The Philosophy of Proclus, the Final Phase of Ancient Thought 

Laurence Jay Rosán’s The Philosophy of Proclus, subtitled The Final Phase of Ancient Thought, has long been considered one of the finest overviews of late Platonic teaching: first published in 1949 it helped bring about a re-evaluation of Proclus and his work by modern scholars.  Its clear and sympathetic approach to its subject allows the reader to follow, in the words of Rosán, “one of the most fascinating dialectics the human mind has conceived.” 

The philosophy of Proclus, built as it was on more than a thousand years of vigorous development by a series of profound philosophers and theologians, represents the last age in the West in which the highest human endeavours in philosophy, religion, science and art, were still united and integrated.  In Proclus we find philosophy as inner discipline – a path to enlightenment – and his writings represent a fruition of a tradition which can be traced back though Iamblichus, Plotinus, Aristotle, Plato, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Homer, and, ultimately to its most ancient stirrings in Egypt.  Proclus draws from ancient mystery celebrations, mythological dramas, inspired oracles, as well as from the truly scientific philosophy of Plato, in order to present to the meditative student a system at once full of truth and profoundly beautiful.  To this comprehensive philosophy Rosán displays no small skill in finding a way to provide his readers with a framework for its initial consideration.

This new edition benefits from a revised bibliography kindly provided by Christoph Helmig and Sabrina Lange of Humboldt-Universität Berlin.