24. Neo-Platonism

we're dealing with the 3rd century AD and in that connection we're dealing with the two major philosophical / religious movements that were affecting culture generally pagan culture and Christian culture and we're also affecting and shaping the thought of Augusto jewelry we are going to get to will actually start probably a little bit of a dusting tomorrow but I will not test you on a gun by the way fair game for the test set Friday is the material I'm covering today this reading that you did I know you understood it was scintillating I know you took you were amazed of the help that it gave you an understanding the nature of faith that is fair game for the test you want me to explain it to you digested and now I just want you to get it don't kill yourself over it I just want you to know fundamentally what's it about you don't need to get all the details of it I know it has a little bit of challenge to it but you can get the basic idea yes no you read it you guys well yesterday you were all done by the end of the period you were having fun throwing paper airplanes I knew you got it because I can tell the indicia of the classroom told me clearly that's you at all mastered it because I felt such a relaxed attitude in the class by the end of the period so anyway I will explain it to you but not before the test I want this to be a reading comprehension exercise so just get the best out of it you can anyway fair game for the test Friday will be the discussion today what's called neoplatonism and of course what we covered earlier mana penis for manicures I will not test you on anything about Agustin himself except maybe a bot question from this reading so you should have an idea I will say this about the reading he is responding to somebody who apparently is posing questions about or otherwise being influenced by the mana keys and so the entire purpose of this writing is to establish the true understanding always proceeds in a sense by faith I believe in order to understand is sort of the motto of Agustin and he's trying to argue in this piece I shouldn't tell you this much I'm making your job way too easy that really everything you know to some degree depends on the premise of faith the man akise viewed themselves as rationalist you should only believe that what you can prove and so they were naturalist in a sense they were dualist but they were really committed to the idea that you know only reason gives you things that you should believe and Agustin wants to are you know in some ways faith is necessary in order to understand anything and we'll talk more about Agustin's view of faith later but just at least have that much in mind it'll help you so that's one of the influences the other one is the Neal plays the guy usually associated with neoplatonism the name is the name of anybody know this who's the most famous name the founder of neoplatonism and his name is hey buddy no takers ever heard of the Plotinus never heard of that name alright now you have Platonists platanus was a contemporary of manny while titus lived from 205 to 270 they were both 3rd century pagans neither of them claim to be Christian both of them however claimed to make a place for Christianity both of them thought they could accommodate Christianity so they are both synchronistic in that sense Manny wants to say that Christ was one of on many he was up there with Buddha you know and Zoroaster and so on that was Maddie's approach platanus is actually giving what amounts to a conscious alternative to the Christian faith he wants to say the Christians are onto something but I have something better and so he's giving a he this is a tent really to improve he might say on the Christian faith plotinus is true gnostic so he would be one of the most clear-cut examples of Gnosticism we'll find along the way conversation here you know and so whenever you think of Gnosticism usually people will think of plotinus is one of the most important all right I want to get I don't want to talk about his life his life is boring who cares but I do want to talk about his spot so the pot of Platonists is really what's the core is here and again as we've done before I want to do this in terms of certain themes or talking points these are the things you want to know about Neoplatonism in general flow time is in particular and it'll be important to get this because when we talk about Agustin I'm going to refer back to this so even though now it may not seem like it's all that important but it was very important when we try to digest Agustin he is first of all an idealistic monist now you are versatile up with the jargon a philosophy that you can probably tell me without much effort what would an idealistic monist be Matthew what just pops to your mind based on your familiarity of jargon and philosophy and idealistic monist would be black in a sense that's right that's what I say about that what is an idealist first of all I would use that term that's right and so an idealist okay that's pretty good he believes well let's go with that he believes that there's some kind of level of transcendent reality the ideal and then the monist part would be what that's pretty good then in a sense everything is resolvable to one fundamental substance he's a monist a duelist would say like the manikyam manikyam there's a conflict there's great good there's great evil there war monist is the opposite of a duelist omona says there's one fundamental reality so you put it together there's a transcendent level the ideal and yet somehow that ideal is found in everything else so Matthew that's not bad it's pretty good shot just based on that phrase alone he is an e policy emanation idea everything emanates from this fundamental reality so so far he hasn't said anything that we haven't seen before this is all more or less comparable to ideas we've seen before the second little talking point is that evil equals unreality we've seen that before the mana key said that evil is a separate reality against the good the two are in conflict eternal conflict Platina says evil is not real but evil is simply that which you find as you move farther from that fundamental transcendent reality that we would call God he doesn't call it God but we would call okay and that brings us to the third most important talking point which has several sub points to it this is his cosmology platonist begins with the notion of a singular core ultimate reality that he calls the one the one is ineffable i n EF a ble new word who knows the word ineffable hey you know that word Spencer okay you've heard it that's good start anybody else heard the word ineffable all right good anybody wanna take a stab at it in ethical Sydney not exactly it's good good thought all right learn it now you're responsible for this word from here on in for the rest of your lives ineffable means incapable of being described incapable of being described you know that many times we describe experiences in life by using the term like night I mean like the way teenagers like use the word like you know what like I mean you with me you know I don't mean that I mean comparing one thing to another so Trevor goes off to Disney World he comes back we walk up to him grab him by the collar and say hey man what was it like right never said something like that and of course what we mean is can you draw parallels can you draw analogies between that experience that you had there and anything that I've experienced in my life what is it like to which I can relate is the sense of the question what was it like to go to Disney what was it like what was it like you know to eat three pounds of cotton candy what was it like you know some million you are you are asking the question and the question is can you draw comparisons between this experience that you've had that I have not had and anything to which I can relate in my own set of experiences that's implied in the question what was it like whenever you say what is the one like the answer is there is no answer it is not like anything there is no analogy that can be drawn there's no comparison you can make though the one is ineffable indescribable utterly transcendent and beyond any human experience and anytime in life you have anything going on where you say this just can't describe it if you want to impress people you could say it was really ineffable you just throw that word in there people be impressed you know but this is the way that it is properly used to describe something that is so foreign so completely outside the scope of ordinary human experience that you just simply say it's ineffable and so platanus does a whole lot with this and he writes paragraphs it's really amazing almost funny flow time this is by the way a very brilliant guy I don't under and underestimate him he writes whole paragraphs about the things you cannot say about the one he's not this he's not that he's got this he's not in motion he's not at rest he's not being he's not non-being he's not this is it goes on and on he's not intelligence he's not not until he's not person he's not non person bla bla bla he goes through the line after line paragraph I prepare all the stuff you cannot say about the one and he develops what came to be called in theology the way of negation which in Latin is what anybody know of the phrase it would be called the way of negation it would be the takers I think I probably gave it to you somewhere along the way okay very good sometimes it that would be one way of putting it via negativa or the be in the Ghazi honest Vienna God's the illness sound without I butchered the last part of the word but I usually do you know when in doubt scribble and all that so on the Vienna got illness the way of negation and I just want you to appreciate that even though platanus is no Christian and as many times not viewed as much of a friend of Christianity this was viewed as very serviceable in the development of theology that we do our theology partly by saying things about God and partly by saying the things that we cannot say about God in in many ways theology is as much a matter of denying things as of affirming things the doctrine of the Trinity in many ways is not simply an affirmative statement but a negative statement God is not this he's not that you know the Council of Chalcedon V in the Godsey onus Christ is one nature I'm sorry it's two natures one person right without mixture confusion separation division that's it you know negating and so in a sense even though we don't like well China's a whole lot we feel like he killed us he went over the top because he wanted up saying there's nothing you could say about God everything is in negation all right so that's the one out of the one comes the second level and I don't know the way I saw this picture once and I'm not sure I could do it but it's sort of like an umbrella this is more difficult than it looks now you know an umbrella has little spines when you open it up and that's what these are these little points out here those little points are part of what platanus calls the noose in a u.s. noose so we start with the one that's the highest level the second level is noose what is the meaning of the Greek word noose Sara it is mind a the noose is according to Platina s-- god thinking now I'm not sure how he gets away with that because he's already told us there's nothing we can say about God but he sneaks this one in the back door this the noose is God thinking and platanus locates here in God's thoughts what we otherwise know of as Plato's ideal world so the idea that we have of a perfect circle the idea that we have of a perfect equilateral triangle you know the idea we have of absolute beauty all of those things that we've already discussed earlier in connection with Plato those ideas that somehow we have an intuition of are actually the thoughts of God God is the one who's thinking those things and each of these little points that I have put on my umbrella each of those is a human so we took what each of us in this room is a little part of the noose that's why you can think about a perfect circle to our knowledge dogs don't think about perfect circles dogs don't reflect on absolute beauty that's something that somehow in the mind of a human being so notice here this is where as Matt was telling us the monism comes for us it's not simply that our minds are aware in a sense our minds are the noose right God is greater than our mind but it says God thinking is God thinking in a tree all of these human minds it puts humanity in a very strategic place in Titus's cosmology now I want you to get this this may seem just kind of weird strange and over please get it because a Gustin uses this and this becomes extremely important in Christian history more than you might guess even though the idea seems to come from a pagan here but do we have this notion that the noose is composed on all of these little points the human mind all right the next level is what what is calls the psyche the suitcase and that word means what mr. Piggott what's the meaning of word suit que psyche like psychology psychoanalysis psychotic no go ahead please for them psycho great movie psychic nice try as a simpler meaning that what's the Greek word psyche means man you know this you're a Greek scholar Greek word psyche sookay well it could be but not not it's a simpler meaning of that how many know just word for soul was that pretty good safe they call okay no no that's supposed to be more Freudian than we want to get here so we put little definitions will say the one is God the news is mind and the psyche is sold and what plotinus means by psyche what he means here by soul is yours your ability to think to reason and and what I want you to get here it's a bit of a subtle point but you can do this your ability to reason your ability to think about things like you know causation the law of non-contradiction your ability to put things in classes to say this belongs in the class of that you know this belongs in the class of markers your ability to do that classification discipline that Aristotle engages in your ability to do that requires that you already have Plato's ideas in your head this is where Aristotle got it wrong according to Platonists and according to you know people in the Platonic tradition generally Aristotle said please get this please work on this turn your brains on running down these Aristotle said I'd go through life and I notice that things are similar I see you know I don't have to markers but I have enjoyed erasers I noticed that these two objects are quite distinct from each other this one is sort of like made of animal foam rubber or something and this one's got plastic and so on but I look at these and I successfully put them in the same class right I say both are erasers even though they are not quite the same I look at two chairs one is cushy like the one sitting back there that happily nobody is sitting in right now and others are these hard bumpy things that are intending to keep you awake because they're basically not comfortable and yet I put both of them together in the same class don't I I say they're both chairs Aristotle tells me the reason I do that is because I notice the similarity right that's Aristotle's scientific method but do you see that I still have to have in my head a prior idea of similarity itself I have to have in my mind an idea of similarity and difference of class of set of in other words there's already something in my mind that must be present before I can do what Aristotle tells me I do to make sense out of the universe Plato says to Aristotle you could not classify things but for an idea of class itself so like you couldn't you couldn't call any particular thing like a circle unless you already had the notion of circle ness in your mind you see Plato still says Aristotle you can't do your work without my ideal world somehow working there and that's what plotinus is saying do you follow the Spencer go ahead well I'm speaking a little solid truth I'm speaking for Plato against Aristotle when I say this this would be Plato's response it is in fact but I this is response to the Aristotelian but it has also been I might just say a kind of Christian perspective how come I can reason how come even a pagan who doesn't trust Jesus didn't save doesn't regenerate isn't going to how come even a pagan can do the Pythagorean theorem you know how come and the answer from the Christian point of view has been because even that person is somehow enlightened by an idea that was given to him by God that person's rationality is a gift of God that maybe the meaning of John's gospel and it says he enlightens every man who comes into the world not every Christian man every man he is the light of the world reason itself comes somehow from God and from the creation that comes through Christ you see and so even though Platonists again is not we don't view him as Saints or anything you may be under something he said is my ability to reason it's only possible because I have this ability to thank God's thoughts the problem in Platanias is that the reason I think God's thoughts is because I'm a little piece of God the Christian doesn't go that far I know I don't thoughts because I am God but nevertheless I do have that ability to somehow think the thoughts of God and that's Plato's ideal world next level in blue titus is what he calls the useless the fuses this would be the word from which and actually true Greek letter I still actually wrote a truthfully they've actually keep it therapy PHY sis which you might pronounce something like physis or something but it's pronounced fuses and it's just because of the ambiguity of the Greek letter but this is the word from which we get words like physical you know like physical education or something like that this word this Greek word simply means nature and what I despise it to emotion so this is the unreasoning part of your human experience you know emotion is not exactly a reasonable thing you don't get up in the morning and go through a rational process and think well today it makes sense for me to be slightly bored so that's my that's what I'm going to do today because that's reasonable that's rational you know if you're happy if you're sad melancholy you're ecstatic if you're whatever emotions you may be feeling in this room we've got a variety of emotions right now I assume you know but none of those emotions were arrived at at the end of a syllogism see there we have a very good if I like that emotion you know but that's not reasonable it's not it's not doesn't mean you're unreasonable just means that emotions somehow floats at a different level in human experience than the exercise of rationality he doesn't deny that that's important he also notices that you can see the same thing in animals and so he calls this innocence the animal soul or the animal side of us we do have a kind of animal side to our existence I can get a dog excited I can throw the frisbee and jump up and down and do a bunch of things and get a dog kind of juiced up you know and I could do the same thing with you goodnight I could start singing breaking up is hard to do you know mr. Williams and and you might say to yourself hmm what mr. Gore's doing right now is not very reasonable but it's making me feel certain emotions now who knows what those emotions are right comb of hair needless to say I'm not gonna quit my day job start making records but I could yeah yeah I could some people wish I would but that is something distinct from rationality and so that's that level then the next level down is what he calls matter so matter is just pure material that's concrete and mortar you know so on and then finally the last one down is non-va now you'll see here that this does have some similarity to what we've talked about otherwise the emanation idea is at work you see this you know clearly enough but Plotinus is private new level of sophistication to it and it pretends particular what he's bringing out the we should appreciate is this idea that in a sense our ability to function our ability to reason our ability to that which is distinctively human is only possible because we have some connection somehow with this higher order of reality and that if we didn't have that connection we would not be able to even have a class like this in which I'm giving you a lecture in which you are sitting there acting like you're paying attention you know I wouldn't be able to do this exercise except for this ability we all have to tap into something above all of us a level of Reason a level of rationality that is really what plato was playing with in this world of the ideal this is what Plato was after and we all sort of share it in common and so we can hopefully have some common ground as we discuss things because we all share this this up this higher transcendent level of you know ideals and that was really what pluton developed and a gossiper was very impressed with that and he incorporated that into his epistemology and so we'll come back to this and kind of talk about it in that connection next talking point here and Plotinus is his anthropology what is anthropology what is that Josiah anthropology is alright and what do you think now you know enough to answer this question aside what do you think would be the heart of the Anthropology of Latinas based on everything we've said here what conclusion might you at least guess what time this would draw from all of that what is his analysis of the nature of humanity it's the question what is the nature of man and I think you know enough to answer the question based on what we've already said here in terms of his cosmology his cosmology leads to his anthropology not at all that's right there is it's right and can you taking the other steps and that reasoning diffuses now is in insofar as it's closer to non-being yeah remember him evil is not really real so he doesn't worry too much about that you're on the right track anybody want to help out here what do you suppose would be plotinus anthropology go ahead Megan that we have heard of with god yes so Wednesday were all God in a sense he would say that something a little bit more than that that's true anybody else take Sabbath this come on looking for genius here suddenly what do you think and what would be anthropology what is the nature of man that's the question what is the nature of man okay Kristen okay it's part of it Nicole that's okay it's true we have a little God in us what else do we have in us what are we having this we have man in us and what is man go ahead sir you gotta think like a boss were here one is gonna say we do so they wait apologies to stay through 234 all right all right that's that's close enough that's pretty good so here's the word I want you to know and Trevor gets the gold cigar here for this light it up not the gold cigar no you know and it's just a Fig Newton don't do it all right we are a here's the word microcosm in that word what is a microcosm the term you've all heard what is it Jacob what is a microcosm it's something small or smaller that's right and so what in what sense is humanity microcosmic of the cosmology and Platanos just I mean you basically set it so now say it again in connection with time okay that's it y'all get that that's Spencer yeah looks like conversation here all right everything from the one on the one hand to the non being on the other you will find in man man is a microcosm of all of that it's all in you God is in you nooses in you psyche is and you fuses in you you are material if I shoot you and come back in six weeks I'm gonna find dirt or at least something like that sorry I want to do that Sarah I'm just I'm just speaking you know there's even non-being in you you see we are a combination of all these things and that's the that is the method by which he feels like he's gotten the right answer he thinks he's discovered the right answer in many in in large part by a correct examination of himself and of others in his laboratory next talking point is salvation how are you saved and for Platina salvation is decidedly a mystical process in the history of thought there been two flavors of mysticism they're sometimes called ontological mysticism and the pissed of illogical mysticism all right anybody want to take a stab at the difference Laura nobody wants to including Laura won't be the difference between ontological mysticism and epistemological mysticism or what do you think go ahead you know those words you know all those words put it together you're on the right track what is mysticism what does that term mean forever what is mysticism well if you call what is that how would you describe mysticism I would straddle it's something that you can't you know very well like that would be something that's mystical so what is mysticism what is that bit your letters right Frank are very very good belief that you can't really know okay all right the idea what is what is a mystic never met anyone that you thought was kind of like a mystic Sarah oh that person you like if you met someone maybe you are one what is a mystic you know but you know the term yeah kind of out there you meet somebody and they're just sounds like weird you know this kind of strange and there you might say if such person they're really mystical it's like they just SAR operating in a different universe all right well mysticism in the history of the church is that a very important role to play the medieval mystics you'll hear of them and so what do you suppose a if you're a Christian and a mystic what is your mystical discipline trying to achieve okay mystics tend to be very disciplined they tend to go through these rigorous processes of reflection and meditation and so on what are they trying to accomplish what's going on John you're a Christian mystic what are you trying to accomplish maybe could be Avery if you're a Christian mystic what are you trying to what's your 20 what are you doing what are you trying to achieve I mean you have these people in the Middle Ages that devoted their lives to mystical disciplines hours of prayer meditation reflection chanting things going what are they trying to do what's what's not that all about to mean this is killing time what okay yeah and they want to reach it epistemologically so they can know it that's what epistemology is right what's the difference between epistemological mystic and an ontological mystic Steven a Christian mystic would typically be epistemological what's the most famous religion in the world that would represent ontological mysticism sure that's well it could be and so what is the mystic in the Hindu tradition trying to achieve what's their ultimate objective just to know God - what more than that what Spencer they want to become God so here you miss the old drop in the ocean deal right there's the ocean here's Spencer he's a drop Spencer drops into the ocean three seconds later can we find Spencer anymore now he's been mixed A's become that's ontological mysticism that's you lose yourself in this greater reality Christian mystics have never gone that far and remain Christians and maybe they become Buddhist or something they're not Christians well platanus is an ontological mystic he wants you to engage in this salvation process in an upward quest to actually lose herself ultimately in the one to lose your identity that's why it's important for him that you don't simply know the mind of God then if some sense or other you are the mind of God and that's ultimately the quest that you have as a human being is to be merged into that God that mind which should be honest with you sounds to me like I mean I've always found it a little bit appealing to still know a million years from now an eternity who I am and who Krista is and who you guys are you know that we're going to be looking back on this class period in eternity and you're gonna be saying you know cor that really wasn't that bad a lecture I don't know why we were misbehaving the whole class you know I've always thought it would be nice to have that sort of anticipation but to lose myself in God and just cease to be Who I am just kind of become ocean but anyway that's what Platonists was about he was about losing yourself in that so his salvation was clearly a sort of mystical approach last thing for him creation the creation of this God is an involuntary automatic that's the Greek in him we've already seen this before it's part of what Sibelius was saying Sibelius by the way was heavily influenced by Neoplatonism some people will say he was Neoplatonic but I just wanted to give this to you at this point because we need to have in view to get ready for accustomed all right now you have mantequilla some under control you have Neoplatonism under control right Spencer Neoplatonism is a word that can be used broadly or narrowly so when I use it I'm using the narrow sense this is the original neoplatonism in history but many people are called Neoplatonic and see as Lois is one of them okay but they don't mean Neoplatonic as in a follower of Latinas they mean Neoplatonic as then you see platonic influences in their thought which is certainly doing in Co schools by

Channel: Bruce Gore

Views: 18,328

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Keywords: Plotinus, Neo-platonism, Bruce Gore, emanation

Id: osifQrujav8

Length: 48min 51sec (2931 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 31 2015