The ladder of the sciences in late antique Platonism : selected essays / Dominic J. O'Meara.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

O'Meara, Dominic J., author.

Series:

Cambridge texts and studies in Platonism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Platonists--History--To 1500.

Platonists.

Science, Ancient.

Genre:

History

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 418 pages).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2026.

Summary:

"A range of sciences was taught in the Platonist schools of late antiquity (third to sixth centuries) with the purpose of leading the human soul up to a divine life. This curriculum constituted so to speak a ladder of the sciences. The ways in which these sciences were newly interpreted in this context have not, however, been fully appreciated. This volume brings together selected essays, some translated into English for the first time, which show how a new vision of these disciplines and sciences was reached as part of a Platonist philosophical education. They cover a wide range of topics, from rhetoric, ethics and politics to mathematics, music and metaphysics, and discuss the work of various philosophers. Dominic O'Meara is considered one of the foremost scholars of Platonism and this book provides readers with an indispensable tool for accessing his most important scholarship in this area"-- Cambridge Core.

Contents:

Introduction : the ladder of the sciences as divinization in late antique Platonism

Good and bad rhetors in Damascius’ Life of Isidore

Epistolographic philosophy : the many functions of Iamblichus’ correspondence

Iamblichus’ On the Pythagorean Life in context

The praise of the mathematical sciences in late antique philosophy

The rhetoric of the ineffable in late antique philosophy

Ethics in Plotinus and his successors

Innovations in Plotinus’ theory of virtue

Ancient biographies of Pythagoras and Epicurus as models of the philosophical life

Patterns of perfection in Damascius’ Life of Isidore

Love in Plotinus’ thought

Explaining evil in late antiquity : Plotinus and his critics

Explaining evil in Justinian’s reign : Simplicius and Procopius

Philosophos Oikonomos : household ethics in Porphyry’s Vita Plotini and in Marinus’ Vita Procli

Political theory

Lady philosophy and politics in late antiquity : a tense relationship

Simplicius on the place of the philosopher in the city (In Epictetum, ch. 32)

Souls and cities in late antique Platonic philosophy

The legislation of the world and human legislation in late antique Platonism

Law and legislator in the philosophy of Julian the Emperor

Plato’s tyrant in Neoplatonic philosophy

Mathematics and the sciences in Proclus

The music of philosophy in late antiquity

The music of the virtues in late antique Platonism

Hearing the harmony of the spheres in late antiquity

The transformation of metaphysics in late antiquity

Intentional objects in later Neoplatonism

Metaphysical science (or theology) in Proclus as spiritual exercise

The foundation of the principle of non-contradiction in Syrianus

Notes on the aporetics of the one in Greek Neoplatonism.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Online resource; title from PDF title page (Cambridge Core, viewed December 23, 2025).

Other Format:

Print version: O'Meara, Dominic J. Ladder of the sciences in late antique Platonism

ISBN:

9781009539890

1009539892

OCLC:

1559963828

Publisher Number:

CIPO000314511

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license