GRADIENTS ALL THE WAY DOWN

A companion site for the manuscript
Western Philosophical and Christian Mystical Lineage From the Pre-Socratics through the 20th Century Hover over any box for substantive content GREEK / CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN MYSTICAL MODERN PHILOSOPHICAL Pre-Socratics (Heraclitus, Parmenides, Pythagoras) ~600–400 BCE Plato ~427–347 BCE Aristotle ~384–322 BCE The Stoics ~300 BCE–200 CE Plotinus (Neoplatonism) ~204–270 CE Augustine of Hippo ~354–430 CE Pseudo-Dionysius (the Areopagite) ~5th–6th c. CE John Scotus Eriugena ~810–877 CE Hildegard of Bingen ~1098–1179 CE Meister Eckhart ~1260–1328 CE The Cloud of Unknowing (anonymous) ~1370 CE Nicholas of Cusa ~1401–1464 CE Jakob Böhme ~1575–1624 CE Baruch Spinoza ~1632–1677 CE Gottfried Leibniz ~1646–1716 CE Immanuel Kant ~1724–1804 CE Goethe ~1749–1832 CE G. W. F. Hegel ~1770–1831 CE Whitehead (process philosophy) ~1861–1947 CE Heidegger ~1889–1976 CE David Bohm (implicate order) ~1917–1992 CE Legend: Framework engages substantively Cross-stream influence Cross-stream arrows: Plato → Augustine (Christian Platonism); Plotinus → Pseudo-Dionysius (Neoplatonist transmission); Cusa → Spinoza (modern monism); Eckhart → Hegel and Heidegger (German mystical heritage in modern philosophy). Framework engages most substantively with Plato + Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius + Eckhart + Cusa, and Goethe + Whitehead + Bohm.