may not satisfy us, since it seems to be negative in character, and
not, as the negation of the negation, expressive of true affirmation.
Nevertheless, the Neo-platonists, and more especially Proclus,
regard the result arrived at in the Parmenides as the true theology,
as the true revelation of all the mysteries of the divine essence.
And it cannot be regarded as anything else, however little this may
at first appear, and though Tiedemann (Platon. Argumenta, p. 340)
speaks of these assertions as merely the wild extravagances of the
Neo-platonists. In fact, however, we understand by God the absolute
essence of things, which even in its simple Notion is the unity and
movement of these pure realities, the Ideas of the one and many,
&c. The divine essence is the Idea in general, as it is either for
sensuous consciousness or for thought. In as far as the divine Idea
is the absolute self-reflection, dialectic is nothing more than this
activity of self-reflection in itself; the Neo-Platonists regarded
this connection as metaphysical only, and have recognized in it their
theology, the unfolding of the secrets of the divine essence. But here
there appears the double interpretation already remarked upon (p.
19), which has now to be more clearly expounded. It is that God and
the essential reality of things may be understood in two different
ways. For, on the one hand, when it is said that the essential reality
of things is the unity of opposites, it would seem as though only
the immediate essence of these immediately objective things were
indicated, and as if this doctrine of real essence or ontology were
distinguished from the knowledge of God, or theology. These simple
realities and their relation and movement seem only to express moments
of the objective and not mind, because there is lacking in them one
element—that is to say, reflection into themselves—which we demand
for the existence of the divine essence. For mind, the truly absolute
essence, is not only the simple and immediate, but that which reflects
itself into itself, for which in its opposition the unity of itself
and of that which is opposed is; but these moments and their movement
do not present it as such, for they make their appearance as simple
abstractions. On the other hand, they may also be taken to be pure
Notions, which pertain purely to reflection into itself. In this case
Being is wanting to them, or what we likewise demand for reflection
into itself as essential to the divine essence; and then their movement
is esteemed an empty round of empty abstractions, which belong only to
reflection and have no reality. For the solution of this contradiction
we must know the nature of apprehension and knowledge, in order to
obtain in the Notion everything there present. Thus shall we have the
consciousness that the Notion is in truth neither the immediate only,
although it is the simple, nor merely that which reflects itself into
itself, the thing of consciousness; for it is of spiritual simplicity,
thus really existent—as it is thought turned back on itself, so it is
also Being in itself, _i.e._ objective Being, and consequently all
reality. Plato did not state this knowledge of the nature of the Notion
so expressly, nor did he say that this essential Being of things is the
same as the divine essence. But really it is simply not put into words,
for the fact is undoubtedly present, and the only distinction is one of
speech as between the mode of the ordinary conception and that of the
Notion. On the one hand, this reflection into itself, the spiritual,
the Notion, is present in the speculation of Plato; for the unity of
the one and many, &c., is just this individuality in difference, this
being-turned-back-within-itself in its opposite, this opposite which is
implicit; the essential reality of the world is really this movement
returning into itself of that which is turned back within itself. But,
on the other hand, for this very reason, this being reflected into
self—like the God of ordinary conception—still remains with Plato
something separated; and in his representation of the Becoming of
Nature in the Timæus, God, and the essential reality of things, appear
as distinguished.
_b._ In the Sophist Plato investigated the pure Notions or Ideas of
movement and rest, self-identity and other-being, Being and non-being.
He here proves, as against Parmenides, that non-being is, and likewise
that the simple self-identical partakes of other-being, and unity
of multiplicity. He says of the Sophists that they never get beyond
non-being, and he also refutes their whole ground-principle, which is
non-being, feeling, and the many. Plato has thus so determined the
true universal, that he makes it the unity of, for example, the one
and many, Being and non-being; but at the same time he has avoided, or
it was his endeavour to avoid, the double meaning which lies in our
talk of the unity of Being and nothing, &c. For in this expression
we emphasize the unity, and then the difference disappears, just as
if we merely abstracted from it. Plato tried, however, to preserve
the difference likewise. The Sophist is a further development of
Being and non-being, both of which are applicable to all things; for
because things are different, the one being the other of the other,
the determination of the negative is present. First of all, however,
Plato expresses in the Sophist a clearer consciousness of Ideas as
abstract universalities, and his conviction that this point of view
could not endure, because it was opposed to the unity of the Idea
with itself. Plato thus first refutes what is sensuous, and then even
the Ideas themselves. The first of these points of view is what is
later on called materialism, which makes the corporeal alone to be
the substantial, admitting nothing to have reality excepting what can
be laid hold of by the hand, such as rocks and oaks. “Let us,” says
Plato, in the second place, “proceed to the other, to the friends
of Ideas.” Their belief is that the substantial is incorporeal,
intellectual, and they separate from it the region of Becoming, of
change, into which the sensuous falls, while the universal is for
itself. These represent Ideas as immovable, and neither active nor
passive. Plato asserts, as against this, that movement, life, soul,
and thought, cannot be denied to true Being (παντελῶς ὄντι), and that
the holy reason (ἄγιον νοῦν) can be nowhere, and in nothing that is
unmoved.[36] Plato thus has a clear consciousness of having got further
than Parmenides when he says:—
“Keep your mind from this way of inquiry,
For never will you show that non-being is.”
Plato says that Being in anyone partakes both of Being and non-being;
but what thus participates is different both from Being and non-being
as such.[37]
This dialectic combats two things in particular; and in the first place
it is antagonistic to the common dialectic in the ordinary sense,
of which we have already spoken. Examples of this false dialectic
to which Plato often comes back, are specially frequent amongst the
Sophists; yet he did not show sufficiently clearly how they are
distinguished from the purely dialectical knowledge which is in the
Notion. For example, Plato expressed his dissent when Protagoras and
others said that no determination is absolutely certain—that bitter is
not objective, for what to one person is bitter, to another is sweet.
Similarly, large and small, more and less, &c., are relative, because
the large will be, in other circumstances, small, and the small will
be great. That is to say, the unity of opposites is present to us
in everything we know, but the common way of looking at things, in
which the rational does not come to consciousness, always holds the
opposites asunder, as though they were simply opposed in a determinate
way. As in each thing we demonstrate unity, so do we also show its
multiplicity, for it has many parts and qualities. In the Parmenides,
Plato, as we saw above (p. 58), objected to this unity of opposites,
because it must thereby be said that something is one in quite another
respect from that in which it is many. We thus do not here bring
these thoughts together, for the conception and the words merely go
backwards and forwards from the one to the other; if this passing to
and fro is performed with consciousness, it is the empty dialectic
which does not really unite the opposites. Of this Plato says, “If
anyone thinks he has made a wonderful discovery in ascertaining that
he can drag thoughts this way and that, from one determination to
another, he may be told that he has done nothing worthy of praise; for
in so doing there is nothing excellent or difficult.” The dialectic
that annuls a determination because it reveals in it some defect,
and then goes on to establish another, is thus wrong. “The point of
difficulty, and what we ought to aim at, is to show that what is the
other is the same, and what is the same, is another, and likewise in
the same regard and from the same point of view to show that the one
has in them come into existence if the other determination is revealed
within them. But to show that somehow the same is another, and the
other also the same, that the great is also small” (_e.g._ Protagoras’s
die), “and the like also unlike, and to delight in thus always proving
opposites, is no true inquiry (ἔλενχος), but simply proves that he who
uses such arguments is a neophyte,” in thought, “who has just begun
to investigate truth. To separate all existences from one another is
the crude attempt of an uncultured and unphilosophical mind. To cause
everything to fall asunder means the perfect annihilation of all
thought, for thought is the union of ideas.”[38] Thus Plato expressly
speaks against the dialectic of showing how anything may be refuted
from some point of view or another. We see that Plato, in respect of
content, expresses nothing excepting what is called indifference in
difference, the difference of absolute opposites and their unity. To
this speculative knowledge he opposes the ordinary way of thinking,
which is positive as well as negative; the former, not bringing the
thoughts together, allows first one and then the other to have value in
their separation; the latter is, indeed, conscious of a unity, though
it is of a superficial, differentiating unity in which the two moments
are separate, as standing in different aspects.
The second point against which Plato argues is the dialectic of the
Eleatics, and their assertion, which in its nature resembles that of
the Sophists, that only Being is, and non-being is not. To the Sophists
this means, as Plato puts it: Since the negative is not, but only Being
is, there is nothing false; everything existent, everything which is
for us, is thus necessarily true, and what is not, we do not know
or feel. Plato reproaches the Sophists for thus doing away with the
difference between true and false.[39] Having arrived at this stage
in the knowledge of the dialectic (and the whole matter is merely a
difference of stages) the Sophists could allow what they promise—that
everything that the individual, according to his belief, makes his end
and interest, is affirmative and right. Hence it cannot be said that
such and such an act is wrong, wicked, a crime; for this would be to
say that the maxim of the action is wrong. No more can it be said that
such and such opinion is deceptive, for in the opinion of the Sophists
the proposition implies that what I feel or represent to myself, in as
far as it is mine, is an affirmative content, and thus true and right.
The proposition in itself seems quite abstract and innocent, but we
first notice what is involved in such abstractions when we see them
in concrete form. According to this innocent proposition there would
be no wickedness and no crime. The Platonic dialectic is essentially
different from this kind of dialectic.
What is further present to the mind of Plato is that the Idea, the
absolute universal, good, true, and beautiful, is to be taken for
itself. The myth, which I have already quoted (p. 27 _et seq._), indeed
goes to prove that we must not consider a good action, a noble man—not
the subject of which these determinations are predicated. For that
which appears in such conceptions or perceptions as predicate, must be
taken for itself, and this is the absolute truth. This tallies with
the nature of the dialectic which has been described. An action, taken
in accordance with the empirical conception, may be called right; in
another aspect, quite opposite determinations may be shown to be in it.
But the good and true must be taken on their own account without such
individualities, without this empirical and concrete character; and
the good and true thus taken alone, constitute that which is. The soul
which, according to the divine drama, is found in matter, rejoices in
a beautiful and just object; but the only actual truth is in absolute
virtue, justice, and beauty. It is thus the universal for itself which
is further determined in the Platonic dialectic; of this several forms
appear, but these forms are themselves still very general and abstract.
Plato’s highest form is the identity of Being and non-being. The true
is that which is, but this Being is not without negation. Plato’s
object is thus to show that non-being is an essential determination in
Being, and that the simple, self-identical, partakes of other-being.
This unity of Being and non-being is also found in the Sophists; but
this alone is not the end of the matter. For in further investigation
Plato comes to the conclusion that non-being, further determined, is
the essence of the ‘other’: “Ideas mingle, and Being and the other
(θάτερον) go through everything and through one another; the other,
because it participates (μετασχόν) in Being, certainly _is_ through
this indwelling Being, but it is not identical with that of which it
partakes, being something different, and being other than Being, it is
clearly non-being. But since Being likewise partakes of other-being,
it also is different from other Ideas, and is not any one of them; so
that there are thousands of ways in which it is not, and as regards
all else, whether looked at individually or collectively, it in many
respects is, and in many respects is not.”[40] Plato thus maintains
that the other, as the negative, non-identical, is likewise in one and
the same respect the self-identical; there are not different sides
which are in mutual opposition.
These are the principal points in Plato’s peculiar dialectic. The
fact that the Idea of the divine, eternal, beautiful, is absolute
existence, is the beginning of the elevation of consciousness into the
spiritual, and into the consciousness that the universal is true. It
may be enough for the ordinary idea to be animated and satisfied by the
conception of the beautiful and good, but thinking knowledge demands
the determination of this eternal and divine. And this determination
is really only free determination which certainly does not prevent
universality—a limitation (for every determination is limitation) which
likewise leaves the universal in its infinitude free and independent.
Freedom exists only in a return into itself; the undistinguished is the
lifeless; the active, living, concrete universal is hence what inwardly
distinguishes itself, but yet remains free in so doing. Now this
determinateness consists in the one being identical with itself in the
other, in the many, in what is distinguished. This constitutes the only
truth, and the only interest for knowledge in what is called Platonic
philosophy, and if this is not known, the main point of it is not
known. While in the example already often quoted (pp. 58, 64),[41] in
which Socrates is both one and many, the two thoughts are made to fall
asunder, it is left to speculative thought alone to bring the thoughts
together, and this union of what is different, of Being and non-being,
of one and many, &c., which takes place without a mere transition from
one to another, constitutes the inmost reality and true greatness of
Platonic philosophy. This determination is the esoteric element in
Platonic philosophy, and the other is the exoteric; the distinction is
doubtless an unwarranted one, indicating, as it seems to do, that Plato
could have two such philosophies—one for the world, for the people, and
the other, the inward, reserved for the initiated. But the esoteric
is the speculative, which, even though written and printed, is yet,
without being any secret, hidden from those who have not sufficient
interest in it to exert themselves. To this esoteric portion pertain
the two dialogues hitherto considered, along with which the Philebus
may in the third place be taken.
_c._ In the Philebus Plato investigates the nature of pleasure;
and the opposition of the infinite and finite, or of the unlimited
(ἄπειρον) and limiting (πέρας), is there more especially dealt with. In
keeping this before us, it would scarcely occur to us that through the
metaphysical knowledge of the nature of the infinite and undetermined,
what concerns enjoyment is likewise determined; but these pure thoughts
are the substantial through which everything, however concrete or
seemingly remote, is decided. When Plato treats of pleasure and wisdom
as contrasted, it is the opposition of finite and infinite. By pleasure
we certainly represent to ourselves the immediately individual, the
sensuous; but pleasure is the indeterminate in respect that it is the
merely elementary, like fire and water, and not the self-determining.
Only the Idea is the self-determinate, or self-identity. To our
reflection the infinite appears to be what is best and highest,
limitation being inferior to it; and ancient philosophers so
determined it. By Plato, however, it is, on the other hand, shown
that the limited is the true, as the self-determining, while the
unlimited is still abstract; it certainly can be determined in many
different ways, but when thus determined it is only the individual. The
infinite is the formless; free form as activity is the finite, which
finds in the infinite the material for self-realization. Plato thus
characterizes enjoyment dependent on the senses as the unlimited which
does not determine itself; reason alone is the active determination.
But the infinite is what in itself passes over to the finite; thus
the perfect good, according to Plato, is neither to be sought for in
happiness or reason, but in a life of both combined. But wisdom, as
limit, is the true cause from which what is excellent arises.[42] As
that which posits measure and end, it is what absolutely determines the
end—the immanent determination with which and in which freedom likewise
brings itself into existence.
Plato further considers the fact that the true is the identity of
opposites, thus. The infinite, as the indeterminate, is capable of
a more or less, it may be more intensive or not; thus colder and
warmer, drier and moister, quicker and slower, &c., are all such.
What is limited is the equal, the double, and every other measure; by
this means the opposite ceases to be unlike and becomes uniform and
harmonious. Through the unity of these opposites, such as cold and
warm, dry and moist, health arises; similarly the harmony of music
takes its origin from the limitation of high tones and deep, of quicker
and slower movement, and, generally speaking, everything beautiful
and perfect arises through the union of opposites. Health, happiness,
beauty, &c., would thus appear to be begotten, in as far as the
opposites are allied thereto, but they are likewise an intermingling
of the same. The ancients make copious use of intermingling,
participation, &c., instead of individuality; but for us these are
indefinite and inadequate expressions. But Plato says that the third,
which is thus begotten, pre-supposes the cause or that from which it is
formed; this is more excellent than those through whose instrumentality
that third arose. Hence Plato has four determinations; first the
unlimited, the undetermined; secondly the limited, measure, proportion,
to which pertains wisdom; the third is what is mingled from both, what
has only arisen; the fourth is cause. This is in itself nothing else
than the unity of differences, subjectivity, power and supremacy over
opposites, that which is able to sustain the opposites in itself;
but it is only the spiritual which has this power and which sustains
opposition, the highest contradiction in itself. Weak corporeality
passes away as soon as ‘another’ comes into it. The cause he speaks
of is divine reason, which governs the world; the beauty of the world
which is present in air, fire, water, and in all that lives, is
produced thereby.[43] Thus the absolute is what in one unity is finite
and infinite.
When Plato speaks thus of the beautiful and good, these are concrete
ideas, or rather there is only one idea. But we are still far
from these concrete ideas when we begin with such abstractions as
Being, non-being, unity, and multiplicity. If Plato, however, has
not succeeded in bringing these abstract thoughts through further
development and concretion, to beauty, truth, and morality, there at
least lies in the knowledge of those abstract determinations, the
criterion by which the concrete is determined, as also its sources.
This transition to the concrete is made in the Philebus, since the
principle of feeling and of pleasure is there considered. The ancient
philosophers knew very well what they had of concrete in those
abstract thoughts. In the atomic principle of multiplicity we thus
find the source of a construction of the state, for the ultimate
thought-determination of such state-principles is the logical. The
ancients in their pure Philosophy had not the same end in view as
we—they had not the end of a metaphysical sequence placed before them
like a problem. We, on the other hand, have something concrete before
us, and desire to reduce it to settled order. With Plato Philosophy
offers the path which the individual must follow in order to attain
to any knowledge, but, generally speaking, Plato places absolute and
explicit happiness, the blessed life itself, in the contemplation
during life of the divine objects named above.[44] This contemplative
life seems aimless, for the reason that all its interests have
disappeared. But to live in freedom in the kingdom of thought had
become the absolute end to the ancients, and they knew that freedom
existed only in thought.
2. PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE.
With Plato Philosophy likewise commenced to devote more attention
to the understanding of what is further determined, and in this way
the matter of knowledge began to fall into divisions. In the Timæus
the Idea thus makes its appearance as expressed in its concrete
determinateness, and the Platonic Philosophy of Nature hence teaches
us to have a better knowledge of the reality of the world; we cannot,
however, enter into details, and if we did, they have little interest.
It is more especially where Plato treats of physiology that his
statements in no way correspond with what we now know, although we
cannot fail to wonder at the brilliant glimpses of the truth there
found, which have been only too much misconceived by the moderns.
Plato derived a great deal from the Pythagoreans; how much is theirs,
however, cannot be satisfactorily determined. We remarked before (p.
14) that the Timæus is really the fuller version of a Pythagorean
treatise; other would-be wise persons have indeed said that the
treatise is only an abstract made by a Pythagorean of the larger
work of Plato, but the first theory is the more probable. The Timæus
has in all times been esteemed the most difficult and obscure of the
Platonic dialogues. This difficulty is due in part to the apparent
mingling of conceiving knowledge and ordinary perception already
mentioned (p. 20), just as we shall presently find an intermingling
of Pythagorean numbers; and it is due still more to the philosophic
nature of the matter in hand, of which Plato was as yet unconscious.
The second difficulty lies in the arrangement of the whole, for what
at once strikes one is that Plato repeatedly breaks off the thread of
his argument, often appearing to turn back and begin again from the
beginning.[45] This moved critics such as August Wolff and others, who
could not understand it philosophically, to take the Timæus to be an
accumulation of fragments put together, or else to be several works
which had only been loosely strung together into one, or into the
Platonic portion of which much that is foreign had been introduced.
Wolff accordingly thought it was evident from this that the dialogue,
like Homer’s poems, had been, in its first form, spoken and not
written. But although the connection seems unmethodical, and Plato
himself makes what maybe called copious excuses for the confusion, we
shall find how the whole matter really falls into natural divisions,
and we shall also find the deep inward reason which makes necessary the
frequent return to what apparently is the beginning.