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Plato vs. Aristotle: A Fundamental Divide? With Dr. Rares Marinescu
41 Plays8 days ago
In this episode, Sam Bennett speaks with Dr. Rareș Ilie Marinescu about the depth of the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle. Rareș is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Classics at the University of Toronto and the author of Proclus on Aristotle on Plato: A Case Study on Motion. Do Plato and Aristotle merely disagree at the surface level, or do they diverge at the level of first principles? Is motion ultimately explained by a self moving soul or by an unmoved intellect? Can a self moving soul truly ground the motion of bodies, or must the ultimate source of motion be entirely unmoved? Is Aristotle’s unmoved mover only a final cause, or does it also produce being? Did Aristotle deny the existence of the One, and if so, what follows from that denial? If the highest principle is misidentified, does the entire metaphysical system shift with it? Through the lens of Proclus, this discussion moves from kinematics to psychology to theology, asking if Plato and Aristotle can be harmonized.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Dionysus Circle podcast. My name is Dr. Sam Bennett and today I'm sharing a conversation with philosopher Reresh Marinescu, fellow at University of Toronto. So we'll be discussing themes from his new book, Proclus on Aristotle on Plato, a case study on motion. So some of the key questions we talk about first is, you know, how deep is the disagreement between Plato and Aristotle? And and how each understands the soul, especially in connection to motion.
00:00:31
Speaker
um And then finally, you know, whether the ultimate principle of reality should be identified with the one or instead with the intellect. I started the conversation by asking about his background, and I hope you and you enjoy the episode.
00:00:47
Speaker
um i I grew up in Germany, most mostly, but I spent big part of my education in the UK. So I did my undergrad in in Germany, but then went for grad studies to Cambridge.
00:00:58
Speaker
um And I first got into philosophy, I think as a teenager, I just started asking the usual big questions about reality and What exactly are we supposed to do? What about God? And, you know, the the classical questions. But I think ah in in my case, it was also connected to studying Latin and Greek because I was fortunate enough in school to have Latin. And there was also a small Greek program. So like I got into that as well. And so pretty early on, I got to study or look at these questions from ah from an ancient perspective as well.
00:01:32
Speaker
And I think that really put me then on track to studying ancient philosophy then as an undergraduate and graduate
Plato and Aristotle: Harmony or Opposition?
00:01:39
Speaker
student. A key theme in your work is the question of the harmony between the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, especially as that harmony is understood by Neoplatonists like Proclus. so The question is basically, you know how did certain figures, especially Neoplatonists in late antiquity, think about the compatibility between these two philosophers?
00:02:04
Speaker
um you know Did they see Plato and Aristotle as fundamentally in agreement or as deeply ah deeply opposed? right and so that That seems to be one of the key questions in your research. Would do you agree with that? kind of Yeah, absolutely. I mean, definitely in my doctoral work and and some of the articles and and, of course, the thesis that then came out as the as a book, as you've announced originally, I think, yeah, it was definitely about the origins of this harmony thesis. How does it actually play out? how And how does it play out specifically in the case of someone like Proclus? where
00:02:42
Speaker
Well, I think at least it's it doesn't play a very prominent role or he's actually actively fighting against it. Right, yeah, and we'll we'll get into that in a moment. Exactly. And so maybe um just to kind of start things off in a simple way, maybe you could just talk a little bit about you know ah how you would understand Neoplatonism as a philosophical movement. Because you know like we already indicated, we're going to be thinking about this whole question of the harmony between Aristotle and Plato from the perspective of Proclus.
Neoplatonism and Proclus' Expansion
00:03:14
Speaker
So what did Proclus think about the harmony between?
00:03:17
Speaker
and Aristotle and Plato. So yeah, could could you maybe help situate that kind of discussion by just talking a little bit about what you what you take the Neoplatonism of Proclus to to amount to? what What does it mean for him to be a Neoplatonist in your mind?
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, maybe maybe let's start with the first part of the question, what exactly is Neoplatonism? I mean, it's a philosophical movement, starts in the third century, and I think if we compare it um with previous forms of Platonism, one thing that really sticks out is this ah principle of the one, which is the highest principle in their philosophical system. Everything is supposed to derive from it.
00:03:58
Speaker
Unlike their predecessors, there or unlike some of their predecessors, they're clearly monists, so they clearly believe that everything, all of reality, derives from one principle, not from two principles, which were obviously a a type of, ah or yeah, one interpretation that was out there of Plato. um You find it already in Aristotle's testimonies, according to which Plato posits two highest principles.
00:04:25
Speaker
Anyway, so they think, okay, there's only one highest principle. So that's very important and quite different than some of the middle Platonists, some people in the early academy. Another big difference or mark where they stand out is that this principle transcends being. So
Aristotle vs Proclus: Principles of Reality
00:04:44
Speaker
there are various ways in how we can understand that, but usually what they say is that the one is the source of being, is the source of all of reality ultimately, but it itself is not one of the things of which we can say that it is just like a a form of beauty is or perhaps sensible things come to be. The one is neither of these.
00:05:12
Speaker
And because it doesn't, strictly speaking, exist, it also is not an object of thought. Because only those things that exist can be an object of thought. And those things that, properly speaking, are, according to a Platonist, are, of course, the forms. And so these are the primary objects of knowledge. So the one really is not just beyond being, but also beyond knowledge. um and is the one source of reality, the single source of reality. So I would say that's how Neoplatonism sticks out to other forms of Platonism that were before them, before the third century, before Plotinus, the the the person that first systematizes Platonism in this way, and as it is later known as Neoplatonism.
00:05:58
Speaker
um And then if we compare him with someone like Proclus, or we try to incorporate contextualized Proclus within Neoplatonism, we see that he of course sticks to its main tenets, and he continues very much in an exegetical vein as well of reading Plato and Aristotle.
00:06:21
Speaker
um But what he's trying to do is he's trying to to complete the system. So he takes over a system from his various predecessors, starting with Plotinus, but also his teacher Cyrenius, and he's trying to close certain gaps.
00:06:38
Speaker
um So as as I mentioned, a big part of Neoplatonism is deriving everything from the one. You have different levels then, and you have to figure out how many different levels are there really up until matter.
00:06:51
Speaker
Plotinus provides an answer, Proclus provides an answer, and Proclus' answer will include more levels and a higher degree of differentiation between them than in the case of Plotinus. So that's that's sort of what Proclus ah figures into this bigger picture.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, and just to anticipate there, because you know we'll be obviously talking about Aristotle a good bit in our conversation. you know It's interesting to think about how Aristotle also seemingly has an ultimate principle.
00:07:25
Speaker
um But yeah, he wouldn't describe it as beyond being. I don't think i don't think he would describe it as beyond intellect. Again, yeah, he might say it's like, in some sense, the source of everything, although even there some questions are going to arise for us um and then another kind of thing i was just thinking initially is there's also maybe a kind of hierarchy of being with aristotle you know like in terms of maybe an unmoved mover then um the like celestial uh realm and then kind of the sublunar realm so there's a kind of heart but it's yeah it definitely does not seem to be quite as uh um
00:08:09
Speaker
intricate, complicated as a more yeah platonic hierarchy. But anyway, yeah, we'll kind of get into a lot of those distinctions soon. but Maybe now we can shift to you know, a little bit more
Philosophical Disagreements on Forms and Soul
00:08:21
Speaker
on that harmony question that we mentioned, which is really important. So you kind of mentioned in your work how there's's there's different kinds of harmonies that the Neoplatonists were interested in. So one type of harmony that they were concerned with was like how harmonious is Plato with respect to more of like the Greek theological tradition. So you can be thinking about like, you know,
00:08:45
Speaker
Chaldean oracles and things like that. But the one that we're really focused on is, you know, the harmony or disharmony between Plato and Aristotle. And so, um you know, maybe one place to begin is what would be some points in Aristotle where, where,
00:09:02
Speaker
the he appears most critical. what What are some kind of like classic just instances to have on the table where it looks like Aristotle is, you know, very critical of Plato opposed to Plato? Because this is why I guess it would be a question about their harmony.
00:09:20
Speaker
hey So... Yeah, I would say an obvious place to start would be in Aristotle's metaphysics. Aristotle's metaphysics is supposed to deal also with his predecessors, and Aristotle is trying to extract as much...
00:09:37
Speaker
useful knowledge that he can from them. I mean, obviously from his perspective, useful. um Ours might differ a bit. And there is specifically in the first book where he offers us an overview over his predecessors and what they said about the principles of reality and how they use them as causes.
00:09:56
Speaker
um And obviously he deals with Plato there and he has one chapter, or at least for us, it's a Modern editions, it's a chapter. Chapter 9. And chapter 9 is an attack on aristotle's Plato's sorry theory
Critiques of Aristotle by Neoplatonists
00:10:12
Speaker
of forms.
00:10:13
Speaker
um These attacks, ah these objections that you find there are in a very... concise form, sometimes quite obscure. It's unclear what exactly he's targeting there. He definitely seems to refer to types of criticisms that were more generally prevalent. So some are so abbreviated that we might assume, well,
00:10:37
Speaker
the people that read it or were supposed to read it, they they would kind of know, oh, yeah, it's the Ferdman argument, right? We know what the Ferdman argument is. or We have one interpretation of it. So if I tell you, oh, Ferdman argument, say one sentence about it, you know, oh, yes, sure, it's a Ferdman argument.
00:10:53
Speaker
I know what it's based on. ah You kind of find it in the Plato's Parmenides, so perhaps a version of it. And this is a way ah in which it could play out. So anyway, so there's a number of criticisms there targeting the forms.
00:11:07
Speaker
What are the forms? Plato seems to say they're numbers. What does this even mean? Certain absurdities follow. um What's the extent of the forms? Of what things are their forms?
00:11:18
Speaker
right And then certain absurdities follow according to Aristotle. um Or it's things like ah ah but how many forms are there even, and Plato seems to create more problems than he wants to solve. He wants to give us explanations of the things out there, but actually he comes up with more explanations and more problems that and need further explanations. so that That's some of the criticism that Aristotle puts forward there.
00:11:50
Speaker
that's a very prominent place. Another prominent place would be the the anima, the on the soul. And there he targets Plato's conception on the soul. And I've i've dedicated quite a lot of space to that in my my book.
00:12:05
Speaker
um And one obvious criticism there is, well, Plato says that the soul moves itself, but in fact, only things that are spatially extended can move.
00:12:16
Speaker
The soul is not spatially extended. Therefore, the soul doesn't move. Therefore, Plato's definition and conception of the soul is is wrong and goes into a yeah bad direction and we should
Desire and Motion in Aristotle's Philosophy
00:12:30
Speaker
reject it. So these are two obvious places, theory of forms, conception of soul. where Yeah, I was i was saying. Aristotle pretty clearly seems to disagree with Plato.
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking, I think the most famous disagreement has to probably be the the first one you mentioned, the theory of forms. Yeah. i here Another ah kind of famous one has to do with probably mathematical entities like yeah the I think Aristotle kind of rejects the idea that like, um, mathematical objects are sort of separate, yeah but like the, but then you mentioned, you know, the soul, there's some disagreements about the soul and that's something going to get into.
00:13:13
Speaker
And then there's also going to be some disagreements about, um, the, the first mover. Um, and, uh, you know, which is connected to an agreement, which is that ah we, you know, I think both Aristotle and Plato think that we need to explain the motion of bodies. Bodies are in motion and this kind of needs a higher explanation. But great, yeah, so those are some of yeah, but those are some of the important, I guess the form of the good, I guess that would be another kind of one to think about in terms of a a famous disagreement. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:13:50
Speaker
which partly plays into his criticism of the theory of forms, but is also related to some other issues ah that perhaps there is no higher genus of the good. It's different issues that converge there, I think. yeah Good. um And
Proclus' Perspective on Motion and the Soul
00:14:06
Speaker
then really quickly, do you want to highlight anything where you you think, you know, hey, this is this is a really significant overlap, I mean, between Aristotle and Plato?
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think Aristotle himself would agree that Plato is right in positing the existence of immaterial substances. So Aristotle ah looks at the history of philosophy, and he sees a number of people that think that only matter exists. and Or let's put it this way, maybe not matter in the pure sense, but things constituted of, made up of matter, considered by matter, material beings.
00:14:50
Speaker
um And obviously many pre-Socratics seem to hold that view and they try to explain then reality as an interplay of different material constituents.
00:15:01
Speaker
um where other immaterial qualities perhaps just supervene, come on top of them, but do not have like a separate existence. So Plato pretty clearly breaks with that tradition. He thinks there is something above matter that has a separate existence. And Aristotle picks that up. He picks it up. He he does not follow um Plato's... ah view of seeing these immaterial substances as sort of separate universals, right? um But he does think that there are separate immaterial substances that play a major role in accounting um for
00:15:42
Speaker
sensible reality and the way sensible reality functions uh he just happens to call those intellects um of course number of differences then come up but uh you know from a more abstract level do you accept the material substances or not plato and aristotle would say yes and aristotle would agree that plato said yes he would not deny that and he would say that uh there's a clear difference here between how Plato, how I and Plato see reality and how these other pre-Socratics see reality.
00:16:13
Speaker
Yeah, that's really helpful. Yeah. So it's like, okay, he he does reject separate universals. He does reject forms existing apart from particulars. So that type of immaterial substance, I guess he would reject. However, he does keep um some sort of immaterial substances and so far as we have a separate intellect. or We don't, but there there exists a separate intellect. yeah yeah There's a kind of divine... Multiple of these, right? Not just one. Oh, right. right Yes. yes how many How many unmoved movers are there? you know yeah And then, um anyway, then there's yeah and just in general, there's there's going to be these non-bodily causes of
00:16:56
Speaker
And if you look at the metaphysics, so if you look at Lambda 8, he's asking how many im material substances are there. And um he then mentions the Platonists. okay the The Platonists talk about immaterial substances and they say there are, well, actually, they they they they don't really say how many there are, so there's a problem. But i Aristotle,
The One vs Unmoved Intellect: A Metaphysical Debate
00:17:16
Speaker
I can tell you how many there are.
00:17:18
Speaker
because famously by considering astronomy you can figure out how many spheres there are and then you can figure out how many intellects must be connected to these spheres.
00:17:28
Speaker
So there clearly he seems to see place himself as a successor of this tradition. Sure, he's superior, sure he considers of immaterial substances different, but he's part of this discourse to a certain degree. That helps us understand why you know the question of the harmony between Aristotle and Plato would be on the table for the Neoplatonists, why they would be concerned with this question. Because on the one hand, we have you know them butting heads. On the other hand, we have overlap. okay so um
00:18:01
Speaker
And yeah, and we're in our our focus is going to be on Proclus in a moment. ah But I just kind of wanted you really quick, like you want to just comment a little bit on Plotinus, like you know broad and broad strokes, how would he you know think about like the harmony between these two?
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah, so, I mean, obviously, earlier we have talked about what characterizes Neoplatonism, and I think another very important characteristic Yeah, of of Neoplatonism, that plays a major role in Plotinus, the founder of what we now call Neoplatonism, um ah which he just saw as a revival and systematization of Plato's philosophy. An important characteristic of that is the importance attributed to Aristotle. So if you compare how Neoplatonism treat Aristotle and compare
00:18:51
Speaker
with what the middle Platonists are doing, so Platonists of the imperial age, the first two centuries AD, you will see that Aristotle plays a much more important role, even even if only as a as but an object of criticism. But most often he's not an object of criticism, he's seen as a high authority, and you need to deal with what he has said. Whereas the imperial age Platonists would simply not attribute such an important role to Aristotle.
00:19:22
Speaker
Perhaps it's also connected that they simply don't have access to some of his writings, right? But clearly there is also method methodological difference in approaching Aristotle between Imperial Age Platonists and the Neoplatonists, starting with Plotinus.
00:19:39
Speaker
So in Plotinus we can see um that he has read Aristotle very thoroughly, um Every page almost has some engagement with Aristotle implicitly, not explicitly, sometimes explicit as well.
00:19:55
Speaker
um And he's a very important interlocutor for him right after Plato. You can you can see that. Nevertheless, Plotinus has a
Neoplatonism's Influence on Modern Theology
00:20:05
Speaker
critical attitude towards Aristotle, and he um introduces a certain attitude which pops up sometimes again in the Neoplatonist tradition, but most other later Neoplatonists would not follow him in this critical attitude that he has vis-a-vis Aristotle.
00:20:24
Speaker
Aristotle. So in brief, what does he believe? Well, he he definitely believes that Aristotle did not have a full insight into how the myth of metaphysical hierarchy works. He definitely thinks deficiently of the the highest principle. there's There are some problems there. And he thinks deficiently, especially about the five highest genera. So there are three Eniads, 6.1 to 3, where Plotinus deals quite critically with Aristotle's view on the highest genera of being.
00:21:00
Speaker
um me Plotinus famously thinks there are five taken over from the sophist, the sophist Plato's sophist. And he brings this in a critical discussion
Conclusion and Future Projects
00:21:11
Speaker
with Aristotle, who he thinks rejects them. and That, of course, has important consequences for how we see reality as a whole.
00:21:24
Speaker
but Yeah, and just for the listeners, like when you're talking about those middle imperial Platonists, that's Alcino... Yeah, Alcinoes, I think. Alcinoes, okay. you have plutar ptar members Yeah, Yeah.
00:21:37
Speaker
Numenius would be another... point Yes, right, yeah. And then, you know, Plotinus yeah coming after them. And then... ah about 150 years after Plotinus is when we're getting Proclus. And yeah, I appreciate you highlighting. So already in Plotinus, there is you know um ah concern about ah concern about the highest principle, you know concern with Aristotle identifying the highest principle with of with intellect, which we will get into more in a moment. and so um you know I was thinking about this whole issue of of the question of harmony, and it seems like you know when addressing that question,
00:22:19
Speaker
You know, there's different options on the table, you know, like one option is like, hey, look, there's a lot of apparent disagreement between Aristotle and and Plato, but actually it's a surface level. It's it's just verbal, you know. um And then another option is like, yeah, there is genuine philosophical disagreement, but they're not about the fundamental things.
00:22:42
Speaker
And then the kind of the final position, which I think is, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this is gonna be more proclosis position, which is that, no, there really is a genuine philosophical disagreement. It's not just verbal, it's not just surface level.
00:22:56
Speaker
And that disagreement concerns really important stuff. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't read Aristotle. So anyway, yeah, so do you wanna kind of talk a little bit about, you know, proclosis position? Would you agree with that the way I just described it in your work?
00:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, so I think how it works out in the tradition is that, as I said, Plotinus comes along, attributes great authority to Aristotle. We have to study Aristotle, but we don't necessarily have to agree with whatever Aristotle says. He's especially useful for ah natural philosophy, for instance, or logic.
00:23:32
Speaker
um What then happens in the Platonist tradition is that the sort of second founder of Neoplatonism, if you want to use these terms, Iamblichus comes along.
00:23:43
Speaker
So he's towards the end of the third century, a generation or two after after Plotinus. is famous for... is famous for
00:23:56
Speaker
shifting the interest of Platonism towards a more religious dimension. So that's one aspect. But he's also famous for introducing a certain curriculum, a stabilizing a certain order in which the Platonic dialogues are supposed to be read, and also Aristotle's works, which are seen as ah preparatory for the study of Plato.
00:24:21
Speaker
And hand in hand, apparently, goes in a certain view of the role Aristotle plays. And that role is, again, like in Plotinus, yes, high authority, very important, but he's in agreement with Iamblichus. That's something that you don't really seem to find in Plotinus. we Plotinus would say, of course, they're in agreement on some things, but not like on a fundamental radical level necessarily, or that they're in agreement not just on a fundamental level, but in almost all
00:24:53
Speaker
issues ah concerning their philosophy. That's something that the Amblica seems to claim, and that's something that then becomes very ah prominent in the in the later ah ah Neoplatonist tradition. So but but certainly ah during the time of Proclus, if we look at what's going on in the other big center of Neoplatonism, Alexandria,
00:25:14
Speaker
So they seem to be greatly inspired by this harmonist view. um And Proclus seems to disagree with that. He seems to follow his pupil, sorry, his teacher, Cyrenus.
00:25:28
Speaker
um And we don't have much left of Sirenes' teachings, but we do have a commentary or or parts of a commentary on Aristotle's metaphysics. And he comments there also on the last two books of the metaphysics, which are very critical off of various academic theories on forms and numbers and the identification of the two, which apparently Plato plato did um Sirius says they're very critical of what Aristotle is saying and very critical of Aristotle's philosophy in general.
00:25:58
Speaker
And progress seems to pick up this spirit. So he is definitely not one of those who thinks that they agree on the fundamental aspects. like Iamblichus would have said, but someone that thinks that there are fundamental differences between the two.
00:26:15
Speaker
Most importantly, Aristotle simply does not recognize the one as the highest principle. right So ah Plotinus, all these Neoplatonists, they think that the one is the highest principle.
00:26:29
Speaker
They think that they get that out of Plato by reading the Parmenides more specifically, ah sort of metaphysically charged reading of the Parmenides. um But there's obvious disagreement whether you find that then also in Aristotle. To be frank, it's it's not easy to find it in Aristotle. you You quite have to force, I think, Aristotle to find the one as conceived by by the Neoplatonists.
00:26:55
Speaker
in the Aristotelian corpus. But it it seems that some Neoplatonists who favor this fundamental agreement ah between Plato and Aristotle are able to find the one.
00:27:07
Speaker
ah Proclus does not think you can find the one in Aristotle, and neither does his teacher, Sirius. Yeah, so Iamblichus, like Plotinus, giving Aristotle a lot of authority, but treating him more fundamentally in agreement with Plato. And Proclus is not going to follow that Harmonist tradition, even though that Harmonist, that became a tradition. It became a tradition that other people followed, you know, other people were following. Yeah, it's the dominating paradigm, I think. Yeah, it's the dominant, okay. Yeah, you, just real quick, like this whole...
00:27:42
Speaker
It's super interesting, this whole distinction between the kind of Athenian school of Proclus' time versus the Alexandria school.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah. and And I guess you kind of describe it as, yeah, the Alexandria school won... i don't know if there was other traits that distinguished them, but like it seems like one distinguishing trait was they were into this Harmonist position, whereas yeah it seems like the Athenian school was kind of... More critical, perhaps. yeah yeah yeah Fascinating. and um but But would you agree that, like okay,
00:28:19
Speaker
Even though Proclus thinks there's this – because you know you can imagine a situation where you see a deep fundamental disagreement between Plato and Aristotle and then you choose to say, yeah and that's why we don't need to really read Aristotle. yeah yeah Whereas it seems like Proclus would not subscribe to that. right No.
00:28:40
Speaker
No, no. So – You know, even though he might be more critical of Aristotle and he might say that Aristotle got some things right, Aristotle didn't get the fullness of the truth, um and Aristotle is partly even dangerous, right? Aristotle can be dangerous if you don't have the Platonic, Platonist corrective there, right? So you should study Aristotle within a certain context and taught by certain teachers that can, if necessary, point out where the differences are. Or or they they tell you, hey, you have to interpret it in this way, and then they're in agreement with each other. um
00:29:21
Speaker
so So, you know, so so Plato... but Sorry, Proclus definitely thinks you should study you should study Aristotle. No doubt about that. You just have to be aware that there are certain differences. um And you you should be aware that even...
00:29:37
Speaker
though there are these differences, some of the differences can be solved. um So if we consider the case of the first mover, and we'll talk a bit about it more perhaps later, um i think Proclus will say,
00:29:54
Speaker
yes Aristotle and Plato have different views on the highest intellect, right? So the divine intellect, the separate intellect, they have different views on on what exactly that's like, especially in the terms of its causality.
00:30:08
Speaker
Procris seems to think that Aristotle's intellect is only a final cause, but not an efficient cause of the cosmos. But he thinks that if you take some of the stuff that Aristotle says about the causality of the first intellect,
00:30:24
Speaker
you can you can make it into an efficient cause. So even though Aristotle does not draw that conclusion, if you take his premises, you can make him, sort of force him,
00:30:42
Speaker
to ah to get to this conclusion that the first that the that the highest intellect, the divine intellect, is also an efficient cause of reality. So that's that's a pretty interesting move, right? So you can read Aristotle, you get the impression, oh, it's only a final intellect. But actually here, you know, I can explain to you that just look at these premises, draw out the conclusions, you're by yourself sort of, knowing also Plato, and then actually, yeah, you have an efficient cause as well. So, you know. It's fine.
00:31:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's like he he had all the premises there. Logically, he should have drawn this conclusion. he just it was just a human error. But yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, that's what was entailed by. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. But certain commitments. um Good. And.
00:31:30
Speaker
So at this point, you know, we should, yeah, maybe just kind of get into more of the details here, especially with respect to issues related to motion. yeah So that's going you know, that's going to deal with like kind of the different types of motion, we're gonna talk about that.
00:31:49
Speaker
Maybe we can talk a little bit about the the connection between the soul and motion, and then finally, you know the role of the the ultimate principle, you know and the ultimate source of motion and in these two contexts.
00:32:05
Speaker
um Now, I i guess, you know I feel like it would be remiss, though, if we didn't kind of ask about what your opinion on kind of Lloyd Gerson's sort of approach to the relationship between Plato and Aristotle. because i think Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like he kind of thinks that they can be reconciled in a sort of straightforward way.
00:32:31
Speaker
um we just you know if if If Aristotle would grant that like the physical sciences are not... explanatorily exhaustive, then maybe if you could grant that, you know, natural philosophy is not the deepest or final explanation of reality, then, you know, maybe we can do a kind of platonic thing where we start appealing to higher non-physical principles. um
00:33:02
Speaker
any rate, I mean, it's a little bit tricky because it seems like there is a type of theology in, i mean, I think Aristotle calls it that. At any rate, um but I just, you know, really quick, we don't have to go too deep here, but, you know, how much, you what what what do you want to say about ah Gerson's kind of approach to...
00:33:18
Speaker
this issue. Yeah, yeah. um I think when we look at what Gerson is trying to do, we have to differentiate between two different approaches to the question on the relationship of Plato and Aristotle. So we as as modern scholars can just look at Plato and Aristotle have a certain interpretation of Plato, a certain interpretation of play of Aristotle, and then see how those two can be brought together. And of course, we can interpret them in such a way as to make them more in agreement with each other or in a way that makes them disagree more of each other. So you can definitely do that. That's one approach. The other approach is to see what do ah certain Platonists see
00:34:02
Speaker
ah what what do certain Platonists view as the relationship between the two. And these two don't necessarily need to go hand in hand. i think i I deeply sympathize with the agreement that Gerson is trying to show between the two. But now whether the Platonists themselves thought about it in the way He thinks about it is I think, is a different is a different question. He often uses them as sources and as backing up his interpretation of their agreement. um
00:34:37
Speaker
and And I think there are some sources that are very helpful for that, especially Simplicius. Simplicius is a great harmonist. He really forces the issue, i think, on many, many points. So he's, for instance, someone that thinks that there is...
00:34:52
Speaker
the one also in in Aristotle, where Prokris clearly disagrees with. um and And so I think what we have to do there is to to have an awareness that some Platonists simply disagree with this fundamental harmony thesis.
00:35:09
Speaker
And I think Gerson sometimes, well, it tends to perhaps lump them all together as being harmonists. And I think some are clearly not, some clearly don't think that.
00:35:24
Speaker
Great. That's helpful. Yeah. Making that distinction there. um Good. All right. So let's, yeah, let's get into an area of, you know, i guess we could call it just kind of like the fundamental, you know, theory, fundamentals of a theory of motion, kinematics. And so I guess the kind of issues I'm thinking of, um,
00:35:46
Speaker
you cover this in a particular chapter in your book, but like the kind of issues I'm thinking of is like, you know, there are certain kinds of motion, you know, upward, downward, circular. um They think that like circular motion is kind of the most important. It's like a special type of motion. yeah They're going to be in agreement about like there needs to be an explanation for all these bodies that are moving. You know, there needs to be an explanation of movement.
00:36:10
Speaker
um They're going to there's going to be this overlap about maybe Did you, I don't know, time measuring change and what the nature of time on that. hello Anyway, so do you want to just talk about like this kind of initial level of agreement when it comes to, yeah, what you might call is like kinematics.
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So, um, I think both Plato and Aristotle agree that there are different types of motion. And when we talk about motion, we we don't just refer to locomotion. So the Greek term kinesis is pretty wide term and refers definitely also, both would agree to qualitative changes such as from...
00:36:56
Speaker
from change of a color, for instance, right? From white to black or whatever, or you change the the complexion of your skin because of the sun, right? Whatever. So that would be a qualitative change. Both agree that exists. Both agree that there are ah quantitative changes. you can change it Things can change in size, diminution and and growth.
00:37:21
Speaker
And both, of course, agree that there are there's also something can be called a substantial change. Things come to be and things perish, are destroyed. So both agree that that exists. Both also seem to agree that circular motion is a special type of motion.
00:37:39
Speaker
um Plato in Lost 10 calls it as a source of wonder and amazement. This seems to be also just a general... objective statement of what the Greeks thought, so it doesn't seem to be specifically platonic or Aristotelian. It's just quite amazing that circular motion does not seem to have a clear terminus and starting point, and it can go on into infinity, whereas ah it's more a matter of debate whether motion upwards or downwards can go into infinity unless, well, you have an infinite space.
00:38:13
Speaker
So that would be sort of the the agreement. Another point of agreement would be in terms of causality, um and that bodies cannot ultimately explain motion fully.
00:38:25
Speaker
So ah bodies themselves are in motion, they cause other bodies to move, but they are not the ultimate cause of that motion. So if you have a chain of movers, that chain of moverss movers needs to end in something that is non-bodily.
00:38:44
Speaker
According to Plato, that must be the soul. Aristotle will then offer criticism in Physics 8 where he shows that soul cannot be the ultimate cause of motion, but it would have to be something that is ah not embodied at all and does not have this relationship with the body. It has no relationship, in fact, with the body, one could say, and rather is completely separate from it, and that would be, of course, the separate divine intellect.
00:39:14
Speaker
that is then also further explained in Metaphysics 12. So i think I think those are the the the the two sides of the story. A lot of agreement, types of motion, ah causation of motion.
00:39:29
Speaker
But then if you zoom in and look at what exactly how exactly do they explain the causation of motion, you will see that one posits the soul as the origin of motion, that's Plato, and Aristotle posits the intellect as the source of motion.
00:39:43
Speaker
And then it's also a matter about how they conceive these sources exactly. So Plato would say that the soul causes motion by moving itself, which I think makes makes makes sense. So there's this thing that causes its own motion and therefore is able to cause the motion of other things.
00:40:03
Speaker
And Aristotle disagrees with that. He thinks that even if something causes its own motion, that is still part of...
00:40:14
Speaker
a hole that is in itself in motion. So the soul, even if you assume that there's a cosmos and it has a soul, it would be indirectly and accidentally moved by the hole and affected by it.
00:40:28
Speaker
And what we want is a cause that is completely unmoved and can guarantee the continuous motion of the hole. And that would be then the separate. Yeah, maybe let's just real quick park on the whole, this like foundational issue of like the idea that the something embodied, the the bodily substances are not going to provide an explanation yeah for why there is,
00:40:57
Speaker
um bodily motion. And I guess when I think about that kind of thesis, I'm kind of like, all right, well, yeah, I mean, if I imagine stripping away the body from from a body, all its desire, all its thought, anything living, yeah, kind of just ends up being like this extended stuff. And it it seems like the extended stuff is not going explain why it starts moving. You know, um you know you can get pushed around, it can get pulled, it can get rearranged. But that's going to, it's not going to initiate the motion itself as a bodily thing. So I guess that's just kind of like intuitively like the sort of thing I think about there. yeah do you Do you want to talk at all about like, yeah, like Plato and Aristotle, why they felt like bodily motion is not self-explanatory, why we need something higher. And then we'll go into, you know, why Plato thought the soul and stuff. Yeah.
00:41:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, they they think that bodies cannot ultimately initiate motion. So yes, they can transmit motion. So if something has initiated the motion of a body, that body, like in a chain reaction, it can transmit that motion. So I kick a ball with my foot.
00:42:19
Speaker
And so obviously my foot is a body, the ball's a body, and that ball then hits a window. maybe it destroys the window, whatever, sets in motion all sorts of other events.
00:42:31
Speaker
So obviously there's a chain of reaction and the the motion from my but from my body, the my foot, is then transmitted to the ball, transmitted to the window, transmitted to whatever then happens. um But my...
00:42:45
Speaker
foot, the movement of my foot needs a further explanation and they think that you cannot just keep going into infinity with this um because, well, you have an infinite regress, then you have a chain of of movers that simply transmit motion but do not ultimately cause this motion, cause this motion in ah in a sense of providing an explanation why it happened to begin with.
00:43:11
Speaker
So in the case of me kicking the ball, obviously the explanation, one explanation would be that my soul ah ah has initiated this motion, right?
00:43:22
Speaker
Based on a decision or whatever, it decided to kick the ball and then my body performs a certain action, namely my my foot hits the ball. um And so so I think that that's sort of how how their thinking fundamental fundamentally goes. And that's why they think that ah just pointing towards bodies is is just inconclusive and won't lead you very far or will simply lead you into an infinite regress.
00:43:49
Speaker
Right. and And so yeah, yeah, something else. Right? Yeah, yeah. Just to stop the infinite regress. yeah Plato, I guess is going to say soul, and he's going to come through the soul as self moving. Yeah. And I mean, it may it kind of makes sense that if the body is if if if if a particular body is going to get moved, the thing that moves it would presumably need to move and through its own motion move but yeah the body that's going to get moved. So it's it kind of seems intuitive that the body that is going to get moved is going to be moved by something that is itself moving.
00:44:34
Speaker
And i guess the thought is in Plato is that it's going to be the soul, right, that's doing that. um But then, okay, but then I guess and it's tricky. Maybe we can talk a little bit about this where it seems like Aristotle will want to say that the mover, the ultimate explanation mode and is unmoved, which seems...
00:45:04
Speaker
counterintuitive. So do you want talk a little bit about that, how how how he why he chooses something unmoved and then why he how he thinks that that could work? I guess it has to do with final causality, but yeah. Yeah, so specifically about Aristotle. um
00:45:23
Speaker
I think there are different ways of ah trying to understand why Aristotle would posit ultimately as a source of motion something that is unmoved. I think partly it's definitely also on ah on an observation, and this observation recurs in a number of times in his ah psychological treatises on animal motion and human motion. It's simply...
00:45:49
Speaker
that animals seem to do things because they desire something. So desire seems to play an important, crucial role in explaining motion in things that were well are able to have desire and are in sold, therefore. So what seems to be going on is that you want to drink something,
00:46:13
Speaker
What do you do? Well, you have an object of desire, that's the drink, the water, and then you need to do certain things to get to actually drink that water. So, for instance, you need to go to a well and then take out the the water from the well, or you simply need to pick up a bottle of water. Now, the bottle of water might be two meters away of you. The bottle of water is not doing anything actually to causing you the motion, right? It's not actively pushing you to move.
00:46:41
Speaker
Nevertheless, you get up and you do something to get that bottle of water. And of course, the cases can be much more complicated. You need to get money to buy it and you need to go to the store and whatever. So all sorts of things could happen, although the bottle of water is sitting peacefully a kilometer away in a store, not directly affecting you in any way.
00:47:05
Speaker
So this is like a very everyday example of how something seemingly unmoved manages to cause motion in us, manages to motivate to do all sorts of things. So i think Aristotle takes this this everyday ah you know understanding, common sense understanding of how motion is caused.
00:47:27
Speaker
But he also offers us, of of course, a very intricate explanation of that in Physics 8, where he's trying to show, as I've already alluded to, that ah the soul cannot be the ultimate cause of motion. and And something that moves itself cannot be the ultimate cause of motion. um Because but part of the reason there seems to be that it would be accidentally moved as well, and you want something that is not accidentally moved, you want something that is completely unmoved.
00:47:54
Speaker
um and causes that motion. And that's partly also connected to his larger theological views, um where you simply don't want God to be bothered by the cosmos. So you don't want to involve God too much into the cosmic affairs. And so if you conceive then of God as something unmoved,
00:48:14
Speaker
Well, that's great because God is sort of ah cut off from the rest of what's going on. God is desired, but is not actively doing anything. And by being desired, he sets and processes all sorts of things.
00:48:31
Speaker
So does this also kind of connect, I guess this kind of connects to what they think the soul is. I mean, yeah you know, for Plato, he does think self-emotion is possible. That's ah it's a possibility of motion. I and guess there's a way in which um Aristotle also thinks self motion is possible, though it's like not spot in a different way. Yeah.
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah. It's really like, isn't it for him? It's like, yeah, it looks like self motion. But really, what it is, is like one part of the thing moving another part of the thing. Yeah, yeah isn't that kind of okay, anyway. um But, um you know, and then there's gonna be an idea that like, self motion is kind of the essence it's actually kind of the essence or the nature of the soul in in Plato, whereas in Aristotle, it's not going to be, i'm not sure what he would say is the essence of the soul. But any rate, um you want to talk any anything about that element, that key disagreement about the essence, nature of the soul?
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, so so I think the disagreement about self-motion lies a disagreement about whether it's possible for something to cause itself.
00:49:50
Speaker
So but Plato seems to think that soul is able to cause itself and keeps itself in being. So the soul is that what the medievals would call a causa sui, to so to some degree at least. um because the essence of soul is self-motion.
00:50:09
Speaker
So the thing that keeps it in its being is its ability to move itself ah continuously, without interruption. um Aristotle seems to think that For causation, there have to be two distinct parts. One thing has to act on another.
00:50:27
Speaker
You cannot have something that simultaneously acts on itself and is acted upon in the same respect. Of course, you can you can sort of ah try to touch your toes and therefore you act on yourself. But, well, it's you're acting on one one aspect of you. Your hand is acting on a different part to another maybe part part of you. Exactly. So it's it's not ah to the same respect and it's definitely two different parts. ah
00:50:59
Speaker
Now, our Plato seems to think that in the case of the soul, it's the same thing acting upon the same thing in the same respect. There's no real difference there. I mean, conceptually, maybe you can come up with a difference, but certainly not in terms of the thing itself.
00:51:16
Speaker
Our soul, as I said, rejects that. He thinks, no, there have to be two distinct parts. So yes, self-motion exists only in so far as the soul acts on the body. And then the compound compound of the two, the animal, including the human being, is self-moving thing.
00:51:34
Speaker
but not each of the two parts of which it is constituted are self-moving. One, in fact, is unmoved, the soul, and the other one is moved, and that's self-motion. So I think i think that's the that there's the the the big disagreement there in the way they conceive of self-motion. And then ah Aristotle would would simply say that soul soul's essence is in lies in ultimately allowing the body and the whole to function and to be alive.
00:52:06
Speaker
um Whereas Plato thinks that the soul is clearly autonomous and can survive on its own because it is alive on its own. It's not the thing itself that is alive.
00:52:17
Speaker
ah Sorry, the the compound itself of soul and body that is alive. Yeah, and and that's how it kind of enters into his argument for immortality. you know yeah Because this whole moves itself, it never departs from itself, and therefore is yeah you know immortal, something like that. um Now, um you know, one interesting kind of issue that kind of comes up in here pertaining to Proclus is how
00:52:49
Speaker
Proclus will want, he kind of, he really, he appreciates Aristotle's refutation of the idea of a bodily or spatial soul. So um even though I guess the soul for Aristotle is like intimately connected with the body, on the other hand, Aristotle also has a criticism of the idea of the soul being yeah spatially extended. And so what that means is for Proclus, he's going to have to give an account of self motion, which is not just physical motion.
00:53:29
Speaker
um Instead, it's like this, some kind of immaterial motion, which is obviously a bit mysterious, but I think he connects it reversion. At any rate, yeah, I mean, i guess I'd be curious to hear you talk a little bit about this whole issue of like the the kind of interesting dance that Proclus is doing. On one hand, he's going to accept the criticism of the of the soul as being... yeah On the other hand, he wants to say, but it's still in motion because there's a non-physical kind. Yeah, so I think Proclus definitely takes Aerosol's criticism, namely that self-motion in the physical sense cannot exist.
00:54:13
Speaker
He takes it as a given, but nevertheless he thinks, well, we can still call that activity motion, whereas Aristotle would say, no, we we can't call it motion, you can call it maybe, I don't know, energeia, if you want to talk about self-reflexive activity, thinking about Aristotelian God, but it's certainly not kinesis, it's not motion. plato seems to but aristotle sorry Proclus seems to allow for calling this activity motion. And he thinks that of course it's all grounded in Plato and that Plato already thought that there are types of motion that are non-spatial and non-physical.
00:54:49
Speaker
including the activity of the soul. You can characterize it as kinesis, but it's unlike locomotion for instance, or qualitative change, or quantitative change. So Procris has no problem with that. He thinks Aristotle rightly points it out. He just goes wrong, Aristotle goes wrong, in in not accepting that that's also a type of kinesis.
00:55:11
Speaker
So Aristotle's criticism is useful in so far as it has the right insight. But it's ah it's damaging in so far as the conclusion it reaches that the activity of the soul is not kinases.
00:55:25
Speaker
It's bad according to Proclos.
00:55:29
Speaker
Fascinating. So you're trying to summarize where we've gone a little bit just so that we can talk a little bit more about the kind of the ultimate.
00:55:39
Speaker
the ultimate being and in, not a being in the case of Neoplatonism, but once we get to the ultimate principle, we kinda wanna shift to that now. But just to kinda summarize a little bit, you know we talked about, okay, bodies are moving, these bodies, there needs to be a source of that motion.
00:55:57
Speaker
we can't have a kind of infinite regress. So it looks like we're gonna need like an explanation. And you know in Plato, it seems like the self moving soul is gonna be really crucial there. But it you know now we can kind of think about this question of, you know is a self mover gonna be ultimate? you know And even in Platonism, there's gonna be something higher than self moving soul.
00:56:28
Speaker
And so basically, yeah, let's try to, that was my attempt to move into this discussion of the ultimate principle here. And so maybe we could talk a little bit about the type of causality that we have yeah going on yeah with the the ultimate mover. So on the one hand,
00:56:48
Speaker
um It seems like Plato wants to say that at least the demiurge is, which Timaeus, is kind of a final cause as the is something good, something we seek.
00:57:04
Speaker
but also efficient cause of the cosmos being. Whereas um it seems like Aristotle might think that the unmoved mover is primarily a final cause, or at least maybe that's how Procrates would see it. So you want to talk about the type of causality going on?
00:57:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. So ah so it's I think it's There's a lot of debate and obviously scholarship on Plato and lot of debates on among the Platonists about the role of the Demiurge. um But at some point we have this view that the Demiurge is an intellect primarily.
00:57:41
Speaker
Of course, that's based on the Timaeus. We have there the reference of nous versus ananke. And it obviously seems at the intellect that the Demiurge is thinking while he's doing these things, although it seems to be also discursive reasoning and not just contemplation. But that that's besides the point. So this idea is being established that the Demiurge is an intellect.
00:58:02
Speaker
And that's quite convenient because obviously then you can compare it to Aristotle's God, also an intellect. And one difference to which Proclus, but also other Platonists, Sirenius as well, point to is that it seems that prima facie, at least on a reading of the of Metaphysics Lambda, the um the the divine intellect there is only a final cause. It's an object of desire. It causes motion, horse eromenon, as a thing that is loved, as a beloved person.
00:58:35
Speaker
And I've explained how that could work out if you think about everyday examples such as the bottle of water and that's an object of desire. We see it's a bit more complex in the case of the intellect, but that's fundamentally how it works.
00:58:48
Speaker
um That obviously clashes with the Neoplatonist idea that the intellect isn't just a final cause, but cause of final cause but the The cosmos and all of reality proceeds from the intellect. Obviously, the intellect previously had proceeded, but previously in an ontological sense, had proceeded from the one, but then all the rest will proceed through intellect as well.
00:59:15
Speaker
um And one move there would be to say that even in Aristotle, ah the intellect is an efficient cause because Aristotle says that all of reality, or the cosmos at least, depends on it.
00:59:31
Speaker
So what could this dependency be? It can't just be in terms of a final cause, but it must be in the sense of an efficient cause, in the sense of having been produced or be produced from the intellect.
00:59:43
Speaker
So that would be one way of making the two an agreement. But as I've already alluded to, Proclus doesn't think that. Proclus very much emphasizes this final cause reading of the divine intellect and thinks that, yes, there might be already some premises there according to which the divine intellect is a cause of being and therefore an efficient cause, but Aristotle just doesn't spell them out.
01:00:06
Speaker
We have to force him to endorse that view.
01:00:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because you know intuitively, you know when yeah especially after you give that example of the water bottle, it's like intuitively the sort of thing the final cause is going to be able to explain is motion.
01:00:28
Speaker
Yeah. That's the kind of um thing it's going to have the ability explain. But like the fact that something exists in the first place which can desire the good and then seek it, that seems like it's gonna be beyond a final cause yeah to explain, at least just on just the first blush, I'm not saying. Yeah, and and obviously, I mean, the the cosmos cannot function without motion. So there is no, if if the cosmos stops moving, it's game over. The cosmos stops existing. So by causing motion, indirectly, at least, if that's the only thing the unmoved mover does, it causes the existence of the universe. so that's that's a common move that you find among these authors and that you also find later on in the medieval tradition, of course.
01:01:18
Speaker
Yeah, and and so it looks like, like you said, you know, Proclus, he's going to take the route of kind of emphasizing that, you know, The unmoved mover moves as something loved.
01:01:30
Speaker
yeah He's going to stress the final cause rate reason final cause reading of it. um Good. And let's now maybe kind of talk a little bit about one versus intellect. So yeah Plato, Proclus, they want to say the highest principle is the one, beyond which is even beyond intellect.
01:01:52
Speaker
And that the intellect itself, though, is a productive kind of cause of reality. Okay. In contrast, Aristotle is going to say the highest principle is an unmoved intellect.
01:02:05
Speaker
And so he doesn't have anything higher beyond that unmoved intellect. um So, yeah, I mean, do you want to talk about like, i mean, I guess like one thing to talk about here is, you know, how...
01:02:22
Speaker
How big of an error does Proclus see that to be? i mean, because one thought is like, oh, you know, he just kind of, he just did he just he just missed, there's one more level up, you know, he you should just add this one level up. And obviously it would be nice to talk about the reasons why, you know, Proclus would say you should to add that extra level. But I mean, one thought is Aristotle, he just missed the highest level, but you could just add it and then his system is, you know, much better. Or does like, I guess what I'm wondering is like, when Aristotle misses,
01:02:50
Speaker
you know, according to the Neoplatonists, when he misses this higher one beyond the intellect. Does that have, like, significant ramifications for his system, like, all over?
01:03:01
Speaker
Or... yeah anyway, yeah, if you could... think I think Proclus does that does think that it has more serious ramifications because... um it means that Aristotle construes wrongly some of the lower principles. So one one issue that Proclus detects in Aristotle is that he misattributes certain properties to lower principles. So the primary object of desire, the ultimate cause of desire,
01:03:31
Speaker
is the one, is not the intellect, right? So the intellect is anything, if if anything, it's a proximate cause of desire, but it can't be the ultimate cause of desire. And so when we speak about and this this famous conception that the Neoplatonists have of procession, all things proceed and return, well, all things proceed from the one and return to the one, not to the intellect.
01:03:56
Speaker
Oh, things might proceed through the intellect and return through the intellect back to the one. Sure, fair enough. But it's not neither the starting point nor nor the end point there. And if you attribute if few if you but attribute certain properties to the one to the intellect that the one should have, that's ah that's a major mistake. and And so I think that's definitely an issue that that Proclus detects there. Nevertheless, it it doesn't mean that Aristotle's conception of the intellect is completely messed up. So he does detect correctly that the intellect thinks in a certain way that is distinct from our type of discursive thinking.
01:04:37
Speaker
So Aristotle is is right in that, that the intellect contemplates its type of theoria, it's not the type of dianoia that we have when we normally think about things in a temporal succession.
01:04:49
Speaker
um So he's right in in doing that. And he's also right in the sense that the Neo-Platonists still think that ah you ascend to the one. So you don't start your system by starting with the one. ah There's, of course, a way of presenting your system in that way.
01:05:08
Speaker
But how your reasoning goes is it starts from the sensibles and then slowly moves up through the different layers of the metaphysical hierarchy. So, of course, some philosophers stop pretty early on, like those Stoics. That's quite bad for them from the Neoplatonist perspective. But Aristotle already got quite high, right? You you made it to the to the second to last, penultimate layer there. and So that's that's already very good. That's already very good. So there's a reason for optimism there.
01:05:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's helpful. um You know, it's it'ss it's It's tricky. um I don't know if you want to talk maybe a little bit about this. I think, and you know, I'm sensitive to time here. I want to wrap up soon. But um for those who are, let's say, theistically inclined today, they might, you know, have a feel comfortable with saying that God, the ultimate is
01:06:15
Speaker
a kind of intellect. and so you know would Would you mind touching on a little bit of of why, I think it has to do with simplicity if I'm not mistaken, but you know why it is that the Neoplatonists were keen to say, no, we need a higher principle beyond intellect.
01:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think unlike Aristotle, they are more concerned with unity and plurality. So um whatever worldview you take, you will probably be inspired by certain principles and oppositions. it could be being, non-being. ah It could be sensible, intelligible. All these, of course, feature in in both Plato and Aristotle and Platonist and Aristotelian thinking. But what really characterizes the Platonist is the opposition between unity and plurality. And ah plurality is often, of course, associated with matter, usually associated with matter and unity. Well, unity, you need to find a cause for that. You need to posit that thing which has most unity. And that then ends up being the one. And then you have to draw all sorts of conclusions because as it happens, when you talk about things that are usually there's some plurality already involved or according to them, always a plurality involved. So things that are cannot be
01:07:39
Speaker
ah something that is, right could not be the ultimate cause of of that unity. So I think if you see a structure of thinking along these lines, it becomes easier to understand why the Neoplatonists would end up with a principle that cannot be one of the beings, simply because there's some plurality of already involved there, but it has to be something that transcends ah even this type of very basic plurality, compared, of course, to sensible reality. um And that ah is, of course, a but type of thinking that then, mean, you talked about, you know, theologically inclined readers or listeners that, of course, we then find in medieval philosophy in in its different forms, be that you know, ah Christian, Jewish, Muslim, that but so obviously these people are quite interested in in positing ah principle that is simple,
01:08:36
Speaker
one cause of unity as well. How of course you square that with of article scripture is then a different thing where a lot of other things are attributed to it.
01:08:48
Speaker
well Thanks so much for doing this interview, Rarish. I really appreciate it And yeah, I recommend highly to everyone this book. Yeah, it came Proclus on Aristotle on Plato, a case study on motion. And yeah, it was published with Cambridge University Press. And so thanks so much for coming on again. And ah really quick, I'm just kind of curious, you know um what are you working on now, if you don't mind sharing?
01:09:12
Speaker
Well, speaking about theology, actually I'm i'm working on a short book to be published with, um also with Cambridge University Press and their Elements in Ancient Philosophy series on arguments for the existence of God.
01:09:27
Speaker
I'm there focusing on two specific arguments, the design argument, as we find it in the Stoics, and a form of the cosmological argument as we find it in Proclus and the Platonist tradition.
01:09:40
Speaker
And I'm trying to approach them from a more, I don't want to say analytical modern perspective, but I'm trying to approach them from a more ah accessible angle than just, you know, quoting a lot of Greek and, yeah.
01:09:58
Speaker
That sounds awesome. Well, we look forward to that. And yeah, thanks again so much for coming on. Thank you. Thank you so much. This was amazing.