Proclus on Dæmons

[sdi]

Have I got a treat for you today!

The whole reason I got into studying philosophy in the first place is that I came across the phenomenon of Socrates' dæmon, the spiritual being (nowadays called a "guardian angel") which guided and protected him. This is because I experience the same phenomenon and I wanted to deepen my understanding of it.

My own angel directed me to Plotinus, who gives a very elegant metaphysical model and even wrote about his own dæmon. This was very helpful to me, but left a fairly big gap between the model and my own lived experience. This is because Plotinus' model is so simple and general, which is why, in fact, that it's so useful: the model is designed to make provable statements about the metaphysical world, and it does so very well, but it doesn't really work it's way down to specifics. (And, of course, my own experiences are necessarily specific!)

So I've been pondering and researching in order to bridge that gap, and last week I stumbled upon a solution—naturally, buried in a 10-page-long footnote in some book or other of Thomas Taylor's! Proclus, in his commentary on Plato's First Alcibiades, has a lengthy digression on dæmons generally and on Socrates' dæmon in particular, which is rooted in Plotinus' metaphysics, answers all of my questions, and does not conflict with my own lived experience.

I have transcribed it for anyone else who is interested. As always, it is in the public domain and you can find the PDF in US Letter and A4 paper sizes.

Comments

[boccaderlupo]

Appreciate you sharing your research! A fascinating find...thank you!

An aside: I love the font that you use on these. Beautiful and easy on the eyes.

Axé!

[sdi]

You're welcome!

The font is EB Garamond; a high-quality, open-source version of the famous French Renaissance typeface. I think it suits these texts very nicely!

[tunesmyth]

I just wanted to shared that I was very amused to see this. As it happens, I made a brief attempt to read Plato from top to bottom using Taylor's translations at a very poor time in my life to try such a thing. I barely got past the introduction to his translation of "Alcibiades"-- but unless I'm very mistaken, that "10-page-long footnote in some book or other of Thomas Taylor's" happens to be part of the very small bit of Taylor's writings that I've ever sat and read!

I myself have never experienced my own Dæmon in any overt way... unless you count coincidences like this one, which I think is very likely to have been them waving hello! :-)

(As well as a way of telling me that I ought to try reading Plato one more time...)

[sdi]

Ha! My goodness, this particular footnote wouldn't have made the slightest lick of sense to me without the better part of Plotinus under my belt. Thomas Taylor, bless him, demanded as much erudition of others as he did of himself!

I will say that Plato held that synchronicities were indeed due to the intervention of one's dæmon, so yes, I think you're on safe ground positing yours waving hello :)