Participation

Use in the book

The Parmenides excerpt proposes that forms are patterns and participation is the other things’ being made like them. In the full argumentative setting, the proposal faces objections, so the extract should not be treated as a final definition accepted without qualification. The Stoic notice speaks of participating in concepts, but its contrast with obtaining “cases” or “appellations” is textually uncertain. Ethical discussion also asks whether perception can share in virtue.

Places to read

1. I.12.2bParticipation is proposed as likeness to a pattern.
2. I.12.3.2Participation in concepts occurs in an uncertain transmitted contrast.
3. I.49.25.3Sharing in virtue depends on the status of assent.

Translation in this edition

“Sharing in” is useful outside the technical discussion of forms. The edition does not make the damaged Stoic sentence more definite than its text allows.

Use in the book

Participation is dependent possession of a perfection, as distinct from being its full or underived source. The clearest comparison uses heat: wood is hot through participation, fire through form, and the sun in a more eminent causal manner. Ficino parallels these with soul's partial possession of mind, the angel's possession of mind's form, and God as mind's most effective origin. The contrast concerns different ways of possessing and causing a perfection; it does not physically divide intellectual nature among recipients.

The language also explains how creatures possess unity, truth, and goodness. Their received shares and traces point toward a source they desire and to which they return. If supreme unity itself received power from a higher cause, it would become a composite of unity and an addition, rather than unity itself. Similarly, something called better is better through a greater share of goodness, so it cannot surpass goodness independently of it. A portio is consequently a limited possession of perfection rather than a divine fragment. Later the vestigium, or trace, of the first cause names being itself, on which subordinate causes establish further determinations.

Other applications make the relation concrete. Earth participates in the idea of roundness; a creature enjoys itself by participating in goodness; bodies live and move through soul's communicated life. Celestial motion can participate in stability. What is received and how it is received vary with the example, so participation is more precise than generic membership in a class. Higher activity remains present in lower effects according to the recipient's mode. Yet a unifying presence may be whole in each part rather than partitioned: soul communicates life without being cut into bodily pieces, and divine goodness is reflected in many creatures without becoming many independent divine substances.

Further passage references. I.3.14, I.3.30; I.5.7, I.5.14; I.6.10, I.6.12; II.1.2–723456; II.7.32; II.11.27; II.12.6; III.2.24

Places to read

1. I.3.14Received inequality and divisible forms are referred toward more unified sources within the hierarchy.
2. I.5.7Ordered celestial motion participates in stability.
3. II.11.27Earth’s roundness is explained through participation in the idea of roundness.
4. II.12.6Participation in goodness explains increasing self-contentment.
5. III.2.24Bodies live and move through participation in soul’s life.

Translation in this edition

“Partake” and “participate” cover several grammatical constructions. At I.5.7 the moving heavens are particeps of stability; participation therefore need not exclude movement. At II.11.27 roundness is received through an Idea, while III.2.24 concerns bodies’ participation in life.

particeps / participium

particeps / participium. Printed forms: particeps; participia.

A participant or sharer in a perfection received from another. What participates in unity or truth is distinguished from unity or truth itself. References: II.1.2, II.1.3. See Participation.

participare / particeps

participare / particeps. Printed forms: particeps; participatione.

Participate / a participant. The creature’s self-contentment comes from sharing in good; participation is received possession, not independent identity with its source. References: II.12.6, III.2.24. See Participation.

participatio / forma / eminentia

participatio / forma / eminentia. Printed forms: eminentem; formam; participationem.

Participation, formal possession and an eminent causal mode. Hot wood, fire and the sun illustrate soul’s share of mind, angel’s full mental form, and God as its superior origin. References: I.6.12. See Participation.

portio

portio. Printed forms: portione; portionem.

A share or portion of a perfection. Comparative goodness is explained by a greater share, without making divine goodness a divisible stock. References: II.1.3, II.1.4, II.1.6. See Participation.

praeditus

praeditus. Printed forms: praedita; praeditis.

Endowed or furnished with. An imagined eternal source would be endowed with eternal forms; bodies endowed with mind are later contrasted with those lacking it, so endowment is not identity with the gift. References: I.3.6, I.5.14. See Participation.

secundum partem / ex toto

secundum partem / ex toto. Printed forms: ex toto; secundum partem.

In part and throughout. Wood hot in part and fire hot throughout model partial intellectual possession in soul versus a higher nature wholly mind. References: I.5.11. See Participation.

Use in the book

V.1323456789101112131415161718 reasons from effects to their causes. Distinctive conditions demand particular causes; being shared by all demands a cause common to all. A human parent explains the individual’s being human, fire the person’s being hot, and God the fact that the person is. The parent’s role is not cancelled, since secondary causes give their modes through divine power.

Being without further determination is prior in explanation to being this or that, white or black, human or horse. The language of following “after nothing” articulates creation’s terminus, not a sequence in which an actual thing first exists without any nature and only later acquires one.

The participation argument prevents reversing the dependence. What possesses a nature by participation cannot generate that nature absolutely, because it would generate its own prior cause and thereby itself. Ariston’s generation of Plato exemplifies a determinate individual producing another determinate individual, not production of humanity as such.

Elsewhere proprium is what belongs to a nature: fire’s proper heat, soul’s proper life, or a form’s proper act. The word is not interchangeable with an accidental private possession. Likewise V.8234’s “common being of the whole” concerns a composite’s unified act, a different scale from V.1323456789101112131415161718’s being common to all effects.

Places to read

1. V.8.2, V.11.8Other local uses of common and proper concern composite being and a soul’s specific act.
2. V.13.1, V.13.2Proper effects and common being are assigned differently scoped causes.
3. V.13.3, V.13.4, V.13.5Determinate being, participation and the Ariston example establish dependence.

Translation in this edition

The repeated esse/hoc aut illud/tale distinction is essential, not stylistic redundancy. The phrase virtute Dei preserves the subordination of secondary causal action. Readers should not infer a claim that creatures are pieces of divine substance from the shared word esse.

causa communis

causa communis. Printed forms: communem omnium causam; communis causa; unam causam.

A cause common to all the effects under consideration. God is common cause of their being; particular agents explain their differing modes. References: V.13.1, V.13.2. See Participation, common and proper.

certus / talis

certus / talis. Printed forms: certa; certam; certo; certum; tale; talem; tales; tali; talis; Talis.

Determinate or of a specified kind, often restricting an essence or mode. A thing's being this or such differs from being simply; these qualifiers are part of the argument for limited secondary causes. References: V.4.9, V.7.1, V.9.2, V.9.4, V.11.7, V.13.3, V.13.5. See Participation, common and proper.

effectus proprius

effectus proprius. Printed forms: effectibus; effectus proprios; propriis.

A determinate effect belonging to its corresponding cause. The causal method distinguishes these from being common to every effect, which requires a common cause. References: V.13.1. See Participation, common and proper.

humanitas

humanitas. Printed forms: humanitas; Humanitas; humanitate; humanitatem; humanitatis.

Humanity, the common defining nature rather than an individual human being. Humanity is not confined to Plato's time or place, and Ariston does not generate humanity itself when begetting Plato. References: V.7.1, V.13.5. See Participation, common and proper.

Humanity, the nature by which human individuals are human. Its communication across persons, times and places supplies the opening example of universality and the ascent to an Idea. References: VIII.1.2. See Common nature, participation, and the divine Idea.

modus essendi

modus essendi. Printed forms: essendi modos; essendi modum; essendi naturam.

A mode of being, the way in which an already dependent being is determinate. Secondary agents produce this or that qualification by divine power rather than produce being from nothing. References: V.13.2, V.13.5. See Participation, common and proper.

participatio / particeps

participatio / particeps. Printed forms: particeps; participatione; participationem.

Participation, a derived or limited possession of a nature. A participant cannot generate the absolute source on which it depends, since this would reverse causal priority and make it cause itself. References: V.13.4, V.13.5, V.13.7. See Participation, common and proper.

proprius / communis

proprius / communis. Printed forms: commune; communi; communis; propria; propriae; propriam; proprium.

Proper to a specified nature and common across specified bearers. Fire's proper being, the composite's common being and being common to all are different scopes; the adjective alone must not settle the referent. References: V.1.1, V.4.6, V.8.2, V.11.8, V.13.2. See Participation, common and proper.

simpliciter

simpliciter. Printed forms: simpliciter.

Simply or without the further determination this or that; it does not always describe absence of composite parts. In the creation argument esse simpliciter precedes determinate modes in explanatory order. The adverb must not be merged indiscriminately with simplex as material incomposition. References: V.13.3, V.13.5. See Participation, common and proper.