/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14292936]

Scrambling ever up the steep ascent into that which is ever less multiple, at the same time we become aware in some way, even in our current state of division, of that which has a unique form. Thinking this division to be of no worth in comparison to the flood-like apprehension of that, we could not even intuit this, unless the trace of this flood-like intellection were stirring up something within us, and this is just that light of truth that suddenly kindles as if from fire sticks rubbed together. For as our divided conceptions are concentrated and exercised against each other, they resolve themselves in that summit that converges into something that is unique and simple, as if into a convergence, such as when, in the center of a circle, the terminal points of the straight line from the periphery press into the center. So in this way, although there is division present in us, while we press into the unity, a trace of that knowledge of the form in us is stirred up beforehand, just as in the case of the center. The center is without dimensions, and yet the single convergence that strives toward the center of the circle equally from all sides offers a dim indication of the center. And in the same way we strive toward Being, first by means of each form that we encounter as a separate thing, and then we become aware that it is not just undivided but actually unified, and so we fuse the many in each, if one may put it like this. Then taking all the forms that are distinct at once and dissolving their circumference, as if making many bodies of water into one unbounded body of water, except that we do not conceive of that which is unified from all things as one body of water, but rather as what is prior to all, more like the form of the water before water is something distinct. And this is therefore the way that we simplify ourselves back to the One, first by concentrating our thoughts and then by letting go of what has been concentrated, into what is beyond simplicity, the transcendence of that One.
Then having made this ascent do we encounter the One as something known, or in our desire to encounter this have we returned to the unknowable? Each of these is true. It is true that we encounter the One as knowable from afar, and when we have become one with it, then we transcend our own ability to know the One and we are resolved into being the One, that is, into the unknowable instead of the knowable. Now this contact itself is, as it were, of the One with the One and so beyond our capacity to know, whereas the former is like that of the knower with respect to the One.

[Anonymous No.14292942]

And how, indeed, could it be known, if it is One alone? If we mean that the knowledge offers itself as an opposing reality, the One is not knowable, nor yet is the One knowable by means of spurious reasoning in the manner that has been written about by Plato, that is, in the way that we know matter, even though matter does not possess the character of being an intelligible object. The knowable is a particular form, that is, one of the real beings, whereas matter is not being and formless. As we come to an understanding of the curved by means of the straight line, they say, so we intuit the unknowable by obtaining clues from the knowable. Nevertheless, this does constitute a mode of knowing. So then, the One as well is knowable to the extent that it does not abide while knowledge advances, but instead it appears from far off as something knowable and grants familiarity with itself. And to the extent that the knower advances toward the One, it is not the case, as with other relationships between knower and known, that what approaches the One comes to know it better. In fact, the opposite occurs; it that is, what advances knows the One less, since knowledge is dissolved by the One into unknowing. And this is reasonable, since knowledge demands differentiation, as I said above, but differentiation as it approaches the One collapses into unity, so that knowledge disappears into unknowing. Perhaps this is what Plato intends by his analogy. We attempt to look at the sun for the first time and when we are far away, at least, we succeed. But the closer we approach the less we see it. And at last we see neither sun nor other things, since we have completely become the light itself, instead of an enlightened eye.
Is the One then unknowable due to its inherent nature, if the unknowable is something other than the One? The One wishes to be by itself and does not tolerate being with another. That which is contradistinguished from the knowable is the unknowable, but that which is beyond the One is entirely ineffable, and we confess that we have neither knowledge nor ignorance but rather transcendent ignorance with regard to that which, by its proximity, overshadows the One as well. For since it is nearest the principle that is inconceivable, it as it were abides in the sanctuary of transcendent silence.

[Anonymous No.14292943]

Consequently, Plato’s words concerning the One are overturned from an inner contradiction, for it is near the complete reversal of the first principle, and yet it differs from that because it is absolutely one and because it is all things as the One. But that is also One as well as all things simultaneously, while this is beyond the One and all things, being simpler than both, whereas that transcendent principle is not yet this. To the extent that it has emerged from the Ineffable it is the One, but it is not the determinate one (for this is completely knowable), but rather it is the One-all, nor is it all things as subject to determination (for they are even more knowable, given that they are already a multiplicity); instead, it is the One that is simultaneously all things, which from its nature as the One contains the simple, thoroughly purified from multiplicity, yet from its nature as all things it refuses the determinate and confi ned predicate of the One. And of these characteristics one and all things, each is knowable, and the combination is also knowable, since it consists in the two. But that which is prior to both is what we indicate through that combination, and this is not, in itself, capable of being known, although through the image of the combination it can be known as prior to the combination of the One-many in just the way that the combination of the One-many is after that principle. And if it is acceptable to speak in terms of differentiations, then we can say that the truly knowable is what is contemplated by means of a certain given determination, since it then is by that determination already a form, and as such it is subject to knowledge that defi nes it with an appropriate limitation, and that is why knowledge arises from something differentiated. And yet there is something utterly opposed to this kind of contemplation, because it is entirely Ineffable and eludes any grasp of knowledge. There is also something in between these extremes, and of this, one aspect is on the side of the knowable, which is like the Unifi ed, but just here it escapes the knowledge that determines or attempts to limit it. The other aspect is on the side of the Ineffable, which is like the absolute One or the totality in the mode of the One, which offers only the slightest and most obscure hint about its own nature. And if there is something still in the middle of these, when we have examined the domain of each of these, we shall know it.

[Anonymous No.14292965]

>The Attempt to Define the One Obscures Knowledge of the One
But for the present we are speaking about the One that has such a nature, attempting to put the official seal on our discourse, to the effect that it is not what we say it is, nor do we know it as One and as all things together, but rather, that which our labor pain delivers from these the One and the many, it is just that, and I am speaking of cognitive labor pain. Knowledge of One advances until the onset of labor, but struggling to emerge as a product and as endowed with an explanation, it falls short of the One, and emerges among its offspring. Proclus the philosopher refers to this in his Monobiblos as the ineffable axiom, namely the axiom that accords with the knowledge in labor with the One, just as he calls the axiom in accord with knowledge that has already been articulated, the expressible axiom. This is the cause of the constantly ambivalent examination of and decision about the One, wherein it is sometimes judged to be knowable, sometimes to be unknowable. In one way it is the former; in another it is the latter. This is why Plato in the Letters prohibits the question, “What kind of thing is it?” concerning it, and blames this for all evils, that is, the division of what belongs to the One into quality and essence. Actually, we experience this division as a titanic rending, though it is this experience of division that we attempt to lead back up to what is most exalted, and to the whole that is least subject to division.

[Anonymous No.14292975]

Now if particularity and quality must be removed from knowledge of the One, so too must the One be removed, since this is an aspect of all things; moreover, we must remove all things, since all things also consist in particular beings, since each one of all things is a particular, and thus collectively all things consist in particular beings. And yet if the One is known neither as the One nor as all things, what could it be? Leave off, my friend, and do not apply the question, “What is it?” to the One, since it is exactly this which prevents you from attaining to knowledge of it, in that you imagine that it can be called a particular being, whereas if you remove particularity and quality, what it is will be apparent to you insofar as it can be. For this is what it is: the not a particular being and the not a quality, but it is prior to these, and is that which is neither possible to say (for each name represents a particular being and refers to a particular being) nor easy to conceive. For every thought is a particular being and is of a qualified particular, and even if you gather all thoughts together simultaneously, then you have particular beings and qualities, for thoughts are of qualified particular beings. Consequently, too, in the case of intellect, insofar as intellect is that which contemplates particular qualified beings, it is in labor and struggles to bring forth a conception of that nature, nor can intellect produce that conception, but rather, just the opposite: it turns that labor within itself and directs it toward the most simple and that which is entirely without compass and completely unqualified with respect to any sort of quality that serves as a limiting condition in general for all things simultaneously and each thing in particular. And this is just what Plato and the Oracles urge us to do, if somehow we are able, that is, to forget entirely our own conceptions and to make the running leap toward these labor pains that have the capacity to be intimate with that principle, but report back to no one, except that they remove the obstruction that stands in the way of this projection and that obstacle is exactly the “what kind of thing is it?” and the “thinking of the One as something.”

[Anonymous No.14292995]

Now if one compels this projection to teach us concerning that principle, it will project a secondary or a third conception in place of itself, a conception that, in alleging that the predicates that belong to the One all together at once are on the contrary distinct, appears to reveal that principle saying, for example, at first that the most simple is a principle, and then that that which is first is the principle and then that which embraces all things, and then that which gives rise to all things, and then that which all things seek, and then that which is the most powerful. And either it will enumerate all of the effects of which that is the cause successively, or else it will mention the most powerful and most reverend of all, using the language we have already alluded to, and especially calling it One and all things, for the aforesaid reasons. And yet, as all this is being spoken, some greater conception than this will attempt to get hold of that principle, deprecating that which is divided and multiple in this attempt to articulate the principle, and will compress all things into a single and unique nature, thinking it correct to prefer this nature to the previous one, because it is unified rather than differentiated. But the first labor pains of the faculty of knowledge, remaining within as they do, and not proceeding, will not even accept that concentration, since that concentration is pregnant with the fullness of reality and has not yet delivered it, whereas its own labor consists in trying to deliver the absolutely simple and the fullness seated above all, as One, and this One, although it is itself unknowable, in turn delivers the knowable, if it is right to put it this way, without adding anything extraneous to that One. Its nature, since it is not absolutely Ineffable, transfers the object of knowledge that corresponds to this struggle, to an intuitive mode of knowing that is not completely articulate, not that this labor pain arrives at knowledge, nor does its object of knowledge actually become knowable.

[Anonymous No.14293017]

>This chapter illustrates what is perhaps unique in the work of Damascius, his use of predecessors’ material as a background for an original exposition of contemplative wisdom. In this case, Damascius uses traditional metaphors of the radiant circle (Plotinus), sunlight (Plato), and inner sanctuary (Plotinus) in order to illustrate crucial doctrinal points as well as to orient the reader. The model of circumference and center illustrates how the root of each real being is the Unifi ed, that is, the third henad. As we shall see in more detail below, however, for Damascius, the Unified as one of the three henads (and following on Iamblichean doctrine) has as its root the One itself. In other words, it enjoys a fundamental identity with the One. As a result, Damascius makes clear that the experience of knowing the One, or union with the One, is not that of an individual knower coming to enjoy contact with the transcendent. The implications of this experience are that the true self is not other than the One. Damascius never puts it so clearly as when he writes, “we have completely become the light itself, instead of an enlightened eye.” Perhaps in saying this much, he is taking issue with Proclus’ doctrine of the One in us, a stance that suggests that there might be some ultimate differentiation between the One and the self. The second part of this chapter looks at the matter of how this knowledge is achieved and focuses on the effort needed for the ascent to the One. Here Damascius invokes Plato Epistle II, 313, insisting that it is just the effort to ascertain its nature that prevents us from knowing the One. Damascius suggests that Chaldean Oracle fragment 1 as well as the Plato passage teach us to abandon any effort to know the One, any activity on our part.

[Anonymous No.14294116]

bump for interest keep going OP

[Anonymous No.14294201]

OP I have a serious question.

How does one reconcile true faith in Christ with these ideas? He's not a bodhisattva, he's not another Socrates, he was literally God come to earth in the flesh. I find it hard to believe how any well read person can doubt this, but I am also willing to accept that the character of Christ may have been modeled by many authors after other ancient persons, albeit his doubtless divine nature separates him from them.

[Anonymous No.14294286]

>>14294201
>How does one reconcile true faith in Christ with these ideas?

Very carefully.