La teoria della conoscenza nel medioplatonismo

Middle Platonism is not only the result of the exegesis of Plato’s dialogues; it also depends on the confrontation with other schools and philosophical movements. Most important, with regard to the problem of knowledge, is the appropriation of some cardinal tenets of Stoic epistemology, and of ennoiai (notions) in particular. Middle Platonists adopted the Stoic theory of ennoiai but argued that such a theory needed to be reinterpreted in an innatist sense in order to provide a real foundation to knowledge. It is only when ennoiai are backed upon Ideas that they can be used as a reliable starting-point for knoweldge (episteme). In this sense Middle Platonist epistemology can be seen as a revised, metaphysically-oriented, version of Stoic epistemology. A similar strategy was also adopted in the case of the Aristotelina intuition. The problem is that at the some time Middle Platonists also admitted that we do not have proper knoweldge of Ideas in our incarnate life and this risk to pave the way to scepticism, as Plotinus will reproach to his predecessors