At different places in his writings Alexander expands on Aristotle’s criticism of Pythagorean and Academic doctrines making numbers principles of beings. On these accounts, harmoniai and symphōniai are singled out as paradigmatic cases illustrating a more general explanatory strategy. This chapter analyzes Alexander’s understanding of this strategy and explores the extent to which he may or may not have found room for its use within his account of Aristotle’s philosophy. The chapter is divided into four sections. Section 1 outlines the Aristotelian background of the discussion; sections 2 and 3 focus on the textual evidence from Alexander’s writings (in particular: from the commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De sensu, and from Alexander’s De anima). Finally, section 4 sets Alexander’s analysis within the broader context of Aristotelian metaphysics and sketches out a possible account of the interplay between the shaping of Alexander’s views and the development of different stances about the nature and role of forms, quantities and quantitative determinations both in opposition to the Pythagorean and the Platonic traditions and within the Peripatetic tradition as such.

The Editors provide an overview of the background, outline the chapters’ content and explain the overall narrative of the volume

Sextus Empiricus brings his discussion of the so-called ‘liberal arts’ (Math. 1–6) to a close by attacking the epistemic and therapeutic pretences of a would-be science of musicology. He presents two kinds of arguments that bring about and preserve a state of suspension of judgement about the claims of those who profess knowledge in this domain. First, he borrows material from Epicureans purporting to establish that expertise in matters of music holds no prospects for a happy life. Second, he argues that fundamental notions of music theory do not correspond to anything in reality, and thus that the science itself does not exist. The emerging Sextan critique of musicology provides an interesting angle on the Pyrrhonian project as well as on Sextus’ authorial methods. In this paper, I present the agenda of the treatise as being compatible with Pyrrhonism as described in Sextus’ Outlines (Section 1), discuss the arguments employed by Sextus (Sections 2–4), and argue that the treatise does not support readings according to which his treatment of music requires Sextus to abandon the suspensive stance (Section 5).

Early Christians were certainly inclined to look upon Plato as an ally. The first part of this chapter considers how far Eusebius and other apologists succeeded in making out the case that the Bible and Plato proclaim the same God. In the second part it proposes that the Johannine concept of the Logos was at once more foreign to Plato and more palatable to certain of his followers than Augustine supposed it to be. It concludes by examining two indictments of the hermeneutic method of the Fathers – first, that they co-opted the Platonic device of allegoresis to overwrite the plain sense of the scriptures, and secondly that under Platonic influence they surrendered faith to philosophy in their mystical readings of the Song of Songs.

Chapter 6 is the longest and the most elaborate chapter of De mundo. The topic of the chapter is God and his relation to the cosmos. This relation is explained by a sequence of no less than twelve analogies. It is argued that this proliferation of analogies is not an extravagant rhetorical profusion, but an elaborate explanatory device that affords the reader a fuller grasp of God: the sequence is composed in such a way that one analogy corrects or supplements another, thus building a complex conception of God in the mind of the reader. Following a detailed analysis of the analogies and their relations, the conception of God that emerges is discussed. It is argued that this conception is a distinctly Aristotelian one, albeit with some interesting elaborations and additions. The absence of Aristotle’s technical terms in the explanation of God and his relation to the world, it is suggested, is a consequence of the author’s attempt to make the Aristotelian conception of God attractive to non-Aristotelians as well. This contribution ends with a note on the use of quotations in Chapter 6, since nine out of the twelve quotations in De mundo are found in this one chapter.

This chapter focuses on Proclus’ use of a theological notion of harmony, which is designed to reveal the essence, intelligible relations, and causality of the soul by taking its harmonic structure as a starting point. The fact that the soul is made of specific means and proportions paves the way to the claim that the soul’s essence consists of a logos. This represents neither just an exegetical remark related to Plato’s divisio animae nor the mere use of an image: Proclus regards Plato’s account of the soul’s harmonic structure as a specific key to access theology. By analysing the harmonic component within Proclus’ iconic theology, a clear analysis of both the “theological” implications of Proclus’ study of the harmonic structure of the Platonic world-soul and of the metaphysical-theological function of the ambivalent notion of logos emerges.

After a brief overview of Christian Platonism in modern philosophy, the chapter has three sections. The first defends a Platonic account of value, in the second the primacy of consciousness is defended over and against physicalist accounts of mind that denigrate or eliminate consciousness, and in a third section objections are raised to Christian materialism, thus the chapter concludes with a defense of a more Platonic Christian account of the soul and body.

This chapter explores the ambiguous relationship between late modern western thought and the Platonic tradition. Particular attention is given to the resurgent philosophical interest in Neoplatonic-Christian mysticism and its overlap with emergent discourses of ecocriticism.

Platonism in Byzantine Christianity is a complex topic since diverse traditions of Platonism had an impact on Byzantine theologians. This chapter considers three central thinkers: Dionysius the Areopagite, St Maximus the Confessor, and St Gregory Palamas. It discusses the ‘diffused Platonism’ of these Christian thinkers whose thought included Platonic doctrines such as the radical transcendence of God, the doctrine of providence, the doctrine of Forms as creative logoi in the mind of the Creator, the Plotinian doctrine of double activity, and the late antique doctrine of procession and conversion. Notions like these were established as parts of a general outlook of Byzantine Christian thought. The chapter concludes with a discussion of John Philoponus and John of Damascus.

The chapter focuses on the import of the notion of harmony in Middle Platonist theology and cosmology. More specifically, I show that Middle Platonists developed different theological models in order to build up philosophically consistent cosmologies, and one of the main tools applied to achieve these models is the use of the two notions of cosmic harmony and divine harmonisation. On the one hand, a strictly artisanal notion is crucial for those authors who regard God as a divine craftsman and uphold a temporal cosmogony: in their view, God is directly engaged in the production of harmony between opposite cosmological powers. On the other hand, a mathematical and static notion of cosmic harmony paves the way to a sempiternalistic cosmology, denying any direct artisanal intervention in the world on God’s part.

After introducing Porphyry’s commentary, this chapter asks how Porphyry saw himself at the time of writing. Was it as a ‘Neoplatonist’ and pupil of Plotinus as usually presumed? Does he write as a mathematician and scientist or as a philosopher? Assuming he sees harmonics as a natural interest of the philosopher, what sort of philosopher does he represent himself as? He could claim to be embarking upon a ‘Pythagorean’ task rather than a ‘Platonist’ one, though the two were hard to distinguish in this era. Either would involve the Timaeus. His persona may have a bearing on the work’s date. The long discussion on logos and sensation is examined for indications of Porphyry’s sources and allegiance. This epistemology is distinctive, and the most distinctive features are independent of Plotinus. The section’s eclecticism and polymathy make it hard to associate with a single school, like Thrasyllus, Porphyry’s only named authority here. Porphyry’s persona is in fact complex, as much Pythagorean as Platonist, with an early dating feasible, allowing for debts to Longinus and to the mathematician Demetrius rather than to Plotinus. A Pythagorean’s interest in harmonics is natural.

This chapter is an overview of the varieties of Christian Platonism in early modern philosophy including canonical figures like Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, Berkeley, and Kant as well as the Cambridge Platonists, Cudworth, More, Smith, and Conway. It emphasizes the diversity of views inspired by the Christian Platonist tradition in response to Epicurean naturalism.

One of the most remarkable contributions of the Middle Ages to Western thought is the invention of theology as a rational science of faith. This chapter traces the origin of the concept of theologia. By examining the works of Dionysius the Areopagite, John Scotus Eriugena, and Boethius, it is possible to arrive at a picture of how theology came to be used to designate a Christian discipline, and the field for the rational interpretation of faith.

By exploring three issues which connect music with Platonic cosmology, I argue that, according to Plutarch, this connection was at the same time very important and severely limited. (1) In several passages of De animae procreatione, Plutarch compares the demiurge to a musician. These comparisons suggest a certain degree of similarity, but also a significant degree of difference between the two and, accordingly, between cosmic harmony and music. (2) Similarly, Plutarch’s reception of the notion of ‘music of the spheres’, as it emerges from a discussion in Quaestiones convivales, confirms the connection between music and the cosmos only to a limited extent. What the answers of the discussion have in common is that they all warn against excessive appreciation of music. (3) Finally, in Amatorius and De Pythiae oraculis, Plutarch distances musical experience from divine inspiration (enthousiasmos). In general, this persistent combination of importance and limitedness can be explained by Plutarch’s interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus.

In the Christian literature of the first centuries, notions such as those of harmonia, symphōnia and epōidē – just to mention a few – as well as many musical instruments and musical myths borrowed from pagan culture, appear, in an adequately reinterpreted form, in the description and explanation of fundamental aspects of Christian doctrine. The chapter examines some musical concepts and images in Clement of Alexandria’s and Origen’s works, with a specific focus on the Greek musical culture that lies in the background of this rich musical imagery. By analysing Clement’s and Origen’s strategy of reinterpretation and appropriation of fundamental figures and notions drawn from the Greek musical world – such as the figure of Orpheus and the notion of symphōnia – the chapter shows that the use of music stands out as a momentous feature in the apologetic and exegetical activities of these Christian writers, touching upon some crucial issues, such as the Christian attitude to pagan culture and the relationship between Christianity and philosophy.

This chapter considers the trajectory of Northern Renaissance Platonism from the fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. It highlights the persistence of certain topics from the time of Nicholas of Cusa to that of Jacob Böhme, while at the same time arguing that Christian Platonism remained an eclectic phenomenon, and to some extent also the production of its critics. The chapter focuses in particular on the idea of the coincidence of the opposites, especially in relation to the Divine, and on God’s presence in nature.