Proclus on ἕνωσις: Knowing the One by the One in the Soul

Abstract

At Plato’s insistence to become as godlike as one can, the Neoplatonists seek their salvation in union with the first principle they call the One, identifying this union as the highest end of philosophy. As with all aspirations, the transition from theoretical ideal to practical implementation remains a perennial problem: how is it possible for a person, as a mere mortal, to leave the person’s confined ontological station to unite with the divine, transcendent first principle? This paper is an attempt to reconstruct Proclus’ highly distinctive answer to this question of enormous importance through a close examination of his development of the late Neoplatonic notion of the One in the soul (τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν).

1. Introduction

At Plato’s insistence to become as godlike as one can (ὁμοίωσις θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν),1 the Neoplatonists seek their salvation in union (ἕνωσις) with the first principle they call the One, identifying this union as the highest end of philosophy. As with all aspirations, the transition from theoretical ideal to practical implementation remains a perennial problem: how is it possible for a person, as a mere mortal, to leave the person’s confined ontological station to unite with the divine, transcendent first principle? This paper is an attempt to reconstruct Proclus’ highly distinctive answer to this question of enormous importance through a close examination of his development of the late Neoplatonic notion of the One in the soul (τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν).2

As a follower of Syrianus, and thus Iamblichus by extension, Proclus places a great emphasis on theurgic practice, believing it to transcend all intellectual endeavors and possess the highest degree of transformative power. Given the prominence of theurgy in post-Iamblichian Neoplatonism, it comes as no surprise that a plethora of scholarship exists on the topic of theurgy, especially in connection with the late Neoplatonists’ view on the nature of the mystical union with the One.3 See, for instance, scholarship on theurgy spanning the past decades and covering all the major figures in later Neoplatonism in [5,6,7,8,9,10,11].

There is, however, little to no treatment in the scholarship on Proclus’ innovative development of the notion of the One in the soul despite his urging that “it is by the One that we know the One” (In. Parm. 1081.11).4

This paper aims to offer one such account of the One in the soul by elucidating how, according to Proclus, the One may be apprehended through the One in the soul, insofar as it can be apprehended at all. The ensuing account reveals that Proclus’ approach toward unification with the divine for the embodied soul is at once novel in its development of the concept of the One in the soul and deeply rooted in the Platonic tradition.

In Section 2, I offer a brief overview of the various Neoplatonic positions on the nature of divine union with a special emphasis on the conceptualization of this union by Neoplatonists from Iamblichus onwards. Turning to Proclus in particular, in Section 3, I discuss a central rationale underpinning Proclus’ reverence for theurgy by appealing to a long-established doctrine in antiquity, what I shall call the Cognitive Likeness Principle. According to this doctrine, the project of apprehension and unification with the One can only be made possible through a One-like faculty of the soul. In Section 4, I discuss two arguments—the Affinity and Recollection Arguments—offered by Plato in his dialogue on the soul, the Phaedo, to support the claim that Proclus’ development of the One in the soul as a vehicle of unification is rooted in Platonic precedent. In Section 5, I consider evidence from Proclus’ own writings to show that the act of awakening the One in the soul plays an unrivaled role in his account of unification. Once this point is appreciated, it becomes clear that in developing the postulation of the One in the soul as the faculty by which the highest level of reality may be apprehended, Proclus illuminates the theoretical framework and reinforces the efficacy of theurgy, a hallmark of later Neoplatonism.

2. Neoplatonists on How to Unify with the One

The Neoplatonists consider mystical unification with the divine as the goal of philosophy and indeed the highest achievement for humans. However, there is a genuine problem regarding how this unification with the divine can be possible for humans insofar as mortals do not share the same ontological status with the divine. In his commentary on the Phaedo, Damascius notes that the opinions of Plato’s followers diverge with respect to this question. According to Damascius’ testimony, on the one hand, early Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Porphyry “honor more highly philosophy”, claiming that we can understand the divine principles of reality through rational explication. On the other hand, the later Neoplatonists such as Iamblichus, Syrianus, and Proclus reject the view that the exercise of our cognitive faculties offers the right path to salvation and “honor more highly the hieratic art” instead [15] (1 §172).

The followers of Plato hold varying views on the ideal mode of union due to their disagreement about the nature of the soul [16] (pp. 34–51). The salient question underpinning this disagreement is whether or not the soul ever completely descends into and integrates with the body. Early Neoplatonists like Plotinus and Porphyry hold that the superior part of the human soul—the rational soul—always remains in touch with the intelligible realm and the divine principles. In his exposition of the soul’s descent into the body, for instance, Plotinus reminds us of the possibility of an undescended soul, one that remains a separate and divine entity, provided that it has never deeply penetrated into the body (ἥτις μὴ εἰς τὸ εἴσω ἔδυ τοῦ σώματος).5

For such a severe attachment to the body constitutes an obstacle to acts of thinking and infects the soul with pleasures, appetites, and pains (Ennead IV.8.2). Since Plotinus believes that the soul is never wholly detached from its divine ontological station, he and his followers, notably Porphyry, posit that it remains possible for the soul to rekindle its connection with the divine through exercises of rational thought.

Iamblichus, however, holds a rather different view on the relationship between the soul and the body. Pace Plotinus, Iamblichus maintains that the soul indeed wholly descends into the body.6

And due to the soul’s complete integration with the body, philosophical activities are insufficient to achieve union with the One. Instead, for Iamblichus and his followers, including Syrianus and Proclus, the hieratic art becomes not only necessary but also the preferred method of achieving unification. It is unsurprising, then, that Proclus places immense emphasis on theurgic rites as a means of assimilation with the divine. For Proclus and the late Neoplatonists alike, theurgic rites are established by the gods to make it possible for the soul to overcome the ontological difference between mortals and the divine, transforming a human person into a divine being to the extent possible. So convinced was he by this doctrine that, as Proclus’ biographer, Marinus, tells us, Proclus not only wrote about the importance of theurgy but also practiced the hieratic art and preached about its significance to others [19]. In the Platonic Theology (PT), for example, he offers high praises for the practice of theurgy, categorically affirming theurgic power as “more excellent than all human wisdom and knowledge, as it comprehends (συλλαβοῦσα) prophetic good, the purifying power of perfective rites, and in short, all such things as are the effects of divine possession” (I 25 113.7–10).7

3. Proclus on Cognition by Likeness

While Proclus endorses Iamblichus’ esteem of theurgic value, this endorsement of theurgy is not merely an expression of loyalty to his predecessor. I want to suggest that Proclus’ preference for theurgy is also based on a particular skepticism. This skepticism concerns the limits of various forms of cognitive theorizing about divine subjects as a means of assimilation. Proclus expresses this doubt on many occasions, as evidenced in the following passages.

What is not in us is not on the level of our knowledge (τὰ μὴ ὄντα σύστοιχα πρὸς τὴν ἡμετέραν ἐπιστήμην); what is not on the level of our knowledge is unknowable by our faculty of knowledge (τῆς ἡμετέρας ἐπιστήμης); so then the transcendent Forms (εἴδη) are unknowable by our faculty of knowledge. They may, then, be contemplated only by divine Intellect (τῷ θείῳ θεατά). This is so for all Forms, but especially for those that are beyond the intellectual gods; for neither sense perception (ἡ αἴσθησις), nor cognition based on opinion (ἡ δοξαστικὴ γνῶσις), nor pure reason (ὁ καθαρὸς λόγος), nor intellectual cognition (ἡ νοερὰ γνῶσις) of our type serves to connect the soul with those Forms, but only illumination from the intellectual gods (ἡ ἀπὸ τῶν νοερῶν θεῶν ἔλλαμψις) renders us capable of joining ourselves to those intelligible-and-intellectual Forms, as I recall someone saying under divine inspiration. The nature of those Forms is, then, unknowable to us, as being superior to our intellection and to the partial conceptions of our souls.

(In. Parm. IV 949.14–28)8

For the genus of the gods cannot be apprehended by sense (αἰσθήσει) because it is exempt from all bodies; nor by opinion (δόξῃ) and thought (διανοίᾳ), for these are divisible (μερισταὶ) and come into contact with multiform concerns; nor by intelligence in conjunction with reason (νοήσει μετὰ λόγου), for knowledge of this kind belongs to true beings (ὄντως ὄντων).

(PT I 3, 15.8-13)

These passages speak for themselves. They are abundantly clear on the point that, for Proclus, we cannot rely on modes of cognition such as perception, opinion, or thought to inquire about the nature of the divine, which exceeds the finitude of these cognitive faculties.

As I understand him, Proclus’ underlying reason for this skepticism about the ability of human cognition to comprehend the nature of that which surpasses our ontological station (viz., the transcendent forms and the gods) is the belief in the famous Presocratic doctrine, which I shall call the Cognitive Likeness Principle.9

According to this principle, cognition requires likeness between the subject and object of cognition such that it is possible to learn about some object of knowledge, O, only by means of a faculty, F, that is like O. And if there is a variety in the types of cognitive objects, O₁, O₂, O₃, then there must be corresponding faculties sufficiently similar to these objects, F₁, F₂, F₃, in order to make these various cognitions possible. Such a view is expressed in Proclus’ Platonic Theology, which goes as follows.

For we say that everywhere (πανταχοῦ) things similar (ὁμοίῳ) can be known by the similar (τὰ ὅμοια); viz. the sensible (τὸ αἰσθητόν) by the sense (αἰσθήσει), the believable (τὸ δοξαστόν) by belief (δόξῃ), the thinkable (τὸ διανοητόν) by thought (διανοίᾳ), and the intelligible (τὸ νοητόν) by the intellect (νῷ).

(I 3, 15.17–20)

Proclus’ commitment to the Cognitive Likeness Principle appears to be quite broad, as he writes that it holds universally in all cases where cognition may occur. As such, we should expect the Cognitive Likeness Principle to underpin even Proclus’ view about cognition of subject matters belonging to the genus of the divine. According to the Cognitive Likeness Principle, then, humans cannot come to understand and stand in union with the divine by means of our finite modes of cognition, which are not sufficiently similar to transcendent, true beings. Ιndeed, by application of the Cognitive Likeness Principle, Proclus proceeds to assert in the immediately following line of the passage at issue that “supreme unity (τὸ ἑνικώτατον) must be known by the One (τῷ ἑνὶ), and the ineffable by that which is ineffable” (PT I 3, 15.20–21).10

It must be acknowledged that, in recognizing a faculty like the One in the soul as a vehicle of assimilation, Proclus squarely operates within the framework laid down by Iamblichus, who is believed to have been the first to introduce this concept of a One-like faculty into the theorizing of Neoplatonists if we follow Hermeias’ record of Iamblichus’ commentary on Plato’s Phaedrus.11

According to Hermeias’ testimony, Iamblichus identifies the One in the soul (τὸ ἓν τῆς ψυχῆς) as “the helmsman” of the soul, which he regards as “a more superior entity than the charioteer and the horses” in his exegesis of Phaedrus 247c (In Phaedr. 150, 24ff).12 As John Dillon elucidates, Iamblichus insists that any possible cognition of the realm in which the One resides (viz., the ὑπερουράνιος τόπος) requires a faculty of the soul that he calls the One. Such a faculty of the soul, which is regarded as superior to the intellect, might be thought to have been postulated by Iamblichus to bolster the efficacy of theurgic practices, as it establishes the claim that the theurgist indeed connects with the gods precisely through a faculty that is superior to human intellection, i.e., the One in the soul [13] (pp. 254–255).

Iamblichus, however, stops short of articulating just how the One in the soul could serve as the faculty by which the first principle of all things may properly be apprehended. He does not offer an account in which he identifies the feature(s) possessed by this faculty. Nor does he expound on its operation by which it may achieve its purpose of allowing humans to have the kind of apprehension we might have of the One. Rather, Iamblichus flatly asserts that the One in the soul is the soul’s helmsman on the ground that “it is the essential nature of the One in the soul to be united with the gods” (In Phaedr. 150, 24ff). I shall argue that Proclus offers just this supplement account to Iamblichus’ initial discussion of the concept of the One in the soul, most notably in his commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, in which he invites us to awaken (ἀνεγείρειν) the One in the soul to achieve union with the One (In Parm. 1081.11).

Whereas the importance of theurgy in Neoplatonism is widely recognized in the secondary literature, few scholars are intrigued by Proclus’ emphasis on the act of awakening the One in the soul.13 I want to suggest that the One in the soul plays a far more significant role in Proclus’ account of ἕνωσις than has been hitherto recognized. My intention, then, is to bring the distinctive Proclean idea of the One in the soul to the forefront of his account of unification. The One in the soul plays such a significant role for Proclus, I shall argue, because it has an affinity with the One, which enables the soul to apprehend supreme unity through a reflection of its own divinity and internal striving for unity. Before turning to the text of Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, which contains his fullest account of the One in the soul, I propose to offer a prelude to this Proclean theory by discussing its Platonic precedent in the Phaedo.

4. Affinity and Assimilation in Plato’s Phaedo

My aim in this portion of the paper is to show that two strikingly analogous suggestions already exist in the writings of Plato and may have served as an impetus in the development of the Proclean notion of the One in the soul. These suggestions are (1) that the soul resembles divine entities and (2) that it is in virtue of this resemblance that an individual may stand in an epistemic union with the divine Forms. To this end, I propose that we revisit Plato’s own dialogue on the soul, the Phaedo, and review two arguments that he gives for these doctrines.

I begin with the argument in support of (1). In the Phaedo, Socrates continues his defense of the philosophical life by giving yet a series of motivating reasons urging us to look after the well-being of our soul and pursue the life of philosophy, as he does. Central among these is that the soul is immortal, for it is more akin to the unchanging Forms as opposed to the sensory particulars existing in the imperfect, transitory world. Plato argues for this thesis with the affinity argument. His strategy in this argument is to reveal in a piecemeal fashion how the soul resembles the Forms.

First, he establishes that the soul, being invisible (ἀόρατον), more aptly belongs to the class of invisible things (τῷ ἀιδεῖ) rather than the visible to which the body belongs (79b12-c1). Next, Plato claims that when the soul investigates by itself (rather than by using the body), it is able to express its true nature by passing into the realm of what is pure (καθαρόν), eternal (ἀεὶ ὂν), immortal (ἀθάνατον), and unchanging (ὡσαύτως ἔχον, 79d1-8). Together, these passages establish the preliminary conclusion that the soul, strictly speaking, belongs to the eternal realm but is dragged down to the imperfect sensible world by sustained intermingling with the body.14

The argument continues with the claim that, by nature, the soul is to rule (ἄρχειν) and play master (δεσπόζειν) when it is in the same place as the body (79e8–80a9). As it is common in antiquity, the appeal to nature is not intended to have only descriptive force but also normative weight. For Plato thus to claim that the soul is, by nature, the master of the body is for him to affirm the view that the soul’s role is to govern over the body as a normative ideal. Indeed, Plato proceeds to draw the inference that the soul resembles the divine (τῷ θείῳ), whereas the body the mortal insofar as it stands in a mastery relation to the body, just as the divine does to mortals. At this stage in the argument, Plato takes himself to be in a position to draw his desired conclusion: “The soul is altogether more like that which always exists in the same state rather than like that which does not (τῷ ἀεὶ ὡσαύτως ἔχοντι μᾶλλον ἢ τῷ μή)” (79d9-e5). The class of things to which Plato ascribes unchanging and eternal stability, and to which he likens the soul, are the Forms, as he describes them throughout the dialogue, particularly at 79d3-9 in the course of presenting the affinity argument.

Plato not only believes that the soul is akin to the Forms, but he also believes that it is in virtue of our soul and its affinity to the Forms that we can know the Forms through recollection. Although the passages in which he offers an argument for this thesis are now well-known, they are worth reviewing to draw out the salient connection to the view of Proclus that we shall examine in due course. The argument begins in the passage 74a8-13 of the Phaedo, in which Simmias concedes to the claim that the Equal itself (αὐτὸ τὸ ἴσον) exists as distinguishable from ordinary objects instantiating the property of being equal, and that we possess knowledge (τὴν ἐπιστήμην) of the Equal itself. Socrates then proceeds to construct an argument by dilemma in the next stage of the argument. He introduces at 74b4-c1 two possibilities by means of which we might have knowledge of the Equal: we either learn about it from our experience with equal objects such as equal sticks and stones or by some other modes of knowledge acquisition.15

That knowledge of the Equal itself may be acquired through sensorial means is immediately ruled out as a viable alternative for two reasons. The first is given in the following passage.

Look at it this way: Do not equal stones and sticks sometimes, while remaining the same, appear to one to be equal (ἴσα φαίνεται) and to another to be unequal?

Certainly they do.

But what of the equals themselves (αὐτὰ τὰ ἴσα)? Have they ever appeared unequal (ἄνισά) to you, or Equality (ἡ ἰσότης) to be Inequality (ἀνισότης)?

Never, Socrates.

(74c1–c4)16

Socrates points out that we cannot learn about the Equal from perceiving objects as having the appearance of being equal. For the apparently equal objects, such as sticks and stones, appear equal at one time to one perceiver but unequal at another time to a different perceiver. Yet, the Equal is unchanging. It cannot, therefore, be the case that we abstract knowledge of the Equal from observations of objects that appear to be equal at some times but unequal at other times. In sum, and in the framework of an uncontroversial interpretation of Plato, unlike the Forms, sensory particular objects suffer from the compresence of opposites, rendering them ungraspable by the intellect.17

The second reason Socrates offers against the possibility that knowledge of Forms can be gained by the sense modalities appears in the following passage.

Do they seem to us to be equal in the sense as what is Equal itself (ὥσπερ

αὐτὸ τὸ ὃ ἔστιν)? Is there some deficiency (ἐνδεῖ τι) in their being such as the

Equal (οἷον τὸ ἴσον), or is there not?

A considerable deficiency, he said.

Whenever someone, on seeing something, realizes that that which he now sees wants

to be like some other reality (οἷον ἄλλο τι τῶν ὄντων) but falls short and cannot be

like that other since it is inferior (φαυλότερον), do we agree that the one who thinks

this must have prior knowledge of that to which he says it is like, but deficiently so?

Necessarily.

Well, do we also experience this about the equal objects and the Equal itself, or do

we not?

Very definitely.

(74d5-e8)

This passage makes the point that perceptible equal objects, such as equal sticks and stones, do not exhibit perfect equality, but they are deficient with respect to the quality of being equal when compared to the Equal itself. It is worth noting that there are two possible ways to interpret the claim made in this passage. One is that the apparent equal objects are inferior to the Equal insofar as they appear unequal, at least sometimes, to certain individuals. It would be rather redundant, however, for Plato to make this claim here since he makes just the same point a few lines earlier in the preceding passage at 74c1-4, as we saw. I will assume, then, that Plato has in mind a different claim, which is the following: since the Equal itself is the paradigm of equality, no observable instances of equality can be as perfect as it.

Now, the fact that we can recognize deficiencies in perceptible equal objects, Plato argues, presupposes that we have prior knowledge of something that exemplifies equality par excellence: the Equal itself. Knowledge of the paradigm—the Equal itself—cannot be derived from observing instances of objects displaying the quality of being equal because any observable instance appears unequal sometimes and is always inferior to the paradigm. Since we cannot learn what Equal is from observing equal objects, he reasons that we must possess knowledge of the Equal itself before encountering equal objects (74e9-a3). It also follows, and indeed crucially for our current purposes, that we learn about the Equal and other unchanging entities (e.g., the Beautiful and the Good) before our birth exclusively by means of our soul. This corollary follows from the fact that we could not have acquired knowledge of the Equal with our sensory apparatus, as it requires the presence of a body. However, our soul becomes embodied only at the moment of our birth. Thus, Plato concludes:

Therefore, if we had this knowledge, we knew before birth and immediately after not only the Equal, but the Greater and the Smaller and all such things, for our present argument is no more about the Equal than about the Beautiful itself, the Good itself, the Just, the Pious, and, as I say, about all those things which we mark with the seal of “what it is”, both when we are putting questions and answering them. So, we must have acquired knowledge of them all before we were born.

(75c7-d5)

We see, then, that for Plato the soul is akin to the unchanging Forms and facilitates our knowledge of them. And this knowledge is uncovered in the process of recollection, which is made possible by the class resemblance between soul and Forms. I want to attribute a very similar view to Proclus. This view says that a faculty of our soul, what Proclus calls “the One in the soul”, has an affinity to the divine, and it is in virtue of this affinity that mortals may be united with the One to the extent that such assimilation is possible. In light of the evidence from Plato’s own dialogue on the soul, the view that I attribute to Proclus here is not at all surprising. Rather, it is natural that Proclus should posit an affinity between the One in the soul and the One and exploit this affinity in his account of unification. The plausibility of this hypothesis can be strengthened further if we consider Proclus’ own writings on the topic of unification, which will be my next focus.

5. Knowing the One by the One

Proclus discusses the concept of the One in us most extensively in Book VI of his commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, as follows.

This is the cause of all evils for the soul (τὸ πάντων αἴτιον τῇ ψυχῇ κακῶν), its seeking after the particular characteristics of the first principle and employing reasoning (λογισμῷ) in the attempt to know it, whereas in fact one must awaken (ἀνεγείρειν) the One in us (τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν), in order that we may, if one may so presume to say, become able to some extent, in accordance with our own rank, to know (γνῶναί) like by like (τῷ ὁμοίῳ τὸ ὅμοιον). For even as by opinion we know the objects of opinion, and as we know by discursive intellect the objects of that faculty, and as by the intuitive intellectual element in us we know the object of intellect, even so it is by the One that we know the One (οὕτω καὶ τῷ ἑνὶ τὸ ἕν).

(1081.1-10)

Proclus does two things in this passage. First, he identifies a wrongheaded way of inquiring about the One. The wrongheaded approach that he labels “the cause of all evils” is the view that knowledge of the One is within the grasp of our reasoning faculty (ὁ λογισμός). Proclus thus rejects, in harmony with the mainstream post-Iamblichan Neoplatonism, exercises of reason as the kind of activity conducive to the goal of assimilation.18 Second, he points out that the correct method to achieve unification with the One, and indeed the soul’s salvation, is rather the act of awakening the One in our soul.

That Proclus identifies the act of awakening the One in the soul as the sole means to achieve knowledge of the One should come as no surprise in light of his endorsement of the Cognitive Likeness Principle introduced in a preceding section of this paper. As previously discussed, this principle claims that cognition requires likeness between the subject and object of cognition such that it is possible to learn about some object of knowledge only by means of a faculty that is like it. The Cognitive Likeness Principle is explicitly mentioned by Proclus in the passage from the commentary on Plato’s Parmenides at issue. There, Proclus recommends that we know “like by like” if there is hope of knowing the One. To understand how it might be possible to know the One with the One in the soul, an account of this method of knowledge acquisition is necessary. What, exactly, does it mean to say that some object of knowledge is known by a faculty or a knower in virtue of resemblance?

As this principle is most closely associated with Empedocles in antiquity, we may take as our starting point the testimonies of Aristotle and Theophrastus concerning how we are to understand this esteemed Presocratic doctrine. In their expositions, both Aristotle (de Anima I.2, 404b12-15, cf. Metaphysics III.4, 1000b5-8) and Theophrastus (de Sensibus 1-2, 10) suggest that the Cognitive Likeness Principle relies on a compositional similarity between the faculty, or subject of cognition, and the object of cognition. On this Aristotelian interpretation, the knower is able to establish an epistemic relation with the external object of knowledge because the two are composed of the same elements.19

To illustrate the Cognitive Likeness Principle at work, Aristotle cites an application of it by Plato in the Timaeus immediately after his report of Empedocles’ doctrine (de Anima I.2, 404b16-19). In the Timaeus, Plato is thought to rely on the Cognitive Likeness Principle to explain the world soul’s cognition of all things in the cosmos due to its constitutionality and structural arrangement of the harmoniously proportionate parts (37a2-b3).20

Alternatively, Rachana Kamtekar argues that the Empedoclean doctrine should rather be understood as a kind of analogical reasoning. She writes, “We know X, more or less, by having encountered it in experience, or having been told about it” and that “the new X is an instance of the same principle as the familiar X” [40] (p. 231). On her view, the process of knowledge acquisition by which we know like by like does not depend so much on a match in material composition between the cognizer and object of cognition, as the Aristotelian interpretation assumes, but rather on the representational contents of our experiences which allow us to recognize the same contents in new instances. To make this point more vivid, consider Empedocles’ numerous accounts of Love’s creative activity (B71, 73, 75, 84, 86, 87, 95, 96). In particular, Empedocles credits Love with the construction of the eyes in B96, where he offers a striking analogy with the construction of a lantern on a wintry night. We can grasp the process by which Love constructs the eyes, Empedocles suggests, since we are familiar with creative activity from our ordinary experience. This is because we have encountered instances of similar creative activity in the past and because we ourselves engage in such creative activity. In the text of B96 at issue, Empedocles relies on our experience of engaging in creative activity (that of constructing a lantern) to elucidate Love’s creative activity (that of constructing the eyes). He reasons as follows. Just as one would protect the flame by screens to keep the wind out but let the light pass through if one were to construct a lantern on a wintry night, so too Aphrodite protects the light in the eyes from the water in the eyes by transparent membranes and tissue.

I want to suggest that both understandings of the Cognitive Likeness Principle may be insightful to the current task of unpacking Proclus’ suggestion that we know the One by the One in the soul. Consider first the more traditional interpretation suggested by Aristotle and Theophrastus, according to which the One in the soul is like the One to the extent that they are the same sort of thing. And it is in virtue of being constituted similarly that we may know the latter through the former.21

Indeed, in the following passage near the end of his commentary on the Parmenides, Proclus discusses the divinity of the One in the soul, describing it as a divine illumination, thereby establishing its commonality with the transcendent One.

So it is rightly said in the Letters (VII, 341c), as we have said, that it is to be learned in a different way; that when we have given much care and attention to it, a divine light is kindled in us through which there comes about—in such a way as is possible to us—a glimpse of it, which makes us participate in it in respect of that part of ourselves that is most divine. But the most divine thing in us is the One in us, which Socrates called the illumination of the soul, just as he called the truth itself light. This illumination is our individual light, and so, if it is not impious to say this, here also like is apprehensible by like: as the sensible is by sensation, the opinable by opinion, the knowable by science, so by the One in ourselves do we apprehend the One, which by the brightness of its light is the cause of all beings, by which all participate in the One.

(In Parm. VII 505.29-506.8 = Morrow and Dillon 48K)22

This instructive excerpt begins with a reference to a famous passage of the Seventh Letter, in which the notion of a “light suddenly kindled in the soul” (φῶς ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ) is introduced.23

Proclus then proceeds to identify this light in the soul with his concept of the One in the soul, ascribing to it the ability to illuminate the whole soul. Just as the One in the soul is an “individual light” that illuminates the soul by virtue of its brightness, so too is the One the supreme light, and indeed cause, of all beings.

As I have suggested and discussed in Section 4, Proclus consistently draws his inspiration from Plato, who illustrates the many ways in which the soul is ontologically more akin to the eternal Forms than the constituents of the sensory world. Both the soul and the Forms are invisible, everlasting, and immutable. In a word, divine. The Proclean insight here is the identification of the most divine element of the soul with the One in us, a faculty he believes enables apprehension of the One through reflection of its own divinity and unity. To elaborate on this aspect of Proclus’ account of the One in the soul, consider the following passage in which Proclus explains how it is possible to call this first cause of all things, whose very essence is ineffable, “one”.

We should rather say that it is not the One that we call “one” when we use this name, but the understanding of unity which is in ourselves (in nobis intelligentiamunius). For everything that exists—beings with intellect, with soul, with life, and inanimate objects and the very matter that goes with these—all long for the first cause and have a natural striving toward it.

(In Parm. VII 509.10-15 = Morrow and Dillon 54K)

Like all Neoplatonists before him, Proclus admits that no knowledge achievable through the intellect may be obtained about the One, as no cognitive faculty is equipped for such a task. What all beings do have, and what may thus be an apprehensible object of knowledge, is an internal striving after the One. The justification presented in this passage for calling the One “one” relies on the awareness of this innate striving, which Proclus believes permeates all forms of existence. The precise epistemic status of this awareness is not easily ascertained on the basis of the text at issue, however. Proclus refers to it as an understanding (intelligentia) of an internal striving toward unity common in all existing things.24 In the human soul in particular, this natural striving toward supreme unity is precisely what Proclus identifies with “the One in ourselves”, as follows.

What else is the One in ourselves except the operation and energy of this striving (huius operatio et adiectio)? It is therefore this interior understanding of unity, which is a projection and, as it were, an expression of the One in ourselves (prouolen entem eius quod in nobis unius et uelut expressionem), that we call “the One”. So the One itself is not nameable, but the One in ourselves. By means of this, as what is most appropriate to it, we first speak of it and make it known to our own peers.

(In Parm. VII 509.20-26 = Morrow and Dillon 54K)

This passage contains yet another application of the Cognitive Likeness Principle. However, rather than emphasizing the divine luminosity shared by the One and the One in the soul, as witnessed in a preceding passage discussed above (In Parm. VII 505.29-506.8 = Morrow and Dillon 48K), here Proclus claims that we may understand the One by analogical reasoning. This is because, although the One is unlike anything that may be a direct object of observation or experience, the One in the soul can offer us a glimpse of supreme unity since it is, Proclus claims, an “interior understanding of unity”. As we saw in B96 of Empedocles, the representational contents of our experiences (the creative activity of constructing a lantern on a wintry night) allow us to recognize the same contents in a new instance (Love’s creative activity of constructing the eyes). Similarly, the contents of our interior understanding of unity (viz., the operation and energy of the striving toward unity within us) afford us an understanding of supreme unity. As Proclus explains in the passage at issue, what we call “the One” is “a projection” and “expression of the One in ourselves”. In his view, we can know supreme unity and call it by the name “one” through the reflection of the operation of a familiar element within ourselves.

Since the reflection of this internal striving and unity is the only resource available to the human mind in its attempt to apprehend the One, Proclus consistently emphasizes the need to “awaken the One in us” and insists that “it is by the One that we know the One” throughout the commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. It is also worth noting that the activity of awakening also appears in a similar context in Proclus’ commentary on Plato’s Alcibiades I [42] (247, 8). In the commentary on Alcibiades I, Proclus once again instructs us to awaken (ἀνεγεῖραι) the summit of existence (τὴν ἄκραν ὕπαρξιν): the One in us. Some may find these phrases highly metaphorical and thus uninstructive in the pursuit of union with the One. What, then, does Proclus intend for us to do when he instructs us to awaken the One in us (ἀνεγείρειν τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν ἓν)?

If we take Proclus’ suggestion at face value, then his instruction is for us to awaken the most divine element in ourselves. For this command to be intelligible, it must be the case that the One in our soul is asleep or somehow deadened. Proclus’ suggestion may become more illuminating if we view it in the light of two claims that Plato makes in the Phaedrus and Republic. At Phaedrus 251b3-c1, Plato reminds us that our soul originates from the divine by giving us the following vivid imagery.

Meanwhile, the heat warms him and melts the places where the wings once grew, places that were long ago closed off with hard scabs to keep the sprouts from coming back; but as nourishment flows in, the feather shafts swell and rush to grow from their roots beneath every part of the soul (long ago, you see, the entire soul had wings).25

This depiction of the soul makes clear that it originates from the realm of the eternal and unchanging entities, but when it descended to the material realm, the soul lost its divine characteristic—its wings. Since Proclus operates within the Platonic framework, it is not controversial to assume that he holds roughly the same account of the soul that we see in Plato. If we accept this background picture of the soul, then we can make sense of the necessity of awakening the One in us. There is a need to awaken the most divine faculty in our soul, which Proclus and the late Neoplatonists identify as the One in us, to aid the soul in returning to its divine origin.

The significance of awakening the One in the soul also has Platonic precedent in Republic VII. Plato writes the following in the context of discussing the rulers of the city.

Then, at the age of fifty, those who’ve survived the tests and been successful both in practical matters and in the sciences must be led to the goal and compelled to lift up the radiant light of their souls to what itself provides light for everything (ἀναγκαστέον ἀνακλίναντας τὴν τῆς ψυχῆς αὐγὴν εἰς αὐτὸ ἀποβλέψαι τὸ πᾶσι φῶς παρέχον).

(540a4-8)26

This passage tells us that these rulers are to lift up the radiant light of their souls and that this light provides light for everything else. If Plato’s language here appears familiar, that is because it mirrors Proclus’ description of the One in the soul as the individual light, the finite and individual analog of the One. The reoccurring theme traceable in both the writings of Plato and Proclus, as we might reasonably expect, is that humans possess an intelligible and divine faculty in our souls in virtue of which other things are made intelligible,27 and so we must rouse up this faculty, turning the One in the soul toward the supreme One. Proclus’ suggestion to awaken the One in the soul thus echoes the command that Plato makes in Republic VII to overcome the ontological difference between mortals and divine entities in achieving union with the divine.

While Proclus is abundantly clear on the necessity of awakening the One in the soul, he is much less explicit about the nature of the activity itself. On the basis of the preceding discussion, we may speculate that the activity of awakening the One requires, first and foremost, an interior understanding of unity, which Proclus identifies with knowledge of the operation and energy of the striving toward unity within us (In Parm. VII 509.20-26). We may speculate further, drawing on the wealth of existing scholarship on theurgy, that turning the One in the soul toward the supreme One entails activating a symbol (σύμβολον) in the direction of its corresponding item on a higher level. In particular, Anne Sheppard suggests that the One in the soul is a symbol of the First Hypostasis, which allows for the possibility of mystical union through theurgy [14] (pp. 219–220).28

The kind of theurgy at issue here is not the external and lowest kind that primarily consists of rituals related to physical phenomena or human affairs detailed in On the Hieratic Art.29

Rather, it is the highest kind of theurgy capable of achieving divine union, which Dillon describes as “an aspect of the Platonist experience that can only be performed, not talked about” [44] (p. 291). As the techniques of this highest theurgy are “wrapped in ineffable silence” [14] (p. 222), the following elements are hypothesized by commentators to be major components: surrendering oneself to the divine Light, mystic silence, and faith (πίστις).30

In addition to the difficulty of ascertaining the precise techniques used to awaken the One in the soul, we may question further whether Proclus is genuinely optimistic about the prospect of unification with the divine afforded by the faculty of the One in the soul. This question is especially pertinent because, as Proclus himself acknowledges, unification with the One takes place “in accordance with our rank” (In Parm. 1081.5).31

It is possible to interpret this qualification as an expression of skepticism. Due to the mediocre status of our souls, we can never truly leave our ontological station to unite with the One. To put the point slightly differently, insofar as I am a human, I am not the same sort of thing as a bat. I will never possess knowledge of what it is like to be a bat, nor can I interact with a bat like another bat could.32

Likewise, insofar as we are mortal, we cannot hope to know anything about the divine. Nor can we hope to be united with it since unification entails the destruction of the object-subject distinction. Thus, it might reasonably be thought that mystical unification with the One is truly out of reach for humans, as we are positioned at a lesser ontological station.33

This skepticism is grounded on the common tendency to overlook the crucial role that the One in the soul plays in Proclus’ account of unification, however. As we have seen, Proclus explicitly asks us to awaken the One in us on multiple occasions, claiming that it is by the One that we know the One. What I take Proclus to mean when he states that we may know the One “according to our rank” is that humans may only apprehend the One and stand in a unifying relation to it in virtue of something else like it—the One in the soul. Of course, if I may borrow Aristotle’s well-known turn of phrase, knowing “is said in many ways”.34 The salient sense of knowing here is not the kind of knowledge acquired via a rational cognitive faculty such as intellection. Rather, it is a kind of grasping involving an intimate knowledge of the activity and constitution of the individual’s own One-like faculty: the One in the soul, the divine element within ourselves, as previously discussed.35

In fact, Proclus makes just this point, writing, “apprehension (apprehensio) of the One, i.e., our travail, is in our nature per se, and not in the manner of a perception or cognition (non secundum adiectiofiem infit et cognitionem)” (In Parm. VII. 511.3-5 = Morrow and Dillon 56K). Still, he affirms that it is nonetheless in our nature to apprehend the One, as “it [our concept and apprehension of the One] is essentially an operation of nature and a natural desire of unity” (In Parm. VII. 511.7-9 = Morrow and Dillon 56K). As we have seen in In Parm. VII 509.20-26 = Morrow and Dillon 54K, this internal striving and unity is precisely what he identifies as the One in us. It is for this very reason that he urges us to awaken the One in the soul. For awakening the One in the soul is the path to unification “according to our rank”, as it is the only resource available to finite human creatures in our attempt to apprehend the One. If we reject this reading of Proclus’ account of unification and if we are to think that genuine unification is inherently impossible, then Proclus’ insistence on awakening the One in the soul, and indeed the whole preoccupation of later Neoplatonism with divine union, would seem to be utterly futile.

6. Conclusions

I have argued that the postulation of the One in the soul as a faculty of the human being by which the first principle of all, the One, may be apprehended is at the crux of Proclus’ account of divine union. Through the faculty of the One in the soul, it becomes possible to bridge the ontological difference between the soul and the First Hypostasis. For the One in the soul shares an affinity with the One in its divine constitution and internal striving for unity such that, by the venerable Cognitive Likeness Principle, a person may cognize and stand in a unifying relation to the One by an internal reflection of the person’s own One-like faculty. The view that I attributed to Proclus here has been shown to align seamlessly with the teachings of Plato and is a significant development of an extra-intellectual, quasi-intuitive mode of knowing prominent in later Neoplatonism. I hope the forgoing study of the faculty of the One in the soul will also illuminate the theoretical basis of theurgy, which has been regarded, perhaps more prominently in older scholarship, as the point at which late Platonism degenerates into irrationalism.36

Far from a descent into irrationalism, if the application of the Cognitive Likeness Principle is warranted, the kind of consciousness and union with the first principle possible for humans are established by Proclus on the basis of rational considerations of one’s own One-like faculty.37