SOURCE: “Love,” in Form and Transformation: A Study in the Philosophy of Plotinus, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992, pp. 91-113.

[In the following excerpt, Schroeder investigates what Porphyry meant in describing Plotinus as being “present at once to himself and to others.”]

Porphyry describes Plotinus' relationship to his circle with these words: “He was present at once to himself and to others …”¹ Hadot remarks,² “On the subject of the philosopher's rapport with others, about his ‘presence to others’ of which Porphyry speaks, we find no theoretical information in the treatises of Plotinus.” In the present chapter, we shall see, on the contrary, that there is abundant evidence of a theoretical background, both metaphysical and ethical, for Porphyry's statement.

The presence portrayed in Porphyry's sentence is twofold: Plotinus is present both to himself and to others. What is presence to oneself? What is presence to others? What, if any, is the relationship between these two aspects of presence? We may begin with presence to oneself, as this relationship is ostensibly more difficult to explain than presence to others. Plotinus says little of human relationships as a subject of interest in itself. However, intersubjective relationships do appear as figures of speech. He uses such figurative language to discuss the psychology of the individual. Where Plato in the Phaedrus has the lover sculpting the soul of his beloved,³ such moral artistry is in Plotinus to be directed to one's own soul.⁴ The appropriate relationship between higher and lower aspects in the same soul is prescribed in terms of the association between a sage and his aspiring pupil,⁵ a master and his servant,⁶ parent and child.⁷

Presence to oneself may then be portrayed as the harmonious relationship between two aspects, one superior, the other inferior, in the same person. This relationship may be illustrated by reference to intersubjective relationships. However, there is a further dimension to presence to oneself that does not concern the relationship between higher and lower aspects in the same soul. It has rather to do with the superior aspect of the person as considered in itself, i.e., in abstraction from its relationship to the inferior aspect.

The range of human identity is not confined to the empirical world; the ego-consciousness of man may pose itself at any point on the full scale of identity that extends from the world of sense to the One.⁸ As man ascends the scale of human identity, his autonomy increases. He need not be courageous with respect to his fear of this lion, or self-controlled with respect to the temptation of that shrimp scampi. His courage is then founded in the very firmness of his unity, identity, and autarchy. His is the courage not to flee from his post in the intelligible world and depart into the otherness of the world of sense. As the Form is in unity and identity and not scattered among the particulars, so is his autarchy, unity, identity, and virtue as he identifies his self with the Form.

In 1.2 [19].6 Plotinus approaches this autarchy by distinguishing phases of human identity on this basis. The highest level is the noetic or intelligible. The lowest is the empirical or historical. Within the dynamic continuity that extends between these two extremes is a phase of identity, descended from the intelligible world and still partaking in it that may serve as a model to the empirical phase. The relation between this higher phase (descended, as Plotinus describes it, from the intelligible world) and the empirical phase is described as a relationship of master and servant. The higher phase is the master; the lower phase is the servant. Only the servant, however, is conscious of this relationship and the master is only master in relation to the servant, not per se.

Plotinus introduces the relationship of master and servant as a metaphor for the relationship between higher and lower aspects of human identity in the course of a discussion of the “imitation of God” in Plato's Theaetetus.⁹ In Plato this project is more modest in its ambition, as the imitation is qualified¹⁰ by the words “as far as possible.” As Plotinus sees the range of possible human identity extending as far as the One itself, he entertains the quest for the divinization of man:

Our concern, then, is not to be free of wrongdoing, but to be a god. If a man should be overwhelmed by an impulse contrary to his proper volition, then he would be both god and spirit, a being of double nature, or rather he would have with him … another person possessed of a different virtue—otherwise he would be a god only, although he would be among those gods who follow the First. For, on the one hand, he himself … is the one who came from yonder and his true nature, if it were to become such as it was at its descent, is There. On the other hand, that person with whom he lived together … in his descent here, that is the one whom he will render like himself … according to the ability of that other, so that, if it is possible, that other is free from the shocks of the world, or does not perform those acts that are not pleasing to his master. …

(1.2 [19].6.2-11)¹¹

Here the person is said to be himself … both in the intelligible world before his descent, and in the intelligible world after his descent and his act of dwelling together with another person, or other phase of the soul. We may well ask whether this identity has the same status before and after its descent? Obviously it does not, if it is possible for it to be in the intelligible by becoming such as it was before its descent. Plotinus is speaking of an identity which may be located either in the intelligible world or at some point in the soul which is superior to the grade occupied by the empirical phase. In its descent it is not to be confused with that empirical self. The status of this identity, here described as “master,” is more clearly revealed in its contrast with the phase with which it dwells together upon its descent. It is this phase, described implicitly as the servant, with which the higher identity lives together in its immanence, that is to be construed as the empirical self or historical conjoint.¹²

The principle that may properly be designated as “self” … is in this passage also described as “master.” … This sense of the pronoun is here complemented by another sense, αύτόs as “same.” The higher phase as master will render the lower phase as much like himself as possible (… lines 9-10). Obviously the master will not do anything or proceed outside himself in order to accomplish this transformation. The higher principle in the soul may simply, in its abiding, serve as model.¹³

In the rest of the chapter there is a comparison between virtue in the higher and lower ranges of human identity. Virtue at the level of Intellect is not virtue but is “the act of itself and what it is.” … In the empirical man it is a “virtue in another which is derived from above” (… lines 12-16). The distinction is between that which is “in itself” and that which is “in another.” The characteristic which inheres intrinsically in the master is appropriated in imitation as something borrowed in the servant. That which is contained enfolded in the master, residing in the master being just what he is, as an aspect of his very unity and identity, is explicated in the servant.¹⁴

Just as the pronoun αύτόs may, in the absence of a proper name, describe the master of a servant, so may it (again in the absence of a proper name) be used by pupils to describe their teacher or master.¹⁵ In 1.2 [19].5, Plotinus considers the purification of the soul. Just as the higher soul must be pure and free of passions, so must the lower soul:

The soul will be pure in all these ways and will want to make the irrational part, too, pure, so that this part may not be disturbed; or, if it is, not very much; its shocks will only be slight ones, easily allayed by the neighbourhood … of the soul: just as a man living next door to a sage … would profit by the sage's neighbourhood …, either by becoming like him or by regarding him with such respect as not to dare to do anything of which the good man would not approve. So there will be no conflict: the presence of reason will be enough; the worse part will so respect it that even this worse part itself will be upset if there is any movement at all, because it did not keep quiet in the presence of its master … and will rebuke its own weakness.

(1.2 [19].5.21-31)

Plotinus introduces the tractate, “On Virtues” (1.2 [19]), to which this passage belongs, by providing an exegesis of the passage in Plato's Theaetetus¹⁶ where it is counselled that our flight from the world should consist in the imitation of God.¹⁷ He begins the present chapter by asking after the extent of the soul's purification. When this is known, we may understand our identity … in terms of the god with whom we are to be identified.¹⁸ The word for identity here is a substantive. … Thus here, as in the ensuing chapter 1.2 [19].6 (which we examined above), the question of identity is raised with the example of the master. … Yet here, the master is seen, not in terms of proprietary dominion, but within the relationship between the sage and his aspiring pupil. Implicitly 1.2 [19].5 invokes the pronoun referring to master in the sense of sage even as 1.2 [19].6 explicitly invokes its sense as master over servant. In both senses the dominion or instruction is exercised with no advertent act on the part of the master or teacher, who needs only serve as model for the imitation by the servant or pupil.

The good pupil maintains silence … in the presence of the master,¹⁹ doubtless because the presence of the master proceeds from silence, the silence that belongs to abiding in the intelligible world.²⁰

Previous chapters of this study have shown how Plotinus responds to the introductory arguments of Plato's Parmenides. Plotinus' writings present us with the fruits of his deep consideration of these aporetic inquiries concerning the Platonic theory of Ideas or Forms. We can appreciate that Plotinus has thoroughly integrated his responses to their challenges in his thinking. We may further, in the passages under consideration (1.2 [19].5-6), see a reflection of the “mastership argument” in the Platonic Parmenides.²¹

In this passage from the Parmenides an aporetic consequence is derived from the assertion of the unity and identity of the Platonic Form. If each idea is “itself unto itself,” … then it cannot be “in us.” …²² Parmenides pursues the argument:

Therefore, whatever ideas are what they are in relation to each other, these have their essence unto themselves …, but not with reference to that which is in us …, either as copy-likenesses, or however you wish to dispose them, by participation in which we severally derive our names. Those that are in us that are homonymous with those Forms again are what they are in relation to each other, but not in relation to the Forms and all things so named are named from themselves and not from the Forms.

What do you mean? said Socrates.

It is thus, said Parmenides, if someone of us is the master … or servant of anyone, he is not the servant of the Form of Master or the master of the Form of Slave, but both these [relationships] are as of man to man. The Form of Mastership exists in relation to the Form of Slavery and in the same way the Form of Slavery exists in relation to the Form of Mastery, but that which is in us does not have its character with reference to them, nor do they [have their character with reference] to us, but, as I say, they exist entirely with reference to themselves and that which is in us in the same manner in self-reference.

(133c6-134a1)

Note that the Forms may not, to use Plotinian language, be defined with reference to externs. There is a sense in which, for Plotinus, this is acceptable. In 1.2 [19] Plotinus enters upon a discussion of Plato's Theaetetus 176b and of “imitation of God.” If we imitate God by our virtue, it may be asked whether this word has the same sense when applied to God and when applied to us. God may not have the civic virtues. How can He be self-controlled where there is no fleshly temptation, or courageous where there is nothing to fear?²³

Plotinus would not, however, agree with the premiss of the “mastership” argument, that particulars are what they are only in relationship to themselves. The relation of imitation is asymmetrical, so that, while the virtue of God exists unto itself, the externs reflect that divine virtue.²⁴

In the Phaedo²⁵ Plato describes civic virtue as a mere exchange of counterfeit coins. We exercise courage in one matter, or temperance in another, only to avoid this pain, or attain that pleasure. The good man will exchange all of this currency against the one true coin of the realm. For Plotinus²⁶ this means that value is not measured in terms of the horizontal relations that pertain in the empirical world. Rather, value is measured by vertical relations to the world of intelligible Form in its unity, identity, and integrity. The Form is the source of justification. The sage does not look for justification to outward success, but to his secure possession intelligible virtue, exchanging for this the vain imaginings of the world.

Plotinus gives us some notion (1.2 [19]. 6-7) of how virtue in the intelligible world could exist as something in its own right without reference to external practice. Courage consists in immateriality and abiding … pure unto itself. …²⁷ Here we may notice that “abiding” which is used in other contexts of the internal condition of a creative source, undisturbed by its external activity of creation. Virtue in the intelligible world is “the act of itself, what it really is.”²⁸ Reading this phrase in conjunction with the description of the virtue of courage as “abiding,” we see an expression of the intransitive activity of the intelligible world that achieves its external expression in transitive activity proceeding to the sensible world, as heat from a flame.²⁹

In the preface to the “mastership argument,”³⁰ Parmenides argues that if each Form exists unto itself …, then it cannot be in us. In the “mastership argument,”³¹ he says that the Forms exist in relation to themselves and not in relation to what is in us. Plotinus interprets these statements with reference to the unity and identity of the hypostasis of Intellect, which contains all Forms. Self-control does not just exist unto itself. It is the very principle of existing unto oneself. … Courage does not just exist unto itself. It is the very principle of remaining unto oneself. …³² Thus the Plotinian Form not only exists in relation to itself. It is the very principle of existing unto oneself without the need for external reference. …

Plotinus adapts his responses to the “mastership” argument, which deals with Forms and particulars, to questions of human identity. In the Parmenides, the Form of Master is not master in relation to human servants but in relation to the Form of Slave. Plotinus accepts the independence of this master from human servitude. He denies, however, that the phase of human identity that plays the role of master is in its own essence or in the intelligible world a master. The phase that plays the role of servant, however, is dependent upon the intelligible Master for its identity.

Porphyry, we recall,³³ described Plotinus as being present at once to himself and to others. We have now explored the sense of “presence to oneself” and have seen that it consists both in the harmonious relationship between higher and lower aspects in the same person and in the unmediated unity and identity of the superior aspect. Such radical unity and identity must be considered apart from the former kind of presence to oneself because it is of its very essence to be free from external presence or relationship. However, the two aspects of presence to oneself are related. The lower aspect of human identity may imitate and thus explicate in multiplicity the more radical unity and identity of the higher aspect. Yet the higher aspect abides what it is and is not affected or compromised by this act of imitation.

It remains to discuss what is meant by “presence to others” and whether such presence is dependent upon or derived from “presence to oneself.” We have seen how Plotinus uses the imagery of master and servant or master and pupil,³⁴ which we would otherwise take as an intersubjective relationship, to describe the phases of an individual human identity.

For Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics self-love is the model for friendship.³⁵ He asks aporetically whether, if this is so, a person ought to love himself or a friend more? True self-love may fulfill the conditions required for friendship, as it will consist in the disinterested embrace of virtue (as distinct from a merely selfish embrace of external goods or honours). Perhaps we do not really need friends for happiness, since a truly self-sufficient man, secure in his goodness, would not require them for his fulfillment.³⁶

Aristotle asks further whether the happy man needs friends at all?³⁷ For Aristotle the good and happy man indeed needs friends, e.g., for the exercise of beneficence,³⁸ justice, and temperance³⁹ and because of man's intrinsically social nature.⁴⁰ Since virtue is an activity and it is difficult to contemplate our own activity, we may contemplate that activity in the mirror of a friend's actions.⁴¹

For the purposes of understanding Plotinus, Aristotle's question whether self-love might not allow independence from friendship is more important than Aristotle's answers. Significantly Plotinus tends to internalize the language of relationship in his exploration of individual human identity, as in the example of master and servant, sage and disciple. For Aristotle the contemplative life possesses the greatest degree of autarchy since, unlike the pursuit of gain or the practice of justice, temperance, and courage, it can be practised alone and without reference to others (although even here company is preferable)⁴² We practise the contemplative life not qua human beings but in so far as we have something divine in us⁴³ Since for Plotinus all virtue proceeds from the contemplative life, intersubjective relationships are employed as figures to illustrate the inner life, as in the example of master and servant, sage and disciple. As we have seen, where Plato in the Phaedrus⁴⁴ has the lover sculpting the soul of his beloved, Plotinus has the lover sculpt his own soul.⁴⁵ May we nevertheless gain some knowledge of his attitude toward human relationships from these internalized examples, even though in these the relationship itself is not thematic?

To answer this question, we may again look to the Platonic foundations of Plotinus' position. In Plato's Symposium⁴⁶ the wise woman of Mantineia, after recounting the story of Poverty and Plenty, remarks: “None of the gods loves wisdom, nor does he desire to become wise—for he already is.” She continues that the utterly ignorant also do not love wisdom, because they are unaware of their lack. It is only those in between these two states who love. The statement implies that eros, as evaluative love, while it may be directed by men to divine wisdom, is not be felt by the gods toward man, who is not wise and accordingly is not worthy of divine love. Diotima's conclusion is prepared by the earlier conversation between Socrates and Agathon, in which Agathon agrees that eros is desire, not of what we have, but of what we lack.⁴⁷ Thus, in Platonic terms our love for the gods cannot be requited.

Plotinus advances the example of the sage and his neighbour in 1.2 [19].5 to illustrate the relation between two different levels of the same soul. While the phases of the soul are the theme of this passage, we may examine what it says obliquely about Plotinus on the subject of human relationships. The sage next door does not pay any attention to us, at least in our capacity as aspiring sages. His improving effect on us arises simply from his being and abiding in what he is. He summons us to virtue: simply by being what he is, he offers a compelling model for our imitation.

In 1.2 [19].6, as we have seen, the relation of master and servant is similarly used to illustrate the relation of higher and lower soul. If again we thematize the human relationship, we obtain a similar result, as the thought of that passage extends the reasoning of the first. The notion of neighbourhood is again invoked as the master exercises his improving effect as a model for imitation upon the servant with whom he has taken up his dwelling …⁴⁸ We need not suppose any advertent act on the part of the master that would contribute to the servant's improvement in virtue.

Let us examine these relationships, as human relationships, in Platonic terms. The sage has wisdom and goodness and the man next door does not. As the sage does possess these qualities, he will not love his next door neighbour who lacks them, or at least, he cannot love these qualities in his neighbour if they are not to be found in him. As we have seen, Aristotle also entertains the prospect of this kind of autarchy on the part of the sage.

However, we need not say that the sage's neighbour derives no benefit from his neighbourhood. He is summoned by the virtue of the sage to the tasks of imitation and improvement. The neighbour may himself become a sage. If this happens, he will not indeed desire or love, but will possess the qualities of the sage. Qua good and virtuous, he will be at one with the sage and will share in his identity as sage.

The disciple's advertence is met with indifference by the sage. If we examine the relationship in phenomenological terms, we see that the sage's indifference is the complement of the disciple's advertence. The disciple admires the sage, his wisdom and his goodness. Wisdom and goodness are among the intentional objects that engage the attention of the disciple. Perhaps such items of awareness as facial expression, taste in art, etc., belong to the manifold of what the disciple experiences and finds attractive. As the disciple through imitation becomes more like his master, his attention to the inessential dissolves. Wisdom and virtue will remain as the object of focal awareness. The sage himself, as the substrate or vehicle of these inessential qualities, together with his characteristics and tastes, is relegated to the margin of awareness.

In the previous chapter⁴⁹ we discussed a passage in which Plotinus compares the progress towards the One of the soul to the person who enters the house of a great man.⁵⁰ At first he admires the furnishings and appointments of the house. As he notices the master of the house, the visitor focuses his attention upon him as an object worthy of an admiration well prepared by the magnificence of the house. As his vision blends with its object, what was formerly an object of vision … becomes vision itself. … The master is not just another thing to look at. We have entered into his way of looking at things which both produced the elegance of the house and is explicated by it.

It is the servant or disciple for whom the relation of master and servant or sage and disciple is thematic. The master has his mind on many things that lie outside the master / servant relationship: his athletic prowess, his social engagements, his civic work, his political responsibilities, his artistic or philosophical interests. The servant is simply there, upon the margin of awareness, as a tool for certain tasks embraced in the larger scheme of his commitments. However the master may define his own identity, to the servant he is simply his master and master alone. He is the focus of all identity.

Returning from this intersubjective relationship to the individual, we see that the person who identifies himself contemplatively with the highest principle in himself is the master of his servile passions. Such a contemplative act may suspend engagement in the normal pursuit of political advantage together with its temptations to corruption. Paradoxically it is precisely this withdrawal from the common concerns of political life that best fits him for public office because it guarantees his integrity.⁵¹

In mitigation of Plotinus' account of mastership, it may be said that he appears to prefer the (for ancient man) more liberal theory that the master should rule by persuasion, rather than by force, and that this persuasion may be exercised by the rhetorical exemplum of his personality. Thus in a simile illustrating the relation between the reasonable and passionate elements in the soul, the appearance of the calm man … quiets the tumultuous crowd.⁵²

We may find the example of the sage and his disciple more amenable to our democratic tastes. It is the disciple or student for whom the relationship of sage and disciple or teacher and student is thematic. The teacher has his mind, not on pedagogy (unless he has had the misfortune to attend a college of education), but upon his subject. The student's attraction to a subject may well be mediated through the teacher's personality, the reputation of the university, and many other items of awareness. Years hence, the teacher may not even be remembered. Yet the student will possess the subject that was always for the teacher the intentum, e.g., an approach to Greek, or a way of understanding philosophy.

Often in our gaudy talk about relationships we confuse intensity with depth. An intense sexual relationship may leave little important residue behind it. Yet I might have had a teacher in elementary school, now long forgotten, who by her address to a subject and her very being gave me a priceless gift which outlived my memory of her person. In such a case, is the love of the student or disciple not requited? Is advertence on the part of the teacher a necessary requirement for love?

It is useful to consider the word that Porphyry uses when he says that Plotinus “was present” … at once to himself and to others.⁵³ The verb is suneinai. In the third chapter, we examined a semantic field or complex of vocabulary partly characterized by the occurrence of the prefix sun-, “with.” We remarked that the ontological terms sunousia and suneinai and their cognitive equivalents sunoran, sunaisthêsis, sunaisthanesthai, sunesis, and sunienai offer an elastic vocabulary for the description of presence and dependence in the Plotinian universe.⁵⁴ These words (more easily than other words of presence that suggest an asymmetrical relation, such as parousia) may describe both a descending moment (of presence) and an ascending moment (of dependence or recognition of dependence that serves as the point of departure for ascent). The prefix itself, the notion of “withness,” allows that elasticity.

The verb suneinai may describe, not only vertical presence or dependence, but presence to oneself. In the second chapter we discussed in some depth a text (5.4 [7].2) in which such presence to oneself is set forth.⁵⁵ There we saw that the presence of the One to itself is compared to the heat that is in the flame itself (as distinguished from the heat that is projected outward from the flame). The example of the flame and heat instantiates a general principle that, in the case of every essence, there are two acts, one inherent and intransitive, the other transitive and externally projected. The intransitive act of the One is described as “being with” the One. …⁵⁶

The presence of the One to itself is described at once in the language of eros and sunousia: “And he, that same self, is loveable and love and love of himself …, in that he is beautiful only from himself and in himself. For surely his keeping company with himself … could not be in any other way than if what keeps company and what it keeps company with were the one and the same” (6.8 [39].15.1-4). The phrase in Greek that describes the One's keeping company with itself … (6.8 [39].15.3) is the same as that which Porphyry uses⁵⁷ to depict Plotinus' presence to himself. …

In this passage, the themes of presence and of love are brought together in a manner that defies the logic of Diotima, in Plato's Symposium, for whom none of the gods can love.⁵⁸ If love is love for that which we do not have, how can the One, the supreme god, be said to have love (eros) even of himself? This Plotinian transformation of eros may be understood from the use that he makes of the vocabulary of sunousia. We have seen that sunousia describes the relations of presence and dependence between (to observe Platonic language) Form and particular in such a way that this relationship becomes one of dynamic continuity. It embraces an elastic inventory of presence and dependence that includes, not only the presence of the source to the product, or the product to the source, but the presence of the source to itself. The entire circuit of presence and dependence is completed.

Sunousia is also used to describe the relationship of love. The noun sunousia and the verb suneinai are employed by Plato to describe human relationships: friendship or association;⁵⁹ the society of teacher and pupil;⁶⁰ heterosexual intercourse;⁶¹ and homosexual love.⁶² It also describes the union of the soul with Beauty.⁶³

If we now construe sunousia not only as a term of metaphysics but also as a word properly belonging to the vocabulary of Platonic love, we shall see that our love for the One is also grounded in a radical withness within the One itself. Thus our love for the One does not depend upon our attempt to relate to the One, nor upon any attempt on the part of the One to relate to us. It is rather that, just as the One, simply by abiding in what it is, creates us, so it in that same abiding serves as the ground of all desire for itself.

Plotinus uses the word sunousia of human love⁶⁴ and also of love of the One (6.9 [9].9.44-45.): “There is the true object of eros, with whom we may be together (suneinai).” The word that Plotinus employs as the cognitive complement of sunousia, sunaisthêsis, is used by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics to describe sharing the feelings or sentiments of a friend.⁶⁵ Plotinus says that the One:

—is contemplated in many beings, in each and every one of those capable of receiving him as another self …, just as the centre of a circle exists by itself, but every one of the radii in the circle has its point in the centre and their lines bring their individuality to it. For it is with something of this sort in ourselves that we are in contact with god and are with him (sύνεsμεν) and depend upon him; and those of us who converge towards him are firmly established in him.

(5.1 [10].11.9-15)

With the words … “as another self”, Plotinus refers to Aristotle's notion⁶⁶ that the friend is “another self”. … The verb suneinai here describes how we are together with the One with the highest part of ourselves, just as the radius extends from the circumference of a circle to touch the centre. The verb here clearly expresses both ontic dependence and continuity, on the one hand, and friendship, on the other, i.e., both metaphysical and erotic senses. The word sunaisthêsis, which is used in Aristotle to express the sentiments of friendship, is not used in this passage but it certainly could have been. Perhaps the otherwise epistemological term sunaisthêsis bears the colour of love and friendship in Plotinus. It would then make an even more attractive complement to sunousia which carries this reference in addition to its ontological uses.

In 6.8 [39].15 the presence of the One to itself, as sunousia, and the notion that the One is love (eros) of itself are conjoined. In its metaphysical sense, sunousia may express the presence of the One to itself and its presence to its sequents. It may also express the dependence of the sequents upon the One. If we undertake an equation of the metaphysical and erotic senses of sunousia, it will make sense to say that if the One is present to itself, it may by that very fact be eros of itself. Such presence to self and love of self on the part of the One may be the foundation both of its presence to us and of its erotic relationship to us. It will also be the basis of our presence to and love of the One. Thus the circuit of eros is as self-connected and complete as is the circuit of presence and dependence.⁶⁷

The hypostasis of Intellect is described as a transitive activity proceeding from the intransitive activity internal to the One, just as heat proceeds externally while heat remains within and consubstantial with the flame.⁶⁸ On this reasoning, we should expect there to be in the One (with no compromise of its unity) some principle that would correspond to Intellect, just as in the flame there is an internal heat that corresponds to the heat that proceeds externally from it. The inclusion of such a principle within the One would belong to the One's presence to itself, to its sunousia.

There is indeed a sense in which Intellect is itself prefigured in the One. Thus Intellect bears witness to a sort of Intellect in the One that is not Intellect (… 6.8 [39].18.21-22). This statement is a bold assertion of the principle stated at 5.3. [49].15.31-32 that the One possesses its attributes in such a way that they are not discrete …, while in Intellect these same attributes are held in discrete form.⁶⁹ The Plotinian trinity of the One, Intellect, and Soul need not be regarded as the only expression of trinitarian thought in Plotinus. There are implicitly three moments in the relationship between the One and Intellect that form an important trinitarian relationship: the by now familiar moments of abiding, procession, and return. These moments also occur in the relationship between the Soul and Intellect.⁷⁰ Indeed this trinitarian relationship may is more important for the subsequent history of Christian trinitarian theology than the series of the three Plotinian hypostases, the One, Intellect, and Soul.⁷¹

Whether we look to the trinitarian series of the Plotinian hypostases or to the three moments in the relationship between the One and Intellect, we are in the presence of a subordinationist trinity. When we look to the prefiguration of Intellect in the One itself and the expression of that relationship in terms of the sunousia (withness as between flame and heat) internal to the One, may we not see a sort of trinity within the One itself? This trinity would consist of the One, the prefiguration of Intellect, and the relationship (sunousia) that exists between them.

Porphyry, we recall, described Plotinus' presence to himself and to others in terms of sunousia.⁷² We have already seen how, in the case of intersubjective relationships, presence to oneself could entail presence to others. In that discussion we were not specifically addressing the lexicography of sunousia. We should, however, expect that sunousia on the part of the One would express presence to others, as well as presence to himself. For the One is said to be with all things. …⁷³ As we have seen, sunousia as presence to oneself, presence to others, and dependence forms a complete circuit of dynamic continuity. Thus the presence of the One to others is an explication of its presence to itself, a co-presence that foreshadows Intellect as the second hypostasis. The horizontal sunousia or withness within the One must be the ultimate ground of our conversion toward and love of the One since it prefigures the whole drama of procession and conversion.

Projecting this interpretation onto our understanding of the Platonic Form in Plotinus, we remind ourselves that the Form is of intrinsic value, quite apart from its relation to us or to the world. We may now add that it contains its relationship to us and our relationship to it internally. It contains our iconic attributes in the manner appropriate to an original or pattern and also contains within itself the relationships of “withness” and love in all their dimensions, so that these may unfold in the moments of abiding, procession, and conversion. There could be no more radical elimination of the Demiurge considered as an external agent of creation from the thought of Plotinus.

It was shown earlier that the beloved need not exert any advertent attention to improve the lover. The sage need not do anything but abide in what he is to confer his priceless gift of wisdom on his admiring pupils and neighbours. The same principle holds a fortiori with respect to our love for the divine. The response, while real, contains no advertence.

Paradoxically, our love is requited, but our beloved need not be aware of its return. Is there then no awareness of the lover on the part of the beloved? Can we truly feel requited love in the shadow of such oblivion? Perhaps we are not utterly abandoned by the erotic sentience of our beloved. Some awareness of products on the part of the source is indicated by Plotinus. He says of natura artifex: “in its own rest and as it were, awareness of itself …, as in this awareness and consciousness … it saw the products which follow after it in a mode appropriate to it” (3.8 [30].4.18-20). Here the words sunaisthêsis and sunesis express a kind of awareness on the part of Nature and her sequents.

Sunaisthêsis is also used to describe consciousness of sequents on the part of the world soul⁷⁴ and awareness of sense impressions on the part of discursive reason.⁷⁵ Let us, however, speculate whether this could be extended beyond these instances. Let us suppose that sunaisthêsis, etc., form the necessary cognitive complement of sunousia. Then sunaisthêsis, etc., would provide the epistemological equivalent of the elastic ontological inventory furnished by sunousia. We have seen that presence (sunousia) to oneself does not exclude, but rather extends to presence (sunousia) to others. If we take sunaisthêsis and sunesis as cognitive aspects of sunousia,⁷⁶ then the cognitive aspect of presence to self would likewise entail an extension of this cognitive aspect of presence to others. This need not mean that a superior principle would be conscious of its sequents. The aspect of awareness that complements its sunousia, its presence to itself and others, could also be presence to itself and others, in some manner.

Would this make any sense? Schwyzer properly notices⁷⁷ the trance-like character of the awareness expressed in 3.8 [30].4. Let us project this kind of subliminal awareness onto the Plotinian model of the sage and his disciple. The intentum of the sage's consciousness is his virtue. If he is a teacher, then it is his subject. The sage is not oblivious of his disciples, but they are relegated to the margin of awareness. We saw in the fourth chapter that, by the same token, soul in its ascent may yet retain passive memories of this world. If awareness is understood in this way, then we might be seen—as it were obliquely—at the margin of divine consciousness, yet within the halo of awareness. Yet we must be careful in this and remember that Plotinus is unclear as to whether we may attribute sunaisthêsis as self-consciousness to the One.⁷⁸

The delicate question of advertence may be approached from a consideration of conversion in Plotinus. Aubin, in an extensive study of epistrophê or conversion (and the corresponding verb epistrephein), argues that in Plato and the ensuing extra-Christian tradition, including Plotinus, this word describes the turning of humanity toward God, but never describes divine advertence toward humanity.⁷⁹ By contrast, this word is employed in the Septuagint, the New Testament, and the Fathers as a word that may describe, as well as our address to God, God's turning toward ourselves. However, there is a use of the verb epistrephein describing how Beauty turns us toward itself, even if it does not turn toward us. In the first chapter of his earliest work, On Beauty, Plotinus asks, “What is it that stirs the gaze of the beholders and turns them toward itself … and compels them and causes them to rejoice in the vision?” (1.6 [1].1.17-19). It is that Beauty itself which crowns the ladder of love in Plato's Symposium.⁸⁰ Beauty, in its very abiding, summons us and turns us towards itself. Those who have properly approached the question of love in Plotinus have understood this subtle paradox.

By way of recapitulation, let us see how the present examination of love is grounded in those principles of interpretation that we have developed in previous chapters. We have seen that for Plotinus the Platonic Form is an intrinsically valuable object of intellective or spiritual vision, quite apart from its uses in ontological or epistemological explanation. As such it belongs rather to enjoyment than to use.

By extension, the particular is also to be enjoyed as it is in itself, free of entanglement in the web of providential relationships. The ox has horns, not for defence, but in order to be an ox. A true appreciation or enjoyment of the particular will exclude discursive comparison, on the scheme of representation, between the particular as image or copy and the Form as original or pattern.

Viewing the particular only from the horizon of its relationship to the Form precludes its enjoyment, just as seeing the Form only from the horizon of its relationship with the particular precludes true vision and enjoyment with respect to the Form. We can suspend our question about the relationship between the Form and the particular and open our reflection to the self-manifestation of the particular in its intrinsic value. Then we may truly enjoy the particular and in it find, in a deepening of that experience, a window through which we may both see and enjoy the Form that is its ground.

In the third chapter, we examined sunousia in the context of the presence of the intelligible world to us and our dependence upon it. We discovered that the “withness” expressed by that vocabulary functions in three distinct but closely related senses. It describes the presence of the source to us. Yet that presence is grounded in withness in the sense that expresses the unity and integrity of the source, even as the internal bond between the flame and heat is the ground of the outward projection of the heat from the flame. Similarly that withness that is located in the source itself is also the ground of our dependence upon, continuity with, and return to the source.

We also saw, in the third chapter, that the ontological withness of sunousia is complemented by an epistemological withness expressed by other words sharing the same prefix: sunoran, sunaisthêsis (and sunaisthanesthai) and sunesis (and sunienai). The light is “seen with” the things that it illumines, at first as an intentional object of marginal consciousness and then as an object of focal awareness to which we attend. As we deepen our awareness of light, we return from the externally directed withness of light projected outside the source (although always in dynamic continuity with it) to that withness or unity in which light and source of light are indistinguishable.

That all withness is grounded in the withness that is the unity and integrity of the source suggests that we shall not understand sunousia if we first approach it from the horizon of relationship. We must rather understand that sunousia is primarily located in the source itself and that that withness is the ground of our ability to stand in relationship to the source at all.

When we address the subject of love, we quite naturally wish to examine it as a relationship. For Plotinus love does indeed have much to do with withness. We have seen, however, that our presence to others is most deeply founded in our presence to ourselves. Further, the presence of the sage to himself is discovered to be a condition of dependence upon the One and the One's radical unity and identity turn out to be the perfect expression of presence to self. In identifying presence to self as the most fundamental source of our gifts to others, Plotinus avoids the mistake of confusing intensity with depth, a busy advertence with the contemplative gift of oneself. The final intentum of the sage's contemplation is the One, viewed in its intrinsic value and not sought for any purpose to do with its relationship to the world, either as explanation or as source of benefits to himself.

Yet the quest for the One is not an adventure undertaken by the individual alone. If Plotinus' presence to himself embraces a presence to others, then that presence need not be confined to exerting its influence on the individual. That presence can also be the foundation of community, a community founded not only in the dynamic presence of Plotinus but in the One itself. The meetings of Plotinus' circle are described by Porphyry as sunousiai.⁸¹ In the fourth chapter, we had occasion to describe the hermeneutical circle of intuition and speech as the ground of activity in Plotinus' seminar. Of the address to the One, Plotinus says: “We speak and write impelling towards it.”⁸² We may see in this dimension of sunousia that for Plotinus and his circle philosophy was a living tradition and way of life, the pursuit of the One, the transcendent object addressed now by speech and now by intuition, the ground of their being together.⁸³ As we have seen, that meeting of minds and spirits is grounded and foreshadowed in the intrinsic nature of the One itself, properly described as “loveable and love and love of himself in that he is beautiful only from himself and in himself. For surely his keeping company with himself could not be in any other way than if what keeps company and what it keeps company with were the one and the same.”⁸⁴

Notes

1. Vita Plotini 8.19.

2. Hadot, “Neoplatonist Spirituality,” 231.

3. 252d7.

4. 1.6 [1].9.13.

5. 1.2 [19].5.25-27.

6. 1.2 [19].6.1-11.

7. 1.4 [46].15.15-21.

8. Cf, Dodds, “Tradition and Personal Achievement,” 5 (in 1973 reprint, 135).

9. 176b1.

10. 176b2.

11. My translation; cf. 1.2 [19].1.

12. O'Daly, Plotinus' Philosophy of Self, 56, takes … (line 7) to refer to “the self, the identifiable, historical ‘Socrates’” and … (line 8) as “that principle of identity in the transcendent which corresponds to the man we know as ‘Socrates’ here on earth.” … See Schroeder, “Synousia, Synaisthêesis and Synesis,” 696 note 52.

13. 1.2 [19].6.17. …

14. Cf. Schroeder, “Synousia, Synaisthêsis and Synesis,” 697.

15. Aristophanes Clouds 218; Plato Protagoras 314d3.

16. 176a-b.

17. 1.2 [19].1.

18. 1.2. [19].5.1-2.

19. 1.2 [19].5.30.

20. For a fuller discussion of the internalization of virtue in 1.2 [19], cf. Plass, “Plotinus' Ethical Theory.”

21. 133c8-134a1.

22. 133c2-4.

23. 1.2 [19].1.

24. 1.2 [19].2 and 7.

25. 69a-b.

26. 1.4 [46].15.

27. 1.2 [19].7.5-6.

28. … 1.2 [19].6.15.

29. Cf. 4.5 [29].7 and pp. 25-32 above.

30. Parmenides 133c4.

31. Parmenides 133c9-10.

32. 1.2 [19].7.1-6.

33. See Vita Plotini 8.19 and p. 91 above.

34. 1.2 [19].5 and 6.

35. ix.4.1166a1-1166b29.

36. Nicomachean Ethics ix.8.1 168b28-1169b2.

37. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9. 1169b3-8.

38. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1 169b10-13.

39. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1 169b16-19.

40. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1 169b16-19.

41. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1 169b30-1170a4; 1170a13-b19.

42. Nicomachean Ethics x.1177a27-1177b1.

43. Nicomachean Ethics x.1177b26-31. On the sage's need for external goods in Aristotle and its place in the ancient concept of self, see Schroeder, “The Self in Ancient Religious Experience,” 352.

44. 252d7.

45. 1.6 [1].9.13.

46. 204a1-2.

47. 199e6-201a1.

48. 1.2 [19].6.9.

49. p. 84.

50. 6.7 [38].35.7-16.

51. 54. 4.4 [28].17; cf. also 5.9 [5].1; 2.9 [33].9; and Prini, Plotino e la genesi 36-39. Plotinus' preference for aristocratic regimes proceeds, at least in part, from his opposition to anarchic, egalitarian trends among contemporary Christian-Gnostics (2.9 [33].9).

52. 6.4 [22].15.23-32. We may compare Vergil Aeneid i.148-53 for the ruler who tames the tumultuous crowd by the force of his personality; Xenophon Oeconomicus xii.17-18 for the view that the good steward will inspire care in the servants only if he is careful himself.

53. Vita Plotini 8.19.

54. The reader is referred to Schroeder, “Synousia, Synaisthêsis and Synesis,” for a full account of this vocabulary. Where in that study the focus was upon questions of presence and dependence, with some consideration of the erotic significance of these words, the emphasis here is upon their erotic aspect.

55. pp. 28-32.

56. 5.4 [7].2.35.

57. Vita Plotini 8.19.

58. 204a1-2.

59. Protagoras 347e1; Symposium 176e2.

60. Gorgias 515b2: Politicus 285c8.

61. Symposium 206c6.

62. Symposium 211d6 and 8.

63. Symposium 212a2.

64. 1.6 [1].5.7; 6.7 [38].31.16.

65. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1170b10.

66. Nicomachean Ethics ix.9.1169b6-7; ix.9.1170b6-7.

67. Cf. Bussanich, “Plotinus on the Inner Life of the One,” 183: “Within the absolute itself must lie the prefiguration both of procession and return, which ultimately are mirror images of each other. The One must ‘move into its interior’ [the reference is to 6.8 [39].16.12-13] and ‘be in love with itself’ so that everything can come into existence and eventually return to the One.”

68. 5.4 [7].2.26-33.

69. Cf. Schroeder, “The Platonic Parmenides,” 68.

70. The One abides in the generation of Intellect which proceeds from itself (5.4 [7].2.19-22); the Intellect returns to its source in the One in an act of introspection (6.9. [9].2.35-36); the Soul likewise proceeds from Intellect while the Intellect abides what it is (5.2 [11].1.16-17); similarly, the Soul returns to Intellect (4.4 [28].2.25-27). We do not in Plotinus have the formal trinity … as in Proclus (cf. Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen, 118-64). Nevertheless, the essential elements of this triad are to be found in Plotinus, cf. Beierwaltes, Proklos, 160; 162; Beierwaltes, “Neoplatonica,” 132; Beierwaltes, Platonismus und Idealismus, 129-30.

71. For a thorough discussion of this topic see Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen and my review of this book, “Review of Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen.” The discussion of a Plotinian background for the doctrine of the trinity has principally been discussed with reference to the sources of trinitarian doctrine in Marius Victorinus. For a history of this discussion, see Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus, 1-30; the immediate source of Marius Victorinus is Porphyry's commentary on the Platonic Parmenides (cf. Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus; Beierwaltes, Identität und Differenz, 57-74).

72. Vita Plotini 8.19

73. 6.9 [9].7.29.

74. 3.4 [15].4.10-11, and Smith, “Unconsciousness and Quasiconsciousness,” 297-98.

75. 1.1 [53].9.20 and Smith “Unconsciousness and Quasiconsciousness,” 300 note 14.

76. Cf. pp. 51-52 above.

77. Schwyzer, “‘Bewusst’ und ‘Unbewusst,’” 371-72.

78. Cf. 5.3 [49].13.13 and 21; 5.4 [7].2.18 and Schroeder “Synousia, Synaisthêsis and synesis,” 691-92; Gurtler, Experience of Unity, 49-84 argues cogently that sunaisthêsis contains two meanings: (1) fusion of a multitude of sensations; (2) self-awareness. In those texts in which sunaisthêsis is specifically denied to the One, it is the first and not the second sense which is in question. The first sense would, of course, compromise the unity of the One.

79. Aubin, Problème de la “Conversion.”

80. Cf. 1.6 [1].1.20 and Plato Symposium 211c3; 1.6 [1].7.8-11 and Plato Symposium 211e1.

81. Vita Plotini 1.13,14; 3.46; 5.6; 13.1; 14.10, 21; 16.10. …

82. 6.9 [9].4.12-13.

83. On this communal aspect of Plotinus' school, see Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen, 110-13. For a study of the evidence of Porphyry's Life of Plotinus for the Plotinian community as a spiritual as well as a philosophical circle, see Goulet-Cazé, “L'Arrière-plan scolaire” 250; 254-57; 325-27; Hadot, “Neoplatonist Spirituality,” 230-33; Hadot “Neoplatonist Spirituality,” 232 remarks: “In fact, philosophizing, in a general way, in all the ancient schools is philosophizing together (symphilosopheuein) (Diogenes Laertius Lives 5.52; 10.18).” (The first of these reference to Diogenes Laertius should read “5.53”).

84. 6.8 [39].15.1.1-4.

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———“Synousia, Synaisthêsis and Synesis: Presence and Dependence in the Plotinian Philosophy of Consciousness.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, 2.36.1, edited by W. Haase, 677-99. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1987.

———Review of Werner Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur Neuplatonischen Philosophie und ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte. Frankfurt-am-Main: Klostermann, 1985. In Philosophisches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft 95.1 (1988): 195-98.

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