How do I become a Platonist? I find Albinus of Smyrna's (A.D. 150) arguments for the existence of the forms very convincing:>1. Whether God is mind, or a being with a mind, in either case he must have thoughts, and these must be eternal and unchanging; if this is so, then the ideas exist. >2. If the cosmos did not come to be what it is by chance, it has come to be not only out of something, but by the agency of something, and not this alone, but also on the model of everything; and that on the model of which it has come to be can be none other than the ideas, then it would follow that the ideas exist.>3. If matter is essentially unextended according to its own nature, it must receive extension from something superior to it, something immaterial, which are the forms or ideas. >4. If knowledge is different from true opinion, then the object of knowledge must also be different from the object of opinion; if this is the case, then there are intelligible entities distinct from the opinable; from that it would also follow that there are primary intelligibles, even as there are primary sense objects. If this is the case, then the ideas exist. Since knowledge is actually different from true opinion, then the forms exist.
>>187049711. Read Iamblichus' curriculum.2. Read Aristotle. He opposed to Plato, but his ideas were integrated into Neoplatonism.3. Read Proclus. The pinnacle of Neoplatonism.4. Read Sallust "on the Gods and the World".That's the core. If you wish, you can also read other Platonists, or even Christian or Islamic Platonists. As for the modern Platonism, it's mostly mathematical Platonism. Read Max Tegmark on that.
