Atticus (philosopher)

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Atticus (fl. c. 175 AD) was an ancient philosopher. All that is known of him comes from the fragments of his book preserved in Eusebius' Preparatio Evangelica.^[1] Atticus was vehemently anti-Peripatetic. His work was a polemic, possibly originating from the first holder of the Platonic philosophy chair at Athens under Marcus Aurelius.

It is not clear whether the polemic had a philosophical or a political motivation. Atticus insisted that Aristotle was an atheist, that he denied the existence of the soul, and that he rejected divine providence.

Atticus' position represents a version of Platonism according to which deviation from the literal word of the master means irredeemable heretical opposition. This version turns up occasionally in contemporary scholarship, as much in the writings of Aristotle's defenders as in those of Plato's defenders.

See also[]

• Numenius of Apamea

Notes[]

References[]

• George E. Karamanolis, Plato and Aristotle in Agreement? Platonists on Aristotle From Antiochus to Porphyry, Oxford University Press, 2006, ISBN 0-19-926456-2.