Commentary on the Beginning of Damascius' De Primis Principiis

4Four reasons are, in aporematic fashion, brought against the thesis. Allfollow from the essential nature of παντότης, given an assumption as to the nature ofthe Absolute first principle which D. in fact denies. I have underlined this assumptionin the following formulations.1) Πάντα include everything; for, that from wh ich nothing is out of it, is thetotality of everything subsisting in whichever way , the totality of all subsistence ἁπλῶς. But if the principle was beyond πάντων, since it is something subsisting insome way, then the πάντα would miss it, and therefore th ey would no longer beπάντα, contrary to the hypothesis. Hence the Abs olutely F irst Principle cannot bebeyond τῶν πάντων.2) Two moments are included in the nature of πάντα; two realities arepresupposed by the reality of πάντα; in still other words to th e same effect, in orderfor πάντα to be at all, to subsist at all, there must previously be present as asubsistent reality and therefore metaphysically available two other characters: theseare the πολλότης and the πέρας. For πάντα is nothing but πολλὰ πεπερασμένα [5],πολλὰ who have been limited so that to give, as it were, a well-rounded(subParmenidean) whole. The many, indefinite in themselves, are limited by a πέρας,and thus become all that subsists as reality, the sum total of reality. And so it isessentially involved in παντότης that it is a kind of ὅρος, of limit, and a certainπερίληψις (a certain “containing”); hence that which it applies to must be inclusive ofits limits, both lower (i.e. that which is farthest removed from the principle), andhigher. But the higher limit of a totality is the principle from which it stems. But thisprinciple is the absolutely primal principle; therefore the Absolutely FirstPrinciple cannot but be included in the totality whose first item, the beginning [6], i tis.3) There is a certain co-ordination not only in the orderly system produced bya principle or cause [7] (and every field in which the operation of one principle takesplace must eo ipso exhibit a certain order), but also between the very principle an dthe causatum. For something of the nature of πρός τι pertains to a principle, a causeor a first ( τὸ πρῶτον), in so far as for something to be a cause it must causesomething else and must bear the essential reference to that which it causes; andsimilarly for the principle and the first. Now wherever there is co-ordination, thereπάντα are to be found, as including all the co-ordinated items. But the Primal