Commentary on the Beginning of Damascius' De Primis Principiis

37[33] It is essential that this should be added, as the causal relationship isconstitutive of the essence of a cause as such, not a more or less accidental orextrinsic feature of it.[34] We sha ll see that we cannot determinately even say that anythingfollows from it.[35] I do not think that Chaignet ’s rendering “car, tout ce que nousconcevons, soit par intuition, soit par réflexion, etc. » is particularly happy.[36] In the medieval scholastic sense of “intentio”.[37] These conceptions (esp. the higher ones) are not the proper content ofour mind; rather we, operating at the limits of our faculties, get some intimation ofthe corresponding realities, and are thus able to form some sort of not ionsarticulating those intimations.[37a] 275.8 : οὐ μέντοι ἀλλὰ διακαθαίροντες αὐτὰς ( sc. τὰς ἐπιβολὰς ἤἐννοίας) καὶ συναιροῦντες εἰς τὸ δυνατόν etc. 276.9-12: τρίτην δὲ τούτοις ἐπάγομενδιακάθαρσιν ἐννοιῶν, οὐσίαν τε ἐκεῖ καὶ ζωὴν καὶ νοῦν θεωροῦντες οὐχ οὕτω μετὰδιακρίσεως ἐπὶ τῶν ὀνομάτων τούτων ἔχειν δοκεῖ. ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν μίαν τοῦ ἡνωμένουφύσιν, αὐτοῦ πρὸς ἑαυτὸ μόνον προβαλλομένου κατὰ τὴν δοκοῦσαν ὕφεσιν.[38] This is, of course, standard Neoplatonic doctrine. It bears some ratherexternal (contra Chaignet, p. 8 n. 2) similarity to the Stoic doctrine of τί as coveringboth being and non-being, with the crucial difference however that Neoplatonism farfrom identifying being with being a body, considers true being as ἀσώματον. On theother hand it is interesting to take notice of a certain Stoic development recorded byAlexander Aphrodisiensis , in Top icorum, 359, 12 Wallies (Fr. II 329 v. Arnim).There a division seems to be entertained like thisἕν/ \(e.g. ἐννόημα) τι/ \ὄν (σῶμα) ἀσώματονIt would be perhaps interesting to pursue further this subject, especially whenconnected with certain testimony usually left to pass unnoticed or unregarded, forinstance Fr. II 168 and Fr. I 65.