Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought by Ursula

Coope (review)

Carl S. O'Brien

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 59, Number 4, October 2021,

pp. 679-680 (Article)

Published by Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.2021.0082

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/820411

[ Access provided at 9 Nov 2021 06:33 GMT from CNRS BiblioSHS ]

 Book Reviews
Ursula Coope. Freedom and Responsibility in Neoplatonist Thought. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2020. Pp. xii + 288. Cloth, $70.00.

Ursula Coope’s volume sets out to answer the question of why “true freedom” necessitates
“freedom from bodies” according to the Neoplatonists. As a result, while the title suggests
a work on ethics, the volume handles such questions within a broader metaphysical
framework. Coope admirably traces the initially separate treatments of freedom and
responsibility in earlier thinkers before examining how they merge into twin aspects of a
related discussion. The handling of Plato’s concept of freedom in the first chapter outlines
a series of relevant issues, rather than evaluating their relative significance (17), since
the primary focus is on the subsequent tradition. The title is somewhat misleading since
much of the volume is concerned with the Neoplatonic background, rather than with
Neoplatonism itself, with detailed treatment of both the Stoic Epictetus and the Peripatetic
Alexander of Aphrodisias. However, this is essential for the development of Coope’s thesis,
which attributes a “perfectionist” concept of freedom (one linking freedom with moral
progress) to Plotinus, similar to Epictetus and contrary to Alexander. This involves analyzing
the extent to which actions depend upon us (45–52). Such Stoic-influenced elements are
linked with those one might perhaps consider more typically Neoplatonic, such as the role
of the Intellect in attaining virtue and freedom, since ignorance and emotional suffering
represent obstacles to freedom (59).
In its treatment of freedom and the One, chapter 5 also deals with an obviously
Neoplatonic theme, reinforced by the discussion of the One’s transcendent nature (73–75)
and the difficulty of predicating anything of the One (77–92). Coope presents freedom
then as a fundamental influence on Neoplatonic metaphysics, since everything under
the One, in light of its dependence upon the One, cannot be free (94–95). The One’s
freedom is consequently part of the motivation for achieving mystical union with it. Viewed
from this perspective, chapters 5 and 6 are essentially summaries of Plotinian metaphysics,
but oriented toward the perspective of freedom and responsibility, intertwined with an
explanation of why freedom should be considered valuable (96). The discussion of the soul’s
self-determination in the latter parts of chapter 6 (e.g. 103–6) forms a useful contribution
to the focus on Plotinus and the self that is at the forefront of much recent scholarship.
The relationship of the World Soul to the individual human soul is lent an interesting
perspective by the combined framework of freedom and responsibility. The human soul’s
temporary nonbodiliness and consequent period in the intelligible world is a kind of
freedom, although it also raises the question of freedom in the context of dependence
upon a larger whole (146), while the degree to which our responsibility is potentially
limited by Providence is also handled (151–59). These topics have been extensively and
frequently treated before, but the orientation toward freedom and responsibility adds a
certain freshness to the discussion here. For example, Coope considers the manner in
which human souls can be regarded as a component of Providence and relates this to the
whole-part discussion by representing Providence as “a kind of derivative unity” (157).
Plotinus’s interpretation of the myth of Er as the point at which the soul can be
regarded as responsible for its current life serves as a springboard for consideration of the
later tradition. In order to maintain our responsibility for our actions, Proclus presents

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each soul’s choice of life as a genuine one, even if this is placed under the control of
Providence (178), but the extent to which the soul’s failures are the result of its ignorance
ensures that the ultimate degree of the soul’s responsibility remains problematic. Chapter
10 examines why humans are held responsible for their actions while plants and animals
are not; evidently, humans have the resources to become moral (due to the undescended
intellectual part in Plotinus’s system). This then segues into a treatment of some central
questions of Neoplatonic metaphysics: the origin of evil, alongside the functioning of
discursive reasoning in attaining virtue.
The examination of Epictetus (60) lays out the groundwork for the subsequent handling
of Simplicius (particularly his Commentary on Epictetus’s Handbook) picked up again in chapter
12. In fact, the treatment of both Damascius and Simplicius is one of the more successful
aspects of the monograph, tying up various strands previously discussed, such as the self-
reflexive nature of rational cognition and discursive reasoning within the framework of
human responsibility. The themes of freedom and responsibility allow for discussion of major
Neoplatonic issues (evil, self, reception of Platonism and Stoicism). Despite the breadth of
the topic, a coherent narrative emerges. The volume could have engaged more significantly
with continental European scholarship given its notable contributions to Neoplatonic
studies, although Coope’s work still represents a solid addition to the discussion.
Carl S. O’Brien
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

Dominique Demange. Puissance, action, mouvement: L’ontologie dynamique de Pierre de Jean

Olivi, 1248–1298. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 2019. Pp. 250. Paper, €24.00.

It is seven hundred years since Peter of John Olivi’s death, and all of modernity has forgotten
his legacy. All? Well, not entirely. One small village of indomitable Gauls still holds out
against the forces of oblivion. While the empire of English-language scholarship has largely
let Olivi’s creative and influential work go unedited, untranslated, and unstudied, this
hearty band of French scholars has persisted in exploring the fundamentals of his thought.
This latest contribution focuses on some of the most innovative and foundational features
of Olivi’s natural philosophy, revolving around the causal relationships that substances hold
to one another. This is not, however, exactly a book on Olivi’s theory of causality, because
Demange’s focus is broader than that. One of the book’s many insightful ideas is to deploy
the phrase ‘dynamic ontology’ to define its subject matter. Whereas a static ontology is “a
theory of the constitution of substances, as a structure possessed of properties,” a dynamic
ontology is “the study of a substance in relation to its generation, action, transformation,
powers for action, modes of contact, and interactions with other substances” (16–17). This
is, more or less, just an alternative way of describing the “natural philosophy” of Aristotle’s
Physics. But Demange rightly sees that that label fails to capture the core interests of medieval
philosophers in these topics, inasmuch as what they are centrally concerned with is ontology,
an ontology of substances in motion.
Anyone who has worked on a part of Olivi’s thought—partwise being how his philosophy
has been mainly explored to date—will have encountered his distinctive views about dynamic
ontology. For instance, his direct realism in perception rests on an aspectus virtualis, the
sensory power’s virtual attention outward toward its object. His denial that the soul is the
form of the body rests on the causal relationship of colligantia. His libertarian theory of will
depends on an impetus running from will to object. The great value of Demange’s book is to
show that behind these scattered remarks lies a systematic theory, well developed elsewhere
in Olivi’s writings, which Olivi counts on his readers to understand. To the many scholars
who have approached Olivi’s work piecemeal and then complained of the obscurity of his
idiosyncratic vocabulary, Demange’s reply is that you have to study the system as a whole.
Alas, this approach does not serve to make Olivi’s thought entirely pellucid, nor does