Platonic Philosophy and Platonism
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Teaching Plato in Italian Renaissance Universities
During the Renaissance the Arts curriculum in universities was based almost exclusively on the teaching of Aristotle. With the revival of Plato however professors of philosophy started to deviate from the official syllabus and teach Plato’s dialogues. This collection of essays offers the first comprehensive overview of Platonic teaching in Italian Renaissance universities from the establishment of a Platonic professorship at the university of Florence-Pisa in the late 15th century to the introduction of Platonic teaching in the schools and universities of Bologna Padua Venice Pavia and Milan in the 16th and 17th centuries. The essays draw from new evidence found in manuscripts and archival material to explore how university professors adapted the format of Plato’s dialogues to suit their audience and defended the idea that Plato could be accommodated to university teaching. They provide significant and fundamental insight into how Platonism spread during the 16th and 17th centuries and how a new interpretation of Plato emerged distinct from the Neoplatonic tradition revived by Marsilio Ficino.
Eusèbe de Césarée et la philosophie
Christianisme et philosophie en Palestine au tournant du IVe siècle de notre ère
Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine active between the end of the third century and the beginning of the fourth is the Christian author who has handed down to us in the form of quotations the greatest number of Greek philosophical texts. Yet his precise relationship to philosophy has never been the subject of a comprehensive study.
This book which brings together contributions by leading specialists aims to provide an initial overview. The analyses covering most of Eusebius’ works starting with the Preparation for the Gospel show the importance of philosophy in his thought. Beyond the use he makes of philosophers sometimes to criticise them sometimes to appropriate their ideas Eusebius stands out for his fairly good knowledge of philosophy especially Platonic philosophy the issues of which he seems to understand well. Although he takes up from his Christian predecessors the idea that Christianity is as such a “philosophy” this claim sometimes implies a technicality that is revealed not only in the way he quotes and comments on the philosophers but also in the presence in his work less visible at first sight of concepts and methods of exposition that bear witness to a real philosophical culture. At the end of these studies Eusebius of Caesarea too often reduced to a “court theologian” or to the status of “Father of Ecclesiastical History” emerges more as the scholar he was both Greek and Christian whose work and thought are inseparable from the philosophical context in which they were born.
Plato in Medieval England
Pagan, Scientist, Alchemist, Theologian
From the time of the Roman Republic continental Europeans traveling to England brought knowledge of Greek and Roman intellectual culture in the form of books of every genre. But until 1111 CE the island contained not a single Platonic dialogue. And for the next two centuries it had only a partial Latin translation of the Timaeus. A Latin Phaedo eventually appeared in 1340 and the Meno in 1423. But this hardly limited the number of ideas people had about Plato. He was a proto-Christian a sage a scholar of the cosmos and a healer. And he had an elaborate oeuvre that did exist in England works of astrology numerology medicine and science including Cado Calf Circle Herbal Question Alchemy and Book of Prophecies of a Greek King. This book tells the story of Plato in Medieval England from a name with too few works to a sage with too many. Based on a complete survey of all extant manuscripts publications and library records until the fifteenth century it traces with extraordinary precision the movement of opinions and information about Plato from Europe to England and then into its various monasteries schools and universities. This erudite and illuminating sociology of knowledge provides novel insight into the dubious English career of our best-known philosopher. This is intellectual history and reception studies at its most surprising.
Un platonisme original au XIIe siècle
Métaphysique pluraliste et théologie trinitaire dans le De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum d’Achard de Saint-Victor
Achard de Saint-Victor (†1171) est un représentant moins connu de l’école de Saint-Victor élève d’Hugues chanoine régulier maître abbé de Saint-Victor à Paris (1155-1161) évêque d’Avranches (1161-1171). Son œuvre principal le De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum consiste en deux parties qui portent sur la doctrine trinitaire et sur la doctrine de la pluralité des raisons éternelles dans le Verbe de Dieu.
Cette recherche entend rétablir les thèses principales exposées par Achard de Saint-Victor dans son livre De unitate et pluralitate creaturarum pour montrer que les capacités métaphysiques de ce penseur ne le cèdent pas aux philosophes plus connus de son époque. Notamment l’autrice étudie la façon dont le De unitate recourt aux doctrines médio et néoplatoniciennes pour résoudre la question d’une coexistence de l’unité et de la pluralité en Dieu et dans les créatures. L’enjeu est de mieux comprendre la place de la métaphysique platonicienne dans l’école de Saint-Victor et ce malgré la rareté des sources au XIIe siècle en particulier des œuvres de Platon ou de ses disciples grecs.
Le présent ouvrage contribue à résoudre deux problèmes de l’histoire de la philosophie : quels éléments et sources platoniciens ont été reçus au XIIe siècle et quelle place la pensée victorine fait à l’héritage platonicien. Les problèmes philosophiques soulevés sont la multiplication des objets intelligibles et sensibles la définition de la chose et l’identité des êtres.
La prière dans la tradition platonicienne, de Platon à Proclus
The present book studies prayer as a category of Platonic religious thought from Plato to Late Antiquity. Following a chronological framework (Plato the pseudo-Platonic Second Alcibiades Maximus of Tyre Plotinus Porphyry Iamblichus Proclus) the book examines the relationship between philosophical reflection on prayer and a series of themes and related topics: the criticism and the interpretation of traditional cults the conceptualization of religious emotions the philosophical explanation of how astrology and magic work the theories of the soul and the theological description of reality in Late Neoplatonism.
The book aims to contribute to shed new light on the relationship between religion and philosophy in Antiquity and in particular on the forms of “scientific” religion that appear and develop in the philosophical schools in Late Antiquity. Special attention is paid to the relationship between philosophy religion and rhetoric. The rhetorical dimension of prayer is explored in relation to the role of persuasion and emotion in prayer and to the idea that exegetical commentary represents a hymn in prose addressed to the gods.
Les principes cosmologiques du platonisme
Origines, influences et systématisation
Ce volume étudie les mutations de sens que la notion de principe a connues au sein de la cosmologie platonicienne depuis l’ancienne Académie jusqu’au néoplatonisme tardif. Dans cet intervalle la question de la nature et du nombre des principes cosmologiques est apparue comme un enjeu central de la défense du platonisme dans sa confrontation avec les écoles rivales mais aussi à partir de l’époque impériale avec le christianisme. Au sein de cette histoire les critiques et réceptions aristotéliciennes ont joué un rôle déterminant et ont d’un certain point de vue préparé le tournant inauguré par Plotin : de Théophraste qui le premier articule la causalité du Premier Moteur et l’héritage platonicien des Formes intelligibles à Alexandre d’Aphrodise qui critique l’anthropomorphisme inhérent aux théories providentialistes des platoniciens impériaux les exégètes péripatéticiens ont ouvert des pistes qui seront adaptées et transformées à travers les différents systèmes néoplatoniciens. Reprenant à Alexandre sa critique des conceptions artificialistes de la cosmologie platonicienne Plotin s’oppose à lui pour défendre l’efficience causale des Formes intelligibles qu’il définit comme des réalités vivantes et intellectives en les insérant dans un système de dérivation de toutes choses depuis l’Un. À sa suite les différents diadoques néoplatoniciens placeront la vie au cœur du monde intelligible définissant les Formes comme des réalités vivantes et intellectives dotées d’une efficience propre : la puissance de faire advenir des réalités dérivées.