The golden chain, p.36
The Golden Chain, page 36
This, then, is the context of his argument which deduces the trinity by way of the names from the first principle. While he is theologizing in this way, he is thinking only of the very first development of names, declaring that “one” is the very first of names, which is subordinate to the simplicity of the One. He is working purely with an understanding of what is designated and he discovers these two assuming to themselves utterable sounds, and prior to these, and given these, he discovers thirdly that prior breathing which is the silent symbol of Being (huparxis).
Clearly we must first enquire how it is that no name of the One is really spoken. We shall learn that if names are natural, the first principle has no name, not even the name “one,” understanding that everything that is by nature a name of something has meaning as being congruous to its object, either by analysis into simple names or by reduction to its letters. If this is so, then “one” has to be reduced to its letters, since it cannot be analyzed into any simpler name. So the letters of which it is composed will have to represent something of its nature. But each of them will represent something different, and so the first principle will not be one. So if it had a name, the One would not be one. This is proved from the rules about names which are plainly stated in the Cratylus (390d).
The question arises, however, how it is that we call it “one” when the thing itself is altogether unnameable? We should rather say that it is not the One that we call “one” when we use this name, but the understanding of unity which is in ourselves. For everything that exists—beings with intellect, with soul, with life, and inanimate objects and the very matter that goes with these—all long for the first cause and have a natural striving towards it. And this fact shows us that the predilection for the One does not come from knowledge, since if it did, what has no share in knowledge could not seek it; but everything has a natural striving after the One, as also has the soul.
What else is the One in ourselves except the operation and energy of this striving? It is therefore this interior understanding of unity, which is a projection and as it were an expression of the One in ourselves, that we call “the One.” So the One itself is not nameable, but the One in ourselves. By means of this, as what is most appropriate to it, we first speak of it and make it known to our own peers.
Since there are two activities in us, the one appetitive and the other reflective (the former existing also in those beings that are inferior to ourselves, but the latter only in those that are conscious of their appetites), that abiding activity that is common to all may not be absent from our own souls, but these must be responsive to the energies that concern the first principle, and so the love of the One must be inextinguishable. This is indeed why this love is real, even though the One is incomprehensible and unknowable. But consciousness labors and falls short when it encounters the unknown. So silent understanding is before that which is put into language, and desire is before any understanding, before that which is inexpressible as well as before that which is analyzable.
Why, then, do we call the understanding of unity within ourselves “one” and not something else? Because, I should say, unity is the most venerable of all the things we know. For everything is preserved and perfected by being unified,130 but perishes and becomes less perfect when it lacks the virtue of cleaving together and when it gets further away from being one. So disintegrated bodies perish, and souls which multiply their powers die their own death. But they revive when they recollect themselves and flee back to unity from the division and dispersal of their powers.
Unity, then, is the most venerable thing, which perfects and preserves everything, and that is why we give this name to the concept that we have of the first principle. Besides, we noticed that not everything participates in other predicates, not even in existence, for there are things which in themselves are not existents and do not have being. And much less does everything participate in life or intellect or rest or movement. But in unity, everything.
Even if you mention “many,” this cannot exist without having a share in some sort of unity. For no multitude can be infinite, so if a multitude occurs, it will be finite. But a finite multitude is a number, and a number is some one thing. For “three” or “four” (and so for any of the numbers) is a sort of unity. It is indeed not a monad, but at any rate it is a unity, for it is a kind, and a kind always participates in unity, for it unites its members. Or how could we say that “three” is one number and “four” another, if they were not distinguished from one another as distinct unities? So everything participates in some unity, and that is why “one” seems to be the most important of predicates.
It was therefore correct to give the name “one” to the conception which we have of the first principle. And as we know that unity is common to everything and preserves everything, this will guide us in naming that which is the cause and the desire of all things. For it had to be named either after all things or after those that come next after it; so it can be named “one” after all things.131
Why do we not say that the other names also are names of the concepts that we have, and not of the things themselves—e.g., “intellect,” “the intelligible,” and so on? I would say because the concepts of other things give knowledge of the things of which they are concepts, and they arise in us cognitively; and for this reason they are sometimes (though not always) projected into language. But our concept and apprehension of the One, i.e., our travail, is in our nature per se, and not in the manner of a perception132 or cognition. The other concepts, being cognitions, coexist with their objects and are capable of naming them, for their objects can somehow be grasped by them. This concept, however, is not cognitive and does not grasp the One, but is essentially an operation of nature and a natural desire of unity. This is proved by the fact that the desire of everything is desire of the One, but if our concept were of something known, then its object would only be the object of desire to the cognitive powers and not to things without knowledge.
From this it is clear that the One and the Good are the same.133 For each is the object of desire to all things, just as nothingness and evil are what all things shun. And if the One and the Good are different, then either there are two principles or, if the One is before the Good, how can the desire of the One but be higher than the desire of the Good? But how can it be better, if it is not good? Or if the Good is before the One, since it will not be one it will be both good and not good. If, then, the One is the same as the Good, then it is right that it should be an object of desire before any cognition and that the apprehension of it should not be of the same kind as of knowable things. This is why our concepts of these really name their objects, for they know them; but this other apprehension desires something unknown and, impotent to comprehend it, it applies the name “one,” not to the unknown—for how could it?— but to itself, as somehow divining the reality of what transcends itself and everything else. But it is unable to reflect on the One itself, for, as we have said, the desire of the One, the incessant movement of striving, is in all things by nature and not by representation. Even the divine Intellect, as I have said before, does not know the One by direct vision134 (i.e. intuitively) or intellectually, but is united with it, “drunk with its nectar” (Symp. 203b), for its nature, and what is in it, is better than all knowledge ...135 Thus the One is the desire of all, and all are preserved by it and are what they are through it, and in comparison with it, as with the Good, nothing else has value for anything.
So Socrates says at the beginning that it is knowable, but immediately adds a qualification, saying how it is knowable, namely, “to him who inclines his own light towards it” (Rep. VII, 540a). What does he mean by “light,” except the One that is in the soul?136 For he said that the Good can be compared with the sun, and that this light is like a seed from the Good planted in souls. Besides, before speaking of the light, he too made it quite clear that the way to it is by negations: “As if in battle one has to rob it of everything and separate it from everything” (Rep. VII, 534b).
So it is right that it should not be possible to apply a name to it, as if one could be made to fit what is beyond all things. But to it “one” only can be applied if one desires to express what not only Plato but the gods, too, have called inexpressible. For they themselves have given oracles to this effect.137 “For all things, as they come from one and revert to one, are divided, intellectually, into many bodies.” They counsel us to get rid of multiplicity of soul, to conduct our mind upwards and bring it to unity, saying, “Do not retain in your intellect anything which is multiple,” but “direct the thought of the soul towards the One.” The gods, knowing what concerns them, tend upwards towards the One by means of the One in themselves. And this precisely is their theological teaching; through the voice of the true theologians they have handed down to us this hint regarding the first principle. They call it in their own language, Ad, which is their word for “one”; so it is translated by people who know their language.138 And they duplicate it in order to name the demiurgic intellect of the world, which they call Adad, “worthy of all praise.” They do not say that it comes immediately next to the One, but only that it is comparable to the One by way of proportion; for as the former is to the intelligible, so the latter is to the whole visible139 world, and for that reason the former is called simply Ad, but the other which duplicates it is called Adad. Orpheus has also pronounced which god was first named, saying: “The gods called phanes by name first on great Olympus” (fr. 85 Kern). He himself speaks of things that existed before phanes and symbolically applies names taken from the lowest levels of reality: “Time” and “Ether” and “Chaos” (fr. 60 Kern), and, if you will, “the Egg,” but he never says that the gods used these names. For these were not their names but he transferred to them names that belong to other things.
If, then, one must give a name to the first principle, “one” and “good” seem to belong to it; for these characters can be seen to pervade the whole of existence. Yet it is beyond every name. This feature of the One is reproduced, but in a different way, by the last of all things, which also cannot be represented by a name of its own; how could it, since it has no determinate nature? But it is named dexamene, i.e., “receptacle,” and titheene, i.e., “nurse,” and “matter” and “the underlying,” after the things that come before it, just as the first is named after the things that come after it.
“Therefore it is not named or spoken or judged or known, and nothing perceives it.” “Apparently not.” (Parm. 142a)
It is stated clearly in the Letters (VII, 342a–344a) that no name can with certainty comprehend an intelligible object, nor can a visible picture, nor a definition, nor any rational knowledge of it. The intellect alone is capable of grasping an intelligible essence certainly and perfectly. Plato works out the argument for one example, the circle.
For when does this mere name “circle” grasp the whole essence of the intelligible circle? When we hear the name, what do we know but the name?
Nor does an impression drawn in the dust by a geometrician comprehend it. For this is merely one of the copies multiplying it, not first known by reasoning but by sense and imagination.
Nor yet the definition, which does indeed circle round its essential nature; but it is complex and composite and so cannot seize upon the simplicity of that essence.
Nor does the theory of it grasp it, even if it meditates a thousand times things that themselves belong accidentally to the circle, and one might as well call it knowledge of these other things.
All these are about it but are not itself. But the intellect and intellectual knowledge knows the essence itself and comprehends the Form itself even by simple intuition. So it alone is capable of knowing the circle. And similarly for “the equal” and “the unequal” and the other characters severally.
If, then, we have shown that names and definitions and rational knowledge are worthless for grasping intelligible objects, what should we say about them with regard to the One? Surely that all names and all discourse and all rational knowledge fall short of it? So the One is not nameable or expressible or knowable or perceptible by anything that exists. This is why it is beyond the grasp of all sensation, all judgment, all science, all reasoning, all names.
But, you will say, what is the difference between this and what he has already said? For he said before that there is no apprehension of the One. But there he said that the One [is not knowable] by others140... He is showing by this very insistence that it is not unknowable because of the weakness of other things, but by its own nature. By what he said before, he indicated the inferiority of other things in relation to the One, but here its super-excellence with regard to itself.
But we must attend to the fact that when he says that the One is not known, by “knowledge” he means “rational knowledge.” Before, he mentioned three things—rational knowledge, opinion, and sensation—and as in this sentence he takes up two that are the same as in the previous one, namely sensation and opinion, it is obvious that by the third, “knowledge,” he means only rational knowledge, so that if there is a divinely inspired knowledge that is better than rational knowledge and which leads the One in ourselves towards that One, obviously the argument did not eliminate this, and learning it is the “final discipline,” as Socrates rightly says (Rep. VI, 505a), because it is discipline in the final knowledge. But this final knowledge is not science, but is higher than science.
“Is it possible that all this holds true of the One?”
“I should say not.” (Parm.142a)
To all his negative propositions he now appends this very unexpected conclusion, which raises a grave doubt. In what sense is it impossible that these things should hold true of the One? Are not all the foregoing arguments dismissed by this single remark?
Some people141 have therefore been persuaded by this passage to say that the First Hypothesis reaches impossible conclusions, and so that the One is not a real subject. For they associate all the negations into one hypothetical syllogism: “If the One exists, it is not a whole, it has not a beginning, middle, or end, it has no shape,” and so on, and after all the rest, “It has no existence, is not existence, is not expressible, is not nameable, is not knowable.” Since these are impossibilities, they concluded that Plato himself is saying that the One is an impossibility. But this was really because they themselves held that there is no One that is imparticipable by existence and, therefore, that the One is not different from Being nor from the One-Being, and that “one” has as many modes as being, and that the One that is beyond Being is a mere name.
In reply to this interpretation, it must be stated that impossibility must lie either in the premise or in the reasoning. But the deduction was a necessary one, as every consequent statement was always proved by what went before, and the premise was true. For there must be a One that is simply one, as we have shown both from what is said in the Sophist and also from objective necessity.
So the hypothesis does not lead to a conclusion that is impossible or that conflicts with Platonic doctrine. What more need we say to these people, who are already refuted by what is said about dialectic in the Republic (VII, 534b ff), namely, that it treats of the cause of all the intelligibles, which approach differs in no way from the negative method?
If this view is true, where does Plato discuss the One negatively? Not in the Second Hypothesis, where he discusses “all” affirmatively, nor in the third, where he discusses “all” negatively. The alternative remains, that the discussion of the One is either in this hypothesis, or nowhere. But the latter is unlikely, as Socrates said in that passage that it was the main subject of dialectic.
But others admit142 the validity of the hypothesis, because the Republic also says about the first principle that it is what is beyond intellect, and the intelligible and beyond existence (VI, 509b), and these are what Plato here denies of the One, while in the Second Hypothesis he begins by affirming existence. So if the first does not deal with the One that is beyond Being, what other hypothesis is there besides it that does so? And so their reply to this doubt is that Parmenides believes all the foregoing conclusions to be true, but that this statement is not the close of the discussion of the First Hypothesis, but is put down as the starting-point of the Second; in order to show the way to the Second Hypothesis, he says that someone may find these conclusions impossible as concerning the One. He had to bring in what was needed to pass over to the Second Hypothesis so that we should not find anything superfluous. For these things only seem impossible because of the inexpressibleness of the One, since it is obvious to any one that, as far as truth goes, they are not impossible. For possible premises do not lead to impossible conclusions, but the premise is possible, unless the really-One is incapable of being real. The Stranger in the Sophist reminds us of this (245a-b) where he refutes those who say that the first is the whole, by showing that the really-One is not a whole. If the premise is granted that there is the absolutely-One, then everything follows necessarily from this by necessary hypothetical syllogisms. So this statement, “These things are impossible,” is made as a constructive introduction, in order to show the way to the Second Hypothesis, because they are impossible on account of the super-excellence of the One. For what is to follow is more commensurate with our understanding and easier to communicate to us than what has gone before, as it has more affinity with our minds. Plato himself in the Letters (II, 312e) replies to someone who asks what the first principle is, that such a question is unsuitable. For nothing that has any affinity with us should be attributed to the first principle, and one should absolutely not ask “what is it like?” That is dealt with in the Second Hypothesis, which asks what the One Being is like and shows that it is a whole, that it is a finite and infinite manifold, that it is in motion and at rest, and that it is everything, in due order, that agrees with these characters. But the First Hypothesis which takes the absolutely-One for its subject does not tell us what it is like, but removes everything from it and assigns nothing to it because nothing that has any affinity with us ought to be said of it. From this it is obvious that what has been said will seem impossible (though, as has been shown, it is all possible), because it is so far from our own nature and so totally foreign to Plato’s own rule for speaking about the first principle.
