Neoplatonism Totally Explained

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Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. The term was first coined by Thomas Taylor, in his translation of Plotinus' Enneads. Taylor was the first to translate Plotinus' works into English. Neoplatonists would have considered themselves simply "Platonists", and the modern distinction is due to the perception that their philosophy contained enough unique interpretations of Plato to make it substantively different from what Plato wrote and believed. The Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Porphyry has been referred to as really being orthodox (neo)Platonic philosophy by scholars like Professor John D. Turner

. This distinction provides a contrast with later movements of Neoplatonism, such as those of Iamblichus and Proclus. Movements which embraced magical practices or theurgy as part of the soul's development in the process of the soul's return to the Source. This could also be due to one possible motive of Plotinus, being to clarify some of the traditions in the teachings of Plato that had been misrepresented before Iamblichus (see Neoplatonism and Gnosticism).
Neoplatonism took definitive shape with the philosopher Plotinus, who claimed to have received his teachings from Ammonius Saccas, a dock worker and philosopher in Alexandria. Plotinus was also influenced by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Numenius of Apamea. Plotinus's student Porphyry assembled his teachings into the six Enneads.
Subsequent Neoplatonic philosophers included Hypatia of Alexandria, Iamblichus, Proclus, Hierocles of Alexandria, Simplicius of Cilicia, and Damascius, who wrote On First Principles. Born in Damascus, he was the last teacher of Neoplatonism at Athens. Neoplatonism strongly influenced Christian thinkers (such as Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus Eriugena, and Bonaventura). Neoplatonism was also present in medieval Islamic and Jewish thinkers such as al-Farabi and Maimonides, and experienced a revival in the Renaissance with the acquisition and translation of Greek and Arabic Neoplatonic texts.

Platonism and Neoplatonism

The philosophers called Neoplatonists didn't found a school as much as attempt to preserve the teachings of Plato. They regarded themselves as Platonists, pure and simple. The concept of the One wasn't as clearly defined in Plato's Timaeus (the good above the demiurge) as it later was by Plotinus' Enneads. The afterlife as defined by Socrates in Phaedo is also different than the afterlife of the person or soul in the Enneads. The soul returns to the Monad or One in the Plotinus' works, whereas in Phaedo there are different afterlifes: one could be re-incarnated, one could receive punishment, or one could go to Hades to be with the heroes of old (Socrates' ideal afterlife for philosophers).

Teachings

Neoplatonism is generally a religious philosophy. Neoplatonism is a form of idealistic monism (also called theistic monism) and combines elements of Polytheism (see Monistic-polytheism). Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, from which emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings. Later Neoplatonic philosophers, especially Iamblichus, added hundreds of intermediate beings such as gods, angels and demons, and other beings as mediators between the One and humanity. The Neoplatonist gods are omni-perfect beings and don't display the usual amoral behaviour associated with their representations in the myths.

Celestial hierarchy

The One ť God, The Good. Transcendent and ineffable.
The Hypercosmic Gods ť Those which make Essence, Life and Soul
The Demiurge ť The creator.
The Cosmic Gods ť Those who make Being, Nature, and Matter. These include the gods known to us from classical mythology.

Salvation

Neoplatonists believed human perfection and happiness were attainable in this world, without awaiting an afterlife. Perfection and happiness— seen as synonymous— could be achieved through philosophical contemplation.
They didn't believe in an independent existence of evil. They compared it to darkness, which doesn't exist in itself but only as the absence of light. So too, evil is simply the absence of good. Things are good insofar as they exist; they're evil only insofar as they're imperfect, lacking some good that they should have. It is also a cornerstone of Neoplatonism to teach that all people return to the Source. The Source, Absolute, or One is what all things spring from and, as a superconsciousness, is where all things return. It can be said that all consciousness is wiped clean and returned to a blank slate when returning to the Source. All things have force or potential, energy as their essence. This dynamis begets energy (see Pantheism). When people return to the Source, their energy returns to the One, Monad, or Source and is then recycled into the cosmos, where it can be broken up and then amalgamated into other things.

Neoplatonist philosophers

Ammonius Saccas

Ammonius Saccas (birth unknown death ca. 265 AD) is a founder of Neoplatonism and the teacher of Plotinus. Little is known of the teacher other than both Christians (see Eusebius, Jerome, and Origen) and pagans (see Porphyry and Plotinus) claim him a teacher and founder of the Neoplatonic system. Porphyry stated in On the One School of Plato and Aristotle, that Ammonius' view was that the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle were in harmony. Eusebius and Jerome claimed him as a Christian until his death, whereas Porphyry claimed he'd renounced Christianity and embrace pagan philosophy.

Plotinus

Plotinus (Greek: Πλωτῖνος) (ca. 205–270) was a major Egyptian philosopher of the ancient world who is widely considered the father of Neoplatonism. Much of our biographical information about him comes from Porphyry's preface to his edition of Plotinus' Enneads. While he was himself influenced by the teachings of classical Greek, Persian and Indian philosophy and Egyptian theology, his metaphysical writings later inspired numerous Christian, Jewish, Islamic and Gnostic metaphysicians and mystics over the centuries. Plotinus taught that there's a supreme, totally transcendent "One", containing no division, multiplicity or distinction; likewise it's beyond all categories of being and non-being. The concept of "being" is derived by us from the objects of human experience, and is an attribute of such objects, but the infinite, transcendent One is beyond all such objects, and therefore is beyond the concepts that we derive from them. The One "cannot be any existing thing", and can't be merely the sum of all such things (compare the Stoic doctrine of disbelief in non-material existence), but "is prior to all existents".

Porphyry

Porphyry (Greek: Πορφύριος, c. A.D. 233– c. 309) was a Syrian In the Middle Ages, Neoplatonist ideas influenced Jewish thinkers, such as the Kabbalist Isaac the Blind, and the Jewish Neoplatonic philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, who modified it in the light of their own monotheism. Neoplatonist ideas also influenced Islamic and Sufi thinkers such as al Farabi and Avicenna. Neoplatonism survived in the Eastern Christian Church as an independent tradition and was reintroduced to the west by Plethon.

Renaissance Neoplatonism

In western Europe, Neoplatonism was revived in the Italian Renaissance by figures such as Nicholas Cusanus, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, the Medici, Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli and later Giordano Bruno. Platonism in the Renaissance was a major force in European cultural life.

Cambridge Platonists

In the seventeenth century in England, Neoplatonism was fundamental to the school of the Cambridge Platonists, whose luminaries included Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, Benjamin Whichcote and John Smith, all graduates of Cambridge University. Coleridge claimed that they were not really Platonists, but "more truly Plotinists": "divine Plotinus", as More called him.

Modern Neoplatonism

In the essay "Inner and Outer Realities: Jean Gebser in a Cultural/Historical Perspective", Integral philosopher Allan Combs claims that ten modern thinkers can be called Neo-Platonists: Goethe, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge, Emerson, Rudolf Steiner, Carl Jung, Jean Gebser and the modern theorist Brian Goodwin. He sees these thinkers as participating in a tradition that can be distinguished from the empiricist, rationalist, dualist and materialist Western philosophical traditions (External Link

).
Other notable modern Neoplatonists include Thomas Taylor, "the English Platonist," who wrote extensively on Platonism and translated almost the entire Platonic and Plotinian corpora into English, and the Belgian writer Suzanne Lilar.
The Druze, a religious community found primarily in Lebanon, Israel, and Syria, incorporate neoplatonic concepts into their beliefs.

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