Whirlpools

 28 May 2023

Whirlpools

“But how are we related to Intellect (Mind, Spirit, Nous)?  I mean by ‘Intellect” not that state of the soul, which is one of the things which derive from Intellect, but Intellect itself.  We possess this too, as something that transcends us.  We have it either as common to all or particular to ourselves, or both common and particular; common because it is without parts and one and everywhere the same, particular to ourselves because each has the whole of it in the primary part of his soul.  So we also possess the forms in two ways, in our soul, in a manner of speaking unfolded and separated, in Intellect all together.”

(Plotinus, Ennead I.1: What is the Living Being?, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus:  Porphyry on Plotinus, Ennead I, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1966, page 111, ISBN: 9780674994843)

“And towards the Intellectual-Principle what is our relation?  By this I mean not that faculty in the soul which is one of the emanations from the Intellectual-Principle, but The Intellectual Principle itself (Divine-Mind).

“This also we possess as the summit of our being.  And we have It either as common to all or as our own immediate possession: or again we may possess It in both degrees, that is in common, since It is indivisible – one, everywhere and always Its entire self – and severally in that each personality possess It entire in the First-Soul (i.e., in the Intellectual as distinguished from the lower phase of the Soul.)”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, translated by Stephen McKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, page 28, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  The question that I think Plotinus is addressing here is how can something that is universal reside in the particular?  In this instance, the question is how can Universal Mind (or “Intellect”) reside in, or be connected to, the individual soul.  Plotinus is not referring to the soul as an emanation of Intellect/Mind, or the participation that the individual human mind has with Intellect, but Intellect as such.  

Intellect as such exists before instantiation.  In this way Intellect resembles numbers that exist before any objects instantiate their meaning.  Intellect as such, or Mind as such, exists before there is any content of Mind; it is before thought appears.  But the Mind that appears in the individual human soul has the content of that individual; it is part of what makes the person an individual.

So what is the relationship of our soul to Mind/Intellect as such?

2.  Plotinus’s view is that Intellect as such exists within us in two ways.  Intellect/Spirit exists in us as a common heritage, or using Platonic vocabulary, by participation due to emanation from Intellect as such.  In addition, intellect exists in a localized manner within each individual; again due to emanation from Intellect as such.

3.  Analogies can, I think, be helpful in understanding what Plotinus is teaching.  A whirlpool in a stream consists entirely of water.  The whirlpool is a localized manifestation of water.  And the stream is an instantiation of water as such.  

In a similar way, our thoughts, feelings, ideas, etc., are localized whirlpools of the stream of mind.  And our mind is an instantiation of, or emanation of, Mind as such.

4.  Another analogy is one often used in Dharmic traditions.  Waves in the sea consist entirely of water; they have no existence outside of water.  The sea as a whole is water.  The relationship between an individual, or particular, mind resembles the relationship between waves and the sea.

5.  Or it is like a single image appearing in countless mirrors.  Each image in each individual mirror is particular, but the source is the image as such.

6.  In some Buddhist traditions they use the image of the moon appearing in thousands of types of water, from ponds to drops of dew.

7. The sun sends its energy and warmth to the Earth. Every living thing on earth is a result of the sun's energy. Every living thing on earth is, in a sense, a localization of the stream of solar energy pouring forth from the sun. This is true even when, at night, we cannot see the sun. Similarly, the Intellect/Mind/Spirit is present in all living things; the energy pouring forth from Intellect, combined with the differentiating power of number, allows for the particular manifestations of Intellect/Mind/Spirit in the soul, yet Intellect as such is also present in the soul, just as the energy of the sun is present for, and in, all living things.

And the One, the Spiritual Sun, is the ultimate source of all that exists, just as the material sun is the ultimate source for all living things on earth. And just as the material sun is present in all living things, and just as all living things are localizations of the energy of the material sun, so also all existing things have within them the Spiritual Sun, the One, in both the form of localization, and as a complete presence of the totality of the One.

8. The hypostases are porous to each other. There is no barrier between one hypostasis and another. It is like walking through a village. You start out in the business district. After a bit of walking you enter the region of houses and apartments. After a bit more you find yourself walking through a public park. Your walk is unhindered from one region to another even though the different regions serve particular purposes. In a similar way the overflowing of energy from the One, and subsequently from Nous (Intellect, Being, and Life), simply flows forth from one kind of manifestation to another without strain or difficulty.

9.  For Plotinus this way of looking at ourselves, and at the cosmos, has soteriological significance.  This teaching explains how human beings can access transcendental realities; because such realities, like Mind/Intellect, are not left behind in the second hypostasis.  Rather Mind/Intellect (along with Being and Life) are present within each individual by the universal participation of all souls in these higher realities.  

From this perspective, then, it is a matter of turning our attention to transcendental realities, and withdrawing from sensory realities, that is the means whereby we can unite with the One.  Normally we are not aware of transcendental realities because our individual mind is distracted by its own localized thoughts and feelings.  By withdrawing the mind from localized whirlpools of the mind, we can step into Mind as such.

10.  This also applies to the ultimately ineffable One, which Plotinus treats in the next paragraph.  In the same way the One is present in each individual both as an emanation which gives each individual the quality of being one, particular, being, and as the universal One that is shared by all existing things.  And, again, this is why turning within, into great silence and stillness, is the way to enter into this ultimately transcendental, reality.

Above I said that there is no barrier between the hypostases. But there is an interior barrier within the heart and mind of each human being. The barrier between us and these transcendental realities is the barrier of distraction and of attachment to materiality.  The removal of distraction, or at least its diminution, comes about through ascetic practice; in a sense ascetic practice is the turning away from distraction.  Through ascetic practice we learn to climb over or under, or find our way around, the barrier of distraction, and arrive at our true home, the Good, the One, the Beautiful, and the Eternal.

Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 2

25 May 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 2

Continuing with my notes on Plato’s dialogue, Phaedo, using the Harold North Fowler translation:

Echecrates:  Then what did he say before his death? And how did he die?  I should like to hear, for nowadays none of the Phliasians go to Athens at all, and no stranger has come from there for a long time, who could tell us anything definite about this matter, except that he drank poison and died, so we could learn no further details.

Phaedo:  Did you not even hear about the trial and how it was conducted?

Echecrates:  Yes, some one told us about that, and we wondered that although it took place a long time ago, he was put to death much later.  Now why was that, Phaedo?

Phaedo:  It was a matter of chance, Echecrates.  It happened that the stern of the ship which the Athenians sent to Delos was crowned on the day before the trial.

Echecrates:  What ship is this?

Phaedo:  This is the ship, as the Athenians say, in which Theseus once went to Crete with the fourteen youths and maidens, and saved them and himself.  Now the Athenians made a vow to Apollo, as the story goes, that if they were saved they would send a mission every year to Delos.  And from that time even to the present day they sent it annually in honour of the god.  Now it is their law that after the mission begins the city must be pure and no one may be publicly executed until the ship has gone to Delos and back; and sometimes, when contrary winds detail it, this takes a long time.  The beginning of the mission is when the priest of Apollo crowns the stern of the ship; and this took place, as I say, on the day before the trial.  For that reason Socrates passed a long time in prison between his trial and his death.

(Ibid, pages 201 & 203)

1.  Socrates was a well-known personage in Greece.  For example, his personality appears in plays like The Clouds by Aristophanes.  And Socrates interacted with famous people like Alcibiades and more than a few Sophists who had large followings.  I think we can look at the trial of Socrates as similar in impact to a famous trial today, a trial of someone whose life is followed in the news and on social media.  When something happens to a famous person, people want details as to what happened.  But sources are often unreliable, biased, or have only partial knowledge.  That is why Echecrates is so eager to get the details of what happened to Socrates, and of Socrates's words and demeanor, from a first-hand source.

(As an aside, the fame of Socrates gave rise to a lot of writing after his death.  Plato was not the only one who wrote of the events leading to the death of Socrates.  Scholars note that there were quite a few.  The only other ones that have survived to today, other than Plato, are the writings by Xenophon on Socrates; Apology and Memorabilia.)

2.  The legend of Theseus that is alluded to is the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur.  Theseus was the son of Aegeus, King of Athens.  To understand the role of Theseus we have to know the background:  The King and Queen of Crete sent their eldest child, Androgeus, to the Panatheniac Games that were held in Athens.  Androgeus was a star athlete and won a number of contests.  Out of jealousy, Pallantides, assassinated Androgeus.  This incurred the wrath of Minoan Crete and the King and Queen demanded that Aegeus, the King of Athens, turn over the assassins.  King Aegeus did not know who the assassin(s) were.  The result was that Athens agreed to send seven youths and seven maidens to Crete at regular time intervals (the exact timing varies according to sources).  The 7 youths and 7 maidens were then sent to the labyrinth in Crete that housed the Minotaur, a creature half bull and half man (the drawings I have seen are a man with the head and chest of a bull).  The minotaur would hunt down the youths and maidens and kill them.

On the third cycle, Theseus volunteered to be one of the youths.  When in Crete, Theseus met Ariadne, who was the daughter of the King and Queen of Crete.  They fell in love.  Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread, or twine, so that Theseus could find his way out of the labyrinth if Theseus was able to kill the Minotaur as was his plan.  Theseus’s plan was successful and he was able to free all the youths and maidens from the labyrinth and return to Athens.  However, Theseus had told his father that he would replace the black sails of their ship with white ones if Theseus had been successful.  But Theseus forgot and when King Aegeus saw the black sails, he assumed his son was dead.  In grief, Aegeus took his own life by throwing himself into the sea (hence the name the ‘Aegean Sea’). 

The Athenians, grateful for having been freed from the Minotaur, celebrated each year by sending a ship to the island of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, which had a temple dedicated to Apollo.  Apollo was strongly connected to Athens as well as to Plato; in the biographies of Plato, Apollo plays a significant role.  During this celebration Athenians dedicated themselves to Apollo by keeping the city pure; one of those acts of purity was that there could be no executions during this period of celebration.  The period of celebration began when the ship departed from Athens, and ended when the ship returned to Athens from Delos.  The trial of Socrates began on the day that the ship departed from Athens to Delos.  The trial lasted only a day or two.  This meant that though Socrates was found guilty and sentenced to death, the actual carrying out of the death sentence was delayed until the ship returned from Delos (I don’t know exactly how long that was in this case; if winds were contrary it could be a longer period of time).  It was during this period that Socrates spoke to his students, and others, on a daily basis, up until his last day, depicted in the dialogue.

3.  For Athenians reading Phaedo all this myth/story/legend would  have been part of their cultural background.  It would be like an American saying ‘the fireworks on the 4^th of July’, a reference which would have been easily filled out by anyone who grows up in the U.S., along with the various stories that are a part of it.  More than 2,000 years later, when we read this reference it is unfamiliar to us and for that reason the dimension of meaning contained in this allusion will be lost to our understanding.

4.  In interpreting the connection between Socrates and Theseus, based on this allusion, we can start by a kind of loose association.  For example, the labyrinth represents the twists and turns of our lives and that we are often ‘lost in the labyrinth’ and don’t know what our direction is.  Both Socrates and Theseus represent figures who have cut through this kind of confusion.

At another level, both Theseus and Socrates were redeemers, or ‘saviors’, of Athens.  In Apology Socrates states that his life has been of great benefit to Athens and that he was lead by a divine personal spirit guide to bring the wisdom of philosophy to the Athenians.  Theseus saves the youth of Athens physically.  Socrates saves the youth of Athens, and Athens in general, spiritually.

The connection to Apollo, as I mentioned above, likely has multiple dimensions, many of which I am not aware of.  But myths/stories/legends like Theseus and the Minotaur often reveal deep layers of meaning over time.  And the connections between Socrates and Theseus will, I suspect, also become clearer over time.

5.  The symbol of the Minotaur, half man/ half bull, who devours innocent youths and maidens, is a symbol of a man completely taken over by destructive passions.  Theseus symbolically slays these passions and saves himself and all of Athenian society.  Socrates is someone who has slain the same destructive passions; but unlike Theseus, Socrates is not able to save himself after having done so and Athens does not comprehend the loss.

5.1  In the 'Introduction' to the Focus Philosophical Library's edition of Phaedo they have this to say about the relationship between Phaedo and Theseus:

"The Phaedo's recollection of Socrates is a perplexing blend of logos and mythos, argument and story.  As we hear early on, Socrates' death had been delayed -- by 'a bit of chance,' as Phaedo says.  Every year, the Athenians, in accordance with their vow to Apollo, send an embassy to Delos.  Before this embassy returns to Athens, the city must keep itself pure and not put anyone to death.  The embassy commemorates Theseus' rescue of the fourteen young Athenians (the Twice Seven, as Phaedo calls them, in keeping with the fact that the group was composed of both youths and maidens) from the Minotaur or Bull-man of Crete.  The Phaedo is a playful recasting of this well-known myth.  Socrates is the new, philosophic Theseus.  He is the heroic savior of the friends gathered around Socrates as he is about to make his final journey -- fourteen of whom are named [They will be named by Phaedo shortly].  And their discussion of the soul and her fate, particularly in the final and most problematic stage of the argument, indeed resembles a logical labyrinth.  Phaedo himself plays an important role as the fifteenth named member of the group around Socrates: He is the Ariadne whose narrative thread leads us into and through Plato's labyrinth of arguments.

"But who or what plays the role of the Minotaur?  From what, in other words, must Socrates' companions be saved?  Is it their fear of death?  Or is it the great evil known as misology or 'hatred of arguments,' the evil which, near the center of the dialogue, threatens to drown the conversation in disillusionment and despair?  Or perhaps these are meant to be taken together -- as the two 'horns' of a dual-natured monster.  This much is clear: The dialogue becomes ever richer as we try to think through the many points of contact between it and the myth it mimics.  By the time we reach the very end of Phaedo's thread, we wonder: Is the Minotaur -- whether as the fear of death or the hatred of argument -- ever slain once and for all?  Or, as its bullheadedness suggests, is it slain only to keep coming back to life again and again after each defeat?"

(Plato, Phaedo, translated by Eva Brann, Peter Kalkavage, and Eric Salem, Focus Philosophical Library, Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1998, pages 2-3, ISBN: 9780941051699)

6.  I suspect that the purity of Athens during the imprisonment of Socrates is symbolic of the purity of Socrates himself.  Purification is a central idea, and practice, in the Platonic tradition and this idea will come up a little later in the dialogue when Socrates talks about the life of a philosopher and the ascetic practices that such a life entails.  In a symbolic sense, Socrates has to die when Athens is no longer pure because the ship has returned from Delos because Athens itself is no longer engaging in its own cultural practices of purification.  There is a kind of resonance happening between Socrates and Athens as a whole.

 

 

Notes and Comments on Phaedo -- 1

23 May 2023

Notes and Comments on Phaedo – 1

I’ve decided to go through Phaedo, posting, from beginning to end, small portions of the dialogue, together with notes and comments.  My feeling is that in many ways Phaedo is the central, or seed, dialogue of Plato’s works.  I say this because many of the themes mentioned in Phaedo are taken up and expanded in other dialogues; I’m thinking of recollection, rebirth, the nature of the soul, the nature of the afterlife, the defining purpose of asceticism for a philosopher, the nature of causation, etc.  I suspect you could say the same about other dialogues, but the longer I live with Plato’s work the more I find myself seeing Platonism in general, and Plato’s dialogues specifically, through the lens of Phaedo.

These notes and comments will be impressionistic rather than scholarly; what I mean is that I won’t be commenting on Greek terms and other insights that scholars familiar with these aspects can intelligently remark upon.  My comments will be more like a conversation (a ‘dialogue’, if you will) with the text which has become a good friend to me in my journey to the Good, the One, the Beautiful, to that which is eternal.

I will be using the Loeb Classical Library translation by Harold North Fowler.  The ISBN is 0674990404 and last time I checked is available at reduced, used book, prices.

I am assuming readers know the circumstances of the dialogue; that Socrates has been arrested and convicted by a large jury of the crimes of atheism, or impiety, and in general corrupting the youth of Athens with his argumentative behavior.  Socrates’s sentence was death.  The dialogue Phaedo is an eyewitness report of the last day, the last hours, of Socrates life.

 

Echcrates:  Were you with Socrates yourself, Phaedo, on the day when he drank the poison in prison, or did you hear about it from someone else?

Phaedo:  I was there myself, Echecrates.

 

1.  According to Diogenes Laertius Echecrates was a Pythagorean: “He (Pythagoras) flourished in the sixtieth Olympiad (began in 540 BC), and his community endured for nine or ten generations.  For the last of the Pythagoreans, whom Aristoxenus knew, where Xenophilus of the Thracian Chalcidice, Phanton of Phlius, Echecretes, Diocles, and Polymnestus, also of Phlius, who were students of Philolaus and Eurytus, both of Tarentum.”  (Diogenes, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, translated by Pamela Mensch, Oxford University Press, 2018, page 414)  In a footnote to this quote the editors note that Diogenes, in his section on Plato, notes that Plato met Echecrates around 400 B.C. 

2.  It is intriguing that the first character we meet in this dialogue is a Pythagorean.  I see this as a symbol of the antiquity of the teachings that will be presented in this dialogue, that they are rooted in the past wisdom of the ancient world.  Echecrates is a symbol of that past.  Socrates is the symbol of the present; a present that all of us will face at the end of our lives.  And the closing, mythic, sections of Phaedo symbolize the future all of us will face as we traverse the after-life realms that will determine our next birth, or, if we have been practicing the purification offered by philosophy, the final return to the One.  In this way the dialogue transcends time and steps into eternity.

3.  Regarding Phaedo, Diogenes Laertius writes, “Phaedo of Elis, of the Eupatridae (likely refers to aristocratic descent), was taken prisoner when his native land was conquered, and was forced to stay in a brothel.  But he would close its door and take part in conversations with Socrates, until the latter induced Alcibiades or Crito to buy his freedom.  From then on he studied philosophy as a free man.” (Ibid, page 112) Phaedo set up a school of philosophy in Ellis which seems to have lasted several generations.  Phaedo likely wrote dialogues, but by the time of Diogenes only a few remained and their attribution was in dispute.

4.  I see Phaedo as a symbol of the freedom that philosophy brings to its practitioners.  Phaedo was freed from slavery by Socrates.  And it is the purpose of philosophy to free us from being slaves to material existence.  This is symbolized by Phaedo and Socrates having philosophical discussions in a brothel.  They closed the door of the brothel in order to converse about philosophy.  Phaedo is the symbol of the ascetic commitments that are the foundation of the Platonic spiritual journey.  (This reminds me of how Alcibiades relates in the Symposium how he tried to seduce Socrates, but was unable to do so.)

5.  Notice that it is Phaedo who was present at the passing of Socrates.  I think this symbolizes the intimate connection between philosophical practitioners, how they share the same kind of life.  Echecrates is a bit removed both by living in Phlius and because he has his own understanding of philosophy which, while closely related, is not as close as that of Phaedo.  Hence it is Phaedo who will be transmitting the teachings Socrates offers in his final hours to Echecrates, and to us.

 

 

Platonism and Number

 20 May 2023

Platonism and Number

“The starting-point of our investigation is: can number exist by itself, or must the two be observed in two things and the three likewise?”

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.6, On Numbers, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus: Ennead VI.6-6.9, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1988, page 33, ISBN: 9780674995154)

1.  Throughout the history of Platonism there has been a strong connection between mathematics and Platonism.  Mathematicians have tended to be Platonists, though there are exceptions.  

2.  There is a video on youtube by a mathematician/philosopher by the name of Steve Patterson, called ‘Coming Around to Platonism’.  I think it is an interesting presentation about how one mathematician, who used to have anti-Platonist inclinations, decided that Platonism had a better explanatory range than other philosophical theories of numbers and mathematics.

3.  Platonism understands the study of numbers and their relationships, that is to say mathematics, as a means for experiencing the noetic.  Just as the experience of beauty can lead the beholder of beauty to the experience of beauty as such, and beauty as such is a noetic reality, so also the experience of number can lead the beholder of number to the experience of number as such, and number as such is a noetic reality.

4.  Generally speaking, and even though it was beauty that first gave me the experience of the noetic, I suspect that the experience of number has some advantages over beauty for bringing about the experience of the noetic.  First, beauty tends to induce grasping; we want to hold on to that which is beautiful and at times it is very difficult to let a beautiful object go.  This turns the experience of beauty into a primarily material experience with the result that with those kinds of experiences of beauty the fixation on materiality grows stronger.

In contrast, our experience of number does not normally lead to the grasping after number in the way that we often grasp on to beautiful things.  I mean that when we see three trees it does not stimulate in us a desire for three as such.  It may stimulate a desire for the tree(s), but not for ‘three’ as such.

And often our experience of number is abstract and absent specific content.  For example, I might recall that 3 + 2 = 5 without needing to instantiate material objects for the numbers.  In this way I am taking a small step in the direction of the noetic because noetic realities transcend material instantiations.  Numbers are ‘before’ any material instantiation.

As Plotinus writes, “But, if numbers were before beings, they were not beings.  Now number was in being, not as the number of being – for being was still one – but the power of number which had come to exist divided being and made it, so to speak, in labour to give birth to multiplicity.  For number will be either the substance or the actual activity of being, and the absolute living being is number, and Intellect is number.”

(Ibid, page 35.)

“Being, therefore, standing firm in multiplicity was number . . . “

(Ibid, page 37)

5.  The Platonist view of numbers and their relationships is that we discover numbers and their relationships rather than create numbers and their relationships.  We discover these in the realm of being, which is a noetic reality.  (As an aside, notice how Plotinus references the three primary facets of the noetic realm in the quote above which are being, life, and intellect.  Plotinus first mentions ‘the actual activity of being,’ then follows with ‘the absolute living being’, and then concludes that ‘Intellect [or Mind] is number.’  I’ve noticed that this is a pattern when Plotinus refers to the second hypostasis.)

6.  The focus on number in Platonism likely reveals the Pythagorean background of Platonic thought.  I see Platonism’s view of number as a blossoming of a perspective that had been planted centuries before and came to fruition in the Platonic tradition.

7.  The wonderful thing about numbers is that they are a good example of an abstract, non-material reality that people use every day with ease.  Numbers are a good way of explaining to people why Platonists believe that non-material realities actually exist.  It is more difficult to convince people that forms such as the Good, or the One, or the form of the Beautiful exists before material realities; that, for example, beautiful things depend on the Beautiful as such, the form of Beauty.  It is a bit easier, though I’m not saying it is easy, to point to numbers as form-based realities that are instantiated in material objects.  If nothing else, you can point out that many mathematicians have this view.

8.  The attraction of numbers to the mathematician is the attraction of transcendence.  Numbers can, and often do, lift consciousness from the material realm into a more restful and serene domain.

9.  Numbers are also a good example of the power of Platonic forms.  I mean by ‘power’ something like ‘efficacy.’  For example, numbers permeate time and space and are not confined by material borders.

10.  The beauty of numbers in the noetic realm offers the opportunity to go further, to step into the One and the Good itself.  Not very many mathematicians seem to do this.  I think that is because they don’t give much thought to what numbers themselves are dependent upon; that is to say what gives birth to numbers.  The One transcends number by being, analogically, a kind of ‘empty set’ – the set of numbers before any specific number is generated by noetic being.  Again, that’s just an analogy; it is meant to indicate that just as number exists before its material instantiations, the One exists before the instantiations of Being, Life, and Intellect that give rise to number in the noetic.  

Haiku

Haiku

The Spring moon has set --

It feels like eternity

In a star garden.

 

Eternity in the Noetic Realm and as the One

 15 May 2023

Eternity in the Noetic Realm and as the One

“For even here below a thoughtful life is majesty and beauty in truth, though it is dimly seen.  But there it is seen clearly: for it gives to the seer sight and power to live more, and by living more intensely to see and become what he sees.  For here below most of our attention is directed to lifeless things, and when it is directed to living beings what is lifeless in them stands in the way, and the life within them is mixed.  But there all are living beings, living as wholes and pure; and if you take something not to be a living being it immediately itself flashes out its life.  But when you contemplate the substance running through them, giving them a life which does not move by changing, and the thought and the wisdom and knowledge in them, you will laugh at the lower nature for its pretension to substantiality.  For by this substance life abides and intellect abides, and the real beings stand still in eternity . . . “

(Plotinus, Ennead VI.6, On Numbers, 18.25 - 18.35, Translated by A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus: Ennead VI.6-9, 1988, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, page 73, ISBN: 9780674995154)

“Even here the august and veritably beautiful life is the life in wisdom, here dimly seen, There purely.  For There wisdom gives sight to the seer and power for the fuller living and in that tenser life both to see and to become what is seen.

“Here attention is set for the most part upon the unliving and, in the living, upon what is lifeless in them; the inner life is taken only with alloy: There, all are Living Beings, living wholly, unalloyed; however you may choose to study one of them apart from its life, in a moment that life is flashed out upon you: once you have known the Essence that pervades them, conferring that unchangeable life upon them, once you perceive the judgment and wisdom and knowledge that are theirs, you can but smile at all the lower nature with its pretension to Reality.

“In virtue of this Essence it is that life endures, that the Intellectual-Principle endures, that the Beings stand in their eternity; . . . “

(Plotinus, The Enneads, VI.6, On Numbers, Translated by Stephen McKenna, Plotinus: The Enneads, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, page 632, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  This passage is a series of contrasts that Plotinus uses to describe what our existence, our life, is like in materiality, as opposed to what life is like in ‘nous’, the second hypostasis.  (As I have mentioned before, ‘nous’ is often translated as ‘intellect’, but it is also translated as Mind or Spirit.)  

2.  This series of contrasts is signaled by Plotinus through the use of the words ‘here’ in the material dimension’ and ‘there’, sometimes ‘There’, which means the dimension of nous/intellect/mind/spirit.  This is a pattern that appears in a number of Enneads; the pattern being the contrast between ‘here’ and ‘there’.

3.  I think that this passage is based on the direct experience that Plotinus has had of the noetic realm and Plotinus is using that experience to inspire people to ascend to that realm.  This is helpful for students who have not yet experienced the noetic realm; it helps students because a passage like this is inspirational as the noetic realm is depicted in very attractive terms.

4.  Plotinus does not similarly describe what the One is like because the One is ineffable and beyond predication, affirmation or negation.  The noetic realm is dependent upon the One, but nothing can be asserted of the One.  But rather than remain completely silent, Plotinus uses his experience of the noetic realm, which is immediately adjacent, or next to the One, to inspire his students on their journey.

5.  Plotinus starts out by pointing to the traces of the transcendent that are found in the material realm such as the majesty, beauty, and truth of the noetic realm which can be dimly accessed here in the material realm.  Here majesty, beauty, and truth are seen dimly.  There majesty, beauty, and truth are clearly seen.  

This indicates a difference in degree rather than kind.  It’s a matter of the metaphysical ‘distance’ from the One.  The material realm in which we dwell is very distant from the One.  The noetic realm is, in contrast, as close as at is possible to be to the One.

It is like sunlight: the nearer you are to the sun the brighter and more radiant the light.  If you are very far from the sun, say on Pluto, or an even more distant solar system object, the light of the sun will be dim and remote.

6.  The three primary facets of the noetic realm are Being, Life, and Intellect or Mind.  These are facets but not separate functions; they are completely united in the noetic realm, but because we dwell in the material realm, the realm of disunity, the realm where things exist one thing after another, we have to talk about these three aspects one at a time.  Think of someone you know who is a father, a husband, owns a company, and likes to play baseball.  We have to talk about these facets of this person one at a time, but the person doesn’t feel fragmented by these various facets.

7.  Plotinus uses Being, Life, and Intellect as a way of structuring his comments about the noetic realm.  For example, in the last quoted sentence, Plotinus states, “For by this substance LIFE abides and INTELLECT abides, and the real BEINGS stand still [i.e. abides] in eternity.”  Here Plotinus points to a unity that is above the noetic realm, that unity being the Eternal.

8.  Being, Life, and Intellect are eternal realities (as are numbers, which is one of the connections between this passage and what Plotinus has to say about numbers).  But their eternal nature is derived from the Eternal as such.  

I think of the Eternal as another name for the One.  Like other words, such as the beautiful, that Plotinus uses the meaning changes somewhat depending on what hypostasis Plotinus focuses on.  The beautiful here is dim and subject to dispersion.  The beautiful There is radiant and not subject to dispersion.  Similarly the eternal in the noetic realm is structured into facets that are dependent upon the emanation from the One to receive their eternal nature.  In other words, Being, Life, and Intellect/Mind, and their eternal nature, are a dependent eternality, whereas the One is inherently Eternal by its very nature.

9.  Plotinus does not speak often about the eternal.  Much more often Plotinus speaks about the Beautiful and Intellect and Being.  But there is an Ennead devoted to a discussion about Eternity and Time; the Ennead has that title.  My recollection is that in that Ennead Plotinus talks about eternity in the noetic realm, using it as a contrast to the temporal experience of the material realm.  But in this Ennead eternity appears as the source from which the basic facets of the noetic are derived.

10.  It takes a while to get used to how Plotinus shifts meanings with certain key terms as his focus moves from one hypostasis to another.  But once you get a clear understanding of the Platonic map of the metaphysical ascent to the One, this kind of shift in meaning becomes natural and useful.

11.  One way I understand the nature of soul in Platonism is that the soul is the presence of eternity in the ephemeral individual.  This is how the soul is connected to the One, by this presence of eternity.

12.  Awakening to the presence of eternity within is done by mimicking the stillness, the silence, and the clarity of the eternity found within.  And mimicking this stillness and silence is accomplished by, and is the nature of, ascetic practice.

The Complexity of the Soul

The Complexity of the Soul 

9 May 2023

“. . . if a man is able to follow the spirit which is above him, he comes to be himself above, living that spirit’s life, and giving the pre-eminence to that better part of himself to which he is being led; and after that spirit he rises to another, until he reaches the heights.  For the soul is many things, and all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits of all life, and we are each one of us an intelligible universe, making contact with the lower world by the powers of soul below, but with the intelligible world [nous] by its powers above and the powers of the universe; and we remain with all the rest of our intelligible part above, but by its ultimate fringe we are tied to the world below, giving a kind of outflow from it to what is below or rather an activity, by which that intelligible part is not itself lessened.

(Footnote by the translator A. H. Armstrong: “This sentence shows very clearly how Plotinus thinks of soul as a rich, complex unity capable of existing on many levels and operating in many ways, which can be distinguished but must not be separated.  This was a way of thinking which was quite unacceptable to the later Neoplatonists, with their passion for sharp distinction and separation, and desire to put and keep man in his proper place low down in the elaborate hierarchy of being.  Proclus sharply criticizes this passage of Plotinus in his Commentary on Parmenides . . .”)

“Is this lower part, then, always in body?  No; if we turn, this, too, turns with us to the upper world.  What, then, about the soul of the universe?  Will its (lower) part leave the body when it turns?  No; it has not even inclined with its lower part to the last depth; for it did not come or come down but as it abides the body of the universe attaches itself to it and is, as it were, illumined, not annoying the soul or causing it any worries, for the universe lies in safety.  What, has it then no kind of perception?  Plato says that it has no sight, because it has no eyes either; nor ears nor nostrils either, obviously, nor tongue. [Timaeus]  Well, then, has it an immanent sensation as we have of what goes on inside us?  No, for things which are uniformly in accord with nature are quiet.”

(Plotinus, Ennead III.4: On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit, Translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Plotinus: Ennead III, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, pages 149-151, 3.15-5.10, ISBN: 9780674994874)

“If. . . the Man is able to follow the leading of his higher spirit, he rises: he lives that spirit; that noblest part of himself to which he is being led becomes sovereign in his life; this made his own, he works for the next above until he has attained the height.

“For the soul is many things, is all, is the Above and the Beneath to the totality of life: and each of us is an Intellectual Cosmos [a nous], linked to this world by what is lowest in us, but, by what is highest, to the Divine Intellect [nous]: by all that is intellective we are permanently in that higher realm, but at the fringe of the intellectual we are fettered to the lower; it is as if we gave forth from it some emanation towards that lower, or rather some Act, which however leaves our diviner part not in itself diminished.

“But is this lower extremity of our intellective phase fettered to body for ever?  No: if we turn, this turns by the same act.  And the soul of the All – are we to think that when it turns from this sphere its lower phase similarly withdraws?  No: for it never accompanied that lower phase of itself; it never knew any coming, and therefore never came down; it remains unmoved above, and the material frame of the Universe draws close to it, and, as it were, takes light from it, no hindrance to it, in no way troubling it, simply lying unmoved before it.  But has the Universe, then, no sensation?  ‘It has no sight’, we read, since it has no eyes, and obviously it has not ears, nostrils, nor tongue.  Then has it perhaps such a consciousness as we have of our own inner conditions?  No: where all is the working out of one nature, there is nothing but still rest . . .”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, Translated by Sephen MacKenna, Ennead III.4, Our Tutelary Spirit, Larson Publications, 1992, pages 211 and 212, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  The complexity of the soul is beautifully elaborated in this Ennead, as Armstrong points out in his footnote.  My understanding of how Plotinus views the soul is that the soul is always intimately connected with higher hypostases, but is distracted and tempted by material experiences and sensations.  These distractions keep the soul in the material domain, until there is a ‘turning’ in the soul to higher, non-material, regions of existence.

2.  You could say that the soul resembles still water that reflects what is passing over it.  However, the soul is animate; but as long as the soul is intoxicated by sensory experience it is, in a sense, passively unable to enter into the turning towards higher hypostases.

3.  It has been said by many that you become what you place your attention on.  We could say that the soul is the capacity for attention or, perhaps, attention as such.  If the soul is attentive to material domains it will be consumed by material concerns.  If the soul turns its attention to higher hypostases such as Being and the One, the soul begins the long journey of many lives to the source of all things, the Good and the One.

4.  The turning itself happens, I think, through the operation of grace.  If it were up to individual effort alone, the attractions of the material realm are simply too overwhelming for a turn to take place.  Even if the chains were removed from the prisoners in the Cave, very, very few would understand the opportunity they were given.  

However, the operation of grace upon the soul does not mean that the individual has no part in the ascent to the One.  Having received the grace of turning, the individual needs to enter the spiritual practices that are foundational for the realization of that grace.  These spiritual practices are the ascetic ways that are presented in dialogues like Phaedo; asceticism is the embodiment of the turning that is received by grace.

5.  Plotinus states that when we enter into the turning, the ‘lower part’ of the soul, that which is attracted to sensory experience, is pulled into the ‘upper world’.  What is intriguing here is that though the soul is ‘many things’ it is also a unified presence within us who are not unified in any sense.  This is because the soul is an emanation of the One (it participates in the One) and the soul is always seeking the One as the soul’s true home.

6.  I included the footnote by A. H. Armstrong because I thought it illuminated the difficulty passages like this have presented for people down through the centuries.  The presentation of the soul (both human as well as the world soul) found in passages like this is not easy to understand (and I am not claiming special insight).  In some ways the soul is simple and unified, and in other ways it is complex in its tendencies and potentialities.  Plotinus deftly handles this complexity, answering many questions that naturally arise about the topic.  It is very impressive, but it will likely take more than a few readings for the view Plotinus holds to become part of our own understanding.

7.  Armstrong’s point is that some later Platonists, such as Proclus, sought to make the human soul less complex; they accomplished this by simplifying the soul’s nature so that the soul was innately separate from the One.  My response to this is that the One has three aspects: the everywhere, the everywhen, and the everything.  In other words the One, by its nature, cannot be separated from the human soul because separation is not a part of the nature of the One.  If the human soul is separate from the One, that means the One is a distinct metaphysical territory rather than the ineffable Unity that permeates all of existence.

8.  This quote concludes with a discussion about the world soul and its nature.  The World Soul is the third hypostasis and it is the Platonic understanding that the World, or Cosmos, is a living being (because Being and Life are essential noetic hypostases and therefore all that comes metaphysically after them participate in Being and Life and Mind.  But the World Soul, as the first presence in the material realm of differentiation, has its own characteristics that differ from that of the human soul.  Plotinus clarifies those differences and their meanings.

9.  I find this passage, like so many other passages in Plotinus, inspiring.  It means that the One is everpresent to the soul, it means that eternity is everpresent to the soul, it means that Being, Life, and Mind, are everpresent to the soul.  And this means that it is possible to overcome our attachment to this realm of sorrow, this material dimension, to transcend it, and to find our way on the path of the Ascetic Ideal, to the Good and the One.