ALCINOUS
(fl. c. 150 CE)

Alcinous is the name that has come down to us in the manuscript tradition as the author of a handbook of Platonic doctrine, Didaskalikos tôn Platonos dogmatôn, probably from the second century CE. Following an 1879 suggestion by the German scholar Jacob Freudenthal, this figure was identified for more than a hundred years with the Middle Platonist philosopher known as Albinus, but this is now recognized to have been based on unsound assumptions, and the work has been returned to its shadowy author. The Didaskalikos has much in common with another second-century handbook of Platonism, the De Platone et eius dogmate of Apuleius, but the similarities are not close enough to indicate that they emanate from the same school.

The Didaskalikos is an introduction to Platonism as it was understood in the first and second centuries CE, which means that it exhibits an amalgam of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoic formulations and doctrines, presented as clarifications and amplifications of Plato's views. Aristotelian influence is particularly to be seen in the sphere of logic, where the whole system of syllogistic is claimed for Plato; Stoic influence may be seen chiefly in ethics, in relation to the doctrine that virtue is sufficient for happiness. In either case the assumption is that Aristotle and the Stoics are only expounding Platonic doctrine.

The work is divided as follows. After three introductory chapters, concerned with the definition of philosophy and the distinction of its "parts"—physics, ethics, and logic—Alcinous proceeds to take these three topics in order, beginning with logic (chaps. 4–6), then turning to "physics" (chaps. 7–26), comprising both an account of first principles, Matter, Form, and God (chaps. 7–11), and then of the physical world, largely based on Plato's Timaeus, but also including discussions of the immortality of the soul, and of fate and free will (chaps. 12–26); and finally ethics, covering such topics as the virtues, happiness, the purpose of life (telos )—which he characterizes as "likeness to God"—the emotions, and political theory (chaps. 27–34). The work ends with a disquisition on the difference between the philosopher and the Sophist (chap. 35), and a brief conclusion (chap. 36).

While the Didaskalikos is not securely datable, there is nothing in it that cannot be seen as "Middle Platonist" in doctrine. Even the discussion of God in chapter 10, which has many intriguing aspects, including a distinction between a supreme God, a cosmic Intellect and a World Soul, can be accommodated within Middle Platonist parameters.

See also Aristotle; Plato; Stoicism.

Bibliography

Dillon, John M. The Middle Platonists: A Study of Platonism, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220. London: Duckworth, 1977. Rev. ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Dillon, John M., trans. Alcinous: The Handbook of Platonism. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1993.

Giusta, M. I dossografi di etica. 2 vols. Turin: Giappichelli, 1967.

Whittaker, John. Alcinoos: Enseignement des doctrines de Platon. Budé ed. Paris: Belles lettres, 1990.

John Dillon (2005)