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Demiurge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge Demiurge From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an Part of a series on artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. The term was subsequently adopted by the Gnostics, albeit with a different meaning. Athough a fashioner, the demiurge is not God quite the creator figure in the familiar monistic sense; both the demiurge itself and the material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are the product of some other being. General conceptions The word 'demiurge' is a Latinized form of Greek δημιουργός, dēmiourgos, literally "public worker", and which Atheism · Deism · Henotheism · Monolatrism was originally a common noun meaning "craftsman" or "artisan". The philosophical usage and the proper noun Monotheism · Panentheism · Pantheism derives from Plato's Timaeus, written circa 360 BCE, in which the demiurge is the organizer of the universe, rather than the physical creator of its parts. This is accordingly the definition of the demiurge in the Platonic (ca. Specific conceptions 310 BCE-90 BCE) and Middle Platonic (ca. 90 BCE-300 CE) philosophical traditions. In the various branches of Creator · Architect · Demiurge · Devil the Neoplatonic school (third century onwards), the demiurge is the fashioner of the real, perceptible world, and Sustainer · Lord · Father · Monad of the Ideas, but (in most neoplatonic systems) is still not itself "the One"; the demiurge is not God. In the Oneness · Supreme Being · The All arch-dualist ideology of the various Gnostic systems, the material universe is evil while the non-material world Personal · Unitarianism · Ditheism · Trinity is good. Accordingly, in these systems the fashioner of the material universe is, in effect, malevolent. in Abrahamic religions (Bahá'í Faith, Christianity, Islam, Judaism) in Ayyavazhi · in Buddhism · in Hinduism in Jainism · in Sikhism · in Zoroastrianism Contents Attributes 1 Platonism and Neoplatonism Eternalness · Existence · Gender 1.1 Iamblichus Names ("God") · Omnibenevolence Omnipotence · Omnipresence · Omniscience 2 Gnosticism 2.1 Mythos 2.2 Angels Experience and practices 2.3 Yaldabaoth Faith · Prayer · Belief · Revelation 2.4 Names Fideism · Gnosis · Metaphysics 2.5 Marcion Mysticism · Hermeticism · Esotericism 2.6 Valentinus 2.7 The devil Related topics 3 Neoplatonism and Gnosticism Philosophy · Religion · Ontology 4 References God complex · Neurotheology 5 External links Euthyphro dilemma · Problem of evil Portrayal in popular media List of religious texts Platonism and Neoplatonism Plato has the speaker Timaeus refer to the demiurge frequently in the Socratic dialogue Timaeus circa 360 BCE. The title character refers to the demiurge as the entity who “fashioned and shaped” the material world. Timaeus describes the Demiurge as unreservedly benevolent and hence desirous of a world as good as possible. The world remains allegedly imperfect, however, because the demiurge created the world out of chaotic, indeterminate non-being. Plato's Timaeus is a philosophical reconciliation of Hesiod's cosmology, from Hesiod's work Theogony syncretically reconcilling Hesiod to Homer[1][2][3]. Plato does this reconciliation in the dialectical discourse between Timaeus and the Part of a series on other guests at the gathering, in the dialog of Timaeus (see also Plato's Symposium). The concept of artist or creator and Plato even the Platonist conflict between the poet as cultural historian and philosopher (see Plato's The Republic) has a link in Plato's expression of the demiurge in his works. Early life · Works · Platonism · Epistemology · Idealism / Realism · Theory of Forms · Form Later Neoplatonists like Plotinus, worked to more clarify the demiurge. To Plotinus the second emanation represents an of the Good · Third man uncreated second cause (see Pythagoras' Dyad). Plotinus sought to reconcile Aristotle's energeia with Plato's argument · Euthyphro dilemma · [4] demiurge. Which as Demiurge and mind (nous) is a critical component in the ontological construct of human Immortality of the soul · Five consciousness used to explain Substance theory. The first and highest aspect of God is the One, the source or the regimes · Philosopher king · Monad. Plato describes this concept (the monad or the one) as the Good above the demiurge, the good that is manifest Utopia (Callipolis) through the demiurge and the work of the demiurge. The Monad emanated the Nous (consciousness) from its Subjects "indeterminate" vitality due to the monad being so abundant that it overflowed back onto itself causing self reflection.[5] Philosophy · Moderation · This self reflection of the indeterminate vitality Plotinus referred to as the demiurge or creator. The second principle is Death · Piety · Beauty · organization in its reflection of the nonsentient force or dunamis, also called the one or the Monad. The dyad is energy Dishonesty · Art · Courage · emanated by the one that is then the work, process or activity called nous, demiurge, mind, consciousness that organizes Friendship · Language · Argumentation · Rhetoric · the indeterminate vitality into the experience called the material world, universe, cosmos. Plotinus also elucidates the Virtue · Afterlife · Education · [6] equation of matter with nothing or non-being in his Enneads which more correctly is to express the concept of idealism Love · Justice · Passion · or that there is not anything or anywhere outside of the "mind" or "nous" (see pantheism). Monism · Knowledge · Physics · Atlantis · Sophistry · Politics · Plotinus' form of Platonic idealism is to treat the Demiurge, nous as the contemplative faculty (ergon) within man which Pleasure · Nature & Humanity orders the force (dunamis) into conscious reality.[7] In this he claimed to reveal Plato's true meaning, a doctrine he Allegories learned from Platonic tradition that did not appear outside the academy or in Plato's text. This tradition of creator God as Ring of Gyges · Allegory of the nous (the manifestation of consciousness), can be validated in the works of pre-Plotinus philosophers such as Cave · Analogy of the divided Numenius. As well as a connection between Hebrew cosmology and the Hellenic Platoistic one (see also Philo).[8] line · Metaphor of the sun · Ship of state · Myth of Er · Chariot The Demiurge of Neoplatonism is the Nous (mind of God), and is one of the three ordering principles: Allegory 1 of 5 03/12/2010 07:28 PM Demiurge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demiurge arche (Gr. "beginning") - the source of all things, logos (Gr. "word") - the underlying order that is hidden beneath appearances, Influences and Followers harmonia (Gr. "harmony") - numerical ratios in mathematics. Heraclitus · Parmenides · Socrates · Speusippus · Aristotle · Before Numenius of Apamea and Plotinus' Enneads, no Platonic works ontologically clarified the Demiurge from the Plotinus · Iamblichus · Proclus · allegory in Plato's Timaeus. The idea of Demiurge was, however, addressed before Plotinus in the works of Christian St. Augustine · Al-Farabi writer Justin Martyr who built his understanding of the demiurge on the works of Numenius.[citation needed] Later, Related Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist, changed the role of the "One", which changed (by proxy) the role of the demiurge. Effectively Academy in Athens · Socratic altering the demiurge, as second case or dyad, hence one of the reasons that Iamblichus and his teacher Porphryr were problem · Commentaries on in conflict with one another. Plato · Middle Platonism · Neoplatonism · Platonic Christianity Iamblichus The figure of the Demiurge emerges in the theoretic of Iamblichus, a Neoplatonist, which conjoins the transcendent, incommunicable “One”, or Source. Here, at the summit of this system, the Source and demiurge (material realm) coexist via the process of henosis (see Theurgy, Iamblichus and henosis (http://www.theandros.com/iamblichus.html) ). Iamblichus describes the One, a monad whose first principle or emanation is intellect (nous), while among "the many" that follow it a second, super-existent "One" that is the producer of intellect or soul ("psyche"). The "One" is further separated into spheres of intelligence; the first and superior sphere is objects of thought, while the latter sphere is the domain of thought. Thus, a triad is formed of the intelligible nous, the intellective nous, and the psyche in order to reconcile further the various Hellenistic philosophical schools of Aristotle's actus and potentia of the unmoved mover and Plato's demiurge. Then within this intellectual triad Iamblichus assigns the third rank to the Demiurge, identifying it with the perfect or Divine nous with the intellectual triad being promoted to a hebdomad. In the theoretic of Plotinus, nous produces nature through intellectual mediation, thus the intelluatalizing gods are followed with a triad of psychic gods. Gnosticism Gnosticism also presents a distinction between the highest, unknowable God and the demiurgic “creator” of the material. In contrast to Plato, several systems of Gnostic thought present the Demiurge as antagonistic to the will of Gnosticism the Supreme Being: his act of creation occurs in unconscious semblance of the divine model, and thus is fundamentally flawed, or else is formed with the malevolent intention of entrapping aspects of the divine in materiality. Thus, in
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