Proclus Lycius Diadochus
412-485 · Middle & Neo-Platonism · Prominent
Proclus headed the Platonic school in Athens through its last great years, and he left a system built on a single movement: all things proceed from the One, the source of everything, and revert back to it. His Elements of Theology sets out 211 propositions in order, each one proved from the ones before it as geometry does, starting from the claim that anything many leans on something one.
Signature
The position Proclus is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity
- Beginning of Things
- Emanation
Positions on the 14 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- leans Beyond Brain (75 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Indescribable (75 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- mildly between Unchanging and Changing (50 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (21 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (21 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- leans Means (71 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
6 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Proclus refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism / Pantheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Idealism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Receptive Intellect / Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence / Hierarchical Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Emanation
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Cyclical Return / Block Universe / Spiral
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Law
- Natural Law / Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Union with the One / Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Obstacle to Reason
What is the proper role of emotion? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?