1st Edition

Soul and Intellect Studies in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism

By H.J. Blumenthal Copyright 1993
    344 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book presents a series of Dr. Blumenthal’s studies on the history of Neoplatonism, from its founder Plotinus to the end of Classical Antiquity, relating especially to the Neoplatonists’ doctrines about the soul. The work falls into two parts. The first deals with Plotinus and considers the soul both as part of the structure of the universe and in its capacity as the basis of the individual’s vital and cognitive functions. The second part is concerned with the later history of Neoplatonism, including its end. Its main focus is the investigation of how Neoplatonic psychology was modified and developed by later philosophers, in particular the commentators on Aristotle, and used as the starting point for their Platonizing interpretations of his philosophy.

    Contents: Platonism in late antiquity; Nous and soul in Plotinus: some problems of demarcation; Soul, world-soul and individual soul in Plotinus; Did Plotinus believe in ideas of individuals?; Plotinus’ Psychology: Aristotle in the service of Platonism; Plotinus, Enneads V 3[49] 3-4; Plotinus’ adaption of Aristotle’s psychology: sensation, imagination and memory; Some problems about body and soul in later pagan Neoplatonism: do they follow a pattern?; Plotinus and Proclus on the citerion of truth; Plotinus in Later Platonism; From ku-ru-so-wo-ko to theougos: word to ritual; Plutarch’s exposition of the De anima and the psychology of Proclus; Marinus’ Life of Proclus: Neoplatonist biography; Alexander of Aphrodisias in the later Greek commentaries on Aristotle’s De anima; John Philoponus and Stephanus of Alexandria: two Neoplatonic Christian commentators on Aristotle?; Simplicius on the first book of Aristotle’s De anima; Soul vehicles in Simplicius; 529 and its sequel: what happened to the Academy?; Index.