Neoplatonism

A REFRESHER
NEOPLATONISM
(Condensed from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Neoplatonism)
Full article: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoplatonism/
The term “Neoplatonism” refers to a philosophical school of thought that first emerged
and flourished in the Greco-Roman world of late antiquity, roughly from the time of the
Roman Imperial Crisis to the Arab conquest, i.e., the middle of the 3 rd to the middle of
the 7th century. In consequence of the demise of ancient materialist or corporealist
thought such as Epicureanism and Stoicism, Neoplatonism became the dominant
philosophical ideology of the period, offering a comprehensive understanding of the
universe and the individual human being’s place in it. However, in contrast to labels
such as “Stoic”, “Peripatetic” or “Platonic”, the designation “Neoplatonic” is of modern
coinage.
Late antique philosophers now counted among “the Neoplatonists” attempted to create
a synthesis of a rich and profound intellectual heritage. In effect, they absorbed,
appropriated, and creatively harmonized almost the entire Hellenic tradition of
philosophy, religion, and literature. The result of this effort was a persuasive system of
thought that reflected upon a millennium of intellectual culture and brought the scientific
and moral theories of Plato, Aristotle, and the ethics of the Stoics into fruitful dialogue
with literature, myth, and religious practice.
The most fundamental of the assumptions, which the Neoplatonists shared with the
majority of intellectuals of the ancient world is that mindful consciousness (nous, often
translated as thought, intelligence, or intellect) is ontologically prior to the physical realm
typically taken for ultimate reality (Mind over Matter). There existed a dispute between
Plato and Aristotle over whether or not the objects of mindful consciousness (abstract
concepts, Platonic or otherwise, numbers, geometrical properties, and so forth) are also
ontologically prior, but the Neoplatonists regarded this fact as a matter of detail. And so,
following a venerable and abiding tradition of Mind over Matter, Neoplatonism inevitably
turned out to be an idealist type of philosophy.
The second fundamental assumption, which the Neoplatonists shared with the Stoics
and the Hermetists (an influential group of Egyptian religious thinkers that predate the
rise of Neoplatonism), was that reality, in all its cognitive and physical manifestations,
depended on a highest principle which is unitary and singular. Neoplatonic philosophy is
a strict form of principle-monism that strives to understand everything on the basis of a
single cause that they considered divine, and indiscriminately referred to as “the First”,
“the One”, or “the Good”. Since it is reasonable to assume that any efficient cause is
ontologically prior to, and hence more real, than its effect, then, in the hierarchy of
being, the first principle, whatever it is, cannot be less “real” than the phenomena it is
supposed to explain.
Given the veracity of the first assumption (the ontological priority of intelligence and
consciousness), it follows at once that the first principle must be a principle of
1
consciousness. In consequence, the fundamental challenge all Neoplatonists struggled
to meet was essentially the following: How are we to understand and describe the
emergence of the universe, with all its diverse phenomena, as the effect of a singular
principle of consciousness? In particular—and in this regard Neoplatonism shares
certain concerns with modern cosmology—how is it possible to understand the
emergence of the physical, material universe from a singularity that is in every sense
unlike this universe? Their answer to this question was entirely new, and went far
beyond any prior cosmic aetiology in elegance and sophistication:
 First, they speculated that the process of the emergence of the universe from the
divine principle, as they conceived of it, has gone on forever, just as it continues
at this very moment and will continue to do so, sustaining a world without end (as
opposed to “creation in time”). When the general outlook of Neoplatonism was
appropriated and adapted to refine and articulate the creeds of Christianity,
Islam, and Judaism, this feature of the doctrine, and the connected doctrine of
the eternity of the world, would become a vigorously debated issue.
 Second, unlike the ancient theologians of Israel and Egypt, the Neoplatonists did
not think that the universe could spring from the deity directly and in a way that
surpasses all understanding, for example by being thought and spoken into
existence. Their more refined view was that reality emerged from “the First” in
coherent stages, in such a way that one stage functions as creative principle of
the next.
This kind of emanationist cosmology rests on the tenet that every activity in the world is
in some sense double insofar as it possesses both an inner and an outer aspect. For
example, the inner activity of a tree that is determined by the kind of tree it is (its genetic
code, we would now say; they spoke of an inherent formative principle, logos) results in
the bearing of a particular kind of fruit; or again, thoughts and feelings internal to human
beings express themselves in speech and actions. In each case, the outer effect is not
the purpose or end of the inner activity; rather, it is simply the case that one falls out of
the other and is concomitant with it.
There is definitely more to Neoplatonism than just the concepts of the One and
Emanation, but these two concepts are the most important ones that (by way of a
treatise entitled Theology of Aristotle*) found their way into Islamic thought and
facilitated the integration of ancient philosophy and science into both Islam (especially
through Al-Kindi, Al-Farabi and Avicenna [Ibn Sina]) and Judaism (Maimonides).
* The Theology of Aristotle or Theologia Aristotelis is NOT a work by Aristotle, rather it

is a paraphrase in Arabic of parts of Plotinus' Six Enneads along with Porphyry's
commentary.

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A REFRESHER

* The Theology of Aristotle or Theologia Aristotelis is NOT a work by Aristotle, rather it

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