Radical Platonism in Byzantium

Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon

Niketas Siniossoglou (University of Cambridge)

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English

03 November 2011

History; Ancient history: to c 500 CE; Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500; Christianity; Ancient religions & mythologies

Series: Cambridge Classical Studies

Byzantium has recently attracted much attention, principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to philosophy and intellectual history, exploring the thought-world 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 disputes over 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.

By: Niketas Siniossoglou (University of Cambridge)
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 140mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 690g
ISBN: 9781107013032
ISBN 10: 1107013038
Series: Cambridge Classical Studies
Publication Date: 03 November 2011
Audience: College/higher education , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction: Plethon and the notion of Paganism; Part I. Lost Rings of the Platonist Golden Chain: 1. Underground Platonism in Byzantium; 2. The rise of the Byzantine Illuminati; 3. The Plethon affair; Part II. The Elements of Pagan Platonism: 4. Epistemic optimism; 5. Pagan ontology; 6. Symbolic theology: the mythologising of Platonic ontology; Part III. Mistra versus Athos: 7. Intellectual and spiritual utopias; Part IV. The Path of Ulysses and the Path of Abraham: 8. Conclusion; Epilogue: 'Spinozism before Spinoza', or the pagan roots of modernity.

Reviews for Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon

This stimulating book will offer much food for thought, even to those readers who, in the end, will not be prepared to accept all of Siniossoglou's conclusions. --BMCR