Self-Intellection and its Epistemological Origins in Ancient Greek Thought

Ian M. Crystal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9780754630579
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351901246
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ancient History

Can the intellect or the intellectual faculty be its own object of thought, or can it not think or apprehend itself? This book explores the ancient treatments of the question of self-intellection - an important theme in ancient epistemology and of considerable interest to later philosophical thought. The manner in which the ancients dealt with the intellect apprehending itself, took them into both the metaphysical and epistemological domains with reflections on questions of thinking, identity and causality. Ian Crystal traces the origins from which the concept of self-intellection springs, by examining Plato's account of the epistemic subject and the emergence of self-intellection through the Aristotelian account, before the final part of the book explores the problem of how the intellect apprehends itself, and its resolution including Plotinus' reformulation and the dilemma raised by Sextus Empiricus. Crystal concludes that Plotinus recasts the metaphysical structures of Plato and Aristotle in such a way that he casts the concept of self-intellection in an entirely new light and offers a solution to the problem.

PART I

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ORIGINS

Chapter 1

Parmenides on Intellection¹

With the dilemma surrounding self-intellection having been sketched out in the Introduction, I want now to go back and attempt to trace the origins and genesis of this problematic epistemological concept. This is by no means meant to imply that each author examined from the outset will deal explicitly with the question of whether or not the intellect or the part of the soul that thinks can have itself as an object of thought. Rather, with the development of their respective epistemological accounts and the manner in which these accounts influence one another, an interest in whether and how the intellect can be its own object of intellection will begin to emerge. The importance in tracing the origins of this concept back to earlier thinkers who did not explicitly address the question of whether the intellect or intellectual part of the soul could be its own object of thought is that their epistemologies contribute to and inform the nature of debate surrounding the notion of self-intellection.

My point of departure will be the Poem of Parmenides, concentrating primarily on the first half of the poem, The Way of Truth (Fragments 1-8). The reason for beginning with Parmenides is two-fold, historical and conceptual.

On the historical front, with Parmenides we have for the first time a philosopher clearly attempting to articulate an outline of what constitutes a thinkable object, namely being or that which is (

).² Moreover, we have with Parmenides the first attempt to explain how thinking relates to this concept of being; how thinking and its object or content relate to one another.³ Hence Parmenides’ poem is the first explicit account of what is properly thinkable and what is not and how thinking relates to the former.

Conceptually, Parmenides’ account of what is properly thinkable and the manner in which it relates to the thinker, I shall argue, is such that if allowed to stand, it would ultimately undermine the epistemological phenomenon of intellection. This is so because the nature of being, i.e. what qualifies as an object of thought, when fully articulated by Parmenides (Fragment 8), does not allow for the epistemological distinction between the thinker and its object of thought. Consequently, the relation between the two is ruled out. On the Parmenidean account, one has a thesis that takes the epistemic subject and its object, the epistemic relata, to be identical with one another, and thus indiscernible from one another. In effect, by the time Parmenides concludes Fragment 8 and has set out the sort of monism he envisages, there is only one self-identical entity. The notion of relata within this context can only be applied in the most trivial sense, namely that the Parmenidean entity, being (

), is related to itself by virtue of being identical with itself. If an account of intellection is to be a possibility, then Parmenides’ position will have to be met and overturned, something which I shall argue in subsequent chapters that Plato, among other thinkers, attempts. Self-identity on its own is obviously insufficient as a means for grounding a coherent epistemology.

That said, how can one justify opening with Parmenides in order to trace the epistemological origins of self-intellection? If his position is such that it ultimately undermines the epistemic process, how can one hope to maintain that it somehow informs the debate which arises subsequently around the question of whether and, if so, in what manner the intellect can apprehend itself as an object of thought?

Parmenides ‘account of thinking and what is thinkable is of pivotal importance for the ancient account of intellection because, despite the conclusion of the first half of the poem, he is the first to raise certain issues which remain at the core of subsequent discussions of intellection and inform the debate about whether it is possible for the intellect to apprehend itself as an object of thought. This will become manifest as we see how subsequent philosophers respond to one another on how it is that the intellect or intellectual part of the soul relates to what it thinks, including itself.

The present chapter will have the following order: I shall begin by outlining the structure of the first half of the poem (Fragments 1-8), culminating with an account of Parmenides’ monism. The interpretation I shall be advocating is that Parmenides is a strong monist, a view which maintains that being is such that it does not admit of any division whatsoever, be it internal or external.⁴ Then I shall explore how Parmenides’ monistic principle stands in relation to the route which allowed him to reach that principle, emphasising the implications that such an account entails for the epistemic subject, its object and the type of relations they might enjoy. Finally, I shall conclude this initial chapter with some remarks about the sort of identity Parmenides’ account entails.

The Proem

The proem opens with Parmenides being taken up in a horse-drawn chariot for an audience with the goddess.⁵ Upon his arrival, he is told that he must learn everything (

).⁶ By everything (

) the goddess intends two things: Parmenides will learn both of the ‘unmoved heart of well-rounded truth’⁷ and the ‘opinions of mortals’:

⁸

both of the unshaken heart of well-rounded truth and
of the opinions of mortals, in which there is no genuine conviction.

The scope of this dichotomy is the entire Poem. The first part (

) -- the part with which most of this chapter will be concerned -- is the section in which thinking and that which is (

) are examined. The second part, the Way of Seeming, is primarily concerned with Parmenides’ cosmological account. This part of the Poem focuses upon the opinions of mortals and the domain in which they operate, a domain which has dualism at its core.⁹ Much has been said about the controversial relation between the two parts of the Poem.¹⁰ Now whether Parmenides is offering us an utterly deceptive account of things in the second part of the Poem or the best cosmology possible which nonetheless will be by definition false, will not be a guiding concern for us. It might be the case that if one is to understand the Way of Seeming, one must keep the first part of the Poem in view. But it is not similarly the case that one cannot properly appreciate the first part of the Poem, the Way of Truth, without keeping the second part in mind. Thus, as far as our present purposes are concerned, neither the relation between the two sections of the Poem nor the cosmology outlined in the second part will be a point of contention. Rather, the second part of the Poem will only be of interest to the extent that any material there might happen to shed some light on the epistemological process which is outlined in the first part, the Way of Truth.

Fragments 2-7

Taking an overview of these six fragments, Parmenides’ objective is to canvass all the possible routes of inquiry into the true nature of things (

, Fragment 1.29), eliminating those which are unthinkable. The upshot of this endeavour is the establishment of two points: there is some sort of reality, i.e. that which is, and it can be thought, i.e. there is thinking.¹¹ Thus his task in these fragments is to explore the possible routes and the relation that thinking and being might enjoy.

In the second fragment Parmenides outlines two routes in the form of a disjunction. The disjuncts are that which ‘is’ and that which ‘is not’. According to the goddess, they, that which ‘is’ (

) and that which ‘is not’ (

), are the only two conceivable routes:

¹²

Come, and I shall tell you, and you, upon hearing, convey the story,

what are the only routes of inquiry for thinking.

The one...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: The Epistemological Origins
• Part II: The Emergence of Self-Intellection
• Part III: The Emergence of the Problem and its Resolution
• Bibliography
• Index