Includes bibliographical references and index.

Philosophy on the defensive : Marsilio Ficino's response in a time of religious turmoil / Valery Rees -- Ficino, Plotinus, and the chameleonic soul / Anna Corrias -- Healing rituals and their philosophical significance in Marsilio Ficino's philosophy / Guido Giglioni -- A Platonic light metaphysics between St. Augustine and Ficino : Girolamo Seripando's Quaestiones CIX De re philosophico-theologica / Angelo Maria Vitale -- The letter of Lysis to Hipparchus in the Renaissance / Eva Del Soldato -- Niccolò Leonico Tomeo's accounts of veridical dreams and the Idola of Synesius / Nicholas Holland -- The Platonic stain : origen, philosophy and censorship between the Renaissance and the Counter Reformation / Pasquale Terracciano -- Francisco de Hollanda on artistic creation, the origin of ideas, and demiurgic painting / Paula Oliveira e Silva -- 'Platonic-Hermetic' Jacob Böhme, or : is Böhme a Platonist? / Cecilia Muratori -- The theory of ideal objects and relations in the Cambridge Platonists (Rust, More, and Cudworth) / Brunello Lotti -- Platonism, metaphysics, and modern science : Rüdiger and Swedenborg / Francesca Maria Crasta -- Schelling and Plato : the idea of the world-soul in Schelling's Timaeus / Laura Follesa -- On the phenomenological 'reactivation' or 'repetition' of Plato's Dialogues by Leo Strauss / Pierpaolo Ciccarelli -- Care of the self and politics : Michel Foucault, heir of a forgotten Plato? / Laura Candiotto -- Dialectic in Plato's Sophist and Derrida's 'law of the supplement of copula' / Arnold Oberhammer -- Image and copy in French deconstruction of Platonism / Andrea Le Moli.

"The sixteen essays in this volume trace the development of Platonism in the history of Western thought, starting with the revival of the Platonic tradition in the early modern period that followed the rediscovery and translation of important Greek texts. Special attention is devoted to Marsilio Ficino's translations and commentaries; to the relationship between Platonism and Christianity; to the influence of Platonic metaphysics on the mystical tradition - in particular on Jacob Böhme and Emanuel Swedenborg; to the impact of idealism on the hermeneutical criticism of traditional philosophical categories and to the ways in which the so-called 'Critique of Modernity' promoted a new reading of the Platonic dialogues. The emphasis throughout is on demonstrating the theoretical and historical continuity of Platonism over the centuries"-- Provided by publisher.

Description based on print version record.