In 155 BC, three Greek philosophers go to Rome. They are a Sceptic, a Peripatetic, and a Stoic. This is not the beginning of a joke but it is the beginning of Greek philosophy moving away from Greece. (Though if it were a joke, the punchline might be something about the Epicurean not going to Rome. Like: ‘Why did the Epicurean chicken cross the road? It didn’t, because it was content with the side it was on.’ Or: ‘How many Epicureans does it take to change a lightbulb? None, because they are content to sit in the dark.’ Bad jokes are easily endured.)
The three philosophers are sent to Rome, from Athens, to plead the Athenians’ case. Rome had become the mightiest power in the vicinity, and with that might had the right to impose a severe fine on Athens. But the Greek philosophers won the Romans over with their impressive show of rational and rhetorical argumentation. Over time, the Romans came to take these philosophical schools of thought and make them their own. We have seen that clearly with Stoicism but it happened to all the great Greek schools. Through this process, Greek philosophy had a profound influence on the Roman intellectual world, and from there to the intellectual and cultural foundations of Europe, but the Romans’ conversion to Christianity would have a bigger influence on all that was to come. That story will have to wait until the second volume in this series.
After Stoicism, there is only one final major philosophical school of thought to emerge in the Roman world, before Christian and Islamic theology come to dominate the intellectual world in Europe. That school is Neo-Platonism.
Neo-Platonism
Neo-Platonism is a strange and contradictory school of thought. On the one hand, it seems to inherit a great deal of Plato (thus the name ‘Neo-Platonism’) and a hefty dose of Aristotle, and could be described as a hybrid of these two philosophical views. On the other hand, Neo-Platonism extends into realms of philosophical speculation that can only be described as mystical or quasi-religious. In this way it both keeps and loses everything that had made philosophy what it was.
It is the easy absorption of Neo-Platonic philosophy into the newly-dominant religion of Christianity that enabled Ancient Greek philosophy to be preserved and so survive through the medieval period. Without the work of Christian and Muslim translators, it’s not clear what would have survived from the Greek world. This translation movement from Greek to Arabic (sometimes via Latin) literally kept what had made philosophy what it was – the thoughts of great philosophers, preserved in texts – even if it didn’t always keep it as it was.
But even so, I can’t help but think that Neo-Platonism loses many of the important lessons that are essential to philosophy. Philosophy is about thinking well and living well; it is about holding yourself to account, putting your thoughts to the test and subjecting them to rational scrutiny, and because of this it is hesitant to construct elaborate metaphysical theories without a healthy dose of scepticism; it is resistant to straying into mystical nonsense without very good reason. When philosophers speak ‘mystically’, without a hesitant scepticism, it is always metaphorically and with the purpose of teaching a particular lesson. It is always with an ‘as if’ that goes without saying: it is as if we have a spark of the divine; it is as if the world is made according to a plan; it is as if we are an immaterial soul confined to a material body; it is as if we are locked in chains in a dark cave of ignorance; it is as if we are a dog tied to a cart. These things are not literally the case. They are just patterns of speaking or thinking: they are strange images, intended to show us something strange but true. But it seems to me that Neo-Platonism takes these images and presents them as actually true. They read Plato literally. And how much is lost in that.
I think it is a mistake, and one that begins the process of philosophy losing its way and moving away from itself. But this story must wait until the next volume…
In my task of considering which school of thought I might orient my life around, or what important lessons I can take from the offerings of each, Neo-Platonism is not an offer that I can take seriously. For me, it is much like the pre-Socratic philosophers in that way. It is a prelude to something but not a thing worthy of much attention in itself. For this reason I have left it out of this book, leaving it for the introductory chapter in the next volume. I think it would be an insult to include it alongside the other great schools of thought in this book, as if they were equals. Whereas we could describe Stoicism as the culmination of the best bits of what came before it, Neo-Platonism, by contrast, could be described as the culmination of the worst bits of what came before. It is made up of the worst parts of Plato and Aristotle: the most elaborate metaphysical speculation gets combined with all manner of mystical nonsense, with predictably useless results. It seems to me to be a (very) late echo of a pre-Socratic time. To my mind it is the beginning of the end and a sign of decline. It provides fertile ground for religion, however. From that ground philosophy becomes the ‘handmaiden to theology’, and it will take a thousand years for philosophy to begin to rediscover itself. We are still waiting for the full fruits of that discovery. We have still forgotten so much. I am resolved to remember what has been forgotten: philosophy as a way of life. Only then can I call myself a philosopher, and mean it.
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