Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 72

10 November 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 72

1.  Evaluating the Relationship between Christianity and Platonism

I was listening to a short video on an atheist channel because the channel had a focus on Platonism and I was wondering what contemporary atheists might think about the Platonic tradition.  (As an aside, Book X of Laws, where Plato offers an extended critique of atheism was not mentioned.)  The question was focused on whether or not Plato would have approved of the way Christianity incorporated Platonism into its theology.  The discussion remained at an abstract level; by ‘abstract’ I mean that the historical context in which this process of the absorption of aspects of Platonism into Christianity was not mentioned.  Personally, I think it is crucial to take the specific historical context into account.  Here are a few comments:

1.1  By historical context I mean that Platonism was dealing with two strong interpretations of the world that ran counter to what traditional, or Orthodox, Platonism presented.  These two were Christianity and Theurgy as presented by Iamblichus.  What I’m getting at is that for Platonism the historical situation wasn’t a choice between Christianity and traditional Platonism.  Instead, I see the historical situation as a choice between two views that equally diverged from what Platonism had previously, or originally, taught.

1.1.1  I think it is helpful to look at the specific teachings that I see as running counter to what I call Orthodox Platonism.  For example, Christianity offered a personal view of ultimate nature in the person of Jesus Christ.  In contrast Platonism’s philosophical path to the ultimate was a journey to the impersonal transcendental; an ineffable realm without any material features that would form a personality.

1.1.2 Platonism also rejected the idea of bodily resurrection; even some early Christian Bishops, such as Synesius of Cyrene (373-414), rejected bodily resurrection on Platonist grounds.  Bodily resurrection is taken very seriously in Christianity, but in Platonism the path to the ultimate divests the practitioner of individuation, particularly the individuation of the body.

1.1.3 Platonism argued for the everlasting nature of material existence, the material cosmos.  Christianity argued for the creation of the material cosmos by God at a specific point in time.  In addition, Christianity argued for the dissolution of the material cosmos at the end times.  Proclus wrote a treatise called On the Eternity of the World which contained 18 arguments supporting the everlasting nature of the material cosmos.  This irritated Christians; John Philoponus wrote a treatise attacking the treatise written by Proclus.  There was a lot of theological and philosophical activity centered on this issue because how one views this issue shapes one’s conception of creation, God, and the transcendental.

1.1.4  There were other disagreements, but the above touches on some significant disagreements that, ultimately, could not be reconciled.  Instead of reconciling these differences, Christianity chose a supersessionist approach in which Christianity was presented as the completion of philosophy (you could also call it the correction of philosophy).  Plato was thought of as wise, but unable to encounter the whole truth because he was born before Christ.  This allowed Christianity to absorb what was consistent with Christianity and at the same time to put aside those aspects of Platonism that were not consistent.

1.2.1  It is also useful to list aspects of Theurgy that were undermining traditional Platonism, or were in conflict with traditional Platonism.  These differences, or conflicts, were presented by Iamblichus in various writings.  The first conflict centered on vegetarianism and the sacrifice of animals for ritual purposes.  Traditional Platonism rejected such sacrifices and took a vegetarian approach to diet which Platonism absorbed from Pythagoreanism and Orphism.  In contrast, the Theurgy of Iamblichus vehemently argued for the necessity of animal sacrifice in certain circumstances, such as when a particular deity required such sacrifice in order to make contact with that deity.  This was a direct attack on the heritage of Platonism in general, on Platonism’s ancient foundations (the above-mentioned Pythagoreanism and Orphism), and on Porphyry in particular who wrote two treatises arguing for abstaining from either eating animals or sacrificing animals for the purposes of ritual efficacy. 

This attack on Platonism by Iamblichus undermined Platonist ethics as well as to how Platonism understood how reincarnation works.  This usage of animal sacrifice also ignores the teachings of Platonism on non-harming and non-retaliation. 

1.2.2  The second disagreement that arose from Iamblichus’s teachings was the idea that the soul is fully descended from higher realities such as the noetic and the transcendental; that is to say the soul is separated from these higher realities by falling into materiality and has no ability to ascend to higher realities. 

In contrast, Orthodox Platonism regarded the soul as in some way always in contact with higher realities and for that reason when we follow the soul we find the path to the divine. 

1.2.3  These two disagreements are connected.  The inability of human beings to ascend to higher realities means that they must depend on the rituals of Theurgy because human beings need the assistance of the Gods who are contacted through these rituals. 

1.2.4  I should also mention that Iamblichus didn’t consider the traditional Platonist approach of wisdom, and the approach of Theurgy to be alternate paths to the divine.  Iamblichus and his heirs, like Proclus, dismissed the approach of wisdom as inefficacious; from their perspective only Theurgy, including animal sacrifice, could lead someone to the divine.

1.2.5  From the perspective of wisdom (sophia), the teachings of Iamblichus were, and are, more pernicious for Platonism than those of Christianity.  I say this because Christians didn’t claim that, for example, creation at a moment in time was what Platonism really taught.  In contrast, Iamblichus argued that animal sacrifice, and the fully descended soul are actual Platonism and this sleight of hand remains with us today.

1.3  Given the historical circumstances I think Plato would have approved of the absorption of Platonism into Christianity as a means of preserving the teachings and passing them on into the future.  When I say ‘approved’ I don’t mean ‘agreed’; rather I mean something closer to ‘accepting.’  I say this because Plato was familiar with the ups and downs of political strife and the shifting nature of political power.  Plato lived through several dramatic changes in how Athens was run by different political groups; it was a politically chaotic period.  This kind of background gives people who experience intense political strife both the capacity for resilience and the strength of endurance.  Based on this, I speculate that Plato would have been fine with Christianity’s appropriation of Platonism for its own purposes, knowing that this would eventually pass.

2.  Tim Addey on Philosophy as a Yoga

Last week I posted from an essay by Eric Fallick on Platonism as a type of Dharma, akin to the Dharma traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism (as well as Pythagoreanism and Orphism).  Continuing with this theme of Philosophy in general, and Platonism in particular, as a spiritual tradition that resembles Indian spiritual traditions, or Dharmas, here is a quote from Tim Addey’s Preface to the book Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth: From Ancient Egypt to Neoplatonism by Algiz Uzdavinys:

“Ancient understanding viewed reality as a series of descending steps, starting with the most ineffable and most simple which is first unfolded through divinity and then moves down through varying conditions of existence – the highest of which are closest to the originating simplicity and are purely intelligible, but the lower being increasingly complex and changeable, ultimately becoming perceptible to the senses.  These lower conditions of existence were not rejected as evil or illusive, but they were seen as deriving their worth and trustworthiness from their relation to the highest.  Each plane of reality had its answering correspondence in the nature of the human being.  Since the highest levels possessed the greatest intelligibility and stability, it was here that philosophers sought to centre the art and science of philosophy.  For this reason philosophy was seen as an interior discipline which allowed a conscious and active participation in a divine and intellectual drama – in more modern terms it was considered to be a spiritual path, or a yoga of enlightenment.”

(Page i from Philosophy as a Rite of Rebirth by Algiz Uzdavinys, ISBN: 9781898910350)

2.1  Tim Addey is one of the leaders of the Prometheus Trust in England.  The Trust is focused on making available the translations of Platonist works through the translations of Thomas Taylor.  The Trust also publishes books by contemporary authors and scholars on the Platonist tradition.

2.1.1  As an aside, many of the Trust’s publications are at very reasonable prices.  This is noteworthy because many academic publications on Platonism are very expensive and I want to take a moment to express my thanks for the Trust’s pricing policies.

2.2  This quote is a bit more general in focus than the quote I posted last week on this topic.  Nevertheless I think it is worth sharing because Addey has a gift for concisely writing about the past of Philosophy and how it contrasts with contemporary Philosophy. 

2.3  Addey writes that “philosophy was seen as an interior discipline.”  I take ‘interior discipline’ to mean a discipline that is based on withdrawing from a focus on the sensations of the world around us and turning inward to the realms of mind and soul.  There are practices and disciplines that were, and still are, used to assist in this turning to the interior and cultivating a relationship with this interior realm of clarity and peace.

2.4  Addey closes this paragraph by saying, “in more modern terms it [Philosophy – my addition] was considered to be a spiritual path, or a yoga of enlightenment.”

I’m not sure if Addey is using the word ‘yoga’ in the kind of loose way it is used in the West, or whether Addey is referring to the Classical tradition of Yoga as found in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  But either way Addey is linking Ancient Philosophy with Dharma traditions by using this kind of reference. 

2.5  Addey continues by writing about the loss of a spiritual focus in Western Philosophy:

“But at some point in the passage between the ancient and modern era, this view of philosophy and its purpose was largely lost, and today we find that . . . what is still called philosophy has allowed its centre to slip down the levels of reality.  And, of course, the human faculties upon which modern philosophy is based are necessarily at the lower levels of thought: where philosophy was meditative, contemplative and even unitive, it is now confined to a narrow form of logical reason – forever stuck in the temporal world.  Reason, once valued as a launching point to the realm of eternal intellect and thence super-eternal divinity, is now an end in itself.  Modern philosophy has lost its nerve: like a pilot who no longer trusts his aircraft the forward thrust of reason races us along the ground but is never transferred to an upward movement into the free air.”

(Ibid)

2.6  I think this is beautifully put.  But it is worth noting that there are exceptions to this generalization.  For example, there are modern works of Indian philosophy that express this ‘upward movement’ that Addey is referring to.  Many of the contemporary works on philosophy that have this upward movement are commentaries on ancient works, but I would still consider them to be philosophical works in the sense that Addey is suggesting.

3.  No Gaps

I have commented now and then on this blog that philosophers in the East (India, China, Japan, and so forth) are often very well read on Western philosophy, but the opposite is not true.  However, there do seem to be signs that this is changing.  There is a series of books published that are collectively called The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.  It is a multi-volume work and is an ongoing project.  It includes Indian philosophy as well other regions such as Islamic philosophy.

My sense is that these works are introductory; they are modest in size and price.  I think that is a good thing because it offers those who are inclined to explore non-Western philosophy an entry point for their studies.  As someone who spent many years studying Buddhist philosophy, I am happy to see this kind of thing emerging.

4.  Haiku

Rereading a book,

Words run across the desert

In Autumn darkness.

5.  Time’s Arrow

It is said that time only flows in one direction and that it is not possible to recover the past.  I think about this in the context of Platonism because I am interested in shifting the way Platonism is thought about in modernity to something that, in my view, more closely resembles the spiritual tradition that it was in the Ancient period of its origin.  Perhaps that is futile.

The thing about modernity, for all of its flaws and drawbacks, which I tend get a bit obsessed about, there are also aspects of modernity which providentially serve Platonism and create a space in which Platonism might flourish.  I am thinking of what is often observed as the dissolving nature of modernity, how modernity disintegrates every tradition and every concern except those that are of a material nature. 

As an example, think of how modernity dissolves, or threatens to dissolve, the status of religious traditions that had been central for society until very recently.  This is true in the East and in the West.  From the perspective of Platonism this dissolving, this weakening, of dominant religious traditions creates an opening for Platonism, a kind of grotto for the contemplation of eternity.  It wasn’t too long ago when such a project as creating, or finding, a grotto of eternity for the study of Platonism would have been impossible because Platonism was not considered to be a complete spiritual tradition.  There are still many who think of Platonism as deficient in comparison with dominant spiritual traditions.  But that view of the deficiency of Platonism is no longer enforced.

I don’t know exactly what Platonism will look like if Platonism does find its grotto of eternity.  It will bear some resemblances to the past, but in significant respects it will differ from the means and methods whereby Platonism was presented in the past and transmitted to the future. 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 44

28 April 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 44

1.  I’ve been thinking, more like pondering, about the division in Platonism between those who regard the soul as ‘fully descended’ and those who do not regard the soul as fully descended.  ‘Descended’ in this context means ‘descended into the material realm from higher realities; either the noetic or the ineffable transcendental of the Good and the One.  This division emerged in the late Classical Period; it was one part of various disputes between Porphyry and Iamblichus.  The dispute has left a lasting impression on the Platonist tradition.  There are those who regard the soul as always resident in the transcendental, exemplified by Plotinus, and there are those who regard the soul as separated from the transcendental, exemplified by Proclus (see the last section of the Elements of Theology).

1.1  I think my recent focus on this unresolved split within Platonism was stimulated at this time by my reading Theurgy and the Soul by Gregory Shaw; Shaw takes the view of Iamblichus and critiques Plotinus on this issue.  To be fair, Shaw’s criticism of Plotinus is nuanced in the sense that he points out where Iamblichus likely misunderstood Plotinus. Even so, I think overall that Shaw misrepresents Plotinus, but that’s to be expected from someone like myself who is so dedicated to Plotinus as a guide and an embodiment of transcendent wisdom. 

1.2  As I was thinking about this it came to me that the idea of the partial descent of the soul is not an unusual, or eccentric, view within a Platonic context.  I think partial descent is something we have all experienced.  For example, think of attending a lecture that is introducing a complex topic (perhaps in a classroom context, perhaps online, perhaps in person at a venue).  You are interested in the topic but there are parts of the lecture that you don’t understand, while there are other parts that immediately make sense.  This is a very common experience when, for example, learning a new language or beginning a branch of mathematics, and so forth.  What I want to suggest is that this is an example of a ‘partial descent’ of the topic into one’s mind.  When we have this experience, we know that our understanding is partial and that there is more to learn.  In a similar way, the partial descent of the soul into matter leaves the soul with only a partial understanding of its own place in the cosmos; more needs to be studied and understood and this is accomplished through renunciation, study, and contemplation.

1.3  There are other examples of partial descent in our experience of the world.  When the light of the moon appears in a pond, that is the partial descent of the light of the moon into the pond.  In a similar way, the soul can be thought of as analogically the partial descent of the light of the One into the pond of individuated material existence.

1.3.1  Another example, among many that can be chosen, is the material tree as an instantiation of, or emanation from, the form of treeness.  Each tree is descended from treeness but the material tree is only a partial representation of treeness.  All trees are like that; they have a limited reality here, and a transcendent reality there where treeness resides.

1.4  The partial descent of the soul also resembles the descent of higher, abstract, realities into materiality.  The descent of the One, in the sense of Unity, is partial in the material world.  The unity of a material being happens because of material beings’ participation in the One, in Unity itself.  But the unity of material beings is only a partial unity; if it were a full unity, a full descent of the One into material embodiment, then material beings would be the One itself.  The partial unity, or Oneness, of material beings is on display as becoming and begoning.  The One, and Noetic realities, do not participate in becoming and begoning, but material beings do and that is why the Oneness of material beings is only a partial Oneness.

1.5  It is my feeling that the idea of the full descent of the soul came into Platonism from Christianity.  What I am getting at is that the Christian view of fallen humanity is that because of the fall humans need an intermediary to connect with God because human beings are too sinful to make such a connection on their own.  The intermediary for Christians is Jesus who is considered to be fully human and fully Divine, fully God.  Because of this complex nature Jesus can save human beings from their fallen condition.

In a similar way, those Late Classical Platonists who argued for the full descent of the soul also argued for intermediaries, plural, consisting of the Gods of the Greek pantheon.  Through carefully constructed ritual the practitioner could contact one, or more, of these intermediaries who had the ability to lift the separated and fully descended human soul to noetic, and possibly higher, realms.

I understand that usually those who study the history of Platonism view Platonism and Paganism in the Late Classical period as deeply in opposition to Christianity; but I tend to see them as in significant ways engaged in the same project which in this case is based on the idea of the human soul as fully separated from the transcendental.

1.6  Returning to the context of Platonism and its internal disputes, I think that there has been a tendency to look at this dispute within Platonism in a way that is too analytical; in addition, there is a tendency to use language that is too technical when discussing this issue (too technical in the sense that the language used obscures rather than clarifies).  If, instead, we look at this issue through the procedures of analogy and metaphor, particular to our own experience, then the assertion that the soul is not fully descended into the material realm makes intuitive, and logical sense (logical in a Platonic sense) with a clear experiential basis.

2.  The history of Platonism gives me the impression of a very malleable tradition.  I say that because it seems that Platonism finds it easy to adapt to changing environments so that Platonism does not resist, or does not resist very much, putting on the robes of various other traditions such as Greek Paganism, Skepticism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mathematics, and so forth.  Some traditions are highly resistant to this kind of display; Jainism is one example. 

I think this is because Platonism regards the material domain as inherently unstable and in constant flux.  Looked at in this way I think it makes sense that one would accept the kind of changes and adaptations that Platonism has gone through.  The focus of Platonism is on the transcendental which is, from one perspective, ultimate otherness.  This ultimate otherness is not to be found here in the material domain; it is there in the transcendental.  From this perspective it is not a matter of first importance what robes the tradition wears.

3.  There is a social movement which is called ‘Minimalism’.  When I say ‘movement’ I don’t mean that Minimalism is very organized or that someone can attain an official certificate of Minimalism.  But there are people who act as what I would call guides to a minimalist life.

The movement is strongly devoted to simplifying one’s life by having as few things as possible, cutting back on extraneous things, or things one no longer actually needs.  Some Minimalists have very few possessions indeed.  Others are more moderate in their minimalism.

The Minimalist movement has a strong aesthetic component to it which some emphasize more than others.  I have noticed that there seems to be a Japanese aesthetic influence, which makes sense; and some of those offering Minimalist insights are Japanese.

But there is also a philosophical component.  And at times it seems some minimalists are almost taking a vow of poverty.  I haven’t run across any explicitly religious content from Minimalists; but there is a kind of sense that many minimalists are turning away from the material world having seen through its false promises.  This is often motivated by wanting to have time to do what is important in the life of a minimalist instead of their life being consumed by and wasted on the accumulation of things. 

I take all of this as a positive sign.  It indicates to me a kind of inchoate spiritual yearning.  Perhaps something profound will emerge from this.

4.  Brief is the life of a mountain.

5.  “. . . and the first requirement for a happy life is to do yourself no injury nor allow any to be done to you by others.  Of course, the first half of the requirement presents no great problem; the difficulty lies in becoming strong enough to be immune to injury – and the one and only thing that brings such immunity is complete virtue.  The same applies to a state: if it adopts the ways of virtue, it can live in peace; but if it is wicked, war and civil war will plague it.”

(Plato, Laws, translated by Travor J. Saunders, Plato: The Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, 1997, page 1491, 829a, ISBN: 9780872203495)

“Now those who live happily must first avoid doing injustice to others and suffering injustice themselves at the hands of others.  Of these two, the former is not very difficult, but what is very difficult is acquiring the power that prevents being done injustice – this cannot be completely achieved unless one becomes completely good.  This very same thing applies to a city: if it becomes good it lives a life of peace, but it lives a life of external and internal war if it is evil.”

(Plato, Laws, translated by Thomas L. Pangle, The Laws of Plato, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980, page 219, 829a, ISBN: 0226671100)

5.1  It’s interesting to see that Plato in this passage makes an explicit case for the city and the individual as being kind of mutual analogies for each other (in the passage immediately preceding the one quoted, Plato also asserts this).  I think this suggests that the Laws, as is true of most of Plato’s dialogues, is written at multiple levels simultaneously and that the Laws is at one level a guide for how to live a good life.

It's not easy to see this in the long passages where the Laws discusses setting up various bureaus and committees in great detail; at least I find it difficult to see how this applies to my life as an individual.  But that is probably due to my own limited understanding.

5.2  It is helpful to see how Plato’s teaching on non-harming, or non-injury, makes an appearance here in his last dialogue.  Non-injury, injustice, and non-harming often have the same valence in the dialogues.

5.3  Plato seems to be suggesting that it is possible for a city, which in Plato’s day would mean a city-state which is close to what we mean by a country, can live in peace.  At other times in the Laws Plato expresses frustration that there has to be discussion about laws for acts that the three characters in the dialogue find abhorrent or disgusting; but (and you can almost hear the sigh) they have to do so because human beings have tendencies in those directions and they must be dealt with.  My conclusion is that Plato likely leans to the view that a City living in peace (both internally and externally) is probably a utopian fantasy.

 

 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 41

7 April 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 41

1.  I was reading some of the essays by John Dillon from his new book Perspectives on Plotinus and at the same time rereading from the Orations of Maximus of Tyre.  I was reading them now and then and going back and forth between them.  I came away with a pleasing feeling of continuity; that is to say I feel a sense of common purpose between Dillon and Maximus as well as a common approach in their essays.  They both have great respect for the Platonic tradition.  They both ground what they are saying in the Platonic heritage, including older texts.  They both write in a focused, essay, style; I mean that each of their writings is focused on a particular topic of Platonism which the authors then unpack, showing how the topic of the essay relates to other topics in Platonism and/or Platonism as a whole.

2.  A friend of mine disagreed with my assertion in “Brief Notes on Various Topics 40.3” that presenting Platonism to college students needs to be done in a manner that can connect with them by presenting Platonism in a way that does not clash with the assumptions of modernity; at least not too much.  This means that starting with the topics of transcendence, or asceticism, is unlikely to make sense to young people in our culture at this time because of its materialism, nihilism, and reductionism.  

My friend pointed out that Platonism is not a tradition that is for most people.  Rather, Platonism is for the few.  My friend was suggesting that crafting a presentation of Platonism to appeal to undergraduate college students (perhaps in an Introduction to Philosophy class) implicitly means that I want Platonism to be a popular ‘Dharma’ or a ‘universal’ Dharma.  I think this is a fair point.  We in the West are used to thinking of religions and spiritual traditions as having the goal of universal appeal and, potentially, universal adherence.  This is true of Christianity.  But it is also true of a religion like Buddhism which has always had a strong push to convert others to its tradition(s).  

But not all spiritual traditions, or religions, think of their mission in the world as including converting large numbers of people to their tradition.  A good example are what I might call ‘spiritual arts’.  I am thinking of things like tea ceremony, tarot, I Ching, body-centered practices like Chi Gong, various meditation traditions and contemplative traditions, traditions like Jainism, and so forth.

Platonism more closely resembles these kinds of practices. There are differences, for sure; for example, Platonism seems to be more heavily invested in reading, studying, and interacting at multiple levels with most of these traditions and practices.  But then again, there are differences between any two of these non-universalistic traditions. 

In a number of Dialogues Plato presents the requirements for being a philosopher.  In Phaedo those requirements are ascetic.  This is also true in other dialogues.  In addition, in The Republic Plato mentions things like having a good memory, being a quick learner, and living what we today might call a ‘minimalist’ life.  Such a description presents a calling that is for a limited number of people.

2.1  When thinking about this a bit more, it came to me that the idea that a particular engagement in human affairs is not normally considered to have universal appeal.  For example, if someone is a gardener that person does not normally think of gardening as something that everyone should do.  Or someone who practices calligraphy as a hobby does not normally think of calligraphy as something that everyone should practice.  But when it comes to spirituality it seems to be the case that people think of spiritual traditions as for everyone, or accessible to everyone, and that if the spiritual tradition or practice is not universal in this way that it is somehow a failure when compared to traditions that do have a universalist approach.  I think that happens in Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism, because of certain ideals of compassion which are interpreted as being fulfilled when all people align with the Buddhist understanding of compassion; I’m thinking, for example, of the Bodhisattva Vows.  I think this happens in Christianity and Islam because of their supersessionist tendencies.  But, again, Platonism is not like that and is content to appeal to a limited number.

3.  In the Timaeus Plato writes, “. . . the motions that have an affinity to the divine part within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe.  These, surely, are the ones which each of us should follow.  We should redirect the revolutions in our heads that were thrown off course at our birth, by coming to learn the harmonies and revolutions of the universe, and so bring into conformity with its objects our faculty of understanding, as it was in its original condition.  And when this conformity is complete, we shall have achieved our goal: that most excellent life offered to humankind by the gods, both now and forevermore.”

(Plato, Timaeus, translated by Donald J. Zeyl, Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing, Indianapolis, 1997, page 1289, 90c-d, ISBN: 9780872203495)

3.1  This helps the reader understand why astronomy is an important study in Platonism; because studying the revolutions of the universe connects us with the divine, linking the universe to the divine within us.  

3.2  One of the revolutions included would be the revolution of the sun, or the solar cycle.  This links astronomy to the contemplation what I call ‘waiting for the sun’.  I’ve posted about this before, but here in Timaeus is the explanation of the significance of this contemplation.  

4.  Most people use the word ‘theurgy’ as a synonym for magic.  I recently looked up the word ‘theurgy’ in an online dictionary and ‘magic’ was the first meaning listed.  I take a narrower, more specialized, view of theurgy.  In a Platonic context, based on Iamblichus’s influential On the Mysteries, theurgy is a sacrificial system that argues for the efficacy of blood sacrifice; that is to say the slaying of living animals as an essential part of theurgic ritual practice.  It’s not that all theurgic rituals require blood sacrifice; rather it is that theurgy is the foundation which permits animal sacrifice when it accords with the theurgic view.  I think that incorporating this perspective on ritual sacrifice into Platonism from Iamblichus onward, was a setback for Platonism that should be rejected.  The antidote is to be found in Porphyry’s Abstinence which argues against the slaying of animals either for ritual purposes or for slaying them for food.  A second antidote is to be found in the Platonic teachings on non-harming.

5.  On an everyday level Platonism is a gift that slowly transforms one’s life for the better.  At one level, the Platonist practitioner becomes more aware of what it means to live a virtuous life and why someone should strive to live a life of virtue.  On another level, what happens is that the Platonist practitioner begins to perceive material objects as symbols, or instantiations, of divine, or higher, realities.  This ability adds additional dimensions of experience to our ordinary life.  And these additional dimensions are invitations to transcendence and to that which is eternal.

6.  There is a passage in The Laws where the Athenian Stranger refers to an Egyptian artistic tradition which has lasted for 10,000 years; unchanged for all that time.  This was a style of painting which had strict rules for the procedures of painting bodily forms.  Clinias responds that this is “Fantastic!”, which I think in this context means something like ‘unbelievable’.  (As an aside, there are contemporary traditions of painting that strictly control the manner in which bodily forms are presented; I am thinking at the moment of Tibetan Thangka painting with which the West has become somewhat familiar in the last 50 years or so.  This tradition has rules governing the placement of bodies and other elements and these rules go back many centuries.)   The passage continues with a discussion of an Egyptian tradition that does roughly the same thing with music.  The Athenian Stranger clearly approves of this and wants to see this kind of tradition planted in the Greek world.  

It is difficult to conceive of an artistic or musical tradition that has lasted 10,000 years.  Many traditions in the arts in our culture today (music, painting, sculpture, poetry, and so forth) don’t last 100 years; some don’t last 6 months.  Think of what it would mean to sing a song that was 10,000 years old.  Think of what it would mean to live in a culture where that would be celebrated.  It would be a very different world.  (This discussion is found in The Laws at 656d-657c)

Later in The Laws the Athenian Stranger says, “The music we ought to cultivate is the kind that bears a resemblance to its model, beauty.”  (668b)

 

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 40

24 March 2025

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 40

1.  Lloyd Gerson is publishing a second edition of the translation of the Enneads; Gerson was the head of the group that did this translation.  I believe this second edition will become available in late September or early October of this year.  The paperback edition is currently priced at Amazon for $69.99 and the hardback is listed at $175.00.  This second edition contains some revisions as well as additional cross-references.

It is common, though not universal, for translators of Plato and Plotinus to have subsequent revised editions based on feedback they received after the publication of their first edition.  Jowett, I believe, had three editions.  McKenna had several revised editions of his translation of the Enneads (some of these changes are found in footnotes to the Larson Publications’ edition of the MacKenna translation).  Translating the Dialogues of Plato or the Enneads of Plotinus is a big job that rests on years of study before even attempting such a project.  It makes sense that the translator might find certain passages lacking after publishing their first edition and then proceed to make corrections.

For those interested, the second edition of the Gerson edition of the Enneads can be pre-ordered from Amazon.

2.  A friend of mine sent me a quote from Iain McGilchrist that I thought readers would find interesting:

“For over two thousand years, in the Platonic, and later the Christian, tradition of Western thought, human life was seen as orientated towards three great values: goodness, beauty, and truth, each of them in turn seen as a manifestation of an aspect of the sacred.  During my lifetime, I have seen each of these important values, along with the sacred, repudiated and reviled.  Less and less attention is given these days to the inner nature of goodness as a disposition of the world.  Too often it seems that goodness has been reduced to rule-following, and good actions determined by a form of bloodless, utilitarian accountancy.  Beauty is dismissed as irrelevant, in an era that respects only one value, namely, power – so that no artist now wishes his or her art to be praised for its beauty, only for being ‘powerful’.  And truth is dismissed, inevitably, as part of the rhetoric of power, supposedly decreed at whim to suit those who hold the power: everyone, it is argued, is entitled to their own truth.  What are we left with?”

I’m not sure of the exact location of this quote; I suspect it comes from a recorded talk (McGilchrist has quite a few talks on Youtube).  My friend put in the topic line of the email he sent that contained this quote, “Plato Gutted”.  

I think McGilchrist sums our current situation very accurately and succinctly here.  In my own journey away from modernity, it was the rejection of beauty that first signaled to me that something was wrong with our current cultural situation.

3.  I’ve been listening to a presentation on Youtube by an academic, a Professor of Philosophy, on Plato.  It is a series of posts.  Overall the presenter seems kindly disposed towards Plato which is why I have continued to watch the series.  At the same time I find the presentation frustrating because it reflects the manner in which academia is unable to comprehend Platonism as a spiritual tradition as opposed to a philosophy in the way that contemporary philosophies are types of philosophy.  For example, there has so far been no mention of rebirth, or purification, or asceticism, among other topics that I focus on when reading Plato.  The basic problem, as I see it, is that academia as an institution is committed to modernity in ways that make it difficult to present Platonism as a spiritual tradition that has the purpose of transcending the world and offering a path to salvation.

On the other hand, if Platonism was presented to an audience of college students in the way I would prefer, it is likely that college students would simply dismiss it as superstitious, outdated, unscientific, and deficient.  In a college context a tradition like Platonism needs to be presented in a manner that can actually connect with a young modern audience.  My first contact with Platonism was in such a context and it planted the seed for a later blossoming of a fuller, more traditional, approach to Platonism.

4.  “Animal sacrifice was not the most common ritual in the ancient world.”  This is the opening sentence from the book Animal Sacrifice in the Ancient Greek World, edited by Sarah Hitch and Ian Rutherford, published by Cambridge University Press.  I have enjoyed the collection of essays.  And the opening sentence highlighted for me one of the reasons why I find theurgy to be questionable as a Platonic practice.  What I’m getting at is that the emphasis on theurgy has obscured the many other ways that ceremony functions and presents meaning.  A widespread use of ceremony is to generate cultural memory so that certain events, views, or persons are not forgotten.  The repetition of a ritual on, for example, a yearly basis that is designed to bring to the minds of the participants something that happened in the past is a way of focusing the culture as a whole towards certain realities from the past and keeping them alive for the future by re-presenting them in the present, usually in a symbolic way.  A simple form of this is having a celebratory meal in honor of an event or person.  I see this as a more fruitful use of ritual than theurgy, as well as more powerful.

5.  If I think of the One as pure light, which is consistent with Platonic symbols and metaphors, I see the names of the One, Divine Names, as emerging from the pure light of the One streaming through the prism of Mind as found in the Noetic realm or sphere.  Mind is a prism for the light of the One, the Good, and the Beautiful.

These names are of two types.  The first type of name, or color that emerges when the mind differentiates the pure light of the One, consists of abstract nouns such as the Good, the One, the Beautiful, the Eternal, and so forth.  The second type of name consists of personifications such as Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Zeus, Hera, and so forth.  

The colors that emerge from the pure light of the transcendental are the result of the mind’s differentiating the unity of the One into distinct aspects.  As a crystal produces colors when the light of the sun flows through the crystal, the mind produces differentiated names when the energy of the One flows through mind.  This is the process of differentiation that is the essence of emanation.

6. I have self-published in book form my blog posts. I have published two volumes. They are available at Amazon. If you put in the key words "Blogging Platonism" both of them will come up.