The one

This article is about the ancient philosophical concept of a (hen) . For concepts of unity in other traditions and theories, see monism .

The one ( ancient Greek τὸ ἕν to hen , Latin unum ) is a philosophical term that denotes a highest principle . This principle is often viewed as absolutely transcendent , that is, it is located beyond the horizon of possible sensory experience and should also be inaccessible to intellectual access. The one plays a central role in theories that are based on the ideas of ancient Platonism and that assume a single basis for everything that is ( monistic idealism ). Such systems ultimately reduce everything to one thing.

Even the pre-Socratic philosophers dealt with the one as the opposite of the many. But they did not see it as absolutely transcendent. It was only in Platonism that the theory of one who is the cause of everything, transcends all imagination and in principle eludes conceptual comprehension, emerged.

According to the Plato ascribed, at least in the 4th century BC The " doctrine of principles " originated in the 4th century BC is the one, the transcendent highest principle and together with the opposite principle, the "indefinite duality", the reason for the existence of everything. In research it is highly controversial whether Plato is actually the author of the doctrine of principles and whether, as some researchers assume, he equated the one with the good . Later, the ancient Platonists greatly expanded the doctrine of the One and worked out the aspect of absolute transcendence. The Neoplatonists made this doctrine a major part of their metaphysical models.

Since the one is absolutely transcendent according to the ancient Platonic tradition, no determinations can be assigned to it, not even those of being. It is "overseeing", that is, it is superior to the realm of things that are. Everything that is has its origin in the One (Hen). Therefore, strictly speaking, the hen is not the object of ontology , which deals with being and beings; some historians of philosophy speak of "henology" as a separate discipline. Henology makes statements about the relationship of the one to the things that are.

terminology

The Greek εἷς, μία, ἕν heis, mia, hen "der, die, das one" has different meanings: It denotes both the number one and an individual as such and a whole, the parts of which are united to form a unit. In the latter meaning, the unity is based on the fact that all parts have something in common, which is constitutive for their belonging to the whole. Three aspects are in the foreground for philosophical usage:

• indivisibility in the sense of the idea of ​​an individual as an indivisible unit
• the union or fusion of elements into a unified whole
• the fact that "one" as a numerical word in the Greek philosophy of mathematics expresses a special, privileged position. One is the measure and principle of the other numbers by which they are measured. Viewed in this way, it is not itself a number, but rather it is superior to the whole world of numbers.

The expression “henological” is attested in the research literature as early as 1943; the Anglo-Catholic theologian Eric Lionel Mascall used it to refer to a proof of God in Thomas Aquinas , in which the unity of God results from the multiplicity of things. In 1948, Étienne Gilson used the term énologie to denote the Neoplatonic concept of unity based on the idea of ​​overbeing. He wanted to differentiate this concept from the Christian ontological conception of a God in existence, in particular from his own neo-Homistic approach. However, it was the Norwegian historian of philosophy Egil A. Wyller who first coined and defined the technical term “henology” . He introduced it in 1960 in order to separate the “unity doctrine” from the “doctrine of being”, the ontology. In doing so, he wanted to anchor the fundamental distinction between what is and what is overseen, which was emphasized by ancient philosophers, in the terminology of modern research. Wyller called this contrast a "henological difference". He counted all of the idealistic teachings of an absolutely transcendent unity following the Platonic tradition as part of the subject area of ​​henology, including, for example, Johann Gottlieb Fichte's unified concept . In more recent linguistic usage, the term “henology” is usually not used in this comprehensive sense, but specifically in relation to the unified teachings of the ancient Platonists.

Pre-Socratics

The idea of ​​an absolutely transcendent One was alien to the pre-Socratic philosophers. However, they tried to find a unified original principle to which the entire reality can be traced. This made them the forerunners of the later unified metaphysics. However, their teachings differ from the henological ones in that apparently none of them has located the original principle above being.

Xenophanes

Xenophanes , who lived in the second half of the 6th century and early 5th century BC. Was active, should have made the beginning. Aristotle reports that Xenophanes was the first thinker to postulate unity and that he identified the One with God. However, he did not explain his concept. The surviving fragments of Xenophanes' didactic poetry show that he actually developed a henotheistic model in his examination of the polytheism of Homeric and Hesiodean poetry . He started from a non- anthropomorphic supreme deity and claimed that this “one god” was “the greatest among gods and men”; he is immobile, influences everything effortlessly through his thinking and sees, thinks and hears “as a whole”.

Heraclitus

Heraclitus (around 520 - around 460 BC) did not understand unity as the opposite of polarity and multiplicity, but found it precisely in the entanglement of the pairs of opposites. According to his teaching, in contrast to two opposing poles, the unity shows itself as the belonging together of the opposite. The poles are mutually dependent, are always intertwined and turn into one another. In a Heraclitus fragment, it is said of the “unanimous-discordant”, and it is stated: “From all one and from one all”. By this Heraclitus meant that the One is constituted by the interaction of many and opposites. The unifying ground that enables the universal unity and wholeness of the cosmos is the logos .

The Eleates

The philosophers of the Elea school advocated a strictly monistic ontology. A sharp, irreconcilable contrast between being and not being played a central role in their view of the world. Parmenides , the first and best-known exponent of this direction, formulated his teaching in the first half of the 5th century BC. For him the being was "one" in the sense of an indivisible unity and the only really existing. He viewed beings as the totality that excludes everything else. The being is necessarily not arose and therefore immortal. As a whole it does not suffer from a defect, is timelessly perfect and therefore not subject to change. Only that which cannot be changed can be regarded as real. Parmenides assigned everything changeable and ephemeral to the realm of the nonexistent, the deceptive illusory world of the doxa (opinion as opposed to possession of truth). In reality this illusory world does not exist at all. He viewed the realm of beings as undifferentiated, self-contained, spatially extended and immobile because of the exclusion of change; he compared it to a bullet. The unity of the Eleatic being, understood in this way, corresponds to the unity of the spatial and overarching henological one of Platonism, but also differs fundamentally from it. One thing in common is that the one of Parmenides, like that of the Platonists, is in principle withdrawn from the senses.

While in Parmenides the concept of the one is only used as a predicate , the Eleaten Zeno of Elea and Melissos made statements about the one as subject . Melissos considered the one being to be immaterial, immobile, homogeneous and unlimited in space and time. Zeno, a student of Parmenides, tried to prove that the assumption of a multitude of different entities leads to paradoxical consequences and must therefore be wrong. Thus the plurality is non-existent and there can only be one. This must be immobile, because the assumption of movement, like that of multiplicity, leads to impossible consequences.

The early Pythagoreans

The early Pythagoreans did not consider the one to be the transcendent, absolutely uniform origin of being, but saw in it something that was mixed and thus derived from the unlimited and the limiting. For them, the one was an immanent mixture product in the cosmos.

The first Pythagorean known to view the One from a philosophical standpoint was Philolaos , who lived in the 5th century BC. Lived. His theory is similar to the principles of the Platonists insofar as he traced the whole of reality - the cosmos as a whole and all individual things - back to the interaction of a single pair of opposites. His thinking revolved around the contrast between unlimited givens ( ápeira ) and boundary-forming factors ( peraínonta ). According to his teaching, everything emerges from the connection of the unlimited and the limiting, with harmony as the third factor ensuring the interaction of the two opposing poles. Thanks to the limitations, things can be mathematically grasped.

In contrast to the idealistic way of thinking of the Platonists, Philolaus did not mean abstract principles such as infinity and finitude, but rather the structure of the sensually perceptible that can be expressed in numbers. He interpreted this structure of the sense objects as the result of the action of the limiting factors on the unlimited. He referred to the one as the “first assembled”, which was “in the middle of the sphere” and was called the “hearth”. By this he meant the central fire, which, according to Pythagorean cosmology, forms the center of the universe. How the designation of fire as "one" is to be interpreted, opinions differ in research.

With Philolaos, neither of the two highest principles can be derived from the other. So his system is dualistic. This is a fundamental difference to the monistic henological systems of the Platonists, in which the one has absolute priority.

Plato

Plato, Roman copy of the Greek portrait of Plato by Silanion , Glyptothek Munich

Plato (428 / 427–348 / 347 BC) knew and used the ideas of the Eleati and the Pythagoreans, but took a completely new path. Like pre-Socratic thinkers, he dealt with the relationship between unity and multiplicity and looked for a simple source of diversity and complexity. In doing so, he followed the principle that the uniform, simple and general must always be the reason for the existence, the nature and the recognizability of the manifold, complex and particular. For every set of elements that have something in common, there must be something that creates unity, on which the commonality - the unity of the set - is based. This unifying factor can only be one for each commonality, and it can not only be imagined, but must actually exist. This is called the principle of one over many (Greek hen epi pollṓn , in research literature “one over many”).

Unity and diversity in the theory of ideas

→ Main article : Theory of ideas

Like the Eleates, Plato assumed a fundamental opposition between the perfect, unchangeable being and the sense objects subject to constant change. He also shared the Eleatic belief that all sensory-based assumptions were unreliable. In contrast to the Eleates, however, he did not distinguish between a unified, undifferentiated being as the only reality and an absolutely non-existent multiplicity of illusory sense objects. He did not deny the existence of impermanent things that are perceived by the senses, but ascribed to them a conditioned and imperfect being and distinguished this from the actual being of the unchangeable. In his doctrine of ideas , he assigned being in the true sense of the word to what was later to be called the “platonic ideas ”.

A fundamental and momentous innovation was that Plato declared the realm of the perfect being of ideas to be transcendent. He claimed that this realm existed as an objective metaphysical reality, independent of the objects of sensory experience, of space and time and also independent of the ideas in the human mind. Although the area of ​​ideas is completely withdrawn from sensory perception, it is accessible to thinking ( intelligible ).

The theory of ideas offered Plato an explanation for the existence of sense objects. He interpreted the changeable things as images of the eternal, transcendent, only spiritually comprehensible ideas and thus as their products. In this way he reduced the diversity of the material world of phenomena to the simple, general principles on which it was based. On this path from the particular and individual to the general, he started from the greatest multiplicity and moved in the direction of unity. In contrast to the Eleatics, however, he did not abolish the multiplicity principle, but transferred it to the area of ​​unchangeable being, where the Eleates had not tolerated it. There is also diversity in the realm of Platonic ideas, since an idea corresponds to every concept, and there is a hierarchical order among the ideas. The ideas of the genera are more general and comprehensive than the ideas of the species and therefore take precedence over them.

Thus the doctrine of ideas could not solve the problem of the relationship between unity and plurality, but only shifted it into the intelligible realm. The question of the absolute one, the principle of unity, remained unanswered in Plato's dialogues . The derivation of the multiplicity from this original unity was neither explained nor made plausible.

Unity and diversity in the doctrine of principles

→ Main article : Unwritten teaching

The question of the authenticity of the doctrine of principles

Possibly the introduction of the ideas was only one stage on Plato's path from the maximum multiplicity in the world of appearances to the greatest possible unity. The question of whether he consistently brought the reduction from plurality to unity to a conclusion has long been very controversial in research. Since apparently all of the works that he published have been preserved, this question can only be answered in the affirmative if one assumes that he reserved his findings on this subject for oral lessons in his school, the academy . In fact, there are a number of references to the existence of “ unwritten teachings ” of Plato, including information from Aristotle , who uses this term and also goes into the content. Although Aristotle was a long-time student of Plato and as such took part in classes in the academy, his credibility is contested by some researchers.

The "unwritten doctrine" is also called the doctrine of principles because it deals with the highest principles. The researchers, who assume that it is authentic, have made intensive efforts to reconstruct it on the basis of the scattered information and evidence in the sources. A relatively closed picture emerges of the main features, although many important details are unknown or disputed. If this picture corresponds to reality, Plato has given up the traditional conviction, strongly supported by the Eleatics, that unchangeable being represents the highest possible level of perfection. According to this, he placed an absolutely perfect "overseeing" one above the realm of the existing entities and thus became the creator of henology. In such a model, everything being as such is in a certain sense imperfect, since the transition from absolutely transcendent overbeing to being already represents a limitation of the original absolute perfection.

The two original principles and their relationship

After the reconstruction based on the source evidence, the doctrine of principles should explain the existence of ideas, just as the doctrine of ideas should explain the existence of the world of phenomena. Two fundamental principles are assumed: the one as the principle of unity and determinateness and the "unlimited" or "indefinite" duality ( ahóristos dyás ). The indefinite duality is said to have been described by Plato as “the great and the small” ( to méga kai to mikrón ). In the doctrine of principles it appears as the principle of diminution and increase, of ambiguity and indeterminacy, and of multiplicity. This does not mean infinity as a spatial or quantitative infinity, but only the lack of a definition and thus a design. The world of ideas is traced back to the interaction of the two original principles, the ultimate foundations. The form-giving unity is the generating entity, the formless indefinite duality serves the effectiveness of the unity as a substrate. Without the substrate, the unit could produce nothing. All being is based on the fact that the one acts on the indefinite duality by setting limits to the formless, giving it form and characteristics and thus bringing the individual entities into existence as an individuation principle . There is a mixture of the two original principles in everything that exists. Depending on whether one or the other primal principle prevails, order or disorder prevails in the entities.

The relationship between the two original principles is unclear. What is certain, however, is that Plato - if he actually advocated the doctrine of principles - assigned the one a higher rank than the indefinite duality and regarded only the one as absolutely transcendent. Accordingly, Plato was a consistent monist, as the ancient Neo-Platonists already assumed, and represented a henology that essentially coincides with the Neoplatonic. But the doctrine of principles also has a dualistic aspect, since the indefinite duality is also understood as the original principle. The Milanese scholar Giovanni Reale emphasizes this aspect, who vehemently advocates the authenticity of the doctrine of principles. He speaks of a “bipolar structure of the real”, but also states that the unity “remains hierarchically superior to duality”.

The one and the good

The question of what status Plato assigned to the idea of ​​the good is very controversial in research . He sharply distinguishes this idea from the other ideas. He gives it a unique primacy. According to his teaching, all other ideas owe their existence to this one idea. Thus they are ontologically subordinate to it. The idea of ​​the good is also the principle of order; as such, it permeates the entire area of ​​ideas and gives it its structure.

In the dialogue Politeia , Plato states that the good is “not the Ousia ”, but “beyond the Ousia” and surpasses it in originality and power. The term Ousia (literally “beingness”) is usually translated as “being” or “being”; both meanings occur in Plato. It is discussed what meaning is present here and how literally the statement is meant.

If only the essence is meant by “Ousia” or the passage is interpreted freely, the idea of ​​the good can be located within the realm of ideas, the realm of things that are. This means that it is not "transcendent in being" or "overseeing", so it does not have any absolute transcendence, but only a special status. In favor of this interpretation, a number of statements by Plato can be cited, which show that he - at least from a certain point of view - considered it legitimate to classify the good in the realm of being. For example, he called it “the most blessed of all beings” and “the most brilliant of all beings”.

If, on the other hand, Ousia means being and the passage is interpreted literally, “beyond Ousia” is to be understood in the sense of being transcendence. Then it can be assumed that Plato regarded the idea of ​​the good as absolutely transcendent. In this case he identified the idea of ​​the good with the one, because in the realm of absolute transcendence there can be no determinations and thus no distinction between two principles. Most researchers who assume the authenticity of the doctrine of principles represent the identity hypothesis. In doing so, they also refer to information provided by Aristotle.

The one in the Parmenides dialogue

In the dialogue Parmenides , which is one of the later works in terms of content, Plato lets the famous Eleaten appear. As part of an argumentation exercise, Parmenides examines the question of whether the hypothesis “the one exists” or the hypothesis “the one does not exist” can be part of a consistent system. In both cases the hypothesis leads to paradoxical consequences. For example, neither the assumption that the One has parts nor the opposite assumption is correct. The One can be neither unchangeable nor changeable, neither moved nor at rest; it can neither be equal to itself nor unequal to itself, nor be equal or unequal to anything else. The hypothesis that the One does not exist also leads to such absurd inferences.

Thus the investigation leads to hopelessness. Plato left the solution of the problems posed to it to the reader. What he was aiming for and what position he himself took is hotly debated in research. Following the interpretation of proponents of the authenticity of the doctrine of principles, Plato wanted to suggest that a way out could only be found if a meta-level was set above the level of ideas. According to this understanding, he meant the level of the two original principles.

Opinions in Plato's Academy

Plato's pupil and successor as head ( scholarch ) of the academy, Speusippus , represented a modified variant of the doctrine of principles attributed to Plato. Apparently he did not speak of indefinite duality, but of multiplicity. According to Aristotle, Speusippus compared the two highest principles to seeds from which plants arise. Just as the seed is not a plant and does not have the characteristics of a plant such as beauty, but as the cause of the plant is the cause of its characteristics, so the principles of oneness and plurality give things a quality which they themselves do not have. They are principles of being, but not being themselves. According to the Aristotelian distinction between act and potency , the one of Speusippus is pure potency in terms of its relationship to what he has produced.

Speusippus rejected the equation of the one with the good. According to his argument, the good lies in the use and yield (for example of plants and farm animals), i.e. in the goal of something and thus not in its cause or origin. The good cannot coincide with the one, because otherwise the multiplicity, which forms the opposite pole of the one, would have to be the bad in itself. Then everything in which multiplicity is involved, including the mathematical conditions, would have to be bad to a certain extent. On the basis of such considerations, Speusippos separated the good and the one. He considered the highest principles to be neutral.

Xenocrates , the successor of Speusippus as Scholarch, formulated the doctrine of the two highest principles in theological language. He identified the unity ( monás ), to which he assigned a father role, with the "first god" ( Zeus ), who ruled as king, and with the nous (intellect). Since an intellect must have thought-content, the monas of Xenocrates is evidently not an undifferentiated unit and not absolutely transcendent. As a second deity he considered the duality, which he considered female.

Aristotle

Aristotle, bust in the Palazzo Altemps , Rome

Aristotle rejects the Platonic ontology and the doctrine of principles. An absolutely transcendent one or a good that transcends being does not appear in his philosophy. Nevertheless, “the one” is a central concept in his metaphysics. He points out that there are a plurality of modes of oneness, some of which are accidental, some of which are substantial. A use of the term in the essential sense related to the ousia of the thing in question is when "one" is used to express that it is something specific, demarcated and indivisible, a whole understood as a continuum. In addition, there are other unit forms of an essential nature, including the unit according to the species, according to the genus and according to the definition. For Aristotle, the one as the prerequisite for every single determinateness is the thought content on which all other thinking is based. It is impossible to go back behind this term. Everything that is conceivable must be one. “Being” and “one” are the most general ways of expressing themselves; they are “primarily stated about all things that are”. They are not themselves genera of existing things, but basic characteristics of every real thing. As such, they precede any definition given by specifying a genus and a species-forming difference . It is impossible to define the one according to this procedure, because then the unit would have to be determined with the help of a species-forming difference, which itself should not be a unit, since the unit must not be presupposed in the definition.

Since the one is something general, Aristotle denies that it can itself be an ousia - a "being" - and states that it can only be a predicate . “Being” and “one” denote different aspects of an entity, but are mutually convertible. They imply one another and cannot be separated from one another, because every being is one and every one is being. Nevertheless, there is a factual difference between the two terms, because their spectrum of meanings is not identical and unity is a condition for determinateness and thus for being.

For Aristotle, the one is also a principle of knowledge. He calls it "the principle of what is known in everyone". The essence of each species or genus can only be understood when there is a unit from which the cognitive process can proceed. In addition, oneness is the principle for being number and thus for every quantitative knowledge. As a prerequisite for all being and all knowing, the Aristotelian One is not an abstraction devoid of content.

A unit in the outstanding sense is the “first mover”, the highest deity in the Aristotle system. All other modes of being and unity are subordinate to the being and the unity of the first mover.

Middle Platonism and New Pythagoreanism

In the age of Hellenism and the Roman Empire , the Middle Platonists and Neupythagoreans took up henological ideas. It was important to them to embed their philosophical trains of thought and convictions in a religious context. This endeavor was shown, for example, in the fact that the New Pythagoreans, referring to the name of the god Apollo, also called the one “not many”. They wanted to support the idea of ​​divine unity with an (albeit incorrect) etymology of the name of God by deriving “Apollon” from a (“not”) and polloí (“many”). This etymology is said to have existed as early as the 3rd century BC. BC the Stoic Chrysippus of Soloi may have known.

Eudorus of Alexandria

In the 1st century BC Eudorus of Alexandria , one of the first Middle Platonists , resorted to Plato's philosophy of transcendence, and he also referred to the Pythagorean tradition. In his monistic model, a distinction is made between a first-rate and a second-rate one. The first one is Primordial Principle, Supreme Deity, and Origin of everything (including matter). Obviously this one transcends being and also good. Immediately below the completely undifferentiated first one is a pair of opposing "elements": the second-ranking one, also called "unity" ( monás ), and the indefinite duality. This pair includes all polar pairs of opposites, whereby the monas stands for the good, the indefinite duality for the respective negative pole (for example for the disordered, the unlimited and the dark).

Moderatos from Gades

In the second half of the 1st century, the New Pythagorean Moderatos von Gades advocated a monistic doctrine about which a report by the late antique Neo-Platonist Simplikios provides information. However, Simplikios did not get his knowledge from the works of Moderatos, but from a treatise by the Neo-Platonist Porphyrios , which has not been preserved. It must therefore be reckoned with the possibility that some of the formulations handed down by Simplikios do not come from Moderatos, but from the reporter Porphyrios and reflect his Neoplatonic ideas. In the system ascribed to Moderatos, the term “the one” describes three different conditions on three different metaphysical levels. At the highest level, the One is transcendent. This one is the source of everything. Below is a level on which “the One” stands for the world of true beings, the Platonic ideas; that is the intelligible one. This is followed by a third level, that of a spiritual one, which on the one hand has a share in the first and the second one and on the other hand forms the starting point for the existence of sensually perceptible things. The one - presumably the third one is meant - contains the principle of the inherently empty, formless and shapeless quantity, which exists because the one empties itself of its own principles and forms.

Numenios of Apamea

The Middle Platonist Numenios of Apamea , who lived in the 2nd century, represented a consistently dualistic model without absolute transcendence. He saw in matter an independent original principle that cannot ultimately be traced back to the divinity, but is just as original as the divine original principle. Numenios assumed three gods (or, viewed differently: three aspects of the deity). The first, supreme God, whom he equated with the good and the one, he imagined as only being and not acting, very far removed from matter, simple and unmoved. Subordinate to him is the second, the Creator God ( Demiurge ), who brings forth the idea of ​​the cosmos through contemplation of the first God. He is good by sharing in what is good; thus he is not good itself, but the good God. In contrast to the first god, he is moved; becoming can be traced back to him, being to the first God. In that the Demiurge also creates, organizes and directs the sensually perceptible world beyond the idea of ​​the cosmos, that is to say deals with matter, he appears as the third god. For Numenios, creation is not a temporal beginning of the world, but a beginningless process. Numenios considered it possible, but difficult, for man to come closer to the supreme deity, the one and good; he emphasized that it presupposed a detachment from the sense objects.

Origen

In the 3rd century, the Platonist Origen - not to be confused with the Christian writer of the same name - represented a model without the one that was transcendent. He thought that the nous had the highest rank; there is nothing about that. In doing so, he relied on his interpretation of Plato's Parmenides . With this view he stepped in opposition to the emerging Neoplatonism, in which the transcendence of being played an important role.

Neoplatonism

The youngest schooling in ancient Platonism was Neoplatonism , whose founder Plotinus († 270) laid the foundations of Neoplatonic philosophy. With regard to the doctrine of the One, the Neoplatonists started out primarily from the relevant considerations in Plato's Parmenides . The clarification of the question of the relationship of the one to the plurality, in particular the investigation of the transition from the one to the many, was a core theme of Neoplatonism.

Basics of Henology

Neo-Platonic Henology is an expression of a consistently monistic way of thinking. Everything is reduced to the absolutely transcendent One as the supreme principle. From the Neoplatonic point of view, the necessity of a single origin for everything arises from the uniform order prevailing among the entities. This order could not be explained if the entities had emerged from an unregulated meeting of mutually independent principles. It is explained by the assumption that the one for all that is below it is the unifying principle.

The epistemological aspect

From an epistemological point of view, the henological considerations of the Neo-Platonists assume that knowledge progresses from the more complex to the simpler. Everything compound and diverse can be traced back to something simpler. Ultimately, a mental advance from the more complex to the simpler must lead to the simplest. The simplest can no longer be traced back to anything else; here you have to “stop”, otherwise an infinite regress (advancement into the infinite) would occur. With the simplest, the highest possible area of ​​total reality is reached. This absolutely simple is one thing.

The hierarchical order

An intense effort to systematize is characteristic of Neoplatonism. The ancient Neo-Platonists interpreted the Platonic philosophy as a comprehensive system. In late antiquity, the systematic representation of overall reality was expanded, with increasingly complex models emerging. The criterion for classifying entities in the system was their ontological rank, which was determined using the pairs of opposites causing / causing and uniform / plural.

In Neoplatonism, the more uniform is always understood as the original and causal, the more diverse is considered to be the cause, arising from the more uniform. The more uniform is relatively general, comprehensive and undifferentiated; the multiplicity manifests itself as the set of individual separate entities emerging from the unity. The starting point for the existence of the relatively differentiated must always be something less differentiated. Everything compound and manifold has its cause in something simpler.

The hierarchical order of precedence in the Neoplatonic models results from the interdependency between causative and caused entities. The simpler in each case is the superior because it is the cause and in no way needs the more complex, while conversely the more complex that is caused could not exist without the simpler. It follows from this that the absolutely transcendent One - the unity par excellence - as the origin and reason for existence of everything must be the highest authority, because it is the direct or indirect cause of all causes and itself has nothing but cause.

The indeterminacy of the One

Because of its absolute simplicity, the absolutely transcendent One is the extreme opposite of the differentiated and manifold. It cannot contain any distinction, neither a duality nor any other plurality. Every statement that represents a positive determination contradicts the absolutely undifferentiated character of the One, because every positive determination implies a difference, an opposition and thus non-unity. One cannot even truthfully state that the one “is”, because being as the opposite of non-being or perfect being in contrast to a diminished being already presupposes a distinction and thus something that is subordinate to the one. The one is “overseeing”, it transcends being. It is not a "something".

As the highest authority, this one takes the position in Neoplatonism that belongs to God or the supreme deity in religious systems. Because of its absolute indeterminacy and its transcendence of being, no divine characteristics can be ascribed to it. Hence even the identification of the one with the good from the Neoplatonic point of view is only appropriate from a certain point of view. When the One is viewed from the human perspective, it appears as something higher and therefore good and can therefore be described as "good". In and of itself, however, it is also free from this determination. Strictly speaking, it is neither good nor bad, but beyond such terminology.

Plotinus

The step model

According to the model introduced by Plotinus, which pioneered the later Neo-Platonists, the overall reality is composed of two components: a superordinate area inaccessible to the senses and the subordinate sensory world ( kósmos aisthētós ). The higher-level area is divided into three sub-areas, under which there is a hierarchical order. At the top is the absolutely transcendent and undifferentiated One as the origin of everything. The one is immediately followed by the supra-individual nous (spirit, intellect), which Plotinus equates with the world of ideas. Plotinus designates the nous with expressions that Plato already used in Parmenides : It is the "being one" ( hen on ), a unity that has multiplicity in it and is therefore called "one-many" ( hen polla ). Here unity and multiplicity interpenetrate one another. The next lower level of reality ( hypostasis ) follows the nous , the realm of the soul. The sphere of the sense objects begins below the soul.

The one that transcends being stands above all being, because being is only being through the one. Something can only be because it is at the same time one. If it weren't for one, it would be nothing.

The outcome

Each level is produced from the next higher or - in other words - emerges from it. Plotinus deals in detail with the creation or emergence, but he expresses himself more in a circumscribing than an explanatory manner. The emergence is often referred to in research literature as emanation (from Latin emanatio "outflow", "outflow"). The use of this term is based on the idea that the lower flows out of the higher, as it were. The leakage is only a metaphorical description that can lead to misunderstandings. Emanation means that something is received from the superordinate level at the respective subordinate level, but this in no way diminishes the source. At the higher level nothing changes in emanation. The “outflow” is not to be understood in such a way that the higher level releases something downwards, which it then lacks as a result. In this respect there is no analogy to a flowing liquid, but only to the radiation of light, if one assumes, like the ancient Neo-Platonists, that a light source such as the sun does not suffer any loss in its radiation.

In this sense the nous flows out of the undifferentiated one as a definite something. Through the emergence of the nous, since one and nous are two things, the principle of duality and difference arises. Activity words such as emergence, overflowing or arising, which point to a becoming, are not to be taken literally in this context, but only metaphorically. The emergence is not to be understood as a temporal process in the sense of a beginning of existence at a certain point in time or in a certain period of time. Plotinus only means that what comes out owes its existence to that from which it arises and is therefore subordinate to it.

The question of why the One is not content with remaining within itself, but rather creates something, remains open with Plotinus. He regards the emergence as naturally necessary and refers to the overabundance, the excess of the mightiness of the One. The one, as the most perfect, knows no envy and cannot spare its abundance and withhold itself, but inevitably broadcast its effect. However, these are only suggestive, metaphorical illustrations by means of analogy to the known; Plotinus considers statements about the objective essence of the One to be impossible; he does not give a philosophical explanation of the outcome. Metaphorically, he traces the outcome back to the will of the One. According to Plotin's teaching, this will is on the one hand completely free, since nothing can restrict it, on the other hand it is not arbitrary, because the one cannot want anything other than what actually causes it: the emergence of the nous. If it wanted something else, it would be an imperfection, for among all possible alternatives only one can be the best and thus appropriate to the perfection of the One, and that cannot be any other than that actually realized. Otherwise, one thing would be deficient in terms of its goodness.

Although the one emerges as the supreme principle from nothing else, Plotinus calls it the "cause of itself" and claims that it produces itself. However, he makes this statement with the reservation that it is strictly speaking incorrect and only applies “as it were”.

Abundance and lack

The Neoplatonic understanding of abundance and lack is opposite to the common one. The abundance does not belong to the manifold and the numerous individual things, but to the simple and undifferentiated. The differentiated is only the unfolding of something that is completely contained in the undifferentiated in an, as it were, folded-in way. Through the emergence or the outflow, a multitude of properties emerge that can be perceived in the realm of multiplicity. Viewed in this way, the realm of multiplicity appears as the world of abundance. Since this fullness has no other origin than unity, it must already be present in it completely, even if in an undifferentiated, unified way. Thus the unity turns out to be the actual fullness, while the individual things can only have parts or aspects of this fullness. Everything that has gone forth is necessarily less than its source.

This makes it understandable how the one can “give” or “grant” something that it “does not have” itself, what it does not have in the sense of a determination due to it. The one “has” what emanates from it as something that is not yet different and not yet opposing. Every emergence as such means a loss of unity and thus a diminution and causes a lack. Even the nous, as the first to emerge, is imperfect when compared to the one. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that he has to think in order to achieve the greatest possible perfection on his level, while the one does not require any activity.

The inexpressibility of the one

Since the one is completely undefined, strictly speaking its definition as “one”, as simple or uniform in the sense of an opposition to plurality, is a misunderstanding of its true, non-opposed nature. Thus, paradoxically, no correct statement at all is possible about the nature of the One. One is “unspeakable” ( árrhēton ). It cannot be thought of. If Plotinus nevertheless makes statements about the one thing, he tends to provide such statements with restrictions such as “as it were”, “to a certain extent” ( hoíon ). He makes it clear that these terms are not meant here in their usual meaning, but are only intended to indicate something that he can only inadequately express. In contrast to the nature of the One, however, the direct and indirect effects that emanate from it can be determined. They are discussed in Henology. If, for example, the one is named as the cause of something, it is not something that is attributable to the one itself, but something that is attributable to what is caused by the one. All statements that refer to the One as origin and cause do not concern the One itself, but the relation of the One to the one whose origin it is.

Since the One as such eludes an appropriate grasp with linguistic means, it remains inaccessible to intellectual, discursive apprehension. Nevertheless, according to Plotinus, the assumption of the one can be inferred from reasonable considerations.

The non-self-reference

From the unity of the One it follows that he has no self-awareness and self-knowledge. Otherwise a distinction between the perceiving and knowing subject and the perceived and recognized object would be presupposed. That would leave the unit. Since being and spirit are identical for Plotinus, the transcendence of spirit inevitably results from the transcendence of being. The one is unspiritual and therefore does not think, not even itself. It cannot have any kind of relationship with itself, for such a relationship would necessarily be spiritual. With this concept, Plotinus turns against the Aristotelian idea of ​​the "first mover" who thinks himself. However, there are also utterances of Plotinus, with which a self-referentiality of the One is affirmed, for example by being represented as living and self-loving and an inner life ascribed to him. With this he wants to avoid the impression that the one is imperfect because of a lack of life and love. The positive statements on self-referentiality, however, only express a point of view whose justification from Plotin's point of view is very limited, since it carries human ideas into the transcendent. They are concessions to human understanding and expression, not assertions about the actual nature of the One. One is not really self-referential, but it presents itself to the viewer, it appears "as it were" ( hoíon ) referring to itself .

The one as experience

The movement of the emergence of many things from the One is opposed to the opposite movement, the striving for a return to unity. The return corresponds to a basic need of the soul, which wants to get from the sense objects to the nous and beyond finally to the one. This is what all philosophical endeavors ultimately aim at. The ascent of the soul on the one hand presupposes a liberation from earthly entanglements. Plotinus does not understand this as an escape from the world in the sense of turning away from tasks and obligations in everyday life. The ethical aspect is essential; Virtue is imperative to ascension.

Because of the absolute transcendence of the One, as it is purely for itself, it cannot be thought of. Yet for Plotinus there is no unbridgeable gap between the One and the soul striving to return to unity. Rather, he thinks that there is an over-rational approach to the one, since it can be experienced. This becomes possible if you turn inward and leave behind not only the sensual but also everything spiritual. The soul, which strives towards the simplicity of the One, must make itself simple and thus adjust to its goal by purifying itself and freeing itself from ballast.

The approach to the One finds its perfection when it flows into the experience of oneness with it. According to Porphyrios, Plotinus claimed this experience as a repeated experience for himself. Porphyry reports that the experience of unity was bestowed on Plotinus about four times. Plotinus emphasizes that the experience occurs suddenly.

The term hénōsis ("union") has become established for the experience of unity . However, Plotinus only uses this expression for the fulfillment of the unity of the soul with the nous, not for the experience of the unity with the One. He describes the ascent of the soul as the "flight of the one to the one". The ascent, however, is not a matter of seeking out the one in a transcendent “higher” area of ​​the outside world, analogous to a spatial movement. Rather, the soul turns inward and finds the one in itself. This is also experienced like the one entering the soul.

Plotinus characterizes the soul's striving for the one as erotic, the philosophical ascent to the one and the goal, the experience of unity, he describes in erotic language. He is based on Plato's concept of love, later called “platonic” . From his point of view, all forms of eroticism are to be interpreted as an expression of the longing for the one. Therefore, he ascribes a unified nature to the erotic in all its expressions. He sees a twofold analogy between metaphysical facts and sexuality, in which he understands sexuality as a representation: As production, reproduction depicts the emergence from the one, while sexual attraction the striving back of the emergent to its origin.

Access to the One opens up in an area beyond thinking, but presupposes the thought processes that lead to this area. The soul must first adjust itself thinking to the nous before it can reach the one. Thought, which turns to the one, approaches him from being; eventually it transcends itself and thus cancels itself.

Plotinus is often referred to as a mystic for claiming that there is a transcendent experience of a supreme reality . It should be noted, however, that this term (in today's sense) did not exist then and that no such self-designation has been handed down to Plotinus.

Porphyry

Plotin's pupil Porphyrios († 301/305), at least for a time, represented a different view of the One than his teacher. Due to contradicting information in the sources, its position cannot be clearly identified. How his metaphysics can be assessed depends largely on whether one considers him to be the author of an anonymous and only fragmentary commentary on Plato's Parmenides . His authorship is controversial in research. According to the representation in the commentary, the One is transcendent towards all being, but not towards being. It is the absolute being in front of beings and as such must be distinguished from being that is present in beings and makes them to be. The author of the commentary therefore took a different view than Plotinus, in which the one is absolutely transcendent. By renouncing absolute transcendence, he wanted to bridge the gap between the one and the being and thus make the emergence of the being from the one plausible. But this solution was unanimously rejected by the later Neoplatonists; they preferred to cling to the absolute transcendence of the One.

In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry describes the One as the first and the otherworldly God, who has no form and no shape and is enthroned above the nous and the whole spiritual world. He, Porphyrios, was able to unite with this deity once in his life.

Iamblichos

The very influential Neo-Platonist Iamblichus († around 320/325) rejected the concept of Porphyry and assumed a completely transcendent one. He doubled this because he believed that the inexpressible, absolutely simple and absolutely transcendent One could not at the same time be the One from which multiplicity emerges. According to his doctrine, the one that creates multiplicity must represent a unity of determinateness and indeterminacy, which is incompatible with the absolute transcendence of the inexpressible one. On the basis of this consideration, he distinguished between the highest, inexpressible One and a second, subordinate One, which is also transcendent in being, but not absolutely transcendent. The second one, to which he assigned the function of being the cause of multiplicity, he equated with the good. Below this in his model follow the two opposing principles of the unlimited and the limiting, from which the “divine numbers” emerge. A third, subordinate one is the being one, the nous.

With Iamblichus' doubling of the One, the addition of additional stages into the metaphysical system, characteristic of late ancient Neo-Platonism, began. This should defuse the problem of mediation between levels of reality of different nature. The problem of the abyss between the absolutely transcendent and everything else could not be solved in this way, it was only postponed.

Proclus

Proklos († 485) was the most famous of the heads (Scholarchen) of the late ancient Neo-Platonic philosophy school in Athens. He dealt intensively with the question of how an approach to the One is possible despite its absolute transcendence and how to proceed with it. He started from the idea that the relationship of beings to the one is characterized by a trinity: persistence (in the unity), emergence, return. What has emerged from the One strives back to its origin.

Like Iamblichos, Proclus distinguished between the one that is undetermined and that overshoots and the one that is, which has determinations, but he rejected the intermediate level of the second one inserted by Iamblichos in between. For him, the mediating instances between the absolutely transcendent realm and the world of beings are the overriding principles of the limiting and the unlimited as well as overriding "henads" (units). He could not understand the Henads as entities, since there can be no entities in the area of ​​oversight, but he treated them as such in order to enable statements about them.

Since the one that overshoots is free from all positive determinations, nothing can be added to it; Provisions are additions that cancel unity. Therefore, according to Proklos' conviction, only negative statements, with which it is determined what the overriding One is not, make sense. With these statements the philosopher removes all determinations on his way to the absolute and thereby eliminates inappropriate ideas. For this Proklos uses the expression trópos tēs aphairéseōs ("procedure of removal"). The negations are not meant privatively ("robbing"), that is, they do not indicate a lack of something. Rather, they deny the absolute the limitations that result from positive determinations. By exceeding the limitations, the philosopher can approach the reality of the absolute, which transcends all opposites and for that very reason is able to produce the world of opposites. The negations thus prove productive. Proclus expresses this by describing the rise of negative thinking on the one hand in religious language; he sees in it "a single theological hymn to the one through these negations".

With this procedure it finally turns out that the negations cannot do justice to the inexpressible absolute and must therefore be withdrawn: The negations are negated. With the “negation of negation” another limitation, which lies in the dual nature of thinking, is lifted. Thinking transcends itself and thereby overcomes its duality. By transcending itself, it creates a prerequisite for grasping unity. This grasping, which is an experience, is the aim of the philosopher. The one can be experienced because there is something divine in the soul which, because of its kinship with the one, enables such an experience. Access to the “one self” is provided by the “one in us” that the soul finds in itself. The prerequisite for this, however, is an active effort: With the procedure of removal, the obstacles that lie in thinking must be removed, and a readiness to accept the “light” emanating from the One must be created. The negation of negation is not about a return to the starting point after eliminating an error, but about moving forward towards the goal.

The self-abolition of thinking leads to silence. When the soul goes beyond what can be grasped in thought, it gets rid of all sensory impressions and thought-contents; then “she forgets herself and that and comes to rest through contact with the one, (...) has become mute and silent in an inner silence. Because how could she connect with the most inexpressible of everything else than to silence the voices within herself? "

The notion of Plotinus that the One is its own cause and produces itself was rejected by Proclus. He considered them incompatible with absolute unity and emphasized the strict acausality of the one.

Damascius

Damascius , a student of Proclus, took up the idea of ​​Iamblichus that the one must be doubled, since an absolutely transcendent one cannot at the same time be the authority that creates the world of entities out of itself. Therefore, according to the teaching of Damascius, there must be an even higher authority above the one who brings forth, which is absolutely beyond everything and therefore cannot even be called "one", but only as the absolutely unspeakable beyond the one. The multiplicity of entities emerges from the one that produces.

The question of the connection between the unspeakable on the one hand and the one and the multiplicity on the other hand remained unresolved. Here Damascius thought he had reached the limit of possible knowledge; he thought the problem was unsolvable. Otherwise, too, he tended to be epistemological skepticism. He considered the metaphysical models of the late Neo-Platonists worked out in detail - including his own - together with the theories about the relationship between the One and Being, to be mere means of thought that might not reflect the structure of reality. According to his skeptical assessment, the one that brings forth appears to be recognizable, one can approach it, but as the approach progresses, its unknowability becomes apparent.

reception

Church fathers

→ Main article : Negative theology

In the epoch of the Church Fathers, there were severe tensions between Platonists and Christians, which erupted into violent polemics. Nevertheless, there was an extensive reception of Neoplatonic ideas in Christian theology. Church authors recognized that essential elements of the Neoplatonic view of the world could be used for a philosophical formulation and support of theological teachings. This included in particular the emphasis on the unity and absolute transcendence of the supreme deity, which is characteristic of Neoplatonism, who is at the same time separated from everything and the cause of everything. The Church Fathers, influenced by Platonism, united in their concept of God the one of the Neoplatonists and the creator of the world, the Demiurge. The fact that the very influential church father Augustine († 430) belonged to the Platonic tendency was significant. In his theological works he resorted to Neoplatonic lines of thought and thought schemes. With that he set the course for medieval theology. Augustine shared the Neo-Platonists' conviction that being is constituted from the point of view of unity, that is, ontological priority belongs to the one.

Two Neoplatonic concepts received special attention in Christian theological circles: the idea of ​​the arising or outflow of the numerous and varied entities from their simple divine origin and the doctrine of the absolute transcendence and indeterminacy of the One.

The idea of ​​emanation was largely met with reluctance or rejection by the Church Fathers, as it seemed incompatible or only partially compatible with the Christian doctrine of creation. There was a tense relationship between an eternal coming forth, understood as a necessity, and a creation understood biblically as the result of a divine act of will. In addition, the Christian conception of the process of creation as creating “ out of nothing ” or “out of nothing” could not simply be interpreted as an outflow, in which God brings something out of himself or allows something to emerge.

While the emanation thought seemed to reduce the contrast between the Creator on the one hand and everything created on the other, the Neoplatonic doctrine of the absolute transcendence of the One was able to emphasize the gap between Creator and creatures. In doing so, she met the Christian understanding of God. One thing appeared to the Neoplatonists as “unspeakable”, since it eludes the human way of thinking and language, which is fixed on opposites and defining boundaries. Such a supreme principle, transcendent of thought, could easily be identified with the unique, exalted biblical God. Christian theologians also shared the Neoplatonic conviction that it is possible for man to come closer to the highest principle despite its unspeakable nature. The “procedure of removal” worked out by Proklos as a method of henological philosophizing became groundbreaking for negative theology . Negative theology rejects all positive statements about God because they are not appropriate to his absolutely transcendent nature.

The concept of negative theology developed by the late ancient theologian Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita had a very strong and lasting aftereffect . Pseudo-Dionysius took over essential elements of the Henology of Proclus and adapted them for his purposes. Like the pagan Neoplatonists, he regarded unity as the ground of being. He also took up the Neoplatonic idea of ​​emanation. In his theology, the motif of emergence plays a central role in the interpretation of the relationship between creator and creation.

middle Ages

In the Middle Ages, the ancient Neo-Platonic Henology had an effect mainly in the form of negative theology. The relevant concept of Pseudo-Dionysius was adopted by both Western, Latin-speaking and Eastern, Greek-speaking theologians. In the west, as in the east, it was established as an integral part of church teaching. With negative theology, the terminology of the transcendence of being also found its way; God could be described as "overseeing". This use of the term did not lead to consistent henological models in theology.

Eriugena

Representation of Eriugenas in the manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Lat. 6734

The Irish philosopher and theologian Eriugena held a special position among early medieval thinkers with his unusually extensive adoption of Neoplatonic ideas . He followed the teaching of Pseudo-Dionysius and expanded it. Eriugena identified God, who transcends being, with no determination as the nothing out of which, according to traditional Christian teaching, the world is made; He regarded this nothingness as the overarching origin of beings. According to Eriugena's model of creation, God - like the one in the emanation concept of the ancient Neo-Platonists - created the world out of himself. God is indefinable and not even knowable to himself. However, for Eriugena, God is not one that excludes all multiplicity, as it was for the ancient Neoplatonists, but one that is at the same time multiplicity.

The equation of the one and the being

The medieval thinkers accepted the terminology of negative theology, but as a rule did not follow the Neoplatonic idea of ​​a transcendence of being of the highest principle. The transcendence of being was opposed to the generally approved Aristotelian doctrine, according to which there is nothing that overcomes, but “being” and “one” are basic characteristics of every real thing - including the deity. The scholastic philosophers and theologians were dominated by the conviction that “one” and “being” actually refer to the same thing, with “one” emphasizing the indivision of beings. The formula ens et unum convertuntur (“ Being and one is interchangeable”), coined by the late antique thinker Boethius , remained a doctrine of school metaphysics until the 18th century. The question of whether the priority is given to being or unity was answered differently, but the interchangeability of the two terms was considered a fact. Well-known late medieval exponents of the Platonic movement ( Dietrich von Freiberg , Berthold von Moosburg , Nikolaus von Kues ) advocated the primacy of the one, but without making a real separation between the one that overlooks and that which is.

Master Eckhart

Meister Eckhart's teaching was henologically oriented with an unusual consistency for his time. This was one of the reasons for the church's condemnation of some of his statements. Eckhart did not assign the terms “God” and “Godhead” the same meaning, but used them to designate different levels on which the divine reality could show itself to man. He claimed that God and Godhead were as different from each other as heaven and earth. From the existence of God, insofar as he is the creator and confronts his creatures in this quality, Eckhart differentiated a higher level of the reality of the divine, on which it appears as “deity” or “one-fold one”, “above God”. On the level of the “deity” or the “one”, the divine reality is no longer a determinable authority in the sense of the doctrine of the Trinity, which begets and creates. The deity does not produce anything, it does not convey itself in a bewitching or producing manner, but is related to nothing but itself. It is the supra-personal aspect of the divine total reality. Nothing definite can be said about it, since it is beyond any differentiation. It is “ignorant” (without properties by which it could be defined), is a “groundless ground” and a “silent desert”, a “simple silence”. Therefore, characteristics such as “good” or “wise” must also be denied. God, as a person with personal characteristics expressed in his name, exists on a plane separate from and subordinate to that of the deity. If he wanted to turn to his own impersonal aspect, he would have to - just like a person who does this - leave aside everything that defines his particularity. Thus the quality of being Trinity also belongs to God, but not to the Godhead. Eckhart remarked: This is easy to see, because this one one is without manner and without peculiarity. And so: if God is ever to peek into it, it must cost him all his divine names and his personal peculiarity; He has to leave that outside if he ever peeps in it.

In its indeterminacy, Eckhart's deity agrees with the one of the ancient Neo-Platonists, and like him it is transcendent. When Eckhart speaks of the divine realm not under the aspect of "God" but under the aspect of "Godhead", the statement that this reality "is" does not apply; rather, it is a question of "an over-being and an over-being nothingness". Hence the deity is also not an object of knowledge, neither for itself nor for others, because where a knowing subject is separated from a known object, it is not the level of the deity. Eckhart made it clear: The hidden darkness of the invisible light of the eternal deity is unrecognized and will never be recognized.

Modern times

When, in the age of Renaissance humanism, the works of Plato, largely unknown in the Middle Ages, including Parmenides , as well as Plotin's writings were discovered in the original Greek and became widely used in Latin translation, the debate about the primacy of the one or the being received a new basis . Marsilio Ficino , the leading Platonist of the 15th century, advocated the primacy of the one, relying on Parmenides . A controversy arose between Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola , who denied that Plato placed the one above being. Pico laid out his position in the text De ente et uno ("On beings and the one").

Ficino's Neoplatonism had no influence on the school metaphysics of the early modern period; it was still dominated by the Aristotelian tradition. The Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), whose metaphysics dominated Catholic education and also strongly influenced Protestant philosophers and theologians, saw the one as a peculiarity of beings. He appealed to Parmenides , whom he interpreted in this sense.

Hegel dealt extensively with the doctrine of principles. He did not consider Plato to be the originator of these, but rather unknown Pythagoreans, but he noticed the proximity of the concept to the relevant ideas of Plato. Hegel understood the unity of the one of the doctrine of principles as self-equality and saw in it the simplest and most general of everything as well as the principle of the being-in-itself of all beings. Although he approved of the concept, it seemed undeveloped to him.

In Hegel's interpretation of the doctrine of principles, its monistic character emerges clearly. In his understanding, the indefinite duality is the division of the first unity. The one as overarching contains within itself the determinations of unity and duality or division. It divides into duality and returns from it into itself. The interaction of the one and the indefinite duality is the self-determination of the unity that returns in itself.

Hegel considered Plotin's philosophy to be a preliminary stage of his own idealism and thus shortened it. He did not subscribe to the doctrine of the oversight of the One. For Hegel, pure being was the supreme principle.

Source collection

• Egil A. Wyller : Platonism / Henology in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. Bilingual textbook I - II . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2014
  • Vol. 1: Antiquity and the Latin Middle Ages , ISBN 978-3-8260-5163-0
  • Vol. 2: The Greek-Byzantine tradition against a late antique background , ISBN 978-3-8260-5164-7

literature

Overview representations

• Werner Beierwaltes : Hen (ἕν) . In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . Volume 14, Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-7772-5006-6 , Sp. 445-472
• Pierre Hadot , Kurt Flasch , Erich Heintel : One (that), unit . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy . Volume 2, Schwabe, Basel 1972, Sp. 361-384

Pre-Socratics

• Michael C. Stokes: One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy . Harvard University Press, Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1971

Plato and Platonists

• Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of the One. Studies on Neoplatonic philosophy and its history of impact. Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-465-01637-8
• Dirk Cürsgen: Henology and Ontology. The metaphysical doctrine of principles of late Neoplatonism. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-8260-3616-3
• Jens Halfwassen : The ascent on the one hand. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus . 2nd, extended edition, Saur, Munich and Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-598-73055-1
• Jens Halfwassen: Plato's Metaphysics of One . In: Marcel van Ackeren (Ed.): Understanding Plato. Topics and perspectives . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2004, ISBN 3-534-17442-9 , pp. 263-278

Aristotle

• Edward C. Halper: One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics. The Central Books . Ohio State University Press, Columbus (Ohio) 1989, ISBN 0-8142-0456-2
• Edward C. Halper: One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Books Alpha - Delta . Parmenides Publishing, Las Vegas 2009, ISBN 978-1-930972-21-6

Remarks

1. ↑ Étienne Gilson: L'être et l'essence , Paris 1948, p. 42.
2. ^ Egil A. Wyller: Henology . In: Joachim Ritter (Ed.): Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 3, Basel 1974, Sp. 1059f.
3. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 986b.
4. ↑ Xenophanes, fragments DK 21 B 23, 21 B 24, 21 B 25, 21 B 26. See Christian Schäfer : Xenophanes von Kolophon , Stuttgart 1996, pp. 144–207; Michael C. Stokes: One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1971, pp. 66-85.
5. ↑ Heraklit, fragment DK 22 B 10.
6. ↑ The relevant Heraklit fragments are compiled and translated by Laura Gemelli Marciano (ed.): Die Vorsokratiker , Volume 1, Düsseldorf 2007, pp. 300–307.
7. ^ Karl Bormann: Parmenides. Investigations on the fragments , Hamburg 1971, pp. 150-182.
8. ↑ Pierre Hadot: One (that), unit. I. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 361–367, here: 361.
9. ^ On Melissos' teaching see Christof Rapp : Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, pp. 162–171. For his understanding of “one” and “many”, see Michael C. Stokes: One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy , Cambridge (Massachusetts) 1971, pp. 148–152.
10. ↑ On Zenon's argument, see Christof Rapp: Vorsokratiker , Munich 1997, pp. 152–161; Hermann Fränkel : Ways and Forms of Early Greek Thinking , Munich 1968, pp. 198–236.
11. ↑ Detlef Thiel: The Philosophy of Xenokrates in the Context of the Old Academy , Munich 2006, pp. 115f., 118–121. See Carl A. Huffman: Philolaus of Croton , Cambridge 1993, pp. 226-230.
12. ↑ Philolaos, fragment DK 44 B 7.
13. ↑ Carl A. Huffman: Philolaus of Croton , Cambridge 1993, pp. 226-230; Hermann S. Schibli: On 'The One' in Philolaus, fragment 7. In: Classical Quarterly 46, 1996, pp. 114-130; Leonid Zhmud: Science, Philosophy and Religion in Early Pythagoreanism , Berlin 1997, p. 263f. and note 12; Charles H. Kahn: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. A Brief History , Indianapolis 2001, pp. 27-29.
14. ↑ Detlef Thiel: The Philosophy of Xenokrates in the Context of the Old Academy , Munich 2006, p. 113.
15. ↑ Giovanni Reale gives an introduction to this topic: To a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 175–177.
16. ↑ Giovanni Reale: On a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 184-201.
17. ↑ Michael Erler gives an overview of the sources and the research controversies : Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Ed.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie . Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 406-425.
18. ↑ Michael Erler gives an overview: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 425–429 and Konrad Gaiser : Gesammelte Schriften , Sankt Augustin 2004, pp. 295-340.
19. ↑ Michael Erler: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Ed.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 425; Detlef Thiel: The Philosophy of Xenocrates in the Context of the Old Academy , Munich 2006, p. 190.
20. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 987b; see. Physics 209b-210a.
21. ^ Heinrich Dörrie , Matthias Baltes : The Platonism in the Ancient World , Volume 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 154–162 (sources with translation), 448–458 (commentary); Michael Erler: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Hrsg.): Outline of the history of philosophy. The philosophy of antiquity , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 426f.
22. ↑ Hans Joachim Krämer : Arete in Platon and Aristoteles , Heidelberg 1959, p. 144f.
23. ↑ Christina Schefer: Plato's unspeakable experience , Basel 2001, p. 186f.
24. ↑ Giovanni Reale: On a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 207f., 309-311. On the question of monism in Plato Michael Erler: Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (Hrsg.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, p. 428f .; Hans Joachim Krämer: Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik , 2nd edition, Amsterdam 1967, pp. 329–334; Christina Schefer: Plato's unspeakable experience , Basel 2001, pp. 57–60; Detlef Thiel: The Philosophy of Xenokrates in the Context of the Old Academy , Munich 2006, pp. 197–208; Jens Halfwassen: Monism and dualism in Plato's doctrine of principles . In: Bochumer philosophisches Jahrbuch für Antike und Mittelalter 2, 1997, pp. 1–21.
25. ↑ Rafael Ferber provides an overview of the positions : Isn't the idea of ​​the good transcendent or is it? Again Plato's ΕΠΕΚΕΙΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΟΥΣΙΑΣ . In: Damir Barbarić (ed.): Plato about the good and justice , Würzburg 2005, pp. 149–174, here: 149–156.
26. ↑ A summary of relevant statements by Plato is offered by Thomas Alexander Szlezák : The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 111f. Michael Erler offers an overview of the extensive research literature : Platon (= Hellmut Flashar (ed.): Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike , Volume 2/2), Basel 2007, pp. 402–404.
27. ↑ Hans Joachim Krämer: Arete in Platon and Aristoteles , Heidelberg 1959, pp. 127-135.
28. ↑ Greek presbeía " priority of age", also translated as "dignity".
29. ↑ Plato, Politeia 509b.
30. ↑ The transcendence of being of the idea of ​​the good is rejected by, among others, Theodor Ebert : Opinion and knowledge in Plato's philosophy , Berlin 1974, pp. 169–173, Matthias Baltes: Is the Idea of ​​the Good in Plato's Republic Beyond Being? In: Matthias Baltes: Dianoemata. Small writings on Plato and Platonism , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 351–371 and Luc Brisson : L'approche traditionnelle de Platon par HF Cherniss . In: Giovanni Reale, Samuel Scolnicov (eds.): New Images of Plato , Sankt Augustin 2002, pp. 85–97.
31. ↑ Plato, Politeia 518c and 526E. Thomas Alexander Szlezák argues against the evidential value of these passages as an argument against the transcendence of being: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 66.
32. ↑ Thomas Alexander Szlezák provides a summary of this position: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 67f. Cf. the argumentation of Rafael Ferber: Isn't the idea of ​​the good transcendent or is it? Again Plato's ΕΠΕΚΕΙΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΟΥΣΙΑΣ . In: Damir Barbarić (ed.): Plato on the good and justice , Würzburg 2005, pp. 149–174, here: 154–160 and Giovanni Reale: To a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 275–281.
33. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Leipzig 2006, pp. 21–23 and p. 221, note 4; Thomas Alexander Szlezák: The idea of ​​the good in Plato's Politeia , Sankt Augustin 2003, p. 70f .; Hans Krämer: The idea of ​​the good. Parable of the sun and lines (Book VI 504a – 511e) . In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Platon: Politeia , 3rd edition, Berlin 2011, pp. 135–153, here: 142–145; Giovanni Reale: On a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 258–280; Konrad Gaiser: Plato's enigmatic lecture 'On the Good' . In: Konrad Gaiser: Gesammelte Schriften , Sankt Augustin 2004, pp. 265–294, here: 265–268. Rafael Ferber argues against the equation: Plato's idea of ​​the good , 2nd, expanded edition, Sankt Augustin 1989, pp. 76-78.
34. ↑ Plato, Parmenides 137c-166c.
35. ^ Giovanni Reale: To a new interpretation of Plato , Paderborn 1993, pp. 293-313; Kenneth M. Sayre: Plato's Late Ontology. A Riddle Resolved , Las Vegas 2005, pp. 37-74; Jens Halfwassen: The ascent on the one hand. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 185–196, 265–404; Christoph Horn : The Platonic Parmenides and the possibility of his principle-theoretical interpretation . In: Antike und Abendland 41, 1995, pp. 95–114.
36. ↑ Leonardo Tarán: Speusippus of Athens , Leiden 1981, pp. 334–339; John M. Dillon : The Heirs of Plato , Oxford 2003, pp. 42f.
37. ↑ Whether Speusippus considered the one to be transcendent is controversial. For the transcendence of being, Hans Joachim Krämer advocates: Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik , 2nd edition, Amsterdam 1967, p. 209 and note 46, p. 355f. and Jens Halfwassen: Speusipp and the infinity of the one . In: Archive for the History of Philosophy 74, 1992, pp. 43–73, here: 43–48. Andreas Graeser argues against this : Prolegomena on an interpretation of the second part of the Platonic Parmenides , Bern 1999, pp. 44–53. Cf. Rafael Ferber: Isn't the idea of ​​the good transcendent or is it? Again Plato's ΕΠΕΚΕΙΝΑ ΤΗΣ ΟΥΣΙΑΣ . In: Damir Barbarić (ed.): Plato about the good and justice , Würzburg 2005, pp. 149–174, here: 164 and note 47 and Cristina D'Ancona Costa : Plotin . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 5 Part 1 (V a), Paris 2012, pp. 885-1068, here: 1040f.
38. ↑ Hans Joachim Krämer: The Origin of Spirit Metaphysics , 2nd edition, Amsterdam 1967, pp. 351–355.
39. ↑ Leonardo Tarán: Speusippus of Athens , Leiden 1981, pp. 334-350; Heinrich Dörrie: Platonism in antiquity , Vol. 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1987, pp. 86–89, 303–305; Hans Joachim Krämer: Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik , 2nd edition, Amsterdam 1967, pp. 212-214.
40. ^ Matthias Baltes: On the theology of Xenokrates . In: Matthias Baltes: Dianoemata , Stuttgart 1999, pp. 191–222; Detlef Thiel: The Philosophy of Xenocrates in the Context of the Old Academy , Munich 2006, pp. 243–245, 265–294; John M. Dillon: The Heirs of Plato , Oxford 2003, pp. 99-107.
41. ↑ See on Aristotle's conception of the one Christian Pietsch : hen / one, one, unit . In: Otfried Höffe (Hrsg.): Aristoteles-Lexikon (= Kröners Taschenausgabe . Volume 459), Stuttgart 2005, pp. 250-252 and the more detailed description in the study by Christian Pietsch: Principles found by Aristoteles , Stuttgart 1992, p. 227 -251.
42. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 998b21.
43. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 998b – 999a. For the ontological status of the One in Aristotle see Karen Gloy : Aristoteles' Theory of the One on the basis of Book I of Metaphysics . In: Karen Gloy, Enno Rudolph (ed.): Unity as a basic question of philosophy , Darmstadt 1985, pp. 73-101, here: 82-98.
44. ^ Christian Pietsch: Finding principles in Aristoteles , Stuttgart 1992, p. 229.
45. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 1053b – 1054a.
46. ↑ See Donald Morrison: The Place of Unity in Aristotle's Metaphysical Project . In: Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy Vol. 9, 1993, pp. 131-156 and 166 and the subsequent critical comment by Michael Pakaluk: Commentary on Morrison , pp. 157-165.
47. ↑ Aristotle, Metaphysics 1016b20.
48. ^ Christian Pietsch: Finding principles in Aristoteles , Stuttgart 1992, pp. 230f., 243–247.
49. ↑ Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 381f (cf. 354f and Plutarch, De E apud Delphos 388f, 393c); Plotinus, Enneads V 5,6,26-28.
50. ↑ Macrobius, Saturnalia 1,17,7. Christina Schefer suspects an old tradition, perhaps already known to Plato: Plato's unspeakable experience , Basel 2001, p. 128f.
51. ^ Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: The Platonism in the Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 174–177 (and commentary, pp. 473–477). Cf. Mauro Bonazzi: Eudoro di Alessandria alle origini del platonismo imperiale . In: Mauro Bonazzi, Vincenza Celluprica (ed.): L'eredità platonica. Studi sul platonismo da Arcesilao a Proclo , Napoli 2005, pp. 115–160, here: 119–123 and Linda M. Napolitano: Eudoro di Alessandria: monismo, dualismo, assiologia dei principi nella tradizione platonica . In: Museum Patavinum 3, 1985, pp. 289-312.
52. ↑ See also Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Vol. 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 176–179 and 478–485; Pieter A. Meijer: Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9) , Amsterdam 1992, pp. 6-10.
53. ↑ Karin Alt : Flight from the world and world affirmation. On the question of dualism in Plutarch, Numenios, Plotin , Stuttgart 1993, pp. 29–32; Michael Frede : Numenius . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World, Vol. II.36.2, Berlin 1987, pp. 1034-1075, here: 1051-1053.
54. ↑ On the doctrine of gods see Charles H. Kahn: Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans , Indianapolis 2001, pp. 122-130; John Peter Kenney: Proschresis Revisited: An Essay in Numenian Theology . In: Robert J. Daly (Ed.): Origeniana Quinta , Leuven 1992, pp. 217-230; Eric Robertson Dodds : Numenios and Ammonios . In: Clemens Zintzen (Ed.): Der Mittelplatonismus , Darmstadt 1981, pp. 495-499; Michael Frede: Numenius . In: Rise and Decline of the Roman World, Vol. II.36.2, Berlin 1987, pp. 1034-1075, here: 1054-1070.
55. ^ See on this Henry D. Saffrey, Leendert G. Westerink (ed.): Proclus: Théologie platonicienne , Volume 2, Paris 1974, pp. X – XX; Jean-Marc Narbonne: Hénologie, ontologie et event , Paris 2001, pp. 28–41.
56. ↑ Plotinus enneads VI 8,10,18-21; Venanz Schubert: Plotinus. Introduction to his philosophizing , Freiburg 1973, p. 20.
57. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Plotin und der Neuplatonismus , Munich 2004, pp. 43–49, provides a comprehensive presentation .
58. ↑ See also Carlos Steel: The One and the Good: Some Reflections on a Neoplatonic Identification. In: Arjo Vanderjagt, Detlev Pätzold (Hrsg.): The Neoplatonic Tradition. Jewish, Christian and Islamic Themes , Cologne 1991, pp. 9–25, here: 18f.
59. ↑ See also Christoph Horn: Plotin over Being, Number and Unit , Stuttgart 1995, pp. 293-318.
60. ↑ On the transcendence of being of the one in Plotinus see Jens Halfwassen: The rise to the one. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 44–52, 63–67, 81–97, 150–157.
61. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 126–129 (cf. pp. 247–252 on solar metaphors); Heinrich Dörrie: Emanation - an unphilosophical word in late antique thinking. In: Heinrich Dörrie: Platonica Minora , Munich 1976, pp. 70–88, here: 83–85.
62. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 114–130.
63. ↑ Lloyd P. Gerson: Plotinus , London 1994, p. 37f .; Werner Beierwaltes: Causa sui. Plotin's concept of the one as the origin of the thought of self-causation . In: John J. Cleary (Ed.): Traditions of Platonism , Aldershot 1999, pp. 191–226, here: 200–206.
64. ↑ On the self- causation of the one see Werner Beierwaltes: Causa sui. Plotin's concept of the one as the origin of the thought of self-causation . In: John J. Cleary (Ed.): Traditions of Platonism , Aldershot 1999, pp. 191–226, here: 199f. and Laurent Lavaud: D'une métaphysique à l'autre , Paris 2008, pp. 242-244.
65. ↑ On the fullness of the one see Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 118–130.
66. ↑ Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of One , Frankfurt am Main 1985, pp. 47–49.
67. ↑ Fritz-Peter Hager: Der Geist und das Eine , Bern 1970, pp. 375-390.
68. ↑ Plotinus enneads V f 3,13,1.
69. ↑ See Jens Halfwassen: The Ascent to One. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 173-182.
70. ↑ Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of One , Frankfurt am Main 1985, p. 42; Jens Halfwassen: The ascent on the one hand. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 107–111.
71. ↑ On Plotin's argument, see Heinrich Dörrie, Matthias Baltes: Der Platonismus in der Antike , Volume 4, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1996, pp. 599–605.
72. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 157-173, 212-214; Jens Halfwassen: Plotin and the Neo-Platonism , Munich 2004, pp. 138–140; Cristina D'Ancona Costa: Plotinus . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques , Vol. 5 Part 1 (V a), Paris 2012, pp. 885-1068, here: 1044f. Cf. Werner Beierwaltes: Self-knowledge and experience of unity , Frankfurt am Main 1991, pp. 97, 129-138, 146-150; Werner Beierwaltes: Causa sui. Plotin's concept of the one as the origin of the thought of self-causation . In: John J. Cleary (Ed.): Traditions of Platonism , Aldershot 1999, pp. 191–226, here: 196–199; John Bussanich: Plotinus on the Inner Life of the One . In: Ancient Philosophy 7, 1987, pp. 163-189.
73. ↑ Euree Song: Ascent and Descent of the Soul , Göttingen 2009, pp. 24–33; Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of the One , Frankfurt a. M. 1985, pp. 145-147.
74. ↑ Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 23. See Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of One , Frankfurt a. M. 1985, pp. 123-147.
75. ↑ Pieter A. Meijer: Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9) , Amsterdam 1992, p. 304 and note 859.
76. ↑ On the use of the term, see Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of One , Frankfurt a. M. 1985, p. 123 note 1.
77. ↑ Plotin, Enneades VI 9, 11, 51; see. VI 7,34,7f. and I 6,7,7-10. See also Pieter A. Meijer: Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9) , Amsterdam 1992, pp. 157-162.
78. ^ Pieter A. Meijer: Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9) , Amsterdam 1992, pp. 309-311, 314.
79. ^ Zeke Mazur: Having Sex with the One: Erotic Mysticism in Plotinus and the Problem of Metaphor . In: Panayiota Vassilopoulou, Stephen RL Clark (Eds.): Late Antique Epistemology , Basingstoke 2009, pp. 67-83.
80. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotinus , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 14–16, 34–37.
81. ↑ For the common designation and evaluation of Plotinus as a mystic see Hubert Benz: 'Materie' und perception in the philosophy of Plotinus , Würzburg 1990, pp. XVI – XVIII note 1 (evidence).
82. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Plotin and the Neo-Platonism , Munich 2004, pp. 144–147; Jens Halfwassen: The one as unity and trinity . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 139, 1996, pp. 52–83, here: 57–61; Deirdre Carabine: The Unknown God. Negative Theology in the Platonic Tradition: Plato to Eriugena , Louvain 1995, pp. 156-160; Dirk Cürsgen: Henologie und Ontologie , Würzburg 2007, pp. 21–34; John M. Dillon: Porphyry's doctrine of the One . In: Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé u. a. (Ed.): Sophies maietores, “Chercheurs de sagesse”. Hommage à Jean Pépin , Paris 1992, pp. 356–366.
83. ^ Porphyrios, Vita Plotini 23.
84. ↑ Thomas Stäcker: The position of theurgy in the teaching of Jamblich , Frankfurt am Main 1995, pp. 33–38; Jens Halfwassen: The one as unity and trinity . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 139, 1996, pp. 52–83, here: 60–82.
85. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: The rise to one. Investigations on Plato and Plotin , 2nd edition, Munich 2006, pp. 114–117 and note 42; Jens Halfwassen: The one as unity and trinity . In: Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 139, 1996, pp. 52–83, here: 61–83.
86. ↑ See on this model Veronika Maria Roth: Das ewige Nun. A paradox in the philosophy of Proklos , Berlin 2008, pp. 76–110; Christoph Horn: Proklos. On the philosophical-historical position and the state of research . In: Matthias Perkams, Rosa Maria Piccione (Ed.): Proklos. Method, Seelenlehre, Metaphysik , Leiden 2006, pp. 7–34, here: 22–25.
87. ^ Proclus, In Platonis Parmenidem 1128.
88. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Plotin and the Neo-Platonism , Munich 2004, pp. 158-160.
89. ^ Proclus, In Platonis Parmenidem 1191.
90. ↑ On the light metaphysics of Proklos see Werner Beierwaltes: Proklos. Fundamentals of his Metaphysics , 2nd, extended edition, Frankfurt am Main 1979, pp. 287–294.
91. ↑ Dirk Cürsgen: Henologie und Ontologie , Würzburg 2007, pp. 275–279, 283f .; Jens Halfwassen: Plotin and the Neo-Platonism , Munich 2004, p. 160f .; Werner Beierwaltes: Thinking of One , Frankfurt am Main 1985, pp. 254–280; Werner Beierwaltes: Proklos. Basics of his Metaphysics , 2nd, extended edition, Frankfurt am Main 1979, pp. 275–382.
92. ↑ Proklos, On Providence, Fate and Free Will 31. See Werner Beierwaltes: Proklos. Basic features of his metaphysics , 2nd, extended edition, Frankfurt am Main 1979, pp. 364–366.
93. ↑ Christoph Horn: Proklos. On the philosophical-historical position and the state of research . In: Matthias Perkams, Rosa Maria Piccione (Ed.): Proklos. Method, Seelenlehre, Metaphysik , Leiden 2006, pp. 7–34, here: 27.
94. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Plotin and the Neo-Platonism , Munich 2004, p. 162f .; Dirk Cürsgen: Henologie und Ontologie , Würzburg 2007, pp. 317–359; Philippe Hoffmann: L'expression de l'indicible dans le neoplatonisme grec de Plotin à Damascius . In: Carlos Lévy, Laurent Pernot (eds.): Dire l'évidence , Paris 1997, pp. 335-390, here: 338-340, 376-386.
95. ↑ On the tension, see Klaus Kremer: The “Why” of creation: “quia bonus” vel / et “quia voluit”? In: Kurt Flasch (Ed.): Parusia , Frankfurt am Main 1965, pp. 241–264.
96. ↑ On Neoplatonism in the theology of Pseudo-Dionysius see Werner Beierwaltes: Dionysios Areopagites - a Christian Proclus? In: Theo Kobusch , Burkhard Mojsisch (Hrsg.): Platon in der Abendländischen Geistesgeschichte , Darmstadt 1997, pp. 71-100; Sarah Klitenic Wear, John M. Dillon: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Neoplatonist Tradition. Despoiling the Hellenes , Aldershot 2007.
97. ↑ Klaus Kremer: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Being and its Effect on Thomas Aquinas , Leiden 1971, pp. 321-324; Christian Schäfer: Μονή, πρόοδος and ἐπιστροφή in the philosophy of Proclus and the Areopagite Dionysius . In: Matthias Perkams, Rosa Maria Piccione (Ed.): Proklos. Method, Seelenlehre , Metaphysik , Leiden 2006, pp. 340–362.
98. ↑ Eriugena, Periphyseon III 674C: deus est enim unum multiplex in se ipso . On Eriugena's concept, see Kurt Flasch: Die Metaphysik des Eins in Nikolaus von Kues , Leiden 1973, pp. 142–144.
99. ↑ Kurt Flasch: Eine (das), Einheit. II. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 367–377; Jan A. Aertsen: Ontology and Henology in Medieval Philosophy (Thomas Aquinas, Master Eckhart and Berthold of Moosburg) . In: Egbert P. Bos, Pieter A. Meijer (eds.): On Proclus and his Influence in Medieval Philosophy , Leiden 1992, pp. 120-140.
100. ↑ See Mauritius Wilde: The new image of the image of God. Image and theology in Meister Eckhart , Freiburg (Switzerland) 2000, p. 221.
101. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 52, The German Works , Vol. 2, pp. 502–505 = Niklaus Largier (Ed.): Meister Eckhart: Werke , Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 560–563.
102. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 109, The German Works , Vol. 4/2, p. 772: God works, God does not work. (...) God and deity are differentiated by working and non-working. See Michel Henry : The inner structure of immanence and the problem of its understanding as revelation: Meister Eckhart. In: Rolf Kühn , Sébastien Laoureux (ed.): Meister Eckhart - Knowledge and Mysticism of Life , Freiburg 2008, pp. 13–33, here: 27f.
103. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 48, The German Works , Vol. 2, pp. 420f. = Niklaus Largier (Ed.): Meister Eckhart: Werke , Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 508f .; Sermon 2, The German Works , Vol. 1, pp. 43f. = Largier edition, Vol. 1, pp. 34-37; Sermon 42, The German Works , Vol. 2, p. 309 = Largier edition, Vol. 1, p. 456f.
104. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 2, Die deutscher Werke , Vol. 1, p. 43 = Niklaus Largier (Ed.): Meister Eckhart: Werke , Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1993, p. 34f. Regarding the Trinity, Eckhart remarks in this sermon: Rather, just as he is a single one, devoid of all manner and peculiarity, he is neither father nor son nor holy spirit in this sense and yet is something that is neither this nor that ( Die German works , vol. 1, p. 44).
105. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 83, The German Works , Vol. 3, pp. 442f. = Niklaus Largier (Ed.): Meister Eckhart: Werke , Vol. 2, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 190–193. For the deity as “nothing” or “nothingness” see Burkhard Mojsisch: Meister Eckhart , Hamburg 1983, p. 106f.
106. ↑ Meister Eckhart, Sermon 51, The German Works , Vol. 2, pp. 476f. = Niklaus Largier (Ed.): Meister Eckhart: Werke , Vol. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1993, pp. 548f. Cf. Rodrigo Guerizoli: The internalization of the divine. A study of the cycle of the birth of God and the sermon of poverty, Meister Eckharts , Leiden 2006, pp. 104–111.
107. ↑ For the argumentation in this discussion, see Maude Vanhaelen: L'Être et l'Un à la Renaissance: la réfutation du De Ente et Uno de Pic dans l'In Parmenidem de Ficin . In: Michèle Broze et al. (Ed.): Ἀλλ 'εὖ μοι κατάλεξον… “Mais raconte-moi en détail…” , Paris 2008, pp. 623–635; Jean-Marc Narbonne: Hénologie, ontologie et event , Paris 2001, pp. 44–60.
108. ↑ Kurt Flasch: Eine (das), Einheit. II. In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 2, Basel 1972, Sp. 367–377, here: 376f.
109. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Hegel and the late antique Neo-Platonism , Bonn 1999, pp. 177, 180-183, 196.
110. ↑ Jens Halfwassen: Hegel and the late antique Neo-Platonism , Bonn 1999, pp. 175–196.
111. ↑ Venanz Schubert: Plotin , Freiburg 1973, pp. 14-18; Jens Halfwassen: Hegel and the late antique Neo-Platonism , Bonn 1999, pp. 273–298.

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