The Proclus’s defense of contingence on Laws X against the Plutarch’s determinism

Abstract

In the present work we propose to analyze the proclean reading on Laws X 896a  –Where Plato seems to say that all the acts of the bodies depends on a causality of divine and psychological order– as a response to what Plutarch said in this regard. The cheronean maintains that, according to Plato, evil is caused by an evil soul, which in eternal struggle with the good soul, officiates as a mechanical cause and guiding principle of the cosmos (De Iside et Osiride 370b-371a; De animae procreatione in Plato Timaeo 1014a-f). In our opinion, it is against the foregoing that the proclean effort is focused to point out that evil does not exist in its purity, nor in the superior entities (such as the soul of the world or Soul-hypostasis) although it is a deviation that is it occurs in individual human souls and operates as a parasitic entity (De malorum subsistentia I, 20-23). We aspire to use arguments that show in what sense Proclus defends the One-Good principle, which cannot have opposites, and the existence of evil in the lower entities without denying contingency or blaming the cosmos for evil