ISIDORE OF

ALEXANDRIA  ,' Greek philosopher and one of the last of the Neoplatonists, lived in Athens and Alexandria towards the end of the 5th century A.D . He became head of the school in Athens in succession to Marinus who followed Proclus . His views alienated the chief members of the school and he was compelled to resign his position to Hegias . He is known principally as the preceptor of Damascius whose testimony to him in the Life of Isidorus presents him in a very favourable light as a man and a thinker . It is generally admitted, however, that he was rather an enthusiast than a thinker; reasoning with him was subsidiary to inspiration, and he preferred the theories of Pythagoras and Plato to the unimaginative logic and the practical ethics of the Stoics and the Aristotelians . He seems to have given loose rein to a sort of theosophical speculation and attached great importance to dreams and waking visions on which he used to expatiate in his public discourses . Damascius' Life is preserved by Photius in the Bibliotheca, and the fragments are printed in the Didot edition of Diogenes Laertius . See Agathias, Hist. ii . 30; Photius, Bibliotheca, 181; and histories of Neoplatonism .