Platonist Philosophy 80 BC to AD 250 : An Introduction and Collection of Sources in Translation

An accessible introduction to the most influential philosophical movement of the early centuries of our era. The book provides a comprehensive account of the philosophical views of 'Middle' Platonism, and source-texts in English translation represent the full range of thinkers involved and the subjects they tackled. It also includes sections of further reading.

''Middle'' Platonism has some claim to be the single most influential philosophical movement of the last two thousand years, as the common background to ''Neoplatonism'' and the early development of Christian theology. This book breaks with the tradition of considering it primarily in terms of its sources, instead putting its contemporary philosophical engagements front and centre to reconstruct its philosophical motivations and activity across the full range of its interests. The volume explores the ideas at the heart of Platonist philosophy in this period and includes a comprehensive selection of primary sources, a significant number of which appear in English translation for the first time, along with dedicated guides to the questions that have been, and might be, asked about the movement. The result is a tool intended to help bring the study of Middle Platonism into mainstream discussions of ancient philosophy.