Podcast episode
February 16, 2022
Episode 135: Esoteric Hermeneutics, Divine Hierarchy, and the Ineffable: The Philosophy of Iamblichus, Part I
In this episode, part one of two, we begin to explore the philosophy of Iamblichus. We begin with an account of his influential formation of an Aristotelean/Platonic curriculum and his theory of a ‘target’ (skopos) of each Platonic dialogue. We then give our ‘four pillars of Iamblichean interpretation, namely:
- Non-transformational hierarchy
- Interlocking hypostases
- ‘Downward’ extent of hypostases, and
- Hypostatic mirroring and proto-‘chains’
We then approach the higher reaches of his metaphysics, addressing the triads of the One, the noetic, and the noeric worlds.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
- Damascius on the various Ones which might (not)exist before the noetic triad: De principiis §43, 2.1.1ff. Westerink/Combés.
- Iamblichus’ canon: Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 26.10–34. The One-Being (Greek) as unknowable, even to the Flower of Nous: In Parm. fr. 2A Dillon.
- Proclus cites the complex metaphysics of On the Speech of Zeus in Plato’s Timæus at In Tim. I 308, 18 ff.
Secondary:
- Dillon on the text On the Speech of Zeus in Plato’s Timæus: Dillon 2009 (see below), Appendix C.
- Dillon 2010 (see below), p. 362: ‘The curious circumstance that the intellective divinities constitute not three triads, but a hebdomad, may have something to do with the fact that these gods constitute a paradigm for the heavenly gods, who form a hebdomad, the hupezōkōs performing a similar role to that of the Moon.’
Recommended Reading:
The Stanford Online Encyclopædia of Philosophy’s article on Iamblichus is a great place to start.
Also useful:
- Eugene Afonasin, John M. Dillon, and John Finamore, editors. Iamblichus and the Foundations of Late Platonism. Number 13 in Studies in Platonism, Neoplatonism, and the Platonic Tradition. Brill, Leiden/Boston, MA, 2012.
- Gerald Bechtle. Iamblichus: Aspekte seiner Philosophie und Wissenschaftskonzeption. Studien zum späteren Platonismus. Academia Verlag, Sankt Augustin, 2006.
- Henry J. Blumenthal and E. Gillian Clark, editors. The Divine Iamblichus, Philosopher and Man of Gods. Bristol Classical Press, Bristol, 1993.
- James A. Coulter. The Literary Microcosm: Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists. Brill, Leiden, 1976.
- J. Dillon. Iamblichus of Chalcis. In Lloyd P. Gerson, editor, The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity, Vol. 1, pages 358–74. The University Press, Cambridge, 2010.
- John Dillon, editor. Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta. Prometheus Trust, Westbury, 2nd edition, 2009.
- Jens Halfwassen. Das Eine als Einheit und Dreiheit: Zur Prinzipienlehre Jamblichs. Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, 139(1):52–83, 1996.
- Jan Opsomer, B. Bohle, and Christoph Horn. Iamblichos und seine Schule. In Christoph Riedweg, Christoph Horn, and Dietmar Wyrwa, editors, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Die Philosophie der Antike, 5/2: Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike, page 1349–83. Schwabe, Basel, 2018.
- Henri-Dominique Saffrey. Neoplatonic Spirituality: from Iamblichus to Proclus and Damascius. In A. H. Armstrong, editor, Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, pages 250–266. SCM Press, 1986.
- Idem. Recherches sur le néoplatonisme après Plotin. Number 14 in Histoire des doctrines de l’Antiquité classique. Vrin, Paris, 1990.
- L.G. Westerink, editor. Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. Number 5 in Platonic Texts and Translations. The Prometheus Trust, King’s Lynn, 2011.
- L.G. Westerink and J. Combès, editors. Damascius: Traité des Premiers Principes. Les Belles Lettres, Paris, 2002. 3 vols.
Themes
Aiôn, Apophatic Writing, Chaldæan Oracles, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Iamblichus, Late Platonism, Metaphysics, Nous, Plato, Plotinus
James Lomas
February 17, 2022
Wow, wow, wow! This is a killer episode.
If I try to translate to my understanding, we’ve got:
1. The unspeakable oneness
2. The oneness that gives rise to the dyad. Here, a model might be the singularity at the beginning of the universe. Let me attempt. The Big Bang singularity was not a smooth, spherical ball in space (dyad of something and nothing) because this singularity also comprised all of space! Contemporary physicists say that, in the very beginning, the unitary “inflaton”field oscillated, which generated resonances in the other fundamental fields, which gave rise to all types of material energies (particles, remember, are but resonances in the fundamental fields). As the inflaton resonances propagated through the other fields, space itself was manifested. At that point, when all the universe was contained in a space smaller than an atom, we can talk about the dyad of the limited and unlimited. Which the Pythagorean Philolaus described as composing the harmonies of the cosmos (did he not?)
3. The everyday oneness of whole things. Atoms, molecules, stars, planets, cells, organisms, people, designs, products, tv shows, etc. Anything with a quality of wholeness is participating in the oneness.
4. This quality of wholeness applies even in the noetic world of the forms, like the abstract form of a sphere or a triangle.
5. If a sphere is a noetic form, what is a noeric form? The monadic principle by which spheres could possibly be understood as wholes? Confused.
6. My mind is blownnnn.
Can’t wait to jump into the readings!!
Saeeduddin Ahmed
February 21, 2022
My mind was pretty blown too. I was following you through your four pillars, and then when you got into “the higher reaches of his metaphysics, addressing the triads of the One, the noetic, and the noeric worlds”…… I was pretty lost.
I did some online searching for a visual depiction of this, and found a figure in an old book by GRS Mead, which I screenshot and uploaded to IMGUR:
https://i.imgur.com/GInKCCd.png.
The book itself: https://archive.org/details/the-orphic-pantheon-by-g-r-s-mead/
I am curious if this figure resonates with your own thinking on this topic.
Earl Fontainelle
February 21, 2022
Saeeduddin,
Thanks for the great link! This chart is a pretty good effort on Mead’s part, I have to say.
By calling it ‘Orphic’ he’s clearly signalling that he is not acting as a historian of late-antique esoteric thought, but as a participant : there is nothing ‘Orphic’ about this kind of metaphysics, if by Orphic we mean ‘having some provenance in poetry attributed to Orpheus’ (unless, that is, there was a late-antique Iamblichean pseudo-Orphikon, which is not a priori impossible!). But constructing a system like this and them turning around and ‘finding’ it in Orpheus is exactly the methodology of people like Iamby and Proclus. I think Mead here is doing this sort of reading: he’s taken what is largely the Iamblichean metaphysics as expounded in On the Speech of Zeus in the Timæus and added a bunch of ‘Orphic’ entities to the scheme, like the ‘Thrice-unknown darkness’. Phanes, Metis, etc. etc.
The chart gets more speculative the further to the right of the page you go, incidentally. The left-hand column is pretty reliable, I think. The middle is okay. The right is creative guesswork.
William Mazdra
February 22, 2022
Allow me to add myself into the “mind blown by episode” subset. What jumps out to me is how evocative Iamblichus’s triadic hierarchies, call to mind for me at least, some of the best logical systems of modernity, and in particular, Charles Sanders Peirce. As as to Peirce Earl, I would suggest that Peirce is indeed a hermeticist! Brilliant exposition abounds herein, Bravo Earl!
Earl Fontainelle
February 22, 2022
Peirce a Hermetist: I’m sold.
But closer to well-known esoteric territory: thesis, antithesis, synthesis in Hegel.
Craig Brewer
February 27, 2022
Can I just say that I’ve had a burning suspicion that there are more and more connections btwn the more analogical thinkers SHWEP’s discussed and modern pragmatism? (But this is a bit of my Robert Anton Wilson parroting, too, probably.) Still…a background thesis of my own. 😉
Earl Fontainelle
February 27, 2022
Craig, can you elucidate what you mean here? I think it would be worth unpacking!
Craig Brewer
March 10, 2022
I’ll try. Or, I’ve been trying, but I’m not very happy with much.
First, there’s a strain of pragmatism (Santayana, part of James) that very much plays with “mystical” attitudes toward the true reality behind human-centered use value. As such, any insights or intuitions about “the Real” are esoteric in the sense of being “secret” or of being something only vaguely alluded to.
But the other aspect that makes me think of pragmatism is how with Plotinus and Porhpyry, the role of “body” even higher realms is made more concrete. It almost sounds like a pragmatic attitude that, unless we can talk about these things in ways that actually map onto “parts” that we can recognize and talk about, then we aren’t really saying anything meaningful. It’s a stretch, I know, but the pragmatic insistence on statements needing to be grounded in some use-value seems (to me, at least) to be connected to the worries and concerns about the status of the “self” or “soul” as not just a contemplative thing as you move higher up the chain.
I wouldn’t want to stake a huge claim on that. Still…
Earl Fontainelle
April 26, 2022
I see what you’re saying.