Zeyl (Ed. Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy)

Middle Platonism

Middle Platonism (80 B.C.E-c. 250 C.E.). This is the generally accepted term for the Platonism of the period extending from the returning of the Platonic Academy to the dogmatism from various degrees of skepticism, by Antiochus of Ascalon (c. 130-69 B.C.E.) in about 80 B.C.E. to the distinctive developments in doctrine made by *Plotinus in the years following 244 C.E., when he set up his school in Rome. Antiochus claimed to be returning the Academy to its Platonic roots, but in reality he introduced into it a considerable degree of Stoic doctrine, to the extent that it is not clear that he believed in immaterial reality at all. Certainly he operated with a Stoic-style system of an active and passive principle within the universe, taking the demiurge of the Timaeus as representing the Stoic Logos [Holy Spirit] (sic.). He also adopted the Stoic formulation of the purpose of human life as, “living in concordance with Nature.”

However, he certainly inaugurated a trend, developed after his death in a much more transcendentalist mode by Platonists in Alexandria in particular (such as *Eudorus [fl. c. 25 B.C.E.]), which built up a comprehensive body of doctrine, incorporating not only much Stoicism, but also many *Peripatetic formulations (such as the view of God as a mind thinking itself, the doctrine of the “mean” in ethics, and the whole of Aristotelian logic) and a considerable injection of Pythagoreanism, including a strong tendency to number mysticism and a reassertion of the immaterial nature of reality. Eudorus, for instance, postulated a system involving a One superior to a pair of Monad and Dyad, and reformulating the telos, or purpose of life, as the more Platonic one (cf. Tht. 176a-b) of “assimilation to God.” … Distinctive doctrines of the period are, in *metaphysics, the view of God as self-absorbed Intellect, whose thoughts are the Platonic Forms (if this was not already accepted in the Old Academy), this divine intellect being also a perfect unity (the Pythagorean Monad), for which a source was found in the Good of the Republic; a secondary divinity, either a demiurgic figure, derived from the Timaeus, or a version of the Stoic Logos, and a World Soul, also derived from the Timaeus, but owing something also to the Pythagorean Indefinate Dyad. -Zeyl’s Classical Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Platonism, Middle Platonism, p 415-417 Neoplatonism

(i) Plotinus and his School. Plotinus’ innovations in Platonism (developed in his essays, the Enneads, collected and edited by his pupil Porphyry after his death) are mainly two: (a) above the traditional supreme principle of earlier Platonism and (Aristotelianism), a self thinking intellect, which was also regarded as true being, he postulated a thinking intellect, which was also regarded as true being, he postulated a principle superior to intellect and being, totally unitary and simple (“the One”); (b) he saw reality as a series of levels (One, Intellect, Soul), each higher one outflowing or radiating into the next lower, while still remaining unaffected in itself, and the lower ones fixing themselves in being by somehow “reflecting back” upon their priors. This eternal process gives the universe its existence and character. Intellect operates in a sate of non-temporal simultaneity, holding within itself the “Forms” of all things. Soul, in turn, generates *Time and receives the Forms into itself as “reason principles” (logoi). Our physical, three-dimensional world is the result of the lower aspect of soul (“nature”) projecting itself upon a kind of negative field of force, which Plotinus calls *”matter.” Matter has no positive existence, but is simply the receptacle for the unfolding of soul in its lowest aspect, which projects the Forms in three-dimensional space. Plotinus often speaks of matter as “evil” (e.g., Enn. 1.8), and of the soul as suffering a “fall” (e.g., 5.1.1), but in fact he sees the whole cosmic process as an inevitable result of the super-abundant productivity of the One and thus “the best of all possible worlds.”

– p 418 Zeyl’s Classical Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Platonism, Neo-Platonism

The Athenians essentially developed and systemized further the doctrines of Iamblichus, creating new levels of divinity (e.g. intelligible- intellectual gods,and “henads,” or unitary archetypes of Forms, in the realm of the One–though they rejected Iamblichus’ two Ones). This process reached its culmination in the thought of the last head of the Athenian Academy, Damascius (c. 456-540).

The drive to systemize reality, and to objectivize concepts (objectify!) (sic.) concepts, exhibited most dramatically in Proclus’ Elements of Theology but also (though with much acute critical analysis) in Damascius’ De Principiis, is a lasting legacy of the later Neoplatonists and had a significant influence on the thought, among others,of Johannes Scott Eriugena, Nicklaus of Cusa, and Hegel, and on the whole German idealist tradition. – p 419 Zeyls Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy, on Platonism (neo specifically)

Dillon (The Middle Platonists)

Soul as Self Moved Number

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When we speak of the Soul here, the reference is to the cosmic entity, the World Soul, the construction of which is described in Timaeus 35Aff., but which otherwise only appears in Book X of the Laws. Of this entity the human soul is a microcosm. In its role as mediator between the intelligible and physical realms, it is composed of aspects which reflect both what is ‘above’ and what is ‘below’ it. It is properly at the level of soul that the four primal numbers take on the aspect of Point, Line, Plane and Solid. Aristotle tells us (De An. 1 2, 404b16ff.) that Plato constructed the Soul out of these four entities, and made the equation between them and the four modes of cognition, Intuitive Knowledge (nous), Discursive Knowledge (episteme), Opinion (doxa) and Sense-Perception (aisthesis). This fourfould division seems to be alluded to at Laws X (894A), and something like it is being used in the Line Similar of Republic VI, where what may be taken as Mathematicals appear at the second level (there termed dianois), so that this scheme may have been already in Plato’s mind at that stage. Plainly the Soul is designed as the supreme mediating entity, receiving influences from the intelligble realm and passing them on, in modified form–that is to say, ‘extended’ and ‘diversified’ to bring about the creation of the sensible realm. This is the process described, with many mythological flourishes (of which the Demiurge is the chief one), in the Timaeus.

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-p 6 of The Middle Platonists by John Dillon, chapter on “Plato: The Unwritten Doctrines, The old Academy and the Themes of Middle Platonism”

Division

In Logic the evidence points to Plato’s maintaining the system of Division (diairesis), as first outlined in Phaedrus 265Dff., and even elevating it into a cosmogonic principle. It is the soul’s business to bring order out of chaos by making the right ‘divisions’, hitting the right means and harmonies. There is no evidence that Plato himself developed anything as elaborate as the Aristotelian syllogistic and categories (although Aristotle’s ten Categories are only a somewhat scholastic elaboration of the two basic categories of Absolute (Substance) and Relative). Plato seems to have operated with the basic categories of Absolute (kath’ hauto) and Alio-relative (pros hereta) (unstable) (sic.) which latter was subdivided into Opposite (pros enantia) and Relative proper (pros ti), which in its turn was divided into Definite and Indefinite. So much we are told by Hermodorus (ap. Simpl. In Phys. p. 30ff Diels). Hermodorus was a pupil of Plato, and was personally acquainted with the practice of the Academy; he is not basing himself on the evidence of the dialogues, although traces of such a division can be discerned in them (e.g. Soph. 255C; Parm. 133CD; Phil. 51CD).

…apart from the dialogues comes reports of his famous lecture on the Good. This was undoubtedly a notorious affair, at which many of those present took notes (Aristocenus, Harm. Elem. II p 30-I Meibom; Simpl. In Phys. p. 151, 6ff. Diels), … [rather than pragmatic advice the audience sought] (sic.) Plato began to discourse on mathematics, geometry and astronomy, and finally stated that the Good was the One…

In the sphere o Ethics, as I have said, there are sufficient indications that for Plato as well as Aristotle the virtues are to be regarded as means between two extremes of ‘too much’ and ‘too little, with Justice (symbolized by the Pythagorean Tetraktys) as the force holding the universe together, a metaphysical concept as well as an ethical one (pre-socratic idea of justice being served) (sic.). Important also is Plato’s distionction, in Laws I 631BC, between higher, or ‘divine’ Goods–that is, goods of the soul, the Virtues–and lower, or ‘human’ Goods–goods of the body, such as health or beauty) and external goods (such as good fame or wealth). This was a favourite passage for later Platonists, and constituted an important basis for mediating between the positions of Stoic and Peripatetic ethics, as these Platonists were continually having to do. A subject of active debate in later Platonism was the question whether the lower goods were or were not essential component of Happiness (Spartan, Ascetic) (sic.) (udaimonia). The Stoics denied that they could be; the Aristotelians denied that they could be exlcuded. The Platonists were left in the middle, with texts to support either position, and, as we shall see, the battle raged back and forth throughout our period, such men as Antiochus and Plutarch suding with Peripateticism, others, such as Eudorus and Atticus, adopting a Stoic line.

– p 9 The Middle Platonists

Hannam (God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science)

To Marcilio Ficino to Plethon from Boethius and Dionysius

After the alleged events of 531/2, Damascius lived on until at least 538AD and Simplicius enjoyed a lively career as a philosophical writer. Another school of considerable importance was founded at Nisibis in Syria 325AD. Unfortunately, the Romans ceded the city to the Persian Empire in the aftermath of their defeat of Julian the Apostate in 363AD, so the school had to move westwards to Edessa. Here it thrived for over a century and became the seedbed of classical Syriac literature. Syriac was the common language of the people of the Middle East and was the direct descendent of the Aramaic that Jesus spoke. However, politics eventually intervened in Edessa too when the followers of Nestorius, a deposed Patriarch of Constantinople, congregated there. The Emperor Zeno shut the school in 489AD and the Nestorians simply moved back to Nisibis which was still under the control of Persia. They took with them the works of Aristotle which they had begun to translate into Syriac. Then, the entire Persian Empire fell to the Arab Muslim invasion of 643AD to 650AD and the Nestorians came under Islamic rule. Their knowledge of Greek philosophy meant that they were highly valued as advisors by their new masters who used them to give access to the Greek science and medicine that was so important to the flowering of Muslim culture Early Christian emperors recognised the need to preserve the heritage of pagan writing. Constantius II (317-361) founded a new scriptorium in Constantinople and created salaried positions for both Greek and Latin copyists. There is evidence that a slump in literary culture had already started before Christianity became the official religion of the Empire. Constantius reversed this decline by ensuring that many decaying papyrus scrolls were copied into new codices [NOTE]. We also know that the texts used for teaching were all works of pagan literature and that the Christian equivalents never superseded them. Far from banning pagan works, Christian scholars kept them at the heart of the educational syllabus. Building on the start made by Constantius, later Christian Emperors founded a new school in Constantinople. It was this institution, with state support and plenty of funds, that probably did more than anything else to bleed Athens of its scholars. In 425AD, the state provided for no less than 28 professors in Constantinople and raised six of them to the peerage. By the ninth century, the situation had stabilised enough for Byzantium to enter what is usually considered the apogee of its cultural achievement. The schools were re-founded by the Emperor Theophilius in 840AD who appointed professors in geometry, astronomy and the humanities. Important scholars like the Patriarch Photius and Leo the Mathematician came to work in Constantinople. For completeness, mention should be made of the story that the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (680-741) shut down the university and library of Constantinople founded by his Christian predecessors. –God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science by James Hannam