Recommended Reading
On this Site
- Porphyry - A Letter to His Wife, (PDF, 92 KB): A beautify exhortation to philosophy.
- Maximus of Tyre - What Divinity is According to Plato, (PDF, 75 KB)
- Plotinus - On Beauty (Ennead I.6), (PDF, 77 KB): A discription of the mystic path of using beauty as a means towards the vision of the Divine.
- Marinus - On the Life of Proclus, (PDF, 138 KB): A biography of one of the most important Platonists by his own student giving an insight to how the ancients looked upon what it is to be a Philosopher.
- Pythagoras and the Pythorgeans - Various Sayings, (PDF, 156 KB): A collection of sayings and aphorisms attributed to the Pythagoreans, the first Platonists.
Links elsewhere
- John Opsopaus' Summary of Pythagorean Theology: So far the best exposition of Pythagorean theology and theory that I've seen on the net.
- Mortley's "From Word to Silence". An excellent on-line e-book that explores how the way the Greeks studied ultimate Reality changed from the logical rationality of the early philosophers towards the more mystical contemplation of the Neoplatonists and the Christian mystics.
A Short List of Good Books
- The Complete Works of Plato, edited by John M. Cooper
- Therapeia: Plato's Conception of Philosophy, by Robert Cushman
- The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, by Pierre Hadot
- Return to the One: Plotinus's Path to God-Realization, by Brian Hines
- Meditations on the Soul: Selected Letters of Marsilio Ficino, published by Inner Traditions
For a more ambitious list of books by Platonists, here is my Booklist covering Platonism and subjects which a Platonist, even if he or she disagrees with, should ponder.
The Library
The Library on this site contains a store of public domain texts. Select the following to arrange this material