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.