„ვითარცა იტყჳს ტიმეო“ პეტრიწთან
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Date
2024-02-14
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ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის გამომცემლობა
Abstract
In the commentary on Proclus’ Elements of Theology Ioane Petritsi
mentions and discusses not only the issues which are a subject of Proclus’
Elements, but also those which are set forth in other ancient Greek
philosophical treatises. Plato’s Timaeus, along with his other dialogues,
is important for Petritsi for commenting on Proclus’ philosophy.
The aim of this paper is to analyze Petritsi’s point of view on the
creator of the visible world, i.e. the Demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus. The Demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus has an ambiguous role in Petritsi’s commentary.
Petritsi does not analyze his figure as thoroughly as the true
being, soul, intellect, Henads, limit and infinity, or the most important
one – the supreme One. In Petritsi’s commentary the Demiurge is a
craftsman, God, who forms the visible world, although in some cases he
is almost (i.e. quite vaguely and not clearly) identified with the Supreme
One. Or, to put it more precisely, it is the Supreme One who receives in
rare cases the features of a personal God and Demiurge. However, in the
ontological hierarchy exposed by Petritsi, the true being (i.e. the first
being, the father of intellects, the totality of intellects) plays a crucial
role as the prime principle of all kinds of beings and forms, i.e. of everything
except formless matter. Obviously, the true Being is much more
important to Petritsi than the Demiurge, as he mentions the former
regularly. The true Being is for Petritsi the paradigm of Plato’s Timaeus
and the Supreme Intelligible Intellect (nous noētos), while the Demiurge,
as we can conclude, plays a role of an Intellectual Intellect (nous noeros).
Thus, in Petritsi’s commentary, on the one hand, the features of the
supreme One and the Demiurge as producers of the whole universe are
in certain cases virtually identical; though, on the other hand, the Demiurge
represents a lower level of intellect than the true Being and in
many cases, he is absent where a reader of Petritsi’s commentary, following
the context, expects his presence.
How can we explain this ambiguity? I suppose that for Petritsi, interpreting
Proclus’ ontology, it was difficult, on the one hand, to find an
adequate place for the more or less personal character of the begetter
of the visible world while, on the other hand, like other Platonists and
against Aristotelians, he wanted to preserve the role of the demiurgic-
/creative cause in the mechanism of the non-temporal formation of the
universe. Last but not least, Petristi was a Christian, and he wrote his
commentary on Proclus for Christian readers. This was probably a reason
why in some cases the supreme One and the Demiurge received almost
identical characteristics, although Petritsi expressed this very vaguely.
However, in general, Petritsi was an adequate commentator of Proclus’
philosophy: in Petritsi’s opinion, as in Proclus, the demiurgic/creative cause
occupies a lower level than the paternal cause in the hierarchical
chain of causality. Therefore, if the supreme One is to be identified with
the paternal cause and the Demiurge with the demiurgic/creative cause, then the Demiurge must be placed lower than the supreme One. Anyway,
whatever might be the role and character of Plato’s Demiurge in Petritsi’s
philosophy, it cannot be compared with the immense importance and
much more definite characteristic that the true being (i.e. the paradigm
of cosmos in Timaeus) has in Petritsi’s ontological system.
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თბილისის უნივერსიტეტის დაარსებისადმი მიძღვნილი სამეცნიერო კონფერენცია. თსუ 106, თეზისები, 2024, გვ.: 3-7 / Scientific conference dedicated to the foundation of Tbilisi University. TSU 106, Abstracts, 2024, pp.: 3-7