This paper addresses three issues. In the first part the relation between consciousness and time is being discussed as it developed in the history of philosophy and theology. This covers Plato, Plotinus and St. Augustine. It continues in the second part to describe that time is being perceived in the mystical consciousness as eternity which means in this context timelessness. Examples from world religions are offered. The question is asked if this eternity in mystical experience can be understood as relating (...) to the eternity of God or as a mere self-experience. In order to settle this question mystical experiences are being interpreted from the angle of modern neuroscience as the result of self-organizing processes of meditation that can be described as attractors. In the final third part it is suggested to discern the eternity of mystical states of mind as timelessness from eternity as an attribute of the triune God. (shrink)

Neoplatonism is a term used to designate the form of Platonic philosophy that developed in the Roman Empire from the third to the fifth century AD and that based itself on the corpus of Plato's dialogues. Sara Rappe's challenging and innovative study is the first book to analyse Neoplatonic texts themselves using contemporary philosophy of language. It covers the whole tradition of Neoplatonic writing from Plotinus through Proclus to Damascius. Addressing the strain of mysticism in these works from a fresh (...) perspective the author shows how these texts reflect actual meditational practices, methods of concentrating the mind, and other mental disciplines that informed the tradition as a whole. In providing the broadest available survey of Neoplatonic writing the book will appeal to classical philosophers, classicists, as well as students of religious studies. (shrink)

As well as acting as an introduction to the doctrines of Plato, the work provides a detailed survey of Platonist thought.

This article analyzes the status of passive potentiality of prime matter and sensible objects in Plotinus' Enneads . In particular, it will focus on Enneads II 5 [25] and confront it with other treatises, specifically Enneads III 6 [26]; II 6 [17]; VI 2 [43] and VI 3 [44]. It aims at offering a new interpretation of treatise 25 and at proposing a reconstruction of Plotinus' notion of change in the sensible realm that illustrates both his critique of Aristotle's notion (...) of substantial change and his acceptance of Aristotle's view of qualitative change. (shrink)

Proclus defends the Platonic view that the heavens consist in (the highest gradations) of all four elements. He attacks Aristotle's view that the heavens consist in a distinct, fifth element.

Proclus’ interpretation of the Timaeus confronts the question of whether the living being that is the Platonic cosmos percieves itself. Since sense perception is a mixed blessing in the Platonic tradition, Proclus solves this problem by differentiating different gradations of perception. The cosmos has only the highest kind. This paper contrasts Proclus’ account of the world’s perception of itself with James Lovelock’s notion that the planet Earth, or Gaia, is aware of things going on within itself. This contrast illuminates several (...) key differences between contemporary theories of perception and the neoplatonic world view. In particular, it argues that the neoplatonists had a radically different view of these matters because they assigned the property of truth not only to representations, but to objects as well. (shrink)

Proclus' interpretation of the Timaeus confronts the question of whether the living being that is the Platonic cosmos perceives itself. Since sense perception is a mixed blessing in the Platonic tradition, Proclus solves this problem by differentiating different gradations of perception. The cosmos has only the highest kind. This paper contrasts Proclus' account of the world's perception of itself with James Lovelock's notion that the planet Earth, or Gaia, is aware of things going on within itself. This contrast illuminates several (...) key differences between contemporary theories of perception and the neoplatonic world view. In particular, it argues that the neoplatonists had a radically different view of these matters because they assigned the property of truth not only to representations, but to objects as well. (shrink)

We have two neoplatonic commentaries on the crucial chapter in Aristotle's De Interpretatione on fatalism.

This paper studies Sentence 16 of Porphyry's Pathways to the Intelligible . It is argued that it should be understood against the background of Plotinus' discussions of the similes of the waxen block and the aviary from Plato's Theaetetus . The first part of the paper concentrates on Plotinus' reception of these similes. In the second part of the paper Plotinus' discussions of the two similes are used to shed light on Sentence 16, in particular on the term προχείρισις. Furthermore (...) it is argued that Porphyry does not reject Plotinus' claim that, pace Aristotle, intellection does not require imaging. (shrink)

Subtitle: Eight Lectures Preached Before the University of Oxford in the Year 1886 on the Foundation of the Late Rev.

This paper examines the theistic interpretation of Plotinus’s conception of unity as presented in the work of John Rist. Three types of unity are identified: unity-with-difference, unity-without-difference, and unity-and-difference. I argue that the theistic interpretation encounters significant difficulties and cannot respond to the distinctions that Plotinus himself observes in his analysis of unity.

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION At first sight Plotinus' philosophy is full of contradictions. The same entity will appear with different characteristics in different ...

The 13 contributions of this collective offer new and challenging ways of reading well-known and more neglected texts on akrasia (lack of control, or weakness ...

To what extent can philosophy speak to and write about what is most fundamental to itself? This essay sorts through aspects of the problem of Plato's alleged "unwritten doctrine." The essay begins by moving back to Plato's teacher and the non-doctrinal investigations of Socrates, which are grounded in the positing of hypotheses and dialogic questioning. Following this move, the essay turns forward to Plotinus's later, more systematic presentations where the use of terms like “the one” and “the good” are not (...) only beyond being but “are” non-objects, unable to be intuited by the intellect. These terms serve as pointers to “what” can only be realized through the soul's blissful union with its non-objective source and ground. (shrink)

In the Corpus Hippocraticum and in tragedy, γκος is difficult to translate, for it corresponds to a very primitive notion, intuitively implying a confusion between two aspects that were gradually distinguished: 1) a thing's bulk or extension, and 2) an appreciation, as a function of its bulk and its extension, of the load represented by this thing, or its weight. This explains why the term usually designates something that has a certain mass. As an indefinite quantity of formless matter, this (...) is probably a notion which was used by medio-Platonists, strongly influenced by Stoicism, to understand matter the Timaeus . In Plotinus' polemic against the Stoics, γκος, which refers to a magnitude with resistance bereft of qualities, is thus situated at a level intermediate between matter (λη), bereft of all determination, and the body (σμα), which is endowed with magnitude and qualities. In the Sentences , Porphyry uses the term γκος 30 times in its technical sense, almost as often as Plotinus in the whole of the Enneads . This is probably because he felt uncomfortable with Plotinus' notion of matter bereft of all determination, including magnitude. (shrink)