Plutarch's Cosmological Ethics

Bram Demulder is postdoctoral researcher at Leiden University.

Based on texts written in the early decades of the Roman Empire, this brilliant analysis by Demulder is an essential text for anyone researching Greco-Roman cosmological thought. Clifford Cunningham, Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, Volume 26, Issue 1: 271 - 273 (2023)

• Acknowledgements Abbreviations, titles, editions Introduction Chapter 1 Reading Plato 1. In search of irrational soul 2. Chaos and providence: flexible consistency and the Timaeus 2.1. Macro level: selection, arrangement, and function 2.2. Micro level: Plutarch’s interpretation of Timaeus 53b 3. Moralising the cosmic soul: Plato’s ‘development’ and Laws 10 3.1. Invisible soul and soul as self-moved motion 3.2. Priority of soul 3.3. Maleficent soul 3.4. Consistency and ‘development’ 4. Cosmic cycles: literalness and the Statesman myth 4.1. Proclus on combining Timaeus and Statesman: introducing the problem 4.2. On the Generation of the Soul: facing the problem 4.3. Who or what is the cause for cosmic reversal? 4.4. In what period are we now? 4.5. What is Plutarch doing? 5. Concluding remarks Chapter 2 Music 1. The demiurge and the musician 2. Music in heaven? The song of the Muses 3. Divine harmony on earth? The limits of inspiration 4. Concluding remarks Chapter 3 Symposium 1. God and the symposiarch: Sympotic Questions 1.2 and 7.6 2. The cosmos and the symposium: Sympotic Questions 7.4 and 2.10 3. The χώρα and the venue: Sympotic Questions 5.5 4. Concluding remarks Chapter 4 Politics 1. The Timaeus in the Phocion 2. The ruler and the demiurge in the historical works 3. The ruler and the sun: To an Uneducated Ruler 4. Concluding remarks Chapter 5 On Tranquillity of Mind 1. Κρίσις (§ 1–5): how to deal with τύχη? 1.1. What is the problem? 1.2. How is the problem presented? 2. A shift in the ἄσκησις (§ 14–15): from internal to external synthesis 2.1. Beginning the ἄσκησις (§ 6–13): internal synthesis 2.2. Time and the self: memory (§ 14) 2.3. Becoming and the self: dualism (§ 15) 2.4. Looking back (§ 8) and continuing the ἄσκησις (§ 16–18): external synthesis 2.5. Interlude: time and becoming in Consolation to My Wife 3. ‘The cosmos is a temple’ (§ 19–20) 3.1. Intertextuality 3.2. Imagery 3.3. Contrasting images and intertexts? On Exile and Plutarch’s ‘cosmopolitanism’ 3.4. Similar images and intertexts? Θεωρία and Second Sophistic cosmic festivals 4. Concluding remarks Chapter 6 Dialogue on Love 1. The Platonist and the body 2. Eros and Aphrodite as cosmic gods (755e–757a) 2.1. A doxography of cosmic love 2.2. Euripides’ Hippolytus: a threat to the erotic cosmos 3. Eros, the sun, and the cave: rewriting Plato’s Republic (764a–766b) 4. Interlude: reflecting the intelligible 5. Cosmic and human love (770a–b) 6. Concluding remarks Concluding remarks Bibliography Index locorum General index