BOOK ONE

From the author

The present volume of the History of Ancient Aesthetics is the seventh volume of our entire publication, which has been published for more than twenty years{1}. Like the sixth volume, the present one, the seventh volume covers a huge stage of ancient thought, which is associated with late Hellenism or, in other words, the Hellenistic-Roman period, and is entirely devoted to the last four-century ancient philosophical school, Neoplatonism.

Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism in the third century, has already been given a special study in Volume VI, which contains the socio-political basis of Neoplatonism, its historical, philosophical, and theoretical characteristics. In this seventh volume we are occupied with the pupils and successors of Plotinus, Amelius and Porphyry, who, like their teacher, belong to the so-called Roman school of Neoplatonism. But most importantly, Volume VII includes several more types of Neoplatonism - Syrian (Iamblichus and Theodore), Pergamon (Julian and Sallust), Athenian (Plutarch of Athens, Syrian, Proclus, Damascus) - neither philosophy, nor aesthetics of which have ever been the subject of consideration in our science.

The author was engaged in the history of ancient aesthetics back in the 20s. A multi-volume edition of "The History of Ancient Aesthetics" was conceived by him in 1934. By 1941, the first volume was completed and production work began. However, the war delayed the appearance of this first volume in print for a long time. Only in 1963 did it finally see the light of day, however, in a completely revised and expanded form. Thus, the seven volumes of the History of Ancient Aesthetics now offered to the reader are the result of at least half a century.

In this brief preface, we would also like to remind the reader of the Marxist-Leninist methodology that we have pursued in the previous six volumes of The History of Ancient Aesthetics. The same methodology is unswervingly pursued by us in the present, seventh volume. It is important to recall this because the trends of Neoplatonism that are analyzed here abound in dialectical, mythological, and generally logical subtleties that can distract the reader from our basic socio-historical methodology. The reader should remember here at least the following essential features of our methodology.

First of all, the very beginning of our study is devoted to nothing other than the Marxist-Leninist understanding of ancient culture (IAE I 33-50) with the division of the entire history of ancient aesthetics into the periods of the primitive communal formation, the early slave-holding and developed slave-holding formation, including also the more detailed historical periods of ancient slavery (96-135). The initial stage of all ancient aesthetics, still purely intuitive and pre-reflective, namely Homer, was presented in our country primarily from a socio-historical point of view (237-238). The period of ancient aesthetics, usually called the period of early classics, is characterized in our country primarily in connection with the stage of early slavery (255-264, 549). The transition from the early classics to the mature classics is understood mainly only in connection with the rise and fall of the classical slave-owning polis (II 5-9, 670-677). From this socio-historical point of view, the whole of Plato was characterized in our country (III 183-197, 219-234, 394-406). Instead of the usual, too spiritualistic understanding of Plato, we undertook a special and sufficiently detailed study of all the material-corporeal elements of Plato's aesthetics, which make him a really pagan, and not a Christian, philosopher (318-337), and - and this is also contrary to the usual general phrases about the socio-historical essence of Plato - we found in him as many as six heterogeneous socio-economic tendencies, very far from final unity (223-224). Aristotle's socio-political position is also examined in our country in a special form, by no means accidental and by no means in the form of general phrases (IV 581-584, 638-653, 733-745).

As for the huge Hellenistic period of ancient aesthetics, we have studied very carefully its connections with the new stage of slavery, namely, with its widespread dimensions, and also taking into account individual socio-historical moments of this entire period (V 7-52). Finally, the last great period of classical aesthetics, namely Neoplatonism, which is usually treated too abstractly and completely without any connection with the period of social development of that time, is given by us in connection with the picture of the last period of ancient slavery, namely, in connection with the then growing feudalization of Roman society. We explain in detail the Neoplatonists' growing interest in ancient mythology, the open reactionary struggle for the restoration of ancient forms of thought, and, above all, the extraordinarily subtle dialectics that we put forward in Neoplatonism in spite of the deep-rooted liberal-bourgeois exaggerations of fantastic magical interests among the ancient Neoplatonists. And this connection of Neoplatonism with antiquity, which was perishing at that time, namely with various forms of feudalization of slavery, with a detailed enumeration and characterization of these forms, forced us, for the sake of studying Neoplatonic originality, to compare Neoplatonic aesthetics with all previous stages of socio-historical development (VI 147-176).

Since the present, seventh volume of our History of Ancient Aesthetics is built on the materials of late Neoplatonism, we have the right to categorically demand from the reader the most detailed consideration of all these systematic efforts to study the socio-historical connections of ancient aesthetics at all stages of its development. Whoever does not want to do this, obviously, can be recommended only one thing, namely, to put aside this volume of ours and not to delve into all the details of our research, which, without their socio-historical justification, hang in the air and become a set of materials that are useless for anything and have long gone into the past, and moreover, are very difficult to study.

For those who are interested in our socio-historical analysis of ancient philosophy, we can recommend our discussion of the connection between ancient philosophy and slavery, which we developed in a special interview in "Questions of Philosophy" (1984, No1, 144-149), as well as in the article "The History of Philosophy as a School of Thought" ("Communist", 1981, No11, 56-59). The material-bodily intuition, which lies at the basis of ancient culture, is discussed in our lecture entitled "Twelve Theses on Ancient Culture" (Student Meridian, 1983, No9, 13-14; No10, 14-16).

Part One

EARLY ROMAN NEOPLATONISM