PLOTINUS and NEO-PLATONISM

Thomas Sheehan
Stanford University

A packet distributed to an undergraduate seminar that included Plotinus

PLOTINUS
204-270 CE

ϕυγὴ μόνου πρὸς μόνον

The flight of the alone to the Alone

Porphyry, Life of Plotinus

In his twenty-eighth year Plotinus felt the impulse to study philosophy and was recommended to the
teachers in Alexandria, who then had the highest reputation. But he came away from their lectures so
depressed and full of sadness that he told his trouble to one of his friends.

The friend, understanding the desire of his heart, sent him to Ammonius, whom he had not so far tried.

He went and heard him, and said to his friend, “This is the man I was looking for.”

From that day he stayed continually with Ammonius and acquired so complete a training in philosophy
that he became eager to make acquaintance with the Persian philosophical discipline and that prevailing
among the Indians.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Where Plotinus lived and traveled 3

Plotinus’ philosophical work: its organization 4

Assigned texts for the seminar 5

“Plotinus” by Lloyd Gerson 7

An analogy of emanation 17

Ennead V, tractate 2, chapters 1-2 18

Ennead I, tractate 6, chapters 7-9 20

Ennead VI, tractate 9, chapters 1-3 and 8-11 23

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WHERE PLOTINUS LIVED AND TRAVELED

3. Teaches in 1. Studies in 2. To Mesopotamia with

Rome (244-270) Alexandria Gordian III, who is
(222-243 CE?) killed, 244 CE in
Zaitha (Qalat es
Salihiyah, Iraq)
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PLOTINUS’ PHILOSOPHICAL WORK:

ITS ORGANIZATION.

Plotinus’ philosophical opus is a collection of his lectures made by his student Porphyry around 270 CE.
The whole opus is called “The Enneads” (Ἐννεάδες) which means something like “The Collection of
Nines.” A strange title, to be sure. It comes from the Greek word for “nine,” ἐννέα.

It is composed six major books. Each books called an “Ennead” because each one contains nine treatises
(also called tractates). Hence, we refer to “Ennead I” (which has nine treatises), “Ennead II” (with its nine
treatises), and so on. In turn each treatise is divided into chapters. (One treatise has as few as three
chapters, another has forty-five.)

Hence the order is:

1. The whole collection of Plotinus’ lectures: Enneads I—VI
2. Within each Ennead there are always: nine treatises or tractates (6 x 9 = 54 treatises in all)
3. Each treatise or tractate has a number of: chapters, the number of which varies.

How to cite the Enneads

There are various ways of writing out the reference to a specific text in Plotinus. The way I prefer to cite the
Enneads (which is not everyone’s way) is, for example:
Enneads V 2: 3 —that is: The Enneads:
Ennead V,
treatise 2,
chapter 3.

The word Enneads names Plotinus’ collection as a whole (composed of six Enneads, i.e., six books).
1. The roman numeral “V” indicates the specific Ennead (the specific book) among the six Enneads.
2. The number “2” indicates the treatise within Ennead V.
3. The number “3” indicates the chapter within treatise 2.

Some scholars prefer other ways of referring to the text above, for example:
V.2.3 or: V, 3, 3 or: 5,3,3

Citing the exact lines

If you want to refer to specific lines within the chapter, you should cite those lines as they appear in Paul
Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, Plotini Opera, 3 volumes, (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, and Brussels:
L’Édition universelle, 1951-1984)—not the lines in the Armstrong edition. The line-number follows a
period after the chapter number:
[my version:] V 2: 3.1-5 (indicating lines “1 to 5”)
[others versions:] V.2.3.1-5
V, 3, 3.1-5
5,3,3.1-5

The following link has an overview as well the complete text, in Greek, English, and French.
http://www.john-uebersax.com/plato/enneads.htm —however, the English there is McKenna’s translation,
which is “literary,” but less exact.
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ASSIGNED TEXTS FOR THE SEMINAR:

We will study passages from the Fifth Ennead, the First Ennead, and the Sixth Ennead.

FIRST:

V 1: 1-7 ( = The Fifth Ennead, Tractate 1, chapters 1 through 7)

The One, the god above all gods, the source of everything
The Mind (or Divine Mind), the “container” of Plato’s ideal meanings, the so-called “forms”
The Soul (or World Soul), which “contains” but is distinct from one’s own individual soul

SECOND:

I 6: 7-9 (= The First Ennead, Tractate 6, chapters 7 through 9)

On the Beautiful and our return to it.

THIRD:

VI 9: 8-11 (= The Sixth Ennead, Tractate 9, chapters 8 through 11.

This is some of the most beautiful writing in Western philosophy. It describes how one’s soul can ascend
from the material world, to the Divine Mind / Mind and finally to the One, where one’s Soul will be (as the
last words say) “alone with the Alone.”

As regards Ennead Six, nos. 8 to 11:

Try reading some of it aloud. It is a Protreptic—an exhortation (almost a sermon) encouraging
you to release yourself from the bonds of the body, to rise up to contemplating the Divine Mind
and all that It sees—and then to take the leap into the unknowable One.

Recommended readings:
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is quite good on Plotinus: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plotinus/
(provided below).

This introduction to Plotinus and neo-Platonism:

http://www3.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/hwp114.htm
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Just as Plato had a hierarchy of reality, so does Plotinus.

Plato: Plotinus:

THE GOOD — THE ONE

THE IDEAL CONTAINED IN

MEANINGS — THE DIVINE MIND

THE WORLD SOUL — THE WORLD SOUL

OR HIGHER SOUL OR HIGHER SOUL

ONE’S OWN SOUL — ONE’S OWN SOUL

A LOWER FORM OF SOUL A LOWER FORM OF SOUL

THE MATERIAL WORLD — THE MATERIAL WORLD

1. THE ONE [τὸ ἕν, to hen]

which is beyond knowing and even beyond all reality (!), is the source of all reality and the goal of
mystical experience. Reaching it entails going beyond all materiality and even all intelligibility into a realm
of which one cannot speak. The One overflows itself, and from that overflowing comes the next step down
in the hierarchy of reality:

2. THE DIVINE M IND (or just: M IND) [ὁ νοῦς, ho nous],

which is somewhat “less” than the One. In this Mind are contained all the ideal meanings (the so-called
“forms”) that Plato had relegated to a strictly spiritual-intellectual world beyond this material world but that
he had not gathered together into one place. Plotinus gathers them into the Divine Mind as the “objects” the
Divine Mind contemplates. (See the prologue of the Gospel of John.)

Just as, in Plato, the Good illumines (a) our own souls/minds and (b) the ideal meanings that only
our minds (not our eyes) can see . . . ,
. . . so too in Plotinus, The One is the source of the Mind (the Divine Mind), which in turn
contains and contemplates all the ideal meanings of everything that exists.

3. THE WORLD SOUL (or HIGHER SOUL) [ἡ ψυχή, hē psychē],

the principle of desiring that which is external to the agent of desire (see below).

3.1 OUR OWN SOULS

3.2 THE SOULS OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS

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PLOTINUS
Lloyd Gerson

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

First published Mon Jun 30, 2003; substantive revision Sat Sep 15, 2012

Plotinus (204/5 – 270 C.E.), is generally regarded as the founder of Neoplatonism. He is one of
the most influential philosophers in antiquity after Plato and Aristotle. The term “Neoplatonism”
is an invention of early 19th century European scholarship and indicates the penchant of
historians for dividing “periods” in history. In this case, the term was intended to indicate that
Plotinus initiated a new phase in the development of the Platonic tradition.

What this “newness” amounted to, if anything, is controversial, largely because one’s assessment
of it depends upon one’s assessment of what Platonism is. In fact, Plotinus (like all his
successors) regarded himself simply as a Platonist, that is, as an expositor and defender of the
philosophical position whose greatest exponent was Plato himself. Originality was thus not held
as a premium by Plotinus. Nevertheless, Plotinus realized that Plato needed to be interpreted. In
addition, between Plato and himself, Plotinus found roughly 600 years of philosophical writing,
much of it reflecting engagement with Plato and the tradition of philosophy he initiated.

Two approaches. Consequently, there were at least two avenues for originality open to Plotinus,
even if it was not his intention to say fundamentally new things. The first was in trying to say
what Plato meant on the basis of what he wrote or said or what others reported him to have said.
This was the task of exploring the philosophical position that we happen to call “Platonism.” The
second was in defending Plato against those who, Plotinus thought, had misunderstood him and
therefore unfairly criticized him. Plotinus found himself, especially as a teacher, taking up these
two avenues. His originality must be sought for by following his path.

Contents
1 LIFE AND WRITINGS
2 THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PLOTINUS’ METAPHYSICS
3 HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS
4 BEAUTY
5 INFLUENCE
_____

6 Bibliography
7 Academic Tools
8 Other Internet Resources
9 Related Entries
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1. LIFE AND WRITINGS

1.1 Life. Owing to the unusually fulsome biography by Plotinus” disciple Porphyry, we know
more about Plotinus” life than we do about most ancient philosophers”. The main facts are these.

Plotinus was born in Lycopolis, Egypt in 204 or 205 C.E. When he was 28, a growing interest in
philosophy led him to the feet of one Ammonius Saccas in Alexandria. After ten or eleven years
with this obscure though evidently dominating figure, Plotinus was moved to study Persian and
Indian philosophy. In order to do so, he attached himself to the military expedition of Emperor
Gordian III to Persia in 243. The expedition was aborted when Gordian was assassinated by his
troops. Plotinus thereupon seems to have abandoned his plans, making his way to Rome in 245.
There he remained until his death in 270 or 271.

Porphyry informs us that during the first ten years of his time in Rome, Plotinus lectured
exclusively on the philosophy of Ammonius. During this time he also wrote nothing. Porphyry
tells us that when he himself arrived in Rome in 263, the first 21 of Plotinus” treatises had already
been written. The remainder of the 54 treatises constituting his Enneads were written in the last
seven or eight years of his life.

Porphyry’s biography reveals a man at once otherworldly and deeply practical. The former is
hardly surprising in a philosopher but the latter deserves to be noted and is impressively indicated
by the fact that a number of Plotinus” acquaintances appointed him as guardian to their children
when they died.

1.2 Plotinus” writings were edited by Porphyry (there was perhaps another edition by Plotinus”
physician, Eustochius, though all traces of it are lost). It is to Porphyry that we owe the somewhat
artificial division of the writings into six groups of nine (hence the name Enneads from the Greek
word for “nine”). In fact, there are somewhat fewer than 54 (Porphyry artificially divided some of
them into separately numbered “treatises”), and the actual number of these is of no significance.
The arrangement of the treatises is also owing to Porphyry and does evince an ordering principle.

 Ennead I contains, roughly, ethical discussions;

 Enneads II-III contain discussions of natural philosophy and cosmology

(though III 4, 5, 7, 8 do not fit into this rubric so easily);

 Ennead IV is devoted to matters of psychology;

 Ennead V is devoted to epistemological matters, especially the Mind;

 Ennead VI is devoted to numbers, being in general, and the One above Mind,
the first principle of all. It is to be emphasized that the ordering is Porphyry’s.

The actual chronological ordering, which Porphyry also provides for us, does not correspond at
all to the ordering in the edition. For example, Ennead I 1 is the 53rd treatise chronologically, one
of the last things Plotinus wrote.

These works vary in size from a couple of pages to over a hundred. They seem to be occasional
writings in the sense that they constitute written responses by Plotinus to questions and problems
raised in his regular seminars. Sometimes these questions and problems guide the entire
discussion, so that it is sometimes difficult to tell when Plotinus is writing in his own voice or
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expressing the views of someone else. Typically, Plotinus would at his seminars have read out
passages from Platonic or Aristotelian commentators, it being assumed that the members of the
seminar were already familiar with the primary texts. Then a discussion of the text along with the
problems it raised occurred.

One must not suppose that the study of Aristotle at these seminars belonged to a separate
“course” on the great successor of Plato. After Plotinus, in fact Aristotle was studied on his own
as preparation for studying Plato. But with Plotinus, Aristotle, it seems, was assumed to be
himself one of the most effective expositors of Plato. Studying both Aristotle’s own philosophy
as explained by commentators such as Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd -- early 3rd c. C.E.) and his
explicit objections to Plato was a powerful aid in understanding the master’s philosophy. In part,
this was owing to the fact that Aristotle was assumed to know Plato’s philosophy at first hand and
to have recorded it, including Plato’s “unwritten teachings.”

In addition, later Greek historians of philosophy tell us that Plotinus” teacher, Ammonius Saccas,
was among those Platonists who assumed that in some sense Aristotle’s philosophy was in
harmony with Platonism. This harmony did not preclude disagreements between Aristotle and
Plato. Nor did it serve to prevent misunderstandings of Platonism on Aristotle’s part.
Nevertheless, Plotinus” wholesale adoption of many Aristotelian arguments and distinctions will
seem less puzzling when we realize that he took these both as compatible with Platonism and as
useful for articulating the Platonic position, especially in areas in which Plato was himself not
explicit.

2. THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF PLOTINUS’ METAPHYSICS

The three basic principles of Plotinus” metaphysics are called by him (see V 1; V 9):
2.1 the One (or, equivalently, “the Good”),
2.2 Mind,
2.3 World Soul.
After Soul we will consider
2.4 Matter
These principles are both ultimate ontological realities and explanatory principles. Plotinus
believed that Plato recognized them as such, as well as by the entire subsequent Platonic tradition.

2.1 THE ONE

The One is the absolutely simple first principle of all. It is both ‘self-caused” and the cause of
being for everything else in the universe. There are, according to Plotinus, various ways of
showing the necessity of positing such a principle. These are all rooted in the Pre-Socratic
philosophical/scientific tradition. A central axiom of that tradition was the connecting of
explanation with reductionism or the derivation of the complex from the simple. That is, ultimate
explanations of phenomena and of contingent entities can only rest in what itself requires no
explanation. If what is actually sought is the explanation for something that is in one way or
another complex, what grounds the explanation will be simple relative to the observed
complexity. Thus, what grounds an explanation must be different from the sorts of things
explained by it. According to this line of reasoning, explanantia that are themselves complex,
perhaps in some way different from the sort of complexity of the explananda, will be in need of
other types of explanation. In addition, a plethora of explanatory principles will themselves be in
need of explanation. Taken to its logical conclusion, the explanatory path must finally lead to
what is unique and absolutely uncomplex.
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The One is such a principle. Plotinus found it in Plato’s Republic where it is named “the Idea of
the Good” and in his Parmenides where it is the subject of a series of deductions (137c ff.). The
One or the Good, owing to its simplicity, is indescribable directly. We can only grasp it indirectly
by deducing what it is not (see V 3. 14; VI 8; VI 9. 3). Even the names “One” and “Good” are
fautes de mieux. Therefore, it is wrong to see the One as a principle of oneness or goodness, in the
sense in which these are intelligible attributes. The name “One” is least inappropriate because it
best suggests absolute simplicity.

Question. If the One is absolutely simple, how can it be the cause of the being of anything much
less the cause of everything?

Answer. The One is such a cause in the sense that it is virtually everything else (see III 8. 1; V 1.
7, 9; V 3. 15, 33; VI 9. 5, 36). This means that it stands to everything else as, for example, white
light stands to the colors of the rainbow, or the way in which a properly functioning calculator
may be said to contain all the answers to the questions that can be legitimately put to it. Similarly,
an omniscient simple deity may be said to know virtually all that is knowable. In general, if A is
virtually B, then A is both simpler in its existence than B and able to produce B.

The One and the many. The causality of the One was frequently explained in antiquity as an
answer to the question, “How do we derive a many from the One?” Although the answer
provided by Plotinus and by other Neo-Platonists is sometimes expressed in the language of
“emanation”, it is very easy to mistake this for what it is not. It is not intended to indicate either a
temporal process or the unpacking or separating of a potentially complex unity. Rather, the
derivation was understood in terms of atemporal ontological dependence.

2.2 MIND
(THE COSMIC DIVINE MIND)

The first derivation from the One is Mind. Mind is the locus of the full array of Platonic Forms
[= the ideal meanings of things], those eternal and immutable entities that account for or explain
the possibility of intelligible predication. Plotinus assumes that without such Forms [or ideal
meanings], there would be no non-arbitrary justification for saying that anything had one property
rather than another. Whatever properties things have, they have owing to there being Forms
whose instances these properties are. But that still leaves us with the very good question of why
an eternal and immutable Mind is necessarily postulated along with these Forms.

The historical answer to this question is in part that Plotinus assumed that he was
following Plato who, in Timaeus (30c; cf. Philebus 22c), claimed that the Form of
Intelligible Animal was eternally contemplated by a Mind called “the Demiurge. “This
contemplation Plotinus interpreted as cognitive identity, since if the Demiurge were
contemplating something outside of itself, what would be inside of itself would be only an
image or representation of eternal reality (see V 5) -- and so, it would not actually know
what it contemplates, as that is in itself. “Cognitive identity” then means that when Mind
is thinking, it is thinking itself. Further, Plotinus believed that Aristotle, in book 12 of his
Metaphysics and in book 3 of his De Anima supported both the eternality of Mind (in
Aristotle represented as the Unmoved Mover) and the idea that cognitive identity
characterized its operation.

There must be a One “above” the Forms. Philosophically, Plotinus argued that postulating
Forms without a superordinate principle, the One, which is virtually what all the Forms are,
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would leave the Forms in eternal disunity. If this were the case, then there could be no necessary
truth, for all necessary truths, e.g., 3 + 5 = 8, express a virtual identity, as indicated here by the
“=” sign.

An analogy. Consider the analogy of three-dimensionality and solidity. Why are these necessarily
connected in a body such that there could not be a body that had one without the other? The
answer is that body is virtually three-dimensionality and virtually solidity. Both three-
dimensionality and solidity express in different ways what a body is.

The role of Mind is to account for the real distinctness of the plethora of Forms, virtually united
in the One. Thus, in the above mathematical example, the fact that numbers are virtually united
does not gainsay the fact that each has an identity. The way that identity is maintained is by each
and every Form being thought by an eternal Mind. And in this thinking, Mind “attains” the One
in the only way it possibly can. It attains all that can be thought; hence, all that can be thought
“about” the One.

Mind is the principle of essence or whatness or intelligibility as the One is the principle of being.
Mind is an eternal instrument of the One’s causality (see V 4. 1, 1-4; VI 7. 42, 21-23). The
dependence of anything “below” Mind is owing to the One’s ultimate causality along with Mind,
which explains, via the Forms, why that being is the kind of thing it is.

Mind needs the One as cause of its being in order for Mind to be a paradigmatic cause and the
One needs Mind in order for there to be anything with an intelligible structure. Mind could not
suffice as a first principle of all because the complexity of thinking (thinker and object of thought
and multiplicity of objects of thought) requires as an explanation something that is absolutely
simple.

In addition, the One may even be said to need Mind to produce Mind. This is so because Plotinus
distinguishes two logical “phases” of Mind’s production from the One (see V 1: 7). The first
phase indicates the fundamental activity of minding or thinking; the second, the actualization of
thinking which constitutes the being of the Forms. This thinking is the way Mind “returns” to the
One.

2.3 SOUL: WORLD SOUL AND HUMAN SOULS

The third fundamental principle is soul. Soul is not the principle of life, for the activity of Mind
is the highest activity of life. Plotinus associates life with desire. But in the highest life, the life of
Mind, where we find the highest form of desire, that desire is eternally satisfied by contemplation
of the One through the entire array of Forms that are internal to Mind.

Soul is the principle of desiring those objects that are external to the agent of desire.
Everything with a soul, from human beings to the most insignificant plant, acts to satisfy desire.
This desire requires it to seek things that are external to it, such as food. Even a desire for sleep,
for example, is a desire for a state other than the state that the living thing currently is in.
Cognitive desires—for example, the desire to know—are desires for what is currently not present
to the agent. A desire to procreate is, as Plato pointed out, a desire for immortality. Soul explains,
(as unchangeable Mind cannot) the deficiency that is implicit in the fact of desiring.

Soul is related to Mind analogously to the way Mind is related to the One. As the One is
virtually what Mind is, so Mind is paradigmatically what soul is. The activity of Mind, or its
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cognitive identity with all Forms, is the paradigm for all embodied cognitive states of any soul as
well as any of its affective states. Consider two cases.

2.3.1 In the first case, a mode of cognition, such as belief, images Mind’s eternal state by being a
representational state. It represents the cognitive identity of Mind with Forms because the
embodied believer is cognitively identical with a concept which itself represents or images
Forms.
In the second case, an affective state such as feeling tired represents or images Mind (in a
derived way) owing to the cognitive component of that state which consists in the recognition of
its own presence. Here, x’s being-in-the-state is the intentional object of x’s cognition. Where the
affective state is that of a non-cognitive agent, the imitation is even more remote, though present
nevertheless. It is, says Plotinus, like the state of being asleep in comparison with the state of
being awake (see III 8. 4). In other words, it is a state that produces desire that is in potency a
state that recognizes the presence of the desire, a state that represents the state of Mind.
In reply to the possible objection that a potency is not an image of actuality, Plotinus will
want to insist that potencies are functionally related to actualities, not the other way around, and
that therefore the affective states of non-cognitive agents can only be understood as derived
versions of the affective and cognitive states of souls closer to the ideal of both, namely, the state
of Mind.

2.3.2 There is another way in which soul is related to Mind as Mind is related to the One. Plotinus
distinguishes between something’s internal and external activity (see V 4. 2: 27-33). The
(indescribable) internal activity of the One is its own hyper-Mind existence. Its external activity is
just Mind. Similarly, Mind’s internal activity is its contemplation of the Forms, and its external
activity is found in every possible representation of the activity of being eternally identical with
all that is intelligible (i.e., the Forms). It is also found in the activity of soul, which as a principle
of “external” desire images the paradigmatic desire of Mind. Anything that is understandable is
an external activity of Mind; and any form of cognition of that is also an external activity of it.
The internal activity of soul includes the plethora of psychical activities of all embodied living
things. The external activity of soul is nature, which is just the intelligible structure of all that is
other than soul in the sensible world, including both the bodies of things with soul and things
without soul (see III 8. 2). The end of this process of diminishing activities is matter which is
entirely bereft of form and so of intelligibility, but whose existence is ultimately owing to the
One, via the instrumentality of Mind and soul.

2.4 MATTER

Evil as privation. According to Plotinus, matter is to be identified with evil and privation of all
form or intelligibility (see II 4). Plotinus holds this in conscious opposition to Aristotle, who
distinguished matter from privation (see II 4: 16.3-8). Matter is what accounts for the diminished
reality of the sensible world, for all natural things are composed of forms in matter. The fact that
matter is in principle deprived of all intelligibility and is still ultimately dependent on the One is
an important clue as to how the causality of the latter operates.

Question. If matter or evil is ultimately caused by the One, then is not the One, as the Good, the
cause of evil? In one sense, the answer is definitely yes. As Plotinus reasons, if anything besides
the One is going to exist, then there must be a conclusion of the process of production from the
One. The beginning of evil is the act of separation from the One by Mind, an act that the One
itself ultimately causes. The end of the process of production from the One defines a limit, like
the end of a river going out from its sources. Beyond the limit is matter or evil.
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Why the limitless is held to be evil? According to Plotinus, matter is the condition for the
possibility of there being images of Forms in the sensible world. From this perspective, matter is
identified with the receptacle or space in Plato’s Timaeus and the phenomenal properties in the
receptacle prior to the imposition of order by the Demiurge. The very possibility of a sensible
world, which is impressively confirmed by the fact that there is one, guarantees that the
production from the One, which must include all that is possible (else the One would be self-
limiting), also include the sensible world (see I 8. 7). But the sensible world consists of images of
the intelligible world and these images could not exist without matter.

Matter is only evil in other than a purely metaphysical sense when it becomes an impediment to
return to the One. It is evil when considered as a goal or end that is a polar opposite to the Good.
To deny the necessity of evil is to deny the necessity of the Good (I 8. 15). Matter is only evil for
entities that can consider it as a goal of desire. These are, finally, only entities that can be self-
conscious of their goals. Specifically, human beings, by opting for attachments to the bodily,
orient themselves in the direction of evil. This is not because body itself is evil. The evil in bodies
is the element in them that is not dominated by form. One may be desirous of that form, but in
that case what one truly desires is that form’s ultimate intelligible source in Mind. More typically,
attachment to the body represents a desire not for form but a corrupt desire for the non-intelligible
or limitless.

3. HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY AND ETHICS

3.1 HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

The drama of human life is viewed by Plotinus against the axis of Good and evil outlined above.
The human person is essentially a soul employing a body as an instrument of its temporary
embodied life (see I 1). Thus, Plotinus distinguishes between the person and the composite of
soul and body. That person is identical with a cognitive agent or subject of cognitive states (see I
1. 7). An embodied person is, therefore, a conflicted entity, capable both of thought and of being
the subject of the composite’s non-cognitive states, such as appetites and emotions.

This conflicted state or duality of personhood is explained by the nature of cognition, including
rational desire. Rational agents are capable of being in embodied states, including states of desire,
and of being cognitively aware that they are in these states. So, a person can be hungry or tired
and be cognitively aware that he is in this state, where cognitive awareness includes being able to
conceptualize that state.

But Plotinus holds that the state of cognitive awareness more closely identifies the person than
does the non-cognitive state. He does so on the grounds that all embodied or en-mattered
intelligible reality is an image of its eternal paradigm in Mind. In fact, the highest part of the
person, one’s own Mind, the faculty in virtue of which persons can engage in non-discursive
thinking, is eternally “undescended.” It is eternally doing what Mind is doing. And the reason for
holding this is, based on Plotinus” interpretation of Plato’s Recollection Argument in Phaedo
(72e-78b), that our ability to engage successfully in embodied cognition depends on our having
access to Forms. But the only access to Forms is eternal access by cognitive identification with
them. Otherwise, we would have only images or representations of the Forms. So, we must now
be cognitively identical with them if we are going also to use these Forms as a way of classifying
and judging things in the sensible world.
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A person in a body can choose to take on the role of a non-cognitive agent by acting solely on
appetite or emotion. In doing so, that person manifests a corrupted desire, a desire for what is
evil, the material aspect of the bodily. Alternatively, a person can distance himself from these
desires and identify himself with his rational self. The very fact that this is possible supplies
Plotinus with another argument for the supersensible identity of the person.

Our conflicted state. Owing to the conflicted states of embodied persons, they are subject to self-
contempt and yet, paradoxically, “want to belong to themselves.” Persons have contempt for
themselves because one has contempt for what is inferior to oneself. Insofar as persons desire
things other than what Mind desires, they desire things that are external to themselves. But the
subject of such desires is inferior to what is desired, even if this be a state of fulfilled desire. In
other words, if someone wants to be in state B when he is in state A, he must regard being in state
A as worse than being in state B. But all states of embodied desire are like this. Hence, the self-
contempt.

Persons want to belong to themselves insofar as they identify themselves as subjects of their
idiosyncratic desires. They do this because they have forgotten or are unaware of their true
identity as disembodied Minds. If persons recognize their true identity, they would not be
oriented to the objects of their embodied desire but to the objects of Mind. They would be able to
look upon the subject of those embodied desires as alien to their true selves.

3.2 ETHICS

Ethics. Plotinus views ethics according to the criterion of what contributes to our identification
with our higher selves and what contributes to our separation from that identification. All virtuous
practices make a positive contribution to this goal. But virtues can be graded according to how
they do this (see I 2). The lowest form of virtues, what Plotinus, following Plato, calls “civic” or
“popular”, are the practices that serve to control the appetites (see I 2. 2). By contrast, higher
“purificatory” virtues are those that separate the person from the embodied human being (I 2. 3).
One who practices purificatory virtue is no longer subject to the incontinent desires whose
restraint constitutes mere civic or popular virtue. Such a person achieves a kind of “likeness to
God” recommended by Plato at Theaetetus 176a-b. Both of these types of virtue are inferior to
mind-like virtue, which consists in the activity of the philosopher (see I 2: 6). One who is purified
in embodied practices can turn unimpeded to one’s true self-identity as a thinker.

Virtuous living is not full happiness. Plotinus, however, while acknowledging the necessity of
virtuous living for happiness, refuses to identify them. Like Aristotle, Plotinus maintains that a
property of the happy life is its self-sufficiency (see I.1.4-5). But Plotinus does not agree that a
life focused on the practice of virtue is self-sufficient. Even Aristotle concedes that such a life is
not self-sufficient in the sense that it is immune to misfortune. Plotinus, insisting that the best life
is one that is in fact blessed owing precisely to its immunity to misfortune, alters the meaning of
‘self-sufficient” in order to identify it with the interior life of the excellent person. This interiority
or self-sufficiency is the obverse of attachment to the objects of embodied desires. Interiority is
happiness because the longing for the Good, for one who is ideally a Mind, is satisfied by
cognitive identification with all that is intelligible. If this is not unqualifiedly possible for the
embodied human being, it does at least seem possible that one should have a second order desire,
deriving from this longing for the Good, that amounts to a profound indifference to the
satisfaction of first order desires. Understanding that the good for any intellect is contemplation
of all that the One is means that the will is oriented to one thing only, whatever transient desires
may turn up.
 15

4. BEAUTY

Plotinus” chronologically first treatise, “On Beauty” (I 6), can be seen as parallel to his treatise on
virtue (I 2). In it, he tries to fit the experience of beauty into the drama of ascent to the first
principle of all. In this respect, Plotinus” aesthetics is inseparable from his metaphysics,
psychology, and ethics.

As in the case of virtue, Plotinus recognizes a hierarchy of beauty. But what all types of beauty
have in common is that they consist in form or images of the Forms eternally present in Mind (I
6. 2). The lowest type of beauty is physical beauty where the splendor of the paradigm is of
necessity most occluded. If the beauty of a body is inseparable from that body, then it is only a
remote image of the non-bodily Forms. Still, our ability to experience such beauty serves as
another indication of our own Minds” undescended character. We respond to physical beauty
because we dimly recognize its paradigm. To call this paradigm “the Form of Beauty” would be
somewhat misleading unless it were understood to include all the Forms cognized by Mind.
Following Plato in Symposium, Plotinus traces a hierarchy of beautiful objects above the physical,
culminating in the Forms themselves. And their source, the Good, is also the source of their
beauty (I 6. 7). The beauty of the Good consists in the virtual unity of all the Forms. As it is the
ultimate cause of the complexity of intelligible reality, it is the cause of the delight we experience
in form (see V 5. 12).

5. INFLUENCE

Later Neo-Platonism. Porphyry’s edition of Plotinus” Enneads preserved for posterity the works
of the leading Platonic interpreter of antiquity. Through these works as well as through the
writings of Porphyry himself (234 – c. 305 C.E.) and Iamblichus (c. 245–325 C.E.), Plotinus
shaped the entire subsequent history of philosophy. Until well into the 19th century, Platonism
was in large part understood, appropriated or rejected based on its Plotinian expression and in
adumbrations of this.

Influence on religion. The theological traditions of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all, in their
formative periods, looked to ancient Greek philosophy for the language and arguments with
which to articulate their religious visions. For all of these, Platonism expressed the philosophy
that seemed closest to their own theologies. Plotinus was the principal source for their
understanding of Platonism.

From the Renaissance on. Through the Latin translation of Plotinus by Marsilio Ficino
published in 1492, Plotinus became available to the West. The first English translation, by
Thomas Taylor, appeared in the late 18th century. Plotinus was, once again, recognized as the
most authoritative interpreter of Platonism. In the writings of the Italian Renaissance
philosophers, the 15th and 16th century humanists John Colet, Erasmus of Rotterdam, and
Thomas More, the 17th century Cambridge Platonists, and German idealists, especially Hegel,
Plotinus” thought was the (sometimes unacknowledged) basis for opposition to the competing
and increasingly influential tradition of scientific philosophy. This influence continued in the 20th
century flowering of Christian imaginative literature in England, including the works of C.S.
Lewis and Charles Williams.
 16

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Primary Literature
• Plotinus, 7 volumes, Greek text with English translation by A.H. Armstrong, Cambridge,
MA: Loeb Classical Library, 1968-88.
• Plotinus. The Enneads, translated by Stephen MacKenna. Abridged and edited by John
Dillon, London: Penguin Books, 1991.
• Neoplatonic Philosophy. Introductory Readings, translations of portions of the works of
Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus by John Dillon and Lloyd P. Gerson,
Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004.
• Plotin. Traites, 9 volumes, French translation with commentaries by Luc Brisson and J.-
F. Pradéau, et. al., Paris: Flammarion, 2002-2010.
•
B. Secondary Literature
Blumenthal, H.J., 1971, Plotinus” Psychology, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Bussanich, J., 1988, The One and its Relation to Mind in Plotinus, Leiden: Brill.
Emilsson, E., 1988, Plotinus on Sense-Perception, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Emilsson, E., 2007, Plotinus on Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gerson, Lloyd P., 1994, Plotinus (Series: Arguments of the Philosophers),
London: Routledge.
Gerson, Lloyd P. (ed.), 1996, The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gerson, Lloyd P. (ed.), 2010, The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late
Antiquity, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gurtler, G.M., 1988, Plotinus: The Experience of Unity, New York: Peter Lang.
O’Brien, D., 1991, Plotinus on the Origin of Matter, Naples: Bibliopolis.
O’Meara, Dominic, 1993, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Rappe, S., 2000, Reading Neoplatonism: Non-discursive Thinking in the Texts of
Plotinus, Proclus, and Damascius, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Remes, Pauliina, 2007, Plotinus on Self. The Philosophy of the “We”,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rist, J., 1967, Plotinus: The Road to Reality, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

C. Reference
Dufour, Richard, 2002, Plotinus: A Bibliography 1950–2000, Leiden: E.J. Brill.
See in particular the references to the numerous commentaries on particular treatises in
the Enneads, some of which are in English.
 17

AN ANALOGY OF EMANATION

DER RÖMISCHE BRUNNEN

C. F. Meyers

Aufsteigt der Strahl und fallend gießt

Er voll der Marmorschale Rund,
Die, sich verschleiernd, überfließt
In einer zweiten Schale Grund;
Die zweite gibt, sie wird zu reich,
Der dritten wallend ihre Flut,
Und jede nimmt und gibt zugleich
Und strömt und ruht.

ROMAN FOUNTAIN
C. F. Meyers

The jet ascends and falling fills

The marble basin circling round;
This, veiling itself over, spills
Into a second basin’s ground.
The second in such plenty lives,
Its bubbling flood a third invests,
And each at once receives and gives
And streams and rests.
 18

PLOTINUS

THE ENNEADS

FIRST READING

ENNEAD V TRACTATE 2

ON THE ORIGIN AND ORDER OF THE BEINGS

THAT COME AFTER THE FIRST

***

FIRST: THE GOING FORTH – EMANATION

(ἀπορροή)

Chapter 1
[V 2: 1]

THE THREE MAIN ENTITIES

THE ONE — M IND-AND-BEING — WORLD SOUL

Synopsis. The souls of men have forgotten their Father and their true nature in their desire to
belong to themselves—which has led them into self-alienation and self-contempt and an ignorant
admiration of material things. Plotinus suggests two ways to convert them and lead them back up
to God: one is to show how contemptible material things are, the other and better way is to
remind the soul of its high birth and value. One’s soul must know itself to know whether it is
capable of knowing higher things.

The One [Hen]. The One is all things and yet not any one of them. It is the principle or source (archê) of all
things, but is not all things. And yet it is all things insofar as all things return to the One. Or rather they are
not there yet, but they will be.
How then do all things derive from the One, which is simple and without variety or multiplicity
within itself? Precisely because there is nothing in the One, all things derive from it. In order that Being [the
real] may exist, the One is not something real, but the generator of the real.

The One generates the universal Mind [Mind, νοῦς ]. This, we may say, is the first act of generation: The
One – which is perfect because it sees nothing, has nothing, and needs nothing – overflows as it were, and its
superabundance begets something other than itself. This “begotten,” once it has come into being, turns back
to face the One, and is completely filled, and becomes Mind by looking at the One. (1) Mind’s act of
standing towards the One establishes the real. (2) Mind’s contemplation of the One establishes Mind itself.
By standing towards the One in order to see [or contemplate] it, Mind becomes at once Mind-and-reality.

Mind generates the Soul [World Soul, Higher Soul:]. Now, having achieved likeness to the One, the Mind
produces in the same way, pouring forth a vast power that is a likeness of itself, just as the One that is prior
to the Mind poured forth the Mind. This active power [ἐνέργεια] that springs from reality [i.e., from the
 19

Mind as knowing ultimate reality] is the Soul. Soul comes about while Mind remains unchanged, just as the
Mind comes about while the One, which is before it, abides unchanged.

This Higher Soul generates Lower Souls. But Soul does not abide unchanged when it produces. Rather,
by being moved, the Soul produces an image of itself. It becomes full by looking up to its source [Mind].
However, going forth in another and opposite direction [i.e., downward rather than upward], it generates
its own image, which is Sense and Nature within plants.

Continuity in generation. Nothing is separated or cut off from what is before it. For this reason the Higher
Soul seems to reach as far as plants; and in a way it does reach that far, for the life-principle in plants
belongs to it. However, the Higher Soul is not entirely within the growing things of nature. Rather, it is
“in” them in the sense that it has extended itself downwards to their level, and produced – by that self-
extension and by its desire for the inferior – yet another hypostasis of reality. The Soul, which is
immediately dependent on Mind, lets Mind remain alone, abiding in itself.

Chapter 2
[V 2: 2]

THE CONTINUITY AND DIMINUTION OF POWER

IN THE EMANATING STAGES

What is generated takes a certain likeness from what generates it. So it goes, from the beginning to the last
and lowest. Each of the generating powers remains behind in its own place, whereas what is generated takes
a different and lower rank. Nonetheless, each one that is generated takes the likeness of what it follows from,
and it does so for as long as continues to follow from it.

In plants. Thus, when the Higher Soul comes to exist in a plant, the part that exists in the plant is a different
part of the Soul. The part of the Soul that extends down that far is the most audacious and least intelligent part
of the Soul.

In animals. When the Soul comes to exist in an animal that lacks reason, that happens because the power of
sense-perception has been dominant and has led the Soul there.

In human beings. But when the Soul enters a human being, the Soul’s movement outward is either (1) entirely
that of the Soul's reasoning part, or (2) the movement outward has come from Mind – in the sense that the
Soul, having a mind of its own, has an inborn desire to think, or in general to move.

***
 20

PLOTINUS

THE ENNEADS

SECOND READING

ENNEAD I TRACTATE 6

ON BEAUTY

Chapter 7
[I 6: 7]

THE SOUL’S RETURN TO BEAUTY

Purification and vision. So we must ascend again to the Good, which every soul desires. Anyone who has
seen it knows what I mean when I say that the Good is beautiful. It is desired as good, and the desire for it
is directed to good.
The attainment of it is for those who go up to the higher world and are converted and strip off
what we put on in our descent – just as for those who go up to the celebrations of sacred rites there are
purifications, and stripping off of the clothes they wore before, and going up naked. Finally, as we ascend
and pass by all that is alien to the God, our own self—alone—comes to see That Which Is Alone – simple,
single, and pure – from which everything depends and to which all look and are and live and think. For
the Good is the cause of life and Mind and the real.

The fulfillment of a consuming passion. When someone sees it, imagine what passion he or she will feel!
– what longing desire to be united with it, what a shock of delight! Anyone who has not seen it may desire
it as good. But the person who has seen it glories in its beauty and overflows with wonder and delight,
enduring a shock that causes no hurt, loving with true passion and piercing desire, laughing at all other
loves, and despising what he or she thought was beautiful before.

Nothing can compare with it. It is like those who experience apparitions of gods or spirits and afterwards
can no longer appreciate the beauty of other bodies they way they did before. “What would we think if
someone were to contemplate the absolute beauty that exists pure and by itself, uncontaminated by any
flesh or body whether of the earth or the heavens so that it keeps its purity?” All those other things are
external additions and mixtures. They are not primary, but are derived from absolute beauty.

The vision. If someone were to see That Which provides for all and yet remains by itself, That Which
gives to all but receives nothing into itself, if someone were to abide in the contemplation of this kind of
beauty and to rejoice in being made like it – how could that person need any other beauty? For since it is
the most beautiful itself, since it is the primary beauty, it makes those who love it be beautiful and lovable.

The goal of life. Here the greatest, the ultimate contest is set before our souls. All our toil and trouble is
for this: that we not be deprived of a share in this best of all visions. Whoever attains it is blessed in seeing
that “blessed sight.” Whoever fails to achieve it has failed utterly. You do not really fail if you fail to win
the beauty of colors or bodies or power or office or even kingship. But you do fail if you fail to win this
 21

and this alone. If it requires leaving and overlooking the winning of kingship and rule over the whole earth
and sea and sky, you should give them up in order to turn towards It and to see It.

Chapter 8
[I 6: 8]

OUR HOME IS ABOVE,

WHERE OUR FATHER DWELLS

The way. But how shall we find the way? What method can we devise? How can we see the
“inconceivable beauty” that stays within the holy sanctuary and does not come out where the profane may
see it?

The turn within. Let those who can, follow and come within, and leave outside what they can see with
their eyes, and not turn back to the bodily splendors that they saw before. When they see the beauty of
bodies, they must not run after them. We have to know that bodies are mere images, traces, shadows, and
we have to hurry away to that of which they are images. What if someone ran to an image and tried to grab
it as if it were the real thing? (There’s a story about a beautiful reflection on the water that a man
[Narcissus] tried to catch but only sank into the stream and disappeared.) Whoever clings to beautiful
bodies and refuses to let them go, will, like Narcissus, sink – but in his or soul rather than body – into the
dark depths where Mind has no delight. There, in Hades, you will remain blind and will consort with
shadows here and there.

The flight to our home. “Let us flee to our beloved homeland” – that is the truer counsel. But what is our
way of escape? How shall we gain the open sea? For Odysseus is surely a parable to us when he
commands the flight from the sorceries of Circle or Calypso – not content to linger despite all the
pleasures offered to his eyes and all the sensual delight to fill his days. Our country from which we came
is There, our Father is There.

But how? How shall we travel to it, where is our way of escape? This is not a journey for feet, for our feet
only bring us from one land to another. Nor need you think of a carriage or a ship to carry you away. All
such things you should set aside and refuse to see them. You must close the eyes and call instead upon
another vision that is to awake within you – a vision, the birth-right of all, which only a few turn to use.

Chapter 9
[I 6: 9]

THE RETURN TO
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD

Training our inner vision. And what does this inner vision see? Newly awakened, it is all too feeble to
bear the ultimate splendor before it. Therefore the soul must be trained, first of all to look at beautiful
ways of life; then at the works of beauty produced not by the labor of the arts but by the works of those
who have a name for goodness. Then it should look at the souls of those who produce those beautiful
works.

How then can you see the sort of beauty a good soul has? Withdraw into yourself and look. If you do not
see yourself as beautiful just yet, then act like those who are carving a statue that will be beautiful. They
cut away here, smooth it there, make this line lighter, this other line purer, until a lovely face has grown
upon the work. You should do likewise: cut away all that is excessive, straighten all that is crooked, bring
light to all that is dark, labor to make it all one glow of beauty, and never cease to chisel your statue until
there shines out on you the godlike splendor of virtue, until you see the perfect goodness that is surely
established in its stainless shrine.
 22

In-gathered to the Light. When you know that you have become this perfect work, when you are self-
gathered into the purity of your being – when there is nothing remaining that can shatter that inner unity,
nothing from outside clinging to your authentic self, when you find yourself wholly true to your essential
nature, when you are entirely that only true light that is not measured by space, not narrowed to any
circumscribed form, not diffused as a thing void of shape – but rather ever unmeasurable as something
greater than all measure and more than all quantity – when you perceive that you have grown to this, then
you have become an act of seeing. Now you can summon all your confidence, strike forward one more
step (you no longer need a guide!), strain, and see.

Purifying the self. This eye is the only eye that sees Beauty in all its power. But anyone who comes to this
vision with an eye dimmed by vice, impure, or weak, and unable in its cowardice to see the utter
brightness – that person will see nothing, even if someone points out What Is There, plain to be seen. To
see that vision you must bring an eye that is adapted to what is to be seen, an eye that has some likeness to
what it wants to see. No eye has ever seen the sun without first becoming sun-like, and no soul can ever
have the vision of the First Beauty without itself being beautiful.

Becoming God-like. Therefore let each persons who cares to see God and Beauty become godlike and
beautiful. Mounting up in this way, the soul will come first to Mind, and there it will survey all the
beautiful Ideals and will avow that this is Beauty, that the Ideals are Beauty, because it is by their efficacy
that all other beauty comes about. The Ideals are the product and the reality of Mind. And what lies
beyond Mind is, as we say, the nature of the Good, which radiates and holds Beauty in front of itself so
that it can be seen.

Summary. To draw things together we shall say that the First is the Beautiful. If we want to make a
distinction within the realm of Mind, we would say that (1) Mind, as the place of the Ideals, constitutes
mind-like Beauty, whereas (2) the Good, which lies beyond Mind, is the font and source of Beauty. In any
case, the Primal Good and the Primal Beautiful dwell in the same place. Thus Beauty’s seat is always
There.

***
 23

PLOTINUS

THE ENNEADS

THIRD READING

ENNEAD VI Tractate 9

(composed of 11 chapters)

ON THE GOOD OR THE ONE

Introductory Note (A. H. Armstrong)

This early treatise, number 9 in Porphyry’s chronological order, is the first clear presentation by
Plotinus of the One as the ultimate principle and of union with it as the goal of the philosophic or
spiritual life.
It is the first and one of the clearest and most powerful of his great ascents of the mind, in which
he both uses philosophic reason as far as it will go to show the way and urges his readers to go on
beyond any thinkable reality to the union that he does not presume to describe.
Though the treatise was probably meant for a rather wider circle of readers than the more
technical works (e.g., like VI 1–3, the discussion of the Categories, or VI 6, on numbers) it would
still be intended to be read only by a chosen few, those among his friends and hearers who were
capable of making the tremendous moral and spiritual effort required to travel by this way and reach
the goal, and who already fully accepted the fundamentals of Platonic philosophical religion and
were trying to live the philosophical life.
Beginning from some fairly commonplace observations on the scale of unity and the necessity of
unity for the existence of anything, it leads the reader rapidly through the Platonic World of Forms
that is also Divine Mind (where many Platonists and later theists wished to stop).
It then goes to the source of Mind and concludes with a passage about (not a description of) the
mystical union that has rightly become a classic, though it should not be read and thought about in
isolation from the rest of the Enneads. The two great works that precede it in the Ennead order,
though they were written some years later, VI 7 [38] and VI 8 [39], need particularly to be taken into
consideration.

***
 24
Chapter 1
[VI 9: 1]

Synopsis. All beings are beings by the One; unity is the condition of their existence. Soul unifies
all beings in this world, but is not itself the One, but one by something else.

Whatever is real has to have oneness about it. It is because of their oneness that all things have reality,
both the primary real things and anything else that we say is real.

A thing could not exist without oneness. Things that are deprived of the Oneness that we predicate of them
are simply not those things. An army does not exist if it is not one army and the same with a chorus or a
flock. And a house or a ship cannot exist if it is not one house or one ship. If they lose their oneness, the
house is no longer a house, and a ship is not a ship. So continuous magnitudes, if they did not have oneness
about them, would not exist. If they get cut up, they change their being [τὸ εἶναι] in direct proportion to
losing their oneness.

Likewise the bodies of plants and animals are each one. If they lose their oneness by being broken up into
multiple parts, they lose the reality [οὐσία] they had and are no longer what they were. They have become
something else. And they are those other things in so far as each of those other things has its own oneness.

The same with health: it is present when the body has been brought together into a [healthy] oneness.
Likewise beauty: it is present when the nature of oneness holds the parts of something together [in a
pleasant whole]. Likewise the soul [the principle of life in living things]: it has moral excellence [“virtue”]
when it is unified into a harmonious unity.

Question: The soul [or principle of life] brings things into their oneness by making, molding, shaping, and
composing them. So when we have arrived at the soul, should we say that since it provides oneness, it in
fact is the One?

Answer. No. The soul provides things for bodies (e.g., shape and form), but it is not itself the shape and
form that it gives to things. What the Soul gives is something other than the soul itself: even though it gives
oneness [to living things], what it gives is something other than itself. The soul makes matter into a human
being by first looking at the ideal form of a human being [which is found in the cosmic Mind]. The soul can
give oneness to living things only by looking upwards towards the One, and by doing so, it brings oneness
into living things.

When we say that something has oneness, it has that oneness in proportion to the degree of reality it has.
Things that have less reality have less oneness; things that have more reality have more oneness. The soul,
which is other than the One, has its greater oneness in proportion to its greater reality. It certainly is not the
One, because it has oneness and gets its oneness, so that oneness is, in a sense, “incidental” to it. Just as
“body” and “oneness” are two distinguishable things, so too “soul” and “oneness” are two distinguishable
things.

Anything that has separate parts – a chorus, for example – is furthest from the One. A body that is
continuous [and thus has oneness] is nearer to the One. The soul is even nearer, but it still participates in
the One [rather than being] the One.

If the soul did not have oneness, it would not be the soul. Does that mean the soul is the same as the One?
No. Everything that has reality has oneness – but the One is different from them. The body and its oneness
are not the same thing (rather, the body participates in oneness). The soul, even though it has oneness about
it, is still multiple – not in the sense that it is composed of many parts, but in the sense that it many different
powers in it: the power to reason, to desire, to apprehend, which are held together, bonded into oneness. So
the soul, to the degree it has oneness, brings oneness to other things, but it does so thanks to something else.
It gets its own oneness thanks to something else: it receives its oneness from something else.
 25
Chapter 2
[VI 9: 2]

Synopsis. No real being – whether a single or a universal thing – is the One. The world of
ideal realities – true reality – is alive. It is in the cosmic Mind and is that Mind. But it too has
multiplicity about it: it is sum total of real beings and therefore a multiplicity. Hence, even
though it is alive, even though it is minding the really real, it cannot be the One, that utterly
simple Unity that gives the Mind its degree of oneness, and gives all other realities their
oneness.

Everything that is made up of parts – each of which is a unity – is not a perfect “one”: its inner reality and
its oneness are distinct, are not the same. But whatever is completely and wholly real, its inner reality, its
very being, and its oneness are all the same.

If you have found out that something real, you have found out that it is one thing. And the ultimate Reality
[αὐτὴν τὴν οὐσίαν] is the One. To the degree that Mind has reality about it, to that degree it has oneness: it
is a primary reality and a primary oneness, and it gives other things a share in realness to the degree that it
gives them a share in oneness. The real is intrinsically one.

....

We will now show that the Mind cannot be the ultimate and first reality:

Mind exists by minding. The best Mind does not look outside itself but minds what is right in front of it [its
divine ideas, the ideal meanings of things]. In turning to itself, the Mind turns to its source.1 And if Mind is
both the minding and what it minds, it will be double and not single – and therefore is not the One.

When Mind looks to something other than itself, it necessarily looks towards what is better that itself and
the ideal meanings that it minds. But that means that Mind both (1) looks at its own ideas and (2) looks
towards what is better than itself. But this entails that it is second [in the order of reality].

Hence we must say that Mind is present to the Good, present to what is First: it looks at the Good and the
First. But Mind is also present with itself, minds itself, and minds itself as the real reality of all things.
Therefore, far from being the One, the cosmic Mind it is richly various [ποικίλον].

The One then cannot be all things, for then it would no longer be one. It cannot be Mind, for then it would
be all things, since Mind is all things. And it cannot be real, it cannot be anything [τὸ ὄν]: what is real, what
has being, is: all things.

1εἰς αὑτὸν γὰρ ἐπιστρέφων εἰς ἀρχὴν ἐπιστρέφει.

 26
Chapter 3
[VI 9: 3]

Synopsis. Difficulty of thinking or speaking about the One because it is formless; we must
first reach the level of Mind and then go beyond it. The One is not one of the things it
generates, and everything we say about them must be denied of the One.

Question. What then could the One be, and what nature could it have?2

Answer. It’s difficult to say — no surprise there. It’s not even easy to say what reality or ideal meaning is
[τὸ ὄν, τὸ εἶδος]. And we do have a knowledge [γνῶσις] based upon the ideal meanings. But as the soul
goes towards the formless [ἀνείδεον], it slips, it is utterly unable to grasp it,3 can’t get an impression of it
because it is not delimited, not stamped with any shaped, and the soul fears it may have nothing at all.

Result. The soul tires of this sort of thing and often is happy to fall away4 from all of this and come back
down until it reaches what its senses can perceive. It rests there as if on solid ground. It’s like sight: when it
gets tired of small objects, it is glad to come upon big ones.

A paradox. The only way the soul can see the One is by being with it, by becoming one by being one with
it. But the soul wants to see the One in its own way, and thinks it doesn’t yet have what it is looking for
because it cannot distinguish itself from the object of its [mystical] intuition.

The ascent to the One. This is what one has to do if one wants to philosophize about the One.

We are seeking the One, we are looking towards the Source of everything, the Good, the First. To do so, we
must not take any distance from what is around the Primary, we must not fall down to the lowest things of
all.

As we go towards the Primary, we have to lift ourselves up from the things of sense, which are the last and
lowest, we must be freed from all evil, because we are hastening to the Good. We must ascend to the source
in ourselves. From out of our multiplicity, we must become one if we are going to behold the Source, the
One.

First we must become Mind, must entrust our own soul to Mind, set it firmly under Mind, so that our soul
may be awake to receive what the Mind sees, and by way of this Mind we may behold [θεᾶσθαι] the One,
without receiving any sense-perception or adding it to that Mind, but instead beholding the Most Pure with
the pure Mind, and with the primary part of Mind.

When you have embarked on the contemplation [ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν] of this kind, if you imagine any size or
shape or bulk about this nature, it will not be Mind that is guiding your contemplation, because the nature
of Mind is not to see things of that kind, namely, the activity of sense-perception followed by opinion.

Rather, you must take only what Mind announces to you. Mind has the power to see that which pertains to
the Mind: the realities that are before its gaze. The things within Mind are pure, but even purer and simpler
is the One Reality that it gazes upon. This One is not Mind, but is what Mind gazes upon.

2
Τί ἂν οὖν εἴη τὸ ἓν καὶ τίνα φύσιν ἔχον;
3
περιλαβεῖν: to get one’s arms around it, embrace it.
4
ἀποπίπτουσα; cf. infra: πεσόντα, from πίπτειν.
Apophantic negation. For Mind is a real thing, but the One is no-thing. It is prior to thingness and to every
thing. The One is not a reality: real things have some kind of form, but the One has no form [ἄμορφον], not
even intelligible form [μορφῆς νοητῆς].

27
The nature of the One is to generate all things. It is not any one of the things it generates. It is not therefore
a thing, it has no qualities, no quantity, it does not do minding, it is not a living principle [ψυχή]. It does
not move, it does not rest. It is not in any place, it is not in any time. It is “itself by itself, a unique kind” 5 –
or rather, it is of no kind, it is before all kinds, before movement and before rest. All those things pertain to
realities and are what make reality be multiple.

But if the One is not in movement isn’t it at rest? No: both movement and rest pertain to real things. A
thing is
“at rest” – rest is something distinguishable from the thing that is at rest and thus not the same as rest itself;
so rest is “incidental” to it.

To say that the One is “the [ultimate] cause” is not to predicate something “incidental” of the One. It is to
predicate something “incidental” of us. That is: we have something from the One [something caused]
whereas the One is in itself. So, we should speak more precisely and not call the One “that” or say that the
One “is.” We are, so to speak, running around in circles outside the One. We are perplexed by it and want
to explain our own experiences of it, which are sometimes near it and sometimes falling away from it.

ENNEAD VI, TRACTATE 9

CHAPTERS 8-11

edited, Thomas Sheehan

Chapter 8, end
[VI 9: 8]

[last lines of VI 9: 8]

Otherness and the lack of otherness. Bodies are hindered from communing with each other by their very
corporeality, but incorporeal things are not kept apart by bodies, and they are not separated by being in
different places. They are separated only because they are other than each other, different from each other.
So where there is no otherness, things are present to each other. The One has no otherness and therefore is
always present. And when we have no otherness about us, we are present to it.

As a Greek chorus circles around the conductor… The One does not desire us and does not want to circle
around us. Rather, it is we who desire the One, and we who circle around it. We are always circling around
it, but we don’t always look at it. It’s like a [Greek] chorus singing and dancing in a circle. They chorus
members are constantly circling around the conductor, but sometimes the dancers turn away from him, so
that he is out of their sight. But when they turn back to him, they sing beautifully, they are truly with him.

. . . so we circle around the One. Likewise, so we are always around the One. If we weren’t, we would no
longer exist but would dissolve into nothing. But we are not always turned to the One. But when we do
look to him, we are, at that moment, at our goal: we achieve stasis and rest. We don’t sing out of tune but
truly dance our god-inspired dance around him.

5
αὐτὸ καθ᾿ αὑτὸ μονοειδές: Symposium 211B1.
 28
Chapter 9
[VI 9: 9]

In this dance the soul sees the spring whence issues life, the spring that pours out into Mind, the spring that
is the source of reality, the cause of all good, and the very root of the soul.

The One is undiminished. As they are poured out of the One, Mind and soul do not lessen the One. As
poured out from him, they do not diminish him, because there is nothing quantitative here. And they aren’t
perishable – they are eternal because their source remains ever the same. It remains whole rather than being
divided up into them, just as the light keeps shining as long as the sun is still there.

The Good eternally gives of itself. Even when the body intrudes and draws us to itself, we are not cut off
from the One or separated from it, because the One does not give its gifts and then go away. As long as it is
what it is, it is always pouring out its gifts. We exist more fully when we turn to him, because our well-
being is there with him. To be far from him is to exist less. When it is there, the soul takes its rest and is
beyond all evil. It has hastened upwards to the place that is clear of evils.

At the level of Mind. And there [i.e., in and with the Mind] the soul “minds” and is not passive. Its true life
is there; our present life, the life without God, is a mere trace of life, it is an imitation of that life. But life
in the Mind is the [pure] activity of minding. The Mind, in quiet contact with the One, generates gods,
beauty, righteousness, and virtue, which in turn are what the soul conceptualizes when it is filled with God.

This [Mind?] is the soul’s beginning, because the soul comes from there, and the soul’s end because it is
the good for the soul. When the soul gets there, it becomes itself, becomes what it always was. What we
have here and now among the things of this world is all fallenness and exile. The soul has “shed its
wings”[cf. Plato, Phaedrus 248C8].

Desire for God. The soul’s desire makes it clear that the Good is there. (That’s why, in pictures and stories,
Eros is coupled with souls, the Psyches.) Although the soul is other than God, it comes from God, and
therefore, its desire is for God. When it is there, it has heavenly love, but here love becomes vulgar. When
it is there, the soul is the heavenly Aphrodite; when it is here, it becomes the vulgar Aphrodite, a kind of
whore [cf. Symposium180D-E]. Every soul is Aphrodite, as is symbolized in the story of the Aphrodite’s
birthday, which is also the birthday of Eros, who was born with her [cf. Symposium 203B].

An analogy. The soul in her natural state is in love with God and wants to be united with him. It is like the
noble love that a young girl has for her noble father. But when the soul is bereft of her father and has
entered into the world of becoming, she gets deceived by the blandish-ments of her suitors and changes her
love to a mortal love and is shamed. But eventually she comes to hate her shames here below, and purifies
herself of the things of this world and sets herself on the way to her father and fares well.

Earthly love. And if you are unfamiliar with this experience, think of it in terms of our loves here below
and what it’s like to actually attain what you most desire. These earthly loves are mortal and harmful. This
is a love for mere images, which change because they are not what we really and truly love. These images
are not our real good, they are not what we seek.

True love. Our true love is there with God, with whom we can be united. We can have a part in him and
truly possess him rather than embracing something in the flesh from outside. But [as the initiates in mystery
rites say], “whoever has seen, knows what I am saying.” The soul gets another life and draws near to God
and has already come near and has a part in him. It is in a condition to know that the giver of true life is
present and we need nothing more.
 29
Exhortation. We must put away all other things and take our stand only in this. We must become only this,
this alonge, cutting away all the other things in which we are encased. We must be impatient at being
bound to the other things. We must be eager to go out from here so that we may embrace him with our
whole self. We must have no part in whatever does not touch God. There you can see both him and yourself
in the way that one should see. There you can see the self glorified, full of intelligible light—it itself
becomes pure light—weightless, floating free, having become God—or better: being God—set on fire. But
if you get weighed down again, the fire is extinguished.

Chapter 10
[VI 9: 10]

The body and rational thinking hinder the vision. Then why don’t we always remain there? It’s because
we have not yet completely escaped from this world. But there will be a time when the vision will be
continuous, since there will no longer be any hindrance by the body. That part of our soul that has seen God
will not be hindered by the body, but only the other part of our soul. The part that sees God remains at rest
in that vision, whereas the rest of the soul busies itself with empirical knowledge with its proofs and
evidence and discursive arguments. But the [mystical] vision and what it sees are not a matter of reasoning
– they are greater than reason, prior to reasoning, prior to and above it.

Mystical union. When you see yourself in that [superior] vision, you will see yourself as like unto what you
see. Or better: you will see yourself as merged with yourself and with what you see. You will see yourself
as like unto God, for you have become single and simple [haploun]. Or maybe I shouldn’t say “you will see”
but instead “you will have been seen.” But that is still to speak of “two” things here, the seer and the seen.
More boldly we would say: the two are one.

Coinciding. As the one who sees, you do not “see something,” you do not distinguish seer and seen as if
they were two. Rather, it’s as if you had become someone else and aren’t yourself, you are not you with
your own place, belonging to yourself but rather belong to him, coinciding, center to center. Down here,
when two centers have come together, they are one and not two centers as when they were separate.

The difficulty of expressing this. We do speak of God as “something other, but that is because it’s hard to
put the vision into words. How could you call him “the other” when in the vision you did not see “an other”
but were one with yourself?

Chapter 11
[VI 9: 11]

Divulge nothing. In the mystery religions the rule is: “Divulge nothing to the uninitiated.” The divine is not
to be divulged. These religions prohibit anyone from speaking about the divine to someone who hasn’t had
the good fortune to have the vision.

No duality. Rather, the visionary was one with what was seen. In fact, what was seen wasn’t “seen” but
rather united to the visionary. If you recall who you were when you were united with what you “saw,”
you’ll retain an image of that in yourself. You yourself were one, with no distinction between you and
yourself or between you and other things. When you made the ascent, you experienced no movement, no
emotion, no desire for anything else. There was no reasoning, no minding [noēsis]—in fact, if we may say
this, you yourself were not there. It was as if you were carried away or possessed by a god, in quiet solitude
and a state of calm, not being distracted at all in your being, not busy about yourself, but entirely in respose,
having become a kind of rest. You did not think of beautiful things because you had already gone beyond
beauty and gone beyond the choir of virtues.
 30
The inner sanctum. You were like someone who leaves behind the statues in the outer shrine and enters
ithe inner sanctum. In the inner sanctum you will see no statues or images but only the Divine itself.
Having had your vision and communed not with statues or images but with the divine, the first thing you’ll
see when you come out of the inner sanctum will be those statues—at best, secondary objects of
contemplation.

Ex-stasis. Perhaps the experience you had in the inner sanctum was not a “vision” but another kind of
seeing, an ex-stasis, being outside of yourself: becoming utterly simple [haplōsis], giving yourself over to,
pressing on to an act of touching [pros haphēn], to perfect rest, to meditation and adaptation. Only in this
way can you see what is there in the inner sanctum. If you try to see in different way, what you will find
present in the inner sanctum is—nothing.

Images and riddles. But this is only an image, a set of riddles that wise men use when speaking of holy
things and of how God is seen. A wise priest, if he understands the riddle, may make the contemplation real
by entering the inner sanctum.

An invisible sanctuary. But someone he may never have been in such a sanctuary. He may hold that the
real inner sanctum is an invisible source and origin. Nonetheless he will come to know that the origin is
seen only by way of the origin and that like is united with like. He will experience all the divine elements
that the soul can have even before the vision. From the vision he will demand whatever still remains, and
what remains for the person who has gone beyond everything is that which comes before everything.

From relative non-being to union with the One. The soul is of such a nature that it does not go towards
whatever is not. Yes, if it falls down far enough, it will arrive at evil (which is relative non-being) but never
at absolute non-being. When it soul goes in the opposite direction, it finally arrives not at something other
than itself; rather, it arrives at its own self. But when in itself alone (rather than in something that has being)
it is in the One. There the visionary is not something real, something that is. It is beyond being and “is.” It
is identical to the One

On to the end of the journey. When this happens, you will have yourself as like unto the One; then if you
go beyond yourself, from image to archetype, you have reached “the end of the journey If then one sees
that oneself has become this, one has oneself as a likeness of that, and if one goes on from oneself, as image
to original, one has reached “the end of the journey” [Republic 532E3].

Fallen and reawakening. When you fall from the vision, you can reawaken the virtue within yourself and
meditating on the order that is within you, again be lightened so that you pass through virtue to Mind or
Wisdom, and then pass through Wisdom to the Good.

*
This is the life of gods and of godlike and blessed people. It is liberation from these other things here below.
This life takes no pleasure in the things of this world.

This life is the flight of the alone to the Alone.

***