Platonism, Neoplatonism and Participatory Metaphysics

In Bergson’s famous analysis of time, he critiqued what he saw as a spatialization of time and its transformation into divisible, measurable units. This, according to Bergson, was to impose our intellectual, quantitative thinking onto a fundamentally qualitative reality. Time, or what Bergson called duration (durée), is mobile and living rather than an aggregate of individual “moments.” Yet in this paper, we suggest that Bergson’s critique of spatialized time can equally and ironically be applied to his own concept of space and that Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, offers a concept of space that escapes these objections. We further argue that Bergson’s account of durée cannot be understood from a purely immanent framework. Instead, it is most intelligible if one interprets it through a Platonic framework. Here, again, we suggest that More offers a historical corrective to Bergsonism and a path forward for studies in his philosophy.

Challenging the widespread view that Clement of Alexandria (c. 150-c. 215) juxtaposes desiring eros and dispassionate agape, this paper argues that the Platonic language and concept of eros remains throughout Clement’s conception of the Christian’s transformation of desire through assimilation to God. Rather than view eros as a stage to be overcome, Clement’s eros admits of a threefold ordering as mythical, philosophic, and divine, with divine eros being intimately associated with the Incarnation of the Logos. It is through association with Christ and in imitation of the pattern of Christ that eros becomes most divine, which in turn causes philanthropia and even agape to take on a distinctly erotic shape.

The traditional view of creation depicts an original Edenic state, free from death and predation, but contemporary evolutionary theory challenges this perspective. The existence of death, predation, and extinction long before humanity raises questions about the character of God and the origins of these phenomena. To reconcile the disparaging antimony between evolution’s violent history and a doctrine of the Fall, Sergei Bulgakov proposed a meta-historical Fall that transcends empirical history, involves both angelic and Edenic realms, and stands beyond the confines of scientific analysis. By incorporating evolutionary science into his sophiology, Bulgakov can situate both the Fall and evolutionary history in a wider cosmic scope in which evolution is perceived as the manifestation of a divine inner plan within the midst of fallen conditions. This paper concludes with a proposal for overcoming Bulgakov’s strong anthropocentric tendencies by emphasizing a stronger understanding of the world-soul with an appeal to contemporary panpsychism. 

What we can, have, and should do with our capacity for soul-craft are key questions this talk will explore by sketching the broad trajectory of participatory ritual, scripture, and rhetoric that can traced back to debates about theurgy in Neoplatonism and forward to the possibilities that have emerged within various strands of contemporary Ecopoetics. After briefly exploring Iamblichus’s theurgy and Boehme’s theosophy attention is placed on how Coleridge makes the category of Reflection central to theosis. Why he does so can be better understood by making connections to theoretical conversations surrounding cybernetics. I argue that understanding the technologies, techniques and mediations that can inform our experience of theosis benefits from a consideration of how cybernetics could help clarify our thinking.