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A MUCH MISREAD PROPOSITION FROM PROCLUS' ELEMENTS OF THEOLOGY (PROP. 28)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2015

Jan Opsomer
Jan Opsomer*
Affiliation:
University of Leuven
*
[email protected]
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Extract

Proposition 28 from Proclus' Elements of Theology is consistently cited as saying that every producing cause first brings about effects that are like it and then effects that are unlike it. This is a theorem to which Proclus is indeed committed, but I argue that it is not what Proclus is claiming here. At this stage of his general argument, he merely argues that every cause produces things that are like it, without saying anything about other products than the immediate ones. The standard interpretation of proposition 28 is therefore wrong. This becomes clear if one pays close attention to the argumentative structure of the Elements of Theology and to the proof given for proposition 28.

Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 65 , Issue 1 , May 2015 , pp. 433 - 438
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2015 

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References

1 Dodds, E.R., Πρόκλου Διαδόχου Στοιχείωσις Θεολογική. Proclus: The Elements of Theology. A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary (Oxford, 1963 2)Google Scholar, 33.

2 ET 28, p. 32, lines 10–11 Dodds. The sentence is repeated, with slight variations, at p. 32, line 34–p. 34, line 2, and in the proof for proposition 29, p. 34, lines 5–6.

3 See e.g. ET 30 (procession through likeness); 36 (on the decreasing likeness of things proceeding from the causes); and 38 (for the idea that products can have many causes: not only their direct causes, but also the causes of their causes).

4 Brown, L. (ed.), The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1993)Google Scholar, 205 s.v. ‘before’, B.III.10.

5 Trouillard, J., Proclos: Éléments de théologie (Bibliothèque philosophique) (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar, 80: ‘Tout producteur fait subsister des êtres semblables à lui-même avant d'en susciter de dissemblables.’ Di Stefano, E., Proclo: Elementi di teologia. Symbolon 12 (Florence, 1994)Google Scholar, 103: ‘Ogni produttore fa sussistere enti simili a se stesso prima dei dissimili’; Sonderegger, E., Proklos: Grundkurs über Einheit. Grundzüge der neuplatonischen Welt. Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar (Sankt Augustin, 2004)Google Scholar, 61: ‘Jedes Hervorbringende stellt eher das ihm gegenüber Ähnliche auf als das Unähnliche.’ Sonderegger's translation is the only one that can be understood as giving the required sense. His commentary, however, shows that he understands the text in line with the traditional interpretation, for there he refers to the proposition as stating that production proceeds through intermediaries, related to each other by degrees of similarity. Cf. ibid., at 220: ‘Das Erzeugen geht über Vermittlungen, die zueinander das Verhältnis von Ähnlichkeitsstufen haben (§ 28).’ As I argue, this is not what proposition 28 states, nor can it be inferred directly from the proof.

6 E.g. Lowry, J.M.P., The Logical Principles of Proclus' Στοιχείωσις Θεολογική as Systematic Ground of the Cosmos. Elementa: Schriften zur Philosophie und ihrer Problemgeschichte (Amsterdam, 1980), 56Google Scholar; Steel, C., ‘Proclus et Aristote sur la causalité efficiente de l'intellect divin’, in Pépin, J. and Saffrey, H.D. (edd.), Proclus, lecteur et interprète des anciens: actes du colloque international du CNRS, Paris (2–4 octobre 1985) (Paris, 1987), 213–25Google Scholar, at 218 with n. 26; Siorvanes, L., Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science (Edinburgh, 1996)Google Scholar, 58. W. Beierwaltes uses prop. 28 to make a point that agrees with how I understand the proposition, but in order to do so cites a part of the proof rather than the proposition itself: cf. Proklos: Grundzüge seiner Metaphysik. Philosophische Abhandlungen 24 (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), 132 with n. 12.

7 Nicholas of Methone, Ref. 28, pp. 36.26–32, 38.8 Angelou.

8 L.P. Gerson objects against the use of the term ‘likeness’ as a translation of the technical term ὀμοιότης. He prefers to render this concept as ‘sameness’ (which in his usage does not amount to ‘identity’), but that usage has so far not met with broad acceptance. Cf. Gerson, L.P., ‘Imagery and demiurgic activity in Plato's Timaeus’, JNStud 4 (1996), 29–66Google Scholar, at 35–6 n. 4; id., ‘Plato on identity, sameness, and difference’, RMeta 58 (2004), 305–32.Google Scholar

9 Hence Dodds's ([n. 1], 217) gloss, ‘i.e. their immediate priors, to which they approach nearest’, is somewhat misleading.

10 Dodds ([n. 1], 217) argues that μάλιστα is to be preferred to the varia lectio μᾶλλον, as a corruption is more likely to have occurred from the latter to the former than vice versa.

11 This is also why prop. 55 does not constitute counter-evidence to my interpretation of prop. 28. Proclus appears to appeal to prop. 28 when he claims that ‘before things that are wholly unlike’ the first term of any series is succeeded by ‘things that are more like than unlike’ (ET 55, p. 52, lines 17–19; in the same lines he also quotes prop. 29). In the lines quoted, the preposition ‘before’ indeed has its literal meaning: A is succeeded first by B, which is ‘more like than unlike’ (compare ET 28, p. 32, line 34), and then by C, which is ‘wholly unlike it’. Strictly speaking, however, prop. 28 can only be invoked for the claim that A is succeeded by B, being ‘more like than unlike’. Still, the idea that B is in turn followed by C, which is less like A than B, can be derived from the larger context: (1) the mention of things ‘more like than unlike’ suggests that there are also things that are ‘more unlike than like’; (2) The term πρόοδος (line 17) is often connected with the idea of a longer series. The idea of a serial succession of more than two terms had been made explicit in prop. 36–8.

12 Cf. Lloyd, A.C., The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford, 1990), 104–7Google Scholar; Chlup, R., Proclus: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2012), 83–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 LSJ s.v. πρό, A.III.1.

14 E.g. Ap. 28d9; Cri. 54b4; Phd. 99a3; Phdr. 237b5–6 (ὡς μὴ ἐρῶντι πρὸ τοῦ ἐρῶντος δέοι χαρίζεσθαι); Phlb. 57e7; Plt. 266d8–9; Resp. 2.361e2–3 (τοὺς ἐπαινοῦντας πρὸ δικαιοσύνης ἀδικίαν), 366b3–4 (κατὰ τίνα οὖν ἔτι λόγον δικαιοσύνην ἂν πρὸ μεγίστης ἀδικίας αἱροίμεθ' ἄν); Symp. 179a5.

15 I developed this interpretation during one of the meetings of a seminar organised by Gwenaëlle Aubry (UPR 76), Luc Brisson (UPR 76), Philippe Hoffmann (EPHE, LEM), Laurent Lavaud (Paris I) and Pieter d'Hoine (Leuven). The participants meet on a monthly basis, mostly in Paris but also in Leuven. It is our aim to produce a new annotated translation of the Elements of Theology.