From Plato to Platonism , livre ebook

359

pages

English

Ebooks

2013

Écrit par
P. Gerson Lloyd

Publié par
Cornell University Press

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359

pages

English

Ebooks

2013

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

27 novembre 2013

Nombre de lectures

EAN13

9780801469183

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

"Gerson's book is a highly valuable, well-written contribution to Platonism research. It persuasively makes a case for understanding Plato's philosophy as a coherent system that has an intricate and meaningful relation to later Platonistic philosophical positions. From this point, Plato appears as a Platonist indeed." Claas Lattman CLASSICAL JOURNALWas Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients are correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism."Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics.In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

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Publié par

Cornell University Press

Date de parution

27 novembre 2013

EAN13

9780801469183

Langue

English

Poids de l'ouvrage

2 Mo

Claas Lattman CLASSICAL JOURNAL

Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients are correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of "anti-naturalism."

Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls "Ur-Platonism." According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five "antis" that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five "antis." It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics.

In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as "the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

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From Plato to Platonism

Lloyd P. Gerson

Cornell University Press

Ithaca and London

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512East State Street, Ithaca, New York14850.

First published2013by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Gerson, Lloyd P., author. From Plato to Platonism / Lloyd P. Gerson. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN9780801452413(cloth: alk. paper) 1. Plato.2. Platonists. I. Title. B395.G472013 184—dc232013010926

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood ﬁbers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10987654321

To the memory of two teachers of integrity

Hippocrates G. Apostle and John M. Crossett

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Part 1. Plato and His Readers

1. Was Plato a Platonist? Plato and Platonism 6 UrPlatonism 9 From Plato to Platonism 19 2. Socrates and Platonism The ‘Socratic Problem’ 39 Gregory Vlastos 53 Terry Penner 62 Christopher Rowe 68 3. Reading the Dialogues Platonically Plato and Developmentalism 75 Plato the Artist, Plato the Philosopher 83 Plato’s SelfTestimony 91 4. Aristotle on Plato and Platonism Aristotle and UrPlatonism 102 Aristotle’s Testimony on the Mathematization of Forms 113 Aristotle’s Criticism of the Mathematization of Forms 125

viii Contents

Part 2. The Continuing Creation of Platonism

5. The Old Academy Speusippus and First Principles 134 Speusippean Knowledge 143 Xenocrates 154 6. The Academic Skeptics What Is Academic Skepticism? 165 Skepticism, Rationalism, and Platonism 172 7. Platonism in the ‘Middle’ Antiochus of Ascalon 181 Plutarch of Chaeronea 187 Alcinous 195 8. Numenius of Apamea On the Good 210

Part 3.

Plotinus: “Exegete of the Platonic Revelation”

9. Platonism as a System The First Principle of All 229 Intellect 237 Soul 242 Matter 245 10. Plotinus as Interpreter of Plato (1) Matter in the Platonic System 257 Substance and Becoming 263 Categories in the Intelligible World 270 The One and the Indeﬁnite Dyad 276 The Good Is Eros 280 11. Plotinus as Interpreter of Plato (2) Human and Person 284 Assimilation to the Divine 293 Moral Responsibility 299

Conclusion

Bibliography

General Index

Index Locorum

133

163

179

208

227

255

283

305

311

329

335

Preface

In2005, I published a book titledAristotle and Other Platonists.that In book, I explored the idea, virtually ubiquitous in late antiquity, that Aris totle’s philosophy was in “harmony” with Platonism. Although I did try to explicate the harmonists’ account of the nature of Platonism, I had little to say about whether that account was accurate. In short, I largely sidestepped the tendentious question “Was Plato a Platonist?” The present work is an attempt to answer that question, or at the very least to show that an afﬁrma tive answer is not nearly as implausible as it is often taken to be. In search ing for an approach to my question that is minimally nonquestionbegging, I have been led to reconsider a number of modern assumptions regarding the Platonic dialogues and their relation to Platonism, the relation between Platonism and a putative Socratic philosophy, and the direct and indirect testimony of ancient philosophers regarding Platonism, in particular that of Aristotle. The ﬁrst part of the book is taken up mainly with the critical ex amination of these assumptions. In part2, I examine the “construction” of various versions of Platonism in the Old Academy, and among the ‘Middle’ Platonists. In these chapters, I face the problem of why, indeed, there are different versions of Platonism if Plato’s disciples were in fact aiming to be faithful to the teachings of the master. For anyone inclined to the afﬁrma tive answer to my main question, this problem cannot be avoided. As Sextus Empiricus said of dogmatists in general, their disagreement among them selves is one of the best possible arguments for skepticism. So, too, if Platon ists disagree, does this not at least suggest that with regard to the question of whether Plato was a Platonist, there is in fact no truth of the matter? There is a considerable literature that takes the dialogues as ink blots for

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