Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles

Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles
Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Total Pages : 560
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780199722310
ISBN-13 : 0199722315
Rating : 4/5 (10 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles by : Sara Ahbel-Rappe

Download or read book Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles written by Sara Ahbel-Rappe and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut its doors forever in 529. His work, Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, is the last surviving independent philosophical treatise from the Late Academy. Its survey of Neoplatonist metaphysics, discussion of transcendence, and compendium of late antique theologies, make it unique among all extant works of late antique philosophy. It has never before been translated into English. The Problems and Solutions exhibits a thorough?going critique of Proclean metaphysics, starting with the principle that all that exists proceeds from a single cause, proceeding to critique the Proclean triadic view of procession and reversion, and severely undermining the status of intellectual reversion in establishing being as the intelligible object. Damascius investigates the internal contradictions lurking within the theory of descent as a whole, showing that similarity of cause and effect is vitiated in the case of processions where one order (e.g. intellect) gives rise to an entirely different order (e.g. soul). Neoplatonism as a speculative metaphysics posits the One as the exotic or extopic explanans for plurality, conceived as immediate, present to hand, and therefore requiring explanation. Damascius shifts the perspective of his metaphysics: he struggles to create a metaphysical discourse that accommodates, insofar as language is sufficient, the ultimate principle of reality. After all, how coherent is a metaphysical system that bases itself on the Ineffable as a first principle? Instead of creating an objective ontology, Damascius writes ever mindful of the limitations of dialectic, and of the pitfalls and snares inherent in the very structure of metaphysical discourse.


Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles Related Books

Damascius' Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles
Language: en
Pages: 560
Authors: Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Categories: Religion
Type: BOOK - Published: 2010-06-25 - Publisher: Oxford University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut its doors forever in 529. His work, Problems and Solutions Concerning F
Lectures on the Philebus
Language: en
Pages: 180
Authors: Damaskios
Categories:
Type: BOOK - Published: 1982 - Publisher:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds
Language: en
Pages: 455
Authors: Peter Adamson
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015 - Publisher: Oxford University Press (UK)

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A history of philosophy without any gaps. Volume 2, Philosophy in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds by Peter Adamson (2015).
On the Blissful Islands with Nietzsche & Jung
Language: en
Pages: 365
Authors: Paul Bishop
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2016-11-03 - Publisher: Routledge

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What are the blissful islands? And where are they? This book takes as its starting-point the chapter called ‘On the Blissful Islands’ in Part Two of Nietzsc
Platonic Theories of Prayer
Language: en
Pages: 238
Authors:
Categories: Philosophy
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-12-22 - Publisher: BRILL

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Platonic Theories of Prayer is a collection of ten essays on the topic of prayer in the later Platonic tradition. The volume originates from a panel on the topi