 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast brought to you with the support of King's College London and the Leverhulme Trust. Online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, The Platonic Successor, Proclus. In Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis, lies an archaeological site that was discovered at the end of the 19th century. It was a villa from late antiquity near the holy sites of Dionysius and the healing god Asclepius. The ruins contain, among other things, a statue of the goddess Isis and the remains of a sacrificed piglet. In the 1950s, it was suggested that the site could be none other than the house of Proclus. Born in Constantinople in the year 412 AD, Proclus came to Athens, distinguished himself as a great philosopher and practitioner of pagan ritual, and ultimately became head of the Platonic school. He was thus known as the Platonic successor, one of the last thinkers in the golden chain that expounded and defended Platonism in late antique Athens. Just as you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, apparently you can't forge new links in a golden chain without slaughtering a few piglets. We know more about Proclus than we have any right to, thanks to a surviving biography of the great man by Proclus's own successor, Proclus. Marinus's life of Proclus is more hagiography than biography, a portrait of not just a philosopher but a sage, a man of deep piety and uncompromising virtues. Marinus organizes the story of Proclus's life in accordance with the levels of virtue recognized by the Platonists, namely physical, ethical, political, purificatory, theoretical, and theurgic. Thus we are told first of Proclus's handsome features and robust constitution – he was sick only twice in a life of 75 years – then of his ethical excellence, and so on. It's telling that Marinus relates the peak of his virtue to theurgy. As we saw last time when we looked at Iamblichus, theurgy is the set of practices by which one could communicate with the traditional Greek gods. And, as we'll see this time, Proclus agrees with Iamblichus that perfection in theurgy brings a happiness even greater than the happiness reached through philosophical wisdom. Marinus gives us many examples of Proclus's remarkable gift in this direction, telling for instance of how he brought about a miraculous cure by praying to Asclepius and how he was able to foretell the future. Most scholars, though, have valued Proclus more for what he tells us about the past. We certainly do not have all of Proclus's works, but those that survive are packed with information about his own Platonic heritage. Much of what I was able to tell you about the so-called middle Platonists, and even later thinkers like Iamblichus, is taken from reports found in Proclus. This means that Proclus suffers from the same syndrome that afflicts Cicero and will afflict the somewhat later commentator Simplicius. He has been valued as a treasure trove of data about other thinkers, but not treasured much himself. Even those who do take an interest in Proclus's own philosophy must admit that his ideas seem to be drawn largely from his immediate predecessors. Proclus was taught by Plutarch of Athens, not to be confused with the earlier Plutarch I covered in Episode 80. This second Plutarch used the wealth of his family to resurrect the Platonic Academy in Athens. A second teacher seems to have had an even greater impact. This was Cyrianus, Proclus's predecessor as the head of the school. His relationship to Proclus was so close that Proclus arranged to be buried next to his master in a shared tomb. Proclus's philosophy, especially in his commentaries on Plato, was based closely on that of Cyrianus. To some extent, the sophisticated systematization of Platonic thought we find in Proclus is really the work of his teacher. The details of Proclus's reliance on Cyrianus are obscure, given that Cyrianus's own works are mostly lost. We do have numerous reports of his views in Proclus and others, as well as a surviving commentary on parts of Aristotle's metaphysics. Here, Cyrianus dispenses with the idea we've seen in Platonists like Porphyry, that Aristotle and Plato are basically in harmony. Cyrianus concentrates all his attention on places in the metaphysics where Aristotle criticizes Plato. He admires Aristotle, but when Aristotle criticizes Platonic and Pythagorean ideas, Cyrianus responds with sarcasm and refutation. Especially though, we must turn to Proclus, to see what sort of Platonism was embraced in this revived Athenian school. Pride of place must go to the works dealing directly with Plato, and especially Proclus's vast, though incomplete, commentaries on the Timaeus and Parmenides. Another commentary was devoted to the Alcibiades, today an obscure dialogue whose authenticity is uncertain, but in Proclus's day, seen as the ideal introduction for beginning students because of its ethical orientation. Proclus also wrote a set of essays on the Republic, and a commentary on Plato's exploration of names, the Cratylus. Another enormous treatise on Plato is not a commentary, this is the Platonic Theology, which interprets the dialogues as a monument of pagan religious belief. Another commentary by Proclus is devoted to Euclid's elements, and he found time to compose a group of treatises on the theme of divine providence and several hymns to the gods. There are some further works besides, but I'll just mention the Elements of Theology, which imitates the axiomatic structure of Euclid's elements, laying down principles and building up a systematic exploration of Proclus's metaphysics. Because of its relative brevity and clear expository style, Proclus's Elements has always been his most popular text. This is a bit unfortunate, given that Proclus himself would no doubt have seen the works on Plato as his greatest philosophical contribution. Still, the Elements does helpfully set out the principles according to which Proclus's system is organized. Perhaps the most important of these is a rule he shares with this podcast, there should be no gaps. He has taken over the idea that goes back through Plotinus to the Platonus of the early Empire. All of reality arises from a simple principle, the One, whose effects become more and more multiple as they unfold. Broadly speaking, he also accepts Plotinus's scheme, according to which the One is followed by a world of intellect and Platonic forms. This is followed by soul, and finally, the physical universe. Proclus, however, would say that this description paints with the broadest of strokes. He seeks to ensure the continuity by eliminating any possibility of gaps between the levels of the hierarchy. For that, we need more rules, and Proclus provides them. Most notoriously, he uses triadic, or threefold, structures to introduce complexity at every level. To use a joke that is not original with me, Proclus demands that forms be filled out in triplicate. This is an idea that goes back to Iamblichus, but it is only in the works of Proclus that we see this system presented in all its glory. Let's take as an example the world of mind, or intellect. Proclus, of course, follows Plotinus, and for that matter Aristotle, in thinking that intellect is something divine. He also agrees with Plotinus that intellect cannot be the first principle, because it is not simple. Even if it is thinking about itself, it will be in a sense two, because it is both the thing that is thinking and the thing that is being thought. But for Proclus, this means we cannot speak of only one divine intellect. Rather, what is doing the thinking, the intellect, should be distinguished from what is being thought about, the intelligible. And there should be many gods of each kind. So, Proclus says that there are two orders of gods, the intelligible gods, which are higher than the intellect of gods. But this still isn't enough, because it seems to leave a gap or discontinuity between the intelligible and the intellective, as if Plotinus's single intellect had been divided in half and each half populated by many divinities. Proclus solves the problem by saying that there is a third rank of gods in between, the gods that are both intelligible and intellective. They form a kind of link between the other two ranks of gods. Together, the three ranks of gods form a triadic structure, with two extremes and a linking term in the middle. Such structures are to be found all over his system. Thus Proclus not only provides a philosophical system that is admirably without any gaps, but also establishes the existence of a great many divine principles. And he's going to need these. He associates the levels of his rather baroque philosophical system with a bewildering range of traditional Greek gods, demigods, heroes, and demons. Because Proclus is so keen to avoid gaps, he is bound to worry about the generation of intelligible and intellective things from the One. As we've already seen, a perennial difficulty for Neoplatonism was the question of how many things derive from an utterly simple first principle. Actually, I hate to say this, but don't we really want a gap here? If the first principle is to be truly transcendent, it should have nothing in common with what comes after it, and thus we might worry not even a causal connection with these things. After all, causes seem to share features with their effects. It is because fire is hot that it heats things up. For this reason, Proclus admits that causation would compromise the lofty majesty of the One. So, he suggests that there should be a principle of unity lower than the highest one, which gets its hands dirty, so to speak, by bestowing oneness on everything else. This second one is called limit, following a bit of terminology from Plato's dialogue the Philebus. It has a partner, which naturally enough is called the unlimited. Again, this terminology is from the Philebus, but the two principles are clearly related to the monad and dyad of the Pythagorean tradition. The basic idea here is that limit and unlimited cooperate at every level of reality. For instance, the unity of a soul, or a body, can be traced ultimately to the influence of limit. But the multiplicity of the same things, for instance the fact that they have parts, or are subject to time rather than being timeless, is explained ultimately by the unlimited. Meanwhile, the One itself is above even limit and unlimited, serenely untouched by any causal relationships. We humans find ourselves at some distance from the exalted realms of unity and divinity I've just been describing. Proclus believes that our attitude towards those principles should be one of reverence and worship, not just philosophical analysis. Still, it's clear that philosophical analysis is relevant. He thinks that one can establish the existence of things like, say, gods that are both intellective and intelligible by appealing to laws of reason. The identification of these divinities with Greek gods, however, is possible only because of the revealed and inspired teachings found in holy texts. These include Plato's dialogues, but also the writings so cherished by Iamblichus such as the Chaldean Oracles. It's still common for people to argue about whether Proclus was primarily a faithful devotee of a revealed religion, or a rigorous reasoner. The truth is that he was both—he saw a perfect marriage between the dictates of thought and the dictates of traditional pagan religion. Proclus thinks that religious teachings are necessary for us in part because of the limitations on what human souls can know. Like Iamblichus, he rejects Plotinus's idea that some part of our soul is undescended, permanently connected to the divine intellect. At best, our soul sometimes receives an illumination from above, to be specific from the intellect of gods, the lowest of the three ranks in the divine realm of mind. But the normal workings of the human soul, even at its best, are not like the workings of divine intellects. We think in time, and discursively, making distinctions and grasping simple ideas by means of complicated proofs. Rather unexpectedly, Proclus's clearest explanation of this process appears in his commentary on Euclid's Elements. Given the context, he focuses especially on geometry, but some of what he says would hold for the soul's knowledge more generally. If you cast your mind back to Plato, you'll remember that in some dialogues, he makes our knowledge depend on a so-called recollection of things the soul already knows, but has forgotten it knows. Proclus builds this into a sophisticated theory according to which the soul always has within it images of the forms in the divine intellectual world. When we think, for instance, by doing a geometrical proof, we are unfolding these images that are innate within us. He calls this process projection, and gives as an example the use of the imagination to build diagrams in geometrical proofs. For instance, all our knowledge of triangles is ultimately derived from the simple form of triangle understood by the intellect of gods. Unfortunately, we can't just think really hard and instantly grasp everything there is to know about triangles. This is why, unlike Zeus, we have to take geometry classes. But, when we sit in class proving the Pythagorean theorem, we are not, as Plotinus might have it, drawing on a permanent, direct connection to the mind of Zeus or any other divine intellect. Rather, we are coming to understand explicitly what is already inborn within us. So, when the oracle at Delphi tells you, know thyself, this means, in part, that you should have paid more attention in seventh grade math class. The fact that the forms are in us illustrates yet another general rule of Proclus's metaphysics. Modifying Anaxagoras's famous proclamation that everything is in everything, Proclus says that all things are in all things but appropriately. For instance, the forms are in our souls, but in a way appropriate for souls. This rule comes with a caveat, though. The higher a principle is, the further down the chain of beings it will reach. Thus, limit and unlimited, being at the very top of the hierarchy, reach down all the way to physical bodies. Since the divine intellects are lower in the chain, they don't reach as far. Their influence is seen in souls, but not in mere physical objects. This explains why souls can think, but rocks cannot. But if the world around us is suffused with divinity and governed by providence, as it must be, since the highest gods are in this world but appropriately, then why does the world seem to leave so much room for improvement? The working of providence seems amply proven by the existence of creatures as exquisite and well-designed as giraffes, to take a completely random example. But what should we say about the suffering of a giraffe caught in a brush fire and burned to death, or about an illness which strikes down an entire herd? As we saw, Plotinus had an answer to such questions. He pointed to matter as the culprit, identifying it as the principle of evil and also as utter non-being, so that specific cases of evil are understood as mere privations or instances of non-being, like holes in Swiss cheese. We also saw that in giving this solution, Plotinus came dangerously close to the position of the Gnostics, who saw matter as an independent entity opposed to the good. Proclus, in fact, thinks Plotinus's Swiss cheese solution plunges him into the bubbling fondue of Gnostic dualism, so he rejects the idea that matter is a principle of evils. Where then do evils come from, given the rule of providence over our cosmos? Proclus addresses this problem in three treatises, two on the subject of providence and one called On the Existence of Evils. The title is a good clue to his conviction that evils do exist, and cannot be understood merely as privations of goodness. But he denies that there is just one source of evil. Matter is certainly not the principle of evil, as Plotinus claimed, because it derives from good principles, indeed, from the good itself. We can also see that matter participates in goodness from the fact that it provides the potential for good things to come about. The cosmos as a whole is not only good, but divine, and it is made from matter. Instead, evils arise from a whole range of sources. They result from the fact that physical things are able to come into conflict, something that cannot occur in the more unified, simpler intelligible realm populated by immaterial gods. In fact, evil depends on good things and the pursuit of good things in order to exist. For instance, fire is a good thing, an indispensable source of warmth and light, and giraffes are obviously good things. Yet it is precisely when these two good things come together in the same place in the savanna that an evil arises, the poor giraffe is caught in a raging inferno. Thus Proclus says that evil has parupostasis, that is, a parasitic existence, an existence alongside and dependent on things that are good. Though this is a new suggestion for how evil might fit into a Platonist metaphysics, Proclus also depends on traditional arguments found in the Stoics and in Plotinus to hold that from the cosmic perspective, all things are for the best. And no wonder. As we have already learned, the physical universe is full of divinity. But divinity does not emerge equally in all places and all times. This is why we need to pray, and perform other rituals that invite the divine to make itself more fully manifest in our world. Here, Proclus is taking his lead from Iamblichus, who as we saw, had integrated the pagan practices known as Theurgy into his philosophical worldview. For Proclus, as for Iamblichus, Theurgy is in fact a higher means of access to the divine than philosophy. This is because philosophy will at its best elevate us only to an understanding of the forms in the lowest rank of gods, the intellect of gods. The more exalted divinities are beyond the reach of soul, which means that if we want to make contact with them, we must beseech them to come to us. We have a written record of how Proclus did so in the form of numerous hymns he wrote to gods like Athena. The writing of such hymns was connected to his eager participation in pagan rites and aimed at purifying himself for a union with God higher than anything philosophical argument could offer. Marinus tells us that the gods did come to Proclus. After Christians removed the statue of Athena from the Parthenon, she appeared to him in a dream and asked him to prepare his house, for she wished to dwell with him. This anecdote fits nicely with what has been discovered in the house that may have belonged to Proclus. Remember the sacrificed piglet. Proclus wove together many threads of the Greek tradition. He brought out the underlying logic of the metaphysical system embraced by his master Cyrianus and by Eamblichus, providing the most explicit and elaborate account of late ancient Platonism that survives today. He also claimed to be the heir to a much more ancient philosophical tradition. Like Eamblichus, he saw Pythagoras and Plato as singing from the same hymn sheet. According to the biography of Marinus, Proclus announced that he was himself the reincarnation of an earlier Pythagorean philosopher and mathematician, Nicomachus of Gerasa. But Proclus' deepest commitment was to the pagan religious beliefs that were so threatened by the increasingly confident and powerful Christians. This was an age when pagan temples were being converted into churches, when statues were being ripped from their sacred homes. The last pagan philosophers of antiquity faced the bleak prospect that their faith might die out altogether, a shadow that hangs over many texts from the last generations of Greek Platonists. This will be our topic in a few weeks. But first I'd like to pause to consult the closest thing available to oracles of Neoplatonism. This will help me round out our picture of pagan philosophy in late antiquity. Next week, I'll be addressing a topic we haven't examined much, ancient aesthetics, including Neoplatonic aesthetics, with a leading expert on this topic. The week after that, a second interview will reveal more about the Pythagorean strand in Neoplatonism, and also the Neoplatonic contribution to political philosophy. So please sacrifice some time to join me in discussion, first with Anne Sheppard, and then with Dominic O'Mara, here on The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.