Problems Concerning First Principles

simplicity, it resolved all things together, and made all things into one. For this reason, all things are from it, whatever "all things" are, and it itself is before all things. Just as the unified is before the distinguished, so the One is before the many, and it is all things. But when we unfold our entire concept original: "ἔννοιαν" into "all things," then we do not speak of it in the same way.

**All things: according to one indistinct idea, unitarily.** **All things: according to the relationship and synthesis toward one another, unifiedly.** **All things: according to the distinction of each, multiplied.**

This is clear regarding the meaning of Damascius. We think of All things unitarily ἐνιαίως as a unit, or as the One, when we form one indistinct notion of them in our minds. Second, we think of All things in the manner of the Unified, when we contemplate all things in their mutual connection and continuation. Finally, we conceive them in our minds as the Complete or the Multiplied, where all individual things are held in separation. The Munich manuscript notes in the margin that this is a threefold way of looking at "all things." The phrase from one and toward one original: "Ἀφ' ἑνὸς ἄρα καὶ πρὸς ἓν" is a technical term of the Logicians, regarding which see Nicephorus Blemmydes (Logic, p. 15) and Alexander of Aphrodisias (Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Book X, Ch. 3). "Being is not predicated homonymously of the things it is said of, nor indeed synonymously, but as things from one and toward one, which are between the synonymous and the homonymous. For homonyms share only the name, while synonyms share both the name and the reality. But things from one and toward one are not the same as synonyms; for they do not share the nature along with the name. Nor are they homonyms; for they would only share the name. Therefore, the ten categories of which being is predicated are not synonyms; for they would be the same, and essence would not differ from quantity, nor would quantity differ from essence, nor would the others differ from one another. But yet, being is not predicated of them homonymously; for they participate in being-ness original: "ὀντότης" and exist, and are not entirely deprived of the nature of being. It is not predicated primarily, but essence is primarily, and the remaining nine categories are so secondarily. Thus, insofar as they participate in being and exist, they stand apart from homonyms; but insofar as they are not the same as essence, but are different and cannot exist or stand apart from it, they are alienated from the nature of synonyms."