Class Synopsis Friday April 8

We began class on Friday by reviewing Platinus, being sure to cover the major parts of Platinus’ theories that will be built upon by the later Neo-Platonists. The ones that seemed to stick out the most were Platinus’ monism (his belief that all is in all) and his theory about the One, Intellect, and the Soul. For this, we spent more time going over the distinctions between the three main parts and how they relate to each other. Specifically: the One being pure unity that looks at the Intellect, the Intellect is being that looks at the Soul, and the Soul being all. It is important to note that the reason why the soul cannot go beyond itself is because it is already all so there is no further for it to look. If it needed to look any further it would mean that the Soul is imperfect rather than perfect unity. From there we made a transition to other Neo-Platonists by way of how each philosopher posited that one could come upon unity.

Platinus believed that there were two paths to unity. One could get to unity by either faith or by way of knowledge. The next philosophers that we covered split greatly upon those lines. Porphry (232 AD in Athens) believed strongly that knowledge was the only way to get to the one. He rejected the allegorical truths and theurgies and instead believed that contemplation was the only way to get to the One. Conversely, Iamblicus (250-326 AD) believed the exact opposite. This was because he posited that the Soul was so descended that it knows the external world to much. He thought that religious rights are necessary for a person to turn inward and thus find unity. Additionally, he came up with the idea that aside from the monads (One, Intellect, and Soul) he thought there were more increments between the three which he called henads. A good example of this being the parts to the intellect: the intelligible- the objects of thought, the intelligible intellect- the thinking process, and the intellect- which had the ability to contemplate all these things. The henads would be very important to Proclus.

Proclus would take the henads along with Syrianus’ ideas of the participated and unanticipated and further the relationship of the One, Intellect, and Soul. Stating that in each part of the All Soul there is a division of participated and unanticipated, and within the participated there were further divisions in the Intellect just like in Iamblicus’ model. Additionally he came up with an analogy: the being- is intelligible or thing, life- being spirit, and the Soul- being creation (ie. what creates all of these). Damascius was written on the board but we did not cover him much, if at all.