PLOTINUS Ennead VI.4 & VI.5

On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole

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• Publisher: Parmenides Publishing
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781930972148
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Ennead VI.4-5, originally written as a single treatise, contains Plotinus' most general and sustained exposition of the relationship between the intelligible and the sensible realms, addressing and coalescing two central issues in Platonism: the nature of the soul-body relationship and the nature of participation. Its main question is, How can soul animate bodies without sharing their extension? The treatise seems to have had considerable impact: it is much reflected in Porphyry's important work, Sententiae, and the doctrine of reception according to the capacity of the recipient, for which this treatise is the main source, resonated in medieval thinkers.

Commentary on
Ennead VI.4

Title

On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole

Porphyry, Plotinus’ ancient editor, provided the titles of his treatises that they still bear. In this case the title is inspired by Plato’s Parmenides 131b1–2 and 144c8–d1. In some respects the title can be said to indicate the content of the treatise accurately but it may mislead in that it does not mention soul, which is the main topic of the treatise.

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Chapter 1

This chapter introduces the main question of VI.4–5: How is soul related to extension?

1, 1–13 Is the reason … has no size: Plotinus begins this first chapter by raising questions concerning the relation between soul and extension that are going to occupy him for much of the remainder of the treatise. He takes it as given that the soul as such is incorporeal and unextended. It is equally given that the soul is everywhere in the body it ensouls. This constitutes a problem: how can something in itself unextended reach over a body, even the enormous body of the universe, as the World-Soul does? He has briefly discussed such issues in earlier treatises, IV.2 [4] 1 and IV.1 [21]¹² but apparently felt that a more thorough treatment was needed. In 1–8 he presents two alternatives for how the soul can be said to be everywhere: (1) it is because body is of such and such size and it is the nature of the soul to be divided along with the body; (2) it is because the soul is everywhere prior to the body.

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In the background of the question is the statement in Timaeus 36d2 that the World-Soul extends throughout the sensible universe and the statement in the account of the genesis of the World-Soul in Timaeus 35a2–3 that the soul is “divisible about bodies.” This is a passage Plotinus very frequently refers to and seeks to interpret in such a way that it doesn’t claim the soul to be essentially divisible into spatially distinct parts. On Plotinus’ reading of Timaeus 35a see Schwyzer (1935) and Morelli (2011).

Plotinus may intend “coextended” in 14 to be equivalent to “divisible about bodies” in 2–3, in which case we would see the first question addressed in 13–17. The second question gives rise to further questions. To say that the soul is everywhere prior to the body of the universe seems to attribute size to it: it must be at least as extended as the universe if it is there prior to the universe (8–10). Furthermore, how could anything be present in the space of the universe prior to the universe (10–11)? These questions seem to presuppose that extension came to be at some point in time, a view Plotinus does not endorse (cf. II.1.1; Wilberding [2006, 41ff.]). As will become clear in the next chapter, Plotinus does not accept the presuppositions of these questions. It is, however, not the presumed temporal beginning that he will question but rather the meaningfulness of ascribing to anything intelligible terms such as “everywhere” and “in” in the sense in which such terms apply to bodies. Finally, he asks how something said to be partless and unextended can be everywhere (11–13). That the soul is indivisible and unextended is, with certain qualifications, something Plotinus consistently holds. As Tornau (ad loc.) suggests, “said to be” indicates that Plotinus has a Platonic passage in mind, presumably here Timaeus 35a.

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1, 13–17 But should it … acquires size accidentally: Here Plotinus considers as a possible solution that the soul, though not a body itself, nevertheless is extended along with the body and thus has size accidentally. That the soul is accidentally extended is a view Nemesius attributes to Numenius and to Plotinus’ teacher Ammonius Saccas (On the Nature of Man 18.15–22 = Numenius, fr. 4b). Plotinus claims that this does not dispel the problem, we need to know how the soul is accidentally extended. This leads him to the comparison that follows in 17–29 between soul and forms (eidē) in matter or qualities such as colors and sweetness, which is supposed to show that the qualities are coextensive with the body they qualify and may be said to have size accidentally. He concludes that the case of the soul is quite different from that of the qualities. He does admit later (4.3, 19–20) that in a sense the soul can be said to be accidentally extended (“runs accidentally along with the body” is the expression there) but that sense is different from the sense in which qualities are accidentally extended.

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1, 17–24 For soul is … same in number: Here Plotinus develops the distinction between the way qualities (forms in matter), on the one hand, and soul, on the other, are related to bodies. In the case of the white, for example, the same form is clearly present in many bodily parts: this part is white, so is that other one. However, the white in a body has no independent existence and is just something of the body (20–21); hence, it partakes in its extension and, for instance, the white in one part of the body is a numerically different item from the white in another part (21–23; cf. IV.2.1, 33–40). The soul, by contrast, is numerically the same in the different parts. This distinction is of great importance in the treatise. Plotinus will repeat, almost ad nauseam, that the soul, despite its embodiment, does not come to belong to the body or share in its dispersion into different parts.

It emerges from the account here that there is a certain order of ontological levels: souls, forms in matter (qualities of bodies), mere bodies. This is an order from greater to less unity. We see this same hierarchy more systematically and explicitly laid out in IV.2.1. There Plotinus defines mere bodies as “… things which are primarily divisible and by their very nature liable to dispersion: these are the things no part of which is the same as either another part or the whole, and the part of which must necessarily be less than the whole. These are the perceptible sizes and masses, which each have their own place, and it is not possible for the same one to be in several places at once” (IV.2.1, 11–17). These “primarily divisible things” are shortly afterward in the same chapter identified with bodies (IV.2.1, 33). This understanding of the nature of bodies underlies these lines in 4.1 and in fact our treatise as a whole. In addition, we have in our treatise the notion of pure matter, which is even more “many” than the bodies (see 5.8 and Introduction).

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1, 24–29 Whereas in the … is present everywhere: That the very same soul is present in different parts of the body it animates is evident from facts about sense perception. In the earlier treatises IV.2 [4] 2 and IV.7 [2] 6–7 he argues for this in quite some detail both with respect to the external senses and the internal sense of pain. He clearly believes that the evident fact that one and the same subject can simultaneously be aware of, e.g., a pain in the finger and a pain in the toe shows the undivided presence of the same entity at different locations. In contemporary parlance this can be described as a view holding that the unity of consciousness is incompatible with materialism (the view that everything is a body or bodily qualities). For discussions of these passages, see Emilsson (1988) and (1991).

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1, 29–34 Plotinus announces a fresh start: if it can be seen that even prior to bodies the soul can reach the greatest possible extension, it will be easier to grasp how this happens also in bodies.

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Chapter 2

The true whole, which is the same, has being, is in nothing, is undivided, and everything that participates in it participates in it as a whole.

Despite the announcement of a fresh start on the same problems at the end of the previous chapter, in this chapter Plotinus seemingly turns to something entirely different: at least it is not obvious how what he does here is a new take on the previous problems. He asserts the existence of the real whole and its imitation, the sensible universe: since there is nothing prior to the real whole, the real whole is in nothing, whereas whatever is posterior to it, is in it. That Plotinus should change the topic abruptly and radically right after announcing a continuation at the end of Chapter 1 seems even less likely when we consider the fact that the division into chapters is Ficino’s from the 15th century and has no ancient authority. As is argued in the Introduction, the radical shift is only apparent: the true whole that Plotinus here introduces comprises soul, which is a true member of the intelligible realm. His strategy is to consider and establish the nature of the realm to which the soul belongs in order to infer from this what must hold for any soul: even if he has a number of things to say about this whole and the other members of it, it is soul that is his primary concern in this treatise. Thus, he is not radically changing the topic but rather discussing the soul obliquely as a member of the intelligible realm and together with other members of it.

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The term “the true whole” here certainly refers to what Plotinus often calls “the intelligible” or “(real) being.” It refers to that whole intelligible realm of which souls are also genuine members (see Introduction). That he so regards souls is evident throughout our treatise. One may wonder whether “the whole” even comprises the first principle, the One. Presumably it does not, because in the following discussion it is clear that the sphere Plotinus is talking about is somehow multiple and he also identifies it with being, which we know from elsewhere to be below the first principle. He does say, however, that this true whole is in nothing in the sense of depending on nothing. But if it does not comprise the One, one should think that it must depend on the One. If it does, how can it depend on nothing? We leave this question unanswered.

Plotinus’ choice of the word “whole” for the intelligible realm here may reflect the emphasis he puts in our treatise on the unity of this realm. It is a tightly knit web in which each item somehow presupposes or implies every other. This is why he finds an analogy with the sciences, their branches and theorems, so apt to describe the closely knit web of the intelligible: it is a system like that of an overarching science, containing branches and particular theorems, and constituting a system in which the very content of each “part” is determined by its place and relation to the others. A clear expression of this holistic view is to be found in Chapters 4, 6 and 7 of V.8, “On the intelligible beauty.” As to the science analogy see especially VI.2.20 and IV.9.5, 12ff., and also in this treatise 4.4, 44–45; 4.16, 32–36, as well as Tornau (1998), and Emilsson (2007, ch. IV, sec. 4).

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2, 1–6 There exists on … or in motion: Plotinus first asserts that the true whole is in nothing, whereas whatever is posterior to it is in it. The sense of “posterior” here is certainly not temporal but logical or ontological. To say that B is posterior to A normally indicates in Plotinus that B is derived from or depends on A. Thus, given the sense of “being in” as “depending on,” “resting in,” it is a mere truism to say that what is posterior to the true whole is in it.

2, 6–13 And if someone … what is meant: The views of place referred to in 7–9 are the Aristotelian and the Stoic views, respectively: Cf. Aristotle, Physics 4.2.209b1–2 and 4.212a5–6; Simplicius, In Aristotelis Physicorum libros commentaria, 571, 27–31 = SVF 2, 508. Plotinus explains that the way he uses the expression “being in” deviates from the (standard) sense of “being in a place”: “being in” is here used in the sense of “resting in” or “depending on.” For more on this understanding of “being in” and other points made in the present chapter, see O’Meara (1980).

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2, 13–22 This has been … be in being: The true whole is identical with being (to on). We see here the first occurrence in the treatise of the word “being” used to refer to an aspect of the intelligible realm. In this treatise “being” is usually used coextensively with the intelligible realm: all of it is being, which then has becoming, image, or non-being as contrast terms. The true whole is in nothing in the previously established sense of depending on nothing. Furthermore, the whole, being whole, in no way falls short of itself, i.e., it is in no way not whole, i.e., wherever it is, it is undivided as a whole (13–17). Whatever is in the whole, i.e., depends on the whole, participates in the whole, and, which is the same, in being. Hence, whatever participates in being, participates in it as a whole (17–25). On the notion of participation in our treatise see Strange (1992). “Non-being” in 21–22 does of course not refer to absolute non-existence but to something that is not being in the full unqualified sense in which the intelligible whole is being. So bodies and the sensible realm generally would count as non-being in this sense.

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2, 22–27 Hence it encounters … means in a unity: If the true whole is the same as being and if being “is not drawn apart from itself” (23–24), i.e., is an indivisible unity, clearly what is set into the whole is set into being as a whole. The following lines are difficult, especially 26–27, “for to be ‘everywhere’ is at this stage to be in a unity.” Plotinus has said (25–26) that there is nothing surprising about being bein...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction to the Series
• Abbreviations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction to the Treatise
• Note on the Text
• Synopsis
• Ennead VI.4
• Ennead VI.5
• Commentary
• Ennead VI.5
• Select Bibliography
• Index of Ancient Authors
• Index of Names and Subjects
• Back Cover