Table of contents : Cover......Page 1 Half-title page......Page 3 Title page......Page 5 Copyright page......Page 6 Contents......Page 7 Preface......Page 9 List of Abbreviations......Page 11 Introduction......Page 13 Part I The Cultural Roots of Platonist Philosophic Silence......Page 29 1 De philosophorum Græcorum silentio mystico: Preliminaries......Page 31 2 The Silent Philosopher......Page 53 3 Perennial Wisdom and Platonist Tradition......Page 98 4 Plotinus and 'The Ancients': Tradition, Truth and Transcendence......Page 137 Part II The Transcendent Absolute, the Ineffable and Plotinian Poetics of Transcendence......Page 157 5 The Development of the Transcendent Absolute in the Middle Platonist Milieu......Page 159 6 The Transcendent Absolute and the Ineffability of Reality in Plotinus......Page 188 7 The Poetics of Transcendence in Plotinus......Page 223 Conclusion......Page 253 Appendices......Page 263 Appendix A: The Plotinian Idea of Tradition and `Platonism'......Page 265 Appendix B: Esoteric Hermeneutics, Plato and Aristotle in Plotinus......Page 269 Appendix C: Some Useful Notes on Plotinian Metaphysics......Page 273 Appendix D: Modern Theories of Philosophic Silence......Page 278 Select Primary Bibliography......Page 286 Secondary Bibliography......Page 288 Index......Page 308