Philosophy by commentary

As we have seen, a very common style of writing among late ancient philosophers, whether pagan or Christian, was commentary. Especially the Greek-speaking pagan philosophers of the last days of antiquity have left us mostly commentaries, although we cannot be sure if this tells more of the interests of the East-Romans and Arabs curating texts of antiquity. The outlook of these commentators, as with most of the philosophers of late antiquity, could be described as broadly Platonic and often even Neo-Platonic.

A good example is Hierocles of Alexandria, who wrote a commentary of the Golden Verses, a poem attributed to none other than Pythagoras. As is often the case, Hierocles’ commentary is a rather original interpretation of the poem and engages themes that are not that apparent in the poem itself. To put it briefly, Hierocles sees the poem as an instruction how humans can purify oneself from the corporeal life to a life resembling divinities.

First step on this road, Hierocles explains, is to understand the hierarchy of beings, with the top places being occupied by divinities with a constant and unwavering awareness of Creator, the lowest places being occupied by mortal humans, who often fail to remember Creator, and the places in between being occupied by intermediary beings, who are constantly aware of Creator, but in a variable measure. This hierarchy has been assigned by Creator, Hierocles says, because it is proper that there should be beings of all possible levels.

The beings of lower levels should then honour the beings in the higher levels, not by any gifts, but by imitating them in their own life, Hierocles continues. In the case of the divine level, this means relying on the Creator and other gods and respecting the order generated by them. It also means not invoking them too often, but only at appropriate times. In case of the intermediary level, Hierocles adds, this honouring means knowing the internal hierarchy of that level, which reflects the order of the whole hierarchy: nearest to gods are angels, nearer to humans are heroes and between them are demons. It also means trying to imitate the dedication of these intermediary entities in their unwavering thinking of divinity.

Honour should be shown also to some humans, Hierocles notes. The foremost of these are those called in the Golden Verses the terrestrial demons - they are humans (terrestrial), who resemble the beings of higher levels (demons) in their knowledge, Hierocles interprets. In addition, honour is to be given to one’s parents, Hierocles adds, because they connect us through a natural line of generation to higher levels of being. This honouring means doing what our parents ask us to do, except in the case if they command us to break divine laws.

We should also honour our friends, Hierocles says, but we should first take care that we choose only friends who deserve such honouring. When we do have friends, he continues, we should deal with them with the same love as the Creator deals with us. Indeed, we should treat everyone with love, so that the Creator will treat us favourably.

This is what Hierocles has to say about us comporting to all the other entities. In addition, he notes that we should discipline ourselves, restrict our passions and let our reason rule us. Hierocles refers here to the familiar four Platonic virtues – wisdom, courage, temperance and justice – which he sees as different aspects of self-discipline. This self-discipline, he continues, is dependent on our knowing ourselves as immortal and independent of the body – otherwise, we wouldn’t have enough of a motive to resist our bodily impulses. This knowledge will help us to stay determined in our pursuit of a loftier shape of life.

Another motivating point for virtuous life, Hierocles says, is the certainty that the divine order will eventually reward a life of reason and punish a life of unreason. The rewards are not good as such, just like punishments are not true evil - truly good is only good life, just like truly evil is bad life, Hierocles explains. Still, the rewards and punishments can serve as motives for living good. Then again, Hierocles says, no one can blame Creator for misfortunes, since they are ultimately caused by earlier bad actions. Hierocles also notes that this cycle of reward and punishment is relevant only to humans, while irrational animals live only by the rule of the material world.

Motivation for virtue is thus dependent on proper beliefs. This implies, Hierocles notes, that we must be able to distinguish good arguments leading to truth from deceptive arguments that lead to falsities. One key element here, he says, is to recognise that we are first and foremost disembodied entities or souls. Thus, threats against our bodies or even further removed externalities, like our property, should serve as no argument for us.

Furthermore, Hierocles continues, we should not follow the instigations of irrational desires. Instead, we should follow the guidance of our reason and deliberate on our future actions, as well as repent the irrational actions we’ve committed. If we lack enough information to decide, we should refrain from action, but if we do have, we should definitely do the good thing.

One part of a reasonable life, Hierocles tells, is to care for the instrument given to serve us, that is, our bodies. An important part of this care is to keep the body healthy by moderating eating and drinking and by training the body through exercises. Hierocles advises moderation also for life in general: one should not try to hoard goods or be envious to people who have more than us. Furthermore, one should constantly consider one’s actions in order to become aware if one has transgressed some principle of good life.

Guidelines Hierocles have presented this far have been meant to tell us how to live as humans and to distinguish us from animals. Next step, he says, is to make us as divine and as close to the Creator as possible. Here the first thing to do, Hierocles notes, is to admit that one’s abilities are not enough, but one has to pray for divine help to rise from earthly level.

Again, Hierocles continues, one has to understand the position of humans in the hierarchy of being as the least of rational beings, incapable of becoming literally a god - such an attempt would be futile - but different also from mere material beings, like animals and plants - if one tries to imitate an ass, one becomes asinine. One’s condition is then ultimately up to one’s own choice. If one remains bound to the changes of the material world, one is bound to feel the pain inherent in that world. On the other hand, if one chooses to live one’s life in imitation of gods, like a true philosopher, one will not be touched by those pains.

If the first part of philosophy was meant to make us behave like good humans and the second one was meant to give us the knowledge of a philosopher, the final part, Hierocles says, should give the final touch of divinity. Human souls do not just care for a material body, Hierocles insists, but they are also equipped with a luminous body, like stars. Both of these bodies require purification, which is of a ritualistic nature. Thus Hierocles says, a person seeking perfection should train their material body with ever hardening abstinence, but in addition they should train their luminous body with mathematics. Through this purification, the human soul can be admitted to the order of divinities - not as if the human soul would change its natural essence, Hierocles explains, but as an honour bestowed upon the person in question.

Probably the most commented philosopher in late antiquity - or at least the one with most commentaries preserved for us - is Aristotle. There certainly were commentators who placed Aristotle as the highest among philosophers. This is true of Themistius, who at least on occasion was more of a government official than a philosopher - or at least he had to defend himself against accusations of living a life engaged with matters unsuitable for a philosopher. Themistius’ own outlook on what was to be a philosopher focused more on the practical affairs than that of Neo-Platonists, such as how to find and keep friends and even the virtues of farming. It is no wonder then that he favoured Aristotle over Plato.

Themistius’ commentaries were apparently one source of his renown, but he himself considered them to be mere unoriginal summaries of what Aristotle had written. He did try to make the latter’s writings into a continuous course of philosophy, replacing uncertain ponderings with definite dogmas and so constructing a coherent whole out of disparate writings. Thus, Themistius would begin with Aristotle’s logical writings, as they would teach a student the methodology by which the rest of the philosophy would continue. Then, he would move on to the consideration of the ultimate foundation of all that happens in nature in Aristotle’s Physics. This foundation would provide an explanation for all the natural phenomena, but would at first have to be extrapolated from what we know of these phenomena.

Following Aristotle’s lead, Themistius rejects the Eleatic idea that there really is only one changeless being, which would lead to a denial of all natural phenomena we seem to experience, and also Anaxagoras’ suggestion that unlimited kinds of natural stuff consist of small parts of all of these unlimited kinds of natural stuff, since that suggestion would make all explanation pointless. Instead, Themistius and Aristotle preferred the idea of many ancient philosophers who tried to reduce all natural phenomena into two opposites, between which all natural changes occurred.

The correct kernel in this attempted reduction was, according to Themistius and Aristotle, that all natural changes, whether they were generations of completely new things, like birth of an animal, or just changes of a thing’s properties, like the growth of the same animal, moved toward a result from a state, where the result did not yet occur. In addition, something always remained during these changes, even in cases where something new was generated: both a foetus and an animal share some substances.

Of course, what the result or the form and the identical element or the matter is varies according to the change in question. Now, Aristotle had made suggestions that behind all natural changes might be something that always remained the same or prime matter. Themistius takes the existence of prime matter as a given. The prime matter has no features in the sense that it can sustain any feature whatsoever. Yet, it does not lack features in the sense that a beginning of some change does: otherwise, it would be destroyed by the change. Indeed, Themistius suggests, the prime matter strives to structure itself and move to more ordered forms, which also gives the natural changes an intrinsic end. Still, the prime matter is incapable of sustaining these forms indefinitely and it keeps falling to a lack of form, which then could be described as the state of badness.

Themistius’ development of the notion of prime matter is compatible with the general Aristotelian notion that natural things are to be primarily explained by the forms that are the end of natural processes, such as generation of new individuals of a species of animals, although the nature of the matter might hinder the actualisation of these forms (for instance, in the birth of degenerate animals). Here, a number of important points of Aristotelian physics are involved, for instance, that all changes are essentially movements toward actualisation of some potentialities still passively latent before the change and that matter with its potentially infinite parts is given determinate quantitative limits by the very form that makes matter into a complete and finite universe.

Themistius paraphrased also Aristotle’s writings on one particular part of the physical universe, namely, that of ensouled or living things. He follows Aristotle in criticising thinkers who thought that the essence of this soul animating living things would lie in moving constantly: whatever soul is, it is not body and thus cannot be meaningfully said to move or change in the Aristotelian sense. Themistius notes that there might be a lexical confusion involved, because when e.g. followers of Plato appear to say that soul moves itself, they might actually mean that soul is active, for instance, in moving other things, without truly changing into anything.

Themistius also criticises, like Aristotle, thinkers who identify soul with a certain harmonious blend or attunement of the bodily parts: while such an attunement would be dependent on the body, soul should be more like something that causes this harmonious attunement in the body. Themistius even seriously considers the possibility that by soul is just meant a universal vivifying force that spurs bodies of particular kinds into lives of their own kinds.

Themistius follows the official Aristotelian stand that by soul is meant the set of capacities and activities that are peculiar to a living being. These capacities and activities include at least those of sustaining and reproducing oneself, which are common to all living beings.

All animals, furthermore, also have various capacities for sense perception. In sense perception, Themistius continues, sense organs are not really changed, but they receive imprints or likenesses of what is perceived. In addition, sense perception requires some medium, such as air, which transmits the imprint of what is sensed (say, a colour) to the sense organ (here, an eye). This is even true for touch, Themistius interprets Aristotle, since here flesh plays the role of the medium, while the real sense organ is internal to the body.

Themistius follows Aristotle in discerning five different senses - touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing - of which touch is the only one found in all animals. Other commentators had suggested that Aristotle required also yet another sense, which helps to recognise features common to many senses, such as the shape and size of an object, and generally the fact that perceived features belong to the same object (rose being both red and sweet smelling). Themistius criticises this view, because it wouldn’t explain how what is perceived by this “common sense” would then be combined to what is perceived by individual senses. Instead, he suggests that the individual senses, as it were, are themselves linked, so that outputs of each sense are combined into wholes by a single faculty that uses individual senses as means for perception. In the physical body, this link should then be seen as all sense organs connecting to the same pneumatic fluid taking care of sensation.

While sensation is common to all animals, Themistius says, imagination or the ability to consider mental images of things not present is restricted only to more complex animals. It is this imagination that, for instance, creates our dreams. Imagination is also used by many animals for activities that humans use reason for. Especially together with desire, it takes care of animals’ voluntary motions.

Above imagination in Aristotelian philosophy lies intelligence, Themistius points out. Intelligence is for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, an ability clearly separate from sensation and imagination, and unlike either of them, occurs in no other animals, but humans. Intelligence is also the only ability, according to Themistius, without any material base to support it.

In fact, Themistius notes that in Aristotelian philosophy there exists more than one intelligence in human beings. Clearly, we humans do not always think and even less do we always think of the same thing. Instead, our intellect is at times only dormant, waiting for something to activate its thinking. Despite being passive, even this dormant intellect is something separate from our bodies and thus immortal.

That which activates the dormant or potential intellect Aristotle called an active intellect, and the relation of these two intellects was a topic of great debate among his commentators. Themistius compares the active intellect to sunlight, which illuminates our eyes. Just like the sunlight, the active intellect is common to all human beings, while the potential intellect, analogously to an eye, is distinct to each individual. Active intellect is thus even further removed from the human body and of course also immortal.

Somewhat paradoxically, Themistius insists that it is the active intellect, just because of its being the active part of the relation, that should be most identified with ourselves. This does not mean that the active intellect would remember our individual lives after our death. In this particular life, we humans are intellects combined from the active and potential intellect and the various bodily activities, like sensation and imagination. When we die, this particular combination vanishes and with it all our memories.

We humans are thus for Aristotle, as interpreted by Themistius, a people of two realms, bodily and intellectual. Above us lie divine pure intellects. Even these are not completely disembodied - indeed, it is the stars that Themistius is talking about. These stars just do not require the more bodily abilities of humans, like sensations, but manage everything through their intellect. Themistius suggests that even without sensations stars can be aware of one another, just like a mother can be aware of her children without actually perceiving them.

While Themistius placed Aristotle in the highest rank of philosophers, Neo-Platonist commentators, like Syrianus, were of a different opinion: compared to divine philosophers, like Plato, Aristotle was just on the rank of demons or lower spiritual beings. Still, Syrianus found it still worthwhile to read Aristotle’s works and to see where he had gone wrong. Using Aristotle’s list of philosophical problems in his Metaphysics, Syrianus outlines his own idea of the highest kind of knowledge or wisdom.

This wisdom, Syrianus says, describes all causes affecting what things are like, such as the ultimate good. He is adamant that such a science exists and that there is a single science studying all kinds of causes and that it is precisely the highest science that studies them. Syrianus answers the possible objection that a highest science should study eternal things that do not have all kinds of causes, e.g. final causes, by insisting that eternal things must have final causes, because they are good and beautiful.

Wisdom also describes the ultimate principles or axioms, from which to deduce all truths, Syrianus says. For instance, it must know the law of non-contradiction, because it is the basis of all knowledge. The possible objection that axioms like the law of non-contradiction cannot be known by one science, because they are used in all sciences, Syrianus solves by pointing out that wisdom knows these axioms in a different manner, that is, through a direct intuition of ultimate truths.

Although incapable of a proper demonstration, due to being the foundation of all demonstration, Syrianus notes, one can argue for the law of non-contradiction. Thus, he says, a person denying this law cannot really speak, because none of his words have any definite meaning, since e.g. what they call black might as well be called not-black. Indeed, whenever a person actually does something, e.g. flee from danger, they implicitly accept the law, since they think that danger is something definite to flee from. A person denying the principle would thus be reduced to a life of a mere plant.

Syrianus also ponders why some people are willing to reject the law of contradiction. He briefly considers Aristotle's suggestion that the denial of the principle would follow from Protagoras' relativism, but rejects the idea: Protagoras merely supposed that a thing can be something for a person and something else for another person, but not that it would be both for the same person. What the deniers of the law of contradiction are probably thinking, Syrianus concludes, is matter and material objects, which can become e.g. both black and not-black. Even then they forget that they cannot be both at the same time and that amidst all their changes something always stays stable.

Furthermore, he notes that not all axioms endorsed by Aristotle were actually universally applicable. Thus, while the law of non-contradiction holds with everything, the law of the excluded middle doesn’t, Syrianus argues, because the ultimate, primordial unity cannot really be described in any words, whether affirmative or negative.

While Aristotle considered it an essential problem whether there are beings beyond those we can see. Syrianus turns this problem around: true beings are those we cannot perceive, while perceivable things are always changing and so maybe not beings in the primary sense of the word. Despite not physically moving, the universe of imperceptible things is still alive and thus in a sense active.

Furthermore, Syrianus insists that the hierarchy of being has more rungs than just these two, for instance, imperceivable beings having many different subtypes - there is a perfect model of reality in the mind of a Creative Intelligence and an incomplete image of that in human souls, which still is more perfect than the physical world. Aristotle had questioned whether such a multiplication of beings would entail a similar multiplication of sciences dealing with them. Syrianus answers positively: physical land measurement deals with physical entities that only resemble ideal geometric figures considered by pure mathematics.

One could say, Syrianus notes, that wisdom, being the study of both all causes and ultimate principles, concerns all types of being, while particular sciences proceeding from it concentrate on a certain type of being. If one would want to assign a particular realm of being as the object of wisdom, it would have to be something determining the rest of the beings. Thus, like Aristotle had hinted, Syrianus thinks that, for instance, instead of qualities, wisdom is concerned more with what has qualities. In the end, wisdom is for Syrianus especially a study of paradigmatic being or the Creative Intelligence.

Aristotle noted a possible objection that wisdom being concerned with all kinds of beings would mean that it would then study all the essential properties of every being. Syrianus simply points out that this is true, but only if we speak of such essential properties that are common to all forms of being. Wisdom would then use two methods: it would define what is and then demonstrate the properties that what is has. At the highest levels of the hierarchy of being there are beings, which are so simple that there is nothing to define nor to demonstrate in them, but they just have to be apprehended as they are.

Wisdom, Syrinaus continues, is not just concerned with what there is, but also their relations. Everything is derived from primal unity, which creates identities, equalities and similarities among all things. Then again, Syrianus adds, among highest principles there’s also an original duality, which creates divisions and dissimilarities in the classes of things. In addition to these very general relations, which Aristotle admits as a topic to be dealt with in the highest philosophy, Syrianus mentions Platonic notions of motion and rest, which, Syrianus says, also affect all beings, even those we cannot perceive.

For Aristotle, individuals were prior to their genera, which exist only in concrete individuals. Syrianus notes that Aristotle was in a sense right: if by genera we mean abstractions from concrete individuals, then certainly e.g. humanity is something dependent on concrete humans. Then again, Syrianus adds, by genera we can also mean general forces that e.g. create and regulate humans and so are prior to individuals. Such general forces exist, he continues, because material individuals that come and go presuppose, firstly, a formless and eternal matter, and secondly, something that forms individuals out of this matter. This implies, Syrianus concludes, that there is something beyond mere material things - the Platonic forms, as present in the mind of the intelligence fashioning the material world.

Syrianus also attempts to avoid the so-called problem of the third man, which Aristotle used to criticise Plato. Syrianus’ answer is that the problem is not generated, because the forms that determine the material world are of different sort than the things fashioned by them: only one model human is required by the intelligence to form material humans. Still, Syrianus adds, not everything in the material world is determined by these forms, because e.g. there is no Platonic form for ugliness.

Aristotle had also raised the question about the status of the mathematical objects. Syrianus notes that there are several kinds of mathematical objects. The proper numbers of the ideal world, he says, are substantial things determining also the perceived world. Then again, he adds, there are also mathematical objects that are mere abstractions from material objects.

Some of Aristotle’s questions Syrianus finds somewhat inappropriate. For instance, Aristotle had inquired whether principles of everything have some concrete number, just like material elements are numbered four. Syrianus notes that the question is partly meaningless. The Platonic forms determining the material world must have some determinate number, Syrianus admits, but the ultimate primal unity beyond even the Platonic forms is also beyond numbers. Thus, one might say that the primal unity is one, but at the same time it contains in itself implicitly everything. Similarly, Syrianus says, the highest principles are beyond the distinction of universals and particulars and the distinction of action and passion.

The realm of ungenerated beings, Syrianus notes, is determined only by ungenerated principles. The effect of these ungenerated principles, he continues, is not restricted to the ungenerated beings, but they affect even generated beings of the world of perception. Then again, generated beings do have also generated causes, for instance, humans are conceived by humans.

Still, Syrianus says, it is the ungenerated principles that are the more essential causes than the generated ones. Indeed, going against what Aristotle had said, the highest types of being - those directly under the primal unity beyond even being - are not just something that other beings try to imitate but also something that give being to everything else. These are, Syrianus notes, the Empedoclean powers of Love and Strife or the Pythagorean unity and duality, first combining everything into a whole and the second producing innumerable differences. Below these two, Syrianus continues, are the traditional gods in heaven, which are immortal, but still temporal and so have a duty to govern the temporal world.

Like all Neo-Platonists, Syrianus does note that there is something beyond this hierarchy - the primal unity or the ultimate source of goodness, which is beyond all opposition to multiplicity. He finds Aristotle somewhat ambiguous about the existence of such unity. Firstly, Syrianus agrees with Aristotle’s argument that since there are universal forces shaping material entities, there must be unity as the highest universal making everything else unified. Then again, when Aristotle asks how anything else and in general multiplicity could exist beside such a Parmenidean unity, Syrianus counters that multiplicity is nothing only in comparison with the higher type of existence of primal unity and that the the existence of multiple entities are even founded on the primal unity.

Indeed, Syrianus goes expressly against Aristotle's statement that being and unity mean essentially the same thing. Instead, Syrianus insists that while all beings require unity, the primal unity is beyond being as we normally understand it. Thus, while wisdom can reach everything else, it cannot reach the primal unity, because beyond being this unity is also beyond knowledge.