Table Of Content/
A Historical Lexicon
GREEK
PH.ILOSOPHICAL
TER~fS
A Historical Lexicon
/
F. E. PETERS
.N'ew York: NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
Preface
The glory and the bv.ne of Greek philosophy lS 1ts lack of a pa::~t.
Drawing on nothing more tlmn common speech anc the P-lastic poten-
tial of the Greek language the Hellenic philoso?hers not o:1ly formu-
lated a problematic within ·which all subscqu~nt thinkers cast their own
reflections, but devised as well a sophisticated and complex termir.ol-
ogy as a vehicle for their thoughts. Roth the :erms nnd the concepts
they employed have since been ove::-grown with a millennium and a half
of ccnnotation that not even :he :nost determined can completely strip
away. The contemporary philosopher or theologian may attempt to
rethink tlH~ cor.cP.pt, but he is betrayed in the utterance. For what the
thinker has striven to clear away the render or listener supplies anc·w.
"Soul'' and "God" carry their :1:story heavily with them.
By a not too peculiar irony we read their philosophical future
back into C\U:-Greek past in a variety of ways. One ha.s experience of a
"\Vhitehcndcan and Nietzschcnn Plato, a Thomistic and Hegelian Aris-
totle, and even an Existen~ial Diogenes. As in much else, the Greeks
invented th:s pErticular historical fallacy. It is clear that the Stoics read
themselves back into Hernclitu~; E..nd the Neoplatonists, Plotinus into
Plato.
/ It is an obvious necessity to make some sort of attempt at coming
I
to the Greeks on their own terms. This can, I think, best be accom-
plished not by the usual c~::-onological and hislori<.:al approach that, for
all its divisions into "schools" and "succession~," obscures rather than
illuminates the evolutions we might otherwise discern in ancient philos-
ophy, but rather from the ~ireetion of the problematic as revealeJ by a
consecutive treatment of some of the basic concepts. This can he done
in a number of ways and on diffP.rf:nt scales, but the method and scale
adopteil in this work is the one most conformable to the needs of what
may be termed an "intermediate student" of the subject, not the
beginner who is making· hi::; firs: acquaintance with GrP.ek Ilhilosophy
and who would be better SP.rveil hy ~~history of mcient philosophy and,
perhaps, a dictionary of basic terms, nor, on the other hand, the
©Copyright 1907 by 't\ew York Univexsjty
Library of Consress Cal_.Uvs· Card Number: 67 2.5043 p~ofessional schol:n-who would reqwrc a treatment both more massive
Manufactured in the Unrted States of Amenca
and more nuanced.
10 9 II 7 6 5
0
I
1>i Greek Philosophical Terms PREFACE
Since such ~ "sturlent" may be presumed to have some familiarity The following authors are also frequently cited:
with the material it has been judged safe to substitute, in :1 fairly
thorough way, a terminology translitcrnted directly from the Greek Aetius, Placita., edited by H. Dids in D()xograpki Grut:c:i :Berlin 1879
(Abbrev. Aetius in text.) ' ' '
for their English equivalents in a modest eiTort at lightening the his-
torical baggage. Jargon can be morP. e.asily cured tl:an preconceptions,
Diogenes I:aertius, Lives of the Eminent Philoaophera, ed. aud trms.
and it is this hope that prompts the frequency of stoicheion for element ~· D. Htcks, Loeb Classical Library, London, 192.5. (Abbrev. D.L.
and physis for :1:tture. There is, moreover, a complete English-Greek m text.)
cross-index at the end.
The following treatment, then, singles out a few of the trees from Phil~, Works, ed. and trans. F. H. Colson ct a!., 10 vols., Loeb Classical
Library, London, 1929 to date.
the forest that Lhreatens to overwhelm all of us at times, and attempts
to trace their progress from acorn to ft1Ily grown oak. IL also essays, if
Plotinus, Enneads, ed. E. Br6hier, 6 vols., Paris, 192.4-1938; trans.
the metaphor may be indulged a bit longer, to display some. of 6e
S. MacK.enna, and ed., London, 1956.
interlocking root structure. Each entry is thoroughly cross-referenced,
and if these references are pursued there will emerge a fairly complete Plutarch, Moralia, ed. and trans. F. C. Babbitt et al., Loeb Classical
philosophic~tl context for each term. Every entry will supply some Library, London, 1927 to date.
information, but meani11S" must be sought in t:le larger complexes.
Proclus, Elements of Theology, ed. and trans. E. R. Dodds, znd cd.,
Finally, each entry is designed to be rend with the texts of the philoso-
Oxford, 1g63.
phers themselves, and there are full textual citations at every step of
the way. These are the final elements in the construction of a fruitful Sextus Empiricus, Adversur Mathematicos, ed. and trans. R. G. Bury,
context where the prior history of the concept will illuminate a 'philo- Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols., London, 1935-1953.
sophical text, while the text will embellish the understanding of the
term. I would like to express my gratitude to the Arts and Science
Both originals nnd translations of Plato and Aristotle are easily at Research Fund of New York University for a subvention toward the
hand. For the eadier and later philosophers the following will cover all preparation of the manuscript of this work, and particularly to the
but very few of the citations made in the text: t'~o selfless workers who turned the inscrutable text into clean copy,
Eileen Markson and Kristin Helmers.
Pre-S ocratics
/
H. Diets, Die Fragmente der VGnohratiker, sth-7th eds., edited hy
W. Krnn2, 3 vols., Berlin, 1934- 1954· (Abbrev. Diels in text.)
K. Freeman, Ancilla to the Pr~uocratic Philosophers, Oxford, 1948;
a tronslotion of the fragments in Diels.
G. S. Kirk nnd J. E. Raven, The Presocratic Phil.o:of;hP.rs, Cambridge,
1957; texts and translations of some of the pr~-Socratic fragments.
Post-Aristotelians
J. von Arnim, Stoicorum Veterum F'ragmenta, 4 vols., Leipzig, 1903-
19ll4· (Abbrev. SVP in text.)
C. J. De Vogel, Greek Philosophy: A Collection of Te:xts, vol. III,
Leiden, 1964. An e;tcellent selection of te2o.i:s, without tra:tslntions,
from po:st-Adstotelian philosophy.
PreliminaNJ Note
Language and Philosophy
Philosophers have been uneo.sy about language almost from the begin-
ning. The sculptor may curse hb stone or the painter his oils, but
neither contemplates suing for divorce. The philosopher, on the other
hand, lives constantly in the shadow of infidelity, now suspecting
metaphor, now tautology, or occasionally succumbing to the ultimate
despair, the fear that he is dealing w:th nomina tantum. The Greeks'
bouts with these maladies were occasional and mild; they were spared,
moreover the final indignity of desertion to :r:athemati;;s, tr.ough the
1
flirtation was long <md serious. They trusted in names and theil' self-
assurance was such that tl1ey could even atTord to be playful nbout
/
them. And when they carne to devising names for the .strange new
things that they themselves had wrought, they approached the task
with both confidence and inventiveness.
Prephilosophi~allanguage had been shaped by popular usage and
the more trnnscendent intuitions of religion and mythology. The for-
mer was, of course, marked by its predilection for things; but there
was, in addition, an ar.r.nmulating store of more or less abstract terms
flowing from the moral sensibilities of 6c epic traditio:1. Dike, time,
arete, though calculable in purely malerid terms, were alre.ndy at hand
as abstracts und the first generation of philosophers, who still sub-
Sl:ribed to most of the poetic conventions, drew heavily upon this epic
vocabulary. But for the rest, there were things: gold, chariots, the soul
(psyche), spears, and the spirit (thymes), all matr.rial objects and all
capable of fairly precise localization.
But there was another factor nt work as well. The search for
understanding no more began with Thales than logic with Aristotle.
Alt primitive men try to come to terms with the more numinous ospects
of their environment throngh the media of ritual nnd myth, and the:
Hellenic version of the latter was n pnrticularly rich am] imaginative
attempt at organizing and explaining highe1· lt:vels of reality in some
coherent fashion. Myth is, among other things, explanation and, what·
ix
x I Greek Philosophical Tenns PRELIMINARY NOTE xi
ever dimensions it:; moralizing content might assume, the didactic employed, but a radical new dimension had been added to the lan-
guage.
element is never completely absent.
Myth was the immediate foreru!lner of philosophy and provided it What did the philosophers do to languagP.? At first they did
not only with certain embryonic conceptualizations, but with insights nothing since they did not know, fortunately perhaps, that they were
into thP. working of the world as well. Myth already prc.supposes n philosophers nnd so continued to use words in their common accept·
world order: what the philosophers would call a kosmos, but bases it ance, which, as a matter of fact, tended to be in rather concrete
chiefly upon the genealogical relationships between the gods whMe inrlividualized senses: the hot and the good were both some thing. Th~
family structure, derived from human paradigms, both preserved and great terminological changes introduced by the philosophers-and an
explained the order of tP.rrestial reality. It also embodied the notion of inspection oi usage suggests that they took place only gradually-were
what was later to be called causality, though in its mythological form it tied to the "discoveries" of inco:-poreality and 1miversal predication or,
might be bt:tter termed the principle of responsibility, since both it and to put it more baldly, the realization that there were things and things.
the patterns of order are founded on the characteristic mythological The dimensions of this new order of reality, which was not tied to
principle of anthropomorphism. The divine ( theion) had been per:;on- objt:cls in the ordinary :;ense and which could be generalized, were only
alized by myth into a god ( theos) and could thus be linked and system- gradually understood, and the stubborn "thisness" of language, conse-
atized and held responsible Ior phaenomena. crated by an epic tradition that revelled in the physical, never com-
Tpe earliest philosophers, for all their revolutionary achieve· pletely disappeared. Its most obvious aftereffects are probably to be
ments, were indebted to the mythological world view. Eventually the seen in the persistent Greek hahit of philosophizing through metaphor.
anthropomorphic bases upon which it had been constructed came under J'ust as the geometer might offer a proof "by construction," so the
attack, but the effects were not at first critical since the pervasive philosopher was perf:ctly content to substitute analogy fol' analysis.
\ hylozoism of those early thinkers enabled them to explain action and Language began to change. Prephilosophical staples like ern.~ and
r~action in terms of the life and movement naturally inherent in mate- chronos (both of which myth had already appropriated for its own
rial things. Once Parmenides had denied the hylozoistic premiss, purposes), eidos, physis, and the already mentioned arch e developed
however, the mythological personalized god reappeareu, !Jot, to be new connotations, while other old words like hyle and s!oicheion were
sure, in his grosser Homeric shapes, but as an artist who molds or a expropriated for radical new purposes. The concrete yielded to the
thinker who moves, both unmistakably personalized but depri,·ed of abstract, as poion, "just such a thing," gives way to poiotes, "quality"
(in Thcaet. 18za Plato apologizes for the a wkwa1·d nt:w term). In·
physical aspect and will.
Thus, nt the end of the philosophically abhorred infinite regress deed, this progresses to the point where only names (Cnllins, Socrates)
there was preserved what can be fairly identified as the god of the will serve to denote the individual, or to such Aristotelian peculiarities
:ay
mythologers. What the philosophers had, :n effect, done was to as "this something or other here" or the untranslatable to ti en cina.i.
exclusive claim to the entire intermediary area of secomlary causahty. The combinatory power:; of the language are tapped to describe the
Mvth was banished from these regions and causality replac.erl responsi- new complexities (hypostasis, hypokeimenon, symbebekos, entele-
hility. But befon: tlus could be done or, rather, in the course of doing it, cheia), and there appears a veritable treasure trove of abstract terms to
a new form of cliscourse had to be :;haped and a new language to identify newly isolated processes ( apodeixis, synagoge, plmmesis, gr:nr:·
express it. If Thales did, indeed, say that water was the arc.·he of all sis, kinesi:s, aisthesis, noesis).
thing:5 (Aristotle, Meta. 983b), the wonder of it all is not so much the:: All these refinements and new formations led, in time, to n sophis-
Sll bstitution of water for Zeus (the mythologers had already person- ticated technical vocabulary that bore little resemblance to common
ified Oceanus to sP.rve the same genetic c::nd), as the intrusion of arch e usage. Literary considerations also came jnto play. A Stoic pamphlet
for the mythologer's pater. Thales (or perhaps Anaximander) was in nddresseJ to a popular audience will obvionsly m!lk:e more concessions
:5earch of a starting point other than the common mythological one of to the general than a commentary by Simplicius, but the impression of
father and cho:se a term, arche, already in fairly common use, to popu1arity in the former work mny be heightened by the passage of
express the new concept. The older senses of arckc continued to be technical terms into common parlance. Plato went to some pains to
xii I Greek Phi'osophical Term::;
vary his terminology in what seems to bt:: a deliberate a~tempt to resist
the congealing of technicd terms, and thP. implication of the Socralic-
Contents
centen:J Platonic dialogue is still that two reasonably educated citi?P.ns
can sit down and discuss the:>e matters. Whether this is fle truth of the
metter or mere literary rhetoric we cannot tell. But Iiu such pt·emiss is
visible in Aristotle who insis:s on a standardized technical usage. Wit!1
A ristocle the professionalism implicit in the fc\mding of the Academy Preface
comes of age in language. v
Philosophical language did becomP. tP.chnical even though sla11C~
ardizatio:I was, and remains, an unfulfilled dream. Since the ~nr.ient Preliminary Note
IX
philosophical tradit.iun was strongly oriented to schools there was a
certain degree of consistency within, say, the Pint onic or Peripatetic
Greek Philosophical Terms
school. But even here the pervasive pos~-Aristotelian thrust toward 3
syncretism tended to muddy the conceptual waters: Plotinus' us~ of
eidos will owe something to PlatO, Aristotle, and the Stoics without, at English-Greek Index
the same time, specifying either the debt or its extent.
Whether this terminological vir~uosity was for good or for mm ay
be debated. But it is clear that in manufacturing o. new cu:rency for a
new way of seeing reality the Cheeks were borne by the com:ters
themselves into a world :ar removed from this m~terial one. Most of
the philosopher~ were at one ix1 agreeing that this world of concrete,
discrete beings ic:; an exceedingly C.isorderly place and that ''there is no
scie11ce of the individual." Such wa~> not true, however, of the newly
isolated universal terms that, like the gods of the now disreputable
mytllOlngy, could be manipulated and, once endowed with an order of
reality, could be constructed into a world of order and stability. The
Platonic cidos and the Aristotelian kategnria are, each in its uwn way,
the Greeks' ultimate tribute to language, aad the Proclean kosmos
noetos undoubte.clly its most baroque monument: a universe in which
every concept is matched with its appropriate uuiversal term and the
whok ananged in a hierarchical order of m2thematical precision aud
exceeding beauty.
a
adiapiJOron: without cliflereHce, morally ilJ(Jiffereut or
neutral st<lte
1. Since the end of man is, according to the oldest Stoic formu-
lae, to live harmoniously with nature (see nomos 2), the good will
consist in those things which nre helpful or have some value toward
this kind of life, while evil will reside in those things which make no
such contribution (D.L. VII, 94, 105). Between these two absolutely
helpful and harmful classes of acts (justice, prudence, moderation, etc.
on the one hand, cowardice, injustice, immodera!ion on the other)
there exists another group of things like life, health, and pleasure that
are char~cterizcd as morally indilferent (adiaphora) in that they h~ve
no immedi~tte connection with the end of man ( D.L. vu, 101-103).
They do, however, contribute to or impede that end indirectly and
hence are further divided ( D.L. vu, 105-106) into preferable acts
(procgmena), acts to be avoided (af;oprocgmena), and absolutely
indiiTerent acts, tl:e first category constituting the "duties" ( o[Jicia) of
the Roman ethicians and defined as those acts for whose performances
some reasonable defense ( eu.logos, probahi!i.~) can be given (Cicero,
De fin. m, 17, 58).
2. These latter distinctions provoked considerable controversy in
a
both the Stoa and the Academy. T:1ere was no question that one had
moral obligation to choose the goocl; what was at stake was the moral
implications of dividing the adiaphora into justifiable and non justifiable
acts. There were those moral rigorists like Ari~tu of Chios and the
Sceptic Pyrrho who ueuied that any moral value at all could be at-
tached to thcllie reasonably defensible and so "befitting" ( knthekontrz)
activities (Cicero, De fin. IV, 25, fi~). Further, the Sceptics' attacks on
epistemologic2.l certitude had its inevitable effects in the moral sphere
and 'Ne find the two eminences of the New or Sceptical Academy,
Aro~silas and Carneades, advancing a theory that once certitude has
been undermined the moral net can only be that for which some
reasonable defense cun be made, the former approaching th~ now
r.entra] kathekonta by applying an intellectual crilc::rion (rationally
probable, culogon; Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. va , 158), Car-
neades by putting forth an experimental one ( th~ practically probable,
Pithan.on; idem, Pyrrh. 1, 227-229).
3
4 I AER ACENETOS I 5
3· That these attituut:.'l, coupled, in the case of Carneades, with a aisthetos in the later diologues is reflected in his general reflections on
trenchant Criticism Of S~Oic epistemology, had an effect Oil the thinking tbe Good in the Philc'bus; the contrasting claims of pleasure (ludone)
of the Stoa in fthics is r.:e.ar from its own focusing on the correct choice and wisdom (p~ronesis) to be the highest good are Leing t:Xl:lmined,
of the kathekonta. as the centr!ll problem of the. moral life (Stobaeus, and the conclusi011 turus to an examination of the ''mixed life" (see
Eel. u, 76) and its retreat from Zeno's earlier insistence that virtne hedone and the mixed result of the operation of nous and ananke in the
nlone (in this context, life according to nature) suHices for man's Timrzeus), which is fonnrl to r.ombine both pleasure and wisdom
happiness and its admission of the need for satisfactions flowing from 3. ( 5gc-64a). What is notable here is not only the blending of the eide in
correct choice of the kathekonta ( D.L. vu, 12.8). this life, but the presence of measure and proportion ( 64a-66a) and,
more importantly for Plato's growing theism, the a.dvnncing emer-
aer: air gence of a transcendent, intelligent cause of good in the universe (see
t. For Amximenes the apeiron of Anaximander and t!te urdu of ibid. z6e-31b and thcos, nous).
:tll things was air (Aris.totle, MP.!a. g&fl; Simplicius, In Phys. 24. 26), 2. A.:rislotle is critical of Plato's theory of the Good (see Eth.
probably because of its connection with bre~th and life (cf. pnt11.ma). Nich. 1, 1og6c;-1097), but what he understands by that is clearly the
It-wns, as were most of the pre-Socratic archai, divine (theion), Cicero, eidos-agathon theory of the Republic (see ibid. 1ogsa and Eth. Eud. r,
De nat. dcor. r, 10, z6. The la.ter popularizer of aer was Diogenes of 1217b). Ye.t he accepts (Eth. Nick. r, 1094a) a Platonic definition of
Apo:lonia ·who made it the substance of both soul (psyche) nncl mind good as "that at which all things aim"; for Aristotle, this is happiness
( nou.~), frs. 4, s, an affinity parodied by Aristophancs, Clouds, 2:2-7 ff.; ( eudaimonia) (ibid. r, 1097a-b), defined as activity (praxis) in ac-
what is striking in Diogenes' conception is, of course, the association of cordance with virtue ( arete), ibid. x, uoob; and the highest virtue is
a purposeful acti\'icy with his aer-nous (see telos). thcoria, i.e., contemplation for its own sake, ibid. x, 1177a-b (for the
z. The connection aet·-pncuma-psyche-zoe-theion remained a con- highest type of theor-ia and hence the Cosmic Good, cf. telos). TI1e
stant one. The air-like nature of the soul is raised in Pha.edo 6ge-7oa; Epicureans return to the position rejected by Socrates ( Gorg.
Cebes fears it, but from another point it suggested a sort of impersonal 495c-4ggb), Plato (Phil. ssb-c), and Aristotle (Eth. Nich. vn,
immortality: the body might perish, but the psyche would be reab- 1153b-11S¥), namely that pleasure (hedone) :s the highest good
sorbed into the purest part of the aer, i.e., aither (q.v.), o.s yet undis- (D.L. x, 129). In the Stoa the good was ide::1tified with the profitable
linguished as a fifth element (see Euripides, Hcl•::n 1014-1016; Sup- (D.L. VII, 9 and 101-103).
pliants 533-534). Since the heavenly bodies ( ouranici) dwell in the 3· Plotinus' "theology" of the Good is to be found in Enn. vi,
aither another possibil:ty wns that the suul might be absorbed into the 15-4z, including ( 25) a description of the hiernrchy of goods leading
stars (see Ar istophanes, Peace 832). This belief was incorporated into up to the Ultimate Principle; the One (hen): which he identifies with
later Pythagoreani sm, but with the reservation of aither to the supralu· the Good, is the £nal uni£cation of the Socratic and Pannenidean
nary world; it was the aer between the moon and the earth that was strains in the Platm1ic tradition.
filled with daimor.es and heroes, D.L. vm, 32; compare Philo, De
gigant. z and 3 where the daimcne~; are now angels, and the consequent agenetos: ungenerated, nncreated (universe)
identification in De scmn. r, 134- 135 of the aer and J:~cob:s Ladder rn De coelo I, 279b Aristotle says that all his predecessors agreed
( Gem:$ill :tB, 12-13); see kenon. that the kosmo.~ had a beginning. Xenophanes is, perhaps, to be ex-
cluded from them, on the basis of an interpretative reading of frs. 14
agathun: soi!lething good, the good, an ultimate ~d 26, and surely the entire Eleatic school stemming from Purmen-
principle, snmmnm bonum ~d~, with its banishment of genesis from the realm of Being (see on),
1. Plato, perhaps di!;playing his Socratic heritage, gives one of IS. also to be excepted, ns Aristotle spcci£cally does in Meta. g8Gb. Iu
the ethical eide a central position in his hierarchy: in the Republic (see Tt~. 28b Pinto clearly says that the kot;mos is subject to gene!Ji!J.
504e 509e) the form of the Good stands ~t the c.entt:r of the Platonic Ar1stotl~, who earlier in hi.s career had supportell the same position
state, nnd it is the chief duty of the philosopher to r.ontemplate it, ibid. (De P~~·! fr. ~8), takes this to mea11 thal it hau a beginning in time
54oa (for the problems arising from its transcendence P.t this stage, see ~nd cnttcu;es 1t severely (De coelo l, 279b). But there was another
hypcrowia). It is, moreover, the term of the process of dialectic: (di- lnterpretation of the passage, as Ari:;totle himself (foe. cit.) is aw~rP.,
alektikc, q.v.). Plato's turning toward the conditions of the ko.~mos put forth by Xeuu~.:rate::; ( :.::ee Plutarch, De an. prcc. 1013a), and
6 I AG:t\OSTOS AlON I 7
adopted by most later Platonists, that geneeis here meam; "in a perpet- the .Academy, had ar.cess to unpublished matet·ial (had not Plato said
ual state of ch~nge" (see (;12). The same interpretation, adapted to his in lip. VII, 31IC that he would never pul::lish anything on the ultimate
emanationist theories, can be seen in Plotinn;; ( Ree Enn. 11, g, 2). principles?). There are only two possible references to such mnterinl in
Aristotle is emphatic in his belief that the universe is both ungeneratf:cl Aristotle; in De an. r, 404b he refers to something called "On Philoso-
( agenetos) and incorruptible ( aphthartos). This becomes the basic phy," possibly a reference to his ovrn dialogue by that name, though
position, but Philo, by reaso:1 of the account in Genesis, must, of later commen:ators took it as a reference to a Platonic lecture ( cf.
course, stand outside it (seeD, opif. z, 7-9). Simplicius, In De an. 28, 7-9), !Ill(] in Phys. 1 v, 20gb where he refers to
Plato's "unwritten doctrines" (agrapha dogmatn.). 'VVhat were these
:ignostos: unknown, unkuOIVC1Ule agro.pha dogmata? Thr. one identifiable possibility is a single lecture
l. 'Rec.:ln~>e of the transcendence of God certain problems arise in "On the Good" ~hat Plato gave to a disenchanted public who came to
the possibility of his being an object of knowlerlge. A simple agnosti- hear about .h appmes.£, l.m t were treated to mathemutics ' geometry nnd
cism is held by Protagoras (Diels, fr. 80B4) whet·e the question i~ astro:-tomy mstead (Anstoxen'.ls, Harmonics n, 30-31) ·it was atte)n ded
separated into kr.owledge of whether the gods exist, and what their by Aristotle and other members of the Academy, wh; took note::; that
nature is; the agnosia problem treats more properly of the latter (on they later published ( Simplicius, In Phys. 151, 453); ::f. arithmos.
the question of their existence, cf. thcos). For a related problem as it concerns Aristotle, cf. exoterikoi.
2. Because of the importance of tra:1sccndence in the Platonic
tradition, the question of the knowuuili ty of God was cen tn\: there; the agraphos nomos: unwritten law
Platonic proof text on the diff'iculty of knowing God wus Tim. z8c, See nomos.
supported by the pessimistic :·r.marks in Parm. 141e- 142a, Syrr.p. 211a, ,
and especially, Ep. vu, 341b-d. As is indicated in the texts cited, the ai'dios: everlasting} perdnration in time (aidios kata
problem is the transcendence of the supreme principle, the "Good chronon)
beyond Being" of Rep. VI, sogb (see hypei'Ot:sia). But if the essence of Alth?ugh the distinction in terminology is not always maint2inerl
God coulclnot be apprehended directly, the same n:1d similnr texts of by. t~e pl1~loso?hers, the concepts of "everlasting perdu ration in time"
Plato sugg·est alterna:ive ways of knowing Cod, ways hig·hly developed (a;dzo~) 1~ se:1arate ::nd different from "eternal" (aionios), i.e., not
in later Platonism ( t:.g. Albinus, Epit. x and Maxinms of Tyre, VII and belongmg to the order of time ( chronos), but to the order of eternitv
XVI II; compare Proclus, Elem. tl:eol., prop. 123). The major ones are; ( aion:, q. v ., and Plotinus, Enn. m, 7, 3); "etemnl'~ is used loosely t~
a) by induttive return to the source (epagogc, the me::lieval via describe both concepts, e.g. the "eternity of the kcsmos"; but aidios is
eminentiae); see Symp. 200e- 211 c and compare Plotinus, Enn. really a qtles~ion of the occurrence or the possibiluitey of occurrence of
1 6. corrup~ion ( phtlwra)' and so lhe concept will uiscus::ed under
1
b) by nnnlogy (anc.logia); see Rep. vr, 5o8a-c and compare aphtlz.artos; see also aion, c;hrr.mus.
Plotinus, Enn. v1, 7, 36; because Proclus denied :my participation
... ]"f
(me thex is) between the One ar.d the rest of reality ( E!em. theol., mon: z e~man, eternity
prop. 2:3)' he is uaned from the via analogiae. , l. In its earliest and nonphilosophical use, aion means a life-span;
c) by "removal," negation ( afJhairesis; the -viu ncgativa); see the Jts con.ceptnal introduction into philosophy may be seen in Purmenides,
first "hypothe!'is" of the Pa.nl!enides, which latt:r Plalouists took fr. 8, ltne 5, where the denial of becoming (genesis) in true being (see
in a very ullhypotbeticnl s~nse; compc.re Plotinus, Enn. v 1, 7, 32· on) leads to its corollary, the denio! of the temporal 2istinctions '"past"
d) by mystical uxJion (ekstr..~is); r.f. Symp. 210e- zna, Ep. VII, a. nd "futur e" an d t h e of fi rmeb·o n of total present simultaneity. Mdi.ssus
34oc-d; compare Erm. vr, g, !)-11 and, for Plotinus' personal ~nterpret~ this us ap.r:i~on, ~'Vithcut limit, goiug ou fort:ver ( frs. z, 3, 4,
experience, Porphyry, Vita /!lot. 23; see hen. , ) ' a notion later d1stmgmshed as aidio:> ( q.v .) , perduration in time.
:~d the same ~ype of inlerpre~ati?n may be seen in Aristotle, DP. r.odo 1,
agrapha dogmata: unwritten doctrines t9° where a10n embrace.s "all time even to infinity [apeiron]."
One of the common methods used to obliter:,te the difference th .z .. Th~ fu~damental_disti.nction betvveP.n time (r.hronos) and aion
between what Aristotle says nbont Plato's eide nnd the preserved w at Is l~llph_ed m P~rmemdes ts made fully P.xplirit in Plato, Tim. Oid
account in the dialogues is to presume that Aristotle, ns n member of here t1me IS created to serve as an im~ge ( P.ik.on) of the state of the
