Neoplatonic Virtue: Socrates’ Ignorance Is Wisdom | Reading Proclus’ On Providence

Neoplatonic Virtue: Socrates’ Ignorance Is Wisdom | Reading Proclus’ On Providence

This session covers paragraphs 47–52 of Proclus’ On Providence, closing the discussion of hedonism and then working through Proclus’ entire response to Theodore’s appeal to skepticism.

The hedonism section ends by referring the diversity of human customs back to the Republic’s tripartite soul: the “many-headed beast” of appetite draws some peoples toward pleasure-led lives, the lion-like irascible part draws others toward honor and heroism, and only those ruled by reason pursue the truly good. The pleasurable is common to all — for everyone, what is desired is pleasurable when present — but the good belongs only to those in whom reason leads. And the transmigration doctrine is meant literally: we must not give authority to desire “lest we become like donkeys,” nor to the irascible “lest we become like lions.” A superior theory explains its rivals; the Platonist can understand why some people live for appetite, but the hedonist cannot explain what the person ruled by reason is about.

Then skepticism. Theodore had built a Platonic case for it: Socrates says he knows nothing, hopes to know the truth only after death, and denies that the exact sciences are truly sciences. Proclus’ first reply is that skepticism undercuts determinism just as much as free will — ignorance cannot prove that nothing depends on us. But the deeper reply reinterprets every text Theodore cited. Contemplation is possible in this life, though not perfectly or continuously. The mathematical sciences are called “not sciences” not because they lack certainty but because they lack ontological primacy — “hypothetical” means grounded in something higher, not doubtful.

The heart of the session is Proclus’ reading of Socratic ignorance as itself a form of knowledge. To know that you do not know, you must possess the very standard of knowledge you find yourself lacking — and since wisdom is ultimately self-knowledge, that standard, realized in you, already is a kind of wisdom. This locates the soul as intermediate between intellect (which only knows) and sense perception (which cannot know the truth at all). Human beings alone can know that they do not know. A closing exchange explores whether Proclus leaves room for methodical skepticism — through the Cartesian cogito and the first hypothesis of the Parmenides.

Part of an ongoing graduate reading group working through Proclus’ On Providence.

Transcript