Neoplatonism

[Fade the Butcher]

Is anyone here familiar with this philosophy?

[Ahknaton]

*puts hand in air and waves it gingerly*

Neoplatonism is the philosophy that probably best describes my spiritual/religious leanings. You could probably call it a "meta-religion" because it's compatible (at least in part) with a number of religious worldviews, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and (IMO) certain conceptions of Paganism.

As it happens, I'm in the middle of writing a piece for my site about neoplatonism (specifically it's about mathematical forms such as the Mandelbrot fractal, and whether they have an existence in "Platonic heaven"). I'll post a link when I'm done.

[Fade the Butcher]

I have read several works on medieval science recently and keep hearing this subject brought up again and again. Neoplatonic thought inspired a revival in interest in mathematics during the Late Middle Ages, especially at Oxford University during the fourteenth century. This led to several important breakthroughs in physics.

[Ahknaton]

I have read several works on medieval science recently and keep hearing this subject brought up again and again. Neoplatonic thought inspired a revival in interest in mathematics during the Late Middle Ages, especially at Oxford University during the fourteenth century. This led to several important breakthroughs in physics.
Neoplatonism is a development and extension of "Platonic Realism", the notion that archetypes (e.g. the perfect circle) exist in a kind of ethereal, eternal realm, and that the mind can make contact with these forms through contemplation.

The neoplatonists posited a hierarchy of being emanating from "the One" - the source of all truth and light, through several tiers of lesser "gods" to more primitive elemental forms, with actual grubby real-world instances (imperfect manifestations) of the forms at the bottom of the chain. Therefore it can be seen as either monotheist or polytheist.

Neoplatonists share the Pythagorean notion that mathematics (particularly geometry) is divine, because it is one of the most fundamental ways for a temporal human mind to contemplate the eternal and the absolute, which accounts for the connection between neoplatonist thought and a mathematical revival.

[Ahknaton]

Modern art with neoplatonist influences (e.g. "sacred geometry")

http://www.alexgrey.com

[albion]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Platonism

Neoplatonism is a form of idealistic monism. 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. Plotinus' system was much simpler in comparison.

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 evil as positively existing. 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.

Modern Neo-Platonism
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].
http://www.cejournal.org/GRD/Realities.htm

Neoplatonism Online:
http://www.isns.us/neoplatonism-online/index.htm

The Neoplatonic Church
http://www.neoplato.org/

[Petr]

(In his "secular career" Lewis studied and taught late-classical and medieval literature, thus being intimately familiar with the neo-Platonic school of thought)


"The last champions of Paganism were not the sort of men that Swinburne, or a modern "Humanist" would wish them to have been. They were not lusty extroverts recoiling in horror from a world "grown grey" with the breath of the "pale Galilean". If they wanted to get back "the laurel, the psalms and the paean", it was on the most serious and religious grounds. If they longed to see "the breasts of of the nymph in the brake", their longing was not like that of satyr's; it was much more like a spiritualist's. A world-renouncing, ascetic, and mystical character of then marked the most eminent Pagans no less than their Christian opponents. It was the spirit of the age. Everywhere, on both sides, men were turning away from their civic virtues and the sensual pleasures to seek an inner purgation and a supernatural goal. The modern who dislikes Christian fathers would have disliked the Pagan philosophers equally, and for similar reasons. Both alike would have been embarrassed him with stories of visions, ecstasies and apparitions. Between the lower and more violent manifestations of both religions he would have found it hard to choose. To a modern eye (and nostril) Julian with his long nails a a densely populated beard might have seemed very like an unwashed monk out of the Egyptian desert."

- C.S. Lewis, The Discarded Image, (1962) Cambridge University Press, pages 46-47.


"The whole (neo-Platonic) school, while partly a spontaneous development of the Greek genius, seems to me to be also a deliberate response to the challenge of Christianity and, in that respect, indebted to it. In is the last Pagans are carefully dissociating themselves from popular polytheism and saying in effect, "We too have an explanation of the whole universe. We too have a systematic theology. We, no less than you, have a rule of life - have saints, miracles, devotions and a hope of union with the Highest."

- ibid., page 48.



Petr

[jcs]

In his "secular career" Lewis studied and taught late-classical and medieval literature, thus being intimately familiar with the neo-Platonic school of thought
I don't dispute much Lewis' views on the Neoplatonic movement, as people always embrace things ideologically for dumb reasons (such as jealousy: "we too have...").
Movements are dumb. The Neoplatonic school was dumb. Read Plotinus and Proclus and ignore the rest of the non-Christian Neoplatonists.

Modern art with neoplatonist influences (e.g. "sacred geometry")

http://www.alexgrey.com
Alex Grey is too influenced by new age-ism, too indebted to Ken Wilber (not an idiot, but fucking annoying and unimportant), to take too seriously. That said, he's an interesting artist, if you can bring yourself to ignore a few of his crazy ideas and the paintings (or exhibits) inspired therefrom.

[Petr]

The Neoplatonic school was dumb. Read Plotinus and Proclus and ignore the rest of the non-Christian Neoplatonists.
What makes those two so special apart from others?


Petr

[jcs]

What makes those two so special apart from others?
They were the two most significant Neoplatonic thinkers.

Plotinus was the founder of Neoplatonism, and the Neoplatonist with the most creative genius; thus he was genuine in his view and not merely trying to attach himself to some ideology or school to say "we too have" to Christians.
(I say 'thus' not because it naturally follows from the fact that he came up with Neoplatonic thought that he would not be a desperate ideologue; but because the depth of understanding behind Neoplatonism, depth hitherto lacking in the West, necessitated that the thinker was being 'geniuine.')

Proclus was a later Neoplatonic thinker who systemized the whole school. Plotinus only had the One and all beings; following Plotinus, Neoplatonists created a whole hierarchy of intermediate beings between the One and the lower beings. Proclus basically concluded non-Christian Neoplatonic thought by synthesizing and summarizing the various ideas of the Neoplatonic school. He also wrote commentaries on Plato. However, Proclus shouldn't be viewed simply as a commentator and summarizer.

These two are set apart from the others because they were the most intelligent and certainly not merely anti-Christian ideologues; and while everyone else was basically just repeating Plotinus' original thoughts, or revising and adding a little, Plotinus was the originator, and Proclus' conclusion of (non-Christian) Neoplatonism rendered all previous thinkers, save Plotinus, obsolete.

(Iamblichus is significant, too, but only historically; read Proclus instead)