Platonism as a Type of Monotheism

31 January 2024

Platonism as a Type of Monotheism

I have been reading Mystical Monotheism: A Study in Ancient Platonic Theology, by John Peter Kenney.  Kenney’s purpose is to illuminate the development of monotheism within the Platonic tradition and to see that this development has shaped how the West understands monotheism.  I think the book is very well written, though it is definitely an academic book.  By ‘academic’ I mean that the audience the author was writing for was other academics; I can tell this by the kind of vocabulary he uses and certain ways that academics shape their sentences.  That’s not a criticism; I enjoy academic writing.  But it helps in understanding a book to know who the book was written for.

Here are a few remarks about Mystical Monotheism:

1.  This book is a good counterbalance to the books that view Platonism as an essentially Pagan tradition; there are quite a few of these at this time.  Kenney did not write his book in order to argue against a Pagan interpretation of Platonism; but if you are familiar with contemporary Pagan thought, and its interactions with Platonism, the book will automatically challenge that point of view.

2.  Kenney writes in his Preface, “This is an essay in philosophical theology and its history.  It is the initial study in a broader inquiry into the foundations of Western monotheism and represents an effort to reflect anew upon our theistic patrimony. . . The proximate focus of this study is the development of philosophical monotheism from the late Hellenistic period through the death of Plotinus in 270 A.D., the period of its initial coalescence.”  (Page IX)

It is Kenney’s view that the development of monotheism in the context of the history of Platonism has informed, guided, and shaped Western monotheism overall.  However, Kenney has the view that this formative influence has been ‘neglected.’  Partly this is because scholars of religion tend to start their investigations with the Reformation; this makes sense because almost all the topics of concern to Western religion at this time were either definitively shaped by the Reformation, or got their start in the Reformation.  The consequence of this is that the foundational insights and understanding of Ancient monotheism, such as that found in Platonism, are no longer examined and their contributions are, with some exceptions, not understood.  Kenney hopes to broaden the historical scope of monotheism so that it will include ancient Platonism and its historical unfolding in the Classical world.

3.  It strikes me when reading this work that Kenney is broadening the meaning of monotheism beyond what is usually the case.  I think most people think of ‘monotheism’ to refer to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (with occasional nods to Mormons and Bahai and so forth.)  Philosophical monotheism, the term Kenney uses, is not often brought into the picture (though I seem to recall that Karen Armstrong talks a little bit about it in her A History of God.)  There are Christian philosophers but philosophical monotheism that is prior to Jewish and Christian influences is not usually part of the picture.  Kenney is, I think, attempting to reinstate this kind of monotheism and bring it into the discussion about monotheism overall.

4.  Kenney writes that monotheism “is defined simply as the thesis that there is an ultimate divine principle transcendent to the physical universe.” (Page xxiv)  Looked at in this way, Platonism would qualify as a type of monotheism because of the principle of The One which is the source of all things and is, at the same time, transcendentally Good. 

I suspect that many contemporary Platonists would not consider this to be sufficient for viewing Platonism as a monotheistic tradition.  The definition might be considered too abstract in that it ignores many metaphysical assumptions (such as that of creation) as well as communal, ethical, and ritual commitments.  Looked at in this way Platonism might be seen as very different from, or even opposed to, the three dominant forms of monotheism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  On the other hand, Platonism and these three monotheistic traditions have had a very long history of interacting with each other and finding nourishment for their own theologies in Platonic contexts.

I guess it would depend on where you want to draw lines of distinction and difference.

5.  For me one of the most helpful aspects of Mystical Monotheism has been the way Kenney presents the history of Platonic thought by focusing on the development of ways of interpreting the structure of the levels (hypostases) of existence.  Some early Platonists have viewed Platonic forms as ideas in the mind of God who is the first and highest level.  This means that The One would have conceptual content as opposed to the later development of a mystical understanding of The One as beyond intellect, analysis, affirmation and negation. 

Kenney also focuses on varying views of the nature and function of the Demiurge which I found fascinating.  Kenney’s view is that eventually the Platonic tradition would ‘displace’ the Demiurge; for example, it doesn’t seem that Plotinus has very much to say about this idea.

These shifting interpretations of the nature of the levels of reality (hypostases), of the historical unfolding of Platonic philosophy, was like reading about a great Symposium that has lasted for many centuries.  I had a kind of vision of a gathering of Platonic Sages, people like Xenocrates, Plutarch, Alcinous, Plotinus, Porphyry, Boethius, Ficino, the Cambridge Platonists, and so forth to the present, taking their turn giving speeches about the Platonic Way.  There they are, all of them, sitting on couches, relaxed with each other, discussing the best way to communicate the actuality of the cosmos and the presence of eternity to others.  I find this vision inspiring.

6.  Kenney concludes his book with a chapter on Plotinus.  Kenney refers to the Enneads as a ‘charter for later Hellenic monotheism.’  (Page 151)  Kenney notes that Plotinian monotheism was ‘arrived at through a different conceptual strategy than in the Abrahamic tradition.’ (Page 152) 

Kenney also writes that ‘Despite its temporary success in late antiquity, the Hellenic monotheism of the Neoplatonists was a tradition lost but for its subsequent absorption into the Abrahamic theological world.’  (Page 156)  I think this is true.  It is only very recently that the thought of Plotinus has been viewed as sufficient and complete unto itself.  In my own case, this is because I was able to view Platonism as a whole, and Plotinus specifically, through what I think of as a ‘Dharmic’ lens.  This happened due to my decades long study of Buddhism in particular, and other Dharmic traditions as they interacted with Buddhism.  It isn’t that I think of Platonism as a Buddhist Sect; it has more to do with relating to Platonism as more closely resembling what is expected from Dharmic traditions.  Kenney doesn’t mention this kind of relationship as that is not the purpose of his book (and it seems to me that he has no interest in Dharmic traditions.)  But viewing Platonism as a type of Dharma allows for the possibility of understanding Platonism as a complete spiritual path and I think that is something we can look forward to.

 

 

Thinking about the Nature of Evil in Platonist Analysis

29 January 2024

Thinking about the Nature of Evil in Platonist Analysis

In my previous post I quoted from Theaetetus.  The conclusion of what I quoted shifts focus from the life of an exemplary philosopher to a brief discussion about evil:

Theodorus:  “’If, Socrates, you could persuade all men of the truth of what you say as you do me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among mankind.’

Socrates:  “’But it is impossible that evils should be done away with, Theodorus, for there must always be something opposed to the good; and they cannot have their place among the gods, but must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth.’”

(Plato, Theaetetus, translated by Harold North Fowlers, Theaetetus, Sophist, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, page 127, 176A, ISBN: 0674991370)

At the same time, I was reading Ennead I.8, On What Are Evils.  At places in this Ennead Plotinus seems to say that matter is the source of evil.  But Plotinus also suggests that matter is non-existent, or nearly so:

“The whole world of sense is non-existent in this way, and also all sense-experience and whatever is posterior or incidental to this, or its principle, or one of the elements which go to make up the whole which is of this non-existent kind.”

(Plotinus, Ennead I.8, On What are Evils, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts, 1966, page 283, ISBN: 9780674994843)

The question of the nature of evil in Platonism is complicated and difficult.  It is not always clear to me how Platonist Sages understand evil.  And later Platonists, following Plotinus, added further complications.  Here are a few comments on this topic:

1.  I see the connection between the quote from Theaetetus and the quote from Ennead I.8 as that both view evil as something that arises in material or earthly existence, as an inevitable consequence of that level of existence.  Plato writes that evil “must inevitably hover about mortal nature and this earth.”  Plotinus writes that the whole world of sense experience, which is the realm of ‘mortal nature and this earth’ is of a ‘non-existent kind,’ implying that evil is the result of a degree of non-existence.  Noetic realities actually exist, but sensory things only exist to a degree; the farther they are from noetic realities the less ‘existent’ they are.  From this perspective evil is a lack of ‘being.’  Pure evil would be complete non-being which, at times, Plotinus seems to suggest is matter.  And non-being is found in the realm of mortal nature, the realm of becoming and begoning.

2.  This is not easy to follow.  The struggle that Platonists face is reconciling ultimate nature as the Good with the presence of evil in the material realm.  If material things exist as emanations of the Good, then how does evil appear, what mechanism accounts for its presence?

3.  There is an old Taoist tale about this topic.  A farmer purchases a horse using almost all of his money to do so.  The farmer’s son trains the horse but is thrown by the horse and breaks his leg.  Neighbors of the farmer express their sympathy to the former over the farmer’s misfortune.  The farmer shrugs and says, “Maybe so.”

The next week, government officials come to the village to conscript young men for their latest war project.  Because the farmer’s son has a broken leg they do not conscript him.  Neighbors congratulate the farmer on his good fortune.  The farmer shrugs and says, “Maybe so.”

It’s a famous story; you’ve probably heard it.  It suggests that human knowledge is limited and is not able to discern when something is a misfortune and when something is of benefit, when something is truly good or truly evil.  I have not run across similar thinking in Platonist sources, but I think this view is worth bringing into the conversation.  A Platonist gloss on this story might point out that as long as we are trapped in a limited, material, body, our understanding of our situation will also be limited.  It is only by separating the soul from the body that we can enter a more expansive wisdom where we can see things from a larger context, a context that transcends our mundane concerns and is rooted in the presence of eternity.

4.  I don’t have an answer to the problem of evil.  But I think it is worth pondering because pondering on the presence of evil in the world is a stimulus for wanting to transcend the world and this is true regardless of how, exactly, evil manifests.  Great minds have attempted to solve the problem of evil and I have found their insights on this topic to be helpful even if, in some sense, they are incomplete.  For the sad truth is that this is a world of suffering and sorrow, of division and discord, of strife and endless enmity; and the world is essentially this way, not accidentally this way, or superficially this way; as Plato writes “it is impossible that evils be done away with” in the material domain.

But there is a way that takes us beyond this realm of sorrow.  It is the way that Plato and Plotinus teach.  It is the path of renunciation, the path of following the light of the Good, the One, and the Beautiful to its source.

Philosophers and Their Relationship to Society

27 January 2024

Philosophers and Their Relationship to Society

Socrates:  ”’. . . Shall we describe those who belong to our band, or shall we let that go and return to the argument, in order to avoid abuse of that freedom and variety of discourse, of which we were speaking just now?’

Theodorus:  “’By all means, Socrates, describe them; for I like your saying that we who belong to this band are not the servants of our arguments, but the arguments are, as it were, our servants, and each of them must await our pleasure to be finished; for we have neither judge, nor, as the poets have, any spectator set over us to censure and rule us.’

Socrates:  “’Very well, that is quite appropriate, since it is your wish; and let us speak of the leaders; for why should anyone talk about the inferior philosophers?  The leaders, in the first place, from their youth up, remain ignorant of the way to the agora, do not even know where the court-room is, or the senate-house, or any other place of public assembly; as for laws and decrees, they neither hear the debates upon them nor see them when they are published; and the strivings of political clubs after public offices, and meetings, and banquets, and revellings with chorus girls, it never occurs to them even in their dreams to indulge in such things.  And whether anyone in the city is of high or low birth, or what evil has been inherited by anyone from his ancestors, male or female, are matters to which they pay no more attention than to the number of pints in the sea, as the saying is.  And all these things the philosopher does not even know that he does not know; for he does not keep aloof from them for the sake of gaining reputation, but really it is only his body that has its place and home in the city; his mind, considering all these things petty and of no account, disdains them and is borne in all directions, as Pindar says, “both below the earth,” and measuring the surface of the earth, and “above the sky,” studying the stars and investigating the universal nature of every thing that is, each in its entirety, never lowering itself to anything close at hand.’

Theodorus:  “’What do you mean by this, Socrates?’

Socrates:  “’Why, take the case of Thales, Theodorus.  While he was studying the stars and looking upwards, he fell into a pit, and a neat, witty Thracian servant girl jeered at him, they say, because he was so eager to know the things in the sky that he could not see what was there before him at his very feet.  The same jest applies to all who pass their lives in philosophy.  For really such a man pays no attention to his next door neighbour; he is not only ignorant of what he is doing, but he hardly knows whether he is a human being or some other kind of a creature; but what a human being is and what is proper for such a nature to do or bear different from any other, this he inquires and exerts himself to find out.  Do you understand, Theodorus, or not?’

Theodorus:  “’Yes, I do; you are right.’

Socrates:  “’Hence it is my friend, such a man, both in private, when he meets with individuals, and in public, as I said in the beginning, when he is obliged to speak in court or elsewhere about the things at his feet and before his eyes, is a laughing-stock not only to Thracian girls but to the multitude in general, for he falls into pits and all sorts of perplexities through inexperience, and his awkwardness is terrible, making him seem a fool; for when it comes to abusing people he has no personal abuse to offer against anyone, because he knows no evil of any man, never having cared for such things; so his perplexity makes him appear ridiculous; and as to laudatory speeches and the boastings of others, it becomes manifest that he is laughing at them – not pretending to laugh, but really laughing – and so he is thought to be a fool.  When he hears a panegyric of a despot or a king he fancies he is listening to the praises of some herdsman – a swineherd, a shepherd, or a neatherd, for instance – who gets much milk from his beasts; but he thinks that the ruler tends and milks a more perverse and treacherous creature than the herdsmen, and that he must grow coarse and uncivilized, no less than they, for he has no leisure and lives surrounded by a wall, as the herdsmen live in their mountain pens.  And when he hears that someone is amazingly rich, because he owns ten thousand acres of land or more, to him, accustomed as he is to think of the whole earth, this seems very little.  And when people sing the praises of lineage and say someone is of noble birth, because he can show seven wealthy ancestors, he thinks that such praises betray an altogether dull and narrow vision on the part of those who utter them; because of lack of education they cannot keep their eyes fixed upon the whole and are unable to calculate that every man has had countless thousands of ancestors and progenitors, among whom have been in any instance rich and poor, kings and slaves, barbarians and Greeks.  And when people pride themselves on a list of twenty-five ancestors and trace their pedigree back to Heracles, the son of Amphitryon, the pettiness of their ideas seems absurd to him; he laughs at them because they cannot free their silly minds of vanity by calculating that Amphitryon’s twenty-fifth ancestor was such as fortune happened to make him, and the fiftieth for that matter.  In all these cases the philosopher is derided by the common herd, partly because he seems to be contemptuous, partly because he is ignorant of common things and is always in perplexity.’

Theodorus:  “’That all happens just as you say, Socrates.’

Socrates:  “’But when, my friend, he draws a man upwards and the other is willing to rise with him above the level of “What wrong have I done you or your me?” to the investigation of abstract right and wrong, to inquire what each of them is and wherein they differ from each other and from all other things, or above the level of “Is a king happy?” or, on the other hand, “Has he great wealth?” to the investigation of royalty and of human happiness and wretchedness in general, to see what the nature of each is and in what way man is naturally fitted to gain the one and escape the other – when that man of small and sharp and pettifogging mind is compelled in his turn to give an account of all these things, then the tables are turned; dizzied by the new experience of hanging at such a height, he gazes downward from the air in dismay and perplexity; he stammers and becomes ridiculous, not in the eyes of Thracian girls or other uneducated persons, for they have no perception of it, but in those of all men who have been brought up as free men, not as slaves.  Such is the character of each of the two classes, Theodorus, of the man who has truly been brought up in freedom and leisure, whom you call a philosopher – who may without censure appear foolish and good for nothing when he is involved in menial services, if, for instance, he does not know how to pack up his bedding, much less to put the proper sweetening into a sauce or a fawning speech – and of the other, who can perform all such services smartly and quickly, but does not know how to wear his cloak as a freeman should, properly draped, still less to acquire the true harmony of speech and hymn aright the praises of the true life of gods and blessed men.’

Theodorus:  “’If, Socrates, you could persuade all men of the truth of what you say as you do me, there would be more peace and fewer evils among mankind.’”

(Plato, Theaetetus, translated by Harold North Fowler, Plato: Theaetetus, Sophist, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1921, pages 119-127, 173B-176A, ISBN: 0674991370)

1.  The above quote from Theaetetus is a well-known, and often referenced, digression in the dialogue where Socrates takes a few moments to discuss what the character of a philosopher is like, and how that character manifests in the observable behavior of ‘leaders’ of philosophy.  I think by ‘leaders’ Socrates means something like ‘first rate’ or ‘exemplary.’  This is a very helpful description of the philosopher and how the philosopher is viewed by non-philosophers.

2.  I think it would be helpful to read in conjunction with this passage from Theaetetus the section from Phaedo where Socrates details the ascetic practices of a philosopher; this is found at 64C to 64E. 

In Phaedo Socrates focuses on individual ascetic practices such as not indulging in rich food or in alcohol and refraining from the “pleasures of love.”  In Theaetetus the emphasis is on what I think of as ‘social asceticism’ because this dialogue depicts the nature of the philosophers’ social life.  There is overlap between the two (individual and social asceticism) but I think there is a difference in emphasis between the two dialogues.  Taken together they broaden our understanding of the specifics of Platonic asceticism.

3.  It is striking how the philosopher, as depicted in Theaetetus, refrains from political commitments or interactions.  I suspect this comes as a surprise to those, who are many, who consider Plato to be a political philosopher; for example those who view The Republic as a blueprint for an ideal state instead of viewing The Republic as an inquiry into the nature of the soul and the nature of justice which is fulfilled by exiting the ‘cave’ of ignorance and ascending into the light.  But if Theaetetus is viewed in the context of Phaedo and of The Republic as an allegory of spiritual ascent, then Theaetetus fits right in with the overall corpus of the Dialogues as a whole.

Plato’s teachings on asceticism are the key to understanding the Dialogues.

4.  It is also striking to me how Plato in this passage mocks pretensions of high status based on, for example, one’s ancestry.  The aristocratic class in Athens at that time was politically powerful and Plato came from that kind of class background.  Plato would have been familiar with these kinds of pretensions.  But through Plato’s study of philosophy he saw through these kinds of status seeking behaviors and saw their vanity and emptiness.  This will be expressed in The Republic when Plato states that a child of ‘gold’ can come from parents of ‘bronze.’

5.  The philosopher engages in what I sometimes call ‘the logic of withdrawal.’  This logic has a number of dimensions: individual behavior (see Phaedo), social behavior, body, speech, and mind.  In each of these dimensions the philosopher enacts an ascetic withdrawal so that the philosopher can use his time to focus on the one clear thing that transcends all interactions and appearances.

6.  The philosopher is drawn to the transcendental, the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.  The transcendental is non-sensory.  Because the philosopher is focused on the non-sensory he appears ‘foolish’ to those who are focused on the sensory domain. 

In modernity the existence of the transcendental is denied; which makes the life of the philosopher not just foolish, but completely deluded.  It takes the virtue of courage to overcome this context of modernity.  Such courage can be nourished and cultivated by reading the Dialogues and the Enneads.  And once the philosopher has had the experience of the transcendental, even if it is momentary, then all doubt about the journey’s worth vanishes.

Columbarium

24 January 2024

Columbarium

Yesterday I went to a columbarium at a National Cemetery to pay my respects to a friend who died nine years ago.  The National Cemetery is superbly maintained and has a sense of quiet beauty throughout its acreage.  The columbarium itself is open-roofed because it is in Southern California, which gives the columbarium a spacious feeling.

Three of us visited on this anniversary.  We found the spot where his ashes are interred.  We offered flowers.  We prayed and bowed and remembered.

1.  I think it is a good thing to pay our respects to those we have known who have passed away.  And if there are those whom we don’t know, but have had an important influence on us, I think it is a good thing to pay our respects to those as well.  Doing this is a simple, and meaningful, contemplation on impermanence.  And it is also a simple contemplation on permanence, on eternity; by this I mean that we are reminded on such occasions of how we remain connected through our souls beyond our physical relationships with each other.

2.  As I have mentioned before, in Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, he mentions in passing that they (the group around Plotinus) held memorial day celebrations for Socrates and Plato.  I think this is a good thing to do and it is helpful to set aside days for honoring various Platonist ancestors. 

Such a ceremony does not have to be elaborate; our visit to the columbarium was very simple.  Such a ceremony could consist of a brief expression of appreciation followed by a shared meal. We shared a meal at a restaurant after visiting the columbarium and I think a shared meal is a good and natural way to extend the meaning of the gathering back into our everyday lives.  

Such a ceremony could be more elaborate; the kind of ceremony that includes offerings, incense, flowers, maybe some hymns, and so forth.  It would be up to each gathering.

3.  This kind of thing does not happen at University Philosophy Departments.  I think that is unfortunate.  The absence of this kind of overt expression of appreciation for those who have died, for those who have made philosophy possible, emerges, I think, as an expression of the materialism and reductionism that is so prevalent these days.  My suspicion is that for University Philosophy Departments such a ceremony would look too religious and would, therefore, be something to avoid.  But Platonism is more religious than it is secular; depending on what one means by ‘religious.’  These days it is perhaps better to refer to Platonism as a ‘spiritual’ tradition.  And adding this kind of dimension to Platonist practice would help to make that clear.

4.  I think it is good to be reminded of the brevity of our lives.  And I think it is good to be reminded of the eternity of the soul. 

 

 

Dimensions of Beauty

19 January 2024

Dimensions of Beauty

“So the soul when it is purified becomes form and formative power, altogether bodiless and intellectual [noetic] and entirely belonging to the divine, whence beauty springs and all that is akin to it.  Soul, then, when it is raised to the level of intellect [nous] increases in beauty.  Intellect and the things of intellect are its beauty, its own beauty and not another’s, since only then is it truly soul.  For this reason it is right to say that the soul’s becoming something good and beautiful is its being made like to God, because from Him come beauty and all else which falls to the lot of real beings.  Or rather, beautifulness is reality, and the other kind of thing is the ugly, and this same is the primary evil; so for God the qualities of goodness and beauty are the same, or the realities, the good and beauty.  So we must follow the same line of enquiry to discover beauty and goodness, and ugliness and evil.  And first we must posit beauty which is also the good; from this immediately comes intellect [nous], which is beauty; and soul is given beauty by intellect.  Everything else is beautiful by the shaping of soul, the beauties in actions and in ways of life.  And soul makes beautiful the bodies which are spoken of as beautiful; for since it is a divine thing and a kind of part of beauty, it makes everything it grasps and masters beautiful, as far as they are capable of participation.

“So we must ascend again to the good, which every soul desires.  Anyone who has seen it knows what I mean when I say it is beautiful.”

(Plotinus, Ennead I.6, On Beauty, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, pages 251-253, ISBN: 9780674994843.  Note: words in brackets are mine.)

“The Soul thus cleansed is all Idea and Reason, wholly free of body, intellective, entirely of that divine order from which the wellspring of Beauty rises and all the race of Beauty.

“Hence the Soul heightened to the Intellectual-Principle is beautiful to all its power.  For Intellection and all that proceeds from Intellection are the Soul’s beauty, a graciousness native to it and not foreign, for only with these is it truly Soul.  And it is just to say that in the Soul’s becoming a good and beautiful thing is its becoming like to God, for from the Divine comes all the Beauty and all the Good in beings.

“We may even say the Beauty is the Authentic-Existents and Ugliness is the Principle contrary to Existence: and the Ugly is also the primal evil; therefore its contrary is at once good and beautiful, or is Good and Beauty: and hence the one method will discover to us the Beauty-Good and the Ugliness-Evil.

“And Beauty, this Beauty which is also The Good, must be posed as The First: directly deriving from this First is the Intellectual-Principle which is preeminently the manifestation of Beauty; through the Intellectual-Principle Soul is beautiful.  The beauty in things of a lower order – actions and pursuits for instance – comes by operation of the shaping Soul which is also the author of the beauty found in the world of sense.  For the Soul, a divine thing, a fragment as it were of the Primal Beauty, makes beautiful to the fullness of their capacity all things whatsoever that it grasps and moulds.

“Therefore we must ascend again towards the Good, the desired of every Soul.  Anyone that has seen This, knows what I intend when I say that it is beautiful.”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, Ennead I.6, Beauty, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, pages 69 and 70, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  This passage is an example of how key terms in Platonism shift in meaning and implications depending on what hypostasis the term is located in.  In this essay On Beauty the term is ‘beauty’ or ‘the beautiful’; beauty is treated in the soul, in a noetic context, and in the context of God, or the One, or ultimate reality.  The way beauty manifests in each context, and how beauty is linked from context to context, is presented with great skill.

2.  “ . . . the soul’s becoming something good and beautiful is its being made like to God, because from Him come beauty and all else which falls to the lot of real beings.”

Plotinus links the good and the beautiful in this quote.  The foundation for this way of looking at beauty is established early in the essay when Plotinus refers to the beauty of ‘virtue’; “ . . . and for those who are advancing upwards from sense-perception ways of life and actions and characters and intellectual activities are beautiful, and there is the beauty of virtue.” (Ibid, Armstrong, page 233)  I find this linking of the good and the beautiful in God, where presumably they are not separate, helpful in understanding the place of beauty in the presentation of Plotinus overall.  In some Platonic writings that I have read it is suggested that beauty is something that appears in the noetic, but in this passage Plotinus is saying that the source of beauty is the One and the Good, that beauty is ultimately at the same level as the One and the Good.  I have found it helpful to keep that in mind because in other passages where Plotinus discusses beauty, knowing that beauty ultimately resides in the fully transcendental, clarifies the nature of beauty and how it works.

3.  The One is the source for all unity in the world, including the world of the senses.  To the extent that a thing is a thing, it participates in the One.  The farther something is from the One, the less unified it is.  The same applies to the Good.  To the degree that something exhibits virtue is the degree to which something participates in the Good.  The farther something is from the Good itself, the less capacity something has for virtue based behavior and this inability to act in accordance with the virtues is what Plotinus refers to as ‘evil.’ 

And the same applies to Beauty.  To the extent that something displays beauty is the extent that it participates in Beauty.  The more distant something is from Beauty the more it manifests the ugly; from this perspective, then, ugliness is the absence of Beauty.

4.  Contemplation on Beauty is a major teaching of Plotinus.  Because the source of Beauty is, ultimately, the One, Beauty can uplift and transform us; first leading us to the noetic, and then past the noetic to the One.  This is done by shifting our attention from a sensory instance of beauty to Beauty as such.  Because the soul receives Beauty from the noetic, this contemplation on Beauty, meaning this shift of attention from sensory beauty to Beauty as such, takes us to the noetic.  From the noetic we can shift our attention from the Beauty of forms to the source of formal beauty, which is the One.

5.  In McKenna’s translation he writes, “And Beauty, this Beauty which is also the Good, must be posed as The First.”  This is what I mean when I say that ultimately Beauty and Unity and Goodness are a single transcendental reality in the first hypostasis.

6.  This way of talking about ultimate nature may have implications for the idea that Plotinus is committed to an apophatic mysticism.  There are passages, especially in Ennead V, where Plotinus speaks of the ultimate, the fully transcendental, using apophatic language.  But in an essay like this one, Plotinus seems to use a term like The Beautiful in cataphatic ways.  I think it is possible to say the same for The Good and The One.  Plotinus seems to be saying that Unity, Goodness, and Beauty are qualities of God; these qualities are not isolated in God, but they are separable in the world of sense experience. 

My feeling is that Plotinus is using terms like The Beautiful and The Good and The One as tools to lead us to God; and that ‘God’ is also such a term. 

7.  Beauty in the world of sense experience is the way that The One reminds us of its presence.  If it were not for Beauty we might not be able to access higher realities at all.  But because there is Beauty in the world we can, by following Beauty to its source which is The Good and The One, ascend to the transcendental. 

8.  The presence of Beauty in the world is the presence of the grace of The One.

 

 

Popular Platonism?

16 January 2024

Popular Platonism?

A friend of mine asked me the other day if Platonism has the potential to have a widespread appeal in the way that other spiritual traditions have.  He wondered if Platonism would always be confined to a small group of people, a kind of elite; people who had the time for philosophical study, the time to learn a philosophical vocabulary, and so forth.

It's an interesting question, one that I have thought about now and then.  Here are a few observations:

1.  Classical philosophy, as I understand it, often clashed with popular religion.  There was an ongoing tension between civic religion and philosophical investigation.  Now and then this would lead to a philosopher being charged with impiety, and other charges.  Two examples are Anaxagoras and, most famously, Socrates.

What I’m getting at is that it doesn’t seem to me that Classical Philosophy sought to be popular in the way that religious movements sought civic significance.  Some philosophies were very influential (I’m thinking of Platonism and Stoicism), but the influence of these philosophies was based on the influence of their ideas and practices which helped people lead a calmer and more transcendentally based life.

2.  The Classical Philosophical traditions don’t seem to have set up temples.  Instead they set up centers of learning, like Plato’s Academy.  Most philosophers seem to have been dutiful regarding the commitments of civic religion, though at times they could also be critical of those institutions.  From the institutions of learning the ideas of these traditions would slowly filter into society.

3.  There have been attempts to create a popular Platonism; the most famous is Julian the Apostate who wanted to use Platonism in its Late Classical theurgic form as the basis for a hierarchical church that could compete with Christianity.  I have posted before that I think the failure of this project was at least partially due to Platonism being a ‘bad fit’ for such a project.  Platonism is about primarily the cultivation of, and the love of, wisdom and looked at in this way it is an Academy which makes institutional sense rather than an organized church.

4.  I think in the context of this kind of question it is worth pointing out that not all spiritual traditions seek widespread popularity; I think we miss that because the most well-known spiritual traditions, like Buddhism and Christianity, have been very intent on spreading their tradition.  But there are many spiritual traditions that do not do so.

Some spiritual traditions are confined to a particular group of people such as a tribe or even an extended family.  Some spiritual traditions require belonging to a particular heritage and if you are not a part of that heritage you won’t really be able to become a member even if you are very interested.  Some spiritual traditions are based on initiations and eligibility for such initiations is restricted.  And so forth.

5.  Lots of human activities are restricted to those who live up to specific criteria.  Examples are being a musician, or a sportsman, or a mathematician, and so forth.  But because of the influence of universalist religions there is the widespread idea that spiritual traditions should be open to everyone without restrictions.  I’ve seen people become overtly offended if they are told that a spiritual tradition’s criteria for membership excludes them even though they aren’t interested in that tradition.  But I don’t think there is any good reason for feeling offended about this.

6.  In the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus I don’t recall anything that indicates that Platonism felt a need to become a widespread, organized, tradition resembling what seems to have been advocated for in early Buddhism, and in Islam, to pick two examples.  Instead, I get the impression that the teachers of Platonism are content with the number of students that they have naturally attracted.  And I don’t see Platonist teachers attracting huge numbers; for example it seems that Socrates knew his followers by name, and that Plotinus’s teachings were offered to a modest audience whose membership shifted over time. 

7.  Platonism has a number of aspects that, I think, will always limit its number of adherents.  First, you really need to love reading in order to be a Platonist.  You can’t leave this reading to others; as a Platonist daily reading of its central works (the Dialogues and the Enneads) is essential.  Most people do not love reading in this way; by ‘in this way’ I mean reading as a spiritual practice.  I think this is a bigger barrier to Platonism than is generally realized.

Second, Platonism is a wisdom tradition; by ‘wisdom tradition’ I mean that Platonism views making clear distinctions as essential for the spiritual ascent.  (I often refer, for example, to ‘distinguishing eternity.’)  Making these kinds of distinctions, and then following through on their implications is a kind of spiritual practice that only a few find attractive.

Third, purification of body and mind is foundational for the Platonist tradition.  And this kind of purification means ethical commitments which are outlined in works like Phaedo.  These include non-harming, a vegetarian/vegan approach to food, abandoning the use of drugs and alcohol, restraining bodily desires including sexual desires, and so forth.  In other words, Platonism is an ascetic tradition.  The number of people who will be attracted to this way of life has always been small, but in modernity that number has contracted almost to the point of invisibility.

I think the above three items indicate that Platonism as a spiritual practice will always be limited to a small number of people.  That doesn’t mean its ideas will be similarly limited or that its insights will be confined only to those who follow the Way of Platonism.  Insights can spread beyond the tradition that gave birth to those insights.  But it does mean that Platonist practitioners, who live out the heart of the tradition, are always going to be limited.

8.  I think that sometimes there is the assumption behind this question that implies that a spiritual tradition to be valid should, in some way, be for everyone.  When I say ‘be for everyone’ I mean that a genuine spiritual tradition is seen as devoted to saving all people, or all sentient existence.  As a recovering Mahayana Buddhist, it took me a long time to overcome this kind of perspective. 

But Platonism doesn’t see it that way.  Instead, Platonism accepts that people make their own choices and it is not up to me to require that they make choices that I consider better for them.  They have their own karma and their own destiny.  This is a type of acceptance. 

There is no requirement that people lead a spiritual life.  It is likely that most people never will.  (As an aside, Platonism is not the only spiritual tradition that has this perspective; Jainism shares this kind of view.)  Most people are not interested in the transcendental; they have other things to do. 

9.  On the other hand, many people over many centuries have found Platonism rewarding.  For some, like Boethius, Platonism offers consolation in difficult circumstances.  For others, Platonism offers a secure path to the transcendental. 

There is great beauty, wisdom, clarity, and insight in the Platonic tradition.  Many of us find it a nourishing foundation for a spiritual life as we find our way to the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.