"Because the state is man in large format and man is the state in small format"
— Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche, in his lectures on Greek philosophy, called Plato a radical revolutionary. Plato, in Nietzsche's interpretation, is the one who surpasses the classical Greek notion of the ideal citizen: Plato's philosopher becomes above religiosity, directly contemplating the idea of the Good, unlike the other two properties (war and artisans).
This rather closely echoes the neo-Platonist Proclus' model of Platonic theology, where the gods occupy the lowest position in the hierarchy of the world. Recall that in Festugier's systematisation, Proclus' world hierarchy is as follows:
- The supra-substantial (in which there are two beginnings: the limit and the infinite),
- the mental (being, life, mind),
- intermediate (mind-thought: beyond, celestial, below),
- thought (Chronos, Rhea, Zeus),
- Deity (divine, detached, intra-cosmic heads).
Plotinus places forms above the gods. The gods are only contemplators of absolutely ideal forms.
"Brought to His shore by the wave of the mind, rising to the spiritual world on the crest of the wave, one immediately begins to see, without understanding how; but sight, approaching the light, does not allow one to discern in the light an object that is not light. No, then only the light itself is visible. The object that is accessible to sight and the light that enables it to be seen do not exist separately, just as the mind and the thought-object do not exist separately. But there is pure light itself, from which these opposites then arise'.
The God-Demiurge in the Timaeus creates the world according to the patterns of the world of ideas, occupies an intermediate position between the sensible world and the intelligible world - so does the philosopher, establishing justice in the state. This is a rather revolutionary concept for ancient Greek society. It places another essence above the gods, a supra-religious and philosophical thought.
Plato's dialogue Republic constructs a non-classical psychological and political philosophy. Types of soul are compared with types of state structure, from which different conceptions of happiness are derived. The goal of each person, ruler and subordinate, is to build a fair state consistent with the ontological hierarchy of the world. It is this concept of the interpretation of politics and the soul as a manifestation of the ontological axis that Proclus Diadochos develops in his commentary on Plato's dialogues.
While it is easy to talk about Plato's political philosophy, it is much more difficult to talk about the political philosophy of the Neo-Platonic tradition. Neo-Platonism was usually perceived as a metaphysics that aimed at the deification of man ('assimilating him to a deity'), seen separately from the political sphere. However, this view of Neo-Platonic philosophy is incomplete. Proclus' process of 'assimilation to divinity', which derives from Plato's metaphysical function of the philosopher, also implies the Political is included. Deification also occurs through the political sphere. In Book VII of the dialogue Republic, in the myth of the cave, Plato describes a philosopher who escapes from the world of spears and ascends into the world of ideas, only to return again to the cave. Thus, the process of 'resembling a divinity' has a two-way direction: the philosopher turns his gaze to ideas, overcomes the world of illusion and rises to the level of the contemplation of ideas and, thus, the idea of the Good. However, this process does not end with the contemplation of the idea of the Good as the final stage - the philosopher returns to the cave.
What is this descent of the philosopher, who has reached the level of the contemplation of ideas, into the untrue world of shadows, of copies, of becoming? Is it not a sacrifice of the philosopher-director for the people, for his people? Does this descent have an ontological apologia?
Georgia Murutsu, a scholar of Plato's State, suggests that the descent has a double meaning (an appeal to Schleiermacher's reading of Platonism):
1) the exoteric interpretation explains the descent into the cave by the fact that it is the law that obliges the philosopher, who has touched the Good through the power of contemplation, to render justice in the state, to enlighten the citizens (the philosopher sacrifices himself for the people);
2) The exoteric sense of the philosopher's descent into the nether world (into the area of becoming) corresponds to that of the demiurge, reflecting the emanation of the world's mind.
The latter interpretation is widespread in the Neo-Platonic tradition. The role of the philosopher is to translate what he contemplates eidetically into social life, state structures, the rules of social life, the norms of education (paideia). In the Timaeus, the creation of the world is explained by the fact that the Good (transubstantiating 'its goodness') shares its content with the world. Similarly, the philosopher who contemplates the idea of the Good, as this Good itself, pours goodness upon the world, and in this act of emanation creates order and justice in the soul and in the state.
"The ascent and contemplation of higher things is the ascent of the soul into the realm of the intelligible. If you admit this, you will understand my dear thought - if you soon aspire to know it - and God knows it is true. Here is what I see: in what is perceivable the idea of good is the limit and is barely perceptible, but as soon as it is perceptible there, it follows that it is the cause of all that is just and beautiful. In the realm of the visible it gives rise to light and its ruler, but in the realm of the conceivable it is itself the ruler on which truth and reason depend, and it is to it that those who wish to act consciously in both private and public life must look".
It is worth noting that the return, the descent into the cave, is not a unique process, but a constantly repeating process (realm). It is the infinite emanation of the Good in the other, of the one in the many. And this manifestation of the Good is defined through the creation of laws, the education of citizens. Therefore, in the myth of the cave, it is very important to emphasise the moment when the ruler descends to the bottom of the cave - the 'cathode'. The vision of the shadows after the contemplation of the idea of the Good will be different from their perception by the prisoners, who have remained all their lives in the lower horizon of the cave (at the level of ignorance).
The idea that it is the deification and the particular kenotic mission of the philosopher in Plato's State, in its Neo-Platonic interpretation, that constitutes the paradigm of the political philosophy of Proclus and other later Neo-Platonists, was first expressed by Dominic O'Meara. He acknowledges the existence of a 'conventional viewpoint' in the critical literature on Platonism that 'Neo-Platonists have no political philosophy', but expresses the conviction that this position is wrong. Instead of contrasting the ideal of theosis, theurgy and political philosophy, as scholars often do, he suggests that 'theosis' must be interpreted politically.
The key to Proclus' implicit philosophy of politics is thus the 'descent of the philosopher', κάθοδος, his descent, which repeats, on the one hand, the demiurgic gesture and, on the other, is the process of emanation of the Element, πρόοδος. The philosopher descending from the heights of contemplation is the source of legal, religious, historical and political reforms. And what gives him legitimacy in the field of the Political is precisely the 'resemblance to divinity', the contemplation, the 'rising' and 'returning' (ὲπιστροφή) that he performs in the previous phase. The philosopher, whose soul has become divine, receives the source of the political ideal from his own source and is obliged to carry this knowledge and its light to the rest of humanity.
The philosopher-king in the Neo-Platonists is not gender-specific. A female philosopher can also be in that position. O'Meara considers the late Hellenistic figures of Hypatia, Asclepigenia, Sosipatra, Marcellus or Edesia as prototypes of such philosopher rulers praised by the Neo-Platonists. Sosipatra, the bearer of theurgical charisma, as head of the School of Pergamum, appears as such a queen. Her teaching is a prototype of her disciples' ascent up the ladder of virtues towards the One. Hypatia of Alexandria, queen of astronomy, presents a similar image in her Alexandrian school. Hypatia is also known for giving the city's politicians advice on how best to govern. This condescension in the cave of people from the height of contemplation is what cost her her tragic death. But Plato himself - following the example of Socrates' execution - clearly foresaw the possibility of such an outcome for a philosopher who had descended into the Political. Interestingly, the Christian Platonists saw in this a prototype of the tragic execution of Christ himself.
Plato prepared a similar descent for himself, proposing to create an ideal state for the ruler of Syracuse, Dionysius, and being treacherously sold into slavery by the adulterous tyrant. The Neo-Platonic image of the philosopher-queen, based on the equality of women assumed in Plato's Republic, is a particularity in the general idea of the connection between theurgy and the realm of the Political. It is important for us that Plato's image of the philosopher's ascent/descent from the cave and his return to the cave has a closely parallel interpretation in the realm of the Political and the Theurgical. This is at the heart of Plato's political philosophy and could not be missed and developed by the Neo-Platonists. Another issue is that Proclus, being in the conditions of Christian society, was not able to fully and openly develop this theme, or else his purely political treatises have not come down to us. The example of Hypatia shows that Proclus' caution was not superfluous. However, being aware that ascension/descension was initially interpreted both metaphysically, epistemologically, and politically, we can consider everything Proclus said about theurgy from a political perspective. The deification of the soul of the contemplative and the theurgist makes him a true politician. Society may or may not accept him. Here the fate of Socrates, Plato's problems with the tyrant Dionysius, and the tragic death of Christ, on whose cross was written 'INRI - Jesus the Nazarene King of the Jews. He is the King who came down to men from heaven and ascended to heaven. In the context of Proclus' pagan neo-Platonism, this idea of truly legitimate political power should have been present and built on exactly the same principle: only he who has 'descended' has the right to rule. But to descend, one must first ascend. Therefore, theurgy and 'resembling a deity', while not being political procedures in themselves, implicitly contain the Politic and, moreover, the Politic only becomes platonically legitimate through them.
The 'resemblance to a divinity' and the theurgy of the Neo-Platonists contain in themselves a political dimension, which is embodied at its most in the moment of the philosopher's 'descent' into the cave.
Translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini
Art by Alexey Belyaev-Gintovt, contemporary Russian artist.
https://vk.com/alexeygintovt , https://www.facebook.com/guintovt
Compilation of texts and thoughts by Daria Dugina narrated in English, about The Traditionalism, The Philosophy and The Russian World and quotes from her book and poems, so that her soul will be remembered for all eternity.
