Plotinus on Categories (original) (raw)
Related papers
Plotinus on the Reality of the Category of Relation
Quaestiones Disputate
After some general remarks on Plotinus’s Platonizing criticism of Aristotle’s Categories, and specifically the category of relation, I will show how his Platonic treatment of the category of relation leads him to a definition of reality that excludes several otherwise plausible non-Platonic notions of a real relation.
Plotinus on the Articulation of Being
1989
§ 1 In tr o d u c tio n Ennead vi.2, the second book of the treatise On the Genera o f Being (vi.1-3 [42-44]) presents itself as Plotinus' official account of the structure of the second Hypostasis, i.e. Intellect (voO?) or Being, what corresponds in his metaphysical universe to Plato's realm of Ideas or Form st For in vi.l, the first book of the treatise, Plotinus criticizes and rejects all competing conceptions of the nature of being, as answers to what he takes to be the central question of ontology, i.e. Plato's question at Sophist 242c, 'what are the number and kinds of beings?'.^ He devotes detailed criticisms to the Peripatetic view (i.e. the ten categories of Aristotle) and that of the Stoics (the so-called Stoic 'categories'), because they are the only theories of the nature of Being besides Plato's that see it as consisting in a number of genera or kinds, which he argues is the only coherent way to conceive of Being (vi.l.l,l-14).3 Having refuted the Peripatetic and Stoic theories in vi.l, he turns in the opening lines of vi.2 to developing his own view of Being, which he intends to be in agreement with Plato's (vi.2.1.1-5; cf. vi.3.1,1-2 where he claims to have successfully completed this task). Indeed, the account of the 'genera of Being' that he gives in vi.2 is closely modelled on Plato's discussion of the so-called 'greatest kinds' or megista genê in the Sophist (248e-259b). Now Plotinus considers the correct ontological position to be not only that there are a number of different genera of Being, but that these are at the same time principles (άρχαΐ) of Being/* This is a clear reference to one of the homs of the sixth aporta of Metaphysics B (995b27-29, 998a20-bl4): are the elements and principles of Being to be taken to be genera or to be primary (material) constituents? Plotinus' favored alternative, that they are genera, corresponds to the position attributed by Aristotle to the Platonists (cf. e.g. Metaphysics Δ3 ad fin.), and this helps explain Plotinus' emphasis on its agreement with Plato. (These connections provide a good example of the meaning of Porphyry's remark that the 1 Vi. 1-3 is the Plotinian treatise known to Longinus (apud Porphyry, Vita 19.26) as On Being (Περί του ö v to s):
Plotinus could not foresee that almost two thousand years later we would still find it difficult to endure his “paradox of thought” (III. 8 [30] 1.8) and that we could not help considering his doctrine of contemplation, as stated by Émile Bréhier’s famous words, “un des paradoxes les plus violents qu’ait jamais produit la philosophie.” Indeed, the idea that contemplation – an “activity”, so to speak, or rather a state, traditionally understood as a placid vision and the highest goal of human being – is also productive and spreads throughout the entire reality, being somehow present even in plants and in our silliest actions (III. 8 [30] 1), is a very strange thing to say. However, it is not only the thesis of a productive contemplation that is a strong paradox: the treatise itself that contains such a doctrine is perhaps as paradoxical as the doctrine it contains. For while the treatise is usually regarded as one of Plotinus’ most characteristic works, the doctrine and the language we find in it seem to be unique in the Plotinian corpus. If the doctrine of productive contemplation seems at first sight to occur only in this treatise, this fact would not necessarily be a problem. Plotinus was not obliged to write down all his doctrines in all his treatises, nor needed he write everything he might have said in his oral lectures. Therefore, we need not see such a thesis as a radically new doctrine, or as an evidence of evolution in Plotinus’ thought – supposing that this doctrine actually occurs only in III. 8 [30]. But if the apparent novelty of the thesis need not be faced as a problem, the fact that Plotinus employs the theōría-vocabulary – and by this I mean the substantives theōría and theṓrēma, and the verb theōreîn – with an accurate and technical sense that is different from any other treatise of the Enneads remains very intriguing. Of course, one can find singular, isolated theses and statements in the Enneads, but all of them are normally expressed in the more or less recurrent and habitual Plotinian language. However, this seems not to be case of the theōría-vocabulary in III. 8 [30]. Thus, in this paper I will do the following: i) I will briefly assess the content of treatise III. 8 [30], picking up its main claims; ii) I will try to show that almost all of Plotinus’ theses in III. 8 [30] can be found outside this treatise too, though expressed in his more conventional language; iii) I will argue that the theōría-vocabulary is not normally employed by Plotinus, outside III. 8 [30], in the same way he uses it in this treatise, that is, to express the same type of contemplation we find in III. 8 [30]; iv) I will suggest that the polished and careful prose of III. 8 [30] insinuates that the treatise was meant to be read by or to a wide audience; and v) I will suggest that the treatise Against the Gnostics (II. 9 [33]) may give us a clue to the reason why Plotinus chose the theōría-vocabulary in III. 8 [30].