Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 83

2 February 2026

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 83

Trust

I think there is a turning point for people studying and/or practicing Platonism which is experienced as the arising of trust.  By ‘trust’ I mean what a lot of religious people mean by ‘faith.’  But the word ‘faith’ goes beyond the focus of my observation.

I mean by ‘trust’ that after some time in study and practice there arises a kind of satisfaction with what has been presented.  Parts of Platonism come together and the coherence of the tradition is accessible in broader strokes and more complex relationships between various aspects of Platonism. 

It’s not that everything suddenly becomes perfectly clear.  It’s more like that because of past occurrences of the arising of clarity, you become more comfortable in not knowing everything because there is the experience that over time, what once was opaque will become accessible.

At the beginning of any new study there has to be some trust in the sense that you cannot know if your studies will bear fruit.  They might, but they might not.  There is no guarantee.  (I recall that Spinoza writes about this in his brief autobiographical essay.)  This is where the virtue of courage comes in; it takes courage to move forward at this early stage and make the decision to enter into the philosophical study and practice that Platonism requires.  And it may be a year or more before there is a glimpse of an overall Platonic context that allows for understanding to grow.

But if one persists, reads regularly, practices the ethical restraints (asceses), and ponders what Platonism has to say, the sun of understanding will eventually appear one fine morning.

2.  Disputes

There are disputes that arise within a philosophical or spiritual tradition that can go on for a very long time without resolving.  Sometimes the disputes will result in a breakup of the tradition with one side adhering to view X, while the other side adheres to view Y.  When this happens, it is likely that no reconciliation will be forthcoming because the stakes have become too high.

In Platonism there are such disputes and they arose very early in the life of the Platonic tradition.  I am thinking of the disputes over the nature of Noetic Forms as found in Plato and the alternative found in Aristotle.

Another dispute that arose much later, during the Late Classical Period, centers on the nature of soul.  This is the famous dispute between those Platonists who regard the soul as always connected with higher realities and that the soul is never fully fallen into materiality.  Plotinus is often sighted as the significant presenter of this point of view.

The contrasting view is that the soul has fully fallen into materiality and is disconnected from transcendental realities.  Examples of those holding this view are Iamblichus and Proclus. 

So there are two views of how the soul works; the first is called ‘the fully descended soul’, and the second is called ‘the partially descended soul.'  But there is another possibility which, as far as I can tell, has not been explored.  And that is that soul does not fall and does not descend; we could call it ‘the undescended soul’.  I can understand why this possibility does not receive attention; at first glance it raises too many difficulties centered around things like purification and what the divine ascent would mean in such a context.  Still, I don’t think it should be dismissed without examination and contemplation.

3.  Is the Cosmos Comprehensible?

Plato speaks to us in all kinds of ways; I mean that Plato uses many different means to express the truths of this world including observation, inference, metaphor, simile, and other comparisons, allegory some of which are elaborate and some more straightforward.  I take this to mean that the comprehensibility of the cosmos cannot be contained through the use of a single method of expression; Plato seems to be indicating that to comprehend the cosmos requires the use of numerous alternatives.  Some of these alternatives also include things like purification (that is to say that comprehending the cosmos is dependent upon purification) and contemplation.

Plato might be making a stronger statement; that the cosmos is ultimately not comprehensible to the human mind.  (I am reminded of a Chinese tale, which I think is from Zhuang Tzu, that read; the human mind is small small.  The cosmos is vast vast.  What is small small cannot contain what is vast vast.)  I don’t recall a passage from the Dialogues where Plato says this explicitly, but the ineffability of the Good and the One, and its transcendental nature would seem to point in this direction.  Later Platonists such as Plotinus and Dionysius the Areopagite are explicit about this.  But this commitment to ultimate incomprehensibility is not universally shared.  Some Late Classical Platonists such as Proclus tend to side with the idea that the cosmos is comprehensible by human intellect.  It is only very recently that I came to that conclusion and it kind of surprised me because I don’t really think it fits in with the Platonist tradition as a whole.

 

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.