Another footnote: it's worth noting that most Neoplatonic authors lump the first two worlds I mentioned (matter and imagination) together into a single world (the "natural," which is subject to time—even if immortality exists in it, the immortal things are immortal because they live forever, not because that are atemporal, like souls are). I separate them because I think it's important to note how one ascends the chain: by developing the capacity of the next level up.
Hence Porphyry calls the virtues of the material world, the "civic virtues;" the virtues of the imaginative world, the "purificatory virtues;" the virtues of the psychic world, the "contemplative virtues;" and the virtues of the Spirit itself the "paradigmatic virtues" (as it is the pattern for all others). (Goodness doesn't have virtue since it doesn't have distinctions at all.)
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Date: 2024-06-17 06:10 pm (UTC)Hence Porphyry calls the virtues of the material world, the "civic virtues;" the virtues of the imaginative world, the "purificatory virtues;" the virtues of the psychic world, the "contemplative virtues;" and the virtues of the Spirit itself the "paradigmatic virtues" (as it is the pattern for all others). (Goodness doesn't have virtue since it doesn't have distinctions at all.)