DAMASCIUS PROB SOL FIRST PRIN AARTT

M C
1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-0-19-515029-2
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 560 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 998 g

Reihe: American Academy of Religion - Texts & Translation

This is the first translation of Damascius's work into English.

Damascius was head of the Neoplatonist academy in Athens when the Emperor Justinian shut ist doors forever in 529. His work, Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles, is the last surviving independent philosophical treatise from the Late Academy. Ist 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 thoroughgoing 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 effect and cause 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.

Zielgruppe

Students and scholars of Philosophy and Classics.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ahbel-Rappe

Ahbel-Rappe, Sara

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte Frühes Christentum, Patristik, Christliche Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Antike Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

i. Forward
ii. Acknowledgements
iii. Preface
iv. Introduction to the life and philosophy of Damascius:
A. Life of Damascius
B. Major Works
v. English Glossary
Translation of the Problems and Solutions Concerning First Principles
vi. Index of Greek and English words
vii. Index locorum
viii. Biblilography
Secondary Literature
Ancient Sources
Abbreviations

Über Autor(innen)

Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Professor of Greek and Latin, University of Michigan