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The person who has found him is unable to tell this to others as he has seen it, for the discovery is not made by the soul who makes a statement, but… - Proclus
" "The person who has found him is unable to tell this to others as he has seen it, for the discovery is not made by the soul who makes a statement, but by the soul who is initiated in and lies outstretched towards the divine light, not moving with its own movement, but keeping its own silence as it were. For if it is by nature not able to grasp the essential nature of other realities either by name or by a defining proposition or by scientific knowledge, but by intuitive thought (noêsis) alone, as he himself says in the Letters, how could it discover the essential nature of the Demiurge in any other way than intuitively (noerôs)? How could the soul, having found him in this way, be able to report what it had seen by means of nouns and verbs and convey this to others? After all, because discursive thought proceeds through combination, it is unable to express the nature that is unified and simple. ... If discovery takes place by the soul who keeps silent, how could the flow of language through the mouth be sufficient to bring to light the essential nature of what has been discovered?
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About Proclus
Lycaeus (8 February 412 – 17 April 485 AD), called the Successor, was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher. As one of the last major classical philosophers, he set forth an elaborate and fully developed system of Neoplatonism, which had a profound influence upon Western medieval philosophy. His commentary on the first book of Euclid's Elements is one of the most valuable sources we have for the history of ancient mathematics, and its Platonic account of the status of mathematical objects was also influential.
Also Known As
Native Name:
Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος
Alternative Names:
Proclus Lycaeus
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Additional quotes by Proclus
A transition, therefore, is not undeservedly made from sense to consideration, and from this to the nobler energies of intellect. Hence, as the certain knowledge of numbers received its origin among the Phœnicians, on account of merchandise and commerce, so geometry was found out among the Egyptians from the distribution of land. When Thales, therefore, first went into Egypt, he transferred this knowledge from thence into Greece: and he invented many things himself, and communicated to his successors the principles of many. Some of which were, indeed, more universal, but others extended to sensibles.
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But after these, Pythagoras changed that philosophy, which is conversant about geometry itself, into the form of a liberal doctrine, considering its principles in a more exalted manner; and investigating its theorems immaterially and intellectually; who likewise invented a treatise of such things as cannot be explained in geometry, and discovered the constitution of the mundane figures.
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