1a1) Why do we assume that text is somehow fathomable and/or absolute in meaning? How do we propose to read the mind of the writer in their own spacetime? Do I know my own mind past the point of writing or typing a thought? On (re)reading and editing, do I not begin to narrativize from memory? The falsifiability of the empirical hypothesis can heuristically curb the outright falsehoods, but what about that frontier between noumena and phenomena?
1a2) Neo-platonism (or Neoplatonism) is a modern term used to designate the period of Platonic philosophy beginning with the work of Plotinus and ending with the closing of the Platonic Academy by the Emperor Justinian in 529 C.E. This brand of Platonism, which is often described as ‘mystical’ or religious in nature, developed outside the mainstream of Academic Platonism.
1a3) Gnosticism (after gnôsis, the Greek word for “knowledge” or “insight”) is the name given to a loosely organized religious and philosophical movement that flourished in the first and second centuries CE. The exact origin(s) of this school of thought cannot be traced, although it is possible to locate influences or sources as far back as the second and first centuries BCE, such as the early treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum, the Jewish Apocalyptic writings, and especially Platonic philosophy and the Hebrew Scriptures themselves.
1a5) “Throughout our history,” Leto said, “the most potent use of words has been to round out some transcendental event, giving that event a place in the accepted chronicles, explaining the event in such a way that ever afterward we can use those words and say: “This is what it meant.”
Frank Herbert – God Emperor of Dune
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