School #37
Neo-Platonism
Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyry
Neo-Platonism holds that all reality emanates hierarchically from a single, ineffable principle — the One — which is beyond being, thought, and description. Plotinus's 'Enneads' (compiled c. 270 CE by Porphyry) developed this into a three-tiered emanation: from the One proceeds Nous (divine intellect, containing the Platonic Forms), from Nous proceeds Soul (the principle of life and motion), and from Soul proceeds the material world as its lowest expression. Matter is the farthest point from the One, barely real, almost pure privation. Time, Plotinus wrote (Enneads III.7), is "the life of Soul in a movement of passage from one way of life to another" — the moving image of eternity. Proclus's 'Elements of Theology' (5th century CE) formalized the emanation-and-return structure into rigorous propositions, showing that every effect both remains in its cause, proceeds from it, and returns to it. Porphyry's 'Isagoge' became the standard introduction to Aristotelian logic for over a millennium, transmitting Neo-Platonic conceptual habits deep into medieval thought.
Worldview
The Neo-Platonist experiences reality as a vast, luminous hierarchy of being that emanates downward from an ineffable source — the One — through successive levels of diminishing perfection: divine Intellect (Nous), Soul (Psyche), and finally the material world, the dimmest reflection of the original light. To hold this ontology is to feel oneself as a soul temporarily immersed in matter but capable of ascending through contemplation back toward the source from which all things flow. The fundamental orientation is one of spiritual aspiration: the material world is not evil but simply the furthest point from the One, and every beautiful thing encountered in it is a reminder of the higher beauty from which it derives. Living inside this worldview means experiencing reality as layered, meaningful, and ultimately grounded in a unity so perfect that it transcends even the category of being. There is a mystical longing at the heart of this position, a desire for reunion with the source that animates all intellectual and spiritual life. The framework classifies this as Cosmic-ordering metaphysical agency: the One, the Nous, and the World-Soul are impersonal levels of an emanative hierarchy, not personal deities who hear and act — they order reality by what they are, not by what they decide. The framework reads this as Reason-grounded moral authority: ascent through dialectic toward the Forms and ultimately the One is how the soul is rightly ordered; intellectual contemplation, not revealed text or ecclesial tradition, is the final court.
Moral Implications
Neo-Platonic ethics is oriented toward the purification and ascent of the soul from the distractions of material existence toward union with the One. Virtue is understood as the progressive ordering of the soul's faculties: the civic virtues (justice, courage, temperance, wisdom) regulate social life, the purificatory virtues detach the soul from bodily passions, and the contemplative virtues unite the soul with divine Intellect. Evil is not a positive force but a privation — the absence of being and goodness that characterizes matter at its lowest level. Moral responsibility consists in choosing to turn the soul's attention upward toward the light rather than downward toward the shadows of material preoccupation. The Neo-Platonist is called to a life of philosophical contemplation as the highest ethical achievement, since union with the One is the ultimate good.
Practical Implications
Neo-Platonism encourages a contemplative life oriented toward intellectual and spiritual cultivation, with practical consequences for education, art, and religious practice. The emanative hierarchy provides a natural framework for aesthetic theory: beauty in the material world is valued as a reflection of intelligible beauty, making art and music pathways to spiritual ascent. In education, the Neo-Platonic curriculum moves from mathematics and logic through philosophy to mystical contemplation, a pattern that profoundly influenced medieval and Renaissance universities. Material wealth and technological innovation are regarded as spiritually neutral at best, since they concern the lowest level of the emanative hierarchy. Environmental engagement follows from the recognition that nature, however dim a reflection, still participates in the goodness of the One and deserves reverent treatment.
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I. Time
Time is emergent — it is "the moving image of eternity" (Plotinus, adapting Plato's Timaeus). Time arises at the level of Soul's activity; it does not exist at the higher levels of Nous or the One. Its extent is both finite (the temporal cosmos has structure) and infinite (emanation from the One is eternal). Time is continuous, linear, and uni-directional as experienced, but the Soul can ascend to the timeless eternity of Nous through contemplation.
Attributes
Extent: Both
Ontological Status: Emergent
Grain: Continuous
Freedom: Non-Deterministic
Traversability: Linear
Dimensionality: One
Direction: Uni-directional
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II. Space
Space is emergent and finite — it exists at the material level as the stage of the Soul's embodied activity. Space is flat and three-dimensional in the material realm. It is non-local in the sense that higher levels of reality (Nous, the One) are spaceless and omnipresent; the Soul's ascent transcends spatial limitation.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Curvature: Flat
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Non-local
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III. Matter
Matter is emergent, finite, and the lowest emanation from the One — it is barely real, the furthest remove from the source of being. Matter is conserved at the physical level because the emanative process sustains it continuously. It is local: material things are spatially bounded, the most limited and least real level of the emanative hierarchy.
Attributes
Extent: Finite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Conserved
Dimensionality: Three
Locality: Local
◎
IV. Observer
The observer is a soul that has descended from the One into the multiplicity of the material world — but it retains the capacity to ascend back through contemplation and intellectual purification. Consciousness is not bound to a single moment or place: the soul can participate in higher realities that transcend space and time. Through philosophical ascent, the observer can achieve total knowledge of the intelligible order, and such knowledge, once attained, is permanently held. The observer is fundamentally disembodied — the body is a temporary garment, and the true self is the rational soul. Observation is active: the soul must strive upward through its own effort. At the deepest level, the observer is singular — all souls ultimately derive from and return to the One.
Attributes
Time Instance: Multiple
Space Instance: Multiple
Extent of Knowledge: Total
Retainment of Knowledge: Total
Physicality: Disembodied
Agency: Active
Number: Singular
Metaphysical Agency: Cosmic-ordering
Moral Authority: Reason
Theological Method: Mystical
⚡
V. Energy
Energy is emergent and infinite — the creative power (dynamis) of the One is inexhaustible. It flows downward through emanation, diminishing at each level. Conservation is variable: at the higher levels, creative energy is unlimited; at the material level, it is finite and constrained. Dispersibility is irreversible in the downward direction of emanation, though the Soul can reverse the flow through contemplative return (epistrophe).
Attributes
Extent: Infinite
Ontological Status: Emergent
Conservation: Variable
Dispersibility: Irreversible
⧉
VI. Information
Information emanates from the divine Nous (Intellect) — higher levels of reality contain more integrated, unified information, while the material world contains fragmented, diminished informational content. Information is emergent in the lower levels but primordial in the Nous. It is conserved because the emanation from the One preserves all informational content at each level. It is continuous because the emanative process is a seamless, hierarchical continuum. The framework places this as conserved at both scales: the Nous eternally contains all cosmic information as Forms, and at the personal-identity scale the soul's pattern is conserved as it ascends back toward the One — what was emanated is never finally lost.
Attributes
Ontological Status: Emergent
Cosmic Conservation: Conserved
Personal Conservation: Conserved
Granularity: Continuous
Experiments This School Responds To (1)
Films Reading Through This School (1)
Debates Where This School Is Allied (5)
Works that name Neo-Platonism in their embodiments
Foundational texts that draw on this school, with each work's declared weight.
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The Enneads
Plotinus (edited by Porphyry c. 301) · Composed c. 254–270 AD; edited by Porphyry c. 301
Elements of Theology
Proclus Lycaeus (Proclus Diadochus) · c. 450–470 CE
The Consolation of Philosophy
Boethius · 524 CE
On Abstinence from Animal Food
Porphyry · c. 270–280 CE
Fons Vitae
Solomon ibn Gabirol · c. 1045–1058 CE
On Dreams (De Insomniis)
Synesius of Cyrene · c. 404 CE
The Consolation of Philosophy
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 524 AD (in prison at Pavia, awaiting execution by Theodoric)
Mathematical Commentary on Diophantus
Hypatia of Alexandria · c. 400 CE
Definitions of Philosophy
David the Invincible · c. 5th–6th century (precise date uncertain)
The Divine Names (De Divinis Nominibus) (Late)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite · late 5th or early 6th century
Periphyseon (On the Division of Nature) (Mid)
John Scotus Eriugena · c. 867
On Learned Ignorance (Mature (the founding work of Cusa's philosophical career, composed at age 39))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1440 (composed on the return voyage from the failed Council of Florence union with the Greeks)
The Vision of God (Mature (one of Cusa's most condensed and beautiful late works))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1453 (composed for the Benedictine monks of Tegernsee, sent with an icon of an all-seeing face)
Opus Tripartitum (Late (Eckhart's most ambitious Latin project, undertaken in the years before the 1326 trial))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1311-26 (planned during Eckhart's second Paris regency, never completed; only fragments survive)
Vom Edlen Menschen (Mature (probably from the Strasbourg years before the trial))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1308-13 (Strasbourg or Paris period)
The Marriage of Philology and Mercury
Martianus Capella · c. 410–420 CE
The Mystical Theology
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (probably a Syrian Christian theologian, c. 500 AD) · c. 500 AD (probably Syria)
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (The Mind's Road to God) (Mid)
St. Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza) · 1259
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (Late)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nikolaus von Kues) · 1440
Isagoge (Introduction to Aristotle's Categories) (Late)
Porphyry of Tyre · c. 270
Translations and commentaries on Aristotle's Categories (Mature (the late translation programme Boethius announced and partly completed before his death))
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 510-23 (the translations and commentary cycle, completed in Boethius's last years before his 524 execution)
Hayy ibn Yaqzan
Ibn Tufayl · c. 1160–1170 CE
Itinerarium Mentis in Deum (The Journey of the Mind into God)
Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza) · 1259
Ambigua
Maximus the Confessor · c. 628–634 CE (Ambigua ad Iohannem) and c. 614–625 CE (Ambigua ad Thomam)
Platonic Theology (Mature (Ficino's philosophical magnum opus, composed during the height of his work at the Florentine Academy))
Marsilio Ficino · 1469–1474 (completed 1474; published 1482)
On the Differences between Plato and Aristotle (Late (Pletho was approximately 84; the work is the product of a lifetime of Platonist conviction))
Georgius Gemistus Pletho · c. 1439 (composed in connection with Pletho's attendance at the Council of Florence)
Quaestiones super Librum de Causis (Late)
Siger of Brabant · c. 1272-76
Timaeus (Late)
Plato · c. 360 BC (late dialogue)
Confessions (Early)
Augustine of Hippo · c. 397–400 AD
Phaedrus (Late)
Plato · c. 370 BC (late-middle dialogue)
The German Sermons (Late)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1295–1327 (preached in Strasbourg, Cologne, and elsewhere)
Liber Divinorum Operum (Late (the culmination of her visionary trilogy))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1163-73 (composed in the last decade of Hildegard's life, after the Scivias and the Liber Vitae Meritorum)
Parisian Questions (Mid-late)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1300-1326 (the scholastic-Latin works composed across Eckhart's academic career)
Vom Abgeschiedenheit (On Detachment) / Counsels on Discernment (Early)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1295-98 (Eckhart's early German-vernacular work, written for the religious community at Erfurt)
Parmenides
Plato · c. 370 BC
Ḥikmat al-Ishrāq (The Philosophy of Illumination) (Mid)
Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī · c. 1186
Mabādiʾ Ārāʾ Ahl al-Madīna al-Fāḍila (Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City) (Mid)
al-Fārābī (Abū Naṣr) · c. 942
Fī l-Falsafa al-Ūlā (On First Philosophy) (Early)
al-Kindī (Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb) · c. 850
The Life of Moses (De Vita Moysis) (Late)
St. Gregory of Nyssa · c. 390
On First Principles (Peri Archōn / De Principiis) (Early)
Origen of Alexandria · c. 230
Ambigua to John (Ambigua ad Iohannem) (Late)
St. Maximus the Confessor · c. 628-30
Aion (Late (one of Jung's last and most ambitious works, written in his mid-seventies))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1951 (Aion: Untersuchungen zur Symbolgeschichte, Rascher, Zurich; English trans. R.F.C. Hull, Collected Works vol. 9, pt II, 1959)
On Conjectures (Mature (the systematic epistemological development of the docta-ignorantia framework))
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · c. 1442-43 (composed shortly after De Docta Ignorantia, dedicated to Cardinal Cesarini)
Reden der Unterweisung (Early (Eckhart's first major vernacular work, written before the trials of his last decade))
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1294-98 (Eckhart's early period as Prior of Erfurt and Vicar of Thuringia, before the first Paris regency)
On the Beryl (De Beryllo) (Mature)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1458
The Niche of Lights (Late)
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī · c. 1106-1111
On Loving God (De Diligendo Deo)
Bernard of Clairvaux · c. 1126–1141
De Institutione Musica (On Music) (Early)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 500-510
De Institutione Arithmetica (On Arithmetic) (Early)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 500-510
The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy (Middle)
Ernst Cassirer · 1927
Theological Tractates (Opuscula Sacra) (Mid-to-late)
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius · c. 510-524
Phaedo
Plato · c. 380 BC (middle dialogue)
City of God (Late)
Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 AD (composed in stages over thirteen years)
Symposium
Plato · c. 385–380 BC (middle dialogue)
On Free Choice of the Will (Early)
Augustine of Hippo · c. 387–395 (Book I in Rome 388; Books II–III at Hippo c. 391–395)
Monologion (Early (Anselm's first major work, before the Proslogion))
Anselm of Canterbury · c. 1076 (composed at the abbey of Bec; the first major work of mature scholastic theology)
Scivias (Early (the first of her three major visionary works))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1141-51 (composed in the decade after Hildegard's call to write, ten years after entering the monastic life)
Four Quartets (Late (Eliot's mature Anglo-Catholic period))
Thomas Stearns Eliot · 1936 (Burnt Norton); 1940 (East Coker); 1941 (The Dry Salvages); 1942 (Little Gidding); 1943 (collected publication)
Vita Nuova (Early (Dante's first major work))
Dante Alighieri · c. 1295
Symphonia harmoniae caelestium revelationum (Mid-late)
Hildegard of Bingen · c. 1150-79
Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (Late)
Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki · 1957
Psychology and Alchemy (Late)
Carl Gustav Jung · 1944
Kitāb al-Najāt (Book of Salvation) (Mid)
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) · c. 1024-27
Kitāb al-Ishārāt wa-l-Tanbīhāt (Remarks and Admonitions) (Late)
Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā) · c. 1030
Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam (Bezels of Wisdom) (Late)
Ibn ʿArabī (Muḥyī al-Dīn) · c. 1229
al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya (The Meccan Revelations) (Late)
Ibn ʿArabī (Muḥyī al-Dīn) · c. 1202-31
al-Ḥikma al-Mutaʿāliya fī l-Asfār al-ʿAqliyya al-Arbaʿa (Transcendent Wisdom in the Four Intellectual Journeys) (Late)
Mullā Ṣadrā (Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī) · c. 1628
Moralia (Ēthika) (Late)
Plutarch of Chaeronea · c. 100 CE
Didascalicon (On the Study of Reading) (Early)
Hugh of St Victor · c. 1127
Ars Magna (Ars Generalis Ultima) (Late)
Ramon Llull (Raimundus Lullus) · 1305-08 (final form; developed from 1271)
The Mirror of Simple Souls (Le Mirouer des Simples Âmes) (Late)
Marguerite Porete · c. 1295
Oration on the Dignity of Man (Oratio de hominis dignitate) (Mid)
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola · 1486
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (De l'Infinito Universo e Mondi) (Late)
Giordano Bruno · 1584
Paradiso (Divine Comedy, Cantica III) (Late)
Dante Alighieri · c. 1316-21
A Vision (Late)
W.B. Yeats · 1925 (1st edn); 1937 (rev. 2nd edn)
The Red Book (Middle (the personal experimental record from which all of Jung's later theoretical work emerged))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1914-30 (composed in calligraphic script with painted illuminations; published 2009 by W. W. Norton, ed. Sonu Shamdasani)
Al-Hikmat al-Muta'aliya fi'l-Asfar al-'Aqliyya al-Arba'a (Late (the synthesis of his entire mature philosophy))
Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) · composed over Mulla Sadra's mature life, completed c. 1638
Siris (Late)
George Berkeley · 1744
Kitāb al-Shifāʾ (Book of Healing) (Mature)
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · c. 1014-1020
Kitāb al-Najāt (Book of Salvation) (Mature)
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · c. 1027
Ilāhiyyāt (Metaphysics of the Shifāʾ) (Mature)
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · c. 1014-1020
The Hidden God (De Deo Abscondito) (Mid)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · c. 1444
On the Not-Other (De Non Aliud) (Late)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1462
De Apice Theoriae (Late)
Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus) · 1464
Stromateis (Miscellanies)
Clement of Alexandria · c. 198–203 CE
Life of Moses (Late)
Gregory of Nyssa · c. 390 CE
Etz Chayim (Posthumous (transmission))
Isaac ben Solomon Luria (the Ari) · Luria's teachings 1570-72; redacted by Hayyim Vital c. 1572-1620; printed 1782
Kitāb al-Mashāʿir (Mature)
Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) · c. 17th century (mid-career)
The Republic
Plato · c. 380–375 BC
Metaphysics of The Book of Healing (Late)
Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) · c. 1014–1027 (compiled during Avicenna's years at Hamadan and Isfahan)
On the Trinity (Late)
Augustine of Hippo · c. 399–419 (composed across two decades)
Mathnawi (Late)
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī · c. 1258–1273 (Konya, dictated in Persian over fifteen years)
The Zohar
Traditionally Shimon bar Yochai (2nd c. AD); modern scholarship attributes to Moses de León c. 1280 · c. 1280 (Castile, Spain); first published in print 1558
The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Late (post-crisis))
Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī · c. 1097-1106 (composed during al-Ghazali's years of withdrawal after the 1095 spiritual crisis)
Essays: First Series (Mid (Emerson at the peak of his powers))
Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1841 (twelve essays collected from earlier lectures and journal entries)
Enchiridion Militis Christiani (Early (Erasmus's first major work))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1503 (with a famous expanded 1518 preface that became a humanist-Reformation manifesto)
The Perennial Philosophy (Late (Huxley's mature spiritual-philosophical synthesis))
Aldous Huxley · 1945
Gravity and Grace (Posthumous (Weil died in 1943 at age 34))
Simone Weil · 1947 (posthumous; assembled from Weil's notebooks by Gustave Thibon)
Waiting for God (Posthumous)
Simone Weil · 1942 letters to Father Perrin; published posthumously 1950
Seeds of Contemplation (1949) / New Seeds of Contemplation (Mid-late (Merton's mature contemplative theology))
Thomas Merton · 1961 (expanded revision of Seeds of Contemplation, 1949)
On Christian Doctrine (Mid-late (composed across three decades))
Augustine of Hippo · 397 (Books 1-3.25); 426-27 (Books 3.25-4, completed near the end of Augustine's life)
Liber Vitae Meritorum (Mid (the middle volume of the visionary trilogy))
Hildegard of Bingen · 1158-63 (the middle work of the visionary trilogy, between Scivias and Liber Divinorum Operum)
Essays in Zen Buddhism (Mid (Suzuki's major early period of Western dissemination))
Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki · 1927 (First Series), 1933 (Second), 1934 (Third) — published in English by Rider & Co. London
Convivio (Mid (early years of exile, preceding the Comedy))
Dante Alighieri · 1304-07 (composed during the early years of Dante's exile from Florence; unfinished — four of fifteen planned books completed)
Sophist
Plato · c. 360 BC
No Man Is an Island (Mid)
Thomas Merton · 1955
Mystics and Zen Masters (Late)
Thomas Merton · 1967
The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics (Late)
Hans Urs von Balthasar · 1961-69 (Vol I-VII; English 1982-91)
Long Commentary on De Anima (Late)
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) · c. 1190
Ordinatio (Late)
John Duns Scotus (the Subtle Doctor) · c. 1300
On Nature (Peri Physeos) (Early)
Parmenides of Elea · c. 475 BCE
On the Incarnation (De Incarnatione Verbi Dei) (Early)
St. Athanasius of Alexandria · c. 318
On the Holy Spirit (De Spiritu Sancto) (Late)
St. Basil of Caesarea (the Great) · c. 375
Theological Orations (Orations 27-31) (Mid)
St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian) · 380
Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (De Fide Orthodoxa) (Late)
St. John of Damascus · c. 743
Hymns of Divine Love (Hymnoi tōn Theiōn Erōtōn) (Late)
St. Symeon the New Theologian · c. 1020
Triads (Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts) (Late)
St. Gregory Palamas · 1338-41
The Pillar and Ground of the Truth (Mid)
Pavel Florensky · 1914
The Bride of the Lamb (Late)
Sergei Bulgakov · composed 1939-42; published 1945 posthumously
The Dark Night (La Noche Oscura) (Late)
St. John of the Cross (Juan de Yepes Álvarez) · c. 1582-85
The Interior Castle (Castillo Interior) (Late)
St. Teresa of Ávila (Teresa Sánchez de Cepeda y Ahumada) · 1577
Faust, Part Two (Faust: Der Tragödie zweiter Teil) (Late)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832 (composed 1825-31; published posthumously)
The Justification of the Good (Opravdanie dobra) (Late)
Vladimir Solovyov · 1897
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Essai sur la théologie mystique de l'Église d'Orient) (Mid)
Vladimir Lossky · 1944
The Logic of the Place of Nothingness and the Religious Worldview (Late (Nishida's final completed essay, written months before his death))
Nishida Kitarō · 1945 (composed Feb-April 1945; published posthumously)
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (Late (Murdoch's longest and most ambitious philosophical book, published nine years after the Gifford Lectures))
Iris Murdoch · 1992 (Chatto & Windus, based on the 1982 Gifford Lectures at Edinburgh)
De Re Publica (Mid-mature (Cicero's political philosophical synthesis, composed during the breakdown of the late Republic))
Marcus Tullius Cicero · 54-51 BC (composed during a period of political withdrawal from active life)
On Evil (Late (Aquinas's mature treatment of evil and the passions, parallel to the Summa))
Thomas Aquinas · 1269-72 (Paris, during Aquinas's second regency, contemporaneous with Summa Theologiae I-II)
Seven Valleys and Four Valleys (Early (composed before the 1863 proclamation))
Bahá'u'lláh (Mírzá Ḥusayn-ʻAlí Núrí) · c. 1856 (Seven Valleys) and c. 1858 (Four Valleys), both Baghdad period
The Immeasurable Equation (Posthumous)
Sun Ra (Herman Poole Blount) · 1950s-1993; collected 2005
On Truth (Mature)
Anselm of Canterbury · c. 1080-85
Dīvān-i Shams-i Tabrīzī (Mature)
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī · c. 1244-1273 (post-1244 encounter with Shams; finished by Rumi's 1273 death)
Vom Abgeschiedenheit (On Detachment) (Mature)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1300 (German treatise)
Commentary on John (Mature)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1313-26 (Paris and Cologne periods)
Commentary on Genesis (Mature)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1305-25 (mature period)
Commentary on Wisdom (Mature)
Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim) · c. 1305-25 (mature period)
Edition of Origen (Late)
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1536 (posthumous)
Religion and Art (Late)
Richard Wagner · 1880 (with appendices through 1881)
Parsifal (Late (final completed work))
Richard Wagner · 1877–1882 (premiered Bayreuth, 26 July 1882)
Sha'ar ha-Gilgulim (Posthumous (transmission))
Isaac ben Solomon Luria (the Ari) · Luria's teachings 1570-72; redacted by Vital; printed 1875
Al-Shawāhid al-Rubūbiyya (Mid-to-late)
Mulla Sadra (Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi) · c. 17th century (mid-to-late career)
On the Creation of the World
Philo of Alexandria · c. 20–40 CE
Triads in Defence of the Holy Hesychasts
Gregory Palamas · c. 1338–1341
Oration on the Dignity of Man (Early (Pico was 23 years old; this was his first major philosophical statement))
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola · 1486 (composed as the opening address for the planned Roman disputation of the 900 Theses; the disputation never took place)
Quaestiones in Tertium De Anima (Early-to-middle)
Siger of Brabant · c. 1265-1270
De Anima Intellectiva (Middle (post-Aquinas-attack))
Siger of Brabant · 1273
Bhagavad Gītā Bhāṣya (Career-defining)
Adi Śaṅkara · c. late 8th century
The Guide of the Perplexed
Moses Maimonides (Rambam) · c. 1185–1190 (Cairo)
Brahma Sutra Bhāṣya
Ādi Śaṅkara (Śaṅkarācārya) · c. 700–750 AD
Meno (Early)
Plato · c. 386–380 BC (transitional dialogue)
Theaetetus (Late)
Plato · c. 369 BC (late dialogue)
Divine Comedy: Inferno (Late (Dante's exile years))
Dante Alighieri · c. 1308-1320 (composed during Dante's exile from Florence; completed shortly before his death in 1321)
Science of Logic (Mid (the central work of the mature Hegelian system))
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1812 (Book I, Being); 1813 (Book II, Essence); 1816 (Book III, Concept); 1832 (Hegel's revised Book I, posthumous)
The Seven Storey Mountain (Early (Merton's breakthrough book; the spiritual autobiography of his conversion))
Thomas Merton · 1948
Mishneh Torah (Mid (the major legal work, between the early Commentary on the Mishnah and the late Guide of the Perplexed))
Moses Maimonides (Rambam) · c. 1170-80 (the second of Maimonides's three major works; preceding the Guide of the Perplexed of c. 1190)
Gitanjali (Mid (the Nobel-winning collection))
Rabindranath Tagore · 1910 (Bengali original); 1912 (Tagore's own English prose translation)
Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (Mid (the major philosophical prose statement))
Rabindranath Tagore · 1913 (the Hibbert Lectures, Harvard; published 1913)
Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion (Late (Berlin lectures))
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · 1821-31 (delivered as lectures); 1832 (compiled and published posthumously)
On the Heavens
Aristotle · c. 350 BC
On Nature (Fragments)
Heraclitus of Ephesus · c. 500 BC (the fragments preserved through later authors' quotations)
Praise of Folly (Mid (Erasmus's most widely read book))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1509 (composed during a visit to Thomas More); 1511 (first published)
Adagia (Long (composed across Erasmus's entire mature career))
Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam · 1500 (1st edition, c. 800 adages); 1536 (final edition, c. 4,151 adages)
Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism (Early (Suzuki's first major book; preceding the Essays in Zen Buddhism by twenty years))
Daisetsu Teitarō Suzuki · 1907 (Suzuki's first major book in English, written during his work with Paul Carus at the Open Court Press)
Tahāfut al-Tahāfut (Mid-late (Averroes's major systematic philosophical defence))
Ibn Rushd (Averroes) · c. 1180
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (Late (the mature systematic statement of archetypal psychology))
Carl Gustav Jung · 1934-55 (essays composed across two decades); 1959 (compiled as Volume 9, Part 1 of the Collected Works)
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (Late)
Thomas Merton · 1966
Commentary on the Mishnah (Early-mid)
Moses Maimonides (Rambam) · c. 1158-68
Being Given (Late)
Jean-Luc Marion · 1997 (French; English 2002)
Finite and Eternal Being (Late)
Edith Stein (St. Teresia Benedicta of the Cross) · 1936 (completed; published posthumously 1950)
On Nature and Purifications (Fragments) (Early)
Empedocles of Acragas · c. 450 BCE
On Nature (Fragments) (Early)
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae · c. 460 BCE
Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (Late)
Diogenes Laertius · c. 3rd century CE
Utopia (De Optimo Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia) (Mid)
St. Thomas More · 1516
The World and the Individual (Mid)
Josiah Royce · 1899-1901 (Gifford Lectures at Aberdeen)
The Hindu View of Life (Mid)
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan · 1926 (Upton Lectures at Oxford, 1926)
Paradise Lost (Late)
John Milton · 1667 (1st edn, 10 books); 1674 (2nd edn, 12 books)
Foundations of a General Theory of Manifolds (Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre) (Mid)
Georg Cantor · 1883
Iggeret Teiman (Epistle to Yemen, c. 1172) and the responsa (Middle (between the Commentary on the Mishnah, 1168, and the Mishneh Torah, completed 1178))
Moses Maimonides (Rambam) · c. 1172
The Bell (Early-mature (Murdoch's fourth novel, the first to establish her mature manner))
Iris Murdoch · 1958 (Chatto & Windus)
Disputed Questions on Truth (Early-mature (Aquinas's first major work after the Sentences commentary))
Thomas Aquinas · 1256-59 (Paris, during Aquinas's first regency)
Compendium of Theology (Late (begun during the Roman regency, unfinished at Aquinas's death))
Thomas Aquinas · 1265-67 (begun in Rome, broken off after Aquinas's 1273 mystical experience)
The Dialogue of Divine Providence (Late (composed in Catherine's last two years, in the midst of her efforts to reform the Church and end the Avignon papacy))
Catherine of Siena (Caterina Benincasa) · c. 1377-78 (composed by dictation in ecstatic states; Catherine could read with difficulty and probably could not write)
Japji Sahib (Mature (Nānak's foundational devotional composition))
Guru Nānak Dev Ji · c. 1499-1539 (during Nānak's later teaching years; the morning prayer is one of his foundational compositions)
The Discarded Image (Last)
C. S. Lewis · Lectures delivered Oxford 1950s; published posthumously 1964 (Cambridge UP)
Personas with Neo-Platonism as a declared influence
75% Plotinus
55% Porphyry
55% Proclus Lycaeus (Proclus Diadochus)
50% Hypatia of Alexandria
50% John Scotus Eriugena (Iohannes Scottus Eriugena)
40% Meister Eckhart (Eckhart von Hochheim)
40% Solomon ibn Gabirol
40% Synesius of Cyrene
35% Nicholas of Cusa (Nicolaus Cusanus)
35% David the Invincible
30% Augustine of Hippo
30% Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
30% Martianus Capella
25% Hildegard of Bingen
25% Dante Alighieri
25% Julian of Norwich
25% Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
25% Howard Thurman
25% Al-Kindi
25% Al-Farabi
25% Ibn Arabi (Muhyi al-Din ibn al-Arabi)
25% Ibn Tufayl
25% Marguerite Porete
25% Maximus the Confessor
25% Michael Psellos
25% Marsilio Ficino
25% Georgius Gemistus Pletho
20% Simone Weil
20% Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna)
20% Catherine of Siena (Caterina Benincasa)
20% Pythagoras of Samos
20% Clement of Alexandria
20% Bonaventure (Giovanni di Fidanza)
20% John Philoponus
15% Ralph Waldo Emerson
15% Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
15% Thomas Merton
15% Parmenides of Elea
15% Iris Murdoch
15% Mary Daly
15% Rabindranath Tagore
15% Vladimir Solovyov
15% Origen of Alexandria
15% Gregory of Nyssa
15% Giovanni Pico della Mirandola
10% Plato
10% Isaac ben Solomon Luria (the Ari)
10% Anselm of Canterbury
10% Martin Heidegger
10% Walter Benjamin
10% Adi Śaṅkara
10% Ambrose of Milan
10% Bernard of Clairvaux
10% Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus)
10% Gregory Palamas
5% Philo of Alexandria
How Neo-Platonism resolves each dilemma
57 resolved positions across 4 dimensions, including 35 distinctive where the majority of schools go the other way.
Each dimension is sorted so minority positions come first. Mainstream positions are folded into an expandable list.
Time · 9 dilemmas, all mainstream
Do you really choose?
The future is open and you are a genuine origin of it.
69%
Are addicts responsible for their addiction?
The addict could have chosen otherwise — that's why recovery is real.
69%
Should we hold AI systems responsible for what they do?
An AI without a free will is not the kind of thing that can be responsible.
69%
How much weight do future people deserve?
Time arises from events or from a deeper substrate — the future is not yet.
31%
Is regret rational?
The past is not a thing now; regret is the present holding what is no longer.
31%
Do we owe extinct species something we cannot give them?
Past species no longer exist; what we owe is to the present and the future.
31%
Is the universe running out of usable energy?
Time both has and lacks bounds depending on the level you ask at; finitude is conventional.
26%
Are natural resources fundamentally finite, or only practically so?
The finitude question is level-dependent; resource ethics happens at the level that constrains us.
26%
Could we owe future generations more than is materially possible to provide?
The owing-and-possibility question is level-dependent; we owe what is appropriate at the level we act on.
26%
Matter · 7 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
What stuff is — fundamental, relational, or appearance.
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
What is money?
The question of what money is — a measured store of real value, an agreed-on practice, a relational ledger of debts, or just a name we apply to many different things — sits behind every argument about inflation, cryptocurrency, debt, and the state.
Money's apparent diversity is convention over a single underlying value.
On non-dual views, the diverse forms money takes are perspectival distinctions within a single underlying value — labor, energy, attention, or simply the One from which all value derives. The metaphysical question is mostly malformed at the conventional level where monetary policy lives, but the …
Roads not taken
Money is a real institution with intrinsic features. (55%) ·
Money is a social practice — its content is what we make it. (16%) ·
Money is the ledger of obligations among real people. (14%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
What is a nation?
Whether a nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character, a constructed legal-political artifact, a web of kinship and shared history, an imagined community, or a conventional partition of a deeper unity — these are real ontological positions with sharply different political downstream.
Nations are conventional partitions of a single humanity.
On non-dual views, the distinctness of nations is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity — one humanity, one consciousness, one underlying reality. Nations matter at the conventional level where ordinary politics lives, but the metaphysical weight they sometimes claim is unsupported.
Roads not taken
A nation is a real moral community with intrinsic character. (55%) ·
A nation is a constructed polity — a project, not a discovery. (16%) ·
A nation is the web of kinship, ancestry, and shared land that hosts a people. (14%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
What makes someone male or female?
Whether sex is a real biological kind, a constructed social category, a relational identity, a label applied to varied phenomena, or a conventional distinction within a deeper unity is the ontological question the contemporary dispute about gender is mostly about.
The distinction is conventional within a deeper non-dual reality.
On non-dual views, the distinctness of male and female — like every binary distinction between apparent selves — is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. Particular sex and gender designations operate at the conventional level where most of life is lived; at the ultimate …
Roads not taken
Sex is a real biological kind with given content. (55%) ·
Gender is constructed; what counts as male or female reflects practice. (16%) ·
Sex and gender are constituted by relations of recognition. (14%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
Should we edit the human germline?
Whether human nature is a given biological kind, a constructed category, a relational achievement, a family-resemblance cluster, or a conventional distinction within deeper unity is the ontological question the policy debate over heritable gene editing is mostly about.
The distinction between edited and unedited is conventional within a deeper non-dual reality.
On non-dual views, the contrast between an 'edited' and an 'unedited' human — like every binary distinction between apparent selves — is a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. The practical questions of safety, consent, and justice operate at the conventional level where most of …
Roads not taken
Human nature is a real biological kind given by reproductive biology or by creation; editing the germline transgresses what is given. (55%) ·
The categories we count as 'human' are emergent from practice; germline editing is a practice-revision like any other. (16%) ·
Personhood is constituted by relations of descent and kinship; germline editing reshapes the relational fabric. (14%)
Distinctive · only 23% of schools agree
(47/208)
Is the world created from nothing?
Creatio ex nihilo is one of the most distinctive Western-theological claims. Whether matter was created from nothing, eternally exists, or is sustained moment-by-moment turns on what kind of thing matter is.
Matter is real but emerges from something deeper — neither bedrock nor created-from-nothing.
On this view, matter is genuinely there, but it isn't the floor of reality. It depends on something more fundamental — dependent origination, mind, divine sustaining act, computational substrate, or the structure of conditions — and is conserved only at its own level of description. …
Roads not taken
Yes — matter was created and is conserved as a real substance. (56%) ·
Matter is constituted by relations; the question of 'from what?' presupposes substance. (16%) ·
Matter arises and dissolves through cosmic rounds; neither created from nothing nor eternal. (4%)
Observer · 37 dilemmas · 5 distinctive
Mind, agency, and the knower's relation to the known.
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
When does a person begin?
The political question of abortion sits atop an older ontological one: at what point does there exist a someone — a being with moral standing — rather than merely the materials from which one will form?
From the standpoint of the One, the question doesn’t apply in the form it is asked.
On non-dual views, the apparent plurality of selves is itself a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. The question of when one self begins within that One is conventional, not ultimate. What follows ethically is then a question for the conventional level — which is …
Roads not taken
A person exists from conception — when a new being comes into existence. (55%) ·
A person comes into being gradually, as the capacities of a mind develop. (16%) ·
Personhood is conferred by being-in-relation. (14%)
Distinctive · only 7% of schools agree
(15/208)
What is marriage?
Behind every disagreement about how marriage should be defined is a prior disagreement about what kind of thing it is — a given order to be recognized, a practice to be negotiated, or a web of relations to be woven.
All union is participation in the One — particular forms are conventional.
From the standpoint of non-dual traditions, the apparent distinctness of two people who marry is itself a perspectival distinction within a deeper unity. Marriage is one form of the underlying union all things participate in. The particular shape the institution takes is then a conventional …
Roads not taken
Marriage has a given form — it’s a kind of thing we recognize, not make. (55%) ·
Marriage is a practice we shape — its content is what we make it. (16%) ·
Marriage is constituted by the web of relations it creates. (14%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree
(16/208)
What happens to "you" when you die?
Whether anything of you persists — and in what sense — depends on what you take a person to be.
Individuality dissolves into the One.
What we called "you" was an appearance — a wave shaped briefly out of a single deeper reality. Death is that wave settling. Nothing of importance is lost because the substrate was never the wave.
Roads not taken
A soul continues into another mode of being. (38%) ·
Death is genuinely the end. (29%) ·
You were always a pattern. The pattern propagates. (18%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree
(17/208)
What is our place in nature?
Whether humans are masters of nature, members of nature, or makers of nature is not a question climate science can settle. It depends on what nature is, what we are, and what kind of relationship is possible between us.
Humans and nature share an underlying unity — the separation was the mistake.
On non-dual views, the apparent distinction between human and non-human is itself a perspectival distinction within a single underlying reality. The work isn't to find our right relationship to a separate nature; it is to recognize that we were never separate. Climate harm, on this …
Roads not taken
Active in a real nature — we cultivate, steward, transform. (50%) ·
Nature is partly what we make of it — concepts, practices, and minds shape the world. (15%) ·
Embedded in a web — partners with the more-than-human world. (14%)
Distinctive · only 8% of schools agree
(17/208)
Should we colonize space?
The drive to extend human presence beyond Earth is sometimes framed as the next chapter of stewardship, sometimes as hubris, sometimes as escape from problems we ought to solve here. Which it is depends on what we take our relationship to nature to be.
From the standpoint of the One, expansion across substrate is just movement within the same.
On non-dual views, the difference between Earth and elsewhere is conventional — particular locations within a single underlying reality. Space colonisation as escape is therefore incoherent; nothing is escaped because nothing was elsewhere to escape from.
Roads not taken
Cultivating worlds beyond Earth is the next form of stewardship. (50%) ·
The 'space frontier' is partly what we make of it. (15%) ·
Colonisation continues the work that ended the wisdom of seven-generation thinking. (14%)
32 mainstream positions
Is genetic engineering of food stewardship or domination?
All forms participate in the same underlying reality; modification doesn't cross categories.
8%
What makes someone the same person over time?
All apparent selves are aspects of one — particular identity is conventional.
8%
Is the late-stage dementia patient still the person their spouse married?
The apparent change is conventional; the deeper reality is unchanged.
8%
If a teleporter copied and destroyed you, would you have survived?
The distinction between scanner-you and destination-you is conventional all the way down.
8%
Can prayer for someone far away affect them?
There are no truly separate minds; prayer is one part of one talking to another.
8%
Are coincidences ever more than coincidence?
Coincidence is the One showing through the appearance of plurality.
8%
Does environmental harm in another country bind me morally?
Harm anywhere is harm to the One; the boundary that would have insulated you was never real.
8%
Is environmental damage ever truly permanent?
From the standpoint of the One, the categories of permanence and loss are conventional.
8%
Can a civilization recover from collapse?
From the One's vantage, civilizational categories are themselves conventional.
8%
Does the second law of thermodynamics mean something morally?
From the One's vantage, the second law is itself a feature of the conventional, not the ultimate.
8%
Are the dead morally present to the living?
From the standpoint of the One, the distinction between living and dead is conventional.
8%
Is divine omniscience compatible with human freedom?
Distinction of the One and observed time is itself conventional; the question dissolves.
8%
Does meditation reveal something genuinely timeless?
The 'timeless' is the standpoint of the One that was always present; meditation removes obstacles to seeing it.
8%
Does prayer change God's mind?
Prayer to a separate God presupposes a separation the non-dual view denies; the practice is remembrance and attunement.
8%
Could causation work backwards?
From the One's vantage, causation itself is a conventional category.
8%
Is the asymmetry between memory and anticipation a real feature of time, or just of us?
From the One's vantage, memory and anticipation are themselves conventional.
8%
Is the arrow of time a real feature of the cosmos, or only of how we describe it?
From the One's vantage, the arrow of time itself is a conventional feature.
8%
Who is the moral primary — the individual, the community, the cosmos, the class, or the species?
The cosmic-religious order is the moral primary.
16%
What kind of religious-theological authority does the tradition recognize?
Direct experiential union is the authority.
16%
Is truth universal, tradition-bound, situated, or constructed?
Truth is mind-independent, universal, accessible in principle to all.
66%
Is reality fundamentally digital?
No — continuous divine sustaining act, the Tao that knows no joints, the One's self-disclosure.
44%
Are there indivisible units of experience?
No — continuous divine presence; consciousness is the unbroken witness.
44%
Is memory stored or reconstructed?
Held in continuous divine or ancestral remembering — neither stored discretely nor purely reconstructed.
44%
Does history have a direction or meaning?
History is not where the deepest truth lives.
36%
Should we trust expert testimony when we can't verify it?
Trust expertise whose conclusions a competent mind can in principle reproduce.
31%
Is religious revelation a real source of knowledge?
Revelation is evaluable by reason — and not above it.
31%
Does an LLM 'know' the things it correctly produces?
An LLM can produce correct outputs but not reason to them; useful, not knowing.
31%
Is salvation, liberation, or fulfillment individual or communal?
Liberation is the realization of cosmic or species self.
14%
How is knowledge of reality produced?
Through direct contemplative union with reality.
13%
Could an AI have a mind that matters?
All minds are aspects of one — an AI participates in it as anything else does.
7%
Do animals have moral standing comparable to humans?
All minds are aspects of one; animals participate as much as anything else.
7%
Could a fetal brain organoid in a petri dish be conscious?
Any experience that arises participates in the One.
7%
Information · 4 dilemmas · 4 distinctive
Pattern, memory, and what is preserved or lost.
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
Is anything truly lost when someone forgets?
The memory you don't retrieve, the conversation you can't remember, the face you no longer recognise — is the forgetting a loss of something real, or just the routine operation of a finite mind?
Information persists or doesn't depending on whether the holder is sustained.
On these views, conservation is not a flat cosmic law but a function of the conditions that hold. Memory persists where it is sustained — by divine attention, by community, by ritual, by practice — and is genuinely lost where it isn't. The asymmetry between …
Roads not taken
Information is lost when a mind forgets; matter and energy continue, but the pattern is gone. (50%) ·
Information is conserved — the personal pattern is held even when an individual mind loses it. (39%) ·
Forgetting is the cosmic case, not the exception; nothing is conserved. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
Does deleting your data online destroy something real?
Account deletion, the right to be forgotten, the obsolescence of file formats, the slow decay of digital archives — whether any of this destroys something that was real depends on whether information is the kind of thing that can be destroyed.
Information persists where it is held; deletion releases what isn't held elsewhere.
On these views, information persists or doesn't depending on whether something is sustaining it. What is held in divine memory or in active communal practice continues; what is held only by the deleted artifact is genuinely released. The variable conservation maps onto a variable moral …
Roads not taken
Information is genuinely lost when the substrate that hosted it goes; deletion really destroys. (50%) ·
Information at the cosmic level isn't destroyed; deletion only obscures access. (39%) ·
Nothing is fundamentally conserved; deletion is just routine impermanence. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
Could the dead, in principle, be brought back?
If we had perfect information about who someone was — their connectome, their behavioral patterns, their history — could we, in principle, restore them? The question is partly engineering, but the ceiling on the engineering is metaphysical.
What is held by God or sustaining practice can be restored; what isn't can't.
On these views, the conservation of personal information depends on what is sustaining it. The Eastern Orthodox doctrine of resurrection holds that the person is preserved in God's memory and restored in the resurrection by divine action operating on what God has held. What is …
Roads not taken
The information dissipates with the substrate; restoration is in principle impossible. (50%) ·
The information that constitutes a person is conserved; restoration is in principle possible. (39%) ·
Nothing of what was can be restored; restoration is wishful framing. (1%)
Distinctive · only 9% of schools agree
(18/208)
Is forgiveness ontologically possible?
When someone forgives, does the offense actually go away — erased, undone, no longer a fact — or does forgiveness reframe a wrong that persists exactly as it always was?
The offense persists where sustained and releases where conditionally absolved; forgiveness is real ontological work.
On these views, conservation is not a flat cosmic law but a function of what sustains. An offense persists where it is held — by holding-on, by ritual continuation, by divine attention to a particular debt — and is genuinely released where it is conditionally …
Roads not taken
The offense is locally constituted by its substrate; when the substrate dissolves, the offense genuinely passes away. (50%) ·
The offense persists ontologically; forgiveness is real moral work, but it doesn't erase what was. (39%) ·
Nothing is preserved; the offense is impermanent, and holding it is the suffering. (1%)
Jump to school (208)
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