Integrity of the whole · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordIntegritas is the completeness or integrated nature of the whole.
In the Platonic TheologyAn opponent suggests that composition produces a nature beyond matter and form, or beyond the four elements: the whole’s integrity.
In this editionThe edition retains Ficino’s polemical cavillatio, “quibble,” without making it a neutral name for all theories of emergence.
A place to readThe emergent integrity proposal is stated and answered in two different ways.

Meaning

Integritas is the completeness or integrated nature of the whole. Provenire means arising or resulting. The proposal gives form the power to move and matter the capacity to be moved; radix and fundamentum picture the roots of these capacities.

Use in the book

An opponent suggests that composition produces a nature beyond matter and form, or beyond the four elements: the whole’s integrity. It would move itself because its form acts and its matter receives. This objection is more sophisticated than calling soul an isolated element, and should not be assimilated to the first materialist position without qualification.

Ficino gives two replies from the Platonist standpoint. First, distributing action and reception between different essences still fails to reach one primary source and receptacle of motion and life. Second, if the resulting integrity is extended quantitatively, it repeats the problems already demonstrated for bodily bulk; if indivisible, it concedes the incorporeal nature sought. The following clarification is essential: incorporeal self-motion does not mean a thing passing an action to itself as a separate patient. It means the natural alternation of its own affections. The objection’s causal decomposition and Ficino’s nontransitive account of psychic motion must remain distinct.

Places to read

VI.12.9The emergent integrity proposal is stated and answered in two different ways.
VI.12.10Natural succession within soul replaces an agent-to-patient transfer.

Translation in this edition

The edition retains Ficino’s polemical cavillatio, “quibble,” without making it a neutral name for all theories of emergence. This is a reported objection and reply, not a settled modern adjudication of whole-system properties.

cavillatio

cavillatio. Printed forms: cavillatio; obiectio.

A polemically named quibble or objection. Ficino’s judgement labels a specifically reported proposal; it is not a neutral category for every account of emergence. References: VI.12.9. See Integrity of the whole.

movere et moveri

movere et moveri. Printed forms: moveat; moveatur; per formam; per materiam.

Moving through form and being moved through matter. The opponent distributes activity and receptivity, while Ficino demands a single primary principle rather than different roots. References: VI.12.9. See Integrity of the whole.

provenire

provenire. Printed forms: proveniat.

To arise or result from composition. The proposed new whole-nature is an objection, not Ficino’s own explanation of soul’s origin. References: VI.12.9. See Integrity of the whole.

quantitate protendi

quantitate protendi. Printed forms: indivisibilis; quantitate protenditur.

Being extended quantitatively, contrasted with indivisibility. The whole’s integrity either inherits bodily difficulties or concedes the incorporeal reality sought. References: VI.12.9. See Integrity of the whole.

totius integritas

totius integritas. Printed forms: totius integritas.

The completeness or integrated nature arising from a whole. The opponent proposes an emergent nature beyond material constituents as a source of self-motion. References: VI.12.9. See Integrity of the whole.