As a historian – and I do consider myself one – I tend to look for two distinct features in the data I peruse: Patterns and limits. Both of these excite my interest like few other topics, and both of these may only be adequately identified and gauged and ascertained once vast amounts of data,…
Stikkord: plato
Porphyry’s revealing tribute to Plotinus
Have you ever read Porphyry’s beautiful tribute to his Master and Guru, the wonderful Plotinus; the Platonic Philosopher-Mystic of whom the famous ancient literary critic Longinus admiringly said «set the principles of Pythagoras and of Plato in a clearer light than anyone before him» (and who may have been a close friend of Origen)? You…
On my thesis research into the thought of St. Augustine of Hippo
As I am going through my master’s thesis, four years after its completion, in order to make some minor corrections, and recalling the for me momentous, and at times almost ecstatic experience the process of composing it was, I would reiterate that some of the most striking discoveries I made when doing the research on…
An update on some of my recent academic work dealing with Platonic Philosophy, religion and ancient history
Dear Readers: It has been a while since this home page and blog of mine was last refreshed with new content, but, as my followers on Academia.edu are aware of, I have not been (entirely) idle, and since the beginning of 2022, I have actually composed several new papers and e-books. I have also produced…
Dagens vedvarende tanke / Today’s persistent thought
20 March 2024: Like most other people, I have made many mistakes, been entranced by many a popular misconception, and been stiff-necked in my naiveté and ignorance at times, but, unlike many of the incarnated beings of this present Age, I will be able to say, when I meet my Pilot Face to Face (as…
Et nytt platonsk akademi for en ny og vanskelig tid
Av Edmund Schilvold (M.Th.) Oktober 2023 Kan antikkens platonske akademi, som i århundrer spilte en sentral rolle i det gamle Hellas’ og i Europas kulturelle og religiøse liv, men som på 500-tallet ble tvangsnedlagt av den østromerske keiseren, gjenopplives i vår tid, her i det høye nord? Det er et spørsmål jeg har stilt meg…
Plato was no «totalitarian», and the «Republic» is primarily an allegory
This article on Plato’s «Republic», by the very insightful Prof. John Ubersax, makes a point which cannot be repeated frequently enough, considering how often Plato’s greatest dialogue is misunderstood and misconstrued, even by scholars, namely that the Politeia (the ancient Greek title of this work) is in fact an extended metaphor, dealing with the life…
The misconstrual of Plato’s Republic, that St. Augustine quotes Socrates, and other discoveries
Below are some examples of what my master’s thesis in theology and philosophy (which you may download for free, as a PDF, by clicking on this link) achieves in terms of research and discoveries: 1. Introduction: St. Augustine of Hippo (the famous church father) quotes directly from Plato’s Republic (arguably one of the greatest literary…
Why Christian theology studies and a decade of reading ancient texts made me a (Christian) Platonist
In the following, I shall attempt to briefly explain why I am applying for admittance to a doctoral program in philosophy. It may, I freely acknowledge, seem a little odd that someone who has essentially been preparing to become a priest since 2015 would make this decision, at the very time when he is on…
Master’s thesis «follow-up»: A new and ground-breaking analysis of the Socratic and Platonic concept of the Good (free 24-page essay/e-book)
For the first time since 2020, I am now publishing a major literary production of mine here, on this blog — an essay-like academic paper exclusively devoted to a comprehensive analysis of and certain musings regarding what one might style the ontological nature of Plato’s Good, which, as I believe I have come very close…
A Brief Critique of Religious Empiricism, Logical Positivism, Materialistic Monism and the Anti-Supernaturalism of “N. T. Wright”
Undertaken with the Aid of the Theologia Germanica and Sir A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic. Or: Countering the Attempt to Entrap the Human Mind in a Verbal Matrix This paper owes its origin to a three-day “home exam” I sat for in November 2018, as part of the master’s program in theology I…
Visions of the Suprarational: A Study of the Concept of Nous in the Works of Plato and St. Augustine of Hippo
My recently completed master’s thesis, which one could say is the culmination of more than ten years of research into the nature of Platonism and Christianity, mysticism and religion, as well as of a very long personal, spiritual journey, is now available for download as an e-book/PDF-file. This is the longest and most significant literary…
Edmund Schilvold: Skribent, fotograf, filosof, friluftsentusiast 