Michael J. Atkinson

Background

Michael Atkinson was born in New York, United States. Unfortunately, his date of birth is not exactly defined.

Education

Michael received Doctor of Philosophy in Greek history in Oxford University.

Career

Michael Atkinson is the author of a work on the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus titled "Plotinus, Ennead V.l: On the Three Principal Hypostases." Despite their philosophical and historical merits, Plotinus’s texts have been largely neglected both because of their difficulty and because of the style in which they were written — “of the nature of seminar notes rather than polished treatises,” according to Steven K. Strange in the Philosophical Review.

Undaunted by this task, Atkinson provides “the first genuine commentary on Plotinus to be published in English... [and] the best textual commentary on Plotinus available in any language,” according to Strange. His “excellent detailed commentary” makes an otherwise dense and difficult Greek text accessible to modern readers, according to Choice reviewer M. Andie. Classical World reviewer Jonathan Scott Lee considered Atkinson’s book “an impressive achievement.”

“Plotinus was one of the last great thinkers of the pagan West,” according to Andie, “and ‘The Three First Hypostases’ is an appropriate introduction to his metaphysics.” The tenth of his fifty-four treatises, V.l provides an overview of Plotinus’s main philosophical tenets.

These include the metaphysical roles played by Soul, Intellect, and the One. Plotinus posits a simple first principle of the universe, which he calls “the One.” From this flows “the whole multiplicity of intellectual, psychological, and empirical phenomena,” according to Strange. Atkinson provides a particularly “sensitive analysis of Plotinus’s use of logos in both an objective and a subjective sense,” according to Lee.

Strange asserts that Atkinson “fully and clearly” covers “every conceivable point of philological interest” and supplies a “wealth of parallel passages... from the Enneads and elsewhere.” Critics agree upon the success of Atkinson’s translation. Strange admires the clear explication of Plotinus’s “thorny syntax” and the insightful criticism of earlier editions and translations. Likewise, Lee admired Atkinson’s “brilliant grammatical and stylistic notes on the tortuous Greek of this most difficult of authors.”

Achievements

• Michael Atkinson is mosly notable as the translator and commentator of the book "Plotinus, Ennead V.l: On the Three Principal Hypostases", created in 1983.

Works

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• book

  • Plotinus: Ennead V. 1 on the Three Principal Hypostases (Oxford Classical and Philosophical Monographs) 1983