Michael J. Griffin

In this paper, I argue for a revised account of two fundamental conceptual structures in late antique Platonism: the scale of virtues (βαθμοί τῶν ἀρετῶν) and the scale of inspired madness (βαθμοί τῶν μανίων). Both structures are invoked by Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonists between the 5th-6th centuries CE, serving to organize discussions of ethics and epistemology, metaphysics, hagiography, and reading curricula. I focus on apparently contradictory evidence for the highest tiers of the scale of virtues, as well as its relationship to the inspirations or maniai, drawing on Hermias (c.410-450 CE), Damascius (c.462-after 538 CE), and Olympiodorus (c.500-after 565 CE). While many interpreters have reasonably found these latter testimonies irreconcilable, I argue that all three witnesses share a consistent view with one another and with Proclus (412-485 CE). I conclude that the stages of virtue and inspiration may be pictured as parallel scales, which transform the human soul (psychē) in comparable ways, although inspiration reaches further. The Porphyrian sage might be compared to a painter, alternating attention between her intelligible model (paradeigma) and the ‘canvas’ of her habits, in order to adapt the latter to the former. The post-Iamblichean sage strives to act in the very moment that she receives intelligible illumination, like a dancer moving to the music of inspiration.

This paper explores two related questions in late Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism. First, how can a philosopher contemplate the eternal Forms while engaging in practical agency in the world? Second, do Neoplatonists provide a consistent account of the philosopher’s progress through the ‘stages of virtue’ (βαθμοί τῶν ἀρετῶν), the conceptual structure that underpins late antique philosophical curricula and hagiography? These questions interact, I suggest, because later Platonists appeal to the stages of virtue and divine maniai (βαθμοί τῶν μανίων) to explain the philosopher’s ability to alternate gracefully between contemplation and embodied agency, and even to engage in both activities at the same moment. I argue that apparently contradictory evidence for the highest stages of virtue can be reconciled satisfactorily, shedding light on two models of ethical and perceptual transformation that are consistent throughout later Neoplatonism. In the first, 'painterly' model, we alternate between a vision of the paradigmatic model and its expression in the media of place and time; in the second, 'dancerly' model, we contemplate in action all at once, like a dancer moving to the music.

At Aristotle,MetaphysicsE.1, 1026a14, Schwegler’s conjectural emendation of the manuscript reading ἀχώριστα to χωριστά has been widely adopted. The objects of physical science are therefore here ‘separate’, or ‘independently existent’. By contrast, the manuscripts make them ‘not separate’, construed by earlier commentators as dependent on matter. In this paper, I offer a new defense of the manuscript reading. I review past defenses based on the internal consistency of the chapter, explore where they have left supporters of the emendation unpersuaded, and attempt to strengthen their appeal. I challenge Schwegler’s central case, developed by Ross and others, that the construction μὲν ἀλλ’ οὐκ demands an implausible ‘logical antithesis’ between inseparability and mobility. This is arguably the fundamental obstacle to the manuscript reading, and counterexamples have not to date convinced emenders. I offer a new, systematic review of Aristotle’s use of the phrase, including relevant cases from theRhetoric, to show how its usual meaning in Aristotle supports the transmitted text; I also reply to possible objections. Finally, I explore the implications of this defense for the classification of the sciences in E.1.

Mythic algebra was developed in a trio of papers in the Journal of Literary Semantics. It models mythology and storytelling with algebraic sets. Expanded into a proto-mathematical system, it provides a hierarchical range of functions which can also apply to language and symbolic processes. Its relation to the three basic ‘laws of thought’ of classical logic is analyzed. Correspondences are also found with the Peircean division of a sign into icon, index, and symbol. Further applications are made to metaphor and irony.

The principate of Augustus coincided with a surge of interest in the short Aristotelian treatise which we now entitle Categories, contributing to its later installation at the outset of the philosophical curriculum and its traditional function as an introduction to logic. Thanks in part to remarks made by Plutarch and Porphyry , the origin of this interest has often been traced to Andronicus of Rhodes: his catalogue and publication of the Aristotelian corpus began with the Categories and may have drawn fresh attention to a previously obscure treatise. But the later Neoplatonic sources name several other philosophers who also discussed the Categories and played an important role in crafting its interpretation during the first centuries of our era. For example, the Neoplatonist Simplicius discusses the views of Stoics and Platonists who questioned the Categories' value as a treatment of grammar or ontology, while others defended its usefulness as an introduction to logic. These early debates, as these later sources suggest, exercised a lasting influence on the shape of subsequent philosophy and philosophical education within and beyond the Aristotelian tradition

This paper explores the role of early imperial Peripatetics – in particular, Andronicus of Rhodes, Boethus of Sidon, Herminus, and Alexander – in the development of the canonical reading of the Categories influentially maintained by Porphyry. I investigate the common threads of Middle Platonist and Peripatetic views on the value of the Categories, focusing on the utility of the method of division (diairesis) for acquiring knowledge (epistêmê), and argue for a shared Peripatetic-Platonist consensus about the reasons why the Categories should ground the philosophical curriculum. In particular, I suggest that Andronicus of Rhodes and Eudorus might have played a significant role in the development of this consensus.

Proclus argues that place (topos) is a body of light, identified as the luminous vehicle of the soul, which mediates between soul and body and facilitates motion. Simplicius (in Phys. 611,10–13) suggests that this theory is original to Proclus, and unique in describing light as a body. This paper focuses on the function of this theory as a bridge between Proclus’ physics and metaphysics, allowing the Aristotelian physical notion of “natural place” to serve as a mechanism for the descent and ascent of the soul.