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GERD VAN RIEL
The negations are thus designed, in their specific order, as indications of
the order of procession. In other words: those attributes that are negated
about the One can be affirmed about the realms that posit themselves beneath
the first principle. The key to the order in which these attributes come
into existence is provided by the second hypothesis of Plato’s Parmenides,
in which the negations of the first are taken up as affirmations. If it makes no
sense to say that the One is, as stated in the negations of the first hypothesis,
then this means that being is something that emanates from the One, i.e.,
as an affirmation in the second hypothesis. That allows Proclus to state that
the affirmations are produced by the negations:
As the One is the cause of everything, so are the negations the cause of
the affirmations.’
Thus, the Neoplatonists’ via negativa presupposes a clear-cut and precisely
ordered via affirmativa. If the negative way were the only one, then it would
make no difference what one negates. One might say of the highest principle
that is it not being, not intelligible, but equally that it is not mud or tooth or
worm, etc. There would be no urge to negate one thing rather than another.
Yet in a via negativa the importance of the order of the negations is paramount
because of its link with the via affirmativa. No one will negate that God is
dust-like, as it makes no sense to affirm the dustlikeness of God in the first
place. We need a clear succession of those terms that are eligible for being
negated, ina logical order which reflects the ontological position of the realities
indicated by them. Those realities are the bearers of the affirmations of the
attributes that are denied of the One, in a strict parallel between negations
and affirmations. The affirmations are summed up in the Parmenides,
whereby each of them constitutes a distinct level of divine existence. Despite
the emphasis that is put on the insufficiency of our concepts, this mechanism
of the relationship between negations and affirmations indicates the
importance of our concepts after all. The negations and affirmations in the
Parmenides constitute a logical and ontological hierarchy of those concepts
that bring us to the point where the rational account undermines itself, which
we would never reach without the affirmations. This means that, ultimately,
the Neoplatonists’ mystical experience (in the ineffability of the highest
principle) relies on their philosophical analysis (in affirmative theology
leading up to the negations). We shall have to come back to this.
7 Proclus, In Parm. V1 1075, 14-15. See also In Parm. V1 1075, 26-29 and 1076, 23-24; TP II 10,
63, 8-17.
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