The Background to Proclus and Damascius

chapter 1 The Background to Proclus and Damascius

The issues faced by Proclus and Damascius for the first principle go back to the very beginning of the Neoplatonic tradition with Plotinus and his formulation of the first principle as the One. For Plotinus and all subsequent Neoplatonists, the One transcends Being and all beings as their cause: it can- not be characterized by any attributes which pertain to Being, chief among which is plurality. Yet this gives rise to the basic tension faced by all Neo- platonists: while transcending its effects, the One as the first cause must pre-contain what it produces. Hence, it must pre-contain, in some sense, plurality and all the other attributes of Being as their cause, while not itself being a plurality or in any sense like Being and other beings. Balancing the One’s transcendence and causality becomes one of the central perennial issues faced for all Neoplatonists and philosophers influenced by this line of thought. As we will see after this chapter, this ultimately motivates Proclus’ and Damascius’ respective positions to maintain a hard distance between the first principle and Being: for Proclus this must be the One as unparticipated, and for Damascius this must be the Ineffable rather than the One. To understand what leads us to both figures’ refined positions, we should first see the com- mon foundation laid by Plotinus and his successors, especially Porphyry and Iamblichus, inasmuch as the latter become the intermediaries to which Pro- clus and Damascius directly respond. We will first start with Plotinus in Section 1.1 and see how he comes to assert the One as the first principle over Intellect, and how his description of the One as the ‘power of all things’ (δύναμις πάντων) leads to the possibility for postu- lating the One as paradigmatic of Intellect’s being. And in Sections 1.2–1.3 we will see how Porphyry and Iamblichus, as Plotinus’ successors, adapt his formulation of the One, as both ‘one’-only ad extra and characterized by plurality ad intra. As we will see, the reception of Plotinus’ framework in these latter figures becomes an important background for Proclus in establishing a new understanding of causality to support the One’s transcendence over—and causality of—all things. In turn, this also gives us the background to see how Damascius represents a return back to Plotinus (via Iamblichus), while also radically transforming Proclus’ framework.

1.1 Plotinus

Among Plotinus’ many arguments for the One throughout the Enneads, one we find is his emphasis on the One’s independence in certain, specific re- spects: namely the One does not imply dependence on parts; lacks mixture with the effects after it; and thereby does not imply potentiality in any sense. The formulation is loosely similar to Aristotle’s argument for the unmoved mover as the first cause in Metaphysics Λ.6–9, where Aristotle shows that the principle must always be in act (ἐνέργεια) and without matter and potentiality.1 For Aris- totle, these criteria imply that the principle is an intellect that thinks itself.2 In- asmuch as the principle must be simple, Plotinus certainly agrees with Aristotle, alongside various prior Middle Platonists, yet he departs from this view in two ways: first, by arguing that intellection inherently implies duality, and second, that any kind of intellect implies a principle that is not such. This final view comes about when Plotinus evaluates how unity is a pre-condition for all Forms and entities, and that it eventually leads to an entity that is simply pure unity. We see the start of this argument in Ennead v.4.1 with Plotinus’ definition of simplicity as the ground for all composed beings:

For there must be something before all things—this being simple—and [it must be] something distinct from the things which come after it, ex- isting by itself, not mixed with the things which are from it, and again able to be present in a different way to the other things, being really one (ὄντως ἕν)—and not a different being and then one—according to which it is false even to say that it is ‘one’,3 and there is no account or knowledge of it. It is indeed also said to be beyond being (ἐπέκεινα οὐσίας): for if it will not to be simple, outside all coincidence and composition and really one, it could not be a principle. And it is the most self-sufficient (αὐταρ- κέστατόν), being simple and the first among all things: for that which is not the first is in need of that which is before it, and what is not simple is in need of the simple things in it (τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ ἁπλῶν), so that it can come into existence from them.4 Enn. v.4.1, 5–15

1 Aristotle, Met. Λ.6, esp. 1071b12–31. 2 Cf. Aristotle, Met. Λ.9, 1075a5–10. 3 Cf. Plato, Parm. 141e7 ff. 4 Compare this passage with Plotinus, Enn. v.6.4, esp. 1–11, where ‘one’ and ‘simple’ (ἁπλοῦς) are contrasted: Intellect is ‘one’ as is the Good/One, but only the One is ‘simple’. All subsequent citations of Enn. in this section are from Plotinus.