Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 59

11 August 2025 

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 59

1.  I’ve had an interest in Plutarch for a long time.  His Platonist views are interesting for a number of reasons.  First, Plutarch’s views are non-academic; I mean that Plutarch was not a part of the Academy in Athens, so Plutarch has a certain degree of independence.  This allows him to consider some Platonic views and consider them in a way that, from my perspective, is like having a dialogue with the tradition.  Plutarch wasn’t the only Platonist in this position.  Both Maximus of Tyre and Plotinus were similarly situated. 

I also like the ability of Plutarch to refer to a vast amount of literature in his discussions.  As someone who enjoys reading and who has some familiarity with English literature, I find myself feeling a kind of kinship with Plutarch.

I am currently reading a book called The Platonism of Plutarch by Roger Miller Jones.  This book is a doctoral thesis Jones wrote to receive his doctorate.  It was first published as a book in 1916; I was able to get a copy through the University of Michigan reprint services at a reasonable price (which is very unusual for Universities). 

Jones knows Plutarch very well and has a knowledge of several European languages, as well as Greek and Latin.  This allowed him to access commentarial material from a large range of sources.  (As was the custom at that time, many quotes in the thesis are in the original language and are not translated; this includes Greek, Latin, German, and others.  But even if you lack reading knowledge of these languages Jones makes his point either in the paragraphs leading up to the quotes, or in the paragraphs immediately following and this allows an English-only reader to follow the thread of thought.)

Jones’s approach is to bring to the reader’s attention a number of views on an issue; that is to say how other scholars have understood, for example, Plutarch’s view of demons (daemons).  After doing this Jones will critique some of these views and then offer his own interpretation.  I like this kind of approach because it shows how Jones’s view does not exist in isolation.  Rather his view arises in dialectical relationship to what others have said about the same topic.

There is a vast literature about Platonism from previous centuries that tends to be overlooked.  I think this is because when we read works about Platonism from previous times we discover that the issues that concerned them are often not of concern to us.  The issues that take center stage change over time.  This is natural.  But I find it kind of refreshing and illuminating to see what the focus was when approaching Plato for scholars of the past.  It helps me to put the focus of contemporary Platonic scholarship in its temporal contingency.

An example of how this effected Platonic scholarship in the past is found in the 17^th century when European scholars, particularly German scholars, sought to construct a Platonism that was rational, reasonable, and void of any mystical aspects.  This lead to a dismissal of Plotinus, because Plotinus is obviously a mystic.  This legacy is fading, but it still has its adherents.

But to return to the thesis of Jones, for those interested in Plutarch as a Platonist (as opposed to his biographical output) I think this short work is worth reading.

2.  I have noticed for many years, that those who follow an ascetic path, an ascetic form of spirituality, feel a kind of kinship across traditions with others who are similarly committed to asceticism and renunciation.  I first noticed this in the writings of Thomas Merton who would sometimes complain that lay Catholics in the U.S. have no understanding of monasticism, particularly the more ascetically inclined traditions such as the Trappists which was the tradition that Merton was affiliated with.  On the other hand, when he communicated with, for example, Buddhist monastics he immediately felt in tune with their calling.

I feel refreshed when I learn about ascetics who have managed to live a life based on ascetic principles whether they are following some ancient tradition or following new manifestations of similar impulses such as minimalism.  I recognize what they are doing and feel that they would recognize what I am doing.

3.  Continuing with our discussion of Porphyry’s Sentences, here is Sentence 5:

“Soul, indeed, is a certain medium between an impartible essence, and an essence which is divisible about bodies.  But intellect is an impartible essence alone.  And qualities and material forms are divisible about bodies.”  (Thomas Taylor)

“The soul has a nature intermediary between the ‘being’ that is indivisible, and the ‘being’ that is divisible by its union with bodies.  Intelligence is a being absolutely indivisible, bodies alone are divisible; but the qualities and the forms engaged in matter are divisible by their union with the bodies.”  (Kenneth Guthrie)

“The soul lies somewhere in between the wholeness and divisibility of the material world and is a kind of mediator, while the mind is completely whole and the body is completely divisible, and the qualities and embodied forms surrounding the bodies are divisible.”  (Isaak Samarskyi)

3.1  Porphyry has the view, which I think is based on certain passages in Plotinus, such as when Plotinus refers to an ‘amphibious soul’, that regards soul as occupying a place that is not completely the same as incorporeal or non-material things found in the noetic, and is not completely material, which is to say divisible, either.  I think for Porphyry this way of understanding soul helps him to understand why the soul can be distracted by material things and desires, but that soul also has the capacity to turn away from material things and desires and turn towards the noetic and transcendental. 

3.2  I have often noted while reading Platonism that ancient Platonists seem to think of the soul as much more complex, and having many more functions, than contemporary depictions of the soul.  For example, ancient Platonist think of the soul as having reason, which in modern terms would be part of intellect or mind (small ‘m’ mind).  There are also emotional appearances that are attributed to the soul, or which the soul participates in, in some way, that today we would think of as part of psychology rather than a function of the soul.

I think that Porphyry’s depiction in this sentence of soul as between the noetic and the material makes sense of the soul having all these functions.

3.3  To be honest, though, I find this way of looking at soul unsatisfactory; I have a different way of understanding soul.  As I have often said on this blog, I think of the soul as the presence of eternity in the ephemeral individual.  By ‘presence of eternity’ I mean that which is eternal as such, which is the ineffable One and the ineffable Good that transcends all graspable understanding.  It is because of the presence of eternity, the soul, in the ephemeral individual, that it is possible for human beings, and other living beings, to make the spiritual ascent, to Return to the One.  It is because the soul is not fully descended, or fully separated, from the One that it is possible for us to, step by step, Return to the One. 

I think of mind as the presence of the noetic in the individual.  The noetic is the first appearance of differentiation and it is the mind, our mind, that has the function of differentiation; this ability to differentiate is descended from the noetic.  This is why I think of mind as the presence of the noetic in each individual.

Mind makes differentiations; when mind differentiates between what is eternal and what is not, that is wisdom.  All other differentiations are worldly.

And the body is the presence of cyclical existence in the individual which is what makes the individual a person with a history.  When mind differentiates what is cyclical from what is not, we ascend to the noetic because noetic realities are not cyclical.  Noetic realities are eternal but it is a derived eternity; they are not eternal as such.

When the mind distinguishes derived eternities, such as numbers, from the ineffable source of noetic realities, that wisdom allows for the Return to the One. 

I include contemplation as a mode of differentiation that allows the mind to separate from the body, and to separate from the noetic, and Return to the One.

3.4  Understood in this way, I can think of human life as a microcosmos containing ineffable realities as the soul, noetic realities as the mind, and cyclic realities as the body.  Thus human life is a weaving together of the three levels, or hypostases, of the Platonic metaphysical cosmology. 

3.5  The above is only an outline which I felt hesitant to include in the comments on this Sentence of Porphyry.  Perhaps I am being arrogant; I’m not sure. 

On the other hand, I am encouraged to offer a different account of the place of, and the nature of, soul because I know this has been an ongoing topic of discussion in the history of Platonism.  It is in the spirit of dialectical discussion that I offer the above alternative understanding of soul.

4.  There are times when it seems as if our understanding of Platonism is blossoming; things fall into place that we previously did not understand.  Something in the Dialogues or Enneads that was opaque in the past now makes sense and we comprehend how it fits in with the rest of Platonism.  These times are very refreshing and awesome and they inspire us to further study and contemplation.

At other times our understanding may seem to be stagnant; this can feel frustrating because we know we have not finished the journey and because of this we feel stuck.  I’ve gone through this cycle quite a number of times. 

What I have found is that when we feel like nothing is happening in our Platonist practice, that our practice is not maturing, what is really happening is that our mind is working at, and learning at, a deeper level.  I mean that the mind is maturing at a level that is not primarily at the level of conscious awareness.  Most of what happens in the realm of mind is not consciously available; hence it is not surprising that this is also true of our Platonist practice.

It is difficult to overcome our attachments to materiality.  It is difficult to embody the ethical restraints of Platonic asceses.  It is difficult to gain clarity about the cosmos and the transcendental and how they are related.  It is difficult to transcend time.

But it is possible to do all this.  It happens over a long period of time.  Sometimes we do not recognize how far we have travelled on the spiritual path.  An antidote to this is to look back on what your life was like ten, fifteen, twenty years before.  It can be surprising when you compare yourself of today to yourself from twenty or thirty years ago.  Such a meditation can build a sense of how much has been accomplished without denying how much more there is to do.