The Routledge handbook of Neoplatonism

THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF NEOPLATONISM

Th e Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism is an authoritative and comprehensive survey

of the most important issues and developments in one of the fastest growing areas of

research in ancient philosophy. An international team of scholars situates and re- evaluates

Neoplatonism within the history of ancient philosophy and thought, and explores its

infl uence on philosophical and religious schools worldwide. Th e Routledge Handbook of

Neoplatonism is a major reference source for all students and scholars in Neoplatonism and

ancient philosophy, as well as researchers in the philosophy of science, ethics, aesthetics

and religion.

Pauliina Remes is University Lecturer in Philosophy at Uppsala University (Sweden). She

is the author of Plotinus on Self: Th e Philosophy of the “We” (2007) and Neoplatonism (2008),

and the editor of Ancient Philosophy of the Self (2008, with J. Sihvola) and Consciousness:

From Perception to Refl ection in the History of Philosophy (2007, with S. Heinämaa and

V. Lähteenmäki).

Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n is Associate Professor of Classics and a core faculty in the History

and Philosophy of Science Program at the Florida State University. She has published on

a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, including Plotinus on Number (2009).

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS IN PHILOSOPHY

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Th ey are also valuable teaching resources as accompaniments to textbooks, anthologies, and research￾orientated publications.

Available:

Th e Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition

Edited by Lawrence Shapiro

Th e Routledge Handbook of Neoplatonism

Edited by Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

Forthcoming:

Th e Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics

Edited by Darrel Moellendorf and Heather Widdows

Th e Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion

Edited by Graham Oppy

Th e Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition

Edited by John Sellars

Th e Routledge Handbook of German Idealism

Edited by Brian O’Connor, Michael Rosen, Hans Joerg Sandkühler, and David Wood

Th e Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being

Edited by Guy Fletcher

Th e Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination

Edited by Amy Kind

Th e Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Colour

Edited by Derek Brown and Fiona Macpherson

Th e Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Biodiversity

Edited by Justin Garson, Anya Plutynski, and Sahotra Sarkar

Th e Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of the Social Mind

Edited by Julian Kiverstein

Th e Routledge Handbook of Collective Intentionality

Edited by Marija Jankovic and Kirk Ludwig

Th e Routledge Handbook of Brentano and the Brentano School

Edited by Uriah Kriegel

Th e Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Contextualism

Edited by Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa

Th e Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Evolution

Edited by Richard Joyce

Th e Routledge Handbook of Modality

Edited by Otávio Bueno and Scott Shalkowski

THE ROUTLEDGE

HANDBOOK OF

NEOPLATONISM

Edited by

Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

First published 2014

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

711 Th ird Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2014 Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n, selection and editorial matter;

individual chapters, the contributors

Th e right of Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n to be identifi ed as the

authors of the editorial matter, and of the individual authors for their contributions,

has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs

and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised

in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or

hereaft er invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information

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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered

trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to

infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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A catalog record for this title has been applied for

ISBN: 978-1-844-65626-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-74418-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Minion Pro and Frutiger by Kate Williams, Swansea.

v

Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Abbreviations xi

1. Introduction: Neoplatonism today 1

Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

PART I: (RE)SOURCES, INSTRUCTION AND INTERACTION

Introduction 13

2. Platonist curricula and their infl uence 15

Harold Tarrant

3. Th e Alexandrian classrooms excavated and sixth-century philosophy teaching 30

Richard Sorabji

4. Middle Platonism and its relation to Stoicism and the Peripatetic tradition 40

Gretchen Reydams-Schils and Franco Ferrari

5. Plotinus and the Gnostics: opposed heirs of Plato 52

John D. Turner

6. Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas 77

Vishwa Adluri

PART II: METHODS AND STYLES OF EXEGESIS

Introduction 103

7. Aristotelian commentary tradition 106

Han Baltussen

vi CONTENTS

8. Th e non-commentary tradition 115

Andrew Smith

9. Plotinus’ style and argument 126

Luc Brisson

10. Proclus’ geometrical method 145

Marije Martijn

PART III: METAPHYSICS AND METAPHYSICAL PERSPECTIVES

Introduction 163

11. Metaphysics: the origin of becoming and the resolution of ignorance 166

Sara Ahbel-Rappe

12. Th e metaphysics of the One 182

Jens Halfwassen

13. Number in the metaphysical landscape 200

Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

14. Substance 216

Riccardo Chiaradonna

15. Matter and evil in the Neoplatonic tradition 231

Jean-Marc Narbonne

PART IV: LANGUAGE, KNOWLEDGE, SOUL AND SELF

Introduction 247

16. Th e gift of Hermes: the Neoplatonists on language and philosophy 251

Robbert M. van den Berg

17. Neoplatonic epistemology: knowledge, truth and intellection 266

Lloyd P. Gerson

18. Iamblichus on soul 280

John F. Finamore

19. From Alexander of Aphrodisias to Plotinus 293

Frederic M. Schroeder

20. Metaphysics of soul and self in Plotinus 310

Gwenaëlle Aubry

21. Perceptual awareness in the ancient commentators 323

Péter Lautner

CONTENTS vii

PART V: NATURE: PHYSICS, MEDICINE AND BIOLOGY

Introduction 341

22. Physics and metaphysics 343

Alessandro Linguiti

23. Neoplatonism and medicine 356

James Wilberding

24. Humans, other animals, plants and the question of the good: the Platonic

and Neoplatonic traditions 372

Kevin Corrigan

PART VI: ETHICS, POLITICAL THEORY AND AESTHETICS

Introduction 393

25. Plotinus on metaphysics and morality 396

Suzanne Stern-Gillet

26. Plotinus on founding freedom in Ennead VI.8[39] 421

Bernard Collette-Dučić

27. Freedom, providence and fate 437

Peter Adamson

28. Action, reasoning and the highest good 453

Pauliina Remes

29. Political theory 471

Dominic J. O’Meara

30. Plotinus’ aesthetics: in defence of the lifelike 484

Panayiota Vassilopoulou

PART VII: LEGACY

Introduction 505

31. Neoplatonism and Christianity in the West 508

Dermot Moran

32. Neoplatonism and Christianity in the East: philosophical and theological

challenges for bishops 525

Dimitar Y. Dimitrov

33. Islamic and Jewish Neoplatonisms 541

Sarah Pessin

Contributors 559

Bibliography 563

Index of passages cited 613

General index 631

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ix

Acknowledgements

Th e appearance of this volume would have been impossible without the support of many

individuals and institutions. Besides the contributors, we wish to thank the anonymous

reviewers for upholding the Handbook to the highest standards of scholarship and giving

it all in their comments; Michael Chase, Simon Fortier and Coralie Seizilles de Mazanco

for their help in translating certain articles from French; Carl O’Brien for translating

Jens Halfwassen’s chapter from German with the assistance of Th omas Arnold and Tolga

Ratzsch; Marcaline Boyd and Amanda Richard for their editorial assistance; Steven Gerrard

and the production team at Acumen for their vision, and patience, at every stage of the

project; Tony Bruce and the production team at Routledge for their wholehearted welcome

of the book into their Handbooks series; the Department of Classics and the Program

in the History and Philosophy of Science at Florida State University; the Department of

Philosophy at Uppsala University; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; Riksbankens

Jubileumsfond, the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences, and its

“Understanding Agency” Programme; the Florida State University Council on Research

and Creativity; C. H. Beck for allowing here the appearance of an English translation of

a chapter from Halfwassen (2004); University of Laval Press for allowing the appearance

of a revised version of Finamore (2009); and University of London Press for allowing the

appearance of an updated version of a chapter from Sorabji (2010). We are most in debt

to the forgiving understanding of our families. But none of this would have been possible

without a friendship that knows no limits and no borders, from the long Finnish summer

days of Mikkeli to the cosy coff ee houses of stormy Cardiff .

Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

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xi

Abbreviations

Th is list includes only the standard abbreviations of main reference sources. For the full names of abbreviated

individual titles, see “Authors and Works” in H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, with a revised

supplement (Oxford, 1996) xvi–xxxviii, and L. P. Gerson, Th e Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity

(Cambridge, 2010) vol. 2: 966–82.

CAG H. Diels (ed.) 1882–1909. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca. Berlin: Reimer.

CHLGEMP A. H. Armstrong (ed.) 1967. Th e Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

CHPLA L. P. Gerson (ed.) 2010. Th e Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, 2 vols. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

CMG 1908–. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum.

CPF F. Adorno et al. (eds) 1995. Corpus dei papiri fi losofi ci greci e latini III: Commentari. Florence:

Olschki.

DK H. Diels & W. Kranz (eds) 1951–2. Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 6th edn, 3 vols. Berlin:

Weidmann.

DPA R. Goulet (ed.) 1989–2012. Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, 5 vols & 1 suppl. to date. Paris:

CNRS.

ET Proclus, Elementatio theologica = Institutio theologica = Elements of Th eology.

NHC Th e Nag Hammadi Codices.

QAM Galen, Quod animi mores corporis temperamenta sequuntur. In I. Mueller (ed.) 1891. Claudii

Galeni Pergameni Scripta Minora, Vol. 2. Leipzig: Teubner. Also Kühn, vol. 4, 767–822.

RE A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, W. Kroll, K. Witte, K. Mittelhaus & K. Ziegler (eds) 1894–1978. Real￾Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft. Stut tgart: Metzler & Druckenmüller.

SVF H. von Arnim (ed.) 1903–5. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, 4 vols. Stuttgart: Teubner.

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1

1

Introduction: Neoplatonism today

Pauliina Remes and Svetla Slaveva-Griffi n

In this day and age putting together a volume such as Th e Routledge Handbook of

Neoplatonism is a celebratory event even when the publishers’ catalogues are laden with

state-of-the-art companions, guides and histories in every fi eld. In the case of Neoplatonism,

the appearance of such a volume is momentous as a “rite of passage” acknowledging that

the discipline of late ancient philosophy has reached its full maturity. What, then, one may

ask, is so timely and attractive in the study of Neoplatonism today?

Th e fates of Neoplatonism have changed in the past two decades. It has come out from

the cupboard of intellectual oddities to become the fastest growing area of research in

ancient philosophy. Th is new-found interest has yielded fruitful results for the understand￾ing not only of Neoplatonism itself but also of the cultural vitality of ancient philosophy

in late antiquity. In the constantly changing, fractured, world of intellectual and ideologi￾cal allegiance in the period from the third to the sixth century ce, Neoplatonism was a

stabilizing factor, of a kind, the unity and completeness of which cannot be underesti￾mated. Developing a system that builds the impermanent physical reality, in even more

impermanent historical times, into a self-sustained whole of cascading causal principles

made Neoplatonism an enduring philosophical force. Th e scholarly attempt to grasp this

system better, with its complexity and resilience, various interpretations and unfoldings,

has turned Neoplatonic studies into a success story today.

Th e fi rst steps of Neoplatonic research were naturally constrained by the intellectual

circumstances in which Neoplatonic philosophy grew in the shadow of its two Classical

predecessors – Platonism and Aristotelianism. From the point of view of scholarship nar￾rowly concentrated on the fl oruit of Greek ancient philosophy in Athens in the late fi ft h

and fourth centuries bce, Neoplatonism can be easily seen as the unwanted stepchild of

this period of Classical ancient philosophy which earnestly but inanely tries to dovetail

with its illustrious ancestry. Th is point of view has for some time now been challenged

by an ever-growing interest in the post-Classical period of ancient thought, with late

ancient thinkers as the most recent area of exploration. Within Neoplatonic scholarship,

2 INTRODUCTION

the pioneering eff orts sent a sustained series of intellectual waves throughout the twen￾tieth century which incited translations, rethought interpretations, and charted new ter￾ritories for future research.1

Th anks to the avalanching success of these eff orts today we

understand better the philosophical phenomenon of Neoplatonism: its sources, overarch￾ing simplicity, internal complexity, methodologies, and interrelations with every corner

of knowledge. Neoplatonism, comprehensively understood, can no longer be dismissed

as an in-vitro off spring of Platonism, which attempts to work out the quirks of Middle

Platonism, sprinkled with (anti)-Peripatetic zest and a few smears of Neopythagoreanism,

Stoicism and, not to forget, religious mysticism. From an idiosyncratic and peripheral

aft ermath of Plato’s philosophy, Neoplatonism grew to establish itself as the foremost

philosophical venue of late antiquity.

Th ere are three directions of research that have contributed most to the success of

Neoplatonic studies in the twenty-fi rst century. First, contemporary research seeks to

unravel the psychological, ethical and political consequences of metaphysics, the heart

of hearts of Neoplatonic philosophy. While research of metaphysical themes remains the

backbone of scholarly work, more and more studies are interested in bridging the gap

between ontology and other areas of philosophizing. Th is is directly connected to the

second feature of present research, namely the rising attention to how the Neoplatonists

understood the so-called sensible realm. Areas such as politics and natural philosophy

that were previously considered neglected by these thinkers have become insurgent and

vibrant today. Metaphysics continues to play a key role in these studies, but the centre

of attention has shift ed, from merely revealing the fi nesse of the Neoplatonic ontological

hierarchy for its own sake to understanding the inherent interconnectedness of all parts

of the philosophical system, including metaphysics. Th e emerging picture is thus more

balanced as well as more relevant for human concerns.

Besides the more practical and this-worldly emphasis, recent research is marked,

thirdly, by the substantial advance of both historical and philosophical interpretations.

Historically, Neoplatonism is now treated as a continuation of the Classical and Hellenistic

heritage rather than an introspective curiosity from late antiquity the main outcome of

which is the conceptual fi rmament of Christian ideology. Th e picture of the relation￾ship of Neoplatonism with other schools of thought, both philosophical and religious, is

rapidly becoming more concrete. Th e philosophical purport of this is to see, for example,

Neoplatonic metaphysical hierarchy – the proliferation of entities as well as levels – as a

series of attempts to address philosophical problems detected or left behind by earlier

thinkers such as Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics. In the same vein, the study of

the relationship between metaphysics and theology or metaphysics and mathematics – to

give just two pairs of examples among many – has outgrown the limitations of scepticism

to reveal a sound philosophically based communication. Th ereby the new research in

metaphysics, mathematics and theology has become more and more problem-oriented

rather than strictly descriptive. As a result, the writing of a commentary on a single work

has been supplemented by the analytical explication of a particular problem or a concept,

sometimes within a single author, at others across time and divergent views.

Before discussing, briefl y, some particularities of Neoplatonism as currently under￾stood, a few methodological points about both the term and the object of research it grasps

are in order. As is well known today, the term “Neoplatonism” captures something less

than a unifi ed phenomenon in the history of philosophy, and comes with its own historical