Neoplatonism

"This is a more general book on Neoplatonism, going beyond the writings of Plotinus. It’s very hard to write a good general introduction, because a lot of the writings are quite abstruse. Remes’s book does a really good job of bringing out what’s philosophically interesting about the Neoplatonists. Each chapter focuses on a particular theme. In each case, Remes starts off with Plotinus on the topic, and then goes on to discuss later Neoplatonist reactions to, and disagreements with, Plotinus. The disadvantage of this approach is that it foregrounds Plotinus in a way that sometimes underplays the importance of later Neoplatonists, especially when they are not simply reacting to Plotinus. But as an introduction, the book has the great merit of giving you a grounding in Plotinus, and telling you something about how these later Neoplatonists reacted to or disagreed with him. Learning about these disagreements also helps one to engage philosophically with these works oneself. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter Remes is very good at bringing out why the Neoplatonists have interesting things to say to us today, and why modern philosophers should pay attention to them. One consequence of this is that, compared to some other writings on the Neoplatonists, Remes downplays aspects of Neoplatonist thought that seem especially weird to us nowadays, in particular some of the religious and ritualistic aspects. But this book provides a wonderful introduction to the Neoplatonists for anyone who has general philosophical interests and wants to explore their thought. I suspect the Neoplatonists might figure more prominently in France or Italy, and there are also interesting connections with German Idealist thought. It seems to me that the philosopher who really should be on the syllabus is Plotinus. I think the fact that he’s not studied much in modern Anglophone departments is partly a matter of fashion, but there are also reasons why his work might not appeal to a certain type of modern analytic philosopher. Firstly, Plotinus’s views are quite weird, and his general approach would seem obviously misguided to modern philosophers who presuppose naturalism or physicalism. Secondly, much of Plotinus’s work is reacting to earlier philosophers, so it is hard to understand what he is up to without having some knowledge of his predecessors. And thirdly, his writing style is very different from that of a modern analytic philosopher. It might be useful at this point to say what kind of a writer Plotinus is. Porphyry tells us that Plotinus had very bad eyesight. For this reason, he tended not to re-read his writings and revise them. Perhaps partly because of this, when you read a bit of Plotinus, it’s as if you’re thinking through a problem with him. This is something I find exciting. He has a very discursive way of writing. It’s almost as if he’s written a dialogue, except without indicating when he is switching from one speaker to another. He will explore one idea for a bit, but then ask, ‘on the other hand, what about this ?’ It isn’t always obvious, in any one part of the text, whether what you’ve got is something that Plotinus is asserting, or instead something that he’s putting forward as a position someone might hold, a position that he is then going to qualify or even refute. Yes, there is perhaps something in common with the style of the Philosophical Investigations . Once you’ve got the hang of what Plotinus is doing, you feel as if you are thinking things through with him. It certainly does have this effect. I suspect that Plotinus’s writing has this discursive character because it arises out of his discussions with his pupils. The fact that Plotinus was so immersed in Plato’s dialogues may also have influenced his way of writing."