Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos PlethonByzantium has recently attracted much attention, but principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to intellectual history, exploring the thoughts of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon (c.1355-1452). It argues that Plethon brought to their fulfilment latent tendencies among Byzantine humanists towards a distinctive anti-Christian and pagan outlook. His magnum opus, the pagan Nomoi, was meant to provide an alternative to and escape-route from the polarity of the Orthodoxy of Gregory Palamas and Thomism. It was also a groundbreaking reaction to the bankruptcy of a pre-existing humanist agenda and to aborted attempts at the secularisation of the State, whose cause Plethon had himself championed in his two utopian Memoranda. Inspired by Plato, Plethon's secular utopianism and paganism emerge as the two sides of a single coin. On another level, the book challenges anti-essentialist scholarship that views paganism and Christianity as social and cultural constructions. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Part I Lost rings of the platonist golden chain | 47 |
Part II The elements of pagan Platonism | 161 |
Part III Mistra versus Athos | 325 |
Part IV the path of ulysses and the path of abraham | 393 |
427 | |
447 | |
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Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon Niketas Siniossoglou No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
according accusation ancient anti-Hesychast anti-Palamite apophaticism appears Aquinas argued Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s Barlaam belief Bessarion Byzantine humanism Byzantium Capita CL Chaldean Oracles Christian Church clerical commentary context Demetrios Kydones Differences discourse distinction divine essence doctrines energies epistle fourteenth century genus George of Trebizond god’s godlikeness gods Greek Gregory Palamas heimarmene Hellenic Hesychast Hesychast controversy humanists ideas illumination intellectual Judaeo-Christian ka� Kabasilas late antiquity late Byzantine Latin man’s Manuel Masai means Medvedev Memoranda Memorandum Metochites Mistra modern monastic Monfasani Monody mysticism nature Neoplatonic Nikephoros Gregoras Nomoi notion one’s ontology Orthodox Ottoman pagan Platonic Palamite paradigm Parmenides Peloponnese philosophical paganism Philotheos Platonist Pleth Plethon Plethonean Plotinus politeia political polytheism Prochoros Proclan Proclus Psellos radical reform regarding religion religious Renaissance Schol Scholarios secular soul spiritual substance Tambrun t�n Theodore Theodore Metochites theology theurgy things Thomism tion to� transcendent treatise utopianism wisdom world-view Zeus