Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 82

26 January 2026

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 82

1.  Explanatory Power

I have often referred to a kind of divide in Platonism today that exists between Academic, or University based, Platonism and the Platonism that is offered by numerous small groups, and some individuals, that emphasizes Platonism as a way of life and/or Platonism as a spiritual tradition.  I think it is the most persistent and interesting divide in contemporary Platonism.  (As an aside, there are academic Philosophers who advocate for Classical Philosophy, including Platonism, as a way of life that has a spiritual purpose.  Pierre Hadot is a famous example and Hadot has influenced a number of Academics on this issue.  It’s important to keep these exceptions in mind.  Nevertheless, I think the basic division is a real one.)

Recently, by listening to some Academic Platonists, young Academics, I came to realize that one of the reasons Academic Philosophers have the tendency to view Platonism solely in doctrinal terms (leaving aside the spiritual purpose of Platonism) is that they find Platonism to have a great deal of explanatory power.  And it is interesting to me that those I watched express their satisfaction with the range and power of Platonism in their affect when they are talking about this, or when they are responding to a question about this.  I have observed this most often in the field of mathematics; I can think of two cases where the Philosopher of mathematics who was previously committed to non-Platonic explanations of numbers and their relationships, through their studies found Platonism to have greater scope than other traditions of the philosophy of mathematics; they both talk articulately about this and have become what they consider to be Platonists as a result.

But it isn’t only in mathematics; I have also observed this among those involved in political philosophy and aesthetics.  And there seems to be a bit of a renewal of interest in virtue ethics from a Platonic perspective as well. 

I can understand why an intellectual would find the discovery of the explanatory power and range of Platonism to be satisfying in a deep way even without acknowledging the spiritual roots of Platonism.  I think partly this happens because the Academy these days has separated from religion and is often openly contemptuous of it; this makes it easier to think of Platonism as a bearer of powerful ideas rather than primarily a spiritual tradition.  From my perspective, leaving out the spiritual component of Platonism is unfortunate, but I can understand why it happens.

2.  Removing Plato

I recently read that an American University ordered a Professor to remove Plato from the Professor’s list of readings for his class.  I don’t know all the details.  At least some of the dispute revolves around contemporary ideological issues and differing interpretations of Federal guidelines for federally funded Universities (which would be most Universities in the U.S.).  I’m not going to spend time trying to untangle all the issues involved, but it is interesting to me that the specific Dialogue at issue was the Symposium, one of Plato’s most accessible Dialogues.

That this has happened does not surprise me; I’ve been expecting something like this for a long time.  I’m surprised it hasn’t happened earlier (perhaps I just didn’t run across previous incidents like this.)  I say this because our culture has a strongly held view that the past is only to be interpreted as a source of negativities such as injustice and ignorance; and that because of this view of the past, the past is only looked at as something we must overcome, or partially overcome, and we need to continue to overcome it.  The best and simplest way of overcoming the past is to simply ban the past from the present.

I think that people that hold this view of the past would find Plato to be repugnant for several reasons.  First, and simply, because Plato is a representative of the past and has a lot of influence.  Just as the Red Guards were hostile towards Confucius for his influence on Chinese culture, so today those who see the past solely in negative terms would be inclined to be hostile to Plato.

The second aspect worth mentioning is that Plato revered the past.  Plato’s attitude towards the past was to learn from it, that the past is a repository of wisdom which it is our job to understand.  This would be particularly grating.

I don’t know if the above mentioned episode is just a fluke or if it might become more routine, like an expanded attempt to marginalize or delete Plato.  It’s hard to say.  But these kinds of episodes have happened before in history; knowing the past can be very helpful when faced with events like this.

3.  I’m afraid that I have a lot to do.  A friend of mine requires daily infusions for six week and I am driving him daily to the infusion center.  I had the idea that when I retired I would have a lot of time for contemplation and study and for the first three years it worked out that way.  But now I have to spend time taking care of my friend.  I don’t mind.  There is an Ennead where Plotinus discusses the difficulties of life, the setbacks, and the insights.  Reading Plotinus on this topic was uplifting.

But for the next few weeks I will be writing minimal posting.  Thanks for your attention.

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 81

19 January 2026

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 81

1.  Buddhism, Platonism, and the Gods

“Amelius was fond of sacrifices and used to busy himself with rites of the new moon, and to go around to festivals.  He once tried to get Plotinus to participate with him, but Plotinus said: ‘They must come to me, not I to them.’  We did not know what consideration led him to make such a grand pronouncement, and did not have the nerve to ask him.”

(Porphyry, On the Life of Plotinus and the Order of His Books, found in Plotinus: The Enneads, translated by a team headed by Lloyd P. Gerson, Cambridge University Press, 2025, page 27, paragraph 10, ISBN: 9781009602970)

1.1  The relationship between Plotinus and the Gods has been a matter of discussion and confusion even during the lifetime of Plotinus as the above quote indicates.  What I want to suggest is that the Buddha’s relationship to deities can illuminate, to an extent, what that attitude was, what the relationship was.

1.2  By making this suggestion I am not making the claim that Buddhism and Platonism, as found in the Enneads are ‘the same.’  But I am suggesting that an inquiry into the Buddha’s relationship to the Gods might shed some light on what relationship Plotinus had to the Gods.  What I am suggesting is that both of these teachers had views about the Gods that overlap to an extent, and that this overlap is helpful in unpacking the quote above.

1.3  I am going to be using the Theravada Scriptures as the source for this comparison.  I do this because I think the Theravada Scriptures are more clear about this relationship than what is found in other developments of Buddhism such as Mahayana and Vajrayana.  I’m not saying that these teachings are not found in these other developments, but they are not as prominently presented or, in my opinion, as clearly presented.

1.4  The Theravada Scriptures are in a language known as Pali, which is closely related to Sanskrit.  These Scriptures come in a number of collections.  One of the collections is called the ‘Samyutta Nikaya’ which is often translated as the ‘Connected Discourses.’  This is a very large collection consisting of groups of discourses that often share a topic, or have a focus on a person of note.  (As an aside, I have read two translations of the Samyutta Nikaya and I enjoyed these usually brief discourses.  Unlike longer discourses, these discourses tend to make their point in a straightforward way, yet they often leave a lasting impression as to their significance.)

In some of the collections found in the Connected Discourses the Buddha is found teaching various types of Deities, Gods, Goddesses, Nature Spirits, and so forth.  For example, in the first collection, SN1, the Buddha speaks to Devas.  In the second collection the Buddha speaks to Sons of Devas.  In the sixth collection the Buddha teaches Brahmas, a higher type of deity.  In the eleventh collection the Buddha speaks with and teaches Sakka/Indra, a name for one of the highest ranking Hindu Deities.  And there is also a collection of discourses between the Buddha and Mara.  And a discourse where the Buddha teaches the Sun and Moon, who take refuge with the Buddha.  (As an aside, there are other discourses where the Buddha speaks to Deities found in other collections, but I want to keep this post simple.)

Some of these discourses teach the deity the Buddha is talking to about impermanence, one of the central teachings of the Buddha.  Like all living beings, deities have difficulty comprehending impermanence and this incomprehension is aggravated by the long lives that deities live. 

The overall impression a reader receives from these discourses is that the deities are the Buddha’s students in a classical teacher/student relationship.  And this implies that the Buddha’s understanding is deeper, and more profound, than what deities have access to, or in comparison to what the deities have acquired.

1.5  I would like to offer that what Plotinus was telling his students was that he, Plotinus, had a similar relationship to the Gods as did the Buddha; I mean that what Plotinus would be able to teach the Gods was deeper, and more profound, than what the Gods understood.

This is, no doubt, a controversial claim.  But I think it explains why Plotinus would say that the gods should come to see him, Plotinus, rather than Plotinus go to see the Gods.  This is because it is not the Gods who comprehend transcendence; it is Plotinus who comprehends transcendence and it is such transcendence that Plotinus offers them.

1.6  Buddhism is not the only Indian Dharma tradition that contains such teachings.  In the Jain tradition there are Sutras where the Jain teacher Mahavira (a contemporary of the Buddha) similarly teaches deities about the way to spiritual liberation.

1.7  It is more difficult in Platonism to argue that, for example, Plato held a similar relationship to the Gods that the Buddha and Mahavira have in their traditions’ relevant scriptures.  For example, I am not aware of a Platonic Dialogue where the main character, or a presumed stand in for Plato, speaks directly to the Gods about their shortcomings, or takes the time to explain to the Gods about impermanence or becoming and begoning. 

Nevertheless, I think this episode between Plotinus and his students, contains a profound meaning and points to a reformulation of the status of the Gods. 

2.  An Overview of the Hypostases

The ineffable transcendental, the Good and the One, is fully unified, without differentiation and without becoming and begoning.  The noetic is unified but differentiated and without becoming and begoning.  The material world, the world that is under the reign of time, is differentiated and contains becoming and begoning.

3.  Ennead V.3

One of my favorite Enneads is V.3, ‘On the Knowing Hypostases and on That Which Is Transcendent.’  The Ennead builds to the climax of the last line which in Greek is ‘aphele panta.’  I think it is helpful to compare translations of this short sentence:

Guthrie:         By cutting off everything.

McKenna:      Cut away everything.

Armstrong:   Take away everything!

Gerson:          Abstract from everything.

The Guthrie translation links the previous sentence to the last sentence by using a preposition.  The closing line is a response to the question of how to ascend to the fully transcendental and Guthrie emphasizes the responsive nature of the last sentence by adding the preposition.  The other three translations translate the last sentence as it is, without the additional preposition because the linkage to the previous sentence is clear without the addition.  But I understand what Guthrie was trying to accomplish.

The Gerson et al translation relies, I think, on a technical, rather than commonly shared, reading of the word ‘abstract’ (note that the word ‘abstract’ is used as a verb here).  When abstract is used as a noun, we tend to interpret the usage as indicating that something is intellectually challenging.  For example, we might say that a book is abstract because it lacks concrete examples of what it is talking about.  Another usage of abstract as a noun is that of a summary of a paper placed at the beginning of the paper or article.  In this case abstract means highlighting the basic structure of what is going to be presented in full in the paper.

As a verb to abstract almost always indicates mental or intellectual analysis.  For example we might be searching for the common characteristic of a certain type of thing and we accomplish this by abstracting, or removing, the common characterisitics of a class or type of thing in our search for what they all have in common.

I don’t think that is what Plotinus had in mind.  I understand this sentence to be a reference to a broad range of Platonic procedures such as turning away from material things.  This is accomplished through the adoption of various asceses.  This is the first ‘taking away’ that Plotinus is referring to.  It is this turning away from, or taking away (in the sense of taking away our tendency to act on our desires) that constitutes the first steps on the path of Philosophy.

But this procedure is also the primary procedure used throughout the spiritual journey of Platonic Philosophy.  In the context of this Ennead, Plotinus is indicating that we also need to turn away from, or take away, our fascination with, and attachment to, noetic realities.  This is because the Good and the One are beyond being, prior to any manifestation, even noetic manifestations.

In a sense, there is only one technique in Platonist spirituality.  That technique is to remove our attachments and fascinations at whatever level they appear.  This is the principle.  When that principle is applied to various situations specific ascesis are generated.

An analogy might be helpful: When walking on a mountain path we are always walking.  Walking is the constant as we continue on the trail.  If we need to climb a cliff, we use additional tools to do that, but those additional tools are used so that we can continue walking up the mountain and reach the summit.  We leave everything else behind on this journey on the mountain path.  We only take with us that which is essential, which is not very much.  And even that ‘not very much’ falls away in the presence of eternity.

4.  Canon

In 2003 the Daoist Association of China published a new edition of the Daoist Canon.  The Association decided it was time for a new Daoist Canon because in the centuries since the last canon was published archeology has uncovered ancient Daoist works that were either lost, or the discoveries revealed earlier, or alternative, editions of works that are still extant.  The Association wanted to include these in their new edition as well as modern works that had not previously been part of the canon.  It was quite a project.

I saw a youtube presentation about this new Daoist Canon and it reminded me of when I visited Haeinsa, Haein Temple, which houses the Korean Buddhist Canon.  This Canon is carved into over 80,000 woodblocks; each woodblock is a large page and there are about 6,500 books carved in this manner.  The project began in 1011 and lasted to 1087.  I have a vivid memory of the huge storage facility that was designed to hold the large woodblocks on shelves; row after endless row of shelves.

The amount of energy, dedication, and perseverance it took to produce something like this is very impressive.  It reflects  what the society thought of as significant.

This got me to thinking about what a Platonist Canon would look like.  I sometimes think that Thomas Taylor had something like a Platonist Canon in mind when Taylor produced his translations.  It was a significant effort. 

I think if there were a Platonist Canon it might be helpful to follow some of the principles that were used in the formation of the latest Daoist Canon.  For example, the Daoist Canon includes works from a wide range of Daoist traditions.  In a similar way, a Platonist Canon could be open to a wide range of interpretations of Platonism. 

In the case of Daoism and Buddhism, these are both religions and so there is a strong religious motivation to generate a Canon of Scriptures.  (And as an aside, I wonder if there is something about Chinese culture (the Korean Tripitaka is an expanded version of a Chinese Buddhist Canon) that inclines towards this kind of activity; a kind of reverence for the written word.)  I tend to think of Platonism as a religion, but that view is a decided minority because in the West we have separated religion and philosophy into mutually exclusive categories.  We, as a culture, don’t think of Platonism as a path to the divine.  Because of this there is likely less inclination for the formation of a Platonist Canon than there is for Buddhism and Daoism.  But I still enjoy thinking about such a project, what it would include, and how it would be done.

5.  Tragedy and Transcendence

My Buddhist teacher, Seung Sahn, once told me when we were in Korea, that about 15% of monastics had become monks or nuns due to some tragedy in their lives.  He pointed out a monk to me and told me that he had come home after work only to find his home in ashes and his family gone.  He than became a monk, realizing the tragic nature of the material realm.

But I think there needs to be something else involved.  I think for a lot of people, experiencing such a tragedy will lead to bitterness and/or nihilism rather than a turn to a spiritually focused life.  There needs to be some sense that transcendence is possible.  That is not a given in our culture because in our culture the idea of the transcendental is systematically denied.  I suspect that this is unique in history.  I’m not saying that nihilists did not exist in times past.  But the culture as a whole was not nihilistic.  Before modernity the possibility of transcendence as presented in various spiritual traditions was available to those who had experienced tragedy in their lives.  Today it is different; the possibility of transcendence is hidden away, like a relic in a museum.  That is another, broader, level of tragedy.

 

 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 80

12 January 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 80

1.  The Mirror of Eternity

There is a poem written by Saint Claire of Assisi.  The poem’s opening line is, “Place your mind before the mirror of eternity.”

What would you perceive, what would be reflected back to you, if you placed yourself in front of the mirror of eternity?  I think the answer would be only that which is eternal by nature.  Nothing in the material world would be reflected.  Nothing related to my body would be reflected; not my bodily shape, no colors, no sounds, no thoughts, no feelings, no recollections, no past lives.

But the soul would be reflected.  Only the soul would be reflected.

2.  The Hypostases, or Levels, of Reality

When the mind is placed under certain conditions it perceives existence in certain ways.  When the mind is fixated on the body’s needs and demands, the mind perceives a material existence.  When the mind dwells on eternal, but limited, realities, such as numbers, eternal objects, or Platonic forms, are perceived.  And when the mind is not fixated on anything material or noetic, when everything has fallen away, then the Good and the One is present as a mystic understanding that is not an understanding.

3.  What Emerges from the Third Hypostasis or Level of Reality

The first thing that emerges under the conditions of the third hypostasis is time.  Because time is the moving image of eternity, it is first in the third hypostasis.

The soul, the individual soul, is what the Soul looks like under the condition of temporality.  Just as the moon shining in a pond appears to be separate from the moon in a slowly moving stream, so also souls appear to be separate from each other under the reign of time.  Time itself is the medium of differentiation out of which this appearance of separate souls emerges.  Separate souls are what the One, the Good, the Beautiful, and the Eternal appear to be under the reign of time.  Here souls appear separate; There souls are eternally merged in the unity of the One that is beyond the reign of time which is the unmoving presence of eternity.

4.  Bleak

I am interested in how popular culture, particularly popular music, often communicates some of the bleakest aspects of human life in a direct and unvarnished way.  It surprises me that the songs I am referring to are often very popular; so much so that some of them last for many centuries.  I previously posted about the song ‘Dust in the Wind’ by Kansas which is a contemplation on impermanence.  Another song that is more bleak, and more focused on the human condition, is ‘The House of the Rising Sun.’  In 1964 a rock group called The Animals recorded this song and it was very successful commercially.  The Animals didn’t write the song which has a history going back many decades (it was first collected as a folk song and published in the 1930’s I believe).  A new version by Eric Gronwall was posted to youtube in 2025 and has attracted a lot of attention.  And there are many other covers of the song.

The song is a bleak portrait of a man who succumbs to the basest desires and deeply regrets it, but is unable to act on his regrets.  This gives the song an overall fatalistic cast.  The character in the song is in despair over his compulsive gambling, drinking, and likely whoring as well.  In one verse he expresses his regret by singing, “Mothers, tell your children, not to do what I have done.  Don’t spend your life in sin and misery at the House of the Rising Sun.”

I view a song like this as a message to humanity from the divine.  The song also depicts how difficult it is to overcome the attractions of bodily desire.  And it also depicts the pit of despair that people fall into if their life is based on fulfilling those desires. 

From a Platonist point of view, the one drawback to the song would be that it does not offer the listener any practical advice for avoiding this negative fate other than ‘not to do what I have done.’  From a Platonist point of view, the overcoming of this danger that is presented in the song is accomplished through purification in the form of ascetic practices.  And The House of the Rising Sun is a good reminder of why it is important to cultivate these practices.

5.  Alexandria

I have started thinking that it would be helpful to access Alexandrian Platonism at the close of the Classical Era.  Contemporary Platonists have been focused on what was going on in Athens.  That makes sense.  But I also think that this presents us with an incomplete picture.  I base this solely in my reading of Olympiodorus whom I have enjoyed, and a few passing remarks in various works on Platonism.  But it seems to me that Athens went in a specific direction, particularly because of Proclus’s position as head of the Athenian school and the widespread influence of his writing.  I’m not sure, but it strikes me that Alexandria may have not been so attached to these new developments. 

It's interesting to me that, according to Eunapius, Plotinus was an Egyptian who studied in Alexandria.  Perhaps the Plotinian perspective was more deeply rooted in Alexandria than it was in Athens.  Maybe that is why Porphyry had such a positive view of Egyptian philosophy. 

These are just suggestions; what one might call ‘thinking out loud.’  I hope to follow up on them in the future.

 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 79

5 January 2026

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 79

1.  Happy New Year Everyone!

Wishing you a prosperous and contemplative 2026!

2.  Grace, Again

I think one reason why some contemporary Platonists dislike the idea of grace, and in some cases reject the idea that grace is a significant aspect of Platonism, is that in the West grace is thought of as a kind of personal gift.  What I mean is that if the source of grace is God then the way grace is configured in the West implies that the God who grants grace is a person who has a personal relationship with the one receiving the grace.  This kind of understanding of grace is consistent with monotheism so it doesn’t cause any friction in a monotheistic context.

But in other philosophical and spiritual contexts it does cause friction and in these other contexts grace is understood differently; grace is still a gift, but it is not a gift given to us as individual persons.

In a Pure Land Buddhist context, I once heard impersonal grace explained as follows:  Suppose a man is very hungry.  This man recently lost his job and is alienated from his family.  He moved to the city just a few months before and doesn’t really know anyone.  He is sitting on a bench at a bus stop when he notices that someone forgot to take a bag of food with them onto the bus.  The bag is sitting against the bench.  The man waits for several hours but no one shows up.  The man decides to take the bag of food with him and this tides him over for the better part of a week.

The story was offered as a metaphor for grace.  The hungry man didn’t deserve the food and therefore what happened was not an exchange of goods.  But reality, or causation, unfolded in such a way as to prevent the man from going hungry. 

Switching back to a Platonist perspective, the presence of the Good and the One is a gift that people can receive and the gift nourishes the return to the One.  But it isn’t because we deserve the gift of this presence, and it isn’t because the One decides that I, as an individual will receive this gift of presence.  Rather it is that reality is structured that way; and by reality I mean the structure of metaphysical reality.  The gift of grace is a consequence of the everywhere nature of the Good and the One.  The gift of grace is a consequence of the everywhen nature of the Transcendental.  The gift of grace is a consequence of the everything nature of the Presence of Eternity.

The man sitting on the bench at the bus stop might not have noticed the bag of food.  Or he might have decided not to take it even after waiting hours for someone to claim it.  The working of grace is not mechanical, it does not follow material sequences of causation.  But without grace I don’t think the spiritual ascent would be possible.

3.  Modern Stoicism

For about 15 to 20 years there has been a popular interest in Stoicism.  Before I retired, about three years ago, I worked at a spiritual bookstore and I can remember when books on Stoicism started becoming popular.  They became so popular that I created a subsection within the philosophy shelf just for Stoicism.  And the books sold well.  It appears to me that books on Stoicism are still selling well.

I have observed that there is some pushback about these books on Stoicism on the grounds that they are very selective about the teachings of Stoicism that they bring forth and talk about.  This criticism comes almost entirely from academics, particularly those who have a specialty in the Classical Period or Roman Philosophy.  I have read and listened to a number of these critiques and I have noticed that many of them note that popular Stoicism rarely mentions Stoic Cosmology, to pick one example.  Almost all popular Stoicism today is focused on ethics and/or self-help.

The point critics make about popular Stoicism not teaching about cosmology is, I think, misguided.  For example, contemporary Aristotelians drop Aristotle’s cosmology, I mean his material cosmology, because the cosmos that science has uncovered has displaced it.  The same could be said for Stoicism.  I suspect that the focus modern Stoics have on ethics is there because in our society there is little offered in terms of ethical guidance; nihilism is rampant and a completely subjective, hyperindividualistic approach to ethics dominates.  Stoic ethical teachings offer people a different perspective on ethics, one that is practical, one that people can actually access and use.  (As an aside, I should mention that some academics, like Pierre Hadot, had a very positive view of the ethics of Stoicism and I suspect this group is not critical of popular Stoicism.)

I wonder if Platonists today can learn from the success of popular Stoicism?  If contemporary Platonists used popular Stoicism as a model it would generate, for example, books on the ethical teachings of Platonism as opposed to an emphasis on metaphysical cosmology.  This would be a way of introducing Platonism to people by emphasizing the way of life aspects of Platonism.

A few posts back I suggested that the first step in living a Platonist life was to become a vegetarian.  A second step might be to simplify one’s life, that is to say to reduce possessions to essentials.  These kinds of teachings do have a metaphysical foundation in the Platonist tradition, but they also can function as a mode of access to Platonism that is not overly intellectual or overly analytical. 

4.  Afterlife Histories

There is an interesting process whereby the negative reputation of someone gets transformed after they have passed away; and this transformation almost always happens in a shift towards a positive assessment.  This has been observed by historians and sociologists for a long time.  An historical figure might have been enormously destructive and received a lot of condemnation during their lifetime; yet, as time passes, the assessment changes and people start thinking of them as, to pick one example, a ‘great military leader’ and the specifics of the negative assessment fade from social awareness; the negative assessment becomes something that only dedicated historians, and a few people who might be interested in the topic for random reasons, even know about.  An example of this is Alexander the Great; but there are many others.  If you are attentive you can watch this process happen in real time to figures of political and military importance who die during one’s lifetime. 

Part of it, I think, is a kind of general feeling that ‘one should not speak ill of the dead.’  And this sentiment aligns with the tendency for us to reconfigure the past in general in a more positive direction than may be warranted.  This seems to be a feature of most people’s minds, with the exception of dedicated pessimists.

I was thinking about this because late in 2025 I saw two posts on Youtube that were overviews of the life of Julian the Apostate.  In both cases the presenters lauded Julian as a hero who risked everything to bring back the position of Paganism in the Roman world.  Neither of the presentations mention the huge amounts of animals Julian sacrificed during his brief reign.  Well, I take that back; one of them said that under Julian the Pagan altars once again ‘ran red with blood.’  He said this as if it was a good thing.  And it was just a passing comment.

One of the presentations was by a Pagan Platonist, or Neo-Pagan Platonist, or perhaps a Neo-Pagan Neo-Platonist.  It makes sense that a Neo-Pagan would have a positive feeling about Julian, especially if he has a strong anti-Christian bias.

Still, I find it troubling that the zealous, I would say fanatic, devotion to animal sacrifice, which was a signature feature of Julian’s Paganism, goes unmentioned.  Consider, for example, that many countries have laws against animal cruelty; and this applies to the nations in which these presenters live.  This indicates that as a society we think of animals as lying within our ethical concerns.  It’s true that laws against animal cruelty are rarely enforced, but in principle the existence of such laws indicates a general ethical concern regarding how animals are treated.  But this kind of concern was absent from both presentations on Julian; not that this is unusual.  Books I’ve read about Julian don’t bring it up either.

From a Platonist perspective, any animal sacrifice, let alone the elaborate and relentless sacrifices of Julian, means you have not come to terms with Platonist ethics or, I would argue, the ethics of the community in which the presenters reside.  I say this about Platonism because the foundation of Platonist ethics is non-harming and the application of that foundation is found first in ways of life that include animals in the embrace of non-harming. 

5.  Breaking Free

The material world is a kind of trap because the material world is a region of suffering and sorrow.  Platonism offers us a way of breaking free from the trap of material existence; that is the purpose and the meaning of Platonic Teachings, the Platonic Way, the Platonic Dharma.

6.  Solitude in Platonism

The pursuit of solitude, or understanding solitude as a spiritual practice, is not prominent in Classical Platonist literature like the Dialogues and the Enneads.  But there is a kind of reference to solitude in what I might call the ‘penumbra’ of Platonism.  For example, Plotinus famously refers to the ultimate ascent to the ineffable One as a journey of the ‘alone to the alone.’  In addition, Plato mentions in several Dialogues how the Philosopher will be seen as marginal to the society in which the Philosopher dwells because the Philosopher is focused on the immaterial transcendental while almost all people are focused on the material world.  This implies a kind of solitude; it might not be actual solitude in the sense of a hermitage, but these representations of the Philosopher indicate a psychic and social distance, even a separation from most people.

I’m not aware of the topic of solitude being discussed within a Platonist context.  For example, I don’t find it in the Handbook by Alicnous and I don’t recall solitude being a topic in the Orations of Maximus. 

But there are hints, now and then, of Platonists who have given up material possessions and live a life that is withdrawn from material concerns.  I find these examples inspiring and uplifting.  Perhaps it is time for contemporary Platonists to incorporate an explicit commitment to solitude as part of the ascent to the transcendental.

7.  Does the Soul Have Parts?

I was reading what Alicnous has to say about the soul in his Handbook (discussion of the soul is found on pages 31-34 and consists of three sections; 23, 24, and 25, in Dillon’s translation).  Section 24 is titled ‘The Soul and Its Parts’.  It is a very clear presentation of the idea that the soul has parts (an affective part, a part that reasons, and so forth).  And it is consistent with writings on the soul found in Classical Platonist literature both before Alcinous and after him.

Nevertheless, I lean towards viewing the soul as partless, as having no parts.  First because the soul is immaterial and I don’t see how it is possible for that which is immaterial to have parts.  On what basis would the parts be distinguished?

Second, I think of the soul as the presence of the One (and the Good) in the ephemeral individual.  The One is the source of unity in material things; the One is why a thing is a thing and not nothing.  But it seems to me that unity implies a partless reality.  Without a partless immaterial reality individual material things could not even emerge in the material world.

Third, I think of functions like reason as a part of mind rather than soul.  My interpretation is that the main function of mind is differentiation and reason is a tool of differentiation.  I think of mind as the presence of the noetic in the material individual because it is in nous where differentiation first appears. 

In other words, the soul does not reason, nor is soul irrational.  Because the soul is prior to differentiation it is neither rational nor irrational.

Fourth, I think of the affective aspect of the individual to have its origin in the body (and the mind’s relationship to the affective body is to either work to actualize affective desires or to curb them through the cultivation of virtues and other types of purification).  I understand ‘affective’ to mean primarily emotions and desires.  Emotions and desires appear regularly in a manner that is cyclic; the material world is the world of cyclic existence and for this reason the affective aspect originates in the body rather than the soul.

I realize that viewing the soul as a partless unity is different from the standard presentation of the soul as having higher and lower parts and functions.  Nevertheless, these are my current thoughts on the nature of the soul which I offer for your consideration.

  

Porphyry's Task

29 December 2025

Porphyry’s Task

“During his (Plotinus’s) lifetime, Christianity attracted a diverse popular following, as did movements which drew on ancient philosophy . . . They deceived many people indeed, they were themselves deluded.  As if Plato had not come to grips with the profundity of intelligible substance!  Plotinus himself refuted them on many points in the course of our seminars, and he wrote a book which we called ‘Against the Gnostics’ [Ennead 2.9]; but he left it to us (meaning Porphyry and other students of Plotinus) to judge the rest.”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, translated by a committee of scholars, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson, Second Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2025, page 30, paragraph 16, ISBN: 9781009604970)

1.  Plotinus lived in the third century of our era, from 204 or 205 to 270.  Christianity at that time had not achieved complete dominance but was emerging as a pervasive cultural force.  (It was in the fourth century that Christianity’s political power would become overwhelming.) 

2.  The above quote is an interesting look at how a non-Christian philosopher dealt with the increasing Christian presence both in its Orthodox forms and in its Gnostic branches.  It seems that Plotinus dealt with these representatives of various Christian groups by engaging with them in the usual question and answer format of Plotinus’s gatherings.  But Plotinus also took the time to particularly focus on the Gnostics by writing an essay which is now called ‘Against the Gnostics.’  The reason for such a focus is that from the perspective of Plotinus (and Porphyry) the Gnostics misrepresented Plato and Plotinus wanted to correct these misrepresentations.

3.  This is speculative, but I think this kind of engagement might be what led Porphyry to write his work ‘Against the Christians.’  I mean that Porphyry may have been directly inspired to do so by the precedent of Plotinus’s ‘Against the Gnostics’ and the instructions of Plotinus to his students to ‘judge the rest.’ 

4.  Evidently Porphyry’s book, ‘Against the Christians’, was very offensive and irritating to Christianity and it was condemned by name by three emperors as well as some councils.  This led to its destruction so that we have only quotes from various sources as surviving fragments.  (The latest translation of these fragments is by David Litwa in his book A Reconstruction of Against the Christians by Porphyry of Tyre which was published this year, 2025.)  The essay by Plotinus, ‘Against the Gnostics’ had a better fate because Orthodox Christianity opposed the Gnostics, though for different reasons.

5.  Thinking about this, I began to consider Porphyry’s ‘Letter to Anebo’ as in the same vein as ‘Against the Christians.’  What I mean is that in many ways the ‘Letter to Anebo’ is a critique of theurgy and shares, I think, a similar purpose as ‘Against the Christians.’  I started to think of the ‘Letter to Anebo’ as a kind of ‘Against the Theurgists.’ 

6.  In the quote above Porphyry expresses irritation with the Christians, particularly Gnostics, who misrepresent Plato as being deficient because they suggested that Plato did not understand the intelligibles and the noetic realm.  Porphyry thought of Plato’s insights into this dimension of existence as sufficient and based on contemplative experience; they did not need to be reworked into elaborations that were complex and opaque. 

7.  But it appears to me that Porphyry had similar views about theurgy and its interpretation of Platonism.  Theurgy also unnecessarily complicated Plato’s insights by multiplying noetic entities and creating additional hypostases.  Because of this he wrote his ‘Letter to Anebo’ in order to counter the growing tendency to dilute Plato’s teachings by adding unnecessary theurgic complexities and practices.  From the perspective of Porphyry theurgy did not solve any alleged problem in Platonism; instead theurgy created problems and obstacles that made it more difficult to understand Platonism.

8.  I think a reader can also see this kind of task in Porphyry’s On Abstinence which was Porphyry’s extensive apology for vegetarianism in a Platonic context.  Porphyry observed that his friend Firmus had abandoned a vegetarian diet and had returned to eating meat.  I suspect, though Porphyry does not say so, that this was not the first time Porphyry had observed this kind of return to meat eating, or the sacrificing of animals; I mean that Firmus may have been a symbol for Porphyry of this kind of loss of commitment. 

In ‘On Abstinence’ Porphyry takes on the same task as he did with ‘Against the Christians’ and ‘Letter to Anebo’ which is to put forth the view of the Platonic tradition as it had been presented since Plato’s time (and one could argue even before Plato this was the view of Philosophy as the fount of wisdom and as a way of life.)

9.   A counter to this way of interpreting the writings of Porphyry would be Porphyry’s engagement with the ‘Chaldean Oracles.’  Last week I posted about the Chaldean Oracles and mentioned that both Iamblichus and Proclus wrote commentaries on them; both of which are now lost.  But Porphyry also wrote a commentary on the Chaldean Oracles and he did so before Iamblichus (and, obviously Proclus).  This work is also lost.  The question is, does the fact that Porphyry spent time with the Chaldean Oracles negate, or undermine, the idea that Porphyry’s ‘Letter to Anebo’ was, in a sense, an overall rejection of theurgy and had the same function in a theurgic context as ‘Against the Christians’ had in a Christian context?  It’s a good question.  Here are a few observations:

9.1  I tend to see Porphyry’s involvement with the Chaldean Oracles as resembling the way Chinese philosophers and sages were involved with the Book of Changes, also known as the I Ching.  There are countless commentaries on the Book of Changes written over many centuries.  Most of these commentaries are Confucian, meaning that they use their commentaries to affirm Confucian spirituality.  (The Book of Changes was, after all, a Confucian Classic.)  Some of the commentaries are Daoist, some are Buddhist, and some are more practical in that they are focused on the art of war, or martial arts, or even business and governing.  My point here is that the Book of Changes was flexible enough to allow for a variety of interpretations and uses.

I think Porphyry’s use of the Chaldean Oracles follows a similar pattern in that Porphyry seems to have put forth a traditional Platonic interpretation of its cryptic sayings.  In contrast, it seems to be the case that Iamblichus would use the Chaldean Oracles to justify a complete reinterpretation of Platonism.  Thus their purposes greatly differed and the results also differed.  (This is speculative since all of the commentaries are lost.)

9.1.1  I think it is possible for us today to connect with how Porphyry related to Oracles and other such practices by connecting with how we in the West use the Book of Changes.  We are not Chinese Sages and we have not inherited a long tradition regarding this work.  We tend to approach the Changes in an open way, but not in a way that would treat the Changes as infallible.  There is a certain respect a Westerner has when using the Changes, but it is not what one might call submission. 

9.1.2  Relating to the Changes, or the Oracles, resembles the way we relate to poetry.  I say this because poetry is obscure, the language is often difficult to understand, yet there is a sense of meaning that speaks to us in the way that music speaks to us.  As philosophers, we subject such works to dialectic even when, as Plato wrote in Phaedrus, we know that written works can’t defend themselves.  But is that true?  If we enter into dialectic then these works can ‘speak’ and we can enter into a dialectical relationship with them.  This is how I think Porphyry treated poetry, Oracles, and how he would have treated the Book of Changes.

9.2  Porphyry spent time studying philosophical and spiritual traditions other than Platonism, even those contrary to Platonism.  I don’t think that was unusual in the culture of that time.  For example, in ‘Against the Christians’ Porphyry demonstrates familiarity with Christian scriptures.  (And as an aside, Porphyry was very familiar with Aristotle and other significant philosophers.)  I bring this up because Porphyry’s writings on the Chaldean Oracles may have been more ‘comments on’ rather than a genuine commentary; what I’m getting at is that writing about the Chaldean Oracles does not, by itself, constitute commitment to them as a source of spiritual nourishment.  Porphyry’s studies of Christianity did not eventuate in a commitment to Christianity, and Porphyry’s studies of Aristotle did not lead Porphyry to become a Peripatetic.  Porphyry interpreted all of these approaches through a Platonic lens, preserving the view that Platonism was sufficient and a complete spiritual system.  In contrast, Iamblichus used the Chaldean Oracles to undermine the position of Platonism by insisting that additions needed to be made, of a theurgic kind, because wisdom was insufficient to bring practitioners to the salvific goal of Platonism which is union with the Good and the One. 

9.3  I’m not saying that Porphyry was disinterested in oracles; it seems that Porphyry used oracles found at temples in the same way that today many people use the Book of Changes.  And sometimes Porphyry would write about the oracles he received.  I think Porphyry was interested in the questions surrounding how to interpret such utterances, what status we should give them, and how we should respond to them.  These are the same kinds of questions that people today ask about the Book of Changes or the Tarot.  These strike me as legitimate philosophical questions that would arise naturally in a Platonic context that is rooted in Plato’s Dialogues wherein one finds lots of allegorical, mythic, and metaphorical writing.  I say that these questions would arise naturally in this context because an oracle’s pronouncements might use some of these devices and Platonists would be familiar with them and know how to unpack them.  The point is that Porphyry treated the Oracles as opportunities for dialectic whereas Iamblichus used the Oracles as opportunities for commanding subversion of traditional Platonism.

9.4  I don’t see any evidence that Porphyry signed on to theurgy under the influence of the Chaldean Oracles.  As far as I can tell, Porphyry never suggests that theurgic ritual is higher than wisdom, or that theurgic ritual is necessary for the philosophical ascent to bear fruit.  That would happen with Iamblichus and it is a striking difference between the two.

10.  I’m not saying that this task of passing on the inherited tradition of Platonism by critiquing deviations from it, such as theurgy and meat eating, was the only thing Porphyry did during his productive life as a philosopher.  For example, Porphyry also wrote works that were addressed to beginners, such as Porphyry’s Letter to Marcella and works such as his Sentences which is a subtle presentation on the finer aspects of Platonism. 

Nevertheless, I think much of what Porphyry did was to write what might be called apologetic treatises for Orthodox, or traditional, Platonism at an historical moment when multiple attempts were being made to subvert that inheritance. 

11.  Was Porphyry successful in these apologetic efforts?  In the immediate historical context I think we would have to say ‘no’, he wasn’t.  I mean that Christian Platonism found a place and created a way of interpreting Platonism that presented Platonism as incomplete and deficient.  In addition, theurgy undermined Platonist ethics, its metaphysics, and shifted the tradition from Philosophy, love of wisdom, to Theurgy, love of ritual, and to a focus on theology rather than philosophy.  (Those who follow Theurgy today retain these anti-Platonist views to some extent which varies from person to person and group to group.) 

On the other hand, when looked at from a longer historical view, Porphyry passed on to the future the tradition that he loved and made it available and accessible to many people.  This reconnection to Orthodox Platonism via Porphyry’s writings began in the Renaissance; one example is a reconnection to vegetarianism with the discovery, and then the wide distribution, of his On Abstinence in Europe.  In some ways, I think the full significance of Porphyry’s writings, and the full impact of those writings, has not yet emerged but is likely to blossom in the future; that is, of course, speculation.  But I think it is informed speculation.  I say this because I sense that some people, more with the passing of time, seem to be interested in learning Platonism on its own terms instead of through the distorting lenses of Christianity and Theurgy.  And Porphyry’s writings are an excellent way to access the tradition as it existed before it was subject to these distortions; that is my hope and perhaps the hope of others as well.

12.  What about today, our contemporary situation?  I think that Porphyry offers us a model of how a Platonist can interact with other philosophical and spiritual systems without succumbing to those traditions and at the same time retaining a sense of one’s own place and wisdom.  I mean that in our contemporary situation we have many people wanting to adjust, reinterpret, or in some way undermine Orthodox Platonism so that it will serve some other system’s purposes.  For example, the practice of Theurgy is advocated for by a number of non-academic Platonist groups who configure the practice of Theurgy as in some way a significant Platonic practice.  I think Porphyry shows us how to relate to these kinds of claims. 

We also have those who want to subsume Platonism under their own political agenda.  Some examples of this have had significant influence such as the teachings of Leo Straus.  Porphyry does not write specifically about politics, but he offers a sense of stability when faced with misinterpretations of Platonism that can be applied to a political context.

In contemporary Universities there is a strongly held view that Platonism is best understood through the analytic tools of contemporary philosophy thus transforming Plato into a proto-analytic philosopher and relegating mystics like Plotinus to the fringes.  Porphyry shows us that misinterpretations of Platonism can be subjected to dialectical investigation and that this leads to understanding Platonism on its own terms rather than interpreting Platonism through a different, in this case secular, lens.

I also think that Porphyry informs us how to retain our equanimity in the thick of the confusion of competing claims and critiques.  As mentioned above, in the short term, Porphyry’s apologias for traditional Platonism did not win out.  But if one looks at this kind of situation from the perspective of wisdom, from the perspective of eternity, that is not disturbing. 

In short, I think Porphyry is the ancient Platonist who is best equipped to show us moderns how to move forward in a world that feels just as chaotic as the world in which Porphyry lived; a world in which, if we take the long view, he thrived.