Plotinus on the Ineffable and the Transcendent

17 April 2024

Plotinus on the Ineffable and the Transcendent

I’m posting three quotes from Ennead V.3, “On the Knowing Hypostases” that are found in different parts of this Ennead.  After each quote I will give the page number and the translator; at the conclusion of these quotes I will give the full bibliographic reference.

First Quote

“It (the One) must not be one of the things before which it is, and you are not to call it Intellect (Nous, Mind): not even the Good, then: no, not even this if ‘the Good’ means one of all things; but if it means that which is before all things, let the name stand.  If, then, Intellect (Nous) is Intellect because it is multiple, and thinking itself, even if it derives from Intellect, is a kind of internal occurrence which makes it many, that which is absolutely simple and first of all things must be beyond Intellect.  And certainly if it is going to think, it will not be beyond Intellect, but will be Intellect; but if it is Intellect, it (the One) itself will be multiplicity.” (Armstrong, page 111)

“Thus we come, once more, to a Being above the Intellectual-Principle and, since the sequent amounts to no less than the All, we recognize, again, a Being above the All.  This assuredly cannot be one of the things to which it is prior.  We may not call it Intellect; therefore, too, we may not call it the Good, if the Good is to be taken in the sense of some one member of the universe; if we mean that which precedes the universe of things, the name may be allowed.

“The Intellectual-Principle is established in multiplicity; its intellection, self-sprung thought it be, is in the nature of something added to it (some accidental dualism) and makes it multiple: the utterly simplex, and therefore first of all beings, must, then transcend the Intellectual-Principle; and, obviously, if this had intellection it would no longer transcend the Intellectual-Principle but be it, and at once be a multiple.” (McKenna, page 451)

Second Quote

“It is, therefore, truly ineffable; for whatever you say about it, you will always be speaking of a ‘something’.  But ‘beyond all things and beyond the supreme majesty of Intellect’ is the only one of all the ways of speaking of it which is true; it is not its name, but says that it is not one of all things and ‘has no name’, because we can say nothing of it: we only try, as far as possible, to make signs to ourselves about it.”  (Armstrong, page 117)

“Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but ‘all-transcending, resting above even the most august divine Mind’ – this is the only true description, since it does not make it a thing among things, nor name it where no name could identify it: we can but try to indicate, in our own feeble way, something concerning it.”  (MacKenna, page 452)

Third Quote

“How then do we ourselves speak about it (the One)?  We do indeed say something about it, but we certainly do not speak it, and we have neither knowledge or thought of it.  But if we do not have it in knowledge, do we not have it at all?  But we have it in such a way that we speak about it, but do not speak it.  For we say what it is not, but we do not say what it is: so that we speak about it from what comes after it.  But we are not prevented from having it, even if we do not speak it.”  (Armstrong, page 121)

“How, then, do we ourselves come to be speaking of it?

“No doubt we deal with it, but we do not state it; we have neither knowledge nor intellection of it.

“But in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold upon it?

“We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it, but so as to be able to speak about it.  And we can and do state what it is not, while we are silent as to what it is: we are, in fact, speaking of it in the light of its sequels; unable to state it, we may still possess it.”  (MacKenna, pages 453 and 454)

(Plotinus, Ennead V.3, On the Knowing Hypostases, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1984, page numbers follow the quotations above, ISBN: 9780674994898)

(Plotinus, The Enneads, Ennead V.3, The Knowing Hypostases, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, page numbers follow the quotations above, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  In footnotes, Armstrong refers readers to the first hypothesis of Plato’s Dialogue, Parmenides as a source for Plotinus’s thoughts about the transcendence of the One beyond Intellect, or Nous.  Armstrong also writes in a footnote on page 110, “Intellect only constitutes itself as Intellect because it eternally falls short in its endeavour to reach the one and there is perpetually in need of and perpetually desires the One.”

I understand this footnote, and the quotes, to mean that the One is a complete, or full, unity, whereas Intellect, or Nous, is not.  This is because Nous is differentiated into aspects; the three primal aspects are Being, Life, and Mind (also Nous, or Intellect).  From these three primal differentiations all further Noetic differentiations flow.

2.  The ascent to Nous is done through purification and the practices of asceticism; that is to say the turning away from sensory experience, including mental experience.  Noetic realities lack specific, that is to say differentiated, content; Noetic realities are the empty vessel in which material content can arise.

The ascent to the One is done through turning away from Noetic differentiation to the unified source from which Noetic differentiations arise.  The turning away is the same in both instances: turning away from sensory experience and turning away from Noetic realities.  But the results differ.  The result of ascending to the Noetic is clarity regarding realities of the cosmos, such as Being and so forth.  The result of ascending to the One is beyond clarity; it is beyond light and darkness, it is both light and dark.

We can speak about Noetic realities, but we can only analogize that which is fully unified and fully transcendent.

3.  “. . . but if it means that which is before all things, let the name stand.”  Here Plotinus is referring to the name ‘The Good.’  But this principle would apply to any of the terms we commonly use when talking about the ultimate, such as: the Good, the One, the Beautiful, the Eternal, and so forth. 

This is not easy to do.  Our mind (small ‘m’) has the habit, a very strong habit, of taking a name in a non-transcendental way.  If I say ‘the store’ I am communicating a material reality.  If I say ‘I feel happy’ I am communicating a psychological reality.  But if I say ‘The One’ I am talking about a reality that has no sensory or mental mark.  I think that without having some experience in contemplation this is hard to understand.

4.  A couple of decades ago I became aware of just how difficult it is for people to understand what is being asked for in contemplation.  I have attended various meditation groups for many years.  I was involved with a group that practiced ‘interior silence.’  After an hour of silence people would share insights.  Often I would hear someone say, “Today I was thinking about . . . “ as a description of their contemplation.  Even though the literature of the tradition explicitly says that contemplation is not time for thinking, the kind of response I quoted was the most frequent report of what was happening.

It took some time, but I began to realize that people are so busy with activities, commitments, and obligations that many do not have even ten minutes in their lives to just think about their lives, their situation.  For such people, and I think they are the vast majority, the opportunity to sit in silence and discursively think about their lives and their situation was highly unusual, so unusual that it felt like a kind of divine blessing, or even a divine intervention.

I sympathize.  On the other hand, Plotinus and the mystical tradition that flows from the Platonic tradition, are suggesting something else.

5.  It is a rare gift to have the path to ultimacy, the Good, the One, and the Beautiful, laid out so clearly, to encounter writing that is rooted in that experience.  I think of that gift as a grace, though I know some people don’t like the use of the term ‘grace.’  But I am comfortable with it.  Understanding The Enneads as a gift and a grace helps me to rededicate myself to the ascetic practices that allow for reaching the source of that gift and that grace.  

6.  Addendum: After reading these passages as translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie I have decided to include them, for the purpose of comparison.  I am aware of the criticisms of Guthrie's translation which was the first complete translation of Plotinus into English; I understand it was published about 1917.  To be fair to Guthrie, most criticisms of his translation point out that there did not exist at that time the kind of critical text that later translators, such as MacKenna, Armstrong, and Gerson et al, had available.  Other criticisms suggest that Guthrie relied on Latin, or French, translations of some of Plotinus's terms so that, in effect, at times the Latin, or French, overpowers the Greek (that's my interpretation of the criticism; not being a scholar myself I may have misunderstood).  

On the other hand, Guthrie was a mystic who practiced contemplation.  (I used to own a manual of contemplation that he wrote but gave it away when I moved and I can't remember the title at this time.)  Guthrie had a wide ranging interest in other mystical writings of that time including Apollonius of Tyana and Porphyry, among others.  I think this, and his practice of contemplation, may give his translation a perspective, or an emphasis, on this experiential dimension that may be absent from other translations.  And over time I have found myself more at ease with his approach to Plotinus.  So here are the three passages as translated by Guthrie for your consideration:

6.1.  ". . . as Unity thus is anterior to universal things, it cannot be any one of them.  Therefore, it should not be called either intelligence or good, if by 'good' you mean any object comprised within the universe; this name suits it only, if it indicate that it is anterior to everything.  If Intelligence be intelligence only because it is manifold; if thought, though found within Intelligence, be similarly manifold, then the First, the Principle that is absolutely simple, will be above Intelligence; for if He think, He would be Intelligence; and if He be Intelligence, He would be manifold." (page 575)

6.2.  "This Principle, therefore, is really indescribable.  We are individualizing it in any statement about it.  That which is above everything, even above the venerable Intelligence, really has no name, and all that we can state about Him is, that He is not anything.  Nor can He be given any name, since we cannot assert anything about Him.  We refer to Him only as best we can." (page 576)

6.3.  "How then do we speak of Him?  Because we can assert something about Him, though we cannot express Him by speech.  We could not know Him, nor grasp Him by thought.  How then do we speak of Him, if we cannot grasp Him?  Because though He does escape our knowledge, He does not escape us completely.  We grasp Him enough to assert something about Him without expressing Him himself, to say what He is not, without saying what He is; that is why in speaking of Him we use terms that are suitable to designate only lower things." (page 577)

(Plotinus, Complete Works in Chronological Order, Ennead V.3, The Self-Consciousnesses, and What is Above Them, translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, 1918, reprinted by Kshetra Books, 2017, ISBN: 9781974518968)

Haiku

 Haiku

An April desert

Becomes a contemplation

On eternity.

Brief Notes on Various Topics -- 18

12 April 2024

Brief Notes on Various Topics – 18

1.  “Plato came to hold the startling view that philosophy itself had a religious purpose, assimilation to God.”  (Robin Waterfield, Plato of Athens, page 31)  I like that Waterfield understands that Platonism has a “religious purpose” or “spiritual purpose” if you prefer.  This is often ignored in modern presentations of Platonism so it is good to see this explicitly stated. 

But I’m not sure that this is a “startling view”; it depends on how one interprets the history of Ancient Greek philosophy.  If you see philosophy as rooted in traditions such as Pythagoreanism and Orphism, and possibly other mystery traditions, then this view isn’t startling; it is simply the natural unfolding of the dominant view towards philosophy in the Ancient Greek world.  In contrast, if you view Ancient Greek philosophy as a kind of proto-materialist, or proto-scientific, effort and evaluate this tradition on how closely it aligns with contemporary science then you would find Plato’s view to be startling.  (As an aside, I think Pierre Hadot’s work on Ancient Philosophy supports the idea that Plato’s view should not be startling.)

2.  I think that the primary thing that continues to irritate me about analytic philosophy is that the tradition does not understand how words work, or perhaps we could put it that analytic philosophy doesn’t understand the nature of words.  Ambiguity is built into the nature of words; it’s not a sign of weak thinking that needs to be ‘cleared up’ through analysis.  Things like metaphor, simile, allegory, and so forth, are just as powerful tools of reason as are syllogistic and analysis.

3.  Platonism is a shelter in the storm of modernity. 

4.  It appears to me that there is growing interest in Plotinus in the world today.  This is impressionistic; I don’t have data to back this up.  It’s based on things like the widespread availability of translations of the Enneads (not just translations into English, but also many languages, including non-European languages), conferences on Plotinus and various aspects of his heritage, and the overall observation that his work seems to be taken seriously by many contemporary philosophers and classicists.  And I have observed that the ideas of Plotinus seem to be a regular topic on social media like Youtube.  I wonder if this will result in something similar to when the thought of Plotinus was introduced to the European Renaissance through the translation by Ficino? 

5.  I think reincarnation is a more complicated process than is often presented.  The idea that a human rebirth is better than an animal birth which is better than a plant rebirth for the unfolding of the soul and accessing wisdom is a view I no longer take on face value.  I first started having this perspective when I encountered Buddhist critiques of rebirth in heavenly realms as some kind of god or deity.  The Buddhist view is that because deities live so long they do not feel the presence of impermanence which gives an impetus to spiritual practice among beings who have shorter lives.  Gods and deities think they are immortal, but this is a delusion, a delusion that makes it difficult for them to practice spiritual cultivation and purification.  From this perspective, a human rebirth is superior to a birth as a god or deity.

This started me thinking of rebirth in other realms and the opportunities for spiritual development that these other, non-human, non-deity, realms might offer.  This is pure speculation, of course, but, on the other hand, I find it worth considering.  I like to think, for example, that life as an oak tree might be a particularly advantageous birth in terms of spiritual development.  And even consider that it might be more advantageous a birth than that of a human being. 

 

  

Plotinus on the Relationships between the Three Hypostases

10 April 2024

Plotinus on the Relationships between the Three Hypostases

“And all things when they come to perfection produce; The One is always perfect and therefore produces everlastingly; and its product is less than itself.  What then must we say about the most perfect?  Nothing can come from it except that which is next greatest after it.  Intellect is next to it in greatness and second to it: for Intellect sees it and needs it alone; but it has no need of Intellect; and that which derives from something greater than Intellect is intellect, which is greater than all things, because the other things come after it: as Soul is an expression and a kind of activity of Intellect, just as Intellect is of the One.  But soul’s expression is obscure – for it is a ghost of Intellect – and for this reason it has to look to Intellect; but Intellect in the same way has to look to that god, in order to be Intellect.  But it sees him, not as separated from him, but because it comes next after him, and there is nothing between, as also there is not anything between soul and Intellect.  Everything longs for its parent and loves it, especially when parent and offspring are alone; but when the parent is the highest good, the offspring is necessarily with him and separate from him only in otherness.”

(Plotinus: Ennead V.1, On the Three Primary Hypostases, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 33, ISBN: 9780674994898)

“Again, all that is fully achieved engenders: therefore the eternally achieved engenders eternally an eternal being.  At the same time, the offspring is always minor: what then are we to think of the All-Perfect but that it can produce nothing less than the very greatest that is later than itself?  This greatest, later than the divine unity, must be the Divine Mind, and it must be the second of all existence, for it is that which sees The One on which alone it leans while the First has no need whatever of it.  The offspring of the prior to Divine Mind can be no other than that Mind itself and is the loftiest being in the universe, all else following upon it – the Soul, for example, being an utterance and act of the Intellectual-Principle as that is an utterance and act of The One.  But in soul the utterance is obscured, for soul is an image and must look to its own original: that Principle, on the contrary, looks to the First with meditation – thus becoming what it is – and has that vision not from a distance but as the immediate next with nothing intervening, close to the One as soul to it.

“The offspring must seek and love the begetter; and especially so when begetter and begotten are alone in their sphere; when, in addition, the begetter is the highest Good, the offspring (inevitably seeking its good) is attached by a bond of sheer necessity, separated only in being distinct.”

(Plotinus, The Enneads, V.1 The Three Initial Hypostases, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, pages 428-429, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  This quote is a summary of the relationship between the three hypostases as understood and experienced in Plotinus’s contemplations.  As with a lot of philosophical Greek, the antecedents of pronouns isn’t always clear and I have found it is worthwhile to mentally substitute the antecedent for the pronoun; we don’t always have to do that, but it is helpful at some point in our studies to make that effort.  After some time with this way of writing you get used to it.

2.  Plotinus writes that all things in their perfection ‘produce’, MacKenna uses the word ‘engender.’  This is an explanation for why the One begins the process of emanation, instead of remaining enclosed in itself.  To produce is a sign of perfection and since the One is the most perfect, the One is ceaselessly producing.

3.  You might say that ‘producing’ or ‘engendering’ is another divine name for the One, like the Good and the Beautiful; you could add the Engendering, or the Creative.

4.  It is kind of an axiom in Platonism that those things which are produced are in some sense lesser than that which produces those things.  This is not always clear because if we compare this view with our experiences in the material world it doesn’t always seem to match our experience.  For example, a fine human being can be born from two parents who have serious flaws.  And it is difficult to see how an acorn is lesser than the oak from which it was produced or how a house built by following a blueprint is lesser than the blueprint.

What is being referred to, I think, is ‘lesser’ (or as MacKenna says ‘minor’) in a metaphysical sense which means something like ‘derivative’ or ‘dependent upon.’  And this relationship is only one way.  Intellect (the Noetic, or Mind) is dependent on the One,  but the One is not dependent upon the Noetic.  Looked at in this way, you can also see how this works in the material realm; the house is dependent upon the blueprints, but not the other way around.  Children are dependent for their existence upon their parents, but the parents would exist, though not as parents, if they did not have children.  It is this kind of inherently hierarchical relationship that is being highlighted.

5.  “Soul is an expression and a kind of activity of Intellect, just as Intellect is of the One.”

The One, through its ‘activity’ of producing emanates the Noetic.  The Noetic through its activity of producing emanates Soul. 

The Noetic looks to the One as its source and its completion.  Soul looks to the Noetic as its source and its completion; but the Soul’s full completion means journeying through the Noetic and returning to the One itself.

6.  Soul is the ‘ghost’ of Intellect, the ghost of the Noetic.  That’s a powerful image.  It indicates how deficient material existence is in comparison to the Noetic.

7.  There is nothing between Soul and the Noetic.  There is nothing between the Noetic and the One.  This indicates that the outpouring from the One, and the subsequent outpouring of the Soul from the Noetic, is seamless.  How does that work?  It is like the seamless effulgence of the sun whose light pours out continuously.  It is like water emerging from a mountain spring that ceaselessly nourishes the plants that receive the spring’s water. 

There is no strict wall of separation between these levels, or hypostases; but it is helpful to think of these levels as metaphysical regions.  Think of how a prairie becomes a desert, or how a forest becomes a prairie.  There is no strict separation line between the two; yet a forest and a prairie differ.  In a similar way, you can think of the Noetic as a kind of region in a metaphysical ecology that becomes Soul, which is another ecological region of Platonic metaphysics.

8.  Plotinus’s statement that there is nothing between these realms or hypostases differs from how subsequent Platonists have treated these levels.  I can think of two examples: the first is how the Theurgists inserted a hypostasis between the One and the Noetic which they called the Henads (which means something like ‘the Ones’).  They argued that this is where the Gods of Olympus and other deities, existed.  From this perspective the Gods transcend Being.  This reconfiguration of the levels of existence was necessary to support their theurgic program; the argument was that soul was completely separate from higher levels and was incapable of transcendence.  Therefore it was necessary to ceremonially approach deities of various kinds to enact such a journey, which is why it was necessary to inject a hypostasis between the One and the Noetic. 

A second example is contemporary; some scholars argue that Nature is a fourth level, or hypostasis, or that you can deduce that Nature functions like a fourth hypostasis that is beyond Soul.  A recent example of this is found in The New Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (the 2022 edition; there is also The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus published in 1966; both were edited by Gerson so it is easy to confuse them.)  In this collection there is an essay “Nature: Plotinus’ Fourth Hypostasis?” by James Wilberding.  Wilberding writes that this idea of Nature as a fourth hypostasis has been around for a long time, but seems to have been given a boost among contemporaries by no less a person than A. H. Armstrong.  Others have strongly disagreed. Those who are interested in this topic might want to start with this essay.

I have spent a lot of time becoming familiar with Platonic metaphysics and how the levels are presented.  First, it is my view that this way of speaking about metaphysics is based on contemplative experience rather than deductive analysis of some kind.  In other words, Plotinus is reporting on the nature and structure of the cosmos from a contemplative perspective.  I don’t see Plotinus as presenting this structure to justify a particular spiritual or religious inclination, whereas I do think that kind of thing is what motivates the theurgist’s reconfiguration as well as the contemporary idea of Nature as a fourth level, or hypostasis.

From another perspective, you can think of the hypostases as a teaching device, a way of communicating contemplative understanding to those who have not yet had that experience and may not be familiar with contemplation at all.  It both offers the practitioner a map for the spiritual ascent, and, as well, an explanatory tool for recognizing where one is in the spiritual journey.

Personally, I am satisfied with the experiential basis, and the clarity of presentation, found in Plotinus.  I recall reading, or was it a lecture I heard on Youtube, I don’t remember right now, that the very late Classical Platonists had a kind of obsession with creating divisions and categories.  I think that is mimicked in analytic philosophy today, which has had a wide influence even beyond the analytic tradition.  Even if you view the three hypostases as nothing more than a tool of explanation, as opposed to contemplative experience, I think the three levels are sufficient.  When I say the three levels are sufficient I mean that I do not see any problem in Platonic metaphysics that needs to be solved, or can only be solved, by adding additional levels, or hypostases.

8.1  A friend of mine suggested a third example of multiplying hypostases, or levels; the Gnostics.  In Ennead II.9, "Against the Gnostics", Plotinus strongly criticizes the Gnostics for creating unnecessary complications by taking from Plato the Platonic cosmology and then adding levels and aspects and other types of additions.  I think my friend is right about this; in fact, I suspect Plotinus might have been sensitive to this because of the presence and influence of Gnosticism in the Roman world of that time.  (As an aside, I wonder if the Theurgic addition of the Henads is derived from one or more of the Gnostic systems circulating at this time.)  

9.  Ennead V.1 is stunningly beautiful.  Ennead V.1 is like the stars on a clear winter night where each star is an illumination of the transcendental. 

 

 

A Few Notes on Vegetarianism in the Platonic Tradition after Reading Plutarch

6 April 2024

A Few Notes on Vegetarianism in the Platonic Tradition after Reading Plutarch

1.  I just read The Eating of Flesh I and II in the Loeb Edition, Volume XII, of Plutarch’s Moralia.  I had wanted to read it for a long time because I was interested in what a Middle Platonist might say about vegetarianism and how it compared to Porphyry’s long work On Abstaining from Killing Animals and his Letter to Anebo.  Plutarch lived from 46 to 119 C.E.  Porphyry lived from 234 to 305 C.E.  So they are about two centuries apart. 

2.  The Plutarch essays are in a highly fragmentary condition, which is unfortunate.  It is not possible to ascertain how long they originally were and it is likely that some significant observations are missing.  (I’m not sure if there is recent scholarship on if some missing parts of the essay might have been quoted in other classical sources.)  But it does indicate that a Platonist from Plutarch’s time was also a passionate advocate for philosophical vegetarianism.  (Note: It’s not clear if vegetarians in the Classical period might have been vegans; there is some evidence that Plotinus might have had that commitment.  But it does not seem that a differentiation between the two was operative at that time.  Because of this I will use the term ‘vegetarian’ in talking about the classical tradition.)

3.  In some ways Plutarch’s writing resembles Porphyry.  For example, both of them present a mythic history of why people started eating meat, alleging that it must have been due to some great disaster.  Both of them are committed to the idea that vegetarianism was the original diet of human beings.

4.  In Porphyry there is an emphasis on the idea that abandoning killing animals for food or sacrifice is necessary for a philosopher.  But Porphyry exempts ordinary non-philosophers from such commitments.  It appears that Plutarch does not make such a distinction.  Plutarch writes, “Note that the eating of flesh is not only physically against nature, but it also makes us spiritually coarse and gross by reason of satiety and surfeit.  For wine and indulgence in meat make the body strong and vigorous, but the soul weak.” (page 555) Platonism cultivates the soul, and places that above cultivating the body; hence Plutarch reaches this conclusion.

Modern vegetarians would not agree that their diet makes the body weak.  I’m not sure, but this idea might be due to the specific vegetarian diet that was eaten in the Classical Period.  I have not run into the specifics of such a diet, meaning I have not run into what classical vegetarians recommended for eating as distinct from what they excluded.  On the other hand, this idea might be just a common prejudice.

4.1  A friend suggested that what Plutarch is getting at is that eating meat makes the body 'unruly' and what we might call 'out of control.'  Eating meat is a kind of drug addiction from this perspective.  In addition, there is evidence in the Dialogues that a vegan diet was known.  That would explain why Plotinus had what we would call 'vegan' commitments.  

5.  Plutarch was very interested in history and refers to Pythagoras, Empedocles, Heraclitus, as well as Xenocrates and others. 

6.  Plutarch argues that vegetarianism has moral implications that, if widely adopted, will, for example, increase social responsibility.  “But apart from these considerations (of eating meat being ‘against nature’), do you not find here a wonderful training in social responsibility?  Who could wrong a human being when he found himself so gently and humanely disposed toward non-human creatures?” (page 559) 

7.  Plutarch imputes to Empedocles the idea “. . . though he (Empedocles) does not say so directly, that human souls are imprisoned in mortal bodies as a punishment for murder, the eating of animal flesh, and cannibalism.  This doctrine, however, seems to be even older, for the stories told about the sufferings and dismemberment of Dionysus and the outrageous assaults of the Titans upon him, and their punishment and blasting by thunderbolt after they had tasted his blood – all this is a myth which in its inner meaning has to do with rebirth.” (page 559)  In this way Plutarch draws on older sources and myths to support his own vegetarian views.

8.  Plutarch was, I understand, a Priest at Delphi for part of his life.  I would liked to have read about Plutarch’s practice of vegetarianism in that context.  I know very little about practices at Delphi but I am aware that animal sacrifice was standard for Classical Pagan religion.  But perhaps Delphi was different from the norm?  Or perhaps those in charge of Delphi granted Plutarch an exemption?  This is not clear.

9.  In the second part, the surviving fragments emphasize purification.  “. . . nor is it easy to extract the hook of flesh-eating, entangled as it is and embedded in the love of pleasure . . . it would be well for us to excise our own gluttony and lust to kill and become pure for the remainder of our lives . . . “ (page 563)

10.  Plutarch has a deep disgust for the particulars of animal slaughter in a way that reminds me of contemporary critics of ‘factory farming.’ 

11.  There is a strong continuity in the teaching of vegetarianism in both the Platonic and Pre-Platonic traditions, particularly those traditions that Plato refers to as predecessors of what would become Platonism.  I mean, of course, Pythagoreanism and Orphism.  It’s not that every single philosopher was a vegetarian; rather it is that vegetarianism was of central concern to philosophers in general and Platonism in particular.  There were multiple reasons for this, but the primary reason appears to have been that philosophical practice is dulled, and the soul is harmed, by eating meat and sacrificing animals. 

I believe this view is as significant today for Platonism as it was for the tradition during the Classical Period.  It would be useful to bring all the sources that remain from these traditions together as a kind of reference for the student of philosophy so that the student won’t have to go through multiple volumes to find out the particulars of the discussion.

12.  There is one more essay on Vegetarianism by Plutarch, in Volume 15, that I haven’t read yet.  When I have an opportunity to do so, I will write about it here.

 

The 'Amphibious' Soul

4 April 2024

The ‘Amphibious’ Soul

“. . . for, in spite of everything, it (the soul) always possesses something transcendent in some way.  Souls, then, become, one might say, amphibious, compelled to live by turn the life There (in the Noetic), and the life here (in the material realm): those which are able to be more in the company of Intellect (Noetic Realities, or Mind) live the life There more, but those whose normal condition is, by nature or chance, the opposite, live more the life here below.”

(Plotinus, Ennead IV.8.4, The Descent of the Soul into Bodies, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, page 411, ISBN: 9780674994881)

“But in spite of all it has, for ever, something transcendent: by a conversion towards the intellective act, it is loosed from the shackles and soars, when only it makes its memories the starting-point of a new vision of essential being.  Souls that take this way have place in both spheres, living of necessity the life there and the life here by turns, the upper life reigning in those able to consort more continuously with the divine Intellect, the lower dominant where character or circumstances are less favourable.”

(Plotinus, Ennead IV.8.4, The Soul’s Descent into Body, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, page 414, ISBN: 978943914558)

1.  It’s interesting that the Armstrong translation offers the metaphor of the soul as something ‘amphibious’, while the MacKenna translation uses the more abstract rendering of ‘both spheres.’ 

2.  The soul ‘always possesses something transcendent in some way.’  This is the great secret of human existence, a secret that is uncovered by turning within and by turning within to become aware of the presence of this transcendent and eternal reality. 

3.  When a student of philosophy first has an experience of this presence of the transcendent within, what follows is a life that shifts back and forth between the realm of the transcendent and the realm of material realities and concerns.  At times, especially early in a student’s practice, this can be disconcerting.  It’s not easy to balance these two experiences.  Over time, it becomes easier. 

Cultivating the awareness of the transcendent is done primarily through contemplation.  Contemplation is supported by the cultivation of the virtues and ascetic practices.

4.  This quote is a description of the human predicament; human beings have one foot in the material domain and its concerns and one foot in the transcendental and its presence.  As long as one is embodied this sense of living in two places at once continues.  It is possible to become used to the situation, but there is always a degree of tension: This kind of tension is not unusual in human life.  For example, amateur gardeners often would like to spend more time gardening, but the demands of ordinary life make that difficult.  This is also true of amateur musicians, sportsmen, and so forth.  For most people there are certain activities that give life meaning and then there are the demands of life that are undertaken out of material concerns such as having a job and familial concerns, and so forth.  It is a struggle to find time to engage in those things that are meaningful, but many people come to a way of balancing these conflicting demands.

For the student of philosophy, I think the tension is greater because it is a tension between the entire material domain and the transcendental domain.  And the practices that assist in accessing the transcendental, such as asceses, are more at odds with the culture at large.  By ‘more at odds’ I mean that if someone tells a friend that they would like to spend more time gardening, the friend will easily understand what they are saying.  But if someone tells a friend from work that they would like to spend more time in the Noetic, in the realm of the transcendent, the friend is unlikely to know what they are referring to.

5.  But it is possible to negotiate the conflicting demands of the material and transcendent realms.  The friendship of the Dialogues of Plato and the Enneads of Plotinus, which slowly become a living presence in one’s life, greatly assist the student of philosophy in negotiating this task. 

 

  

Plotinus on Eternity and the Soul

1 April 2024

Plotinus on Eternity and the Soul

“Our demonstration that the soul is not a body makes it clear that it is akin to the diviner and to the eternal nature.  It certainly does not have a shape or a colour, and it is intangible.  But we can also demonstrate its kinship in the following way.  We agree of course that all the divine and really existent has a good, intelligent life; now we must investigate what comes next, starting from our own soul and finding out what sort of nature it has.  Let us take soul, not the soul in the body which has acquired irrational desires and passions and admitted other affection, but the soul which has wiped these away and which, as far as possible, has no communion with the body.  This soul does make it clear that its evils are external accretions to the soul and come from elsewhere, but that when it is purified the best things are present in it, wisdom and all the rest of virtue, and are its own.  If, then, the soul is something of this kind when it goes up again to itself, it must surely belong to that nature which we assert is that of all the divine and eternal.  For wisdom and true virtue are divine things, and could not occur in some trivial mortal being, but something of such a kind [as to possess them – translator’s addition] must be divine, since it has a share in divine things through its kinship and consubstantiality.  For this reason any one of us who is like this would deviate very little from the beings above as far as his soul itself was concerned and would only be inferior by that part which is in body.  For this reason, if every man was like this, or there were a great number who had souls like this, no one would be so unbelieving as not to believe that what is soul in men is altogether immortal.  But when one considers the nature of any particular thing one must concentrate on its pure form, since what is added is always a hindrance to the knowledge of that to which it has been added.  Consider it by stripping, or rather let the man who has stripped look at himself and believe himself to be immortal, when he looks at himself as he has come to be in the intelligible and the pure.  For he will see an intellect which sees nothing perceived by the senses, none of these mortal things, but apprehends the eternal by its eternity, and all the things in the intelligible world, having become itself an intelligible universe full of light, illuminated by the truth from the Good, which radiates truth over all the intelligibles; so he will often think that this was very well said: “Greetings, I am for you an immortal god” (Empedocles fr. B 112 Diels-Krans 4) having ascended to the divine and concentrating totally on likeness to it.  But if purification causes us to be in a state of knowledge of the best, then the sciences which lie within become apparent, the ones which really are sciences.  For it is certainly not by running around outside that the soul “sees self-control and justice”, but by itself in its understanding of itself and what it formerly was, seeing them standing in itself like splendid statues all rusted with time which it has cleaned (Phaedrus 247D5 ff.): as if gold had a soul, and knocked off all that was earthy in it; it was before in ignorance of itself, because it did not see the gold, but then, seeing itself isolated, it wondered at its worth, and thought that it needed no beauty brought in from outside, being supreme itself, if only one would leave it alone by itself.”

(Plotinus, Ennead IV.7.10 – On the Immortality of the Soul, translated by A. H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984, pages 381-385, ISBN: 9780674994881)

“That the Soul is of the family of the diviner nature, the eternal, is clear from our demonstration that it is not material: besides it has neither shape or colour nor is it tangible.  But there are other proofs.

“Assuming that the divine and the authentically existent possesses a life beneficent and wise, we take the next step and begin with working out the nature of our own soul.

“Let us consider a soul, not one that has appropriated the unreasoned desires and impulses of the bodily life, or any other such emotion and experience, but one that has cast all this aside, and as far as possible has no commerce with the bodily.  Such a soul demonstrates that all evil is accretion, alien, and that in the purged soul the noble things are immanent, wisdom and all else that is good, as its native store.

“If this is the soul once it has returned to its self, how deny that it is of the nature we have identified with all the divine and eternal?  Wisdom and authentic virtue are divine, and could not be found in the chattel mean and mortal: what possesses these must be divine by its very capacity of the divine, the token of kinship and of identical substance.

“Hence, too, any one of us that exhibits these qualities will differ but little as far as soul is concerned from the Supernals; he will be less than they only to the extent in which the soul is, in him, associated with body.

“This is so true that, if every human being were at that stage, or if a great number lived by a soul of that degree, no one would be so incredulous as to doubt that the Soul in man is immortal.  It is because we see everywhere the spoiled souls of the great mass that it becomes difficult to recognize their divinity and immortality.

“To know the nature of a thing we must observe it in its unalloyed state, since any addition obscures the reality.  Clear, then look: or, rather, let a man first purify himself and then observe: he will not doubt his immortality when he sees himself thus entered into the pure, the Intellectual.  For, what he sees is an Intellectual-Principle looking on nothing of sense, nothing of this mortality, but its own eternity have intellection of the eternal: he will see all things in this Intellectual substance, himself having become an Intellectual Cosmos and all lightsome, illuminated by the truth streaming from The Good, which radiates truth upon all that stands within that realm of the divine.

“Thus he will often feel the beauty of that word, ‘Farewell: I am to you an immortal God’, for he has ascended to the Supreme, and is all one strain to enter into likeness with it.

“If the purification puts the human into knowledge of the highest, then, too, the science latent within becomes manifest, the only authentic knowing.  For it is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the Soul discerns Mortal Wisdom and Justice: it learns them of its own nature, in its intellectual grasp of itself and of its primal state, seeing their images deeply impressed upon itself – images which, one mass of rust from long neglect, it has restored to purity.

“Imagine living gold: it flies away all that is earthy about it, all that kept it in self-ignorance preventing it from knowing itself as gold; seen now unalloyed it is at once filled with admiration of its worth and knows that it has no need of any other glory than its own, triumphant if only it be allowed to remain purely to itself.”

(Plotinus, Ennead IV.7.10, The Immortality of the Soul, translated by Stephen MacKenna, Larson Publications, Burdett, New York, 1992, pages 405-406, ISBN: 9780943914558)

1.  “Our demonstration that the soul is not a body . . .”

This part of the Ennead appears at the end of a discussion about the differences between the soul and the body, examining a number of arguments.  Some of it is rooted in similarly focused discussions in Phaedo, while in others Plotinus seems to be disputing with other traditions, such as Stoicism and Peripatetics, regarding the nature of the soul.  Having dealt with these disputes, Plotinus is satisfied that he has demonstrated that the soul is not a body.

2.  “. . . makes it clear that it is akin to the diviner and to the eternal nature.”

MacKenna makes the same link between the diviner nature of the soul, that is to say more divine than the body, due to the soul’s kinship, or its familial relationship, to eternity.  In other words, the soul is distinct from the body because the body is ephemeral while the soul is eternal.

3.  I like to say that the soul is the presence of eternity within the ephemeral individual.  ‘Within’ isn’t quite right; elsewhere Plotinus refers to the soul encompassing the body rather than residing ‘within’ the body. 

4.  When these quotes refer to Intellect, or the Intellectual-Principle, they are referring to the second level, or hypostasis, of reality, Nous.  I like to mentally substitute ‘Noetic’ for ‘Intellect’, and the ‘Noetic’, or ‘Noetic Realities’ for ‘Intellectual Principle’.  Sometimes I will substitute Mind or Mind-Thought, depending on the context.  As I have noted before, I think that ‘Intellect’ and ‘Intellectual’ have become too connected to categorization and analysis in English to convey the meaning of Nous in a clear way.  (As an aside, a friend of mind suggested that the use of the words ‘Intellect’ and ‘Intellectual’ come from the Scholastic tradition, but that context has been lost to a contemporary reader and for the most part forgotten by all but specialist scholars.) 

Nous has three primary facets: being, mind, and life. 

5.  This passage uses images of the soul as being in some sense ‘covered over’ by ‘external’ acquisitions consisting primarily of passions and desires.  Purification is the slow, step by step, removal of these external coverings.  When these coverings are removed the soul’s true nature, the divine and eternal, appears.

This transforms the philosophical practitioner into a divine being, or, rather, reveals the soul as a divine being through its kinship with the divine and eternal themselves.  In this condition the soul apprehends eternity by its eternity.

6.  I notice that Plotinus seems hesitant to equate this experience of the divine and the eternal with a full and complete realization.  Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but when Plotinus says that those who realize the Noetic ‘would deviate very little from the being above’, the ‘very little’ indicates to me that Plotinus think that there is yet more to the journey to complete realization.  This would be the ascent from the Noetic to the Good and the One, the fully transcendental, that which is inherently eternal.

The difference, I think, is that with Noetic realities we enter a realm that is eternal by proximity and participation.  In contrast, with the Good and the One we enter a realm that is eternal self-referentially, by its own nature, rather than by proximity and participation.

7.  Why don’t we realize the truly exalted nature of the soul?  Plotinus suggests that this is because the soul of most people is ‘damaged’ or ‘spoiled’ through having accrued coverings, like dirt covering gold, attracted by desires and cravings.  It is very rare to meet someone whose soul shines ‘full of light’.  It is so rare that many people in modernity simply deny the existence of the soul and, following that initial denial, the transcendental as such.  Because we lack any experience of the presence of purified souls it is hard for us to imagine what it is like to experience that purification, even when the purification is incomplete.

8.  The solution is to turn within where one can find the pure and undisturbed soul resting in a cradle of light.  As Plotinus writes, “. . . it is certainly not by running around outside that the soul ‘sees self-control and justice’, but itself by itself in its understanding of itself and what it formerly was, seeing them standing in itself like splendid statues all rusted with time which it has cleaned.”

9.  All of this brings clarity to the relationship between purification, asceticism, the virtues, and realization.  The virtues tame desires at a basic level.  Purification reveals the transcendental basis of the cosmos and our soul’s intimate connection to that basis.  Asceticism teaches us to live a life that is not based on sensory stimulation and this allows us to more deeply practice purification and embody the virtues.

10.  This is a passage that nourishes my soul.  It radiates the experience of eternity.  And it inspires me to continue my journey to the Good, the One, and the Beautiful.