Andre Jean Festugiere (1898-1982) a ete directeur d'etudes a l'Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes de 1943 a 1968. C'est pendant cette longue periode qu'il a donne une formidable impulsion, a Paris, aux etudes consacrees a l'Antiquite tardive Naturellement c'est aussi par ses publications nombreuses que le Pere Festugiere a contribue au rayonnement international de l'histoire de la philosophie a la fin du paganisme. On peut recenser 73 livres et 277 articles de revues et comptes rendus de livres. A (...) la fin de sa vie, il a reuni les plus importants de ses articles disperses en trois volumes. En 1971, ce furent les Etudes de philosophie grecque, en 1972, les Etudes de religion grecque et hellenistique et en 1975, les Etudes d'histoire et de philologie. Voici la reimpression des Etudes de philosophie grecque, qu'il a divisees en trois parties: d'abord les problemes generaux, puis les problemes de detail, enfin les Procliana. Les problemes de detail traitent ou bien de notions (eternite, endurance, peche) ou bien de questions particulieres posees par les ecrits de Platon, d'Aristote, de Theophraste, de Galien, d'Aristide Quintilien, ou d'expressions obscures dont le sens est devoile, tandis que les problemes generaux s'attaquent au probleme du mal, a celui du plaisir, aux rapports des philosophes grecs avec les sages orientaux et l'Inde, au systeme d'Aristote et aux genres de vie active et contemplative dans le monde greco-romain. Par la lecture de ces articles, le Pere Festugiere continue et continuera longtemps encore a enseigner ses lecteurs. (shrink)

A distinguished French scholar has recently set himself to delineate the history of Greek thought, from the time of Plato through the formation of the Hellenistic systems to the days of the empire, distinguishing two opposing tendencies, one towards pantheism and the other towards a philosophy of transcendence. But that distinction can be traced also in earlier periods than those with which Fr. Festugière is concerned, and it can be applied to theories of the soul equally with theories of God; (...) this theme I hope to illustrate on a tiny scale in the early part of my paper, drawing attention to tendencies on the one hand to treat the soul as part of nature, on the other to place it outside nature. The former of these is the earlier. (shrink)

L'ouvrage de M. Yvon Brès sur la Psychologie de Platon se rattache à la meilleure tradition des grands platonisants français. Nous connaissions déjà l'interprétation historique et systématique de Robin, celle mystico-chrétienne, d'inspiration néo-platonicienne de Festugière, l'approche littéraire de Schaerer et ses recherches sur les rapports entre la pensée et l'expression dans les dialogues platoniciens, l'interprétation structuraliste de Goldschmidt, celle historique et évolutionniste de Schuhl, l'approche socio-politique de Luccioni et de Chatelet, l'interprétation « idéalisante » de Moreau. 1967). A cette longue (...) liste M. Brès vient d'ajouter son approche freudienne de l'œuvre platonicienne. L'ouvrage n'a guère été improvisé puisque M. Brès nous signale qu'il était déjà sur le métier dans les années 1960–61. Nous n'avons pas de peine à le croire si nous en jugeons par la qualité du travail que l'auteur offre à ses lecteurs. Laissant de côté les détails d'interprétation nous aimerions discuter avec l'auteur les problèmes généraux, d'ordre méthodologique, que pose une approche freudienne de l'ensemble des dialogues platoniciens. (shrink)

Research into the so-called “philosophical” Hermetica has long been dominated by the foundational scholarship of André-Jean Festugière, who strongly emphasized their Greek and philosophical elements. Since the late 1970s, this perspective has given way to a new and more complex one, due to the work of another French scholar, Jean-Pierre Mahé, who could profit from the discovery of new textual sources, and called much more attention to the Egyptian and religious dimensions of the hermetic writings. This article addresses the question (...) of how, on these foundations, we should evaluate and understand the frequent hermetic references to profound but wholly ineffable revelatory and salvational insights received during “ecstatic” states. Festugière dismissed them as “literary fictions”, whereas Mahé took them much more seriously as possibly reflecting ritual practices that took place in hermetic communities. Based upon close reading of three central texts (CH I, CH XIII, NH VI6), and challenging existing translations and interpretations, this article argues that the authors of the hermetic corpus assumed a sequential hierarchy of “levels of knowledge”, in which the highest and most profound knowledge (gnōsis) is attained only during ecstatic or “altered” states of consciousness that transcend rationality. While the hermetic teachings have often been described as unsystematic, inconsistent, incoherent or confused, in fact they are grounded in a precise and carefully formulated doctrine of how the hermetic initiate may move from the domain of mere rational discourse to the attainment of several “trans-rational” stages of direct experiential knowledge, and thereby from the limited and temporal domain of material reality to the unlimited and eternal one of Mind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:740 BOOK REVIEWS Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition. By STEPHEN GERSH, Publications in Medieval Studies, No. 23, edited by Ralph Mcinerny. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986. Vol. I: Pp. xx+ 413. Vol. II: Pp. xviii+ 500. $75 (cloth). In his new book Stephen Gersh pursues an ambitious and worthy goal: to provide an encyclopedic survey, from Cicero to Boethius, of the Platonists who (...) wrote in Latin and wern the primary sources for the diffusion of Platonic doctrine in the Christian Middle Ages. Those interested in the subject will be delighted to learn that this study, despite its massive scale, is actually an introduction to a large project -the hiSJtory of the mediev1al Platonic tradition, especially in the eighth, ninth and eleventh centuries. These volumes (in conjunction with the succeeding volumes) will be of great interest both to medievalists and to historians of philosophy in late antiquity. The introduction addresses several important historical questions, the most important of which is the relationship between Plato and later Platonism. Like may historians of late antique and medieval philosophy Gersh sees the Middle Platonists and Neoplatonists as much more faithful followers of Plato.than most scholars of ancient philosophy would concede. His argument for the rapprochement of Plato and later Platonists follows the tradition of eminent scholars like Festugiere and de Vogel; in the end he rejects, justifiably I think, a rigid distinction hetween Platonic doctrine on the one hand and the uncritical, syncretistic Platonism of the Neoplatonists on the other in favor of the view that later Platonists made explicit doctrine out of the implicit statements and casual remarks of Plato. My only complaint is with Gersh's procedure: anyone unfamiliar with the stormy debates on the issue of Neoplatonic fidelity to Plato will finish his discussion with little awareness of the serious problems of interpretation that will perhaps always remain. Another question raised is: Which thinkers should be discussed? Though he clearly recognizes the significant role played by patristic writers in transmitting Platonic doctrine to the Middle Ages, Gersh chooses to limit the study to pagan sources or those, like Boethius, who write in the pagan philosophical tradivion. The strategy is certainly valid, given the great dependence of the Fathers on the indirect tradition, but more extensive consideration of their _widely varying attitudes towards the assimilation of Platonism into Christian philosophy would have ·been desirable. Significant difficulties are sidestepped when Christian writers are classified under the rubrics of ' Christian Middle BOOK REVIEWS 741 Platonic' and 'Christian Neoplatonic '. Under the latter Gersh includes Augustine despite the fact that in many respects-e.g. on the ineffability of the First Principle, rigorous application of negative theology, and the status of the intelligible world-Augustine's views are much closer to Middle Platonism than to Neoplatonism. This is often true of the Greek Fathers as well, despite their closer familiarity with Plotinian texts. A more precise demarcation of the lines of influence is required here. The study is divided into chapters devoted to exposition of the views of the major Latin writers who served as sources for medieval writers (approximate length of chapters fa noted in parentheses ) : Cicero (100), Seneca (40), Gellius (15), Apuleius (15), the Latin Asclepius (60), Calcidius (70), Macrobius (105), Martianus Capella (50), Boethius (70), several excursuses on minor authors, and an appendix on Varro (30). The size and quality of several chapters make them among the most important studies in English of their subjects, especially in the cases of Cicero, Apuleius, Calcidius, Macrobius, and the Latin Asclepius. Each section is arranged roughly in the same manner: an introductory footnote (often running to several pages) which provides in exhaustive detail the bibliography on an author's influence in the Middle Ages; an account of the author's dates, works, and influences on him; and finally an exposition of central doctrines, the heart of each chapter. To organize this extensive doxographical tour Gersh explains how each writer treats the same metaphysical themes: the relation of macrocosm to microcosm and of transcendence to immanence ; the nature of the first and second principles; the theory of forms; and the nature of the soul. If one wishes to ascertain the... (shrink)