Description
Book SynopsisWas Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato's own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients were correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato's teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato''s dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of anti-naturalism.Gerson contends that the philosophical position of PlatoPlato's own Platoni
Trade Review
..the book is an important achievement. It is full of precious observations and suggestions. Even if someone is not fully convinced by the application of such an historical set of criteria he will find the book a highly rewarding reading.
-- Péter Lautner * The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition *
Gerson's book is a highly valuable, well-written contribution to Plato nism research. It persuasively makes a case for understanding Plato's philosophy as a coherent system that has an intricate and meaningful relation to later Platonistic philosophical positions. From this point, Plato appears as a Platonist indeed.
-- Claas Lattman * CLASSICAL JOURNAL *
Table of ContentsPreface
Acknowledgments
Part 1. Plato and His Readers
1. Was Plato a Platonist?
Plato and Platonism
Ur-Platonism
From Plato to Platonism
2. Socrates and Platonism
The 'Socratic Problem'
Gregory Vlastos
Terry Penner
Christopher Rowe
3. Reading the Dialogues Platonically
Plato and Developmentalism
Plato the Artist, Plato the Philosopher
Plato’s Self-Testimony
4. Aristotle on Plato and Platonism
Aristotle and Ur-Platonism
Aristotle’s Testimony on the Mathematization of Forms
Aristotle’s Criticism of the Mathematization of Forms
Part 2. The Continuing Creation of Platonism
5. The Old Academy
Speusippus and First Principles
Speusippean Knowledge
Xenocrates
6. The Academic Skeptics
What Is Academic Skepticism?
Skepticism, Rationalism, and Platonism
7. Platonism in the ‘Middle’
Antiochus of Ascalon
Plutarch of Chaeronea
Alcinous
8. Numenius of Apamea
On the Good
Part 3. Plotinus: "Exegete of the Platonic Revelation"
9. Platonism as a System
The First Principle of All
Intellect
Soul
Matter
10. Plotinus as Interpreter of Plato (1)
Matter in the Platonic System
Substance and Becoming
Categories in the Intelligible World
The One and the Indefinite Dyad
The Good Is Eros
11. Plotinus as Interpreter of Plato (2)
Human and Person
Assimilation to the Divine
Moral Responsibility
Conclusion
Bibliography
