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Plotinus 1:1:2
Dec. 7th, 2019 10:43 am Welcome back, and notice my handy new numbering system! This post will focus on the second chapter (if chapter is even the right term) of the first tractate of the first Ennead.
As a reminder, when we last left Plotinus he told us that we were inquiring into just what it is that experiences "pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion." Our options, remember, are "Soul," "Body," or a third thing which is either a blend of these two, or a real third thing arising from the blending. Firstly, said the man himself, we're going to have to figure out just what is the seat of sense-perception. As a reminder, the translation I'm working with is online here. In this translation, everything in [brackets] is a note added for clarity by the translator.
With that said, let's move on to Chapter 2...
....
"This first enquiry obliges us to consider at the outset the nature of the Soul-- that is whether a distinction is to be made between Soul and Essential Soul [between an individual soul and the Soul-Kind in itself.]"
(All Plotinus quotes in red... like how Jesus quotes are red in the Bible.)
Okay. Reading that, did you to think to yourself something like, "Well, I'm lost" or "Maybe it was insane to start with Plotinus" or "Do you think anyone will notice if I quietly close this book and run away"?
If so, welcome to the club!
At this point, it becomes clear (if it hasn't already) that Plotinus is living in a different mental universe from the one you and I inhabit. If I were to make my own inquiry into the nature of my consciousness (a word which is itself loaded with all kinds of presuppositions), it would never occur to me to ask whether my mind is distinguishable from mind-stuff in general, or mind-kind as a whole. But as near as I can tell, that's exactly what Plotinus wants to ask about the thing he's calling "soul."
(A note in another translation that I looked at references a couple of chapters of Aristotle's Metaphysics here. I've looked at the relevant chapters, and decided that to jump right into the middle of Aristotle at the same time as I'm working on Plotinus will probably make me insane, so I'm going to leave it aside for right now.)
Next:
If such a distinction holds, then the soul [in man] is some sort of a composite and at once we may agree that it is a recipient and-- if only reason allows--- that all the affections and experiences really have their seat in the Soul, and with the affections every state and mood, good and bad alike.
This is one sentence, and yet there is so much here. Okay, to break this down, I'm going to have to take a stab at explaining ancient Greek metaphysics, which is a subject I half understand at best. As I understand it, the theory of forms is as follows:
The quotes from Plotinus are in red. The book on my shelf is red. The bulbs on the Christmas tree are red. The candle next to the tree is red.
In order for all these disparate things to share the quality "red," there must be some thing called "red" which exists prior to the tree, the book, and the candle being red. (This is part of what leads to the idea of the One-- in order for anything to have unity, Unity itself must have existence.)
If I understand Plotinus correctly, then, he's asking the question, whether you and I have souls in the same way that my book, my Christmas tree and my candle have redness-- or whether our souls are essential forms, like redness itself. So, do you have a soul, or do you have Soul?
If you have a soul, he says, then it is necessarily a composite. Why would that be? I suppose, because if this is the case, then "You have a soul" is the same sort of sentence as "The candle is red." The candle is red because it is a composite of different sorts of things, including redness, candle-ness, and so on.
And, if that's the case, then the soul can have affections and experiences. Why? Here the answer, I think, is this: The red candle can change. It can be lit, be burnt out, be broken or thrown in the trash. But the essential thing, "Red," never changes. It is a permanent quality or essence, existing beyond time. If your soul is also a permanent essence, existing beyond time, then it can't change-- and so it can't have experiences.
What do you think, Plotinus? Did I get that one right?
But if Soul [in man] and Essential Soul are one and the same, then the Soul will be an Ideal-Form unperceptive of all those activities which it imparts to another Kind but possessing within itself that native Act of its own which Reason manifests.
I think the answer is "Yes." If the Soul is the same as Essential Soul, then it won't be changed by experiences and affections, anymore than Redness is changed by burning a red candle.
I want to set this clause aside for right now: "but possessing within itself that native Act of its own which Reason manifests." ...and come back to it in a bit.
If this be so, then, indeed, we may think of the Soul as an immortal-- if the immortal, the imperishable, must be impassive, giving out something of itself but taking nothing from without except for what it receives from the Existents prior to itself from which Existents, in that they are nobler, it cannot be sundered.
So: If the soul is a quality like redness, it is immortal, in the same way that redness is immortal. And it will be incapable of experience or change. Instead, those things which participate in it will receive it as a quality. And, interestingly, it can receive-- but only from "Existents" prior to it. What does that mean? Prior to "red," there is "color." Red, Blue, Purple, and Magenta all possess Color, which is an "Existent" prior to them all. What Existents are prior to Soul?
Plotinus goes on:
This is what we've been saying: If the soul is the same as Essential Soul, then it doesn't experience change in time.
And how could the Soul lend itself to any admixture? An essential is not mixed. Or of the intrusion of anything alien? If it did, it would be seeking the destruction of its own nature. Pain must be equally far from it. And Grief-- how or for what could it grieve? Whatever possesses Existence is supremely free, dwelling, unchangeable, within its own peculiar nature. And can any increase bring joy, where nothing, not even anything good, can accrue? What such an Existent is, it is, unchangeably.
More of the same, but notice that the translator chose to capitalize the word "Existence." This emphasizes that, in the Platonic tradition as I understand it, permanent qualities like red, like Plotinus seems to be assuming the Soul to be, have more reality than the changing phenomena of everyday life.
Thus assuredly Sense-Perception, Discursive-Reasoning and all our ordinary mentation are foreign to the Soul: for senseation is a receiving-- whether of an Ideal-Form or of an impassive body-- and reasoning and all ordinary mental action deal with sensation.
Okay. All of this follows from the premise, "Soul in man is an Ideal Form." But did you see the part where he demonstrated that to be the case? Or is he simply working with it as an assumption?
Coming up:
The question still remains to be examined in the matter of the intellections-- whether these are to be assigned to the Soul-- and as to Pure-Pleasure, whether this belongs to the Soul in its solitary state."
As a reminder, when we last left Plotinus he told us that we were inquiring into just what it is that experiences "pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion." Our options, remember, are "Soul," "Body," or a third thing which is either a blend of these two, or a real third thing arising from the blending. Firstly, said the man himself, we're going to have to figure out just what is the seat of sense-perception. As a reminder, the translation I'm working with is online here. In this translation, everything in [brackets] is a note added for clarity by the translator.
With that said, let's move on to Chapter 2...
....
"This first enquiry obliges us to consider at the outset the nature of the Soul-- that is whether a distinction is to be made between Soul and Essential Soul [between an individual soul and the Soul-Kind in itself.]"
(All Plotinus quotes in red... like how Jesus quotes are red in the Bible.)
Okay. Reading that, did you to think to yourself something like, "Well, I'm lost" or "Maybe it was insane to start with Plotinus" or "Do you think anyone will notice if I quietly close this book and run away"?
If so, welcome to the club!
At this point, it becomes clear (if it hasn't already) that Plotinus is living in a different mental universe from the one you and I inhabit. If I were to make my own inquiry into the nature of my consciousness (a word which is itself loaded with all kinds of presuppositions), it would never occur to me to ask whether my mind is distinguishable from mind-stuff in general, or mind-kind as a whole. But as near as I can tell, that's exactly what Plotinus wants to ask about the thing he's calling "soul."
(A note in another translation that I looked at references a couple of chapters of Aristotle's Metaphysics here. I've looked at the relevant chapters, and decided that to jump right into the middle of Aristotle at the same time as I'm working on Plotinus will probably make me insane, so I'm going to leave it aside for right now.)
Next:
If such a distinction holds, then the soul [in man] is some sort of a composite and at once we may agree that it is a recipient and-- if only reason allows--- that all the affections and experiences really have their seat in the Soul, and with the affections every state and mood, good and bad alike.
This is one sentence, and yet there is so much here. Okay, to break this down, I'm going to have to take a stab at explaining ancient Greek metaphysics, which is a subject I half understand at best. As I understand it, the theory of forms is as follows:
The quotes from Plotinus are in red. The book on my shelf is red. The bulbs on the Christmas tree are red. The candle next to the tree is red.
In order for all these disparate things to share the quality "red," there must be some thing called "red" which exists prior to the tree, the book, and the candle being red. (This is part of what leads to the idea of the One-- in order for anything to have unity, Unity itself must have existence.)
If I understand Plotinus correctly, then, he's asking the question, whether you and I have souls in the same way that my book, my Christmas tree and my candle have redness-- or whether our souls are essential forms, like redness itself. So, do you have a soul, or do you have Soul?
If you have a soul, he says, then it is necessarily a composite. Why would that be? I suppose, because if this is the case, then "You have a soul" is the same sort of sentence as "The candle is red." The candle is red because it is a composite of different sorts of things, including redness, candle-ness, and so on.
And, if that's the case, then the soul can have affections and experiences. Why? Here the answer, I think, is this: The red candle can change. It can be lit, be burnt out, be broken or thrown in the trash. But the essential thing, "Red," never changes. It is a permanent quality or essence, existing beyond time. If your soul is also a permanent essence, existing beyond time, then it can't change-- and so it can't have experiences.
What do you think, Plotinus? Did I get that one right?
But if Soul [in man] and Essential Soul are one and the same, then the Soul will be an Ideal-Form unperceptive of all those activities which it imparts to another Kind but possessing within itself that native Act of its own which Reason manifests.
I think the answer is "Yes." If the Soul is the same as Essential Soul, then it won't be changed by experiences and affections, anymore than Redness is changed by burning a red candle.
I want to set this clause aside for right now: "but possessing within itself that native Act of its own which Reason manifests." ...and come back to it in a bit.
If this be so, then, indeed, we may think of the Soul as an immortal-- if the immortal, the imperishable, must be impassive, giving out something of itself but taking nothing from without except for what it receives from the Existents prior to itself from which Existents, in that they are nobler, it cannot be sundered.
So: If the soul is a quality like redness, it is immortal, in the same way that redness is immortal. And it will be incapable of experience or change. Instead, those things which participate in it will receive it as a quality. And, interestingly, it can receive-- but only from "Existents" prior to it. What does that mean? Prior to "red," there is "color." Red, Blue, Purple, and Magenta all possess Color, which is an "Existent" prior to them all. What Existents are prior to Soul?
Plotinus goes on:
Now what could bring fear to a nature thus unreceptive of all the outer? Fear demands feeling. Nor is there place for courage: courage implies the presence of danger. And such desires as are satisfied by the filling or voiding of the body, must be proper to something very different from the Soul, to that only which admits of replenishment and voidance.
And how could the Soul lend itself to any admixture? An essential is not mixed. Or of the intrusion of anything alien? If it did, it would be seeking the destruction of its own nature. Pain must be equally far from it. And Grief-- how or for what could it grieve? Whatever possesses Existence is supremely free, dwelling, unchangeable, within its own peculiar nature. And can any increase bring joy, where nothing, not even anything good, can accrue? What such an Existent is, it is, unchangeably.
More of the same, but notice that the translator chose to capitalize the word "Existence." This emphasizes that, in the Platonic tradition as I understand it, permanent qualities like red, like Plotinus seems to be assuming the Soul to be, have more reality than the changing phenomena of everyday life.
Thus assuredly Sense-Perception, Discursive-Reasoning and all our ordinary mentation are foreign to the Soul: for senseation is a receiving-- whether of an Ideal-Form or of an impassive body-- and reasoning and all ordinary mental action deal with sensation.
Okay. All of this follows from the premise, "Soul in man is an Ideal Form." But did you see the part where he demonstrated that to be the case? Or is he simply working with it as an assumption?
Coming up:
The question still remains to be examined in the matter of the intellections-- whether these are to be assigned to the Soul-- and as to Pure-Pleasure, whether this belongs to the Soul in its solitary state."
