Prometheus Trust: The Platonic Tradition Looks at Evil

Plato calls the great first principle “the Good” and says that the Gods are rooted in this Good as the primary agents of providence. He says, in the Republic, that the Gods are the causes of all goodness, and are not the causes of evil; he also says, in the Timaeus, that the universe is good.  This presents the philosophers who followed Plato in his tradition with a problem: how can the existence of evil be explained? Where does it come from? What kind of existence is it said to possess? What kind of things are said to be evil in some way?

We will look at some passages from Plotinus and Proclus, and consider for ourselves how this seemingly intractable issue might be understood.