LAAA · Late Antiquity After Antiquity: The Last of the Ancient Platonists in the Early Modern Period

Late Antiquity After Antiquity: The Last of the Ancient Platonists in the Early Modern Period

LAAA has addressed significant lacunae in intellectual history and classical reception. It has provided the first systematic investigation of the early modern reception of late ancient philosophy which has been insofar overshadowed by the imposing legacy of classical philosophy. The 15th and 16th centuries are rightfully regarded as the period in which classical philosophical texts were excavated, interrogated, edited, and translated for the contemporary Latin world through the indefatigable philological and exegetical work of the humanists. The Platonic corpus became available and new ways of reading Aristotle were explored; Stoic and Epicurean philosophy began to exert an influence on key thinkers. However, this new and intensive dialogue with the ancient philosophical past was far more complex than scholars have so far imagined. It was a dialogue mediated and deeply informed by dense layers of interpretation that were woven in late antiquity. For example, the Plato that re-merged in Europe in the 15th century was not simply the Plato of the dialogues but also, and even more so, the Plato transformed by Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Likewise, the ‘early modern Aristotle’ was one transmuted by the rich tradition of late ancient commentators. This allowed Charles B. Schmitt to coin the felicitous expression ‘Aristotelianisms’. LAAA has tested Schmitt’s suggestion beyond the well-known ‘Averroism’ and ‘Alexandrism’ by excavating the profound influence of late ancient Aristotelian interpreters such as Syrianus and Priscian of Lydia. Outside of academia, LAAA has contributed to a more historically informed approach to crucial philosophical ideas and will expand the boundaries of knowledge of disciplines, languages, and institutions. By showing how philosophies, but also philosophers and texts, were transformed through time and through different layers of interpretations, it encourages us to look at texts as dynamic and historically-conditioned rather than ossified authorities. In doing so, it has started to promote a new way of looking at the human past and its intellectual legacy. The achieved objectives are: 1) the identification of the elements of late antique philosophy built in the foundation of early modern Platonism; 2) the discovery and description of the impact of these elements in the early modern perception of the most ancient philosophical past; 3) to exploration of the role of late antique philosophy in the shaping of Western European intellectual and cultural identity; 4) to reassessment of the role of late antiquity in the history of Western philosophy.

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