“Proclus’ Multi-Level Ontology: The Meaning of Monads vs. A Tale Told by Thomists.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2020
Abstract
Thomists regularly claim that Aquinas 'corrects' Proclus and the Platonists by eliminating intermediary terms between the first principle and sensible particulars, regarding such distinct terms as illegitimately hypostatized universals and instead locating them without distinction in God as 'ipsum esse'. But Platonic ideas and Procline monads are not hypostatized universals, but rather the ontological conditions for universal predication, not univocal with the attributes of particulars. They must be really distinct in order to ground the differences between kinds of things in the world. As such they are prior to particulars and posterior to the first principle, hence, 'intermediate.' They are not a series of mutually univocal
