Plotini Opera Omnia cum Ficini commentariis

LIB. III.

p. 39, 7. ΠΕΡΙ ΔΙΑΛΕΚΤΙΚΗΣ ON DIALECTIC] This is the twentieth Plotinian book in the order in which the individual books are recorded as having been written by Porphyry in the Life of Plotinus ch. IV, p. 100, ed. Fabricius; but it is connected with the previous book on the virtues not only in time but also in subject matter. It is titled On Dialectic. Because this term is used by many philosophers with a meaning completely different from the authority of Aristotle, we must speak a little about it. And first, no one who has merely inspected these passages can doubt what Dialectic is to Aristotle and the ancient Peripatetics and many other philosophers: Topics I. 2, p. 272 Sylburg; Sophistical Refutations I. 11, p. 439, II. 8. 9, p. 466 ff.; Rhetoric I. 1. 1, with interpreters, p. 6 ff., ed. Oxford 1820. Hence T. Ger. Vossius on Logic I. 2, p. 206, Works Tom. III, is correct: "However, the word dialegesthai to discourse/argue does not extend so broadly for the Peripatetics, but denotes arguing probabilistically. And similarly, the word Dialectic is always accepted by Aristotle and the ancient Peripatetics for that part of Logic which teaches how to argue probabilistically, and is called by another name, Topics." Plato also understands Metaphysics by Dialectic [Add Fac. Facciolati Peripatetic Logic Institutions, Venice 1729, p. 13 and 19; and his Rudiments of Logical Discipline, ibid. 1728, p. 7 and 9 sq.]: let us look at Plato. Who, indeed, in the Sophist p. 253. d, p. 206 Bekker: "To be divided according to kinds and neither to think that the same form is different, nor that a different one is the same, shall we not say that this is of the science of Dialectic?" (cf. the same in the Phaedrus p. 266. c, and Heindorf there, p. 314). Then, in the same place, he continues: "But surely you will not attribute the dialectical [art] to another, as I suppose, except to the one who philosophizes purely and justly." This is now closer to the use of the word that Plato, the Platonists, and Plotinus himself usually employ. In particular, however, a passage in the Republic VII. 12 and 13 is useful for uncovering the Platonic designation of Dialectic, from which I shall transfer only these things here (p. 533 Steph., p. 361 Bekker): "Therefore, I said, the dialectical method alone proceeds in this way, destroying hypotheses toward the very principle itself, in order that it may be confirmed, and it gently pulls and leads upward the eye of the soul that has been buried in some barbarous mire, using as fellow-workers and fellow-guides the arts which we went through." After Gerard Vossius placed these words in his On Logic book IV, ch. 12, p. 226, he continues thus: "Which cannot be understood as anything other than Metaphysics." Whoever knows this will not at all wonder that Plato, in the VIIth book of the Republic, wishes five years to be spent on Dialectic, and indeed by "doing nothing else but being exercised in reverse compared to the exercises concerning the body." Nay, he does not even open a school of Dialectic to adolescents, but only to those who are thirty years old. Furthermore, unless Plato used the term Dialectic in this way, we could hardly excuse the fact that his Parmenides is called dialectical: where the subject is on being, and those things are referred to which pertain to being, insofar as it is being: such as one, many, finite, infinite, whole, part, divisible, indivisible, and others. Someone might say that the mode of treatment is dialectical. But this is not a sufficiently suitable reason, since Plato discourses similarly in other books as well. Wherefore, either I am greatly deceived, or rather this book is so inscribed from the argument itself, which is dialectical, but with this word taken loosely, so that it comprehends Logic and Metaphysics. Cælius Rhodiginus saw this in book XVI of his Ancient Readings, ch. XXX; indeed, before him, Marsilius [Ficino] in his Commentary on Plotinus on the first Ennead, book III, p. 18, edit. Basel, year 1580. Indeed, this is also clearly evident from Plotinus's own book III, where it is asked (p. 21), what Dialectic is; and it is answered that it encompasses the entire breadth of those things which are, and even proceeds beyond: for it also considers ta me onta things which are not, considering in addition to these "what is eternal, and what is not such." After many things, it is asked: "Is philosophy the same as dialectic?" and it is answered that Dialectic is the most honorable part of philosophy. Afterward, the same author adds: "For dialectic and wisdom even bring all things into use for prudence by a universal and immaterial reason." And you may read more in the same place to this effect. So far Vossius; who says the same concerning Mathematics, book III, ch. 2, p. 61. "Through which (Dialectic) Plato understands Topics, or the art of arguing probabilistically on both sides, just as Aristotle uses this word; but [he understands] Metaphysics, not simply, but insofar as it uses the same instrument of Logic": so that this name altogether comprehends Metaphysics and Logic for Plato. And similarly, the Platonists are accustomed to use that word. I have judged that these latter points should be added all the more because, to say nothing of other more recent ones, J. A. Fabricius himself, on Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus, ch. 24, p. 140, says less accurately that Metaphysics alone is used by Plato and Plotinus by this name of Dialectic. That explanation is confirmed by a passage of Proclus, who writes thus in Platonic Theology II. 11, p. 110: "And after these things, again descending to reasonings from intellectual hymnody, and after having put forward the unrefuted science of Dialectic, let us consider, following the vision of the first causes, how the first God is exempted from all these."