Lectures 2026

Annotation :

"each chapter addresses well recognized themes in the figure to which it is devoted, such as Plato’s ‘theory of forms,’ Aristotle’s explanation of change in terms of form and matter, Plotinus’ account of the One as the source of all things, or Aquinas’ distinction between essence and existence. But in each case, the interpretation of these and other ideas stands in contrast to what may be termed a ‘textbook’ account of the figure in question, an account that is all too common even among philosophical scholars. Here we will find a Plato who does not propose ‘two worlds’ and whose forms are not lifeless intelligible objects but are one with living intelligence; an Aristotle who follows Plato in identifying being as form and regarding sensible things as less than completely real, and whose unmoved mover, as the thinking of thinking, is not empty but is one with the intelligible content of all things; a Plotinus who is not an obscure ‘mystic’ but a coherent and profound philosopher whose thought not only belongs fully to the mainstream of the classical tradition but may even be regarded as its fullest development; and an Aquinas whose signature doctrine of God as ipsum esse per se subsistens is fundamentally Neoplatonic and in continuity with Plotinus’ doctrine of the One."