Reading Ancient Texts

Volume II: Aristotle and Neoplatonism

Suzanne Stern-Gillet and Kevin Corrigan (eds.), Leyde: Brill, 2007

Description

The contributors to this volume offer, in the light of specialised knowledge of leading philosophers of the ancient world, answers to the question: how are we to read and understand the surviving texts of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Augustine?

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Preliminary Materials

Aristotle’s Conception Of Dunamis And Techne

Aristotle And The Starting Point Of Moral Development: The Notion Of Natural Virtue

Akrasia And Moral Education In Aristotle

Effective Primary Causes: The Notion Of Contact And The Possibility Of Acting Without Being Affected In Aristotle’s De Generatione Et Corruptione

The Organization Of The Soul: Some Overlooked Aspects Of Interpretation From Plato To Late Antiquity

The Final Metamorphosis: Narrative Voice In The Prologue Of Apuleius’ Golden Ass

Plotinus: Omnipresence And Transcendence Of The One In VI 5[23]

The Concept Of Will In Plotinus

Divine Freedom In Plotinus And Iamblichus (Tractate VI 8 (39) 7, 11–15 And De Mysteriis III, 17–20)

Was The Vita Plotini Known In Arab Philosophical Circles?

Friendship And Transgression: Luminosus Limes Amicitiae (Augustine, Confessions 2.2.2) And The Themes Of Confessions 2

Augustine And The Philosophical Foundations Of Sincerity

Innovation And Continuity In The History Of Philosophy

Bibliography

Subject Index

Index Of Names

Link

https://brill.com/view/title/14914

LEM/École Pratique des Hautes Études

Les Platonismes de l’Antiquité Tardive

Description et organisation

Pour accéder à la base de données « Les Platonismes de l’Antiquité Tardive » qui a été crée avec ce carnet de recherches cliquez sur http://philognose.org. Cette base de données permet de réaliser des recherches croisées entre les corpus philosophiques, gnostiques, hermétistes et chaldaïques, portant sur le vocabulaire, les doctrines et la bibliographie afférente.

(Texte des organisateurs)

Link

https://platonismes.huma-num.fr/ 

Dieu sans la puissance

Dunamis et Energeia chez Aristote et Plotin

Gwenaëlle Aubry, Paris: Vrin, 2007

Description

Comptés par Aristote comme l’un des principaux sens de l’être, l’en-puissance et l’en-acte ouvrent dans la Métaphysique une voie négligée, mais qui permet peut-être d’en dépasser les lectures aporétiques comme les réductions ontothéologiques. C’est cette voie que l’on propose de suivre, en examinant au fil du texte, et dans leur corrélation, la constitution du projet métaphysique d’Aristote et celle du couple conceptuel de la dunamis et de l’energeia. Irréductibles tant à la puissance et à l’action qu’à la matière et à la forme, l’en-puissance et l’en-acte paraissent à même de fonder une ontologie unitaire, qui se dévoile aussi comme une ontologie axiologique, identifiant en l’acte le mode d’être du bien, en l’en-puissance son mode d’action. Cette ontologie porte une pensée singulière du divin : acte, et non « forme pure », sans puissance, mais non pas impuissant, le premier moteur aristotélicien échappe à l’alternative entre le Dieu tout-puissant de la tradition métaphysique et le Dieu faible des inquiétudes contemporaines. Qu’en est-il, alors, du devenir de cette ontologie? On tente de mesurer la portée du geste par lequel Plotin désigne son premier principe non plus comme acte mais comme puissance de tout, dunamis pantôn. Avec lui s’inaugurent peut-être la subversion et l’oubli d’une pensée pour laquelle l’être, et le divin, ne se confondent ni avec la puissance ni avec la présence.

(Text from the publisher)

Table des matières

http://www.vrin.fr/tdm/TdM_9782711619061.pdf

Link

http://www.vrin.fr/book.php?code=9782711619061

Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy I

John P. Anton, Albany: Suny Press, 1971

Description

The essays in this volume treat a wide variety of fundamental topics and problems in ancient Greek philosophy. The scope of the section on pre-Socratic thought ranges over the views which these thinkers have on such areas of concern as religion, natural philosophy and science, cosmic periods, the nature of elements, theory of names, the concept of plurality, and the philosophy of mind. The papers dealing with the Platonic dialogues examine with unusual care a great number of central themes and discuss them in considerable depth: problems in language and logic, myth, reason, hypothesis, eros, friendship, reason, morality, society, art, the nature of soul, and immortality; in addition, they offer fresh discussions on a number of basic morphological, methodological, and philological issues related to philosophical arguments and introduce new aspects for a critical reexamination of controversies surrounding the doctrines and the authenticity of certain Platonic works. The essays on the philosophy of Aristotle are closely reasoned analyses of such basic themes as the universality of the sensible, the nature of kinesis, the problem of future contingencies, the meaning of qualitative change, the doctrine of phantasia, the essence of intelligence and the metaphysical foundations for the ethical life. The essays on post-Aristotelian developments in ancient philosophy offer challenging and well-documented discussions on topics in the history of ancient logic, categorical thought, the ethical doctrines of ancient Scepticism, epistemological issues in the physical theory of the Epicureans, and basic concepts in the metaphysics of the neo-platonists.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Introduction

Journal Abbreviations

  1. Pre-Socratics

Religion and Natural Philosophy in Empedocle’s Doctrine of the Soul – Charles H. Kahn

Cosmic Periods in the Philosophy of Empedocles – Edwin L. and Minar, Fr.

Mind’s Commitment to the Real: Parmenides B8. 34-41 – Alexander P. D. Mourelatos

The Problem of Anaxagoras – Margaret E. Reesor

Empirical Aspects of Xenophanes’ Theology – H. A. T. Reiche

Anaximander and the Problem of the Earth’s Immobility – John Robinson

A Zenonian Argument Against Plurality – Gregory Vlastos

Parmenides on Names – Leonard Woodbury

2. Plato

The Argument from Opposities in Republic V – R. E. Allen

Gorgias and the Socratic Principle Nemo Sua Sponte Peccat – Guido Calogero

Dreaming and Waking in Plato – David Gallop

Techne and Morality in the Gorgias – Robert W. Hall

On the “Gold-Example” in Plato’s Timaeus (50A5-B5) – Edward N. Lee

Some Observations Concerning Plato’s Lysis – Donald Norman Levin

Language, Plato, and Logic – Ronald B. Levinson

Reason and Eros in the “Ascent”-Passage of the Symposium – J. M. E. Moravcsik

The Unity of the Laches – Michael J. O’Brien

The Two States in Plato’s Republic – Martin Ostwald

Supporting Themes in the Symposium – George Kimball Plochmann

The Argument for Immortality in Plato’s Phaedrus – Thomas M. Robinson

Plato’s Hypothesis and the Upward Path – Thomas G. Rosenmeyer

Reply to Dr. Levinson – Rosamond Kent Sprague

The Creation Myth in Plato’s Timaeus – Leonardo Tarán

The Philosophical Passage in the Seventh Platonic Letter and the Problem of Plato’s “Esoteric” Philosophy – Kurt von Fritz

3. Aristotle

The Metaphysical Foundations for Aristotle’s Ethics – Thomas Gould

The Universality of the Sensible in the Aristotelian Noetic – Joseph Owens

Aristotle on κίνησις – Arthur L. Peck

Aristotle’s Treatment of φαντασία – D. A. Rees

Notes on Aristotle De anima 3.5 – John M. Rist

Aristotle’s Doctrine of Future Contingencies – Richard Taylor

The Aristotelian Doctrine of Qualitative Change in Physics VII, 3 – G. Verbeke

4. Post- Aristotelian Philosophy

Ancient Interpretations of Aristotle’s Doctrine of Homonyma – John P. Anton

Οὐ μᾶλλον and the Antecedents of Ancient Scepticism – Phillip DeLacy

Knowledge of Atoms and Void in Epicureanism – David J. Furley

Body and Soul in the Philsophy of Plotinus – A. N. M. Rich

Subject Index

Name Index

Link

https://www.sunypress.edu/p-220-essays-in-ancient-greek-philoso.aspx

Practicing Gnosis

Ritual, Magic, Theurgy and Liturgy in Nag Hammadi,

Manichaean and Other Ancient Literature.

Essays in Honor of Birger A. Pearson

April D. DeConick, Gregory Shaw and John D. Turner, Leiden: Brill, 2013

Description

Ritual, magic, liturgy, and theurgy were central features of Gnosticism, and yet Gnostic practices remain understudied. This anthology is meant to fill in this gap and address more fully what the ancient Gnostics were doing. While previously we have studied the Gnostics as intellectuals in pursuit of metaphysical knowledge, the essays in this book attempt to understand the Gnostics as ecstatics striving after religious experience, as prophets seeking revelation, as mystics questing after the ultimate God, as healers attempting to care for the sick and diseased. These essays demonstrate that the Gnostics were not necessarily trendy intellectuals seeking epistomological certainities. They were after religious experiences that relied on practices. The book is organized comparatively in a history-of-religions approach with sections devoted to Initiatory, Recurrent, Therapeutic, Ecstatic, and Philosophic Practices. This book celebrates the brilliant career of Birger A. Pearson.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Front Matter

Introduction

For Birger Pearson: A Scholar Who Both Studies and Embodies Syncretism

Religionsgeschichtliche Schule, Religionswissenschaft, Piano, Oboe and Bourbon

Birger Pearson: Scholar, Professor and Mentor

Birger Albert Pearson A Bibliography

The Road for the Soul Is through the Planets: The Mysteries of the Ophians Mapped

Ecstatic Religion in the Roman Cult of Mithras

The Gospel of Philip as Gnostic Initiatory Discourse

Becoming Invisible: Rending the Veil and the Hermeneutic of Secrecy in the Gospel of Philip

Ritual in the Second Book of Jeu

Death on the Nile: Egyptian Codices, Gnosticism, and Early Christian Books of the Dead

Going to Church with the Valentinians

Practicing “Repentance” on the Path to Gnosis in Exegesis on the Soul

Opening the Way of Writing: Semiotic Metaphysics in the Book of Thoth

“I Worship and Glorify”: Manichaean Liturgy and Piety in Kellis’ Prayer of the Emanations

The Manichaean Weekly Confession Ritual

Ritual Ingenuity in the Mandaean Scroll of Exalted Kingship

Natural, Magical, Scientific or Religious? A Guide to Theories of Healing

Astrological Medicine in Gnostic Traditions

The Persistence of Ritual in the Magical Book of Mary and the Angels: P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 685

Image and Word: Performative Ritual and Material Culture in the Aramaic Incantation Bowls

From Baptismal Vision to Mystical Union with the One: The Case of the Sethian Gnostics

Marcosian Rituals for Prophecy and Apolytrosis

Ritual in the Hekhalot Literature

The Platonizing Sethian Gnostic Interpretation of Plato’s Sophist

Did Plotinus “Friends” Still Go to Church? Communal Rituals and Ascent Apocalypses

The Meaning of “One”: Plurality and Unity in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism

Theurgy and the Platonist’s Luminous Body

Index

Link

https://brill.com/view/title/24418

History of Platonism

Plato redivivus 

Berchman, Robert M., Finamore, John F., University Press of the South, 2005

Description

Following from the centuries of philosophical and religious thinkers who have studied and used Plato’s 4th Century B.C. doctrines, this anthology offers interpretations of Plato’s own works. The authors consider the intermediary role of Aristotle, the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, the religious and mystical theories of later Neoplatonic sources (including Egyptian writings), the effect of Platonic philosophy on Jewish writers during the Middle Ages, the adaptations of Cambridge Platonists, the Neoplatonic basis of Jung’s psychological writings, and the role of Plato’s doctrines in 20th Century Post-Modern philosophy.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Republic VI 509a9-c10 and its interpretation in antiquity : dialogical or dogmatic reading – Luc Brisson

Immortality vs. tripartition : the soul in Plato – Gwendolyn Gruber

The tripartite Soul in Plato’s Republic and Phaedrus – John F. Finamore

Erãos as institution : a consideration of why Plato wrote the Symposium – Matthew E. Kenney

Metaphors : thinking and being in Aristotle and Plotinus – Robert Berchman

Plotinus’ Philosophical Opposition to gnosticism and the implicit axiom of continuous hierarchy – Zeke Mazur

Plotinus : self and consciousness – Gary M. Gurtler

Alone to the Alone: The ascent to the One in Plotinus – Deepa Majumdar

The Sphere and the Altar of Sacrifice – Gregory Shaw

The Egyptian Book of the dead and Neoplatonic Philosophy – Algis Uzdavinys

Theories of nature in ancient platonism – John Phillips

A physics for the psyche? : Proclus’ Instituta physica and the « life » of the soul – Emilie Kutash

Damaskios’ new conception of metaphysics – Carolle Tresson & Alain Metry

« The Torah speaks in the language of humans » : on some uses of Plato’s theory of myth in medieval Jewish philosophy – Aaron Hughes

The manifest image : revealing the hidden in Halevi, Saadya and Ibn Gabirol – Sarah Pessin

Prophecy, imagination and the poet’s fine frenzy : reflections of a Cambridge platonist – Douglas Hedley

Listening to the voice of fire : theurgical fitness and esoteric sensitivity – Leonard George

Evolution, Jung, and theurgy : their role in modern neoplatonism – Bruce MacLennan

The problem of the self and its centre : postmodernism and neoplatonism – Kevin Corrigan.

Bibliography

Link

http://www.unprsouth.com/history_of_platonism.html

Apocalypse of the Alien God

Platonism and the Exile of Sethian Gnosticism

Dylan M. Burns, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014

Description

In the second century, Platonist and Judeo-Christian thought were sufficiently friendly that a Greek philosopher could declare, « What is Plato but Moses speaking Greek? » Four hundred years later, a Christian emperor had ended the public teaching of subversive Platonic thought. When and how did this philosophical rupture occur? Dylan M. Burns argues that the fundamental break occurred in Rome, ca. 263, in the circle of the great mystic Plotinus, author of the Enneads. Groups of controversial Christian metaphysicians called Gnostics (« knowers ») frequented his seminars, disputed his views, and then disappeared from the history of philosophy—until the 1945 discovery, at Nag Hammadi, Egypt, of codices containing Gnostic literature, including versions of the books circulated by Plotinus’s Christian opponents. Blending state-of-the-art Greek metaphysics and ecstatic Jewish mysticism, these texts describe techniques for entering celestial realms, participating in the angelic liturgy, confronting the transcendent God, and even becoming a divine being oneself. They also describe the revelation of an alien God to his elect, a race of « foreigners » under the protection of the patriarch Seth, whose interventions will ultimately culminate in the end of the world. Apocalypse of the Alien God proposes a radical interpretation of these long-lost apocalypses, placing them firmly in the context of Judeo-Christian authorship rather than ascribing them to a pagan offshoot of Gnosticism. According to Burns, this Sethian literature emerged along the fault lines between Judaism and Christianity, drew on traditions known to scholars from the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enochic texts, and ultimately catalyzed the rivalry of Platonism with Christianity. Plunging the reader into the culture wars and classrooms of the high Empire, Apocalypse of the Alien God offers the most concrete social and historical description available of any group of Gnostic Christians as it explores the intersections of ancient Judaism, Christianity, Hellenism, myth, and philosophy.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

ABBREVIATIONS

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 – Culture Wars

CHAPTER 2 – Plotinus Against His Gnostic Friends

CHAPTER 3 – Other Ways of Writing

CHAPTER 4 – The Descent

CHAPTER 5 – The Ascent

CHAPTER 6 – The Crown

CHAPTER 7 – Between Judaism, Christianity, and Neoplatonism

APPENDIX: READING PORPHYRY ON THE GNOSTIC HERETICS AND THEIR APOCALYPSES

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Link

https://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15230.html

Platonism at the Origins of Modernity

Studies on Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy

Douglas Hedley & Sarah Hutton, Berlin: Springer, 2008

Description

This collection of essays offers an overview of the range and breadth of Platonic philosophy in the early modern period. It examines philosophers of Platonic tradition, such as Cusanus, Ficino, and Cudworth. The book also addresses the impact of Platonism on major philosophers of the period, especially Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Shaftesbury and Berkeley.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents 

Introduction – Hutton, Sarah

Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464): Platonism at the Dawn of Modernity – Moran, Dermot

At Variance: Marsilio Ficino, Platonism and Heresy – Allen, Michael J. B.

Going Naked into the Shrine: Herbert, Plotinus and the Constructive Metaphor – Clark, Stephen R. L.

Comenius, Light Metaphysics and Educational Reform – Rohls, Jan

Robert Fludd’s Kabbalistic Cosmos – Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm

Reconciling Theory and Fact: The Problem of ‘Other Faiths’ in Lord Herbert and the Cambridge Platonists – Pailin, David

Trinity, Community and Love: Cudworth’s Platonism and the Idea of God – Armour, Leslie

Chaos and Order in Cudworth’s Thought – Breteau, Jean-Louis

Cudworth, Prior and Passmore on the Autonomy of Ethics – Attfield, Robin

Substituting Aristotle: Platonic Themes in Dutch Cartesianism – Ruler, Han

Soul, Body and World: Plato’s Timaeus and Descartes’ Meditations – Wilson, Catherine

Locke, Plato and Platonism – Rogers, G. A. J.

Reflections on Locke’s Platonism – Nuovo, Victor

The Platonism at the Core of Leibniz’s Philosophy – Mercer, Christia

Leibniz and Berkeley: Platonic Metaphysics and ‘The Mechanical Philosophy’ – Brown, Stuart

Which Platonism for Which Modernity? A Note on Shaftesbury’s Socratic Sea-Cards – Jaffro, Laurent

Platonism, Aesthetics and the Sublime at the Origins of Modernity – Hedley, Douglas

Link

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-6407-4

Plato Revived

Essays on Ancient Platonism in Honour of Dominic J. O’Meara

Karfík, Filip & Song, Euree (eds), Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013

Description

The essays compiled in this volume individually address the varied forms in which the revival of Platonism manifested itself in ancient philosophy. It pays special attention to the issues of unity and beauty, the mind and knowledge, the soul and the body, virtue and happiness, and additionally considers the political and religious dimensions of Platonic thought. Starting from Plato and Aristotle, the studies examine the multiple transformational forms of Platonism, including the Neo-Platonists – Plotinus, Porphyrios, Iamblichus, Themistius, Proclus, and Marinus – along with Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine, Boethius, and Dionysus the Areopagite. The authors who have contributed to this volume make multiple references to the scholarly work of Dominic J. O’Meara. Their further refinement of O’Meara’s approach particularly casts a new light on Late-Platonic ethics. The essays in this collection also contribute to scholarly research about the multiple inter-relationships among the Platonists themselves and between Platonists and philosophers from other schools. Taken as a whole, this book reveals the full breadth of potential in the revival and transformation of ancient Platonism.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Preface

Unity, Intellect, Beauty

Werner Beierwaltes – Plotins Theorie des Schönen und der Kunst

Alexandrine Schniewind – Le statut des objets intelligibles chez Alexandre d’Aphrodise et Plotin

Pascal Mueller-Jourdan – « Toute pluralité participe en quelque manière de l’un » Le premier théorème des Éléments de théologie de Proclus revisité par le Pseudo-Denys l’Aréopagite

Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson – Leibniz, Plato, Plotinus

Soul and Body

John Dillon – Shadows on the Soul: Plotinian Approaches to a Solution of the Mind-Body Problem

Filip Karfík – Δημογέροντες L’image de l’assemblée dans les Ennéades VI, 4 [22], 15

Euree Song – Ashamed of Being in the Body? Plotinus versus Porphyry

Lenka Karfíková – Das Verhältnis von Seele und ratio in Augustins Abhand

Happiness and Virtue

László Bene – Ethics and Metaphysics in Plotinus

Marie-Luise Lakmann – „…die feine Stimme der Zikaden“ Iunkos, Περὶ γήρως und die platonische Philosophie

Suzanne Stern-Gillet – When Virtue Bids Us Abandon Life (Ennead VI 8 [39] 6, 14–26)

Daniela P. Taormina – Porfirio ha scritto un trattato Περὶ τοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμῖν?

Christian Tornau – Augustinus und die neuplatonischen Tugendgrade Versuch einer Interpretation von Augustins Brief 155 an Macedonius

Irmgard Männlein-Robert – Platonismus als ‚Philosophie des Glücks‘: Programm, Symbolik und Form in der Vita Procli des Marinos

Platonopolis

Rafael Ferber – Das Paradox von der Philosophenherrschaft im Staat, Staatsmann und in den Gesetzen Einige Bemerkungen zur Einheit und Variation des platonischen Denkens

Cinzia Arruzza – Being True to One’s Birth: What is gennaion in the Noble Falsehood of the Republic?

Ada Neschke-Hentschke – Ἀδικία – Strafrechtsprinzipien bei Aristoteles und Platon Zur divisio und significatio textus der Nikomachischen Ethik V 10 (1134 a 17–1136 a 9) und zu Platons Strafrechtsexkurs (Nomoi IX 859 b 5–864 c 9)

Philosophy and Religion

Andrew Smith – The Image of Egypt in the Platonic Tradition

Tatjana Aleknienė – La prière à l’Un dans le traité 10 [V, 1] de Plotin et la tradition philosophique grecque

Denis O’Brien – Augustine at Ostia: A Common Misreading

Jacques Schamp – Thémistios et l’oracle des philosophes

Alain Lernould – Boèce. Consolation de Philosophie III, metrum

Dominic J. O’Meara: Teacher and Scholar

Alexandre Jollien – La philosophie n’est pas la philosophie c’est pourquoi je l’appelle la philosophie

Nicolas D’Andrès – List of Publications by Dominic J. O’Meara

Link

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110324662/html

Literary, Philosophical, and Religious Studies in the Platonic Tradition

John F. Finamore and John Phillips, Baden-Baden: Academia Verlag, 2013

Description

This anthology contains twelve papers on various aspects of Platonism, ranging from Plato’s Republic to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus and Hermias, to the use of Platonic philosophy by Cudworth and Schleiermacher. The papers cover topics in ethics, psychology, religion, poetics, art, epistemology, and metaphysics.

(Text from the publisher)

Table of contents

Ecstasy Between Divine and Human: Re-assessing Agency in Iamblichean Divination and Theurgy – Crystal Addey

Soul’s Desire and the Origin of Time in the Philosophy of Plotinus – José Baracat

Providence et liberté chez Jamblique de Chalcis – Jean-Michel Charrue

Sleep and Waking in Plotinus – Bernard Collette

The Spiritual Body. Porphyry’s Theory of the ochêma in Ralph Cudworth’s True Intellectual System of the Universe – Anna Corrias

Iamblichus’ Doctrine of the Soul Revisited – John Dillon

The Distorted City in the Republic – Gary Gurtler

Proclus on the Cognitive Value of Mythic Poetry. A Hegelian Reading – Oiva Kuisma

Neoplatonic Allegories in Hermias – Christina-Panagiota Manolea

The Splendor of Grace: Plotinus and the Cistercian Tradition – Martino Rossi Monti

The Reception of Schleiermacher’s View on Plato in 19th Century Poland – Tomaz Mroz

 The Nature of Art and the Art of Nature in Plotinus – Michael Wagner

Link

https://www.nomos-shop.de/academia/titel/literary-philosophical-and-religious-studies-in-the-platonic-tradition-id-89731/