Damascius Tweets (6)

[endymions_bower]

Here are the Damascius tweets for 3/22-3/26:


3/22

Have been reading forward in Damascius, trying to pick up the pace of my commentary, could go line-by-line if I don't force myself not to

(115/65) "If there is a unitary knowledge, such as the Gods have, a cognition that accords with the One and is beyond the Unified…

…this knowledge will converge with the One in an intuition…". 1st, note clear distinction between "unitary" and "unified"; R. inconsistent.

2d, comp. CW, where unitary (henadic) gnosis "is established according to the One" & is "in contact with the One", both seem closer to Greek

I'm getting into high weeds to point to a tendency I'm noticing more and more as I go: Rappe bending translation in a distinct direction…

…of hypostatizing the One. Here it is subtle; the One is s'thing to be in accord with, rather than be established according to…

…something to converge with, rather than be in contact with. The effect is to downplay henads.

3/24

On Rappe's Damascius: utter lack of concern for rendering "unitary" and "unified" consistently, even where opposition is explicit (115f/65f)

My suspicion is that this is to downplay the existence of a "unitary" (i.e., henadic) realm distinct from that of being (the "unified").

Why do the French get to have straight translations of such texts, whereas the English translations are always ideological? Exasperating

115/65: "If there is a unitary cognition, as the oracles reveal…" The text merely says hoi enthousiasmoi; "les transports divins", CW.

Translating "oracles" here (though admittedly not capitalized) reminds me of a strategy I've often observed…

…of attaching Platonic religiosity exclusively to the Chaldean Oracles, because exotic, less threatening than trad. Hellenic religion.

Similarly, when D. posits a "collection" of the gnosis of many distinct unitary realities (i.e., many Gods) in order to know the One…

…Rappe uses exotic terms like "concentration" or "compression"; but this is ordinary Platonic conceptual collection-and-division.

(Hypothetically transposed to a plane inaccessible to us, because we cannot know all the unique Gods in order to carry out the abstraction.)

118/71: "the nonmultiple [apolu] is called the simple [haploun]". Given D.'s obvious pun, why R. translate haploun as "singular"?

Is it because R. wishes to stress that there is no One but the One?

3/26

Back to Damascius! 117/69: It is not innocent to say "supersubstantial beings" when the text only says huperousioi.

Also, I am not fond of "supersubstantial" for huperousios. I prefer, as have many before me, "supra-" for the prefix…

…because "super-" implies in English intensification of a trait, rather than transcendence of it.

Henads are superior to substance/essence, not "very substantial/essential". Why not more respect for earlier translators?

Novel translations are fine if they bring the reader closer to the Greek, not for purposes of fudging distinctions.

118/71: Within ten lines of Greek text, Rappe translates heniaios as "unified", rather than "unitary", three times.

There are smaller irregularities as well: why is kai, "and", rendered "or" at 71.5?

I don't mean to dwell so much on the translation issues, but I have to document them; there won't be space to detail them in the review.

The basic point from 115-8/65-71 is that a process of "simplification" of "enthusiastic" experience of the divine does not lead to the One…

…but rather to the henad's "state", the unitary as such.

This is "existence", huparxis, which Damascius is rendering more distinct and knowable in itself than Proclus.

119/72.10-11: to kath'huparxin—I would say, "the existential"; CW, "ce qui est par subsistence," which is okay…

…though "subsistence" has generally rendered hupostasis, often contrasted with huparxis…

But R. has "that which subsides as its own being". First, smuggling so much in here; second, awkward—shouldn't it be "subsists"?

123/78: R.: "I am not saying at this point [oupô] that it [the One] is divided into the many particular features of the gods…"

Oupô can mean "not yet" or "not at all". CW: "je ne l'entends pas comme déjà divisé par les multiples propriétés des dieux…"

There is no way that Damascius is saying what R. is saying he is, i.e., holding a proof of monotheism in reserve for later.

The next session will hopefully concentrate more on the substance of what Damascius *is* saying, rather than what he isn't.