system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are there any modern Philosophers who defend Polytheism?

Hey, I have recently been reading about early Christian Church history and something that seems to be brought up a lot are these "pagan philosophers" in places like Egypt which critiqued Christianity. I also heard some people mention that polytheism may have stronger responses to things like the problem of evil, due to the existence of evil Gods, as well as the good Gods. This made me wonder, are there any modern philosophers who still defend polytheism? I tried searching "polytheism" on the SEP and IEP but the closest I got was the article on Hindu Philosophy on IEP. If there aren't any, which book or person should I read if I want the most sophisticated articulation of polytheism, or is that not a thing in western philosophy? Thank you.
gpt
In *Neoplatonism of the Italian Renaissance*, Nesca Robb argued that the fashion for (often veiled) polytheism among the scholars of Renaissance Italy, such as Ficino and Poliziano, was not passed onto the next generation of philosophers for complex religious and social reasons; the witch-craze had emerged and the Reformation had become the locus of theological thought.

However, while academic philosophy moved away from polytheism (and eventually any religion), it was championed by artists and poets. That affection for polytheism became very prominent within the Romantic Movement and, through it, passed into later Western culture where it's remained a strong theme.

There are writers around associated with Neo-Paganism who advocate polytheism (Timothy Jay Alexander is the latest to do so with some philosophical understanding) but few work in academia and none are part of the "canon" which is heavily orientated towards Aristotelian modes of thought and exclude nous and other kinds of apprehension. *Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture* by Wouter Hanegraaff might be worth reading in relation to some of these ideas.