The philosophical tradition originating with Plato and his Academy, centered on the theory that abstract, unchanging Forms are more fully real than the changing physical particulars that imperfectly resemble them. Early Academic Platonism gave way, after several centuries, to Neoplatonism, most fully worked out by Plotinus in the third century CE, which organized reality into a hierarchy emanating from a single transcendent source, the One, through Intellect and Soul down to the material world. Platonism's influence extended far beyond Plato's own Academy: it shaped early Christian theology through thinkers such as Augustine, who read Plotinus before his conversion, and it persisted as a live philosophical option through the Renaissance and into later idealist philosophy. The tradition's central and recurring commitment, that reason can grasp a level of reality more fundamental than anything the senses report, distinguishes it from the empiricist schools that later challenged it.
Facts
Disputed
End YearMarks the death of Philo of Larissa and the end of the original Academy Plato founded, as an organized skeptical school (Wikipedia, Platonic Academy). Distinct from the later Neoplatonic Academy at Athens, closed by Justinian in 529 CE, which this atlas records separately under the Neoplatonism entity's own end-year. Platonism's wider influence continued well beyond either closure. RegionAthens, later the wider Mediterranean world 2 Connections
Associated With
Read Plotinus (and likely Porphyry) before his 386 conversion; adapted rather than adopted Neoplatonism outright. See the dissent on this edge regarding the extent of his Neoplatonist debt.
Source Augustine of Hippo (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Source Plotinus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Held Differently
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Founded By
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In Branch
Source Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Source Philosophy of Mathematics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Platonic Academy (Wikipedia)
WikipediaWikipedia, Platonic Academy, section on the original Academy's declineQuote, Wikipedia, Platonic Academy, section on the original Academy's decline
The academy persisted throughout the Hellenistic period as a skeptical school, until coming to an end after the death of Philo of Larissa in 83 BC.
2. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and InformationOpening paragraph, lead section (before Section 1)
an abstract object is an object that's non-spatial, non-temporal, non-physical, non-mental, and non-causal.
- Founded By: Plato
- In Branch: Metaphysics
- Associated With: Neoplatonism, entry: Plotinus
View the Source Plotinus (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyAssociated With: Plotinus
Augustine of Hippo (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyAssociated With: Augustine of Hippo
Philosophy of Mathematics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyIn Branch: Philosophy of Mathematics, entry: Philosophy of Mathematics, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Section 3Quote, In Branch: Philosophy of Mathematics, entry: Philosophy of Mathematics, Logic, and the Foundations of Mathematics, Section 3
On the platonistic conception, the subject matter of mathematics consists of abstract entities.
Dissenting Readings (1 dissenting reading)
Associated With: Augustine of Hippo
A long scholarly tradition, weighing Plotinus and Porphyry's translated treatises as the direct source of Augustine's mature metaphysics, treats him as substantially a Christian Neoplatonist, carrying over the transcendent hierarchy of God, soul and body and the reading of evil as a privation of good essentially intact. Rist's Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized argues this understates how far Augustine moved beyond his Platonist sources: the discovery of Christ as the sole way to God, in Rist's phrase, drove Augustine beyond the Platonic books, since the Neoplatonists might speak the truth about God's nature but lacked the means of access to it, and Augustine's mature commitments to a world created from nothing, to grace as freely given rather than earned by intellectual ascent, and to the incarnation of God in a particular body mark real departures rather than a Christian gloss on an essentially unchanged Plotinian system.
A dissenting reading, from John M. Rist, author of Augustine: Ancient Thought BaptizedAugustine of Hippo (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between Platonism and Neoplatonism?
Neoplatonism is a later, more systematic phase of Platonism, not a separate rival school.
Platonism began with Plato's own Academy and its theory that abstract, unchanging Forms are more fully real than the changing physical particulars that imperfectly resemble them. After several centuries, early Academic Platonism gave way to Neoplatonism, most fully worked out by Plotinus in the third century CE, which reorganized that inheritance into a hierarchy emanating from a single transcendent source, the One, through Intellect and Soul down to the material world. Neoplatonism is best understood as a later, more systematic phase of the same broad tradition rather than a separate rival school: both share the founding commitment that reason can grasp a level of reality more fundamental than anything the senses report.
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