Plato on the Threshold of Modern Era: fathers of modern Plato scholarship from Ficino to the Marburger Scholars

Abstract

Although Plato has always been revered throughout the history of philosophy, the general trend of philosophy up to the modern era was Aristotelian. Even the Neoplatonists, with the exception of Plotinus, wrote more or less in the Aristotelian style and in form of Aristotelian commentaries. Philosophers knew very little about the authentic or historical Plato; Not only because Plato's writings were transmitted by the Neoplatonists, but also because Plato was understood in a Neoplatonic way. Ficino was the first to try to revive Plato during the Renaissance. However, his efforts did not result in an interpretive change. The real revival of Plato took place in the eighteenth century and in Germany. This revival is understudied in Persian. Though Schleiermacher is known for being one of Plato’s translators, it is not known what happened to Plato from Ficino to Schleiermacher. There is even scarce knowledge about Schleiermacher’s role in Plato scholarship and the process which led to Schleiermacher’s Plato. This article deals with the subject of Plato scholarship up to the emergence of the Romantic Plato. Departing from the conviction that novel philosophical ideas are not born ex nihilo, we will examine the early stages of Plato scholarship in order to recognize the figures whose legacy became the cornerstone of modern Plato scholarship. Thus, we examine the Plato scholarship of Ficino, Brucker, Tiedemann and Tennemann, and try to find out what distinguishes the modern or early modern interpretations from the traditional Plato and what are the grounding canons of modern Plato scholarship.

Keywords

• plato scholarship
• unwritten doctrines
• exoteric-esoteric
• ficino
• brucker
• tiedemann
• tennemann