Philosophy and the Platonic Tradition

A look at Plato as part of a wider tradition, reaching back beyond Homeric times and onwards to late antiquity.

Plato was not a Platonist: he clearly considered himself as part of a long tradition which could be traced back many centuries into the Homeric, Orphic and Pythagorean past - and possibly even further back to the Egyptian civilisation of Priest-Kings. His founding of an academy in Athens shows, too, that he expected the tradition to go forward after his death, and like any tradition that it would change and unfold in response to the needs of future generations. Taking Plato in isolation from his tradition has led modern students of his writings to see only the rational element of them without their culminating crown of true mysticism. This lecture looks especially at the line of late Platonists, from Plotinus onwards to Damascius, whose work brings to light much of what Plato was content to leave half-spoken: their insights transform our understanding of the Platonic tradition. After the lecture there will be time set aside for discussion.

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