Announcements

Eros in Neoplatonism and its Reception in Christian Philosophy: Exploring Love in Plotinus, Proclus and Dionysius the Areopagite By Dimitrios A. Vasilakis 2020. 232 pp. 76.50 GBP Hardcover/61.20 GBP E-Book. ISBN: 9781350163867. Showing the ontological importance of eros within the philosophical systems inspired by Plato, Dimitrios A. Vasilakis examines the notion of eros in key texts of the Neoplatonic philosophers, Plotinus, Proclus, and the Church Father, Dionysius the Areopagite. Outlining the divergences and convergences between the three brings forward the core idea of love as deficiency in Plotinus and charts how this is transformed into plenitude in Proclus and Dionysius. Does Proclus diverge from Plotinus in his hierarchical scheme of eros? Is the Dionysian hierarchy to be identified with Proclus' classification of love? By analysing The Enneads, III.5, the Commentary on the First Alcibiades and the Divine Names side by side, Vasilakis uses a wealth of modern scholarship, including contemporary [...]

Framing the Dialouges: How to Read Openings and Closings in Plato Volume edited by Eleni Kaklamanou, Maria Pavlou, and Antonis Tsakmakis. 2021. xii, 318 pp. 120.00 EUR Hardcover/E-Book PDF. ISBN: 978-90-04-44398-3 [hardcover]/978-90-04-44399-0 [e-book]. (Brill's Plato Studies Series 6) Framing the Dialogues: How to Read Openings and Closures in Plato is a collection of 14 chapters with an Introduction that focuses on the intricate and multifarious ways in which Plato frames his dialogues. Its main aim is to explore both the association between inner and outer framework and how this relationship contributes to, and sheds light upon, the framed dialogues and their philosophical content. All contributors to the volume advocate the significance of closures and especially openings in Plato, arguing that platonic frames should not be treated merely as ‘trimmings’ or decorative literary devices but as an integral part of the central philosophical discourse. The volume will prove to be an invaluable [...]

Plato's Timaeus: Proceedings of the Tenth Symposium Platonicum Pragense Volume edited by Chad Jorgenson, Filip Karfík, and Štěpán Špinka 2021. x, 293 pp. 94.00 EUR Hardcover; Open Access/free PDF. ISBN: 978-90-04-43606-0 [hardcover]/978-90-04-43708-1 [e-book]. (Brill's Plato Studies Series 5) Plato's 'Timaeus' brings together a number of studies from both leading Plato specialists and up-and-coming researchers from across Europe. The contributions cover a wide variety of topics, ranging from the literary form of the work to the ontology of sense perception and the status of medicine in Timaeus' account. Although informed by a commitment to methodological diversity, the collection as a whole forms an organic unity, opening fresh perspectives on widely read passages, while shedding new light on less frequently discussed topics. The volume thus provides a valuable resource for students and researchers at all levels, whether their interest bears on the Timaeus as a whole or on a particular passage.

The First Principle in Late Neoplatonism: A Study of the One's Causality in Proclus and Damascius By Jonathan Greig 2021. 360 pp. 138.00 EUR. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 978-90-04-43905-4 [hardcover]/978-90-04-43909-2 [e-book]. (Philosophia Antiqua 156) In The First Principle, Jonathan Greig examines the philosophical theology of the two Neoplatonists, Proclus and Damascius (5th–6th centuries A.D.), on the One as the first cause. Both philosophers address a tension in the Neoplatonic tradition: namely that the One was seen as absolutely transcendent, yet it was also seen as intimately related to other things as the source of their unity and being. Proclus’ solution is to posit intermediate causes after the One, while Damascius posits a distinct principle, the ‘Ineffable’, above the One. This book provides a new, thorough study of the theories of causation that lead each to their respective position and reveals crucial insights involved in a rigorous negative theology employed in metaphysics.

The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism By Zeke Mazur 2020. xviii, 337 pp. 129.00 EUR. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 978-90-04-44167-5 [hardcover]/978-90-04-44171-2 [e-book]. In The Platonizing Sethian Background of Plotinus’s Mysticism, Zeke Mazur offers a radical reconceptualization of Plotinus with reference to Gnostic thought and praxis. A crucial element in the thought of the third-century CE philosopher Plotinus—his conception of mystical union with the One—cannot be understood solely within the conventional history of philosophy, or as the product of a unique, sui generis psychological propensity. This monograph demonstrates that Plotinus tacitly patterned his mystical ascent to the One on a type of visionary ascent ritual that is first attested in Gnostic sources. These sources include the Platonizing Sethian tractates Zostrianos (NHC VIII,1) and Allogenes (NHC XI,3) of which we have Coptic translations from Nag Hammadi and whose Greek Vorlagen were known to have been read in Plotinus’s school.

The Concept of Motion in Ancient Greek Thought: Foundations in Logic, Method, and Mathematics By Barbara Sattler 2020. 438 pp. 90.00 GBP. Hardcover/E-Book. ISBN: 9781108477901 [hardcover]. This book examines the birth of the scientific understanding of motion. It investigates which logical tools and methodological principles had to be in place to give a consistent account of motion, and which mathematical notions were introduced to gain control over conceptual problems of motion. It shows how the idea of motion raised two fundamental problems in the 5th and 4th century BCE: bringing together being and non-being, and bringing together time and space. The first problem leads to the exclusion of motion from the realm of rational investigation in Parmenides, the second to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. Methodological and logical developments reacting to these puzzles are shown to be present implicitly in the atomists, and explicitly in Plato who also employs mathematical structures [...]

Studia Phaenomenologica, Volume 20/ 2020: Phenomenology and the History of Platonism Edited by Daniele de Santis, Claudio Majolino 2020. 402 pp. 18.00 EUR (Ebook). ISBN: 978-606-697-121-8 (Ebook). Table of Contents: Daniele de Santis, Claudio Majolino: Phaenomenologia sub specie Platonis. Editors’ Introduction Adolf Reinach: La philosophie de Platon (traduction et introduction par Aurélien Djian) Abstract: In these 1910 summer semester lessons, Adolf Reinach, using the concept of arché as a guiding thread, sketches out a history of Platonic philosophy, tracing it back to the Presocratics. More precisely, as a philosophical attempt to offer such an history, Reinach intends to flesh out what he thinks is the main contribution of Plato to philosophy, and which, at the same time, turns out to be the germ of his own philosophy, namely: to consider ideal objects as the arché of philosophy; to use the phenomenological method; and, last but not least, to devote his research to the study of the things themselves, rather than [...]

The International Plato Society's journal, Plato Journal, has released its 20th volume for 2020, available now at impactum-journals.uc.pt/platojournal. Articles: pp. 7–20: "Dialéctica y refutación en el Sofista de Platón" (Pilar Spangenberg) pp. 21–37: "The Golden Age and the Reversal of the Myth of Good Government in Plato’s Statesman. A Lesson on the Use of Models" (Fulvia de Luise) pp. 39–53: "Habladurías sobre tiranos felices. Platón y Jenofonte a propósito de filosofía, tiranía y buen gobierno" (Claudia Marsico) pp. 55–66: "Elenchtike techne, erotike techne: in margine al Carmide platonico" (Francesca Pentassuglio) pp. 67–80: "La crítica de Platón a los matemáticos que toman las hipótesis por principios (República VI-VII)" (Graciela Marcos Pinotti) pp. 81–95: "Socrate o dello specchio. Strategie di scrittura nell’Apologia e nell’Alcibiade" (Lidia Palumbo) pp. 97–110: "Il proemio alle leggi (in Platone, Leggi V 726-734)" (Livio Rossetti) pp. 111–125: "Regular el mundo de la fiesta: un proyecto normativo en Leyes" (Alberto [...]