Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ Negative Theologies: Comparative

Analysis and Contemporary Interpretation1

Pao-Shen Ho

I. Introduction

According to the received opinion of historians of philosophy,2 Plotinus and Pseu-

do-Dionysius the Areopagite (henceforth Dionysius) are both influenced by Platonism;
for both, the First Principle is beyond all beings and ineffable;3 last not least, henosis,
namely mystical unification with the First Principle, is the ultimate concern of both of
their negative theologies. So, despite the platitude that Plotinus’ One is non-theistic
and non-personal whereas Dionysius’ God belongs in the Christian tradition, it seems
that there are certain similarities between Plotinus and Dionysius. Recently, Eric Perl
attempts to consolidate this impression in his study of Dionysius. He suggests that
“Dionysius adopts his doctrine of God as ‘nameless,’ ‘unknowable,’ and ‘beyond be-
ing’ from the Neoplatonic tradition established by Plotinus, and his thought can be
understood only in that context.”4 In particular, he compares Dionysius’ negative the-

1
Penultimate draft, forthcoming in Journal of Sino-Christian Studies. Please refer to the published
version for citation.

2
cf. Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition: From Plato to Denys (2nd edi-
tion) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 156-173; Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysti-
cism, (New York: Crossroad, 1991), 166-170; Cristina D’Ancona Costa, “Plotinus and Later Platonic
Philosophers on the Causality of the First Principle,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed.
Lloyd P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 356-385; Sarah Klitenic Wear and
John Dillon, Dionysius and the Neoplatonic Tradition: Despoiling the Hellenes (Aldershot: Ashgate,
2007), 15-18, 121-129; Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism (Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008), 199-203; Werner
Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen, (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Kostermann, 1985), 12-14, 64-65, 108
n.92, 140-154.

3
When Plotinus’ One and Dionysius’ God are mentioned in the same context, I shall use the tech-
nical term the First Principle to refer to those general features which Plotinus’ One and Dionysius’ God
have in common, such as transcendence, ineffability, being the cause of all beings, being the “object”
of mystical unification, etc.

4
Eric D. Perl, Theophany: The Neoplatonic Philosophy of Dionysius the Areopagite (Albany: State
1
ology which aims at the “cessation of every intellectual activity”5 to Plotinus’ “si-
lence of the mind [which rises] above thought altogether.”6 Last not least, for Plotinus
and Dionysius, henosis is understood as the mystical knowledge that what is beyond
all beings cannot be known in terms of any being.7 Thus, negative theology and
henosis are correlated to each other like the act of knowing and its actualized
knowledge are: the former is what the mystic does, and the latter is what is thereby
achieved.

The comparative analysis in Section II of this article attempts to show that, pace
the received opinion and Perl’s arguments, there are noteworthy differences between
Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies. Above all, it is argued that Plotinus and
Dionysius understand the function of negative theology and the very idea of henosis in
quite different ways. Since the differences to be analyzed are conceptual, I will focus
on extracting basic theses and arguments from key passages of their main writings,
and set aside historical issues and comprehensive exegeses.

While Section II studies the respective features of Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ nega-
tive theologies, Section III takes a further step and explains these features in the light
of contemporary analytic epistemology. Most commentators and analytic philosophers
have remained silent on Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies, presumably be-
cause the obscure notions contained therein, such as mysticism and ineffability, defy
rational and sensible explanations. Section III sidesteps this difficulty because it has
no ambition to rationalize such obscurities. Instead, it draws solely on the features
studied in Section II in order to clarify their critical relevance to the epistemology of
religious belief. In addition, my interpretation is only intended to outline a “Plotinian”
and a “Dionysian” approach to the epistemology of religion; how far these approaches
can take us is a more intricate question and cannot be discussed here.

University of New York Press, 2007), 13.

5
Ibid., 14.

6
Ibid., 12.

7
Ibid., 104-108.

2
 II. Comparative Analysis

Dionysius presents his negative theology mainly in The Mystical Theology (MT); Plo-
tinus’ discussion, by contrast, is scattered throughout passages in the six volumes of
the Enneads (E).8 Besides, as will be shown, Dionysius’ negative theology is more
straightforward than Plotinus’ complicated version. For these reasons, it will be easier
to highlight their respective features if we start with Dionysius and then move on to
Plotinus. Thus, I shall outline Dionysius’ and Plotinus’ negative theology in turn in the
first two sections, and sum up the basic differences between them in the third section.

A. Dionysius’ Negative Theology

My analysis of Dionysius’ negative theology is based on two short passages from The
Mystical Theology, where he explains the notion of unknowing (ἀγνωσία). According
to the first passage,

[…] with your understanding laid aside (ἀγνώστως), [you have] to strive upward as
much as you can toward henosis with Him who is beyond all beings and knowledge.9

It is by unknowing or “laying aside the understanding” (ἀγνώστως) that man attains

henosis. Here Dionysius understands unknowing neither as the state of ignorance nor
as the absence of knowledge, but rather as the method of putting to rest the cognitive
activity. But why does it lead to henosis? As Dionysius explains in the second pas-
sage:

What has actually to be said about the Cause of all beings is this. Since it is the Cause of
all beings, we should posit and ascribe to it all the affirmations we make in regard to be-
ings. But more appropriately, we should negate all these affirmations, since it surpasses

8
References of Dionysius’ writings are to B. R. Suchla, G. Heil and A. M. Ritter, eds., Corpus
Dionysiacum (Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter), 1990-1991; translations are quoted from
Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem, trans., Dionysius: the Complete Works (New York: Paulist Press),
1987. References of the Enneads are to Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, eds., Plotini Opera,
vol.1-3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1964-1982; translations are quoted from A. H. Armstrong,
trans., Plotinus, vol.1-7 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press), 1966-1988. I modify the translations
when necessary so as to make them more literal and precise. All modifications of the translation will be
noted.

9
MT, 1000A, translation modified.

3
 all beings. But we should suppose not that the negations are simply the opposites of the
affirmations, but rather that (οἴεσθαι… ἀλλὰ) the cause of all is considerably prior to
(πρότερον) this, beyond (ὑπὲρ) privations, beyond every denial, beyond every assertion.10

Dionysius distinguishes in ascending order three ways of knowing God as the Cause
of all beings. On the first way of affirmation, we ascribe to God the attributes of be-
ings, insofar as He is understood in terms of the beings of which He is the Cause. The
discussions in Dionysius’ The Divine Names proceed mainly on this approach. How-
ever, since the Cause of all beings is itself not a being, we should take on the second
way of negation and deny that the attributes of beings apply to Him exactly. But note
that the cause of all beings is not the opposition or privation of beings, either, but ra-
ther “prior to” (πρότερον) and “beyond” (ὑπὲρ) them. To that extent, we shall no
longer know God either by affirmation or by negation, but rather by the third way of
unknowing which transcends both affirmation and negation. However, note that Dio-
nysius explains the way of unknowing in a radically negative manner: unknowing is
neither affirmation nor negation, but no explanation is given as to just what it is sub-
stantially or positively.

Although Dionysius is addressing a central issue in Christian theology, the pre-

supposition of his account is a philosophical one with long-standing tradition. Ac-
cording to Perl,

Neoplatonic and Dionysian ‘negative theology’ and ‘mysticism’ is [sic] an aspect of ra-
tional metaphysics […] in the Greek philosophical tradition that Dionysius draws on and
continues. The foundational principle of Neoplatonic thought is the doctrine that to be is
to be intelligible. The identification of being […] as that which can be apprehended by
intellection is the basis not only for the Platonic and Neoplatonic identification of being
as form or idea […] but also for the Neoplatonic insistence that the One or Good, the
source of reality, is itself “beyond being”.11

The philosophical tradition to which Perl refers can be traced back to Parmenides,
who is arguably the first Western philosopher to claaim that thinking and its object are
one and the same:

10
MT, 1000B, translation modified.

11
Perl, Theophany, 5, my italics.

4
 The thing that can be thought and that for the sake of which the thought exists is
the same; for you cannot find thought without something that is, to which it is ut-
tered (πεφατισμένον).12

In the following quotation from Phaedrus, Plato proposes a thesis that is somewhat
similar to Parmenides’: real being is intelligible.

What is in this [intelligible] place is without color and without shape and without
solidity, a being that really is what it is, the subject of all true knowledge, visible
only to intelligence, the soul’s steersman.13

As Perl indicates, both Parmenides and Plato endorse the doctrine that to be is to be
intelligible.14 Dionysius takes up this doctrine and gives it a new twist by applying it
to the Cause of all beings which is beyond them:

And if all knowledge is of that which is and is limited to the realm of the existent,
then whatever transcends being must also transcends knowledge.15

The intellect is correlated to the intelligible beings as its proper object. From this
claim Dionysius derives the fundamental thesis of his negative theology: that which is
beyond intelligible beings is correlated not to the intellect, but to that which is beyond
the intellect. More precisely, the point is that even if that which is beyond intelligible
beings is not correlated to the intellect, still it is somehow correlated to something else.
This is presumably why Dionysius explicitly asks us to “suppose” (οἴεσθαι) God in a
certain way when he says in the passage quoted above (cf. MT, 1000B) that “we
should suppose not that … but rather that (οἴεσθαι… ἀλλὰ).”

Thus, in the light of Dionysius’ Platonic doctrine of intellect, unknowing is not

just about not knowing God as a being or non-being, but about “knowing beyond the

12
Fr. 8.34-36, cf. John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, 2nd edition, (London and Edinburgh: A. and
C. Black), 1908, 200.

13
Phaedrus, 247c6-8, quoted from John M. Cooper, eds., Plato: Complete Works (Indianapolis:
Hacker), 1997. See also Perl, Theophany, 6-9.

14
Cf. Perl, Theophany, 5-9.

15
The Divine Names, 593A.

5
mind by knowing nothing” (τῷ μηδὲν γινώσκειν ὑπὲρ νοῦν γινώσκων).16 The way of
unknowing does not lead to the complete cessation of the mind and sheer ignorance,
but is rather a method of properly knowing God by not knowing Him as a being. The
upshot is that although ordinary knowledge of God as a mere being is impossible,
mystical knowledge of God still remains possible, insofar as God is not treated as a
being and knowledge is not understood in the ordinary sense. This mystical
knowledge is no ordinary knowledge of beings, because its content—“that which is
beyond all beings cannot be known as a being”—is not derived from any beings. For
this reason, Dionysius likens the result of unknowing not to total darkness, but para-
doxically to “the ray of the divine shadow (τοῦ θείου σκότους ἀκτῖνα),”17, and “the
divine ray (τὴν θεαρχικὴν ἀκτῖνα) [which] enlightens us only by being upliftingly
concealed (ἀναγωγικῶς περικεκαλυμμένην) in a variety of sacred veils.”18 In the last
analysis, then, for us human beings to know God is just to know that we cannot know
Him as a being and hence to put to rest our activity of intellect:

We leave behind us all our own notions of the divine. We call a halt to the activi-
ties of our minds and, to the extent that is proper, we approach the ray which
transcends being. Here, in a manner no words can describe, preexisted all the
goals of all knowledge and it is of a kind that neither intelligence nor speech can
lay hold of it nor can it at all be contemplated since it surpasses everything and is
wholly beyond our capacity to know it.19

[…] the union of divinized minds with the Light beyond all deity occurs in the
cessation (ἀπόπαυσιν) of all intelligent activity…20

From the above analysis we can sum up three points. First, Dionysius’ negative the-

16
MT, 1001 A. The passage is quoted in its entirety as follows: “Here, renouncing all that the mind
may conceive, wrapped entirely in the intangible and the invisible, he [Moses] belongs completely to
him [God] who is everything. Here, being neither oneself nor someone else, one is supremely united to
the completely unknown [God] by an inactivity of all knowledge, and knows beyond the mind by
knowing nothing.”

17
MT, 1000A.

18
The Celestial Hierarchy, 121B.

19
The Divine Names, 592C-D.

20
Ibid., 593C.

6
ology of unknowing is not merely the negative propositional knowledge that God
cannot be known and is not a being, but mainly the intellectual exercise by which the
mind knows God by not knowing Him as a mere being. Second and more important,
the mystical knowledge thus engendered is understood as the unification with God or
henosis. Hence third, for Dionysius, negative theology and henosis are correlated to
each other like the act of knowing and the actualized knowledge: the former is what
man does, and the latter is what he thereby attains. In particular, although henosis
does not depend on unknowing as its cause, still the former would not exist without
the latter. This is why Dionysius sometimes refers to mystical unification simply in
terms of unknowing. For example, according to the exegesis of Deut. 24 from MT, it
is said that Moses “plunges into the truly mysterious darkness of unknowing (τὸν
γνόφον τῆς ἀγνοσίας)” and “is supremely united to the completely unknown (τῷ
παντελῶς δὲ ἀγνώστῳ… κατὰ τὸ κρεῖττον ἑνούμενος) by an inactivity of all
knowledge.”21 The upshot is that Dionysian mysticism amounts, so to speak, to a
mysticism mediated by and actualized in the intellect. This point is also noted by Al-
bert the Great, one of the most important Dionysian commentators in the Latin West:

But God is what is best and he is the ultimate perfection of our intellects, so for our intel-
lect, being united with Him is for the very best. […] Our minds receive a certain divine
light, which […] raises them above all their natural ways of seeing things, and this is how
our minds come to see God, though only in a blurred and undefined knowledge “that” He
is.22

B. Plotinus’ Negative Theology

This section analyzes Plotinus’ negative theology based on the Enneads, VI.7.36 and
other related passages. Compared with Dionysius’ negative theology, Plotinus’ version
stands out in two respects. First, it does not aim at acquiring mystical knowledge
about the First Principle—its approach is non-theoretical. Second, it does not lead di-
rectly to henosis—its practical result is insubstantial. In what follows I will explain in
turn what this non-theoretical approach is and how its insubstantial result can be un-

21
MT, 1001A.

22
Commentary on Dionysius’ Mystical Theology, quoted from Simon Tugwell, eds., Albert and
Thomas: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press), 1988, 164 and 172, my italics.

7
derstood ambiguously as the attainment of henosis.

(A) The Approach of Plotinus’ Negative Theology

In VI.7.36 Plotinus teaches three interconnected methods to henosis: the theoretical

method (line 3-8), the practical method (line 8-15) and the method of
self-renunciation (line 15-18).23 The approach in its entirety is non-theoretical be-
cause it is systematically more than theoretical, and this systematic character can be
clarified only by seeing how these three methods hold together.

1. The Theoretical Method

The theoretical method aims at the knowledge of the One:

The knowledge or touching of the Good [i.e. of the One] is the greatest thing, and Plato
says it is the “greatest study”, not calling the looking at It [the One] a “study”, but learn-
ing about It beforehand. We are taught about It by comparisons (ἀναλογίαι) and nega-
tions (ἀφαιρέσεις) and knowledge of the things which come from It (γνώσεις τῶν ἐξ
αὐτοῦ) and certain methods of ascent by degrees (ἀναβασμοί)…24

There are three ways to know the One: comparison and knowledge of the things
which come from the One, negation, and gradual ascent. Notably, they remind us of
Dionysius’ way of affirmation, negation and unknowing discussed in the previous
section. Just as Dionysius claims that “we should posit and ascribe to God all the af-
firmations we make in regard to beings,” so Plotinus’ “comparisons” and “knowledge
of the things which come from the One” teaches that beings are the images of the One,
which is their ultimate cause.25 Furthermore, while Dionysius says that “we should
negate all these affirmations [of beings], since God surpasses all beings,” Plotinus’

23
For a detailed exegesis of VI.7.36 see Pao-Shen Ho, Plotinus’ Mystical Teaching of Henosis: An
Interpretation in the Light of the Metaphysics of the One (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang Verlag),
2015) , 94-104.

24
E, VI.7.36.3-8.

25
Cf. E, V.2.1, V.3.15, V.5.5, VI.7.23.20-24, VI.7.42.11 and VI.9.2.

8
“negations” emphasizes that the One is not any being and cannot be comprehended
intelligibly.26 Finally, according to Plotinus’ “ascent”, the One is not any being and
cannot be known, because It transcends all beings and all knowledge of beings.27
This is also similar to Dionysius’ teaching: “But we should suppose not that the nega-
tions are simply the opposites of the affirmations, but rather that the cause of all is
considerably prior to this, beyond privations, beyond every denial, beyond every as-
sertion.” Regarding the theoretical method, therefore, Plotinus and Dionysius share
the same view that man can possess theoretical knowledge of the First Principle, and
that this knowledge is not the knowledge of mere beings. More important, Plotinus’
method to attain such a knowledge is similar to Dionysius’. However, as we will im-
mediately see, Plotinus has much more to say in his negative theology.

2. The Practical Method

The practical method consists of man’s ascetic practices, the most important of which
is contemplation:

We are taught about It [the One] by comparisons and negations and knowledge of the
things which come from It and certain methods of ascent by degrees, but we are put on
the way to It [the One] by purifications and virtues and adorning and by gaining footholds
in the intelligible [sic] and settling ourselves firmly there and feasting on its contents. But
whoever has become at once contemplator and all the rest and object of his contemplation,
and, since he has become substance and intellect and “the complete living being”, no
longer looks at it from outside—when he has become this he is near, and that Good is
next above him, and already close by, shining upon all the intelligible world.28

Purifications, virtues and self-contemplation all concern man’s practice, but why are
they more important than the knowledge of the One? As Plotinus explains below, this
is because they are fundamental to man’s knowledge of the One.

26
Cf. E, V.3.10.42, V.3.13.1-2 and VI.9.3.

27
Cf. E, V.3.13.2-6, VI.7.17.8-10, VI.7.40.25-30 and VI.8.12-20.

28
E, VI.7.36.8-15, my italics.

9
 For that which investigates is the soul, and it should know what it is as an investigating
soul, so that it may learn first about itself, whether it has the power to investigate things
of this kind, and if it has an eye of the right kind to see them, and if the investigation is
suitable for it. For if the objects are alien, what is the point? But if they are akin, the in-
vestigation is suitable and discovery is possible.29

That is, since man can acquire the theoretical knowledge of the One only by means of
his own inquiry and understanding, he cannot really know anything about the One
without first knowing himself as an inquirer. Thus understood, the methods to know
the One do not work by themselves, but must always depend on someone who knows
how to use them well. Consequently, although the content of the knowledge about the
One has nothing to do with man himself, the formation thereof is always directly
based upon man’s practices. Man’s “Copernican” conversion (ἐπιστροφή) toward
himself brings him closer to the One than the theoretical knowledge of the One, be-
cause the latter is necessarily grounded in or conditioned by the former. It is in this
sense that the ascetic practices such as contemplation are essential to Plotinus’ nega-
tive theology.

The practice of contemplation is prior to the theoretical one because the

self-knowledge it leads to is fundamental to the knowledge of the One. To explain this
priority itself, there are two more questions to consider: what is this self-knowledge,
and how does contemplation lead to it? Here is not the place to dwell on these issues,
but we can sum up Plotinus’ own explanations based on other passages from the En-
neads.30 He argues that the contemplator must become identical to the contemplated
object in the process of contemplation:

For if they are two, the contemplator will be one thing and the contemplated another, so
that there is a sort of juxtaposition, and contemplation has not yet made this pair akin to
each other, as when rational principles present in the soul do nothing.31

Thus understood, contemplation is not just contemplation of any object, but always

29
E, V.1.1.32-35.

30
For further discussion of Plotinus’ doctrine of contemplation see Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, Ploti-
nus on Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2007 and Ho, Plotinus’ Mystical Teaching, 64-71.

31
E, III.8.6.17–19, see also V.5.1.20–25, V.3.5.21–26 and V.3.5.44–49.

10
and necessarily self-contemplation, which naturally leads to self-knowledge. Note that
once the objects to be known become identical to the knower, the act of knowing will
no longer take place, nor will there be any intention to know them. Thus the peculiar
feature of Plotinus’ self-knowledge is precisely that it not only offers no objective in-
formation regarding what or who oneself is, but also seeks to suspend intentional
knowing and objective knowledge of oneself. This conception of self-knowledge
might appear less bizarre if we do not consult our daily intuition about knowledge, but
compare it to the various techniques of meditation aiming at mental absorption and
stillness, such as dhyana in Hinduism and Buddhism, or hesychasm and contempla-
tive prayer in Christianity. The following passage indicates the meditative aspect of
contemplation and its practical effect:

One can find a great many valuable activities, theoretical and practical, which we carry on
both in our contemplative and active life even when we are fully conscious, which do not
make us aware of them. The reader is not necessarily aware that he is reading, least of all
when he is really concentrating: nor the man who is being brave and that his action con-
forms to the virtue of courage; and there are thousands of similar cases. Conscious
awareness, in fact, is likely to enfeeble the very activities of which there is consciousness;
only when they are alone are they pure and more genuinely active and living; and when
good men are in this state their life is increased, when it is not spilt out into perception,
but gathered together in one in itself.32

3. The Method of Self-Renunciation

The method of self-renunciation supersedes the practical method and is meant to abandon all
one’s effort to attain henosis:

It is there [in contemplation] that one abandons (ἐάσας) all study; up to a point one has
been led along and settled firmly in [intelligible] beauty and as far as this one thinks that
in which one is, but is carried out of it by the surge of the wave of Intellect itself…33

The basic claim of this passage is that man, when absorbed in contemplation, is at

32
E, I.4.10..23–33.

33
E, VI.7.36.15-18, translation modified.

11
once elevated from and by contemplation, thereby “abandoning all study”. Specifical-
ly speaking, this method consists in concentrating upon contemplation on the one
hand, and disregarding it altogether on the other hand. It is neither just a passive
withdrawal from contemplation nor an active involvement in it, but the synthesis of
both.

But why can man concentrate on contemplation while disregarding it altogeth-

34
er? As Plotinus explains in other passages of the Enneads, this is because (i) the
intellect contains within itself the element of self-alienation and (ii) the actuality of
the intellect consists in the dissolution of itself. Let us take a closer look at his expla-
nations. Regarding (i), the intellect contains within itself an element of self-alienation
because it must become identical to the object to be known in the process of intellec-
tion:

For one must always understand intellect as otherness and sameness if it is going to think.
For [otherwise] it will not distinguish itself from the intelligible by its relation of other-
ness to itself, and will not contemplate all things if no otherness has occurred to make all
things exist: for [without otherness] there would not even be two.35

Regarding (ii), the actuality of the intellect consists in the dissolution of itself because
it must become identical to what it is not.

But if intellect, thinking, and object of thought are the same, if they become altogether
one (πάντη ἓν γενόμενα), they will make themselves disappear (ἀφανιεῖ) in them-
selves…36

In becoming identical to the intelligible object, the intellect does not simply become it
once and for all, but rather becomes that object which turns into the intellect and is

34
For a more detailed discussion of this issue see Ho, Plotinus’ Mystical Teaching, 104-118. For re-
lated discussions see A. H. Armstrong, “Plotinus,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early
Medieval Philosophy, ed. A.H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 1967, 262-263;
Pierre Hadot, “Neoplatonist Spirituality: Plotinus and Porphyry,” in Classical Mediterranean Spiritual-
ity, ed. A.H. Armstrong (London: Routledge), 1986, 243 and Werner Beierwaltes, Selbsterkenntnis und
Erfahrung der Einheit: Plotins Ennead V 3, Text, übersetzung, Interpretation, Erlaüterungen (Frankfurt
am Main: Vittorio Klostermann), 1991, 162-168.

35
E, VI.7.39.5-10; see also V.1.4.34-41; V.3.10; and VI.7.13.

36
E, VI.7.41.12–14.

12
therefore no longer itself. And this intellect which then appears is not the intellect it-
self, but rather becomes yet again that intelligible object which becomes once again
other than itself. And so ad infinitum. This interplay between reflexivity and negativi-
ty underlies the intellect’s actuality. Since everything within this process is turning
into something other than itself, it lacks an independent and permanent nature of its
own. Hence the intellect and the intelligible object are said to “disappear” or dissolve
themselves in themselves, not because they are without any nature or even inexistent,
but because they are by nature impermanent, insubstantial, and dependent on each
other.

4. The Systematic Approach to Negative Theology

Considering the three aforementioned methods as a whole, we can highlight two spe-
cial features in the systematic approach of Plotinus’ negative theology. First, Plotinus’
negative theology is meant to show us that the knowledge of the One is only the pre-
liminary stage in man’s mystical ascent and is therefore insufficient for attaining un-
ion with It. Its approach is non-theoretical not because it resorts to irrational,
non-rational or purely affective methods, but because it is a foundational critique of
theoretical reason. Second, Plotinus’ negative theology culminates not in man’s at-
tainment of henosis, but rather in his giving up all his effort to attain it. At the face of
it, this means that the practice of Plotinus’ negative theology is self-defeating. To see
the point of this practice, one must explain what this self-defeating practice leads to.
This is the task of the next section.

(B) The Relation of Plotinus’ Negative Theology to Henosis

Plotinus’ negative theology, by itself, does not lead to the attainment of henosis. We
might jump to the conclusion that his mystical teaching as a whole fails altogether, but
it won’t hurt to consider more carefully the point or intention of teaching an appar-
ently self-defeating method. Plotinus does not tackle this issue explicitly anywhere in
the Enneads, but he does address a similar one concerning man’s fall or separation
from the One in VI.9. I suggest that we digress a little bit and examine his discussion
of the fall, so as to get a clue to explaining the point of his negative theology.

13
 How is it, then, that one does not remain there [with the One]? (line 1) It is because one
has not yet totally come out of this world. But there will be a time when the vision [of the
One] will be continuous, since there will no longer be any hindrance by the body (line
1–3). But it is not that which has seen which is hindered, but the other part which (ἔστι δὲ
τὸ ἑωρακὸς οὐ τὸ ἐνοχλούμενον, άλλὰ τὸ ἄλλο…; line 4), when that which has seen rests
from vision, does not rest form the knowledge which lies in demonstrations and evidence
and the discourse of the soul…37

This passage is relevant to our present concern because it casts in doubt the con-
sistency between line 1–3 and line 4: on the one hand, man’s union with the One is
hindered; but on the other hand, it is not interrupted. A. E. Meijer complains that this
inconsistency hardly makes any sense. For clarity’s sake, he suggests that we shift the
position of οὐ from line 4, changing the original text from “ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἑωρακὸς οὐ τὸ
ἐνοχλούμενον, άλλὰ τὸ ἄλλο…” to “ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἑωρακὸς τὸ ἐνοχλούμενον, ἀλλ᾽ οὐ τὸ
ἄλλο…”. The new translation, according to Meijer, reads: “And what has the vision is
hindered, but not the rest, which, when the vision stops the contemplation, does not
stop knowledge…”38

Consistency, to my mind, need not be bought at the price of altering the text. We
can easily dispel the apparent inconsistency by interpreting the above passage as an
exchange of question and answers between the teacher and his students:39

(1) The teacher asks: “Why does man not remain with the One?” (cf. line 1)
(2) The students answer: “Presumably, this is because man is still hindered by his
body.” (cf. line 1-3)
(3) In reply, the teacher does not answer anything so much as dismisses the question
and the students’ attempted answer altogether: “No; for that which remains with
the One is not hindered from remaining with It in the first place.” (cf. line 4)

In (3) is presupposed Plotinus’ doctrine of divine presence, which he explains at great

37
E, VI.9.10.1-5, my italics.

38
Cf. P. A. Meijer, Plotinus on the Good or the One (Enneads VI, 9): An Analytical Commentary
(Amsterdam: JC Gieben), 1992, 267-270.

39
This interpretation is partly supported by the fact, noted by Porphyry and many commentators,
that most of the treatises in the Enneads, VI.9 included, are Plotinus’ lecture materials intended for
classroom discussion.

14
length in other passages of the Enneads.40 Very briefly, the doctrine says that the One
is always already present in man as the conditio sine qua non of his whole existence.
Man does not actively relate himself to the One by making use of something which he
possesses, be it his natural reason or a tool he acquires by chance or divine grace.
Quite the contrary, the One is already present in man’s very being and hence prior to
all his actions. The upshot is that henosis is man’s original condition or natural state,
rather than his achievement. According to this doctrine, man always remains with the
One, so the question “Why does man not remain with the One?” is simply made on
the false presupposition that man’s fall from the One is real; it is nonsensical, unan-
swerable, and hence must be dispelled. And this is precisely what (3) does with its
emphatic negative.

The point of discussing man’s putative “fall” from the One is to uncover the stu-
dents’ misunderstanding of man’s true nature, so as to dispel it effectively. The same
point, I suggest, applies to Plotinus’ negative theology just as well. For when the stu-
dents receive Plotinus’ negative theology as something to be practiced, they have the
illusory presumptions that henosis were a human achievement and that the exercise of
negative theology is a reliable method of attaining it. But as the students work through
this exercise, its failure will alert them that their presumptions are illusory. In the end,
it would become natural for them to revise their presumptions, and this is what Ploti-
nus’ mystical teaching is intended for: If the students are so obsessed with attaining
henosis on their own, they should see for themselves that this obsession leads to
nothing but illusion, and then they would be disillusioned by this illusion and liberat-
ed from it.

On this interpretation, the nature of Plotinus’ negative theology is not so much

explanatory as performative, for it seeks to effect the change—more precisely, to dis-
solve—of what the students thinks about henosis rather than describe and explain it to
them. More important, its modus operandi is self-referential: the change occurs when
the students become aware that this performative discourse instructs them to disregard
itself. Herein lies the reason why Plotinus teaches a seemingly inconsistent negative
theology that explicitly claims to lead man to “ascent” to the One but implicitly in-
sinuates that the One is already present in man’s nature. For what appears inconsistent
from a presumed viewpoint becomes sensible when the viewpoint is shown to be il-

40
Cf. V.5.12, VI.5.10, VI.5.12, VI.7.34, VI.9.9. For further discussion of this doctrine see Ho, Plo-
tinus’ Mystical Teaching, 47-59 and 136-144.

15
lusory.

C. The Basic Differences between Dionysius’ and Plotinus’ Negative Theologies

In the light of the preceding analyses, we can sum up the basic differences between
Dionysius’ and Plotinus’ negative theologies as follows.

First, although Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies are both based upon
the doctrine that the intellect and the intelligible being are one and the same, they in-
terpret this doctrine differently, thereby propounding different theories of the intellect.
Dionysius adheres closely to said doctrine and derives from it the consequence that
God, being that which is beyond all beings, must also transcend the intellect. Plotinus,
by contrast, draws from this doctrine the more radical consequence that the intellect
which becomes identical to the intelligible being must necessarily dissolve itself.

Second, Plotinus’ negative theology also differs from Dionysius’ regarding the
main method of negative theology. Dionysius’ method of unknowing is basically an
exercise of the intellect, although it is not strictly speaking the proper function of the
intellect, namely apprehending the intelligible being. By contrast, the most crucial
method in Plotinus’ negative theology is self-renunciation, which differs from un-
knowing in three aspects. (1) It does not aim at the theoretical knowledge of the First
Principle. (2) It consists mainly in the ascetic practice of self-contemplation. (3) It is a
method that paradoxically abandons all methods, whereas unknowing is a method that
puts to rest intellectual activities; the former operates on a meta-methodological level,
while the latter on an objectual level.

Last not least, Dionysius and Plotinus have quite different ideas about what
henosis is and how negative theology relates to it. For Dionysius, henosis is the mys-
tical knowledge of God, namely the knowledge that that which is beyond all beings
cannot be known as a being, and this knowledge is attained by means of the
non-proper functioning of the intellect, namely unknowing. For Plotinus, on the other
hand, henosis is man’s original condition in which the One is always already present
to him as the conditio sine qua non of his whole existence. Since this condition is
original, man cannot attain it by any methods. Self-renunciation is meant precisely as
a reminder of this basic but easily overlooked fact.

16
 III. Contemporary Interpretation

So far the comparison between Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies has been
drawn in their own words and demonstrated that, historically speaking, they are two
distinct strands of thought with different premises, contents and agendas. The differ-
ences just examined, I think, could help us to clarify the contemporary philosophical
significance of Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies. As Perl observes, Diony-
sius’ negative theology can be understood as a response to certain continental philos-
ophers’ critique of the so-called “onto-theology”, for it suggests an approach to meta-
physics that seeks to preserve divine transcendence and does not reduce Being to a
mere being.41 Beyond this observation, however, little else has been said. This section
is a preliminary attempt to connect them to contemporary analytic epistemology.

Let us first cast a glimpse on the epistemology of religion. This discipline is

concerned predominantly with the justification of propositional religious beliefs, the
most important one being the belief that there is a loving, omnipotent and omniscient
God.42 Proposals have been made to justify such beliefs by reliable belief-forming
process, accumulation of empirical evidence, religious experience, etc. Perhaps it is
not amiss to say that contemporary epistemology of religion, most of the time, just is
the epistemology of propositional religious belief. Without condemning outright that
this trend is misguided, I think that by the light of both current development of epis-
temology and concrete religious experience, there are reasons to suspect it to be
somewhat questionable. So far as current epistemology is concerned, it is unclear why
the justification of belief per se should attract so much attention, seeing that it is not
central to general epistemology in the first place. Most part of the post-Gettier epis-
temology is concerned with finding the additional condition that qualifies justified
true belief as knowledge. Since justified beliefs can be false, they are of no particular
interest to the majority of post-Gettier epistemological theories. The recent
“knowledge-first epistemology”, on the other hand, reverses the direction of
knowledge-analysis and uses knowledge to explain other epistemological notions

41
Cf. Perl, Theophany, 112-113.

42
For an overview on the epistemology of religion, see R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman,
Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1992 and
Martin Smith, “Recent Work on the Epistemology of Religion,” Analysis 74, no.1 (2014): 135-147.

17
such as belief, evidence and assertion. None of these theories are concerned with be-
liefs which are merely justified and possibly false, so why should it be otherwise in
the epistemology of religion?

Propositional religious belief does not hold pride of place in one’s religious life,
either. There is no doubt that the most essential element in religious life is faith, but
faith is not the same as propositional religious belief. According to Thomas Aquinas,
faith is an habitus or disposition by which man attains supernatural happiness. Propo-
sitional belief, however, is characterized in most of the contemporary discussions as
propositional attitude, and the content of propositional belief is the object of proposi-
tional attitude. It is not even necessary to appeal to the authority of Thomas for our
present concern; a simple reflection on our ordinary language would suffice. Steve
can hope, fear, doubt, and believe that God is p, but it is absurd for him to “hope faith”
or to “believe faith”. At most he can hope that his faith will be strengthened, but this
is still not the same as “hoping faith”. Furthermore, different epistemic agents can
hold different propositional attitudes toward the same proposition. For example, Steve
believes that God is p, whereas Joe doubts that God is p. However, Joe dos not there-
by doubt Steve’s faith. Anyway, it is clear that faith is different from propositional re-
ligious belief. In response, one might suggest that propositional religious beliefs are
those which the religiously faithful people do, will or would endorse, thereby estab-
lishing the putative connection between faith and propositional beliefs. However,
even if we concede this point, all it shows is that faith is related to such beliefs; by no
means does it prove that faith just is, or reduce to, any propositional religious belief.43

As the current developments of epistemology and religious experience both in-

dicate, the project of justifying religious beliefs leaves several crucial questions un-
answered. Of course, this is not to say that there is really anything intrinsically wrong
about it. In Plotinus’ and Dionysius’ negative theologies, however, we could find not
only more reasons to suspect the outlook of said project, but also alternative ap-
proaches to the epistemology of religion which shift the focus away from proposition-
al beliefs to other epistemic notions. These approaches, as I shall further explain, bear
a few interesting similarities to two theories, namely knowledge-first epistemology
and virtue epistemology. I shall follow the order of analysis in Section II and start
with Dionysius.

43
For brevity’s sake henceforth I shall simply use the term “religious belief”.

18
A. An Interpretation of Dionysius’ Negative Theology

In the light of Dionysius’ negative theology, there are at least two reasons to suspect
the project of justifying religious beliefs. According to the first one, religious beliefs
concerning God take either the form God is p or the form God is not p. But none of
them can exactly describe what God “is”, because the greatness of God transcends
both affirmation and negation. Thus no religious belief concerning God is true, and no
ordinary knowledge of God is possible, even if it might be justified by, say, a reliable
belief-forming process. Consequently, the epistemology of religious belief is just an
epistemology of false belief; as such, it is a project with little value and substance.

The second reason is that religious belief is not pivotal to man’s religious life,
because the most prominent epistemic relation man has toward God is the mystical
knowledge of God. Accordingly, the “Dionysian” alternative to the epistemology of
religious belief would be the epistemology of mystical knowledge of God. As can be
expected, Dionysius does not explain such mystical knowledge in propositional form.
His approach, I suggest, can be understood as a peculiar version of virtue epistemolo-
gy. The basic thesis of virtue epistemology is that knowledge is the achievement of
certain intellectual virtues, such as cognitive abilities like perception and reason, and
character-traits like courage and curiosity.44 Dionysius’ view is similar to this thesis,
for he understands mystical knowledge as the achievement of unknowing and un-
knowing as an exercise of the intellect. More precisely, unknowing is similar to char-
acter-traits like intellectual honesty, humility and open-mindedness, because it helps
one to acknowledge that one really knows nothing substantial about God, that one’s
cognitive ability is seriously limited, and that one should regard this cognitive limit as
essential to one’s intellectual life. On the other hand, unknowing is also directed
against one’s cognitive abilities, because it helps one to know when not to think any
further and draws the boundary over which the intellect should not transgress. Thus
understood, unknowing is a reflective and critical character-trait; its immediate
achievement does not lie in the acquisition of a supernatural or extraordinary “insight”
or “vision” of God, but in the critical regulation of one’s own cognitive ability in the

44
For a brief introduction of virtue epistemology see John Greco and John Turri, “Virtue Episte-
mology,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, 2013, URL =
<http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/epistemology-virtue/>.

19
pursuit of mystical knowledge of God.

Can we successfully analyze mystical knowledge in terms of intellectual virtues?

It is hard to say, seeing that very few of us have an easy and uncontroversial access to
mystical knowledge. Because we know very little about the analysandum, we would
know even less about whether our analysis carries through. However, if we shift our
attention away from mystical knowledge per se and onto the intellectual virtue of un-
knowing, we could see more clearly the relevance of Dionysius’ negative theology to
virtue epistemology and the epistemology of religion. Let me start with virtue episte-
mology.

As we noted above, the basic thesis of virtue epistemology is that knowledge is

the achievement of certain intellectual virtues. Can this idea accommodate the intui-
tion held by most post-Gettier epistemologists that one cannot gain knowledge simply
by having a true belief as a matter of luck? At first blush, it can, for the reliable func-
tioning of the intellectual virtues directed at the objects to be known is a source of re-
liable knowledge-acquisition that resists epistemic luck. But according to Duncan
Pritchard, a serious problem emerges under closer scrutiny. For knowledge to be reli-
ably acquired, the environment in which the objects to be known are found must be
knowledge-conducive. Thus, a theory of knowledge must account for the anti-luck
condition that resists environmental luck. However, the reliable functioning of intel-
lectual virtues cannot assure that the environment is knowledge-conducive, because it
is directed at the object to be known, rather than the environment itself. Therefore,
virtue epistemology is hopeless in the cases involving environmental luck.45

Here I will not dwell on the detail of Pritchard’s argument and the debate it gave
rise to; to see Dionysius’ relevance, it suffices to notice the following point. In the
current debate, the intellectual virtues are understood usually as object-directed cogni-
tive abilities such as vision,46 and a virtue theory of cognitive abilities is supposed to

45
See Duncan Pritchard, “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Journal of Philosophy 109, no.3 (2012):
247-279. For a detailed discussion of epistemic luck see Duncan Pritchard, Epistemic Luck (Oxford:
Oxford University Press), 2005. The classic example of environmental luck is the so-called Fake Barn
case, first described in Alvin Goldman, “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Phi-
losophy 73 (1976): 771-791. For virtue-theoretical responses to Pritchard, see J. Adam Carter, “A
Problem for Pritchard’s Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” Erkenntnis 78, no.2 (2013): 253-275 and J.
Adam Carter, “Robust Virtue Epistemology as Anti-Luck Epistemology: A New Solution,” Pacific
Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming.

46
Such is the case in the Fake Barn. See also Pritchard “Anti-Luck Virtue Epistemology,” 261-263;
Carter, “A Problem,” 269-272. See also Jason Baehr, “Character, Reliability and Virtue Epistemology,”
20
supply the so-called “anti-luck condition” which deals with environmental luck in a
direct and objectual way, for example by excluding, resisting or minimizing it. By
contrast, Dionysius’ unknowing is not a cognitive ability, but a character trait di-
rected against one’s own cognitive abilities. So if it were to deal with environmental
luck, then its approach would be reflective, in the sense that it does not minimize or
exclude environmental luck, but rather holds one’s cognitive abilities in check, weak-
ens one’ cognitive confidence and revises one’s belief when the environment is not
knowledge-conducive. Thus understood, the theory of unknowing does not simply
reject the anti-luck condition, but rather counterbalances it with the self-critique con-
dition against the parameter of environmental luck: the less knowledge-conducive the
environment is, the harder it would be to resist environmental luck, and the more
humble one should be about what one’s cognitive abilities can achieve. In the jargon
of current epistemology, knowledge requires not so much “safety” from environmen-
tal luck as “sensitivity” to one’s epistemic dependence upon it.

The point above also helps to trace the contour of a “Dionysian” epistemology of
religion. An important way for an environment to be knowledge-conducive is to cause
one’s knowledge that p to obtain. But a particular cause of knowledge-obtainment is
either caused by something else or is the cause of itself. In the first case, it must be
caused ultimately by the first cause, i.e. the cause of all beings, on pain of infinite re-
gress. In the second case, it must be none other than the cause of all beings, because
nothing else can be the cause of itself. Thus, either way, one is epistemically depend-
ent on the cause of all beings. In the light of Dionysius, this means that one is
epistemically dependent on God and hence cannot know God in Himself. Thus the
epistemological relevance of the unknowable God resides precisely in the fact that all
knowledge obtains because of Him. Accordingly, the “Dionysian” epistemology of
religion—or more specifically the epistemology of the unknowable God—would
amount to an epistemology of epistemic dependence: it seeks to explain the degree of
fallibility of knowledge under epistemic dependence, and to analyze the structure of
such knowledge in the light of the virtue of unknowing.

B. An Interpretation of Plotinus’ Negative Theology

The Philosophical Quarterly (56), no. 223 (2006): 193-212.

21
Like Dionysius, Plotinus would think that no propositional belief about the First Prin-
ciple can be true, because the greatness of the First Principle exceeds what we can say
about It. In this respect, his negative theology too can be read as a critique of the
epistemology of religious belief. However, unlike Dionysius, Plotinus downplays the
significance of theoretical knowledge of the First Principle in his negative theology;
instead, he would emphasize that there are some truths which man can never know,
for instance the truth about the One Itself, or the truth about man’s original condition.
More specifically, since man’s epistemic access to the One is essentially limited, Plo-
tinus would prefer man’s ignorance of the One over his knowledge thereof to be his
most essential epistemic relation toward the One. For the same reason, Plotinus would
not even try to analyze it into any more basic components. What he does instead is to
take ignorance as the starting point by which to explain other epistemological issues,
such as man’s misunderstandings of the One and his failure to attain henosis.

The reversal of the direction of epistemological analysis, the emphasis on the

limit of man’s knowledge and the non-operational approach to epistemology all char-
acterize the epistemology concerning the One, or broadly speaking the “Plotinian”
epistemology of religion. Notably, these features also bring to mind Timothy Wil-
liamson’s recent project, knowledge-first epistemology.47 The systematic similarities
between them can be outlined as follows.

1. Williamson’s basic thesis is that knowledge is the most general factive mental
state.48 Plotinus’ basic thesis in epistemology, on the other hand, is that the intel-
lect and the intelligible object are (or become) identical in the act of intellection.49
These two theses, while not fully identical, share the similar externalist idea that
the content of thought and the object to be thought are interdependent or interre-
lated.
2. The correlate to that externalist idea is that for S to know p it is not necessary that
he knows that he knows p. Williamson appeals to the sorites argument to buttress

47
Cf. Timothy Williamson, Knowledge and Its Limits (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2000;
Timothy Williamson, “Why Epistemology cannot be Operationalized,” in Epistemology: New Essays,
ed. Quentin Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 277-300; and Timothy Williamson
“Knowledge-First Epistemology,” in The Routledge Companion to Epistemology, ed. Sven Bernecker
and Duncan Pritchard (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011) , 208-218.

48
Cf. Williamson, Knowledge, 33-41.

49
Cf. VI.7.41. and p. 12 passim of this article.

22
 this idea: “for any non-trivial state, one can change from being in it to not being in
it through a very gradual process. Since our powers of discrimination are limited,
in the last moment of the process at which one is still in the state, one cannot dis-
criminate how one is (in the relevant respects) from how one is in the first mo-
ments at which one is no longer at the state.”50 On the other hand, Plotinus bases
this idea on the empirical observation that “the reader is not necessarily aware that
he is reading, least of all when he is really concentrating: nor the man who is be-
ing brave and that his action conforms to the virtue of courage; and there are
thousands of similar cases.”51
3. The limit of knowledge mentioned above is contingent; but as both thinkers ex-
plain, there is also a necessary limit of knowledge. Williamson draws on epistemic
logic to argue that if p is an unknown truth, then it is impossible to know that p is
an unknown truth. For suppose that S knows that p is an unknown truth. Since
knowledge distributes over conjunction, S knows that p is true, and S knows that p
is unknown. And since knowledge is factive, p is unknown. Thus, S knows that p
and p is unknown, which is absurd. Therefore, by reductio, that p is an unknown
truth cannot be known; it is an unknowable truth. Plotinus, on the other hand, re-
sorts to abductive reasoning. Since the intellect and the intelligible object become
identical in the act of intellection, they depend on each other; but since both are
dependent beings, they cannot be the First Principle. So the best candidate for the
First Principle must be neither intellectual nor intelligible; that is, it must be be-
yond the intellect and unknowable.52 For Williamson, man’s capacity to know is
intrinsically limited only in the case of unknown truth. For Plotinus, far more rad-
ically, it is intrinsically limited in all cases because the capacity itself depends on
something unknowable.

Recent discussions of Williamson’s knowledge-first epistemology focus mainly on the

arguments in his Knowledge and Its Limits, rather than on the potential and basic idea
of the project itself.53 But as the above three points indicate, Plotinus’ negative the-

50
Williamson, “Knowledge-First Epistemology”, 212. See also Williamson, Knowledge, 102-106.

51
E, I.4.10.24-27; see also ibid. IV.3.30 and V.1.12.

52
cf. E, V.3.10-14 and V.4.1.

53
For critical discussions see Patrick Greenough and Duncan Pritchard, eds., Williamson on
Knowledge (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2009 and Aidan McGlynn,. Knowledge First? (London:
Palgrave MacMillan), 2014.

23
ology supplies different arguments for similar ideas of said project, and to this extent
also hints at a distinctively theological motivation for further development. In this
sense, prospective discussions of knowledge-first epistemology would have much to
draw on from Plotinus’ negative theology. The following comparison, in particular,
would throw its relevance into sharper relief.

For Williamson, the most important mental state with mind-to-world direction of
fit is knowledge: when one knows that p, it is the case that p; by contrast, when one
believes that p, it might not be the case that p. For Plotinus, by contrast, the most im-
portant mental state has no mind-to-world direction of fit and is therefore not
knowledge but rather ignorance. The mind and the world are not ontologically distinct
from each other in the last analysis, for both are derived from the One. As long as the
mind and the world are related to each other irrespective of their dependence on the
One, the mind-to-world direction of fit fails to pick out the most essential feature of
the mind—the best candidate, as is explained above, should be ignorance. Given the
contrast between knowledge and ignorance, the question then arises as to which of
them enjoys epistemic priority. The independent argument below, I suggest, would
favor ignorance. Cases in which S does not know that he knows p are different from
cases in which he does not know that he does not know p. Thus there is a difference
between the ignorance of one’s own knowledge (IK) and the ignorance of one’s own
ignorance (II). However, S himself cannot possibly tell the difference between IK and
II, because he is ignorant in both cases. Consequently, we should identify a third,
more fundamental kind of ignorance, namely the ignorance of the difference between
IK and II (ID1). Furthermore, as long as S is ignorant, he is also ignorant of the dif-
ference between IK, II and ID1, so we must correspondingly identify the much more
basic ignorance of the second-level difference, or ID2. By the same token, we must
identify the infinitely more basic ignorance of the nth-level difference, or IDn, where n
→ ∞. The upshot is that for all the truths which S knows but does not know that he
knows, there exist infinitely more—and infinitely more basic—truths which he cannot
know Hence ignorance holds priority over knowledge.

IV. Concluding Remarks

We have seen that there are two crucial differences between Plotinus’ and Dionysius’
negative theologies. The first concerns what negative theology does: Plotinus’ nega-
tive theology helps man to see through his illusion that he can attain henosis, whereas
24
Dionysius’ version leads to the attainment of mystical knowledge of God. The second
concerns what henosis is: for Plotinus, henosis is man’s original condition in which
the One is present; for Dionysius, it is the mystical knowledge of God. Construed in
the light of contemporary epistemology, both theories are critical of the epistemology
of religious belief and offer their own proporals: Plotinus’ alternative highlights the
primacy of ignorance and resembles knowledge-first epistemology, while Dionysius’
alternative emphasizes the character trait of unknowing and compares to virtue epis-
temology.

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