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Abstract
The article examines the attitude of the Byzantines to ancient Greek philosophy in general and first of all to the teachings of Plato and Aristotle. It is shown that in Byzantium, unlike in Western Europe, there were not one, but two philosophies that coexisted together, like the "articles in an encyclopedia" (I. Meyendorff), namely: the antiquity philosophy of secular humanist intellectuals on the one hand and the paradigmatic philosophy of Orthodox traditionalism in the Byzantine civilization on the other. That former was a stream, the latter was a river; the former was bookish altogether, and the latter was experiential. The article clarifies the attitude to Platonism and Aristotelianism in the first of them. In a short historical-philosophical excursion, examines the key points of its evolution and the view on Platonism and Aristotelianism of the key figures of Byzantine humanism – Leo the Philosopher, Photius, M. Pselo, Barlaam of Calabria, G. Pliphon and Vissarion of Nicaea. It is proved that the philosopher of the Byzantine humanists was the duo Aristotle-Plato, but de facto mainly Plato. Humanists followed the Neoplatonists' solution to this question: Plato is the pinnacle of philosophical wisdom, and Aristotle is the way ("entrance door") to it; he is a teacher about "natural things", Plato speaks about "divine things"; Aristotle is a logician and physicist, and Plato is a metaphysician, and most importantly, a theologian. Plato obviously a theologian (for Neoplatonists and humanists), is superior to the "non-theologian" Aristotle. The conclusion follows on Platonism (and Neoplatonism) as the philosophical foundation of Byzantine and Renaissance-Italian humanism. The thesis is asserted about two fold historical influence of Byzantine humanists: 1) the preservation of the Corpus Platonicum and Corpus Aristotelicum and 2) the transition to Italy of the preserved classical philosophical heritage, manuscript traditions of Platonism, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, including "midwifery" in the birth of Renaissance humanism there.
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