Order From Disorder. Proclus' Doctrine of Evil and its Roots in Ancient Platonism

Download or read book Order From Disorder. Proclus' Doctrine of Evil and its Roots in Ancient Platonism written by John Phillips and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study places the doctrine of evil of the Neoplatonist Proclus in its proper context, the exegetical tradition as it developed within the various schools of ancient Platonism, from Middle Platonism to early Neoplatonism. With regard to the evil of the body, there are chapters on the various interpretations of Plato's notion of a pre-cosmic disorderly motion as the source of corporeal evil and on the role of what Platonists referred to as an irrational Nature in the origin of that motion. As for evil of the soul, there are chapters dealing with the concept of an evil World Soul and with the view that the evil that is ascribed to the human soul is a form of psychological weakness.