Radical Apophasis. Todd Ohara
to do all of the above is not to deny that it is primarily an interpretation of Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius. At the outset it should be said that this book is not in the strict sense a historical study. Ohara does not track down Plotinus’s Platonic, Middle Platonic, and Stoic sources as might be the case with a scholar such as John Rist. Nor does he track down the philosophical sources of Pseudo-Dionysius as Stephen Gersh does so incomparably, nor the theological (Syrian) sources as Alexander Golitzin does so well. His is primarily a conceptual treatment, even when he attempts to define the relation between a later (Pseudo-Dionysius) and an earlier (Proclus) thinker. Convinced with regard to their massive influence, and persuaded that they still have something to say to contemporary philosophers and theologians caught up with the issue of naming the ultimate, Ohara wishes to lay bare the “internal logic” of both, or what I have referred to already as “grammar.” Now if the method adopted might in general be called conceptual analysis, I would want to record that the analytic mode falls within that of ordinary language. In my view Ohara operates with as pleasing an analytic philosophical style as can be imagined, and shows what can be delivered when used with subtlety. The method does not bring attention to itself; there is nothing in it that smacks of mere cleverness.
A constitutive part of the excellence of the writing, and perhaps its condition, is its interpretive finesse. By this I mean no more—but also no less—than that Ohara never draws conclusions that do not follow in an obvious way from detailed analyses of the passages cited. Moreover, Ohara never gerrymanders the evidence; he always submits to our attentions passages that seem to go in the opposite direction to his interpretive judgment. Sometimes he shows that read aright the passages are not inconsistent with each other, and indeed favor the kind of interpretation he is offering. Sometimes, however, the passages draw attention to tensions in Plotinus’s and Pseudo-Dionysius’s thought that appear to be structural rather than accidental. The enactment of scholarly humility pays off big time; since having taken oneself out of the equation means that not only are the conclusions more nuanced, but their validity far more evident.
The achievements of the first part of the book, devoted to Plotinus, are considerable. In a series of probes, and especially in its treatment of negation (apophasis) and denial (aphairesis), over the course of three chapters Ohara unearths the fully radical nature of Plotinus’s position in the Enneads. The ground of all subsequent reality, immaterial or material, the so-called “One” or “Good” is strictly speaking unnamable, since the ordinary meaning of these terms cannot be applied to the reality that is referred to. The analytic pair that gives Ohara most interpretive traction throughout his sober but always luminous analyses is that of “non-reciprocal likeness” and “non-reciprocal relation.” Ohara suggests that the first concept is sufficient for characterizing the relative inadequacy of all language with respect to the ultimate, since likeness is at the very least seriously qualified by unlikeness. Thus, if not to the same extent, and certainly not in the same way, inadequacy marks negations and denials as well as affirmations. “Non-reciprocal relation,” he contends, represents a step that Plotinus does not consistently take throughout the Enneads, but one sufficiently in play to regard as typical of his position. Essentially what this means is that the relation between the ultimate reality, which finds linguistic placeholders in the “One” and the “Good,” and everything else is notional rather than real. The “One” or “Good” can be conceived as defined in no way by the relation to what is ontologically subsequent to it. Ohara does nothing less than isolate and name the conceptual production of an asymmetrical relation that gets insinuated deeply into Western philosophy and theology and which is echoed, for example, by Aquinas in the Summa when he talks of the created world having a real relation to God, but God not having a real relation to the world (Prima Pars Q13; article 7). Although it is not his explicit aim, Ohara helps to contextualize and thereby demystify what Aquinas is saying and why he is saying it. For were ultimate reality to bear a positive relation to that which is subsequent (consequent), then both its transcendence and simplicity would come to be threatened with a kind of compromise that Plotinus finds invidious.
It is important to Ohara, however, that we recognize that “non-reciprocal relation” is Plotinus’s particular, even peculiar, position and that it should by no means be identified as the classical Neoplatonic position tout court. For instance, while Ohara does not go into much detail concerning Proclus’s metaphysical scheme, in part 2 in his discussion of Pseudo-Dionysius he makes it clear that the triad of procession, remaining, and reversion qualifies divine simplicity in a significant way, and forbids Proclus from pulling the rug from under participation in the way Plotinus does. And it is precisely pulling the rug from underneath participation that defines the “internal logic” or grammar of Plotinian apophasis. Now, it should be noted Ohara does not reduce Plotinus to the aporetics of language regarding the ultimate—although this is constitutive. He both understands and appreciates what might be called the anagogic function of language, especially negative language in Plotinus, which is to unite the seeking mind with the One, which—however contradictorily—is a reality that forbids participation. Ohara by no means denies, therefore, that the Enneads articulates a form of mysticism. He simply wants to affirm that this particular form of mysticism, which both continues and develops the prior Platonic traditions of discourse and proves so generative throughout Western history, is connected with a rich and determinate metaphysics and semantics.
The four chapters on Pseudo-Dionysius, which make up part 2, represent a similar level of achievement. Although Ohara’s choice of Pseudo-Dionysius is in part motivated by the mystical theologian’s prominence in postmodern appropriations of classical negative theology, the warrant for the kind of meticulous examination undertaken is provided by such important questions as whether the relatively greater adequacy of negation and denial over affirmation is underwritten by the same or similar metaphysical commitments as evinced in Plotinus and whether the express theological commitments, influenced by—if not dictated by—the biblical text essentially ameliorate the radicalism of Plotinus’s version of Neoplatonism. To make a long story short, Ohara answers yes to both questions. Under the influence of the Plotinian scheme Pseudo-Dionysius’s commitment to divine transcendence is accompanied by an allergy with respect to any differentiation at the level of ultimate reality (the divine thearchy) because of its implication of multiplicity. This has the effect—Pseudo-Dionysius’s declaration to the contrary notwithstanding—of introducing a metaphysical distinction between the divine Godhead considered as One and the Godhead considered as Triune. All the better for being a somewhat reluctant conclusion, in a brilliant analysis Ohara makes a contribution to the study of Christian Neoplatonism by disturbing the reigning orthodoxy. The conventional view, propagated by such eminent scholars as Andrew Louth and Bernard McGinn, is that Pseudo-Dionysius is a perfectly orthodox Christian who is given to paradox and hyperbolic language that sometimes results in confusion. Ohara reveals convincingly the tendency in such interpretation to suggest that Pseudo-Dionysius has successfully domesticated the metaphysical scheme on which he hangs his Christian hat. Without arguing the contrary, Ohara shows himself more inclined to side with Pseudo-Dionysius’s orthodox critics, for example, Hans Urs von Balthasar on the Catholic side and Vladimir Lossky on the Eastern Orthodox side, who judge that there are times when Pseudo-Dionysius’s philosophical commitments run interference with the theological commitments which he takes up from the Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzen, and Basil. For example, the metaphysical commitments to unity and simplicity put under pressure the specifically Christian commitment to the triune God as ultimate. At the same time, and in a balancing move, Ohara also shows that Pseudo-Dionysius resists Plotinus. For Pseudo-Dionysius, the “Good,” which is interdefinable with “Love,” shows a shift in the meaning of procession and participation relative to what one finds in Plotinus. Specifically, procession is no longer regarded as external to the “Good” in quite the same way it is in Plotinus, nor is participation regarded as quite so equivocal.
Ohara judges that the alteration in metaphysical posture, which sees the ultimate more as superdeterminate than indeterminate, is due in quite definite respects to Pseudo-Dionysius’s Christianity. At the same time he does not deny that this modification has been prepared at least in part by the system of Proclus, which emends that of Plotinus in crucial ways. This is the topic of chapter 5 (and the appendix). Ohara does not attempt to do the kind of historical-philological work of Gersh when it comes to adjudicating the influence of Proclus on Pseudo-Dionysius.