Heidegger Neoplatonism And The History Of Being

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Heidegger,
Neoplatonism, and
the History of Being
Relation as Ontological Ground

James Filler
Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being
 James Filler

Heidegger,
Neoplatonism, and the
History of Being
Relation as Ontological Ground
James Filler
Wheeling, WV, USA

ISBN 978-3-031-30906-9    ISBN 978-3-031-30907-6 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30907-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2023
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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 To my wife, Amy, and my mother, Edelize. Without their support and
encouragement this work would not have been possible. I love you Amy, my
Beloved, and I love and miss you, Mom. I wish you could have waited to see
me finish.
 Acknowledgments

Clichés become clichés precisely because they have a universal truth about
them which easily and often gets forgotten. So while it is a cliché to say
that no work of this type and magnitude could be accomplished in isola-
tion, it is, as the cliché would suggest, absolutely and unequivocally true
for me here. And given that the nature of this work is such that the funda-
mental nature of reality is herein claimed to be relational, it would be
especially egregious if at the same time I were to claim that very work to
be completely independent and solely the result of my own labor and
thought. No one who has come into my life has failed to impact this work
in significant ways, and nothing of any worth could be found here without
their influence. Their number is almost infinite. Some have contributed in
large obvious ways and others in smaller subtler ways. It is often, however,
the small subtle contributions that often have the greater, though less
obvious, impact. Such is certainly the case here. I am grateful beyond
words to all of them. They all deserve to be credited, and I’m sure there
are many important people I will overlook.
First, I wish to thank my parents. Without their love and guidance, I
would not be the person I am, and this book would never have happened.
I especially wish to thank my mother. She supported me in every endeavor
I ever undertook no matter how bizarre or financially irresponsible. She
lived to see the seeds of this work planted. I just wish she would have lived
to see it come to fruition. I owe you everything, Mom, and I miss you
horribly.

vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my wife, Amy. Thank you for your love and patience, especially dur-
ing those times I was less than loving and patient toward you. I owe you
as much as I owe mom. You mean everything to me, sweetheart. You are
my life.
Of course, I thank my Dissertation committee who had to read the
work upon which this book is based: Dr. Piers Stephens, Dr. Rene Jagnow,
and Dr. Elizabeth Brient. They took the time to read this when it was even
more of a monster than it is now. I am grateful to them for their support
and encouragement. I especially thank Dr. Piers Stephens. He helped
guide me through this. He even had to read the version before more than
a third of it was removed. God bless him. I also wish to thank him for his
friendship during my time at University of Georgia (UGA). He was always
someone I could talk to. He would even listen patiently when I got on a
soapbox and yelled. Thank you, my very dear friend.
Thank you to Dr. Athanasios Samaras. You have been a wonderful
friend to me, and your encouragement and support means more than
you know.
I also wish to thank all my friends at UGA, Dr. Jackson Schwartz, Dr.
Nathan Wood, Dr., Dan Crescenzo, and Dr. Chris Lay. They all supported
me and encouraged me in various ways, and I am certain I have forgotten
others who deserve to be mentioned as well. I miss hanging out with
you guys.
Fr. John Behr took the time not just to return an email or two but to
actually call me on the phone and discuss the aspects of this work relating
to the Trinity with me. His suggestions on the Cappadocian Fathers and
the Trinity made me see central aspects of the project in a whole new light.
Thank you, Fr. John.
Many years ago, Dr. Robert Wood at the University of Dallas, was the
first to see promise in my philosophical work and encourage it. He even
supported me during the times I got knocked off the doctoral path, and
when I decided I was ready to get back on it, he was there. Thank you,
Dr. Wood.
I wish to thank Dr. Philipp Rosemann for his enthusiasm, encourage-
ment, and inspiration. He inspired my philosophical vision in beautiful
ways. He also was someone who early in my academic career saw promise
in me and encouraged my philosophical pursuits. And again, after my
derailment, he was there when I came back. Thank you for your support
and encouragement.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix

I thank Dr. Eric Perl and Dr. Robert Sloan who also inspired me in ways
I doubt they can imagine.
Thank you, Dr. Jesse Gipko and Dr. Paula Makris for your patience and
understanding while I worked on this and taught at the same time.
To Matt and Louise Heusel and Joe Depto. Your friendship, encour-
agement, and support helped me to push through the times I thought
there was no way I would ever finish. Thank you.
And to all the priests God has used to help me grow in wisdom and in
strength: Fr. Anthony Savas, Fr. Antony Bahou, Fr. Anthony Salzman, and
Fr. Christopher Foustokos. Each of them helped me grow and endure
both joyous times and difficult trials. And especially Fr. Demetrios
Tsikouris for his wisdom, humility, patience, guidance, and pastoral sensi-
tivity. May God bless each of you as you have all blessed me. Thank you!
To Fr. Conan Gill, Dr. Corey Dyck, Fr. Eugen Pentiuc, and Captain. In
your own ways, each of you helped me stay sane in a very insane place.
And I especially thank you, Fr. Conan, for helping me to begin to recover
afterward.
Finally, again it’s cliché, but it would be a grave error to forget the One
without Whom nothing is possible.
These are my speculations. While I certainly hope and pray that they are
consistent with and perhaps even reflect the teachings of the Orthodox
Church, they have not been approved by any authority in the Church. If
there is any error in them, I ask forgiveness, recant, and repent. If there is
any truth or wisdom, it belongs to God alone. May He have mercy on me
and on us all.
 Contents

Part I Μονή: Origins of Being; The One   1

1 Beginnings  3
Introduction: History, We Have a Problem!   3
The Beginning   6
The Problem   9

Part II Πρόοδος: Emanation  17

2 Plato:
 Two Paths Diverge 19
The “Unwritten” Doctrines  23
The Sophist  29
The Philebus  34
The Timaeus  45
Conclusion  64

3 The
 Neoplatonists: The Path of Relation 69
Plotinus and the One  69
The Christian Neoplatonists  85
The Trinity: A New Relation  85
The Cappadocian Fathers  90
The Trinity as Pure Relation 100
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite 104

xi
xii Contents

St. Maximus the Confessor 113

Eriugena 121
Nicholas of Cusa 141

4 The
 Aristotelians: The Path of Substance167
Aristotle 167
The Scholastics 189
Descartes and the Cartesian Crisis 191
Consequences: Nietzsche 194

Part III Ἐπιστροφή: Re-turn 197

5 Heidegger199
Nietzsche: The End of Metaphysics and a New Hope 199
Background: The Problem of the Question of Being 203
Relationality in “Being and Time” 213
Die Kehre: The Turn 236
Relationality in Heidegger’s Later Thought 241
Conclusion 252

Part IV Ἀποκατάστασις: “The End of the Matter” 257

6 Conclusion259
Process Thought 259
Personhood 270
Implications 271
Conclusion: “Now All has been Heard” 272

Bibliography273

Index285
 PART I

Μονή: Origins of Being; The One

 CHAPTER 1

Beginnings

Introduction: History, We Have a Problem!

From its inception, metaphysics has been haunted by a fundamentally sin-
gular problem, which manifests historically in two ways. In ancient, pre-­
modern times, it is primarily a metaphysical problem—is Being One or
Many. If Being is primarily one, then how do we account for the multiplic-
ity that we see and experience? If Being is fundamentally many, then how
can there be any stability, that is, identity, which is required both for
knowledge to be possible and for things to exist as things? After the turn
to modernity, after Descartes, the problem becomes epistemological,
manifesting itself as the problem of Subject/Object Dualism. If knowl-
edge is primarily the function of the subjective consciousness of a rational
agent, then how can we bridge the gap between the subjective realm of
the knower and the objective world of the known? This is fundamentally,
however, still a metaphysical problem. Even though it has now taken on
the form of epistemology, it is a question about the nature of reality and
arises from a misunderstanding of Being as “substance”. It is this tradition
of the “ontology of substance” that Heidegger criticizes so sharply in his
analysis of the Cartesian res extensa:

Substantiality is the idea of Being to which the ontological characterization

of the res extensa harks back. “Per substantiam nihil aliud intelligere possu-
mus, quam rem quae ita existit, ut nulla alia re indigeat ad existendum.” “By

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 3

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Filler, Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30907-6_1
4 J. FILLER

substance we can understand nothing else than an entity which is in such a

way that it needs no other entity in order to be.” The Being of a ‘substance’
is characterized by not needing anything.1

Heidegger then states, “The critical question now arises: does this
ontology of the ‘world’ seek the phenomenon of the world at all, and if
not, does it at least define some entity within-the-world fully enough so
that the worldly character of this entity can be made visible in it? To both
questions we must answer ‘No’.”2 In both cases, the problem arises from the
question: What is the source of Being, and how is this source, and conse-
quently Being itself, to be understood?
The history of philosophy gives us two radically different answers to
this question. One has long dominated philosophical investigation and
discourse, while the other has been, for the most part, confined to the
arcane teachings of obscure philosophers, dismissed as too esoteric to be
considered metaphysically respectable, or at the very least too ignorant of
and contradictory to contemporary “enlightened” modes of thought to
be relevant. The first follows the path of Aristotle by whom Being is seen
as independent and separate and through whom the ontology of sub-
stance develops. It is this path that predominates historically. The other
path follows the Neoplatonists who, developing hints found in Plato, see
Being in relational terms. It is this relational tradition of ontology which
Heidegger recovers and which provides a solution to the metaphysical
problems mentioned above.
It is true that a dynamic view of Being is enjoying something of a resur-
gence in Process philosophy, but Process thought has not, as yet, become
the metaphysically dominant view, and further, even Process thought does
not give relationality the ontological primordiality it is due. Thinkers such
as Rescher, Niemoczynski, Benjamin, and, of course, Whitehead all

1
Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson
(New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 125.
2
Ibid., 128 (emphasis in the original).
 1 BEGINNINGS 5

recognize the limits of substance ontology and seek to replace it with a

relational understanding.3 Rescher makes this explicit:

As is often the case in philosophy, the position at issue is best understood in

terms of what it opposes. From the time of Aristotle, Western metaphysics
has had a marked bias in favor of things. Aristotle’s insistence on the meta-
physical centrality of ostensively indicatable objects (with tode ti as a point-
able—at this) made an enduring and far-reaching impact. In fact, it does not
stretch matters unduly to say that the Aristotelian view of the primacy of
substance and its ramifications (see Metaphysics IV, 2, 10003b6–11)—with
its focus on midsize physical objects on the order of a rock, tree, cat, or
human being—have proved to be decisive for much of Western philosophy.4

Nevertheless, Process thought is still as yet dominated by a fundamen-

tally “substantial” view of metaphysics insofar as it understands “relation”
in the Aristotelian πρός τι sense in which relation is founded upon relata
rather than relata being grounded in relation. Process thought has, there-
fore, not yet managed to divorce itself fully from the metaphysics of
substance.
Zizioulas, while not strictly a philosopher but a theologian, has some-
thing of an ontologically relational grasp insofar as he understands God in
terms of “Communion”. He goes so far as to assert, “It would be unthink-
able to speak of the ‘one God’ before speaking of the God who is ‘com-
munion,’ that is to say, of the Holy Trinity.”5 This, however, is a relationality
which is not ontologically primary itself but still grounded on relata. In
this case, the relata upon which communion is grounded is the Father. His
understanding of God is more about the freedom of the Father to estab-
lish Himself in relation to the other Persons of the Trinity than on any

3
See Rescher, Nicholas, Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues (Pittsburgh: University
of Pittsburgh Press, 2000); Rescher, Nicholas, Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process
Philosophy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996); Niemoczynski, Leon,
“Ecology Re-naturalized”, in A Philosophy of Sacred Nature, ed. Leon Niemoczynski and
Nam T. Nguyen (New York: Lexington Books, 2015); Benjamin, Andrew, Towards a
Relational Ontology: Philosophy’s Other Possibility (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 2015); Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality (New York: The Free Press,
1985). All of these thinkers will be discussed in more depth in the Conclusion, but they
deserve to be noted here.
4
Rescher, Process Philosophy: A Survey of Basic Issues, 4.
5
Zizioulas, John D., Being as Communion (Crestwood, New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1985), 17.
6 J. FILLER

ontologically primary relationality itself. He states, “The fact that God

exists because of the Father shows that His existence, His being is the
consequence of a free person; which means, in the last analysis, that not
only communion but also freedom, the free person, constitutes true being.
True being comes only from the free person, from the person who loves
freely—that is, who freely affirms his being, his identity, by means of an
event of communion with other persons”6 (bold italicized emphasis
added). Zizioulas, therefore, grounds his understanding in the Father,
Who freely establishes and determines the being of Himself as well as
other entities, first and foremost, the other Persons of the Trinity. This
“being” is relational, but it is a relationality founded upon an Aristotelian
πρός τι notion of relation by which the Father is the relata upon Whom the
relationality of Being is founded.
Yannaras comes closest to a truly relational ontology with his under-
standing of God, the “Causal Principle” of Being, as “personal”, corre-
spondingly understanding “person” as “relation”.7 Yet he goes no further,
failing to apply this “relational ontology” to nonpersonal entities, as the
Process thinkers do.
So while there is a recognized problem with substance ontology and an
attempt to uncover relationality as an alternate metaphysical understand-
ing, a truly relational ontology with its full implications has yet to be fully
appreciated and realized. That is the task here, and to accomplish this, it is
necessary to consider both how these alternate ontological understandings
developed historically and how Heidegger begins a recovery of ontologi-
cal relationality.

The Beginning
In the beginning, there was … Being. This must be the case in order for
there to be anything at all. Reality itself depends on there having been
“something” in the beginning. The ancient principle ex nihil nihil fit
demands it.8 The alternative is a reality that is irrational and contradictory.

6
Ibid., 18. It is worth noting that this has more in common with existentialism than a true
relational ontology.
7
Yannaras, Christos, Postmodern Metaphysics, trans. Norman Russell (Brookline,
Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2004), 136, 152. He will be discussed in more
detail in the examination of “Personhood” in the Conclusion.
8
“Out of nothing, nothing arises” This principle can be traced all the way back to the earli-
est days of philosophy. In Parmenides’ poem, the possibility of Being arising from Nothing
is explicitly denied as irrational, a logical contradiction. (See Parmenides Poem Fr. 8 5–21;
Kirk, G. S., Raven, J. E., and Schofield, M., The Presocratic Philosophers, 2nd ed. (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 249–250.)
 1 BEGINNINGS 7

The principle itself, however, is already the development of a philosophi-

cal, or logo-centric, mode of thought—one in which reality itself is subject
to the rational capacities of a rational agent. Western thought has generally
accepted that it is with the beginning of the separation of mythos and logos
that a “philosophical” mode of thinking begins to arise,9 and while pre-­
philosophical modes of thought (mythopoeic modes of thought in which
logos and mythos have not yet been separated) do deal with the origins of
the world and even recognize implicitly this principle—everything that
exists came from something10—they seem to ignore the question of Being
per se, that is, Being as something which underlies and grounds the things
that exist. In the rationalistic, logo-centric mode of thought, one would say
they ignore Being as an “abstract concept”. This is not to say they ignore
the realities of life, but they are either reluctant or incapable of examining
the nature of Being itself. This is not surprising if Hans Blumenberg is
correct in his assessment of the role of myth. In his Work on Myth,
Blumenberg claims that the purpose of myth is to distance man from the
“absolutism of reality”, by which is understood the situation in which
“man comes close to not having control of the conditions of his existence
and, what is more important, believes that he simply lacks control over
them”.11 It, myth, allows man to distance himself from the conditions of

9
Philip Rosemann makes the point that the separation of myth and reason is a central and
defining characteristic of Western civilization, and with it early Greek thought. He notes that
for the Greeks prior to the eighth century BC, there was no distinction between “mythos”
and “logos”, that is, between myth and reason, and myth didn’t carry the pejorative burden
of the “absurd” or “false” as it came to in Western, especially contemporary Western,
thought. (Rosemann, Philipp, Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 48–50.) While the antagonistic understanding of the relation
between mythos and logos has become common in Western thought, an articulate critique of
this understanding, which we will briefly examine, exists in Stambovsky, Phillip, Myth and the
Limits of Reason, Revised ed. (Dallas: University Press of America, 2004).
10
David Leeming lists five types of creation myths: Ex Nihilo, Creation from Chaos, World
Parent, Emergence, and Earth-Diver. The only two that might seem to violate this principle
are Ex Nihilo and Creation from Chaos, but as Leeming makes clear, in creation ex nihilo the
central fact of this type of creation account is a Creator “existing alone in a pre-creation
emptiness or void, who consciously creates an organized universe on his own”, and creation
from chaos involves some eternal matter which, while often indefinite and indeterminate, yet
contains the potentiality from creation within it. So in neither case is the principle of origin
“nothing”. (Leeming, David A., Creation Myths of the World: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols. (Santa
Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2010), 2–15.)
11
Blumenberg, Hans, Work on Myth, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge: The MIT
Press, 1985), 3–4.
8 J. FILLER

the reality that surrounds him, to flee in the face of reality. While this is not
an avoidance of Being per se, it does create a situation in which the inquiry
into the nature of Being is problematic. In order to understand the nature
of reality one must contemplate the conditions of reality. This cannot be
done if one flees from such conditions.
Whether or not myth is a means by which man copes with anxiety in the
face of Reality, as Blumenberg asserts, it is clear that the preoccupation
with the realities of life prevented the development of a philosophical
approach to Being. As Aristotle himself recognizes, it is when one is free
from the necessities of life that a philosophical mode of thinking can
arise.12 And so it is certainly the case that it is not until man has overcome
and conquered, to some degree, the vicissitudes of life that the question of
Being can even begin to be asked, much less answered.13 And so it is only
then that the modes of thought necessary to contemplate Being can arise.
Thus, if it is the case, as it seems to be, that man’s earliest conceptions lack
both an understanding of Being per se and even any attempt at such
understanding, then perhaps our original claim is false; perhaps in the
beginning, there simply…was. This would certainly be more accurate, at
least from the perspective of human cognition. It is only with the rise of
both leisure time and, correspondingly, a philosophical perspective that
the question of Being can become a question at all, and thus, the investi-
gation into the question of Being proper can begin.

12
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols., vol. 2, Bollingen
Series LXXI 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). Metaphysics, I(A).1. “Hence
when all such inventions [those that serve pleasure and the necessities of life] were already
established, the sciences which do not aim at giving pleasure or at the necessities of life were
discovered, and first in the places where men first began to have leisure. This is why the
mathematical arts were founded in Egypt; for there the priestly caste was allowed to be at
leisure” (981b19–24).
13
Stambovsky’s assertion that myth and discursive reasoning are complementary may offer
interesting insight here as well. The question of Being only arises once the move from
mythopoeic reasoning to logo-centric reasoning is made. Logo-centric thinking, with its abil-
ity to grasp the abstract is also necessary. In reality, the question of Being cannot arise if one
is limited to non-discursive depictive thought. This is because no question can be asked from
a non-discursive perspective. There is no reasoning process, so one can’t move from question
to answer, from problem to solution. Maybe philosophical reasoning is a development of
instrumental reasoning, for example, “How do I get my crops to grow better?” Instrumental
reasoning is discursive, and when discursive reasoning attains the leisure to ask more abstract
questions, we get philosophical reasoning, and then the question of Being arises. Stambovsky’s
view of the complementarity of non-discursive and discursive reasoning is, from the point of
view of answering philosophical questions at least, correct.
 1 BEGINNINGS 9

The Problem
It is a testimony to Aristotle’s genius that his perspective has, to this day,
dominated discussion on the subject of both relation and being; however,
this perspective leads to serious difficulties.14 In Categories 7, Aristotle
says, “We call relatives [πρός τι] all such things as are said to be just what
they are, of or than other things, or in some other way in relation to some-
thing else” (6a37–38).15 And in Categories 5, Aristotle states “that which
is called a substance most strictly, primarily, and most of all—is that which
is neither said of a subject nor in a subject” (2a11–13).16 Further, in
Metaphysics VII(Z).3, after defining substance as “that which is not predi-
cated of a subject, but of which all else is predicated” (1029a8–9), Aristotle
clarifies, “both separability and individuality are thought to belong chiefly
to substance” (1029a28).17 These passages show: (1) that substance, or
“being” (οὐσίᾳ), is understood fundamentally as independent existence
and (2) that relation is primarily grounded in the things it relates, the
relata. These conceptions, however, are problematic.18
In the passage from Being and Time cited above, Heidegger identifies
the traditional ontology of substance with what he calls “presence-at-­
hand” which, for Heidegger, cannot be ontologically primary, since this
would render access to beings “within-the-world” problematic. According
to Heidegger, this traditional ontology, by its very nature, has determined
that the way to access entities is through understanding.19 This becomes a
problem since understanding is always the understanding of some subject,
and so access to something which exists independently, that is, some
object, becomes difficult. Thus, the problem of Subject/Object dual-
ism arises.

14
Much of the following argument is adapted from Filler, James, “Relationality as the
Ground of Being: The One as Pure Relation in Plotinus”, The International Journal of the
Platonic Tradition 13, no. 1 (2019).
15
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, 2 vols., vol. 1, Bollingen
Series LXXI 2 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984).
16
Ibid., 4.
17
Ibid., 2.
18
This is not to suggest that this understanding of these concepts, that is, relations as
determined by relata and substance as independent existence, originated with Aristotle. The
Greek designation for relation, “πρός τι” (“toward something”), already indicates a relation
that is primordially directed toward some thing, and the notion of Being as independent rests
firmly on the Parmenidean ground of Being as one, simple, and unchanging. It would be
inaccurate to say that Being is “independent” for Parmenides only because there is literally
“nothing” for it to be independent from.
19
Ibid., 129.
10 J. FILLER

Two things should be noted here. First, it is true that Heidegger in

these passages is primarily criticizing Descartes, but as he notes, the prob-
lem really lies in the traditional ontology of substance upon which
Descartes’ philosophy rests. Second, many ancient philosophers, Plato and
Plotinus particularly, also confine Being to the realm of the Intellect, but
this is not a problem (or not the same kind of problem), since Intellect is
not primarily the Intellect of a subject, but rather is a supreme over-­arching
principle which brings all things to being—or perhaps better, brings Being
to all things. The problem still might exist in the form “How does any-
thing exist outside the Intellect?”, but ultimately for philosophers such as
Plotinus and Plato, nothing truly does. The duality of subject-object, and
so the dilemma, doesn’t arise. However, the same problem on a meta-
physical level does: the One-Many Problem.
The understanding of substance as independent existence also raises
problems for the concept of relation. This is evidenced by the confusing
account of “relation” described by Cavernos in his examination of the
theory of relations found in Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. He concludes
that, according to the classical theory of relations, relation “inheres in the
referent”, but at the same time it is not “a quality or quantity of a thing”.
20
At the same time that it “inheres” in one of the terms of the relation, it
is also something “a thing has ‘towards’ another”, concluding, “With
respect to its being, a relation inheres in the referent; with respect to
essence, however, it holds from the referent to the relatum.”21 Thus, he
claims it resides both in one of the terms and apart from the terms as
something “between” or “towards” one of them. This leads to the conclu-
sion: “The relation inheres in the referent in an unique and indefinable
way—a way very different from that in which qualitative or quantitative
characteristics inhere in things.”22 Relation inheres in one of the terms but
in a strange and mysterious way different from the way anything else
inheres in a thing, and at the same time, as something “towards” a thing,
it must exist in some sense apart from the referent as something grounded
in both the referent and the relatum. If its existence is grounded in the
referent, then it would need nothing else for its existence. If it requires

20
Cavernos, Constantine, The Classical Theory of Relations (Belmont, Massachusetts: The
Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 1975), 104.
21
Ibid., 19–20.
22
Ibid., 104.
 1 BEGINNINGS 11

something outside the referent to exist, then what sense does it make to
say it exists in the referent? Cavernos leaves this paradox unresolved.
As long as one insists on a substance ontological perspective, the ground
of relationality will always be confusion, and one will fail to grasp the
essential relationality of determinate being, that is, substance, itself. The
question of where relationality is grounded must be answered by recog-
nizing the ground of relation as lying outside of and independent from the
relata. But if this is not to reduce relationality itself to some entity, with its
own substantial existence independent of anything related to it (certainly
it is an obvious contradiction to say that relation itself exists independently
of relations),23 then this in turn entails an ontology in which relationality
is ontologically prior to substance, an ontology in which Relation Itself is
the ontological ground of substance.24
If we understand relation as primarily grounded in the relata, and these
relata are independently existing substances, then the notion of relation-
ship itself becomes difficult. Where does the relation reside? It cannot

23
It may seem that this is precisely what I am arguing, but it is not. Pure Relation itself
seeks relata. Even though it is the ground of relata and ontologically prior to relata, it never-
theless seeks and desires something to relate. It needs relata, in some sense, for completeness.
What this entails is that Pure Relation, ontologically prior Relationality, needs relata that are
themselves Relations, and not substantial. And just as any relation entails at least two relata,
Pure Relation, in its perfection, consists of three elements: Relationality Itself and two purely
relational Relata. This, however, does not entail the Pure Relation is imperfect or is lacking.
I hope to explain this more clearly when Personhood as self-relation is discussed, particularly
as it is manifested in the Christian Neoplatonists.
24
It needs to be remembered, however, that Cavernos is talking about particular, that is,
determinate, relation, for example, large/small, and not Relation Itself or Pure Relation.
This confused account of relations can be resolved if, as I stated above, we recognize that
Pure Relation underlies and grounds determinate being itself. And since determination is
itself relational and grounded ontologically in relationality (a preview of this argument was
presented in the section above and a more detailed argument follows below), it logically fol-
lows that as Pure Relation gives rise to determinate being, it also gives rise to determinate or
particular relations. This helps clarify the difficulty Socrates had in Phaedo with things
becoming large and small by the same thing or becoming what they are by their opposites
(see Phaedo 96eff.). If Pure Relation is itself indeterminate, then it would be necessary that
all relations would contain some indeterminateness, and so this is manifested in the fact that
particular relations are themselves somewhat indeterminate, that is, the same thing can be
both large and small. Something is never simply large or small, but every entity, every deter-
minate thing, is incomplete in itself; it is determined by something outside of itself. All par-
ticularity, whether it be particular relations, for example, large/small, left/right, or up/
down, or particular things, that is, entities, contain some indeterminateness. Thus there is an
ambiguity, an unknowableness, in everything.
12 J. FILLER

reside in either entity independent of the other or else the other becomes
an unnecessary participant in the relation. If that which gives rise to the
relationship, whatever the relationship might be, resides in one particular
entity, then no other entities are necessary for the relationship. This is
necessary even in the case of self-relations, since what we are generally
referencing when we talk about self-relations is the relation of a whole to
its parts. It makes little sense to call simple unity, that is, a unity that lacks
parts, self-related. If the relationship arises from the combination of the
two entities, but does not exist independently of the entities, then some-
thing must be added to the entities which does not exist in either entity by
itself. Otherwise, all that is necessary for a relationship to arise resides in
each entity independently, and this is no different than if the relation
derives from the single entity by itself. Thus, relation must exist indepen-
dently of relata for there to be any relation at all.25 Here one might object
that relations do, in fact, arise from the two entities and do not have to
exist independently of the entities. For example, the presence of difference
sizes in different objects gives rise to small and large. The object by itself
is small (or large), and so when another large object also exists, then we
get smaller and larger. So relation does arise simply from the two entities
and no third thing is necessary. But the issue here is size. If we quantify
some size as “small” or “large”, we have already added a relation to it. But
to say an object is “small” makes no sense unless there are other objects
relative to it which are larger. So the object, by itself, cannot be small. And
likewise it cannot be large. It simply has size. The relation between differ-
ent sizes is already relational and can’t exist in either object independently
(i.e., as just noted, a single object by itself is neither small nor large), and
since it cannot exist in either object independently, it cannot exist in both
independently. Why? Because if it exists in each independently, then it
exists in the object alone, that is, independent of the other object, by defi-
nition, and then the object, by itself, is smaller, which is incoherent. This
does not, however, necessarily refute the understanding of relation as
grounded in relata. It merely establishes that relation, qua relation, must
exist independently of the relata.

25
Plato himself recognizes this and, in the Timaeus, states, “But it isn’t possible to com-
bine two things well all by themselves, without a third; there has to be some bond between
the two that unites them” (31b9–c2). It is true that Plato is here talking about the Demiurge’s
mixing fire and earth to create the world’s body, but his point is a general one and, I believe,
can be applied more broadly. (Unless otherwise noted, all English translations are from
Plato, Plato: Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1997).)
 1 BEGINNINGS 13

To establish the primary existence of relation, prior to its relata, we

must go further, and to do this, we must recognize that without relation
as a third thing between two entities, neither entity can exist. Some rela-
tion is necessary for there to be entities at all. This is not a new problem.
It is simply a restatement of the classic One-Many problem: Is Being pri-
marily One, which then gives rise to multiplicity, or is it primarily Many,
which then gives rise to unity? Neither seems possible, and so we find
ourselves in a metaphysical quandary, since it seems necessary that Being
be either one or many.
Could Being possibly be neither one nor many? Plato reaches this con-
clusion explicitly in the Sophist, “millions of other issues will also arise,
each generating indefinitely many confusions, if you say that being is only
two or one” (245d10–e1). He shows that if Being is two (many), then
they both must “be”, and so “being” is the same in both, that is, one
(243d6–e8). But later, he shows that if Being is one, several problems arise
leading to multiplicity, such as if Being is one, then it is called both “being”
and “one”, but how can it have two names if it is one? Also, is the name
the same as Being? If so, then the name is either nothing, or the name of
itself, and so turns out to be the name of a name and “nothing else”.
Further, Being is called “whole” and “one”, but then it has parts, but that
which is “truly one” cannot have parts (that which has parts is already
many) (244b5–245d9). Plato’s Parmenides reaches the same conclusion.
Whatever else we may claim about the One and Many, neither can exist by
itself, without the other.26 Thus, the hypotheses in the Parmenides ulti-
mately show that Being can be neither One nor Many. It might be tempt-
ing to conclude that this leaves us in a state of irremediable confusion,27
but there is something important here. From the hypotheses, we can see
that Being cannot be a simple unity and neither can it be multiplicity with-
out unity. The One cannot exist without the Many and the Many cannot
be without the One. This entails that entities existing independently in
themselves cannot be. One by itself cannot exist. But neither can two,
since two are simply two independently existing unrelated entities. Unless
there is a relation between the two, which as we have seen must be a third

26
As I am only making what I take to be a very general observation on the relation between
the One and Many as revealed in the dialogue, I do not think it is necessary here to go into
a detailed discussion of other various possible readings of the Parmenides.
27
As scholars such as Vlastos and Allen seem to do. See Vlastos, Gregory, “The Third Man
Argument in the Parmenides”, The Philosophical Review 63, no. 3 (1954), and Allen, R. E.,
Plato’s Parmenides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997).
14 J. FILLER

element that does not arise from either of the two entities by itself, two
independently existing entities are no different than a single independently
existing entity, and so just as one cannot be many, neither can two (since
two independent entities are ultimately no different than one entity). So
true multiplicity only arises in the relation between two things, and thus,
it is ultimately the case that to exist independently is to not exist at all.28
How does this follow? To exist independently requires that a thing be
determinate, that is, to be a particular thing, to be other than something.
But if there is no other, there can be no determination. This is essentially
what both the passages from the Sophist and the hypotheses of the
Parmenides show: both unity and the others are necessary. Since to be one
is to be other than the many, to be one is to be determinate, and since the
many, to be many, must be different from each other, the many are deter-
minate as well. So both one and many must be determinate. But since
both the one and many must exist together and cannot exist without the
other, the one and many can only exist in relation to each other. Since we
have seen that relation cannot arise from either of the relata (the one and
many) but must be a third thing, the determinate existence of both one
and many depends on this relation. Thus independent unrelated being,
that is, substance, cannot be, and so to exist independently is to not exist.
This entails that the ground of being, being as determinate being, must be
pure relation, a relation independent of its relata. What follows from this
is that just as true multiplicity only arises in relation, so also true unity only
arises in relation. It should go without saying that the being of Relation,
independent of its relata, that is, Pure Relation as the ground of Being,
cannot itself be determinate. It must be indeterminate and indefinite, oth-
erwise it contradicts itself.
To be more clear, to be determinate is to be limited, but to be limited
entails otherness insofar as there must be something outside or beyond the
limit. Thus, there is some otherness apart from determination which, liter-
ally, defines determination. Since to be other entails relationality, to be
determinate is to be related. If relation must exist independently of the
relata, that is, determinate beings, and the determinate entities are
grounded in relation, then relation is ontologically prior to determinate
beings. Further, since determinate being depends on relationality, the
Being of relationality cannot, itself, be determinate, or else it becomes

28
In preparation for the discussion to follow, it will be helpful to keep in mind the distinc-
tion between being, non-being, and beyond Being.
 1 BEGINNINGS 15

circular. Being must, therefore, be Pure Relation and must be ontologi-

cally prior to any determination, any relata, and so absolutely indefinite,
indeterminate.29
As already noted, this relational ontology is not, however, what became
the dominant ontological understanding. While one can see a fundamen-
tally ontological relationality in the earliest philosophies of Anaximander
and, even more explicitly, Heraclitus,30 a substance understanding begins
to arise as early Parmenides with his radically simple, determinate, and
independent conception of Being.31 It is this substance understanding
which, through Aristotle, rose to historical dominance, even as a
Neoplatonic relational understanding persistently lurked in the
background.

29
As we will ultimately see, however, the situation is more complex. Pure Relationality
must be indefinitely/indeterminately definite/indeterminate and definitely/determinately
indefinite/indeterminate. It must be indeterminate/indefinite to the degree that it contains
determinacy/definiteness within it. If it were simply indefinite/indeterminate, then it would
be definite/determinate in being other than definiteness. This will be seen when we discuss
the Trinity in Christian Neoplatonism later in the book.
30
See Filler, James, “The Relational Ontology of Anaximander and Heraclitus”, The
Review of Metaphysics 76, no. 2 (2022).
31
Parmenides is clear in his claim that Being is simple (see DK28B8.22 “Nor is it divisible,
since it is all alike”); it is determinate in that unlike Anaximander’s unlimited (ἄπειρον),
Parmenides’ Being has limits (DK28B8.42–45 “But since the limit is ultimate, it [namely,
what-is] is complete from all directions, like the bulk of a well-rounded sphere, equally
matched from the middle on all sides; for it is right for it to be not in any way greater or any
lesser than in another,” and DK28B8.26 Being lies “motionless in the limits [πείρασι] of
great bonds”); and it is independent since there is nothing other than it.
 PART II

Πρόοδος: Emanation
 CHAPTER 2

Plato: Two Paths Diverge

The metaphysics of Heraclitus and Parmenides created a difficulty which

ancient philosophers found deeply troubling. Both Heraclitus and
Parmenides seem to present reasonable explanations for the world. The
world we experience is certainly constantly changing and consists of a vari-
ety of different and distinct entities, so Heraclitus seems correct: Being is
Many. But Parmenides’ logical arguments seem unassailable as well, and if
he is correct, then Being is One, and distinction is, thereby, impossible.
Further, to say things are Many entails an underlying unity beyond the
multiplicity of things in order for the Many to be distinctly many. This
leads to the One/Many Problem. Plato particularly wrestled with this
problem discussing it at length in the dialogues Parmenides and Sophist,1
and in wrestling with this problem, Plato became a central figure, a pivot
point, in the history of metaphysics. In forging something of a middle
path between the ontologies of Heraclitus and Parmenides, Plato prepares
the ground for both a relational ontology, which will be further developed
in Neoplatonic thought, and a substantial ontology, which will come to
dominate philosophy through the influence of Aristotelian thought.
Findlay explicitly notes, “Plato may very well be imagined to have occu-
pied a middle place among all these acute-minded, logically precise

1
See Chap. 1, section “The Problem”, above for an explanation of this problem and a
discussion of its implications as demonstrated in Plato’s dialogues Parmenides and the
Sophist.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2023
J. Filler, Heidegger, Neoplatonism, and the History of Being,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-30907-6_2
20 J. FILLER

younger men [the ‘Friends of the Ideas’ in the Academy], at times invest-
ing himself, with a somewhat tired tolerance, in the mantle of Parmenides,
at other times verging towards the flux-doctrine of Heraclitus.”2 This
middle place which Plato occupies is, at some level, an attempt to harmo-
nize the Heraclitean relational ontology and the Parmenidean ontology of
determinate independent existence. It must be recognized, however, that
to suggest that Plato understood Heraclitus’ ontology as relational would
require a degree of philosophical gymnastics that stretches the evidence of
the dialogues beyond recognition. Plato clearly understood Heraclitus as
a philosopher of flux. Nevertheless, Plato incorporates both Heraclitean
and Parmenidean elements into his explanation of the world. In the
Timaeus, both philosophers are reflected in the cosmological principles
which ground the universe. In Timaeus 32a7–c2, Timaeus tells Socrates,

So if the body of the universe were to have come to be as a two dimensional

plane, a single middle term would have sufficed to bind together its conjoin-
ing terms with itself. As it was, however, the universe was to be a solid, and
solids are never joined together by just one middle term but always by two.
Hence the god set water and air between fire and earth, and made them as
proportionate to one another as was possible, so that what fire is to air, air is to
water, and what air is to water, water is to earth. He then bound them
together and thus he constructed the visible and tangible universe. This is
the reason why these four particular constituents were used to beget the
body of the world, making it a symphony of proportion. (emphasis added)

The Heraclitean influence here is hard to miss. The four traditional ele-
ments (Earth, Air, Fire, and Water) have the same relation that we saw in
Heraclitus earlier: Earth to Water, Water to Air, Air to Fire. And just as
Earth and Fire lie at the ends of this process, so here the same relation is
found with Water and Air being placed between Earth and Fire.3 Further,
as Heraclitus states in DK22B31, there is a fixed ratio (λόγος) between the
elements, which is reflected here in the Timaeus as well. But in the same
passage, a few lines down (33a6–b6), Timaeus states,

That is why he concluded that he should fashion the world as a single whole,
composed of all wholes, complete and free of old age and disease, and why
he fashioned it that way. And he gave it a shape appropriate to the kind of

2
Findlay, J. N., Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul Ltd., 1974), 212–213.
3
See Fragments DK22B76b and DK22B76c.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 21

thing it was. The appropriate shape for that living thing that is to contain
within itself all the living things would be the one which embraces within
itself all the shapes there are. Hence he gave it a round shape, the form of a
sphere, with its center equidistant from its extremes in all directions. This of all
shapes is the most complete and most like itself … (emphasis added)

Just as Parmenides’ Being is a sphere, so also in the Timaeus, the uni-

verse is shaped as a sphere.4 Even though, as shown above, Parmenides
does not intend to argue that the world is a sphere, merely that Being is
determinate,5 it is hard to read this passage and not think of Parmenides.
The harmonization of these two philosophers further appears in that for
Plato the sensible world of appearances mirrors the Heraclitean flux and
the realm of Ideas/Forms mirrors the eternal and unchanging aspects of
Parmenides’ Being.6 However, if the influence of Heraclitus and
Parmenides in Plato was limited to these levels, it would not merit men-
tion. The ontological principle we are investigating must go deeper, and
in Plato it does.
Much has been made of the doctrine of the Forms in Plato and rightly
so. They are certainly central to understanding Plato’s ontology, and, as
just stated, they certainly reflect Parmenidean characteristics. As Plato
notes in the Phaedo, the Forms, that is, “thing in itself, the real (αὐτὸ
ἕκαστον ὃ ἔστιν, τὸ ὄν)”, must be “uniform by itself, remain the same and
never in any way tolerate any change whatever”.7 They are eternal, one in
themselves, and changeless, just as Parmenides’ Being. One might even
recognize an ontological relationality in Plato’s doctrine of the Forms: the
particulars are what they are by participation (μέθεξις) in the Forms.8 This

4
Parmenides’ DK28B8-42-45. Sayre notes the parallel as well. See Sayre, Kenneth M.,
Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved (Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing, 2005), 244.
5
Cf. Fränkel, Hermann, Wegen und Formen frϋhgriechischen Denkens (Mϋnchen:
C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1968), 193–195.
6
If we accept McKirahan’s understanding of Parmenides in which “the attributes of what-
­is are taken to be the attributes that any basic entity must possess: it must be ungenerated and
imperishable, etc. Atoms are a good example” (McKirahan, Richard, Philosophy Before
Socrates (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2010), 172–173.), then Plato’s Forms fit the
criteria perfectly.
7
In Phaedo 78d3–7, Socrates asks Cebes, “Can the Equal itself, the Beautiful itself, each
thing in itself, the real, ever be affected by any change whatever? Or does each of them that
really is, being uniform by itself, remain the same and never in any way tolerate any change
whatever?”
8
As Aristotle notes, according to Plato, “the multitude of things which have the same
name as the Form exist by participation in it.” (Metaphysics I(A).6 987b9–10 Aristotle, The
Complete Works of Aristotle, 2, 1561.)
22 J. FILLER

is, however, a superficial relationality that does not entail a fundamental

ontological relationality; it only entails a relationality on the level of
appearances, which, further, do not truly share in Being.9 But while the
Forms may be central to Plato’s ontology, the Forms are not the apex of
Plato’s ontology. There is an ontological principle (or principles) beyond
the Forms.
Knowing that neither the Heraclitean, as he understood it, flux, in
which Being is change/Many, nor the Parmenidean system, in which
Being is One, can provide an adequate metaphysical ground,10 Plato seeks
a First Principle of Being that lies beyond either One or Many, that is,
beyond Being as experienced either in the world of appearances or in the
world of intellect.11 In The Republic, Plato asserts that The Good gives
Being to “objects of knowledge (τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις)” and lies “beyond
Being (ἐπέκεινα τῆς οὐσίας)”.12 And earlier in The Republic, Plato estab-
lished that knowledge, as opposed to opinion, has “what is (τῷ ὄντι)” as
its object.13 Since the Forms are the realm of “what is” and are the objects
of knowledge, The Good then, as “beyond Being”, gives Being to The
Forms. It follows then that The Good lies beyond the realm of the Forms,
and since the Forms ground whatever being the realm of appearances has,
it lies beyond the realm of appearances as well. Thus, it is a transcendent
ontological principle. How is this transcendent First Principle that lies
“beyond Being” yet gives Being to be understood?14

9
Findlay states, “If Plato believed or disbelieved anything, he disbelieved in the genuine
being of particular things”. (Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, xi.) This is
also made clear in the discussion in The Republic 476e3ff, where Socrates and Glaucon exam-
ine the objects of knowledge (the Forms, i.e., that which “is”) and opinion (appearances, i.e.,
that which properly neither “is” nor “is not”).
10
As evidenced in Plato’s discussion in the Parmenides and Sophist already noted above.
11
This is the point of Plato’s discussion in the Philebus in which the good is ultimately
neither pleasure (i.e., it is not found in the world of sensation/appearance) nor knowledge
(i.e., not found in the intelligible realm of the Forms).
12
Republic 509b9.
13
Republic 478a6.
14
For an argument that “beyond Being” simply means “highest being” and not “tran-
scending Being”, see Baltes, Matthias, “Is the Idea of The Good in Plato’s Republic Beyond
Being?”, in Studies in Plato and the Platonic Tradition, ed. Mark Joyal (London: Routledge,
1997). For a response see Ferber, Rafael and Damschen, Gregor, “Is the Idea of the Good
Beyond Being? Plato’s “epekeina tês ousias” revisited (Republic, 6, 509b8–10),” in Second
Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato, ed. Debra Nails and Harald Tarrant (Espoo:
Wellprint Oy, 2015).
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 23

The “Unwritten” Doctrines

Plato says little in the dialogues directly about The Good. Socrates, in The
Republic, claims to be unable to say what it is and only what it is like, giv-
ing rise to the three Analogies of the Good.15 But recognizing that The
Good is the ontological principle underlying the Forms, it is possible to
examine Plato’s understanding of the principle or principles which give
rise to or constitute the Forms, and so come to an understanding of The
Good. Findlay claims, as his “first and most fundamental conviction”, that
“the Platonic Dialogues are not, taken by themselves, the sort of works in
which anyone's views on any matter could be clearly set forth: they point
beyond themselves, and without going beyond them they are not to be
understood”.16 Sayre, discussing Aristotle’s comments on Plato’s views
(particularly the role of the Indefinite Dyad in Plato), says, “Generations
of Plato scholars have agreed that these doctrines cannot be found in the
written dialogues.”17 Both Sayre and Findlay agree that more is required
than simply reading the extant dialogues in order to understand Plato’s
views, and both seek an understanding of Plato which incorporates the
“unwritten” doctrines found in Aristotle and others.18 In order to
­understand, then, the nature of The Good, the ontological ground of the

15
Republic 506d6–e5.
16
Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, ix.
17
Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 11.
18
Findlay states, “My book is aimed at achieving a unified presentation of a unified view of
Plato, developed in relation to the full span of the Platonic writings, and the ancient writings
on Plato.” (Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, xii.), and Sayre’s task is to
show that the ontology presented by contemporaries and commentators of Plato, as well as
by Aristotle in the Metaphysics, does indeed appear in Plato’s writings, specifically in the
Philebus. However, while Findlay seeks to unify Plato’s thought into a coherent whole, Sayre
nevertheless accepts the view that Plato ultimately rejects the earlier ontology of the “Middle”
dialogues. (Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 13ff.) Guthrie notes that
Aristotle, in his discussion of Plato’s ontology in Metaphysics I(A).6 and XIII(M).4, “makes
no division, within the system of Plato himself, between an earlier and a later doctrine of
Forms.” (Guthrie, W.K.C., A History of Greek Philosophy: V The Later Plato and the Academy,
vol. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 427.) It is my conviction that while
development may occur, Plato can be read as a unified whole without the necessity of aban-
doning an earlier ontology in order to make sense of a later one. In my discussion here, I
proceed on this assumption, as well as on the assumption that the doxographers’ statements
regarding Plato’s views accurately reflect those views.
24 J. FILLER

Forms, it will be necessary to examine these “unwritten” doctrines and

their ontological significance.19
Regarding the Lecture on The Good, in which Plato is said to have laid
out, at least to some degree, his “unwritten doctrines”, Gaiser states,

The main features of Plato’s doctrine of first principles preserved by the

doxographers can be summarized as follows. The goodness (ἀρητή) of a
thing is shown by its permanence, beauty, and form. These qualities depend
on order (τάξις, κόσμος); that is, on a well-proportioned arrangement of
parts within the whole. The basis of order therefore is unity, and thence unity
or one-ness is the cause of all good, or good in itself. Since the world is not all
order and goodness, one must reckon with an opposite cause: a cause of non-­
unity, of indefinite plurality, and thence not-good. Everywhere these two prin-
ciples can be seen acting in combination, with one or other of them
dominant.20 (emphasis added)

Thus, the ultimate Platonic principles which ground reality are two:
The One/Good and an “indefinite plurality” (or Indefinite Dyad).
Initially, these principles seem to manifest something of a combination of
Heraclitean multitude and Parmenidean unity; however, there is a much
deeper reality at work here. Already there can be seen a certain relational-
ity insofar as all things are a relation of these two principles, but this is still
primarily a “πρός τι” relationality in that things are composed of a relation
between the two elements of the One and Indefinite Dyad, and so it is a
relation founded upon relata instead of an ontologically foundational rela-
tion. Nevertheless, while Plato himself is still governed by this “πρός τι”
understanding of relation, these two principles ultimately constitute a
single ontological principle that can best be seen as a pure relationality that
serves as the primordial ground for all Being.

19
I place “unwritten” in quotes because, like Sayre, I believe these ideas do appear in the
dialogues, even if they are “hardly even sketched out in the dialogues”, as Brandis claims.
(Brandis, Christian August, A Study of the Lost Books of Aristotle on the Ideas and on the Good
or on Philosophy (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005), 59.)
20
Gaiser, Konrad, “Plato’s Enigmatic Lecture ‘On the Good’,” Phronesis 25, no. 1 (1980):
12–13. And in discussing Plato’s lecture “On the Good”, Aristoxenus, citing Aristotle, says
that most came to the lecture expecting to hear Plato talk about temporal goods, such as
wealth or health, but were confounded when Plato concluded “that the Good was Unity (ὅτι
ἀγαθόν ἐστιν ἕν)”. (Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, 413. (Aristoxenus,
Elements of Harmony, 40.2).)
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 25

Plato’s ontology can be divided into three levels: the level of particulars
(the level of appearances), the level of the Forms (the level of Being), and
the level of the Good (a level “beyond Being”).21 As just noted, Gaiser’s
quote above already indicates that there is a relationality on the level of
“things”, but what does this mean? Is it the level of particulars/appear-
ances or the level of Forms/Being? This is an important question, because
if it is only a relationality on the level of things, and not on the fundamen-
tal ontological level, then Being, in its First Principle, is still to be under-
stood in substantial, that is, independent, terms. To answer this question,
it is necessary to examine more closely what the doxographers, that is,
those who reveal the “unwritten” doctrines, say regarding Plato.
In Metaphysics I(A).6 988a8–14, Aristotle says, “It is plain from what
has been said that he [Plato] made use of only two causes, the Cause of
Essential Nature and the Cause which is Material—for the Eide [Forms]
cause the Essential Natures of other things, and the One causes the Eide.
And as to the nature of the underlying Matter of which the Eide are predi-
cated in the case of sensible things, but of which the One is predicated in
the case of the Eide, it is plain that this is a Dyad, the Great and the
Small.”22 Here, Aristotle asserts that Plato made use of two ontological
principles: the One, which causes the Eide/Forms, and the Eide/Forms,
which cause the “essentials natures of things”. However, there is another
“cause” here, namely the “Dyad” or “Great and Small”, and as Findlay
points out, Aristotle is here noting that the Indefinite Dyad, the “underly-
ing Matter”, is as much an underlying ontological feature of the eidetic
realm as it is of the sensible realm.23 Aristotle, in Physics III.4 203a1–10,
further says,

For all those who are thought to have made worthwhile contributions to
Physics, have discoursed about the Infinite and all have made it a Principle
of things, some, like the Pythagoreans and Plato, as something self-existent
and a substantial reality, and not as an accident of anything else. But the
Pythagoreans put the Infinite among sensible things (for to them Number

21
Krämer lists four levels of reality: (1) sensible object, (2) mathematical natures, (3) uni-
versals, (4) the principles. (Krämer, Hans Joachim, Plato and the Foundation of Metaphysics,
trans. John R. Catan (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 83.) For our pur-
poses, levels 2 and 3 can be combined.
22
Unless otherwise noted, all English translations of the doxographers, including Aristotle,
are taken from Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines.
23
Ibid., 416.
26 J. FILLER

did not exist apart), and said that what lay outside the Heavens was infinite,
whereas Plato denied that there was any body outside of the Heavens, not
even the Ideas, which were nowhere, but held, none the less, that there was
an Infinite both in sensible things and in the Ideas.

Simplicius, in his commentary on the Aristotle passage above, clarifies,

Plato denies that the Ideas are beyond the Heavens, since they are not
located in space at all, but he asserts none the less that there is an Infinite
Element both in sensible things and in the Ideas. Aristotle says that Plato
made the One and the Indefinite Dyad the Principles of sensible things in
his discourses on the Good, but he also located the Indefinite Dyad in the
noetic realm, and made the Great and Small into Principles there, saying
they were a case of the Infinite.24

For Plato then, the Infinite and Indefinite Dyad are identified and func-
tion as “matter” in both the eidetic and sensible realms. Thus, we see: (1)
the Indefinite Dyad, Great and Small, and Infinite are all synonymous
terms for Plato, and (2) the first two levels of reality, that is, sensibles and
Forms, consist of both the One and Indefinite Dyad; in other words, they
are relational in their Being.25
If Horky is correct in his claim that Aristotle, based on the comments
in Metaphysics I.5–I.6, 987a13–b18,26 “assumes that Plato’s metaphysics

24
Cited in ibid., 418. (Simplicius, Commentary on Arostotle’s Physics, Vol. 9, p. 453,
lines 19–28.)
25
One might here argue that there is a difference between being composed of things and
being constituted by a relation of those things. I’m not certain what this difference would be
unless being constituted by a relation of things presupposes a certain ordering of the things
which constitute an entity’s being, and being composed of things simply indicates that things
are a part of some entity. However, what constitutes both the sensibles and the Forms is a
certain relation between the One and the Indefinite Dyad, so that the argument would not
apply here regardless.
26
“But the Pythagoreans have said in the same way that there are two principles, but added
this much, which is peculiar to them, that they thought finitude and infinity [the limited and
the unlimited-Horky, Phillip Sidney, Plato and Pythagoreanism (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 183. And also Graham, Daniel W., The Texts of Early Greek Philosophy: The
Complete Fragments and Selected Testimonies of the Major Presocratics, 2 vols., vol. 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 509.] were not attributes of certain other
things, e.g., of fire or earth or anything else of this kind, but that infinity itself and unity itself
were the substance of the things of which they are predicated. This is why number was the
substance of all things. On this subject, then, they expressed themselves thus; and regarding
the question of essence they began to make statements and definitions, but treated the mat-
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 27

operates by virtue of the same ontological vehicle as the Pythagoreans’”,27

then some understanding of that vehicle would be helpful. In the passage
just cited, Aristotle states, “But the Pythagoreans have said in the same
way that there are two principles, but added this much, which is peculiar
to them, that they thought finitude [Limit] and infinity [Unlimited]28
were not attributes of certain other things, … but that infinity itself and
unity itself were the substance of the things of which they are predicated”
(Metaphysics I.5, 987a14–20). So Aristotle attributes two principles to the
Pythagoreans: Limit and Unlimited. But then how are Limit and Unlimited
related to the One/Good and Indefinite Dyad?
Limit and Unlimited are well-documented as principles in Pythagorean
thought,29 and, as just seen, Aristotle himself asserts that the Limited and
Unlimited are fundamental ontological principles, identifying Limit with

ter too simply. For they both defined superficially and thought that the first subject of which
a given term would be predicable, was the substance of the thing, as if one supposed that
double and two were the same, because two is the first thing of which double is predicable.
But surely to be double and to be two are not the same; if they are, one thing will be many—
a consequence which they actually drew. From the earlier philosophers, then, and from their
successors we can learn this much.
After the systems we have named came the philosophy of Plato, which in most respects
followed these thinkers, but had peculiarities that distinguished it from the philosophy of the
Italians. For, having in his youth first become familiar with Cratylus and with the Heraclitean
doctrines (that all sensible things are ever in a state of flux and there is no knowledge about
them), these views he held even in later years. Socrates, however, was busying himself about
ethical matters and neglecting the world of nature as a whole but seeking the universal in
these ethical matters, and fixed thought for the first time on definitions; Plato accepted his
teaching, but held that the problem applied not to any sensible thing but to entities of
another kind—for this reason, that the common definition could not be a definition of any
sensible thing, as they were always changing. Things of this other sort, then, he called Ideas,
and sensible things, he said, were apart from these, and were all called after these; for the
multitude of things which have the same name as the Form exist by participation in it. Only
the name ‘participation’ was new; for the Pythagoreans say that things exist by imitation of
numbers, and Plato says they exist by participation, changing the name. But what the partici-
pation or the imitation of the Forms could be they left an open question.
Further, besides sensible things and Forms he says there are the objects of mathematics,
which occupy an intermediate position, differing from sensible things in being eternal and
unchangeable, from Forms in that there are many alike, while the Form itself is in each case
unique.” (English translation taken from Barnes (Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle,
2, 1561).)
27
Horky, Plato and Pythagoreanism, 185.
28
“τὸ πεπερασμένον καὶ τὸ ἄπειρον”, translated as “limited” and “unlimited” respectively
in both Horky and Graham. See n. 57.
29
See Kirk, Raven, and Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers, 324ff.
28 J. FILLER

the One, Unity.30 However, this identity of One with Limit is not as clear
as it seems. A few lines earlier, Aristotle also says,

These thinkers [Pythagoreans] also consider that number is the principle

both as matter for things and as forming their modifications and states, and
hold that the elements of number are the even and the odd, and of these the
former is unlimited, and the latter limited; and the one proceeds from both
of these (for it is both even and odd), and number from the one; and the
whole heaven, as has been said, is numbers. (Metaphysics I.5 986a16–21)31

Here, the principles are Even and Odd, which are Unlimited and Limit,
respectively, and from Limit and Unlimited together, the One arises.
McKirahan diagrams the distinction as follows: (1) according to the latter
account—even/odd (Unlimited/Limit) → the one → number → the uni-
verse, (2) according to the former account—unlimited and limited ( = the
one) → number → all things.32 The question to be examined here is: How
does Limit, Unlimited, One, and Indefinite Dyad function in the ontology
of Plato? If, as Horky asserts, Plato operates according to the same “onto-
logical vehicle” as the Pythagoreans, then we should, at the very least,
expect there to be an identification of the Pythagoeran Limit and Unlimited
with the Platonic One and Indefinite Dyad, but what would this identifi-
cation be?33 Since for Plato the One is contrasted with the Dyad, and the
Dyad is identified with the Unlimited/Infinite, the One, for Plato, must
be identified with Limit—the fact that Aristotle’s testimony is ambiguous
about whether the Pythagoreans identified the One with Limit or saw the
One as deriving from the harmony of Limit and the Unlimited is inconse-
quential. What is important, in recognizing the connection between Plato
and the Pythagoreans, is that both see Limit and Unlimited as First
Principles, and Plato identifies One with Limit and the Indefinite Dyad
with the Unlimited/Infinite. It remains to be seen how these principles
manifest in the dialogues.

30
McKirahan notes this as well (McKirahan, Philosophy Before Socrates, 102.).
31
English according to Barnes (Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2, 1559.)
32
McKirahan, Philosophy Before Socrates, 101–102.
33
I will take no position on the relation of the One and Limit in Pythagorean thought,
given that it is unclear whether the One is the same as Limit or derives from the principles of
Limit and Unlimited together.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 29

The Sophist
In the Sophist, Plato offers an account in which Being and Difference align
with Limit and the Unlimited.34 In this dialogue, Plato distinguishes Five
“most important Kinds”: Being, Difference, Sameness, Motion, and
Rest.35 Of these “Five Kinds”, “that that which is [Being] and the different
pervade all of them and each other.”36 Being and Difference then take on
an ontological priority among the Five Kinds.37 But how do Being and
Difference pervade all things, and how do they function in their

34
In what follows, I am taking no position on the methodological issues involved, for
example, the methodology of collection and division, and their implications for either knowl-
edge or the role of the First Principles. All I seek to do here is offer a basic discussion the First
Principles in Plato and their ontological roles. A more detailed discussion of this aspect of
Plato’s thought can be found in Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 218–238.
And also in Ionescu, Cristina, “Dialectic in Plato’s Sophist: Division and the Communion of
Kinds,” Arethusa 46, no. 1 (2013).
35
Sophist 254d4–255a2.
36
Sophist 259a5–6. It might also be argued that Sameness pervades all and each other as
well. Sayre (Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 224.), Cornford (Cornford,
F. M., Plato’s Cosmology: The Timaeus of Plato (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1935),
61.), and Ionescu (Ionescu, “Dialectic in Plato’s Sophist: Division and the Communion of
Kinds,” 56.), for example, claim this. If, as we will see when we examine the Timaeus, the
Same ultimately is Limit and Being is ultimately the One, then this must be the case, since
Being (as the One) and the Same (as Limit) must be united, since the One and Limit, if our
understanding is correct, are identified. This is especially so if, as we will see, the One/Being
limits. The question arises in the Sophist why does Plato examine the issue in such an obscure
manner? A couple of possibilities exist. First, it may be that while Plato is discussing the
nature of the One and Dyad, this is not the primary question being examined in the text. So
it may reflect Plato’s ontological understanding, but he is not concerned to express it in a
precise manner. Thus, Plato is not being precise in his ontological explanation simply because
it is not his primary concern here. Another possibility is that Plato had misgivings about put-
ting his teachings in written form. As an example of this approach, Sayre cites the Tübingen
school, relying on statements Plato made in the Phaedrus and the Seventh Letter. (Sayre,
Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, xii.) It is my belief that the former possibility is the
correct one. It seems clear that Plato is pursing primarily an understanding of how something
can “not be”, although this doesn’t completely exclude the latter understanding, that is, that
Plato is “hiding” his teachings, as a possibility as well.
37
Why, then, five important Kinds and not two? It seems clear, since the discussion has
been about the blending of Forms, that these Five Kinds blend with all other Forms, although
only these two blend with all Five Kinds as well. “We’ve agreed on this: some kinds will
associate with each other and some won’t, some will to a small extent and others will associ-
ate a great deal, nothing prevents still others from being all-pervading—from being associ-
ated with every one of them. So next let’s pursue our account together this way. Let’s not
talk about every form. That way we won’t be thrown off by dealing with too many of them.
Instead let’s choose some of the most important ones. First we’ll ask what they’re like, and
next we’ll ask about their ability to associate with each other.” Sophist 254b7–c5.
30 J. FILLER

­ ervasiveness? We can see that Being pervades all the Forms in that each
p
of them is. Plato gives us the model in the discussion about Motion and
Rest, “that which is [Being] blends with both of them [Motion and Rest],
since presumably both of them are”.38 This makes it clear that Being per-
vades all Forms since the Forms are, but Difference must pervade them all
as well, otherwise Motion and Rest would be the same, which is clearly
impossible.39 So Being pervades all Forms by making them be, and
Difference pervades all Forms insofar as they are different from each other.
They both pervade each other in that Being both is and is different from
the other Forms,40 while at the same time Difference both is and is differ-
ent from the other Forms.41
It is tempting here to say that Difference limits things and Being is a
kind of substratum that Difference cuts up into distinct elements. But this
is not the way Plato describes it. It is Being/Unity which limits, because it
makes things one, that is, a unit. Difference is the substratum that Being
limits. Plato states,

Visitor: The nature of the different appears to be chopped up, just like
knowledge.
Theaetetus: Why?
Visitor: Knowledge is a single thing, too, I suppose. But each part of it
that has to do with something is marked off and has a name peculiar to
itself. That’s why there are said to be many expertises and many kinds of
knowledge.
Theaetetus: Of course.
Visitor: And so the same thing happens to the parts of the nature of the
different, too, even though it’s one thing.
Theaetetus: Maybe. But shall we say how?
Visitor: Is there a part of the different that’s placed over against the
beautiful?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Visitor: Shall we say that it’s nameless, or does it have a name?

38
Sophist 254d10.
39
Cf. Sophist 252d6–10.
40
Plato states this at 257a1–2 when he states, “So we have to say that that which is itself is
different from the others [Forms].”
41
For the argument why Being and Difference are not one and the same, see 255c8–d7.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 31

Theaetetus: It has a name. What we call not beautiful is the thing that’s
different from nothing other than the nature of the beautiful.
Visitor: Now go ahead and tell me this.
Theaetetus: What?
Visitor: Isn’t it in the following way that the not beautiful turns out to be,
namely, by being both marked off within one kind of those that are, and
also set over against one of those that are?
Theaetetus: Yes.
Visitor: Then it seems that the not beautiful is a sort of setting of a being
over against a being.42

Thus, this “setting of a being over against a being” (ἀντιτίθημι) is how

Difference gets “cut up” (κατακερματίζω), and so it is not Difference that
makes things distinct, but rather Being, placed against Difference, that
makes things distinct. In other words, Difference is an indefinite Form
which, when blended with Being, becomes distinct. Plato notes the indefi-
niteness of Difference in 256e8, “So as concerning each of the forms that
which is [Being] is extensive, and that which is not [Difference] is indefi-
nite in quantity.” But it is not only the characterization of Difference as
indefinite that makes this passage important; its characterization of Being
as “extensive” offers insight as well. The word translated “extensive” is the
word “πολὺ”, which in the plural is more commonly translated “many”.
How is this to be understood? How is Being “many”? It is important to
recognize that it is singular here, so “many” is not an adequate translation.
The proper English word would be “much”. So literally, the phrase would
be “that which is [Being] is much”. While “extensive”, although loose,
seems adequate here, its spatial connotations are unfortunate. It is not
“extensive” spatially but extensive in the sense of “full” or “abundant” or
perhaps even “whole”. If this passage is understood in this light, then it
can clearly be seen that Being is a “wholeness” that “chops up” Difference
into distinct Forms that are different from each other but one insofar as
they all are. Alexander in his commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics
987b33, regarding the relation of the One and the Indefinite Dyad for
Plato, states, “When given definition by the One, the Indefinite Dyad
became the Numerical Dyad.”43 Krämer notes this, although he

Sophist 257c7–e7.
42

As translated in Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, 417. (Alexander,
43

Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, pp. 56, 20–22).

32 J. FILLER

recognizes broader implications, as well, when he states “unity itself …

limits and determines the unlimited material substrate in a complete
way”.44 And Sayre, clarifying four ontological theses attributed to Plato by
Aristotle in Metaphysics, states the third thesis as, “the Forms are com-
posed of the Great and (the) Small [Indefinite Dyad/Unlimited] and
Unity”.45 It is clear, then, that Being, the One, Limit, gives definition and
determination to Difference, the Indefinite, Unlimited, and in so doing
gives rise to distinct Forms.46 So all Forms are relational in their ontologi-
cal ground. The inter-pervasiveness of the Forms, the Five Great Kinds,
and particularly Being and Difference, however, entails something more.
The inter-pervasiveness and co-constitutionality of the Forms entail a rela-
tionality of the whole system. As Krämer further notes in the same passage
just cited, it is not just individual Forms that are the product of the One
limiting the Indefinite; rather, it is the “order of the whole”.47 The system
of Forms are relational with each other, and the First Principles (Being/
One/Limit and Difference/Indefinite Dyad/Unlimited) are also rela-
tional. Relationality pervades the entire system for Plato.48

44
Krämer, Plato and the Foundation of Metaphysics, 166. We have already noted the role of
the Indefinite Dyad as Matter in the quote from Aristotle’s Metaphysics I(A).6 988a8–14 above.
45
Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 116.
46
That Alexander says these first Forms are numbers and so emphasizes numerical Twoness
is not our concern here. And so how the Five Great Kinds relate to numbers is beyond our
scope. What is important here is the role and relation of Being/One/Limit and Difference/
Unlimited/Indefinite Dyad.
47
Krämer, Plato and the Foundation of Metaphysics, 166.
48
Given that Plato says in The Republic that the Good is “beyond Being” (509b9), one
might ask if we are accurate in identifying Being with the One/Limit, since these would
belong to the First Principle, and for Plato the First Principle is clearly “the Good”. Here, we
have Being as one of the Forms. Since the Good must be beyond Being and so Beyond the
Forms, how are we to understand this? There are several possibilities here. First, it is possible
that Being and Difference in the Sophist do not represent the Good/One/Limit and
Indefinite Dyad/Unlimited themselves, but rather represent the first Formal “emanation”
(to use a Neoplatonic term) of them. In this light, Being and Difference would be first or
supreme among the Forms, being the first manifestation of Limit and Unlimited in the realm
of the Forms and thus would function as Limit and Unlimited in this realm. A second pos-
sibility is that they are the First Principle, together constituting the Good, and Plato calls the
One/Limit by the name Being (or literally “that which is”—τὸ ὄν) because it is the source of
Being. This second interpretation would be supported by the context of the dialogue, since
what is being examined is the notion of falsehood and how non-being is to be understood.
(See Sophist 258a11ff.) I make no judgment about the correct interpretation here. I think
both are plausible, and further, I do not think they are mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, the
resolution of this question is unnecessary for my project.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 33

Heidegger, too, recognizes the essential relationality in the Sophist.

It is remarkable, and is precisely one of the clear witnesses to the inner limi-
tation of Greek ontology, that here in the analysis of the ἕτερον [other] Plato
encounters the phenomenon of the πρός [toward], the phenomenon of the
relation-to, but is not capable, precisely in view of his own dialectic and his
dialectical task, of making visible this πρός τι [toward something] as a uni-
versal structure, insofar as this πρός τι is also an apriori structural moment of
the καθ̓ αὑτό [according to itself]. Even sameness, the “in-itself,” includes
the moment of the πρός τι; it is just that here the relation-to points back
to itself.49

Heidegger asserts the inherent relationality of Difference, recognizing

its essential nature as directed toward an other, which Plato also explicitly
recognizes, “the different is always said in relation to another, isn’t it?”50
However, Heidegger here recognizes that relationality goes deeper and is
ontologically fundamental in itself for all things. It is an “apriori” onto-
logical moment in all things, even the thing “in-itself” (καθ̓ αὑτό). But, as
Heidegger also recognizes, Plato is unable to recognize this essential and
ontologically primordial relationality. It is not, however, simply Plato’s
method and purpose that prevent him from recognizing the fundamental
ontological primordiality of relation; it is also the language itself. The term
used almost exclusively by the ancient Greeks for relation, πρός τι, means
“towards some thing”, and so already the language presupposes relation
as founded upon relata.51 Thus, while Heidegger recognizes in his own
metaphysic, the ontological priority of relation, even to the extent that

49
Heidegger, Martin, Plato’s Sophist, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer
(Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992), 377.
50
Sophist 255d1.
51
Later, the word “σχέσις” will also be used to mean “relation”, but primarily, it means
“state”, “condition”. Etymologically, it derives from the word “ἔχω”, which means “to have,
possess, hold”. (See Liddell, Henry George and Scott, Robert, ed. A Greek English Lexicon
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 1744, 749.) The idea of a “state” or “condition” is much
more conducive to relation understood as ontologically prior to relata. σχέσις is also the word
used by many of the Church Fathers to describe the relationships within the Trinity (cf.
Lampe, G. W. H., ed. A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1961), 1357.)
34 J. FILLER

relation ontologically grounds things as things in themselves, that is, as

determinate things, Plato is not yet able to.52

The Philebus
While Limit and the Unlimited are present in the Sophist, they are more
clearly reflected in the Philebus. Early in the dialogue, Plato has Socrates
say, “Whatever is said to be consists of one and many, having in its nature
limit and unlimitedness.”53 Later, after reaffirming that “what is” is divided
into “the unlimited and the limit”, Plato asserts two more “kinds”. In
addition to the two kinds, Limit and Unlimited, there is “the mixture of
these two” as well as “a fourth kind” which Plato defines as “the cause of
this combination of those two [Limit and Unlimited] together”.54 This
delineates three principles: Limit, Unlimited, and that which combines the
two.55 Following this discussion, Plato explains the nature of the Limited
and Unlimited. The Unlimited is indefinite and characterized by “more
and less”.

SOCRATES: We are agreed, then, that the hotter and the colder always
contain the more and less.
PROTARCHUS: Quite definitely.
SOCRATES: Our argument forces us to conclude that these things never
have an end. And since they are endless, they turn out to be entirely
unlimited.56

52
We will examine Heidegger’s understanding of the ontological priority of relationality
when we examine Heidegger.
53
Philebus 16c9–10.
54
23c9–d8.
55
Dancy sees “unlimited” in a different light. In recognizing two discussions, one follow-
ing the “Heavenly tradition”, that is, the discussion of the method as a “gift of the gods”,
and the other following the “Fourfold Division”, in which Unlimited and Limit are two of
four “kinds”, he asserts that according to the first discussion, Unlimited refers to infinitely
many particulars, and according to the second, it refers to “aspects or features of things that
admit more and less, and so are not limited”. (Dancy, R. M., “The Limits of Being in the
“Philebus”,” Apeiron: A Journal for Ancient Philosophy and Science 40, no. 1 (2007): 56.)
This understanding fails to recognize the connection of the Unlimited to the Indefinite Dyad
of Aristotle and the doxographers and also fails to consider the fundamental metaphysical
role the Unlimited plays.
56
24b4–8.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 35

Further, “Wherever they [‘more and less’] apply, they prevent every-
thing from adopting a definite quantity.”57 Thus opposites, such as “hotter
and colder”, while participating of “more and less”, lack definiteness. So
it is Limit that “takes away their excesses and unlimitedness, and estab-
lishes moderation and harmony in that domain”.58 So only when Limit is
imposed does opposition resolve into the “harmony” of definiteness. A
couple of things can be seen here. First, by identifying the Unlimited and
“more and less” with each other, the Indefinite Dyad (which both Aristotle
and Simplicius identified with the Great and the Small) also appears as a
principle.59 Second, as was seen in the Sophist, Limit and Unlimited com-
bine to give rise to all things, to “everything that actually exists now in the
universe”.60 Sayre explains the role of Limit and Unlimited in the Philebus
as follows:

In the Philebus the Forms are ontologically derivative. Like sensible objects,
Forms now are constituted from more basic principles. The main difference
between Forms and sensible objects with respect to their constitution is that
the composition of the former is prior to that of the latter. For whereas sen-
sible objects are composed of Forms and the Unlimited, Forms themselves
are composed from the same Unlimited in combination with the principle
of Limit.61

This is the same role that we saw working at the level of the Forms in
the Sophist. What is added is the role Limit and Unlimited play in the con-
stitution of particulars.
But the concern here is the nature of the First Principle, the underlying
ground of Being itself. Given what Plato says here, it must be asked, What
is the nature of this “cause” which combines Limit and the Unlimited? Is
the “cause” itself the principles Limit and the Unlimited or is it a third
principle along with Limit and the Unlimited? If it has been correct to
identify Limit with One/The Good, and Unlimited with the Indefinite
Dyad/Great-Small, then there seems to be some other principle at work
in addition to Plato’s The Good and the Indefinite Dyad. It thus becomes
critical to understand the nature of this “Cause”. In 27b1, Plato has

57
24c3.
58
26a7–8.
59
It should require little argumentation to recognize Great and Small in More and Less.
60
23c4.
61
Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 14–15.
36 J. FILLER

Socrates say, “We therefore declare that the craftsman [δημιουργοῦν] who
produces all these [Limit, Unlimited, and the Mixture] must be the fourth
kind, the cause.”62 A couple of interesting points arise here. The first is
that the Cause is called “δημιουργοῦν” or “Demiurge”. This is the title
given to the Creator in the Timaeus, as will be seen, so there is a clear con-
nection between the Cause in the Philebus and the Demiurge in the
Timaeus. The second is an ambiguity. What is the scope of “all these”
[πάντα ταῦτα]? Does the Cause produce all three kinds, in which case it
produces Limit and the Unlimited too, or does it only produce the third
kind, the mixture of Limit and the Unlimited? Plato does not seem to
intend that the Cause is cause of Limit and Unlimited but rather of the
third kind, that is, the mixture. He states this both in 23c9–d8, cited
above, and when he recounts the distinction in 27b7–c1, “As the first I
count the unlimited, limit as the second, afterwards in third place comes
the being which is mixed and generated out of those two. And no mistake
is made if the cause of this mixture and generation is counted as number
four?” (emphasis added). Thus, it seems that there are three principles:
Limit, Unlimited, and the Demiurge/Cause.
However, is this so? Socrates in the dialogue certainly asserts it to be
the case, when he distinguishes the Cause as a fourth kind distinct from
Limit and the Unlimited. The overarching question of the dialogue, how-
ever, is whether the life of pleasure or the life of knowledge is the “good”
life. Here, the dialogue returns to the question on the basis of the distinc-
tions just made and attempts to assign each life to one of the four kinds.
In 20d1ff, it was resolved that neither pleasure nor knowledge of itself is
the good. Now, in investigating to which of the kinds each belongs, plea-
sure itself is designated to belong to the Unlimited, and since pleasure
itself cannot be the good, Socrates concludes, “we have to search for
something besides its unlimited character that would bestow on pleasures
a share of the good.”63 Thus, the Unlimited cannot be the cause of the
good. But this seems to imply that Limit is.
But this requires deeper explanation. The two lives they were examin-
ing are pleasure, which is of the nature of the Unlimited, and knowledge.
To which of the kinds does knowledge belong? It is also worth noting that
these two “realms”, that is, pleasure and knowledge, correspond to the
ontological structure of Plato’s world. Pleasure corresponds to the world
62
27b1–2.
63
28a1–3.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 37

of particulars, the world of sensation and sensibles: to the changing. It

belongs to the nature of the body. It is in this regard that Plato asserts that
pleasures are “of the sort that admit the more and less [τὸ μᾶλλόν τε καὶ
ἧττον]”,64 and so belongs to the Unlimited. Knowledge, on the other
hand, does not belong to the body but to the mind. It corresponds to the
realm of the Forms. It is the Forms that are knowable for Plato, as was
shown above. But do the Forms belong to Limit, as pleasure belongs to
the Unlimited? Plato here notes, “As to assigning intelligence, knowledge,
and reason to one of our aforesaid kinds, how can we avoid the danger of
blasphemy, Protarchus and Philebus? A lot seems to hinge on whether or
not we give the right answer to this question.”65 And after further discus-
sion as to which kind knowledge belongs, they conclude, “Reason belongs
to that kind which is the cause of everything.”66 So while pleasure belongs
to the Unlimited, knowledge belongs to the fourth kind, the Cause, the
Demiurge.
Three ontological principles have been noted: The Unlimited, Limit,
and The Cause/Demiurge. The Unlimited is characterized by More and
Less, or as Aristotle notes the Great and Small, the Indefinite Dyad. Limit
is more complex and its character is revealed, as Plato asserts, in the exami-
nation of the character of the Mixture, the fourth Kind.67 In describing
the nature of Limit, Plato has Socrates say, it is “[t]he kind that contains
equal and double, and whatever else puts an end to the conflicts there are
among opposites, making them commensurate [σύμμετρα] and harmoni-
ous [σύμφωνα] by imposing a definite number on them”.68 And earlier,
“‘the equal’ and ‘equality’ and, after the equal, things like ‘double’, and all
that is related as number to number or measure to measure: If we subsume
all these together under the heading of ‘limit’, we would seem to do a fair

64
27e5–6.
65
28a4–7.
66
30d10–e1.
67
25d2–d9. “Socrates: Yes. Now take the next step and mix with it [the class of the
Unlimited] the class of the limit.
Protarchus: Which one?
Socrates: The very one we have so far omitted to collect together, the class that has the
character of limit, although we ought to have given unity to it, just as we collected together
the unlimited kind. But perhaps it will come to the same thing even now if, through the collection
[συνηγάγομεν—‘bring together’, i.e., ‘mixture’] of these two kinds, the unity of the former kind
becomes conspicuous too” (emphasis added).
68
25d11–e2.
38 J. FILLER

job.”69 Thus, Limit is essentially characterized by measure, harmony, pro-

portion.70 And finally, the Demiurge corresponds to Mind. It is also the
function of the Demiurge/Reason to order the universe: “There is, above
them [Limit and the Unlimited], a certain cause, of no small significance,
that orders and coordinates the years, seasons, and months, and which has
every right to the title of wisdom and reason.”71 Since to be ordered is to
be measured and harmonious, this passage would seem to indicate that the
Demiurge/Reason orders the universe by imposing Limit upon the
Unlimited, and the Limit is something distinct from the Demiurge. But if
it is Limit which makes things measured and harmonious, and so imposes
order, how is it that Reason, the Demiurge, orders the universe? Without
Reason, without the Demiurge there could be no order, so how is it that
Reason/the Demiurge is separate from Limit? What could Limit be apart
from the Demiurge? If it is Limit that imposes measure and harmony, and
so order, then how does Reason rule? According to Plato, without Reason
everything is disordered. When Plato has Socrates raise the question,
“Whether we hold the view that the universe and this whole world order
are ruled by unreason and irregularity, as chance would have it, or whether
they are not rather, as our forebears taught us, governed by reason and by
the order of a wonderful intelligence,”72 the former is declared by
Protarchus to be clearly absurd and impious, and so the latter must clearly
be the case. Thus, Reason, the Demiurge, rules and orders the universe.
So if Limit, as that which establishes measure and order, is not something
within the Demiurge, or an aspect of the Demiurge, then what apart from
the Demiurge could it be? Could it be simply that Limit establishes order
by being imposed by the Demiurge?
Just as the Unlimited is characterized by More and Less, so also Limit
is characterized by measure, proportion, harmony. This seems to entail
that Limit does not merely establish order but is itself order. So how is this
related to the Demiurge/Reason/the Cause? While Plato seems to assert
that Limit and the Cause/Demiurge are separate, a more complex rela-
tionship is reached by the end of the dialogue. In 65a, Plato identifies the
Good with three aspects which are to be taken together as a unity: beauty,
69
25a7–b2.
70
We will see later (cf. 65a–b) that measure and proportion are synonymous. Additionally,
σύμμετρα can mean “proportionate” as well as “commensurate” (see Liddell, A Greek English
Lexicon, 1679).
71
30c4–7.
72
28d5–9.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 39

proportion/measure, and truth.73 Plato further examines each of these

three, that is, truth, beauty, and proportion/measure, in relation to reason
and in each case, reason is shown to be identical or nearly identical to each.
Regarding truth, they conclude, “Reason … either is the same as truth or
of all things it is most like it and most true”;74 regarding measure, “noth-
ing more measured than reason and knowledge could ever be found”;75
and finally, regarding beauty, “no one, awake or dreaming, could ever see
intelligence and reason to be ugly; no one could ever have conceived of
them as becoming or being ugly, or that they ever will be,”76 implying that
reason can only ever be beautiful. So it seems that Reason and Limit are
identical. However, a few lines later, the three unified aspects of the Good
are broken up with Measure being of the first rank, the “well-­proportioned”
and beautiful receiving second rank, and reason receiving the third rank.77
How is this to be understood? Not only are reason, measure, beauty, and
proportion separated, but measure and proportion which seemed

73
65a1–3 “if we cannot capture the good in one form, we will have to take hold of it in a
conjunction of three: beauty, proportion, and truth. Let us affirm that these should by right
be treated as a unity” (emphasis in the translation). This identification of the Good with
Limit/Measure should not be surprising given what we saw above. Sayre also notes that this
identification of the Good with beauty and truth brings back into the Philebus aspects of the
Good found in earlier dialogues, namely, the Symposium and Republic respectively. He states:
“At the end of the Book VI of the Republic, where the Good so extravagantly is likened to
the sun as sovereign over the intelligible and the visible worlds, respectively, the relationship
between the intelligible and the visible is represented by a line ‘divided with regard to truth
and falsehood’ (διῃρῆσθαι ἀληθείᾳ τε καὶ μή 510A9–10). The clarity with which its various
sections can be presented to the mind is a function of the truth of their respective objects
(511E3–5). In the speech of Diotima in the Symposium, on the other hand, there are strong
intimations that the Good is the Beautiful. What all lovers of the Good long for is to make
the Good their own forever (206A). And in describing the pursuit of this longing, Diotima
divides into several stages (suggestive of stages of the Divided Line) man’s successive
approach to the Beautiful itself (211C9).” (Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved,
172–173.). And he concludes, “Perhaps with these earlier contexts in mind, Plato has
Socrates deny at Philebus 65A that the Good can be identified as a single character. Rather,
the Good in some sense is a synthetic unity, incorporating not only truth (from the Republic)
and beauty (from the Symposium) but also proportion (which has been central in the discus-
sion of the Philebus)” (ibid., 173).
74
65d2–3.
75
65d9–10.
76
65e4–7.
77
66a6–b6.
40 J. FILLER

synonymous earlier are themselves separated.78 And again, in 22d, Plato

has Socrates suggest that Reason is the cause of the Good,79 something
that fits more with the assertion that the Demiurge/Reason is the cause of
the mixture of Limit and the Unlimited, and so Reason is itself separate
from and higher than Limit/The Good.
There are two questions to be addressed here. The first is how it is to
be understood that measure/proportion, beauty, and truth together con-
stitute the Good while also distinguishing in ranks, measure, proportion,
beauty, and truth? The second question is how Reason is the Cause of the
Good, yet is identified with the three aspects of the Good, and yet again is
of the third rank? Regarding the first question, Sayre understands the
three aspects, that is, beauty, measure/proportion, and truth, to consti-
tute the Good as a “synthetic unity”, but goes on to assert that “When the
final results are announced to the world at 66A-B, however, measure has
been singled out for highest honors, with proportion and beauty taking
second place. And truth seems to have slipped to third, insofar as truth is
the object of intelligence and wisdom.”80 He thus concludes that “the
Good which is the highest of all possessions falls within the domain of
measure and the mean”, and a few lines later, “measure is the primary
ingredient of the Good.”81 Thus, by his understanding, it seems that mea-
sure, proportion, truth, and beauty together as a unity constitute the
Good, but, nevertheless, certain of these are more responsible for the
“goodness” of the Good than others, namely and in order: measure, pro-
portion and beauty, and truth/reason. On the surface, this seems to make
sense, but if these three aspects are what give “goodness” to the Good,
then it seems that measure qua measure, beauty qua beauty, etc., must
themselves, in some sense, be over the Good, since they give the Good its
goodness, that is, they make the Good good. Sayre might claim that it is
not the case that beauty, measure, and truth make the Good good, but
rather measure, beauty, and truth are aspects of the Good in which the
Good is more present in measure than beauty, and more present in beauty

78
In 65a2, Socrates says it is “beauty, proportion, and truth” (κάλλει καὶ συμμετρίᾳ καὶ
ἀληθείᾳ) which are unified in the Good. But in 65b8, the same list substitutes “measure” for
“proportion”, when Protarchus says, “You mean to beauty, truth, and measure? (Κάλλους
καὶ ἀληθείας καὶ μετριότητος πέρι λέγεις;)” To which Socrates answers, “Yes.”
79
22d3–4 “neither of the two [pleasure or reason] would be the good, but it could be
assumed that one or the other of them is its cause” (emphasis in the translation).
80
Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology: A Riddle Resolved, 173.
81
Ibid.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 41

than in truth. This seems to be the implication of his assertion that mea-
sure is the primary ingredient of the Good:

But we know from 25A-B that measure is achieved by the imposition of

Limit. And as argued earlier in this chapter, Limit and Unity are ontologi-
cally equivalent. So the following deduction is now available. Whereas mea-
sure is the primary ingredient of the Good, and whereas measure is achieved
by the imposition of Limit, which in this role is equivalent to participation
in Unity, for something to be good is for it to participate in Unity. For Plato
in the Philebus, the Good is Unity. As Socrates puts it at 65A3-5, it is because
of Unity that a mixture becomes good.82

Thus, by being the primary ingredient of the Good, measure partakes

of more unity and so more goodness. By their rankings then, beauty would
partake of less unity/goodness than measure but more than truth. Even if
Sayre avoids the problem that measure, beauty, etc., make the Good good
with this claim, nevertheless, there remains another problem. If measure is
the result of the imposition of Limit, and Limit and Unity are ontologi-
cally equivalent, how can measure be the primary ingredient of the Good,
that is, what makes it a Unity? How can measure be the primary ingredient
of Unity if it is Unity/Limit that generates measure? By making measure
the primary ingredient of the Good, it seems inescapable that he is making
measure the primary criterion of the Good, and so, even if measure does
not make the Good good, nevertheless it causes, in some sense, the good-
ness of the Good. One might argue that it does not cause the goodness of
the Good but only the goodness of other things which are good. This
seems to be Sayre’s position when he says that it is “because of Unity that
a mixture becomes good”. However, by asserting that measure is the pri-
mary ingredient of the Good, this entails that there are other ingredients
of the Good. In fact, the Good itself must be a mixture of measure, pro-
portion, beauty, and truth, as 65a1–5 makes clear. So Sayre’s position
must entail that it is measure that makes the Good good as well. Problems
persist.
Further, if the Good is One/Unity, as Sayre rightly asserts, then mea-
sure, proportion, beauty, and truth cannot be parts or even ingredients of
the Good. This would make the Good a mixture, a multiplicity, and not
One, not a Unity. Thus, measure, proportion, beauty, and truth must be

82
Ibid.
42 J. FILLER

synonymous. And as seen above, they, in fact, are. Plato says this explicitly,
“these [beauty, measure/proportion, and truth] should by right be treated
as a unity and be held responsible for what is in the mixture, for its good-
ness is what makes the mixture itself a good one”83 (emphasis added). So
the three, that is, measure/proportion, beauty, and truth, are not distinct
properties or ingredients but must be a single unity; literally they are one
(ἓν). Thus, no one of them by itself can be called the Good, and they are
not “ingredients” of the Good. It is only together in an indistinct union
of these three qualities that the Good is the Good. This indistinct unity of
measure/proportion, beauty, and truth is necessitated by the essential
Unity of the Good Itself.84
So again, how is the ranking of these three characteristics to be under-
stood? A better explanation is required, and a simple one is available.
There are three relevant passages: (1) 66a6–8 “first comes what is some-
how connected with measure, the measured and the timely, and whatever
else is to be considered similar.” (2) 66b1–3 “The second rank goes to the
well-proportioned and beautiful, the perfect, the self-sufficient, and what-
ever else belongs in that family.” (3) 66b5–6 “If you give the third rank,
as I divine, to reason and intelligence, you cannot stray far from the truth.”
In both of the first two passages, it is not measure qua measure, propor-
tion qua proportion, or beauty qua beauty that is ranked. Rather, it is
things “concerning measure” (“περὶ μέτρον” and “the measured”
[μέτριον]) in the first passage, and things “concerning proportion and
beauty” (περὶ τὸ σύμμετρον καὶ καλὸν) rather than proportion or beauty
itself in the second passage. So in the first two passages, it is clear that what
is ranked in not Measure, Proportion, or Beauty but things that are char-
acterized by measure, proportion, or beauty. Or to use more familiar pla-
tonic language, things that participate in Measure, Proportion, or Beauty.
But the case is different in the third passage. It is not things concerning
(περὶ) reason which are ranked third; rather, it is “mind and thought”
(νοῦν καὶ φρόνησιν) which are put third. Nevertheless, the same possibil-
ity exists here as for the first two passages. Mind/Reason (νοῦς) can be
understood in two ways, and Plato draws both of these understandings
out earlier in the dialogue. In discussing whether reason or pleasure is the
good and after Socrates has demonstrated that pleasure cannot be the

65a3–5 (emphasis added).

83

But as should also be clear, that the Good consists of these three qualities in a unity also
84

undercuts any notion of the Good as a simple unity. We will discuss this in more detail below.
 2 PLATO: TWO PATHS DIVERGE 43

good, Protarchus says, “Nor is your reason the good, Socrates, and the
same complaint applies to it.” Socrates then replies, “It may apply to my
reason, Philebus, but certainly not to the true, the divine reason, I should
think. It is in quite a different condition.”85 Plato distinguishes here
between reason and Reason, between human reason and Divine Reason.
The difference is between having a mind and being Mind. As Perl notes in
his discussion on the Timaeus, “the Demiurge is not a being who has a
mind (νοῦν ἔχον), but rather is mind, (νοῦς) itself.”86 Given the first two
passages do not rank measure, proportion, and beauty themselves but
rather things which have measure, proportion, and beauty, it should be
recognized that here too it is not Reason Itself which is ranked but rather
the reason of rational beings, that is, things which have reason. This is
further supported if, as noted, Reason is one with measure/proportion,
beauty, and truth, and Reason and Limit are one.
Given all of this, the following understanding is possible. If Unity/
Limit is the Good, then something beautiful reflects unity less than some-
thing characterized primarily by measure, and something characterized by
truth reflects unity less than beauty. It is only the degree to which things
participate in Unity that makes them appear with a distinct character, for
example, more unity makes things appear more measured (e.g., numbers),
somewhat less unity makes things appear beautiful, (e.g., art), and still less
unity grants truth. It is not that the three are separate or higher than one
another; rather, it is that less unity in something that participates in Unity
makes different characteristics more apparent. So it is not that these aspects
themselves are ranked, but things manifest these aspects differently to the
degree in which they participate in Unity. In themselves, the three charac-
teristics are one.
Regarding the second question that needed to be addressed, namely
how Reason is the Cause of the Good, and yet is identified with the three
aspects of the Good, and yet again is of the third rank, the last part of the
question has been answered: it is not Reason that is ranked third, but
rather things which have reason. Nevertheless, the question remains, How
is Reason the cause of the Good, if the Good, Limit, and Reason are iden-
tified? The simple answer is that Reason is not the cause of the Good;
rather, it is the cause of goodness in things which are good. Just as it was

85
22c3–6 (emphasis in the translation).
86
Perl, Eric D., “The Demiurge and the Forms: A Return to the Ancient Interpretation of
Plato’s Timaeus,” Ancient Philosophy 18, no. 1 (1998): 83.
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