/pg/ - Platonism General

[Anonymous No.18314044]

The last thread was quite productive aside from the shit-flinging over Hypatia.
Previous thread:>>18277107

For a proper introduction to Platonic metaphysics, philosophy and it's historical background that isn't butchered by academic caricatures:
>Eric D. Perl - Thinking Being
>Algis Uždavinys - Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism
>Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie - The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library
>Lloyd P. Gerson - From Plato to Platonism

Middle Platonism:
>Stephen Gersh - Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism

Neoplatonism:
>Porphyry - Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind
>Llyod P. Gerson - Plotinus
>Gregory Shaw - Theurgy and the Soul
>Radek Chlup - Proclus
>Sara Rappe - Reading Neoplatonism

Christian Neoplatonism:
>Eric D. Perl - Theophany
>Eric D. Perl - Methexis
>Deirdre Carabine - The Unknown God
>Stephen Gersh - From Iamblichus to Eriugena
>Fran O'Rourke - Ps. Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas
>David Albertson - Mathematical Theologies
>Michael Allen - Ficino

Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe is a great read too.

When reading Plato's Dialogues, a good practice would be to read them alongside Proclus' or Marsilio Ficino's commentaries.

Resources & notes:
If you can get the Loeb print of a text, opt for that. the Cooper transl. of Plato is fine.
Plotinus' Enneads + Commentary
>https://www.parmenides.com/publications/publications-plotinus.html
Proclus' Elements of Theology w/ Dodds’ commentary.
The Classics of Western Spirituality Series is good but with Ps. Dionysius, read the Rev. John Parker transl. instead:
>https://sacred-texts.com/chr/dio/index.htm
The only good print of Eriugena's Division of Nature:
>https://books.doaks.org/catalog/book/periphyseon
Wayne J. Hankey's publications:
>https://independent.academia.edu/WayneHankey
Gregory Shaw’s publications:
>https://stonehill.academia.edu/GregoryShaw
Intro to mathematical Platonism:
>https://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com/2016/04/prelude-to-mathematical-neo-platonism_42.html?m=1

[Anonymous No.18314054]

>>18314044
Who does the Platonic tradition include?
A rough list:
>Orpheus
>The Presocratics [notably Pythagoras and Parmenides]
>Plato
>Aristotle
>Plutarch
>Philo
>St. Justin Martyr
>Numenius of Apamea
>Clement of Alexandria
>Plotinus
>Origen
>Porphyry
>St. Augustine
>St. Gregory of Nyssa
>Iamblichus
>Emperor Julian
>Proclus
>Boethius
>Ps. Dionysius
>Damascius
>St. Maximus the Confessor
>John Scotus Eriugena
>Richard of St. Victor
>St. Bernard of Clairvaux
>St. Albert the Great
>St. Bonaventure
>St. Thomas Aquinas [this will surprise some but read Hankey’s paper on Aquinas’ Neoplatonism]
>Meister Eckhart
>Nicholas of Cusa
>Gemistus Pletho
>Marsilio Ficino

I’ve probably missed quite a few people as is the nature of things.

Other writers in the tradition that aren't doing explicitly philosophical treatises include:
>St. Hildegard von Bingen
>Dante Aligheri
>Samuel Taylor Coleridge

[Anonymous No.18314075]

What are the thoughts of hardcore platonists on the interpretative paradigm of the Tübingen-Milan concerning Plato's written and unwritten doctrines?

[Anonymous No.18314106]

>the quickest way to be incarnated into heaven? love a young boy, but do not make love to him, just lock eyes with him and long for one another
>the second quickest way? fuck him.
what did socrates mean by this???

[Anonymous No.18314118]

What do we think of Giorgio Colli?

[Anonymous No.18314130]

>>18314044
Im half way thru Plato's works, but I just copped The Enneads from the thrift store and tempted to dive right into it. Is this a bad idea?

[Anonymous No.18314224]

>>18314130
>Is this a bad idea?
Yes.

[Anonymous No.18314228]

does anyone ITT believe in the existence of forms outside of physical reality? why?

[Anonymous No.18314233]

>>18314228
>he doesn't believe in the existence of anything that isn't physical
You can literally see with your own eyes there is more than the physical.

[Anonymous No.18314348]

>>18314233
are you implying i can see non-physical forms with my own eyes? if not , not related to my question

[Anonymous No.18314351]

Hypatia was killed by Pagans

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18314415]

>>18314351
Nope

[Anonymous No.18314429]

>>18314348
Yes, you can see yourself seeing in the mirror. This is meant to be taken literally.

[Anonymous No.18314463]

>>18314429
what is the form in that perception which is detached from physicality?

[Anonymous No.18314572]

>>18314054
>Aristotle
Now I'm new at this and the only things I've read of Aristotle are Ethics and Politics, but I thought it was generally agreed that Aristotle was against Plato's beliefs and theory of forms? Am I wrong here? Also, what to read next, do I go On the Soul -> Physics -> Metaphysics or Physics -> On the Soul -> Metaphysics or something else?

[Anonymous No.18314619]

>>18314463
Your transcendental subject. But I never said it was "detached" from physicality, only that there is obviously more than the physical, and that you can see it.

[Anonymous No.18314690]

>>18314619
well yeah i agree with you, but this observation i dont think is incompatible with an aristotelean nominalism. why do people believe in the existence of mathematical objects or the form of an object without respect to physical instantiation or at least relation?

[Anonymous No.18314833]

>>18314572
Arisotle is the first Platonist. He know Plato's unwritten doctrines and much of his "anti-Platonism" is actually just rehashings of arguments Plato presents against himself in say the Parmenides.
Most crucially, aristotle presents a philosophical vocabulary to basically systematise platonic philosophy - all the Neoplatonists acknowledged this and hence why Plotinus, Porphyry and Ficino all used a very Aristotelian vocabulary to make Platonic conclusions.

Aristotle isn't disjunct from Platonism entirely either. His entire philosophy is generated from the Platonic-Socratic backdrop. Infact, platonism and aristotelianism could easily be classified into one group Llyod P. Gerson called "Ur-Platonism".

Here's an article from Edward Feser on it:
>https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/11/join-ur-platonist-alliance.html

>"As the title of the first of his books referred to above indicates, Gerson sees Aristotle as part of the Platonist tradition broadly construed, and that is in fact how many of the ancients also saw him. Of course, Aristotle disagreed with Plato on some important points, but this disagreement took place against a background of agreement on the philosophical fundamentals. Gerson also argues for a return to the ancient view that the thinking of so-called “Neo-Platonists” like Plotinus (who thought of themselves as simply Platonists full stop, and who also regarded Aristotle as part of the Platonist club) was in fact continuous with that of Plato, rather than marking some break or novelty. Gerson proposes a couple of ways of spelling out the nature of the broad agreement that existed between these thinkers."

[Anonymous No.18314836]

>>18314572
>>18314833
(cont.)
>"
>In From Plato to Platonism, he suggests that the common core of “Ur-Platonism” can be characterized in negative terms, as a conjunction of five “antis”: anti-materialism, anti-mechanism, anti-nominalism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Together these elements make up a sixth “anti-,” namely anti-naturalism. Thinkers in the Ur-Platonist tradition spell out the implications of this conjunction of “antis” in ways that differ in several details, but certain common themes tend to emerge, such as the thesis that ultimate explanation requires positing a non-composite divine cause, the immateriality of the intellect, and the objectivity of morality. In his talk, Fr. Brent follows this approach to characterizing the tradition."

Your first approach of On the Soul -> Physics -> Metaphysics is good, I'd stick with that.

[Anonymous No.18314866]

>>18314130
Yea you'll be really lost because the difference in vocabulary and the philosophical approach is huge.
I'd recommend reading Eric D. Perl's Thinking Being so you can have Plato and Plotinus bridged over for you before you jump over.
There's a free pdf of it on zLibrary from memory.
>>18314228
Yes but we need to remember that Plato never argued for a "realm of forms" - a hypostasised heaven of all the collected "forms" in the literal sense. These spatial metaphors make no sense when applied to immaterial abstracts, precisely because you cant apply spatial predicates to things which are immaterial.

The forms are as Proclus says, "unparticipated" which is to say they exist independently of physical reality. A better way to think of them would be as their greek expression in the Theatetus as "paradigmati" or paradigms/bluprints for the various things in physical reality. The things in physical reality that bear the likeness of this or that "paradigm" are what we call "participated terms" and that which can potentially come to share in such a likeness with a given form or is already participated we call a "participant".

But what about its regular expression as idea/eidos? I'll paraphrase Eric Perl to explain with regards to the form of Beauty as an example;

The word in the Meno and other dialogues, translated, traditionally but inadequately, as
‘form,’ is εἶδος, or, in other similar passages, the related word ἰδέα (e.g., Euth. 5d11, 5e3). As has often been pointed out, these words are related to words for ‘seeing,’ and, less directly, ‘knowing,’ in Greek and other Indo-European languages.

Their fundamental meaning is the ‘look’ of something, the way it shows up to the gaze. And then from gaze to thought.

Eric Perl puts in his footnotes that; “Εἶδος and ἰδέα are cognate with Latin video, visio, etc; German Wissen; English wit, wise, wisdom; and Sanskrit Veda. We should, perhaps, hear distant echoes of all these words when we encounter the term ‘form’ in Plato.”

This is cruicial, as it means that unlike the English “form”, these words intrinsically and immediately convey a relation to awareness/giveness: to say that things have a certain εἶδος is to say something about how they show up or appear to an apprehending consciousness. 1/2

[Anonymous No.18314869]

>>18314866
How being is given to thought. Many different things “have some one same form” (Men. 72c7) in that they all display the same content to the gaze, and so are truly identified as all pious, all beautiful, or all virtues.

The Platonic doctrine of reality as εἶδος is an expression of the community between thought and being.

Without εἶδος, with out ‘looks’, thought and being would be alienated from one another, having no common content. But in that case there would be no thought, since there would be no apprehension of being, and no being, since nothing would be given to thought.

But evidently there is thought, and so being. To affirm there to be no being would be contrary to the very act of existing to explain that there is somehow no being.

But if we extend a line of reasoning that subjectifies all identities, rendering them superfluous as “beauty is merely in the eye of the beholder”, to all the ‘looks,’ all the characters in terms of which things are identified not only the beautiful, but, to take other examples from Plato, large and
small, hard and soft, healthy, strong, just and so on and deny the existence of all forms, the result is not merely that nothing is beautiful, and that nothing is large, but that nothing is anything.

Without forms, not only language and thought but reality itself collapses. In order to be anything at all, a thing must be something, that is, it must have and display certain ‘looks,’ characters, identities, in virtue of which it is what it is rather than—nothing.

Plato is making a very intuitive observation: of course there is such a thing as health or strength and so beauty and goodness;

otherwise there would be no difference in reality between healthy and unhealthy organisms, between strong and weak bodies, between good and evil, between ugly and beautiful.

The denial of ‘looks’ gives us the Protagorean dictum, “Man is the measure of all things”. The affirmation of Plato gives, “For us, God would be most the measure of all things, far more than, as they say, any man.” (Laws 716c4–6).

[Anonymous No.18314876]

>>18314869
>>18314228

But naturally, as our knowledge of material things is through sense impressions, our apprehension of the εἶδος is through the senses but subsists apriori and thus unparticipated Platonic forms are immaterial.

>"Since we apply this paradigmatic idea in judging what we perceive, our knowledge of it is in some sense prior, not in the temporal sense but in ontological priority to (what is most necessary for a consequent) sense-experience. If objects of knowledge are prior to objects of sense-perception, knowledge is necessarily prior to sense-perception, and therefore so are subjects of knowledge to subjects of sense-perception."

[https://sympoiesis.net/metamorphoses-of-self-i/]

[Anonymous No.18314889]

>>18314348
Technically what you see with your eyes, and perceive through the senses generally lead you towards the intelligible-whatness of a thing and so you do in somesense "see" forms. But in making judgements you apprehend them according to your cognitive capacity.

If we speak to a group of people, sound is present in the air for everyone in an indivisible manner. It depends solely on the capacity of the audience what each of them receives from it. One person is deaf, not hearing anything; another does hear the speech but does not understand it, not knowing the language; yet another does know the language but does not understand the subject matter. In a similar way each higher level of reality is present everywhere as a whole, but each being and thing is only able to receive from it what it has capacity for. To exert effort to come to know this reality that is already present to us is thus a noetic nobility of the one who engages in such a project. This is also how Platonic participation works - a participated term only participates in the unparticipated form insofar as it has the capacity to receive the unparticipated form.

[Anonymous No.18314903]

>>18314351
>>18314415
ah fuck not this again
how about we call a ceasefire by acknowledging that the Catholic Church basically canonised Hypatia as a Saint [St. Catherine of Alexandria] because she was a morally virtuous tutor of many Christians and so perhaps baptism of desire happened?
idk that was my attempt at reconciliation

[Anonymous No.18314927]

WHERE SHOULD I START WITH PHILO OF ALEXANDRIA

[Anonymous No.18314997]

>>18314690
My point was not to prove Platonism as a system, it was just to show the general assumption of its worldview to be right in contrast to complete physicalism. The soul after all was a form for Plato.

[Anonymous No.18315084]

>>18314927
I'm just getting into him myself but I'd say reading the fragments of On Providence that Eusebius preserves can't be a bad place to start seeing as both sections are fairly short with some interesting material:
>Why, then, does he use the expression, "In the image of God I made Man,"{1}{#ge 1:27.A.} as if he were speaking of that of some other God, and not of having made him in the likeness of himself? This expression is used with great beauty and wisdom. For it was impossible that anything mortal should be made in the likeness of the most high God the Father of the universe; but it could only be made in the likeness of the second God, who is the Word of the other; for it was fitting that the rational type in the soul of man should receive the impression of the Word of God, since the God below the Word is superior to all and every rational nature; and it is not lawful for any created thing to be made like the God who is above reason, and who is endowed with a most excellent and special form appropriated to himself alone.

[Anonymous No.18315123]

>>18314044
https://historyforatheists.com/2020/07/the-great-myths-9-hypatia-of-alexandria/
This is probably a good article to read regarding Hypatia's death. The whole website began as a response to atheists distorting history for their own ends so I recommend giving this a read.

[Anonymous No.18315146]

>>18314997
yeah i get your meaning. sorry for not clarifying what i was looking for earlier. im not a physicalist or anything like that but i struggle to see why one should believe in transcendent forms

[Anonymous No.18315258]

>>18314348
You see through the Mind, the eyes are just windows. Without Mind it'd just be nonsense chaos.

[Anonymous No.18315264]

this is a literature board, we are tired of this philosophy/religion garbage. it is just cringey and boring. please consider moving to:
>>>/his/

[Anonymous No.18315341]

>>18315264
no one reads theoretical philosophy on /his/

[Anonymous No.18315368]

>>18314044
please op keep on doing this thread regurarly

[Anonymous No.18315381]

What is the correct chronological order to read Plato?

[Anonymous No.18315391]

>>18315264
You and who else??

[Anonymous No.18315438]

>>18314876
Good posts. I see how the idea of 'coming-to-know' as 'reminiscence' fits better.

[Anonymous No.18315450]

>>18315264
why are you being such a faggot

[Anonymous No.18315451]

>>18315264
Plato is some of the greatest lit of all time. Smfh.

[Anonymous No.18315456]

What does Platonic practice look like if anything?

[Anonymous No.18315469]

>>18315123
very cool thank you
>>18315264
whatever, hylic
>>18315368
I'll try and keep this regular
>>18315381
Read them in Cooper's order:
>Euthyphro
>Apology
>Crito
>Phaedo
>Cratylus
>Theaetetus
>Sophist
>Statesman
>Parmenides
>Philebus
>Symposium
>Phaedrus
>Alcibiades I
>Alcibiades II*
>Hipparchus
>Rival Lovers*
>Theages*
>Charmides
>Laches
>Lysis
>Euthydemus
>Protagoras
>Gorgias
>Meno
>Greater Hippias
>Lesser Hippias
>Ion
Menexenus
>Clitophon
>Republic
>Timaeus
>Critias
>Minos*
>Laws
>Epinomis*
>The Letters
Everything starred is of disputed authorship or is confirmed to be written by Plato's students but circulated it under his name. The most important of these is probably the Epinomis.
There are other pseudographical texts in the Cooper collection after the Letters but I don't know much about them.
>>18315438
Thanks man
>>18315264
this guy gets it right>>18315451
Platonism is borne in the Dialogue form - Plato wanted to be a playwright like Sophocles, hence the dialogue format.
The essence of Platonism as intentionally theatrical and simultaneously philosophical and inextricably theological continues throughout Pagan Neoplatonism -- Plotinus' use of the theatre on account of transmigration and virtue, and Christian Neoplatonism -- Boethius, Eriugena and Eckhart in a roundabout sense in the Sermons all use the Dialogue format - the theatrical component isn't lost either despite rejecting reincarnation - it gets re-purposed whereby history-itself is theatre, the Theo-drama God writes whose protagonist is Christ as Balthasar famously wrote about.

Important to note is that Platonism finds its actual roots in Orphism.

[Anonymous No.18315483]

>>18314866
People have a lot of trouble thinking about immaterial things. Most of the time they envisage some kind of ectoplasm in another 3D space. Like they think forms are physical but not just made of the matter we're familiar with. Understanding that the forms are not actually things as such that inhabit some other realm is pretty important.

[Anonymous No.18315485]

>>18315146
Whether one believes the Forms are literally, one might even say physically in a way, outside of this world does not change the immense effect Plato has on the mind. There is always a sense that he is true either way, for example to put briefly his theory of anamnesis: that all of life is the progression of the individual to his soul, a becoming who he is in that grand Platonic way. Jung of course tried to put this in scientific terms, and with a different centering on what that value is, but he got it from Plato.

I'm not trying to deforce Plato from metaphysics, but no doubt the transcendent for Plato is a life experience.

[Anonymous No.18315504]

>>18315456
A life lived as a philosopher, but also an accompanying religious life. Theurgy becomes an important part too later on and this can either take the route of the Christian Eucharist or pagan magical practice.
Either way, it is a life pointed upwards, with heavenly things in mind as one works intimately within the world that is the Platonic life: lofty ideals and learning confronting the problems of life with prudence.
The divide over which is to be preferred, the Christian or the Pagan, often comes to a head with the debate over sacrifice and the Hellenic mythos: was Plato really repudiating the Hellenic mythos in his anti-Homeric attitude in the Republic? Did he reject pagan sacrifice? Plotinus and Porphyry did somewhat (by not engaging as opposed to actively opposing sacrifice) but the latter was still quite a devout Hellenistic pagan. But if Plato truly rejected both then the Christian, specifically Catholic life fits best. I make the qualification of Catholic because the Orthodox seem to really have a heavy-handed anti-platonism in their aversion to Absolute Divine Simplicity (this might just be a neo-palamite thing though). The Protestants reject the sacraments so the theurgic component would be lacking. Either way, the most profound Christian Platonists post-schism definitely fall in the Catholic camp.

Either way, one should probably not make their ultimate decisions about faith based on pure reason because, rather, pure reason opens up the doors of possibility to a given faiths.
The late Neoplatonists such as Proclus interestingly enough come to agree with the Christian Patristics on this.
>>18315483
Absolutely - overcoming this image of the eidos as these corporeal things you just can't touch because they are "far-away" in some sense is the first barrier to break.

[Anonymous No.18315516]

>>18315264
>>18315451
>>18315469
it looks as if Plato never actually stopped being a playwright
https://archive.org/details/jstor-310427/page/n1/mode/2up

[Anonymous No.18315521]

>>18315504
>Theurgy becomes an important part too later on and this can either take the route of the Christian Eucharist or pagan magical practice.
I sense you've read Living Theurgy by Kupperman

[Anonymous No.18315523]

What does /Platonism/ think of Heidegger's view that "the Good" was just another word for big b Being in Plato?

[Anonymous No.18315539]

>>18315523
The Good is identified with the One and is beyond Being. The Nous is Being itself since Being is identified as intelligibility in Platonism. The One cannot be Being since the One transcends the intelligible realm.

[Anonymous No.18315554]

>>18315539
Heidegger thinks big b Being transcends the intelligible as well, "was the guiding question for ancient philosophy", and is only ever glimmered through in half-astonishment and almost fear, like the sight of a God.

[Anonymous No.18315560]

>>18314075
>Tübingen-Milan
Whats this?
When I searched it up I only came across some Heidegger stuff
QRD pls anon
>>18314118
Is any of his stuff actually translated to English?
Kant is admittedly kinda cringe but definitely respect the Aristotle scholarship
>>18315521
I'll put it on the list - it was actually Radek Chlup's book on Proclus actually, discussing Trouillard and Marion's theurgic view of the Eucharist and also Dylan Burns' paper comparing Dionysius and Proclus on theurgy that got me thinking this way
>>18315523
It seems as though Heidegger isn't entirely wrong - he's somewhat incorrect because it looks like he's actually anachronising the Medieval account of capital B Being from Augustine as Plato's own view.
This is a good answer>>18315539
However the Mediaeval nuance (specifically Thomistic) would be to add that when the medieval whom Heidegger is interpreting Plato in light of, when the speak of "Being" they don't mean the intelligible realm. They mean "the being of beings", and more crucially the latin "esse". "Ens" is the intelligible realm and esse is that upon which something which is given "to be" is in some fashion, and thus dependant upon (through participation).
Heidegger for most of his work goes very wrong with his approach to Plato, until quite late with his commentary on the Theaetetus when he somewhat rediscovers Plato in a more proper sense.

[Anonymous No.18315573]

>>18315523
>>18315560
Here's a somewhat neoplatonic critique of Heidegger's earlier anti-platonism. It doesn't take into account his later works unfortunately. But then again, neither does "Heideggerianism" as such.

https://sensuscatholicus.jimdofree.com/2020/12/12/contra-haereses-heidegger-pseudo-prophet-of-anti-metaphysics/

[Anonymous No.18315578]

>>18315554
DBH thinks Heidegger is a pseud

[Anonymous No.18315579]

>>18314927
>>18315084
this is a good reccomendation

[Anonymous No.18315590]

>>18315578
Yea one of the biggest blunders that Heidegger made was in somehow ignoring the entire Neoplatonic tradition, especially its Christian adherents.
DBH is right here but idk if I'd be as harsh as he was lul

[Anonymous No.18315594]

>>18314228
everything is physical, its just that forms are more physical

[Anonymous No.18315596]

>>18315590
>DBH is right here but idk if I'd be as harsh as he was lul
DBH is brilliant but his ego leads him to be far more vitriolic than he needs to be. Case in point.

[Anonymous No.18315604]

>>18315523
I dont feel like Heidegger is worth engaging with. Why bother with moderns...

[Anonymous No.18315608]

>>18315604
Based Heidegger

[Anonymous No.18315618]

>>18315596
yea that was over the top lmao wtf
John Milbank seems to suffer from a similar ego inflation but at least that largely is kept to his retarded twitter account
>>18315604
>"just look at his marvelous hands"
lmao
>I dont feel like Heidegger is worth engaging with. Why bother with moderns...
as I'll say again, for Platonic and Theological purposes only late game Heidegger is useful
>>18315608
Yea its actually hilarious - the french existential faggots like Satre et al had to bend over backwards for decades to defend Heidegger and apologise for his Nazism claiming that his philosophy and his politics were separate, and then later in his life when he was giving an interview to Der Spiegel he just flipped the tables on them (pic related).

[Anonymous No.18315624]

>>18315560
>However the Mediaeval nuance (specifically Thomistic) would be to add that when the medieval whom Heidegger is interpreting Plato in light of, when the speak of "Being" they don't mean the intelligible realm. They mean "the being of beings", and more crucially the latin "esse". "Ens" is the intelligible realm and esse is that upon which something which is given "to be" is in some fashion, and thus dependant upon (through participation).
It's very interesting that you make this connection, as Heidegger believed it was the Greeks who followed the prior "Being", and not just the being of something.

[Anonymous No.18315632]

>>18315578
I find it hard to believe that Heidegger was not aware of this traditional view of the relation between being and beings. I'm pretty sure that's the tradition he's directly critiquing. Heidegger also didn't think philosophy was in "one continuous decline".

[Anonymous No.18315636]

>>18315596
>If I then allow myself to dilate upon the fantasy a little, four or five pale youths with lank hair, clad in leather jackets and pointed Spanish boots, approach, exchange wicked smiles, toss away their cigarettes and begin kicking him in the ribs, groin and coccyx
What the fuck is wrong with David Bentley Hart

[Anonymous No.18315644]

>>18315624
I think Heidegger makes this mistake because his sustained theological study seemed to primarily concern Kierkegaard and Augustine.
Had he paid attention to Dionysius and the mediaeval inheritance of him alongside Proclus in the "liber causis" as it was called then, he would not have made this mistake.
He did however seem to have a personal antipathy to his Catholic upbringing that his diaries show.
However, he only seemed to get over these sorts of issues very late in life (he died a Catholic it seems but we don't know for certain).
>>18315632
The view he explicitly was critiquing was Being as beings. His engagement with Neoplatonic apophaticism is basically non-existent from what I've seen so far. As Eric Perl notes, Heidegger not only gets his Greek very very correct, he weirdly gets his German wrong.

>"The term ‘being,’ ... [should be to] translate Greek ὄν or τὸ ὄν, the present participle of the verb ‘to be.’ Corresponding to German Seiend (not Sein!) and (philosophical) French étant, it thus signifies that-which-is: either, according
to context, the whole of reality, all that is taken together as one whole (as in the first question); or a thing-that-is, as in the expression 'a being'."

[Anonymous No.18315646]

>>18314228
Yeah, because I am a mathematician and not a fucking idiot.

[Anonymous No.18315647]

>>18315646
based

[Anonymous No.18315651]

>>18315646
Mathoma is that you

[Anonymous No.18315656]

>>18315596
Holy shit DBH should take his meds

[Anonymous No.18315657]

>>18315646
>>18315651
very cool if truly mathoma in /thread

[Anonymous No.18315659]

Apparently Heidegger's brother was an expert in theology equivalent to his own knowledge of philosophy, and would regularly rely on him for knowledge of that sphere.

[Anonymous No.18315664]

>>18315659
Based Heidegger bros, I wish I had a brother to discuss philosophy with :(

[Anonymous No.18315676]

>>18315504
Speaking towards Platonic practice. Does the thread think that there is a necessary division between monotheistic and polytheistic theurgy, or can they be coextensive? (I suppose then it would be henotheism or monolatry) How does this fit? Is it enough to think the One in terms of a most high god and the Ideas (i.e. Beauty, Virtue, etc) in terms of lesser deities, and to conduct ritual accordingly...
And what about the transposition (or fusion) of certain Ideas with the deities that correspond chiefly to that Idea, for instance Beauty and say Aphrodite. Is this a way of orienting ourselves upwards or a mistaken mixture of polytheism and Platonism?

[Anonymous No.18315678]

>>18315664
Heidegger had a close Catholic family from the start, who were said to be "sure enough in their faith to not regularly attend church". Naturally Heidegger's departure from Catholicism was a great shock to his mother and brother, his father iirc having passed away, but they continued to support him. Was apparently quite a comfy lifestyle.

[Anonymous No.18315681]

>>18315678
Nvm, apparently Heidegger's dad is still alive somewhere.

[Anonymous No.18315706]

>>18315651
>>18315657
redpill me on mathoma

[Anonymous No.18315714]

>>18315706
Youtuber who posts Mathematics and Theology videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_lVXCyzqBb2Xc8CrvPENg

[Anonymous No.18315737]

Reminder not to neglect the Islamic and Persian Neoplatonists; the Illuminationism of Suhrawardi and the Transcendent Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. They made very interesting developments around imagination (phantasia) as intermediary between the intelligable and the sensible, and on the active intellect developed by Alexander of Aphrodisias' Platonic reading of Aristotle.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suhrawardi/
>Mulla Sadra
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mulla-sadra/

[Anonymous No.18315755]

>>18314228
The tragic irony is that the Socratic theory of Forms is still generally believed to be Plato's, despite Plato himself refuteing the theory in his Parmenides.

[Anonymous No.18315758]

>>18315624
Mulla Sadra is interesting as a Platonic existensionalist who makes a very similar critique to Heidegger that earlier, in his case Illuminationists, had mistaken being as essence and not being as existence. This work directly compares Heidegger and Sadra and the commonality of their onto-epistemology of knowledge as a disclosure/unveiling of being.
>Sadradin Shirazi (1571-1640), known also as Mulla Sadra, spoke of the primacy of Being and promoted a new ontology, founding a new epistemology. Mulla Sadra's ontology is an important philosophical turn and contribution to the understanding of the development of Muslim philosophy and thought. This comprehensive study of Mulla Sadra's philosophical thought explores his departure from tradition; his turn to the doctrine of the primacy of Being; the dynamic characteristics of Being and the concept of substantial change; comparisons with Heidegger's fundamental ontology; and the influence of Mulla Sadra's ontology on subsequent Muslim philosophy

[Anonymous No.18315770]

>>18315676
Both Christian and Pagan neoplatonism distinguish the pure intelligible-being from the determinate-eidos. This is to say that the former are gods/angels and the latter are the forms. They are different.

But yes, the One, the Godhead is beyond all of them. So in reality, the difference between the two is veneration. Catholicism and Orthodoxy see the role of the angels as intercessionary and not exactly demiurgic as the Pagan gods are. So for an example, Christian prayer is always to God through saint/angel's intercession. Pagan Neoplatonism would allow you to ethically just cease at the level of the gods/angels. But really the question is about sacrifice - that is what "religio" is constituted by traditionally speaking. The Christian can only sacrifice to the Godhead, the Pagan will sacrifice to the gods and the Godhead as he pleases. The Christian argument is that all is due unto God principally and so to give sacrifice to an intermediary misses the point. Moreover there is the first commandment.
All in all, as Augustine likes to point out, the division between polytheism and monotheism isn't really strict.

If you want to call angels 'gods' so be it, he says in the City of God, because scripture tells us that God is the "God of gods and Lord of lords". [Ps. 136:3] There are a litany of other examples of this in scripture too.
>>18315737
Thanks man good of you post this
>>18315755
I mean yea Socrates' formulations are repudiated in the Parmenides but the Letter prove that Plato did earnestly believe in the eidos. And as is really evident from the rest of the dialogues, its a far more sophisticated account that some "realm" of supra-sensible objects. The spatial metaphors were just that: metaphors.
See>>18314866
>>18314869
>>18314876
And Eric D. Perl's "Thinking Being"

[Anonymous No.18315775]

>>18315681
>170yo
lmao

[Anonymous No.18315777]

>>18315523
Having read the Islamic Neoplatonists who put forward the same idea of the primacy of existence, I agree. Erigena/Dionysus makes so much more sense when you understand 'beyond being' as 'existence beyond essence'. The One is a overflowing of existence without essence that is unknowable in its essence even by The One/God itself because it is beyond essence.

Existence must be primary because to denote anything is to bring it into existence as an idea, everything subsists in existence.

[Anonymous No.18315836]

Good introductory essay on Mulla Sadra's theory of sense perception that encompasses much of what is of value in his contribution to Platonism, ideas of the imaginal, the active intellect and the union of the intellect with the intelligible, the idea of trans-substantial motion, the primacy of existence, epistemeology as an exercise in ontology, and so on:
>Mulla Sadra’s doctrine of perception, including sense perception, imaginal perception and intellectual perception - Prof. Sayyed Muhammad Khamenei
http://www.mullasadra.org/new_site/english/Paper%20Bank/Epistemology/Soas.htm

If the link doesn't work at first refresh it a few times. Web 1.0 site run by the big brother of the Iranian Supreme Leader.

[Anonymous No.18315895]

>>18315770
Plato's refutation is that the observed fact of different things having the same predicate cannot be explained by splitting reality to two different classes of items, particulars and Forms, because a Form can only be described as particular thing - as being distinguishable from the particulars which are supposed to partake in it. So then we have to reintroduce the particular/universal distinction on the level of the Forms, and the explanation fails.
And the way to get around this is to reject the distinction between empirically observed particulars and rationally ascertained Forms, and to insist that the objects of experience are never pure particulars but always particulars of a certain kind, that everything we observe has both universal and particular aspects or can be seen as both a particular and a universal. And

[Anonymous No.18316101]

>>18314833
>>18314836
thanks

[Anonymous No.18316322]

>>18315770
What is the distinction between Being, One-Being, intelligible-being, Nous?

>>18315770
>>18315895
The difficulty of Forms is also related to the Sophist, no? Because for on the one hand the Forms are pure beings, eternal, but on the other, as is shown in the Sophist, all Forms will have Being and Non-Being (just like the principal Ideas Being and Non-Being themselves). So what makes them eternal? Is their causal proximity to the meta-Ideas Being and Non-Being? To the Unity? Their being closer causally and ontologically to Unity itself and their instances being many?

[Anonymous No.18316351]

Platobros what would be the Platonic response to transgenderism and the idea of self-determination?

[Anonymous No.18316386]

>>18314044
As the maker of the previous thread I'm happy to bless this one

[Anonymous No.18316872]

>>18315258
this still isnt incompatible with moderate realism though

[Anonymous No.18316906]

>>18315084
Thanks

[Anonymous No.18316943]

>>18315644
>I think Heidegger makes this mistake because his sustained theological study seemed to primarily concern Kierkegaard and Augustine.
>Had he paid attention to Dionysius and the mediaeval inheritance of him alongside Proclus in the "liber causis" as it was called then, he would not have made this mistake.
If i was heidegger what book would you recommend me then?

[Anonymous No.18316948]

>>18314054
Renaissance magicians are not considered Neoplatonists?
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, Gerolamo Cardano, Pietro d'Abano?

[Anonymous No.18316957]

>>18315485
true, though i was looking for ballsy schizos. trying to contextualize theory of forms into another metaphysics is fine and all but it is difficult to do this in a way that some of their practical conclusions seem more contingent somehow? like you need to rely on convergent evolution or some sort global mechanism of evolution like morphic resonance

[Anonymous No.18316967]

>>18315755
one over many is not a good counter-argument

[Anonymous No.18316977]

>>18315483
Aquinas had to assert that the Resurrection was physical because Aristotle's forms didn't make sense without being corporeal (spatial). Because Aquinas's soul was his Aristotelian form, his soul thus had to be physically incarnated as a rational human being upon transmig-I mean resurrection. This is a Plato thread though so I'm guessing no one here likes Aquinas or Aristotle for that reason.

[Anonymous No.18317005]

>>18315485
Last year I read this book by James Hillman in which he demonstrates that Jung's theories are already present in Ficino. The only difference is that Jung speaks in terms of "psychology" while Ficino speaks of science of the soul, which is exactly the same thing but apparently modern men, stopping at the surface of things, get deceived by big words.

[Anonymous No.18317007]

>>18316322
That would be right. We have here as in elsewhere a difficulty that affects all systems of metaphysics where different kinds of being or reality are admitted, such as Forms and particulars (denial of the univocity of being).
The point is that by taking features that are exhibited in all concrete things (like particularity and universality) and distinguishing them as different classes of entities, we still cannot help describing these entities as having particular and universal features (same case with being and not-being). So the confusion lies in treating categorical features of all things as being distinct classes of entities.

[Anonymous No.18317047]

Apologies for this question that is perhaps, parochial, impertinent and ignorant.

What do you guys make of the comparisons not infrequently made between Neoplatonist triads and Hegelian ones? Especially interested in the comparisons made between Proclus' Being-Life-Mind and the Hegelian Universal-Particular-Singular.

[Anonymous No.18317053]

>>18317047
*Being-Life-Intellect

[Anonymous No.18317141]

>>18316872
>>18316957

>>18314869
>>18314876
ahh i see, so forms pertain to like the transcendental condition of perception and are an attempt to refute conceptual empiricism. in that case i can see jung's fundamental agreement with plato at least in this aspect...

>>18314866
>The forms are as Proclus says, "unparticipated" which is to say they exist independently of physical reality. A better way to think of them would be as their greek expression in the Theatetus as "paradigmati" or paradigms/bluprints for the various things in physical reality
is there any connection between this relation to physical reality and normativity?

[Anonymous No.18317152]

>>18317141
(also ty anons)

[Anonymous No.18317155]

>>18317047
>>18317053
Hegel also makes a relation between Subject-Object-Other (Other as in what he claims about determining the very relation between subject and object), no? I’m not sure if he holds this throughout his philosophical development, I read it in his early theological writings.
As for the triads, yes, they are all pertinent because even in Plato you have a hint at a Triadic protology, implied in the mixture between the One and Dyad (that is why Damascius adds - or hypostasizes - the Mixture as another fundamental element or principle in the platonic protology, that is making the Absolute Principle a single principle comprised of three (One-Mixture-Dyad). This is the pattern replicated through all the manifestation with the Unity, which has threefold valency and instantiates at once Monad, Point, Being.

[Anonymous No.18317392]

>>18315755

You do not think that the point of Parmenides is the condemnation of the world and the argument that the Forms do not participate therein by claiming them incompatible, not toward the vulgarly Gnostic "feminine" Phenomenal effectively being raped by the Forms, probably pure Catholic-to-Gnostic ascription, but toward the truly Gnostic feminine whereby the Reason of the Forms is not complementary with the Empiricism of the Phenomenal, their disappearance up one's cognitive vista being precisely their yonic truth as such whereby one is "unborn", literally Reasoned out of the world?

[Anonymous No.18317871]

[Anonymous No.18317900]

>>18317871
Come on, man.

[Anonymous No.18317975]

>>18317871
has this ever been refuted?

[Anonymous No.18318131]

good thread

[Anonymous No.18318678]

Copying two quality posts from the previous thread to bump this one:
>>18277107 (OP)
Skip the middle platonists
Start with Plotinus - Ennead V then go:
>Proclus - Elements of Theology
>Pythagoreaon Sourcebook [extremely important]
>Platonic Dialogues alongside Marsilio Ficino and/or Proclus' commentaries
>Read Aristotle alongside Simplicius and Syrianus' commentaries
>Read the rest of Plotinus (Ficino has some good commentaries on Ennead III & IV)
>Porphyry - Isagoge
>Iamblichus - De Mysteriis and Arithmetic Theology
>Proclus - Theology of Plato
>Read Damascius [Sara Rappe]
Do the Christian Neoplatonists:
>Origen - De Principiis
>St. Augustine - De Trinitate [parts of City of God are relevant too]
>Boethius - Consolation of Philosophy
>Dionysius the Areopagite - The Complete Works
>St. Maximus the Confessor - Ambigua
>John Scotus Eriugena - Perisphyseon
>The Cloud of Unknowing
>St. Thomas Aquinas' Commentary on "the Book of Causes" [that's the Medieval title of Proclus' Elements of Theology]
>Meister Eckhart - Commentary on John
>St. Bonaventure - Itinerarium
>Marsilio Ficino - Platonic Theology
>Nicholas of Cusa - On Learned Ignorance, On the Hidden God
I left Thierry of Chartres off the list because I have no clue if his work has been translated.
If you want some decent modern works to help you make sense of all of this, check out Eric Perl's works, Stephen Gersh, Llyod P. Gerson and Wayne J. Hankey
Oh and Jean Trouillard when and if he ever gets translated
>>18277732
Correct
>>18277712 (You)
For the Pagan Neoplatonists, you're missing Syrianus and Simplicicus
>>18277739
This is a good reccomendation

Second Anon:
The most important Middle-Platonists would be Philo, Numenius and the Chaldean Oracles.

Numenius of Apamea was sort of the 'grandfather' of Neoplatonism and there were books highlighting the dfiferences between his ideas and those of Plotinus. Sadly we only have fragments, mostly from Christian writers and some Neoplatonic commentaries. PDFs are around and Prometheus Trust publishes a decent edition.

The Chaldean Oracles have been called the "Bible of Neoplatonism" and were a part of the 'underworld of Platonism' that produced the Hermetica and certain Gnostic texts. We only have fragments from Neoplatonic commentaries, sadly. The best edition is by Ruth Majercik, there is a PDF on archive dot org or if you want a hard copy, Prometheus Trust.

Philo of Alexandria was the first, prominent, philosopher to interpret the Bible through Platonic eyes. Big on allegorical exegesis and influenced Christian exegesis of the Bible. His works are available online, except his Questions and Answers on the Exodus, I think only Loeb had published those.

John Dillon has translated Alcinous' _Handbook of Platonism_ which gives an overview of Platonism during the Middle-Platonic era, although he suggests it might be a handbook for teachers not students. Galen is another one that comes to mind but I'm unfamiliar with anything he wrote.

[Anonymous No.18319060]

Maybe it's the wrong thread, but can you, guys, tell me, which English editions of presocratics are good, please?

[Anonymous No.18319073]

>>18314044
Does platonism/Neoplatonism take the PSR for granted or is it workable without it? Apologies in advance for the stupid question.

[Anonymous No.18319179]

>>18317392
Magnificent. Go on.

[Anonymous No.18319183]

Explain to me how this infinite concept circlejerk leads to the greatest good for man.

[Anonymous No.18319451]

>>18318678
Yeah, I did a paste of it. This is so you can save it:
https://ghostbin.co/paste/d2xk

[Anonymous No.18319699]

>>18316943
On the Essence of Truth is what I'd recommend
especially the commentary on the Theaetetus
>>18316386
thanks anon it was a fantastic thread
>>18316948
Pico and Agrippa were doing weird kabbalah shit as well so I left them off .
I wasn't really aware that Paracelsus was a Neoplatonism exactly.
Bruno was another nutjob - his cosmic pluralism and pantheism are quite fundamental oppositions to not only Christianity but to Platonism as well.
I know next to nothing about Pietro d'Abano so please tell me more.
>>18319073
It doesn't seem to. The Platonic dialectic proceeds through largely deductive argumentation as opposed to sufficient reason. Very rarely will you see something like an a fortori argument either but they are still there.
A good example of what a systematic platonism works like is Proclus' Elements of Theology.
I think the only point at which the PSR is really relied on in necessity is in filling out the cosmogony through the hierarchy of the angels/gods between man and the Godhead
>>18318678
thanks for copying my post anon ~

[Anonymous No.18319719]

>>18316322
>What is the distinction between Being, One-Being, intelligible-being, Nous?
The differences is priority in production
>>18316351
there's an article series in the works on this here [the linked article tackles it]>>18314876
however the argument is a blend of Scholastic Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism

[Anonymous No.18319745]

>>18318131
thanks anon ~
>>18317871
>>18317975
Yes, the "realm of forms" is just a spatial metaphor.
See>>18314866
>>18314869
>>18314876

>>18319183
You have an immortal soul, now you know how to cherish and nurture it.
The greatest good is THE GOOD, the Godhead which all desire.
The point of Platonism is deification - to become a god. It's Christian variants stress this quite heavily too.

[Anonymous No.18319762]

>muh mirrors
>muh maths
>muh brain is totally capable of transcending biology!
Platonists are so fucking retarded.

[Anonymous No.18319781]

>>18319719
do you have a higher rez version of that image? its hard to read bits of the text

[Anonymous No.18319784]

>muh mirrors
>muh maths
>muh brain is totally capable of transcending biology!

[Anonymous No.18319904]

>>18319784
based
>>18319781
this is the best my screencapping is allowing me
the reference is the filename
there's a pdf of this book on zlibrary

[Anonymous No.18319945]

>>18319904
Thanks anon

[Anonymous No.18320206]

>>18319060
>Maybe it's the wrong thread
Not at all, the roots of Platonism do after all precede Plato. I just finished reading pic related, it gives a brief overview of various pre-Socratic thinkers and Sophists as well as the fragments of the Derveni Papyrus, providing various fragments and testimonia of them. A sourcebook rather than a comprehensive overview but it should give you a feel for them and provide resources for following up on whoever you find most interesting.

[Anonymous No.18320217]

>>18320206

[Anonymous No.18320313]

>>18320206
>>18319060
The Patricia Curd book is great but it is a supplement - a very crucial supplement. Honestly, so long as you have the Presocratic reader you can just crack open any half-decent translation of the presocratics.
Here's what I'd get and the order I'd read them in:
>Martin Heidegger - On the Essence of Truth [just the intro essays from the "Preliminary Considerations" section it's like 16 pages]
>Eric D. Perl - Thinking Being [read the introduction and Chapter 1 on Parmenides]
>Early Greek Philosophy [Penguins print has Thales; Anaximander; Anaximenes; Pythagoras; Alcmaeon; Xenophanes; Heraclitus; Parmenides; Melissus; Zeno; Empedocles; Later Pythag; Hippasus; Philolaus; Ion; Hippo; Anaxagoras; Archelaus; Leucippus; Democritus; Diogenes]
>Patricia Curd's Presocratics Reader
>Orphic Hymns [Thomas Taylor print]
>Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie - The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library
>Algis Uždavinys - Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism

That'll properly cover the presocratics inside and out for you. The real meat here is actually in the Pythagoreaon Sourcebook. After this i'd finish off Eric Perl's book and just jump straight into the Dialogues.

[Anonymous No.18320674]

Bump

[Anonymous No.18320782]

Have one of Synesius' hymns to bump the thread
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/synesius/synesius-hymn-4/ (full hymn)

[1] To Thee I sing, when the sacred day beginneth,
to Thee while it waxeth, to Thee when it toucheth the meridian,
to Thee when it declineth, and when cometh wondrous night;
to Thee, Creator, Healer of souls, Healer of limbs,
Giver of wisdom, Banisher of diseases,
Giver to souls of a life free from trouble,
a life which earthly care, mother of griefs,
mother of sufferings, trampleth not under foot.

[2] May my life remain to me purified of these,
that in song I may tell of the hidden root of all things,
nor be turned away from God by delusions that lead astray.

[3] Thee, Blessed One, I sing to,
Lord of the universe, and let earth be silent.

[4] Let all that the universe possesses keep sacred silence,
while hymns and prayers are addressed to Thee,
for they are Thy works, O Father.

[5] Let the whistling winds be still, the rustling of trees, the song of birds;
let the ether be at peace, let the air be at peace, listening to the strain,
and let the gushing waters be noiseless now throughout the earth.

[6] Let the demons now flee from my pure prayer,
they that delighting in the realm of darkness and haunting the tombs,
impede holy songs, but the good,
the happy servants of the all-understanding Creator,
as many as occupy the depths and heights of the universe,
let those hear benignly the hymns that are of the Father,
and benignly let them bear my prayers on high.

[7] Unity of units, Father of fathers, the Good of good things,
Star of stars, Universe of universes, Idea of ideas,
profound Beauty, hidden Seed, Father of ages,
Father of unspeakable words of Mind,
whence a divine breath ever distilling,
floating over the masses of body, it now kindleth a second universe.

[8] Thee, Blessed One, I sing to with my voice,
and I sing unto Thee alike with silence,
for as many things as Thou hearest of the voice,
Thou hearest also of the silence of the mind.

[Anonymous No.18320894]

>>18320782
Based, Blessed and Godhead pilled

[Anonymous No.18320902]

>>18320782
Yes more hymns and prayer pls
I'll go dig out some Orpheus, Augustine, Proclus and Dionysius

[Anonymous No.18320961]

>>18320782
>>18320902
Orpheus - To The Mother of Gods

Divine are your honors, O mother
of the gods and nurturer of all.
Yoke your swift chariot
drawn by bull-slaying lions,
and join our prayers, O mighty goddess.

You bring things to pass,
O many-named and revered one,
you are queen of the sky;
in the cosmos yours is the throne,
the throne in the middle,
because the earth is yours,

and you give gentle nourishment to mortals.
Of you were born
gods and men,
you hold sway
over the rivers and over all the sea.
Hestia is one of your names,

they call you giver of prosperity,
because you bestow on men
all manner of blessings.
Come to this rite,
queen whom the drum delights,
all-taming savior of Phrygia,

consort of Kronos,
honored child of Sky,
frenzy-loving nurturer of life,
joyously and graciously
visit our deeds of piety.

[Anonymous No.18320976]

>>18320782
>>18320902
>>18320961
actually ill save the rest of the prayers and just open every new /pg/ thread with a prayer or a hymn

[Anonymous No.18321166]

you will never be a platonist if you havent read every page of this

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentaria_in_Aristotelem_Graeca

[Anonymous No.18321225]

>>18321166
based
very keen to get into Simplicicus

[Anonymous No.18321233]

>>18318131
Truly this thread is the modern academy.

[Anonymous No.18321502]

>>18320782
>>18320902
>>18320961
>>18320976
actually nah here's one more before this thread dies:

John Scotus Eriugena’s First Periphyseon Prayer [650B]

O God, our salvation and redemption,
Who bestowed nature,
grant also graces:
Send forth Thy light upon those who grope in the shadows of ignorance in search of Thee; Recall us from our errors;

Stretch forth Thy right hand to us feeble ones who without Thee cannot reach Thee;
Show Thyself to those who seek for nothing but Thee;

Shatter the clouds of empty phantasies,
which prevent the glance of the mind from beholding Thee in the way in which Thou grantest,
Thine invisible self to be seen by those who desire to look upon Thy face,
their resting place,

their end beyond which they seek for nothing,
for there is nothing beyond, their superessential Supreme Good:
none but Thee, O Lord.

Amen.

[Anonymous No.18321876]

Reminder Plotinus pre-emptively BTFO Kant

[Anonymous No.18322045]

>>18320206
>>18320313
Thanks!

[Anonymous No.18322047]

>>18321876
Isn't this the same conclusion as Kant essentially. I was thinking of asking can we read the Kantian categories along similar lines to the Forms? Although the Forms to seem more expansive.

[Anonymous No.18322151]

>One day, over lunch, Wagner rates Plato's Symposium above all other literary works: 'In Shakespeare we see Nature as it is, here we have the artistic awareness of the benefactor added; what would the world know about redeeming beauty without Plato?'
How does Plato rank as literature in your opinion?

[Anonymous No.18322283]

>>18322047
For Kant the categories are universal but interior.
Plotinus would wholly reject the resulting subject-object dualism of Kant.
The forms not only serve the role of Kantian categories but they are also the things themselves.
Essentially: blend the noumena and categories together and have them subsist with the knowing subject apriori and so are given to intellection, and you're approaching Plotinus.
Plotinus is also pretty brutal to representationalism.

[Anonymous No.18322287]

>>18322151
Based Wagner is right yet again

[Anonymous No.18322338]

>>18322283
>interior
I guess. I reckon my reading of Kant falls into the trap perhaps of thinking of his system as destroying the notion of exteriority altogether. I see what you mean though, the dualism remains its just one sided idealisticlly.
>>18322151
Pretty highly honestly. I get the feeling that if he had of done other stuff it would have been probably better but he chose a difficult subject deliberately.

[Anonymous No.18322442]

>>18317005
Good post. James Hillman is a modern Renaissance Platonist, should be added to the list of Platonists as a Platonic Psychologist. The first volume of his collected writings is an excellent introduction.

[Anonymous No.18322467]

>>18317005
>>18322442
Are there pdf versions of these, pls? Because I can't find any.

[Anonymous No.18322472]

>>18314044
Anyone have a starter's reading list going more "chronologically"? As in, ´starting with what plato wrote and going from there". I've been meaning to get into this for a long time but never figured out where to start.
If that approach seems silly, please explain why. Would you instead recommend I start with the stuff rom the OP?

[Anonymous No.18322477]

>>18322472
read the Presocratics reccomendation here:>>18320313
then do the Dialogues in this order:>>18315469
Then continue with this:>>18318678

[Anonymous No.18322504]

Maybe someone would bother to form a proper header for future threads with pastebin, considering all these recommendations?

>>18320313
>>18314044
>>18318678

[Anonymous No.18322530]

>>18322504
this is a good idea

[Anonymous No.18322531]

>>18322472
I'd start with Theophany by Eric Perl, it's an excellent and concise philsophical introduction to the ontology of Neoplatonism (which is foundational and determines everything else in Platonism). Despite the title it's 75% Proclus, 15% Plotinus, and 10% Dionysus. With Platonism you need a grasp of the macrocosm otherwise you'll get lost in the parts, hence why I'd start with some big picture secondary lit to give you the grand canvas to map everything else onto.

[Anonymous No.18322535]

>>18322531
very good reccomendation
Eric Perl is fantastic

[Anonymous No.18322645]

List of Islamic and Persian Neoplatonists and their descendants, feel free to add, for me these are the important names worth reading:
>Ibn Arabi, Sufi mystic, founder of the school of Akbariyya.
>Suhrawardi, founder of the Iranian school of Illuminationism
>Mulla Sadra, founder of the Iranian school of Transcendent Theosophy. Notable for arguing against Aristotelians and the Illuminationists for an Existensionalist Platonism, and for the continual change/motion of substance as a process philosophy of becoming
>Henry Corbin, French translator of the above, introduced their study to the West, coined the "Imaginal World" as a translation for the Arabic alam al-khayal, itself a grand development of the Greek phantasia to give it a central role in epistemology and ontology
>James Hillman, began as a Jungian psychologist, Neo-Renaissance Platonist, founder of Archetypal Psychology, heavily influenced by Henry Corbin.

Also to note
>Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad Khamenei, head of the Sadra Islamic Philosophy Research Institute, organises and produces English (and Persian) philosophy conferences and works on Sadran Platonism with Western academics, website is an excellent resource of free PDF books and papers.

[Anonymous No.18322690]

>>18322467
Not sure, the kindle version on Amazon has a decent preview. In the meantime have this, another introduction:
https://imaginalresonance.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Octagon-Archetypal-Psychology-Dreamwork-and-Neoplatonism.pdf

[Anonymous No.18322699]

ITT: bourgeois larpers

[Anonymous No.18322714]

The unification of dramatic art with philosophical Platonism creates perfection.

[Anonymous No.18323301]

bump

[Anonymous No.18323320]

>>18322645
Based

[Anonymous No.18324680]

>>18322645
where can I read more about Iranian philosophy?

[Anonymous No.18324862]

>>18314044
I feel like Plato is constantly telling me to fuck off. Anyone else?

[Anonymous No.18324885]

>>18314044
Just finished this. Am i ready to start with Plato or should i read anything else?

[Anonymous No.18324892]

>>18324885
You do not read anything to begin with Plato. I would try and forget what you just read and start with the Trial and Death of Socrates dialogues.

[Anonymous No.18324915]

>>18314044
I am interested in the relation between mathematics/physics and platonism. Mostly in influential figures of the former who were true religious believers in the latter. Any good recommendations on this topic/biographies? I have the idea Kepler was an OG platonist.

[Anonymous No.18324920]

>>18324892
Are you sure? I'm barely literate so i could use some resources.

[Anonymous No.18325006]

>>18314054
Schelling, Novalis, Boehme, Paracelsus, Hermes, Hegel (to an extent), Holderlin, Roger Bacon, John of Damascus, Ramon Llull, Al-Farabi, Al-Kindi, Ibn Arabi and the Sufis, Maimonides, Avicebron, Abulafia, Avicenna, Ibn Hayyan, Suhrawardi, The Harranian School and the Post-Roman Armenians. I'd also consider adding Husser, Heidegger and Derrida for their engagements with Neoplatonic concepts and questions in the realm of Ontology.

[Anonymous No.18325063]

>>18325006
>Post-Roman Armenians
Who? David the Invincible?

[Anonymous No.18325076]

>>18314054
>>18316948
>>18325006
These are some very eclectic lists you've got there. I'm not even sure what 'Platonist' means if Orpheus, Dante, Böhme and Hermes Trismestigustus all fall under this label. It clearly can't be genealogical, so what is platonism in this view?

[Anonymous No.18325126]

>>18325006
Can you explain why is Hegel part of the Platonist tradition?

[Anonymous No.18325186]

>>18322283
Representationalism is a technical term from the philosophy of perception, it doesn't have anything to do with historical platonism

[Anonymous No.18325209]

>>18314054
according to wikipedia

[Anonymous No.18325573]

>>18325126
He isn't desu, I put him there because he radicalized a lot of the platonic inspired conceptualizations in Schelling, Novalis, Holderlin and Boehme. I still think Absolute Idealism is intimately related to Neoplatonic Ontology in a number of ways, even if Hegel drifts away from those elements into his own thing.

[Anonymous No.18325691]

>>18325006
I'd agree with everyone on this list, especially Damascene, Boehme, Avicebron and the Romantics but idk about Hegel
>>18325573
ok thank you for the clarification
>>18325209
Wikipedia as usual is being way too inclusive
like Pascal as a "platonist" is a bit of a stretch. Same with all of the Kantians, Analytics, "modern platonists", there's some discussion above in this thread on why Bruno isn't a great inclusion either, Abelard was a dogmatic Aristotelian so he definitely shouldn't be included same with the Averroists and Peripatetics. PKD was more of a quasi-gnostic, and I qualify with "quasi" because he definitely was doing his own thing.
The list is also missing basically all the Spanish mystics like St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and the rest of the later Catholic Dionysian tradition. Also missing all the Platonic/Augustinian Franciscans like Alexander of Hales let alone explicitly Neoplatonic thinkers as great as St. Albert the Great. St. Thomas Aquinas should also be included on this list as someone like Wayne J. Hankey argues (he has a whole paper on this: Aquinas' inheritance from Plato, Proclus, Augustine, Dionysius, Boethius, Damascene contra-Peripatetic Aristotelianism etc.,).

[Anonymous No.18325754]

>>18324885
You definitely should not have started here
The short version is to start with:
>Eric D. Perl - Thinking Being
The proper pre-reading to Plato is here:>>18320313
After that>>18324892
gave good advice.
>>18324915
Kepler seems cool
If you want to dive into Plato and Mathematics I recommend actually getting into Neopythagoreanism - Nicholas of Gerasa, Anatolius, Iamblichus etc.,
After following the advice I gave above in this reply, read:
>Eric D. Perl - Theophany
because you're gonna need Proclus
Then read Plato's Republic and Timaeus, then read Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on the two
after that read:
>Proclus - Elements of Theology
>Iamblichus - Arithmetic Theology
>Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie - The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library
>David Albertson - Mathematical Theologies
>Euclid - Elements
>Proclus - Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements
>Marco Panza & Andrea Sereni - Plato's Problem
>Max Tegmark - Mathematical Universe
Here's a good blogpost on Mathematical Platonism:
>https://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com/2016/04/prelude-to-mathematical-neo-platonism_42.html?m=1

[Anonymous No.18325764]

>>18322714
blessed

[Anonymous No.18326107]

>>18314044
bümp

[Anonymous No.18326116]

>>18314228
why do you have to post anime you fucking f-word I can't take people like you seriously

[Anonymous No.18326117]

>>18319762
>mirrors?
>brain transcends biology?
The soul isn't just a collection of neural states or something.
It's the apriori intellective capacity which is therefore prior to and necessary for sense experience, memory etc.,
The energy of mind is the essence of life, and since it is not reducible to a material organ such energy is perpetual.
> The mind knows itself with certainty, which is discursively contradictory to deny
>A thing is known only when its essence/intelligible whatness is known - that which makes it what it is and not something else.
>So the mind knows its own essence with certainty.
>But the mind is not certain that it is the brain, or atoms, or an arrangement of flesh, or anything else that is material.
>So it is not part of the essence of the mind to be the brain, or atoms, or an arrangement of flesh, or anything else that is material.
And more importantly following on;
>The mind knows itself directly, without the mediation of a mental image or any other representation.
>But the mind knows material things only via the mediation of a mental image or some other representation.
>So, the mind is not a material thing.

It, the activity of mind - the psyche/soul; a priori intellection, is thus perpetual and immaterial. It is immortal.
Plato was right: you have an immortal soul, now you just need to learn math.

[Anonymous No.18326123]

>>18319762
>>18326117
a further discussion of this:
[https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/11/augustine-on-immateriality-of-mind.html]
See:>>18325754
on math
However, Eric Steinhart - More Precisely, should have been added to that list.

[Anonymous No.18326610]

>>18326107
bÜmp

[Anonymous No.18327788]

>>18314044
Ok because of this thread I decided to fix up the Eriugena Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Scotus_Eriugena

[Anonymous No.18328045]

Let the thread die and make a new one.

[Anonymous No.18328330]

>>18325754
>reading secondary sources

[Anonymous No.18328425]

[Anonymous No.18328621]

>>18328330
Pseud aka not-reading-secondary-sources-ikr detected.

[Anonymous No.18328626]

>>18328330
I only read secondary sources, I don't even touch the primary text

[Anonymous No.18328949]

Why do almost all modern atheists go after Swinburne, Platinga and William Lane Craig but never Platonism? Christian philosophy is influenced a lot more by Platonism than modern analytic philosophy but every time I open an atheist book it's all arguments against the Kalam and other modern arguments for the existence of God. I never see them actually engage with the root of theistic thought which is that a transcendent source of unity and being is absolutely necessary for us to both exist and to explain the nature of the world and humanity.

[Anonymous No.18328961]

>>18328949
If anything it would be nice to see simply so atheists can drop the canard of ancient theists believing in god because they wanted to explain where rain and lightning came from. The same people who throw around those claims would be the same ones getting filtered hard by Proclus.

[Anonymous No.18329048]

>>18325754
Thanks for the in depth answer. I have more of a surface.level interest and really will only be reading secondary sources. Will look in the second green text list and pick one of those probably. Great effort posting

[Anonymous No.18329051]

>>18315560
>Whats this?

You're a Platonist and never heard of the Tubingen school? Wow, you guys are fucking idiots.

[Anonymous No.18329063]

>>18315560
>>18315573
Why the hate for Heidegger? He agrees with neo-platonists on the most crucial points (God doesn't exist/ is the void and oblivion is your destiny).

Sure, he had a retarded take on history, but what German doesn't?

[Anonymous No.18329117]

>>18329063
Heidegger was a theist though

[Anonymous No.18329121]

>>18329063
>(God doesn't exist/ is the void and oblivion is your destiny)
imagine believing this and believing neoplatonists also believed in this

[Anonymous No.18329271]

>>18329117
He absolutely was not. It's like calling Shankara a theist. They only recognize God in the theistic sense as a lesser (and inherently finite) manifestation of the infinite void.

>>18329121
There is no personality in the afterlife according to Plotinus. Nothing of 'you' carries over into it. Heidegger said the same thing. Being sentimental about mystical union doesn't mean annihilation is suddenly not annihilation. Stop lying to people.

[Anonymous No.18330005]

>>18329271
Based anon. Exposing the larpers

[Anonymous No.18330019]

Bonaventure chad here, let me through

[Anonymous No.18330096]

Reminder that Plotinus thought he was ugly and spent his entire life as a vegetarian yet couldn't figure out why he was sick all the time.

[Anonymous No.18330754]

Are there any Christian/Islamic/Jew people? How platonism influences your believings? Maybe, in some cardinal way? Also, how did you come to platonism? Maybe, you went off your fate because of platonism?

[Anonymous No.18330760]

Faith*

[Anonymous No.18330852]

>>18329271
>annihilation is suddenly not annihilation.
its only annihilation if everything about you is completely annihilated, which none of the people you mention believed.

[Anonymous No.18330892]

My copy of the Complete Works of Plato is arriving today. I've decided to begin again at the beginning and read them all. In the past, I've really focused heavily on the Timaeus, Critias, Laws, and a few others.

[Anonymous No.18330993]

>>18330852
>its only annihilation if everything about you is completely annihilated, which none of the people you mention believed.

Why do some people just go on the internet and lie?

[Anonymous No.18331011]

>>18328621
>>18328626
I guess Schelling was a pseud...

[Anonymous No.18331036]

>>18330993
can you quote me from any of their works where they say that you are completely annihilated at death?

[Anonymous No.18331038]

>>18314044
what an absolutely great painting well done anon

[Anonymous No.18331046]

>>18329051
Don't be a dick and explain it to him.

[Anonymous No.18331502]

>>18329051
Pseud namedropping midwit. The only requirement for being a Platonist is reading Plato.

[Anonymous No.18331585]

>>18331502
Reading Marx makes you a marxist now?

[Anonymous No.18331600]

>>18331585
Reading Platon is more important than knowing about some bitch ass half-forgotten German academic mooovement

[Anonymous No.18331738]

>>18331585
Work on reading comprehension. I didn't say it makes you into one, I said it was a requirement for calling yourself one.

[Anonymous No.18331748]

>>18331585
"All Platonists have read Plato" is not the same as "All who have read Plato are Platonists." Please never take the LSAT, you will fail terribly

[Anonymous No.18331772]

>>18331046
Tubingen School are some Plato scholars who take very seriously the idea that Plato had an 'unwritten doctrine', the esoteric teaching that he only communicated secretly to certain students.

There's no evidence for it apart from a passage in Aristotle (suddenly the neo-platonists think Aristotle got something right for once). Anyway, if you are a neo-platonist mystic today you think the unwritten doctrine is essentially Plotinus' teaching. Hence why it's so retarded for a self-described neo-platonist to have never heard of one of the most influential revivals of neo-platonic esoterism.

[Anonymous No.18331788]

Any prerequisites before reading Tegmark, or can I just dive in?

[Anonymous No.18331927]

>>18331788
Can I read Tegmark without even knowing the multiplication table?

[Anonymous No.18332012]

>>18329271
get your crypto buddhist nihilistic metaphysics out of here son. plotinus did not believe in annihilation neither did any neoplatonist

[Anonymous No.18332024]

>trying to read the Orphic hymns
>Time, Eternity, Faith, Space, and various other concepts are deified
>feels like I am missing something profound in this sort of thinking and understanding of the world and the gods, and that I will never be able to truly comprehend it
How do I regain a genuine polytheist common sense view of the visible and intelligible world after 1000 years of Christian propaganda and censorship?
>inb4 a Christian responds only to defend his religion
move past it

[Anonymous No.18332073]

>>18331772
Thank you for truthfully answering

[Anonymous No.18332110]

>>18329271
you are a charlatan projecting your nihilistic beliefs onto plotinus. mystical union is the lover becoming the beloved through love. he does not cease to be, he is not dissolved

[Anonymous No.18332236]

>>18329271
One of the key differences between Western and Eastern philosophy is that Western philosophy doesn't accept the annhilation of the ego. Why do you think Plato argued for the immortality of the soul if he believed individial souls were destroyed or sublimated upon death? The acceptance of ego death is one of the huge flaws in Eastern philosophy.

[Anonymous No.18332283]

>>18332236
What about Christianity? Isn't it a big part of Western Philosophy?

[Anonymous No.18332304]

>>18332236
>The acceptance of ego death is one of the huge flaws in Eastern philosophy.
Seems like it is the more logical and coherent thing to accept to me if you are truly concerned with first principles. Don't see how you're supposed to fully return to the source while also maintaining any sort of duality like individuality.

[Anonymous No.18332318]

>>18332283
What are you even trying to say? Christianity clearly does not subscribe to annihilation or sublation. So yes it is part of western philosophy.

[Anonymous No.18332326]

>>18332304
return to source occurs by ascent of likeness with the transcendent not by identification of self as divine immanation

[Anonymous No.18332336]

>>18332304
not even plotinus believed in non-duality in the after life. the duality of the One and the individual is mantained

[Anonymous No.18332346]

>Plotinus, Mysticism, and Mediation
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008518?seq=1
>Plotinus and St. John of the Cross: Concurrences and Divergencies
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1136&context=modlangspanish

>There are also some striking coincidences to be remarked in the matter of the mystical union itself. In both expositors, the soul and the Absolute "become one"; not, however, by any ontological fusion of the two subjects, nor by absorption of the human into the divine, such as two ethereal bodies might be united. Rather, mystical communion is explained far more subtly as a oneness achieved in the intentional order by means of acts of knowing and loving, and in particular through a cognitive act of intuition.

[Anonymous No.18332347]

>>18332326
Then the easterners have you beat. They do not merely become similar to It but goes beyond even that and truly is It.

All duality is a form of ignorance, even likeness.

[Anonymous No.18332367]

>>18332347
that's satanic delusion. they are after something greater than individual salvation which is already the greatest outcome possible

[Anonymous No.18332442]

>>18332367
Neither does it solve the problem of the one and the many nor does it seem in any way preferable to see salvation as some sort of eternal hoovering around the highest like a moth to a lamp.

Individuality and duality is a spook.

[Anonymous No.18332460]

Plotinus' unio mystica is basically dissolution into the abyssal background - oh, I'm sorry, STANCHION - of Being. That's why the gnostics saw farther than Plotinus, they saw farther than the systole-diastole of a One exhaling and inhaling multiplicity for eternity

[Anonymous No.18332473]

>>18332460
>Plotinus' unio mystica is basically dissolution into the abyssal background - oh, I'm sorry, STANCHION - of Being.
Based.
>That's why the gnostics saw farther than Plotinus
Made me chuckle.

[Anonymous No.18332515]

>>18332473
>Made me chuckle.
With me and not at me, I hope.

[Anonymous No.18332528]

>>18332283
Christianity doesn't accept ego death either. Christianity believes in a resurrection of an immortal physical body. Anon you seem to be very confused.

[Anonymous No.18332542]

>>18332515
With you and at the gnostics.

[Anonymous No.18332559]

>>18332460
The Gnostics were basically readers of the Urantia Book before the Urantia Book existed. It's a wild fabricated cosmology to justify some pseudomystical mumbo jumbo. Plotinus ripped the Gnostics a new one and they faded out of relevancy precisely because they kept getting BTFO over and over by the Platonists and Christians.

Gnosticism is not a coherent system, it's just a mythology that's overlaid on other religions.

[Anonymous No.18332572]

>>18332236
There are no "Eastern Philosophies" that encourage the "annihilation of the ego" or believe that it is even possible to do so.

[Anonymous No.18332577]

>>18332572
Ego death is literally the goal of Buddhism. It's total abnegation of the self.

[Anonymous No.18332587]

>>18332559
we have 4 surviving manuscripts of the Apocryphon of John, arguably THE gnostic text, which is practically unheard of when it comes to the texts of that time. the AoJ was widely read and clearly resonated with people beyond whatever fringe incel cult you're trying to caricaturize gnostics as

You're just another retarded american who can't stop thinking about social media. fuck off.

[Anonymous No.18332600]

>>18332572
People will try to start an argument over literally anything.

Okay go ahead, present your special snowflake terminology that definitely does not mean ego death.

[Anonymous No.18332601]

>>18332577
No it isn't lmfao. How can you "annihilate" something that doesn't exist? How can you abnegate something that's just dependently originated? I mean come the fuck on anon one of the three Wrong Views that the Buddha talks about is literally annihilationism. The Buddha himself points out why you can't "annihilate" anything.

Why have an opinion on something that you clearly haven't taken any time to understand?

[Anonymous No.18332606]

>>18332601
This is correct. Americans, once again, are conflating the extinction of desire with self-extinction. I wonder why.

[Anonymous No.18332617]

>>18332600
>>18332577
I find the idea of people throwing a fit about being misunderstood on their obscure niche meme-philosophy and then completely bungling the basics of a major world religion by vomiting out the same trite Fundie garbage hilarious. For people who have such hot opinions on selfs you sure lack self awareness.

[Anonymous No.18332627]

>>18332617
Yup, there is nothing funnier and more liable to disillusion about the supposed wonders of the information age than the arrogance of Americans and Americans in spirit trying to shoot down major world traditions they don't understand.

[Anonymous No.18332643]

>>18332601
>How can you "annihilate" something that doesn't exist?
lel I 100% knew this was what he was gonna argue but didn't want to spoil it

Yes yes technically ego doesn't even exist in the first place so yes yes technically you can't annihilate it. Thank you for the input, based Buddhism-knower.

[Anonymous No.18332657]

>>18332643
so which is it? are Buddhists "worshiping themselves"? are they trying to "kill their egos"? or do they not believe that anything exists? make up your mind.

[Anonymous No.18332691]

>>18332657
buddhists don't know anything. some speak of bliss, others of void. they literally do not know what they believe in. when pressed they will say it is just a philosophical practice and not metaphysics. how many buddhists would agree on the buddhist concept of tathagata-garbha???

>Zen asserts the Buddhanature as substantialist and underlying the phenomenal world."According to Matsumoto Shiro and Hakamaya Noriaki, the idea of an ontological reality of the Buddha-nature is an un-Buddhist idea: Their "Critical Buddhism" approach rejects what it calls "dhatu-vada" (substantialist Buddha nature doctrines). Buddhism is based on the principles of no-self and causation, which deny any substance underlying the phenomenal world. The idea of tathagata-garbha, on the contrary, posits a substance (namely, tathagata-garbha) as the basis of the phenomenal world. [Matsumoto Shiro] asserts that dhatu-vada is the object that the Buddha criticized in founding Buddhism, and that Buddhism is nothing but unceasing critical activity against any form of dhatu-vada."

[Anonymous No.18332711]

>>18332572
In Hinduism, the jiva encompasses the ego, and the goal is to have the jiva dissolved into the Atman.

[Anonymous No.18332719]

>>18332657
Buddhism, like all Eastern religion, is not logically rigorous and entirely ad hoc.

[Anonymous No.18332726]

>>18332691
>getting filtered by fucking constitutional monism
>in a platonism thread
holy shit lmfao

[Anonymous No.18332736]

>>18332587
You're just reinforcing my point that Gnosticism is parasitic on other religions and tries to overlay its retarded cosmology and mythos over better philosophical systems.

[Anonymous No.18332746]

>>18332726
Buddhists don't do ontology very well please understand.

[Anonymous No.18332751]

>>18332657
Don't know anything about the other stuff you're rambling about but...
>are they trying to "kill their egos"?
Yes. I'd advice you to look into what Buddhism means by volition and formations, and specifically how they value them.

But yes you would rather like to pretend to be smart and get into petty minutiae over whether one can truly akshually reddit Zen maymay say that something can be destroyed that is already conditioned.

Now is the time that I would normally tell you to go kill yourself but you're so dumb and attached to concept fallacies that it might cause you to go do a flip, rather than seek wisdom.

[Anonymous No.18332752]

>>18332726
funny that you say that. do you think plato, vedantists and other metaphysicians wouldn't get filtered by buddhist nonsense?

[Anonymous No.18332764]

>>18332736
You're confusing originality for parasitism. If gnosticism is parasitic, then so is Plotinus, and so is Plato, frankly, of the more advanced metaphysicians of Egypt.

Gnosticism forms a whole irreducible to its parts, the only reason you don't think it does is because it hasn't been endorsed by imperial power. Noxious pseud.

[Anonymous No.18332812]

>>18332024
>How do I regain a genuine polytheist common sense view of the visible and intelligible world after 1000 years of Christian propaganda and censorship?
move past it
More serious answer - try to read more about ritualistic and practical side of ancient religions. Things like offerings and religious calendars, pilgrimages and religious tourism, worship of house deities and mystery cults. There was very nice, well preserved calendar from one of Attican towns but I am unable to find it right now.

[Anonymous No.18332820]

>>18332752
I think that Plato would take the time to actually read what what Buddhists wrote before having an opinion on it because he wouldn't want to embarrass himself by having stupid shit like >>18332751 associated with him, yes. We know Shankara never read anything about Buddhism and was just working off of hear-say, but more popular and philosophically coherent philosophies like Dvaita Vedanta and Vishishtadvaita are filled with people who have read Buddhist works before offering critiques of Buddhism. So, no, I don't think they'd necessarily be filtered by Buddhism, what's filtering you is that you got called out on not knowing what you're talking about and then furiously googled for some walltext to post and ended up posting Diamond Body shit without understanding its context (again, a hilarious bit of self unawareness in a fucking Platonism thread).

[Anonymous No.18332822]

>>18332764
Everything good about Gnosticism was ripped straight from better religions and then slapped with retarded "whoa man what is there were like...aeons and shit and God was really, like, an evil God and the real God is above him and good but only we know the truth whoa dude"

There's a reason Plotinus slapped their shit so hard they became irrelevant in a single generation.

[Anonymous No.18332837]

>>18332820
yeah whatever you say crypto theosophist --- you don't even know what i posted

[Anonymous No.18332842]

>>18332822
Nope, gnosticism's turn was uniquely its own, acosmicism genuinely revolutionized classical metaphysics

>whoa man what is there were like
Into the trash it goes. Pseud.

[Anonymous No.18332850]

>>18332820
>We know Shankara never read anything about Buddhism and was just working off of hear-say

Substantiate your claims

[Anonymous No.18332868]

>>18332820
>self unawareness
says the one projecting his bs buddhist agenda onto plotinus

[Anonymous No.18332910]

>>18332012
He did.

>>18332110
He's dissolved. You haven't read him. Even Gerson admits this. No more you, no more memories...no more nuffin...

[Anonymous No.18332915]

>>18332367
this man knows

[Anonymous No.18332919]

>>18332572
Advaita and Buddhism teach this.

[Anonymous No.18332926]

>>18332601
Imagine if I just punched you in the fucking face right now and then when you fell down I stomped on your head. It would be justified because for two (2) reasons:

1. You're a ginormous faggot
2. You don't exist so technically I did nothing wrong

[Anonymous No.18332932]

>>18332910
gerson is an academic lmao not a mystic. he is on par with other academics that still discuss over this topic see >>18332346
>Plotinus, Mysticism, and Mediation
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008518?seq=1

[Anonymous No.18332939]

>>18332932
>this guy has spent decades studying Plotinus and translating him, and me? I'm gay

nice

[Anonymous No.18332958]

>>18332939
>gerson has the monopoly to interpret plotinus
stephen mackenna also spent decades studying and translating plotinus and states clearly there is no dissolution

[Anonymous No.18332990]

How integral is reincarnation to Plotinus' entire framework?

[Anonymous No.18333000]

>>18331772
>no evidence apart Aristotle
There are accounts by the very disciples of Plato himself.

[Anonymous No.18333063]

>>18332868
Plato and Plotinus aren't the same person, anon.

[Anonymous No.18333078]

>>18333063
thanks for telling me

[Anonymous No.18334001]

lol a commentary on the commentaries of the neoplatonists

[Anonymous No.18334273]

>>18330019
based af
Bonaventure really deserves more love
>>18329063
actually dont hate him, just his earlier work
I really like On the Essence of Truth desu
>God doesn't exist/ is the void and oblivion is your destiny
This is absolutely retarded no Neoplatonism would say that the One/The Godhead doesn't exist.
The void cannot be destiny because of the immortality of the soul. This is Platonism 101 regardless of religious flavour
>>18328330
a general rule is that its not necessary, but approaching platonism is like approaching the Bible - you're gonna fuck up really bad trying to interpret it yourself
>>18328045
that's what I'm thinking too
>>18329048
anytime anon ~
>>18329271
ohh that's what you meant by the void
ok well yes in that Ps. Dionysian sense God "doesn't exist" in the sense that he isn't like a dog or a cup of coffee that exists in some fashion.
However, for many neoplatonist, especially Ficino and Eriugena, the soul isn't actually annihilated - and for the Pagan Neoplatonists reincarnation is the most immediate destiny
>>18330754
Platonism strengthened my Catholic faith immensely. Got me off the dogmatic Thomism train (although I still don't mind Aquinas) and made theology far more interesting by tracing the Dionysian tradition.
Very spiritually fulfilling imo.
>>18331038
bahaha i wish I could pain that well
>>18331772
This is hardly unique to the Tubingen school
every single Neoplatonist believed this, and most middle platonists too.
>>18331788
For platonic purposes read the Pythagorean source book at the very least
>>18332024
idk bro like you're gonna have to dig deep into theurgy
>>18332236
Pauline Christian ethics is predicated on the annihilation of the ego such that, "no longer I but Christ lives in me." [Gal. 2:20]. Most of Christian neoplatonic mysticism spring boards of this and other such passages.
Falsehood only exists in the mind, pride is the root of all sin. The interiority is the fundamental problem identified here.
This "East vs. West" polemic is gay
>>18332990
pretty integral which is why something like hylemorphism radically alters neoplatonism to be in service of Christian theology
>>18327788
Also I finished fixing the Eriugena page if anyone is interested

[Anonymous No.18334447]

>>18314054
>Orpheus
tell me more

[Anonymous No.18334896]

>>18334447
The roots of platonism and the pre-socratic background which Plato inherits come from Orphic initiatory cults. Parmenides, Heraclitus and more notably Pythagoras were all Orphists. The letters of Plato give something of an indication that he was initiated too.
The Pythagorean cults also seemed to develop this Orphism is its own directions, however the direction of Pythagoreanism as more sophisticated has probably a more important bearing on Platonism.
Proclus and Ficino talk about this all the time. If you want to know more:
>Algis Uždavinys - Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism
>Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie - The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library

[Anonymous No.18334906]

I've never met a Platonist who wasn't a nice person.

[Anonymous No.18334909]

>>18332577
Nah. The goal is stated in the third noble truth: ending suffering through stopping clinging.

[Anonymous No.18334928]

>>18334896
Not the anon you're replying to, but I've never heard someone mention the Orphics and Aristotle in the same question, which I think would be an interesting relation. Is there anything particularly "Orphic" in Aristotle that he would have been aware of?

[Anonymous No.18334932]

1. What constitutes Platonism?
2. Where would it be optimal to start with it?

[Anonymous No.18335001]

>>18334906
i never understood that mug- it would make sense only if it were transparent

[Anonymous No.18335009]

>>18334896
Never heard of Parmenides and Heraclitus being orphists before. Could you give me any material on this?

[Anonymous No.18335012]

>>18335001
Do you by any chance have autism?

[Anonymous No.18335028]

>>18334896
interesting, thanks. have Christian Platonists ever had anything to say about the similarities between Jesus and Dionysus and how that could relate to Plato through Orphism? I don't really have a point to make for or against them or anything, I'm just curious.

[Anonymous No.18335063]

>>18334928
>Is there anything particularly "Orphic" in Aristotle that he would have been aware of?
Yes, Plato's unwritten doctrines.
This is why the Neoplatonist placed so much importance on Aristotle even though they didn't agree with all of his critiques of Plato.
>>18335009
See:
>Algis Uždavinys - Orpheus and the Roots of Platonism

>>18335028
Christian Platonists don't ever equate Jesus to any of the various Hellenic Gods. Because he is the Logos, and fully Godhead and true man his metaphysical function in Neoplatonic schemes serves as a soteriological bridge. As the "way truth and life" [Jn. 14:6] quite explicitly.
Any similarities found in Hellenic gods and Jesus would be seen as more perfect as in the pre-existent Godhead in Christ which then have derivative expression in lower intelligible-beings (angels and demons etc.,).
If you're curious about Christ's actual role and function in Christian Neoplatonism, look into St. Maximus the Confessor (Eric Perl's dissertation "Methexis" is a good launching point).

However I do have a feeling someone like Marsilio Ficino would've more explicitly explored hellenic connections - but I haven't seen him do it yet in my reading of him.
>>18334932
>1. What constitutes Platonism?
>The Form of the Good/The Godhead
>Reality as the conjugal union between intellection and being (synousia)
>Realism (eidos)
>Essentialism
>The immortality of the soul
>Contemplative life
>An account of reality as organic and unfolding rather than mechanistic
>Reality as theophany (a later Neoplatonic development)
Obviously trying to reduce Platonism to a bunch of propositions isn't going to do it justice at all though
>2. Where would it be optimal to start with it?
See:>>18325754

[Anonymous No.18335130]

>>18335063
>Yes, Plato's unwritten doctrines.
>This is why the Neoplatonist placed so much importance on Aristotle even though they didn't agree with all of his critiques of Plato.
But this was my point, how much did Aristotle really understand Plato if he critiqued him in ways which were also critiques of Orphism?

[Anonymous No.18335340]

>>18335063
Thank you for answering my 2 questions, anon.

[Anonymous No.18335344]

>>18332939
>>18332958
'Tis truly embarrassing to see how certain men slavishly adopt the opinions of others

[Anonymous No.18335352]

>>18334273
What's your source for middle platonists believing in esoteric unwritten doctrines?

[Anonymous No.18335353]

>>18335344
Why do thinking when others thunk more

[Anonymous No.18335376]

>>18335130
Ah so from what we know there is no indication that Aristotle himself was ever initiated. Aristotle's critique of specific kind of body-soul dualism I would content expresses much of his principle critique of the Orphic strain in Plato himself. With this much I'd even say Aristotle was right, to a degree.
However, Aristotle's critiques of Platonic realism actually seem like he was fleshing out Plato's own critiques against himself - the TMA from the Parmenides is his chief manner of critiquing Plato himself. So, with that in mind, the way in which most the Neoplatonists engage with Aristotle both Christian and Pagan alike is to see Aristotle as a kind of essential dialectical backdrop for the exploration of Platonic doctrines, at least as they can now be received exoterically.
>>18335340
No worries
>>18335352
Stephen Gersh from memory said something of the sort. Philo believed this and funnily enough mistook some of the early Christians to be Platonists (who he called "Theraputae") so maybe his account might not be the best to go off (you will see people use Philo's Theraputae as an example of him believing this).
Most of the neoplatonists I've read have all recalled the "earlier platonists" believing this too. Numenius seemed to be of the opinion but we only really have fragments.

All in all, there are various "indications" we might say. Or at least insofar as I have read.

[Anonymous No.18335905]

>It is particularly important to point this out concerning Plotinus, who, not being a Christian, might be associated with pantheistic forms of mysticism in which the highest level of achievement brings about an annihilation or loss of self. In Plotinus, however, a metaphysical identification of being and knowledge allows for the retention of the individual knowing substance and the simultaneous intentional presence to it of differing entities.
Plotinus and St. John of the Cross

>...As the nuance in Plotinus' use of a 'a few' or 'some' shows, he is not prepared to say rigidly that there are no memories at all of this life, simply to give up memories which seem so important to human individuality. Plotinus does not abandon these memories, although he abandons the function of memory.
Memory in Plotinus

>One possible misconception should be cleared up. When the human ego is reformed and integration with the second self takes place, Plotinus does not teach that the goal of mysticism has been attained. The emergence of the true personality of man is not, as in certain Indian systems, an isolation of the immortal soul apart from all things. It is, as we have seen, the felt realization of the immortality and a partaking in the Intelligible World. These two, however, are inextricably bound up together, and since the soul is then in contact with the intelligible world it will enjoy non-discursive knowledge and understanding of the nature of all things. Such understanding will involve an understanding of the utter dependence of all things on the One as first cause. Hence integration of the personality will mean not the isolation of the soul as monad, but the placing of the soul on the upward path to union with the One.
Integration and the Undescended Soul in Plotinus

>The emergence of the true personality of man is not, as in certain Indian systems, an isolation of the immortal soul apart from all things.
>hence integration of the personality will MEAN NOT THE ISOLATION OF THE SOUL AS MONAD...

pic:
>PLOTINUS DOES NOT SUPPORT SUCH ANNIHILATION

stop using Plotinus to shill buddhist nihilistic death cult.

[Anonymous No.18335909]

>>18314044
Anyone know a good book that can derive math from Plato's ontology or whichever very formally enough to be able to create a computer?

[Anonymous No.18335921]

>>18335905
cite your source

[Anonymous No.18335925]

This is all that's important right now for Platonists:


>>18335909

[Anonymous No.18335929]

>>18335921
it is cited. pic is "memory in plotinus" as well

[Anonymous No.18335953]

Is Gerson right?

[Anonymous No.18335956]

>>18335929
Thanks, I was referring to the pic.

[Anonymous No.18335974]

>>18335953

[Anonymous No.18335989]

>>18335925
There is ABSOLUTELY nothing more important than deriving a philosophy of technology from Platonism to get rid of supply/demand value interpretation of deriving new technology. It causes us to always be behind and consequentualist.

[Anonymous No.18336064]

>>18314044
How do I be a Platonist

[Anonymous No.18336068]

>>18336064
We don't know. We haven't gotten that far.

[Anonymous No.18336083]

>>18335953
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20008518?seq=1

[Anonymous No.18336138]

>>18336083
What is this fart sniffery? Apply philosophy, don't read it. If you think plato's metaphysics are a proper framework for how reality works then create a proper platonist philosophy of science that can surpass the contemporary soulless nonsense. You do read Plato right?

[Anonymous No.18336147]

These generals have been fantastic, I couldn't have returned to /lit/ at a better time.
My philosophical reading has always been sporadic and meaningless, so I'm going to spend my summer reading the texts you've recommended.
I'm currently reading Perl's Thinking Being. I was one of those people who took the Platonic spatial metaphors too literally and would like some clarification on whether I have understood what Perl is saying.
I imagine many moderns would say that words or ideas such as 'Tree' are an arbitrary attempt to make sense of the world, wheras a Platonist would say that such an idea ACTUALLY exists and allows both the existence and awarness of individual trees. Am I vaguely in the right ballpark here?

Cheers, hope this general carries on.

[Anonymous No.18336162]

>>18336147
It could be but wouldn't a group project in a general where we literally develop a proper philosophy of technology then have group projects in it literally Rick and mortying ourselves be more productive?

[Anonymous No.18336167]

>>18336138
fuck off with your anime

[Anonymous No.18336174]

>>18336167
>the cope
>he literally used aristotelian rhetoric in a platonist thread instead of socratic dialogue
How shameful, you do know this is a platonist general don't you?

[Anonymous No.18336178]

>>18336138
imagine reading plato to subject platonism to empirical sciences

[Anonymous No.18336190]

>>18336162
I don't see why both can't exist.

[Anonymous No.18336194]

>>18336178
>imagine subjecting science to empiricism
>imagine never reading Plato

[Anonymous No.18336199]

>>18336190
They can but that suggestion is certainly more in the vein of Plato anyways

[Anonymous No.18336228]

>>18336194
imagine reading plato instead of reading tertiary sources audiobooks

[Anonymous No.18336235]

>>18336199
No, they're just shitting up the thread. If they truly cared, they would be offering their own Platonic conception of technology.
Rather than vaguely gesturing to the 'productive', it's just anti-intellectualism.

[Anonymous No.18336237]

>>18336228
I want to help the platonists be platonists. We must act.
>>18336194
>>18336138
>>18335989
>>18335925
>>18335909

[Anonymous No.18336242]

>>18336237
So ACT then, make an observation!

[Anonymous No.18336246]

>>18336235
There's a platonist concept of value naturally derived from its metaphysical structure. I don't know what proper negative complete inference rule could be used but the foundation I believe is the ideal Good. If we can find a proper inference rule to go down from Good to logic then math then technology we could have a proper platonist philosophy of technology we could test against modern ones and see if we can derive new technologies faster.

[Anonymous No.18336256]

>>18336242
I'm a unitarian Christian. I'm acting in my own metaphysics but I have founded metaphysics so it's got use here anyways. I can't study anymore since I'm in punished mode rn. I was getting I to physics then going to biology to get rid of racism and maybe cure cancer.

[Anonymous No.18336262]

Platonbros......

I read Guenon and got Islampilled, seeing as Platonism/Hellenism is a dead Tradition and has no continuity. Orthodoxy has something sorta similar, like with their ripoff of Henosis - heyschasm - but tasawwuf in Islam with figures like al-Hallaj and Ibn Arabi has a closer annihilation of the false self in God, shedding the barnacles off the soul so to speak like Plotinus taught.

But sometimes it seems like in Islam the exoteric clashes with this esoteric end. I don't want to be some Ismaili larper that denies the divine word of the Quran in favor of a superimposition of Platonism on it, but at the same time I still think as a Platonist. What do?

[Anonymous No.18336276]

>>18336246
>>18336256
Reddit Platonism

[Anonymous No.18336282]

>>18336262
>dead tradition/no continuity
I had no idea history contradicted universal truths anon. Especially history as noted by us humans.

[Anonymous No.18336284]

>>18336262
Why do you need an active tradition? Just read The Bible and practice contemplation.

[Anonymous No.18336291]

>>18336276
Cope

[Anonymous No.18336301]

>>18336064
become a catholic contemplative mystic or pagan theurgist lul
>>18335909
start with the math rec here:>>18325754
>>18336147
you're approaching the point
its less so the signifier that is true but the essential referent that takes the property of existing which is perfectly with the activity of intellection
>>18336256
hmm unitarians usually have big money
very cool
you should read St. Bonaventure and Eriugena too to accompany your faith
>>18336262
Platonic Islamic mysticism exists but it goes in really odd directions like quasi-kabbalistic letterism which people claim to be Pythagorean but that's typically not how platonic hermenutics work at all
I'm glad that you're trying to be authentic but it does seem that "Ismaili" is a bit of a pejorative. Guenon is really doing his own thing though, he's far from an authentic Sufi or even a Catholic when he was one. He's a vedantist is a thin garb and always has been.
All in all my recommendation is to become Catholic because that seems to be the only living tradition as damaged as its ecclesiastical infrastructure might be. The copes aren't as hard and its actually alive and has its own very elegant transformations and integrations of neoplatonism.
Even if that doesn't satisfy you, I'd highly recommend Dionysius the Areopagite

[Anonymous No.18336304]

>>18336262
stop larping

the only legitimate tradition is catholicism

[Anonymous No.18336320]

>>18336301
>math rec
>tegmark
I'm asking how do you create a circle or any platonic solid mathematically in a platonist way besides just asserting it.

[Anonymous No.18336326]

>>18336262
stop being underage, Owen

[Anonymous No.18336453]

>>18336291
Seethe

[Anonymous No.18336462]

>>18336301
>its less so the signifier that is true but the essential referent that takes the property of existing which is perfectly with the activity of intellection
Thanks for the clarification.

[Anonymous No.18336782]

The anime poster killed the thread. We had some good discussion, bros.

The next step is for us to make an infograph, I think.

[Anonymous No.18337283]

>>18336262
Become a nizari ismaili, the exoterism is almost non-existant there

[Anonymous No.18337416]

>>18335953
> This soul will not even remember that it engaged in philosophy and even that here it contemplated.

Doesn't the quote contradict that? Are philosophy and contemplation human concerns?