Middle and Neoplatonism

Abstract

This is the longest chapter of the book, because of the number, nature, and importance of the philosophers that take the side of Plato and develop his teleological idealism in different directions. It also includes several early Christian thinkers – Augustin among them – whose philosophical background and inspiration are largely Platonic. For reasons of consistency, this chapter explores this complex and long-lived philosophical movement through the same categories that have been used in previous chapters, namely the conflict between immanence and transcendence, the questions of nature’s hierarchies, teleology and providence, as well as the origin of evil. However, new elements are introduced because of the puculiar reworking of these ideas within the new and original monotheism of the Judeo-Christian early tradition, as well as their importance for the later medieval and early modern philosophy.