Gemiste Pléthon

Georges Gémistos known as Gemiste Pléthon (1355, Constantinople - 1452), Byzantine philosopher .

Biography

It is born between 1355 and 1360 with Constantinople. Although we do not have information some on its origin and its family, the various authors having undertaken research on this subject consider that it was born within an easy family, probably of orthodoxe sacerdotal origin, from where it is logical to suppose that it had a complete formation as of its childhood.

Like many Greek intellectuals at the time, it goes to the court Sultan, and it is thus, which on a not specified date, according to what affirms Gennade Scholarios, future patriarch of Constantinople and his declared adversary, Pléthon travelled at least in two of the most important Othoman cities, Andrinople and Brousse. He studies with Elisee, a Jew follower of Falsafa, versed in Averroès and Maïmonide, which maintained contacts with the Jews coming from Spain. Its stay in the Othoman world undoubtedly lasts a score of years.

Undoubtedly about 1390, Pléthon goes back to Constantinople where it quickly acquires a great reputation like scholar and joins together a circle of disciples, among which one will notice Marc Eugénikos, who will play a big role in the council of Florence. But the Church, alarmed of the contents of its lesson tries to make it expel and it leaves about 1407 to Mistra, city close to the Sparte antique, named seems it first judge of what is then the Despotat de Morée.

It there founds and develops its school which will be so important then for the diffusion of the platonism in Occident. It counts among its disciples Bessarion.

It is sent between 1438 and 1439, with the Concile of Florence at the time of the attempt to make stop the schism of the East and votage thus in Italy with the Greek delegation. In Florence it makes contact with the circle of Léonardo Bruni, heir to the lesson of Pétrarque and translator of Plato, and initiates a relation with Cosme de Médicis about the need for looking further into the Hellenic thought (without the filter of St Augustin). It is under its influence, according to the dires of Marsile Ficin, that the Lord of Florence will decide creation of the new Platonic Academy in his villa of Carreggi.

After the council, Pléthon turns over to Mistra in 1440 from where it will not set out again any more and where it will die on June 26th, 1452. After his death one discovered his principal work, the Treaty of the laws, which brought back to Constantinople in 1460 (7 years after the catch of the city by the Turks), was partially censured by the orthodoxe patriarch Scholarios.

Works

Extracts and comments of works of Appien, Théophraste, Aristote, Diodore of Sicily, Xénophonte, Porphyry of Tyr and Denys d' Halicarnasse. He wrote works of theology, music, rhetoric, funeral orations, of history and treaties of geography. Its work Of gestis græcorum post pugnam AD Mantineam , starting from Diodore and Plutarque was published in 1503 in Venice and one made of them many editions in several languages. Other works: Of rebus Peloponesiacis constituendis , Oracula magica Zoroastris ; Prolegomena Artis Rhetoricæ ; Orationes funeral of immortalitate animæ ; the treaties Zoroastri and Platonicorum dogmatum compendium ; Of fato ; Of virtutibus ; Of the legibus and most important De Platonicae atque Aristotelicae Philosophiae differentiated which clearly shows its orientation neoplatonician and exalte openly Plato with the detriment of Aristote, which was worth to him the anger of the recalcitrant aristotelicians like Georges Scholarios, which was patriarch of Constantinople and ordered to destroy its work the Treaty of the laws .

It tried to reconcile the Eastern théogonies with the doctrines of Christianity. In moral philosophy it accepted the influence of stoicism. For Pléthon, Zoroastre was the most ancient source of wisdom, whose genealogy finished with Pythagore and Plato. The chaldaïques Oracles were the pure source of the wisdom of Zoroastre, works which, moreover, was considered contemporary texts of Hermes Trismégiste, actually written at the 2nd century after J. - C. at the time of Marc-Aurèle. Work was published in 1894 by W. Kroll.

The preserved synopsis of the Treated Laws and the many writings on the policy, the history, medicine, the music, metaphysics and philosophy, show the intention of Pléthon to reconsider philosophy like a form of life able to harmonize the individual and the company with a transcendent purpose for which the gods put to us in this world.

Pléthon traced a meticulous genealogy of its predecessors in the doctrines which it synthesized, which went from Zoroastre and the Hindu Brahmans to Plotin and its disciples Porphyre and Jamblique, while passing through Pythagore and Plato, clearly letting hear that, on the subjects as important as the knowledge of the gods and the origin and the destiny of the man and the things in general, it did not bring any innovation. “All coincide in the majority of the most important subjects and always appear to have revealed their ideas with the most intelligent men”, known as the philosopher in the Treaty. This is why it attempted to draw aside from its synthesis the relativists skeptics and the sophists, traditional like modern. Thus for example, chapter III of the Treaty of the laws is dedicated to the refutation of the doctrines of Protagoras and Pyrrhon.

External bonds

http://lem.vjf.cnrs.fr/fichecerl/tambrun.html http://www.nouvelleacropole.org/articles/article.asp?id=82

Sources

François Massed, Pléthon and the platonism of Mistra , Belles Letters, 1956
Georges Gémiste Pléthon, Traité virtues. Edition criticizes with introduction , translation and comment, Corpus Philosophorum Medii Aevi, Philosophi Byzantini 3, Athens-Tea Academy off Athens, E.J. Brill, Leiden, 1987
the bases metaphysics and ethics of the political thought of Pléthon , Thèse of Doctorate, directed by P. Magnard and Mr. Tardieu, Université Paris Iv-Sorbonne, 2002,504 p.

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