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Our Work

Full site: https://www.platonism.divinity.cam.ac.uk

The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism is a forum for research on the Platonic Tradition, especially Neoplatonism, its sources, significance and legacy. Neoplatonism is the shape that Platonism took in Late Antiquity, especially through Plotinus and Proclus, and influenced decisively the philosophies of the Christian, Jewish and Muslim worlds. ‘Neoplatonism’ is thus a term that denotes not so much one school of philosophy, but rather an intellectual paradigm, and a way of life, disseminating its influence in myriad forms of thought and culture.

Committed to both the significance of this tradition and its continuing relevance, the centre hosts a weekly seminar on a key Neoplatonic text and supports symposia and research projects in the field. 

 

Prof. Hedley's Inaugural Lecture

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Projects

Prof. Douglas Hedley, Dr. David Leech, Dr. James Bryson, Dr. Mark Burden, Dr. Christian HengstermannDr. Michael HawkinsThe Cambridge Platonists at the origins of Enlightenment: texts, debates, and reception (1650-1730). This project, is funded by an £833,472 AHRC research grant. For more, see Cambridge Platonism at the Origins of the Enlightenment. The Centre initially emerged out of the AHRC grant The Cambridge Platonists at the Origins of Enlightenment: texts, debates and reception. The Cambridge Platonists are unintelligible without reference to the broader Platonic tradition in the West and form a crucial juncture between Platonism ancient and modern.

Dr. Dragos Calma (PI), ERC-2017-COG_NeoplAT: Neoplatonism and Abrahamic Traditions. A Comparative Analysis of the Middle East, Byzantium and the Latin West (9th-16th Centuries), €1,992,643. (Click here for description)

Dr. Adrian Mihai - The project, which is funded for two years by the British Academy (Newton International Fellowship), consists in providing the first critical edition of Ralph Cudworth’s 'The True Intellectual System of the Universe' (London: Richard Royston, 1678). Though Ralph Cudworth (1617-1688), leading figure of the Cambridge Platonists group, has been recognised in recent years as one of the most important British philosophers of the 17th-century, there is still no critical edition of his magnum opus that meets the standards of modern philology and that is up-to-date with research both in Classical and in Modern European thought (the last edition was published in 1845).

Publications:

Dr. James Bryson, The Christian Platonism of Thomas Jackson, Leuven: Peeters, 2016.

Dr. Dragos Calma, Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages New Commentaries on 'Liber de Causis' and 'Elementatio Theologica', Turnhout, Brepols, 2016.

Dr. Dragos Calma, Forthcoming, Regards sur les traditions philosophiques, Leuven University Press.

Dr. Barrie Fleet, Plotinus Ennead IV.7: On the Immortality of the Soul; Translation, with an Introduction, and Commentary, Las Vegas, Parmenides Press, 2016.

Prof. Douglas Hedley, Gods and Giants: Cudworth’s platonic metaphysics and his ancient theology, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Routledge, 2017. (Link to full article)

Prof. Douglas Hedley, The Iconic Imagination, London, Bloomsbury, 2016.

Dr. Christian Hengstermann, Origenes und der Ursprung der Freiheitsmetaphysik, Münster, Aschendorff Verlag, 2017.

Prof. Harold Tarrant, Proclus: Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, vol. 6, Book 5, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017.

 

External Resources

Cambridge Platonist Research Group

American Academy of Religion Platonism Section

https://cambridgeplatonism.wordpress.com