Neoplatonism

Neo-Platonism is a modern concept used to refer to the age of Platonic philosophy starting with the knowledge and practice of Plato and ending with the concluding of the Platonic Academy by the Emperor Justinian in 529 C.E. This variety of Platonism is usually labeled as mystical or spiritual in nature and it was established outside the conventional of Academic Platonism. The roots of Neoplatonism can be found in the age of Hellenistic syncretism, which exhibited these schools of thought. Some of these schools of thought include as Hermetic and Gnosticism. Neoplatonism is a key element in syncretism, which had a huge impact and influence on the development of Platonic principles. It was a primer of the Jewish Scriptures and Greek academic spheres through the translation called the Septuagint. The narration of creation in Genesis as well as the cosmology of Plato’s Timaeus gave way to an elongated tradition of cosmological hypothesizing that lastly climaxed in the grand ‘schema’ of Plotinus’ Enneads. Plotinus’ two key ‘heirs,’ Iamblichus and Porphyry developed their own way. Neoplatonist concepts are more unequivocally spiritual than those of Plato, and they established mainly to oppose the dualistic versions of Plato’s ideas (Armstrong, 10). For instance, Neoplatonism aim was to overcome the Platonic cleavage between reality and thought or form and ideal. Platonism is recognized by its technique of conceptualizing the finite world of forms such as humans, objects and animals from the infinite realm of the ideal. In its broadest sense, Neoplatonism seeks to locate God in Christian Neoplatonism in the finite sphere (Robb, 1).

Most scholars, especially during Renaissance used Plotinus’ works to understand Plato’s writings. Plotinus was an ancient theorist and philosopher who had lived centuries after Plato. Plotinus advanced Neoplatonism, which built on the concepts of the famed Plato. A form of Neoplatonism distinctive to the Renaissance period arose with the works of the Greek teacher George Gemistus, who changed his name to Pletho to connect his ideas to those of Plato and Plotinus. Pletho imagined of enlivening Neoplatonism as a kind of theology and even wrote songs to Platonic philosophies like goodness and light. His detractors indicted him of trying to swap Christianity with a pagan, a faith associated with Plato. Nevertheless, Pletho had a great impact many Christian scholars through his works. His conception that Plato’s thinking was greater to that of Aristotle ignited a lively discussion among theorists (Dio, 27).

One of Pletho’s ardent supporters was the Greek philosopher and humanist Bessarion. Bessarion, in his defense of Plato, demonstrated that Plato’s rational ideas were consistent with Christian doctrines. He also contended that the notions of Plato and Aristotle were similar. One of the areas that were focus of Neoplatonism is Nature vs. Reality. Renaissance scholars took were very keen on Plato’s notion of a perfect and eternal reality beyond the physical world. Even though Plato had long lived in his pagan world, Renaissance philosophers studied his works through Christian lens. Ficino, for instance, tried to demonstrate that there was no friction between Plato’s beliefs and the basic concepts of Christianity. Ficino contended that the belief systems of the olden Romans and Greeks like Plato were comparable to those of the early Hebrews and had emerged from the same origin. Ficino and others like Pico expected to utilize Plato’s philosophies to patch the age-old division between philosophy and religion (Watts 12).

Renaissance philosophers invigorated the Neoplatonist concept that “all of nature has a soul.” In researching this notion, they drew on philosophies handed down from the Middle Ages and from Arabian intellectuals. Nonetheless, their objective was not to control nature, as conjurers vexed to do, but to establish a link between the soul and a greater ‘World-Soul.’ They pursued this link through such diverse spheres such as number symbolism, music and astrology. Opponents of this interpretation asserted that it connected human souls to evil spirits. Plato’s followers were fixated on the notion of human beings as the image of God. They believed that every human soul yearned to come together with the universal soul of nature (Gersh 33). Other lesser known philosopher like Ficino and Pico assumed that human beings can, via will and intellect, reach a divine state and attain union with God and the universe. Philosophers also looked into Plato’s concepts about love, which they interpreted as the desire for beauty. The Neoplatonists’ tenets about desire and love had a profound impact on other fields like literature and literature. They ignited the talent in Italian painters Michelangelo Buonarroti, San