Review of: Neoplatonism after Derrida. Parallelograms. By Stephen Gersh. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2006. Pp. xv + 223. $147.00 (cloth). ISBN 9789004151550.

Review: (M.) Martijn Proclus on Nature. Philosophy of Nature and its Methods in Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus. Leiden: Brill, 2010. Pp. x + 360. £105. 978900-4181915 The Journal of Hellenic Studies, 2012

Neoplatonism after Derrida is a significant study of the history of philosophy, and covers ground rarely explored before, in an extremely thorough, fruitful, and persuasive manner. However, it poses serious interpretive problems for the reader. It presents an extremely detailed and complex analysis of both Neoplatonism and Derridean…[Read more]

In his commentary on Euclid, Proclus says both that the first principle of geometry are self-evident and that they are hypotheses received from the single, highest, unhypo- thetical science, which is probably dialectic. The implication of this seems to be that a geometer both does and does not know geometrical truths. This dilemma only exists if…[Read more]

I examine the relation between sensation and discursive thought (dianoia) in Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus. In Theaetetus, a soul whose highest faculty was sensation would have no unified experience of the sensible world, lacking universal ideas to give order to the sensible flux. It is implied that such universals are grasped by the soul’s t…[Read more]

According to his Cratylus commentary Proclus thinks that, although an oracle or a poet is the customary promulgator of a divine name, it is the philosopher who is the authoritative interpreter of that divine name. The reason for this is that the philosopher has the same access to the source of revelation as does the oracle or the poet, because the…[Read more]

In this paper I will examine Proclus’ Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato in order to shed light on his doctrine of the partial soul’s nous. Proclus’ epistemology is in many ways the heart of his system. The human soul is a microcosm, and because each of its faculties corresponds to one or other order of the macrocosm, the soul’s knowled…[Read more]

On pourrait avoir l’impression que dans l’interprétation de Proclus de la ligne divisée de Platon, il y a deux types de connaissance des objets supérieurs : une noêsis ascendante qui monte jusqu’au principe anhypothétique, et dont les objets sont les eidê simples, et une dianoia qui inclut les mathématiques, dont le mouvement est descendant e…[Read more]

In the 7th essay of his Commentary on the Republic of Plato, Proclus supplies the elements of a fairly robust Neoplatonic political philosophy. In general he agrees with Plato’s account of the tripartite soul and the four cardinal virtues, while introducing important nuances into the theory. The idea of the dominance of one part of the soul over a…[Read more]

Philosophy has as its task not only the discovery of the determinations into which all things fall, but also the explanation of how these determinations arise. In Proclus we may distinguish three related sorts of deter- minations. First, there are the determinations which emerge within any given taxis in the hierarchy of all things and which may…[Read more]

In this study I will show how Neoplatonism is not properly understood as a moment within the Hegelian dialectic. The Hegelian analysis obscures both the true character of the Neoplatonic One, and the Neoplatonic account of the relation between thought and its object, because it treats these positions as deficient versions of itself. We must r…[Read more]

For Proclus philosophical system is expressed in dianoetic terms. Thus while Proclus is a systematic thinker, the terms in which his system is written themselves fall short of the reality which they seek to express. Moreover, because dianoia is a thinking which never has a complete grasp on its object, the Procline system must be considered to be…[Read more]

Proclus discusses imagination (phantasia) in the second prologue to his Euclid commentary. In his discussion, he describes phantasia in terms which make it seem like a passive screen, onto which geometrical figures are projected. However, he also speaks of phantasia in this text in terms which make it seem active, as if it were the projector…[Read more]

A reconstruction of the Greek text of the final part of Proclus’ Commentary on the Parmenides, from the extant Latin, by Carlos Steel and Friedrich Rumbach, with an English translation by D. Gregory MacIsaac.

In Proclus dianoia is the Soul’s thinking activity, through which it makes itself into a divided image of Nous. Dianoia’s thoughts are logoi, because in the Greek philosophical tradition, logos came to mean a division of a prior unity (ch.I). Proclus’ theory of dianoia rejects induction, and is a conscious development of Plato’s theory of…[Read more]

While there has been a growing acknowledgement of the existence of earlier examples of television science fiction, the typical history of the genre still privileges Nigel Kneale’s The Quatermass Experiment (1953) as foundational. This was a significant production, and an effective piece of television drama, but it was not the first piece of B…[Read more]

Each Christmas during his tenure as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, M.R.James would take part in a ritual celebration of Christmas with students and colleagues which invariably culminated with the reading of a ghost story. This tradition drew on a long tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas that can be traced back through the l…[Read more]

There is a long tradition in the UK, in England in particular, of the Christmas ghost story. The most famous is probably Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, but close behind are the ghost stories of M.R.James. James wrote many of his stories as Christmas entertainments, but this link was reinforced in the 1970s w…[Read more]

This paper focuses on UK and US traditions of seasonal horror at Christmas and Halloween to consider how they provide opportunities for reflection on the causes of fear at liminal times in the calendar. These liminal times contain numerous traditions dedicated to looking back and forward, such as end of year reviews, or addresses from heads of…[Read more]

Responding to the title of the seminar, “Nordic Art Education in Motion,” and to its theme, “Digital competences and computational thinking: preparing children, young people and adults for a digitalized society,” I discuss the “archaic identity of change” (to draw from Etel Adnan) present in calls for motion and preparation. I conceptualize art…[Read more]