Chapter 19 - Athenian and Alexandrian Neoplatonism

Summary

Proclus and his predecessors

With the death of Iamblichus it is to Athens that serious philosophical history must move. The Athenians learnt much from him, and the work of a younger contemporary of his, Theodorus of Asine, is probably to be seen as only reinforcing the lesson. Plutarch of Athens undergoes the same influence, and in the hands of his pupils Syrianus and even Proclus the main themes of Neoplatonism do little else than become more systematized and more canonical. Plato, Iamblichus, Syrianus: that was the road to knowledge according to the last holder of the chair.

When Proclus came to Athens, Plutarch held the chair but was too old to lecture (he died in 431 or 432). Later writers speak of him as though he were the first of the Neoplatonists of Athens. Much of the psychology which Proclus learnt from him privately is taken for granted by Simplicius and the Alexandrians. But its essential character was simply what Iamblichus had emphasized: Aristotle and Plato were not at loggerheads, the De anima represented sound psychology, the Timaeus and Parmenides the theology which would complete it. In a number of details, too, when he was not just repeating Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plutarch followed Iamblichus or a common source. But the philosophically important fact is that he at least theoretically conceded that psychology as the study of a soul in a body can be pursued independently of metaphysics.