Adamson, Peter. Review of Pauliina Remes' NEOPLATONISM. NDPR (January 2009).

Remes, Pauliina. Neoplatonism. Cheshire: Acumen, 2008.

Acumen's new series, Ancient Philosophies, offers student-friendly overviews of various figures and aspects of ancient thought. (Where "ancient thought" is rather broadly construed: forthcoming volumes will deal with Confucianism and Classical Islamic Philosophy.) The volume under review here, on Neoplatonism, is one of four to appear so far, the others being on the Presocratics, Cynicism, and Stoicism. It is by Pauliina Remes, who has recently established herself as an up-and-coming scholar of Neoplatonism with her excellent book Plotinus on Self. Moreover, there is a plausible need for a book like this: the only book really comparable to the present one was originally published in 1972. Remes' book benefits extensively from recent work on Plotinus and other Neoplatonic authors, and offers a readable and accurate introduction to the topic. So it is a welcome resource, especially for anyone who teaches in this area. The first problem that Remes would have had to consider in writing this book was the scope of her task. Neoplatonism, broadly construed, takes in nearly all philosophy in Greek subsequent to Plotinus, including Byzantine philosophy. It furthermore includes a lot of the medieval tradition: even if one hesitates to call, say, Averroes or Aquinas a Neoplatonist, there isn't much doubt that it is an accurate word to use for al-Farabi, to say nothing of the Pseudo-Dionysius and Eriugena. In the event Remes has opted for a narrow (and hence feasible) treatment of "Neoplatonism," whose scope is restricted not only to the late ancient tradition up to commentators of the Alexandrian school in the 6th c. AD, but to the pagan Platonists of this period. Thus she remarks that John Philoponus was "not, properly speaking, a Neoplatonist," because he was Christian (32). Within "Neoplatonism" thus defined, Remes further skirts around the commentators on Aristotle, no doubt because this same series will soon add a volume on the commentators by Miira Tuominen. In sum, then, Remes gives a somewhat restrictive idea of what "Neoplatonism" is, but she is probably right to do so. It should be added, on the other hand, that the later traditions left out by her definition are dealt with in a summary fashion in a closing chapter on the Neoplatonic legacy. A second problem in writing a book like this is whether to organize the material thematically or historically. Remes has opted for the former, with chapters on such topics as psychology, epistemology and ethics and politics. (This last chapter, incidentally, is an example of how Remes weaves recent scholarship into her account: her treatment of Neoplatonic political philosophy makes good use of the groundbreaking recent monograph by Dominic O'Meara on the topic.) She presents the problems faced by the Neoplatonists first and foremost as philosophical ones, and is at pains to make Neoplatonism accessible to the modern reader. . . .

Read the rest here: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=14946.