Plotinus on The Good

26 April 2024

Plotinus on The Good

“But do not, I beg you, look at it (the Good) through other things: otherwise you might see a trace of it, not itself (the Good itself); but consider what this might be which it is possible to grasp as existing by itself, pure, mixed with nothing, in which all things have a share, though nothing has it (the Good): for there is nothing else like this (the Good), but there must be something like this.  Who, then, could capture its power all together as a whole?  For if one did capture it all together as a whole, why would one be different from it (the Good)?  Does one then grasp it (the Good) partially?  But when you concentrate on it (the Good), you will do so totally, but you will not declare the whole: otherwise, you will be [only – translator’s addition] Intellect thinking, and, even if you attain, he (the Good) will escape you, or rather you will escape him (the Good).  But when you see him, look at him as a whole; but when you think him, think whatever you remember about him, that he is the Good – for he is the productive power of thoughtful, intelligent life, from whom come life and intelligence and whatever there is of substance and being – that he (the Good) is One – for he is simple and first – that he is the Principle – for all things come from him (the Good) . . . “

(Plotinus, Ennead V.5.10, That the Inetelligibles not Outside the Intellect, and on the Good, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, pages 185-187, ISBN: 9780674994898)

“Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of these other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its trace: you must form the idea of that which is to be grasped, cleanly standing to itself, not in any combination, the unheld in which all have hold: for no other is such, yet one such there must be.

“Now it is clear that we cannot possess ourselves of the power of this principle in its concentrated fullness: so to do one must be identical with it: but some partial attainment is within our reach. 

“You who make the venture will throw forward all your being but you will never tell it entire – for that, you must yourself be the divine Intellect in Act – and at your utmost success it will still pass from you or, rather, you from it.  When you see The Good, see it entire: later you may think of it and identify with The Good whatever you can remember.

“It is The Good since, being a power (being effective outwardly), it is the cause of the intelligent and intellective life as of life and intellect: for these grow from it as from the source of essence and of existence, the Source as being One (where all else has duality), simplex and first because before it was nothing.  All derives from this . . . “

(Plotinus, The Enneads, Ennead V.5.10, That the Intellectual Beings are not outside the Intellectual-Principle: and on The Nature of the Good, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, 1992, pages 472-473, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  Plotinus opens this part of the Ennead with the request that we refrain from looking for the Good “through other things.”  I see this as connected with the ending of Ennead V.3 where Plotinus writes “Take away everything!”  The point I think Plotinus is emphasizing is that the Good, or the One, is found through this process of removing all sensory objects, including Noetic objects.  Noetic objects are non-sensory objects, but they are, nevertheless, differentiated objects in the realm of Mind.  If they were not differentiated objects they would either be nonexistent, or they would be the One, and undifferentiated. 

Looking at something ‘through other things’ means to relate to that something in a manner that subsumes that something to a previously experienced thing.  It is natural to do this; it is how our understanding works.  But in the case of the Good, it does not work because the Good is not a thing, the Good is not differentiated (it is pure Unity), and it is beyond both sensory and mental, or mind-based, experience.

2.  The Good is ‘mixed with nothing [else]’ yet ‘all things have a share’ in it.  How is that possible?  Analogies assist: all living things on earth have a share of the sun though things on earth are not the sun and are unable to grasp the sun.  The moon is reflected in countless bodies of water and in this sense all these bodies of water have a share in the moon; but the moon remains undiminished by that sharing and ungrasped by those bodies of water. 

3.  It’s interesting that Plotinus talks about the difficulty of grasping the Good in its entirety or as a whole, and seems to suggest that ‘partial’ experience of the Good is possible; as MacKenna writes, ‘partial attainment is within our reach.’  I think this is a recognition of how the experience of the One comes and goes; there is a description of this process in another Ennead where Plotinus talks about how he returns to the body and sensory experience after entering into the domain of the One. 

This way of viewing the experience of the One, or what we might call ultimate enlightenment, differs from what many spiritual teachers describe today.  The tendency today is to think of the enlightenment experience as all or nothing and that such experience completely transforms an individual who then never falls back into more ordinary modes of experience.  I think the Platonic presentation, both in Plato and Plotinus, is both more accurate and more realistic.  As I understand it, and as it is talked about in, for example, Phaedo, as long as we have a body our experience of the ultimate will be ‘partial’ or limited.  This isn’t surprising because actually all of our experiences are partial, including ordinary sensory experiences.  For example, the range of light we can experience is limited, and the range of sounds we can experience is limited, and so forth.  In addition, the range of our intellectual insights is limited by our own inherited capacities and by our cultural inclinations.  That doesn’t mean that the spiritual ascent is unavailable, but it does mean that the spiritual ascent is, in part, shaped by our bodily lives. 

The One is beyond bodily and mental formations, but it is approached through the means of our bodily existence.  The One is attained by putting aside bodily and mental capacities aside (take away everything) and when we do so, the Good and the One appear like a sunrise.  This putting aside bodily and mental capacities and realms, or transcending bodily and mental capacities and realms, is accomplished through renunciation and the practice of asceticism as presented in Platonic literature.

But our ability to experience the One is like looking at a vast landscape through a window (our body and mind being the window.)  The view is stunning.  And the view is partial.  But the partial view of the One is enough to set our soul on the path that will lead to full and complete realization of the One when body and mind finally fall away.

4.  The Good and the One is the First Principle and the source for existence and such and for all existing things.  Knowing this, it is possible to trace back the light that is present in things by their participation in the One, to its source which is the Good, the One, and the Beautiful, that which is eternal. 

5.  Partial or not, there is nothing more wonderful than the experience of the One.  Even a very brief and puzzling experience of the One is transformative.