First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis

Use in the book

Ficino offers a chain: human resolves into animal and rational; animal into body and sensation; body into substance and quantity; substance into being and subsistence. He asks where an analysis of being itself could proceed, allowing with a cautious “unless perhaps” that Plotinus and Proclus might resolve it into unity and multitude. Even then unity itself cannot be resolved into numbers. A point cannot be resolved into magnitudes, the ultimate form into another form, or prime matter into more matter.

The chain does not have the same kind of constituent at every step. It is an explanatory analysis, not a physical dissection. Its final examples include simple principles of the sciences that are always luminous within mind. Where legitimate resolution ends, Ficino infers simplicity.

Some known things are divisible in themselves but understood under an indivisible aspect; others are wholly simple. Accordingly, simple concepts require simple intellectual forms and a simple subject. The final immortality inference adds an order of dependence: intelligence follows life, while simplicity precedes indissolubility. If the later activity reaches the higher explanatory condition, the prior life should possess the corresponding lower consequence. This is an argument from ordered perfection, not a claim that the human mind and God have identical simplicity.

Places to read

1. VIII.4.12The chain of analysis reaches unity, prime matter and first scientific concepts.
2. VIII.4.13Simple knowing is connected to the simple subject and then to indissoluble life.

Translation in this edition

The cautious nisi forte attached to Plotinus and Proclus must be preserved. The closing sequence of priority in VIII.4.13 is demanding but explicit: life precedes intelligence, and simplicity precedes indissolubility. It should not be paraphrased as a chronological creation sequence.

carere / deficere / abesse

carere / deficere / abesse. Printed forms: abesse; abest; absit; carent; carere; Caret; caret; deficerent; deficiet; deficit.

Lacking, failing or being absent, distinguished from positive presence. An unfinished preparation still lacks completed virtue, while a point or line is defined by lacking a higher dimension. The absence is not always a destructive privation. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.2.7, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.3, VIII.3.4, VIII.3.5, VIII.4.7, VIII.4.8, VIII.13.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

esse

esse. Printed forms: esse; Esse; essendi.

Being or existing; the act of essence rather than its definition alone. Common being and a particular mode of being are separated; soul's being is repeatedly identified with living. References: V.7.1, V.11.3, V.13.2, V.13.3. See Essence and being.

To be, either as an ordinary predication or as substantive being when used absolutely. The analysis of substance reaches being, and the self-causation passage distinguishes being-well from being according to form; those technical uses must not be imposed on every copula. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.1.2, VIII.1.3, VIII.1.5, VIII.2.1, VIII.2.3, VIII.2.5, VIII.2.7, VIII.2.8, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.6, VIII.3.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.3, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.8, VIII.4.9, VIII.4.10, VIII.4.12, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.2, VIII.6.1, VIII.7.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.12.1, VIII.13.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.2, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

individuus / indivisibilis

individuus / indivisibilis. Printed forms: Individua; individua; individuam; individuamque; individuas; individuis; individuum; individuumque; individuus; indivisibile; indivisibilem; indivisibili; indivisibilis.

Without divisible parts in the respect under consideration; individuus is not necessarily a personal individual. Virtue, intellectual form and simple concept are called indivisible, and this status is then attributed to their subject. References: VIII.3.1, VIII.3.6, VIII.4.11, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.2. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

notio / perceptio

notio / perceptio. Printed forms: notio; notione; notionem; perceptio; perceptionem.

An apprehended account or cognitive grasp, with no automatic implication of sensory perception. Simple perception follows simple intellectual content, and innate principles produce notions including necessities while excluding superfluities. References: VIII.4.13, VIII.13.1, VIII.16.3. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

sufficientia subsistendi

sufficientia subsistendi. Printed forms: sufficientiam subsistendi.

The sufficiency or capacity for standing in being, paired with being in the analysis of substance. The phrase names an intelligible explanatory constituent, not a measurable amount of matter. References: VIII.4.12. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.

unitas / multitudo

unitas / multitudo. Printed forms: multitudinem; multitudo; unitas; unitatem.

Unity and multiplicity, whether within an account, among instances or in an explanatory hierarchy. Mind gathers many under one universal; simplicity of unity marks analysis's limit, while divine unity is the terminus of a larger ascent. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.3.6, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.6, VIII.4.11, VIII.4.12, VIII.16.2. See First concepts, unity, and the end of analysis.