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216 Pages·1992·5.318 MB·English
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ON PROCLUS AND HIS INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHIA ANTIQUA A SERIES OF STUDIES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY EDITED BY JJ. MANSFELD, D.T. RUNIA WJ. VERDENIUS ANDj.C.M. VAN WINDEN VOLUME LIII ON PROCLUS AND HIS INFLUENCE IN MEDlEYA L PHILOSOPHY EDITED BY E.P. BOS AND P.A. MEIJER ON PROCLUS AND HIS INFLUENCE IN MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY EDITED BY E.P. BOS AND P.A. MEIJER EJ. BRILL LEIDEN • NEW YORK • KOLN 1992 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. ISSN 0079-1687 ISBN 90 04 09429 6 © Copyright 1992 by E.]. Brill, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated in arry form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche or any other means without written permission from the publisher Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by E.]. Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Copyright Clearance Center, 2 7 Congress Street, SALEM MA 01970, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS CONTENTS vn Preface PART ONE ONPROCLUS Causation and Participation in Proclus. The Pivotal Role of "Scope Distinction" in His Metaphysics.................................................................. 1 L.M.DERUK Accorder entre elles les traditions theologiques: une characreristique du Neoplatonisme Athenien......................................................................... 35 H.D. SAFFREY Le Sophiste comme texte theologique dans !'interpretation de Proclus....... 51 C. STEEL Participation and Henads and Monads in the 'Theologia Platonica" III, 1 -6. .. . .. .. ... .... ... .. . .. ..... .... ... .. ... .. ... .... ... .. ... .... ... .... ... .... ... ... ...... 65 P.A. MEDER PART TWO ON PROCLUS' INFLUENCE IN MEDlEY AL PHILOSOPHY a Albert le Grand et le platonisme. de Ia doctrine des idees Ia theorie des trois etats de I 'universe!............................................................................... 89 A. DE LIBERA Ontology and henology in Medieval Philosophy (Thomas Aquinas, Master Eckhart and Berthold of Moosburg)................................................ 120 J.A. AERTSEN Primum est dives per se. Meister Eckhart und der Liber de Causis............. 141 W. BEIERWALTES William of Ockham' s Interpretation of the first proposition of the Liber de causis ............................................................................................. 171 E.P. Bos VI CONTENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY Sources...................................................................................................... 190 I. IT. Literature................................................................................................. 194 INDEX ......................................................................................................... 200 PREFACE On 7 and 8 september 1989 a symposium was held at the University of Leiden to celebrate Professor L.M de Rijk' s 65th birthday. The title of this symposium was On Proclus' thought and its Reception in the Middle Ages. In the present volume the proceedings are published. The contributions are divided in two parts. The first part is about Proclus' thought, the second about its reception in the Middle Ages. In each part the texts are ordered according to the chronological order of the subjects they deal with. The editors wish to thank E.J. Brill of Leiden for publishing this book in the series Philosophia Antiqua. L.M.DERUK CAUSATION AND PARTICIPATION IN PROCLUS TilE PIVOTAL ROLE OF SCOPE DISTINCTION IN HIS METAPHYSICS 1 Status quaestionis Quite a lot has been written about what are taken to be inconsistencies in Proclus' doctrines and arguments, and they have provoked quite a lot of irrita- tion among modem scholars.' Proposition 98 of the Elementatio is surely not the most appropriate evidence to free our author from such charges. It is the proposition in which the author supposedly2 outlines his solution3 to the intri- cate problem of transcendence vs immanence of the Platonic Forms: "Every cause which is separated <from its effects> is at once everywhere and nowhere." Reading such statements might easily lead you to the middle of nowhere. Quite understandably, at first glance at least, Dodds claims4 that Proclus lays himself open to charges of inconsistency: the One, Proclus asserts, is unshareable (aJ.L£9H'tov), yet we are told at the very beginning of the Elementatio that "every manifold in some way partakes of the One". For a reply Dodds refers5 to Proclus' exposition of prop. 56, from which Dodds seems to gather that what is proprie aJ.L£9eK'tov 6 is nevertheless indirectly J.L£9e1C'tov through the J.LE't£"X.OJ.Leva it generates. Most unfortunately Dodds joins (ibid.) Emile Brehier7 in suggesting that "the ciJ.LffielC'tov is the intension of the concept (sic!, see n. 5), the J.LE'ttxov'ta are its extension, and the J.LE't£"X.OJ.Leva are that which links intension with extension". Rosan is quite right in rejecting8 such a comparison. For one thing, it would seem that the notion of intension should be associated with the JlE't£"X.OJlevov rather than the aJ.L£9elC'tov (as Rosan 1 Our colleague Dr. Piet Meijer has already drawn our attention to charges of the kind in E.R. Dodds, Proc/us. The Elements of Theology. A Revised Text with Translation, Introduction and Commentary, Oxford 2. 211, A.J. Festugiere, Commentaire sur le Timie de Proclus. Trad. et notes, Paris 1966 - 1968, II, 52 and K. Kremer, Die neuplatonische Seinsfhilosophie und ihre Wirkung auf Thomas von Aquin,L eiden 1971, 212 ff. See Dodds, Proclus. The Elements of Theology, 211. 3 For its historical background, see Dodds, Proclus. The Elements of Theology, 251 ff.; cf. 211. 4 Dodds, Proclus. The Elements of Theology, 211; cf. below, P.A. Meijer, 'Participation in Henads and Monads in Proclus Theologia Platonica III, chs. 1-6', 81 ff. 5 Dodds, ibid. 6 Dodds has "a term which is proprie cilli9enov" as he is in a constant habit of talking about terms where nothing of the kind is found in Proclus. Our author definitely does not substitute logical for metaphysical labels. See for the use of "prop." and "cor." note 40. 7 E. Brehier, Histoire de Ia philosophie, I, 477. 8 L.J. Rosan, The Philosophy of Proc/us. The Final Phase of Ancient Thought, New York 1949,89, n. 80. 2 L.M.DERUK remarks), for another it might reasonably be asked what on earth, from the logical point of view, should be understood by "that which links intension with extension". The present paper aims to investigate in some more detail the transcend- ence-immanence antinomy. First an outline of its historical background will be presented from Plato onward through Plotinus and Jamblichus up to Proclus. Next I shall discuss Proclus' doctrine on these matters in the larger perspective of his philosophy, and focus on the intriguing notion of O.l!ffieK'tov. Finally a few remarks will be added on the important role of what we might call "scope distinction" in Proclus' doctrines and dialectical arguments. 2 Causation and Participation in Plato Guthrie's likening9 of the causal function of Plato's transcendent Forms to Aristotle's Unmoved Mover can definitely find some support in Plato's works. Indeed, "of all the expressions with which Plato tried to convey the relationship between Forms and particulars, that of pattern and copy does seem to go nearest the root of the matter."IO To Plato, the Forms really combine the formal, efficient and final causes in one, a conception of "cause" which was to become typical of all Platonism since then. It will suffice on this score to recall the important Neoplatonic doctrine of Reversion (tlttcr'tpo<p{]), which is what the product of an efficient cause obtains in returning to its cause which acts, then, as a goal, really desired by its effect. In Plato's Phaedo this is, of course, not so clearly profiled as it is in later Platonism. However, the procedure is quite similar: physical things are not only said to partake of ·Forms and possess the latters' copies as "present in" themselves, but also to emulate the state of perfection characteristic of the Forms, albeit, of course, with a limited amount of success. In this picture, the mutual relationship between the transcendent Forms and their instances or particulars occurring in the physical world can most aptly be described in terms of a continuous tension between causation from above and participation from below, indeed a tension which, especially in Neoplatonism, was considered the main concomitant of the ontological process. As is well-known to every student of Plato, the notion of participation had met severe criticism from the old master Parmenides in Plato's dialogue of this name, and thus gave rise to a basic metaphysical problem (Parm. 130 e- 135 b): if participation is to be really active, the Form must be present in particulars and therefore split up; but if participation is to be ontologically effective and founded on a firm basis, the Forms must be transcendent. 9 W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy. V: The Later Plato and the Academy, Cambridge etc. 1978, 146. 10 Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy V, 146.

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