Философское антиковедение и классическая традиция
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1. Boethius on philosophy as therapy That philosophy was often considered as capable of providing therapy for the soul has been pointed out in a number of important publications.0 This was especially true of the Hellenistic period, in which the various Schools concentrated their attention on teaching students how to achieve happiness during their earthly existence. It has been argued that in Neoplatonism, the emphasis shifts from this world to the next, in that the main concern is henceforth how to ensure the soul’s flight from the sensible and return to its intelligible homeland.0 Far from being discarded, however, the Hellenistic teaching on how to ensure terrestrial happiness, including the notion of philosophy as therapy of the soul, were preserved, but relegated to the status of a preliminary ethical instruction to be administered to students before they embarked on the properly philosophical study of Aristotle and Plato. In the Neoplatonic schools of Boethius’ time,0 students began by receiving a pre-philosophical ethical training, based on such works as the Pythagorean Golden Verses, the Manual of Epictetus,0 or the speeches of Isocrates and Demosthenes. Only after completing this training did they advance to the study of logic, in the form of Porphyry’s Isagoge, followed by Aristotle’s Organon in the order in which we read it today. The student then moved on to what was sometimes called the “Lesser Mysteries” of philosophy, viz. Aristotle’s works on physics and psychology (De Caelo, Physics, De anima), culminating in his Metaphysics, before moving on to the “Greater Mysteries” in the form of a selection of Plato’s Dialogues, culminating in the Timaeus and, as the ultimate metaphysical revelation, the Parmenides. Boethius’ Consolation contains, as it were, an illustration of this Neoplatonic philosophical curriculum in action. In the person of the Narrator, who, although he is a philosopher, has forgotten almost all he learned as result of his personal misfortunes,0 we have an example of a philosophical beginner who must first be purified of his mistaken beliefs and the consequent emotions of bitterness, self-pity, lethargy and despair. The fact that he is a professional philosopher, however, allows Philosophy to give him an accelerated course, as it were, and introduce him, after he has begun to recall his philosophical knowledge by the middle of the book, to some of the more difficult and advanced questions of metaphysics, culminating in the discussion of the relation between divine omniscience and human free will. It is likely that the Consolation as we have it is incomplete, and that the missing final part would have described the Narrator’s ultimate philosophical liberation, consisting in his return to the intelligible Fatherland and/or the vision of God in which, for Boethius as for Augustine, ultimate happiness consists.0 Following an ancient philosophical tradition, Philosophy begins her therapy with easier, more elementary philosophical remedies before moving on to more heavy-duty philosophical considerations.0 The work’s first part corresponds to what’s been called a “praeparatio platonica”,0 in which philosophical topoi culled from a variety of philosophical schools,0 usually in the form of brief, easily memorizable sayings, are used to provide a preliminary ethical purification before the student, in this case, Boethius as Narrator, is ready to be initiated into more difficult philosophical arguments. In the book’s second half, then, Philosophia uses a combination of arguments that are by no means lacking in rigor or persuasiveness, in order to come up with a solution to the age-old problem of the apparent conflict between human free will and divine omniscience that is, I believe, as philosophically respectable as any that have been suggested. It is, moreover, a solution that receives some support from the findings of contemporary physics. The work begins with the Narrator0 complaining to Philosophy about the main cause of his suffering: his loss of his freedom, possessions, and good name, and the injustice of a world in which evil men are allowed to prosper, while the good – here of course the Narrator is thinking primarily of himself – are forced to submit to all kinds of undeserved indignities, from loss of possessions and honors to exile, imprisonment and even death. The Narrator asserts that he has no doubt that the world and all the events occurring within it are governed by God and His divine Providence,0 but the apparent triumph of injustice almost makes him doubt the goodness of the divine economy. The Narrator must be cured of this wallowing in self-pity, which has led him to forget himself.0 Thus, after he has been allowed to unburden himself by complaining about his problems, Philosophy begins the process of consolation which will restore him to the philosophical knowledge he had once acquired but now, under the stress of prison and imminent death, has forgotten.0 For a Neoplatonist, this forgetfulness is crucial. While the soul’s initial descent into the body is not generally considered a misfortune or a sin,0 its involvement with the material world and consequent subjection to the passions, which lead it to forget its divine origin, is held to be morally culpable as well as disastrous. Only by turning within0 can the soul remember its divine origin and thus begin the arduous0 upward path back to its intelligible homeland. 2. Boethius and the Neoplatonic theory of innate ideas The background here, it seems to me, is the Neoplatonic doctrine according to which the pre-existent soul enjoys contemplation of the intelligible world0 as it accompanies the chariots of the gods in their journeys around the supracelestial place (hyperouranios topos, Phaedrus 247a),0 but then becomes dissatisfied and turns its attention toward the lower regions of matter and the sensible world. In the instant it does so, the soul is provided with a vessel (Greek okhêma0) made of a pneumatic substance intermediate between air and fire, which allows it to be transported through the celestial spheres0 and also serves, during its earthly existence, as the intermediary between soul and body. Finally, when the soul reaches earth it is “sown” within a body (in caelum terramque seris, Cons. 3. c9), which, owing to the darkness and heaviness it derives from matter, obstructs the soul’s memory, so that it can no longer recall the visions of the intelligible world it enjoyed prior to its incarnation, nor can it perceive the order within the world (5. c3.8ff.).0 Yet all is not lost: although it is buried deep within the body, the soul retains a spark of divine fire or light, which Boethius refers to as the semen veri (3. c11.11); redux ignis, or scintillula animae (1.6.20).0 This spark needs only to be revived by means of teaching, as if by blowing air on warm ashes (uentilante doctrina 3. c11.11-12). This inner spark of truth, which Boethius describes as our inner fortress (4. c3.33ff.), to which the sage withdraws in times of trouble, constitutes the center of mankind and of the soul (4. c3.34ff.; 3. c11.11-14). It is the locus of happiness (2.4.22), our proper good (2.5.24), truth (3. c11.1ff.; 5. c3.20f.; 5. c4.24ff.), freedom (2.6.7), peace, and security (2. c4.19f.; 2.6.7). As the obligatory starting-point0 for our metaphysical ascent back to the source of our being, it represents our unbroken link with the intelligible world. The question of how we can remain in contact with the intelligible even when the soul is incarnated in a terrestrial body was one that always preoccupied the Neoplatonists. Plotinus solved it, at least to his own satisfaction, by his doctrine of the undescended part of the soul: although our lower or vegetative soul, seat of such psychological faculties as sensation, representation, memory, and discursive thought, comes down from the intelligible world at the moment of incarnation and is thenceforth present throughout the body, the higher part of the soul, intellect (nous) or intuitive thought, always remains above in the intelligible world.0 Plotinus’ successors almost unanimously rejected this view, and to replace it Plotinus’ student Porphyry0 seems to have reactivated the Stoic doctrine of innate ideas as modified by Antiochus of Ascalon and later by the Chaldaean Oracles. A good summary of this doctrine is provided by a work ascribed to Boethius but now usually considered pseudonymous, the De diis et Praesensionibus0: For we consist of two things, soul and body. The soul is immortal. If it is immortal, it descends from the divine things. But if it descends from the divine things, why is it not perfected by the possession of all virtues? Let the state of this matter be drawn from the very sanctuaries of philosophy. For the soul, before it is wrapped in the garment of bodily contact, examines in that watchtower of its absolute purity the knowledge of all things most perfectly. However, once it sinks into this body of clay, its sharp vision, obscured by the darkness of earthy mingling, is rendered blind to the clarity of its inborn vision. However, the seed of truth lies hidden within, and is awakened as it is fanned by instruction. For they say it can by no means happen that from childhood we have notions, which they call ennoias, of so many and such great things inserted and as it were sealed upon our souls, unless our soul flourished in its cognition of things before it was incarnated. Nor does the soul fully see these things, when it suddenly entered such an unaccustomed and turbulent abode; yet once it collects itself and becomes refreshed in the course of the ages of life, then it recognizes them by remembering. For after the soul is ensnared and enveloped by some thick cover of the body and undergoes some forgetfulness of itself, when thereafter it begins to be wiped clean and denuded by study and instruction,0 then the soul reverts and is called back to the manner of its nature (...) Socrates declares all this more clearly in the book entitled Meno, asking a certain little boy some geometrical questions about the dimensions of a square. He answers them like a child, yet the questions are so easy that by answering little by little he reaches the same result as if he had learned geometry. Socrates will have it that follows from this that learning is nothing other than remembering. He explains this much more accurately in the speech he gave on the day in which he left this life.0 In post-Porphyrian Neoplatonism, it is this divine spark or inner seed0 that provides the link between the fallen, incarnate human soul and the intelligible world. In Proclus, it develops into the doctrine of the “One within us”, which is itself a development of the Chaldaean concept of the “flower of the intellect” (anthos noou), a faculty of the soul that allows contact with the ineffable,0 while in the Latin world, following Augustine, it becomes the doctrine of the acies mentis.0 In the Consolation, therefore, Philosophy will attempt to fan the smothered spark of the Narrator’s soul, reviving his memories of his pre-incarnate intellectual visions by words which, to quote Simplicius “uttered forth from the [teacher’s] concept (ennoia), also move the concept within [the soul of the student], which had until then grown cold”.0 The passage from Simplicius, which complements the passage from the Pseudo-Boethius we have just studied, is worth quoting: As for the soul, when it is turned towards the Intellect, it possesses the same things [sc. as the Intellect] in a secondary way, for then the rational principles (logoi) within it are not only cognitive, but generative. Once, however, the soul has departed from there [sc. the intelligible world], it also separates the formulae (logoi) within itself from beings, thereby converting them into images instead of prototypes, and it introduces a distance between intellection and realities. This is all the more true, the further the soul has departed from its similarity to the Intellect, and it is henceforth content to project (proballesthai) notions which are consonant with realities. When, however, the soul has fallen into the realm of becoming, it is filled with forgetfulness0 and requires sight and hearing in order to be able to recollect. For the soul needs someone who has already beheld the truth,0 who, by means of language (phônê) uttered forth from the concept (ennoia), also moves the concept within [the soul of the student], which had until then grown cold0 (...) For intellections (noêseis) which proceed forth from other intellections0 also cause motion immediately, connecting the learner’s intellections to those of the teacher, by becoming intermediaries (mesotêtes) between the two. When intellections are set in motion in an appropriate way, they fit realities, and thus there comes about the knowledge of beings, and the soul/s innate eros0 is fulfilled. Let’s return to the Consolation. After the introductory first book, Philosophy’s consolation takes place in three stages from books 2-5.0 1. In Cons. 2.1-4, the Narrator’s soul is purified of its false beliefs. 2. Stage two has two further subdivisions. In the first (Cons. 2.5-8), the Narrator’s innate natural concepts are awakened and brought to light; while in the second (Cons. 3.1-8), these concepts are purified and made to appear as starting-points for further progress. 3. Finally, from Cons. 3.9 to the end of the work, the Narrator learns the doctrines which are to perfect his soul. 3. Boethius on Providence and Fate Throughout the first four books of the Consolation, Philosophy uses a mixture of rhetorical persuasion and philosophical topoi0 to console the Narrator and reassure him that despite appearances to the contrary, there really is a benevolent, divine Providence behind the apparent injustices of life’s events. Yet the problem of the suffering of the just and the flourishing of the unjust0 has not yet been solved, and continues to trouble the Narrator. Beginning with the second half of Book IV, therefore, Philosophy discusses the themes of providence, fate, and free will. An initial distinction is to be made between providence and fate: Providence, characterized by simplicity and simultaneity, is the plan in the divine mind that embraces all things at once, while fate is the way, in which that plan unfolds in the sensible world, subject as it is to time and space. Providence is to fate as being is to becoming.0 Like spheres0 rotating around a pivot, where the central sphere approaches the simplicity of the center and acts as a pivot for the rest, while those farthest away from the center sweep out greater distances, so the closer beings are to the simple center of providence,0 the more they are removed from the intricate chains of fate. For Boethius, the main goal of this image seems to be to emphasize that while all things subject to Fate are also subject to Providence, the reverse does not hold true.0 Fate is characteristic only of the spatio-temporal world, so that the possibility remains open to mankind, by rising up to the level of Intellect, of freeing himself from Fate.0 In fact, we have the following analogies0:
In each of these cases, the items listed in the right-hand column can be viewed as an unfolding, development or emanation of the items in the column on the left. Viewed in another way, the left-hand column represents a condensed, concentrated version of the right-hand column. We have here a kind of résumé of the late Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation. Entities are conceived as existing in concentrated (Greek sunêirêmenon), unextended, point-like form in the intelligible world, before being “unwound” like a ball of thread, “unrolled” like a carpet, or “unfolded” like a sheet of papyrus, into the temporally and spatially extended form they assume in the sensible world.0 |
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