Neoplatonism

It is characterized by a categorical opposition between the spiritual and the carnal,

elaborated from Plato's dualism of Idea and Matter; by the metaphysical hypothesis of
mediating agencies, the nous and the world soul, which transmit the divine power
from the One to the many; by an aversion to the world of sense; and by the necessity
of liberation from a life of sense through a rigorous ascetic discipline.

History
 Neoplatonism began in Alexandria, Egypt, in the 3rd century AD.
 The foundation of Plato's thought was that the universe consists of two realms: a
realm of appearance: constantly changes and so affords no possibility of certain
knowledge And a realm of eternal, abstract forms: always static

Renaissance Platonism cannot really be easily considered as a school or even a

coherent movement. Unlike humanism or Aristoteleanism, It was not a program of
education and so did not constitute normal studies, nor did it ever become a program
of study or curriculum. Aside from the Academy founded by Marsilio Ficino and
Cosimo de'Medici, it had only the slimmest of institutional support as a distinct
discipline.

Only a few philosophers, such as Cardinal Bessarion, Nicholas Cusanus, Marsilio

Ficino, and Pico della Mirandola, can be unabashedly known as “neoplatonists.”

Neoplatonism’s most famous advocates are Johannes Kepler and Galileo

Galilei. A number of 19th- and 20th-century thinkers and writers have been influenced
by Neoplatonism; among them were several of the most important British romantic
poets, including William Wordsworth, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.