Methods of Platonic Contemplation

27 March 2023

Methods of Platonic Contemplation

“The first way of conceiving God is by abstraction of those attributes, just as we form the conception of a point by abstraction from sensible phenomena, conceiving first a surface, then a line, and finally a point.

“The second way of conceiving him is that of analogy, as follows: the sun is to vision and to visible object (it is not itself sight, but provides vision to sight and visibility to its objects) as the primal intellect is to the power of intellection in the soul and to its objects; for it is not the power of intellection itself, but provides intellection to it and intelligibility to its objects, illuminating the truth contained in them.

“The third way of conceiving him is the following: one contemplates first beauty in bodies, then after that turns to the beauty in soul, then to that in customs and laws, and then to that ‘great sea of Beauty’, after which one gains an intuition of the Good itself and the final object of love and striving, like a light appearing and, as it were shining out to the soul which ascends in this way; and along with this one also intuits God, in virtue of his pre-eminence in honour.”

(Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism, translated by John Dillon, Clarendon Press, 1993, pages 18 and 19, ISBN: 0198236077)

1.  I would probably use the word ‘contemplating’ rather than ‘conceiving’ because the methods that Alcinous offers are not analytical; but that is a minor point.

2.  The first method Alcinous presents is what he calls ‘abstraction’, by which he means to remove all ‘attributes’.  This is a spare outline of the apophatic approach to God and is found in the contemplative tradition of Platonism in various places over the centuries.  It indicates that the apophatic approach has always been a significant part of Platonist practice.  (As an aside, I would add that the geometric point with which Alcinous concludes the series of abstractions would also be removed, dissolving into that which is before name and form.  I believe this is implicit in the process Alcinous outlines, and in the understanding that a point is without dimension and therefore beyond sensory experience.)

3.  The second method Alcinous offers is ‘analogy’.  This is consistent with Plotinus where Plotinus says that Platonist teachings us various types of ‘comparison’ to facilitate the ascent to the ultimate, to the One.  This is a cataphatic spiritual exercise.  In contrast with the apophatic approach, the use of analogy is structured to infer from a sensory experience a transcendental dimension that lies behind the sensory experience.  I refer to this process as ‘metaphorical inference’ (I’m using ‘metaphor’ broadly so that in this context it includes not only metaphor, but also comparisons such as simile, analogy, and allegory.) 

Here Alcinous is drawing an analogy between the material sun and the transcendental sun.  Just as the material sun allows us to see all things but is not itself sight, so also the spiritual, and immaterial, sun allows us access to all objects of mind (intellect/nous), though the spiritual, and immaterial, sun is not those objects.  Just as the material sun transcends the objects that it illuminates, so also the spiritual sun transcends the realm of mind which the spiritual sun illuminates.

I believe that this analogy could be further unpacked: just as the material sun gives birth to all life on earth, so also the spiritual sun is the source for all existing things, both in the material realm and in the realm of mind.  And just as the material sun is not itself and earthly object, so also the spiritual sun is not an object of mind (intellect/nous).  By turning to the spiritual sun, on the basis of ascetic transcendence, the practitioner enters into an experience of that which is beyond mind/intellect/nous, the Good and the One.

The spiritual sun is, I think, a widespread analogy that was used in Classical Platonic culture.  I suspect it was a widespread explanatory comparison in many spiritual traditions of the Classic Period. 

4.  The third method is, I think, a specifically Platonist contemplative practice.  It is a way of cultivating experience of Platonic forms.  The procedure is to observe a common attribute among a variety of things, and then turns one’s attention away from these things to the presence of the attribute itself; this opens the mind to the experience of the form upon which the attribute relies. 

In this case Alcinous refers to the perception of beauty in bodies, in souls, and in customs and laws.  Notice how different these three things are.  Bodies are material.  Souls are immaterial.  Customs and laws are human made.  (As an aside, we might have difficulty thinking of customs and laws as beautiful because we live in a society where different political factions are constantly critiquing customs and laws.  My suggestion is to think of a particular law that you appreciate and find well-crafted and to use that as the basis for perceiving that law as ‘beautiful’.) 

All three things can share the attribute of being beautiful.  From this observation one then observes the ‘sea of Beauty’ from which these specific examples of beauty appear like waves on the sea.  At this point the practitioner is experiencing the form of beauty, transcendental beauty, beauty as beauty.  The mind is now accessing the realm of forms.

From there, Alcinous offers, one ascends to the Good itself, to the One, to God.  What is the connection between transcendental beauty and the Good?  From the perspective of Platonism, beauty is a sign of the presence of the One even in the material realm.  Beauty is a symbol of the presence of eternity.  The One is inherently the Beautiful, or inherently the source of all that which is beautiful.  The One is inherently attractive to the soul, and that attractiveness is the presence of beauty. 

The difficulty with this contemplation is that beauty often generates desire and an impulse to grasp that which one finds beautiful.  When this happens, the opportunity for ascending to the sea of beauty is lost.  For that reason, when I engage in this contemplation on beauty, I avoid objects that tend to stimulate grasping and desire, such as erotically attractive human bodies.  Instead, I might choose a beautiful tree, a beautiful sunset, and a beautiful house; etc.  The general pattern is to choose three such objects that strike one as beautiful, and then use them as the occasion for this kind of contemplation.

For those interested in more about this type of contemplation I recommend Ennead 1.6, On Beauty, and Ennead V.8 On the Intelligible Beauty, by Plotinus.  These two Enneads unpack the basis for this kind of contemplation and open up many additional dimensions as well.

5.  The Platonic corpus contains many contemplations, or what Pierre Hadot likes to call ‘spiritual exercises’.  Often these are overlooked when first reading these works because they are not specifically labelled as contemplation, meditations, etc.  And I am not aware of a Platonic work that is solely devoted to these practices; a kind of manual for Platonic contemplation.  My intuition is that instructions for these practices were likely given orally in Platonic communities; not that they were esoteric, but that a teacher might be able to correct misunderstandings and offer suggestions for how to practice (I’m thinking of practical questions like when to enter into these contemplations, how often, with others or alone, etc.).  But as one becomes more attuned to Platonism as a spiritual tradition these contemplative practices begin to emerge and the reader becomes aware of the rich variety of practices that is found in the Platonic tradition.