Concept

Michael Psellos

Overview

Michael Psellos or Psellus (Greek: Μιχαὴλ Ψελλός, romanized: Michaḗl Psellós, Byzantine Greek: [mixaˈil pseˈlos]; c. 1018 – c. 1096) was a Byzantine monk, savant, writer, philosopher, imperial courtier, historian, and music theorist. He was born in 1017 or 1018, and is believed to have died in 1078, although it has also been maintained that he remained alive until 1096. He served as a high ranking courtier and advisor to several Byzantine emperors and was instrumental in the re-positioning of power of those emperors.

Psellos made lasting contributions to Byzantine culture by advocating the revival of Byzantine classical studies, which would later influence the Italian Renaissance, as well as by interpreting Homeric literature and Platonic philosophy as precursors to and integral components of Christian doctrine. His texts combined theology, philosophy, and psychology. Among his most famous works are his Commentary on Plato's Teachings on the Origin of the Soul, and the Chronographia, a series of biographies from emperor Basil II to Nikephoros III, which serves as a valuable source on the history of the 11th-century Byzantine Empire.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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And these were called Academicians, as was Plato and Speusippus, his nephew; they were thus called from the place where Plato taught, that is, the Academy; neither from Socrates did they take or assume any word, because in his Philosophy nothing was affirmed. Truly Aristotle, who had his surname from Stagira, and Xenocrates of Chalcedon, his companion, through the genius, almost Divine, which Nature had put into…
Dante Alighieri, The Banquet
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And many of our own age and of former ages have noted that the true Lacedaemonian type of character has the love of philosophy even stronger than the love of gymnastics; they are conscious that only a perfectly educated man is capable of uttering such expressions. Such were Thales of Miletus, and Pittacus of Mitylene, and Bias of Priene, and our own Solon, and Cleobulus the Lindian, and Myson the Chenian; and…
Plato, Protagoras
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FOR HE IS NOT CLEAR IN THE POINT. Indeed, according to the natural system of the parts, the place of the irascible faculty must be in the middle, and of the rational in the highest, which the Greeks call hypate. For they of old called the chief and supreme [Greek omitted]. So Xenocrates calls Jove, in respect of immutable things, [Greek omitted] (or HIGHEST), in respect of sublunary things [Greek omitted] (or…
Plutarch, Complete Works of Plutarch — Volume 3
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Related ideas

Place in the tradition

Part of Neoplatonism.

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