A lifetime with Proclus: Psellos as reader in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 103.1 (2020) 69-80 (original) (raw)
Related papers
What Kind of Souls Did Proclus Discover? , 2019
This paper tries to answer the question of what kind of souls Proclus discovered according to the report of his pupil Marinus in Vita Procli 23, 8. Unlike L. J. Rosan (1949), who thought that souls discovered by Proclus were demonic or intelligent ones, I argue that Marinus could have in mind so-called “hypercosmic” souls, that is, high divine souls situated at the beginning of the psychic level of reality immediately after the transcendent Monad of Soul and before the Soul of the World. Hypercosmic souls are called so not because of being entirely free from the physical cosmos, but because of animating immaterial luminous bodies and going thereby beyond the limits of the heavens. As such, these souls belong to the vertical series of the so-called ‘absolute' or ‘hypercosmic-encosmic’ gods, whose distinctive characteristic consists in the ability both to touch the sensible world and to remain above. Although souls of this kind were introduced into Neoplatonism by Proclus’ predecessors, he presumably was the first to discover them in Plato’s Timaeus and to demonstrate their existence, not from his own notions, but the very words of Plato.
Proclus’ aporetic epistemology
Proclus and his legacy, 2017
I contend that Proclus’ conception of the soul is, in a certain respect, closer to Plotinus’ than he, himself, would allow. However, to see this similarity one has to grasp the common epistemological and ontological problems shared by Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus. Of course, there is a certain systematic coherence within Proclus’ account of the soul as descended, but there also remain fundamental problems or ambiguities, which Proclus in fact shares with all of his predecessors. Proclus develops what I will call a robust soul where not only is the soul descended, but, in that descended state as a soul, Proclus aims to imbue it with an inherent capacity to engage both in mathematical sciences and the like and in metaphysics / theology / highest dialectic. Yet insofar as the soul is robust and descended, it opens Proclus up to problems where the soul must precisely stop being soul - and here he merely recasts Plotinus' double soul in his own key. However, in this, we only see the common problem and tension within all pagan Neoplatonism and which Damascius goes some way to resolve.
Proclus and the Neoplatonic Syllogistic
Elements of Theology, On the Parmenides, and Platonic Theology. It is shown that Proclus employs interpretations over a linear semantic structure with operators for scalar negations (hypernegation/alpha-intensivum and privative negation). A natural deduction system for scalar negations and the classical syllogistic (as reconstructed by Corcoran and Smiley) is shown to be sound and complete for the non-Boolean linear structures. It is explained how Proclus' syllogistic presupposes converting the tree of genera and species from Plato's diairesis into the Neoplatonic linear hierarchy of Being by use of scalar hyper and privative negations. privative negation, Neoplatonism, via negativa, negative theology. As a young man Proclus briefly studied Aristotle and mathematics in Alexandria. Later in Athens he spent almost two years studying under Syrianus, reading among other works of Aristotle all his logical treatises 5 . Logic was part of the curriculum in the Academy under Proclus who urged it upon those who would study more advanced philosophy. 6 Proclus gives evidence of his general sympathy for logical methods by setting out the doctrines of the Elements of Theology in the quasi-mathematical form of propositions followed by scholia, and more clearly by inventing mathematical proofs, some of deep interest, in his commentary on Euclid's
“Very dear to the Gods”. The Role Model of Neoplatonism or Proclus as a 'Holy Man'
in Hernández de la Fuente, D. & Alvíz Fernández, M. (eds.) (2023). Shaping the “Divine Man”. Holiness, Charisma and Leadership in the Graeco-Roman World. Steiner, Stuttgart. ISBN 978-3-515-13398-2, 2023
Proclus was not only a philosopher representative of late Neoplatonism, but also an eminent figure related to divinity. By analysing the 'Life of Proclus' by Marinus of Neapolis, it is possible to explore certain characteristic features of the “divine man”, associated with the virtues and experiences of the philosopher himself. Proclus is represented as a paradigmatic example of the man who possesses the virtues to lead a full life. This chapter will deal with the categorization of Proclus as theios aner and his reflection as a model, in keeping with Neoplatonic thought.
Alia subinde ex eodem uerbo persuadendi calumnia nascitur, inuenta sane a Platone tractata multim in Gorgia, sed posthac multo inpudentius a quibusdam technicis, obtrectatoribus Hermagorae, frequentata.