One and Many: A Comparative Study of Plato's Philosophy and Daoism Represented by Ge Hong

Chapter 5. Two Forms of Enlightenment

91 chapter 5 Two Forms of Enlightenment At the end of the Simile of the Sun, Plato says: “What gives the objects of knowledge their truth and the knower’s mind the power of knowing is the form of the good (508e). . . . The good therefore may be said to be the source not only of the intelligibility of the objects of knowledge, but also of their being and reality; yet it is not itself that reality, but beyond it, and superior to it in dignity and power” (509b). The Good: The Cause of Reality and knowledge The Form of Good has occupied the supreme position within the doctrine of Forms. For Plato Forms are related to the supreme Good, on the one hand, and the Good provides an umbrella over the multiple Forms, on the other. Discussion on Forms and the Good can be found in various dialogues: Symposium (205e–206a), Phaedo (99c), Republic (509b), Phaedrus (245e), Philebus (133, 15a), and Timaeus (29e). The scope of the Good is comprehensive. If Platonic Forms are the objects of knowledge that enable human minds to be connected with ethical universals and arithmetic theorems and geometric pattens, then Plato’s Good is the visionary unity of ethics, mathematics, epistemology, and ontology. If reason follows the road of knowledge and arrives at transcendental Forms, then Plato envisions at the intellectual summit there stands the Good as the grand unity of all ends of philosophical wisdom. Although the idea of the Good occupies a significant position in Plato’s thought, Plato has not presented a systematic theory about it. In fact it is mystical. One could think along lines that attribute new meanings to the Good: it is a creatorlike god comparable with the Jewish-Christian God or a grand unifying theory for all cosmological principles. The concept opens itself to interpretation not simply because of its ambiguity, but because of its visionary unity rooted in Western consciousness. Historically the Platonic Good-itself has been a puzzling and thought-provoking concept for both Neoplatonists and early Christian theologians.1 In recent Platonic studies, many scholars have reinvestigated the concept, which represents one of the main puzzles in Platonism.2 It occupies the central position in 92 textual studies Plato’s Eleatic dialogues, 3 and it is closely associated with the One in the Parmenides.4 With diverse interpretations, scholars frequently return to the key set of texts in the Republic where Plato’s discussion of the Good is spread through the Simile of the Sun and the Divided Line, the Curriculum for educating philosophers, and the Cave. 5 From these passages, the collective understanding of the Good can be brought into focus. The Good is both a vision of wholeness and its harmony. The following study, however, is not designed to summarize recent scholarship. It aims to identity key aspects of the Good to prepare for the comparison of two different forms of the ultimate good in Plato and Ge Hong. The Claims In the passage quoted above, Plato makes three remarkable claims. The Good is (a) “the source” of Forms, (b) “the power of knowing” truth, and (c) “not reality” but “beyond it” on the other side of reality. If the Good is the beginning of ontological realities and the end of ethical and mathematical knowledge, then this ultimate reality itself becomes the alpha of realities and the omega of intellectual enlightenment. Such a supreme oneness, which links reality and knowledge, is comparable with Ge Hong’s concept of One, within which ontology and epistemology come to face to face with each other. For Plato a dialogue with the Good is the intellectual enlightenment transforming a thinker into a true philosopher. The question is how to attain the enlightenment. In the Simile of the Sun, Plato begins by linking the Good to the sun. The sun is the source of light that gives visibility to sensible objects (507c); without light the faculty of sight is unable to see objects. The sun “is not itself sight” but “the cause of vision” (508b). Similarly the Good is the source of intelligibility to thought that gives the enlightening power to the faculty of knowledge (509b); without the Good the mind cannot “be fixed on Forms illuminated by truth” (508d). The sun “causes the processes of generation, growth, and nourishment without itself being such a process” (509b). Likewise, the Good is “not only the source of the intelligibility of Forms, but their being and existence also come from...