Assimilation to god as self-knowledge in Ennead 1.2

By Sumi Sivaratnam

in

Dirk Baltzly, Douglas Blyth and Harold Tarrant, eds.,

Power and Pleasure, Virtues and Vices

(Prudentia, Supplement 2001, ISBN: 0-9582211-5-4), pp. 321-338

This online version is essentially identical that published in Prudentia;
page numbers from printed text have been inserted at start of each page in red brackets [##].

[321] Plotinus� tractate on virtue, Ennead (hereafter Enn.) 1.2, begins with a quotation from Plato�s Theaetetus (176a-b).�

Since it is here that evils are, and �they must necessarily haunt this region,� and the soul wants to escape from evils, we must escape from here. What then, is this escape?� �Being made like god,� Plato says. And we become godlike �if we become righteous and holy with the help of wisdom� and are altogether in virtue.� (1,1-6)[1]

What exactly did the phrase �likeness to god� (omoiwsiz qew) mean for Plotinus?� The answer to this question would hopefully provide us with an insight into the way Plotinus viewed the relationship between self or soul and the One.� Did the phrase homoi�sis the�i, for Plotinus, refer merely to the similarity of the self to god, or the absolute identity with god?

John Rist (Plotinus, 218), who argues for the case of similarity, draws attention to the fact that this question had arisen in Greek thought since the time of pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism due to the ambiguity in the word homoios. Citing Guthrie (History of Greek Philosophy, I.230), he writes, �the word for �same� (omoioz) also means �similar�.� Is it possible that Plotinus slid from thinking of �similarity to god� to �identity to god�?�� Rist further inquires, �is the One to be like the soul or identical and interchangeable with the soul?�� But the question posed in this way is a misleading one.� Implicit in this question lies the assumption that both the [322] One and soul are objectifiable and quantifiable entities.� Such an assumption would be consummately opposed to the Plotinian concept of the One.� The One is inconceivable, formless, boundless and beyond all characteristics.� Hence in a state that cannot be defined by any property, by what criteria may we say that the soul is similar or dissimilar to the One?� Secondly if homoi�sis is a process of becoming similar, then, when taken to its logical conclusion it should result in two things becoming indistinguishable except in number. However when applied to the First principle, it is difficult to see how we could have another principle perfectly similar to the first.� This would create the absurdity of two First principles.� Moreover, it is also highly unlikely that Plotinus could have carelessly �slid� from thinking of similarity to god to identity with god.� As we soon shall see, he explicitly states that there are two kinds of likeness (2,4-5) and proceeds to expound with some clarity of thought as to which sort of likeness holds in the case of homoi�sis the�i.� The word homoi�sis itself simply means �a being made like�.[2]�� We shall here attempt to discover what Plotinus means by this likeness.

Before we proceed further it might be of benefit to take a brief tour of Plotinus� notion of the self in order that we can put this tractate within the context of the self.� In Enn. 6.4, a tractate on the omnipresence of being, Plotinus asks,�

�But we�who are we? Are we that which draws near and comes to be in time?� No, even before this coming to be came to be we were there� pure souls and intellect united with the whole of reality; we were parts of the intelligible, not marked off or cut off but belonging to the whole; and we are not cut off even now.� But now another man, wishing to exist... he wound himself around us and attached himself to that man who was then each one of us... and we have come to be the pair of them, not the one we were before - and sometimes just the other one which we added on afterwards, when that prior one is inactive and in another way not present.� (14.17-32)

[323] Again in Enn. 2.3.9.31 he� writes, �For every man is double, one of him is the sort of composite being (o men to sunamjoteron ti) and one of him is himself (ho de autos).�� The �self� for Plotinus, is a binary entity.� Plotinus� dualism, interestingly, lies not in his distinction between body and soul but more on his distinction between the composite or the psyche-somatic entity, and the true self.� He distinguishes in man an abiding nature which is identical to the higher realities, and a lower embodied soul, which he refers to as the �other� man or the body-soul composite (to sunamphoteron).� This �other� man is the part of the soul which is involved in time and matter, and is the subject of experience.� In terms of modern psychology we may perhaps call it the �ego� or the �I-consciousness�.� The higher abiding soul is the underlying awareness which is beyond distinction of subject and object.� It is impassible and remains as a silent witness, aware but unaffected.� It is this pure unified awareness that Plotinus considers the essential self or the �one which is himself� (ho autos).

We must note that what we generally consider to be the subjective self, the personal �I� of experience, is for Plotinus no more than an objectified self which assumes the role of a pseudo subject.� This object-self is like a reflection in the unified consciousness of the pure-subject self which is totally undifferentiated.� It is this object-self which stands in opposition� to the external world and considers itself a separate subject, while in fact, it is no more than a� passing ripple in the still ocean of pure consciousness.� As S.R.L. Clark (�How Many Selves?�, 232) writes, �What makes my self is no other than what makes yours, and the difference between us lies at the level of what that attends on, or how it is�as it were�refracted.�� In other words, we are not selves possessing consciousness but are selves in Consciousness (Enn. 4.3.9.40 , 5.5.9.31), in perhaps much the same way the different characters and entities in a dream are all the products and creations of the consciousness of the one dreamer.� Yet within the space-time of the dream each dream entity has a seemingly autonomous existence. Both the composite and the ideal self, however, are not totally disparate or discontinuous, in the way a dream and the dreamer are not completely separable. The duality is only apparent as the essential unity [324] cannot be dichotomized. The pure subject self is still the basis or source of the object self.� For instance in Enn. 5.1.10.13 where Plotinus explains how we find Soul, Intellect, and the One within ourselves, he writes, �and the human soul is perfect when it has intellect; and intellect is of two kinds, the one which reasons and the one which makes it possible to reason.�� Again in Enn. 5.1.11.1-11,

there must be some further permanent rightness from which arises the discursive reasoning in the realm of soul. Or how else would it manage to reason?� And if soul sometimes reasons about the right and good and sometimes does not, there must be in us Intellect which does not reason discursively but always possesses the right, and there must be also the principle and cause and God of Intellect.� He is not divided, but abides, and as he does not abide in place he is contemplated in many beings, in each and every one of those capable of receiving him as another self.

The higher Intellect is the very basis of the discursive intellect of soul.� They are not separable, and are both states of the same consciousness; one at rest, the other in movement. Any distinction between the two is only a semantic or notional one. The progress through each rarefied level of consciousness brings us closer to the primordial consciousness.

In relation to this Plotinus develops a theory of what the true center of consciousness, the �we� (hmeiz), ought to be.� Is the self confined to the psyche-somatic entity, or does it extend beyond this?� Thus by asking �who are we?� Plotinus is in fact initiating a journey of self-knowledge, a journey which he, in Enn. 1.2, so aptly labels homoi�sis the�i, since the true self is for him synonymous with the Divinity.� The whole aim of the exercise of virtue is to expand the perspective of the h�meis beyond its limited time bound consciousness to that which underlies it.

Having set the stage let us return to the present tractate.� Now, the first thing that strikes us is the obvious omission by Plotinus of the phrase kata to dunaton from the original Platonic phrase of the Theaetetus.� Dillon (�Plotinus�, 98) makes a point that Plotinus could either be tacitly disregarding the Platonic qualification or more probably be interpreting this as Eudorus of Alexandria had done before him, as meaning �in virtue of that element in us which is capable of this�.� I shall not undertake a discussion of the original Platonic phrase here, but it would be reasonable [325] to say that for Plato we must strive to be god �so far as it is possible�.� In the Theaetetus (176b-c) homoi�sis the�i is presented as a moral goal, with god constituting the absolute moral standard to which human justice must aspire.[3]� For Plotinus, however, homoi�sis the�i, as we shall later see, is more of an awakening of the soul to its true identity, to the knowledge of that which it always was, but of which it was unaware. (4.21-29)�

A question that arises now is whether the likeness extends all the way to the One, or are we to be barred entry beyond the level of Nous?� There is, admittedly, a certain amount of ambiguity in the present tractate as to whether the god we are to be made like to is Nous or One.� However, reading this tractate in conjunction with the following passage in Enn. 6.9.11 which concerns the union of the soul with the One, we may reasonably assume that the god we must seek likeness, or assimilate ourselves, to is no less than the One itself.� He writes, �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.� (Enn. 6.9.11.43-46).� And in Enn. 1.2.6 he goes so far as to assert, �For he himself (sc. the sage) is the god who came Thence, and his own real nature, if he becomes what he was when he came, is There.� (6.8-10).� In addition we must also not fail to bear in mind the central theme of Plotinus� philosophy, that of epistroph�, or the return to the source. The One is the source of all things and the regress of the soul would logically culminate in the First Principle.� Hence if homoi�sis the�i is the process of an inner transformation of consciousness from image to original, we will not be far wrong if we read the�i in Plotinus� use of the Platonic quote as ultimately referring to the One.

Plotinus now, as if anticipating the debate on our minds as to who or what the referent of god is in this sense, promptly asks (1.6-8) �If then it is virtue which makes us like, it presumably makes us like a being possessing virtue. Then what god would that be?�

[326] The inquiry takes him into a discussion of the virtues.� If virtue is the characteristic of likeness then should the Being we are likened to possess these virtues?� In pursuing his enquiry Plotinus uses the Aristotelian notion that the gods themselves cannot be said to possess moral virtue (Nicomachean Ethics 10.8) and that there are two kinds of virtue, but he develops the idea, as we shall see, in a radically different manner. He distinguishes the two kinds of virtues as the lower or civic virtues and the higher virtues, which he calls purificatory virtues.

The lower or civic virtues that he mentions are essentially identical with those of Bk 4 of the Republic. They represent the best in traditional social values, and are appropriate to the composite soul (to sunamphoteron) in that they bring restraint to the irrational soul at work in the body.� It is the measure and structure imposed on physical passions and activities. Vice and civic virtue, we might say, are two sides of the same coin of bodily life�the life of the composite. They differ in that body dominates a life of vice, but soul dominates a life of civic virtue.� At Enn.� 1.2.1.17) he defines the four cardinal civic virtues as follows: practical wisdom (phronesis) is competence in discursive reasoning; bravery (andreia) curbs aggressive impulses; self-control (sophrosyne) balances desire and reason; justice (dikaiosyne) is proper distribution of authority and obedience.

But, surely, the civic virtues cannot be said to make us godlike. At this level, as Einstein is held to have said, �There is nothing divine about morality; it is a purely human affair.� It would be impossible to ascribe these qualities to the godlike; temperance, for example, is a quality possessed by men who are not wholly free of the body they have learnt to control. But more importantly, we must remember that Plotinus� gods, Nous and One, are non-spatial, partless, and everywhere whole (Enn. 1.4.9).� Being so, they are certainly not in need of virtue since they have nothing external to fear nor desire (Enn. 1.2.1.11-14).� We are not, then, made godlike by the civic virtues, though, he says, we may grant it to a lesser degree since tradition calls these men godlike.

Chapter 2 of Enn. 1.2 begins with an emphatic assertion that there are two kinds of likeness (epishmehnamenoi wz h omoiwsiz ditth, 2.4-5). [327] This crucial distinction sets the stage for the discussion of the kathartic virtues in ch. 3.� The two kinds of likeness stand in relation to the two kinds of virtues.

The first kind of likeness is reciprocal likeness. This, Plotinus says �applies to things that derive their likeness equally from the same principle.� (2.5-7).�� It is the likeness of one particular to another of the same ontological order.� Likeness of this kind may be applied in the comparison of two or more things in relation to certain qualities or characteristics. Two constitutionally virtuous people, for example, may have similar traits of kindness or generosity. This is a likeness based on similarity.� Civic virtue is thus virtue by imitation. It is not intrinsic to the soul, and is the kind of virtue that holds in the relationship between binary parts.� It is definable with reference to external relationships. Kindness for example is meaningful only in relation to its counterpart, cruelty.

The second kind of likeness, is non-reciprocal likeness. It is the likeness of a thing to a paradigm (paradeigma) or model.� He writes:

�But in the case of two things of which one is like the other, but the other is primary, not reciprocally related to the thing in its likeness and not said to be like it, likeness must be understood in a different sense; we must not require the same form in both, but rather a different one, since likeness has come about in a different way.� (2.7-10)

He does not spell out how this likeness is procured, but in the beginning of the next chapter he indicates that a discussion of the higher virtues would further clarify our understanding of what this likeness is.� We shall follow this trail later in the discussion of the kathartic virtues.�

For now let us see what he means by saying that likeness has come about in a different way.� It is apparent that this is not a likeness based on the principles of similarity since we do not require the same form in both.� As he claims in chapter one, that which soul participates in is distinct from its source (1.41-43).� That is, the matter in which soul participates in is different from the higher realities.� Homoi�sis in this sense is obtained by the assimilation of an entity into its prior principle.� For instance, we might say that this sort of likeness would hold between a dormant seed and the potential tree which flourishes into multiplicity [328] according to the formative power or DNA of the seed.� Though, it would be wrong to say �between� for there would be nothing in-between in likeness of this sort.� This is not the likeness of two trees, but the identity of the tree to its prior principle.� Likewise, homoi�sis with regard to the higher virtues entails an assimilation of the part of soul engaged in matter to its prior principles of Intellect and the One.� We are not, looking for two similar things but self-identity or self-knowledge.

In ch. 3 Plotinus proceeds to consider how the kathartic virtues confer likeness, and what is meant when we call them purifications.� With reference to the earlier Theaetetus passage he quotes Plato as speaking of this �likeness� as a �flight to God� from existence here below (3.5-6).� The kathartic virtues are not so much concerned with the ordering of the composite self, as are the civic virtues, but are rather the practice of detaching or awakening ourselves from it altogether. He writes,

Since soul is evil when it is thoroughly mixed with the body and shares its experiences and has all the same experiences, it will be good and possess virtue when it no longer has the same opinions but acts alone� One would not be wrong in calling this state of the soul likeness to God, in which its activity is intellectual, and it is free in this way from bodily affections. (3.12-21)

For Plotinus the evil of the soul is its submission to the body, or more precisely, its identification with the composite self.� Hence, �the escape�, we must note, is not a fleeing from the external world of multiplicity, but from the very part of us which is the author of difference and multiplicity.� But that is not to say that the sage merely turns a blind eye to his �lower� self while immersed in contemplation. Homoi�sis involves a metamorphosis of his very being.� The soul practises homoi�sis the�i not by ignoring its inferior state but by awakening from it.� In Enn. 3.6.5.13 for instance, Plotinus describes katharsis as a kind of awakening:

it is as if someone who wanted to take away the mental pictures seen in dreams were to bring the soul to wakefulness... But if there is a turning in the other direction, to the things above, away from those below, it is surely (is it not?) purification, and separation too, when it is the act of a soul which is no longer in body as if it belonged to it, and is being like a light [329] which is not in turbid obscurity. And yet even the light which is in obscurity remains unaffected.�

In the next chapter, he continues:

for it is the part of the soul that is in the body that sleeps; but the true wakening is a true getting up from the body, not with the body. Getting up with the body is only getting out of one sleep into another, like getting out of one bed into another. (Enn. 3.6.6.70-74)

But one might hasten to ask, what could purification of the soul consist of, if it had not been stained at all?� If the light of the pure soul remains unaffected even while in turbid obscurity, what could purification be?� The �other� man or the composite self is not a substantial entity but an addition �we� have concocted, like a resonance in the stillness of� pure awareness,� and with which we have come to identify as the self (hemeis).� It is this restless element that purification is concerned with and not the true soul, the nature of which is impassible.� Though Plotinus speaks in terms of a dual self and �separation� there are no two separate and distinct entities.� He seems to conceive the composite much like a dream in the still consciousness of the pure and impassible self.� Through the effort of virtue we have to awaken from this dreamlike nature.� We might say homoi�sis the�i is the shifting of the perspective of the hemeis from the dream to the dreamer (see also Enn. 5.5.11.19-23).

Thus katharsis is neither an external renunciation of the world, nor even mere moral sanctity.� Nor is it a rejection of the world.[4]� It is rather an inner detachment, a detachment of the heart from the things here, which results in the simplicity of the soul. The logic of Plotinus� methodology is apparent. He writes of the One: �For we say what it is not, but we do not say what it is.� (Enn. 5.3.14.7). The One is the First principle which is [330] utterly simple and beyond all characteristics.� It is the model or paradigm, which is free of names and bare of forms. Consequently, the methodology of the soul to the One, or what Heidegger calls �the way one moves along the path�,[5] is the way of negation or detachment (katharsis).� Accordingly, the process of katharsis consists in an inner detachment from all earthly concerns�our loves and passions, fears and desires, grief and hope, etc.� In other words, we must detach ourselves from all creative activity that contributes to the individualization of the �other� man who stands apart from the whole of reality as an entity in time. We have become �other� than the One by the additions which necessarily create difference, and the identification with which we have come to define ourselves as individuals in the realm of space and time.� Otherness is that which separates us from the One: �... if you take away otherness, it (the soul) will become one and keep silent.�� Hence, the soul finds itself as the pure consciousness of the undifferentiated subject-self by excluding all that it has put on in its descent to otherness in the process of individuation [Enn. 6.7.30.35ff].� �But, surely then, I would cease to be!� one might exclaim.� This, precisely, is the goal of katharsis.

This effacement of the object-self prompts the question as to what the nature of action would be, ethical or otherwise, if we remove the agency of the self as we know it.� Indeed, would there be action at all?� But it must be urged that katharsis is not to be construed as inactivity nor does Plotinus advocate a total cessation of so called moral activity.� Rather, it is the renouncing of egocentric activity that is required of us.� In the renouncing of egocentric activity, the I-composite ceases to be energized, as it were.� As a result, the soul, now unhindered by its inferior companion, becomes a free agent (monh energoi) (3.12-15).� The cardinal virtues are now redefined in terms of the kathartic virtues: phronesis or wisdom consists in the soul no longer sharing in the body�s opinions but acting alone; s�phrosun� or temperance consists in the soul not sharing in the body�s [331] experiences; andreia or courage is defined as not being afraid of parting from the body; dikaiosun� or justice is defined as being ruled by reason and intellect without opposition from the irrational side (3.15-20).� And for a man so advanced there is only right action.� As he writes in ch. 6, �There is no sin in anything of this sort for a man, but only right action.� (6.1-2).� But Plotinus is uncompromising.� In chapter 6, to which we shall soon return, he announces that �our concern is not to be free of sin, but to be god.� (6.2).� For him the object of virtue lies not in action, even right ones, but in the transformation of our very state of being. The purificatory virtues are merely instrumental in effecting the transformation. Right action follows as a natural consequence of this transformation.� Herein lies the most striking feature of Plotinus� ethics. For him true moral activity does not draw its credentials from the adherence to a set of rules or precepts. So long as we undertake to awaken ourselves to the higher realms of our own being, right action follows in its wake.

In ch. 4 Plotinus describes this transformation of being as a� �conversion� (epistroph�) of the soul.� But here we are immediately struck with an aporia.� In the first instance, he defines conversion as the perfected or completed process of purification wherein the soul is established in the Good and retains fellowship with it.� He writes,

�So its (sc. souls) good will be fellowship with that which is akin to it, and its evil fellowship with its opposites.� Then it must attain to this fellowship after being purified; and it will do so by a conversion. Does it then turn itself after the purification? Rather, after the purification it is already turned.� (4.14)

But then he follows with something oddly confusing.� Virtue, he says, is the result of the conversion: �Is this, then its (sc. soul�s) virtue?� It is rather that which results for it from the conversion.� (4.18).� If conversion is perfection in the kathartic virtues, how does virtue result from the conversion?� I suspect the virtue that Plotinus is referring to here is a third level of virtue which he takes up in ch. 6.� The kathartic virtues are not ends in themselves but are mere instrumental virtues driving the process of conversion. The completed process of purification leads to the emergence of a new identity, one in which Intellect is the active or dominant element.� This virtue, which [332] is the result of the conversion is described as an illumination or activation of the higher realities in soul (4.21-24).� The higher realities were ever present to soul, but soul was not conscious of them in its unpurified state.

It had them, but not active, lying apart and unilluminated; if they are to be illuminated and it is to know that they are present in it, it must thrust towards that which gives it light� intellect is not alien (allotrioz) and is particularly not alien when soul looks towards it; otherwise it is alien even when present.� (4,25-27).�

Thus, we are able to view the whole process of homoi�sis as a maturing from a condition of having to becoming and finally to being.

It would seem that until conversion occurs the soul still has the shadow of the �other� man tagging along, as it were, occasionally begging for recognition, but upon conversion it is completely turned towards the light or established with the Good.� In the start of ch. 6 he writes,

If then, there is still any element of involuntary impulse of this sort, a man in this state will be a god or spirit (daimon) who is double, or rather, who has with him someone else who possesses a different kind of virtue: if there is nothing, he will be simply god and one of those who follow the First. (6.3-8).�

Dillon (�Plotinus�, 99) interprets the above passage as Plotinus distinguishing two stages of the sage�s existence:

The sage�s object is to become a god, but this can only be fully achieved after he has freed himself from the body and the lower soul; so, only after death.� Meanwhile, he is at best a god linked to a daemon (6.4), a double entity, and it is as such that he possesses the higher level of virtue.�

Dillon attributes to Plotinus a position that depends upon a somewhat literal reading of the Phaedo, whereby the philosopher�s �death� aims at actual death rather than at the death of the lower functions of the soul.� I rather think that the entire aim of the purificatory virtues is for Plotinus to separate ourselves from the body here and now, in an internal sense of detachment rather than the simpler option of death.� Nowhere in the tractate does Plotinus say that homoi�sis the�i is only obtainable upon death.� Plotinus, more likely, has the Timaeus (90a-b) in mind here. With reference to the rational soul the Timaeus passage reads: [333]

Concerning the most authoritative kind of soul found in us, we must have the following thought. god has given to each of us a daimon�this thing which we say dwells in the topmost part of our body and raises us up from the earth towards what is akin to us in heaven.[6]�

The daimon is the rational soul in us which leads us to self-mastery.� I presume that what Plotinus has in mind is this: upon conversion the intellective soul, or the soul illumined by Intellect, is no longer in need of the daimonic principle.� As it would be appropriate to leave the raft behind once we have reached the shore, the rational soul becomes redundant upon the activation of the Intellective soul.� Soul has now direct access to the intuitive reason of Intellect.

Plotinus has thus far only defined two kinds of virtue�the civic and kathartic virtues. At the end of ch. 6 he defines a third grade of virtue alluded to in ch. 4, which is natural to the soul upon conversion.� Phron�sis now consists in the contemplation of that which intellect contains; dikaiosun� is now soul�s activity towards Intellect; s�phrosun� is its inward turning to Intellect; andreia is its freedom from affections, since that which it looks to now is of a nature that is free from affections.� We notice that while the civic virtues balanced the needs of body and soul, and the purificatory virtues suggested a quality of non-interference from the body, the definition of the virtues are now wholly intellective.� Virtue is now the expression of Intellect in soul.� In so far as we call it virtue, it is however still the state of the soul and not of Intellect or the One (3.32-33).� Plotinus defines this virtue as soul�s contemplation of its essential nature, the unity of Intellect.� As an activity, it is the �disposition of unity unto itself, a unity in which there are no different parts� (6.20).� It is the identity of self (h�meis) with the dimensions of our being which transcends both vice and virtue, but the expression of this identity in soul, which lives in the realm of space and time, is called virtue.� True virtue is the expression of Intellect as the conscious element of self. [334]

The three levels of virtue could be said to correspond to the states mentioned above of having, becoming, and being respectively.� That is, the soul exclusively identified with the body and possessing the higher realities merely in a state of dormancy, the process of purifying the soul of the dross which shields the light of Intellect, and finally the conversion wherein soul is identified with or illumined by Intellect.�

Chapter 7 allows us to return to the question raised earlier about the implications on ethical activity by the effacement of the irrational soul.� How does the soul�s illumination by Intellect, or its identity with it translate into actual ethical practice?� In ch. 7 Plotinus� writes, �Whoever has the greater virtues must necessarily have the lesser ones potentially, but it is not necessary for the possessor of the lesser virtues to have the greater ones.� (7.11). This much is clear: the sage transcended to Intellect is also capable of the civic virtues which impose measure and limit on the mundane composite self, but the exemplar citizen of society need not necessarily have access to divine Intellect.� The question now is, does the person who has the higher virtues also have the lower ones in actuality?� The conclusion seems to be that the lower virtues are irrelevant and redundant for the sage.� He writes,

But when he reaches the higher principles and different measures he will act according to these. For instance he will not make self-control consist in that former observance of measure and� limit, but will altogether separate himself from his lower nature and will not live the life of the good man which civic virtue requires. He will leave that behind and choose another, the life of the gods: for it is to them, not to good men that we are made like. (7.22-28)

This is hardly surprising, and certainly even expected.� In having cultivated and perfected the kathartic virtues, and in having undergone a conversion and established the soul in fellowship with the good, we might logically expect any ethical system that polices the composite to become necessarily redundant, since, not only does the conversion entail an awakening from the composite self, but also, as we have already encountered, a person so accomplished is only capable of right action.� It no longer requires the [335] imposition of measure and limit.� The true self remains untouched by vice and hence has no need of the opposing virtue either.

I turn to a discussion initiated by Dillon, in relation to whether the sage has the lower virtues in actuality. He writes,

One feels of Plotinus that he would have gladly helped an old lady across the road�but he might very well fail to notice her at all. And that if she were squashed by a passing wagon, he would remain quite unmoved.[7]

� Julia Annas (Platonic Ethics, 69)� responds with the following:

It might be urged that this is an unsympathetic response. Perhaps what is meant is something like this: the person with both the higher and civic virtues will be alive to and perform, the actions that civic virtue requires, but will not regard this as being his real life; his real life in which he strives to become like god and achieve intellectual grasp of the world of Being, is lived on a different level, which accompanies the so-called life consisting of the activity of the civic virtues.

It is difficult to see why the sage would fail to notice the old lady.� The sage is after all �more awake� than the average person.�� And we might readily recall that the soul conjoined with Intellect and which has as its director the pure intuition of Intellect, has only one path�that of right action (6.1-2). The wise man does not deliberate the right course of action with the discursive intellect of soul nor from the spontaneity of habituation but acts from the unhindered intuition of Intellect which is only capable of right action.[8] [336] ��

For Plotinus, what we commonly understand as an important factor of freedom, the ability to decide between choices, is in fact an inferior condition.� It is an imperfect state of the soul when the �we� (h�meis) lacks complete knowledge and is motivated not by pure intuitive reason but by fears, desires, and external factors impinging on the irrational soul.� For us who do not yet have this vision, the concept of rightness here would perhaps be a difficult one to grapple with.� It is a �rightness� that cannot be judged from the limited and particular point of view of the composite self nor from reasons immediately present.� Thus in the event that he fails to rescue her albeit having noticed her, the argument may be offered, that from this perspective the sage may possibly not consider the old woman�s predicament to be an evil occurrence even if a lamentable one.� For instance, in the tractate on Providence, Plotinus writes:� �One must not take weeping and lamenting as evidence of the presence of evils, for children, too, weep and wail over things that are not evil.� (Enn. 3.2.15.60-62)� What the composite is likely to consider evil from the point of view of its preservation might differ from the so called �point of view of the universe�.� In any case, we can rest assured that the sage would act appropriately in relation to the ultimate benefit of that particular body-soul composite.

I agree with Dillon on the point that the sage might remain unmoved were the aged lady to meet her demise.� But before any charge of cold callousness is laid against the sage, we must add that his seeming lack of sentimentality, may not be due so much to his dispassion, disinterest or even detachment, but could more possibly be due to his �awakened� vision of the world.� For him, both tragedy and celebration are just written events in the grand play of life (Enn. 3.2.15).� Like those of us who do not weep when our favourite characters are written off the screen, the sage probably acts from the knowledge that all the world is a stage and the life of the composite is but a play: �� all human concerns are children�s games, and tell us that deaths are nothing terrible� (Enn. 3.2.15.35).� And though Plotinus does not advocate suicide (see Enn. 1.9.1), death is for him no great calamity.� Each person has a destined allotted time on earth (Enn. 1.9.16-18) and death is just the exit of the actor from the stage of existence. He writes [337]

if then death is a changing of a body, like changing of clothes on a stage, or, for some of us, a putting off of body, like in the theatre the final exit, in that performance, of an actor who will on a later occasion come in again to play, what would there be that is terrible in a change of this kind. (Enn. 3.2.15.23)

Annas� response, sympathetic as it may be, seems somewhat inconsistent.� It is doubtful that the sage would need to lead a hypocritical double life of virtue. As the passage (7.22-28) quoted above clearly states, the sage leaves behind his former �observance of measure and limit�, which civic virtue requires, and lives not the life of men, but the life of gods.� Besides, if phron�sis at the third level of virtue is the direct intuitive knowing of Intellect, what need would he have for competence in discursive reasoning with regard to virtue of the civic kind?� And if sophrosun� of the kathartic virtues consists in not sharing in the body�s experience does he still need to observe a balance of desire and reason?� We may safely assume that the fact that the sage leads the life of the gods need not be pernicious to the well being of his fellow men.

Permit me then to conclude that Plotinus� homoi�sis the�i is not just a mystical doctrine but also a moral one, since true virtue is born along with likeness to the god.� And if we should ask again, what is true virtue for the sage?� True virtue lies not in noble acts of charity which require occasion, nor in good intentions which so often have disastrous results.� It lies not in acts sanctioned by earthly courts nor in those favoured by friends or smiled upon by the society of the times. It lies instead in the contemplation of Divine Mind, from which proceed actions which are ever right.� It lies in the contemplation of That which occasions no injustice, since There, this self and that self are no different from any other self. In this it resembles the �true virtue� of Plato�s Symposium (212a) rather than the virtue of any other Platonic text; for true virtue had there been the direct result of the contemplation of true beauty, a beauty that belongs to some higher world to which we have access only through contemplation.

� And what of likeness as a mystical doctrine? What is this likeness, we struggle to say, for it is one that is ill-defined by words, except perhaps to say that we (h�meis) have become the abiding Self.� We have gone on from �image to original�.� It is not the likeness of similarity which is gained by [338] the acquiring of characteristics but one earned by the erasing of them. �But we hasten to remind, that this is not an annihilation that leads to a vacuous gloom but one that leads to a joyous fullness of being.� It is like the identification of a single musical note with the full symphony of a composition.�

What then should we make of any argument that lays claim that the soul is similar and something like the One?� Surely one would agree that it is clear that the notion of similarity when applied to the One is meaningless.� The pristine soul, by shedding the burden of the time-bound self, becomes itself simple, becomes itself the One.� And we grow to likeness of that simple God by �letting all things go�, all things that we add to make me, I, and to make you, you.� Katharsis is the deconstruction of the self as we know it.� The following passage on how we may truly possess the One, captures the essence of katharsis:

... we must put away other things and take our stand only in this, and become this alone, cutting away all the other things is which we are encased. (Enn. 6.9.9.50-53)��

While it may be that for Plato we must strive for likeness to God �so far as it is possible� for Plotinus the only barriers to complete likeness to God are those posed by ourselves.� We must rid ourselves of the tendency to define ourselves in terms of the known, since what we are, cannot be known except by negation.� All identifications with body, feeling, thoughts, ideas, possessions etc are misleading for we take ourselves to be what we are not.� What are we then?� It is enough for us to know what we are not.

 

Sumi Sivaratnam

University of Newcastle, NSW

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