Radical Platonism in Byzantium Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon [Paperback]

A groundbreaking approach to late Byzantine intellectual history and the philosophy of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon.This book advances a revisionist approach towards the clash between humanism and Christian Orthodoxy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that led to the secular utopianism and paganism of visionary Platonist, Gemistos Plethon. An important read for those interested in ancient and medieval philosophy, Byzantine studies and the Renaissance.This book advances a revisionist approach towards the clash between humanism and Christian Orthodoxy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that led to the secular utopianism and paganism of visionary Platonist, Gemistos Plethon. An important read for those interested in ancient and medieval philosophy, Byzantine studies and the Renaissance.Byzantium has recently attracted much attention, but principally among cultural, social and economic historians. This book shifts the focus to intellectual history, exploring the thoughts of visionary reformer Gemistos Plethon (c.13551452). It argues that Plethon brought to their fulfilment latent tendencies among Byzantine humanists towards a distinctive anti-Christian and pagan outlook. His magnum opus, the pagan Nomoi, was meant to provide an alternative to and escape-route from the polarity of the Orthodoxy of Gregory Palamas and Thomism. It was also a groundbreaking reaction to the bankruptcy of a pre-existing humanist agenda and to aborted attempts at the secularisation of the State, whose cause Plethon had himself championed in his two utopian Memoranda. Inspired by Plato, Plethon's secular utopianism and paganism emerge as the two sides of a single coin. On another level, the book challenges anti-essentialist scholarship that views paganism and Christianity as social and cultural constructions.Introduction: Plethon and the notion of Paganism; Part I. Lost Rings of the Platonist Golden Chain: 1. Underground Platonism in Byzantium; 2. The rise of the Byzantinel<