Aristotle construed metaphysics primarily in terms of ontology, whereas Plato had developed a different approach to the philosophy of principles. The main task of the metaphysical theory of principles is the quest for the absolute. For Plato, however, the absolute is the one; and this idea – most influentially advocated by Plotinus – is the foundation of a tradition that construes metaphysics mainly in terms of henology. The central aspects of this doctrine are the idea of the transcendence of the (...) absolute one, the perspective of negative theology, and – in Plotinus – a genuinely philosophical kind of mysticism. (shrink)

Transcendent thinking as a basic feature of metaphysical philosophy has always claimed to be more than a mere cognition of reality in terms of its phenomena. Transcendent philosophy intends to consider reality from the perspective of a fundamental ground transcending the reality ordered by that ground. Plato, who created the very notion of philosophy, described the love of wisdom as an ascent to the absolutely transcendent One and Good, which he believed to be the principle and source of all being. (...) Plotinus both took over and renewed the Platonic view of philosophy as transcendent thinking. In his view, the philosopher can only relate to that principle which transcends even thinking itself by practicing a mystical philosophy and thereby leaving behind his own dialectical thinking. (shrink)

One of the main problems of Plato's unwritten doctrine has to do with whether his theory of principles has a strictly dualistic or rather a more monistic character. The thesis of this essay is that Plato combines monism and dualism in a particular fashion. Both the dialogues and the testimony of the unwritten doctrine reveal that in Plato's metaphysics the One is the genuinely absolute principle; Plato's second principle, the Many, is not a second absolute - otherwise it would dissolve (...) the very concept of the absolute. Instead, Plato conceives the principle of multiplicity itself as a unity, therefore as in some - in any event ineffable - way as being derived or having emanated from the absolute One. The One itself is wholly transcendent and thus ineffable, knowable neither by reason nor by intellective intuition. Nonetheless, being and knowledge are constituted by the coordination of the One and the Many, for which reason the latter is a principle. Hence, Plato's metaphysics combine a monistic ascent to the absolute with a dualistic derivation of being, a combination made necessary because the One transcends not only all being, but also all knowledge. (shrink)