This series covers events from 09/02/1983 - 09/16/1983

This three-part series of classes from September 1983 discusses a paper cowritten by Anthony Damiani and Avery Solomon that offers a revolutionary interpretation of the Eight Hypotheses from the 2nd part of Plato’s dialogue Parmenides, applying these dialectical demonstrations to the nature of the individual soul rather than the One. The crucial innovation is to have the first hypothesis refer to soul per se, to the unific void-essence of the I AM, and the second hypothesis refer to the soul as having received Being by being wedded to the multiple nature of the World-Idea. The other six hypotheses show the interplay between the soul as the principle of manifestation, which itself is not in existence, and its contents, the reason-principles within it, which are the “others” that either participate in soul or not.

Many points are illustrated with quotations from Plotinus’s two stunning tractates, “On the Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Being” (VI.4–5), as well as the dream analogy, which shows how each dream character has the whole of the dreamer’s mind behind it without the dream character disturbing or affecting the unity of the mind.

Damiani demonstrates how the seemingly contradictory consequences derived from applying the Eight Hypotheses to soul provide a complete 360-degree definition of soul that encompasses all of its facets. As a result of understanding this dialectic, we may come to appreciate Plotinus’s definition of soul as one and many and glimpse the grandeur and immensity of our own soul.

Damiani concludes that only an initiate with direct knowledge of consciousness's paradoxical nature could have articulated these precise logical relationships, transforming the Parmenides from academic philosophy into a practical manual for self-knowledge.

Classes and documents available in this series