James Wilberding
Biographic Data
| ID | 1191129 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James Wilberding |
| GIVEN NAMES | James |
| FAMILY NAME | Wilberding |
| SIGNATURE | WILBERDING J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
The Timaeus as an Origin Story
This paper proposes a new way of understanding the thematic unity of the Timaeus . One of the major obstacles to appreciating the unity of the dialogue has been the apparent disconnect between the prologue, which prominently includes Critias’ account of ancient Athens (20d–26d), and Timaeus’ cosmological account. Past attempts to establish unity have worked on the assumption that the Timaeus as a whole is looking forward to the Critias and have s…
Women and the Female in Neoplatonism
Sosipatra, Hypatia, Macrina: some of the most famous female philosophers of antiquity were connected to Neoplatonism. But what does it mean to be a woman philosopher in late antiquity? How is the inclusive nature of the Neoplatonic schools connected to their ethical, political, and metaphysical ideas? What role does the religious dimension of late Neoplatonism and the role of women as priestesses play in understanding Neoplatonic women philosophe…
The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
Plotinus stands at a crossroads in ancient philosophy, between the more than 600 years of philosophy that came before him and the new Platonic tradition. He was the first and perhaps the greatest systematizer of Plato's thought, and all later students of Plato in the following centuries approached Plato through him. This Companion from a new generation of ancient philosophy scholars reflects the current state of research on Plotinus, with chapter…
Late Antiquity
Gretchen Reydams-Schils' new book, Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts, brings together over twenty years of her research on Calcidius into a single monograph.1One of the major aims of this book is to rehabilitate Calcidius against a background of (older) scholarship that wasn't always particularly impressed by his contributions to the field.This background may be illustrated succinctly by the P…
New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
World Soul
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
Plotinus
The Enneads by Plotinus is a work which is central to the history of philosophy in late antiquity. This volume is the first complete edition of the Enneads in English for over seventy-five years, and also includes Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. Led by Lloyd P. Gerson, a team of experts present up-to-date translations which are based on the best available text, the editio minor of Henry and Schwyzer and its corrections. The translations are consiste…
Eternity in Ancient Philosophy
The first chapter, by James Wilberding, studies the emergence of the concept of eternity in ancient Greek philosophy and its close scrutiny in late antiquity. The chapter is divided into four sections. In the brief first section, Wilberding introduces and discusses the vocabulary the ancients used to discuss eternity. Here he pays particular attention to the Greek term aiôn, which by the end of late antiquity comes to refer to eternity but which …
Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity
Written by a group of leading scholars, this unique collection of essays investigates the views of both pagan and Christian philosophers on causation and the creation of the cosmos. Structured in two parts, the volume first looks at divine agency and how late antique thinkers, including the Stoics, Plotinus, Porphyry, Simplicius, Philoponus and Gregory of Nyssa, tackled questions such as: is the cosmos eternal? Did it come from nothing or from so…
The Revolutionary Embryology of the Neoplatonists
This chapter argues that there is a unique embryological theory that is advanced by a wide-ranging group of Neoplatonists. This theory consists of three theses: there is a single (male) seed; this seed is a collection of immaterial form-principles in state of potentiality; and these principles must be actualized by an external agent, who is usually identified with the mother. What is revolutionary about this theory is its ascribing this crucial a…
Plato’s Embryology
Embryology was a subject that inspired great cross-disciplinary discussion in antiquity, and Plato's Timaeus made an important contribution to this discussion, though Plato's precise views have remained a matter of controversy, especially regarding three key questions pertaining to the generation and nature of the seed: whether there is a female seed; what the nature of seed is; and whether the seed contains a preformed human being. In this paper…
Curbing one's appetites in Plato's Republic
Neoplatonism And The Philosophy Of Nature
Plato's Two Forms of Second-Best Morality
In the Republic Plato presents a hierarchy of five cities, each representing a structural arrangement of the soul. The timocratic soul, characterized by its governance by spirit and its consequent desire for esteem and aversion to shame, is ranked as the second-best kind of soul, though this should strike us as surprising since the timocratic figure would seem to be duplicitous, intellectually passive, and at the mercy of the fortuitous opinions …
Plotinus and the Presocratics
Book Review| October 01 2009 Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus' “Enneads” Giannis Stamatellos, Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus' “Enneads.” Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. xi + 270 pp. James Wilberding James Wilberding Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2009) 118 (4): 543–546. https://doi.o…
Automatic Action in Plotinus
Several Plotinus scholars have recently called attention to a kind of action in the sensible world, which one could call ‘spontaneous’ or ‘automatic’ action, that is supposed to result automatically from the contemplation of the intelligible. Such action is meant to be opposed to actions that result from reason, calculation, and planning, and has been put to work to provide a way for Plotinus’ sage to act, and in particular to act morally , witho…
Porphyry and Plotinus on the Seed
Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such i…
Plotinus’ Cosmology
In Ennead II.1 (40) Plotinus is primarily concerned to argue for the everlastingness of the universe, the heavens, and the heavenly bodies as individual substances. Here he must grapple both with the philosophical issue of personal identity through time and with the rich tradition of cosmology which pitted the Platonists against the Aristotelians and Stoics. What results is a historically informed cosmological sketch explaining the constitution o…
Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Prisoners And Puppeteers In The Cave
Perhaps some justification is required for the appearance of yet another essay on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The question around which the majority of discussions of the Cave revolves is that of its parallelism to the Line. This question can be understood as having two parts: do both the Cave and the Line have four parts or stages, and if so, is there one-to-one correspondence between the parts of the Line and the stages of the Cave? At presen…
Porphyry and Plotinus on the Seed
Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such i…
Late Antiquity
Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Prisoners And Puppeteers In The Cave
Perhaps some justification is required for the appearance of yet another essay on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The question around which the majority of discussions of the Cave revolves is that of its parallelism to the Line. This question can be understood as having two parts: do both the Cave and the Line have four parts or stages, and if so, is there one-to-one correspondence between the parts of the Line and the stages of the Cave? At presen…
Aristotle, Plotinus, and Simplicius on the Relation of the Changer to the Changed
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Plotinus’ Cosmology
In Ennead II.1 (40) Plotinus is primarily concerned to argue for the everlastingness of the universe, the heavens, and the heavenly bodies as individual substances. Here he must grapple both with the philosophical issue of personal identity through time and with the rich tradition of cosmology which pitted the Platonists against the Aristotelians and Stoics. What results is a historically informed cosmological sketch explaining the constitution o…
Automatic Action in Plotinus
Several Plotinus scholars have recently called attention to a kind of action in the sensible world, which one could call ‘spontaneous’ or ‘automatic’ action, that is supposed to result automatically from the contemplation of the intelligible. Such action is meant to be opposed to actions that result from reason, calculation, and planning, and has been put to work to provide a way for Plotinus’ sage to act, and in particular to act morally , witho…
Porphyry and Plotinus on the Seed
Porphyry's account of the nature of seeds can shed light on some less appreciated details of Neoplatonic psychology, in particular on the interaction between individual souls. The process of producing the seed and the conception of the seed offer a physical instantiation of procession and reversion, activities that are central to Neoplatonic metaphysics. In an act analogous to procession, the seed is produced by the father's nature, and as such i…
Plato's Two Forms of Second-Best Morality
In the Republic Plato presents a hierarchy of five cities, each representing a structural arrangement of the soul. The timocratic soul, characterized by its governance by spirit and its consequent desire for esteem and aversion to shame, is ranked as the second-best kind of soul, though this should strike us as surprising since the timocratic figure would seem to be duplicitous, intellectually passive, and at the mercy of the fortuitous opinions …
Plotinus and the Presocratics
Book Review| October 01 2009 Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus' “Enneads” Giannis Stamatellos, Plotinus and the Presocratics: A Philosophical Study of Presocratic Influences in Plotinus' “Enneads.” Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. xi + 270 pp. James Wilberding James Wilberding Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2009) 118 (4): 543–546. https://doi.o…
Curbing one's appetites in Plato's Republic
Neoplatonism And The Philosophy Of Nature
Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity
Written by a group of leading scholars, this unique collection of essays investigates the views of both pagan and Christian philosophers on causation and the creation of the cosmos. Structured in two parts, the volume first looks at divine agency and how late antique thinkers, including the Stoics, Plotinus, Porphyry, Simplicius, Philoponus and Gregory of Nyssa, tackled questions such as: is the cosmos eternal? Did it come from nothing or from so…
The Revolutionary Embryology of the Neoplatonists
This chapter argues that there is a unique embryological theory that is advanced by a wide-ranging group of Neoplatonists. This theory consists of three theses: there is a single (male) seed; this seed is a collection of immaterial form-principles in state of potentiality; and these principles must be actualized by an external agent, who is usually identified with the mother. What is revolutionary about this theory is its ascribing this crucial a…
Plato’s Embryology
Embryology was a subject that inspired great cross-disciplinary discussion in antiquity, and Plato's Timaeus made an important contribution to this discussion, though Plato's precise views have remained a matter of controversy, especially regarding three key questions pertaining to the generation and nature of the seed: whether there is a female seed; what the nature of seed is; and whether the seed contains a preformed human being. In this paper…
Eternity in Ancient Philosophy
The first chapter, by James Wilberding, studies the emergence of the concept of eternity in ancient Greek philosophy and its close scrutiny in late antiquity. The chapter is divided into four sections. In the brief first section, Wilberding introduces and discusses the vocabulary the ancients used to discuss eternity. Here he pays particular attention to the Greek term aiôn, which by the end of late antiquity comes to refer to eternity but which …
Plotinus
The Enneads by Plotinus is a work which is central to the history of philosophy in late antiquity. This volume is the first complete edition of the Enneads in English for over seventy-five years, and also includes Porphyry's Life of Plotinus. Led by Lloyd P. Gerson, a team of experts present up-to-date translations which are based on the best available text, the editio minor of Henry and Schwyzer and its corrections. The translations are consiste…
Late Antiquity
Late Antiquity
World Soul
Women and the Female in Neoplatonism
Sosipatra, Hypatia, Macrina: some of the most famous female philosophers of antiquity were connected to Neoplatonism. But what does it mean to be a woman philosopher in late antiquity? How is the inclusive nature of the Neoplatonic schools connected to their ethical, political, and metaphysical ideas? What role does the religious dimension of late Neoplatonism and the role of women as priestesses play in understanding Neoplatonic women philosophe…
The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
Plotinus stands at a crossroads in ancient philosophy, between the more than 600 years of philosophy that came before him and the new Platonic tradition. He was the first and perhaps the greatest systematizer of Plato's thought, and all later students of Plato in the following centuries approached Plato through him. This Companion from a new generation of ancient philosophy scholars reflects the current state of research on Plotinus, with chapter…
Late Antiquity
Gretchen Reydams-Schils' new book, Calcidius on Plato's Timaeus: Greek Philosophy, Latin Reception, and Christian Contexts, brings together over twenty years of her research on Calcidius into a single monograph.1One of the major aims of this book is to rehabilitate Calcidius against a background of (older) scholarship that wasn't always particularly impressed by his contributions to the field.This background may be illustrated succinctly by the P…
New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus
The Timaeus as an Origin Story
This paper proposes a new way of understanding the thematic unity of the Timaeus . One of the major obstacles to appreciating the unity of the dialogue has been the apparent disconnect between the prologue, which prominently includes Critias’ account of ancient Athens (20d–26d), and Timaeus’ cosmological account. Past attempts to establish unity have worked on the assumption that the Timaeus as a whole is looking forward to the Critias and have s…
Philosophy (19 works) · Classical Philosophy and Thought (18 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Art (10 works) · Literature (10 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · History (7 works) · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies (6 works) · Law (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)