Class Synopisis April 11th

We began class by talking about distinguishing between the contemporary way to read a text and the classical way. Neo-Platonists read him pedagogically, so as to progress from one part of philosophy to the next. Contemporary scholarship focuses on how Plato's philosophy develops as Plato himself develops. The classical way of reading Plato composed them into tetrarchies, containing three dramas and one seder play. Iamblicus was the one responsible for ordering the dialogues for the Neo-Platonists, moving from the particular good to the universal good. The Timaeus and Parmenides stand out as a synthesis of Plato's natural philosophy and religious philosophy respectively.

There is a purpose to this process though, reading a text as it is supposed to be read makes us one with the text. the Neo-Platonists did not fall into a post-modernism, were each person constructs meaning from the text. Because there is some objectivity to the relationship, we can get to the intended meaning of a text.

Next we moved to discussing the process of interpreting an actual text. There are six parts to it: matter (character, time, place), form (style), nature (either expository or investigative), soul (problems of the text), intellect (topic), and good (the transformation of myself and the text towards the One).

Next we talked about we talked the Commentary of Proclus on the Parmenides. Just as in epics, the commentary begins with an invocation of the gods interprets the text allegorically. We ended by dividing the text into four conversations.