Typically for the collection, this volume is a serious, yet readable book of philosophy, both in content and format. The cover provides an illustration which fits the title nicely: we are invited to follow the steps of the famous Gradiva who inspired–among others–the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Such a pleasant appearance enhances the intrinsic value of the opus. This collection of sixteen essays in French stands out as an achievement by O'M., the authoritative scholar of Neoplatonism. It asks a question–how can the human mind approach what surpasses it?–resulting in a series of interwoven, mostly converging, but somehow distinct paths presenting the sort of deeper questions and answers the philosophers of Late Antiquity intended to bring to this issue.
A look at the page listing the source of the different essays (p. 241) is enough to understand how O'M.’s research developed at the main European centres of Neoplatonic Studies over the past 20 years (in alphabetical order: Brussels, Florence, Fribourg, Geneva, Lausanne, Louvain, Naples and Paris). The frame of the volume is set by two magisterial lessons given by O'M. for his official arrival at (1985) and departure from (2009) the University of Freiburg. All the essays are recent: with the exception of the first mentioned and two others published in the 1990s, all the remaining ones appeared between 2000 and 2013. It is striking that the way they are arranged truly sheds light on how O'M.’s thought evolved on the topic and does so while conveying a strong sense of unity.
The main question is: how can one tell something about what cannot, by definition, be spoken of? In other terms, is it possible in the realm of Multiplicity to go beyond the breach of the radical heterogeneity implied by total Unity? Could this very idea be anything other than a construction of the mind? As it would be an impossible task to give a detailed account of such rich content, I will only indicate some of the most suggestive lines of reflection, how they cross and echo each other from one essay to another in order to create a meaningful ensemble.
The journey is divided into three stages of unequal length and difficulty. We start with a warm-up recalling the premise (Chapters 1–2: ‘Les Cygnes de Platon. Sur une pensée d'avenir’; ‘“Dire le vrai” chez Héraclite’). The visionary Plato is our guide. Olympiodorus taught that the Master had a dream: he was a swan escaping from being caught. That image symbolises how slippery it is to try to interpret Platonic texts (p. 1). Heraclitus also holds high the lamp to light the way. He forces us to think how misleading a static definition can be of such words as ‘Truth’ (aletheia) and how necessary an open-minded exegesis is, like for what regards his fr. 112 (p. 17).
Then the ascension proper takes place, with five essays focusing on various aspects of Plotinus’ thought (Chapters 3–7: ‘L'itinéraire de l’âme vers l'Un dans Ennéade VI 9 de Plotin’; ‘L'expérience de l'union de l’âme avec l'Intellect chez Plotin’; ‘Plotin “historien” de la philosophie (Enn. IV 8 et V 1)’; ‘Le problème du discours sur l'indicible chez Plotin’; ‘Scepticisme et ineffabilité chez Plotin’). The soul however does not travel the external world but contemplates itself in order to rediscover its similarity with the One (p. 31). In his Life of Plotinus, Porphyry recalls that his teacher achieved four times the mystical union with the One. However, it must be put in context of the rivalry with the school of Iamblichus, some 30 years later. One must also distinguish between the ‘biographical I-speaker’ created by Porphyry and the ‘philosophical I’ really assumed by Plotinus (p. 47). Plotinus’ pedagogical concern leads him sometimes to quote aporetic opinions of precedent philosophers, not in a doxographical way, but in order to search the truth (p. 53). The core of the problem–the One's ineffability–is dealt with subtly by Plotinus who shows that one can indeed think and speak only of our contingent state, but in relation to the One (p. 78). He also uses the sceptic criticism to establish the possibility of a dogmatic discourse about the One as the vision of our own soul (p. 92).
Thus the whole domain of Metaphysics opens wide ahead of us, for Plotinus’ system becomes more complex with his successors: from Syrianus to Damascius via Proclus and, on the Latin side, Boethius. Nine essays explore the trails of the One, the Intellect and the Soul in relation to human logos, thought and language (Chapters 8–16: ‘La géométrie et le divin chez Proclus’; ‘Lectures néoplatoniciennes du Philèbe de Platon’; ‘Le problème de la métaphysique dans l'Antiquité tardive’; ‘La science métaphysique (ou théologie) de Proclus comme exercice spirituel’; ‘Le fondement du principe de non-contraction chez Syrianus’; ‘Les apories de l'Un dans la philosophie néoplatonicienne’; ‘Conceptions néoplatoniciennes du philosophe-roi’; ‘Bons et mauvais rhéteurs dans la Vie d'Isidore de Damascius’; ‘Boèce: les déchirures de la philosophie’). Mathematics is one of the intermediaries towards the divine and specifically Geometry with its architectural implications such as at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (p. 112). Among the Platonic dialogues, the Philebus holds a special place in the cursus of the Late Neoplatonic Schools (p. 120). The very idea of a science whose object would be the Divine is not obvious: Syrianus and his successor Proclus did create a new perspective by combining Plato's Dialectic with Aristotle's Metaphysics (p. 137). The text they used to support their teaching through the exegetical method of commentary was the second part of the Parmenides, as Proclus interprets it in his Elements of Theology (p. 160). Meanwhile Syrianus accepts the Aristotelian view of the identity of science with its object, by relying on the principle of non-contradiction (p. 182). However, the quest for the One also encounters dead ends, as Damascius elaborates in his Treaty of the First Principles: this labour of the soul nevertheless has a positive value as it gives birth to thought, according to the Socratic image (p. 199).
The last three chapters explore how Philosophy can act in the world. Why should the minds which saw the truth come back to the Cave? Rather than moral duty, the Neoplatonic view is that political action, embodied by the ideal of the Philosopher-King, is a natural consequence of transcendent, contemplative life which is so abundant as to overflow in the world (p. 210). The conflictual relation between Philosophy and Rhetoric, but also Poetry, is then addressed by Damascius’ Life of Isidore who defends them as necessary instruments of knowledge (p. 227). Finally, the trip reaches its end with the personification of Philosophy called by Boethius in his prison: while the two Greek letters Pi (Practice) and Theta (Theory) are embroidered on her dress, pieces of it have been torn apart on the way by indelicate philosophers who appropriated only fragments but not the whole truth (p. 237).
Useful indexes, of texts as well as of names and terms, complete the baggage of this philosophical journey.
