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«Leggi sempre scrittori di indiscutibile valore». Riflessioni sulla didattica delle scuole nello specchio degli antichi filosofi
Full text linkSeneca, together with Alcinous, Apuleius, Albinus, Taurus and an anonymous
Neoplatonic author – as I try to show in this paper –, encourages us to think that
studying is essential not so much in order to acquire an education, but in order
to learn how to live. According to these testimonies, to achieve this aim we must
take into consideration several aspects and problems related to teaching, which
are still discussed today and for which the ancient philosophers have their own
solutions. Ancient philosophers’ debates and reflections on schools and teaching,
on reading programs and on the nature of students can be useful to reconsider
certain limits of current Italian schools and of the country’s educational system,
which in “modernizing” education seems to have lost sight of the very purpose
of teaching
La virtù basta da sola a dare la felicità? Sulle fonti platoniche dell’etica stoica ciceroniana
No full textCan virtue be sufficient by its own to give happiness? On the Platonic sources of Cicero’s stoic ethics. The aim of this paper is to discuss some pages of the fifth book of Cicero’s Tusculanae disputationes in order to demonstrate that, although the Roman author seems to follow the Middle Stoicism in this work, he actually employs theses which are not only Stoic but also Platonic. Whereas scholars usually claim that his philosophical eclecticism is of an uncritical philosophical quality, this way of speaking about philosophy can be read as a Socratic legacy. And also the matter of happiness is essentially Socratic. Indeed, by analysing the relationship between virtue and happiness, Cicero reconstructs
the history of philosophy that has its focus in Plato, princeps philosophorum,
and Socrates, his master, who – also thanks to Cicero – becomes the exemplum of the perfect wise man, i.e. of the philosopher, happy until his death and beyond it
Platone nelle università del mondo antico. Gli appunti di un anonimo studente della metà del VI sec. d.C
No full textIn accordance with the main lines followed by contemporary research, the
aim of the present contribution is to provide an outline of the historiography on
late-antique didactics, on the text of the Prolegomena to Plato’s philosophy, and on
its anonymous author. The Prolegomena, which is to say the introduction to Plato
and his dialogues that was in use in the Neoplatonist school of Alexandria in the
mid-6th cent. AD, allow us better understand the structure and arrangement of the
contents of Neoplatonist didactics. By examining some of the main aspects related
to the teaching imparted in 5th and 6th-century philosophical schools, the paper
studies the role that Plato and his dialogues played in late-antique ‘universities’.
For this purpose, the paper sets out from some considerations on the history of
education in order to then focus on the core theoretical features of the Prolegomena.
Its ultimate aim is to demonstrate the centrality of Plato’s teaching and grasp the
reasons for it through an introductory text that approaches the introduction as the
literary topos par excellence
Ille heros (Apul. Plat. II 7, 229). Sul culto eroico di Platone
No full textIn order to explore the relationship between Plato and heroes, the present contribution is focused on Apuleius' De Platone et eius dogmate. By touching upon some of the most significant passages of this text and examining how the author approaches his material, it will be possible to reflect on a crucial moment in the history of philosophy that – when viewed through Apuleius' Middle-Platonist gaze – may cast light on a new way of imagining the figure of the hero and the (semi-)divine qualities of the philosopher Plato
Demiurgy in Heavens. An Ancient Account in Plato’s Statesman
No full textThe aim of this paper is to discuss the approach to the Statesman familiar to the Neoplatonists. As Iamblichus, Proclus and the anonymous author of the Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy point out, their attention is focused on the thematic unity of the dialogue, which reflects the metaphysical unity of the Neoplatonic cosmos. The Neoplatonists show that the question of this thematic unity is strictly linked to the myth where Plato sets out the real target (skopos) of the Statesman. By analysing the literary form rather than the content of the myth and by stressing the close relationship between philosophy and literature that makes it possible to speak about science in a non-scientific way, they emphasize that the Statesman is a physical dialogue where Plato, with a suitable account, reveals an aspect of the divinity of the universe which concerns the phenomena in the sky and the harmony between sensibles and intellegibles that governs the movement of the heavenly bodies
La tarda scuola neoplatonica di Alessandria: aspetti dell’Introduzione alla filosofia di Platone
No full textThe Anonymous Prolegomena can be attributed to the Alexandrian Neoplatonic context of the 6th century A.D. The aim of this article is to analyse the features of this school and the links to that of Athens
The Many Voices of A Teacher without Teachers
No full textThe aim of this paper is to show that an introductory step to the Neoplatonic exegesis of
the dialogue was to redefine the figure of Socrates and Socratism, so as to offer aspiring
Platonists a correct interpretation of Plato and of the Neoplatonic metaphysical system.
In the final stages of a long tradition, Socrates became the teacher par excellence not
only of Plato but of all Platonists. In particular, by focusing on the Prolegomena to
Platonic philosophy I wish to highlight the fact that, when it comes to teaching, there is
no Socrates but Plato’s teacher, a teacher whose many voices – universalised according
to well-defined criteria – can also be attributed to Plato. If Plato came to be seen as
polyphonic and always self-consistent, this is probably because it was possible to show
that Socrates’ hallmark was his ability to remain consistent while expressing many
different opinions in the dialogues
Leggere il Simposio di Platone
No full textIl Simposio è lo straordinario e raffinato dialogo
che Platone dedica all’amore. A casa del poeta
Agatone si riuniscono Socrate, il giovane Fedro,
il commediografo Aristofane, il retore Pausania,
il medico Erissimaco e il rampante Alcibiade. Nel
corso del banchetto Dioniso e Afrodite – il vino
e l’amore – si incontrano. Le voci dei personaggi
che descrivono il gioco erotico e intellettuale tra
amante e amato, le due forme di Afrodite, la scienza
dell’amore dei corpi, il mito dell’androgino, la
morbidezza e l’asprezza di Eros conducono al nucleo
della dottrina platonica dell’eros. La sua presentazione
è affidata a Socrate e alla sacerdotessa
Diotima, la quale rivela che Eros, celebrato come
un dio, è in realtà un dèmone che mette in comunicazione
umano e divino. Eros non è altro che
l’immagine della filosofia, e Socrate, in mezzo tra
gli ignoranti e i sapienti, è la personificazione di
Eros, con il quale condivide la natura demonica
Fisica e metafisica dei logoi. La natura nell’universo esegetico neoplatonico
No full textThe skopos of the Timaeus is not simply physiology because nature is strictly linked to
the Demiurge and the Soul, and this relation points out that physis depends on theology.
The aim of this paper is to discuss the role of nature in the Neoplatonic macro- and
micro-cosmos, so that it turns out that the study of nature cannot be disconnected from
theology and, accordingly, the literary theory cannot be disconnected from the development
of the Neoplatonic metaphysics
L’ekphrasis del discorso: una lezione neoplatonica sul miglior artefatto
No full textThis paper aims to discuss a particular paideutic instance of ekphrasis in order to show that in the Neoplatonic scholastic milieu the aesthetics reflection is a way to teach the students how to look away from the sensible and to guide towards the intelligible. In the Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic philosophy, the ekphrasis of the work of literature, fashioned by Plato through biological and cosmic images, reveals the connection between literature and truth, visible and invisible, sensible and intelligible. The maker of the most beautiful dialogic universe is the divine philosopher, poet and demiurge of images, who brings a figurative message able to connect, making evident, the different levels of metaphysical reality. The description of every component of the dialogic universe makes it clear that the Platonic dialogue, a philosophic eikon, is the reflection of the intelligible beauty
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