Neoplatonism that period of Platonism following on the new impetus provided by the philosophical speculations of Plotinus (A.D. 204–69). It extends, as a minimum, to the closing of the Platonic School in Athens by Justinian in 529, but maximally through Byzantium, with such figures as Michael Psellus (1018–78) and Pletho (c.1360–1452), the Renaissance (Ficino, Pico, and the Florentine Academy), and the early modern period (the Cambridge Platonists, Thomas Taylor), to the advent of the ‘scientific’ study of the works of Plato with Schleiermacher (1768–1834) at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The term was formerly also used to characterize the whole period from the Old Academy of Plato’s immediate successors, Speusippus and Xenocrates, through what is now termed Middle Platonism (c.80 B.C. – A.D. 220), down to Plotinus. This account confines itself to the ‘minimum’ interpretation. Neoplatonism proper may be divided into three main periods: that of Plotinus and his immediate followers (third century); the ‘Syrian’ School of Iamblichus and his followers (fourth century); and the ‘Athenian’ School begun by Plutarch of Athens, and including Syrianus, Proclus, and their successors, down to Damascius (fifth–sixth centuries). Plotinus and his school. Plotinus’s innovations in Platonism (developed in his essays, the Enneads, collected and edited by his pupil Porphyry after his death), are mainly two: (a) above the traditional supreme principle of earlier Platonism (and Aristotelianism), a self-thinking intellect, which was also regarded as true being, he postulated a principle superior to intellect and being, totally unitary and simple (‘the One’); (b) he saw reality as a series of levels (One, Intelligence, Soul), each higher one outflowing or radiating into the next lower, while still remaining unaffected in itself, and the lower ones fixing themselves in being by somehow ‘reflecting back’ upon their priors. This eternal process gives the universe its existence and character. Intelligence operates in a state of non-temporal simultaneity, holding within itself the ‘forms’ of all things. Soul, in turn, generates time, and receives the forms into itself as ‘reason principles’ (logoi). Our physical three-dimensional world is the result of the lower aspect of Soul (nature) projecting itself upon a kind of negative field of force, which Plotinus calls ‘matter.’ Matter has no positive existence, but is simply the receptacle for the unfolding of Soul in its lowest aspect, which projects the forms in three-dimensional space. Plotinus often speaks of matter as ‘evil’ (e.g. Enneads II.8), and of the Soul as suffering a ‘fall’ (e.g. Enneads V.1, 1), but in fact he sees the whole cosmic process as an inevitable result of the superabundant productivity of the One, and thus ‘the best of all possible worlds.’
Plotinus was himself a mystic, but he arrived at his philosophical conclusions by perfectly logical means, and he had not much use for either traditional religion or any of the more recent superstitions. His immediate pupils, Amelius (c.225–90) and Porphyry (234–c.305), while somewhat more hospitable to these, remained largely true to his philosophy (though Amelius had a weakness for triadic elaborations in metaphysics). Porphyry was to have wide influence, both in the Latin West (through such men as Marius Victorinus, Augustine, and Boethius), and in the Greek East (and even, through translations, on medieval Islam), as the founder of the Neoplatonic tradition of commentary on both Plato and Aristotle, but it is mainly as an expounder of Plotinus’s philosophy that he is known. He added little that is distinctive, though that little is currently becoming better appreciated.
Iamblichus and the Syrian School. Iamblichus (c.245–325), descendant of an old Syrian noble family, was a pupil of Porphyry’s, but dissented from him on various important issues. He set up his own school in Apamea in Syria, and attracted many pupils. One chief point of dissent was the role of theurgy (really just magic, with philosophical underpinnings, but not unlike Christian sacramental theology). Iamblichus claimed, as against Porphyry, that philosophical reasoning alone could not attain the highest degree of enlightenment, without the aid of theurgic rites, and his view on this was followed by all later Platonists. He also produced a metaphysical scheme far more elaborate than Plotinus’s, by a Scholastic filling in, normally with systems of triads, of gaps in the ‘chain of being’ left by Plotinus’s more fluid and dynamic approach to philosophy. For instance, he postulated two Ones, one completely transcendent, the other the source of all creation, thus ‘resolving’ a tension in Plotinus’s metaphysics. Iamblichus was also concerned to fit as many of the traditional gods as possible into his system, which later attracted the attention of the Emperor Julian, who based himself on Iamblichus when attempting to set up a Hellenic religion to rival Christianity, a project which, however, died with him in 363. The Athenian School. The precise links between the pupils of Iamblichus and Plutarch (d.432), founder of the Athenian School, remain obscure, but the Athenians always retained a great respect for the Syrian. Plutarch himself is a dim figure, but Syrianus (c.370–437), though little of his writings survives, can be seen from constant references to him by his pupil Proclus (412– 85) to be a major figure, and the source of most of Proclus’s metaphysical elaborations. The Athenians essentially developed and systematized further the doctrines of Iamblichus, creating new levels of divinity (e.g. intelligibleintellectual gods, and ‘henads’ in the realm of the One – though they rejected the two Ones), this process reaching its culmination in the thought of the last head of the Athenian Academy, Damascius (c.456–540). The drive to systematize reality and to objectivize concepts, exhibited most dramatically in Proclus’s Elements of Theology, is a lasting legacy of the later Neoplatonists, and had a significant influence on the thought, among others, of Hegel. See also COMMENTARIES ON PLATO, ISLAMIC NEOPLATONIS. J.M.D.