Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism

Reading Plotinus: A Practical Introduction to Neoplatonism3 "4, " ,8 $(,. +
General Editors
Adriaan Peperzak Robert Bernasconi Joseph J. Kockelmans Calvin O. Schrag
Reading Plotinus
Kevin Corrigan
Copyright 2005 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Corrigan, Kevin. Reading Plotinus : a practical introduction to neoplatonism / Kevin Corrigan. p. cm. -- (Purdue University Press series in the history of philosophy) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 1-55753-233-8 (casebound) -- ISBN 1-55753-234-6 (pbk.) 1. Plotinus. I. Plotinus. Enneads. English. Selections. II. Title. III. Series. B693.Z7C67 2004 186'.4--dc22
2004006563
Contents
Introduction 1
Chapter 1: An Overview of Plotinus’ Thought 7
Texts 1. The hypostases and our relation to them: V, 1 (10) 10–12 7 2. Tracing degrees of unity back to the One. The nature of body, soul,
and intellect, and the return to the One: VI, 9 (9) 1–3 9 3. The derivation of everything (from intellect to matter):
IV, 8 (6); V, 2 (11) 1, 3–28 12 4. The nature of intellect and soul, and soul’s
relation to bodies: IV, 1 (21) 14 5. World soul and individual souls: IV, 3 (27) 6 15 6. The descent and fall of soul: IV, 8 (5) 5 16 7. Matter: II, 5 (25) 5 17 8. Bodiliness: II, 7 (37) 3 18 9. Soul-body: The human being here: VI, 7 (38) 4–5 19 10. Eternity and time: III, 7 (45) 11 20
Commentary 23 1.1 The hypostases 23 1.2 Free spontaneous creativity: The One 26 1.3 The derivation of all things: Procession and conversion 28 1.4 The return to union 30 1.5 Intellect 34 1.6 Soul and the sensible world 38 1.7 The World soul and individual souls 41 1.8 Soul-body 42 1.9 Providence, freedom, and matter 43 1.10 The generation of matter 45 1.11 The descent and fall of soul 46 1.12 Nature, contemplation, eternity, and time 47 1.13 Plotinus, the reader 48
Chapter 2: Plotinus’ Anthropology 51 Text 51 I, 1 (53): What Is the Living Creature and What Is the Human Being?
Commentary 60 2.1 Introduction 60 2.2 What does Plotinus mean by the impassibility or
unaffectedness of soul? (I, 1 [53] 2 and III 6 [26]) 62 2.3 Do “we” really perceive and do we perceive
directly or mediately? (I, 1 (53) 3–7 and other texts) 66 2.4 Do we perceive things or our impressions of things? 68 2.5 How do the affections fit into the overall picture? 70 2.6 Soul-body and beyond (I, 1, 4–7) 72
Chapter 3: The range of Plotinus’ thought: From nature and contemplation to the One 86
Text 86 III, 8 (30): On Nature and Contemplation and the One
Commentary 97 3.1 Introduction 97 3.2 Play 102 3.3 Contemplation, action and production: The problem 104 3.4 An animated, freely dependent world (1, 11 ff.) 107 3.5 Activity (energeia) and power (dynamis) 108 3.6 Nature (III, 8, 2) 110 3.7 Logos and Logoi-brothers (III, 8, 2, 27–35) 112 3.8 Matter: From Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics to Plotinus 116 3.9 Logos and action, a way of understanding
Neoplatonic contemplative production (III, 8, 3) 120 3.10 The silent speech of nature (III, 8, 4) 123 3.11 Synaesthêsis (III, 4, 15 ff.) 124 3.12 The nature of images and productive art: Plato and
Plotinus (III, 8, 4, 39 ff.) 125 3.13 The problem of degrees of reality: Filling and being
filled (III, 8, 4–5) 127 3.14 The landscape of soul (III, 8, 5) 129 3.15 Love and beauty (III, 8, 5, 34 ff.) 136 3.16 Walk-about, bending back, and trust (III, 8, 6) 136 3.17 The dialectic of play and seriousness: From the inertia
of indifference to kinship of soul (III, 8, 6, 15 ff.) 137 3.18 Plotinus’ theory of creation in context (III, 8, 7, 1–15) 140 3.19 The problem of intellect (III, 8, 8) 143 3.20 Four puzzles: From the drunken circle to haphazard
heap (III, 8, 8, 30–48) 151 3.21 The problem of substance in the Enneads 158 3.22 Speaking about the One: The character of a simplicity
beyond intellect 163
3.23 Infinity and number (III, 8, 9, 1–6) 174 3.24 Neither intellect nor intelligible object
nor ignorant (III, 8, 9, 6–16) 174 3.25 Simple, instantaneous awareness (III, 8, 9, 16–24) 175 3.26 Sound and omnipresence (III, 8, 9, 24–29) 177 3.27 A “backward” intellect (III, 8, 9, 29 ff.) 178 3.28 A power for all things (III, 8, 10, 1–26) 180 3.29 Negative theology and dialectic (III, 8, 10, 26–35) 182 3.30 The simplicity and playfulness of the image (III, 8, 11) 183 3.31 Conclusion: Some answers to frequently asked questions
about Plotinian Neoplatonism 185
Chapter 4: A world of beauty, from beautiful things to intelligible shapelessness 189
Text 189 V, 8 (31): On the Intelligible Beauty
Commentary 202 4.1 Introduction: The importance and major issues of V, 8 202 4.2 What does “the beautiful” mean? 205 4.3 Why is good proportion and structure not “the beautiful”? 207 4.4 Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? 208 4.5 What is the beauty of art? (V, 8, 1–2) 209 4.6 Why is intelligible beauty bound up with the perception of
natural things? (V, 8, 2) 210 4.7 How are beauty, science, and wisdom related? 214 4.8 The Form of the beautiful? 216 4.9 Intelligible beauty and concrete physical things (V, 8, 4–8) 217 4.10 Elements of a reflexive aesthetic theory (V, 8, 1–11) 219 4.11 How does evil fit into this picture? (V, 8, 11) 222 4.12 The limitations of beauty: What role does the One play? 225
Chapter 5: Conclusion: Assessment and Afterlife 228
5.1 Assessment 228 5.2 Afterlife 233
Appendix A: Some key passages from Plato and Aristotle 241 Appendix B: Suggestions for further reading 249 Bibliography 253 Index of Names 277 Index of Subjects 282
ix
Abbreviations
CAG: Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca
CQ: Classical Quarterly
EN: Ethica Nicomachea (Aristotle)
JHP: Journal of Hellenic Philosophy
IPQ: International Philosophical Quarterly
LSJ: A Greek-English Lexicon, H. G. Liddell and R. Scott, rev. and aug. H. S. Jones
LthPh: Laval Théologique et Philosophique
PA: The Parts of Animals (Aristotle)
RHR: Revue de l’Histoire des Religions
Rmeta: Review of Metaphysics
xi
The Enneads
The following is a list of the treatises that make up the Enneads with their titles. The chronological order is indicated in brackets. I.1 (53) what is the living being and what is the human being? I.2 (19) on virtues I.3 (20) on dialectic I.4 (46) on well-being I.5 (36) on whether well-being increase with time I.6 (1) on beauty I.7 (54) on the first Good and the other goods I.8 (51) on what are evils and from where they come I.9 (16) on the reasonable departure from life II.1 (40) on the universe II.2 (14) on the circular motion II.3 (52) whether the stars are causes II.4 (12) on the two matters II.5 (25) on what exists potentially and what actually II.6 (17) on substance or on quality II.7 (37) on complete transfusion II.8 (35) on sight or on how distant objects appear small II.9 (33) against the gnostics III.1 (3) on destiny III.2 (47) on providence (I) III.3 (48) on providence (II) III.4 (15) on our allotted guardian spirit III.5 (50) on love III.6 (26) on the impassibility of things without body III.7 (45) on eternity and time III.8 (30) on nature and contemplation and the one III.9 (13) various considerations IV.1 (21) on the essence of the soul (I) IV.2 (4) on the essence of the soul (II) IV.3 (27) on difficulties about the soul (I) IV.4 (28) on difficulties about the soul (II) IV.5 (29) on difficulties about the soul (III, or on sight) IV.6 (41) on sense-perception and memory IV.7 (2) on the immortality of the soul IV.8 (6) on the descent of the soul into bodies IV.9 (8) if all souls are one V.1 (10) on the three primary hypostases V.2 (11) on the origin and order of the beings which come after the first V.3 (49) on the knowing hypostases and that which is beyond V.4 (7) how that which is after the first comes from the first, and on the one V.5 (32) that the intelligibles are not outside the intellect, and on the good
xii The Enneads
V.6 (24) on the fact that that which is beyond being does not think, and on what is the primary and what the secondary thinking principle
V.7 (18) on the question whether there are ideas of particulars V.8 (31) on the intelligible beauty V.9 (5) on intellect, the forms, and being VI.1 (42) on the kinds of being (I) VI.2 (43) on the kinds of being (II) VI.3 (44) on the kinds of being (III) VI.4 (22) on the presence of being, one and the same, everywhere as a whole (I) VI.5 (23) on the presence of being, one and the same, everywhere as a whole
(II) VI.6 (34) on numbers VI.7 (38) how the multitude of the forms came into being, and on the good VI.8 (39) on free will and the will of the one VI.9 (9) on the good or the one
xiii
Acknowledgements
My very great thanks to my friends and colleagues, David Crossley, Graeme Nicholson, Adriaan Peperzak, Daniel Regnier, Frederic Schroeder and Carl Still who took the time to read a first draft of this manuscript and who made many in- valuable suggestions. I am also grateful for the suggestions of the final anony- mous reader for Purdue University Press as also for the support of Margaret Hunt at the Press throughout the project and for John Joerschke’s editing of the manu- script. My thanks also to Patrick Atherton, of the Classics Department at Dalhou- sie University, who lent me his office where I wrote the first draft of the manu- script and especially to my mother-in-law, Marina Glazova, who not only fed and housed me during that period but, as always, provided inspiration and encour- agement with her deep thirst for the beauty of intellectual and poetic things. Lynn Freistadt, my administrative assistant for many years and friend, has been, as al- ways, of invaluable assistance throughout the project. I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and also to Emory Univer- sity for their support. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my friend and typist of many years, Jane Morris, as also to my family. The remaining mistakes are all mine, but the book would not have been written without the care and en- couragement of these friends.
1
Introduction
Who was Plotinus? We know of Plotinus’ life primarily because Porphyry, his pupil and colleague, wrote a Life of Plotinus and collected and edited his works, dividing some of the larger treatises to make a total of fifty-four, or six groups of nine (“Enneads,” or “nines”). All of this material has been preserved, and so we have an unusually complete picture of Plotinus’ life and of everything he wrote.1
We are, of course, quite right to be skeptical of Porphyry’s account, which, like other Lives of the time, somewhat idealizes its subject. Nonetheless, we get a vivid picture of an accessible, gentle, and warm human being, loved by those who really knew him but also called a “big driveler” and plagiarist by those who did not (Life, 17). Plotinus was restless in youth, gentle and inspired as a teacher, a mystic in later life (on Porphyry’s testimony, Life, 23) with a distinctive, critical philosophical mind but poor spelling and bad eyesight. At the same time, he was a practical person, ascetic but with a gift for friendship, whose house (not his own, by the way) was open to his many friends and “full of the young boys and girls” who had been entrusted to his care. He was, in short, a lover of wisdom who even took the time to listen to a boy in his care repeating the multiplication table.2
Plotinus was born in 204/205 in Egypt, probably in Lycopolis. We just do not know if he was of Egyptian origin or not—in later life he was reluctant to talk of his childhood. At any rate, he wrote in Greek and lived the last twenty-five years or so of his life in Rome. At the age of twenty-eight he went to study philosophy in Alexandria but was disappointed with the teachers he found until the advice of a friend sent him to a certain Ammonius, or Ammonius Saccas, about whom we know very little.3 He stayed with Ammonius for eleven years, and his studies ap- parently awoke in him a desire to learn Persian and Indian philosophy. For just that purpose, he joined the army of the Emperor Gordian on a campaign against the Persians, but Gordian was murdered on the way and Plotinus escaped only with difficulty. He made his way to Rome, where at the age of forty he settled and established a school.
Plotinus must already have had connections, of course, in the first place to do this. Whatever the case, he showed a gift for attracting powerful supporters throughout his life (among them the emperor Gallienus and his wife). Many high- ranking people, on the approach of death, entrusted their children to him, and he looked after their property and fortunes in trust just as he did their welfare and
1. On the Life, see L. Brisson, 1982–1992. 2. Life, 9: or “revising the same lesson again and again” (Amstrong, Loeb, I, 30–1). 3. Cf. H. R. Schwyzer, 1983; F. M. Schroeder, 1987, 493–526.
Introduction
2
education. He even tried to found a city based on Plato’s “laws,” Platonopolis, but political infighting at the emperor’s court doomed the scheme. He had already written twenty-one treatises by the time he was fifty-nine when Porphyry came to Rome. Porphyry encouraged him to write more, and in the next few years the ma- jor works of Plotinus’ most creative writing period emerged. Typically these trea- tises arose out of discussions in the school (“between friends,” as we shall see be- low). Plotinus loved philosophical conversation. His earlier “seminars” apparently had been too full of students’ chatter and so a bit chaotic. But Plotinus seems to have gone out of his way to make time for people, so much so that he spent three days discussing the soul-body relation with Porphyry; when a friend complained about Porphyry’s questions and answers and wanted a set treatise, Plotinus re- plied, “But if when Porphyry asks questions we do not solve his difficulties, we shall not be able to say anything at all to put into the treatise” (Life, 13).
On another occasion, when Porphyry apparently was contemplating suicide, Plotinus unexpectedly visited him and told him his death wish had a physical, not a rational basis (i.e., “black bile”). Porphyry went off to Sicily for a rest cure and was therefore absent when Plotinus died, probably from a form of leprosy, under the care of Eustochius, a doctor-friend in Campania. Plotinus’ last words, on Eus- tochius’ testimony, are as enigmatic and as difficult to interpret as some of his writing: “Try to bring back the god in you to the divine in the all” (Life, 2). Per- haps they may be taken to sum up much of Porphyry’s testimony in the Life: Plot- inus’ life was characterized by mindful attention to thought and to the self, by care for others, and by an essential connection between self, world, thought, reality, and divinity. Neoplatonism is sometimes thought to sublimate or bypass the indi- vidual or other person entirely. The evidence of Plotinus’ life contradicts this. As Porphyry says, “he was present at once to himself and to others” (Life, 8).
In his writing, Porphyry tells us, Plotinus “took a distinctive personal line in his consideration, and brought the mind of Ammonius to bear on investigations in hand” (Life, 14, 14–16). Plato, Aristotle, and Pythagorean and Peripatetic com- mentaries were read in the school, but Plotinus characteristically would summa- rize the readings and then start critically and creatively to think through their in- herent philosophical problems. The writings that emerged from these discussions Porphyry grouped into six Enneads, the first dealing with ethical matters; the sec- ond and third with the physical universe; the fourth with soul; the fifth generally with intellect and the three major realities, or hypostases (the One, intellect, and soul); and the sixth with being and the One (although Porphyry does not explicitly tell us its subject-matter). A list of all the Enneads with their chronological num- bers indicated in parenthesis appears immediately before this introduction. Con- ventionally, we refer to the Enneads only in numerals: “III, 8 (30) 2, 1–6,” for in- stance, means “third Ennead, eighth treatise (number thirty on Porphyry’s chronological list), chapter 2, lines 1–6.”
Introduction 3
Plotinus’ influence has been immense in the history of thought, from the de- velopment of later Neoplatonism in Christian, Jewish, and Arabic thought, up to Ficino in the Renaissance, and later to Coleridge, Emerson, Yeats, and others. In the twentieth century, and earlier too, philosophy was unsympathetic to Neo- platonism not only because of its difficulty but also because of its apparent mysti- cal, religious, occultist, and metaphysical qualities. Our modern materialistic em- phasis upon the facts and nothing but the facts does not exactly predispose us to alternative paradigms, to other more spiritual forms of thought, or even to deeper examination of the puzzling question of just what the nature of fact might be. This is unfortunate because Plotinus is the greatest philosopher after Plato and Aris- totle until Augustine, and his influence in the West, though so often hidden or transformed by subsequent figures, has been immense. The only way really to de- cide these matters is to read Plotinus for ourselves, keeping an open mind, and be- ing as well disposed to what we read and yet thoroughly critical of it at the same time, as he and Plato before him would have expected and, indeed, first insisted upon.
This book is intended for anyone who wants to read and understand Plotinus, first-time readers, nonspecialists, and specialists alike. It includes first a selection of passages to give an overview of Plotinus’ thought and then three works on some of the most fascinating and influential topics in the Enneads:
I, 1 (53), On what is the living creature and what the human being III, 8 (30), On nature, contemplation and the One V, 8 (31), On intelligible beauty
Treatise I, 1 is a late work, chronologically the fifty-third of fifty-four trea- tises, written just before Plotinus’ death in 270. Porphyry chose it to introduce the rest of Plotinus’ writings, probably because its examination of who we ourselves are, like Plato’s Alcibiades I, is a necessary propaedeutic to self-knowledge that marks the beginning of philosophy itself. Like Porphyry, I have put this work first even though its seeming simplicity is deceptive, and an intelligent reading pre- supposes much of what Plotinus had already written. So I have started at the end of Plotinus’ writing, with his analysis of what it means to be human, and then turned to his middle writings with III, 8 and V, 8.
Treatises III, 8 and V, 8 are the first two of the “big work” (so called by Ger- man scholars: die Großschrift) divided by Porphyry into four individual treatises (to make up the number of six sets of “nines” [or Enneads]). They are among Plotinus’ finest works, and they mark one of his most creative periods, chrono- logically being thirtieth and thirty-first respectively of the fifty-four treatises. They also present two of his most characteristic theories: creative…