Introduction

This blog has the following objectives:

1. To study neoplatonism as bona fide philosophy, taking it at face value in a contemporary context. Thus our analyses and discussions will not shy away from a hermeneutics and dialogue with contemporary philosophy and the technical apparatus of modern mathematical logic.

1a. What was the relationship between neoplatonism and so-called middle platonism (which seems to have been philosophically very rich and thorough) and how original was the former with regards to the latter ?  Why was not middle platonism preserved but suffered the same fate as the numerous works Chryssipus and other Stoics ? It seems Numenius only survived in fragments mainly because these suited the apologetic aims of Eusebius.

We must study the evidence and traces of the most elevated and advanced philosophical, ethical and socio-political thought in antiquity.  Genuine philosophy and philosophical vitality were doubtlessly to be found in the ancient Stoics (Chryssipus) and certainly in many successors of Aristotle (like Theophrastus and later commentators) and the Academy (in its many forms). And certainly in Xenophanes, the Eleatics, an alternative interpretation of the Sophists such as Protagoras, Democritus and Leucippus,  Pyrrhonism (Sextus Empiricus) and in Galen. We just do not have enough evidence to judge the philosophical vitality and purity of middle platonism, though there were clearly ethically advanced neo-plythagoreans like Plutarch. Perhaps the most interesting elements in Plotinus where precisely those derived from Ammonius Saccas ?

Genuine philosophy and the philosophical spirit are inseparable from profound ethical and socio-political implications (and Popper saw this).  Genuine skepticism and the development of the most refined and sophisticated logic are closely related. We must look for the pure, uncompromised spirit of logic, ethics and mathematical science in antiquity.

After the first centuries of the Common Era philosophical and ethical vitality and progress seem to have become somewhat extinguished. Neoplatonism and even middle platonism might be seen as reactionary (religious, occultist and socially and politically conservative) manifesting a considerable similarity to many later western 'traditionalist' movements.

2. To study neoplatonism from the point of view of practical philosophy, ethics (in particular vegetarianism and animal rights) and a path of spiritual cultivation quite analogous to the practices of eastern traditions. And to answer the question: what was theurgy for the neoplatonists ?

A major problem is that after the enlightened animal rights elements in  Porphyry's De Abstinentia - which includes the rejection of animal sacrifice for the philosopher  - with Jamblichus animal sacrifice is again promoted as an essential part of theurgy. For Plotinus and Porphyry the pure activity of pure thought, philosophical and probably mathematical thought, seems to have been the essence of theurgy together with, it seems, a kind of poetry. It seems that neoplatonism drifted further and further from its original Pythagorean (see Ovid's account in book XV of the metamorphoses and also works by Plutarch) and Buddhist (?) roots. In Plato we certainly can discern powerful reasons for the rejection of animal sacrifice.

See the interesting study Blood Sacrifice and Bloodless Sacrifice in Porphyry and Iamblichus by Eleanora Zeper.

Thus we must understand the theurgical dimension of certain ethical habits and pure logical thought; the same goes for certain experiences of love and beauty depicted in the Phaedrus.

Our major interest is finding evidence for ancient cultures, cultures of remote antiquity which did not practice slavery or animal sacrifice or glorify warfare and hunting or reduce women to a subordinate role.

Plotinus seems to have accepted both slavery and the flogging  of slaves as attested in the episode of the stolen necklace in Porphyry's biography of Plotinus (section 11 in the Loeb edition).

3. To study and evaluate the historical and archaeological theories of the neoplatonist philosophers concerning  the ancient cultures and traditions of Chaldea, Phoenicia, Syria and Egypt (a great number of the neoplatonists were also born in those regions) and of course ancient Greece itself. This is what Thomas Taylor wrote on Jamblichus' De Mysteriis:

It appears to me that there are two descriptions of persons by whom the present work must be considered to be of inestimable worth, the lovers of antiquity and the lovers of ancient philosophy and religion. To the former of these it must be invaluable, because it is replete with information derived from the wise men of the Chaldeans, the prophets of the Egyptians, the dogmas of the Assyrians, and the ancient pillars of Hermes; and to the latter, because of the doctrines contained in it, some of which originated from the Hermaic pillars, were known by Pythagoras and Plato, and were the sources of their philosophy; and others are profoundly theological, and unfold the mysteries of ancient religion with an admirable conciseness of diction, and an inimitable vigour and elegance of conception. To which also may be added, as the colophon of excellence, that it is the most copious, the clearest, and the most satisfactory defence extant of genuine ancient theology.

4. Investigate if the revival of neoplatonism could play a positive role in addressing the political, social and religious problems of the modern world. In particular investigate in what way have Zoroastrian, Chaldean, Phoenician, Syrian, Egyptian and Hellenic traditions been incorporated and preserved (faithfully or distorted) in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (specially in Iran) ? What are we to make of theories which take this transmission to have been carried out only in a highly veiled and cryptic way (though of course there are countless examples of very obvious continuation in the Nag Hammadi texts, in the Marian cultus and theological doctrines as well as the extensive explicit presence of neoplatonism in Christianity and Islam) ? Notice also the great difference between the limited role of the Devas in the Pali Canon and the role of the bodhisattvas in the Mahâyâna which clearly have a theurgical role (Jamblichus' anagogic Gods).

5. It what sense was the so-called 'neoplatonism' of the Renaissance (Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, etc.) a faithful continuation of the original neoplatonic school ? Perhaps it was an appropriation or compromising of genuine neoplatonism to suit  certain political, religious or magical-occult agendas ?