Michael Harrington, From Cosmos to Diakosmesis: Order and Ornament in Dionysius the Areopagite

The 5th or 6th century Neoplatonist Dionysius the Areopagite frequently uses the terms “kosmos” and “diakosmesis,” both of which have a long history in Platonic philosophy. Dionysius uses them in fairly shopworn ways to refer to the intelligible or the sensible worlds, or to the hierarchically ordered subdivisions of these worlds. But he also uses these terms, especially as verbs, in a way that is more complicated. While they both refer to organized wholes, they sometimes refer to wholes that are not independent entities, but the ornaments of a higher entity. I will examine Dionysius’ use of these two terms, as well as the efforts of his commentators to disentangle their various meanings in his work.