Good

Use in the book

The masculine ὁ ἀγαθός can mean a good person, whereas the neuter τὸ ἀγαθόν means what is good or the good. The argument moves between these constructions. Keeping the difference visible prevents a claim about good people from being silently treated as a claim about every good thing.

At 210d, Lysis will be useful and good if he becomes wise. At 214c–215c2, the proposed friendship of the good with the good is examined through likeness and sufficiency: insofar as each is good and sufficient, what need makes either cherish the other? This is a difficulty raised against a proposed explanation of friendship, not a settled rejection of friendship between good people.

At 216d–218c234, the good becomes the object sought by what is neither good nor bad; medicine is beneficial and good, and health is later explicitly called good (219a). The sequence tests both the source of attachment and what it aims at. The hypothesis that the good is loved solely because of badness is challenged by desires that need not be bad (220b–221d23). Identifying the good with what is akin at 222d revives a difficulty already encountered. No separately established doctrine of a transcendent Good is announced here.

Places to read

1. 217bὠφέλιμον καὶ ἀγαθόν — beneficial and good.
2. 210c–d2
3. 214c–215c2
4. 216d–218c234
5. 219a
6. 220b–221d23
7. 222d

Use in the book

The Timaeus account makes divine craftsmanship aim at everything being good so far as possible. The Hermetic address to Tat describes a soul’s enduring orientation toward the good after it apprehends what is truly good and true. Iamblichus explains divine correction of fate through the gods’ goodness and the preservation of the good character of providence. These are different relations to goodness: a maker’s purpose, a soul’s orientation, and the character of divine governance.

Places to read

1. I.21.1.2The maker’s purpose is expressed through goodness and beauty.
2. I.41.1.3Knowledge reorients the soul toward the good.
3. I.1.35Divine goodness corrects and preserves fate.

Translation in this edition

The translation distinguishes “the good” from “good things” according to the Greek construction, without assuming every occurrence names a separate metaphysical entity.

Use in the book

The good is the object of desire, the end of action, and the perfection whose first source is God. Ficino moves among particular goods, the aspect under which something is desired, and the Good itself. These uses are connected but not identical. Matter is good in a qualified sense because it desires form, can receive it, and is required by a good world. Goodness therefore extends beyond living and thinking things. Ficino argues that removing life would stop the world's movement, whereas removing good would remove its existence. Mind itself seeks to become better through understanding and receives goodness from above.

Goodness is one with supreme unity and truth, while the three names describe different explanatory aspects of the same principle. A thing is good insofar as it is united with itself and its source rather than corrupted by inferior mixture. II.3.10 contrasts truth's gift of being with goodness's recalling effects to their source and granting well-being, bene esse. It does not divide divine functions among separate substances. Everything acts from, through, and toward good. Goodness is communicative as a source and attractive as an end, connecting production, preservation, perfection, and return. The inference that what all things seek is also their source belongs to Ficino's metaphysics; it is not merely the everyday meaning of desire.

Book II tests whether anything could rank above goodness. A superior principle would give a better gift, but that superiority would already be a greater share of goodness. If its gift were not better, the claimed superiority would lose its basis. An absolutely evil supreme being likewise could neither act, know, live, nor exist, since these are goods. Even defeating the good would require superiority and power, themselves good. Evil and privation can therefore be known through goodness and possession without an independent divine exemplar of evil. These arguments do not imply that every actual choice or condition is good in every respect.

In God, goodness is not received, and no independent good outside him supplies his end. He wills his own complete goodness and needs no creature to complete it. Created goods imitate that goodness according to their natures; an ordered whole may manifest it more fully than an isolated advantage. Ficino's appeal to the whole's benefit does not make each part, considered alone, equally beneficial. Particular natural agents pursue particular goods, while intellectual nature can regard universal good. Human appetite always seeks some good or apparent good, but judgment about objects and means can be mistaken.

The Pythagorean exposition in Book IV identifies the first One with the first Good. A mind that is one still combines mind and oneness, so the ascent continues beyond one member of an order to unity without qualification. God cannot simply be the first sphere's soul or one celestial mover among peers: that would give him a limited proportion to other beings and a composition of common and distinctive properties. Nor is his transcendence beyond every whole compatible with treating him as an aggregate. Supreme unity and goodness remain distinct from the lower beings that possess them by participation.

Further passage references. I.2.14; I.5.25; I.6.14–I.6.1923456; II.1.1–7234567; II.2.15; II.3.10; II.6.5–723; II.7.4–52; II.11.13–142, 29–38; II.12.3–19234567891011121314151617; II.13.1–323, 23–30; IV.1.23–IV.1.2823456; IV.1.51–IV.1.522; IV.1.59–IV.1.602; IV.2.3–IV.2.6234; II.11.19

Places to read

1. I.2.14Desire follows perceived goodness rather than quantity alone.
2. I.6.14–1923456Goodness reaches formless matter and exceeds mind as universal source and desired end.
3. II.1.5Any proposed superior source would already act through the goodness it gives.
4. II.3.10Goodness recalls products to their source and gives well-being alongside truth’s gift of being.
5. IV.1.51The Pythagorean exposition identifies the first One and first Good.

Translation in this edition

The qualifier “as good” in appetite arguments and “in a certain measure” of matter protect important differences. Divine goodness’s being the final source does not certify every judgement of benefit, nor equate an isolated part’s advantage with the whole’s good.

bonitas / bonum

bonitas / bonum. Printed forms: bona; bonae; bonitas; bonitate; bonitatem; bonitati; bonitatis; bonum; bonus.

Goodness and the good, as a thing’s perfection, desire’s object, and the first source. A higher supposed good must already possess goodness; the one principle gives both being and well-being. References: II.1.1, II.1.4, II.1.7, II.3.10. See Good and goodness.

bonum / bonitas

bonum / bonitas. Printed forms: bona; bonitas.

Good / goodness. God’s own goodness is the necessary final end; created goods are images not all required for that end’s possession. References: II.12.12, II.12.14, II.12.15. See Good and goodness.

complecti

complecti. Printed forms: complectitur.

To embrace or include within one’s scope. Supreme goodness contains whatever good can be found, so two supposedly supreme goodnesses cannot lack each other’s good. References: II.2.11. See Good and goodness.

maior range of causal giving

maior range of causal giving. Printed forms: superat; tendit.

To surpass and to extend or reach. Mind’s order exceeds life’s range, and goodness exceeds form’s range; the hierarchy is argued through wider scope of effects. References: I.6.14. See Good and goodness.

malum

malum. Printed forms: mali; malo; malorum; malum.

Evil or badness, here tested as a supposed unrestricted first source. The absolute evil hypothesis collapses because causal efficacy, cognition, life, and being are themselves goods. References: II.1.4, II.1.5, II.2.15. See Good and goodness.

proximum bonitati

proximum bonitati. Printed forms: bonitati; proximum.

Nearness to goodness in a causal hierarchy. The presence of evils around matter is used against treating the world-infused life as the highest goodness. References: IV.1.24. See Good and goodness.

videor habere / revera possideo

videor habere / revera possideo. Printed forms: possideant; revera; videantur habere.

To seem to possess, contrasted with actual possession. Some are satisfied with seeming wise, Ficino says, yet demand actual possession of what they chiefly judge good for life; appearance and possession are distinguished. References: I.6.18. See Good and goodness.

Gnostic philosophers (authorities and cited works)

Gnostic philosophers. Named with Manichaeans in Ficino's rejection of opposed good and evil divine principles. The entry concerns this attribution in his argument, not a definition of every group called Gnostic. II.2.14–152. See God; Good and goodness.

Manichaeans (authorities and cited works)

Manichaeans. Named with Gnostic philosophers in the rejected account of a good divine principle opposed by an evil one. Ficino argues that absolute evil would lack being, life, knowledge, and action. II.2.14–152. See Nothing and nonbeing; Good and goodness.