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Platonism has been ever a shaping force in the religious imagination of the West. This series is devoted to the long tradition of Platonism, from pagan Antiquity to Christian, Muslim and Jewish forms, into the contemporary era. From the logos speculation of the Alexandrians to the negative theology of the medievals; from hymns to heavenly beauty in the Renaissance to the Romantic longing for the holy; from modernist laments for discarded metaphysical ideas and icons, to postmodern critiques of Platonic presence, the spiritual legacy of the Athenian sage has been hotly debated, fiercely contested, and fervently admired. The volumes in the series explore the momentous religious inheritance of Platonism, not merely in philosophy, but also in theology, politics, poetry, and the arts.

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4 results in Cambridge Studies in Religion and Platonism

Participation in the Divine
  • A Philosophical History, From Antiquity to the Modern Era
  • Edited by Douglas Hedley, Daniel J. Tolan
  • Published online:
    23 November 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • The concept of participation in a transcendent domain of existence is central to the Platonic and the Judaeo-Christian traditions. It is how thinkers throughout history have justified existence itself, explaining temporal being vis-à-vis God. Yet in the wake of secularisation and the widespread phenomenon of disenchantment, this once ubiquitous and coveted notion has fallen into desuetude. The essays in this volume analyse and explore this key concept in the history of Western thought. They provide, for the first time, a rigorous and accessible account of participation, a pivotal concept in Western philosophy and theology, from antiquity to the modern era. Bringing together contributions by an international team of leading scholars of the Platonic tradition, the volume challenges a standard distinction between philosophy and theology. It also enables a comprehensive understanding of figures who do not fit neatly into the modern university's division of these subjects.

Plotinus on the Contemplation of the Intelligible World
  • Faces of Being and Mirrors of Intellect
  • Mateusz Stróżyński
  • Published online:
    03 September 2024
    Print publication:
    21 November 2024
  • In this study, Mateusz Stróżyński offers an experiential and practical way of understanding Plotinus' thought and philosophy through a focus on the act of contemplation. He argues that contemplation, or direct seeing of the principles of reality, is not merely a part of Plotinus' thought, but rather a significant dimension of it. Moreover, he argues that Plotinus understands metaphysics as a conceptual and propositional description of reality from a third-person perspective, as well as an expression of an experience of that reality from a first-person perspective. Stróżyński focuses on the first phase of the journey to the Good, namely, on the contemplation of the intelligible world: Nature, Soul, and Intellect. He describes the fall of the soul and her return through the lens of the so-called “Great Kinds”: Being, Movement, Rest, Difference, and Identity. Stróżyński also shows how this concept, derived from Plato's Sophist, is creatively used by Plotinus to explain both the loss and the restoration of our ability to contemplate through philosophical practice.

The Cambridge Platonists and Early Modern Philosophy
  • Inventing the Philosophy of Religion
  • Samuel M. Kaldas
  • Published online:
    09 May 2024
    Print publication:
    16 May 2024
  • Often neglected by historians today, the seventeenth-century philosophers known as the Cambridge Platonists were recognised in their time as some of the most influential and controversial philosophers in England. Whereas most studies of the Cambridge Platonists have discussed their later careers, this book focuses on their early, formative years at Cambridge during the English Civil Wars. Samuel M. Kaldas explores how the Cambridge Platonists addressed issues central to philosophy of religion as we know it today through their engagement with early seventeenth-century religious controversies about predestination, the character and nature of God, and the role of reason in religion. His study serves as an accessible introduction to both the Cambridge Platonists, and to English religious controversies that contributed to the birth of the modern philosophy of religion. At the same time, Kaldas provides context for and fresh insights into the Cambridge Platonists' intellectual development and the coherence of their thought.

A Less Familiar Plato
  • From Phaedo to Philebus
  • Kevin Corrigan
  • Published online:
    26 October 2023
    Print publication:
    09 November 2023
  • In this book, Kevin Corrigan sheds light on aspects of Plato's thought that are less familiar to contemporary readers. He reveals a Plato who believes in Forms but is not essentialist, who develops a scientific view of perception in the middle and late dialogues, and who offers positive models of art and science. Corrigan shows how Plato articulates a broader view of intelligible reality in which embodiment is affirmative and the mind-soul-body continuum has an eidetic structure, and where even failure and the imperfect are included. He also demonstrates that Plato developed an ideal, yet finely layered view of love that provided a practical guide throughout antiquity; and that the dialogues and unwritten teachings can be understood in a mutually open-ended, non-antagonistic way. Corrigan's book provides a guide to Plato in an unexpected key and poses important questions regarding imagination, divine inspiration, and Forms and the Good, among other topics.