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Media Kit
The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy is aimed at promoting a new and fresh view of what Hellenic philosophy is and what kind of wisdom it can bring to us. Due to the flagrant misunderstanding and misinterpretations of Hellenic philosophy current in modern times, it is pictured as ‘rationalism’ pure and simple, devoid of any spiritual content. This book shows that the reverse is true: Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy has been for millennia a way of life and a means of spiritual realization. For its true “practitioners,” it establishes a harmony with the cosmos, purifies the soul, leads to union with the Divine Intellect and the One. Such philosophy is close to the Great Mysteries of ancient traditions. By the Platonists and Pythagoreans themselves it is regarded as the “Golden Chain” of succession and transmission of knowledge.
About the Author(s)
Algis Uždavinys
Dr. Algis Uždavinys (1962-2010) was a senior research fellow at the Lithuanian State Institute of Culture, Philosophy, and Arts and an associate professor at the Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts in his native Lithuania. Prof. Uždavinys' work has been published in English, French, and Lithuanian. He translated the works of Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and Plotinus into Russian and Lithuanian. Dr. Uždavinys’ work has regularly been featured in journals such as Sophia and Sacred Web.Dr. Uždavinys was the editor of The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy, and The Heart of Plotinus: The Essential Enneads.
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John Finamore
John F. Finamore is Professor and Chair in the Department of Classics at the University of Iowa. His areas of research interest include Neoplatonic philosophy from Plotinus to Philoponus, Greek and Roman philosophy, and Roman poetry. His most recent publication is Iamblichus’ De Anima: Text, Translation, and Commentary (with J.M. Dillon). Dr. Finamore also serves as President of the U.S. Section of the International Society of Neoplatonic Studies and is Editor for book manuscripts in Neoplatonism for the Brill Press Series. Prof. Finamore has written the foreword to The Golden Chain .
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Reviews
- The Golden Chain: An Anthology Of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy by Algis Uzdavinys (a Research Fellow at the Institute of Culture, Philosophy, and Arts) reveals that Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy is not directly equitable with our contemporary concept of “rationalism” and therefore devoid of any spiritual content. Rather, Platonic and Pythagorean philosophy in ancient Greece was seen as a way of life and as a means of spiritual realization. The object in Hellenic times was to establish for its practitioners of the philosophy of Plato and Pythagoras a harmony with the cosmos, purifying their souls and leading them into union with the Divine Intellect and the One. The Hellenic philosophies were closer to the Eternal Mysteries than to the 20th century fashions of Western logicians. The Golden Chain is informed and informative reading which is most especially recommended to the attention of philosophy students and the non-specialist general reader with an interest in how philosophy can free us from the chains of desire driven materialism and the rationalized hubris that is such a hallmark of contemporary western cultures..
Midwest Book Review
- Presenting key writings of the most important sources of Pythagorean, Platonic and Neoplatonic thought, The Golden Chain defines this philosophy as a spiritual and contemplative way of life that ultimately leads to the vision of God. These writings point to underlying influences from Chaldean, Egyptian, Phoenician and Indian sages, suggesting that the Hellenic wisdom from which all subsequent Western philosophy arose was established upon a perennial philosophy of unchanging metaphysical and divine truths. The rediscovery of this wisdom also allows us to see its crucial importance in the formation of later Judaic, Christian and Islamic thought.
This anthology promotes a new and fresh view of what Hellenic philosophy is and what kind of wisdom it offers us. The book demonstrates, through excerpts from the great Pythagorean and Platonic writers, that to these thinkers “philosophy” is a way of life and a means of spiritual realization — not the dry, rationalistic, mental exercise philosophy has become in the modern world. TheBanyen Books and Sound
- of the title refers to the ancient belief that such “philosophy” transmits a heritage of unitive knowledge through a succession of enlightened teachers and students.
Christos Evangeliou, Professor of Philosophy at Towson University, and Vice President of ISNS .
- This Anthology will be very precious for the serious scholars and students of philosophy, because it comprises in one volume rare Platonic, Neo-Platonic, Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean texts, which constitute a truly golden chain of philosophic wisdom. There was a time when Plato and Platonism were considered as synonymous with Hellenic philosophia, understood as the love of wisdom, which was expressed in theoria and, especially, in praxis, as a way of perfecting the human soul and its noetic life. Pythagoras and Socrates were acknowledged as predecessors of Plato, while succeeding generations of philosophers, including Aristotle, were seen as precious links in this continuous golden chain of wisdom.<br
This concatenation lasted for more than a millennium, until fanaticism broke it in 529 B.C., when Justinian closed down the philosophical schools in Athens. Since that time Hellenic philosophy was forced to lead an atrophic existence and to serve successively such alien masters as dogmatic theology, scientific technology and political ideology. As a result of this long enslavement, the “philosophy” of our times, especially in the West, has become a false homonym, that is an amorphous, confused, disoriented and petty sophistry. Of course, it is not what it used to be, a path to lead the philosopher’s soul and mind to their divine perfection.
There is hope, then, that the present Anthology will help some serious and curious students of philosophy to rediscover, reconnect with, and revive the lost spirit of Platonic philosophy as a way of taking care of and perfecting the human soul in the Socratic manner. With the re-emergence of religious fanaticism and its concomitant terrorism, this Hellenic wisdom of reason and tolerance will be needed more than ever before.Mark Perry, author of On Awakening and Remembering: To Know Is to Be
- The decline of philosophy, from sacred knowledge of the Eternals to individualistic opinion and virtuoso speculation, is one of the most perplexing and tragic of fates in the history of the West. This book, expertly introduced by a true philosopher or “lover of wisdom”, brings together in a copious feast some of the profoundest texts devoted to the knowledge of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. True seekers of wisdom will find here, in this marvelous juxtaposition of intellectual treasures, not only luminous nourishment for their souls but essential keys for Theosis or the bringing forth of the Divine. And for those who think that philosophy is mere cogitation, this book will introduce them into the real meaning of philosophy, namely a holy practice (praxis), a realizational method for the critical perception of the Real and, more fundamentally, the worship of the Real that follows upon such perception when integral. This is the “growing of wings”, alluded to by Plato, for “the journey of the one back to the One…There is a uniquely Western spiritual tradition that has been lost to postmodern culture. And, to our delight, we find it here, in The Golden Chain. Algis Uždavinys has admirably compiled an array of seminal texts that powerfully reveal that ancient tradition.…[This is] ancient philosophy at its finest — where “becoming like god” is a modest, down-to-earth way of life. The Golden Chain and the perennial wisdom it imparts is a much needed and neglected clarion call to character, and service to the community, one in which words like truth, justice, and compassion are not just paid lip-service, but are living, breathing, ensouled, and embodied.…I cannot praise…Uždavinys, or The Golden Chain, too highly!
M. A. B. Mineo, Dowling College
- Algis Uždavinys’ anthology The Golden Chain will surely be of great help in the revival of the Neoplatonic spiritual tradition largely lost in America, but valued by New England Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Margaret Fuller and others. Uždavinys includes significant translations by ‘faithful’ American Neoplatonists. … This ‘religiously toned synthesis of Plato’s thought’ was the basis and jumping off point for early American explorations into Eastern Philosophy and Comparitive Religions. In his brief but cogent introduction Uždavinys shows significant early connections, often obscured, between ancient Near Eastern, Egyptian and Greek wisdom traditions. Like his man, Proclus, the universal ‘hierophant’, appropriately, Uždavinys does not divide, but links East and West.
Jay Bregman, University of Maine, and author of Synesius of Cyrene, Philosopher Bishop
- Algis Uždavinys’ The Golden Chain, An Anthology of Pythagorean and Platonic Philosophy, is an excellent resource for college humanities professors who wish to introduce their students to a spiritually transformative dimension of some key texts of the Pythagorean and Platonic (including later developments characterized by scholars as Middle Platonic and Neoplatonic) philosophical traditions and hence to a perspective on ancient philosophy easily passed over or missed all together by many contemporary university faculty in philosophy. It is also very good for general readers interested in an unusual perspective on such texts.
Donna M. Altimari Adler, Loyola University of Chicago
- Golden, indeed, is the chain which goes through all the Platonist writers of antiquity. To have gathered such an impressive number of authors together in this astonishing anthology is one of the best ways to prove the strong continuity and power of philosophy when understood etymologically, that is, as the ‘love of wisdom.’ This anthology can serve not only as a textbook for a philosophy class but also as a wonderful reminder of what the Intellect is all about: remembrance of the Truth, the Good and the Beautiful inscribed in our deepest heart.
Jean-Pierre Lafouge, Marquette University
- The rediscovery of the Doctrina Sacra in the West has necessarily led to a rediscovery of the true nature of the ancient Greek philosophy of Pythagoras and Plato, of its sapiential essence and divine origin. ‘The Golden Chain’ is what links the Greek Sages to Heaven and to the Perennial Truth written both in the nature of things and in the very substance of the Spirit. A very enlightening anthology not only for scholars but also for serious spiritual seekers.
Dr. Patricia Reynaud, Associate Professor, Miami University
