BETWEEN THE SPACE OF THE IMAGINARY AND THE SPHERE OF IDEAS: ONTOLOGICAL MODEL OF PROCLUS AND IRANIAN NEOPLATONIC TRADITION OF SUHRAWARDĪ
Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of the influence of Neoplatonic concepts, in particular, the philosophy of Proclus on the discursive space of Iranian Neoplatonism. Proclus' system, Neoplatonic dialectic, turned out to be meaningful for the school of Yahya as-Suhrawardī. Exploring the “Primordial philosophy,” Suhrawardy attempted to build an ontological concept based on the Neoplatonic system. In this case, Proclus's dialectic helped him to reconcile Islamic orthodoxy and Shia concepts of ghulat. The reception of Platonism within the framework of the Illuminativist school had a tremendous influence on the development of Iranian philosophical thought in subsequent periods. It set the discursive framework for Iranian philosophical schools during the Safavid Renaissance of the 16th-17th centuries; Neoplatonism turned out to be the main language of philosophical reflection in the Iranian (more broadly, Shiite) intellectual sphere throughout the High Middle Ages and the New Age. In addition, the influence of Suhrawardi and his followers is also evident in the intellectual tradition of the Ottoman Empire, but the Illuminati traditions of the Sublime Porte require further detailed study. Thus, the strict hierarchy of the ontological and epistemological system confirmed the complex religious and historical constructions of Shiite imamology. The chains of revelation of the vilayat were considered in the context of Neoplatonic emanation, and one of the forms of legitimation of the prophetic revelation of the imams was an appeal to the accidental light, the border space between the world of ideas and the world of matter. In addition, it was the complex, multi-level system of Proclus and Damascus that offered not only a vertical orientation from the Highest Principle to the lower forms of matter, but also numerous horizontal levels parallel to each other, in which each of the hypostases of the One is divided into a number of self-completed participatory hypostases emanating from their uninvolved monadic cause. Maintaining this structure, Suhrawardī speaks of a multiplicity of self-completed revelations emanating from the single source of all prophecies, the reality of alam al-mihtal.
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