Platonic Concepts (pt.3)
Overflow & Fullness Without Contents
Dear Readers ,
In my last article, we talked about how or why the One produces anything at all if it is prior to any-thing. We also touched upon a very important concept, that of philosophical necessity and we saw how that differs from our daily use of the word ‘necessity’.
While the examples I gave in defense of the One’s ‘fecundity’ and ‘productivity’ are enough to give you a good impression of its overflowing fullness, like everything else that one can say about the One, can be somewhat misleading if taken literally by those still at the beginning of this journey.
In this article, I will attempt to shed some more light into these concepts and hopefully help you approach them more expediently.
As before, let’s do a small recap of the key points we will revisit today:
Things exist —if you maintain that they don’t, slap yourself again— due to prior causes. Those causes, also have causes. But if we are to avoid going further and further back into the causes of the causes forever, we must arrive at the Ultimate Cause. The Uncaused Cause of Causes, the very beginning of causality. We call that cause: The One (To Hen)
But if the Uncaused Cause of Causes is prior to everything else and so transcedental, how can we even claim that it causes anything at all? And how does it do that?
The One MUST be productive by necessity because things exist. If it was not productive as a First Cause then things simply would not exist.
So it must be productive, but how? By affecting other things? Like me setting the stool I bumped into in motion? It cannot, there is nothing else except the One at that level. By willing things into being? Well, it cannot have a will, beings have will. But beings are also depended on unity in order to exist. The One cannot be depended on anything. It is uncaused. Can someone or some thing force it to produce? No, there is nothing else more fundamental than itself, so who would force it? Could it be compelled by a desire to reach a goal, a ‘telos’? Again, no. To accept that, we would have to say that it has volition, and therefore parts and so on.
The only reasonable, logical explanation then is: it must be ‘overflowing’ like a full cup. Or it must be emitting like a candle emits light.
So now we have arrived at the idea of ‘fullness’ but unfortunately, while the metaphor works to illustrate the model of the One’s productivity, it has laid down a trap for us that can mislead us into a wrong view.
When we say that everything finds its ‘being’ in the One, or that the One produces everything else due to its fullness:
Do we mean that every ‘thing’ is contained in the One? Is the One a sort of primordial vessel, a container that holds archetypes, beings, gods and it spills them out into the cosmos?
Sharpening the edge
First, I want you to strip your mind of all physical metaphors. The One is not a bowl of primordial, metaphysical soup. If it had ‘things’ inside of it, that would mean that it would consist of itself and its contents —it would therefore have parts held together by…unity.
But we also know that it must be full of ‘something’ and therefore ‘fecund’ because if it was not, it would not emit or overflow and nothing would exist.
So what is the only thing that makes sense necessarily for the One to be full of like when we say that a triangle would not be a triangle unless it has three sides?
Well, we must eliminate anything that isn’t…the One.
That’s right. The One —just like your ex— is full of one thing alone by necessity: ITSELF.
So, the One spills out itself?
Not any more than the Sun spills hot molten lava onto the earth or a candle pouring out lard or beeswax.
The One, is so uniquely One, so undivided, so self-reliant, so ‘unified’ that it must produce the one thing that everything else requires in order to be a ‘thing’ down the ladder: UNITY.
It does not produce unity by sacrificing part of itself. If it divided into many, it would not be the One. It would not be utterly unified.
If it threw out parts of itself then we would be able to say that upon such emission, it would no longer be ‘full’ as part of it would separate from it. But that’s not possible if it is to remain The One.
So you think you got it? Think again…
OK, so now you think you’ve got a better idea of what we’re talking about, right?
It’s not that hard to ‘imagine’ the One as being full of itself, right?
Unfortunately, we’re still deluded by the limitations of our intelligence and the words we must use to approximate the event horizon of the One.
We are still talking about ‘it’ being ‘full’. Sure, of nothing else but itself. But we are still understanding ‘fullness’ as the condition of something bursting at the seams.
But fullness is still an ‘idea’, a ‘concept’. And those as we know…have parts. We get a feeling of containment, of pressure building up inside a ‘vessel’ of sorts even if it is full of just itself.
Just as I typed these words I could not help but think of myself during my last vacation in Greece sitting at the table and getting served ‘my favorite dish’ by an all too willing mother, again and again until I got so full of myself that by the end of my month-long stay I was ‘spilling out’ of my clothes, unable to be contained.
FULLNESS WITHOUT CONTENT
We must become accustomed to the idea that the One, being prior to everything, transcends all ideas. It is beyond ALL predication.
Concepts like ‘fullness’ fail to describe it adequately. They are mere allusions by which we can begin to approach it, but we must understand that we cannot settle into them reliably as accurate descriptors.
Fullness in the context of the One is ontological, not conditional. It is not used to describe the state of the One as ‘full’ in opposition to ‘empty’. It is a poor, blind stab at what the One is, ontologically.
It is full in the sense that it is not lacking.
It is not waiting to change and become something.
It is not striving towards anything.
It is already itself, fully, without qualification, without division.
It is fully self-sufficient.
It has no gaps.
It needs no support.
It is pure actuality.
The One is not full like a vessel is full. It precedes the concept of ‘fullness’ itself. It is in fact, the condition that makes fullness possible anywhere else.
EMANATION
“From its superabundance, not from intention, all things flow.” (Plotinus, Enneads V.2.1)
So yes, the One ‘overflows’ —but not because it had too much mousaka. It overflows because is not lacking.
It is so unified in actuality, that its mere being so is causative.
Let’s take our previous examples again:
Does a candle overflow with candle contents? Of course not.
Does the Sun overflow with Sun contents? Of course not.
But they both RADIATE light. They do not physically contain it. Nobody who has ever broken a candle was slain by a lightsaber beam that popped out of it. But we have all enjoyed a bubble bath in candle light.
Likewise, the One is so perfectly one, that by being what it is, unity itself emanates from it. It does not have to act, will, or react to anything. Like a lit candle, like the Sun in the Sky, as an ontological consequence it emanates what it is.
In the Platonic Tradition, this emanation is often referred to as ‘prohodos’, also meaning ‘procession’, ‘moving forward’, ‘advancement’. This prohodos is not used to denote a ‘process’ but a necessary consequence of perfection.
Because the One is so perfectly what it is —so perfectly Unified, Unity proceeds from it.
Headache?
Good.
That means it’s working as intended. Our Intellect must guide us to that point where words fail and concepts go around in circles. Because any words we may use can only hint at the One. Every time they hit, they don’t quite land, because the One precedes all ground upon which anything could land. It is ineffable. Once we reach its gates, we are supposed to cross them pure, in ‘suchness’ fully unified, but empty of all content. All ‘terms’ de-term-ine and seek to contain by nature and definition something that cannot be contained. Sounds a bit ‘oriental’ doesn’t it? More of that much later.
As we leave the One behind and move down the ladder of emanation, I would like to encourage all my readers to reach out with questions and suggestions. Anything that you would like to see clarified, or anything that does not make sense quite yet, do take time to mull over by yourselves but also feel free to reach out and ask for clarification. I am always available and I do not bite —hard.
Until next time ;-)