Stephen Gersh deals here with the Platonic tradition in European thought from the 4th to the 14th century. During this period one can distinguish an earlier phase, consisting of the work of ancient Greek commentators who possessed Plato's original works, and a later phase comprising the activities of medieval Latin scholars who, in the absence of most or all of Plato's own works, derived their own version of 'Platonism' from the patristic and secular writers of late antiquity. The essays collected in this volume deal with such important figures in the history of Platonism as Porphyry,...

This is the first book to provide an account of the influence of Proclus, a member of the Athenian Neoplatonic School, during more than one thousand years of European history (ca 500 1600). Proclus was the most important philosopher of late antiquity, a dominant (albeit controversial) voice in Byzantine thought, the second most influential Greek philosopher in the later western Middle Ages (after Aristotle), and a major figure (together with Plotinus) in the revival of Greek philosophy in the Renaissance. Proclus was also intensively studied in the Islamic world of the Middle Ages and was a...

"It is generally agreed that those types of philosophy that are loosely called 'Platonic' and 'Neoplatonic' played a crucial role in the history of European culture during the centuries between antiquity and the Renaissance. However, until now no scholar has attempted to describe the evolution of these forms of thought in a single comprehensive academic study." So writes Stephen Gersh in the preface to Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism: The Latin Tradition. Stephen Gersh's two-volume survey of Platonic influences upon the Middle Ages focuses on questions that are basic to scholars of...