Chapter 9 A Match Made in Heaven: The Metaphysics of Aphrodite in Neoplatonic Thinkers
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Abstract
The aim of this paper is to display some of the rich portraits of Aphrodite as goddess of love and beauty in Neoplatonic thought, with special attention to the various incorporations of the Platonic split between heavenly and pandemic Aphrodite. We look at Plotinus, Hermias, and Proclus, and end with a brief glance forward to Renaissance Platonism. The views of later Neoplatonists differ considerably from that of (at least early) Plotinus, as for them Aphrodite is not the soul, and although they make room for base desires, they exclude or transform pandemic Aphrodite. All thinkers discussed have set aside both an emanative and a reverting role for the goddess. Both these roles concern not so much love and beauty, as connecting hierarchically ordered opposites.