- Title
- Moral goal and moral virtues in Middle Platonism
- Creator
- Tarrant, Harold
- Relation
- Greek and Roman Philosophy 100BC - 200AD, Volume 2 p. 419-429
- Relation
- http://events.sas.ac.uk/support-research/publications/598
- Publisher
- Institute of Classical Studies, University of London
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2007
- Description
- The standard goal of Middle Platonism is quite clearly 'Assimilation to (a) god according to what is possible'. There are various Platonic texts that seemed to have influenced this position, the most important of them from the ethical digression of the Theaetetus, specifically at 176A-C, and from the closing pages of the Timaeus, at 90A-D. The former of these uses the formula 'assimilation to (a) god in accordance with what is possible' (homoiôsis theôi kata to dunaton), explaining assimilation in terms of becoming 'just and holy together with wisdom'. The latter advises the contemplation of the heavens in order to assimilate the circuits of our own souls to those of the universal soul, getting subject and object of contemplation alike. While it is not so formulaic, it speaks of the process of assimilation as enabling us to 'possess the end (telos) of the best life proposed by the gods for humankind', and thus uses the term that will be standard for the goal of life from the Hellenistic systems on. There are secondmy texts too, the most important probably being Republic 613A-B, which recommends becoming just and practising virtue so as 'to assimilate oneself to (a) god to the extent that is possible for a human'.
- Subject
- Middle Platonism; morals; assimilation; universal souls
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/923906
- Identifier
- uon:9859
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781905670086
- Language
- eng
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