Metaphysics and Hermeneutics in the Medieval Platonic Tradition

Stephen Gersh

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367481223
• eBook ISBN: 9781000210675
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Metaphysics and Hermeneutics in the Medieval Platonic Tradition consists of twelve essays originally published between 2006 and 2015, dealing with main trends and specific figures within the medieval Platonic tradition.

Three essays provide general surveys of the transmission of late ancient thought to the Middle Ages with emphasis on the ancient authors, the themes, and their medieval readers, respectively. The remaining essays deal especially with certain major figures in the Platonic tradition, including pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Iohannes Scottus Eriugena, and Nicholas of Cusa. The principal conceptual aim of the collection is to establish the primacy of hermeneutics within the philosophical program developed by these authors: in other words, to argue that their philosophical activity, substantially albeit not exclusively, consists of the reading and evaluation of authoritative texts. The essays also argue that the role of hermeneutics varies in the course of the tradition between being a means towards the development of metaphysical theory and being an integral component of metaphysics itself. In addition, such changes in the status and application of hermeneutics to metaphysics are shown to be accompanied by a shift from emphasizing the connection between logic and philosophy to emphasizing that between rhetoric and philosophy. The collection of essays fills in a lacuna in the history of philosophy in general between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries. It also initiates a dialogue between the metaphysical hermeneutics of medieval Platonism and certain modern theories of hermeneutics, structuralism, and deconstruction.

The book will be of special interest to students of the classical tradition in western thought, and more generally to students of medieval philosophy, theology, history, and literature. (CS1094).

1
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY BECOMES MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

[894] Any attempt to describe and understand the transition between ancient and medieval philosophy is immediately confronted by the enormous quantity of writings to be evaluated and by the complexity of their interrelations. In the face of such a challenge, certain methodological premises guiding the selection of authors, texts, and themes must be established, even if that selection can only be fully justified at the conclusion of the project. The analysis to be undertaken here will employ the following explicit criteria.

First, the authors of the texts transmitted and their privileged themes will be used as the basis for investigating the readers of the transmitted texts and their privileged themes rather than the reverse. To provide some concrete examples, we will employ the ancient writer Calcidius’ presentation of the three principles of Platonism as a starting point for the discussion of Hugh of St. Victor’s medieval treatment of the same topic, or the ancient writer Boethius’ definitions of nature as a starting point for Iohannes Scottus Eriugena’s treatment of the same issue during the ninth century, or again the ancient writer Proclus’ placing of the One beyond Being as a starting point for Berthold of Moosburg’s medieval treatment of the same question. Discussion of the actual medieval context of such philosophical questions in a systematic or chronological manner will not be our primary concern.

Secondly, the emphasis will be placed on secular rather than Christian writings, on the writings of post-classical rather than classical antiquity, and on the writings of Platonists rather than Aristotelians. In other words, we will discuss – in terms of their medieval afterlife – late ancient commentaries on Plato written by Platonists such as the Commentarius in Timaeum of Calcidius, certain independent treatises exhibiting Platonic tendencies like Proclus’ Elementatio Theologica, and late ancient commentaries on Aristotle written by Platonists such as the Commentarius in De Interpretatione of Boethius, these works being either written originally in Latin or translated into Latin from Greek. In dealing with the transformation of ancient philosophy into medieval philosophy, it is nevertheless important to remember that medieval thinkers always read their secular, [895] post-classical, and Platonic sources in combination with certain Christian, post-classical, and Platonic sources. By far the most important among these were Augustine and (pseudo-) Dionysius the Areopagite.¹

1 We shall note later a few places where the influence of these Christian writers combines with that of the secular Platonists in significant ways (see pp. 897 and 898 on Augustine and p, 908–909 and 911 on Dionysius). To summarize briefly: A (With regard to methodology) Augustine established the propaedeutic role of secular scientia towards Christian sapientia, and the concept that Platonism and Christianity agree on fundamental questions. Dionysius conferred apostolic authority on (crypto-) Platonic Christian theology. B (With regard to doctrine) Both writers accept the substantiality and immortality of the human soul and the providential order of creation. Augustine emphasized the dichotomy of intelligible and sensible, the parallel continua between good/being and evil/non-being, the notion of creation with time rather than in time, and the trinitarian structure of created things. Dionysius introduced a more radical transcendence of God, the formalized dichotomy of affirmative and negative theology, the formalized dichotomy of the procession and reversion of the created things, and triadic structure of the angelic world. It is usually against a backdrop of these assumptions that medieval thinkers understood what they read in Calcidius, Boethius, or Proclus.

Application of these criteria leads to a methodological division of this essay into three main sections dealing with the influence on medieval philosophy of the late ancient writers Calcidius, Boethius, and Proclus, respectively. This ordering conflicts with the chronological order of the late ancient authors themselves – which should rather be Calcidius, Proclus, Boethius – but is necessary in order to take account of the pattern of medieval reception. The essay will conclude with a fourth section dealing with the influence of various late ancient writers whose influence on medieval philosophy is less than that of the main group but still worthy of note.²

2 The best methodological introduction to the study of the medieval Platonic tradition is probably still Klibansky 1982 (1939) – to which one must now add the collection of essays in Gersh and Hoenen 2002. In the absence of a complete large scale history, Garin 1958, Gregory 1958, Beierwaltes 1985 contain excellent surveys of specific areas. Faes de Mottoni 1979 provides a useful brief introduction with a selection of texts. Beierwaltes 1969 is a collection of classic essays by various hands. On the late ancient Latin sources of the tradition, see Gersh 1986.

I Calcidius

The influence of ideas from Calcidius’ Commentarius in Timaeum can be found mostly in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with some earlier traces.³ For the purposes of this analysis, we should particularly take account of Calcidius’ doctrines regarding the three principles, the distinction between higher and lower forms, the origin of the world, the relation between the world soul and the Holy Spirit, the relation between the world soul and the human soul, and the relation between macrocosm and microcosm.

3 There is no adequate survey of the influence of Calcidius during the Middle Ages. This is probably because the fortuna of Calcidius’ commentary has been viewed as inextricable from that of the Latin Timaeus itself. On this combination, see Mensching 1965, Gibson 1969, Jeauneau 1975, 22–23, 27ff., Bakhouche 1997, Dutton 1997.

When Calcidius speaks of the three principles: God (deus), Matter (silva), Exemplar (exemplum),⁴ he is following a doctrine elaborated within the doxographical tradition with respect to the Timaeus. However, his version of the traditional teaching is more developed because a technical definition of a principle as simple, without quality, and eternal justifies the choice of these three terms. It is also more developed [896] because the mode of discovering these principles in general is specified as the process of resolution (resolutio) – a movement from sensible, temporal, prior for us, and posterior in nature to their opposites.⁵ Moreover, the mode of studying the principles is specified either as resolution – abstraction by the mind of qualities, quantities, and shapes from sensible objects – in the case of Matter, or else as composition (compositio) – extrapolation by the mind from the order inherent in such objects to existence of their transcendent cause – in the case of God and Exemplar.⁶ When taken at face-value, the triadic system of principles seems to imply that Matter is not created by God and that the Exemplar is external to him. It was therefore frequently cited as the quintessential Platonic teaching by medieval writers like Hugh of St. Victor⁷ who wished to separate this philosophy clearly from Christianity.

4 Commentarius in Timaeum 307. 308. 14–309. 2.

5 Ibid. 302. 303. 15–304. 17.

6 Ibid. 302. 303. 9–306. 10.

7 See Adnotationes Elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon, in Genesim 4, 33AB, De Sacramentis I. 1. 1, 187AB, Didascalicon II. 5, 29. 19–23.

Another passage in Calcidius’ commentary⁸ discusses a different triad occurring in Plato’s text: namely, that of idea (idea), native form (species nativa), and matter (silva). The second member of this triad – corresponding to the sensible form entering the Receptacle as opposed to the intelligible form or archetype – aroused considerable interest during the twelfth century, given that it seemed to facilitate the reconciliation between Aristotelian and Platonic notions of form and also – via the etymological connection between nativa and natura – the emphasis upon quasi-autonomous natural processes which was desired by many contemporary thinkers. Thus, Bernard of Chartres attributes to unnamed commentators the doctrine that certain native forms (nativae formae) were combined by God with matter in the original cosmic confusion⁹ and even criticizes Calcidius for suggesting that the primal elements resulted from the combinat...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Ancient philosophy becomes medieval philosophy
• 2 Philosophy and humanism
• 3 The first principles of Latin Neoplatonism
• 4 Non-discursive thinking in medieval platonism
• 5 The pseudonymity of Dionysius the Areopagite and the Platonic tradition
• 6 Dionysius’ On Divine Names and Proclus’ Platonic Theology
• 7 Eriugena’s fourfold contemplation
• 8 Eriugena and the order of the primordial causes
• 9 Eriugena and Heidegger: an encounter
• 10 Nicholas of Cusa and the historical Plato
• 11 Nicholas of Cusa’s rewriting of the Anselmian Proslogion
• 12 Nicholas of Cusa as summation and singularity
• Name index
• Subject index