Middle Platonism

The term “Middle Platonism” was created in the 19th century ce to distinguish this movement from the later tradition known as “Neoplatonism.” Both terms, however, are misleading and would have been rejected by the ancients; neither “Middle Platonists” would have accepted that they were an intermediate step in the history of Platonism nor would “Neoplatonists” have agreed that they were introducing anything new in the Platonic tradition. However, it is true that Early Imperial Platonism differs in basic ways from Late Antique Platonism, and both labels continue to be used for the sake of clarity. In short, Middle Platonism conventionally refers to a group of philosophers from the 1st century bce to the 3rd century ce who may be described as Platonists by virtue of their allegiance to a nucleus of Platonic doctrines. More precisely, this allegiance can be presented as the attempt to develop a systematic and theological interpretation of Plato’s philosophy. This suffices to prove its importance, philosophically and historically, for two reasons: (1) because the commitment to the view that Plato’s philosophy can be reduced to a system proved very influential in the history of philosophy, and (2) because in this period monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Christianity first encountered Greek philosophy, and this confrontation was greatly influenced by the theological speculations of these authors. Unfortunately, most of the works of Middle Platonists are now lost, but the material that remains enable us to reconstruct the basic features of their thought.