Academic articles and publications

• Book chapter: “Musical Representations of the Scala Naturae in the Neoplatonic Tradition” in DIA-LOGOS: Ramon Llull’s Method of Thought and Artistic Practice, edited by Amador Vega, Peter Weibel, and Siegfried Zielinski

Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press  5 de mayo de 2018

Summary:

• In this chapter I study the notion of scala naturae, the scale of nature and the degrees of being, also known as the metaphor of the great chain of being: aurea catena homeri (Homer’s golden chain). It is an iconographic concept derived from Homer, Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists that corresponds to a representation of the order of the universe understood as a vertical structure, which expresses an idea of ​​causality. Thus,  the organic totality of the world is maintained as a harmonious unity thanks to this vertical causality. The metaphor is generally studied referring to its visual character, so my proposal is to recover its sonic and musical meaning. Music makes it possible to understand the scala naturae in a innermost and living way, taking into account the relationship between life, proportion and harmony that Neoplatonists like Proclus identified with the musical essence of the Soul of the World. The World-Soul in turn returns (or “revolves”) around the Intellect in Neoplatonism and reflects the life and harmony of that Intellect, which according to Plotinus in turn “revolves” around a Principle of Unity. In this way, the unification and connection between the steps of the ladder is manifested as the result of a living energy and its integrating power. In Neoplatonism this life that connects the levels is conscious, reflexive, self-moving, and thus combines in its harmonious manifestation a vertical tension with a gravitation towards a metaphysical center, like that of a musical instrument and the scales that can be played on it. The musical and conscious reflexivity manifests itself in the “circularity” of the Intellect around the One/Good as its centre and in music this also appears in its circular and internalizing dynamics, and in the modal scales, in its gravitation around a central (mesê) or final main note. These musical aspects, and especially the Pythagorean-Platonic correspondences between music and the planets, and a universe understood as containing different concentric levels, spheres, etc., enrich the metaphor of the scale of nature. This enrichment allows us to understand the scale of nature by combining the linear and vertical aspects thanks to the musical representations of the harmony of the cosmos, which took into account a dynamic and circular aspect already in Antiquity, in the Middle Ages and in its later influence. This chapter studies different visual and musical representations of the scala naturae (in Llull, Gafori, Zarlino, Nicholas of Cusa, Fludd, Kircher, etc.) imagined as a cosmic monochord, like the musical scale of Plato’s Timaeus, other times visualized according to the metaphor of the connection of the levels of the scale compared to the phenomenon of magnetism mentioned by Plato in the Ion, and interpreted by Proclus and other Neoplatonists as a musical magnetism. The correspondences between the levels of the scale, the Sirens of Plato’s Republic and the Muses presided over by Apollo are also studied. The Apollonian identification of the monochord, the cosmic lyre or the golden scale/chain of the universe leads us to the connection between macrocosm and microcosm. The contemplation of the cosmic scale awakens the forgotten knowledge of the position of the human being in the cosmos, propitiating the self-knowledge recommended by the Oracle of Apollo, remembered by Pico della Mirandola, who says that the knowledge of nature is intimately linked to the knowledge of ourselves, which is what makes possible the awareness of the mediating and unifying position of the human being on the universal scale.

• Book chapter: “Being as Illumination of the One and Its Manifestation through Cinematic Images”, in “Plotinus and the Moving Image”, edited by Thorsten Botz-Bornstein and Giannis Stamatellos

“Philosophy of Film” series, Brill  1 de enero de 2018

Summary:

• In this chapter, included in a book on Plotinus and cinema, a collection of studies by various authors, I propose to apply Plotinus’ thought to enrich reflections in the field of philosophy of cinema and the theory of image. The volume, and my chapter in particular, points out the importance of the notion of contemplation and of understanding being, as a philosophical category, as an illumination/irradiation of the Plotinian One, and all of reality as a projection based on a metaphysics of light. My text proposes to understand cinema as a way of expressing the inner unity of the Platonic cosmos in connection with the Plotinian notion of contemplation and of matter understood as a mirror of the Intelligible thanks to the creative activity of a World-Soul. In this context, our study tries to explain that cinema (and all art that delves into its own essence) is something more than a mirror of the external cosmos; cinema is a “contemplative” mirror that makes possible the introversion of what Plotinus calls the “Soul” and the “Intellect”. The unity of the cosmos is due to that inner energy of the soul that, according to Platonism, sustains the world from within, as universal life, which is a creative energy described as the principle of “love” by Plotinus. Our ordinary experience shows us an external world associated with sense perception, Plotinus proposes a so-called “protreptic” turn, which directs us towards a change of perspective: instead of thinking of ourselves as being inside our body, we can conceive of ourselves as a body inside of us conceived as a encompasing living “soul”, which in the wider context lies within that universal energy. This encompasing energy is manifested itself  in cinema (and art) as a light (and luminous/vibrating beauty) that sustains all reality in a space which is outside of our ordinary life, and thus (if it is outside the external is accordingly an inner conscious space). Therfore the cinematic space reveals to us an intense, artistic (more lively, vivid and intense) life in the “extraordinary” space of the theater room. This aspect of cinema, especially in connection with its soundtrack and music, is what reveals the essential/inner side of the action, in an experience that makes us aware of darkness and silence as a place where light and darkness are manifested. sound/music. Plotinus, using the language of the Mysteries of Greek Antiquity, refers to a similar process in which the human being can make a philosophical and contemplative return to the “adyton” of reality, which by making us receptive awakens an inner vision which posseses the vividness (enargeia) and expressiveness of art and creative imagination. These philosophical reflections on cinema, applying the thought of Plotinus, allows us to understand the “contemplative” value of cinema and its power as an internalizing or “mysteric” mirror. This mirror, like that of the Orphic mysteries, makes an artistic experience possible in an “extraordinary” context (the darkened room of the theater, following a original directive of the composer Richard Wagner, who proposed to turn off the lights in the theater room for a similar metaphysical experience through musical drama) is conducive to an experience or intuition of the creative power of life and the mysterious aspect of reality, which is that inner life that sustains the great works of art and the universe according to Platonism.

• Chapter: “The Metaphysical Meaning of the Musical Scale of Plato’s Timaeus in Proclus”, in Reason and no-Reason from ancient philosophy to modern neurosciences. Old parameters, new perspectives, edited by R.L. Cardullo and F. Coniglione

Academia Verlag  1 de enero de 2017 

• “The Poetics of mysticism in Neoplatonism and its reception”, volumen de las actas del VI Congreso Mundial de Metafísica, editado por David G. Murray.

  Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, Madrid, 2018. 

   

• “Lyra and aulos in the Neoplatonic allegorical interpretation of myths” in Tra Lyra e Aulos, Tradizioni Musicali e Generi Poetici, edited by Luigi Bravi, Liana Lomiento, Angelo Meriani, Giovanna Pace.

Quaderni Della «Rivista di Cultura Classica e Medioevale», Fabrizio Serra Editore, Pisa-Roma  2016

• “Music as therapy: the analogy between music and medicine in Neoplatonism”

Dionysius Vol. XXXIII, December, 2015, pp. 118-131  dic. de 2015

Published by the Department of Classics, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

• Chapter: “Music and the Return of the Soul in Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic” in Ancient Approaches to Plato’s Republic, edited by Anne D.R. Sheppard

Institute of Classical Studies, London, 2013 (BICS Supplement 117)  1 de diciembre de 2013

• Chapter “Musical aesthetics and the transformation of the soul in Neoplatonism” in Philosophy and Art in Late Antiquity, edited by Daniele Iozzia

Bonanno Editore, Catania,  1 de octubre de 2013

PhD thesis, University of London, Royal Holloway College, 2010: “Philosophy of Music in the Neoplatonic Tradition: Theories of Music and Harmony in Proclus’ Commentaries on Plato’s Timaeus and Republic.” Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Anne Sheppard.

https://royalholloway.academia.edu/SebastianMoroTornese