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PLOTINUS
- PART I
The Life of plotinus -
About the One -
Nous the World Soul -
Religion and Ethics -
Some Sayings of plotinus - NOUS
"Knowledge has three degrees: opinion,
science, illumination. The means or instrument of the first is sense; of the
second dialectic; of the third, intuition."
Plotinus was born at Lycopolis, in
Upper Egypt in 204 CE, and died at Campania in 270 CE. In the twenty-eighth
year of his life he applied himself to philosophy, and attended the lectures
of the most celebrated men of that time in Alexandria. After studying under
Ammonius for some ten years, he accompanied the Emperor Gordian in his
campaign against the Persians, in order to learn something of their
philosophy. In this object he failed, owing to the unsuccessful issue of the
undertaking; he was even obliged to flee for his life to Antioch. In 244 he
went to Rome and won numerous adherents to his teaching, among them the
Emperor Gallienus and his wife Salonina. He conceive the idea of founding an
ideal city in Campania, with the approval and support of the emperor: this
city was to be called Platonopolis, and its inhabitants were to live
according to the laws of Plato. Gallienus was not disinclined to enter into
the plan; but it was thwarted by the opposition of the imperial counselors.
He taught in Rome until about 268, retiring then to the country estate of a
disciple in Campania. Plotinus did not reduce his doctrine to writing until
toward the close of his life, and then did not publish it. His pupil
Porphyry, arranged the fifty-four treatises of Plotinus in six Enneades,
placing them in logical order from the simplest to the most abstruse, as
well as chronological sequence. They were first printed in a Latin
translation by Marsilio Ficino at Florence in 1492, then in Greek and Latin
at Basel, in 1580.
What principally distinguishes Plotinus
from both Plato and his immediate predecessors is the assumption of a
principle higher than the nous. This assumption proceeds from the
requirement of unity as an attribute of the highest principle; the nous, as
at once subject and object of perception, nooun and nooumenon is twofold.
Therefore something higher must be sought, which is absolute unity, the One,
identical with the Godhead and wholly transcendent-the first cause, the
source of all thinking and being, all the good and beautiful, and all
activity. The utter transcendence of God being was taught by Plotinus in a
more extreme form than by any of his predecessors. He admits the
insolubility by human reason of the most difficult of all metaphysical
problems i.e. (how becoming arose out of immutable being and plurality out
of unity). The theory of Emanation, which he accepts, also cannot answer the
question. Following Plato, he suggests that the explanation may be found in
the goodness or benevolence of God. All other beings produce yet others; and
how should the most perfect of all beings, the primal goodness and the
highest power, remain absorbed in itself as though impotent to produce?
This, of course, is rather an anthropomorphic-ethical than a metaphysical
explanation. His attempt to supply the metaphysical explanation is found in
the view that the highest being is over-full, and, as the higher, does not
precisely contain the lower in itself but allows it to flow forth from its
superabundant perfection. This doctrine may possibly show oriental
influence; but the idea of emanation occurs in the Stoic teaching, and still
more in Philo, though in neither so fully developed as with Plotinus.
That which first issues from the One is
the nous, which is conscious of being a product and image of the One and
receives from its relation to the One its power to produce other existences.
It is not mere thought but actual being, comprehending all things as the
genus comprehends the species. Plato conceived of actual being as being
contained in one idea, that of good. Plotinus conceived of it as containing
the ideas. Another difference is that whereas Plato asserted the existence
of ideas only for such objects as had a common concept or name, Plotinus
attributes them to all single existences. From the nous proceeds further the
soul, the third principle. As the highest principle has neither thought nor
consciousness, so the nous, which is purely contemplative, has no
reflective, logical thought. This is the work of the world-soul, which is
the link between the intelligible and the phenomenal world, carrying on the
process of emanation down to its lowest terms. Matter is conceived by
Plotinus not exactly as an emanation from the world-soul, but rather (as
with Plato) in the guise of a receptive or passive principle in contrast to
the formative or active. What the world-soul sees in the nous, with that it
is pervaded and that it strives to reproduce. The content of the soul
descends to lower stages. This content is composed of the ideas; and thus in
the image of the nous and soul images of the ideas are also contained. These
are the logoi, concepts, whose sum, the Logos par excellence, like the
world-soul itself, is an emanation from the nous. These logoi are the
essential factor in the giving of form to matter, which is formed in an
organic, not a mechanical, manner. This formative process presupposes
purpose, but not knowledge or deliberation-just as in Heraclitus all
becoming takes place on rational principles, yet without any conscious
foresight. If everything, therefore, is formed and pervaded by rational
powers, the world-soul with its content permeating all, all must be rational
or reason. Although the logoi are lower than their prototypes, and their
relations with formless matter go lower still, yet Plotinus finds in the
world of phenomena traces of the highest; the absolutely Good and Beautiful
is visible even in the world of sense. The spirit of Plato, as expressed in
the close of the Timoeus, the idea that the sensible world is a great and
beautiful and perfect thing, dominates Plotinus also, so that in spite of
matter producing evil, he is far from regarding this world as evil or
hateful, representing rather in this point the general optimism of Greek
philosophy than the tendency of the early Christian writers to despise the
visible world. On the whole, in his explanation of the existence of evil in
the universe and his justification of the higher powers in respect to it, he
follows the Stoics.
From the world-soul proceed individual souls, but they
are not parts of it. Going down into bodies, they have forgotten the higher,
the divine, from which they came, and have believed themselves independent.
Thus, they have gone continually lower, and stand in need of a return to the
better. Plotinus does not make it plain whether this can be executed With
freedom by men. The ethical goal is sometimes represented, after Plato, as
approximation to the Godhead, sometimes in a more Aristotelian fashion as
operation in conformity with the nature of the operator, and again, with
Heraclitus and the Stoics, as obedience to reason. Among the virtues
Plotinus distinguishes first the "political" or social, which are the four
commonly accepted by the Greeks-prudence, courage, temperance, and justice;
but these can not make the soul like God. Above them are the purifying
virtues, which have that effect. They consist in freeing oneself as far as
possible from the body and from sin by an avoidance of what is sensual,
though without any exaggerated asceticism. Man, however, is not to be
satisfied by mere freedom from sin, but must strive actually to become God.
To this end serve the deifying virtues, which are the reproduction on a
higher plane of the primary or political virtues. Through these the true
nature of man comes to its fulfillment; and thus his beatitude consists in
the maintenance of his proper attitude toward himself, undisturbed by
external happenings or relations. The supreme aim, indeed, with Plotinus as
with Philo, lies not in the realm of thought (as the detailed exposition of
the deifying virtues might suggest), but in ecstatic elevation to the
highest good, to the Godhead. Logical knowledge is only a preliminary to
this, which consists in immediate knowledge of and union with God. To this
Plotinus himself, according to the testimony of Porphyry, attained only four
times in the six years that the disciple was with him. The reason why man on
earth can not remain permanently in this state is that he has not yet
succeeded in turning wholly away from the earthly; the time of permanent
union will come when he is no longer tormented by any restlessness of the
body. On the immortality of the soul Plotinus wrote a separate treatise, in
which he follows Plato in the main, especially emphasizing the fact that the
soul, as incorporeal and incomposite, is incapable of dissolution. A reunion
of soul and body in the after life is inconceivable to him, since the
passage into this higher life is conditioned by the desertion of the body,
whose nature is in essential opposition to that of the soul.
The One, perfect in seeking nothing,
possessing nothing and needing nothing, overflows and creates a new
reality by its superabundance. [5.2.1.]
The process is like the unfolding of
a seed, moving from simple origin to termination in the world of sense,
the prior always remaining in its place, while begetting its successor
from a store of indescribable power - power that must not halt within the
higher realm . . but continue to expand until the universe of things
reaches the limit of its possibility, lavishing its vast resources on all
its creatures, intolerant that any one should have no share in it. Nothing
is debarred from participation in the Good, to the extent of its
receptivity. [4.8.6]
This All is universal power, of
infinite extent and infinite in potency, a god so great that all his parts
are infinite. Name any place, and he is already there. [5.8.9.]
It has not deserted its creation for
a place apart; it is always present to those with strength to touch it.
[6.9.7]
The power and nature of Soul
encompasses heaven and guides it according to its will. To all this vast
expanse, as far as it extends, it gives itself, and every interval, both
large and small, is filled with Soul. . . Soul enlivens all things with
its whole self and all Soul is present everywhere. . . And vast and
diversified thought this universe is, it is one by the power of soul and a
god because of soul. The sun is also a god, because ensouled, and the
other stars, and if we ourselves partake of the Divine, this is the cause.
[5.1.2.]
Nothing is detached or severed from
its prior, so that the higher soul seems to extend as far as plants; and
in a way it does so extend, because the life in plants belongs to it. Not
that soul is wholly within plants, but only to the extent that they are
the lower limit of its advance, another level of existence created by its
decline towards the worse. [5.2.1.]
Every participant partakes of the
power of Being in its entirety, while Being is unchanged and undivided.
[4.4.8]
Soul in its unity is not extended by
fragmentation into bodies, but is entirely present where it is present,
and omnipresent and undivided throughout the universe. [6.4.12]
This universe is a single living
being embracing all living beings within it, and possessing a single Soul
that permeates all its parts to the degree of their participation in it.
Every part of this sensible universe is fully participant in its material
aspect, and in respect of soul, in the degree to which it shares in the
World Soul. [4.4.32.]
A sympathy pervades this single
universe, like a single living creature, and the distant is near. . . Like
parts lie not in contact but separated, with other parts between, yet by
their likeness they feel sympathy . . and in a living and unified being
there is no part so remote as not to be near, through the very nature that
binds the living unity in sympathy. [4.4.32]
[Matter] is an image and phantom of
corporeal mass, a mere tendency to substantial existence, static but
without position; it is invisible in itself, eluding all attempts to
observe it, present yet unseen. . . Images of intelligible beings pass in
and out of it . . without cutting, as if through water, or like shapes
floating through the Void. [3.6.7.]
If evil exists, it exists in
non-being . . . Such is the whole world of sense and all experience of the
senses. [1.8.1]
[Matter] is the substrate which
underlies figures, forms, shapes, measures and limits . . a mere shadow in
relation to real Being, the very essence of evil, if such is possible.
[1.8.2]
Sense-perception belongs to the
sleeping soul, the part of the soul immersed in body; and the true
awakening is a rising up, not with the body, but from the body. . . To
rise up to very truth is altogether to depart from bodies. Corporeality is
contrary to soul and essentially opposed to soul. [3.6.6.]
If life and soul survive death, then
there will still be good, and the more so now that soul acts purely
according to its nature, unimpeded by body. [1.7.3.]
What else could true moderation be
but to avoid association with bodily pleasures, and to shun them as impure
affections of a thing impure? . . The soul when purified becomes pure form
and formative power, all disembodied and intellective, and wholly within
the Divine. [1.6.6.]
The source is not fragmented into the
universe, for its fragmentation would destroy the whole, which would not
longer come to be if there did not remain by itself, distinct from it, its
source. [3.8.10.]
The One is all things and yet no one
of them. It is the source of all things, not itself all things, but their
transcendent Principle. . . So that Being may exist the One is not Being,
but the begetter of Being.
Intellect can veil itself from the
world and concentrate its gaze within, and though it sees nothing, it will
behold a light - not an external light in some perceived object, but a
solitary light, pure and self-contained, suddenly revealed within itself.
. . We must not enquire whence it comes, for there is no "whence". . . He
does not come as one expected, and his coming knows no arrival; he is
beheld not as one who enters but who is eternally present. [5.7-8.]
Our thought cannot grasp the One as
long as any other image remains active in the soul . . To this end, you
must set free your soul from all outward things and turn wholly within
yourself, with no more leaning to what lies outside, and lay your mind
bare of ideal forms, as before of the objects of sense, and forget even
yourself, and so come within sight of that One. [6.9.7]
A bolder course would be to abandon
the duality of seer and seen, and count both as one. In that vision the
seer does not see or distinguish, or even imagine, two; he is changed, no
longer himself nor owning himself there, but belongs to God, one with him,
center joined with center. [6.9.10]
If he remembers who he became when he
merged with the One, he will bear its image in himself. He was himself
one, with no diversity in himself or his outward relations; for no
movement was in him, no passion, no desire for another, once the ascent
was accomplished. Nor indeed was there any reason or though, nor, if we
dare say it, any trace of himself. [6.9.11.]
Please take note that for Plotinus "evil"
means the absence of GOOD, or complete UNCONSCIOUSNESS and
IGNORANCE of what is GOOD.
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