Filozofska istraživanja, Vol. 27 No. 4, 2007.
Original scientific paper
Limits of Philosophical Knowledge in the Platonism of Plotinus and Plethon
Franci Zore
Abstract
One of the key aspects of philosophizing is the question of possibility of knowledge or intelligibility and predicability of the ultimate. Although the question of that which is first (ground, One, God) is a fundamental metaphysical question, it touches upon the very limits of human cognitive abilities. Already in Plato, we can find passages where he tackles this problem, and the problem becomes even more acute later in Platonism. In Plotinus, the One as such cannot be intellectually grasped; it can be reached only in mystical union. In the same fashion, almost a thousand years later, Plethon, with all his religious heterogeneity, persists in the absolute transcendent divine. However, this claim of the limits of reason and philosophical language – and with it philosophy as such – implies the awareness of the ontological and linguistic level, on which we stand, rather than the abolition of philosophy, which is as such basically related to reason and language. In this sense, the intelligible One is not the One as such, just as the image (icon) of God and the intelligible God are not God as such. With this, the question as to the possibility of perception and cognition is further deepened through the question of the possibility of being.
Keywords
Philosophical knowledge; Plato; Plotinus; Plethon; Platonism; metaphysics
Hrčak ID:
19715
URI
Publication date:
28.1.2008.
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