Defining Plationism: Essays in Honor of the 75th Birthday of John M. Dillon

by John F Finamore (Editor), Sarah Klitenic Wear (Editor)

Overview

This collection of essays surveys a wide range of methods of Platonic interpretation, ranging from the dialogues themselves, to Middle and Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato's writings, to modern uses of Platonism. As a philosophical movement, Platonism is broadly conceived, covering schools and philosophers beginning with Plato and his immediate followers and extending through contemporary philosophers.

The history of Platonism begins, of course, with Plato himself. But his adoption of the dialogue style and his active engagement with students in his Academy, where he certainly used dialectic techniques, led almost immediately to questioning what Plato's doctrines actually were. His student Aristotle raised questions of interpretations and invoked esoteric teachings not present in the written works. The earliest heads of the Academy struggled with Plato's texts as well, creating rival interpretations. These early discussions gave rise to later ones, and Platonism became simultaneously a dogmatic philosophy and a source of sometimes-heated debate of what the master intended. From its inception, Platonism was a dynamic philosophy, open to varied interpretations on different fronts while also maintaining a common core of beliefs. Platonism gave rise to methods of interpretation that centered on historical, ethical, political, or metaphysical questions engendered by Plato's writings. The ancient commentators reflected the teachings of their predecessors, and with only a few schools in the Greco-Roman world, many of their students studying under the same teachers, meant a heightened continuity in the tradition of interpretation.

This volume honors the seventy-fifth birthday of John Dillon, the great scholar of Platonism whose scholarship had a pivotal role in defining Platonism as a philosophical movement in contemporary academia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780996930536
Publisher:	Franciscan University Press
Publication date:	06/15/2017
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

John F. Finamore is professor of classics at the University of Iowa. Sarah Klitenic Wear is associate professor of classics at the Franciscan University of Steubenville

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Apologia pro Vita Sua Operibusque John Dillon viii

Introduction John F. Finamore Sarah Klitenic Wear 1

Part I Plato

1 Platonic Eschatology John Bussanich 11

2 The Platonist as Friend Kevin Corrigan 29

3 Plato's Timaeus: What Is in the Paradigm? Allan Silverman 44

4 The Athenians against the Persians: Plato's View (Laws III, 698a-700a) Christopher Rowe 64

Part II Ancient Platonism

5 Numenius, Neopythagoreanism, and the Troublesome "King(s)" Harold Tarrant 85

6 Can One Speak of Mysticism in Plotinus? Luc Brisson 96

7 The Relentless Pursuit of Justice Gary M. Gurtler, SJ 117

8 Plotinus on Evil: Proclus and the Author of The Divine Names Denis O'Brien 130

9 Plotinus on Suicide Suzanne Stern-Gillet 162

10 Self-Reflexive Ontogenesis in the Tripartite Tractate and Plotinus John D. Turner 181

11 The Metaphysics of Power, Logos, and Harmony in Porphyry Stephen Gersh 198

12 The Soul as a Writing Tablet, from Plato to Proclus Anne Sheppard 218

13 Hermias and the Soul's Pilot John F. Finamore 228

14 Plotinus and the Apophatic Augustine John Peter Kenney 238

15 Trie Figure of the Diadochos, from Socrates to the Late Antique Athenian School of Neoplatonism Carl Séan O'Brien Sarah Klitenic Wear 253

Part III Modern Platonism

16 The Platonist as Music Lover: Some Reflections and Auditions Jay Bregman 273

17 Platonism versus Naturalism Lloyd P. Gerson 291

Bibliography 313

List of Contributors 335

Index 339