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Platonic love is a concept that has profoundly shaped Western literature, philosophy and intellectual history for centuries. First developed in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, it was taken up by subsequent thinkers in antiquity, entered the theological debates of the Middle Ages, and played a key role in the reception of Neoplatonism and the etiquette of romantic relationships during the Italian Renaissance. In this wide-ranging reference work, a leading team of international specialists examines the Platonic distinction between higher and lower forms of eros, the role of the higher form in the ascent of the soul and the concept of Beauty. They also treat the possibilities for friendship and interpersonal love in a Platonic framework, as well as the relationship between love, rhetoric and wisdom. Subsequent developments are explored in Plutarch, Plotinus, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Aquinas, Ficino, della Mirandola, Castiglione and the contra amorem tradition.
List of contents
Introduction: platonic love Carl O'Brien, John Dillon; Part I. Love in Plato: 1. Plato on love Vasilis Politis; 2. The selfishness of platonic love? Carl O'Brien; 3. Love and rhetoric as types of psychagôgia Marina McCoy; 4. Plato on the love of wisdom Elisabeth S. Belfiore; Part II. Development of Platonic Love in Antiquity: 5. Plutarch: expanding the horizons of platonic love Frederick E. Brenk; 6. Love in Plotinus' thought Dominic J. O'Meara; 7. A platonist 'ars amatoria' John Dillon; 8. Desire and love in Augustine Jan-Ivar Lindén; Part III. Love and Metaphysics during the Middle Ages: 9. Divine love and platonic beauty in Dionysius the Areopagite Andrew Louth; 10. Love in the thought of John Scotus Eriugena Max Rohstock; 11. Thomas Aquinas on the connatural, the supernatural, love, and charity Kevin L. Flannery S.J.; Part IV. Platonic Love during the Renaissance: 12. Human and divine love in Marsilio Ficino Paul Richard Blum; 13. Marsilio Ficino and Leone Ebreo on beauty Maryanne Cline Horowitz; 14. Pico della Mirandola on platonic love John Dillon; 15. The Contra-Amorem tradition in the Renaissance W. R. Albury; 16. Castiglione and platonic love Reinier Leushuis; 17. Platonic love in Renaissance discussions of friendship Marc D. Schachter.
About the author
Carl Séan O'Brien is a Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. He has published The Demiurge in Ancient Thought (Cambridge, 2015), and edited (with Jens Halfwassen and Tobias Dangel) Seele und Materie im Neuplatonismus (2016).Joh Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College Dublin. His numerous publications include The Middle Platonists (1977), The Heirs of Plato (2003), Salt and Olives: Morality and Custom in Ancient Greece (2004), (with Sarah Klitenic Wear) Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes (2007) and The Roots of Platonism: The Origins and Chief Features of a Philosophical Tradition (Cambridge, 2019). In addition he edited (with A. A. Long) The Question of 'Eclecticism: Studies in Later Greek Philosophy (1988) and translated Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism (1993). He received a Gold Medal from the Royal Irish Academy in 2005.
