18
January 2023
The
Great Learning
“The
knowledge or touching of the Good is the greatest thing, and Plato says it is
the ‘greatest study’, not calling the looking at it a 'study', but learning about it
beforehand. We are taught about it by
comparisons and negations and knowledge of the things which come from it and certain methods of ascent by degrees, but we are
put on the way to it by purifications and virtues and adornings and by gaining
footholds in the intelligible and settling ourselves firmly there and feasting
on its contents.”
(Plotinus,
Ennead VI.7.36, Plotinus Ennead VI.6.9, translated by A. H. Armstrong,
Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
1988, page 199, ISBN: 9780674995154)
“’Certainly,
he said [a worthy thought],; however, as to what is the most important study
and what you mean by it, do you think anyone could let you off without asking
what it is?’
“’Certainly
not,” I said, ‘go ahead and ask me yourself.
At any rate you have heard it quite a few times, but now either you don’t
understand, or more likely your intention is to cause me problems by your
objections! However, I rather think it’s
the latter since in fact you have often heard that the Form of the Good is the
most important thing to learn, in relation to which “just” and other such terms
become useful and beneficial. And now
you know more or less that this is what I’m going to say, and that, in
addition, we don’t know it adequately.
But if we don’t know it, you know that, even if we were to understand
everything else as fully as possible, nothing is of any use to us without this
notion, any more than we could acquire anything without the Good. Or do you think there is any advantage in
having gained every possession, apart from the Good? Or to hold everything in high regard without
the Good, but have no regard for anything beautiful and good?’
“’By
Zeus, I certainly do not!’ he exclaimed.”
(Plato,
The Republic, Book VI, 504e and 505a&b, Plato VI, Republic Books 6-10,
translated by Chris Emlyn-Jones and William Preddy, Loeb Classical Library,
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2013, pages 77-79, ISBN:
9780674996519, brackets inserted by translators)
1. This is another example of the clarity of
Plotinus’s writing. (As an aside, I have
read a lot of spiritual works in a variety of traditions, and my experience is
that there is no writer of greater, or even equal, clarity to Plotinus. I know some will disagree with this, and it
isn’t a view I came to right away, or upon first reading Plotinus. But over time that is the overall sense I
have of The Enneads.) Plotinus points
out that we are taught about the Good through comparisons and negations and
knowledge of the things which come from it and certain methods of ascent by degrees.
‘Comparisons’
means analogies, allegories, metaphors, and those types of communication. (Some translations, such as MacKenna, use the
word ‘analogies’ instead of comparisons.)
This touches on a point I have made previously and that has slowly grown
as I become more familiar with, more at home with Platonic sources. Namely, that allegory, analogy, metaphor, or ‘comparisons’
are a primary means whereby Platonism communicates its view and its
understandings to others. There is a
tendency among moderns to pick out the passages that resemble modern analysis
and think of these as primary to Platonism.
My view is that these passages are secondary, or even tertiary. Logical analysis is done for the purpose of
unpacking the meaning of an allegory or other comparison; analysis is in the
service of the comparisons rather than the comparisons emerging from the
analyses. There is, I think, a reason
for this: and that is that the Good, or the One, is beyond concepts, beyond
name and form, is deathless and unborn, and because of this, comparisons, and
devices such as allegory and metaphor, are the only means human intellect has
for referring to, and talking about, the Good.
‘Negations’
refers to the via negativa, or negative way, found in Plato and Plotinus. In Plato scholars say that this is most
specifically laid out in the dialogue Parmenides. The idea is that the mystical ascent to the
Good and the One is accomplished by negating appearances and mental
constructs. This approach strongly
influenced Christianity and Christian mysticism through the Mystical
Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite which seems to rely on Plato’s Parmenides. (The negative way is also found in Dharmic
traditions.)
‘Knowledge
of the things which come from it and certain methods of ascent by degrees’ refers to the three primary hypostases and how they
relate to each other; in other words, the metaphysical structure of the
emanated cosmos.
2. I see these three topics (comparisons,
negations, and knowledge of the hypostases and their relationships) as the kind
of thing that one would talk about in a class, a kind of Platonism 101. I think Plotinus is telling us that these are
the topics to lecture on, particularly for new students.
After a
student gets some clarity about these topics, then we move on to entering the
way through a collection of spiritual practices.
3. Plotinus moves from topics that give a
student a sense of overall structure to actual spiritual practices, naming
specifically purifications, virtues, adornings, gaining footholds in the
intelligible (the nous, or the world of forms), settling, and feasting.
‘Purifications’
refers to the ascetic ideal and its three main practices: vegetarianism (and
veganism), refraining from alcohol and, by extension, drugs that cloud the
mind, and sexual restraint (including living a chaste, celibate, life). I believe these are mentioned first by
Plotinus because they are foundational.
A good essay on the nature and function of purifications is found in the
book Pure by Mark Anderson, in the title essay, the last one in the
book.
‘Virtues’
refers to the standard virtue ethics shared by most philosophical traditions in
the Classical World. Porphyry is
particularly good at explaining these ethical virtues and their function in a
Platonic context.
‘Adornings’;
to be honest, I’m not clear about what ‘adornings’ refers to. MacKenna seems to translate this with ‘right
ordering’, but that isn’t very clear to me either. Speculating, I wonder if ‘adornings’ refers
to experiences that help students retain their commitment to the Platonic
Way. These experiences can be as simple
as a growing sense of clarity where one was previously confused, or they might
be more traditionally ‘mystical’, such as experiencing a sense of oneness, or
having a direct experience of the noetic realm.
Or they may refer to a growing sense of, for example, bodily health and
balance which was referred to in the story of the Senator who abandoned his
decadent life for a life of philosophy and through dedication to the ascetic
ideal experienced an increase in his health and overall wellbeing. But I am speculating here; if any reader has
insight on this, please post in the comments or contact me directly.
‘Gaining
footholds in the intelligible (the nous)’:
It is possible to have an experience of the realm of forms. This is done through contemplation. Having such an experience, even if it is very
brief, is ‘gaining a foothold’ in nous (the second hypostasis often translated
as the Intelligible, sometimes translated as Mind or Spirit). Contemplation is not mentioned in the list
Plotinus has in the quoted passage, but I believe it is inferred in this
context.
“Settling”: I think Plotinus means by “settling” what some
Buddhist traditions mean by ‘stabilization’.
The experience of the noetic is stabilized when we routinely begin to
perceive the material world as an emanation from the nous.
“Feasting”: I believe Plotinus uses the metaphor of
feasting (which takes us back to the topic of ‘comparisons’) as a reference to
how the experience of the noetic nourishes our spiritual life and, possibly,
lives. It is like participating in a
feast for the gods, with nectar, ambrosia, and abundant food for the soul. And most importantly, such feasting nourishes
us for the divine, and final, ascent to The One.
4. Above I said that the student advances on the
ascent ‘after’ the introductory topics.
But in thinking further about it, I suspect that these insights and
practices and experiences are often undertaken in a manner that mixes them
up. I think that was true in my own
case. Still, I think there is some
virtue in laying them out in a sequential manner. For example, Anderson in his essay Pure
makes a good case for how purification practices are foundational for further journeying
on the path. As long as we don’t put
these topics, insights, practices, and experiences in an inflexible series
there should be no problem. (As an
aside, I think past lives will have a significant influence in this context.)
5. The quote from The Republic assists us
in understanding the importance of following this Platonic Way and engaging in
the rigorous practices that end in the Good and the One. It is because all things flow from, and
participate, in the One. The return to
the One means to return to the source, it means to understand why there are
things and not nothing, it means to no longer dwell in a realm of shadows, it
means to dwell in the light of the deathless and unborn, in the light of the
eternal.
