HPhil Seminar: October 26, 2023

The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2023/24 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.

In this session of the seminar, Stephen Gersh (University of Notre Dame) will present a paper entitled “The Platonic Theory of Ideas in Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus” (abstract below).

The session will take place on October 26, 2023 at 5 p.m., in the Room C201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). The entrance is free.

Abstract

The theory of Ideas has always been viewed as the central characteristic doctrine of the historical Plato, the problematic elements arising from its uneasy fusion of cognitive universality and paradigmatic causality notwithstanding. Now, although traces of it remained in much patristic and medieval literature, the theory of Ideas as expressed in specific Platonic dialogues only re-emerged in Western European philosophy in the latter part of the fifteenth century thanks to Marsilio Ficino’s (1433-99) Latin translation and associated epitomes and commentaries. Ficino presented not only a complete reading of Plato’s original texts but also a particular mode of interpreting the philosophy – in which he departed radically from the largely indirect medieval transmission – based on an intertextual use of Plotinus’ Enneads which Ficino also translated from the original Greek for the first time.  Evidence provided by certain manuscripts containing florilegia and also by implicit references in his De Amore (= commentary on the Symposium) and explicit ones in his Platonic Theology show that Ficino’s “Plotinian” reading of Plato was well established from the 1470s onwards.  However, the full translation and commentary on the Enneads written during the second half of the 1480s and printed for the first time in 1492 (by Antonio Miscomini of Florence) provides the most complete and definitive presentation of the Platonic philosophy in general and in particular of the theory of Ideas.

In this paper, I will be asking the question: what are the characteristics of Ficino’s (Plotinian) reading of the Platonic theory of Ideas? Given the central importance of the text, I will seek answers to this question primarily in the commentary on Plotinus’ Enneads. In order to develop an answer for this, it will be most useful to insert a preliminary consideration of the variations of the Latin terminology involved: namely, ideae, formae, rationes. We may then proceed to a discussion of the following five topics

<1> The Ideas in contrast with formulae

<2> The Ideas in contrast with the seminal reasons

<3> The Ideas in relation to the agent intellect

<4> The Ideas in relation to non-discursivity

<5> The range of the Ideas

<6> The mystery of the Ideas