or turn aside to the sensual and lose themselves in the finite.

[edit] The phenomenal world

The soul, as a moving essence, generates the corporeal or phenomenal world. This world ought to be so pervaded by the soul that its various parts should remain in perfect harmony. Plotinus is no dualist, like the Christian Gnostics; he admires the beauty and splendor of the world. So long as idea governs matter, or the soul governs the body, the world is fair and good. It is an image - though a shadowy image - of the upper world, and the degrees of better and worse in it are essential to the harmony of the whole. But in the actual phenomenal world unity and harmony are replaced by strife and discord; the result is a conflict, a becoming and vanishing, an illusive existence. And the reason for this state of things is that bodies rest on a substratum of matter. Matter is the indeterminate: that which has no qualities. Destitute of form and idea, it is evil; as capable of form it is neutral.

The human souls which have descended into corporeality are those which have allowed themselves to be ensnared by sensuality and overpowered by lust. They now seek to cut themselves loose from their true being; and, striving after independence, they assume a false existence. They must turn back from this; and, since they have not lost their freedom, a conversion is still possible.

[edit] Practice

Here, then, we enter upon the practical philosophy. Along the same road by which it descended the soul must retrace its steps back to the supreme Good. It must first of all return to itself. This is accomplished by the practice of virtue, which aims at likeness to God, and leads up to God. In the ethics of Plotinus all the older schemes of virtue are taken over and arranged in a graduated series. The lowest stage is that of the civil virtues, then follow the purifying, and last of all the divine virtues. The civil virtues merely adorn the life, without elevating the soul. That is the office of the purifying virtues, by which the soul is freed from sensuality and led back to itself, and thence to the nous. By means of ascetic observances the human becomes once more a spiritual and enduring being, free from all sin. But there is still a higher attainment; it is not enough to be sinless, one must become "God", (henosis). This is reached through contemplation of the primeval Being, the One - in other words, through an ecstatic approach to it. Thought cannot attain to this, for thought reaches only to the nous, and is itself a kind of motion. It is only in a state of perfect passivity and repose that the soul can recognize and touch the primeval Being. Hence the soul must first pass through a spiritual curriculum. Beginning with the contemplation of corporeal things in their multiplicity and harmony, it then retires upon itself and withdraws into the depths of its own being, rising thence to the nous, the world of ideas. But even there it does not find the Highest, the One; it still hears a voice saying, "not we have made ourselves." The last stage is reached when, in the highest tension and concentration, beholding in silence and utter forgetfulness of all things, it is able as it were to lose itself. Then it may see God, the fountain of life, the source of being, the origin of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the highest indescribable bliss; it is as it were swallowed up of divinity, bathed in the light of eternity. Porphyry tells us that on four occasions during the six years of their intercourse Plotinus attained to this ecstatic union with God.

[edit] Celestial hierarchy

The religious philosophy of Plotinus for himself personally sufficed, without the aid of the popular religion or worship. Nevertheless he sought for points of support in these. God is certainly in the truest sense nothing but the primeval Being who is revealed in a variety of emanations and manifestations. 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 beings such as gods, angels and demons, and other beings as mediators between the One and humanity. The Neoplatonist gods are omni-perfect beings and do not display the usual amoral behaviour associated with their representations in the myths.

• The One

God, The Good. Transcendent and ineffable.

• The Hypercosmic Gods

Those which make Essence, Life and Soul

• The Demiurge

The creator.

• The Cosmic Gods

Those who make Being, Nature, and Matter. These include the gods known to us from classical mythology.

[edit] Salvation

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. All things have force or potential, energy as their essence. This dynamis begets energy (see Pantheism).^[4][5][6] When people return to the Source, their energy returns to the One, Monad, or Source and is then recycled into the cosmos, where it can be broken up and then amalgamated into other things.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Neoplatonist philosophers

[edit] Ammonius Saccas

Ammonius Saccas (birth unknown death ca. 265 AD) is a founder of Neoplatonism and the teacher of Plotinus. Little is known of the teacher other than both Christians (see Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen) and pagans (see Porphyry and Plotinus) claim him a teacher and founder of the Neoplatonic system. Porphyry stated in On the One School of Plato and Aristotle, that Ammonius' view was that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were in harmony. Eusebius and Jerome claimed him as a Christian until his death, whereas Porphyry claimed he had renounced Christianity and embrace pagan philosophy.

[edit] Plotinus

Plotinus (Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (ca. 205–270) was a major Egyptian^[7] philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. While he was himself influenced by the teachings of classical Greek, Persian and Indian philosophy and Egyptian theology,^[8] his metaphysical writings later inspired numerous Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics over the centuries. Plotinus taught that there is a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; likewise it is beyond all categories of being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience, and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects, and therefore is beyond the concepts that we derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing", and cannot be merely the sum of all such things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents".

[edit] Porphyry

Porphyry (Greek: Πορφύριος, c. A.D. 233– c. 309) was a Syrian^[7] Neoplatonist philosopher. He wrote widely on astrology, religion, philosophy, and musical theory. He produced a biography of his teacher, Plotinus. He is important in the history of mathematics because of his Life of Pythagoras, and his commentary on Euclid's Elements which was used by Pappus when he wrote his own commentary. [1] Porphyry is also known as an opponent of Christianity and defender of Paganism; of his Adversus Christianos (Against the Christians) in 15 books, only fragments remain. He famously said, "The gods have proclaimed Christ to have been most pious, but the Christians are a confused and vicious sect."

[edit] Iamblichus

Iamblichus, also known as Iamblichus Chalcidensis, (ca. 245 - ca. 325, Greek: Ιάμβλιχος) was a Syrian^[7] neoplatonist philosopher who determined the direction taken by later Neoplatonic philosophy, and perhaps western philosophical religions themselves. He is perhaps best known for his compendium on Pythagorean philosophy. In Iamblichus' system the realm of divinities stretched from the original One down to material nature itself, where soul in fact descended into matter and became "embodied" as human beings. The world is thus peopled by a crowd of superhuman beings influencing natural events and possessing and communicating knowledge of the future, and who are all accessible to prayers and offerings. Iamblichus had salvation as his final goal (see henosis). The embodied soul was to return to divinity by performing certain rites, or theurgy, literally, 'divine-working'. Some translate this as "magic", but the modern connotations of the term do not exactly match what Iamblichus had in mind, which is more along the lines of religious ritual.

[edit] Proclus

Proclus Lycaeus (February 8, 412 – April 17, 485), surnamed "The Successor" or "diadochos" (Greek Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Greek philosophers (see Damascius). His set forth one of the most elaborate, complex, and fully developed Neoplatonic systems. The particular characteristic of Proclus' system is his insertion of a level of individual ones, called henads between the One itself and the divine Intellect, which is the second principle. The henads are beyond being, like the One itself, but they stand at the head of chains of causation (seirai or taxeis) and in some manner give to these chains their particular character. They are also identified with the traditional Greek gods, so one henad might be Apollo and be the cause of all things apollonian, while another might be Helios and be the cause of all sunny things. The henads serve both to protect the One itself from any hint of multiplicity, and to draw up the rest of the universe towards the One, by being a connecting, intermediate stage between absolute unity and determinate multiplicity.

[edit] Emperor Julian

Julian (born c.331–died June 26, 363), was a Roman Emperor (361–363) of the Constantinian dynasty. He was the last pagan Roman Emperor, and tried to reform traditional Pagan worship by unifying Pagan worship in the Byzantine empire in the form of Neoplatonism developed by Iamblichus. Julian sought to do this after the legalization of Christianity and its widespread success within the Eastern Roman Empire.

[edit] Simplicius

Circa 500AD Simplicius of Cilicia is not known as an original thinker, but his remarks are thoughtful and intelligent and his learning is prodigious. To the student of Greek philosophy his commentaries are invaluable, as they contain many fragments of the older philosophers as well as of his immediate predecessors.

[edit] Gemistus Pletho

Gemistus Pletho (born c. 1355–died 1452) remained the preeminent scholar of Neoplatonic philosophy in the Eastern Roman Empire. He introduced his understanding and insight into the works of Neoplatonism during the failed attempt to reconcile the East-West schism at the council of Florence. At Florence Pletho met Cosimo_de'_Medici and influenced the latter's decision to found a new Platonic Academy there. Cosimo subsequently appointed as head Marsilio Ficino, who proceeded to translate all Plato's works, the Enneads of Plotinus, and various other Neoplatonist works into Latin.

[edit] Early Christian and Medieval Neoplatonism

Main article: Christianity and Neoplatonism

Central tenets of Neoplatonism, such as the absence of good being the source of evil, and that this absence of good comes from human sin, served as a philosophical interim for the Christian theologian Augustine of Hippo on his journey from dualistic Manichaeism to Christianity. When writing his treatise 'On True Religion' several years after his 387 baptism, Augustine's Christianity was still tempered by Neoplatonism, but he eventually decided to abandon Neoplatonism altogether in favor of a Christianity based on his own reading of Scripture.

Many other Christians were influenced by Neoplatonism, especially in their identifying the Neoplatonic One, or God, with Jehovah. The most influential of these would be Origen, the pupil of Ammonius Saccas and the fifth-century author known as Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, (whose works were translated by John Scotus in the 9th century for the west) and proved significant for both the Eastern Orthodox and Western branches of Christianity. Neoplatonism also had links with Gnosticism, which Plotinus rebuked in his ninth tractate of the second Enneads: "Against Those That Affirm The Creator of The Kosmos and The Kosmos Itself to Be Evil" (generally known as "Against The Gnostics").

Due to their belief being grounded in Platonic thought, the Neoplatonists rejected gnosticism's vilification of Plato's demiurge, the creator of the material world or cosmos discussed in the Timaeus. Although Neoplatonism has been referred to as orthodox Platonic philosophy by scholars like Professor John D. Turner, this reference may be due in part to Plotinus' attempt to refute certain interpretations of Platonic philosophy, through his Enneads. Plotinus believed the followers of gnosticism had corrupted the original teachings of Plato.

Despite the influence this 'pagan' philosophy had on Christianity, Justinian I would hurt later Neoplatonism by ordering the closure of the refounded School of Athens.^[9] In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonist ideas influenced Jewish thinkers, such as the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind, and the Jewish Neoplatonic philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, who modified it in the light of their own monotheism. Neoplatonist ideas also influenced Islamic and Sufi thinkers such as al Farabi and Avicenna. Neoplatonism survived in the Eastern Christian Church as an independent tradition and was reintroduced to the west by Plethon.

[edit] Renaissance Neoplatonism

In western Europe, Neoplatonism was revived in the Italian Renaissance by figures such as Nicholas Cusanus, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, the Medici, Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli and later Giordano Bruno. Platonism in the Renaissance was a major force in European cultural life.

[edit] Cambridge Platonists

In the seventeenth century in England, Neoplatonism was fundamental to the school of the Cambridge Platonists, whose luminaries included Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Benjamin Whichcote and John Smith, all graduates of Cambridge University. Coleridge claimed that they were not really Platonists, but "more truly Plotinists": "divine Plotinus", as More called him.

[edit] Modern Neoplatonism

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].

Other notable modern Neoplatonists include Thomas Taylor, "the English Platonist," who wrote extensively on Platonism and translated almost the entire Platonic and Plotinian corpora into English, and the Belgian writer Suzanne Lilar.

The Druze, a religious community found primarily in Lebanon, Israel, and Syria, incorporate neoplatonic concepts into their beliefs. ^[10]

[edit] See also

• Antiochus of Ascalon
• Atticus (c. 175)
• Plutarch of Chaeronea
• Julian the Apostate
• Brethren of Purity
• Henosis
• Origen
• Peripatetics
• Asclepigenia
• Neoplatonism and Gnosticism

[edit] Further reading

• The London Philosophy Study Guide offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject: Post-Aristotelian philosophy
• 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)

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Neoplatonism entry at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Prometheus Trust
• International Society for Neoplatonic Studies
• Christian Platonists and Neoplatonists: Historical and Modern

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

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