Sixteenth Annual Conference Programme
The Embrace of Neoplatonism
28–30 June 2024
Purley Chase Centre, Mancetter,
Warwickshire, UK
Abstracts
Friday, 28 June 2024
Keynote Address – Professor Michael Griffin
‘A world in a grain of sand’: A Platonist model of dialogue and the good life Platonism holds out hope that ‘what the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth’ (John Keats). The Platonist’s Beauty and Goodness lies beyond the grasp of everyday life, but is not detached from it: we are invited to bring the imaginal into action through self-expression in the media of poetry or statecraft, music or mathematics, science or practical action. This talk will explore two broadly ancient Platonist approaches to encountering and enacting the ideal, one running through a discipline of focused concentration based in Plato’s Phaedo, and the second through a radical receptivity to inspiration based in Plato’s Phaedrus. I emphasize that both paths are fundamentally pluralistic: the Platonist recognizes that we each follow our own path to beauty, which we must not impose on others, but braid together from sincere dialogue with others.
Professor Michael Griffin holds a D.Phil. in Greek and Latin from the University of Oxford, with a focus on ancient Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy. He is Head of Ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern Studies and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Since 2012, Dr. Griffin has co-edited the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series, which has published 116 previously untranslated works of ancient philosophy and science, and he has authored books and articles on Greek thought from Plato to late antiquity, including Olympiodorus of Alexandria’s introductory lectures on the Platonic Alcibiades I (Bloomsbury, 2014 and 2016). Dr. Griffin is also a contributing member of a working group on Buddhist-Platonist dialogue, which published a collection of essays in June 2024 entitled Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave: Buddhist-Platonist Philosophical Inquiries (Oxford University Press).
Saturday, 29 June 2024, First Session
Embracing Plotinus’ Philosophy of the ‘We’: Achieving Happiness through Self-Actualisation
A common perception of Plotinus’ ethical thought is that it is “uncompromisingly self-centred and other-worldly” (Dillon, 1996). This perspective stems from Plotinus’ exhortation to focus on our true self (hêmeis = we), i.e. rational soul, and to distance ourselves from the life of our organism, a compound of the lower soul and body (II.7.1, 4ff). Plotinus attributes civic virtues to this compound—virtues that regulate our social life but, according to Plotinus, do not lead to true happiness (eudaimonia). It is only by engaging in intellectual activity, our ‘proper principle of action,’ that human beings can attain eudaimonia (Noble, 2021). This prioritisation of individual spiritual development over social or earthly matters may suggest that Plotinus’ concept of happiness is reserved exclusively for the sage (ho spoudaios) and not for ordinary people, prompting criticisms that Plotinus lacks a genuine ethical theory if ethics involves caring for others (Dillon, 1996; Tuominen, 2021). But is this really the case?
This paper offers a different perspective, arguing that Plotinus’s ethics are not primarily directed at the sage but at every human being. The rational life that Plotinus equates with happiness closely mirrors our modern concept of self-actualisation. His notion of ‘we’ (hêmeis) suggests a community of rational individuals seen as equals, each striving for personal self-actualisation in this world. Today, self-actualisation is regarded as the highest goal, the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A self-actualised person is neither unworldly nor antisocial; they may find fulfilment in politics, driven not by desires for fame and power (which belong to the lower soul), but by their true self, the rational soul directed toward the universal Good. It is therefore entirely in the spirit of Plotinus that a self-actualised, happy person is best equipped to help others achieve their self-actualisation and happiness.
Ina Schall completed her doctoral studies in 2022 through a cotutelle arrangement between the University of Cologne and The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, working on the ERC project ‘Not Another History of Platonism’ under the supervision of Jan Opsomer. Her dissertation, ‘Plotinus on Individuation – A Study of Ennead V. 7 [18] – Text, Translation, and Commentary,’ is set to be published as a monograph by Leuven University Press in February 2025.”
What Socrates Could Say about Knowledge in Theaetetus
In this paper, I argue the unsatisfactory ending in Theaetetus hinges on an unstated argument that our soul alone cannot grasp the definition of knowledge if we do not participate in the contemplation of Intellect, in the light of Plotinus’ philosophy. As we have known, Socrates shows that knowledge is not perception nor true judgment nor true judgment plus an account at the end of Theaetetus. He puts a lot of efforts to rule out these candidates of knowledge, but the definition of knowledge in a positive sense remains unclear. Instead of developing a robust account of knowledge in a positive sense in this paper, I argue Socrates could make a statement that our soul always falls short to grasp the very nature of knowledge if it does not transcend this sensible world. Although both Socrates and Plotinus show that the activities of our soul in this world include perceptions, Plotinus explicitly argues that this fact indicates the incompleteness of our soul on its way to pursue the fundamental nature of knowledge. In my view, this incompleteness marks an impossibility of sufficient understanding of anything when the soul only stays in this world. However, the awareness of this limit opens a door of the transcendence of our soul and leads us to the perfect version of knowing: our soul participates in and abides with the contemplation of Intellect, which is the self-knowledge of Intellect that it thinks itself and being itself, i.e., the intelligible and intellection. Our soul eventually “becomes that Intellect” and knows the intelligible reality through this divine participation.
Wusheng Wang is working on a PhD in philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His main philosophical interests are metaphysics and the history of philosophy, especially Neoplatonism and Kant.
second session
Conversation: Plotinus on Discussion as an Intellectual Virtue
The focus of this paper is two treatises by Plotinus: On Virtues and On Dialectic (Ennead I. 2 & 3). In an essay on Plotinus, ‘Teaching and Writing’, A. H. Armstrong writes of Porphyry saying that Plotinus ‘was not the sort of systematiser and dogmatist who cannot tolerate queries, objections and interruptions. He had a Socratic belief in the value of discussion … until the difficulties raised had been properly solved.’
Introducing his English translation of Plotinus’s treatise, On Virtues, Armstrong writes, ‘It is a commentary on a passage from Plato’s Theaetetus (176A)… its object is to determine in what precise sense the virtues can be said to make us godlike. In pursuing this enquiry Plotinus… makes use of ideas taken from Aristotle that the gods themselves cannot be said to possess moral virtue and that there are two kinds of virtue, intellectual and moral.’ Plotinus’s concern here is for balancing Aristotle’s ethical theory alongside Plato’s approach to philosophy as a way of life.
Plotinus’s next treatise, On Dialectic, concerns the intellectual purification of the soul as it ascends from moral virtues of temporal disposition to Intellect and the Good. Armstrong’s introduction to On Dialect says it is about ‘purifying the soul … and ascending in spirit to the intelligible world. The first three chapters are an admirable summary of Plato’s account of the beginning of the ascent in the Phaedrus and the Symposium.’
The two treatises are on virtue and conversation as connected thinking and as interdependent aspects of human knowledge. As a way of sharing different viewpoints conversation enables questions of how to solve practical problems whilst considering theories and principles, and why they are important. The virtue ethics of Plato and Plotinus was embraced by the Neoplatonists of late antiquity, by Medieval and Renaissance philosophers, and their joint legacy still has prescience today.
Rodger Sykes has an MA Renaissance Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London; and an MA by Research in Philosophy, University of Buckingham: thesis on Petrarch’s classical scholarship and humanist Italian poetry. Since May 2018 he has contributed to the Neoplatonic Studies Research Seminar at the Warburg Institute. Attending study events organised by the Prometheus Trust has inspired a growing interest in Plato and the Platonic tradition.
A Return to Platonism
It can be argued that a return to Platonism is not optional – it is essential for Western civilization if it is to survive and of great importance for those who are members of it. The late phase of Platonism, Neoplatonism, is of significance because it incorporated the salient points of other philosophical systems of Classical antiquity, most notably Aristotelianism and Stoicism. As such, it provided the philosophical foundation for what the Classical world view. This Platonic synthesis also served as the basis for the ensuing Medieval Christian and Islamic civilizations. The Modern age presents a break with the preceding civilizations as it is based on materialistic and rationalistic assumptions about the nature of reality, which has led to intellectual and societal fragmentation and, ultimately, to irrationalism. By contrast, traditional systems of knowledge are holistic and integrated. This means they provide a consistent set of concepts and terms which carry across all different realms of knowledge and art and serve to integrate them into a unified understanding of reality. Other examples besides the Classical are the Indian Vedic and traditional Chinese world views.
This presentation will focus on the nature of human beings, anthropology, which reflects the structure of reality, cosmology, and what this entails, the spiritual path. As all traditional systems of knowledge, Platonism posits that human beings have a material and a non-material or spiritual aspect, body and soul. The latter is understood through the tri-partite model which reflects the larger cosmos. The two principal components, the irrational and the rational, represent the animal and human levels of consciousness. Care of the soul means understanding the function of each part, using it properly and thereby returning the soul to its natural order and balance, a necessity for everyday life and all higher spiritual practice.
Melchior Rasica was born in Croatia under communism and moved to the Netherlands at an early age. At university level he has studied biology, cultural anthropology, philosophy, and theology. On a personal level he has studied different Eastern spiritual and healing arts which he practices and teaches.
Third session
To Cross a Jealous God: The Dangerous Deification of
Marsilio Ficino
Deification has been an agenda of the Platonic project since its inception, and was highlighted by antique Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus) and in Hermetic texts. In fifteenth century Florence, Marsilio Ficino translated the works of Plato, several Neoplatonists, and most of the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, and pondered the mystery of how a human could become a god. His musings were necessarily framed within Roman Catholic doctrine, which enforced a gap between the Creator and His creatures. Moved by Plato and Hermes, Ficino taught various means to divinize human consciousness. But one technique, only hinted at in his writings but likely aimed to mimic Genesis by creating living beings through sound, crossed the line even for someone under the protection of the Medici. Only a friend who had the ear of the Pope could save Ficino from the “hundred-headed hydra” of the Holy Inquisition in Rome.
Dr Leonard George is a Canadian psychologist, educator, researcher, writer and broadcaster. His latest publication is ‘Explorations in Music and Esotericism,’ co-edited with Marjorie Roth (University of Rochester Press, 2023). He is drawn to anything that is vast, intricate, or makes a mewing sound.
The Embrace of Astrology in Proclus
To what degree can theology be mathematized? This question has often been raised in the study of Platonism in connection with Proclus’ Elements of Theology and the degree to which it succeeds or fails in its project of a Euclidian presentation of first philosophy. By focusing on the Elements, a mathematical science that deals directly with the gods goes overlooked: astrology. This is a mathematical, a priori discipline that deals directly with a certain kind of god, celestial gods, and it plays an important role in Proclus’ physics, psychology, ethics and perhaps even his metaphysics.
In my paper I will draw on material from Proclus’ commentaries on the myth of Er and on the Timaeus to show how astrology is both a mathematical and a divine science for Proclus and how it sheds light on his theory of time, the descent and ascent of souls, the moral problem of “choosing the wrong life”, and the metaphor of the “hidden” and “manifest” gods. Thus, even if the Elements fails as a mathematization of theology as a whole, astrology bears witness to the possibility of treating at least some gods mathematically.
Dr Antonio Vargas is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Federico II University of Naples. He is the author of Time’s Causal Power: Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time (Brill, 2021) as well as a pioneering and soon to be published translation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology into Portuguese with facing Greek and accompanying commentary (Os Elementos da Teologia, Odysseus, 2024), besides many other publications. More information about courses and publications can be found on his website antoniofilosofo.com as well as on twitter, Instagram and youtube under the handle@philoantonio.
fourth session
Five Years from Firestorm: Theurgic Platonism, Relational Philosophy and the Environmental Emergency
What is the place of philosophy – and especially the philosophy of Plato and later Platonist philosophers – in our time, a time characterised by acute and interlocking environmental and ecological emergencies? Does philosophy – specifically the philosophy of Plato and that of later Platonist philosophers – have anything to offer us in relation to thinking through, dealing with, and responding appropriately to the most urgent problems of our time – the interlocking environmental problems that face us today, especially climate change? This presentation will consider the roles of environmental philosophy in addressing this emergency, with a focus on Platonic philosophy as a relational and participatory way of life. Indeed, indigenous researchers (such as Shelbi Nahwillet Meissner and Shawn Wilson) have emphasised that indigenous research is primarily relational and participatory, and that the climate crisis is one facet of a much wider relational crisis that is at least five centuries in the making. Yet despite the parallels with indigenous research, philosophies and cultures, many of the resources and deepest insights offered by certain relational iterations of ancient philosophy lie untapped and largely overlooked. This presentation will explore the ways in which theurgic Platonism – as the most relational and participatory dimension of the Platonic tradition – might help us, with a focus on inspiration, wonder and recognition of the ‘more-than-human’ dimensions of reality. The presentation will particularly explore: (1) the roles of the gods associated with place and landscape within theurgic practice; (2) the eco-centric dimensions of theurgic cosmology, metaphysics and ritual practices; and (3) theurgic iterations of the connections with and presence of the divine – the sacred – in animals and the natural world, including plants, trees, sea and land. What does it mean to think, act and live relationally in – and with – the more-than-human world we inhabit?
Dr Crystal Addey is a Lecturer in the Department of Classics and a Principal Investigator of the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. She is the Founder and Co-Convenor of the UCC Eco-Humanities Research Group. She is also a Trustee of the Prometheus Trust. Her publications include Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the gods (Ashgate/Routledge 2014), the edited volume Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Routledge 2021), and many chapters and articles on ancient philosophical and religious approaches towards the environment and the natural world, on the connections between ancient Mediterranean religions (especially divination) and philosophy, and on the roles of women in ancient philosophy.
Musical Interlude with Professors Jay Bregman & Nancy Ogle
Professor Jay Bregman has taught the History of Jazz since 1985 at the University of Maine. His previous position at UMaine was Professor of History, from 1975 to 2015, specializing in Late Antiquity, Hellenic Neoplatonism, Religious Syncretism and their later influences on Nineteenth and twentieth century America. His music background includes two semesters at the Manhattan School of Music; private study of Jazz with Lennie Tristano, John La Porta, and Don Stratton; and in the 1989 Jazz in July program at UMass-Amherst, in the Master Class of Yusef Lateef, where he received the Most Improved Player award in the programme. He has played locally with the group of Don Stratton, as well as directing and playing with UMaine student combos. Recently he has played with and continues to play with his own group, “Swingmatism.” The group includes local musicians, such as UM Jazz Program Director, Dan Barrett on Trombone. Jay Bregman’s publications on Jazz include “Charlie Parker and the American Soundscape” (1997); “Lennie Tristano” (1990). He is currently working on a HIstorical/Musicological article with co-author Dan Barrett, “Charlie Parker’s Tenor and the Birth of Bop.”
Professor Nancy Ogle is Professor Emerita of music, voice and opera at the University of Maine. She studied voice with Birgit Nilsson, Edward Zambara, Charlotte Aldrich and Elizabeth Cole. Her concert career has included television appearances in Canada and Germany as well as the United States and performances in England, Austria, Russia, Georgia (Republic), and Japan. Professor Ogle was a Maine Touring Artist for many years. With help from accompanying musicians and scholars of poetry and composition, she has evaluated hundreds of works by American composers. From these sources, Professor Ogle has created recitals which she has performed throughout the United States and abroad.
Thomas Taylor Lecture—Professor Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Theurgic Dreaming in the Platonist Tradition
How does one or did one ever become a Platonist? Is it by reading the dialogues, taking classes at University, writing a dissertation in a philosophy department, publishing articles in a scholarly journal, attending the Prometheus Trust conference? Certainly, we cannot insist on initiation into the tradition at the hands of a hierophant, nor join up with members of an Academy-in-Exile as did the Platonists of 529, CE, when Justinian shut down the Platonic Academy and dispersed its scholarchs.
This paper considers the function of Platonist theurgic, that is to say, initiatory dream encounters: in Plato’s works, among the Neoplatonists of late antiquity as well as within later traditions of Platonism (e.g. in the Persian sage, Suhrawardi), as they can be detected among modernists such as Jung, and finally, in terms of the author’s own personal dream journey. It offers not so much an argument as a testimony to the power of what Ficino called in his treatise, De divino furori, the imagination as a conduit for the activation of the mind’s capacity to begin to see its own nature, and in this specific sense, become acclimated, if not actually initiated, into Platonist ways of being.
Professor Ahbel-Rappe is Professor of Greek and Latin at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Reading Neoplatonism (CUP, 2000); a translation of Damascius’ Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles (OUP, 2010); two monographs and a co-edited volume on Socrates; and has recently co-edited a collection of essays on Platonist Conceptions of the Soul, and finished a forthcoming student’s Greek Commentary on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations for UM Press. She has held fellowships from Harvard, Princeton, the Institute for Advanced Studies, the ACLS, the Mellon Foundation. She is a lifelong Buddhist practitioner in the lineage of Maezumi Roshi.
Sunday, 30 June 2024, Fifth Session
Caught in the Grip of the Muses: Cicadas, Leaders in Philosophy and Ourselves
A relative neglect of the history of Plato’s Myth of the Cicadas, does not do justice to its centrality in a myth-laden dialogue. Again, it does not do justice to the Iamblichan interpretation that Hermias sees fit to introduce into his commentary, which makes the ‘humans’ that had existed prior to the Muses into souls hitherto engaged in contemplation of the intelligibles. On the creation of all that is sensible they did not want to look in that direction, but kept looking upwards and neglecting the things they needed for life in this world. The natural comparison between such persons and the cicadas’ indifference to the food they need, leads to these humans being the origin of the cicadas, who thereby rise to have a kind of daemonic status. Such an attitude of indifference to physical needs leads to comparison with the so-called ‘chorus-leader (coryphaios) of philosophy’ in the Theaetetus (173c). This figure is likewise idealised at the start of Olympiodorus’ commentary on the Alcibiades, being seen as a source of inspiration akin to the nymphs of the Phaedrus and the Muses of Republic VIII. Given that Muses too are a feature of the Myth of the Cicadas this suggests a very high degree of influence of the Phaedrus over Olympiodorus’ theory of inspiration. What, though, are we to make of the comparison between the song of the cicadas and the charms of Homer’s deadly Sirens (259a)? Does it threaten to undermine the whole theory of intellectual inspiration built upon the cicada-myth? Are we too the victims of a charm?
Dr Harold Tarrant taught Greek and ancient philosophy for many years at Australian Universities, and has written or edited several books on the subject. He is now retired to his native England.
An Exploration of Platonism’s Range of Consciousness
The ’embrace of Neoplatonism’ is multi-dimensional. It has expanded across space, being present in many countries and languages, and through time, re-appearing surprisingly centuries after seeming to disappear completely. But there is a third dimension; the span of human consciousness. The telestic dialogues range from unconscious alter-motivity in the natural world, through self-conscious rational motivity to culminate in the super-conscious consummation of motion at the border of the real world of intelligible being and the concomitant possibility of the arresting experience of the Epopteia. The interaction of mythos and logos is crucial to effecting this transition to the super-conscious. One such example is evident in the comparison of the five rational arguments for the immortality of the soul in the Phaedo with five evocative adventures of Odysseus on his return journey to Ithaca, the ‘real land’ of his home kingdom. Plato’s use of myth is vindicated in the telestic dialogues as they have an elevative power. For the purpose of this paper I define ‘consciousness’ as the recognition of Innate Ideas in the Soul, i.e., the Life of Truth.
Martha Lyn happened upon a portrait of Thomas Taylor while lunching at Ottawa Art Gallery in Canada, after browsing through some of his writings in the course of obtaining a BA at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada, in 1965. She continued searching out more of Taylor’s work in the UK. She then joined forces with The Prometheus Trust to assist in the work of ensuring his increasingly difficult to obtain translations remain available, and is now a Patron.
Sixth Session
The Prometheus Trust and Living Philosophy
The paper presents a story of the encounter with Plato’s Phaedo by a small peer group of participants in the Prometheus Trust Spring term programme. Through a guided close reading of the text over three weekend-long workshops, the peer group engages with the world view, the conceptual schema, the language and myths that appertain to this dialogue from ancient Athens. The peer group follows the five arguments made by Socrates about the immortality of the Soul, arguments heightened by the drama of the death-scene being played out in front of us that recounts Socrates’ last hours. A story within a story that absorbs the peer group in a struggle of ideas over its message then and now. The paper presents elements of the struggle that emerges for the peer group in their encounter with the Phaedo. It discusses the perception that the current hegemonic world view, grounded in a thought tradition of empiricism characteristic of the secular West, may unduly inscribe ‘ontological and conceptual deficiencies of knowing’ for students of Plato’s living philosophy.
Dr Molly Bellamy is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Law London and Sub Editor of Legal Women Magazine
Care of the Soul
Towards the end of the Phaedo, after he has shown that the human soul is immortal, Socrates says “if the soul is immortal it is necessary that we should care for it not just from the present time in we way that it lives, but for the whole of time, and that he who neglects this exposes himself to a most dreadful danger.” We might consider this as the very heart of Platonic philosophy: every dialogue either addresses this need directly or furnishes the reader with insights which contribute to the art of soul care.
But what does “the care of the soul” mean? What is the soul, and what form should this care take? Following the theme of this conference, the embrace of Neoplatonism, I’d like to explore that phase of the Platonic tradition which so carefully and seriously treats this question. Plotinus puts the task before us most clearly in his treatise on Virtue (I, ii, 6): “the aim is not to be without sin, but to be a God”: and we can perhaps say that the entire Neoplatonic arc, is simply an attempt to bring to bear upon this aspiration an appropriate range of experiences – practical, dialectical, contemplative, mythic, initiatory – all understood in terms of arete, virtue or goodness.
Tim Addey is the chairperson of The Prometheus Trust, the editor of the Thomas Taylor series, the director of its education programme, and the author of several books on the Platonic tradition.
Programme Schedule
Friday
5.00 pm: Registration
7.00 pm: Supper
8.00 pm: Keynote lecture
Professor Michael Griffin
Saturday
8.15 am: Breakfast
9.20–10.50 am / 1st session
Ina Schall and Wusheng Wang
10.50: Coffee
11.20–12.50 / 2nd session
Rodger Sykes and Melchior Rasica
1.00 pm: Lunch
2.00–3.30 pm / 3rd session
Dr Leonard George and Antonio Vargas
3.30 pm: Tea
4.00 pm / 4th session
Dr Crystal Addey
4.50–5.10 pm: Musical Interlude with Professors Jay Bregman and Nancy Ogle
5.30–6.45 pm: 16th Thomas Taylor lecture
Professor Sara Ahbel-Rappe
7.00 pm: Supper
Sunday
8.15 am: Breakfast
9.15–10.45 am / 5th session
Dr Harold Tarrant and Martha Lyn
10.45 am: Coffee
11.15–12.45 pm / 6th session
Dr Molly Bellamy and Tim Addey
1.00 pm: Lunch
Email for further details: education@prometheustrust.co.uk or write to The Education Co-ordinator,
14 Tylers Way, Sedbury, Chepstow, Glos, NP16 7AB