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14954765 No.14954765 [Reply] [Original]

2 volumes would've been enough.

>> No.14954774

>>14954765
Just read Damascius and Ficino bro

>> No.14954839

>>14954774
proclus or damascius?

>> No.14954873

>>14954839
Damascius

>> No.14954979
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14954979

>>14954839
Proclus was a genius, and autistically logical (which is why he's the favorite of modern academics), but while he correctly saw the order of the whole and its beauty, he erred in extreme systematization and "analytic" coherence (being the origin of Scholasticism). Proclus denied the twofold One of Iamblichus, yet he understood that all things are triadic, this is clearly a contradiction: it is here Damascius comes in, he in a way goes (poetically) full circle and returns to Plotinus and Iamblichus.
Where Plotinus mystically named Soul and Nous the One (and each as God), yet One and Many not just One. Damascius ameliorates him: Plotinus spoke of Soul as being the Matter of Intellect, and the Dyad as the Matter of the One. But if the Intelligible domain is beyond division then logically Intelligible Matter is single, thus Plotinus' Soul and his Dyad are fused by Damascius (soul itself becomes "something else"). So now the Infinite/Unlimited/Indefinite Dyad is the One as All things united yet ineffably distinct, named the All-one. Plotinus sometimes called the One the Potential/Power of all things, but this contradicts (on the surface) his saying that the One is "pure Act". We now can see the Limited and Unlimited, yet these are the principles of antithesis even if each is a one/henad, and if we stayed here we'd collapse into Deleuze and Derrida. Thus Damascius enthrones Plato's One-Being/Mixed (like Dionysus and Zeus) and makes Being before Being and truly One, naming him the Unified. The Harmony of all things, equal and before and after the two Principles, now itself a true principle. Here is the Ineffable Triad, the three Henads who together are the One, a One that now we cannot call One for it is greater than even this, thus he is the Ineffable. And now after more than a thousand years, Damascius has returned to the true original doctrines of Pythagoras, Philolaus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Parmenides and Heraclitus and Plato (these three personifying the three Hhenads of the Absolute One, the Absolute All, and the Absolute Harmony).
>Mone,
>Proodos,
>Epistrophe.

>> No.14955009

>>14954979
interesting, so could one read damascius without reading the other neoplatonists beforehand?

>> No.14955056

>>14954979
Thanks, just saved me hours of endless parsing.

>> No.14955098
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14955098

>>14955009
His books are a response to Proclus, and you need a holistic grasp of Plotinus and Plato to understand him. And even if he critiques Proclus he still shares most of Proclus' system.
Like here in pic related, everything after "the one extant" is Proclus and Syrianus (and Iamblichus) Damascius adopts this with little objection (otherwise he wouldn't be a real platonist).
I personally went the wrong way where I after having read Plotinus and the Elements of Theology I read Proclus most autistic work (Theology of Plato).
You could start with Proclus' Elements of Theology up to propositions #14, then read Plotinus and the Elements side by side. Then read Iamblichus or some secondary work. Lloyd Gerson and John Dillon are top tier.
But this assumes you've read all of Plato (and has a good grasp of Aristotle), especially Philebus, Sophist, Parmenides, and Timaeus. Although reading Plotinus before these also works, because many 20th century works about Plato disregards the "neoplatonists" entirely and are full of shit.

>> No.14955179

>>14955098
extremely based, what is aristotles relation to neoplatonism?

>> No.14955196

>>14955179
plotinus is aristotelian, and aristotle is a platonist

>> No.14955216
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14955216

>>14955009
Damascius connating the One-Being with the One and the Dyad also "solves" the apparent paradox which people throw around that Plotinus contradicts himself when he says the final goal of the soul is to either "unite" with Nous or the One. Now Nous (which Plotinus even says) is equally an aspect of the Ineffable One just as the Absolute One is (and the indefinite dyad too). Plotinus' three Hypostases are all the One, something he almost said explicitly; but he, like all prophets and poets, speaks of the Ineffable in silence through implication, for God is exalted above all understanding.

>> No.14955243
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14955243

>>14955179
this unironically
>>14955196

>> No.14955279

>>14955098
Where can i find an ebook version of Proclus, Damascius and the other neoplatonists' works? The only works i can find are Porphyry's commentaries and Plotinus' Enneads with some modern introductions or commentaries to the other neoplatonists and Libgen doesn't yield any results.

>> No.14955304
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14955304

>>14955279
https://
epdf
.pub
/damascius-problems-and-solutions-concerning-first-principles-aar-religions-in-tr.html
For Proclus there's only Thomas Taylor, which are actually acceptable translations, just some outdated words. And he's in the public domain.

>> No.14955344

based noesisbros

>> No.14955398
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14955398

>>14955216

>> No.14955574

>>14955216
>Plotinus' three Hypostases are all the One

so, the trinity?

>> No.14955799

>>14955574
In the trinity only the father is a principle, all things come from him, nothing comes from the son or the spirit (only through the son and by the spirit; but these two cause nothing). Although catholics like their filioque. They still have no ontological purpose, and are existentially pointless.

>> No.14955976

>>14955799
Filioque aside, is this or isn't this remarkably like the trinity?

>> No.14956418
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14956418

>>14955976
yes, but from 500BC, alternatively 4000BC, the trinity is a peasant perspective of it, which is obviously fine if you're a peasant, plebs are necessary to society.

>1. Nature in the universe was fitted together from the Non-Limited and the Limiting, both the universe as a whole and everything in it.

>2. All existing things must necessarily be either Limiting, or Non-Limited, or both Limiting and Non-Limited. But they could not be merely Non-Limited (nor merely Limited). Since however it is plain that they are neither wholly from the Limiting nor wholly from the Non-Limited, clearly then the universe and its contents were fitted together from both the Limiting and the Non-Limited. This is proved also by actual existing things; for those of them which are made of Limiting (elements) impose Limit, whereas those made of both Limiting and Non-Limited (elements) both do and do not impose Limit, and those made of Non-Limited (elements) will appear Non-Limited.
>6. This is how it is with Nature and Harmony: the Being of things is eternal, and Nature itself requires divine and not human intelligence; moreover, it would be impossible for any existing thing to be even recognised by us if there did not exist the basic Being of the things from which the universe was composed, (namely) both the Limiting and the Non-Limited. But since these Elements exist as unlike and unrelated, it would clearly be impossible for a universe to be created with them unless a harmony was added, in which way this (harmony) did come into being. Now the things which were like and related needed no harmony; but the things which were unlike and unrelated and unequally arranged are necessarily fastened together by such a harmony, through which they are destined to endure in the universe. . . .
>The content of the Harmony (Octave) is the major fourth and the major fifth; the fifth is greater than the fourth by a whole tone; for from the highest string (lowest note) to the middle is a fourth, and from the middle to the lowest string (highest note) is a fifth. From the lowest to the third string is a fourth, from the third to the highest string is a fifth. Between the middle and third strings is a tone. The major fourth has the ratio 3:4, the fifth 2:3, and the octave 1:2. Thus the Harmony (Octave) consists of five whole tones and two semitones, the fifth consists of three tones and a semitone, and the fourth consists of two tones and a semitone.
>7. The first composite (entity), the One, which is in the centre of the Sphere, is called Hearth. (Damascius Unified, third henad.)

>> No.14956754

>>14955098
I've been reading and researching on hermeticism for a few months now. It happens often that I loose my north and find myself in the waters of sceptisism. Somehow I still keep returning for now.
Why this happens? It's all that time reading and studying the philosophies a waste or a coping mechanism?

Also, how can a man arrive at this conclusions and diagrams of metaphisycal categories?

>> No.14956912

>>14956418
What do you make of Plotinus and Damascius never attacking Christianity, and, according to you, being the most trinitarian of the platonists? And would you not agree that Aquinas deals with the problem of emanation better than Plotinus?

>> No.14957089

>>14956754
The one, who is alone in the waters of night, is nothing but Longing for another and the pure Will for all reality to be: he makes himself the dawning and eclipsed sun of his own horizon. "The One who makes himself into millions."
There have been thousands of oracles and poets that speak of the spheres of reality and the first, the second, and the third; the second is itself the longing that the becomes the third for the first. And the intuition of this whispers in every heart.
https://youtu.be/WbW8GgAWKi8?t=79
>soul

>>14956912
Plotinus thought Christianity was just another minor gnostic sect; and Damascius was wise enough not to harass the bear when he's trapped in its den (but it bullied him anyway).

>> No.14957289 [DELETED] 
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14957289

>/lit/ is now a neoplatonist board