4 August 2025
Brief Notes on Various Topics – 58
1. I was working on Blogging Platonism Volume 3, which covers all of 2024 in book form, and I noticed a post I made on 10 January 2024 which is called “Third Things.” It covers the exact same material that I posted last week on “Brief Notes on Various Topics 57.2.” The topic is the status of the gods in ancient Greece and the contrast between the way poets like Homer and Hesiod treat the gods and the way Plato and subsequent Platonists treat the gods. When I say that both posts cover ‘the same topic’, this applies even to the passage I quoted from The Republic: Book II.
I hadn’t remembered posting about this topic in January 2024. There are some differences between the two posts; the January 2024 post is much longer and brings in material from Proclus and Plotinus. The post last week is not so thorough.
I have repeated things before on this blog, but as far as I can remember it was repeating a general topic such as the nature of the One, or the nature of the noetic. There is a lot to cover and contemplate when considering realities like these. I also have a number of posts that share a common ethical focus, such as non-harming.
When I first noticed how closely related the two posts based on the quote from Book II of The Republic were I thought of removing last week’s post. If I was writing a treatise and getting it published, no doubt an editor would do something like that.
But this blog is not a treatise, nor is it an academic presentation. It is more like a diary; the diary of a Platonist and how he relates to the world and how he engages with and applies Platonism in the life he is living.
Bob Dylan – Shelter from the Storm
Bob Dylan is one of the greatest poets of the post-WWII period. My own writing has been influenced by his use of syntax, rhyme, parallelisms, and use of images. Dylan isn’t a Platonist, but at times I find images in his songs that are strikingly relevant to a Platonic world view. The above is an example.
To be a Platonist is to ‘live in another country’ in the sense that once a Platonist glimpses higher realities a feeling arises that one doesn’t really belong in this material dimension. One’s true country is ‘there,’ as Plotinus likes to put it.
The Platonist practitioner crosses the line to the ‘there’ of higher realities; there is a kind of barrier between the material realm and the non-material realms. This line is crossed through the purification of asceses, wisdom, and contemplation.
My favorite line in this song is the one that says ‘beauty walks a razor’s edge someday I’ll make it mine.’ I think Dylan is in tune with beauty. Both Plotinus and Plato write a lot about beauty and how following beauty to its source is one of the ways a Platonist practitioner can cross the line to the transcendental.
3. Continuing with the postings of the Sentences by Porphyry, here is the Fourth Sentence:
Things essentially incorporeal, are not present with bodies, by hypostasis and essence; for they are not mingled with bodies. But they impart a certain power which is proximate to bodies, through verging towards them. For tendency constitutes a certain secondary power proximate to bodies. (Thomas Taylor)
The incorporeal in itself does not become present to the body in “being” nor in hypostatic form of existence. It does not mingle with the body. Nevertheless, by its inclination to the body, it begets and communicates to it a potentiality capable of uniting with the body. Indeed, the inclination of the incorporeal constitutes a second nature [the irrational soul - Guthrie’s addition], which unites with the body. (Kenneth Guthrie)
Non-material beings are not present and do not mix with material bodies because of their essence, but because of a certain force arising from their interaction, and through this force they can influence the material.
After all, the interaction itself creates a secondary force that can act on material bodies and is closer to them. (Isaak Samarskyi)
3.1 One of the difficulties with reading Sentences is that Porphyry’s writing in this work remains abstract. I mean that Porphyry does not illustrate the Sentences with examples, or with stories (myths, legends, things like that), or with comparisons such as metaphors. Nor is there the kind of conversational context that is found in Plato’s Dialogues. This differs from some of Porphyry’s writings, such as On Abstinence; but Porphyry was capable of a wide range of philosophical writing and we have to accept the Sentences as they are.
3.2 I think that this sentence would be clearer to me if I understood why it is important for Porphyry to establish that non-material beings do not interact with material beings. I suspect that he may be contrasting his view with that of other Platonists of his time and Porphyry wants to clarify his own views on this topic; but I’m not sure of that.
3.2.1 It occurs to me that Porphyry may have Aristotle in mind; I mean that Porphyry may be differentiating his own view from that of Aristotle. Porphyry was very well read in Aristotle’s works; see his work on Aristotle’s Categories. You could say that Aristotle had the idea that incorporeal things, such as Platonic forms, mingled with material objects, as opposed to Plato’s view that they inhabit distinct hypostases. Porphyry does not reference Aristotle in Sentences so this is speculative.
3.3 Perhaps Porphyry is alluding to the process of emanation and how it works. It would seem that Porphyry may be distinguishing between how material things interact with each other from how non-material things impact, or influence in some way, material things.
Material things influence each other by ‘mingling’ or one might say by ‘bumping into each other’ or otherwise interacting; all of this occurring at the material level. Porphyry points out the non-material things differ from material things by hypostatic placement, and therefore their ‘being’ or ‘essence’, which Porphyry suggests excludes the kind of mingling that is observed when material things influence, impact, or otherwise connect with other material things.
Porphyry offers that non-material beings have a ‘secondary power’ and it is through this ‘secondary power’ that they have a presence and, one might say, influence, or impact, on material beings. When I read ‘secondary power’ it reminded me of the way Orthodox Theology talks about God’s ‘energies.’ It’s also possible to understand ‘secondary power’ as a power that is not central to incorporeal beings, but nevertheless manifests from incorporeal beings; think of the primary power of the sun is to provide light and the secondary power of the sun is to provide warmth. Or think of the primary power of prayer is to facilitate connection to the transcendental and a secondary power of prayer is to bring a sense of calm to one’s life.
3.4 Porphyry is clarifying how non-material beings are present to, and interact with, material beings. This is not easy to understand. Contemplating this Sentence, and the previous Sentence 3, is a good way to enter into an understanding of how this happens.
4. There is an aspect of the Platonic practices of ethical restraint, or ascesis, which I would like to see emphasized more often. And that is that the practices of ethical restraint are a cultivation that grows over time. I think that people tend to think of asceses as states rather than cultivations. Take, for example, the teaching on non-harming, or refraining from harming others. In India this is known as ‘ahimsa’ and is the first ethical restraint in a number of Dharmic traditions such as Classical Yoga, Jainism, and Buddhism. I also think of it as the first ethical restraint in Platonism. ‘First’ in this context means that other ethical restraints can be understood as the application of non-harming to specific situations or domains of human activity.
As a cultivation, ethical restraints can begin with easily accessible applications. For example, can you refrain from killing every single person in a city? Almost everyone would say that they could; but there are people for whom this first step in non-harming would be difficult to adhere to. And there are some people who would consider such an endeavor as a duty and obligation under certain circumstances such as military strife. It may seem that this application of non-harming is obvious, and for most people it is; even so, it is a first step in cultivating non-harming.
From there the Platonist practitioner can apply non-harming and non-retaliation to less obvious situations. Things like name-calling, or sabotaging someone else’s plans.
And non-harming can be expanded to other kinds of living beings such as animals; to the extent that non-harming is a Platonic teaching it is also a teaching that opposes slaughtering animals either for ritual sacrifice or for eating.
Applying non-harming to situations in our life at first might feel a bit awkward because we are not used to it and because it is not a principle of ethics in the larger world that we inhabit. After some time, though, the cultivation of non-harming becomes a kind of internalized way of living in the world and blossoms in a surprising number of circumstances.
The same applies to other Platonic asceses such as restraining sexual impulses, the rejection of intoxicants, the reduction in the number of possessions and so forth. Each of these ethical restraints are means for separating the soul from the body; the goal of the philosopher according to the dialogue Phaedo.
5. In a way this fifth part of today’s post is a continuation of the fourth part, but I wanted to treat it as a separate item. What I want to comment on here is that asceticism, the cultivation of ethical restraints, is often experienced as a great joy. Because in our contemporary world we rarely meet a practicing ascetic we have little to no experience with how ascetics feel about their own lives. When examining the literature I have found that ascetics are often profoundly happy with their circumstances and their choice to become an ascetic. This baffles people who are fixated on material acquisitions and other material goals. But it’s true. I have read about this even in the lives of what I would call lay renunciants or monastics; people who follow a strict program of asceses but are not affiliated with any specific institutional religious or spiritual group. For example, in the book Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics, published in 1986, the author, Marsha Sinetar, surveyed a large number of such people and found them to be happy about, and satisfied with, their choices in life.
I’m not saying there are no difficulties in the life of an ascetic. Perhaps the most often mentioned difficulty is loneliness; but it seems to be the case that ascetics eventually find ways of dealing with this.
A barrier to becoming an ascetic is that it is often referred to as very difficult, particularly in our modern and materialistic world. But as a friend of mine who is a Platonist Monk said, “So what if it’s difficult? There are lots of things in life that are difficult, but we do them anyway.” Learning how to throw a javelin is difficult, learning calculus is difficult, learning how to bake an excellent cake is difficult, and so forth. The program of Platonist asceticism, of ethical renunciations, can be a challenge, but it is a practice that is profoundly satisfying.
6. I never tire of reading the Enneads of Plotinus. I was reading Ennead V.1 the other day, “On the Three Primary Hypostases” and parts of it are among the finest spiritual writing I have ever come across. The clarity, the way Plotinus will unpack the meaning of a term like ‘soul’ or ‘hypostasis’ is simply unsurpassed.
I have benefitted greatly from the writings of many Platonists, including Plutarch, Alcinous, Maximus of Tyre, Porphyry, Boethius, and so forth. But my feeling is that Plotinus soars above, and beyond, what they offer.
The Enneads are an ocean of wisdom and a sure guide to eternity.
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