1 Introduction1
One of the main points of attraction of Neoplatonic philosophy for Byzantine thinkers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries CE was its treatment of the theory of universals. Writers such as John Italos and Eustratios of Nicaea leaned heavily on certain Neoplatonic thinkers in conceiving of the nature of universals. An important aspect of Neoplatonic theories of universals was the notion that a universal functioned in some sense like a whole, with the individuals constituting its parts. This equation of universality with wholeness can be found in Porphyry’s Sententiae and Isagoge, and is especially prevalent in the writings of Proclus. It should come as no surprise, then, that Byzantine thinkers who were looking to incorporate Neoplatonic thought into their theory of universals took recourse to those passages of Proclus in which the philosopher developed the notions of whole and part. The main source for Proclus’ mereological views was in this regard undoubtedly The Elements of Theology, specifically propositions 67 through 69 of that work (a passage which remains instrumental in modern readings of Proclean mereology).2
Given the relative popularity of these specific propositions in Byzantine circles, they must have been especially vexing to Nicholas of Methone. Indeed, the Byzantine critic makes every effort to dismantle Proclus’ views in the chapters of his Refutation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology which focus on these propositions.3 In the introduction to his critical edition of Nicholas’ work, Athanasios Angelou singles out these chapters and summarizes them as follows:
An interesting controversial point in post-Psellian philosophical discussions must have been the triad of subordination: whole-before-the-parts, whole-of-the-parts and whole-in-the-part. Italos had applied it in true Neoplatonic fashion to the discussion of genus as an
ὅλον . […] Nicholas objected to this doctrine ofὅλον because it can mislead you to believe that there is such a thing as a wholeκαθ ’αὑτό outside the deity, which alone can be said to be a whole-before-the-parts and can be at the same time present in every part. All the rest—and by that he probably meant theγένη —are nothing but mental constructs,ἐννοηματικὰ καὶ ἀνυπόστατα . What are called wholes are only relations, not things; they fall under the category ofπρός τι .4
In other words, Nicholas objected to the realist approach his contemporaries took to universals, since the Neoplatonic notion of the universal (which is also a principle of its individuals) would lead its students to a polytheistic worldview. In order to abolish these pesky universals, Nicholas banishes Proclus’ entire mereology to the Aristotelean category of relation (
Reducing the whole to an accidental relation has metaphysical consequences that go beyond creating a nominalist view of universals. Despite their tendency to conflate universals and wholes, the Neoplatonic thinkers were well aware that the whole as a philosophical concept encompasses more than just the universal.5 It does not, therefore, suffice to conclude, as Angelou does, that Nicholas’ criticism of the Elements of Theology § 67–69 amounts to a polemic against existent universals. As I shall show, Nicholas attempts to overturn every aspect of Proclus’ views on parts and wholes. In some cases, he touches upon real problems in Proclus’ metaphysics. In other cases, he conflates, misrepresents, or misinterprets Proclus’ arguments. Ultimately, however, Nicholas’ criticism is not merely destructive, but also points to an alternative approach to parts and wholes that is meant to stand firm where Proclus’ approach (supposedly) failed. Whether this new approach actually holds up in the face of scrutiny is revealed in the final sections of the paper.
2 Proclus’ Theory of Parts and Wholes
The central idea of Elements of Theology § 67–69 is the notion that “every wholeness is either before the parts, composed of parts, or in the part.”6 This tripartite division of the concept of the whole constitutes one of Proclus’ “triades transversales”, which “ne sont pas restreintes à un niveau déterminé du réel, mais traversent un grand nombre d’échelons.”7 It is, in other words, a conceptual model which can be used to describe many of the intelligible levels of reality that the Neoplatonic philosophers conceived of in between our material reality and the ultimate first principle, the One or the Good. In this regard, the three types of wholes taken together function much like Proclus’ triad of participation (the unparticipated, the participated, and the participant).8 Yet whereas the triad of participation is universally applicable in Proclean metaphysics, the triad of wholeness is given a specific starting point in the procession of Neoplatonic hypostases. Proclus distils from his exegesis of Plato’s Parmenides the notion that there is an intelligible Platonic principle of Wholeness-itself (
In his magnum opus, the Platonic Theology, Proclus explains that the intelligible Wholeness produces emanations or images of itself which are participated by inferior entities in the lower hypostases or levels of reality (as is true for every intelligible principle in the Neoplatonic metaphysics). The intelligible Wholeness is a triad consisting of a transcendent henad, a being-aspect which participates in this henad, and a productive power which connects the two other terms of the triad. As a result of this triadic structure, the images that flow forth from the intelligible Wholeness take after one of the three constituents of their originative triad: the transcendent whole before the parts mirrors the henad of Wholeness-itself, the immanent whole composed of parts mirrors the power of Wholeness-itself by connecting a given set of parts to its transcendent cause, and the whole in the part is a manifestation of the whole in an individual part and thus mirrors the participating being-aspect of Wholeness-itself.11
These three types of wholeness can take many forms, and as a result show up in a variety of philosophical contexts throughout Proclus’ exegetical works, from the creation and constitution of the World Soul in Plato’s Timaeus to the way in which an individual shares in the “whole” of its respective universal. In contrast, the description Proclus gives of the three kinds of wholeness in the Elements of Theology is extremely concise: there he defines the three terms and their interrelation without any reference to the internal structure of Wholeness-itself as described in the Platonic Theology, although the principle itself is summarily defined as the ultimate whole before the parts in the sixty-ninth proposition. He likewise provides not even one of the many examples of the ways in which these wholes can manifest in his metaphysics. Because of this conciseness, scholars who take the Elements of Theology as the baseline for their understanding of Proclus’ views on parts and wholes often struggle to fully comprehend these views.12 As we shall see, Nicholas too is one of the readers whose focus on the Elements of Theology occasionally narrows his understanding of Proclus.
3 Nicholas’ Primary Criticism: The Heresy of Proclean Polytheism
Before we delve into the particulars of Nicholas’ rejection of Proclus’ wholes and universals, it is important to bring before our mind’s eye the basic criticisms which inform the whole of Nicholas’ Refutation of the Elements of Theology. As Joshua Robinson has shown, these criticisms generally can be referred to two main sources of conflict between Proclus and Nicholas.13 First there is the disagreement on the nature of the first principle (the One or the Good for Proclus; the One, God, or the Trinity for Nicholas). For Proclus, this principle is an absolute unity which transcends all plurality and, as Gerd Van Riel notes, “all positive determination”.14 In Nicholas’ eyes, such a conceptualization of the first principle goes against the doctrine of the Trinity, which is naturally three-as-one rather than a strict one-over-many (though it is also the latter relative to the plurality of creation). Nicholas also rather oddly accuses Proclus of failing to consider the ineffability of the divine principle, though this is most likely a consequence of his lack of familiarity with Proclean works outside of the Elements of Theology, in which Proclus’ own affinity for apophatic theology is much more apparent.15
The second disagreement revolves around the nature of the One’s production, which is to say, around the choice between a metaphysics based on creation or a metaphysics based on emanation.16 The latter view of metaphysics, which is adopted by Proclus, assumes that additional divine principles flow forth from the first one and in turn contribute to the production of all beings that are inferior to them. In this respect, Proclus is openly polytheistic, and his position on this matter obviously draws nothing but disapproval from the devoutly monotheistic Nicholas. The latter is committed strongly to the view that the Trinity is the sole productive principle, which “produces all other things absolutely”.17
3.1 God is the Only Transcendent Whole …
As a result of the latter disagreement between Proclus and Nicholas, the former’s principle of Wholeness-itself, mentioned explicitly in the sixty-ninth proposition of the Elements of Theology, is entirely incompatible with the latter’s belief system. It should come as no surprise, then, that Nicholas’ response to Proclus’ threefold definition of the whole in Elements of Theology § 67 opens with an affirmation of the Trinity’s status as the sole principle of creation.
We have already said18—and said truly—that the One, i.e., the Divine itself, is “the Whole before all”, which “pre-includes all things”, encompasses them “in a causal manner”, and holds them together according to one impartible and indivisible wholeness, [and] which is observed in all things which are in any way called “wholes” as being present without relation, since it is indivisibly divided and participated in an unparticipated manner both by the wholes which are composed of parts, and by the wholes which are observed in each of the parts, inasmuch as these [parts] themselves have parts as well, whose instances of wholeness are solely relations in things, since they are observed [in things] which are in some way related to one another but are not themselves things.19
In Nicholas’ eyes, Proclus is not wrong per se in stating that there is a whole before the parts. However, for the Neoplatonic philosophers this transcendent whole manifests itself in multiple distinct productive principles: first in the intelligible and divine Wholeness-itself, and then in subsequent transcendent principles which imitate Wholeness-itself (e.g., the transcendent essence of the World Soul or the universal as transcendent over its respective individuals). For Nicholas, there can obviously be only one transcendent principle: the Trinity. Following pseudo-Dionysius, he reinterprets Proclus’ independent principles as different names for one and the same God.20 There is one Whole Before the Parts, and only one. To remove the possibility of any independently subsisting principle of wholeness, Nicholas subsequently claims that all instances of wholeness in creation are merely relations (
We should understand Nicholas’ reduction of all non-divine wholes and parts to relations within the context of the earlier propositions of the Elements of Theology. Proclus, as stated, takes Wholeness to be a self-subsistent intelligible principle in which lower beings participate. In this respect, the whole has a unique character (
3.2 … All Other Things Are Just Parts
Taken on its own, however, Nicholas’ reference to the Aristotelian categorial scheme is somewhat confusing, since his disagreement with Proclus does not revolve around the placement of the concept “whole” in a categorial scheme. What Nicholas objects to is Proclus’ claim that instances of wholeness, and especially those which function as principles, can be self-subsistent and thus independent from the Trinity. In response to this heretical claim, one could argue that the creatures created by God obtain from their Creator a substantial form and that they are whole by virtue of this God-given form,25 while denying that their property of “being whole” derives from a self-subsistent principle of Wholeness as Proclus does. In other words, one could claim that immanent wholeness is linked to a thing’s substance without it deriving from some independently existing transcendent wholeness. However, Nicholas rejects even such instances of immanent wholeness in his critique. Shortly after the previously cited passage from chapter 67, he names corporeal entities such as bodily parts (e.g., the head, the hand, or the foot) as examples of things which exist only in relation to the body as a whole or to their own parts.26 In this regard, Nicholas’ definition of the whole goes against not only that of Proclus but also that of Aristotle. Although the latter admits in his Categories that bodily parts such as the head or the hand could perhaps be defined as relative terms—in the sense that one could ask the question: “To whom does a head belong?”—, he nevertheless argues that one should consider them to be parts of the substance (“What is a head?”) and thus as things which do not fall under the category of relation.27
Nicholas doubles down on his view of the whole-as-relative in his criticism of the last of Proclus’ three propositions concerning the three kinds of whole, proposition 69. Here the Byzantine critic makes use of a subtle but apparent contradiction in the way Proclus phrases his proof for that proposition. In order to prove that any immanent wholeness, i.e., any compound out of parts, exists by virtue of participation in a transcendent whole before the parts, Proclus posits the following argument: “If the whole is composed of parts, it is whole as being affected by [wholeness] (for the parts, having become one, are affected by the whole because of their unification), and it is a whole in parts which are not whole.”28 Nicholas notices that the subject of the verb “to be affected by” (
And see this as well: after he set out to show that “the whole composed of parts participates in the wholeness before the parts”29 and that [this whole] itself “is affected by the whole”, he says against this that “the parts are affected by the whole because of their unification”. Now, if the parts are unified and are affected by the whole and participated in this manner in the wholeness before the parts, what need is there of the mediating whole in the parts? No, it is clear how a whole of this manner neither exists in general nor subsists nor participates in the Unparticipated.30
Nicholas’ argument in these lines is somewhat ironic: he accuses Proclus of mixing up his terms, changing his argument from “the compound as a whole participates in the whole before the parts” to “the compound as a collection of parts participates in the whole before the parts”. Yet Nicholas appears to mix up Proclus’ terminology as well: in the first sentence of this passage, he focuses on the supposedly superfluous nature of the whole composed of parts, yet in the second one he names the whole in the part(s) as superfluous. It should be noted, however, that Nicholas is likely referring to Proclus’ aforementioned statement, in which the Neoplatonic philosopher described the whole composed of parts as a “whole in parts which are not whole”, i.e., as the immanent unifying principle of a collection of parts. In other words, Nicholas here does not refer to Proclus’ third kind of whole (the whole in the part) specifically, though the terminology does not quite allow him to avoid this possible confusion.
Nevertheless, Nicholas’ goal in this passage is obvious: the only self-subsistent whole is God, and in all other cases where we call something “whole”, we are only really describing sets of parts which participate in the Trinity, sets to which we can per accidens ascribe their relation to each of the individual parts. This reveals a fundamental difference between the views of Nicholas and those of Proclus that again goes beyond the question of the existence of multiple distinct divine principles. When discussing the ontological distinction between a whole and its parts, one can take one of two approaches, as Plato showed in his Theaetetus. There Socrates asks the titular interlocutor to determine whether someone who knows the syllable
Plato touches upon a fundamental issue in the metaphysics of identity, which remains unsolved to this day. The most famous example of this problem is undoubtedly the ship of Theseus: when the Athenians preserved the ship of their great hero by replacing each of the ship’s components once it had worn down, did their continual replacement of parts ultimately change the ship as a whole?32 In more technical terms, modern philosophers have discussed whether composition is “unrestricted”—i.e., a whole is nothing more than the sum of its parts, and any given set of things is automatically a whole—or whether it is “restricted”—i.e., there is some metaphysical or ontological principle which determines which sets of parts constitute an ontologically distinct unity.33 Both Platonists and Peripatetics were generally of the opinion that composition is restricted, in the sense that the whole has a certain essence or substance that the parts, when considered by themselves, do not possess: the substance of the syllable is not identical to the substance of its letters, nor is the substance of a human being identical to the substance of his or her head.34 The main difference between an Aristotelian view on restricted composition and a (Neo‑)Platonic one is the fact that, in the former school of thought, the whole is distinct from its parts but still immanent in them, whereas for the adherents of the latter the whole is not only distinct from its parts but also transcends them.35
By contrast, Nicholas uses Proclus’ switch from “the whole is affected by wholeness” to “the parts are affected by wholeness” to argue for the opposite view: that in creation there are only sets of parts. For if the parts qua parts can participate perfectly well in the whole before the parts (and for Nicholas there is only one of these transcendent wholes, namely the Trinity), then there is no need to posit any intermediate forms of wholeness that can be considered to belong to substance. Yet subscribing to this view has consequences for one’s ontology which remain unspoken in Nicholas’ critique. When David Lewis gave his support to the view of “unrestricted composition”, he argued that “whenever there are some things, there exists a fusion of those things” (my italics).36 If there is no principle of wholeness which determines when a set of things becomes an ontologically distinct compound, then any given set of things can be considered a whole. This includes sets whose status as wholes might be counterintuitive.
It is no problem to describe an unheard-of fusion. It is nothing over and above its parts, so to describe it you need only describe the parts. Describe the character of the parts, describe their interrelation, and you have ipso facto described the fusion. The trout-turkey in no way defies description. It is neither fish nor fowl, but it is nothing else: it is part fish and part fowl. It is neither here nor there, so where is it?—Partly here, partly there. That much we can say, and that’s enough. Its character is exhausted by the character and relation of its parts.37
Although Nicholas does not explicate whether his radical revision of Proclean mereology functions along similar lines, his arguments imply that this is a logical consequence. If one assumes that in creation there are no substances which can be considered part or whole in their own right, only things which accidentally relate to other things either as parts or wholes, then, for example, a duo consisting of a trout and a turkey is whole in the exact same way that the trout is whole. The trout has an accidental relation to the set {trout, turkey} as part to whole and an accidental relation to its fins as whole to part. One could attempt to argue that the relation between a body and its parts is different from the relation between a set and its members, but this makes little difference for the substance of the trout. If wholes and parts are purely accidental relations, then any distinction between the composite body of a trout and the Lewisian trout-turkey is also a purely accidental distinction.
4 Solving the Supposed Contradictions of Proclus’ Mereology … Almost
Unfortunately for us, Nicholas does not develop his ideas in ways which allow us to fully elucidate these matters. His primary goal remains the critique of Proclus. As a result, his criticisms of the flaws in Proclus’ mereology are much more clearly sketched than the alternative theory we discussed above. In fact, as Jan Opsomer points out in his own contribution to this volume, Nicholas goes to great lengths to bring to light contradictions in the Elements of Theology, often with little regard for interpretative constraints such as the principle of charity.38 For example, the previously discussed terminological mix-up of which Nicholas accuses Proclus is preceded by a lengthy criticism of Proclus’ description of the whole before the parts, and specifically of the main statement in proposition 69: “Every whole composed of parts participates in the wholeness before the parts.”39 Given that Proclus considers the whole before the parts to be an unparticipated principle, it is obviously difficult to imagine how a lower being can participate in it. Nicholas in turn states that one should consider the Trinity to be the only viable candidate for the title of whole before the parts, since he has already claimed that it is both unparticipated and participated at the same time.40
Slightly further on, in his commentary on Elements of Theology § 73, Nicholas brings forth another contradiction that is specific to Proclus’ conceptualization of part and whole. In Elements of Theology § 73 and § 74, Proclus establishes the placement of Wholeness-itself within the metaphysical scheme of successive intelligible principles around which Neoplatonic philosophy revolves. More specifically, he argues that Wholeness-itself must be inferior to, and thus more particular than, the principle of Being, yet superior to and more universal than the Platonic Forms. That the principle of Being transcends Wholeness-itself is shown by the fact that only some of the existent entities in the universe are wholes, while others are parts and only parts. If the roles were reversed and Wholeness transcended Being, every being would automatically participate in Wholeness as well, and thus there would be no existent thing which would not also be a whole.41 In contrast, the Platonic Forms are ranked below Wholeness in the hierarchy of principles, since any given thing which can be divided into any given kind of parts is called a whole, whereas the Platonic Form is specifically a universal which is divided into individuals (
A quick note of clarification is necessary on this last point. Neoplatonic philosophers like Proclus believe, as Dirk Baltzly points out, that there is “some intimate connection between the two distinctions [of whole/part and universal/particular].”43 Furthermore, the overlap between the concepts of the universal and the genus results in the genus being considered as a whole as well, which in turn means that the Neoplatonists consider species to be parts of genera. Examples of this conceptualization of the genus as a whole are present already in Plotinus,44 but the clearest explanation of this notion can be found in Porphyry’s writings. When he enumerates in his Isagoge the ways in which genera, species, and individuals are predicated of one another, Porphyry describes the three terms as a series of wholes and parts. “The genus is some kind of whole, the individual a part, and the species is both whole and part. But the species is part of another, whereas it is whole not of another but in others: it is the whole in the parts.”45
Similarly, when Porphyry adapts Plotinus’ vision of a universal Intellect which encompasses more particular beings in such a manner that each being is conceptually distinct from yet also fully mixed up in the incorporeal Intellect, he uses the Aristotelian term “composed of like parts” (
Nicholas attacks Proclus’ placement of Wholeness-itself in between Being and the Forms on both fronts. First, he explains why Proclus cannot postulate the existence of a principal Wholeness independent from the principle of Being. He does so both on the basis of Proclus’ initial suggestion that Being transcends Wholeness, and on the basis of Proclus’ subsequent proof. Against Proclus’ initial suggestion, he argues that, if the principle of Being instantiates both wholes and parts (albeit indirectly in the case of the former), then the whole “qua distinguished opposite the part” (
Nicholas then moves on to the proof of Proclus’ seventy-third proposition, and attempts to fortify his argument by pointing to apparent contradictions in Proclus’ phrasing.
But let us look at the proof of this as well. “For the whole”, he says, “is composed of existing parts”,49 and again he says: “Every whole is a whole of parts”,50 and thus: “If there is no part, there also cannot be the whole”.51 Although these things are nicely said about the whole composed of parts, this man takes them as common about the whole before the parts as well and so believes that he proves that the Whole is different from Being and that Being is more universal (
ὁλικώτερον ) than the Whole, and he loses perspective by obviously contradicting himself like this in saying that something is “more whole” (ὁλικώτερον ) than the Whole.52
As Nicholas tries to show, Proclus apparently believes that every whole is a whole composed of parts, even though the principle Wholeness-itself is supposed to be the whole before the parts. However, Nicholas’ rendition of Proclus in these lines ignores a vital distinction the Neoplatonic philosopher makes in his proof. In the first line quoted by Nicholas, Proclus’ statement that “the whole is composed of existing parts” constitutes an existential quantification but not necessarily a universal one (Eric Dodds notably translated the line without the definite article: “for a whole must be composed of existent parts”).53 Here Proclus uses the preposition
Nicholas’ unfair and incomplete representation of Proclus’ argument in this passage is particularly unfortunate, because the criticism he tries to raise against the Neoplatonic philosopher is not invalid in itself. Although Proclus takes great care not to mix up the whole before the parts and the whole composed of parts in his Elements of Theology, he does use his mereological terms in the loose manner of which Nicholas accuses him in other works. For example, although Proclus here makes a clear distinction between the whole before the parts and the whole composed of or in the parts, and clearly links the former kind of whole to the transcendent Wholeness-itself, in the Platonic Theology he describes Wholeness-itself in a way that implies that it is actually composed of parts rather than transcendent over them. As mentioned before, Proclus describes Wholeness-itself as a triad of one, power, and being. The notion that the whole has oneness and being as its properties derives from the discussion of the one in Plato’s Parmenides.56 However, Proclus follows the letter of Plato’s text a bit too closely. Because the Parmenides of Plato’s dialogue describes the oneness- and being-properties of the one as its parts, Proclus states: “Now then, the second intelligible triad is called the intelligible Wholeness, and its parts are the one and being.”57 This is precisely the problem which Nicholas claims to discern in the Elements of Theology, namely that the ultimate whole before the parts is described as a whole composed of parts. The ambiguity of the distinction between Proclus’ three kinds of wholes only increases in subsequent manifestations of wholeness, since those are often different kinds of wholes at the same time by virtue of their different relations (in a general sense) to other Neoplatonic principles. The Living Being on which the Demiurge bases the sensible cosmos in Plato’s Timaeus, for example, is characterized in the Platonic Theology as the composite multiplicity which participates in the transcendent unity of Wholeness-itself, by virtue of its status as an inferior principle relative to Wholeness-itself, but described in the Timaeus Commentary as the transcendent whole before the parts in which the composite sensible cosmos participates.58
All of this means that Nicholas could have provided a much stronger version of his current argument against Proclus’ theory of the three kinds of wholes, had he studied Proclus’ Platonic Theology and Timaeus Commentary instead of focusing his efforts on an incorrect (or purposefully unfair) reading of the Elements of Theology itself. The lack of a reference to Proclus’ other works is understandable, given that there is no sign that Nicholas had access to these works or read them in any detail if he did. He does not seem to have known of the Platonic Theology, and it is also unlikely that he studied the Timaeus Commentary to an extent that would allow him to point out the potential issues in Proclus’ theory which I summarized here.59 The faulty representation of the exact Elements-passage to which he responds is inexcusable, however, and only serves to hamper Nicholas’ critique even further. Had he looked beyond the particulars of Proclus’ phrasing (or studied that phrasing in more detail), he might have been able to point to a real flaw in Proclus’ theory of self-subsistent wholeness. Nicholas ultimately sticks to a more simplistic argument: it makes no sense to claim that something is more universal than the first universal, more whole than the first whole.
5 Rejecting the Proclean Theory of Universals
Despite Nicholas’ misgivings about the way in which Proclus uses the Greek terms for whole and universal, he does not oppose the fundamental notion that the universal is a particular kind of whole. In fact, his worries about the heretical influence of Proclus’ ideas were at least in part inspired by the efforts of his Byzantine predecessors and contemporaries to reintroduce and revitalize the Neoplatonic whole-as-universal, as Angelou pointed out.60 One could claim, in fact, that Nicholas’ Refutation of the Elements of Theology is aimed as much against some of his Byzantine contemporaries as it is aimed against Proclus himself, if not more so. This becomes especially clear when we turn to the second of Proclus’ propositions on the placement of Wholeness-itself in his metaphysical scheme: proposition 74, in which Proclus argues that the whole is a more universal concept than the Form-as-universal.
5.1 Nicholas’ Realist Opponents
Although it is not immediately clear from Nicholas’ text who exactly succumbed to the heretical influence of Proclus,61 a number of likely candidates can be indicated. A full and detailed overview of the Byzantine discussions on the nature of universals and the way in which the reception of Neoplatonic thought shaped those discussions falls outside the scope of this paper. Instead, a short summary of recent scholarship on this matter will suffice.
Michael Psellos’ reintroduction of Proclean thought into Byzantine circles must have been vexing to someone like Nicholas in general. However, Robinson has convincingly argued that Psellos’ affinity for Proclus was not strong or uncritical enough to make him a prime example of the type of misguided fan of Proclus of whom Nicholas warns in the prologue of his Refutation.62 In fact, Robinson points out that Psellos criticizes Neoplatonic views on transcendent universals from an Aristotelian perspective, an argumentative strategy that Nicholas is quite fond of himself.63
The views on universals espoused by Psellos’ pupil Italos were a much more likely source of Nicholas’ worries, as Angelou pointed out in his introduction. Katerina Ierodiakonou has indeed argued that Italos employed the three kinds of wholes defined in Proclus’ Elements of Theology in order to fortify a Porphyrian doctrine of universals.64 It should be noted that, despite his affinity for Proclean thought, Italos remained a “moderate realist”,65 since he argued that immanent universals exist merely per accidens (though he did believe in the per se existence of transcendent universals).66
The views of Italos’ own pupil, Eustratios of Nicaea, must have appeared equally misguided to Nicholas. As Stephen Gersh has shown, Eustratios introduces the three kinds of wholes of Proclus into his commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and Prior Analytics in order to navigate between the Platonic notion of a transcendent formal principle and the Aristotelean notion of an abstracted universal.67 Although Eustratios refrains from positing independent causal principles as Proclus does, moving instead towards a “more overtly Christian Platonism” by placing the Platonic Ideas in the mind of the divine Creator,68 he nevertheless appears to prefer a Platonically realist conception of embodied universal forms over the Aristotelean notion of an abstracted universal. This Platonic conception of the embodied form is explicitly linked to Proclus’ notion of the whole in the part.69 There are, in other words, indeed really subsistent universals in particular beings.
A final target for Nicholas’ nominalist critique of Proclean universals may have been his direct contemporary, Ioanne Petritsi. Out of all of the thinkers mentioned here, Petritsi was perhaps the most openly kind to Proclean thought. As Lela Alexidze has noted, Petritsi firmly subscribed to Proclus’ view that the various productive principles were independent, self-constituted hypostases.70 It is unclear, however, whether Petritsi’s translation of and favourable commentary on the Elements of Theology preceded Nicholas’ critical commentary of the same text or whether Petritsi’s work was written after Nicholas’.71
To sum up, we may refer to Linos Benakis’ summary of the Byzantine debate on the nature of universals: the Byzantine thinkers subscribed to a realist notion of universals, one which was in large part inspired by the theory of universals espoused in the Neoplatonic school of thought, albeit with some Christian flourishes such as the placement of the Platonic Ideas in the thinking of God.72
5.2 A Successful Critique of Realism?
When Nicholas turns to Proclus’ argument for conceiving of the universal Form as a specific kind of whole, he immediately distances himself from the Proclus-derived realism of his contemporaries: “The notional form is either nothing, according to us (
Since the transcendent Form or universal “subsists before the many” in Proclus’ thought, it cannot be a whole, Nicholas argues, for Proclus seemingly wants every whole to be composed of its parts, not to exist before them.76 Here Nicholas reaffirms the criticism he used against the ranking of Being above Wholeness-itself in Elements of Theology § 73. Unfortunately for him, this means that his current argument rests on the same misreading of Proclus which we distilled from his commentary there, i.e., Nicholas’ failure to either notice or acknowledge Proclus’ distinction between some wholes existing out of parts (
Nicholas’ argument against Proclus’ notion that individuals are wholes as well revolves around the status of these individuals as particulars. First, he claims that the individual or “form that is contemplated with matter” (
However, Nicholas again falls short in his recapitulation of Proclus’ original ideas. The crux of the Byzantine’s twofold argument is the suggestion that Proclus first proclaims the individual to be just a part in Elements of Theology § 73, but then contradictorily proclaims it to be a whole in § 74. Yet of those two claims, only the second one is actually supported by Proclus. The individual is indeed whole according to Proclus, but the things which exist merely qua part (
Multiple scholars have noted that the particular living being qua “whole in a partial manner” is a fitting example of the third kind of whole, the whole in the part. To summarize, these scholars have suggested that, if the transcendent Platonic Form is the universal before the individuals, and the universal as an extensional set of individuals is the whole composed of parts, then the individual is a whole in the part, insofar as it is a really subsistent whole yet qua individual is nothing more than a member of the extensional set of the universal (though there has been some disagreement on whether it is the specific form of the individual, e.g., Socrates, or the specific manifestation of the universal, e.g., humanity, which constitutes the whole in the particular).82 Thus, when Proclus states that some things exist only as parts and not as wholes in Elements of Theology § 73, he has in mind only the bodily parts of a corporeal individual, whereas in describing the whole qua individual in § 74, he gestures towards the fact that the individual as a whole is an image of its transcendent genus. Nicholas’ critique does not account for this important distinction.
Here Nicholas’ presumable lack of familiarity with Proclus’ broader oeuvre cripples his arguments against the Neoplatonic philosopher. Whereas before he missed the opportunity to strengthen a potentially promising critique of Proclus, here he ascribes to Proclus a view that is simply disproven by the latter’s writings outside of the Elements of Theology. Yet Nicholas’ polemic in this chapter seems to be motivated by more than simple unfamiliarity with the views of his opponent. After all, his line of argument only applies to Proclean thought if one applies Nicholas’ nominalist reconceptualization of wholeness to it. That is to say, one could accuse Proclus of erroneously calling the individuals whole when they are in actuality just parts of universal genera if one reduced Proclus’ whole in the part to a non-subsistent accident as Nicholas did in his criticism of Elements of Theology § 67–68. In other words, Nicholas is implicitly criticizing his caricature of Proclus’ school of thought rather than the school of thought itself. After all, if one refuses the aforementioned condition (and this is obviously what Proclus would do), Nicholas’ criticism fades away.
6 The Inconsistencies of Nicholas’ Own Mereology
Having criticized the details of Proclus’ account of really subsistent universals (to various degrees of success), Nicholas returns to the crux of his critique. The many transcendent wholes defined by Proclus are nothing but mere conceptions (
What is left as the whole before the parts but that which we claim to be the same as the Being and the One before all things, the Cause which produces all things? From this also matter pre-subsists, whatever it is, and the forms are cojoined with it, proceeding as certain illuminations from there and being combined with things which are relatively whole (
ὁλικωτέροις ),83 but somewhat imperfect, because of their need of the perfection from these [illuminations]. And so each of the composites of matter and form is completed and becomes some whole composed of the first parts, matter and form, and then of the parts into which they can be divided, which are themselves also composed of matter and form. Thus “in the beginning God created”, according to the God-seeing Moses, not a matter without quantity, unqualified, and bereft of any idea, but “the heaven and the earth”84 and the cosmic elements remaining in between these.85
Nicholas goes on to describe the way in which the remaining three elements, water, air, and fire, came to be in between the ether and the earth.86 He then explains how, after God had created these five elements on the first day of creation,
(…) in the following days until the sixth he thus fulfilled the whole cosmos from these, adding in sequence the more perfect creatures to the less perfect ones. So matter, forms, and all beings have come to be from the one productive Cause which exists before all, and all beings are both all wholes and all parts—in relation to one another, obviously—, and all are forms and nothing is formless: none of the sensible things, and even more so none of the intelligible ones.87
An interesting aspect of Nicholas’ account of creation is the critic’s apparent unease with the hylomorphism of the Aristotelean and Neoplatonic schools of thought. Although Nicholas acknowledges that all things are made out of form and matter, he seems unwilling to commit to a clear definition of matter itself. In fact, he pointedly rejects the notion that God created a material substrate before the rest of creation, arguing instead that nothing is formless (
This fits with Nicholas’ earlier remark that even bodily composites should be classed under the Aristotelian category of relation. The hylomorphic individual Arthur is whole only insofar as he is a set of {head, torso, … body partn}. Conversely, Arthur is a part insofar as he is a member of, e.g., the set of created beings, {created thing1, created thing2, … Arthur, … created thingn}.89 The same holds for each of Arthur’s body parts, which are per accidens members of the set “Arthur” but at the same time also themselves per accidens sets either of smaller body parts or of elements.
Nicholas’ suggestion that there is no material substrate in itself can be traced back to the Cappadocian father Gregory of Nyssa.90 In contrast to his Neoplatonic contemporaries, who presumed that a fully passive material substrate lay at the base of all production by the divine principle(s) (though not in a dualist sense; the substrate itself also derives from the first principle),91 Gregory subscribed to the notion that matter itself consists of certain intelligible qualities, such as size, colour, resistance, and so on.92 In Gregory’s words, all of these qualities “are in themselves bare conceptions and objects of thought. None of these is in itself matter, but when they assemble, matter comes to be.”93 Nicholas’ emphasis on the notion that any created matter is already shaped by forms (forms which, it should be remembered, are entirely nominalist conceptions outside of the divine mind of God) can thus be understood as a continuation of Gregory’s idea that “the
Yet Nicholas’ mereological account of creation is hampered by its adherence to precisely the hylomorphic framework from which Gregory attempted to distance himself. Despite his insistence on rejecting the notion of a formless material substrate, Nicholas returns to the classical Aristotelean account of hylomorphism, according to which form and matter are in some sense parts of the composite substance.95 In fact, he notably remarks that God first creates the hylomorphic composite qua composed of matter and form (
There are two ways out of this conundrum. On the one hand, one could throw Nicholas’ accusations of inconsistency towards Proclus back in his face. Our criticism of Nicholas would then be that the combination of a Gregorian pre-formed matter with the notion of wholeness and parthood as mere relations on the one hand and a definition of the hylomorphic being as fundamentally composed of matter and form as its parts on the other constitute a flat contradiction on Nicholas’ part. Such a contradiction would not be unprecedented, since scholars have noted that Nicholas occasionally makes contradictory claims in other passages of his Refutation as well. Regarding the subject of self-constitution in Proclus, for example, Michele Trizio has noted how,
(…) eager to refer the notion of self-constitution to God alone, Nicholas does not realize—or is not interested in admitting—that there is no contradiction between deriving from something and being self-constituted in Proclean metaphysics. Yet, Nicholas still concedes that the soul is self-constituted in the same way that Aristotle regards substance as self-subsistent vis-à-vis the accidents.96
Despite the attractive irony of catching Nicholas in the act of committing the same mistakes he finds in Proclus, a proponent of this reading of our current passage might find themselves the victim of irony as well, for this reading foregoes the principle of charity with respect to Nicholas in a similar way to the critic’s occasional unfairness to his Proclean source.
The other, more charitable solution would be the one offered by Christos Terezis and Lydia Petridou, who argue that Nicholas is merely making some “technical ‘maneuvers’ to make easier the research processes”, which is to say that Nicholas merely makes a conceptual distinction between the “parts” of hylomorphic beings (matter and form) and does not claim that they are metaphysically distinct entities. Nicholas’ definition of the “first parts” (
Although this reading of the passage is more adequately charitable than simply accusing Nicholas of contradicting himself, I find that it is not entirely convincing. After all, Nicholas does not commit himself explicitly to a Gregorian view in which matter is simply a bundle of intelligible qualities, nor does he take the easy solution of simply avoiding talking about form and matter as “parts” of created beings. He also does not make a clear distinction between form and matter as parts of the hylomorphic composites and hylomorphic composites as parts of one another (he only distinguishes them according to logical or temporal priority). Instead, he seems uncertain in his description of matter, unwilling to commit to the Neoplatonic model of the generated cosmos as built on a passive substrate and the formal influences which flow down into that substrate, yet at the same time unable to let go entirely of the notion of matter as a self-subsistent thing. The clearest indication of Nicholas’ unease regarding this subject is the fact that he implicitly refers to matter as a metaphysically independent entity at the start of our current passage (
7 Concluding Remarks
Elsewhere in this volume, Opsomer remarks that Nicholas’ exegesis of the Elements of Theology varies in quality, as the Byzantine critic bounces back and forth between imprecise renditions of Proclus’ arguments and insightful indications of actual problems in the thought of the Neoplatonic philosopher.99 As we have seen, this variation in quality is present at every level of Nicholas’ critical analysis of Proclus’ theory of wholes and parts. If, for example, one accepts the metaphysical assumptions which underlie the monotheistic worldview of someone like Nicholas, then it is perfectly sensible to place the whole before the parts on the level of God, rather than attributing some independent subsistence to a Platonic principle of wholeness as Proclus does. The jump from denying that the divine principle of wholeness has an independent subsistence in the Neoplatonic sense to denying that wholeness is a substantial property of something in general is rather less obvious. And yet Nicholas equates Proclean subsistence with the Aristotelean notion of substance and simply reduces any and all forms of wholeness outside of the Trinity to the Aristotelean category of relation, including those of such earthly substances as corporeal individuals, which are no longer principles of wholeness even for Proclus, only participated instances of it.100
The same can be said for Nicholas’ study of Proclus’ writings and the way in which he distills presumable contradictions from those writings. Nicholas has a point in stating, for example, that Proclus paradoxically describes the Neoplatonic principle of Being in terms of universality, given that the universal is defined as a specific kind of whole, which is in turn a specific kind of being. It is thus counterintuitive to describe the Neoplatonic divine principle Being as “more whole” or “more universal” than the principle Wholeness-itself or the transcendent universals that are the Platonic Forms, both of which are entirely subordinate to Being. Here, then, Proclus’ insistence on an independently existent Platonic principle of Wholeness hurts his arguments, because it does not allow for the broad semantic and philosophical range with which he applies terms such as “whole” and “part” in his writings. And yet the way in which Nicholas puts forward this criticism is less than satisfactory, both in the lack of references to Proclean passages outside of the Elements of Theology, which occasionally causes what would have otherwise been preventable misinterpretations of Proclus on Nicholas’ part, and in the clumsy citations from the Elements of Theology itself, which remove any pretense of precision or charity from Nicholas’ exegesis.
The same can be said for Nicholas’ own mereological suggestions. His support for the view that the whole is nothing beyond the sum of its parts is sound and remains a feasible and supported approach to mereology even in contemporary philosophy (as exemplified by philosophers such as Lewis). Likewise, the notion that wholeness is relative rather than determined by some metaphysical essence avoids the kinds of problems which Lewis raised against contemporary philosophers who presumed that only some things can be considered to be “whole”.101 Nicholas’ arguments concerning the nature of matter are also sound, and build naturally on the conceptualization of matter which Gregory of Nyssa had already put forward. And yet Nicholas’ alternative mereology, which is supposedly fit to supplant Proclus’, remains frustratingly vague in certain crucial respects. Nicholas gives no indication that he thought through the consequences of suggesting that wholes are simply sums of parts (which participate in God’s illuminations) in the way someone like Lewis has done. In a similar vein, he refrains from committing fully to the Gregorian conceptualization of the formed substrate and instead affirms the classical view of hylomorphic beings as composites of form and matter, without making it fully clear whether this distinction is a purely conceptual one or one which has a basis in actual metaphysics.
Despite all of this, Nicholas’ relativistic interpretation of parts and wholes is more expansive than has been previously suggested. Although Proclus’ use of mereology to describe the nature of universals, which inspired many of Nicholas’ Byzantine predecessors and contemporaries, is an important factor in Nicholas’ own exegesis of the relevant propositions of the Elements of Theology, it is far from the only subject under review. Like Proclus, Nicholas recognizes that the universal is merely one kind of whole. For this reason, reducing only transcendent genera to relations would not have sufficed to stave off the polytheistic influence of the Elements of Theology. A simple expression of the fact that universals are mere conceptions is not enough. All wholes must be reduced to accidental relations, so that the Trinity might rightly be recognized as the One True Whole. To this end, Nicholas fashions a multifaceted analysis of parthood and wholeness, one which not only critiques the suggestions of Proclus but also points to an alternative way to understand what it means to be whole. Unfortunately, he is not able to bring his criticisms and ideas together into a fully realized whole.
The research for this paper was made possible by PDM-funding provided by the Internal Funds KU Leuven (grant no. PDMt2/22/004). I thank Sokratis-Athanasios Kiosoglou for giving me some sage advice on how to approach Nicholas’ work, Jonathan Greig for showing me how to further expand my study of the material and for sharing with me a number of his forthcoming papers on Nicholas, Jan Opsomer for allowing me access to his contribution in this same volume as well, and Alberto Kobec for helping to iron out some of the conceptual distinctions I raise in this study. Lastly, I thank Henri Oosthout for his assistance with some of the translations (all translations of the Greek texts are my own unless stated otherwise).
Proclus’ mereological views are developed in more detail in the following section. The ways in which Byzantine thinkers employed the mereological sections of the Elements of Theology to bolster their theories of universals are discussed in more detail in section 5.1.
The English title of Nicholas’ work is taken from Angelou’s critical edition. Note however, as Robinson points out, that the original Greek title (
Angelou, “Introduction”, in Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, pp. lxi–lxii.
See, e.g., Proclus, The Elements of Theology, ed. and tr. E.R. Dodds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19632), 74, as discussed in sections 4 and 5.2.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 67, p. 64, l. 1–2:
D’Hoine, “Totalité et participation”, p. 178.
For which see Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 23. For the parallel between the triad of participation and the triad of wholeness, see Dodds, Proclus. The Elements of Theology, p. 237, though note also that d’Hoine, “Totalité et participation”, has pointed out a number of problems which arise from this parallel.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 69 p. 64, l. 30–32, and p. 66, l. 6–10 (cf. 99 p. 88, l. 24–27), and Théologie platonicienne, ed. and tr. H.-D. Saffrey, L.G. Westerink (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1968–1997), vol. 3 p. 86, l. 18–19; Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, p. 524.
Proclus, Théologie platonicienne, vol. 3, ch. 25 and 27 (cf. Elements of Theology, 52); Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, p. 524; cf. J. Opsomer, “Deriving the Three Intelligible Triads from the Timaeus”, in A.-P. Segonds, C. Steel (eds), Proclus et la Théologie platonicienne (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2000), p. 363 n. 50.
Proclus, Théologie platonicienne, vol. 3, p. 88, l. 12–p. 89, l. 9; Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, pp. 525–526.
Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, pp. 516–518, 526–527, and 532.
J. Robinson, “Dionysius Against Proclus: the Apophatic Critique in Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation of the Elements of Theology”, in D.D. Butorac, D.A. Layne (eds), Proclus and his Legacy (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), p. 250.
G. Van Riel, “The One, the Henads, and the Principles”, in P. d’Hoine, M. Martijn (eds), All From One. A Guide to Proclus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 76.
J. Robinson, “Proclus as Heresiarch. Theological Polemic and Philosophical Commentary in Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation (Anaptyxis) of Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in S. Mariev (ed.), Byzantine Perspectives on Neoplatonism (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), pp. 108–109; cf., e.g., Nicholas, Refutation, prologue p. 4.24–25. For a succinct explanation of why the Elements of Theology is less openly apophatic in its description of the One than some of Proclus’ other works, see J. Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus” in this same volume.
Robinson, “Dionysius Against Proclus”, p. 250.
Robinson, “Dionysius Against Proclus”, p. 250.
Nicholas, Refutation, 66, p. 68, l. 19–20:
Nicholas, Refutation, 67, p. 69, l. 3–11:
Robinson, “Proclus as Heresiarch”, p. 113 and ibidem n. 45.
Nicholas, Refutation, 68, p. 69, l. 23–26:
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 52, p. 50, l. 7–23; cf. n. 10 above.
Nicholas, Refutation, 52, p. 56, l. 5–6; Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 54, p. 52, l. 8–10.
Nicholas, Refutation, 52, p. 56.6–13; cf. 87, p. 89, l. 14–20, for which see also Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”.
The idea that a thing’s wholeness is linked to its substantial form is, in fact, what Aristotle himself argues for in Metaphysics, Z, 1041b, albeit without the reference to a divine principle.
Nicholas, Refutation, 67, p. 69, l. 15–17:
Aristotle, Categories, 8a. An important factor in Aristotle’s argument is the fact that for a thing to be defined as a relative term, it must be related to something else (Cat. 6a). Since bodily parts do not exist naturally outside of their body, they do not qualify for Aristotle’s definition of the category of relation stricto sensu.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 69, p. 64, l. 26–28:
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 69, p. 64, l. 24–25:
Nicholas, Refutation, 69, p. 70, l. 30–p. 71, l. 2:
Plato, Theaetetus, 203a–205a.
Plutarch, Vitae parallelae, ed. K. Ziegler, H. Gärtner (München: K.G. Saur, 2000), vol. 1, p. 20, l. 13–20. Donald Baxter gives an alternative example: if one divides a stretch of land into six parcels and sells the individual parcels to six different buyers, do the buyers automatically possess collective ownership of the land as a whole? D. Baxter, “Identity in the Loose and Popular Sense”, in Mind 97/388(1988), p. 579.
For the term “unrestricted composition”, see, e.g., D. Lewis, Parts of Classes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 74. For “restricted composition”, see, e.g., K. Koslicki, The Structure of Objects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 173.
Although Plato does not give a straight answer in the Theaetetus to the question he raises there, Verity Harte has shown that other dialogues, such as the Philebus, the Sophist, and the Timaeus, indicate his support for the view that the whole is not just the sum of its parts; V. Harte, Plato on Parts and Wholes. The Metaphysics of Structure (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 167–266. Although Aristotle’s list of definitions of “whole” in Metaphysics
Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, pp. 532–533; see also section 2 above.
Lewis, Parts of Classes, p. 74.
Lewis, Parts of Classes, p. 80.
Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 69, p. 64, l. 24–25:
Nicholas, Refutation, 23, p. 31, l. 26–p. 32, l. 17, and 69, p. 69, l. 30–p. 70, l. 7; cf. 180, p. 157, l. 7–9. The full scope of Nicholas’ arguments against the Proclean concept of the unparticipated and his subsequent argument for the unparticipated-participated Trinity requires no further investigation here, since it is already extensively documented in Robinson, “Dionysius Against Proclus”, pp. 257–265.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 73, p. 70, l. 5–9.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 74, p. 70, l. 17–21.
Baltzly, “Mereological Modes of Being”, p. 206, n. 492.
See, e.g., Plotinus, Enneads, 6.2.2, l. 12–26.
Porphyry, Isagoge et in Aristotelis Categorias commentarium, ed. A. Busse (Berlin: Reimer, 1887), p. 8, l. 1–3:
Porphyry, Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes, ed. E. Lamberz (Leipzig: Teubner, 1975), 22 p. 13, l. 13–16. For further analysis of this passage and of Proclus’ response to Porphyry on this matter, see A. Oosthout, “The problem of (in)divisible intellect in Proclus’ Elements of Theology, 180. Proclus and Porphyry on the relativity of the incorporeal whole”, in Études platoniciennes 17(2022):
For the distinction between these two types of parthood relations between a genus and its species, see Aristotle, Metaphysics,
Nicholas, Refutation, 73, p. 75, l. 19–21.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 73, p. 68, l. 3–4:
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 73, p. 70, l. 2–3:
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 73, p. 70, l. 3–4:
Nicholas, Refutation, 73, p. 75, l. 30–p. 76, l. 5:
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, p. 69.
Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 73, p. 70, l. 2–3:
I thank Jan Opsomer for pointing out to me this flaw in Nicholas’ critique.
Plato, Parmenides, 142c–143a.
Proclus, Théologie platonicienne, vol. 3, p. 87, l. 8–9:
Oosthout, “The problem of (in)divisible intellect in Proclus”, ch. 3, p. 32, and ch. 4, p. 36. For Wholeness-itself as a whole before the parts, see also Proclus, Théologie platonicienne, vol. 3, ch. 27, and Opsomer, “Deriving the Three Intelligible Triads”, p. 363. For the Living Being from the Timaeus as the composite multiplicity subordinate to Wholeness-itself, see also Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, ed. G. Van Riel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), vol. 4, p. 14, l. 8–15. For the Living Being as the whole before the parts superordinate to the sensible cosmos, see Proclus, In Timaeum Commentaria, vol. 2, p. 321, l. 17–p. 322, l. 2, D. Baltzly, “The World Soul in Proclus’ Timaeus Commentary”, in C. Helmig (ed.), World Soul—Anima Mundi. On the Origins and Fortunes of a Fundamental Idea (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020), pp. 293–294, and Oosthout, “A Wholesome Trinity”, pp. 530–531.
Robinson, “Proclus as Heresiarch”, pp. 108–109 shows that, outside of the Elements of Theology, the only works of Proclus to which Nicholas might have had access were the Alcibiades Commentary and the Timaeus Commentary. However, Opsomer argues in “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus” that, even if Nicholas did have access to the Timaeus Commentary, his engagement with that text was most likely minimal.
For which see the introduction to this paper.
J. Greig, “Reason, Revelation, and Sceptical Argumentation in 12th- to 14th–Century Byzantium”, in Theoria 88/1(2022), pp. 176–177.
J. Robinson, “ ‘A Mixing Cup of Piety and Learnedness’: Michael Psellos and Nicholas of Methone as Readers of Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in D. Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes. Volume 2. Translations and Acculturations (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 89–90; Nicholas, Refutation, prologue p. 1, l. 15–p. 2, l. 12. For a more general overview of Psellos’ interaction with Proclus’ writings, see D. O’Meara, “Michael Psellos”, in S. Gersh (ed.), Interpreting Proclus. From Antiquity to the Renaissance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 165–181.
Robinson, “A Mixing Cup of Piety and Learnedness”, pp. 69–70. See also Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”, where it is rightly pointed out that Nicholas’ conceptualization of Aristotelean thought as a useful weapon against Neoplatonism rather oversimplifies the manner in which the two schools of thought actually interacted. For a comparison between Nicholas’ strongly anti-Proclean use of Aristotle and Aristotle’s reception by other Byzantine scholars, see M. Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, in Gersh (ed.), Interpreting Proclus, p. 207.
K. Ierodiakonou, “John Italos on Universals”, in Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 18(2007), pp. 238–240; cf. Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, pp. 185–186 for a succinct overview for Italos’ use of the three kinds of wholes in general.
Ierodiakonou, “John Italos on Universals”, p. 247.
Ierodiakonou, “John Italos on Universals”, pp. 243–246. Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, p. 185, similarly argues that Italos did not simply take Proclus’ views for his own.
S. Gersh, “Universals, Wholes, Logoi: Eustratios of Nicaea’s Response to Proclus’ Elements of Theology”, in Calma (ed.), Reading Proclus. Volume 2, pp. 33–34.
Gersh, “Universals, Wholes, Logoi”, pp. 50–51 and cf. p. 31.
Gersh, “Universals, Wholes, Logoi”, pp. 36 and 49–50; cf. Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, p. 199. For Proclus’ original conception of the universal as embodied form, see C. Helmig, “Die atmende Form in der Materie. Einige Überlegungen zum
L. Alexidze, “Ioanne Petritsi”, in Gersh (ed.), Interpreting Proclus, pp. 232 and 241. See also Alexidze’s chapter “Nicholas of Methone and Ioane Petritsi on Intellect” in this volume.
Alexidze, “Ioanne Petritsi”, p. 242.
L. Benakis, “
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 76, l. 11–12:
On Nicholas’ nominalism in general, see Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”.
For the latter claim, see Proclus, The Elements of Theology, 74, p. 70, l. 17–18.
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 76, l. 12–14.
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 76, l. 14–16:
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 76, l. 18–19:
Cf. Nicholas, Refutation, 108, p. 104, l. 34–p. 105, l. 1.
Proclus, In Timaeum Commentaria, vol. 3, p. 85, l. 16–p. 87, l. 7; cf. Baltzly, “Mereological Modes of Being”, pp. 401–402, G. Van Riel, “Proclus on Matter and Physical Necessity”, in R. Chiaradonna, F. Trabattoni, (eds), Physics and Philosophy of Nature in Greek Neoplatonism (Leiden: Brill, 2009), p. 249, and J. Opsomer, “The Natural World”, in d’Hoine, Martijn (eds), All From One, pp. 144–148.
Proclus, In Timaeum Commentaria, vol. 3, p. 86, l. 4–6:
Baltzly, “Mereological Modes of Being”, p. 405 has suggested that the whole in the part refers to Porphyry’s notion of the “atomic form” (Porphyry, Isagoge, p. 7, l. 19–21) such as Socrates’s distinctive characteristics. I am more inclined to follow the interpretation of d’Hoine, however, since he has shown in “Ceux qui acceptent des Idées de toutes choses”, pp. 207–210, that Proclus denies that individual characteristics derive from transcendent formal principles (cf., e.g., Proclus, In Platonis Timaeum Commentaria, vol. 5, p. 86, l. 23–p. 87, l. 15); the embodied form in a particular individual is instead a manifestation of the genus, such as the humanity in Socrates. D’Hoine has subsequently argued in “Totalité et participation”, p. 218, convincingly in my opinion, that this individually manifested universal is the whole which exists in a partial manner.
The term
Gen. 1:1.
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 76, l. 26–p. 77, l. 4:
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 77, l. 4–8; cf. Plato, Timaeus, 31c–32a, and A.E. Taylor, A commentary on Plato’s Timaeus (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1928), pp. 93–96 (though note that, in Plato’s mathematical explanation for the placement of additional elements in between the two extreme terms, the total number of elements is four rather than five). For Nicholas’ views on the five elements, see also Angelou, “Introduction”, in Nicholas of Methone, Refutation, pp. xli–xlii.
Nicholas, Refutation, 74, p. 77, l. 8–14:
For Nicholas’ views on the divine Ideas see J. Greig, “Nicholas of Methone on Divine Ideas: Between Proclus and the Early Byzantines” in this volume; cf. C. Terezis, L. Petridou, “The Theory on ‘Eide’ According to Nicholas of Methone”, in Vox Patrum 68(2017), pp. 556–559.
If one takes Nicholas’ noncommittal mereology to its logical Lewesian extreme (see section 4 above), one could even claim that Arthur is a member of the nominalist genus ‘human’ in the same accidental way he is a physical member of the created cosmos.
Terezis, Petridou, “The Theory on ‘Eide’ According to Nicholas”, p. 563. I thank Jonathan Greig for pointing out to me the connection between Nicholas’ views and those of Gregory.
G. Van Riel, T. Wauters, “Gregory of Nyssa’s ‘Bundle Theory of Matter’ ”, in Journal of Early Christian Studies 28/3(2020), pp. 396–397. A discussion of the extent to which Gregory does or does not deviate from the Aristotelean view of matter and form can be found in J. Greig, “The ‘Bundle Theory’ in Gregory of Nyssa’s In hexaemeron”, in J. Zachhuber, A. Marmodoro (eds), Gregory of Nyssa: On the Hexaëmeron. Text, Translation, Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
For this view see the following passages: Gregory of Nyssa, De anima et resurrectione, ed. A. Spira (Leiden: Brill, 2014), ch. 124M, p. 93, l. 14–p. 94, l. 15; De opificio hominis, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris: Migne, 1857–1866), ch. 24, 212D–213C; In Hexaemeron, ed. H.R. Drobner (Leiden: Brill, 2009), ch. 7, p. 15, l. 10–p. 16, l. 11.
Gregory, In Hexaemeron, ch. 7, p. 15, l. 10–p. 16, l. 11: (…)
Van Riel, Wauters, “Gregory of Nyssa’s ‘Bundle Theory of Matter’ ”, p. 415.
Aristotle, Metaphysics,
Trizio, “Eleventh- to twelfth-century Byzantium”, p. 206.
Terezis, Petridou, “The Theory on ‘Eide’ According to Nicholas”, p. 562.
Greig, “Nicholas of Methone on Divine Ideas”.
Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”.
Opsomer, “Standards of Argument in Nicholas and Proclus”, p. 152, suggests that Nicholas’ strict reduction of all relations to accidents is in fact informed by worries about the unity of the Trinity rather than worries about the ontological status of Its creations: “A reason for this stance, apart from the historical reasons, may be that if one were to concern universals and in particular relations as having hypostatic reality, the Trinity would be even more crowded than it already is with just the three persons”.
Cf. Lewis, Parts of Classes, p. 81.
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