In "De malorum subsistentia" chs 30-7, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. I,8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good, because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter-evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does (...) not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that to posit a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism, or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to be able to escape the latter consequence, if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian tenets. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his "Commentary on the Categories." It is possible that lamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. (shrink)

In "De malorum subsistentia" chs 30-7, Proclus criticizes the view that evil is to be identified with matter. His main target is Plotinus' account in Enn. I,8 [51]. Proclus denies that matter is the cause of evil in the soul, and that it is evil or a principle of evil. According to Proclus, matter is good, because it is produced by the One. Plotinus' doctrine of matter-evil is the result of a different conception of emanation, according to which matter does (...) not revert to its principle. Proclus claims that to posit a principle of evil either amounts to a coarse dualism, or makes the Good ultimately responsible for evil. Plotinus does not seem to be able to escape the latter consequence, if he is to remain committed to the Neoplatonic conception of causation. Plotinus equated matter with privation and said it is a kind of non-being that is the contrary of substance, thus violating fundamental Aristotelian tenets. Proclus reinstates Aristotelian orthodoxy, as does Simplicius in his "Commentary on the Categories." It is possible that lamblichus was the source of both Proclus and Simplicius, and that he was the originator of the parhypostasis theory and the inventor of the anti-Plotinian arguments. (shrink)

In Proclus’ metaphysics, the One produces Being through a mediated set of principles which are the direct causes of Being. While the henads feature prominently as these principles, Proclus posits a second set of principles, the Limit and Unlimited, to explain the aspects of unity and plurality found in all beings. Initially there seems to be a tension in these two sets of principles: Proclus does not immediately clarify how they interact with each other or their relationship to each other. (...) In Elements of Theology Prop. 159, he even seems to say that the Limit/Unlimited produce the henads—which contradicts the henads’ nature as pure ‘ones’. This article analyzes this issue by surveying three contemporary solutions that have been posed to address the tension, while also offering a new alternative: the Limit and Unlimited, as the first henads to emerge from the One, causally determine all subsequent henads according to their respective unique character, while both sets are ultimately derived from the One according to their subsistence —preserving the henads’ natures as simply ‘one’ like the One-itself. (shrink)