(Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity) Asger Ousager-Plotinus_ on Selfhood, Freedom and Politics -Aarhus University Press (2004)

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Aarhus Studies in

Mediterranean Antiquity

(ASMA)

VI

ASMA is a series published by The Centre for the Study of Antiquity at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

The Centre is a network of cooperating departments of Classics, Classical Ar-chaeology, History, and the Faculty of Th eology. The objective of the series is to advance interdisciplinary study by publishing proceedings and monographs that reflect the current activities of the Centre.

A S G E R O U S A G E R

PLOT I NUS

ON

SELFHO OD, FREED OM

AND POLITICS

Acta Jutlandica LXXIX:1

Humanities Series 76

AARHUS UNIVERSIT Y PRESS

Plotinus on Selfhood, Freedom and Politics

Cover and layout: Lotte Bruun Rasmussen

Structures of Scandinavian porphyry

Photo: Asger Ousager

The Plotinus sarcophagus, Gregorian Profane Museum, Vatican

Photo: A. Bracchetti, Vatican Museums 13163

Typeset with Trajan (cover) and Minion (body)

ISBN 87 7934 913 7

ISSN 0065 1354 (Acta Jutlandica)

ISSN 0106 0556 (Humanities Series)

Aarhus University Press

Langelandsgade 177

DK-8200 Aarhus N

Fax: +45 89425380

www.unipress.dk

Til

Bent og Gerda

Asger Ousager 2005

Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Selfh ood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Freedom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Politics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Part I. SELFHOOD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter I.A. Unification with Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter I.B. Unification with Intellect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

I.B.1. Memories of the body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

I.B.2. Potentiality or actuality of Intellect? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

I.B.2.a. Actualisation of Intellect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

I.B.2.b. Actualisation of Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

I.B.2.c. A failing criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

I.B.3. Forms of particulars within Intellect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

I.B.4. Intentionality within Intellect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

I.B.5. The gaze of souls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

I.B.6. In-esse and determinism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

I.B.7. Is Intellect unifi ed? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Chapter I.C. Unification with the One. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

I.C.1. Envisioning the One. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

I.C.2. The One within. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

I.C.3. Inferences from Proclus and Augustine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

I.C.4. Annihilation or preservation? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

I.C.4.a. Preservation of particularity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

I.C.4.b. Annihilation of the particular self . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

I.C.5. Unity or plurality fi rst? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Part II. FREEDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter II.A. Sufficient reason behind causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

II.A.1. Reason and cause in Plato and Plotinus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

II.A.2. Causa sui or ratio sui? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

II.A.3. Plotinus interpreting the Euthyphro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

II.A.4. Suffi cient Providence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Chapter II.B. Distinguishable souls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter II.C. Determinism disrupted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

II.C.1. The causal nexus of ultimate unifi cation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

II.C.2. Absolute freedom attained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

II.C.3. Two concepts of necessity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

II.C.4. Determinism put into perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

II.C.5. The absolute Self. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

II.C.6. Self-determination, self-causation and self-motion . . . . . . . . . . 177

II.C.7. Puppets, slaves or assistants? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

6 contents

Part III. POLITICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Chapter III.A. Coming to imperial Rome. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Chapter III.B. Political philosophy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

III.B.1. Th e king . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

III.B.2. Inequality of worth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

III.B.3. Th e general . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

III.B.4. Th e legislator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

III.B.5. War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

III.B.6. Power and wealth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

III.B.7. Th e city-state . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

III.B.8. Homeland and empire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

III.B.9. Dialogue, democracy and human rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

III.B.9.a. Gender, sex and love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

III.B.10. Efforts of individuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Chapter III.C. The Plotinus sarcophagus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

III.C.1. The chair of Plotinus?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

III.C.2. Emperor Gallienus in the chair? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

III.C.3. The iconographic touch of Plotinianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Ancient and medieval authors with translations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Modern authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Index of passages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

General index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

contents 7

Introduction

Selfh ood

What is an individual according to Plotinus, and is the individual (pre)-determined or free?

My investigation tries to answer these essential questions by fi rst analysing what distinguishes persons from each other. Plotinus raises this issue sev-eral times and it is also presented as a peculiar Plotinian problem by several scholars, for instance, tienne Vacherot, Henry Blumenthal and most recently Gabriela Carone and Richard Sorabji. Th e diffi culty has three subsections:

A. If particular souls are all parts of Soul and are, in one phase of their mystical ascent at least, to be identified with the Soul as such, what still differentiates them from each other?

B. If human souls with their particular intellects are all parts of Intellect and are, in a following phase of their mystical ascent at least, to be identified with the Intellect as such, what still differentiates them from each other?

C. Again, if they all in some way participate in the One and may possibly, as an end stage of their mystical ascent, be identifi ed with the One as such, what still differentiates them from each other?

In a loose manner of speaking, the body is the answer to the fi rst question, since particular bodies both demand and presuppose particular souls, which are prior to the bodies. Particular human souls, which, as human, will all have particular intellects, originate as intellects from Intellect as such.

Introduction 9

The fact that these souls have particular intellects is the answer to the sec-ond question, because the particular intellect is at the same time a Form of the particular soul, no matter when or where it is embodied. This criterion is, for instance, what fundamentally distinguishes identical twins, even if we suppose they have apparently identical bodies and, in the same vein, appar-ently identical souls. The Form of the particular, which is at the same time an intellect, has its particular angle of intentionality within Intellect and upon the One. This Form determines the descents and ascents of the particular person in the cycles of reincarnation.

Ascent is, ultimately, directed towards unification with the One, because the One is the only thing that can really unify the soul. Plotinus considers this premise a tautology. Only in so far as the human soul becomes the One is a human being really an individual in the literal sense. The One is therefore the real Self of any human being. Against the interpretations of Jean Trouil-lard, Pierre Hadot and Dominic OMeara and in support of a previous view put forward by John Rist, I will provide plausible evidence that the autobio-graphical sketch of Plotinus in IV.8.1 indicates unification with the One, and not only with Intellect. In the less autobiographical speculations, especially in VI.9, these stages of unification are generalised as options for the whole of mankind. Against the theistic interpretations of Ren Arnou, Rist, Arthur Hilary Armstrong, Blumenthal, Gerard ODaly and Hadot among others, it is shown that duality cannot be preserved at this stage.

Instead, in support of Plato Mamos monistic thesis of unification in Plo-tinus, it is shown that in ultimate unification, particularity must be completely dissolved by unification with the One. The text indicates that such complete unification is possible. It does not let the particular intellect, the particular soul and the particular body disappear at once, for the One continuously recreates particulars. Not the particular soul, but only its previous selves have been obliterated and replaced by the Self of the One.

Just as the text indicates a stage of indistinguishability of the human self and the One, it also indicates the stages of ascent before and descent right after ultimate unification as stages of vision involving an object outside the subject. This kind of vision is superseded by ultimate unifi cation.

Since ultimate unification is possible, there must be some element corres -ponding to the One inherent in the human soul. In fact, Plotinus says that all three original natures are within the human soul, i.e. encompassing the One. The One is potentially within everything, but the human soul can also actualise this potentiality by ascent. The probability that such a doctrine is present in Plotinus is strengthened by its occurrence in Proclus, a late Neo-

10 introduction

platonist follower of Plotinus, and by the probable Christian transformation of the original Plotinian doctrine into Augustines doctrine of the image of the whole Trinity within the human soul.

Against widespread Aristotelian prejudices concerning the interpretation of Plotinus in this connection, most succinctly exhibited by Carone and Sorabji, I conclude that in Plotinus, the point of distinction between human souls from each other is not plurality within the sensible world, but the very opposite. The point of departure for this distinction is not even Intellect but rather the indistinguishability within the One. The One within the particular human soul is derived directly from the One Itself.

Freedom

Given that human souls have their origin directly in the One, what, then, dis-tinguishes them from each other? There has to be a suffi cient reason for the distinction. The One itself is not only the ultimate cause (aition) of everything, but also the ultimate reason (aitia) for everything including itself, according to Plotinus interpretation of Plato, which he formulates as a response to the problem surrounding the relation between arbitrary will and modal necessity in the Euthyphro. I argue that Hadots thesis of the One in Plotinus as a cause of itself (causa sui) on the other hand, is unwarranted.

Providence is the name of the sufficient reason that governs everything flown from the One towards the best, i.e. towards unification. In order to avoid indistinctness with the resulting identity of human souls in only one human soul, it would be necessary for the preference (proairesis) of each soul to be diff erent from that of any other soul from the very beginning. Conse-quently, the series of resulting choices and dispositions of souls will be quite different from each other. The series and the decisive beginning of the series are contained within the Form of the particular soul. Providence also deter-mines which human souls will ascend to ultimate unification with the One. Human unification with the necessary determinant, namely the One as ab-solute freedom, must have indeterministic causal consequences for the whole causal hierarchy. In particular, such indeterministic causal consequences will follow for the human soul attaining ultimate unification, as the determin-ism of Providence again determining the Form of the particular is disrupted by this intervention. This Form will, however, be recreated and adjusted to the new state of affairs generated from ultimate freedom, as the human soul

Introduction 11

must descend again. Here, Plotinus is probably giving what he believed to be the Platonic answer to the problem surrounding the relation between self-determination and determinism discussed by the Stoics and Alexander of Aphrodisias a discussion most recently scrutinised by Susanne Bobzien. Plotinus denies self-determination of the One and consequently the One as a causa sui because this premise would restrict the Ones absolute measure of freedom. Instead he affirms human self-determination as derived from that absolute freedom.

Politics

These views on ascents into and descents out of absolute freedom have polit-ical implications for exterior freedom as well. Against the still pervasive tra-ditional view of Plotinus as apolitical, I set out to present all existing evidence and indications for a political philosophy in Plotinus.

The benevolent Providence consisting of material conditions and polit-ical circumstances behind the development of Plotinus quite comprehensive philosophy is discussed first. According to Platos broad defi nition of politics as the art (techn) of the soul, Plotinus philosophy is no doubt political. It implies references to the One as the king and to Providence as the general and the legislator, all of which are presented as ideals for human social conduct and legislation in a sensible world at war with itself. Although it is not straight away manifested in the social order, there is an order relying on the basic inequality of the merits and value of persons according to their descents and ascents. Plotinus views on the acquisition of power and wealth are likewise spiritualised but indicate, after all, some conservative and libertarian values against, for instance, the abstract egalitarianism of the Gnostics. Th ese con-servative values encompass an adherence to the rule of law and opposition to tyrannical imperialism. He presents the ideal of a mixed constitution with elements of kingship, aristocracy and democracy.

The basic element that distinguishes the political philosophy of Plotinus from that of Plato as well as Aristotle is the emphasis he places on natural authority, mutual cooperativeness and the immense potential of everybody, even slaves. His political philosophy deals with the theoretical relation noted in previous parts of the book between determinism and freedom as manifesting itself in the corresponding practical relation between oppression and liberation. A tension pointed out within Plotinus system is, in the end, the opposition

12 introduction

between the pressure for historical development on the one hand, and the eternal, ahistorical structure of the henological hierarchy on the other.

On the basis of different suggestions to interpretation of the so-called Plo-tinus sarcophagus, the book closes with a brief survey of the archaeological evidence for the direct social and political impact of Plotinus thought in his own age.

* * *

The study describes an arc beginning in the particular bodily self, with its apex in the ascent to the absolute and culminating in the consequences of enlightened descent.

With references, I argue that Plotinus is presenting an updated, system-atic interpretation of certain patterns in Platos thought, an interpretation that is neither unintelligible nor unintelligent. A few sharp logical principles traditionally ascribed to Leibniz are shown to be valid in an interpretation of Plotinus, simply because these principles established so pedagogically by Leibniz in modern philosophy were ingenuously deduced from Plotinus. An understanding of this quite simple but far-reaching logic is essential if the systematic concerns of Plotinus are to be properly understood.

In this study, I draw upon extensive research already carried out by other scholars, without which the conclusions of the present book would have been that much harder for me to draw. A treatment of some remaining thorny issues in present Plotinus scholarship has proven indispensable in order to reach well-founded conclusions. Another related reason for me to consult many researchers is that, within any branch of knowledge, any criticism is more useful than neglect.

While appreciating the decisive advice of my domestic mentor, Professor Karsten Friis Johansen at the University of Copenhagen over the years, my thanks go also to Professors Mary Margaret McCabe and Richard R.K. Sorab-ji for their comments on previous editions of the last part, but most of all to Doctor Peter S. Adamson, who emerged from the mist in time to become my supervisor for the whole PhD thesis. It was revised for re-presentation, freely drawing on the constructive recommendations of both my examiners, Doctor Peter Gallagher, Heythrop College London, and Professor Dominic J. OMeara, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Publication of the treatment of mainly political and social aspects of Plotinianism was encouraged by Professor Peter Brown, Princeton University, New Jersey. Subsequently, the manuscript was obligingly commended for publication in the series of Aarhus Studies of

Introduction 13

Mediterranean Antiquity by Professor Per Bilde and Doctors Anders Kloster-gaard Petersen and Jens Krasilnikoff, Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Antiquity. Concurrently, it was accepted into the series of Acta Jutlandica by the Learned Society under guidance of its president, Professor Niels Henrik Gregersen. Professor Niels Hannestad, also at Aarhus University, brought a needed critical stance to the last, archaeological chapter.

For essential contributions to revising my English I am furthermore in-debted to David Levy, Anne Harrow, Devin Henry and, last but defi nitely not least, Julian Thorsteinson, the principal linguistic reviser of the book. To ease reading, all Greek (and Russian) words, including quotes and titles of modern publications, have been transliterated and all Greek and Latin words, except for common expressions and titles of sources, have been translated.

Publication with a final linguistic revision of the manuscript has been sup-ported by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. The original thesis submitted at Kings College in 2001 was made possible due to a generous grant from the Danish Research Academy and to Goodenough College, which gave me shelter the last two years while in London. This book, however, is dedicated to my loving parents, who supported me all the way through.

14 introduction

Pa rt I

SELFHO OD

There can be no doubt that Plotinus suggests some sort of unifi cation of the self with Soul, with Intellect and at a third stage, with the One. Th e conceptions of these unifications have varied, however, mainly as to whether unification with the One should be conceived of in theistic or monistic terms. A consequence of the first option will be that the human self is preserved during and aft er unification, while in the second instance, it appears that the self will be annihilated. In the following analysis of what distinguishes human selves from each other and what ultimately makes them selves, we do not need to imply any connotations by using the convenient terms theistic and monistic beyond this essential distinction.1

In Plotinus, we should not expect that the choice between these two widely different interpretations is a matter of arbitrary, mystical inclination only. We must therefore reconsider the controversial texts where unifi cation is suggested in order to place them in their philosophical context. While Plotinus naturally discusses different issues in different passages, in the following I make what I take to be a fairly fertile assumption, namely, that his philosophical concerns are essentially the same throughout his work. If a consistent interpretation of his views based on that hypothesis is possible, it will confirm, if not prove, the hypothesis. This approach implies that none of his treatises will be considered as standing apart from the others, and that suggestions drawn from elsewhere

1. By adopting this approach, we circumvent the reluctance expressed by Bussanich (1988) 192, Bussanich (1994) 5326-28 and Bussanich (1997) 364-65 to use these terms due to worries over traditional, but in this context extraneous, connotations.

selfho od 17

in the corpus can be assumed to shed light on any particularly diffi cult pas-sages. This was the way Plotinus read Plato in his efforts to systematise Platon-ism. We should try to interpret Plotinus bearing his systematic approach in mind. Such a unitarian approach is not tantamount to becoming a partisan of Plotinian Neoplatonism. Simple attentiveness to the unity of thought is a precondition for understanding any thinker.

Let us take a preliminary glance at what Plotinus thinks is implied philo-sophically by a unification with Soul and then Intellect before moving on to unification with the One.

18 SE L FHO OD

Chapter I.A

Unification with Soul

Plotinus believes that all human souls, like souls in general, originate from a common World Soul or from Soul as such (e.g., IV.3.1.16-37, IV.3.7, IV.8.6.1-6, IV.9.4.6-20, III.5.3.36-38, I.1.8.8-15, VI.2.5.10), cf. Timaeus (34b-c, 41d-42e), Philebus (30a-b), Laws (892a-893b, 896d-e). The particular soul is not cut off from that whole Soul, on the contrary (III.5.4.10-12, III.7.13.66-69, IV.4.32.4-13, IV.9.1.6-13). He therefore raises the question in VI.4.14.1 (cf. VI.4.4.1-4, IV.9.1.13-23):

But if it is the same Soul in each and every place, how is it peculiar (idia) in each particular soul?

The body is in a way what differentiates particular souls from each other, since particular bodies, which are different from each other and in diff erent places (IV.2[4].1.60-61) and will each have their particular movement (IV.9.2.1-12 & 21-24, IV.7.5.1-2, II.9.7.7-11), both need and presuppose particular souls (IV.4.5.18-21, cf. Timaeus 89e) that direct, preserve and take care of the par-ticular bodies (IV.8.2.6-14, IV.3.6.7-8 & 11-15). Within the sphere of Soul and its subordinate kind of necessity (cf. Republic 616c) called Fate (heimar-men, cf. Timaeus 41e, Laws 904c),2 humans will also be diff erent because of their particular fortunes (tchais), parents, seasons and places of birth and upbringing (V.7.2.1-15, IV.3.15.7-9, II.3.15.5-8, cf. Metaphysics 1021a21-25,

2. Cf. Graeser (1972) 108.

Unification with Soul 19

1071a20-24). These elements, as well as innate character and resulting behav-iour (IV.3.8.5-9), correspond to the external, mortal, bodily part of particular souls. There is another, immortal part of them to which belongs ascent from the bodily to the divine and to themselves (II.3.9, cf. Timaeus 41c-d, 42e, 69c-d, 90b-c). Likewise, we are told that an essential diff erence from themselves makes them react quite differently to identical circumstances (IV.3.15.4-15, II.9.13.22-25, cf. III.4.6.8-10 & 46-60). We are now to investigate what that from themselves actually is.3

As will become clearer below, the faculty of making diff erent particular movements is a decisive criterion for distinction (IV.7.5.2-7, VI.2.6.13-16). It is, for instance, this faculty that makes the soul capable of any ascent to Intellect and to the One. The particular human soul is also able to ascend to Soul as such. This faculty is not just the passive sympathy of all souls standing in potential mutual compassion with each other, such as is demonstrated by the actual power of magic for Plotinus. He merely uses that kind of soulful compassion as additional evidence for Soul being the common source of all souls (IV.9.3.1-9, IV.3.8.1-4, IV.4.32.13-25, IV.4.45.1-24, V.1.2, II.3.7.16-25, cf. the possibly spurious II.3.12.30-32).4 The emotional peculiarities of the particular soul are preserved, though they will certainly either be consciously or unconsciously influenced by other particular souls and by Soul as such. However, the soul must experience unification with Soul as much as it must unify with Intellect and the One to reach perfection. For while discussing other matters in V.1.12.8-10, Plotinus says in passing that we human be-ings are not just a part of soul but the whole soul. The whole particular soul is probably meant first of all in that connection, but Plotinus shows that he considers the comment valid also for the particular souls relation to the Soul as such, cf. IV.3.7.14-18 referring to the Phaedrus (246b-c):

What could it be, then, which directs the nature of body, and either shapes it or sets it in order or makes it, except soul? And it is not the case that one soul is naturally able to do this, but the other is not. Plato says, then, that the perfect soul, the Soul of the All, walks on high, and does not come down, but, as we may say, rides upon the universe and creates (poiei) in it; and this is the manner of direction of every soul which is perfect.

3. Especially in this part I. Selfhood and the next, II. Freedom. 4. This level of mutual connectedness of souls is described excellently by Bussanich (1994)

5305-10. Cf. also Phillips (1983).

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Similar reports on unification with Soul or the World Soul or rather both are stated in I.7.3.9, III.2.4.9-11, IV.3.2.58-59, IV.3.12.8-12, IV.8.2.19-26, IV.8.4.5-10 and V.8.7.25-35.5 In the last-mentioned passage, it is even promised (V.8.7.35) that when the initiate in this way comes to belong to the whole, he makes (poiei) the whole.6 As we have seen above (IV.3.7.15-18), this should in prin-ciple be possible for all souls.

The reverse process of particularisation is described as the disadvantage or even disaster of sinking deeply into the particulars, losing the souls feathers and instead acquiring the fetters of the body (IV.8.4.10-35, cf. IV.3.6.24-27), cf. respectively the Phaedrus (246c-e, 248b-c) and the Phaedo (62b, 66a-67b). Particularisation can only be preliminarily overcome by unification with the higher part of Soul, which we are told is the only one sufficiently united as one Soul (IV.9.5.3-7). In this unification process, at the stage of the World Soul we are like a gardener who cares for a plant, which Plotinus uses as a meta-phor for the world. Our embodiment is compared to the rotten part of the plant suff ering from maggots (IV.3.4.26-33), which are presumably symbols of exterior forces that risk taking over the human soul from the inside as well. They correspond to forces of unduly worldly particularisation in diff erent re-spects. The souls that, partly due to these forces, stay behind in the world, are considered souls of third rank (IV.3.6.27-34, cf. III.2.18.3-5). The best of these souls will unite with Soul as such, for, in spite of everything, the soul always possesses something transcendent (hperechon ti) in some way (IV.8.4.30-31), or even (IV.8.8.17-18) possesses the Transcendent (to hperechon). A further ascent is possible, for as Plotinus says (V.1.2.11-14):

Let it look at the great Soul, being itself another soul which is no small one, which has become worthy (all psch ou smikra axia) to look by being freed from deceit and the things that have bewitched the other souls, and is estab-lished as thorough Stillness in Quietude (hschi ti katastasi).

5. As distinct from Hadot (1980) 245, who rightly says that unification with the One is not the only kind of unification in Plotinus but who only mentions unifi cation with Intellect as another kind. Also as distinct from Bussanich (1994) 5310 n. 25: I do not argue that Plotinus thinks the soul merges with the physical universe or even the World-Soul. Th is latter kind of unification is further investigated in section III.B.1. The king below.

6. As distinct from Klessidou-Galanou (1971) 395, who believes this passage concerns unification with the One. The One cannot be a whole, however. Cf. further discussion in section I.C.2. The One within below.

Unification with Soul 21

As human souls, souls of the third rank could not be excluded in principle from this further ascent, but unlike souls of the second and fi rst rank, they have excluded themselves from further ascent to Intellect and the One, re-spectively. That choice forms the basis of the tripartition of souls.7 Whether the choice itself could after all be predetermined will be discussed further below. We must first investigate whether any kind of distinction between souls could still be implied during unification with Intellect, and if so, what kind of distinction it is.

7. Other tripartitions of souls are to be found in Plotinus, for example I.3.1.8-9, as further investigated by Schniewind (2000b) 53-54 and Schniewind (2003) passim. However, it ap-pears to me that they are subordinate to the tripartition of souls found in, e.g., IV.3.6.27-34. Cf. further discussion in section I.C.2. The One within below.

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Chapter I.B

Unification with Intellect

In one of Plotinus earliest treatises (IV.8[6].1), he begins by referring to one of his frequent (pollakis) experiences of unification with Intellect. He says, Often I have awoken into myself out of the body, knowing that the self will rather be at the level of Intellect than at the level of the souls embodiment (cf. I.6.6.13-18, V.3.4.9-10 & 20-30). Moreover, he says that he has become the same as the divine (ti theii eis tauton gegenmenos). We will hold off for the time being our discussion of whether this is unification with Intellect only or includes unification with the One as well. The Stillness (stasin) he claims to have experienced in the divine will in any case be found as a Form only in Intellect, and he explicitly describes the following descent back from Intellect (ek nou, IV.8.1.8) to discursive reasoning on the level of Soul. His personal testimony of a level of intuitive thought (nosis) in Intellect attainable at least temporarily confirms similar views expressed by Plato. Although traces of the distinction between intuitive thought and discursive reasoning can be found elsewhere in Plato, as in the analogy of the divided line in the Republic (511d-e) and in the distinction between two different intellectual capacities of Soul in the Timaeus (36e-37c),8 it is evident that Plotinus primarily refers to the myth in the Phaedrus (246a-257b).

According to Plotinus (IV.8.1.1-11), human souls will have to leave Intel-lect again at some point for discursive i.e. sequential reasoning in the same way as was pointed out in the Phaedrus (247d-248b). Plotinus reading

8. According to Jger (1967) 33, 35, 40 in Plato, dianoia and logismos direct themselves to things in time, while noein and ennoein direct themselves to the timeless and non- sensible.

Unification with Intellect 23

of the Phaedrus suggests that one remains oneself even when participating temporarily in the cyclical motion of Intellect (cf. Timaeus 37c, 39d-e, 47b-c, Laws 897c-898b) like a dancer in a choir around a supreme god (VI.9.1.32, VI.9.8.36-VI.9.9.1, VI.9.11.17, cf. Phaedrus 247a, 252d). According to the Phaedrus (248a), one can at least for a while become like one of the gods in the cyclical motion, but even the ordinary gods themselves have souls with charioteers and horses (246a-b). In other words, in Plato, not even gods in the plural become completely identical with Intellect in a sense that would annihilate their particularity. According to his follower Plotinus as well, humans retain their distinctiveness during the movements of Intellect (I.8.7.12-16), although not as embodied men obviously (VI.4.4.37-39, cf. V.8.7.31-35). Indeed, they do continue to be distinct persons aft er unifi cation of their particular intellects with Intellect, cf. IV.3[27].5.1-9:

But how will there still be one particular soul which is yours, one which is the soul of this particular man, and one which is anothers? Are they the souls of particular persons in the lower order, but belong in the higher order to that higher unity? But this will mean that Socrates, and the soul of Socrates, will exist as long as he is in the body; but he will cease to be precisely when he attains to the very best. Now no real being ever ceases to be; since the intel-lects there too are not dissolved into a unity because they are not corporeally divided, but each remains distinct in Difference, having the same essential being. So too it is with souls [].

But how can they still be different? For when affirming that they are diff er-ent, Plotinus raises the question of how persons could distinguish themselves from Intellect and how they could then distinguish themselves from each other within Intellect.

I.B.1. Memories of the body

Obviously, in the passage quoted above, Plotinus denies that bodies on their own are enough to distinguish persons. For then the immortality for which Socrates searched in the Phaedo would already have to be given up when the soul leaves the body and the body consequently vanishes step-by-step (IV.4.29.1-7, cf. IV.4.14.6-8, II.4.14.12-16, VI.4.10.1-22, IV.5.7.56-62, Phaedo

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80c, 117e-118a). Instead of giving in to materialism, in this treatise Plotinus discusses at length a purely psychological criterion that is, however, connected with the body, namely the souls memory (mnm) of its bodily life. Such memory can be neither a sufficient nor a necessary condition for distinctions, for the memories of embodiments disappear after a while in pure Intellect (IV.3.27.16-23, IV.4.1.1-11, IV.4.2.1-3). At the same time, Plotinus discussion confirms what Aristotle said in On the Soul (430a23-25) about memories from the passive intellect perishing in the active intellect.

The vanishing of the souls memories of its bodily life does not completely preclude the already embodied soul from having memories once it arrives at Intellect or while within Intellect. The sort of memories it will still collect, however, will be decisive for its ensuing fate resulting from whether it directs its awareness towards Intellect or towards the sensible world (cf. IV.4.3.1-6), i.e. whether it is thinking non-discursively (noein) or just exercising imagin-ation (phantasia). Plotinus uses the Aristotelian term almost synonymously with opinion (doxa) of the sensible order in the analogy of the divided line of Platos Republic (510a) that certainly also refers to things imagined (phantas-mata, cf. Parmenides 165d). According to Plotinus, then (IV.4.3.6), the soul is and becomes what it remembers just as (IV.3.8.15-16) diff erent souls look at different things and are and become what they look at.

If the soul continued to have memories from its embodied life in Intel-lect, they would presumably not be bodily memories but rather intellectual memories. Still, memory is not the best thing (IV.4.4.6-7), for, as Plotinus an-nounces (IV.3.32.13), the more it presses on towards the heights the more it will forget. What will the soul remember when it becomes alone (mon)? he asks (IV.3.27.14-15 & 23-24), i.e. when the soul ultimately becomes alone as is the One. When he remarks in the same instance that multiplicity must be abandoned in favour of unity, he suggests that any multitude of memories must finally be abandoned (IV.3.32.13-24).

It turns out that Plotinus (IV.3.25.31-38) opposes bodily memory to unifi -cation with Intellect, considered as the recollection (anamnsis) elaborated by Plato in the Meno (80e-86c), the Phaedo (72e-77a), the Phaedrus (249c) and the Philebus (34a-c). It would then be premature to expect that amnesia alone could cause the vanishing of distinctions between persons.9 For instance, even

9. As distinct from Blumenthal (1971b) 61, cf. point made in the preface by Leibniz (1703-05) 58 and in II, i, 14 and II, xxvii, 9 against Locke (1689) in the corresponding para-graphs.


though a great deal of particular character and behaviour is only innate to the concrete compound of soul and body, some particular characteristics and peculiarities of behaviour can remain with the soul coming to pure Intellect, while, on the other hand, certain passions will have to fade away (IV.4.5.18-21). Memory seems to be such a passion or even the bearer of those passions. It cannot explain the particularity of each soul, which was there before any of its memory (IV.4.5.11-13). If memory cannot be the criterion of the souls particularity, however, what about recollection?

I.B.2. Potentiality or actuality of Intellect?

Plotinus whole point in equating the unification of the human soul with In-tellect and Platonic recollection (V.3.2.9-14, V.9.5.32) is that any unifi cation with Intellect (cf. VI.7.36.3-10) is really a reunification (cf. V.2.2.9, III.7.11.1-4, III.7.12.19-22, III.7.13.62-63).10 For the original, beautiful, real man is a knowing man (V.8.2.45-46, V.8.13.19-22) and ignorance is only incidental to him (II.5.2.20-22), so the real man must belong to the knowing Intellect (VI.7.6.11-12). The problem seems to remain, however, if we are all reunifi ed with Intellect, for (VI.6.15.13-15):

[] in Intellect, in so far as it is Intellect, all the intellects exist particularly (kath hekaston) as parts (mer); but then there is a number of these also.

How can these particular intellects, each connected with its own particular soul (cf. V.2.2.9), be distinguished from each other (V.3.2.14-22)? Could a cri-terion for a distinction between particular persons be found in a distinction between different actualisations of their intellects (cf. I.8.2.18-21, V.9.5.1-4)? For men are definitely not equally rational (VI.7.9.14-15).

Plotinus discussion draws upon the philosophies of both Plato and Aris-totle. In Aristotles Posterior Analytics (cf. 71a29-30), a solution is presented to the paradox presented in Platos Meno (80d) that in principle, one should never be able to arrive at knowledge of what one does not know beforehand. Aristotle suggests, culminating in the last chapter (100b14-15), that knowers

10. As distinct from Blumenthal (1971b) 62 n. 1, who thinks that Plotinus made Platos doc-trine of anamnsis unnecessary. On the contrary, he explains it, cf. Shngen (1936) 109, 113.

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all potentially know everything, but not yet actually as does Intellect (nous). Apart from Aristotles additional emphasis on the role of sense perception compared to Plato, Plotinus considered the distinction between potential and actual knowledge already advanced by Plato in the Meno (81c-d), the Phaedo (72e-77a) and in the simile of the sun and the analogy of the divided line of the Republic.11 According to the simile of the sun for instance, the eye, the symbol of the soul (cf. Sophist 254a-b), is made in the likeness of the sun (cf. Timaeus 45b), the symbol of the Good, without either actually having become the same (508a-b) as light, the symbol of Intellect (nous, 508c).12 Because of the souls likeness to the maker of intelligibles, however, it can potentially know them all. Plotinus states this interpretation with a clear emphasis on the process of coming to actuality most succinctly in I.6.9.29-32:

For one must come to the sight with a seeing power made akin and like to what is seen. No eye ever saw the sun without becoming sun-like [].

He also says (VI.2.20.10-23):

Thus we can certainly say that universal Intellect exists in one way that is the one before those which are actually (energeiai) the particular intellects and particular intellects in another, those which are partial and fulfi lled from all things; but the Intellect over all of them directs the particular intellects, but is their potentiality and contains them in its universality; and they on the other hand in their partial selves (en hautois en merei) contain the universal Intellect, as a particular body of knowledge contains knowledge. And the great Intellect exists by itself, and so do the particular intellects which are in themselves (en hautois), and again that the partial intellects are comprehended in the whole and the whole in the partial; the particular ones are on their own and in an-other, and that great Intellect is on its own and in those particulars; and all are potentially in that Intellect which is on its own, which is actually all things at once, but potentially each particular separately, and the particular intellects are actually what they are, but potentially the whole.

11. As distinct from, e.g., Lloyd (1987), who apart from two references pp. 164-65 mainly considers the Aristotelian rather than the Platonic evidence for Plotinus doctrine. Instead, that evidence is partly provided by, e.g., Schwyzer (1944) 88, 91, 93-94, Emilsson (1995) 38 n. 43 and Hadot (1996) 374.

12. Cf. Jger (1967) 53.


So for Plotinus, both Plato and Aristotle used the distinction between the particular human souls potential and actual participation in Intellect. Using this pair of analytic concepts, the designations of which Aristotle turned into philosophical terminology, Plotinus further elaborates the distinction be-tween potentiality and actuality within Intellect. He relies, however, mainly on a certain interpretation of Plato, according to which Intellect on its own has two main subsequent stages and consequently two very diff erent senses of its actualisation.

I.B.2.a. Actualisation of Intellect

First, the sense of actualisation is evident in Plotinus from his conception of how Intellect sprang out of the One as indefinite and first became defi nite in its reversion to the One (V.2.1.9-13). This conception is mainly (e.g., V.3.12.39-44, IV.3.17.12-21) an elaboration of Platos similes of the sun (506e-507b) and the cave (517b) in the Republic that show the correspondence between Being and Intellect (nous).13 Plotinus also tells us that what corresponds to Intellect, the sight of the eye, is created, as it were, by an infusion (hsper epirrtton, 508b) from the light of the sun (cf. V.5.7.11), i.e. from the Good, and the sight, Intellect, is directed by this power towards its source. Plotinus interpreted the different degrees of faculties of cognition presented in the analogy of the divided line as having arisen from that sight (511b-e). Th e fi rst degree among them is intellection (nosis) and discursive reasoning (dianoia).14 Only next in priority does Plotinus simultaneously make use, in Platonic fashion, of the Aristotelian theories of sensation and contemplation, as in Aristotles On the Soul (417b5-28, 425b26-426a11, 429b29-430a19), supplemented by his Physics (247b4-7), it is said that just like the potentiality of sense (417b19, 424a17-24, 425b26-426a26, 431b23-432a1), the potentiality of thought will become actualised through its object. In this case the object will just be the One.15 According to Plotinus (e.g., V.1.6.25, cf. Parmenides 139a, 162d-e), this object is absolutely unmoved.

Aristotle explores how everything moves by desiring the Unmoved Mover in the Metaphysics (1072a23-1072b8) and how the best life consists in con-templation of the Unmoved Mover in the Nicomachean Ethics (1178b20-32).

13. Cf. Schwyzer (1944) 91. 14. Cf., e.g., Phillips (1990). 15. Cf. Lloyd (1987) 167-69.

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In treatise III.8 (e.g., III.8.7.15-18), Plotinus generalises Aristotles account for everything and synthesises it with a suggestion from Platos Parmenides (132b-c) that everything thinks.16 Contemplation of this kind has some role to play in unification with the One, as we shall further investigate below.

I.B.2.b. Actualisation of Forms

According to Plotinus, however, the Forms are still not actually distinguish-able from one another prior to the self-intellection of Intellect.17 Aristotle does talk of the Unmoved Mover as thought thinking itself, but Plotinus rejects that Aristotelian line of reasoning as involving an infinite regress (II.9.1.1-15). Instead, his conception of the self-intellection of Intellect, when the whole is actualising the whole all at once (V.3.5, cf. a similar process in I.2.7.8-10), is inspired by Intellects discernment and distinction of the Living Being in Platos Republic (596b-d) and Timaeus (30c, 39e) quoted by Plotinus in III.9.1 (cf. VI.7.8.1-18, VI.7.9.22-38, VI.7.18.34, II.9.6.16-19) and by Platos Charmides (175b-c) and its definition of intellectual moderation, which was already a reply to the paradox presented in the Meno (80d-e): to know what one knows and in a sense to know what one does not know as well. Intellect coming to full actuality in its own self-intellection as sketched here cannot of course have occurred in time, as Plotinus informs us in a quite tortuous formulation (II.5.1.7-10). To participate in this kind of actualisation, however, is what unification with Intellect is all about for the human soul.

I.B.2.c. A failing criterion

When it comes to the distinction of particular souls from each other, would any distinction based on the relation between potentiality and actuality of the particular souls participation in either the continual generation or continual

16. Alluded to by Lloyd (1964) 193. 17. As distinct from the slightly eristic interpretation of Sorabji (2001) 111, I think that the

whole answer as to whether intelligibles are prior or posterior to Intellect in Plotinus is found by observing the exact stages by which Intellect and Forms are created. For in-stance, whereas the One remains an intelligible for Intellect, the distinction in V.9.8.11-12 between the genus Being (to on) and the species of beings (ta onta) reveals two very dif-ferent stages of the genesis of Intellect. The latter is due to Intellects self-intellection. Cf. note 39 below.


self-intellection of Intellect work after all? And could this be Plotinus solu-tion to the problem of distinction of souls within Intellect?

He seems to suggest this solution, apparently saying that Intellect is com-mon while the unfolding of thoughts in sequence from Intellect is particular to the particular soul (I.1.8.1-8, IV.9.5.12-26). However, the criterion yields no guarantee as to whether two or more souls might not think exactly the same thing simultaneously, as, for instance, pupils in a classroom might think a mathematical truth like 2 + 2 = 4 at the same time, as two minds with but one single thought. According to Platos analogy of the divided line, this ex-ample refers to discursive intellect, but it is nevertheless quite an appropriate example to illustrate Plotinus philosophy. For the soul as soul cannot do any-thing more than reason discursively (V.3.6.8-22). As soul, even the best soul is only in the process of becoming akin to Intellect (cf. Phaedo 79d-e); it can never become one with Intellect (III.8.8.6-10) and its complete non-discursive thought (cf. I.8.2.9-15, VI.4.16.25-26, V.9.8.19-22). Instead, pure Intellect will appear within the particular soul (V.9.2.20-22, V.3.3.18-V.3.4.4, V.3.14.13-16, V.8.11.33-V.8.12.2, VI.9.5.5-12). So although Plotinus clearly recognises the fact that some particular intellects are less actualised than others with regard to their corresponding embodied selves (e.g., IV.8.3.6-13), in principle at least, more than one person could come to the very same point of which Plotinus speaks (IV.4.5.8-11, cf. VI.2.20.23-24):

For one must see the things in that world by a kind of awakening of the same power, so that one can awaken (egeirai) it in the higher world also; as if one went up (anagn) to some high viewpoint and raising ones eyes saw what no one saw who had not come up (anabebkotn) with oneself.

So the suggested criterion for distinction does not seem to work.18 A defence of the criterion would then perhaps focus on the potentiality

side of the relation between potentiality and actuality as being distinct enough (VI.4.16.28-36), cf. Aristotle Metaphysics (1023b32-34). Unfortunately, the criterion again delivers no guarantee as to whether the intellectual potential-ities of different persons are not exactly the same (IV.9.5.12-26, cf. VI.4.16.24-28). In fact, as we have already seen (II.5.2.20-22), the ultimate intellectual potentiality is the same for all men, namely Intellect in full (VI.2.20.24-25, cf.

18. As distinct from Kalligas (1997) 223: [] what distinguishes each part from the rest and from the whole is the partiality of its actualization [].

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V.9.5.1-4). The relationship between what is actualised of intellectual capacities and what is not would then be quite an accidental criterion of particularity. It would identify persons incidentally, who, according to Plotinus, presum-ably are distinct.

A further difficulty of the suggested criterion is that only the actualised intellectual capacities really could be relevant for a distinction within Intel-lect, which is itself all actual (II.5.1.7-8, II.5.3.34-36). For only actualised intellectual capacities are part of Intellect. Plotinus points out the connected difficulty of what later became known as Averroism, i.e. the conception of one single, universal Intellect excluding any real, particular intellects (VI.5.7.1-11, cf. VI.2.20.10-29):

For we and what is ours go back to Being and ascend to that and to the fi rst, which comes from it, and we think the intelligibles; we do not have images or imprints of them. But if we do not, we are the intelligibles. If then we have a part in true knowledge, we are those; we do not apprehend them as distinct within ourselves, but we are within them. For, since the others, and not only ourselves, are those, we are all those. So then, being together with all things, we are those: so then, we are all and one (panta ara esmen hen). So therefore when we look outside that on which we depend we do not know that we are one, like faces which are many on the outside but have one head inside.

At this point, Plotinus appears to confirm Aristotles conception from On the Soul (430a2-5 & 19-20, 431a1-2, 431b17-23) that actual thought is simply iden-tical with its objects. We shall come back to Plotinus important qualifi cations to his endorsement of this Aristotelian formulation of what he in fact believed to be a Platonic doctrine. It would, however, be useless as a criterion for distinc-tion of human souls from each other, for there will be no certain distinction between those actualities acquired by the soul. Though potential, particular intellects might differ (VI.9.5.12-18, cf. Aristotle Metaphysics 1023b32-34), in Intellect they will all make one single actuality (V.9.5.11-16 & 26-28, V.3.5.31-33 & 42-43, VI.2.20.16-29). We must look for a sharper criterion.19

19. As distinct from Carone (1997) 181: This theory [deduced from the Metaphysics 1023b32-34] provides a way of explaining how, at that level, we are actually identical with the whole though potentially each an individual intellect.


I.B.3. Forms of particulars within Intellect

In an early treatise, V.7[18].1.1-3, Plotinus returns to his experience of ascent to Intellect reported in IV.8[6].1 in order to explain it philosophically:

Is there a Form (idea) of each particular (tou kathekaston)? Yes, if I and each one of us have a way of ascent (anaggn) to the Intelligible (to noton), the origin (arch) of each of us is there.

Obviously, Plotinus considers an original particular Form in Intellect as a precondition for any ascent to Intellect (cf. arch, origin or principle in IV.3.12.3).20 It is likewise the precondition of immortality for the self of each particular man (athanatos hekastos hmn, IV.7.1.1-4), cf. the Phaedo (79d-80b).21 In the opening question and indeed in V.7.2.15-23 he also considers whether there is a Form of each particular thing, as the Stoics seem to sug-gest with their doctrine of the idis poion (Seneca Moral Letters CXIII.16, SVF II.395).22 However, Plotinus denies such general monadology (cf. V.9.12). He denies that the particular white colour in the different places it appears is diff er-ent in more than number (VI.4[22].1.23-26). On its own, this does not exclude monadology, for the particular white could be dependent upon a specifi c Form of the underlying so-called substance, which would make up the particular dif-ference between the white in the tree and the white in the swan, for instance.

20. Cf. Ferrari (1997) 52, 61, Ferrari (1998) 634-35. 21. Ahrensdorf (1995) 185-87 rightly thinks that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul

is interconnected with the doctrine of separate Forms in the Phaedo (100b). He writes p. 187: It would seem, then, that the philosopher could only attain the wisdom he seeks if his truest self, his soul, is itself a divine and immortal being and if it receives the divine reward or gift of wisdom after death. For some not perfectly clear reason, Ahrensdorf thinks that the separateness of Forms and the immortality of the soul are both altogether improbable assumptions and that Plato would think the same. Ahrensdorf does not con-sider that a reason why Socrates exhorts his friends further to investigate the nature of the Forms (107b) could be that it leads to yet another proof of the immortality of the soul not spelled out in the Phaedo, but unfolded, e.g., in the Phaedrus (245c-e), the Timaeus (37a-b, 46d-e, 77b-c, 89a) and the Laws (894d-895c, 896a-b, 896e-897b). Cf. also section I.C.5. Unity or plurality fi rst? below.

22. Armstrongs 1984 translation of the first line Is there an idea of each particular thing? is partly misleading. Cf. the discussion of the consistency of Plotinus doctrine in Heine-mann (1921a) 63-73, Capone-Braga (1928), Rist (1963a), Blumenthal (1966), Mamo (1969), Rist (1970), Blumenthal (1971a) chapter 9, Igal (1973) 92-98, Armstrong (1977a), Deck & Armstrong (1978) and Petit (1999).

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This Form would amount to what Leibniz called a monad. Historically, how-ever, Plotinus does not seem to have been admitting something like monads for anything other than persons (cf. IV.3.8.24-30).23 For not only does he deny that particular, concrete qualities have specific Forms of their own; he also denies specific Forms of particular fires, for instance (VI.5.8.39-46).

Background to Plotinus view of Forms of persons is found in Aristotles remarks in the Metaphysics (1031a15-28, 1043b2-4) against Platos theory of Forms, arguing from the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles that if every man were the essence of man, everyone would be the same man (cf. VI.8.14.1-9). Instead of following Aristotles duality between real particulars and abstract essences, Plotinus took the inverse Platonic consequence by positing not only a universal Form of man, but subordinate, particular Forms for particular men as well and overtook the possibility of the particular man coinciding with the lowest species of man, a possibility which Aristotle had dismissed (1059b24-26). In contrast, then, Plotinus supports the theory of infi mae species (VI.2.22.11-19, V.3.9.32-35, VI.7.14.11-18, VI.7.16.4-5).24

For Plotinus, according to the opening lines of V.7, the denial of general monadology is simply due to the fact that not everything has a way of as-cent to Intellect.25 Even when everything aside from the One contemplates, as Plotinus says in III.8, only human souls can actually make an ascent and themselves become aware as parts of Intellect (I.3.1.1-18), simply because they have intellects and so must be parts of Intellect.26 From the corresponding viewpoint of Being, they must then have Forms (cf. I.8.1.9-10, III.7.5.7-12, III.7.7.1-5, III.7.13.66-69). In fact, these two go together and coalesce, for cor-responding to what he takes to be Platos indirectly stated doctrine in the fi rst half of the Parmenides (132b-c), Plotinus says that each Form is a particular intellect (V.9.8.4). Something particular, which has a particular Form, does not only participate indirectly in Intellect, but actively contemplates directly; i.e. it possesses a particular intellect. In material nature, human persons are the chief examples of beings with contemplating intellects, but as such they

23. Cf. Rist (1963a) 224 and Armstrong (1977a) 56. 24. As distinct from Vacherot (1851) 260, 272 and Capone-Braga (1928) 197, while at the

same time, a bit paradoxically in the first instance, cf. Capone-Braga (1928) 200, Ferrari (1997) 60 and partly in answer to the question of OMeara (1999a) 265: However it is unclear how the question of Forms of individuals can be traced back to the Parmenides or the Metaphysics. I will trace a probable source in the Parmenides below, in this part and the next, II. Freedom.

25. Sporadically indicated by Kalligas (1997) 212. 26. Cf. Gerson (1994a) 75, 78.


are presumably among other living beings in the chain of reincarnation (cf. VI.7.6.21-VI.7.7.5, IV.7.14, III.2.8.9-11).

In the introduction of V.7, Plotinus presents the Form only as a logical pre-condition for ascent. The ascent itself is not presented as a logical necessity. In-stead, a peculiar or logical diff erentia (idik diaphora, V.7.1.21, diaphora logik, V.7.3.8-9) between persons is a logical necessity in so far as the persons already are in Intellect. This Principle of the Non-Identity of Discernibles (i.e. accord-ing to Latin etymology: distinguishables not just subjectively, but logically and objectively) used numerous times by Plotinus (e.g., I.3.4.12-13, II.9.13.22-25, III.2.12.4-7, III.3.3.18-24, III.8.8.30-32, IV.3.5.1-8, IV.6.2.3-6, IV.8.3.22-23, IV.8.4.12-13, V.1.4.37-43, V.1.6.51-53, V.3.2.16-20, V.3.10.49-50, V.4.2.8-16, V.7.1.18-21,27 V.7.3.5-12, V.9.6.3, VI.2.8.32-33, VI.3.5.23-29, VI.3.17.18-35, VI.4.14.3-5, VI.7.10.7-11, VI.7.39.6-9, VI.7.41.12-14, VI.9.10.18), is just the inverse of the Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (i.e. again, according to Latin etymology: indistinguishables not just subjectively, but logically and objectively), correspondingly used numerous times by Plotinus (e.g., III.8.9.51-53, IV.5.7.20-21, V.1.9.26-27, V.3.15.31, V.4.1.15-16, V.7.3.6-13, VI.1.19.1-8, VI.2.9.32, VI.2.10.40-42, VI.7.34.13-14, VI.9.8.29-33, VI.9.10.14-18, VI.9.11.8-9).28 For Plotinus, there is a clear analogy between distinctions among intellects and corresponding distinctions among souls. Soul is like a species of Intellect. Considered as a genus it is split into other species, i.e. into particular souls (VI.2.22.23-29, cf. Timaeus 30b-c):

And a particular intellect is a part (meros), although it contains all things, and the whole Intellect [] but Soul is a part of a part, but like an activity (ener-geia) proceeding from it. For when Intellect is active in itself, the products of its activity are the other intellects, but when it acts outside itself, the product is Soul. And since Soul acts as genus or specific Forms (eidous), the other souls act as specifi c Forms.

27. Guthrie (1918) asserts Indiscernibles, Leibnitz principle of in Plotinus V.7.1, but here it is rather the inverse Principle of the Non-Identity of Discernibles that is in operation. The same inversion appears in Heinze (1872) 121 n. 1, 309 n. 3 and Capone-Braga (1928) 197-98 n. 2.

28. Reflected in, e.g., Leibniz (1714) 9, cf. Ousager (2003) for a sharpened and more ex-haustive presentation of the role of both principles in Plotinus together with chapter II. A. Sufficient Reason behind causes below. As distinct from Blumenthal (1971b) 55-56, 59-60, it has to be said that since the Principle of the Non-Identity of Discernibles is a simple logical necessity, Plotinus has no need to defi ne the differences between a plural-ity of souls further in order to affirm that they really are different from each other.

34 SE L FHO OD

The logical difference of intellects within Intellect and separated from that Intellect (V.3.2.16-20) necessitates a distinctive Form of the particular, prior to spatial embodiment (V.7.1.18-23, cf. VI.4.4.37-39, VI.4.14.16-22).29 Th e distinction between identical twins, for example (cf. IV.7.5.42-43), is not due to their occupying different parts of space. That is only a logical consequence of the necessity of their having different particular Forms (V.7.2.20-V.7.3.7, VI.7.16.4-5), even if we ourselves are unable to discern their exact diff erence of Form (V.7.3.1-13, cf. IV.6.3.66-67). For instance, though most bodies really appear to be different (IV.4.34.16-17), we are perhaps not able to distinguish the different characters of breath of so-called identical twins (cf. IV.7.4.8-15), because there will hardly be any.30 In his denial of the body as individuating and not perfectly particularising either,31 Plotinus draws a radical conse-quence of what Plato says in the Laws (959a-b):

29. As distinct from Blumenthal (1971b) 56, 59, 63, who does not really consider the possible genus-species relationship between Soul as such and particular souls. A partial reason is that he did not accept that Plotinus believed in Forms of particular souls, cf. Blumenthal (1966). OMeara (1999a) 268 suggests that the Form of the particular in Plotinus explains the distinctions between sensible particulars, since there are logical and formal diff er-ences between particulars, either prior to or co-instantaneous with any embodiment in the sensible world. The problem is that this theory consequently would force Plotinus to assert Forms not only of particular men or intellects but of all particulars; i.e. it would lead to a general monadology. That possibility is, however, excluded, since OMeara ibid. refers to matter as apparently differentiating particular fires in VI.5.8.39-46.

30. In his criticism of astrology, Plotinus denies direct causation from stars but grants that there might be similar origins of things in this universe and therefore parallel causation within them just as between virtual twins (III.1.5-6, IV.4.34.25-26, III.3.6.22-38, III.3.7.25-28, cf. VP 15.21-24).

31. According to what Strawson (1959) 9 labelled revisionary metaphysics and in contrast to his descriptive metaphysics, announced in the subtitle of his book, I do not think ordinary language is always suffi cient to express all scientific and philosophic truths. Individual, for instance, is used in far too broad a sense in common English and corres-ponding modern European languages to represent things that, by a closer analysis, are definitely not indivisible, as all parts and particulars in practice can be further divided, perhaps in principle even to infinity [Cf. Graeser (1996) 189-90, although he still empha-sises an Aristotelian opposition between individuality and universality which is not valid for Plotinus]. An Aristotelian, non-Platonic and therefore also non-Plotinian prejudice predominant for centuries lies behind this widespread misuse (even in Th omas Aquinas), according to which the particular is always ontologically prior evident in the title of Strawson (1959), Individuals (cf. notes 149, 151, 171 and 189 below). References to Fran-cis Bacon and Ludwig Wittgenstein should not be necessary in order to acknowledge the importance of adequate terminology. A reference to the Phaedo (115e) suffi ces. In this study, I restrict the use of the word individual to things or persons that Plotinus con-siders strictly indivisible.


We should, of course, trust whatever the legislator tells us, but especially his doctrine that the soul has an absolute superiority over the body, and that while I am alive I have nothing to thank for my particularity (to parechomenon hmn hekaston tout einai) except my soul, whereas my body is just the likeness of myself that I carry round with me. This means we are quite right when we say a corpse looks like the deceased. The real self of each one of us (ton de onta hemn hekaston onts) our immortal soul, as it is called departs, as the ancestral law declares, to the gods below to give an account of itself.

In this passage from Plato, the soul is held to be the cause of the particular-ity of the person. How then does the Plotinian Form of the particular relate to the particular soul? Plotinus implies that the kinship of soul to the Forms spoken of in Platos Phaedo (79d-e) must be considered in the sense that the Form is the origin of the Soul. He then confirms (e.g., I.8.1.9-10) what Aris-totle says in On the Soul (412a19-21), that it is a kind of form (eidos),32 but it is the very inverse of a mere form of a body that Aristotle apparently suggests it to be (413a3-10).

According to Plotinus, souls are in Intellect along with their particular intellects before descending at some stage (V.1.5.1-2, VI.2.4.28-29, VI.2.22.7-10). Before Soul itself became Soul of the sense world, it was the Form of Soul itself (autopsch) in Intellect (V.9.14.20-22). Likewise, Plotinus says (III.6.18.24-26):

Now the Soul, which holds the Forms of real beings, and is itself, too, a Form (eidos ousa), holds them all gathered together, and each particular Form (tou eidous hekastou) is gathered together in itself [].

He says that the mentioned particular Form will be present in the part (en merei de hekaston, III.6.18.44). This is probably meant as concerning all par-ticular Forms and not just the Form of a particular, for which he (as appears in V.7.1.1, IV.6.3.66-67, V.8.5.24-25 and V.9.8.1-3) would rather employ the word idea instead of the word eidos, employed here.

However, he certainly affirms that the Soul is a Form in its origin (cf. I.1.2.6-7, 1.1.4.18). The particular soul must be assumed to have been estab-lished analogously by the particular Form, for the particular soul has the same Form (homoeides) as the whole Soul (IV.3.2.1-2 & 34-35 & 44). And

32. Cf. Kalligas (1997) 208.

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just as the Forms of particular souls must conform to the Principle of the Non-Identity of Discernibles, particular souls must all be diff erent, though they belong to the same order, Soul (VI.7.6.30-31).

We can perhaps get a glimpse of Plotinus understanding of the relationship of the Form of the particular person to all the Forms of Intellect, when in the same context he compares the relation of the particular soul to the whole Soul with the way a theorem is a part of science. Each theorem potentially contains the whole science (IV.3.2.23-24 & 49-58, III.9.2.1-4, IV.9.5.7-26).

He comments on this by saying that it means the World Soul itself must be a particular soul distinguished from that whole Soul. Implied in his argu-ment is the conception that the whole of science is universal by necessity (cf. IV.7.10.40-42), while the world is already something particular in comparison with all universal reality.

The comparison with collections of propositions in science is only a com-parison, for science or knowledge connecting propositions with each other is essentially non-propositional (V.8.4.47-50). It becomes fairly diffi cult to dis-tinguish between universal knowledge or science (epistm) and that universal reality, which, according to Platos analogy of the divided line (511c), science is all about, when the real objects of science, the Forms, also called by their genus Being (to einai, to on) or Substance (ousia) cf. Sophist (245d), Republic (509b), Parmenides (142b) are really thoughts as Plotinus posits. Subject and object are then nearly indistinguishable, as is expressed by Plotinus frequent use of Parmenides fragment 3 (DK 28B3) for Thinking and Being are the same.33 So this Soul in fact contemplates the Being of Intellect quite closely in a necessary and universal way. Considering Plotinus often used Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles, this upper Soul would then be indistinguishable from an aspect of Intellect itself (III.4.3.22) and therefore probably identical with the very self-intellection of Intellect (cf. V.3.8.35-43). Since Soul is analog-ous to the Forms, originally being a Form itself, the comparison would then not only be valid for the relationship of the particular soul to the whole Soul, but also for the Form of the particular in its relationship to all the Forms of Intellect. Plotinus confirms this relationship (IV.8.3.6-25).

Every Form is potentially all the other Forms, either by presupposing them or implying them (cf. VI.2.20.16-23 quoted above). Intellect would not be complete without one of them, just as science would not be complete without one of its theorems (cf. VI.4.16.25-28). That the particular soul that

33. Cf. the preliminary study of Ousager (1996) 119-29.


has sprung out of the Form of the particular comes to itself, i.e. has the op-portunity to ascend and re-unite with its Form, does not preclude the Form of the particular from being an integral part of Intellect all the same.34

I wrote above that in Plotinus, recollection of Intellect means reunifi cation with Intellect.35 As a consequence, the Form of the particular is always within Intellect as a thinking thought. When the particular soul of which it is the Form unifies with Intellect, it just participates consciously in that thinking. It happens consciously because the Form of the particular in Intellect has now become the self of the particular (VI.7.30.35-39), whereas before, the con-scious self was at the stage of discursive intellect or perhaps even below that at a lower level of soul (IV.7.1.24-25).

Concerning the lowest part of this level, Plotinus (IV.9.3.19-29) acknow-ledges that sense perception is particular to any perceiving, particular body, but it would not really belong to body, as a body completely lacks the faculty of judging truth. For only perception that judges with intelligence (krinousa meta nou) really belongs to the particular (hekastou). Could this particular self, however, remain particular when soul ascends to universal Intellect?

In fact, Plotinus states that unification with Intellect does not mean that the self will ever be absorbed in Intellect. On the contrary, Intellect becomes a part of the real self (VI.7.35.40-41), when particular intellects as partial selves receive universal Intellect (VI.2.20.15). Then, Intellect becomes a part of the particular human soul rather than the particular human soul becoming a part of Intellect (I.1.8.1-8, I.1.13.5-8, III.4.3.21-24).36

If, however, everyone were to contemplate Intellect exactly the same way as would, for instance, Socrates or Plato, how would they differ from each other? Where does the formal difference come from? One option is to take a look at what has hardly been touched on by scholars of Plotinus Neoplaton-ism, namely the pervasive role of intentionality.37

34. As distinct from Kalligas (1997) 225 and as distinct from (as appears from note 31 above, also the misleading terminology of ) Heinemann (1921a) 301: Da diese Identitt von Denken und Sein eine allgemeine, auf keine Individuum beschrnkte ist, so geht das in-dividuelle Selbstbewutsein im allgemeinen unter.

35. Cf. section I.B.2. Potentiality or actuality of Intellect? 36. Cf. Kalligas (1997) 217.

37. This includes even the preliminary survey done by Caston (1993). In his investigation of the issue in question, Kalligas (1997) 223, for instance, does not give this possibility any chance apart from alluding to it at p. 225. Findlay (1970), on the other hand, is a start-ing point for the acknowledgment of intentionality within Platonism and Neoplatonism alike.

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I.B.4. Intentionality within Intellect

Plotinus distinguishes between various orders of intention, in as much as a posterior order of intention comprises our human discursive intellect, whereas the primary orders of intention comprise the real beings of Intellect and their actualisations as particular thinking intellects through Intellects self-intellec-tion (V.6.6.21-27):

If then there is Being, there is also Intellect, and if there is Intellect, there is also Being, and the thinking and the being go together. Thinking therefore is many and one. That, then, which is not like this cannot be thinking. And as we go over things particularly, there is man and thought of man, and thought of horse, and horse, and thought of righteousness, and righteousness. All things then are double, and the one is two, and again the two come together into one.

It should be acknowledged first of all that although there may be full iden-tity within Intellect itself, this identity does not preclude intentionality of the human intellect towards Intellect. This is not only true for human discursive intellect, dianoia or logismos, but and this is the crux of the matter also for human participation in the non-discursive Intellect, nous (V.8.4.35-37, V.8.6.7-9).38 By participation, human intellect does not necessarily become ex-actly identical with Intellect. The whole of Intellect is homogeneously present, all alike (homou panta), but this is not necessarily so for particular intel-lects (cf. VI.2.22.23-24). As in Platos Phaedrus (247d), a particular soul is considered by Plotinus to be able to gaze at Intellect only with its upper part, its intellect (ni). The limitation of the consciousness of a human soul is one aspect that leads to intentionality, but only at the stage of discursive intel-lect. For instance, in the simile of the sun in the Republic (511a), an object for investigation is referred to as not to be seen with anything other than discursive intellect (dianoiai).

In Plotinus, the gaze within Intellect appears to be a much more important aspect than in Plato. Gaze is pivotal for the hypostases coming after the One,

38. To my knowledge, apart from single uses of the word intentionality by Graeser (1972) 113 and the word intentional by Blakeley (1992) 62 and, likewise, the words inten-tionale and Intentionalitt placed in brackets by Beierwaltes (1990) xxxiii-xxxiv, xlii and Beierwaltes (2001a) 95-96, the only scholar explicitly to recognise intentionality in Plotinus is Rappe (1996) 255 and Rappe (1997) 440-42, 449. However, she limits its range to discursive thought only.


since they need to revert in contemplation of the One directly and indirectly to subsist at all,39 cf. the generation of Intellect in V.3.11.12-16:

So this Intellect had an immediate apprehension of the One, but by grasping it became Intellect, perpetually in need40 [of the One] and having become at once Intellect (nous) and Substance (ousia) and intellection (nosis) when it thought (enose); for before this it was not intellection (nosis) since it did not possess the intelligible object (noton), nor Intellect (nous) since it had not yet thought (nosas).

The intentionality of the soul is stressed most firmly when Plotinus, in an interpretation of Parmenides fr. 3, places thinking and being in close con-nection (V.1.4.16-28):

The blessedness of Intellect is not something acquired, because all its elements are in eternity; and the true eternity is copied by time, as this runs round the Soul, letting some things go and attending to others. For around Soul things come one after another: now Socrates, now a horse, always some one particular reality; but Intellect is all things. [] But each of them is Intellect and Being, Intellect making Being exist in thinking it, and Being giving Intellect thinking and existence by being thought.

Inspired by the Phaedrus, Plotinus uses man, in this case the particular man Socrates, and horse as standard examples of Forms or living Beings (cf. VI.7.8.1-17, VI.7.9.22-38, VI.7.18.34, V.6.6.24-26) discerned from within the whole Living Being, or Intellect, as this discernment is referred to in the Timaeus (39e).

39. In an unpublished paper dating from May 2000 I had the opportunity to discuss the manu-script of Sorabji (2001) entitled Why the Neoplatonists did not have intentional objects of intellection with the author. My main objection remains the following: according to Plotinus, intentional objects that are supposed to be only there for discursive reasoning [cf. VI.6.12.13-16, empty talk and names for non-existent things in VI.8.7.18-29 and Gerson (1999) 69 n. 4, who draws attention to the occurrence of pseud nomata in III.5.7.49], in their quasi-existence in fact all depend on the non-discursive realm of Intellect, and, consequently, on the intentionality of everything towards the One. The maintenance of the manifold is all-dependent on this intentionality. Cf. notes 17 and 37 above.

40. Both Igal (1973) 90-91 and Armstrong in his 1984 translation think that the word endia-menos in both the 1959 editio minor and the 1977 editio minor must be wrong. Th ey con-jecture, I think rightly, that endeomenos is more likely, cf., e.g., III.8.11.23-26, VI.8.2.19-21, VI.9.6.19-20.

40 SE L FHO OD

Plotinus explicitly rejects the notion that there is anything like the same suc-cession of one thing after another in Intellect (IV.4.2.22-25, cf. IV.4.1.26-28). By unification, soul has become everything in Intellect. The self is all things, and both are one (IV.4.2.22, cf. I.1.8.4-8, I.1.13.5-8, III.4.3.21-24). However, there is also intentionality at the level of Intellect, for even when the human intellect and Intellect are one in this way, they are also two (IV.4.2.29). As Plotinus says (V.8.4.15-18):

Each walks not as if on alien ground, but each ones place is its very self and when it ascends (so to speak) the place it came from runs along with it, and it is not itself one thing and its place another.

The gaze, the perspective in which the particular human intellect refl ects the whole Intellect as every other part of Intellect reflects all other parts, just as every theorem reflects all science (I.8.2.15-19, IV.3.2.23-24 & 49-58, V.8.4.21-26 & 47-50, V.9.8.3-7, V.9.9.2-3, IV.9.5.7-26, III.9.2.1-4, VI.2.20.1-23), is decisively intentional. When the person ascends to unite his intellect with Intellect as such, he consciously becomes his own Form (IV.4.2.30-32). Like any other Form, the Form of the particular person mirrors the other Forms in Intellect from its particular perspective (V.8.4.6-11, cf. V.8.9.19-22).41 Plotinus writes on this (IV.4.2.10-14):

But if he is himself in such a way as to be everything, when he thinks him-self, he thinks everything at once (panta homou); so that a man in this state, by his attention (epiboli) on himself, and when he actually sees himself, has everything included in this seeing, and by his intuition of everything has himself included.

Th e parts (en merei) are included in the knowledge of the whole (IV.4.8.6-7). So although Intellect on its own is everything at once, intentionality makes the ascent to Intellect and the unification with Intellect something particular to each particular intellect.42 After all, it is only a consequence and not the cause of having different particular intellects. We must look even further for the reason for the distinction between them.

41. Th e view is reflected in Leibniz (1686a) 9 and Leibniz (1689) 1646, as distinct from Gollwitzer (1900) 28: Worin aber dann ihre Besonderheit besteht, ob sie etwa wie die Leibnizschen Monaden das Universum nach ihrem besonderen Gesichtspunkt reprsen-tiert, darber lsst uns Plotin im Unklaren.

42. Cf. Ferrari (1998) 647.


I.B.5. The gaze of souls

In so far as there is a plurality of persons, they must be differentiated by logic al necessity. In due course below, we shall come back to our discussion of why there is a plurality of persons in the fi rst place.43

First we must deal with the psychological explanations as to how particular persons further expand or diminish their differences from each other. Th is analysis will make it clear in what sense unification is possible with Intellect as well as with the One, not only epistemologically or noetically but also on-tologically or henologically. The intentionality or gaze of the intellect of the particular person is considered by Plotinus to be of extraordinary importance for the lives and fates of different human beings, cf. Phaedrus (248c):

If any soul becomes a companion to a god and catches sight of any true thing, it will be unharmed until the next circuit; and if it is able to do this every time, it will always be safe. If, on the other hand, it does not see anything true because it could not keep up, and by some accident takes on a burden of forgetfulness and wrongdoing, then it is weighed down, sheds its wings and falls to earth.

In a radical interpretation of this passage, the Timaeus (90b-c) and the simile of the sun, Plotinus draws the conclusion that (IV.3.8.15-16) diff erent souls look at diff erent things and are and become what they look at, for they ap-parently move themselves in either direction (III.2.4.36-38, III.2.7.19-21). A concrete consequence of the rule that everything besides the One contem-plates is that everything besides the One must participate in Being and Unity. This appears clearly from IV.4.2.3-10 (the continuation of which was quoted above), where contemplation is defined as widening the perspective and is recommended not to be confused with concentration upon ones embodied particularities:

Besides, one should certainly remember that even here below when one con-templates (therei), especially when the contemplation is clear, one does not turn (epistrephei) to oneself in the act of intelligence, but one possesses one-self; ones actualisation (energeia), however, is directed towards the object of

43. Cf. chapter II.C. Determinism disrupted.

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contemplation, and one becomes this, offering oneself to it as a kind of mat-ter, being formed according to what one sees, and being oneself then only potentially. Is a man then actually himself in any way when he is thinking nothing at all? Yes, if he is [merely] himself he is empty of everything, when he is thinking nothing at all.

Contemplation, therefore, is decisive for the souls access to everything in Intellect. In this ascent, as mentioned in the simile of the sun in the Republic (508a-d) and in the Sophist (254a-b), the soul is symbolised simply as a single eye. Plotinus (IV.3.18.19-22, cf. II.3.7.8-10) gives a psychological twist to the doctrine inspired by the Platonic First Alcibiades (132d-133b):

For here below, too, we can know many things by the look in peoples eyes when they are silent; but there all their body is clear and pure and each is like an eye, and nothing is hidden or feigned, but before one speaks to another that other has seen and understood.

The story comes to mind here of how Plotinus, according to Porphyry (VP 11.1-8), spotted a thief amongst the servants in the household just by having a close look at them all (cf. I.6.8.25-27).

Again, the analogy drawn by Aristotle between sense perception and cog-nition, to demonstrate that the potentiality of thought, just like the potenti-ality of sense, will become actualised through its object, merely affi rms this Platonic conception from the point of view of the object. What is important according to Plotinus is not only the object of vision, however, but rather first of all the souls choice of the direction of its gaze. Plotinus connects this choice (IV.3.8.9-10, III.2.4.36-45, III.2.7.15-21) with the as yet undescended souls choice (hairesis) of lives in the Republic (617d-620e). So the choice is very much an ethical one with far-reaching consequences for the souls fate in the law-determined cycle of reincarnation. Since the unifi cation with Intellect sketched out in the Phaedrus (247d-248a) is really re-unification, our selves are the intellects there rather than the derived, corresponding embodied souls (VI.4.14.16-22, cf. IV.3.14.4-5, III.2.17.18-19 & 27-28):

But we who are we? Are we that which draws near and comes to be in time? No, even before this coming to be came to be we were there, men who were diff erent, and some of us even gods, pure souls and intellect united with the whole of reality; we were parts of the intelligible, not marked off or cut off but belonging to the whole; and we are not cut off even now.


Plotinus thinks there is an invariable measure of the number of souls that stay in Intellect and that are sent to either physical heaven or earth (IV.3.12.8-30, IV.3.24.23-28). Oft en (pollakis) all souls stay undivided, undescended that is, in Intellect (V.8.10.20-22). It looks a bit like the Stoic doctrine of eternal recurrence of separate yet identical world-periods of time, but Plotinus in fact just interprets the myth of the Phaedo (107e), the myth of the Phaedrus (247d, 248c-249b), the myth of Er in the Republic (617d) and the Timaeus (39d), which, together with Heraclitus (DK 22B30, 90, 66), were probably a common source for the Stoics as well. For Plot

Documents

(Aarhus Studies in Mediterranean Antiquity) Asger Ousager-Plotinus_ on Selfhood, Freedom and Politics -Aarhus University Press (2004)