by Rodrigo Ballon Villanueva
Jonathan Greig
The Small Portrait #3 highlights the work of Jonathan Greig. Jonathan is a postdoctoral research fellow based at KU Leuven (Belgium) – supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) – working on the influence of Neoplatonism and late antique Aristotelian commentators in Byzantium. His current project (since 10/2021) is on sensible substance and particulars in fourth-to-eight-century AD Byzantium, focusing on the transition between Gregory of Nyssa’s “bundle theory” of sensible individuals and Maximus the Confessor’s affirmation of an Aristotelian substrate theory of individuals. The project aims for a new, comprehensive survey of Byzantine Christian thinkers, including both theological authors and philosophical commentators, like John Philoponus, within this period, adding to the growing interest in the notion of the individual in ancient/medieval philosophy.
Previously (10/2019 – 09/2021) Jonathan was based at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, involved in the ERC project “Neoplatonism and Abrahamic Traditions” (NeoplAT), led by Dragos Calma (UC Dublin), working on Proclus’ reception in the twelfth-to fourteenth-century AD Byzantium, especially Nicholas of Methone and his use and transformation of Ps.-Dionysius within Proclus’s metaphysics.
In addition, Jonathan works on various aspects of late antique Neoplatonist metaphysics. His Ph.D. dissertation (10/2014 – 02/2018, LMU Munich) was on the One’s causality in late Neoplatonism, especially Proclus and Damascius, which was published as a monograph last year (2021) with Brill. Building from this background, he also works on the influence and transformation of Aristotelian logic and Aristotle/Plato’s metaphysics in Neoplatonists, alongside Neoplatonist readings of Plato and Aristotle. His publications include “The First Principle in Late Neoplatonism: A Study of the One’s Causality in Proclus and Damascius” (Leiden: Brill, 2021), “Reason, Revelation, and Sceptical Argumentation in 12th– to 14th-Century Byzantium,” Theoria 87 (2021), etc. For more, you can check Jonathan’s profile.
IPM Monthly 