Iamblichus

I reply to Bernard Wills (2023) review essay on my book Believing in Dawkins: The New Spiritual Atheism (2020). I discuss idolatry, Neoplatonism, the New Atheism, and atheistic Platonism.

I reply to Bernard Wills review essay on my book Believing in Dawkins: The New Spiritual Atheism (2020). I discuss theism, idolatry, the New Atheism, Platonism, and atheistic Platonism.

Iamblichus is the only Platonist philosopher whose philosophical letters have survived from the ancient world. These nineteen letters, which are translated into English here for the first time, address such topics as providence, fate, concord, marriage, bringing up children, ingratitude, music, and the cardinal virtues, with some letters addressed to students and others to prominent members of Syrian society and the imperial administration. The letters reflect the concerns of popular moral philosophy and illustrate the more public aspects of Iamblichus s (...) philosophy. This volume provides a useful complement to Iamblichus: On the Mysteries, and On the Pythagorean Way of Life, both published by the Society of Biblical Literature, and will be of interest to students of late antiquity, of Neoplatonic philosophy, and of early Christianity. (shrink)

On the text and translation of the De mysteriis -- Iamblichus the man -- The De mysteriis : a defence of theurgy, and an answer to Porphyry's letter to Anebo -- Iamblichus's knowledge of Egyptian religion and mythology -- The nature and contents of De mysteriis -- Iamblichus, De mysteriis : text and translation.

Rare work by a fourth-century philosopher is also an introduction to the study of Plato.

Pythagoric life accompanied by fragments of the ethical writings of certain Pythagoreans in the Doric dialect and a collection of Pythagoric sentences from Stobaeus and others.