Phi201 - wk 4 - lect1

Phi201- Medieval PHi. Wk4 Mystical Platonists

Gnostics:

Platinus (204 - 270)
Origen (185-254)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c.500)
John Scottus Eriugena (c.800-877)

Other Lot:
St. Augustine (354-430)
Boethius (c.480-c.525)

For Augustine and Boeithius it's that they have no element of mysticism in their thought but it is not as central a place.

Today's agenda:

Bird's-eye summary /illustration / recap of how some themes developed or echoed in the writings of the 'mystic' strand.

Firstly: recall the Platinian doctrine that the One is 'beyond Being'. How can we understand this strange claim? In tutorials, use law that according to Platinus all beings - a choir, an army, a table, the soul, the intellect - possess some sort of unity, without which unity they would not exist. What differentiates a char, and existing thing, from the planks, it's made of, is unity. The chair is a new thing existing over and above the planks, because of this unity. Unity makes new things come into being. See point one of the handout.

The flock exists (has being) because the individual binds are bound together by some sort of unity. If they were scattered across the world, without unity, the flock would not exist.

*These things, however, are only participants in unity. The ultimate source of unity, unity itself, is the One.

Quote 2.

In this sense the One, being the source of unity and hence being, is beyond Being. Does this mean that the One itself has no being? You don't have to say this. You might say: the One has perfect being. St. Augustine says this and most later medieval philosophers say this about God. But note that this would be perfect being in our ordinary sense. And Platinus feels that this would be to illegitimately downplay the transcendence, the beyondness, of the One - it's difference from the beings it gives being to. Why Platinus feels this way may become clearer if we note that the same holds for all other determinations or characteristics, even of a perfect sort.

It is Platonic Forms or Idens that have perfect versions of the characteristics we group with our intellects. Perfect beauty or wisdom is a form. Equally, then, if there was a perfect being (in our sense) it would be in the world of Forms. But the One is the source of that world, hence beyond it, so it can't have even perfect being. (One way to look at it:) The One is beyond the Intellect and hence beyond e.g beauty. So it is not beautiful. But it doesn't fail to be beautiful through lack; it fails to be so through transcendence.

This is the idea behind NEgative Theology (apophatic theology, via negation) as opposed to Positive Theology (catophatic, via affirmation). These aren't mutally exclusive. You start by affirming perfect beauty of God. This is the catophatic stage. Then you realise that He is transcendent and beyond even perfect beauty. So you deny beauty of Him. This is the apophatic stage. Then you realise that this is non-beauty through transcendence and not lack, so you attribute the predicate 'super- or hyper- beautiful'. This is the via eminentia.

This treatment finds very influential expression in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. He passed his writings off as the work of the Dionysius converted by St. Paul and so the texts had a great deal of influence .

Known as the Areopagite because the conversion took place on the hill in Rome called the Areopagus. It became clear much later that some of the writing was cribbed from Proclus, a Neoplatonist who lived much later than St. Paul. Often known as Pseudo-Penys. See Quotes from 'The Divine Names' - 'Mystical Theology'.

We cannot grasp God, through conceptual thought. Our catergories are not adequate to Him. (see ch.5 of Mystical Theology). The problem is not however, with our categories, or our cognitive limitations. Our lack of ability to get to God via intellect is not epistemalogical, but metaphistical. No categories are adequate to Him. So any genuine contact would have to be non-intellectual and mystical. A non-conceptual union rather than a knowing.