/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16721211]

How do I stop infinite regression from driving me insane? Even if the supposed first cause is a loop, there must be laws in place that constitute it as a loop instead of something else, right?

[Anonymous No.16721243]

...if that which absolutely is not is in fact a complete falling away from Being, and yet the One is beyond Being (and this is still more true of the Ineffable), non-being will be the One that extends below the level of the things here, and it will turn out that it will be one, and even more so, ineffable, since the Ineffable extends below the One, just as it transcends it. Indeed, if that which is called absolute non-being turns out to be a deprivation of Being, then this non-being could be affected in this way. Nor is this result surprising, since matter is certainly non-being, when it comes to be contemplated in terms of the one, since in the higher realm the One is prior to Being, while in this realm it extends lower than Being; and there would be nothing strange either if it should participate in the Ineffable. But if it is declared to be absolute non- being, in the sense that it is postulated to be neither Being nor One nor the Ineffable, and does not exist in a manner that can be affirmed or denied, nor is it (I 24) the subject of internal contradiction, nor can it be refuted, nor can it be posited in any other manner whatsoever, (for such was the nature of that of which the Eleatic Stranger also discoursed) then this surely falls outside of every possible conception whatsoever, since it is what is not in any way at all.
Is, then, the Ineffable as it were a boundary wall that surrounds anything that can be expressed in language, from above transcending and from below serving as a foundation underlying all things?
No, even this will not properly convey its situation. It is neither above nor below nor is any aspect of it first or last, nor does it experience procession. Therefore it is not a boundary wall for all things, and it does not contain all things, nor is that which can be expressed in language inside it, nor is the One itself inside it.
Then does nothing of it [the Ineffable] come to be present in the things here? For this is the next question to be investigated. And how would it not have come to be present, since all things are from it in some way? That from which each thing proceeds is also that in which [each thing] participates, and if it has nothing else from there, it has that which it is, and draws breath from its own principle and returns to that insofar as it is able. What, then, will prevent that from giving something of itself to those things that are from it? What other intermediary kind of existence will be necessary?
Of course, it is necessary always for the second to be closer than the third with respect to the first principle, and again for the third to be closer than the fourth;
and if this is so, then, too, it is necessary for the second to emerge less from it. And if this is so, then it is necessary that it should remain that much the more within the boundary of that nature. And if this is so, then still more must it be like it, so as to be suitable for participation in it, and so also to participate in it.

[Anonymous No.16721252]

>>16721243
How then could we entertain these suggestions about it at all, unless there was some trace of it in us, a trace that as it were urges [us] toward it? (I 25) Must it not also be said, since it is the Ineffable, to distribute an ineffable participation to all things, according to which there is something ineffable in each thing, something that leads us to recognize that by nature some things are more ineffable than others: the One is more ineffable than Being, and Being more than life, and life more than intellect, and there is a continual succession according to the same proportion, or rather the inverse, from matter up to rational being, the latter from the inferior perspective and the former from the superior, if one can put it thus?
Now if someone assumes this, he will generate a procession from the Ineffable and a kind of order of ineffability that governs all the stages of the procession, and we shall actually refer all things capable of expression in language back to the Ineffable as well, since everywhere it is apportioned into that which can be expressed in language.
And thus we shall postulate three monads and three numbers, not simply two as before, namely, the substantial, the unitary, and the Ineffable. And so
we shall posit this thesis, which we previously rejected, namely, that there are one and many in the Ineffable, as well as a series consisting in first, middle, and final terms, and, additionally, [the triad] of remaining, procession, and return; and in general, we shall incorporate a great deal of that which can be spoken of into the Ineffable.39 But if, as we maintained, one must not apply [the expressions] “that” or “those” to the Ineffable, because we wish it to be beyond the one and the many, therefore neither must we posit one [Ineffable] that exists prior to the many [ineffables] and another that, by virtue of its participation in the many is divided in the same way as they. It will not then be something that can be participated in, nor does it give something of itself to that which comes after it, nor is each god ineffable before it is one, in the way that [each] is one before having an essential nature. (I 26)
But even here the argument, by its self-reversal, demonstrates that that entity is, after all, ineffable, since it conceives the Ineffable in ways that are fundamentally opposed and in terms of the natures that are inferior to it. But how could this come as a surprise, given the kinds of difficulties we shall come up against concerning the One, not to mention those concerning the Unified and concerning Being? But these must await us.

[Anonymous No.16721326]

sorry anon. It's too long and I'm quite tired. Would you mind posting this tomorrow again?

[Anonymous No.16721338]

>>16721326
Same here friend, some day