9 June 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 50
1. It is very difficult to pursue a life of renunciation at this time, in this culture. I watched a video on youtube the other day that was an announcement by a Buddhist monastic that he was no longer going to practice as a monk as he had decided to continue practicing and teaching Buddhism as a layman. I have seen this before. And not just among Buddhist monastics. I have also seen young Christian monastics announce a similar change in their life on youtube (and this kind of thing also likely appears on other social media platforms).
There are common themes in these stories. One is a sense of isolation, which is often mentioned by Buddhist monastics in the West. Often they are trying to live a monastic life on their own which is very difficult. At a another level, those going through this change often mention that the culture as a whole, and the spirit of the time, finds a life of renunciation baffling; more than a few configure such a life as a life for losers.
For those who think of Platonism as a path of renunciation and asceticism these stories are cautionary tales. Platonism never developed (as far as I know) an institutional monasticism. Platonism encourages asceticism but the tradition seems to leave the application of its ascetic principles up to the individual practitioner. This is a challenge that can, at times, be difficult to apply in one’s life.
One way of accepting this challenge is to think of other activities that are done primarily by individuals; I mean things like gardening, baking, and so forth. There are many people who devote a lot of time to cultivating their garden without having any kind of institutional support or membership requirements. For such people gardening is its own reward.
In a similar way, a life lived in accordance with the principles of asceticism is its own reward; that reward being transcendence and the understanding of eternity. It is the garden of the soul that is cultivated by the Platonist ascetic.
2. I think one of the differences between what I call contemplative Platonism and theurgic Platonism is the range of ethical concern. Contemplative Platonists tend to include animals in the embrace of their ethical concern. In contrast, theurgic Platonists tend to ignore the inclusion of animals in an ethical embrace.
I started thinking along these lines when I came across the curriculum for studying Plato’s Dialogues that Iamblichus developed. The Republic is not included; neither is Crito. Both of those dialogues offer teachings on non-harming and non-retaliation. And I wonder if they were excluded for that reason.
In the writings of Plutarch on vegetarianism there is an emphasis on the mistreatment of animals when they are slaughtered. This is considered ethically wrong by Plutarch, as it is by Porphyry. Such concern is simply absent from those advocating for a theurgic approach to Platonism. Perhaps this is a consequence of displacing wisdom for ceremonial efficacy.
The consequences of this lack of ethical concern for animals resulted in huge quantities of animals being sacrificed under Julian; I’m not aware of any objections to this consequence coming from those with a theurgic orientation.
And this lack of ethical concern for animals by theurgists continues into the present time. Two books on theurgy I recently read do not bring up this perspective even in sections where they discuss blood sacrifice. I find this absence striking.
It may be the case that I am overly concerned with this or unduly sensitive; after all most Platonists do not comment on it. Perhaps my perspective on this issue arises because I do not think of human beings as particularly suited to a spiritual life or to making advances on the spiritual path. I tend to think that other lifeforms also have this capacity and maybe even have a greater capacity than humans do. This is eccentric, I know, and I’m not aware of a Platonist source that speaks from this perspective. Perhaps this is because I am more pessimistic about humans and their spiritual capacities than most people. But if you do have this perspective (I mean the perspective that considers at least some animals as having spiritual potential as great as, or greater than, that of human beings) then this creates a tendency to see these animals as worthy of ethical concern.
3. For a long time I have been interested in how the word ‘Neoplatonism’ took hold. I know it is a modern word, of recent origin, but I have not been able to track down the actual person and the actual book in which ‘Neoplatonism’ first appears.
I had been told by several people that ‘Neoplatonism’ had emerged in Germany during the 1700’s, or around that time. Some told me that it had been used in a German history of philosophy by Brucher, or Brucker, called Historia Critica Philosophiae. This was published from 1742 to 1744 in Leipzig; it was five volumes. I found a copy of the book at Internet Archive where I discovered that the book was written in Latin. It appears to have been a great success and very influential (for example, Schopenhauer liked it and recommended it).
An English translation by William Enfield appeared in 1766 to 1767 in six volumes. Enfield also published a condensation of the work in one volume. I was able to get a copy of this condensation (a little under 700 pages) from a reprint house at a very reasonable price. I don’t find the word ‘Neoplatonism’ in it; but it is interesting that the section on Plotinus is relentlessly hostile. I will probably post about this at some time in the future.
Frustrated at not being able to find the specifics on the first usage of the word ‘Neoplatonism’ I finally decided to ask ChatGPT; friends of mine had made me aware of how to use it and how to frame questions so that you get a useful answer. I asked ChatGPT who first used the word ‘Neoplatonism’ and in what book it first appears. ChatGPT came up with Schleiermacher and that the word appears in Schleiermacher’s translation of the works of Plato. The first volume of these translations was released in 1804 and continued his whole life (he was born in 1768 and died in 1834). In addition to the translations, Schleiermacher wrote introductory essays to the dialogues and the word ‘Neoplatonism’, according to ChatGPT, first appears in one of these essays. This seems plausible to me. Fortunately, some reprint houses have collected Schleiermacher’s introductory essays on the dialogues of Plato, translated into English, at a cheap price so I will be able to see for myself how it is used in that context. (As an aside, I’m aware that ChatGPT isn’t always accurate in its responses to questions and for that reason I regard the Schleiermacher attribution tentative.)
I realized that if it was in Germany that the usage of the word ‘Neoplatonism’ first appeared, then perhaps I should ask AI questions using the German word. When I did this two additional candidates for first usage came up (the German word is ‘Neuplatonismus’). The first was Karl Friedrich Hermann who wrote ‘History und System der Platonischen Philosophie’ (History and System of Platonic Philosophy) in 1839. The second was Heinrich von Stein who wrote ‘Sieben Bucher zur Geschichte des Platonismus’ (Seven Books on the History of Platonism) in 1864. Laid out chronologically:
The conclusion seems to be that the use of the word ‘Neoplatonism’ appeared in Germany in the early 19th century and likely spread from there. German philosophy was very influential at that time, even in England where the British Idealists were emerging. I find it remarkable to see how rapidly this reconfiguration of the history of Platonism spread.
Perhaps I’m being a bit obsessive regarding the history of the word ‘Neoplatonism.’ My feeling about the word is that it distorts both the history of Platonism and makes it more difficult to understand the continuities of Platonism over the centuries. I often hear (on Youtube, for example) that “Plotinus was the founder of Neoplatonism.” The statement is a great distortion of the Platonic tradition as a whole, and of Plotinus in particular. There is probably nothing that can be done to undermine its usage at this time; on the other hand, there are examples of well-known Platonists who have rejected the use of the word ‘Neoplatonism’ so I’m not the only one who finds the word problematic.
4. I have tended to think of Platonism as outside of the non-dual versus dual discussions; my feeling has been that Platonism could be interpreted from a non-dual perspective because the One is the only thing that is truly real (keeping in mind that the One is not actually a thing). On the other hand, Platonism could be thought of as dualistic because the One is understood in Platonism as transcendental to, and beyond, any material manifestations. My feeling has been that the non-dual versus dual debate arose in an Indian context and because of this the distinction doesn’t really apply to Platonism.
But I’m beginning to think of Platonism as a dualistic system along the lines of classical Yoga. As readers of this blog know, I have the view that Platonism is closer to the Dharma teachings of India than it is to contemporary Western philosophy. Because I have a decades long background in Buddhism my tendency has been to compare Platonism to Buddhism; I do this almost automatically because of my long-term studies of Buddhism; that is to say, I have a tendency to interpret Platonism through a Buddhist lens.
But lately I have been thinking that Platonism is closer to Classical Yoga than it is to Buddhism. First, Platonism does not have the view of emptiness that is so important a part of the Buddhadharma. In Platonism, things are not viewed as empty, rather things are understood to be emanations from the transcendental source, and because of this, things can function as a door to higher realities such as the noetic and the One. I’m not sure if this aligns with classical Yoga; my sense is that in some ways it does and in other ways it doesn’t. The two traditions align in that they don’t see things as empty in the way Buddhism does, but I’m not sure how Yoga would view the Platonic view that things are emanated from a primal source. More study is needed on my part to clarify this.
Second; closely related to the above mentioned view of emptiness is that both Classical Yoga and Platonism accept the reality of the soul. In contrast, Buddhism has the view of no-soul (anatman/anatta). For me personally, my awakening to the reality of soul was pivotal in moving away from a Buddhist analysis. How Classical Yoga and Buddhism interpret the soul does seem to differ on a number of points. Platonism seems to include a large number of what moderns might consider mental functions, such as reason, as part of soul, whereas Classical Yoga tends to separate those functions from soul and place them in mind. This is a complex subject, one that is worth investigating, but it remains the case that both Platonism and Classical Yoga are very concerned with the nature of soul.
Third, both classical Yoga and classical (ancient) Platonism are ascetic traditions and both of these traditions see asceticism as causally necessary for walking their respective spiritual paths. This is a significant commonality between the two traditions. I also think that both traditions do not view asceticism as merely instrumental; rather asceticism aligns the soul of the practitioner with the nature of the transcendental.
Another perspective shared by Platonism and Yoga is that they both regard the transcendental, or the ultimate, as beyond, or prior to, mental formations such as thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, dreams, tendencies, hopes, habits, fears, and so forth. This contrasts with modern Western Philosophical traditions which tend to understand their task as clarifying thoughts as to their meaning and their implications (this is especially strong in the analytic tradition).
A difference between Classical Yoga and Platonism is that Classical Yoga doesn’t talk about a noetic dimension which in Platonism plays a significant role. The noetic reality is why numbers, which reside in the noetic hypostasis, or level of reality, are a meaningful presence, and in Platonism have spiritual implications. I don’t get the impression that numbers, and other noetic realities, are of concern to Classical Yoga.
5. Plato walks into a bar and orders a non-alcoholic beer. He sits down at a table. An ancient woman of youthful beauty joins Plato and also orders a non-alcoholic beer. Plato greets Athena and asks her what she’s been doing the last thousand years. Athena laughs and says she has been in contemplation. “I’ve had plenty of time for contemplation since the great vanishing of the temples.” Plato laughed.
The bar turns into the portico of an Academy dedicated to teaching those who love wisdom. “Shall we join them?” Plato asks. “Why not? Let’s find out what the youngsters are saying these days.”