Plutarch of Chaeronea
c. 46-120 · Middle & Neo-Platonism · Prominent
Plutarch was a Greek biographer who wrote as a Platonist and served as a priest of Apollo at Delphi. His Parallel Lives pairs a Greek statesman with a Roman so their characters can be weighed against each other, and Shakespeare took his Roman plays from an English translation of it. The Moralia, his other great work, is a main source for the Platonism of the early Roman empire.
Signature
The position Plutarch is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Opposition
- Sublation – Concurrence
- Authority
- Sacred Tradition / Natural Law
Positions on the 2 axes the sources answer
- Identity
- leans Unchanging (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
18 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Plutarch refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Henotheism / Polytheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Hybrid Regime
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Virtue
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Knowledge
- Pure Reason / Tradition / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Demiurgic
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Block Universe
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition / Natural Law
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Political Animal
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine / Nation
What is your primary bond and loyalty?