Neoplatonic Pedagogy and the Alcibiades I

Many philosophers in the ancient world shared a unitary vision of philosophy meaning ''love of wisdom'' not just as a theoretical discipline but as a way of life. Specifically for the late Neoplatonic thinkers philosophy began with self-knowledge which led to a person''s inner conversion or transformation into a lover a human being erotically striving toward the totality of the real. This metamorphosis amounted to a complete existential conversion. It was initiated by learned guides who cultivated higher and higher levels of virtue in their students leading in the end to their vision of the Good or the One. In this book James M. Ambury closely analyses two central texts in this tradition: the commentaries by Proclus (412485 AD) and Olympiodorus (495560 AD) on the Platonic Alcibiades I. Ambury''s powerful study illuminates the way philosophy was conceived during a crucial period of its history in the lecture halls of late antiquity.