Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 18

 

17 July 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 18

Plotinus on Recollection

This continues with my posts on Phaedo.  We have reached the section where there is a discussion of ‘recollection.’  I thought it would be helpful to refer to a passage from one of the Enneads where Plotinus places recollection in the context of various functions of the soul.  It is Ennead V.3.2, On the Knowing Hypostases.

“First we must enquire about the soul, whether we should grant it knowledge of itself, and what is that which knows in it, and how.  We could say at once that its perceptive part is perceptive only of what is external; for even if there is a concomitant awareness of what goes on inside the body, yet even here the apprehension is of something outside the perceptive part; for it perceives the experiences in its body by its own agency, but the reasoning power in soul makes its judgment, derived from the mental images present to it which come from sense-perception, but combining and dividing them; and, as for the things which come to it from Intellect (Nous – my addition), it observes what one might call their imprints, and has the same power also in dealing with these; and it continues to acquire understanding as if by recognizing the new and recently arrived impressions and fitting them to those which have long been within it: this process is what we should call the ‘recollections’ of the soul.”

(Plotinus, Ennead V, Ennead V.3, On the Knowing Hypostases, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, pages 75-77, ISBN: 9780674994898)

And here is another translation of part of what was quoted above:

“As for the part of the soul that engages in calculative reasoning; it makes discriminatory judgements about the semblances presented to it by sense-perception, organizing and distinguishing them.  In fact, in regard to what comes from Intellect, it even considers something like impressions of these, and has the identical power of discrimination in relation to them.  And it acquires further comprehension as if by recognizing and matching up those impressions that have been in it from before with new ones recently arrived.  And we would certainly call these acts the soul’s ‘recollections.’

(Plotinus, The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus edited by Lloyd P. Gerson and James Wilberding; Christian Tornau, Plotinus on Knowledge, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2022, page 200, ISBN: 9781108726238)

1.  This is not from a commentary on Phaedo, but I thought I would post it because it places recognition within the overall context of perception and other functions of the soul.

2.  Today we think of perception as a mental function, combined with physiological dimensions.  It is rare that someone will connect perception with the soul, and not only because it is becoming increasingly rare that people think about the soul at all. 

3.  In this short quote Plotinus places a significant number of activities within the soul’s domain; perception, reason, and judgment (I think this is ‘judgment’ in the sense of ‘evaluation’.)  I think that Socrates also had this expansive, and complex understanding, of the soul’s domain and the soul’s functions in human experience.  It is helpful, I think, to keep this in mind when reading Phaedo.

4.  Plotinus is putting forth the idea that the soul engages with perception by making judgments about the perceptions through combining and dividing them in accordance with previously experienced perceptions.  In this way, I think this implies, our conceptual apparatus is built up and refined from perception.  This already refers to a kind of ‘recollection’, the kind where Socrates talks about how encountering a cloak may cause the observer to ‘recollect’ a person who has a similar cloak. 

Then Plotinus offers that the same kind of process happens when the soul is considering noetic realities, what is here called the realm of ‘Intellect.’  Our experience, or perception, of noetic realities is ‘fitted’ into our previous experiences of these realities through the two modes of combining and dividing, or through similarity and differentiation.  Differentiation is the way hypostases are generated from the One.  Similarities is the way the return to the One is undertaken in the sense of perceiving wider and more general realities such as Being.  From the experience of noetic realities it is possible to ascend to the One itself because the degree of differentiation between the One and a Noetic reality like Being, is very slight. 

5.  The context of rebirth is, I believe, implicit in this passage.  Armstrong writes, “. . . it (the soul – my addition) continues to acquire understanding as if by recognizing the new and recently arrived impressions and fitting them to those which have long been within it . . .”  I think this refers to the soul’s experience with these impressions over many lifetimes as well as between lifetimes.

Tornau writes, “And it acquires further comprehension as if by recognizing and matching up those impressions that have been in it from before with new ones recently arrived.”  The ‘before’, I think, refers to not only before during this life, but over many lifetimes, as well as between lives.

6.  This process of combining and dividing, or discriminations and semblances, happens when the philosopher has become disengaged, at least to some extent, with sensory experience.  Being disengaged allows space in the soul where these processes can operate without completely succumbing to sensory stimulation.

This, in turn, is based on the foundational practices of Platonic purification and a life lived in accordance with the ascetic ideal.