Middle Platonism is infinitely more interesting than Neo-Platonism.
sneedpill me on middle platonism
>>25501197Tell us what's so interesting about it
>>25501206Not an easy thing to do at all. But basically it starts with a guy named Antiochous of Ascalon who overturned the New Academy, shifting Platonism away from skepticism and over to philosophical dogmatism by combining it with Stoicism, in the early 1st century BCE. From that point on you get a whole bunch of other thinkers in between following in his footsteps, flaring Platonism up even more by reviving the doctrines of Pythagoras and emphasizing Plato's unwritten teachings as well. In Middle Platonism we get a variety of very influential figures, from Eudorus, to Philo of Alexandria, to Apuleius and Numenius. Now Timaeus was THE dialogue for the Middle Platonists, and any understanding of it must begin with their interpretations of this dialogue. Because of the Middle Platonists, we see a huge expansion on cosmic hierarchies and intermediary beings. All of this would inevitably have a giant impact on Apocalyptic Judaism and Christianity around this time. In fact Christianity is basically what happens when you combine Judaism and Middle Platonism. Middle Platonism also had a tendency to view the material world in negative terms, in stark contrast with the later Neo-Platonists, and even Plato himself, despite the fact that the Middle Platonists thought of themselves as simply teaching authentic Platonism. One of the biggest insights of the Middle Platonists was combining Plato's Demiurge with the Stoic concept of the Logos, therefore enmeshing Stoic physics and epistemology into Platonist thought. This stuff would go on to have profound impacts for movements like Gnosticism. Gnosticism is just Middle Platonism dressed up as Christianity. Or rather, it is a specifically the Middle Platonic form of Christianity.
>>25501264>Plato's unwritten teachings God I love the idea of the agrafia. And the way that everyone stepped away from the doctrine of forms, even Aristotle, which suggests in life he was slagging off the doctrine he himself wrote. Which given he seemed to think writing was harmful is even funnier.
>>25501264Good post.>One of the biggest insights of the Middle Platonists was combining Plato's Demiurge with the Stoic concept of the LogosCould you elaborate more on this?
>>25501264>Stoicismstopped reading there
>>25501351Agrapha dogmata are really cool yeah. Plato's system is wonderfully intricate and full of questions. But what's so fascinating about Middle Platonism is how basically it is a reconciliation, or attempt at reconciliation, between monism and dualism. Plato was a dualist, plain and simple. The Stoics, on the other hand, were monists. Materialists, more specifically. Antiochus LITERALLY has a monistic interpretation of Platonism! How so? By saying that the ideas, the forms, are really thoughts in God's mind! He thus identifies the thoughts of God's mind as the forms, and because of God's radical immanence in the world through the Logos, imbues in our minds with faculties and concepts that give us a reliable epistemology, allowing us to have true justified belief about reality! He absolutely mind-fucked the Academic Skeptics with this shit. The Academic Skeptics rejected so much of traditional Plato. They adopted Aristotle's logic and his ethics, and stopped giving a shit about metaphysics. They even denied the existence of a transcendent God. Antiochus comes along and tries to save epistemology by keeping Aristotle's ethics, combining in Stoic logic (the Propositional Logic of Chrysippus) and Stoic physics, and getting us straight back to Plato's Theory of Forms from a monistic perspective on reality.
>>25501373>He absolutely mind-fucked the Academic Skeptics with this shitEhh, not really, the Academic Skeptics were blown apart simply by Sulla destroying the physical Academy, there was no longer any institution, whereas communities like Alexandria, who may have already had an independent community of Platonists could continue on unharassed.
>>25501390Skepticism survived the fall of the Academy in Athens. Some of our best sources for the development of Middle Platonism come from Skeptics you know, like Cicero.
>>25501355>Could you elaborate more on this?Well he combines the Demiurge with the World Soul (both of Timaeus) with the Logos as found in Stoicism. In Stoicism the Logos is an all-pervading material substrate of the world, identified with the element of fire. It is an immanent principle, it holds everything together, it is the cosmos as a living being, and it is fundamentally rational and ordered. See for the Stoics, things like the soul weren't immaterial as they might have traditionally been in the Platonist mindset. Antiochus latched onto this idea, he thought the mind itself was material and that the Ideas/Forms were thoughts in God's mind projected into us (as being part of God) through the Logos (who also was God, and yep John 1:1 is taking influence from this). So the Logos crafts the universe, and he continually crafts the universe through cycles of ekpyrosis, which 2 Peter 3:10-11 combines with Jewish Apocalypticism, and he is thus identified with the demiurge. He also is a living being, a living Soul, and is thus also identified with the World Soul of Timaeus, thus the World Soul is also God. He combines all these things into a coherent Platonic monism! Wtf!? Here we see a Triadic structure to, certainly foreshadowing the Trinity! The Trinity is what happens when you combine Jewish Apocalyptic speculations of divine intermediaries, hypostases, and heros, with Middle Platonist metaphysics about the structure and nature of reality.
>>25501393I'm making a different point, that the Academic Skeptics weren't just wowed by the newer dogmatists. Cicero's case is so peculiar, getting to study with the last scholarch, post-Sulla, that it doesn't shed nearly as much light on what became of the rest, because the rest were displaced and scattered, if not also killed during Sulla's siege.
>>25501418>World Soul of Timaeus, thus the World Soul is also God.Isn't this just Pantheism?>The Trinity is what happens when you combine Jewish Apocalyptic speculations of divine intermediaries, hypostases, and heros, with Middle Platonist metaphysics about the structure and nature of reality.I don't think the demiurge was ever relevant in traditional Christian thought
>>25501418Interesting
>>25501431>Isn't this just Pantheism?Yes.
>>25501431>I don't think the demiurge was ever relevant in traditional Christian thoughtRead this article: https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2019/08/17/the-structure-of-heaven-and-earth-how-ancient-cosmology-shaped-everyones-theology/
>>25501197this is really interesting, do you recommend any books aside from the one in op?
>>25501373>>25501264>>25501418Given all this, who tf wrote the New Testament and especially Revelations? This is a highly specialized cross pollination of cultural philosophies all within the context of the end of the republic and the Roman Jewish wars. When I first read the Myth of Er and Timaeus back to back I was gobsmacked by how much Christianity verrryyyy clearly took from Plato and grafted central themes and ideas onto the religion.
Bumping for interest. >>25501264Fucking based. I wish I was an ancient Gnostic Christian.
>>25501264Can Platonism be reconciled with certain forms of Epicureanism?
>>25501541jews living in rome who obviously had a firm understanding of hellenic philosophy and put that in their jewish holy book.>>25502111no, never.
>>25501197most interesting middle platonist is plutarch who believed, next to the world soul, in a primordial evil soul-like principle, and it is this that was probably the biggest influence to the gnostic sects of the time.
>>25501529There is a Bibliography of many resources, including the book in the OP, in this article >>25501449
>>25501197The Youtube channel Esoterica has a good series on middle Platonism. It's like 10-15 hours total. Tries to emulate a college level class for free.
>>25501264Rare effortpost, kudos to you
>>25502352His series inspired my post. He even uses the book in the OP as the syllabus for his course.
>>25502352I would watch if it wasn't for his ear-grating lisp.
>>25502648The problem with esoterica is mostly that while he's rarely inaccurate, he's inaccurate often enough to make me question it and it's usually buried. Or he just presents things through the obvious judaic lens, knowing his audience probably doesn't care enough to check context. It's most often in anything vaguely Christian related but it's still there.Hia reading list is.. okay, so 8 out of 10 there. I've seen the Hanegraf discussed here and I agree with the basic premise most others come to (Good introductory reference, cites himself too much, lets his politics in FAR too much and seems to think the mystic traditions sprung whole from the islamic breast because muh Toledo) but Clarke is always a delight to read. Worth watching but check literally everything he says. If it is on purpose it's a masterclass in jewish perfidy, if it's not it's hilarious.
>>25502298How tf is more not known about the NTs authorship? Its the most important book ever written.
>>25503226>ITS DA JOOOOOOOOOOOOS
>>25503262Literally in this case.
>>25503264Fuck back off to /pol/.
>>25503266Yes, imagine thinking this man might be jewish, or even have discussed things from that perspective or openly copped to it. Maybe you should if you can't contribute in the most basic ways that even the pollack did.
>>25501449thanks for the link. will be reading it in my spare time
>>25503273Why are you a racist piece of shit?
>>25503343That is something I'll keep to /pol/ rather than a literary board - here I've presented why it's relevant and why shouldn't take what he says uncritically or why you shouldn't double check everything he says (and other video personalities, to be frank, not just herr sledge here) instead of your reeee. Feel free to talk about it with me over there though.
>>25503365Ok racist, piece of shit. Whatever you say, racist piece of shit.
>>25502111Epicurus is an anti-intellectual bugman atheist while Plato is responsible for mathematics as a discipline. You tell me.
>>25502305Yes, Plutarch is very interesting. He helps shift Middle Platonism away from the monism of Antiochus and instead takes a more dualist approach to Platonism, which accords well with traditional Platonism much better. Plutarch was more inclined towards Neo-Pythagoreanism rather than Stoicism, and he emphasized the agrapha dogmata (The One and the Indefinite Dyad). Thus, in Plutarch, God becomes identical to the One, who is transcendent to the cosmos, and responsible for its creation. Just like Antiochus and the other Middle Platonists, he situates the Forms in God's mind, and even identifies God with the Forms, and with the Form of the Good. Similarly, he continued to blend the Stoic Logos with the Platonist Demiurge. But where he really departs from both traditional Platonism, and later Neoplatonism, is he thinks the World Soul is and pre-cosmic in the Indefinite Dyad and is responsible for the origin of evil, while God orders chaotic matter through emanating a divine hierarchy of cosmic entities between God and the Indefinite Dyad to imbue it with rationality and the Forms. Like many Middle Platonists, he thinks the sublunar realm is inhabited by demons, souls, and heroes. Demons can also be either good or bad, virtuous or viceful, similar to the Jinn of Islam (which may influence them? desu not sure about that but I know pre-Islamic Arabia was influenced by Greek religion and philosophy). For Plutarch, Hades is the region between the earth and the moon, the air, which in the New Testament is similarly described as being the realm which demons inhabit e.g. "prince of the power of the air" being a reference to Satan/Belial/Beliar in Ephesians 2:2.
>>25503512retard
>>25501197>>25501264Given this, isn't neo-Platonism essentially a just superior, more rigorously developed form of middle-Platonism? Based on this description there doesn't seem to be that much of a break to me. i'm curious what makes OP say its 'infinitely more interesting than neo-Platonism'folding speculative intermediate entities into Nous and getting rid of the dualism in favor of a more absolute monism of the Good both seem like very logical and necessary developments to various contradictions in within the system.
