scholarly journals Plato and ‘the Birdhunters’: The Controversial Legacy of an Elusive Swan

2016 ◽  
pp. 93-112
Author(s):  
Anna Motta
Keyword(s):  
Late Antique ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Platonic Tradition

The aim of this paper is to discuss some features of the doctrines of the agrapha dogmata in Neoplatonism, starting from the reading of an anecdote, presented in the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy, in which Plato dreams that close to death he becomes a swan which hunters are unable to catch. In fact, the dream is an explanation of the development of the Platonic tradition, and, more precisely, it presents a story of several exegetical disagreements that have survived till the present day. Compared to modern interpretation of the Aristotelic testimony on the “so-called unwritten doctrines”, we can state that the late antique interpretations of them focus and depend on what Plato has left us in his written dialogues, which are the best living images of his oral dialogues. This conclusion is, then, a consequence of a study carried out on Ancient and Neoplatonic texts that leads to the acknowledgement of a Platonic philosophical system as well as to an overview of modern secondary bibliography produced by the esoteric interpretation of Plato and various views of scholars who are against this account.

Middle Platonism

Classics ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauro Bonazzi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Intermediate Step ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Theological Interpretation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Platonic Tradition

The term “Middle Platonism” was created in the 19th century ce to distinguish this movement from the later tradition known as “Neoplatonism.” Both terms, however, are misleading and would have been rejected by the ancients; neither “Middle Platonists” would have accepted that they were an intermediate step in the history of Platonism nor would “Neoplatonists” have agreed that they were introducing anything new in the Platonic tradition. However, it is true that Early Imperial Platonism differs in basic ways from Late Antique Platonism, and both labels continue to be used for the sake of clarity. In short, Middle Platonism conventionally refers to a group of philosophers from the 1st century bce to the 3rd century ce who may be described as Platonists by virtue of their allegiance to a nucleus of Platonic doctrines. More precisely, this allegiance can be presented as the attempt to develop a systematic and theological interpretation of Plato’s philosophy. This suffices to prove its importance, philosophically and historically, for two reasons: (1) because the commitment to the view that Plato’s philosophy can be reduced to a system proved very influential in the history of philosophy, and (2) because in this period monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy, and this confrontation was greatly influenced by the theological speculations of these authors. Unfortunately, most of the works of Middle Platonists are now lost, but the material that remains enable us to reconstruct the basic features of their thought.

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