Perspectives sur le néoplatonisme International Society of Neoplatonic Studies Actes du colloque de 2006 9782763787022 ISBN

Table of contents :
Préface ......................................................................................... 1
Jean-Marc Narbonne
The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato’s Republic 4 .................. 3
Richard D. Parry
Aristotle to Plotinus on the Status of Nous: The Passage
from Dualism to Monism ................................................. 15
Mark J. Nyvlt
The role of the electronic lexicography in the research on Plotinus:
the meaning of logos in its relationships
with the Aristotelian nous .................................................. 31
Emmanuele Vimercati
Plotinus on Celestial Motion....................................................... 51
Andrea Falcon
Sympathy and Likeness in Plotinus ............................................. 63
Gabriela Bal
Matter Is Not Place According to Plotinus:
A Small Rectification ......................................................... 73
Jean-Marc Narbonne
Providence et libertédans le néoplatonisme ................................. 79
Jean-Michel Charrue
The Young Gods: The Stars and Planets in Platonic
Treatment of Fate .............................................................. 95
Marilynn Lawrence
‘Resurrection: The Hope of Worms ........................................... 111
Enrica Ruaro
Iamblichus and the Intermediate Nature of the Human Soul ..... 123
John F. Finamore
Perspective pédagogique et exégèse de l’implicite chez les
néoplatoniciens tardifs : le cas d’Olympiodore
d’Alexandrie ...................................................................... 137
François Renaud
Flēbĭlĭs heū maēstōs|cōgŏr ĭnīrĕ mŏdōs: Boethius
and Rhythm’s Raw Power ............................................... 153
Stephen J. Blackwood
Augustine: Time and Early Concepts of the Soul ....................... 169
Charlotte Gross
Traditions of Self-Knowledge from Socrates to Suhrawardi ........ 181
Sara Ahbel-Rappe
Nous And Geist: Aristotle, Plotinus and Hegel on Truth,
Knowledge, and Being ...................................................... 193
Robert M. Berchman
Plotinus and Whitehead on the Interweaving of Forms............... 241
Atsushi Sumi
Evaluating Pierre Hadot’s Criticism of Plotinian Mysticism ........ 253
James Bryson
Jean-Luc Marion’s Dionysian Neoplatonism for
Neoplatonism and Contemporary Philosophy ................... 267
Wayne J. Hankey

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Perspectives sur le néoplatonisme International Society of Neoplatonic Studies

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COLLECTION ZÊTÊSIS Série « Textes et essais »

Perspectives sur le néoplatonisme International Society of Neoplatonic Studies Actes du colloque de 2006

Martin ACHARD, Wayne HANKEY et Jean-Marc NARBONNE éditeurs

LES PRESSES DE L’UNIVERSITÉ LAVAL

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Table des matières

Préface......................................................................................... Jean-Marc Narbonne

1

The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato’s Republic 4 .................. Richard D. Parry

3

Aristotle to Plotinus on the Status of Nous: The Passage from Dualism to Monism ................................................. Mark J. Nyvlt

15

The role of the electronic lexicography in the research on Plotinus: the meaning of logos in its relationships with the Aristotelian nous .................................................. 31 Emmanuele Vimercati Plotinus on Celestial Motion....................................................... Andrea Falcon

51

Sympathy and Likeness in Plotinus ............................................. Gabriela Bal

63

Matter Is Not Place According to Plotinus: A Small Rectification ......................................................... Jean-Marc Narbonne Providence et libertédans le néoplatonisme ................................. Jean-Michel Charrue The Young Gods: The Stars and Planets in Platonic Treatment of Fate .............................................................. Marilynn Lawrence

73 79

95

VIII

T  

‘Resurrection: The Hope of Worms ........................................... 111 Enrica Ruaro Iamblichus and the Intermediate Nature of the Human Soul ..... 123 John F. Finamore Perspective pédagogique et exégèse de l’implicite chez les

néoplatoniciens tardifs : le cas d’Olympiodore d’Alexandrie ...................................................................... 137 François Renaud Flēbĭlĭs heū maēstōs|cōgŏr ĭnīrĕ mŏdōs: Boethius

and Rhythm’s Raw Power ............................................... 153 Stephen J. Blackwood

Augustine: Time and Early Concepts of the Soul ....................... 169 Charlotte Gross Traditions of Self-Knowledge from Socrates to Suhrawardi ........ 181 Sara Ahbel-Rappe Nous And Geist: Aristotle, Plotinus and Hegel on Truth, Knowledge, and Being ...................................................... 193 Robert M. Berchman Plotinus and Whitehead on the Interweaving of Forms............... 241 Atsushi Sumi Evaluating Pierre Hadot’s Criticism of Plotinian Mysticism ........ 253 James Bryson Jean-Luc Marion’s Dionysian Neoplatonism for Neoplatonism and Contemporary Philosophy................... 267 Wayne J. Hankey

Préface

Les contributions rassemblées dans la présente monographie sont une sélection des textes présentés du 26 au 29 juin 2006, lors de la rencontre annuelle de l’International Society of Neoplatonic Studies, qui se tint à Québec, au Vieux Séminaire de l’Université Laval. Je voudrais tout d’abord remercier tous ceux qui, de près ou de loin, ont contribué au succès de cette rencontre, et en premier lieu M. Martin Achard, qui m’a assisté dans l’organisation de ce colloque depuis le début et a largement contribué à son bon déroulement, et à M. Wayne Hankey qui, en collaboration avec M. Martin Achard et moi-même, a œuvré au travail d’édition du livre qu’on va lire maintenant. Un remerciement va aussi à l’International Society of Neoplatonic Studies, et notamment à M. John F. Finamore et à Robert M. Berchman pour leur soutien et leur conseil dans l’organisation du colloque. Je suis reconnaissant aussi à deux étudiantes de la Faculté de philosophie, Myriam Michaud et Geneviève Morin-Lacroix, qui on travaillé avec diligence et affabilité à l’accueil des conférenciers étrangers. Pour leur appui financier ou logistique, je voudrais également remercier : – la Faculté de philosophie de l’université Laval – l’Institut d’études anciennes de l’université Laval – la Faculté d’architecture, d’aménagement et d’art visuels de l’Université Laval – le Consulat de France à Québec Jean-Marc NARBONNE Président de la société canadienne des études néoplatoniciennes Québec, février 2008

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The Unity of the Tripartite Soul in Plato’s Republic 4

R D. P Agnes Scott College

In Republic 4, Socrates lays down the Principle of Opposites by which he will argue for the parts of the soul. (I) It is obvious that the same thing will never do or undergo opposite things in the same respect in relation to the same thing at the same time (436b).

While there is agreement among commentators that Socrates uses it to establish parts of the soul, there is dispute about nearly everything else.1 There is one dispute in particular I would like to address in this paper. Some commentators construe the argument so that it establishes parts of the soul as independent agents. In this sort of interpretation, each part is able to form beliefs, reason to some extent, and even choose. However, I will argue that Socrates does not fragment the soul into independent agents. In his argument, he carefully observes a distinction between what the soul does and what the parts do.2

Translations are based on Shorey’s translation in the Loeb Classical Library edition of The Republic. I have, for the most part, made minor changes. Where major changes have been made, I have noted them. 1. One can find a good review of most of these positions in H. Lorenz, “Desire and Reason in Plato’s Republic” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (2004) 27: 83-116. 2. This interpretation has strong theoretical affinities with that of J. Moravcsik, in that parts of the soul are sources of action while the soul is the sole

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This distinction allows us to introduce another distinction, between choice and motivation. The soul chooses and the parts provide motivation. In this way, only the soul is an agent. While, many commentators recognize the role of motivations in this argument, what is not often recognized is that we can distinguish motivations from choices as well.3 In what follows we will assume the following distinction: (A) A motivation is a source of possible motion or action in the soul; choice is the definitive direction of the soul.

While I might have a motivation, impulse, or inclination to drink a cup of wine, I need not choose to drink. If I act on the motivation, I choose to drink. The motivation, so to speak, has passed over into action. Motivation, then, moves one to choose. One can also have contending motivations. Finally, choice sets the direction of the soul. After the Principle of Opposites, Socrates secures Glaucon’s agreement to a list of opposite psychological states. (II) Assent (epineuein) is opposed to dissent (ananeuein), striving after something (ephiesthai) to rejecting (aparneisthai), embracing (prosagesthai) to repelling (apôthesthai); these are opposites either in the category of action or of passion (437b-c).

This list of opposites seems fashioned to fit the opposites mentioned in the Principle of Opposites. However, whether or how one is to specify (I) with the opposites mentioned in (II) is not exactly clear. Instead of specifying in this way, Socrates goes in another direction. What Socrates says next can be seen to introduce the idea of choice into this account. He asks, “What about hunger and thirst,

agent of action. Cp. his “Inner Harmony and the Human Ideal,” The Journal of Ethics (2001) 5: 41-2. However, my interpretation depends on an elaboration of the distinction between motivation and choosing, which I show is found in the argument of Republic 4. 3. T. Penner, “Thought and Desire in Plato” Plato: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City: Double Day, 1971) vol.2, 105; J. Annas, An Introduction to Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981) 133-7; R.F. Stalley, “Plato’s Argument for the Division of the Reasoning and Appetitive Elements within the Soul” Phronesis XXI (1976) 124; J. Cooper, Reason and Emotion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999) 121 ff.

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and the appetites (epithumiai) in general, and further wanting (ethelein) and wishing (boulesthai)?” In the first place, he isolates the positive side of the pairs of opposite states. So he is not talking about contending motivations but about one direction for the soul. Second, he adds another, and more abstract, terminology to striving after, embracing, and assenting: appetites (epithumiai), then wanting (ethelein) and wishing (boulesthai). He says that they should put all of these somewhere in the class of things they were just talking about. The ‘somewhere’ indicates a qualification to the way they are classified, suggesting that epithumiai, and especially ethelein and boulesthai are not exactly the same as assenting, dissenting, striving after, rejecting, embracing, and repelling. With these refinements made, Socrates then says: (III) The soul of the one desiring (epithumountos) either (êtoi) strives after (ephiesthai) what it desires (epithumê(i)), or (ê) embraces (prosagesthai) what it wishes (boulêtai) to have, or (ê), insofar as it wants (ethelei) something to be provided to it, it assents (epineuein) within itself to having this thing—as though someone were asking a question—stretching towards its attainment (437c-d).

The first thing to notice is the relation between the actions of striving after, embracing, and assenting, on the one hand, and desiring (epithumein), wishing for (boulesthai) and wanting or willing (ethelein), on the other. As expressions of the soul’s desire, wish, and want, they are choices. However, there is no word (like prohairêsis) for choice.4 The expression for choice is the formula ‘embraces what it wishes to have’ and ‘insofar as it wants something to be provided to it, it assents within itself to having this thing’. The soul is not embracing or assenting to having such general goods as beauty and health, as in Gorgias and Meno. Presumably, it already wants these and need not embrace or assent to having them. As the rest of the passage shows, what the soul is embracing or assenting to having are particular things, such as this drink or this food. In fact, it is hard not to see boulesthai and ethelein, in combination with ‘embrace’ and ‘assent’, as describing a choice, or even a

4. Cf. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics (1112a10-1113a15).

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decision. If the soul of the desiring person, wishing to have some wine, embraces it, then one would drink. If the soul of the desiring person, insofar as it wants or wills wine to be provided to it, assents within itself to having wine, as though someone were asking a question [“Would you like some wine?”] one would drink. Suppose the opposite. The soul of the desiring person, wishing to have wine, embraces it; but one does not drink. The soul of the desiring person, insofar as it wants or wills wine to be provided to it, assents within itself to having wine, as though someone were asking a question; but one does not drink. Something has happened. Perhaps this person has changed her mind or has been denied what she wants. So, when the soul, wishing to have something, embraces it, it has taken a definitive direction. The use of ‘ethelein’ and ‘boulesthai’ has another function besides marking out choice. It also introduces into this argument an idea that has an important role in Socratic moral teaching.5 In the Meno, Socrates argues that no one wishes for (boulesthai) bad things, knowing them to be bad. Everyone desires (epithumein) good things.6 This theme is also found in the Gorgias where Socrates argues that we wish for (boulometha) good things when we do anything. So when people take medicine, which is neither good nor bad in itself, what they wish for (boulesthai) is health, which is something good (Gor. 467c ff ). So the use of boulesthai in the present context raises anew the idea that its object is the good. We have good reason to take seriously the fact that Socrates uses boulesthai in this passage. If he had wanted to change its association with the good, he could have done so; after all, he will change the association of epithumein with the good. We are left to conclude that the association of boulesthai and ethelein with the good remains in tact. Moreover, since wish and want, in conjunction with embracing and assenting, are focused on particular objects, these

5. Cf. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics, 205-208. 6. Meno 77b-78b. In this passage Socrates makes no distinction between boulesthai and epithumein. In our passage from the Republic, he specifically qualifies epthumein.

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particulars are chosen as means to or components of the good. So since we read these formulas as expressing choice, we can describe choice in this passage in the following way: (B) What the soul chooses is taken to be good; choosing aims at the good.

Although one can be mistaken, of course, choice still implies a belief about the goodness of what is chosen.7 If no one wishes for bad things, then it would be wrong to say that the soul embraces what it wishes to have although it does not think what it wishes for is good, or that the soul, insofar as it wants something to be provided to it, assents within itself to having this thing, although it does not think what it wants is good for it. Still, if Socrates is raising the issue of the good, he is about to make an important distinction.8 Next he distinguishes appetite from wish and want. First of all, there is a difference of scope between desire and the other two. Socrates has restricted appetite (epithumia) to bodily desires, such as hunger and thirst. However, one can want or wish for more than these sorts of things. One can wish for good health or for virtue. Now, the scope of wishing and wanting is not only wider than that of desire, it also includes what is good for one—as we have seen. In what follows, however, Socrates argues that appetites, as such, do not aim at what is good for one (438a). Insofar as I am thirsty, I do not desire a drink that is good for me, e.g., a healthy drink, but just something that will quench my thirst. We will not review the argument but will accept the idea that Socrates is making an important distinction for his moral psychology—one that explains conflicts in the soul.9 Still,

7. Cp. T. Penner (“Plato and Davidson: Parts of the Soul and Weakness of the Will,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume (1990) 16) 56-57. 8. Before making this distinction Socrates introduces the notions of not wishing (aboulein), not wanting, and not desiring as akin to rejecting and repulsing; these are opposed to wishing, wanting, and desiring (437d). The sense, for instance, of ‘not wishing’ is wishing-that-not, e.g., the soul rejects what it does not wish to have. 9. Cf. T. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 207-8.

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what appetite seeks need not always be bad; it can also be something good that the soul can choose. So, on the one hand, appetite can seek, in some cases, what is not good for the soul as a whole. On the other hand, what appetite seeks can, in other cases, be the object of wish. That this distinction is intended by Socrates is borne out by the subsequent argument. Having made the preliminary distinctions, Socrates applies the Principle of Opposites to the soul in a particular kind of case. He starts by citing the familiar scenario: 1) The soul of the one who is thirsty, insofar as it is thirsty, wishes for (bouletai) nothing except to drink; this is what it reaches out for (oregetai) and sets out to get (horma(i)). (439a)

It would appear that reaching out for and setting out to get are actions that express boulesthai. In fact, (1) seems to echo (III), the earlier passage at 437c-d in which the soul of the one who desires strives after what it desires or embraces what it wishes (boulêtai) to have, or, insofar as it wants (ethelei) something to be provided to it, it assents within itself to having this thing. But it also makes a somewhat different point than (III) in that it emphasizes the role of motivation. (1) shows a clear transition from motivation to choice. The thirsting soul, left on its own—“insofar as it is thirsty”—chooses to drink; the motivation from appetite, left unimpeded, will result in the soul’s choosing to drink. In the next step, Socrates shifts to talking about something that might interrupt the transition. He is also talking about contending motivations that come from different parts of the soul: 2) Then if ever there is something that pulls the soul back when it is thirsting, it would be something different in the soul from that which is thirsting and leading it like a beast to drink (439a-b).

Socrates justifies (2) by invoking a version of (I): 3) For the same thing does not do opposite things with the same thing at the same time in relation to the same thing (439b).

The specification of (3) would read: “The soul cannot pull itself back from drinking and lead itself to drink with the same part, at the same time.” The specification is different from (1) in that the subjects in (1) are parts of the soul while the subject in the specification is the soul. There has been a shift in focus from moti-

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vations to actions; the actions are choices, actual or possible. The specification says that motivations for contrary choices cannot come from the same part. To pull itself back is what the soul chooses; drinking is the aborted choice—the one the soul would make insofar as it is thirsty. If there is a choice that contradicts what the soul would otherwise choose when it is motivated by appetite, the motivation for this choice must come from another part of the soul. The following two steps describe this choice. (4) might be translated as “Sometimes those who are thirsty do not want to drink.” But ‘do not want to drink’ is ambiguous between having an aversion to drinking and refusing to drink. The former is an impulse contrary to the desire to drink; the latter is a choice. However, (5) clearly describes a choice. When that which forbids overpowers that which commands, the choice has been made; the soul has taken a definitive direction. Since (5) explicates (4), we should read (4) as: 4) Sometimes those who are thirsty refuse to drink (ouk ethelein pinein). 5) There is within the soul of these people that which commands (to keleuon) and something different within the soul, i.e., that which that forbids (to kôluon) to drink, that overpowers (kratoun) that which commands (439c5-7).

The rest of the argument identifies the parts from which the contending motivations come. I want to focus on (1) from the beginning of the argument. At this point, Socrates is describing a choice, motivated by appetite, the soul would make if reason does not intervene. However, I want to argue that the contrast between the two kinds of choice is not that the calculated choice aims at the good and the appetitively motivated choice is indifferent to the good. It is significant that in (1) the soul of the one who is thirsty wishes (bouletai) for nothing except to drink. Once again, the word bouletai introduces the idea that, when the soul of the one who is thirsty wishes for nothing except to drink, it is wishing for something good. The problem is that Socrates has just argued appetite in itself is not for good or bad drink. So, on the one hand, appetite is not for

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good drink; on the other, bouletai aims at the good. The only way to resolve the clash is to give due weight to Socrates’ making the soul of the thirsty person—not appetite—the subject of bouletai. The shift from appetite, indifferent to the good, to choosing something good is mediated by a shift to soul as the subject of choosing. This shift allows a division of labor. Whereas appetite is indifferent to the good, the soul is not. This division of labor has an advantage over the competing account in which all parts of the soul are independent agents. In those accounts the other parts of the soul, besides reason, can have beliefs and motives. Thus they are able to choose—a conclusion sometimes drawn, although not elaborated on.10 However, the problem with multiple agents is that it is hard to make coherent sense of choosing once we try to connect it with the body. Choosing is not an end in itself but a way of moving the body. When one chooses to drink a cup of wine, the body—impelled by the choice—moves to get the wine. If we take seriously the claim that each part of the soul can choose, we are committed to the idea that each part can move the body. And if each is an independent agent, it can move the body on its own. The picture becomes incoherent if we think of conflict. Suppose appetite chooses to drink and reason chooses not to drink. Is each moving the body in contrary ways—one hand, impelled by appetite, grasping for the wine and the other hand, motivated by reason, pushing it away? Or does one part get to the body first and move it? If there is no race to be the first to move the body, how are we to think of the resolution of the conflict? The problem here comes from thinking of each part as being able to move the body on its own; and this latter idea come from thinking of each part as choosing. We can avoid these problems if we maintain that the resolution of conflict takes place within the soul. In addition, the resolution of the conflict is the choice made by the soul. Socrates’ account, then, assumes: (C) Parts do not choose but are the sources of motivation for choosing; the soul chooses. 10. Irwin, Plato’s Ethics, 217-218; G. Lesses, “Weakness, Reason, and the Divided Soul in Plato’s Republic” Ancient Philosophy (1987) 4: 149-150. C. Bobonich, Plato’s Utopia Recast (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002) 220-227.

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However, this claim might suggest that the soul does something over and above what the parts do. In fact, this suggestion is not the only way to conceive of the soul’s choosing. Rather, our interpretation will show that the soul’s choosing is the result of the way the parts interact.11 In one case, expressed in (1), if reason does not oppose the appetite, the soul chooses to drink. The movement of the soul is a result of the way the different roles fit together. If reason does not oppose the motivation coming from appetite, that motivation becomes the motion of the whole soul. In the other case, expressed in (5), reason opposes the motivation from appetite and prevails. So the soul chooses not to drink. Again, the motion of the soul is determined by the interaction of the parts. In this case, the decision is not just reason’s opposition but includes also its prevailing over appetite.12 In the first case, however, where reason does not intervene—expressed in (1)—there is a lacuna in the account that raises an interesting question: what role does reason have in this situation? Two answers are possible. In the first answer, reason does not intervene on purpose, so to speak. Reason sees no cause for intervening and goes along with what appetite urges, allowing the motivation to pass into action. This possibility rests on the notion that reason always has a role in choosing. In the second speculative answer, reason does not intervene because it is not engaged in the choice to drink. In this answer, the soul can choose to drink as something good to do under the influence of appetite alone, without reason’s being engaged. This second answer is incompatible with the notion that the soul is choosing, as that is characterized in: (B) What the soul chooses is taken to be good; choosing aims at the good.

Given the link between choosing and the good, it is impossible to attribute choosing to appetite alone. Since appetite is indifferent 11. A similar account can be found in N.R. Murphy, The Interpretation of Plato’s Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1951) 35-39. 12. The conflict among the parts of the soul in the Phaedrus can be seen as an example of this idea. The parts do not move the body on their own. The dark horse does not choose to have sex with the boy and then move the body to action. Rather, what is done is the result of the interaction of the parts.

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to the good, if the soul is choosing to drink as good, it can do so only if something besides appetite is involved. Reason is the obvious candidate since it is the part that reasons about the better and the worse (441c). The transition from ‘This will taste good’ to ‘This is good to drink’—unless it is to be inexplicable—requires the engagement of reason. Thus, the final assumption is: (D) When motivation arises from appetite (or thumos) choosing requires the interaction of reason.

While this engagement need not be deliberation, it at least implies that reason recognizes the relation between the good and what is desired. To act without such an assessment is to act on impulse but it hardly looks like choosing to act in the sense we have outlined. Socrates has an important motivation for making this distinction between what the parts of the soul do and what the soul itself does. While he holds that appetite is the source of motivations that can be indifferent to the overall welfare of the soul, Socrates does not give up the idea that the soul pursues the good. In Republic 6, he makes a claim about the role of the good that is so central it cannot be ignored in any account of the moral psychology of the dialogue. (IV) Each soul seeks this (the good) and does everything for the sake of this, divining that it is something but also puzzled and unable to grasp adequately what it is (505e).

At first there might seem to be a conflict between two claims. One is the claim that appetites do not necessarily desire the good; the other is that each soul does everything for the sake of the good. If what the soul does—i.e., the actions of the soul—includes what the appetite does, then we have a contradiction. In the case where appetite desires what is not good for one, the very desiring is something the soul does but not for the sake of the good. One can avoid the contradiction by recognizing a distinction between what appetite does and what the soul does. Just because appetite desires A, it does not follow that desiring A is what the soul does. Once this distinction is recognized, one can see that there is a distinction between appetite’s desiring A and the soul’s acting to get A. That distinction is the one between desiring and choosing. If we allow that the soul’s choosing is at least one of the ways it acts for the sake of the good, we can see how both that an appetite

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can desire something that is not good for one and that the soul acts for the good.13

13. This way of interpreting (IV) seems to contradict the claim that the story of Leontius presents a case of akrasia (439e-440c). If Leontius chooses to look at the corpses, believing that doing so is not good, then his soul is not acting for the sake of the good. However, the story is ambiguous on this point. Of course, it does not refer to his soul, but only to Leontius. Let us substitute Leontius for his soul; what Leontius does is what his soul chooses. What he does—running up to the corpses, throwing open his eyes, and shouting at them—is motivated by thumos; it also ruins the pleasure his appetite is seeking. His thumos, fighting on the side of reason, interferes with the enjoyment of the sight of the corpses. As Socrates makes clear, this action is a continuation of resistance to appetite. What he does is still aimed at the good. Finally, the story is silent about the extent to which the appetite is actually satisfied and to what extent it succeeds in overpowering him.

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Aristotle to Plotinus on the Status of Nous: The Passage from Dualism to Monism1

M J. N Dominican University College, Ottawa

Introduction The question of the One and the Indefinite Dyad is intimately related to the twin theme of monism and dualism. In this paper, I will concentrate on Aristotle’s interpretation of the Pythagorean and Platonic teaching of this two-principles doctrine with the intention of providing the philosophical context to the Plotinian reading of Aristotle’s doctrine of divine nous. The dualistic framework of the cosmos, represented by philosophies of the Hellenic and Hellenistic ages, allows for Greek philosophers to entertain the possibility of a monistic conception of the cosmos, since these philosophers attempt to preserve unity amidst the multiplicity perceived within the cosmos. The trajectory from dualism to monism will be an overarching theme in this article and will characterize much of our discussion of the simplicity of nous in both Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ philosophical systems. I will analyze and interpret Aristotle in

1. I would like to thank John Cleary and Klaus Brinkmann for their helpful comments on my first draft. I would like to also thank Janina Mueller, my research assistant, for her diligent work and careful attention to the research of this article.

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light of the backdrop of the debate about the two-principles doctrine within the Academy in order to appreciate Plotinus’ reading and critique of Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity of nous. The structure of my article will be as follows. After a brief introduction to the Pythagorean and Platonic two-principles doctrine, I will expose Aristotle’s reaction to the two-principles doctrine, especially, Plato’s doctrine of the One by way of analyzing Aristotle’s henology, which will naturally introduce Aristotle’s presentation of the actuality and simplicity of Divine nous in Metaphysics Λ 9. The final section will present Plotinus’ reading and transformation of Aristotle’s henology and its implications on the status of nous. Ultimately, this paper will answer the questions of why Plotinus is compelled to affirm a single causal principle in the place of the Platonic two-principles, and how these subsequent levels of being are derived from the One.

The Pythagoreans and Plato on the Two-Principles Doctrine: The Aristotelian Interpretation The Pythagoreans attempted to understand the cosmos numerically, i.e., that the nature of reality consists in numbers. (Cf., Met. I 5, 986a2 and a16-21) Aristotle captures one of the most salient themes of the Pythagorean philosophy: that the One is both even and odd and that number is derived from the One, which is a composite of the even and odd, or, using other terminology, the Limited and the Unlimited. Aristotle, furthermore, illustrates the Pythagorean Table of Ten Opposites, which characterizes the One as consisting of two principles. (Cf., Met. I 5, 986a21-26) The Table begins with the limited/unlimited as a representation of the basic dual nature of the One and the Indefinite Dyad, out of which is derived number and the whole cosmos. Elsewhere, Aristotle reaffirms the link between the One and the limited. (Cf., Met. XIV 3, 1091a16-17) The One is equated with the limited and imposes itself on the unlimited, such that the One represents the active principle influencing the opposite principle, namely, the undifferentiated Dyad, the combination of which results in the production of number and multiplicity or plurality. Given that the two principles are the first principles, one can also legitimately assert that the unlimited is limited by the

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limited. The result of such cooperation is a harmonious cosmos, in which all elements and principles are proportionately balanced. Only in this regard can the Pythagoreans admit of endorsing a monistic doctrine; however, the foundation of such a cosmos is dualistic, for the two co-equal principles produce number from the One’s influence on the Indefinite Dyad, a production which is a composite of the limited and unlimited. “For the universe is composed of limited [peras] and unlimited [apeiron].” (Fr. 6, Philolaus) From this dual principle, therefore, results the plurality of beings in the cosmos. This scientific strand of the Pythagorean society influenced Plato and his advancement of a two-principles doctrine, which is confirmed by Aristotle’s testimony. Even in the Academy there was great discussion and disagreement about the derivation of Forms and Ideal Numbers out of the One and the Indefinite Dyad. Unity remained the primary principle out of which were derived the Ideal Numbers, whereas the second principle, the Indefinite Dyad, is the boundless material upon which the One or the Unity impresses itself in order to create order and finitude. Unity appears to be identified with the Good, within the Table of Contraries in the Pythagorean society. (Cf., Phil. 25e-26b)2 Plato, to be certain, only articulates this in his private teachings of Ideal Numbers within the Academy. (Cf., Met. I 6, 988a13-15) However, in the Philebus, Unity is associated with the Pythagorean principle of Limited (peras).3

2. “In short, the principle of Unity seems to have been linked with the principle of the Good, which appears briefly in the Phaedo and Republic.” (J. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” in Pensée de l’‘Un’ dans l’histoire de la philosophie: Études en hommage au professeur Werner Beierwaltes. Éds. J.-M. Narbonne et A. Reckermann. (Laval, Can.: Les Presses de l’Université Laval), 2004, p. 73) 3. Cf., J. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” p. 74. Cf., J. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Form Numbers,” in Platon und Aristoteles—sub ratione veritatis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Wieland, zum 70. Geburststag. Herausgegeben von Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat und Alejandro G. Vigo. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), 2004, pp. 3-30, esp. pp. 1216.

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Aristotle’s Henology Aristotle naturally responds to the formula of the One as represented by the Pythagoreans and Plato. As with his interpretation of Being, the ‘one’ is a pros hen equivocal, rather than a univocal substance. The ‘one’ cannot assume the same operation as it does in Plato’s metaphysics. Metaphysics Iota recapitulates Aristotle’s discussion of the many senses of the ‘one,’ as expressed in Metaphysics V 6, and also makes reference to the aporetic question as to whether the ‘one’ (and Being) are substances of entities, as discussed in Metaphysics Beta. It is clear that Aristotle is taking issue here with the Pythagoreans and Plato. Aristotle recapitulates his conception of the ‘one’ per se in Metaphysics Iota 1: things are one when 1) they are continuous in general or by nature; 2) they are whole; 3) the things in question are one by definition; and 4) they are individuals. Moreover, these things are one due to their indivisibility regarding their movement, conception, and definition. In order for something to be one, it must be considered as the first measure of a kind, and this measure is of quantity. In addition, measure is depicted as that by which something is known. Knowledge presupposes an adequate standard or measure of objects, and this assertion will further advance and determine the course of our study on the topic of the simplicity of nous. Nous has itself for its sole object; nous is indivisible and identical or homogeneous with the object that it measures, namely, itself. In the case of the ‘one,’ the ‘one’ is “indivisible just because the first of each class of things is indivisible. Unity, then, is a measure, “more properly of quantity, and secondly of quality.” (Met. X 1, 1053b4-9) It has been argued that within the Academy discussions were held not only about the nature of the ‘one’ as a principle, but also the theories of predication of unity, thereby interconnecting the ontological with the logical orders. Initially, Aristotle limits his study to the theme of the predication of the ‘one,’ but subsequent to this, he discusses the multiple ways in which the one can be predicated by appealing to the theory of measure. This method is clearly of the logical order, as we also see in Met. V 6, 1016b8 ff.

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Aristotle’s doctrine of the ‘one,’ then, is a reaction to the transcendent and homogeneous presentation of the Platonic One. Again, Aristotle argues that as the ‘one’ is a pros hen equivocal, it cannot be considered as a transcendent and universal substance. (Cf., Met. V and X) Aristotle’s alternative solution to the Platonic first principles is related to his three principles—form, privation, and matter—that are analogous principles of sensible substances, and these principles, like the multiple accounts of the ‘one,’ and which are not homogeneous, but can, nevertheless, be applied universally to all sensible substances. His gradual discussion of separate substances, which are characterized as purely simple and actual substances, and the principles applicable to these substances, makes for a natural transition to his account of divine nous, with respect to its simplicity and final causality. Aristotle’s discussion of first principles takes a significant turn in XII 4 and 5, where he discusses his account of first principles and seeks a solution to the Platonic problem of first principles. XII 4 recapitulates Aristotle’s conclusions from XII 3 about the diverse roles of matter and form at multiple levels of reality. On the one hand, the causes and principles of entities are distinct, but, on the other hand, they are the same, when considered universally and analogically. (Cf., XII 4, 1070a31-32) This theme is also a recapitulation of his discussion of the aporia in Metaphysics III, where Aristotle poses the question of whether or not the principles and elements of substances and of the subsequent categories are the same or different. Strictly speaking, it is not possible that substances and the other categories share the same principles and elements, for, if this were the case, then the principles and elements would have to be common like Platonic Forms. This cannot be the case, since nothing precedes substances and the other categories. (Cf., Met. XII 4, 1070a33-1070b3) In Met. XII 4, 1070b22-29, Aristotle makes the distinction between internal and external causes. In any generation there is an external moving cause, such as a man, who produces a man a horse a horse, etc. Although this passage refers to external and internal causality, one can anticipate Aristotle’s discussion of an external cause that moves all things. This external cause, or onto-

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logically prior substance, would seem to make implicit reference to the First Mover. The subsequent section of chapter 5 (1071a17 ff.) highlights the necessity of specifying the way in which causes are spoken of universally. This theme relates to Aristotle’s general question, which is whether or not the principles and causes of all entities are the same or different. While in Metaphysics XII 4 Aristotle asserts that the principles and causes are spoken of universally and analogically, in Metaphysics XII 5 Aristotle refines his notion of universality, which is his attempt at obviating the Platonic problem of the sameness of causes when speaking of first principles universally. Universally, a primary principle is a ‘this’ (tode ti), which is always actual and also potential. Actuality and potentiality are the primary principles in every case. However, these principles are universals.4 Metaphysics XII 5 ends the first section of book XII, in which the principles and elements are discussed in light of sensible substances. Metaphysics XII 6 makes a swift transition into a discussion and an account of suprasensible substances. Like the many senses of the ‘one,’ Aristotle asserts that these principles are not homogeneous, but can be applied universally to all sensible substances. These principles are, however, applied differently to separate substances, which are depicted as purely simple and actual substances. Aristotle’s discussion of this realm of the cosmos provides an effective transition into his account of the simplicity of divine nous and its nature as a final cause, as we shall now see in Metaphysics XII 9.

Aristotle’s Formal Duality in Divine Nous: Metaphysics XII 9 Metaphysics XII 9 presents what is perhaps the most essential argument for the absolute simplicity and priority of nous in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Aristotle attempts to demonstrate that nous, while it has knowledge of itself—a knowledge that may

4. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” p. 91; cf., Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, pp. 130-31.

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appear dual or divided—remains purely simple and devoid of all potentiality. If this were not the case, then nous would be dependent upon a higher, more actual, and divine principle in the cosmos. Nous can only think itself; it is thought thinking itself. The object of nous is immaterial and eternally indivisible. What remains to be discussed is the following: how can the content of nous be simple and not composite—a state that is clearly characterized as purely simple and actual? We will see that Plotinus disagrees with Aristotle on this point. We will, then, agree with the consequences that Aristotle highlights as a result of introducing composition and plurality in nous, for this composition alone will allow Plotinus to assert a single principle above nous, thereby subordinating nous and rendering it dependent upon another principle, namely the One. We find the famous statement noesis noeseos in Met. XII 9: “Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking” (1074b33-5). Prior to this assertion, however, at the beginning of this chapter, Aristotle highlights significant problems with the nature of divine nous. (Cf., 1074b15-17) The phrase dokei men gar einai ton phainomenon theiotaton echoes the Aristotelian notion of ta phainomena, which refers to the perception of visible and observable objects.5 However, given that the first principle of the cosmos is nous, which is itself its own object, this phrase would appear to indicate that nous is one amongst many other entities in the cosmos. (Cf., XII 9, 1074b17-20) Lines 1074b27-34 indicate that nous precludes any knowledge of substances outside itself. If nous were to think of substances other than itself, it would be in a state of change and potentiality, and if the latter, then it would be impossible for its activity to be continuous, undivided, and self-sufficient. Aristotle mentions at the beginning of the chapter that the activity of nous is a continuous activity and, therefore, cannot think intermittently. Finally, to say that nous is potential would imply that it is determined by its corresponding object of thought—a claim that Aristotle clearly

5. Cf., G. E. L. Owen, “TITHENAI TA PHAINOMENA,” pp. 85-86.

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rejects. Aristotle’s argument naturally leads us to the famous philosophical statement: kai estin he noesis noeseos noesis (1074b34).6 He argues that nous is determined by no objects other than itself. For in keeping with his doctrine in the De Anima (429a13ff ), Aristotle states that the reception of an object exterior to the intellect implies that the intellect is potential, which only becomes actual upon the reception of the exterior form. Nous, then, is purely actual, for its object, namely, itself, is identical with nous itself, considered as the subject.7 If it were the case that the divine nous did not think actually, but only potentially, then it would grow fatigued (b29), and, more importantly for our purposes, it would require a principle ‘above’ it in order to be actualized, and this principle would be an object of thought that is different and other than the divine nous itself. The final question that Aristotle poses in chapter 9 is of critical importance to our study of Plotinus’ reading and transformation of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine: “Is the object of divine thought composite (suntheton)? If it were composite, then divine nous would “change in passing from part to part of the whole” (1075a6), a claim Aristotle cannot accept, given his argument that the first substance cannot be affected by any change whatsoever. (Cf., XII 9, 1075a5-10) The prevailing question in this section is this: are the contents of nous composite? To suggest that the object of nous is composite would be to admit to a multiplicity of elements within nous. The human intellect enjoys intermittently what the divine nous enjoys eternally: the thinking of itself, the thinking of the best thing in the cosmos. (Cf., XII 9, 1075a7-10) Aristotle, however, is adamant that nous, considered as the first being, is prior to change and movement. Thus, its thinking activity cannot consist of an object that is composite. 6. This text, of course, will be a source of inspiration not only for Albinus, but also and especially for Plotinus (Enn V 3, 7, 18-19), although the latter will be critical of the Aristotelian implications of such a doctrine. Cf., also J. Halfwassen. Geist und Selbstbewusstsein: Studien zu Plotin und Numenios. (Stuttgart: F. Steiner), 1994, pp. 9-30. 7. Cf., Cleary, “Powers that be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 58.

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He confirms the simplicity and separability of nous by denying the claim that nous is a substantial extension of the Scala Naturae. If nous were to contain a degree of potency, it would, like all substances containing potency, grow fatigued and think intermittently. Consequently, nous would require a prior principle upon which to depend for its activity. First, then, if nous were not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it; secondly, there would evidently be something else more precious than nous, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking and the act of nous will belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there are even some things which it is better not to see than to see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore, it must be of itself that the divine nous thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking. (Cf., Met. XII 9, 1074b27–34) The act of intellection must be generated from within itself, because it is not only devoid of potency, but also purely simple. If it were not simple, that is, if it were composite, then it would depend upon some other (simple) principle external to it. Plotinus, however, argues that Aristotle’s divine nous is dual in form and content, because it is complex and composite. As a result, we must ascend to a higher and simple principle, namely, the One, upon which divine nous is dependent.

Plotinus: Multiplicity and Duality within Intellect8 Plotinus recognizes a formal duality within nous, and this is confirmation that Plotinus recognizes Aristotle’s endorsement and transformation of the Platonic two-principles doctrine, that the first principle is dual: namely, the One and the Indefinite Dyad. Aristotle, therefore, cannot be a monist. From this standpoint, Plotinus asserts a more simple principle, namely, the One, which is simultaneously an assertion of monism over dualism – the 8. Cf., J. Dillon, “Plotinus, Enn. III 9, 1 and Later Views on the Intelligible World,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 100 (1969), 63-70, in The Golden Chain: Studies in the Development of Platonism and Christianity. (Aldershot, England: Variorum), c1990.

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preferred starting point of the Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle. For Aristotle, the divine Intellect is a unity-in-diversity, and this is consistent with the Platonic teaching of a dual first principle, the One and the Indefinite Dyad. On the one hand, Plotinus asserts that nous is not simple, and, as a result, is subordinate to a prior and simple principle, namely, the One, and, on the other, he also asserts that nous is itself “simultaneously object and agent of intellection . . . .” The claim that “. . . it is on that count also a duality” relegates nous to a position subordinate to the One. (V.4.2) The focus of the debate centers around, on the one hand, the nature of the object of nous, and, on the other, the formal distinction between the fundamental subject-object duality. Plotinus is aware of Aristotle’s argument that the object of thought is the act of thinking. However, Plotinus concludes that nous remains dual.9 The Intellectual principle, as an unchangeable Being, produces its Intellectual Act, i.e., its proper object, which, because it derives its source from the Intellectual principle, is “another intellectual being, resembling its source, a reproduction and image of that.” (V.4.2) The thinking principle is one with its first produced object of thought, but this unity is composite in nature. The thinking principle could not be first, since it admits a degree of plurality, i.e., a duality (of noesis and noema) and, thus, it cannot, by its very nature, be responsible for ordering the world of multiplicity: Only a single principle which does not admit of complexity or duality can be responsible for the hierarchical order of the hypostases and can sustain the multiplicity of the cosmic world as a whole body.10 Plotinus advances two reasons for why the Intellect is not the absolute first principle, that the Intellect is a complex in two 9. Once again, the fact that Aristotle makes the object of divine nous the activity of divine nous means that there is no real ‘object’ in the strong sense at all, for ‘it’ is a pure identity. Plotinus, of course, rejects this move. 10. Cf., Jens Halfwassen. Hegel und der Spätantike Neuplatonismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik des Einen und des Nous in Hegels spekulativer und geschichtlicher Deutung. (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag), 1999, pp. 350-57; and his Der Aufstieg Um Einen: Untersuchungen zu Platon und Plotin. (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner), 1992, pp. 17-33 and, especially, 210-14

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manners: First, it consists of an admixture of the activity of thinking and the object of thinking, which, as a result of their necessary cooperation, produces the Intellect, nous;11 and, second, the Intellect is complex because its object of thought is multiple. Regarding the first reason, the Intellect is a dual substance, which is characterized by the act of thinking and the object thought. (Cf., V.6.1-2) In Aristotle’s presentation of divine nous, these two ‘components’ are identical, for ‘they’ are indistinguishable. According to Plotinus, however, they are really distinct and, as a result, characterize Intellect as a dual substance. In the De Anima III. 4-6, Aristotle argues that the potential intellect is made actual by the apprehension of the object, i.e., the form, which defines and determines the Intellect. The potential intellect and the forms it apprehends and by which it becomes actual, generate a unity. This interaction is analogous to the unity established in divine nous, whose object is identical with itself, an identity clearly missing in discursive reasoning.12 We are now in a better position to understand the context of Plotinus’ argument. The generation of Intellect presupposes the priority of the potentiality of Intellect over the determination and actualization of Intellect. The object of thought precedes the activity of thinking, and is the condition for the actualization of Intellect. In this light, the object of thought preexists the Intellect, but also paradoxically exists in the Intellect. In part, Plotinus accepts Aristotle’s claim that Intellect thinks itself, but rejects Aristotle’s claim that it is simple, for Intellect must also be thinking something different than itself. The Plotinian claim is fundamentally that Intellect consists of a double duality, one of act and one of content, i.e., one of form and one of content. Thus, Intellect cannot be the first principle, for it desires selfsufficiency, and its desire characterizes it as deficient. (Cf., V.6.5.810; V.3[49],10.49-50)

11. Strictly speaking, the Intellect is complex because it is simply a fundamental fact of reflection, viz. that reflection objectifies what it reflects upon, and thus turns itself into an other, distinct from the activity of reflecting. 12. Cf., A. C. Lloyd, “Non-Discursive Thought—An Enigma of Greek Philosophy,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70 (1969-1970), 261-274.

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Moreover, this (fluid) continuity of causality from the One is presented in the generation of the Indefinite Dyad, which Plotinus characterizes as the Aristotelian intelligible matter. This intelligible substrate, in turn, creates the fecund condition for the generation of inchoate nous and the intelligibles within nous. Intelligible matter shares many common traits with Imagination, and it is for this reason that we discussed at length the role and nature of Imagination, especially the higher imagination, in Plotinus. One of the salient traits of both the intelligible matter and Imagination is that they share the same kind of ambiguity and lack of definition. The ambiguity of the Imagination enables us to compare it with the elusive nature of inchoate nous. Inchoate nous is not yet formed, and its indefinite and potential nature keeps ‘it’ out of the reach of scientific inquiry. The separation of the Intellect is also due to the tolma, which allows for the first effluence to assert itself, thereby allowing it to dare and affirm its identity-in-difference. The condition for this self-assertion, however, is clearly an act preceded by the One’s act of generating multiplicity within the cosmos, and this act is an assertion of Plotinus’ monistic system. Therefore, the derivation of multiplicity from the One is a causal continuity of the One into the cosmos, but it also involves a clear statement indicating the fundamental distinction between the One and the subsequent levels of being. It is in this light that Plotinus cannot accept Aristotle’s claim for the absolute simplicity and priority of divine nous.

Conclusion In this paper, I emphasized the Aristotelian rejection of Plato’s transcendent conception of the One. Aristotle affirms, rather, that the ‘one’ is a pros hen equivocal. This led my discussion to Aristotle’s alternative solution and the replacement of Plato’s principles. In light of Metaphysics XII 4-5, we find that Aristotle, in analyzing the principles of sensible substance, concludes that these are analogous principles, which consist of form, privation, and matter. However, for separate or suprasensible substances, simplicity and actuality characterize these substances. This discussion was naturally followed by an analysis of the structure and inner constitution of divine nous, considered as a purely actual

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and an absolutely simple substance, that is, a separate substance that is not composite and does not consist of a duality within itself. Divine nous intuits itself, for it possesses immediate selfawareness. However, Plotinus argues that this level of self-knowledge or self-awareness is not absolutely simple. Divine nous, according to Plotinus, is dual13 in nature and requires a more prior and simple principle, which he calls the One. The One is, therefore, responsible for preserving unity and difference within the cosmos. The derivation of divine nous comes at a cost, however. While Plotinus preserves the unity and attempts to minimize the strict Aristotelian duality between divine nous and the world, he subordinates nous to the One. Plotinus’ monism is, in part, a response to Aristotle’s dualism, formal and material, within nous. The implications of such a philosophical move is to affirm that Intellect is not the ultimate principle of the cosmos, that the source of the cosmos is not intelligible in itself, since it is not an Intellect; ‘it’ is beyond Intellect. By denying the Intellect as the highest (dual) principle of the cosmos, Plotinus must also admit that actuality is not the highest and most prior principle of reality. Contrary to Plato and Aristotle (and the Pythagoreans), Plotinus argues that the Indefinite Dyad is a derivative of the One, thereby introducing a monistic starting point. Plotinus has transformed the two-principles doctrine into a monistic doctrine. Plotinus’ account of the derivation of Intellect is seen in Enneads V.4[7].2, V.1[10].6-7. Intellect was derived from the One and the Indefinite Dyad by a radical turning or conversion of the One to itself (i.e., the doctrine of the tolma). The derivation of the Indefinite Dyad and of inchoate nous demonstrates Plotinus’ transformation of the two-principles doctrine and his adherence to a monistic framework of the cosmos, which is reflective of his attempt at overcoming the Aristotelian ‘gap’ between the first principle and the world. While it is the case that Plotinus 13. Although there is a duality between the world and divine nous, there is also a duality within divine nous itself, as an object of thought and as a thinking subject. This formal duality is the basis for Plotinus’ criticism of Aristotle’s assertion of the absolute simplicity of divine nous.

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emphasizes a distinction between the One and the first effluence from the One, he also presents the One as a final and efficient cause. This ‘gap’ or duality between the first principle and the first effluence is, therefore, characterized as a minimal duality, unlike Aristotle’s strict and firm duality. The emanation of the first effluence of the One establishes a causal continuity of the first principle with its effects. The purpose of this paper, then, is not to justify Plotinus’ philosophical move towards monism or to demonstrate an apparent weakness in Aristotle’s first principle. Rather, the purpose of this short article is, on the one hand, to highlight the shift from the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Aristotelian dualistic first principle to Plotinus’ monistic first principle via Plotinus’ analysis and critique of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine, and, on the other, to simply appreciate the brilliance of Plotinus as a first-rate philosopher.

Bibliography Cleary, J. “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” in Pensée de l’‘Un’ dans l’histoire de la philosophie: Études en hommage au professeur Werner Beierwaltes. Éds. J.-M. Narbonne et A. Reckermann. (Laval, Can. : Les Presses de l’Université Laval), 2004. Cleary, J. “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Form Numbers,” in Platon und Aristoteles—sub ratione veritatis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Wieland, zum 70. Geburststag. Herausgegeben von Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat und Alejandro G. Vigo. (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht), 2004, pp. 3-30, esp. pp. 12-16. Cleary, J. “‘Powers That Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle.” Méthexis 11 (1998): 19-64. Dillon, J. “Plotinus, Enn. III 9 1 and Later Views on the Intelligible World.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 100 (1969): 63-70. Dillon, J. The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy (347-274 BC). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. Elders, L. Aristotle’s Theology: A Commentary on Book Λ of the Metaphysics. Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum & Comp. N.V., 1972. Halfwassen, J. Hegel und der Spätantike Neuplatonismus: Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik des Einen und des Nous in Hegels spekulativer und geschichtlicher Deutung. (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag), 1999.

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Halfwassen, J. Der Aufstieg Um Einen: Untersuchungen zu Platon und Plotin. (Stuttgart: B.G. Teubner), 1992. Lloyd, A. C. “Non-Discursive Thought—An Enigma of Greek Philosophy,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70 (1969-1970), 261-274. Owen, G. E. L. “ TITHENAI TA PHAINOMENA,” in Aristote et les Problèmes de Méthode, 83-103. Louvain: Publications Univaersitaires, 1961.

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The role of the electronic lexicography in the research on Plotinus: the meaning of logos in its relationships with the Aristotelian nous

E V Catholic University, Milan – Italy

My purpose in this paper is to give a methodological example of an electronic terminological research about the semantic field and interactions of the term logos in Plotinus, in its relationships with Plato and Aristotle. This kind of research is part of a new project, started a few years ago at the Catholic University of Milan and scheduled to publish fully lemmatized, electronic and personalized lexicons on the most important philosophers of the whole antiquity. The new electronic lexicon series published by “Biblia” allows you not only to search single words (i.e. lemmata, and declined or conjugated forms) throughout the whole work of each author and of many authors altogether (so far Plato, Plotinus, Aristotle and the Stoics)1, but also to make a crossed research of 1. See Plato, Lexicon (I), edited by R. Radice, in collaboration with I. Ramelli and E. Vimercati, electronic edition by R. Bombacigno, pp. 1016 + CD-Rom, Biblia, Milan, 2003; Plotinus, Lexicon (II), edited by R. Radice, electronic edition by R. Bombacigno, pp. 438 + CD-Rom, Biblia, Milan, 2004; Aristoteles, Lexicon (III), edited by R. Radice, in collaboration with T. Gammacurta, L. Palpacelli, I. Ramelli, N. Scotti, E. Vimercati, electronic edition by R. Bombacigno, 2 vols., pp. 1270 + CD-Rom, Biblia, Milan, 2005; Stoics, Lexicon (IV), edited by R. Radice, in collaboration with L. Palpacelli, C. Pisoni, I. Ramelli, L. Stochino, F. Scrivani, E. Vimercati, 4 vols., pp. 4040 + CD-Rom, Biblia, Milano, 2007. For information, see the website www.biblia.it.

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several words used in a same passage by these philosophers. In the past this kind of research could be done just with a great effort and amount of time. Moreover, using these lexicons the meaning and the semantic field of every word can be geometrically represented in a logical imprint. In this paper I am not going to draw final conclusions about such a complex and wide concept as the one of logos in Plotinus, and the passages involved in this preliminary research should be carefully and more systematically investigated in the future. We can start convinced that the meaning of every term – especially if they are philosophically complex and significant – is most of all explained by its relationships with other terms, and specifically with the other words with which one term appears in the same sentence. This because the sentence represents the shortest semantic unit within a full text. Therefore, to understand the meaning of a term, we should first of all analyze the relationships of this term with the other words of the same sentence. This is even more important when in a same period several words appear with a deep philosophical meaning, like in Plotinus. But we are also convinced of the importance of the quantitative aspect of the occurrences within the philosophical vocabulary of an author; we think that, to understand the philosophical background of a text, it could be useful to consider the amount of occurrences of each term, to realize how significant every word is in the economy of the whole work and to find out the philosophical influence of previous authors on the author in question. In the case of Plotinus, we will consider carefully the number of occurrences of the term logos and its close relationships with the semantic family of the term nous, and then we’ll compare the results with those obtained from Plato and Aristotle. Now, the general context of the term logos consists of 868 occurrences (in 658 sentences) in Plotinus, of 2483 occurrences (in 2163 sentences) in Plato and of 2368 occurrences (in 1899 sentences) in Aristotle. If considered the different extension of the works of these three philosophers, we should infer that logos in Plotinus is attested with a higher frequency than in Plato and

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than in Aristotle2, who moreover often use logos in connection with general verbs meaning “to tell” or “to say”, like lego, eiro, and phemì (much more than Plotinus does)3. Apparently, this could mean that in Plato and in Aristotle the linguistic meaning of logos is more important – or, at least, more attested – than its (philosophical or theoretical) technical meaning. These 868 occurrences of logos in Plotinus can be distinguished in three main semantic fields: 1) a linguistic meaning (in the sense of language, expression, word, common talk or discussion, and so on); 2) a logical or gnoseological meaning (in the sense of hypothesis, thesis, explanation, argument, demonstration, etc.); 3) an ontological or metaphysical meaning (in the sense of the basic ground of the reality and, therefore, of (formal) reason or intellect). To understand better these three semantic fields, we should consider the relationships between logos and the following terms: 1) for the linguistic field, with verbs meaning “to tell” or “to say”, like lego, eiro, and phemì; 2) for the logical or gnoseological meaning, with the semantic field of nous; 3) for the ontological or metaphysical meaning, with terms like morphè, schema, idea and eidos. In this case, I will consider specifically the second kind of relationships, but we will see that the connection between logos and nous in Plotinus has also clear metaphysical implications. The semantic family of nous is very large, if we look at substantives, adjectives and verbs. To make a selection, I considered the term logos in connection with 17 to 21 terms4, which are reproduced on the tables at the end of this paper5. Every table shows how many times the terms of the family of nous occur both one by one, and together with logos (i.e. in the same sentence), 2. On the total number of voices, the percentage of use of logos in Plotinus is 0,0039%; in Plato it is 0,0036%; in Aristotle it is 0,0022%. There is a great difference of use between Plotinus and Aristotle. 3. 1092 times in Plato (which is the 44% of all the occurrences of logos); 772 in Aristotle (which is the 32% of all the occurrences of logos); 200 in Plotinus (which is the 23% of all the occurrences of logos). 4. I chose the following terms: nous, dianoia, noesis, dianoesis, noema, dianoetikos, noeros, noetos, dianoetos, noetikos, ennoema, ennoia, katanoema, dianoeo, katanoeo, ennoeo, noeo, katanoesis, ennoesis, ennous, epinoia. 5. In Aristotle the terms katanoesis, ennoesis, ennous and epinoia do not occur; for this reason logos hasn’t been considered in relationship with 21 terms, but with 17.

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in Plotinus, in Plato and in Aristotle. Every panel shows the total number of occurrences and, in brackets, the number of passages with philosophical relevance. A selection, therefore, has been made. First of all it is noteworthy that the number of passages in which logos occurs together with nous in Plotinus is much higher than in Aristotle6, but is also higher than in Plato7, if considered again the different extension of the work of these philosophers. Probably this datum is not casual, especially if related to the occurrences of the other terms of the family of nous: noesis, for example, is used by Plotinus much more than by Plato and by Aristotle8, and the same we could say about noetos9, noema10, ennoia11, but also about noeo12. Moreover, a few terms used by Plotinus do no appear in Plato and/or in Aristotle; for example noeros, katanoesis, ennoesis, ennous, epinoia, ennoeo and so on. So, a preliminary and overall view seems to show a quite different use (at least quantitative, but also qualitative, I think) both of the term logos and of the semantic field of nous in the three authors. Disregarding the passages where logos occurs in general expressions like “logon didonai” (“to talk about something” or “to give a rational explanation about something”) or similar13, in Plotinus logos and nous occur significantly together in two main 6. Plotinus: 73 (69) vs. Aristotle: 21 (17). 7. Plotinus: 73 (69) vs. Plato 67 (40). 8. Noesis: in Plotinus 263 times (15 times in association with logos); in Plato 24 times (4 times in association with logos); in Aristotle 56 times (8 times in association with logos). 9. Noetos: in Plotinus 316 times (24 times in association with logos); in Plato 28 times (6 times in association with logos); in Aristotle 60 times (8 times in association with logos). 10. Noema: in Plotinus 24 times (5 times in association with logos); in Plato 11 times (just once in association with logos); in Aristotle 12 times (but never in association with logos). 11. Ennoia: in Plotinus 41 times (7 times in association with logos); in Plato and in Aristotle 8 times (just once in association with logos). 12. Noeo: in Plotinus 500 times (19 times in association with logos); in Plato 109 times (18 times in association with logos); in Aristotle 193 times (18 times in association with logos). 13. See, e.g., Enneads I, 1, 5, 26; I, 4, 6, 1; III, 2, 17, 16; IV, 4, 30, 17; VI, 3, 18, 8.

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fields: the anthropological one (i.e. with reference to the human being) and the cosmological one (with reference to the nature and to the structure of the universe). In the first sense logos – in association with nous – appears most of all in the I and in the IV Ennead, which are non casually dedicated to the nature of the human being, to the happiness, to the virtue and to the soul. In the second sense logos occurs many times in the II, III, V and VI Ennead, which are dedicated to the heaven, to the substance, to the matter, to the providence and to the hierarchical structure of the reality (including the One). Both in an anthropological and in a cosmological meaning Plotinus apparently introduces a double kind of relationship between logos and nous: 1) either these two terms seem to indicate a very similar concept – i.e. the Reason or the Intellect –, or (in most of the passages) 2) they indicate two different concepts, one subordinate to the other: in this case, logos is used in the sense of (formal) reason generated by the Intellect (i.e. by the nous). Just a few examples: 1) for the first case, discussing about the matter, Plotinus says that “ho nous logos”, that these concepts coincide, and that “the nous sees the (rational) forming principle in each thing and considers that what is under it is dark because it lies below the light”14; the same we could state about the kinds of being, when Plotinus says that “the nous is like one great complete intelligible principle (logos) embracing them all (i.e. all the things of which there are intelligible forming principles), and it goes through them starting from its own first principles, or rather it has always gone through them”15. 2) The second kind of relationship is more attested. Although the logos, as a rational principle, is also considered as a 14. See Enneads II, 4, 5, 8 (for the translation see Plotinus, Enneads, translated by A.H. Armstrong, 7 vols., Cambridge Mass. (Loeb), 1966-1988, slightly modified). 15. See Enneads VI, 2, 21, 27 (nous […] estin heis hoion logos, megas, teleios, pantas periechon, apò ton proton autou epexion, mallon de aei epexelthon, hoste medepote to epexienai alethes einai). See also I, 4, 2, 24 and VI, 7, 18 42, where once again logos and nous seem to have a similar meaning; I, 2, 3, 11, where the logos and the nous seems to have similar features, opposed to the body.

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common feature of the whole intelligible realm, in a few passages Plotinus makes clear that the nous and the logos are not the same thing, that they have different functions and (in a few passages) hold a different position in the universe. In many cases the logos is described as a rational principle generated or produced by the nous, which holds a higher hierarchical position. This hierarchical relationship is apparently set by Plotinus himself, when he says in two (almost) identical passages that “nou de gennema logos tis kai hypostasis, to dianooumenon” (see Enneads V, 1, 7, 42 and III, 5, 9, 20): the logos (or, at least, a few aspects of it, tis) is here something generated by the nous and a sort of (improper) hypostasis, maybe higher than the soul, maybe parallel to the soul, but in any case coming after the Intellect. The position of the logos in the system of Plotinus should be systematically analyzed, what in this paper could not be done16. Anyway, as Plotinus says, we should not consider the logos as an intermediate hypostasis between the nous and the soul (because in this case the logos, i.e. the rational principle, would be present in the soul just as an image, and, therefore, the soul would not be able to think)17, and, at the same time, we should notice that “the soul is the rational principle of all things, and the nature of soul is the last and lowest rational principle (logos) of the intelligibles and the beings in the intelligible world”18. In this sense, the logos – as formal reason – seems to be a sort of improper hierarchical hypostasis, subordinate to the

16. On the nature of the logos and on its place in the intelligible world, see, e.g., J.M. Rist, Plotinus: the road to reality, Cambridge, 1967; D.J. O’Meara, Structures hiérarchiques dans la pensée de Plotin. Études historiques et interprétative, Leiden, 1975; F. Turlot, Le «logos» chez Plotin, «Les Études Philosophiques» IV, 1985; L. Couloubaritsis, Le Logos hénologique chez Plotin, in Sophies Maietores, «Chercheurs de Sagesse», Hommage à Jean Pépin, sous la direction de M.O. Goulet-Cazé, G. Madec, D. O’Brien, Paris, 1992; M. Fattal, Logos, pensée et verité dans la philosophie grecque, Paris-Montréal, 2001; Id., Logos et image chez Plotin, Paris-Montréal, 1998. 17. See Enneads II, 9, 1, 32-33 (there is no place for a “fourth hypostasis” between the Intellect and the soul); II, 9, 2, 57 ff. (the soul would not be able to think). 18. See Enneads IV, 6, 3, 5 ff. (logos gar esti panton, kai logos eschatos men ton noeton kai ton en to noeto he psychè physis, protos dè ton en to aisthestò pantì).

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nous at a lower level, but not placed in the traditional three-fold hierarchical system of Plotinus (One-Nous-Soul). Whatever the nature is both of the logos and of the nous, they seem to have a cosmological hierarchical position in the system of Plotinus; this hierarchical position is quite clear and precise for the nous, which is generated by the One, but could be probably assumed in a few passages for the logos as well or, at least, for a few aspects of it. Well, if we consider the crossed references of logos and nous in Plato and in Aristotle, we can discern – like in Plotinus – an anthropological and a cosmological use of these two words. But I think that an analysis of the passages could show a slight difference of use in the three authors. In Plato logos occurs 67 times in association with nous, but it is remarkable 1) that in many cases logos and nous are not used in a philosophical technical meaning, but in the general sense of “to talk about something” (logon didonai; logos meaning “speech”) or “to think about something (noun echein)”; 2) that many occurrences are isolated in the dialogues: in 14 dialogues this combination of terms occurs just once. The dialogues where Plato more systematically uses logos and nous together are the Philebus (10 times), the Timaeus (10 times) and the Laws (18 times). In the Philebus and in the Laws the terms are used as far as they concern ethics, while in the Timaeus they are related to Plato’s cosmological view19. The ethical use of the terms is connected with the way to the virtue, which in a few cases is identified with the nous, with the truth and with the divine life20, although these concepts are considered by Plato as inferior to the supreme Good in itself21.

Nevertheless, in this passage the term logos seems to indicate not only a single “step” or “level” in the intelligible world, but also – as rational principle – a common feature of this intelligible world. 19. In association with other terms of the family of nous, logos is also used in a logical or gnoseological meaning (see, e.g., Sophista 260c1, 263e3, 264a8, 265c7; Respublica 511d6, 529c7). 20. See, e.g., Philebus 33b11, 65c5, 66e1, 67a5. In Laws 688b3 the nous is identified with the phronesis as the highest virtue. 21. See again Philebus 67a5.

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In the Timaeus logos and nous show a double semantic field: in a few cases they indicate the reason and the intellect as the main quality of the demiurge and of his mind22, while in other cases they specify the rationality as the main feature both of the ideal and of the generated world23. For this analysis it is important that, despite the great value of logos and nous in the Platonic dialogues and in Plato’s cosmological thought, in no case they seem to indicate a specific hierarchical entity and, considered in themselves, in no passage they seem to hold a precise hierarchical position. Plato himself says that the supreme Good is placed at a higher level than the nous and that the Good is superior to it24. Although the logos and the nous are the main features of the ideal world and of the demiurge, apparently they are not placed in a single and well defined “step” or hypostasis, as it happens in a few passages of the Enneads, where the nous is certainly a hypostasis and the logos seems to be something similar to an (improper) hypostasis. In Aristotle the combined use of logos and nous together is rather limited (just 21 cases; 17 with a philosophical relevance). This is quite surprising, as the semantic field of nous in Aristotle is normally considered very important25. Logos is generally used 1) in the anthropological field, to indicate the human mind or the rational part of the soul26, 2) in the ethical field, to indicate the rational faculty which regulates moral decisions (and in this sense logos and nous are in opposition, time by time, to the emotions or to the fate)27, and 3) in the logical field, where logos normally means “argument” or “reasoning”, often in conjunction with dianoia28. On the other hand, as it is well known, Aristotle considers 22. See, e.g., Timaeus 51b6 ff., 51e2 ff., 91c4 ff. 23. See, e.g., Timaeus 38c3, 51b6, 92c4. See also Phaedo 97b8 ff. (where the nous is ho diakosmon te kai panton aitios) and Philebus 30c2 ff. 24. See again Philebus 67a5. 25. It is nonetheless surprising that in Aristotle the term nous by itself occurs “only” 244 times, in Plato 410 times, in Plotinus 992 times. 26. See, e.g., De anima 415a11 ff., 427a17 ff., 432a-433b; Ethica Nicomachea 1142a25 ff., 1143a 35 ff.; Ethica Eudemea 1248a32. 27. See, e.g., Ethica Nicomachea 1168b34; Magna Moralia 1207a2 ff., 1208a12 ff. 28. In this meaning logos occurs especially in De Sophisticis Elenchis 170b171a.

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the Prime Mover as a noesis noeseos, and in this sense he gives the Intellect a clear position in the universe. But the role of the nous in Aristotle and in Plotinus is quite different, not only because the first principle in the Enneads is not the nous, but the One, but also because in Aristotle there is no hierarchical structure of the universe. As far as the logos concerns, neither in Plato nor in Aristotle it seems to have a well defined place in the cosmological structure of the universe, while – as we saw before – in a few cases Plotinus gives the logos a quite precise position, as far as it is generated by the nous itself29. Therefore, we should consider the possibility that, in his cosmological view, Plotinus was also (directly or indirectly) influenced by a different tradition from the Platonic and the Aristotelian one: maybe by the Judaism in Alexandria (Philo first of all), maybe by the Stoic philosophy, where the logos has a well defined and crucial position in the universe (although in a different sense from Plotinus). Philo’s use of the term logos is not so large as in Plato and in Aristotle30, but it is very precise. In Philo the logos is the most important intermediate step (dynamis, in this sense) between God and the created world and it is necessary to preserve the absolute transcendence and providence of God, and, at the same time, his relationship with the created world itself31. In the Greek texts of the Stoics (which are fragmentary in large sections) the term logos occurs 1573 times; this great amount of occurrences justifies the great importance of the Stoic logos as the first principle of the universe, the rational and divine providence which generates and regulates the whole world. Although Plotinus’ use of the term logos in a cosmological sense is clearly

29. See also R. Chiaradonna, Sostanza, movimento, analogia. Plotino critico di Aristotele, Napoli, 2002. 30. Philo uses the term logos 1447 times. 31. See, e.g., Legum Allegoriae III, 175; De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 65; De Opificio Mundi 8, 20, 24, 25; De Cherubim 127; De fuga et invenzione 112; Quis rerum divinarum heres sit 119, 188, 201. On the concept of logos in Philo, see, e.g., R. Radice, Platonismo e creazionismo in Filone di Alessandria, Milan, 1989; Id., Allegoria e paradigmi etici in Filone di Alessandria. Commentario al “Legum Allegoriae”, Milan, 2000; D.T. Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato, Leiden, 1986.

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different from Philo and from the Stoics, an investigation on the influence of the Hellenistic tradition on the Enneads would be worthwhile, as the use of logos both in Philo and in the Stoics is very large. In this sense, I think, the new electronic lexicons could be an important support to investigate the relationships between logos and the family of nous, especially in Philo32.

32. Philo uses the term nous more than 700 times. One of the next issues of the Lexicons will concern Philo.

1. PLOTINUS I 2

3

4

5

6

7

8

logos

dianoia

noesis

dianoesis

noema

noeros

noetos

15 (15)

dianoetikos

2 (2)

5 (5)

-

7 (7)

24 (24)

logos

868

3 (3)

2

dianoia

3 (3)

59

3

noesis

15 (15)

4

dianoesis

2 (2)

5

noema dianoetikos noeros

5 (5)

8

noetos

24 (24)

9

dianoetos

-

10

noetikos

-

11

ennoema

-

12

ennoia

7 (3)

13

nous

73

14

katanoema

-

15

dianoeo

3 (2)

6 7

7 (7)

10

dianoetos noetikos -

-

11

12

13

ennoema

ennoia

nous

-

7 (3)

73 (69)

14

15

katanoema dianoeo -

3 (2)

263 7 24 8 54 316 5 41 992 23

41

1

9

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1

42

2. PLOTINUS II 1 logos

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

katanoeo

ennoeo

noeo

katanoesis

ennoesis

ennous

epinoia

-

19 (16)

3 (3)

-

-

3 (3)

logos

868

2 (1)

16

katanoeo

2 (1)

11

17

ennoeo

-

18

noeo

19 (16)

19

katanoesis

3 (3)

20

ennoesis

-

21

ennous

-

22

epinoia

3 (3)

5

Emmanuele Vimercati

1

500 8 1 4 22

3. PLATO I 2

logos

dianoia noesis

1

logos

2483

23 (15)

2

dianoia

25 (15)

158

3

noesis

4 (4)

4

dianoesis

1 (1)

5

noema dianoetikos noeros

1 (-)

8

noetos

6 (6)

9

dianoetos

-

10

noetikos

-

11

ennoema

-

6 7

3

-

12

ennoia

1 (-)

13

nous

67 (40)

14

katanoema

-

15

dianoeo

26 (14)

4 (4)

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

dianoesis noema dianoetikos noeros noetos dianoetos noetikos 1 (1)

1 (-)

-

-

6 (6)

-

-

11

12

ennoema ennoia -

1 (-)

13 nous 67 (40)

14 katanoema -

15 dianoeo 26 (14)

24 5 11 1 28 8 410 1

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1

265

43

44

4. PLATO II 1 logos

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

katanoeo

ennoeo

noeo

katanoesis

ennoesis

ennous

epinoia

15 (5)

18 (16)

-

-

-

-

logos

2483

10 (2)

16

katanoeo

10 (2)

56

17

ennoeo

15 (5)

18

noeo

18 (16)

19

katanoesis

-

20

ennoesis

-

21

ennous

-

22

epinoia

-

Emmanuele Vimercati

1

184 109 2 1 2 1

5. ARISTOTLE 1

2

3

dianoia noesis

logos

2368

34 (28)

2

dianoia

34 (28)

205

3

noesis

8 (8)

4

dianoesis

5

3 (3)

7

noema dianoetikos noeros

8

noetos

8 (8)

6

10 noetikos 2 (2)

11 ennoema

12

13

14 15 16 katakataennoia nous dianoeo noeo noema 1 (1) 21(17) 4 (4) 2 (2)

17 ennoeo

18 noeo

18(14)

56 1 12 23 1

9

dianoetos

10

noetikos

11

ennoema

12

ennoia

1 (1)

13

21 (17)

15

nous katanoema dianoeo

16

katanoeo

2 (2)

17

ennoeo

18

noeo

14

8 (8)

9 dianoetos

60 10

2 (2)

14 1

8 244 1

4 (4)

35 15

The role of the electronic lexicography in the research on Plotinus

logos 1

4 5 6 7 8 dianodianonoema noeros noetos esis etikos 3 (3) 8 (8)

10

P.S. The terms katanoesis, ennoesis, ennous, epinoia do not occur in Aristotle.

193

45

18 (14)

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48 Emmanuele Vimercati

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Plotinus on Celestial Motion

A F Concordia University, Montreal

Introduction Plotinus was a highly selective investigator of the natural world. The spirit of his approach to the study of nature was emphatically not that of Aristotle. In particular, Plotinus did not share Aristotle’s commitment to the study of nature in all its aspects and for its own sake.1 Rather, his interest was confined to specific parts or particular aspects of the natural world. Porphyry grouped together Plotinus’ writings that dealt with the natural world in the second Ennead, which “contains a collection of topics in natural philosophy, and consists of the works on the cosmos or pertaining to the cosmos” (Vita Plot. 24. 37-39). From the first and the second writings collected in this Ennead it is fairly clear that Plotinus was interested in, and had a great deal to say on, the material composition of the celestial bodies as well as the explanation of their motion. One may wonder why these are the topics in natural philosophy that interested Plotinus. To understand why Plotinus concerned himself with celestial physics one ought to bear in mind that Plotinus shared the view of Plato and Aristotle that the celestial bodies are not only alive but enjoy a

1. For Aristotle’s insistence on the importance of a study of the celestial as well as the sublunary world, and the latter in all its parts, animals and plants included, see Parts of Animals 645 a 4-7.

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divine, blissful life. Their regular, everlasting motion was thought to be the visible manifestation of a type of soul which was not only equipped with superior powers but also realized in a superior body. It is sufficient to look at the way Plotinus reacted to the Gnostic attempt to humble the stars to appreciate how deeply his interest in the celestial world was rooted in an enchanted conception of the natural world. This conception allowed him not only to find order in this world but also to specify the place that we occupy in it. It is fairly clear that for Plotinus we are not first in this order. For him, there are other intelligent living beings which are closer to the intelligible world (ii 9. 16. 10-11), and the study of these beings is an avenue to the realm of eternal truths (ii 9. 16. 49-56).2 My focus in this essay is Plotinus’ explanation of celestial motion. But it is not possible to concentrate on this topic to the exclusion of the topic of the material composition of the celestial bodies. The reason why this is not possible becomes clear if one considers the logical structure of the explanation envisioned by Plotinus. This explanation involves a reference to a soul as well as to a body. In other words, there are two distinct components of his explanation of celestial motion: a psychological cause, that is, a soul of a certain type, and a material cause, namely a body of a certain type. The body in question is fire. Plotinus not only rejects the Aristotelian thesis that the heavens are made of a special element unique to them, the so-called fifth body; he also rejects the Platonic thesis that that the celestial bodies are made of a combination of earth, water, air and fire.3 His view is that the celestial bodies are made exclusively of fire (ii 1. 7. 10-19). 2. Plotinus’ conception of the world is firmly grounded in the Greek philosophical tradition. This tradition enables Plotinus to portray the Gnostic humbling of the stars as an aberration attempted by uneducated people. For Plotinus’ reaction to the Gnostic attempt to humble the stars, see ii 9. 5. 1-15 and ii 9. 8. 30-38. Of course, the Gnostic attempt to de-vitalize the stars was a reflection of a different conception of the world and the place that we occupy in it. See, in particular, ii 9. 9. 52-60. For a convenient introduction to the Gnostic conception of the world and Plotinus’ reaction to it, see Jonas (1958): 241-265. 3. I call this thesis “Platonic” because it is grounded on a specific reading of the Timaeus. See FAlcon (2001): 123-144. See also Dufour (2003): 133135.

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Moreover, the fire in question is celestial fire (ii 1. 7. 25-26 combined with 33-43).4 According to Plotinus, this is the true meaning of the Timaeus. I will not elaborate on Plotinus’ interpretation of the Timaeus.5 In due course I will return to the significance of Plotinus’ rejection of the Aristotelian doctrine that the heavens are made of a body that is not reducible to any of the sublunary simple bodies. For the time being, however, it is more important to try to understand how fire, or rather celestial fire,6 enters into the explanation of celestial motion.

Celestial Motion Explained Let us begin with the writing transmitted by Porphyry with the title On Circular Motion [14]. The circular motion Plotinus is concerned with is the motion of the (outer part of the) heavens. What exactly is the contribution of celestial fire to the explanation envisioned by Plotinus? First of all, the possibility that fire naturally performs rectilinear motion is taken into account. In this case, however, celestial motion could only be the result of the action of a soul which redirects the rectilinear motion of fire and forces this body to move in a circle (ii 2. 1. 14-19). This is highly unsatisfactory, especially in light of the fact that the celestial bodies are thought to be divine beings enjoying an eternal, blissful life appropriate to their divine status. There is, nevertheless, always the possibility that celestial fire already moves in a circle. The advantage of thinking of celestial motion as result of the action of a soul on a body that already performs circular motion is suggested by Plotinus himself when he points out that in this way “the celestial soul does not get tired of carrying the body around” (ii 2. 1. 37-39). I will return to the significance of this claim in due course. For the time being, let us try to understand how fire can perform circular motion. Doesn’t in fact every body, including fire, move in a straight line? 4. Cf. ii 7. 4. 11-13. 5. See Dufour (2003): 146-153 and Wilberding (2006): 68-70; 188194; 209-214. 6. I refer the reader to the end of this essay for more on the ambiguity between fire and celestial fire.

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For Plotinus, fire performs rectilinear motion “until it has come to the place ordained to it” (ii 2. 1. 19-23). Once fire has reached that place, it does not stay at rest but moves in a circle. A reason for this behaviour is also advanced: “the nature of fire is such that fire is in motion” (ii 2. 1. 23-24). Plotinus is definitely tentative at this point: fire can no longer perform rectilinear motion when it has reached the extremity of the world, either because fire would get dispersed if it always moved in a straight line (ii 2. 1. 24-25), or because there is nothing beyond the extremity of the sensible world and therefore fire cannot keep on moving in a straight line (ii 2. 1. 27-29). Either way there is only one possibility left, that fire keeps on moving, but in a circle rather than in a straight line. The writing transmitted by Porphyry with the title On the Heaven [40] confirms that for Plotinus fire does not lose its mobility once it has reached its natural place (ii 1. 3. 14-18). On the one hand, fire cannot start moving downwards once it has reached the extremity of the universe because the nature of fire is such that fire has no inclination to move downwards. On the other hand, fire cannot go any higher once it has reached its natural place. “It remains for this fire to be tractable and easy to be carried around by a soul” (ii 1. 3. 18-21). It was a substantial claim of Aristotle’s that fire naturally performs a simple rectilinear motion. If unimpeded, fire naturally moves upwards until it has reached its natural place. But, at least for Aristotle, the nature of fire is such that fire stops moving when it has reached its natural place. Put differently, the nature of fire is such that fire is at rest when it is in its natural place. Why? Remember that for Aristotle nature is the principle of motion and rest. Plotinus is consciously departing from this Aristotelian doctrine when he stresses that fire does not lose its mobility once it has reached its natural place. Although the wording is not quite the same in the two treatises, Plotinus seems to be committed to a theoretical position that is best understood against this Aristotelian background. In all probability, he endorsed an alternative doctrine of motion that looks very much like a modification (or a revision) of the doctrine that Aristotle presents in the De caelo.

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Plotinus and Xenarchus Can we say something more specific about this theoretical position? We can answer this question by looking at how Proclus and Simplicius understood Plotinus. Let us begin with Proclus and the information preserved in his commentary on the Timaeus. In defending the Timaeus against Aristotle and his thesis of the existence of a simple celestial body distinct from earth, water, air, and fire, Proclus appeals to a doctrine of natural motion that he explicitly ascribes to Plotinus. This doctrine goes like this. When a simple body is in its natural place this body either is at rest or moves in a circle. Why? Because it is only by being at rest or by moving in a circle that this body can occupy its natural place. By contrast, during a rectilinear motion, a simple body either is not yet in that place or has just left it (In Tim. ii 11. 24-31). Later on Proclus ascribes the same doctrine not only to Plotinus but also to Ptolemy (In Tim. iii 113. 30-31). In his commentary on Aristotle’s De caelo, Simplicius confirms that both Ptolemy and Plotinus endorsed a doctrine of motion according to which rectilinear motion is the motion that a body performs when it is away from its natural place: “It is important to know that Ptolemy in the book On the Elements and in the Optics, the great Plotinus, as well as Xenarchus in his difficulties against the fifth substance, say that rectilinear motion is for the elements that are still becoming, when they are in the place that is against nature, but they have not yet reached that according to nature. (In DC 20. 10-15, my translation).

Note that Simplicius does not depend on Proclus for this information. His testimony is not just an abbreviation of what Proclus says in his commentary on the Timaeus. Simplicius adds the name of Xenarchus alongside those of Ptolemy and Plotinus. Elsewhere I have argued that Xenarchus is the originator of the doctrine endorsed by Ptolemy and Plotinus. Xenarchus was active in the second half of the 1st century bce.7 He was known to be a Peripatetic philosopher despite the fact that he wrote a book against the thesis which traditionally defined a Peripatetic philosopher in antiquity—the thesis that the celestial bodies are made 7. Falcon (2005): 62-71.

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of a special body, unique to them. Here suffice it to say that this book did not only contain a refutation of Aristotle’s argument for the existence of a celestial simple body that naturally performs circular motion; it also contained a positive doctrine of natural motion. This doctrine consisted of a creative interpretation of the doctrine of natural motion that Aristotle offers in the De caelo. It was centered on the following ideas: 1. a simple body that is away from its natural place moves either upwards or downwards. 2. a simple body that has reached its own natural place is either at rest or moves in a circle

Xenarchus attacked Aristotle where his doctrine of natural motion was most vulnerable. That earth, water, air, and fire come to rest when they reach their respective natural place is something that we do not see or experience. Xenarchus attacked this aspect of the doctrine by exploiting Aristotle’s idea that the end of a process is also its culmination or perfection.8 He introduced the distinction between a simple body and what is becoming a simple body. Note that this distinction is at work in the testimony preserved by Simplicius. What is becoming a simple body (or an element) is the body that is moving in a straight line towards its natural place. This rectilinear motion does not count as a case of natural motion because the simple body that is away from its natural place has not fully realized its nature. Natural motion is only the kind of motion that this body eventually performs once it has reached its natural place. In the case of fire, this is circular motion. Why? Because mobility is a conspicuous feature of fire. For Plotinus fire does not lose this feature once it has reached its natural place. Remember that for Plotinus “the nature of fire is such that fire is in motion.” 9 It is therefore easy to conclude not only that fire has 8. Aristotle says that the natural motion of the elements is towards their actuality (Phys, 255 a 29-30 and De caelo 310 a 3) or towards their form (De caelo 310 a33- b1). On the connection between actuality, form, and perfection, see Alexander Quaest. ii 3 (48. 8-12) and ii 18 (62. 16-23). It is significant, I think, that the natural motion towards its form or actuality is understood by Simplicius as a natural motion towards its perfection. Cf. Simplicius, In DC 695. 7-8. More on this topic in Falcon (2005): 144-157. 9. The mobility of fire is especially important in the Platonic tradition. Plato accounts for the mobility of fire by appealing to the fact that fire is asso-

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to keep moving once it has reached its natural place but also that circular motion is the natural motion of fire, namely the motion that fully realized fire performs once it has reached its final destination. I stop here. It is not my intention to elaborate further on the positive doctrine advanced by Xenarchus or its fortune in late antiquity. This goes emphatically beyond the scope of this essay. Here I am content to make two points. First point: this doctrine was obviously successful if it came to be attached to the name of Ptolemy and Plotinus. It is not difficult to see why it was found attractive. It enabled one to incorporate the concepts of natural place and natural motion into a Platonic conception of the sensible world while at the same time disposing of the so-called fifth body, the special simple body different from and not reductible to earth, water, air, and fire. However, it is important to note that Simplicius credits Plotinus with a distinction that we do not find in his writings—the distinction between a simple body and what is becoming a simple body. In his writings Plotinus is committed to the view that a body away from its own natural place is moving in a straight line—for instance, fire is moving upwards—as well as the view that a simple body in its own place is either at rest or moves in a circle (ii 1. 8. 17-19).10 In other words, Plotinus accepted what I have called the central ideas of the revision of Aristotle’s theory of natural motion developed by Xenarchus. Second point: from a recent contribution on Plotinus’ natural science we read that Plotinus “ [proceeded] in large part by way of textual exegesis, with the Timaeus as a text at issue.”11 This is obviously right. I would only like to add that the account of the sensible world offered in the Timaeus could be enriched, if not even revised, by Plotinus. For one thing, there is no doctrine of natural place in the Timaeus. Plotinus enriched, and indeed revised, the Platonic tradition by incorporating a doctrine of ciated or identified with the tetrahedron. The tetrahedron is the “most mobile” body. Why? Because this polyhedron is made of the fewest surfaces (Tim. 56 a 6-b 1). 10. In passing, I note that this must be the passage that Proclus has in mind. Cf. Wilberding (2005): 231-233. 11. Hathaway (2002): 33.

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natural motion that is a creative interpretation of the doctrine advanced by Aristotle in the De caelo. This obviously presupposed on his part familitarity not only with the De caelo but also with the exegetical activity on its text.12 From Porphyry we learn that Plotinus used the commentaries of Aspasius, Alexander, and Adrastus as starting points for his own philosophical theorizing. In this case we can speculate that Plotinus did not have to read Xenarchus. Excerpts from this book became an integral part of the commentary tradition as early as the commentary that Alexander wrote on the De caelo. It is likely that Plotinus found Xenarchus and his creative interpretation of the doctrine of natural motion in Alexander’s commentary on the De caelo. I note, in passing, that this is also the way Xenarchus was trasmitted to late antiquity.13

Plotinus and Aristotle At this point it seems to me important to stress that Plotinus shares with Aristotle the view that the celestial world is a special region of the sensible world. Plotinus has no problems in separating the celestial from the sublunary part of the sensible world.14 Yet he is no friend to Aristotle when it comes to the material composition of the heavens: “there would be no problems for Aristotle, if one accepted his assumptions regarding the fifth body” (ii 1. 2. 12-13). If we want to understand why Plotinus rejects the Aristotelian doctrine, we must bear in mind that the fifth body is not just different from earth, water, air, and fire; for Aristotle, this body cannot be reduced to earth, water, air, and fire. By introducing a celestial simple body distinct from and not reducible to earth, water, air, and fire Aristotle is not only affirming the division of the sensible world into a celestial and a sublunary part. He is also introducing a material discontinuity within the natural world which few in antiquity were prepared to 12. The reference in this case is Merlan (1943): 179-191. 13. This commentary has not reached us, but we can still read the excerpts from Xenarchus in the commentary that Simplicius wrote on the De caelo in the sixth century ce. 14. There is a superlunary and a sublunary region of the natural world for Plotinus. Consider, for example, Plotinus’ language in ii 1: “things below the lunar sphere” (ii 1.2. 3); “below the moon,” (ii 1. 7. 39).

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accept. Few in antiquity were ready to follow Aristotle, especially in light of the fact that a non-stationary fire could account not only for the mobility of the heavens but also for their luminosity and incorruptibility. Consider how Plotinus deals with the incorruptibility of the heavens. Like Aristotle, Plotinus holds that the heavens are not subject to corruption. Unlike Aristotle, however, he does not see the need to appeal to a celestial simple body different from and not reducible to earth, water, air, and fire to secure this result. Recall that the nature of fire is such that fire has no inclination to move downwards (ii 1. 8. 3-4). Therefore no loss of celestial fire is possible unless there is something that can act upon that fire and can force it to start moving downwards (ii 1. 8. 4-5). But if no fire is ever lost from the celestial world, there is no need to replace or replenish that fire.15 In this context, Plotinus deals with the traditional topic of celestial nourishment.16 He makes it very clear that no material exchange between the celestial and the sublunary world is possible. In so doing, he is in line with what Aristotle says on the same topic in the Meteorology.17 This reinforces the impression that the separation between the celestial and the sublunary world envisioned by Plotinus is as strong as the one endorsed by Aristotle.18 Yet Plotinus does not follow Aristotle in introducing a special body to account for the incorruptibility and mobility of the celestial world. He obviously thinks that pure fire, or fully realized fire, adequately accounts for these features. It is time to return to the claim that for Plotinus the heavens are made of celestial fire. This claim is to be taken with a grain of

15. This position is strengthened by the assumption that the heavens, as well as the celestial bodies, are made solely of fire. This undermines any argument for the corruptibility of the celestial world based on the instability of its material constituents. 16. On Plotinus on celestial nourishment, see Dufour (2003): 157-163. 17. On Aristotle on celestial nourishment, see Falcon (2005): 118-121. Aristotle is reacting to a well-established tradition. For a careful study of this tradition, see Gemelli-Marciano (1993): 229-256.. 18. See also ii 1. 7. 33-43: sublunary fire cannot pass into the celestial world. I refer the reader to Wilberding (2006): 218-219 for an interpretation of this passage.

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salt. Plotinus emphatically rejects Aristotle’s assumptions concerning the fifth body (ii 1. 2. 12-13). It is significant, I think, that these assumptions are replaced by their contradictory, that the heavens are made of the same elements of which the living beings on earth are composed (ii 1. 2. 14-16). Admittedly, this assumption creates the space for different theoretical positions. In the end, Plotinus works out a position that is a specification of this assumption. His view turns out to be that the totality of the heavens are composed of fire, though they are not composed of the same species of fire. Note that Plotinus consistently speaks of fire in all the relevant passages that I have so far discussed. Consider, for example, the claim that fire is swift and quick and does not remain down here, but once fire has come to the heaven, where it must stop, it does not loose its mobility (ii 1. 3. 13 ff.). A recent commentator has argued that here Plotinus is not describing the ascent of the sublunary fire into the celestial region, as Plotinus openly denies that there can be material exchange between the celestial and the sublunary world. For consistency’s sake we must therefore think of a pre-cosmic state of the universe, similar to what Timaues does at 53 a. 19 I do not deny that this reading is possible, but I would like to suggest that Plotinus’ language is also a reflection of his concern for the material continuity of the sensible world. For Plotinus, celestial fire is not so distinct from sublunary fire that it is to be considered a different body or a distinct substance, namely a fifth body or fifth substance. Another way to make this point is this: for Plotinus there is only one element of fire, even though there are different species of fire.20

19. Wilberding (2006): 142. 20. Wilberding (2006): 147 makes a similar point. Cf. Dufour (2003): 160: “Malgré son refus radical de l’éther Plotin conserverait tout de même l’une des caractéristiques fondamentales de cet élément, à savoir qu’il se meut par nature d’un movuvement circulaire. Même s’il s’agit ici de feu et non pas d’éther, ces deux corpes élémentaires possèdent la meme propriété et one pour l’objectif commun d’expliquer le mouvement circulaire des astres. Le rejet de la position aristotélicienne n’est donc pas aussi complet que Plotin veut bien le faire croire.” If I am right, Plotinus is rejecting Aristotle’s claim and his theoretical position is not liable to the criticism that Dufour moves in the last sentence of this passage.

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I would like to conclude by returning to a general feature of the explanatory model on which Plotinus seems to rely in his explanation of celestial motion. I have already noted that this model involves a reference to a soul as well as to a body. It is significant, I think, that Plotinus and Aristotle do not disagree on the explanatory role that the body plays in the explanation of celestial motion. For both of them, an appeal to body is necessary but not sufficient to adequately explain celestial motion. In particular, Plotinus says that the celestial bodies are made of a body which is not only purer and altogether better than sublunary bodies, but also uniform and gentle, that is, agreeable to the nature of the stars (ii 1. 4. 8 combined with 12-14). By stressing that the nature of the body is not opposed to that of the stars, Plotinus is presumably responding to the objections that Aristotle advances against a certain explanatory model that requires a body as well as a soul, but makes the soul responsible for the production of the circular motion by forcing the body to move in a circle. According to Aristotle, a soul that is forcing a body to move in a circle cannot be credited with an eternal blissful life.21 One solution—by no means the only solution—is to think that the soul is acting on a body which is already performing circular motion.22 Plotinus seems to endorse this view when he says that “the celestial soul does not get tired of carrying the body around” (ii 2. 1. 37-39). The celestial soul does not get tired because the body in question is a species of fire that is to be carried around given that it is already moving with the relevant circular motion. Plotinus’ language is quite deliberate and strongly suggests, I think, that the contribution of the soul to the explanation of celestial body should not to be conflated with the contribution of the body, that is, its inclination to move in a circle.23

21. For an helpful presentation of Aristotle’s objection and the way this is received by Plotinus, see Dufour (2003): 96-100. 22. Elsewhere I argue that this is also Aristotle’s solution to the problem. Cf. Falcon (2001): 187-241. 23. For a different reading of the passage, including a discussion of Plotinus’ locution, see Wilberding (2006): 147-149.

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Selected Bibliography Dufour, R., Plotin. Sur le ciel [Ennéade ii, 1(40)]. Introduction, texte grec, traduction et commentaire. Paris 2003. Falcon, A. (2001) Corpi e movimenti. Il De caelo di Aristotele e la sua fortuna nel mondo antico. Napoli. --- (2003) “A Late Ancient Discussion of Celestial Motion: PSI xiv 1400,” in Papiri filosofici: miscellanea di studi 4. Firenze: 129141. --- (2005) Aristotle and the Science of Nature. Unity without Uniformity. Cambridge. Gemelli-Marciano, M. L., “Esalazioni e corpi celesti. Osservazioni sull’astronomia e sulla meteorologia dei Presocratici,” Elenchos 1993: 229-256. Hataway, R.F. (2002) “Plotinus and the Possibility of Natural Science,” in M.F. Wagner (ed.), Neoplatonism and Nature. Studies in Plotinus’ Enneads. Albany NY:5-21. Jonas, H., The Gnostic Religion. Boston 19632. Linguiti A. (2003) “Il cielo di Plotino,” in Platone e la tradizione platonica, Studi di filosofia antica, M. Bonazzi and F. Trabattoni (eds.), Quaderni di Acme 58: 251-264. Merlan, P. (1943) “Plotinus Enneads 2.2,” in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 74: 179-191. Moraux, P. (1963) “Quinta Essentia”, in RE xxiv 2, cols. 1171-1263. --- (1968) “Xenarchos von Seleukia”, in RE ix (1968), cols. 1422-1435. Wagner M.F. (2002) Neoplatonism and Nature. Studies in Plotinus’ Enneads. Albany NY. Wilberding, J. (2006), Plotinus. Cosmology. Oxford.

Sympathy and Likeness in Plotinus

G B Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo

This study is intended to clarify the relation between the Plotinian terms sympathy and likeness. We will begin our considerations from the aporia proposed by Plotinus at the end of Treatise 29 [IV 5], chapter 8: But suppose someone were to say that this [sympathy] is because of their likeness?1 29 [IV 5], 8, 21-23

Plotinus casts a supposition in the air… Is likeness a condition for sympathy? His answer is negative. We understand that behind the answer given by Plotinus to explain the fact that sympathy is not intimately related to likeness, there is a hidden question related to our ability to recognize or not another reality, or “another universe”2. Or yet, the ability of the Soul to recognize the sensible realities as well as the intelligible ones3. For him, perception of reality depends on, or is intricately related to the idea of sympathy among the parts of a single universe. Here Plotinus resorts to apparently opposing concepts to lead us, through them, 1. Translated by A. H. Armstrong. 2. Here Plotinus would question the existence of an “other” universe, or would only use this term to evoke another reality. We could not commit ourselves on this point in this study, but only mention it for future development. 3. It would be the right moment to remember that what interests Plotinus, in Treatises 27-29 [IV 3-5] as regards the Difficulties about the soul, is to understand how the soul, while intermediate between the sensible and intelligible realities, can relate to them, being influenced by or influencing them both ways.

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to an aporia. In reality the above mentioned question opens and closes a perspective for us. It reveals a horizon to be investigated to validate our intention to know the relationship between the raised terms; and closes at an aporia able to refer to something which surpasses the boundaries constituted by language. Plotinus begins from the premise that says that our world is a “single living being which encompasses all the living beings that are within it”4 and that the oneness of the universe comes from the fact that the universe is a whole in sympathy with itself (28 [IV 4], 32). As regards likeness, this passage makes explicit that, even distant from each other the parts of a single universe are in sympathy due to the existing likeness among them.5 Apparently in contradiction, the passages stated herein have “unity” as a converting element: the unity that justifies the sympathy and from which it can never dispense. Therefore, sympathy finds its roots within the notion of unity. It is for the soul (of the universe), as a single living creature, to make the parts constitute a single whole.6 If we take as a starting point the unity of all things – a unity that expresses itself in the soul while “One and Many”, in the Intellect while “One-Many” and in the One, while Supreme unity7 -, we could say that the idea of sympathy corresponds to the resources used by Plotinus to allow us to re-cognize “sympathetically” the unity of the cosmos. It is through sympathy that the Soul establishes perception and knowledge of the realities. Even though the notion of sympathy explains – horizontally – the relationship amid the parts of the same universe, would it serve as well to explain – vertically – the relationship and the passage from one level of reality to another? To clarify this investigation we can relate to the article by Frederic M. Shroeder Synousia, Synaistesis and Synesis: Presence

4. 28 [IV 4], 32, 5-8. 5. 28 [IV 4], 32, 18-21;29[IV 5], 1,36-40. 6. Cf. Luc Brisson, Plotin. Traités 27-29. Paris, GF Flammarion, 2005, p. 268, n. 397. 7. 10 [V 1], 8, 24-29

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and Dependence in the Plotinian Philosophy of Consciousness8 where he defines synaistesis as “a well cognitive equivalent to sympathy”9. According to the scheme proposed by him, the term Synaistesis would express horizontally the “awareness of unity and self in coherence and sympathy of parts” and “vertically, awareness of source as ground of unity and self which may culminate in direct awareness; and again vertically, quasi-awareness of product on the part of the source”10. We understand the term Synaistesis – here, synonymous with sympathy – to explain how knowledge happens among parts of the same reality (and this way it could be considered an epistemological term), but not the relation and the passage between ontological levels of reality. If we are to understand the communication and the passage from one level of reality to another, we shall refer to the term Synousia, analised by Shroeder in the same article. According to him, the term synousia expresses horizontally a feeling or “a sense of coherence, of wholeness, completeness and self-sufficiency”11, the state of being one in relation to oneself, and vertically “the continuity of unity with source as ground of being, and the presence of source to product”12. In reality, this term expresses much more than it states. It is about “being together since always”, or since the Principle. On a horizontal level, sympathy allows self knowledge and knowledge of others through the Forms, which are nothing more than a weakened reflex of the primary potency. At a vertical level the continuity of distinguished realities expresses, within its difference, the never broken connection with the Principle. From the One emanates energeia, a totally undetermined radiation, an

8. SCHROEDER, F. M., “Synousia, synaistesis and Synesis. Dependence in the Plotinian Philosophy of Counsciousness”, Niedergang der romischen Welt, II, 36,1,1987, p. 677-699. 9. Ibid, p. 679. 10. Ibid, p. 679. 11. SCHROEDER, F. M., “Synousia, synaistesis and Synesis. Dependence in the Plotinian Philosophy of Counsciousness”, Niedergang der romischen Welt, II, 36,1,1987, p. 679. 12. Ibid, p. 679.

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Presence and Aufstieg und

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effusion. This reality is the Loving Intellect.13 We may recognize that, although this energeia struggles to remain mingled with the One, it can no longer be maintained in this state, for while it is the emanation of absolute unity, it can no longer keep in itself the potency received from Him.14 Departing from the One, the energeia is again attracted by the One, and to Him it returns and lives this experience, even before its vision.15 The Loving Intellect “sees without seeing” that which “touches” it for it is in the nearest possible position to the One. It is in this way that, at being attracted and turning his gaze to the One that can never be seen, but only “foreseen” in another way, that the undetermined vision “becomes forms” and becomes Intellect. As other, the Form manifests what the Principle could not restrain in itself. This way the Intellect sees itself as a reflex of the one who has originated him. As light emanated by the Principle, it recognises, in light of what it thinks of himself, his likeness in relation to the Principle. By trying to explain, at the end of Treatise 9 [VI 9], 11 how the sage sees God in the sanctuary, Plotinus reminds us that, He [the sage] will know that he sees principle by principle and like is united with like. 9[VI 9]. 11, 30-3416

Could the Principle be known through likeness? We would dare to state that the Principle cannot be known otherwise. And in this way likeness could also be understood as a means or resource through which the Principle allows itself to be known indirectly. Likeness presupposes the existence of a relationship, a relationship with what is not, or with something we are not. We would dare to say that likeness “is what is not”17. To get to know “the other” through likeness is the same as re-cognising itself as an inverted image.

13. Cf. Pierre Hadot. Traité 38. p. 39. 14. Cf. 38 [VI 7] 15, 20-25. 15. Cf. 38[VI 7] 16, 11-14. 16. Translated by A. H. Armstrong. 17. In this way likeness has an ontological character, differing from sympathy, which, as we have seen, has an epistemological character.

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For Plotinus there are two kinds of likeness18: in the first instance, the emanation resembles the Principle with no element of identification among them, and its likeness is not reciprocal19 . As for elements whose origins refer to a same Principle, and which is found at the same level of reality, an element of identity prevails and its likeness is reciprocal20. Reciprocity also presumes a relationship – “being with” (synousia) since always. Therefore, likeness at a horizontal level is a sign of reciprocity and identity. And in this case, it makes sense to affirm that the Forms express likeness in relation to the Principle. At the vertical level, however, an element of differentiation – otherness – prevails and its relationship is not reciprocal, but simply otherness, difference. In other words, the non reciprocity here is a sign of another sort of relationship. This is what Plotinus tells us at Treatise 19 [I2], 2: But in the case of two things of which one is like the other, but the other is primary, not reciprocally related to the thing in its likeness and not to be said like it, likeness must be understood in a different sense. 19 [I 2], 2, 7-1021

What would this other way to conceive likeness be? If we want to learn what Plotinus tries to communicate here, we should to engage in another sort of thinking. It is in this sense that he talks about a “spurious reasoning”22, because there is no other way of conceiving one that no longer allows itself to be grasped by the Forms, the indefinite, the “absence of Form”, the Matter. Treatise 12 [II 4] reminds us that we can only get to know the absence of the Material quality through its very indefiniteness. In other words: By indefiniteness; for if like is known by like the indefinite is known by indefinite.23

18. 19 [I 2], 2, 1-10. 19. This kind of sameness corresponds to primary Otherness what here is our hypothesis. 20. This kind of sameness corresponds to the existing sameness between the primary Generas. 21. Translated by A. H. Armstrong 22. Cf. 12 [II 4], 10, 8-11; 12, 31-34. 23. 12 [II 4], 10, 3-5. Translated by A. H. Armstrong.

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The notion of likeness reflects an apparent paradox where Identity expresses the likeness at the horizontal level and Otherness expresses likeness at the vertical level. We could think that if Identity and Otherness relative to the Primary Generas (the Being, the Self or Identity, the Other or the Otherness, the Movement and the Rest) are indissolubly associated with the Movement that performs the distancing from its Principle, from which the Being is brought about, whose Rest reflects the permanence of the One in himself and to which we turn. In searching for a comprehension of this other way of conceiving likeness, we shall also perform the very same movement, but as opposed to it. The Primary Movement is performed simultaneously in two directions: through distance in relation to the Principle emerges the First Otherness, and from the return or conversion towards Him Identity is revealed. The passage from the intelligible reality to the indefinite, the nearest to the One, is performed through the act of surpassing Identity at the level of the generic triade in regards to the “Movement – Identity – Otherness”. Thus, at recognizing ourselves at a certain level of reality we are sort of “invited” to abandon what we recognize as being ourselves, at being attracted – without our noticing – towards another reality that surpasses us and which we yet do not know. When we stop relating only to the Forms with which we identify ourselves, we find the indetermination of Matter. And it is there where the inversion of sight occurs. If, until now we recognized our likeness in regards to the Principle through the reflexes present in the Forms, at abandoning these reflexes we reach its “depths” – the Matter – and the Indefinite Dyad. Composed by “First Movement and First Otherness”24 it “is” what it has always been even before being. 24. Plotinus does not objectively define the Indefinite Dyad as First Movement and First Otherness as we do here, although he affirms that “movement and otherness are born together” (12[II4], 5, 33) and that they correspond to the matter. We share the view of Danielle Montet that “movement and otherness, elements of the intelligible matter, are qualified as ‘primaries’; this movement and this otherness do not affect the Primary, but define themselves by setting apart from them. Reciprocally, thus considering Nous, matter is the element of identity while constitutive dimension of the form”. Cf Danielle MONTET, Archéologie et généalogie. Grenoble: Jérôme Millon, 1996, p. 230.

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First Otherness is the nearest to the Principle we can glimpse. It arises with the first Movement prior to all distance. The Forms only reflect the bringing together and the distance that Movement establishes. The Movement that sets apart is the same that brings together, and the weakening of the Form is always in proportion to the distance. What remains far is not the Form, but the difference remains always the same. No aspect of us is more similar to the Principle than our Otherness, which means the First Otherness. What we know as our difference remains always the same. If our differences do not separate us from the Principle and the Otherness is the difference that perpetuates the emanation’s necessary maintenance, we should realize that, not even our Otherness sets us apart form the Principle. What sets us apart from the Principle are the Forms. That which we considered, at a horizontal level, to be likeness in fact reflects dissimilarity, for the Forms, while reflex, only mirror the illusion. The Otherness, however, by always remaining the same, imitates the Principle which remains in itself, impassible, with no relationship whatsoever. Hadot, commenting Treatise 38 [VI 7], reminds us that to draw a similarity with the Good is “the same as not to be limited to the Form”25. And this is the paradox of the likeness. It is likeness with something which has no form. And this way the idea of likeness finds itself indissolubly associated with the act of becoming similar. To become similar is to let it be attracted by the non-form, allowing oneself and all forms to get lost within the infinite universe of mirrors. Getting lost is a way to reach the infinitude. At first we understand that we are attracted by like. This corresponds to the first stage of the journey (towards nothing). Nothing of what I am, of what I have, or desire, for not even desire finds its place there. When we abandon the illusion of any likeness whatsoever, and glimpse the unlikeness of getting to know anything apart form ourselves, and no longer the other as our like we are sort of plunged and attracted to something that surpasses and overthrows us. And when there is nothing left we know, even

25. Cf. Pierre Hadot. Traité 38. Paris: Edition du Cerf, 1987, p. 24.

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so that we strive to find a name for this attraction and try to give it a name – Love. One more illusion, the last illusion. The attraction performed by Love, according to Plotinus, is due above all to sympathy. For this reason he says: The true magic is ‘Love” and also the “Strife” in the All.26

For Plotinus “magic is a natural product of cosmic sympaat this level we have “a natural concord of things that are alike and opposition of things that are different”.28 To say, as Plotinus, that the true magic is the love-strife is to understand only a part of the question proposed by Empedocles. Sympathy in Plotinus allows us to get acquainted with the likeness of different elements composing a reality. This concept, however, does not allow us to establish the communication and passage from one reality to another. In the first case we can affirm that the Forms mirror likeness, but ontologically speaking likeness corresponds to absence of form. What attracts us to the Principle, regardless of the level of reality in which we find ourselves, are not the Forms, not even Love as a substantial reality, but the absence of Form. And this is why it makes sense to affirm, as Plotinus, that “The true magic is the ‘Love” and also the “Strife” in the All”. Love, at this level, therefore explains the existing link between “the like”, here the Forms, and “Strife”, the separation, its difference. Love and Strife are principles that rule all levels of the universe. We say that love connects, attracts, and strife, unglues, splits. We could think that Plotinus’ statement about love-strife refers only to magic, and remains there. Or, we can work through, a little deeper, Empedocles’ assertion to try to understand the paradox that it proposes. We commonly think that what sets apart is difference, but in reality it is due to difference that union can happen. And what unites is likeness. But we ought to remember that it will only manifest itself from a distance, which alone highthy”.27 Therefore

26. 28 [IV 4], 40, 6. Translated by A. H. Armstrong. In reference to Empedocles: cp. e. g. fr. B 17, 10-20 cf. in Plotinus-Ennead IV, p. 260, n. 1. 27. Stephen MacKenna. Plotinus. The Enneads. London: Penguin Books, 1991, p. 327, n. 82. 28. 28 [IV 4], 40, 1-6.

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lights the separation. Therefore, from this other perspective, love sets apart and strife brings together. We begin and end this study with an aporia: But suppose someone were to say that this [sympathy] is because of their likeness? 29

And we end almost at the same place: The true magic is ‘Love” and also the “Strife” in the All.30

Sympathy and likeness are to love and strive what strife is to likeness and love is to sympathy. Sympathy does not explain love between the parts. As we know well, like poles repel and opposite poles attract.

Bibliography ARMSTRONG, A .H. Plotinus in seven volumes. London: Harvard Univerity Press, 1988. BRÉHIER, Emile. Plotin: Ennéades I. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1924. _________. Plotin: Ennéeades II . Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1993. _________. Plotin: Ennéades III. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1925. _________. Plotin: Ennéades IV. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1927. _________. Plotin: Ennéades V. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999. _________. Plotin: Ennéades VI1. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1992. _________. Plotin: Ennéades VI 2. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1938. BRISSON, L; PRADEAU, J-F (dir). Traités 1-6. Paris: GF Flammarion 2002. _________. Traités 7-21. Paris: GF Flammarion 2003. _________. Traités 22-26. Paris: GF Flammarion 2004. _________. Traités 27-29. Paris: GF Flammarion 2005. _________. Traités 30-37. Paris: GF Flammarion 2006. BUSSANICH, John. The One and its relation to Intellect in Plotinus: A commentary one selected texts. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988.

29. 29 [IV 5], 8, 21-22. Translated by A. H. Armstrong. 30. 28 [IV 3], 40, 4-6 . Translated by A. H. Armstrong.

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HADOT, Pierre. Plotin: Traité 38 . Paris: Les Édition du Cerf , 1987. _________. Plotin: Traité 50. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1990. _________. Plotin: Traité 9. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1994. HAM, Bertrand. Plotin: Traité 49 V. 3. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2000. IGAL, Jesus. Plotino:Vida de Plotino – Enéadas I-II. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 2001 _________. Enéadas III-IV. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1985. _________. Enéadas V- VI. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1998. LEROUX, Georges. Plotin: Traité sur la liberte et la volonté de l’Un [Ennéade VI, 8 (39)]. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1990. MONTET, Danielle. Archéologie et généalogie. Plotin et la théorie des genres. Grenoble: Editions Jérôme Millon, 1996. NARBONNE, Jean-Marc. Plotin: Les deux matières. [Ennéade II, 4 (12). Introduction, text grec, tradution et comentaire. Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin 1993. _________. Traité 25. Introduction, traduction, commentaries et notes. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf , 1998. SCHROEDER,F. M., Form and Transformation- A study in the philosophy of Plotinus. Montreal&Kingsdom: McGill-Queens’s University Press, 1992. _________. The Platonic Parmenides and Imitation in Plotinus, Dionysius 2, 1978, 61-73. _________. Representation and Reflection in Plotinus, Dionysius 4, 1980, 37-59. _________. Synousia, Synaisthaesis and Synesis: Presence and Dependence in the Plotinian Philosophy of Counsciousness. Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, II, 36,1,1987, 677-669.

Matter Is Not Place According to Plotinus: A Small Rectification

J-M N Université Laval

In a number of recent articles, I have endeavoured to clarify the difficulties surrounding the emergence of sensible matter in Plotinus1. The most significant features of the solution I have proposed are the following: – As indicated in a number of passages, sensible matter escapes, falls or sinks down out of the intelligible otherness (cf. 12 [II 4], 15; 25 [II 5], 4-5; 26 [III 6], 7, 7-11; 13, 21-27; 34 [VI 6], 13; 44 [VI 3], 7; 51 [I 8], 15, 24 sq.) and becomes, after having been caught up by Soul and enclosed from outside in its flight, sensible matter, a principle opposed — though limited in its strength — to the Good. – This peculiar mode of sensible matter’s coming to existence, which is never described in terms of creation or production, seems to be comparable rather to a sort of collateral damage of the process of the overflowing, which produces the three successive Natures of the One, the Intellect and the Soul, leaving these innocent of any direct participation in matter’s coming to existence; moreover, these principles are held responsible, not

1. J.-M. Narbonne, « Plotinus and the Gnostics on the Generation of Matter (33 [II 9], 12 and 51 [I 8], 14) », Dyonisius XXIV (2006), p. 45-64; « A Doctrinal Evolution in Plotinus? The Weakness of the Soul in its Relation to Evil », Dyonisius XXV (2007), p. 77-92; « La controverse à propos de la génération de la matière chez Plotin : l’énigme résolue? », Quaestio 7 (2007), p. 3777.

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for the production, but for the limitation of the noxious activity of sensible matter (51 [I 8], 15). – This peculiar mode of emergence of matter is the Plotinian response to the Gnostic production of matter through the agency of Sophia’s affliction, a cosmogony which Plotinus qualifies as a « melodrama of terrors » (33 [II 9], 13, 7), imputing the responsibility for Evil to the divine realities (33 [II 9], 12). – As opposed to the Gnostic conception of the Soul-Sophia, the activity of creation coming out of Soul is for Plotinus always positive and ends up in the production of something axiologically neutral, place (27 [IV 3], 9, 15-26), the last reality generated by Soul. As a consequence, 1) Soul never really comes out of itself, its last production, described as something dead, being nothing but the ultimate crystallization and extinction of her living activity and, 2) Soul encounters Evil per se as something already there and exterior to Soul, something that Soul has to face and come to terms with, which can only alter Soul from outside, as an external adjunction, and which accordingly does not affect Soul’s own intrinsic goodness (1 [I 6], 5, 31-34; 2 [IV 7], 10, 11-12 : « ὡς προσθῆκαι τὰ κακὰ τῇ ψυχῇ καὶ ἄλλοθεν฀»; 33 [II 9], 17, 3; 51 [I 8], 5, 17; 8, 20; 14, 24; 52 [II 3], 8, 14-15; 53 [I 1], 12).

In a recent book2, a young commentator, trying to bring some light to this difficult topic, starts by approving some of my previous analysis about the production of place by Soul3, but adds that since, in Plotinus, place is nothing else than matter, the affirmation in the corpus of the generation of place by Soul is ipso facto the affirmation of the generation of matter by Soul. I quote the pertinent text: […] non seulement selon lui [Plotinus] le topos est similaire à la khôra, mais, suivant l’interprétation aristotélicienne de la khôra du Timée, il n’est pas autre chose que la matière elle-même : « La matière (ὕλη), à la différence de l’âme, n’est pas capable d’accueillir toutes choses ensemble (πάντα ὁμοῦ... οὐ δύναται 2. B. Collette-Duêiê, Plotin et l’ordonnancement de l’être, Paris, Vrin, 2007. 3. He is referring to my book: Plotin. Les deux matières [Ennéade II, 4 (12)], Paris, Vrin, 1993.

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εἰσοικίασθα) – sans quoi elle appartiendrait au monde intelligible. Elle doit, au contraire, recevoir toutes choses, mais pas les recevoir de manière indivise. Elle doit dès lors, étant le lieu de toutes choses (πᾶσι τόπον), elle-même venir à toutes et les rencontrer toutes, et suffire à toute extension (πρὸς πᾶν διάστημα ἀρκέσαι), car elle n’est pas par elle-même occupée par quelque extension particulière (ὅτι μὴ κατείληπται διαστήματι αὐτήν), mais gît à disposition de tout ce qui est à venir (ἀλλ ̓ ἦν ἐκκειμένη τῷ μέλλοντι) » (Enn. III 6 [26], 18, 35-41). L’identité entre topos, khôra et hulè est ainsi établie. Aristote avait déjà pressenti l’affinité existant entre les notions de matière et de lieu, mais il s’était refusé à les relier plus avant, argumentant que la matière, à la différence du lieu, « n’est pas séparée de la chose et ne la contient pas ». Or, précisément, le lieu plotinien (comme d’ailleurs le lieu platonicien), doit être compris comme séparé, puisqu’il est antérieur à la constitution des corps : il est « ce sans quoi rien d’autre n’existe et qui existe sans les corps ». Ce second sens de la notion de topos est-il, cette fois, adapté au passage de IV 3 [27], 9, 15-26 où il est dit que « l’âme engendre pour elle-même un lieu »? Manifestement, la réponse est oui. Or, ceci n’est pas sans conséquence pour la thèse de J.-M. Narbonne : si nous accordons, comme celui-ci nous engage à le faire, que les trois passages de III 9 [13] 3, 7-16, III 4 [15] 1 et IV 3 [27] 9, 15-26 sont reliés par une « proximité doctrinale » et que les deux premiers doivent être interprétés à l’aune du troisième (lequel affirme explicitement que ce qui est engendré par l’âme, c’est le lieu) ; si, d’autre part, ainsi que nous venons de le montrer, nous accordons que le lieu dont il est question dans ce passage n’est pas autre chose que la matière elle-même ; alors il est clair que Plotin a affirmé à plusieurs reprises, avant le 51e traité, que la matière est engendrée […] »4.

It should be sufficient in this context to quote a small number of definite assertions showing the fundamental distinction, in Plotinus’ mind, between matter and place. A single declaration should in principle fulfill this task, as where Plotinus writes: « place is posterior to matter and bodies (ὁ δὲ τόπος ὕστερον τῆς ὕλης καὶ τῶν σωμάτων)฀» (12 [II 4], 12, 11-12), or as well when he writes about the infinite (i. e. matter), in 34 (VI 4. B. Collette-Duĉiĉ, op. cit., p. 93-94.

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6), 3, 16-18: « But it [infinity] does not run away from one place to another: for it does not even have any place; but when it is caught, place comes into existence (φεύγει δὲ οὐκ εἰς τόπον ἄλλον ἐξ ἑτέρου· οὐ γὰρ οὐδ ̓ ἔχει τόπον· ἀλλ ̓ ὅταν ἁλῷ, ὑπέστη τόπος) ». But I fear such short answers, if they in fact settled the question, would nonetheless lack clarity. In fact, the whole Plotinian doctrine is first developed in Chapters 11 and 12 of Treatise 12 (II 4). It is of course for us at least a strange doctrine, because it holds that matter is a necessary substratum for forms, but that it has by itself no dimension or volume at all (11, 13-15; 25-26; 12, 23); matter is simply « that which has been given size (τὸ μεμεγεθυσμένον) »; it is purely « receptive of dimension (διαστήματός ἐστι δεκτική) » (11, 19-20), it has « the capacity to receive size in itself (ὑποδοχὴ μεγέθους ἐν αὐτῇ) » (11, 37-38). But it is worth quoting at length the last lines of Chapter 11: It is ‘mass’ in this sense and ‘without size’ in this sense, that it is the matter of mass (ὕλη ὄγκου), and when mass is contracted from the great to the small and expands from the small to the great, matter, so to speak, runs through the whole range of mass: and its indefiniteness is mass in this sense, that it has the capacity of receiving size in itself; but it is in imaginary representation that it is mass in this sense. For in the case of other things without size, those of them that are forms are each of them clearly defined, so that there is no room anywhere in their case for a conception of mass. But matter is indefinite and not yet stable by itself, and is carried about here and there into every form, and since it is altogether adaptable becomes many by being brought into everything and becoming everything, and in this way acquires the nature of mass (ἔσχε τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον φύσιν ὄγκου) (11, 34-44).

And here we understand the reason why place is posterior to matter: it is because the forms need matter, that is, that which will receive size from them, in order for them to have, over and above mere « formal » or « eidetic » size, « sensible » size, size in a substratum; and this is how matter becomes place. In fact, this very doctrine is also traceable to Treatise 26 (III 6), Chapters 15 to 18. Lets quote one extract, indicating the same line of reasoning in Plotinus: « So, then, size, running on in its image-making progression, and making the littleness of matter run with it towards this very size, has made it by extension, though it is not filled,

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appear to be large. For this is what false size is, when, because it does not possess real size, being stretched out towards it, it is extended by the stretching out » (26 [III 6], 17, 7-12). The fundamental notion here is that matter, having in itself no dimension, must take on the size needed by the principle. And Plotinus is very clear on this point: matter has now become of the size of the universe only through the efficiency of form (16, 15 sq.). Since, then, matter is by itself non-dimensional, the difference with Plato is that matter for Plotinus must become, as it is stretched out, a place for everything, a place that it cannot be beforehand by itself. Therefore, when Plotinus writes that matter « must be a place for all things », he does not mean that matter, in its own self, is place, but, as he explains immediately, that it must « come to all of them (ἐπὶ πάντα αὐτὴν ἐλθεῖν) » (18, 38), and it is this idea of becoming which is here central: becoming the required size, matter becomes at the same time the place for what comes over it, while remaining in itself without dimension, « because it is not itself captured by dimension (ὅτι μὴ κατείληπται διαστήματι αὐτή) » (18, 39-40)5. But I won’t pursue this matter any further, the point I hope being sufficiently clear by now. The commentator, in this case, may have been led astray by the false – yet largely held – hypothesis that sensible matter is generated by Soul. In fact, as I have demonstrated before, no single passage postulates6 this so-called generation. All that is postulated, and postulated quite explicitly, is the production of τόπος. One can try to avoid this difficulty by supposing an equivalence in Plotinus between matter ant place. However, this will only add more inconsistency to our account of Plotinus. 5. Here, Collette-Duĉiĉ’s translation does not seem accurate: « elle [matter] n’est pas par elle-même occupée par quelque extension particulière ». It is not only that matter has no particular dimension, which is true, but that it is not by itself captured by any dimension whatsoever, dimension being for Plotinus an eidetic determination. 6. In my 1993 book (cf. note 3), I defend the idea that there are no passages in Plotinus which postulate the generation of matter by Soul before the very late Treatise 51 [I 8]. Since then (cf. n. 1), I have found that even this apparent assertion — possibly an unreal condition anyway — in 51 [I 8], 14, 51-54, is in fact the echo of the Gnostic position already refuted in 33 [II 9], 12 and doesn’t represent Plotinus’ point of view.

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Providence et liberté dans le néoplatonisme

J-M C

À l’occasion de nos recherches sur Ammonius, du Περiv πρvóνoiας, nous nous sommes posé la question de la Providence, à l’intérieur du néoplatonisme, assez vite reliée avec la liberté, et nous avons pensé être là en présence d’un problème, à la manière des aristotéliciens, persuadé que c’est une des clés de la pensée néoplatonicienne. L’exposé qui va suivre dira si nous nous sommes trompé ou non.

I Ammonius Lorsque Hiéroclès écrit : « Les êtres sont distingués par la sagesse créatrice de l’univers pour assurer cette royauté paternelle de dieu tenue pour une Providence une »1, tient-il un discours qui est celui de son livre. Si la phrase, paraît renvoyer à République X, 597 e, et aux Lois 904a 6, où celui-ci veille sur toutes choses, elle retranscrit ce que devait être l’activité d’une école où l’on théorisait le réel à partir de Platon, où l’on retrouve le πoιητh ν ; ฀καi ฀; πατevρα du Timée2. Elle semble évoquer Numénius, et ces moyens platoniciens, dont la lecture est attestée dans l’école de Plotin3, dont

1. Hiéroclès, Photius, Bibliothèque, III, 172 a 42- b 2. 2. Platon, Timée 28 c3-5 3. Porphyre, Vie de Plotin, 14, 10-12.

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il se peut que la pratique ait remonté à Ammonius, là où l’école commence à être une école. Si la phrase de Hiéroclès, comme semble le dire le texte4, remonte à Ammonius, puisque la lecture est un genre répétitif, servile5, allait marquer, à l’opposé, la puissance d’invention du néoplatonisme, dans cette idée simple de l’unité de la Providence. Celle-ci se faisait, est-il dit, par l’union de la substance corporelle et de la substance incorporelle, créant un monde absolument parfait6, sans que celui-ci soit absolument Un, puisqu’on voit après apparaître les corps célestes, éthérés, les génies, puis les êtres terrestres7 : à partir de l’Un et de la dyade, « monde double et unique »8, qui faisait remonter à Ammonius cette idée que la Providence était cette unité réalisée du monde. C’est elle qui allait traverser tout le néoplatonisme, et être la position première de cette Providence : assurer cette unité de l’univers et de la création. Le texte du Περi;฀ πρóνoiας se continue, voulant établir le libre-arbitre, et notre indépendance (τo;฀ ejφ฀j฀ hJμi`ν), tout en affirmant l’idée d’une destinée (εiJμαρμevνη), où l’on voit apparaître les deux niveaux, une Providence supérieure, πρoνoivα divine, et plus bas, l’idée d’un destin, εiJμαρμevνη. Faut-il attribuer à Ammonius l’ensemble des positions de Hiéroclès9 ? La réflexion s’articule sur la liberté et la nécessité, car : « il y a ces choix volontaires qui dépendent de nous (πρoαijρevσεσιν฀τo;฀ ejφ฀j฀ hJμi`ν) », et « le jugement providentiel qui règle les affaires humaines selon la justice et la loi, postule le principe de notre libre-arbitre et de notre libre choix, et que le destin est ainsi une partie du tout qu’est la Providence »10. « Ammonius le maître de Plotin résolvait la question ainsi : il disait que c’est dans la nature des intelligibles, à la fois d’être 4. Photius, Bibliothèque, III, 172 a 3-5. 5. Cf. B. Sandkühler, Die frûhen Danteskommentar und ihre Verhaltnis zu Mittelalterlicher kommentartradition, Munich, 1967, p. 13, de la tradition du commentaire au moyen âge. 6. Photius, op. cit. , III, 172 a 26-30. 7. Photius, op. cit. , III, 172 a36. 8. Photius, op. cit. , III, 172 a 28. 9. W. Theiler, Ammonios der Lehrer Origenes, Forschungen zum Neuplatonismus, Berlin, 1966, p. 40, parle de plagiat, ce que nous désapprouvons. 10. Photius, Bibliothèque, VII, 462 b 19-20, et 28-31.

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capables d’union avec les choses à même de le recevoir, comme les choses corruptibles, et de rester néanmoins, sans se confondre avec elles dans l’union (e{νωσις), et impérissables, comme si elles étaient simplement juxtaposées, car l’union des corps implique toujours quelque altération »11, alors que le texte de Hiéroclès parle d’ « ajσuvγχuτoν฀ τh฀/` ejνwvσει »12. La proximité des deux textes, de Némésius et de Hiéroclès, est remarquable. C’est parce que les deux parties du mélange sont ajσuvγχuτoν ne se mélangent pas que l’homme est libre13. Le principe de la liberté se trouvait dans l’âme ; c’est parce que l’âme est d’une nature différente, qu’il y a la liberté. Ammonius se serait insurgé contre « la nécessité des tireurs d’horoscopes, ou la contrainte des stoïciens »14 : doctrine antidéterministe dans ses aspects qui auraient pu tendre à assimiler la Providence agissant sur les hommes, à celle qui agit sur les choses, et outre, une Providence qui unifie, on aurait une doctrine de la liberté en l’âme ; la concordance des points de vue, celle des deux disciples avérés Plotin, et Origène, telle qu’elle apparaît dans la Philocalie, tendrait à lui faire attribuer cette doctrine.

II Origène On s’attend à ce qu’Origène, son élève chrétien15, entende surtout la Providence comme don de Dieu, et n’ait plus alors qu’à le recueillir, et le célébrer. Mais le traité III, 1 Du libre arbitre, Des Principes, est une des grandes théories de la liberté. Dieu « les ramène à un unique accord dans leurs activités et leurs intentions, pour consommer, malgré cette diversité des mouvements des intelligences,…la perfection de ce monde

11. H.R. Schwyzer, Ammonius, Der Lehrer Plotins, 1983, T. 17 = Nemesius d’Emèse, De Natura Hominis, III, 129, 16-20 12. Photius, Bibliothèque III, 172 a 39. 13. W. Theiler, op. cit. , p. 35, le relève, mais n’en tire pas les conclusions. 14. Photius, Bibliothèque VII, 461 b 23-24. 15. Cf. sur ce point Eusèbe, Histoire ecclésiastique, VI, XIX, auquel nous renvoyons, pour notre part, malgré les critiques, que nous estimons pour l’essentiel, infondées.

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unique, et diriger la variété des intelligences vers une seule fin parfaite »16. Unité réalisée par la Providence, qui doit atteindre chacun dans la diversité de ses mouvements, après la chute, malgré le libre-arbitre17. En ce sens, il y a « une possibilité pour l’âme de se séparer de l’ordre, de la création et de l’harmonie donnée par Dieu »18. La Providence est unité et harmonie19. Mais, en tant que Providence divine, elle était contrebalancée par la liberté. L’idée d’Origène est dominée par ce Dieu, respectueux de la liberté humaine, qui sait se faire pédagogue, non imposer, mais indiquer. Comme si l’auteur était saisi de l’incompréhension des hommes, le traité III, 1 Des Principes, sera la pédagogie humaine de cette pédagogie divine. Les gnostiques n’ont pas compris que cette Providence de Dieu, pouvait conduire au châtiment, que c’est pour cela qu’il pouvait paraître injuste20 : la sanction n’était que cette manière de faire comprendre aux hommes. Dieu a créé de toute éternité21, car sa Providence est acte d’un Dieu tout entier volonté et liberté22. Ainsi, lorsqu’il endurcit le cœur de Pharaon23, ce n’est qu’un effet qui vient rectifier, en maintenant le choix : lui seul sait les effets à venir, dans la pré-science24 pour que s’exerce cette Providence. Dieu sait se faire médecin pour guérir25. La Providence est bonne ; elle est belle. Elle est comme la pluie qui tombe26, cette nuée qui arrive sur les hommes. Les hommes n’auront plus qu’à cultiver la terre. Car Dieu est tout entier volonté et acte. L’homme qui fait partie, avec les anges et les démons des créatures raisonnables, est volonté et action : c’est là qu’il peut réaliser le meilleur de lui-même. Aussi avait-il 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

Origéne, Des Principes, II, 1, 1, 36-42. Origéne, Des Principes, I, 6, 2, 71-73. Origène, Des Principes, II, 10, 5. H. Koch, Pronoia und Paideusis, Berlin, Leipzig, 1932, p. 42. Origène, Des Principes, II, 5, 13, cf. III, 1, 11 et 12. Origène, Des Principes, I, 2, 2. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 20 et 24. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 7. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 24. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 17. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 10, cf. Paul, Epître aux Hébreux, 6,7.

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marqué son étendue, du τo; ejφ jhjμi`ν, de cette liberté, de « ce qui dépend de nous »27, qui marque les limites de nos propres pensées, et les incitations ultérieures de la nature, les désirs ; l’homme, à la différence des animaux, peut résister à une nature que Dieu peut modeler. Ce qui n’est pas en notre pouvoir, peut-il, être dépassé « pour faire face à l’événement extérieur »28, faire le Bien et le mal, recueillir les vases d’honneur et de déshonneur, d’une morale qui le surpasse, mais retrouve-t-on, les mêmes données d’un « ce qui dépend de nous » qui avait fixé les parts respectives de la Providence divine et de la liberté humaine.

III Plotin Même si le traité De la Providence, commence par une réfutation : « Attribuer à la spontanéité (αujτoμavτw), et au hasard (τuvχη), l’existence du monde, c’est absurdité …. »29, la Providence naît surtout du fait de la recherche des causes de la bonté et de la beauté du monde : la Providence, à chaque fois s’impose comme la seule solution. Ainsi, dans le traité, Du monde : « Nous avons une autre âme, qui fait que nous sommes nous-mêmes ; elle est cause non pas de notre existence, mais du Bien qui est en nous (aijtivα฀ τou`฀εuj฀εij`ναι฀,฀ouj฀τou`฀εij`ναι) »30 . C’est en constatant le fait que le monde est beau, ou bon, que vient, la notion de Providence. Ainsi dans le traité, Contre les gnostiques : « Il nous est apparu que la nature du Bien est simple, primitive, et ce qui n’est pas primitif n’est jamais simple… »31. Or ils « méprisent le monde créé et notre terre »32. Et : « Il faut penser qu’il y a d’autres hommes qui sont parfaits, et qu’il y a aussi des démons, et plus encore des dieux qui sont en cet univers, qui con-

27. Origène, des Principes, III, 1, 3. 28. Origène, Des Principes, III, 1, 5, l. 95-100, cité par R. Calonne, Le libre-arbitre selon le traité Des Principes d’Origène, BLE, XXXIX, 4, 1988, p . 249. 29. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 1, 1-2. 30. Ennéades, II, 1, (40), 5, 21-22. 31. Ennéades II, 9 (33), 1, 1-3. 32. Ennéades, II, 9 (33), 5, 23-25.

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templent l’intelligence ; et le chef de cet univers, l’ âme bienheureuse ; après elle, il faut chanter les dieux intelligibles… »33. Au § 15 : « la doctrine téméraire réprimande le maître de la Providence et la Providence elle-même, elle outrage toutes les lois de notre univers »34 : « Nier que la Providence s’étend à tout est-ce de la piété ? »35. Le traité III, 2 a les mêmes questions : « Quel est le mode de connaissance et de production des choses, dont quelques unes sont contraires à la droite règle au point de nous faire douter de la Providence ? » : « On aurait tort de blâmer le monde et de dire qu’il n’est pas beau , qu’il n’est pas le plus parfait des êtres corporels »36. Comme dans le traité Du Monde, il ne pouvait s’agir que de la Providence. « Il ne faut pas accuser la cause de son existence ; d’abord il existe nécessairement et ne dérive pas d’une intention réfléchie ; c’est par sa nature qu’un être supérieur engendre un être semblable à lui »37, envisageant sa solution propre sur la création. Le Timée est sollicité : « C’est Dieu qui m’a fait ; venu de lui, je suis parfait :… je me suffis à moi-même, car je contiens tous les êtres, plantes, animaux »38. De même, c’est dans les Lois, que la Providence s’étend à tout, pour arriver à cette unité39. Mais le thème prend une toute autre ampleur : « mais comme les âmes sont en harmonie les unes avec les autres, leurs œuvres le sont également ; elle consiste en ce qu’elles forment une unité, fussentelles contraires ». Car « tout part d’une unité et s’y ramène par une sorte de nécessité naturelle : aussi des choses différentes et mêmes contraires sont pourtant entraînées à former un ordre unique, si elles dérivent d’une unité »40.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

Ennéades, II, 9 (33), 9, 29-35. Ennéades II, 9 (33), 15, 10-12. Ennéades, II, 9 (33), 16, 17 et 15, 16 . Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 1, 5-7. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 3, 2-5. Ennéades, III, 2 (47) , 3, 20-23, cf. Timée, 30 d. Platon, Lois, 903 b-c. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 1, 7-11.

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Cette unité est l’harmonie du monde : « Toutes choses forment un être unique et il n’y a qu’une seule Providence »41. Entre « les parties qui agissent et celles qui pâtissent s’établit une unité harmonieuse »42 ; on a besoin de l’intelligence et de la nécessité43. « L’harmonie ne partage pas en parties inégales ; les sons qui y concourent sont indestructibles, le son parfait, c’est le son unique »44.

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°

On ne trouve à peu près pas d’explication, en III, 2 qui évoquent le dieu créateur. Celle-ci est donnée, en VI, 8 : le Bien est transcendant à la Providence (ejπevκεινα฀πρovνoiας)45 . Il introduit l’idée d’une volonté productrice des êtres, leur cause, « puisqu’il est le maître de toutes valeurs inférieures à lui qui occupe la première place, vers qui tous les autres êtres désirent remonter et à qui ils sont suspendus, de qui ils tiennent leur pouvoir, en telle manière qu’ils puissent posséder l’autodétermination… »46, ce qui fait « qu’il est absolument maître de lui-même , possédant son être à partir de lui-même »47, et « qu’on ne saurait qu’inclure le choix ” σιν) et la volonté (θevλησιν) »48, parce qu’il est « originai(αiρev rement volonté »49. La représentation intentionnelle de la pensée a laissé la place à la nature et à la nécessité.50 « Le Premier possède une surabondance de puissance ; non tenu par la nécessité. Il est en vérité la nécessité et la loi des autres êtres »51. L’hypothèse de la nécessité de 41. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 5, 14 . 42. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 2, 28-29. 43. Ibidem, l. 33-34 cf. Timée, 47 e-48 a. 44. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 17, 72-74. 45. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 17, 7-8, traduction G. Leroux, Traité sur la liberté et sur la volonté de l’Un, Paris, 1990. 46. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 7, 6-9. 47. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 13, 11-13. 48. Ennéades VI, 8 (39), 13, 44-45. 49. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 21, 1 17. 50. G. Leroux, op. cit. , introduction, p. 84. 51. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 10, 35-38.

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nature, vient en considérant, qu’à la différence du christianisme, la matière, était incréée. Mais faut-il soumettre le Bien aux lois de la matière ? Cette nécessité échapperait à une Providence, qui est liberté et bonté. Plotin en parle en III, 2 pour le réfuter : elle pourrait engendrer le mal52. La matière c’est le mal : n’est-ce pas justement ce qui échappe à la Providence ? Cette nécessité n’est pas celle d’une nature physique, mais celle de sa propre nature. L’hypothèse est esquissée à propos du § 17, où Plotin aurait fait état d’une nature53 et envisage une liberté d’essence. Mais peut-elle être nécessité ? En VI, 8 , les notions de liberté et de nécessité sont très proches. La nécessité, avait été réfutée dans le discours téméraire, « puisque la nature du Bien n’est pas souveraine sur sa propre essence, que cette essence n’est pas ce qu’elle est par elle-même, (en sorte qu’) elle ne possède plus la liberté ou l’autodétermination, compte tenu qu’elle fait ou ne fait pas ce qu’elle est contrainte de faire ou de ne pas faire. Ce discours est absurde. »54. Nécessité de lui-même, ou celle de sa propre liberté. « Parler d’esclavage envers sa propre nature, c’est le fait de quelqu’un qui distingue ce qui est esclave et ce de quoi on est esclave. Une nature simple, comment ne serait-elle pas libre ? »55 Le Bien va créer de toute éternité56 : la physique devient celle de la procession à travers les métaphores de l’écoulement, ou du rayonnement ; la Providence est lumière est-il dit, plus loin57. Le traité III, 2 commence par le même refus d’un hasard créatif : « l’ordre ne naît pas du désordre, ni la loi de l’inégalité comme le croit certain philosophe »58, au point qu’il dira : « l’ordre dont nous parlons est la véritable Adrastée, la vraie Justice, une admirable Sagesse ; l’ordre universel s’étend à tout, fût-ce au plus petit détail »59. C’est par l’intelligence (le νou`ς), que le Bien 52. Ennéades, III, 2, 2, 34. 53. G. Leroux, op. cit. , p. 117-119, et G. Lekkas, Le concept positif de la nécessité et la production des êtres chez Plotin, Les Etudes philosophiques, 2004, p. 560 ; nous avons un point de vue différent. 54. Ennéades , VI, 8 (39), 7, 11-16. 55. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 4, 22-27. 56. Ennéades, VI, 8 (39), 20,27 et 21, 8. 57. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 4, 9-10. 58. Ennéades, III, 2 (47) , 4, 26-27 : l’auteur vise Epicure. 59. Ennéades III, 2 (47), 13, 16-20, cf. Lois 904 e-905 d.

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va agir, jouer le rôle du démiurge 60, en dehors de tout dessein réfléchi ; l’Un lui a conféré sa toute puissance : « Ce monde ci n’a pas été créé parce que l’intelligence a réfléchi…, il résulte d’une nécessité inhérente à la nature de second rang Elle en est le premier et a beaucoup de puissance, elle a le pouvoir de produire un autre être sans effort pour le produire »61. « De l’intelligence, émane (ajπoρrεi`ν) à chaque instant la raison, tant qu’elle est présente dans tous les êtres »62. Plotin reprend, après, cette production éternelle, son refus de la réflexion qui « n’aurait pu trouver moins que ce que nous connaissons, jusque dans ces moindres détails, il résulte éternellement de l’intelligence »63. Production physique ? Si le νou`ς est puissance, et même toute puissance, δuvναμις, le logos est-il ejνevργεια ? il semble que Plotin l’ait plutôt dit, au niveau de l’âme. Aussi ne s’agit-il pas d’un logos réflexif, mais de celui de la production du νou`ς ; il pourra être relayé par les λovγoι฀σπερματικoiv faisant la transition entre le spirituel et la nature64, « produisant les êtres, en s’accommodant de la matière »65. Il est la reprise du Bien : « Est-ce par une nécessité de nature, par l’enchaînement des causes que chaque chose a sa manière d’être, et qu’elle est aussi belle que possible ? Non, c’est la raison qui fait, en souveraine et à sa volonté »66. Aussi le logos intervient dans chacune des parties du monde « les raisons sont l’acte (ejνevργεια) d’une âme qui est l’âme universelle, les parties de ces raisons sont l’acte des parties, les raisons ont aussi des parties »67. Le terme d’ejνevργεια qui n’était pas usité pour le logos, l’est, pour l’âme, devenant l’acte d’une puissance universelle qu’est l’Un, dispensant sa Providence.

60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67.

Cf. Notre Plotin lecteur de Platon, Paris, 1978, p. 123 Ennéades, III, 2, (47) 2, 8-12. Ennéades III, 2, (47)2, 17-18. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 14, 4-6. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 3, 37 et 4, 30. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 12, 1-2. Ennéades III, 2, (47), 11, 11-13. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 1, 4-6.

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L’âme individuelle ne saurait provenir d’une fragmentation de l’âme universelle. Désaveu des gnostiques68, et des théories déterministes, au § 4 Du Destin : « Est-ce une âme unique, pénétrant toute chose, qui accomplit ? est-ce que chaque être est une partie qui se meut comme l’univers le mène ? Est-il nécessaire qu’il y ait comme toutes les causes enchaînées qui en dérivent, cette continuité dans la succession qu’on appelle fatalité ? »69. La Providence ne saurait être fatalité. « Alors nous ne sommes plus nous-mêmes, …ce n’est pas nous qui agissons, mais nos volontés sont les pensées d’un autre être »70. Là où il envisage la question des parties de l’univers, il rappelle que ce n’est pas la même chose, que dans l’intelligible où tout est un, qu’ici, ces parties existent71. Il avait parlé de la variété de l’univers72. Si l’âme individuelle n’est pas détachée de l’âme du tout, note-t-il en IV, 3 une ovμoειδhv, une ressemblance est possible73. On la retrouve en III, 2. Le monde se déploie, comme effet de cette toute puissance, produisant sans effort74. Sur le plan de l’intelligence, il n’ y a pas action75, puisque le logos émane du νou`ς, que chaque âme des astres s’est séparée, s’associant à un corps : ainsi, c’est par l’effet de la Providence, qu’il y a quelque chose qui brille : « cette grande et belle statue, douée d’une âme et produite par l’art d’ Hephaïstos »76. Elle a fait que les âmes soient rectrices des astres, dans leurs mouvements propres77. La Providence possède une parfaite rationalité : la raison commande même la nécessité de nature : « le feu est éteint par l’eau, autre chose est détruit par le feu »78 ; les

68. Les valentiniens veulent que l’âme individuelle soit une partie de l’âme du monde. 69. Ennéades, III, 1 (3), 4, 1-5. 70. Ennéades III, 1 (3), 4, 20-22. 71. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 14, 15-16. 72. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 13, 22-23. 73. Cf. W. Helleman-Elgersma, Soul’ sisters, a commentary on Ennead IV, 3, Amstersdam, 1980 , p. 218. 74. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 2, 11-12. 75. Ennéades, III, 2,(47), 2, 17-18. 76. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 14, 25-28. 77. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 7, 21-22. 78. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 4, 1-3.

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nécessités physiques ont leurs lois propres, qui est prise dans cette autre, celle de l’intelligence et de la raison, laquelle a produit les êtres, « en s’accommodant de la matière »79. En sorte que le monde d’ici, à la différence de l’autre est un monde séparé80. Et même si la raison est une, elle n’est point partagée en parts égales ; l’univers contient des raisons différentes, l’inégalité des âmes conduit à l’inégalités des régions »81. La raison première s’étend à des animaux et à des plantes qui ont leur part de cette raison82, qui est la Providence. Il semble que celles-ci soient l’ornement terrestre, avec les animaux83, dont d’autres même pourront tirer leur existence84, répartis selon les quatre régions du monde, puisque l’univers contient ainsi tous les êtres, .. sur une terre embellie de toutes les plantes, et animaux, dans l’air, la mer, l’éther et le ciel, remplis par elle de vie85. Celle-ci est « un mouvement pas toujours perçu, mais qui ne se fait pas au hasard »86, elle vient en l’âme, transformant la puissance en acte : « car l’acte, ejνevργεια de la raison a le pouvoir d’informer les choses conformément à la vie qui est en elle »87. C’est pourquoi la vie est un acte d’artiste, et est comparable au mouvement du danseur, venu de l’intelligence, qui implique la raison. Dépendant de l’âme, la vie s’épanche avec cette mesure d’artiste, comme guidée ainsi par cette raison qui oriente chacun des mouvements du danseur88, dernier effet de cette Providence.

° °

79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88.

°

Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 12, 1-2. Ennéades, III, 2 , (47=, 14, 15-16. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 17, 74-76. Ennéades, III, 2, (47), 7, 34-36. Ennéades, III, 2, (47), 9, 33-34. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 4, 11-12. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 3, , 23-24, et 26-27, cf. Timée 40 a1. Ennéades, III, 2, (47), 16, 19-20. Ibidem, 20-23. Ibidem, 25-26.

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Ainsi le tout est-il beau, d’autant que ses parties le sont89 malgré les Thersite90. Sans doute, parce que c’est du Bien, qu’il a été conçu, qui agissait à travers le νou`ς, puis le logos, ou encore l’âme, chaque étage en recevait une parcelle91, et qu’ainsi chaque être désire le Bien et est tendu de toutes ses forces vers lui92. Cet optimisme n’est pas sans objection : il y a la maladie et le vice, nécessités pour qui possède un corps, ou pour l’ordre universel93. Ainsi, selon le principe des contraires, qui se justifient l’un l’autre, sert elle ; le vice aussi94 ; l’argument d’un défaut équilibrant une qualité, du sacrifice d’une partie à l’ensemble, laisse malgré tout sceptique, si ce n’est alors celui du châtiment exemplaire (παρavδειγμα฀δivκης)95, rappelant Origène. La question du mal attend d’autres solutions, parce qu’il est ce défaut (ejλλειψις) du Bien, l’autre que lui96. Il y a des guerres implacables, comme elles le sont chez les animaux et les hommes97, la mort utile à d’autres vivants, ou l’acteur qui change de costume98, mourir dans la guerre, c’est devancer la vieillesse ; mais, c’est la vie : « l’intelligence , et l’âme conforme à l’intelligence, engendre cette raison, qui est une vie possédant une raison secrète »99. Et la vie fait ce qu’elle peut, à travers toutes sortes de formes. Mais l’homme a en lui un principe « (je veux parler de ce principe de liberté ; pour les bêtes, ce principe n’est pas une partie de leur nature ; mais il est une partie de la nature humaine…) »100. La liberté humaine avait été précédemment située au principe de l’action : on ne fait pas de récolte en priant, mais en prenant soin

89. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 14, 21. 90. Ennéades III, 2 (47), 3, 18. 91. Cf Ch. Parma, Pronoia und Providentia. Der Vorsehung Begriff Plotins und Augustins, Leiden, Brill, 1971, p. 47-49. 92. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 4, 31-32. 93. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 5, 7-9. 94. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 5, 16. 95. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 5, 17. 96. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 5, 27-28. 97. Ennéades, III, 2 (47) , 15, 16-17. 98. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 15, 23-24. 99. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 16, 16-17. 100. Ennéades, III, 3 (48), 4, 21-24.

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de la terre101. Ainsi pour Plotin, aussi va-t-on vers cet agir, puisque la Providence ne doit pas nous livrer au maître de l’univers, mais doit mettre l’homme en face de sa liberté ; si les hommes font le mal, sans le vouloir, ils ne peuvent être déclarés responsables102. Où l’on voit comment Providence et liberté s’équilibrent, dans cet horizon de pensée où rien ne doit être laissé au hasard, et où la remontée vers l’Un permettra seulement de retrouver le Bien.

IV Proclus Il eût été étonnant que celui qui a vu apparaître cet enfant, Télesphore, adorait la déesse Athéna, qui voulait venir chez lui, s’intéressait aux Oracles Chaldaïques, aux Orphiques, pratiquait le culte des dieux103, méprise la Providence. Dans les Trois Opuscules, sa justification devient philosophique. Aussi lorsqu’il aborde les Dix problèmes, l’exposé n’est-il pas enthousiastique104, car le savoir qu’il paraît receler sur le déterminé et l’indéterminé qui dominent le débat105, est un exposé diaporématique, trouvant ses solutions dans le Commentaire sur le Parménide106 . Si, en effet, l’Un va déployer une Providence à lui conforme, et dispenser le Bien à tous les êtres, c’est parce qu’il possède en lui ces couples, Un et dyade, πevρας et a±πειρoν, déterminant et infini, et les autres, qui forment « la structure de tous les êtres, le déterminant faisant subsister l’unité, et l’infinité la pluralité dans les quantités discrètes »107. Elle va être l’élément premier d’un 101. Ennéades, III, 2 (47) , 8, 38-39. 102. Ennéades, III, 2 (47), 10, 1-2. 103. Marinus, Proclus ou Sur le bonheur, Paris, 2002, § 7, 11, 30, 18. 104. Cf. C. Ramnoux, Les modes d’expression du philosopher d’après Proclus, Savoir, Faire, Espérer, Les limites de la raison, Bruxelles, 1976, p. 323343.. 105. Proclus, Dix problèmes concernant la providence, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1977, II, § 8. 106. Sur ce point, cf. C. Steel, Le Parménide est-il le fondement de la théologie platonicienne ? , Proclus et la théologie platonicienne, Colloque international de Louvain, 1998, Louvain/Paris, 2000, p . 373, et suiv. 107. J. Trouillard, L’hylémorphisme de Proclos, L’Un et l’Âme selon Proclos, Paris, 1972, p. 72

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ordre processif, par lequel l’Un constitue l’ensemble des êtres. Le deuxième plus gnoséologique qu’ ontologique celui de la connaissance des contingents par la Providence, reçoit sa solution dans le Commentaire sur le Parménide108 ; elle contrôlait la création des idées et leur division, puis celle du cosmos, contre les stoïciens qu’ayant le contrôle de la production de toutes choses109 , le démiurge produit comme il connaît, πoιεi`฀wjς฀νoεi`110. Ainsi dans la troisième question cette « puissance infinie de la Providence qui embrasse toutes les puissances que possèdent tous les bénéficiaires de son action, les maintient chacune dans son infini, maintenant l’union qui correspond pour chacune à son essence »111, à travers la diversité, puisque les couples de contraires avaient été intégrés, pour maintenir l’unité du déterminé et l’indéterminé. Et sait-on qu’elle n’exerce pas ses effets tout uniment dans tous les êtres, car l’Un, s’il est partout, « n’est pas partout le même dans les incorporels, et dans les corps » 112, n’avait-il plus à en développer la solution, et marquait-il cette fonction essentielle de la Providence : l’unité.

° ° ° Sur la Providence, constitue cette série de répliques à l’ingénieur Théodore, « sur La Providence, la fatalité, et ce qui dépend de nous », dont la méthode de réponse, est cette fois, la méthode de division. Par rapport au déterminisme qui compare le mouvement des sphères à l’engrenage des roues dans une machine, et à ces causes qui s’enchaînent, dont Chrysippe sortait, en parlant d’un cylindre, trouvant son mouvement de rotation113, l’auteur 108. Proclus, Commentary on Parmenides, G. Morrow, et J.M. Dillon, Princeton, 1987, p. 303. 109. Proclus, op. cit. ,IV, 955 et 957, p. 305 et 307. 110. Proclus, op. cit., IV, 844, p. 215, cf. Sur ce point W. Beierwaltes, Pronoia und Freiheit, Freiburger Zeitschrift füt Philologie und Theologie, 24, 1977, p. 99. 111. Proclus, Dix Problèmes, III, § 11. 112. Proclus, Ibidem. 113. Proclus, Providence, fatalité, liberté, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1977, I, 2 p. 28.

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réplique, en distinguant deux âmes, l’une séparable des corps, l’autre seulement dans les corps114. Mais même cette dernière n’est pas déterminée. Il y bien, « ces choses qui semblent dépendre de nous »115, et notre liberté de choix existe en coordination avec telle ou telle cause, « comme si elle faisait pencher par son mouvement propre, un des plateaux d’une balance, tantôt un résultat, tantôt un autre »116. Et celle-ci n’est pas simplement le concours de jeux de forces extérieures, qui l’entraînent. Car, il y a une âme rationnelle placée entre l’intelligence et les sensibles ; « cette vie intellective, à l’opposé de la vie sensible, est indépendante, et a son acte, en elle-même117 » ; c’est à elle qu’il faut laisser l’initiative du choix , entre les deux tendances contraires : se diriger vers les corps ou faire le Bien moral. Ainsi l’âme nous laisse-t-elle libre de toutes entraves, car elle peut, débarrassée de la chaîne du corps, de ses désirs, qui constituent la véritable servitude118, aller vers la connaissance de nature divine. En sorte que c’est elle qui est libre, puisqu’ elle nous donne la maîtrise de nous-même, et que « c’est son pouvoir qui fait que nous différons à la fois des êtres divins et des êtres mortels »119 ; la liberté est bien le fait de cet être intermédiaire120.

° ° ° Aussi la nécessité opère-t-elle, avec ces causes mécaniques, la reliant à ces enchaînements qui existent dans les corps, « car les processions des êtres ne tolèrent aucun vide… mais partout existent entre les extrêmes des intermédiaires qui assurent aussi leur liaison mutuelle »121. Ainsi la nécessité qui réside dans la matière s’est-elle vue confier la génération des corps, et leur corruption122. 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121. 122.

Proclus, op. cit. , II, 3. Proclus, op. cit. , VII, 37. Proclus, op. cit. , VII, 39. Proclus, op. cit. , VIII, 44. Proclus, op. cit. , XI, 61. Proclus, op. cit. , XI, 59. Proclus, op. cit. , XI, 61. Proclus, op. cit. , IV, 20. Proclus, op. cit. , III, 13 avec renvoi à Platon.

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Ce sont les Oracles Chaldaïques qu’il cite : « ne regarde pas la nature, c’est le fatal »123 ; il relie les êtres vivants à un Tout, sans pouvoir d’y échapper124. L’auteur interpelle alors Théodore : – « Tu écris, comme si c’était un argument que notre liberté est bien peu de chose, qu’elle se borne à accomplir l’œuvre des Destinées célestes »125. C’est faussement que nous leur en attribuons la paternité. Car, pour Proclus, le vrai auteur qui gouverne le monde est la Providence, distincte de la fatalité, mais qui laisse cette possibilité du Bien dont elle est source126, ainsi que celle de la vertu. A la condition toutefois que le libre-arbitre existe, petite parcelle de liberté limitée par deux nécessités, qui a su nous conduisant à la contemplation, nous amener à la philosophie127.

Conclusion Nous avons étudié le couple Providence et liberté, pour savoir s’il pouvait être, pour nous, une clé de lecture : nous l’avons vu, Providence et liberté s’enchaînent, chez les différents auteurs, se répondant l’un à l’autre en écho, avec des différences d’accent, constituant même cette charpente intérieure, structure du néoplatonisme.

123. 124. 125. 126. 127.

Proclus, op. cit. , III, 11 et IV, 21. Proclus, op. cit. , VI, 34. Proclus, op. cit. , VI, 33. Proclus, op. cit. , III, 13. Proclus, op. cit. , XII, 66.

The Young Gods: The Stars and Planets in Platonic Treatment of Fate

M L

I.

Introduction

The problem of what fate is and what is fated plagued philosophy from Hellenistic times to the late Neoplatonists. Fate was identified variously with divine or natural law, providence, or it was paired with necessity. It was thought to be either a cosmic force encompassing all things (or most things), or shaping the life of an individual. Among the many attempts to explain fate (εivμαρμevνη) and to preserve some sort of free will, for Middle and Neoplatonists, the major problem was reconciling Plato’s cosmology and myths involving the Fates with other popular conceptions of fate and providence. The most notable rival concepts are from Stoics, such as Chrysippus who accepted divination as proof of a fated cosmic cycle. The Peripatetic confrontation with fate, illustrated in Alexander of Aphrodisias, sets a clearer distinction between fate and determinism, or between εivμαρμevνη itself and kaq j εivμαρμevνης. Less frequently noted, but perhaps of equal importance is the emergence of astrology in Hellenistic and Roman times.1 The developers of astrological practice in this period were 1. Luther H. Martin notes astrological fate in first century parlance in “Heimarmene in the Jewish Antiquities XIII, 171-73,” Numen, Vol. 28, no. 2 (Dec. 1981), 127-137.

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also facing divergent concepts of fate, and contributed their own ideas to the mix. In Middle Platonic ideas of fate and providence, the role of the planets and fixed stars is prominent but ambiguous. Plato’s inclusion of ‘young gods’—the heavenly gods to whom are delegated governance of the cosmos—along with his great respect for astronomy as a means of contemplating the Good, and the fact that stars are part of the visible cosmos rather than strictly noetic, left later thinkers with the difficult task of explaining the place of planetary beings in the cosmic order. Plato does not explicitly make the distinction between fate and providence found in later Platonism; therefore, several problems arise such as: how did the issuance of providence descend to the individual? What role do the daimons play as interpreters or intermediaries? How does the divine soul of an individual remain free in an eternally-recurring universe timed perfectly by planetary cycles? A closer look at Pseudo-Plutarch’s Περι฀εivμαρμevνης2 will illustrate the difficulty of these questions in Middle Platonism. At the time this work is considered to have been written, astrology had advanced in technical agility and popularity, as did Gnosticism and Hermeticism. M.A. Williams has noted hierarchies of providence and fate in Gnostic works such as the Apocryphon of John and the Origin of the World that are similar to those found in PsPlutarch, Apuleius and other Middle Platonists.3 Some Hermetic texts (e.g., Poimandres) also attribute definitive characteristics to the planetary realms that contribute qualities to the embodied soul in the descent to earth. It is with this background that Neoplatonists sought to understand the universe. Astrology, treated by some as a mathematical science, made extraordinary 2. E. Valgiglio discusses the issue of style and language that have led scholars to reject Plutarch as the author in Ps-Plutarco, De Fato,Introduzione testo commento traduzione di E. Valgiglio (Rome, 1966). On Fate is considered an early second century Middle Platonic work. Doctrinal features shared with Apuleius, Calcidius, and Nemesius indicate a common earlier source; though, as J. Dillon (1977, 320) pointed out, the source is not likely Gaius (as postulated by A. Gercke) and remains a mystery. 3. M.A. Williams, “Higher Providence, Lower Providence and Fate in Gnosticism and Middle Platonism” in Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, ed. R. Wallis and J. Bregman (SUNY Press, 1992), 483-507. Planetary archons as secondary providence have characteristics similar to those found in astrology.

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claims regarding knowledge of one’s fate.4 Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus gave thought to just how far-reaching the planets are in the lives of an individual in large part due to these claims.5 Only in this context do we come to understand the exchange between Porphyry and Iamblichus on finding one’s guardian daimon.6 However, somewhere between the planet that governs one’s fate (determined through astrological techniques) and the providential personal daimon, something was lost in translation for the Neoplatonists.

II. Fate and the Young Gods in the Republic, Timaeus and Laws For Middle Platonists, the problem of defining fate begins with Plato’s dialogues, particularly Timaeus, Republic and Book X of Laws. In the Myth of Er (Republic X.614ff ), Plato gives us a mythological account of fate in which the three Moirai weave in accordance with divine law that governs the life of a soul. Justice is based on a soul’s actions in previous lives. These actions are governed by dispositions such as greed, avarice, or hatred, and contribute to the soul’s harmony or disharmony, though the soul itself is not constituted according to necessity (618b). The shift of responsibility of the soul’s fate to the soul itself is a step away from a pre-Socratic notion that the gods have a more direct responsibility for the activity of fate.7 The Moirai, not the Olympian gods, are mentioned in this account, but G.M.A. Grube tells us not 4. Babylonian astrology developed in the Hellenistic world with Pythagorean, Platonic, Stoic, and Peripatetic influences. Though theory was not always clearly defined by astrologers or their opponents, astrological techniques combined a collection of interpretative lore with seemingly rational principles. See M. Lawrence, “Hellenistic Astrology,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds. J. Fieser and B. Dowden, 2005, http://www.iep.utm.edu/a/astr-hel.htm 5. See A. Scott, Origin and the Life of the Stars (Oxford, 1994), 61-62. Plotinus’s position has been discussed in M. Lawrence, “Who Thought the Stars are Causes: The Astrological Doctrine Criticized by Plotinus,” in Metaphysical Patterns in Platonism, eds. J. Finamore and R. Berchman, (New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2007), 17-32. 6. Iamblichus. De mysteriis, VIII and IX. 7. On pre-Socratic fate, see W.C. Greene, Moira: Fate, Good, & Evil in Greek Thought (Cambridge, MA, 1944).

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to place too much importance on this fact, for “Plato was not committed to any particular gods and the different divinities that appear were probably taken over from the same source as the myth he embellished.”8 Middle Platonic interpreters, however, did take whatever gods Plato mentioned seriously and tried to accommodate their functions; but they were left with the problem of accounting for their roles in fate alongside other, less mythological sources and meanings of εivμαρμevνη.9 In the Myth of Er, the planets do not take on personal characteristics and are not associated with Olympian gods.10 The spheres on which their paths turn are concentric whorls (σφovνδυλoι) rotating by the spindle of Necessity and guided by her daughters: Clotho turning the outer sphere of the fixed stars, Atropos the inner planetary spheres, and Lachesis with one hand on both, inner and outer (616b-617d). Again, in Timaeus, there is a shift in the direction of responsibility for fate and its workings in individual lives. The demiurge is exonerated of the possibility of producing evil by assigning the creation and care of human beings to younger gods. After each soul had been assigned its own fixed star (41d), the demiurgic god plants each on the earth, moon and other instruments of time, while the younger gods fashion bodies, and whatever else is lacking in souls. They are then given to govern and steer them away from self-imposed evils (42d-e). But what, then, is the meaning of these young gods? Plato doesn’t directly state that they are the planets and fixed stars,11 from both circles of Same and Different, but it is certain they are celestial since the sphere of the fixed stars corresponds to the uniform and rational part of the soul, while the lower spheres give bodies and other characteristics constitutive of humanity.

8. G.M.A. Grube, Plato’s Thought, (Indianapolis, 1980), 159. 9. Ps-Plutarch uses an Aristotelian distinction between ousia and energeia to define the role of the Moirai. 10. In Epinomis are all of the planets are for the first time named for Greek gods, while the question about whether the planets are gods themselves or fashioned in the likenesses of the gods is left open (983e). 11. See A. Scott, op. cit, 17.

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In the Laws (X 896e-905d), we again have providential celestial gods, comparable to the young gods in Timaeus. In the passage describing the motions of the soul and arguing for the care of the gods, “all the stars and the moon and the years and the months and all the seasons”12 are perfectly virtuous souls. Regardless of whether souls inhabit celestial bodies and carry them, or have more refined bodies while pushing the visible along, or guide the sun and other bodies by a mysterious means, it is justified to treat them as gods (Laws 899a-b). The gods described here are not only planetary gods, but gods of seasons and fixed stars. Although being “other instruments of time” (Tim. 42d), souls could not have been sown on seasons or months, so in Timaeus, we must confine ourselves to visible celestial workshops.13 Plato expresses in Laws the individual soul’s responsibility, extended to psychological character or disposition. Each individual, for the sake of cosmic harmony, plays a role in divine law and is placed in a region and life corresponding to changes in character of the soul. Choices that transgress the law result in punishment. Fate, in this case, pertains to an individual, whose cause of change is within the soul itself; while changing souls are, “carried according to the ordinance and law of fate.”14 Plato uses the word εivμαρμevνη in Timaeus (41e) to denote the law of cosmic justice shown to souls prior to their incarnation. Fate here and in Laws is not a set of events determining everything according to strict causal necessity, but is divine law.15 The word for fate, however, is not simply synonymous with law. In Republic (619c), εivμαρμevνη is used by Plato to indicate not the general law but the actual consequence of a soul’s actions according to cosmic justice; for instance, a tyrant is described as fated to eat his children. In other places, though, the word has a more specific usage. Suicide is described as taking one’s own fate out of the hands of destiny (Laws 873c).16 Later in Timaeus, εivμαρμevνη 12. Laws 899b. Trevor Saunders’s translation. 13. Plato did not identify each planet with a traditional Greek god but used the more traditional names for the wandering stars. 14. Laws, 904.c8-9. 15. This becomes standard Middle Platonic doctrine. 16. Destiny here translates moira, generally a pre-philosophical word for fate.

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describes a disease running its allotted course, and denotes the life-span of a living being. In Gorgias (512.e), it again refers to an allotted span of life, and in Menexenus to the journey after death (236d). This meaning of εivμαρμevνη does not seem to be the primary one in Middle Platonic writing,17 but it is prominent in astrological treatment of fate.

III. Hellenistic Fate: Mythical and Philosophical The meaning of εivμαρμevνη becomes a more concrete philosophical issue in the Hellenistic era, particularly due to its foundational importance in Stoic cosmology of the eternal recurrence. Some scholars have argued that Book X of Laws was particularly central to Stoic concepts of fate,18 while others have discussed similar influences of Plato on Stoic cosmology.19 Making a clear distinction between fate and providence was a problem for Stoicism, as well. Although the Stoics are generally characterized as identifying God or Zeus with Fate, Providence, Pneuma, Nature, Logos, etc., the early Stoics generally thought of fate “as the realization of the providential will of gods.”20 Middle Stoics such as Posidonius posited a hierarchy of God, Nature, and fate, while Cleanthes appears to subordinate providence to fate.21 Plato’s providence, though, is often considered impersonal, distant, and transcendent in contrast with Stoic providence, which is observed as signs in even the smallest of matters.22 According to this distinction, the Platonist looks upward to the heavens, the 17. The association of εiJμαρμεvνη with death in a non-philosophical context is in K. Penner, “The Fate of Josephus’s Antiquitates Judaicai 13.171-173,” Journal of Biblical Studies, 1:4 (Oct-Dec 2001), http://www.journalofbiblicalstudies.org/issue4.html, accessed Nov. 13, 2006. 18. M. Dragona-Monachou, “Divine Providence in the Philosophy of the Empire,” Aufstieg und Niedergang, der Römischen Welt, Band 36.7 (Berlin, 1994), 4419-4420. 19. See, for instance, G. Betegh, “Cosmological Ethics in the Timeaus and Early Stoicism,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Vol. XXIV (summer 2003), 273-302. 20. Dragona-Monachou, op. cit., 4432. 21. Ibid, 4432. This account is in Calcidius’s In Tim. 144b (SVF 551). 22. Ibid., 4445. The idea that signs of providence are in everything was especially articulated by Epictetus (Diss. ab Arr., I.16, 6-14).

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mathematicals, and beyond for providence, whereas the Stoics observe providential care closer to our earthly home, in the care of an animal for its young, for instance. However, to define Platonic and Stoic positions on providence as transcendent versus immanent, respectively, would be a gross generalization, even in Plato’s early Academy.23 Such a distinction particularly falters in Middle Platonic conceptions, as will be noted in the example of Ps-Plutarch.24 The uneasy status of mythology in the Hellenistic period may significantly contribute to the difficulties concerning treatment of fate and providence. On the one hand, a philosophical account of fate was called for by Hellenistic philosophers, one which would use myth allegorically for a philosophical or metaphysical account of the universe. C. Lévy provides an example by noting that Cicero translated τovν฀εijκovτα฀μn`θoν (29d.2; 68.d.2), the likely story referred to by Socrates, as probabilia rather than fabula, the typical word for myth.25 He writes: Cicero did not want to, or could not preserve the ‘mythic’ nature of the Platonic text and that he gave it a different character, transforming the dialogue into a cosmogonic exposition without any general claim to certainty, but with a dogmatic frame…In Hellenistic philosophy the mythoi are often used as examples or as allegorical vehicles to support philosophical texts with the authority of some prestigious poet, but the philosophical text itself is never presented as a mythos.26

On the other hand, Middle Platonism is in part considered to be as a response to the demythologizing tendencies in Academic skepticism and Peripatetic philosophy. L. Brisson aptly described it as a return to a religious approach, one in which «Plato’s thought reappeared as a means of access to another order of realities: that

23. Polemo, e.g., defined god as the cosmos itself. J. Dillon, The Heirs of Plato (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 2003), 166-167. 24. Nevertheless, transcendental remoteness of first providence, and how providence of the heavenly gods reaches the individual, is never resolved in Middle Platonism. 25. C. Lévy, “Cicero and the Timaeus,” in Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon (Indiana, University of Notre Dame, 2003), 99-100. 26. Ibid., 99.

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of the Forms and the divine, which only the soul could apprehend.»27 This religious approach is best exemplified in the Chaldaean Oracles and in the writers of some Platonic-influenced Gnostic and Hermetic works, though it less meaningful describes PsPlutarch’s treatise On Fate. The author struggles with cognitive dissonance from exposure to Aristotelian and Stoic views in his account of the universe, in which the three Moirai are briefly mentioned in the beginning as ‘substantial’ fate,28 while the rest of the work attempts to philosophically account for the arrangement of fate, providence, chance, free will, contingency and necessity in ‘more ordinary’ (κoινovτερoν) as opposed to mythological language.

IV. The Young Gods in Pseudo-Plutarch’s On Fate To summarize Ps-Plutarch’s On Fate, the author of this treatise distinguishes active versus substantial fate, while paying closer attention to active fate, which he introduces as both immutable law and divine logos. Substantial fate is the division of domains of the three Moirai, the fixed stars, the planetary, and the sublunary.29 While in the Republic, Lachesis actively participates by holding both spheres turning in two directions, in Ps-Plutarch, she receives the celestial activities (ejνεργεijαι) of her sisters. Returning to active fate, the author describes the quality (oJπoi`oς) of this fate in metaphysical terms as the Stoic eternal recurrence,30 complete with infinite events in a finite megacycle or 27. L. Brisson, Plato’s Timaeus and the Chaldaean Oracles, in Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon, 112. 28. onjσivαν εiJμαρμεvνης (568F). 29. Dillon (1977, 321 ff ) notes that Calcidius expresses the same definitions of active fate, while Nemesius provides only divine logos as untransgressible. Apuleius does not talk of active/substantive but of divine law. The triadic schema of the cosmos as substantive fate is not present in Alcinous (the Platonist formerly known as Albinus. See Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism, tr. J. Dillon, Oxford University Press, 1995, ix-xiii). 30. He also says this account will seem strange to many (πoλλoi`ς฀aτoπoν฀ φαivνεται; 568F.3). He employs a Stoic concept, though assumes his audience is unaware of or unreceptive to Stoic ajπoκατavστa±σις.

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‘Great Year’31 measured by the planetary revolutions. Each megacycle, when restored, results in a series (ejϕεξoh`ς) of same causes as the last, in which the same individual does the same thing as the previous round. The author doesn’t reject this cosmological definition of fate, but adds a clause saying that not all events, neither mine or yours, are alone caused by heavenly bodies. He then describes a second kind of fate that pertains to the state and the individual, and its relationship to three types of providence. This fate, as law, is hypothetical because, as in laws of the state, things are not ‘fated’ (καθ ฀j εiJμαρμevνης) to occur in a deterministic sense, but consequences result from conforming to or trangressing the law. All events are contained within fate as law; consequences are fated, though not all antecedents are fated. These antecedents are what you might typically find in an Aristotelian-influenced philosopher: the possible, the contingent, the necessary, that according to us, chance, and the spontaneous. Largely drawing from the Timaeus, the author then covers the relation of three providences to fate. Primary providence is the will and noesis of the demiurge. Fate is younger than and in conformity with the primary providence. The author quotes the passage on the role of the young gods (42d), and calls this secondary providence. He then names a tertiary providence and identifies it as activity of the daimons. Secondary providence is begotten with fate (συγγεννηθεi`σα), so both are within primary providence, while tertiary providence is within fate. Not dedicating many words to the meaning of tertiary providence, Ps-Plutarch cites the urgings of Socrates’ daimon to associate with certain people as an example of tertiary providence within fate, or a type of fate brought about by daimonic power (574B-C). He also notes the idea that secondary providence, the celestial motions, would also be within fate if one is thinking of the three parts of substantive fate as a chain of causality. He rather places its beginning (πρoκατavρχoντoς) together with fate to avoid such a conclusion (574D.1-3), and, as I maintain, to preserve the godly status of the planets. De Lacy and Einarson interpret this twin relationship of secondary providence and fate as “neither including the other,”

31. Tim. 39c-d.

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that is, as mutually exclusive.32 However, having a common origin in temporal creation does not necessarily mean that secondary providence of the planets has no influence on the world of fate. Furthermore, in his conclusion, Ps-Plutarch lists prayer to and worship of the gods as the last of things within the order of lawful fate (574d). If the gods of secondary providence have no personal relevance, what would be the purpose of such prayers?33 Returning to his discussion of the quality of active fate, Ps-Plutarch found it necessary to describe all the features of the Stoic eternal recurrence, though with the clause that the planetary motions are not solely responsible for individual actions (even though the same person returns in the same situation in each cycle). This clause is also found in Alexander of Aphrodisias who brings the idea of providence to Aristotle’s doctrine of planetary causality. Alexander’s position is summarized by R.W. Sharples: Providence is rather to be found in the effect of the regular heavenly motions on the sublunary world, in preserving the continuity of coming-to-be and passing away and hence of sublunary species; but it does not extend to the fortunes of individuals.34

Plotinus also acknowledges the influences of planetary on sublunary activity, though refutes their total influence as proposed by astrologers. Causal influence of planets, in general, is not exclusively an astrological theory.35

32. Plutarch’s Moralia VII, ed. and tr. De Lacy and Einarson (Harvard University Press, 1968), 307. 33. This issue would soon occupy Neoplatonism. On prayer and providence in Plotinus, see J. Laurent, La prière selon Plotin, Ekei, Entautha, Kairos, 15 (Univ. de Toulouse, 1999), 99-106. Hierocles identifies a lower providence with fate, and considers prayer ineffectual without human freedom as an activity cooperative with god in bringing about a providential but inescapable fate (cf. Commentary on the Golden Verses, XXI, in Schibli, Hierocles of Alexandria, Oxford, 2002, 283-5). From his criticism of magic and astrology, he rejects prayers intended to ward off the fate destined by the planets and stars but created by prior choices of the soul (Schibli, 2002, 158-161). 34. R.W. Sharples, “Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation.” Aufstieg und Niedergang, der Römischen Welt, Band 36.2 (Berlin, 1982), 1176-1243. 35. M. Lawrence, “Who Thought the Stars are Causes.”

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How Ps-Plutarch maintains the distinction between the first definition of fate (substantive and active together as ‘cosmic’ fate) and hypothetical fate (pertaining to the state and individual) is not altogether clear. Nor does he spell out how the planets influence events or individuals, even if only the lower part of the soul. Furthermore, what sort of daimon carries forth this tertiary providence and to what end? These problems center around two things: misinterpretation of Plato’s perfect year as the eternal recurrence of the same; and the often overlooked presence of astrological theory, not confined to popular fortune-telling, but a force that carried weight in philosophical circles.

V.

Astrological Fate Mixing with Platonic Fate

In his essay, “Recovering the Stoics,” A.A. Long points out: Plato plainly did not connect the completion of this ‘great year’ with a cosmic conflagration; for the terrestrial burning he previously mentioned is linked with a ‘shift’ in the celestial movements. But within Zeno’s lifetime, that connexion appears to have been made by the Babylonian Berosus whose account of astrology strongly stimulated Greek interest in the subject.”36 An association of the great or perfect year with ajπoκατavστa±σις฀ was in fact made in astrology, as exemplified by Firmicus Maternus.37 Hellenistic astrology, however, also speaks of a horoscope that represents the “birth of the world.”38 He argues that the thema mundi (κovσμoυ฀γevνεσις) could not really represent the 36. A.A. Long, “Recovering the Stoics,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, supp. 23, ed. R. Epp (1985), 18. Cf. A.A. Long, “Astrology: arguments pro and contra,” in Science and Speculation, eds. J. Barnes, et. al, Cambridge University Press, 1983, 165-192. 37. (Mathesis III.1.9): annorum maior apocatastasis. Firmicus Maternus refers to the version of fire followed by flood. For most Stoics, ajπoκατavστa±σις is destruction by fire only, though Seneca (Nat. Quest. 3.29.1) speaks of Berossus’ ability to predict the fire and flood of ajπoκατavστa±σις฀through astronomical knowledge. 38. Firmicus Maternus places the planets in the middle of their own signs (oijκoς), while a more common version places them in their exaltation signs (nJψwvματα) and degrees.

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birth of the world,39 since the length of the great year (300,000 years) makes human empirical observation of the world’s fate represented in this horoscope impossible.40 He claims it was an allegorical tool for teaching the meanings of planets in human horoscopes, and to illustrate man’s likeness to the universe. As in Ps-Plutarch, we see a struggle to maintain the Platonic and Stoic cosmologies—caught between the myth of creation of the cosmos in the Timeaus, and the deterministic cycles of Stoic ajπoκατavστoa±σις. Astrologers also appear to have likewise struggled with fitting fate, providence, daimons, chance, and necessity in their systematic structuring of signifiers.41 In order to maintain fate and, at the same time, save Plato from charges of fatalism, Ps-Plutarch defined it as non-deterministic hypothetical law. Astrologers, however, did not need to redefine fate as non-fatalistic since the entire practice is about knowing fate.42 By means of extraordinary knowledge, they attempted to fill in the gap (apparent in PsPlutarch) between the cosmic fate of planetary providence and the fate of the individual. They developed numerous techniques for calculating birth and death allotted by substantial fate represented by Lachesis, or εivμαρμevνη in its connection to life-span.43 Even the most Platonic of the astrologers cross the Platonic line, as moral characteristics that might pertain to the higher part of the soul are determined by certain zodiacal and planetary configurations. Ps-Plutarch’s use of Socrates’ personal guardian daimon for the paradigm of tertiary providence leads one to think that the daimons only influence the rational part of the soul toward the Good (or prevent bad actions). This view does not seem to be 39. Perhaps this astrologer, who later converted to Christianity, had been grappling with the debate over the eternity of the world. 40. Cf. Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, I.2.7. 41. These items of concern for philosophy are not absent in astrology but subordinated to fate as elements of a horoscope. 42. E.g., Vettius Valens, Anth. 5.6.25 ff. 43. Firmicus Maternus denied the notion that fate only pertains to birth and death (Mathesis I.8)—astrology’s purpose is to flesh out everything between birth and death, including character.

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shared by other Platonists or schools of thought of the time.44 Astrologers, too, attempted to explain how daimons (which were not always beneficial) were within fate, as agents acting upon the earth. According to Firmicus Maternus, each of the 36 Egyptian decans are assigned to a planet which gains the quality in astrological analysis similar to being in its own house (oiκoς).45 Decans, having “infinite power and freedom” to indicate individual fate, are each assigned nine attendants, munifices or liturgi.46 These are further subdivided into powers that cause unexpected illness, e.g., sudden pain, fever, and birth defects. Similarly, in the Hermetica,47 the liturgi are responsible for apotelesmata katholika or mundane astrology, bringing about locusts and cattle plagues. In light of these oppressive heavenly powers, similarly found in some Gnostic works,48 salvation from fate is an escape from astral and daimonic dominance.49 This version of daimons, however, is not prominent in astrological interpretation. In standard astrological doctrine,50 τnvχη (variably translated as ‘fortune’ or ‘chance’) is treated as a particular signifier within the whole system of the horoscope rather than as the prime operative of fate;51 this is also the case with daimons.52 In the system of horoscopic astrology, chance and daimons appear to be subordinated to fate. It would also appear that providence is subordinated to the planets when Vettius Valens 44. Apuleius, e.g., tells us that daimons do influence the passions, and outlines three types of daimons of unequal moral stature (Dillon, 1977, 317-320). Alcinous (see note 29) holds daimons responsible for divination and appears to equate them with the young gods of the Timaeus (ibid., 288). 45. Mathesis II IV 2. 46. Mathesis II IV 3-6. 47. Stobaeus excerpt VI.12-13; 16.5. Hermetica, ed. and tr. W. Scott (Boston, 1985), 414-417. 48. E.g. Apocryphon of John, 28.26-30; Trimorphic Protennoia, 43.13 ff. 49. Stobeaus excerpt VI.13, op. cit., 415. 50. See W. Gundel and H.G. Gundel, Astrologumena (Wiesbaden, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966). 51. Tuvχη or fortune is the name for one of the prominent฀κλh`ρoι—significant points in a horoscope. The fifth and the sixth of the twelve places (τovπoι) of a horoscope were also known respectively as good and bad fortune. 52. Likewise, the counterpart to the ‘lot of fortune’ was the ‘lot of daimon’. The eleventh and twelfth τovπoι were called good and bad daimon.

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tells us the Moon is the ruler (κnvριoς) of providence (Anth. 1.1.128).53 However, when recalling his encounter with the true teachings of astrology, Valens says he found the right teacher through “daimonic will by way of some sort of providence.”54 He may have personally believed in a beneficent tertiary providence such as found in Ps-Plutarch, although this meaning of daimon typically falls outside of astrological interpretation. So the problem of the status of daimons in relation to the planetary young gods is present not just in Middle- and Neoplatonism, but in astrologically-minded rivals who attempt to provide answers to the unanswerable. In fact, somewhere between Iamblichus and Porphyry, a purely astrological technique for finding a ruling planet, one meaning of εivμαρμevνη became associated with one’s personal daimon. In Book IX of De mysteriis, Iamblichus answers Porphyry on whether and how the personal daimon can be found through the oijκoδεσπovτης.55 In astrology, finding this ruling planet involved a series of horoscopic considerations; and, when found, the placement of this planet was used for such things as calculating life-span.56 Porphyry’s question indicates that either a unique daimon had been assigned to a planet (perhaps by the division of the zodiac in which the oijκoδεσπovτης is found) or was the planet itself. Taken out of the astrological context and placed in a Neoplatonic context, the link between a particular young god of secondary providence or fate and a personal daimon is muddled when this liberating daimon is within fate, as are the daimons of Ps-Plutarch’s tertiary providence. In such exchanges as between Porphyry and Iamblichus, the distinction sharply drawn by Peripatetic and Middle Platonic philosophy between things 53. Pingree edition (1986). 54. 4.11.25-26: τo;฀δαιμovνιoν฀βoυληθe;ν฀διav฀τινoς฀πρoνoivας. 55. This technical astrology term was translated as “lord of the geniture” by Th. Taylor and more literally as “master of the house” by Clarke, Dillon and Hershbell (2003, 333). Given the variety of techniques and inconsistent terminology among astrologers, it has been easy to confuse one lord, the฀κuvριoς, with the oijκoδεσπovτης. The differences are discussed in Porphyry’s Introductio in Tetrabiblum Ptolemaei, ed. Boer and Weinstock, CCAG 5.4, 206-208. 56. E.g., Antigonus, Imperatoris Hadriani genitura, CCAG 6, 68.4-5.

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within εiJμαρμevνη and καθ j εiJμαρμevνη appears to be lost. Confusion over what type of daimon being discussed, a rational and providential daimon or a force driving events in nature (cf. Iamblichus, Letter to Macedonius, Fr. 5), is complicated by this association with astrological doctrine. A closer look at the language of astrological texts, the philosophical or religious positions held by astrologers (where it is discernable), and fate in related doctrines of Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Christianity, may advance discussion of Platonic views of fate. Fate or providence in Platonism after Plato, as never fully transcendent or immanent, is perhaps a sign that we have always wanted it both ways—a higher source of meaning to which we can look upwards, and meaning in the world around us.

Selected bibliography Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum, ed. D. Olivieri, et al., 12 Volumes (Brussels: Academie Royale, 1898-1953). Dillon, John. The Middle Platonists (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977). Firmicus Maternus. Mathesis, ed. W. Kroll and F. Schutsch (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1968). Iamblichus. On the Mysteries, ed. and tr. E. Clarke, J. Dillon and J. Herschbell (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). M. Dragona-Monachou, “Divine Providence in the Philosophy of the Empire,” Aufstieg und Niedergang, der Römischen Welt, Band 36.7 (Berlin, 1994), 4419-4420. Plato. Platonis opera, ed. J. Burnet (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967). Plutarch’s Moralia VII, ed. and tr. De Lacy and Einarson (Harvard University Press, 1968). Vettii Valentis Antiocheni anthologiarum libri novem, ed. D. Pingree (Leipzig: Teubner, 1986).

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‘Resurrection: The Hope of Worms’ The Dispute between Celsus and Origen on the Resurrection of the Body*

E R

Even if nowadays in mainstream Christianity the doctrine of the resurrection of the body might seem to have been ‘put aside’ (at least in people’s imagery) in favor of the idea of an heaven (or hell) populated solely with souls, it remains the very core of the Christian eschatological message. Since the scornful reaction of the Athenians to Paul’s sermon1, this doctrine has in fact been one of the central issues that seems to separate the Pagan philosophical world from the Christian one. The Apologists themselves very often remark upon the hostility of their opponents: Augustine for example says: “No doctrine of the Christian faith is so vehemently, so obstinately, so pertinaciously, so contentiously opposed as the doctrine of the resurrection of the flesh.”2 Due to its problematic nature and its implications the doctrine was not only rejected among the Jews (the Sadduceans), but also among the Christians themselves (some Gnostic sects). ฀ *฀ This article is based on a chapter of my doctoral dissertation, “Filosofare per immagini: il tema del verme nei filosofi antichi e nei Padri della Chiesa” (Philosophy through Images: the Theme of the Worm in the Ancient Philosophers and the Fathers of the Church), PhD diss., University of Genoa, Italy, 2007. 1. Ap. XVII, 32, 1. 2. Enarr. in Ps., Ps. 88, ser 2, 5 (PL 37, 1134). The translation is my own.

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Obviously, the crux of the dispute was not the ‘resurrection’ but the ‘body’: believing in the doctrine of the resurrection of the body implies that the body, far from being a burden or a mere vehicle, has a value in itself and is an indissoluble and characterizing component of the human being, which is worthy of being saved and eternalized with the soul, with which it creates a binding unity. In the words of those Fathers who chose to embrace the doctrine in its real, if extreme nature, a positive evaluation of the body comes out clearly: caro salutis est cardo, “the flesh is the pivot of salvation”, said Tertullian.3 The aim of this article is to follow the dispute on this issue in its locus classicus, Origen’s Against Celsus. I will first focus my attention on several passages from The True Discourse4 in order to examine Celsus’ main anti-Christian philosophical arguments against resurrection; during the textual analysis I will show the important role that the worm’s metaphor plays within the discussion; my next topic will be Origen’s response to Celsus’ arguments, in which he tries to justify the doctrine in rational terms: I will try to show the way in which he shapes his theory of resurrection, how he deals with the real essence and the revolutionary power of the doctrine and how he replies to Celsus’ ‘metaphorical attack’. To begin with, I wish to make it clear that my research starts from a major methodological/philosophical premise: that metaphors, images, analogies in philosophy are not mere embellishments of the discursive argument but that they very often have an inner power to transmit philosophical contents: Caroline Walker Bynum in her The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity5 brilliantly shows how images were fundamental for the early Fathers to shape their vision of the doctrine and I hope to demonstrate, among other things, how images were fundamental not only for the Apologists, but also for the Pagan critics.

3. De Res. VIII, 2 (PL 2, 806A). 4. Celsus’ treatise The True Discourse having perished, it is possible to partially reconstruct it from Origen’s answer Against Celsus. 5. C.W. Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 2001336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995).

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Celsus’ argumentative attack

We start with a passage, not directly connected with resurrection, in which Celsus uses a long metaphor to show his general contempt of the Christians, by picturing them as a bunch of low, chthonic animals that wallow in their lowly, obscure lairs, and fight one another for futile motives: he calls them clusters of bats, ants coming out of a nest, frogs holding council around a marsh or worms assembling in a muddy corner: The race of Jews and Christians [are like] a cluster of bats or ants coming out of a nest, or frogs holding council round a marsh, or worms assembling in a muddy corner,฀ disagreeing with one another about which of them are the worse sinners. They say: ‘God shows and proclaims everything to us beforehand, and He has even deserted the whole word and the motion of the heavens, and disregarded the vast earth to give attention to us alone; and He sends messengers to us alone and never stops sending them and seeking that we may be with Him forever’. [Christians are] like worms who say: ‘There is God first, and we are next after Him in rank since He has made us entirely like God, and all things have been put under us, earth, water, air and stars; and all thingS exist for our benefit and have been appointed to serve us. 6

This metaphor (obviously influenced by the Homeric deuteronekuia7 and by Phaed. 109a 9-b 4) is very complex and interesting, but in this case it will be sufficient to point out that Celsus means to impute to Christians the lowest level of spiritual, moral, social and cultural life, placing the accent on the gap between their miserable status and their unjustified pride, that leads them to consider their pointless inner disputes as matters of great importance and to place themselves on top of the universe, just below God. The basic accusation against Christians, which runs through all of Celsus’ treatise, is their alleged purpose of tearing down ‘the second sailing’, i.e. the separation between the physical and the metaphysical word, between the material and imperfect world

6. C.C. IV, 23. All translations are from H. Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), with minor variations. 7. Od. XXIV, 1-6.

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of man and the perfect and immaterial word of Ideas and God. One of the doctrines in which this threat is mostly present is the doctrine of the resurrection.8 From a rational and physical point of view, resurrection is impossible and contrary to nature’s laws (παρὰ฀φύσιν): whilst the soul is naturally immortal, the body has the taint of corruption in its own nature and what is per se mortal can not be made immortal, not even by God himself. Celsus, as a good Platonist, quotes Timaeus 69c-d in order to maintain that body and soul are separate from the start: while soul is created directly by God, body is formed by God’s creatures from the underlying matter: But I would prefer to teach about the order of nature and say that God made nothing mortal. Whatever beings are immortal are works of God, and mortal beings are made by them. And the soul is God’s work, but the nature of the body is different. In fact, in this respect there will be no difference between the body of a bat or a worm (εὐλὴ) or a frog or a man. For they are made of the same matter (ὕλη), and are equally liable to corruption.9

Celsus shows himself to be a pure dualist: the body is a dead thing even while alive, in the best case it has a value only in its functional but transient relationship with the soul; in the worst, it has no value at all, and is a prison and a punishment for the soul.10 Obviously this implies a rejection of God’s incarnation: the idea of a God that chooses to assume a body and to born from a woman seems to Celsus utterly absurd and blasphemous.11 From a moral point of view, resurrection is immoral: why should a soul still desire a body after death, when its ultimate goal is to be released from the slavery of the body and the bodily? It is foolish of them also to suppose that, when God applies the fire (like a cook!), all the rest of mankind will be thoroughly roasted and that they alone will survive, not merely those who are alive at the time but those also long dead who will rise up from the earth possessing the same flesh as before. This is simply the hope of

8. 9. 10. 11.

C.C. V, 14; VIII, 49. C.C. IV, 52. C.C.VIII, 53. C.C. IV, 2,14; VI, 72,73.

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worms (okwlhvkwn hJ ejlpivz). For what sort of human soul would have any further desire for a body that has rotted?12

Because of this base and unnatural desire, Celsus surprisingly calls Christians ‘lovers of the body’(φιλοσώματον γένος) and accuses them of worshipping the body as though there was nothing more important.13 Celsus did not explicitly express this accusation, but it seems very likely that under this statement lies the suspicion that Christians would like to enjoy in the afterlife the same bodily pleasures they allegedly pursued on earth. From a religious point of view resurrection is impure: if the living body is impure, “full of things it is not even nice to mention”14, corpses are even more impure, as the adjective μιαρὸν suggests.15 Besides, Celsus is aware that, from a gnoseological point of view, resurrection seems to imply a participation of the body in the knowledge of God, which of course is for him unacceptable.16

2.

Celsus’ metaphorical attack

As we have seen, the worm’s image runs through Celsus’ attack like a red thread: the worm basically embodies matter, and the link between the two is so strong that Celsus, in C.C. IV, 52, instead of the usual term σκώληξ, remarkably uses the rare term εὐλὴ for worm (this term is found in Homer)17, in order to suggest a paretymology (very likely modelled on those of the Cratylus) that reveals the deep kinship between the worm (εὐλὴ) and the matter (ὕλη). Consequently in his view Christians are worms because they identify themselves with their material worm-like part (i.e. the body, which is dead even before death) and their hopes are the same as those of worms, because after death they want back their worm-like part and they wish, as worms do in their unnatural 12. C.C. V, 14. The expression ‘hope of worms’ (okwlhvkwn hJ ejlpivz) seems to be shaped as an anthonym of the ‘great hope’ (ejlpivz megavlh) of Phaed. 114c 8, i.e. the hope of living eternally as pure disembodied souls. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

C.C. VII, 36. C.C. V, 14. C.C. V, 14. C.C. VII, 34, 36. Il. XIX, 23-27; XXII, 508-9; XXIV, 414-15.

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way, to be re-born from it. As a matter of fact in antiquity worms were alleged not to come to life through male/female copulation but directly from matter (mud, wood etc.) or from other animals’corpses (the so-called generatio aequivoca): As the popular opinion as it, a snake is formed out of a dead man, originating from the marrow of the spine, and a bee from an ox, and a wasp from an horse, and a beetle from an ass, and in general worms from most animals. 18

Celsus’ use of the worm’s image is both the summing up and the climax of a long tradition. Remarkably there is no mention of the worm in Plato’s works: nevertheless the place of the ‘footless and crawling on earth’ worm in the ontological hierarchy of animals of the Timaeus19 would be very low, just above fishes. Besides, the Platonic theme of the mud (βόρβορος)20 as the place of the lowest inclination towards the bodily, has certainly influenced Celsus’ negative representation of the worm. The portrayal of the worm in antiquity, even if mostly negative, contains thoroughly ambiguous connotations: on the one hand it is connected to death and decay21, on the other it is connected to life through its mysterious generatio aequivoca (birth from inorganic matter without copulation)22. Linked to matter and material pleasures23, it embodies the lowest form of being and even the degeneration of nature24, but it is also the paradigmatic 18. C.C. IV, 57. 19. Tim. 91d-92c. 20. M. Aubineau, “Le thème du bourbier dans la littérature grecque profane et chrétienne”, Revue de Sciences Religieuses 47 (1959): 185-214. 21. For example Homer refers several times (cfr. retro, sub nt. 17) to worms that spring up in the wounds of dead warriors and eventually eat the whole corpse. 22. Aristotle, Hist. an. 539a 21-25; De gen. an. 723b 3-9. 23. Epictetus, arguing against the Epicurean, defines a worm-like life that of those who limit themselves to basic, low pleasures like eating, drinking, debauching, snoring (Diatr. II, 20, 9-12). 24. In the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems (878a 17-20) the worm is represented as the most anomalous product of the decayed human semen and compared to human monsters; in the Magna Moralia (1205a 26-b14) it is given as the emblem of a rather challenging φύσις φαύλη,‘base/bad nature’. On this topic see E. Ruaro, “Aristotele e la ‘mala natura’. M.Mor. 1205a 26-b 14” in Gli antichi e noi. Studi dedicati ad Antonio Mario Battegazzore (Genova: Glauco Brigati, forthcoming).

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and specular counterpart of man, of which it seems to be both the point of origin and the end.25

3.

Origen’s argumentative response

In Origen’s response we find a pars destruens and a pars construens: in the pars destruens, Origen basically rejects Celsus’ account of the resurrection and the offensive metaphor: he stresses that Christians do not believe that they will be resurrected with the same flesh that is rotten in the tomb26 and therefore that they do not have the hopes of worms.27 The pars construens is focused on the claim that the resurrected body has to be different from the earthly one, and that this last has to undergo a deep transformation. There is no negative conception of the actual body in Origen, at least from an ontological point of view. He clearly stresses28 that matter and body, since they are created by God, cannot be evil per se; man is basically a soul using a body29 and a kind of body is always necessary to the soul.30 Nevertheless, the body, even the resurrected one, seems to have a lower ontological status than the soul.31 The soul, which is imago dei, is immortal and imperishable per se, the state of the body is more problematic. The body is in a state of flux, it continually changes in life from childhood to old age, change is sealed in body’s nature and the change that occurs after death, in resurrection, is only another, if greater change. But there is something in the body that remains unchanged through life, something in which the individuality of each man lies, and this certain principle is called by Origen λόγος32 or λόγος σπέρματος33 (that brings to 25. According to Aristotle one of the possible explanations for the origin of human kind is that the first human beings were spontaneously born from earth in worm’s shape (De gen. an. 762b 28-763a 7) and even the first shape of the mammal fetus could be defined as worm-like (De gen. an. 758a 32-37). 26. C.C. V, 18. 27. C.C. V, 19. 28. C.C. III, 42. 29. C.C. VII, 38. 30. C.C. VII, 32. 31. C.C. VIII, 49. 32. C.C. V, 23. 33. C.C. VII, 32.

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mind the λόγος σπερματικός of the Stoics).34 Changes in bodies are possible because God, who gives them some qualities, which are, as we can say, ‘accidents’, can give them further qualities, better ones in this case. God, who is the creator of matter, can also re-create it: as even Celsus noticed, resurrection is strongly linked to creation and can be seen as a second creation. So the core of the body, in which lies individuality, remains unchanged whilst qualities change from the ‘materiality’ and the corruptibility of the earthly body to the ‘immateriality’ and the incorruptibility of the resurrected one.35 Origen’s theory of the resurrection seems to deny material continuity between the actual body and the resurrected one, which seems to be, with the maintenance of personal identity, the essence of the resurrection’s doctrine. His account certainly sounds very different from the stronger statement that we can find, for example, in Augustine: Ista caro resurget, ista ipsa quae sepelitur, quae moritur; ista quae videtur, quae palpatur, cui opus est manducare et bibere, ut possit durare; quae aegrotat, quae dolores patitur, ipsa habet resurgere, malis ad poenas sempiternas, bonis autem ut commutentur.36 Naturally, the more the attention is focused on the transformation, the more the value of the actual body is denied: it seems that in the end the ‘new’ body has lost every ‘bodily’ characteristic and is becoming almost ‘fleshless’, ethereal, a kind of body that Celsus himself would very likely have been well disposed to accept. The problematicity of Origen’s theory appears clearly when considering the gnoseological implications of resurrection: for consistency’s sake one must admit (as Celsus does) that the body, when reconnected to its soul, must add something to the knowledge of God: Origen on the contrary harshly states that “in order to know God we need no body at all”.37 Origen is clearly trying to find a middle way between Gnostic negation of resurrection and the exceedingly material 34. See H. Chadwick, “Origen, Celsus, and the Resurrection of the Body”, Harvard Theological Review, 61 (1948): 83-102. 35. C.C. IV, 57. 36. Serm. 264, 6 (PL 38, 1217). 37. C.C. VII, 33.

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account of the doctrine allegedly widespread among the simpliciores (which is almost the same as that known among Pagans) and he seems well aware that his position could be questionable, since he says: “However, let no one suppose that because we say this, we are among those who, although they are called Christians, deny the scriptural doctrine of resurrection”.38 Nevertheless, he seems too cautious in his account and he does not seem to thoroughly accept the core and the ultimate implications of resurrection, and this attitude appears even in his use of metaphor.

4. Origen’s metaphorical response. Origen’s view of the resurrection is illustrated by three major images: the seed39, the tabernacle/tent40, both borrowed from Paul (I Cor. XV; II Cor. V), and the afterbirth41. All of them seem to imply the loss of something in the process and a material gap between the two bodies (maybe the tabernacle/tent is less problematic because it suggests that the old body is ‘clothed up’ by the new one). As for the worm, Origen basically agrees with Celsus in considering it only a base animal that can only embody the lowest grade of ontological and moral life. So, in rejecting Celsus’ account of the resurrection, he also rejects the image of Christians as worms, in the same way that he simply rejected the same image in replying to Celsus’ long animal metaphor with which we started. Against that metaphor he claimed that Christians are not worms because “no noble or good man, then, is a worm wallowing in mud”42 and he stressed that the same image would better fit zoolatrists or people who live with prostitutes.43 But does the worm play any role in Origen’s pars construens? There is only one point in which Origen seems to use the image of the worm with a change of sign, with a positive evaluation: when 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

C.C. V, 22. C.C. V, 18. C.C. V, 19. C.C. VII, 32. C.C. IV, 29. C.C. IV, 26.

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he quotes Celsus’ image of worm’s generatio aequivoca towards illustrating the possibility of qualities’ change in bodies: this possibility is established by the fact that in nature worms are born from dead animals: Moreover, as from the beginning to the end of the world changes in bodies occur according to ways that have been appointed, possibly a new and different way may succeed after the destruction of the world... so it is not remarkable if at the present time, as the popular opinion as it, a snake is formed out of a dead man, originating from the marrow of the spine, and a bee from an ox, and a wasp from an horse, and a beetle from an ass, and in general worms from most animals. But Celsus thinks that this supports his opinion that none of these are God’s work, and that the qualities that which by some unknown agency have been appointed to change from one character to another, are not the work of any divine Logos who changes the qualities in matter.44

So the worm that comes out of a dead animal is like the heavenly resurrected body that comes out of the dead earthly one: according to this analogy, the ‘new way’ in which qualities change is ‘new and different’ indeed. How can we consider a worm born from an animal to be the same animal that has died? It seems impossible: the change has gone so far that the resurrected animal is a totally different animal. If the change has gone so far, in what lies the substance of the body? This analogy perfectly illustrates the problematicity of Origen’s theory of resurrection, which basically lies in denying material continuity between the actual body and the resurrected one. It would appear that Origen shyly tries to show the connection between worm and resurrection in a positive perspective, but he remarkably fails to mention a really powerful image that could deconstruct Celsus’ metaphorical attack: the image of Christ as a worm. Among Christians, the worm in fact undergoes a complete change of value: from the animal of matter, as it was among Pagans, to the emblem of Christ. The starting point of this revolution is the Bible, a passage of the Psalm 22 (21), 6 in which the just man claims his misery to God: “But I am a worm, and no 44. C.C. IV, 57.

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man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people”. This Psalm, which begins with the words “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” is interpreted by many Fathers in a Christological way and the words “I’m a worm, and no man” were considered the words of Christ to his Father while suffering on the cross. Origen himself in his commentary in Luke (which can be read in Jerome’s translation) explains the words of the Psalm by stressing that Christ calls himself a worm because, as a worm, he came to life without sexual intercourse:45 this interpretation had huge success among the Fathers, since we can find it in Eusebius, Augustine and so on.46 But there is even another explanation of the Psalm which is far more interesting: Christ is called ‘worm’ because of his resurrection: I quote as an example Isidor of Seville: Christus [vocatur] Vermis, quia resurrexit47, but we find it even earlier in Pope Damasus’ Epistulae.48 This interpretation, that is likely to have been influenced by the former use of the worm as an image of the general resurrection and by a version of the phoenix myth in which the phoenix is born again from its own worm (for example in The Epistles of Clement)49, seems unfortunately to have had a minor success, mainly amongst the Latin Fathers. So the worm could be the animal of the resurrection not only from the negative perspective of the Pagans but also from the positive perspective of the Christians. My claim is that the Pagan Celsus sees the real essence and the potentially revolutionary power of the doctrine and that he uses the disturbing worm’s metaphor to embody this powerful potentiality. The Christian Origen instead shows his discomfort at dealing with this extremely problematic issue and tries to soften 45. In Luc. XIV, 8, 8-17 (PL 26, 267A). 46. For an overview of the most important interpretations of the psalmic verse at issue, see D. A. Bertrand, “Le Christ comme ver; à propos du Psaume 22 (21),7”, Le Psautier chez les Pères (Cahiers de Biblia Patristica 4), (Strasbourg 1994): 221-234. Celsus is not likely to have been aware of this association between Christ and the worm, otherwise he would certainly have mentioned it explicitly, in order to mock it.

47. Etymologiae VII, II, 42 (PL 82, 267B). 48. PL 13, 0373C. 49. Ep. in I Cor. XXV, 1-3 (PL 1, 265A).

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‘the healthy scandal’ of the doctrine, and with the same cautious attitude, he remarkably ignores the powerful, but of course embarrassing, image of Christ as a worm which could be the conclusive argument against Celsus’ metaphorical attack. If Christ Himself is a worm, why should Christians not be proud to be worms? If God created the actual body, and Christ Himself chose to live in a human body, why should Christians not be ‘lovers of the body’ and why should they not hope to live with that ever after?

Iamblichus and the Intermediate Nature of the Human Soul

J F. F University of Iowa

In his De Anima, Iamblichus lays out his position that the soul is the mean between Intellect and Nature. When the soul leaves its highest state in the Intellect and descends into the lower realms and becomes attached to the body, it descends as a whole, leaving no higher part of itself above. From the Commentary to Aristotle’s De Anima attributed to Simplicius, but probably not by him,1 we learn further that Iamblichus argued that the human soul in its descents and subsequent re-ascents changed in its essence, not just in the powers that it possessed. This internal change splits the human soul; sometimes it leads a life closely allied to Intellect and at other times deeply involved with the material realm. In either case, the soul’s essence remains divided so that even when it is united with the Intellect it is still somehow (again, in its essence) subject to Nature. This is a radical psychology, one that certainly places the soul in a precarious position, in need of help from higher powers. In this paper, I would like to look again at the nature of the soul in Iamblichean philosophy, using the writings of the Pseudo-Simplicius and Priscianus to help us better understand the double nature of the Iamblichean soul.

1. But see now I. Hadot (2002). See note 13, below.

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Tripartite Soul I begin with the Platonic tripartite soul, since on the face of it, at least, one would expect a Platonist to accept the doctrine. Such however is not the case. The three parts are, as is well known, the rational, the spirited, and the appetitive or irrational. Early on in Neoplatonism, the divide between Plato’s tripartite structure and Aristotle’s more expansive soul faculties had to be reconciled. Both Porphyry and Iamblichus settled the issue by declaring that the soul was incomposite but possessed multiple powers (Porphyry, ap. Stobaeus, 1.350.8-354.18 = 253F Smith; Iamblichus, De Anima 34.2-5 Finamore and Dillon). Plato did of course establish three parts in the Republic, but both Porphyry and Iamblichus argue that this division was made for pedagogical reasons, so that Plato could lay out an explanation of the virtues (Porphyry, 253F.11-15; Iamblichus De An.36.19-36). Iamblichus gives the doctrine in his De Anima:2 Plato and his school, Archytas, and the rest of the Pythagoreans assert that the soul is tripartite, dividing it into reason, spirit, and desire, for these are useful for establishing the system of virtues. As to the powers of the soul, these philosophers include the powers of growth, imagination, perception, opinion, thought that moves the body, desire for good and evil, and intellection. (De An. 36.19-26)

Note that the three Platonic «parts» are reinterpreted consistently with Aristotelian powers. In order to investigate how Iamblichus would have argued for an incomposite, multi-powered soul, one must look to the De Anima commentary of Pseudo-Simplicius. At the beginning of this treatise, the author praises Iamblichus as «the best judge of truth» (1.11) and says that he will write the commentary under the guidance of Iamblichus’ writings on the soul (1.19-20).3 Pseudo-Simplicius, in his commentary to Aristotle’s De An. III.9, considers Aristotle’s question whether the lower powers in 2. Translations from Iamblichus’ De Anima are taken from the edition of Finamore and Dillon (2002). 3. See Finamore and Dillon (2002) 252-253. Seven excerpts from PseudoSimplicius that deal specifically with Iamblichean doctrines are collected there.

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the soul are actual parts separable in place or merely parts in definition. The commentator opts for the second possibility (287.8-14) and argues that incorporeal subjects, such as a soul, do not exist in place (287.15-16). Therefore, all the soul’s «parts» extend whole through the whole body (hola di’ holôn).4 Later, at 288.16-18, he reiterates this point, adding that Aristotle understands parts «not corporeally but in a way appropriate for incorporeal subjects.» We are far removed from the Platonic conception of soul parts operating separately in different parts of the body. Indeed, Pseudo-Simplicius agrees with Porphyry’s and Iamblichus’ position that Plato’s discussion of the three parts in the Republic were for the purposes of discussing virtues only (299.22-23). 5

Intimate Connection of Soul and Body But if a Neoplatonist rejects Platonic tripartition, what does he substitute in its place? How does he harmonize Aristotle’s and Plato’s teachings with an eye to the Neoplatonic immaterial soul? Pseudo-Simplicius in his commentary to 411a26-b30 gives expression to his and Iamblichus’ belief that the soul is one and incomposite. He begins by explaining the problem (76.14-17): What is sought is whether the soul is one or many in each living thing since it has many and multiform activities, and, if it is one, whether it is a composite of many essences or a simplex with many powers, from where [arises] its multitude of activities.

Pseudo-Simplicius, of course, plumps for the soul being a simplex with many powers, but the reason he gives takes us away from Aristotle and to Plato. He asks how the body is ensouled (psychoutai, 76.32): «whether by being present in accordance with one power in one part and with another in another or by the whole everywhere» (76.33-34). The problem here concerns the role of the soul separated from the body exercising its power of contemplation. As Pseudo-Simplicius says, the whole soul cannot

4. Cf. 287.20-22. 5. For tripartism in ethical contexts in Plotinus and Proclus, see

Blumenthal (1996) 99-100.

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be present in the separated powers,6 where the nutritive and other lower faculties would be a detriment to contemplation. It is here that he brings in Plato to clarify Aristotle (76.35-37): Plato clearly says that the appetitive [power], which he calls a mortal form of life, is later interwoven with the rational life, which he calls immortal.

This is a reference to Timaeus 41d1-3, where the Demiurge tells the younger gods to take the immortal rational soul (that he has just constructed) and weave what is «mortal» to it, a term which Neoplatonists took to refer not to the body but to the irrational soul and its vehicle and lower powers. For Pseudo-Simplicius and Iamblichus before him, this would entail that the pure rational soul is prior to the lower powers and therefore that its pure activity is separate from the soul’s lower powers. Pseudo-Simplicius then continues to state that Aristotle is in harmony with this Platonic view. (76.37-77.5) Pseudo-Simplicius identifies Plato’s doctrine of the eternal, immortal rational soul with Aristotle’s productive intellect. In this regard, he quotes Aristotle’s words from III.5 that the active intellect, once it has been separated, is what it is, i.e. immortal (430a2223).7 He can then argue that the rational soul differs from the rest of the soul, which is necessarily tied to the body. Although the rational soul is separate, it also forms a natural union (symphysis, 77.12) with the other psychic powers (and therefore with the body to which they are attached) because of the lives it projects in its inclination outside of itself (77.9-10). This inclination is, of course, a part of the life of a human soul, which Iamblichus tells us, qua mean, exists on two levels. Later in the commentary, he writes, following Iamblichus, that when the soul is dissipated and slackened (diaphoreisthai pôs kai chalasthai, 241.9), it sinks down toward what is secondary.8 This slackening is part of the soul’s dual essence in Iamblichean theory. Returning 6. 76.35. See Urmson and Lautner 177 note 300. 7. Quoted again and more fully at 77.10-11. 8. See Pseudo-Simplicius 240.33-241.26, where he cites Iamblichus for this view. See the notes of Finamore and Dillon (2002) 256-258. The commentator mentions in this passage not only the descent (neusis) but also projection. He also quotes Aristotle, De An. 430a22-23.

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to our passage, we move from this psychic declension with its associated secondary lives to the kind of union it forms with the body. It is not a structure of contiguous parts,9 such as corporeal parts would form, but a union appropriate for incorporeal entities, soul and body unified without division, one undivided whole (77.12-15). Pseudo-Simplicius is imagining a thorough interpenetration of immaterial soul with body. It is not a cobbled together composite, but a unified whole with the incorporeal soul everywhere infused into the corporeal substrate.10 If the union of soul and body is unified in this way, he tells us, then the union of the separated and the unseparated souls must be even finer (77.17-19), no doubt because it is the compound of two incorporeal substances. He qualifies the kind of inseparability he has in mind (77.1923): Even if some [forms of life] are inseparable [from the body], the other is separable but because of its standing apart from itself and its inclination to what is outside of it, it is somehow inseparable and joined together with the other [lives]; it actualizes common activities in the whole of itself but separate activities by itself, since it is transcendent in relation to the other [lives].

The human soul exists on various levels from the nutritive faculty below to rational soul above.11 Of all of the various levels, only one is separable from the body, that of the rational

9. The phrase is: symphysis ou kata sunecheian (77.20-21). The unified compound is not «continuous» in the sense that it is not like atoms placed side by side to create a whole compound. 10. Thus, the whole soul senses through the sensitive faculty (78.29-30). The whole soul is involved «because each power is naturally united with the whole in an indivisible way» (79.30). It is this symphysis of irrational powers with the whole soul that puts the whole soul over the whole body. See Urmson and Lautner (1995) 177 note 310. See also 78.31-33: the whole soul holds the body together «by means of the lives that are inseparable from it because of their indivisible natural union in the whole;» and 79.29-34: various psychic powers (such as the vegetative, sensitive, and rational) are of the same kind as each other and the whole «because of their inseparable natural union with each other.» 11. On the bifurcation of the lowest phase of the soul between the body prepared for ensoulment and the ensouled body, see Blumenthal (1996) 103105. For the commentator’s «multiplying levels,» see Blumenthal (1982) 78 and (1990) 308-309.

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soul. Mindful, however, of Iamblichus’ dictum that the soul is a mean between intellect and nature, and that it descends whole and changes thereby in its very essence (not just in its powers or activities), Pseudo-Simplicius is careful not to cast the rational soul’s separation as permanent or even stable. In this composite of soul and body, the role of the lower powers (the two mortal lower souls in the Timaeus) is to be permanently involved with the body. They are inseparably linked, and yet they are still soul. Just as they are closely intertwined with body, so too the rational soul is intertwined with them and these two psychic entities also form a compound. Thus, through this connection, the higher soul can be said to act with the lower soul in controlling the body. Nonetheless, this is only one aspect of the higher soul’s life since it, unlike the lower, can live separately, however unstably and impermanently. As Pseudo-Simplicius presents it, Iamblichus’ doctrine makes the human soul schizophrenic. It is trapped in a twilight zone between pure contemplative thought and bodily activities. It can never fully embrace either extreme, but it lives in the middle. Returning to our passage, we can see how far Iamblichus’ doctrine has affected Pseudo-Simplicius. Even the connection between higher and lower soul is schizophrenic in this sense. Qua embodied, the rational soul exists at that level, its ability to contemplate harmed and its activities demoted. Qua intellect, it lives separately and purely. But it can live neither life completely nor forever. Such is the fate of the human soul. We can obtain a glimpse of the underlying Iamblichean doctrine in Fr. 86 of Iamblichus’ Timaeus commentary. There, Iamblichus is explicating Tim. 43a2-6. The younger gods have received the immortal soul from the Demiurge and have now borrowed fire, air, earth, and water from the cosmos. The gods . . . glue together what they have taken into the same [mass], not with the indestructible bonds with which they themselves are held together but welding them together with thick rivets invisible because of their smallness, making each body one from all. (43a2-4)

Iamblichus interprets the «thick rivets» as «the union of the reason principles in nature» and the «welding together» as «their demiurgic coherence and union.» Thus, Iamblichus sees the rivets as

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metaphorical. The gods connect soul to body by placing logoi in the soul. These would, of course, be course, be logoi relating to the body and to the irrational powers. These would, in fact, make the higher processes of the immortal soul more attuned to the composite life of soul and body, with its concomitant irrational necessities. This union, which Pseudo-Simplicius described as a total infusion of soul and body, Iamblichus similarly explains as a synochê and henôsis granted from the creator gods. These words are intended to express the close union involved, as remarked by Plato when he says that the bond, though inferior to that in the gods themselves, nonetheless accomplishes a unity from multiplicity.

Rational Soul and Intellect Thus far, we have seen that Pseudo-Simplicius, following Iamblichus, has reinterpreted the Platonic tripartite soul in line with Aristotle’s De Anima. The soul is not tripartite but rather a unified whole with multiple powers of an Aristotelian variety. A tension remains, however, concerning the soul’s highest aspect. Plato had claimed in the Timaeus that this soul was alone immortal and that, indeed, the lower irrational soul was made separately by the younger gods and therefore was mortal. Aristotle claimed that the intellect alone did not have a bodily organ through which it worked. His division in De An. III.5 into what is commonly called an active and passive intellect gave Neoplatonists scope for their synthesizing of Plato and Aristotle. We now come to another problem, first articulated by Carlos Steel.12 Pseudo-Simplicius (313.1-30) reluctantly disagreed with Iamblichus’ interpretation of the two intellects in III.5. Whereas he sees the two intellects at work in the human soul, Iamblichus sees them as external, as in fact the transcendent Intellect and that participated by soul. So, to understand what Iamblichus thought, we must leave Pseudo-Simplicius behind and turn instead to Priscianus’ Metaphrasis in Theophrastum.13

12. Steel (1978) 142-154. 13. There is a long debate over whether the author of the De Anima com-

mentary and Priscianus are not the same person. Steel champions the view;

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Priscianus discusses intellect from 25.27-37.34. The beginning of this section of the Metaphrasis is missing in the manuscripts. As Huby has argued,14 Priscianus makes use of Iamblichus’ theories of the soul in this treatise, borrowing materials from Iamblichus (probably from his De Anima) to use in responding to problems raised by Theophrastus. In the opening of this section as we have it (25.27-.27.7), Priscianus is concerned with the concept of the potential intellect that he has found in Theophrastus. He paraphrases Theophrastus (26.5-7): One must take «potentially» analogically in regard to the psychic intellect, as [it is] related to intellect in actuality, that is to the separated intellect

As Huby notes, it is difficult to decide if the term «psychic intellect» is from Theophrastus.15 Like her, I find it doubtful. This seems an Iamblichean phrase—or certainly Neoplatonic—referring to the intellect in soul, which is to be contrasted with pure Intellect, and that indeed is how it is used here. Whatever distinction Theophrastus might have made, we have here a Neoplatonic one between transcendent Intellect and the intellect-in-soul.16 Priscianus then considers how this psychic intellect may be considered as «potential» (26.12-23), and in so doing uses Iamblichean vocabulary with which we have already become familiar. Looking to Aristotle’s comment at 429a27-29 that the Blumenthal was always doubtful, sometimes arguing that Simplicius himself wrote it and sometimes an unknown other Neoplatonist; I. Hadot (2002) has most recently once again argued for Simplicius as its author, and see also I. Hadot (1990) 290-294, (1978) 193-202, and 1982 46-67; I have argued (in Finamore and Dillon [2002] 18-24) that the author is neither Priscianus nor Simplicius. The contradictory positions of the two philosophers on the two intellects, however, indicates that the author of the De Anima commentary is not Priscianus. 14. Huby (1993) passim. 15. Huby and Steel (1997) 64 note 313. As she points out, Steel (1978) 148 note 25, accepts it as Theophrastean. Huby points out that the term is found in Pseudo-Simplicius as well, which would point to Iamblichus as a common source. 16. For more on the relationship between the human rational soul with its intellectual component and Intellect itself, see Finamore (1997) 166-173.

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intellect is the place of the forms potentially, Priscianus says that the psychic intellect is of this sort (26.12-14). The problem for this intellect arises in the soul’s inclination toward what is partial (26.15-16). As we saw in the De Anima commentary, this declension leads the soul away from its intellectual activity and toward generation. Priscianus repeats the vocabulary of In DeAn. 241.9, using the verb chalasthai of the soul in this declension, saying that in the descent from the Intelligible «the connection between the two realms is somehow slackened and is not precise as was its unity in the separated [Intellect]» (26.1920).17 Thus this passage echoes the Iamblichean doctrine of the soul’s median position, existing in two realms and constantly torn between them. The descent causes essential changes in the soul itself, making it weaker and more attuned to the world of generation. Here, in Priscianus, we concentrate specifically on its deterioration vis-à-vis the Intellect. He stresses therefore the soul’s need for the actualizing transcendent Intellect (20-23): Therefore for purely indivisible knowledge [the soul’s intellect] itself has need of the Intellect that actually perfects, and the intelligible objects in it [i.e., in the psychic intellect] have need of the illumination of the separated intelligible objects so that its intelligible objects might be perfected [and so be] perfect.

Thus, the transcendent Intellect qua active intellect always has the intelligible objects actually, but the human soul possesses them only intermittently when it is actually in contact with the Intellect itself, for at that time the soul’s intellect is actualized by the transcendent Intellect while the intelligible objects that are always in the actual Intellect become actualized in the psychic intellect as well.18 Unfortunately for the human soul, this experience is necessarily temporary, and it descends again, becomes weakened thereby, and associates itself with life in the body. It is in this way, Priscianus says (26.26-29), that the psychic intellect is potential. 17. On the verb chalasthai, see Huby’s note in Huby and Steel (1997) 64 note 318. She there cites Steel (1978) 66 note 53 for the words first occurrences in Priscianus, Pseudo-Simplicius, and Damascius. It is clear, however, that the word occurs in Iamblichean contexts and should be associated with him. See Finamore and Dillon (2002) 256. Cf. Metaphrasis 27.15, where Priscianus uses the verb again in a similar context. 18. For the rational soul’s departure from the Intellect and its actualization by it, see 27.14-29.

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So far Priscianus has been talking as if there were only two levels under consideration: transcendent Intellect and the intellect in our souls. Later (32.25-34.28), when he expounds the teachings of Iamblichus and Plutarch of Athens, whom he calls the «genuine interpreters» of Aristotle (32.34), he adds the intermediate level of Intellect-participated-by-soul. Thus we have the three moments of the Intellectual Triad: Unparticipated Intellect, Participated Intellect, and Intellect in participation.19 The last two moments of this triad cognize intelligible objects by using the logoi contained in them.20 The actual intellect knows all things too but on a higher level, and thus the other two lower intellects know them in a secondary fashion (33.7-17). Thus, it is clear that what the actual intellect does immediately, purely, and from a higher perspective, the other two intellects do in a less pure fashion, dependent on logoi. After defining «actuality» as «indivisible unity» (henôsis ameristos) and «unified perfection» (hênômenê teleiotês) of the Unparticipated Intellect and its objects (35.4-5), he turns to «potentiality.» Characteristically of Iamblichus (as we have seen), it involves a declension to a lower level and the resultant lack of wholeness. Priscianus defines «potential» as involving a union with otherness and a descent into what is somehow determined and perfected (35.8-9).

Thus, the resulting union is less cohesive. Intellect and intelligible object are no longer identical, but there is some otherness and the perfecting comes from outside rather than from the intellect itself. 19. For these three moments in a triad in Iamblichus, see In Tim. Fr. 54.67 and Dillon’s note (1973) 335; cf. 33. On Priscianus here, see Huby in Huby and Steel (1997) 66 note 362. For what follows in Priscianus (29.26-31.24), see Huby (1993) 10-12. As she shows, the remainder is about the individual soul, even though he has made this triple division here. She also shows how the passage is based on Iamblichean doctrines. For such triads in the Pseudo-Simplicius, see Blumenthal (2000) 138 note 296. 20. Huby, in Huby and Steel (1997) 68 note 393, thinks that Priscianus «leaves it unclear whether the participated intellect and the rational soul are one and the same,» but the tenor of this section of the commentary shows that he differentiates them both. The evidence from Iamblichus’ Timaeus commentary (below) will verify this fact.

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Priscianus admits that this kind of potential union is more appropriately applied to the psychic intellect, which he describes in Iamblichean terms as having a «slackened» (kechalasmenên, 35.14) union with its objects and thus dependent on the transcendent Intellect (35.12-15).21 Thus, as we have seen, the human soul is in its essence slackened and therefore incapable of complete union with the intelligibles and, further, in need of the transcendent Intellect for any union whatsoever. What is striking is that the median intellect, the one participated by soul, is also slackened (35.16-17). He says (35.17-18): It is participated in because of its descent, it is suspended from its unifying and completely indivisible determinate, and it is perfected by it in its essence.

As a mean term, it is lower-ranked than the transcendent intellect and thus the human soul can participate in it, and moreover it is inferior to that intellect which provides its determinacy and perfection (two things which we saw the transcendent Intellect providing for itself ). Nonetheless, this is a higher intellect than that in the soul, and qua intermediary, it is proximate to the transcendent Intellect, and therefore Priscianus is at pains to explain its potentiality. It is, he says, still closely related to the transcendent Intellect and perfects itself through it in a secondary way and is united with it in a secondary way (35.19-23).22 The importance of the role of the Intellect in the life of the soul can be seen as well in Frr. 55 and 56 of Iamblichus’ Timaeus commentary.23 Iamblichus is interpreting Timaeus 36c2-5, where the Demiurge has split the soul ingredients into two and formed them into two circles: the Circle of the Same and the Circle of the 21. See also 35.15-16: the chalasmos is clearer with respect to the soul. 22. Cf. Priscianus’ remarks at 35.29-36.5, where he again stresses the

Participated Intellect’s median nature. It is involved in a descent (so that the psychic intellect participates in it) and is actualized by the transcendent Intellect. He repeats the language of «perfection,» saying that «it is connected to the First [Intellect] and is perfected by it, or rather it perfects itself through it [i.e., through the transcendent Intellect].» 23. Steel (1978) 143 has introduced passages from Simplicius’ Categories commentary that show that Iamblichus in his commentary also stressed the role of active intellect in the soul’s thinking.

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Different. Iamblichus takes the novel approach that these circles refer not to the soul (as one would expect) but to intellect. He is able to do so because Plato had written that the motion was “carried around” (periagomenê, 36c3) and not carried in the soul (Fr. 55.5-6), and it is the realm of the Intellect that surrounds the soul. Further, Iamblichus characterizes the motion of the Circle of the Same (which he associates with the transcendent Intellect in Fr. 56) as a «motionless motion» (Fr. 55.11-12), which exists in a unified way (55.12), is uniform (55.13), and is one and indivisible (55.13-14). The soul, on the other hand, is a self-moved motion (55.12-13) and dyadic (55.13) and divides and multiplies itself (55.14). As these epithets show, the relation between the transcendent Intellect and the psychic intellect here expressed is in harmony with that in Priscianus. The Intellect is more unified and hence more pure; the soul more divided. In Fr. 56 Iamblichus says that the Circle of the Same (the outer circle and the transcendent Intellect) contains (56.5) the World Soul and the individual souls24 and is unmixed with them (56.6), while the Circle of the Different (the Participated Intellect) is in the souls (56.6) and is mixed with and directs them (56.7). It is because of this arrangement that the Whole Soul actualizes in a stable fashion and is unified with the Demiurge himself (56.8-9). We can now see why Iamblichus located these circles higher and why he interpreted the active and passive intellects in De An. III.5 as he did. Given his conception of the soul, as a mean whose higher and lower activities show that the soul is, in its very essence, a changeable mean between Intellect and Nature, the soul requires external aid to be able to function stably. On its own, it cannot attain to the heights of the Intellect. It is marred in its very nature, destined to fall. Thus, without an active role for the realm of Intellect the life of the soul is doomed to roaming the lower depths of the cosmos. For this doctrine, Iamblichus was able to find the textual support he needed in the two most important philosophers in the Neoplatonic canon, Plato and Aristotle.

24. For the «two souls» mentioned here being the World Soul and the individual souls «taken as a whole,» see Dillon (1973) 337.

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We are able, then, to add to our knowledge of Iamblichus’ psychology from the De Anima commentary of Pseudo-Simplicius and from the Metaphrasis of Priscianus. We discover that Iamblichus is the source for the doctrines of the soul qua mean that changes in its very essence in its descent and ascent, that he re-defined the Platonic tripartite soul as a multi-powered simplex, that he reduced the role of the psychic intellect, making it more dependent on the transcendent Intellect above, and he supported his beliefs in his interpretations of Plato’s Timaeus and Aristotle’s De Anima.

Bibliography Blumenthal, H. J. Aristotle and Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity: Interpretations of the De Anima. Ithaca 1996. -----»Neoplatonic Elements in the De Anima Commentaries,» in. R. Sorabji, Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence (Ithaca 1990), 305-324. -----»The Psychology of (?) Simplicius’ Commentary on the De Anima,» in Blumenthal, H. J. and Lloyd, A. C. (eds.) Soul and the Structure of Being in Late Neoplatonism: Syrianus, Proclus, and Simplicius (Liverpool 1982), 73-93. -----»Simplicius,» On Aristotle’s On the Soul 3.1-5. London 2000. Dillon, J. M. Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis Dialogos Commentariorum Fragmenta. Edited with translation and commentary. Philosophia Antiqua 23. Leiden, 1973. Finamore, J. F. «The Rational Soul in Iamblichus’ Philosophy,» in H. J. Blumenthal and J. F. Finamore, Iamblichus: The Philosopher, Syllecta Classica 8 (1997) 163-176. Finamore, J. F. and Dillon, J. M. Iamblichus, De Anima: Text, Translation, and Commentary. Leiden 2002. Hadot, I. «La Doctrine de Simplicius Sur L’Ame Raisonnable Humanine Dans Le Commentaire Sur le Manuel D’Epictete,» in Blumenthal, H. J. and Lloyd, A. C. (eds.) Soul and the Structure of Being in Late Neoplatonism: Syrianus, Proclus, and Simplicius (Liverpool 1982), 46-72.

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-----»The Life and Work of Simplicius in Greek and Arabic Sources,» in. R. Sorabji, Aristotle Transformed: The Ancient Commentators and Their Influence (Ithaca 1990), 275-303. -----Le Problème du Néoplatonisme Alexandrin Hiéroclès et Simplicius. Paris 1978. -----»Simplicius or Priscianus? On the Author of the Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima (CAG XI): A Methodological Study), Mnemosyne, 55.2 (2002) 159-199. Huby, P. «Priscian of Lydia as Evidence for Iamblichus, « in H. J. Blumenthal and E. G.Clark (eds.), The Divine Iamblichus: Philosopher and Man of Gods, (Bristol 1993) 5-12. Huby, P. and Steel, C. Priscian On Theophrastus’ On Sense Perception and «Simplicius» On Aristotle’s On the Soul 2.5-12. Ithaca 1997. Steel, C. The Changing Self, A study on the Soul in Later Neoplatonism: Iamblichus, Damascius, and Priscianus. Brussels 1978. Urmson, J. O. and Lautner, P. Simplicius On Aristotle On the soul 1.1-2.4. London 1995

Perspective pédagogique et exégèse de l’implicite chez les néoplatoniciens tardifs :

le cas d’Olympiodore d’Alexandrie1

F R Université de Moncton (Canada)

Pendant plus de trois siècles, le commentaire de texte fut la forme principale que prirent la recherche et l’enseignement philosophiques. La recherche de la vérité s’est confondue alors avec la recherche du sens – souvent implicite – du texte, et l’enseignement résidait pour l’essentiel dans la transmission de ces découvertes exégétiques2. Cette situation, à distance, soulève deux vastes questions connexes : Quels sont les liens intrinsèques qui unissent les méthodes d’enseignement de la philosophie et la philosophie elle-même telle que conçue à l’époque ? Comment les commentateurs anciens concevaient-ils l’explicitation du sens implicite du texte ? Je prendrai l’exemple d’Olympiodore d’Alexandrie (vers 505 apr. J.-C.–565 apr. J.-C.) comme représentant du néoplatonisme tardif, en signalant parfois son apport spécifique. De manière générale, je m’intéresserai à la conception que les acteurs se faisaient de leur propre pratique ainsi qu’aux présupposés les plus fondamentaux sur lesquels reposait cette conception.

1. Ce texte a bénéficié des questions et remarques très pertinentes de l’auditoire de Québec, dont celles de Andrea Falcon, Jean-Marc Narbonne et Luc Brisson, que je remercie ici chaleureusement. 2. Cf. P. Hadot 1968, p. 335 ; Westerink 1976, p. 9.

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Un sujet et un auteur encore peu étudiés

1.a. Enseignement et interprétation La plupart des travaux sur le néoplatonisme (et le moyen platonisme) traitent des aspects doctrinaux. Les dimensions pédagogique et herméneutique, qui sous-tendent ces doctrines, restent un peu dans l’ombre, quoiqu’on commence depuis peu à s’y intéresser davantage3. Cette tendance est illustrée par le titre de l’imposante anthologie dirigée par Richard Sorabji, The Philosophy of the Commentators 200-600 A.D. (3 tomes, 2005). Dans son introduction à cette anthologie,4 Sorabji signale néanmoins quatre autres raisons (outre leurs doctrines) de s’intéresser aujourd’hui aux commentateurs anciens : la grande acuité de certaines de leurs analyses exégétiques fondée sur une connaissance détaillée des corpus platonicien et aristotélicien ; le panorama d’un millénaire de philosophie grecque antérieure (y compris la conservation de fragments précieux) contenu dans leurs commentaires ; leur énorme influence sur la philosophie médiévale ; et les aperçus qu’ils donnent des méthodes d’enseignement de l’époque. La présente étude se penchera sur deux de ces aspects – la dimension pédagogie et les principes herméneutiques. Quoique les études sur ces aspects soient relativement peu nombreuses, il convient de saluer notamment les publications de Ilsetraut & Pierre Hadot et Philippe Hoffmann,5 dont je suis redevable et que je chercherai à compléter, modestement, sur ces deux questions connexes.

1.b. Importance d’Olympiodore Élève d’Ammonius d’Hermeias et dernier diadoque païen d’Alexandrie, Olympiodore enseigna au moins jusqu’en 565. On parle souvent de l’« École d’Olympiodore », à laquelle est associé 3. Les recueils collectifs récents sur le commentaire (Most 1999, GouletCazé 2000a, Gibson 2002, Geerlings & Schulze 2002, Adamson 2004) ne traitent guère de cette problématique ; il y a bien entendu des exceptions, dont certaines sont citées dans ce qui suit. 4. Sorabji 2005, tome 1, p. 1; cf. Idem 1990, 24-27. 5. P. Hadot 1968, 1987; I. Hadot 1987, 1991, 2002 ; Hoffmann 1987, 2000, 2006, auxquels je me référerai notamment dans ce qui suit.

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notamment l’écrit anonyme Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon. Olympiodore est le seul commentateur dont nous possédions des commentaires complets sur les deux classiques grecs, soit trois commentaires de Platon (Alcibiade, Gorgias, Phédon – dont deux complets) et deux d’Aristote (Catégories, Météorologiques, tous deux complets). Malgré ce fait matériel exceptionnel, Olympiodore est l’un des commentateurs les moins connus et les moins lus des néoplatoniciens tardifs. Les commentaires d’Olympiodore, en tant que notes prises à ses cours (scholia apo phônês), se distinguent des commentaires rédigés par leurs auteurs mêmes, comme ceux de Simplicius ou de Philopon. Cette présentation orale révèle leur caractère pédagogique extrêmement marqué.6 Du point de vue pédagogique, l’une des spécificités de ces commentaires réside dans la systématisation d’une méthode traditionnelle. Cette méthode consiste dans la division des commentaires en leçons ou cours magistraux (praxeis) et dans la subdivision, très marquée, en explication générale (theôria) et explication de détails (lexis).7 Cette méthode d’enseignement, fixe et précise, constitue l’aboutissement d’une tradition scolaire, issue notamment de Proclus, et soucieuse de se plier aux besoins d’un jeune auditoire8. D’un point de vue philosophique, Olympiodore est d’orientation essentiellement morale, de disposition peu métaphysique. Il se réfère rarement à Plotin, plus souvent à Proclus et Damascius, davantage à leurs commentaires de Platon, la plupart perdus, qu’à leurs traités. Le mépris convenu envers Olympiodore, dont on déplore habituellement le manque d’originalité et de génie philosophique, vient en partie du refus de tenir compte du fait que les commentaires d’Olympiodore sont des textes destinés à l’enseignement d’étudiants de niveau peu avancé. D’un grand intérêt sont également les principes herméneutiques qui régissent l’exégèse d’Olympiodore et, de manière plus générale, celle de la tradition à laquelle il appartient. L’intérêt de l’étude de ces principes herméneutiques n’est pas uniquement d’ordre historique. Les différences entre ces principes de lecture

6. Cf. Praechter 1904, p. 385-386 ; Lamberz 1987, p 2-7. 7. Cf. Westerink 1980, p. 280. 8. Festugière 1963, p. 81.

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et les nôtres sont susceptibles de nous aider à devenir davantage conscients de nos propres présupposés et, éventuellement, à les réexaminer d’un œil critique. En effet, trois questions méta-herméneutiques, débattues dans la recherche platonicienne contemporaine sont très pertinentes à l’étude des commentateurs anciens (questions que je formulerai de manière antagoniste, quoiqu’elles ne soient pas composées d’éléments forcément incompatibles) : une approche philosophique ou doxographique ?; une lecture doctrinale ou sceptique ?; une approche unitariste et harmonisante de Platon et d’Aristote (pris isolément et ensemble) ou chronologique et génétique ?9 Les commentateurs néoplatoniciens (et déjà médio-platoniciens) défendent, ou simplement supposent, le bien-fondé de la lecture philosophique, doctrinale et unitariste. Pourquoi et comment ? Vaste question que je ne pourrai traiter, dans cette étude préliminaire, qu’à grands traits, sous l'aspect de l’enseignement et de l’herméneutique tels que conçus à l’époque.

2.

Cursus d’étude et méthode exégétique

2.a. Cursus d’études Résumons d’abord, très rapidement, le cursus d’études, qui est maintenant assez bien connu. Olympiodore est l’héritier d’une longue tradition exégétique qui remonte au moins à Jamblique, dont le canon codifie ce qui était peut-être déjà pratique courante.10 Ce cursus se divise en deux cycles : d’abord Aristote (à commencer par les Catégories) et ensuite Platon (douze dialogues)11. Le rôle propédeutique assigné à Aristote suppose un accord fondamental (sumphônia) entre les deux penseurs. Les questions exégétiques posées notamment dans les introductions s’inscrivent dans 9. Cf. Tarrant 2000, p. 1-26. 10. Cf. Dörrie & Baltes 1993, p. 225. 11. Sur la tradition d’enseignement, le programme et le milieu professionnel de la philosophie post-hellénistique, voir Westerink 1976, pp. 23-27 ; Hoffmann 1987, p. 63-64, Idem 2006, p. 597-602 ; Romano 1992, p. 587-598 ; pour un survol de la tradition ancienne des commentaires d’Aristote, voir p. ex. Sorabji 1990, D’Ancona 2002, Fazzo 2004.

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l’ordre de lecture (taxis tês anagnôseôs) des ouvrages canoniques. Particulièrement importante est l’analyse du but ou sujet (skopos) du dialogue, qui constitue l’unité de l’ouvrage. Le cursus est déterminé par une double visée, pédagogique et morale. La perspective pédagogique consiste en un programme d’études adapté à son auditoire, c’est-à-dire respectueux des différents niveaux de compréhension et de connaissance. Cette perspective est explicitement progressive, allant du plus simple au plus difficile. S’en suit l’ordre de lecture, qui commence avec la logique et se termine par la métaphysique ou la théologie. Quant à la visée morale, il s’agit de former le jeune auditoire à un mode de vie, structuré de manière hiérarchique, selon les cinq degrés de vertus. L’étude de Platon commence donc par l’Alcibiade, c’està-dire par la connaissance de soi, suivi des cinq degrés de vertu : la vertu politique (Gorgias), la vertu cathartique (Phédon) et les vertus théorétiques (Cratyle, Théètète, Sophiste, Politique, Phédre, Banquet); enfin sont étudiés les « dialogues parfaits », le Timée et le Parménide12. Comme des études récentes l’ont mis en lumière, les principes exégétiques mis en œuvre dans les commentaires sont déjà en partie formulés dans l’introduction, parfois placée au début du commentaire aux Catégories. L’introduction générale à Aristote comporte notamment les éléments suivants : la classification des écrits d’Aristote, le but de la philosophie (connaissance de Dieu, le premier principe); les façons de parvenir à cette fin (éthique, physique, mathématique, théologique). L’introduction générale à Platon comprend des questions herméneutiques sur le dialogue platonicien, dont les suivantes : Pourquoi l'auteur s’est-il servi de la forme littéraire ? Quelles sont les règles à l’aide desquelles on peut établir le but (skopos) de chaque dialogue de Platon ? Quelle forme prend l’enseignement ? Les introductions particulières aux dialogues de Platon suivent également un schéma traditionnel et comportent habituellement les six points suivants : la mise en

12. Selon la hiérarchie des vertus, l’étude de Platon doit commencer par l’Alcibiade «parce que par ce dialogue nous nous connaissons nous-mêmes» (Prolegomènes à la philosophie de Platon, chap. 26, 17) ; Olympiodore, In Alc. 10.18-11.6 ; cf. Proclus, In Alc. 11, 1-17.

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scène, les personnages et leur sens allégorique, le but du dialogue, la place du dialogue dans l’ordre de lecture de Platon, l’utilité du dialogue, la division en parties du dialogue. Ces questions et réponses formulées dans les introductions constituent autant de clés exégétiques.

2.b. Principes de lecture : harmonie et cohérence Deux principes fondamentaux et intimement liés, qu’il convient néanmoins de distinguer, se dégagent du cursus et des commentaires : le principe d’harmonie entre Platon et Aristote et le principe de cohérence logique, immanente à leurs oeuvres. La thèse de l’harmonie, déjà présente chez Porphyre et Jamblique, constitue le présupposé exégétique clé de l’école néoplatonicienne, notamment aux Ve et VIe siècles.13 Dans ce cadre, Aristote est envisagé comme une propédeutique à l’étude de Platon14. L’harmonie entre les deux philosophes grecs est conçue comme un accord de fond, non pas toutefois, faut-il le préciser, comme une entente sur toutes les doctrines. Le rôle propédeutique d’Aristote s’inscrit dans une division du travail philosophique. Selon un procédé répandu à l’époque, Olympiodore est soucieux comme interprète d’équilibrer les différences entre les deux philosophes15. Dans cette division du travail, Aristote s’occupe de la logique et du monde sensible, tandis que Platon est considéré comme le maître en ce qui concerne l’âme et le monde intelligible. Le but (telos) de la philosophie – par comparaison à leur philosophie respective – est le même chez les deux penseurs, c’est-à-dire la contemplation de tous les êtres et le retour au principe de tout être, l’Un16. Quant au principe de cohérence logique, chaque ouvrage est conçu comme un tout dont l’interprète doit montrer l’unité,

13. Hoffmann 2000, p. 364. 14. Olymp., In Gorg. 41.9 ; Proleg. In Cat. 17. 39-40 ; 17.7-8. 15. Après avoir discuté les positions stoïciennes et péripatéticiennes concernant la question de savoir si la logique est outil (organon) ou partie (meros) de la philosophie, Olympidore s’exclame spontanément : «Platon dit toutefois : «Vous avez à mes yeux l’un et l’autre raison»» (In Cat. 17, 20-21). 16. Olymp. Proleg. In Cat. 9. 14-30 ; cf. I. Hadot 1991, p. 181.

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jusque dans le moindre détail. Il en va de même du corpus dans son ensemble : l’interprète doit montrer la cohérence des doctrines à l’intérieur de l’œuvre de chaque penseur. Ce principe correspond pour l’essentiel au « principle of charity » : le commentateur doit expliquer le texte, mais encore y reconnaître la vérité des doctrines qu’il véhicule, souvent en les explicitant. Ainsi la thèse de l’harmonie entre Platon et Aristote coïncide-t-elle au fond avec le critère de la cohérence immanente aux œuvres respectives : ni Aristote ni Platon en tant que philosophes, pris individuellement, ne sauraient se contredire, leurs œuvres (et surtout le telos de celles-ci) étant conçues comme l'expression d'une doctrine véridique, c’està-dire cohérente et anhistorique, quoiqu’elles soient modulées selon les exigences d’une approche pédagogique progressive17. En un mot, vu la double unité, interne et externe, des œuvres de Platon et d’Aristote, l’interprète doit connaître tous les écrits des deux auteurs afin de montrer que les auteurs sont cohérents en eux-mêmes et entre eux.

2.c. Objections du point de vue de l’historiographie moderne Depuis le XIXe siècle, les historiens modernes ont coutume d’adresser à l’herméneutique néoplatonicienne de sévères critiques, notamment au sujet des deux questions qui nous occupent ici. La perspective pédagogique et l’exégèse de l’implicite sont toutes deux jugées incompatibles avec les exigences modernes d’exactitude historique et philologique. Résumons les critiques modernes. La perspective pédagogique, fixe et systématique dans sa structure, compromet la valeur des commentaires néoplatoniciens, notamment en prédéterminant les résultats de l’exégèse. L’exigence de tout lire d’un auteur est certes un excellent principe d’interprétation, mais le parti pris pour l’harmonisation a pour effet de faire violence aux textes, alors lus à la lumière de critères qui leur sont étrangers, et les réduit, comme le lit de Procruste, à une lecture a priori et réductrice. Aristote n’est jamais étudié pour lui-même, mais unique-

17. Hoffmann 2000, p. 364.

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ment comme préparation à la philosophie de Platon18. S’agissant du principe de cohérence interne, une fois que le but (skopos) d’un ouvrage a été déterminé dans l’introduction, chaque phrase, chaque mot est interprété en fonction de ce but à l’exclusion de tout autre possibilité de lecture. Il en est de même de l’exégèse de l’implicite, qui est au service de la thèse de l’harmonie : en supposant que la vérité est déjà là, de manière explicite et surtout implicite, dans les œuvres de Platon et d’Aristote, le commentateur croit légitime d’extraire de certains silences des doctrines qui sont en réalité étrangères à ces oeuvres19. Les commentateurs anciens se rendent ainsi coupables de surinterprétations, pire de contre-sens. Ces contre-sens peuvent être appelés des interprétations « créatives », mais elles constituent néanmoins des abus inacceptables selon les critères de la philologie moderne20. En un mot, le « texte devient finalement un prétexte qui donne l’occasion de retrouver la doctrine traditionnelle de l’école »21. Dans un compte rendu assez critique du livre de Julia Annas, Platonic Ethics Old and New (1999), Rachana Kamtekar résume ce qu’elle estime être une opposition irréconciliable entre l’approche ancienne et l’approche moderne à Platon et Aristote : « The ancients do not separate their historical and philosophical activities – their interpretations reflect their interest in the truth, or in making sense of Plato’s thought as a whole […]. The interests of a contemporary historian of philosophy are fundamentally different from those of a member of a philosophical school in antiquity : we are interested in what Plato thought, right or wrong, when he thought it, why he thought it […]. We are not playing the same game ».22 Cette remarque se fonde sur la distinction entre l’exégèse au sens strict et l’exégèse philosophique : tandis que l’exégète historien cherche à découvrir ce que voulait dire le philosophe ancien, l’interprète philosophique se demande ce qui

18. I. Hadot 1991, p. 189. 19. Hoffmann 2000, p. 355, 360. 20. Mansfeld 1994, p. 155-159, 173 ; cf. I. Hadot 1991, p. 185 ; Hoffmann 2000, p. 356, p. 360 ; Goulet-Cazé 2000, p. 6. 21. P. Hadot 1987, p. 22 ; cf. Idem 1968, p. 337. 22. Kamtekar 1999.09.28.

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dans le texte peut lui servir, ce que peut lui enseigner la doctrine ancienne étudiée23. Il convient de signaler certaines limites de la critique moderne. D’abord, contrairement à ce que laisse entendre Kamtekar par l’emploi du « nous », force est de reconnaître que l’approche philosophiquement engagée est mutatis mutandis encore pratiquée et défendue de nos jours. Certes, il est indéniable que le conflit qu’elle décrit entre une conception purement historienne de l’histoire de la philosophie grecque et une conception philosophique de celle-ci connaît divers prolongements contemporains : tandis que l’approche doxographique se veut philosophiquement neutre afin de préserver fidèlement la mémoire des doctrines passées, l’approche philosophique, en revanche, considère les œuvres philosophiques passées comme sources d’enseignement et de sagesse perdus dont on peut et doit se nourrir. Toutefois, certains chercheurs contemporains refusent, et à juste titre, ce choix dichotomique. L’exigence d’exactitude historique est certes indispensable, mais elle peut – et selon certains doit – inclure la question de la vérité (qui après tout anime ces œuvres), laquelle implique alors un décloisonnement du contexte historique original. De plus, il est quelque peu excessif de parler de l’exégèse néoplatonicienne comme d’un simple prétexte pour retrouver dans les textes étudiés la doctrine néoplatonicienne. Il est parfaitement juste de dire que les questions formulées et les réponses avancées dans les introductions des commentaires ont tendance à prédéterminer indûment les résultats de l’interprétation. Néanmoins, cette tendance à la systématisation du texte (préstructurée par le cursus ainsi que par l’interprétation allégorisante) se montre parfois capable de nuance, notamment dans l’exégèse de la dimension dramatique et rhétorique des dialogues de Platon. De manière plus générale, le système philosophique du néoplatonisme s’est en partie fondé sur la base d’une lecture méticuleuse des dialogues de Platon, et dans la mesure où c’est le cas, l’exégèse constitue un point de départ, et non pas simplement un prétexte, à partir duquel a pu se construire ce système24.

23. Donini 1994, p. 5089 n. 256; p. 5090 24. Cf. Praechter 1910, p. 182 ; cf. P. Hadot 1987, p. 22.

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Fondements philosophiques

3.a. Unité de la vérité et exégèse de l’implicite Il est vrai que le principe d’harmonie entre Platon et Aristote ne va pas de soi25 et que l’approche qui envisage Aristote uniquement comme préparation à Platon est, à bien des égards, problématique26. Il importe néanmoins de reconstruire les présupposés philosophiques sur lesquels repose cette approche. Celle-ci se comprend à la lumière d’une conception unitaire de la philosophie (grecque) et de la vérité. L’érudition n’est pas, pour les commentateurs anciens, une fin en soi, mais un moyen de philosopher. Dans cette optique, l’exégète a le droit et le devoir de raisonner, à partir d’une méthode systématique, sur les implications logiques d’une pensée philosophique. En d’autres termes, les néoplatoniciens ne séparent pas histoire (neutre) et critique (engagée). Parmi les présupposés les plus fondamentaux qui motivent cette exégèse, signalons les suivants. La vérité est une et anhistorique, et la philosophie (grecque) en tant que tradition est également une, quoique les modes d’expression de cette vérité soient multiples. Ce présupposé holistique et syncrétique mène à l’inclusion estimée légitime de doctrines apparemment disparates, comme les enseignements présumés d’Orphée, de Pythagore et des oracles chaldaïques.27 L’unité de la philosophie de Platon et d’Aristote est conçue autant d’un point de vue pédagogique que philosophique. Dans le cas d’Aristote, la présentation pédagogique de la philosophie va du plus simple au plus complexe (de la logique à la théologie), tandis que chez Platon elle suit l’échelle des vertus (de la connaissance de soi à celle de l’Un). Vu les conditions et les visées morales de la philosophie, le commentaire assume une valeur cathartique et psychagogique, tant pour le commentateur que pour l’auditoire ou le lecteur.

25. Signalons que cette approche est défendue de diverses manières, comme une réelle option herméneutique, par certains d’entre «nous» (contra Kamtekar), notamment par Gerson, 2005. 26. Cf. I. Hadot 1991, p. 189. 27. Cf. Saffrey 1996, p. 154-158.

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Les exégètes néoplatoniciens distinguent donc entre la philosophie telle qu’achevée par Platon et Aristote, et la fin (telos) de celle-ci, soit l’appréhension complète de la vérité. C’est pourquoi, faut-il le souligner, Platon n’est pas non plus étudié pour luimême. Car ce qui compte en dernière instance, ce ne sont pas les auteurs, mais la visée de leur pensée, ou « la vraie philosophie », c’est-à-dire l’élaboration complète et définitive des problèmes traités dans leurs écrits. Concilier Platon et Aristote, ce n’est pas concilier leurs enseignements explicites mais la visée de ces enseignements, la compréhension parfaitement claire de tous les êtres. Olympiodore, comme les autres commentateurs, s’intéresse en premier lieu à la vérité philosophique ou nécessaire et seulement en second lieu à la vérité historique ou accidentelle, que sont les opinions du passé. Les vérités éternelles, étant impersonnelles, ne relèvent aucunement de l’originalité ou de l’individualité du philosophe.

3.b. Hiérarchie naturelle, hiérarchie pédagogique Retournons, enfin, à la question de l’enseignement. Les critiques modernes adressées à l’exégèse néoplatonicienne doivent être en partie relativisées. La différence fondamentale entre l’exégèse néoplatonicienne et l’exégèse moderne – dans la mesure où ces singuliers collectifs sont ici applicables – ne réside pas tant dans l’interprétation anhistorique des textes (y compris de leur sens implicite), qui compte aujourd’hui encore ses défenseurs, que l’orientation pédagogique28. Les liens intrinsèques entre philosophie et enseignement résident dans ce qu’on pourrait appeler la hiérarchie mimétique, aux niveaux ontologique, épistémologique et moral. Les présupposés ici à l’œuvre sont à la fois philosophiques (ou ontologiques) et herméneutiques. La pratique herméneutique et pédagogique d’Olympiodore, et celle de la plupart de ses prédécesseurs, repose sur les présupposés suivants. Le vrai sens du texte est unique et déterminable, c’est-à-dire qu’il est possible de découvrir la vraie interprétation (à l’opposé de la notion moderne de réceptions

28. Cf. I. Hadot 2002, p. 194.

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multiples, voire infinies). Selon les néoplatoniciens, les Anciens ont découvert les vérités éternelles sur l’éternité du Tout, de l’Un. Le monde (kosmos) constitue un ensemble dont les parties sont hiérarchisées entre elles selon leurs fins propres. Ainsi la hiérarchie naturelle du monde semble-t-elle commander la hiérarchie pédagogique. Le « dialogue [platonicien] est un univers [kosmos] et l’univers un dialogue »29. En d’autres termes, la rationalité systématique du monde est révélée de manière analogique par la rationalité systématique des œuvres de Platon et d’Aristote. L’étude jumelée de leur œuvre constitue donc le moyen par lequel l’être humain peut parvenir à la perfection morale et intellectuelle, laquelle réside précisément dans la compréhension du monde et dans l’union avec l’Un. Coïncident ainsi la finalité du monde, la finalité de l’œuvre philosophique classique à commenter et la finalité du cursus d’études comme conversion à cette oeuvre. Le philosophe doit d’abord imiter (mimethai)30 le monde ainsi que Dieu, principe des choses. Dans un second temps, l’acquisition des divers niveaux de vertu et de savoir permet au philosophe de remplir la mission pédagogique, qui est de guider vers l’intelligible. Reflet de la hiérarchie cosmique, la pensée métaphysique constitue en cela le fondement de la pédagogie philosophique ainsi que la justification ultime de l’exégèse de l’implicite.

29. Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon, 16.3-4 ; cf. note 153 ; cf. 15, 13; Platon, Phèdre 264 c. 30. Olympiodore, In Gorg. 42.2.

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Liste de publications citées Adamson P. et al. (dir.) (2004), Philosophy, science and exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin commentaries, London, Institue of Classical Studies, 2004. D’Ancona Costa C. (2002), « Commenting on Aristotle : From Late Antiquity to the Arab Aristotelianism », Geerlings & Schulze 2002, p. 201-249. Annas, J. (1999), Platonic Ethics Old and New, London/Ithaca, NY., Cornell University Press, 1999. Dörrie H. & Baltes M. (1993) : Der Platonismus in der Antike : Grundlage, System, Entwicklung, texte établi, traduit et commenté par H.D. et M. B., Stuttgart/Bad-Cannstat, Frommann-Holzboog, 1993. Donini P. (1994), « Testi e commenti, manuali e inseganmento : la forma sistematica e i metodi della filosofia in età postellenistica », Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 11/36.7, (1994), p. 5027-5100. Fazzo S. (2004), « Aristotelianism as Commentary Tradition », Adamson 2004, p. 1-19. Festugière A.J. (1963), « Modes de composition des commentaires de Proclus », Museum Helveticum, 20, (1963), p. 77-100. Geerlings W. & Schulze C. (dir.) (2002), Der Kommentar in Antike und Mittelalter. Beiträge zu seiner Forschung, Leiden, Brill, 2002. Gerson L.P. (2005), Aristotle and Other Platonists, London/Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 2005. Gibson R.K. et al. (dir.) (2002), The Classical Commentary : Histories, Practices, Theory, Leiden, Brill, 2002. Goulet-Cazé M.-O. (dir.) (2000a), Le commentaire : Entre tradition et innovation, Paris, Vrin, 2000. ----- (2000b) : « Avant-propos », idem, Le commentaire : entre tradition et innovation, Paris, Vrin, p. 5-12. Hadot I. (2002), « Der fortlaufende philosophische Kommentar », Geerlings & Schulze 2002, p. 183-199. ----- (1991), « The Role of the commentaries on Aristotle in the Teaching of Philosophy According to the Prefaces of the Neoplatonic Commentaries on the Categories », H. Blumenthal & H. Robinson (dir.), Aristotle and the Later Tradition, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, p. 175-189.

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----- (1987), « Les introductions aux commentaires exégétiques chez les auteurs néoplatoniciens et les auteurs chrétiens », Tardieu, 1987, p. 99-122. Hadot, P. (1987), « Théologie, exégèse, révélation, écriture, dans la philosophie grecque », Tardieu 1987, p. 13-34. ----- (1968), « Philosophie, exégèse et contre-sens », Akten des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses für Philosophie, Vienne, Universität Wien, 1968, p. 333-339 (réimpr. Idem, Études de philosophie ancienne, Paris, Belles Lettres, 1998, p. 3-10). Hoffmann P. (2006), « What was Commentary in Late Antiquity ? The Example of the Neoplatonic Commentators », M.L. Gill & P. Pellegrin (dir.), A Companion to Ancient Philosophy, Malden, MA/ London, Blackwell, 2006, p. 597-622. ----- (2000), « Les catégories aristotéliciennes potè et pou d’après le commentaire de Simplicius : Méthode d’exégèse et aspects doctrinaux », Goulet-Cazé 2000, p. 355-376. ----- (1987), « Catégories et langage selon Simplicius : La question du ‘skopos’ du traité aristotélicien », dans I. Hadot (dir.), Simplicius : Sa Vie, son oeuvre, sa survie, Berlin, De Gruyter, p. 61-90. Kamtekar R. (1999), Compte rendu de J. Annas, Platonic Ethics Old and New, Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1999, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 1999.09.28. Lamberz E. (1987), « Proklos und die Form des philosophischen Kommentars », J. Pépin & H.D. Saffrey (dir.), Proclus, Lecteur et interprète des Anciens, Éditions du C.N.R.S., Paris, 1987, p. 1-20. Mansfeld J. (1994), Prolegomena : Questions to be Settled before the Study of an Author, or a Text, Leiden, Brill, 1994. Most G.W. (dir.) (1999), Commentaries – Kommentare, Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Olympiodore, In Phaed. = Westerink, L.G., The Greek commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo I : Olympiodorus, texte établi et traduit par L.G.W., Amsterdam, 1976. -----, In Gorg. = Westerink, L.G., Olympiodori in Platonem Gorgiam Commentaria, texte établi par L.G.W., Leipzig, 1970 (trad. angl. : R. Jackson, K. Lycos/H. Tarrant, Olympiodorus. Commentary on Plato’s Gorgias, introduction, traduction et notes explicatives par R.J., K.L. et H.T., Leiden, Brill, 1998). -----, In Alc. = Westerink, L.G., Olympiodorus, Commentary on the First Alcibiades of Plato, texte établi par L.G.W., Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing Company, 1956.

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-----, In Cat. = Busse A., Olympiodori Prolegomena et in Categorias commentarium, texte établi par A. B. (=Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca XII/1), Berlin, Academia litterarum regiae Borussicae, 1902. -----, In Meteora = Stüve W., Olympiodori in Aristotelis Meteora commentaria, texte établi par W.S. (= Commentaria in Aristotelem Gracea XII/2), Berlin, Academia litterarum regiae Borussicae, 1900. Praechter K. (1904), Compte rendu de Olympiodori Prologomona et in Categorias commontarium. Consilio et auctoritate academiae litterarum regiao Borussicae edidit Adolfus Busse , Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 166, (1904), p. 374-391. ----- (1910), « Richtungen und Schulen im Neuplatonismus », Genethliakon für Carl Robert, 1910, Berlin, Weidmann, p. 105156 (réimp. H. Dörrie, dir., Kleine Schriften. Herausgeben von Heinrich Dörrie, Hildesheim/New York, Georg Olms Verlag, 1973, p. 165-216). Proclus, In Alc. = Segonds A. Ph., (éd.) (1985), Proclus sur le premier Alcibiade de Platon. Tome 1, traduction, édition, traduction et commentaire par A.Ph. Segonds, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 1985. Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon = Westerink L.G. & Trouillard J. (éd.) (1990) : Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon, texte établi par L.G. W. et traduction par J. T., avec la collaboration d’A.-P. Segonds, Paris, 1990. Romano F. (1992), « La scuola filosofica e il commento », G. Cambiano, L. Canfora, D. Lanza (dir.), Lo spazio letterario della grecia antica. Volume I : La produzione e la circolazione del testo. Tomo III : I Greci e Roma » Rome, Salerno Editrice, 1992, p. 587-610. Saffrey H.D. (1996), « Les débuts de la théologie comme science », Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques 80 (1996), 201-220 (réimp. dans Idem, Le Néoplatonisme après Plotin, Paris, Vrin, p. 119-338). Sorabji R. (dir.) (2005), The Philosophy of the Commentators (200-600 A.D.), 3 tomes, London/Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 2005. ----- (1990), « The ancient commentators on Aristotle », Idem, (dir.), Aristotle Transformed : The Ancient Commentators and their influence, London/Ithaca, New York, Cornell University Press, 1990, p. 1-30. Tardieu M. (dir.) (1987), Les Règles de l’interprétation, Paris, Cerf, 1987.

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Tarrant H. (2000), Plato’s First Interpreters, London/Ithaca, NY., Cornell University Press, 2000. Westerink L.G. & Trouillard J. (éd.) (1990), Prolégomènes à la philosophie de Platon, texte établi par L.G. W. et traduction par J. T., avec la collaboration d’A.-P. Segonds, Paris, 1990. Westerink L.G. (1980), « Ein astrologisches Kolleg aus dem Jahr 564 », A. M. Hakkert, (dir.), Texts and Studies in Neoplatonism and Byzantine Literature, Amsterdam, 1980, p. 279-294. ----- (1976), The Greek commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo I : Olympiodorus, texte établi et traduit par L.G.W., Amsterdam, North Holland Publishing Company, 1976.

Flēbĭlĭs heū maēstōs|cōgŏr ĭnīrĕ mŏdōs: Boethius and Rhythmic Power

S J. B

Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy has for fifteen centuries been one of the best-loved texts in the Western world. Much of its appeal comes undoubtedly from the universality of its aim as consolation. The work begins with the prisoner Boethius, alienated from any sense of order or justice within the cosmos, singing a lament for his lost good fortune. Through the following five books, Lady Philosophy restores his happiness by leading him (in true neoplatonic fashion) inward and upward – inward, by way of reminding him that nothing external can be essential to his happiness – and upward, to the perfectly stable and self-sufficient immaterial Good that rules all things. As popular as the text’s appeal may be, the work is nonetheless one of astonishing literary complexity.1 The most notable literary characteristic of the work, that is, its alternation within each chapter between poetry and prose, is clearly at the source of both the work’s broad appeal and its literary complexity. This prosimetric form seems perhaps peculiar to the modern reader. Yet there is a further peculiarity of Boethius’ use of poetry. Virtually unique in antique literature, the Consolation contains twenty-eight different poetic meters. Given

1. See Elaine Scarry’s essay, “The External Referent: Cosmic Order. The Well-Rounded Sphere: Cognition and Metaphysical Structure in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy,” in Resisting Representation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

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the literary complexity of the work, it is likely Boethius selected each meter intentionally: that is, each poetic rhythm must have been selected because of the usefulness of its particular effects. Yet as likely as it is that the poetic rhythms were meant to play an essential role in the consolation of the prisoner, very little has been written about them. The aim of this essay is to make a first pass over the questions that might reveal the metric powers employed by Boethius in his masterpiece of consolation literature. The text immediately presents us with a fundamental aporia with respect to poetry. Lady Philosophy expels the muses of poetry, who have inspired the opening poem, and then promptly introduces her own muses as crucial to the prisoner’s recovery. The apparent contradiction is blatant: she banishes poetry and then speaks in poetry throughout nearly every chapter of the entire work. For a glimpse into this profound tension between philosophy and poetry, the clearest antecedent is Plato’s Republic where also the poets are banished in one moment and re-instated in the next. Plato’s critique in Republic of poetry, and of the arts generally, is the object of a special preoccupation of modern readers. His so-called “censorship of poetry” is among the most misrepresented aspects of his oeuvre. This contemporary impatience with the subtleties of Plato’s critique of the arts, I suggest, stems from the very incommensurability of Plato’s aesthetics with those of our own time. We must begin by recognizing that Plato inherits a tradition of music and poetry in which they are among the most substantial religio-aesthetic activities of his time, and perhaps the most revered aspects of life in ancient Athens. He no more invents his view of poetry’s power than he invents the gods about whom – also in Republic – he offers philosophical descriptions. What makes poetry a matter requiring urgent attention, for Plato, is its unmediated power to shape the character of the human soul. In Republic, Socrates and Glaucon consider poetry under three of its aspects: dramatic representation, musical mode, and rhythm. Each of these three is thought to have an immediate power to shape character, and thus the question at hand is not whether poetry has the power to shape the soul, but simply about which kinds of poetry produce bad character and which good. Because dramatic representation creates immediately in the lis-

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tener the kind of man represented, Socrates and Glaucon disallow all dramatic impersonation save that of the good man. Musical modes and rhythm, Socrates also claims, have an intrinsic power over the listener. Of the four modes – Lydian, Dorian, Ionian, and Phrygian – each has a particular effect upon its listener. The Lydian mode, for example, is objectively suitable for laments and dirges – kinds of speech already outlawed in the ideal republic – and thus cannot be allowed. The Ionian mode, because of its “languid” nature will be inappropriate for the formation of a guardian’s brave and moderate character. The discussion leaves only the Dorian and Phrygian modes, which Socrates and Glaucon decide to allow, because they “represent sound courage and moderation in good fortune or in bad.”2 Though the dialogue does not treat rhythm in as much detail as it does mode, the principle is the same: “There are three basic types of rhythm, from which the various rhythmic combinations are built up, just as in sound there are four elements which go to build up the modes.”3 That the aesthetic aspects of rhythm and harmony would have a self-evident power to shape moral character is by no means evident to readers of our time; yet this is just what Socrates concludes: “rhythm and harmony penetrate deeply into the mind and take a most powerful hold on it, and, if education is good, bring and impart grace and beauty, if it is bad, the reverse.”4 In this conclusory statement there is no mention of either the words or the images of poetry, but only with the bare rhythmic and harmonic character, in which, Socrates thinks, poetry’s primary power is contained. In short, if we are to understand Plato’s position on poetry, we must acknowledge that what he considers most powerful in it – its music and rhythm – is what least resembles the poetry of our time. Poetic narratives, according to Socrates, must therefore be reduced to drama-less direct speech in the permitted modes and rhythms. But he presses this point until it approaches an absurd self-parody when he recites a sample of Homer, stripped of dra2. Plato, Republic, trans. Desmond Lee (London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2003), 399c. All translations of the Republic are those of Desmond Lee. 3. Ibid., 400a. 4. Ibid., 401d.

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matic representation and meter. I will not quote the passage5 here, but it has a ridiculous “this happened and then this and then this happened” breathless, adolescent-narration quality, to an Athenian so different from the revered hexameter of Homeric epic that Socrates’ statement about poetry’s power would have appeared both more pointedly and, therefore, with an irreverently comic thrust. But because Socrates’ sample of permissible Epic could hardly have been taken seriously – imagine the national anthem spoken in the manner of the stock market report – it seems Plato is poking fun at Socrates’ own non-dramatic, nonmetered recitation, at the very point that Socrates is arguing for the rules of poetry in the ideal state. Hardly a ponderous censorship of poetic representation!6 Our distance from the Athenian’s sense of the poetic makes it difficult to appreciate the rhetorical power of Socrates’ recitation. In effect, Plato demonstrates the power of poetic rhythm and music and drama through the frustration of the listener’s expectation of them. This disappointed anticipation de facto proves Socrates’ point if, at the same time, the comic aspect of the recitation suggests Plato’s own position is more complex. As Socrates puts it: “So great is the natural magic of poetry. Strip it of its poetic coloring, reduce it to plain prose, and I think you know how little it amounts to.”7 To conclude: Socrates does not banish poetry – or poets. While he sets limits to the kinds of poetry to be allowed, he simply never questions the necessity of poetry in his ideal city. It is precisely poetry’s power that makes poetry – and the restrictions upon it – necessary in the state. Furthermore, Plato sets his limited critique of mousikê in the mouth of Socrates but has Socrates take this to a comic extreme. It should not be surprising that an artist of Plato’s stature should impress upon his critique of art a self-consciously ironic character. This “critique” of poetry is as nuanced a work of

5. Ibid. 393e-394a. 6. Concerning Socrates’ caricature of the poets in this section of Republic, Gerald Else claims that “Book 3 of the Republic is not the place to look for an objective, impartial classification of poetry.” See Gerald Else, Plato and Aristotle on Poetry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 37. On Plato as comic writer, see also p. 186. 7. Ibid., 601a-b.

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art as any, and we must keep this in mind as we look again towards Boethius. Plato’s sheer poise on this question is equaled only by himself – in other dialogues. It is he who, in Ion, has Socrates out-rhapsodize the rhapsode by way of undermining rhapsody, and who writes in Phaedrus a critique of writing – a critique so multi-tiered and self-conscious it seems an echo chamber of metacritique even to the most deconstructive readers of our own day.8 Why poetry has such power, however, Plato does not explain in Republic. It is not until the Timaeus, where he offers a scientificomythical account of the human soul in relation to the world soul and the actions of the demiurge, that a fuller account appears. Without entering into the complex mysteries of that dialogue, let us simply remember that the human senses are the demiurge’s solution to the human soul’s imperfect embodiment: through them the soul is able to perceive the rhythms and order of the perfect universe and by this perception of order is itself reordered. Timaeus describes at some length9 how sight and hearing are gifts from the god for the re-ordering of our souls. All mousikê, Timaeus says, is meant to re-harmonize the soul. And he mentions rhythm specifically: “Rhythm…has likewise been given us by the Muses for the same purpose, to assist us. For with most of us our condition is such that we have lost all sense of measure (ametros), and are lacking in grace.”10 Even in Timaeus, however, Plato does not enter into a developed theory of rhythm. We do, however, have fragments of a more technical work on rhythm written by Aristoxenus, a contemporary of Aristotle. Thanks to Aristoxenus’ modern champion, the late Lionel Pearson, much of the vocabulary necessary to the Greeks’ conception and practice of rhythm can be recovered. According to Aristoxenus, “the quantities of the syllables or notes do not of themselves indicate the rhythm of verse or song.”11 One must know not only syllable length 8. See, for example, the conclusion of Jacques Derrida’s “la Pharmacie de Platon,” in La dissémination (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1972). 9. Plato, Timaeus, 47a-e. 10. Plato, Timaeus, trans. Donald J. Zeyl (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2000), 47d-e. 11. Lionel Pearson, introduction to Elementa Rhythmica, by Aristoxenus, trans. Lionel Pearson (Clarendon: Oxford, 1990), xxxiii.

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(rhythmizomenon) but know also the rhythmic foot (rhythmopoiia) in order to know where the downbeat lies. As Pearson remarks, a metric “foot” is the time it takes the dancer’s foot to move up and down. Arsis and thesis are simply the technical words that describe this up and down movement of the foot – the real foot, as it were -- the “downbeat” being the moment the foot touches the ground. This vocabulary emerges from the dances that accompanied certain kinds of meter as, for instance, that of the chorus in tragedy. Keeping time, however, was not limited to dance-accompanied meters. Because most poetry was sung, by necessity it would have had a discernible beat. “Homer’s dactylic hexameters” Pearson claims, “were meant to be sung or chanted in four-time rhythm.”12 Whether four-time, three-time or some other time, the basic fact of rhythm is that it takes a recognizable pattern. As Pearson writes: “Rhythm which cannot be recognized as rhythm is no rhythm at all.”13 The rhythm is thus a recognizable temporal structure – or the very recognizability of the structure itself. It is the discernibility of the temporal frame that allows the listener to follow the words, to enter into their movement and order. In one fragment, Aristoxenus writes: It must also be explained what a foot is. It may be regarded in general as the means by which we mark the rhythm and make it recognizable (gnorimon) to the senses (aisthesei).14

Gnorimon – only those rhythms which can be made recognizable or familiar to us aesthetically speaking, that is, through the senses, are rhythms at all. The meters of poetry are thus temporal measures whose recognizability is made familiar to the listener. Listening to poetry, for a Greek, would have been to be familiar with the various rhythmic patterns in which poetic utterances could be made. The very fact that the Greeks did not compose free verse itself signifies that for them poetry could only be spoken and heard according to the rhythms of particular temporal measures. But beyond the fact that poetry was always metered, rhythmic speech, we must point to a further aspect of Greek poetry: the association of genre with a particular meter. Dactylic hexameter, 12. Ibid., xxx. 13. Ibid., xxxviii. 14. Ibid., Fr. 9, p. 29.

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as we have just mentioned, was the meter of Homeric epic. The dialogue of tragedy was spoken in trimeter and the chorus parts in lyric. For elegy and epigram, only elegiac couplets were used, and so forth. Just as rhythm is the temporal structure through which the beat of the line may be perceived, meter is a semantic structure through which a genre may be recognized. The strict adherence of genre to meter must lead us to conclude that this adherence was necessary for the genre to exist at all. Just as a rhythm which cannot be recognized is no rhythm at all, a genre is only recognizable within its metric structure. And this structure is neither arbitrary nor externally enforced: certain topics, themes, kinds of address, and narratives are only possible in the meter in which they are made because, as Socrates insisted, each meter has a particular effect upon the hearer, and this effect is naturally intrinsic to the genre. So strong was this belief in the powerful intersection of poetry and music and dance that various genres of poetry pervaded every aspect of Greek life: festivals, communal prayers, funerals, marriages, victory celebrations, processions, military march and attack, and so on. Each of these genres produced the effect necessary to the occasion: to synchronize the rowers of a ship, to stimulate enthusiasm before battle, to heal sickness, to entrance, etc. Imagine a secretary of defense appointed in our day because he writes inspired war poems, as the poet Phrynicos was elected strategos on the basis of his pyrrhics.15 So naturally strong is this tradition that the Latins adopted wholesale the Greek poetic meters. Over centuries some meters were extended to include new genres, but even this extension could only have place within the established powers of poetic speech. It is, therefore, within this broadly sketched tradition of ancient poetics that we must attempt to place Boethius’s daunting collection of poetic meters in his Consolation. Does his Lady Philosophy rely on each meter to have a particular power over her devoted patient? Does she, as Plato’s Socrates thought, believe a meter’s aesthetic can shape character?

15. For these examples I am indebted to Robert W. Wallace’s “Damon of Ora,” in Music and the Muses, ed. Penelope Murray and Peter Wilson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

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As we have indeed already seen, Philosophia’s stance on poetry is much like Plato’s in Republic. Certain kinds of poetry are banished and others preserved because of the necessity of the moral formation they provide. Thus not only is poetic speech necessary to the formation of the virtuous soul, but so, too, is necessary the philosophical wisdom according to which the good kinds of poetry may be discerned and employed. Yet the similarities between the poetics of Boethius with those of Plato do not stop here. The title of the introduction to Boethius’ Fundamentals of Music reads: “Music forms a part of us through nature, and can ennoble or debase character.”16 Early in the treatise, he makes explicit his reliance on Plato: What Plato rightfully said can be likewise understood: the soul of the universe was joined together according to musical concord. For when we hear what is properly and harmoniously united in sound in conjunction with that which is harmoniously coupled and joined together within us and are attracted to it, then we recognize that we ourselves are put together in its likeness.17

Boethius lifts Plato’s doctrine of the soul’s formation and the relation of this formation to the cosmos directly from the Timaeus. In the following section of the introduction to his music textbook, Boethius deftly introduces the other aspect of the Platonic dynamic, that of the effect of music and rhythm on the formation of character. Again closely following Plato, he states: Indeed no path to the mind is as open for instruction as the sense of hearing. Thus, when rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ears, they doubtless affect and reshape the mind according to their particular character.18

This introduction is largely an apology for the textbook: accordingly, Boethius’ claims about the power of music are the justification for the extended scientific analysis that follows. The scientific enterprise, however, is deeply embedded in mythical accounts which both underlie and justify the technical account. Throughout the introduction, Boethius relates a number of myths 16. Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, trans. Calvin M. Bower and ed. Claude V. Palisca (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1989), 1. 17. Ibid., 2. 18. Ibid., 3.

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surrounding Pythagoras’ command of music and rhythm, as for instance: It is common knowledge that song has many times calmed rages, and that it has often worked great wonders on the affections of bodies or minds. Who does not know that Pythagoras, by performing a spondee, restored a drunk adolescent of Taormina incited by the sound of the Phrygian mode to a calmer and more composed state?19

The aim of this mythical underpinning is to establish beyond doubt the immediate, irresistible power of music and rhythm and thus increase the urgency of the work that follows. Like that of Socrates, Boethius’ argument proceeds from the firm belief that music’s power is immediate, that there is no critical distance between the listener and the music. It is with an assertion of this unmediated, involuntary effect of music that Boethius concludes the first section of his textbook: From all these accounts it appears beyond doubt that music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it even if we so desired. For this reason the power of the intellect ought to be summoned, so that this art, innate through nature, may also be mastered, comprehended through knowledge.20

If we now put together the pieces of our investigation, it seems likely that in his masterpiece Consolation, Boethius’ intricate use of poetic meter may provide a kind of virtual handbook of the diverse powers of ancient poetics. While it is well beyond the scope of this essay to consider each poem, or each meter, of the Consolation, a careful look at his use of one meter may allow us to develop a model for interpreting the meters’ powers throughout the work. To do so we will examine the two poems of the work written in Elegaic couplets, that is, the opening poems of the first and fifth books. The meter of the first line of an elegiac couplet is dactylic hexameter and the meter of the second is pentameter, with two hemiepes. It looks as follows: - uu | - uu | - ^ uu | - uu | - u u | - -

- uu - uu - || - u u - u u 19. Ibid., 5. 20. Ibid., 8.

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By Boethius’ time, elegiac couplets were used for both elegy and epigram, and elegy had become associated with lament. The meter is itself a rather sad and serious and unresolved one: the first line of each couplet is reminiscent of the gravity and greatness of epic, yet with an interruption in the middle of the third foot. The result is that the first line of each couplet is unevenly divided, and the flow of the line is interrupted, if expectedly. The second line is evenly divided but also requires a break. The line consists of two hemiepes, which means that although the line is balanced, the interruption is considerable because the long-short-short-longshort-short-long seems to take up the meter of hexameter again and thus makes the listener anticipate two short syllables; instead, after the pause, the line continues with another long-shortshort-long-short-short-long. The rhythm thus not only changes between each line of the couplet – but also leads the reader into the anticipation of the continued rhythm of the first line – every time the second half of the second line begins. In this opening poem of the Consolation, the prisoner laments his fall from good fortune and wallows in his sad circumstance. The first lines of the Consolation have a huge dramatic force simply because they are the opening lines of the work. Its position at the opening thus invests the elegiac meter with a special prominence and power. The poem’s words confirm the singularity of vision with which the poem is conceived, and the effect the meter is meant to bring about: Cārmĭnă quī quōndām|stŭdĭō flōrēntĕ pĕrēgī Flēbĭlĭs heū maēstōs|cōgŏr ĭnīrĕ mŏdōs. Ēccĕ mĭhī lăcĕraē|dīctānt scrībēndă Cămēnaē Ēt vērīs ĕlĕgī|flētĭbŭs ōră rĭgānt .21

The first line emphasizes the happiness and freedom with which the prisoner used to compose. The active sense of peregi – to take up to completion – is intensified, even shot through with youthful, innocent happiness with the studio florente (flourishing zeal) which modifies it. Songs with flourishing zeal I once composed. 21. Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, trans. S. J. Tester (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1978), 1, M1, 1-4. All subsequent references to The Consolation of Philosophy are to this edition. See Appendix A for the entire poem.

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The happiness of the first line is harshly obliterated by the first words of the couplet’s second line. Flebilis heu (Crying, alas!). Yet the climax of the couplet is reserved for the second half of the second line. The interruption of the line after maestos (sad), an adjective whose noun is anticipated – a further intensification of the words to follow – places great emphasis on the second hemiepes: cogor inire modos. The cogor is crucial: the first syllable a long one, and the I am forced is set unmistakably into a stark contrast with peregi. But forced to what? inire – to enter – and finally the listener supplies the adjectival maestos (sad) to the final word of the couplet – modos – I am forced to enter sad modes. In a mere two lines, Boethius has not only set a stunning sadness of scene and indicated the critical fall from fortune that precipitated the Consolation, but has also unmistakably introduced his underlying poetics. The prisoner claims he is forced to take up maestos modos. But what is meant by modos? The primary meaning of modus is measure. In a musical context it connotes musical measurement or temperament or tuning22 – and thus directly invokes Boethius’ musical theory, and especially the involuntary aspect of music's effect upon the listener. Yet modus also means – and this is primary in its etymological history23 – rhythm, time, and meter. The prisoner is literally forced to take up a sad meter. But by whom is he forced? Boethius reveals who in the first line of the second couplet: Ēccĕ mĭhī lăcĕraē|dīctānt scrībēndă Cămēnaē. The lacerae Camenae are the Muses, traditionally depicted wearing garments torn in sorrow. These muses the prisoner portrays as dictant scribenda – dictating to him the things which must be written. The second line of this couplet contains the result of this poetic dictation: Ēt vērīs ĕlĕgī|flētĭbŭs ōră rĭgānt – and my face is wet with the true tears of elegy. By the end of the fourth line of his masterpiece Consolation, Boethius has left us no doubt about his belief in poetry’s power, and his view of elegiac meter in particular. The prisoner is forced by the muses themselves into a sad meter and this causes him to weep greatly. A translation with respect to this poetics might read: 22. See Bower, n.3, p. 2 in Boethius, Fundamentals of Music. 23. Cf. modulabilis, modulamen, modulamentum, modulate, modulatio, modulator, modulatrix, modulatus, modulor, modulus.

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Songs with flowering zeal I once composed Alas! now tearful I am thrust into sad measures Behold how the torn muses force me to write And how the true tears of elegy cover my face.

It is as if the meter of the poem is an inconsolable one – in sixteen lines there are eight references to sadness, tears, suffering, and misery. The remaining twelve lines of the poem, which lament his misery, stress repeatedly the involuntariness of his fall from fortune and thus strengthen the power intuitively associated with the meter. Philosophia’s response to these poetic muses, in the first prose section, further confirms the poetics we have observed in the preceding elegy: Now when she saw the Muses of poetry standing by my bed, helping me to find words for my grief, she was disturbed for a moment, and then cried out with fiercely blazing eyes (commota paulisper ac torvis inflammata luminibus): “who let these theatrical tarts (scenicas meretriculas) in with this sick man? Not only have they no cures for his pain, but with their sweet poison they make it worse…Get out, you Sirens, beguiling men straight to their destruction! Leave him to my Muses (meis Musis) to care for and restore to health.”24

The philosopher and poet Boethius could hardly be clearer: poetry has an unmediated effect on the listener and therefore only Philosophia – the one who intimately knows the soul of the listener – can be trusted to use this power for good. Our argument does, however, demand we ask whether these conjectures about Boethius’ poetics hold for the other poem in Elegaic couplets, that is, for the first poem of the fifth (and final) book.25 A very great deal has occurred in the intervening chapters

24. 1, P1. 25. The metric chart prepared by Gruber in his invaluable commentary shows that many of the meters used early in the text are re-used in later sections. Not all meters are re-used and some meters are used more than once. These observations could form the basis of a more extended investigation of the question at hand. See Joachim Gruber, Kommentar zu Boethius De Consolatione Philosophiae (Walter De Gruyter: Berlin, 1978).

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and books, but there is a particular symmetry to its use in the fifth book. In the opening poem, Boethius laments the loss of his happiness, a loss he suffered passively at Fortuna’s hands. By the end of the fourth book, however, Philosophia has shown him that the acts of Fortuna are entirely subservient to Providentia, so subservient, that is, that Fortuna’s power vanishes and the prisoner asks whether chance (casus) has any existence at all. Philosophia explains that chance does exist, but only from the concurrence of other causes, and has no intrinsic agency of its own. The poem that follows26 gives an imaginative representation of this explanation: the confluence of two rivers would bring together an apparent chaos of water and debris. Yet what appears to be a chaos governed by chance is in fact an ordered event controlled by the slope of the land and the nature of the down-flowing waters. Here, where Philosophia now composes a poem in the meter whose muses she harshly expelled, she completes the overturning of Boethius’ initial complaint. Whereas he earlier lamented his passively-suffered fall from fortune, and was thrown into tears by the meter the Muses dictated; now, the same meter is used again for an elegy – but this time a lament for the loss of chance itself. In the twist of a playful master, Boethius’ Philosophia uses the very meter once employed by Fortuna to the prisoner’s harm to lament ironically the disappearance of her power. There is perhaps a hint to the poet’s intention here: the eighth line, which describes the enfolding of the ships and tree trunks into the conjoined waters, reads “mixtaque fortuitos implicet unda modos (the mixed waters would enfold chance appearances).” Modos here reoccurs at exactly the same place in the couplet – the final word of the second line – and, as in the opening poem, is modified by an adjective just before the caesura – fortuitos. So, too, implicet – enfolds is parallel with cogor – I am forced. Just how to take the elusive modos, however, is unclear. Translators have variously suggested appearances and paths and measures. Yet none of these is so convincing that the use of the word is not still rather strange. Fortuitos modos does presumably refer to the seemingly random appearance of tree trunks and ships and frothing waters – appearances actually 26. See Appendix B.

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enfolded by the water’s course. Yet by this reuse of the word in precisely the same place in the only other poem of the same meter, might not the poet be again leaving an imprint of his underlying poetics? Just as in the earlier poem the prisoner was forced into maestos modos by the muses, isn’t the elegiac modus itself, once seemingly held by Fortune’s stream, here revealed in the sway of Philosophia’s mighty current? The foregoing investigation suggests that if the rhythmic power of Boethius’ poetry were understood in relation to the narrative of the prisoner’s psychological ascent, the mechanics of ancient poetry and its performative powers might be unlocked as by no other surviving work of the ancient world.

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Appendix A 1, M1. Carmina qui quondam studio florente peregi, Flebilis heu maestos cogor inire modos. Ecce mihi lacerae dictant scribenda Camenae Et veris elegi fletibus ora rigant. Has saltem nullus potuit pervincere terror, Ne nostrum comites prosequerentur iter. Gloria felicis olim viridisque iuventae, Solantur maesti nunc mea fata senis. Venit enim properata malis inopina senectus Et dolor aetatem iussit inesse suam. Intempestivi funduntur vertice cani Et tremit effeto corpore laxa cutis. Mors hominum felix, quae se nec dulcibus annis Inserit et maestis saepe vocata venit. Eheu, quam surda miseros avertitur aure Et flentes oculos claudere saeva negat Dum levibus male fida bonis fortuna faveret, Paene caput tristis merserat hora meum; Nunc quia fallacem mutavit nubila vultum, Protrahit ingratas impia vita moras Quid me felicem totiens iactastis, amici? Qui cecidit, stabili non erat ille gradu.

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Appendix B 5, M1 Rupis Achaemeniae scopulis, ubi versa sequentum Pectoribus figit spicula pugna fugax, Tigris et Euphrates uno se fonte resolvunt Et mox abiunctis dissociantur aquis. Si coeant cursumque iterum revocentur in unum, Confluat alterni quod trahit unda vadi, Convenient puppes et vulsi flumine trunci Mixtaque fortuitos implicet unda modos; Quos tamen ipsa vagos terrae declivia casus Gurgitis et lapsi defluus ordo regit. Sic quae permissis fluitare videtur habenis, Fors patitur frenos ipsaque lege meat.

Augustine: Time and Early Concepts of the Soul

C G North Carolina State University

In On the Immortality of the Soul, an early treatise written soon after his conversion, Augustine claims that the soul contains the parts of time simultaneously. As he explains: “Expectation is concerned with future events, and memory with the past, while the intention to act belongs to the present time. . .” (Imm. An. 3.3).1 In reading this passage, we inevitably recall Augustine’s famous discussion of time in Confessions 11, written some thirteen years later (397-401). Here he argues that time is something mental, a distention or extension of mind produced by the simultaneous operations of memory, attention, and expectation (Conf. 11.26.33).2 1. “Et exspectatio futurarum rerum est, praeteritarum vero memoria. At intentio ad agendum praesentis est temporis, per quod futurum in praeteritum transit. . . ” (Saint Augustine: Soliloquies and Immortality of the Soul, trans. Gerard Watson [Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips Ltd., 1990], 132). All citations are to this edition; translations are mine with indebtedness to Watson. 2. See Conf. 11.26.33: “[I]nde mihi visum est nihil esse aliud tempus quam distentionem: sed cuius rei, nescio, et mirum, si non ipsius animi” (St. Augustine’s Confessions [1912; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979], 2:268). All citations are to this edition; all translation are mine. The bibliography on Augustine and time is long; some major studies include: Etienne Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (New York: Random House, 1960); Jean Guitton, Le temps et l’éternité chez Plotin et saint Augustin (Paris: Vrin, 1959); Henri-Irénée Marrou, L’Ambivalence du temps de l’histoire chez saint Augustin (Paris: Vrin, 1950); Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (London: Duckworth, 1987); Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983).

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Clearly, these two accounts of mental time, the one briefly sketched in 386 by the young convert to Christianity, the other fully developed around the year 400 by the Bishop of Hippo, show remarkable continuity of thought. Even more noteworthy, however, is the fact that these identical paradigms of mental time are used to support two opposing constructions of the soul. In Confessions 11, Augustine emphasizes the inherent temporality of the human soul—and this despite his profound ambivalence about temporality, which in his view scatters the soul seeking God.3 In contrast, in the early Immortality of the Soul, Augustine adduces the notion of mental time to support his argument that the soul which moves the body is itself immutable—an untenable position from which he will rapidly retreat. In turning to the Soliloquies (386) and On the Immortality of the Soul (387), I want to examine Augustine’s notion that the soul is immutable in the larger context of his thought; to show that he rejects this view for sound theological and philosophical reasons; and to suggest that this rejection holds formative consequences for his construction of the soul. According to the account of Confessions 7, only after reading “some books of the Platonists” does Augustine succeed in conceiving an immaterial soul (Conf. 7.1.1-10.16).4 By these books admonished to return to himself, he ascends through his own soul to achieve an intellectual vision of God. Here he glimpses the eternal light of pure Being; recognizes that unchanging Truth transcends his own mutable reason; and grasps as axiomatic that the unchanging is to be preferred to the changeable. As he concludes, “[The immutable light] was superior because it made me” (Conf. 7.10.16).5 This intensely personal encounter between the individual soul and God delineates the ontological axis of

3. On this ambivalence, see Charlotte Gross, “Augustine’s Ambivalence About Temporality: His Two Accounts of Time,” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 8 (1999), 129-148. 4. Scholarly efforts to identify these Platonist books are extensive; for a summary, see Stephen Menn, Descartes and Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 77-82. 5. “. . . sed superior, quia ipsa fecit me. . .” (Conf. 7.10.16).

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Augustine’s thought, the relation between the eternal Creator and temporal creature. For my purposes—to study time and the soul—this much-commented passage may introduce Augustine’s concepts of being, eternity, and time. In the concept of unchanging eternity central to Confessions 7, we readily recognize the influence of Plotinus’s account of the “life” of Intellect, which “abides the same in itself and does not change at all” (Enn. 3.7.3; cp. Conf. 11.11.13).6 Nevertheless, Augustine’s teachings about time depart significantly from those of Plotinus, who, following Plato, conceives time as the image of eternity (Enn. 3.7.11). For Augustine, in contrast, time and eternity are radically opposed; and this opposition, as I have argued elsewhere, takes its beginning from his treatment of Neoplatonic ontology. From the Platonists, Augustine adopts both the identification of true Being with immutability and the notion of a graded continuum of being. At the same time, he also insists upon the doctrine of creation ex nihilo, declared orthodox at Nicea in 325: created beings are made not from God’s substance but from nothing. These disparate concepts come together as follows: God is being in the supreme degree [summa essentia] – he supremely is – and therefore he is immutable. He gave being [esse] to the things he created from nothing, but it was not his own supreme being. To some he gave being in a higher degree [esse amplius], to others in a lower [minus], and thus he ordered natures according to the degree of being. (De Civ. 12.2)7

Between the Creator and creature, then, Augustine interposes a radical and inviolable ontological gap—as A. Solignac writes, “un abîme ontologique insurmontable et une différence absolue.”8 6. Plotinus, Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong (1967; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 3:303-5. 7. “Cum enim Deus summa essentia sit, hoc est summe sit, et ideo immutabilis sit; rebus, quas ex nihilo creavit, esse dedit, sed non summe esse, sicut est ipse; et aliis dedit esse amplius, aliis minus, atque ita naturas essentiarum gradibus ordinavit” ( La Cité de Dieu, vol. 35 of Oeuvres de saint Augustin, ed. B. Dombart and A. Kalb [Paris: Brouwer, 1959], 35:154). Augustine notes that Lat. essentia translates Gk. ousia. See Etienne Gilson, “Notes sur l’être et le temps chez saint Augustin,” Recherches Augustiniennes 2 (1962): 205-23. 8. A. Solignac, “Notes Complémentaires,” in Les Confessions, vol. 14 of Oeuvres de saint Augustin (Paris: Brouwer, 1962), 14:604.

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While for Plotinus all intellectual beings belong to the same order as Intellect, for Augustine the continuum is broken. God, who is pure Being, exists in a manner “far different [longe aliter]” from beings made from nothing and subject to change (De Gen. ad Litt. 5.16.34). In such an ontology, time and eternity are irreducibly opposed and “not comparable [incomparabilem],” for the flux of time (numquam stans) stands in direct opposition to the stability of eternity (semper stans) (Conf. 11.11.13).9 Where Plotinus envisions time as a dispersed version of eternity, the life of Soul considered in its successiveness (Enn. 3.7.11),10 Augustine views time as the ontological consequence of creation ex nihilo and the distinguishing feature of finite creation. But if, as Etienne Gilson writes, time represents “[une] trace du néant originel,”11 for Augustine time is nevertheless undeniably real, the medium of Christian history and the condition of individual progress towards salvation. “I want to know God and the soul”: so Augustine sums up the objective of his early Soliloquies, an interior dialogue between himself and his own Reason (1.2.7).12 At the time of his conversion, Augustine follows the Platonist books to conceive the soul as an immaterial substance, dynamic, inextended, and indivisible. Yet there are further Platonist teachings, relevant to his struggles with time and the soul, to which Augustine cannot, finally, assent. First, according to Plotinus, the human soul is an extension of the hypostases, “belong[ing] to the intelligible nature and the divine order” (Enn. 4.1.1).13 “[E]ven our [particular] soul does 9. That the opposition of time to eternity finds a basis in Augustine’s ontology does not, of course, imply opposition between Creator and creature. For Augustine, human nature was created good by God, but changeable because made from nothing (see De Civ. 15.21). 10. On time in Plotinus, see esp. Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus (New York and London: Routledge, 1994), 121-22. 11. Gilson, “Notes,” 213. 12. “Deum et animam scire cupio” (Solil. 1.2.7). 13. Plotinus, Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong (1984; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 4:9. This brief account cannot do justice to Plotinus’ teachings on the soul; see, e.g., the studies of A. H. Armstrong, “Plotinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 195-263; J. M. Rist, Plotinus:

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not altogether come down,” writes Plotinus, “but there is always something of it in the intelligible” (Enn. 4.8.8). As Pierre Hadot observes, Plotinus’ central theme is that “the human self is not irrevocably separated from its eternal model.”14 Second, according to Plotinus’ dualistic construct, the higher soul—the “true self within”—is joined to a compound of the lower soul and the body; together, these form the composite living being or joint entity (Enn. 1.1.3-5).15 The higher soul is immortal and impassible, remaining unaffected and unchanged by the sensations and affections of the composite (Enn. 1.1.4-10; 3.6.1-5). Third, given the central Plotinian intuition of the “true self within” as an extension of the intelligible, it follows that the higher soul cannot sin. The higher soul is “free of all the responsibility for evil that man does and suffers”; the evils that arise when we are mastered by desire or passion concern the composite only (Enn. 1.1.9). Fourth, and in consequence, a Plotinian account of human freedom will be very different from an Augustinian. As Georges Leroux observes, in Plotinian thought “[f ]reedom is the characteristic only of the higher soul,” which is immutable and of divine origin; and this freedom is a “tendency to the Good.”16 In following its own rational nature, the higher soul is unconstrained by “that necessity of choice which the passions impose.”17 For Plotinus, then, no one willingly chooses evil (Enn. 3.1.9). According to Augustine, in contrast, the doctrine of creation ex nihilo decisively severs the continuity of the soul with the divine. Yet in the early Soliloquies and the Immortality of the Soul, he nonetheless explores the notion of an immutable soul, seeking The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967); Gerson, Plotinus; and Gerard O’Daly, “Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self,” in O’Daly, ed., Platonism Pagan and Christian (Aldershot, England: Ashgate Press, 2001), 1121. 14. See Pierre Hadot, Plotinus or the Simplicity of Vision, trans. Michael Chase (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 26-27. 15. Plotinus, Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong (1966; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 1:99. 16. Georges Leroux, “Human Freedom in the Thought of Plotinus,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. L. P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 299. 17. Rist, Plotinus, 137.

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proof of the soul’s immortality in its unique relation to unchanging truth. Given Augustine’s insistence upon the ontological gap between Creator and creature, an immutable soul seems a sort of category mistake. And indeed, at Immortality of the Soul 7 Augustine will abandon this position, unable to reconcile its implications with Church doctrine or indeed his own observation of manifestly changeable human reason.18 According to Augustine’s mature view, expressed as early as 388, “The spirit of man itself at times errs and at times thinks wisely; thus it proclaims that it is mutable. . .” (De Gen. c. Man. 2.8.11).19 When, writing immediately after his conversion in 386, Augustine implicitly explores the position that the soul is both immortal and immutable, his aim is not, I think, to attribute divinity to the soul in the manner of the Platonists, as some modern readers have sought to show.20 Nor does he wish to imply that some “higher part” of the soul is united with God; for he adamantly holds, against the Manichees, that the soul is created not from the divine substance but from nothing. Rather, Augustine’s unusual argument for the immutability of the soul, I want to suggest, takes impetus from his early negative attitudes towards time and temporal things—attitudes which, as I have argued elsewhere, remain in his thought to produce a lasting ambivalence about temporality. “I know nothing else except that the changing and perishable must be spurned, and the fixed and eternal [certa et aeterna] must be sought”: so begins the early and unfinished Soliloquies (1.1.5).21 Here Augustine’s strategy is to distinguish the ontological categories of “things that come to be and pass away” (quod nascatur et intereat, Solil. 1.15.28) and “true immortal things”

18. See, e.g., De lib. arb. 2.6, where the manifest mutability of reason provides a foundation for proof of the existence of God. 19. “[S]piritus hominis cum aliquando errat, et aliquando prudenter sapit, mutabilem se esse clamat. . . ” (De Gen. c. Man., ed. D. Weber [Wien: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1998], 131. 20. See, e.g., Phillip Cary, Augustine’s Invention of the Inner Self (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 100, who argues that Augustine’s position in these early treatises “clearly implies the divinity of the soul.” 21. [N]ihil aliud scio nisi fluxa et caduca spernenda esse, certa et aeterna requirenda”( Solil. 1.1.5).

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(vera inmortalia, Solil. 1.15.29). His aversion to the temporal and material is strongly expressed: as Reason advises, “[F]lee from all these things connected with the senses, and take care while we manage this body that the feathers of our wings do not become stuck together through the slime that oozes from the things of the sense” (Solil. 1.14.24).22 In Soliloquies 1, Augustine’s foundational argument establishes the immortality and indestructibility of truth: since truth does not perish when true things pass away, truth is not in things that die; and since truth exists somewhere, it is found in immortal things (Solil. 1.15.28).23 In Soliloquies 2, he further argues that the disciplines—for example, geometry and logic—are true and immortal; and since the disciplines inhere inseparably in the soul as subject, the human soul itself is immortal (Solil. 2.13.24).24 This latter argument presupposes some early version of Augustine’s doctrine of illumination, according to which intelligible truths are latent in the mind; and indeed Soliloquies 2 concludes with an examination of recollection.25 Most important for a discussion of time and temporality, Augustine’s arguments for the immortality of the soul implicitly ally the human soul with things whose nature is immutable. Absent from the early and unfinished Soliloquies is the kind of clear distinction between ontological and durational categories enunciated, for example, in On Diverse Questions (388-95): “[N]ot everything immortal is with sufficient accuracy called eternal; for even if something lives for ever, yet undergoes change, it

22. “[P]enitus esse ista sensibilia fugienda cavendumque magnopere, dum hoc corpus agimus, ne quo eorum visco pennae nostrae impediantur . . . ” (Solil. 1.14.24). 23. Cary, Augustine’s Invention, 104, suggests that this idea of “place” comes from the Stoics via Cicero. 24. This argument concerning the disciplines is indebted to Aristotle’s Categories: “By being ‘present in a subject’ I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject” (Cat. 2, 1a24-26). 25. The argument is also indebted to Plato and adumbrates Augustine’s doctrine of illumination. In Imm. Am., Augustine will take up his earlier question, whether an ignorant or uneducated soul can be immortal (Solil. 2.19.33). He responds that latent truths, including “eternal realities,” may with proper questioning be discovered in the mind: thus the soul is immortal (Imm. An. 6).

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is not properly called eternal” (19).26 Since Augustine begins his Soliloquies by affirming in prayer that an eternal God created the world from nothing, it would seem to follow that a soul created from nothing cannot be immutable (1.1.1). On the other hand, in these early treatises Augustine remains curiously silent on the issue of change. The immortal soul is said simply to “live forever” (semper vivere, Solil. 2.3.4), and in like manner intelligible truth is described as “lasting forever” (semper manere, Solil. 2.15.27)— neither is said to exist without change. Given these and similar phrases, it is difficult to judge the extent to which Augustine attributes immutability to the soul. In so far as he entirely avoids the term “unchanging,” whether to describe either the soul or intelligible truth, Augustine appears in this early and unfinished treatise to focus on the immortality of the immaterial soul, while holding in abeyance the issue of its temporal status. It is all the more striking, then, that the term “immutable” figures prominently in the opening sections of the Immortality of the Soul (387), by Augustine’s account an aide-memoire for the completion of the Soliloquies (Retr. 1.5). To his previous argument, that the soul is immortal because an immortal discipline inseparably inheres in it, Augustine adds that this discipline is immortal because it is unchanging (inmutabile; Imm. An. 1.1). Moreover, the soul itself is said to be immutable (inmutabilis; Imm. An. 1.3). This unusual claim is developed in an important excursus which anticipates the model of psychological time set forth in Confessions 11. As Augustine argues in the early treatise, the fixed and unchanging soul, itself unmoving, effects movement in the body. For although bodies moving in time necessarily proceed through intervals, many things can be present simultaneously in the soul or agent. For example, in speaking the mind has an expectation of future time (exspectatio) so that the act will be completed; a memory of past time (memoria) so that it can be understood; and an intention to act (intentio ad agendum) pertaining to present time (Ibid.). This early paradigm of simultaneous mental times implicitly accounts for the paradoxical existence of 26. “[N]on omne inmortale satis subtiliter aeternum dicitur, quia et si semper aliquid vivat, tamen si mutabilitatem patiatur, non proprie aeternum appellatur. . . “ (De Div. Quaest. 19).

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past and future, since knowledge of absent things can be present to the soul (Ibid; cp. Conf. 11.14.17). Writing thirteen years later, in Confessions 11, Augustine will similarly teach that three aspects of time are found in the mind or soul: memory, present attention, and expectation (Conf. 11.20.26-11.21.27). Yet despite an evident congruence between the two models of mental time, there are significant conceptual differences. In The Immortality of the Soul, Augustine’s first concern is to argue that the soul is immutable because it is an unmoved agent (Imm. An. 1.4).27 In this early model of mental time, future, present, and past are simultaneously present in the mind and, as it were, “frozen for inspection,” making time resemble eternity.28 Most important, the soul’s intention to act is conceived as entirely static, for the soul which moves changeable things is itself immutable—as Augustine insists, the intention does not change (Ibid.). In contrast, in Confessions 11 present attention or intentio (attentio) is conceived as an activity of will, a motion, concentration, or tension of soul that makes possible sensation and cognition.29 In measuring time, the mind is the active agent: when we recite a psalm, for example, present intentio is directed simultaneously toward the future in expectation and the past in memory. The mental operations which produce the distensio animi—that extendedness of soul which makes possible the existence of past and future together in the present—are conceived as actively, even violently, dynamic. The soul is said to be “stretched” (tenditur), “pulled apart” (distentus), “torn asunder” (dissilui), and “torn to pieces” (dilaniantur) by its temporal operations (Conf. 11.28.37-29.39). As Augustine writes in the closing prayer of Confessions 11: “I am scattered in times whose order I do not know” (Conf. 11.29.39).30 Such intimations of spiritual tensions and inquietude are entirely absent from the preliminary model of mental time which in his early treatise Augustine adduces as evidence for an immutable soul. 27. “Hinc iam conligimus posse esse quiddam, quod, cum movet mutabilia, non mutatur” (Imm. An. 1.4). 28. See Sorabji, Time, 30, whose observation aptly characterizes Imm. An. 3. 29. On intensio, see Solignac, “Notes,” 14:590; and O’Daly, Mind, 85. 30. “At ego in tempora dissilui, quorum ordinem nescio. . .” (Conf. 11.29.39).

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In The Immortality of the Soul, this is a view from which Augustine will rapidly retreat. Immediately following his argument for an unchanging soul, he adds by way of clarification that the soul experiences accidental but not substantial change. That is, the soul is affected by interaction with the body—by age, sickness, distress, and pleasure; by affections of its own nature—joy, fear, anger, and desire; and by changes that come about through learning (Imm. An. 7). Such non-substantial changes, however, cannot compromise the soul’s immortality (Imm. An. 8). In distinguishing accidental from substantial change, then, Augustine arrives at his mature position, that the human soul is immortal but mutable.31 This view implies four considerations relevant to his construction of the soul. First, from the outset Augustine maintains—against both Manichees and Platonists—the doctrine of creation ex nihilo: as a creature made from nothing, the soul is by nature mutable. “Not only the visible, but also the invisible creature pertains to time on account of its mutability,” he writes in On Genesis Against the Manichees (2.6.7).32 The manifold implications of this view include his doctrine of psychological time. Second, Augustine’s early distaste for the temporal, a powerful legacy of Neoplatonism, in the end cannot compete with empirical observation. Having studied the changes in his own soul, he maintains that “the soul is moved in time, whether remembering what it has forgotten or learning what it did not know or willing what it did not will” (De Gen. ad Litt. 8.20.39).33 Third, and significantly, the soul’s mutability is primarily moral: the temporal

31. At Imm. An. 12, Augustine again considers the issue of substantial change in the soul, which can tend towards more or less being; as he argues, even the soul which turns from the truth and tends towards nothingness cannot perish. 32. “. . . non solum visibilem, sed etiam invisibilem creaturam pertinere ad tempus propter mutabilitatem. . .” (De Gen. c. Man. 2.6.7). 33. “. . . per tempus mouetur animus uel reminiscendo, quod oblitus erat, uel discendo, quod nesciebat, uel volendo, quod nolebat. . .” (De Gen. ad Litt. 8.20.39).

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Augustinian soul has the potential for both progress and regress, turning towards (conversio) or away from (aversio) immutable truth. Gone is the Plotinian notion of an immutable “higher” soul which freely chooses only the Good. As Augustine writes, “Human nature was created good by God, but changeable by him who is changeless, since it was created from nothing. And so the will can turn away from good to do evil—and this through its own free choice” (De Civ. 15.21).34 Fourth, and finally, that the soul is immaterial and immortal, although mutable and temporal, distinguishes it from material things that perish in time. The soul thus appears to occupy a medial ontological position between God and the material world. On the one hand, Augustine holds that “nothing is nearer to God among all created things than the human soul”; on the other, he hastens to acknowledge that “the human soul is not what God is” (De Quant. An. 34.77).35 As he writes in Confessions 7, the divine light is “utterly different” (Conf. 7.10.16). In casting his lot with the mutable soul—in making temporality the center of a consciousness oriented towards eternity—Augustine moves towards an inevitable ambivalence about time.

34. “Quoniam uoluntas in natura, quae facta est bona a Deo bono, sed mutabilis ab inmutabili, quia ex nihilo, et a bono potest declinare, ut faciat malum, quod fit libero arbitrio. . .” (De Civ. 15.21). 35. “[Q]uod ut breuiter colligam, quemadmodum fatendum est, animam humanam non esse quod Deus est; ita praesumendum, nihil inter omnia quae creauit, Deo esse propinquius” (Dialogues philosophiques, vol. 5 of Oeuvres de saint Augustin, ed. Pierre de Labriolle [Paris: Brouwer, 1939], 5:396).

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Traditions of Self-Knowledge from Socrates to Suhrawardi

S A-R University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Shihab al-Din Yahya ibn Habash ibn Amirak Abu ‘l-Futuh al-Suhrawardi, or Suhrawardi al-Maqtul was born in 1154 in Iran and moved to Aleppo in 1183. He was executed in 1191 by Salah al-Din, on charges of corrupting the religion. Despite his early death at the tender age of 38, Suhrawardi’s output and influence were prodigious as he is known as the founder of the Ishraqi (or Illuminationist) school of Islamic philosophy, which still has living branches today in Iran. Suhrawardi’s great Arabic work, The Philosophy of Illumination, or Hikmat al Ishraq, purports to be an exposition of what he calls, the science of lights (‘ilm al anwar), based on the intuition of the teacher and master of philosophy (the dhawq imam al hokma wa rais) Plato. In his Introduction to the treatise, Suhrawardi traces the lineage of Plato’s philosophy back to Empedocles and Pythagoras, and ultimately to Hermes, and mentions the Eastern doctrine of light and darkness (qa’adatu al sharq fi al nur wa al thalam)—taught by the Persian philosophers, Jamasp, Frashostar, and Bozorgmehr—all semi-legendary sages associated with early Zoroastrians. In the author’s introduction to the treatise we are told, “who ever wishes to learn only discursive philosophy, let him follow the method of the Peripatetics” (Suhrawardi 1999:4).1 Thus Suhrawardi’s topic in the treatise is the meaning of Platonic intuitive wisdom, or Dhawq, which he 1. al-Suhrawardi, 1999. The Philosophy of Illumination. Translated by John Walbridgde and Hossein Zia. Provo.

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contrasts with Peripatetic philosophy, and specifically with the Aristotelian idea of essentialist definition. For Suhrawardi, the fundamental difference between Platonist approaches to knowledge versus Aristotelian methods lies in what he calls, ‘knowing by presence,’ (huduri). In invoking the idea of knowledge by presence, Suhrawardi primarily refers to self-knowledge and specifically a form of self-knowledge that is non-representational. Self-knowledge does not refer to knowledge that one has about the self—such as its place in the universe, or knowledge of first person states, or of subjective states. Instead, Suhrawardi is interested in the way that knowledge by presence can discover the human soul’s essence as that which knows itself; as such, this essence cannot be characterized by any other attributes. Suhrawardi founds his philosophical project on the nature of self as pure awareness, and only from that point constructs an epistemology and metaphysics. In this paper, I examine the possible Platonist sources for Suhrawardi’s doctrine of knowledge by presence and his critique of essentialist definition. In the conclusion to this paper, I survey some familiar texts of Plato that emphasize the primacy of self-knowledge as the initiation point of Platonic philosophy, including the First Alcibiades, the Apology and Charmides. I conclude that Plato uses Socratic conversations in order to mark this special form of non-intentional self-awareness as foundational to his own philosophical enterprise, that is, to show that wisdom must be grounded in knowledge of the self. In studying Suhrawardi’s critique of essentialist philosophy and his exposition of intuitive knowledge, a fruitful method for deepening our conception of Platonic self-knowledge emerges, despite that Suhrawardi’s sources are likely to be Neoplatonic rather than Platonic. In the Introduction to his exposition of this method in the Hikmat al Ishraq, Suhrawardi refers us to another of his works, the Intimations, or al Talwihat, which he says treats of Peripatetic philosophy. There he recounts his struggle with the meaning of knowledge. Suhrawardi tells us that he had a dream or rather a vision in which Aristotle appeared to him, and Suhrawardi asked Aristotle, “what is knowledge?” (Ma s’alat al ‘ilm) Aristotle answers: “consult yourself and it will be solved for you.” Suhrawardi then asks Aristotle, “how is that” and Aristotle replies,

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“When you apprehend your self, is your apprehension of your essence by your essence or by something else? If the latter, then you would either have another faculty or else an essence apprehending your essence, but either would result in an absurd regression.” 2

Suhrawardi recounts this vision as a key for understanding his epistemological principle, which is grounded entirely in the possibility, or rather, the inevitability of self-knowledge, and the attendant definition of the self as self-evident light, the light of the absolute, indeed, as a modality, at root one with the first light, which is God. Suhrawardi devotes 2.1 in his major metaphysical work, the Hikmat al Ishraq, to the topic of self-knowledge and self-definition. Let us glance briefly at the structure of the argument employed there.3 He begins with a definition of the selfevident. Anything in existence that requires no definition or explanation is evident. Since there is nothing more evident than light, there is nothing less in need of definition. (2.107)

Suhrawardi’s exposition of self-knowledge as primary knowledge occurs within the context of a critique of Peripatetic essentialist definition. The first part of the treatise is devoted to showing that the Aristotelian idea of definition is defective as a foundation for knowledge, since such definition is dependent on something that is prior to definition, for Suhrawardi on what is self-evident, but for Aristotle, on the first principles--which must be intuited. We shall return to the nature and details of this critique later in the paper, but even in the introduction to his treatise, Suhrawardi insists upon the uselessness of the essential definition, the species formula that consists in the unity of the genus and differentia, as a foundation for knowledge: if the hearer knows the genus and differentia, he knows the definition already, whereas if he does not know them, the definition will fail to convey the essence of the thing (Suhrawardi 1999: 10). 2. Walbridge, J. 2000. Leaven of the Ancients, Albany. Appendix II. 3. For discussions of this structure, see Amin Razavi, M. “How Ibn Sinian is Suhrawardi’sTheory of Knowledge,” in Philosophy East and West, Volume 53, number 2, April 2003, p. 203-214. See also Ziai, H. 1990, Knowledge and Illumination,Brown Judaic Studies no. 97,150-155.

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In section 114 Suhrawardi uses this definition of light as the self-evident to make the ontological point that whatever perceives its own essence is a pure light, and every pure light is evident to itself and apprehends its own essence. This theory of knowledge by way of self-evidence is closely related to the Neoplatonist idea of the soul’s reversion on itself, as we find it in Proclus, Elements of Theology, Proposition 16: “all that is capable of reverting upon itself has an existence separable from body.” By way of argument for his definition, Suhrawardi adduces as evidence, that, “you are never unconscious of your essence,” in the terms of an argument per absurdum: suppose you are able to be unconscious of your essence. In that case, your nature is not self-evident. But if it is not self-evident, then what will make the self evident? If something else makes the self evident, then that other is the self. There can be no pointing to awareness without that awareness being present to be aware of the pointing. Nothing else can know my nature if I am not aware of my nature, since that nature, as the self-evident, could never be self-evident to anything else. Thus, it is only to me that my nature, the self-evident, can be self-evident: only I can know that I know, or be aware that I am aware. At the same time, there is no way to represent this awareness in terms of any attribute that it might possess—the nature of the self is simply awareness, with nothing else added. This perhaps is the shocking feature of Suhrawardi’s definition of the self. He says that the self is pure light and has no other nature, no other states, no other properties. Why is it that there is no content for the self, other than awareness? Any content, any representation, attribute, or state that belonged to the self, of which the self could be aware, would no longer that which is aware, but only what it is aware of. Thus Suhrawardi contrasts the “I” with the “It:” A thing that exists in itself and is conscious of itself does not know itself through a representation of itself appearing in itself. This is because if, in knowing one’s self, one were to make a representation of oneself, since this representation of his Iness (ana iyyah) could never be the reality of that Iness, it would be then such that that representation is it (huwa) in relation to the Iness and not I. It thus follows…that the apprehension of the reality of Iness would be exactly the apprehension of what is not I-ness. This is an absurdity. (Suhrawardi 115)

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This key pointer that the self is that which is aware also carries the negative corollary, that the self can never be represented as anything, nor can it be anything at all other than that which apprehends its own essence: If you examine this matter closely, you will find that that by which you are you is only a thing that apprehends its own essence—your ana’iyyatuh. (Suhrawardi 116)

Here Suhrawardi employs an argument from the distinction between essence and accident: were there something beyond consciousness or awareness, it would be unknown and would not belong to your essence, whose awareness is not superadded to it. Hence there is no other property in addition to your essence of which being evident could be a state. To summarize, then, Suhrawardi begins his treatise by looking for a foundation for wisdom, hikma, and finds that it must be grounded in what is self-evident. But what is self-evident must be immediately knowable to that which knows it. It cannot be self-evident to another, if that other is something distinct from that which is known. If the self-evident is not evident to itself something else will make it self-evident. But then, it will no longer be self-evident. Suhrawardi’s system of metaphysics follows directly from this definition of the self as incorporeal light: all living beings are such incorporeal lights and the nature of Life just is equivalent to a thing’s being evident to itself—again evoking proposition 16 of the Elements. For Suhrawardi, light in itself varies only by intensity or perfection with one light being relatively poor in relation to its superior and relatively rich (gani) in relation to its inferior, although all such lights express the same essential nature. In fact, the incorporeal lights cannot differ in their reality or essence. Were their realities to differ, there would be something else other than luminosity in each incorporeal light. And yet, anything other than this luminosity could not belong to, but would be external to this incorporeal light. Moreover the incorporeal light can only be one: since any such lights cannot differ in their reality, they cannot not be distinguished from each other by something they have in common, or by something that they do not have in common. Since, as we

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have seen, an incorporeal light has no condition other than light, it cannot in itself be distinct from another. Nor can it acquire any external properties, since then it would be something other than self-evident. Anything not self-evident would no longer be it. For this reason, all incorporeal lights, all selves, must be one self: When you have made a careful inquiry into yourself, you will find out that you are made of ‘yourself ’ that is, nothing but that which knows its own reality. This is your own Iness (anaiyyatuka). This is the manner in which everyone is to know himself and in that, everyone’s Iness is common with you. (Suhrawardi 112)

For Suhrawardi, we must necessarily arrive at the conclusion that all selves, including the human self, resolve in the absolute, the first principle that constitutes the original nature of every intelligent being. Suhrawardi calls this first principle the light of lights (nur al anwawr, Suhrawardi 136) the. For Suhrawardi this first principle simply is incorporeal light. And so he concludes his chapter on self-knowledge by affirming the non-separation of the first principle and the human self. “It [one’s own awareness] is simply the evident itself—nothing more. Therefore it is light in itself, and it is thus pure light” (Suhrawardi 116). In other words, the human self and the first principle share the same nature, the same reality, the same knowledge. It is worth calling attention to the Platonic tradition of selfknowledge as divine knowledge, as that tradition is represented in Arabic lore. This tradition is behind the legendary report that Tardieu made much of, when he formulated his controversial thesis that the late Neoplatonists transferred operations to Harran, after the closing of the Academy in 529. Harran had been a town on the border of the Persian Empire, and was known for its cosmopolitan paganism—a heady mixture of Greco-ArabSyrian traditions; it was possibly spared taxation by Chosroes in 540 because, as reported by Procopius, “the majority [of the inhabitants] were not Christians.”4 Tardieu’s thesis relied heavily on a now controversial interpretation of a passage that details the visit of the scholar al Mas’udi to Harran. In this narrative, al4. Athanassiadi, P. (1999). The Philosophical History. Athens, 52 quoting Procopius BP II.13.7.

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Mas’udi describes a gathering place of the Sabians where he sees a doorknocker inscribed with a Platonizing motto, “He who knows himself becomes divine.” 5 Arabists are increasingly skeptical that the word Tardieu translates as “gathering place, majam’ ” can refer to what he infers is a school or institution.6 Yet whatever we may think of the tradition reported by al-Mas’udi, it is important to see that divine knowledge and self-knowledge were attributed to the school of Plato by this 10th century litterateur. For Suhrawardi, because that which knows just has the nature of light, and God too as the light of lights has this nature, then to know oneself as this light is to know oneself as God. Now I want to illustrate how this same structure of self-knowledge might function in the dialogues of Plato, especially marked by the figure of Socrates who functions as the awakener of divine selfknowledge in the 1st Alcibiades. When Socrates’ Daimon finally allows him to speak to Alcibiades, the latter is no longer a teenager, but has already grown a beard and is about to embark on his life’s ambitions. Not content to be a leading man in Athens, Alcibiades thinks that ruling the world, being master of all men, sounds like a good job description. I Alcibiades, 105. But Socrates is not so sure that Alcibiades has the qualifications: compare yourself to the kings of Persia, Socrates urges. Don’t you know how they are raised from early childhood? After spending seven years with select and highly prized eunuchs, their education is overseen by four great sages, possessing the four cardinal virtues of moderation, wisdom, courage, and justice. The wisest among them teaches the young prince the wizardry that belongs to Zoroaster, son of Ohoromazda, and teaches as well the royal art, the art of ruling oneself. (I Alcibiades, 122a2)

5. Watts, E. 2005, “Where to live the philosophical life in the sixth century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia.” GRBS. 45. 3, 285. 6. See J. Lameer (1997), From Alexandria to Baghdad: reflections on the genesis of a problematical tradition,” in G. Endress and Remke Kruk (1997: 181191), (eds.) The Ancient Tradition in Christian and Islamic Hellenism, Leiden: CNWS. This article is accepted by most Islamic scholars as a conclusive refutation of Tardieu.

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But this same art, the art of ruling oneself, is just what Socrates is going to teach the young Alcibiades, in order to prepare him for his career goals, to be master of the universe. How does one rule oneself? First, Alcibiades needs to know himself. He should take care lest he end up knowing what is his, but not himself. Socrates and Alcibiades agree that it seems clear—Alcibiades is his soul, not his body—but how can he find out what this soul, his true self, really is. Socrates proposes an illustration: what if an eye wanted to know itself? How would it find its nature? It could look into another eye, into the pupil of the other person’s eye, to see what its own nature is. Socrates says that in order to see itself, the eye must look into the place where vision occurs. Where does vision occur? In order to see the purport of this question for the subject under discussion, which is looking at the self itself, Socrates says that Alcibiades should look at the place in the soul where knowledge arises. Socrates does not tell Alcibiades where wisdom arises, but he says that nothing could be more like god, and that it is by looking into god that one might see oneself most clearly. (133c8-13) Here, knowledge of oneself is knowledge of god: to arrive at self-knowledge, Socrates is not concerned with knowledge of a particular self—as he says, self-knowledge is knowledge of the absolute. We now investigate the structure of this self-knowledge in the Platonic tradition. We saw that for Suhrawardi, two things characterize self-knowledge: the first is that it is self-evident in a way that cannot be true of other kinds of knowledge. The second is that, unlike other kinds of knowledge, there is no intentional content at all in self-knowledge; it is entirely non-representational. Thus Suhrawardi refers to knowledge by presence; it is simply by being the self-evident that one knows one’s nature—the self does not become an object of knowledge. Hence, knowledge and the knower are one and the same. Self-knowledge is knowledge of the knower, but it is not knowledge of any states of the knower. The experience, the state that we might say conditions knowledge, is always something known, whereas the knower is that which knows, and not anything known. It is just this paradigmatic knowledge that Plato attempts to represent in the guise of Socratic wisdom, in the Socratic interpretation of Delphi’s gnothi sauton.

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At Charmides 167c5, Socrates is discussing the meaning of the Delphic injunction in company with Critias, future leader of the military coup d’etat of 303: to know oneself is to know knowledge. Socrates asks if there is a vision that is not a vision of anything, but that sees itself and all other visions; a hearing that hears itself and all other sounds, but is not the hearing of anything, a love that loves itself and all other loves, but is not the love of any good, a knowledge that knows itself and all other knowledges, but is not the knowledge of anything. But this is just what self-knowledge is: the essence of the self is to be a knower. For the self to see itself, it must look to its knowledge, but not its knowledge of this or that, rather, it must see that it is the seer. How can it see that? What is it that does the knowing? Who is it that knows? If it sees itself as something, then of course, this can’t be the seer, it can only be what is seen. So in looking for itself, it will find nothing at all. In knowing itself, it will actually know nothing. And this is exactly what Socrates knows, as he says in the Apology, under the auspices of Delphi: whatever can the god mean? For, as Socrates says, he is conscious of his ignorance; he knows that he has no wisdom. (Apology 21b; 21 d). When Socrates says that he is aware of not knowing anything, whereas this kind of knowledge is the highest kind of knowledge, Plato perhaps intends to signal that this kind of objectless knowing of oneself, knowing oneself by being the knower, is the foundation of philosophy. This is something that might remind us of Suhrawardi’s idea of knowledge by presence. There is awareness, but not an awareness of anything. There is an awareness of oneself, but this knowledge amounts to knowing nothing, since in knowing something, one knows, not the self, the knower, but rather, that which is known. I am not suggesting that Suhrawardi read the Platonic dialogues or recognized in Socrates the paradigmatic sage, though of course I believe that it is entirely possible that some versions or renditions of Socratic philosophy were available to Suhrawawrdi.7 Certainly, al-Kindi, perhaps the first Arab philosopher, is known to have written some now lost treatises on Socrates, one of which 7. Cf. Alon, I. 1995. Socrates Arabus. Jerusalem.

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bore the intriguing title, About what took place between Socrates and the Sabians. Rather is most likely that Suhrawardi read some Proclean material from the Elements of Theology (transmitted as the Book of the Pure Good, in Latin, Liber de causis), as well as some material from Plotinus, including Ennead IV. 8 (transmitted in Arabic as the Theology of Aristotle). As for the latter, Suhrawardi, although he understood the material to be by Aristotle, willfully ascribes it to Plato and refers to it a number of times in his works.8 He also was familiar with Ibn Sina, as many of his critiques of essential definition are directed against him. And it was Ibn Sina who first developed a theory of knowledge by presence, according to which the self always apprehends its own reality, though a knowledge that Ibn Sina calls consciousness through consciousness (al shu’ur bi’l shu’ur), which is rather like an innate awareness of self that must be prior to any act of self recognition.9 Suhrawardi seems to have developed this doctrine in ways that equate such innate self-knowledge with dawq, Platonist intuition. Although there are affinities with Ibn Sina, we also find in the Introduction to the Hikmat al sharq a criticism of Peripatetic philosophy as limited to the realm of the discursive and in part one we find a critique of Aristotelian definition per genus et differentiam. Among others that sound vaguely Plotinian is Suhrawardi’s critique of being as a pseudo-genus. Recall that for Plotinus, substance cannot be a common genus that extends over both intelligible and sensible being, for if so, ousia would be a common predicate of the two species of being, intelligible and sensible, and thus could not be either incorporeal or corporeal in itself. But it must be one or the other. Ergo substance is not a genus of both ‘species’ of being. Perhaps there is some such inspiration behind Suhrawardi’s famous rejection of Being or Existence, wujud, as the primary nature of the real. Again, one Neoplatonist criticism of Aristotle’s theory is that for Aristotle, only some predicates are used in the category of substance; all other predicates are accidents. But what is the difference between these two kinds of predicate? Perhaps we can 8. Walbridge, J. 2000. Leaven of the Ancients. Albany. 134-7. 9. Ibn Sina , al-Ta‘liqat, Badawı 1973. Cairo. 160–161. Cited by Amin Razavi 2003.

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detect similar strategies in the following passage from Suhrawardi’s treatise: They argue, ‘the form is a constituent of the substance, so it is a substance. But the substantiality of the forms consists in their not being in a subject. Their being not in a subject means that the locus is not independent of them. That the locus is not independent of them means that they are constituents of the locus. Thus to say, the form is a constituent of the substance, so it is a substance is equivalent to saying, the form is a constituent of the substance, so it is a constituent of the substance. We have shown that accidents may be constituents of substance. It follows that an accident may be a condition of the existence of a substance and a constituent of its existence in this sense. (Suhrawardi 87)

It is at least possible that Suhrawardi was familiar with Platonist critiques of the Aristotelian categories from Ennead VI, and that we can see echoes of these various strategies in his criticisms of Peripatetic philosophy in part one of the Hikmat al Ishraq and elsewhere. Suhrawardi couples this critique with a new articulation of what he understood as Platonic intuition, the principle of knowledge by presence and self-disclosure, based on the primacy of self-awareness. For Suhrawardi, the light that is self-aware, the independent light, is the nature of all intelligent beings, and these beings only differ from each other in their degree of intensity. Thus there is one universal entity that contains all others as its gradations; the world is connected within through this self-disclosure that belongs to the nature of intelligent beings. All of this might remind us of Plotinus, with his insistence that each intellect is all of the intellects, that each soul is all of the reason principles. Thus we can say that Suhrawardi’s Platonism, insofar as he is justified in calling his philosophy Platonism is based on his acquaintance with Plotinus and with Proclus and is further directly inspired by Ibn Sina, whom he does not cite, but that in invoking the idea of dhawq, he introduces an interpretation of what Plato might have meant by intuitive knowledge. My effort has been to show that we perhaps have something to learn from Suhrawardi’s insistence on the primacy of self-knowledge in our own reading of Plato, and that, with this clue, we can better understand the meaning of Socrates’ association with Delphi, and of such foundational texts as Apology 21 b, I am aware that I have no wisdom.

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Nous And Geist Aristotle, Plotinus and Hegel on Truth, Knowledge, and Being

R M. B Dowling College and Bard College

Introduction With regard to both history and historical problems Greek philosophy plays a leading role in modern philosophical discussion. The purpose of this study is to think Greek and to wring the Greek way of thinking from modern habits of thought. Since Aristotle and Plotinus were capable of thinking nous, logos, and psuche without falling prey to self-knowledge and the methodological primacy of self-consciousness, we shall examine the “horizons” of truth, knowledge, and being in Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel. What emerges out of this study are realist and idealist conceptions of what truth, knowledge, and being are. While Aristotle and Plotinus claim truth and Being to be intelligible, Hegel proposes truth and Being to be absolute self-consciousness.

1 Truth Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel claim that there is knowledge that contemplates universals and in the contemplation of universals mind grasps truth. The contemplative knowledge which grasps universals and truth is called intellect [nous] by Aristotle and Plotinus; and self-consciousness [Selbstbewusstsein] in Hegel. On the basis of this claim, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel maintain

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a coherence theory of truth. According to the coherence theory to say a judgement is true or false is to say that it coheres or fails to cohere with a system of other claims; that it is a member of a system whose elements are related to each other by ties of logical implication in that a judgement fits into a comprehensive account of the universe or reality, which itself forms a coherent system. Coherence theorists base their arguments from the nature of a priori reasoning typical of mathematics and metaphysics.1 The claim that contemplative knowledge of universals yields truth allowed Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel to construct a notion of self-identity in which the individual self or mind can be ultimately identified with a supra-personal identity or mind. To attain this goal the presupposition of methodological solipsism was employed, 2 not as a strategy that restricts the validity of certain metaphysical claims within a first person standpoint, but as a strategy that makes possible the expansion of the first-person perspective into a collective one that includes other minds. 3 However, given Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ identification of Being, that which is, as that which can be apprehended by intellection, and Hegel’s identification of Being with being aware in consciousness; and being self-aware in self-consciousness, what emerges is a fundamental difference between Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ supra-personal Nous and Hegel’s supra-personal Geist.

1. See, “Truth” in R. Audi [ed.], The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, 1995, p. 812. 2. Fodor, following Carnap’s and Putnam’s earlier investigations, claims that methodological solipsism is a research strategy whereby mental activity is abstracted from its physical basis. Here the focus is upon the agent’s contribution to propositional attitudes, subtracting away the contents. The result of methodological solipsism is the claim that no real being is essential for the being of consciousness. cf. J.A. Fodor, “Methodological Solipsism Considered as a Research Strategy” in Cognitive Psychology in Brain and Behavioral Sciences. 3.1, pp. 63109 3. As an advocate of ontological solipsism, Aristotle eschews methodological solipsism. On methodological solipsism in Plotinus and Hegel, see R.M. Berchman, “Nous and Geist: Methodological Solipsism and Self-Identity in Plotinus and Hegel” in S.R.L. Clark and P. Vassilopoulou [eds.], Other Ways to Truth. Epistemology in Late Antique Philosophy, forthcoming, New York-London, 2008: Palgrave MacMillan.

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Nous knows the intelligibility of reality while Geist constitutes reality. A sense of the difference or contrast between the Nous and Geist traditions of metaphysics is clarified by briefly mapping Aristotle on intellect, being, and truth, and Hegel on self-consciousness, being, and truth. With Aristotle and Plotinus intellect knows the intelligibility of Being. Knowing the intelligibility of Being is possible because Being cannot be thought without “nousing” the Causes or Forms which are for Aristotle and Plotinus the ground of the truth of Being. Hegel claims Being cannot be thought apart from a consciousness and self-consciousness of Being. Self- knowledge of Being is possible because Being cannot be thought apart from consciousness and self-consciousness which for Hegel is the ground of the truth of Being. Since nous governs, Aristotle claims that Being [ousia] is unconditionally and unobstuctedly intelligible. 4 This intelligibility results from the supposition of the unconditional sovereignty of the principle of transparence or nous. Aristotle conceived this sovereignty of nous in the likeness of light [phos]. The energeia of the nous poietikos is like the effectiveness of the light which through its shining confers transparency 5 on everything and transforms the potential colors into actual colors. 6 Thus owing to nous ousia is luminous, transparent, noetic, or thinkable. 7 It is only because ousia is thinkable that humans beholding noesis is able to think it. Thus the basic trait of the intelligibility of ousia establishes its thinkability by human thinking. Aristotle is also keen to underscore that the basic trait of the intelligibility of ousia is connected with the truth [aletheia] in the sense that every obstruction of this intelligibility is excluded. 8 For intellection [noesis] comprehension of Being [ousia] is truth.9 The reason for this is that Being is completely and wholly intelligible, completely undisguised, lucid, and transparent. Otherwise Nous 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

De Anima, 429a19. Ibid., 418b13 Ibid., 430a15. Ibid., 432a10. Met., 1051b25 Ibid, 1051b17ff.

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could not grasp Being unerringly through simple the metaphors of light [phos] and contact [thigein]. Transcendental philosophy will later start out in reverse fashion from the condition of the possibility of knowing – from the subject – and will conceive the thinkability in terms of experienceability, of the objects of experience in Kant, and the conceivability of Being, essence, and concept in Hegel as object for a subject. These objects are in principle wholly and completely knowable, accessible, lucid, and true but for the subject. Here we enter absolute thinking, which for Hegel is the last embodiment of spirit in the road of the natural consciousness.10 Here as a consequence of the dialectical movement that consciousness executed “on its knowledge as well as on its object,”11 consciousness has sublated [aufgehoben] its untrue or unreal knowing12 to the true real knowing that knows itself as concept13 and is thereby Geist who knows itself as Geist. When self-consciousness has developed to this form that it knows that all Being-in-itself [Ansichsein] of the object is sublated in the transparent Being-for-itself [Fuersichsein] of the concept, when it is sublated in the unifying oneness of Self,14 then it descends into the depths of its own being15 and brings forth science.16 Here self-consciousness knows that this Self is the place in which the Absolute in and for itself [an und fuer sich] is and wants to be with us from the start.17 It knows that in this self-form 18 it finds all the powers that have always had us in their possession19 – the categories of Being, essence, concept, and Idea. Thus in order to be able to grasp and demonstrate these notions in their systematic unfolding, thinking does not direct itself toward Being, nor does it transcend it, but rather it bends back toward its own 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

PG., 556 [797]. Ibid., 73 [142]. Ibid., 66, 67, 75 [135,145]. Ibid., 558 [800]. Ibid., 558ff., 562 [800ff., 805]. Ibid., 184 [282]. Ibid., 556 [798]. Ibid., 64 [132]. Ibid., 562 [805]. Logik, I.14 [35].

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Self. Hegel claims the Self comes to know that what it requires to attain to the categories is precisely not transcendence. Here the Self has reached the insight that it resides within the realm of Being. The task self-consciousness faces lies in the unfolding of Being. In the unfolding of Being, the categories known in knowing’s knowing itself determine Being. Moreover, the Absolute is not a “beyond” but as the movement of infinity that dwells in finite things within time. Within this context, truth for Hegel occurs as a process. 20 Truth is a process in which the opposition between reality and concept,21 or between objectivity and concept22 or between content and concept23 is sublated to unity. Thus unity of the ideal and the real is the Idea.24 The consequence of such a theory of truth is that, like Descartes Hegel claims, truth signifies certainty, self-certainty. The truth is what is known in the unconditional knowing of Self. Truth is no longer the correspondence between representation and being. It consists only in the representing [Vorstellen] through which the subject conveys or represents to the Self that which is certain for the subjectivity of the Self. At the same time in and through this representation the Self becomes certain of himself.25 This representing I said to absolve itself of every subjective tie to what is objective [das Gegenstaendliche]. Here Hegel argues this is where truth finds its security. Such a kind of absolved knowing or absolute knowing, a kind of knowing freed from the objective, is the absolute presenting of the absolute or truth.26 In this sense truth according to Hegel consists only in the “absolute certainty of the self-knowing absolute subject. Moreover, truth according to Hegel consists only in the “absolute certainty of the self-knowing absolute subject” where the sphere of immediate Being sublates itself to the sphere of essence as “its truth” in that it “reflects” itself as essential shine or show. 27 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

Ibid., II.412 [759] Ibid., II.496 [835]. Enz., SS 213. Logik, II.231 [592]. Enz., SS 214. HW., 122, 124. Ibid., 125ff. Logik., II.7ff. [393ff.].

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In nuce, only the Idea for Hegel is objectively true or the true as such.28 In this sense, something has truth only insofar as it is Idea.29 Hence the objectivity or the reality or the object is identical with its concept.30 Thus for Hegel when the Idea has completely worked through its reality, it undergoes a truth process. This means that the process of truth accomplishes itself as dialectic. An important corollary of the coherence theory is the doctrine of degrees of truth. If the truth of any judgement is bound up with the truth of all the judgements of a metaphysical system, and thus is bound up with the whole metaphysical system, individual judgements are only partially true – and therefore partially false – while only the whole system is wholly true. Thus, truth must exhibit the mark of all inclusiveness. The individual judgements associated with the nous pathetikos, aisthesis, and Bewusstsein are only partially true. Thus for Aristotle and Plotinus it is only the activity of nous poietikos or Nous; and for Hegel it is only the absolute Selbstbewusstsein of Geist that grasps all inclusive truth.

2 Intellect Aristotle’s claim that knowing general truths by internalizing universals is a foundational one not only for Plotinus’ tradition of Nous metaphysics, but also for a German Idealism that includes Kant’s transcendental Ego, Hegel’s tradition of Geist metaphysics, and Husserl’s phenomenology of Bewusstsein. This metaphysical possibility has also influenced the empirical and rationalist traditions as well. The power of nous poietikos is also the precursor of Bacon’s “mind of man” and Descartes’ distinction between thinking and extended substance. Revisiting De Anima III.4-5 and Metaphysics XII, Nous is mind, intellect, thought, insight as contemplation [theoria]. Moreover, Nous is also logically separable, even though nothing

28. Ibid., II.407 [755]. 29. Ibid. 30. Ibid., II.410 [757].

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else about the soul is. It is likely that Nous is also immaterial. Most importantly, intellect has the power to receive the form of the universal from the particular, and taking it on itself without becoming particular. Here Aristotle makes two advances on Plato and the Posterior Analytics that Plotinus appropriates: the first is toward a discovery of holism and of the concrete universal; the second is an appreciation of the difference between sensation and intelligent consciousness of sensation.31 These are insights which Locke fatally ignored, and Husserl fatally appropriated. Both of their reactions were a consequence of Descartes’ transformation of the notion of mind from a collective Nous to a subjective Cogito – a move that Hegel opposes and which, as we shall see, links Nous and Geist metaphysics. Beginning with early modern empiricism, the suggestion arose that there are no universals, that they are flatus vocis. This is a challenge to Nous metaphysics itself. A controversial way around such a challenge is Aristotle’s inference concerning the separable, immaterial character of Nous upon which rests his theory of knowledge. For Aristotle and Plotinus, knowledge is not the possession of accurate representations of an object but rather nous becoming identical with an object. Nous, metaphorically, is both mirror and eye in one. The retinal image itself is the intellect which becomes all things.32 Aristotle‘s and Plotinus’ mind-as-intellect model was initially challenged in the seventeenth century by the ontological revolution of mechanics.33 Kepler and Galileo proposed mechanics as a science of terrestrial and heavenly motions that confirmed the notion of a corpuscular or atomistic ontology. Here the hypothesis offered was that all phenomena of nature, including warmth, color, light, sound, and magnetism, involve mechanical

31. See, T.H. Green, “The Philosophy of Aristotle” in Collected Works III, London, 1885, pp. 52-91. 32. This is a rather different metaphor than Descartes’ where the Cogito inspects images modeled on retinal images, see R. Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton, 1979, p.45. 33. See, H. Philipse, “Transcendental Idealism” in The Cambridge Companion to Husserl, Cambridge: 1995, pp.292-297.

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operations. Moreover, these phenomena are explained as the macroscopic effects of the mechanical behavior of very small particles which function according to the laws of mechanics. This revolution in physics caused a change in the theory of perception that challenged Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ claims that the perceiving mind absorbs the forms of perceived objects, so that perception is a formal identity of perceiver and object perceived. The corpuscular or atomistic ontology implies a deep gap between perceptual appearance and physical reality. Consequently, Descartes and Locke come to deny phenomenal or secondary qualities, such as color and sound, to the particles whose mechanical behavior accounts for these qualities. Thus, if atoms or corpuscles lack color, then objects assembled from particles also lack color. Physical reality is very different from its perceptual appearances, because it lacks secondary qualities. This incompatibility thesis leads to representative theories of perception. Since phenomenal qualities do not exist in nature, they exist only in the perceiving mind, as Descartes argued, or the organism, as Locke and Hume argued. This results in the claim that secondary qualities are direct objects of perceptual consciousness, which results in the proposal that the primary data of sensation are really immanent in consciousness, and the mind or organism, once stimulated, projects these qualia into objects by a mental mechanism of perception or judgement. The distinction between Aristotelian noetic isomorphism and Cartesian and Lockean cognitive representationalism marks the divide between classical and modern epistemology and ontology. Aristotle’s Nous is identical with reality, while the Cogito or mind is representative of reality. Therefore, Nous “touches” the certainty of ousia, while the Cogito and mind representationally “images” at best, the fidelity of both res cogitans and res materia.

3 Intellect, Consciousness, and Self-Consciousness In the wake of this ontological and epistemological revolution, Aristotle’s hylomorphic model strikes moderns as hopelessly quaint, while Descartes ‘and Locke’s representative model strikes them as hopelessly familiar. Between the quaint and familiar

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arises a series of philosophical problems in philosophy of mind that need to be addressed. The key issue is not whether Aristotle and Plotinus lacked a concept of mind, or even of a mind separable from the body. 34 Rather the issue is why there was no way or need for Aristotle and Plotinus, as there was for Descartes, Berkeley, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Husserl, to divide “mental states” from events in an “external world.” Descartes used thought or consciousness to cover all forms of doubting, understanding, willing, refusing, imagining, dreaming, and feeling. 35 An idea for Descartes is whatsoever object of understanding that is thought. Hume puts it more bluntly – “everything that appears to the mind is nothing but a perception.”36 Once Descartes defined thinking so inclusively, it was a short step to Locke’s, Berkeley’s, Hume’s, Kant’s, and Husserl’s uses of “idea” in a way which has no equivalent in Aristotle or Plotinus.37 This modern “turn” highlights two further distinctions. First, from the precipice of Aristotle and Plotinus, the modern mind is a thoroughly subjective entity. Secondly, once mind is no longer synonymous with intellect [nous], then something other than intellect’s grasp of universals, must serve as the mark of the mind. The mark of the mind now becomes the self-reflexivity of “consciousness” and “self-consciousness.” The crucial point here is that there is no equivalent in Aristotle or Plotinus for “consciousness” [Bewusstsein] or “self-consciousness [Selbstbewusstsein].” In brief, there are two options before us: the mind-as-intellect model and the mind-as-consciousness model. It is inconceivable for Aristotle and Plotinus that there are purely self-conscious mental states, that these mental states are distinct from perceptions [ta aistheta], or that perceptions are equivalent to sensations, or that idea covers both sense-data and concepts, or for that matter that the mind is separate from the body. Once all this is admitted, the Aristotle’s and Plotinus’

34. R. Rorty., op. cit., p. 47. 35. Descartes, Meditation, II. 36. Hume, Treatise, I.4.2. 37. See, A. Kenny, “Descartes on Ideas” in Descartes: A Collection of Critical Essays, W. Doney [ed.], Garden City: 1967, p. 226.

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distinction between intellect-as-grasp-of-universals, and the living body which perceives sensation and motion, is lost. In its place a new distinction emerges – that between consciousness and nonconsciousness wherein consciousness or thinking covers both sense and intellect. From here it is a short step to the Cartesian distinction between an event in non-extended and extended substance, and the claims of empiricists that the real world must be psychological, of idealists that the real world must be mental, and of phenomenologists that intentionality is sufficient to unite the ego cogito cogitatum – an ego and its intended objects. This raises another crucial difference between the mindas-intellect and the mind-as-consciousness models. This is the conflicting notions of indubitability associated with each. For Descartes, the clear and distinct ideas of self-consciousness alone are indubitable. Doubt, however, is possible about everything physical. Here the crucial point is that indubitability is solely a criterion of rational self-consciousness. From Descartes a distinction is made between a special metaphysical ground for certainty about our inner states and various epistemological reasons which grounds certainties about anything else. Once the Cartesian metaphysical ground for certainty dissolves under the gaze of Hume, a mind-as-sensation theory emerges. This theory cancels out Descartes’ certainty that we have clear and distinct perceptions of substance, thought, and motion, Locke’s certainty concerning substance, and Berkeley’s certainty concerning the existence of God. Hume’s only certainty was that his own sensations of pain, pleasure, or “blue” signify something “real.” Here indubitability is solely a criterion of the evidence of “an” empirical consciousness of sensations.. If mind is intellect, Aristotle and Plotinus argue then only what has eternity cannot be doubted. Now eternality is known with certainty solely through Noein – which encompasses the activities of the Ideai, Nous, and Logos. Specifically, reason-asgrasp-of-universals alone are indubitable. Doubt is possible about everything particular.

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4 Intellection, Inner Representations, and Impressions What Aristotle and Plotinus are largely innocent of are modern notions of inner representations or impressions. As a result what they also avoid is the empiricist confusion between a mechanistic account of the operations of the mind and the ‘grounding of our claims to knowledge. This is what T.H. Green calls: The fundamental confusion, on which all empirical Psychology rests, between two essentially distinct questions – One metaphysical, what is the simplest element of Knowledge? The other physiological, what are the Conditions in the individual human organism in virtue of Which it becomes a vehicle of knowledge? 38

Thus, Locke and Hume propose that the simplest element of knowledge is inner representations or impressions and that the mind is like a wax tablet or tabula rasa upon which objects make impressions. Consequently, the mind is made to think by some impression upon it, or some impulse given to it by contiguous bodies. In a quasi-mechanical way our immaterial tablets or minds are dented by the material world. These representations help us know what we are entitled to believe. However, the imprinting is of less interest than the observation of the imprint – which is the activity of seeing -as-knowing. Aristotle and Plotinus do not have to worry about an eye, or for that matter an ear, tongue, finger, or nose of the mind. Knowledge is the identity of the mind with the object known. However, Locke and Hume do not have this possibility available. Since impressions were representations, they needed a faculty which is aware of representations. Moreover, they needed a faculty that judged representations rather than had them. The rub is they could not postulate such a “nousing” faculty in the quasi-machine they hoped to describe. To do so would be to introduce a ghost in the machine. But there an obvious tension between thought and matter in the cerebral tablet persists nonetheless. Green reflecting on Locke’s “ideas of reflection” says: 38. T.H. Greene, Hume and Locke, R. Lemos [ed.], New York: 1968, p. 19.

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Locke disguises the difficulty from himself and his Reader by constantly shifting both the receptive subject and The impressive matter. We find the “tablet” perpetually Receding. First it is the “outward part” or bodily organ. Then It is the brain…Then it is the perceptive mind, which takes an Impression of the sensation or has an idea of it. Finally, it is The reflective mind…39

If knowledge-of is construed as “having in mind” and mind is a tablet, then Locke is thinking in physiological terms. If knowledge-of is construed as a “reflective mind” and mind is an activity, then Locke is thinking in noetic terms. In either case, Locke [and later Hume] has a problem, which Kant calls the basic error of empiricism. How can knowledge as something which, being the simple having an idea, take place without judgement? And how can knowledge of that which results from forming justified judgements occur at all if there is no such “nousing” faculty present? As Kant puts it the basic error is the confusion between a “successions of apprehensions within an apprehension of succession.” That is to say, we have a succession of flowers and redness, and yet we synthesize these into the judgement – “flowers are red.” Locke cannot explain how this happens because he models knowing on seeing representations which become, somehow, “ideas.” What Kant claims is significant – only thought relates. Thus, an object of which several predicates are judged true is always a result of a “mental” synthesis undertaken by a “mind.” Kant goes on to argue that the mind constitutes knowledge of phenomena, not things-in-themselves. This is the mind-as-consciousness model. However, for Aristotle and Plotinus intellection [noesis] consists in the grasp of the nature [phusis] and rational structure [logos] of a thing. When used in connection with individual phenomena, phusis designated the cluster of stable characteristics by which we can recognize that thing and can anticipate the limits within which it can act upon other things or be acted upon by them. This concept of the nature or “what it is” of a thing plays a fundamental role in classical accounts of knowledge. In Plato’s

39. Ibid., p. 11.

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early dialogues Socrates will affirm as a general principle that we must first discover the essential nature of a thing – its ti estin or “what it is” before we attempt to determine what other features it might possess. Following Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus will characterize knowledge in the most basic sense as grasping in thought a thing’s essential nature or ti estin. This explains the frequency with which giving a logos enters into a number of proposed definitions of knowledge. The ability to explain what a thing “is” is the necessary condition for being said to know what it is. This is the mind-as-intellect model.

5 The A Priori-A Posteriori, and Analytic-Synthetic Distinctions A proto a priori-a posteriori distinction between concepts and intuitions is as old as Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Beginning with Parmenides, sensory intuitions are identified with the way of opinion and non-being, while knowledge is identified with truth and being.40 The me on or non-being cannot be thought, for to think or say non-being would be to have no object or content of thought. That is to say, to be not thinking or saying anything. Thus to think being is to think it as thinkable.41 Since Parmenides’ deductive reasoning and Plato’s use of mathematics concepts not intuitions have been the “ metaphysician’s” ideal. Aristotle and Plotinus based their metaphysics on principles characteristic of both logic and mathematics. What follows from this, is the attempt by Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel to distinguish a priori concepts from a posteriori intuitions. This reflects the epistemological effort, as Aristotle puts it, to treat “knowledge-of ” as grounding “knowledge that.” In brief, since Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel draw their arguments from the nature of a priori reasoning typical of reasoning in mathematics and metaphysics, the truth claims they make about the nature of Being rest upon two associations: the first about meaning and 40. Parmenides, fr. 6 [DK].The summary of the way of Truth is extant in fr. 8. 41. The claim that being is intelligible is explicit in Parmenides. Thought is always the apprehension of some being. cf. fr.2.7-8 and fr. 3 [DK].

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thought is linked with the impression made by the a priori reasoning of mathematics and logic; the second about judgement is connected with the analytic-synthetic distinction. Here the mindas-intellect model is associated with coherence theory of truth, and the analytic-synthetic distinction. This is because the mindas-intellect model or metaphysics is traditionally non-empirical and its conclusions are a priori deductions from certain tenets. The analytic-synthetic distinction is a distinction made famous by Kant, according to which an affirmative subjectpredicate statement [judgement] is called analytic if the predicate concept is contained in the subject concept, and synthetic if otherwise. Kant’s innovation lay in separating the logico-semantic analytic-synthetic distinction from Leibniz’s and Hume’s epistemological a priori-a posteriori distinction and from Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ modal-metaphysical necessary-contingent distinction. Kant claims that it is evident that any analytic judgement is a priori [knowable without physical evidence] and necessary [something that could not be false]. Although highly controversial, he also asserts that some a priori and necessary statements are synthetic as the conditions for the possibility of knowledge, action, and belief. Hegel follows Kant on both claims. This distinction between concepts and intuitions and the claim that knowledge is “what is” is accepted in varying ways by Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Here the important distinction is not the modern one between two kinds of entities, inner and outer; rather the distinction is how certainties correspond to the Being or beings known. Truths are certain because of their ontological causes whether Plato’s Forms or Aristotle’s four Causes. 42 It is a short step from this claim to the introduction of the faculties of nous and logos which grasp Being with certainty and degrees of uncertainty. What emerges here is Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ notion of necessary truth. It is a notion that emerges from a coherence theory of truth as well as the association of truth with the grasp of first principles – Causes and Forms. For 42. See “Metaphors Thinking and Being in Aristotle and Plotinus” J. F. Finamore and R. M. Berchman [eds.], in History of Platonism Plato Redividus: Studies in the History of Platonism, New Orleans 2005: University Press of the South, pp. 69-94.

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Aristotle and Plotinus, a truth is necessary because the power of the object known compels Nous to know it with certainty. This means the causes, the objects of being and knowing them for Aristotle; and the knowing of Forms and numbers as objects of being by Plotinus will not permit misjudgment or misinterpretation because what Intellect grasps is truth itself. Plato’s theory of Forms and Aristotle’s “first philosophy,” which Plotinus accepts, is non-empirical. Its conclusions are a priori deductions from metaphysical axioms such as Plato’s theory of Forms and Aristotle’s analysis of Causes. In such systems the criterion of truth is the coherence of the concept, statement, or judgement under consideration with other members of the system. The conceptual statements typical of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus concerning Forms, Causes, and the One are true or false because of logical relations between related concepts as such as truth, knowledge, and being. Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ Nous and Hegel’s Geist with their grasp of necessary truths require not only an understanding of an a priori-a posteriori distinction but also an anticipation of analytic-synthetic distinction as well. The difference between Aristotle’s, Plotinus’, and Kant’s analytic-synthetic distinction is that for Aristotle and Plotinus the analytic-synthetic distinction is derivative of the ontological necessary-contingent distinction and the epistemological a priori-a-posteriori distinction. Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel claim that not only analytic judgements are a priori and necessary, but that some a priori and necessary judgements are also synthetic and necessary. Such judgements are inclusive of Nous and Geist contemplating universals and grasping truth. Such ontological and epistemological contemplation is not as Descartes, Locke, and Kant argue – between kinds of “inner representations,” a posteriori “ideas, or the a priori “conditions” for ideas in “inner space.” For Aristotle and Plotinus knowledge [episteme] is a privileged relation of intellect to objects of contemplation: Causes and Forms. In contemplation various parts and/or powers of the soul are compelled by their respective objects to distinguish between contingent and necessary truths. Here knowledge must get behind reasons to Causes and Forms, and

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to the foundation of knowledge itself, Being [ to einai or ousia]. “Metaphysics” is a study of the archai-aitia-ousia nexus.

6 Being Before any discussion can commence concerning Being in Aristotle and Plotinus, it is necessary to clear away some contemporary misunderstandings of what Aristotle and Plotinus meant by being [ousia], or what later would be translated as substance, [substantia]. When Descartes, Locke, and Kant asked, “what is substance?” They asked: what persists unchanged throughout change, or what it is in change that does not itself change? Here substance is taken as the unchanging, the permanent in change. This is not what Aristotle or Plotinus meant by Being at all. Their [to einai; ousia ] is different than Descartes, Locke’s or Kant’s substantia. What is it “to be?” What properties are involved in “being” anything, or in “being as being?” This question opens with Plato’s discussion of being and non-being in the Sophist. Plato asked these questions in the Sophist [243c2-5] where they are presented as growing out of the problem of not-being raised by Parmenides and his Eleatic followers. Here Plato takes a decidedly ‘linguistic” turn by focusing on the central problem of false statements. In the case of non-being, confusion rests on a misunderstanding of the particle “not” in “not-being.” Because of this misunderstanding, one tends to think what is not, or nonbeing is nothing what-so-ever and hence not something that could be said in a statement. Moreover, there is also confusion about what a statement is. Thus, one fails to realize the truth or falsehood of a statement is a matter of what gets said, or predicated of a subject. Here what gets said by the false statement is something that “is not.” It is linguistically something quite real but it is something that is not true in the case of the particular subject in question – being. Plato is keen to show that false statements, such as “is not” are merely linguistic confusions, and that it is the task of the philosopher to find a coherent way of thinking about them such that, thought of in this way, they no longer pose an epistemological or

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ontological problem. This “linguistic solution” prompts Plato to pursue a proper understanding of being, which includes the attempt to refute Parmenides, to show there is something that “is not,” which includes calling into question our understanding of being 43 In brief, Plato defines being as whatever is in motion and whatever is at rest because these two classes exhaust whatever there is. 44 However, there remains the problem of what being is.45 Though it is true that whatever is in motion or rest being itself is neither in motion or rest. To be neither is what it is “to be.” But if it being is neither in motion or rest, the argument could be made being does not seem “to be” a “being.”46 His solution is to say that the being we attribute to things is of two kinds. Some of the things we say something is, it is by itself; other things we say something is, it is with reference to something else.47 Once we understand that ousia takes these two forms, we understand how it is possible that we can tell a thing not only by its specific name, but by many names. But what is more, Plato sees how the solution to the problem of being sheds light on the problem concerning non or not-being. Ousia lies in the nature of being that whatever “is.” It also lies in the nature of being the many things that it is not, specifically in reference to whatever it “is” to something else. Now this does not suggest the controversial claim that Plato distinguishes, following the analytic “praxis,” two uses of “is” – the “is” of identity and the ordinary copulative, or predicative “is.” 48 Rather it suggests that Plato recognizes just one being, which involves saying that not being “is,” is “not-being.” It also involves that when saying something “is,” is to say “is” is different from something else. The linguistic point being that both meanings of “is” are one and the same thing. This insight leads Plato beyond logos to an ontological study of the being, and non-being, which ends in yet another set 43. Sophist, 243c-2-5; 250e5ff. 44. Ibid., 242c5-6. 45. Ibid., 249d6ff. 46. Ibid., 250c1-d5. 47. Ibid., 255c12-255d5. 48. Following, D. Bostock, “Plato on `is not’” in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 [1984], pp. 89-119.

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of aporiai – that being is a going “beyond“ the “being” and “nonbeing” of language and experience, to the being of the Forms, or Ideai. Here truth is not merely a logos-conformity with ousiai and Ideai. Rather truth is both a logos and nous-conformity with real objects, or ousiai, which are the Ideai. What are striking about the Sophist is how Plato sketches out the aporiai of being, which includes non-being, and then how he attempts an onto-logical resolution of these aporiai. In this sense, Plato anticipates Aristotle, who shall also argue that to say something about ousia is not the same thing as knowing what ousia is. Aristotle’s expands upon Plato’s account of “being.” He gives two answers to the questions of being. First, “to be” anything means “to be something that can be stated in speech,” or in logos. Second, “to be” anything in the world of natural processes means “to be something that comes into being and passes away.” In this sense, any ousia is that which is the result of a process or kinesis. It is any outcome of a process, the full activity [energeia] of powers [dunameis].When Aristotle enlarges his analysis to the unchanging stars, and Intellect, and he enlarges and modifies the meaning of his concepts. Here ousia is generalized as activity [energeia]. Thus, “to be” involves in talking logos, in natural processes, kinesis, and in pure activity, energeia. Consequently, two sets of distinctions emerge: one set appropriate to understanding any ousia as a subject of discourse that can be made the subject of a proposition; the other set appropriate to understanding any ousia as the outcome of processes [kineseis] as the operation of powers [dunameis], and ultimately as pure activity [energeia]. Here ousia is defined as that which undergoes change in change and in the most fundamental kind of change of all – genesis kai phthora – generation and corruption, a new ousia is present at the end that was not there at all in the beginning. Motion and change displays a pattern of novelty that emerges in process. Furthermore, what a thing can be said to be, is its form – but what is “essential to” [kath’auto] and “what is incidental to” [kata sumbebekos] being that kind of thing, cannot be determined by logos alone. The ousia expressed in statement leads beyond itself to the ousia encountered in its natural operations. Consequently,

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starting with what things are said to be – ta legomena, we are led to things themselves – ta onta. Aristotle also argues that all existence is determinate and individual. Thus, existence forms a many of things and processes, ousiai and kinesis, and “to be” means “to be some thing,” an ousia. However, in Metaphysics Z [3.1029a27,28] he ups the ante, and also asks in what sense can other types of being be also said to be ousia? “His answer is that to be separate [to choriston] and individual [to tode ti] belongs above all to any ousia. This inquiry leads Aristotle to the science that investigates being as being and to a knowledge of first causes. Any Nous who knows these objects knows necessary truths. Aristotle claims that true knowledge and their justifications are a privileged relation of mind to being, nous to ousia. If this is so, then absolute certainty lies in nous touching the contents of Nous as ousia.49 He states: There is a certain science which investigates being taken as being, and what “to be” means, taken by itself. It is identical with none of the sciences whose objects are defined less generally. For none of them looks upon being on the whole or generally, but each, isolating some part gets a view of the whole only incidentally, as do the Mathematical sciences. But since it is the archai and the highest causes we are seeking, these must be clearly distinctive traits of some nature. If those who sought the elements of things were also engaged in this same search, we must interpret their elements too, as intrinsic and not merely incidental aspects of being itself. Accordingly, we too must grasp the first causes of being taken as being. [Met., VII.3.1003a21-32].

By elements and first causes of being, Aristotle does not mean efficient but formal and final causes, the primary factors and traits found in everything than can be said “to be.” Thus, knowledge is chiefly concerned with what is primary, that upon which all beings depend and upon which they are derived. If ousia is this primary nature, then the philosopher must grasp the archai and aitiai of such primary ousiai. This entails a study of the factors involved in every case of what can “be said to be.” In Book Zeta of the Metaphysics this includes a number of ultimate distinctions such as unity, opposites, plurality, sameness, otherness, similarity, 49. Met., 1051a25ff

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dissimilarity, equality, inequality, identity, and difference, the axioms of mathematics, and analytics or logic. In the Categories the many senses of the term “being” are also studied. The point again Aristotle makes is contemplating ousia is articulated through logos – in definition, in knowledge, in space, and in time. What logos grasps and states really are – it is ousia. Thus, logos display the character possessed by ousia. Consequently, “what is being” [ti to on]? is the same as the question, “what is ousia” [tis he ousia]? 50 Here again ousia has four main senses – as essence [to ti en einai], the universal [to katholou], the genus, [to genos], and the subject [to hupokeimenon]. What does Aristotle mean when he says logos can state what things are, but things are not logos, things are ousia? Here, he is keen to avoid the mistakes of the “Platonists.” The formulations of logos are not themselves “what is,” they are not ousia, they are not separate and individual.” Thus, Aristotle, as noted previously with numbers, does not fall into the Platonic confusion of hypostatizing Forms, objects of mathematics, universals, genera, and other such logos formulations. These are not beings, ousiai. They are not concrete particulars. They are predicates common to many things. Only the “essence” or “being” of a thing can be said to be that thing [to ti en einai]. The ousia of an individual thing is peculiar to it and belongs to nothing else. In brief, Aristotle attempts to clarify what he means in the Categories where he makes the distinction between primary and secondary ousia.51 Ousia as subject matter, “primary ousia,” exhibits something that cannot be expressed in words but only denoted by pointing: “this here man.” This is its material [hule], that which makes it a tode ti. The ousia that designates a predicate is “secondary ousia.” It exhibits what can be expressed in words about an ousia: “this is a table.” What things are cannot be reduced into words. The crucial point is that knowledge is of and about something that is not itself knowledge, it is of the things that are, ta onta. However, what ta onta are is what nous grasps in its knowing – their ti esti – their “what,” their to eidos, “form,” their

50. Met., Z 1028b2-4. 51. Cat., V.2a11-16.

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ousia, “being” or “essence” – in short their knowable rather than sayable aspect. Plotinus synthesizes Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of being, folding Aristotle’s theory into Plato’s a priori-a posteriori metaphysics and Aristotle’s necessary-contingency metaphysics. This is seen in his manifold understanding of Being. Corrigan notes that: “Plotinus uses the infinitive of the verb “to be” [to on] with the neuter article [to einai] to refer “the being” which may be attributed to anything, intellect, soul, matter even the One. He employs with the neuter participial form of the verb “to be,” to on and the plural [ta onta] to refer to intelligible being and the real beings that form Intellect’s content as well as the five genera of Plato‘s Sophist [being, motion, rest, sameness, and otherness]. He adapts the term substance, or entity, or essence [ousia], which is “what is” [ho esti] to indicate “stuff,” individual substance, and that in the substance that makes it real. Generally, ousia and to on are coterminous, although on occasion ousia means something more than to on – as when number is called the “very ousia of being” [En., VI.6.9.27]. To einai, to on, and ousia are often applied in general ways, like the terms hupostasis and huparxis often denote the same basic reality or existence of anything [cf. e.g., En., Vi.6.5.16-25 and III.7.3.49-50] Finally, Plotinus comes close to the distinction between essence and existence when he proposes that the One has neither his being [to einai] nor his being what he is [to hopoios estin einai] from another [En., Vi.8.1724-25]. However, he steps back from this in that the One is also the cause of existence for everything else, whereas all other beings are both self-existents and determinate substances like nous and psuche, or derivative qualities and quantities in matter” [En., VI.8.21.30-33].52 Among the principal metaphysical issues Plotinus addresses is the generative act of being in intellect. In the final chapters of Ennead VI.7.40.4-5, Plotinus outlines his position by means of a criticism of Aristotle‘s Nous. His critique entails a transformation of Aristotle’s notion that soul is the activity [energeia] of body into an epistemological theory. If thought is a movement, then a theory 52. See, K. Corrigan, “Essence and existence in the Enneads” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge:1996, pp.106-107.

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of motion applies to intellect. Here Plotinus works from Aristotle’s claim that “all motion is from something to something” 53 to argue the intentional thesis that “all thinking is from something and of something.” 54 On the basis of this, he goes on to claim that although thought is a single act [energeia] it has a double aspect to it. It is both self-dependent and intentional. 55 This leads Plotinus to assert that nous is the form or completion of intelligible matter, just as logos is the form or completion of any physical compound. Consequently, this higher phase of thinking is generative of intellectual being or substance because it is a power which constitutes a thinking nature. It generates and its and its active actuality is ousia, and also in being it is there with it, and the thought and this ousia are not different things. [En., II.8.2.13-15]

Significantly, Plotinus also claims that as an act that comes from the One, thinking is a self-dependent power [dunamis] that accompanies and gives to being [ousia] existence. Consequently, nous’s energeia is ousia.56 These conclusions return us to a discussion of Plotinus’ theory of cognition and its object, at the level of Nous or Intellect.57 A recurring question is – what is the relation between thinking and the intelligibles? A recurring problem is – does thinking in some sense determine the intelligibles? An answer to both should clarify whether or not Plotinus is a realist or a [proto-] idealist. If he is the latter, Plotinus has abandoned Plato’s and Aristotle’s realisms, and offers a metaphysical corollary and bridge to Hegel on being, thinking, and truth.

53. Physics, V.224b1. 54. En., VI.7.40. 55. Ibid., VI.6.40.6-10. On intentionality in Plotinus, cf. R. M. Berchman, “ Commentary on Perl,” in J.J. Cleary and G. Gurtler [eds.], Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, Leiden-Boston, 2007: Brill Academic Publishers, pp., 27-38. 56. Ibid., VI.7.40.10-24. 57. Here Emilsson’s study is very important. cf., E.K. Emilsson, “Cognition and its object” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge: 1996, pp. 217-249.

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It is in Plotinus’ discussion of the relation of thinking to the intelligibles that his allegiance to idealism allegedly surfaces. It has been argued by Emilsson that Plotinus “slips” from representative realism into subjective idealism, when he moves from his discussion of the relation of the sensible object to sensation, to his analysis of the relation of thinking to intelligibles. 58 Briefly, Plotinus claims that intelligibles are internal to Intellect, that ta noeta are internal to the activity of Nous.59 Thus, knowing the Forms implies that the object of Nous’ cognition and the activity constituting the subject’s of activity of knowing, are identical. This knowing the Forms an- sich is described by Plotinus as Intellect’s self-knowledge and self thinking.60 Consequently, it is only in Nous where there is an identity of subject and object of knowledge, Intellect’s knowledge of the Forms, and certainty. However, since the intelligibles or Forms are ontologically prior beings, knowledge of them is not characterized by images or representations. Moreover, once Nous knows the Forms it comes to know itself reflectively as a We not an I. It is in such activity that thinking and being are the same, and it is here that Intellect grasps truth or reality.61 Thus, the Forms become acts of thought which constitute Intellect, reality, and truth. Here Plotinus proposes that Nous is ousia, pure activity, and pure actuality. His theory, that in the activity of thinking Nous is reality, owes much to Alexander of Aphrodisias’ reading of Aristotle. Alexander unites the account of God as thinker in Metaphysics XII with that of the active intellect in De Anima III.5. Plotinus accepts this reading and ties it and to his own interpretation of the Sophist [248e8-249a9]. The consequences of this reading of Aristotle and Plato by Plotinus are vast. Plotinus now can argue against the view that the intelligibles are external and Nous merely receives images of them. In doing this, he can subsequently oppose the notion that Intellect’s knowledge of the Forms is representational. On the contrary, it is identical with its object. Thus, it is impossible for the sceptic to put a wedge between 58. 59. 60. 61.

Ibid., pp.244-245. En., V.5.1. Cf. V.3-5; V.8.4-5. Ibid., V.3.5.45-46; V.9.5.14-16. Ibid., V.5.2.15-20.

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Nous and its object of knowledge because such knowledge is not representational. 62 Thus although there is some evidence to the contrary, Plotinus appears to concur with Plato and Aristotle on the relation of sense-perception to the sensible object. Here he maintains a realist perspective, if not one of representative realism, his mirror and copy metaphors not-withstanding. This is so because there is little to suggest Plotinus subscribes to either Descartes’ dualism of mind and body, or Descartes’, Locke’s, and Berkeley’s notions of internal mental states – both of which entail rationalist, empiricist, and idealist ontological and epistemological assumptions. 63 What is it “to be’ according to Hegel? What properties are involved in “being” anything, or in “being as being?” Hegel contends that the task of grasping Being, known speculatively through a knowledge knowing itself, requires a contradictoriness of Being as well as the healing and reconciliation of Being. The principle of this dialectical order and movement lies in a relationship understood as the contradiction “of the other and the one.” For Hegel, this is a categorical expression of the sundering and return of Being. The motivating force for a return that is also an advance and enrichment is the concrete synthesis of the one and its other. Hegel calls this the principle of selfsameness. Selfsameness guarantees not only the order of the constitution of Being of the being but the order of Being-itself. Selfsameness is the guiding clue where not only the Objective Logic determines itself to the category of the relation of substantiality but also whereby the Subjective Logic determines itself to the category of Absolute Idea. Moreover, selfsameness determines the categories involving change and alteration. Above all, it determines the basic traits of Being. The categories of Being, Appearance, and Actuality are inter-connectedly ordered. Identity is an internal repulsion toward 62. See, R.M. Berchman, “ The Language of Metaphysics Ancient and Modern,” in K. Corrigan and J.D. Turner [eds.], Platonisms: Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern, Leiden-Boston 2007, pp. 181-184. 63. Emilsson comes to the same conclusion on similar grounds. However, he would claims Plotinus is a subjective idealist like Berkeley. art. cit., pp. 217234.

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difference, which at the same time is repulsion which immediately recalls itself into itself. Thus on the pattern of the movement of identity and difference, identity [positive], internally repels itself from difference [negative], but thereby at the same time withdraws itself back to itself [positive]. 64 Hegel’s particular understanding of the categories of identity and difference are also significant inasmuch as the movement from identity to difference and back to identity is not a return to the same identity. The movement proceeds dialectically to an identity that is enriched through the progress of thesis via antithesis. 65 Thus what occurs is not a returning-enduring of the same. Each synthesis, each new and enriched identity is the sphere of Being contains the preceding stages as sublated [aufgehoben] and results only from them, the pre-given and the having been [Gewesenen]. The basic trait of the eternalness of Being, concept, and Idea is the basic trait of selfsameness. Hegel states: Thus there comes into being quite an other shape of things, and yet It is not an other: for the first actuality is only put as what it in essence was. The conditions which are sacrificed, which fall to the ground and are spent, only unite with themselves in the other actuality. [Ency. SS 146].

Being in its highest fulfillment is the absolute, self-knowing Idea. This means that the Being that is known in speculative selfknowing shows itself in the form of absolute knowing. Here for Hegel “truth touches us.” 66 “The eternal process of selfsameness in otherness” presents itself as an arriving, a lasting, and a returning-enduring of the same. Here the intelligibility of Being surfaces as the concept for-itself or selfsameness. The high point of the intelligibility of Being for Hegel is reached when the Idea operates as the process of subjectivity, 67 the process that, as eternal creation, eternal validity, and eternal spirit is the expression of the ever renewed self-ordering movement to self, of Being-with-itself in otherness. 68 64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

Logik, II.27,15,16 [413,401, 402]. Ibid., II.3 [389]. PG, 64 [132]. Enz., SS 215. Ibid., SS214.

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Hegel also claims selfsameness is that which is mediated through itself and with itself. It is a kind of self-meditation called play [Speil]. 69 Being as concept plays in the sense that it mediates with itself in otherness. The universal mediates itself in that it particularizes [besondert] itself into the particular [das besondere] and individualizes [vereinzelt] itself into the individual [das Einzelne].70 This judging [Ur-teilung] Hegel notes is the movement in which the universal: “with undimmed clarity remains with itself in its other.” 71 To understand what Hegel means here, we have to grasp the distinction he makes between abstract and determinate negation which is a distinction closely related to abstract and determinate scepticism [dialectic]. Abstract negation is the type of negation associated with the static binary opposition between the true and the false. From this perspective the true and the false are “eternally” opposed to each other. The abstract negation of the true is the false, just as the abstract negation of the false is the true. This is the form of negation common to prepositional logic and Hegel argues, this is the only form of negation available to “natural consciousness,” common sense,” and the Kantian conception of Understanding [Verstand]. Hegel opposes this notion of abstract negation by showing its limitations. It is not the form of negation appropriate to dialectical philosophy and speculative [begreifende] thinking. It is not the form of negation that reveals “the power of negativity” by which Geist ruptures and reconciles itself. Rather Hegel argues, determinate negation is the form of negation where the result of negation, as Habermas suggests: “is conceived of as truth,” where “a new form has thereby immediately arisen, and in the negation the transition is made through which the progress through the completed series of forms comes about of itself.” 72

69. Ibid., SS 161. 70. Ibid., 163. 71. Ibid. 72. J. Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Cambridge: 1987, p. 51.

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Thus, the logic of Geist is the logic of determinate negation [dialectic] where a given momenta is at once negated, affirmed, and sublated. Hegel says: Because the result, the negation, is a specific negation it has a content. It is a fresh concept but higher and richer than its predecessor for it is richer by the negation or opposite of the latter [Logic, 54].

Determinate negation is both critical and constructive. Moreover, it is crucial for understanding what Hegel means by Aufhebung which is a teleological process in which the goal is immanent in the process itself. Hegel makes this point when he discusses determinate negation in the Introduction to The Phenomenology: But the goal is as necessarily fixed for knowledge as the serial progression; it is the point where knowledge finds itself, where concept [Begriff] corresponds to object and object to concept [Begriff]. Hence the progress to this goal is also un-halting, and short of it no satisfaction is to be found at any of the stations on the way. [Logic, 51]

It is important to remember that the categories of the Logic are successive a priori definitions of the Absolute or Geist. In Hegel’s view that the Absolute is being and that being also involves the category of non-being, were definitions put forward by Parmenides. He also claims that Heraclitus is responsible for the definition of the Absolute as becoming. According to Hegel, Being falls into three spheres of categories: quality, quantity, and measure.73 Since all categories are qualitative in character, he defines quality as the first category, the generic name of the three categories of the first triad, and the name of the entire sphere which includes quality, quantity, and measure. Qualitatively, being is the first category because it is the highest possible abstraction. All character, all determination of any kind has been abstracted from being. Hence, being has not character and is utterly empty. Because being is utterly empty, it 73. The categories function as transcendentals for Hegel. cf. “Mapping Knowledge and Consciousness of Being: Categories as Transcendentals in Plotinus and Hegel” in J.F. Finamore and R.M. Berchman [eds.], Metaphysical Patterns in Platonism: Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern, New Orleans, 2007: University Press of the South, pp. 193-208.

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is ontologically equivalent to nothing, which is the thought of the absence of all determination. The thought of nothing is the thought of the absence of all determination. What has no determination is an absolute emptiness, nothing. Hence being, the absence of all determination, is also nothing, or non-being. Hegel argues this is also evident logically, if we take being as the predicate of a proposition. When we say reality is being, this is only a tautological way of saying reality is. Being is not a true predicate, but merely a copula. It does not define reality in any way, but leaves our knowledge of it completely empty. Moreover, because being is utterly nothing, the predicate being provides no answer to reality. It is a cipher. This cipher which all being represents is nothing. Being, then, is nothing. That is to say, the thought of being and the thought of nothing are identical, and pass into each other. Being passes into nothing and nothing passes into being. The two are as identical as the two sides of a logical or equational transition. If A=B, then B=A. Significantly for Hegel, the passage of being into nothing and nothing into being is becoming. Moreover, the passage of nothing into being is origination, or coming-to-be. The passage of being into nothing is decease, or ceasing-to-be. In this sense, becoming is the concrete unity of being and nothing. Here the distinction between being and nothing has been “sublated” [aufgehoben] in the identity of becoming. Being and nothing have also collapsed to a concrete unity because becoming preserves their differences as well as their identity. That is to say, becoming involves at once both absolutely distinct and absolutely identical. However, we cannot deny their difference merely because of their identity even though they are at once absolutely identical and absolutely distinct. Becoming involves both. Finally, Hegel is keen to emphasize that we should not think any time-element in the category of becoming. Being and non-being pass into each other logically, not temporally, in becoming. In becoming, the identity of being and nothing, being becomes definite. It is the definiteness of being which constitutes the new category. It is a definite, determinate being that emerges in becoming. It is one sort of being as opposed to another. It is being so and not otherwise. In becoming we encounter, for the first time, determinate being. Hegel puts it this way:

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Becoming stands before us in utter restlessness… Becoming is, as it were, a fire which dies out in itself, when it consumes its material. The result of this process, however, is not an empty nothing, but…determinate being; the primary import of which evidently is that it has become [Logic, SS89Z].

Significantly, this becoming or passage is the notational blue-print of becoming in time, but dialectically Hegel finds logical instability and emptiness in time. Thus, he passes to what he considers a stabler notion – “being determinate.” This being has a certain determinate quality as a Something qualified from other somethings. The implicit presence of all qualities in each Being then becomes explicit in the category of Alteration – things alter in quality because their nature includes all other qualitative possibilities. Moreover, such alteration is infinite – no determinate form of being can be envisaged to which something contrasting other will not appear. This unending reference of determinate beings to each other Hegel calls the “bad infinite.” It is “bad because there is conflict in it. It always goes beyond any and every finite determinate, and it exchanges one finite determinate for another. However, dialectically, Hegel sees in the bad infinity something that is the “truly infinite,” which is the infinitude of the freely ranging variable. This is that which always has some finite value but which is not bound to any one value. It is the infinity of that which remains itself despite boundless variability. Hegel associates the “truly infinite” with the self-conscious subject that remains itself despite indefinite change in content. Later, Hegel will famously rename “true infinity” “being-for-self ” – which is a synthesis of pure being and being determinate. In being-for-self, qualitative distinctions are set aside or ignored. Each thing that is for self has free variability, and is therefore a mere unit or something numerically, but not qualitatively, distinct from other units. Metaphysically and physically, Hegel claims being-for-self has inspired a variety of atomisms. Nonetheless dialectically, Hegel sees in this conceptual situation the germs of new categories of quantity. The distinction of units, for which the ground of distinction is postulated, is no difference after all. The units cannot be held apart, they fuse into each other, their boundary lines become arbitrary. Here Hegel moves to the

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categories of pure quantity, where discreteness of units presupposes underlying continuity, and continuity possible discreteness, and where instead of rigidly distinct units, we have something that can be increased or decreased without limit, and without affecting the basic character of any Dasein. Here the dialectical development of quantity repeats itself from being to being determinate, and from being determinate to being-for-self. Again being determinate alters into a bad infinitude of quantitative expression. Hegel says it is the nature of quantity to push on beyond any definite limit while never transcending all such limits. This may appear awful to the Understanding [Verstand] but Reason [Vernunft] sees in it nothing but “awful wearisomeness.” Eventually, bad quantities infinity is dialectically resolved in the true infinity of the “quantitative ratio” – a ratio among quantities which preserves its identity despite a boundless variation of those quantities. The ratio ½ is illustrated by 2:4, 3:6, 4:8...which is infinite progression. Hegel’s doctrine of Being ends with a section on “measure.” A measure is a qualitative quantum, a fixed set of ratios or proportions upon which some definite quality is thought of as being founded. Here a shift occurs to a “nodal line of measure relations,” which results in the emergence of new measure-relations and novel qualities. This shift from quantity to quality terminates again in a bad infinite progression of qualitative progressions. At this juncture Hegel abandons the logically descriptive surface approach characteristic of qualitative and quantitative notions. He plunges beneath the surface of appearance into a new dimension of “substrates” and “essences.” In this section of the Logic, Hegel has abolished the Eleatic ontology, much as Plato did in the Sophist. Hegel claims that which “is” manifests qualitative contrast. Being leads on to an “infinite qualitative progression.” Hegel proposes that each determinate entity seems to be of the quality it is without in regard to the qualities other determinate entities exhibit. However dialectically, each qualified entity depends for its quality on other qualified entities. It this sense it has these others within itself, as conditions of its own determinateness. Thus in the Logic, Hegel’s account of Being has a profound sense of disremption [Entzweiung] and rec-

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onciliation. In the Phenomenology of the Spirit, he is able to locate the deepest oppositions, conflicts, and contradictions. He thinks through these antinomies and shows how they are reconciled in a “higher” synthetic unity. Clearly, the thematic of self-disremption and reconciliation takes on metaphysical significance. In nuce, Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Plotinus’ ousia of selfsameness, an identity that stood in connection with difference, offers no suggestion of Hegel’s repulsion or otherness. Thus with Hegel, Plato’s, Aristotle’s, and Plotinus’ meanings of Being are thought through and brought to an end. This is the grand narrative of Geist’s odyssey and the logic [logos] of Spirit itself. Here the Phenomenology is written by Hegel as the auto-biography of Geist where We gradually come to realize that the self-formation of Geist is Our self-formation. By laying out the philosophic oppositions – nature and spirit, sensibility and understanding, understanding and reason, theoretical and practical reason, judgement and imagination, I and non-I, finite and infinite, knowledge and faith – Hegel responds to the disremption of life itself, or life experienced as a form of “unhappy consciousness,” wherein a divided self is internally at war with itself. Dialectically, however, this “unhappy consciousness” contains within itself the promise, possibility, and necessity of reconciliation.

7 Being as Being Although a number of differences and ruptures separate Hegel from Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. However, there is also ground for reconciliation. Geist metaphysics represents not only a break with but it is also a continuation of Nous metaphysics. Hegel has as his focus what Aristotle calls “being as being.” 74 He agrees with Aristotle claim that “ousia is the primary thing, and it is of ousia that `the philosopher’ must grasp the first causes.”75 He also like Plotinus identifies Being with the Idea. Following Aristotle and Plotinus, Hegel’s Geist is a mental activity grounded

74. Met., 1003a.30. 75. Ibid., 1103b19.

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as We and not merely as I. Hegel agrees with Aristotle and Plotinus on this point. He is acutely aware of the narrowness of the traditions of subjective idealism represented by Berkeley and Hume and the Transcendental Idealism of Kant. Hegel argues against a powerful, deeply influential assumption in philosophy since Descartes, Locke, and Kant of the priority of the individual, self-conscious subject. Hegel insists upon the priority of a collective consciousness, or subject, of Geist. His theory of conceptual and historical change requires the assumption of such a collective intellect or Spirit, which can be said to be “coming from consciousness to self-consciousness” about itself dialectically. To outline the dialectics of all of Hegel’s categories of being would be tedious. Thus, initial focus shall be on Hegel’s Logic, and his first triad of being, nothing, and becoming – as set within the horizon of quality. Here Hegel is keenly aware of Proclus’ use of the triad in Plato’s Philebus of Limit, Unlimited, and the Mixture of the two,76 which Damascius also equated with the three phases of Abiding in One’s cause – procession and reversion.77 Thinking “speculatively,” Hegel looks beyond the Neoplatonic emphasis on the role of the middle term as a link between the two extremes. 78 Rather he sees the final term of the triad as a synthesis of the two proceeding ones. 79 Thus Hegel’s Geist is active and restless; it continually disrupts itself. But Spirit is always moving beyond these self-engendered internal ruptures, progressively achieving reconciliation. This is not an endless, meaningless activity, or the “bad infinite” [schlechte Unendliche] whose antinomies cluster around what Hegel calls the “principle of subjectivity.” Rather it is a process of progressive teleological development which culminates in the “true infinite” [wahrhafte Unendliche] in which the finite and infinite are reconciled in an all-encompassing self-differentiating 76. Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy, London: 1894, II, pp. 440449 77. See, Proclus, Platonic Theology, III, pp. 135, 141, 144, 157. cf. Damascius, De Princ., I.86.10ff. 78. Proclus, Elements of Theology, 148. 79. The philosophy of identity articulated by Hegel is distinct from Plato’s and that followed by later Platonists. cf. H.G. Gadamer, Heidegger’s Ways, Albany: 1994, p. 144.

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totality. This process is one of a self-inflicted I violence that dialectically ends in a We totality: The consciousness suffers this violence at its own hands: it spoils its own limited satisfaction. When consciousness feels this violence, its anxiety may well make it retreat from the truth, and strive to hold on to what it is in danger of losing. But it can find no peace. If it wishes to remain in a state of unthinking inertia, then thought troubles its thoughtlessness, and its own unrest disturbs its inertia. [Logic, 51].

A crucial stage in The Phenomenology, in the transition [inversion] from Consciousness [Bewusstsein] to Self-Consciousness [Selbstbewusstsein], is when Geist makes its appearance. Hegel says: What lies ahead for consciousness is the experience of what Spirit is – the absolute substance which is the unity of different independent self-consciousnesses which in their opposition enjoy perfect freedom and independence: “I” that is “We” and “We “ that is “I”. It is in self-consciousness, in the concept [Begriff] of Spirit [Geist] that consciousness first finds its turningpoint, where it leaves behind it the colorful show of the sensuous here-and-now and the night-like void of the supersensible

beyond and steps out into the spiritual daylight of the present. [Phenomenology, 110]. Here the movement is from falsity, from the I of “natural consciousness,” to Truth, the We of “self-consciousness which is the dialectic of the being-not-being-becoming of Geist itself – a dialectic of the “I that is We” and the “We that is I.” In the realm of Absolute Spirit, this achievement is Geist finally knowing itself as it truly is, as Annerkennung or the recognition that SelfConsciousness exists in and for itself, when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another. 80 Hegel argues that once such recognition surfaces, we see that other self-consciousnesses we encounter must become free and independent. We achieve and recognize our freedom in the fully realized freedom of other self-consciousnesses. What is Geist concerned with? It is concerned with Being and for Hegel Being is absolute thought thinking itself, the absolute concept grasping itself, as the Absolute Idea. Hegel argues this 80. Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit, Evanston: 1974, p. 111.

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is not an interpretation we impose upon reality. He is relentless in his critique of all Kantian constructivist metaphors that suggest we impose our categories of meaning upon reality. Hegel’s claim is that we discover and comprehend reason actively realizing itself in and through History. Here the opposition between “construction” and “discovery” is itself sublated [aufgehobt]. Indeed, what thought constructs and Being reveals, when they become fully determinate, are identical. Identity is at the center of Hegel’s thought. He is not concerned with the simple unity of the thing with itself, but with the mediated system of subject and object, subjectivity and objectivity. This is clear from Hegel’s appropriation and “sublation” of Parmenides’ “statement” `thought and being are the same.’ Here Being is thought, all Being is ultimately thought, the Absolute Idea, and is destined to become thought. Whatever Being there might be outside thought is simply not yet thought, not yet mediated in the absolute synthesizing activity of the Idea. Finally, Hegel claims being is not the same as existence. To say of anything that “it is” is not the same as saying “it exists.” “Is” is an incomplete proposition, a proposition with no predicate. However, “it exists” is a complete proposition. It contains an implied predicate, in relation to other things. “It exists” means it is part of the universe, and that it stands in relation to other things. This means that “it” is a part of that rationally ordered system of entities and relations which are real. Thus, “it exists” is a more complicated, rich, and concrete idea than being and non-being. The concreteness of existence explains why it dialectically appears as a category at a much later stage in the Logic than either being or non-being does.

8 Realism and Idealism We are in a transitional moment. We have examined Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel on what it is “to be.” We have analyzed what properties they thought are involved in ‘being” anything or “in being as being.” Now a fundamental question arises that we shall return to at the end of this study. Are Aristotle and Plotinus idealists?

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Aristotle and Plotinus offer occasional excursions into quasi-idealist positions.81 The continuity between both claims is that each identifies primary being with the activity of intellection. Since Intellect (and Matter) is prior to things, it is claimed Aristotle touches upon idealism in Metaphysics Lambda when he claims God is at once Intellect and a substance in noēsis. Plotinus suggests a possible link to idealism in at least three possible forms. The first is in Ennead III.8 where a Berkeleyan mode suggests itself and the second is in Ennead V.5 where a possible Hegelian trope surfaces.82 The Forms for Plotinus are internal to Nous, are its thoughts, and are immediately known. He identifies primary being with acts of thought. He also argues that everything has a mental cause and that everything that is being is thinking. The third occurs in things Plotinus says about the One in relation to Intellect’s thinking where parallels are made with what Kant says about the unity of apperception. These idealist claims are finally underscored by the additional proposal that Aristotle and Plotinus share a claim to the intentionality of knowledge. 83 At the level of Nous, Aristotle and Plotinus eschew the thesis that mind – as ego – constitutes reality. Thus they are not idealists.

81. On the question of idealism in Greek philosophy, see M. Burnyeat, “Idealism in Greek Philosophy: what Descartes saw and Berkeley missed, “Philosophical Review 91 [1982], 3-40. 82. On idealism in Plotinus see, S. Rappe, “Self-Knowledge and subjectivity in the Enneads,” in L. P. Gerson [ed.], The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge: 1996, 250-274; E. K. Emilsson, “Cognition and its Object,” in L. P. Gerson [ed.], The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge: 1966, 217-249; L. P. Gerson, “Being and Knowing in Plotinus,” in P.M. Gregorios [ed.], Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy, Albany: 2002, 107-126. On other sources for idealism in antiquity cf. R. Sorabji, “Gregory of Nyssa: The Origins of Idealism,” in Time Creation, and the Continuum, Ithaca: 1983, 287-296. 83. Cf. R.M. Berchman, “Commentary on Perl” in J. J. Cleary and G. M. Gurtler [eds.], Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, Leiden: forthcoming, 2006. Briefly, there is a crucial difference between quasiIdealist statements about Intellect and intentionality by Aristotle and Plotinus and Husserl’s notions of intentionality. Following Aristotle, “intentionally” appears limited by Plotinus to intellection (noēsis) alone. Following Brentano, Husserl applies intentionality to all mental acts. Thus it cannot be asserted for Aristotle and Plotinus that intentionality is identical in terms of intellect (noēsis) and perception (aisthēsis) as it is for Husserl.

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There is nothing in Aristotle’s or Plotinus’ analysis of Intellect that remotely resembles Berkeley psychological consciousness, or Kant’s transcendental consciousness. At best he proposes epistemological and ontological theories that set the conditions for the possibility of the emergence of Hegel’s Geist and Husserl’s Transcendental Ego. 84 To unpack why Plotinus is not an idealist, two concepts require discussion: first, that a cause must be like effect; and second, that a cause must be greater than its effect. The principle of likeness and the consequences of its use from Plotinus to Descartes are vast. 85 Plotinus accepts the principle that a cause must be greater than its effect through his use of the principle of prior simplicity. On the basis of this Plotinus also accepts the principle that a cause must be like effect even though the cause possesses the same characteristics in greater degree. In Ennead VI.7.17 and again at V.3.15, Plotinus argues that the One or Good is not very much like Nous at all.86 Plotinus states: The life of Intellect, then, is all power, and the seeing which came from the Good is the power to become all things, and the Intellect which came to be is manifest as the very totality of things. But the Good sits enthroned upon them, not that it may have a base, but that it may base the “Form” of the first “Forms,” being formless itself…Therefore, Intellect too is a trace of the Good, but since Intellect is a Form and exists in extension and multiplicity, that Good is shapeless and formless, for this is how he makes forms. [En., VI.7.17.32-41]

And asks: How then does the One make what it does not have?…Now it has been said that, if anything comes from the One it must be something different from it, and in being different , it is not one: for if 84. For an analysis of why Plotinus is a realist see, R.M. Berchman, “The Language of Metaphysics Ancient and Modern” in K. Corrigan and J. D. Turner [eds.], Platonisms Ancient, Modern, and Postmodern, Leiden-Boston, 2007: Brill Academic Publishers, pp. 175-190. 85. See, A.C. Lloyd, “The principle that the cause is greater than the effect” in Phronesis 21 [1976], pp. 146-156. 86. See, R. Sorabji, Time, Creation, and the Continuum, Ithaca: 1983, pp. 315-316.

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it was, it would be that One. But if it is notone, but two, it must also necessarily be many: for it is already the same and different and qualified and all the rest. [En., V.3.15.35-41]

In brief, a thing need not possess what it gives, which explains why the One lacks the life and form it imparts to Intellect. The point is that since the One is greater than life, form, intellect, and being, it is not similar to or like Nous, which possesses these activities and powers. Here the need for the cause to be greater than effect removes any resemblance between One and Intellect. 87 If this is indeed Plotinus’ position, then we have another argument against the claim that Plotinus is an advocate of idealism. In all varieties of idealism it is clamed that a divine or human mind constitutes reality. Plotinus does not accept this principle on the grounds that the One is a mind independent reality, that a cause is greater than its effect, and on the principle of prior simplicity. First, as first principle the One is beyond intellect and being. Secondly, as first cause, the One is not similar to its effect intellect and being. Thirdly, since the One is the principle and cause of intellect and being, and is also beyond intellect and being, Nous does not constitute reality. Nonetheless, Plotinus offers a basis for the development of idealism. Here two final points are worth noting. Following Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus proposes that the activity of Nous knowing the Forms is a We not only an I intellection. Here he anticipates Hegel’s notion of Geist, and the type of absolute idealism represented by Hegel. Following Aristotle, Plotinus also proposes that knowledge is intentional – that knowledge is always knowledgeof. Here he anticipates the type of phenomenological idealism represented by Husserl.

87. Sorabji suggests Plotinus is indebted to Aristotle’s concession to resemblance theory at De Anima II.5.417a18-20 – which the thing affected is potentially what the agent is actually, and so becomes like it. cf. Sorabji, op. cit., p. 316

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9 From Realism to Idealism In a manner reminiscent of Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ realism, Hegel retains a trace of realism, a sense that there is a world “out there” which we can know. It is in this sense, paradoxically and ironically, that Hegel’s idealism is essentially and intrinsically “realistic.” However, Hegel makes two distinct moves that distances his Geist metaphysics from Aristotle’s and Plotinus’ Nous metaphysics, thereby maintaining the primacy of idealism over realism in his system. The first lies in his understanding of Being [ousia] as substance [substantia]; the second lies in his understanding of mind or intellect [nous] as a Subject, a Self. These two concepts have their origins, not in Aristotle and Plotinus, but in Descartes. Hegel claims that Descartes discovery of the subjective constituted a new beginning for philosophy: With him [Descartes] we enter upon a philosophy that stands on its own feet, a philosophy which knows that it comes independently from reason, and that self-consciousness is an essential moment of the true. Here we can say that we are home , and, as sailors after a long voyage upon stormy seas, we can cry land…in this new period, the fundamental principle is thought, thinking that proceeds from itself… [Lectures on the History of

Philosophy, WW XV, 328] In brief for Hegel, Descartes succeeded in discovering absolute knowing as consciousness of the self. Moreover, since truth means certitude, Descartes saw that self-consciousness plays an essential role in attaining truth. Hegel follows up and explores the absoluteness of this knowing, the Absolute as such. Here he argues that for the first time absolute knowing is released from dependence upon objects in assuring itself of its truth. This bold move permits Hegel to move “beyond” Aristotle and Plotinus. He argues that as long as truth was conformity of knowing to known, the object played an indispensable role in truth, for the knower depended on its object in order to be true. However, once truth is conceived as certitude, the focal point of concern becomes the knowing itself, which verifies itself to itself and for itself. Thus, in order to be true, knowing depends not only on its object but on its own assurance of itself. Consequently,

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knowing is loosened from dependency upon the object in the process of truth. Significantly, as the truth-process unfolds, the object becomes a matter of indifference. Here to the extent that knowing is released from dependency upon objects, it becomes more aware of itself as knowing, and eventually knowing becomes absolute. In The Phenomenology, Hegel argues that this involves process beginning with the spontaneous certitude of the sense order and continuing through sense-perception, understanding, and finally the unconditioned Self-awareness of Geist. At this point, there is a complete dissolution of dependence on objects in knowing’s knowing of itself. For Hegel, knowing [Wissen] and consciousness [Bewusstsein] are the same. Here knowing is not conditioned by objects and whatever conditions are imposed upon it is imposed by its own nature. Absolute knowing is therefore unconditioned. Furthermore, there is a sense – and this is essential to understanding “speculative” thought – that Absolute knowing is also absolved from the individual human ego. What are central to the process of knowing are simply knower and known, the subject and that which the subject presents to itself, which is the object. Here Hegel, following Leibniz, thinks it possible to conceive this subject-object-subject relationship as characteristic of the Being of beings as such, without constricting it to the conscious psychological process of the individual ego. In this sense, and only this sense, unconditioned knowing is absolved from dependence upon the individual ego. In Heidegger’s words: Unconditioned Self-knowing is, as the subject-nessof the subject, the absoluteness of the Absolute… [HW, 125. ]

Thus, to know is to be aware, self-aware; and to the extent that knowing knows-itself, it is a self-knowing, or to be aware that it is self-awareness. This means that to know is to be [sein] aware [Bewusst]. Therefore, Hegel argues, the state of knowing is the condition in which a knowing subject is. Moreover, this state of awareness as knowing is a dialectical process from natural to real knowing wherein the We of Absolute knowing is prior to human knowing, and enjoys a primacy over the I of ego knowing.

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10 From Methodological to Absolute Solipsism What does all this elucidate for Hegel? Philosophy is a type of knowing where knowing knows itself as self-certitude. Philosophy is simple knowing as such and it is fashioned out of the unconditioned Self-knowing of knowing. Here Hegel wants to claim that his concept of philosophy corresponds to the Aristotelian notion of theoria because it is the active possession of thought as thought which is called theoria by Aristotle. 88 For that which is capable of receiving the noeton and the ousia is Nous…it is active when it possesses it. [Met., 1072b22].

However, what Hegel means by subject is not precisely Aristotle’s or Plotinus’ nous – a concept drawn initially from pre-Socratic philosophy of mind, and developed ontologically and epistemologically through centuries of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Plotinian metaphysics. Rather at the end of the Logic and the Phenomenology, Hegel calls the existence of Geist as “subject as well as substance.’ What Hegel means by subject here is the merging of the subject, the object-subject, and the universal subject as Geist or Spirit. Here he repudiates Descartes’ notion of two substances – a mental and physical substance; and Spinoza’s claim that these substances are two modes of God. For Hegel these are God, but God as subject as well as physical substance. Moreover, what Hegel means by substance is not precisely Aristotle’s or Plotinus’ ousia – a concept drawn initially from preSocratic philosophy of nature, and continued through centuries of Platonic, Aristotelian, and Plotinian metaphysics. Rather for Hegel substance is understood as something that supports us. It is also something that cannot be fully articulated, although it is absolutely necessary for the existence of all clarity, consciousness, expression, and communication. Furthermore, Hegel invoked the idea of substance to grasp the nature of the spirit of a people or an age. Substance is the all-pervasive reality that supports us all and is not full present in a conscious way in any one particular individual.

88. Met., 1072b24.

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In the place of the being [ousia] of Aristotle and Plotinus, the substance [substantia] of Descartes, and the substance [substantia] of Spinoza, Hegel appropriates Kant’s transcendental ego as substance, claiming that it exists. For Hegel subject is Geist, a general, universal consciousness. Geist is the universal, postulated unifier of experience and understanding. As it unfolds it also becomes universal Reason [Vernunft] knowing itself without commitment concerning its number or individuation. Because Hegel can speak of Geist as subject, he can also speak of it as subject without committing himself to any sort of Cartesian or Kantian differentiation, or even Spinozian modalism. According to Hegel, the mistake Descartes made was to differentiate substances; the mistake Spinoza made was to modalize Descartes’ substances; and the mistake Kant made was to individualize substance, and then to differentiate the subjects of substance into the theoretical, practical, and aesthetic conditions for the possibility of a thinking, willing, and feeling subject. However, here a fundamental question surfaces that Hegel must address. Can we know anything except our own universal consciousness? Does not Hegel’s doctrine of the Absolute subject as Geist lead to absolute idealism? Does not the claim that everything is relative to Absolute self-consciousness, and that all knowledge is Unconditioned self-knowledge of the absoluteness of the Absolute, lead to the skeptic’s conclude that in Hegel’s We cannot know anything except our own subjectivity? The Absoulte subject as Geist is a form of absolute solipsism – merely the self knowing-itself. As articulated by critics, the ultimate problem for Hegel is consciousness and self-consciousness, which although it is a rule, is an ultimate rule. One can, as Plotinus illustrates, step out of methodological solipsism at any time, seeing that it is only a methodological principle, and a dispensible one at that. But consciousness was the limit of Hegel’s investigation. Consciousness remained unquestioned and unquestionable. As a result, consciousness as Self-Consciousness becomes absolute truth. Thus from the perspective of methodological solipsism, Hegel can only prove the objectivity of what he knows from the absolute vantage-point of Geist. He cannot ask what things are like apart from our possible knowledge of them. Here Hegel’s solipsism, as

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an absolute form of solipsism, may turn out not to be philosophically fruitful. It ends in an absolute or We solipsism that cannot be stepped out of. In reaction to this perilous charge Hegel dismisses the suggestion that as an idealist he cannot be committed to methodological solipsism even if it ends in universal solipsism. 89 He would remind his critics that he employs the strategy of methodological solipsism, which is a first-person philosophical orientation that restricts the kinds of questions one might ask and the types of appeal one can make from the I philosophical standpoint, in order to move from the I to a We philosophical standpoint. 90 Moreover, Hegel defends his first-person case of methodological solipsism dialectically as a first-person plural solipsism. Here the I drops out of the formulation and with this the possibility of individuating consciousness drops out also. The I consciousness is always dialectically a We self-consciousness. Finally, he negates the possibility of Geist functioning as an individuating consciousness when he changes Kant’s theory of the role of Understanding [Verstand] in conceptualizing objects as an I consciousness. For Hegel, it is Reason [Vernunft] not Understanding [Verstand] that does this work now as a We consciousness. In taking the first step, Hegel claims that the We is now understood as merely a rule, albeit an ultimate rule. Therefore, he can step outside of methodological solipsism at any time into absolute solipsism. However, Hegel would be insistent that even absolute solipsism is not a descent into our own subjectivity. In taking the second step, Hegel shifts the emphasis in knowledge from intuition to reason. Here reason is again understood as a rule, albeit an ultimate rule. 89. Solomon claims this strategy is employed by Hegel. cf. R.C. Solomon, From Hegel to Existentialism, Oxford: 1987, pp. 18-36. Its use by Plotinus, however, has received limited attention. Cf. K. Oehler, Subjektivitaet und Selbstbewusstsein in der Antike, Wuerzburg, 1997. 90. Plotinus also employs methodological solipsism to expand the kinds of questions one might ask, and the types of appeal one can make from an I to a We philosophical standpoint. Consequently, notions of self-identity as We, and their use of methodological solipsism as a philosophical rule which allows a move from an I to a We, opens up new horizons for philosophical thinking. cf. R.M. Berchman, “Nous and Geist: Methodological Solipsism in Plotinus and Hegel.”

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For Hegel, methodological solipsism leads the Self to selfconsciousness of a supra-personal Self. It leads the Self beyond the limits of I consciousness to a self-consciousness of We. Here We begin to see multiple perspectives where minds make We claims as Geist, leaving the I claims of souls and persons, or egos, behind. Moreover, once firmly entrenched in methodological solipsism, Reason [Vernunft] grasps truth. We-metaphysical horizons arise out of I-metaphysical horizons dialectically and within this horizon truth emerges as well. This explains why for Hegel the dialectical unfolding of Geist is more certain than deductive proof, inductive, explanatory hypotheses, or empirical investigation. This also clarifies why We are able to ask metaphysical questions in a meaningful way. If there is philosophical merit to Hegel not abandoning methodological solipsism even though it ends in absolute solipsism, it is because of the pedigree of such an option. Plato and Descartes were not methodological solipsists but the origins of Hegel’s position can be traced back to both. Hegel claims methodological solipsism to be a valid methodos because he was aware that since Plato’s turn to the logoi, the common characteristic of all philosophizing is the ability to move exclusively in the medium of the concept. 91 Plato in Republic [511bc] claims that the relation concepts have to one another is not explicated through personal internal reflection or external reflection, which envisages the concept of the subject from without, that is, from my point of view. Rather concepts unfold dialectically from our point of view.92 Secondly, Descartes’ Cogito guarantees conformity between presentation and presented. When with truth becomes certitude, there begins the claim that only that which is true can be verified by the knowing subject’s certitude of itself. Here Hegel thinks the implications of Descartes truth-as-certitude through to the level of Absolute Certitude in the Self-awareness of the Absolute Subject. Certitude move from an I to a We locus. This is why for Hegel the first person case of methodological solipsism can only be defended as a first-person 91. Phaedo, 99e. 92. Republic, 511c.

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plural. As the I drops out of the formulation, the possibility of individuating consciousness drops out also. From the precipice of Geist, We take upon ourselves, in Hegel’s words: “the rigorous extension of the concept” – “die Anstrengung des Begriffs.’” Moreover, in such a methodologically solipsistic extension, the We is never lost to the I for it is through dialectic there unfolds the activity of Geist, We. In nuce, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Hegel claim that the activity of knowing is a dialectical process within which a We informs an I. Moreover, Nous and Geist metaphysics make possible a switch from the I-perspective [usually associated with methodological solipsism] to a We-perspective. Here dialectic preserves thought and being within itself by recovering them from all egoistic internalization and externalization. Consequently, in the dialectic of Nous and Geist are realized not only the conversation which each of us conducts with others in thinking, but also the conversation in which we are all caught up together, and never cease to be caught up in Being. Nous discloses the unity of Being and Intellect in the intelligible realm of intellection itself or intellect’s grasp of Causes and Forms. Geist is the dialectical process through which SelfConsciousness shines forth as the unity of Being However, there remains a fundamental disunity between Nous and Geist metaphysics. In Heidegger’s words: “If Descartes sighted new land, Hegel takes full possession of it.”93

In the shadow of Descartes’ Cogito, Hegel searched for an absolute knowing. Here he explored the absoluteness of knowing as consciousness and self-consciousness of the Self. The plausibility of Heidegger’s charge is clear enough. Once truth is conceived as certitude, the focal point of concern becomes the knowing itself which verifies itself to itself and for itself. In order to be true, knowing depends not only on its object and cause but on its own assurance of itself. Here knowledge is absolved from object and cause in the process of truth. Indeed, the more we explore the nature of self-assurance, which is the ground of consciousness and

93. M. Heidegger, HW, pp. 118, 121.

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self-consciousness, the more objects, Causes, and Forms, if they remain a part of the process of certitude at all, become a matter of indifference. This is clear from Hegel’s association of knowing with Being. Since they have the same root, Hegel sees an etymological connection of the knowing [Wissen] with Being [das Wesen]. This connection leads Hegel to claim that knowing [Wissen] and being-aware [Bewusstsein] are the same. With these associations in hand, he asserts knowing and consciousness of Being are the same. Thus, the search for Absolute Knowing is elaborated by Hegel in terms of Being-aware, consciousness and Being-selfaware self-consciousness of Being [Wesen]. In contrast since knowing [noesis] and Being [ousia] are not etymologically related, Aristotle and Plotinus do not equate knowing with Being, rather they associate intelligibility with Being. In nuce, since Aristotle and Plotinus do not associate Being with an I and We awareness as either self-awareness, consciousness, self-consciousness, or even that self- knowledge constitutes Being alone, but rather they associate I and We intellection [noesis] with the intelligibility of Being, what we encounter in Aristotle and Plotinus is an example of ancient realism rather than a variety of modern idealism. On this Archimedean point, rests the foundational difference and distance between Nous and Geist metaphysics.

Conclusion This study began with a purpose to think Greek and to wring the Greek way of thinking from our own modern habits of thought. In the shadow of such an undertaking, Gadamer reminds us that what we have learned from Heidegger was the persuasive unity of the metaphysics originated by the Greeks, and its continued validity under the subtly altered conditions of modern thought. 94 Following Gadamer’s suggestion, it is time to reflect upon the origin, validity, and altered conditions of modern from ancient thought with focus upon the distinction between realism and ide-

94. H.G. Gadamer, Heidegger’s Ways, Albany, 1994, p. 81.

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alism. Here it might also be helpful to offer definitions of realism, idealism, and family resemblance. Realism is the view that: 1) there are real objects that exist independently of our knowledge or experience of them; 2) that these mental and physical objects have properties and enter into relations independently of the concepts with which we understand them, or 3) the language with which we describe them. Anti-realism is any view that rejects any one of these tenets and it includes all claims to representationalism, transcendental deduction, and phenomenology.95 Neither Aristotle nor Plotinus rejects any of the three theses of realism. Thus, I would suggest that even when they take occasional excursions into quasi-idealist positions, such as Aristotle’s view of God as at once an Intellect and a substance in the most primary sense and Plotinus’ identification of primary being with acts of thought, this does not constitute idealism. Furthermore, neither Aristotle nor Plotinus propose any anti-realist or constructivist claims that suggest either Berkeley’s immaterial, Kant’s transcendental, Hegel’s absolute, or Husserl’s phenomenological types of idealism.96 In this sense, a return to Burnyeat is apposite. He argues that not only is idealism absent from antiquity. It could not have arisen.97 I tend to agree with Burnyeat that idealism is a thoroughly modern phenomenon and that ancient thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus are essentially realists, not rationalists, empiricists, phenomenalists, idealists, or phenomenologists.98 95. Cf. R. Audi [ed.], The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge: 1995, 488. 96. In conversation, Stephen Gersh and Helmut Kohlenberger have suggested that an Idealist tradition enters the Neoplatonic tradition with Ps.Dionysus and then strengthens from Eriugena to Cusanus. With the Christian Neoplatonists, God becomes a constitutive thinker. Thus man, made in God’s image, becomes one as well. 97. M. Burnyeat, “Idealism in Greek Philosophy: what Descartes saw and Berkeley missed,” Philosophical Review 91 [1982], 3-40; For a critique of Burnyeat cf. E. K. Emilsson, “Cognition and its Object,” in L. P. Gerson [ed.], The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, Cambridge: 1996, 217-249. 98. This does not exclude the claim that Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Proclus, and ps-Dionysius inspired modern idealism. cf. W. Beierwaltes, Platonismus und Idealismus, Frankfurt: 1972; J.-L. Viellard-Bacon, Platon et L’idealisme allemand [1770-1830], Paris: 1979.

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Yet, on the basis of the principle of “family resemblance” it still could be argued that ancient and modern philosophers engage in a common language of metaphysics. However, even here there is a caveat. In Wittgenstein’s terminology, although any member of the family resembles some other member, there is no single pervading feature marking them all as members of the same family.99 Thus, I argue that any constructivist—be it rationalist, empiricist, idealist, or phenomenological—reading of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus remains less than ‘problematic.’ Aristotle and Plotinus do not share the constitutive metaphysical ‘vocabularies’ and ‘descriptions’ of Berkeley’s immaterial, Kant’s transcendental, Hegel’s absolute, and Husserls’ phenomenological idealisms. The reasons for such a conclusion are straight-forward: First, the position regarding the constitutive activity of the subject in experience (the relation being the key point) is a clear-cut modern notion. There is no ancient philosopher with any comparable viewpoint concerning such unity of apperception. This requires a constitutive thinker unknown before Kant. Secondly Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus hold to the realist notion of a mind independent reality, be it Being, the Ideas, Forms, Intellect, or even a hyper-reality such as the One. Third, they maintain that phenomena are real because of causes rather than mental activity, and they claim that what is ‘given’ to intellect is distinct from what is “added by the mind” as a rational reconstruction, transcendental construction, or phenomenological reduction. Such constructivist notions had to await Descartes’ Cogito, Spinoza’s substantia, Locke’s theory of perception, but principally Berkeley’s, Kant’s, and Hegel’s claims that our mental activity, however differently they understood mental activity, constitutes reality itself.

99. For clarification see, L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Oxford, 1953, cf. I.65-67, 71, 116.

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Plotinus and Whitehead on the Interweaving of Forms

A S Hanazono University, Kyoto

The best known statement of Whitehead would be that the European philosophical tradition “consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.”1 Now in Soph. 251a-259d Plato attempts to clear up confusions about negative statements in terms of the combination of Forms, though it is disputed whether the explanation of nonbeing as difference solves the problem of “appearing without really being” tied with the definition of the sophist as an image-maker.2 1. Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, ed. David R. Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978), 39. Hereafter the following abbreviations of titles and the editions of Whitehead’s works are used for reference: AI Adventures of Ideas (New York: The Free Press, 1967). DIAL Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, recorded by Lucien Price (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1954). ESP Essays in Science and Philosophy (New York: The Philosophical Library, 1947). FR The Function of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1927). IMM “Immortality” (lecture delivered 1941), in The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, ed. P. A. Schilpp, 2nd ed. (New York: Tudor Publishing, 1951). MT Modes of Thought (New York: The Free Press, 1968). PR Process and Reality, ed. David R. Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (New York: The Free Press, 1978). SMW Science and the Modern World (New York: The Free Press, 1967). 2. Francis M. Cornford, Plato’s Theory of Knowledge (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1935), 321-323.

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This combination is denominated “the interweaving of Forms (tēn allēlōn tōn eidōn symplokēn)” (259e5-6). Plato does not consider all Forms for fear of confusion, but chooses five generic ones (254c1-4). Accordingly the dialogue gives us plenty of scope for interpretation of the structure of the realm of Forms, including an option of conceiving it in terms of the genus-species hierarchy.3 There should be no more sharply contrasted “footnotes” to this passage than Plotinus’ and Whitehead’s conceptions, both being predominantly ontological. Plotinus contemplates the fixed realm of finite Forms and Whitehead entertains the unordered disjunction of infinite Forms whose interrelations are referable to God’s activity. And their positions are each inseparable from their own world-view. With the hypothesis of eternal return Plotinus holds that the physical realization of Forms is hardly exhaustless,4 whereas Whitehead explains becoming as “a creative advance into novelty” (PR 28).5 Being rare before Cornford,6 their endeavors to systematize Plato’s conception with some modifications go beyond a mere restatement of it and therefore deserve attention. The purpose of this paper is to give a full account of the contrast between Plotinus’ and Whitehead’s interpretations of the combination of Forms. In VI.2, our key treatise, Plotinus devotes himself to the defense of Platonic genera and the derivation of subsequent species from them, so that metaphysical principles of the interweaving of Forms are not thematically treated.7 Therefore 3. John L. Ackrill, “Plato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259,” in Plato, A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Gregory Vlastos, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor, 1971), 1:217; Michael Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1, A Commentary with Translation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983), 94; Cornford, Theory of Knowledge, 268-273. For an objection to this view, see Kenneth Sayre, Plato’s Analytic Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 178n39. 4. V.7.1.12-14; 3.14-18. 5. For this contrast, see David Rodier, “Alfred North Whitehead: Between Platonism and Neoplatonism,” in Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought, Part I, ed. Ransom B. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 202. 6. See note 3. 7. Although the expression “the interweaving of Forms” does not occur in the Enneads, Plotinus does not abandon this notion. See I.3.4.14-15; VI.2.21.55-56.

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I will reverse the historical order and touch on Whitehead first, because to do so makes our discussion lucid by presenting their Platonic source in an earlier stage.

1. Whitehead and Democracy of Eternal Objects In Adventures of Ideas Whitehead summarizes the development of Plato’s theory of Forms: Plato in the earlier period of his thought . . . conceived of a superworld of ideas, forever perfect and forever interwoven. In his latest phase he sometimes repudiates the notion, though he never consistently banishes it from his thought (AI 275, italics mine).8

This passage must puzzle modern students of Plato who believe that Forms are “forever perfect” also in late dialogues and their connections as described in the Sophist are “forever interwoven.” The following passage clarifies what Whitehead means: Plato then passes on to the agency whereby ideas obtain efficiency in the creative advance. As he conceives them in abstraction, he finds ideas to be static, frozen, and lifeless. They obtain “life and motion” by their entertainment in a living intelligence (AI 147).

Whitehead here ascribes “life and motion” of “that which is perfectly real” in Soph. 248e6-249a2 to the Demiurge of the Timaeus, reading these dialogues together. From this reading results his characterization of Forms in abstraction as static and lifeless. As for the significance of the interweaving of Forms, he says that the determinations of compatibilities and incompatibilities for their joint exemplification “are the key to coherent thought, and to the understanding of the world in its function as the theatre for the temporal realization of ideas” (AI 147).9 Whitehead’s reflection above is post-systematic rather than systematic. Whereas in Process and Reality Whitehead proclaims that he relies on A. E. Taylor so far as the interpretation is concerned (PR xivn3, 42), he, in Adventures of Ideas, reads Plato’s dialogues in terms of his theory of the conceptual realization of 8. For the combination of Forms and of immanent characters in Plato’s middle dialogues, see Parm. 129e2-3 and Rep. 476a6-7 respectively. 9. For a similar interpretation, see Sayre, Analytic Method, 194-195.

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eternal objects in the primordial nature of God. This realization is the only answer consistent with what he calls “the ontological principle” (PR 256-257). The ontological principle is basically the affirmation that some entities are fully existent, and secondly, that all other types of existence are derivative and abstracted from them. Eternal objects, considered in themselves, are a “barren, inefficient disjunction of abstract potentialities” (PR 40). On this principle, intrinsic “togetherness” among them must be in the formal constitution of a non-temporal actuality, namely God (PR 32, 46, 257), because each actuality, temporal or nontemporal, instantiates creativity, the ultimate principle whereby the disjunctively many become one actuality (PR 21). Apart from God, there is mere isolation of eternal objects, not only indistinguishable from nonentity but unrealized in the temporal world (PR 40, 167, 257, 349). In post-systematic terms, the Form in abstraction is “static, frozen, and lifeless.” Therefore it is the notion of Form as a self-sustaining actuality that Plato fails to consistently banish from his thought.10 The basic togetherness of eternal objects constitutes their “realm” in the weak sense of that term (MT 68). The unity of the realm is not derived from its various components but dependent on God’s primordial decision, in virtue of which “the entire multiplicity of eternal objects obtains its graded relevance to each stage of concrescence” (PR 164). What Plato calls a “capacity for combination” (Soph. 251e8) is not intrinsic to eternal objects.11 This realm is the inexhaustible domain of possibility because the unfixed relation of infinite eternal objects is patient of the creative advance of the universe.12 By virtue of God’s gradation of 10. For this criticism, see Atsushi Sumi, “The Psyche, the Forms and the Creative One: Toward Reconstruction of Neoplatonic Metaphysics,” in Neoplatonism and Contemporary Thought, Part I, 229, 265n89; Richard M. Rorty, “Matter and Event,” in Explorations in Whitehead’s Philosophy, ed. Lewis S. Ford and George L. Kline (New York: Fordham University Press, 1983), 91-92. 11. In SMW 160-161 Whitehead incautiously expresses the realm of eternal objects as the “general systematic complex of mutual relatedness.” Yet its “abstractive hierarchy” is extraneous to the Aristotelian classification (SMW 169). 12. There is a mingling of diverse eternal objects also in a real individual (William A. Christian, An Interpretation of Whitehead’s Metaphysics [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959], 251-252). Again, the relevance of eternal objects

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relevance of the entire realm, all eternal objects obtain “efficiency in the creative advance,” or “life and motion,”13 and pass into real possibilities.14 Now four points deserve mention as to Whitehead’s position. First, Whitehead barely maintains the minimum of the combination of Forms, that some Forms combine and others do not (Soph. 251d9, 252e2). Although it is rash to conclude that all relations between eternal objects are symmetrical, he does not speak of any non-symmetrical relation like “participation.”15 While the entire realm of eternal objects is inconceivable by human nature (IMM 692), the connection and the disconnection between them are considered in terms of the possibility and the impossibility of their joint exemplification respectively. The incompatibility is not decided by eternal objects themselves, but relative to actual occasions, some particular situation in the course of nature (PR 41, 154; AI 276).16 “In the nature of things,” Whitehead stresses, “there are no ultimate exclusions, expressive in logical terms” (MT 54). to the temporal process implies that unrealized objects are somehow related to physically realized ones (Sumi, “Psyche,” 235). I do not consider these issues in this article. 13. In DIAL 133-134 Whitehead laconically expresses this idea by saying that “those infinite possibilities [of a universe] are actualities.” For the problem of consistency of this gradation with God’s non-temporality, see Sumi, “Psyche,” 244-245; Rorty, “Matter and Event,” 102n39. 14. See Rorty, “Matter and Event,” 103n39: “To speak of ‘an order among pure potentialities’ is always an elliptical way of referring to real potentiality.” This point has no implication that every real potentiality will as a matter of fact be physically realized (Christian, Interpretation, 399). 15. For participation as symmetrical, see Cornford, Theory of Knowledge, 296-297; Sayre, Analytic Method, 195-200. For participation as non-symmetrical, see Ackrill, “Copula,” 217-219. Since Cornford’s position is not supported by a detailed study of all relevant passages, I agree with Ackrill’s view. 16. John L. Ackrill considers the incompatibility of two predicates in a Whiteheadian manner (“SYMPLOKĒ EIDŌN,” in Plato, 1:207). For more details about the incompatibility of eternal objects, see Atsushi Sumi, “Whitehead on Religion, Civilization and Adventure,” in Religion in a Pluralistic Age, ed. Donald A. Crosby and Charley D. Hardwick (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 364-367.

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Second, the structure of the realm of eternal objects must not be conceived in terms of the genus-species hierarchy. The Aristotelian principle of classification not only obscures the importance of mathematics for the analysis of nature (AI 153; SMW 28), but is misleading as a fundamental metaphysical principle (SMW 169; MT 157; PR 95). Since the graded relevance of eternal objects does not entail their fixed hierarchy, no room is left for their non-symmetrical, constant relation. The science of classification which hides unsuspected continuities in nature is characterized as “mutually exclusive” (AI 138). The abdication of Platonic genera is a natural consequence of this train of thought.17 Third, the specific passage which would captivate Whitehead most is Soph. 253b8-c3 where we are told that dialectic needs to indicate some genera that pervade all other genera and enable them blend and other genera that traverse the entire complex of Forms and are responsible for their division (ESP 129). The genus of Being is one of the former conjunctive Forms. The conceptual realization of eternal objects which exemplifies the ontological principle can not only evade a difficulty with the notion of participation in Being but dismiss the unwarranted relation of non-symmetrical participation, by replacing Being with the primordial actuality. This difficulty is that when the existential sense of the verb “to be” is implied—needless to say, when it is marked off—the self-subsistence of all Forms is compromised.18 For Whitehead, the sovereignty of Being with the predominantly existential sense over other Forms which are allegedly “forever perfect” must sound incurably redundant.19 On second thought, if 17. In PR 46 Whitehead denies “one entity which is merely the class of all eternal objects.” 18. For the controversy about the meaning of “to be,” see Ackrill, “Copula,” 212-213; G. E. L. Owen, “Plato on Not-Being,” in Plato, 1:225; Henry Teloh, The Development of Plato’s Metaphysics (University Park, PA and London; The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1981), 199-204. For an attempt to show barrenness of this controversy, see Amy Morgenstern, “Leaving the Verb ‘To Be’ Behind: An Alternative Reading of Plato’s Sophist,” Dionysius 19 (2001):27-50. 19. In the period of Whitehead’s late writings, the existential meaning of “to be” in the Sophist is almost unquestioned. See A. E. Taylor, Plato: The Man and His Work (London: Methuen, 1926; reprint ed. Cleveland, Meridian Books, 1952), 388; Cornford, Theory of Knowledge, 296.

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those Forms were regarded as pure potentialities, the introduction of this conjunctive genus would result in a fatal split in one and the same categoreal level. Finally, by virtue of the disjunctive multiplicity of eternal objects, Whitehead can do without Otherness which counts as an all-pervasive disjunctive Form. The disjunctive genus which allegedly separates one eternal object from others is obviously superfluous in his system, because those objects are intrinsically unrelated to each other. To introduce Otherness invites a paradox of self-inclusion.20 Whitehead’s conception of the inexhaustible domain of possibility is viable in our age, claiming that an adequate theory of Forms must recognize their mingling whereby we can explain novel individuals which escape from the exclusions of the past world. Besides, it can be harmonized with the Neoplatonic theory of the One’s infinite fecundity, though it largely modifies Plato’s original idea.21

2.

Plotinus and Aristocracy of Platonic Genera

Plotinus’ main concern in VI.2 is to defend five Platonic genera in the Sophist.22 Yet he invokes other late dialogues to delineate the intelligible world,23 and develops the interweaving of Forms rather dispersively in this treatise. First, the structure of the intelligible world is conceived in terms of the genus-species scheme,24 which is not a product

Incidentally, “being” of eternal objects is ruled out by the principle of relativity in PR 22. See also Christian, Interpretation, 199-200. 20. For the problem concerning “the principle of the Isolation of Eternal Objects” in SMW 165, see Christian, Interpretation, 261. 21. Sumi, “Psyche,” 247. 22. For Plotinus’ references to the Platonic genera outside VI.1-3, see Atkinson, Ennead V.1, 96. 23. Atsushi Sumi, “The species infima as the infinite: Timaeus 39e79, Parmenides 144b4-c1 and Philebus 16e1-2 in Plotinus, Ennead VI.2.22,” in Reading Plato in Antiquity, ed. Harold Tarrant and Dirk Baltzly (London: Duckworth, 2006), 73-88. 24. See also VI.7.14.14-18.

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of abstraction, because the genus is essentially that which makes species (11.48-49).25 Atkinson maintains that the genera for Plotinus are not Forms, but “illuminate the way in which Intellect engages in its activity.”26 But, if they were not Forms, we could not read straightforwardly Plotinus’ injunction that in the derivation of species from genera each genus must not disappear in its species in such a way as to lose its pure and unmingled essence (19.12-17).27 Second, Plotinus modifies Plato’s conception of genera’s interconnections. Whereas in the Sophist only Being and Otherness pervade the entire realm of Forms (259a5-6), Plotinus claims that Motion and Rest are all-pervasive as well (8.25-26). The relation between the genera is described by immanence rather than participation. Instead of saying that Motion partakes of Being (256a1), Plotinus holds that Motion appears in Being and Being in Motion as if each of them had the other (7.21-23).28 Again, Rest enters in Being (13.4-5) and the other genera are immanent in Being (17.11). When Plotinus defines knowledge as a mixture of Motion and Rest (18.11), he ventures to part from Plato’s position on their incompatibility (254d7-8).29 Plotinus appears to be indifferent to, if not ignorant of, compatibilities and incompatibilities for joint exemplification of Forms, the very issue that Whitehead highlights.30 25. See also IV.8.3.12. 26. Atkinson, Ennead V.1, 95-96. 27. For more details about this injunction, see Sumi, “Species infima,” 85n15. 28. Plotinus’ view that Being is not predicated of Motion and Rest (8.4546) diverges from Plato’s statement that both Motion and Rest exist (Soph. 254d10, 255b12). But this is a necessary consequence of the nature of the primary genera that no predicate can be applied to them (8.43-44). Plotinus is immune from the debate mentioned in note 18, since it operates in the statement, at 256a1, about Motion’s participation in Being. 29. It does not seem probable that Plotinus invokes Soph. 256b6-7 where we are told that Motion, in some way, participates in Rest. Cornford suspects a lacuna here and refuses a few interpretations which suggest Motion’s participation in Rest (Theory of Knowledge, 286n3). For such interpretations, see R. S. Bluck, Plato’s Sophist, A Commentary, ed. G. C. Neal (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1975), 153; Teloh, Development, 190-192. 30. Steve Maskaleut rightly regards the following passage, VI.1.9.13-14, as dealing with participation in Forms: “both are in each thing, both likeness and

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Third, the symmetrical relation of “blending” or “combining” between Forms appears solely in passages dealing with the derivation of subsequent entities from the genera. Differences emerge when four genera are added to and coupled with Being (19.7-9).31 Plotinus can do without a series of puzzling talks about “a part of Otherness” in Soph. 257c7ff., by stressing that the genera remain pure and unmingled in this derivation when they are mingled with species (19.15-16). He neither abides by Plato’s terminology dominated by koinōnia and its cognates,32 nor considers symmetrical relations in terms of joint exemplification of Forms involved. Fourth, non-symmetrical “participation” is reserved for the genus-species hierarchy. One genus does not partake of another (8.47-48). The genus is, as a whole, immanent in those things which participate in it (en toīs metechousin) (12.11-14).33 This participation involves a genus’ being predicated of its species.34 But Plotinus, in entertaining this immanence, diverges from Aristotle’s position, since a careful reading of the fifth chapter of the Categories indicates that he might refuse the presence of genus in species.35 The immanence of genus in participant species is fully explained in the twentieth chapter, where Plotinus elucidates the mutual inclusion of the whole Intellect and the individual one by appealing to the distinction between actuality and potentiality.36 The point is that the problem of how the whole Intellect unlikeness and, in general sense, sameness and otherness” (“Critique du relatif par Plotin: Le traité des genres de l’être VI,1[42],6-9,” Dionysius 23 [2005]:26). From this passage which squares with Parm. 129a6, however, we must not conclude that Plotinus ignores incompatibilities between Forms. 31. See also 21.16-21. 32. For the dispute about this terminology, see Ackrill, “Copula,” 219-220; Sayre, Analytic Method, 196n69. 33. Plotinus distinguishes “species of Being” from “those which participate in Being” in 8.46-47, but blurs this distinction here. 34. For Being’s being predicated of subsequent entities, see 8.44. 35. Plotinus characterizes the Aristotelian secondary substance as genos enuparchon (VI.1.3.17-18), which implies its presence in the primary one. 36. For the whole Intellect embracing individual ones, see also IV.8.3.6-21; VI.7.8.27-29; 15.28-29. For a detailed analysis of VI.2.20, see Gary M. Gurtler, “The Origin of Genera: Ennead VI 2 [43] 20,” Dionysius 12 (1988):3-15.

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produces the partial entities is the same as the problem of how the subsequent species proceed from the primary genera (21.1-3). In this paper I do not go into this abstruse chapter. This mutual inclusion can partly be developed by the theory of Forms. The genus of Being is capable of being all the things that it is (6.1718) and is even immanent in the ultimate species (14.19-22). By virtue of this immanence, each Form is potentially all the other Forms. Therefore Whitehead’s critical view of the Aristotelian classification as mutually exclusive is inapplicable to Plotinus who transforms it into a mutually inclusive scheme of “ontogenesis.” Fifth, the mutual immanence between genera and the mutual inclusion between intellects as discussed above hint a possible supposition that the experience of mutual inclusion in the noetic world as described in V.8.4 is interpreted in terms of the interweaving of Forms. Even in this chapter the purity of each Form is underlined (lines 11-15). This experience has been considered to be based on the All-things-are-in-all-things Principle.37 But this all-inclusiveness is a mode to be explained rather than an explanatory principle. Furthermore, this mode of mutual inclusion must not be understood such that all Forms can combine with one another, because this option is rejected in Soph. 252d6-10. The mutual inclusion or internal relation must be distinguished from the combination between Forms, since the former bears little reference to their joint exemplification. But Plotinus leaves this issue open, while Whitehead solves the problem of consistency of internal relations of eternal objects with finite truths by the “analytical character” of their realm (SMW 163-166)38. Judging from VI.2.20.7-8, Plotinus’ reply to this problem would be simply that the particular truth is potentially the whole truth. If the presence of everything in everything were inadequately interpreted, the Plotinian object of intellection could be portrayed as an Anaxagorean homoiomerē, not the Platonic Form. 37. Arthur H. Armstrong, “Plotinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. Arthur H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 245. 38. See also note 11. For Plotinus’ notion of internal relation, see Sumi, “Psyche,” 256n30.

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Finally, the Whiteheadian ontological principle is inapplicable to the togetherness of Forms in Intellect. Without Intellect, Gerson writes, “there could be Forms, but there could be no truth.”39 Forms, considered in themselves, are not “frozen and lifeless.” If they were lifeless, the One could be wrongly portrayed as a lifeless source of lifeless entities in the elucidation of the hypostatization of Intellect through the inchoate Intellect’s reversion to it. Instead Plotinus, in a henological manner, ascribes the unity of the intelligible world to the whole Intellect comprehending all Forms (22.19-20).40 But it remains open whether this Intellect is identified with Being or with the ensemble of genera. This variance between Plotinus and Whitehead is based on whether the transcendent origin of Forms is considered. In the Enneads, the explanation of non-being in terms of the mingling of Being and Otherness, the crux in the Sophist, is not taken over in relation to the interweaving of Forms. In I.8.3.6-9, Plotinus, alluding to Soph. 257b3-4, clarifies non-being identified with matter as something other than being and refuses the sense in which motion and rest related to (peri) being are called nonbeing.41 The “reality” of non-being enunciated in the Sophist seems to puzzle Plotinus, since it is obviously incompatible with the Platonic distinction between being and becoming. Plotinus’ dissociation of non-being from the interweaving of Forms implies his hesitation to accept the conclusion, in Soph. 256d11-e3, that Otherness makes each Form, generic or specific, “a thing that is not.”42 This passage implies not only that Plotinus might regard 39. Lloyd P. Gerson, “Being and Knowing in Plotinus,” in Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy, ed. Paulos M. Gregorios (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 118. This remark implies that Plotinus’ placement of the interweaving of Forms in Intellect provides the non-propositional foundation of the Platonic discourse ascribed to that interweaving (Soph. 259e5-6). See also ibid., 124n39. 40. For more details about this passage, see Sumi, “Species infima,” 80-82. For the Plotinian version of the ontological principle, see II.5.3.28-30. 41. See also II.5.5.9-10; III.6.8.11-13. 42. I cannot agree with Denis O’Brien who regards the difference between the Stranger’s definition of non-being and Plotinus’ one as nugatory (“Plotinus on matter and evil,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. Lloyd P. Gerson [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996], 174).

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the Stranger’s explanation as incongruous with the theory of Forms but that his reflection on the interweaving of Forms is not exhausted by his defense of the Platonic genera.

3.

Epilogue

We have so far discussed the contrast between Plotinus and Whitehead in their revisions of the interweaving of Forms. But this contrast does not necessarily allow us to draw another contrast between their metaphysical patterns as henology and ontology. Scopes of abstract principles and theories relevant to their revisions will be examined for another occasion.

Evaluating Pierre Hadot’s Criticism of Plotinian Mysticism1

J B Cambridge University

Pierre Hadot’s philosophical development begins with a “passionate” interest in Plotinus’ mysticism during his “pious youth,”2 and its culmination establishes philosophy as a ‘way of life’. Signs of this philosophical project already emerge in Hadot’s first book, Plotinus or The Simplicity of Vision.3 In this work, Hadot represents Plotinus’ humble modus vivendi, an indication of his absolute commitment to union with the ineffable ‘One’. Hadot’s enthusiasm for Plotinian mysticism fades as his attachment to the philosophical life grows stronger; particularly in his fascination with the Stoics and Epicureanism. Finally, his philosophical journey rests in his paradigmatic characterization of the ancient world as a place where philosophers (including Plotinus) condition their lives by living the philosophies which they espouse. A consequence of Hadot’s personal itinerarium is that he obscures or ignores Plotinus’ commitment to a union with a God Who transcends the cosmos. He does not seem to take this 1. I would like to thank Sean Crutcher for his criticism of both the philosophical and technical aspects of this paper, and Jenna Phillips for the latter. I would also like to thank Dr. Wayne Hankey for his patience and commitment to my work on Hadot and Neoplatonic mystical phenomena. 2. Pierre Hadot, Plotin, Porphyre (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1999), 7.*Any quoted works unavailable in English are my own translations. 3. Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, trans. Michael Chase (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 280. 4Hadot, Plotin, Porphyre, 22.

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central feature of Plotinus’ mysticism seriously, which is clear from his suggestion that “[experience of ] mystics in all philosophy and in all religion, is fundamentally identical.”4 While Hadot’s interest in mysticism does not disappear with his despondent relation to Plotinus’ ‘version’ of it, it seems to depend on a refashioned notion or outright denial of transcendence.

Hadot’s ironic admission: Philosophy on its own as inadequate Before looking particularly at Hadot’s mystical views, and our subsequent correction of them, it is crucial to make it clear that, in one way, he does not suffer from any illusions about what the philosophical life can accomplish. For him, this is made clear at philosophy’s fully articulated inception in the Symposium, where “[p]hilosophy is defined by what it lacks- that is, by a transcendent norm which escapes it[.]”5 Hadot recognizes Socrates’ important correction of Agathon’s speech in which eros is seen to be a God. However, at once Hadot admits a tacit appreciation of Agathon’s sentiment as he goes on: “yet [the transcendent norm] nevertheless possesses within itself in some way, as in the famous, and very Platonic, words of Pascal: ‘You would not seek me if you had not already found me’.” Hadot goes on to include Plotinus in this Platonic heritage: “As Plotinus was to say, ‘If something were totally deprived of the good, it would never seek the good.’”6 Part of what will come to be Hadot’s difficulty in gaining access to the Plotinian mystical experience can already be seen in his reading of Plato. The problem that Pascal’s decidedly Platonic assertion appears to create for Hadot is that the transcendent object which philosophy seeks is somehow already immanent in the subject.7

5. Pierre Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy? trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 47. 6. Ibid, 47. 7. Evidently importing the language of ‘subject’ here causes some problems including the risk of falling into a kind of dualism the way Pascal himself does. However, here this word will have to do since we have not yet articulated Hadot’s or, for that matter, Plotinus’ mystical language. To clarify, what I mean by subject is something like ‘the cosmos including the human mind’.

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Plotinian ritual Before considering Hadot’s views on Plotinian mysticism explicitly, I would first like to consider recent work done by Gregory Shaw and Zeke Mazur on the ritual elements of Plotinus’ mysticism which illumines the poverty of Hadot’s own position. The idea of Plotinus as a theurgist has been largely unthinkable and supposedly groundless in even the most recent commentaries on the subject. Hadot himself is very clear about distinguishing Plotinus from the later theurgical Neoplatonists.8 For both Shaw and Mazur, despite a tradition of commentary that would distance Plotinus from theurgy (theourgia), Plotinus’ “contemplative praxis” shares many of the theurgical features found in his successors, most notably in Iamblichus. This tradition, which Shaw and Mazur endeavour to correct, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of theurgy, and on an attempt to save Plotinus from the ‘irrational’. Furthermore, this tradition fails to acknowledge that, for Plotinus and Iamblichus, the One’s ‘trace’ permeates all things. Iamblichus consistently attempts to relate to the One’s ‘trace’ in the cosmos through terrestrial objects (sumbola), which enjoy a dynamic participation in the God. Mazur contends that Plotinus’ highly ‘intellectual’ mysticism does not exclude the possibility of inner ritual: “Plotinus derived his mysticism at least in part from the transmutation of a ritual technique into a form of inner praxis which lent support to, and was simultaneously confirmed by, his philosophical system.”9 Because Plotinus is a rigorous metaphysician, his mysticism must abandon the discursivity of reason in the final stages of ascent. For Mazur, the exact nature of these final stages remains a “tantalizing question”.10 Plotinus is, however, explicit that contemplation must be discarded in order to achieve union: “But that other, perhaps, was not a contemplation (theama) but another kind of seeing, a being out of oneself (ekstasis).”11 When Plotinus does discuss theoria, the 8. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, 168-169. 9. Zeke Mazur, “Unio Magica Pt I: Plotinus, Theurgy and the Question of Ritual,” Dionysius, Vol. XXI (2003): 48. 10. Ibid, 40. 11. Plotinus, with an English translation by A.H. Armstrong, 7 vols. Loeb Classical Library (London/ Cambridge, Mass.: Heinemann/ Harvard University

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discussion often includes some cognitive praxis, which mixes what contemporary scholars have attempted to distinguish in Plotinus’ thought. This scholarship ignores Plotinus’ view of the cosmos, in which all things are moved toward contemplation so far as they are attracted back to their source. As Mazur asserts: For him (Plotinus), all creative acts, even those of nature, are in fact imperfect attempts at contemplation. Indeed, Plotinus’ curious notion of productive contemplation dissolves the apparent dichotomy between thought and action, and thus blurs the distinction between philosophical and ritual praxis. Despite these ambiguities, however, scholars have persisted in maintaining that Plotinus rejected ritual techniques for union with the One.12

Mazur speculates that the “conventional history of philosophy”13 tends to uphold a false schism between ritual and cognitive processes. The conflation of ritual and cognition, however, would seem to follow naturally for Plotinus, since he is clear that Intellect does not represent the final stage of ascent, and necessarily leads to a praxis which prepares the soul for the potential advent of its desire. Particular contemplative techniques include instances of “visualization” or “meditation.”14 Mazur likens Plotinus’ inner ritual techniques to what takes place in more outward religious ritual procedures. The medium, in this case the subjective consciousness, is guided in such a way as to provoke a singular focus and progressive interior movement. Mazur contends that this “inner ritual- of which Plotinus is a prime example- would thus occupy a liminal position between the cognitive processes employed in discursive philosophy and the physical actions which compromise religious ritual.”15 With Mazur, Shaw shows how Plotinus’ ritual tendencies are premised on his philosophical system. He points to the following passage in the Enneads as indicative of the cosmos’ erotically charged nature and tendency toward contemplation:

Press, 1966-1988), VI 9, 11, vol. vii, p. 341. *Both Mazur and Shaw use Armstrong’s translation almost exclusively. 12. Mazur, “Part II”, 42. 13. Ibid., 43. 14. Ibid., 43. 15. Mazur, “Part II”, 44.

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Supposing we played a little before entering upon our serious concern and maintained that all things are striving after Contemplation, looking to Vision as their one end- and this, not merely beings endowed with reason but even the unreasoning animals, the Principle that rules in growing things, and the Earth that produces these- and that all achieve their purpose in the measure possible to their kind, each attaining Vision and possessing itself of the End in its own way and degree, some things in entire reality, others in mimicry and in image- we would scarcely find anyone to endure so strange a thesis. (III, 8, 1)

Plotinus’ cosmos is a totality, embracing diversity, that is bound to and at once seeking God. As their source, the One is also the condition for the existence of the subsidiary hypostases, and indeed for all of nature: “if it [the One] did not exist, neither would all things, nor would Intellect be the first and universal life. What is above life is the cause of life; for the activity of life, which is all things, is not first, but itself flows out, so to speak, as if from a spring.”(III, 8, 10) Equally crucial for Shaw, and for any who wish to expiate Plotinus from advancing a purely intellectual or ‘rational’ path to union, is that divine realities cannot be reduced to discursive formulae; their intelligible priority precludes this. Iamblichus follows Plotinus on this point: “Plotinus and Iamblichus were both careful not to reduce divine realities to discursive formulas. For them the cosmos is not, as Plotinus puts it, ‘the result of following a train of logical consequences and purposive thought: it is prior to consequential and purposive thinking.’”16 Since the One both permeates and underlies all things, a posterior and discursive relation to It inevitably falls short. Here, Shaw sees the basis for Plotinian theurgy, and indeed for the subsequent tradition of Neoplatonic theurgists. Theurgy, properly understood as participating in the divine life, makes as much sense for Plotinus as it does for Iamblichus, who has inherited the Plotinian cosmos imbued with the God. For Iamblichus too, the Gods are part of our very essence, which is how we both know and desire (ephesis) them: “For the innate knowledge of the Gods pre-exists in our 16. Gregory Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus,” Ancient Philosophy, (2003): 126. *Part quoted from Plotinus is Ennead V,8,7.

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very essences; it is superior to all judgment and choice and exists prior to reason and demonstration. From the beginning, it is established with the soul’s essential desire for the Good.”17 He goes on to say that “[f ]or both Neoplatonists the entire cosmos, visible and invisible, was a dance choreographed by its eros for the One…”18 In Shaw’s view, the best example of Plotinus’ contemplative theurgy is a visualization exercise in Ennead V, 8, which shares many of the features which characterize Iamblichean theurgy. He outlines the principles of Iamblicus’ theurgy as follows: i) ritual objects must be appropriate to the capacity of the soul as receptacle; ii) auxiliary theoretical knowledge to perceive the god must be acquired as preparatory; iii) soul communes with the god by means of the aforementioned ritual objects (sunthema) according to soul’s capacity; iv) during union there is an exchange of the discursive human life for a divine disposition (noesis); and finally v) ritual’s success relies on rousing the soul’s eros and the intensity thereof.19 Although he quotes this passage at length, of particular interest for our purposes is the following section in which Plotinus recommends a kind of mental ritual exercise that invites the advent of God: Keep this [sphere], and apprehend in your mind another, taking away the mass: take away also the places, and the mental picture of matter in yourself, and do not try to apprehend another sphere smaller in mass than the original one, but invoke the God the creator of the sphere whose image you now hold and pray him to enter. And he may come, bringing his own universe with him, with all the Gods within him, he who is one and all, and each God is all the Gods coming together into one. (V 8, 9, 11-17)

Though this exercise clearly involves a level of intellectual discipline: “keep this [sphere] and apprehend another…”, it also reacts to its own discursive impotence in its exhortation to “invoke the God.” This invitation, which the soul extends to God, represents the preparation of the soul as receptacle. The sphere, the image itself which the mind is meant to concentrate upon, is the sun17. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, 7.13-8.1. Quoted by Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos,” 126. 18. Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos”, 127. 19. Ibid., 135.

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thema; the means by which communion with God is realized. This final communion with God exchanges human life for the divine. For both Iamblichus and Plotinus, the symbols do their own work. The work which represents the final stage of ascent is done by God; the soul becomes God’s organ. As Iamblichus teaches, …the power of inexplicable symbols, which are known only to the Gods, impart theurgical union. Hence we do not perform these things through intellectual perception…the synthemata themselves perform by themselves their proper work, and the ineffable power of the Gods itself knows, by itself, its own images. It does not, however, known them, as if excited by our own intelligence…20

Simplicity of Vision In The Simplicity of Vision, an exposition of Plotinian mysticism, Pierre Hadot does not explicitly treat of Plotinus’ distinctly theurgical or ritualistic dimension. Instead, he foreshadows his own personal conversion to Stoicism as a philosophical way of life in his incomplete reading of Plotinus’ corpus. He categorizes the Enneads as “above all either sermons or textual explanations.”21 Perhaps it is somewhat unfair to take Hadot to task on his language here. However, as he himself says in other places, the structure of the Enneads is a system which involves the cosmic return of all things to the One, and particularly the soul’s journey or return to the One. From this point of view, Shaw and Mazur would applaud Hadot’s use of the word ‘sermon’22, but this, nevertheless, would not seem to go far enough for either of them. Their arguments insist that the Enneads have traces of theurgical practices taking the form of ritual mental exercises. Hadot does say that Plotinus is very much engaged in what he calls ‘spiritual 20. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, trans. Thomas Taylor (London: Stuart & Watkins, 1968), 34. 21. Pierre Hadot, Plotinus or Simplicity of Vision, trans. Michael Chase (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 18. 22. In this context, a sermon, for Hadot, is an exhortation to a ‘way of life’. My argument is that Hadot’s use of the word not does fully comprehend its meaning as an exhortation to participate in the divine ritual as well as in a pious ‘way of life’.

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exercises’, but this does not account for Plotinus’ ritual practices, some of which we catalogued earlier. Hadot demonstrates similar shortsightedeness when he summarizes Plotinus’ interest in the hieroglyphics used by Egyptian priests: “Hieroglyphs, as Plotinus conceives them, give a good idea of what it is to be an organic totality, each Form is itself ‘all at once’ and it gives its meaning to itself immediately.”23 Shaw writes the following about the same passage to which Hadot refers in the Enneads: Plotinus also had praised the ‘wise men’ of Egypt and referred to their hieroglyphs as concrete expressions of noetic insight. The Egyptians, Plotinus says, avoided the use of discursive propositions or philosophical arguments for they had learned to ‘reveal the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world’ directly through the images inscribed in their temples.24

For Shaw, Plotinus finds the Egyptian hieroglyph remarkable because of its role, in theurgical terms, as a divine instrument or agreed upon sign (sumbola); it represents a direct communication with the God relative to which philosophical reasoning falls short. In Hadot’s analysis, there is no thought of viewing the hieroglyph as a theurgical receptacle, nor is there any indication that he could take this possibility seriously. Our throughgoing criticism of Hadot is based upon his reluctance to go any further than accounting for Plotinus’ philosophical ‘way of life’. His account is misleading because this ‘way of life’ is made out to be the exclusive focus. Yet, Hadot himself admits that the ‘sculpting’ of the soul and its self-reflexive discursive engagement are “still only preparatory.”25 Though Hadot does not have any illusions about what the philosophical life can accomplish for Plotinus, he stops at this penultimate stage of the Plotinian mystical ‘itinerarium’, and thereby avoids serious consideration of the soul’s union with the One. In his treatment of ‘the conversion’ to the philosophical way of life in late antiquity, of which, he says, Plotinus is an excellent example, Hadot says the 23. Hadot, Simplicity, 40. 24. Gregory Shaw, “Eros and Arithmos: Pythagorean Theurgy in Iamblichus and Plotinus,” Ancient Philosophy, (2003): 126. 25. Hadot, Simplicity, 32.

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following: “Yet philosophy near the end of Antiquity was, more than anything else, a way of life: One went into philosophy, so to speak, as one went into religion: as a result of a conversion which brought about a complete change of one’s existence.”26 Here, Hadot interestingly compares the philosophical conversion to a religious one, yet he seems to gloss over the religious character of Plotinus’ spiritual and even philosophical life. The conversion to philosophy ought to be seen as second place to Plotinus’ ostensibly religious impetus because his life is devoted to experiencing the God for which he takes theurgical measures, and relative to which philosophy is fundamentally inadequate. We observe a similar neglect in Hadot’s explanation of Porphyry’s anecdote concerning Plotinus’ refusal to celebrate the feast of the new moon with Amelius. Hadot says: “To find God, it is not necessary to go to the temples he is supposed to inhabit. We do not have to budge to attain his presence. Rather, we must ourselves become a living temple, in which the divine presence can manifest itself.”27 Hadot stops here and Mazur and Shaw would say that he does so prematurely. He begins well in saying that we must make ourselves into a temple where the God may live, but conspicuously left out are the ritual procedures and sacrifices which take place in the temple. The temple is not enough on its own; to experience the God you must also participate in His actions. Hadot consistently ignores Plotinus’ mystical ‘practices’ when discussing his philosophical life as a whole. As Mazur notes “Hadot…tends to conflate [a] sort of praxis with the philosophical life in general and consequently obscures the close relationship of these techniques with discrete ritual procedures.”28 Hadot himself seems to implicitly acknowledge his conflation of the philosophical and discretely mystical in Plotinus. He demonstrates as much by acknowledging that Plotinus cannot ultimately fit into his project for ‘philosophy as a way of life’. Furthermore, Hadot

26. Ibid. 75. 27. Hadot, Simplicity, 45. 28. Zeke Mazur, “Unio Magica Pt II: Plotinus, Theurgy and the Question of Ritual,” Dionysius, Vol. XXI (2003): 44.

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admits that Plotinus does not move him personally as he once did: “Yet, as I grow older, Plotinus speaks to me less and less… From 1970 on, I have felt very strongly that it was Epicureanism and Stoicism which could nourish the spiritual life of men and women of our times, as well as my own.”29 Hadot’s concerns, “from 1970 on”, indicate a shift from a desire to experience the transcendent God to a concern with “the global representation of the whole of life.”30 For him, the Stoic and Epicurean precepts constitute a more tenable position than the lofty complexities of Plotinus’ mysticism and, moreover, provide better assistance for facing the ‘cosmos’ on a daily basis.

The Mystical in the Immanent Hadot locates much of what he had found attractive in Plotinus in the Stoic and Epicurean schools. For the purposes of this paper, we will examine what Hadot sees as a distinctively mystical element in both the Stoic and Epicurean philosophies, which is perfectly consistent with their special attention to a ‘way of life’. In the case of the Epicureans, the summit of the pleasurable experience is “contemplating the infinity of the universe and the majesty of the gods.”31 However, it is with Marcus Aurelius and the Stoic sage where Hadot sees a fully articulated mystical element. The Stoic sage understands his cosmic placement by giving his full attention to the moment. With his attention given over to the moment, the sage is completely ‘stupefied’32 and passive towards the Divine Reason which governs the universe: “[the sage] plunges his gaze into the cosmic immensity, everything is within everything else. Everything holds itself together, and the entire universe is present in each instant of time, as well as in each part of reality.”33 This Stoic mystical discipline is shaped by the 29. Ibid. 44. 30. Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel, trans. Michael Chase (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 133. 31. Hadot, What is Ancient Philosophy?, 124. 32. Hadot consistently uses the term “stupefaction” to describe the Stoic sage’s relation to the cosmos. 33. Marcus Aurelius, “Meditations, VI, 37,” in Hadot’s Inner Citadel, 105.

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sage’s principle to “consent to the cosmic logos.”34 In the historical figure of Marcus Aurelius, as in many ways exemplifying the sage, Hadot sees a man called to a way of life, and in turn his “meditations call us to a Stoic choice of life.”35 Insofar as both Plotinus and Marcus Aurelius take up a way of life as a vocation, expressed in their ‘spiritual exercises’, they live the converted philosophical life. What is most attractive about each is their unmistakable ‘cosmic’ humanity owing to their respective conversions. Certainly, Hadot’s attraction to both Plotinus and to Marcus Aurelius’ Stoicism involves much of what he considers to be common between them. However, Hadot claims that it is the Stoic precepts and their mystical underpinnings which are better suited for him and people living in the late 20th century generally. The Stoic attempt to control what is represented and experienced is its principal attraction for him. The notion of ‘control’ in the Stoic sense of the word would be unthinkable in any view of Plotinus’ ritualistic mysticism; union is experienced by way of the God’s coming, entirely outside of the subject’s manipulation. Personally, Hadot wants to maintain self-coherence in the face of the cosmic flux since, unlike Plotinus, he does not see how a ‘retreat’ beyond the cosmos is possible. Instead, in his appeal to the mystical wisdom of the Stoic sage, indifferent to all things apart from the moment, Hadot locates the transcendent within the immanent; this mysticism is not Plotinian because it is an active ‘hyper’ not a ‘supra’ cosmic experience. Still, Hadot may hold Plotinus’ mysticism to be closer to a Stoic mystical experience than he explicitly admits. Some clues that could lead in this direction can be found in what Jean Trouillard regarded as a very disappointing conclusion to The Simplicity of Vision36: There can be no question of slavishly imitating the spiritual itinerary of Plotinus here in the late 20th century; that would be 34. What is Ancient Philosophy?, 136. Hadot certainly seems to find a mystical element in the Epicurean school but it has much less personal significance for him and for that reason, given time constraints, I have treated the Epicureans rather dismissively. 35. Hadot, Inner Citadel, 12. 36. Hadot mentions Jean Trouillard, a man who was “illumined by a Plotinian ecstasy”, and his distaste for this passage in the introduction to Plotin, Porphyre.

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impossible or illusory. Rather, we must consent, with as much courage as Plotinus did, to every dimension of human experience, and to everything within it that is mysterious, inexpressible, and transcendent.37

It is striking at this point that Hadot already permits the Stoic language of “consent” to slip into his Plotinian exegesis because, at this stage in his philosophical development, he has not yet explicitly conflated Plotinian and Stoic mysticism. Still, he stresses the “human experience”, the inescapably philosophical dimension, as that which ought to constitute the mystical, not its necessary ritualistic complement. We are also witness here to a quiet deception in which he equates his own recommendations with what Plotinus “did” with “courage”. If, as Hadot claims, all mystical experience is fundamentally identical, then Plotinus was not courageous because his mystical experience could not have involved a transcendent object. In this sense, Hadot seems to be tacitly calling Plotinus’ professed mystical pursuit naïve more than courageous.

Conclusion In one way, the explanation for Hadot’s turn from Plotinian mysticism is simple. As he points out (in perfect agreement with Shaw and Mazur): “[T]he wisdom of Plotinus; it is a mystical wisdom, which has no meaning for whomever has not experienced the divine union.”38 Here, Hadot draws on the standard law of what one might call the Plotinian mystical cult: “nothing divulged to the uninitiated.”(VI 9, 11) Plotinus could easily be speaking about Hadot himself. If you are not in touch with the mark of the God within you, awakening the soul’s eros or desire (ephesis) for union, then a turn to a strictly philosophical modus vivendi to ‘cope’ would seem to be a matter of course. As Iamblichus teaches, in order to make a return to the God you have to do so according to the degree of your own self-alienation. Hadot seems not to have an interest in facing the degree of his own self-alienation when he longs for union with the transcendent

37. Hadot, Simplicity, 113. 38. Ibid. 72.

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God. If the soul has not been, or is not willing to be, initiated into the divine mysteries, it is confronted with the problems of its own discursive and, at best, philosophical nature. Of course, our nature as rational cannot replace our relation to the gods, and as a way of life this nature on its own does a disservice to our ‘other’ nature which contains the divine ‘trace’. Iamblichus explains, in keeping with his Plotinian inheritance, that we are moved toward the gods according to our capacity and desire, and joined to them insofar as they work through us. Plotinus’ gods do not live wholly in Hadot’s Stoic cosmos. This is why Hadot must limit his ‘way of life’ to philosophy which, by his own definition, is fundamentally inadequate to the object it seeks. Hadot’s personal philosophical position is inextricably bound up with what we have seen as his critical and tainted reading of Plotinus’ mysticism. We are left with Hadot’s own apology: To sum up my inner evolution, I would say the following: in 1946, I naively believed that I, too, could relive the Plotinian mystical experience. But I later realized that this was an illusion. The conclusion of my book Plotinus already hinted that the idea of the “purely spiritual” is untenable. It is true that there is something ineffable in human existence, but this ineffable is within our very perception of the world, in the mystery of our existence which could be qualified as mystical.39

39. Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, 281.

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Jean-Luc Marion’s Dionysian Neoplatonism for Neoplatonism and Contemporary Philosophy

W J. H

A retrieval of Neoplatonism is a powerful, widely, and significantly present, but little recognised, feature of twentiethcentury French philosophy, theology, and spiritual life.1 It begins about one hundred years ago with Henri Bergson (1859-1941) with whom also its purposes and the modifications contemporary Neoplatonism undergoes begin to show. Two major characteristics appear: it is opposed to the Western metaphysical tradition insofar as this is understood to determine modernity. It is also anti-Idealist, endeavouring to link the sensuous and corporeal immediately with an unknowable first Principle, a descendent either of the Neoplatonic One-Good or what is ineffably beyond that. This second characteristic sets the twentieth-century retrieval in opposition to that in the nineteenth-century and to the ancient and medieval Neoplatonisms generally. Jean-Luc Marion (born 1946) works within this movement where he belongs with Michel Henry (1922-2003), Emmanuel Lévinas (1906-1995), and Henry Duméry (born 1920) for whom the relation to Neoplatonism passes by way of Phenomenology. Marion, however, not only

1. See W.J. Hankey, One Hundred Years of Neoplatonism in France: A Brief Philosophical History, published with Levinas and the Greek Heritage by JeanMarc Narbonne, Studies in Philosophical Theology (Leuven/Paris/Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2006).

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despite, but also because of his abiding devotion to the mystical theology of Denys the Areopagite as he understands it, denies that his or Deny’s thought are Neoplatonic. I propose to exhibit some problems with this denial. My enterprize has been encouraged by Marion’s inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Chicago: “Mihi magna quaestio factus sum: The Privilege of Unknowing.” Set under a text from Augustine, it connects the unknowability of the human to that of God in order to oppose late medieval and modern ontology and the contemporary objectification of human life. This lecture continues the persistence in Marion of “the unspoken but rampant neo-Augustinianism of twentieth-century French philosophy,” which has been identified by Jacob Schmutz, who places Marion among its adherents and speaks of its reproduction of Neoplatonic gestures.2 Both the neo-Augustinianism and the neo-Neoplatonism are a “critique of the Western metaphysics of being” and of modernity, and they call, as Schmutz writes: for a new form of religiosity that would take the place of metaphysics which had reached its closure, and whose political or “civilizational” function would be to regain or barely safeguard something spiritual against the sensation of emptiness of the modern ponderously administrated world.3

I begin by placing Marion in relation both to the Augustinianism of Maurice Blondel (1861-1949), which was intellectualist and ontological, and to the Proclean henology of Jean Trouillard (1907-1984).

I.

Marion’s Refusal of Augustinian Ontology and Proclean Henology

Initially Marion’s refusal of ontology and metaphysics, especially as developed within modernity, was also a rejection of Augustine. In his Dieu sans l’être of 1982, Marion detached himself from Augustine’s theological ontology, finding that his 2. J. Schmutz, “Escaping the Aristotelian Bond: the Critique of Metaphysics in Twentieth-Century French Philosophy,” Dionysius 17 (1999): 169–200 at 199, 171 and 186–199. 3. Ibid.: 199–200.

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interpretation of Exodus 3.14 is at the root of the conception of God as idipsum esse and that “Augustinian thought…finds itself…explicitly taken up according to the onto-theo-logical constitution of metaphysics.”4 Augustine joined Aquinas who already in The Idol and Distance of 1977 had been roundly criticised for standing within the tradition of onto-theo-logy, because he made being the first of God’s names.5 First in the English edition of God Without Being (1991) and later he recanted these charges against Aquinas. 6 His “In the Name. How to Avoid Speaking of ‘Negative Theology’” of 1999 defends the teaching of Thomas against the accusation of falling within onto-theology: Even if Dionysius (or some other) understood the question of God on the basis of Being, this simple fact would not be enough to establish that he is inscribed within onto-theo-logy. That is, as we have tried to show in the privileged case of Thomas Aquinas, if an onto-theo-logy wants to attain conceptual rigor and not remain at the level of a polemical caricature, it requires first a concept of being, next a univocal application of this concept to God and creatures, and finally the submission of both to foundation by principle and/or cause. If these conditions are not met, if in contrast Being remains an inconceivable esse, without analogy, indeed penitus incognitum, then the mere fact that Being comes up is not enough to establish an onto-theo-logy.7

According to Marion, Aquinas places an irreducible difference between metaphysics and sacred doctrine allowing him “to think Being by the unknowability of God.”8 Thomas’ doctrine has

4. J.-L. Marion, God Without Being, Hors-Texte (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 215, note 50. 5. J.-L. Marion, The Idol and Distance, Five Studies (New York: Fordham University Press, 2001), 142 & 212. 6. J.-L. Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et l’onto-théo-logie,” Revue thomiste 95:1 (1995): 31–66 at 33 & 65. 7. J.-L. Marion, “In the Name. How to Avoid Speaking of ‘Negative Theology’,” in God, the Gift and Postmodernism, ed. J. D. Caputo and M. J. Scanlon (Bloomingham: Indiana University Press, 1999), 20–53 at 30–1. 8. Marion, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin,”: 65 note 82; see also 33 note 2. For a later treatment of Aquinas, see idem, “The Idea of God,” in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy, ed. D. Garber and M. Ayres, 2 vol. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), i, 265–7.

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been Neoplatonised by Marion so that it has become a kind of theo-onto-logy. God is before being which he gives even to himself. Marion’s evaluation of Augustine might, in principle, if his theology is found to subordinate being to God, follow the same path as his revaluation of Aquinas. This seems to have happened in “Mihi magna.”9 Significantly this lecture, like earlier revaluations contains a strong criticism of Heidegger’s assimilation of Biblical revelation and Greek ontology.10 Marion’s modification of his following of Heidegger remains nonetheless incomplete, especially as compared to the thorough criticisms made by JeanMarc Narbonne which enable a restoration of the Neoplatonic unification of religion, mysticism, and philosophy.11 Marion gets around Heidegger through a separation of the religious from the philosophical in a way that Augustine, Aquinas, Denys and the later Neoplatonists would not allow. On this account he cannot explain the unknowability of the divine esse in the three Christian theologians through an historically accurate embrace of their Neoplatonism. In fact, Marion has shifted Augustine and Aquinas toward Denys, and all three of them toward their Neoplatonic sources. In reflections on Blondel’s Action, he found something in Augustine which blends with what his following of Lévinas enabled him to locate in Denys: the infinity of the will as converted to charity in the Christian tradition leading from Augustine. Thus, Marion’s attempt “to shoot for God according to his most theological name – charity,”12 and to move “hors-texte,” transcending the historical conditions of philosophy, is also Augustinian. Augustine’s voluntarism attracts him and, like Trouillard, he finds in Blondel “the conversion of the will,” or charity, by which he turns to God without metaphysics.13 These reflections touch the central theme of The Idol and Distance, because he recognises 9. J.-L. Marion, “Mihi magna quaestio factus sum: The Privilege of Unknowing,” Journal of Religion 85:1 (2005): 1–24 at 4–7. 10. Ibid.: 20–22. 11. J.-M. Narbonne, Hénologie, ontologie et Ereignis (Plotin-ProclusHeidegger), L’âne d’or (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2001). 12. Marion, God without being, xxi; see idem, “The Idea of God,” i, 270– 2. 13. J.-L. Marion, “La conversion de la volonté selon ‘L’Action’,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’Étranger 177:1 (janvier-mars, 1987): 33–46.

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that Blondel is also concerned to find how will transcends “all its objects as so many idols.”14 Trouillard, Duméry, and Marion meet because in charity a Neoplatonic move to the One - Good beyond being, and to the will as free beyond the determinations of the noetic, are united. Emphasising will and charity in Augustine is not, however, to move against Plotinus, for whom we are related to the One through “Intellect in love,” as István Perczel shows15 and George Leroux has reminded us of the Plotinian origins of the notion of a undetermined free good will.16 When he turns to Denys,17 Marion locates his corrective to Western onto-theo-logy where Trouillard and Duméry found it: a theology without ontology. Although from his first book on, he adopts from Denys what the Areopagite owes to Proclus and Damascius, Marion refuses to follow them into henology. In 2001 he declared: I have never been convinced by the argument that one can pass beyond Being to the One: this still remains within metaphysics by the simple conversion of the transcendentals. [Henology] is a insufficient evasion!18

Something of his motivation may come out in comments where he unexpectedly associates himself with Claude Bruaire (19321986), almost uniquely a French philosopher both calling himself Catholic and identifying with Hegel’s Absolute Idealism.19 It was justly said of him: 14. Ibid.: 38. 15. See I. Perczel, “L’‘intellect amoureux’ et l’‘un qui est’. Une doctrine mal connue de Plotin,” Revue de Philosophie Ancienne 15 (1997): 223–264. 16. G. Leroux (éd.), Plotin, Traité sur la liberté et la volonté de l’Un [Ennéade VI, 8 (39)], Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquité classique 15 (Paris: Vrin, 1990). 17. See my “Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,” in Christian Origins: Theology, Rhetoric and Community, ed. L. Ayres & G. Jones (London and New York: Routledge, 1998), 139–184 at 150ff. and idem, “Self-knowledge and God as Other in Augustine: Problems for a Postmodern Retrieval,” Bochumer Philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittalter 4 (1999): 83–123 at 93–98, for his understanding of Augustine. 18. D. Janicaud, Heidegger en France, 2 vols. Idées (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001), ii, Entretiens 210–27 at 216. 19. D. Leduc-Fagette, “Claude Bruaire, 1932-1986,” Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 177:1 (janvier-mars, 1987): 5–19 at 13.

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Nothing is more foreign to the philosophy of Bruaire than apophatic theology which he repudiates as atheism, and which he situates with good reason inside the sphere of influence of Neoplatonic metaphysics.20

Moving from negative to mystical theology, Marion quotes Bruaire: It is therefore necessary to assign negative theology its official place, to give it its exact status, apart from the pious sentiments which cover with a sensible outer layer, with religious scraps, the unalterable absolute, sign of the Nothing: negative theology is the negation of all theology. Its truth is atheism.21

For Marion henology goes along with atheistical nihilism.

II. Marion and Denys: Negative and Mystical Theology Marion’s became attached to Denys when a student and understanding what he makes of him is assisted by attention to one of the priest scholars recuperating Neoplatonism, René Roques (born in 1917), who produced the most important studies of Denys in the last century. Marion offered a paper to Chanoine Roques’ class of 1972-73 at the École Pratique des Hautes Études whose title is not far from that of a section in The Idol and Distance: “The Distance of the Requisite [aitia] and the Discourse of Praise: Denys.” Duméry writes of the interpretation of Denys by Roques: M. Roques shows precisely that Denys only received Neoplatonism inasmuch as he was able to adapt it to the inviolable structures of the Old and New Testaments. He was not a Platonist who would arrive at Christianity as an added extra; he was a Christian who, without sacrificing any of the demands of his faith, made Platonism serve as a cultural tool to express what he believes and

20. X. Tilliette, “La théologie philosophique de Claude Bruaire,” Gregorianum 74:4 (1993): 689–709 at 689. 21. J.-L. Marion, “In the Name,” (1999) 49, note 8 quoting Bruaire, Le Droit de Dieu (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1974), 21. He quoted the same passage of Bruaire for the same purpose in The Idol and Distance, 146.

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practices…. Denys’ Platonism does not render his Christianity suspect; it grafts itself upon it and remains subordinate to it.22

In The Idol and Distance the religious and apophatic side of Neoplatonism provides a passage around Heidegger’s naming of the idols of Western ontology. However, Marion accomplishes his purpose by opposing Denys’ Mystical Theology to Neoplatonic theory: Ascent coincides with the negation of attributes. It is necessary to note that the denials bear just as easily on the names taken from the sensible (corporeal, figurable, measurable, variable, etc.), as on the intelligible names themselves, including the most conventional within Neoplatonism: “neither One, nor Unity, nor Divinity, nor Goodness.” The most appropriate name is found, therefore, no more in the Plotinian One than in the grossest sensible idol.23

Marion puts the apophatic “distance” he finds in Denys against the objectifications of ontological metaphysics and representational subjectivity. Denys’ requirement that “divine things be understood divinely” demands: radically prohibiting that one hold God as an object, or as a supreme being, distance escapes the ultimate avatar of the language of an object—the closure of discourse, and the disappearance of the referent.24

In fact, no Neoplatonist would allow the One to be an object, a subject of predicates, or an intelligible predicate, and—not alone among the Neoplatonists—Damascius, whose teaching Denys knows and follows, places the Absolute beyond the One. Marion uses Denys as a weapon in his battles against contemporary critics of Christian theology by contrasting his position to the Neoplatonists who bear all its sins. This requires misrepresenting Neoplatonic transcendence as reaching no higher than the theoretical and as only the abstraction produced by negation—a Heideggerian understanding of Neoplatonism. Marion’s procedure provides yet another proof that we cannot tell the truth

22. H. Duméry, Regards sur la philosophie contemporaine (Paris & Tournai: Casterman, 1956), 38. 23. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 146. 24. Ibid., 140.

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about the history of philosophy until we have mastered our fear of Heidegger.25 “In the Name” gives Marion’s most extended consideration of Denys and of Neoplatonism since The Idol and Difference. Despite the decades between the two works, many fundamental concerns, judgments, and positions are the same. The first is concerned with the question of whether all theology is assimilated to onto-theology and with the “surprising coup de force” by which “negative theology” “finds itself…reintegrated within onto-theology.” In it Marion regards Jacques Derrida’s (1930-2004) différance as leading “us further forward, certainly not in the way of an answer, but in the seriousness of the question.”26 “In the Name” confronts these same matters through staging an encounter between “the two questions of the ‘metaphysics of presence’ and of ‘negative theology’.”27 Derrida’s treatment of these questions becomes central and is critically surveyed. His objections to negative theology are blamed for their “crudeness;”28 he aims “to stigmatize ‘negative theology’s’ persistence in making affirmations about God (in particular the affirmation of existence)—while denying that it does so.” 29 By a third way, “de-nomination,” beyond affirmation and negation, Marion trumps Heidegger extended through Derrida: De-nomination, therefore, does not end up in a “metaphysics of presence” that does not call itself as such. Rather, it ends up as a pragmatic theology of absence—where the name is given as having no name, not as giving the essence, and having nothing but this absence to make manifest; a theology where hearing happens…. But if essence and presence, and therefore a fortiori ground and the concept of being, are missing from this name, one can no

25. See my “Why Heidegger’s ‘History’ of Metaphysics is Dead,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78:3 (2004): 425–443. 26. Marion, The Idol and Distance, 231–2. 27. Marion, “In the Name” (1999), 20. 28. Ibid., 23. 29. Marion, “In the Name: How to Avoid Speaking of It,” in In Excess: Studies of Saturated Phenomena, trans. R. Horner and V. Berraud, Perspectives in Continental Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002), 132.

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longer speak of onto-theo-logy or of metaphysics or even of a “Greek” horizon. 30

Marion attempts again to get around the reintegration of negative theology into onto-theology by presenting Denys and his Christian predecessors and successors as engaged in mystical theology, prayer, and praise. These Marion sets against Neoplatonism, which belongs to metaphysics and the rejected “Greek horizon.” It is no more than a form of philosophical theoria, and its First Principle consists in a mere substitution of the One or of the Good for Being—a representation consistent with his judgment on the relation of henology and ontology. Having pointed to the priority of Good over Being for Denys, Marion opposes him to the Neoplatonists: It is not enough simply to declare the horizon of Being to be overstepped by goodness if one wants to think this transgression. What must be understood by goodness? In contrast to the Neo-platonists who overcome Being only for the sake of coming unto the One and would pass beyond the One only in order to retrieve it, Dionysius not only does not privilege the one which he paradoxically places in the last position of the divine names; he also does not accord any essential privilege to goodness—while nonetheless still granting it the title “most revered of names.”31

Because Denys, in contrast to the Neoplatonists, subordinates negative theology to mystical theology, he has found “de-nomination”: With the third way, not only is it no longer a matter of saying (or denying) something about something, it is also no longer a matter of saying or unsaying, but of referring to the One who is no longer touched by nomination, a matter no longer of saying the referent, but of pragmatically referring the speaker to the inaccessible Referent. It is solely a matter of de-nominating.32

30. Ibid., 154. 31. Marion, “In the Name” (1999), 31–32; see 23, note 11; 31–32; idem, The Idol and Distance, 146 & 173. 32. Marion, “In the Name” (2002), 142.

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Marion advises us not to ignore: the fact that the work of the Greek Fathers consisted precisely in freeing the Christian theological concepts from the Greek (and perhaps metaphysical) horizon where they first arose.33

In contrast to affirmation in prayer and praise or negation in apophatic theology, Marion grounds the “de-nomination” of Christian mystical theology in a God who is nameless by excess. In the “third way as saturated phenomenon” “where mystical theology is accomplished”: no predication or naming any longer appears possible, as in the second way [apophasis], but now this is so for the opposite reason: not because the giving intuition would be lacking…but because the excess of intuition overcomes, submerges, exceeds, in short saturates, the measure of each and every concept.34

I shall not analyze Marion’s characterisation of Denys’ thought—inquiring, for example, whether his representation of the place of the One or the Good in Denys’ theology illuminates or obscures. I shall rather extend my remarks about his attitude to henology. I point to a characterisation of Neoplatonism within the contemporary French retrieval which is the very opposite of Marion’s, and note that precisely what he ascribes to Denys in contradistinction from the pagan Neoplatonists is understood by these scholars as their proper doctrine. I conclude with some passages from Proclus where he seems to teach exactly what Marion attributes to Denys.

III. Jean Trouillard in Company with Ancient and Contemporary Henology Contemporary French Neoplatonic scholarship demonstrates both that for the Neoplatonists the One is nothing and never properly nameable because of its inconceivable fullness, and also that Proclus and Damascius have anticipated the criticisms

33. Marion, “In the Name” (1999), 37. 34. Ibid., 40.

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of negative theology and Neoplatonism by both Derrida and Marion.35 For Duméry the mysticism of Plotinus belongs to the realm of grace: Plotinus…seeks salvation only through the mediation of the intellect, and yet he demands that the intellect declare itself dependent and insists that attaining the intelligible is only a stage, although an indispensable one, on the journey toward the One, toward ecstasy. And since the One is transcendent, the final ecstasy presupposes a grace. As Jean Trouillard observes, only those who link “the idea of grace to that of contingency” can dispute the fact that Plotinus professed a mysticism of divine gratuitousness and liberality. Once the transcendence of the One is admitted, the Plotinian ecstasy must be understood as a religious experience beyond the intelligible order. This amounts to understanding philosophy as an intermediary between two presences of the One to the spirit: the one a latent and unperceived presence, which constitutes the source of all spirituality; the other, a recognised and willed presence, which, in the dark night of language and meaning, of the senses and the understanding, consummates the marriage of intelligence with the Absolute.36

In the Elements of Theology of Proclus, Trouillard says he encountered “the self-constituting character of all authentic being and this made evident to me that in a monadological perspective the entire procession is intrinsic to each psycho-noetic subject.”37 Once Proclus is properly understood, the Neoplatonic doctrines of transcendence and of the soul must be reconceived: Neoplatonic transcendance is not an absence, but an excess of presence, since it is for each spirit its interior home of liberation. It is less an end than a point of departure, less a superior term than a prior state, never participated, always communicated. It is 35. This begins with Bréhier’s seminal although largely unappreciated “L’idée du néant et le problème de l’origine radicale dans le néoplatonisme grec,” but becomes central with Trouillard, Duméry, Joseph Combès, and Stanislas Breton. 36. H. Duméry, Phenomenology and Religion: Structures of the Christian Institution, Hermeneutics 5 (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1975), 99. 37. J. Trouillard, L’Un et l’Âme selon Proclos, Collection d’études anciennes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1972), 3–4.

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only exterior to us inasmuch as we are exterior to ourselves…Since the soul is not only the term of the internal procession, but also the spontaneous recapitulation of the entire procession from the One to matter, we are able to resume everything… in a single formula…:“The soul is the perfect mediation because it is the plenitude of negations….It is in this that it is self-moving.”38

Coming to union with the Principle is not the work of abstracting reason. In its transcendent and unparticipated anteriority, the One is without relation to any being or intellect; its self-communication in the centre of the soul is, therefore, not a substantial presence, but pure negativity of being. The universe is a series of “rays diverging from the same universal center.”39 The soul coincides with that center, as does all authentic being. Her return is a progressive negation of all that the One is not, and this purifying mediation is the soul’s construction of herself and the entire cosmos. As with Denys, union requires theurgy because: the divine is, in effect, absent from nothing, but it is present equally to all. That is why, even in beings of the lowest rank, one will discover the divine presence. For the One is everywhere in the sense that each being owes its subsistence to the gods and that, in proceeding from the gods, none leave them entirely, but everything is rooted in the divine.40

For Trouillard the most attractive Christian system is Eriugena’s where historically the unification of Augustine and Denys has its first instance.41 His absence from Marion is revealing. In Eriugena, according to Trouillard: God does not know himself. And the reason for this ignorance, is that God is nothing.… Because it is in the image of God our mind is nothingness, and this is why it expresses the totality of

38. Ibid. 4–8. 39. J. Trouillard (éd.), Proclus, Éléments de Théologie, Bibliothèque philosophique (Paris: Aubier, 1965), 24. 40. Ibid., 25 41. See my “Secundum rei vim vel secundum cognoscentium facultatem: Knower and Known in the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius and the Proslogion of Anselm,” in Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition in Islam, Judaism and Christianity, ed. J. Inglis, (Richmond [England]: Curzon Press, 2002), 126-150 at 141–144.

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the universe. Becoming the meanings which it emits, it creates itself in them, and nevertheless refuses to define itself by its own creations.42

As image of God our mind does not comprehend itself—a common Neoplatonic and Augustinian notion. This is the doctrine of Marion’s “Mihi magna” but Eriugena’s unification of Denys and Augustine on this point is not mentioned in his lecture. Is this because with Eriugena the Neoplatonic foundation of both becomes indubitable? Stanislas Breton (1912-2005) tells us that in consequence of its reference to the One-Nonbeing of the Parmenides, Neoplatonism “is constantly inspired by a self-criticism”43 and that this autocritique reaches its culmination in Damascius. Listen to Joseph Combès (born 1920) on Damascius: The theology of Damascius wants to be aporetic in order to radicalise the apophatism inherent in it, and to shelter the deposit [received from Plato] from all discourse, even that discourse which seems to refuse discourse, but which employs it again in saying that the unique principle of all surpasses all understanding, because by perfection it is transcendent and superior to all.… Aporeticism will consist therefore in recognising that the negation of the highest perfections and even of transcendence, in respect to the principle, is demanded at a still higher degree, because these are only “our own conventions in respect to it.”…Solely silence acknowledges, following upon the awareness that the two necessities, criticism and mysticism, are only able to have, when something so ineffable is being dealt with, the same height, and that they come together in it.44

Trouillard writes that Damascius: discloses the risk which in a permanent way Neoplatonism runs just much as does all negative theology. To use language as a defect 42. J. Trouillard, “Érigène et la naissance du sens,” in Platonismus und Christentum. Festschrift für Heinrich Dörrie, ed. H.-D. Blume and F. Mann, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Ergänzungsband 10 (Munster: Aschendorffsche, 1983), 267–276 at 268 & 272. 43. S. Breton, “Actualité du néoplatonisme,” in Études néoplatoniciennes (Neuchâtel: La Baconnière, 1973), 110–126 at 123. 44. J. Combès, “La théologie aporétique de Damascius,” in idem, Études néoplatoniciennes, 2e éd., Collection Krisis (Grenoble: Millon, 1996), 199–221 at 201–21.

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in the purity of silence can result in our making of silence a counter-expression, of night a secret, and of nothingness a mysterious substance. One inevitably slides into this if one does not practice an incessant purification.45

Proclus leads us to the silence of de-nomination. The soul must ascend beyond naming, beyond philosophical work and striving. For him the negativity of the One is not “nothingness,” but philosophy cannot tell the difference between negativity by excess and negativity by defect because we are dealing in both cases with what is unknowable. Hence we need the pre-noetic operation of the gods’ work. Because union is not only the end but also the beginning, “inspired impulse” is necessary to rouse the power of the One in the soul so that she is converted towards God.46 Reason is inadequate both to the beginning and to the consummation. Proclus writes: … dialectical operations are the preparation for the strain towards the One, but are not themselves the strain. Or rather, not only must [dialectical activity] be eliminated, but the strain as well. Finally, when it has completed its course, the soul may rightly abide with the One. Having become single and alone in itself, it will choose only the simply One. 47

The debates between Derrida and Marion over speech, negative theology, and mysticism reproduce the concerns of Damascius and Proclus; the moderns are not more exigent than the ancients. Marion, Trouillard, Combès, Damascius, Denys, Proclus, and Aristotle conclude with silence. Proclus writes “It is with silence, then, that…[Aristotle] brings to completion the study of the One.”48

45. J. Trouillard, La mystagogie de Proclos, Collection d’études anciennes (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982), 94. 46. Proclus, In Parm., VI, 1071, 425. 47. Ibid., VII, 75K, 603 48. Ibid., VII, 76K, 603:

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COLLECTION ZÊTÊSIS

Série« Textes et essais » Boulad-Ayoub, Josiane et Raymond Klibansky (dir.). La pensée philosophique d’expression française au Canada. Le rayonnement du Québec, 1998. Narbonne, Jean-Marc et Luc langlois (dir.). La métaphysique. Son histoire, sa critique, ses enjeux, tome 1, 1999. Narbonne, Jean-Marc et Luc Langlois (dir.). La métaphysique. Son histoire, sa critique, ses enjeux. Actes du XXVIIe congrès de l’Association des sociétés de philosophie de langue française (A.S.P.L.F.), tome 2, 1999. Melkevik, Bjarne et Jean-Marc Narbonne (dir.). Une philosophie dans l’histoire. Hommages à Raymond Klibansky, 2000. Miguelez, Roberto. Les règles de l’interaction. Essais de philosophie socio-logique, 2001. Lafleur, Claude. Pétrarque et l’amitié. Doctrine et pratique de l’amitié chez Pétrarque à partir de ses textes latins, 2001. Kaboré, Boniface. L’idéal démocratique entre l’universel et le particulier. Essai de philosophie politique, 2001. Lagueux, Maurice. Actualité de la philosophie de l’histoire. L’histoire aux mains des philosophes, 2001. Désilets, André. Les tensions de l’errance, 2002. De Raymond, Jean-François. Descartes et le Nouveau Monde. Le cheminement du cartésianisme au Canada XVIIe – XXe siècles, 2003. Fisette, Denis et Sandra Lapointe (dir.). Aux origines de la phénoménologie. Husserl et le contexte des recherches logiques, 2003. Russell, Bertrand. Le pouvoir, 2003. Biondi, Paolo C. Aristotle. Posterior Analytics II.19. Introduction, Greek Text, Translation and Commentary, Accompanied by a Critical Analysis, 2004. Narbonne, Jean-Marc et Alfons Reckermann (dir.). Pensées de l’« Un » dans l’histoire de la philosophie. Études en hommage au professeur Werner Beierwaltes, 2004. Narbonne, Jean-Marc et Wayne Hankey. Lévinas et l’héritage grec suivi de Cent ans de néoplatonisme en France. Une brève histoire philosophique, 2004. Bouchard, Guy. Les bœufs bipèdes. La théorie aristotélicienne de l’esclavage et ses interprètes francophones, 2004. Dewiel, Boris. La démocratie : histoire des idées, 2005. Russell, Bertrand. L’autorité et l’individu, 2005. Russell, Bertrand. L’art de philosopher, 2005. Royle, Peter. L’homme et le néant chez Jean-Paul Sartre, 2005.

Filion, Jean-François. Dialectique et matière. La conceptualité inconsciente des processus inorganiques dans la Philosophie de la nature (1830) de Hegel, 2007. Nadeau, Christian et Alexis Lapointe (dir.). La Philosophie de l'histoire. Hommages offerts à Maurice Lagueux, 2007 Russell, Bertrand. Principes de reconstruction sociale, 2007. Belzile, Jean-François. Vaincre et convaincre. Une dialectique indienne de la certitude (IIIeVIIe s.), son éthique et sa comparaison avec la dialectique grecque, 2008. Jean de Salisbury. Metalogicon. Présentation, traduction, chronologie, index et notes par François Lejeune, 2009. Narbonne, Jean-Marc, et Paul-Hubert Poirier (dir.). Gnose et philosophie. Études en hommage à Pierre Hadot, 2009. Cornea, Andrei. Lorsque Socrate a tort, 2009.

Série « Instruments » Thibaudeau, Victor. Principes de logique. Définition, énonciation, raisonnement, 2006.