The concept of the Noosphere (from ancient Greek νοῦς meaning “mind” + σφαῖρα meaning “sphere,” literally translated as “sphere of mind”) is a hypothetical sphere of interaction between society and nature. Within its boundaries, human rational activity becomes a determining factor in development. This sphere is also referred to as the “anthroposphere.”
The Noosphere is considered a presumed new and higher stage in the evolution of the biosphere. Its emergence is linked to the development of society, which has a profound impact on natural processes. According to V.I. Vernadsky, “in the biosphere, there exists a great geological, perhaps cosmic force, the planetary action of which is usually not taken into account in conceptions of the cosmos… This force is the reason of man, directed and organized by his will as a social being.”
Origin and Evolution of the Concept
The term “Noosphere” was coined by the Sorbonne mathematics professor Eduard Le Roy, who interpreted it as a “thinking” envelope formed by human consciousness. Le Roy emphasized that he arrived at this idea jointly with his friend, the geologist and evolutionary paleontologist, and Catholic philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Both Le Roy and de Chardin were influenced by lectures on geochemistry given by Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky at the Sorbonne in 1922-1923.
The most comprehensive development of Le Roy’s theory is found in the work of Teilhard de Chardin, who not only shared the idea of abiogenesis (the origin of life from non-living matter) but also believed that the ultimate goal of the development of the Noosphere would be its merging with God. The development of Noospheric doctrine is primarily associated with Vernadsky. According to Professor A.S. Galchinsky of the University of Kiev, “The ideas of the founders of the theory of the Noosphere—V. Vernadsky and P. Teilhard de Chardin—essentially derive from Marx.”
Vladimir Vernadski, 1934.
Le Roy’s Noospheric theory is based on the ideas of Plotinus (205—270) about the emanation of the One (the unknowable First Principle, identified with the Good) into the Mind and the World Soul, with their subsequent transformation back into the One. According to Plotinus, the One first produces the World Mind (nous), containing the world of ideas, then the Mind generates the World Soul, which breaks down into individual souls and creates the sensory world. Matter arises as the lowest step in emanation. When beings in the sensory world reach a certain stage of development, they begin to realize their own incompleteness and strive for union, and ultimately, merger with the One.
Le Roy and Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary model echoes the fundamental tenets of Neoplatonism. While the origin of the universe, and the emergence, and development of life on Earth are described in terms of modern science, the conceptual framework aligns with the principles of Neoplatonists. According to Plotinus, humans strive to transcend the Soul into the realm of the Mind, and then, through ecstasy, unite with the One. According to Teilhard de Chardin, humans also seek to enter the realm of reason and dissolve into God.
Le Roy interpreted Plotinus’ ideas in a Bergsonian spirit. Henri Bergson’s influence on the formation of the Noospheric theory primarily lies in his proposition of creative evolution (“L’évolution créatrice,” 1907). According to Bergson, the authentic and primal reality is life as a metaphysical-cosmic process, a creative evolution; its structure is duration, comprehended only through intuition, with various aspects of duration—matter, consciousness, memory, and spirit. The universe lives, grows through the process of creative consciousness, and freely develops in accordance with its inherent inclination towards life—the “vital impulse” (l’élan vital).
Bergson’s influence is also evident in Teilhard de Chardin’s work. In “The Phenomenon of Man,” he refers several times to Bergsonian categories of impulse (l’élan) and duration (durée).
The term “anthroposphere” was introduced into scientific circulation by D.N. Anuchin in 1902.
After the 1972 International Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the terms “ecology” and “Noosphere” gained popularity due to the threat of an ecological catastrophe.
V.I. Vernadsky on the Noosphere
According to the summaries by F.T. Yanshina, V.I. Vernadsky formulated the following 12 conditions for the future Noosphere:
Human settlement across the entire planet.
Radical transformation of means of communication and exchange between different countries.
Strengthening connections, including political ones, among the states of the Earth.
Human geological role prevailing over other geological processes occurring in the biosphere.
Expansion of the boundaries of the biosphere and venturing into space.
Discovery of new sources of energy.
Equality of all races and religions.
The increased role of the masses in addressing issues and domestic policies.
Freedom of scientific thought and inquiry from the pressure of religious, philosophical, and political constructs, creating conditions in societal and state structures conducive to free scientific thought.
Improvement of the well-being of the working class. Creating real opportunities to prevent malnutrition, hunger, and poverty, and reduce the impact of diseases.
Rational transformation of the Earth’s primary nature to make it capable of satisfying all material, aesthetic, and spiritual needs of the growing population.
Exclusion of wars from human life.
Vernadsky asserted that humanity, in the course of its development, transforms into a new powerful “geological force,” using its thoughts and labor to reshape the face of the planet. Accordingly, for its preservation, humanity will have to take responsibility for the development of the biosphere, transforming it into the Noosphere. This will require a specific social organization and a new ecological and simultaneously humanistic ethics.
V.I. Vernadsky wrote about the Noosphere as both an accomplished reality and an inevitable future. He considered it a new evolutionary state of the biosphere, reworked by the scientific thought of social humans. “Through his labor—and his conscious attitude toward life—man transforms the Earth’s shell—the geological domain of life—the biosphere. He translates it into a new geological state; through his labor and consciousness, the biosphere evolves into the Noosphere… The face of the planet changes profoundly. A stage of the Noosphere is being created.”
Thus, the concept of the “Noosphere” appears in two aspects:
The Noosphere is in the stage of formation, developing spontaneously since the appearance of humans.
The developed Noosphere is consciously shaped by the collective efforts of people for the comprehensive development of humanity as a whole and each individual.
Criticism
While the concept of “living substance” was accepted by Soviet science and the term “biosphere” is occasionally found in post-Soviet scientific texts, the concept of the “noosphere” faces sharp objections in scientific circles and is extremely rarely used in scientific publications. Critics of the theory of the “noosphere” argue that it is ideologized and carries a non-scientific, rather a religious-philosophical character. In particular, F.R. Shtilmark, a prominent Soviet ecologist and Doctor of Biological Sciences, believes: “thoughts about the Noosphere as the Society of Reason… are inherently deeply religious and, for now, remain utopian.”
American environmental historian D. Weiner labels the theory of the noosphere as a “utopian and scientifically untenable idea.”
Criticism of Vernadsky’s “noosphere” is also presented in the monograph by B. Mirkin and L. Naumova.
Philosopher V.A. Kutyryov contends:
“The essence of the renewed view of the noosphere, which we intend to defend here and which, it seems, more adequately responds to the situation, is this: from the very beginning, this theory carried elements of utopia; axiological and ontological approaches intertwine in it without any differentiation… The noosphere as harmony is a scientistic analogue of socio-political utopias like communism and other earlier dreams of paradise.”
Russian ecologist and climatologist A. Pozdnyakov writes:
In the scientific community of Russia, “noosferogenesis” is considered a theory. However, if we understand the theory as a systematic sequence of practical actions necessary to achieve a goal, then this is more of an inadequately grounded utopian stance on the omnipotence of man. At the core of this “theory” lies ordinary human vanity, manifesting as ego- and anthropocentrism…
According to L.L. Prozorova:
…many modern interpretations referring to “Vernadsky’s Teaching on the Noosphere” have a fragmented, primarily socio-political, sometimes speculative nature, without a definite conceptual core. <…> no such doctrine has been created, <…> for the scientific world to accept it as a unified concept for research. In fact, this led to the levity that allowed constructing “their worlds.”
Noospherism and Noospherology
Based on the doctrine of the “noosphere,” the concept of “noospherism” emerged. Legal scholars M.N. Kuznetsov and I.V. Ponkin concluded on the “content of the religious-political ideology of noospherism,” noting the extensive scope of this “quasi-religious ideology” and pointing to close connections between “noospherism” and the occult-religious teachings of “Russian cosmism” and occult-religious groups following the ideas of the Roerichs. However, according to the authors of the conclusion, it does not directly relate to Vernadsky’s legacy, as “noospherism” is a manipulation of Vernadskian ideas and his name.
Russian historian and sociologist N.A. Mitrokhin calls noospherology a “scientistic intellectual tradition, deifying the personality of the late academician V. Vernadsky” and potentially “the most influential of the civil religions in contemporary Russia.”
In Popular Culture
The term “noosphere” has been used several times in the subculture of computer games, albeit with a meaning loosely connected to the original (particularly in games like S.T.A.L.K.E.R., Metro 2033, and Warhammer 40,000).
The Macrocosm (from the Greek “macro” = long, large) is “the world as an organism analogous to man, a totality whose parts correspond.” In a more modern sense, “macrocosm” refers to a comprehensive view (economically termed “macroscopic vision”). Synonym: “macroscope” (Joël de Rosnay, 1975). Not to be confused with macrosociology and microsociology.
The Word
Etymologically, “macrocosm” means “large world,” from the Greek “macros” (μακρός, “large”) and “cosmos” (κόσμος, “world”). Macrocosm: large world, thus the universe in relation to man, who is a “small world.”
Historical Background
This notion is used in complementarity with the microcosm, mainly in Asian cultures and beliefs, such as Taoist principles or the image of Ganesh, a Hindu god.
In the West, the concepts (not the words) of macrocosm and microcosm can be traced back to Orphism and Pythagoreanism, but also to Plato’s Timaeus. Pythagoras establishes an analogy between the four seasons of the world and the four stages of a man’s life.
“He [Pythagoras] thus divides a man’s life. Child for twenty years; young man for twenty years; middle-aged man for twenty years; old man for twenty years. And the ages correspond to the seasons as follows: child/spring, young man/summer, middle-aged man/autumn, old man/winter.”
The great theorist is Paracelsus (1493–1541), who emphasizes that the microcosm is a small world and the macrocosm is not the entirety of Nature, only the visible level:
“What is this dust from which man was formed? It is the mud of the earth, that is, the large world… From the quintessence that Scripture calls the mud of the earth, this same God, after creating the large world, formed the small world. Man is this small world that contains all the qualities of the large world. That is why he is called a microcosm. Man is the quintessence of the firmament and elements, of heaven and earth… Conception provides an example of this collaboration between external forces and internal forces. The stars of the macrocosm and those of the microcosm form combinations that generate a specific action at the moment of conception…” (Philosophia Sagax, 1571).
Papus, the grand master of neo-occultism:
“A single law governs the constitution of the universe. There is a Small Universe having in itself all the laws of the grand universe, and by analogy, one can rediscover all general laws. This small universe is the microcosmos or Microcosm: it is man. Alongside this summary made in the image of the grand universe, there is this Grand Universe, the Omniverse of Michel de Figanières, or the macrocosm, Macrocosm, or grand universe of the initiatic tradition. The Macrocosm forms the body of God. This body of God, whose suns are the central organs, and the planets, the cells, is no more God himself than our body is our self. It is the support of the divine or astral forces in circulation.”
Legends and tales are also very fertile on the subject, featuring universes containing or contained. Often, the difference lies in their smaller size (world in the pocket, genie in the bottle, Gulliver’s Travels, etc.).
Macrocosmos vs Microcosmos
“Macrocosmos” (“great world,” from the Greek “makrós” meaning “large” and “kósmos” meaning “world,” Latinized as “macrocosmus” or “maior mundus”) is the counterpart to “Microcosmos” (“small world”). It refers to the world as a whole, insofar as it is perceived from a philosophical or religious perspective as an ordered, self-contained unity—a cosmos or world order. The “Microcosmos” is then a delimited part of the “Macrocosmos,” standing in a specific relationship to the whole, such as a relationship of similarity or analogy.
In numerous religious or philosophical doctrines, the Microcosmos is considered an image of the Macrocosmos. Such theories usually assume that the “small world” – for example, the Earth, a state, or a living being – repeats the structure of the universe on a smaller scale, reflecting the “great world.” The human, especially the human body, is often regarded as Microcosmos in this sense, making the Macrocosmos/Microcosmos concept an integral part of many anthropological concepts. It is often claimed that the Microcosmos is composed of the same elements as the Macrocosmos. Behind this idea is the notion of a comprehensive world order, a cosmos harmoniously organized according to uniform principles and, therefore, beautiful.
In such a world model, analogical inferences from a part to the whole or vice versa are generally possible. Following this line of thought, many medieval thinkers considered humans as a principle of knowledge: they believed that the self-knowledge of humans simultaneously provided knowledge of everything that exists; understanding the Microcosmos correctly meant understanding the Macrocosmos as well. Some philosophers presented this thesis as “real correspondence,” meaning a strong interpretation. This suggests that in the Microcosmos, the natures of all things are given, and humans encompass all substances of the Macrocosmos. Weaker versions suggest only a correspondence “in a certain way,” an analogy between humans and the world.
In Goethe’s Faust (Part 1) and also in the Urfaust, Faust mentions the sign of the Macrocosmos in his monologue. In the center of the sign is Mercury, surrounded by Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon.
Science
More commonly, the terms macroscopic and microscopic are used, denoting observation scales. For example, the molecular agitation at the microscopic level can be translated into the concept of heat at the macroscopic level (which here can correspond to the human scale).
Joël de Rosnay, then director of development and international relations at the City of Science and Industry in La Villette:
“Today, we are faced with another infinity: the infinitely complex… We are bewildered by the number and the prodigious variety of elements, relationships, interactions, or combinations on which the functioning of the large systems, of which we are the cells, if not the cogs, rests… We need a new tool… I call this tool the macroscope (macro, large; and skopein, to observe)…. It is a symbolic instrument, made up of a set of methods and techniques borrowed from very different disciplines… The macroscope filters details, amplifies connections, highlights what brings together. It is not used to see bigger or farther. But to observe what is both too large, too slow, and very complex for our eyes (like human society, this gigantic organism that is totally invisible to us)… Systemic approach is a new approach symbolized by the macroscope. It relies on a comprehensive approach to the problems or systems under study and focuses on the interplay of interactions between their elements.”
The principle of the macrocosm (of a higher organizational level and implicitly distinct) is not excluded from modern sciences. Humanities first (in linguistics, economics, sociology, etc.) introduced notions like holism, and then exact sciences (biology, physics, mathematics, etc.) based on these developed systems thinking. The goal is to generalize the principle of studying subjects within the totality rather than in a perfect virtual system ultimately limited in its interest (see The Macroscope, for example).
However, false consequences are drawn from it. For instance, the chaos theory made famous the image of a butterfly’s wingbeat triggering a hurricane, meaning the random nature of the meteorological macrocosm can trace the triggering factor back to the tiny microcosm of an insect’s movement.
The principle of emergence, on the other hand, considers that characteristics are inherent to a degree of complexity, aligning with the idea of different organizational levels depending on scales, thus supporting the initial sense of an order established at a distant level.
Five Metaelements (“beginnings,” elements) – one of the cosmogonic variants, a pre-scientific attempt at a universal explanation of the world. In the Western European philosophical tradition from antiquity to the modern era, the five metaelements included air, fire, water, and earth (the four primary elements of the sublunary world), as well as ether, which composed the bodies of the superlunary world (stars, wandering stars – planets, and the Sun).
In the framework of Aristotelian physics, each of these elements was attributed natural qualities and movements.
For instance, light elements (air and fire) were associated with upward movement, while heavy elements (earth and water) were linked to downward movement, and the superlunary ether was described as moving in a circular motion. The experimental natural science of the 17th century cast doubt on several tenets of Aristotelian physics, particularly the notions of the natural movements of elements and the inherent “lightness” of air.
The decisive blow to the concept of the five metaelements came with the chemical revolution of the late 18th century, leading to a radical rethinking of the notion of an element.
The previous elements turned out to be complex mixtures, often challenging to describe in new terms, and were replaced by oxygen, hydrogen, and other elements of modern chemistry. The last echoes of this concept, in the form of the theory of the world ether as a special medium for the propagation of electromagnetic vibrations, persisted until the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
In Eastern philosophical systems (India, China, Japan), there were their own notions of elements that compose the world.
In the Western tradition, the Greek philosopher Aristotle added a fifth element to Empedocles’ four elements (earth, water, fire, and air), known as quintessence or ether, constituting celestial bodies. It’s worth noting Luc Besson’s film “The Fifth Element,” which depicts love as the fifth element. In Captain Planet, the fifth element is the heart, guarded by Ma-Ti.
In physics, the term “aether” has encompassed various different notions over time. Physicists have considered different aethers as “subtle substances distinct from matter and capable of providing or transmitting effects between bodies.” These diverse effects include the trajectories of planets (according to Descartes), the transmission of gravitational force (Isaac Newton), the transportation of light (from Descartes and Robert Hooke to Newton and others until the early 20th century), the conveyance of electric and magnetic force, and later, electromagnetism, even involving the creation of electric charge in certain bodies. Additionally, it involves the creation of a repulsive force around bodies, counteracting gravity (as explained by Pierre-Simon de Laplace in the study of gaseous phenomena).
The theoretical study of the luminiferous aether (light transmitter) led to the development of the concept of elasticity. It allowed for the prediction of certain experimental results by considering light as a wave transmitted by an aether viewed as a fluid with various properties (explored by Christian Huyghens, and Augustin Fresnel, among others). This medium, not directly accessible to experimentation, also served as a platform to compare inductive and deductive methods (a debate particularly active between John Stuart Mill and William Whewell).
Once James Clerk Maxwell‘s equations were established, multiple attempts were made to formulate a theory of an aether that mechanically transports these electromagnetic waves (with Maxwell being the first to attempt this). However, none of these attempts succeeded in accounting for all the properties of electromagnetism, even in the simplest cases. The experiments of Michelson and Morley on the optics of moving bodies led to abstract considerations in such theories (explored by Hendrik Lorentz, and Joseph Larmor). The advent of special relativity put an end to these endeavors, relegating questions about the aether to general considerations, particularly regarding fluctuations in the quantum vacuum.
Aether in Antiquity
A square with the four classical elements at the four corners, and the fifth wood in the center: fourth illustration from the Sylva Philosophorum by Cornelius Petraeus (mid-seventeenth century).
Originally, Aether was a primordial god in Greek mythology, personifying the upper parts of the sky and its brilliance. This concept has persisted in classical poetic language, where “aether” is used to describe a pure sky. Empedocles, who introduced the classical theory of four elements, frequently mentions the ether as a distinct entity. Plato, in Timaeus (58d), refers to aether as “the purest form of air.” Aristotle, in his treatise “On the Heavens,” introduces a new element existing only in the celestial sphere, which moves in a circular motion without needing an external force.
“It is absolutely necessary that there exists a simple body whose nature is to move in circular translation, in accordance with its own nature… Beyond the bodies that surround us here below, there exists another body, separated from them, and possessing a nature more noble the more it is distant from those in our world.” — (Aristotle, On the Heavens, I, 2).
This innovation, causing some confusion, eventually became associated with aether, although Aristotle did not use the word to describe it. As the “most noble” element, the celestial element is never referred to by Aristotle as the fifth. During the Hellenistic period, when Aristotle’s texts were more or less withdrawn from circulation, different interpretations merged what he termed “the first body” with aether and also with the substance of the soul. In the early centuries, a sort of consensus confirmed the confusion. For example, according to Sextus Empiricus, the notion of aether dates back to the Pythagorean Ocellus (or possibly Philolaus):
“Ocellus of Lucania and Aristotle, in addition to the four elements, added a fifth body, endowed with circular motion, which they think is the matter of celestial bodies.” — (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians, X, 316).
Pseudo-Plutarch gives a similarly approximate version:
“Aristotle holds that the supreme god is a separate form, based on the roundness and sphere of the universe, which is an aethereal and celestial body. He calls it the fifth body: and this celestial body, being divided into several spheres of coherent natures and separated only by intelligence, he considers each of these spheres to be an animal composed of body and soul, of which the body is ethereal, moving in a circular manner, and the immobile rational soul is the cause of movement, according to action.”
The ideas of the Stoics strongly influenced the understanding of aether, and they had a considerable impact on Latin expositions. Cicero (Tusculan Disputations, I, 10) adds that Aristotle argues that the soul “originates” from this fifth element, also called quintessence. The Stoic Cleanthes considers aether to be the supreme god.
A synoptic image of the prevailing confusion has been depicted by André-Jean Festugière: “In the oldest authors, ‘aether’ refers to the sky (Homer, The Iliad, 412; Hesiod, Works and Days, 18)… The word ‘aether’ had already been used by Empedocles, but to denote atmospheric air, as opposed to fog… Anaxagoras was the first to distinguish between air and aether, but what he referred to as aether was fire (fragments 59 A 43, 59 A 73)… From Plato’s Phaedo onward, the space between the air and the fixed sky (the region of fire) becomes aether, the abode of the astral gods. Plato attributes to aether its specific characteristic of being always in motion.
Aether is considered a kind of air, the purest kind. Plato distinguishes three kinds of aether: upper air, atmospheric air, foggy air… It is with the Epinomis and Aristotle’s On Philosophy [an early work], two contemporary works [around 350 BCE], that we see the emergence of the notion of aether as the fifth body. Epinomis mentions aether as the fifth body for the first time (981c6), as a kind of subtler and purer air: aether is not the abode of the stars (that is fire), but, like air, it is the dwelling place of translucent demonic beings, who serve as intermediaries between humans and the visible gods, the stars.
Fragments from Aristotle’s On Philosophy show that the notion of aether as the fifth body holds a significant place. The Ancients unanimously regarded Aristotle as the inventor of the doctrine of aether as the fifth element. Aristotle always follows aether, fire, air, water, and earth, and this order prevails, with aether (not fire) considered the material of the stars and the element where they reside. The soul is in perpetual motion because it is drawn from the aether that is always in motion. Finally, this Aristotelian aether is warmth, the principle of warmth, and thus of life.”
Recent Pythagoreans, in the Pythagorean Memorabilia (3rd century BCE), seem to admit three aethers: 1) the hot (solar, astral, and divine fire), 2) the cold (air), and 3) the dense (water, serum, liquid, blood…), and two kinds of souls: 1) a soul made of warm aether, intellect (corresponding to animal life), and 2) a soul made of a mixture of two aethers, warm and cold, vapor, the vegetative soul (corresponding to non-living, that is, non-sentient and non-mobile).
In the late 1st century, Xenarchus wrote a treatise Against the Fifth Element, the knowledge of which becomes essential in any discussion of aether. Cesare Cremonini wrote a refutation in 1616, and Galileo mentioned it as well. Meanwhile, aether or quintessence became an important concept for alchemists. They interpreted the incorruptible element defined by Aristotle through its absence of a counterpart. Discussions about it continued until the 19th century, particularly among metaphysicians.
Gravitational Aether in Pre-Relativistic Physics
René Descartes developed vortex mechanics to explain that the movement of planets is due to large vortices of aether (a subtle substance composed of tiny transparent globules) filling space and carrying and maintaining them on their trajectories. This qualitative physics justified planetary motion mechanistically, refuting the existence of the void, which he regarded as nothingness. This same aether was supposed to instantly transmit light in the form of pressure.
After rejecting Descartes’ vortex theory around 1680, Isaac Newton formulated his theory of universal gravitation, where the gravitational force is transmitted instantaneously from one body to another, over any distance and through space, whether empty or not.
Newton, while satisfied with the effectiveness of his theory, was not content with a situation where a force is transmitted through a vacuum. In a letter to Richard Bentley in 1692, Newton stated, “That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.”
Thus, in the General Scholium of Book III of the Principia, he conceives a “kind of extremely subtle spirit that permeates all solid bodies,” adding that “it is by the force and action of this spirit that the particles of bodies attract each other”: a mechanical aether filling space and enabling the transmission of gravitational force.
This aether mediates gravitational force but is not subject to it and appears exempt from the characteristics and physical principles stated in the Principia. Newton supported this view based on theological considerations, stating that space is the sensorium Dei, a sort of sensory organ of God that allows him to transmit influences from one body to another. This aether has always remained an underlying hypothesis, not intervening in calculations and having the status of a reassuring assumption regarding the coherence of the theory. For Newton, this aether was the same as the one transmitting light, considered to be composed of particles of different sizes transmitting oscillations to the aether, creating colors.
Luminiferous Aether in Pre-Relativistic Physics
Symbol for aether in Torbern Bergman (1775).
Until the advent of special relativity, physicists developed theories of luminiferous aether, a medium that scatters light and is considered a wave. The challenge was to create a coherent theory accounting for all observations made on light, while no experiment highlighted the properties of the aether considered as a fluid or physical medium.
René Descartes (who did not clearly formulate the notion of waves), Robert Hooke, and Christian Huygens assumed that, like sound in air or waves on the surface of a liquid medium, light propagated through a fluid: the aether. The aether, subtle and undetectable as it did not impede any bodies, was supposed to fill the universe, as the light from the stars reaches us.
Newton considered an aether that met the stringent requirements of transmitting gravitational force: exempt from being subject to the same principles as ordinary matter, endowed with an active role assimilated to God’s intervention in the natural world. This aether was sometimes equated with Hermann Boerhaave’s fire in the early 18th century, an imponderable substance penetrating space and bodies, with a repulsive power opposed to the attractive power of bodies.
In the 18th century, theories of subtle aether were developed, explaining electrical and magnetic phenomena, optics, as well as heat and chemistry, often modeling them on Newton’s and Boerhaave’s ideas. Benjamin Franklin explained the electrification and electrical discharge of bodies by the presence of an aether composed of particles attracted to bodies but repelling each other. For John Canton, the aether was the air itself. For André-Marie Ampère, a universal imponderable aether composed of two oppositely charged electricities explained the ponderomotive force between electrical circuits.
In 1801, Thomas Young developed the interpretation of light as the vibration of an aether to account for phenomena related to diffraction using the interference of waves. However, his model did not explain polarization, and this imponderable aether (like Benjamin Thompson’s for heat and Humphry Davy’s for electrochemistry) did not attract much interest from scientists at a time when many properties were explained by attractive forces between particles of matter (capillarity, solid cohesion, chemical reactions, etc.). Pierre-Simon de Laplace hypothesized an aether called caloric, producing a repulsive force between particles of matter, allowing the corpuscular theory of light to be consistent with Huygens’ double refraction.
From 1830 onwards, Augustin Fresnel’s theory, stating that light is a ripple of an aether, prevailed. To account for polarization, which Young’s theory could not explain, he had to consider the aether as solid and elastic. This model allowed for the prediction of several unexpected effects (such as circular polarization and conical refraction). The study of solid and elastic aethers, whose vibrations form light, became a research theme until the end of the 19th century. Augustin-Louis Cauchy, studying elasticity, found an expression for the speed of propagation of transverse waves (light being a transverse wave in Fresnel’s theory), and James MacCullagh derived the laws of crystal optics from a Lagrange function of the aether.
This elastic body had strange properties: it had to be almost infinitely rigid to transmit light from distant stars, while offering zero resistance to the movement of material objects (since the Earth orbits the Sun without being slowed down). George Gabriel Stokes showed that it was sufficient for the aether to have a slight viscosity to allow bodies to pass through it slowly, and he thus rediscovered the partial entrainment coefficient of the aether by refractive bodies that Fresnel had already proposed to explain aberration. In 1851, Hippolyte Fizeau experimentally verified the value of this coefficient for moving water.
Inspired by magnetism, Hermann Helmholtz and William Thomson proposed aethers with rotational movements. For his work unifying electricity and magnetism, James Clerk Maxwell relied on Michael Faraday’s idea of a force field to eliminate the notion of action at a distance from these domains. The field or lines of force, is a kind of spatial distribution of the influence of a body, awaiting the presence of another body to influence it and changing at a finite speed without a material hypothesis about the aether filling geometric space and carrying this field. Maxwell then proposed an aether model that he wanted compatible with his theory of electromagnetism, especially the electromagnetic waves he had highlighted in his equations and identified with light: this aether was composed of “molecular vortices surrounded by free wheels, whose movement was analogous to electric current.”
Comparing Maxwell’s and MacCullagh’s aethers, George Francis Fitzgerald showed their analogies and refined their properties, making Maxwell’s aether a serious competitor to the solid and elastic luminiferous aether. Heinrich Hertz’s experiments confirmed that Maxwell’s electromagnetic waves were similar in many respects to light waves, and therefore bolstered confidence in Maxwell’s aether. However, it was never successful enough to account for all the properties of optics and electromagnetism, “despite the considerable efforts of scientists.”
In 1887, the result of the Michelson-Morley experiment on the optics of moving bodies contradicted the predictions of all aether theories. Hendrik Lorentz and Joseph Larmor, each in their own way, tried to conceive more abstract aether theories to account for these results. In the early 20th century, physicists’ opinions were divided, with some questioning the existence of the aether, while others—far more numerous—were confident in its reality.
“We care little whether the aether exists in reality; that is the concern of metaphysicians. The essential for us is that everything happens as if it exists, and that this hypothesis is convenient for explaining phenomena. After all, do we have any other reason to believe in the existence of material objects? This is also just a convenient hypothesis; only it will never cease to be so, whereas a day will undoubtedly come when the aether will be rejected as unnecessary.” — Henri Poincaré, Science and Hypothesis (Chapter 12)
Aether After 1905
In 1905, Albert Einstein proposed his theory of special relativity, where the aether is absent, and the speed of light is the same for all inertial frames, stating that there was no need for the concept of aether in physics.
1905: Einstein Denies the Existence of Aether
Before the publication of his early works, Einstein studied Lorentz’s theory of aether through the books of Paul Drude, giving it particular attention. This luminiferous aether remains in absolute rest and constitutes a preferential frame in which electromagnetic phenomena occur, and in which light has a constant speed. Soon, he rejects this concept of a preferential frame because he deems it introduces an unacceptable asymmetry between the laws of mechanics, which do not depend on a frame of reference, and the theory of electromagnetism.
In 1905, Einstein proposed the theory of special relativity, postulating the total equivalence of the laws of physics, including electromagnetics, regardless of the frame of reference. This implies the constancy of the speed of light, regardless of the frame of reference, and renders the concept of aether meaningless. From this moment until 1916, Einstein denied any reality to the concept of aether. However, convincing physicists of the absence of aether proves challenging, especially Lorentz, who remains unconvinced. According to Kostro, it was Lorentz’s insistence that led Einstein to a new position from 1916 onwards. In the meantime, facing opposition in 1909, he attempted to justify the absence of aether with a new argument using a wave-particle duality of light, for which he proposes an improved theory: for him, the energy and momentum of light are carried by an autonomous quantum that needs no support or aether.
In 1913, Einstein developed the general theory of relativity.
Initially, he finds additional reasons in this theory to completely abandon the aether; he writes to Ernst Mach, “It becomes absurd to attribute physical attributes to space,” and the arbitrary way in which space and time variables are chosen “strips space of the last vestiges of reality.” However, Lorentz’s conception of aether, as presented by Drude, precisely implied attributing physical characteristics, and thus a certain “reality,” to space. For Einstein, the case for the aether is settled.
1916: Einstein Admits the Existence of a Certain Form of Ether
However, this position changed from 1916 onwards, influenced by a correspondence with Lorentz and controversies with the German physicist Philipp Lenard. In June 1916, Lorentz sends a long letter to Einstein congratulating him on the discovery of the general theory of relativity, for which he shows great enthusiasm, and tries to demonstrate that this theory can be reconciled with the concept of a stationary aether.
Einstein quickly responds in detail to Lorentz’s arguments, acknowledging for the first time the possibility of introducing a new concept of aether. However, he vigorously rejects the stationary nature of the aether defended by Lorentz, i.e., the conception of a rigid medium with its own reference frame in which it is at rest, as this contradicts the principle of relativity. Instead, he admits the possibility of an aether that is not a medium with a state of motion and therefore does not violate the principle of relativity. This “new aether” would have a state that determines the motion of physical objects, whose metric behavior would be described by the tensor. However, Einstein did not consider these ideas mature enough and published nothing regarding this “new aether” for over two years.
In July 1917, Lenard published an article titled “Principle of Relativity, Aether, Gravitation,” attempting to show that the general theory of relativity has recycled the concept of aether by renaming it “space” and that this theory does not stand without the concept of aether. In response to this article, Einstein published in November 1918 his first article explaining his new positions regarding the aether: “Dialogue Concerning the Accusations Against the Theory of Relativity.” In this response, he concedes to Lenard that the general theory of relativity implies attributing physical properties to space. However, he denies that this signifies a return to Lorentz’s aether, possessing a defined state of motion.
Hermann Weyl summarized in 1922 the fundamental difference between Einstein’s “new aether” and that defended by Lenard and why the “aether” of general relativity is not the same as Lorentz’s: “The old aether of the theory of light was a substantial medium, a three-dimensional continuum, with each point P at any time t at a defined location p in space; the ability to distinguish and track the evolution in space of a certain point in the aether over time is a fundamental point,” … “this aether is now and forever rigid and is not influenced by matter.” The aether of general relativity is a medium but not substantial, lacking “points” whose movement in space can be tracked. It endows space with a “field of states,” possessing physical reality, interacting with matter, and being influenced by it.
1920: Einstein’s “New Aether,” the Leyden Discourse
However, this was not enough to calm the vehement anti-Einstein campaigns, led notably by Lenard and Ernst Gehrcke, which reached their peak during the year 1920. Far from appeasing criticisms against general relativity and the principle of relativity, Einstein’s acceptance of a certain form of aether seems to provide fodder for his adversaries. Pressed by these attacks and encouraged by Lorentz, Einstein decided to officially communicate about his “new aether” during his inaugural address at the University of Leyden on October 17, 1920, titled “Aether and the Theory of Relativity,” which constitutes his first major work on aether.
In this discourse, Einstein begins by presenting the historical reasons that led physicists to imagine the existence of aether, which, according to him, are twofold: the problem of action at a distance and the discovery of the wave properties of light. The problem of action at a distance emerged with Newton’s theory of gravitation, where the inevitable question arises of whether attractive forces propagate instantaneously and at a distance, without a transport medium, or instead gradually through a medium. The second hypothesis implies the existence of an aether.
On the other hand, the development of the theory of electromagnetism by Maxwell and Lorentz also led to imagining the existence of an aether, but no mechanical model proves consistent with experience. Einstein then describes Lorentz’s work on aether, one of the only aether theories compatible with experience.
In this theory, the aether lacks any mechanical property and, present both in matter and in a vacuum, is a mere support for electromagnetic waves. On the other hand, matter is devoid of any electromagnetic property, playing a role in electromagnetism solely because matter particles can possess an electric charge, which is the only thing capable of moving. But Einstein points out that Lorentz strips the aether of all mechanical properties except one: its immobility.
In the second part of the discourse, Einstein then shows that the theory of special relativity removes this last mechanical property of the aether, completing, according to him, the movement initiated by Lorentz. According to this theory, the laws of physics (especially the laws of electromagnetism) are identical in all inertial reference frames moving rectilinearly and uniformly relative to each other. There is, therefore, no physical reason to distinguish a particular reference frame in which the aether is stationary, introducing an asymmetry not justified or detected by any physical experiment. But Einstein admits that he was wrong to conclude the non-existence of the aether:
“But careful consideration teaches us, nevertheless, that the principle of special relativity does not imply denying the existence of the aether. We could admit the existence of an aether; only we must refrain from attributing a state of motion to it, that is, we must abstain from the last mechanical attribute that Lorentz left it.”
Einstein then explains, in the third part of the discourse, that the idea of an aether can return to attribute physical properties (other than mechanical or kinematic) to space, and that space — even devoid of matter — cannot be considered truly empty. Citing the example of Mach’s principle, which attributes inertial forces such as centrifugal force to distant masses, he states the need for a medium to transmit the gravitational interaction of these distant masses, while emphasizing a crucial difference between this medium and all aethers imagined until then:
“This conception of an aether, to which the Machian approach leads, differs in an essential aspect from the aethers of Newton, Fresnel, or Lorentz. Mach’s aether not only conditions the behavior of inert masses but is also conditioned, concerning its state, by them.”
In the last part of the discourse, Einstein explains how these Machian ideas contributed to the development of general relativity and how the notion of aether can evolve with this latter theory. He also describes the relations of this aether with gravitational and electromagnetic interactions. The state of the relativistic aether is entirely determined at each point by its local interaction with matter and with the immediately adjacent points of the aether, following the principle of locality cherished by Einstein. The state of Lorentz’s aether, on the contrary, is defined only by itself and — in the absence of an electromagnetic field — is the same everywhere.
Einstein insists that one cannot imagine a region of space devoid of gravitational potential because it is this potential that locally defines the metric of any region of space according to the theory of general relativity. However, according to Einstein, a region of space can be conceived entirely without an electromagnetic field, and electromagnetism therefore only maintains a secondary, non-fundamental relationship with the aether insofar as (according to Einstein’s theories and reflections at that time on the unification of electromagnetic and gravitational forces) matter particles influencing the relativistic ether are considered condensations of the electromagnetic field.
Einstein concludes his exposition on the aether with the following summary:
“In summary, according to the theory of general relativity, space is endowed with physical properties, and in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the theory of general relativity, a space without aether is inconceivable because, in such a space, not only would there be no propagation of light but also no possibility of existence for a standard space and time (measured by rules and clocks), and therefore no space-time intervals in the physical sense of the term. However, this aether cannot be conceived as endowed with the qualities of ponderable media and as consisting of parts with a trajectory in time. The idea of motion cannot be applied to it.”
Aether in Contemporary Physics
In the 21st century, the perplexing properties or characteristics attributed by contemporary physics to the vacuum (Higgs field, vacuum energy, dark energy) strangely resemble the mysterious properties of aether. However, physicists emphasize that this does not mean a return to hypotheses from before 1905.
The term “Hypostasis” (Ancient Greek: ὑπόστασις) is used in Christian theology, predominantly in the Eastern tradition, to denote one of the three persons of the triune God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Greek word “ὑπό-стασις” literally means “underlying” and is translated into Latin as “substantia.” The term was widely used in the philosophical teachings of Plotinus, albeit with a different meaning, signifying a certain essence (or its part) rather than personality. One of Plotinus’s treatises is titled “On the Three Original Hypostases” (in Neoplatonism, these are the One, Intellect, and Soul).
Background
The meaning of the term “hypostasis” evolved over time and differs in various doctrinal Christian formulas, such as the Nicene Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed. The application of the concept of hypostasis in Christian theology can be traced back to the 4th century. Before the Cappadocian Fathers, the terms “hypostasis” (Ancient Greek: ὑπόστασις) and “essence” (Ancient Greek: οὐσία) were used interchangeably in Christian theological language (including the Nicene Creed and later in the works of Athanasius the Great) as synonyms, both denoting something that has independent existence, existing not in something else but “in itself.”
A hypostasis is an essence, and it means nothing else than the very being. … For hypostasis and essence are existence.
Plotinus first applied the term “three hypostases” to the Divinity, defining the mutual relationship of the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. He attempted to draw, albeit unclear, distinctions between the Ancient Greek terms οὐσία (ousia) – essence, meaning “being,” and ὑπόστασις (hypostasis), meaning “hypostasis” or “how (whose) being.” The credit for precisely defining both of these terms separately goes to Porphyry. According to Porphyry’s thought, God is one, but His essence is somehow expressed in three hypostases: in God as the highest good and source of all being, in the Intellect as the architect of the world, and in the Soul animating and sanctifying everything.
“Essence” is the first of Aristotle’s ten categories. Aristotle distinguished between primary and secondary substances. Primary substances (Latin: substantia concreta, concrete substance) are specific individuals, like a particular person or a specific horse. Secondary substances (Latin: substantia abstracta, abstract substance) are general concepts, like horses in general or humans in general.
Teaching of the Cappadocian Fathers
Basil the Great explained the difference between essence and hypostasis as being between the common (Ancient Greek: κοινὸν) and the particular (Ancient Greek: ἲειον). This made it clear in Christian theology, especially in Triadology (study of the Trinity), that the word “essence” only refers to what Aristotle called secondary essences, or general ideas. Therefore, in patristics, the term “essence” ceased to require clarification; when mentioned without any qualifications, it refers only to the second essence. Thus, the concept of “essence” in Christian theology remains Aristotelian.
Basil the Great and Gregory of Nazianzus replaced the concept of “primary substance” with the term “hypostasis.” Still, they did so in a way that extends the meaning of the Christian term far beyond the boundaries of the Aristotelian definition of primary substance. When Basil the Great defined hypostasis through Aristotle’s definition of primary substance, he was, in reality, not so much defining this concept as determining its place in the new system of categories:
“Both essence and hypostasis have the same difference between them as between the common and the particular, for example, between a living being and a particular man.” — “Epistle 236 (228), to Amphilochius of Iconium, the Bishop of Iconium”
This definition indicates that, in the new categorical apparatus, one of Aristotle’s ten categories (more precisely, one of its two varieties: primary substance) is replaced by a new category – hypostasis. In other words, a new category, the eleventh, is introduced instead of Aristotle’s “primary substance.
At the same time, as Basil the Great explains in the same context, this definition of hypostasis is necessary because defining the Father, the Son, and the Spirit simply as “persons” is insufficient. For Basil the Great, as well as for other Cappadocian Fathers, the term “person” (Ancient Greek: πρόσωπον) traditionally used in Christian theology concerning the Trinity seemed inadequate, as it gave rise to heretical interpretations like that of Sabellius (for whom the three “persons” were akin to “masks”).
However, by defining the “persons” of the divinity as “hypostases,” any pretext to consider these persons as some kind of mask on the same reality is removed. The term “hypostasis” unequivocally indicates that there are three realities. Basil the Great provides a detailed explanation of the concept of “hypostasis,” primarily in his work “Against Eunomius.” However, opponents of the Cappadocians from the Nicene party accused them of tritheism since they understood the three hypostases as three distinct entities.
Gregory of Nazianzus, in Oration 31, “On the Holy Spirit,” refers to the three hypostases of divinity as τα εν οις θεοτης (“that in which divinity is,” or more literally, “those in which divinity is”), thus defining hypostases as a kind of “reservoirs” of the essence. In the same spirit, Gregory of Nazianzus expresses himself in the Dogmatic Poems, 20, “On the Holy Spirit,” stating that the three hypostases “possess divinity” (i.e., essence).
Why was there a need to seek special definitions for hypostasis, and why couldn’t they suffice with Aristotle’s definition of primary substance? Aristotle’s primary substances were inadequate for expressing the Trinity of divinity.
According to the thoughts of 4th-century Christian theologians, the unity of the three hypostases of the Trinity—though not to the extent that the three hypostases lose the autonomy of their existence (contrary to the Modalists), nor to the extent that they are as distinct as, for example, three horses or three individuals.
It was necessary to express the unique ability of the hypostases to be mutually united, as in the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son. It was also necessary to express the ability of the hypostasis of the Son to incorporate humanity. Therefore, both in describing intra-Trinitarian relations and in describing the incarnation of the Logos, the concept of hypostasis had to be confronted as a vessel of the essence, not just as a “part” of the whole.
In conclusion, hypostasis is a particular entity that, at the same time, serves as the “vessel” of the common essence.
A pivotal event in the history of trinitarian disputes within the Christian Church was the Council of Alexandria in 362 AD, where two factions were present: the “old Nicenes” (Alexandrians) and the “new Nicenes” (Antiochenes). The former held the view that the Triune God is one essence or one hypostasis, while the latter, using new terminology, taught about God as one essence in three hypostases.
Later, under the influence of Cappadocian theology, the teaching of the “new Nicenes” prevailed in Greek trinitarian theology. In Latin, the Nicene idea that essence (essentia) and hypostasis (substantia) were the same thing stayed true. This is why Roman Catholics still believe in the Trinity as one essence-hypostasis in three persons (personae), as they confessed, with the phrase “unius substantiæ cum Patre,” which means “of one substance with the Father.”
Modes of Existence
In the treatise “Against Eunomius,” Basil the Great defines the three hypostases of God as three distinct “modes of existence” (Ancient Greek: τρόποι ὑπάρξεως). The Greek word “tropos” is accurately rendered into Russian as “image” in the sense of “manner” or “way.” The word “existence” (Ancient Greek: ὕπαρξις) in this context becomes a term signifying not just “being” (for which there were other synonyms) but the being of an individual.
Thus, the expression “mode of existence” can only relate to an individual, particular being, not the being of essence (nature), and therefore implicitly contains an “Aristotelian” definition of hypostasis.
The “mode of existence,” as understood by Basil the Great (and other fathers following him), is contrasted with the “logos of nature” (Ancient Greek: λόγος τῆς φύσεως), which is unknowable. For Basil the Great, any hypostatic existence, whether it is the three-hypostatic God (as in “Against Eunomius”) or the one-hypostatic human (for example, in “Letter 236”), is said to be knowable by the mode of existence but unknowable by the logos of nature. The latter should be understood in the sense that the “logos”—here used in the sense of “knowledge, understanding, concept”—of nature (essence) surpasses our understanding. To separately speak of the unknowable “logos” of nature makes sense when one has to talk about its knowable “modes” (images) of existence.
The word “existence,” both in Russian and Greek, is a nominalization of the action, and this holds crucial significance for choosing precisely this term in relation to hypostasis. The term indicates that the very existence of hypostasis should be regarded as an action, that is, as energy.
The “existence” (“mode of existence”) of the Father presents God to Christians as “paternity” (Ancient Greek: πατρότης), the Son as “sonship” (Ancient Greek: υἱότης), and the Holy Spirit as “holiness” (or “sanctification”: Ancient Greek: ἁγιασμός), corresponding to the “characters” or distinctive features (idioms) of each. Additionally, note that St. Basil casually applies the word “character,” usually denoting a person’s external appearance, to the hypostases of the Holy Trinity.
In later theological tradition (starting with Gregory of Nazianzus), a somewhat different nomenclature is “standardized” for the distinctive properties of the three hypostases of the Holy Trinity (“unbegottenness,” “begottenness,” “procession”). Nevertheless, in any case, it is only about some property that distinguishes each of the three divine hypostases from the other two. Since any naming of these properties is just one of the possible names of God, the primary significance of these designations is not to coincide with each other: each of the three hypostases has its distinctive hypostatic property, which should be named uniquely, while the actual name may vary.
However, the modes of existence of the three hypostases exist not only to the extent that we can know them but primarily in themselves. The essence is “existent” in each of the three modes of existence. “Existence” is the energy of the essence, its kind of movement. This is, in a sense, the movement of the Son and the Spirit in relation to the Father as the singular “principle” and “cause” in the Holy Trinity.
Liturgy
Concerning Jesus Christ, the Eastern Orthodox Church chants that He is “of one essence, but not of one hypostasis” (Ancient Greek: διπλούς την φύσιν αλλ’ου την υπόστασιν).
Personalism
There is a theory that the concept of hypostasis, developed in Trinitarian theology, led to the emergence of the notion of human personality in Greek and later European culture. Since humans are created in the image and likeness of God, the concept of the depth and uniqueness of personality—hypostasis—is transferred to anthropology as the perfect peculiarity and uniqueness of each individual. Before that, in ancient culture, an individual was considered an individual or, at best, a persona.
Byzantine philosophy consists of the works and philosophical currents expressed in Greek within the Byzantine Empire, starting in the 9th century and flourishing in the following century until the empire’s fall in the 15th century. Heavily influenced by Aristotelian, Platonic, and Neoplatonic ideas, Byzantine philosophy occasionally blurs with theology. It aimed to be a rediscovery, continuation, and reinterpretation of ancient Greek philosophy in light of the Christian faith as transmitted by the Orthodox Church.
Origin and Definition
Education in the Byzantine Empire
Education was widespread among the Byzantines, with a higher percentage of men and even women, a rare phenomenon at that time, being literate compared to Europe or Arab countries. Primary education (propaideia) was readily available, even in villages, and secondary education (paideia—students aged 10 to 17) was fee-based. It took place in a school where the teacher, sometimes with the help of an assistant, taught the trivium (grammar, geometry, and astronomy) and the basics of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) by assimilating texts from classical antiquity.
Higher education typically included rhetoric, philosophy, and law. Its purpose was to train competent officials for both the state and the church, at least until the latter established its own university (Patriarchal School) dedicated to clergy formation. The first institution dedicated to advanced studies was founded in 425 by Emperor Theodosius II (r. 402–450) under the name Pandidakterion (in Byzantine Greek: Πανδιδακτήριον, it was the origin of the University of Constantinople). It comprised thirty-one chairs dedicated to law, philosophy, medicine, arithmetic, geometry, etc., with fifteen taught in Latin and sixteen in Greek.
The Conflict Between Christian Faith and Pagan Philosophy
Jesus as a victorious emperor with Byzantine armor and purple cloak from Ravenna 6th century AD.
When Greek elites converted to Christianity and began studying Greek classics, a confrontation between “true philosophy,” i.e., Christian, and “false philosophy,” i.e., pagan, became inevitable. However, unlike what occurred in the West, neither Byzantine philosophers nor theologians completely rejected the Ancients; instead, they sought to use them for their purposes.
Perhaps the best illustration of this approach is Basil of Caesarea’s (330–379) treatise, “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature.” This moderation (economia) was not universal, though. In the early stages of Christianization, Emperor Julian (r. 360–363) not only attempted to restore ancient Greek culture but also the ancestral religion.
In the 5th century, the Prefect of Constantinople, Kyros Panopolites, was exiled from Constantinople for being too “Hellenic.” However, over time, a sort of osmosis occurred, so that by the early 8th century, John of Damascus (circa 676–749), a monk and theologian of Syriac origin but Greek language, could define philosophy as:
The knowledge of existing things (onta),
The knowledge of divine and human things,
Preparation (melete) for death,
Assimilation to God,
The art (techne) of art, the science of sciences, and
The love of wisdom.
These definitions were drawn from Aristotle (1) and (5), the Stoics (2), and Plato (3) and (4); they were compiled by Neoplatonists from the school of Alexandria, such as Ammonius of Alexandria (a Christian mystic of the 3rd century), David the Invincible (an Armenian philosopher of the 5th and 6th centuries), and Elias of Alexandria (a philosopher from the School of Alexandria in the 6th century). John of Damascus summarized this thought in simple terms: “Philosophy is the love of wisdom, but true wisdom is God. Therefore, the love of God is true philosophy.”
Though somewhat arbitrary, the evolution of Byzantine philosophy can be divided into three periods, each beginning with the establishment or re-foundation of a major school: the end of the Amorian dynasty; the beginning of the Macedonian dynasty (842–959); the end of the Macedonian dynasty; the beginning of the Komnenos dynasty (1042-1143); and the beginning of the Palaeologian dynasty (1259–1341).
Equally arbitrarily, one could say that the first period was mainly dedicated to collecting and copying ancient authors, the second to commenting, paraphrasing, and critiquing them, while the third, marked by attempts to reconcile the Churches of Constantinople and Rome, would see a certain distancing in most philosophers allowing for the critique of ancient authors when they deviate from the official dogma, or, on the contrary, in some, the adoption of the Ancients at the expense of the Church’s doctrine.
History
The Precursors
The foundations of Byzantine philosophy can be found in Proclus, a Neoplatonist philosopher born in Constantinople in 412 into a wealthy family, which allowed him to study philosophy in Alexandria and then in Athens under Plutarch the Younger, the founder of the Neoplatonic school in that city. He would become the third director of the same school in 438 and undertake the most extensive philosophical synthesis of the very end of ancient Greek antiquity. With his disciple Ammonius, who founded his own school in Alexandria, they set the philosophical curriculum and made significant contributions, including the theory of structure and reality.
First Period: 843–959
Leo the Mathematician
Emerging from the iconoclastic crisis (726–843), as intellectual life returned to normal, foreshadowing the Macedonian Renaissance, Emperor Michael III (r. 842–867) handed over the reins of power to his uncle, Caesar Bardas, for ten years. A competent intellectual himself, Caesar Bardas decided between 855 and 866 to create an educational institution housed in the Magnaura Palace, entrusting its direction to Leo the Philosopher, also known as Leo the Mathematician.
Endowed with a great thirst for knowledge, Leo had initiated himself into all known sciences in his youth, including “philosophy and its sisters, namely arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, and even music (i.e., the disciplines of the quadrivium).” He then opened his school in Constantinople, located in a private house, where he taught all intellectual disciplines to the sons of wealthy families destined for careers in the civil service.
His reputation as a scholar reached the ears of Caliph al-Mamun in Baghdad, who requested Emperor Theophilus to allow Leo to come to his court. Out of patriotism or caution, Leo declined the proposal and was appointed metropolitan of Thessaloniki around 840. Deposed in 843 for being an iconoclast along with John the Grammarian during the restoration of the cult of images, he was chosen by Caesar Bardas to lead his educational institution.
Little is known about this institution, which was supposed to give a new impetus to the study of ancient authors, except that Leo was to teach Aristotelian philosophy with the help of three colleagues whose names and functions are known: Theodore (or Serge), specialized in geometry; Theodegios, in arithmetic and astronomy; and Kometas, in grammar.
With Leo, the figure of a personality more concerned with philosophy and science than with literature emerges, as evidenced by his library: Plato for philosophy, a treatise on mechanics by Kyrinos and Markellos for mathematics, and volumes by Theon, Paul of Alexandria, and Ptolemy for astronomy, inseparable from astrology at that time.
The second prominent figure of this generation was the Patriarch of Constantinople, Photios I, one of the most significant figures in the classical studies of Byzantine history. Possessing encyclopedic knowledge and likely self-taught, he began his career as a teacher before being appointed protasekretis, meaning chief of the imperial chancellery, around 850. This was the position he held when he was appointed patriarch in 858, although he was a layperson. He received all the ecclesiastical orders in six days, contrary to canonical law, leading to his disapproval by Pope Nicholas I.
The dispute between the churches of Constantinople and Rome escalated after the assassination of Caesar Bardas by Basil the Macedonian (r. 867-886). In the summer of 867, Photios convened a synod that declared the papacy and the Latin Church heretical. However, the same year, Basil had Michael III assassinated, dismissed Photios, and replaced him with Ignatius, who reclaimed his throne.
Exiled to the Stenos Monastery, Photios eventually reconciled with the emperor, who appointed him as the tutor to his heir, the future Leo VI (r. 886–912), whose relationship with his father was strained. As soon as Leo took power, he hastened to rid himself of Photios, whose career was shattered. Removed from his positions, Photios was sent into exile where he passed away.
His thoughts are evident in three main works: the Lexicon, an early work in which he explains the meanings of words found in the speeches and prose of antiquity, as well as the vocabulary of Christian authors requiring explanation; the Bibliotheca or Myriobiblos, an enormous work comprising 280 chapters corresponding to 1600 pages in modern editions, written for his brother Tarasios, summarizing the ancient Greek literature he read during his brother’s embassy; and the letters, some of which were included in the Amphilochia, addressed to Amphilohios, Metropolitan of Kyzikos, dealing with various theological and secular questions. In addition to comments on Aristotle’s Categories, they include discussions on the admiration expressed by Emperor Julian for Plato.
One of Photios’ disciples was the Archbishop of Caesarea, Arethas (c. 850–932 or 944), who commented on Aristotle’s Categories and Porphyry’s Isagoge. He is particularly known for collecting and copying numerous texts from both classical antiquity and Christian authors of the patristic period, including the corpus of Plato.
Without being a philosopher himself, Constantine VII (r. 913–959) would use the state’s resources to stimulate the initiatives of scholars, particularly through the copying and compilation of ancient works from antiquity. This period witnesses the waning of the philosophical revival and its transformation into a vast encyclopedic memory, with the most comprehensive illustration being the Suda. The Suda serves as both a dictionary presenting definitions of rare words in ancient Greek and complex grammatical forms and an encyclopedia commenting on individuals, places, or institutions.
Second Period: 1042–1143
Constantine IX Monomachos.
The second period begins with the ascent to power of Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042–1055), a senator who became emperor after marrying Empress Zoe (r. 1028–1050). Surrounded by intellectuals such as John Mauropous, Constantine Leichoudes, and John Xiphilinus, his reign would embody what is described as the “government of philosophers.” Like the first period, this second period starts with the establishment of a new school, this one dedicated to law.
Constantine VII had wanted to breathe new life into the school of Caesar Bardas. To achieve this, he appointed the protospatharios Constantin, then Mystikos (an important office in the civil service with an unknown exact function), as in charge of philosophy, the Metropolitan of Nicaea Alexander in charge of rhetoric, the patrician Nicephorus of geometry, and the asecretary Gregory of astronomy.
One essential discipline was missing, especially in an empire that was increasingly centralizing and bureaucratizing—the discipline of law, which had been taught in private schools until then. In 1047, Constantine IX established a new school, placing it under the nomophylax or “guardian of the laws,” and also housing it in the restored Magnaura Palace.
However, among the sciences taught, philosophy retained its privileged position, as attested by the judge and historian Michael Attaleiates: “[Constantine Monomachos] invigorated a school of jurists and appointed a nomophylax. But he also took care of the teaching of high philosophy and appointed a Proedros (Byzantine court) of philosophers, a man who surpassed us all in his knowledge.”
This man was Michael Psellos (1018–1078). A great scholar, he was also a prolific writer, covering diverse subjects such as etymology, medicine, tactics, law, and more. During his studies, he befriended individuals who would later hold key positions in the empire: the future Michael VII Doukas, John Mauropous, Constantine Leichoudes, the future “prime minister,” and John Xiphilinus, the future Patriarch of Constantinople.
However, he had to abandon his studies due to his family’s modest income and take a position as a judge in Philadelphie, Asia Minor. Upon his return to Constantinople, he resumed his studies and taught philosophy at Saint Peter’s School (secondary education). Then, under Constantine IX, he joined the imperial chancellery and became a minister in all the governments from Constantine IX to Michael VII. Disgraced, he died in relative obscurity.
His philosophical thoughts are encapsulated in his Chronographia, narrating events from 976 to 1078, and in about 500 letters he wrote in response to questions from correspondents or students since he continued teaching even after becoming a minister. Although he pays great attention to Aristotle’s work, his preferences undoubtedly lean toward Plato and the Neoplatonists, and he is recognized as a key figure in transmitting the Platonic heritage through the Middle Ages.
His works show that he read and assimilated Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and especially Proclus, whom he considers an authority among the ancients. He finds, among other things, a metaphysical system in Proclus that can be adapted to Christianity. However, his theories, for example, those contained in the Chaldean Oracles, were often seen as contrary to Orthodox theology, and he had to make a public confession of faith in his defense.
His successor as the “consul of philosophers” would be John Italus (born around 1020; died after 1080). Born around 1020, he settled in Constantinople around 1050, where he attended the classes of Michael Psellos. A specialist in Plato, Aristotle, Porphyry, and Iamblichus, he began a teaching career at the Theotokos Euergetis (or Pege) Monastery. His reputation grew during the reign of Michael VII, and he was appointed to succeed his former master as the “consul of philosophers.”
After a stay in Italy as an ambassador to the Normans, he returned to Constantinople, but in 1076–1077, a synod condemned his theories for allegedly exceeding the limits imposed on natural reason and the proper relationship between philosophy and theology. When Alexis I ascended the throne, he undertook to combat heresy at all levels, and against the patriarch’s advice, Italus was once again condemned following an autocratic trial. Barred from teaching, he was exiled.
In fact, Italus’ positions were not significantly different from those of Psellos; what seemed unacceptable to the political and religious authorities of the time was his rationalistic approach to doctrines that the Orthodox Church considered beyond human understanding and within the sole purview of the Church to determine. In other words, Italus followed the Ancients’ conception that theology was an integral part of philosophy and not an autonomous discipline.
The second successor to Psellos, likely appointed after the deposition of John Italus, was probably Theodore of Smyrna (mid-11th century, after 1112). Little is known about this high-ranking official in the Byzantine administration, except that he served as a judge, then as prōtoproedros, and finally as kouropalates. Only fragments of his literary activity, which must have been significant, have survived, including commentaries on Aristotle, a treatise against the Latin Church on azymes and the procession of the Holy Spirit.
Erudite and historian Anna Komnene contributed to the advancement of philosophy by sponsoring a series of commentaries on certain works of Aristotle that were previously little known. Two of the authors who contributed to this work were Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesus. Eustratius of Nicaea was a disciple of John Italus; he narrowly escaped Italus’ condemnation by subscribing to it. He retained his position as director of the School of Saint Theodore.
Later, he gained the favor of Emperor Alexios Komnenos by defending the sovereign’s viewpoint on icons against accusations of iconoclasm made by Metropolitan Leo of Chalcedon.
Eustratius was appointed Metropolitan of Nicaea. When the emperor sought to convert the Armenian minority (Monophysite) in Bulgaria, he composed a “dialectical discourse on the two natures of Christ” and the outline of two treatises on the same subject. However, similar to Psellos and Italus, the imprudence of his “dialectician” language scandalized the conservative-minded. A lengthy trial ensued in which the emperor and Patriarch John IX Agapetos attempted to plead in his favor, but the trial ended in his condemnation. Eustratius would die a few years later.
In the surviving commentaries on Aristotle, Eustratius evidently follows the ancient Neoplatonists, although on some subjects, such as the knowledge of first principles, he supports theses closer to Christian doctrine. Unlike Plato and Aristotle, he does not believe that the human soul reappropriates the knowledge it had originally, nor does he hold that it possesses only virtual knowledge that gradually materializes. According to him, the human soul, as created by God, is already perfect, meaning it has full knowledge of first principles and immediately evident concepts. However, humans progressively lose this knowledge and understanding due to the instincts of their bodies.
We know very little about the life of Michael of Ephesus, except that he taught philosophy at the University of Constantinople and, along with Eustratius of Nicaea, was part of the circle set up by Anna Komnene to continue the study of the lesser-known works of Aristotle. However, his reputation as a commentator on Aristotle was well-established, and his method of exposition and interpretation has been compared to that of Alexander of Aphrodisias, a commentator on Aristotle in the 2nd century. His commentaries on several works of Aristotle, especially Metaphysics, Parts of Animals, and Generation of Animals, align with the Neoplatonists and the tradition of Stephen of Alexandria.
In the following century, Theodore Prodromos (circa 1100–circa 1170) continued the tradition of detailed commentaries on the works of Aristotle, notably on the Analytics, where the determining influence of Eustratius of Nicaea is palpable. A prolific author, he mainly worked in the fields of poetry and rhetoric, but he also contributed philosophically with another commentary on Aristotle’s Analytics, heavily influenced by Eustratius of Nicaea.
Not all scholars of the time were fervent admirers of Aristotle, Plato, and the Neoplatonists. This was the case, among others, with Nicholas of Methone, bishop of that city around 1150, who, in the name of Orthodox Christianity, wrote a detailed refutation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. According to him and conservative Orthodox theologians, Neoplatonic influences on Christian doctrine could lead believers away from true faith. Thus, he systematically opposed Proclus’ propositions, attempting to demonstrate that the first principle of the universe is “one,” considering this proposition contrary to the doctrine of the Trinity.
The sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204 proved catastrophic for educational institutions. Many intellectuals had to emigrate, some to Italy, others to the Empire of Nicaea, where Theodore II (r. 1254–1258) himself was a scholar, authoring two works on natural philosophy, the Kosmikē dēlōsis (Cosmic Exposition) and the Peri phusikēs koinōnias (On Physical Community). In these works, he relied on simple mathematical schemes to understand the theory of elements and cosmology.
Third Period: 1259–1341
The Catalan Company led by Roger de Flor entering Constantinople by José Moreno Carbonero (1888).
After the reconquest of the city by Michael VIII Palaiologos in 1261, official education was restored by the Grand Logothete George Akropolites, who established a modest school where courses focused on the philosophy of Aristotle, Euclid’s geometry, and Nicomachus of Gerasa’s arithmetic. In 1266, Patriarch Germanos III (Patriarch 1223–1240) restored the patriarchal school.
However, it was under Andronikos II (r. 1282–1328) that a new imperial school, the Scholeion basilikon, was founded under the jurisdiction of the Grand Logothete Theodore Metochites. During this period, marked by attempts to reunify the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, theological debate profoundly influenced philosophical discussions, with the question of the procession of the Holy Spirit (the Filioque controversy) remaining at the heart of this division.
The central figure at the beginning of the Palaiologan restoration was Nikephoros Blemmydes. Born in 1197, he had to flee Constantinople with his family and seek refuge in Bithynia, where he studied medicine, physics, philosophy, theology, mathematics, logic, and rhetoric. After founding a school in Smyrna at the emperor’s request and then leading the imperial school of Nicaea from 1238 to 1248, he had to retire due to harassment from the city’s clergy.
He then became a monk and, in 1241, founded a monastery in Emathia, near Ephesus, whose school focused on training future monks and novices. In a preliminary note to his treatise on logic, apparently written in 1237 at the request of Emperor John III Vatatzes (r. 1222–1254), he emphasizes the utility of logic in theology. His services were often required to defend the Orthodox position in the Greco-Latin debates of 1234 and 1250, including writing treatises on the procession of the Holy Spirit and being a defender of the ancient patristic formula that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father “through” the Son.
More well-known as a historian, George Pachymeres (1242–circa 1310) taught at the patriarchal school and wrote an extensive treatise titled “Philosophia,” paraphrasing Aristotle and dealing not only with logic and natural philosophy but also with metaphysics and ethics, in addition to the last known Byzantine commentary on Plato, a continuation of the Parmenides, an incomplete commentary by Proclus in which he applies a “logical” (i.e., non-metaphysical) method of interpretation. He was also a great collector, translator, and editor of the manuscripts of philosophers.
The reign of Andronikos II also saw the emergence of an original philosopher, Nikephoros Choumnos (circa 1250 or 1255–1327), who wrote on natural philosophy without reference to ancient authors. After serving as prime minister of the emperor for nearly eleven years, he was ousted by his great intellectual rival, Theodore Metochites. He then lived for some time on his estates before being appointed governor of Thessalonica, the country’s second-largest city, where he remained until around 1326, engaging in long polemics with his political and intellectual rival.
Choumnos’ approach is unique in that he applies philosophical logic, that is, inference to universally accepted principles and definitions, to accepted theological ideas. While he proves to be an ardent defender of Aristotle, he does not embrace the entirety of his system. Instead, he prefers to provide a rational and philosophical justification for Christian theological doctrines. His attacks on Platonic theories of substance and form or his refutation of Plotinus’ theories on the soul aim to demonstrate the validity of Christian teachings.
A rival to Choumnos, Theodore Metochites (1270–1332), succeeded in replacing the former as the Grand Logothete of Andronikos II. During this period, he established a public education service called the Mouseion in memory of the institution in Alexandria and proved to be a great patron of the arts and sciences. His political career was interrupted in 1328 when the emperor was dethroned by his grandson. After being exiled for a few months, he was able to return to Constantinople, where he retired to the Chora monastery, which he had restored.
A statesman by day, Metochites, deeply immersed in the culture and language of ancient Greece, dedicated his free time to intellectual pursuits. A versatile writer, he admired Aristotle and especially Plato, but like Choumnos, he did not accept all their opinions. His Sēmeiōseis gnōmikai (Miscellanies) is a collection of one hundred essays on various subjects (politics, history, moral philosophy, aesthetics, classical Greek literature), in which he does not hesitate to criticize Aristotle’s obscurity and Plato’s use of dialogue. Many of his essays are reflections on the transience of human life, while others are paraphrases or commentaries on Aristotle’s philosophy as contained in his various treatises.
Becoming an orphan at a very young age, Nikephoros Gregoras (circa 1295–1360) began his studies under the guidance of his uncle John, the Metropolitan of Heraclea. Around 1315, he arrived in Constantinople, where he studied logic and rhetoric under the future Patriarch John XIII Glykys and philosophy and astronomy under Theodore Metochites, who introduced him to Aristotle’s philosophy. Gregoras was to become the Metochites’ intellectual successor, establishing himself at the Chora monastery, where he directed a school.
Having achieved an enviable reputation within the circle of Byzantine scholars and humanists, Gregoras became involved in the conflicts between Andronikos II and his grandson, Andronikos III, and later in those between John V Palaiologos (r. 1341 – 1376, 1379 – 1390, September 1390 – February 1391) and the future John VI Kantakouzenos (r. 1347 – 1354). However, what marked his philosophical activity the most was the long struggle he waged against the Calabrian Barlaam. Initially, in 1330, during a public debate initiated by Barlaam, and later from 1340 when Barlaam ignited the Hesychast controversy in Thessaloniki, which would divide the empire for ten years. Primarily a rhetorician, it was in this ongoing dispute until the end of his life that he touched on various philosophical subjects, including his criticism of Aristotle in the dialogue Florentius, evidently based on his first encounter with Barlaam.
Gregoras also came into conflict with another theologian and philosopher who was also involved in the conflict between John V Palaiologos and John VI Kantakouzenos: Gregory Palamas (1296–1359). Of aristocratic origin, Palamas chose the monastic life on Mount Athos over imperial administration at a young age. Ordained as a priest in 1326, he began correspondence with Barlaam in 1336, leading to the development and structuring of his doctrine, Palamism.
Soon, this religious dispute extended to civil society, with John VI, many important clergymen, and the monks of Mount Athos, whose spirituality was based on Hesychasm, siding with Palamas. The politico-religious crisis was resolved in 1347 when a council deposed Patriarch John Kalekas and confirmed the orthodoxy of Palamas’ theses. John Kantakouzenos then became co-emperor with young John V; Isidore became the patriarch of Constantinople; and Palamas became the metropolitan of Thessaloniki. While undertaking various diplomatic missions for the emperor, Palamas continued his struggle against Gregoras, writing his Four Treatises against Gregoras between 1356 and 1358.
According to Palamas, while the substance (ousia) of God remains unknown to man, he can directly experience it through divine activities (energeiai) visible to him. In his “150 chapters,” Palamas denounces what he considers the erroneous views of ancient philosophers, both followers of Aristotle and Plato, devoting the first twenty-nine chapters to defining natural philosophy, placing facts concerning the world as a whole (as opposed to specific facts like astronomical phenomena) in the same epistemological category as facts concerning God and humans.
During this third period, many philosophers tended to identify themselves as either “Aristotelians” or “Platonists,” contrary to the attempts of previous eras that primarily aimed to reconcile the two tendencies. Already present in Gregoras and Metochites, anti-Aristotelian sentiments became more evident in Georgios Gemistos Plethon (circa 1360–1452).
Born in Constantinople between 1355 and 1360, Georgios Gemistos initially studied within the Platonic school of Constantinople. Later, in the cosmopolitan environment of Adrianople, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims taught, he returned to teach in Constantinople. However, his lectures on Plato caused a scandal and nearly led to his arrest for heresy. Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391–1425), his friend and admirer, chose to exile him to Mistra, which had become a significant intellectual center in the Despotate of the Morea (former country).
As a member of the Byzantine delegation, serving as a lay delegate at the Council of Florence (1437–1439) when he was already in his eighties, he delivered numerous lectures in the city, reviving Platonic thought in Western Europe. It was during this time that he began using the pseudonym Plethon. Upon his return to Mistra, he was appointed to the Senate and became a magistrate of the city. He spent his final years teaching, writing, and continuing the feud with Gennadius II Scholarius, Patriarch of Constantinople and an advocate of Aristotle.
Following his discussions with Florentine intellectuals, he wrote his pamphlet “On the Differences between Aristotle and Plato,” seeking to demonstrate Plato’s superiority to Aristotle. Despite Aristotle’s greater admiration for Western Europe, where the ancient Greek authors had been rediscovered, in part due to exiles from Constantinople fleeing the city after the Fourth Crusade and the subsequent civil wars, Plethon emphasized the weaknesses in Aristotle’s theories. This led to an immediate response from Patriarch Gennadius II Scholarius, titled “In Defense of Aristotle.” Plethon then published a reply, arguing that Plato’s concept of God was closer to the Christian doctrine than Aristotle’s. The dispute lasted for thirty years, concluding with Cardinal Bessarion’s publication of “Against the Slanderers of Plato” (circa 1469).
Key Themes of Byzantine Philosophy
Throughout its evolution, Byzantine philosophy focused on fundamental truths concerning man and the world in which he lives. In this sense, it remained “the science of the external,” while theology was “the science of the internal.” Both were complementary, whereas in the West, philosophy remained either the “servant” or the “background” of theology.
In the West, classical humanities disappeared with the barbarian invasions, replaced by a profound distrust of “pagan ideas,” as evidenced by Tertullian’s question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” On the contrary, the Greek Fathers of the Church taught that God could be discovered through Greek philosophers. “All who live by applying the methods of reason (logos) are Christians, even if they are classified among atheists […] because each, through the presence of the divine logos within him, has spoken well […] and what every man has said, when he was well-guided, belongs to us Christians.”
The Greek Church thus concluded that the study of ancient wisdom was both useful and desirable, provided that Christians rejected erroneous ideas, retaining only what was true and good. This perspective is expressed in the treatise of Basil of Caesarea, already mentioned, “Exhortation to Young People on the Best Way to Profit from the Writings of Pagan Authors.” The Greek Fathers of the Church did not seek to borrow the essence or content of ancient thought but aimed to adopt the method, technical means, terminology, logical structures, and grammatical elements of the Greek language to construct Christian theology and philosophy.
For the Byzantines, the ultimate destiny of humanity was to achieve “theosis,” meaning union or integration with divinity (without being absorbed into it, as in Hindu pantheism). “Theosis” became synonymous with “salvation” or “eternal life in the presence of God,” while damnation was the absence of God in human life. The attainment of “theosis” was through religious experience.
This concept was not far from ancient Greek thought, where theosis was not to be achieved through theology but through philosophy, study (paideia), and the development of intelligence. This idea was defined in the 4th century by the pagan rhetorician and philosopher Themistius (c. 317–c. 388): “Philosophy is nothing other than assimilation to god as far as this is possible for a human.”
More theoretically, the main themes of Byzantine philosophy included:
The substance or essence of God in its three hypostases (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and the two natures of the Son.
The creation of the Universe by God and its limits in time.
The continuous process of creation and the intention it reveals.
The world is perceived as a realization in time and space, with its hypostasis in the divine mind (nous).
Other Philosophical Traditions
A medieval Arabic representation of Aristotle teaching a student.
Byzantine philosophy did not develop in isolation; it was one of the four major traditions of the Middle Ages, with the other three being Arabic philosophy, Jewish philosophy, and Latin philosophy. Arabic philosophy, expressed in Arabic and sometimes in Persian, was prominent from the 9th century until the death of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in 1198.
After that, religious intolerance hindered the independent development of philosophy. Starting shortly after Arabic philosophy and deeply connected to it, Jewish philosophy developed in colonies established in both the Arab world and Christian Europe, dwindling by the 15th century. In Latin Western Europe, an original philosophical movement emerged at the court of Charlemagne without a clearly defined end except for the Renaissance, which had varying starting points in different countries.
Taken as a whole, what stands out more than their differences is what unites these traditions. All four drew from ancient Greek philosophy, particularly as taught by Neoplatonic schools, as their common heritage. Secondly, they influenced each other throughout their existence: medieval Jewish philosophers were deeply influenced by Arabic philosophers, and the translation of these philosophers transformed the philosophical course of Latin Western Europe from the 12th century onwards.
Only Byzantine philosophy, relying on the ancient heritage, was less open to other currents, although there were various translations from Latin towards the end of the Middle Ages. Finally, these four philosophies belonged to cultures dominated by a revealed monotheistic religion. Although the relationships between these religious doctrines and philosophical speculations varied from one tradition to another, or even from one era to another within each, the questions they posed about the meaning of man and his relationship to divinity were substantially the same, and theological questions were to profoundly influence the development of philosophical thought.
The Main Byzantine Philosophers Include:
Proclus, a Neoplatonist, born in Constantinople in 412 and died in Athens in 485. He is considered the precursor of Byzantine philosophy.
Stephen of Alexandria, born around 580 and died around 642.
John Damascene, born in Damascus around 676, died at the Mar Saba Monastery (Palestine) in 749.
Leo the Philosopher or Leo the Mathematician, born between 790 and 800, died in Constantinople after 869.
Arethas of Caesarea, born around 860 in Patras, still alive in 932.
Suda, a Greek encyclopedia from the late 10th century whose author or authors are anonymous.
Photius I of Constantinople, born around 820 in Constantinople, died in exile in 891 or 897.
Michael Psellos, born in Constantinople in 1018, died in Constantinople shortly after the death of Michael VII (1078).
John Italus, born in southern Italy around 1020, died after 1082.
Eustratius of Nicaea, born around 1050, died around 1120 or 1130.
Michael of Ephesus, mid-11th century.
Theodore Smyrnaios (Theodore of Smyrna), first mentioned in 1082, seemingly died after 1112.
Nicholas of Methone, born in the early 12th century, died in 1160 or 1166.
Nikephoros Blemmydes, born in Constantinople in 1197, died in Constantinople around 1269.
Nikephoros Choumnos, born in Thessaloniki around 1250 or 1255, died in Constantinople in 1327.
Theodore Metochites, born in 1270 in Constantinople, died in Constantinople in 1332.
Joseph the Philosopher, born in Ithaca around 1280, died in a monastery near Thessaloniki around 1330.
Gregory II of Cyprus, born in Lapithos (Cyprus) in 1241, died in Constantinople in 1290.
Nikephoros Gregoras, born around 1295 in Heraclea Pontica, died in Constantinople in 1360.
Gregory Palamas, born in Constantinople in 1296, died in Thessaloniki in 1359.
Plethon Gemistos, born in Constantinople between 1355 and 1360, died in Mistra in 1452.
Manuel Chrysoloras, born in Constantinople around 1355, died in Constance in 1415.
John Argyropoulos, born around 1395 in Constantinople, died in Rome in 1487.
Theodore Gaza, born in Thessaloniki around 1400, died in Rome around 1478.
Gennadius II Scholarius, born in Constantinople around 1400, died in Macedonia around 1473.
George Amiroutzes, born in Trebizond in the early 15th century, died around 1470.
Michael Apostolius, born in Constantinople around 1422 and died on June 18, 1478.
Andronikos Callistus, born in Constantinople in the early 15th century, died in London after 1476.
Thales of Miletus, an important thinker in the fields of astronomy and mathematics, is sometimes cited as the first Greek philosopher. The Thales’ Theorem is named after him, and he is considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Thales of Miletus is a mysterious figure about whom not much is known. The most trustworthy sources tell us that he was born into a rich family in Miletus (Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey), and that he went on to pursue careers in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, engineering, and politics.
The accepted birth and death dates for Thales of Miletus may be questioned, as can the dates for most other individuals from his time. We know that Thales lived from around 625 BC until 547 BC at Miletus. It is often believed that Thales was the creator of the Milesian School of thought (also known as the Ionian School) and several mathematical theorems, however, there is no definitive proof for all of them.
Nonetheless, his influence on philosophizing and scientific inquiry is undeniable. In ancient Greece, Thales was considered one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Because of his status as an idealized character from antiquity, his life story is also dependent on conjecture. However, one may infer certain truths that have been independently confirmed from the works of Herodotus, Diogenes, and Aristotle.
Thales was a politician
Thales started off as a trader and then moved into politics. He would be of Greek or Phoenician descent being the son of trader Examyes, and mother Cleobulina. In the battle between the Greek city-state commanded by Croesus, King of Lydia, and the Persian King Cyrus II, Thales played a pivotal role as a political advisor for Croesus. During Cyrus’s triumph, the city-state of Miletus was spared by an alliance with Croesus, which Thales opposed. With his economic acumen and political influence, Thales quickly became a wealthy and famous figure.
Thales was a mathematician
The mathematician was likely introduced to Egyptian and Babylonian knowledge on a visit to Egypt. In that location, Thales used a shadow cast on the ground to determine how tall the Pyramid of Cheops was; his measurement was very close to the one we calculate today. Even though Thales’ Theorem does not cover the same thing in all countries, he is still the creator of a number of studies in geometry. Even though the proof of his studies did not surface until many centuries after Thales’ death, his name has been associated with the field of mathematics forever.
Thales was an astronomer
The duration of a year (365 days and 6 hours), the sizes of the Sun and Moon, and the lunar ephemeris were all computed by Thales, who is also regarded as one of the first astronomers. Also, Thales correctly prophesied a solar eclipse that happened amid a conflict between the Lydians and the Medes (Persians). His approach was groundbreaking at the time. Indeed, he was not content to just list characteristics; rather, Thales carefully examined, probed, and investigated the source of the occurrences he saw. He abandoned mythology in favor of a more scientific worldview, which inevitably led him to theorize about the nature of reality.
The ancient Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus looked to the water that made up the world around him to gain insight into nature. Everything, in his view, could be traced back to water. Water, being fundamental to all forms of life, became the guiding force of the cosmos, the foundation upon which air, fire, and earth rest. Because of his method and his many scientific investigations, Thales is still well-known today for having introduced the first rationalization of the world. Two centuries later, when Plato and Aristotle were developing their philosophies, this idea had a significant effect on their work.
The legend has it that, despite the importance of writing to the Ionian School—the school he is said to have founded—Thales never wrote a word. Since the 8th century BC, Milet has been the dominant naval power in Asia Minor. Several historical authors confirm that Thales, excluding his travels, probably spent his whole life in his own city.
This implies a concentration of knowledge and power at the heart of this city. In a progressive move, his institution, the Ionian School, maintained the role of God in its lessons while still pursuing rational rational thinking.
The guiding principles of the Ionian School of thought were the pursuit of natural causes and the application of reason.
Thales predicted the solar eclipse of 585 BC
Thales’s predicted solar eclipse of 585 BC occurred on May 28.
It was foretold by Thales, the ancient Greek philosopher and astronomer, that a solar eclipse would occur in the year 585 BC. And after the eclipse happened, Thales shot to fame overnight. No one knows how Thales was able to make this forecast, although it’s possible he used calculations based on the motion of the stars. Another possibility is that he had some kind of insight into the Saros cycle, the predictable time frame between eclipses. A conflict between the forces of Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and the King of Lydia was halted during this eclipse, according to Herodotus.
