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Elements in the thought of Plotinus at variance with Classical Intellectualism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 September 2015
Extract
Plotinus is, up to a point, a classical intellectualist in the manner of Aristotle, and, he would himself have certainly thought, of Plato. He professes, that is, to give an account of everything that is in any degree real in the universe (and even a kind of account of the unreal) which is certainly and unchangingly true and can be demonstrated to be so by rational processes. This account culminates in the description of an eternal realm of intelligible intellect which can be (and indeed really always is) our own, certainly and imperturbably possessed. This systematic account of reality, as is well known, breaks down, and we have to break out of it, in a very startling way at the top. Beyond the Platonic-Aristotelian Intellect-Intelligible, the world of real being which is Νοῦς and νοητά, lies the One or Good beyond being, which is neither intelligent nor intelligible. When we have completed our understanding of reality, we have to leave it all behind in order to find what turns out to be the only thing we want, the source of all values and the goal of all desire, which alone makes it worth the effort to attain to Νοῦς on the way, as it is the only reason why Νοῦς is there at all.
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- Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1973
References
1 iii 8 [30], v 8 [31], v 5 [32], ii 9 [33].
2 vi 7 [38].
3 JRS l (1960) 1–7.
4 Life ch. 9.
5 The passage from iv 4.4 already cited makes it clear that ‘superconscious’ dispositions are even more powerful than ‘subconscious’ ones in making us be what we do not know.
6 E.g., Proclus In Alc. pp. 104–5 Westerink: In Parm. iv, 948 Cousin.
7 vi 9 [9] 6.
8 iii 2 [47] 1–2. v 8 [31] 7 (the fullest refutation). ii 9 [33] 8. In all these passages he seems to have Gnostics (and, incidentally, orthodox Christians) who believed in a temporal beginning of the world in mind (v 8 and ii 9 are both parts of the great treatise which ends with his famous attack on the Gnostics), but he is not simply concerned to defend the eternity of the world. It is of interest to note that Grene, Marjorie in The Knower and the Known says ‘The artefact analogy is basic to Darwinism, both old and new, as it is to natural theology’ (p. 195Google Scholar). But it was not basic to the natural theology of Plotinus.
9 ‘Dicta Sapientis Graeci’ ii 18. 2–13, tr. Lewis, Geoffrey, ap. Plotini Opera II ed. Henry, P. and Schwyzer, Hans Rudolf, p. 37Google Scholar: cp. Praefatio pp. xxxii–iv.
10 E.g., i 1 [51] 8: iii 7 [45] 11: iii 8 [30] 7–8: v 1[10] 3–4: v 3 [49] 3 and 6–9.
11 The most important of these are in two great treatises written within a year or two of each other, vi 4–5 [22–23] and iv 3–4 [27–28]: cp. especially vi 4.14: iv 3.15–18: iv 3.25–iv 4.8: but cp. also i 4 [46] 10, 10–21 (part of the passage already cited on consciousness): iii 4 [15] 3 (especially 1.22): iv 7 [2] 10 (especially 11.33–36): and the passages cited above (n. 8) rejecting the ‘artisan’ idea of creation.
12 Especially in the treatise On Contemplation iii 8 [30].
13 iv 3.18: iv 4.12.
14 Cp. ii 9.6.
15 Two passages in which Plotinus himself stresses this close connexion are iv 8 [6] 6, 23–28 and v 8 [31] 7, 13–16: cp. ii 9 [33] 8, 39–43. In this last great statement of pagan faith (which could be turned into a far better pagan Platonist creed than Thomas Taylor's) the sensible world is brought unusually close, not only to the intelligible world but to the One.
16 ‘Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of Νοῡς' (in Le Néoplatonisme, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris 1971, pp. 67–76).
17 ii 4 [12] 5: iii 8 [30] 11: V 3 [49] 11: v 4 [7] 2: vi 7 [38] 16–17.
18 v 8 [31] 3–4 and vi 7 [38] 9–13.
19 iv 7 [2] 10, 34–36: iii 4 [15] 3, 22.
20 Cp. Schwyzer, H. R., art. ‘Plotinus’ in RE 21.1Google Scholar col. 526–527. It is hoped that an English translation of a version of this invaluable article revised by the author may eventually be published.
21 See Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 1960–61, pp. 87–198. This paper was interestingly discussed by the Right Rev. I. T. Ramsey, Bishop of Durham, in his presidential address to the Society for the Study of Theology in 1969.
22 v 8.4, 32–34.
23 ii 4 [12] 5, 31–35: v 3 [49] 11, 1–12: v 4 [7] 2, 4–10: vi 7 [38] 15–17.
24 vi 7 [38] 35, 24–5.
25 In a paper, ‘The Escape of the One’, read to the Sixth International Conference on Patristic Studies in 1971, and to be published in a forthcoming volume on Studia Patristica.