/lit/ - Literature

based proclusposter strikes again

How will renewed neoplatonism eclipse the current postironic late capitalist zeigteist?

>>11647746
does you think think it good ??

>>11647746
I think we are clearly in the late-period, decadent phase of our culture. There is an historical and philosophical resonance between our time and that of the neoplatonists who moved beyond the new academic skepticism of people like carneades and morphed it into middle platonic syncretism then full on neoplatonic mysticism, and eventually the hieratic arts of iamblichus. The deconstruction of pomo has already lost its luster and it will certainly be replaced by positive philosophical doctrines. My guess is that we're just experiencing the end of another age and the completion of another philosophical tradition. The platonic tradition came full circle and culminated, arguably, in Proclus. So I think the trajectory of the late antique platonic tradition has a lot to tell us about where we are headed now.

The Third Man is a stupid quip. It claims that the One is a negation of plurality, that it is only singular in the vulgar Numerical sense, and that it is a pole opposite of plurality; instead of it being the plenitude from which both singularity and plurality refract.

Where is he properly placed? Before or after Plotinus? How is he related to neoplatonism?

>>11647721
absolutely based

how are there forms beyond sensible particulars? how is intelligibility informed from the outside, instead of internally, like hegel and most moderns think?

>>11648054
hmmmhuhm?

>Proclus even states that terms like "Henad", "Intelligence", and "Soul" can be used to refer either to the self-subsistent gods the Unparticipated and Participated monads, which are complete in themselves; or to the "irradiations" or "images" of the former, which being incomplete require a substrate for their existence. Thus whereas some souls belong to themselves, others are dependent on their bodies, and are mere phantasms of souls

>tfw Proclus proves some people are more alive than others

just in awe of this gnosis lads

>>11647721
so a Form has several parts and these parts are heterogenous
well done, Proclus

>>11648130
It’s true, I don’t like the polytheistic approach, of course

From Proclus’ Elements of Theology or Aristotle’s Metaphysics, you can prove there is only one God, much as Aquinas did, but Proclus has not heard the word of God.

As a Neoplatonic Muslim, I very much revere the Metaphysics of Aristotle and Proclus. Not so much Plato

>>11648174
So much for indivisibility! You played yourself, Proclus

>>11648080
Proclus comes after Plotinus. More rigorous than Plotinus and corrects his mistakes, particularly concerning the origin of matter and the full descent of the soul into the material world. Proclus is the basis for Dionysius's work and hence all Christian Platonism.

Proclus's Platonic theodicy "On the Existence of Evils" is a good starting point. His Elements of Theology is the definitive statement of Platonic metaphysics. Where Plotinus is poetic but imprecise, Proclus is mathematically precise and comprehensive in building the philosophical arguments of Platonism.

>>11648080
Plotinus-->Porphyry-->Iamblichus-->Plutarch of Athens-->Syrianus-->Proclus

Between Porphyry and Iamblichus hieratic neoplatonism was born, though the two had differing visions of the relation between theurgy and theory. Proclus synthesized their doctrines.

>>11647721
I’ve always found the third man argument uncompelling anyways. I may be misunderstanding it though

>>11649690
>tfw Proclus and Plotinus were the final bosses all along

>>11648174
Form is One and Many where the metechomenon acts as mediator between the universal and the particulars. Form-itself is fully Being in the transcendent noetic realm, and becoming or part-being in the material world. Form is unified by its being, not its Form-ness.

>>11649777
checked

>>11649690
Is it worth reading Plotinus if Proclus exists?

>>11649840
Yes.

>>11647746
Proclus perfected the Magian-Apollonian synthesis that would form the basis (via Dionysus) of over a thousand years of Christian philosophical dominance, so we know he would be up to the task of building post-Faustian man. I'd imagine Proclus would have good arguments about the ensoulment of capital, how it acts as an enfolding of the World Soul, and fully ground the ontology of capital in its hypercosmic, encosmic, and hypercosmic-encosmic natures.

>>11649865
What will I actually miss by skipping straight to Proclus? It sounds like his system is far superior.

>>11649878
I think people seriously underestimate how the Platonic drive for beauty or that je ne sais quoi in things contributed to the rise of the spectacle

>>11649883
Plotinus' thought is beautiful

>>11649891
expound anon i am intrigued

>>11649897
In a perfect world I would read both, but the Enneads is incredibly long. Just want to make sure I’m not diving into something that was made redundant.

>>11649919
I guess Im just working off that transcendent spark Platonists glimpsed in things kinda getting reduced to the kind of immanent, virtual properties you see in Hegel and Lacan, which advertisement reifies, etc.

>>11648085
Unfolding and enfolding from the superabudence of the ineffable One that exists beyond Being and Form. Eric Perl gives an excellent concise treatment of the ontology of the One in his book Theophany, which deals heavily with Proclus in the context of Dionysius.

Compared to the Christian Platonists Proclus offers a more sophisticated (or complex) intermediary ontology between the One and the material world. A good modern introduction is All From One: A Guide to Proclus by Oxford UP:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/all-from-one-9780199640331

>>11649986
"god did it" he whispers.

>>11648406
There exists
>X
>X-ness
>X-ness things
What unifies them is not their X-ness quality, but their X-being.

>>11649748
The Third Man Argument is a sleight of hand trick that confuses the Form itself with the quality of Form-ness.

>>11649883
Start with Ennead I.6 On Beauty. It's short and captures the best of Plotinus both poetically and philosophically. Plotinus is better at impressing in you your anamnesis of beauty as the font of all things.

>>11649920
You can cherrypick the Enneads for beauty and let Proclus do the philosophical gruntwork.

>>11650008
*gives rigorous definition of God derived from the necessary metaphysics of particulars to Forms to the font of Forms beyond Form*

>>11650095
>>11650105
Any other Enneads I should cherrypick?

>>11650112
"it's really complex, you wouldn't understand, but god did it" he reiterates, while gently massaging your shoulders

>>11648054
Platonic hairy ball theorem nice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9grHQDsIz8

>>11647721
I can't believe people on /lit/ still read neoplatonism when Kant showed how irrelevant it is.

>>11650020
You're going to have to help me draw a distinction between "X-ness" and "being-X"

>>11650185
>Kant disagreed with it
>therefore it’s irrelevant
Sorry dude but Neoplatonism is making a comeback. Kant himself has been btfo anyway, so your post is meaningless.

>>11650237
not them, but no u

>>11650235
got u senpai. just read this over myself, takes awhile but when it clicks, wew

>In Ennead V, 4 [7] 1, Plotinus, explicating the Platonic position, argues that : (1) every composite must be accounted for by that which is incomposite or absolutely simple and (2) there can be only one absolutely simple thing. We can better understand the reasoning for (1) if we concentrate first on the reasoning for (2). Assume that there is more than one absolutely simple thing. Then, there would have to be something that each one had that made it at least numerically different from the other, say, for example, a unique position. But that which made it different would have to be really (not merely conceptually) distinct from that which made it to be the one thing it is.16 That which had the position would be really distinct from the position itself. But then something which had a position and so was distinct from it would not be absolutely simple. So, that which is absolutely simple must be absolutely unique. Only the first principle of all is unqualifiedly self-identical ; the self-identity had by anything else is necessarily qualified. This argument suggests the meaning of ‘composite’ that Plotinus has in mind when he argues for (1). A composite is anything that is distinct from any property it has. What we might call a ‘minimally composite individual’ is one with one and only one property from which it is itself distinct. Compositeness is, then, equivalent to qualified self-identity. Anything with οὐσία is at least minimally composite.

>If, in a Form, it and its οὐσία were not really distinct, then either the Form would not have an οὐσία or else it would be nothing but οὐσία. In the former case, there would, of course, be no reason to posit a Form to account for one sort of sameness rather than another ; the Form would be a completely empty explanans. In the latter case, the Form would become nothing more than a common nature, that is, what all things that are the same have. But the common nature as such does not explain anything. This is so because the common nature is in itself neither one nor many ; in itself it has no existence as one or as many. The common nature as such is posterior, not prior, to that of which it is the common nature. Hence, it cannot explain the existence of anything. To recognize its existence is to recognize it as really distinct from its οὐσία. So, we can conclude that it is the οὐσία of the Form, not the Form itself, that is participated in, whereas the Form itself is unparticipated. Proclus refers to the οὐσία that is participated in as φύσις and the οὐσία as participating, φυσιkὸς λόγος.17 The latter is the expression of the φύσις in what is ontologically posterior.

>>11650260
Where are you getting these extracts from?

>>11650323
https://journals.openedition.org/etudesplatoniciennes/462

>>11650235
Let me rephrase the X-being part. What unifies X, X-ness, and X-ness things, is not that they share a quality of X-ness, but that they all exist as X.

X-ness is a quality. Being is existence.

>>11650237
and how was Kant btfo?

doubt.jpg

>>11650391
So forms are like higher, simple "objects", where particulars participate in the being of X-ness while X-ness itself remains posterior to that being? Like the way red-ness is prior to two red objects, so is the Formal existence of Red-ness separated from Red-ness simpliciter. Or not simpliciter, just putting that to try to sound smart and maybe get across the intuition I'm going for.

It seems like Proclus posits a second plane of objects where the objects themselves are what predicate sensible unity. Am I off the mark? Proclus is very dense.

>>11650418
So you haven’t read any German philosophy after Kant? And you haven’t read any ethical philosophy after Kant?

>>11650440
>So forms are like higher, simple "objects", where particulars participate in the being of X-ness while X-ness itself remains posterior to that being?
Yes exactly.

>It seems like Proclus posits a second plane of objects where the objects themselves are what predicate sensible unity.
Yes Proclus posits a three-tier or triad structure.

>>11650483
So Forms are the "objects" that allow for sameness, where down here it's just objects that disclose sameness, and difference, etc.

Okay thanks this is coming together

I enjoy Thomas Taylor's introduction to Proclus where he takes every opportunity to shade Christianity at the same time (bold in a time where blasphemy laws were still enforced): https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Six_Books_of_Proclus,_the_Platonic_Successor,_on_the_Theology_of_Plato/Introduction

>>11648195
>As a Neoplatonic Muslim
Are you an apostote to the ortodoxes and hated in your community?

>>11647721
I'm so happy metaphysics is dead

>>11649690
Absolutely based

>>11647721
Based. Christian here with a sympathy for Platonism.

>>11648195
>As a Neoplatonic Muslim, I very much revere the Metaphysics of Aristotle and Proclus. Not so much Plato
Good. Plato and Socrates were Christians.

>>11649986

This idea is perfectly expressed in the phrase "the mysteries of the light" and perfectly elucidated when considering the "of". The mysteries not as barriers of Ontological distinction between the light and not-the-light that are to be known and overcome by the latter through hierarchical Epistemology, but the mysteries as the light itself ever secure in the immanence of perfect Self-reflection and free to simultaneously assume infinite vistas of refraction that are to be endlessly known, that are through endless knowing, that are endless knowing.

>That mystery is I, and I am that mystery

>>11650418
Kant being BTFO by based Platonist-Romanticist Iain Hamilton Grant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llDFy-2slQQ

who cares when we have science and shit now faggots

>>11650483
So, to put it in another way, do red objects down here participate in that that-ness of Red (that Red exists in the divine intellect, the simple fact of its being) but not the what-ness of Red (the simple principle of Red-ness full-stop)?

>tfw platonic literalists are worse than biblical literalists

Is there any scientific proof for any of this? No? Well into the trash it goes