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Was Plato a Platonist? While ancient disciples of Plato would have answered this question in the affirmative, modern scholars have generally denied that Plato’s own philosophy was in substantial agreement with that of the Platonists of succeeding centuries. In From Plato to Platonism, Lloyd P. Gerson argues that the ancients were correct in their assessment. He arrives at this conclusion in an especially ingenious manner, challenging fundamental assumptions about how Plato’s teachings have come to be understood. Through deft readings of the philosophical principles found in Plato's dialogues and in the Platonic tradition beginning with Aristotle, he shows that Platonism, broadly conceived, is the polar opposite of naturalism and that the history of philosophy from Plato until the seventeenth century was the history of various efforts to find the most consistent and complete version of “anti-naturalism." Gerson contends that the philosophical position of Plato—Plato’s own Platonism, so to speak—was produced out of a matrix he calls “Ur-Platonism.” According to Gerson, Ur-Platonism is the conjunction of five “antis” that in total arrive at anti-naturalism: anti-nominalism, anti-mechanism, anti-materialism, anti-relativism, and anti-skepticism. Plato’s Platonism is an attempt to construct the most consistent and defensible positive system uniting the five “antis.” It is also the system that all later Platonists throughout Antiquity attributed to Plato when countering attacks from critics including Peripatetics, Stoics, and Sceptics. In conclusion, Gerson shows that Late Antique philosophers such as Proclus were right in regarding Plotinus as “the great exegete of the Platonic revelation."

Platonists. --- Platonism --- Philosophers --- Philosophy, Ancient --- Plato. --- Platon --- Plato --- Aflāṭūn --- Aplaton --- Bolatu --- Platonas --- Platone --- Po-la-tʻu --- Pʻŭllatʻo --- Pʻŭllatʻon --- Pʻuratʻon --- Πλάτων --- אפלטון --- פלאטא --- פלאטאן --- פלאטו --- أفلاطون --- 柏拉圖 --- 플라톤 --- Платон --- プラトン --- Platonists

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"Aristotle versus Plato. For a long time that is the angle from which the tale has been told, in textbooks on the history of philosophy and to university students. Aristotle's philosophy, so the story goes, was au fond in opposition to Plato's. But it was not always thus."-from the Introduction In a wide-ranging book likely to cause controversy, Lloyd P. Gerson sets out the case for the "harmony" of Platonism and Aristotelianism, the standard view in late antiquity. He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed. Gerson examines the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle based on their principle of harmony. In considering ancient studies of Aristotle's Categories, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, the author shows how the principle of harmony allows us to understand numerous texts that otherwise appear intractable. Gerson also explains how these "esoteric" treatises can be seen not to conflict with the early "exoteric" and admittedly Platonic dialogues of Aristotle. Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony.

Platonists. --- Platonism --- Philosophers --- Philosophy, Ancient --- Aristotle. --- Platonists --- Aristoteles. --- Aristoteles --- Aristote --- Aristotle --- Arisṭāṭṭil --- Aristo, --- Aristotel --- Aristotele --- Aristóteles, --- Aristòtil --- Aristotile --- Arisṭū --- Arisṭūṭālīs --- Arisutoteresu --- Arystoteles --- Ya-li-shih-to-te --- Ya-li-ssu-to-te --- Yalishiduode --- Yalisiduode --- Ἀριστοτέλης --- Αριστοτέλης --- Аристотел --- ארסטו --- אריםטו --- אריסטו --- אריסטוטלס --- אריסטוטלוס --- אריסטוטליס --- أرسطاطاليس --- أرسططاليس --- أرسطو --- أرسطوطالس --- أرسطوطاليس --- ابن رشد --- اريسطو --- Pseudo Aristotele --- Pseudo-Aristotle --- アリストテレス --- Platoniciens