Non-Fiction Books:

Cities and Thrones and Powers

Towards a Plotinian Politics
Click to share your rating 0 ratings (0.0/5.0 average) Thanks for your vote!

Format:

Paperback / softback
$72.00
Available from supplier

The item is brand new and in-stock with one of our preferred suppliers. The item will ship from a Mighty Ape warehouse within the timeframe shown.

Usually ships in 3-4 weeks
Free Delivery with Primate
Join Now

Free 14 day free trial, cancel anytime.

Buy Now, Pay Later with:

Afterpay is available on orders $100 to $2000 Learn more

6 weekly interest-free payments of $12.00 with Laybuy Learn more

Availability

Delivering to:

Estimated arrival:

  • Around 13-25 June using International Courier

Description

What would a "reappeared" Plotinus answer today if asked how we might build a divinely-ordered city? That is the question at the core of this unique book, and Stephen Clark takes us on a wide-ranging deep dive to uncover possible answers. To do so, he first gives an account of the Plotinian philosophy of mind and metaphysics, showing how Plotinus nicely balances the entanglement of soul-body composites (our immediate identities) with the workings of the World Soul and the eternal soul that animates "from within." Drawing on later Christian and Islamic interpretations of the Neoplatonic tradition, and parallel developments in Hindu thought, he then describes the various social forms that seem to be the inevitable context of our lives here and now. Furthermore, we discover that the form a Plotinian religion adopts depends on taking seriously the thought of reincarnating souls and wandering hermits, but now with the difference in our time that, although some sages may be content to consider themselves simple wanderers in a world without borders or settled communities, some will follow the same path as Buddhists, Epicureans, and Christians: forming communities of friends loyal to their founder and to the fellowship of the Sangha. We learn as well that in due course even those among the hermits who prefer to go, almost literally, "alone to the Alone" will become part of dispersed, unhierarchical communities. Finally, Clark offers cautious thoughts about our likely futures, dependent both on current technological advances and on the realistic suspicion (shared by our predecessors) that catastrophes and wholly unexpected turns are always to be expected.

Author Biography:

STEPHEN R. L. CLARK is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Theology at the University of Bristol. His books include Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy (2013), Plotinus: Myth, Metaphor and Philosophical Practice (2016), Plotinus Ennead VI.9: On the Good or the One: Translation with an Introduction and Commentary, and Can We Believe in People? (2020). His chief current interests are in the philosophy of Plotinus, the understanding and treatment of non-human animals, philosophy of religion, philosophy of psychiatry, and science fiction.
Release date NZ
June 29th, 2022
Audience
  • General (US: Trade)
Pages
328
Dimensions
152x229x19
ISBN-13
9781621388555
Product ID
35883658

Customer reviews

Nobody has reviewed this product yet. You could be the first!

Write a Review

Marketplace listings

There are no Marketplace listings available for this product currently.
Already own it? Create a free listing and pay just 9% commission when it sells!

Sell Yours Here

Help & options

Filed under...