Conventional wisdom suggests that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity, from Plotinus (third century) to the sixth-century schools in Athens and Alexandria, neglected the political dimension of their Platonic heritage in their concentration on an otherworldly life. Dominic O'Meara presents a revelatory reappraisal of these thinkers, arguing that their otherworldliness involved rather than excluded political ideas, and he reconstructs for the first time a coherent political philosophy of Late Platonism.

This book is addressed to readers new to the Enneads. One of the greatest of ancient philosophers, Plotinus is attracting ever-increasing attention from those interested in ancient philosophy, late Antiquity, and the importance of this period for the Western intellectual tradition. O'Meara presents a brief outline of Plotinus's life, and of the composition of the Enneads, placing Plotinus within the intellectual context of the philosophical schools and religious movements of his time. He then discusses selected Plotinian texts in relation (...) to a number of central philosophical issues to show how Plotinus's thinking on these issues evolved, and to assess the historical importance of his philosophy. (shrink)

The Pythagorean idea that numbers are the key to understanding reality inspired philosophers in late Antiquity (4th and 5th centuries A.D.) to develop theories in physics and metaphysics based on mathematical models. This book draws on some newly discovered evidence, including fragments of Iamblichus's On Pythagoreanism, to examine these early theories and trace their influence on later Neoplatonists (particularly Proclus and Syrianus) and on medieval and early modern philosophy.

Ce volume est consacré aux biographies de philosophes rédigées pendant l’Antiquité, depuis l’époque des élèves de Platon et d’Aristote jusqu’aux dernières écoles de philosophie de l’Antiquité. Le volume commence par deux études consacrées aux travaux biographiques réalisés dans les écoles de Platon et d’Aristote, travaux dont nous n’avons plus que des extraits et des comptes rendus auxquels manque le contexte original nous permettant de mieux en évaluer la portée. Nous sommes ainsi réduits à...

This essay, beginning with pastoral and theological reasons why Karl Rahner is still important fifteen years after his death, discusses how his theology figures explicitly in a graduate course, and implicitly in an undergraduate course. Special attention is paid to the transcendental, categorical and historical modalities of grace and revelation.

This text considers Aquinas the theologian, his profession as a teacher and preacher, his influence past and present, and theology as the subject of his thought and most of his writings. It examines the Summa theologiae in terms of its purpose and multiple structures. The centre piece of this volume is a tour through the themes of Christianity, as presented in the Summa, themes which range from Triune divine being, to the graced person as the image of God, and a (...) member of the body of Christ, to the life beyond death. (shrink)

In this article, it is shown that, following the precedent set in particular by Marinus' "Life of Proclus", Damascius, in his "Life of Isidore", uses biography so as to illustrate philosophical progress through the Neoplatonic scale of virtues. Damascius applies this scale, however, to a wide range of figures belonging to pagan philosophical circles of the fifth century AD: they show different degrees and forms of progress in this scale and thus provide an edificatory panorama of patterns of philosophical perfection. (...) Each level of the scale of virtues is shown to be exemplified in Damascius' biographies. It is suggested that few, in Damascius' opinion, reached the highest levels of virtue and that philosophical decline is intimated in his descriptions of his contemporaries. (shrink)

Part 1 of the paper considers Mead's concept of the self as a social process which is essentially cognitive, necessarily related to the community of all rational beings and potentially free. Part 2 considers how rationality and freedom are so rooted in the evolutionary, social act that pragmatic intelligence and creativity are the evolutionary process become self-conscious. Part 3 considers morality as a social act which is both cognitive and creative. Mead's evaluation of Kant's ethics is judged insufficient; hence Mead's (...) concept of the self cannot serve as the basis for a necessary transition from factual to value judgments. Distinctions made by Sellars, Castañeda and Baier are used. (shrink)

This article by Johannes B. Lotz, S.J., never before translated into English, describes his contacts with Martin Heidegger. First it describes his arrival, along with Karl Rahner, S.J., to pursue doctoral studies in Freiburg im Breisgau and their first experiences with the famous professor. Lotz continues his narrative by mentioning times he met with Heidegger over the subsequent forty years up to the philosopher’s death. With Gustav Siewerth, Max Müller, Bernhard Welte, and Karl Rahner, Lotz belonged to a group of (...) Catholic thinkers influenced—some more, some less—by Martin Heidegger. In Lotz’s view some of Heidegger’s ideas were already found in Aquinas, and a philosophy of Being needed to go beyond existential analysis into religion, revelation, and cultural criticism. (shrink)

In the Timaeus Plato describes the world as the ‘most beautiful’ of generated things. Perhaps indeed this is the first systematic description of the beauty of the world. It is, at any rate, one of the most influential statements of the theme. The Stoics were deeply convinced by it and later, in the third century A.D., at a time when contempt and hate for the world were propagated by Gnostic movements, Plotinus, interpreting the Timaeus, would write magnificent passages on the (...) beauty and value of the world. But what does Plato mean by the ‘beauty’ of the world? What makes the world beautiful? In this paper these questions are approached first by a brief discussion of the distinction which Plato appears to make in the Timaeus between beauty and the good. In one passage ‘measure’ seems to relate to this distinction. It is suitable then to look at a section of another late work of Plato, the Philebus, where the themes of beauty, goodness and measure may be compared in more detail. The theme of measure then takes us back to the Timaeus, in order to examine the role played by measure, in particular mathematical measure, in constituting the beauty of the world. I discuss in detail the way in which mathematical structures make for the beauty of soul and body in the living whole that is the world. (shrink)

The essays in this book discuss a number of the central metaphysical and ethical themes that engaged the minds of Platonist philosophers during late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. One particular theme is that of the structure of reality, with the associated questions of the relations between soul and body and between intelligible and sensible reality, and the existence of mathematical objects. Other topics relate to evil and beauty, political life and its purpose, the philosophical search for the absolute (...) Good, and how one can speak about this Absolute and have union with it. Going from Plato to Eriugena, the ways in which Platonist philosophers understood and developed these themes are analysed and compared. (shrink)

Catholic theology today is not so much a new idea about God or Christian data but word, message, and medium interpreting and communicating the kerygma.

In his book, Reason and Morality, Gewirth has defended the principle of generic consistency as logically and materially necessary: “Act in accord with the generic rights of your recipients as well as of yourself.” This paper argues that Gewirth can make a good response to the evaluation of Adams that Gewirth gives “no conceptual analysis of ‘X is a necessary good’ and ‘X is a right’ that reveals... an entailment.” The paper also argues that Gewirth has not shown that one (...) who would claim superior rights because of superior intelligence necessarily involves himself in a logical self-contradiction. Finally, the paper considers how the positions of Gewirth and Adams could be used to provide an existentialist, assertoric foundation of morality and suggests how Gewirth would evaluate such a foundation. (shrink)