“The One Itself”

It neither is, nor is one. So let's be cautious how we talk about it.

In the conclusion to the first hypothesis of Plato’s Parmenides (142a), we read that “The one neither is, nor is one.” This contains some important insights for the polytheist, and indeed, for the necessity of taking the polytheist foundations of Platonism seriously. The following notes are somewhat rough and ready, and will ultimately need further refinement, but I offer them here as a starting point for contemplation, and for opening up the problem-space.

1. “The One” as a Generic Term

Consider the statement that “The soul is the source (or principle) of life and motion.” When we utter this statement, we are not asserting that there is only one soul (i.e., we’re not “monopsychists”). Rather, we’re asserting that every soul, precisely insofar as it is a soul, is a source of life and motion. We’re explaining what it is to be a soul, in a general way. (We might go on to explain how souls are sources of life and motion both for themselves, and for the bodies that they animate, etc., but that’s beyond the scope of the present essay.) Similarly, we might say that “The triangle is the three-sided plane figure whose interior angles equal the sum of two right angles.” Again, when we explain what it is to be a triangle in this way, we’re not by any means denying the existence of lots and lots of triangles.

Likewise when we speak of “the one” — for instance, “the one is the principle of individuation”¹ — we’re talking about what it is to be (a) one, or to be some One, in the most primitive and foundational sense, without thereby making any assertion about how many Ones (or how many Gods) there are. Centuries of monotheism — both in the monotheists’ reductive arguments, their general invective against polytheist traditions, and above all, perhaps, their use of “God” as if it were a personal name rather than a category or description — have made it almost impossible for modern English speakers to hear or understand generic utterances about “the one,” “the divine,” or “(the) God” in the way that it's still quite natural for us to speak about “the soul” or “the triangle.” Nevertheless, as a first approximation, that’s what's going on when the ancient Platonists write about “the one.”

Something like this generic use is suggested to us by Socrates in Plato's Phaedo (100d-e):

I retain with myself, simply, unartificially, and perhaps foolishly, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, than either the presence, or communion, or in whatever manner the operations may take place, of the beautiful itself. For I cannot yet affirm how this takes place; but only this, that all beautiful things become such through the beautiful itself. For it appears to me most safe thus to answer both myself and others; and adhering to this, I think that I can never fall, but that I shall be secure in answering, that all beautiful things are beautiful through the beautiful itself.

Here, we might say that Socrates is pointing toward these generic singular usages, and at the same time, laying down a challenge or suggesting a program of research and investigation. If the many beautiful things are beautiful because of (or, in virtue of) “Beauty itself” or “the Beautiful,” what is the status of this generic singular, and how does that relate to the many beautiful things? And likewise, for every other case in which we invoke Socrates’ safe answer. On the one hand, for many ordinary things (triangles, beautiful things, human beings, etc.), the Platonic tradition will explicate the safe answer in terms of “forms” or “ideas” in a strict, technical sense; and it’s here that popular notions of the “Platonic Form” or “Theory of Ideas” take their start. The details can be left for another time, but roughly, for each of these sorts of multiplicities (triangles, humans, beautiful things) there is a single intellectual reality (the form of triangle, the form of human being, the form of beauty) in which all the individuals participate, and by virtue of which they come to be the kind of thing (triangular, human, beautiful) that they are.

But that’s not the whole story. Already in Plato’s Parmenides, we see the beginnings of a lively debate over which things do or do not have forms of this sort. Writing some eight centuries later in his commentary on the Parmenides, Proclus indicates some of the contours that this debate went on to take. While it was hotly contested, it seems that the dominant view is that things like hair, fingernail clippings, and mud do not in fact have forms, and so their commonality (that is, our ability to give Socrates’ safe answer) must be explained in another way. Once again, the details need not detain us; what’s important is that quite a few things that are metaphysically inferior to triangles, human beings, and beautiful things do not have a singular form that answers to the label “the ___.” However we're to make sense of “the fingernail clipping,” it's not by appeal to a singular form in which fingernail clippings participate. And if this is not merely possible, but indeed the dominant (and Proclus’ own) view, then the possibility is at least open that for things metaphysically prior to triangles and humans, we likewise must appeal to something other than a single monad or form to account for the safe answer. Just as we can explain our use of “the fingernail clipping” without appealing to some singular (form of) nail clipping, so too, we can explain our use of “the one” without some one special one (sic). So much by way of a first approximation: not by any means stating a full theory yet, but at least opening the space for the question “What is it to be a One, a henad?” without presuming some monadic source situated above the many Ones — and thus, not foreclosing other lines of explanation from the start.

Now let's see if we can refine that first approximation somewhat. Insofar as the Gods are prior to Being, and are the causes of Being, it’s not strictly accurate to say “what it is to be a God,” but it’s close enough for a first pass. The technical term for each God’s nature is hyparxis, the etymology of which suggests a status as the supreme origins (archai) of things, or better yet, being above (hyper) all origins. It’s a term that’s hard to translate into English while preserving its technical sense, as distinct from being/essence. Thomas Taylor typically leaves it untranslated (occasionally with an apologetic note for having done so!), while many contemporary scholars, who struggle to even consider that the domain of the Gods should be different from the domain of Being, translate it in ways that make it impossible to distinguish the hyparxeis of the Gods from the essences (what it is “to be,” Latin esse, in the strict sense) of beings. Edward Butler preserves the technical distinction faithfully, but somewhat awkwardly turns to “existence” to translate the higher notion of hyparxis, as distinct from “essence.” And to be fair, I’m unaware of any English translator who’s hit upon a less awkward option!

But again, close enough for now. The nuances of this will emerge naturally, over the course of reading and study, and encountering the term hundreds upon hundreds of times in Proclus and his colleagues in the tradition. Simply watch for it, and pay attention to what’s going on and how it’s used.

2. Proclus’ Platonic Theology: What is a “God”?

As another related consideration, we can consider what the great Platonic successor, Proclus (412-485) had to say about these issues. Proclus often employs the generic singular to hen (“the one”) in his works, yet it seems quite impossible that he meant to suggest there was some one thing that answers to “the one itself.” For the purposes of this section, my argument will be purely an exegetical one; i.e., showing what Proclus himself must have thought, without going on to argue that he was right to think it. (I do think that he was right, but those arguments will have to wait for some other essays.)

In the programmatic opening of his magnum opus, the Platonic Theology, book I, chapter 3, Proclus explains:

All, therefore, that have ever touched upon theology, have called things first according to nature, Gods; and have said that the theological science is conversant about these. And some, indeed, have considered a corporeal essence, as that alone which has any existence, and have placed in a secondary rank with respect to essence, all the genera of incorporeal natures, considering the principles of things as having a corporeal form, and evincing that the habit in us by which we know these, is corporeal. But others, suspending indeed all bodies from incorporeal natures, and defining the first hyparxis to be in soul, and the powers of soul, call (as it appears to me) the best of souls, Gods; and denominate the science which proceeds as far as to these, and which knows these, theology. But such as produce the multitude of souls from another more ancient principle, and establish intellect as the leader of wholes, these assert that the best end is a union of the soul with intellect, and consider the intellectual form of life as the most honourable of all things. They doubtless too consider theology, and the discussion of intellectual essence, as one and the same. All these, therefore, as I have said, call the first and most self-sufficient principles of things, Gods, and the science respecting these, theology.

This alone is enough to show that in Proclus’ own mind, there is no single “one itself” over and above the henads or Ones. For if there were such a thing, then Proclus himself could not call the many henads beneath (or proceeding from, emanating from, etc.) this putative “one itself” Gods: since there would be something prior to them, these Ones would not be first according to nature. Yet in this very treatise, devoted precisely to the theory of the Gods, Proclus does in fact refer to many, many, many Gods as Gods. Nor, given that this is the central topic of the treatise, can we possibly say that this is a peripheral issue, for which Proclus could be “excused” for being inconsistent.

Proclus’ exposition of the principle, right there in book I, chapter 3, leaves no room for a “both-and” about this. For when Proclus discusses the views of other, non-Platonic traditions as also exemplifying the principle that “whatever is taken to be first according to nature is called ‘God,’” we see that for the materialist, while there are many bodies, only the best bodies which are first according to nature are considered to be Gods; again, for those who countenance souls prior to bodies, only the best souls — not all of them — are taken to be Gods; and again, for the Peripatetics who place intellect above souls, but stop there, only the best intellect is accorded the title of “God.” So if Proclus himself were to believe that there are many ones/henads and also some singular one above or prior to them, then the same pattern of reasoning that he used to explicate the principle in the case of the other schools would require him to reserve the epithet “God” only for that first One, which would be first according to nature, and not to use the word “God” for the other Ones, who by hypothesis would not be first insofar as that other “one itself” came ahead of them. The fact that Proclus does not do this shows that he himself, at any rate, did not believe there to be any singular “one itself” prior to the many Ones, that is, the many Gods.²

This same line of reasoning also shows (again, as an exegetical matter) that however we’re to make sense of the apparent hierarchies that appear in the later books of the Platonic Theology, they cannot subordinate some Gods to others according to their nature (or hyparxis). For this too would run afoul of the principle given in I.3, thereby making the “subordinate” Gods not to be Gods at all. So, every God must be equally a God according to hyparxis; at most, something about the activities of different Gods could be hierarchically arranged, where those activities are metaphysically “downstream,” as it were, from the basic equality of all Gods as Gods according to their hyparxeis. (Even this requires more than a few caveats and qualifications, but it will do as a starting point for framing the issue.)

To be sure, these claims are only about what Proclus himself believed, and are not yet arguments that he was correct to do so. But even within this modest scope, they should put the brakes on interpretations that would reify some “one itself” in any way, and encourage more care in figuring out what Proclus’ arguments actually were, lest we be too quick to convict such a subtle, careful, and systematic thinker as Proclus of the most rank self-contradiction, precisely in the programmatic statement of his masterwork.

3. “It's all ineffable anyway”

Finally, I’d like to address the most frequent reaction I receive from those who like to deploy the language of a special, single “one itself,” when confronted with considerations like those I’ve presented above. Rather than addressing the arguments, or adjusting their usage accordingly, they try to shut down the conversation by asserting “Well, it’s all ineffable anyway.”

We can leave aside the obvious reply that, if it’s all so ineffable as to preclude discussion, those who are making this appeal should probably quit talking about their singular “one itself,” since by their own lights, it’s ineffable.

More substantively, let’s imagine for sake of argument that both discoursing about “the one itself” and speaking about Ones for whom there is no higher “one itself” are equally (il)legitimate, based on the ineffability of whatever is happening at such an exalted metaphysical level. We should then at least ask: what are the consequences of allowing one of these modes of discourse to predominate over the other?

The discourse of “the one itself,” I would suggest, seems all too easily to allow readers and listeners in contemporary society to rest content, thinking they're arrived at “the one ultimate,” exactly as monotheizing narratives in the dominant religions, and the parallel totalizing narratives of contemporary sciences, political movements, and the like, lead us to expect. Whereas an emphasis on the fundamental plurality of Ones/henads is much less likely to close off the space of wonder and exploration. At least in our current prevailing circumstances, stepping back from the discourse of a “one itself” will do far more to honor the very ineffability such interlocutors are themselves appealing to.

To be sure, the Gods are above categories, above language, etc., precisely insofar as these things (and all beings!) have their origin in the Gods, and so all of our language and categories will inevitably fall short of describing Them. Nevertheless, I think that it’s good and holy to try, and that it’s good and holy to strive, as best we can, to hold open the space for the utterly unique and irreducible personhood of each and every one of the many Gods when we do so.

While there’s obviously much more to be said about how to make sense of, and relate to, such an irreducible multiplicity of divine Ones, I’ll leave that work for future essays. For now, I think it’s enough that we acknowledge that there are questions here to be asked, and mysteries to be pondered — all of which could scarcely even be noticed, much less addressed, were we to paper over that divine multiplicity by appeal to some single “one itself.”

1. Note the parallel structure between this formulation, and that given for "the soul" in the previous paragraph.

2. More subtly, we might observe that there’s already a gradation in play among ones, analogous to that among bodies or souls in Proclus’ earlier examples. Everything that there is, even prior to its existing (and whether or not in fact it exists!) is one something-or-other; this minimal level of “being (a) one” is, in fact, a prerequisite to even asking the question, “does it — this thing — exist? And so, while everything is (a) one in this minimal way, only those ones that are first according to nature, the divine henads, are called “Gods.”