Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato - Thomas Taylor
Dialectic, however, or the vertex of the mathematical sciences,
as it is called by Plato in his Republic, is that master discipline which
particularly leads us up to an intelligible essence. Of this first of
sciences, which is essentially different from vulgar logic, and is the
same with what Aristotle calls the first philosophy and wisdom, I have
largely spoken in the introduction and notes to the Parmenides. Suffice
it therefore to observe in this place, that dialectic differs from
mathematical science in this, that the latter flows from, and the former
is void of hypothesis. That dialectic has a power of knowing universals;
that it ascends to good and the supreme cause of all; and, that it
considers good as the end of its elevation; but that the mathematical
science, which previously fabricates for itself definite principles, from
which it evinces things consequent to such principles, does not tend to
the principle, but to the conclusion. Hence Plato does not expel
mathematical knowledge from the number of the sciences, but asserts it to
be the next in rank to that one science which is the summit of all; nor
does he accuse it as ignorant of its own principles, but considers it as
receiving these from the master science dialectic, and that possessing
them without any demonstration, it demonstrates from these its consequent
propositions.
Hence Socrates, in the Republic, speaking of the power of dialectic,
says that it surrounds all disciplines like a defensive enclosure, and
elevates those that use it to the good itself, and the first unities;
that it purifies the eye of the soul; establishes itself in true beings,
and, the one principle of all things, and ends at last in that which is
no longer hypothetical. The power of dialectic, therefore, being thus
great, and the ends of this path so mighty, it must by no means be
confounded with arguments which are alone conversant with opinion: for
the former is the guardian of sciences, and the passage to it is through
these, but the latter is perfectly destitute of disciplinative science.
To which we may add, that the method of reasoning which is founded in
opinion, regards only that which is apparent; but the dialectic method
endeavors to arrive at the one itself, always employing for this purpose
steps of ascent, and at last beautifully ends in the nature of the good.
Very different therefore is it from the merely logical method, which
presides over the demonstrative phantasy, is of a secondary nature, and
is alone pleased with contentious discussions. For the dialectic of Plato
for the most part employs divisions and analyses as primary sciences, and
as imitating the progression of beings from the one, and their conversion
to it again. It likewise sometimes uses definitions and demonstrations,
and prior to these the definitive method, and the divisive prior to this.
On the contrary, the merely logical method, which is solely conversant
with opinion, is deprived of the incontrovertible reasonings of
demonstration.
The following is a specimen of the analytical method of Plato's dialectic.
Of analysis there are three species. For one is an ascent from sensibles
to the first intelligibles; a second is an ascent through things
demonstrated and subdemonstrated, to undemonstrated and immediate
propositions; and a third proceeds from hypothesis to unhypothetical
principles. Of the first of these species, Plato has given a most
admirable specimen in the speech of Diotima in the Banquet. For there he
ascends from the beauty about bodies to the beauty in souls; from this to
the beauty in right disciplines; from this again to the beauty in laws;
from the beauty in laws to the ample sea of beauty (Greek: to polu pelagos
tou kalou); and thus proceeding he at length arrives at the beautiful
itself.
The second species of analysis is as follows: It is necessary to make the
thing investigated the subject of hypothesis; to survey such things as
are prior to it; and to demonstrate these from things posterior,
ascending to such as are prior, till we arrive at the first thing and to
which we give our assent. But beginning from this, we descend
synthetically to the thing investigated. Of this species, the following
is an example from the Phaedrus of Plato. It is inquired if the soul is
immortal; and this being hypothetically admitted, it is inquired in the
next place if it is always moved. This being demonstrated, the next
inquiry is if that which is always moved, is self-moved; and this again
being demonstrated, it is considered whether that which is self-moved is
the principle of motion, and afterwards if the principle is unbegotten.
This then being admitted as a thing acknowledged, and likewise that what
is begotten is incorruptible, the demonstration of the thing proposed is
thus collected. If there is a principle, it is unbegotten and
incorruptible. That which is self-moved is the principle of motion. Soul
is self-moved. Soul therefore (i.e. the rational soul) is incorruptible,
unbegotten, and immortal.
Of the third species of analysis, which proceeds from the hypothetical to
that which is unhypothetical, Plato has given a most beautiful specimen
in the first hypothesis of his Parmenides. For here, taking for his
hypothesis that the one is, he proceeds through an orderly series of
negations, which are not privative of their subjects, but generative of
things which are as it were, their opposites, till he at length takes
away the hypothesis that the one is. For he denies of it all discourse
and every appellation. And thus evidently denies of it not only that it
is, but even negation. For all things are posterior to the one; viz.
things known, knowledge, and the instruments of knowledge. And thus,
beginning from the hypothetical, he ends in that which is unhypothetical,
and truly ineffable.
Having taken a general survey, both of the great world and the microcosm
man, I shall close this account of the principal dogmas of Plato, with
the outlines of his doctrine concerning Providence and Fate, as it is a
subject of the greatest importance, and the difficulties in which it is
involved are happily removed by that prince of philosophers.
In the first place, therefore, Providence, according to common
conceptions, is the cause of good to the subjects of its care; and Fate
is the cause of a certain connection to generated natures. This being
admitted, let us consider what the things are which are connected. Of
beings, therefore, some have their essence in eternity, and others in
time. But by beings whose essence is in eternity, I mean those whose
energy as well as their essence is eternal; and by beings essentially
temporal, those whose essence is always in generation, or becoming to be,
though this should take place in an infinite time. The media between
these two extremes are natures which, in a certain respect, have an
essence permanent and better than generation, or a flowing subsistence,
but whose energy is measured by time. For it is necessary that every
procession from things first to last should be effected through media.
The medium, therefore, between these two extremes, must either be that
which has an eternal essence, but any energy indigent of time, or, on the
contrary, that which has a temporal essence, but an eternal energy. It is
impossible, however, for the latter of these to have any subsistence; for
if this were admitted, energy would be prior to essence. The medium,
therefore, must be that whose essence is eternal, but energy temporal.
And the three orders which compose this first middle and last are, the
intellectual, psychical (or that pertaining to soul), and corporeal. For
from what has been already said by us concerning the gradation of beings,
it is evident that the intellectual order is established in eternity,
both in essence and energy; that the corporeal order is always in
generation, or advancing to being, and this either in an infinite time,
or in a part of time; and that the psychical is indeed eternal in
essence, but temporal in energy. Where then shall we rank things which
being distributed either in places or times, have a certain coordination
and sympathy with each other through connection? It is evident that they
must be ranked among altermotive and corporeal natures. For of things
which subsist beyond the order of bodies, some are better both than place
and time; and others, though they energize according to time, appear to
be entirely pure from any connection with place.
Hence things which are governed and connected by Fate are entirely
altermotive and corporeal. If this then is demonstrated, it is manifest
that admitting Fate to be a cause of connection, we must assert that it
presides over altermotive and corporeal natures. If, therefore, we look
to that which is the proximate cause of bodies, and thorough which also
altermotive beings are moved, breathe, and are held together, we shall
find that this is nature, the energies of which are to generate, nourish,
and increase. If, therefore, this power not only subsists in us, and all
other animals and plants, but prior to partial bodies there is, by a much
greater necessity, one nature of the world which comprehends and is
motive of all bodies; it follows that nature must be the cause of things
connected, and that in this we must investigate Fate. Hence, Fate is
nature, or that incorporeal power which is the one life of the world,
presiding over bodies, moving all things according to time, and
connecting the motions of things that, by places and times, are distant
from each other. It is likewise the cause of the mutual sympathy of
mortal natures, and of their conjunction with such as are eternal. For
the nature which is in us, binds and connects all the parts of our body,
of which also it is a certain Fate. And as in our body some parts have a
principal subsistence, and others are less principal, and the latter are
consequent to the former, so in the universe, the generations of the less
principal parts are consequent to the motions of the more principal, viz.
the sublunary generations to the periods of the celestial bodies; and the
circle of the former is the image of the latter.
Hence it is not difficult to see that Providence is deity itself, the
fountain of all good. For whence can good be imparted, to all things, but
from divinity? So that no other cause of good but deity is, as Plato
says, to be assigned. And, in the next place, as this cause is superior
to all intelligible and sensible natures, it is consequently superior to
Fate. Whatever too is subject to Fate, is also under the dominion of
Providence; having its connection indeed from Fate, but deriving the good
which it possesses from Providence. But again, not all things that are
under the dominion of Providence are indigent of Fate; for intelligibles
are exempt from its sway. Fate therefore is profoundly conversant with
corporeal natures; since connection introduces time and corporeal motion.
Hence Plato, looking to this, says in the Timaeus, that the world is
mingled from intellect and necessity, the former ruling over the latter.
For by necessity here he means the motive cause of bodies, which in other
places he calls Fate. And this with great propriety; since every body is
compelled to do whatever it does, and to suffer whatever it suffers; to
heat or to be heated, to impart or to receive cold. But the elective
power is unknown to a corporeal nature; so that the necessary and the
nonelective may be said to be the peculiarities of bodies.
As there are two genera of things, therefore, the intelligible and the
sensible, so likewise there are two kingdoms of these; that of
Providence, upwards, which reigns over intelligibles and sensibles, and
that of Fate downwards, which reigns over sensibles only. Providence
likewise differs from Fate in the same manner as deity from that which is
divine indeed, but participation, and not primarily. For in other things
we see that which has a primary subsistence, and that which subsists
according to participation. Thus the light which subsists in the orb of
the sun is primary light, and that which is in the air, according to
participation; the latter being derived from the former. And life is
primarily in the soul, but secondarily in the body. Thus also, according
to Plato, Providence is deity, but Fate is something divine, and not a
god: for it depends upon Providence, of which it is as it were the image.
As Providence too is to intelligibles, so is Fate to sensibles. And,
alternately, as Providence is to Fate, so are intelligibles to sensibles.
But intelligibles are the first of beings, and from these others derive
their subsistence. And hence the order of Fate depends on the dominion of
Providence.
In the second place, let us look to the rational nature itself, when
correcting the inaccuracy of sensible information, as when it accuses the
sight of deception, in seeing the orb of the sun as not larger than a
foot in diameter; when it represses the ebullitions of anger, and
exclaims with Ulysses,
"Endure my heart;"
or when it restrains the wanton tendencies of desire to corporeal delight.
For in all such operations it manifestly subdues the irrational motions,
both gnostic and appetitive, and absolves itself from them, as from
things foreign to its nature. But it is necessary to investigate the
essence of every thing, not from its perversion, but from its energies
according to nature. If therefore reason, when it energizes in us as
reason, restrains the shadowy impressions of the delights of licentious
desire, punishes the precipitate motion of fury, and reproves the senses
as full of deception, asserting that
"We nothing accurate, or see, or hear:"
and if it says this, looking to its internal reasons, none of which it
knows through the body, or through corporeal cognitions, it is evident
that, according to this energy, it removes itself far from the senses,
contrary to the decision of which it becomes separated from those sorrows
and delights.
After this, let us direct our attention to another and a better motion of
our rational soul, when, during the tranquillity of the inferior parts,
by a self-convertive energy, it sees its own essence, the powers which it
contains, the harmonic reasons from which it consists, and the many lives
of which it is the middle boundary, and thus finds itself to be a
rational world, the image of the prior natures, from which it proceeds,
but the paradigm of such as are posterior to itself. To this energy of
the soul, theoretic arithmetic and geometry greatly contribute, for these
remove it from the senses, purify the intellect from the irrational forms
of life with which it is surrounded, and lead it to the incorporeal
perception of ideas. For if these sciences receive the soul replete with
images, and knowing nothing subtile and unattended with material
garrulity; and if they elucidate reasons possessing an irrefragable
necessity of demonstration, and forms full of all certainty and
immateriality, and which by no means call to their aid the inaccuracy of
sensibles, do they not evidently purify our intellectual life from things
which fill us with a privation of intellect, and which impede our
perception of true being?
After both these operations of the rational soul, let us now survey her
highest intelligence, through which she sees her sister souls in the
universe, who are allotted a residence in the heavens, and in the whole
of a visible nature, according to the will of the fabricator of the
world. But above all souls, she sees intellectual essences and orders.
For a deiform intellect resides above every soul, and which also imparts
to the soul an intellectual habit. Prior to these, however, she sees
those divine monads, from which all intellectual multitudes receive their
unions. For above all things united, there must necessarily be unific
causes; above things vivified, vivifying causes; above intellectual
natures, those that impart intellect; and above all participants,
imparticipable natures. From all these elevating modes of intelligence,
it must be obvious to such as are not perfectly blind, how the soul,
leaving sense and body behind, surveys through the projecting energies of
intellect those beings that are entirely exempt from all connection with
a corporeal nature.
The rational and intellectual soul therefore, in whatever manner it may
be moved according to nature, is beyond body and sense. And hence it must
necessarily have an essence separate from both. But from this again, it
becomes manifest, that when it energizes according to its nature, it is
superior to Fate, and beyond the reach of its attractive power; but that,
when falling into sense and things irrational and corporalized, it
follows downward natures and lives, with them as with inebriated
neighbors, then together with them it becomes subject to the dominion of
Fate. For again, it is necessary that there should be an order of beings
of such a kind, as to subsist according to essence above Fate, but to be
sometimes ranked under it according to habitude. For if there are beings,
and such are all intellectual natures which are eternally established
above the laws of Fate, and also which, according to the whole of their
life, are distributed under the periods of Fate, it is necessary that the
medium between these should be that nature which is sometimes above, and
sometimes under the dominion of Fate. For the procession of incorporeal
natures is much more without a vacuum than that of bodies.
The free will therefore of man, according to Plato, is a rational
elective, power, desiderative of true and apparent good, and leading the
soul to both, through which it ascends and descends, errs and acts with
rectitude. And hence the elective will be the same with that which
characterizes our essence. According to this power, we differ from divine
and mortal natures: for each of these is void of that two-fold inclination;
the one on account of its excellence being alone established in true
good; but the other in apparent good, on account of its defect. Intellect
too characterizes the one, but sense the other; and the former, as
Plotinus says, is our king, but the latter our messenger. We therefore
are established in the elective power as a medium; and having the ability
of tending both to true and apparent good, when we tend to the former we
follow the guidance of intellect, when to the latter, that of sense. The
power therefore which is in us is not capable of all things. For the
power which is omnipotent is characterized by unity; and on this account
is all-powerful, because it is one, and possesses the form of good. But
the elective power is two-fold, and on this account is not able to effect
all things; because, by it's inclinations to true and apparent good, it
falls short of that nature which is prior to all things. It would however
be all-powerful, if it had not an elective impulse, and was will alone.
For a life subsisting according to will alone subsists according to good,
because the will naturally tends to good, and such a life makes that
which is characteristic in us most powerful and deiform. And hence
through this the soul, according to Plato, becomes divine, and in another
life, in conjunction with deity, governs the world. And thus much of the
outlines of the leading dogmas of the philosophy of Plato.
In the beginning of this Introduction, I observed that, in drawing these
outlines I should conduct the reader through novel and solitary paths,
solitary indeed they must be, since they have been unfrequented from the
reign of the emperor Justinian to the present time; and novel they will
doubtless appear to readers of every description, and particularly to
those who have been nursed as it were in the bosom of matter, the pupils
of experiment, the darlings of sense, and the legitimate descendants of
the earth-born race that warred on the Olympian gods. To such as these,
who have gazed on the dark and deformed face of their nurse, till they
are incapable of beholding the light of truth, and who are become so
drowsy from drinking immoderately of the cup of oblivion, that their
whole life is nothing more than a transmigration from sleep to sleep, and
from dream to dream, like men passing from one bed to another,--to such
as these, the road through which we have been traveling will appear to be
a delusive passage, and the objects which we have surveyed to be nothing
more than fantastic visions, seen only by the eye of imagination, and
when seen, idle and vain as the dreams of a shadow.
The following arguments, however, may perhaps awaken some few of these
who are less lethargic than the rest, from the sleep of sense, and enable
them to elevate their mental eye from the dark mire in which they are
plunged, and gain a glimpse of this most weighty truth, that there is
another world, of which this is nothing more than a most obscure
resemblance, and another life, of which this is but the flying mockery.
My present discourse therefore is addressed to those who consider
experiment as the only solid criterion of truth. In the first place then,
these men appear to be ignorant of the invariable laws of demonstration
properly so called, and that the necessary requisites of all
demonstrative propositions are these: that they exist as causes, are
primary, more excellent, peculiar, true, and known than the conclusions.
For every demonstration not only consists of principles prior to others,
but of such as are eminently first; since if the assumed propositions may
be demonstrated by other assumptions, such propositions may indeed
appear prior to the conclusions, but are by no means entitled to the
appellation of first. Others, on the contrary, which require no
demonstration, but are of themselves manifest, are deservedly esteemed
the first, the truest, and the best. Such indemonstrable truths were
called by the ancients axioms from their majesty and authority, as the
assumptions which constitute demonstrative syllogisms derive all their
force and efficacy from these.
In the next place, they seem not to be sufficiently aware, that universal
is better than partial demonstration. For that demonstration is the more
excellent which is derived from the better cause; but a universal is more
extended and excellent than a partial cause; since the arduous
investigation of the why in any subject is only stopped by the arrival at
universals. Thus if we desire to know why the outward angles of a
triangle are equal to four right angles, and it is answered, Because the
triangle is isosceles; we again ask, but why Because isosceles? And if it
be replied, Because it is a triangle; we may again inquire, But why
because a triangle? To which we finally answer, because a triangle is a
right-lined figure. And here our inquiry rests at that universal idea,
which embraces every preceding particular one, and is contained in no
other more general and comprehensive than itself. Add too, that the
demonstration of particulars is almost the demonstration of infinites; of
universals the demonstration of finites; and of infinites there can be no
science. That demonstration likewise is the best which furnishes the mind
with the most ample knowledge; and this is, alone, the province of
universals. We may also add, that he who knows universals knows
particulars likewise in capacity; but we can not infer that he who has
the best knowledge of particulars, knows any thing of universals. And
lastly, that which is universal is the object of intellect and reason;
but particulars are coordinated to the perceptions of sense.
But here perhaps the experimentalist will say, admitting all this to be
true, yet we no otherwise obtain a perception of these universals than by
an induction of particulars, and abstraction from sensibles. To this, I
answer that the universal which is the proper object of science, is not
by any means the offspring of abstraction; and induction is no otherwise
subservient to its existence than an exciting cause. For if scientific
conclusions are indubitable, if the truth of demonstration is necessary
and eternal, this universal is truly all, and not like that gained by
abstraction, limited to a certain number of particulars. Thus, the
proposition that the angles of every triangle are equal to two right, if
it is indubitably true, that is, if the term every in it really includes
all triangles, cannot be the result of any abstraction; for this, however
extended it may be, is limited, and falls far short of universal
comprehension. Whence is it then that the dianoetic power concludes thus
confidently that the Proposition is true of all triangles? For if it be
said that the mind, after having abstracted triangle from a certain
number of particulars, adds from itself what is wanting to complete the
all; in the first place, no man, I believe, will say that any such
operation as this took place in his mind when he first learnt this
proposition; and in the next place, if this should be granted, it would
follow that such proposition is a mere fiction, since it is uncertain
whether that which is added to complete the all is truly added; and thus
the conclusion will no longer be indubitably necessary.