On Plato's Seventh Letter
Aug. 8th, 2013 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
endymions_bowerA friend was inquiring recently concerning the doctrines expressed in Plato’s Seventh Letter, and I thought that I might jot down the broad outlines, at least, of how I read this text. (I'm speaking of the philosophical section from 342a-344b).
I think that this passage can definitely be elucidated from a henological perspective, that is, from a perspective that recognizes the fundamental status of the inquiry in Plato concerning the nature of unity or individuation.
Note, first, the opposition that Plato—for convenience’s sake, let’s assume that Plato is the author of the Letter; I’m not really concerned with issues of authenticity—establishes between each being, which is the ‘fifth kind’ in the enumeration at 342ab (and we see from 342d that the fifth kind embraces every kind of thing without restriction), and the other four items, which in a sense belong to each thing as comprising the knowledge of it. Not only are ‘the Four’ treated by Plato as effectively a single complex kind opposed to the Fifth kind, but they also form a universal system that stands as one thing against each of the ‘Fives’. Plato says that the knowledge, intelligence and true opinion concerning the things of the fifth kind, which is simply each thing as such, “must be posited as one totality … existing in souls” (342c). So while each thing, in its genuine being, conserves its ‘eachness’, as it were, it is known through a univocal, holistic plane of being on which and through which the meaning of each thing is constituted. This is the same meaning holism we see in Speusippus, in which the meaning of each thing is simply its difference from everything else, but the holism here forms the complement to a dimension of individuality in some respects para-epistemic, a dimension on which Speusippus is largely silent, at least in the testimonia we possess. It is the problem of knowing such unique units that Plato particularly sets it forth in this passage from the Seventh Letter. (And indeed, might it be the case that Speusippus’s silence on these matters, except for the negative doctrine concerning the hypostatized One Itself, is a way of taking the advice Plato offers in this text respecting the attempt to write on them?)
The principal problem with the noetic totality, as Plato explains it, is that “these [the Four] attempt no less to exhibit the quality [poion ti] of each thing than the being of each, on account of the weakness of language” (342e). This weakness in language, however, comes from a noble cause, namely from the univocity of Being, the common plane upon which essence and accident are co-constituted. The compresence of opposites, and hence the ubiquity of contradiction, throughout this plane allows the philosopher “to convict [elenchein] the Four” at will (343d). Indeed, this is the final goal of the Platonic practice of elenchus, which unmasks the holism and mutual dependency of meaning. The philosopher’s goal, accordingly, must be “to learn at once the false and the true concerning the whole of being [tês holês ousias]” (344b). But this holism is not the end of the matter. The methodical study counseled at 343e, where we pass “up and down” among the four elements of the knowledge of each thing, eventually leads “the intelligence and wisdom concerning each thing to shine forth” (344b). We can see from Plato’s constant use of hekastos, ‘each’, that it is not some particular kind or, a fortiori, some singular item, that is the object of the philosopher’s inquiry. Rather, what is kindled in the soul suddenly (341cd) by the effort of inquiry is the gnôsis of the thing itself. But to explicate this ‘fifth’ requires, inescapably, returning to the four, in which not the positivity, but the negativity of the fifth will be expressed, and it is this which engenders the skepticism Plato evinces here regarding the possibilities of language.
I think that this passage can definitely be elucidated from a henological perspective, that is, from a perspective that recognizes the fundamental status of the inquiry in Plato concerning the nature of unity or individuation.
Note, first, the opposition that Plato—for convenience’s sake, let’s assume that Plato is the author of the Letter; I’m not really concerned with issues of authenticity—establishes between each being, which is the ‘fifth kind’ in the enumeration at 342ab (and we see from 342d that the fifth kind embraces every kind of thing without restriction), and the other four items, which in a sense belong to each thing as comprising the knowledge of it. Not only are ‘the Four’ treated by Plato as effectively a single complex kind opposed to the Fifth kind, but they also form a universal system that stands as one thing against each of the ‘Fives’. Plato says that the knowledge, intelligence and true opinion concerning the things of the fifth kind, which is simply each thing as such, “must be posited as one totality … existing in souls” (342c). So while each thing, in its genuine being, conserves its ‘eachness’, as it were, it is known through a univocal, holistic plane of being on which and through which the meaning of each thing is constituted. This is the same meaning holism we see in Speusippus, in which the meaning of each thing is simply its difference from everything else, but the holism here forms the complement to a dimension of individuality in some respects para-epistemic, a dimension on which Speusippus is largely silent, at least in the testimonia we possess. It is the problem of knowing such unique units that Plato particularly sets it forth in this passage from the Seventh Letter. (And indeed, might it be the case that Speusippus’s silence on these matters, except for the negative doctrine concerning the hypostatized One Itself, is a way of taking the advice Plato offers in this text respecting the attempt to write on them?)
The principal problem with the noetic totality, as Plato explains it, is that “these [the Four] attempt no less to exhibit the quality [poion ti] of each thing than the being of each, on account of the weakness of language” (342e). This weakness in language, however, comes from a noble cause, namely from the univocity of Being, the common plane upon which essence and accident are co-constituted. The compresence of opposites, and hence the ubiquity of contradiction, throughout this plane allows the philosopher “to convict [elenchein] the Four” at will (343d). Indeed, this is the final goal of the Platonic practice of elenchus, which unmasks the holism and mutual dependency of meaning. The philosopher’s goal, accordingly, must be “to learn at once the false and the true concerning the whole of being [tês holês ousias]” (344b). But this holism is not the end of the matter. The methodical study counseled at 343e, where we pass “up and down” among the four elements of the knowledge of each thing, eventually leads “the intelligence and wisdom concerning each thing to shine forth” (344b). We can see from Plato’s constant use of hekastos, ‘each’, that it is not some particular kind or, a fortiori, some singular item, that is the object of the philosopher’s inquiry. Rather, what is kindled in the soul suddenly (341cd) by the effort of inquiry is the gnôsis of the thing itself. But to explicate this ‘fifth’ requires, inescapably, returning to the four, in which not the positivity, but the negativity of the fifth will be expressed, and it is this which engenders the skepticism Plato evinces here regarding the possibilities of language.
