Cover; Half-title page; Title page; Copyright page; Contents; Preface; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I The Cultural Roots of Platonist Philosophic Silence; 1 De philosophorum Græcorum silentio mystico: Preliminaries; 2 The Silent Philosopher; 3 Perennial Wisdom and Platonist Tradition; 4 Plotinus and 'The Ancients': Tradition, Truth and Transcendence; Part II The Transcendent Absolute, the Ineffable and Plotinian Poetics of Transcendence; 5 The Development of the Transcendent Absolute in the Middle Platonist Milieu

6 The Transcendent Absolute and the Ineffability of Reality in Plotinus7 The Poetics of Transcendence in Plotinus; Conclusion; Appendices; Appendix A: The Plotinian Idea of Tradition and `Platonism'; Appendix B: Esoteric Hermeneutics, Plato and Aristotle in Plotinus; Appendix C: Some Useful Notes on Plotinian Metaphysics; Appendix D: Modern Theories of Philosophic Silence; Select Primary Bibliography; Secondary Bibliography; Index