Time’s Causal Power Proclus and the Natural Theology of Time 9004466673, 9789004466678

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Time’s Causal Power

Philosophia Antiqua A SERIES OF STUDIES ON ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

Editorial Board F.A.J. de Haas (Leiden) K.A. Algra (Utrecht) J. Mansfeld (Utrecht) C.J. Rowe (Durham) D.T. Runia (Melbourne) Ch. Wildberg (Pittsburgh) Previous Editors J.H. Waszink† W.J. Verdenius† J.C.M. Van Winden†

volume 158

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/pha

Time’s Causal Power Proclus on the Natural Theology of Time By

Antonio Vargas

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Vargas, Antonio Luis, author. Title: Time’s causal power : Proclus and the natural theology of time / by Antonio Luis Vargas. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2021] | Series: Philosophia antiqua, 0079–1687 ; volume 158 | Includes index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021019018 (print) | LCCN 2021019019 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004466678 (hardback : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9789004466685 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Proclus, approximately 410–485. | Time. Classification: LCC B701.Z7 V37 2021 (print) | LCC B701.Z7 (ebook) | DDC 115—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019018 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021019019

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0079-1687 ISBN 978-90-04-46667-8 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-46668-5 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Antonio Vargas. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Scope and Aims of the Book 1 Distinctive Characteristics of Proclus’ Philosophy of Time 3 Structure of the Book 16 1 Sources of Proclus’ Philosophy of Time in Plato 19 1.1 Plato’s Timaeus as a Source: The Engineering of Time 22 1.1.1 Time as a Product of the Cosmic Engineer, Intelligence 22 1.1.2 Time as a Product of the World’s Paradigm, the Eternal Living Being 31 1.1.3 Time, Soul and the Celestial Bodies between Eternity and Change 33 1.1.4 Time, Eternity and Tense 36 1.2 Plato’s Republic as a Source: The Cycles of Time 38 2 The Aristotelian Element: The Order of Time as Number and as Intelligence 46 2.1 Factors in Proclus’ Reception of Aristotle 47 2.2 Aristotle on Time as the Number Counted in Change 53 2.3 Proclus’ Absorption of Aristotle’s Grounding of Change in the Philosophy of Time 73 2.3.1 Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Unchanging Agents of Change 73 2.3.2 Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Infinitely Powerful Agents of Change 84 2.3.3 Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Intelligence as the Primary Agent of Change 96 2.4 Time as the World’s Specific Kind of Intelligence 109 3 The Stoic Element: A Biology of the World as a Whole 111 3.1 Plato and Aristotle on the Omnipresence of Time’s Passage 113 3.2 The Stoic Biology of the Universe and the Unity of Change 123 3.3 The Biology of the World in Plotinus’ Theory of Time 133 3.4 Proclus’ Biology of the World 139

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4 The Plotinian Element: The Flow of Time as the Life of the World Soul 157 4.1 Platonic Sources and Aristotelian Objections to Time’s Uniform Flow 158 4.2 Time’s Flow as the Soul’s Engineering of the World in Plotinus 170 4.2.1 Eternal Activity, Change Itself and the Engineering of the World in Plotinus 171 4.2.2 Plotinus on Time: Time Is the Activity of Engineering of the World Soul 178 4.2.3 Two Corollaries: Time Is Not a Measure and the Soul Is Not in Time 184 4.3 Time’s Flow as the Contemplative Activity of the World Soul in Proclus 189 4.3.1 Metaphysical Background: Activity and Process in Proclus 189 4.3.2 Time’s Flow Is the Contemplative Activity of the World Soul 193 4.3.3 Proclus on Time in the Soul and Time as a Number 202 4.4 A Tension in Proclus’ Description of Time’s Flow 207 Conclusion: The Natural Theology of Time in Proclus 209 Bibliography 211 Texts, Abbreviations and Citation Practices 211 Translations 214 Modern Scholarship 216 Index Locorum 223 Name Index 228 Subject Index Alphabetical 229

Acknowledgments This book is a revised form of my dissertation at the Graduate School for Ancient Philosophy at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. I am grateful to the GSAP for awarding me the Ph.D. fellowship that enabled me to write this thesis in 2012–2016. I would like first and foremost to thank my advisors, Stephen Menn, Christoph Helmig and Christian Wildberg, for their support, comments and encouragement throughout these years. I am further grateful to the Graduate School for making it possible to spend the academic year 2013–2014 and the months October–November 2015 in Princeton to work with Christian Wildberg. Parts of this book were presented in graduate seminars at the HumboldtUniversität zu Berlin, Princeton University and the Universität zu Köln. I am grateful for various comments and encouragements offered by all these audiences. Chapter 2.3 is an elaboration of a thesis first put forward in ‘Proclus on Time and the Units of Time’ presented at the conference “Arxai: Proclus Diadochus of Constantinople and his Abrahamic Interpreters” in Istanbul in December 2012 and now in print at David Butorac and Danielle Layne, eds., Proclus and His Legacy (Berlin: De Gruyter). I am very grateful to the organizers and participants of the conference for their encouragement and comments. I am also grateful to Jan Opsomer, Jacob Rosen, Edward Butler, Giovanni Olivari, Gonzalo Gamarra, David Merry and two anonymous reviewers for comments. And also to my copy editor Elizabeth Stone, who caught numerous small errors and rendered the text as a whole much more consistent in its style. The transformation of the dissertation into a publishable book took place in 2017–2020 during my postdoctoral fellowship at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I would like to thank the Buber Society for its generous support during this period of intense revisions.

Introduction

Scope and Aims of the Book

Natural growth, ageing and spontaneous opportunity manifest the power of time in human experience, a power recognized in expressions such as “the appropriate time” and “it was time for it to happen.” This power might be an efficient power, with time itself bringing about changes, but it is certainly a power that makes human experience intelligible to us: things happen at the appropriate time because one moment is not disconnected to another, but rather processes develop according to a structure that we can understand. This is a book on the metaphysics of time developed by the philosopher Proclus of Athens (412–485 ce), a philosopher who took this power of time seriously as a starting point for reflecting on the question “what is time?” I will show how Proclus developed his philosophy of time and its role in making the world intelligible to us in response to claims and problems put forward by his philosophical predecessors, in particular Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus. Proclus’ thinking on time sheds light on that of his predecessors and is unique in the seriousness with which it takes the kairos, the notion of the opportune moment for an event or activity, as a feature of time itself. Besides the metaphysical approach of Plato, the physical approach of Aristotle and the psychological approach of Augustine, the “kairotic” approach of Proclus is a fourth unique approach to the problem of time that we have inherited from antiquity. As the very notion of an appropriate moment for a change implies an order of changes, a development which asks for a change to happen at one time rather than another, Proclus identified the philosophy of time with the understanding of ordered change and thus with the traditional project of natural theology, of knowing the divine by discovering the causes of ordered change. The philosophy of time in Proclus, thus, not only has a unique starting point, but it also has a unique terminus: time itself as one among the Gods.1 1 I capitalize “Gods” not as a term of respect as some polytheist readers of Proclus do, but following a convention that I will adopt throughout the book, which is to capitalize any terms that refer to eternal principles. I adopt the convention since many eternal principles in Proclus (and in Platonists in general) are named after their (non-eternal) effects, which can introduce some confusion. Following this convention will not always be easy, and I will indicate difficulties in the footnotes.

© Antonio Vargas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466685_002

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Introduction

The subject of this book is then the natural theology of time in Proclus, how time comes to be in Proclus the principle of cosmic intelligibility. It is a common theme in ancient philosophy that intelligibility is not only a product of the human mind, but also exists independently of us, in the world: the Logos of Heraclitus, the Nous of Anaxagoras, the Forms of Plato, and the Unmoved Mover of Aristotle are all examples of such a principle of intelligibility. Proclus is unique in the ancient world, however, in saying that the principle of cosmic intelligibility is none other than Time itself. Indeed, he quite explicitly incorporates into his theory of time attributions reserved for competing principles of intelligibility, such as Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover or the Stoic Zeus. Studying his theory through the lens of his reception of past philosophers makes this clear. Nonetheless, unlike non-Platonist philosophers Proclus also recognizes higher principles of intelligibility and does not hold that since Time is the principle for the understanding of physical things, there is no higher principle than Time. This points to the limits of this book: I will not be discussing principles higher than time and will not be following Proclus’ grounding of time all the way to his unhypothetical first principle, Unity (τὸ ἕν).2 Instead, I will be focusing on time as a principle of cosmic intelligibility. This means that many themes that today we consider central to the philosophy of time, such as the nature of the past, the present and the future, will not be discussed here, as they are not central to Proclus’ argument for time’s status. It is important to have in mind that “What is time?” is not the same question for us and for Proclus, and we should not bring our expectations to Proclus’ texts. Indeed, although Proclus did have a theory on the nature of past, present and future, he discussed it almost in passing and not nearly as thoroughly as he treated of the “causal” aspect of time as he put it. Having set out the subject of this book, let me say what it is not. It is not an attempt to make Proclus a participant in contemporary debates on the philosophy of time, whether phenomenological, analytical, or any other kind. Despite the wider audience to be gained by presenting Proclus in our own categories, considerations of time and space have led me to postpone this. Furthermore, this is not a history of the ancient philosophy of time. I will indeed be looking at a great many texts by Proclus’ predecessors. However, I will approach past philosophers solely as starting points for the development of Proclus’ own thought. I have done my best to avoid taking a stand on the 2 Typically translated as “the One,”. I prefer “Unity,” as it is supposed to be a principle of individuality and not an individual itself (as the definite article “the” suggests).

Introduction

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interpretation of any authors besides Proclus, although at times I have found it necessary to point out the uses to which Proclus put his predecessors’ concepts and, at other times, have found it heuristically valuable to develop an interesting idea that in some way anticipates Proclus in an earlier philosopher, thereby showing us possible sources of Proclus’ ideas. My interest is in how Proclus read his predecessors and received them, not a comparison of what they thought with what Proclus thought, and much less to judge whether Proclus read them “fairly” or “unfairly.” More specifically, this is not an account of “the Neoplatonist theory of time,” for the “Neoplatonists” shared no philosophia perennis of time. Indeed, they saw themselves as merely part of the school of Platonists, together with the many who we now call “middle platonists” and with whom they vehemently disagreed at times. “Neoplatonism” was a 19th century term to mark off those Platonists that followed Plotinus’ articulation of Platonist metaphysics as a derivation system starting from Unity itself from those before them, a convenient and justified separation to be sure, but not one that they made. What they did share was an effort to articulate the truth about time insofar as it was understood and expressed by Plato in his works. In their common effort, they did not arrive at the same results, although they did often build upon each other’s works. Thus, a work on Proclus’ philosophy of time is also a work on a theory of time that intends to be an interpretation of Plato. This study cannot, therefore, be a study of “the” Neoplatonist theory of time, but is a study of one Platonist theory of time. But who was Proclus, and what is distinctive about his philosophy of time?

Distinctive Characteristics of Proclus’ Philosophy of Time

Proclus was a pagan Platonist philosopher active in Athens during the period 432–485 ce and from 437 onwards was the head of the Platonic Academy there. His theoretical activity consisted in understanding and explaining the “philosophy of Plato,” which Proclus did not understand as merely the product of a very intelligent human being, but as a providential revelation of the knowledge possessed by the Gods.3 Through Plato, humans were afforded a grasp of reality that was complete, coherent, firmly established and had the power to orient the soul towards the Good. Accordingly, the Platonist 3 On which see Platonic Theology (henceforth PT) I 5.6–12. A complete overview of the abbreviations and citation practices used in this book is given in the bibliography’s “texts” section.

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Introduction

philosopher, for Proclus, was not a member of one philosophical school among many, but rather someone who took part in a divine, superhuman intention to teach humanity for the sake of the salvation of souls.4 Plato’s works were not the only vessel of divine revelation for Proclus. He recognized a plurality of theologically authoritative corpora, such as the works of Homer and Hesiod, Pythagorean and Orphic writings, and the Chaldean Oracles. However, Plato’s philosophy was distinct for Proclus from all other kinds of divine revelation by its scientific character, that is, the fact that in Plato knowledge of and about the Gods was put forth in the form of a body of knowledge covering all the kinds of being that make up reality, which started with an indubitable grasp of a single, simple principle, and was connected through demonstrations, deductions that tracked the causal relations in reality such that everything was known through the knowledge of what made it true.5 Proclus’ exegetical activity of Plato was, thus, also a philosophical activity of (re)constructing the metaphysical science just described, particularly (but not only) in the interpretation of Plato’s dialogue Parmenides. The interpretation of Plato’s philosophy as a complete demonstrative science was not an invention of Proclus’ and he piously reports on many occasions that he received the main lines of his interpretation of Plato from his teacher Syrianus, head of the Platonic Academy prior to him. But it certainly was not an interpretation shared by all previous Platonists and was not even an interpretation shared by all those we call “Neoplatonists,” the Platonist philosophers that adopted the broad lines of the metaphysics of Plotinus.6 To mark off the Neoplatonists as a school is not an arbitrary modern invention: Proclus himself recognized Plotinus as the first in a “second wave” of understanding of the Platonic Truth (PT I 5.1–8.15).7 Nonetheless, we do not find in Plotinus anything like the Procline obsession with retrieving Plato’s metaphysical science. 4 This salvation consists in the freedom of the soul from the body and the desires attached to it and an exchange of its bodily life for a life separate from bodily concerns and dedicated exclusively to intellectual contemplation. It is not to be confused either with the Christian notion of the salvation of the individual soul (as Proclus does not believe that each human individual has a unique soul, but rather that each soul is eternal and animates an infinite amount of human beings throughout time), or the material understanding of salvation as salvation from material hardships, such as a plague, drought or war. 5 That is, it was not known, say, through the knowledge of some effect, sign or absurdity that implied its existence. 6 Plotinus himself, for instance, shows no concern in reconstructing such a demonstrative science. 7 See fn.30 from Chapter 4 for more on this.

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One consequence of Proclus’ scientific drive is his need to clearly categorize and distinguish entities, often leading to what appear on a first reading to be overly subtle distinctions, especially when compared with his predecessor Plotinus. Proclus’ fine-grained distinctions, however, are a requirement for the univocally valid universal statements that make up the compendious science he finds in Plato’s philosophy. For instance, Proclus introduces a sharp distinction between the domain of the soul and the domain of “the Intelligized,” (τὰ νοητά)8 in contrast to Plotinus, who treats the soul as a member of the realm of the Intelligized that has somehow “fallen” into time, while retaining some part of itself “up there.” Thus, the universal statement “the soul is in time” is one that can only be made with caveats in Plotinus’ philosophy, since the soul is an ambiguous term, whereas Proclus’ sharp distinctions allow him to affirm it. This love of distinctions is perhaps one of the most striking distinguishing global features of Proclus’ theoretical philosophy. When it comes to Proclus’ philosophy of time, there are two traits perhaps that seem peculiar. The first and most commented on is Proclus’ treatment of time as a substance: time is said to be a Nous,9 a self-subsisting principle of rational order, and even “a God.” “Time” seems to be not so much a feature of the natural world as a personification, a metaphysical entity with agency of its own, not unlike how Time is personified in earlier Greek writers, where we find phrases, such as “Time moved forward and told the clear and precise story”10 or “all powerful Time,”11 to offer just two examples.12 This impression is strengthened by the second distinctive trait of Proclus’ conception of time, which is his attribution of causal power to it. Time is the “maker 8 These are objects known through intelligence, νοῦς a capacity for non-perceptual insight into eternal things analogous to sight. τὰ νοητά is typically rendered “the intelligible,” but I prefer “the intelligized,” as the objects so designated, though known through intelligence (νοῦς), do not always have an intelligible content. For example, sometimes the intelligized simply causes knowledge of it in νοῦς, like the blinding sun causes an image of itself in sight. τὰ νοητά includes the realm of the eternal Paradigms of perceptible beings first postulated by Plato. 9 “Nous” is a transliteration of the Greek term νοῦς, which I discusss in more detail in Chapter 2.3. 10 Pindar, Olympian Ode 10.55: Χρόνος. τὸ δὲ σαφανὲς ἰὼν πόρσω κατέφρασεν. 11 Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus, l.609: ὁ παγκρατὴς χρόνος. 12 Theunissen (2004) gives a wealth of pre-Platonic examples of such personification. On the subject, it should be noted that the allegorical identification of time, Chronos, with the titan Cronus who eats his own children (as the flow of time is supposed to consume the beings that come to be in time) is not one that Proclus or Plato follow. Plutarch reports this identification in De Iside et Osiride 363D as part of a materialist allegorizing away of Greek myths, a project entirely in opposition to Proclus’ own piety.

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Introduction

and definer of the being of life and of every other change of things in time”13 and it “stirs up, measures and returns to their initial conditions the natural cosmic changes.”14 A causal power had been attributed previously in ancient philosophy to place, in particular by Aristotle, who explained the upward motions of fire and air and the downward motions of earth and water by reference to a tendency of each element to move towards a “proper place” of its own. Proclus recognizes not only that each natural body has its own proper place, but also that each action has its own proper time, i.e., when it should happen: “For just as place is delimited within nature in a manner appropriate to each body, so also different parts of time are fitted to different activities … Therefore, the Pythagoreans called the first cause, source of good to all, ‘the opportune moment’ (καιρὸν), since it bestows on all their fulfillment.”15 Unlike some modern views,16 time (χρόνος) is not opposed by Proclus to “the opportune moment” (καιρός).The latter is rather an essential structural feature of the former. It belongs to the nature of time’s rhythms that there should be specific moments for each agent when it is appropriate to act. Time, therefore, has for Proclus a strong affinity with the notions of Fate and Providence, that is, of a pre-established orchestration of the world’s history.

13 Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (henceforth In Tim.) III 20.3–5: ποιητικὸν καὶ ἀφοριστικὸν τοῦ εἶναι τῆς ζωῆς καὶ πάσης τῆς ἄλλης κινήσεως τῶν ἐν χρόνῳ πραγμάτων. 14 In Tim. III 30.16–18: ἐγερτικὴ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ὅλων κινήσεων καὶ ἀποκαταστατικὴ καὶ μετρητική. I translate τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ὅλων κινήσεων as “the natural cosmic changes,” because I take Proclus to be use ὅλων here in a technical manner that he elsewhere does, where he conrasts what is “whole” in the world with what is “partial,” meaning by the former those things that are totalities that are forever a part of the cosmos, and by the latter individual beings that come and go. Thus, the motion of the Moon and the replacement of one generation of wolves by another are “whole changes” or “changes of the universe,” whereas the individual life of a single wolf is not. But of course, things are not so clear cut, as the perpetual existence of the species of wolves depends on the procreative activity of individual wolves at the appropriate times in their lifespans. I discuss this subject in many sections of the book. 15 Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades I (henceforth In Alc.) 121.11–20: ὥσπερ γὰρ τόπος ἐκ τῆς φύσεως ἑκάστῳ τῶν σωμάτων οἰκείως ἀφώρισται, οὕτω δὴ καὶ χρόνου μόρια ἄλλο ἄλλαις ἐφαρμόττει πράξεσι· … διὸ καὶ τὴν πρώτην αἰτίαν, ἀφ’ ἧς πᾶσι τὸ ἀγαθόν, οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι καιρὸν ἀπεκάλουν ὡς πᾶσι τὸ τελείοις εἶναι δωρουμένην. See also his Commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days §260. 16 For instance, Tillich (1963) (primarily concerned with the New Testament) and Ó Murchadha (1999) (who is interpreting Heidegger). In both cases, it is clear that the opposition between χρόνος and καίρος is not drawn from sources relevant to Proclus.

Introduction

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One of the main tasks of this book will be to elucidate Proclus’ arguments for holding the two surprising beliefs that time is (1) a substance and (2) a cause.17 Aside from Proclus’ particular arguments, however, a prior reason for his unique concept of time is that his understanding of the question “what is time?” is markedly different not only from our own, but also from that of Aristotle or St. Augustine, the two ancient philosophers that have most influenced contemporary debates on time. For Proclus, time is, in a sense, simply the existence of ordered change in the world, and thus the inquiry into time and its causes is an inquiry not into the restricted phenomena of the measurement of changes and the passage of past, present and future, but rather an inquiry into the causes of change. Book IV of Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus, the main work where he discusses time, may indeed seem to be an idiosyncratic investigation when set along texts we consider to be classics in the philosophy of time, such as Aristotle’s Physics IV, Plotinus’ On Eternity and Time, or Augustine’s Confessions XI. But that is because it sees itself as part of a different inquiry and a different tradition of inquiry. It belongs rather to what many today would see as an outdated project of natural theology, to which also belong, for instance Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle’s Physics VIII and Metaphysics XII, and (partially) Plotinus’ Ennead V.9 [5] On Intelligence, Forms and Being. “What is time?” is a different problem for Proclus than it is for us. By reading Proclus’ philosophy of time as part of the tradition of inquiry into the causes of ordered change, I am following the interpretation first set forth by Simplicius, a Neoplatonist commentator on Aristotle from the 6th century ce, in his Corollary on Time (part of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics), who said that: With regard to the opinions of these two philosophers [Proclus and Iamblichus], let this much be said: if those who have sought the cause of time among Noes and Gods have said that it, too, is a Nous and a God, we must accept it. For if anyone seeks the first causes of change and becoming he will most certainly find them to be Nous and God. There is nothing surprising if they should call time itself by the same names, since

17

The causal power and connection with fate is curious from a contemporary standpoint, but standard from a wider perspective. See, for instance, the manifold cosmologies studied by Eliade (2005) and in particular the Mayan belief in an eternal and causally efficacious “order of days” studied by Stuart (2011).

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Introduction

this has often seemed good to the theologians, and perhaps also to the Gods themselves.18 T0.1 Simplicius Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 795.17–2319

This remark of Simplicius’ comes at the close of a long overview of the theories of time put forth by Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus, the main Neoplatonists philosophers before his own teacher, Damascius. By collecting the ancient opinions on the nature of time in his monograph, Simplicius’ corollary is the earliest extant history of the philosophy of time in late Antiquity, and his work was the starting point for those who worked on the subject in the 20th century, notably Duhem, Sambursky and Sorabji. Simplicius separates out the theories of time of the Neoplatonists, from Plotinus onwards, as theories about “the primary time there” (πρῶτον ἐκεῖνον χρόνον). This is an ambiguous phrase, one that led Duhem (1913) astray and probably affected the reception of Neoplatonist theories of time after him. The ambiguity lies in the word “there” (ἐκεῖνον), which can either not contribute at all to the meaning of the expression (making it so much as “the primary time, as opposed to others”) or it can mean, within Neoplatonism, “amongst the intelligized, i.e. the eternal realities known only through intelligence.”20 In the first case, “the primary time” is an appropriate name for what Neoplatonists all look for in their theories of time, which is “time as such.” That is, they are looking for a reality (be it a process or some eternal being) that is what time in itself is and on the basis of which all the other things called time (such as the totality of change, or the quantities measured by astronomical periods, for instance) are called time. For instance, in his treatise On Eternity and Time (Enn. III.7 [45]), Plotinus takes his cue from Plato’s Timaeus 37d, where time is described as a “moving image of eternity.” Plotinus thus begins with an investigation of eternity as a reality that exists “there” amongst the intelligized, in order to then figure out 18 ἐμοὶ δὲ πρὸς τὰς εἰρημένας τῶν δύο φιλοσόφων δόξας τοσοῦτον λεγέσθω, ὡς εἰ μὲν τὸ αἴτιον τοῦ χρόνου τὸ ἐν νοῖς καὶ θεοῖς ζητοῦντες νοῦν καὶ τοῦτο ἑστῶτα καὶ θεὸν ἔλεγον, ἀνάγκη δέχεσθαι· καὶ γὰρ τῆς κινήσεως καὶ τῆς γενέσεως εἴ τις τὰς πρώτας αἰτίας ζητεῖ, νοῦν πάντως καὶ θεὸν εὑρήσει. καὶ θαυμαστὸν οὐδὲν εἰ καὶ ὀνόμασιν αὐτὸν καλοίη τοῖς αὐτοῖς, ἐπειδὴ πολλαχοῦ τοῦτο τοῖς θεολόγοις ἤρεσεν, ἴσως δὲ καὶ αὐτοῖς τοῖς θεοῖς. 19 Throughout the book, I refer to works in abbreviated form in the text and with spelled out titles when presenting a passage. I do this as a helpful reminder of the work and, thus, of the genre of the work from which the passage is quoted. Furthermore, all passages studied will be listed as TX.Y, where X is the chapter number in roman numeral and Y counts the passages in each chapter. 20 Intelligence here is my translation for νοῦς, a special capacity for non-sensory insight, especially of eternal realities.

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what time in itself, “here,” is. In the second possible meaning of “there,” “the primary time there,” refers necessarily to some special kind of time that is, as Duhem (1913, p. 247) puts it, “the other time, a primordial time, which is the cause of physical time.”21 This idea of a “higher time” is, however, only with difficulty discerned in Plotinus, and if it can be identified in later Platonist authors, it is wrong to construe it as an object of their study divorced from a study of the natural world. It is true that they are influenced by mythological presentations of time as somehow divine, and Proclus even mentions a cult of Chronos (that is, Time) as a God.22 However, this is for them at most an indication that time had a divine or eternal status. If they are lead to postulate that time is in itself is an eternal reality, it is not because their investigations had a different subject matter as other investigations into time in Antiquity (as if they were no longer interested in “physical time”), but rather they thought that precisely such an eternal reality was required to explain temporal phenomena in nature. In contrast to Duhem, Sorabji (1983) has shown how, especially for the case of Iamblichus, the paradoxes concerning perceptible time are one of the prime reasons for postulating an “intelligized Time.” This corrects the impression given by Duhem’s interpretation that later Neoplatonist theories of time are changing the subject of the philosophy of time by simply focusing on some different entity, “intelligized time.” However, I would argue that Sorabji’s focus on the paradoxes of time fails to recognize the way in which the Neoplatonists (and particularly Proclus) did change the subject, by identifying the philosophy of time with the investigation into the causes of ordered change in nature. For this reason, Sorabji, for all the light he sheds on the texts, fails to properly recognize the contributions of Plotinus and Proclus to the development of later Neoplatonist theories of time and, thus, also misconstrues the background of Damascius’ theory of time, which succeeded Proclus’ theory. Proclus’ own understanding of the question of time is, like Plotinus’, indebted to Plato’s Timaeus. For Proclus, it is not, however time’s role as the image of eternity that is central, but rather how it is introduced in the dialogue as a feature of the perceptible world that assimilates it to the Intelligized by giving it order 21

22

My own translation. See also Sambursky and Pines (1971, p. 10) who in their introduction to a collection of texts of later Neoplatonists on time claim that Aristotle’s texts “do not appear to have a direct relevance to the texts printed below, for they are confined to the mobile time of the cosmos known to our senses and ignore the higher planes of temporality postulated by the Neoplatonists, with whom we are concerned.” For Proclus on Chronos as a God, see In Tim III 40.31–41.3.

10

Introduction

(a perspective discussed in more detail in Chapter 1.2). It is by starting from this Platonic framing of the role of time that Proclus came to understand investigation into time as investigation into the principles of ordered change in general. Proclus’ philosophy of time is, thus, the project (within a universal metaphysical science) of determining the ultimate cause of ordered change in the universe. Since it concerns the perceptible cosmos, it falls within the domain of Proclus’ physics, as opposed to his metaphysics. “Physics” (φυσιολογία) here means the science that investigates the perceptible world and leads it back to its first principles. “Metaphysics” here means the metaphysical science that investigates being and seeks to lead all of being back to its first principles.23 Since perceptibles are beings prior to being perceptible beings, physics is subordinate to metaphysics, and metaphysics is precisely the complete knowledge supposed to be revealed by the Gods through Plato. Both sciences are “theologies” in a sense, since for Proclus the principles of both being and the perceptible are Gods. They have, however, different methods, to be discussed below, and different subject matters, the perceptible and being. Proclus has two main works on each science. He takes the entirety of Plato’s physics to be contained in the dialogue Timaeus and the entirety of Plato’s metaphysics to be in the entirety of the dialogue Parmenides, and Proclus’ main works on physics and metaphysics are his Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus and his Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, respectively.24 This reflects the position of the two dialogues at the end of the Platonic curriculum drawn up by Iamblichus, a sequence of ten dialogues plus the Timaeus and Parmenides, which was supposed to be a course in the whole of Plato’s philosophy. Additionally, Proclus composed two works modeled after Euclid’s Elements where basic propositions of physics and metaphysics are demonstrated in the manner of an “elements”, through a series of propositions each with a proof of its own, and where later propositions build 23 24

It should be observed that the term employed by Proclus for metaphysics so construed is θεολογία. On the subject see Dodds (1963, p. 187), Steel (2005) and Martijn (2010, chapter I.2). For the study of Proclus’ metaphysics, the Platonic Theology provides invaluable material. However, through Damascius’ Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides we know that the metaphysics in the Platonic Theology was already presented in the (now) lost second half of Proclus’ own commentary on the Parmenides, specifically in the commentary on the second hypothesis or deduction. Thus, although the PT is for us of even greater importance than the In Parm. for discerning some aspects of Proclus’ metaphysics, it was probably subordinate to the In Parm. in Proclus’ own presentation of his metaphysics. Indeed, the purpose of the PT was less to offer a summary of Plato’s metaphysics than to collect and organize everything that Plato said about the Gods. Thus, Proclus speaks of a final (notextant) volume of the PT dedicated to what Plato had to say about individual Gods.

Introduction

11

upon earlier propositions. These two works are the Elements of Physics and the Elements of Theology, respectively. A distinctive feature of Proclus’ physics is that it is done as a cosmology, i.e., in terms of an account of the κόσμος, or, the world, a term he understands in a unique way. In presenting physics as an account of the world, Proclus followed Plato, who in his Timaeus presents a theory of the constitution of the perceptible world (from the planets and stars all the way to the species of living beings and the nature of disease) in the form of a narrative about how the world came to be. This narrative consisted in how a divine Engineer constructed the world out of an unruly material substrate, being guided in his efforts by contemplation of an eternal Paradigm, “the Living Being itself,” of which the world was meant to be a likeness.25 Aristotle’s Physics, in contrast, takes a much more abstract approach, being described by Aristotle in the opening of his Meteorology as a study of “the first causes of nature and natural change in general.”26 Indeed, Aristotle’s Physics deals not so much with any set of individual beings that are the causes of all change, but rather the types of things that are involved in natural explanation to which belong form, matter, privation, causes, change, place, time and void, for instance.27 Even Aristotle’s famous proofs for the existence of a first cause of change in the universe are carried out at a highly abstract level, in terms of the many possible kinds of causes of change.28 The results of the Physics are thus independent of specific claims about the constitution of the world. Indeed, in the Physics the question of whether there is one world or many is not yet discussed.29 Thus, we can see that in Aristotle’s thought physics has acquired

25 I give a fuller account of this narrative frame in Chapter 1.1. 26 Meteor. 338a20. On the prologue to the Meteorology and what it reveals about Aristotle’s understanding of physics, see Falcon (2005, pp. 2ff). 27 This division of labor of Aristotle’s treatises is underlined by Simplicius In de Cael I 2.17–26. Simplicius takes the understanding of the Physics as concerning the principles of bodies and not bodies themselves to be a consensus amongst interpreters, with divergences appearing in how to understand the subject matter of De Caelo. Aristotle’s approach is contrasted with Plato’s at 3.15–20. 28 Namely, agents of change that cause change by undergoing change; agents of change that cause change without undergoing change, yet which are perishable – agents of change that cause change without causing any change. On the significance of this level of abstraction see Menn (2012, pp. 434–435). 29 Nevertheless, a connected question, whether the void exists, is discussed in Physics IV.6–9. The question is connected because the Atomists that defended the existence of multiple worlds also held that the multiple worlds existed within an extracosmic void.

12

Introduction

a higher level of generality than it had in Plato: it is the study of things that change as such, without being necessarily the study of this particular world. It is especially relevant to the subject of this book that in Physics IV.10–14 Aristotle deals with time as one of the basic principles in explaining change, one that is in principle independent of the question of the uniqueness of the world. Indeed, Aristotle appeals to the possibility of many worlds in order to criticize those (most likely, Plato) who would identify time with the motion of the universe.30 Aristotle’s argument is the following: “if there were more universes (οὐρανοί) than one, time would be equally the movement of any of them, so that there would be many times at the same time.”31 Aristotle’s appeal to a necessary unicity of time is striking, because, as Ursula Coope (2005, p. 34) has pointed out, Aristotle actually believes that there is also necessarily only one world, and thus one set of heavens. However, Coope sees a crucial difference, in that the necessity in the case of the world is not a necessity following from the essence of the world, from what it is to be a world, but rather from a necessary property of it, namely, that it necessarily contains all the matter for bodies.32 There is, thus, a difference between the general term “world” and singular term “the world,” which refers to the perceptible totality we are in. Not so with time. For time there is no general form distinct from the time of this world. Hence, there is by essential necessity a singular time. Aristotle says later on at Phys. IV.14 223b1ff that there is a single time for simultaneous events, just

30

See Chapter. 1.2.3 for a discussion of the material in Plato that suggests this identification and also on why Proclus resists it. See Coope (2005, pp. 32ff) and Roark (2011, p. 44) for such a reading of Aristotle. “the motion of the universe” here is either all the apparent motions of the celestial bodies taken as a whole, or only their common westward motion that generates night and day. 31 Physics IV.10 218b3–5: εἰ πλείους ἦσαν οἱ οὐρανοί, ὁμοίως ἂν ἦν ὁ χρόνος ἡ ὁτουοῦν αὐτῶν κίνησις, ὥστε πολλοὶ χρόνοι ἅμα. Note that “οὐρανοί” here does not mean “heavens” as in a plurality of heavenly spheres, but rather a plurality of universes. “οὐρανός” was used as a synonym for “κόσμος” in Plato’s Timaeus 28b3–5, and LSJ reports that there is no plural of “οὐρανός” in the sense of “heavens” in classical Greek, giving as its first instances uses in the Septuagint. 32 Robert Roreitner has suggested to me that a proof of the necessary unicity of the world has already been given at this point in the Physics, insofar as Aristotle had already argued that any putative void between worlds is an absurd construction. Nonetheless, one can believe in a universe with multiple independent celestial systems even without the void: one need only introduce some special body, an ether of sorts, within which the independent celestial systems would be immersed.

Introduction

13

as there is a single number for equal quantities. Hence, for Aristotle there can only be a single time series, just as there can only be a single number series.33 If Proclus can blithely go on doing physics in the form of an account of the world, it is because he understands it to mean something different from what Aristotle had in mind. In Aristotle a yawning gap arose between “the world” and “nature.” For Aristotle, the world was just the ordered whole to which everything that can be perceived belongs. “The world” thus understood is distinct from nature; that is, the set of all things studied by natural science, or everything that is subject to change. “The world” for Aristotle was an instance of the universal “world,” the kind of ordered whole of which this ordered whole is only one instance. There might be many worlds, namely many ordered wholes of perceptible things analogous to the world. There is no conceptual necessity that there be a single world. There is, however, a conceptual necessity that there should be a single nature. To say that there were two separate “natures” in this sense would be to say that there are changing things not included in the set “all changing things.” In contrast to any such distinction between “nature” and “world,” Proclus believes that κόσμος has the same kind of conceptual necessary uniqueness that Aristotle attributes to time and nature. This conceptual uniqueness of κόσμος is most clearly stated, not by Proclus, but by Damascius after him, who equates the possibility of many worlds and a false arithmetical sum as equally “the most absurd of absurd things.”34 But it is also a result of a mini-treatise on the uniqueness of the cosmos in Proclus’ Timaeus commentary (In Tim I 435.4–458.11). In this text Proclus mentions Aristotle’s arguments against a plurality of κόσμοι favorably, but in comparison with Plato’s own argument in the Timaeus, Proclus thinks that Aristotle only reasons on the basis of auxiliary causes required for the production of the κόσμος, namely its matter, whereas Plato argues from its productive causes, that is, those causes that determine the essence of the κόσμος and confer existence upon it. (In Tim I 455.2–456.31). This semantic shift affects how Proclus does natural philosophy and also how we should interpret his philosophy of time, a subsection of his natural philosophy. More specifically for Proclus, the world is unique because it is an image of its Paradigm, the Living Being itself, which is unique and it shares in its 33

I return to Aristotle’s explanation of the identity of nows in terms of the identity of numbers in Chapter 4.1. 34 Damascius, In Parm. IV 117.16–23. Interestingly, Damascius also names “the numerically identical I is immortal” as equally absurd. It would be illuminating to work out what this teaches us about the relation between self and soul in Damascius and late Platonism more generally.

14

Introduction

uniqueness: “if the Paradigm is unique, then what is generated according to it will also be unique, imitating the uniqueness of the Paradigm and nothing besides the κόσμος is such [to imitate that uniqueness]. For nothing other besides the Living Being itself is unique in that way.”35 But in what sense is the Living Being itself unique? For Proclus, the Living Being contains within itself the Paradigms for all perceptible beings, and for that reason it is unique, because there is no other Paradigm that it does not relate to as whole and part, to which it might be related by similarity.36 In the same way, the world is the living being that encompasses all other living beings, and thus by definition (and necessarily) is a unique whole. Just as, then, the number series contains all the numbers, the world contains all perceptible things, and the one is just as necessarily unique as the other. Furthermore, like the number series the world is not simply an aggregate, including all perceptible things without order, but it is a specific ordering of all things, namely as an organized whole and a living being.37 To see the high level of generality that this imbues Proclus’ concept of world with, consider that a deviant Platonist could very well accept the entire preceding argument and also believe in a plurality of worlds, that is, a universe where there is not only a single ordered perceptible whole, but rather a multitude of them, perhaps even an infinity. He might even reason that this is required in order to produce a true image of the Living Being itself, if he believes, say, that infinity is a property that the Living Being itself has.38 The “world,” then, that most appropriately images the Living Being itself would be an infinite universe populated with an infinity of worlds. This shows that the uniqueness that the world acquires on the ground of its similarity to the Living Being itself is not the uniqueness of this ordered totality that we are in (with the uniqueness belonging to any particular object of ostension) but is rather the conceptual uniqueness of “nature” and “time” as Aristotle would have it. 35 In Tim I 444.11–15: εἰ γὰρ τὸ παράδειγμα μονογενές, καὶ τὸ κατ’ αὐτὸ γενόμενον μονογενές, μεμιμημένον τὸ τοῦ παραδείγματος μονογενές, καὶ οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν τοῦ κόσμου τοιοῦτον· οὐδὲ γὰρ ἄλλο τι πλὴν τοῦ αὐτοζῴου κατὰ τὸ σημαινόμενον τοῦτο μονογενές. Proclus later recognizes that every Form, not only the Living Being itself, has a properly unique perfect instantiation, and that the Living Being itself, in turn, has many copies, as each celestial sphere is a kind of world unto itself. See below Chapter 2.3.2. 36 For Proclus, all beings are related as either whole and part or through identity and difference (ET 66). 37 We will return to this organic unity of the whole in discussing the Stoic element in Proclus’ theory of time in Chapter 3.4. 38 For instance, Giordano Bruno argued in his dialogue De l’infinito, universo e mondi that innumerable worlds would better mirror divine perfection than a single, finite world.

Introduction

15

Proclus’ thesis about the uniqueness of the world is not, then, the thesis of the absence of a multitude under the concept “world,” but a thesis about what it is to be perceptible, i.e., about nature. Thus, nature has necessarily the total order that we indicate when we call it a “world.” For this very reason, Proclus, after having written a whole miniature treatise on the uniqueness of the world, still returns to the subject later in his commentary, dealing not only with why the Engineer did not create only a single κόσμος, but also why he did not create any matter outside this κόσμος (In Tim. II 65.14–67.16).39 And here he gives the explanation that the unity of the world is not to be understood as the weakness of being isolated and fragmented off, but the perfection of bringing a multitude under a unity, a consequence of the power of the cosmic Engineer (In Tim. II 66.5–8). The world is, thus, conceived of as having an inclusive unity: it is not that there are no similar objects in existence, but rather that every possible perceptible body is included in it. It even includes in the region underneath the earth matter that is in a chaotic state, i.e., as it would exist prior to the creation of the world in Timaeus’ narrative (In Tim. II 56.29ff), or, to draw an analogy more relevant to the case of the unicity of the world, as it would exist in the void in between worlds in an atomist multiverse. The world for Proclus is thus not just this world, but nature itself, the whole of the perceptible as a causally structured system.40 To recognize this is, incidentally, to recognize also the narrowness of Heidegger’s judgment that “the phenomenon of world” was systematically overlooked in “the ontological tradition.” For Proclus’ κόσμος is, like Heidegger’s world, “that in terms of which things at hand are at hand for us” (2006, p. 65). All the objects of our experience are encountered already as structured in a cosmic order; it belongs to each of them to be a cosmic thing,

39

40

One might say that the fact that Proclus returns to the unicity of the world is insignificant, as he is only following Plato’s dialogue, and Plato returns to the topic. But this would be to ignore that for Proclus Plato would not return to a matter he had already discussed in vain, which meant that the recurrence of the issue must have been important. Perhaps there is, thus, a Procline argument to be reconstructed, according to which the atomists are led to the error of positing many worlds because they have failed to see how chaotic perceptible bodies by nature occupy the lowest position and are surrounded by the rest of the cosmos. Cf. In Tim. II 106.15–23 on how “everything that is disordered in the world is compressed around its middle.” (… καὶ πᾶν τὸ ταραχῶδες ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ συνέωσται περὶ τὸ μέσον …) and must have their causes for their being limited in the highest (i.e., most causally prior) Gods, meaning apparently the Engineer (i.e., the Demiurge, referred to as Zeus in the passage). (On the translation “Engineer,” see below, Chapter 1.1.). This is a unique application of ET 57!

16

Introduction

just as, for instance, it belongs to each human limb that we encounter to be something that belongs to a person, to an organic body.41 In sum, Proclus conducts physics by giving an account of the κόσμος, i.e., by doing “cosmology.” Proclus understood the world as simultaneously being nature, the totality of all perceptible things, and not as simply this world, a single total body. Proclus’ philosophy of time, therefore, does not fall prey to the error that Aristotle attacked, namely of identifying time with a cosmic motion. Aristotle objected that time was necessarily unique, whereas the world was not, since one can conceive of a multitude of worlds. Proclus, however, when he discusses the world, means the necessarily unique nature under the aspect of its orderliness, and not a being of which there might be many instances.42 It is in this context that he studies time by seeking the causes of ordered change: he is not studying the ordered nature of change here in this world, but what he believes to be an intrinsic orderliness that belongs to change as such.

Structure of the Book

Having laid out my goals and method and briefly presented the structure of Proclus’ philosophy, I will finish this introduction with a short overview of the book chapters. I begin by surveying the Platonic texts that framed Proclus’ efforts in the philosophy of time. Given Proclus’ Platonism and his commitment to “getting at how things are by getting Plato right,” Plato’s texts are the most authoritative 41 This has implications for the study of what Proclus considers to be eternal parts of the world. Thus, for instance, a given planet – Saturn, say – is not for Proclus simply a body, not even simply an eternal body or the body of a divine living being in the heavens, but it is even more than that a necessary component of nature, some kind of transcendental structure that belongs to the very idea of perceptible existence. Unfortunately, despite the connection between the celestial bodies and time, I will not be able to investigate such “transcendental” roles played by individual heavenly bodies in this book. The clearest starting points would be to investigate the Earth, the Sun, the fixed stars (as a group) and the planets (as a group). It goes without saying that the claim that everything in nature is composed of the four elements, fire, air, water and earth, is also open to such a transcendental reinterpretation. The value of such an approach would not only be to understand Proclus’ claims in natural philosophy within his understanding of what the cosmos is, but also perhaps to uncover philosophically interesting thoughts covered over in an obsolete picture of the natural world. 42 I will be periphrasticallly translating the terms ὑπερκόσμιος and ἐγκόσμιος, often rendered “hypercosmic” and “encosmic,” as “transcending/beyond the world,” and “within/in/ immanent to the world.”

Introduction

17

texts for Proclus in how he thinks about time. I will consider in particular Plato’s Timaeus and Republic as sources. One manner of understanding Proclus’ effort to conceive of time is that he is trying to reconcile two different meanings of time in the Platonic texts, where it appears, at times, to mean an eternal Order of Time according to which all changes takes place (in which case it is an eternal intelligized reality) and, at other times, it means the phenomenon of time as a change happening in the world. The problem of how to conceive of the unity between these two senses of “time” will be a motivator for many of Proclus’ claims. After Plato, I turn to Aristotle, who contributed in three ways to the problem of time that Proclus faced. First of all, Aristotle developed three sets of objections to the thesis that time is a process or a change, all of which undermined the conceivability of the second sense of time in Plato that I outlined in the previous paragraph. Second, Aristotle developed the notion of number in important ways for Proclus’ understanding of the Order of Time. Third, Aristotle argued that the primary agent of change in the cosmos was Intelligence, a thesis taken up by Proclus when he defined time (in the sense of the Order of Time) as a Kind of Intelligence (νοῦς τις). What was merely “Intelligence” in Aristotle became “a Kind of Intelligence” for Proclus because he acknowledged a multitude of different νόες, of different “knowledges” of being that ordered life to the good. (This shift will be especially dealt with in Chapter 2.3.3.) Chapter 2, then, besides being a study of Aristotle’s contribution to Proclus’ theory of time, is also a first approach to the answer Proclus gives to the question, “What is the Order of Time?” Having set up Proclus’ Platonic commitment to conceiving of time (in one sense) as a process and Aristotle’s criticism of the notion, I then use Aristotle’s criticism to motivate Proclus’ introduction of Stoic and Plotinian elements in his philosophy of time. Thus, the two chapters dedicated to these elements each start with a presentation of “Platonist commitments and Aristotelian objections” that frame Proclus’ reception of the philosophy in question. In the case of Stoic philosophy, Aristotle’s objection that a process always belongs to a single body, whereas time should be omnipresent, motivates the inclusion of the Stoic theory that the entire cosmos is a single living being within Proclus’ philosophy of time. Through this Proclus confronts the problem of what it means for time to be omnipresent, which includes the contemporary problem dealt with by Poincaré and Einstein of how there can be a single universal simultaneous now coordinating all events in the world. Furthermore, through this Proclus absorbs many functions of the Stoic Zeus into his account of Time. In the case of Plotinus, it is Aristotle’s claim that a process must always conceivably move faster or slower that explains the role of Plotinus’ contribution,

18

Introduction

namely, the identification of the flow of time with the entirely uniform activity of intelligization on the part of the world soul. Thus, here we get Proclus’ first answer to the question, “What is the flow of time?” Chapters 3 and 4, thus, form a kind of unit, where we observe Proclus’ use of his predecessors’ insights in order to shore up the Platonic conception of the flow of time as a real process in the world, and not just an aspect of other changes. Along the way some of Proclus’ theory concerning the order of time qua intelligized reality and as a “Kind of Intelligence” (νοῦς τις), following Aristotle’s Metaphysics (but not his theory of time!), will also be clarified, although the focus will be on understanding time’s flow, or the phenomenon of time. In the conclusion, I will wrap up Proclus’ claims on cosmic intelligibility and point to further avenues for research in his philosophy of time.

Chapter 1

Sources of Proclus’ Philosophy of Time in Plato Proclus put forth his views on time almost exclusively in commentaries on Plato and overwhelmingly in the commentary on a single dialogue, the Timaeus. Why is this so? Although Proclus recognizes Plato as a “philosophical authority” (absurd as this combination might sound to modern ears), his views do not rest solely on that authority. Proclus could in principle have presented them in the Euclidean fashion of his Elements of Theology and Elements of Physics, starting from axioms and definitions and moving from simpler to more complex propositions. Indeed, Proclus himself thought that there was a science proceeding from hypotheses, “true astronomy,” that had time as its subject matter1 and a central argument of his concerning time is a refinement of an argument in the Elements of Theology.2 And yet he chose rather to express his views on time mainly in a work on Plato. Why? A large part of the answer is Plato’s unique role as a philosophical authority for Proclus and other late Platonists. For them, Plato was not on a par with other philosophers. His works were not considered the record of a fellow researcher, but the self-disclosure of the wisdom (νοῦς) that philosophers seek. Plato’s soul, to use their terminology, possessed “paradigmatic virtue,” the perfection of not only contemplating and living according to wisdom, but of being a vessel and instrument of wisdom in the world.3 Since Plato’s thought was united with wisdom, it was natural for Proclus to articulate his intellectual understanding of time in the context of interpreting Plato. This does not mean that Plato’s mere word sufficed for the truth of a statement. Precisely because Plato was taken as a spokesperson of wisdom, he was also taken to have a perfectly systematic view of things. Indeed, Proclus holds that, in contrast to not only all other philosophers, but also any inspired 1 See below, Chapter 1.2, T1.6. 2 See below, Chapter 2.3.2, T2.13, T2.14. 3 Cf. Damascius In Phaed I 143, where he describes paradigmatic virtue as being νοῦς by participation. Given the separate existence of νοῦς and the soul’s dependence on it (ET 193) paradigmatic virtue must constitute a relation akin to that between body and soul, thus, one where the soul plays the role of an instrument to νοῦς (as per ET 64). I take it that the Platonists articulated the grounds of Plato’s authority, while they articulated and systematized their views on virtue. The main argument for seeing the category of paradigmatic virtue as an explanation for Platonic authority is due to the manner in which the development of the concept occurs in tandem with the development of the treatment of Plato as a canonic text. See Vargas and Helmig (2014) for more details.

© Antonio Vargas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466685_003

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Chapter 1

mythologians, Plato alone presented his whole theology dialectically and scientifically (PT I 20.19–25).4 Thus, whereas in the case of theological sources such as the Chaldean Oracles or Homer, Proclus would first have to apply great exegetical ingenuity to uncover a philosophical truth5 and then provide an argument for it, in Plato’s case philosophical views were not only already clearly articulated, but Plato himself had provided in his dialogues an argument for each view advanced.6 But if that is so, it is also not immediately clear why Proclus expressed himself in the form of a commentary. For if the result of reading Plato Neoplatonically was a self-standing philosophy attributed to Plato, why not simply expound that from first principles? I can think of three reasons. First, Proclus may very well have been working out his own interpretation as he wrote his commentary. Before he wrote the commentary, he did not have a fully formed interpretation of every detail of every Platonic passage – and details were very important in Proclus’ eyes: Plato not only always wrote the truth, but also expressed it in the best possible words set in the best possible word order, such that even the ordering of words could signify important claims of priority in metaphysical, ethical or epistemological registers. Thus, it may very well be that Proclus developed his theory of time in commenting on the Timaeus and that, later, he did not feel the need to write a polished systematic form of the theory in the form of an “Elementary True Astronomy.”7 Second, commenting on Plato 4 Where “science” involves the use of demonstration and “dialectic” names the highest science. On Proclus’ theory of science see In Parm V 977.3–978.6, In Eucl., esp. I chapters 1–7, 11, 14, II chapters 1–8. For discussion see Martijn 2010a, chapters III and V, 2010b, Harari (2008). 5 That is, an intellectually necessary view, as opposed to one contingent to reason (like the name of a God, for instance – although even in this case, through etymology reason can get some purchase for Proclus, following Plato’s Cratylus). 6 Despite Plato’s famous criticism of Homer and other poets in Republic II 379a–397e and X 595a–600e for portraying the Gods in an unworthy manner, Proclus took Homer as a theological authority and wrote two treatises harmonizing Plato and Homer. See Sheppard (1980), Lamberton (1986, 1992). See also Chlup (2012, chapter VI) for discussions of Proclus’ interpretation of Homer and poetry more generally. The main texts are Proclus’ 5th and 6th essays on the Republic, which have been translated by Lamberton (2012). 7 Or, perhaps, Proclus followed a division between “elementary doctrines,” which he taught in his Elements of Physics and Elements of Theology, and “advanced doctrines,” which he reserved for his commentaries on the Timaeus and the Parmenides, the former being the locus for “advanced physics” and the latter the locus for “advanced metaphysics.” These latter works would not only be more advanced in their content but also in their form of exposition, requiring of the student not only the ability to follow and to construct arguments, but also the hermeneutical skills to in interpret Plato and to move along a number of hermeneutical levels, that is, between ethical, physical and metaphysical domains.

Sources of Proclus ’ Philosophy of Time in Plato

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was a way of constituting Plato’s authority by attributing to him a well-argued metaphysical view.8 This constitution of Plato’s authority also involves the positioning of his views above those of other philosophers and engaging in the multifaceted textual operation of constructing the Platonic tradition. Finally, Proclus is writing for students, and thus he is writing to teach others how to read Plato, something that would not be achieved by merely presenting Plato’s philosophy divorced from the text. Given Plato’s authority and Proclus’ interest in doing philosophy by commenting on his dialogues, it is clear that the dialogues held a great sway over Proclus as he articulated his theory of time. As a group, however, they could not directly determine Proclus’ views, since their meaning is unclear. Due to their literary character, Plato’s dialogues control their interpretation far less than an Aristotelian treatise, and contain many expressions open to divergent interpretations. Although I have, to this point, mentioned only the Timaeus as a Platonic source for Proclus’ theory of time, Proclus’ investigations are also framed by two other dialogues: the Parmenides and the Republic (in particular, Books VII and IX). Their importance is based on Proclus’ characteristic metaphysical approach to the subject of time. The Parmenides was a necessary frame for Proclus’ philosophy of time because it provided Proclus with a unified metaphysical framework for interpreting Plato and, as such, constituted the outermost frame for any inquiry of Proclus’. However, given that we shall not be discussing the ultimate causes of time, and only the role of time as the source of cosmic intelligibility, a discussion of the Parmenides will not be necessary here. The Republic’s relevance is connected to how the Timaeus links time to the celestial bodies, and its contribution will be explained later on.9 In discussing the Platonic dialogues, I will then discuss first the Timaeus (1.1) and then the Republic (1.2).10 8 See Stefaniw (2010) for a Christian parallel. Stefaniw provides a clear, didactic presentation of how the interpretation of the bible as expressing truths regarding the intelligized world was part of a project of constituting the authority of scripture in the hermeneutic activity of Origen, Didymus the Blind and Evagrius Ponticus. 9 See below, Chapter 1.2. 10 Plato’s Statesman would be a fourth dialogue to mention with regard to the philosophy of time. However, the evidence for its influence on Proclus’ views is scarce. The myth of two distinct world-ages and the imagined cosmic processes of “ageing” and “rejuvenation” are certainly relevant to interpreting Plato’s views on time, as is his ultimate description of statecraft as the art that knows the appropriate time to apply each art in the city (See Lane (1998) for more on the centrality of this description to the Statesman). Proclus, however, makes little use of the dialogue in his extant works when discussing time.

22 1.1

Chapter 1

Plato’s Timaeus as a Source: The Engineering of Time

1.1.1 Time as a Product of the Cosmic Engineer, Intelligence Plato’s Timaeus does not consist mainly in dialogue, but rather in a long speech given by the main character, called Timaeus. His speech is an account of the natural world and the soul through a rational cosmogony, that is, it is an explanation of how the world is through an account of how it came to be, and this process of coming to be is explained as governed by Reason/Intelligence (νοῦς). This is not a new project in Plato’s eyes. He rather saw the Timaeus as part of an older tradition, dating back beyond Socrates, of defending the claim that “Reason is king over heaven and earth” (Phil. 28c). The way in which this claim is defended in the Timaeus is by telling a “likely story” (εἰκὼς μῦθος)11 that accounts for how the world is by narrating its construction by a good and rational agent, best known as “the Demiurge,” that acts upon a chaotic flux that pre-existed the world. In a stronger sense, Intelligence is said to be king over heaven and earth because the divine agent is, at one point, identified with Intelligence itself, the world being described as, “the offspring of a union of necessity and Intelligence. Intelligence prevailed over necessity by persuading it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best, and the result of this subjugation of necessity to wise persuasion was the initial formation of this universe” (Tim. 47e5–48a5, Trans. Zeyl).12 The Timaeus thus presents a rational cosmogony, not only in the sense that the world comes to be by the action of a rational agent, but also in that Intelligence as such is an agent capable of acting upon the world, and the world is produced by the introduction of intelligent order into a previously disordered chaos. The story is correspondingly divided into a proem (27d5–29d6) where the groundwork

11 This is how Plato characterizes the epistemological status of the cosmogony of the Timaeus, and as such, its interpretation is central for the whole dialogue. See Martijn (2010, chapter V) for Proclus’ interpretation, which also provides at pp. 222–226 an overview of modern readings of the expression. Two senses of “likely” are at play in the expression “likely story,” likelihood as persuasiveness of a speech and likely as in the likeness of an image to its original. Both senses subordinate Timaeus’ speech with respect to science (ἐπιστήμη), which proves its results with necessity (not mere likelihood) and concerns itself with true being (not its image). The expression is not to be read as the ironic idiom “a likely story,” expressing disbelief. 12 μεμειγμένη γὰρ οὖν ἡ τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου γένεσις ἐξ ἀνάγκης τε καὶ νοῦ συστάσεως ἐγεννήθη· νοῦ δὲ ἀνάγκης ἄρχοντος τῷ πείθειν αὐτὴν τῶν γιγνομένων τὰ πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν, ταύτῃ κατὰ ταῦτά τε δι’ἀνάγκης ἡττωμένης ὑπὸ πειθοῦς ἔμφρονος οὕτω κατ’ ἀρχὰς συνίστατο τόδε τὸ πᾶν.

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for the cosmogony is laid out, an initial part on the contribution of Intelligence to the world (29d7–47e2), a second part on the contribution of necessity (47d3–69a5) and a final part on the cooperation of necessity and Intelligence in the world (69a6–92c9). Proclus’ Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus is, thus, the place where he receives and includes the traditional project of defending the rationality of the perceptible world within his larger Platonic metaphysics.13 In the Timaeus Intelligence is portrayed as engaging in a complex activity: it is itself portrayed as the Craftsman of the world. Its work is guided by looking at a Paradigm for the world, which is the intelligized Living Being. In order for Intelligence to provide the world with intelligent order it must first imbue it with a soul or mind (ψυχή), as souls alone are capable, according to Plato, of ordering themselves towards the good through intelligence. As a result, the world is conceived as a living being and as an intelligent living being. Finally, the motivation for “the Demiurge” to fashion the world is his goodness and lack of jealousy, as a result of which he wishes to share his goodness and produce the world in the best state possible. The world, therefore, not only shares in life and intelligence, it is even called a God, sharing in the divinity of its causes (Intelligence and and the Paradigm employed by Intelligence in fashioning the world). The title of Intelligence’s function as producing the world, ὁ δημιουργός, is most often translated “the Craftsman” or “the Artificer,” when it is not simply left untranslated as “the Demiurge.” The reason for calling Intelligence a “craftsman” or “artificer” are clear from the text: Intelligence is pictured as engaged in manual labor as it produces the world, mixing ingredients, bending, cutting, even (against the general principle that Intelligence always acts by persuasion) at times using violent force to order the world. Furthermore, Intelligence’s use of the intelligized Living Being as a model refers to a standard practice of craftsman to use models for their work in Plato’s dialogues.14 Nonetheless, the term also has its difficulties. The world seems to be a project of much greater scope and complexity than that of a craftsman; it is indeed a living being, which even if Plato attributed it to a divine Craftsman, is still substantially different from what a craftsman produces, due to the world’s autonomous movement and 13 We will consider in Chapter 2.3 exactly how Proclus adopts this project in the Timaeus commentary and especially in his discussion of time when we return to in his reception of Aristotle’s theory of Intelligence as the first principle of nature, a theory that seeks to correct the Timaeus’ account in many ways. 14 See Johansen (2004, chapter 4, esp. pp. 72–73, 83–86) for a discussion of the δημιουργός of the Timaeus as a craftsman in light of Plato’s theses about craftsmanship in other dialogues.

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complex parts. Finally, Intelligence is not the sole craftsman, but delegates an important part of the work to certain Gods that it places within the world. Thus, Intelligence is something like a master-craftsman, and the world, to a certain degree, fashions itself. Another option would be to translate δημιουργός as creator, and Intelligence’s work as the creation of the world. But creation, especially in the sense of the creation of the world, I take to be too well established as meaning creatio ex nihilo, a production of the world that depends solely on the power of the creator and not on any pre-existing chaotic mass that is ordered. Given these difficulties, I propose here the translation “the Engineer (of the world)” or “the (cosmic) Engineer.” An engineering project can certainly be of much greater scope and complexity than an object of craft. When we imagine the possibility of one day artificially producing life, we speak of “engineering life.” Engineering is an activity that does not occur ex nihilo but requires given materials, and it most often requires the delegation of tasks. An engineer can use a model for his project, but more importantly he applies technical and scientific knowledge to the resolution of problems, which is closer to how Proclus understands Intelligence’s contemplation of the intelligized Living Being, namely, not as checking against a static model, but rather the application of knowledge of a science. Furthermore, in the Timaeus we encounter problems that I believe we would call engineering problems. For instance, Intelligence, at one point, must make a choice regarding the human skull: Should it be hard, but impair human intelligence, or soft, but allow for a better capacity for thought? (Tim. 74e10–75c7) How is Intelligence supposed to maximize both the capacity for thought and the longevity of human beings? This seems like a typical engineering problem.15 The translation “engineer,” furthermore, provides “(work of) engineering” for δημιουργία, the noun designating his activity. This avoids “creation,” with its ex nihilo overtones, and is also a process that admits of many levels. Hence, we can talk, say, of the structural engineering of something, and then the engineering of its individual parts. This is an advantage, for such a distinction between different levels of cosmic engineering and their corresponding engineers is central to Proclus’ interpretation of the Timaeus. Admittedly, engineer in Greek is μηχανικὸς, but Proclus himself, commenting on Tim. 34b–c, where Plato writes that the god ἐμηχανήσατο “devised, built” the soul, says that this is the exact word to convey that the soul “is self-moving, full of logoi, and such as to discover various reasonings.” (In Tim. II.115.3–4: αὐτοκίνητον καὶ λόγων πλῆρες καὶ εὑρετικὸν παντοίων

15 And see Dennet (1995, esp. chapter 8), for a discussion of design, especially in living beings, as a case of engineering.

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ἐπιχειρήσεων), and such complexity in the object is precisely what I believe that the translation Engineer brings out. (I thank an anonymous reviewer for bringing the issue of μηχανικὸς to my attention.) As mentioned in the introduction, the Timaeus belonged to the twodialogue cycle that closed the curriculum of Platonic dialogues employed by the Neoplatonists in their teaching and it was held by them to contain the whole of Plato’s physics, thus forming a pair with the Parmenides, which was held to contain the whole of Plato’s metaphysics. That time is examined in both dialogues, means that Proclus would have had both a physical and a metaphysical treatment of time to draw from Plato. He confronted, thus, the task of positioning the Timaean account of time within the framework of the second hypothesis of the Parmenides, just as he had to do so with the many divine principles mentioned in the Timaeus, such as the Engineer of the world and the world’s eternal Paradigm. Indeed, Proclus read the Timaeus as a physics that led natural phenomena back to their divine causes, which in turn were entities that could be found in the metaphysics of the Parmenides. (See In Tim I 214.19–20.) Caution is required in the characterization of Procline physics as an ascent to divine causes, as it can easily blur the lines between theology and physics for Proclus.16 Key here is the distinction between dialectical and mathematical science made in Republic VII 510b–511c. Mathematical science starts by hypothesizing the existence of certain entities (angles and lines are examples from geometry) and drawing conclusions from these hypotheses. Dialectic also starts from hypotheses, but it does not proceed to draw conclusions that depend upon the hypothesized existences, but rather is supposed to somehow “finds its way” from its hypotheses to an unhypothetical first principle, a starting point whose existence is not assumed, but known. Proclus believes that this is done in the very first deduction of the Parmenides from the hypothesis “unity is.”17 Proclus interprets “unity is” to mean “what there is, is unity,” that is, to hypothesize the existence he calls τὸ ἓν ὄν, Unity-in-Being, which is (textually) the Unity that is hypothesized to be in the hypothesis “Unity is” in the Parmenides, and (substantially) the simple essence of being, prior to all distinction – into intelligible and perceptible, exterior and interior, living and not-living, eternal and temporal, necessary and accidental, divine and dependent, etc. – and from the analysis of this hypothesis, to purify our conception of Unity-in-Being of everything incompatible with its presumed unity, arriving at Unity itself, from which even its hypothesized character, as something which

16 17

As it does in Lernould (2001), as argued by Martijn (2010). On which, see O’Meara (1989, pp. 199–204).

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can be the object of a mere conjecture, has been removed.18 From Unity, established as an unhypothetical first principle, the second hypothesis deduces the existence of the divine principles of each level of being, of which the cosmic Engineer and the world’s Paradigm are examples. Martijn (2010, chapter III) has stressed the hypothetical character of the physical science that Proclus draws from Plato. Although there are no clear existence claims at the start of the Timaeus, Proclus interprets a set of definitions (of intelligized and perceptible being) and rules of inference (from something that comes to be to its cause, and from the state of a product to the character of the model used in its fashioning) as such. He states in the dialogue’s proemium that they imply existence claims, and interprets the initial arguments in the first section (on the contribution of intelligence to the cosmogony) as proceeding after the fashion of geometers from these hypotheses.19 Thus, although the aim of the Timaeus is to show how the perceptible world or at least its existence and structure can be derived from a set of divine causes, it has its focus turned toward the cosmic reality that it is supposed to ground and is, thus, restricted to the account of perceptible realities and appearances. This restriction is important with respect to time, which for Proclus has extra-physical causes. Passing from the general method of Timaean physics to its specific treatment of time, at a first approximation, time is discussed in the Timaeus in an account of the construction of time by the cosmic Engineer. The generation of time is, thus, mythically portrayed as one in a series of actions belonging to the cosmogony. In the interpretation of the dialogue, ever since Aristotle’s criticism of the view that the world had a beginning in time in Phys. VIII.1, a

18 See In Parm V 1033.17–1036.18 and VI 1079.4–20 for this account of the first hypothesis as an ascent from Unity-in-Being to Unity itself. As Proclus progressively denies attributes to Unity, it can seem that he approaches not an indubitable first principle, but nothing at all. Proclus is aware of this issue. At In Parm. VI 1072.3–11, and at 1081.8–1082.12 he observes the danger of grasping Unity as something indefinite through our imagination and at In Parm. VI 1105.25–1106.2 presents those who object to the method of negations as wanting something to hold on to with their imagination. He also tells his readers not to think of Unity itself through a concept, but rather to intend it by employing their own unity, i.e., their own power to constitute themselves as a single acting self, saying “I think” and “I want,” a power identified by Proclus with the soul’s innate desire for the Good itself. The unity we aim at in uniting ourselves as an “I,” Proclus seems to say, is a unity we are certain of and which we intend in the absence of any positive attributes. Thus, in order to avoid conceiving of unity itself as nothing, we must hold fast to our own drive towards unity, which is the subject of all our activities and attributes without being any of them. 19 These are hypotheses insofar as they involve the unproven assumption of existences. The definitions of becoming and being, for example, involve the hypothesis that “there is becoming” and “there is being.” As Martijn (2010) puts it, Proclus takes, “every definition to involve a hypothesis, namely concerning the existence of a definiendum” (p. 97).

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view he attributed to Plato, there has been a question of whether the temporal character of the myth, the successiveness of the acts of creation are to be taken “literally” or not, i.e., if Plato meant to advocate the position that the world came to be at a specific point and in a series of acts distinguished as earlier and later. The interpretation of the construction of time from this point of view becomes important: for if time itself is held to be created, how can the acts that create it and the world be in time if they precede it as its causes? On the other hand, it is clear that mere succession is not all that time is for Plato, although that does not mean that it could exist without time in the Platonic view.20 This is intimately joined with the question of how the “chaotic and disorderly flux” that precedes the Engineer’s ordering action is to be understood, since it would necessarily be a change without time. These two questions of the philosophy of time (whether time has a beginning, whether succession requires time) are thus put forth by the fact that Plato’s discussion of time is embedded within a cosmogonic myth with a temporal character of its own.21 Besides the cosmogonic context of the discussion of time, the position of the discussion of time in Plato’s dialogue also determines Proclus’ reading. Proclus divides the narrative of the engineering of the world into ten sections, each of which deals with one “gift” or perfection given by the Engineer to the world. These gifts are: (Baltzly 2013) 1. Being perceptible due to the presence of the elements (Tim. 31b) 2. Having its elements bound together through proportion (31c) 3. Being a whole constituted of wholes (32c) 4. Being spherical in shape (33b) 5. Being self-sufficient (33c) 6. Rotating upon its axis (34a) 7. Being animated by a divine soul (34b) 8. Being ordered by time (36e–37a) 9. Having celestial bodies (39d) 10. Having all kinds of living beings in it (39e–40a) 20

See Roark (2011, pp. 28–29) on how Plato’s understanding of time goes beyond mere temporal succession. On pp. 31–33 Roark provides an account of why Plato might that think proper succession depends on the motion of the heavens (which Roark takes Plato to identify with time), namely that the heavens function as a clockwork that defines simultaneity at the present instant. This is not so unlike Proclus’ own account of the grounds of simultaneity studied in Chapter 3.4 below. 21 Both issues were very important for Proclus. On the question of the beginning of time, Proclus wrote a collection of arguments defending the world’s everlastingness. Gleede (2009) provides text, translation and commentary, focusing on Platonic and Aristotelian elements in Proclus’ arguments. Proclus also pauses to argue for the perpetuity of the world in his treatise on time in the Timaeus commentary at In Tim. III 37.7–38.12.

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What is important about the position of time as the seventh gift of the Engineer to the world is Proclus’ conceit that each gift is supposed to improve upon the ones preceding it and thus to constitute a greater perfection. Thus, the second gift (proportion) unites the elements that make up the first gift (world’s body), and the seventh gift (the world soul) is a cause of the movement of the sixth gift.22 The eighth gift (time) is, thus, a perfection of the world that improves on its having a soul, i.e., being animate.23 Plato has determined two important features of Proclus’ philosophy of time by making it a product of a divine Engineer. First of all, as a product of the Engineer, time is a gift to and a perfection of the world. It is, thus, something good. Proclus follows strictly the theology prescribed by Plato in the Republic II 378c–385c, according to which the Gods can be causes of no evils, which means that something fashioned by a God cannot be an evil.24 The theological context of Plato’s discussion of time, thus, gives an axiological frame to the theory of time for Proclus. It becomes necessary to argue against the common opposed view that time is a cause of destruction and passing-away and for a view that time is a positive aspect of order in the world.25

22

It might seem odd that motion comes to be first, in the absence of its cause, and then the cause of motion is added. But this is just as it should be in Proclus’ reading of the Timaeus’ cosmogony: Timaeus is reasoning backwards from things closer to us (the body of the world and its properties) towards the invisible elements of the world (its soul, intelligence and divinity) (In Tim. II 113.19–114.26). Simplicius and Olympiodorus would wonder how the world and, specifically, the heavens can move both on account of their own nature (φύσις) and on account of their having a soul and developed a theory in response that the nature of the heavens grants it a specific receptivity to being self-changing, whereas the agent of motion itself is the soul. Proclus developed no such theory in his account of the motion of the heavens in the Timaeus commentary. Rather in Proclus’ theory of the locomotion of animate bodies, the respective contributions of nature and soul are that nature is the immediate cause of locomotion and that soul is the cause of the nature as an expression and tool of its own self-changing thoughts and desires. (See Chlup (2012, pp. 107–108), Opsomer (2006, 2009).) 23 Proclus explicitly discusses the status of time as a gift at In Tim. III 3.10–4.8. 24 For Proclus on the no-evil theology, see PT I, chapter 18 and also the third essay of the Commentary on Plato’s Republic. 25 As defended famously by Aristotle in Physics IV.12 221a30–221b1 and IV.13 222b17–26, where he cites the Pythagorean Paron calling time “the dumbest of all things,” because it produces oblivion. Proclus attacks such negative views of time at In Tim. III 20.15–22. His own view is that temporality does not consist in finitude, but in the cyclical perpetuity that gives changing things their share in eternity. Furthermore, against the view that ageing is morally compromising, Proclus underlines the role of time in learning and recollection (In Alc. 236.18–237.7). Further on, I will discuss Time’s function in providing a measure of eternity to the world in Chapters 2.3 and 2.4.

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Furthermore, the fact that time is a product of the Engineer and a perfection following upon the soul means that time has a specific location in the hierarchy of being for Proclus. For Proclus there are many senses in which things are, and a coarse-grained division is that between the eternal being of the Intelligized, the self-changing being of souls, and the extended, passive being of perceptible bodies. To illustrate how bodies, souls and Kinds of Intelligence are said to “be” in different ways, consider the attribute “beauty” as it is in Proclus’ analysis an attribute of the substance of a thing. A body is beautiful because a soul has implanted beauty in it (but it could be otherwise); a soul is beautiful because it chooses virtue and intelligence (but it could choose otherwise); and an eternal object of intelligence is beautiful because its essence is beautiful (and it is necessarily so). So, among bodies being is contingent and external to the bodies themselves, among souls it is contingent (they could be otherwise), yet internal to themselves (they are as they choose to be), and finally among eternal things it is said necessarily. So where, then, is time in this hierarchy? What is proper to Plato’s philosophy for Proclus is precisely that he sought to determine the position of each reality in the hierarchy of being (In Tim. III 10.2–10.8, PT I 20.19–25). Insofar as it perfects souls, time must be for Proclus something ontologically prior to them, and thus, at the very least, a substance as souls are substances. Time cannot be just an order inhering in the world or in the world’s soul, but it must be a substantial cause of order. But why should perfections be prior to what they perfect? As perfections are they not accidents of perfect subjects? The ground for the priority of perfections to subjects of perfection in Platonic ontology resides in an argument of Aristotle that Plotinus adapted for the prior existence of Intelligence to soul. The idea is the following: a virtue is the proper use and activity of a power of the soul. To be virtuous is, thus, to be in activity in a certain manner. The acquisition of a perfection is a transition from potency to act. It is a metaphysical principle of Proclus’ (inherited from Aristotle) that every transition from potency to act requires the existence of something that possesses the activity in question by essence. Thus, every potential being proceeds to actual being on account of the existence according to actuality of what it is potentially (ET 77).26 Thus, if soul is essentially self-changing and capable of the further 26

Dodds (1963) contends in his note to this proposition that Proclus’ argument for this proposition in the Elements of Theology is circular for the principle that actuality is prior to potency is already presupposed in his proof of prop. 7, which is employed to prove prop. 77. Yet, that the presupposition is made is not at all clear. The only similar premise in the argument for prop. 7 is that if a cause “is itself productive of all the power which is in its consequent, it is able to create a like character in itself, that is, to increase its own power” (trans. Dodds). That is, whatever is the cause of a power existing separately from itself, in another existing individual it produces, can also produce the same power as a power

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perfection of ordered self-change (yet its change is not essentially ordered, since evil and ignorance in souls is seen as a kind of disorder in their change) then order-of-change must exist in itself in full actuality prior to souls.27 The notion of time as a substance may be familiar to the reader through the notion of “absolute time” as a dimension in which events take place and which is independent of them. This is not Proclus’ view of the substantiality of time, however, as he conceives of it as an unextended substance. Another mistake that might be made at this juncture would be to think that what we most directly refer to as time, the dynamic passage of the present, is what Proclus claims is a substance. No, what is at stake here is what Plato primarily refers to when he says “time,” and for Proclus this is a substance that is the cause of the present and its flow, but not identical to it.28 Since reality is ordered for Proclus by causal relations, by positioning time in the order of reality, the Timaeus creates the expectation that a philosophy of time will have to investigate exactly what are the causes of time in the realms of being higher than it, and also what are its effects in the realms of being below it.29 Proclus can thus quite easily speak of time as a cause, and even as a cause of change.30 In particular, Proclus will see time as the cause for cyclical changes and regularly occurring events that sustain natural cycles. His main support for this in Plato is a passage in the Republic, T1.9, discussed in section 1.2 below.

of its own, not separate and subsisting in another individual. Power to create implies the power to empower. A priority of actuality is involved here, namely that all the powers of a being are seated in its actual existence. The production of that existence thus implies the production of those powers as well. This priority does not seem to me to obviously presuppose the priority of the actual exercise of powers to their actualization. 27 This is roughly the argument of Plotinus Enn V.9.4. 28 See below section 2.3.2 on how Time itself produces the pure temporal flux. 29 Cf. ET 11.5–8: “if all things were uncaused, there would be no sequence of primary and secondary, perfecting and perfected, regulative and regulated, generating and generated, active and passive; and all things would be unknowable.” (ἀλλ᾽ εἰ μὲν μηδενὸς εἴη τῶν ὄντων αἰτία, οὔτε τάξις ἔσται δευτέρων καὶ πρώτων, τελειούντων καὶ τελειουμένων, κοσμούντων καὶ κοσμουμένων, γεννώντων καὶ γεννωμένων, ποιούντων καὶ πασχόντων· οὔτε ἐπιστήμη τῶν ὄντων οὐδενός.) 30 For this reason, the position that time is a cause of destruction mentioned in fn.25 of this chapter must be explicitly rejected, for it is not a priori ruled out, as it would be in a treatment of time as something insubstantial without causal efficacy, as it is in Epicurus and the Stoics.

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1.1.2 Time as a Product of the World’s Paradigm, the Eternal Living Being Even before Proclus considers what Timaeus says about time, he already takes Plato to hold the following view: time is an element of the cosmic Engineering, a substance produced by the Engineer in his activity and that participates in the ordering the world’s body and soul. Proclus accepts this view on Plato’s authority and arguments, specifically the arguments for explaining the world through divine causes and especially as a work of cosmic engineering, and for studying it as a progressive improvement of the world wherein temporal order is an improvement over animation. This picture is further specified in the Timaeus’s discussion of time, a long passage that I will not quote in full. Let me start with the initial and definitional introduction of time in the “likely story”: So, as [the Paradigm] was itself an everlasting living being, [the Engineer] tried to complete this [perceptible] totality as far as possible as something similar. Now, the nature of the Living Thing was eternal, but it isn’t possible to bestow eternity completely on anything that is generated. And so He planned to make a changing image of eternity: at the same time as he brought order to the heavens, he would make an eternal image, proceeding according to number, of eternity remaining in unity. This image, of course, is what we call time. T1.1 Plato Timaeus 37d1–7, trans. Zeyl, modified31

Plato’s text frames Proclus’ thought on time in several ways. There are four factors to consider before focusing on the more proximate definition of time as “an eternal image, proceeding according to number, of eternity remaining in unity.” First, the passage clearly sets out the Engineer and the Paradigm that he observes as the causes of time, a frame discussed above. What is significant is not only what causes are named, but also what causes are not named with respect to time. Plato does not, at first, mention the chaotic and disorderly changes that precede the world nor the celestial bodies. The celestial bodies are brought into the account later, but at least for the purposes of saying what time is, Plato feels no need to refer to celestial clockwork. 31 καθάπερ οὖν αὐτὸ τυγχάνει ζῷον ἀίδιον ὄν, καὶ τόδε τὸ πᾶν οὕτως εἰς δύναμιν ἐπεχείρησε τοιοῦτον ἀποτελεῖν. ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ζῴου φύσις ἐτύγχανεν οὖσα αἰώνιος, καὶ τοῦτο μὲν δὴ τῷ γεννητῷ παντελῶς προσάπτειν οὐκ ἦν δυνατόν·εἰκὼ δ’ ἐπενόει κινητόν τινα αἰῶνος ποιῆσαι, καὶ διακοσμῶν ἅμα οὐρανὸν ποιεῖ μένοντος αἰῶνος ἐν ἑνὶ κατ’ ἀριθμὸν ἰοῦσαν αἰώνιον εἰκόνα, τοῦτον ὃν δὴ χρόνον ὠνομάκαμεν.

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A second frame is time’s introduction as a solution to a problem, the mediation between the eternal and the generated. It is because it is impossible for anything generated to be eternal that the Engineer “plans” to make time. Time is seen as an entity that serves a purpose specifically within a physics that attempts to ground the perceptible world in an eternal Paradigm. Time is, thus, not seen as, say, a structure of physical change itself or of human consciousness.32 Thirdly, time is presented as the result of a teleological consideration, namely, it is an instrument devised by the cosmic Engineer to make the world as like as possible to its Paradigm. This gives time a final cause, a purpose or good in virtue of which it exists. This good is not a goal that time leads up to (an eschaton of some sort), but a stable character possessed by the world in virtue of time, its similarity to the eternal Paradigm qua eternal.33 The likeness of the world and its Paradigm is a further fourth frame on Proclus’ view of time. Plotinus inferred in Enn. III.7.1 from time’s status as an image the principle that it can only be discussed once eternity itself has been discussed and Proclus followed him in this. The original, intelligized Paradigm must, in each case, be understood before its image is understood. This contrasts with Aristotle’s reading of Plato and his own discussion of time more generally, which makes no reference to eternity, and also stands in contrast to another Platonic option, namely to start with the understanding of the image as a means of coming to the intelligized original. In short, Plato’s introduction of time specifies the picture of time as a substantial principle of cosmic order in four ways: (1) it specifies the causes as the engineer and the eternity of the world’s intelligized Paradigm; (2) it presents time as a solution to the problem of how to mediate between the eternal and the temporal, not as a result of mere reflection on change as such; (3) it specifies that time is not only a good as a perfection of the world’s soul, but is also a good insofar as it institutes a likeness to the Paradigm of the world; finally, (4) time itself is called an image of eternity. One could say more about all the frames, but frame four specifically calls for further development in this investigation.

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As discussed in the introduction, Proclus’ Platonic approach to time makes his philosophy of time markedly different from that of both Aristotle and of philosophers who start from Aristotle’s Physics. This gives Proclus a formal, a final and an efficient cause (the eternity of the Paradigm, the likeness of nature to the Paradigm, the Engineer) for time, thus allowing him to show that Plato’s account of time is causally complete at In Tim. III 28.30–29.2.

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1.1.3 Time, Soul and the Celestial Bodies between Eternity and Change With regard to frame four above, there is at the end of T1.1 Plato’s so-called definition, to which I will now turn. The definition is: time is “an eternal image, proceeding according to number, of eternity remaining in unity” (μένοντος αἰῶνος ἐν ἑνὶ κατ’ ἀριθμὸν ἰοῦσαν αἰώνιον εἰκόνα). The phrase sets up a series of parallels: time/eternity; image/Paradigm; image proceeding/Paradigm remaining; a procession occurring according to number/an immanence being in unity. Of all these determinations, the most important for Proclus is the coupling of time with number. Time is a change or procession “according to number.” This might be taken to imply a focus on a specific aspect of time, namely the fact that it is measured out into units of time such as days, months and years, which Plato even calls “parts of time” in another passage. This impression is strengthened when we turn to Timaeus’ account of the creation of the celestial bodies: Such was the reason and thinking of the God for the coming to be of time, that for the begetting of time, the Sun, the Moon and five other stars, (these are called ‘wanderers’) came to be in order to set limits to and stand guard over the numbers of time.34 T1.2 Plato Timaeus 38c3–6, trans. Zeyl

Here, the celestial bodies appear as part of the causal account of time. They were brought into being “for the begetting of time” (ἵνα γεννηθῇ χρόνος), and “set limits” and “stand guard over the numbers of time” (εἰς διορισμὸν καὶ φυλακὴν ἀριθμῶν χρόνου). Later on, they are referred to as “the bodies that were to cooperate in producing time” (ὅσα ἔδει συναπεργάζεσθαι χρόνον) and time is said to be “the wanderings of these bodies” (χρόνον ὄντα τὰς τούτων πλάνας). All of this seems to imply that there is a strict connection between time and celestial bodies, that is, time is the regular motion of the heavens and it moves according to the number determined by the celestial bodies. This point becomes even more salient when the period required for all the celestial bodies to return to the same relative position is called “the complete number of time” (39d3–4: ὅ γε τέλεος ἀριθμὸς χρόνου).

34 ἐξ οὖν λόγου καὶ διανοίας θεοῦ τοιαύτης πρὸς χρόνου γένεσιν, ἵνα γεννηθῇ χρόνος, ἥλιος καὶ σελήνη καὶ πέντε ἄλλα ἄστρα, ἐπίκλην ἔχοντα πλανητά, εἰς διορισμὸν καὶ φυλακὴν ἀριθμῶν χρόνου γέγονεν·.

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The identification between time and the motions of the celestial bodies is suggested, because they both appear to occupy the same position between the eternal Forms on the one hand and the perceptible on the other hand. However, there are also elements that pull one away from identifying their positions. First of all, Timaeus explains the movements of the celestial bodies in virtue of movements of the world’s soul. At 38c5–d1 he explicitly mentions “making bodies” for each of the planets and “placing them” into the “revolutions” of the world soul (see next paragraph), which for Proclus is a clear indication that the souls of the celestial bodies are a product of the Engineer prior to the bodies in the heavens.35 Furthermore, the celestial bodies are not initially mentioned in Plato’s first definition. The expression of their causal role is obscure, as they are said to “guard over” the numbers of time, suggesting that the numbers are prior to it. The Sun is also said to be created for the purpose of making the measurement of the relative speeds of the celestial bodies conspicuous, which suggests an epistemological role. If there are, thus, reasons to consider the celestial bodies as having a subordinate position with respect to Time in between eternity and the perceptibles, what about the world’s soul? As mentioned before, Plato does not believe that Intelligence can be said to govern the world in any other way than through the action of an intelligent soul. The soul, being self-changing, is for Plato the source of all change (Laws X 894b–895b, Phaedrus 245c–d), and thus if the change in the world is ordered, it must be so because the soul’s selfchanging is ordered by Intelligence, the knowledge that orders the soul towards the good. The soul, thus, has a mediating role between the unchanging and eternal Forms and the changing perceptible world, in a way not unlike how time is supposed to mediate between the generated and perishable character of the perceptible world and the eternity of the Living Being itself. Indeed, in Laws X the soul is precisely what keeps the world from being in a state of “cosmic death,” where nothing at all changes. Since the soul is capable of changing itself, there will always be change. The proximity of the world soul to time becomes even greater when we see its close relation to the celestial bodies. Laws X 896e–897a says that the soul directs the whole world “by its own changes” (ταῖς αὑτῆς κινήσεσιν), which are listed as “wish, reflection, diligence, counsel, opinion true and false, joy and grief, cheerfulness and fear, love and hate.” Further on Plato also discusses “the motion of intelligence,” which might be either a motion belonging to intelligence as an eternal principle, or simply the activity of intelligence in the soul, 35 See In Tim. III 59.15–60.23.

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and how circular motion is its image. Following this, the cyclical motion of the celestial bodies is taken as proof of the intelligence (and, hence, goodness) of the soul that animates them. It is, thus, the soul that provides the world with “a changing image of eternity” in the form of the celestial motions. In the Timaeus similarly, the world soul is closely associated with circular motion and the celestial bodies. Thus at Timaeus 35a–36d Plato describes a complicated generation of the world soul, involving three steps: (1) mixture of its constituents, (2) division of the mixture into proportional parts, (3) separation of the proportioned mixture into two “circles,” the “circle of the same” and “the circle of the other” (which in turn is divided into six distinct circles). Each of these steps characterizes the soul as an intermediate entity between the intelligized and the perceptible. The ingredients of the soul’s substance are said to be “Sameness,” “Otherness” and “Being,” and specifically a kind of each of these three that lies between an “indivisible and changeless” (suggesting a Form of Being, Sameness and Otherness, respectively) and “divisible and corporeal” kind of each (suggesting the being, sameness and otherness found amongst bodies). After the mixture, the division of the substance into proportional parts is done entirely according to specific numerical proportions, recalling time’s proceeding “according to number” and also the intermediate position of mathematical entities between the perceptibles and the Forms in Plato.36 Following the proportional division, the cutting of the soul into two circles, the “circle of the same” and the “circle of the other” makes it isomorphic to the celestial bodies. The circle of the other is placed within the circle of the same at an angle, as the ecliptic is at angle to the celestial equator, the two circles are given contrary motions corresponding to the westward motion of the fixed stars against the eastward motion of the planets, and the circle of the other is furthermore divided into seven other circles, corresponding to the orbits of the Moon, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. So, it seems that already in forming the world soul the Engineer produced a “moving image of eternity,” and thus there is the definite threat of redundancy and overlap between time and the world soul, especially if soul is supposed to be prior to the celestial bodies. A description of the soul as an extended being analogous to a body is odd, and I do not want to leave it without some explanation. Although Plato in the Timaeus does not list a series of mental states as the changes of the soul, like he does in the Laws, he clearly intends the description the world soul as a set of circles to be a picture of its mental life. Thus, after constructing the world’s soul 36

A doctrine known most clearly by Aristotle’s reports of Plato’s doctrine in the Metaphysics.

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he says that it, “revolving within itself, initiated a divine beginning of unceasing, intelligent life for all time.” The revolutions of the soul’s circles are, thus, identified as its intelligent and blessed life. Furthermore, in a confusing passage (Tim. 37a2–c5) the different elements of the soul’s constitution are meant to play important epistemological roles, specifically identifying the action of the circle of the different with the acquisition of true opinion and that of the circle of the same with the acquisition of knowledge. Although Plato’s use of the image provides no clear way of extracting an account of cognitive processes from the picture he develops for the soul, it does suggest that it had an epistemological motivation. 1.1.4 Time, Eternity and Tense There are, thus, in the Timaeus strong pressures to identify (or, at least, to connect closely) time with the world soul and its internal changes. There is, however, also a suggestion that time enjoys a sui generis change of its own expressed in the change of tense. This can be gleaned from Plato’s considerations on the proper way to speak of eternal things as opposed to things in becoming: Was and will be are forms of time that have come to be. Such notions we unthinkingly but incorrectly apply to everlasting being. For we say that it was and is and will be, but according to the true account only ‘is’ is appropriately said of it. Was and will be are properly said about the becoming that passes in time, for these two are changes. But that which is always changeless and motionless cannot become either older or younger through time – it neither ever became so, nor is it now such that it has become so, nor will it ever be so in the future. And all in all, none of the characteristics that becoming has bestowed upon the things that are borne about in the realm of perception are appropriate to it. These, rather are forms of time that have come to be – time that imitates eternity and circles according to number.37 T1.3 Plato Timaeus 37e4–38a8, Trans. Zeyl, modified

37 τό τ’ ἦν τό τ’ ἔσται χρόνου γεγονότα εἴδη, ἃ δὴ φέροντες λανθάνομεν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀίδιον οὐσίαν οὐκ ὀρθῶς. λέγομεν γὰρ δὴ ὡς ἦν ἔστιν τε καὶ ἔσται, τῇ δὲ τὸ ἔστιν μόνον κατὰ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον προσήκει, τὸ δὲ ἦν τό τ’ ἔσται περὶ τὴν ἐν χρόνῳ γένεσιν ἰοῦσαν πρέπει λέγεσθαι – κινήσεις γάρ ἐστον, τὸ δὲ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ἔχον ἀκινήτως οὔτε πρεσβύτερον οὔτε νεώτερον προσήκει γίγνεσθαι διὰ χρόνου οὐδὲ γενέσθαι ποτὲ οὐδὲ γεγονέναι νῦν οὐδ’ εἰς αὖθις ἔσεσθαι, τὸ παράπαν τε οὐδὲν ὅσα γένεσις τοῖς ἐν αἰσθήσει φερομένοις προσῆψεν, ἀλλὰ χρόνου ταῦτα αἰῶνα μιμουμένου καὶ κατ’ ἀριθμὸν κυκλουμένου γέγονεν εἴδη.

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Before considering how the view presented here influences Proclus’ view of time’s motion, let’s understand the view of eternity being put forth. On the linguistic level, Plato’s proposal is clear: regarding eternal things, such as Forms, the Engineer, and the Living Being itself, it is incorrect to say that they were or that they will be. Thus, if it is correct to say that the Living Being itself is eternal and is alive, it is nonetheless incorrect to say that the Living Being itself was alive in the past or will be alive in the future. There is, thus, a distinction between the living predicated of the Living Being itself and the living predicated of individual living beings in the perceptible world. If I say that a dog is alive, then it follows that in the past it would have been true to say that it will be alive in the future, and it also follows in the future it will be true to say that it was alive in the past. If I take into further account that a dog’s life is one with a beginning and an end in time, then the fact that a dog is alive now implies that it was not alive in the past and will no longer be alive in the future. (Plato goes on to say that using the word ‘is’ for things in becoming is incorrect, as well.) Thus, in contrast to McTaggart (1908), who held that being present, past and future mutually entail each other, Plato seems to hold a mode of presence, eternity, which is never past nor future. Regimenting language to conform to metaphysical truth can have odd consequences. If one cannot say that “at the time Plato wrote the Timaeus, the Living Being itself was alive,” one is forced to say that “at the time Plato wrote the Timaeus, the Living Being itself is alive.” To avoid saying anything about the Living Being itself in a temporally located context is impossible, for certainly a Platonist would want to ascribe to Plato mental attitudes in the past with regard to the Living Being itself. Thus, following Plato’s regimentation in the Timaeus, the Living Being itself is alive, now, as you read this text, the Living Being itself is alive, and long after no more copies of this book exist, the Living Being itself is alive. T1.3 constrains Proclus’ conception of Eternity, time’s Paradigm, in that it prohibits any identification of eternal things with things that always have existed, always do exist and always will exist, i.e., things that possess a perpetual existence. Rather, what is eternal here can only be said to be, not to have been nor to yet be. It is particularly Plotinus’ understanding of this passage that will form Proclus’ conception of eternity, and I will return to it in Chapter 4.2.1. The passage, however, also makes an important assertion about the passage of time, when it states that “[w]as and will be are properly said about the becoming that passes in time, for these two are changes.” This suggests that the flow of time is not to be identified with the change of any specific physical body, but with the change involved in existing in the perceptible world, the change from

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being something possible in the future to being something actual in the present (the change signified by “will be”) and the change from being something present to being something past (the change signified by “was”).38 And when Timaeus denies that the word ‘is’ is properly used of things in becoming, he seems to suggest that even the word “is,” in the case of perishable things, must covertly refer to an ongoing process expressed more properly by “is becoming.” This passage on time and eternity therefore is another factor already within the Platonic text that would push Proclus away from identifying the flow of time with the motion of the heavens. Finally, there are Proclus’ reasons for considering time to be a substance that are also reasons that push him away from identifying time with any change, especially the motion of the heavens: it is a product of the Engineer and presented as something that perfects the world after soul, and should, thus, be ontologically prior to the soul according to Platonist principles. With these last considerations we come to a final outline of time as determined by the Timaeus. On the one hand, it is a substantial principle of cosmic order employed by the Engineer to assimilate the world to its Paradigm under the aspect of eternity, thereby bridging eternal being and generated becoming. On the other hand, the main feature of this image is its procession according to number, a feature which can be seen in the uniform movement of the planets, whose periods can be used as units to number time, but which is not restricted to them, given time’s role in perfecting soul and as a substance. The Timaeus, thus, hands over to Proclus a double theory of time, pushing him both to call it a change, something connected to the life of the world’s soul, and to call it a substance and a principle of order. From now on, therefore, I will employ the following terminology: I refer to the “Order of Time” when I mean the eternal substance, and I speak of the “flow of time” when I mean the change. On occasion I will still leave “time” without further distinction, either because I am not in a Procline/Platonist context where the distinction is relevant, or because it is useful to understand both the Order and the flow of time. 1.2

Plato’s Republic as a Source: The Cycles of Time

This characterization of the Timaean picture of time in Proclus’ eyes shows its limitations, since the very aspect that was deemed most crucial about 38

The suggestion that time has a flow of its own associated with the change of tense also appears at Parmenides 152a3–d2.

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time, its being a motion according to number, is only inadequately explained by the discussion pertaining to the celestial bodies. Their periods do provide us with a number connected to time, but given the transcendence of time itself with respect to the world, this cannot be a full account of its numericity. Proclus points to the Republic as the dialogue to which one must turn for a full account of time when discussing what is meant by time’s “proceeding according to number”: In addition, you may say still more proximately that Time as it truly is proceeds according to number, counting out39 its participants and itself being an intellectual Number, which Socrates speaks of and obscurely signifies, when he says that “in the true Number” Swiftness itself and Slowness itself are to be found, by which the things counted by time differ, as changing more swiftly or more slowly. Hence also Timaeus does not speak much about this Number because Socrates on the preceding day had perfectly disclosed40 it, but about that which proceeds from it. For whereas the former is the true Number, he says that this one proceeds according to number.41 T1.4 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 19.14–24, trans. Baltzly, modified

In this passage Proclus clearly distinguishes between the Order of Time and the phenomenon of time, claiming that the former is studied in the Republic, and the other in the Timaeus.42 The Order of Time is the “true Number,” whereas the phenomenon of time “proceeds according to Number.” He also applies to “the true Number” Platonic language about participation. Thus, whereas Plato would say that a perceptible being is X (beautiful, or a horse) in virtue of its participation in a Form that is X (the Beautiful itself, or the Horse itself), here Proclus speaks in the same way about Time, namely that things that are in time are said to participate in an eternal Time itself and to be its 39 On this notion of “counting out,” see below Chapter 2.2. 40 ἐκφαίνω is a technical term for Proclus deriving from Plato’s Philebus. 41 λέγοις δ’ ἂν ἔτι προσεχέστερον, ὅτι πρόεισι κατ’ ἀριθμὸν ὁ ὡς ἀληθῶς χρόνος ἀριθμῶν τὰ μετέχοντα αὐτοῦ καὶ αὐτὸς ὢν νοερὸς ἀριθμός, ὃν καὶ ὁ Σωκράτης ἔλεγε καὶ ᾐνίσσετο, ἡνίκα ἔλεγεν “ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ ἀριθμῷ” [λέγων] εἶναι τὸ αὐτοτάχος καὶ τὴν αὐτοβραδυτῆτα, οἷς διαφέρει τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ χρόνου ἀριθμούμενα θᾶττον ἢ βραδύτερον κινούμενα· διὸ καὶ ὁ Τίμαιος πολὺν περὶ ἐκείνου πεποίηκε λόγον, ὡς τῇ προτεραίᾳ τοῦ Σωκράτους αὐτὸν τελέως ἐκφήναντος, ἀλλὰ περὶ τοῦ ἀπ’ αὐτοῦ προελθόντος· ἐκείνου γὰρ ἀριθμοῦ ἀληθινοῦ ὄντος τοῦτον εἶπε κατ’ ἀριθμὸν προϊέναι. 42 The point is repeated in Proclus’ Republic commentary, In Remp. II 17.21–18.10.

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“participants.” The passage that Proclus has in mind is Plato’s discussion in the Republic of astronomy in the curriculum of the rulers of the ideal city. This passage presents a remarkable contrast to the Timaeus in that it appears to say that the movements of the celestial bodies are not regular and are not the objects of true astronomy: It’s like this: we should consider the decorations in the sky to be the most beautiful and most exact of visible things, seeing that they’re embroidered on a visible surface. But we should consider their motions to fall short of the true ones – motions that are really fast or slow as measured in true Number (ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ ἀριθμῷ), that trace out true geometrical figures, that are all in relation to one another, and that are the true motions of the things carried along in them. And these, of course, must be grasped by reason and though, not by sight. Or do you think otherwise? – Not at all.43 Therefore, we should use the embroidery in the sky as a model in the study of these other things. If someone experienced in geometry were to come upon plans very carefully drawn and worked out by Daedalus or some other craftsman or artist, he’d consider them to be very finely executed, but he’d think it ridiculous to examine them seriously in order to find the truth in them about the equal, the double, or any other ratio. – How could it be anything other than ridiculous?44 Then don’t you think that a real astronomer will feel the same when he looks at the motions of the stars? He’ll believe that the Engineer of the heavens arranged them and all that’s in them in the finest way possible for such things. But as for the ratio of night to day, of days to a month, of a month to a year, or of the motions of the stars to any of them or to each other, don’t you think he’ll consider it strange to believe that they’re 43 Ὧδε, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ. ταῦτα μὲν τὰ ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ποικίλματα, ἐπείπερ ἐν ὁρατῷ πεποίκιλται, κάλλιστα μὲν ἡγεῖσθαι καὶ ἀκριβέστατα τῶν τοιούτων ἔχειν, τῶν δὲ ἀληθινῶν πολὺ ἐνδεῖν, ἃς τὸ ὂν τάχος καὶ ἡ οὖσα βραδυτὴς ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ ἀριθμῷ καὶ πᾶσι τοῖς ἀληθέσι σχήμασι φοράς τε πρὸς ἄλληλα φέρεται καὶ τὰ ἐνόντα φέρει, ἃ δὴ λόγῳ μὲν καὶ διανοίᾳ ληπτά, ὄψει δ’ οὔ· ἢ σὺ οἴει; Οὐδαμῶς γε, ἔφη. 44 Οὐκοῦν, εἶπον, τῇ περὶ τὸν οὐρανὸν ποικιλίᾳ παραδείγμασι χρηστέον τῆς πρὸς ἐκεῖνα μαθήσεως ἕνεκα, ὁμοίως ὥσπερ ἂν εἴ τις ἐντύχοι ὑπὸ Δαιδάλου ἤ τινος ἄλλου δημιουργοῦ ἢ γραφέως διαφερόντως γεγραμμένοις καὶ ἐκπεπονημένοις διαγράμμασιν. ἡγήσαιτο γὰρ ἄν πού τις ἔμπειρος γεωμετρίας, ἰδὼν τὰ τοιαῦτα, κάλλιστα μὲν ἔχειν ἀπεργασίᾳ, γελοῖον μὴν ἐπισκοπεῖν αὐτὰ σπουδῇ ὡς τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν αὐτοῖς ληψόμενον ἴσων ἢ διπλασίων ἢ ἄλλης τινὸς συμμετρίας. Τί δ’ οὐ μέλλει γελοῖον εἶναι; ἔφη.

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always the same and never deviate anywhere at all or to try in any sort of way to grasp the truth about them, since they’re connected to body and visible?45 T1.5 Plato Republic VII 529c7–530b4, trans. Grube-Reeve, modified

Socrates’ description of “the true astronomy,” though long, merits being read in full, due to how starkly it contrasts with the picture of the heavens in the Timaeus. The context is the description in the Republic, Book VII of the education of the guardians of Plato’s ideal city. In the prescribed curriculum, mathematics has the function of preparing the future rulers of the city for dialectic and the contemplation of the Forms, and Socrates’ proposal regarding astronomy proposes to assimilate it to geometry, in order for it to be also a study of ideal beings and not perceptibles. Instead of studying the retrograde motion of Venus, say, an astronomer should try to construct a retrograde motion in general. Such an astronomy would study Motion itself (and, as Socrates says, Number itself), just as geometry studies the Circle itself and the Square itself. As part of his argument in favor of such a geometrized astronomy, Socrates criticizes the expectation that the heavens should exhibit perfect motions as an expectation as unfounded as the thought that we should find in the world perfect circles or lines. We should not expect that the motions of the celestial bodies are commensurable, says Socrates, a flat contradiction of the Timaean notion that the planets are “guardians of the numbers of time” and that their motions count out “the perfect number of time,” the period required for all the celestial bodies to return to their same relative positions.46 If one were to square the views of the Republic with the Timaeus’s conception of time as “a motion according to number” and a measure for other motions, it would only be natural to go along with Proclus and identify the eternal Order of

45 Τῷ ὄντι δὴ ἀστρονομικόν, ἦν δ’ ἐγώ, ὄντα οὐκ οἴει ταὐτὸν πείσεσθαι εἰς τὰς τῶν ἄστρων φορὰς ἀποβλέποντα; νομιεῖν μὲν ὡς οἷόν τε κάλλιστα τὰ τοιαῦτα ἔργα συστήσασθαι, οὕτω συνεστάναι τῷ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ δημιουργῷ αὐτόν τε καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ· τὴν δὲ νυκτὸς πρὸς ἡμέραν συμμετρίαν καὶ τούτων πρὸς μῆνα καὶ μηνὸς πρὸς ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων πρός τε ταῦτα καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα, οὐκ ἄτοπον, οἴει, ἡγήσεται τὸν νομίζοντα γίγνεσθαί τε ταῦτα ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως καὶ οὐδαμῇ οὐδὲν παραλλάττειν, σῶμά τε ἔχοντα καὶ ὁρώμενα, καὶ ζητεῖν παντὶ τρόπῳ τὴν ἀλήθειαν αὐτῶν λαβεῖν. 46 Unless their periods are commensurable, there is no period of time in which the celestial bodies return to the same relative positions. That the planets do not, indeed, have such commensurable periods was already well known by astronomers in Proclus’ time and it is a puzzle why he does not discuss the fact.

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Time with the “true Number” in terms of which the “true motions” considered by the Platonic astronomer are judged to be “truly quick” and “truly slow” and the “true motions” with time’s sui generis changes of “was” and “will be.” This would allow us to preserve the distinction between true motion and celestial motion. A further avenue of reconciliation, one with which Proclus would also agree,47 is to say that the true astronomer of the Republic has as his object the changes within the world soul that the Timaeus puts forth as the causes of the motions of planets. These could be taken to be truly uniform, and time could be taken to be identical to these motions, even if one held that their effects, the visible celestial revolutions, never possessed true mathematical regularity. I will show in Chapter 4.3.2 that Proclus indeed believes that the Order of Time is primarily an order of change in the soul, but this change is not conceived in the crass corporeal manner of Timaeus’ circles of the other and the same. Rather, Proclus interprets these circles of the soul at In Tim. II 248.11ff as symbols of the soul’s powers and the changes of the world soul as a succession of thoughts. The pressure of the Republic is then another factor that moves Proclus away from an identification of time with the motion of the celestial bodies, although the Timaeus strongly leans in that direction. Sadly enough, there is no extant commentary of Proclus’ on precisely this passage of Plato’s. However, we can find a reaction to it in two locations. First, in the Timaeus commentary, when discussing the meaning of the qualification that in physics humans are “unable to render an account at all points entirely consist with itself and exact,” Proclus claims that (1) although the entities dealt with in astronomy (the circles of heaven, the points where they intersect, etc…) are “exact” in comparison to other perceptible realities, they are nonetheless in extension and divisible, and thus not the pure objects of absolutely exact mathematical science,48 and, furthermore, that (2) since there are in fact no perfect instantiations of the Forms in the perceptible, when we reason about mathematical objects and apply the results to the perceptible we are not being “consistent” (cf. Martijn 2010, pp. 262–264). 47

How Proclus ultimately unites the two depends on his account fo the causes of time itself, which goes beyond the scope of this book. In Chapter 4 I will discuss the phenomenon of time as the life of the world soul for Proclus, corresponding to the second avenue of reconciliation. 48 Iamblichus made a similar point with reference to the instant that bounds a change, namely, that it is not in some strict sense indivisible, since it is involved in the perceptible. See Simplicius In Cat. 354.19–26.

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The second reaction of Proclus’ to Socrates critique of astronomy can be found in his own discussions of astronomy in his Commentary on Euclid’s Elements and in the Exposition of Astronomical Hypotheses, where he took up the Platonic distinctions between an empirical and a properly mathematical astronomy. Here is a rather rhetorical presentation from the proemium of the latter: The great Plato, dear friend, requires of the true philosopher that he dismiss sense perceptions, leaving alone the entire wandering substance of the heavens, and “hyperastronomize,” contemplating there [in the Intelligized] Slowness itself and Quickness itself in the true Number. You, however, seem to me to lead us away from those spectacles down to the periods in the heavens, the observations of the experts in astronomy and the hypotheses they have ingeniously constructed on the basis of those observations, such hypotheses as the Aristarchuses, Hipparchuses, and Ptolomies of the world are in the habit of going on about.49 T1.6 Proclus Exposition of Astronomical Hypotheses Proem 1.1–3.4

It is ironic from a Procline perspective that the true astronomy of the rulers of the ideal city should, ultimately, be a study of Time itself, for the other key passage about time in the Republic, the discourse of the Muses, accounts for the downfall of the ideal city because its system of education did not allow people to discern a special temporal cycle governing human births. I turn to this famously cryptic passage: It is somehow hard for a city composed in this way to change, but everything that comes into being must decay. Not even a constitution such as this will last throughout the whole of time. It, too, must face dissolution. And this is how it will be dissolved. All plants in the earth and also all animals upon the earth, have periods of fruitfulness and barrenness of 49 Πλάτων μὲν ὁ μέγας, ὦ ἑταῖρε, τόνγε ὡς ἀληθῶς φιλόσοφον ἀξιοῖ τὰς αἰσθήσεις χαίρειν ἀφέντα καὶ τὴν πλανωμένην ἅπασαν οὐσίαν οὐρανοῦ τε ὑπεραστρονομεῖν κἀκεῖ τὴν αὐτοβραδυτῆτα καὶ τὸ αὐτοτάχος ἐν τῷ ἀληθινῷ ἀριθμῷ σκοπεῖν. σὺ δέ μοι φαίνῃ κατάγειν ἡμᾶς ἀπ’ ἐκείνων τῶν θεαμάτων εἰς τὰς ἐν οὐρανῷ ταύτας περιόδους καὶ τὰς τῶν δεινῶν περὶ ἀστρονομίαν τηρήσεις καὶ τὰς ἐκ τούτων αὐτοῖς μεμηχανημένας ὑποθέσεις, ἃς Ἀρίσταρχοί τε καὶ Ἵππαρχοι καὶ Πτολεμαῖοι καὶ τοιοῦτοί τινες διαθρυλεῖν εἰώθασι. A similar distinction can be seen in his Commentary on Euclid’s Elements, where he distinguishes between spherics, a science produced by the soul itself, 37.5, from astronomy, one of the mathematical sciences mixed with perceptibles, 38.10–12.

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both soul and body as often as the revolutions complete the circumferences of their circles. These circumferences are short for the short-lived, and the opposite for their opposites. Now, the people you have educated to be leaders in your city, even though they are wise, still won’t through calculation together with sense perception, hit upon the fertility and barrenness of the human species, but it will rather escape them, and so they will at some time beget children when they ought not to do so. For the birth of a divine creature, there is a cycle comprehended by a perfect number (ἔστι δὲ θείῳ μὲν γεννητῷ περίοδος ἣν ἀριθμὸς περιλαμβάνει τέλειος). For human beings, it is the first number in which … [a long description of the number] … This whole geometrical number controls better and worse births.50 T1.7 Plato Republic VIII 546a1–c7, trans. Grube/Reeve, modified

This passage has drawn attention since antiquity due to the section that I have left out, a complicated mathematical description of the number that is supposed to govern human births. Proclus dedicates one of his sixteen essays on the Republic to explaining this speech of the Muses. The speech launches Proclus off on to a discussion on time due to the expression “the whole of time” (τὸν ἅπαντα … χρόνον), which period he identifies, on the one hand, with the “perfect number of time” mentioned in the Timaeus 39d and, on the other hand, the “true number” of the true astronomer of Republic VII.51 In doing so, Proclus appears to be implicitly criticizing his Platonic predecessor Plotinus, who alludes to the Muses in his own treatise on time (Enn. III.7. [45] 11.4–11), only to dismiss them: “how indeed did time first fall? We cannot surely invoke the Muses here, for they did not yet exist then.” The vocabulary of time’s fall 50 Ὧδέ πως. χαλεπὸν μὲν κινηθῆναι πόλιν οὕτω συστᾶσαν· ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ γενομένῳ παντὶ φθορά ἐστιν, οὐδ’ ἡ τοιαύτη σύστασις τὸν ἅπαντα μενεῖ χρόνον, ἀλλὰ λυθήσεται. λύσις δὲ ἥδε· οὐ μόνον φυτοῖς ἐγγείοις, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν ἐπιγείοις ζῴοις φορὰ καὶ ἀφορία ψυχῆς τε καὶ σωμάτων γίγνονται, ὅταν περιτροπαὶ ἑκάστοις κύκλων περιφορὰς συνάπτωσι, βραχυβίοις μὲν βραχυπόρους, ἐναντίοις δὲ ἐναντίας. γένουςδὲ ὑμετέρου εὐγονίας τε καὶ ἀφορίας, καίπερ ὄντες σοφοί, οὓς ἡγεμόνας πόλεως ἐπαιδεύσασθε, οὐδὲν μᾶλλον λογισμῷ μετ’ αἰσθήσεως τεύξονται, ἀλλὰ πάρεισιν αὐτοὺς καὶ γεννήσουσι παῖδάς ποτε οὐ δέον. ἔστι δὲ θείῳ μὲν γεννητῷ περίοδος ἣν ἀριθμὸς περιλαμβάνει τέλειος, ἀνθρωπείῳ δὲ ἐν ᾧ πρώτῳ … [b5–c6] … σύμπας δὲ οὗτος ἀριθμὸς γεωμετρικός, τοιούτου κύριος, ἀμεινόνων τε καὶ χειρόνων γενέσεων. 51 That is, he identifies the number delimiting the period’s extension with this true number, he does not identify the period as a continuous manifold in the world with the true number – that would rather be identical to the time that proceeds according to number. See, for this identification, PT IV 102.1–20 and also In Remp. II 11.19–12.1; 12.8–12 and also below Chapter 4.3.1.

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is a reference to Iliad 16.112–113, where Homer calls upon the Muses to tell of of how fire fell on the ships of the Achaeans. Socrates in the Republic too calls upon the Muses to understand how the ideal city fell. Against the assertion that the Muses can know nothing of time and that time’s existence is due to something analogous to a “fall” (of the soul, in particular), Proclus interprets the Muses in the Republic as discussing the eternal Order of Time, time in its highest sense, prior to the soul. The significant contribution that this passage of Plato’s makes to Proclus’ theory of time is to bring out an astrological component of Proclus’ reflections about time, the notion that the lifespans of living beings, and even more global processes as the periods of their fertility and infertility, are determined by the motions of the heavens. For this belief, central to his picture of time as a cause and to his understanding of the celestial bodies, Proclus constantly returns to this passage and it is clearly his locus classicus in the Platonic Corpus for the idea.52 As I will explain, his most important references to it stem, however, from some observations by Aristotle (cf. Chapter 2.2). 52

There are however other Platonic texts that Proclus could turn to for support, even if he does not. In the myth of world ages presented in the Statesman, Plato speaks of a cosmic era where living beings “rejuvenate” instead of ageing, rising fully grown from the earth and going through their states of life in reverse order, and another cosmic era (this one), where they age as observed. This implies a notion of a set sequence of life stages that belong to the nature of each living thing, a sequence that can be thought of in two directions, as well as a direct correlation between these changes and the movements of the heavens. Furthermore, in the Tim. 24b6–c3 the priest from Sais says that “we have traced all our discoveries … from those divine realities to the human levels” (trans. Grube-Reeve), which might be interpreted astrologically. Additionally, at Tim. 89b4–c7 Plato speaks quite clearly regarding the existence of fixed lifespans for living beings: “the constitution of these, [i.e., living beings] goes through an ordered series of stages throughout their life. This is true of the species as a whole and also of its individual members, each of which is born with an allotted span of life, barring unavoidable accidents” (trans. Zeyl). Finally, Timaeus has the animate principles of all animals be composed of a “circle of the same” and “cirlce of the other,” with each corresponding to the principles of the motion of the fixed stars and the planets, respectively, and this could also be a Platonic explanation for the synchrony between celestial and biological rhythms.

Chapter 2

The Aristotelian Element: The Order of Time as Number and as Intelligence We now turn to the Aristotelian elements in Proclus’ philosophy of time, of which the most important is the thesis that “time is a Kind of Intelligence (νοῦς τις),” an Aristotelian thesis not because Aristotle himself held it, but because Proclus employs an Aristotelian analysis of Intelligence as a principle of change within it. To start, I will name one consequence of this thesis which can be appreciated outside of Proclus’ system: if time is a Kind of Intelligence and specifically the Kind of Intelligence proper to the world, then beings in the world are intelligible insofar as they are processes governed by pre-existing norms or plans (which Proclus calls “numbers”) that differentiate processes into stages with a determinate duration, order, and a position within the world’s fixed cycles. It is, thus, a thesis that pertains to more than Proclus’ hierarchy of principles. Proclus arrives at this claim due to his understanding of the philosophy of time as the inquiry into the sources of ordered and, hence, intelligible change in the world.1 As a result of this Platonic scope of the inquiry into what time is, Aristotle’s arguments for Intelligence (νοῦς) as the unchanging and primary agent of all cosmic change were taken up by Proclus as arguments concerning the transcendent Order of Time, time as the cause of ordered change. Besides this primary result, Aristotle framed Proclus’ investigation on time in two ways. First, Aristotle came up with three objections to the thesis that time is a change. Second, Aristotle followed Plato in associating number with time, famously defining time as “the number of change according to before and after” (Phys. IV.11 219b2: ἀριθμὸς κινήσεως κατὰ τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον) and, importantly, raised the question of what kind of number time was. Aristotle’s concerns with time’s numerical character framed Proclus’ own view of time as a number and also led to Proclus’ view that a specific “temporal number” governs each natural and mental process in the world.

1 See the Introduction above.

© Antonio Vargas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466685_004

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I start this chapter with a general observation of the significance of Aristotle’s works for Proclus, especially concerning physics, which will involve a discussion of the distinction between how Proclus and Aristotle approach the subject of time, respectively. I have already touched upon these subjects slightly in the introduction, where I discussed the difference between Proclus’ identification of physics and cosmology from Aristotle’s own understanding of physics. Next, I will (2.2) present Aristotle’s positive proposal of what kind of a number time is, and also contrast it with a normative understanding of number found in Aristotle’s biological writings. In this section I will also discuss Proclus’ appropriation of the latter concept of number in order to answer the question: “What kind of a number is time?” I will then proceed (2.3) from Proclus’ engagement with Aristotle’s discussion of time in Phys. IV to his appropriation of Aristotle’s arguments for divine, unchanging causes of celestial motion that characterize time, dealing separately with the conclusions that they must be unchanging (2.3.1), infinitely powerful (2.3.2), and Kinds of Intelligence (2.3.3). Finally, I will summarize the chapter’s results (2.4). 2.1

Factors in Proclus’ Reception of Aristotle

An appreciation of the Aristotelian sources of Procline temporal theory requires an understanding of the status that Aristotle has for Proclus. Neoplatonists relate to Aristotle in even more diverse ways than they relate to Plato, ranging from the negative reaction to Aristotle of Plotinus,2 to the highly positive reactions of Porphyry and Iamblichus in just the following generation. As was mentioned in the introduction, Proclus was taught the works of Aristotle as a preliminary to his instruction in Platonic philosophy at the academy, and in general he attempts to show that everything worthy in Aristotle had already said by Plato in his Timaeus.3 This attitude toward the Physics is the reflection of a more general attitude of seeing Aristotle as a philosopher whose strengths and role are those analogous to those of the spirits (δαίμονες) that mediated the presence of the Gods, which were compared to “the divine Plato” and other theological authorities. Using Aristotle as a steppingstone to Plato, especially in natural philosophy, was not a new move. Plotinus had already made use of Aristotelian arguments 2 Say, in his treatment of the categories in Enn. VI.1, or also with respect to the theory of time in III.7. 3 See Steel (2003).

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on the priority of actuality to potentiality against Stoic understandings of soul and intelligence (as in Enn V.9.4, for instance), and Porphyry wrote commentaries on both Plato’s Timaeus and Books I–IV of Aristotle’s Physics, where he was concerned to show the harmony of the two works and to use Aristotelian arguments against “literalist” interpretations of the Timaeus by Plutarch and Atticus, who took Plato to teach a real pre-cosmic chaotic change and thus a first moment of the world’s existence.4 In trying to understand Aristotle’s role in Proclus’ physics, I have found the analysis advanced by Stephen Menn (2012) to be a useful tool. Menn has argued in favor of employing the Arabic Terminology of tashbîh (representation), tanzîh, (purification) and ta‌ʾtîl (nullification) in order to better understand the late, i.e., post Iamblichean, Platonist understanding of the tensions between Plato and Aristotle. The terms originate in Islamic theology and are employed to designate different theological moves: the association of divine things with lower things, say, by attributing to God predicates proper to things below God (this is tashbîh), the purification of our concept of God from such associations (this is tanzîh), and the carrying of such purification to the point of rendering the concept of God empty (this is ta‌ʾtîl). Tanzîh is generally seen as a good thing in Islamic theology, whereas tashbîh and ta‌ʾtîl are seen as bad things. Affirming the former, while rejecting the latter reflects a goal of articulating a theology that manages to say something contentful about God, while at the same time preserving His separation and uniqueness with regard to the created world. Menn sees the late Platonists as sharing a similar concern, one not about our discourse concerning God (as they were not monotheists), but about our discourse regarding divine things, that should ideally manage to preserve their transcendence with regard to the realities below them, including any inferior divinities, while nonetheless allowing for positive, contentful knowledge of the divine. If read through these concerns, Aristotle appears to be a philosopher extremely concerned with tanzîh, and most of his criticisms of Plato are criticisms of unwarranted associations in his dialogues of divine things with lower perceptible things. (As when Plato says that there is a Horse itself, which seems to imply that there is something divine (one of the Forms) that is like a perishable animal (a horse)).5 By reading Aristotle in this way, 4 See Dillon (1996, chapters 4 and 5) for a presentation of Plutarch and Atticus’s views. Karamanolis (2006). pp. 270–273, 277–284 on Porphyry’s commentaries. 5 Menn (2012, pp. 426–429) gives some examples of passages of Aristotle’s where the concern for appropriate representation of divine things can be clearly seen: Metaph. III.2 997b5–12, Metaph. VII.16 1040b27–1041a3, DC I.9 278b21–279b3.

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later Platonists were compelled to draw distinctions and to show how Plato’s description of the divine is not so much an unwarranted association, but a successful analogy for describing higher realities. We can refine Menn’s analysis and make it a more useful tool in the case of Proclus by observing that the Neoplatonists seem to have a terminology of their own to designate Aristotle’s role as a purifier of our metaphysical concepts, specifically in their use of the epithet δαιμόνιος, spiritlike, to designate him.6 This is usually understood merely as a designation of Aristotle’s secondary rank as an authority for the Platonists in comparison with Plato, who is consistently styled θεῖος, which means divine, although the adjective itself has a richer content in Platonist ethical theory as O’Meara (1989, pp. 123– 128) has observed and Helmig (2009) has developed with regard to Syrianus’ attitude towards Aristotle.7 In Plato’s Symposium 202aff. a spirit is described as an entity that mediates between Gods and men, as “For God mingles not with man; but through it [i.e., a spirit] all the intercourse and converse of God with man, whether awake or asleep, is carried on.” This chasm dividing the mortal and the divine is also a theme in Plato’s Phaedo where Socrates remarks that “no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure” (67b2) and recommends the purification of the soul from its contact with the body as the method of bridging this gap. In the Neoplatonic tradition, Porphyry’s Sentences 32 devoted to the virtues, claims that the man who lives according to the purificatory virtues is called a δαιμόνιος ἀνήρ, a spiritlike man. Porphyry presents in the text a hierarchy of different kinds of virtues, reflecting different stages of ethical development, all the way to the “paradigmatic” virtues, which I took in Chapter 1 to articulate Plato’s authority.8 In the hierarchy of virtues, there are the political virtues that involve the harmonization of the soul’s many powers and desires, the contemplative virtues that establish the soul’s cognitive life amongst eternal objects, and between the two the purificatory virtues that 6 See Lankila (2008) for a discussion of Proclus’ use of epithets in referring to previous philosophers. Lankila concentrates on Proclus’ references to other Neoplatonists, but discusses Aristotle at p. 128. 7 Of particular value in Helmig’s (2009, pp. 354–357) paper is how he draws attention to how Syrianus portrays Aristotle as a philosopher that turns the soul towards higher subjects but does not employ the proper methods of knowing them. This is exactly parallel to what I will argue, namely that Aristotle somehow exemplifies the purifying virtues that free the soul from bodily ways of thought, but not yet the contemplative virtues that allow it to fix its activity upon the intelligized. 8 Porphyry is unclear about whether a human being can attain to this level of virtue. Iamblichus may have been the first to argue for such a position. See Westerink’s note to Damascius In Phaed I §143.

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separate the soul from the body and corporealist biases of thought. A spiritlike man, therefore, is one who is not concerned with mortal affairs, but still has not achieved an actual contentful knowledge of eternal, incorporeal things, having purified his conceptions of corporeal associations, before enriching them with the content from intelligence itself. That Proclus is in tune with such a conception of the spiritlike man, is shown by his association of the purificatory virtues with the discursive sciences, especially mathematics (De Prov. §18, 28) that lift the soul up from the perceptible to the consideration not of the intelligized per se yet, but of its own capacities. This picture of the role of purifying virtue matches Proclus’ relation to Aristotle, from whom he drew a large part of his logic, and whose greatest mistake in Proclus’ eyes was precisely to make the principle of non-contradiction the principle of his whole philosophy.9 The designation of Aristotle as “δαιμόνιος” in contrast to Plato and select Platonists as “θεῖος,” thus does not designate him as an authority of second rank. (After all, how could there be degrees in the kind of authority granted to Plato? And how are Aristotle’s treatises and Plato’s dialogues writings of the same genre?) Rather, it designates his concrete role in the Platonic school as a philosopher whose arguments serve to separate us from the perceptible. For this reason, Aristotle also had to be studied before Plato in the Platonic curriculum. Since Proclus reads Aristotle as a spiritlike philosopher and thus as a steppingstone to the divine Platonic truth, Aristotle is more often than not a spur for Proclus to be even more of a Platonist. For instance, one result of Aristotle’s attack on the claim that “time is a change” is what I propose to call the “ontologization of the flow of time” in Proclus. That is, in response to Aristotle’s point that if time is a process, it cannot be a change that happens merely alongside other changes, merely accidentally occupying the same place, Proclus does not draw the Aristotelian moral that time should not be conceived as a change (after all, Plato calls time a changing image of eternity), but rather develops 9 See In Parm. VII 519.19–29, where Proclus deduces from the insistence of the principle of non-contradiction, Aristotle’s rejection of (1) Unity as a principle beyond Intelligence, (2) the providential action of Intelligence, (3) the efficient causality of Intelligence and (4) the plurality of Forms in Intelligence. The appropriateness of calling Aristotle spiritlike from Proclus’ perspective may very well also be connected with Aristotle’s assertion that Intelligence is the first principle without a principle of divinity beyond it, for spirits in Proclus’ metaphysics are precisely souls that exist as vehicles for Kinds of Intelligence that do not in turn have any divine Selves controlling them. A spirit is, thus, ultimately a Kind of Intelligence (in the sense that a human being is a soul), and to name Aristotle δαιμόνιος is, thus, to situate him at the level of intelligence, but below that of Unity and the Gods.

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the notion that the flow of time from future, present to past is a change that affects the being of each thing measured by time. Thus, as ET 50 has it, “everything that is measured by time is a process.” This is in harmony with Plato’s appropriation of Heraclitus’ claim that “all things flow” (most obviously at Tim. 27d–28a, where the perceptible “always becomes and never is”) and also collapses an important distinction drawn by Aristotle in his discussion of infinity between that which exists as a process, like a day with its successive hours or the Olympic games with its successive stages, and that which has its being fixedly, like a house (Physics 3.6 206a21–23).10 In order to maintain the distance between Aristotle’s original theoretical intent and his effect upon Proclus, it is important to understand the distinct contexts in which time is discussed in Aristotle’s Physics and in Plato’s Timaeus. Whereas Plato frames his account of time in the context of an account of the ordering of the perceptible based on intelligized causes, Aristotle’s discussion of time in the Physics makes no mention of intelligized causes, and even lacks a consistent reference to eternal things or things not in time as a contrast. Aristotle does appeal to a contrast in order explicate what time is in Physics IV.11, but that is the contrast between conditions under which we perceive time (namely, the perception of change) and those under which we do not (e.g., sleep). This difference with regard to the appeal to eternal realities is an instance and aspect of Aristotle’s well-known criticism of Plato’s theory of Forms. According to Plato’s theory the many ways in which perceptible beings were such-and-such to be explained by reference to transcendent Forms that are graspable only by intelligence. Aristotle had many different objections to different parts of this theory, but in regard to beings belonging to the world, he objected that what they were – their substance, and in particular the form or rational structure that they exemplified – could not properly be understood in separation from the bodies they helped constitute, even if they themselves were not bodies. Thus, for instance, the being of a horse that reason is capable of grasping (the form of horse) cannot be defined without reference to the parts that make up a horse.11 Therefore, it makes no sense in the case of natural beings to speak of a form existing separately from its perceptible instances, 10 11

I return to this Procline development in Chapter 4.3.1. A terminological note: Aristotle will call the form of a living being its ψυχή, understood as its immanent principle of life. This is not what Proclus means by ψυχή, but what he means by ζωή when speaking of particular living bodies in nature. In both cases, Aristotle and Proclus recognize ψυχή and ζωή respectively as kinds of nature, φύσις, their immanent principle of change and rest, their immanent “dynamism” so to speak. Thus, when Aristotle speaks of “soul” this is often not what Proclus would call “soul” and vice-versa.

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that is, the mere order without what it orders. For this reason, Aristotle is known for his use of hylomorphic analysis, i.e., the separation of a phenomenon into its definable structure and its instrumental or material substrate, in a wide array of investigations, and even his discussion of time in the Physics has been recently interpreted through this lens (Roark, 2011). Thus, whereas Plato approached the subject of time with a theory in the background that regularly appealed to eternal, intelligized entities in order to explain the different kinds of order seen in the perceptible, Aristotle approached it with precisely the opposite expectation, that an appeal to separate, intelligized Forms does not help one understand perceptible order. Not only is time not set in contrast to eternal things in the Physics, Aristotle does not study it within a cosmological context, but rather as part of an abstract investigation into the principles of change (see the introduction, above). Furthermore, Aristotle inaugurated the entire discussion of time in Physics IV.10–14 with two paradoxes concerning time, the result of which, according to Aristotle, is that time either “does not exist entirely or only barely and in an obscure way” (ἢ ὅλως οὐκ ἔστιν ἢ μόλις καὶ ἀμυδρῶς). One of the paradoxes is later taken up in Phys. IV.11 219b12–33, but in general the entire discussion is conducted under a cloud of ontological suspicion, far different from Plato’s confident production of time out of the cosmic Engineer’s benevolence. To sum up, in the Physics, time is studied (1) not in relation to eternity, (2) not in a cosmological context, (3) nor with any certainty about its reality. In a more global context, placing the chapters within the development of the Physics up to the argument for the eternal first Agent of change12 in Phys. VIII and its use in Metaph. XII, the relation to eternity and the reality of time can be said to be part of Aristotle’s study (and we will observe Proclus’ use of the relevant connections in II.3). However, strictly within the confines of Physics IV.10–14, these issues are left out. With respect to time, Aristotle’s crucial text is Physics IV.10–14. However, given the amplified scope of Proclus’ view of the question of time in Plato, focusing not only on the description in the Timaeus, but on its mediating role

12

The standard translation “soul” elides an important slippage of meaning, unsurprising in authors that lived centuries apart. Agent has a capital A following the convention explained in the introduction of capitalizing eternal causes. I use “eternal” at times to mark out the Agents of celestial motion that are not only unchanging, but also have no beginning or end point in time, although at other times I just refer to them as “unchanging,” allowing the capital A to bear the burden of reminding the reader of their eternity. “Eternal,” therefore, is not to be construed solely as “perpetually existing,” but as “beyond time,” as in Chapter 1.1.4.

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between the Intelligized and the perceptible, more than just Aristotle’ explicit discussion of time is of interest to him. Thus, besides Phys. IV.10–14, Phys. VIII.6–10 and Metaph. XII, which are important texts on the first principles of the natural world, C II.10 and GA IV.10 are important ones on measures of change in animal development and in the heavens. 2.2

Aristotle on Time as the Number Counted in Change

I now turn to Aristotle’s positive contribution to Proclus’ understanding of the eternal order of time by raising the question of what kind of a number is time, which he starts asking with his discussion of the perception of time. While discussing the dependence of time upon change, Aristotle associates time perception with the activity of counting instants or “nows” (νῦν): We apprehend time only when we have bound change, bounding it by before and after; and it is only when we have perceived ‘before’ and ‘after’ in change that we say that time has elapsed. Now we bound the “before and after” by judging that one moment and another are different, and that some third thing is intermediate to them. When we think of the extremes as different from the middle and the soul pronounces that the ‘nows’ are two, one before and one after, it is then that we say that there is time, and this that we say is time.13 T2.1 Aristotle Physics IV.11 219a22–29, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

Aristotle’s observation here is a more specific criterion for recognizing time than the one given by Plato in the Timaeus. Plato called time “a moving image proceeding according to number” and called “days, nights, months and years” parts of time, so it seemed that one could speak of time when one had the repetition of some periodic movements: one day, two months, three years, or something similar. Aristotle observes that it was not so much the durations that were counted, as instants that bound the durations: to count days, for example, can be to count sunrises, or sunsets, or noons. It is these boundary events and 13 ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τὸν χρόνον γε γνωρίζομεν ὅταν ὁρίσωμεν τὴν κίνησιν, τῷ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ὁρίζοντες· καὶ τότε φαμὲν γεγονέναι χρόνον, ὅταν τοῦ προτέρου καὶ ὑστέρου ἐν τῇ κινήσει αἴσθησιν λάβωμεν. ὁρίζομεν δὲ τῷ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο ὑπολαβεῖν αὐτά, καὶ μεταξύ τι αὐτῶν ἕτερον· ὅταν γὰρ ἕτερα τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ μέσου νοήσωμεν, καὶ δύο εἴπῃ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ νῦν, τὸ μὲν πρότερον τὸ δ’ ὕστερον, τότε καὶ τοῦτό φαμεν εἶναι χρόνον·.

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their instants that are the proper subject of the count, not the extended period itself. We do not so much perceive the duration itself according to Aristotle, as much as a distinction between two states, and by the recognition of this distinction recognize, as well, the existence of an interval between the two. Time is, thus, known through the instant or “now.” Aristotle also observes that time is not a set of discrete instants, but continuous like the change to which it belongs (219a11–15). Given that time is an aspect of a change, and a change is a single change by the continuity of the magnitude that it changes along, time itself is continuous. Also, although Aristotle typically says that time is a number, he also employs the language of measure. Hence, time is the measure of change and rest (221b22–23), it is the measure of being (211a4–7), it is the measure of change and measured by change – i.e., we can use time to measure a change (something took four days) or we can use a change to measure time (a sidereal day is the time it takes for the first heaven to return to the same point) (220b15–32). Considered as continuous and as a measure, although time is perceived by counting nows, it is not just a set of nows. This results in a tension with Aristotle’s understanding of number, which typically refers only to discrete collections of units (Metaph X.1 1053a30, Phys. III.7, 207b7). However, in his discussion of time Aristotle does not simply call it a number, but a particular kind of number (a countable number, but not a number with which we count) and compares it to another surprising kind of “number,” namely lines.14 (There is more on this distinction below.) There are thus two aspects of time under consideration in calling it a “number” for Aristotle, the discreteness of counted instants and the measure of temporal periods. Though both aspects of time can be understood under the word “number,” they answer to different questions. The first is: “When did something occur in a series of events?,” the question relative to an event’s temporal position. This is answered by time qua number of counted nows, or, positions in the continuum of change. The position is not itself a time for Aristotle, but it belongs to time that it is ordered and that has positions in it. The second question that explains what is meant by “number” is: “How long did something take?,” the question relative to the length of a duration. This is answered by time as the number measuring a certain period.15 The two questions are connected because since time is ever different, any distinction in temporal position makes for distinction in being – that is, two events at 14 15

On the issue, see Coope (2005, pp. 85–110). Significantly, in his Categories Aristotle gives time as an example of the category of quantity, and not of the category of “when.”

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different times are two distinct events, or two occurrences of one event-type. Thus, the length of a process’s duration is marked out by the number of temporal positions occupied by a regular change that happens together with it. For example, a period of waiting can be measured in days by seeing how many instants/nows are marked by sunsets during the wait. The two aspects of time as a number are inextricably linked. Their union is seen in the character of the now itself, which on the one hand marks off a time as distinct from others and on the other is also always a boundary between before and after, past and future, and thus connects and witnesses to their continuity. “The ‘now’ is the link of time, as has been said, for it connects past and future time and it is a limit of time for it is the beginning of one and the end of the other.”16 Likewise, a period of time is not known unless it is bounded off by nows. “When we think of the extremes as different from the middle and the soul pronounces that the ‘nows’ are two, one before and one after, it is then that we say that there is time, and this that we say is time.”17 Although inseparable, the two aspects of time must coexist side by side without affecting each other. The continuity of time cannot naturally be broken up by nows, as then it would not be continuous, but discrete. Thus, “the now is not a part [of time]; for the part measures [what it is a part of] and the whole is necessarily made out of its parts; yet time does not seem to be made out of nows.”18 And time cannot be thought without the now, for without the now, nothing numbers and orders time: Therefore, the now is not time insofar as it is a limit, but an accident of time. Insofar as it counts, however, it is a number. For limits belong only to what they are limits of, but the number of these horses, say ten, exists also elsewhere.19 T2.2 Aristotle Physics IV.11 220a21–24, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

16 Phys. IV.13 222a10–13: Τὸ δὲ νῦν ἐστιν συνέχεια χρόνου, ὥσπερ ἐλέχθη· συνέχει γὰρ τὸν χρόνον τὸν παρεληλυθότα καὶ ἐσόμενον, καὶ πέρας χρόνου ἐστίν· ἔστι γὰρ τοῦ μὲν ἀρχή, τοῦ δὲ τελευτή. There may be more at stake in Aristotle’s designation of the now as a συνεχεία of past and present than a mere assertion of time’s continuity. Causal considerations raised in Post. An. II 12 may also be in the background. See the discussion in Chapter 3.1. 17 Phys. IV.11 219a26–29: ὅταν γὰρ ἕτερα τὰ ἄκρα τοῦ μέσου νοήσωμεν, καὶ δύο εἴπῃ ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ νῦν, τὸ μὲν πρότερον τὸ δ’ ὕστερον, τότε καὶ τοῦτό φαμεν εἶναι χρόνον·. 18 Phys. IV.10 218a6–8: τὸ δὲ νῦν οὐ μέρος· μετρεῖ τε γὰρ τὸ μέρος, καὶ συγκεῖσθαι δεῖ τὸ ὅλον ἐκ τῶν μερῶν· ὁ δὲ χρόνος οὐ δοκεῖ συγκεῖσθαι ἐκ τῶν νῦν. 19 †ᾗ μὲν οὖν πέρας τὸ νῦν, οὐ χρόνος, ἀλλὰ συμβέβηκεν· ᾗ δ’ ἀριθμεῖ, ἀριθμός†· τὰ μὲν γὰρ πέρατα ἐκείνου μόνον ἐστὶν οὗ ἐστιν πέρατα, ὁ δ’ ἀριθμὸς ὁ τῶνδε τῶν ἵππων, ἡ δεκάς, καὶ ἄλλοθι.

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With time not being intrinsically broken up into nows, Aristotle is led to say that it is not a number with which we count (as it is not essentially something discrete and already counted) but a number in the sense of something counted or countable:20 Time is therefore not a change but change insofar as it has a number. An indication of this is that we distinguish more and less by number, and longer and shorter change by time. Time therefore is a kind of number. But since number is said in two ways (for we call number both what is counted and countable, and that by which we count), time is surely what is counted, and not that by which we count. For that by which we count is other than that which is counted.21 T2.3 Aristotle Physics IV.11 219b2–9, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

This passage on the meaning of time’s being a number of change is particularly interesting from Proclus’ point of view, because the first part, in which the reasoning shows that time is a kind of number, is the reasoning also employed by Proclus to identify the “true number” of the Republic with time.22 So far, therefore, Proclus agrees with Aristotle. It is with the following part of the passage that he disagrees. Aristotle distinguishes between two kinds of number, what is countable/counted and that with which we count, between the object of counting and the instrument of counting and opts for the object of counting. It is, as he says, the before and after of movement “insofar as it is counted,” i.e., has a number. Aristotle sees the ordering, i.e., counting by nows of time as supervening on the successive order of change, itself determined by a succession in magnitude (as in first and last positions in a length determining the order of a locomotion). Plotinus criticized this view sharply for not getting at what time is, but instead only describing a function of time (a deficiency he saw in all non-Platonist accounts). He argued that Aristotle’s notion of a “counted 20

I am following here Coope’s (2005, pp. 85–110) interpretation of this unclear distinction, grounded on the observation that since every number is countable, “countable number” must mean a number that is only countable, as opposed to one which is countable and with which we count, and grounded as well in the use that Aristotle makes of the distinction further on in his argument. 21 οὐκ ἄρα κίνησις ὁ χρόνος ἀλλ’ ᾗ ἀριθμὸν ἔχει ἡ κίνησις. σημεῖον δέ· τὸ μὲν γὰρ πλεῖον καὶ ἔλαττον κρίνομεν ἀριθμῷ, κίνησιν δὲ πλείω καὶ ἐλάττω χρόνῳ· ἀριθμὸς ἄρα τις ὁ χρόνος. ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀριθμός ἐστι διχῶς (καὶ γὰρ τὸ ἀριθμούμενον καὶ τὸ ἀριθμητὸν ἀριθμὸν λέγομεν, καὶ ᾧ ἀριθμοῦμεν), ὁ δὴ χρόνος ἐστὶν τὸ ἀριθμούμενον καὶ οὐχ ᾧ ἀριθμοῦμεν. ἔστι δ’ ἕτερον ᾧ ἀριθμοῦμεν καὶ τὸ ἀριθμούμενον. 22 See above, Chapter 1.2.

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number of change” was a functional description of time that presupposed an intrinsic one (Enn. III.7 [45] 9.6f). He reasoned, first, that if time is going to be the measure of both orderly and disorderly motions alike, then it will not be a measure that is intrinsic to motions, as disorderly ones lack such a measure. But if so, time will be as extrinsic to motion as the number ten is to a group of ten dogs and a group of ten lions. And just as for a Platonist we do not know what the number ten is by saying that we can number certain object with it (our fingers, our toes, the set {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9}, for instance), we do not learn what time is by saying that it is the measure of change. Or, again, if time is understood as a single period that measures all change, then we need to ask what is this period, what is its length, and why is this period what measures change instead of what is measured? Thus, either as a number measuring changes from without or a period running alongside changes, time would have an intrinsic essence that is excluded by Aristotle’s remarks. Proclus took up Plotinus’ Platonist project of finding the essence of time instead of its effects (In Tim. III 25.7–12), but the criticism he addresses to Aristotle’s definition of time as a counted number of change is drawn from Iamblichus. The latter criticized Aristotle for having drawn the order of time from place and movement, but the notion that time has an order of before-andafter is something his criticism retains (In Tim. III 31.15–27. See also Simplicius In Phys. 794.3–12 for a parallel quote from Iamblichus). The main difference between the later Platonist and Aristotelian conception resides in the fact that Aristotle sees the order of time as somehow supervening an order of beforeand-after that was already inherent in change and magnitude (219a12–20), whereas Proclus and Iamblichus understand time as possessing an order of its own, which then is imparted to change and bodies. Thus besides a counted number and a number with which we count, the later Platonists recognized a counting number, a number that actively counts, or should we say, counts out the successive parts of change. If we were to look for this third kind of number in T2.5, we might be tempted to split hairs about the fact that Aristotle has lumped two terms into the single object of counting, namely the countable and the counted. Nevertheless, rather than attribute to later Platonists hermeneutical acrobatics in this regard, it is far easier to turn to another passage where Aristotle does raise the question of what counts, or rather, who counts, namely, the soul:23

23 There is no witness of such interpretations in Simplicius’ (cf. In Phys. 719.19–21) or Philoponus’ commentaries (cf. In Phys. 723.17–24).

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Someone might raise a puzzle about whether there would be time or not, if there were no soul; for if there cannot be a counting agent, there cannot be anything that can be counted, so that evidently neither can there be a number; for a number is either what has been or what can be counted. But if it belongs to nothing but soul, or in soul intelligence, to count, there would not be time unless there were soul, but only that of which time is an attribute, if, for instance, without soul there can be a change. But the before and after are attributes of change, and time is these qua countable.24 T2.4 Aristotle Physics IV.14 223a21–28, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

Here we see Aristotle at the greatest distance from his Neoplatonist commentators: the before-and-after of change is something that exists in change itself, independent of its being counted by the soul, and it is this prior before-andafter that determines the before and after of time. Time is a number only in virtue of the “now” and a counting of “nows.” Yet, the “now” cannot be intrinsic to time on pain of breaking its continuity. Instead, it must have an external source and in the above passage Aristotle seems to say that this source is the soul. And thus, in Proclus’ reading of Aristotle, time is an artifact of the soul.25 We see, thus, where later Neoplatonists could have been inspired to include an active counting agency in their account of Aristotle’s approach to time. But the counting in question here is a counting that supervenes on an order existing in the before-and-after in change, and it is not a counting agency in the sense of counting out an ordered series that would exist prior to change. For this we need to turn to another part of Aristotle’s corpus, namely the Generation of Animals and Generation and Corruption, where he calls nature (φύσις) a counting agency when discussing the lifespans of living beings. Thus, in a passage in Generation and Corruption we read:

24 πότερον δὲ μὴ οὔσης ψυχῆς εἴη ἂν ὁ χρόνος ἢ οὔ, ἀπορήσειεν ἄν τις. ἀδυνάτου γὰρ ὄντος εἶναι τοῦ ἀριθμήσοντος ἀδύνατον καὶ ἀριθμητόν τι εἶναι, ὥστε δῆλον ὅτι οὐδ’ ἀριθμός. ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἢ τὸ ἠριθμημένον ἢ τὸ ἀριθμητόν. εἰ δὲ μηδὲν ἄλλο πέφυκεν ἀριθμεῖν ἢ ψυχὴ καὶ ψυχῆς νοῦς, ἀδύνατον εἶναι χρόνον ψυχῆς μὴ οὔσης, ἀλλ’ ἢ τοῦτο ὅ ποτε ὂν ἔστιν ὁ χρόνος, οἷον εἰ ἐνδέχεται κίνησιν εἶναι ἄνευ ψυχῆς. τὸ δὲ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον ἐν κινήσει ἐστίν· χρόνος δὲ ταῦτ’ ἐστὶν ᾗ ἀριθμητά ἐστιν. 25 Cf. In Tim. III 9.23–30; 20.10–15; 95.18–20. A reading that might want to attribute more objective reality to time in Aristotle’s view would observe that the “nows,” the limits of changes, are given by the changes themselves to some degree. Thus, Alexander in his On Time §9: “Time however is number which is numbered by some thing else, namely by movement.”

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Therefore the times and the lives of each thing have a number and by this number they are determined: for there is an order of all things, and every time and life is measured by a period. But not all by the same period, but some by a smaller and others by a greater one: for for some of them the period that is their measure is a year, while for some it is a longer period and for yet others a shorter one.26 T2.5 Aristotle Generation and Corruption II.10 336b10–15 , trans. JOACHIM, modified

And similarly in the Generation of Animals: We find, as we might expect, that in all animals the time of gestation, development and being alive aims at being measured according to nature by periods (κατὰ φύσιν περιόδοις). I call periods, day, night, month and year and the times measured by these, and also the periods of the moon.27 T2.6 Aristotle Generation of Animals IV.10 777b16–20, trans. PLATT, modified

In talking about lifespans Aristotle mentions in these passages a special “number” by which each “time and life” is distinguished (in GC) and “in all animals the time of gestation, development and being alive aims at being measured” (in GA). In the expression “aims at being measured” (μετρεῖσθαι βούλονται)28 we find a special twist, for it posits the given length of life not merely as the mechanical result of efficient causes on the animal organism, but as possessing a normative value. The lifespan of an animal is thus not to be explained by the resistance of its body with regard to the wear and tear induced by its habitat (for that would still not explain why the animal has precisely such a body that endures so long in its environment), but rather by the specific nature of the living being, such that a member of the species should typically live a 26 Διὸ καὶ οἱ χρόνοι καὶ οἱ βίοι ἑκάστων ἀριθμὸν ἔχουσι καὶ τούτῳ διορίζονται• πάντων γάρ ἐστι τάξις, καὶ πᾶς βίος καὶ χρόνος μετρεῖται περιόδῳ, πλὴν οὐ τῇ αὐτῇ πάντες, ἀλλ’ οἱ μὲν ἐλάττονι οἱ δὲ πλείονι• τοῖς μὲν γὰρ ἐνιαυτός, τοῖς δὲ μείζων, τοῖς δὲ ἐλάττων ἡ περίοδός ἐστι τὸ μέτρον. 27 Εὐλόγως δὲ πάντων οἱ χρόνοι καὶ τῶν κυήσεων καὶ γενέσεων καὶ τῶν βίων μετρεῖσθαι βούλονται κατὰ φύσιν περιόδοις. λέγω δὲ περίοδον ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα καὶ μῆνα καὶ ἐνιαυτὸν καὶ τοὺς χρόνους τοὺς μετρουμένους τούτοις, ἔτι δὲ τὰς τῆς σελήνης περιόδους. One might ask what are “the periods of the moon” as distinct from “the month.” One suggestion might be the moon’s phases. 28 This use of βούλομαι here reflects that of Plato in the Phaedo 75b, where it is said that perceptibly equal things “strive to reach what is Equal as such” and also “desire to be like it.” The context there is their aiming at a Form, the Equal itself, which the thing participates in.

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certain amount of years.29 The number of years determined by a nature is not a number that is determined after the fact, by a soul observing the living being in question. It is a measured period of time established before it elapses.30 A nature must accordingly be a counting and measuring agency in a different sense than the soul introduced by Aristotle in text T2.4 above, one that does not count an existing quantity, but which “counts out” a pre-determined quantity. I am thinking of the meaning of “count out” as “apportion” when I use it here, though, I mean something more technical than the apportioning of a given quantity. What is being apportioned is an ideal, normative quantity that is achieving real existence in the act of apportioning, by being counted out. For instance, when a server counts out the number of pizza slices that he is to give to each customer at a table, what takes place is an activity of counting that generates the quantities it counts, the quantity of distributed slices. Thus, the nature of an animal is a productive cause of its living and of its living a life of a determinate length. The contrast between an a posteriori and a productive numbering, between counting and counting out, can be made clearer with a quotidian example: a cooking recipe. A recipe will list, on the one hand, quantities of ingredients and, on the other, will note how many servings should result from the recipe. The quantities of ingredients are measures in the sense that Proclus says time is not a measure, for they measure a quantity of pre-existing material. The number of portions to be produced, however, determines how the mass of ingredients is organized and divided in the cooking process. It is, therefore, a cause of the portions it numbers, and not the result of a posterior act of counting. This cause can be called a number that counts, not because it counts an existing quantity, but because it is a cause for a discrete quantity of things. The number of portions, however, is not like Aristotle’s nature or Proclus’ time in two important ways. First, at the end of the cooking process the portions may all exist simultaneously. The states produced by time, however, do not exist together, but in succession, as only a single age of an animal’s life (infancy, or adulthood, to use coarse-grained examples) is present at any given time. Second, in the composition of a cooking recipe, the intended number of portions need not have been a guiding principle, but a fact observed by how many servings eventually were 29 30

The year is only an example. Different species, it seems, would have their lifespan measured out in different periods. Although for Aristotle prior to the nature of each animal there was an infinite quantity of past ancestors of the same species and, to that degree, all sharing the same nature. So, the measure of the lifespan is prior to the life of the individual for Aristotle, but not prior to the existence of the species (as it will be for Proclus, see below Chapter 2.3.2).

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produced by the culinary process that produced the best results. The number of a nature, on the other hand, has no previous origin in a counting process that happens after the fact. In seeking to identify the number of time as a number that is productive of the quantity it measures, Proclus and Iamblichus may have had in mind a criticism of Plotinus’ against Aristotle, namely, when he inquires at Enn. III.7 [45] 9.5: “How could something count the irregular and disordered?” (πῶς γὰρ ἄν τις ἀριθμήσειε τὴν ἄτακτον καὶ ἀνώμαλον.) Above we observed that the force of this question most immediately is to show how if time is a number of change, it must be an extrinsic number of change. But it can also be understood in a different way. “The irregular and disordered” is, here, a reference to the changes that are said to exist in Plato’s Timaeus, before the production of the world and time. Therefore, Plotinus’ question can be taken as: “If time is a number that belongs essentially to change how can lack of order be a possibility for change?” If there is an a posteriori count of the phases of any change, then there must be some ground that assures that changes are orderly enough to be so counted. Aristotle’s understanding of time thus implies a cause of order and countability that would be more correctly called time than the a posteriori counted feature with which he seems to identify it. The notion of time not as a number observed a posteriori and existing in change, but rather as a prior, determinative measure refuses Plotinus’ question. Understanding time as a number that counts out change does not imply that becoming requires a separate cause of order, but rather identifies time precisely with such a cause.31 Besides introducing the notion of productive measure, Aristotle in both T2.5 and T2.6 above says that this measured duration of life given by the form of the animal is given in a unit of astronomical measurement. This is significant, if one is to move from the plurality of natures that measure distinct lifespans to positing a counting agency constitutive of the omnipresent flow of time, as Proclus wishes.32 As for Aristotle, T2.5 says that the lives of animals are measured by periods, and gives as an example the year, explaining however that 31

32

One important distinction between the notion of measure Aristotle is introducing in GC and GA and the use Proclus puts it to is that when Aristotle attributes it to nature (φύσις), he does not by this mean a single nature of the whole world, but the immanent nature of each living being, its own species-specific dynamism. Proclus (and the Neoplatonists prior to him), in contrast, inherits from the Stoics the notion of a global nature that establishes the measures of development for change in the world as a whole and in every individual natural being. I will consider this development in Chapter 3. The coordination of lifespans and celestial periods points to the existence of a common cause of their order in Proclus’ views as I explain in Chapter 2.3.2 below.

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some lives are measured by shorter, others by longer periods than a year. In T2.6, we find again the specification that the bounded times aims at being measured by a period, which is explained as “day, night, month, year, and the times measured by these, and also the periods of the moon.” Further in GA Aristotle writes at greater length on the connection between the periods of life and the celestial motions. Just as we observe that the sea and whatever is of a fluid character remains settled or changes according as the winds are at rest or in motion, while the air and the winds in turn remain settled or change according to the period of the sun and the moon, so too the things which grow from them and are in them necessarily follow suit (as it is only reasonable that the periods of things of inferior standing should follow those which belong to things of higher standing) since even the wind has a sort of lifespan – a generation and a decline. As for the revolutions of the sun and moon, they probably depend on other principles. It is the aim, then, of nature to count out the coming into being and the end of animals by the numbers of these revolutions, but it does not bring this to pass accurately because of the indeterminacy of matter and because there are many principles which hinder the generations and destructions according to nature, and often causes occurrences contrary to nature.33 T2.7 Aristotle Generation of Animals IV.10 777b30–778a9, trans. Platt, modified

This long text can be broken down into two parts. The first establishes a chain of dependent periods, from the seas to the celestial bodies and beyond to some unnamed “other principles.” The second then reaffirms the normative character of the measuring of existence in the world in terms of celestial phenomena, adding the caveat that many things occur in nature that impede this from happening (we can imagine here irregular matter, predation, and disease as examples of accidents that impede living beings from living out their natural 33 ὥσπερ γὰρ καὶ θάλατταν καὶ πᾶσαν ὁρῶμεν τὴν τῶν ὑγρῶν φύσιν ἱσταμένην καὶ μεταβάλλουσαν κατὰ τὴν τῶν πνευμάτων κίνησιν καὶ στάσιν, τὸν δ’ ἀέρα καὶ τὰ πνεύματα κατὰ τὴν τοῦ ἡλίου καὶ τῆς σελήνης περίοδον, οὕτω καὶ τὰ ἐκ τούτων φυόμενα καὶ τὰ ἐν τούτοις ἀκολουθεῖν ἀναγκαῖον· κατὰ λόγον γὰρ ἀκολουθεῖν καὶ τὰς τῶν ἀκυροτέρων περιόδους ταῖς τῶν κυριωτέρων. βίος γάρ τις καὶ πνεύματός ἐστι καὶ γένεσις καὶ φθίσις. τῆς δὲ τῶν ἄστρων τούτων περιφορᾶς τάχ’ ἂν ἕτεραί τινες εἶεν ἀρχαί. βούλεται μὲν οὖν ἡ φύσις τοῖς τούτων ἀριθμοῖς ἀριθμεῖν τὰς γενέσεις καὶ τὰς τελευτάς, οὐκ ἀκριβοῖ δὲ διά τε τὴν τῆς ὕλης ἀοριστίαν καὶ διὰ τὸ γίγνεσθαι πολλὰς ἀρχὰς αἳ τὰς γενέσεις τὰς κατὰ φύσιν καὶ τὰς φθορὰς ἐμποδίζουσαι πολλάκις αἴτιαι τῶν παρὰ φύσιν συμπιπτόντων εἰσίν.

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lives). That these two thoughts are conjoined is interesting, for the consideration of the chain of periods alone might lead one to think that what was at stake in regular periods of life was a merely mechanical state of affairs. Given that all change ultimately depends upon the motion of the celestial bodies and the celestial bodies move regularly, so does everything below the Moon change in regular fashion and the living beings in regularly changing environments have more or less fixed lifespans. However, by immediately reasserting that “It is the aim, then, of nature to count out (ἀριθμεῖν) the coming into being and the end of animals by the numbers of these revolutions,” Aristotle avoids this impression. Furthermore, this suggests that the general principle invoked by Aristotle “the periods of things of inferior standing should follow those which belong to things of higher standing” (GA IV.10 778a1–2: ἀκολουθεῖν καὶ τὰς τῶν ἀκυροτέρων περιόδους ταῖς τῶν κυριωτέρων) does not merely reflect that more efficacious bodies will have a greater effect on more passible bodies, but a teleological ordering of the world, where nature aims at mearing the lives of perishable living beings according to the celestial bodies in order to assure their share in the perpetuity of the celestial motions.34 Proclus understood the theory of natural measures and their dependence on the heavens to be contained in Plato’s Republic, as I observed in discussing T1.7, and because of this he happily enriched his Platonism with the Aristotelian ideas I have been explaining. He adopts them in two ways: first, he takes it that the number that time qua the Order of Time is precisely the kind of number that counts out what it measures; second, he accepts the chain of measurement going from lifespans to celestial periods. Thus, the first point: For if the [time] in the participants is a number like what has been counted [is a number], what will be the number that exists corresponding to (κατὰ) the counting out of that [counted number]? To name the partial soul is absurd. For the number in it that counts time is an abstraction (ὑστερογενὴς)35 in the same way that the number in us that counts 34 For an interpretation of Aristotle that defends such a cosmic teleological ordering, see Sedley (2007, pp. 194–203). 35 See (Helmig 2012, pp. 309–316) on ὑστερογενής in Proclus. The term means literally “laterborn,” and Proclus uses it usually to designate a mental representation that does not originate in the soul’s essence as a body of knowledge, but which is produced by the soul on the basis of sense impressions through a process of abstraction. Such representations cannot constitute true knowledge for Proclus, as they are causally posterior to perceptibles, whereas knowledge is obtained through concepts that are ontologically prior to perception and formally identical with the natures that organize the perceptible world.

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our fingers is an abstraction: in no way is that the number that makes the fingers on one hand five, but the number that counts what [our body’s] nature has produced as of that amount. But we are searching for the cause of the being of the time that is counted. This [time that counts] is therefore itself (αὐτὸς) as it remains unchanging, while according to itself (καθ’ ἑαυτὸν) it unfolds the counted time.36 T2.8 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 26.15–24

Here, Proclus employs Aristotle’s notion of a number proper to a nature, determining the lifespan of a living being or also the number of its parts, in order to answer the question of what the cause of counted time is. This implies an objective view of time’s measure: as objective as it is that a human hand has five fingers, not four or six, so is it a part of reality that so much time has elapsed. This may appear absurd, at first: for what would the reference point of “the world’s calendar” be? Proclus, like Aristotle, accepts that there is neither a beginning nor an end to the world’s history. The answer to this conundrum is (in brief) that that Proclus believes that a great year, the time required for all celestial bodies to return to the same relative positions,37 is the period of a naturally occurring cosmic lifecycle, during which all cycles in the world return to their “starting points”. In this manner, he can speak of “the past great year,” “the current great year” and “the next great year”.38 Proclus does not believe (unlike some Stoics) that all events are identical between one great year and another, as he is too committed to contingency in the material world and the free will of souls for that, but he does believe that the same cosmic cycles ever 36 καὶ γὰρ εἰ ὁ ἐν τοῖς μετέχουσίν ἐστιν ὡς τὸ ἀριθμούμενον ἀριθμός, τίς ἔσται ὁ κατὰ τὸ ἀριθμεῖν ἐκεῖνον ὢν ἀριθμός; τὸ μὲν οὖν τὴν μερικὴν ψυχὴν λέγειν ἄτοπον· ὑστερογενὴς γάρ ἐστιν ὁ ἐν ταύτῃ τὸν χρόνον ἀριθμῶν ἀριθμὸς οὕτως, ὡς ὁ τοὺς δακτύλους ἀριθμῶν ἐν ἡμῖν. οὔκουν ἐκεῖνος ὁ ποιήσας πέντε τοὺς δακτύλους, ἀλλ’ ὁ γενομένους ἀριθμῶν ὑπὸ τῆς φύσεως τοσούτους. ἡμεῖς δὲ ζητοῦμεν τὸ αἴτιον τοῦ εἶναι τὸν ἀριθμούμενον χρόνον. οὗτος οὖν ἐστιν ὁ αὐτὸς μὲν ἀκίνητος μένων, καθ’ ἑαυτὸν δὲ ἀνελίττων τὸν ἀριθμούμενον. 37 The great year is an incalculable quantity for Proclus, as it would have to take into account the rotations of each celestial body around its axis and the innumerable invisible celestial bodies that follow each of the planets in their spheres. What marks off one great year from another is not explained by Proclus. It is likely to be some sui generis event on Earth or in its atmosphere (A comet? A cataclysm? The descent of some unique transmigrating soul?) happening only once in any great year. 38 See In Tim. III 50.29–51.1: ὁ κόσμος … καὶ “γεγονὼς καὶ ὢν καὶ ἐσόμενός” ἐστιν, οὐκ ἐν τῷ σύμπαντι χρόνῳ τὰ τρία ἔχων, ἕκαστον δὲ ἐν μορίῳ χρόνου, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν τριῶν ἐν τῷ σύμπαντι χρόνῳ διά τε τὴν φθάσασαν καὶ τὴν μέλλουσαν περίοδον. (*Addition of Diehl’s, which I accept, given Plato’s “γεγονώς τε καὶ ὢν καὶ ἐσόμενος,” and which is supposed to be explained here by Proclus.)

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repeat themselves, and thus one Procline way of thinking about the flow of time is that it is the unfolding of the great year, as a sequence of one great year after another. Now, given Proclus’ belief in a bounded, natural great year, and also the fact that the great year must be divisible by the period of each celestial body, it follows that for any given moment in a great year, each celestial body has already completed a certain amount of periods by that moment. In this sense, there is an objective “age” to each moment within a great year, and this age can be objectively numbered.39 Proclus thus understands time as a number (i.e., the Order of Time as opposed to the flow of time) as a productive measure akin to the prescriptive measures in a cooking recipe or the nature of animal organism. The nature of the animal organism is something real, which exists outside of the human soul and exists independently and prior to the development of the animal (indeed, it exists as soon as the animal exists), and which is the cause both of the animal’s living and of the pattern of the animal’s life – how long it lives, how long each of the stages of its life is, what are the many daily, monthly and yearly cycles that the animal goes through. In a similar manner, for Proclus the Order of Time is something real, existing independently of both the human soul and the unfolding of the great year, and that is the cause of both the flow of time and also the pattern of time’s flow: that is, the length of the great year (the maximum cycle that time accomplishes), the many stages of cosmic development, and also of the many smaller cycles (i.e., the astronomical periods) that can be observed in time. The Number of time thus imbues each moment of time with an objective age, which make it the moment appropriate to perform certain actions and inappropriate for other actions.40 This doctrine will become clearer in Chapter 3, where I discuss the Stoic element of Proclus’ 39

Later, commenting on T3.14 we will see that this age is in a way shared by all the beings within nature. Thus, human beings at the end of a great year, for instance, are “cosmically old” human beings, whereas human beings from the beginning of a great year are “cosmically young.” Of course, since this is a cycle, the older world becomes, the closer it approaches its youth. 40 One sees here how modern dichotomies between “quantitative,” “measured” time or “χρόνος” against “qualitative” time or “καιρός” make little sense in a Procline perspective: universal, objective measurement is the ground for the “qualitative” differentation of moments and the constitution of some momements as propoitious times for certain activities. This does not mean that Proclus lacks an independent analysis of καιρός. He presents one at In Alc. 121.11–123.16 and In Remp. II 79.17–24. In the former pssage, the analysis even starts from a differentation of times into natural times analogous to Aristotle’s theory of “natural places” towards which elements tend. Proclus’ analysis of the καιρός is that it is a moment appropriate for an action, because at that moment both the agent

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theory of time, which is precisely the Stoa’s biology of the universe, that is the school’s account of the entire cosmos as a single living being developing according to an organic plan. Nonetheless, it is already apparent that the root of the idea here is in Aristotle, and specifically in his question of exactly what kind of a number is time, to which Proclus gives the un-Aristotelian, yet Aristotle-inspired answer, that it is neither the counted number of change, nor the number with which we count change, but the number that counts out that unique and universal change, the measured flow of time. Here, one might object that a leap has occurred. Why should one say that the number of time counts out the flow of time instead of saying that it counts out the changes of the world itself, the world’s lifecycle so to speak? As I have remarked, it is a Procline way to think about time’s flow as if it were the unfolding of one great year after another. Why distinguish, so to speak, time’s homogenous flow from the heterogeneous “river of becoming”? If the Number of Time is understood analogically in relation to the nature of an animal that measures out the animal’s lifespan, it would seem that the changes of the natural world itself must be what is “counted out,” not some separate process over and above the world’s life, which is called “the flow of time.” Yet already in the case of individual animals, their natures are aimed to measure out their lives in terms of “natural periods,” i.e., the periods marked out by uniform heavenly motions. This need not be a simple empirical belief, but might very well be motivated by a concern for explaining exactly how a number, in the sense of prior measure, can actually “count out” a change. There is a problem in this notion of “counting out,” because of a premise that both Aristotle and Proclus agree upon, namely that a thing can only be measured by a unit of the same dimension. (Thus, a length can only be measured by a length, a volume can only be measured by a volume, and, significantly, a change or a motion can only be measured by another change.)41 This is a problem for the notion that a prior, formal entity is the measure of a change, because such a form is unextended. In Aristotle’s case it is/belongs to the form of the living being. In Proclus’ case it is proximately the “participated time” proper to each thing in time, and remotely the eternal Order of Time itself or “unparticipated Time.” In either case, since the prior existing measure is unextended, it cannot and the patient of the action independently of each other have come into a state suitable for the action to take place. For a summary of Proclus’ texts on καιρός, see Brunner (1992). 41 See Simplicius Corollary on Place (In Phys. 611.35ff) for Proclus’ use of this axiom in his arguments against Aristotle on place, and Aristotle Metaph X.1 1053a24 for how this is stated generally about measures.

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be what immediately measures the change: only another change, only something else with temporal extension can measure a change. But this measuring change cannot be just any change. It must be a special kind of change, one that does not require an additional measure for its order; otherwise, there will be an infinite regress. Specifically, it must not require a form that determines the sequence and length of its stages. Suppose that this change is like the changes it measures, and that like them it takes place according to a prior measure that determines its duration and order. If this is so, we once again run into the problem of how this prior measure, which is not a change can determine the order of the change. And thus, we run into the problem that the very postulation of the measuring change was supposed to solve – that is, we run into an infinite regress. In order to avoid this outcome, this primary change must not require a measure that determines its order. And if it does not require an ordering measure, it must be because it contains no diversity to be ordered. Thus, it must have a uniform rate and cannot, at times, be quicker and, at times, slower. Otherwise, there will be a question of why its quick period is prior to its slow period and vice versa. But it must not only take place at a uniform rate; it must be absolutely homogeneous, i.e., it cannot be a change from one state A to another state B, for there will be the question of why it is a change from A to B and not from B to A. This must be a “change” from a state A to another state A going through only the same state A and only differing with respect to quantity, an ever-greater duration of the very state A.42 Thus, in order for there to be natural measures, prior numbers that determine the length and sequence of changes, there must also be purely uniform motions in terms of which such measures can be expressed and applied. It is slightly inappropriate to speak of “application” in the case of a productive measure that counts out what it measures and what produces it, instead of determining an unknown quantity after the fact. After all, the measured object 42

Cf. the above argument with Menn’s (2012, p. 437) analysis of the argument from GA IV.10: “Thus the heavenly bodies, and especially the sun, by one mechanism or another, act as a metronome, setting the periods of things down here, which without the motions of the heavenly bodies, without anything to measure objectively equal periods of time, would have no natural periods to aim at. So, if we imagine that there were no motion in the heavens giving rise to the period of a year, there would be no more reason why a given species should grow and reproduce and perish so that the average interval between the birth of a parent and the birth of its offspring is N years, than that the interval should be N years in this generation, N/2 years in the next generation, N/4 years in the next, and so on, so that infinitely many generations would have exhausted themselves in 2N years.” Menn cites Plato’s Statesman 269a1–271c2 as a background passage where a connection between speed of cosmic rotation and biological processes are correlated.

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does not exist prior to what is measured in this case, and thus the measure is not applied to the measured object as something existent. I speak of “counting out,” precisely because the change is produced together with the act of counting. But there must be such a simultaneous activity of measurement/counting for them to conform to, for the changes are not the kind of thing that can conform to an extensionless standard, but they can only conform and be in step with another change. Here, therefore, we find an analysis of the notion of a number of change that explains why Aristotle appeals to the uniform motions of the celestial bodies and Proclus to the uniform flow of time. Indeed, it is easy to see why Proclus would want to go beyond the celestial bodies, not considering even their uniform motions sufficiently homogeneous to be the measuring activities that count out changes. First, a uniform circular motion is either clockwise or counterclockwise and, to that degree, is not entirely homogeneous. Hence, there is a question of why it displays the order it does? (Schematically, why does it go through the points A, B and C in the order ABCA instead of ACBA?) Connected with this, there is the question of what will one determine the duration of the period of the celestial bodies to be? On the supposition (implied by the belief in a great year) that the motions of all the celestial bodies are commensurate, it should be possible to find a unit motion in the heavens to measure them, perhaps the motion of the fixed stars. But what then determines the duration of the unit? By what will it be measured, such that it can be said to conform to a prior determination contained within Time itself? Aristotle provided the resources for conceiving of, on the one hand, the Order of Time as a previously existing measure that counts out change, and, on the other hand, for conceiving the flow of time as the activity of the Order of Time through which it can both act upon the world of change and measure it out. With regard to this activity of the Order of Time upon the world, in T2.8 Proclus states that “This is therefore itself (ὁ αὐτὸς) as it remains unchanging, while according to itself (καθ’ ἑαυτὸν) it unfolds the counted time.” By explaining the Order of Time as an unchanging producer of a change (the counted time) Proclus is appealing to a concept first developed by Aristotle, that of the unchanging agent of change or “unmoved mover” (that is, the agent of change that remains immutable as it produces change) and the associated distinction between activity and change and a particular analysis of change. Let us then turn to these issues. Aristotle contrasts change (κίνησις) with activity (ἐνέργεια) or, more specifically, he contrasts change as an incomplete actuality (ἐνέργεια ἀτελής) with complete actualities (τέλεια ἐνέργεια). Before discussing the distinction

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between change and activity further, it is important to point out that ἐνέργεια is an ambiguous word in Aristotle, and it can mean not only a strict kind of “activity,” when it contrasted with change (κίνησις), but also quite broadly “actuality,” when it is contrasted with a power (δύναμις) as the actual fulfillment of that power, in which case it can cover both changes and activities, as distinct types of actuality, even as it can be used in a sense connected with substance, where it can mean the actuality of a form in a matter with the power to receive that form. I will return to the further contrast between ἐνέργεια and δύναμις below, as Proclus collapses (within the perceptible world) the distinction between actuality in the sense of substance with actuality in the sense of a change. For Aristotle a change is the actuality of two things, an agent’s power to act and an object’s power to be acted on (thus heating, say, is the actuality of a fire’s power to heat and of a bowl of water’s power to be heated). This actuality exists in the object as it suffers the agent’s action (the heating takes place in the water).43 The object’s power to be acted on is its power to be in some contrary state: something hot can be cooled and become something cold; separated building materials can be put together and become a building; a rock in one’s hand can be dropped and come to be on the ground; a student who is ignorant about Aristotle’s theory of change can be taught it and become one who knows Aristotle’s theory of change. In each case, then, the object is changed in virtue of a power to be in a contrary state: from hot to cold, separate to conjoined, ignorant to knowledgeable. Every change then has a limit and an end, attaining a contrary state, and is distinct from the actuality of that state in the object and indeed incompatible with it. Building materials can no longer be made into a house, and a builder can no longer change the materials into a house, when the house is already built. Every change, thus, goes from being “incomplete” to being “complete” when it has attained its end. Therefore, it takes time. Not all cases of an agent acting on an object are cases of change for Aristotle. The reason for this is that an object can retain the power to be in an opposite state. To illustrate the significance of conceiving change as a change to a 43

Aristotle gives his definition of change in Phys. III.1 201a10–11 “ἡ τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος ἐντελέχεια, ᾗ τοιοῦτον,” “the actuality (ἐντελέχεια) of what has being potentially (τοῦ δυνάμει ὄντος), as such.” The definition is discusssed in Phys. III.1–3, building on an account of the principles of change in Phys I.7–9. Aristotle further distinguishes changes from activities in a strict sense Metaphys. IX.9 and (implicitly) in NE X.3–4. The definition and its connected texts contain ambiguities and there is much scholarly discussion on their meaning. What follows is informed by Menn (unpublished, 1994, 2002), Kosman (1969, 2013), Burnyeat (2008) and Ackrill (1997). I return to the contrast between activity and change in Chapter 4.1.

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contrary state, think of the example of cooling water. At first water is hot and has the capacity to be cold. When it is cold, it no longer has any heat in it, nor any power to become cold. On the other hand, when I have already learned Aristotle’s theory of change, I am capable of calling it to mind. When I am doing so and thinking about his theory of change, my capacity to call it to mind is still present and is not in the process of ceasing to be present, as the power to become cold is in the process of ceasing to be present in water while it becomes cold.44 Indeed, the activity of thinking about Aristotle’s theory of change is not a process towards some further goal. The goal, keeping Aristotle’s theory in mind, is obtained immediately with the exercise of the power. It could happen in an instant and does not necessarily take time. It is an example of an activity in the strict sense for Aristotle. Now, the distinction between activities and changes allows Aristotle to distinguish between unchanging and changing agents of change. A changing agent of change is one that changes in producing a change in an object. For instance, if I put ice cubes into a soup that is too hot, the ice cubes will cool the soup down but will also be warmed by the soup and eventually melt. Or if I swat a mosquito with my hand, my hand will squeeze the life out of the bug as it presses against it. Unlike these cases, where the cooling agent itself melts and the killing agent itself moves, an unchanging agent of change is an agent of change that does not itself change insofar as it causes change in an object. The notion of activity makes it possible to conceive of such an agent, because it allows us to speak of the actuality of a power to act (the power to produce a change) that is not itself a change. Thus, in the case of changes produced by unchanging agents of change, what is a change in the object is an activity for the agent. For instance, the activity of building a house is certainly a change for the materials of the house. But it is not necessarily, or even usually, a change for the builder of the house. In the exercise of any craft, Aristotle draws a distinction between the exercise of the craft when one is still learning it and the exercise of the craft when one has mastered it. When one is still learning the craft, in each exercise of the craft one’s knowledge of the craft is changing (increasing), and thus one is changing as a craftsman in each exercise of the craft. When one, however, has finally mastered the craft, the knowledge of the craft in one’s soul does not change in its exercise. Such that in the craft of building, the exercise of the craft by a master builder is a change in the building materials, a change from being separate to being united in the form of a house, but it is an activity of the master builder’s craft. 44

Thus Kosman (2013, p. 67) calls such powers “self-destructive.”

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A craft is thus a paradigmatic case of an unchanging agent of change for Aristotle and it is precisely the model he employed to explain the activity of the soul (ψυχή), which for him is identical with the nature (φύσις) specific to living beings.45 For Aristotle the soul of a living being produces its growth and nutrition as an unchanging cause of change, being, so to speak, a craft immanent in the living being for producing that living being. When Proclus compares the Order of Time to the nature responsible for the growth of a hand, he is applying this same model to time as a counting number: time as the number that counts out the flow of time is unchanging and has an unchanging activity, by which it produces the flow of time, which is a change. Understood in this manner, the flow of time has to be a change in Aristotle’s sense, because it goes through a number of pre-determined stages as it completes the cycle of the great year.46 Thus, Proclus exploits Aristotle’s notion of the activity of an unchanging agent of change. Not only is the Order of Time akin to Aristotle’s counting natures, and the uniform flow of time akin to the natural periods in terms of which those natures count out the lives of living beings, but also the Order of Time produces the flow of time in the way that the vitality of a living being produces its growth without itself changing.47 But besides these metaphysical analyses that Proclus takes up from Aristotle, he also takes up and develops Aristotle’s empirical claim in T2.7 that lifespans depend on astronomical periods: Therefore, for all beings, both the measures of lives as well as the different stages of life depend upon the cyclical periods of the world. Aristotle at any rate says that the periods of things of inferior standing follow those which belong to things of higher standing. But the periods of perpetual beings belong to things of higher standing, and those of mortals belong to things of inferior standing. And although all perpetual beings contribute to all mortal beings, different perpetual beings are the preponderant causes for different mortal beings of their periods. For instance, for one being the period of the moon is the cause, for another the period of Saturn, for yet another some different period, one which is either visible 45 46 47

On the analogy between vitality and craft in Aristotle, see Menn (2002). Below in Chapter 4.1 I reveal other senses in which the flow of time can also be considered not to be a change. In the following section I show how Proclus appropriates more aspects of this use of the concept of activity as Aristotle used it to explain the activity of eternal causes of motion.

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[e.g. the movement of some celestial body against the night sky] or invisible to us [e.g. the rotation of a celestial body around its own axis or the movement of an invisible celestial body]. For everything that moves in a circle, be it the vehicle for a God, a spirit or a messenger,48 has periods and is cause for some mortal being of the period of its life. And because of this the measures of the three lives [i.e. vegetable, animal and human] differ by the amount of time, as do the stages of life, since also their respective eternally moving causes differ. Yet it escapes us what is cause of which period. And we wonder why one animal lives for but one day, like the one that lives near the river Hypanis, which is born at sunrise and dies at sunset, yet another lives nine generations of men grown old. We wonder because we do not observe all the bodies that move in a circle nor which bodies rule which periods of life.49 T2.9 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Republic II 13.10–14.2

Proclus clearly accepts Aristotle’s link between the terrestrial cycles and celestial bodies, taking it even further than Aristotle explicitly does by postulating a plethora of entities in the heavens so that every cycle on Earth is keyed to a

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Proclus often employs the metaphor of a “vehicle” to speak of a body animated by a soul, distinguishing in the case of the transmigrating soul three different vehicles or bodies (one called “luminous,” another “pneumatic” and finally the body we are familiar with, called “earthly” or “oysterlike”). I understand the vehicles of spirits and messengers mentioned here to be among the invisible celestial bodies Proclus postulates to populate the planetary spheres with a multitude of living beings, as the visible ones are all held to be divine. Proclus is led to postulate the invisible bodies by a principle of continuity, which makes it seem absurd to him that the first sphere (the sphere of the fixed stars, as Proclus rejects the precession of the equinoxes) should be populated by a multitude of living beings (the many stars) and the Earth should have the vital abundance it displays, but the intermediate spheres of the planets are populated by a single visible entity. See In Tim. III 130.25–133.10. See also In Remp. II 257ff, where Proclus talks about the vehicle of “the prophet” that distributes lots to souls in the myth of Er. 49 Τά τε οὖν μέτρα τῶν βίων ἀπὸ τῶν περιόδων πᾶσιν τῶν κυκλικῶν καὶ τὰ εἴδη τὰ διάφορα τῆς ζωῆς. ὡς γοῦν καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης φησίν, ἕπονται ταῖς κυριωτέραις περιόδοις αἱ ἀκυρότεραι. κυριώτεραι δὲ αἱ τῶν ἀιδίων, ἀκυρότεραι δὲ αἱ τῶν θνητῶν· πασῶν δὲ εἰς πάντα συντελουσῶν τῶν ἀιδίων εἰς τὰ θνητά, ἄλλα ἄλλοις μᾶλλον αἴτια τῆς περιτροπῆς· οἷον τῷ μὲν σεληναία περίοδος, τῷ δὲ Κρονία, τῷ δὲ ἄλλη τις ἢ ἀφανὴς ἡμῖν ἢ ἐμφανής. πᾶν γὰρ κύκλῳ κινούμενον περίοδον ἔχει καὶ αἴτιόν ἐστι θνητῷ τινι περιτροπῆς, εἴτε θεῖον εἴη ὄχημα εἴτε ἀγγελικὸν εἴτε δαιμόνιον. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο καὶ τὰ μέτρα τῶν τριῶν βίων διάφορα πλήθει χρόνου καὶ τὰ εἴδη τῆς ζωῆς, ὅτι καὶ τὰ αἴτια διάφορα τὰ ἀεὶ κινούμενα. λανθάνει δὲ τί τίνος αἴτιον· καὶ θαυμάζομεν διὰ τί τὸ μὲν ζῇ μίαν ἡμέραν, ὡς τὸ περὶ τὸν Ὕπανιν ποταμόν, γεννώμενον μὲν ἀνατολῇ, ἀποθνῆσκον δὲ ἐν τῇ δύσει, τὸ δὲ ἐννέα γενεὰς ἀνδρῶν γηρώντων, οὐχ ὁρῶντες πάντα τὰ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ κυκλοφορητικά, καὶ ποῖα ποίων ἡγεῖται περιτροπῶν·.

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particular celestial body. But T2.7 suggested going even beyond the celestial bodies as sources of measure for the natural world when Aristotle writes that “As for the revolutions of the sun and moon, they may perhaps depend on other principles.” (τῆς δὲ τῶν ἄστρων τούτων περιφορᾶς τάχ’ ἂν ἕτεραί τινες εἶεν ἀρχαί). What are these “other principles”? Many answers are of course possible. Insofar as mere measuring goes, the movement of the first sphere can be taken as the prime measure of time (Metaph X.1 1053a12), and insofar as determining the movement of the Sun and the Moon, one could also think of the heavens whose composite motion is observed in their periodic movement. But it is tempting to read this indeterminate reference to “other principles” not as referring to principles of measurements that we undertake, but as principles of the measured, i.e., ordered character of celestial motions, an entity analogous to the nature that determines normatively the lifespan of living beings. Here, it would not be merely a question of finding a unit of measurement (for which the quickest movement in the world, that of the first heaven, would do), nor would it be a question of accounting physically for the revolutions in questions (which the hypothesis of celestial spheres attempts to do), but rather of finding the cause of the essence of the celestial body as a body on just such an orbit. The natural measurement of motion, thus, first suggests within Aristotle that the question of time and the question of the ultimate causes of change are, in fact, one and the same. Let us then turn to other ways in which the issue is framed in Aristotle. 2.3

Proclus’ Absorption of Aristotle’s Grounding of Change in the Philosophy of Time

2.3.1 Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Unchanging Agents of Change In both this subsection and the two subsequent ones I propose a connection between Aristotle’s views on time as a number presented in 2.2 with his arguments for not only unchanging but also eternal Agents of celestial change and for a primary eternal Agent of change. In so doing, I do not intend to offer an interpretation of Aristotle, although in the end I may have the elements to reconstruct Proclus’ interpretation of Aristotle. Rather, the connections I draw here are presented as part of the effort to study how Aristotle framed the question of time for Proclus, and for that reason I also present texts from Proclus, where he appears to be building on Aristotle. Views on time seem to be important starting points for Aristotle’s arguments for a primary Agent of change and in Proclus the primary Agent of change becomes the intelligized Time itself. It is clear that the question of time is not,

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for Aristotle, simply identical with the question for the first causes of change, as it is for Proclus, and that Proclus is going beyond Aristotle in his reception of the passages here discussed. I have already shown in Chapter 1 the way that Plato prepared the connection between time and the causes of change. Time is introduced into the world’s design immediately after the world’s receiving a soul of its own, and the changes of the world soul are a good candidate for what the motions studied in “true astronomy” are. This Platonist background is invoked by Simplicius when he comments on Aristotle’s discussion of the soul as the counting agency co-responsible for time (T2.4 above), claiming that Aristotle must mean, here, the celestial souls that are required for the existence of motion.50 And Proclus too, clearly alluding to the same passage, says that Aristotle should have made it clear that a perpetually thinking (or more specifically, counting) soul is what was meant: Now, Aristotle defined time as the number of change, not the number with which we count, but that which is counted. Given this definition he quite plausibly inquired what it is that counts, since time is that which is counted (for these things are relatives and if the one exists, then so too does the other), but his resolution of this is loose (μαλακῶς) since he said that some soul is that which does the counting, (this is a loose solution for it is necessary for there to be that which counts perpetually prior to the perpetual number in order that it should always make, since what comes to be exists always).51 T2.10 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 9.23–30, trans. Baltzly, modified52

50 51

See Simplicius In Phys. 760.11–761.8, who is possibly following Alexander, On Time §16. I have modified Baltzly’s translation here (“… some soul which does the counting, for it is necessary …”) for I take this last γάρ clause not to be a report of Proclus’ on Aristotle’s reason for saying that soul must be what counts time (for eternity nowhere appears in Aristotle’s argument for this at 223a21–29), but rather already a criticism of Aristotle’s account, namely given that there always is time, the soul that counts must eternally generate time, and if this is so, there must be an eternal Number prior to the soul’s number that guarantees the perpetuity of the soul’s counting activity. This eternal Number would have to be not a soul, but a Kind of Intelligence. So, Aristotle by his own lights could have reached Proclus’ conclusion that time is a Kind of Intelligence, but he did not go far enough in his reasoning. 52 Ἀριστοτέλης μὲν γὰρ “τὸν χρόνον ἀριθμὸν τῆς κινήσεως” θέμενος οὐ κατὰ τὸ “ἀριθμοῦν,” ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸ “ἀριθμητὸν” ἔθετο, διὸ καὶ εἰκότως ἐζήτησε, τί τὸ ἀριθμοῦν, εἴπερ ὁ χρόνος ἀριθμητόν (πρός τι γὰρ ταῦτα, καὶ θατέρου ὄντος ἔστι καὶ τὸ λοιπόν), καὶ ἔλυσε μαλακῶς, ψυχήν τινα τὸ ἀριθμοῦν εἰπών· δεῖ γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ ἀιδίου ὄντος εἶναι τὸ ἀριθμοῦν ἀίδιον, ἵνα ἀεὶ ποιῇ τοῦ γιγνομένου ἀεὶ ὄντος.

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Proclus indicates here that he thinks that Aristotle is correct in the question he asked (what kind of a number is time?), but that he failed in not being determinate enough in his solution. For Proclus, Aristotle has pointed to something important about time by setting up the question of time as a number involving something counted, an instrument of count, and an agent who counts. Nevertheless, he holds that Aristotle’s answer, that time is counted by a soul, is misleading. For Proclus it is not enough to say that some particular soul counts, because time is without beginning and end and, thus, requires a perpetual source of its counting. Thus, not just any soul, but a soul that perpetually thinks (for, according to Aristotle in T2.4, it is not only that the soul that counts, but also more specifically the intelligence of soul: μηδὲν ἄλλο πέφυκεν ἀριθμεῖν ἢ ψυχὴ καὶ ψυχῆς νοῦς). Time must, ultimately, be traced back to a soul whose rational activity is eternal and also animates a body with unceasing intelligent behavior, like a celestial body. Thus, although elsewhere Proclus simply criticizes Aristotle for having identified time with the counting activity of the soul, which in the case of a transmigrating soul can only produce “an image of time” (In Tim. III 10.4: τὸ εἴδωλον τοῦ χρόνου), behind this criticism there is a positive reception of how Aristotle framed the issue of time’s being a number.53 And not only that, but there is also an inclusion of Aristotle’s connection between time and the soul within the role of the soul in the explanation of perpetual change. But the metaphysical framing of time in Aristotle is accomplished not only, nor primarily, by bringing in Platonic theories of soul and change, but also by the role of time in Aristotle’s own arguments for a prime, eternal Agent of change. In these arguments both Aristotle’s understanding of the now as the connection between past and future, as well as his understanding of living beings as living naturally measured lives appear as premises. Aristotle explicitly invoked the analysis of the now in arguments for the continuity and everlastingess of change. Thus, at Phys. VIII.1 251b25–28 he says that “since the moment is both a beginning and an end, there must always be time on both sides of it. But if this is true of time it is evident that it must also be true of change, time being a kind of affection of motion.”54 And at Metaph. 53

It is curious to observe how Proclus diverges from Plotinus in this instance. For Plotinus also employs the perpetuity of the world to criticize Aristotle’s definition of time in III.7 [45] 9.68–84, not however to move toward the notion of an eternal counting soul, but to abandon the notion that time is a number altogether: since time is infinite, there can be no number that counts it intrinsically. Any number or measure will only refer to a part of time, and thus be accidentally related to it. I return to these issues in Chapter 4.3.3. 54 Phys. VIII.1 251b25–28: ἐπεί ἐστιν ἀρχή τε καὶ τελευτὴ τὸ νῦν, ἀνάγκη αὐτοῦ ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα εἶναι ἀεὶ χρόνον. ἀλλὰ μὴν εἴ γε χρόνον, φανερὸν ὅτι ἀνάγκη εἶναι καὶ κίνησιν, εἴπερ ὁ χρόνος πάθος τι

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XII 6 1071b3–12 Aristotle presents a very compressed argument that goes from the continuity and infinity of time to that of change to the existence of an eternal unchanging substance: “it is necessary that there should be an eternal unchanging substance … for it is impossible that either change or time should either have come into being or cease to be, (for it must always have existed) for there could not be a before and an after if time did not exist. Movement also is continuous then, in the sense in which time is …”55 Proclus himself adopts this argument for the necessary perpetuity and continuity of change in Elements of Physics II.16 and comes ultimately to identify the eternal Order of Time with the intelligized Form of the Now at In Tim. III.18.27–19.9, in an argument that I will not be able to study in depth here. However, Aristotle’s most well-known argument for the primary Agent of change does not start with an analysis of the now. Rather, the analysis of the now is only one of a few arguments developed by Aristotle to prove the infinity and continuity of becoming, and Aristotle’s argument for eternal Agents of change is a culmination of trying to find the causes of the becoming. Here is such a culmination: It is clear, then, that though there may be countless instances of the perishing of some principles that are unchanging but impart change [i.e. souls], and though many things that change themselves [i.e. living beings] perish and are others come into being after, and though one thing that is unchanging changes one thing while another changes another [i.e. each soul animates only a single living being], nevertheless there is something that comprehends them all, and does so as something apart from each of them, and this it is that is the cause of the fact that some things are and others are not and of the continuous process of change: and this causes the change of the other agents of change, while they are the causes of the change of other things.56 T2.11 Aristotle Physics VIII.6 258b32–259a6, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

κινήσεως. See also 251b19–23: εἰ οὖν ἀδύνατόν ἐστιν καὶ εἶναι καὶ νοῆσαι χρόνον ἄνευ τοῦ νῦν, τὸ δὲ νῦν ἐστι μεσότης τις, καὶ ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν ἔχον ἅμα, ἀρχὴν μὲν τοῦ ἐσομένου χρόνου, τελευτὴν δὲ τοῦ παρελθόντος, ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ εἶναι χρόνον. 55 ἀνάγκη εἶναι ἀΐδιόν τινα οὐσίαν ἀκίνητον … ἀλλ’ ἀδύνατον κίνησιν ἢ γενέσθαι ἢ φθαρῆναι (ἀεὶ γὰρ ἦν), οὐδὲ χρόνον. οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον εἶναι μὴ ὄντος χρόνου· καὶ ἡ κίνησις ἄρα οὕτω συνεχὴς ὥσπερκαὶ ὁ χρόνος·. 56 δῆλον τοίνυν ὅτι, εἰ καὶ μυριάκις ἔνια [ἀρχαὶ] τῶν ἀκινήτων μὲν κινούντων δέ, καὶ πολλὰ τῶν αὐτὰ ἑαυτὰ κινούντων, φθείρεται, τὰ δ’ ἐπιγίγνεται, καὶ τόδε μὲν ἀκίνητον ὂν τόδε κινεῖ, ἕτερον δὲ τοδί, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν ἧττον ἔστιν τι ὃ περιέχει, καὶ τοῦτο παρ’ ἕκαστον, ὅ ἐστιν αἴτιον τοῦ τὰ μὲν εἶναι τὰ δὲ μὴ καὶ τῆς συνεχοῦς μεταβολῆς· καὶ τοῦτο μὲν τούτοις, ταῦτα δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις αἴτια κινήσεως.

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In this passage, Aristotle is presupposing a couple of results: (1) that there must always and necessarily be change in the world (argued for in Phys. VIII.1) and (2) that those changes natural beings that are not instances of animate self-change can be explained by the self-initiated changes of living beings (a result from Phys. VIII 5). Having set these presuppositions, he asks whether simply the succession of distinct living beings and, importantly, their souls as the unchanging causes of their changes can be enough to account for the existence of change. His answer to the question is no: successive perishable beings are not a sufficient cause for the perpetuity of change. Why? Because since each generation is perishable, it cannot account for the necessity of there always being change. Indeed, no mortal being can assure the perpetual existence of its own species. A further cause is required, a cause not only for change but also for perpetual and continuous change, that is, for the successive birth and death of new generations of living beings, or, as Aristotle puts it, “the cause of the fact that some things are [i.e., the present generation] and others are not [i.e., the past and future generations] and of the continuous process of change.” This cause, for Aristotle, must be not only an unchanging cause of change like the souls of the living beings but also an eternal unchanging cause of change, so that it might explain the everlastingness of change. The premise in the above argument, namely, that species of living beings are eternal, refers to the same state of affairs as the claim, discussed in 2.2, that the nature of each living being measures out its life according to a predetermined plan of development, including, naturally, the stage of life at which the living being engages in procreation and, should it be the case, cares for its young. To begin with, the nature of a living being is just its soul. Further, in DA II.4 415a26–28 we find that “the most natural act for living beings is the production of another like itself” (φυσικώτατον γὰρ τῶν ἔργων τοῖς ζῶσιν … τὸ ποιῆσαι ἕτερον οἷον αὐτό). If naturally each living being fulfills such a plan, then unless there is an extreme event in its environment, one generation will always be succeeded by another. It is to state the same state of affairs from two different perspectives to say, “naturally every generation is succeeded by another” and “a mature living being reproduces.” Thus, not only the abstract studies of time regarding the now are Aristotelian starting points for finding the primary and eternal Agent of change, but also the biological hypothesis of the measures of life contained in the natures of living beings. This can become especially clear by unfolding the causal chain from successive generations to an eternal Agent of change. According to Aristotle’s complete theory, the perpetuity of species is not immediately grounded in the eternal unchanging cause of change. Rather, Aristotle first explains the perpetuity of species with reference to the perpetually moving celestial bodies,

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whose motion, being truly one and continuous, must also be explained by unique and eternal Agents of change. Thus, the immediate cause of “the fact that some things are and others are not and of the continuous process of change” is more properly not an eternal, entirely unchanging entity, but the Sun and its motion on the ecliptic that create an alternation of heat and cold in the hemispheres of the Earth in the changing seasons. This explains why it is not the primary motion [of the fixed stars, measuring night and day] that causes generation and corruption, but the motion [of the Sun] along the inclined circle [i.e. the ecliptic, measuring the year]. For in the latter there is both continuity and also being moved by a duality of motions. For if generation and destruction are always to be continuous, there must be something in motion (in order that these changes may not fail) but with two motions (in order that both changes, not only one, may result). Now the continuity [of change] is caused by the motion of the whole [producing day and night]: but the approaching and retreating of the moving body [i.e. the Sun] are caused by the inclination. For the consequence of the inclination is that the body becomes alternately remote [from the northern hemisphere during winter] and near [to the northern hemisphere during summer]; and since its distance is thus unequal, its movement will be irregular [in its effects]. Therefore, if it generates by approaching and by its proximity, it – this very same body – destroys by retreating and becoming remote: and if it generates by many approaches, it also destroys by many retreats. For contrary effects demand contraries as their causes; and the natural processes of destruction and generation occupy equal periods of time.57 T2.12 Aristotle Generation and Corruption II.10 336a31–b10,58 trans. Joachim, modified

The chain from living beings to regular seasons to celestial bodies to eternal Agents of change maps on to the chain of T2.7, from measured lifespans to 57 διὸ καὶ οὐχ ἡ πρώτη φορὰ αἰτία ἐστὶ γενέσεως καὶ φθορᾶς, ἀλλ’ ἡ κατὰ τὸν λοξὸν κύκλον· ἐν ταύτῃ γὰρ καὶ τὸ συνεχές ἐστι καὶ τὸ κινεῖσθαι δύο κινήσεις· ἀνάγκη γάρ, εἴ γε ἀεὶ ἔσται συνεχὴς γένεσις καὶ φθορά, ἀεὶ μέν τι κινεῖσθαι, ἵνα μὴ ἐπιλείπωσιν αὗται αἱ μεταβολαί, δύο δ’, ὅπως μὴ θάτερον συμβαίνῃ μόνον. Τῆς μὲν οὖν συνεχείας ἡ τοῦ ὅλου φορὰ αἰτία, τοῦ δὲ προσιέναι καὶ ἀπιέναι ἡ ἔγκλισις· συμβαίνει γὰρ ὁτὲ μὲν πόρρω γίνεσθαι ὁτὲ δ’ ἐγγύς. Ἀνίσου δὲ τοῦ διαστήματος ὄντος ἀνώμαλος ἔσται ἡ κίνησις· ὥστ’ εἰ τῷ προσιέναι καὶ ἐγγὺς εἶναι γεννᾷ, τῷ ἀπιέναι ταὐτὸν τοῦτο καὶ πόρρω γίνεσθαι φθείρει, καὶ εἰ τῷ πολλάκις προσελθεῖν γεννᾷ, καὶ τῷ πολλάκις ἀπελθεῖν φθείρει· τῶν γὰρ ἐναντίων τἀναντία αἴτια. Καὶ ἐν ἴσῳ χρόνῳ καὶ ἡ φθορὰ καὶ ἡ γένεσις ἡ κατὰ φύσιν. 58 Precedes immediately T2.5.

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measured changes of the elements to measured periods of celestial bodies to unknown “further principles,” which are thus plausibly identified with the eternal and wholly unchanging Agents of celestial motion. We can, thus, see why Proclus might take up Aristotle’s argument for an eternal Agent of change as an argument that leads to the discovery of the eternal Order of Time. Let us now turn to Proclus’ own argument for an unchanging source of all change and see how he interprets it as proving precisely the existence of the Order of Time qua source of the flow of time. He constructs the argument not based on the argument behind T2.11 above, but on another of Aristotle’s arguments in Phys. VIII 5 258a20–259b1. Here is Proclus’ argument: Every being is either unchanging or changeable. And if it is changeable it can either change itself or be changed only by something else; and if it changes by itself, then it is selfchanging, and if it is changed only by something else then it is elsechanged.59 Every being is therefore either unchanging or selfchanging or elsechanged.60 For since elsechanged beings exist, then the unchanging kind must also exist and the selfchanging kind between the two.61 For if every elsechanged being is changed by something else that is itself changing, then changes will be either in a circle or in a boundless series. But changes are neither in a circle (for the agent of change is superior to the changing thing) nor are they in a boundless series (for all beings are bounded by their principle). Therefore, there is something that is unchanging and the first Agent of change.62 But if this is so, the selfchanging must also exist. For should all things rest from change, what could be the first thing to be changing? Not the 59 The sentence “if by itself, then it is selfchanging, and if by something else then it is (called) elsechanged” (καὶ εἰ μὲν ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ, αὐτοκίνητόν ἐστιν· εἰ δὲ ὑπ’ ἄλλου, ἑτεροκίνητον) provides no new information, and thus I take it as providing labels that replace the locutions “changed by itself“ (ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ κινούμενον) and “changed by something else“ (ὑπ’ ἄλλου κινούμενον). English has “selfchanging” to label what is changed by itself, but it lacks a suitable label for “what is changed by something else.” For this reason, I have coined here “elsechanged” to play that function. 60 Πᾶν τὸ ὂν ἢ ἀκίνητόν ἐστιν ἢ κινούμενον· καὶ εἰ κινούμενον, ἢ ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ ἢ ὑπ’ ἄλλου· καὶ εἰ μὲν ὑφ’ ἑαυτοῦ, αὐτοκίνητόν ἐστιν· εἰ δὲ ὑπ’ ἄλλου, ἑτεροκίνητον. πᾶν ἄρα ἢ ἀκίνητόν ἐστιν ἢ αὐτοκίνητον ἢ ἑτεροκίνητον. Compare Aristotle Phys. VIII.5 259a32–33 τοῦτ’ εἶναι ἢ ἀκίνητον ἢ κινούμενον, καὶ κινούμενον ἢ ὑφ’ αὑτοῦ ἢ ὑπ’ ἄλλου ἀεί. 61 ἀνάγκη γὰρ τῶν ἑτεροκινήτων ὄντων εἶναι καὶ τὸ ἀκίνητον, καὶ μεταξὺ τούτων τὸ αὐτοκίνητον. 62 εἰ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ ἑτεροκίνητον ὑπ’ ἄλλου κινουμένου κινεῖται, ἢ κύκλῳ αἱ κινήσεις ἢ ἐπ’ ἄπειρον· ἀλλ’ οὔτε κύκλῳ οὔτε ἐπ’ ἄπειρον, εἴπερ ὥρισται τῇ ἀρχῇ τὰ ὄντα πάντα καὶ τὸ κινοῦν τοῦ κινουμένου κρεῖττον. ἔσται τι ἄρα ἀκίνητον πρῶτον κινοῦν.

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unchanging, for change does not suit its essence. Nor the elsechanged, for it is changed only by something else. Only the selfchanging remains, then, to be what first changes, since this is what joins the elsechanged to the unchanging, being in a way a middle between the two, being both an agent of change and something changing. For the unchanging is only an agent of change, whereas the elsechanged only undergoes change. All of being is therefore either unchanging or selfchanging or elsechanged.63 From which it is also clear that the selfchanging is the first amongst things that change, and that the unchanging is the first among agents of change.64 T2.13 Proclus Elements of Theology 14

Here, Proclus is building towards a union of Plato’s account of change through a self-changing soul with Aristotle’s account of change through an unchanging primary Agent of change. He has not yet specified that the selfchanging agents in question must be incorporeal souls, something he argues for further along. Nor has he yet argued that the wholly unchanging Agent of change must be a Kind of Intelligence, something that he only does in ET 20. Nonetheless, the Platonic tenor of the argument is unmistakable. First, it employs a thought experiment from Laws X 895a–b for soul as the principle of change. Second, it presents the Aristotelian conclusion that the first cause of change is an unchanging Agent of change. The context of the argument is not physics, but metaphysics, and for this reason Proclus makes use of general propositions about causality proved earlier in his Elements of Theology, namely that there is not an infinite regress of causes, with beings having a first cause and principle (ET 11) and every productive cause that produces something distinct from itself being more powerful than its effect (ET 7).65 Due to the metaphysical context, Proclus’ argument is 63 ἀλλ’ εἰ ταῦτα, ἀνάγκη καὶ τὸ αὐτοκίνητον εἶναι. εἰ γὰρ σταίη τὰ πάντα, τί ποτε ἔσται τὸ πρώτως κινούμενον; οὔτε γὰρ τὸ ἀκίνητον (οὐ γὰρ πέφυκεν) οὔτε τὸ ἑτεροκίνητον (ὑπ’ἄλλου γὰρ κινεῖται)· λείπεται ἄρα τὸ αὐτοκίνητον εἶναι τὸ πρώτως κινούμενον· ἐπεὶ καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ τῷ ἀκινήτῳ τὰ ἑτεροκίνητα συνάπτον, μέσον πως ὄν, κινοῦν τε ἅμα καὶ κινούμενον· ἐκείνων γὰρ τὸ μὲν κινεῖ μόνον, τὸ δὲ κινεῖται μόνον. πᾶν ἄρα τὸ ὂν ἢ ἀκίνητόν ἐστιν ἢ αὐτοκίνητον ἢ ἑτεροκίνητον. 64 ἐκ δὴ τούτων κἀκεῖνο φανερόν, ὅτι τῶν μὲν κινουμένων τὸ αὐτοκίνητον πρῶτον, τῶν δὲ κινούντων τὸ ἀκίνητον. Compare with Aristotle Phys. VIII.5 259a33–b1 ὅτι τῶν κινουμένων ἐστὶν ἀρχὴ κινουμένων μὲν ὃ αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ κινεῖ, πάντων δὲ τὸ ἀκίνητον. 65 Proclus is cautious here to exclude self-productive causes, i.e., beings that are coresponsible for their own existence, such as souls and Kinds of Intelligence. These are discussed at length in ET 40–51.

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not one that Aristotle develops in Phys. VIII, which Proclus, nonetheless, knows and endorses, as he presents the argument at Elements of Physics II 19–21. Here, Proclus presents a more general argument, one that is not contingent, apparently, on the thesis of the perpetuity of change, although it might appear to assume such perpetuity by its use of the thought experiment from the Laws. For why should it be absurd that all things come to rest and there simply be no cause to initiate change in the world? Despite the argument’s Platonic flavor, it appears implicitly to accept Aristotle’s criticism of self-changing causes of change (Phys. VIII.5 257a31– 258b10) when Proclus argues from the existence of elsechanged beings, beings that change only by being changed by something else to a prime, unchanging cause of all change. Proclus’ argument rests upon the notion that there cannot be an endless chain of changing agents of change, each of which causes change in another being insofar as it itself undergoes a change. The rejection of such an endless chain of causes of change rests on a previous argument that rejects an endless chain of causes as such (ET 11). Even if we accept the argument with that premise, why must the first agent of change be unchanging? Why can’t a self-changing agent of change be the first cause of change? Indeed, if something can change itself, why would it require yet a further cause to explain its change? A similar set of questions faces us regarding the elsechanged in Proclus’ argument for the necessity of selfchanging beings. There, Proclus imagines that all of the world is in a state of rest and asks what could possibly be the first thing to undergo change? That it is not the unchanging is clear enough, since what is unchanging cannot undergo change. But Proclus then argues that it is not the elsechanged, because “it is changed only by something else.” But why couldn’t the elsechanged be changed by the eternal action of the unchanging? Why is it necessary to introduce a selfchanger as “what joins the elsechanged to the unchanging”? These questions arise because we understand the capacity for selfchange as the capacity to cause change in oneself without a further cause, and the status of being elsechanged as the deficiency of being changed only by something else. There is, however, another way of understanding these terms. The elsechanged can be not only what only undergoes a change caused from without, but also what has by itself no relation to what causes change. It is changed only by something else that is not only distinct from it but also foreign to it, bearing no internal relation to it. It refers to dead or inorganic bodies, whose tendency is to remain at rest and not to change unless something acts upon them. The selfchanging in turn, need not be what can cause a change from

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within, but that which essentially has a relation to the unchanging cause of change, and thus undergoes change simply by being what it is. Although it is something that changes according to its essence, this does not mean that its changes are caused by its essence and nothing else. The prime example of this is the soul, which even in its free contemplation of the Forms, changes from knowing one form to another by undergoing the constant activity of Intelligence.66 Since the activity of Intelligence is itself constant and unwavering, we can see how the soul can be taken to be selfchanging also in the sense of initiating change from itself, as when it begins to change by the action of intelligence (say, when it turns from a life devoted to sensual pleasures to one dedicated to philosophy) the change happens solely in the soul, and there is no novel action taken by intelligence to initiate the change. With these modified concepts of selfchange and elsechange, we can see that the selfchanging cannot be the first agent of change, because it is not essentially an agent of change, but a subject of change. It is required in Proclus’ thought, because between the elsechanged and the unchanging there is nothing that necessarily changes – and he implicitly is searching for a cause that would necessitate change, to explain why it is necessary to the world to include within it change. If this interpretation of Proclus’ selfchanging is correct, then Proclus implicitly acknowledges Aristotle’s criticisms of a selfchanging first principle of change, which were aimed precisely at the idea of a selfchanging being that was capable of initiating its own change without any external cause. We have thus in Proclus’ Elements of Theology a hybrid Platonic-Aristotelian scheme, where change is explained both by an unchanging prime Agent of change and a selfchanging prime subject of change. In context we can identify these as Intelligence and soul, respectively, although Aristotle’s arguments for the identity of the primary eternal unchanging Agent of change with Intelligence will be the subject of Chapter 2.3.3 below. When Proclus comments on Plato’s description of time as an “eternal image of eternity” he revisits the explanation of change in terms of selfchanging and unchanging principles with surprising results:

66

A discussion of how the soul changes in contemplation occurs in Chapter 4.3.2. Opsomer (2009, p. 213) explains that self-changers are for Proclus the origin of passive change, that is, of being changed, not of changing. He writes: “For Proclus too self-movers are not selfmovers in an absolute sense” (p. 207), referring to Simplicius In Phys. 404.16–33, where he says that the only respect in which Proclus disagreed with Aristotle’s theory of change was with respect to Plato’s genus of Change from the Sophist. Also, at fn.82 on p. 207, Opsomer refers to In Eucl. 32.7–13, where Proclus harmonizes the soul’s being changed by intelligized objects and being as a source of change.

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For this reason, the Theurgists also call time ‘eternal’ and not only Plato. Plausibly so too, for if, on the one hand, there is something that is solely changing in itself and in its participants, because it is a cause of change alone (i.e. the soul, since in any case it only changes both itself and other things), and if, on the other hand, there is something that is solely unchanging (both preserving itself from any transition and being the cause to other things of always being the same way, even to those things changed by soul), then it is necessary for there to be an intermediate term, since these two constitute extremes, the one being unchanging in both respects [both in its substance and in its activity], while the other is changing both in its own nature and in its gift to others. But the intermediate term must be unchanging in itself, but in change amongst the things that participate in it. But time is just such a thing.67 T2.14 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 26.3–15, trans. BALTZLY, modified68

Just as Proclus in T2.13 introduced the selfchanging in order to mediate between the elsechanged and the unchanging, here he introduces time, in its dual status as Order of Time and flow of time, as a mediation between the wholly unchanging cause and the selfchanging soul. He draws a distinction, not drawn in T2.13, between two kinds of unchanging principles. One is unchanging and is also the cause of invariability, the other is unchanging and yet the cause of change. A principle of the former kind for Proclus is the Engineer of the Timaeus. As we saw in Chapter 1.1.1, Proclus takes him to be eternal and to be the cause of all that is eternal and permanent in the world: the elemental composition of its body, the shape thereof, its division into so many celestial spheres, and all the immortal souls and imperishable celestial bodies that populate it, for instance. He is, thus, unchanging and is also not a cause of change, but rather of the everlasting features of the world. Such a wholly unchanging cause cannot be for Proclus in T2.14 the first unchanging Agent of change, for it is not a cause of change, but rather of permanence. Instead, Proclus says that the proper, immediate cause of change is Time itself, which he states to be unchanging in itself 67 διὸ καὶ οἱ θεουργοὶ καλοῦσιν αὐτὸν αἰώνιον καὶ οὐ Πλάτων μόνος· εἰκότως· καὶ γὰρ τὸ μέν ἐστι μόνως κινητὸν καὶ καθ’ αὑτὸ καὶ κατὰ τὰ μετέχοντα αὐτοῦ, κινήσεως μόνης αἴτιον ὂν ὥσπερ ψυχή (μόνως γοῦν ἑαυτήν τε κινεῖ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα), τὸ δὲ μόνως ἀκίνητον, ἑαυτό τε ἀμετάβατον φυλάττον καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις τοῦ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ὂν αἴτιον, καὶ τοῖς κινουμένοις διὰ ψυχὴν τὸ μέσον εἶναι δεῖ (τούτων ἄκρων ὄντων τοῦ μὲν ἀκινήτου κατ’ ἄμφω, τοῦ δὲ κινητοῦ [τὸ] καὶ κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ φύσιν καὶ κατὰ τὴν εἰς ἄλλο δόσιν) ἀκίνητον ὂν ἅμα καὶ κινούμενον, ἀλλὰ ἀκίνητον μὲν καθ’αὑτό, κινούμενον δὲ ἐν τοῖς μετέχουσι. τοιοῦτος δὲ ὁ χρόνος·. 68 Precedes immediately T2.8.

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but in change amongst the things that participate it. That is, time is on the one hand, an eternal, intelligized entity (the Order of Time), but on the other hand, time is also the flow of time that is seen to pass in temporal things. Proclus, thus, implicitly identifies the prime Agent of change found by Aristotle’s argument with Time: the only Kind of Intelligence (νοῦς, but a particular one, so νοῦς τις, to be more exact) to which the argument for a prime cause of change can reach is one that is necessarily bound to the world as its cause and that has change as its effect and this is a particular Kind of Intelligence for Proclus. Unparticipated Intelligence, on the other hand, is unchanging and a cause of unchanging features. With this analysis of the causes of change, Proclus takes a first step towards identifying Aristotle’s prime Agent of change with the eternal Order of Time. But he also does so by adopting Aristotle’s arguments that characterize the prime Agent of change as both infinitely powerful and also a Kind of Intelligence, arguments to which we turn to in 2.3.2 and 2.3.3. Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Infinitely Powerful Agents of Change Aristotle put forth an influential argument in his Physics that a finite body could not have infinite power, by which he meant most concretely the power to produce the infinite effect of the revolution of the heavens that goes over an infinite distance in infinite time. Through this argument Aristotle, thus, established a means of inferring an incorporeal cause from an infinite effect in the world. In this section I will present Aristotle’s argument and then go on to show how Proclus uses it repeatedly in his philosophy of time as an argument not only for the existence of the eternal Order of Time as the causes of time’s unending flow, but also for the existence of discrete incorporeal causes for more particular perpetual phenomena, such as astronomical and seasonal cycles and also the perpetual existence of animal species. Let me then first present Aristotle’s argument. 2.3.2

We have three things, the agent of change, the changing thing and thirdly that in which the change takes place, namely, the time. And these are either all infinite, or all limited or partly – that is to say, two of them or one of them – limited and partly infinite. Let A be the agent of change [and limited], B the changing thing [and also limited], and C the infinite time. Now let us suppose that D [a part of A] changes E, a part of B, [in time F]. Then [F] the time occupied by this change cannot be equal to C: for the greater amount changed, the longer the time occupied. It

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follows that time F is not infinite. Now we see that by continuing to add to D I shall use up A and by continuing to add to E, I shall use up B: but I shall not use up the time [C], by continually subtracting a corresponding amount from it [equal to F], because it is infinite. Consequently, the duration of the parts of C which is occupied by all A in changing the whole of B will be limited. Therefore, a limited thing cannot impart to anything an infinite change. It is clear, then, that it is impossible for the limited to cause change during an infinite time. It has now to be shown that in no case it is possible for an infinite power to reside in a limited magnitude.69 T2.15 Aristotle Physics VIII.10 266a13–26, trans. Hardie-Gaye, modified

Aristotle conceives here of one being possessing magnitude, A, acting upon another, B, and thus changing it and considers how much time it would take for A to change B entirely.70 Thus, for a concrete case, consider a fire bringing a bowl of water to boil, or a human being pushing a cart from one place to its destination. Aristotle’s question is how long does it take for the whole body of fire to bring the whole bowl of water to boil, or how long does it take the whole person to push the whole cart to its destination? To answer this, he divides the problem, by considering how long it takes for a part of A to act upon a part of B and change that entirely: so, how long does a part of the fire take to bring a part of the water to boil. The advantage of moving to the part is that Aristotle moves to something that is by definition finite, since it must be smaller than the whole. Thus, no matter how long it takes for a given part to produce the effect on another part, the resulting duration must still be finite. But since the action of whole upon whole is conceived by Aristotle as a summation of instances of parts acting upon parts, then the time that the whole change takes

69 τρία γὰρ ἔστιν, τὸ κινοῦν, τὸ κινούμενον, τὸ ἐν ᾧ τρίτον, ὁ χρόνος. ταῦτα δὲ ἢ πάντα ἄπειρα ἢ πάντα πεπερασμένα ἢ ἔνια, οἷον τὰ δύο ἢ τὸ ἕν. ἔστω δὴ τὸ Α τὸ κινοῦν, τὸ δὲ κινούμενον Β, χρόνος ἄπειρος ἐφ’ οὗ Γ. τὸ δὴ Δ τῆς Β κινείτω τι μέρος, τὸ ἐφ’ οὗ Ε. οὐ δὴ ἐν ἴσῳ τῷ Γ· ἐν πλείονι γὰρ τὸ μεῖζον. ὥστ’ οὐκ ἄπειρος ὁ χρόνος ὁ τὸ Ζ. οὕτω δὴ τῇ Δ προστιθεὶς καταναλώσω τὸ Α καὶ τῇ Ε τὸ Β· τὸν δὲ χρόνον οὐ καταναλώσω ἀεὶ ἀφαιρῶν ἴσον· ἄπειρος γάρ· ὥστε ἡ πᾶσα Α τὴν ὅλην Β κινήσει ἐν πεπερασμένῳ χρόνῳ τοῦ Γ. οὐκ ἄρα οἷόν τε ὑπὸ πεπερασμένου κινεῖσθαι οὐδὲν ἄπειρον κίνησιν. ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὐκ ἐνδέχεται τὸ πεπερασμένον ἄπειρον κινεῖν χρόνον, φανερόν· ὅτι δ’ ὅλως οὐκ ἐνδέχεται ἐν πεπερασμένῳ μεγέθει ἄπειρον εἶναι δύναμιν, ἐκ τῶνδε δῆλον. In my tanslation, I have liberally inserted references to the variables, in order to make the argument easier to follow. 70 We, naturally, would think of a body. But Aristotle’s arguments are directed against Plato’s account of the world soul in the Timaeus, which has/is a magnitude, but is distinguished from bodies.

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must also be finite. Thus, any change produced by something finite, insofar as it is produced by its many parts, must occur within a finite time.71 Much about this argument is odd, and it also contains possibilities that Aristotle does not seem to take into account. Thus, he did not consider that a body might have an ever-weaker capacity to produce change throughout time, such that in an infinitely long time its actions would only produce a finite effect. Nor did he consider the possibility that a finite being might have infinite parts. Be that as it may, Proclus takes up the argument enthusiastically. Thus, in his Elements of Physics II 8 he likewise argues that an infinite power cannot belong to a body of finite magnitude, and in his Elements of Theology 96 he proves it in a more general and positive way, namely, that “the power of any finite body, if it be infinite, is incorporeal,” where by “incorporeal” in this context he probably means something stronger than “not being a body” (as every power of a body is itself not a body, according to Proclus), but “existing separately from bodies.” But most importantly we also find Proclus describing time (as the Order of Time) as having infinite power (to produce the endless flow of time), as at In Tim. III 20.22–21.5, where he mentions that the Theurgists “celebrate Time on account of his power as infinite, for to return again and again in a circle is a feat of infinite power.”72 Yet Proclus does not apply the argument from infinite extent to a cause of infinite power to the flow of time alone, but also applies it to each celestial period and even to each of the perpetual generations of animals. As there is an infinite succession of days and nights, there must be an unchanging, intelligized, “Day itself” and “Night itself,” he reasons.73 He even goes on to admit a corresponding “the Seasons themselves” and “the Month itself” and “the Year itself.”74 Here are three passages where Proclus adopts the Aristotelian move of a perceptible infinity to an unchanging, intelligized cause:

71 And Proclus would observe that if it is producing the change qua corporeal, it must be producing it qua divisibility into parts, as extension is the essence of bodies.. 72 It is interesting how often the appropriation of Aristotelian arguments occurs in the context of explaining the agreement between the Theurgists and Plato (see also T2.14, T2.16). The reason behind this phenomenon merits further research. Perhaps the Chaldean Oracles or Julian the Theurgist already used Aristotelian vocabulary suggestively? 73 In this postulation of separate “times” for the different celestial bodies, Proclus may be drawing on Porphyry Sentence 44.60ff, where his predecessor says that “divided time differs according to the various instruments of time, there being one, for example, proper to the Sun, another to the Moon, another to Venus, another to each of the others” (trans. Dillon). 74 For a postulation of “the Seasons themselves, see T2.23.

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Surely these [i.e. day and night] are accessible to everyone, for their invisible and uniform causes are prior to what is multiplied and whose sequential rotations go on to infinity, since unchanging things exist prior to those that change, and those that are intellectual are prior to those that are perceptible. Therefore, the most primary day and night must in each case be conceived as something of this sort.75 Since this is so they [sc. the Theurgists] do not merely celebrate Time as a God, but also Day itself and Night, as well as the Month and the Year – and plausibly so too, for there must be an entirely unchanging cause for things that are carried around eternally and things differing in species must have different entirely unchanging causes.76 .

For the Month itself and the “Year” of each celestial body,77 that is ever one and the same, is a certain God that unchangeably determines the measure of their motion. For whence does the perpetually identical disposition of these circuits come from, if not from some unchanging cause? And whence does the difference of their returns come from than from their differing unchanging causes? And whence the unceasingness and the infinite repetition if not from the infinite powers of these unchanging causes?78 T2.16 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 36.5–10; 40.31–41.3; 88.29–89.4, trans. BALTZLY, modified

The multitude of eternal unchanging causes of change is itself not a Procline innovation. Aristotle himself posits a multitude of eternal Agents of change, one for each uniform rotation that is required to explain the motions of the 75 ταῦτα δὴ τὰ πρόχειρα πᾶσιν· αἱ γὰρ ἀφανεῖς τούτων αἰτίαι μονοειδεῖς εἰσι πρὸ τῶν πεπληθυσμένων καὶ ἐπ’ ἄπειρον ἀνακυκλουμένων, καὶ ἀκίνητοι προϋπάρχουσι τῶν κινουμένων καὶ νοεραὶ πρὸ τῶν αἰσθητῶν. ἡμέρα μὲν οὖν καὶ νὺξ ἡ πρωτίστη νοείσθω τοιάδε τις ἑκατέρα. 76 ἐπεὶ καὶ οὐ τὸν χρόνον μόνον ὡς θεὸν ὑμνήκασιν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡμέραν αὐτὴν καὶ νύκτα καὶ μῆνα [θεὸν] καὶ ἐνιαυτόν· καὶ εἰκότως· τῶν γὰρ ἀιδίως ἀνακυκλουμένων εἶναι δεῖ πάντως ἀκίνητον αἰτίαν καὶ τῶν κατ’ εἶδος διαφερόντων ἄλλην καὶ ἄλλην. “The Theurgists” supplied from immediately preceding context, see l.21ff. 77 Literally, “the year in each period” (ὁ ἐνιαυτὸς ὁ καθ’ ἑκάστην περίοδον). I take it that “year” is used here as a general term for the period that a planet takes to traverse the ecliptic, as when we speak of a “Martian year” or a “Saturnian year.” 78 καὶ γὰρ ὁ μὴν αὐτὸς καὶ ὁ ἐνιαυτὸς ὁ καθ’ ἑκάστην περίοδον εἷς ὢν ἀεὶ ὁ αὐτὸς θεός τίς ἐστιν ἀκινήτως τὸ τῆς κινήσεως μέτρον ὁρίζων· πόθεν γὰρ τὸ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ὑπάρχει ταῖς περιόδοις ἢ ἀπὸ ἀκινήτου τινὸς αἰτίας; πόθεν δὲ τὸ διάφορον τῶν ἀποκαταστάσεων ἢ ἀπὸ τῶν διαφερόντων ἀκινήτων αἰτίων; πόθεν δὲ τὸ ἀκατάληκτον καὶ τὸ πάλιν καὶ πάλιν ἐπ’ ἄπειρον ἢ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀπείρων ἐν ἐκείναις δυνάμεων.

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celestial bodies. Indeed, Proclus’ specification of the unchanging Agents of celestial change according to astronomical units might be seen as an attempt to name Aristotle’s nameless eternal Agents. Thus, Proclus infers from the succession of day and night to the Day itself and the Night itself and from the succession of the seasons to “the Seasons” themselves (see below, T2.23). This move is not without its difficulties, as Proclus seems to overdetermine his effects, given that he posits not only the intelligized Seasons, but also the Year itself, and not only the primary Day and the primary Night, but the Day-and-night itself.79 This is not only a problem of overdetermination, but also of poor analysis, as “days,” “nights” and “seasons” do not appear to exist from a cosmic perspective, where the sun always shines and moves with a uniform motion, but only from a localized vantage point on earth.80 Proclus does not address this problem in his writings, but one might consider a couple of solutions. One solution might be that Proclus believes that some of these entities are simply identical with each other, thus that “the Day itself” is identical with “the Night itself” and that both are identical with “the Day-and-Night itself.” Another would be to assume that Proclus treats the causes of repeating periods that are only marked out with respect to a given position on earth to be intelligized causes that determine that position for living beings. Thus, since the day is bounded by the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, the Day itself would be the intelligized cause of the eastern and western boundaries of each animal’s natural habitat. And since the seasons are determined by the apparent northward and southward motion of the Sun, the Seasons themselves would determine the northern and southern boundaries of habitats. Of course, if this is the case, then these intelligized entities are not going to be “unchanging causes of change” in the same sense as “the Day-and-night itself” or “the Year itself.” A third solution would be to attribute to Proclus the belief that that the day and the night are to be identified with masses of air that rotate around the Earth and would thus be perpetually moving beings that perpetually moving causes. But this would be difficult to square with the rest of Proclus’ cosmology. But Proclus goes further than simply positing unchanging causes of celestial motion and moves from the generations of living beings up to eternal Agents of 79

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That is, the intelligized νυχθήμερον mentioned In Tim. III 88.16–18. The νυχθήμερον was a unit measuring a whole “solar day,” a whole night and a whole day. This is a varying unit, so Ptolemy distinguishes between uniform solar days, the average time the Sun takes, and non-uniform days. (See Toomer, 1998, p. 23). A point Proclus humself makes at In Tim. III 34.27–35.25 with respect to Day and Night.

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change responsible for their perpetuity. We have already seen above T2.9 that every species has its life span keyed to the period of some celestial body. There, the context was Aristotle’s biology, and Proclus saw the regularity of celestial bodies as a requirement for the perpetuity of the species, ascending thus from life on Earth towards the heavens. But Proclus also has a motive for starting from beyond the heavens (from the theory of the Forms), and that is to posit an eternal prototype in the heavens for each Form of perishable living being. Proclus, interpreting Philebus 16c–17a, where Plato speaks of the “number” corresponding to each “monad” posited a series of inferior kinds of form between each Form and the infinity of its perceptible instances. Interestingly enough, Proclus often understood the “infinity” of the perceptible world as its infinity through time and, thus, read the Philebus passage in light of Aristotle’s argument for the infinitely powerful Agent of change. This can be seen inter alia by Proclus’ arguments for several levels of infinity at In Parm. VI 1119.5–1121.16, where he applies Aristotle’s schema many times over, showing how the infinity proper to each kind of being requires as a cause a superior and transcendent kind of being to explain it. Reading the Philebus through Aristotle in this way has support within the Philebus itself, as it goes on to discuss Intelligence itself (and especially its role in producing the ordered sequence of the seasons) as an example of the Phileban triad of a cause of limit, infinity and their mixture in beings. there is plenty of the unlimited in the universe as well as sufficient limit, and there is, above them, a certain cause of no small significance, that orders and coordinates the years, seasons and months, and which has every right to the title of wisdom and reason.81 T2.17 Plato Philebus 30c4–7, Trans. Dorothea Frede

Thus, weaving together the Philebus with Aristotle’s argument from infi­ nite power, Proclus concludes that in the case of each Form, given the infinite number of perceptible instances it has throughout time, there must be an unchanging Agent of change responsible for the continual existence of a being 81 ἄπειρόν τε ἐν τῷ παντὶ πολύ, καὶ πέρας ἱκανόν, καί τις ἐπ’ αὐτοῖς αἰτία οὐ φαύλη, κοσμοῦσά τε καὶ συντάττουσα ἐνιαυτούς τε καὶ ὥρας καὶ μῆνας, σοφία καὶ νοῦς λεγομένη δικαιότατ’ ἄν. For a discussion of this passage in Proclus see PT V chapter 23. Proclus is primarily concerned with a passage shortly after this one where Zeus is said to have a “royal intelligence” and a “royal soul” and in this context he understands Zeus to be the Engineer, but recognizes nature to be another possible interpretation, according to which the “royal soul” would be the world soul, and the “royal intelligence” would be the Kind of Intelligence specific to nature (i.e., the Order of Time. See below).

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with that Form in the universe. Accordingly, Proclus insists in his treatise on the uniqueness of the world (mentioned above in the introduction) that not only does the Form of the world (i.e., the Living Being itself) possess a unique complete instantiation, but also every Form has actually a corresponding “monad”: And therefore even the Human-being-itself does not immediately produce this infinite multitude of generations of human beings. Procession is nowhere immediate but is always by way of the number appropriate and proper to each monad. Since the intelligized Form is one, it must not at once create the infinite [multitude of its instances], but must first create a monad, then the number proper to it, and so on. For the mean between the single intelligized Form and the pluralized perceptible instances is that which is on the one hand perceptible, on the other monadic, which by proceeding has become perceptible, but by preserving its likeness to the Paradigm has remained monadic …82 It is, then, necessary that Human-being-itself and every other such Form should engender, prior to the dispersed multiplicity, stable monads, from which the procession of each of them into its own series departs. These are the monads belonging to the second work of engineering, on which account they remain invariable, as having been brought into existence by the unchanging cause [i.e. the Engineer] alone. So do not be surprised if someone should describe Human Being as immortal, Brute as rational or Plant as endowed with intelligence. Each of these is indeed in the first instance such, but procession, which brings about a gradual decrease in every kind of resemblance to the paradigm, renders [plants] insensible, [animals] devoid of reason and [human beings only] potentially intellectual. T2.18 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 444.29–445.6; 445.14–24, Trans. Runia and Share, modified83

82 καὶ τοίνυν καὶ ὁ αὐτοάνθρωπος οὐκ εὐθὺ παράγει τὸ πλῆθος τοῦτο τὸ ἄπειρον· οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ ἄμεσος ἡ πρόοδος, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν τῇ μονάδι προσεχῶν καὶ οἰκείων ἀριθμῶν. ἐπεὶ οὖν τὸ νοητὸν εἶδος ἕν ἐστι, δεῖ μὴ τὸ ἄπειρον ποιεῖν εὐθύς, ἀλλὰ μονάδα πρῶτον, εἶτα τὸν οἰκεῖον ἀριθμὸν καὶ ἐφεξῆς· τοῦ γὰρ νοητοῦ μὲν ἑνὸς καὶ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ πεπληθυσμένου μέσον ἐστὶ τὸ αἰσθητὸν μέν, μοναδικὸν δέ, τῷ μὲν προελθεῖν αἰσθητὸν γενόμενον, τῷ δὲ σῶσαι τὴν ὁμοιότητα τοῦ παραδείγματος μοναδικὸν ὑποστάν. 83 ἀναγκαῖον ἄρα καὶ τὸν αὐτοάνθρωπον καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν εἰδῶν τῶν τοιούτων πρὸ τοῦ διαπεφορημένου πλήθους μονάδας ἀπογεννᾶν ἑστώσας, ἀφ’ ὧν ἡ πρόοδος ἑκάστων ἐπὶ τοὺςοἰκείους ἀριθμούς, καὶ ταύτας εἶναι τὰς μονάδας ἐν τῇ δευτέρᾳ δημιουργίᾳ, διὸ καὶ μένουσιν ὡσαύτως, ὡς ἀπὸ τῆς ἀκινήτου μόνης αἰτίας παρηγμέναι. μὴ τοίνυν θαυμάσῃς, εἰ καὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀθάνατον λέγοι τις καὶ τὸ θηρίον λογικὸν καὶ τὸ φυτὸν ἔννουν· ἔστι γὰρ τούτων ἕκαστον πρώτως τοιοῦτον, ἡ δὲ πρόοδος ὕφεσιν ἐργαζομένη τῆς παντοίας τοῦ παραδείγματος μιμήσεως ἀποφαίνει τὰ μὲν ἀναίσθητα, τὰ δὲ ἄλογα, τὰ δὲ δυνάμει νοερά·.

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Here, Proclus proposes that every Form possess a perceptible instantiation that is unique (“monadic”). Thus, not only is there a single “the world” corresponding to the Paradigm intelligized by the Engineer, but there is also a single “monad” produced by each Form of a specific kind of living being. These perceptible monads are furthermore described as “unchanging,” “immortal,” “rational” and “endowed with intelligence,” adjectives that together characterize the celestial bodies. Indeed, at In Tim. III 228.30–229.2 Proclus refers to these “monads of the second phase of cosmic engineering” as “subsistences about the young Gods, which have been received primarily by the heavens, according to which also the young Gods engineer the mortals. For monads of all the mortal kinds of life proceeded from the intelligized Forms into the heavens, and the whole multitude of enmattered living beings was brought forth from these monads where they were divine.”84 Thus, these monads are clearly bodies in the heavens. Thus also, the Form of each living being has as its first instantiation (i.e., participant) in the world a unique celestial living being.85 I take it that the body of this living being is identical to the celestial body mentioned in T2.9, whose period measures the lifespan of the living 84 ὑποστάσεις εἰσὶ περὶ τοὺς νέους θεούς, ἃς ὁ οὐρανὸς ὑπεδέξατο πρώτως, καθ’ ἃς καὶ δημιουργοῦσιν οἱ νέοι θεοὶ τὰ θνητά· μονάδες γὰρ ἀπὸ τῶν νοητῶν εἰδῶν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν προῆλθον πάσης τῆς θνητοειδοῦς ζωῆς, ἀπὸ δὲ τούτων τῶν μονάδων θείων οὐσῶν πᾶν ἀπεγεννήθη τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ἐνύλων ζῴων·. 85 Elsewhere in the Timaeus, we find that Proclus drew on the Statesman to posit such celestial living beings responsible for distinct animal species, calling them engineers that “make the ultimate (i.e. fully discriminated) Forms paradigms for their own generation and for this reason one is a shepherd of humans, another a shepherd of horses, as Plato says in the Statesman (267d10), and similarly in the case of other Forms.” (In Tim I 270.33– 271.3, trans. Runia, modified: οἳ δὲ καὶ τὰ ἔσχατα εἴδη παραδείγματα ποιοῦνται τῆς ἑαυτῶν ἀπογεννήσεως και διὰ τοῦτο ἀνθρώπων μὲν ἄλλος νομεύς, ἵππων δὲ ἄλλος, ὥς φησιν ἐν Πολιτικῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων εἰδῶν ὁμοίως.) But, nonetheless, it is baffling how Proclus could consider a celestial living being to be the first instance in nature of the natural kind “Horse.” There is some explanation at In Tim. III 238.29–239.25, where Proclus explains that the young Gods produce the animal species by first being the authors of the irrational powers of the soul, and then producing the species along with the soul as fitting receptacles for a soul that has lived an irrational life akin to that species. That is, following Tim. 90e3ff., Proclus takes irrational human lives to be prior to irrational animal species. Hence, there are horses because there are humans that behave like horses, there are pigs because there are humans that behave like pigs and so on. “Behaving like an animal,” here, means living according to some specific vice. Thus, to use one of Proclus’ own examples (In Tim. III 378.22–379.9) after a life of injustice a soul comes to animate a wolf. Thus prior to any animal species, like the wolf, there is a certain kind of human life, a life of injustice. Such a human life is one where the soul has given itself over to a certain class or combination of irrational appetites. The irrational powers of the soul are however, obtained through influence of the celestial bodies in its descent into generation. If the irrational powers are images of the lives of the celestial bodies from which they originate, then all irrational lives will be somehow images of celestial bodies, and insofar as

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being in question. This identification can be confirmed by a parallel passage in Proclus’ discussion of temporal periods such as the month and the year (In Tim. III 86.26–87.3), where he proposes regular astronomical periods as fitting mediators between monadic forms and pluralized perceptible participants, that is, as being at the same time monadic (there is never more than a single year or month at the same time), and plural (there are many successive years and months). Thus, it would seem that celestial bodies are mediators between Forms and perishable bodies precisely insofar as they determine bounded periods.86 We see, therefore, Proclus taking Aristotle’s argument that the continuity of generation must rest upon the unchanging cause of a perpetual motion quite far. He employs it to populate the heavens with “monads” of each form of perishable being, with celestial bodies being responsible somehow for the continuity of the generation of the many species, giving thus a whole new meaning to the expression “Platonic Heaven.”87 Since these periods are part of the total period of the world (the great year), Proclus also ascribes a discriminated measurement of the species to the Order of Time, claiming that Time measures all things “according to their [intelligized] Paradigms and [thereby] assimilating them [i.e., the things measured] to those [the Paradigms].”88 In this he makes Time similar to the Engineer: just as the Engineer fashions the world as a whole looking to its single intelligized Paradigm, so does Time produce the many distinct species by looking towards their many distinct Paradigms, which are all included in the single Paradigm of the World. What we have here is the distinction between the two works of Engineering drawn at In Tim. III 53.6–13. On the one hand, the first work of engineering is the production of the world’s permanent strcutre, whereas on the other the second work of engineering is, the eternal production of the temporal and successive parts of the world. But Proclus also takes Aristotle’s argument concerning infinite power in yet another direction. He not only uses it to derive a variety of eternal unchanging causes of change and to include a multiplicity of Forms within his primary cause an animal species is a kind of irrational life, it can have as its most perfect instance a celestial body. 86 There is still a problem here, as one would expect for each animal species two distinct but related periods to be determined, that is, the species’ typical lifespan and the lifespan of a generation of the species, or, the period of time during which all the members of the species are replaced. But perhaps this can be accounted for by a duality of motions in the celestial body, which may be an invisible planet with its own period for traversing the Zodiac and also qua celestial body rotate along its own axis. 87 Typically, this is an expression used for the realm of the Forms. 88 In Tim. III 20.5–6: κατὰ τὰ παραδείγματα μετρῶν αὐτὰ καὶ πρὸς ἐκεῖνα ἀφομοιῶν·.

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of change, i.e., the Order of Time, but also transforms it such that these eternal unchanging causes of change are, at once, both causes of change and causes of existence. In doing so, Proclus engages with Aristotle’s implicit criticisms of Plato in his account of the primary Agent of change. The properties of being eternal and unchanging are common to Plato’s Forms and to Aristotle’s Agents of celestial motion. When Aristotle, however, limited the activity of his intelligized principles to being causes of celestial motion, he implicitly criticized not only Plato’s intelligized principles of Forms, but also his presentation of Intelligence as the cosmic Engineer, which not only sets the world in motion,89 but is also responsible for making it. In contrast to the productive role of the Engineer in Plato’s Timaeus, Aristotle famously said that the prime Agent of change was like a beloved object for the sake of which the heavens engaged in ceaseless change, which makes it appear more like a final cause, although whether it was merely a final or also an efficient cause was hotly debated in late antiquity. One reason to think that Aristotle restricted the prime Agent’s causality to final causality was that it was a causality that was compatible with its being unchanging, as it exempts the prime Agent from interaction with the objects it changes. As he points out in Metaph. XII.7 1072a26–27 “the object of desire and the object of thought impart change in this way: they change others without themselves changing” (κινεῖ δὲ ὥδε· τὸ ὀρεκτὸν καὶ τὸ νοητὸν κινεῖ οὐ κινούμενα). The object of desire is a cause of change as a final cause, but the object of thought is an object of change as an efficient cause, changing the potential knower to actually knowing by acting upon him.90 Thus, Aristotle found a way for an entirely unchanging cause to produce a perpetual motion by producing in a soul both the knowledge of itself and a desire for it through which the soul was led to engage in change. In Aristotle’s picture, therefore, Intelligence is a cause only of the motion, but not of the being of the heavens (although perpetual motion is arguably part of the nature of the heavens) and it is an efficient cause only in the restricted sense of its being an efficient cause of the motion, or even more restricted, of the cognition that spurs on the motion, not being an efficient cause of the heavens itself. There is no sense in which it produces the heavens as their maker or generates them as their father, unlike the Engineer of the Timaeus, which is called the maker and father of the universe. Proclus understood Aristotle’s implicit critique and attempted to defend Plato by arguing that Aristotle’s own argument for the need of a transcendent cause to explain 89 90

This is its “fifth gift” in Proclus‘ terminology. See above Chapter 1.1.1 for a complete list. See Chapter 2.2 on crafts and souls as unchanging causes of change in Aristotle and also Menn (2012) for how Aristotle uses both of these models.

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the motion of the heavens also showed that a cause was needed for their being and these arguments of Proclus were later taken up by Ammonius to interpret Aristotle as actually defending the efficient causality of Aristotle’s prime mover, although this later development lies beyond the scope of this study. Proclus’ expansion of infinite power to include the production of existence can be understood as proceeding in two steps. First, in an argument to be studied in more detail in Chapter 3.3.1, Proclus claimed that every perceptible substance is really a process (γένεσις), and thus claimed implicitly that having a specific sensible form just is changing in a certain way. This then allowed Proclus, in a second move, to argue that just as a finite body cannot have an infinite power to change, so can a finite body not have an infinite power to be. Here is a passage where Proclus makes this second move (the first move is usually only implied): Plato says that the substance of the heavens has being for as long as the totality of time, whereas Aristotle posits without further qualification that it always has being, even if he too is compelled by means of lengthy argumentation to lead it back to temporal infinity by calling eternity an infinite present power. But he also demonstrates that an infinite power cannot belong to a limited body. It follows, then, that the world, since it is bodily, must always be receiving the infinite power, but that it never possesses it as a whole, since it is finite. The only way, then, to pronounce the truth in its case is to say that it is becoming infinite in power, but is not such. And if it is becoming such, then it is plain that it is made infinite throughout infinite time, for it is fitting for the eternal alone to be infinite, whereas it is fitting for the infinite in becoming to be made infinite along with time. For becoming is coupled with time, while existence (ὕπαρξις) is coupled with eternity. The result is that he too would be compelled to agree that the world is coming into being in a sense.91 T2.19 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus I 294.28–295.12, trans. Runia-Share, modified

91 Πλάτων μὲν τὴν οὐσίαν τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τῷ παντὶ χρόνῳ συμπαρατείνεσθαί φησιν, Ἀριστοτέλης δὲ ἀεὶ οὖσαν ἁπλῶς ὑποτίθεται, εἰ καὶ διὰ πολλῶν λόγων ἀναγκάζεται καὶ αὐτὸς εἰς τὴν χρονικὴν ἀπειρίαν ἀνάγειν αὐτήν, τὸν αἰῶνα δύναμιν ἄπειρον ἑστῶσαν λέγων. οὐδεμίαν δὲ ἄπειρον δύναμιν ὑπάρχειν σώματι πεπερασμένῳ δείκνυσιν. ἕπεται ἀεὶ μὲν λαμβάνειν τὸν κόσμον τὴν ἄπειρον δύναμιν, ὄντα σωματικόν, μηδέποτε δὲ τὴν ὅλην ἔχειν, διότι πεπέρασται. μόνως οὖν ἀληθὲς περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν, ὅτι ἀπειροδύναμος γίνεται, ἀλλ’οὐκ ἔστιν. εἰ δὲ γίνεται, δῆλον, ὅτι ἀνὰ τὸν ἄπειρον χρόνον ἀπειροῦται· τῷ γὰρ αἰωνίῳ τὸ εἶναι ἀπείρῳ προσήκειν μόνῳ, τῷ δὲ γιγνομένῳ ἀπείρῳ τὸ τῷ χρόνῳ συναπειροῦσθαι· γένεσις γὰρ χρόνῳ σύζυγος, αἰῶνι δὲ ὕπαρξις· ὥστε καὶ αὐτὸς ἀναγκάζοιτ’ ἂν γιγνόμενόν πως τὸν κόσμον ὁμολογεῖν.

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Here, Proclus applies Aristotle’s argument regarding the motion of the heavens to the being or existence of the heavens, in this way “compelling him” to agree that the world is always coming into being and “is” not.92 He employs here four premises he takes from Aristotle: (1) the natural world is a finite body, (2) a finite body cannot possess an infinite power, (3) the world always exists, (4) eternity is a present infinite power. He then implicitly understands (3) as the claim that the world possesses being eternally and that therefore, (3 + 4) the world possesses an infinite power to be. But (1 + 2) the world cannot possess infinite power, as it is a finite body. Thus, he concludes (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) the world must receive an infinite power of being. Of particular interest in T2.19 is Proclus statement that the world and time both equally become infinite, in contrast with eternity which is infinite. This becoming infinite of the world is equated with its perpetual reception of the power to be, what Sorabji has called its receiving “finite dollops” of the power to exist. Proclus compares time to eternity in a similar way at In Remp. II 11.19–12.1; 12.8–12 (T4.24 below). This suggests that in T2.19 Proclus is implicitly talking about the Order of Time. This is confirmed when we turn to In Tim I 267.12–268.6,93 another passage that makes the same existential use of Aristotle’s argument on infinite power. There, Proclus states the argument in lengthier form, saying that the world receives its infinite motion and infinite being from the same source, Intelligence, which in context means more precisely the cosmic Engineer. We have seen, however, that for Proclus a wholly unchanging Kind of Intelligence like the Engineer cannot be the immediate cause of a process (see above T2.14). When Proclus speaks, therefore, of the Engineer being the source of the world’s infinite power, he must be referring to the creation by the Engineer of the Order of Time as the immediate agent of the world’s process. This, thus, presents us with a characterization of what the flow of time is for Proclus: it is precisely the process of the natural world’s reception of finite measures of the power both to be and to change. Just as Proclus’ account of the unchanging Agents of change as the intelligized Parts of Time, i.e., the Year itself, the Month itself, etc., attempt to give content and to specify what Aristotle’s Agents of celestial change are, so is his ultimate account of the flow of time itself an account of what this activity of giving 92 This is an example of an argument where Proclus easily transitions from talking about οὐρανός to talking about κόσμος. 93 This is discussed in Sorabji (1988, pp. 250–253). Sorabji seems to ignore that the move from motion to existence in Proclus’ argument is supported by his own metaphysical analysis of bodily existence as a process. See below Chapter 4.3.1.

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the world “finite dollops of power” is. Additionally, this argument of Proclus is meant to force Aristotle not only to accept the notion that Intelligence is an efficient cause of the world’s existence, but also to accept the existence of this process over and above all other changes in the world and that Proclus identifies with time qua change. Aristotle’s understanding of infinite power and the motion of the heavens by final causation is an initial aspect of this theory of celestial motion that is directed against the Timaeus. Having seen how Proclus adapts and absorbs these arguments, let us now turn to a more evidently anti-Timaean point, the claim that Intelligence as a first principle must be entirely active, and consider how Proclus follows Aristotle even in this, identifying Time itself with the Kind of Intelligence that governs the world, and the many measures and periods of time with diverse Kinds of Intelligence specific to different celestial bodies. Aristotle and Proclus on Time and Intelligence as the Primary Agent of Change Aristotle’s argument that the prime cause of change is Intelligence is an argument for a claim that Plato already presented as traditional, namely that “Intelligence (νοῦς) is king of heaven and earth.” As we saw in Chapter 1.1.1, Plato’s account of the world through its engineering by Intelligence is part of this tradition. In his description of Intelligence as the first cause, Aristotle criticizes implicitly several errors he sees in Plato’s description of the Engineer. In particular, he seeks to correct the views that (1) Intelligence’s activity of ordering the world is bound by a first moment, and that prior to this moment it was capable of acting but did not act and (2) Intelligence is a knowledge of something other than itself, namely the Paradigm of the world, the Living Being itself. Prior to Proclus, Plotinus (in Enn V.9, for instance) already took up these Aristotelian criticisms into Platonism. Proclus, however, went beyond Plotinus in a few ways. First, we have seen that in Proclus’ natural philosophy Intelligence as such is not recognized as the immediate cause of the world and its orderly change, but rather this role is accorded to a particular Kind of Intelligence. First, according to Proclus, there are diverse Kinds of Intelligence, distinguished by employing different Forms in their comprehension of being and by understanding being through the perspective of one Form privileged above all others. Second, Proclus says that it is the specifically Cosmic Intelligence, which he identifies with Time itself (and which I will continue to call the Order of Time) that is the cause of order for the world. By identifying the ruler of the world with Time, Proclus implicitly declares the tradition of seeking the ruler of heaven and earth to disclose no higher causes 2.3.3

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than Time and to ignore Intelligence as such, which must be prior to Time insofar as Time is only a particular Kind of Intelligence.94 Finally, by identifying the different Kinds of Intelligence and establishing Time as the cosmic Kind of Intelligence, Proclus provides an account that Aristotle does not, namely a substantial account of what it is that that Intelligence knows.95 Let us then turn to Aristotle and see how Proclus ends up with these results via Plotinus. Here is Aristotle’s argument that the activity of the unchanging cause of change must belong its substance: If there is something which is capable of changing things or acting on them, but is not actually doing so, there will not necessarily be change; for that which has a potency need not exercise it. Nothing, then, is gained even if we suppose eternal substances, as the believers in the Forms do, unless there is to be in them some principle which can cause change; no, even this is not enough, nor is another substance besides the Forms enough; for if it does not act, there will be no change. Further, even if it acts, this will not be enough, if its substance is a power; for there will not be eternal change, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must, then, be such a principle, whose very substance is activity.96 T2.20 Aristotle Metaphysics XII.6 1071b12–20, Trans. Ross, modified.

We can see that Aristotle is aiming directly at the Platonists here, “the believers in the Forms.” Indeed, the Forms are like the principles of change hitherto considered, unchanging, intelligized entities. Yet they are not enough, counters 94

In this manner Proclus’ theory of time can be said to anticipate Heidegger’s (1996, p. 25) critique that all ancient thought understood being on the basis of time, showing thus that ancient thought is far more self-aware than Heidegger believed. Proclus, of course, would dispute that Platonism was subject to this criticism, but would hold both Aristotelian and Stoic paths to the First Principle to reach no higher than Time itself (and in the case of Stoicism, Proclus probably thought it did not even reach that high). 95 Aristotle did specify that Intelligence knows itself, and he even went further and declared that it was nothing but the knowledge of itself. This leaves us, therefore, without a way of specifying the knowledge of Intelligence in a manner independent of Intelligence itself. This is not the case for Proclus’ Kinds of Intelligence that can be specified as knowing being through a privileged Form. 96 Ἀλλὰ μὴν εἰ ἔστι κινητικὸν ἢ ποιητικόν, μὴ ἐνεργοῦν δέ τι, οὐκ ἔσται κίνησις· ἐνδέχεται γὰρ τὸ δύναμιν ἔχον μὴ ἐνεργεῖν. οὐθὲν ἄρα ὄφελος οὐδ’ ἐὰν οὐσίας ποιήσωμεν ἀϊδίους, ὥσπερ οἱ τὰ εἴδη, εἰ μή τις δυναμένη ἐνέσται ἀρχὴ μεταβάλλειν· οὐ τοίνυν οὐδ’ αὕτη ἱκανή, οὐδ’ ἄλλη οὐσία παρὰ τὰ εἴδη· εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἐνεργήσει, οὐκ ἔσται κίνησις. ἔτι οὐδ’ εἰ ἐνεργήσει, ἡ δ’ οὐσία αὐτῆς δύναμις· οὐ γὰρ ἔσται κίνησις ἀΐδιος· ἐνδέχεται γὰρ τὸ δυνάμει ὂν μὴ εἶναι. δεῖ ἄρα εἶναι ἀρχὴν τοιαύτην ἧς ἡ οὐσία ἐνέργεια.

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Aristotle, since the Forms by themselves are not causes of change: Forms account for what each thing is, but not what it becomes. And even if one posits some Form as a cause of change – say, the Form of Change itself (as in the Sophist), or the cosmic Engineer qua Intelligence (as in the Timaeus) – this is still not enough. This eternal substance with the capacity to produce change must actualize that capacity. Thus, Plato in the Timaeus posits Intelligence not only as capable of producing change, but also actively producing the world. But still, Aristotle argues that an even more determinate conception of the first principle is required, for it cannot be something that has the capacity to cause change and not to cause change. If this were so, “there will not be eternal movement, since that which is potentially may possibly not be.” Here, the argument is cryptic. It might mean that change might not be necessary, if it depends on a contingently actualized capacity to produce change. Otherwise it might rely on a principle that if the capacity to produce change can stop at some point in time, then it will stop, given infinite time. Or, he might mean what Proclus implied in his argument from the Elements of Theology, namely that what is required is an account of why change is not only eternal but also necessary. And it will not be necessary if the cause of change could also not produce it. The intended result, at any rate, is that the first principle of change must be conceived as essentially actualized, and maybe even as a separately existing activity. Besides advancing the claim that Intelligence must be essentially active, Aristotle also silently corrects the Timaean picture of Intelligence being a knowledge of something other than itself. Instead of being knowledge of something other, Aristotle famously insists that Intelligence knows nothing but itself, that it is the knowledge of its own self-knowledge (Metaph. XII.9 1074b34–35: ἡ νόησις νοήσεως νόησις), a claim of disputed interpretation. Proclus freely picks up these claims, arguing for them and interpreting them in his own way. Thus, Proclus understood the identity of Intelligence with its object to mean that intelligization is always a knowledge of what is within Intelligence. Thus, Intelligence is identical with its object, in the sense that its substance is an intelligized object whose actuality is the knowledge of itself, the way the activity of the Sun is the projected visible image of itself. That it is essentially actualized means that the intelligized substance produces this knowledge (i.e., intelligizes itself) eternally. Proclus’ understanding of the identity between Intelligence and what it knows is broader than the Aristotelian claim of identity between knowledge and its object, because Proclus believes that intelligization can still be a knowledge of the causes of Intelligence, which are present within Intelligence

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insofar as Intelligence exists by sharing in their being. This can be made clearer by considering an Aristotelian argument for the identity between Intelligence and what it knows, namely that the object of Intelligence is immaterial97 (cf. Metaph. XII.9 1075a3–5). Since its object is immaterial, there is no distinction between the object qua known and its own existence, unlike in the case of perceptible things where there is such a distinction. Thus, for instance, in the case of sight there is always a distinction between the material object seen and the visual form known by sight: the material object is far more than its visible shape, and to any perspective it only shows one of infinitely many different appearances that can be obtained by viewing it from different angles. The material object is not, thus, what is primarily known in perception, although it is the cause of perceptions and the ground of their truth. It is because the object is as it seems that the perception is a perception and not, say, an illusion or a hallucination. In the intelligization of immaterial objects, however, there is no such distinction. Since the object of intelligence has no matter, it is for Aristotle nothing over and above the content known by intelligence, and thus intelligence and its object are one. Thus, in the case of Intelligence the content of its knowledge is not a form that exists separately from Intelligence in a material substrate, but rather is its own substance. Unlike perception, which has its object outside itself and acquires knowledge, Intelligence has its object within itself and produces knowledge, being entirely in act. This is something Aristotle could agree with. But Proclus goes beyond that and sees that the analogy with perception still allows intelligence to know things “outside” it if they are its causes, and Intelligence does have prior causes according to Proclus. Just as a concrete material being can be said to be an object of perception, not because it is the content of perception, but because it is the cause of that content, the causes of intelligence, or of a particular Kind of Intelligence, can be said to be its objects, because they are the cause the content of Intelligence, that is, its substance. Proclus adds some clarity to this by distinguishing between “the intelligized” per se, that is the causes of intelligence in their separate existence, and “the intelligized within intelligence,” that is, the share in its cause’s being that exists within intelligence and which is part of its immediate content.98 Similarly we

97 That is, it has no matter, and not in the sense of “is irrelevant.” 98 See ET 167.20–26 for this distinction and, in addition, PT III 100.3–22 for a clear denial that what is intelligized in the strict sense is ever an object of intelligization, only the cause of such objects.

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can distinguish between the concrete object of sight in its separate existence, and what it contributes to the content of sight. One reason that Proclus needs the result that Intelligence not only knows itself but also its causes is for the sake of explaining the connection between the many different Kinds of Intelligence he posits. Unlike Aristotle, who like all classical authors up to Plotinus always speaks in metaphysical contexts of νοῦς, Intelligence, in the singular,99 Proclus often speaks of a multitude of νόες, different Kinds of Intelligence. Whereas earlier authors spoke of a single Intelligence as the single unitary knowledge capable of ordering the soul to the Good, I take Proclus to speak of plural νόες, of a multitude of “Kinds of Intelligence,” because he takes there to be a plurality of distinct “knowledges,” distinct “worlds of Forms,” that order souls to the Good. The doctrine that each Kind of Intelligence is not just the knowledge of itself, but also of its causes allows Proclus to explain how despite there being many Kinds of Intelligence, there is still some unity, since they are all connected in a causal chain, with “higher” Kinds of Intelligence being causes of “lower” Kinds of Intelligence and lower Kinds of Intelligence intelligizing the higher Kinds of Intelligence. But before I discuss the unity of the many Kinds of Intelligence, let me discuss Proclus’ reasons for positing a multitude of them in the first place. The first and best-known reason for Proclus’ positing of a multitude lies with Aristotle himself. As we have seen, Aristotle posits a multitude of unchanging causes of the motions of the heavens (Chapter 2.3.1, above), one for each uniform motion that was required to explain the apparent motions of the planets and the stars (cf. Metaph. XII.8). In his Metaphysics, Aristotle offers his analysis of the primary unchanging Cause of change as Intelligence and permanently active. He is silent on whether the other unchanging causes of change are also Intelligence. Souls, as we have seen, are also unchanging causes of change for Aristotle, and some interpreters have taken the causes of celestial change to be analogous to souls.100 Aristotle does consider celestial bodies to be animate, but the eternal Agents of change appear to be necessarily separate from the celestial bodies in a way that a soul is not separate from the body it quickens. The interpretation of these unchanging Causes of change as intellectual 99 An observation made by Menn (1995, p. 15) in his discussion of the meaning of νοῦς in Plato. 100 See Kosman (1994) for an instance of this view, and Judson (1994) in the same volume for the opposite view. The interpretation of celestial agents of change as souls is not without difficiulties. For one, a vitality is the form of the organic body for Aristotle, but Aristotle never calls the unchanging agents of change forms.

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substances, intelligentiae, would become standard through the Arabic and Latin traditions, which were themselves partially influenced by Proclus and Plotinus. The contrast between Aristotle’s cosmology of unchanging Agents of change and Plato’s cosmogony operated by a cosmic Engineer is another source of distinguishing between different Kinds of Intelligence. For the cosmic Engineer is responsible for far more than just the perpetual and necessary existence of change in Plato; he is also responsible for the spatial structure of the world and the internal structure of the soul, for instance, as well as the essences of the four elements that make up the bodies in the world. And even in the Timaeus there appears to be a distinction between the cosmic Engineer, identified at one point as Intelligence without qualification, and the Intelligence possessed by the world’s own soul. Plotinus himself is another source for the multitude of Kinds of Intelligence in Proclus. Plotinus took up Aristotle’s doctrine of intelligence as the first principle of change but modified it by enriching the content of the knowledge of intelligence. It was not knowledge only of Intelligence itself, but of all the eternal Paradigms of the perceptible world. Given, however, the identity of intelligence and its object, the fact that in immaterial things the object known is nothing over and above the knowledge of it, each of the forms, Plotinus reasoned, was itself a Kind of Intelligence, and Intelligence in truth a community of (Kinds of) Intelligence.101 Plotinus also already interpreted the unchanging Agents of celestial motion in Aristotle as so many distinct Kinds of Intelligence, belonging to distinct celestial souls. This, however, was bound up also with his doctrine that the soul itself always remained in the intelligized world, such that the Kinds of Intelligence proper to the diverse celestial souls were the “intelligized” parts of these souls that forever “remained above.” Proclus would accept the plurality of Forms within Intelligence, as well as the diversity of Kinds of Intelligence amongst the celestial Agents of change, but would insist on clearly distinguishing between Forms, souls and Kinds of Intelligence. A third and final source for the diversity of Kinds of Intelligence in Proclus came through Iamblichus and his interpretation of the Chaldean Oracles. Through his interpretation of the Oracles, Iamblichus introduced a distinction between the cosmic Engineer, as one Kind of Intelligence, from “Paternal Intelligence” (πατρικὸς νοῦς), a Kind of Intelligence that was not involved immediately in the causal explanation of the world, but rather participated in 101 See below Chapter 4.2.1.

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the constitution of being itself.102 This then is a third source for a distinction between Kinds of Intelligence. In his attempt to synthesize these diverse sources, Proclus was led to admit a plurality of different Kinds of Intelligence. Setting aside the Kinds of Intelligence not employed in physical explanation, Proclus made use of three distinct genera of Intelligence in his physics: (1) Intelligence itself, (2) the engineering Kind of Intelligence responsible for the general structure of the world, and (3) the Kinds of Intelligence specific to souls immanent in the world (beginning with the Kind of Intelligence of the world soul itself), which were the agents for him of the second work of cosmic engineering, i.e., the engineering of perishable substances and especially the living beings of the Earth and its atmosphere. With such a multitude of distinct Kinds of Intelligence, one has to wonder what their unity is. After all, Intelligence (νοῦς) is supposedly still in Proclus the knowledge of being through which a soul orders its life toward the Good. Are there many distinct “knowledges” of being? Why are they not included in a single body of knowledge? Do they contradict each other? Then how are they all equally true and how are they knowledge and how do they all lead to the Good? If they do not contradict each other, are they independent bodies of knowledge, depending on distinct first principles? But then how are they knowledge about the same thing, being, and how do they all lead toward the Good itself? And what happens then to Proclus’ aspiration to construct a metaphysical science that derives all the different levels of being from a single first principle, Unity? The answer to these questions begins with the inclusion of all Kinds of Intelligence in a single kind of subsistence or “level of being.” That is, they are a set of substances fully ordered by causal relations, such that there is a first and primary Kind of intelligence, which is the cause of “secondary” Kinds of Intelligences, which in turn cause “tertiary Kinds of Intelligence” and so forth, until the very last kind.103 The very first Kind of Intelligence is constitutive 102 Philosophically this might be motivated by the description of Intelligence as the knowledge that orders activity towards the Good. This can be taken in two senses: as either ordering activity towards the particular good of a thing, or as ordering activity towards the Good itself, that which makes each good a good. The first kind of knowledge is exemplified in nature, where change is explained teleologically by each being seeking its own ends, whereas the second is associated with soteriological concerns in Plato, where the soul seeks liberation by knowledge of the Good itself. 103 At times, Proclus speaks as if there could not be Kinds of Intelligence of the same level, so to speak, such that each Kind of Intelligence had a unique Kind of Intelligence as its cause and another as its effect. I return to this issue below.

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of what it is to be an intelligence (ET 21, 166). It is the “unparticipated” Kind of Intelligence in Proclus’ theory of participation. It is not a Kind of Intelligence belonging to one or another specific soul or group of souls, but rather Intelligence as such. In a complication of his theory of Intelligence that I cannot explain here, there is a multitude of νόες, each among which plays a different contributory role in the constitution of Intelligence, such that there are actually many unparticipated Kinds of Intelligence, and the cosmic Engineer is one of them.104 Whether seen as one or analyzed into a multitude, the unparticipated Kind of Intelligence is not a specific Kind of Intelligence, a specific way of understanding things, but rather the intelligization of all being without any qualification (ET 170). All other Kinds of Intelligence are causally dependent upon the unparticipated kind, and are distinguished by being participated, that is, they are Kinds of Intelligence that are participated in by souls (ET 22, 166). This does not mean that they belong to the souls in question, as cognitions that have their subsistence within souls, but rather they relate to their souls as the soul relates to its body, employing them as instruments (ET 64). Every Kind of Intelligence shares in the property of intelligizing all of being, although the participated Kinds of Intelligence know being in a particular way (ET 170). The latter particularity has two sides to it. First, different Kinds of Intelligence know being through different sets of Forms, distinguished by their level of generality and detail (ET 177). Unparticipated Intelligence knows being through the most general Forms, Proclus tells us, whereas each Kind of Intelligence posterior to it in the causal order employs more a more particular and diversified set of Forms.105 We can, thus, draw an analogy to the series of Kinds of Intelligence with a series of distinct conceptual schemes or “ontologies,” the first employing only the most general concepts, such as Parmenides’ Eleatic Monism, and the subsequent ones employing more and more distinct concepts, until the last intelligizes each natural kind through a distinct form. The distinct conceptual schemes can be seen as the distinct cognitions of being that a soul would have if it participated in the distinct Kinds of

104 This theory is fully laid out in the Fifth volume of the Platonic Theology, dedicated to “the intellectual Gods,” that is the Gods that constitute unparticipated intelligence. Proclus describes seven hebdomads of such Gods, thus, forty-nine unparticipated Kinds of Intelligence. This implies an analysis of what intelligence is into 49 distinct perfections or features. The task when confronted with such a dizzying number of causes is to interpret them according to Proclus’ philosophical interests. 105 See In Parm. IV 960.11–26 for a presentation of all levels of being as different levels of articulation of knowledge.

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Intelligence. The distinct cognitions do not contradict each other, but rather all contain the same content in different levels of articulation.106 Besides differing by the level of articulation, distinct Kinds of Intelligence also are distinguished by intelligizing all of being “according to some one” (καθ’ ἕν). Proclus says in ET 170. What is this “one”? Proclus does not say, but it seems plausible to think of it as some single Form that plays within the Kind of Intelligence the role of a principle through which all the other forms are known. To begin with, it is grammatically possible: “εἶδος” (Form) is neutral gender and agrees with “ἕν.” Furthermore, we have already seen that Proclus posits a distinct unchanging Cause of change, and thus a Kind of Intelligence, for each distinct species of living being, and thus plausibly for each Form, given that the species of living being are typically taken as examples of the infima species, the ultimate and most particular Forms. Thus, unless there are to be more Kinds of Intelligence than there are Forms, there will be a one to one correspondence between the two. Furthermore, although each Kind of Intelligence is a “set of Forms” (ET 177) it is also simple and indivisible (ET 169). One way for a multitude of Forms to be a single entity is if all are contained in one Form as their principle, as the monad (the number 1) is supposed to be the principle of the numbers.107 Furthermore, this allows for there to be distinct Kinds of Intelligence with the same level of articulation that actually articulate all of being through the same set of Forms, but are distinguished from each other by their employing different forms of the same level of detail as the principle whereby to intelligize all the other Forms. Following this proposal of identifying a Form as the “monad” of all the other Forms in each Kind of Intelligence, we can go further and identify this monad with the partless substance of the Kind of Intelligence. The substance would then be a single form, say Beauty itself or Horse itself, which then, however, in its intelligization, in its being made known in the activity of the Kind of Intelligence and to

106 Proclus portrayed this belief in distinct Kinds of Intelligence that grasp reality at different levels of articulation in his interpretation of the Parmenides, where Parmenides, Zeno and Socrates each conceive of being in a different way (Parmenides through his contemplation of the One, Zeno through the contrast between the One and the many, Socrates through the theory of the Forms) and yet all are supposedly (by the end of the dialogue) accomplished philosophers that have a grasp of being. 107 See ET 20 and Dodd’s comments. This is a common image in Proclus.

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the souls that participate in that Kind of Intelligence, unfolds into a multitude of Forms.108 To return to physics and the Kinds of Intelligence required to account for change, we saw that Proclus posits for each species on the Earth some celestial body that guarantees its continued and perpetual existence (chapter 2.2, T2.9). This celestial living being is divine, meaning that it is animated by a divine soul and has its own specific Kind of Intelligence. This Kind of Intelligence is substantially the separately existing Form, or rather the intellectual type of the Form. These many celestial bodies will be in some kind of hierarchical organization, following the order of the heavens and the level of articulation of the distinct Forms (two orderings Proclus presumably takes to harmonize with each other). Above all of them, it would seem that the Kind of Intelligence that illuminates the soul animating the heaven of the fixed stars would be the highest and most general Kind of Intelligence within the world. As belonging to a specific soul, this Kind of Intelligence would still not be identical with the unparticipated Kind of Intelligence, despite its simplicity and superiority relative to all the other Kinds of Intelligence in the world. Proclus employed this distinction as a criticism against identifying the first Agent of change as Intelligence without qualification: As for Aristotle, he first went half-way towards removing unparticipated Intelligence from his philosophy – since for him the primary Kind of Intelligence is that of the sphere of the fixed stars – and second he cuts out the intellective soul which comes between intelligence and the animated body and joins intelligence directly to the living body. And in addition to these errors, it seems to me that he makes another. Although he set [different Kinds of] Intelligence over the different celestial spheres, he did not establish the world as a whole in [a single Kind of] Intelligence. This is the height of absurdity. How can the world be one unless a single Kind of Intelligence rules in it? And what coordination of the multitude of Kinds of Intelligence can there be if it is not dependent upon its own monad? And how can all things have been arranged for the good unless there is a common Kind of Intelligence for all things in the world?109 For the Kind of Intelligence of the sphere of the fixed stars 108 How one Form can be a principle for others is something I leave open. Perhaps for transmigrating souls the way to investigate this is by establishing that the reality of one Form follows from positing the reality of another. 109 A point made again at In Tim I 412.31–413.4.

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belongs solely to that sphere, as does that of the sphere of the Sun and that of the sphere of the Moon, and the same goes for the rest. T2.21 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus I 404.7–20, trans. Runia-Share, modified110

This passage criticizes Aristotle and also corrects the initial summary of Proclus’ theory of cosmic Kinds of Intelligence provided above. Arguing against Aristotle, Proclus attacks not only his exclusion of souls as self-changers mediating between the unchanging Kinds of Intelligence and the changing bodies in the world, but also his identification between the prime unchanging Agent of change with the Agent of the motion of the first sphere.111 In Proclus’ understanding, in order for all cosmic Kinds of Intelligence to be ordered with respect to each other and have activities that cooperate with each other there must be a Kind of Intelligence that is specific not to any one body, but to the world as such. This, then, would be the true primary Agent of change for the natural world. And it is precisely this Kind of Intelligence that he identified with time, or rather with the “Number of Time” or “the eternal Order of Time,” as I have been calling it. Proclus explains that Time is a Kind of Intelligence in at least five passages, given that this was a central thesis of his natural philosophy.112 I will consider two here, in order to show how time as a Kind of Intelligence comes to play the role of the first Agent of change: Isn’t the following, then, the best thing to say: that since it is itself a substance and is perfective of souls and present to all changing things, 110 ὁ δέ γε Ἀριστοτέλης ἐξ ἡμισείας τὸν μὲν ἀμέθεκτον νοῦν ὑφεῖλεν τῆς αὑτοῦ φιλοσοφίας· ὁ γὰρ πρῶτος αὐτῷ νοῦς τῆς ἀπλανοῦς ἐστι· τὴν δὲ νοερὰν ψυχὴν μέσην οὖσαν τοῦ τε νοῦ καὶ τοῦ ἐψυχωμένου σώματος ὑποτέμνεται, συνάπτει δὲ αὐτόθεν τῷ ζῶντι σώματι τὸν νοῦν. πρὸς δὲ τούτοις καὶ ἄλλο τι πλημμελεῖν δοκεῖ μοι. νοῦς γὰρ ἐπιστήσας ταῖς σφαίραις ὅλον τὸν κόσμον οὐκ ἐνίδρυσεν οὐδενὶ νῷ· τοῦτο δέ ἐστι πάντων ἀτοπώτατον· πῶς γάρ ἐστιν εἷς ὁ κόσμος, εἰ μὴ νοῦς εἷς ἐν αὐτῷ κρατοίη; τίς δὲ σύνταξις τοῦ νοεροῦ πλήθους, εἰ μὴ μονάδος οἰκείας ἐξηρτημένον εἴη; πῶς δὲ πάντα συντέτακται πρὸς τὸ εὖ, εἰ μὴ κοινός τις εἴη τῶν ἐγκοσμίων ἁπάντων νοῦς; ὁ γὰρ τῆς ἀπλανοῦς ἐκείνης ἐστὶ τῆς σφαίρας, καὶ ὁ τῆς ἡλιακῆς καὶ ὁ τῆς σελήνης, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὡσαύτως. 111 It is not clear whether this is Aristotle’s position. Aristotle refers to a specifically eternal body, thus the first sphere of all the celestial bodies, as that which is first moved (Phys. VIII.6 260a1). But it may be that the first Agent of change imparts change to everything in nature, not just to a celestial reality. Thus, he correlates the number of prime Agents with the number of worlds at Metaph. XII.8 1074a30–38, for instance. 112 In Tim. III 25.9–16; 27.3–8; 28.1–3; 28.14–24, In Remp. II 16.3–13; 17.21–18.10.

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time is a Kind of Intelligence that not only remains identical, but also changes? It remains identical according to its inner activity, by which it is also really eternal, while it changes according to its outwardly proceeding activity, by which it determines every change from one state to another.113 T2.22 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 25.11–16

In this first passage, Proclus provides his reasons for considering time to be a Kind of Intelligence: it is (1) a substance, (2) perfective of souls, (3) present to all things that change. He is talking here not about the flow or passage of time, but rather the Order of Time, time as the number of change, and specifically as the productive, normative number of change.114 In this sense, it is not only present to all things insofar as they are in time,115 but it is present to them as their proper measure.116 Each changing thing has its own inherent measure or “number,” but Time is the number of the world and all the changes within it, measuring the world’s complete lifecycle.117 Just as the lifespans of living beings determine the duration of their lives, and the time for the onset of their changes of age and their daily rhythms, so does Time itself determine the duration of the great year and the beginning of each of the new periods of time in the heavens and the corresponding changes below the heavens (e.g., the “objective New Year”). Being the measure of all changes, especially of the celestial motions, it is also a measure of the changing life of the souls that govern the celestial bodies. To these souls, then, Time is also what establishes the period of their thoughts and determines the change from the contemplation of one form to another.118 It is thus a cause to souls of “perfection,” giving order to their lives. But the perfection and good of souls is attained by their having some Kind of Intelligence, an understanding that orients their lives towards the good. Thus, Time is a Kind of Intelligence. It must also be a Kind of Intelligence that not only exists within souls, but is a separate substance, for it is present to all processes, even those that are not animated by a soul.119 113 ἆρ’ οὖν κράτιστον οὐσίαν αὐτὸν ὄντα καὶ ψυχῆς τελειωτικὸν καὶ πᾶσι παρόντα νοῦν εἶναι λέγειν οὐχὶ μένοντα μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ κινούμενον, μένοντα μὲν κατὰ τὴν ἔνδον ἐνέργειαν, καθ’ ἣν καὶ ἔστιν αἰώνιος ὄντως, κινούμενον δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἔξω προϊοῦσαν, καθ’ ἣν ὁρίζει πᾶσαν μετάβασιν. 114 See above Chapter 2.2 for the concept. 115 See below in Chapter 3.1 for an in-depth discussion of Aristotle’s first objection to time being a change, namely that time is present everywhere and to everybody, whereas a change is present only to the moving thing. 116 Fulfilling in this way the Aristotelian demand that time be everywhere present. 117 A theme to which I return in Chapter 3.4. 118 On how every soul has a determinate life period, see ET 198–200. 119 Such as the expiring of a product of craft. See T3.13.

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Furthermore, as a number that counts out all of change, Time itself must be prior to all change. But if it is prior to all change it must be eternal.120 I return in Chapter 4.2 to the distinction between Time’s internal and external activity – a distinction inherited from Plotinus. For now, I will only point out that this repeats the lesson of text T2.14, namely that time is not a Kind of Intelligence that is responsible only for the invariability of certain phenomena, but as a number that measures out the change in the world, it is immediately a cause of change. And in being a cause for all natural change, Time is rightly identified with the prime Agent of change. This is made even clearer in the following text from Proclus’ Republic commentary: It is necessary to understand the complete number not only by counting it with our fingers (for this is rather something counted than a number and something becoming complete and never fully complete, ever becoming), but also as the intellectual cause of this number that we count, which also embraces the finite limit of the whole period of the world. Therefore, as Mén (Month) is the God presiding over the Moon and produces the counted month of the period of the Moon, and as the Hôrai (Seasons) generate the visible measures of the seasons, so too does the complete number exist with far greater priority, the number at rest existing before the changing one. And according to each everchanging body there is a Kind of Intelligence that bounds both the life within it and its corporeal return to the same point.121 T2.23 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Republic II 16.3–14

In this passage, commenting on the expression “complete number” in the discourse of the Muses,122 Proclus first underlines the character of time as the productive number that measures out the great year, which in itself contains all cosmic cycles. Then, he set time on a level with the divine Month 120 And it must be eternal in the strict Plotinian and Procline sense of being entirely present to itself without past and future parts. Otherwise, it would be subject to change in some respect. See below Chapter 4.2 on this notion of eternity, grounded in the Timaean presentation seen Chapter 1.1.4. 121 Τὸν τέλειον ἀριθμὸν οὐ μόνον χρὴ νοεῖν ἐπὶ δακτ[ύλων τι]θέντας (οὗτος γ[άρ ἐστιν] ἀριθμητὸν μᾶλλον ἢ ἀριθμὸς καὶ τελειούμενος καὶ οὐδέποτε τέλειος, ἀεὶ γιγνόμενος), ἀλλὰ τὴν αἰτίαν τούτου νοερὰν μὲν οὖσαν, περιέχουσαν δὲ τὸν πεπερασμένον ὅρον τῆς τοῦ κόσμου πάσης περιόδου. ὡς οὖν ὁ Μὴν ἐπὶ σελήνης θεὸς ὢν ὑφίστησι τὸν ἀριθμούμενον μῆνα τῆς περιόδου τῆς σελήνης, καὶ ὡς αἱ Ὧραι τὰ μέτρα τὰ ἐμφανῆ γεννῶσι τῶν ὡρῶν, οὕτω πολλῷ πρότερον ὁ τέλειος ἀριθμός ἐστιν ὁ ἑστὼς πρὸ τοῦ κινουμένου. καὶ καθ’ ἕκαστον τῶν ἀεικινήτων ἔστιν τις νοῦς, ὃς καὶ τὴν ζωὴν τὴν ἐν αὐτῷ συμπεραίνει καὶ τὴν ἀποκατάστασιν τὴν σωματικήν. 122 I discussed this previously in Chapter 1.2.

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and the divine Seasons as unchanging causes of smaller periods, the period of the moon and the cycle of the seasons.123 This makes it clear that time was taking over the role of Aristotle’s Intelligence. Just as Intelligence stood for Aristotle as the first cause of motion in the series of unchanging causes of celestial motion, so did Time stand at the head of the series of Kinds of Intelligence that governed the periods of the world.124 2.4

Time as the World’s Specific Kind of Intelligence

What are the consequences of thinking that the Order of Time is the Kind of Intelligence that is the unchanging cause of change for the whole cosmos? First, there is a lexical one: I will freely talk of the Order of Time with the following locutions – the world’s (specific) Kind of Intelligence, cosmic Intelligence, the temporal Kind of Intelligence, and temporal Intelligence, besides the expressions already established, i.e., Time itself, the (eternal) Order of Time, the Number of time. Second, it also means that Time is the Kind of Intelligence that the world soul has, a thesis I prove in more detail in Chapter 4. Third, it means that every Kind of Intelligence within the world will be akin to Time, that is, it will also be a productive number counting out changes, for Time occupies thus the first, monadic position in the series of Kinds of Intelligence within the world, and the monad of a series determines its character.125 Thus, more broadly, Time stands at the head of all those Kinds of Intelligence that belong to particular souls that own particular bodies. In this sense Proclus speaks of “the temporal series,” referring to the series of Kinds of Intelligence starting with Time, proceeding through the many Kinds of Intelligence proper to the different celestial Gods (such as “the Year itself,” and “the Month itself”), and 123 There is a puzzle with Proclus’ positing an unchanging cause for the seasons alongside the year. See the discussion of T2.16. 124 Identifying the gift of time (in Proclus’ vocabulary of the Engineer’s gifts to nature) with the conferral upon the world of Cosmic Intelligence may help us to understand better what is at stake for Proclus in tenth and final gift of the Engineer to the world, its being filled with every kind of living being. For Proclus holds that the Engineer produces the world as having (1) a body, (2) a soul, (3) a Kind of Intelligence and (4) a unifying Unity or Henad. Now, there is no explicit discussion of (3) and (4) in the Timaeus although Plato does speak of putting Intelligence into Soul and Soul into the Body (or the other way around) and also calls the world “a God.” Proclus’ understanding of the gift of time as the gift of Intelligence may be his solution to locating Plato’s discussion of (3) the conferral of Intelligence upon the world. Perhaps, then, the last gift is implicitly the Engineer’s gift of (4) the world’s divine Unity, or population of divine Unities. 125 See ET 19, 21, 22, 97, for the background of this principle.

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going even down to the Kinds of Intelligence proper to the spirits within the world and those that determine the lifecycles of mortal species.126 Therefore, beings within the world are the product of Intelligence, insofar as they are submitted to temporal order. Put another way, intelligibility for physical beings consists in their having a determinate temporal unfolding, akin to the lifespan of a living being, determining their beginning, middle and end, and including them in the larger cycles of the world. It is this which makes a body or the life of a soul understandable as the product of Intelligence guiding the world towards the good. Temporal order is cosmic intelligibility, the particular kind of order that makes things in the world intelligible, distinct from the order, say, that renders things that transcend the world intelligible. 126 See In Remp. II 19.28–20.6, for Proclus’ use of the expression ἡ χρονικὴ σειρά, the temporal series, for this series of Kinds of Intelligence, and mentions that the Kind of Intelligence responsible for the periods of human generation might be Prometheus.

Chapter 3

The Stoic Element: A Biology of the World as a Whole Plato and Aristotle stand out as the most important and easily identifiable philosophical sources for Proclus’ thinking on time. There are many passages in which Proclus quotes and alludes to them, and the way these passages frame Proclus’ view on the matter can be studied in a straightforward manner. I will now turn to a more remote case of reception, namely the reception of Stoic physics in Proclus’ theory of time. The reception is remote because we have no evidence that Proclus read Stoic natural philosophy firsthand. He most likely knew of it only through reports of his fellow Platonists.1 Furthermore, it is not a case of Stoic thinking on time framing Proclus’ thinking of time, as Proclus is quite hostile to the little he knows about their thoughts on the matter.2 Rather, it is a case of the Stoic biology of the world, what Hahm (1977) has called their “cosmobiology,” i.e., their theory of the natural world as a living being, providing crucial elements for Proclus’ own theory of time, and in particular enabling him to answer one of Aristotle’s objections to the thesis that time is a change. Plato had already treated the world as a living being, and it was this that allowed both Plotinus and Iamblichus prior to Proclus to incorporate elements of Stoic physics into their natural philosoph – and it is through them that it became available as a foundation for his theory of time. Before embarking on an investigation of such remote influence, it is useful to recall the purpose of studying Proclus’ philosophy of time through his reception of previous philosophies, for the procedure is more questionable the more indirect the influence of the philosophy in question is. Why not spare 1 Proclus may have known some Stoic ethics firsthand through Epictetus, as Simplicius wrote a commentary on him, which indicates some estimation amongst the Neoplatonists. Also, he did have interlocutors with Stoic-like positions, such as Theodore to whom On Providence is addressed, who defends a thorougoing determinism akin to the Stoics. 2 See In Tim. III 95.8–14, LS 51F, SVF 2.521. Proclus objects that the Stoics take time to be (1) causally inefficacious and (2) soul-dependent. (1) is certainly correct Stoic doctrine: time, like void, is an incoroporeal, and only bodies can be causes, thus time cannot be a cause. Since Proclus sees time as playing the role of first unchanging Agent of change of nature, he sees this as false. (2) is incorrect, but whether the confusion behind it is Proclus’ or his sources’, we do not know. As LS explains, Proclus most likely collapsed the Stoic incorporeals into the subspecies of sayables, one of four incorporeals in their theory, and furthermore understood these sayables as soul-dependent, which is unclear.

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ourselves the trouble and simply present how Proclus’ own, well-attested biology of the world is employed to reply to the Aristotelian objection? The question is all the more pressing, since the Stoics may have developed their own thoughts on the matter by being inspired by texts of Plato and Aristotle to which Proclus himself had direct access, such that we may not need to even invoke the Stoics to explain the relevant aspects of this theory.3 The reason for investigating Proclus’ sources is the following: Proclus’ natural philosophy is not just his finished theory of the natural world; it is also how he teaches his physics to his listeners and readers. The necessary starting point of this learning process was the views and questions about time available to Proclus when he taught. Thus, Proclus’ use of competing theories is as much a part of his philosophy of time as his own account of time. In the particular Stoic case, even if he did not have direct access to Stoic texts, “Stoicism” as a body of beliefs was still an important concept in organizing the conceptual space of his inquiries, and a Stoic position is often contrasted with an opposing philosophical view in order to present Platonism as the true “via media.”4 Thus it is for Proclus himself an important philosophical move to show that his Platonist physics incorporates what he sees as correct in Stoic cosmology, without thereby falling into what he sees as Stoic errors, such as determinism. We thus study Proclus’ sources because dealing with them is part of his philosophy and we aim at understanding his philosophy. I structure this chapter as follows. First, I recapitulate the Platonic commitments that pushed Proclus to admit that time is a motion and then also discuss the Aristotelian problem that a biology of the world itself can solve, namely, that time cannot be a motion, because a motion belongs to a single body, whereas time is present to each body in the world (3.1). Based on the Aristotelian criticisms, I outline what kind a motion time must be, if it is not to run afoul of them. Second, based on the outline of a solution, I present the relevant Stoic doctrines (3.2), their reception and modification by Plotinus (3.3), and finally their presence in Proclus’ own physics and their role there in responding to the Aristotelian problems (3.4). 3 See for instance Martijn (2010, pp. 55–56), who sees no need to attribute the opinion that nature is a “demiurgic craft” to a Stoic source, since Proclus may very well have been simply thinking of passages in the Sophist 265e3 and the Laws 891b–892c that also put forth the opinion. 4 See, for instance, In Parm. IV 921.5–922.1, where Plato’s theory of Forms allows one to attribute knowledge of particulars to the Gods, avoiding both the Stoic extreme of mixing God up with matter and the Aristotelian extreme of denying providence. And likewise, in In Remp. II 258.1ff the Platonic theory of the choice of lives steers between Stoicism that makes our free will vain and another theory that would ignore that we are parts of the cosmic organism.

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Plato and Aristotle on the Omnipresence of Time’s Passage

Proclus was committed to the view that there exists a process immanent to the world called time through the authority of three Platonic passages: the creation of time in the Timaeus, where it is described as an “ever changing image of eternity” and said to “circulate according to number,” the distinction between how to speak of eternal things and things in becoming at Tim. 37e4–38a8 (T1.3) where “was, is and will be” are called “forms of time” and “was” and “will be” are called “changes”; and the derivation of “was, is and will be” as predicates of Unity in the second hypothesis of the dialectical exercise of the Parmenides. Proclus interpreted these texts to claim that there was a change immanent to the world properly called “time,” and which was undoubtedly real because it was the product of eternal causes (the Engineer, the Paradigm, eternal Number of Time and Unity). Aristotle raised two objections to the view that “time is a change.” One is that since time is that whereby change is measured and judged to be quicker or slower, it itself cannot be a change. This is not the objection to which Stoic elements provided a reply, but rather one to which Proclus responded by means of Plotinian elements to be studied in Chapter 4. The Peripatetic objection that concerns us now refers to the location of change: Each change and motion is only in the changing thing itself, or where the changing and moving thing happens to be. Time is present however in the same way both everywhere and to all things.5 [Therefore, time cannot be a change.] T3.1 Aristotle Physics IV.10 218b10–13

Aristotle located changes in two ways: on the one hand, in the changing thing itself, and on the other hand in the place occupied by the changing thing. He claims that both localizations are incompatible with time, that is, time is equally present in all places, and not only in the region occupied by a single body, and it is also equally present to all things, and not only to a specific changing thing. Thus, it would not be enough to address Aristotle’s worry to say that time is a process that is happening in every place, like the internal changes of the world soul in the Timaeus, which is “woven together with the body from the center on out in every direction to the outermost limits of the universe”

5 ἡ μὲν οὖν ἑκάστου μεταβολὴ καὶ κίνησις ἐν αὐτῷ τῷ μεταβάλλοντι μόνον ἐστίν, ἢ οὗ ἂν τύχῃ ὂν αὐτὸ τὸ κινούμενον καὶ μεταβάλλον· ὁ δὲ χρόνος ὁμοίως καὶ πανταχοῦ καὶ παρὰ πᾶσιν.

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(Tim. 36e), such that its changes are present everywhere.6 Such an internal life might indeed be present at every place, but it would not be present in the same way to every being in the world. It would still belong in the first place to the world soul, which, since it somehow occupies the same space as all bodies, would live its life alongside them, without that vital process belonging to each bodily change in the way time is supposed to be present not only in every place, but to all things.7 Each body qua body should be in time, and this is not fulfilled by identifying time with a change that happens alongside each body.8 The force of Aristotle’s objection is better brought out by an observation of Ursula Coope (Coope 2005, p. 35) who comments that, “Even if it made sense to think of all changes as partaking in some one super-change, this super-change could not be time. For such a super-change would not be essentially all-encompassing, in the way in which (Aristotle thinks) time is.” By a “super-change” I take it that Coope is thinking of an aggregate change that is composed out of all the individual changes in the world. This would truly be a change in every place and present to each body (if one assumes that each body is changing in some respect at any time), but it still would not be necessarily as all-encompassing as time is. Whereas time is essentially present to each and every change, each change would not essentially be merely a part of the “super-change.” Thus, to answer Aristotle’s objection, what is required is not only that the change to be identified with the flow of time be an omnipresent process, but rather that it also be a process which is necessarily present to all other processes in the world – or, put differently, that each change as such be necessarily

6 This is why the biology of the world in the Timaeus is insufficient to answer the Aristotelian objection on its own. Plato had not yet clearly stated that all the individual living beings in the world are parts/organs of that living being and are thus all involved in a single process, the life of the world. The life of the world remained something separate from each terrestrial animal, a life as external to a terrestrial animal as the life of any other animal. 7 This is precisely not how Proclus interprets the soul’s extension throughout the world in the Timaeus. He discusses this not in his commentary to the passage just quoted (which he took to be about the relation of body to soul), but rather in his commentary to Tim. 34b3–4 at In Tim. II 105.30–106.30. Proclus took the soul’s extension from the center of the world to the outer limits of the heavens to signify a set of powers it has and through which it rules and connects each region of nature, that is, its center, the four total masses of the elements and each heaven of the heavens. They are the powers of the world soul that the beings in each region of the world are capable of receiving and thus indicate not a life of the world soul that happens alongside the life of its bodies, but a psychic life of the world in which all bodies participate as far as they can. 8 Or perhaps qua changeable body.

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accompanied by time. Each change has to occur necessarily along with the change of time. The Stoics will provide a central element in replying to this objection by articulating the notion of a single change that encompasses the whole world, a common “life of the world.”9 The Stoics went beyond the life of the world soul as described in the Timaeus by making each individual body (even perishable bodies) an organic part of the world, in addition to making the changes in bodies part of the cosmos’s life. They conceived thereby of a change that necessarily included every other change within it. This by itself would not answer Aristotle’s objection, because cosmic life as a necessary combination of all changes in the world is obviously not a uniform process, given the heterogeneity of terrestrial change.10 Failing to be uniform, it is not fit to be a measure for motions, which is a canonical description of time. Nonetheless, it allowed Plotinus and, later, Proclus to identify the flow of time with a change, namely the inner life of the world soul, which necessarily accompanies all the “external” changes that happen in its body, the world.11 That Proclus took Aristotle’s objection regarding time’s omnipresence seriously is apparent in his own use of it to attack the Peripatetics themselves: The Peripatetics, on the other hand, say that time is an accident of change. But what sort of change? Maybe of continuous change? But time is everywhere, while change is in the things that are changing. Or rather is it of all [kinds of change]? Well, then the times will be many. And what will be the monad [of the kinds of change]?12 T3.2 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 95.14–17, trans. Baltzly, modified

9 It should be observed that for the Stoics the world is not identical with nature, as these terms were defined in the introduction, in as much as the totality of all physical phenomena, nature (for the Stoics, coextensive with being, τὸ ὄν), includes an infinite amount of worlds, which, however, do not exist simultaneously, but in succession. See below. 10 Also, given the re-introduction of the distinction between nature and the world within Stoicism, the life of the world could not be (and indeed was not) identified with time as a feature of nature. 11 I discuss Proclus and Plotinus’ understanding of this inner life and its identity with time in detail in Chapter 4. 12 οἳ δὲ συμβεβηκὸς τῆς κινήσεως λέγοντες. ποίας κινήσεως; πότερον τῆς συνεχοῦς; ἀλλὰ πανταχοῦ ὁ χρόνος, ἡ δὲ κίνησις ἐν τοῖς κινουμένοις. ἀλλὰ πάσης; πολλοὶ οὖν οἱ χρόνοι. καὶ τίς αὐτῶν ἡ μονάς.

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Indeed, if time is an accident of motion without any further qualification, it is unclear how Aristotle could reply to this objection. He usually appeals to an analogy between time and numbers to solve this problem. For instance: For a time both equal and simultaneous is both one and the same, and ones that are not simultaneous are still the same in kind. For if there were dogs, and horses, and seven of each, it would be the same number …13 T3.3 Aristotle Physics IV.14 223b3–7, trans. Hardie-Gaye, modified

Yet Proclus sees a problem anyway, perhaps because of a point Aristotle goes on to make later, speaking again about groups of animals of the same number that: the number of two groups [one of ten dogs, another of ten horses] also is the same number (for their number does not differ by a differentia of number), but it is not the same ten; for the things of which it is asserted differ; one group are dogs, and the other horses.14 T3.4 Aristotle Physics IV.14 224a12–15, trans. Hardie-Gaye, modified

One might read this last passage as admitting that although two groups of ten things have the same number, there are different kinds of “ten” at stake, that is, it means something different for a group of dogs to gather together into a group of ten than for a group of horses to gather together into a group of ten, as different species tend to congregate into groups of different sizes, and thus groups of identical size belonging to different species are organized differently. Carrying over to the case of time, this would mean that although there might be a common time, one day, in which two distinct events happen, it means something quite different for two distinct events for each of them to last a day. In other words, the duration of a fire throughout a whole day is distinct from the duration of a rock resting in a single place undisturbed throughout a whole day. Put still another way, “a long time” means one thing in “the fire burned for a long time” and another in “the rock sat there for a long time.”15 The case is even clearer in the case of distinct lifespans and the different rates at which living 13 ὁ αὐτὸς γὰρ χρόνος καὶ εἷς ὁ ἴσος καὶ ἅμα· εἴδει δὲ καὶ οἱ μὴ ἅμα· εἰ γὰρ εἶεν κύνες, οἱ δ’ ἵπποι, ἑκάτεροι δ’ ἑπτά, ὁ αὐτὸς ἀριθμός. 14 καὶ ἀριθμὸς δὴ ὁ αὐτός (οὐ γὰρ διαφέρει ἀριθμοῦ διαφορᾷ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτῶν), δεκὰς δ’ οὐχ ἡ αὐτή· ἐφ’ ὧν γὰρ λέγεται, διαφέρει· τὰ μὲν γὰρ κύνες, τὰ δ’ ἵπποι. 15 I am simplifying here, as to judge the meaning of “a long time” in such an expression we need to know more than just what event is described as taking a long time, in particular we need to know the context of the event. A fire that “burns a long time” in telling a

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beings age, a point Proclus himself makes at In Parm. VII 1221.13–24, where he distinguishes between sameness of timespan and sameness of age. A palm tree of thirty years is old, whereas a man of thirty years is young, and conversely an old man has lived longer than an old horse has. What is key here is that the different beings do not share a similar nature, and for this reason sameness of age and sameness of timespan are distinct things.16 But the objective flow of time that is the object of the soul’s counting is, as we saw in Chapter 2.2, supposed to be a kind of “cosmic age,” a natural measure of all changes in the world that coordinates the ageing of the bodies and souls in the natural world. If, then, we simply identify time with the common number shared by simultaneous events, as in Aristotle’s account, “time” no longer designates the common time that belongs to each and every thing, since the intrinsic measure of each changing thing as such is its age, and this depends upon its nature.17 It becomes clear from this that if there is going to be a common time for all of the world, there must be a common nature as well, the existence of which is a prominent feature in Stoic cosmology. Irrespective of the fairness of Proclus’ criticism, Aristotle’s cosmology also puts a stumbling block in the path of any unified conception of cosmic process through its explanation of celestial motion.18 As we saw, the explanation of the perpetual motion of celestial bodies through eternal Kinds of Intelligence day-long story is longer than a fire that burns “a long time” in a minute description of the events that take place within an hour. 16 The fact that in this context Proclus distinguishes time from age should not disturb us, for we have seen that his actual position is that time is the causally efficacious passage of time that brings about things at the right moment, and which in the case of living beings includes the process of ageing and the onset of changes at the right time in the development of the living being. Besides, he takes the argument in the Parmenides that he is commenting on – on the denial of older, younger and equality of age to the One – to be precisely on Unity’s lack of participation in Time itself, not just in ageing. Finally, there is a local reason why Proclus draws the distinction between age and time in the Parmenides, namely, he wants to explain the claim made by Parmenides at 140e that if the One is of the same age with itself, it will participate in equality and likeness. This is a moment where a rhetorical reading that respects the commentarial genre of Proclus’ text allows us to simplify his ontology, by identifying the referent of two distinct terms taken from different contexts. 17 Measure in the sense of what is counted, and not the prior, productive measure. 18 Although Alexander may have felt its bite. In his On Time, as Sharples observes (1982 p. 69), there is both a complete absence of the problem concerning why is there only a single time, together with what is a clear solution, an identification of the motion that numbers time with a specific motion, the motion of the fixed stars. This can easily appear to be giving up, in some way, on time’s omnipresence, although oddly Jammer (2006, p. 55) interprets it as, “Alexander gave meaning to Aristotle’s statement that ‘time is identical everywhere.’” Jammer’s idea is that Alexander established by convention a measure to

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is a central piece of Proclus’ theory of time. Thus, Time itself is the first Agent of change of the world as a whole, and the intelligized Forms of the measures of time, such as the Year itself and the Month itself are the unchanging Agents of motion for the individual celestial bodies, of the Sun and the Moon, in this case. Yet Aristotle’s student Theophrastus had already remarked on a conundrum here: For either the agent of change is one, and it is absurd that all celestial bodies do not have the same motion. Or each celestial body has a distinct agent of its own and the principles of motion are many, such that their harmony in proceeding to the best desire is nowhere to be seen.19 T3.5 Theophrastus Metaphysics 5a 17–21

Theophrastus is pointing to a difficulty in explaining harmonious change in the world, and terrestrial changes: if the changes that occur within the atmosphere follow upon those in the heavens, then the perpetuity of species and the regularity of the seasons depends upon a certain regularity and order amongst the celestial movers. Each of celestial bodies, however, if it is to have a distinct motion, must have a distinct Agent of change. But these Agents are in Aristotle’s analysis supposed to be simple and without matter, which means that they do not differ in virtue of differing matters nor in virtue of genus and differentiae, nor can they be considered parts of one whole.20 There appears, therefore to be, no principle in Aristotle’s metaphysics to explain why the many Agents should produce a unified, harmonious effect, instead of a set of motions whose net result below the moon is a barren earth. In Aristotle’s Metaphysics we do find a pair of analogies that suggest an explanation: (1) the world is likened to a household, where significantly freemen (i.e., the celestial bodies) are least at liberty to act at random (being subject eternally to the same periods), unlike slaves (humans and other terrestrial phenomena) (Metaph. XII.10 1075a15–25); (2) the first Agent of change is likened to a general and a ruler, and the beings in the world to an army. (Metaph. XII.10 1075a11–15; 1076a3–4). There is no indication, however, how these metaphors are to be cashed out.

apply throughout the whole world. I agree. But that still does not solve the problem of the externality of such a conception of time that Proclus’ remarks about age make apparent. 19 Εἴτε γὰρ ἓν τὸ κινοῦν, ἄτοπον τὸ μὴ πάντα τὴν αὐτήν· εἴτε καθ’ ἕκαστον ἕτερον αἵ τ’ ἀρχαὶ πλείους, ὥστε τὸ σύμφωνον αὐτῶν εἰς ὄρεξιν ἰόντων τὴν ἀρίστην οὐθαμῶς φανερόν. 20 On the impossibility of part-whole structures without matter/potentiality see Metaph. XIV.2 1088b14–28 and VII.13 1039a3–14. See also Alexander, On the Principles of the Universe §86–88 for these problems and §94–96 for the substance of his solution.

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Alexander of Aphrodisias faced the problem in his On the Principles of the Universe,21 where his ultimate solution appears to have been, on the one hand, to reduce the many agents of motion of the individual celestial bodies to the rank of immanent souls that move those celestial bodies and which desire the prime eternal Agent of change (which then becomes the sole separate intelligible entity and cosmic Agent of change for the world) and, on the other hand, to have postulated that the westward motion of the fixed stars was a motion common to the whole of the heavens, such that on the whole the planets and stars all shared a single motion, with the souls of the planets providing variations in these motions. Proclus’ postulation of the Order of Time as a primary immutable Agent of change of the world as a whole, over and above the individual Agents of change of the celestial bodies is meant as one step forward towards solving this problem.22 But the solution is only a nominal one, if Proclus does not also face the problem of how the independent motions of the heavens can be conceived of as necessarily integrating themselves into a single motion of the world. This is an obstacle Proclus will face in adapting the Stoic view of a common life of the world.23 The localization of change and the independence of celestial motions are problems for the synchronic unity of time, so to speak. They are obstacles for the claim that there is a single process called time, that occurs in each terrestrial and celestial body, a single universal process that takes place everywhere and in step. In discussing the synchronic unity of time, ancient authors touch upon an issue that was vital to the development of the contemporary theory of relativity, namely the essence of simultaneity. What does it mean for two events, particularly two events distant in space, and especially those that are so far apart they cannot be observed together, to happen “at the same time”? The question was one of great practical significance at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, as Galison (2003) has told the story, when Einstein and 21

22 23

This treatise of Alexander’s is extant in two arabic translations, edited and translated by Genequand (2000). I follow here his interpretation at pp. 12–13, but it should be observed that it “is not yet fully set out by Alexander anywhere, and that it has to be pieced together from scattered declarations.” Much like the interpretation of Proclus proposed here in fact, Genequand gives it the title “On the Cosmos,” but in the first line of the text it is referred to as “Alexander of Aphrodisias’ treatise on the theory concerning the Principles of the Universe according to the philosopher Aristotle’s opinon.” See T2.21 above, where Proclus faults Aristotle for making the first eternal Agent of change the Agent of a specific part of nature, the sphere of the fixed stars. The Stoics themselves faced no such problem, as they held the celestial bodies to be generated and to be perishable, products of the same cycle of transformation of the elements that terrestrial bodies are involved in. See below Chapter 3.2.

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Poincaré elaborated the foundation of relativistic physics, as the synchronization of clocks was a necessity in cartography and for the expanding railway systems. Amidst the concern to render man-made timepieces simultaneous and rejecting any non-observable entities in their definitions, both scientists ended up defining simultaneity by a procedure that was, in turn, used to verify it, namely the transmission of signals from the locations of two events to each other. Given the additional premise that light does not travel instantaneously, they drew the conclusion that simultaneity was relative to the observer. This raised (and still raises) general questions about what time is. Is it often thought that prior to Einstein and Poincaré, the reality and conditions of simultaneity had not been investigated, a claim now known to be false.24 Indeed, in this chapter we will see (at T3.14) Proclus give an answer to the question “in virtue of what is there a single time in all of the world?”25 And like Einstein and Poincaré, there is a practical background to this, namely the observation of “sympathetic phenomena.” Whereas the two scientists were involved in the practicalities of synchronizing human made clocks, Proclus was amazed at the natural synchronization of natural phenomena, such as that the lotus should open and close its leaves in accordance with the apparent motion of the Sun. (We would, of course, explain this by the existence of “biological clocks” within living beings, which have been optimized by evolutionary pressures.)26 Proclus was amazed that although each being in the world had what he called its own time or “number,” its own nature that determined the unfolding of its ages, nonetheless, these different plans were coordinated.27 The Stoics were the first to focus on these phenomena and employed them as evidence for the organic unity of the world. Such synchronicities (and, thus, the question of what simultaneity is) were of practical importance for Proclus for two reasons. First, they indicated connections between terrestrial, perishable entities and divine celestial bodies, thus pointing to the uses that different stones, plants and animals could have in attracting different kinds of divine influence.28 Second, the sympathy between the heavens and the Earth was the backbone of Proclus’ astrology, because, given the world’s organic

24 See Jammer (2006), especially chapter 3 on medieval discussions, which bear many points of contact with my own arguments in this chapter. 25 Admittedly, this can be interpreted in many ways, only one of which is that there is a single moment of time in the whole world. See the discussion below of T3.14 for a defense of this reading. 26 See Dunlap, Loros and De Coursey (2009) for an introduction to the field. 27 See T2.9 above for Proclus’ expression of wonder (θαῦμα) at these phenomena. 28 This is part of Proclus’ theory of divine signatures exploited in ritual practice.

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unity, what happened in the heavens was an indicator of events below.29 Indeed, what has been called “the earliest recorded example of an operational definition of distant simultaneity” (Jammer, 2006, p. 49), is none other than a procedure reported by St. Augustine in order to establish the identity of two horoscopes by assuring the simultaneity of two births (one of a slave, another of a freeman). St. Augustine uses this as an argument against astrology (for how could two children destined to have such different fortunes share the same horoscope?) and in so doing he shows that implicit claims of establishing simultaneity were involved in astrological practice and makes clear how a philosopher who was committed to an astrological technique (as Proclus most definitely was, giving even guidelines for the guardians of the Republic at In Remp. II 56.15–64.4) would be interested in investigating the grounds of distant simultaneity.30 Aristotle also put his finger on a problem pertaining to what we might call the “diachronic” unity of time – that is, not that there is a single process in the whole world, but that past, present and future processes are all encompassed within a single process called time. The problem Aristotle saw was the inner connection of events in time, which he most clearly pointed out in his Posterior Analytics II.12.31 In this text, apparently far from our concerns, Aristotle asked himself about the temporal valence of syllogisms. That is, he ponders whether a syllogism is valid not only when formulated in the present, but also in the past and the future? And there he claims that it is impossible to infer that something will happen because something has happened, on the grounds that between any two events there is always an intervening time, where one has ended and the next has yet to begin. Thus, during the intervening time the first event (e1) has happened and the second event (e2) has not yet happened, so it is false to say that if A has happened, then B will follow. The basis for inferring an interval between the two events is the continuity of time and instantaneous completion of events. Since an event is complete, i.e., “has happened” at a given instant, two events separated in time occur at distinct instants, and since time is continuous, between any two instants 29 At In Remp. ΙΙ 250.30ff Proclus concludes that celestial bodies do not only indicate but also causally influence terrestrial events. Interestingly, in this passage he interprets Aristotle’s dictum that bodies of lower standing follow higher ones along a biological analogy of the central and peripheral organs in an animal. 30 These claims were not only implicit, but became explicit in the astrological practice of rectification, where astral charts, especially birth charts, are corrected on the basis of the characters of the events they describe. Campion (1994, pp. 168–169) links this practice to a Platonist theory of time. 31 See also GC II.11, Phys. II.8–9, PA I.1, Phys. VI.5.

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there must be an intermediary period.32 We can find two proposed solutions in Aristotle, which is to locate the principle of connection between past and future events either in the now or in the celestial bodies. Thus, Aristotle may be giving one answer when he claims at Physics IV.13 222a10–12 that “the now is the connection of time (συνέχεια χρόνου),” i.e., a past event can cause a future event, because the completion of the past event ignites the future event.33 This would, however, be a very poor solution on its own, as it would deprive time of any greater unity than that of one event following another. There would be no greater arcs in the sequence of events, such as those of promises, commands, curses, blessings, prophecies and their fulfillments or typological patterns of repetition. The river of becoming would lack any narrative coherence. For this reason, it is important to observe Aristotle’s other solution, which is that a connecting element between past and future events exists, such that a past event can be said to cause a future event, when both events are part of a natural cycle, where each is required for the other to come about (As in GC II.11).34 Since natural cycles are dependent upon uniform celestial motions in Aristotle, this means that the causes of time’s diachronic unity for him are the celestial bodies and ultimately the eternal Agents of their motions. Over and above the problems of time’s “synchronic” and “diachronic” unity, let us raise a puzzle in Proclus’ enthusiastic adoption of Aristotle’s views. The puzzle concerns how Proclus can identify the eternal Agents of change with productive measures, as when he identifies the Agent of the Moon’s motion with the Month itself, for instance. The notion of productive measure comes from Aristotle’s biology, in which each living being has its appropriate “number,” the duration of life and each of its stages pre-established in its nature, and which its nature “aims at.” Each eternal Agent of change, however, is conceived of as a Kind of Intelligence, a self-subsisting metaphysics. How can a Kind of Intelligence be identified with a normative measure? By what right does Proclus apply to the whole world and to celestial bodies a concept that originally belongs to the explanation of particular and perishable beings? How did he come to this idea? 32 33 34

Aristotle’s terminology is confusing since he terms continuity συνέχεια, and the connection between antecedent and consequent is τὸ συνέχον. Observe, however that there are problems here, because Aristotle denies that there is a first instant when a change starts. Therefore, I have avoided saying that the end of a past event is the beginning of a future one, but that it “ignites” the future one. It should be observed that Aristotle does allow for causal connections between consecutive events in Post. An. II 12, but they must be the same tense, i.e., either both in the past, both in the present or both in the future. On these kinds of causal connections see Leunissen (2010, pp. 42–45).

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The Stoic Biology of the Universe and the Unity of Change

The questions that Aristotle poses for a theory of time as a change are in summary: (1) How can time be a change, if a change belongs to one body, but time belongs to all bodies? And how can a change belong necessarily to each and every body? (2) How could, indeed, the motions observed in the heavens, each a product of a self-sufficient Kind of Intelligence, have any unity greater than that of an aggregate? (3) How can past and future processes be encompassed by a single process, time, if there can be no necessary connection between them? (4) And how can one think of separately existing Kinds of Intelligence as productive measures of change, akin to the natures of perishable living beings? Proclus’ answer ultimately derives from the Stoics, who theorized that the world was the product of Intelligence itself, not as an Engineer that exists separately from his products, but as an immanent cause that acted in the manner analogous to the power in a seed producing a living being. Stoic Intelligence is thus not only in the world, but its activity of engineering takes place in time. Intelligence produced the whole world, the heavens including the Earth and its atmosphere, as a single organism with a single life, and all individual bodies came into being as parts of this organism and their activities were moments in the universal plan of Intelligence. With this we have (1) a single process, the life of the world, of which all changes are parts and to which they necessarily belong (2) a single process that unites both celestial motions and terrestrial events (3) a process that unites past and future in a single plan (4) a theory that applies to the whole natural world the notion of a normative live span and sees this as the work of Intelligence. Let me introduce this intricate cosmology through an argument reported by Sextus Empiricus for the existence of Gods, which is at the same time an argument for the organic unity of the world: [1] Some bodies are unified, some are from things fastened together, and some are from things standing apart. Unified bodies are those that are governed by a single hexis, like plants and animals; bodies from things fastened together are those that consist of things that lie next to each other and also incline towards a single completion, such as chains and cabinets and ships; and bodies from things standings apart are those that are composed from distinct and separate things existing by themselves, such as armies and flocks and choruses.35 35 τῶν τε σωμάτων τὰ μέν ἐστιν ἡνωμένα, τὰ δὲ ἐκ συναπτομένων, τὰ δὲ ἐκ διεστώτων. ἡνωμένα μὲν οὖν ἐστι τὰ ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἕξεως κρατούμενα καθάπερ φυτὰ καὶ ζῷα, ἐκ συναπτομένων δὲ τὰ ἔκ τε παρακειμένων καὶ πρὸς ἕν τι κεφάλαιον νευόντων συνεστῶτα ὡς ἁλύσεις καὶ πυργίσκοι καὶ νῆες,

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[2] Since, then, the world too is a body, it is either a unified body or from things fastened together, or from things standing apart. But it is not from things fastened together or from things standing apart, as we show from the sympathies present in it. For it is in line with the moon’s periods of growth and decline that many land and sea animals decline and grow and falling and rising tides occur in certain parts of the sea. Similarly, it is in line with certain risings and settings of the stars that changes (μεταβολαί) in the atmosphere and the great variety of shifts of the air take place, sometimes for the better, sometimes to pestilential effect. From which it is clear that the world is a unified body.36 For in the case of those from things fastened together or things standing apart, the parts do not have sympathy with one another – in an army, for example when everyone has been wiped out, the survivor does not appear to suffer anything by way of an influence; but in the case of unified bodies there is an affinity – if a finger is cut, the whole body is affected along with it. The world too, then is a unified body.37 [3] But since some unified bodies are held together by a simple hexis (ψιλὴ ἕξις), some by a nature and some by a soul – by simple hexis, like stones and bits of wood, by nature, like plants, and by soul, animals – the world too is certainly governed by one of these. And it cannot be held together by simple hexis. For things that are governed by a simple hexis, such as bits of wood and stones, do not admit of any significant change (μεταβολαί) or shift, but are merely affected from themselves by the conditions associated with relaxation and compression. But the world does admit of significant changes (μεταβολαί); the atmosphere sometimes becomes chilly and sometimes warm, sometimes arid and sometimes moist, and sometimes altered in other ways in

ἐκ διεστώτων δὲ τὰ ἐκ διεζευγμένων καὶ κεχωρισμένων καὶ καθ’ αὑτὰ ὑποκειμένων συγκείμενα ὡς στρατιαὶ καὶ ποῖμναι καὶ χοροί. 36 ἐπεὶ οὖν καὶ ὁ κόσμος σῶμά ἐστιν, ἤτοι ἡνωμένον ἐστὶ σῶμα ἢ ἐκ συναπτομένων ἢ ἐκ διεστώτων. οὔτε δὲ ἐκ συναπτομένων οὔτε ἐκ διεστώτων, ὡς δείκνυμεν ἐκ τῶν περὶ αὐτὸν συμπαθειῶν. κατὰ γὰρ τὰς τῆς σελήνης αὐξήσεις καὶ φθίσεις πολλὰ τῶν τε ἐπιγείων ζῴων καὶ θαλασσίων φθίνει τε καὶ αὔξεται, ἀμπώτεις τε καὶ πλημμυρίδες περί τινα μέρη τῆς θαλάσσης γίνονται. ὡσαύτως δὲ καὶ κατά τινας τῶν ἀστέρων ἐπιτολὰς καὶ δύσεις μεταβολαὶ τοῦ περιέχοντος καὶ παμποίκιλοι περὶ τὸν ἀέρα τροπαὶ συμβαίνουσιν, ὁτὲ μὲν ἐπὶ τὸ κρεῖττον, ὁτὲ δὲ λοιμικῶς. ἐξ ὧν συμφανές, ὅτι ἡνωμένον τι σῶμα καθέστηκεν ὁ κόσμος. 37 ἐπὶ μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἐκ συναπτομένων ἢ διεστώτων οὐ συμπάσχει τὰ μέρη ἀλλήλοις, εἴγε ἐν στρατιᾷ πάντων, εἰ τύχοι, διαφθαρέντων τῶν στρατιωτῶν οὐδὲν κατὰ διάδοσιν πάσχειν φαίνεται ὁ περισωθείς· ἐπὶ δὲ τῶν ἡνωμένων συμπάθειά τις ἔστιν, εἴγε δακτύλου τεμνομένου τὸ ὅλον συνδιατίθεται σῶμα. ἡνωμένον τοίνυν ἐστὶ σῶμα καὶ ὁ κόσμος.

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line with the motion of the celestial bodies. The world, then, is not held together by a simple hexis.38 [4] But if not by this, then certainly by a nature. For even things governed by soul were connected by nature long before. Therefore, it is necessarily connected by the best nature, since it encompasses the natures of everything. But what encompasses the natures of everything also encompasses rational natures. But what encompasses rational natures is certainly rational; for it is not possible for the whole to be inferior to the part. But if what manages the world is the best nature, it is intelligent and excellent and immortal. And if it turns out to be like that, it is a God. Therefore, there are Gods.39 T3.6 Sextus Empiricus Against the Physicists IX.78–85, trans. Richard Bett, modified

I have quoted this long argument in full, and not concentrated solely on the section devoted to the world’s organic unity, because its other sections are good opportunities for introducing important details of Stoic natural philosophy. One can order the argument in the following way. In [1] we are given definitions of different kinds of unity, that of an aggregate, of a composite, and of a natural being “united by a hexis” (which is similar, but not identical to what Aristotle calls a “nature,” on which see below). In [2] the definitions are brought to bear on the natural world, and the presence of “sympathetic ties,” especially between the heavens and terrestrial bodies, is the key argument for its having the unity provided by a hexis. In [3] different kinds of nature are introduced, simple hexis, nature and soul, and the presence of “significant changes” in the world is used to argue that its unity must be at least the unity guaranteed by a nature. In [4] finally, the all-encompassing character 38 ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ τῶν ἡνωμένων σωμάτων τὰ μὲν ὑπὸ ψιλῆς ἕξεως συνέχεται, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ φύσεως, τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ ψυχῆς, καὶ ἕξεως μὲν ὡς λίθοι καὶ ξύλα, φύσεως δὲ καθάπερ τὰ φυτά, ψυχῆς δὲ τὰ ζῷα, πάντως δὴ καὶ ὁ κόσμος ὑπό τινος τούτων διακρατεῖται. καὶ ὑπὸ μὲν ψιλῆς ἕξεως οὐκ ἂν συνέχοιτο. τὰ γὰρ ὑπὸ ἕξεως κρατούμενα οὐδεμίαν ἀξιόλογον μεταβολήν τε καὶ τροπὴν ἀναδέχεται, καθάπερ ξύλα καὶ λίθοι, ἀλλὰ μόνον ἐξ αὑτῶν πάσχει τὴν κατὰ ἄνεσιν καὶ τὴν κατὰ συμπιεσμὸν διάθεσιν. ὁ δὲ κόσμος ἀξιολόγους ἀναδέχεται μεταβολάς, ὁτὲ μὲν κρυμαλέου τοῦ περιέχοντος γινομένου, ὁτὲ δὲ ἀλεεινοῦ, καὶ ὁτὲ μὲν αὐχμώδους, ὁτὲ δὲ νοτεροῦ, ὁτὲ δὲ ἄλλως πως κατὰ τὰς τῶν οὐρανίων κινήσεις ἑτεροιουμένου. οὐ τοίνυν ὑπὸ ψιλῆς ἕξεως ὁ κόσμος συνέχεται. 39 εἰ δὲ μὴ ὑπὸ ταύτης, πάντως ὑπὸ φύσεως· καὶ γὰρ τὰ ὑπὸ ψυχῆς διακρατούμενα πολὺ πρότερον ὑπὸ φύσεως συνείχετο. ἀνάγκη ἄρα ὑπὸ τῆς ἀρίστης αὐτὸν φύσεως συνέχεσθαι, ἐπεὶ καὶ περιέχει τὰς πάντων φύσεις. ἡ δέ γε τὰς πάντων περιέχουσα φύσεις καὶ τὰς λογικὰς περιέσχηκεν. “ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ τὰς λογικὰς περιέχουσα φύσεις πάντως ἐστὶ λογική· οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε τὸ ὅλον τοῦ μέρους χεῖρον εἶναι.” ἀλλ’ εἰ ἀρίστη ἐστὶ φύσις ἡ τὸν κόσμον διοικοῦσα, νοερά τε ἔσται καὶ σπουδαία καὶ ἀθάνατος. τοιαύτη δὲ τυγχάνουσα θεός ἐστιν. εἰσὶν ἄρα θεοί.

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of the single cosmic nature, together with the presence of rational natures, i.e., the natures of humans and celestial bodies, as parts encompassed by this single nature, is used to argue that the single nature of the world must itself be rational and all-powerful and, thus, divine. I will now attend to the puzzling moments in each of these steps. How do the Stoics understand hexis? It is, as the text tells us something that “connects” (συνέχεται) a body, which are said to be governed by a single hexis (ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἕξεως κρατούμενα). The stress here is not so much therefore on the principle of change and rest within the body, but rather on the principle of its unity. The bodies united by such a hexis have in common that their division into many bodies would involve creating a division that was not previously there. Hence, whereas two planks nailed together could be taken apart without breaking either the planks or the nails that join them (since even when the double plank is nailed together, the planks and nails are all of them already distinguished) violence is required to break apart a stone or to carve an animal into its organs, since the organs are connected to the rest of the body. For each such body that is naturally a single body, there is a cause of unity, its hexis. As a cause, a hexis for the Stoics is also itself a body, since they held that only bodies can be causes.40 They held that to be a cause is to act upon some body and be the cause of its having some predicate, such as to be the cause for a bread that it is cut, to be the cause for a stone that it is moving through the air, or to be the cause of a stone that it is warm.41 Since to be a cause meant to act upon a body, the cause itself had to be a body, for something cannot act upon a body for the Stoics without being in contact with it, and thus being a body itself. But this contact need not result in a change, such as a fire heating the air in a room, or a knife cutting bread into two. A body can also be the cause for another body of a qualitative state, such as its continued being warm, or its floating in a pool. It can in particular be the cause to another body of its unity or connectedness (συνέχεια), in which case it is a connective cause (αἴτιον συνεκτικόν). Galen gives the example of “cartilages, ligaments and tendons” in the case of living bodies and “clay, gypsum and lime” in the case of inanimate ones, as bodies that hold other bodies together, but none of these is properly a hexis, which is the cause to a unified and not a composite body of its being held together (tendons connect a corpse as much as a living being).42 More concretely, the body that the hexis or connective cause of a unified body is a certain breath (πνεῦμα), present throughout the body and which is thus an 40 For more on the Stoic theory of causes see Bobzien (1997), followed here. 41 For a clear statement of this, see the report of Clement in LS 55 C, D. 42 LS 55 F, Galen, On sustaining causes I.1–2.4.

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internal cause of its unity.43 What this “breath” is will become clearer when discussing the nature of the world as a whole. The Stoic hexis, thus, plays some of the roles that the natures play in Proclus’ Platonism (where they are immanent participated forms) and in Aristotle’s hylomorphic analysis (where they are immanent inseparable forms). In all three cases this is the element responsible for the character and unity of a body. Nevertheless, the Neoplatonic participated form exists due to a relation to the unparticipated Form, a substance that exists separately from all bodies, and the Aristotelian form exists in bodies, but is not itself a body. The Stoic hexis, in contrast, is a body that through its characteristic motion within the body gives it its unity and structure. Whatever the constitution of a hexis, its tell-tale sign according to the argument in T3.6 is the presence of “sympathies,”44 that is, concomitant affections in spatially separate bodies: thus in a living organism, if one organ is damaged or affected, other organs in different parts of the body can be affected, without intervening ones also suffering: thus a headache can accompany a stomach ache, without any pain or discomfort being noticed in the chest or neck.45 Sympathies exist between spatially separate bodies that change simultaneously on account of some causal connection between the two. We can see how the question of distant simultaneity is thematized by such phenomena, especially when they hold between celestial and terrestrial bodies. Sextus’ source curiously enough thinks that something more than natural sympathy is required to establish that the world is a living organism like a plant or an animal, and not a mere natural unity like a stone, namely the presence of “significant changes.” This is odd, since in practically all the texts that deal with sympathy, it is directly connected to the unity of an animate body. Reinhardt (1926) suggests for this reason that we are dealing with two distinct arguments, each of which is for the organic unity of the cosmos, and that Sextus or his source have inelegantly pieced them together. Even if originally there were two arguments, the passage retains its value as an occasion to explain Stoic 43 “Breath” becomes the pervasive ordering principle and body in the world for the Stoics after Chrysippus (Long and Sedley, 1987, p. 287), and it is this form of Stoic Theory that Proclus was acquainted with. (See, for instance, PT IV 55.5–8.) 44 The prominent role of sympathies in Stoic philosophy was earlier often said to be a contribution of Posidonius, especially with reference to Reinhardt (1926), but as Brouwer (2015, p. 20) observes “in Edelstein and Kid’s collection of what has remained of [Posidonius’] wide ranging scholarship there is little to suggest that sympathy is a typically ‘Posidonian’ topic.” Reinhardt’s own analysis of the Sextus Passage and his attribution of the argument to Posidonius is interesting, but not compelling. Whatever role individual Stoics did play, however, has little relevance for how Proclus received the doctrine, mediated as it was by generations of Platonist absorption and report. 45 I owe the example to Emilsson (2015).

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physics. In either case, it is perhaps surprising to find the atmospheric changes stand in for changes of the world itself. The “significant changes” named by Sextus are changes in the atmosphere, i.e., its becoming hot, cold, dry and moist. Why should these changes be distinctively animate changes that a lifeless rock or piece of wood could not undergo? In this connection, there are two things to be observed. The first is that the changes in the atmosphere, for instance, day and night, summer and winter, effect changes in everything else within the atmosphere. Most obviously, the visibility and colors of bodies change radically with the sequence of day and night. But the change of heat and cold also produces the cycles of the elements, the cycle of water and the progressive erosion of earth, for instance. Furthermore, living beings behave differently during the day and the night and during winter and summer. Indeed, if we bracket the knowledge gained from astronomy of the stability of celestial bodies and the regularity of their motions, the atmospheric changes can indeed be considered changes that the whole world undergoes. Second, not only is the cosmic significance of atmospheric change phenomenologically plausible, it is also in a sense literally true in Stoic physics, according to which celestial bodies subsist on exhalations rising through the atmosphere from the Earth and its bodies of water. Thus Diogenes Laertius reports as Stoic beliefs that the Sun is nourished by the ocean, the Moon by river waters and all other celestial bodies by the earth.46 The celestial bodies are thus sustained in their luminous existence because they are essentially fires that are fueled by exhalations that rise from the ground and the water on account of the heat of the Sun. The Stoics did not share the Platonic and especially Aristotelian notion that the heavens are a distinct region (in principle) of the cosmos cut off from the processes of generation and destruction that we observe on earth. For this reason, they also regarded the whole world as having been generated and destined to be destroyed since “anything whose parts are perishable is perishable as a whole; but the parts of the world are perishable, since they change into one another; therefore, the world is perishable.”47 The belief that the parts of the world change into one another derives from the view of the nourishment of the stars (and especially the sun) by the elements. This 46 DL VII 145.14–18: τρέφεσθαι δὲ τὰ ἔμπυρα ταῦτα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ἄστρα, τὸν μὲν ἥλιον ἐκ τῆς μεγάλης θαλάττης νοερὸν ὄντα ἄναμμα· τὴν δὲ σελήνην ἐκ ποτίμων ὑδάτων, ἀερομιγῆ τυγχάνουσαν καὶ πρόσγειον οὖσαν, ὡς ὁ Ποσειδώνιος ἐν τῷ ἕκτῳ τοῦ Φυσικοῦ λόγου· τὰ δ’ ἄλλα ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς. 47 DL VII 141.19–22: ἀρέσκει δ’ αὐτοῖς καὶ φθαρτὸν εἶναι τὸν κόσμον, ἅτε γενητὸν τῷ λόγῳ τῶν δι’ αἰσθήσεως νοουμένων, οὗ τε τὰ μέρη φθαρτά ἐστι, καὶ τὸ ὅλον· τὰ δὲ μέρη τοῦ κόσμου φθαρτά· εἰς ἄλληλα γὰρ μεταβάλλει· φθαρτὸς ἄρα ὁ κόσμος.

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nourishment will eventually run out and then the entire world will be consumed in the celestial fire, and this is precisely the conflagration that the Stoics held would happen at the end of the world’s lifecycle.48 The “significant changes” that are evident from the world’s being a living organism are, thus, the changes that come with the exhalations from the earth and water becoming (the matter of) the celestial bodies. (This is presumably analogous to the changes of living beings as they go through different stages of their lives, from the seed to the full-grown organism.) The underlying thought then is that since the cosmos remains identical throughout such changes, it must have the robust unity of a living being. Once the Stoic argument has established that the world is a living being and that it is held together by a soul of some kind, it goes on to point out that this nature, insofar as it belongs to the world, is all encompassing and includes, thus, “the natures of everything.” What kind of inclusion is this? Diogenes Laertius (DL VII 143) reports the Stoic belief that the human soul is a fragment (ἀπόσπασμα) of the world soul, and Epictetus refers to our rational power as a portion or fragment of God (σπάσμα θεοῦ). Both of these expressions suggest, on the one hand, a belonging to the whole and, on the other hand, a kind of real separation. Be that as it may, the organic unity of the world thus gives rise to a double perspective within Stoic physics, a local perspective that considers each body as unified by its own hexis, and thus as an individual substance amongst others, and a global perspective that considers the entire world as a single organism with a single soul, with each body seen as both a part and an organ of the cosmos. The cosmos is thus not an aggregate or something accidentally bound together, but a thing united by an internal cause, i.e., its allpervasive soul.49 The cosmic soul is itself a body, in accordance with the Stoic theory that only bodies are causes, and it contains the individual souls and hexeis of bodies as both parts and portions of its substance. This cosmic hexis is, thus, an all-pervasive body, which is more specifically a soul, since it unites the cosmos as a living organism, which is to be understood as more a rational

48

The view of the cosmos as entirely engaged in a process of chemical transformation is a debt to Heraclitus (on which, see Menn, unpublished a). I will discuss below Proclus’ own “metaphysical” brand of Heracliteanism in Chapter 4.3.1. 49 Against the background of the world’s being a whole in this strong sense the crucial premise of the argument that “it is not possible for the whole to be worse than the part” becomes more plausible. Hence, if the world indeed is a living being and the bodies in it are organs of that living being, it should be true that the whole has the powers and faculties of the parts. Thus, the existence of rational animals, not only human beings but especially the celestial bodies, shows that the world itself is rational.

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soul or an intelligence, since the cosmos includes rational beings. This is then identified by the Stoics as God: God, intelligence (νοῦς), fate, and Zeus are all one, and many other names are applied to him. In the beginning all by himself he turned the entire substance50 through air into water. Just as seed is enveloped by seminal fluid, so God, who is the seminal rational structure (λόγος) of the world, stays behind as such in the moisture, making matter serviceable to himself for the successive stages of generation. He then generates first of all the four elements, fire, water, air and earth.51 T3.7 Diogenes Laertius VII 135.3–136.10, SVF 1.102 part, LS 46B, trans. Long and Sedley, modified

Until now, I have been focusing on the organic unity of the cosmos by presenting its synchronic unity, that is, explaining how all the bodies in the world make up a single organism and thus can be said to share a single life. This is part of the answer to the Aristotelian challenge to find an all-encompassing change, if time is to be a change. When Diogenes Laertius compares God to a seed and speaks of “the successive stages of generation,” he brings to light the diachronic unity of the world in Stoic philosophy, that is, the unity not only of operations of the many bodies distributed throughout the world, but also the unity of the world’s life through time. This was also implicitly already present in T3.6, through the concept of hexis and the connection it was held responsible for. But let me now turn to Diogenes’ report in more detail. Consider the last claim, that Zeus is the cause of the four elements. This follows from Zeus’ status as the cosmic soul: each of the four elements has its own nature, but such particular natures are only portions of Zeus, who pervades all things and gives each thing its unity. Zeus, thus, is not an elemental body, but what Stoics calls the “active principle,” something that complements the “passive principle,” and which the Stoics call matter or substance. Unlike the elements, Zeus and substance do not perish nor are they generated. The distinction between the principles and the elements, or between principles and other bodies more generally, is that whereas all individual bodies can act and be 50 οὐσία is often a Stoic term for matter, specifically. 51 Ἕν τ’εἶναι θεὸν καὶ νοῦν καὶ εἱμαρμένην καὶ Δία· πολλαῖς τ’ ἑτέραις ὀνομασίαις προσονομάζεσθαι. κατ’ ἀρχὰς μὲν οὖν καθ’αὑτὸν ὄντα τρέπειν τὴν πᾶσαν οὐσίαν δι’ ἀέρος εἰς ὕδωρ· καὶ ὥσπερ ἐν τῇ γονῇ τὸ σπέρμα περιέχεται, οὕτω καὶ τοῦτον σπερματικὸν λόγον ὄντα τοῦ κόσμου, τοιόνδε ὑπολείπεσθαι ἐν τῷ ὑγρῷ, εὐεργὸν αὑτῷ ποιοῦντα τὴν ὕλην πρὸς τὴν τῶν ἑξῆς γένεσιν· εἶτ’ ἀπογεννᾶν πρῶτον τὰ τέσσαρα στοιχεῖα, πῦρ, ὕδωρ, ἀέρα, γῆν.

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acted upon, the active principle is a body that only acts and is never acted upon, whereas the passive principle is a body that is only acted upon, but does not act.52 All bodies are constituted by Zeus’ acting upon matter and giving it form and unity, which it itself lacks (naturally, as all unity is due to nature, and all nature is included in the active principle). The most important consequence for our purposes is that matter is not conceived by the Stoics as something resistant to the imposition of form, unlike the receptacle in Plato’s Timaeus, with the result that the Stoics hold that the entire world, down to its smallest details, is determined by Intelligence. They, thus, espouse a “universal teleological determinism” (Bobzien 1998, pp. 31–33). Now, Intelligence is called by Diogenes the “seminal rational structure of the world,” which implies a comparison of the development of the world to the development of a living being out of a seed. “Seminal rational structure” (σπερματικὸς λόγος) is a Stoic technical term, with Aristotelian roots and it means a certain blueprint contained in a seed that anticipated not only its mature form but also the stages of its development.53 It is equivalent to the nature or vitality of the living being and is thus both a cause and a body. This supposition follows from previously seen Stoic claims: that the world is indeed a living organism, and that it comes to be and ceases to be, since its parts come to be and cease to be. If it is a living organism, and it once came to be, it came to be as a living organism comes to be, developing from a seed. On this note, Cleanthes (quoted by Stobaeus) in his cosmogony remarks that “just as all the parts of some one thing grow from seeds at the appropriate times, so do the parts of the whole, to which also the animals and plants happen to belong, grow at the appropriate times”54 and Aristocles speaks of “certain fated times”55 when the world is regularly conflagrated. The Stoic notion of the seminal rational structure of the world expands to the entire cosmos of the notion already seen in Aristotle of the pre-determined numbers according to which individual natures measure the lifespans of each living being. From this we can gather a historical answer to one of our initial questions: how did the notion of the normative measure of a lifespan come to be applied to the whole world, and how did the intelligence of the world, its participation 52

Or perhaps the active principle alone acts upon himself. Zeus is said to be self-changing, and change is often an exemplary case of being acted on. See LS 44 C. 53 See Hahm (1977, pp. 69–76). 54 apud Stobaeus Ecl I 17.3 p. 153.7 3.19–26, SVF I.497 part: ὥσπερ γὰρ ἑνός τινος τὰ μέρη πάντα φύεται ἐκ σπερμάτων ἐν τοῖς καθήκουσι χρόνοις, οὕτω καὶ τοῦ ὅλου τὰ μέρη, ὧν καὶ τὰ ζῷα καὶ τὰ φυτὰ ὄντα τυγχάνει, ἐν τοῖς καθήκουσι χρόνοις φύεται. 55 apud Eusebius, Evangelical preparation XV 14.2, SVF 1.98 part, LS 46G: τινας εἱμαρμένους χρόνους.

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in intelligence, come to be identified with this measure? The answer is Stoic cosmic biology. Since the world was seen as both living and generated, it was natural to postulate a measure of the cosmic lifespan, analogous to the measures of individual lifespans. Furthermore, since the world was an intelligent living being, and the principle of its unity was not only a vitality or a soul, but intelligence, intelligence came to be identified with the cosmic measure. Later Platonists would take up this contentful determination of intelligence as the seminal rational structure of the world, containing within itself the rational structures determining the development of all things in the world, yet divorce it from the belief in the world’s generation and eventual destruction. The Stoic sources themselves suggest that the notion is not necessarily bound to the world’s generation, for the Stoics thought that once the world was conflagrated and entirely consumed by the active principle, the same principle set out to work again and generated the world anew. The “lifespan” of the world was thus cyclical for them, insofar as its beginning and end were the same in species, namely, the world as it is when it is entirely consumed by fire. Stoic physics, thus, developed the notion an all-encompassing change, the life of the world, which not only united the changes of all bodies qua organs of the cosmic living being into a single process but was also continuous, since it was the execution of a single plan contained in the seed of the world. Although this would become a pillar for Proclus’ theory of time, the Stoics did not identify time with the life of the world or any part of it. Whereas the life of the world was finite, time was consistently said by them to be infinite; it was “the interval of change” (following Zeno) or “the interval of the world’s motion” (following Chrysippus) (LS 51A) encompassing not only the extension of a given lifecycle of the world, but of infinite successive lifecycles. The world’s successive destructions and generations exceeded its finite life, which then had to take place within an infinite interval of time. In a similar way, Stoics were led to posit an infinite void beyond the confines of the world, because in the conflagration of the world the world’s volume expanded to occupy a place it did not previously, on account of its being transformed into a more rarefied element, namely fire. Time and Void were thus analogous to each other as empty intervals required by the excess of the world’s conflagration relative to its life.56 56

Schofield (1988, p. 366) has an opposite reading, according to which “if time is defined as the interval of the world’s motion, it too is created and destroyed with each turn of the world cycle.” But this seems to clash with Stoic claims that time is infinite. (LS 51 B, D, E) Schofield recognizes the problem and gives two possible ways out, one of which involves “time” having two meanings, and the other that of “infinite“ having two meanings, neither of which convinces me very much, and Schofield admits is “pure speculation” (pp. 368–369).

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The Biology of the World in Plotinus’ Theory of Time

In Plotinus we find the thesis that the world is a single living being of which all the living beings in it are parts/organs participating in a single life stated many times. Let the following passage stand as an example: This unity is a sympathetic totality and is like one living being, and that which is far is really near, just as in the case of one individual living being, [when] a nail or horn or finger or one of the non-contiguous limbs [is affected], that which is not near is [also] affected, but leaving behind what is in between and none of it is affected.57 T3.8 Plotinus Enneads IV.4 [28] Puzzles about the Soul II 32.13–17, Trans. Armstrong, modified

Cosmic sympathy does not, however, enter Plotinus’ system without undergoing significant changes.58 First of all, the unity of the world as a living being is guaranteed by the presence of soul throughout the whole world, but soul itself is not understood as a body, as by the Stoics.59 Like the Stoic active principle (but unlike the souls of individual animals in Stoicism), the soul for Plotinus can act upon bodies, but can never be acted upon by them. It is thus a principle of sympathy, but not subject to it. It can be said to share in the body’s affections and, thus, to “sympathize” with the body, but Proclus sees this as a vice and imperfection present in some souls, extraneous to the soul’s substance.60 Amongst bodies, the sympathetic unity of an organism and between an organism and its environment qua parts of the cosmic organism is an essential part of the explanation of perception for Plotinus. Cosmic sympathy explains how perception (especially vision) can be a direct contact of the organ of perception with the properties of the perceived object and the sympathy of the individual perceiver explains how the affections of individual parts of the body and sense organs can be perceptions of the organism as a whole.61 57 συμπαθὲς δὴ πᾶν τοῦτο τὸ ἕν, καὶ ὡς ζῷον ἕν, καὶ τὸ πόρρω δὴ ἐγγύς, ὥσπερ ἐφ’ ἑνὸς τῶν καθέκαστα ὄνυξ καὶ κέρας καὶ δάκτυλος καὶ ἄλλο τι τῶν οὐκ ἐφεξῆς· ἀλλὰ διαλείποντος τοῦ μεταξὺ καὶ παθόντος οὐδὲν ἔπαθε τὸ οὐκ ἐγγύς. 58 For an overview of sympathy in Plotinus, see Emilsson (2015). 59 Plotinus defends the doctrine of the soul’s incorporeality in many places. e.g., Enn. III.6 [26], IV.1 [21], IV.2 [4], IV.7 [2], VI.4 [22], VI.5 [23]. 60 E.g., Enn I.2 [19] 3.11–16. 61 Although using the theory of sympathy, a (to us) odd physical theory, to account for normal facts of perception, Plotinus grounds his views in phenomena that are better known than the sympathetic correspondences that the Stoics emphasized. We can think of Proclus’ grounding of the synchronic unity of processes to account for the passage of

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Sympathy played a further important explanatory role for Plotinus in accounting for the efficacy of magic, divination and prayer, all of which he saw as drawing on sympathetic ties within the world. Thus the position and configuration of the celestial bodies could indicate future events because of sympathetic ties between the heavens and the Earth.62 Plotinus qualified the extent of these sympathetic influences in an important way, however, for he knew of Stoic-like positions that argued for a thoroughgoing determinism of events from predictive connections in the cosmos.63 In Enn. III.1 [3] On Fate Plotinus discusses three approaches to determinism, all of which were compatible with Stoicism: the belief in a single soul of the whole cosmos permeating all things, the dependence of all change on the celestial bodies, and finally the web of fate woven by “seminal rational structures.” One of his main criticisms of these views, which he explicitly makes to the first one, but could apply to both of the others (and Plotinus explicitly comments on the similarity of the third and first views) is that if all things are in fact set in motion by a single soul of the world, individuals within the world will have no agency of their own, but will be no more than instruments of the world soul’s actions: If in the case of the universe as well, the universe acting and the universe being acted upon are one thing, and not one thing acted upon by another according to causes that are always lead back to something different, it is certainly not true that everything happens according to causes, but everything will be one. So that, on this assumption, we are not ourselves, nor is there anything that is our own act. We ourselves do not reason, but our considered decisions are the reasoning of another. Nor do we act,

time along similar lines (Chapter 3.4). In both cases Platonists attempt to show that an odd physical fact is required (under some assumptions) to account for some feature of experience. 62 One should observe, here, an important difference between Plotinus’ physics from that of the Stoics. Whereas the Stoics could see the unity of the cosmos in the fact that all of its parts were bound by a single chemical process, with the celestial bodies being fed by the exhalations from the Earth, Plotinus maintains a sharp divide between the heavens, which include only perfect, impassible bodies, and the Earth and its atmosphere, where particulars are subject to generation and corruption. 63 The Stoics do not seem to have grounded the efficacy of divination on cosmic sympathy as such, the synchronic unity of the cosmic organism, but rather on the causal web of fate, which they regarded as expressive of the diachronic unity of the cosmos. (See, for instance, LS 55 L, N.)

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just as our feet do not kick, but rather it is we who kick through parts of ourselves.64 T3.9 Plotinus Enneads III.1 [3] On Fate 4.17–24, trans. Armstrong, modified

Plotinus avoids the elimination of agency in his own biology of the universe by positing a plurality of souls independent from bodies and underlining that we are affected by cosmic sympathy only to the extent that we are bodies.65 Thus, in the passage immediately preceding his introduction of the world as a living being above in text T3.8 he states: First of all we must posit that this universe is a “single living being which encom­passes all the living beings that are within it”; it has one soul which extends to all its parts, in so far as each individual thing is a part of it; and each thing in the perceptible universe is a part of it, and completely a part of it as regards its body; and in so far as it participates in the soul of the universe, it is to this extent a part of it in this way too; and those things which participate in the soul of the universe alone are altogether parts, but all those which also participate in another soul are in this way not altogether parts, but none the less are affected by the other parts in so far as they have something of the universe, and in a way corresponding to what they have.66 T3.10 Plotinus Enneads IV.4 [28] Puzzles about the Soul II 32.4–13, trans. Armstrong

I understand those things “which also participate in another soul” to be individuals animated by souls of their own. Plotinus insists in the passage above that they are not merely organs of the cosmic animal, but retain an agency

64 εἰ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ παντὸς ἓν ἔσται τὸ πᾶν ποιοῦν καὶ πάσχον καὶ οὐκ ἄλλο παρ’ ἄλλου κατ’ αἰτίας τὴν ἀναγωγὴν ἀεὶ ἐφ’ ἕτερον ἐχούσας, οὐ δὴ ἀληθὲς κατ’ αἰτίας τὰ πάντα γίγνεσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἓν ἔσται τὰ πάντα. ὥστε οὔτε ἡμεῖς ἡμεῖς οὔτε τι ἡμέτερον ἔργον· οὐδὲ λογιζόμεθα αὐτοί, ἀλλ’ ἑτέρου λογισμοὶ τὰ ἡμέτερα βουλεύματα· οὐδὲ πράττομεν ἡμεῖς, ὥσπερ οὐδ’ οἱ πόδες λακτίζουσιν, ἀλλ’ἡμεῖς διὰ μερῶν τῶν ἑαυτῶν. 65 Nonetheless, he still maintained a sympathy between souls by making them all one in some sense Enn. IV.9. [8] Whether all Souls are One. 66 πρῶτον τοίνυν θετέον τόδε τὸ πᾶν εἶναι, ψυχὴν μίαν ἔχον εἰς πάντα αὐτοῦ μέρη, καθόσον ἐστὶν ἕκαστον αὐτοῦ μέρος· μέρος δὲ ἕκαστόν ἐστι τὸ ἐν τῷ παντὶ αἰσθητῷ, κατὰ μὲν τὸ σῶμα καὶ πάντη, ὅσον δὲ καὶ ψυχῆς τοῦ παντὸς μετέχει, κατὰ τοσοῦτον καὶ ταύτῃ· καὶ τὰ μὲν μόνης ταύτης μετέχοντα κατὰ πᾶν ἐστι μέρη, ὅσα δὲ καὶ ἄλλης, ταύτῃ ἔχει τὸ μὴ μέρη πάντη εἶναι, πάσχει δὲ οὐδὲν ἧττον παρὰ τῶν ἄλλων, καθόσον αὐτοῦ τι ἔχει, καὶ κατ’ ἐκεῖνα, ἃ ἔχει.

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of their own.67 They are affected “in so far as they have something of the universe,” that is, insofar as they have bodies and also to the degree to which they are attached to their bodies. Nevertheless, for Plotinus, the soul of the virtuous and wise man, who has appropriately separated himself from his body, is unaffected by magic and cosmic sympathy. But even in the case of the wise man, insofar as his body has vegetative activities, i.e., growth and sustenance, this body is animated also by the world soul. The freedom of souls thus re-introduces into biological cosmology the problem posed by Aristotle’s independent eternal Agents of celestial motion: if the souls are not part of the world soul, then why is there harmonious change in the world? Plotinus does, however, admit a certain kind of sympathy among souls themselves, namely a sympathy of thoughts and emotions (Enn. IV.9 [8] 3.1–4). He explains this by our having a common origin, but he strenuously resists the conclusion that souls are merely parts of the world soul. On the contrary, all souls in the world, from the world soul to the soul of the vilest human being, are essentially on a par, differing only in their activities and the bodies associated to them. There being no ordering of them according to their essences, all of them receive identical essences by originating from a single principle of souls, “Soul itself.” Plotinus rejects, thus, any derivation of souls from the world soul, because he associates such a derivation with both the claim that they are divided parts of the world soul and a Stoic-like picture that ultimately robs souls of agency. Besides being independent of bodies, Soul is for Plotinus also the cause of the imposition of forms upon bodies, taking up in this way the role of the Stoic active principle of imparting rational structures: For the things which are naturally generated in one single living being are many, and they do not happen all at once; there are the different ages and the growths which occur at particular times, for instance of the horns or the beard or the breasts; there is the prime of life and procreation of other living things, whereby the previous rational structures are not destroyed but others come to be on top of those; this is clear from the fact that the same rational forming principle, and the whole of it, is also in the offspring. So it is right to attribute the same wisdom (φρόνησις) [to the soul of the universe] and that this is a kind of permanent universal wisdom of the world, manifold and varied, and yet at the same time 67

Crucial to making this step possible are Plotinus’ arguments for the incorporeality of soul mentioned above, for they allow individual souls to be separate from the bodily continuum of the world.

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simple, belonging to a single mighty living being, not subject to change because of the multiplicity of things, being rather a single rational structure and all things at once; for if it was not everything, it would not be that wisdom, but the wisdom of subordinate and partial [souls].68 T3.11 Plotinus Enneads IV.4 [28] Puzzles about the Soul II 11.17–28

Plotinus attributes a rational structure (λόγος) or wisdom (φρόνησις) to the world soul by which it rules the world in several texts, but this passage is particularly interesting for our discussion because he explicitly underlines the diachronic unity imposed upon organic development by natural rational structures. Although he does not say so, Plotinus implies that just as the rational structure of a living being determines the times for the different stages of life in the development of the living being, the wisdom of the universe also similarly plans all the events of the world as part of a single plan.69 This single plan does not result in successive worlds exemplifying that plan, as in the Stoics, but it does result in a periodic life of the world.70 Although Plotinus (and the Neoplatonists following him) take up the Stoic language of “rational structure” (λόγος) for the immanent causes of order in bodies, there are some important differences. First, a rational structure for the Platonists is always an incorporeal entity, whereas for the Stoics it is a body, identical with the πνεῦμα within a body that gives it its unity and structure. Second, Plotinus (although not later Platonists) sees the change from the implicit presence of a rational structure in a seed up to its explicit presence in a fully developed organism as a loss. By changing from an undivided power to produce in a small seed to a structuring power extended across a body, a rational structure becomes less like Unity, the first principle, which is also

68 πολλὰ γὰρ καὶ ἐφ’ ἑνὸς ἑκάστου ζῴου τὰ γινόμενα κατὰ φύσιν καὶ οὐχ ὁμοῦ πάντα, αἱ ἡλικίαι, αἱ ἐκφύσεις ἐν χρόνοις, οἷον κεράτων, γενείων, μαζῶν αὐξήσεις, ἀκμαί, γενέσεις ἄλλων, οὐ τῶν πρόσθεν λόγων ἀπολλυμένων, ἐπιγιγνομένων δὲ ἄλλων· δῆλον δὲ ἐκ τοῦ καὶ ἐν τῷ γεννωμένῳ αὖ ζῴῳ τὸν αὐτὸν καὶ σύμπαντα λόγον εἶναι. καὶ δὴ τὴν αὐτὴν φρόνησιν ἄξιον περιθεῖναι καὶ ταύτην καθόλου εἶναι οἷον κόσμου φρόνησιν ἑστῶσαν, πολλὴν μὲν καὶ ποικίλην καὶ αὖ ἁπλῆν ζῴου ἑνὸς μεγίστου, οὐ τῷ πολλῷ ἀλλοιουμένην, ἀλλὰ ἕνα λόγον καὶ ὁμοῦ πάντα· εἰ γὰρ μὴ πάντα, οὐκ ἐκείνη, ἀλλὰ τῶν ὑστέρων καὶ μερῶν ἡ φρόνησις. 69 One must be careful, here, as Plotinus distinguishes between the contributions of the wisdom of the universe (which he identifies with its particular Kind of Intelligence), and the nature of the universe, which is a principle dependent upon (yet distinct from) the soul. This will be discussed in detail below Chapter 4.2.1. 70 For references to the periods of the world’s life cf. V.7 [18]; IV.3 [27] 12, IV.4 [28] 9. This periodic life of the world extends even to the ascents and descents of souls in connection to bodies (IV.3 [27] 13).

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the Good itself.71 Finally, for both Plotinus and later Platonists one important ambiguity of the term “rational structure” (λόγος) is that it designates both the innate concepts of the soul as well as the forms immanent in bodies. Indeed, this is in a certain sense no ambiguity at all, for the soul contains in itself the very forms that exists in bodies in conceptual manner, such that it can know those forms by turning to its innate concepts.72 The diachronic unity of the life of the world soul has in Plotinus’ natural philosophy the added consequence of resulting in a conception of the whole of time as a single period. In the following passage we see him commenting on the life of the celestial bodies, which like the world soul perpetually engage in a single activity (not contemplation, but their regular motions in the heavens): Well, will they [the celestial souls] not remember that they went round the earth yesterday, and last year, and that they lived yesterday and for a long time past and from the beginning of their lives? Or do they rather live forever. And what is forever is an identical unity. The “yesterday” of their transit and the “last year” would be the same kind of thing as if one was to divide the step taken by one foot into many parts and make the one step into many, again and again. But up there there is one transit, but we measure many, and different days, because nights intervene. But there, since there is one day, how can there be many? So there is not a last year either.73 T3.12 Plotinus Enneads IV.4 [28] Puzzles about the Soul II 7.4–12, trans. ARMSTRONG, modified

Plotinus asks himself whether the souls of celestial bodies have memory: after all, aren’t they conscious of the passage of periods of time and of their differing positions through time? Plotinus answers in the negative: they have no such consciousness. The division of time into periods and the measurement of celestial movements according to those periods is something that humans do observing the heavens from the earth. For the celestial bodies themselves, their motion is simply a perpetual going forward along their circular paths. There is 71 72

For an example of this negative appraisal of seminal unfolding, see T4.8 below. See Helmig (2012, chapter IV.3) for the role of rational structures as both innate concepts and forms in bodies in Plotinus. 73 οὐδ’ ὅτι περιῆλθον χθὲς τὴν γῆν καὶ [τὸ] πέρυσιν, οὐδ’ ὅτι ἔζων χθὲς καὶ πάλαι καὶ ἐξ οὗ ζῶσιν; ἢ ζῶσιν ἀεί· τὸ δὲ ἀεὶ ταὐτὸν ἕν. τὸ δὲ χθὲς τῆς φορᾶς καὶ τὸ πέρυσι τοιοῦτον ἂν εἴη, οἷον ἂν εἴ τις τὴν ὁρμὴν τὴν κατὰ πόδα ἕνα γενομένην μερίζοι εἰς πολλά, καὶ ἄλλην καὶ ἄλλην καὶ πολλὰς ποιοῖ τὴν μίαν. καὶ γὰρ ἐνταῦθα μία φορά, παρὰ δὲ ἡμῖν μετροῦνται πολλαὶ καὶ ἡμέραι ἄλλαι, ὅτι καὶ νύκτες διαλαμβάνουσιν. ἐκεῖ δὲ μιᾶς οὔσης ἡμέρας πῶς πολλαί; ὥστε οὐδὲ τὸ πέρυσιν.

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no point in their path that they recognize as the beginning or the end, but just simply the path ahead. Their entire life, as he puts it is “one day,” a single uninterrupted period. They do not then have memory of past periods, but simply a present grasp of the present period as a unity. He compares our division of their motions into parts to the Zenonian decomposition of a single step into infinitely small parts, by dividing it again and again, implying that the division of celestial motions is an equally abstract operation and the divisions that it produces are equally potential, not actual divisions. And likewise, the world soul, in its perpetual life of intelligization, according to Plotinus, is unaware of any transit of time as it intelligizes. This strong diachronic unity (especially when coupled with the view that the flow of time is the intellectual life of the world soul, to be studied in Chapter 4.2) denies the full reality of the divisions of time, such that they become only divisions that humans make in measuring time, or at best such that they are real only from a terrestrial perspective. This will become a problem for Proclus, who is committed to their full reality by his reading of the Parmenides and the Timaeus, and he will then ask: given that time is a unified whole (in virtue of the existence of a single plan for the life of the world), what then justifies the division of time into past, present and future and into the parts of time?74 For now let us proceed to Proclus’ reception of the biology of the world. 3.4

Proclus’ Biology of the World

Prior to Proclus, then, Plotinus already incorporated the diachronic unity of change with the aid of the Stoic notion of a single governing rational structure. Through him (and also Iamblichus, whom I will not discuss) the connection between a biological treatment of the world as a whole and time was prepared for Proclus, and it is to his own theory of the world’s unique life that I now turn. It will be helpful to start with a curious convergence between Proclus and the Stoics, namely how Proclus takes up the Heraclitean doctrine that everything changes. For the Stoics, this was true insofar as everything in the world was always ever involved in a chemical process of material exchange that culminates each cosmic cycle with the conflagration of the whole. This cosmological picture was unpalatable to Platonists, as it involved positing 74 It should be observed however, that Damascius, under the same pressures, is happy to restrict the existence of temporal periods to the Earth and its atmosphere (In Parm. III 173.4–174.2).

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not only a potentially destructible the heavens, which would be compatible with the Timaeus, but also a celestial system that was bound to be destroyed and always undergoing substantial change. Plotinus and his Neoplatonist successors had accepted enough Aristotle to believe in an unchanging celestial system and world that not only was indestructible but also had no moment of temporal origin, being always already in existence. For this reason, it is not surprising that when Proclus proves that all bodies (i.e., all substances that are measured by time) are processes, he does so in his Elements of Theology, where proposition 50 states that “All that is measured by time either according to its substance or according to its activity is a process (γένεσις) in that respect in which it is measured by time.” The meaning of “process” that Proclus has in mind is an especially weak one, i.e., not the omnipresence of substantial and material exchange, but rather the mere fact that all things in time are not yet what they will be and no longer what they were, constantly coming-to-be what the future has in store for them. Things in time are, thus, “always admitting of being something else, as the now is always different according to time and by reason of the flow of time.”75 Not only does Proclus have his own version of the Stoic belief in cosmic process, he also possesses a similar belief in individual principles that are proper to each temporal being, measuring their coming to be. He sometimes refers to these as “participated times,” drawing on the Platonic schema of participation to explain time. Thus, just as Time itself is the Order of Time for the whole world, he will occasionally speak of the temporal orders belonging to particular beings as their particular participated times in virtue of which they are temporal. Not only celestial beings and their periods and animals with lifecycles have such temporal orders proper to themselves, but even inanimate artifacts, as Proclus underlines in the context of an argument about how time is a more pervasive principle than soul: A builder could tell you the amount of time that a wall will stand, and the tailor how long a cloak or generally speaking a garment will last, and similarly for each of the craftsmen in the case of his own creative endeavors. T3.13 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 23.4–7, trans. Baltzly, modified76

75 In Chapter 4.3.1 I analyze ET 50. 76 καὶ εἴποι δ’ ἂν ὁ μὲν οἰκοδόμος, πόσον χρόνον ἀντίσχοι ἂν ὁ τοῖχος, ὁ δ’ ὑφάντης περὶ χιτῶνος ἢ ὅλως ἐσθῆτος, ὁμοίως καὶ ἕκαστος τῶν τεχνιτῶν περὶ τῆς ἑαυτοῦ δημιουργίας.

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Against this proliferation of “local times,” the question of how there can be a single change in the world becomes especially problematic, besides Aristotle’s observation that any change would appear to be restricted only to a single body or location. Proclus’ solution explicitly involves conceiving of the world as a whole as a living being: For the revolution of each celestial body, there is an appropriate measure, belonging to Saturn, or Jupiter, or the Moon, receiving its hallmark from the soul in each and the moving deity. For one number pertains to the Sun, another to a horse, and another to a plant. But the number of the world is common to all of them. It is also on this account that we say, that there is the same time everywhere. For the world has a single vitality77 (μίαν ζωήν), as it has a single nature and a single Kind of Intelligence. But if it has a single vitality, it too has a single life (ἕνα βίον), and if that is the case, also its temporal measure is one, and just as each of the parts in it lives according to the nature of the whole, so are they measured according to the whole of time, and this is the common measure of all things.78 T3.14 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 57.17–27, trans. BALTZLY, modified

In this text, Proclus approaches the problem of how there is “the same time everywhere.” This can mean (1) that there is the same measure of time applied to all things, i.e., that there is a common measure of their natural age, (2) that there is the same period of time present to the whole world (the question of objective simultaneity), or (3) that there is a single continuum of time. I take it that Proclus is committed to all three views. “That there is the same time everywhere” echoes the Aristotelian problem seen in T3.1, and in Aristotle’s own solution and Proclus’ criticisms of it studied above we saw that what is at issue is the identity of the now that bounds a change being a universal now that bounds all changes (or put in the terminology of Aristotle, whether it is the 77

Given the subsequent reference to nature, ζωή in this passage might be better understood as the act of living, instead of as the immanent animating principle. But it also contrasted with a life as the temporal career of a living being later. 78 ἐν ἑκάστῃ περιφορᾷ μέτρον ἐστὶν οἰκεῖον, Κρόνιον ἢ Δίιον ἢ Σεληνιακόν, τὴν ἰδιότητα προσλαμβάνον ἀπὸ τῆς ἐν ἑκάστῳ ψυχῆς καὶ τῆς κινητικῆς θεότητος· ἄλλος γὰρ ἀριθμὸς ἡλίῳ προσήκει καὶ ἄλλος ἵππῳ καὶ ἄλλος φυτῷ, κοινὸς δὲ ὁ κοσμικὸς ἀριθμός. διὸ καὶ τὸν αὐτὸν χρόνον εἶναι πανταχοῦ λέγομεν· ἔχει γὰρ καὶ μίαν ὁ κόσμος ζωήν, ὡς μίαν φύσιν καὶ ἕνα νοῦν. εἰ δὲ μίαν ἔχει ζωήν, ἔχει καὶ ἕνα βίον, εἰ δὲ τοῦτο, καὶ μέτρον χρονικὸν ἕν, καὶ ὥσπερ τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ μερῶν ἕκαστον ζῇ κατὰ τὴν ὅλην φύσιν, οὕτω καὶ κατὰ τὸν ὅλον χρόνον μετρεῖται, καὶ τοῦτο κοινόν ἐστι μέτρον ἁπάντων.

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same number that measures all simultaneous processes). But there can only be “the same time everywhere” in the sense of a common period for Proclus, if there is a single objective measure and all beings share a common universal nature, for the time that exists objectively for the Neoplatonist is an inherent age dependent on that nature. But if there is a single cosmic process and age in which all things participate, then “there is the same time everywhere” also in the sense that all processes are included in the same world-period and there is a diachronic unity of time, which is also introduced by the notion of a single rational plan for all of the world. Proclus is quite clear here that the justification for there being a single global time (and thus a simultaneous now) is the fact that the world is a single living organism and everything in the world is a part of that single organism and shares in its single life. A problem arises, however: how is the self-changing life of the soul included in the life of the cosmic organism? If the soul is merely an organ, it loses its autonomy and self-change; if it is entirely independent, then not all processes are coordinated with each other, and the unity of time is no longer guaranteed.79 In order to understand the place of the particular soul in the world’s life, I will first present Proclus’ description of this common life and then his account of the world soul as the seminal principle of the world, inclusive of all souls within it. The shared life of the world is described in Proclus’ commentary on Timaeus 34a3–8, where the Engineer bestows rotation to the world as its appropriate motion. In the Timaeus this appears to make only the heavens share in the motion and life of the whole. However, in his comments Proclus 79

With regard to this problem, two opposite facts must be taken into account. On the one hand, Proclus wrote a whole work dedicated to defending the possibility of free will (De Providentia) and the existence of free will is a central element in his theodicy (De Malorum Subsistentia). On the other hand, there are a number of actions in Proclus’ system that souls must undertake with metaphysical and physical necessity. Thus, in fn.85 of chapter 2 above we saw that in order for there to be non-human animals, souls must regularly lead vicious lives in order to later come to animate a non-human body. Furthermore, in ET 198–200, Proclus demonstrates that every transmigrating soul lives according to a specific temporal period during which it must descend from its natural contemplative life in the heavens, live out a series of lives in the world of generation, and then return to its celestial post. It is impossible for Proclus that a soul should have such a contemplative bent that it would never descend, and it is impossible that it would be so stubbornly irrational that it never rises again to contemplation. How these necessary features of a soul’s life are reconciled with its freedom for Proclus are not clear. In any case, however, it is clear that the soul’s free-will is not without limits for Proclus, as it has important roles to play within nature.

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sees the motion of the fixed stars as standing metonymically for a periodic motion of the world as a whole in which all its parts partake, even those within the Earth: The world is thus really inerrant, not only because its highest part [i.e. the sphere of the fixed stars] is such, but because it is changed through one single, simple and selfsame change. It is also necessary to pay attention to this: how it is that the kind of change that belongs to the part of highest standing80 in the universe was said to have been given to it by the Father [i.e. the Engineer] as something fitting for the world as a whole. For all the others also participate in the cycle of the world and inerrancy belongs to some parts in clearer fashion, to other parts in more obscure fashion.81 For example, the streams that flow beneath the earth are carried along in a disorderly manner and are said in particular to be wandering in different directions at different times.82 But the terrestrial elements which are moved from here to there naturally partake to a lesser degree of errancy, for it is [only] by going from one region to another that they are wandering things [and not by constantly changing the direction of their motion]. Finally, there are divine bodies in the heavens [i.e. the planets] and they wander even less than the terrestrial elements; for in as much as their motion occurs with respect of breadth and depth,83 they wander, but in so far as their motion is smooth, orderly and takes place according to a single ratio, it is an inerrant motion.84 But the world itself might be

80 τῷ κυριωτάτῳ τοῦ παντὸς: “the part of highest standing.” Recall Proclus’ use of Aristotle’s statement from GA that “periods of things of inferior standing should follow those which belong to things of higher standing” in text T2.9 above. 81 ὄντως οὖν ἀπλανὴς ὁ κόσμος ἐστίν, οὐ μόνον ὅτι τὸ ἀκρότατον αὐτοῦ τοιοῦτον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅτι μίαν καὶ ἁπλῆν καὶ τὴν αὐτὴν κινεῖται κίνησιν. δεῖ δὲ ἐφιστάνειν, ὅπως καὶ τὸ εἶδος τῆς κινήσεως τὸ ὑπάρχον τῷ κυριωτάτῳ τοῦ παντὸς ὡς ὅλῳ τῷ κόσμῳ προσῆκον αὐτῷ ἔφατο δεδόσθαι παρὰ τοῦ πατρός· καὶ γὰρ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα μετέχει τῆς τοῦ κόσμου κυκλοφορίας, καὶ τὸ ἀπλανὲς ὑπάρχει τοῖς μὲν ἐναργέστερον, τοῖς δὲ ἀμυδρότερον·. 82 Proclus is referring here to the subterranean geography of Plato’s Phaedo 111c–113c, where Socrates describes four subterranean streams that flow at times towards and at times away from Tartarus, understood as a watery abyss at the Earth’s center. 83 That is, celestial latitude and proximity and distance from the Earth (perigree and apogee). Proclus finds this in Plato’s text when he claims that the planets have a “spiral turning” at 39b. 84 Proclus skips over the fixed stars.

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called ‘inerrant’ in the most proper sense because it is not receptive of [even] the reflection of another motion.85 Further, if one wanted to divide incorporeal things [according to their degree of inerrancy], irrational vitality86 errs especially, not possessing a measure of the activities proceeding from it. The soul with correct opinions (ὀρθοδοξαστικὴ ψυχή) errs less than the irrational, though even it participates in errancy to some extent because it cannot give an account of its opinions. But further still, the extent to which the knowing soul (ἡ ἐπιστήμων) errs is even less. For in this case its errancy is solely constituted by the discursive form of its life, since it is not ordered towards a single intelligized object, but comes to be in different Forms at different times. Amongst beings, only Kinds of Intelligence are inerrant, ever intelligizing the same Form, and being active both in relation to the same Form and concerning the same Form. Plausibly, therefore, the world, which imitates Intelligence in its change, is truly inerrant, ever running the same, uniform period in a similar way. T3.15 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 97.8–98.6, trans. Baltzly, modified87

We can see here Proclus making a move similar to Alexander’s in facing the ques­ tion of harmony of celestial motions: just as Alexander underlined the unity of celestial motion given by the westward motion shared by all the celestial bodies, so Proclus is supporting the thesis that the world has a “single, simple and selfsame motion” by pointing to their common possession of cyclical motion and inerrancy. In developing his point, he oddly takes the cyclical motion for 85 τὰ μὲν γὰρ ὑπὸ γῆς ῥεύματα ἀτάκτως φερόμενα καὶ ἄλλοτε ἄλλως πλανᾶσθαι μάλιστα λέγεται. τὰ δὲ ὑπὸ σελήνην στοιχεῖα, κατὰ φύσιν ποθὲν ποὶ κινούμενα, ἥττονος μετέχει πλάνης· τῷ γὰρ ἀπ’ ἄλλης χώρας ἐπ’ ἄλλην μεθίστασθαι πλανητά ἐστι. τὰ δὲ ἐν οὐρανῷ θεῖα σώματα καὶ τούτων ἧττον πλανᾶται, καθόσον καὶ τὴν κατὰ μῆκος καὶ τὴν κατὰ πλάτος ποιεῖται κίνησιν, κατὰ δὲ τὸ ὁμαλὲς καὶ τεταγμένον καὶ κατὰ τὸν ἕνα λόγον τῆς κινήσεως ἀπλανῆ ἐστιν. αὐτὸς δὲ ὁ κόσμος κυριώτατα καλοῖτο ἂν ἀπλανής, ὡς μηδὲ ἔμφασιν ἄλλης κινήσεως ἐπιδεχόμενος. 86 Here we have a typical instance of Proclus’ refusal to refer to the animating principle of irrational animals as ψυχή, resorting to the expression ζωή. 87 ἐπεὶ καὶ τῶν ἀσωμάτων εἰ βούλοιο διαιρεῖν πλανᾶται μὲν ἡ ἄλογος διαφερόντως ζωή, μέτρον οὐκ ἔχουσα τῶν ἐνεργειῶν ἀφ’ἑαυτῆς. ταύτης δὲ ἧττον ἡ ὀρθοδοξαστικὴ ψυχή· μετέχει γάρ πως καὶ αὕτη πλάνης τῷ τὴν αἰτίαν ἀγνοεῖν. ἔτι δὲ καὶ ταύτης ἧττον ἡ ἐπιστήμων· ἐπὶ γὰρ ταύτης μόνον τὸ μεταβατικὸν εἶδος τῆς ζωῆς ποιεῖ τὴν πλάνην, διότι μὴ πρὸς ἓν τέτακται νοητὸν ἄλλοτε ἐν ἄλλοις εἴδεσι γιγνομένη. μόνος δὲ ἀπλανὴς ἐν τοῖς οὖσιν ὁ νοῦς, ἀεὶ τὸ αὐτὸ νοῶν καὶ πρὸς τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ περὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἐνεργῶν. εἰκότως οὖν καὶ ὁ κόσμος ὁ τὸν νοῦν κατὰ τὴν φορὰν μιμούμενος ὄντως ἐστὶν ἀπλανής, ἀεὶ τὴν αὐτὴν ὡσαύτως μονοειδῆ ποιούμενος περίοδον.

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granted and rather concentrates on showing the different grades of inerrancy in cosmic motions, whereas if his interpretation of “the motion of the world” is, as it seems to be, that it is the grand cycle coordinating all cycles undergone by parts in the world, it would have been more useful to focus on the progressively more complicated periodic rhythms of the levels of the world. The reason for the expository oddity may be that Proclus is anxious to show how the world’s motion is similar to the activity of a Kind of Intelligence, in which case it is inerrancy and not periodicity that is more important.88 It is significant that in his listing of motions that make up the single inerrant motion of the world and take part to differing degrees of inerrancy, Proclus includes the lives of souls. He not only includes the lives of animals and their transmigrating souls, but even those of the souls of celestial bodies, when he speaks of “the knowing soul,” that knows successively one form after another, a typical description in Proclus for the cognitive life of a divine soul.89 This inclusion of mental life into cosmic life is a departure from Plotinus and also includes souls in the cosmic organism. Proclus does not thereby mean to subordinate souls to the physical world, but rather to the world soul, which he explicates as the seminal principle of the world in Tim. 36e: Taking the appearances themselves as our point of departure, let us say that the world soul – since it possesses all of the rational structures of beings immanent to the world and the powers that produce them – necessarily possesses not only the intellectual causes of human being and horse and all other living things, but also has prior to these the causes of whole regions of the world.90 It is like the situation where our nature generates two eyes, five fingers, and seven internal organs in virtue of the rational structures in it (for this nature antecedently comprehends the numbers of these parts on which account the form always makes the same thing, unless the impediments 88

Another possibility would be that Proclus really just is talking about the locomotion of the fixed stars in this passage, taking their rotation to be “the motion of the world.” This could be strengthened by the passage’s context, which does discuss the fixed star’s locomotion. But he seems to distinguish between the motion of the world and the that of “its most sovereign part” and he also includes the life of souls in his account of inerrancy, which suggest that he is talking about a change or motion proper to the world as a whole, in which case it must be the lifecycle of the world as a living being. 89 Discussed in Chapter 4.3.2. 90 ἀρξάμενοι τῶν φαινομένων λέγωμεν, ὅτι τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ψυχήν, λόγους ἔχουσαν πάντων τῶν ἐγκοσμίων καὶ δυνάμεις ὑποστατικάς, ἀνάγκη μὴ μόνον ἀνθρώπου καὶ ἵππου καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἁπάντων ζῴων ἔχειν τὰς νοερὰς αἰτίας, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸ τούτων τῶν ὅλων τοῦ κόσμου μερίδων.

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that arise from matter prevent natural generation). Just as in our case where there is a single sense that has the causes of the five senses and generates them in a secondary manner from itself and divides their powers among the parts of the body, in the same manner the circle of the different antecedently comprehends the original causes (πρωτουργοὺς αἰτίας) of the seven circles within itself, according to which the seven circles have been ordered.91 Though each of the seven circles antecedently comprehends a plurality of powers – some more cosmic, some more particular92 – Timaeus now communicates their unities and their primary envelopments, but leaves out the innumerable gradations of the divine rational structures. Each circle is a plenum of specific lives … and many powers contribute to its completion, some being such as to generate primary and secondary Gods, other spirits, other partial souls.93 T3.16 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 266.1–5; 11–30; 266.32–267.8

We see here Proclus’ soul of the world taking over the role of the Stoic Zeus. Whereas the Stoic Zeus was the seminal rational structure of the world, containing within itself the rational structures of all the individual living beings in the world, the Procline soul of the world contains in itself the rational structures of all living beings and also all other souls immanent to the world and it is responsible for the souls and bodies in the world in a way analogous to the way that the rational structure of our body is responsible for our organs. In both cases Proclus sees powers of the soul to be responsible for the appearance of distinct organs: thus it is an initially dyadic power of the world soul that gives 91 ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ ἡμετέρα φύσις δύο μὲν ὀφθαλμούς, δακτύλους δὲ πέντε, σπλάγχνα δὲ ἑπτὰ γεννᾷ κατὰ τοὺς ἐν αὐτῇ λόγους (προείληφε γὰρ τῶν μερῶν τούτων τοὺς ἀριθμούς· διὸ καὶ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ποιεῖ καὶ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶδος, ὅταν μὴ τὰ ἐκ τῆς ὕλης ἐμπόδια παρεμπίπτοντα διακωλύῃ τὴν κατὰ φύσιν ἀπογέννησιν) καὶ ὥσπερ ἐν ἡμῖν μία αἴσθησις τῶν πέντε τούτων αἰσθήσεων τὰς αἰτίας ἔχουσα γεννᾷ δευτέρως ἀφ’ ἑαυτῆς τὰς περὶ τὸ σῶμα μεριζομένας δυνάμεις, τὸν αὐτὸν τρόπον καὶ ὁ θατέρου κύκλος τῶν ἑπτὰ κύκλων τὰς πρωτουργοὺς αἰτίας ἐν αὑτῷ περιείληφε, καθ’ ἃς καὶ οὗτοι διεκοσμήθησαν·. 92 “ὁλικός” and “μερικός” mean “pertaining to the whole” and “pertaining to the part,” respectively. But the whole to which they are usually applied is the cosmos. Thus, I translate “ὁλικός” as cosmic. Μερικός has a wider use, and I translate it as “particular.” 93 ἐπεὶ καὶ ἕκαστος τῶν ἑπτὰ κύκλων πλῆθος περιείληφε δυνάμεων, τῶν μὲν ὁλικωτέρων, τῶν δὲ μερικωτέρων, ἀλλὰ νῦν τὰς ἑνάδας αὐτῶν καὶ τὰς πρώτας περιοχὰς ὁ Τίμαιος παραδίδωσι, τὰς δὲ ἀπεριηγήτους τῶν θείων λόγων ὑποβάσεις ἀφίησιν· ἕκαστος γὰρ κύκλος πλήρωμα ζωῆς ἐστιν ἰδιαζούσης, … καὶ πολλαὶ τελοῦσιν εἰς αὐτὸν δυνάμεις, αἳ μὲν θεῶν γεννητικαὶ πρώτων καὶ δευτέρων, αἳ δὲ δαιμόνων, αἳ δὲ καὶ μερικῶν ψυχῶν.

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rise to the division of the world into two spheres, the sphere of the fixed stars, and the sphere of the planets, each with its own soul.94 Each of the souls of these spheres however contains within it a number of further powers that are responsible for further divisions. Hence, the sphere of the planets is divided further into seven planetary spheres, each with their own visible celestial body and a multitude of invisible ones, and the sphere of the Earth is divided further into the total masses of earth, water, air and fire. All of these divisions result in divine living beings. Nevertheless, the process goes down to the level of transmigrating souls (and even down to the diverse species of living being, for the world soul is said to have “the intellectual causes of human being and horse and all other living things”). Even our souls, along with the “superior genera,” are ultimately produced as instruments for powers that ultimately belong to the world soul.95 We might ask here why is it that the world soul causes there to be distinct souls and bodies corresponding to its powers? If it already has the powers, why does it still need to produce instruments? A proper answer would require a complete account of how “productive causality,” the causal relation where one reality is responsible for the existence of another, works in Proclus. Lacking that, however, I can only refer unsatisfactorily to the proximate principle involved in the ET 25: “Whatever is perfect proceeds to the generation of what it is capable of producing, imitating in its turn the one principle of all things.”96 Thus, given the perfection and divinity of the world soul, it naturally produces other souls according to its powers.97 Given the ultimate origin of all the souls in the world in the powers of the world’s own soul, we might be tempted to say, that the life of the world soul is 94 95

Namely, the world soul’s cognitive power, divided into intelligence and opinion. Proclus sketches the same picture at. In Tim. III 263.22–265.12, but restricts it to the connection between souls, that is, without mentioning the dependence on living beings, where he comments on the assignment of transmigrating souls to distinct celestial souls. With regard to the independence of the celestial souls see In Tim. III. 38.32–40.19 for how they produce their own measurements. On the procession of transmigrating souls from the souls of spirits see In Remp. II 67.10–15. 96 Πᾶν τὸ τέλειον εἰς ἀπογεννήσεις πρόεισιν ὧν δύναται παράγειν, αὐτὸ μιμούμενον τὴν μίαν τῶν ὅλων ἀρχήν. In Chapter 4.2 we will see one of the sources for this understanding of causality in Plotinus’ double activity theory. It is also useful to read the propositions on procession from the ET along with Dodd’s commentary. 97 Another avenue of explanation of the procession of different kinds of soul might be to see whether the same principle that required a division of the work of engineering of the world (the perfection of the Engineer means that it cannot be the immediate cause of perishable things) might also motivate the many levels of soul in the world.

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not like the life of the soul animating another animal, a process separate from one’s own life, but rather a process of which one’s own life is a part. As Proclus puts it elsewhere, “time proceeds through all temporal life.”98 For Proclus, the lives we live are not only the life of our own soul-body compounds, they are also the life of the world, the fulfillment of certain powers of the world.99 To look for the world soul, we do not have to look out of ourselves, at the stars, say, but to the whole world, including ourselves. There would, thus, seem to be an agreement between Proclus and the Stoics, in as much as they as saw the individual as the portion (σπάσμα) of God existing in an individual body.100 Although we might be tempted to say this, the point would be going too far for Proclus. For although he does lead the existence of any transmigrating soul back to the powers of some celestial soul, which in turn exists as the organ of some power of the world soul, he draws a distinction between the power to which we correspond by essence and the power that we enact in our own life. Thus a soul can by its essence be a “Martian” soul, and, thus, be particularly fitted for a life as a soldier (a life of war, under the patronage of Mars), but nonetheless, when it chooses which life it will lead on earth, it can choose a life that corresponds to some other celestial power: say, a Mercurial life dedicated to poetry. Only the best souls, in Proclus’ picture, choose precisely that kind of life that match the type of soul they are, and thus only they can properly say that the life they lead is, ultimately, only an expression or local realization of the life of the world as a whole.101 Thus, unlike in the Stoic case, the fact that the transmigrating soul is by essence an instrument for the fulfilling of certain cosmic powers does not mean that that is what it concretely exists as. The soul must still choose correctly and align its interests with those of the world. But 98 PT III 60.12: Ὁ δὲ χρόνος διὰ πάσης πρόεισι τῆς χρονικῆς ζωῆς. I take this sentence to mean that the life of living beings in time just is the procession of time in them. The phrase is, however, a passing comment in an argument on eternity and is open to other interpretations. For instance, it would be perfectly Procline to read it as meaning that time is the principle of a series of “temporal lives,” the lives in the world, distinct from the lives of eternal beings. I believe however that (1) Time is the principle of a series, and not of “temporal lives,” but of units of time, such as the Day, the Month and the Year, and (2) the context of the claim is an analogy between the relation between time and temporal life and eternity and life as such. I think that for Proclus “the life” of an intelligible entity is not to be distinguished from “its eternity,” and thus also the life of a being in the world is not to be distinguished from the passage of time in it. 99 And, more proximately, the life of the soul of a specific celestial body and the fulfillment of its powers. 100 See above Chapter 3.2. 101 Proclus saw Plotinus as such a person. See In Alc. 73.5.

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even in the case of a soul that chooses poorly, it is still only, ultimately, fulfilling some power of the world, just not the one to which it is best suited. Thus, the soul determines itself insofar as it chooses its cosmic function. However, insofar as it fulfills a function, it is always an instrument of the cosmic organism, and thus the unity of the world’s life is preserved. For this reason, Proclus can confidently say that there is a “single life” pervading the whole world: For if there is a single soul that connects the whole of the world, necessarily then there is a reciprocal sympathy amongst its parts. For each of the living beings here is in sympathy towards itself in the following way, that obviously a disposition of some parts comes to be from other parts. But if the partial living being, possessing a dimmer life than that of the world, possesses such a sympathy amongst its parts on account of this [dimmer life], with much more reason will the world [have such a sympathy]. For the life of the whole is in general more powerful than that of its parts, and being a life set over lives it more greatly brings together all things into communion with each other and the production from one to the other. If therefore the world is a single living being, there is in it a single life that brings together all the lives in it.102 T3.17 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Republic II 258.13–25

The context of the above passage is a discussion of Proclus’ views on the degree to which the soul is an instrument of the world. We find it in Proclus’ dissertation on the Myth of Er in Plato’s Republic, which narrates the choice of lives that souls make before their embodiment. In the myth, the souls first draw lots and then afterwards choose a life. Proclus interprets this as a via media between two positions, one that there would only be a single life available for each soul, such that it would have no choice in which life to lead but would necessarily lead whatever life it was allotted by cosmic necessity, and another, according to which every life is available to every soul. The former option he identifies as Stoic and as making what is in our power a vain thing, but he sees

102 εἰ γάρ ἐστι ψυχὴ μία συνέχουσα τὸν ὅλον κόσμον, ἀνάγκη δήπου συμπάθειαν εἶναι τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ μερῶν πρὸς ἄλληλα· καὶ γὰρ τῶν τῇδε ζῴων ἕκαστον αὐτὸ πρὸς ἑαυτὸ συμπαθές ἐστιν οὕτως, ὥστε ἀπ’ ἄλλων μορίων ἄλλων κατάδηλον γίνεσθαι διάθεσιν. εἰ δὲ τὸ μερικὸν οὕτως ἀμυδροτέραν ἔχον τοῦ παντὸς ζωὴν ὅμως ἔχει τὴν τῶν μερῶν διὰ ταύτην συμπάθειαν, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ὁ κόσμος· ἡ γὰρ τοῦ παντὸς ζωὴ καὶ δυνατωτέρα πάντως ἐστὶν τῶν μερικῶν καὶ ζωὴ ἐπὶ ζωαῖς οὖσα μειζόνως συνδεῖ πάντα πρὸς τὴν ἀλλήλων κοινωνίαν καὶ τὴν ἀπ’ ἄλλων εἰς ἄλλα ποίησιν. εἰ δ’οὖν ζῷον ἕν ἐστιν ὁ κόσμος, ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ μία πασῶν συναγωγὸς τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωῶν·.

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it resting on a true insight, namely the pervasiveness and power of cosmic sympathy he sketches in the passage above.103 We have thus seen how Proclus explains the synchronic and diachronic unity of time by adopting a Stoic biology of the world, which coordinates all bodies and all souls in the world within the life of the single universal organism. It remains, however, to be seen how Time itself, as a Kind of Intelligence, comes to be identified with the normative measure of the cosmic lifespan. I do this by investigating the cause of cosmic sympathy in Proclus. Although the sympathy of the world is said in T3.17 to come from its having a soul, Proclus elsewhere makes clear that it is not the soul that is immediately responsible for this, but rather the universal nature that is present throughout the world, i.e., the immanent form possessed by the universal body in virtue of its participation in its separately existing soul: Thus we have discovered the meaning of fate and how it is the nature of the world, an incorporeal substance, as the patron of bodies, and a life as well as a substance, since it changes bodies from the inside and not from the outside, changing everything according to time and connecting the changes of all things that are dissociated in time and place. According to nature mortal beings are also connected with eternal beings and are set in rotation together with them, and all are in mutual sympathy. Also the nature in us binds together all the parts of our body and connects their interaction, and this nature can be viewed as a kind of ‘fate’ of our body. For just as in our body some parts are more important and others less important and the latter follows the former, so too in the entire universe: generations of things of inferior standing follow the changes which belong to things of higher standing, for instance, the generations of the terrestrial bodies follow the rotations of the celestial bodies. And cyclicality down here is an image of the circle there in the eternal realm. However, since all this has often been discussed by the ancients, I do not wish to develop the theme further. T3.18 Proclus On Fate and Providence 12, trans. Steel, modified104

103 See just before In Remp. II 285.3–5. 104 “Isto igitur inventum est, quid fatum et quomodo huius mundi natura substantia quedam ens incorporea, siquidem corporum preses, et vita cum substantia, siquidem intrinsecus movet corpora, et non deforis, movens omnia secundum tempus et connectens omnium motus et temporibus et locis distantium; secundum quam et mortalia coaptantur eternis et illa concirculantur et hec invicem compatiuntur. Et enim que in nobis natura partes omnes corporis nostri colligat et connectit eas que in invicem factiones ipsorum, et est

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Here Proclus names nature or fate the cause of cosmic sympathy and the unity of the cosmic organism both diachronically and synchronically.105 It is responsible for the sympathetic correspondences between terrestrial and celestial rhythms, which we saw him discuss above in connection with Aristotle (who is probably included amongst “the ancients” here mentioned) and his claim in GA IV.10 that “periods of things of inferior standing should follow those which belong to things of higher standing.”106 The reason why Proclus introduces nature as an incorporeal cause between the world soul and bodies has been usefully summarized by Martijn (2010, p. 45): on the one hand, the proximate cause of the information of the corporeal has to be an irrational cause, in order to prevent it from withdrawing from the objects it informs, which would leave the corporeal bereft of a rational structure. On the other hand, this same cause has to be a rational in the sense of possessing λόγοι [i.e., rational structures], in order to ensure the maintenance of proper (i.e. rational) boundaries and motions [i.e., changes], which is something the corporeal, being ἑτεροκίνητος [i.e., elsechanged], cannot do itself.107 A rational cause, such as soul and Intelligence, for Proclus essentially is a knowledge of itself and thus also is in some sense self-productive.108 It cannot therefore be bound to a substrate, which is how the immediate cause of rational order to bodies is bound to those bodies. Nature is, thus, conceived of as a

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fatum quoddam et hec nostri corporis. Et ut in isto hec quidem existunt principaliores partes, hec autem minus principales, et assequuntur hee illis, sic utique et in toto, et assequentes minus principalium generationes principaliorum motibus, puta celestium periodis que sub luna generationes, et ymago qui huius circulus eius, qui illius et in eternis. Et divulgata hec entia omnibus antiquis prolongare nolo.” De Prov. 12 in De Boese, H. (ed.), (1960). Procli Diadochi tria opuscula (De providentia, libertate, malo) Latine Guilelmo de Moerbeka vertente et graece ex Isaacii Sebastocratoris aliorumque scriptis collecta. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte der Philosophie 1. Berlin: de Gruyter. Elsewhere Proclus distinguishes nature and fate by saying that fate is nature considered under a certain respect, that is, insofar as it is ultimately dependent upon a divine unity: for it is the nature imparted by the World Soul, which in turn participates in cosmic intelligence, which is a divine Kind of Intelligence, that is, one that in turn participates in a divine unity (cf. In Tim. III 272.25ff). See above, T2.7. The square brackets are my own addition and point to the corresponding terminology that I have been using. See the discussion of intelligization in Chapter 2.3.2.

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“divine craft,” a craft primarily present in the cosmic Engineer and in the world soul, but which must also be present in bodies for the rationality of this craft not to remain something separate and extrinsic to the world, but be an internal principle of ordered and rational change for it.109 Martijn (2010, p. 39ff) has interestingly drawn attention to the fact that nature (φύσις), unlike other causes of the world, like its soul and Kind of Intelligence, and other “monads,” does not have a separate existence from the individual natures distributed throughout bodies. Rather like the Stoic Zeus, the world’s universal nature is divided amongst its bodies, resulting in a similar distinction between global and local perspectives that we find in Stoic Physics, between considering the world as an assemblage of individual nature tending towards individual (and often conflicting) ends and considering all natures as ultimately just parts of the global nature of the universe that pursues a single cosmic end (the perpetuity of the world and all natural kinds) and guides all natures in that direction. This becomes clear at In Tim. II 24ff, where Proclus interprets Tim. 31b5–32a7 as a passage about natural causes, where Plato speaks of the Engineer’s uniting the world by the bond of proportion combining “numbers, volumes and powers” (ἀριθμοί, ὄγκοι, δυνάμεις, respectively). Proclus interprets in this passage the proportion that unites the world as the single sympathetic life of the whole produced by a nature (In Tim II 24.3–18).110 Furthermore, he took Plato to be speaking of a “number, power and volume” belonging to each body: the number of a body is its immanent form or nature, its volume is the extended presence of the form throughout the body, and finally the powers of the body are the distinctive qualities that it has in virtue of having its form (such as being able to heat for fire).111 Having set this up, Proclus explains at In Tim. III 25.24–29 that the universal nature produces the unique life of the

109 See In Tim I 11.9–12.25 and Martijn II.5.1 for commentary. 110 Thus, in this case nature is clearly a vitality, a principle of life. 111 Proclus does not make clear any distinction or identity between the “numbers” he discusses here and those he mentions when discussing time. I take it that in the case of terrestrial entities, the numbers of time are at the very least included in (if not identical with) the natural numbers. After all, one function of the nature of a thing is to determine its lifespan and cyclical activities (and if a living body is to be explained in virtue of its being an instrument for carrying out vital activities, then the number/form determining the lifecycle of a living being might very well account for its bodily structure as well). In the case of souls, celestial bodies and the world, however, the temporal number is more often to be identified with a particular Kind of Intelligence, and thus is not an immanent form of a body. There might still, however, be an immanent form implanted in the body according to the schema of ET 81.

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world by “riding upon” (ἐπιβατεύει) the individual natures, and their presence and effects in bodies: Since therefore in each body there are these three, I mean number and volume and power, the analogy and natural bond rides upon from above their numbers, volumes and powers, and it brings together their partless substances and unites them in the single fullness of nature, placing amongst the forms community, amongst the volumes symmetry and amongst the powers harmony.112 T3.19 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 25.23–29, trans. BALTZLY, modified

The metaphor of mounting or walking upon another being is used by Proclus to indicate the relation of participation in a substantially existent participated term, such as the participation of a body in a soul, where instead of the participated term being immanent to the participant, the participant “belongs to” the participated entity and is an instrument of its action. Thus, here Proclus is asserting a distinction between the nature of the whole and the individual natures, which, however, are still the instruments through which the world’s nature coordinates all bodies toward the common good of the unity of the world and its assimilation to the unity of the intelligized world.113 Nature is thus the cause of the single life of the world’s body, but what causes the harmony of the lives of souls is their origin in the world soul. Seeing, thus, the causal chain between nature, soul and intelligence in the world, we can understand how cosmic Intelligence, which Proclus identifies with the Order of Time, comes to be identical (for him) with the measure of the cosmic lifecycle, thus raising the numbers responsible for lifespans in Aristotle’s GA up to the realm of the eternal Agents of change of his Metaphysics XII. The nature of each body contains within it the temporal number determining its normative unfolding in time, that is, its natural lifespan and cyclical activities. Cosmic sympathy, however, shows that there must not only be a rationality immanent to each living being, but also a cosmic rationality must exist that gives the world as a whole a similar normative lifecycle. There must then be a univer­ sal nature analogous to the individual ones. This universal nature, however, 112 ὄντος οὖν ἐν ἑκάστῳ σώματι τοῦ τριττοῦ τούτου, λέγω δὲ ἀριθμοῦ καὶ ὄγκου καὶ δυνάμεως, ἡ ἀναλογία καὶ ὁ δεσμὸς ὁ φυσικὸς ἄνωθεν ἐπιβατεύει τοῖς τε ἀριθμοῖς αὐτῶν καὶ τοῖς ὄγκοις καὶ ταῖς δυνάμεσι, τάς τε οὐσίας αὐτῶν τὰς ἀμερεῖς συνάγει καὶ ἑνοῖ πρὸς τὴν μίαν τοῦ κόσμου συμπλήρωσιν, τοῖς τε εἴδεσι κοινωνίαν καὶ τοῖς ὄγκοις συμμετρίαν καὶ ταῖς δυνάμεσιν ἁρμονίαν ἐντίθησι. 113 On this, see In Tim. III 26.14.

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cannot itself account for the world’s rational structure, since although it has a rational content, it does not know itself and is not a rational substance.114 This nature does not contain the explanation of its own rationality and must therefore owe its being to something else that does know itself and is per se rational. It owes its existence to the world soul and is actually nothing but the immanent vitality present in the world in virtue of the world’s participation in its soul. The latter, however, cannot account for its own perfection, since the essence of the soul is to change itself, not to remain in a state of perfection, as seen in the fact that there are both vicious and divine souls. The cosmic plan that the world soul has within it is thus due to its participation in its own Kind of Intelligence. This cosmic Kind of Intelligence, finally, is the measure of the world soul’s life, and thus by extension of the world.115 Through this a chain of dependencies, Proclus was led to conclude that the complete cyclical number, the science determining the lifespan of the world and all the living beings in it, ultimately, was to be identified with the Kind of Intelligence that was the prime and proximate eternal Agent of change for the world as a whole, the Order of Time. In this chapter we have seen how Proclus inherited from the Stoics a biology of the world, which allowed him to treat the whole of change as encompassed in the single life of the world, thereby allowing him to conceive also of a single time that measured all changes within the world. Furthermore, we saw how the Stoic postulation of a dispersed engineering principle throughout the world that accounted for its immanent rationality was taken up by Proclus in the form of the unique nature of the world. Proclus, however, could not accept that this nature was the ultimate source for the temporal order of the world, which in his view had to be attributed to cosmic Intelligence, which he identified with Time itself. In this way Proclus came to identify cosmic Intelligence with the temporal measure of the world, a surprising move when we consider the origins the two notions in Aristotle. Observe, however, that although the importance of the biology of the world for Proclus lies in its implicit reply to Aristotle’s criticism of the notion that time is a change, the relation that we have shown to exist in Proclus is the causal one between the unique life of the world and the Order of Time. The life of the world, although a candidate for being identified with the flow of

114 Something like a program that cannot program itself. 115 See Chapters 1.1.1 and 2.3.3 above on time as perfective of the life of the soul. I will discuss this again in Chapter 4.3.2.

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time, since it is an all-encompassing change, cannot ultimately be so identified because it lacks the uniformity of time’s flow. It, thus, fails to reply to another of Aristotle’s criticisms, which is that time cannot be a change, since a change is always judged to be quicker or slower than another one in terms of time. Hence, time would be a measure of change, but without being a change itself. Only a conception of an entirely uniform change, one intrinsically incapable of slowness or quickness, could possibly answer this criticism from Aristotle. The life of the world, however, contains as parts a number of heterogeneous changes, all of which can be accelerated or decelerated. The life of the world cannot, therefore, be identical to the flow of time.116 However, if the flow time is said to be a process entirely separate from the life of the world, then the necessary omnipresence of the life of the world cannot be shared by time. But time must be necessarily omnipresent, so it must somehow share in the all-encompassing character of the world’s life. Following Plotinus, Proclus will identify time not with the life of the world as such, the unified process that includes within it all the developments within the world, but with the life of the world soul and more specifically with the intellectual life of that soul, its perpetual activity of intelligizing the Forms. This activity is supposed to share in the omnipresence of the life of the world in virtue of being a prior process that is the cause of the “exterior” process of the life of the world’s body, so to speak. It would be analogous to the relation between the human inner life of thoughts, desires, and intentions and the outward life of voluntary actions. In the case of the world however, as for the celestial bodies, there would be a faithful imitation of the world’s inner life by its outer life, unimpeded by a faulty and partial body.117 Thus, just as we 116 The Stoics did have an account of the peculiar motion of pneuma through which it constituted the unity of each particular body in the world, which they called “tonic motion,” τονικὴ κίνησις. This might therefore be another Stoic candidate, besides the life of the world for a uniform change capable of being a measure. But it does not seem that the tonic motion is uniform. Rather it appears to be alternately an expansive and a contractive motion (See LS 57 I, J, K). It would be interesting to see whether the tonic motion of the Stoics contributes to Neoplatonist understandings of the inner life of the world soul. 117 See Proclus on the inner and outer lives of planetary souls at In Remp. II 231.27–232.1: “There [in the heavens] (…) bodies are carried in every direction in virtue of the intelli­ gization of their souls, that move them from one place to another (…), assimilating by means of their wills their visible movements to the intelligized objects.” (… πανταχοῖ φερομένων τῶν ἐκεῖ σωμάτων διὰ τὴν τῶν ψυχῶν τῶν κινουσῶν πρὸς ἄλλα καὶ ἄλλα νόησιν ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆς δυνάμεως, διὰ βούλησιν ἀφομοιουσῶν τὰς ἐμφανεῖς κινήσεις τοῖς νοουμένοις·) On the case of the world as a whole, see Proclus’ discussion of the gift of smoothness In Tim. II 79.28–81.15, where he interprets the smoothness of the world’s exterior as the

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can say both that the physical activity of dancing necessarily encompasses all the individual motions of limbs that make up a dance in a single dancer and also that his inner mental succession of decisions to adopt successive different poses necessarily encompasses the same motions, so should the inner life of the world soul be equally omnipresent as the life of the world.118 We turn then to Proclus and Plotinus on this inner life. smoothness of a mirror, that allows it to faithfully reflect the intelligizations of its soul and Kind of Intelligence and also as a sign of the unity of cosmic life. 118 See Miller (1986) on the metaphor of cosmic dance in antiquity.

Chapter 4

The Plotinian Element: The Flow of Time as the Life of the World Soul We now turn to Proclus’ reception of the “first Neoplatonist,” Plotinus, author of the Enneads,1 and to Plotinus’ theory of time. I already discussed Plotinus in the previous chapter as a mediator of Stoic biology of the universe to Proclus. Now, however, I will concentrate on his, so to speak, original contribution to the philosophy of time, namely the notion that phenomenal time is the life of the world soul. This idea is a step that follows after the assurance of the unity of change in the world by a biology of the universe. Since the heterogeneous change of the world itself cannot be taken as time, time must then be, on the one hand, distinct from the life of the world itself, but, on the other hand, still necessarily a part of that life in such a way as necessarily to be present to each and every change in the world. In the search for a core of the world’s life that is separate from the heterogeneity of the diverse and particular processes in the world, it makes sense to turn to an inner life of the world soul, that is, the flow of cognitions and volitions that the changes in the world express. But does it not beggar belief to think that the changes in any soul should be more uniform than that its attending body? In the flow of our souls, at any rate, a multitude of distinct sensations, perceptions, feelings, guesses, desires, thoughts, plans, intuitions and decisions constantly take each others’ place while flowing at ever different rates. At times, an idle, bored soul is harassed by thousands of distractions and concerns that make a quarter of an hour seem like an eternity; at other times, the soul is so absorbed in an activity that a day 1 Which we can be fairly sure that Proclus had access to, for five reasons: (1) A (no longer extant) commentary to the Enneads is ascribed to Proclus, of which we have excerpts through Michael Psellos (see Westerink 1959); (2) We find treatises from all six Enneads quoted by Proclus: I.2; I.3; I.6; II.1; II.2; II.3; III.7; III.9; IV.2; IV.3; IV.7; V.3; VI.6; (3) Proclus quotes an incident at In Alc. 73.5 from Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, ostensibly a preface written by Porphyry to the Enneads as a whole; (4) Proclus at one moment compares two diverging views that Plotinus presents in different treatises (In Tim I 427.6–10); and (5) Proclus challenges Porphyry’s interpretation of Plotinus’ view, according to which the Engineer of the world is to be identified with the world soul, by asking, “In which writings does Plotinus make the soul an Engineer?” (In Tim I 307.4–5: ἐν τίσι Πλωτῖνος τὴν ψυχὴν ποιεῖ δημιουργόν), implying thus independent access to and a review of Plotinus’ corpus. (Although, as Opsomer (2005, p. 94) remarks, there are clear passages to which Porphyry might point, whose content weakens this last point.)

© Antonio Vargas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466685_006

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goes by in the blink of an eye. If time is a measure, it certainly cannot be identified with our subjective experience of time.2 In order to answer these problems, this chapter will do more than simply explain Plotinus’ identity between the life of the soul and the flow of time and Proclus’ use of this thesis. It will also present the sources for the concept of the world’s inner life and the claim that it should be an equanimous one, quite unlike the mental life of human beings.3 It will start with a presentation of the background in Plato and Aristotle (IV.1). This will involve not just the pressure of Platonic authority to accept the claim that there is a flow of time and a study of Aristotle’s objection to such a notion on the basis of uniformity, but also an account of the problems faced by Plato and Aristotle in explaining the soul’s diverse life, which pushed them already to conceive the life of the soul (especially in its best state, the state necessarily enjoyed by the world soul) as different in kind from all other kinds of process and especially in the possession of a kind of uniformity.4 An important part of this effort at conceiving the life of the soul is Aristotle’s distinction between two kinds of actuality, changes (κινήσεις) and activities proper (ἐνέργειαι), already initially discussed above in Chapter 2.2. The reception and discussion of this distinction is central for the later development of the notion of time’s flow. After discussing this background, I will turn successively to Plotinus’ theory of time (4.2), and then to Proclus’ use of it (4.3). Proclus accepts a modified version of Plotinus’ theory, which does not appear to guarantee the uniformity of time’s flow entirely, and for this reason, the chapter will close with a discussion of a fundamental tension in Proclus’ understanding of time’s flow (4.4). 4.1

Platonic Sources and Aristotelian Objections to Time’s Uniform Flow

The clearest portrayal of time as a uniform process in Plato might be those passages where he speaks of time as a motion of the “now.” Thus at Tim. 38a1–2, “was” and “will be” are called changes (in T1.3) and at Parm. 151e–152d time is 2 A point, perhaps, made for Platonists implicitly in Plato’s Protagoras, which covers the art of measuring pleasure, and perhaps in conjunction with Plato’s Philebus, with its link between pleasure, memory and anticipation. 3 Here, it is useful to point out that insofar as Proclus being a Platonist philosopher identifies himself with his soul as a separate thinking substance whose natural body is its “luminous” body, he does not identify as a human being and that “human” is not a differentia of “soul.” 4 The idea of a uniform process was, therefore, not simply invented for the sake of the philosophy of time, but had an independent origin in psychology, an important fact for Proclus’ and Plotinus’ desire to give an account of what time is in itself, beyond its measuring function.

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described as a motion of past to future of the now. These seem to portray a uniform process, since the change of being possible in the future to being actual in the present to being fixed in the past, the change of tense in, for instance, “I will walk,” “I am walking,” “I have walked” seems to be the smallest possible change conceivable, and if moments of time change only with respect to their status as past, present and future, this would be as uniform and homogenous a change as possible.5 Nonetheless, this is not Plato’s characterization of time’s process that will occupy us in this chapter. Since it is possible to understand time as not being a process (as Aristotle does, and as Proclus understands the intelligized Order of Time), one cannot simply assume that the Platonic passages on tense and the now are about a uniform flow of time, distinct from all other changes. Rather, we should first find further support for the conception of time as a flow elsewhere in Plato. One important argument for the existence of a uniform flow of time comes from the hypothesis of the existence of the Order of Time as a productive measure of all change in the world. As we saw in Chapter 2.2, an unextended, intelligized Order of Time can only count out the changes in the world by means of an entirely homogeneous and uniform flow of time. This is a Platonic pressure to the degree that this hypothesis is an interpretation of the claim in the Tim. 37d1–7 (T1.1) that time is a changing image of eternity “proceeding according to number” and that the true astronomy studies “true quickness” and “true slowness” as measured by “true Number” at Rep. VII 529c7–530b4 (T1.5).6 Of course, regarding such a homogeneous entity, what might ask in 5 Certainly, nothing of the content of what undergoes such a change actually changes. What was future, what became present, and what has passed must be one and the same. 6 The physicist A.E. Milne (1948) raised an important problem regarding the meaning of “uniformity” in the measurement of time. In his cosmology, he employed two different processes as his time scale, one, labeled τ, which was “the expansion of the universe,” and the other, labeled t, which was related to τ through a logarithmic function. The result of employing these two time scales was that in Milne’s physics, as the time scale drawn from the expansion of the universe approached its origin τ = 0, the time scale t approached t = –∞. Thus, in one time scale the universe has a first moment, whereas in the other it extends infinitely into the past. This can be interpreted as saying, that with respect to time scale t, time is in fact accelerating, as equal periods in τ were previously longer periods in t and they are becoming more and more compressed. By such weird consequences, Milne’s physics show how the question of whether there is a “natural” scale of time and in what sense time can be said to be uniform is a fundamental issue. That there is a determinate answer to whether the universe began depends upon them as is the possibility of ascribing a single meaning to temporal measurements now and in statements about the past. But it is also clear that the problems Milne raises about uniformity have to do with the sense in which processes in the universe can be said to be uniform. Proclus does have interesting remarks in this regard about the structure of celestial motions, but these are details of his theory of time that I cannot cover. It demands significant doses of parsimony and reconstruction, but for those who are interested, consider

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what sense is this a change at all? And below we will see that this is something that Aristotle did in fact ask. But before we proceed to this puzzle, let me observe how the motions of the world soul in Plato’s Timaeus were a natural candidate for such a homogeneous change. If, having interpreted Time itself as the number according to which all change flows, Proclus turned to the Timaeus for an explanation of what is the intrinsically measured change through which this number counts out all changes, he might first have considered the celestial bodies and their motions, which are after all called by Plato “guardians of the numbers of time” and “instruments of time.” But even presuming that the celestial bodies move at entirely uniform rates, they fail to enjoy entirely homogeneous changes as required by the argument presented above. Indeed, the motions of the planets (carried by “the circle of the other”) are distinguished from the motion of the fixed stars (carried by “the circle of the same”) precisely by their direction.7 And in any case, Plato had Socrates assert in the Republic that one should expect neither uniformity nor commensurability from the motions of the celestial bodies, as they belong to the perceptible world (T1.5). So, one might look behind the celestial bodies in the Timaeus to the motion of the “circles” of the world soul, which are said to carry about the celestial bodies. Insofar as they are ontologically prior to the fashioning of bodies, they take place in an undifferentiated extension, and they themselves have no parts that are different from each other. Their motions, thus, approximate “a change that is not a change,” but that is required for the application of a prior measure, as identical extended parts replace each other and maintain always the same relations amongst each other.8 But even so, there is a persistent distinction of direction, as Plato has “the circle of the same” move from east to west, and “the circle of the other” move in the opposite direction.9 But to understand the soul’s circles as extended (and their motions as locomotions) is of course a literalist reading of the Timaeus’ image, one that first Proclus’ remarks about time’s procession at In Tim. III 57.20–58.4 along with his discussions of the poles, axis and center of the heavens as Kinds of Intelligence in his essay on the myth of Er and the Euclid Commentary. 7 Even if these opposing directions of motion are not contraries as Aristotle in De Caelo and his commentators argued, they are, nonetheless, different from each other. 8 An observation made by Menn (Unpublished) at the end of his paper. 9 On the objective distinction between East and West (and right and left) see Tim. 36c6–8, Aristotle De Caelo II.2 258b16ff and Proclus’ commentary on the Timaeus passage at In Tim. II 258.28–260.10. Proclus defends as both a Platonic and an Aristotelian opinon that there is an objective distinction between left and right in the world and as properly Platonic a distinction between left and right in the soul. Either way, a clockwise and a counterclockwise motion would definitely be intriniscally distinguished for Proclus, and not just in relation to each other.

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Proclus does not accept. And indeed, Plato identified the motion of the same and the other with the cognitive activities of the world soul at Tim. 37a3– 8, and specifically with its powers of knowledge and opinion. So, the Timaeus’ ultimate suggestion to Proclus of where to look for a purely uniform change capable of applying the eternal Measure of Time would be the cognitive life of the world soul. As we saw in Chapter 1.1.3, this is also a connection suggested by the Phaedrus and by Laws X, the latter especially with its description of the “change of intelligence.” A connection between a “change without change” and cognitive activity is further put forth at Sophist 248e6–249b3, an argument that would prove to be incredibly important for Platonist thought on the world of change starting with Plotinus. The context of the argument is an attempt to establish what “being” is, in order to be able to defend the notion that a sophist is someone who produces images of being and says things that are not. The investigation of being is conducted “historically,” and this in two senses. It is historical in the sense that the investigation is done through an examination of past views on what being is, but it is “historical” in a deviant sense as well, i.e., that of being framed through a story or myth, for the past views of being are divided into two camps, the one of those who believe only what is bodily has being, the other that believes that only what is incorporeal (the many Forms) is real. We might call these two camps “corporealist” and “idealist,” but the Eleatic Stanger, who leads the dialogue, calls them “giants” and “gods,” thus comparing the opposition between corporealists and idealists to the battle between gods and giants in Greek myth. The “gods” are also called “the friends of the Forms” and defend a classic version of Plato’s theory of Forms. There is a strict separation between Being, the realm of the Forms, and becoming, the realm of the perceptible. Human beings know the perceptible through their bodily senses and they know the Forms through the thought of their soul (ψυχή). The argument we are interested in is an argument developed by the Eleatic Stranger against the friends of the Forms, to show that there must be real things that change: But by Zeus, are we going to be convinced that it’s true that change, life, soul (ψυχή) and understanding (φρόνησις) are not present in that which wholly is, and that it neither lives, nor understands (φρονεῖν), but solemn and holy, without any intelligence (νοῦς), stays unchanging? – If we did, sir, we’d be admitting something frightening.10

10 Τί δὲ πρὸς Διός; ὡς ἀληθῶς κίνησιν καὶ ζωὴν καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ φρόνησιν ἦ ῥᾳδίως πεισθησόμεθα τῷ παντελῶς ὄντι μὴ παρεῖναι, μηδὲ ζῆν αὐτὸ μηδὲ φρονεῖν, ἀλλὰ σεμνὸν καὶ ἅγιον, νοῦν οὐκ ἔχον, ἀκίνητον ἑστὸς εἶναι; - Δεινὸν μεντἄν, ὦ ξένε, λόγον συγχωροῖμεν.

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But are we going to say that it has intelligence, but doesn’t have life? – How could we?11 But are we saying that both of these are in it, are we not going to say that it has them in a soul? – How could it be otherwise?12 And are we saying that it has intelligence, life and soul, but that it’s unchanging even though it’s animate? – That seems totally unreasonable to me. – Then both that which changes and also change have to be admitted as beings.13 T4.1 Plato Sophist 248e6–249b3, trans. White, modified

The interpretation of this argument is controversial.14 What is meant by the conclusion, “both that which changes and also change have to be admitted as beings”? It is clearly meant as a corrective to the view held by the “friends of the Forms” that the only real beings are the changeless Forms. The argument is supposed to have forced them to accept that there is something that changes amongst real beings. What is that, however? Broadly speaking, we might outline four possibilities: (1) the perceptible world, (2) the human soul, (3) the world soul, (4) the Forms themselves. I have ordered the possible answers in accordance with how “close” to the Forms they locate the changing beings. The closer one locates the changing reality argued for, the greater pressure there is to acknowledge a kind of change that is compatible with the changelessness of the Forms, and thus the closer the suggestion that knowledge of the Forms involves the kind of “changeless change” that might measure all other changes. If the changing things are merely perceptibles, then no “changeless change” is needed. If it is the human soul as it knows the Forms, then the Forms do not need to change, but are involved in a process of change (conceivably causing it). Likewise, in the case of the world soul. Finally, in the case of the Forms themselves there is a need to conceive of them somehow changing and also remaining unchanged. But even if there is nothing here that motivates a 11 Ἀλλὰ νοῦν μὲν ἔχειν, ζωὴν δὲ μὴ φῶμεν; Καὶ πῶς; 12 Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μὲν ἀμφότερα ἐνόντ’ αὐτῷ λέγομεν, οὐ μὴν ἐν ψυχῇ γε φήσομεν αὐτὸ ἔχειν αὐτά; Καὶ τίν’ ἂν ἕτερον ἔχοι τρόπον; 13 Ἀλλὰ δῆτα νοῦν μὲν καὶ ζωὴν καὶ ψυχὴν , ἀκίνητον μέντοι τὸ παράπαν ἔμψυχον ὂν ἑστάναι; Πάντα ἔμοιγε ἄλογα ταῦτ’ εἶναι φαίνεται. Καὶ τὸ κινούμενον δὴ καὶ κίνησιν συγχωρητέον ὡς ὄντα. 14 See De Rijk (1986, pp. 102–109) and Cornford (1935, pp. 239–248) for modern commentaries. Perl (2014) has recently defended Plotinus’ interpretation by a meticulous reading of Plato’s texts. He observes that one result of this reading is to see a continuity between Plato’s understanding of the Forms and Aristotle’s understanding of Intelligence as inherently active. But this raises a problem he does not remark upon, namely how to make sense of Aristotle’s own opposition to Plato, if he substantially agrees with him.

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changeless change, the results of the argument are later taken up at Sophist 251cff when the Eleatic Stranger goes on to posit a Form of Change, which then must certainly be a changeless change in some sense, but then again the Form might be simply understood as what it is to be a change, i.e., the rational structure of change, which is a “change” only equivocally. Thus, there are many Platonic sources for identifying the soul’s cognitive activity (perhaps its highest cognitive activity, especially the knowledge of the Forms, following the Sophist and the Phaedrus) with a purely uniform motion that is portrayed in the Timaeus by the liminal picture of a rotation of a uniform, homogeneous extension. But these are not the only Platonic sources for such an identification, but there are also motivations coming from the Phaedo. At Phaedo 98b–99d Plato has Socrates distinguish between two explanations for his not escaping prison, a mechanistic one that explains it by the state of his sinews and bones, and a teleological/psychological one that explains it by his will and his desire for the best. This introduces a new way to distinguish between mental and bodily change, besides the distinction from the Phaedrus and the Laws between being selfchanging and being elsechanged.15 Mental changes, and especially volitions, are here distinguished from bodily changes because they bring an end to a series of “why” questions by providing a satisfactory explanation for why a series of changes takes place. This is not true for any mental change and any desire, but rather the desire for the best. A desire for the sake of the best explains why an action takes place in a way that a mechanical explanation cannot. This seems to be true in two ways. On the one hand, the good establishes a self-sufficient goal for the action and thus explains what the change is a change towards and thus what change it is. (They, thus, answer why the change is the way it is.) On the other hand, the good (and especially in the guise of the beautiful) can stir a soul to action, thus explaining how a change can start without postulating a further change. The teleological characterization of mental change is a strong motivator for conceiving at least of some kinds of mental change as being in some sense “changeless.” This refers in particular to the changes the soul undergoes when it has acquired the best, i.e., when it is happy. For happiness, as the goal of the soul’s activity involves the notions of permanence and self-sufficiency, and thus the changing life of the happy soul must be one that does not remove it from its happy state. Although in the Timaeus, Phaedrus and Laws the teleological character of mental change is not underlined as the source of its priority to bodily change (its priority being given in terms of the fact that the soul 15 One can also use one of the distinctions to illuminate the other, as when selfchange is glossed as being changed by a self-determined end.

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changes itself, although one should always keep in mind the possibility of simply explaining self-change in teleological terms), the happiness of the divine souls is constantly underlined. Thus, the world soul in the Timaeus is said to be happy at 34b and 37a, while the soul in the Laws is said to be “rational and supremely virtuous,”16 the souls of in the Phaedrus that have “the entire universe under their dominion” are called “happy” and said to enjoy “blessed visions.”17 The world soul, whose changes ultimately explain the ordered changes in the world, must necessarily be happy, because it must be perfectly intelligent. Only by being intelligent can it be an explanation of order, and possession of intelligence is happiness for Plato.18 So the teleological character of mental change is an inner Platonic motivation for construing certain kinds of mental change, namely the changes involved in the intellectual activity of the happy soul, as in some sense “uniform changes,” for happiness must be permanent and in that respect the activities of a happy soul must be uniform. A teleological explanation of the world is only possible through a soul that has already attained the end. But since such a soul must nonetheless be self-changing, there must be a mental change that is, at the same time, uniformly happy. Aristotle took up the teleological role of mental activity in the explanation of change and distinguished between changes (κινήσεις) and activities (ἐνέργειαι). This distinction was central to his ethical writings. To see how Aristotle already connected this (negatively) with the claim that time is a change, we turn now to an objection from Aristotle, namely that time cannot be a change because all change is either quicker or slower: Change is quicker and slower, but time is not. For the quick and the slow are defined by time, quick is what moves much in little time, slow what moves little in much time. But time is not bounded by a time, neither by its being a quantity nor by its being such.19 T4.2 Aristotle Physics IV.11 218b13–18, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

Contemporary commentators have drawn attention to the similarity of Aristotle’s objection to a contemporary criticism of the view that time flows, 16 A link between complete virtue and happiness was established in the Laws at 631b–d, 660dff, 829a. 17 247a: μακάριαι θέαι, though θέαι in context can also mean seats from which the Gods contemplate the spectacle of the universe. 18 See Carone (2002) for a defense of this, even in the not-so-clear case of the Laws. 19 218b13–18: ἔτι δὲ μεταβολὴ μέν ἐστι θάττων καὶ βραδυτέρα, χρόνος δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν· τὸ γὰρ βραδὺ καὶ ταχὺ χρόνῳ ὥρισται, ταχὺ μὲν τὸ ἐν ὀλίγῳ πολὺ κινούμενον, βραδὺ δὲ τὸ ἐν πολλῷ ὀλίγον· ὁ δὲ χρόνος οὐχ ὥρισται χρόνῳ, οὔτε τῷ ποσός τις εἶναι οὔτε τῷ ποιός.

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namely the “rate objection.” Ursula Coope quotes the following example from the philosophical literature: If it made sense to say that time flows then it would make sense to ask how fast it flows, which doesn’t seem to be a sensible question. Some people reply that time flows at one second per second, but even if we could live the lack of other possibilities, this answer misses the more basic aspect of the objection. A rate of seconds per second is not a rate at all in physical terms. It is a dimensionless quantity, rather than a rate of any sort. Price (1996), apud Coope (2005)

“The objection that time might pass at a rate of a second per second is just the kind of objection that Aristotle is anticipating and rejecting when he says that time is not defined by time” Coope comments. But that is not clear. The “rate objection” objects to the proposal that time is an entirely uniform change, flowing at “a second per second,” say, unaffectable by acceleration or deceleration, whereas Aristotle seems to be confronting the more general notion that time is a change, and not merely a purely uniform one. Being a change for Aristotle involves having a certain speed. Thus, at NE X.3 1173a29–b2 he counters a Platonist argument that pleasure cannot be the Good because it is a change by arguing that there is no speed in “being pleased”: They assume that the good is perfect (τέλειον) while changes and processes of generation are not, and try to show pleasure as being a change and a process of generation. But they do not seem to be right even in saying that it is a change. For speed and slowness are thought to be proper to every change, and if a change, e.g. the revolution of the heavens (τοῦ κόσμου), has not speed or slowness in itself, it has it in relation to something else; but of pleasure neither of these things is true. For while we may become pleased quickly as we may become angry quickly, we cannot be pleased quickly, not even in relation to someone else, while we can walk, or grow, or the like, quickly.20 T4.3 Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics X.3 1173a29–b2, trans. Ross, modified

20 τέλειόν τε τἀγαθὸν τιθέντες, τὰς δὲ κινήσεις καὶ τὰς γενέσεις ἀτελεῖς, τὴν ἡδονὴν κίνησιν καὶ γένεσιν ἀποφαίνειν πειρῶνται. οὐ καλῶς δ’ ἐοίκασι λέγειν οὐδ’ εἶναι κίνησιν. πάσῃ γὰρ οἰκεῖον εἶναι δοκεῖ τάχος καὶ βραδυτής, καὶ εἰ μὴ καθ’ αὑτήν, οἷον τῇ τοῦ κόσμου, πρὸς ἄλλο· τῇ δ’ ἡδονῇ τούτων οὐδέτερον ὑπάρχει. ἡσθῆναι μὲν γὰρ ἔστι ταχέως ὥσπερ ὀργισθῆναι, ἥδεσθαι δ’ οὔ, οὐδὲ πρὸς ἕτερον, βαδίζειν δὲ καὶ αὔξεσθαι καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα.

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First, with regard to T4.3 and its connection with the rate objection, it should be observed that the change “of the world” (τοῦ κόσμου), that is, the revolution of the heavens around the Earth, is said not to have any speed or slowness in itself, presumably because it is the measure for all change, as Aristotle elsewhere claims (Metaph X.1 1053a12). Aristotle has no issue with the idea of an entirely uniform change. It has speed or slowness only in relation to something else, but it still counts as having a rate of change and being a change. So, when Aristotle argues that time is not a change because it does not become quicker or slower it is not the uniformity of time’s rate to which he objects. Second, with regard to the understanding of change that Aristotle has in mind in T4.2, Aristotle contrasts changes in T4.3 with mental states that are not changes: anger and pleasure, or rather, being angry and being pleased. These he says are not subject to the qualification of always being quicker or slower. Compare Plato’s Laws 897a1–4, where the changes of the soul are listed as “wish, reflection, diligence, counsel, opinion true and false, joy and grief, boldness and fear, love and hate and all that are akin to these.” Aristotle is, thus, answering the Platonists by drawing on his distinction between changes (κινήσεις) and activities (ἐνέργειαι), although “being pleased” is not in the strict sense for Aristotle an activity, but the completion of an activity. His argument, then, that time cannot be a change because a change must be quicker or slower depends on time’s being a change according to his own concept of change as an imperfect activity, a concept of change that is narrower than Plato’s. Although the concept of activities as distinct from changes is proper to Aristotle, it is a development of the teleological motivations in Plato for conceiving the intelligizations of the happy soul as a kind of “changeless change.”21 Indeed, the distinction between activities and changes is central for Aristotle’s ethics because changes are always directed toward some end or goal distinct from them: the action of building is directed toward producing a house, that of walking toward arriving at a certain place. Happiness, that for the sake of which we do all our actions, cannot therefore be a change, because a change cannot be an ultimate goal, since it always has a further goal of its own. The happiness of the soul, cannot, therefore, be something like the perpetual unimpeded motion of the circle of the same and the circle of the other within it. For locomotion is a sort of change, and although circular locomotion can only with difficulty be fit into Aristotle’s understanding of change as from one contrary to another, Aristotle would still hold that it is not a viable candidate

21

A point made in Menn (unpublished).

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for happiness and for the goal of the happy life.22 The motions of the celestial bodies are clearly never complete, such that some authors have even come to see their lives in Aristotle’s system as a life of perpetual frustration.23 Now, in what sense are these objections to the notion that the activity of the happy soul is a change, and furthermore that time is a change? Why can’t time be an activity and what can’t an entirely uniform activity such as the contemplation of the world soul be considered a change? The fact of the matter is that the distinction between activity and change in Aristotle can be interpreted in many different ways, and one of them is indeed that Aristotle is just being more terminologically exact than Plato by separating off a set of activities (as activities proper) from changes.24 Nevertheless, there are cases of ἐνέργεια that Aristotle marks off from processes, and it is in light of these cases that we can raise the question whether the ἐνέργειαι that the Platonist has in mind are truly processes. It will not be necessary to resolve the ambiguities in Aristotle here, but merely to present the possible objections to a Platonist understanding of time as a flow contained in labeling the activities of the soul as ἐνέργειαι. In Chapter 2.2 I presented the distinction between change and activity as two kinds of actualization of a power to act or be acted upon. As actualizations of powers to be in some contrary state, changes can be considered ἐνέργειαι. There are, however, still yet other ἐνέργειαι that Aristotle recognizes. In particular, the form or perfection of an object relative to its matter can be considered an ἐνέργεια, in which case we are dealing with an ἐνέργεια according to substance. Thus, Aristotle presents an analogy between agents actually exercising their powers and beings possessing their form (1048a29–b4): as he who is building to he who can build, as the man alert to the man asleep, as the man with open eyes to the man with eyes shut, so is also what has been shaped out of matter to its matter, and that which has been wrought up to what is

22

Of course, Plato would reply that happiness does not consist in the motion of the circles per se, but in the good state of the soul that can have its perpetual moving circles. And this is an actuality. 23 Menn (2012, pp. 448, fn.38) refers to Aubenque (1962, pp. 367–368, 386–390) as an example. One might want to compare this with Corbin (2014, pp. 71, 108), who speaks of a “romanticism” in Avicenna’s understanding of the eternal and ever unstilled desire expressed in the motions of the heavens. Against Corbin, however, consider Davidson (1992, pp. 111–112) who observes that unfulfilled intellectual desire is a source of misery and pain for Avicenna. Menn also makes the point that this would be an inappropriate causality for νοῦς. 24 This is Simplicius’ reading In Phys. 1248.21–1249.17. In this way he reconciles Aristotle’s criticism of self-change with Plato’s claim that the soul is a self-changing cause of change.

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not wrought up.25 For Aristotle all the former instances are cases of actuality (ἐνέργεια), but not in the sense that there is a single feature predicated, but in that there is a single relation. There is, thus, a sense of ἐνέργεια in Aristotle that signifies the actuality of a form, and this certainly is not a case of a change or a process. Further, in both Metaph. ΙΧ 1048b9–1726 and the Physics Aristotle draws a clear distinction in the above cases between actuality and the actuality of the infinite and processes: When we speak of the potential existence of the statue we mean that there will be an actual statue. It is not so with the infinite. There will not be an actual infinite. The word ‘is’ has many senses, and we say that the infinite is in the sense in which we say that ‘it is day’ or ‘it is the games’, because one thing after another is always coming into existence. For of these things too the distinction between potential and actual existence holds. We say that there are Olympic games, both in the sense that they may occur and that they are actually occurring.27 T4.4 Aristotle Physics III.6 206a18–25, trans. HARDIE-GAYE, modified

Aristotle is specifying here the way in which the infinite can be said to be, and more specifically how the distinction being potential/actual (δυνάμει/ἐνεργείᾳ ὂν) applies to the infinite. He distinguishes two classes of beings. Some of them are said to be potentially in the sense that their entire potency can be actualized. His example is that of the bronze, which is potentially a statue and, once it has been cast, is a statue actually and in no way still potentially. In Metaph. IX.6 1048b10ff the contrast is with cases of activity that are actualizations of a power to act or to be acted upon: seeing, walking, being seen, etc. Other things have potential being, but their capacity to be actualized is not a capacity for the whole of them to be actualized. During night, for example, the day is potential, but that does not mean that it is possible that all the hours of the day exist simultaneously in actuality. Rather, the potentiality is a potentiality 25

There are problems in assigning these examples to the different pairs (one belonging to motion, the other belonging to activity) but they do not interfere with the fact that the last two belong to substance. 26 About which Burnyeat (2008, pp. 237–238) suggests a useful emendation of γνώσει for γενέσει at 1048b15, which brings the Metaphysics IX text in line with the Physics III.6 text. 27 οὐ δεῖ δὲ τὸ δυνάμει ὂν λαμβάνειν, ὥσπερ εἰ δυνατὸν τοῦτ’ ἀνδριάντα εἶναι, ὡς καὶ ἔσται τοῦτ’ ἀνδριάς, οὕτω καὶ ἄπειρον ὃ ἔσται ἐνεργείᾳ· ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ πολλαχῶς τὸ εἶναι, ὥσπερ ἡ ἡμέρα ἔστι καὶ ὁ ἀγὼν τῷ ἀεὶ ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο γίγνεσθαι, οὕτω καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον (καὶ γὰρ ἐπὶ τούτων ἔστι καὶ δυνάμει καὶ ἐνεργείᾳ· Ὀλύμπια γὰρ ἔστι καὶ τῷ δύνασθαι τὸν ἀγῶνα γίγνεσθαι καὶ τῷ γίγνεσθαι)·

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for a process to be occurring, namely the passage of daylight hours. Similarly, the infinite division of a continuous magnitude is something that is potential but can never be fully actualized. It is actual only in a process of division, which can always go further. The cases of infinite division, the passage of the day and the staging of athletic games might all be taken to be examples of changes, insofar as they are never complete at any moment of their occurrence. However, in the case of the infinite at least (and of the passage of the day, if we reduce it to the motion of the heavens), there is something that separates both of them from changes, which is that not only do they not have their goal within themselves, but they also never finally achieve that goal. In summary, we have at least four different classes of actualities to consider: the actuality of a process without end, of a change towards an end, of an activity with an end in itself, and of a form.28 The flow of time might seem to fall into each of these categories. First, it is endless, with no beginning and end. It is, however, also measured by the great year, and thus in one sense progresses towards an end. Nevertheless, it is furthermore the constant coming-to-be of the present, which seems to be fulfilled in each moment. Hence, it is always true that the present is and is coming-to-be now.29 Finally, the flow of time is the measure of all change. It is the final case of ἐνέργεια that casts doubt upon the uniform flow of time. Thus, if this really is just a change from a state A to a state A through one and the same state A, why not just say that it is a form A that is possessed by change? Why not just speak of the immanent order or form of change, instead of speaking of a flow that accompanies and measures it? Indeed, Aristotle’s account of time has recently been interpreted along hylomorphic lines, i.e., as an analysis in terms 28

Which is itself an end one might observe: that a statue has a certain shape is the end of the activity/change of producing. Similarly, the form of a living being is the end towards which it develops. 29 I am making use, here, of a criterion introduced by Aristotle to distinguish between changes and activities in the stricter sense, the so-called “tense-test,” which Burnyeat (2008) and Kosman (2013, pp. 39–42) argue persuasively to be rather an “aspect” test. The test is the folowing: given the actualiziation of a power to act or to be acted up on – say, walking – the actualization is an activity if and only if whenever the actualization is complete (i.e., has realized its end) it is also taking place and vice versa. Thus, walking counts as an activity only if whenever I am walking, I am at the same time fulfilling the goal of my walking, which is nothing but walking. That is, when I am “strolling” to use Kosman’s distinction (2013, pp. 43–44), and not walking – since walking, on Aristotle’s analysis is always walking towards some specific place – and in that case it is false to say that whenever I am walking to somewhere that I am already there. In the case of time’s flow, the question is: whenever time is flowing by, is it true that it has flowed by? If by the flow of time I mean the passage of the great year, no. If by the flow of time I mean the production of the present, it seems yes.

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of form and matter (Roark, 2011). By the same token, if this is an immanent form of change, it will thus share in its extension for a Neoplatonist, the way that rational structures are distributed throughout a body acquiring “volume” (see Chapter 3.4) or a color shares in the extension of a surface it colors. It would thus be extended like a process, so why not talk about it as such? 4.2

Time’s Flow as the Soul’s Engineering of the World in Plotinus

Proclus saw Plotinus as the restorer of the Platonist tradition of which he himself was a part, as he makes clear in the preface to the Platonic Theology.30 (PT I 5.1–8.15) This in no way implies that Plotinus’ opinions are accepted entirely by Proclus, but it does give him some authority.31 And in the case of time, we are faced with a quite paradoxical response to this authority. On the face of it, Proclus’ theory of time is directly contrary to Plotinus’: Proclus insists that Time itself is a substance, a Kind of Intelligence, whereas Plotinus identifies it with a process, the life of the world soul. Furthermore, Proclus presents a series of criticisms that scholars have hitherto for good reason seen as directed at Plotinus.32 In this chapter, however, we shall take a closer 30

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In this introduction Proclus speaks of a first apparition of Platonic philosophy “by the benevolent will of the Gods” and a second moment, when it “returned to light,” “as if perfected after a period withdrawn into itself.” But he then goes on to say that theology, i.e., “the initiation into the divine mysteries,” was the work of Plato alone, but that it remained unknown due to the hidden manner in which he taught it, only to be later disclosed “by certain veritable priests,” i.e., true Platonists. The latter philosophers, who were responsible for bringing Plato’s theology to light, Proclus identifies with Plotinus, Amelius, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Theodore of Asine, and all who followed in their path, up to and including Proclus’ own teacher Syrianus. Thus, at least with respect to theology, Proclus identifies Plotinus with the who brought Plato’s philosophy back to light. But see also Proclus’ review of previous opinions on the identity of the Engineer at In Tim I 303.24–310.2, where Plotinus is the earliest philosopher to exactly distinguish two principles of cosmic Engineering, Intelligence as such for its permanent features, and the cosmic Kind of Intelligence for its passing features. (Proclus does not explicitly note this novelty, though.) Proclus criticizes several of Plotinus’ views, at times mentioning him as their author, at times omitting his name. The former includes the beliefs that the soul has a part that always resides in the intelligized realm (In Tim. III 333.29), that souls only differ in their activities but not in their substance (i.e., that all souls are “sisters”) (In Tim. III 245.27), that there is something akin to matter in the intelligized (PT III 39.26), that intelligized number is prior to the paradigm of nature (PT IV 95.15ff). The latter include the thesis that matter is the cause of evils and, it would appear, that time is a product of the world soul. The criticisms are to be found at In Tim. III 21.11–24.28 and In Alc. 237.3–14 See fn.76 of this chapter for the scholarly literature on the differences between Proclus’ and Plotinus’ views of time.

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look at the difference between the two theories, and the resulting picture will be that the difference between the two appears to us to be a technicality. On the one hand, Proclus, as we have seen, holds a double theory of time, recognizing not only a temporal Intelligence, but also a uniform change proceeding from this Kind of Intelligence, which can be shown to be precisely the cognitive life of the world soul. On the other hand, Plotinus is quite explicit that the sequence of cognitions in the world soul that constitutes time is dependent upon an eternal contemplation of the Intelligence of the world soul. Proclus would certainly deny that any soul, even the world soul, could have an eternal, non-successive contemplation, but it seems that ultimately Proclus and Plotinus can be brought to agree that (1) the sequential life of the world soul is what constitutes time, and (2) that life depends on an eternal intellectual substance. For Proclus this substance is a Kind of Intelligence existing separately from the world soul, whereas for Plotinus it is an eternal intellectual Self of the world soul.33 Eternal Activity, Change Itself and the Engineering of the World in Plotinus Regarding the view that Plotinus’ theory of time as the world’s inner cognitive life extends Stoic cosmobiology, it is interesting to observe that Plotinus often presented his own views in polemical criticisms of Stoic opinions, although he never refers to the Stoics by name. Thus, in Enn V.9 [5] 1 he criticizes two other philosophical schools in an allegory, where he divides human beings into three groups. The first he compares to flightless birds and says that they dedicate their lives to pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, which can plausibly be taken to designate Epicureans. The second group have some power of flight and attempt to move “from the pleasant to the nobler,” but since they do not know of any “ground” besides the Earth, they end up returning to it. Finally, the third group, presumably Platonists, know of firm ground high above. The second group can plausibly be identified with the Stoics (See Graeser (1972, pp. 61–62)). The implicit criticism is that since they do not recognize the existence of eternal intelligized realities, instead claiming all beings to be bodies, their calls to “turn 4.2.1

33

This raises an interesting problem, the investigation of which would take us far afield: how can Proclus have come to a theory of time so close to that of a fellow Platonist without acknowledging the fact? Given the proximity of their views, Proclus could have presented his position as just a slight modification of Plotinus’ own, narrating a story of progressive clarity in the philosophy of time within the Platonist tradition, as he does, for instance, with regard to the interpretation of the Parmenides. Instead, what we find is no explicit statement of dependence upon Plotinus, but rather a smoke screen of criticisms that has hitherto hidden their proximity.

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inward” and to make happiness consist in virtue are empty, for the substance of that happy life will be dedicated to physics, thus turned toward the nature of the world, and thus inevitably “outward” and not “inward.”34 This can plausibly also be extended as a criticism of the Stoic understanding of the world soul, which likewise does not engage in any other activity than the engineering of the world. It, thus, has its attention turned towards the bodies it fashions. But if the world soul is simply aware of what goes on in the world, then its life will be an image of it and just as heterogeneous. In Plotinus’ ethical criticism of the Stoics, we find the speculative point made above, that the life of the world could never be identified with time because it is in no way uniform. In contrast to Stoicism, Plotinus’ Platonism makes the happy life consist in the contemplation of the Forms. Enn V.9 [5] 2–4 is, indeed, dedicated to an ascent up to Intelligence as a principle of the world. Chapters 5 to 8 in the work establish that this principle contains a multitude of Forms, while Chapters 9 to 13 try to determine what those Forms are. In Chapters 2 to 4, meanwhile, the ascent to Intelligence is realized through a successive application of Aristotle’s distinction between change and activity, and the argument that every potentiality requires something in actuality, in turn, to actualize it. Thus, Plotinus ascends up to soul and from soul to Intelligence in his search for the good life. If we turn to his treatise On Happiness (Enn I.4 [46]), where we can discern a similar criticism (I.4 [46] 2.31–55), Plotinus says that true happiness is to be found in Intelligence’s contemplative activity (3.33–37), and that the soul is truly happy when it has come to identify itself with the intelligence in it, which Plotinus understands not as a mere power in the soul, but as essentially active, a “second self” that intelligizes even when the soul is not aware of it (I.4 [46] Chapters 9, 10). Plotinus thus allowed souls a share in the essentially blissful activity of Intelligence itself. It would seem, then, that he excluded change from the stability and uniformity of happiness. But the appearance is deceiving: for with respect to the distinction between activity and change, Plotinus argued in VI.1 [42] 16 that every change (even such a paradigmatic case of change as walking)

34 The Stoics themselves seem to have recognized this problem. Thus, in De tranquillitate animi, Seneca attempts to answer the complaints of Serenus, who talks about how he is constantly led back from his Stoic studies to the agitation of the world. Seneca replies that this is because he is only beginning to be a Stoic, and thus is still a backslider (not unhealthy, but not used to being healthy, as he puts it). But Plotinus appears to be saying that this is a structural problem of Stoicism, that it cannot provide a substantial content to the life separate of worldly concerns. For the role of physics in Stoic ethics, see Menn (1996).

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was an instance of activity.35 Furthermore, in VI.1. [42] 17–20 he held that change was the proper category encompassing all instances of acting upon (ποιεῖν) and being acted upon (πάσχειν), i.e., all instances of activities in the sense of the actualization of a power.36 Plotinus also carried out this reconceptualization of change in the perceptible world, such that it came to be identical with activity, with respect to the Intelligized. First, on the matter of what is known only by Intelligence, Plotinus differed from the Procline view. Proclus recognized a “strictly intelligized” part of reality, something that is solely know through intelligence, but is not Intelligence itself, namely the Causes of Intelligence such as Being itself and Eternity. For Plotinus everything that belonged to the Intelligized, i.e., everything that was known solely through intelligization, was included within Intelligence itself, which he identified both with the Engineer and the Paradigm of the Timaeus. Thus, he wrote: “Intelligence as a whole is all the Forms, and each of the Forms is itself a Kind of Intelligence.”37 In order to sustain this rich view of Intelligence, as containing within itself a multitude of contents, Plotinus had to argue against the Aristotelian view that intelligence was itself a simple, partless activity of self-intelligization. And here his reconceptualization of change in the intelligized world, or put otherwise, his understanding of the Form of Change itself, was central. Indeed, Plotinus read the Sophist’s argument that the friends of the Forms must admit both to change and rest amongst real beings as an argument to the effect that Intelligence can only be conceived of as knowing if it is said to both change and be at rest (a point he makes at VI.2 [43] 7–8). Plotinus, thus, read the argument as an argument for the necessary multiplicity of Intelligence, and he understood the “change” in question as both Intelligence’s life/activity of knowing and as Change itself. Besides Change itself, Plotinus took the argument to establish that Intelligence had also to include Being, Sameness, Difference and Rest themselves, which along with Change itself, were the “five great kinds” that made up Substance itself. Based on this understanding of life and change existing within Intelligence, Plotinus developed his understanding of eternity in Enn. III.7, which is also his treatise on time. Plotinus’ description of eternity can be seen as an exegesis of Plato’s characterization on the one hand at Tim. 37d1-7 (T1.1) of eternity as “remaining in unity” (μένοντος αἰῶνος ἐν ἑνὶ) and as belonging to the essence of the Living Being itself (ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ ζῴου φύσις ἐτύγχανεν οὖσα αἰώνιος) and 35 He thus conflated “walking” and “strolling” to use Kosman’s (2013) distinction. 36 On intelligization, see Chapter 2.3.3 above. 37 Enn V.9 [5] 8.3–4: καὶ ὅλος μὲν ὁ νοῦς τὰ πάντα εἴδη, ἕκαστον δὲ εἶδος νοῦς ἕκαστος.

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on the other at Tim. 37e–38b (T1.3) of the proper language employed to speak of eternal things, where Timaeus forbids the use of “was” and “will be” to refer to eternal beings, which in his view can only be spoken of as in the present. Furthermore, it is an exegesis of the Sophist insofar as he identified the Living Being itself with Intelligence and with the communion of the five μέγιστα γένη. As we saw in the discussion of the Timaean discussion of “was” and “will be” in Chapter 1, one of the first things that follows from Timaeus’ regimentation of tenses is the distinction between eternity and perpetuity. Eternity, understood as being exclusively present, is distinguished from perpetuity, understood as having existed at every moment, existing now, and having no end in the future. The latter is not exclusively present, but also past and future. Plotinus picked up on this in many ways, saying for instance at T4.5 below that eternity, though infinite (ἄπειρον) is already infinite (ἄπειρον ἤδη) by “already” indicating that eternity is complete, that there is no part of it which is lacking to it, especially no future part; or, by calling it “complete” and “whole” as in the following passage: Therefore, the substance of being is complete and also whole, not being a substance [existing] only in its parts, but also in its no longer lacking anything and there being nothing to be added to it – for it is necessary not only for all beings to be present to the whole and as a whole, but also that nothing belonging to it was ever nonexistent – let this constitution and character (φύσις) of it be eternity. For eternity (αἰὼν) comes from always being (ἀεὶ ὄντος).38 T4.5 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 4.37–43, trans. ARMSTRONG, modified

One sees here an interpretation of the denial of past and future with a denial of being divided into temporal parts. This identification of eternity with the wholeness and compresence of what is eternal to itself is taken up by Proclus: For if the eternal is that which always is (as the word itself shows), and being at a time and coming-to-be are distinct from being always, then its parts cannot be the one earlier, the other later; otherwise it will be a process (γένεσις), not a being. And where there is neither an earlier nor a later, neither a was nor a will be, but only a being what it is, there each 38 ἡ οὖν τοῦ ὄντος παντελὴς οὐσία καὶ ὅλη, οὐχ ἡ ἐν τοῖς μέρεσι μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἡ ἐν τῷ μηδ’ ἂν ἔτι ἐλλείψειν καὶ τὸ μηδὲν ἂν μὴ ὂν αὐτῇ προσγενέσθαι – οὐ γὰρ μόνα τὰ ὄντα πάντα δεῖ παρεῖναι τῷ παντὶ καὶ ὅλῳ, ἀλλὰ καὶ μηδὲν τοῦ ποτε μὴ ὄντος – αὕτη ἡ διάθεσις αὐτοῦ καὶ φύσις εἴη ἂν αἰών· αἰὼν γὰρ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀεὶ ὄντος.

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thing is what it is together as a whole. The same can be said with respect to activity.39 T4.6 Proclus Elements of Theology 52.9–14, trans. Dodds, modified

This analysis of the kind of whole that eternal things are can be called the “formal” side of Plotinus’ concept of eternity, insofar as it does not identify eternity with an intelligized Reality, but rather explains it as a feature of intelligized Realities. But there is also a characterization of eternity as an intelligized Reality itself. This fuller understanding of eternity is central to the thesis that time, eternity’s image, is the life of the world soul, for it is the claim that that eternity is the life of the Intelligized. The Intelligized is said to possess life in the same way that it is said to know, and the latter is attributed to it because it is entirely in act, as we saw above, Chapter 2.3.3. Insofar as it is entirely in act, the intelligized is also in activity knowing and, insofar as knowledge is the activity of a living being, it is also living. In this vein, Plotinus says that eternity is “life remaining in the same, ever having the all present” (ζωὴν μένουσαν ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ ἀεὶ παρὸν τὸ πᾶν ἔχουσαν) (III.7 [45] 3.16– 17) and “a God [i.e. the Intelligized] manifesting and showing forth himself, how he is” (III.7 [45] 5.20–21).40 The idea of a plenum of activity is common to both the characterization of eternity as life and as exhaustive wholeness. What is wholly in act (and in no way potential) has no parts that are yet-to-be actualized or once-weren’t-actualized, and the unique activity that they are all united in is precisely its intelligible life or thinking. Furthermore, we saw Chapter 3 that following the Stoics, life was seen to unite living beings and make them into true wholes as opposed to the weaker unity of non-living beings. Plotinus, thus, was able to offer a rich, contentful life for the happy soul and especially the world soul, by means of the employment and criticism of Aristotle’s distinction between change and activity in the strict sense and his thesis that Intelligence was to be conceived as pure activity. This conception of the happy life, however, as consisting solely in the eternal life of Intelligence, 39 εἰ γὰρ αἰώνιόν ἐστιν (ὡς καὶ τοὔνομα ἐμφαίνει) τὸ ἀεὶ ὄν, τὸ δὲ ποτὲ εἶναι καὶ τὸ γίνεσθαι ἕτερον τοῦ ἀεὶ ὄντος, οὐ δεῖ τὸ μὲν πρότερον εἶναι, τὸ δὲ ὕστερον· γένεσις γὰρ ἔσται, καὶ οὐκ ὄν. ὅπου δὲ μήτε τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον μήτε τὸ ἦν καὶ τὸ ἔσται, ἀλλὰ τὸ εἶναι μόνον ὅ ἐστιν, ὅλον ἅμα ἐστὶν ἕκαστον ὅ ἐστι. τὸ δὲ αὐτὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἐνεργεῖν. 40 θεὸς ἐμφαίνων καὶ προφαίνων ἑαυτὸν οἷός ἐστι. Although Proclus will enthusiastically accept the characterization of eternity as life, the meaning of it will be quite different for him, because he separates the strictly intelligized from the intellectual, and believes that the possession of life as “intelligized change,” i.e., an entirely actual knowledge, is proper only to the intellectual, whereas Proclus sees Eternity as existing primarily in the Intelligized as such.

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presents a problem. If Intelligence and the happy soul are entirely detached from the world, how can Intelligence still be the cosmic Engineer? And how can the world soul still be the selfchanging origin of change in the world? Here, we must appeal to another development of the notion of activity in Plotinus, namely the notion of double activity. The theory of double activity is one according to which, every existent – be it one in the natural world (such as fire, medicine, snow, or the sun), be it a soul (either of the world, or of a particular body), be it Intelligence, or be it even Unity beyond substances – possesses two activities, one internal and the other external.41 These are not two discrete actions or “exertions” as Emilsson puts it, but rather two distinct actualities, fulfillments of powers. The internal activity is internal to the substance’s essence. Examples are the heat that is constitutive of fire, the light proper to the Sun, the life inherent in the soul and Intelligence’s intelligization of itself. The internal activity is not an activity that acts upon anything external to the substance. It is not fire’s heating a room, the Sun’s lighting up the heavens, the soul’s animating the body or Intelligence’s illumination of the soul.42 Not being an action directed outwards, the internal activity is best understood as the reality or actuality proper to the substance itself. Fire’s actuality as fire, the Sun’s actuality as the Sun, etc. This internal constitutive reality of each substance is supposed to cause an external, transitive activity: the heat constitutive of the fire (internal activity) gives rise to the heating of its environment (secondary activity); the light of the Sun gives rise to the illumination of the world; the soul’s own life gives rise to the animation of its body; Intelligence’s own knowledge gives rise to the knowledge in souls; Unity’s own reality and unity gives rise to the intelligence’s own reality. The external activity follows necessarily from the internal activity, but the internal activity is not itself directed towards the production of the external one – just as walking is not directed toward the production of footsteps, although the latter necessarily follows the former, given the appropriate conditions. And as soon as the internal activity ceases, so does the external activity. But if for whatever reason the external activity were to cease (say, because the environment around a flame cannot be further warmed, or the body belonging to a soul perishes) the internal activity would remain what it is. 41 42

I am summarizing Emilsson’s (2007, chapter I) excellent presentation. It can be described, at times, as an activity that is directed toward a principle within the substance. Thus, Intelligence’s internal activity can be described as its turning towards Unity, and the soul’s internal activity can be understood as its contemplation of Intelligence. In these descriptions the activity is still not an action on something external, as Unity and Intelligence are necessarily present within their products.

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This theory of double activity is commonly taken to be the philosophical core of Plotinus’ many metaphors of illumination and emanation to explain the derivation of lower levels of reality from higher ones: how Unity produces Intelligence, Intelligence produces soul, and Intelligence and soul produce the world. Plotinus discussed the production of the world in a number of treatises, which diverge with regard to their details, but in general present a multi-tiered account of the world’s generation, distributing productive functions between Intelligence, the world soul, and a lower part or power of that soul of the world or even a lower soul.43 Opsomer (2005) argues that this further delegation arose because Plotinus was concerned to provide a non-Stoic understanding of Plato’s Timaeus. Plotinus (following middle Platonists before him) identified Plato’s cosmic Engineer with Intelligence. At the same time, he was driven to attribute many of the activities of the Engineer to the world soul, judging that they involved some ineliminable reference to a changing cause. He managed, nonetheless, to attribute such activities to the Engineer by having Intelligence be the cause of soul, and the world soul’s contemplation of Intelligence (a description of its internal activity) be the cause of the soul’s engineering activity. These causal relations referred, ultimately, the whole of the engineering back to Intelligence by use of the theory of double activity. Thus, the engineering activity of the world soul was understood by him as its external activity, proceeding from its internal activity of intelligization, itself an external activity of Intelligence. The world soul’s mutable engineering had, thus, its origin ultimately in eternal Intelligence, which led Plotinus to deny any trace of deliberation and memory in the world soul’s thinking, since it consisted in intellectual contemplation. As a result, for Plotinus: The activity of soul is unchanging, since the thinking on which it depends is unchanging; its activity is one and undivided…. In reality, the one directing principle dominates without interruption, and always wants the same thing. The reason for this is that the thinking of the world soul is not occasioned by the events being presented to it from below, but is fully determined by the unity that comes from above. Opsomer, 2005, p. 84

43 IV.7.13, V.2.1, III.9.13, IV.3.6, III.8.1–5 (the lower soul = nature, φύσις), V.9.6, II.1.5 (explicit interpretation of the delegation of engineering to the younger Gods), II.3.17–18. See, however, V.8.7 and III.2.1–2, where soul’s role in the production of the world is diminished or ignored.

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In this manner, Plotinus’ engagement with the Stoics and the Aristotelian notion of activity led him to conceive of an inner life of the world soul that was entirely separate from the world and could, thus, be entirely uniform. This is the metaphysical background for his identification of the flow of time with the external activity of the world soul, to which I now turn: 4.2.2

Plotinus on Time: Time Is the Activity of Engineering of the World Soul For since [the perceptible universe] undergoes change within [the soul] – there is no other place for this universe than the soul – it changes also in the time of the soul. For as the soul produced one activity after another, and then again another in ordered succession, it produced succession along with activity, and proceeded together with another thought (μετὰ διανοίας ἑτέρας) coming after that which it had before, to that which did not previously exist because discursive thought was not activated, and the soul’s present life is not like that which came before it. So at once the life was different and this “different” involved a different time. So the spreading out of life involved time; life’s perpetual forward march involves perpetual time, and past life involves past time. If then someone would say that time is the life (ζωὴν) of the soul undergoing transitional change (ἐν κινήσει μεταβατικῇ) from one way of life (βίον) to another, wouldn’t he be saying something meaningful?44 T4.7 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 11.33–45, trans. Armstrong, modified

At the beginning of this representative passage of his account of the essence of time qua life of the soul, Plotinus justifies reducing the question of time to the time of the soul on account of the subordination of the world to its soul in the Timaeus. Hence, the world is in the world soul, and not the soul in the world, because the world soul is ontologically prior to the world and rules it, i.e., it is the ultimate source of its changes, which it produces according to its own prior cognitive activity. Thus, the world’s time is derivative, following from the time 44 ἐν ἐκείνῃ γὰρ κινούμενος – οὐ γάρ τις αὐτοῦ τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς τόπος ἢ ψυχή – καὶ ἐν τῷ ἐκείνης αὖ ἐκινεῖτο χρόνῳ. τὴν γὰρ ἐνέργειαν αὐτῆς παρεχομένη ἄλλην μετ’ ἄλλην, εἶθ’ ἑτέραν πάλιν ἐφεξῆς, ἐγέννα τε μετὰ τῆς ἐνεργείας τὸ ἐφεξῆς καὶ συμπροῄει μετὰ διανοίας ἑτέρας μετ’ ἐκείνην τὸ μὴ πρότερον ὄν, ὅτι οὐδ’ ἡ διάνοια ἐνεργηθεῖσα ἦν οὐδ’ ἡ νῦν ζωὴ ὁμοία τῇ πρὸ αὐτῆς ἅμα οὖν ζωὴ ἄλλη καὶ τὸ « ἄλλη » χρόνον εἶχεν ἄλλον. διάστασις οὖν ζωῆς χρόνον εἶχε καὶ τὸ πρόσω ἀεὶ τῆς ζωῆς χρόνον ἔχει ἀεὶ καὶ ἡ παρελθοῦσα ζωὴ χρόνον ἔχει παρεληλυθότα. εἰ οὖν χρόνον τις λέγοι ψυχῆς ἐν κινήσει μεταβατικῇ ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλον βίον ζωὴν εἶναι, ἆρ’ ἂν δοκοῖ τι λέγειν.

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of the world soul. And why is the world soul in time? Because its activities are discursive and succeed each other, and thus time qua general form of succession comes to be along with the soul’s διάνοια, or discursive thought. Plotinus calls the latter a “different life” with regard to a prior life of the world soul, where it enjoyed unimpeded intelligization in eternity. Engaging in discursive thought, it takes on a “different life” and, thus, also a “different time,” insofar as Plotinus can talk about time also having an existence in the Intelligized, but not yet being time.45 And the life of soul that was concentrated in an eternal intelligization, is then “spread out” throughout the timespan of the world’s existence, and since this successive, discursive life is everlasting, so must be time, and since some of it is past (and some future), there is also a division into past, present and future in time. Thus, time is the passage of the soul from its concentrated, eternal, intellectual life, to its discursive and temporal life. Since the former life is eternal, and since this transition to discursivity is the soul’s temporal life, it is not a transition that happened once, but rather a perpetual secondary activity following upon the former life of the soul. Why does the soul engage in this inferior life, why does it have an activity besides the eternal intelligization in Intelligence? The first time Plotinus introduces the theme of the soul’s change, he makes it seem a mere matter of desire and willfulness on the soul’s part, which has led some interpreters to associate the production of time with a “fall” of the soul on account of τόλμα, audacity.46 However, later on, he presents the soul’s change within a more understandable context: a decision to imitate the intelligized beauty it contemplated by producing the perceptible world. I will consider two passages where this context is presented: For since a restless power belonged to the soul, which always wanted to transfer what it saw in the intelligized to something else, it did not want the concentrated [i.e., intelligized] Universe to be present to it. [Rather, the soul’s desire was like that of a rational structure in the world.]47 A rational structure unfolds itself from a quiet seed and thinks that it advances on the path to greatness in doing so, all the while doing

45 Cf. III.7 [45] 11.12–14, where a pre-existence of time in the Intelligized is mentioned. 46 For instance, Jonas (1962) and Majumdar (2007). In what follows I depart from this reading and associate time’s production with the engineering of the world. I do so, in part, because it seems to be a philosophically more interesting and richer thesis, but also because I want to present a plausible reading of Plotinus to form the background of Proclus’ reaction to him (discussed below in Chapter 4.4.2). 47 This is my own gloss.

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away with its greatness by partition, and instead of remaining a unity in itself, it squanders the unity in itself and proceeds to a weaker extension. In the same way, the soul produced a perceptible world in imitation of the intelligized Universe, a world that changed with a change that was not the intelligized Change, but which was like it and wanted to be an image of it. First of all, the soul “temporalized” itself, producing this [change, i.e. the flow of time] instead of eternity. And then it handed over the generated world as a slave to time, making the world to be all things in time, and encompassing all its paths48 in time.49 T4.8 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 11.20–33 , trans. ARMSTRONG, modified

In this first passage, Plotinus attributed to the soul, or rather to a power of the soul the intention of Plato’s cosmic Engineer to fashion the perceptible world as an image of the intelligized Living Being. However, Plotinus explained this desire not as an overflow of goodness on the soul’s part, as Plato saw the Engineer’s production, but rather as a deceptive desire for fulfillment that is proper to every seminal rational structure, as we saw in Chapter 3.3. A rational structure is more similar to its Paradigm, when it is concentrated in the seed as an ordering power, but loses this similarity when it has effected the change it is capable of and exists dispersed throughout the mature animal organism. Likewise, the soul believes that it will achieve fulfillment and find its goal if it produces a perceptible world instead of simply remaining in the simplicity of the intelligized World. Thus, the world’s production is understood as a “seminal unfolding” that affects the soul with extension, and primarily temporal extension, whose acquisition is the “first step” in its creative activity. The character of the activity it acquires is further explained in the next passage: We must understand, too, from this that this being is time, the span of such a life that proceeds in even and uniform changes proceeding quietly 48

Perhaps the orbits of the heavenly bodies, which are “embraced by time” insofar as they are bent back around themselves in perpetual circles, as opposed to the linear development of seeds. There is here perhaps a disanalogy that Plotinus is drawing between the world soul and seeds. 49 ἐπεὶ γὰρ ψυχῆς ἦν τις δύναμις οὐχ ἥσυχος, τὸ δ’ ἐκεῖ ὁρώμενον ἀεὶ μεταφέρειν εἰς ἄλλο βουλομένης, τὸ μὲν ἀθρόον αὐτῇ πᾶν παρεῖναι οὐκ ἤθελεν· ὥσπερ δ’ ἐκ σπέρματος ἡσύχου ἐξελίττων αὐτὸν ὁ λόγος διέξοδον εἰς πολύ, ὡς οἴεται, ποιεῖ, ἀφανίζων τὸ πολὺ τῷ μερισμῷ, καὶ ἀνθ’ ἑνὸς ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἐν αὐτῷ τὸ ἓν δαπανῶν εἰς μῆκος ἀσθενέστερον πρόεισιν, οὕτω δὴ καὶ αὐτὴ κόσμον ποιοῦσα αἰσθητὸν μιμήσει ἐκείνου κινούμενον κίνησιν οὐ τὴν ἐκεῖ, ὁμοίαν δὲ τῇ ἐκεῖ καὶ ἐθέλουσαν εἰκόνα ἐκείνης εἶναι, πρῶτον μὲν ἑαυτὴν ἐχρόνωσεν ἀντὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος τοῦτον ποιήσασα· ἔπειτα δὲ καὶ τῷ γενομένῳ ἔδωκε δουλεύειν χρόνῳ, ἐν χρόνῳ αὐτὸν πάντα ποιήσασα εἶναι, τὰς τούτου διεξόδους ἁπάσας ἐν αὐτῷ περιλαβοῦσα·.

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and that possesses continuity of activity. Now if in our thought we were to make this power turn back again, and put a stop to this life which the soul now has without stop and never ending, because it is the activity of an always existing soul, whose activity is not directed to itself nor is in itself, but lies in making and production, if then we were to suppose that it was no longer active, but stopped this activity and that this part of the soul turned back to the intelligized world and to eternity, and rested quietly there, what would there still be except eternity?50 T4.9 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 12.1–12, trans. Armstrong, modified

Plotinus here presents the crucial aspect of his theory of time (for our purposes): time’s uniformity. And he does so in discussing the kind of activity that the soul engages in. By understanding Plotinus’ conception of production of the world we can uncover his reasons for taking it to be a uniform activity. Plotinus first engages in a thought experiment: suppose the soul were to cease for a moment from its continuous activity of engineering, what would happen? The changing world would cease to be, and all that would remain is eternity. This was nothing more than a thought experiment, because the productive activity was “continuous,” “without stop” and “never ending.” And most interestingly, in production, the soul “is not directed to itself nor is in itself.” Engineering was not an activity that remained in the soul, part of its own essence, nor one directed towards the soul itself, that is, involved in its self-knowledge. The soul was turned neither toward itself, much less toward Intelligence, but away from itself and from the Intelligized and toward the product of its making, the perceptible world. The contrast between an internal, self-directed or intransitive activity and an external activity that drew the agent out of itself and into contact with something other than itself was an element of Plotinus’ theory of double activity, which I discussed above in Chapter 4.2.1. In the terms of that theory, when Plotinus says that the activity that produced time “is the activity of an always existing soul, whose activity is not directed to itself nor is in itself, but lies in making and production,” he makes clear that an external activity is at stake, since internal activities

50 Νοῆσαι δὲ δεῖ καὶ ἐντεῦθεν, ὡς ἡ φύσις αὕτη χρόνος, τὸ τοιούτου μῆκος βίου ἐν μεταβολαῖς προιὸν ὁμαλαῖς τε καὶ ὁμοίαις ἀψοφητὶ προιούσαις, συνεχὲς τὸ τῆς ἐνεργείας ἔχον. εἰ δὴ πάλιν τῷ λόγῳ ἀναστρέψαι ποιήσαιμεν τὴν δύναμιν ταύτην καὶ παύσαιμεν τοῦδε τοῦ βίου, ὃν νῦν ἔχει ἄπαυστον ὄντα καὶ οὔποτε λήξοντα, ὅτι ψυχῆς τινος ἀεὶ οὔσης ἐστὶν ἐνέργεια, οὐ πρὸς αὐτὴν οὐδ’ ἐν αὐτῇ, ἀλλ’ ἐν ποιήσει καὶ γενέσει – εἰ οὖν ὑποθοίμεθα μηκέτι ἐνεργοῦσαν, ἀλλὰ παυσαμένην ταύτην τὴν ἐνέργειαν καὶ ἐπιστραφὲν καὶ τοῦτο τὸ μέρος τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς τὸ ἐκεῖ καὶ τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ μένον, τί ἂν ἔτι μετὰ αἰῶνα εἴη.

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were either conceived as simply intransitive, or if transitive then aimed at a principle within the object. Implicit thus in Plotinus’ restriction of the creation of time to “an unquiet power of soul” is the distinction between the world soul’s higher power and activity whereby it calmly contemplates the Intelligized and the lower power and activity whereby it engages in the creation of the world. This contrast between the unfolding of the soul’s cosmic plan and the contemplation of the Intelligized is underlined by the thought experiment that suggested that if the soul turned itself entirely to the Intelligized, there would be neither world, nor time, but only eternity. Plotinus explained why the generation of the world should have to involve discursive activity and the abandonment of intelligizing through the need to produce an image of eternity. Thus, as I showed above at T4.8 Plotinus said the soul “first of all ‘temporalized’ itself, producing time instead of eternity.” The soul had to “change” itself, to have both a discursive and an intellectual activity, because it had to produce a likeness of eternity for the world. Since eternity is the activity of the intelligized, a uniform change was a fitting image of it. There is an implicit analogy of time to eternity here that needs to be worked out. This was done partly in an analogical argument given in reply to the rhetorical questions that conclude T4.7, where Plotinus gave his definition of time as “time is the life of the soul undergoing transitional change from one way of life to another”: For if eternity is life at rest, by itself, unchanging and already infinite; and if time must be an image of eternity in precisely the same way as this universe is related to that intelligized universe, then – instead of the Life there there must be another life, called by the same name as this power of the soul;51 – instead of intellectual Change, the change of some part of the soul; – instead of sameness, unchangeableness and remaining, that which does not remain in the same, but acts in one way, then another; – instead of unity and lack of extension, an image of unity, the unity in continuity; – instead of the already infinite and whole, infinite succession forever; – instead of the concentrated Whole, the whole that will be by parts and that will be forever. For in this way it will imitate the concentrated

51

“[T]his power of the soul” is, presumably, life.

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and already infinite whole, if it wishes always to be increasing in its being. For it will imitate in this way that intelligized being.52 T4.10 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 11.45–59

Plotinus presented, here, a string of analogies to support his definition of time. First, he recapitulated a definition of eternity that he developed in the first six chapters of his treatise. Second, he established a proportion between eternity, time, the intelligized World and the perceptible world. Hence, time is to eternity, just as the perceptible is to the intelligized. Then he deduced from a series of properties of eternity corresponding properties of time. As I noted in the last section, eternity for Plotinus was, on the one hand, the character of the Intelligized in which all of its parts are present to each other, and, on the other hand, it is the Intelligized’s being entirely in the act. Plotinus made this very point in the text above when he called eternity a “life at rest, by itself, unchanging and already infinite.” It is in order to imitate the wholly integrated life of what is Intelligized that the soul must produce time. It produces a life of its own, as an image of the intelligized Life and as an image of the actuality of knowledge in Intelligence it brings about an activity of discursive reason. Instead of the identity of substance and activity in the Eternal, the soul remains an identical agent throughout ever-changing activities, and instead of the unextended unity of the Eternal, it gives its acts the unity of being a continuous sequence of activities. Instead of the presence of the eternal whole to its parts and its parts to each other, without a past beginning or a future end, the soul’s activities are in time, but have no beginning or end, and the soul is forever acting, and thus instead of having being through and through, with no part of it sharing in not being (by being past or future), the soul’s activity is something that always has (some) being, thus possessing parts that are not, yet always having some part that is (i.e., its present activity). In this way the world soul brings forth time as part of its effort to fashion the world as an image of the intelligized World.

52 εἰ γὰρ αἰών ἐστι ζωὴ ἐν στάσει καὶ τῷ αὐτῷ καὶ ὡσαύτως καὶ ἄπειρος ἤδη, εἰκόνα δὲ δεῖ τοῦ αἰῶνος τὸν χρόνον εἶναι, ὥσπερ καὶ τόδε τὸ πᾶν ἔχει πρὸς ἐκεῖνο, ἀντὶ μὲν ζωῆς τῆς ἐκεῖ ἄλλην δεῖ ζωὴν τὴν τῆσδε τῆς δυνάμεως τῆς ψυχῆς ὥσπερ ὁμώνυμον λέγειν εἶναι καὶ ἀντὶ κινήσεως νοερᾶς ψυχῆς τινος μέρους κίνησιν, ἀντὶ δὲ ταὐτότητος καὶ τοῦ ὡσαύτως καὶ μένοντος τὸ μὴ μένον ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ, ἄλλο δὲ καὶ ἄλλο ἐνεργοῦν, ἀντὶ δὲ ἀδιαστάτου καὶ ἑνὸς εἴδωλον τοῦ ἑνὸς τὸ ἐν συνεχείᾳ ἕν, ἀντὶ δὲ ἀπείρου ἤδη καὶ ὅλου τὸ εἰς ἄπειρον πρὸς τὸ ἐφεξῆς ἀεί, ἀντὶ δὲ ἀθρόου ὅλου τὸ ἀεὶ τὸ κατὰ μέρος ἐσόμενον καὶ ἀεὶ ἐσόμενον ὅλον. οὕτω γὰρ μιμήσεται τὸ ἤδη ὅλον καὶ ἀθρόον καὶ ἄπειρον ἤδη, εἰ ἐθελήσει ἀεὶ προσκτώμενον εἶναι ἐν τῷ εἶναι· καὶ γὰρ τὸ εἶναι οὕτω τὸ ἐκείνου μιμήσεται.

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One might ask, here: is the soul’s creative activity time itself, or does it give birth to time? Plotinus appears to speak in both ways, at times, suggesting that time follows upon its productive life, as when he says “it produces succession along with activity,” and at times an identity between the two as in the definitional formulas “time is the life of the soul undergoing transitional change from one way of life to another” and “this being is time, the span of such a life that proceeds in even and uniform changes proceeding quietly and that possesses continuity of activity.” Sensitive to this ambivalence, Plotinus himself warns at the end of Chapter 11 of On Eternity and Time that it is necessary however not to consider time as something outside the soul, just as one should neither consider eternity as something external to being in the Intelligized, nor is time either something that runs along the soul or is derivative of the soul (any more than eternity there in the intelligized), but time is something which is seen in the soul, and exists in it and with it, just as eternity does in the Intelligized.53 T4.11 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 11.59–63, trans. Armstrong, modified

This strongly suggests that time is to be seen as identical to the soul’s external activity. It might be odd to say that time “exists in the soul and with the soul and is seen in the soul,” if the discursive life is an external activity of the soul, and thus not constitutive of its essence. But perhaps by “soul” Plotinus means here precisely that part of soul, its “unquiet power,” that is engaged in the production of the world. 4.2.3 Two Corollaries: Time Is Not a Measure and the Soul Is Not in Time There are two important corollaries that follow from Plotinus’ view of time and that appear at first to be sharp distinctions with respect to Proclus. Therefore, after having seen Proclus’ agreement with Plotinus on the more general metaphysics of time, we need to return to consider the degree to which he accepts these corollaries, as well. The first corollary is, on the face of it, entirely opposed to Proclus, and it is the dissociation of time from number and measurement. Plotinus noted the dissociation on the basis of his own positive conception of time at Enn. III.7 [45] 11–13 and earlier in Enn. III.7 [45] 6–10, which are dedicated to a critical 53 δεῖ δὲ οὐκ ἔξωθεν τῆς ψυχῆς λαμβάνειν τὸν χρόνον, ὥσπερ οὐδὲ τὸν αἰῶνα ἐκεῖ ἔξω τοῦ ὄντος, οὐδ’ αὖ παρακολούθημα οὐδ’ ὕστερον, ὥσπερ οὐδ’ ἐκεῖ, ἀλλ’ ἐνορώμενον καὶ ἐνόντα καὶ συνόντα, ὥσπερ κἀκεῖ ὁ αἰών.

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review of previous theories, especially Stoic and peripatetic views that connect time with the measurement of change. Here, we see Plotinus return to the issue after having presented his own views: But if someone wants to say that Plato also calls the courses of the stars “times” he should remember that he says that they have come into existence for the declaring and “division of time,” (Tim. 38c5ff) and his “that there might be an obvious measure.” (Tim. 29b2–3) For since it was not possible for the soul to delimit time itself, or for human beings by themselves to measure each part of it since it was invisible and ungraspable, particularly as they did not know how to count, the God made day and night, by means of which, in virtue of their difference, it was possible to grasp the idea of two, and from this Plato says, came the concept of number (Tim. 39b6–c1). Then, by taking the length of the interval between one sunrise and the next, since the kind of movement on which we base our calculations is even, we can have an interval of time of a certain length, and we use this kind of interval as a measure; but a measure of time, for time itself is not a measure.54 T4.12 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 12.25–37, trans. Armstrong, modified

Plotinus appears to argue the following: if time is the discursive life of the soul, it is an invisible and perpetual process; furthermore, it is uniform and not itself divided into parts. As I noted before (T3.12), for Plotinus, even the life of a celestial body is one unbroken period “one day,” as he puts it. Time, therefore, is not a measure, but it is what is, ultimately. measured when we count days, months and years. Plotinus’ argument refers to measure as something that allows human beings to determine a quantity indeterminate in their cognition, not the productive measures and numbers discussed in Chapter 2.2. This restriction is important, for in a sense, although he does not say so in Enn. III.7 [45], Plotinus, like Proclus, saw time as proceeding from a prior productive measure of the world. I explained in Chapter 2 the origin of this notion in Aristotle’s biology 54 εἰ δέ τις λέγοι χρόνους λέγεσθαι αὐτῷ καὶ τὰς τῶν ἄστρων φοράς, ἀναμνησθήτω, ὅτι ταῦτά φησι γεγονέναι πρὸς δήλωσιν καὶ διορισμὸν χρόνου καὶ τὸ ἵνα ᾖ μέτρον ἐναργές. ἐπεὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἦν τὸν χρόνον αὐτὸν τῇ ψυχῇ ὁρίσαι οὐδὲ μετρεῖν παρ’ αὐτοῖς ἕκαστον αὐτοῦ μέρος ἀοράτου ὄντος καὶ οὐ ληπτοῦ καὶ μάλιστα ἀριθμεῖν οὐκ εἰδόσιν, ἡμέραν καὶ νύκτα ποιεῖ, δι’ ὧν ἦν δύο τῇ ἑτερότητι λαβεῖν, ἀφ’ οὗ ἔννοιά, φησιν, ἀριθμοῦ. εἶθ’ ὅσον τὸ ἀπ’ ἀνατολῆς εἰς τὸ πάλιν λαμβάνουσιν ἦν ὅσον χρόνου διάστημα, ὁμαλοῦ ὄντος τοῦ τῆς κινήσεως εἴδους ὅτῳ ἐπερειδόμεθα, ἔχειν καὶ οἷον μέτρῳ χρώμεθα τῷ τοιούτῳ· μέτρῳ δὲ τοῦ χρόνου· οὐ γὰρ ὁ χρόνος αὐτὸς μέτρον.

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and Proclus’ use of it to argue that time is a number neither as that which is counted, nor that with which we count, but rather that which counts a motion, an alternative not envisaged by Plotinus in his criticism of Aristotle (III.7 [45] 8–9). In Chapter 3.2 I held that the same notion was also present in Stoic physics, which applied it to the whole world, understanding Zeus as precisely a seminal rational structure, that is, the seminal formula for the development of the world. Following upon that, in Chapter 3.3, I underscored the transmission of this notion to Proclus via Plotinus and his view of the world soul as forming matter along with its rational structures. Now, Plotinus referred precisely to this Stoic understanding of the world soul in T4.8 above in the analogy between the world’s production and a rational structure’s unfolding. Thus, for Plotinus, too, the motion of time is nothing but the unfolding of a previously existing measure. It should be observed also that Plotinus himself developed the notion of a prior, productive number at Enn. VI.6 [39] 10.9–15, where he argued that number must exist prior to multitude, if the number of that multitude is not be a matter of chance, but conformity to a purpose or essence.55 Plotinus’ made, however, one criticism against accounts of time as a measure or a number that applies even if the number in question is an intrinsic or prior measure. Namely, time having number of any kind seems to be incompatible with its perpetuity. That is, if there is no first or last motion of time, it would seem that there can be no determinate answer to how long time is. Plotinus raised this objection both regarding the possibility of time being numbered as well as against the possibility that the Engineer knows the history of the world. Here are the two relevant passages: But if time is infinite and said to be so, how can there be a number concerning time? Unless someone were to take away and measure some part of it, in which it would already exist also before being measured.56 T4.13 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 9.75–77

The question therefore concerning [Zeus’, i.e. the Engineer’s] memory of the periods [of the world’s life-cycle] raises by itself many difficulties, whether it has a number and whether it is known. For if the number is finite, [the Engineer] will give a beginning in time to the [perceptible]

55 For discussion of this doctrine in Plotinus, see Narbonne (2001, p. 75ff). 56 ἀπείρου δὲ τοῦ χρόνου ὄντος καὶ λεγομένου πῶς ἂν περὶ αὐτὸν ἀριθμὸς εἴη; εἰ μή τις ἀπολαβὼν μέρος τι αὐτοῦ μετροῖ, ἐν ᾧ συμβαίνει εἶναι καὶ πρὶν μετρηθῆναι.

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universe; but if the number is infinite, he will not know the extent of his work.57 T4.14 Plotinus Enneads IV.4 [28] Puzzles about the Soul II 9.9–13

Here we see the incompatibility between time’s endlessness and its having a number come up in two different contexts. In the first, Plotinus criticizes the Peripatetic view that time is the number or measure of change. In the second, Plotinus discusses whether the Engineer, understood as possessing a soul, has a memory of the many past completed cycles of the world, that is, past great years, or not. In the first, the exclusion is immediate: there cannot be a number of something that is infinite, but rather of only a part of it – yet before that part there would be an infinite unmeasured extension, such that it is impossible for all of time to be measured. In the second, the supposition that the Engineer had a grasp of how many great years there have been created a dilemma: if he knew them as being a finite number, and he produced according to his knowledge, then he would produce a world with a first moment in time, a proposition disproved in natural philosophy. If the great years are infinite in number, however, they cannot be known, and thus we would have to attribute ignorance to the Engineer, an impiety.58 The dilemma is framed with regard to the number of previous world cycles, but it clearly also applies to the plan of a single worldcycle itself. On the one hand, if this plan in some way corresponds to a finite productive measure, then that measure must determine a beginning for the world’s existence, and there will be a first moment in time. On the other hand, if that plan is an order of infinite quantity of discrete stages of the world’s life, something like the B-series of time imagined as stretching infinitely far into the past and into the future, this will not be an object of knowledge and, therefore, not an object of prior knowledge on the part of the world soul as it engages in its demiurgic activity of fashioning the world in conformity to this plan. In either case, time and number are incompatible, because for Plotinus number is inherently finite and time infinite.59

57 τὸ μὲν οὖν τῶν περιόδων τῆς μνήμης καὶ καθ’ αὑτὸ ἂν ἔχοι πολλὴν ἀπορίαν, ὁπόσος ἀριθμὸς εἴη καὶ εἰ εἰδείη. πεπερασμένος γὰρ ὢν ἀρχὴν τῷ παντὶ χρονικὴν δώσει· εἰ δ’ ἄπειρος, οὐκ εἰδήσει, ὁπόσα τὰ αὐτοῦ ἔργα. 58 On this argument of Plotinus’ and its connection to the doctrine of the unknowability of the infinite stemming from Aristotle, see Pepin (1997). 59 Indeed, in his On Number, where he investigated what Plato could possibly mean with “infinite number” at Parmenides 144a, the positive meaning he agreed to is that intelligible number is infinite in the sense of not being measured by something else, and thus not being bounded.

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Now Plotinus did believe that we can measure parts of time, and know, for instance, that a synodic month is roughly 29 1/2 days long. It is only ever, however, physical processes that are in time that can be so measured. For time itself, the discursive life of the world soul, the only appropriate measure is eternity. Here are two relevant passages: On account of this it is also said [in the Timaeus] that [time] came to be together with the universe, because the soul brought it forth together with this universe. For in an activity of this kind did this universe also come to be, and the [activity] is time, but the [universe] is in time.60 But why do we lead on the one hand this change of the universe to the embrace of that [change] and say that it is in time, but do not [lead] the change of the soul in itself, which is in perpetual transition? Rather because what is prior to [the change of the soul] is eternity, which does not run alongside it nor does it extend itself with it. Therefore, [the soul] itself was the first to enter time and to generate time and which together with its own activity has time.61 T4.15 Plotinus Enneads III.7 [45] On Eternity and Time 12.22–25, 13.41–47, trans. ARMSTRONG, modified

From the view that time is constituted by the soul’s discursive activity it follows that not all processes are on a par with regard to time. All processes besides the activity within the soul are in time, whereas the discursive life of the soul is time itself. The former can all be measured and be said to last for so-long a time, using the celestial motions to measure the invisible activity of the soul, but there is no further standard to refer the activity of the soul to besides eternity. This is, under another guise, the same doctrine that Plotinus put forward in discussing the life of the celestial bodies, when he said that their life is “one day” (see before, T3.12). But here Plotinus was more specific, for even the motions of the celestial bodies stand in proportions one to another as different parts of the world and are, thus, in some sense measured by them. The world soul, however, appeared to stand for him in no such intrinsic relation with other processes, and its activity is “measured” so to speak, directly by eternity, although Plotinus does not yet appear to have a developed theory of eternity as a kind of measure, as Proclus does. For Plotinus the emphasis is 60 διὸ καὶ εἴρηται ἅμα τῷδε τῷ παντὶ γεγονέναι, ὅτι ψυχὴ αὐτὸν μετὰ τοῦδε τοῦ παντὸς ἐγέννησεν. ἐν γὰρ τῇ τοιαύτῃ ἐνεργείᾳ καὶ τόδε γεγένηται τὸ πᾶν· καὶ ἡ μὲν χρόνος, ὁ δὲ ἐν χρόνῳ. 61 διὰ τί οὖν ταύτην μὲν τὴν κίνησιν τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀνάγομεν εἰς περιοχὴν ἐκείνης καὶ ἐν χρόνῳ φαμέν, οὐχὶ δέ γε καὶ τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησιν τὴν ἐν αὐτῇ ἐν διεξόδῳ οὖσαν ἀιδίῳ; ἢ ὅτι τὸ πρὸ ταύτης ἐστὶν αἰὼν οὐ συμπαραθέων οὐδὲ συμπαρατείνων αὐτῇ. πρώτη οὖν αὕτη εἰς χρόνον καὶ χρόνον ἐγέννησε καὶ σὺν τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ αὑτῆς ἔχει.

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rather on the dissimilarity between the succession within the activity of the soul and the succession of processes in the world: the former succession also implies a separation, such that what has gone before has become past, and is thus separate from what is now, and the future is similarly separate. For the world soul however, there is an unbroken uniformity of its life that means that even if there is a succession in it, there is no division or separation of the successive parts. In this sense one can speak of a distinction between “mental time” and “physical time” for Plotinus, meaning the different relations to time entertained by different processes, on the one hand being time, on the other being in time, and thus the different kinds of succession at stake in each case. 4.3

Time’s Flow as the Contemplative Activity of the World Soul in Proclus

4.3.1 Metaphysical Background: Activity and Process in Proclus Proclus’ theory of time’s flow shares much of the same metaphysical back­ ground as Plotinus’. Just as Plotinus argued that every change was in itself a complete activity, and that the eternal intelligizing activity of Intelligence was the very Form of Change itself, so did Proclus reduce activities to changes in both the perceptible and intelligized realms. In the intelligized realm, this seems to be little more than a terminological move, simply calling any instance of activity there a change. What is philosophically significant is not whether the realities described are called “changes” or “activities,” but the recognition of their existence as a way of introducing multiplicity into the Intelligized. With regard to the perceptible, Proclus’ claim was more substantial: he reduced the ἐνέργεια in the sense of the actuality of a substance’s form to ἐνέργεια in the sense of the actuality of a power to change. For Proclus every sensible substance was a process, and thus the perfection or form of any material substance could only be a certain organization of that process, what I described above as its number or prior temporal measure. I consider these two cases one by one. With regard to the Intelligized, a debate had developed amongst the Platonists after Plotinus, particularly between Porphyry and Iamblichus, relative to the presence of change throughout the intelligized. Proclus reported this debate and gave his own solution at In Parm. VII 1173–75, where he did not name Porphyry and Iamblichus, but their identities can be guessed from the way he presented the views discussed. Porphyry claimed that there was something off about the first deduction of the Parmenides, namely that it only denied of Unity some, but not all of the Forms and, specifically, that it only denied the five great Kinds of the Sophist, Being, Sameness, Otherness,

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Change and Rest.62 Why Porphyry thought that only these five predicates corresponded to Forms is unknown, but he presented the problem of why these and only these Forms were denied of Unity and presented the Plotinian solution, which is that they were involved in all the levels of being, even what he called the “primary being” (τὸ πρώτως ὄν) that proceeded immediately from Unity itself. Iamblichus, however, objected that the five great Kinds of the Sophist could not be in Unity’s immediate products because of two connected reasons, namely that (1) they primarily characterized Intelligence and not the strictly Intelligized and also that (2) there were five of them, too great a multiplicity to follow immediately from Unity. Proclus did not point to this, but when Iamblichus spoke of higher intelligized Realities closer to Unity itself, he probably had in mind the Chaldean triad of deities, the Father, his Power and his Intelligence or Activity, equated with the triad of Limit, Infinity and Mixture from the Philebus.63 Thus, implied in Iamblichus’ demotion of the five great Kinds strictly to Intelligence is also a strict division between the concepts of activity and change that contestesd the Plotinian conflation of the two.64 Proclus followed his master Syrianus both in mediating between Iamblichus’ and Porphyry’s positions and in rejecting the discussion as off-topic. He rejected the discussion because he did not hold the first hypothesis to be 62 Change, rest, sameness and otherness are denied in all possible ways of Unity at Parm.138b–139e. Where Porphyry saw a denial of Being in the vicinity is not clear. He may have been thinking of the denial at the end of the deduction at 141e, or perhaps he was thinking of the denial of being in itself and being in another at 138a, interpreting these as substantial being (being in itself) and accidental being (being in another). 63 On the structure of the strictly intelligized, and Iamblichus’ motives for introducing it beyond Intelligence, see Menn (forthcoming). 64 In Iamblichus’ understanding, change and activity constituted two distinct genera opposed in every possible way (Simplicius In Cat. 303.35–304.27). A change for Iamblichus was always a change from one contrary to another. For instance, from a privation towards the possession of a goal and a form the subject of change has only potentially. Thus, a change was continuous and infinitely divisible, extending itself along with time and proceeding according to number. An activity, in contrast, was indivisible, endowed with form and self-sufficiency, united as a whole, set alongside eternity and existing in the partless now. In his De Mysteriis (I 4.23–38) Iamblichus considered however, that the activities of the souls superior to the transmigrating soul, including the world soul, thence, could not be changes, but were activities. How then could he call it a change in discussing the character of time? Observe, however, that already in the discussion activity and change, Iamblichus had to admit that the motions of the heavens were a “perfect change” that was always at its goal (In Cat. 307.15ff) and also spoke of imagination and perception as activities under one description and changes under another, thus recognizing a category of activities that was inseparable from changes (In Cat. 305.21–23). I cannot solve these tensions, here. On Iamblichus’ theory of change and activity, see Taormina (1999, chapter III) and also Croese (1998, 4.4).

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denying that Unity participates in any Forms, but rather that it participated in certain divine orders, i.e., in groups of Gods that constituted different levels of being. Thus, “Sameness,” “Otherness,” “Change” and “Rest” as they appeared in the deductions did not refer primarily to the great Kinds of the Sophist. But Proclus also reconciled the two positions, saying that although it is true, as Porphyry claimed, that the five great Kinds can be observed at every level of being, they are only discriminated as five distinct Forms within Intelligence. Prior to that they are present in a more united fashion. Thus, following this resolution, he held that the activity was a kind of change (In Parm. VII 1154.6–7, 1172.17–23) and also in the PT III 46.13ff he described the procession of eternity from Unity-in-Being as a “change.” With regard to the perceptible, Proclus espoused a metaphysical Heracliteanism, according to which all things in the world change, not because they are constantly engaged in processes of qualitative or substantial change (for the celestial bodies are all immutable in that respect), but simply by virtue of being in time: All that is measured by time either according to its substance or according to its activity is a process in that respect in which it is measured by time.65 [1] For if it is measured by time, either existing or being active according to time belongs to it and both its “was” and “will be” differ from each other; for if the was and the will be are numerically identical, then nothing [i.e. neither its substance nor activity] is affected by time, which flows and always has an earlier distinct from a later.66 [2] If, therefore, the was and the will be are distinct in its case, then it is something which becomes and never is, but flows together with time, by which it is measured, having its being in becoming and not staying in the same being, but always admitting of being one thing and then another, as the now is always one and another according to time and by reason of the flow of time.67

65 Πᾶν τὸ χρόνῳ μετρούμενον ἢ κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ἢ κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν γένεσίς ἐστι ταύτῃ, ᾗ μετρεῖται κατὰ χρόνον. Substances measured by time are bodies, whereas beings whose activity, but not substance is measured by time are souls. 66 εἰ γὰρ ὑπὸ χρόνου μετρεῖται, προσήκοι ἂν αὐτῷ τὸ κατὰ χρόνον εἶναι ἢ ἐνεργεῖν, καὶ τὸ ἦν καὶ τὸ ἔσται διαφέροντα ἀλλήλων. εἰ γὰρ ταὐτὸν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν τὸ ἦν καὶ τὸ ἔσται, οὐδὲν ὑπὸ χρόνου πέπονθε πορευομένου καὶ ἀεὶ ἄλλο τὸ πρότερον ἔχοντος καὶ τὸ ὕστερον. 67 εἰ οὖν ἄλλο τὸ ἦν καὶ ἄλλο τὸ ἔσται, γινόμενον ἄρα ἐστὶ καὶ οὐδέποτε ὄν, ἀλλὰ τῷ χρόνῳ συμπορεύεται, ὑφ’ οὗ μετρεῖται, ἐν τῷ γίνεσθαι ὂν καὶ οὐχ ἱστάμενον ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ δεχόμενον τὸ εἶναι ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο, ὡς τὸ νῦν κατὰ τὸν χρόνον ἄλλο ἀεὶ καὶ ἄλλο διὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνου πορείαν.

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[3] Therefore it does not exist as a simultaneous whole, having its being in the dispersion of temporal extension (τῆς χρονικῆς παρατάσεως) and being extended along with it.68 [4] But this is to have being in not-being, for the thing in becoming is not what becomes.69 [5] Therefore, such a being is a becoming.70 T4.16 Proclus Elements of Theology 50

I have introduced numbers into the argument in order to make Proclus’ steps clearer. The argument can be summarized as follows: if something is measured by the flow of time, then it must be extended in the same way as the flow of time is extended, for things are measured by what is of the same dimensionality as them (surfaces measure surfaces, volumes measure volumes, and processes measure processes).71 The flow of time is extended, insofar as it is at each moment something different (namely, a different now).72 Therefore, what time measures will also have a number of distinct be-ings or states of being. What it is at one moment will be different from what it is at another. This difference must be understood in a strong sense for the argument to work. Hence, if we can say that something is what it is in an identical fashion, but how it was and how it will be are different, then properly speaking for Proclus not the thing itself, but merely how it is measured by time.73 Since time is always something different, so is what it measures always a different thing. What it measures is, thus, a whole made up of distinct beings that do not coincide with each other, but are separated by temporal distances, for each of these beings is coincident with a single now and no two nows coincide nor succeed each other immediately. Thus, a paradox appears. On the one hand, the thing is the whole set of different beings; on the other hand, at each moment only one of those beings exists. The thing has, as Proclus says, “its being in not-being.” But this means that the thing as a whole is not one of the beings, which exist only for a moment, but rather a process, a temporal whole made out of many beings.

68 69 70 71 72

οὐχ ἅμα ἄρα ὅλον ἐστίν, ἐν τῷ σκιδναμένῳ τῆς χρονικῆς παρατάσεως ὄν, καὶ συνεκτεινόμενον. τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν ἐν τῷ μὴ εἶναι τὸ εἶναι ἔχειν· τὸ γὰρ γινόμενον ὃ γίνεται οὐκ ἔστι. γένεσις ἄρα ἐστὶ τὸ οὕτως ὄν. An axiom we saw above, see fn.41 of chapter 2 for references. We may safely take the now here to be an indivisible instant. See Simplicius, In Phys. 79598ff quoted above and also Elements of Physics prop. 16. 73 That measurement by time implies a distinction in being follows as well from time’s nature as a prior, productive measure. It is not a measure that determines a quantity for our knowledge, but that determines the quantity of a thing in existence.

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Proclus’ analysis of bodies as processes is highly un-Aristotelian, for it in effect collapses the important distinction between the actuality and potentiality of changes and of forms that we saw above in Chapter 4.1. In a physics where every perceptible substance is a process, one cannot say that a potential sculpted shape has become fully actualized when the sculptor’s work is done, for even once it has been sculpted, there are future parts, future states of the statue pre-determined by its rational structure and these remain potential.74 Thus, for Proclus, all that in the perceptible can ever be actual are processes, and whoever sculpts bronze does no more than subject the bronze to a distinct process, a statue-process, instead of an unformed-bronze-process. This then is the metaphysical background behind Proclus’ claim that the flow of time is the life of the world soul, to which I now turn. 4.3.2 Time’s Flow Is the Contemplative Activity of the World Soul Recapitulating Chapter 4.2.2. I say that Plotinus’ view on time can be summarized as “time is the discursive succession of and the extension inseparable from those activities the world soul engages in by contributing to the fashioning of the perceptible world as an image of the Intelligized, and especially to its semblance of the eternity of the Intelligized.” This is, on the face of it, quite distinct from Proclus’ own view of what time, ultimately, is. We have seen that there are several different entities called “time” or “times” in Proclus’ system, but that he in Platonic fashion called “Time” without qualification the intelligized Order of Time. This cause, however, was for Proclus neither an activity nor the aspect of an activity dependent on the soul, but a substance, more precisely, a Kind of Intelligence, which exists eternally. For this reason, as well, Proclus produced a set of six arguments in his discussion on time in the Timaeus commentary against the view that time was a product of the world soul.75 With hardly an exception, the scholarship has, thus, seen a chasm 74

In contrast, Iamblichus took the shape of a statue to be a good example of activity contrasted with motion: “The substance and the peculiar form of each thing is the activity of each thing, although this is not change. And indeed, nothing prevents perfection from existing also among the intelligized and things by nature unchangeable. But there are many such perfections among the perceived too, as for instance that in the shape of a statue: for the shape stands fast in accordance with the same perfection.” (Simpl. In Cat. 304.35–305.4, Trans. Gaskin, modified) τὴν γὰρ ἑκάστου οὐσίαν καὶ τὸ οἰκεῖον εἶδος ἐνέργειαν εἶναι ἑκάστου, μὴ οὖσαν ταύτην κίνησιν. καὶ γὰρ ἡ τελειότης καὶ ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς καὶ φύσει ἀκινήτοις εἶναι οὐ κεκώλυται· εἰσὶν δὲ καὶ ἐν τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς πολλαὶ τοιαῦται, οἷον [τὴν] κατὰ τὸ σχῆμα τοῦ ἀνδριάντος· ἕστηκεν γὰρ τὸ σχῆμα κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν τελειότητα. 75 See In Tim. III 21.6–24.30. These arguments are commonly seen as arguments against time being either a product or an affection of the world soul. Of the six arguments, however, only the fifth at In Tim. III 23.22–24.8 suggests that the view that time is an affection is

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between Plotinus’ and Proclus’ philosophy of time, contrasting the former’s psychological account of time with the latter’s “hypostatized” Time itself.76 It would seem, therefore, that Proclus rejects what Plotinus has to say about time. Yet if we consider the details of Proclus’ theory, we see he also believes that the change of time, the flowing time he sees described in the Timaeus, is nothing other than the life of the world soul! This can be easily reconstructed starting from theses that we have seen before. In the first place, let us recall that Proclus espouses a double theory of time, according to which “time” may refer either to a uniform process or to a Kind of Intelligence that is the cause of that process. Temporal intelligence is the productive measure of the changes of the world, the self-subsisting science determining both when each event should happen and the duration allotted to each being in the world. The flow of time is an absolutely uniform process, a pure endurance, that exists in the world and through which the ontologically prior and normative measures contained in temporal Intelligence are actually applied to things in the world. Time as a Kind of Intelligence thus employs time as a change, as an instrument whereby it causes and regulates all other changes. Proclus states this relation in terms of participation: For Time is eternal not only in virtue of its essence [being eternal], but it is also always the same in virtue of its internal activity. But according to the sole activity in which it is participated in by things external to it

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being targeted, for it begins by establishing that time is not an accident, but a substance. The end of the argument, however, suggests that the line of reasoning as a whole is one of elimination of possibilities: “The only option remains, therefore (λείπεται ἄρα…) is that time is a substance and not secondary to soul.” I read the argument as a whole as proceeding through three divisions. First, either time is an accident, or it is a substance. But it manifests a power that it would not have if were not a substance. If it is a substance, it is either identical to the soul, or it is not. But time and soul have very distinct effects, so they must be distinct substances. If it is a substance distinct from soul, either it is dependent on soul, or soul is dependent on it. But soul participates in time, so time is a substance superior to soul. And a fortiori, it cannot be a product of soul. “QED.” The demonstration, therefore, that time is not an affection is not meant as an argument against its being an affection of soul. Those who see a break: Bréhier (1928, p. 473), Duhem (1913, p. 253ff), Dodds (1963, p. 228), Clark (1944, p. 358), Siorvanes (1996, p. 134), Kutash (2011, chapter 8), Sambursky/Pines (1971, p. 12), Joly (2003), Beierwaltes (1985). Joly’s article discusses Proclus’ arguments against Plotinus on time, taken as an example of the many differences that separate the two philosophers. Kutash’s essay is practically unique in seeing Proclus in a better light than Plotinus. The exceptions that I have found to this trend are Chlup (2012, p. 139) following MacIsaac (2002) and Plass (1977).

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[i.e. its external activity],77 time changes, stretching out and fitting to them78 its own gift.79 T4.17 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 27.26–30, Baltzly, modified

Thus, if Time itself is the Kind of Intelligence that plans the order of all changes, then the presence in the world of the flow of time, time’s “external” activity is that by which each change/changing thing participates in time, that is, has the order contained in temporal Intelligence as a property of its own. The presence of the double activity theory here is a first echo of Plotinus: whereas for Plotinus time was the external activity of the world soul’s internal intelligizing, for Proclus it is the external activity of temporal Intelligence. The characterization of the flow of time as not only an external activity, but also a participation in temporal Intelligence allows us to discover just what kind of a process the external activity of time is. Since Time itself is a Kind of Intelligence, we can turn to what Proclus’ Elements of Theology has to say about participation in Kinds of Intelligence: Every Kind of Intelligence is primarily participated by beings that both have an intellectual essence and that intelligize in activity80 For necessarily it is participated primarily either by these beings or by beings which have an intellectual essence but are not always intelligizing. But it is impossible for it to be primarily participated by the latter. For the activity of a Kind of Intelligence is unchanging, and consequently what participates that activity always participates, since it always intelligizes, and the [unchanging] activity of intelligizing makes the participants always intellectual. For an [intellectual] being that has its activity in some part of time is disconnected from one that eternally is in activity.81

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That the external activity is what is changing in the case of time is made clear by In Tim. III 25.13–16, where time remains according to its internal activity and changes according to its external one: μένοντα μὲν κατὰ τὴν ἔνδον ἐνέργειαν, καθ’ ἣν καὶ ἔστιν αἰώνιος ὄντως, κινούμενον δὲ κατὰ τὴν ἔξω προϊοῦσαν, καθ’ ἣν ὁρίζει πᾶσαν μετάβασιν. ἐφαρμόζων, being used here in the sense of one thing measuring another by being placed alongside it and being fitted to it. See ET 54.4–5: πᾶν γὰρ τὸ μετροῦν ἢ κατὰ μέρος μετρεῖ ἢ ὅλον ἅμα ἐφαρμοσθὲν τῷ μετρουμένῳ. καὶ γὰρ ὁ μὲν χρόνος αἰώνιός ἐστιν οὐ τῇ οὐσίᾳ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ τῇ ἔνδον ἀεὶ ὁ αὐτὸς ὤν, καθ’ ἣν δὲ μετέχεται μόνην ὑπὸ τῶν ἔξω κινητός ἐστι συνεκτείνων ἐκείνοις τὴν ἑαυτοῦ δόσιν καὶ ἐφαρμόζων. Πᾶς νοῦς ὑπὸ τῶν κατ’ οὐσίαν ἅμα καὶ ἐνέργειαν νοερῶν μετέχεται πρώτως. ἀνάγκη γὰρ ἢ ὑπὸ τούτων ἢ ὑπ’ ἄλλων τῶν νοερὰν μὲν ἐχόντων τὴν οὐσίαν, μὴ ἀεὶ δὲ νοούντων. ἀλλ’ ὑπ’ ἐκείνων ἀδύνατον. καὶ γὰρ ἡ ἐνέργεια τοῦ νοῦ ἀκίνητος· καὶ ὑφ’ὧν ἄρα μετέχεται, ταῦτα

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As with essences, so in the variations of activity there is an intermediate degree between any eternal activity and an activity that is complete in a certain time, namely the activity that has its completion in the whole of time. For nowhere does procession take place without mediation, but always through terms which are akin and alike; and this holds for the completion of activities no less than for substances. Accordingly, every Kind of Intelligence is primarily participated in by beings which are throughout the totality of time capable of intelligization and always intelligize, notwithstanding that they intelligize in time and not in eternity.82 From this it is apparent that a soul which intelligizes only at certain times cannot directly participate in a Kind of Intelligence.83 T4.18 Proclus Elements of Theology 175, trans. Dodds, modified

This proposition is directly about what the “primary participant” in a Kind of Intelligence is, and not about the participation in a Kind of Intelligence. A little interpretation will allow us to draw a conclusion about the latter. I understand the “primary participant” in a being to be one that participates in that being directly, in contrast to participants that rely on other participants for their mediation. One example of a “secondary participant” in a Kind of Intelligence would be a celestial body: due to the regularity of its changes, it can be said to participate in a particular Kind of Intelligence. But it only changes at all, because it is animated by a soul and it can be said to participate in the Kind of Intelligence because this soul perpetually participates in a Kind of Intelligence. The body’s participation is thus not primary, but derivative. The contrast to primary participants given in the body of the proposition are transmigrating souls, that only occasionally engage in intelligization. Each of their episodic participations in Intelligence (through some particular Kind of Intelligence) is bounded in time, and thus they cannot be primary participations according to Proclus, because a Kind of Intelligence is eternal and, for that reason, its primary participation must be an enduring activity of intelligization, on the basis ἀεὶ νοοῦντα ἀεὶ μετέχει, τῆς νοερᾶς ἐνεργείας ἀεὶ νοερὰ τὰ μετέχοντα ποιούσης. τῷ γὰρ αἰωνίῳ τῆς ἐνεργείας τὸ ἐν μέρει τινὶ τοῦ χρόνου τὴν ἐνέργειαν ἔχον ἀσύναπτον. 82 μεταξὺ δέ, ὥσπερ ἐν ταῖς οὐσίαις, οὕτω δὴ καὶ ἐν ταῖς τῶν ἐνεργειῶν ἐξαλλαγαῖς τῆς αἰωνίου πάσης ἐνεργείας καὶ τῆς ἐν τινὶ χρόνῳ τελείας ἡ κατὰ πάντα τὸν χρόνον ἔχουσα τὸ τέλειον. οὐδαμοῦ γὰρ αἱ πρόοδοι γίνονται ἀμέσως, ἀλλὰ διὰ τῶν συγγενῶν καὶ ὁμοίων κατά τε τὰς ὑποστάσεις καὶ τὰς τῶν ἐνεργειῶν τελειότητας ὡσαύτως. πᾶς ἄρα νοῦς ὑπ’ἐκείνων μετέχεται πρώτως τῶν κατὰ πάντα χρόνον νοεῖν δυναμένων καὶ ἀεὶ νοούντων, εἰ καὶ κατὰ χρόνον ἀλλὰ μὴ αἰωνίως ἡ νόησις. 83 ἐκ δὴ τούτου φανερὸν ὅτι ψυχὴν ποτὲ νοοῦσαν, ποτὲ δὲ μή, νοῦ προσεχῶς μετέχειν ἀδύνατον.

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of the law that like causes like. Thus, a transmigrating soul only participates in a Kind of Intelligence through its attachment to another soul, one which does have an unceasing intellectual life.84 Thus, the primary participant in a Kind of Intelligence is something capable of intelligization, thus a soul, and not a body, and a soul that enjoys perpetual intellectual activity. It is precisely this latter activity that is the participation of the soul in that Kind of Intelligence. And if Time itself is a Kind of Intelligence, then the primary participation in Time is itself an unceasing act of intelligization. And which soul enjoys this ceaseless gift of time according to Proclus? Why, the world soul: In what way, then, is the world soul superior to the other [divine souls]? Plato himself surely anticipated this when he added the words “throughout all time” (πρὸς τὸν σύμπαντα χρόνον). For while all souls are active in a successive manner (μεταβατικῶς) and have their periods, some longer and some shorter, only the world soul receives the most primary and single temporal extension and the first and whole measure [of time], by which it encompasses the periods of the other souls … Since the world soul is the first of the souls participating in time that intelligize the Forms individually (τῶν καθ’ ἓν νοουσῶν εἶδος), it is perhaps necessary that it receive the entire measure [of time], just as in the case of other Forms where it is necessary that things that have participated them in a primary manner receive their Form in its entirety. Therefore, it is necessary that the world soul alone is active in relation to the whole of time while other souls are active in relation to some part of the whole of time – specifically the portion of time it takes for them to complete their cycle.85 T4.19 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 289.3–10; 23–29, trans. Baltzly, modified

84 Namely the soul of its spirit, on which see MacIsaac (2011). 85 τίνι οὖν ὑπερέξει τῶν ἄλλων ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ παντός; τοῦτο δὴ προιδόμενος ὁ Πλάτων ἐπήνεγκε τὸ “πρὸς τὸν σύμπαντα χρόνον”· πᾶσαι μὲν γὰρ αἱ ψυχαὶ μεταβατικῶς ἐνεργοῦσι καὶ περιόδους ἔχουσιν, αἳ μὲν ἄλλας, αἳ δὲ ἄλλας, μείζους ἢ ἐλάττους, μόνη δὲ ἡ ὅλη ψυχὴ τὴν πρωτίστην καὶ μίαν τοῦ χρόνου διάστασιν ὑποδέχεται καὶ τὸ ὅλον καὶ πρῶτον μέτρον, ᾧ περιέχει τὰς τῶν ἄλλων περιόδους· … ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἡ πρώτη μετέχουσα χρόνου τῶν καθ’ ἓν νοουσῶν εἶδος ἡ τοῦ παντός ἐστι, δεῖ δήπου καὶ ὅλον αὐτὴν ὑποδέχεσθαι τὸ μέτρον, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων εἰδῶν τὰ πρώτως αὐτῶν μετασχόντα ὅλον αὐτῶν καταδέχεται τὸ εἶδος. μόνην ἄρα δεῖ πρὸς τὸν σύμπαντα χρόνον ἐνεργεῖν, αἱ δὲ ἄλλαι πρὸς μόριον τοῦ σύμπαντος χρόνου ἐνεργοῦσι, καθ’ ὃ καὶ ἡ ἀποκατάστασις αὐταῖς.

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In this passage, Proclus is commenting on Plato’s use of the expression “throughout all time” (πρὸς τὸν σύμπαντα χρόνον) at Tim. 36e, in order to characterize the intelligization of the world soul. Proclus’ interpretation is that Plato employs the expression precisely to indicate what is proper to the world soul’s intellectual life as opposed to that of all the other divine souls responsible for individual celestial bodies. Namely, Plato wishes to indicate that the world soul is the primary participant in Time itself and, thus, has for the period of its intellectual life cycle the whole span of time, i.e., the great year. As the primary participant in the Order of Time, it is the subject of time’s primary participation, the perpetual intellective life that is Time’s external activity. This intellective life of the world soul is therefore the wholly uniform process that pervades the entire world (the world soul is, after all, omnipresent in the world) and through which all changes are ordered and measured according to the temporal Kind of Intelligence.86 Proclus agrees, thus, with Plotinus: the flow of time is the intellective life of the world soul. And the grounds for this conclusion are not entirely unlike those of Plotinus. For just as Plotinus concludes that the soul must engage in discursive activity in order to produce an image of eternity, Proclus reasons that a perpetual intellective life is fitting for the “primary participant,” that is, the most faithful image of a Kind of Intelligence. There is certainly a distinction between taking eternity and Intelligence as a model, and we will return to this divergence from Plotinus soon. It would seem though, that Proclus could concur with Plotinus when he writes that soul “produces succession along with its activity” (ἐγέννα τε μετὰ τῆς ἐνεργείας τὸ ἐφεξῆς) and, indeed, he says just that in a comparison with the cognitive activity of Intelligence with that of the world soul: For there [in the intelligized] there is a single substance and a single life, and the thinking (νόησις) of the substance is indivisible like the substance and it does not involve transition since it fits with the substance like a point to a point. However, the life of the soul and its thinking are not purely indivisible, but, as we said, also divisible, and it lacks the strength to be fitted together with the indivisible.87 By dividing itself 86

It should be observed, however, that Proclus in the Timaeus commentary elsewhere attributes to the world soul a discursive cognitive faculty higher than intelligence, namely its reason, which would be ontologically and cognitively prior to the opposed pair of faculties, intelligence and opinion. 87 ἐφαρμόσαι τῷ ἀμερεῖ μὴ σθένουσα: “ἐφαρμόσαι” is used for Proclus also to designate how a measure fits or is adequate to what it measures. Cf. ET 54.4–7: πᾶν γὰρ τὸ μετροῦν ἢ κατὰ

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around the indivisible element of that substance (τὸ ἐκείνου ἀμερές), it brings one part after another of itself to bear on the former object – an object that always remains the same – in order that it might grasp with the whole of itself that which has been established prior to all of itself. It thus produced both a transition (where what is divisible in it rolls itself out around what is indivisible) and simultaneously, by dint of making this transition, it produced time.88 T4.20 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus II 290.30–291.7, trans. Baltzly, modified

The metaphors employed to characterize the activity of Intelligence and of soul in this passage are not very clear as Baltzly observes in his note to the passage. For our purposes all that is required to understand the passage is the basic distinction that a Kind of Intelligence is an eternal entity that is essentially known (like the Sun is a visible entity that is essentially illuminated), whereas the soul is a subject of knowledge that engages in successive cognitions of its objects. And Proclus here adds, by its successive cognitions it produces time, precisely the Plotinian thesis he is supposed to have broken with!89 μέρος μετρεῖ ἢ ὅλον ἅμα ἐφαρμοσθὲν τῷ μετρουμένῳ. τὸ μὲν οὖν καθ᾽ ὅλον μετροῦν αἰών ἐστι, τὸ δὲ κατὰ μέρη χρόνος· δύο ἄρα μόνα τὰ μέτρα, τὸ μὲν τῶν αἰωνίων, τὸ δὲ τῶν ἐν χρόνῳ ὄντων. 88 ἐκεῖ μὲν οὖν ἡ οὐσία μία καὶ ἡ ζωή, καὶ ἡ νόησις τῆς οὐσίας ἀμερὴς ὡς ἡ οὐσία καὶ ἐφαρμόζουσα πρὸς αὐτὴν οὐκ ἔχει μετάβασιν †ὡς σημείῳ σημεῖον· ἡ δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς ζωὴ καὶ νόησις οὐκ ἀμερὴς οὖσα μόνον, ἀλλ’, ὡς εἴπομεν, καὶ μεριστὴ καὶ ἐφαρμόσαι τῷ ἀμερεῖ μὴ σθένουσα, μερίσασα δὲ ἑαυτὴν περὶ τὸ ἐκείνου ἀμερές, ἄλλο καὶ ἄλλο ἑαυτῆς προσάγουσα τῷ αὐτῷ ἐκείνῳ μένοντι, ἵνα κατὰ πᾶσαν ἑαυτὴν ἕλῃ τὸ πρὸ πάσης αὐτῆς ἱδρυμένον, μετάβασίν τε ἐγέννησεν οὕτως, τοῦ μεριστοῦ τοῦ ἐν αὐτῇ ἐξελίττοντος ἑαυτὸ περὶ τὸ ἀμερές, καὶ ὁμοῦ τῇ μεταβάσει χρόνον. Cf. also II 292.4–5: καὶ γὰρ καὶ οὕτως συνυποστήσει τῷ δημιουργῷ τὸν ζῳώδη χρόνον: the soul creates together with the Cosmic Engineer the animate sort of time. The text here is complicated. Kroll suggests moving “ὡς σημείῳ σημεῖον” to after “πρὸς αὐτὴν,” and I have followed Baltzly in translating it so, such that it modifies ἐφαρμόζουσα. But Proclus could be conceivably be talking about the impossibility of the motion of indivisibles. But then the dative σημείῳ would be odd, although it is ommitted in a manuscript, D, which however is not among the best ones, according to Diehls. 89 The main reason I take it that scholars have not noticed this paradox yet is that, although time’s identity as the Kind of Intelligence specific to the world soul and the identity of its participation as the intellective life of the world follow clearly from his philosophy, is that Proclus nowhere explicitly says so and even obscures things by talking about unparticipated Time in abstraction from its status as a Kind of Intelligence. Why he did not openly publish such a central thesis of his philosophy is a problem, the solution to which I cannot undertake here. I suspect it has to do with Proclus’ more general belief that one should not publish every single truth (see In Parm I 718.5–26; IV 928.5–9). He even believes that there is a degree of esotericism in the coinage of the word χρόνος. (In Tim. III 27.32–28.2).

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Proclus need not be contradicting himself here. He can believe that the thesis “the world soul produces time” is true as he understands it and false as Plotinus understands it, if he takes to be false Plotinus’ view of how the world soul produces time. And this is indeed his position. Whereas the world soul produces time according to Proclus in virtue of its successive intelligizations, which are nothing less than its participation in temporal Intelligence, Plotinus in Proclus’ eyes takes the world soul to produce time through an eternal intellectual activity that it possess, an activity that Proclus deems impossible for a soul to have, but which he sees Plotinus as being comfortable with, because he espoused the thesis that the soul is not wholly descended into the world of becoming, but has a part of itself engaged in eternal intellectual activity in the intelligible. This interpretation of Plotinus is put forth in Proclus’ arguments against the view that time is a product of the world soul. It is seen when he first presents the hypothesis of his opponents, which remain unnamed, and then also in some of the arguments presented against that hypothesis. The presentation is as follows: They say that time is something that is produced by the world soul insofar as it engages in activity discursively; that is (ἢ), while the soul engages in activity in a manner that is present all at once and changelessly, nonetheless it measures the celestial rotations and the periods of other souls by means of time.90 T4.21 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 21.8–11, trans. Baltzly, modified

Here, the activity of the world soul is distinguished from time: the world soul has an activity that is changeless and present all at once, and thus is outside time, whereas time is some secondary, discursive activity that is produced by the world soul to measure the celestial bodies and the periods of all other souls, for they, unlike the world soul are in time. That this is indeed the position being attacked can also be seen by the argument that Proclus presents as “the greatest sign that time is not produced by soul, but is participated in by the first 90 ἐκ τῆς ὅλης ψυχῆς γεννᾶσθαί φασι τὸν χρόνον μεταβατικῶς ἐνεργούσης ἢ αὐτῆς μὲν ἀθρόως καὶ ἀμεταστάτως, μετρούσης δὲ τῷ χρόνῳ τάς τε οὐρανίας περιφορὰς καὶ τὰς περιόδους τῶν ἄλλων ψυχῶν. Diverging from Baltzly and following Festugiére, I take the verb ἐνεργούσης to be understood in the clause αὐτῆς μὲν ἀθρόως καὶ ἀμεταστάτως, thus taking the adverbs to modify the world soul’s activity and not its existence. This agrees better with how the position of the opponents is described elsewhere and is more natural than supplying a form of εἶναι.

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soul.”91 This greatest of all arguments turns on the fact that time is a perfection of soul, giving order to the transitions of the soul’s intellectual life, as it gives order to all changes and motions in the world. If time perfects soul, it cannot be the product of soul. We saw that this was a constraint on Proclus’ philosophy of time imposed by the canonical authority of the Timaeus and his interpretation thereof, according to the scheme of ten successively more perfect gifts of the Engineer to the world, with time being the gift succeeding the creation of the world soul and thus a gift that perfected the whole world including the world soul.92 Proclus, however, admits that if one has a different view of the world soul’s cognitive activity, the argument carries no weight: If therefore the soul too grasped the whole of what is known by it through a single and ever identical grasp in the same manner as Intelligence and the Gods do, intelligizing without transitions, then perhaps it would have produced time, and would not have required time for its own perfection.93 T4.22 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 22.13–17, trans. Baltzly, modified

It is, thus, an essential part of the view that Proclus is attacking that the world soul itself does not require time for its intellectual activity, but rather shares with Intelligence an eternal, changeless knowledge of being. In Proclus’ view, then, although both he and Plotinus both agree that the world soul contributes to the production of time, they conceive of this contribution differently. In his own case, Proclus believes that time is a uniform succession of intelligizations produced by the Kind of Intelligence called “Time” in the world soul. The world soul contributes to the production of this uniform change because although temporal Intelligence is the unchanging Agent of change ultimately responsible for the process, the world soul is qua soul self-changing, and it is changed by Intelligence only on account of its turning toward it through its own will. This conversion of the world soul towards the Kind of Intelligence that is proper to it institutes its participation therein, which is the uniform flow of time. This same conversion of the world soul amounts to something different in the case of Plotinus (as read by Proclus): it does not produce a sequential life 91 In Tim. III 22.26–28: μέγιστον μὲν οὖν τοῦτό σοι τεκμήριον ἔστω τοῦ τὸν χρόνον μὴ εἶναι γέννημα τῆς ψυχῆς, ἀλλ’ ὑπὸ πρώτης αὐτῆς μετέχεσθαι. 92 See Chapter 1.2. 93 εἰ μὲν οὖν καὶ ἡ ψυχὴ κατὰ ταὐτὰ τῷ νῷ καὶ τοῖς θεοῖς ἐπιβολῇ μιᾷ καὶ ἀεὶ τῇ αὐτῇ πᾶν ᾕρει τὸ ἑαυτῆς γνωστὸν ἀμεταστάτως νοοῦσα, χρόνον μὲν ἐγέννησεν ἂν ἴσως, χρόνου δὲ πρὸς τὸ ἑαυτῆς τέλος οὐκ ἂν ἐδεήθη.

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of cognitions, but a single, unchanging grasp of a single intelligized object. This intellectual life of the world soul is as eternal as the activity of intelligence and it is not itself identical with time, which is Proclus’ position. Rather it is a cause of time, which the world soul world produces in order to measure the world and the periods of the other souls. Thus for Proclus, the intelligent activity of the world soul is successive and is the uniform flow of time; but for Plotinus, the same activity is eternal and is a cause of the uniform flow of time.94 Proclus also recognizes an eternal activity of Intelligence that is the cause of time’s flow. It is not, however, an activity of the world soul, but of the temporal Kind of Intelligence, which is a substance distinct from the soul.95 The criticism of Plotinus’ theory of time is, thus, part of a broader criticism of Plotinus’ view of Intelligences as parts of souls for Proclus: in the case of transmigrating souls this leads to the theory of the “undescended” part of the soul, which always contemplates, and in the case of the world soul, to the misrecognition of the world soul’s proper contribution to the constitution of time.96 4.3.3 Proclus on Time in the Soul and Time as a Number How does this leave us with respect to the Plotinian corollaries mentioned in Chapter 4.2.3, the distinction between a mental time and a natural time and the dissociation between time and number? With respect to the former, the Alcibiades I commentary appears to recognize it as the grain of truth contained in the Plotinian position: But some have claimed that the soul subsisting in itself does not require time for its activity, but on the contrary it generates time. It seems to me that some thought is required here. For time is double, on the one hand there is the time that is constituted together with the life of nature and the bodily change of the perceptible universe, on the other there is 94

It is remarkable that even once so formulated, Proclus is not willing to dismiss Plotinus’ views completely and in an aside at In Alc. 237.3–13 suggests that there is, indeed, a sense in which the activity of the world soul can be said to produce time, if we understand by time the periods measured by the celestial bodies. After all, the world soul is a remote cause of their motions. I will return to this passage. 95 This might appear to be threatened by In Tim. II 105.29–106.2, where Proclus identifies the intelligence of the world soul as a “hypercosmic part” of that same soul, but in context “intelligence” here means not the substantial Intelligence, which would be the intelligence of time, but the intellectual power/disposition of soul, that is the power it has to turn to unchanging time and generate its uniform motion. 96 This criticism in turn is a reflection of Proclus’ stricter attempt to develop metaphysical science as discussed in the introduction.

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the time that pervades the incorporeal life. The latter, therefore, measures the periods of the divine souls and perfects the separate activities of our own, whereas the secondary time, which is extended along with the life of nature, measures our life with the body, but does not in any way measure the life of the soul itself living by itself.97 T4.23 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades 237.5–13, trans. O’Neill, modified

To say that the soul does not require time for its activity, but instead generates it, is how Proclus put Plotinus’ view on time: the soul has an eternal intelligization that does not require time, and this activity is in some sense the cause of the soul’s discursive life which is identical to time. Proclus admitted that intelligization is not measured by one kind of time, namely the time that is measured by the celestial bodies. He nonetheless insisted that the soul’s intelligization was always discursive, and thus in need of a higher principle of ordering. The eternal Intelligence was, thus, not only required to explain that the soul actually intelligizes, but also that its intelligization occurs in an orderly manner.98 This orderly sequence of cognitions, we saw, is identical with the flow of time itself, at least in the case of the world soul. But even in the case of other divine souls, their cognitive circuits will also be uniform processes of knowing as in the world soul. Accordingly, at In Tim. III 38.33–40.19, Proclus argued that celestial gods determine their own measures along with Time itself. In all these cases, it will be true to say that these activities are not in time, because they are time. In this way, Proclus picked up a distinction between time of the soul and natural time. Now, with regard to the dissociation between number and time, Proclus obviously did not follow Plotinus. Proclus was comfortable in calling time qua a Kind of Intelligence a number, as when he identifies it with the “true Number” of Plato’s Republic or the number according to which the flow of time proceeds

97 ἤδη δέ τινες καθ’ ἑαυτὴν οὖσαν τὴν ψυχὴν οὔ φασι δεῖσθαι χρόνου κατὰ τὴν ἐνέργειαν, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον αὐτὴν ἀπογεννᾶν τὸν χρόνον. τοῦτο δὲ οἶμαι δεῖσθαι λόγου τινός. διττὸς γὰρ ὁ χρόνος, ὁ μὲν τῇ φυσικῇ ζωῇ καὶ τῇ σωματοειδεῖ κινήσει τοῦ παντὸς συνυφιστάμενος, ὁ δὲ διὰ τῆς ἀσωμάτου ζωῆς πεφοιτηκώς. ἐκεῖνος μὲν οὖν καὶ τὰς τῶν θείων ψυχῶν περιόδους μετρεῖ καὶ τὰς ἐνεργείας τὰς χωριστὰς τῶν ἡμετέρων τελειοῖ· ὁ δὲ δεύτερος, ὁ τῇ κατὰ φύσιν ζωῇ συμπαρατεινόμενος, τὴν μὲν μετὰ σώματος ἡμῶν ζωὴν μετρεῖ, τὴν δὲ τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτῆς καθ’ ἑαυτὴν ζώσης οὐδαμῶς. 98 The distinction here is between time as a Kind of Intelligence, the Order of Time, and time as a change flowing alongside objects.

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in the Timaeus. In so doing, Proclus quite evidently followed Iamblichus’ interpretation of the definition “time is the number of a certain change,” where time’s being a number involved its being the prior substance that caused the change, which was precisely the succession of the soul’s thoughts. Although Iamblichus, as we saw, polemically contrasted himself with Porphyry and Plotinus by refusing to call the mental process time, the picture is still that of an eternal, intelligized Reality producing a uniform change through which all others are caused or measured. Iamblichus recycled a number of arguments from Aristotle for time’s being a quantity (Simplicius In Cat. 345.8–346.1), but none of them addressed the central issue of time’s infinity, Plotinus’ strongest argument against time’s being a measure or number, as it is an obstacle even for time as a productive number. Unlike Plotinus, Proclus held, therefore, that it was possible for there to be a number (necessarily finite), which nonetheless explained an infinite process. Proclus was quite explicit about this correspondence and in the Commentary on Plato’s Republic contrasted time and eternity by saying that whereas eternity is infinite simply, time is infinite in becoming, through the repetition of world cycles: But if the totality of time is the image of the totality of eternity (for also eternity is said to be a totality, as in “therefore the paradigm exists throughout the totality of eternity” (τὸν ἅπαντα αἰῶνά ἐστιν) [Tim. 38c]), and the totality of eternity is a measure, so too is the totality of time a measure. But the one is a measure of the life of the intelligized Living Being, the other (namely, time) the measure of the life of this world. And it would be the complete measure of the common conjoint cyclical return of all the incorporeal and corporeal changes in the world. [This measure], being unfolded many times constitutes infinite time, taking on the infinity in becoming through the infinite power in eternity, [an infinity that] comes to be infinite by repetition, whereas that [i.e. eternity] is infinite and does not become infinite.99

99 ἢ εἰ ὁ πᾶς χρόνος αἰῶνός ἐστι τοῦ παντὸς εἰκών (λέγεται γὰρ καὶ ὁ αἰὼν πᾶς· ), μέτρον δὲ ὁ πᾶς αἰών, μέτρον ἄρα καὶ ὁ πᾶς χρόνος. ἀλλ’ ὃ μὲν τῆς τοῦ νοητοῦ ζῴου ζωῆς μέτρον, ὃ δὲ τῆς τοῦδε τοῦ κόσμου ζωῆς, ὁ χρόνος. καὶ εἴη ἂν τῆς τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ πάντων ἀσωμάτων κινήσεων καὶ σωματικῶν πασῶν κοινῆς συναποκαταστάσεως μέτρον παντελές· ὃ δὴ πολλάκις ἀνελισσόμενον ποιεῖ τὸν ἄπειρον χρόνον, διὰ τὴν ἐν τῷ αἰῶνι δύναμιν ἄπειρον λαμβάνοντα τὴν κατὰ γένεσιν ἀπειρίαν, τῷ πάλιν καὶ πάλιν γιγνομένην ἄπειρον, ἐκείνης οὔσης ἀπείρου καὶ οὐ γιγνομένης.

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… On account of which time was called total by the Muses, as being set up as the complete number that bounds all changes, which by recurring becomes infinite. On account of which as well in the case of this [i.e. time] the infinite does not exist together, as it does in the case of eternity.100 T4.24 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Republic II 11.19–12.1; 12.8–12

Unlike Plotinus, therefore, Proclus thinks that it is possible for an endless life to proceed from a (finite) number. The key seems to be a geometrical analogy he used, calling the Kind of Intelligence qua monad a center and the procession of time qua number a circle, when he writes: Time is therefore eternal, and a monad and a center according to its essence and the activity that remains within it, but it is at the same continuous and a number and a circle according to its proceeding and being participated in.101 T4.25 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 26.30–27.3

If a number can be a circle, we can understand how it can be the cause of a movement without beginning or end, for it was precisely circular motion that had this character in Procline physics. In what sense, however, can a number be a circle? One way of illustrating this would be the degree. By definition, 360 deg. = 0 deg., so the number of degrees necessarily return back to its unit by being sufficiently added. Furthermore, such a number is in a sense entirely contained within its unit, because it is the specific essence of the unit, the degree, that establishes the maximum amount of degrees and thus no aspect of the series of numbers exceeds what can be obtained by the addition of the unit. Did Proclus have the idea of such a unit? I propose that this was what he suggested in the following cryptic text:

100 διὸ καὶ πᾶς κέκληται παρὰ τῶν Μουσῶν, ὡς παντελῆ τὸν ἀριθμὸν προστησάμενος τὸν πασῶν μεταβολῶν ἀφοριστικόν, ὃς ἀνακυκλούμενος ἄπειρος γίνεται. διὸ καὶ ἐπὶ τούτου τὸ ἄπειρον οὐχ οἷον ἅμα ἐστίν, ὡς ἐπὶ τοῦ αἰῶνος. 101 ἔστιν οὖν αἰώνιος μὲν καὶ μονὰς καὶ κέντρον κατ’ οὐσίαν ὁ χρόνος καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἐν αὑτῷ μείνασαν ἐνέργειαν, συνεχὴς δὲ ἅμα καὶ ἀριθμὸς καὶ κύκλος κατὰ τὸ προϊὸν καὶ τὸ μετεχόμενον.

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[the procession of the flow of time] … is parallel to the case where some particular number102 has received all the forms of the unit103 separately and, reverting upon itself, is made to come full circle; the flow of time surely behaves in the same manner, for when it has proceeded in accordance with the measures in the temporal unit, it connects the starting point to the end point, and this over and over infinitely.104 T4.26 Proclus Commentary on Plato’s Timaeus III 30.26–32, Trans. Baltzly, modified

Proclus’ analogy is obscure. What is this case of a number that reverts upon itself? I take it to be a phenomenon of cyclic numerical notation. Given some number, say 2 or, to use Greek notation, β, if you add successively the unit, 1 or α, you will produce successively new numbers, 3,4,5 … or γ,δ,ε…. I take this to be what is meant by “receiving all the forms of the unit separately.” This process, however, will lead you eventually to return to the same digit that you started with, say 12 or ιβ. And this is what I take to be meant by a number “reverting upon itself” and “coming full circle.” Besides explaining in what sense a number might “revert upon itself” after “receiving the forms of the unit,” this interpretation also seems to be supported by In Tim. II 233.4–6, where Proclus discussed Timaeus going “from units to tens to hundreds,” where “units” clearly then referred to numbers lower than ten, and perhaps also to ten itself. All such numbers might then be conceivably be called the “species/forms of the unit” in contrast to the “forms/species of the decad,” which would be 10, 20, 30, etc. Thus, it would seem that for Proclus a number can be a circle, because by successively adding to it, we return to our point of origin, i.e., the monad. Thus, the circling of a number is possible if the number is a cyclical one, like the number of degrees in a circle, where 360 deg. = 0 deg. And in this manner, we can understand also how the monad, 1 deg., should contain within itself a 102 “Some particular number” translates τις ἀριθμὸς. Thomas Taylor, in a note to his translation of this passage, suggests that Proclus had in mind quite simply “the decad,” i..e, the number ten. He might have been inspired by something Proclus said earlier in the commentary, that the decad is symbolic of the conversion of all natural things back to Unity In Tim I 87.28–29: ἥ τε γὰρ δεκὰς τὴν ἐπιστροφὴν πάντων δηλοῖ τῶν ἐγκοσμίων τὴν ἐπὶ τὸ ἕν. But I take it that Proclus was trying to make a general point about any number by writing “τις ἀριθμὸς.” He could have simply mentioned the decad if he meant to draw an analogy specifically to it. 103 Or the forms “included in the monad,” as Festugiére has it. 104 … ἡ τοῦ χρόνου κίνησις…, καθάπερ τις ἀριθμὸς πάντα τὰ εἴδη τῆς μονάδος διῃρημένως ὑποδεχόμενος καὶ πρὸς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφων καὶ ἀνακυκλούμενος· οὕτω γὰρ δὴ καὶ ἡ τοῦ χρόνου κίνησις κατὰ τὰ ἐν τῇ χρονικῇ μονάδι μέτρα προελθοῦσα πέρας ἀρχῇ συνάπτει, καὶ τοῦτο ἀπειράκις.

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number, for it is by the specific essence of the unit in question, the degree, that the number is bounded to being 360. Through the concept of a cyclical number, Proclus could speak of a finite number that governed the life of the world, without, for all that, implying that there was a first point in time.105 The weight of the designation number for Proclus and its absence in Plotinus’ theory of time is not, therefore, to be explained by opposing philosophical theses about time or number, but by a more elaborate concept of number to which Proclus had access and which was absent from Plotinus. For this reason, as well, most likely Proclus did not criticize Plotinus’ rejection of number and measure in the theory of time. 4.4

A Tension in Proclus’ Description of Time’s Flow

Proclus thus seemed to share with Plotinus the view that it is the soul’s discursive activity that constitutes the flow of time. Unlike Plotinus, however, Proclus identified this discursive activity with the intellective life of the soul: it is the world soul’s successive contemplations of one Form after another. Careful readers will observe a tension in Proclus’ thought at this point. For as I made clear in Chapter 4.1, while discussing the role of the flow of time as a measure, it is necessary for time to be a uniform process. It must not only be uniform in the sense of neither going faster or slower, but it must also be homogeneous as to not have distinct stages. Indeed, it must be so uniform a process that it is a process in name only, or only in comparison with eternity, as Proclus puts it. If there were distinct phases in the flow of time, a1,a2,a3,a4,a5, … then there would be a question of their ordering: why does a1 come before a2 and not after it? But it is precisely to give an account of such ordering relations (why does a lotus open its leaves slightly before sunrise?) that the uniform flow of time is posited. Thus, on pain of an infinite regress, the flow of time must lack any differentiation of its different phases, being the dull repetition of its unit moment. It would appear, however, that a succession of contemplations does have distinct phases. Thus, we can talk of the world soul contemplating first Justice itself, then Beauty itself, then Temperance itself, and we can naturally ask why this order and not another one.

105 This would thus be an instance for Proclus where mathematics allows us to understand something paradoxical about the Gods. (See In Parm. IV 926.16–40 on this function of education in the sciences.)

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Proclus appears thus to be committed to conceiving of time as on the one hand a continuous, uniform activity, and on the other hand a discrete series of intelligizations. This need not be a contradiction, but it is certainly a tension – one that he inherited from Iamblichus, who also saw time as discrete and continuous.106 The solution to this tension, the proof that it is indeed just a tension and not a contradiction, would require us to investigate the nature of the ideas contemplated by the world soul. Is it indeed true that their order is contingent? Or might they not be intrinsically ordered, such that one cannot ask the question of why Justice is contemplated after Beauty (or vice versa)? This however would take us beyond time and up unto the causes of the Order of Time itself. I close here, therefore, my investigation into Proclus’ theory of time and will proceed now to summarize the results of the past four chapters in the conclusion. 106 A novelty of Iamblichus’ underlined by Hoffmann (1980).

Conclusion

The Natural Theology of Time in Proclus That the world is understood by intelligence is today often taken to be a labor of human intelligence itself. Such was not a common assumption in ancient philosophy. In ancient philosophy intelligibility was often considered to be a property of the world. Through understanding we tapped into an intelligibility that was already present in the world – be it in the form of the unique Heraclitean Logos, or the Platonic Forms, or some other principle, such as the Agent Intellect or the Stoic Zeus. We have seen that Proclus held that the source of cosmic intelligibility was none other than Time itself. Here we must distinguish between Time itself, or the Order of Time, as we have been calling it, and the flow of time or time as it appears. When we ask, “what is time” we generally mean the latter. Proclus has a theory about that, too, namely that the flow of time is the flow of contemplations of the world soul. But his ultimate answer to “what is time” was not his account of time’s flow. For Proclus believed that to solve the problems about time inherited from Plato and Aristotle it was necessary to ground the flow of time in a higher principle. This higher ground turned out to be the Kind of Intelligence that employed the world soul to order all cosmic change towards the good. There cannot be a single time for the whole world if the whole world is not living a single life, and the multifarious life of the world cannot proceed in an orderly fashion, unless there is a uniform activity that conforms it to an eternal plan, ensuring the perpetuity of the species and the regularity of heavenly motions. We cannot solve the problems of the philosophy of time, for Proclus, then, if we do not ascend to a divine principle, Time itself, the Intelligence of the world soul, the cosmic Kind of Intelligence. The flipside of this was that the Stoic and Peripatetic arguments toward a divine principle through the explanation of change attained to no higher principle than Time itself, and even this principle they did not understand well. The Stoic Zeus was a body, the Aristotelian cosmic Intelligence was not clearly the Intelligence of the whole world, but was the Intelligence of the first sphere. Time was, thus, an object of natural theology for Proclus. It was not the ultimate object, as the world must, ultimately, be explained by its divine Engineer and the Model he employed. And indeed, if I had allowed myself to pursue the

© Antonio Vargas, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004466685_007

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grounding of time and temporal phenomena in yet higher causes, there would have been even more to say about Proclus’ philosophy of time. But, here, I have been content to simply lay out how his reception of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Plotinus led him to articulate that time must be the principle of cosmic intelligibility.

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Translations

Plato Cooper, J. and Hutchinson, D.S. (1997). Plato: Complete Works. Bloomington, IN: Hackett. Aristotle Hardie, R.P and Gaye, R.K. (2001). Physics. In McKeon, R. (ed.), The Basic Works of Aristotle, pp. 218–397. New York: Modern Library.

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Index Locorum Homer Iliad 16.112–113 45 Alexander On Time §9 58n25 §16 74n50 On the Principles of the Universe §86–88 118n20 §94–96 118n20 Diogenes Laertius VII 135.3–136.10 130 VII 141.19–22 128 VII 145.14–18 128 SVF 1.98 131 1.497 131 Aristotle Posterior Analytics II.12 121 Physics II.8–9 121 III.1–3 68–71 III.6 206a18–25 168 III.6 206a21–23 51 III.7 207b7 54 IV 7 IV.6–9 11n29 IV.10 218a6–8 55 IV.10 218b3–5 12 IV.10 218b10–13 113 IV.10 218b13–18 164 IV.11 219a11–15 54 IV.11 219a12–20 57 IV.11 219a22–29 53 IV.11 219a26–29 55 IV.11 219b2 46 IV.11 219b2–9 56 IV.11 220a21–24 55 IV.12 221a30–221b1 28n25 IV.12 221b22–23 54 IV.13 222a10–13 55 IV.13 222b17–26 28n25 IV.14 223a21–28 58, 74–5 IV.14 223b1ff 12



IV.14 223b3–7 116 IV.14 224a12–15 116 VI.5 121 VIII.1 251b25–28 75 VIII.5 257a31–25b10 81 VIII.5 258a20–259b1 79 VIII.6 258b32–259a6 76 VIII.6 260a1 106n111 VIII.10 266a13–26 85 Generation and Corruption II.10 336a31–b10 78 II.10 336b10–15 59 II.11 121 De Caelo I.9 278b21–279b3 48n5 II.2 258b16ff 160n9 Meteorology 338a20 11n26 De Anima II.4 415a26–28 77 Generation of Animals IV.10 777b16–20 59 IV.10 777b30–778a9 62–3, 71–73, 78, 121n29, 143n80, 151 Metaphysics III.2 997b5–12 48n5 VII.13 1039a3–14 118n20 VII.16 1040b27–1041a3 48n5 IX.6 1048a29–b4 167 IX.6 1048b9–17 168 IX.6 1048b10ff 168 IX.9 69 X.1 1053a12 73 X.1 1053a30 54 X.1 1053a24 66 XII 7 XII.6 1071b3–12 76 XII.6 1051b12–20 97 XII.7 1072a26–27 93 XII.8 1074a30–38 106n111 XII.9 1074b34–35 98 XII.9 1075a3–5 99 XII.10 1075a15–25 118

224 Metaphysics (cont.) XII.10 1075a11–15 118 XII.10 1076a3–4 118 XIV.2 1088b14–28 118n20 Nicomachean Ethics X.3 1173a29–b2 165 Porphyry Sentences 32 49 44.60ff 86n73 Damascius In Parm. III 173.4–174.2 139n74 IV 117.16–23 13n24 In Phaed. I 143 19n1 I 143 49n8 Iamblichus De Mysteriis I.4.23–38 190n64 Plato Phaedo 67b2 49 75b 59 98b–99d 163 Sophist 248e6–249b3 161–163 Statesman 267d10 91n85 Parmenides 10 140e 117n16 151e–152d 158–59 152a3–d2 38n38 Philebus 28c 22 16c–17a 89 30c4–7 89 Symposium 202aff 49 Phaedrus 245c-d 34 Republic II 378c–385c 28 II 379a–397e 20n4 VII 510b–511c 25 VII 529c7–530b4 40–41, 159

Index Locorum VIII 546a1–c7 43–44, 108–109 X 595a–600e 20n4 Timaeus 10,22–23 24b6–c3 45n52 27d–28a2 51 28b3–5 12n31 34a3–8 142 34b3–4 114n7 36c6–8 160n9 36e 113–114, 145, 198 37a2–c5 36, 161 37d 8 37d1–7 31, 159, 173 37e4–38a8 36, 113, 173 38a1–2 158 38c3–6 33 38c5–d1 34 39d 44 39d3–4 33 47e5–48a5 22 89b4–c7 45n52 Laws X 894b–895b 34, 80 X 896e–897a 34, 161 Plotinus, Enneads I.4 [46] 2.31–55 172 3.33–37 172 III.1 [3] 4.17–24 134–135 III.7 [45] 7, 8, 173 1 32 3.16–17 175 4.37–43 174 5.20–21 175 6–10 184 8–9 186 9.5 61 9.6ff 56–57 9.68–84 75n53 9.75–77 186 11–13 184 11.4–11 44 11.12–14 179n45 11.20–33 179–180, 182 11.33–45 178, 182

Index Locorum 11.45–59 182–183 11.59–63 184 12.1–12 180–1 12.22–25 188 12.25–37 185 13.41–47 185 IV.4 [28] 7.4–12 138, 185, 188 9.9–13 186–187 11.17–28 136–137 32.4–13 135 32.13–17 133 V.9 [5] 7, 172 V.9.4 30 VI.1 [42] 17–20 173 VI.2 [43] 7–8 173 VI.6 [39] 10.9–15 186 Proclus Elements of Physics 11 II 8 86 II 16 76 II 19–21 81 On Providence §12 150 §18 50 §28 50 ET 11 7 29n26, 80 11 80–81 11.5–8 20n29 14 79–83 20 80, 104n107 21 103 22 103 25 147 40–51 80n65 50 51, 140, 191–193 52.9–14 175 54.4–5 195n78 57 15n40 64 103 66 14n36 77 29 81 152

225 96 86 166 103 167.20–26 99n98 169 104 170 103–104 175 195–196 177 103—104 198–200 107n118 PT I 5.1–8.15 4, 170n30 I 5.6–12 3n3 I 20.19–25 29 III 39.26 170n31 III 46.13ff 191 III 60.12 148 III 100.3–22 99 IV 95.15 170n31 IV 102.1–20 44n51 V.23 89n81 Exposition of Astronomical Hypotheses Proem 1.1–3.4 43 Commentary on Hesiod’s Works and Days §260 6 fn.15 In Eucl. I 1–7, 11, 14 p/20n4 I 32.7–13 82n66 I 37.5 43n49 I 38.10–12 43n49 II 1–8 p/20n4 In Alc. 73.5 148n101 121.11–20 6 121.11–123.16 65n40 236.18–237.7 237.3–15 170n32, 202n94, 202–203 In Parm. 10 I 718.5–26 199n89 IV 921.5–922.1 112n4 IV 928.5–9 199n89 IV 960.11–26 103n105 V 977.3–978.6 20n4 V 1033.17–1036.18 26n18 VI 1072.3–11 26n18 VI 1079.4–20 26n.18 VI 1081.8–1082.12 26n18 VI 1119.5–1121.16 89

226 In Parm. (cont.) VII 1154.6–7 191 VII 1172.17–23 191 VII 1173–75 189–190 VII 519.19–29 50n9 In Remp. II 11.19–12.1 44n51, 95, 205 II 12.8–12 44n51, 95, 205 II 13.10–14.2 72, 89, 81 II 16.3–13 106n112 II 16.3–14 88, 108 II 17.21–18.10 39n42, 106n112 II 19.28–20.6 110n126 II 231.27–232.1 155n117 II 250.30ff 121n29 II 257ff 72n48 II 258ff 112n4 II 258.13–25 149 II 285.3–5 150 In Tim. 10, 25–27 I 11.9–12.25 152n109 I 214.19–20 25 I 267.12–268.6 95 I 270.33–271.3 91n85 I 294.18–295.12 94–95 I 303.24–310.2 170n31 I 307.4–5 157n1 I 404.7–20 105–106 I 412.31–413.4 105n109 I 435.4–458.11 13 I 444.11–13 14 I 455.2–456.41 13 II 24.3–18 152 II 25.23–29 153 II 56.29ff 15 II 65.14–67.16 15 II 79.28–81.15 155n117 II 97.8–98.6 143–144 II 105.29–206.2 202n95 II 105.30–106.30 114n7 II 106.15–23 15n40 II 113.19–114.26 28n22 II 248.11ff 42 II 258.28–260.10 160n9 II 266.1–5 145 II 266.11–30 145–6 II 266.31–267.8 146 II 289.3–10 197

Index Locorum II 289.23–29 197 II 290.30–291.7 198–199 II 444.29–445.6 90 II 445.14–24 90 III 9.23–30 58n25, 74 III 10.2–10.8 29, 75 III.18.27–19.9 76 III 19.14–24 39 III 20.3–5 6 III 20.5–6 92 III 20.10–15 58n25 III 20.22–21.5 86 III 21.6–24.30 193n75 III 21.8–11 200 III 21.11–24.28 170n32 III 22.13–17 201 III 22.26–28 200–201 III 23.2–24.8 193n75 III 23.4–7 107n119, 140 III 25.7–12 57 III 25.11–16 106–107, 195n77 III 25.24–29 152 III 26.3–15 83, 108, 153 III 26.9–16 106n112 III 26.15–24 63–64, 68 III 26.30–27.3 205 III 27.3–8 106n112 III 27.26–30 194–195 III 27.32–28.2 199n89 III 28.1–3 106n112 III 28.14–24 106n112 III 28.30–29.2 32n33 III 30.16–18 6 III 30.26–32 206 III 31.15–27 57 III 34.27–35.25 88n80 III 36.5–10 87 III 38.33–40.19 203 III 40.31–41.3 87 III 50.29–51.1 64n38 III 53.6–13 92 III 57.17–27 141 III 59.15–60.23 34n35 III 88.16–18 88n79 III 88.29–89.4 97 III 95.14–17 115 III 95.18–20 58n25

Index Locorum III 130.25–133.10 72n48 354.8–346.1 204 III 228.30–229.2 91 354.19–26 42n48 III 245.27 170n31 In Phys. III 272.25ff 151n105 404.16–33 82n66 III 333.29 170n31 611.35ff 66 III 378.22–379.9 91n85 719.19–21 57n23 Plutarch 760.11–761.8 74n50 De Iside et Osiride 363D 5n12 795.17–23 8 Philoponus 794.3–12 57 In Phys. 723.17–24 57n23 In de Caelo Sextus Empiricus I 2.17–26 11n27 Against the Physicists IX. I 3.15–20 11n27 78–85 123–125 Theophrastus Simplicius Metaphysics 5a17–21 118 In Cat. 303.35–307.15 190n64, 193n74

227

Name Index Alexander 58n25, 74n50, 117n18, 118n20, 119, 144 Ammonius 94 Aristotle 12, 32, 51, 69, 76–78, 84–85, 93, 97–98, 105–106, 113, 116 Augustine 1, 7, 121 Chaldean Oracles 86n72, 101 Damascius 13, 19n3, 139n74, Duhem 8–9 Einstein 119–120 Epictetus 111n1, 129 Giordano Bruno 14n38

Martijn 151–152 Menn 48, 67n42 Olympiodorus 28n22 Opsomer 82n66, 157n1, 177 Pindar 10 Plato 19f, 31, 35, 37, 113, 158–164 Plotinus 30, 32, 44, 47–48,56, 61, p.75n53, 101, 133ff., 170ff., 193 Plutarch 5n12, 48 Poincaré 119–120 Porphyry 48–49, 86n73, 157n1, 189–90

Iamblichus 42n48, 61, 189–90, 191n74, 204

Sambursky 8 Simplicius 7–8, 11n27, 28n22, 57n23, 74, 82n66, 167n24 Sophocles 10 Sorabji 8–9 Syrianus 4, 49, 190–191

Jammer 117n18

Theophrastus 118

Heidegger 6 fn.16, p.15, p.97n94 Heraclitus 2, 139

Subject Index Alphabetical Abstraction 63n35 Astronomy/Astrology 19, 40–43, 120–121, 134 Atomism 15 Authority and Reception Authority of Plato 3, 19–21, 50 Plato’s Philosophy as a Demonstrative Science 4 Platonic Curriculum 10 Platonism as a Via Media 112 Authority of Plotinus 170n30–32 Proclus as commentator 19–21 Proclus’ reception of Aristotle 47–53, 109 Aristotle as spiritlike 49–50 Theological authorities 4, 20 Biological clocks 120 Causality Causal overdetermination 88 Productive Causality 147 Celestial bodies 16n41, 35, 72–3, 78, 87, 91–2, 147, 167, 196 Change and Activity 68–70, 164–170 Actuality and Potentiality 29n26, 69–70, 168–169, 193 In Iamblichus 193n74 Agents of Change 68, 70–71, 76–77, 89, 97, 100, 118 And Eternity 175ff. Aspect test 169n29 Becoming 51 Cosmic motion 142ff Double activity 176, 179, 181–182, 195 Energeia as actuality of a form 167–178 Happiness not a change 166–167 Hypernatural motion 28n22 In Iamblichus 190n64 In Plotinus 172–173 In Proclus 189ff Intelligized change 162–163, 189–91 Irregular and Disordered Motion 15, 61, 143n82 Mental/teleological change 163

Chronos/Time (see also Kairos, Lifespan) and celestial bodies 33, 40–45, 68, 105, 117–119, 138–139, 185 and eternity 32, 37, 108, 148n98, 173ff., 183–184, 188, 204 and the now 53, 55, 158–159, 269, 192 and the soul 34, 58, 74–5, 109, 150, 188–189, 194, 198, 202–203 and true Astronomy 43 as a cause 5–6, 30, 83–84, 92–94, 108 not a cause of destruction 28n25, 30n30 as a god 7–8, 9n22, 108 distinct from Cronus 5fn12 as a good 28, 107 as a Kind of Intelligence 7–8, 96ff, 106–107ff, 195ff as a monad/center 205–206 as a number 33, 35, 39, 44, 53ff, 107–108, 116, 154, 184–197, 203–207 as a number with which we count 56 circular numbers 205–6 as a substance 29–30 as distinct from absolute time 30 as a measure 54, 67, 141, 185ff, 192, 195n78, 198n87 as mediating between the eternal and the temporal 32 as possessing a formal, final and efficient cause 32n33 as prior to souls 29, 107, 201  as a source of intelligibility 109–110  as tensed/past, present and future 36–8, 159, 174 both continuous and discrete 54  B-series187  continuity, diachronic unity of time 121, 130, 136–138, 142 flow of time 36, 38, 50–51, 66, 68, 71, 74–5, 95, 113ff, 117, 119, 154–156, 169, 192–195, 207 Homogeneous/uniform 66–67, 159–160, 164–165, 181, 183 Omnipresent 113ff “rate objection” 164–165

230 Chronos/Time (cont.) in syllogisms 121 in the Parmenides 21, 113 in the Physics 51–52 in the Republic 39, 41 in the Statesman 21n10, 45n52, 67n in the Timaeus 26–27, 31, 33, 39, 41 Order of Time 38, 63–4, 71, 84, 95, 153, 1995 participated and unparticipated 66–67, 83–84, 140 perpetual 186–187 philosophy of time 1, 7 primary time 8 simultaneity, synchronic unity of time 116ff, 119, 141–2, 149 Stoic theory of 111n2, 132 temporal succession 27 time scales 159n6 units of time 61, 86–88, 108, 138–139 as gods 87, 108 day and night 88 seasons 88, 108, 128 the great year 41n46, 64, 107, 137n70, 138, 187, 198, 204 when vs. how long 54, 116 Conflagration 64n37, 129 Counting out/productive number 57–63 Daimones/Spirits 49, 50n9 Demiourgos/Engineer 22–24, 83, 90, 92–93, 95, 101, 176–177, 180–182, 186–187 Ten Gifts of the Engineer 27, 109n124 Determinism Stoic 131 In Plotinus 134, 136 In Proclus 142n79, 148–150 East and West (Directions) 160n9 Elements (Physical) 16n41 Evil 91n85 Generation of the world 94, 180 Heracliteanism 140, 191–193 Hexis/Habit 125–126 Hierarchy of Being 29, 153 Holon, Cosmic 6n14, 146n92

Subject Index Alphabetical Hylomorphism 52 Hypothetical Method 26 Infinity 14, 168, 174, 204 Infinite Power 84–86, 89, 94, 204 Kairos/Opportune Moment 1, 6, 65, 207 Life 175ff Lifespan/Age 45, 59–60, 65, 71–2, 116–117, 131–132, 142 Local/Global perspective 129, 140–141, 152 Logos/Rational Structure 130–131, 137–138, 146, 180, 186 Method   Capitalization 1 fn.1   Structure of the Book 16–18 Reception 112   Monads 89–91, 104   Muses 43–45   Natural Theology 7  Nature 60 , 150–153   Noeton/Intelligized 99, 175, 183, 189–190  Translated as Intelligized 5n8 Nous/Intelligence 80–82, 96ff As “conceptual schemes” 103–104 As Identical to the Forms 104 As opposed to discursive thought 179, 201–202 Cosmic Intelligence 105–106 Paternal Intelligence 101, 190 Plotinus on Intelligence 173 Plurality of Kinds of Intelligence  100–102 Translated as Intelligence 5n8, 8n20 Unity of Kinds of Intelligence 102 Unparticipated and participated Kinds 103, 195–196 Use souls as instruments 103 Participation 39–40, 90–91, 127, 196 Perpetuity of change 75–78, 89, 94 Physiologia as cosmology in Proclus 11, 101 as physics 10

231

Subject Index Alphabetical as science of principles of bodies in Aristotle 11n27 Level of abstraction 11n28 Priority of Perfection 29 Proclus Esotericism in Proclus 199n89 Physics and Metaphysics in 10, 20n7, 25 interpretation of the Parmenides  104n106 use of distinctions 5 Purification 48 Salvation 4fn.4 Soul As principle of life 51n11 As self-changing 34, 79–82, 203 Happiness 163–164, 172 Human is not a differentia of soul  158n3 Martian souls 148 Omnipresence 114n7 Stoic 129 Undescended soul 200–202 Vehicle of the soul 72n48 World soul 35, 134–135, 142, 145–146, 155, 175–178, 197–199 Stoic Physics 123ff, 139–140, 155n116

Sympathy 120, 124, 127, 133–134, 136, 151–153 The Good 102n102 As the One: see To Hen/Unity Theologia as discourse on the gods 10n24 as metaphysics 10, 10n23 Theurgists 83, 86–87 To Hen/The One/Unity The I and Unity 13n34, 26n18 Translated as Unity 2 fn.2 Unity in Being 26n18 Virtue 19n3, 49–50, 163–164 Void 11n29, 15 World as distinct from nature 13 as worldliness 15 as a Living Being 111f, 151 In the Timaeus 114 inclusive, not exclusive uniqueness 15 uniqueness of 12–16 unity of, in Plotinus 133, 135 unity of, in Stoicism 128, 12