Platonism in early modern natural philosophy (original) (raw)
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This is a supplement to my two published books, "Plotinus The Platonist: A Comparative Account of Plato and Plotinus’ Metaphysics" (Bloomsbury, 2014), and "Plato and Plotinus on Mysticism, Epistemology, and Ethics" (Bloomsbury, 2017), wherein I argue that the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ on more than 100 philosophical claims (for the complete list of 180 philosophical claims, including the Supplement, see Appendix II for where I address them in my two books and this supplement). However, since Bloomsbury Publishing gave me word count restrictions for each book, I needed to cut out portions of my original research in order to get the manuscripts down to size. Thus, I have put the material together that I was not able to publish, in order to show even more areas in which Plato and Plotinus do not essentially differ, and to cite the passages to leave the accuracy of my claims to the readers’ judgments.
Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Hermetic Tradition
Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation, edited by Margaret King, 2021
This material was originally published in Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation, edited by Margaret King, and has been reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press [https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0475.xml\]. For permission to reuse this material, please visit http://global.oup.com/academic/rights. The trends of Platonism which proved to be the most influential throughout the Renaissance were born roughly around the same period as the Greek corpus attributed to the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. They resulted from the rich intermingling of Greek philosophy with other Near Eastern cultures since the time of Alexander the Great. It is not by chance, then, that their fortunes were bound together until the Early Modern period. Legend has it that Cosimo de’ Medici was highly impressed by the Platonic wisdom of the Greek émigrés visiting Florence in 1439, during the Council of Union between the Eastern and Western Churches, and particularly by the eminent philosopher George Gemistos Plethon. More than twenty years later, Cosimo entrusted a young Marsilio Ficino with the task of translating into Latin a Greek manuscript of Plato’s dialogues, possibly bequeathed by the Byzantine emperor, if not by Plethon himself. Before completing his rendering of the first series of ten dialogues, Ficino presented his elderly patron with the Pimander, a translation of fifteen Greek treatises on theology and occult lore by the “thrice greatest” Mercury or Hermes, believed to be the first in a venerable tradition of ancient sages which culminated in Plato. Certainly, these and similar newly recovered collections helped to shape and enrich the intellectual life of the emergent Renaissance. Their novelty and relevance, however, tended to be overstated in some historiographical perspectives. Fortunately, profound critical studies of the various sources from the Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic traditions have multiplied since the 19th century, gradually providing a clearer picture of the extent and nature of their influence on Renaissance and Early Modern scholars. Some of the most interesting topics discussed currently regard the lines of continuity between the medieval and Renaissance receptions of Platonism and Hermetism. Indeed, the Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Byzantine Middle Ages offer an immense repository of Platonic and Hermetic wisdom to Renaissance humanists and philosophers, which includes new theoretical and practical approaches, interpretative methods, translations, and commentaries. Only after elucidating these elements of continuity and change can one adequately ponder the distinctive character and originality of Renaissance Platonists and Hermeticists. Another hotly debated issue since Lynn Thorndike’s pioneering studies is the role of these ancient and medieval traditions in the development of experimental sciences and the emergence of the scientific revolution around the 16th and 17th centuries.