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Chapter 4 Reversion in the Corporeal | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Proclus makes an elegant argument for the
soul's indestructible and imperishable nature. His orderly conclusions
build upon each other in a logical manner. So has Proclus demonstrated the immortality of the soul? This depends upon what we judge to be a satisfactory
"demonstration." What does it really mean, to say that a
metaphysical argument demonstrates something?
One meaning of
"demonstrate" is to "show by reasoning." That much
Proclus has accomplished: most of his reasoning is sound in the Elements.[1]
"Demonstrate" has a second, stronger meaning: to "show how
something works." Proclus alludes to this second meaning in the
Elements: "The task of science is the
recognition of causes, and only when we recognize the causes of things do we say
that we know them."[2] Causes, Proclus insists, are not isolated,
but ordered within a structured hierarchy of causation. Quoting his description
of cyclic activity: "There are greater circuits and
lesser, in that some revert upon their immediate priors, others upon the
superior causes, even to the beginning of all things."[3]
(Proclus' hierarchy of causes
enchanted medieval scholars. The book's popular abridgment acquired a title
[Book of Causes] that suited scholarly interest.) So Proclus
acknowledges the need to pursue causes towards their source, as the way of
knowing things as they really are — knowing how they
work. And this is a sound principle. A hierarchy of causes certainly
affects physical bodies; as, for example, in the motion of a car. The
proximate, direct cause of motion is merely the rotation of its wheels.
This rotation has in turn a cause: the force exerted through the
pistons. And that force likewise has a cause, in the combustion of
gasoline. Our understanding proceeds onward through the hierarchy of known causes. As we
learn the several causes of the car's motion, we improve our understanding of
the car.
Turning now to
the ten propositions quoted previously, we see that they state several
types of causation. The first two propositions touch upon physical, corporeal
causes, which Proclus mentions in Propositions 33 and 17.[4]
His examination of causes
continues in Proposition 15, wherein Proclus makes a sharp distinction between corporeal
and incorporeal causes. Thereafter the remaining propositions
elaborate incorporeal causes exclusively.[5]
Table 4.1
arranges Proclus' causes by proposition, with the general nature of each cause summarized at
right.
Table 4.1
Reading the table row-by-row, from the
top down, we can see how Proclus has built his case.
The success of Proclus' argument for immortality is tied to the success he has enjoyed in puzzling out the hierarchy of corporeal and incorporeal causes at work in the human body. Proclus' corporeal causes rise no higher than simple self-motion, and not even that rudimentary degree of dynamism is guaranteed to be entirely corporeal.[7] Above self-motion the incorporeal hierarchy of causes takes control, producing all greater human qualities through means independent of the corporeal body. This is the
division of causes which Proclus maintains. It makes sense, when viewed
through the eyes of a Neoplatonist. However, modern readers may find that this
division of causes raises some questions. Do corporeal causes truly reach their zenith at
self-motion? Or does self-motion engender higher levels of causation
within the human body? And if so, how far might corporeal causation within
the body progress towards the soul?
Answers to these
questions might very well disentangle the knot of Proclus' argument — if only to spool his
Neoplatonism in, and then out again, as thread for a metaphysical panoply of modern cut. To that end a review of
relevant facts will be worthwhile.
 We might have better luck if we look to Proclus' next higher cause, self-reversion.
"Everything originally self-moving is capable of reversion upon itself." [9] Proposition 17 delves into the reversive activity of self-motion. Apparently
Proclus is speaking here of reversion in all types of bodies, biological and other; but
this is uncertain because nowhere does Proclus define the literal meaning of
"reversion."[10] The proposition does at least give us some working definitions of self-reversion,
as expressed through self-motion:
Proclus' definitions
are slippery fish. In Proposition 17 the catch slides en masse towards the
prosaic end of the boat. These reversions are closer to mere
"recursion" than to the spiritual cycles Proclus
describes elsewhere — recursion being understood first as a
"mechanically operated cyclic motion."
If we allow
ourselves this simplification we can gain entry into Proclus'
argument. Recursion, unlike reversion, has technical definitions.
Mathematical, computational and biological examples of recursion exist. So
a study of recursion would raise this critique upon a scaffolding of fact.
Recursion has an
additional advantage in being an ancient concept. As the mathematician
Robin Gandy reminds us, "The use of recursion in computation is at least as
old as Euclid, though the word is recent."[11] So its properties have been known for a long
time. Those factual properties would be germane to Proclus' argument, where they
could be shown to free powers in the body more causative than mere
self-motion. And so these are the powers to target with a selective
history of recursive systems, which follows.
next Chapter 5: Mathematical Recursion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Chapter 4 Endnotes |
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[1] Again, for examples of logical weakness, see Dodds 1963,
xi-xiii.
[2] Dodds 13.
[3] Dodds 37.
[4] Proclus' differentiation of corporeal and incorporeal causations
is anything but clear-cut. For such clarification as may be possible, see
Lucas Siorvanes, Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996) 86-110;
A. C. Lloyd, The Anatomy of Neoplatonism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990) 98-135.
Proclus deposits Nature at the lowest stratum of causation; yet even natural objects have both corporeal and incorporeal aspects in
his scheme. (Here Proclus is following Aristotle's example.) The matter comprising physical bodies Proclus considers to be inert;
it is instead the "enmattered form" (physis) which gives that
matter its useful properties. A body's physis, while technically incorporeal, is nonetheless inseparable from its matter;
so physis is the most "tangible" sort of incorporeality to be found in Proclus' universe. See Siorvanes 136-37.
[5] Or they would, if Proclus had numbered his propositions more to this critic's liking.
As it happens, his numbering scheme throws up a few exceptions to my tidy rule. An example: Props. 25 through 39 develop the
principles of procession and reversion.
For Proclus, these broad principles undergird both corporeal and incorporeal existence. (Cyclic activity, described therein in Prop. 33,
reads as one of the more corporeal aspects.)
[6] Prop. 187 calls upon Prop. 186 as an authoritative axiom.
The properties listed in Prop. 187 are properties which have
been derived in the build-up towards Prop. 186.
[7] See
Chapter 3, note 10 for the syllogism in question. Proclus' pronouncements
on self-motion are rather problematic. In Prop. 14 Proclus states that some
existents are "intrinsically moved." (Unfortunately, he does not provide a list of these existents.)
In Prop. 20 he specifically denies self-motive powers
to the human body, stating that "self-movement is contrary to its nature." Yet,
"[w]hen soul is present, the body is in some sense self-moved..." The cloudy
phrase, "in some sense," is a miniature of Proclus' greater difficulty with the
concept of self-motion. Dodds 201-08 provides some helpful commentary on Props. 14-20. See also
note 8, below, concerning the soul's life-giving relation to the body.
[8] Dodds 165. Quoting from Prop. 188:
"For that into which soul enters necessarily lives, and when a body is deprived of
soul it is thereupon left lifeless...." Siorvanes details Proclus' "subtle bodies" and "soul vehicles" in Siorvanes 131-33.
[9] Dodds 19-21.
[10] Proclus may not have wanted us to assign a literal meaning to
"reversion." Quoting Lloyd 124, 126-27:
"It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to find a consistent theory of reversion in Neoplatonism.... Proclus describes reversion via abstract analogies — a method common among Neoplatonic philosophers. See Siorvanes 105-09.
[11] For a short sketch of the development of the mathematical term
"recursion," see Robin Gandy, "The Confluence of Ideas in
1936," The Universal Turing Machine — A
Half-Century Survey, ed. Rolf Herken (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988) 72-73.
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Copyright © 1999
Wayne Stewart
Last update 4/19/11