Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (review)

The late Michael Frede once drew a distinction between the study of the history of philosophy in its own right and “a philosophically oriented study of the history of philosophy.” The key difference was that the study of the history of philosophy in its own right had to be aware of the historical context of the views it studied, both in a narrower and in a broader context, which broader context might very well have little to do with philosophy as such. A careful consideration of the contextual and oftentimes non-philosophical reasons given for a philosophical position was necessary in order to get past any “doxographical substitute” for a philosopher’s position—a position and chain of reasoning that might be assigned to a philosopher because of one’s own philosophical interests—to get to the true position of that philosopher, e.g., Aristotle on the question of the agent intellect.

Eric Perl, in his introduction to this study of Dionysius the Areopagite, positions himself strongly in the tradition of what Frede would have called doxographical or philosophically oriented history of philosophy. Thus, he would differ with Frede on the question of what is most important in exploring the positions of an author or thinker. Perl presents a study of Dionysius (which is also to some extent a study of Plotinus and Proclus) as philosophy, a study “which demands more than an explanation of what the philosopher says and of the sources from which he derives his doctrines.” Most of all, what is required will be “an account of the argumentation, the sequence of reasoning that supports and leads to his positions. Only by understanding this argumentation can we truly grasp the meaning of the positions themselves” (1). Here, it is assumed, one can derive the positions of a thinker and the argumentation given from the texts of that author, if not with ease, then at least with sufficient study. This is merely a first step, however; thereafter comes the more difficult task of grasping the meaning of the author’s words, the meaning of the author’s positions and principles. This task can only be accomplished if one understands thoroughly the author’s chain of reasoning.

Such a study of Dionysius—which is, as Perl notes, “particularly difficult to achieve because [Dionysius] notoriously eschews argumentation in favor of proclamatory exposition” (1)—Perl accomplishes quite ably, thereby rendering two immediate benefits for the reader. First and foremost, he does for Dionysius what has already been attempted for Meister Eckhart, namely, rescuing him from among the mystics (to paraphrase Kurt Flasch). That is to say, in the thought of Dionysius, Perl finds a process of thinking that is not fundamentally affective, without principle, vague or unclear, but one that is eminently rational, that is, philosophical, driven by and grounded in rational principles, even while it makes room for that which is beyond being and therefore beyond all intellect and reason (6). Even the notion of a Good beyond being is the result of a chain of reasoning that begins from the notion that “to be is to be intelligible.” Thus, for Perl, the God of Dionysius is nameless and beyond being, in short, transcendent, “not in a vague, unspecified sense, but in the very precise metaphysical sense that he is not at all included within the whole of reality, of the things that are, as any member of it. If he has no ‘name’, this is because he is not anything at all” (13).

This exploration of the thought of Dionysius has the added benefit of clarifying the thought of Plotinus and Proclus as well, illustrating their positions and laying bare their arguments and principles. Such a treatment, it is hoped, will have the effect on readers of removing any sense they might have had that Neoplatonism, as found in Plotinus or Proclus, was more of a religion or a set of beliefs that, at its core, lacked a coherent and well...