Methexis

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Methexis ( Greek μέθεξις “participation”, rarely translated as “participation”) is a term from ancient philosophy . It is used in metaphysics to describe the relationship between things and their determinations or, in general, between ontological entities that have similarities. The corresponding verb is called metéchein (to have a share, to participate, literally: to have with). The word Methexis comes from everyday language ; it received its philosophical meaning from Plato . In Latin it is rendered with participatio , in English with participation . That is why one speaks of “ participation ”, but this word also has other meanings that have nothing to do with Methexis in the philosophical sense.

Ontological requirements

In the hierarchically ordered ontological systems of Plato and the Platonists , the general is generally higher than the particular and the individual. A relationship between something more general and something more specific is based on the fact that the more general is the archetype and generating entity, the more specific its image and product and as such is relatively imperfect. There is a participation relationship between them. The participation relationship between the more specific participant and the more general, in which it “participates”, is characterized by the fact that the more specific, with certain restrictions, has the nature of the more general and is thus to a certain extent “involved” in its nature. But because it does not have this nature in its entirety, but only in a relatively incomplete, imperfect way, and because it also has other determinations, it is not essentially or identical to that in which it participates.

What is higher in each case produces the inferior by allowing certain aspects of its own being to come to it, insofar as the naturally limited capacity of the inferior to accept and realize this allows. This means that the lower partakes of the higher. Participation also refers to the fact that the ontologically lower owes its existence to the higher.

The participation concept in Plato's theory of ideas

To present his theory of ideas, Plato needs the terms methexis and metechein , preferring the verb. He uses it to describe the relationship between the individual things in the world of the senses and the Platonic ideas. “Things” in this sense are not only material objects, but also events and actions. According to the doctrine of ideas, ideas are not mere representations in the human mind, but form an independent, objectively existing metaphysical reality. They are the archetypes according to which the individual things are shaped in the sensually perceptible world. It is to them that things owe the entirety of their properties. For example, a big thing is big not because of its own nature, but because of its participation in the idea of ​​size. As images, things have a part in their archetypes, each thing in several ideas and in every idea a multitude of things. Every thing is constituted through its various participatory relationships. It participates in as many ideas as it exhibits properties. The extent of participation varies, it depends on the nature of the participant. In addition, the participation of a thing in a certain idea is not constant in some cases; it can grow and decrease, begin and end through changes in the participant. There is a kind of participation that is inseparable from the essence of a thing (for example the participation of the immortal soul in life), and an only temporary participation that arises or disappears (for example the participation of a body in rest or movement).

The idea of ​​participation is intended to make the connection between ideas and things in the sensory world understandable. However, this concept leads to a number of problems which are discussed but not resolved in Plato's Dialogue Parmenides . For the time being, it is not possible to answer the question of the nature of the participation of the phenomenally given in the ideas without contradiction. In late dialogues, Plato no longer used the term participation for the relationship between things and ideas, but characterized it as imitation ( mímēsis ).

While with things the participation on the part of the participant is a purely passive absorption of characteristics, with people, when they participate in the ideas of individual virtues, the participant takes an active role in so far as he strives to achieve virtue.

Another type of participation concerns correspondences between entities, where the point is not that something ontologically lower participates in the higher. Of this kind are commonalities between the ideas themselves. Plato also regards such relationships as relationships of participation, whereby he also assumes mutual participation. In these cases there is also talk of community ( koinōnía ). This raises the special question of the participation of an idea in itself (“self-predication”). Self-predication (for example, the statement “The idea of ​​beauty is itself beautiful”) leads to difficulties in the theory of ideas, which are known as the argumentation of the “third man”.

Aristotle's conception

Aristotle , who rejects the theory of ideas of his teacher Plato, also renounces the associated notion of participation. He thinks that participation is not a philosophical term because there is no clear definition for it. The expression is useless for a philosophical argument, it is only an empty word and a poetic metaphor , the meaning of which Plato had not investigated. However, Aristotle occasionally uses the verb metechein (to have a share). In his Topik he defines it as “taking the definition of what is part of it”. What is meant is that all characteristics that make up the concept of what is involved are also characteristics of the participant. For example, the species “human” is part of the genus “living being” because all the characteristics that make up the term “living being” are also characteristics of human beings. Conversely, however, the genus “living beings” does not have a share in the “human” species because not all human characteristics are also its characteristics. According to the teaching of Aristotle, only something lower, endowed with more features, can participate in the higher, determined by fewer features, for example an individual in its species or a species in a species.

According to Aristotle, living beings reproduce "so that they may share in the eternal and divine as far as they can". Individuals as such are not able to participate in this way because they are perishable, but they can at least enable their respective types to continue.

Neoplatonism

In Neo-Platonism Plato's concept of participation is being taken. Plotinus attributes all similarities between different things to the fact that they each share in the same idea. Participation multiplies the common characteristic that they share and thus enables its widespread appearance. So everything that is has a share in being, which Plotinus equates with the cosmic nous (world reason), and all beautiful things are beautiful through their participation in the idea of ​​the beautiful; this participation causes them to agree with one another in this regard. In the participant what it participates in is present. The principle that the participant must show the essence of the person in whom he participates and who is therefore present in him is important for Plotin's theodicy . He points out that the whole of the sensually perceptible cosmos participates in the divinity that is present in it. Hence its essence cannot be fundamentally opposed to the essence of the deity. So the cosmos cannot be bad. There could be no anti-divine principle in it, as the Gnostics believed, whose doctrine of an inherently bad cosmos Plotinus fights.

In his Isagoge , a textbook on logic, Plotin's pupil Porphyrios , who built Aristotelian logic into the Neoplatonic doctrine, interprets the membership of individuals in a species as participation in it.

The influential Neo-Platonist Proklos from late antiquity established the principle that the type and extent of participation depends on the participant. This principle is later taken up by Boethius and is therefore common in medieval philosophy. In addition to the participant and the person in whom it participates, Proklos assumes a third, higher-ranking element, the unparticipated ( to améthekton ). It stands ontologically above the participatory in which the participant participates. With this model Proclus counters objections to the Methexis doctrine. He considers the Platonic idea itself to be non-participatory, the participatory serves as a link between it and the participating things.

In Christian theology, the influential late antique writer Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita in particular ties in with the Neoplatonic concept of participation. It is about the participation of the creatures in the Creator.

literature

  • Francesco Fronterotta: ΜΕΘΕΧΙΣ. La teoria platonica delle idee e la partecipazione delle cose empiriche. Dai dialoghi giovanili al Parmenide . Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa 2001, ISBN 88-7642-099-1
  • Andreas Graeser : Plato's theory of ideas. Language, logic and metaphysics. An introduction . Haupt, Bern 1975, ISBN 3-258-01168-0 , pp. 79-100 (representation from the perspective of modern logic)
  • Helmut Meinhardt: Participation in Plato. A contribution to the understanding of Platonic principle thinking with special consideration of the "Sophist". Karl Alber, Freiburg 1968
  • Veronika Roth, Christian Schäfer: Teilhabe / Participation (metochê, methexis) . In: Christian Schäfer (Ed.): Platon-Lexikon. Term dictionary on Plato and the Platonic tradition . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 978-3-534-17434-8 , pp. 277-282
  • Rolf Schönberger : Participation . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 10, Schwabe, Basel 1998, Sp. 961–969

Remarks

  1. For the approach and direction of Plato's participation concept, see Winfried Weier: Sinn und Teilhabe , Munich 1970, pp. 70–88; Knut Eming: The Flight into Thinking , Hamburg 1993, pp. 111–116.
  2. On the discussion of the Methexis concept in Parmenides see Christoph Ziermann: Platons negative Dialektik , Würzburg 2004, pp. 37–66, 386–418; Franz von Kutschera : Plato's “Parmenides” , New York 1995, pp. 24-29, 37-44, 58-64, 137-140; Francesco Fronterotta: ΜΕΘΕΧΙΣ , Pisa 2001, pp. 183-314.
  3. See the study by Béatrice Lienemann: The arguments of the third person in Plato's dialogue “Parmenides” , Göttingen 2010.
  4. Aristotle, Metaphysics 987b7-14, 991a20-22, 1079b24-26. Cf. Francesco Fronterotta: ΜΕΘΕΧΙΣ , Pisa 2001, pp. 397-412; Rolf Schönberger: Participation . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 10, Basel 1998, Sp. 961–969, here: 961.
  5. Aristotle, Topik 121a11-12.
  6. Aristoteles, Topik 121a12-19, 122a8-9, Metaphysik 1037b18-19. See Michael-Thomas Liske: methexis / Teilhabe . In: Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Aristoteles-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 459), Stuttgart 2005, pp. 354–356.
  7. Aristotle, De anima 415a25-415b7.
  8. ^ Rolf Schönberger: Participation . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 10, Basel 1998, Sp. 961–969, here: 962.
  9. Porphyrios, Isagoge 6.21-22 buses.
  10. ^ Proklos, Elements of Theology , Proposition 23 and 24. Cf. Dirk Cürsgen: Henologie und Ontologie , Würzburg 2007, pp. 59–74 (as well as on other aspects of Proklos' participation model pp. 175–188, 193–196); Rolf Schönberger: Participation . In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy , Volume 10, Basel 1998, Sp. 961–969, here: 962.