Late Neoplatonism: Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus
With Plotinus (c. 204/5–270 CE), Neoplatonism gave ancient philosophy its last great synthesis: the ineffable One, from which all things emanate and to which all things return. But the story did not end there. In the following generations, disciples and successors transformed that vision into an ever vaster and more articulated system — and, at the same time, one ever more bound to religion and ritual. This late Neoplatonism, from Porphyry to Proclus, was the form in which Platonism reached the Latin, Arabic, and Byzantine Middle Ages. This article traces its three great names. (For the starting point, see the article on Plotinus and the emanation of the One.) ...