From the book
Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume II
Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordAn efficient cause is a producer of being or action; a formal cause supplies the determining principle by which a thing is what it is.
- In the Platonic TheologyThe language of intellectual renewal raises a question about causal scope.
- In this editionSed hoc ipse viderit is preserved as “But let him see to that himself.”
- A place to readThe Proclean claim is reported with an explicit reservation, followed by the from/through/upon-itself argument.
Meaning
An efficient cause is a producer of being or action; a formal cause supplies the determining principle by which a thing is what it is. Ficino explicitly permits mind to be its own cause only in the formal sense in VIII.15.3. “From itself,” “upon itself” and “through itself” describe different relations within an operation.
Use in the book
The language of intellectual renewal raises a question about causal scope. Mind forms and perfects itself by understanding and willing, conceiving accounts of itself and other things. Unlike natural generation, which preserves a kind through successive offspring, this intellectual generation keeps its products within the individual parent. Ficino also argues from being well to being: if intellect can provide the greater good of its own perfection through contemplation and conduct, it should sustain its being in the relevant respect. The text already restricts this inference with secundum formam, according to form. It does not infer original creation simply from the ability to improve oneself.
A stronger proposal is then reported from Proclus. Soul, as a principle of generation, is said to beget and vivify itself so as to have essence from itself; more generally, every indivisible substance existing in its own essence is said to produce and contain itself. Divisible substances, including heaven, instead require production and containment from elsewhere. Ficino says he passes over the claim and leaves Proclus to it. This is a substantive reservation. It is not a detailed refutation of Proclus, but neither does it permit the reported doctrine to be inserted as Ficino's unqualified conclusion.
Ficino next considers the actual relations within self-operation. Intellect knows and loves its own operation, and through it its power and substance. The act is upon itself and through itself, with no bodily medium inserted between the intellect and the intellect. He also argues that acting upon itself shows acting from itself: source and terminus are both within the intellectual subject, and therefore so is the relevant medium. Ex se, in se and per se name different relations of one operation, not three spatial parts. The resulting question is whether a power whose operation is fulfilled inwardly can act and live apart from body.
VIII.15.3 clarifies the proof through origin and end. Since mind's operation terminates within mind, mind is in a certain manner its own operation's end. Beings seek their source as end; mind is therefore also the operation's principle. From self-operation Ficino passes to life, described as inward operation, and then to being, because life is the first act of existence. The sequence “as it operates, so it lives; as it lives, so it is” attempts to move from the character of an actual inward activity toward the mode of life and being that supports it. It is not an argument from a merely verbal self-reference.
At the point where he calls mind its own cause, Ficino supplies the controlling correction: not an efficient cause, but a formal cause, by whose power being is bestowed and preserved. The determining principle sustains the subject's formal integrity; the subject does not first efficiently manufacture itself out of nonbeing. Both this explicit exclusion and the earlier secundum formam must accompany a faithful explanation of the apparently unrestricted language of self-making. No chronology in which a nonexistent soul creates its own existence is asserted.
The relation to the First Cause becomes explicit in VIII.16.4. Ficino corrects the suggestion that mind possesses its limitless power solely by itself: more truly, it receives a divine enlargement. God's absolute infinity implants and continually preserves intellectual and vital infinity in dependent minds and souls. Mind's inward presence to its own perfection and its dependence on a higher source therefore answer different causal questions. Formal self-maintenance explains how the intellectual subject retains and perfects its nature; efficient first causality concerns the source from which that dependent subject and capacity arise. Book VIII's argument cannot be reduced either to wholly external bodily support or to an independently self-created human mind.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Sed hoc ipse viderit is preserved as “But let him see to that himself.” It is not full agreement. Causa, inquam, non efficiens, sed formalis supplies the controlling correction; removing it would materially misrepresent the passage. This distinction should accompany any isolated quotation of sui ipsius est causa.
bene esse / simpliciter esse
bene esse / simpliciter esse. Printed forms: bene esse; simpliciter esse.
Being well and simply being, a distinction in degrees of perfection. Ficino reasons that a mind able to confer the higher good of formal self-perfection should also sustain its being in the relevant formal respect. References: VIII.15.2. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
causa
causa. Printed forms: causa; Causa; causarum; causis.
An explanatory source, whose specific kind must be identified rather than assumed. The divine exemplar causes common nature; mind's alleged self-causation is expressly formal, not efficient. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.3.7, VIII.12.1, VIII.15.3. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
causa non efficiens sed formalis
causa non efficiens sed formalis. Printed forms: causa; Causa; non efficiens; sed formalis.
Formal rather than efficient cause, the express limit of mind's self-causation. The clause governs the immediately preceding claim that mind is its own cause; it does not confer divine first causality on created intellect. References: VIII.15.3. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
dicere / loqui / vocare
dicere / loqui / vocare. Printed forms: dicam; dicitur; dictu; dixerit; Dixerit; diximus; loquar; vocant; vocantur; vocatur; Vocatur.
Saying, speaking and naming, whose speaker and qualification determine the assertion's force. The text can report an opponent, refine a technical name, invoke an authority or qualify a metaphor. These speech acts should not all be treated as direct endorsements. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.3.1, VIII.3.8, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.4, VIII.4.5, VIII.4.8, VIII.4.10, VIII.4.13, VIII.5.1, VIII.5.2, VIII.6.1, VIII.8.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.1, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.3, VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
efficere / producere / generare
efficere / producere / generare. Printed forms: efficiatur; efficit; efficitur; efficiunt; generant; generat; procreat; produci; producit.
Bringing about, producing or generating, whose kind of causality must be determined. Natural offspring, conceptual products and formal self-preservation are not interchangeable with efficient creation of one's own essence. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.2.1, VIII.2.4, VIII.2.8, VIII.4.2, VIII.4.5, VIII.10.1, VIII.10.2, VIII.13.1, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.16.1. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
ex se / in se / per se
ex se / in se / per se. Printed forms: ex se; in se; per se; Per se; per se ipsum.
From itself, upon or within itself, and through itself: distinct relations of an inward act. Source, terminus and medium are all within intellectual self-operation; that is not the same as being efficiently uncaused. References: VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
existentia
existentia. Printed forms: existentiae; existentiam.
Existence or subsistence, the fact or mode of being rather than merely the defining account. At V.4.9 matter is said not to require an aggregate of determinate parts for its existence because it is naturally prior to quantitative dimensions. The noun is related in meaning to esse, but existentiam is not an inflection of the verb esse. References: V.4.9. See Essence and being.
Existence or the state of being; existentiae means of existence. Vita est primus existentiae actus calls life the first act of existence. The ensuing self-cause is explicitly formal, not efficient. References: VIII.15.3. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
facere / fieri
facere / fieri. Printed forms: facere; facit; factae; Factae; fiat; Fit; fit.
Making and becoming, active and passive descriptions that must not be interchanged. Mind produces forms and grows in perfection; the report of efficient self-production is expressly distinguished from Ficino's formal self-causation. References: VIII.1.3, VIII.3.8, VIII.15.2. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
inserere / servare / revocare
inserere / servare / revocare. Printed forms: inserit; pendentibus; revocat; servatque.
Implanting, preserving, recalling and depending upon a source. God's continuing action supplies qualified infinity to dependent minds and souls; their formal self-preservation does not abolish higher causality. References: VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
mens
mens. Printed forms: mens; Mens; mente; mentem; mentes; menti; mentibus; mentis; mentium.
Mind, especially the cognitive power directed to intelligible reality. Mind can inspect a soul obscured by bodily habit, or attend inwardly to its substance; its operations need not be constantly actual. References: VI.2.2, VI.2.12, VI.2.16, VI.12.12. See Intellectual objects and the owl’s eye.
Mind considered as an intellectual subject, power or nature. Its reception, comparison, inward operation and divinely enlarged range are distinguished from bodily extension; it is not identified with the First Cause. References: VIII.6.1, VIII.7.1, VIII.9.1, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
mitto / ipse viderit
mitto / ipse viderit. Printed forms: Mitto; Sed hoc ipse viderit.
I pass over it; let him see to that himself: explicit distancing formulas. They qualify the Proclean claim that soul produces its own essence and prevent the report from becoming Ficino's unreserved assertion. References: VIII.15.2. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
operatio / actio
operatio / actio. Printed forms: actio; actionem; actionis; operatio; Operatio; operatione; operationem; operationis.
An activity whose origin, mode and terminus reveal the nature of its agent. Bodily operation passes to external matter; understanding can terminate within the mind and support a distinct claim about its formal preservation. References: VIII.7.1, VIII.10.1, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.1, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
opinio / sententia
opinio / sententia. Printed forms: opinantur; putant; sententia; sententiam.
A stated teaching, position or opinion with an identifiable source or speaker. Platonist, Peripatetic, Epicurean and Proclean claims are not all adopted with equal force; attribution and reservation remain part of their meaning. References: VIII.1.1, VIII.4.1, VIII.4.5, VIII.5.2, VIII.10.2, VIII.13.1, VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
Plotinus / Proclus
Plotinus / Proclus. Printed forms: Plotini; Plotinus; Proculus; Proculusque.
Named Platonist authorities whose claims receive different local qualifications. Analysis of being is tentatively attributed to them; the later Proclean self-generation claim is expressly left at a distance. References: VIII.4.12, VIII.5.2, VIII.15.2. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
principium / finis
principium / finis. Printed forms: fine; finem; finis; principia; principiis; Principio; principio; principium.
Beginning or principle and end, with temporal scope in the soul's duration alternative. Ficino allows either no beginning and no end or a beginning without an end; the proof does not require preexistence. References: V.13.17. See Creation and generation.
Source or principle, and end or goal; priority and return connect them without making them spatial pieces. Mind is its operation's source and end; divine infinity recalls dependent minds from an infinite principle toward an infinite end. References: VIII.2.7, VIII.4.12, VIII.14.1, VIII.15.3, VIII.16.1, VIII.16.4. See Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause.
Proclus (authorities and interlocutors)
Proclus. Ficino reports Proclus in several settings, including angelic soul-production, the dispute over irrational immortality and a tentative analysis of being. VIII.15.2 explicitly leaves the stronger thesis of essential self-production to Proclus; VIII.15.3 retains formal self-causation rather than efficient self-creation. References: V.13.1, V.14.8, VIII.4.12, VIII.15.2, VIII.15.3. See Divine production and the third essence; Platonist disagreement and descent; Analysis, mangling, and fictive construction; Self-causation: formal cause and efficient cause; First Cause, principal causes and causal dependence.