The Cambridge Platonist Research Group:
The Cambridge Platonist Research group was set up in 2012 with the aim of reviving interest in the Cambridge Platonists and to initiate research into their thought and legacy. The initial step to furtherance of these aims was made possible thanks to generous funding by the AHRC, which financed the project ‘Revisioning Cambridge Platonism’. This took the form of a series of workshops in 2013, which brought together scholars from across disciplines and across the world. The first outcome of these meetings was the establishment of an interdisciplinary network of scholars with research interests in the Cambridge Platonists. In 2016 we acquired AHRC funding for a three-year project with the title ‘The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment’.
This blog will carry updates on the progress of the research group’s work, and other developments in Cambridge Platonism scholarship, and offer a forum for scholars to contribute their input and ideas. The posts will range from shorter thought pieces, announcements and updates on our work to more lengthy accounts on the intellectual contents of tracts being transcribed or the challenges underpinning their transcription and publication.
Aims of the Research Group:
- To maintain the network of people with research interests in the Cambridge Platonists
- To provide a forum for discussion of and disseminating information about the Cambridge Platonists
- Promote further research on all aspects of the thought and legacy of the Cambridge Platonists through the organisation of colloquia and editions of texts.
Dear Douglas,
Thank you for your quick reply – I am shocked, actually, that anyone answered, and must apologise for my slow response since I have only just now seen it. Your advice of looking at A.H. Armstrong is good – I was able to download his “Plotinus” from the Internet Archive – and will keep me occupied for some time. I also discovered that the Loeb Classics are now online and one can subscribe to get access to the entirety of the Greek/Latin canon for a fraction of the price of a newspaper subscription. How is this possible?
The real story of intellectual commerce between India and Europe, I suspect, had to wait for classically educated British civil servants in the 17-1800’s! An unlikely group of heroes, but such nonetheless. Perhaps much earlier there were some intrepid souls like Hsuan Tsang who journeyed to India in the 6th century but I don’t know of any. (On his return journey, the sailors almost threw him overboard, thinking he brought them bad luck.) The big trade routes – like the Silk Road – were active much later. And the journey by caravan or coaster vessels must have been too daunting for any middle aged man – any established scholar – to try. Alexandria must have collected everything interesting that rolled in from the Indian trade route; it definitely sounds like the “syncretistic” environment I am thinking of – a real crossroads.
I live in retirement in Thailand – spent most of my adult life in Japan – I took a degree in japanese literature, taught for one year in Ann Arbor and decided it wasn’t for me, and went into the business world. Here I am, 40 years later, in a quiet place that seems like it was (intentionally) lost in time – and, most reasonably, I find myself drawn to Plotinus (meanderingly through Umberto Eco’s Name of the Rose!) It was only by my study of Indian religions that I could turn back to look at Christianity and say, “so that’s what they’re trying to say!” And, now I am delighted to discover the Platonic tradition explaining things even more clearly – stretching back 2500 years through Augustine, Eckhard, Bacon, Ockham and many others – not forgetting the more interesting half of Christianity, the Greek Orthodoxers – up to your group! I now see the European universities as strongholds of the “adult” version of Christianity. Perhaps Plotinus had places like Cambridge in mind in advocating a city of philosophers?
Dear Alan, the teacher of Plotinus –
Ammonius Saccas was from a Christian family and converted to paganism. The name ‘Saccas’ may be of Persian or even Indian origin. Christian writers (Jerome and Eusebius) even denied that Ammonius did, in fact, convert. Alexandria was clearly a syncretistic environment. I think we can see traces of Philo of Alexandria (a Jewish thinker) in the work of Plotinus. The great scholar Brehier thought that the Indian influence was important. You might have a look at A.H. Armstrong in this context. Best wishes,
Douglas Hedley
I am delighted to have stumbled upon this group. I was poking around looking for “influences of neo-platonism on Islamic and Judaic thought” and came across the Cambridge Platonists – the originals. What a find! This will amuse me for weeks. (I am astounded to see that they pursued their studies while the civil war and restoration raged outside of the cloisters. Now, THAT is focus.)
If you happen to see this message in a corked bottle, I have an interest in the connection between Indian schools of thought and Plotinus et al. I mean in the biographical sense – known scholars who might have gone back/forth. (I’m not interested in trying to compare the various schools of thought. Leave that to the professionals.)
Presumably, since 500 years of trade and whatnot following Alexander’s expedition up to the Indus, there was a not-inconsiderable amount of awareness on both sides. Plotinus himself is known to have attached himself to the emperor gordian III (?)’s expedition into Persia – with the object (perhaps?) of going all the way to India. do you know anything of this – or can you direct me to anyone who has studied this?
Dear Alan, the teacher of Plotinus –
Ammonius Saccas was from a Christian family and converted to paganism. The name ‘Saccas’ may be of Persian or even Indian origin. Christian writers (Jerome and Eusebius) even denied that Ammonius did, in fact, convert. Alexandria was clearly a syncretistic environment. I think we can see traces of Philo of Alexandria (a Jewish thinker) in the work of Plotinus. The great scholar Brehier thought that the Indian influence was important. You might have a look at A.H. Armstrong in this context. Best wishes,
Douglas Hedley