33 - Plutarch of Athens

Summary

LIFE

Plutarch of Athens (d. 432 ce), son of Nestorius, was the philosophy teacher of Hierocles of Alexandria, Syrianus and the young Proclus. The story of the meeting between Plutarch, now advanced in years, and Proclus, who had not yet reached his twenties, is touching. It was Syrianus who introduced the young man to Plutarch, who immediately had such a favourable impression of him that he wanted, without delay and despite his advanced age, to give the new disciple some lessons in philosophy.

Plutarch made Proclus read Aristotle’s De anima and Plato’s Phaedo, and talked to him about these works. He encouraged the young student to take notes, in order to produce a commentary on the Phaedo. This fact, transmitted to us from Marinus (who in turn was Proclus’ pupil and biographer, cf. Proclus 12 pp. 14, 1–15, Saffrey and Segonds = Fonte 2 Taormina), might imply that Plutarch had already composed his own written commentary on the De anima (which, as we shall see, is confirmed by several sources), but this was not the case for the Phaedo, for which Plutarch wanted a new commentary to be composed by his ambitious disciple.

In any case, this information confirms Plutarch’s interest in the study of the soul, that is, in Platonic and Aristotelian psychology. The evidence which we have about his position with respect to two passages in the Phaedo (Plato, Phd. 66b2 and 108c6) confirms his exegetical activity on this text, but it does not explicitly refer to a written commentary (Damascius, in Phaedonem §100, p. 67 and §503, p. 255 Westerink = Fonti 59–60 Taormina).