Not another history of Platonism. The role of Aristotle's criticisms of Plato in the development of ancient Platonism

Project Information

PlatoViaAristotle

Grant agreement ID: 885273

DOI

10.3030/885273

Project closed

EC signature date 27 April 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 2 335 911,25

EU contribution

€ 2 335 911,00

Coordinated by

KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - PlatoViaAristotle (Not another history of Platonism. The role of Aristotle's criticisms of Plato in the development of ancient Platonism)

Reporting period: 2025-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

All histories of ancient Platonism roughly conform to the same patterns: they share the same periodisation, which goes back to the way in which the ancients themselves conceptualised their philosophical history, and they focus on the philosophical problems highlighted in the extant texts, which represent only a relatively small fraction of the original production of texts. While these traditional doxographical accounts are not per se inaccurate, they do overlook continuities across different phases of this thousand-year history as well as some unexpected discontinuities. The reason for these shortcomings lies in the fact that certain philosophical debates are being ignored. Some omissions could be detected by searching for the philosophical reasons explaining doctrinal developments.

This project chooses an unorthodox approach in that it does not try to reflect the issues emphasised in the sources, but instead selects one particular angle of approach: Aristotle’s critical discussion of Platonic views. By analysing Platonic responses to Aristotle’s criticisms and using these as a heuristic tool, the project pursues a twofold aim: to uncover debates that have hitherto not been picked up in scholarship; and to examine the philosophical reasons for doctrinal varieties and developments. The research hypothesis was that Platonic responses to Aristotle’s criticism and, more generally, the latter’s accounts of Platonic philosophy, were a driving force for various developments in the long history of ancient Platonism. This hypothesis has proved useful and viable. By looking at Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato and his disciples, we now better understand certain philosophical developments within the Platonic schools and have detected philosophical debates that in some cases continued for many centuries. Our approach is not restricted to criticisms of Plato, but also includes Aristotle’s criticisms of generic Platonic positions or specific views attributable to certain disciples of Plato.

The aims of the project were achieved through a large-scale investigation spanning the entire history of Platonism, searching for Platonic responses in all relevant philosophical domains. We have been able to identify various fragments on lively and philosophically fruitful debates on the concept of matter, on geometric atomism, on the composition of the soul, on psychic motion and self-motion, on the logic of genus and species, predication and the Forms, on the unity of the state.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We first mapped Aristotle's criticism of Plato and early Platonists and then searched the Platonic tradition for reactions to these criticisms.
For internal use, we have been building a database that links passages in Plato, members of the Early Academy, Aristotle, Theophrastus, later Peripatetic commentators, and ancient Platonists.
Members of the team have given presentations and have published on various topics and authors covered by the project.

We have organised several workshops exploring central topics of the project:
* Being, Essence and Individuality. Post-Proclean Developments, Organisers Roberto Granieri, Franziska Van Buren, 16-17 March 2022
* Psychology in Cosmological Perspectives, Organizers: Franziska van Buren and Jan Opsomer, 23-24 January 2023
* Platonist Metaphysics in Reaction to Aristotle, Organizers: Roberto Granieri, Alberto Kobec and Jan Opsomer, 16-18 March 2023
* Defending Platonic Moral Psychology and Ethics, Organizers: Mareike Hauer, Elsa Giovanna Simonetti and Jan Opsomer, with the help of Rares Marinescu , 12-13 June 2023
* Defending Plato's Physics: Matter, Place and Elemental Bodies, Defending Plato's Physics: Matter, Place and Elemental Bodies, Organizers: Angela Ulacco and Jan Opsomer, 11-13 October 2023
* Aristotle's Plato: Shaping Plutarch's Platonic Identity, Organizers Arianna Piazzalunga, Mareike Hauer, Jan Opsomer: Leuven, 16-17 June 2025
* The Philosophical Review Club in collaboration with the ERC Project 'Not another history of Platonism', Organisation: Angela Ulacco, Andrea Robiglio, Jan Opsomer, Leuven, 3 October 2024
* Philo, On the Eternity of the World, Organizers: Angela Ulacco, Diego De Brasi, Marko Fuchs (co-organized with GANPH), 21-22 June 2024

The final results of the project will be published in five collective volumes, that have been submitted to De Gruyter:

* The role of Aristotle’s assessment of Platonic philosophy in the shaping of ancient Platonism. Volume I. Platonist metaphysics in reaction to Aristotle. Editors: Roberto Granieri, Alberto Kobec, Jan Opsomer
*The role of Aristotle's assessment of Platonic philosophy in the shaping of ancient Platonism. Volume II: Psychology in Cosmological Perspectives. Editors Angela Ulacco, Jan Opsomer
*The role of Aristotle's assessment of Platonic philosophy in the shaping of ancient Platonism. Volume III, Defending Plato’s physics: Matter, Place and Elemental Bodies. Editors: Jan Opsomer and Franziska van Buren-Penev
*The role of Aristotle’s assessment of Platonic philosophy in the shaping of ancient Platonism. Volume IV. Defending Platonic Moral Psychology and Ethics. Editors: Mareike Hauer, Elsa Giovanna Simonetti, Jan Opsomer
* Aristotle’s Metaphysics between Alexander and Asclepius. Edited by: Pieter d'Hoine, Alexandra Michalewski, Jan Opsomer

Project members have authored individual publications related to the project. These can be consulted on the KU Leuven repository Lirias.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We have discovered traces of ancient debates and found unexpected continuities but also discontinuities and have looked at subdomains of philosophy that have been neglected for the very reasons that the surviving corpus of texts does not immediately show that there was a great interest in them. Topics we have explored include the concept of matter, geometric atomism (i.e. Plato's geometric approach to the material elements presented in the Timaeus and criticized by Aristotle in De caelo III and IV); the composition of the soul, as explained at Timaeus 35a ff. and criticized in De anima I.2.; psychic motion and self-motion (subjected to criticism in De anima I.2-3). Aristotle's analysis of the logic and ontology of genus and species, of predication and causation, and his corresponding critique of Plato were a determining influence for Platonist ontology and metaphysics, as we have been able to show. The Platonist treatments of ethics and political philosophy integrated aspects of Aristotle's views, while also replying to criticisms (for instance in Politics II or in Nicomachean Ethics I.6) but also recognised the philosophical significance of Stoicism in this domain. While Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato in the domain of ethics and politics are far from negligible, the commonality between the two thinkers is arguably greater and stronger than in ontology and metaphysics. This is confirmed by the later history of Platonism, from the early Academy (Xenocrates, Speusippus, Crantor), Hellenistic, Post-Hellenistic and Early Empire Platonists (the pseudopythagorica, Philo of Alexandria, Plutarch of Chaeronea, Alcinous, Severus, Numenius), and Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Julian the Apostate, Syrianus, Hermias, Proclus, Damascius, Ammonius, Simplicius, Philoponus), and others. Peripatetic authors such as Alexander of Aphrodisias, Theophrastus, Boethus have been studied as evidence for interactions with the later Aristotelian tradition.

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