The context was the final two chapters (§9 and §10) of Platonism and Naturalism, by Lloyd P. Gerson, which are omitted.
why doesn't he see the issue raised in chapter 9 as having ruined his whole project?
Excellent question—and it strikes right at the philosophical heart of the matter.
In Chapter 9, especially through the challenges raised by Proclus and Damascius, the author confronts a deep aporia (philosophical impasse):
👉 How can an absolutely simple first principle—the One—cause or explain anything, if any causal connection implies complexity or relation?
👉 And if the One is too simple to be participated in, then what explanatory role can it play at all?
This appears to threaten the very core of Platonism, which relies on the One as the ultimate principle that grounds and explains everything.
So why doesn’t the author see this as fatal?
1. The Problem is Diagnostic, Not Destructive
He treats the issues raised in Chapter 9 not as a refutation, but as a diagnosis of the extreme tensions inherent in Platonism—tensions he believes must be faced squarely if philosophy is to remain philosophy.
Rather than ruin his project, these tensions:
- Reveal the depth and necessity of Platonism’s metaphysical ambition
- Demonstrate that any coherent alternative (especially Naturalism) faces equally or more devastating problems (e.g. explaining normativity, consciousness, or causation without metaphysical depth)
He sees the struggle to explain how the One can cause multiplicity as a defining feature of Platonism, not a disqualifying flaw.
2. Plotinus’s Response Is Still Defensible
Although Damascius presses hard on the paradoxes of participation and simplicity, the author still finds Plotinus’s original answer—the One as “δύναμις” (power), or pure “ἐνέργεια” (activity)—philosophically viable.
Plotinus doesn’t try to fully resolve the paradox, but shows how the tension itself can be philosophically illuminating:
- The One does not “act” in a conventional sense but overflows or emanates.
- This non-dual causality avoids direct relationality while still grounding being.
So the paradox isn’t so much a problem to be solved as it is a structure of reality to be understood differently—a Platonist metaphysics of asymmetrical dependence.
3. The Aporia is a Signpost, Not a Dead End
Damascius’s conclusion that the ultimate principle is ineffable and even non-referable doesn’t negate the project—it completes it, in a way.
In Chapter 10, the author implies that:
- Ultimate philosophical explanation requires ultimate simplicity, even if we can’t conceptually grasp it.
- The tension between intelligibility and transcendence is not a failure of Platonism—it’s what sets it apart from Naturalism.
Rather than demand a reductive, scientific kind of explanation, Platonism points beyond conceptual grasp to what grounds graspability itself.
4. The Alternatives Are Worse
Most crucially, the author believes that abandoning Platonism leads directly to:
- Naturalism, which cannot justify normativity, knowledge, or metaphysical explanation
- Or religion, which invokes authority and revelation, removing philosophy from public reason
The collapse of the Platonic One into aporia still leaves Platonism as the only coherent metaphysical option for sustaining philosophy’s distinct subject matter.
5. He Embraces the Strain as a Defining Feature of Real Philosophy
The author ends by recommending a new pedagogical model, where philosophy is understood as the unfolding of this very tension—between intelligibility and its ground, between Platonism and its critiques.
So, to him, the “crack in the system” doesn’t destroy the system; it marks the point where philosophy becomes serious.
Would you say his response is compelling? Or do you feel the paradox really should be fatal?