Edrisi Fernandes

Os povos da civilização islâmica clássica viram Platão (Aflātūn, Falāṭūn, Flātūn; raramente Aflāṭus ou Falāṭus) como um dos “sete sábios” ou “mestres de sabedoria” da Grécia, segundo Abū ’l-Fatḥ alShahrastānī (m. em. 1153) no Kitāb al-Milal wa’l-Nihal (“Livro das Seitas e Credos”), ou, conforme Alī ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Qifṭī (m. em 1248) no Kitāb Ikhbar al-‘Ulama‘ bi Akhbar al-Ḥukama’ (“Livro das Notícias dos Eruditos com os Relatos dos Sábios”, mais conhecido como Ta'rikh al-Ḥukama’, “História dos Sábios”), um dos sete “pilares da sabedoria” junto com Tales, Anaxágoras, Anaxímenes, Empédocles, Pitágoras e Sócrates (ALON, 2006, p. 319)

In his Commentary on the Timaeus Proclus says that in some occasions Plato speaks of a model (from which the world is created) that is identical to the Demiurge while in other occasions he suggests that the model is distinct from the Demiurge. Here, identity and difference refer to the similarity with or dissimilarity from the intelligible One, identified with eternity (stability; fixedness). However, Plato also speaks in the Timaeus that the Cosmos is pretty and its Constructor (the Demiurge) is good inasmuch as He fixed his sight in the perpetual model. If we ask what is produced when the Demiurge fixed his sight in a model that it is not identical to Himself, we find the reply in the Timaeus: envy, defects, disorder, limitation regarding intelligence and the soul, incompleteness, ugliness, and imperfection. Plotinus, on his turn, mentions (Enneads, II.4) the existence of two types of matter, intelligible and sensible. The intelligible or divine matter is equivalent to the "indefinite Dyad", identified with the procession of the Noûs. For Plotinus, though the intelligible matter is eternal and invariant, its archê is constituted by difference and movement - conditions that prepare the naturation of sensible matter. For Proclus, the Soul, an unfolding of the Noûs, mediates between the Intellect, intelligible matter and sensible matter. Many interpreters seem to have understood inteligible matter as the matter of the Soul, and to explain the interaction between the intelligible and the sensible many theories have appeared regarding the constitution of intelligible matter and about the nature of the "vehicle" or "vehicles" that would be associated with the Soul's "descent" and incarnation.

Este artigo consiste em uma avaliação da conjuntura e implicações da afirmação por Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph [von] Schelling, em suas Investigações Filosóficas sobre a Essência da Liberdade Humana (1809), de que Plotino teria descrito a transição do Bem originário para a matéria e o mal de modo perspicaz mas insuficiente. Vislumbrando a necessidade de refutar a concepção gnóstica da matéria sensível e do tempo- spaço como sendo maus, Schelling não apenas estimou as deficiências da teodiceia de Plotino, construída antinomicamente em relação ao entendimento gnóstico do problema do Mal, mas também reconheceu suas virtudes, assimilando de Plotino contribuições essenciais à sua própria filosofia