Middle Platonism

Middle Platonism was a philosophical movement, flourishing from roughly the first century BCE to the third century CE, that systematized Plato’s doctrines and helped prepare the way for Neoplatonism.

Plato: An ancient Greek philosopher whose dialogues became foundational texts for Platonism. Middle Platonists treated Plato’s dialogues as authoritative sources for a coherent philosophical system.
Demiurge: The divine craftsman in Plato’s Timaeus who orders the cosmos after an eternal model. Middle Platonists interpreted the Demiurge as a central divine intellect or creator.
Antiochus of Ascalon: A Hellenistic philosopher who led the Old Academy and sought to reconcile Plato with Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines. His synthesis helped shape the Platonist revival from which Middle Platonism developed.
Academic skepticism: A philosophical tradition in Plato’s Academy that questioned whether knowledge is attainable. Middle Platonism rejected the skeptical direction the Academy had taken for centuries.
Early Christian theology: The development of Christian beliefs and doctrines in the first centuries CE. Christian thinkers drew on Middle Platonic concepts of divine transcendence, intellect, and creation.
Platonic Forms: Timeless, intelligible realities that, in Plato’s philosophy, are distinct from changing sensible things. Middle Platonists developed accounts of Forms as thoughts in the divine intellect.
World Soul: The living principle that, in Platonist cosmology, animates and orders the cosmos. It links the intelligible divine order to the material universe in Middle Platonic cosmologies.
Eudorus of Alexandria: A first-century BCE Platonist associated with Pythagorean interpretations of Plato. His work exemplifies early Middle Platonic efforts to unite Platonism and Pythagorean philosophy.
Neoplatonism: A late antique philosophical tradition, founded by Plotinus, that explains reality as proceeding from the One. It develops themes inherited from Middle Platonism into a more unified metaphysical system.
Philo of Alexandria: A first-century CE Jewish philosopher who interpreted scripture through Greek philosophical ideas. His synthesis of Jewish scripture and Platonism forms a neighboring context for Middle Platonic theology.

Linked from 10 pages