My experiences with ancient texts makes me realize that there are so many remaining mysteries (that can be illuminated!), so much material that has never been “processed” by historians or philosophers, and so much that can be useful for the present day.
I’m working on an English translation for Marsilio Ficino’s 1497 publication of “De Mysteriis” — which includes 13 tracts, including Ficino’s own “Philosophy of Pleasure.”
Marsilio Ficino was hugely influential in the 1460s-1500 Florentine Renaissance because he was hired by the Medici’s to translate the old Greek classics (Plato, Plotinus, Hermetica, etc). He helped classical ideas spark the renaissance! So the fact that his own book has never been translated is mindblowing — I get to see where I can contribute.
But then in his actual book, I learn that it was fairly common to conceive of the soul, gods, demons etc as entities in the world of Nous or mind. Yet, he specifically says that the soul does not feel and that gods do not feel. That’s weird! Often times people associate soul with “the feeling part.” But there were multiple perspectives on this!
How does this relate to the present? We typically associate intellect and mind with consciousness— yet now AI developments force us to consider mind or intelligence without conscious experience. So, it gives a genuinely interesting framework for understanding “noetic reality” — the unconscious mathematical world of forms and information that seemingly preexists the material cosmos (ie perfect triangles or spheres can be conceived as a part of math that are eternal and timeless).
So that’s just one example but there are a lot of them I could share. Particularly as they relate to history of science and ideas — but also fascinating social phenomena — like how hard the Roman’s came down on the Bacchae — or how important the Oracle of Delphi was to Greek colonization — etc etc.
