The Handbook of Platonism

Alcinous · George Burges

The single most important surviving handbook of Middle Platonism — a complete, systematic summary of Platonic doctrine as it was taught in the second century AD, arranged under logic (the “dialectic”), physics, and ethics. Long ascribed to the Platonist Albinus but transmitted under the name Alcinous, it was regarded from Byzantine times through the Renaissance as the ideal introduction to Plato. In thirty-four chapters it covers the philosophic life, the parts and instruments of dialectic, matter, the Ideas, the first god and his intellect, the making of the world and of man, the senses, the soul and its immortality, fate and free will, the good, the virtues, love, the forms of polity, and the sophist. This is George Burges’s translation from Bohn’s Works of Plato, vol. VI (1865); his notes are omitted. Public domain. The teaching of the peculiar opinions of Plato would be something of …

Editions (plain text / reader):

• George Burges (this edition) — read
• Greek text — read

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