A study in Neoplatonism is a study in scholasticism.
A common theme in philosophy was resolving paradox’s (for ex. Zeno’s paradox). If two things appeared to be true (in conjunction with each other), yet also appear to be mutually exclusive (dichotomy) (such as light being a quantum wave vs particle) means we need to find a logical (Aristotle’s) congruent explanation (unifying theory, a mode between two means) to resolve the paradox.
Plato called such concepts, forms, or more simply ideas, which Jung associated with Archetypes. The common theme is they express a range (minima/maxima) and have a golden mean, expressing transcending opposites (duality) in an intertwined fashion. This mean is what we don’t see (metaphysics, indirect realism) and expresses the essence of the principle as a unity (pleroma). This expression of forms and their ranges led to Aristotle’s categories, taxonomy, and logic.
The application of Socratic elenchus (pointing out opposite cases as a form of negating a universal truth) following a Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, provide a framework to resolve these paradox’s.
Graph theory (the interconnectedness of ideas across axioms), logic (coding), formal class definitions (OOP), and dynamic set theory are descendants of these philosophical ideas.
Neoplatonism and Scholasticism
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