Online research in philosophy

The famous early fragment (B1 D-K) of Anaximander, Greek thinker of the sixth century B.C.E., was transmitted to us by Byzantine Alexandrian authors of the sixth century C.E.: the pagan Simplicius in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, and the Monophysite Christian to whose earlier Physics commentary Simplicius was replying, John Philoponus. When these commentators were writing, the Mediterranean world was polarized by the Monophysite-Chalcedonian theological controversy. First Philoponus adduced some of Anaximander’s words in his argument for a single principle of the universe, in keeping with his own theological position. Then Simplicius gave a fuller form of the text, reproving Philoponus for what he considered “uncultured” Christian views. This transmission tells us something about Byzantine theological attitudes as well as preserving archaic philosophical formulations.

Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut its doors forever in 529.

In this article, it is shown that, following the precedent set in particular by Marinus' Life of Proclus, Damascius, in his Life of Isidore, uses biography so as to illustrate philosophical progress through the Neoplatonic scale of virtues. Damascius applies this scale, however, to a wide range of figures belonging to pagan philosophical circles of the fifth century AD: they show different degrees and forms of progress in this scale and thus provide an edificatory panorama of patterns of philosophical perfection. Each level of the scale of virtues is shown to be exemplified in Damascius' biographies. It is suggested that few, in Damascius' opinion, reached the highest levels of virtue and that philosophical decline is intimated in his descriptions of his contemporaries.

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.