Reading Notes: Plotinus 1:1:9
Jan. 16th, 2020 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthings ...In an irritating turn of events, Dreamwidth decided to delete this post, which was halfway completed. But let's not let that get us down, let's jump right back into the Enneads! As always, you can follow along here; the last post in this series can be read here.
Last time, Plotinus elaborated on his view of the Soul as existing apart from the body, and uniting with the body only be emitting a kind of light (this is a metaphor) which animates the body, like a wall illuminated by the lantern.
That Soul, then, in us, will in its nature stand apart from all that can cause any of the evils which man does or suffers; for all such evil, as we have seen, belongs only to the Animate, the Couplement.
Have you got that? The Soul is not affected by the actions of the Couplement-- that is, the animated body-- anymore than the lantern is affected by what happens on the wall.
But there is a difficulty in understanding how the Soul can go guiltless if our mentation and reasoning are vested in it: for all this lower kind of knowledge is delusion and is the cause of much of what is evil.
That is-- if the Soul is responsible for thinking, and most of our thinking is evil, how can it be blameless of evil?
When we have done evil it is because we have been worsted by our baser side-- for a man is many-- by desire or rage or some evil image: the false, in reality fancy, has not stayed for the judgement of the Reasoning-Principle: we have acted at the call of the less worthy, just as in matters of the sense-sphere we sometimes see falsely because we credit only the lower perception, that of the Couplement, without applying the tests of the Reasoning-Faculty.
The image that keeps coming to mind is of the human person as a kind of center of gravity, suspended between two poles. At the one extreme is our Higher Soul, united with the Divine Mind; at the other is the lower passions, moving us toward rage or lust. We have a choice in any given instance as to which direction to go. Which of course returns us to the question of which part of us really is the "us." And it suggests that the answer is: We have a choice. We can remember our higher nature, that is, the lantern, removed from the wall; or we can take the things on the wall-- spiders or dust or whatever-- as our reality, and go toward them.
The Intellectual-Principle has held aloof from the act and so is guiltless; or, as we may state it, all depends on whether we ourselves have or have not put ourselves in touch with the Intellectual-Realm either in the Intellectual-principle or within oruselves; for it is possible at once to possess it and not to use it.
"For a man is many." I wonder, though-- if a part of us is innocent, another part guilty, and yet we can choose between the two, is not that part of us that makes the choice-- the will, call it-- the true man? Would that not then be prior either to Soul or to Couplement or to Body?
Thus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what stands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never exists apart from body, while all that has no need of body for its manifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul: and the Understanding, as passing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the vision of Ideal-Forms, seeing them as it were with an answering sensation (i.e., with consciousness) this last is at any rate true of the Understanding in the Veritable Soul. For Understanding, the true, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations it is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.
I really, really like how our translator just kinds of tosses out brand new Capitalized Terms that we've never seen before, without any explanatory notes, as though the mere fact of Using Capital Letters was enough to point them out as Important and in that way to Explain Their Meaning.
I also love how grammatical the English here is.
Well, anyway, let's give this one a go. This one giant sentence of a paragraph is ridiculously long, so let's take it clause by clause.
Thus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what stands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never exists apart from body
Everything that we experience that belongs to the Couplement is characterized by being bodily, and not existing apart from the body. We experience hunger, it's a real thing, but we can't experience it without our body. On the other hand...
all that has no need of body for its manifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul
Simple enough...
and the Understanding, as passing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the vision of the Ideal-Forms
Have we met a capital-U Understanding before? I can't remember. Either way, whatever it is, its job is to pass judgment upon sense impressions. Because of this it is at the point of the vision of the Ideal-Forms. How is that? It must be-- I see an object with my eyes. My Understanding says "A red balloon." Both "red" and "balloon" exists as ideal forms, apart from this specific red thing, this specific balloon. Therefore, the Understanding is at the point of contact with the Forms-- looking up at them from below, as it were. Or, to say it another way,
seeing them with an answering sensation
Right.
this last is true, at any rate, of the Understanding in the Veritable Soul.
So it is our true, or our higher, Soul that has the faculty of the Understanding.
For Understanding, the true, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations it is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.
We have nothing to explain or contextualize this statement, and thus nothing but guesswork to go on when trying to understand it. Still, it's a fascinating thing to say. Understanding-- What did we just learn that is? The faculty of judgement in the Soul. It works with the Intellections-- that connects us both to the eternal Forms and the idea of Divine Mind. And he tells us that it is often "the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner." In other words...
What?
I see an object.
My Understanding judge: It's a red balloon. I have experience of red, and of balloons. Is that what this is? Yes, it is. Or, no-- I'm wrong, it's a red plane, or an orange balloon, or a cloud. Now I revise my judgment. Is this how it works?
I suspect so. Because, remember what he said earlier about the Soul going blameless in our misdeeds? And he used the image of a sense object misunderstood. We see something and react immediately-- Say, we are hiking in the woods, see a snake, and immediately jump. But then we apply our Understanding-- it's not a snake at all, it's just a stick! The Understanding, seated in the Soul, was absent from our original action, and thus we made a mistake.
If that's so, we can conclude this section with Plotinus:
Thus in spite of all, the Soul is at peace as to itself and within itself: all the changes and all the turmoil we experience are the issue of what is subjoined to the Soul, and are, as we have said, the states and experiences of this elusive Couplement.
Last time, Plotinus elaborated on his view of the Soul as existing apart from the body, and uniting with the body only be emitting a kind of light (this is a metaphor) which animates the body, like a wall illuminated by the lantern.
That Soul, then, in us, will in its nature stand apart from all that can cause any of the evils which man does or suffers; for all such evil, as we have seen, belongs only to the Animate, the Couplement.
Have you got that? The Soul is not affected by the actions of the Couplement-- that is, the animated body-- anymore than the lantern is affected by what happens on the wall.
But there is a difficulty in understanding how the Soul can go guiltless if our mentation and reasoning are vested in it: for all this lower kind of knowledge is delusion and is the cause of much of what is evil.
That is-- if the Soul is responsible for thinking, and most of our thinking is evil, how can it be blameless of evil?
When we have done evil it is because we have been worsted by our baser side-- for a man is many-- by desire or rage or some evil image: the false, in reality fancy, has not stayed for the judgement of the Reasoning-Principle: we have acted at the call of the less worthy, just as in matters of the sense-sphere we sometimes see falsely because we credit only the lower perception, that of the Couplement, without applying the tests of the Reasoning-Faculty.
The image that keeps coming to mind is of the human person as a kind of center of gravity, suspended between two poles. At the one extreme is our Higher Soul, united with the Divine Mind; at the other is the lower passions, moving us toward rage or lust. We have a choice in any given instance as to which direction to go. Which of course returns us to the question of which part of us really is the "us." And it suggests that the answer is: We have a choice. We can remember our higher nature, that is, the lantern, removed from the wall; or we can take the things on the wall-- spiders or dust or whatever-- as our reality, and go toward them.
The Intellectual-Principle has held aloof from the act and so is guiltless; or, as we may state it, all depends on whether we ourselves have or have not put ourselves in touch with the Intellectual-Realm either in the Intellectual-principle or within oruselves; for it is possible at once to possess it and not to use it.
"For a man is many." I wonder, though-- if a part of us is innocent, another part guilty, and yet we can choose between the two, is not that part of us that makes the choice-- the will, call it-- the true man? Would that not then be prior either to Soul or to Couplement or to Body?
Thus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what stands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never exists apart from body, while all that has no need of body for its manifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul: and the Understanding, as passing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the vision of Ideal-Forms, seeing them as it were with an answering sensation (i.e., with consciousness) this last is at any rate true of the Understanding in the Veritable Soul. For Understanding, the true, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations it is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.
I really, really like how our translator just kinds of tosses out brand new Capitalized Terms that we've never seen before, without any explanatory notes, as though the mere fact of Using Capital Letters was enough to point them out as Important and in that way to Explain Their Meaning.
I also love how grammatical the English here is.
Well, anyway, let's give this one a go. This one giant sentence of a paragraph is ridiculously long, so let's take it clause by clause.
Thus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what stands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never exists apart from body
Everything that we experience that belongs to the Couplement is characterized by being bodily, and not existing apart from the body. We experience hunger, it's a real thing, but we can't experience it without our body. On the other hand...
all that has no need of body for its manifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul
Simple enough...
and the Understanding, as passing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the vision of the Ideal-Forms
Have we met a capital-U Understanding before? I can't remember. Either way, whatever it is, its job is to pass judgment upon sense impressions. Because of this it is at the point of the vision of the Ideal-Forms. How is that? It must be-- I see an object with my eyes. My Understanding says "A red balloon." Both "red" and "balloon" exists as ideal forms, apart from this specific red thing, this specific balloon. Therefore, the Understanding is at the point of contact with the Forms-- looking up at them from below, as it were. Or, to say it another way,
seeing them with an answering sensation
Right.
this last is true, at any rate, of the Understanding in the Veritable Soul.
So it is our true, or our higher, Soul that has the faculty of the Understanding.
For Understanding, the true, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations it is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.
We have nothing to explain or contextualize this statement, and thus nothing but guesswork to go on when trying to understand it. Still, it's a fascinating thing to say. Understanding-- What did we just learn that is? The faculty of judgement in the Soul. It works with the Intellections-- that connects us both to the eternal Forms and the idea of Divine Mind. And he tells us that it is often "the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner." In other words...
What?
I see an object.
My Understanding judge: It's a red balloon. I have experience of red, and of balloons. Is that what this is? Yes, it is. Or, no-- I'm wrong, it's a red plane, or an orange balloon, or a cloud. Now I revise my judgment. Is this how it works?
I suspect so. Because, remember what he said earlier about the Soul going blameless in our misdeeds? And he used the image of a sense object misunderstood. We see something and react immediately-- Say, we are hiking in the woods, see a snake, and immediately jump. But then we apply our Understanding-- it's not a snake at all, it's just a stick! The Understanding, seated in the Soul, was absent from our original action, and thus we made a mistake.
If that's so, we can conclude this section with Plotinus:
Thus in spite of all, the Soul is at peace as to itself and within itself: all the changes and all the turmoil we experience are the issue of what is subjoined to the Soul, and are, as we have said, the states and experiences of this elusive Couplement.
