ABSTRACT
According to Neoplatonists, the world is in some sense perfect. As Proclus says in his commentary on the Timaeus, it is a “whole of wholes”, lacking in nothing. Of course, the physical world is perfect only according to some standard lower than that of the intelligible world; still, it attains a perfection appropriate to it. On the other hand, particular things within the physical world are often far from perfect. Neoplatonists had their own intimate experience of this fact: Plotinus had terrible eyesight, Porphyry was subject to bouts of suicidal melancholy, and apparently Proclus’ house burnt down. 2 Physical things are caused exclusively by intelligible things, which are perfect, and yet individual physical things fail to duplicate this perfection. This calls out for an explanation. An obvious thing for any Platonist to say is that we have been given the explanation in the Timaeus:
“This ordered world is of mixed birth: it is the offspring of a union of necessity and intellect. Intellect prevailed (ἄϱχοντος) over necessity by persuading (πείθειν) it to direct most of the things that come to be toward what is best (τῶν γιγνομένων τά πλεῖστα ἐπὶ τὸ βέλτιστον ἄγειν), and the result of this subjugation of necessity to wise persuasion (ὑπὸ πειθοῦς ἔμϕϱονος) was the initial formation of this universe.” (Tim. 48a1–5; Zeyl trans.)
