Thomas Taylor The English Platonist

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato" by Thomas Taylor. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

This volume makes available to the modern reader selected writings of Thomas Taylor, the eighteenth-century English Platonist. TO Taylor we are indebted for the first full translation into English of Plato and Aristotle. Platonism, as Taylor saw it, was an informing principle, transmitted through a "golden chain of philosophers," a doctrine received by Socrates and Plato from the Orphic and Pythagorean past and transmitted to the future. It emerged again and again, enriched in the School of Alexandria, in Renaissance art, in the works of Spenser, Shelley, Yeats. Kathleen Raine is well known as a poet. GEorge Mills Harper is Professor of English, University of Florida. Bollingen Series LXXXVIII. Originally published in 1969. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

“Philosophy,” says Hierocles, “is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine likeness. To effect these two is the province of Virtue and Truth; the former exterminating the immoderation of the passions; and the latter introducing the divine form to those who are naturally adapted to its reception.” Aeterna Press

The "Elements of Theology" is one of Proclus' most famous works. The translator Thomas Taylor describes the Elements thus: "This admirable work contains two hundred and eleven propositions, disposed in a scientific order, and supported by the firmest demonstrations. They begin from the super-essential unity, and proceed gradually through all the beautiful and wonderful progressions of divine causes, ending in the self-moving energies of souls. They possess all the accuracy of Euclid, and all the subtlety and sublimity necessary to a knowledge of the most profound theology; and may be considered as bearing the same relation to the Pythagoric and Platonic wisdom, as Euclid's Elements, to the most abstruse geometry. . . . it is replete with sublimest knowledge, and the most important truths. . . . the propositions relate to the most abstract subjects that can be conceived; and the demonstrations are uncommonly subtle and profound. I only add, that these Elements form an admirable introduction to the six books of Proclus on Plato's Theology."-Thomas Taylor, from the Foreword.

This biographical study explores the life and work of Thomas Taylor, a British philosopher and translator who played a key role in the revival of interest in the works of Plato and other ancient Greek thinkers. Drawing on extensive archival research, this book offers new insights into Taylor's intellectual achievements and his legacy in the history of philosophy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The present volume is a reprint of Thomas Taylor's 1816 translation of Proclus' "On the Theology of Plato", by far the most exhaustive and complete survey of the theological elements of Plato's teachings. In the original edition of this work, Taylor included additional materials, including Proclus' "Elements of Theology", along with fragments from treatises on Providence, Fate and Evil. Of these, only the Elements of Theology have been included in the present volume, while the others await reprinting in a separate volume. The Elements of Theology and the Theology of Plato together allow the reader a greater possibility of grasping the overall scheme of Platonic theology. As Taylor notes in his Introduction, "the Elements of Theology . . . render[s] the treatise On the Theology of Plato more complete, and . . . assist[s] the reader who wishes to penetrate the depths of that most abstruse and sublime work; for the former elucidates, and is elucidated by the latter." Students wishing for an introduction to the theology described in this volume are encouraged to also read Taylor's General Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato along with his translations of the complete Works of Plato. || "I rejoice in the opportunity which is afforded me of presenting the truly philosophic reader, in the present work, with a treasure of Grecian theology; of a theology, which was first mystically and symbolically promulgated by Orpheus, afterwards disseminated enigmatically through images by Pythagoras, and in the last place scientifically unfolded by Plato and his genuine disciples. The peculiarity indeed of this theology is that it is no less scientific than sublime; and that by a geometrical series of reasoning originating from the most self-evident truths, it develops all the deified progressions from the ineffable principle of things, and accurately exhibits to our view all the links of that golden chain of which deity is the one extreme, and body the other."-Thomas Taylor, from the Introduction