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Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Quarterly. http://www.jstor.org Imagination in Plotinus Author(s): E. W. Warren Source: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Nov., 1966), pp. 277-285 Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press The Classical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/637473 Accessed: 26-02-2015 20:03 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. This content downloaded from 181.118.153.129 on Thu, 26 Feb 2015 20:03:50 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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  • Cambridge University Press and The Classical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Classical Quarterly.

    http://www.jstor.org

    Imagination in Plotinus Author(s): E. W. Warren Source: The Classical Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Nov., 1966), pp. 277-285Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/637473Accessed: 26-02-2015 20:03 UTC

    Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

    JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of contentin a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

    This content downloaded from 181.118.153.129 on Thu, 26 Feb 2015 20:03:50 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

  • IMAGINATION IN PLOTINUS

    'The higher and the lower powers of the soul meet in the imaginative faculty (qav-Taula or 0avaa7TLKdv), which is the psychical organ of memory and self-consciousness."

    WHITTAKER, following Siebeck,z pointed out the important role Plotinus assigns to the functions of imagination in psychic life. Imagination is the terminus ad quem of all properly human conscious experience ;3 it is that faculty of man without which there can be no conscious experience.4 The sensitive soul is an imaginative soul below which there is Nature, or vegetative soul, which acts without being conscious. When the functions of reason are added to sensation to produce a rational human being, there is conscious discursive thought as well as conscious sensation; and since the sensitive soul cannot be responsible for the imaging of rational concepts, Plotinus asserts the existence of a conceptual imagination.s

    The distinctive characteristic of man is his conscious apprehension of dis- cursive thought, which makes him a conscious reasoner. Discursive thought it- self, without imagination, possesses a kind of consciousness of its activities, but Plotinus does not discuss this kind of consciousness-without-an-image very often.6 Conscious rational activity, which is the truly human experience, en- compasses both tavo-r7TpKdv and qav7raartKdv. The special power of imagination is avyrAq7bLs proper,7 an apprehensive power, which lays hold of what is not itself (the object), in order to make it part of itself (as an image). NVous in knowing itself is self-conscious, while &davota knows the otov rTvroL, which are innate potentialities waiting to be illuminated by NVous. Each decline in cognitive power is the result of a progressive separation of knower and known until doaLs is reached.

    The separation of knower and known is complete in the unconscious know- ledge of O;avus; for, as an immaterial power, the last of the real beings, it vivifies the world and fashions it, but c;avs does not realize that it acts; there is no longer any cognitive connexion, any cognitive link between knower and known.8

    'For which reason nature does not know, but only produces. For what it has it gives without deliberation9 to what follows after it, and giving to the I Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists, p. 52. 2 Von Kleist in 1883 in his valuable

    Plotinische Studien also recognized the impor- tance of Oav-raata in Plotinus, but he seems to have relied on Siebeck for his inspira- tion, p. 87, footnote i.

    3 Except Stdvota, however, which pos- sesses its own consciousness independent of imagination, I. 4. 10o.

    4 Br6hier remarks with regard to the Stoics: 'La psych6, par opposition

    ' la physis, est bien la psych6 en g6n6ral; or, une de ses caract6ristiques est la representation, fonc- tion consciente. La fonction consciente est

    donc ins6parable de la fonction vitale.' Chry- sippe, 166-7, n. 2.

    s See my previous article, 'Memory in Plotinus', C.Q. N.s. xv (1965), 252 if. 6

    1.4. Io and 4. 6. 3.

    7 virlAirls

    is a power common to sensa- tion and imagination, but sensations become conscious only when apprehended in the imagination. Thus, conscious sensation in- volves the apprehensive power employed in both.

    8 See Aristotle, E.N. IIo2b 9 See 4. 4. 37, where choice appears as an

    indicator of consciousness.

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  • 278 E. W. WARREN

    body and to the matter is its activity.... Wherefore nature has no imagina- tion either. But thought is superior to imagination; the latter is between the impression of nature and thought. Nature' has no conscious apprehension of anything nor any understanding, but imagination has an understanding of what is brought before it.'2

    In order to bridge the gap between the soul and its object, Plotinus introduces the concept of conscious apprehension.

    The realm of conscious experience encompasses both animal and human life. Plotinus says very little about animal life below man, and assertions about its characteristics are derived largely from knowledge about the nature of the sensitive soul.3 Human sensation requires the apprehension of a rd0oso and the production of an image. After the specific sense powers have split up the object into tactile parts, visual parts, and so on, there must be a process of unification in the OvX7/. The end product of this unification is an image in imagination. Consciousness is assured; for the sentient, by possessing a psychic content, the image, is able to distinguish itself from the object that it knows in the space- time world.

    When the sensitive and rational functions are combined into one soul, a new conceptual imagination performs a function analogous to that of sensible imagination. There is no longer the need to unify what is known, because the concept has not been split up by the individual senses as the sense object has been; the need is rather to divide what is more unified.

    'For just as in pictorial imagination, reason4 in motion or the motion from it is a dividing [the setting of limits]. Or, if this reason were one and identical, it would not be in motion, but it would endure without change.'5 Plotinus makes clear that the imagination is the true point of contact between

    man and his orientations irp's -5 rvw KaiL irp0 70 Kd7ow when he explains that

    sensible imagination intellectualizes (unifies), otovy voEpdv, and that conceptual imagination sensifies (divides), otov alaOryrdv. The sensible image has to be immaterial and so more unified than the sensible object; the conceptual image has to be less unified than the vdro'a or else it would be vdro'~a. The conceptual image is a down-grading of the concept so that it can meet sense knowledge.

    Conceptual imagination is the agent of human consciousness; and, although imagination is an active power, in two of his most striking passages, 4. 3. 29 and I. 4. I0, Plotinus likens it to a reflecting mirror. Conceptual imagination, introduced in the Fourth Ennead largely to explain discursive memory, is dis- cussed in its own right at I. 4. Io, where its importance for conscious life can be clearly seen.6

    An imaging power is necessary in human psychic life because the human soul is a kind of half-way house, p~EOdpov ov'aa, present both to intelligence and

    Dicta Sapientis Graeci II, paragraph 64 (Plotini Opera, Henry-Schwyzer, ii, p. 89). supports this interpretation.

    2 4- 4. 13, lines 7-9 and I I-15. This in- teresting section shows the close connexion of imagination, consciousness, and d'vi-irAibT. Since

    ov'r is without consciousness, Plotinus

    denies to it the power of imagination. See 3. 8. 4, where bv'atc possesses otov avva'aOrlaot

    and a kind of understanding. Lines 22-25 show that it is the understanding of sleep as compared to that of waking!

    3 On animal life, for example, I. I. II; 5. 2. 2; 6. 7. 9-

    4 Atdyog, compare infra, pp. 281-2. s 3. 6. 18, lines 33-35. 6 See infra, pp. 283-4.

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  • IMAGINATION IN PLOTINUS 279 to sensation. Since the soul no longer possesses its objects, it must possess images.

    'The imagination itself does not consist in the having but in what it sees and in what it is made to become like.... Because the imagination has all things secondhand and so not perfectly, it becomes all things; and, since it lies on the border and is situated in such a place, it is borne towards both."

    It is precisely the possession of and knowing through images that distinguishes human knowledge from the knowledge of Vous; for the human being possesses images rather than the objects themselves and, consequently, can never have truth but only opinion.z This is a common theme for Plotinus, as the following passages illustrate:

    '..., but we will say that it (the living being in itself) is the intelligible

    (that which is thought of) and that the NVous has outside of itself the things that it sees. Thus, Nous has images and not the truth, if the truth is there.'3

    'If this is true (namely, that Nous contemplates and has its objects before dividing itself), it is necessary that contemplation and the object of contem- plation be the same, and intelligence be the same as the intelligible. For, indeed, if they are not the same, there will be no truth. For he who possesses being will have an impression other than being, which is not truth.'4 Aside from a few passages about conceptual imagination, Plotinus usually

    supposes that the imaging power primarily involves the sensitive soul. He comes closest to defining imagination in the Sixth Ennead, 8. 3, lines Io-I2:

    'But as for ourselves we call imagination, strictly speaking, what is awakened from the passive impression of the body ... .'

    The notion of the imagination as the recipient of a blow is not an isolated one, for it occurs elsewhere in the Enneads. The most specific mention is at I. 8. 15, lines 18-19:

    'Imagination is brought about by the irrational part (of the soul) being struck from outside. But (the soul) receives the blow on account of its divisible nature.'s

    Further, the imagination is also evoked by disturbances in the body; or reason, seeing a wrong committed, may evoke an image which in turn stimulates the body to action. Imagination, then, is an intimate link which holds the various operations of the human soul together.

    4- 4 4 3, lines 7-8 and 0o-12. 2 It has been asserted that Plotinus' iden- tification of subject and object in Nous was designed, among other things, to meet objec- tions of sceptics. Any knowledge of another being was bound to involve a representational psychology, which leads to the question: how do I know that my concept corresponds to the reality which is known? For discussion of this question see the works of G. Boas, 'A Source of Plotinian Mysticism', Journal of Philosophy xviii (1921), pp. 326-32, and

    P. E. More, Hellenistic Philosophies, p. 245. 3 3. 9. 1, lines 7-9. This passage is part of

    an interpretation of Timaeus 39e and is not a statement of his own view.

    4 5. 3. 5, lines 21-25. s Note the similarity (or borrowing) in

    Augustine, '. .. nihil est aliud illa imaginatio, mi Nebridi, quam plaga inflicta per sensus, ...', Epist. 7. 3. Br6hier says of the Stoics, 'La repr6sentation sensible ... est l'image du r6el produite dans l'ame par l'action d'un objet ext6rieur' (Chrysippe, pp. 81-82).

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  • 280 E. W. WARREN

    SENSITIVE IMAGINATION Plotinus develops his theory of sensitive imagination largely in conjunction

    with a discussion of sensation and of memory. 4. 3. 23, after establishing that the principle of sensation and of impulse in the human animal is active in the brain, asserts that reason is above these powers. Reason, however, has nothing in common with the body,

    -ri S aoca-rt od'33a/oi KOLvOOWv; consequently, there must be some line of communication between reason and sensation. Communication is accomplished by imagination.

    '. . what had nothing in common with the body had to communicate, at all costs, with that [the receptive power of intellectual imagination] which was a form of soul, a soul capable of making conscious apprehensions from reason [that is, capable of apprehending concepts].'I

    As we know from I. 4. io and 4- 3. 30 the power apprehensive of reason is conceptual imagination.

    Plotinus does not establish the relationship between conceptual and sensible imaginations in 4. 3- 23 nor does he even indicate that what apprehends S&avoq4- UEas does not also apprehend alerO-qr4. He ignores here the doctrine of the two- fold imagination because it is not integral to his discussion. Furthermore, as he says later, the duality of our nature generally escapes us.2

    Imagination, because it provides a link between reason and sensation, is quasi-intellectual, otov voEpdv. As we know from his discussion of memory, imagination is a power and activity of the soul alone, whereas sensation, to be an active power of the soul, needs organs. Sensible imagination, however, must be inoperative when there are no sensations to provide images, except in so far as that imagination is responsible for sense memories. In the Orphic dis- cussions of the soul's journey after death there is granted at times a kind of memory of things here. Such a memory would have to be a d!v-raurpa of the sensible imagination.

    Imagination is on a higher level than the sense power, since it is one step closer to the unity granted to intellectual thought. As he says,

    'The power of sensation of the soul must be the power not of apprehending sensible objects but rather of apprehending consciously the impressions that arise in the living being from sensation. For these impressions already are intelligibles.'S Plotinus goes on to insist on the quasi-intellectual character of imagination

    when he further clarifies his notion of sensible image. He denies emphatically that it is material in any way and affirms that the manner of apprehension- which produces the image-is like thought, otov vd'rqts. Specifically he says that the images are not magnitudes.4 The image in effect is the result of sensible KploLs and d'JVTA7-L&.

    Imagination is established as the terminus of sensation in three major pas- sages :s

    4. 3. 23, lines 29-31. 2 4. 3- 31. 3 I. 1. 7, lines 9-12. 4 4. 3. 26. s The statement at 4. 3. 26, &AAa i pt~ v

    AEKTEOV ELs OXuyjv A'YELV oaa 8t" a wpa-ras, means that all bodily activities are under the purview of the soul, but it does not mean that all bodily activities reach the imagina- tion. See on this point 4. 4. 8.

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  • IMAGINATION IN PLOTINUS 281

    'For this is that in which sensation terminates, and when the sensation is no longer present, the visual image is present to it [imagination]."'

    'The affection is there [in the body], but knowledge is in the sensitive soul which lies close by and perceives and makes a report to that power in which sensations terminate.'2

    'How could one say that the sense objects are different if the sense images did not terminate in one place ?'3

    Imagination is integral to the functions of both sensation and memory. The sensory power has its natural completion in the production of an image, and the memory functions through the emergence in the imagination of the Oav~raapa.4 The sensitive-memorative soul is naturally imaginative, providing the duality of the image and the object imaged necessary for the conscious life; for, according to Plotinus, the conscious life is only possible where there is a 'following along with', TrapaKo0ov0dEv, where the soul by its images parallels the object known.

    CONCEPTUAL IMAGINATION

    That Plotinus is going to develop a doctrine of a double imagination be- comes apparent in 4. 3. 29, where he specifically denies a common apprehen- sive power which will apprehend both sensibles and intelligibles. Sensible memory having been established, Plotinus explains his doctrine of conceptual memory in 4. 3- 30. It is a discussion not without difficulties.

    In lines 1-5 Plotinus presents the Aristotelian theory that an image follows upon every thought.

    'What power will be responsible for remembering concepts ? Will imagina- tion [be responsible for] these, too ? Now if upon every thought there follows an image-which is a copy, as it were, of the thought-and if this image endures, then remembrance of knowledge could arise in such a way.'

    He does not explicitly reject Aristotle's theory but passes on to the one which he will hold.s

    The Aristotelian theory is not acceptable to Plotinus, for he denies that an image follows each thought. He affirms that there may be dianoetic thoughts without images and thought processes unconscious to man. The images of thoughts are needed for their conscious apprehension by the human being. Once there is consciousness of a thought, that thought may be apprehended again by the memorative function of the imagination. Imagination has a new dimension now: that of providing for the consciousness of the thinking process.

    1 4- 3- 29, lines 24-26. papLa is formed in the pattern of a~uoritpa, sense image. It does not mean visual object.

    2 4* 4. 19, lines 4-7. 3 4. 7. 6, lines Io-II. See Aristotle, De

    Anima 426bx7-19. * How closely connected are the explana-

    tions of memory and sensation can be under- stood from the frequent use of d~vracaLa and the infrequent use of atir8rOpa. The doctrine

    of sensation is often explained within the context of a discussion of memory. d'qvraacpa, while properly meaning a memory image, frequently functions as sense image.

    s Guitton apparently accepts this state- ment as genuinely Plotinian. 'La pens6e aussi est toujours accompagn6e d'une image, v6ritable reflet du raisonnement,...' (Le Temps et l'tternit6, p. 70).

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  • 282 E. W. WARREN

    The need of an imagination to guarantee consciousness appears to be foreign to Aristotle's thought.'

    The remainder of 4. 3. 30 is taken up with the Plotinian view.

    'Perhaps it [memory] is a receiving into the imagination of the logos which follows along with the concept. For, on the one hand, the concept is indivisible, and it is hidden within like something which has not yet come outside; but the logos, which has unfolded [the concept] and brought it from the realm of the concept into the imagination, shows it as in a mirror, and thus arises the conscious apprehension ofthe concept, a resting and a memory. Therefore, the soul being in constant motion with regard to thought, it is when the soul is in that state [namely, the viewing of the picture in the mirror], that we have conscious apprehension. For thought is one thing, and the conscious apprehension of that thought is another; we always think but we do not always apprehend that we think. This is true because the recep- tive power receives not only thoughts but also sensations on the other side.' The chief difficulty with the text is the translation of the term Adyos. Clark

    follows Br6hier in translating, laformule verbale. Harder has Begriff (Wort) ; Mac- Kenna, 'verbal formula'; and Guthrie, 'reason'. It seems to us that no one phrase can indicate the entire meaning of AdTyos here;

    and if one is forced to attempt a translation, Brehier's is the most acceptable.2

    The nuance is lost of the notion of Advyos as a representation of a higher level of reality on a lower level, a nuance closely connected with the contrast Plotinus is drawing between 0av-racrta-ElKWV and q!av-raota-Adyos. The image in con- ceptual imagination is not a picture, whereas that of sensation is.3

    Conscious apprehension in imagination arrests the motion of soul-thought and shapes it into a stable image. This is the manner in which we know that we think. Thinking is one thing, knowing that we think is another. This condition is brought about because we know through images; consequently, there must be a power to bring the two together. This power, as this passage shows, is a'v-i1A-r s.

    The chief problem raised by the doctrine of the two imaginations is the unity of man. For how can there be two imaginations and yet a unitary ex- perience ?4 Plotinus objects,

    'For it would not happen that one part [of the soul] remembers intelligibles I See Beare, Greek Theories of Elementary

    Cognition, Part III, where the common sense is described as providing for consciousness, namely being aware that you are aware

    2 The close connexion between discursive thought and verbal expression is shown in 4. 3. I8. 3 See Clark, Essays in Honor of Irving Singer, pp. 306-7, for an interesting note about non-pictorial images.

    4 'Nun giebt es ja aber zwei kavTTao-LKd,- folglich auch von jedem wahrnehmungs- und denkinhalte ein doppeltes bewusstsein? Die frage wird c. 31 dahin entschieden, dass dem allerdings so sei, dass aber ftir gewohn- lich die #av-raala des h6heren #avTaatTLKov, die obmacht habe, die des niederen ihr nur

    wie ein schatten folge; zuweilen kaime es freilich zwischen den beiden #avraolat zu einem widerstreite, dann werde uns auch die andere fUr sich deutlich, wir merkten aber nicht, dass ihr subjekt ein anderes sei, weil wir (wer sind denn aber eigentlich wir ?) ja iiberhaupt die doppelheit der seelen in uns nicht merkten' (von Kleist, Plotinische Studien, p. 72, n. 2). I differ from von Kleist on one point: he interprets TVoi

    -rq- KpEPoTTVOS, lines Io-I I, as the higher imagination. This makes Plotinus more of an intellectualist than he is. Earlier Vacherot also said, 'Partout oui se produit l'imagination intellectuelle, elle 6clipse l'imagination sensible; . . .' (Histoire critique de l'tcole d'Alexandrie, p. 553). The statement O"Tav pv Uavp4wv-qV 47 ETEpa Tr &yEpaL

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  • IMAGINATION IN PLOTINUS 283

    and the other sensibles; for in such a manner there would be two living beings [persons'] who had nothing in common with each other.'2

    Plotinus answers in this way: when both souls are in harmony, there is one image; the image of the stronger soul rules the image of the other, the weaker following along. This much of the doctrine seems clear. The following lines, however, are most difficult. Translation amounts to interpretation.

    'But whenever there is conflict and disharmony, also the other soul shines forth in itself, escaping notice in another [the other imagination], because the double character of the souls escapes us. For both souls come into unity and one soul hovers above. The higher soul has seen all things and when it departs it keeps some things but some of the other soul it abandons.'3

    The difficulty in the text is the uncertainty attached to - e~rpa. Examination shows the impossibility of assuming that the expression consistently refers to one of the souls. His doctrine is briefly as follows: even when the souls are in dis- agreement, they still are a unity but they do not produce a common image. Plotinus is not ruling out here the possibility that the conceptual imagination might be dominant over the sensible. When there is conflict, the soul has to identify itself with either the higher or the lower.

    Plotinus probably would hold that man usually identifies himself with the lower soul; however, he surely cannot hold that man can never reject the sensible imagination and pursue the conscious thoughts of dianoetic imagina- tion. When he stated earlier in this section that the stronger imagination dominates, he was indicating that it was possible for either soul to be the stronger one; it is for the individual soul to determine its own course. The imagination that becomes clear in itself does not engage the attention of the soul; the other imagination provides for our conscious experience as men.

    This interpretation denies that the stronger soul is also the higher soul; it may be either soul. It denies that conflict produces the inevitable conquest of the higher by the lower or the lower by the higher.4

    Another important text concerning conceptual imagination is I. 4. 10, which also is very important for the doctrine of consciousness. d ivr7lArA arises when the concept is thrown back upon itself, as if reflected in a mirror.

    emphasizes the agreement of the two souls, higher and lower. It is quite possible for both higher and lower to be in agreement about sensible affairs. In such a case the stronger soul would be the sensible soul.

    Von Kleist rightly asks 'Who are we ?' For Plotinus 'we' are that part with which we have become identified. The other part, dKOcaviq 1E' avsrT, is unnoticed by us. Suppose we identify ourselves with Ltdvota, is there then a conscious bavTrartLKdv alaOB/pq dv ? Should we identify ourselves very brutishly with our sensitive soul alone, we know that &tdvota remains conscious to itself. Why not the same for the sensitive imagination? Plotinus' answer probably is that Stavoca ~ ' a;ir-s does not need an imagination for conscious experience. The conscious 3tavota possesses 10' a-zjqS the

    otov 7Tro0L. For thoughts or sensation to be conscious to man there must be apprehension in the imagination. Were we to identify our- selves with Stavota in opposition to any sensible experience, kdme es zu einem wider- streite, the sensible imagination would func- tion but without ever reaching the attention of man; for the man has now identified his attention with reason and the conceptual imagination. Our psychic unity is a focus of attention.

    Following Clark, op. cit., p. 308, n. 34- The use of the word 'person' is modern but corresponds to Plotinus' meaning rather well.

    2 4. 3 3 3, lines 5-8. 3 Ibid., lines 13-18. 4 See 6. 4. 17.

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  • 284 E. W. WARREN

    If the mirror-activity of imagination is disturbed in any way, then there is no image, but there is thought without an image. Here the term for consciousness is lapaKo0ovO86v, 'follow along with'. The metaphor of the mirror expresses precisely what Plotinus has in mind for human 7rapaKoAoV'Op8ts, a following along of the reason with itself.

    The human being is conscious only when an image is present, an image either of a sensible or of an intelligible object. Imagination is like a mirror, reflecting the activities of soul above and below it; consequently, it is like a faithful companion, following wherever its friend leads. Our imagination, which is our consciousness of objects, is always separate in being from the object of awareness, and so our conscious life sharply separates the knower and the known.

    The importance of iv AlhbLs and its function together with the imagination in guaranteeing conscious life becomes clear after Plotinus has declared that there may be thought without an image of that thought.

    'When we contemplate and act, one might discover many beautiful activities, contemplations, and actions that we do while we are awake and that we do not accompany with consciousness. It is not necessary that a reader be conscious that he is reading and especially then when he is reading with concentration. Nor need the courageous man be conscious that he is courageous and that he acts in so far as he acts in virtue of courage. And there are countless other instances. So that consciousness seems to make the activities themselves of which there is consciousness weaker. But when these acts are all alone [isolated from consciousness], then they are pure, even more active and alive; and indeed, if the wise man is in such a state, life exists to a higher degree, not spread out in the sensible world but gathered up in the same place and in itself."

    There are two points which must be carefully noted: first, that Plotinus is extolling the loss of consciousness in the human being (-tazis), and second that the kind of consciousness which the wise man is fleeing is that which is dis- persed in sensation, KEXVluVOV EIL

    aOG'qUcLv. Plotinus is emphatically not assert-

    ing that the wise man, as soon as he estranges himself from his bodily life, is unconscious on the level at which he is psychically active. Acute attentiveness produces a kind of unconsciousness and provides the psychic force which separates the higher man from his sensible connexions.

    We have seen before that imagination degrades rational activity, just as it raises sensible activity. Plotinus shows in this passage the psychological reasons for the loss of consciousness to the human being when he contemplates the highest forms of Nous. Human consciousness is largely dependent upon images in imagination. Deprived of images man, as a human being, is unconscious to himself.

    The state of unconsciousness, 'v 7 'rocovTrcp 7adL, in which life really exists,

    is one where there is no longer any need of conscious life, for life is now self- conscious. It is precisely the need of the image in the human soul that marks its decline in cognitive power. Remove the image and become what is known! and then you are unconscious to man, the imaginative creature, but you are self-conscious as your true, noetic self.

    x 1. 4. Io, lines 2 x--end.

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  • IMAGINATION IN PLOTINUS 285

    Conceptual Cvwr1Ar bos occurs as a function of memory in 4. 3- 29, but it is

    clear from his general observations in that passage and in I. 4. Io that Jv-rA7hv%~ must occur if there is to be human consciousness, not just memory, of the otov -rtmo. Curiously enough Plotinus never asserts that the sensitive imagination makes an apprehension of a memory-image. dvrAqvtL must occur for concep- tual memory but he is not clear about sense memory.'

    The sensitive soul is really defined by its antileptic ability. The rational human soul, however, involves not only dvwr1A'b

    of sense objects through the organs with the production of an image but also dvr1A7lr of concepts and their presence in the higher imagination as Adoyo. The human soul reaches out in two directions, through sensation to sense objects and through reason to noetic objects, but the common centre of both that allows for integrated human experience is the antileptic imagination.

    Imagination on the sensory side seems to be conceived as rather passive, as a receptacle of impressions which are apprehended by the sense power but which become contents of consciousness in virtue of the imagination's image. Conceptual imagination, however, is clearly active. Traditionally imagination had been regarded as passive. The active imagination is Plotinus' peculiar contribution.

    It would be difficult to emphasize too much the importance of correctly grasping the role of the imagination in Plotinus. Only by ascertaining its relations to sense objects and to concepts can we see how human consciousness functions. His discussion of human imagination, then, is a chief source of knowledge about the Plotinian concept of consciousness; and it is probably not too much to claim that an adequate understanding of Plotinus demands an appreciation of his notion of consciousness.

    San Diego State College E. W. WARREN

    I It should be remembered that in 4. 3- 29 Plotinus asserts that the sense images become memory images after the sensation is past, the ataO77pa becomes a Obavraatla.

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    Issue Table of ContentsClassical Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Nov., 1966), pp. 1-4+193-351+i-ivVolume Information [pp. 349-iv]Front Matter [pp. 1-4]Basic Greek Values in Euripides' Hecuba and Hercules Furens [pp. 193-219]Some Problems of Text and Interpretation in the Bacchae. II [pp. 220-242]Polybius 1. 2. 7-8 and 1. 3. 3 [pp. 243-247]Notes on Two Passages in Polybius Book I [p. 248]Diodorus Siculus and Fighting in Relays [pp. 249-255]Thinking and Sense-Perception in Empedocles: Mysticism or Materialism? [pp. 256-276]Imagination in Plotinus [pp. 277-285]Conspectus Traditionum [pp. 286-290]Some Observations on Final Clauses in Hellenistic Attic Prose Inscriptions [pp. 291-297]The Enclosing Word Order in the Latin Hexameter. II [pp. 298-320]Elections under Tiberius [pp. 321-332]The Manuscript Tradition of the Thebaid [pp. 333-346]On the Transmission of the Bacchae [p. 347]Back Matter