Metaphysics and metaphysical perspectives
The changing fates of Neoplatonism, from a late esoteric appendage to the Classical period of ancient philosophy to an up-and-coming vibrant field, is ostensibly a result of the advances we have made in understanding Neoplatonic metaphysics, the heart of hearts of Neoplatonism. The goal of this part is to present the status quo of Neoplatonic metaphysics today from three main perspectives: its principal conceptual network, its main proponents, and the latest directions of research. In almost all cases, in a typical Neoplatonic threefold fashion, the findings of the three perspectives come together in a single point revealing the defining role of metaphysics for Neoplatonism.
To understand Neoplatonism means to understand Neoplatonic metaphysics. This approach has guided our studies for a long time and has revealed a complex conceptual structure that has left us more often than not scraping for answers and, refusing to admit defeat, willing to start from scratch again and again. But charting the main conceptual structure of Neoplatonic metaphysics (the first perspective above) as a hierarchical organization of three underlying principles of existence – until recently commonly known as “the hypostases” of the One, Intellect and Soul and as of lately referred to as “layers”, “causal priority/posteriority” or “stops” of reality – has sketched very “dimly”, to borrow the Neoplatonists’ own expression, the main contours of their metaphysical map. But this map remains a map; that is, a two-dimensional representation of entities and not a “realtime” model of how these entities work. The further exploration of the main pillars on this map has required scholars to zoom in (i) microscopically into their internal structure and (ii) macroscopically into their interrelations. The results have unravelled a dynamic holistic system or, to borrow again from the Neoplatonic linguistic repertoire, a system which is “boiling with life”.
Thus Neoplatonic metaphysics is transformed from the study of the edifice of reality to the study of the underlying (causal) processes of reality. It becomes a study of the inner-and interrelations between the individual components and processes in the universe. And here comes the second perspective. Working out the complexity of these relations, constantly trying to develop a more accurate operating model, requires a Promethean stroke of genius in combination with Sisyphean determination. In this respect, it is necessary to view Neoplatonic metaphysics not only as a result of Plotinus’ ingenuity and labour, but also as a series of the combined Promethean–Sisyphean efforts of all Neoplatonists. Among them are scholarchs of the stature of Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus and Damascius and the studiousness of Philoponus, Olympiodorus, Stephanus of Alexandria and, not to forget, the anonymous commentators.
Metaphysics is the study of the invisible relations in what there is, the universe, from the supra-celestial bodies to human psychology. Consequently Neoplatonic metaphysics relates to every aspect of the human condition: rational, irrational, scientific, epistemological, cognitive, psychological, religious, aesthetic and so on and so forth. This observation introduces the third perspective, which brings to light the latest directions of research in the study of metaphysics and demonstrates its defining role for Neoplatonism.
Given the “global” approach to Neoplatonic metaphysics and especially the intimate relation between metaphysics and ethics, today’s editors of a comprehensive volume on Neoplatonism may well entertain the possibility of organizing the presentation of the core divisions of Neoplatonic philosophy in the Handbook according to the organization of the Neoplatonic curricula (symbolically presented in Porphyry’s arrangement of Plotinus’ Enneads). This means to start from ethics, to proceed to physics, then to psychology, and to culminate in metaphysics. The editors of this volume were enticed by the anagogical authenticity of this organizing method, its originality (in comparison with the more standard organization from metaphysics to physics, to ethics, to aesthetics), and by intellectual curiosity about the benefits the new perspective may yield. After weighing what is the single most crucial point from which the rest of Neoplatonic philosophy falls into place, however, the choice landed once again on metaphysics. The thematic parts of the Handbook start with metaphysics not because it has been traditionally the most complex and studied branch of Neoplatonic philosophy but because it is the cornerstone or the linchpin for all other areas of Neoplatonic thought. If a philosophical system postulates an intelligible reality as the paradigm, rational principle, or cause (depending on the preferred viewpoint) of the physical world and a single transcendent principle as a source of this intelligible reality, it naturally follows that every aspect of this philosophy is but metaphysics.
The presentation of metaphysics opens with Ahbel-Rappe’s chapter on “Metaphysics: the origin of becoming and the resolution of ignorance” (Chapter 11), which outlines the course of Neoplatonic metaphysics from Plotinus to Damascius in parallel with the development of the two main types of Neoplatonic metaphysical discourses (constructive and deconstructive or apophatic). Ahbel-Rappe explains and attempts to bridge the gap between metaphysics as an abstract form of relational, propositional or dialectical reasoning of a priori postulates and the individual who, by using this reasoning, pushes the limits of rationality and resorts to a more contemplative form of knowledge. The Neoplatonic solutions – or the lack thereof – of this aporia depend on the angle of examination and range from contemplative productivity in Plotinus, to causality in Proclus, to a sober reminder of the limits of our all too human comprehension, in Damascius.
In his “Metaphysics of the One” (Chapter 12), Halfwassen addresses the central question – and problem – of Neoplatonic metaphysics: the relation between the One and many which is further subsumed in the tension between the One, as the productive principle of existence and the basis of being and thought, and the One which is absolutely homogenous, self-sufficient and transcendent. Plotinus’ concept of the One is founded on the principle that everything that is conceivable, from the monolithic oneness of Being to the fragmented coherence of Many, has unity. This unity ontologically precedes and founds even the subjective positioning of Thought. Our knowledge of the universe then depends on our ability to understand; that is, to ascend, through a henological reduction and intellectual contemplation, to the absolute One as pure unity and an object of negative theology. These themes are further elaborated in Part IV dealing with language, epistemology and psychology.
Slaveva-Griffin’s chapter on “Number in the metaphysical landscape” (Chapter 13) presents the aspect of Neoplatonism most heavily endorsed by all shades of Platonism and Pythagoreanism: the much acclaimed and debated relation between mathematics and metaphysics, from Plotinus to Iamblichus, Syrianus and Proclus. This aspect explains the structure of the intelligible realm and the physical world as an orderly progression from the One to many which is not measured by quantitative changes in magnitude and multitude, but by the dynamic, ontologically correspondent, nature of number. Throughout its many permutations, the Neoplatonic concept of number explicates the inner relations of the intelligible, the conceptual tension between the transcendent One and the productive One, the proliferation of the grades of reality and the relation between ontology and theology. Ultimately, the question about the relation between number and metaphysics is a question about the relation between number and substance as the primary kind of being, and the relation between number and the soul as a mediator between the intelligible realm and the physical world. This chapter introduces the major metaphysical topics of substance and matter, treated respectively in the ensuing two chapters, as well as the larger themes of cognition, epistemology and psychology in Part IV.
Moving from the dynamic relations between the different layers of reality to a more topical treatment of a single concept, Chiaradonna’s chapter on “Substance” (Chapter 14) presents the nature, development and latest research questions of this fundamental concept of Neoplatonic metaphysics. The initial difficulty concerns which criteria to use in determining the primary nature of substance. Is it a primary subject of all other things and, if it is, should it be equated with matter, which is addressed in the following chapter? Is it a primary formal cause in the structure of corporeality? Is it a primary self-subsistent principle of motion? Or is it a primary intelligible essence separate from its physical phe-nomenalization? The gradualist nature of Neoplatonic metaphysics allows the opportunity for various interpretations and solutions to the problem.
Narbonne’s chapter on “Matter and evil in the Neoplatonic tradition” (Chapter 15) examines the place and role of the ontologically opposite corollary of metaphysics: matter. The concept of matter and its counterpart, the principle of evil, are inseparable concomitants of any discussion of Neoplatonic metaphysics. As the zero-grade of ontological substantiation, matter is the conceptual negative of being or Form as the full grade of ontological substantiation. As such, matter possesses the ontologically unredeemable qualities of poverty, passivity, plasticity, indefinability, unlimitedness, unmeasuredness, lack of order and thus intrinsic evil (O’Brien 1971, 1998, 1999; Corrigan 1996a). Depending on their tolerance of the idea of dualism, the Neoplatonists offer different explanations of the presence and origin of matter and evil in the structure of the universe. Groundbreaking research in this area has allowed us to understand better the delicacy with which the later Neoplatonists – in comparison to Plotinus’ linear negation of matter – treat the physical world as exemplified in the concept of “enmattered forms” (Opsomer 2001; Opsomer & Steel 2003; Phillips 2007; Narbonne 2009). In this respect, even the discussion of matter and evil pertains to the domain of metaphysics, while it looks ahead to the focal presentations of physics and ethics, in Parts V and VI, respectively.