Quality

Use in the book

The Aristotelian account considers matter apart from form and denies it determinate qualities such as color or heaviness in its own definition. The Democritean report denies color to the elements but explains the colors of compounds through arrangement, shape, and position. Posidonius instead discusses the individual quality of Dion or Theon that persists through growth and diminution. These claims operate at different explanatory levels.

Places to read

1. I.11.4.1Matter considered in itself lacks determinate qualities.
2. I.16.1.7Compound appearances are explained through arrangements of unqualified elements.
3. I.20.7.3Individual quality persists despite material change.

Translation in this edition

“Quality” does not always mean a readily perceived property. In the last passage it contributes to an account of individual identity.

Use in the book

Philoponus at A41 alleges that the Sphairos produced under Love is qualityless: neither fire’s property nor any other root’s proper character remains. He uses the claim to argue against the system’s consistency. If unchangeable roots lose what distinguishes them, their invariance seems no longer secure. The testimony is important precisely because this is a difficulty raised by a critic, not an uncontested description furnished by a fragment.

A44 contrasts qualitative alteration with quantitative aggregation. In that collective doxographic classification, Empedocles and other compound-building thinkers allow apparent generation and destruction through assembly and separation rather than qualitative transformation of their ultimate constituents. Taken together, the two passages expose the disputed boundary between new qualities of compounds and changes in the constituents themselves. They do not settle it by declaring every perceptible difference unreal.

A32’s description of the Sphairos as uniform is weaker than Philoponus’ explicit qualitylessness. A reader should not use the former as automatic corroboration of the latter, particularly when the roots’ continued identity is the very point under dispute.

Places to read

1. A 41 (polemical)Philoponus, In De generatione et corruptione 19,3 Vitelli. Makes qualitylessness of the Sphairos the premise of an inconsistency argument.
2. A 44 (testimony)Aëtius I 24,2 (D. 320). Distinguishes qualitative alteration from quantitative aggregation in a collective classification.

Translation in this edition

The word ἄποιον is Philoponus’ description. It does not establish that Empedocles expressly denied every property to the Sphairos or that uniformity necessarily meant qualitative extinction.

Use in the book

Ficino expressly defines quality, in Platonic usage, as every form divided in body. This is broader than a casual descriptive adjective, but narrower than form in every sense. Quality explains why bodies with the same underlying matter and dimension have different effects: water cools through coldness and fire heats through heat. It is not itself a body, since several qualities can coexist without bodily obstruction; honey's color, sweetness, and fragrance provide the example. Yet a bodily quality depends upon a material subject and is divided with its extension. It thus holds the grade between soul and body, combining act with receptive potency.

The examples of whiteness emphasize different aspects of this dependence. In I.2.17, the whiteness of each divided piece retains the character of whiteness even though its extent changes. In III.223456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930, Ficino presents the natural philosophers' account in which a greater portion of flesh contains a greater portion of whiteness. These are distinct argumentative perspectives: preservation of a qualitative character through division is not the same claim as undivided spiritual presence throughout a body. Quality is in a sense incorporeal considered in itself but becomes corporeal through reception and division in matter.

The motion vocabulary makes its rank precise. Quality moves another and is moved by another; soul moves itself, while body has no activity through itself. Quality changes in essence and operation, unlike soul's stable substance and changing operations. Its effective action is more fundamental than bodily bulk, but it is not a self-sufficient source. A body's activity can therefore be attributed to quality as proximate instrument and to an incorporeal nature as its sufficient cause without these being rival explanations. In the divine discussion, God cannot receive qualities as accidental determinations in a changing subject. The word consequently neither names a modern rating of excellence nor reduces all formative causation to material properties.

The image of Lethe at I.3.21 makes quality's limited efficacy vivid. Ficino says that as soon as quality is born it is scattered through matter's breadth and depth and plunged, as it were, into the river Lethe. Matter thus overcomes its power before it acts independently; a higher living cause must strengthen and direct it. The river functions as an image of immersion and impaired activity in the argument, not a new physical cause alongside matter and soul.

Retain the prior treatment and sharpen the apparent reversal across I.2–3. Chapter 2 assigns real efficacy to quality against bulk; chapter 3 asks whether quality is sufficient to explain that efficacy. The answer is no because quality is supported by matter and unable to account independently for generation’s stable order. These conclusions are complementary. The part-whiteness distinction also gives a concrete lexical explanation of qualified indivisibility: what remains the same is the character of whiteness, with similar power and action, while extent changes.

Further passage references. I.2.8–I.2.172345678910; I.3.1, I.3.4, I.3.7, I.3.19–I.3.2123; I.4.1; II.11.2–8234567, 19–21; III.1.1–323, 9–10, 16–23; III.2.9–1723456789

I.2.15–1723. Coexisting qualities and the white-body division establish nonidentity with body I.3.1. The terminology is expressly labelled Platonic I.3.7–112345. Real but insufficient quality requires a higher ordering cause

Places to read

1. I.2.8–172345678910Bodily qualities act while depending on and dividing with their subjects.
2. I.3.21The Lethe comparison figures quality’s limitation in matter.
3. II.11.2–8234567Received accidental qualities are excluded from the divine first agent.
4. III.1.9–102Quality combines actuality with reception and bodily division.
5. III.2.10–1223Whiteness in flesh contrasts with soul’s undivided whole presence.

Translation in this edition

At I.2.17 the English preserves “whiteness of a part” versus “part of whiteness”; at III.2.11 it reports the natural philosophers’ proportional partition of whiteness with flesh. These are different argumentative respects, not permission to suppress one passage. Lethe at I.3.21 remains an image of immersion and weakened power.

The word order in “whiteness of a part” versus “part of whiteness” must be retained. “In itself somehow indivisible” in I.2.17 keeps quodammodo and should not be abridged to “absolutely indivisible.”

albedo / caro

albedo / caro. Printed forms: albedo; Albedo; carne; carnis.

Whiteness / flesh. Whiteness distributed proportionately with flesh supplies the natural philosophers’ contrast to soul’s whole presence in every part. References: III.2.10, III.2.11. See Quality.

alii quidam / Peripatetici

alii quidam / Peripatetici. Printed forms: Alii vero quidam; Peripateticos.

Certain other thinkers, and the Peripatetics in a specifically attributed account. Ficino shifts from Plotinus’s account to a distinction allowing quality some action on its own and other matter; the shift must not be flattened into one doctrine. References: I.3.19. See Quality.

calidus / frigidus / siccus / humidus

calidus / frigidus / siccus / humidus. Printed forms: calida; frigida; humida; sicca.

Hot / cold / dry / moist. These elemental qualities alone are said not to account for ordered forms, figures, and revolutions. References: II.13.5. See Quality.

calor / frigus

calor / frigus. Printed forms: calor; caloris; frigiditatem; frigori; frigoris.

Heat and cold as active qualitative differences. They supply examples of efficacy strengthened by concentration; elsewhere cooling and heating distinguish specific actions of different forms. References: I.2.2, I.2.11. See Quality.

Heat and cold, opposed qualities in an example of purity. Supreme heat is imagined free of admixture that would hinder its intensity. References: II.2.6. See Purity and mixture.

materia aliena / propria

materia aliena / propria. Printed forms: materia propria; materiam alienam.

Other matter and one’s own underlying matter. Quantity and quality are compared by whether they act on their own subject, another subject, both or neither; aliena does not mean morally alien. References: I.2.10, I.3.19. See Quality.

propinquo / propinquus

propinquo / propinquus. Printed forms: propinquas; propinquat; propinquius.

To approach; near or closely related, with propinquius meaning nearer. Fire approaches spiritual nature in fineness, while approaching heat makes one warm but approaching a large body does not make one large; the comparison distinguishes causal respects. References: I.2.5, I.2.13. See Quality.

proprietas

proprietas. Printed forms: proprietas; proprietatem; Proprietates.

A characteristic property. Quality retains a feature of indivisible nature, but life cannot be reduced to a bare property of the conflicting bodily constituents. References: I.2.17, I.3.23. See Quality.

Property or characteristic. Properties of substance are known through its idea, whereas common qualities receive their proper ideas. References: II.11.19, II.11.20. See Substance and accident.

qualitas

qualitas. Printed forms: qualitas; qualitate; qualitates; qualitatis.

Quality as an efficacious determination, not merely a favorable evaluation. The reported presence theory ranks quality’s power above dimension, while qualities act without deliberation in II.82345. References: II.6.19, II.8.2. See Quality.

Quality, a form received and divided in body. The whiteness comparison distinguishes quality’s part-by-part distribution from soul’s whole presence. References: III.2.10, III.2.11. See Quality.

qualitas / virtus

qualitas / virtus. Printed forms: qualitate; qualitatem; virtutem.

Quality and effective power. The introductory ascent moves beyond bulk to efficacious quality, then beyond quality’s divided and changing condition to a more independent form. References: I.1.3, I.1.4, I.2.8. See Quality.

rarus / densus

rarus / densus. Printed forms: densa; rara.

Rare or tenuous / dense. The physical contrast belongs to the elementary effects which mixing can produce, distinguished from a whole intelligible arrangement. References: II.13.5. See Quality.

ratio albedinis

ratio albedinis. Printed forms: albedinis ratio.

The character or account of whiteness. The same character remains in each divided piece, with similar power and action; the argument distinguishes that sameness from equal extension. References: I.2.17. See Quality.

urere / frigefacere

urere / frigefacere. Printed forms: frigefacerentque; urerent.

To burn or cool. Isolated elemental qualities have restricted effects; living nature directs them toward varied organic forms. References: IV.1.18. See Quality.

Cynics (authorities and cited works)

Cynics. Paired with Stoics as investigators who reached quality and effective power in Ficino's introductory ascent. I.1.3; I.3.1. See Ascent; Quality.

Democritus and his followers (authorities and cited works)

Democritus and his followers. Assigned to the bodily stopping point in the ascent and associated with explaining bodies' action from bulk. Ficino argues instead for the efficacy of quality and higher causes. I.1.3; I.2.8. See Body and bulk; Quality.

Stoics (authorities and cited works)

Stoics. Paired with Cynics as reaching effective quality and power, a level Ficino argues must be surpassed. I.1.3; I.3.1. See Ascent; Quality.