Jonathan Greig

This paper looks at Gregory of Nyssa's so-called "bundle theory" sensible individuals and matter (as recently argued by Gerd Van Riel and Thomas Wauters in a 2020 article) amidst the broader context of Gregory's view of created beings and his reception of Neoplatonist, Stoic, and Aristotelian conceptions of particulars and matter. I argue that Gregory's position is closer to an Aristotelian position, despite the parallels to Plotinus and other contemporaneous bundle theory positions: in arguing against prime matter, and insofar as he emphasizes the identity of each kind of created being with its material substrate—understood as a "bundle" of properties—Gregory inadvertently upholds a reading of Aristotle that refutes an ontological notion of prime matter.

In a 1997 paper, Salvatore Lilla pinpointed multiple textual parallels between Damascius and the Pseudo-Dionysius, showing certain conceptual parallels. For instance, both Ps.-Dionysius and Damascius speak of the first cause, or God, as being all things, i.e. as “encompassing” (περιληπτική) or as “anticipating” (προληπτική) all things, at the same time that God transcends all things. In my chapter I expand on Lilla’s findings by showing how Ps.-Dionysius’ conception of God fits more closely with Damascius’ framework for the One, especially Damascius' description of the triad of principles (i.e. the One-All, All-One, and Unified) at the One’s level which closely parallels Ps.-Dionysius’ description of the Christian Trinitarian persons (i.e. the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit). The chapter also shows striking parallels between Damascius and Ps.-Dionysius elevating divine revelation as a primary means of communicating knowledge about the first cause’s mode of being (correcting certain claims of Lilla), while it also shows how the parallels drawn between Proclus’ henadology and Ps.-Dionysius make more sense when looking at Damascius’ own adaptation of Proclus’ henadology with his conception of the One’s triad of principles.

In the newly-discovered “On Principles and Matter”—we can definitely ascertain by Porphyry—the author concludes that there must be two principles responsible for all beings, or at least all sensible beings: God (the active cause) and matter (the passive cause). In large part this agrees with Atticus’ position, which the text also quotes, and which we also know Porphyry engaged with vigorously, from Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary. However there is a something odd about this text’s Porphyry: we seem to have a positive argument for much of Antiochus’ framework of two principles, while in Proclus’ testimony we have a negative argument for the very same position. In this paper I analyze in detail the positive argument for the two principles given in “On Principles”, and I consider the degree to which Porphyry may be supplying a dialectical argument at this point in the text, before eventually criticizing the same view elsewhere (as in Proclus’ testimony). I also consider other points of contact for the text’s two-principles framework with Porphyry’s other extant works and show some consequences for Porphyry’s overall position.

Damascius has become well-known in recent scholarship for his unique, radical use of the aporetic method, both to highlight the inherent limits of human thought and to reveal crucial tensions in Neoplatonic metaphysics. Though much attention has been paid to the subjective or skeptical aspects of Damascius’ aporiai, little has been noted of the parallels between Damascius’ aporetic strategy in the De Principiis and Aristotle’s own in Metaphysics B. This article analyzes the parallel by looking at Aristotle’s aim for aporiai in Metaphysics B.1 and closely comparing, as a case study, the De Principiis’ first aporia alongside Metaphysics B’s first aporia. Despite Damascius’ aporia dealing with different principles compared to Aristotle’s, the aporetic method for both ultimately exposes the limitations of thought and, exactly in the domain of these limitations, clarifies our concepts in relating to reality and attaining determinate understanding of principles.

In middle to late Byzantium, one finds dogmatic-style sceptical arguments employed against human reason in relation to divine revelation, where revelation becomes the sole criterion of certain truth in contrast to reason. This argumentative strategy originates in early Christian authors, especially Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 CE) and Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329–390 CE), who maintain that revelation is the only domain of knowledge where certainty is possible. Given this, one finds two striking variations of this sceptical approach: a “mild” variant (represented by Clement), where knowledge derived from human reason admits partial access to truths manifested in revelation, if imperfect; and a “strict” variant (represented by Gregory), where knowledge derived from human reason does not admit any access to truths in revelation. This paper analyzes the three Byzantines, Nicholas of Methone (d. 1160/66 CE), Theodore Metochites (1270–1320 CE), and Gregory Palamas (1296–1357/59 CE), who each display certain tendencies toward these two “poles” in their respective epistemological positions on knowledge through reason and faith.

In The First Principle, Jonathan Greig examines the philosophical theology of the two Neoplatonists, Proclus and Damascius (5th–6th centuries A.D.), on the One as the first cause. Both philosophers address a tension in the Neoplatonic tradition: namely that the One was seen as absolutely transcendent, yet it was also seen as intimately related to other things as the source of their unity and being. Proclus’ solution is to posit intermediate causes after the One, while Damascius posits a distinct principle, the ‘Ineffable’, above the One. This book provides a new, thorough study of the theories of causation that lead each to their respective position and reveals crucial insights involved in a rigorous negative theology employed in metaphysics.

In Proclus’ metaphysics, the One produces Being through a mediated set of principles which are the direct causes of Being. While the henads feature prominently as these principles, Proclus posits a second set of principles, the Limit and Unlimited, to explain the aspects of unity and plurality found in all beings. Initially there seems to be a tension in these two sets of principles: Proclus does not immediately clarify how they interact with each other or their relationship to each other. In Elements of Theology Prop. 159, he even seems to say that the Limit/Unlimited produce the henads—which contradicts the henads’ nature as pure ‘ones’. This article analyzes this issue by surveying three contemporary solutions that have been posed to address the tension, while also offering a new alternative: the Limit and Unlimited, as the first henads to emerge from the One, causally determine all subsequent henads according to their respective unique character, while both sets are ultimately derived from the One according to their subsistence —preserving the henads’ natures as simply ‘one’ like the One-itself.

One of the main issues that dominates Neoplatonism in late antique philosophy of the 3rd–6th centuries A.D. is the nature of the first principle, called the ‘One’. From Plotinus onward, the principle is characterized as the cause of all things, since it produces the plurality of intelligible Forms, which in turn constitute the world’s rational and material structure. Given this, the tension that faces Neoplatonists is that the One, as the first cause, must transcend all things that are characterized by plurality—yet because it causes plurality, the One must anticipate plurality within itself. This becomes the main mo- tivation for this study’s focus on two late Neoplatonists, Proclus (5th cent. A.D.) and Damascius (late 5th–early 6th cent. A.D.): both attempt to address this tension in two rather different ways. Proclus’ attempted solution is to posit intermediate principles (the ‘henads’) that mirror the One’s nature, as ‘one’, but directly cause plurality. This makes the One only a cause of unity, while its production of plurality is mediated by the henads that it produces. Damascius, while appropriating Proclus’ framework, thinks that this is not enough: if the One is posed as a cause of all things, it must be directly related to plurality, even if its causality is mediated through the henads. Damascius then splits Proclus’ One into two entities: (1) the Ineffable as the first ‘principle’, which is absolutely transcendent and has no causal relation; and (2) the One as the first ‘cause’ of all things, which is only relatively transcendent under the Ineffable. Previous studies that compare Proclus and Damascius tend to focus either on the Ineffable or a skeptical shift in epistemology, but little work has been done on the causal framework which underlies both figures’ positions. Thus, this study proposes to focus on the causal frameworks behind each figure: why and how does Proclus propose to assert that the One is a cause, at the same time that it transcends its final effect? And what leads Damascius to propose a notion of the One’s causality that no longer makes it transcendent in the way that a higher principle, like the Ineffable, is? The present work will answer these questions in two parts. In the first, Proclus’ and Damascius’ notions of causality will be examined, insofar as they apply to all levels of being. In the second part, the One’s causality will be examined for both figures: for Proclus, the One’s causality in itself and the causality of its intermediate principles; for Damascius, the One’s causality, and how the Ineffable is needed to explain the One. The outcome of this study will show that Proclus’ framework results in an inner tension that Damascius is responding to with his notion of the One. While Damascius’ own solution implies its own tension, he at least solves a difficulty in Proclus—and in so doing, partially returns to a notion of the One much like Iamblichus’ and Plotinus’ One.

In the Centuries of Theology I.48–50, Maximus states that there are two kinds of works that belong to God: one which corresponds to beings having a temporal, finite beginning, and one which corresponds to perfections of beings which have no beginning and are therefore eternal. Maximus labels the latter as participated beings (ὄντα μεθεκτά) and the former as participating beings (ὄντα μετέχοντα), with God transcending both as their cause. The structure of God-as-cause, participated beings, and participating beings matches Proclus’ three-fold structure of participation with the ontological categories of unparticipated, participated, and participating. While Maximus borrows the basic language and structure from Proclus, he makes certain minor but significant differences, particularly in how the participated beings both relate to their source in God and in their status of existence. This paper thus sets out to analyze I.48–50 in the general context of the Centuries of Theology, considering how Maximus conceives of the ontological distinctions between God and God’s works. A comparison with Proclus’ understanding of participation follows, particularly from Proclus’ Elements of Theology Prop. 23, which succinctly states the three-term distinction of participation. The resulting comparison shows that Proclus’ framework of participation is flattened for Maximus, where the participated works represent multiple properties distinct in kind from the unparticipated, while God fits analogously in the status of the unparticipated. The underlying ontology supports Maximus’ implicit denial that such participated entities represent distinct divinities, as they do for Proclus, while Maximus’ assertion of God’s transcendence is still secured with the ontological distinction between the participated works and their unparticipated cause.

In his commentary on Plato's Parmenides, Proclus critiques an unnamed predecessor for attributing self-constitution to the One, claiming that the notion necessitates duality in its subject. Proclus almost certainly has in mind Plotinus in Ennead VI.8.13-22, where the latter attributes self-causation and determination to the One. However in the latter context, Plotinus is rather attempting to show how the One's unity entails that it is the cause of such self-determinative activity manifested in Intellect (as in the earlier Enn. VI.8.1-7). One could conclude, as does John Dillon, that Proclus is giving up an unfair criticism of Plotinus. In this dissertation I offer some support for Proclus' critical stance with an analysis of both figures' positions, starting with a look at (1) self-constitution and its conceptual origin in self-motion; (2) Plotinus on the One's causality; (3) Proclus on the One's causality; and (4) an analysis of Enn. VI.8.13-14 in light of Proclus' critique. While it could be that Proclus takes little account for Plotinus' careful construction in the language of Enn. VI.8.13-22, still Proclus' critique hinges on a different view of causation for the One than Plotinus'. The different stance lies in the background for why Plotinus allows for self-constitution in the One, even if with metaphorical language, while for Proclus such language pertains only to the intermediate level below the One (with e.g. Being, between the One and Intellect) and not up to the One-itself.

Aristotle and Plotinus both demonstrate the existence of a first principle as cause of the existence of all things. Aristotle puts forward that this first principle is a divine intellect which thinks on itself, and in being the highest being in complete actuality and without potentiality, it is also absolutely simple. Plotinus, on the other hand, sees reason to assert that the divine intellect can not be absolutely simple but a duality of some sort, and thus the first principle, as a cause of unity for all things, must be beyond the divine intellect and thus beyond being in being, itself, absolutely simple. Comparing Plotinus to Aristotle, Plotinus’ position appears odd at the outset given that he also holds to the divine intellect being completely in act and that it thinks on itself. Why thinking should be dual even when it is self-referential and unified in its activity is not apparent, and so Aristotle’s position seems the more coherent one. Yet, through an analysis of both positions, this dissertation proposes that Plotinus better accounts for the problem of self-intellection as requiring some form of distinction in thought while maintaining an identity between the subject and object of thought. If absolute simplicity is an essential attribute to being the first principle, Plotinus’ position is ultimately more consistent in positing a first principle beyond the divine intellect while also holding to a more coherent understanding of thinking with his understanding of divine intellect as a duality instead of an absolute simplicity.