Martin Baudroux
Time and
Soul: Physics IV 14.223a21-29
in
Neoplatonism from Plotinus to Simplicius
Abstract
This article examines the Neoplatonic reception of a few lines by Aristotle (Ph. 223a21-29) on the relationship between the soul and time. This reception begins with Plotinus, who engages critically in the debate between Boethus and Alexander. According to Treatise 45 (Enn. III 7), the Aristotelians do not adequately conceive of the links between the soul and time: the soul does not measure time, but generates it in a demiurgic manner, through its own movement of thought. Rejected by Plotinus, the Aristotelian notion of measurement is reinstated by Iamblichus: Aristotle’s error lies solely in failing to attribute ontological and demiurgic power to the soul and to its act of measuring time. Proclus goes even further in reinstating Aristotle: whilst criticising his lack of rigour (he does not move far enough up the chain of causes), he argues perfectly in Ph. 223a21-29. Proclus’s reception is essential, paving the way for Simplicius’s praise: in contrast to Iamblichus, he commends Aristotle for having elevated time beyond the sensible world, up to the soul. The Neoplatonic reception thus illustrates the complexity of the relationship with Aristotle among the Platonists of late antiquity: like Plato’s demon, he is both an indispensable authority and a limited thinker who must be put in his place. The conceptual challenge, then, is to place the Aristotelian account of time in the service of Timaeus 37c-d.
Keywords
Aristotle, Neoplatonism, Time, Plato’s Timaeus,
Plotinus
Author
Martin
Baudroux
ENS
de Lyon (IHRIM)
https://orcid.org/0009-0001-2633-4880
Introduction and Context
In a text as famous as it is challenging, Aristotle
explores the relation between time and the soul. This passage appears at the
end of Ph. IV 14, following the definition of time as the “number of
motion with respect to before and after.”[1] Within the overall structure of the
Physics, it seems logical that the question of the soul should arise at
this point. If time is a number, and even more a counted number (τὸ ἀριθμούμενον),[2] it seems necessary to posit a
counting principle at its origin. Hence the question: must the existence of
time depend on a soul that measures (or counts) it?
One might
find it a difficult question, whether if there were no soul there would be time
or not. For it is impossible that there should be something to do the counting
(τοῦ ἀριθμήσοντος), it is also impossible that anything should be
countable (ἀριθμητόν τι), so that it is clear that there would be no number
either (οὐδ’ ἀριθμός), for number is either that which has been counted or
that which can be (ἢ τὸ ἠριθμημένον ἢ τὸ ἀριθμητόν). But if there is nothing that has it in its nature
to count except soul, and of soul [the part which is] intellect (νοῦς), then it is impossible that there
should be time if there is no soul, except that there could be that X which
time is, whatever X makes it what it is; as for example if it is possible for
there to be change without soul. The before and after are in change, and time
is these qua countable (ᾗ ἀριθμητά) (Arist. Ph. IV 14.223a21-29.
Trans. Hussey 1993, p. 52).
The text is not entirely clear and has generated quite
divergent interpretations within Aristotelian tradition.[3] The main controversy, as
reconstructed by Marwan Rashed, Riccardo Chiaradonna and Johannes Zachhuber,
sets Boethus of Sidon against Alexander of Aphrodisias.[4]
Boethus defends
the idea that the number of time exists in itself, independently of the soul:
“nothing prevents there being the enumerable (τὸ ἀριθμητόν) quite apart from an enumerator (τοῦ ἀριθμοῦντος), as there can be the perceptible
(τὸ αἰσθητόν) without a
perceiver (τοῦ αἰσθανομένου)”.[5] Even though, according to Themistius, Boethos claims
that “no measure is produced by nature, but measuring and counting are from the
ouset our own work”, he attributes only to rational beings “the act of
measuring and counting (τὸ μετρεῖν καὶ τὸ ἀριθμεῖν)”.[6] Nature generates no measure: the
measure of time exists essentially in the order of motion, which the human soul
measures only a posteriori, through a specific act. This can be
described as a kind of essentialist position: the soul does not produce time,
but rather measures a temporal number that already exists in the world (prior
to any act of counting). Alexander, on the other hand, rejects this view: he
accepts that the substrate of time can exist without the soul, but this is not
the case for time considered as something counted. The issue here concerns the
category of relatives, to which “being counted” belongs:
Perhaps the
enumerable (ἀριθμητόν) will not
exist, but that which is contingently capable of being enumerable (τὸ μὲν ᾧ συμβέβηκεν ἀριθμητῷ γίνεσθαι) will
exist, such as horses or men, but not the enumerable qua enumerable (οὐ μὴν ἀριθμητὸν ὡς ἀριθμητόν). For in the case of other relatives, if, for
instance, there is nobody on the right, he who was on the left, Socrates
perhaps, will exist, but a person on the left will not. So, if time were
enumerable (ἀριθμητός) as the
before and after are enumerable (ὡς ἀριθμητά), if there were nothing to
enumerate (μὴ ὄντος τοῦ ἀριθμήσοντος) there would be no time. But
nothing prevents the substrate of time (τὸ μέντοι τῷ χρόνῳ ὑποκείμενον), which is change (ἡ κίνησις), from existing (Alex. apud Simpl. In Phys. 759, 29-760, 3.
Trans. Urmson 2014, p. 173).
Socrates can remain Socrates even if no one stands to
his right, but he cannot be “on the left” without a relation to something else.
In the same way, the substrate of time can exist without a soul to measure it,
but time as counted cannot exist independently of such an act of
measurement. Moreover, in §16 of his treatise On Time, Alexander
suggests that without a world-soul there would be no change at all:
If
the soul, which numbers movement, were done away with, time would be done away
with. And if the soul were done away with the heavenly sphere would not be
moved; and if this were not moved all movements would be done away with, since
it is the cause of all movements, and so of time (Alex. On Time §16, 95,
11-15. Trans. Sharples 1982).
One might therefore say that what Alexander calls “the
substrate of time (τὸ [...] τῷ χρόνῳ ὑποκείμενον)”[7] depends on the world-soul, whereas
time as counted arises from the measuring activity of individual souls.
Plotinus was aware of these debates
and, in his own way, adopts a position within them. What I would like to show
is that these few lines from Aristotle (Ph. IV 14.223a21-29) received
sustained and particular attention within the Neoplatonic tradition, from
Plotinus to Simplicius. In appearance, this Aristotelian text had everything
needed to appeal to thinkers who elevate time above the sensible world and
bodily reality. However, as we will see, the reception is more complex than
expected. I will try to understand the Neoplatonic resistance, and even their
underlying mistrust. I will also show how the Neoplatonic reception differs
from the Peripatetic one, particularly that of Boethus and Alexander. Finally,
I will try to demonstrate that, since Proclus, the Neoplatonic conception of
time has positively incorporated this text. Proclus’ mediation thus plays a
crucial role and prepares the way for the judgment of Simplicius, who admires
Aristotle for having elevated time to the level of the soul.
1. The Soul
as the Demiurge of Time (Plotinus)
In Treatise 45, On Eternity and Time (Enn. III
7), Plotinus argues that the problem has been wrongly formulated:
Why indeed
can time not exist even before the soul is there to measure it, unless one
claims that it owes its generation to soul (Εἰ μή τις τὴν γένεσιν αὐτοῦ παρὰ ψυχῆς λέγοι γίνεσθαι)? For there is absolutely no need for time to owe its
existence to the soul’s measuring it. For a thing exists as the size it is,
even if no one measures it (Plot. Enn. III 7, 9, 79-82. Trans. Gerson
2018, p. 346).
Plotinus clearly has in mind the Aristotelian lines we
have just read. But rather than treating Aristotle as a predecessor to be
extended, he rejects the very terms of the debate. The mistake, for Plotinus,
lies in trying to derive time from the soul’s act of measurement. Thus,
he opposes the logic of genesis to that of metron. As long as one
conceives the soul as a measuring power, as Aristotle does in Ph. IV 14,
one fails to understand how time could arise from it. For the object of
measurement – the magnitude – exists prior to, and independently of, the
subject who measures it. One cannot therefore say that the soul brings time
into existence by measuring it.
Rather than
asking whether time can exist without being measured by the soul, the real
question is whether the soul generates time and, if it does, how. This is
precisely what Plotinus asks in Treatise 45 (Enn. III 7). As he
explains, the world-soul, in producing the cosmos and translating intelligible
Forms into the sensible realm, unfolds itself in thought, and this very
unfolding is time:
The soul
[...] as it produces (ποιοῦσα), in
imitation of the intelligible world, a sensible universe which moves not with
the motion found in the intelligible world, but one that aims to have the
sameness of an image (ἐθέλουσαν εἰκόνα ἐκείνης εἶναι),
temporalized itself (ἑαυτὴν ἐχρόνωσεν) by creating (ποιήσασα) time in place of eternity (Enn. III 7, 11, 27-30.
Trans. Gerson 2018, p. 348).
Plotinus therefore does not exactly attempt to solve
the Aristotelian aporia; he shows instead that the aporia is misconceived and,
adopting a different conceptual framework, presents his own doctrine as an
interpretation of Plato’s Timaeus (37c-d). Aristotle’s mistake was not
to have followed Plato in positing a demiurgy of time, namely an
efficient cause underlying time itself. Although he comes close to identifying
the cause of time (the soul), he nevertheless fails to conceive it as a
demiurgic power. This, however, is precisely what Plotinus accomplishes
(following Plato): he claims that, in bringing forth the world, the world-soul
temporalizes its own thought and, in temporalizing its own thought, gives rise
to the time of the world. The world-soul is thereby identified with the
Demiurge of the Timaeus, while primordial time is understood as the
(psychic) movement of its thought – a movement within which the sensible world
comes into existence and from which it derives its own mobility. The soul does
not measure time, it produces time without any preconceived plan, but simply by
transposing the eternal Forms into the sensible realm, thereby imitating
eternity.
The critique of Ph. IV 14 is
thus representative of the main objection Plotinus raises against Aristotelian
accounts of time: the reduction of Chronos to measure and number. For
Plotinus, number and measure are only manifestations of time, not its essence,
which is demiurgic – time, as born from a demiurge, is produced by the
world-soul and, as itself demiurgic, develops the eternal Forms – and psychic
(time is the thinking life of the soul). As suggested in Treatise 45,
they are derived expressions of it and this is precisely what Timaeus
47a indicates: time is made visible through the movement of the stars and the
sun, produced by the Demiurge, but it is not essentially what the soul measures
when it observes the heavens.[8]
Time, for Plotinus, is thus a
psychic and demiurgic motion.[9] According to him, Aristotle
situates the question of soul and time on a superficial level – namely
that of measurement – which is ultimately secondary and
derivative. Plotinus may be read as responding to crucial questions that
Peripatetic interpreters in Roman time addressed in different ways, while at
the same time subverting their very terms. From this perspective, what is
required is a genuine account of how the soul generates time, because
measurement alone is insufficient to constitute it – that is, to make time what
it is as time.
This criticism – that the approach
isn’t ontological enough – is something Iamblichus, a Syrian Neoplatonist
philosopher and contemporary of Porphyry, also directs at Aristotle.[10] At the same time, though, unlike
Plotinus, he revalues the Aristotelian ideas of measure and number. This
represents a decisive step in the Neoplatonic reception of Ph. IV 14.
2. The Ontological
Power of Measurement (Iamblichus)
From Iamblichus onward, we see a revival of
Pythagoreanism within Neoplatonism.[11] He argues that Aristotle’s entire
account of time ultimately derives from the Pythagorean thinker Archytas of
Tarentum. According to Iamblichus, Archytas (in fact pseudo-Archytas) has
written a treatise titled On Categories or On the Reason of the Universe,
which Aristotle’s Physics would imitate.[12] In that treatise, Archytas defines
time as the number of a certain kind of motion, and identifies that motion with
the substantial motion of the soul:
In conveying
the nature of time more theoretically, Iamblichus again chooses as his guide (ἡγεμόνα) Archytas, who says that “time is
the number of a certain movement (κινάσιός τινος ἀριθμός) or, more
generally, the extension of the nature of the universe too” [...]. He [scil. Archytas] did not say that time is
the number of all movement (κινήσεως ἀριθμὸν τῆς πάσης), as
Aristotle defined it, but rather [the number] of a certain movement (κινήσεως τινός) – not [the movement] of one of the particulars,
such as the [movement] of the heavens or that of the sun or of some other
definite thing among the particulars, since on that basis time would not be of
the nature of a principle (ἀρχοειδής), nor would it extend commonly to
everything, nor would it deserve to be defined among the primary genera.
Instead, by means of this [definition], [Archytas] altogether expresses a
movement which is of the nature of a principle (ἀρχοειδῆ) and is the cause of being (τοῦ εἶναι αἰτίαν) for the other movements.
[...] In consequence it is plausible that [Archytas] is, by means of
theses [characterisations], expressing the substantial movement of the soul (τὴν οὐσιώδη τῆς ψυχῆς κίνησιν), and the projection [into the world] of the
principles belonging to it by virtue of its substance (τὴν τῶν κατ’ οὐσίαν ὑπαρχόντων αὐτῇ λόγων προβολήν) (Iambl. apud Simpl. In
Cat. 350, 10-30. Trans. Gaskin 2013, p. 83).
On this view, Aristotle ends up
weakening Archytas’ doctrine. For Archytas, time is the number of a motion
internal to the substance of the world-soul, understood as self-moving and
self-constituting.[13] Time as number is generated
within the very being of the world-soul, which constitutes itself through its
own motion, according to a Pythagorean doctrine that Plato expresses in the Phaedrus.
The number of time is therefore fundamental and determining: it brings about the order of
change in the world, structuring and organizing it. In that sense, it has a
kind of demiurgic power. In constituting
itself through a substantial self-motion, the world-soul generates a primordial
and ordering form of time. Time is therefore itself substantial: it confers
being upon sensible motions and grounds the measure and order governing those
motions. It makes the world possible in its very nature as a cosmos. The
Pythagorean conception of time thus possesses an ontological (or demiurgic)
power – it brings ordered movements into existence – whereas the Aristotelian
conception of time emerges from movements that are already ordered and
structured. Whereas, in Archytas, time brings into being the “before” and
“after” of motion, in Aristotle these “before” and “after” arise from the
continuity of sensible motion itself, which is taken as given:
And he [scil. Archytas] says that its number is
the one which is at this moment generative (γενεσιουργόν),
proceeding to the creation (προϊόντα εἰς ποίησιν) of the things in the world [...]. This differs
considerably from the number [of movement] referred to by Aristotle: for he
considers it to be an externally supervening measure (μέτρον [...] ἔξωθεν ἐπιγινόμενον) of what is continuous, whereas
Archytas establishes it as a measure of movement itself, inherent [in it] (αὐτοφυές) and not
external [to it] (οὐκ ἔξωθεν), as Aristotle [thinks] (Iambl.
apud Simpl. In Cat. 350, 32-351, 4. Trans. Gaskin 2013, pp. 83-4).
For Archytas, the number of time
is genesiourgos, producer of becoming. The world-soul thus generates the
number of time by generating itself, and this number of time is the origin of
all temporal measures – or orders of development – in the world. It is, for
example, what accounts for the succession of life stages: first childhood, then
adolescence, and finally adulthood. Aristotle instead conceives of time as
emerging from motion insofar as motion exhibits a determinate before and after.
Motion, with its inherent
continuity, pre-exists the number of time; it is not the number of time that
generates this continuity.
Iamblichus thus reproaches Aristotle for lacking an ontological
conception of the relation between measure, soul, and time. The issue is not
the notion of measure itself, as Plotinus believed. Rather, the problem is that
Aristotle does not grant measure any ontological power – any generative
capacity. He treats number and measure as attributes that result from motion, rather
than as principles that make motion possible. Aristotle, though inspired by
Archytas, thereby weakens the Pythagorean doctrine of number:
The
Peripatetic opinion seems to have deviated (παρατετράφθαι) from the Pythagorean instruction. The reason for
this is that the recent [thinkers] (οἱ νεώτεροι) have not held the same view of
number and movement as the ancients, but think that they are accidents (συμβεβηκότα), and consider them to be
externally adventitious, whereas [the ancients] regard them as substantial (οὐσιώδη) (Iambl. apud Simpl.
In Cat. 351, 4-8. Trans. Gaskin 2013, p. 84).
From this
perspective, when Aristotle asks whether time exists by virtue of being
measured by the soul, this reveals the
For Iamblichus, then, the aporia of Ph.
IV 14 is fundamentally misformulated. Aristotle and the Peripatetics attempt to
derive time from the soul’s act of measurement, but without an ontological
conception of number and measure. Neither Boethus nor Alexander is correct,
since both presuppose that measure applies to an already ordered change that
would pre-exist it. This is not the case for Iamblichus as a reader of
Archytas: the number of the soul – i.e. time – is a substantial principle that
brings into existence ordered change according to before and after.
Aristotle would
have conceived both the soul and time in a superficial manner. But through this
critique, Iamblichus reintroduces into his concept of time the Aristotelian
notions of measure and number, which Plotinus had relegated to a secondary
role. From Iamblichus onward, in late Neoplatonism, measure and number belong
to the very essence of time, and not merely to its manifestation. Thus, he
reintegrates the Aristotelian concepts, and terminology, incorporating them
into the Neoplatonic conception of time.
This tendency
(to reappropriate the Aristotelian thought of time while simultaneously
criticizing it) becomes even stronger in Proclus. Proclus takes up much of what
is said by Aristotle, and his critique no longer targets the terms of Ph.
IV 14, but only his softness, his lack of metaphysical ambition.
3.
Aristotle’s Softness and Rightness (Proclus)
In his Commentary on the Timaeus, Proclus, in reference to Ph.
IV 14, accuses Aristotle of malakia, softness.
Now
Aristotle defined time as the number of motion, not the number with which we
count (κατὰ τὸ ἀριθμοῦν), but that
which gets counted (κατὰ τὸ ἀριθμητόν). Given
this definition he quite plausibly inquired what it is that does the counting,
since time is that which gets counted (for these things are relatives and if
the one exists, then so too does the other), but his resolution of this problem
is insufficiently bold (καὶ ἔλυσε μαλακῶς) since he said that some soul is that which
does the counting, for it is necessary for there to be that which does the
counting eternally prior to the eternal number [that gets counted] in
order that it should always make it, since what comes to be [as a result of the
counting] always exists (Procl. In Ti. III 9, 21-10, 2. Trans.
Baltzly 2013, p. 53).
Proclus analyses the reasoning of Ph.
IV 14 as follows: since time is counted, there must be a counting principle.
Proclus does not at all reject this Aristotelian reasoning, as will be seen. He
merely reproaches Aristotle for not having ascended high enough in the
hierarchy of reality. Aristotle, in fact, stops at the level of the soul: the
principle that numbers time would thus be the soul. Proclus condemns this
resolution of the aporia – namely, that the soul brings time into being by
numbering it – as malakia (softness). Aristotle, in his view, does not
sustain the philosophical effort far enough; he does not rise high enough in
the chain of causes.
Proclus
is therefore more appreciative of Aristotle’s inquiry than Plotinus and
Iamblichus. Aristotle is right in his reasoning: if there is counted time in
the world, there must be a counting principle at its origin. Elsewhere, Proclus
even goes further by taking up the Aristotelian reasoning for his own account:
Third, if
time is something that is in fact subject to being counted, it is necessary
that what does the counting (τὸ ἀριθμοῦν) should pre-exist prior to what
gets counted (πρὸ τοῦ ἀριθμητοῦ [...] προυπάρχειν)(for these things are said to be
[what they are] in relation to one another and what does the counting
pre-exists prior to that which gets counted). That which potentially counts is
prior to what is potentially counted, while that which actually counts is prior
to what is actually counted. Accordingly, this is what time is in reality (ἐκεῖνο τοίνυν ὁ τῷ ὄντι χρόνος): the
Number Itself (αὐτοαριθμός) which
[counts] each of the numbers of all the periods [of time found within the
cosmos] (Procl. In Ti. III 32, 21-27. Trans. Baltzly 2013, p. 86).
The counting principle from which time proceeds is not
the soul, but Number-in-itself, of which Socrates speaks in the Republic
(VII 529d):
But since visible time (ὁ χρόνος ὁ ἐμφανής) revolves according to number (κατ’ ἀριθμόν), as the Timaeus [38a7-8] says, the number of revolutions
would be prior to this (πρὸ τούτου), since it
concerns the return of the whole cycle [to its starting point]. If that
[Perfect Number] were in the realm of generation, it will again be so in
accordance with another number and [so on] into infinity. If, however, there is
a number that independently always exists and is a cause of time that revolves
in accordance with number, since this number is intellective (νοερός) and is thus a king of time that is like an Intelligible choreographer,
it will be the cause of the dance for the cosmos since the circular return to
its starting point <is called> a dance. In the seventh book of the Republic
Socrates <named> it ‘the true number’ (ἀληθινὸν ἀριθμόν) (Procl. In R. II 17, 17-18. Trans. Baltzly, Finamore and Miles
2022, p. 222).
Proclus implicitly
uses Aristotelian reasoning to clarify the claim, in the Timaeus, that
time is measured according to number. If the time of the world is visible and
measurable through the movement of the stars, this number must nevertheless
pre-exist cosmic time itself, as Aristotle showed. But, according to Proclus,
this Number-principle, or Number-in-itself, cannot arise together with the
soul, since the soul – even the soul of the world – requires time to carry out
its activity.[14] The soul depends on Time
and cannot generate it. For Proclus, this Number is “intellective” (noeric):
it is an intellectual power inscribed within the series of the Demiurge.[15] It organises the intelligible Forms by
providing them with measures, thereby making them models for sensible motions.
The text of Ph. IV 14 is thus used to demonstrate the existence of a
substantial and Platonic conception of time, in terms that Aristotle would
never have accepted.
We thus see how
Proclus represents a double and somewhat ambiguous moment in the reception of
the aporia in Ph. IV 14. On the one hand, he reproaches Aristotle for
his softness: like Plotinus and Iamblichus, Proclus holds that Aristotle does
not go far enough. On the other hand, he considers Aristotle’s reasoning to be
correct: if the time of the world is a counted number, there must be a counting
principle at its origin. This number-in-itself is intellective and substantial
Time, of which Plato speaks in the Timaeus (37c-d, 38a) and in the Republic
(VII 529d). Aristotle’s argument is thus placed in the service of a thought
that claims to be Platonic. This status of Aristotle – as serving or assisting
Plato – is consistent with the place Proclus assigns him, namely that of
Plato’s “daemon”.[16] Like any daemon, Aristotle is an
auxiliary, a mediating figure between gods and humans, here between the divine
Plato and us. This praise of Aristotle becomes even stronger in Simplicius.
4. “I Αdmire the Following Feature of Aristotle’s Sagacity”
(Simplicius)
We thus arrive at the position of Simplicius, the only
Neoplatonist commentator to explicitly praise Aristotle for having related time
to the soul:
But I admire
(θαυμάζω) the following feature of
Aristotle’s sagacity, namely how he too posited the soul as the proximate cause
of time (αἰτίαν τοῦ χρόνου προσεχῆ): for in seeking what it is which numbers
[time], he talked of the soul. For if the soul is the origin and cause of
all movement – whether qua self-moving, as Plato thought, or qua unmoved,
as Aristotle thought – it will also, in all probability, be the cause of temporal
movement (Simpl. In Cat. 351, 8-13. Trans. Gaskin 2013, p. 84).
Simplicius here opposes Iamblichus, who (as we have
seen) judges the Aristotelian doctrine to be weakened and derivative in
comparison with that of Archytas. Rather than opposing Aristotle to Platonic
truth, the two must be reconciled: Aristotle “himself,” like Plotinus and like
Archytas, makes the soul the cause of time. Simplicius interprets Ph. IV
14 in the following way: if the soul produces motions, it must also be the
cause of temporal motion. He relies on a particular passage to argue that, for
Aristotle, there can be no change without the soul:
So Aristotle
reasonably says that, if the soul qua enumerator is abolished time will
be abolished qua enumerable; but he shows that, if it were abolished qua
the principle of coming to be and change (ἀρχῆς γενέσεως καὶ κινήσεως), both change and coming to be would be abolished, by
“if it is possible for there to be change without soul” (εἰ ἐνδέχεται κίνησιν εἶναι ἄνευ ψυχῆς). But not only is time, being an
aspect of change abolished together with the abolition of change, but, since it
itself has its being essentially in becoming, it will be abolished together
with the abolition of soul, which is the acknowledged cause of all change and
becoming (Simpl. In Phys. 760, 33-761, 5. Trans. Urmson 2014, p. 174).
This interpretation runs counter to the very wording
of Aristotle’s text. In the context of the latter, the line quoted by
Simplicius (“if it is possible for there to be change without soul”) forms part
of an argument designed to show that change exists independently of the soul,
so that time, which is the before and after of change, itself exists
independently of the soul. In a manner at once explicit and open to debate,
Simplicius strives to reconcile Aristotle (Ph. 223a27-28) and Plato (Phdr. 245c):
Note how
here, also, Aristotle wrote in accord (σύμφωνα) with our
leader. He himself wrote “if it is possible for there to be change without
soul”, i.e. without the changer, while the other said that for other things
that change the soul is the “source and principle”, and that from this
principle everything in becoming comes to be (Simpl. In Phys. 761, 5-9.
Trans. Urmson 2014, p. 174)
According to this original interpretation of
Aristotle’s text, the soul is the ontological cause of all changes in the
world. However, since Aristotelian time has its being in becoming, it cannot
exist without the soul. From this perspective, the Physics would
maintain both that there is a soul that brings about changes in the world and
that this soul brings about time. The only (but major) difference between Plato
and Aristotle is that the Platonic soul is self-moving, whereas the
Aristotelian soul does not move itself. According to Simplicius, there would be
an Aristotelian world-soul, cause of all the changes in the universe, and that
soul would be the ontological cause of time. The (individual) soul’s
measurement of time would only be the cause of measured time. Aristotle would
thus be closer to Plotinus’ Treatise 45 (Enn. III 7) that himself
thought.
In a way that is both more assertive
and more explicit, Simplicius thus seeks to reconcile Aristotle with the
Neoplatonic conception of time. He insists less on Aristotle’s softness, as
Plotinus, Iamblichus and Proclus do, and more on the importance of having
understood the role of the soul in the constitution of time.
Conclusion
To sum up, Plotinus and Iamblichus both remain wary of
Ph. IV 14 because they consider this text insufficiently ontological.
For Plotinus, the problem lies in the notion of psychological measurement: it
says nothing about the nature of time and does not allow anything to come into
being. For Iamblichus, the issue likewise concerns measurement, though not in
itself. Aristotle is right to define time as a measure; however, he weakens the
doctrine of Archytas by treating number not as a principle, but as an attribute
or accident of motion.
These critiques
play a positive role in the Neoplatonic reception of this text. Plotinus is the
first to discuss it and thereby enters the Boethus-Alexander debate.
Iamblichus, in turn, rehabilitates the notions of measure and number to think
the constitution of time through the soul.
One final barrier to the praise of
Aristotle remains: the objection that he is not sufficiently ontological.
This objection disappears with
Proclus, who reads this text in an explicitly ontological way. He reproaches
Aristotle only for his softness. Moreover, he even uses Ph. IV 14 to
demonstrate the existence of a substantial, demiurgic, and, in his view,
Platonic Time.
This tradition therefore culminates
in Simplicius’ praise of Aristotle. In the end, Neoplatonism comes to view
Aristotle as an ally – not someone who fully grasps the whole truth about time
or reaches its highest principles, but still a philosopher far superior to
earlier schools like Stoicism and Epicureanism, which, as Proclus puts it,
reduce time to a mere accident of motion.[17]
It therefore seems fair to say that,
in Neoplatonism,
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[1]
Ph.
219b1-2.
[2]
Ph.
219b7-8.
[3]
My interpretation would be as follows: since change can exist without the soul,
since time exists alongside the order of change (the before and the after), and
since there is a before and an after within change itself (“the before and
after are in change”), time exists independently of the soul. But since time is
the before and after insofar as it is ‘countable’, and since the soul, through
its intellect, has the power to count, time has a special relation with the
soul. Aristotle therefore refuses both to make time a reality produced by the
soul and to render time heterogeneous with the soul.
[4]
See Rashed (2011) pp. 69-74 and Zachhuber (2022) pp. 22-40. On Boethos’
doctrine of time, see Chiaradonna and Rashed (2020) pp. 232-4.
[5]
Boeth. apud Simpl. In Phys. 759, 18-20. Trans. Urmson 2014, p.
173.
[6] ὥσπερ
γάρ
φησι
Βοηθός, οὐδὲν
μέτρον
ὑπὸ
τῆς
φύσεως
γίνεται, ἀλλ’ ἡμέτερον
ἤδη
καὶ
τὸ
μετρεῖν
καὶ
τὸ
ἀριθμεῖν
ἔργον
ἐστίν (Boeth. apud Themist. In Phys. 163, 5-7). See Chiaradonna
and Rashed (2020) p. 232.
[7]
Alex. apud Simpl. In Phys. 760, 3.
[8] Plot. Enn.
III 7, 12, 25-43. See Michalewski (2021).
[9]
And we might add that it is a dynamic movement. Time is indeed generated by a
power of the soul (Enn. III 7, 11, 20-21). See Michalewski (2022).
[10] On
Iamblichus, see Chiaradonna and Lecerf (2023).
[11]
O’Meara (1989).
[12]
See Hoffmann (1980) and Macris (2002).
[13]
On the (substantial) self-motion of the soul, see Opsomer (2012) and Taormina
(1997).
[14]
See Procl. In Ti. III 22, 13-28.
[15]
See Procl. In R. II 17, 17-18, 14, and In Ti. III 89, 32-90, 17.
[16]
See Procl. In Ti. III 54, 33 and 262, 19.
[17]
See Procl. In Ti. III 27, 13-18.