Iamblichus reworked Platonist metaphysics and pedagogy while arguing that theurgy and traditional ritual can help the soul participate in divine order beyond discursive reasoning.
Intellectual setting
Iamblichus wrote after Plotinus and Porphyry in a period when Platonist schools increasingly integrated exegesis, mathematics, religious practice, and institutional teaching.
Key ideas
Theurgy
Divinely given ritual signs are presented as practices through which embodied souls can be raised toward the gods.
Hierarchical divinity
His system multiplies mediating levels to explain the relation of the transcendent first principle to material life.
Legacy
His defense of theurgy strongly influenced later Neoplatonists, especially the Athenian tradition represented by Proclus.