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Iamblichus was once considered one of the great philosophers. The Emperor Julian followed Iamblichus's teachings to guide the restoration of traditional pagan cults in his campaign against Christianity. Although Julian was unsuccessful, Iamblichus's ideas persisted well into the Middle Ages and beyond. His vision of a hierarchical cosmos united by divine ritual became the dominant worldview for the entire medieval world. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that he expected a reading of Iamblichus to cause a "revival in the churches". But modern scholars have dismissed him, seeing theurgy as ritual magic or "manipulation of the gods". Shaw, however, shows that theurgy was a subtle and intellectually sophisticated attempt to apply Platonic and Pythagorean teachings to the full expression of human existence in the material world.
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Drawing on recent scholarship and delving systematically into Iamblichean texts, these ten papers establish Iamblichus as the great innovator of Neoplatonic philosophy who broadened its appeal for future generations of philosophers.
The present volume is a verbatim reproduction of Thomas Taylor's translation of Iamblichus's Egyptian Mysteries, originally published in 1821. The work is divided into two main parts: the "Epistle of Porphyry to Anebo" and the reply given him by the preceptor Abammon-the name assumed by Iamblichus, who was the real author of the reply. The latter is itself divided into ten sections, each treating of a series of related subjects raised by the questions posed in the epistle. Taylor provides an introduction and appends a collection of "additional notes" to the original text, both of which supply great insight into the nature and meaning of the mysteries discussed by Abammon. In the present edit...
Iamblichus (245-325), successor to Plotinus and Porphyry, brought a new religiosity to Neoplatonism. His theory of the soul is at the heart of his philosophical system. For Iamblichus, the human soul is so far inferior to the divine that its salvation depends not on philosophy alone (as it did for Plotinus) but on the aid of the gods and other divinities. This edition of the fragments of Iamblichus' major work on the soul, De Anima, is accompanied by the first English translation of the work and a commentary which explains the philosophical background and Iamblichus' doctrine of the soul. Included too are excerpts from the Pseudo-Simplicius and Priscianus (also translated with commentary) that shed further light on Iamblichus' treatise.
This selection of twenty-five essays by Andrew Smith is devoted to Neoplatonism and especially to Plotinus and Porphyry. It deals with Plotinus' development of the Platonic Forms, and includes a lengthy assessment of Porphyry's contribution to the Platonic tradition. The themes also embrace a number of issues that have become particularly prominent in the more recent growth of interest in these philosophers of late antiquity. For example, the importance of practical ethical activity is examined particularly in the case of Plotinus and it is argued from several perspectives that a theoretical basis for reconciling the life of contemplation with that of everyday living may be found in his meta...
Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus gives a complete canon of pagan religious thought and belief in Taylor's 1821 English translation.
"On the General Science of Mathematics is the third of four surviving works out of ten by Iamblichus ( c . 245 CE?early 320s) on the Pythagoreans. He thought the Pythagoreans had treated mathematics as essential for drawing the human soul upwards to higher realms described by Plato, and downwards to understand the physical cosmos, the products of arts and crafts and the order required for an ethical life. His Pythagorean treatises use edited quotation to re-tell the history of philosophy, presenting Plato and Aristotle as passing on the ideas invented by Pythagoras and his early followers. Although his quotations tend to come instead from Plato and later Pythagoreanising Platonists, this re-interpretation had a huge impact on the Neoplatonist commentators in Athens. Iamblichus' cleverness, if not to the same extent his re-interpretation, was appreciated by the commentators in Alexandria."--