15 December 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 77
1. Alcinous Defines Philosophy
In this post I’m returning to the definition of Platonic Philosophy as given by Alcinous in Alicnous’s Handbook of Platonism, translated by John Dillon. I posted this quote before; but here I want to focus solely on the definition. In the previous post I quoted the whole section in which the definition appears. Here I am using a narrower focus.
“Philosophy is a striving for wisdom, or the freeing and turning around of the soul from the body, when we turn towards the intelligible and what truly is, and wisdom is the science of things divine and human.” (Page 3)
I think it is worth noting that Alcinous strongly links Philosophy to wisdom. This is not surprising as the name of the tradition, Philosophy, means love of wisdom. I think this definition of Alcinous would not have been controversial, or contested, by the tradition or by anyone affiliated with Platonism for the first 800+ years. For all that time wisdom stood at the center of the tradition.
I think we need to recover that understanding. I say this because I think the foundational nature of wisdom has become obscured by a number of sources who place other things at the center that they consider to be more significant. This kind of replacement makes it difficult to access Platonism on its own terms.
Alcinous goes on to unpack wisdom. First Alcinous states that wisdom is the ‘freeing and turning around of the soul from the body.’ This is done by distinguishing what is of the body and what is of the soul. Wisdom is making those distinctions and then acting upon them in one’s life.
This turning has two aspects; the first is turning to the intelligible, what I would call the noetic, and the second is turning to what truly is, what Platonism calls the Good and the One. What the intelligible and the Good have in common is that they are eternal. The Good is eternal by its nature, eternal as such, or eternity qua eternity. The intelligible, or noetic realities, what Whitehead called ‘eternal objects’, are eternal due to their metaphysical closeness to the Good and the One. I would sum up this turning by saying that Wisdom means to be turning to, or towards, eternity.
The primary distinction of Wisdom, then, is to distinguish what is eternal from what is ephemeral. What is eternal is the divine. What is ephemeral is human, or of this world.
2. Three Levels of Meaning in the Dialogues of Plato
In the Dialogues of Plato the reader is engaging with writing that functions at three primary levels. These levels are rooted in the three levels, or hypostases, of Platonic metaphysics. The first level in a Dialogue is the Good and the One. Sometimes this is brought up explicitly but more often it is pointed to and suggested. An example of bringing it up explicitly is when Plato refers to the Good in The Republic. An example of pointing to the Good and the One is found in the opening of Plato’s Dialogue The Laws; I am thinking of the first word of the Dialogue is ‘God’ which is a word for the One in a Platonic context. This can be more indirect as when Plato writes about recollection and points indirectly to higher realities through this discussion.
The second level is noetic; one might call it archetypal. The noetic level is where eternal truths are found such as numbers. When Plato talks about numbers Plato is referring to this second level. Plato will sometimes personify this level using names of various deities as symbols for eternal noetic realities; this is a kind of indirect pointing.
The third level is the level of cyclic existence. When Plato refers to human life and its many facets Plato is pointing to the realm of cyclic existence which is present in the human body. These teachings mostly appear as what I call ‘instruction’, that is to say that Plato is referring to what human beings must do, as embodied beings, to walk a spiritual path in their lives. In some ways instruction is easy to overlook. This is because we are often focused on the characters and the plot of a Dialogue and the storyline is what attracts us. But after some familiarity with the Dialogues we begin to notice that Plato offers us instruction on how to become a Philosopher which means adopting practices conducive to, and defining of, the Philosophical tradition. You can spot these instructions because they are almost always askeses, meaning they are almost always in the form of ascetic practices that the Philosopher adopts. This level of instruction is very fruitful and once a reader perceives this level he finds a wealth of such instruction in the Dialogues.
These three levels of meaning are not usually presented in a sequence, but I suspect that they are to be found in all of Plato’s dialogues.
3. When Friends Give Advice
A friend of mine recently said to me that I should give up philosophy. He asked me if I knew that he felt that way. I responded that I have known that for years and that it doesn’t bother me that my friend feels that way.
This is not the first time someone has made this suggestion. I suspect that this kind of suggestion is made to anyone who has a commitment to a spiritual life of any kind. I have observed this happening to other people.
Plato talks about this in several dialogues where Plato points out that people will think of Philosophers as inept and kind of buffoonish. Some devout Catholics have written how casual Catholics often find their devotion to the tradition kind of embarrassing, indicating that what Plato wrote about is not exclusively a problem for practitioners of Philosophy.
It's not a big deal once you realize that people have different destinies.
4. A First Glance at the Chaldean Oracles
4.1 I have noticed that the Chaldean Oracles make an appearance in a lot of Platonist writings that were written after Plotinus. I thought it might be a good idea to find out about the Oracles so I decided to read the translation by Ruth Majercik.
The Chaldean Oracles were composed during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, 161 – 180 C.E. The authors are Julian the Theurgist and his father Julian the Chaldean. How, exactly, it was written is speculative but it may have been written, or received, in a trance state while Julian the Theurgist was practicing theurgy.
The Chaldean Oracles are currently in a fragmentary state; the complete text has been lost but there are a significant number of quotes found in various sources. Majercik catalogs these quotes, dividing them into two types; quotes that are regarded as securely part of the Chaldean Oracles, and dubious quotes.
The Chaldean Oracles remind me of Gnostic writing in general. They are visionary and dogmatic; by dogmatic I mean that the Chaldean Oracles state their view as a revelation rather than as a discovery that others can share. If you compare the Timaeus with the Chaldean Oracles I think you will understand what I am referring to.
Plato writes myths and allegories, but the tone of oracular writing is, I think, different. In Plato’s devices the reader is being invited to unpack what is written; in contrast, in oracular writing the reader is being told to accept them as they are, even when they are very opaque and mysterious.
To the extent that the Chaldean Oracles had an influence on Iamblichus and Proclus, I think it may have influenced them to lean toward a stance of talking down to the reader who, presumably, needs to follow their instruction. Compare, for example, the tone of The Mysteries by Iamblichus to the tone Plato uses when he has Socrates offer instruction in philosophy; to be honest they feel like two different worlds. Plato uses dialectic, oracular writing uses dogmatics. I suspect the Chaldean Oracles also influenced the two of them to write in a very complex and opaque style which seems to be well-suited to oracular literature.
This is just a first impression; I have often changed my mind about spiritual works after rereading them.
4.2 Both Iamblichus and Proclus wrote commentaries on the Chaldean Oracles; both of these are now lost. The work is focused on theurgy and one can regard the Chaldean Oracles as the source, or a significant source, of what would become Platonic theurgy. At times I have considered referring to Post-Porphyrian Platonism as “Chaldean Platonism” meaning Platonism that is shaped in significant ways by the Chaldean Oracles; I modeled the name after “Christian Platonism”. The Chaldean Oracles view theurgy as the necessary practice and means for spiritual ascent, just as Iamblichus did and it may be that Iamblichus either got this idea from the Chaldean Oracles or the Oracles supported the view of Iamblichus in significant ways. I think it is noteworthy that a primary source for theurgy in Platonism was a non-Platonist text. Both the Chaldean Oracles and Iamblichus through Proclus view wisdom as insufficient for spiritual ascent which represents a major shift in understanding from the Platonic heritage.
4.3 I referred to the Chaldean Oracles as a non-Platonist text in 4.2 above. But I think it is noteworthy that in contemporary discussions about Post-Porphyrian Platonism some authors will refer to the Chaldean Oracles as a ‘Neoplatonic’ work, or ‘Neoplatonic’ text. The reason for this is that it was the Post-Porphyrian Platonists, such as Iamblichus and Proclus, who seem to have been most fascinated by this work, for this reason the association has become an historical one. I don’t think that the Julians who wrote the Oracles had this specifically in mind, but that is what happened. I use the term ‘non-Platonist’ for the Chaldean Oracles because the work displaces central understandings of the Platonic tradition such as the transformative nature of wisdom as well as wisdom’s soteriological function and after rejecting the sufficiency of wisdom creates a supersession based structure that places ritual above wisdom.
4.4 In some ways I find the interest in these kinds of works in Post-Porphyrian Platonism to be a bit embarrassing. At another level, I think the Chaldean Oracles were what I might refer to as a ‘fad’ or a passing fancy. I’m reminded of certain channeled works that were very popular for a few years and have now vanished; in particular, I am thinking of those channeled works that were produced in the 1960’s and 70’s. The Chaldean Oracles have that kind of feeling for me.
5. Wisdom
I’ve been thinking a lot about wisdom and wisdom traditions. This has happened, I think, because of the growing realization of how wisdom was ejected from Platonism by the Post-Porphyrian Platonists. Here are a few thoughts about wisdom:
5.1 Wisdom is a kind of knowing. Wisdom can be divided into two broad types. The first is practical wisdom and the second is transcendent wisdom which, in a Platonic context, refers to Philosophical Wisdom. Platonist literature talks about this basic division in episodes where someone possesses skill in a practical field of learning. An example would be someone who is a skilled physician, or a skilled in music, or in steering a ship, and so forth. Someone who is skilled in steering a ship is wise in the ways of the sea. Someone who is a skilled physician is wise in the ways of the human body.
Transcendent wisdom is also a kind of knowing, but it is knowing about that which applies to all existing things; that is to say it is metaphysical wisdom. For example, insight into impermanence is a kind of wisdom because it applies to all material things.
5.2 Wisdom is knowing the truth, which is often hidden, about material things, but it is also knowing the truth about non-material realities. Wisdom does not stop at the material metaphysics; that is just a first step on the path of wisdom.
5.3 Wisdom is a turning toward that which is non-material and therefore that which is eternal. Wisdom does this by making distinctions and following up on those distinctions. The basic distinction is to separate that which is ephemeral from that which is eternal.
5.4 Wisdom is a function of mind; I don’t consider it to be a function of soul. I say this because it is mind, due to its connection to the noetic, that makes distinctions. The soul is the silent presence of eternity which the path of Wisdom leads us to.
5.5 Transcendent Wisdom refers to knowledge about the eternal; how to recognize it, how to approach it, how to dwell There.
No comments:
Post a Comment