Damian Caluori on "The Embodied Soul" in Plotinus

23 October 2023

Damian Caluori on "The Embodied Soul" in Plotinus

When I was posting my series “Notes and Comments on Phaedo” I noted that there were several places in Phaedo that seem to support the view that part of the soul always resides in the noetic.  This perspective on the soul contrasts with later Platonists, such as Proclus and Iamblichus, that have the view that the soul is fully descended, meaning that there is no part of the soul that remains in Nous, or in the One.  This discussion, when first encountered, may seem abstract and it is hard, at first, to see the significance of these two contrasting views.  Briefly, the idea that the soul is ‘fully descended’ is foundational for those who consider Theurgy to be necessary because we need the assistance of the gods to ascend to Nous because soul has no connection to the noetic, whereas the gods do.  In contrast, the Contemplative approach to Platonic spirituality relies on the view that, in some sense, we are already in touch with the noetic because soul is never fully absent from Nous (or the One).

For those who are interested in this topic, I found an essay by Damian Caluori, ”The Embodied Soul” which I think helps people to understand Plotinus’s view that there exists an ‘undescended’ aspect of the soul that always resides in nous; and that therefore the practices of asceticism and contemplation are the way to ascend to higher realities (as opposed to Theurgy.)  The essay is in The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, edited by Lloyd P. Gerson and James Wilberding, published in 2022.  (This is not to be confused with The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, also edited by Gerson, but published in 1996.)  I especially appreciated that Caluori connects the view of Plotinus with that of the Phaedo; the implication is that the understanding of the soul as intimately connected with higher realities, and not separate from them, was the consistently held view from Plato through Plotinus.  The idea of a ‘fully descended’ soul only appears much later, beginning with Proclus.  Caluori writes:

“Following such dialogues as the Phaedo, Plotinus believes that we are rational souls and that the rational soul essentially belongs to the intelligible world [Nous – my addition].  While other Platonists hold that the human soul as a whole descends from the intelligible world to the sensible world and ascends back to the intelligible world, Plotinus disagrees; ‘And if, against the belief of others, one is to venture to express more clearly one’s own view, the fact is that even our own soul does not descend in its entirety, but there is something of it always in the intelligible world (4.8.8.1-3).”  [Gerson et al translation]

(Caluori, Damian, The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus edited by Lloyd P. Gerson and James Wilberding, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2022, pages 220-221, ISBN: 9781108726238)

“In the same chapter, Plotinus illustrates the soul’s being in the sensible world by comparing it to a resident alien in a city (6.4.2.36-38).  The resident alien is active in the city without being a part of the city, that is, without being a citizen.”

(Ibid, page 221)

“The powers of the soul are not in the body – they are everywhere.”

(Ibid, page 232)

The whole essay is worth reading if you are interested in this ancient disagreement.  Here are a few comments:

1.  Another thing that Phaedo demonstrates is that when we talk about the ‘rational’ soul in Platonism, the ancient Platonists had a much richer understanding of what it means to be ‘rational’ than we do today.  I think it is helpful to grapple with this because otherwise we might project onto Plotinus, and Phaedo, a modern understanding of what ‘rational’ means.  Briefly, we have the tendency, in modernity, to think of rational as pertaining to the analytic capacity of the mind, particularly formal structures of inference.  In classical Platonism, though, rational also includes structures of comparison like allegory and metaphor.  This is a consequential difference.

2.  For comparison, here is Armstrong’s translation of the passage Caluori quotes from the Gerson et al translation:

“And, if one ought to dare to express one’s own view more clearly, contradicting the opinion of others, even our soul does not altogether come down, but there is always something of it in the intelligible; . . .”

(Plotinus, Ennead IV, The Descent of the Soul into Bodies, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 421, ISBN: 9780674994881)

And here is the translation by Stephen MacKenna:

“And – if it is desirable to venture the more definite statement of a personal conviction clashing with the general view – even our human Soul has not sunk entire; something of it is continuously in the Intellectual [Noetic – my addition] Realm, . . . “

(Plotinus, The Enneads, IV.8 The Soul’s Descent into Body, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, pages 416-417, ISBN: 9780943914558)

3.  I don’t know specifically who Plotinus has in mind regarding his view of the soul ‘contradicting’ or ‘clashing’ with the view of ‘others.’  Perhaps this remark is directed against the Stoics or some other tradition of philosophy or theology (I suppose, given the time Plotinus was living in, it might even be directed towards a group of Christians).  It is rare for Plotinus to name the philosopher with whom he is disagreeing.  But to my mind, this indicates that the view Plotinus is presenting is a specifically Platonist view, as found in Phaedo.

4.  The resident alien analogy is a good one, one that I have found helpful. 

5.  My last quote from the essay by Caluori, about the powers of the soul being ‘everywhere’ is, I think, a key observation.  That which is eternal permeates time and space and is not confined to a specific corner of the cosmos.  I like to say that that which is eternal is everywhere, everywhen, and everything or in everything or encompasses everything.  To say that the soul is fully descended is to say that even though the soul is eternal it is, at the same time, confined, fenced off, from the Noetic, that is to say separated from eternity itself.