(Re)sources, instruction and interaction
This part of the Handbook strives to reconstruct the modus operandi of Neoplatonism first as a philosophical school, with established curricula, forms of instruction and facilities, and second as a flagship philosophical system, which continuously interacts with the diverse intellectual and ideological environment of late antiquity. This overarching task is achieved by three tributary goals, consecutively centred on the practical questions of what Neoplatonists read, how and where they pursued philosophy, with what other philosophical or religious lines of thought they engaged and to what extent. The answers to each question, of course, cannot be exhausted on the pages of the individual chapters. Instead, the chapters severally outline the major framework and the most recent advances of their subject. In some cases, such as Tarrant’s “Platonist curricula and their influence” (Chapter 2) and Reydams-Schils and Ferrari’s “Middle Platonism and its relation to Stoicism and the Peripatetic tradition” (Chapter 4), they have done so through synthesis; in others, such as the interactions of Neoplatonism with Gnosticism in Turner’s “Plotinus and the Gnostics: opposed heirs of Plato” (Chapter 5) and Indian thought in Adluri’s “Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas” (Chapter 6), through ample textual evidence.
The first question concerns the sources the Neoplatonists used to develop and establish their curricula. They were certainly conscious of the challenge of gathering, organizing and perusing centuries-old texts, which hark back to the “divine” Pythagoras, culminate in the Platonic dialogues and continuously undergo numerous exegetical permutations. But the Neoplatonists are not historians of philosophy, exclusively concerned with the preservation of the Platonic originals. Nor are they avid but uncritical readers. They are philosophers proper for whom doing philosophy entails both studying philosophy and teaching philosophy. The Neoplatonists’ sources for studying the Platonic dialogues became their resources for doing philosophy. The exegetical and instructional aspects of their intellectual enterprise are entrenched in the organization of Neoplatonic curricula, tailored to the changing tastes of their times and their proponents. Thus we can distinguish specific traits in the curriculum under Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Ammonius and Olympiodorus. It also inevitably includes a wide range of non-Platonic texts, from Aristotle and the Neopythagoreans to the Orphic sacred texts and the Chaldaean Oracles.
In addition to carefully designed Neoplatonic curricula, the innate relation between exegesis and instruction also gives rise to different philosophical discourses, some of which, like the commentaries, have taken the form of a separate literary genre. The Neoplatonists’ mode of expression is rich and versatile, persistently trying to close the gap between word and idea, form and content. To this end, we have deemed it important to devote a separate section – Part II – to the most characteristic genres and styles of Neoplatonic literature.
The second question concerns the place and form of the Neoplatonists’ actual instruction and philosophical activities. Until recently, Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus and Marinus’ Life of Proclus have been our sole sources for glimpsing the life of the Neoplatonic schools in Rome and Athens. As Sorabji’s “The Alexandrian classrooms excavated and sixth-century philosophy teaching” (Chapter 3) presents, recent archaeological excavations at Alexandria have allowed us to conjoin text with mortar in creating a more realistic, even visual, picture of some physical details of Neoplatonic education. Although the “House of Proclus” on the Athenian Agora will most likely always remain a mystery, the twelve lecture halls of Alexandria, dating to the period between the late fifth and the sixth century, offer a sumptuous example for how much the study of Neoplatonism can benefit from the unexpected corner of material culture.
Third, as students and intellectual heirs of Plato, the Neoplatonists did not see themselves as confined in a vacuum. As we shall see throughout the Handbook, they were in a constant dialogue with diverse and oftentimes opposing philosophical and ideological trends. Neoplatonism is a dynamic, outspoken interlocutor, possessing both the flexibility and the resilience to absorb, co-opt, assess or deflect philosophical influences from both its Middle Platonic and Neopythagorean predecessors and from the anti-Platonic strongholds of the Peripatetics, Epicureans and, especially, the Stoics.
If the tenacity with which Neoplatonism establishes itself as a leading school in the complex philosophical environment of late antiquity seems inner-disciplinary and, in this sense, more narrow, its relation with the burgeoning religious trends of its time involves both outspoken refutation, in the case of Gnosticism and Christianity, and impassioned affiliation, in the case of the Chaldaean Oracles and other sacred texts. The expanse of this area of Neoplatonic studies and its substantial overlap with topics in metaphysics, psychology and legacy compelled us to highlight only the two sub-areas of Gnosticism and Indian thought, the notable advances of which have forced us to re-evaluate our previous understanding and have opened major areas of research. “Plotinus and the Gnostics: opposed heirs of Plato” (Chapter 5) shows that behind the open animosity between Plotinus and the Gnostics, there are subtle threads of conceptual cooperation that deserve a second look (the latest instalment is Narbonne 2011a). Similarly, our attempts to look farther east, past the birthplace of the Chaldaean Oracles, to the ever-elusive “Orient” have been persistent but also marginalized by our preconceptions of rationality, philosophy and spirituality. Our inclination to compartmentalize different modes of thought has already required from us, in the many faces of Neoplatonism, a great deal of adaptation. But, as presented in “Plotinus and the Orient: aoristos dyas” (Chapter 6), we still have a much longer road to travel.1 By editorial decision, the length of the last two chapters is expanded in order to increase the visibility and accessibility of otherwise less known material to the general readership of the volume.
NOTE
1. To be fair, the inception of this road lies with the constellation of scholars in Baine Harris (1982) and continues brightly into the future with Gregorios (2002) and Adluri & Bagchee (2014).