![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
"The ways by which philosophy leads us upwards can be thought of in analogous terms [to the Bacchic initiatory rites], though the conjunction [sunaphē] they produce is not precise [akribē] compared to the ineffable union [apporhēton henōsin] [in the initiatory rites]," (Damascius, In Phaedonem 168.13-4; trans. Westerink, modified). Note here the term akribēs, "exact, accurate, precise". Because the Gods, being henads, are unique individuals, and philosophical concepts are universal, the rites which descend from the former are more akribēs than the way of ideas, which has a generality by comparison. The "ineffable union" is not a dissolution in the God for Damascius, but a mode of unity which is "ineffable" because predicates cannot in the strict sense attach to what is completely unique, that is, to the God and to me, each in our stark and utter uniqueness in the scene of initiation.
This passage reminded me in turn of one from Proclus (PT V 35. 127. 8-12), where he contrasts the "indefinite and common [aoristou … kai koinēs]" philosophical doctrine to the "Greek tradition [phēmēn]," in order to "demonstrate that he [Plato] as far as to the very names follows the theologians of the Greeks." Proclus is not characterizing somebody else's philosophical doctrine here as indefinite and common, but rather his own, and indeed anybody's. The "particular", in the henadic sense, is higher than the universal.
Compare this passage from Plato: "For he must do one of two things; either he must learn or discover the truth about these matters, or if that is impossible, he must take whatever human doctrine is best and hardest to disprove and, embarking upon it as upon a raft, sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers, unless he can sail upon some stronger vessel, some divine revelation [logou theiou tinos], and make his voyage more safely and securely," (Phaedo 85cd, trans. Lamb).
Such passages speak to the question of the soul's salvation through philosophy alone, i.e., in the absence of participation in a God proper. Philosophy offers a "way up" (anodos), through participation in the Gods' activities (energeiai), but arguably no further. It is not clear that philosophy reaches unaided to the powers (dynameis) of the Gods, strictly speaking, insofar as these are like the persons of the Gods, supra-essential. Certainly, with respect to the existences (hyparxeis) of the Gods, philosophy unaided can know that such entities are there to be found, but They are present to it as "objects x", so to speak, represented by the cypher of the "One Itself". So the philosopher unaided has a "way up", and for Damascius could achieve a vague conjunction with divinity generally. The question remains of just what this vague participation in divinity in general, the aroma, so to speak, of the Gods, without Their presence, means for the unaided philosopher. We can be certain, at any rate, that it was not an experiment that the Platonists wished their successors to have to undertake.
This passage reminded me in turn of one from Proclus (PT V 35. 127. 8-12), where he contrasts the "indefinite and common [aoristou … kai koinēs]" philosophical doctrine to the "Greek tradition [phēmēn]," in order to "demonstrate that he [Plato] as far as to the very names follows the theologians of the Greeks." Proclus is not characterizing somebody else's philosophical doctrine here as indefinite and common, but rather his own, and indeed anybody's. The "particular", in the henadic sense, is higher than the universal.
Compare this passage from Plato: "For he must do one of two things; either he must learn or discover the truth about these matters, or if that is impossible, he must take whatever human doctrine is best and hardest to disprove and, embarking upon it as upon a raft, sail upon it through life in the midst of dangers, unless he can sail upon some stronger vessel, some divine revelation [logou theiou tinos], and make his voyage more safely and securely," (Phaedo 85cd, trans. Lamb).
Such passages speak to the question of the soul's salvation through philosophy alone, i.e., in the absence of participation in a God proper. Philosophy offers a "way up" (anodos), through participation in the Gods' activities (energeiai), but arguably no further. It is not clear that philosophy reaches unaided to the powers (dynameis) of the Gods, strictly speaking, insofar as these are like the persons of the Gods, supra-essential. Certainly, with respect to the existences (hyparxeis) of the Gods, philosophy unaided can know that such entities are there to be found, but They are present to it as "objects x", so to speak, represented by the cypher of the "One Itself". So the philosopher unaided has a "way up", and for Damascius could achieve a vague conjunction with divinity generally. The question remains of just what this vague participation in divinity in general, the aroma, so to speak, of the Gods, without Their presence, means for the unaided philosopher. We can be certain, at any rate, that it was not an experiment that the Platonists wished their successors to have to undertake.
