The Supreme One

Author(s):  
Lela Alexidze

Abstract In the prologue to his Commentary on Proclus’ Elements of theology Ioane Petritsi, Georgian Neoplatonist of the twelfth century, argues that the main subject of Proclus’ Elements is the theory of the supreme One. In Petritsi’s opinion, Proclus’ merit was to elaborate the philosophy of the ‘pure’, absolutely transcendent One which is unperceivable even for the Intellect. On the other hand, the supreme One is, in Petritsi’s interpretation, the cause of everything, including matter, and It has some positive (‘kataphatic’) characteristics which cannot be separated from Its hyper-essence. These are, mainly, Its causality and productivity, Its will and providential activity. The aim of this article is to analyse, what the supreme One is in Petritsi’s Commentary and to answer the following question: Do the absolute transcendence of the supreme One and Its positive characteristics contradict each other or are they in a certain way compatible with each other? I argue that for making the transition from the first aspect of the supreme One (Its transcendence) to another one (Its productivity) more coherent, Petritsi made an attempt to introduce in the ontological hierarchy one more one after the supreme One and before the Henads. In my opinion, this ‘second one’, which is almost inseparable from the supreme transcendent One, is Its another aspect, representing Its productive activity. For the same purpose, as I think, Petritsi identified the creative aspect of the One with the Logos/the Son of God and, in certain cases, also with Plato’s Demiurge.

2021 ◽  
pp. 98-116
Author(s):  
Alicia Walker

Focusing on Early and Middle Byzantine (fourth-to-twelfth-century) objects, images, and texts, this essay explores the tension between, on the one hand, efforts of the Byzantine church and state to discourage and control bodily adornment and modification and, on the other hand, the extensive evidence of widespread and immoderate engagement with these practices. The enhancement and manipulation of Byzantine bodies is considered as both a real and a metaphoric phenomenon. Evidence culled from secular and sacred, written and material sources demonstrates the importance of bodily adornment and modification to our understanding of Byzantine material and visual culture.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-187
Author(s):  
Joshua Wretzel

AbstractThis paper offers a limited defence of two seemingly disparate interpretive approaches to free thought in Hegel’s JenaPhenomenology of Spirit. On the one hand, I defend the view of so-called post-Kantian Hegelians, that Kant’s synthetic unity of apperception is central to Hegel’s account of free thinking in thePhenomenology. On the other hand, I argue that the notions ofdas Offenein Heidegger’sVom Wesen der WahrheitandAb-Lösungin his 1930/31 lectures on Hegel’sPhenomenologyare no less crucial to an understanding of free thought in Hegel’s work. I show that absolution is a condition for the possibility ofdas Offene, which is a condition for the possibility of apperception in its reflexive capacity.


1957 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Ackrill

My purpose is not to give a full interpretation of this difficult and important passage, but to discuss one particular problem, taking up some remarks made by F. M. Cornford (in Plato's Theory of Knowledge) and by Mr. R. Robinson (in his paper on Plato's Parmenides, Classical Philology, 1942). First it may be useful to give a very brief and unargued outline of the passage. Plato seeks to prove that concepts are related in certain definite ways, that there is a συμπλοκὴ εἰδῶν (251d–252e). Next (253) he assigns to philosophy the task of discovering what these relations are: the philosopher must try to get a clear view of the whole range of concepts and of how they are interconnected, whether in genus-species pyramids or in other ways. Plato now gives a sample of such philosophising. Choosing some concepts highly relevant to problems already broached in the Sophist he first (254–5) establishes that they are all different one from the other, and then (255e–258) elicits the relationships in which they stand to one another. The attempt to discover and state these relationships throws light on the puzzling notions ὄν and μὴ ὄν and enables Plato to set aside with contempt certain puzzles and paradoxes propounded by superficial thinkers (259). He refers finally (259e) to the absolute necessity there is for concepts to be in definite relations to one another if there is to be discourse at all: διὰ γὰρ τήν ἀλλήλων τῶν εἰδῶν συμπλοκὴν ὁ λόγος γέγονεν ἡμῖν So the section ends with a reassertion of the point with which it began (251d–252e): that there is and must be a συμπλοκὴ εἰδῶν.The question I wish to discuss is this. Is it true to say that one of Plato's achievements in this passage is ‘the discovery of the copula’ or ‘the recognition of the ambiguity of ἔστιν’ as used on the one hand in statements of identity and on the other hand in attributive statements? The question is whether Plato made a philosophical advance which we might describe in such phrases as those just quoted, but no great stress is to be laid on these particular phrases. Thus it is no doubt odd to say that Plato (or anyone else) discovered the copula. But did he draw attention to it? Did he expound or expose the various roles of the verb ἔστιν? Many of his predecessors and contemporaries reached bizarre conclusions by confusing different usesof the word; did Plato respond by elucidating these different uses? These are the real questions.


Author(s):  
Claudio Ciancio

RESUMENLa filosofía del último Schelling presenta elementos decisivos para una ontología de la libertad. Hay dos temas que en el último Schelling llevan precisamente al desarrollo de la ontología de la libertad, encabezada por Luigi Pareyson: el éxtasis de la razón, a la que dio una interpretación profunda el mismo Pareyson y la estructura de la libertad de Dios, en cuya configuración yo también he insistido. El éxtasis es la interrupción del desarrollo de la razón, que llega a sus límites y está fundada desde el ser – en el ser que la precede, y que escapa de su poder. Desde aquí Schelling intenta elaborar una concepción compleja y no siempre lineal de la libertad de Dios, ya como libertad de la creación, ya –más originariamente– como libertad frente a su propio ser. En este intento Schelling no alcanza a liberarse completamente de la tradición metafísica del principio de necesidad. La ontología de la libertad se libera de éste considerando la libertad no sólo como inicio, sino tambien como elección entre ser y no ser. De esta manera, por un lado, lo originario escapa radicalmente a la necesidad y, por el otro lado, precisamente porque su ser es elegido en una alternativa, la suya no es una simple autoposicion, que sucumbe a la necesidad, sino la posición de algo otro de sí, el ser, respecto al cual puede ejercer su libre poder.PALABRAS CLAVEDIOS, LIBERTAD, ONTOLOGÍA, RAZÓN, EXTASISABSTRACTThe philosophy of the last Schelling presents decisive insights for an ontology of freedom. Particularly two themes of the last Schelling lead to the ontology of freedom proposed by Luigi Pareyson: the ecstasy of reason of which Pareyson himself gave a profound interpretation and the structure of God’s freedom on the configuration of which I insisted too. Ecstasy is the interruption of the development of reason, which comes to its limits and is founded by the being, which is beyond reason’s power. From here, Schelling tries to process a complex and not always linear conception of God’s freedom both as freedom of creation and, more originally, as freedom of his own being. In this attempt Schelling does not depart completely from the metaphysical tradition of the principle of necessity. The ontology of freedom thinks freedom not only as a beginning, but as a choice between being and not being. In this way, on the one hand the absolute origin escapes radically from the necessity and on the other hand, just because its being is chosen within an alternative, its position of the being is not a simple self-position, which would succumb to the necessity, but the position of something different from itself: the being with regard to which it can exercise its free power.KEY WORDSGOD, FREEDOM, ONTOLOGY, REASON, ECSTASY


2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-165
Author(s):  
Lela Alexidze

Ioane Petritsi, the twelfth century Georgian Christian Neoplatonist, wrote a commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology. In his work Petritsi goes far beyond the material contained in Proclus’ Elements, discussing the issues which are the subject of other treatises of ancient Greek philosophers. The aim of this paper is to analyze Petritsi’s point of view on the creator of the visible world, i.e. the demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus. In Petritsi’s commentary, on the one hand, the features of the supreme One and the demiurge as producers of the universe are in certain cases quasi identical, although on the other hand, the demiurge represents a lower level of intellect than the true being and in some cases is absent in places where a reader, following the context of Petritsi’s commentary, expects his presence.


Research on the negative foundations of time will not lose its relevance as long as the connection, stated by M. Heidegger in 1927, remains legitimate and systemically justified. Sein und Zeit do not look like the classical opposition of being and thinking, being and phenomenon, being and existence, which are shaped very antinomically according to the philosophical tradition. M. Heidegger’s “being and time”, in relation to which we are talking about the possibilities of temporal derivatives among the phenomenological and ontological “given”, we have to define as a Wende der Zeit, in other words, the “turn of time” for the philosophy of positive. What times are meant? On the one hand, times of modern metaphysical projects that sought to overcome the framework of existence without the slightest effort in the direction of its own autonomous disclosure. On the other hand, there will remain times that are only maturating: the destruction of philosophy under the onslaught of pointless “twisting of words”, which never had any special consequences. The main issues of the article will be devoted to the ontological and contextual thematization of time among two atypical dimensions for the concept of chronos (from the Greek Χρόνος – “time”): the eon and the retarded Nothing. The aim of the article is to describe the constitution of time on the basis of the negative copula of being and as a subject of radical ontology at the same time. The tasks we will focus on are as follows: first of all, we will conduct a phenomenological analysis of time in relation to the retarded Nothing concepts such as ἐνέργεια (from the Greek “action”, “activity”) of Aristotle, cairological παρουσία (from the Greek – “presence”) of Augustine, transcendental scheme of I. Kant and the absolute temporal flow of E. Husserl. Secondly, we will single out the negative copula of being from the field of essence within the framework of ontological differentiation. Finally, we will deduce the eon from the etymological primacy of “eternity” in favor of the epoch-making experience of active negation. In order for the passage of time to become proportionate to its carrier, and for the philosophy of positivity, which has reached its completion and has ceased to be an obstacle at the “turn of time”, we will critically analyze impersonal time. Orientation to Greek concepts is paradigmatic in this case.


1970 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 139-160
Author(s):  
Jérôme de Gramont

Every reader of Ricœur knows that hermeneutics endeavors to answer the aporiae of historical phenomenology. Hence arises the need to return to those aporiae and those answers. On the one hand, phenomenology, born with the maxim of going “directly to things themselves,” is confronted with the incessant evasion of the thing itself and with its dreams of presence being thereby shattered. This reversal should not be blamed on the failings of this or that thinker, but attributed to the very destiny of phenomenology itself. On the other hand, Ricœurian hermeneutics takes note of a gap (the very remoteness of the thing itself), and of a necessary return (to the thing of the text). Thus, there is nothing for thought itself to grieve over with respect to this enterprise. However, while the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, faced with the same difficulties, orients itself towards political philosophy, the hermeneutics of Ricœur rather seeks to lead us to a philosophy of religion. This article hypothesizes that, in spite of the formula (inherited from Thévenaz) of a “philosophy without an absolute,” the thought of Ricœur heads in fair measure towards the Absolute, and that ontology is not the only name of the Promised Land.


2019 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 19-33
Author(s):  
Valentin Pluder ◽  

The Wissenschaftslehre 1804-ii does not end with absolute knowledge in the 25th lecture, because this absolute knowledge is as sealed off from the common knowledge as the Absolute itself in the 15th lecture was. As matters stand in the 25th lecture the Wissenschaftslehre can neither meet its own claim to unify all knowledge in one system nor can the genesis of the absolute knowledge, which had to begin with common knowledge, be understood by means of the Wissenschaftslehre itself. The problem in linking absolute knowledge and common knowledge is that, on the one hand, absolute knowledge is hermetically closed. Therefore, nothing and especially not common knowledge can derive or result from it. On the other hand, absolute knowledge is not supposed to depend on anything but the Absolute itself. Therefore, it cannot be understood adequately as a condition for common knowledge. Fichte’s solution to this problem is to differentiate between the genesis of absolute knowledge and absolute knowledge itself. Common knowledge is necessary only for the genesis of absolute knowledge. However, the validity of the common knowledge depends on the pursuit of the absolute knowledge.


MELINTAS ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 13
Author(s):  
Adrianus Sunarko

Confronted with the inescapable fact of plurality of religions, Christians are called out as well to reformulate their self understanding contextually. This challenge has been thought up by Edward Schillebeeckx as a task to rediscover Christian self understanding which is more open, undiscriminating to other religions, but in the same breath remains authentic to its colour and identity. On the one hand we might see some similarities of Schillebeeckx’s position with the pluralist theologians, given that revelation is viewed as both highlighting the limitless character of God as its subject and admitting human being’s limited horizon to receive it. On the other hand Schillebeeckx never claimed to have been a follower of pluralistic theory. His criticism of Paul Knitter shows a tendency that the former seems to be closer to those adopting inclusivistic theory. This proclivity is related with his christology that gives a unique place to Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the only saviour. Such position need not be discriminative to other religions in so far as the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is situated concretely in relation to the universal character of his salvation and providing that the grace characteristic of faith is not neglected.<br /><br />


Author(s):  
Hannes Jarka-sellers

The Liber de causis (Book of Causes) is a short treatise on Neoplatonist metaphysics, composed in Arabic by an unknown author probably in the ninth century in Baghdad. Through its twelfth-century Latin translation, it greatly influenced mature medieval philosophy in the West. Drawing heavily on the Greek Neoplatonist Proclus, the Liber de causis represents a development of late Neoplatonism along two lines. On the one hand, the author modifies and simplifies Proclus’ theory of causes to accord more closely with the three-part division of ultimate causes advanced by the founder of Neoplatonism, Plotinus. On the other hand, the author introduces some of the metaphysical principles of Qu’ranic or biblical monotheism. The result is a metaphysically provocative reinterpretation of Neoplatonist thought which, because it seemed to accommodate Platonist philosophy to the medieval worldview, made the Liber de causis a natural source text for medieval philosophers.


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