readoldthings | Elements of Theology, Proposition 20

The essence of soul is beyond all bodies, the intellectual nature is beyond all souls, and The One is beyond, all intellectual hypostases.

For every body is movable by another, but is not naturally competent to move itself, but by the presence of soul it is moved of itself, lives through soul, and, when soul is present is in a certain respect self-movable, but when it is absent is alter-movable, because any self-movable nature which it may have it receives from soul, which is allotted a self-movable essence: since, to whatever nature soul is present, to this it imparts self-motion. Soul is, however, by a much greater priority that which it imparts by its very being. Hence it is beyond bodies, which become self-movable by participation, because it is essentially self-movable. Again, however, soul which is moved from itself has an order secondary to the immovable nature, which subsists immovable, in activity or energy. Because of all the natures that are moved, the self-movable essence is the leader; but of all that move, the immovable is the leader. If, therefore, soul, being moved from itself moves other things, it is necessary that prior to it there should be that which moves immovably. But intellect moves, being immovable, and energizing always in the same manner. For soul through intellect participates of perpetual thought, just as body through soul possesses the power of moving itself. For if perpetual intellection or thinking was primarily in soul, it would be inherent in all souls, in the same manner as the self-motive power. Hence perpetual thinking is not primarily in soul. It is necessary, therefore, that prior to it there should be that which is primarily intelligent: and hence intellect is prior to souls.

Moreover, The One is prior to intellect. For intellect, though it is immovable, yet is not The One; for it thinks itself, and energizes about itself. And of The One indeed all beings, in whatever way they may exist, participate; but all beings do not participate of intellect. For those beings to whom intellect is present by participation necessarily participate of knowledge; because intellectual knowledge is the principle and first cause of gnostic energy. The One, therefore, is beyond intellect, nor is there anything beyond The One: for The One and The Good are the same. But The Good, as has been demonstrated, is the principle of all things.

COMMENTARY

This one is a mouthful, but it breaks down the entire Neoplatonic cosmology. Taking it term by term, Proclus leads us from material bodies to the nature of the One itself, employing the terms and ideas that he's already taught us. Let's go through it piece by piece.

Now we're back to the discussion of motion: the unmovable, the self-motive, and the alter-motive, and here we see how these terms line up with the levels of being. The nature of body is to be moved by another, but it is not naturally able to move itself. Body is therefore the naturally alter-motive.

Under certain conditions, however, body becomes self-motive in a sense. That condition is precisely the presence of Soul. Soul is naturally self-motive, and its presence allows bodies to be self-motive by participation in Soul.

Now, it's worth noting that there is some disagreement among the thinkers who followed Plotinus as to the nature of that participation. Some contemporary scholars have suggested that Neoplatonism can be divided, in a way, into an Eastern and a Western school. The Western school is represented especially by Plotinus himself and by his disciple Porphyry. The Eastern is represented by Iamblichus, a student of both Plotinus and Porphyry and sometime rival of the latter.

For Plotinus and his school, for an embodied soul is similar to a light shining on a wall. The wall become illuminated, but the source of the light is outside, and the light itself remains effectively outside. Proclus's view, derived from Iamblichus, is somewhat different. For the "Eastern School" the living body is truly what it seems-- a body in which soul is really present.

Gregory Shaw, one of the great living scholars of the Neoplatonic tradition, suggests that this is because Iamblichus and those who followed him were more accepting of the ideas of Aristotle, and more committed to the idea of a harmony ("symphonia") between Plato and Aristotle. For Aristotle, the soul is the cause of the body, in every sense-- including the source of movement within the body (De Anima 415b). But Aristotle's soul isn't outside of the body-- elsewhere, he compares the relationship between body and soul to the relationship between the wax and the candle. The wax is the material substance, the candle the form, nor does it make any sense to talk about one candle inhabiting more than one body of wax. Proclus's education began with a complete reading of Aristotle as a kind of "Outer Mystery;" only once Aristotle's ideas were mastered was he then introduced to the "Inner Mysteries" of Plato. I believe his cosmology as expressed here reflects this. The ensouled body really is ensouled by a form as present to it as the shape of the candle is to the wax. But that isn't the end of it.

Above Soul is Intellect (nous). Soul moves itself, and, embodied, moves matter. Intellect, however, is immovable. Intellect is "perpetual thought," and is therefore not primarily in souls. We can know this because not all souls participate in thought or intellection (which is higher than thought), any more than all bodies participate in soul. Consider a soulless body, like Aristotle's candle, and then consider a body with the simplest form of soul, such as a plant. The plant does not think, has no sensation, and does not even move. It does, however, feed and reproduce itself. Aristotle tells us (De Anima 415a) that "the nutritive soul is found along with all the others and is the most primitive and widely distributed power of soul, being indeed that one in virtue of which all are said to have life." This is the difference between the plant and the candle. If Intellect were in souls naturally or primarily, then the plant would think and would perceive the forms above thought as readily as a sage. This is not the case, however. Therefore Intellect is prior to Soul, as Soul is prior to Body.

Prior to Intellect is the One. Here Proclus tells us something interesting, which will come up again later. Everything whatsoever which has any being of any kind participates of the One, but not all beings participate in Soul or Intellect. The power of the One therefore extends as far as to the very last of things, while that of Intellect and Soul are limited. Again, the implications of this are important-- but we'll come to them in due time.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

methylethyl

This is one of those areas where I get frustrated with Aristotle, and many of the others... they're trying to make finding out foundational truths an exercise in pure logic. I'm not convinced truth is accessible that way... which is how Christianity ends up with, not logic as a path to truth, but Truth as a Person: One's relationship to the Person of Truth is the path to truth. Probably saying it badly.

Also, Aristotle needed to get to know more trees. They are definitely sentient. But I don't think there's any way to get there via logic. It's relational ;)

From:

readoldthings

You'll get no argument from me. I very rarely write about Aristotle-- actually, I don't know if I ever have before-- because I honestly haven't decided what I think of him. He's one of those rare thinkers that manages to blend very good and very bad ideas together in such a way that it seems impossible to extricate them.

Also, Aristotle needed to get to know more trees. They are definitely sentient. But I don't think there's any way to get there via logic. It's relational ;)

Something I like to do is to read a particular thinker and absorb their ideas, and then notice how it affects my thinking and my interaction with the world around me. Yesterday, after reading Aristotle, I came across a school of fish. I found that I had to actively purge Aristotle from my mind before I could sense the life in the fish. While he was still there, my thoughts were moving in a very reductionist direction; "Fish, animal soul, capable of nutriment and of basic sensation," et cetera. This was after I wrote this post. At the time I'd been feeling more friendly to Aristotle; now, rather less so.

For what it's worth I've had a similar experience putting on some of the occult tradition's ideas about the variety of souls. After reading some Rosicrucian discussion on the development of the soul, the sort that views us all as rising from the mineral to the plant through the animal and into the human levels, I sat next to a patch of mugwort. Viewing the plants as nothing but a bunch of very young or perhaps retarded human beings destroyed my ability to form a relationship with them; when I let go of that idea and simply allowed them to be mugwort, all was well again. The idea of progressive reincarnation is part of the Druid teachings I follow as well as old-time Neoplatonism, but I haven't yet figured out how to reconcile it with my experience. I'm not convinced being reborn as a cat would be any sort of tragedy, and I don't think that the spirit of thousand year old redwood tree would gain anything by being reborn in the body of a hamster.

It's worth noting, though, that for Proclus, Aristotle's ideas aren't the endpoint of truth. One begins by learning how to think rationally, and Aristotle can help with that; after that, one is in a position to study Plato, whose work is intended to elevate the spirit above the level of the thinking mind. In Proclus's writings, he refers to the most illustrious of his predecessors as "divine"; the Divine Plato, the Divine Iamblichus, and so on. In the one reference I've seen in his work to Aristotle, however, he calls him "the Daemoniacal Aristotle." So I don't think he'd disagree with you entirely either.

From:

methylethyl

This reminds me of a childhood incident: My family was christian. My best friend/neighbor's family were functionally atheist Unitarians. I casually referred to her as a heathen one day-- to me it was a judgement-free statement of fact. But she was really offended! Took us like a week to get back on friendly terms.

Whether it's a friend or a plant, the relationship is important. You know them by your relationship with them. Knowledge is downstream of relationship. And if you put some sort of intellectual theory or classification system in line ahead of the relationship, then you damage the relationship and the resulting knowledge is faulty. I think this means that you can still have the theories and intellectual reasoning *about* things, but in order to be the good/helpful/truth sort of intellectual activity, it MUST be downstream of the relationship. You can't let the theory get in the way of treating persons as persons (and IME, plants are people too!). I firmly believe that this is how herbal medicine started out. Some of those things... there's no way people just *figured that out* by trial and error. That's bogus. I'm pretty sure the plants just *told* them.

This comes up in gardening in a really visceral way. Many years ago, when I started out, I did things by the book: dig up rows, add fertilizer, plant things, add water. Like a recipe, or a machine. Results were dismal. I get vastly better results now, by treating the garden as a community. It's not plants, inputs, and produce. It's plants, animals, birds, insects, worms, fungi, bacteria, snakes, lizards... everybody! I plant in groups not rows now, and I aim to take care of the soil community first and foremost, and everything else is downstream of that. Mulch, compost, mulch, shade, mulch, more mulch... and then I talk to them all, pray for them, ask blessings on them *as a community* (including the aphids!), and... produce is more than I've ever had before, but still seems like more of a side-benefit rather than the primary purpose. There's just so much *living* in there, and my purpose is not really to exploit it, it's that I serve it. I feed the worms and fungi and make sure they are protected. They feed the plants. The plants give me food. It's a friendly gift, not a business deal. I stood out there one day, praying for the garden community-- each bit individually, and all together: Lord, please bless the sunflowers, the hibiscus, the pumpkins, the moles, the worms, the bugs... help them all to live in harmony and be well etc-- and I opened my eyes and there were two hummingbirds (first I've ever seen in this garden) right in front of me, going flower to flower. One flew up and perched on a twig over my head, not two feet away. I've never seen one so close before, and not in flight. It was magical. It was like the garden reaching back and giving me a pat. May have gotten a little misty-eyed.

That's the difference between coming up with a theory and imposing it on a relationship, and just focusing on the relationship and maybe having some theories about it later.

Which is not to dispense with the logicians. I'm just very ambivalent about the proper place of logic in the grand scheme of things. We were gifted it for a purpose: what is that purpose? Can that purpose be arrived at by logic, or must it be simply harnessed in service to our relationships? It seems sort of perverted to try and pursue logic as an exercise in pure intellect, and the philosophers end up in some really weird places doing it, whether that's Aristotle or Aquinas.

But also, in some ways this may reflect gender-- male approaches to the world tend to lean on logic and intellect more, and female approaches toward relationship. With anything so gendered, perhaps it's a case of: the world needs both, working in tandem :) Whether this is the case or not, I certainly incline more to the mystical approach than the intellectual.

From:

readoldthings

But also, in some ways this may reflect gender-- male approaches to the world tend to lean on logic and intellect more, and female approaches toward relationship. With anything so gendered, perhaps it's a case of: the world needs both, working in tandem :) Whether this is the case or not, I certainly incline more to the mystical approach than the intellectual.

Maybe, but I think that talking that way lets men off the hook. Besides, there have been a great many male mystics, of which we might name Nicholas of Cusa, Bernard of Clairvaux, Francis of Assisi. One thing they have in common is that they and the traditions they inspired lean toward the Platonic and away from the Aristotelean modes of thinking.

This is part of why Aristotle's works are considered the "Outer Mysteries," of which Plato's works constitute the Inner. Aristotle is obsessed with dissecting things, but if you read his logical treatises, for example, you'll learn a solid method of reasoning, and if you read his Ethics, you'll find a very practical guide to good behavior. For Plato and the Platonic tradition generally, though, real knowledge transcends logical reasoning. To leave Plato's Cave isn't to learn to think about stuff really well; it's to experience real being in a very different and, yes, relational, way.

But Proclus also isn't taking the approach of starting with a theory and then imposing it on the world. Proclus was a mystic and a very devout worshiper of the old gods. His entry into the world of Philosophy didn't begin with a semester in college, but with a theophany in which Athena appeared to him in a dream. Philosophy itself, then and later, wasn't an intellectual exercise. Pierre Hadot discussed this in detail in "Philosophy as a Way of Life." Every philosophical school was more akin to an order of monks than a modern undergraduate seminar; each had its own set of spiritual exercises, designed to elevate the soul from mundane concerns and slavery to the passions, toward the higher life of the divine. That even includes the Epicureans.

Even with Aristotle, part of the issue may simply be that we don't have all of his works. What we have are his lecture notes. He also wrote dialogues, but these haven't survived except in fragmentary form. And it's likely enough that he had his secret teachings; they all did. And so we have Aristotle's lectures but none of his dialogues; Plato's dialogues but none of his lectures. What are we missing? We don't know.

From:

methylethyl

I'm rusty on Plato, so thanks for laying out the Plato<---->Aristotle relationship :)

On practices, secrets, and surviving texts... that makes sense. We have our own version of that: you can learn a lot about Orthodoxy through its writings, but you'll always be missing a significant piece of the thing if you don't go to her services, or engage in her religious practices. What gets written down is, by nature, limited to what is accessible to the intellect. And a lot of it just isn't. Words explain. Praxis shapes the heart.

I am not trying to let men off the hook there ;) But I do think that any time you are dealing with a thing that is typically gendered, you are likely dealing with half of something, which does not, cannot, and should not function in isolation... and where perhaps unhealthy and misshapen things result from the attempt, like homunculi.