Читать книгу Reality - Wynand De Beer - Страница 11

In the traditional Indo-European conception, each manifested being is a composite of form and matter (Greek, eidos and hylē), these terms being the equivalent of the Sanskrit nāma and rūpa. Such a composite being could therefore be described as an embodied form, or nāma-rūpa. In addition, since nāma means idea, archetype or form, it is the efficient cause of the individual as nāma-rūpa. In the case of living beings this composition appears as the two levels of formal manifestation, namely the psychic and the corporeal (Greek, psychikos and somatikos), or soul and body respectively. And since Spirit, which is associated with Intellect, can never be individual or corporeal, it is transcendent in relation to the combination of soul and body. Therefore, a human being cannot speak of ‘his’ or ‘her’ Spirit, as can indeed be predicated of the soul and body.129

Incidentally, this differentiation between Spirit and soul enables one to understand certain biblical passages that would otherwise be problematic. For instance, we read of Christ saying that only someone who hates his own soul (eautou psychēn) can become His disciple (Luke 14:26). This verse is usually translated as ‘hates his own life,’ which literally means the same, but it is evident from the context that the lower soul is meant. We also find a statement by St Paul in his letter to the Hebrews (4:12) that the word of God pierces even to the division of soul and spirit (psychēs kai pneumatos), of which the latter term refers to the higher power of the soul, which is really the Spirit as the ‘royal guest’ of the soul.130

Plato

In the Platonic understanding, the World-soul and all individual souls partake of both being and becoming. The reason for this ambivalence is that Soul is like the Forms due to being eternal and of one substance, but unlike the Forms in that it is alive and intelligent.131 Plato writes that “by our bodies and through perception we have dealings with coming-to-be, but we deal with real being by our souls and through reasoning” (Sophist, 248a). We notice in this passage that sense-perception is a function of the body (albeit operating in conjunction with the soul), while reasoning is a function of the soul—to be more precise, the highest level of the soul, the rational (Greek, logikos, or belonging to the reason).132

Since the World-soul obtains its reality from the Intellect, it is the bearer of the reason (Greek, logos) which works in on the whole cosmos. Due to this indwelling rationality, the cosmos is ordered and lawful. For Plato the World-soul precedes the existence of the corporeal world, just as it is itself preceded by the Demiurge (or Intellect). The World-soul is intermediate between the Forms and matter, and is thus the agency through which matter participates in the Forms.133 Soul is invisible, Plato adds, and is the most excellent of all things begotten by the Demiurge (Tim, 36e–37a).

In the dialogue Timaeus, Plato introduces a ‘third kind’ (in addition to being and becoming) that pre-exists the cosmos: “The earlier two [kinds] sufficed for our previous account: one was proposed as a model, intelligible and always changeless, a second as an imitation of the model, something that possesses becoming and is visible. Now, however, it appears that our account compels us to attempt to illuminate in words a kind that is difficult and vague. What must we suppose it to do and to be? This above all: it is a receptacle (hypodochē) of all becoming—its wetnurse, as it were” (48e–49a). The three kinds are summarized as follows: “For the moment, we need to keep in mind three types of things: that which comes to be [i.e., sensible objects], that in which it comes to be [i.e., the receptacle], and that after which the thing coming to be is modelled, and which is the source of its coming to be [i.e., the Forms]. It is in fact appropriate to compare the receiving thing to a mother, the source to a father, and the nature between them to their offspring” (50c–d). Plato also describes this third kind as space, which provides a fixed state for all things that come to be (52a–b). It has been commented that since the created world is visible and tangible, Plato is required to postulate a three-dimensional ‘field’ in which the universe may subsist.134 The receptacle of becoming fills this need, for the Greek prefix hypo means ‘under,’ so that the receptacle is that which underlies the world of becoming.

Plato then proceeds to sketch the nature of the receptacle: “This is why the thing that is to receive in itself all the elemental kinds must be totally devoid of any characteristics. In the same way, then, if the thing that is to receive repeatedly throughout its whole self the likeness of the intelligible objects, the things which always are—if it is to do so successfully, then it ought to be devoid of any inherent characteristics of its own. But if we speak of it as an invisible and characterless sort of thing, one that receives all things and shares in a most perplexing way in what is intelligible, a thing extremely difficult to comprehend, we shall not be misled” (Tim, 50b–51b).

This description affirms that Plato’s receptacle of becoming is formless or pre-formed matter, out of which the physical world arises. It is therefore similar to the Aristotelian hylē and the Scholastic materia, which are not identical to the modern, reductionist view of matter, as René Guénon remarks, but are in fact related to the traditional Indo-European concept of universal substance (Sanskrit, Prakriti). As a universal principle the latter is pure potentiality, in which nothing is actualized and which underlies all physical manifestation. The Latin term for substance, substantia, is derived from sub stare, which means that which stand beneath (as is the case with the Greek hypostasis).135 As universal substance, the receptacle of becoming gives rise to the world of phenomena through the various elements: “Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Ether, Mind, Reason, and Ego—thus eightfold is my Prakriti divided” (Bhagavad Gita, 7.4).

It has been commented that Plato’s receptacle is not that ‘out of which’ things are made, but rather that ‘in which’ qualities appear. It is therefore these qualities, not the receptacle as such, which constitute the sensible world.136 And in his Commentary on Timaeus, Proclus adds to Plato’s account as follows: “Perhaps it is better to say that the term ‘things that pass in and out’ is applied not only to the qualities, but also to the forms immersed in matter; for these, not the qualities, are likenesses of the intelligible things.”137 In other words, the invisible receptacle of becoming receives the imprints of the Forms and thereby produces the visible qualities that we observe in the cosmos.

The Platonic cosmology, in terms of which God creates the world through the imposition of order onto pre-cosmic disorder, appears to be at least partially compatible with the biblical cosmology. Before the commencement of God’s creative activity, “The Earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen 1:2–3). As Alan Watts comments on this text, before He made anything else, God made matter (Latin, materia, which is cognate to mater, mother) as the maternal womb of the universe, for it is a general principle in mythology that matter is the feminine component and spirit the masculine, their respective symbols being water or earth and air or fire. Thus, “In the beginning the Spirit conceived, the waters gave birth, and the world which was born from their conjunction was the first material image of the Word, of God the Son, the Logos who was the ideal pattern after which the creation was modeled.”138

The biblical depiction of the Earth as being formless and void suggests the formless pre-matter out of which the world was to be created, or its ‘astonishing emptiness’ in the words of Philaret of Moscow. As further explained by his countryman Hilarion Alfeyev, this pre-matter is “a chaotic primary substance containing the pledge of future beauty and cosmic harmony.” The ‘darkness’ and ‘deep’ indicate the formlessness of matter, while ‘water’ suggests its plasticity. And the ‘hovering’ of the Spirit denotes its protection and animation of the material world, by breathing life into it.139 This view of primordial chaos evokes Plato’s description of the receptacle of becoming, while its animation by Spirit echoes the role of Intellect, which transforms pre-cosmic chaos into cosmic order.

Evidently, for Plato the sensible world is produced by the interaction between the principle of form and formless matter. As commented by Philip Sherrard, this does not entail an absolute duality, since the principle of form (the Demiurge) is not the absolute reality, but a determination of the transcendent Good (the One). Furthermore, in Plato’s understanding, formless matter (which he also calls space, chōra) is not the substance out of which things are made, but it precedes substance as the receptacle in which sensible things originate. Also, this formless matter (the receptacle) does not pre-exist the cosmos like Aristotle’s matter (hylē), but originates and participates (‘in a most obscure way,’ Plato admits) in the pre-formal Reality from which the principle of form derives (Tim, 50c–51b). Thus, both Form and formless matter originate in the supreme Reality of the One.140

Plato held further that Soul is the only source of motion and thereby of the cosmic order. Therefore, motion is not caused by one or more of the four primary elements, as some earlier philosophers had taught (Tim, 46d). Soul is not only the source of motion, Plato writes elsewhere (in the Laws), but it is more specifically the first cause of the birth and destruction of all physical things (891e), the main cause of their alterations and transformations (892a), and the cause of all change in things (896a). Moreover, the physical world obtains its orderly arrangement (which is the meaning of the Greek noun kosmos) through the activity of Soul, for it is Soul that ‘implants’ the reason-principles (logoi) into matter.

We could say that the reality of Soul affirms the reality of both being and becoming, while also preventing a dichotomy between the intelligible and sensible realms. Plato argued that the true philosopher will reject both notions, namely that everything is at rest (the being of Parmenides) or that reality changes in every way (the becoming of Heraclitus). Instead, “He has to be like a child begging for ‘both,’ and say that that which is—everything—is both the unchanging and that which changes” (Sophist, 249c–d). In view of this clear statement, we should again note the error of the oft-repeated charge that Plato espoused a static cosmology and a dualistic metaphysics.

In the Platonic understanding, the human being is a (temporary) composite of a mortal body and an immortal soul. It thus involves a duality of substances, which is not the same thing as to assert an anthropological dualism. The difference between duality and dualism has been lucidly explained by René Guénon: “Dualism (of which the Cartesian conception of ‘spirit’ and ‘matter’ is among the best known examples) properly consists in regarding a duality as irreducible and in taking account of nothing beyond it, thereby denying the common principle from which the two terms of the duality really proceed by polarisation.”141 This reasoning also applies to the composite of an immortal soul and a mortal body, since both of these substances comprising the human being are derived from a single Principle.

Aristotle

Building on the metaphysical concepts which he had learnt from Plato, while adding his own powerful analytical skills, Aristotle emphasizes that each existing substance consists of both form (eidos) and matter (hylē). While matter is the principle of concreteness and individuality, form expresses generality and determines the essence of a thing.142 This argument is illustrated by means of a bronze statue: the matter is the bronze, the form is the shape or pattern, and the concrete whole (i.e., substance) is the statue. However, the form is prior both to the matter and the compound (Met VII.1029a). This affirmation by Aristotle that the form of sensible composites has more being than the matter or the composite itself is harmonious with Plato’s notion that eternal substances have ‘more being’ (mallon onta) than sensible substances (Met VII.1028b).143 Aristotle thus continues the Platonic dictum that the formal precedes the material in the constitution of cosmic reality.

In the Aristotelian conception, real matter is formed matter possessing limited possibilities. Nonetheless, there is a positive side to material limitations, namely that a specific matter has a natural inclination to assume certain forms. For example, stone and wood naturally incline to become a house. This implies that there is a natural purposefulness inherent in matter, such as the body of a child to become an adult human. Furthermore, for Aristotle matter is a purely relative term, being relative to form. Accordingly, in nature the elements are matter relative to their simple compounds, namely tissues; the latter is matter relative to the organs; and the latter is matter relative to the living body.144 Ontologically speaking, as we have noted in an earlier chapter, matter represents the realm of relative being.

Furthermore, matter is associated with potency (or potentiality) and form with actuality, as Aristotle states: “Further, matter exists in a potential state, just because it may come to its form; and when it exists actually, then it is its form” (Met IX.1050a). Therefore, to actualize a possibility is the same as to give form to matter. A particular matter only contains certain possibilities, and therefore matter depends on form for its realization. The Aristotelian notion of the interaction between potency and actuality has been stated as follows: when a being has exceeded its state of potentiality and attained to its highest goal, namely pure actuality, it can be viewed as a fully realized being.145