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What is Platonism?

The question posed in the title of this paper is an historical one. I am not, for example, primarily interested in the term 'Platonism' as used by modern philosophers to stand for a particular theory under discussion – a theory, which it is typically acknowledged, no one may have actually held. I am rather concerned to understand and articulate on an historical basis the core position of that 'school' of thought prominent in antiquity from the time of the 'founder' up until at least the middle of the 6 century C.E. Platonism was unquestionably the dominant philosophical position in the ancient world over a period of more than 800 years. Epicureanism is perhaps the sole major exception to the rule that in the ancient world all philosophers took Platonism as the starting-point for speculation, including those who thought their first task was to refute Platonism. Basically, Platonism sent the ancient philosophical agenda. Given this fact, understanding with some precision the nature of Platonism is obviously a desirable thing for the historian of ancient philosophy. One might suppose that the task of determining the nature of Platonism can be handled in a relatively straightforward and perspicuous manner if one stipulates that Platonism is the view or collection of views held by all those who called themselves 'Platonists' or followers of Plato. Thus, we could take a purely phenomonological approach: Platonism is just whatever anyone in the relevant period identifies as Platonism. A similar approach could be made in determining who is a Platonist. As a strictly historical method, this is not an unreasonable way to proceed. Nevertheless, it have several drawbacks. First, the fact that philosophers did not self-identify as Platonists until sometime in the 2 century C.E. means that we would have to exclude from our construction of Platonism, on the