Proclus' Commentary on Plato's Parmenides 9780691236612

Citation preview

PROCLUS' COMMENTARY ON PLATO'S PARMENIDES

PROCLUS' COMMENTARY ON PLATO'S PARMENIDES M OS m

Translated by GLENN R. MORROW and J O H N M. DILLON with Introduction and Notes by JOHN M.DILLON

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS 1987

Copyright © 1987 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Proclus, ca. 410-485. Proclus' Commentary of Plato's Parmenides. Translation of: In Parmenidem. Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Plato. Parmenides. 2. Socrates. 3. Zeno, of Elea. 4. Reasoning—Early works to 1800. I. Morrow, Glenn R. (Glenn Raymond), 1895-1973. II. Dillon, John M. III. Title. B378.P6913 1986 184 85-43302 ISBN 0-691-07305-8 ISBN 0-691-02089-2 (pbk.) First Princeton Paperback printing, with corrections, 1992 This book has been composed in Linotron Bembo Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources http://pup.princeton.edu

UXORI DILECTISSIMAE

CONTENTS PREFACE

IX

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

xi

A. Life and Works, with a Brief Introduction to Proclus' Philosophical System B. Previous Commentary on the Parmenides C. The Place of the Parmenides Commentary in Proclus' Work D. The Problem of the Forty Logoi of Zeno E. Previous Editions and Translations NOTE ON THE PRESENT TRANSLATION

xi XXIV xxxiv XXXviii xliii xlv

Book I. Introduction Commentary

3 19

Book II. Introduction Commentary

93 101

Book III. Introduction Commentary

145 157

Book IV. Introduction Commentary

195 210

Book V. Introduction Commentary

324 332

Book VI. Introduction Commentary

385 400

Book VII. Introduction Commentary

474 492

BIBLIOGRAPHY

605

INDEX OF PROPER NAMES

609

SUBJECT INDEX

611

INDEX OF PLATONIC PASSAGES

614

PREFACE IN 1973, Glenn Morrow, Adam Seybert Professor Emeritus of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, died, while still rather less than halfway through a translation of Proclus' Commentary on the Parmenides. He had published the Commentary on the First Book of Euclid in 1970 and had plainly developed in his retirement a taste for the tortuous ramifications of Proclus' style and thought. Charles Kahn of the University of Pennsylvania, Morrow's literary executor, asked me if I would be willing to complete the work. I accepted the task without much thought, although I had various other commitments, since I felt that it would be a good excuse to give a close reading to a work that I might otherwise be tempted to avoid. The consequence was ten years of hard labour (though with many interruptions), the results of which I present to the world with relief not unmixed with trepidation. Nicholas of Cusa is said to have valued Proclus' Commentary on the Parmenides above all other books (the Sacred Scriptures, we trust, apart), and it has been a major influence on many other thinkers, both in the Greek East, and later, through William of Moerbeke's translation (probably done in the 1280s), in the Latin West. The roll call begins with Damascius and "Dionysius the Areopagite," includes such figures as Aquinas, Ficino and Pico, and may best be seen, perhaps, as ending with Hegel1 and Schelling. As a useful interpretation of Plato's Parmenides, the Commentary began to be dismissed in the last century, as the new critical approach to Plato began to take effect. I present it here, not primarily as an exegesis of Plato's text (though from time to time Proclus' insights are useful, or at least challenging), but rather as a monument of Neoplatonic metaphysics, disguised, as so much Neoplatonic philosophy is, in the form of a commentary. I have been enormously helped in the preparation of this translation by the unstinting aid provided by Prof. L. G. Westerink of SUNY Buffalo, who patiently checked every page of it and provided a host of corrections, often involving brilliant emendations of the text. For access to William of Moerbeke's Latin translation, and for many fruitful suggestions over and above it, as well as much enjoyable discussion of the problems, I am greatly indebted to Dr. Carlos Steel of the University 1 As witness Hegel's praise of the Parmenides Commentary in his Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Philosophie I i (Werke, 2d ed., vol. XIV, p. 206), and Phaenomenologie des Geistes, preface, vol. II, p. 55.

PREFACE

of Louvain, who is currently completing an edition of the Latin text, the first volume of which has already appeared,2 with the second to appear shortly. Steel will then embark on a Bude edition of the Greek text, which will put the text at last on as sound a footing as can be hoped for. Ideally, this translation should have waited for that happy event, but in fact most of the necessary emendations in the text are already embodied in it, owing to the fortunate circumstances outlined above. 1 am most grateful, also, to Professor Elizabeth Anscombe and Dr. Lotte Labowsky for allowing me to make use of their translation of the final portion of the commentary on the First Hypothesis, which is only preserved in Latin. For the immense patience and energy in typing and retyping a vast and tedious manuscript I extend my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to my wife, Jean, to whom my share of the work is dedicated, and the secretary of the School of Classics of Trinity College, Dublin, Mrs. Rosemary Doran. I would like to express my gratitude also to Elizabeth Powers of Princeton University Press for her heroic work on my rather troublesome manuscript. 2 Proclus: Commentaire sur le Parmenide de Platon: Traduction de Guillaume de Moerbeke, Tome I: Livres I a IV, Leuven, 1982.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION A. LIFE AND WORKS, WITH A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO PROCLUS' PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM I do not propose to devote much space to a survey of Proclus' career and philosophical position, since this has been done adequately elsewhere, not least by Glenn Morrow in his introduction to Proclus' Euclid Commentary, which may be regarded as a companion volume to this,1 but for the convenience of the reader something should be said. LIFE

Proclus was born in Constantinople, of a prosperous Lycian family from Xanthos, on February 8, A.D. 412.2 His father, Patricius, a lawyer, was there on business at the time, but returned shortly afterwards to Xanthos, where Proclus received his basic education. It is plain that Proclus' parents were staunch pagans (Marinus describes them as "outstanding in virtue," VP6) and it is interesting to observe how relatively comfortably Patricius operated in the empire of Theodosius II (408450). As soon as was reasonable (perhaps in his mid-teens), his father sent Proclus to study in Alexandria, with a view to his following him into the legal profession. There he lived with a prominent sophist, Leonas, who introduced him into the ruling circles of Egypt, including Theodorus, the governor at the time. At some point around year 430, Leonas was sent by the governor on a mission to Constantinople and took the young Proclus with him to continue his studies. Proclus was at this stage, it seems, already inclining to philosophy rather than law, and at Constantinople he seems to have come to some sort of decision about his future, which Marinus piously attributes to the influence of Athena (VP 9), but which may be more plausibly ascribed to the ex1 See also the accounts of R. T. Wallis, in Neoplatonism, ch. 5, A. C. Lloyd in ch. 19 of the Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, and Saffrey and Westerink in the introduction to vol. 1 of their Bude edition of the Platonic Theology. The older work of L. J. Rosan, The Philosophy of Proclus, is still useful. Excellent also is R. Beutler's £ E article, "Proklos," Band XXIII, 1(1957): cols. 186-247. 2 Our almost exclusive source for Proclus' life is the hagiographical biography of his pupil (and successor as head of the School) Marinus. Marinus actually gives us Proclus' horoscope (VP 35) and thus an exact date for his birth. Marinus tells us also that he died on April 17, 485 (124 years from accession ofJulian in 361). Proclus, in a way characteristic of Neoplatonic philosophers, tells us virtually nothing about himself.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

perience of meeting students and professors of philosophy who had been through the schools of Athens. On his return to Alexandria, he enrolled in the lectures of the Aristotelian Olympiodorus and not long afterwards, becoming dissatisfied with the approach to philosophy he experienced in Alexandria, set sail in 430 or 431 for Athens in search of deeper truths. What his father had to say about this is not recorded by Marinus, but it does not seem that his allowance was cut, so we may assume paternal good will. Once arrived in Athens, he attached himself to the Platonic School of Syrianus and the aged Plutarch, and made an excellent impression. Plutarch had officially retired, but agreed to read Aristotle's De Anima and Plato's Phaedo with the young man, and even took him in to live with him. No commentary by Proclus on either of these works survives, but Plutarch apparently urged him to write up his notes on their sessions, so this early experience probably had considerable influence on his doctrine of the soul. After Plutarch's death two years later, Proclus moved in with Syrianus and in the next two years worked through the whole of Aristotle with him (VP 13), and following on that, the works of Plato. Since Marinus emphasises that he went through Plato "in proper order," we may infer, I think, that Syrianus observed something like the Iamblichean sequence often dialogues,3 beginning with the Alcibiades I and ending with the Philebus, followed by the two "summits" of Platonic philosophy, the Timaeus and the Parmenides. This admittedly would not provide for either the Republic or the Laws, which Marinus in chapter 14 assures us that he studied as well, so space was found for them in the course at some stage. Marinus also tells us that by the age of twenty-seven, after about eight years of residence in Athens, Proclus had composed a commentary on the Timaeus, "and many other treatises." The problems of dating which this statement involves are discussed below (in sect. C). By the time of the Timaeus Commentary, Syrianus would appear to have died, to judge from the past tenses in which Proclus consistently refers to his views. The generally agreed date of Syrianus' death is "c. A.D. 437," though the evidence is not very definite. All we know (from Marinus, VP 26) is that, after the completion of their Platonic studies, Syrianus proposed to Proclus, and to his fellow-student Domninus, that he expound to them either the Orphic poems or the Chaldaean Oracles, as being the ultimate repositories of theological wisdom, but Proclus and Domninus could not agree as to which they wanted to read, and Syrianus died shortly afterwards. Proclus then seems to have succeeded to the headship of the Platonic 3

Cf. Procl. In Ale. 11.11, and Anon. Proleg. to Platonic Philosophy, ch. 26. xii

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

School at about the age of 25.4 He held this position for almost fifty years, until his death in 485. During this period he seems to have achieved something of a position of prominence in Athenian society, despite the inevitably hostile Christian environment. As Marinus reports (VP 15) "he sometimes took part in political deliberations, attending public meetings and proposing resolutions with practical wisdom (kfi(j)p6v(x)s). He also consulted with magistrates on matters of justice, not only exhorting these men, but in a manner compelling them, with his philosophic plain speaking, to do their proper duty." He also took some part in public education. He even appears to have intervened on an international level. Marinus (VP 15) speaks of him "writing letters to those in authority, and thus benefitting whole cities," of which he mentions Andros as an example. He enjoyed the protection of at least one prominent member of society, by the name of Rufmus (VP 23), who attended his lectures, but such protection could not shield him from one period of persecution (VP 15), when he found it prudent to withdraw from Athens for a year, and went to Lydia, where he occupied himself with studying and assisting in the preservation and revival of the local cults. Whatever caused the political storm, it blew over, and he returned to resume his accustomed activities. All this public business did not seem to hinder him from getting through a prodigious amount of teaching and writing. Marinus tells us (VP22) that he gave customarily five lectures or seminars a day, sometimes more, and wrote about seven hundred lines. In addition, he consorted with other philosophers and conducted informal evening conversazioni. He also was liable to be up half the night at his devotions— the religious side of Proclus must not be forgotten. His hymns were often composed at night, or early in the morning, sometimes as the result of a dream (VP 28). This pace of life seems to have continued for upwards of forty years, until a few years before his death in his sixty-ninth year, when his health failed and he was able to do little more than compose a few hymns and converse with his friends until his death three years later (VP 26). He was succeeded in the headship of the school, first by his faithful disciple and biographer, Marinus, and then by a rather more substantial philosopher, Isidore. 4 Possibly only after a short period of headship by Domninus, but this conjecture is based only on Marinus' reference to Domninus in ch. 26 as (/HAOO-O^OS K«1 8id8oxo