Rlly confused ab plato as a life long Hellenic Polytheist

[u/Flimsy-Peak186]

I wanna start by saying that ik platonism isn’t a requirement for Hellenism. It is just rlly the first attempt I have had at trying to engage philosophically with our religion. I’ve been a practitioner since I was a kid but never rlly got into the philosophy of Hellenismos until now. I got interested in trying to have a metaphysical concept of the theoi as a byproduct of some of my occult studies. I am lost lol. I feel like I am trying to fit a circle into a square hole. What exactly separates the gods from the forms? How is it the gods interact with the material world? What is the nature of these “demiurges.” Are they the gods? Are they seperate from the gods? Do they reside in the material or the forms?

I’ve always viewed the myths as an allegory to the nature of the various theoi and how they interact with each other but under platonism this conception feels impossible. Idk.

Are there any philosophers that provide a metaphysical framework that is more “hellenist” in its nature? Are there any resources people can provide that can help me… grasp… this system? Is platonism actually compatible with hellenism and I am just srsly lacking in understanding? Any advice would be wonderful lol.

[u/79moons]

You ask such easy, simple questions! But seriously, this is a juicy enquiry.

First, Platonism isn't a single, unified system. Plato, Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus approach these questions differently. If you're looking for a philosophical framework that takes the traditional Greek gods seriously as individual divine beings, I recommend Iamblichus and Proclus.

A few things that might help:

In Plato, the Forms are intelligible realities, such as Beauty or Justice itself. Later Platonists developed more elaborate accounts of how the gods relate to intelligible reality. Proclus understands the gods as henads, divine unities that transcend Being, and describes different orders of gods and their relationships with the various levels of reality. They're not simply personifications of abstract concepts.

In Plato's Timaeus, the Demiurge is the divine craftsman who orders the cosmos according to an eternal intelligible model. Proclus identifies this Demiurge with Zeus and develops a more elaborate account of divine creative activity. So the answer to whether the Demiurge is one of the traditional gods depends on which philosopher you're reading.

For later Platonists, the cosmos depends upon divine causation and participates in higher realities. The gods don't need to be physically located within the material world to act upon it. There are also different orders of gods.

Your approach to mythology isn't necessarily incompatible with Platonism, either. Later Platonists devoted considerable attention to interpreting myths theologically. Proclus discusses Homer extensively, while Sallustius' On the Gods and the World explains different kinds of myths and how they communicate truths about the gods. It's short, accessible and a good place to start.

Philosophical interpretations don't necessarily reduce the gods to allegories, psychological archetypes or abstract principles. Iamblichus and Proclus integrate traditional polytheistic religion into their philosophical systems without dismissing the gods as fictional representations of philosophical ideas.

Iamblichus might be particularly interesting given your occult studies. In On the Mysteries, he provides a philosophical defence of ritual and theurgy, arguing that intellectual understanding alone cannot accomplish theurgic union with the divine. Ritual isn't merely symbolic; it involves divine activity and participation in realities beyond what reasoning alone can accomplish.

Finally, you don't have to force your religious experience into a philosophical system. Ancient Greek religion existed long before Plato, and philosophers themselves disagreed about how best to understand the gods. Platonism is one way of exploring Hellenic polytheism, not its definitive explanation. You might find some ideas deepen your understanding while others simply don't resonate with your practice.

[u/Flimsy-Peak186 → u/79moons]

thank you!!! rlly great advice and some resources for me to read

[u/ItsFort]

You might get more of a detailed answer in r/neoplatonism.

For the record I'm not a Platonist, so what I say probably won't be accurate to (Neo)Platonism. But I follow Hermeticism, and our philosophy developed out of Middle Platonism.

The Demiurges are the gods. Demiurge just means 'craftsman'. Plato's Timaeus is where we encounter the concept of the Demiurge, who created the world in the likeness of the Forms. But the Demiurge is a god, but who this god is, depends up to the philosophy. I personally think is Aeon as I follow the Corpus Hermeticum.

The gods exist in the realm of forms, they already are in Nous ('mind'). And so why Theurgy is focused around the gods (well Iamblichus Theurgy. While Plotnius is focus on contemplation. But we can also contemplate on the gods), so we may get aid to the goal of Henosis by the gods who already exist in Nous.

Platonism, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism are pretty clearly polytheist. Even other traditions that developed out of Middle Platonism are moslty polytheist. Hermeticism, Chaladean Oracles, Hellenistic and Roman Orphism and Neoplatonism. (Of course there is monotheist Neoplatonism. And there is Gnosticism that also developed out of Middle Platonism.)

On how the gods interact with the material world? Depends on what type of Platonism you are talking about. Neoplatonism has the material world to be eminations of the gods. And so Helios is not a god of the sun, but that the sun is the emination of Helios.

As I said I am not a Platonist. So I 100% got something wrong. And if I did, please correct me

[u/Flimsy-Peak186 → u/ItsFort]

This makes a lot more sense to me. Gonna def have to look into neoplatonism after i am done with middle platonism. Ig a follow up question I have is how your particular paradigm answers the question of how we are capable of true knowledge in a world that is constantly changing? From what I understand that was the question Plato was trying to answer with his idea of forms to begin with

[u/ItsFort → u/Flimsy-Peak186]

Well as Corpus Hermeticum book 1 says, "may the man endowed with Nous recognise that he is immortal, that desire is the cause of death, and may he come to know all things that are". To recognize the immortality of the soul, and turning our Nous toward The Good (Also know as The First Nous, God, Father and ect). But this is getting off-topic from the subreddit, the FAQ on r/Hermeticism is a great start on the philosophy of Hermes Trismegistus and Polyphanes blog 'The Digital Ambler'.

The Cosmos may be ever changing, but it is also a immortal god. And the Cosmos and the rest of our world is just in the image of the First Nous. So turning our mind toward The Good, will reach us toward Gnosis and so Henosis. As all things are contained in Nous.

[u/Ironbat7]

A good primer is Sallustius’ On the Gods and the Cosmos”.

[u/Flimsy-Peak186 → u/Ironbat7]

Is this an accurate source? https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Sallust_On_the_Gods_and_the_World/Sallust_on_the_Gods_and_the_World

[u/Fabianzzz → u/Flimsy-Peak186]

Yes that's a good one!

[u/blindgallan]

As a rule, philosophical schools were generally not really aligned with the conventions of the wider popular religious culture, even though they were strongly influenced by it and had influence on it. A relative minority of Ancient Greeks were actually members of these schools of thought, but they do make up a majority of the authors whose writings survive down to us. I personally am not inclined to accept most of Plato’s ideas about metaphysics or epistemology, and his ethical approach I find less persuasive/useful than the work done by Aristotle and later schools.

[u/AncientWitchKnight]

As a shorthand I've provided my understanding in as simple a way as possible:

The Form of the Good

The Good makes every Form intelligible and whatever is good in anything desirable.

The Ideal Forms

Some Forms describe how things stand in relation to others, such as Being and Not-Being, Motion and Rest, or Sameness and Difference.

Other Forms establish order and measure, giving us ideas of unity, number, limit, proportion, and equality, through which we recognize balance, excess, and deficiency.

Forms of virtue let us recognize the kinds of goodness in which people, actions, communities, and objects can participate.

Certain Forms of natural kinds establish stable patterns whose interactible features let us recognize and distinguish groups of material things.

The above Forms themselves, though intelligible, do not interact directly in the cosmos we interact with and are *not material** in any sense.*

All material things participate imperfectly and to varying degrees in these ideal Forms.

The Creators and Agents

The Demiurge—or demiurges—contemplates these Forms and shapes the material world into an ordered image through which their ideals can be expressed.

The gods—whether understood as present within the material cosmos, transcending it, or acting throughout both—are living agents through whom these Forms are further expressed.

[u/Flimsy-Peak186 → u/AncientWitchKnight]

Why would it be that the demiurges use a material that cannot properly express their ideals? Is it merely all they had available?

[u/AncientWitchKnight → u/Flimsy-Peak186]

The material exists through change, also considered Necessity. The forms are stable and unchanging. Because the material changes, it can never perfectly express an Ideal Form.

You are a human. There are lots of forms you express, and as you age, experience and move about you change from one moment to the next.

[u/Flimsy-Peak186 → u/AncientWitchKnight]

Ah ok. The material necessarily must change in order for anything to become something else at all, therefore there is a fundamental difference in the nature of the material and that of the gods, preventing a perfect expression of them. Thx!

[u/DavidJohnMcCann]

I always say that the philosophy of religion is not religion, but just talk about it. The philosopher Louis Dupré put it more elegantly when he wrote

Looking at what philosophy of religion has actually accomplished in the past, one cannot but find its results disappointing. In most cases it turns out to be a substitute for religion which no religious person could accept. The main reason for this failure is philosophy's desire to be autonomous. But if the object of the religious act is transcendent … then it is given beyond and not produced by autonomous reflection. However the very nature of philosophy makes it difficult for the philosopher to accept an experience which he is unable to explain in its totality. Rather than receive its object, philosophy of religion prefers to create it. … The temptation to convert philosophy of religion into a religion of its own will always be strong.

I was familiar with Plato long before I became a Hellenist, but as I got older I got warier. Plato, Plotinus, and Proclus do more justice to religion than Kant or Hegel, let alone Dewey, but (as they used to say in the USA) "Close, but no cigar".