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A Discourse of the Non-Discursive in Plato and Pseudo-Dionysius

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DePaul University Via Sapientiae College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences 6-2016 A discourse of the non-discursive in Plato and pseudo-Dionysius Benjamin Frazer-Simser DePaul University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd Recommended Citation Frazer-Simser, Benjamin, "A discourse of the non-discursive in Plato and pseudo-Dionysius" (2016). College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations. 217. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/217 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at Via Sapientiae. It has been accepted for inclusion in College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Via Sapientiae. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A DISCOURSE OF THE NON -DISCURSIVE IN PLATO AND PSEUDO -DIONYSIUS A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Ph.D. June, 2106 By Benjamin Frazer-Simser Department of Philosophy College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences DePaul University Chicago, Illinois 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page 3 Chapter One: EROTIC AND PROPHETIC RHETORIC : The Art of Persuasion in Plato’s Phaedrus Page 13 Chapter Two: THE EXCESSIVELY GOOD : The Erotic Tale of the Sun in the Phaedrus, Symposium, and the Republic Page 69 Chapter Three: THE DIS -COMMUNITY OF LOVERS :Initiation of lovers in the Phaedrus and kinship in the Lysis Page 111 Interlude Page 162 Chapter Four: WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP: The Aporia of the Kataphatic and Apophatic Discourse of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Page 172 Chapter Five: COMMUNICATING WITH SILENCE : Prayer, Catharsis, and Suffering God Page 222 Chapter Six: ANARCHY IN THE HIERARCHY : The Decapitated Hierarchical Community Page 266 Conclusion Page 314 Bibliography Page 351 2 INTRODUCTION “There is no use trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland “For you could not know that which is not, for it is impossible, nor express it; for the same thing is for thought and for being [ oÎte går ên gno¤hw tÒ ge mØ §Òn oÈ går énstÒn oÎte frãsw tÚ går ÈtÚ noe›n ¶stn te k‹ e‡n ] ( DK 2.7-8). Parmenides indicates here, first, that thought is always the apprehension of some being. Whatever is thought is necessarily thought as something, that is to say, as some being. To think being is to think it as thinkable. Not only are being and intelligibility coextensive, as Parmenides states, but intelligibility is the very meaning of being. In his middle period, Plato's understanding of being as form or idea [e‰dow , fid°] seems to be a direct consequence of this identification of being and intelligibility. In the Phaedrus he writes, “For the colorless, formless and intangible are truly an existence that is most of all [oÈs ˆntvw oÔs ]” ( Phdr . 247c). What is real are the “looks” [ e‡dh ] that sensible things display to the mind, it is the whatness that can be definitively grasped in thought. The forms are “an existence that is most of all” precisely because they and only they are altogether intelligible. Being’s reality consists in its perfect intelligibility. Conversely, sensible instances are less than really real in that they are constituted as multiple appearances of the forms, apprehended by sensation and opinion [ dÒj ] ( R. 476a). As appearances, sensible entities are not mere illusion or nothing, but neither are they being itself, the reality that appears, the universal natures apprehended by the intellect. “That which altogether is [ tÚ pntel«w ˆn] is altogether 3 knowable, while that which in no way is is in no way knowable” ( R. 477a), whereas “if something should appear such as at once to be and not to be, this will lie in between that which purely is and that which wholly is not, and neither knowledge nor ignorance will be about it, but again what appears between ignorance and knowledge” ( R. 478d). Here, according to Plato, there are levels of being correlated to levels of cognitive apprehension, since being is identified with intelligibility. However, in many of what are taken to be his middle and late works, Plato, unlike Parmenides, would seem to present being not as simple but as complex, a multiplicity of interrelated forms. Each form is not any of the other forms. It is different from them and thus shares in difference; difference, no less than identity, is necessary for and constitutive of being. The forms are intelligible only in relation to each other by the method of “collection and division” whereby the less universal forms are identified as differentiated specifications of the more universal, and the more universal forms are understood as unities overarching and pervading a multiplicity of less universal ones ( Phdr . 265c). The forms’ differences from and relations to one another are necessary conditions for their intelligibility; “for through the interweaving of the forms with each other discourse [ lÒgow ] comes to be for us” ( Sph . 259e). Thus, for Plato here, he seems to think, it is precisely as intelligible that the altogether real must be a multiplicity of distinct, interwoven forms. Plato’s principle of the ‘good’ as that which provides being is also grounded in the identification of being and intelligibility. Any thing, event, action, or process can be intellectually understood only in terms of the good which is ultimately the “why” for it. In the Republic , the sun, by providing light, is said to make it possible for sensible things to be seen and for the eye to see them. Likewise, the good provides that which makes the forms themselves able 4 to be known and the intellect able to know them ( R. 508b-c). The good, then, is the enabling source of intelligibility and intellection. “When [the soul] is fixed upon that which truth and being [ élÆyeã te k‹ tÚ ˆn] illuminates, it thinks [ §nÒhs°n] and knows and appears to have intellect [ noËn]; but when it is fixed upon that which is mixed with darkness, upon that which comes into being and passes away, it opines and is dimmed and changes it opinions up and down and seem then not to have intellect ( R. 508d). After all as Heidegger has pointed out, the very word “truth” [ élÆye ], can be heard as “unconcealedness.” While this is a contested claim there is good reason to incorporate Heidegger’s translation. 1 The truth of the forms is their unconcealedness, their availability or accessibility to the mind; and this is provided by the good, “That which provides truth to things known and gives power to the knower is the form [ fid°n ] of the good” ( R. 508e). Any and all beings, the forms, are intelligible only in virtue of the “look of goodness” that they have and display. And yet, Socrates goes on to say “the good is not what truly is but lies beyond being [§p°ken t∞w oÈs¤w ] in seniority [ presbe¤&] and power” ( R. 509b). Since the good provides being and intelligibility to the forms, which taken together constitute oÈs¤, the whole of what is, it is itself not merely one of them, a member of a complex whole but lies “beyond” them. Each form is constituted as being by its proper determination. In the absence of differentiation, distinction, determination, and hence in the absence of multiplicity there is not intelligibility and therefore no being. Being itself is not the first principle but rather derives from the good, which itself is “beyond being.” Since every being is intelligible, and hence is, only in virtue of the determination whereby it is what it is, every being depends for its existence on that determination. Every being must have unity, must be some one being, in order to be; but being as 1 See especially Sean D. Kirkland, The Ontology of Socratic Questioning in the Plato’s Early Dialogue s (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), pp.51-57. 5 a whole and each being within it involves multiplicity of content, without which it would not be intelligible. Therefore, each being can be only in virtue of the unity by which it is this one being. In short, for any being, to be is to be delimited and unitary, and hence have a dependence on the unifying definition by which it is the one being that it is. Having discovered that being as such must be dependent one turns to the good as the source on which being itself depends, that by which all beings are beings at all. Again, since to be is to be intelligible and therefore delimited, any being whatsoever is dependent on its determination and is thus derivative. Hence, to be is to be derivative. No being, therefore, can be the first principle, and the first principle cannot be any being; for if it were any being it would be finite and hence not within the complex totality of all beings, rather than the source of that totality. To put it yet another way, if the good were a member of the totality of beings, that is to say, were a being, it would be differentiated from the other beings within that totality and so would be determinate, finite, and dependent. No common term whatsoever including ‘being’ can embrace both the good and its products, for the good would then be included within the totality and differentiated from others within it.
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