47885749 neo-platonism-handout


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47885749 neo-platonism-handout

  1. 1. NeoplatonismIt is characterized by a categorical opposition between the spiritual and the carnal,elaborated from Platos dualism of Idea and Matter; by the metaphysical hypothesis ofmediating agencies, the nous and the world soul, which transmit the divine powerfrom the One to the many; by an aversion to the world of sense; and by the necessityof liberation from a life of sense through a rigorous ascetic discipline. History Neoplatonism began in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 3rd century AD. The foundation of Platos thought was that the universe consists of two realms: a realm of appearance: constantly changes and so affords no possibility of certain knowledge And a realm of eternal, abstract forms: always staticRenaissance Platonism cannot really be easily considered as a school or even acoherent movement. Unlike humanism or Aristoteleanism, It was not a program ofeducation and so did not constitute normal studies, nor did it ever become a programof study or curriculum. Aside from the Academy founded by Marsilio Ficino andCosimo deMedici, it had only the slimmest of institutional support as a distinctdiscipline.Only a few philosophers, such as Cardinal Bessarion, Nicholas Cusanus, MarsilioFicino, and Pico della Mirandola, can be unabashedly known as “neoplatonists.” Neoplatonism’s most famous advocates are Johannes Kepler and GalileoGalilei. A number of 19th- and 20th-century thinkers and writers have been influencedby Neoplatonism; among them were several of the most important British romanticpoets, including William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.