SOURCE: “The Human Person,” in Six Lectures on Plotinus and Gnosticism, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999, pp. 86-100.

[In the following essay, Sinnige examines Plotinus's conception of the nature of individuality.]

I.

The problem of being an autonomous person in one's own right is as old as Greek philosophy. In a text by Anaximander, given as a literal quotation by Simplicius (DK 12 B 1), being an individual is described as a rebellion against the Infinite. All things are generated from the Infinite, and, when they are dissolved, are taken up again into the Infinite. It is cosmic law which has ordered this. The generated beings pay penalty to each other for their injustice. The separate existence, maintained by individuals in the face of their divine origin, is seen as a transgression of cosmic laws.

The image and its cosmic landscape is recognizable in Plotinus' doctrine about the fate and condition of the human soul. In a different terminology his explanations reproduce the basic concepts of Anaximander's theory. The souls have separated themselves from the divine world when they descended and went creating. The cause of this was their audacity and self-affirmation (V 1 [10] 1, 1-5; VI 9 [9] 5, 29; II 9 [33] 11, 22). By alienating themselves from their origin they committed a transgression, and they must bear the penalty (IV 8 [6] 5, 16-27), but they are acquitted of guilt because cosmic law had ordered the descent for the benefit of the universe (ib., cf. I 1 [53] 12, 24-25). Plotinus' cosmic law is milder than Anaximander's.

For the human soul the essential pursuit in this world is to realize the return journey. A call comes to everyone to flee to the beloved homeland (I 6 [1] 8, 16; V 9 [5] 1, 21). The problem now arises as to how the journey is to be realized. Being dependent on sense-perception and being bound up with a material body, the soul is leading a life which is not her own. The foreign elements which get mixed up in her existence are being interiorized even to the degree of being indistinguishable from her own authentic nature (I 6 [1] 5, 38-58). She gets involved in alien desires and passions, and considers these forces as being of her own province. As a result of these additions she takes on another aspect. She has grown weaker, says Plotinus, not because something was taken away from her, but because of the presence of something not her own (I 8 [5] 14, 24). At our birth an alien element has been added to the soul (I 1 [53] 12, 20). This alien element is the organic body, over which she has to exercise a troublesome kind of providence. Even in this condition of being taken up into an alien existence, she is not completely a prisoner. In some of his earlier treatises (e.g. IV 8 [6] 3, 10-22), Plotinus comes near to representing the world-soul as a kind of soul-substance, diffused through the whole universe, more or less as the Presocratics saw it. The individual soul is a sister of this world-soul and stays in contact with the contemplation of the world-soul. Unfortunately, we are not aware of this higher contemplation, because all the knowing faculties of the soul have become dependent on sense-perception, occupied as they are by the outward activity in this world. But, says Plotinus, some part of the soul always stays back in the spiritual realm (III 4 [15] 3, 24; IV 8 [6] 4, 31 and 8, 3-7; IV 7 [2] 13, 1013).¹

There is an inverse relation between the soul's knowledge of her real self and the soul's consciousness of this knowledge. In V 8 [31] 11, 20-35 Plotinus compares the consciousness of our bodily state when we feel ill with our consciousness when in good health. When we are ill, we have a very acute perception of the blows our senses have to endure, and accordingly there is a heightened bodily awareness. When the suffering of the senses no longer dominates, we can have a more quiet and better knowledge of ourselves, because we are more in the presence of ourselves. The same comparison should be made between the soul in her embodied condition and the soul's real self. When occupied by the world outside her and dominated by the sense-impressions, the soul is highly conscious of her outward activity, but has little or no knowledge of her real self. The result may seem somewhat paradoxical: consciousness is bound up with sense-perception, whereas knowledge of the real self is an inward movement, away from the senses, and so away from consciousness. Self-knowledge in the higher sense cannot be identified with the self-consciousness that is provoked by the sense-perceptions. On the contrary, when knowledge of the self is reached, consciousness as provoked by the senses is left behind, because it is only a function of our presence in this world. Plotinus says (ib. 33-34) that, when our knowledge is on the spiritual level (the level of Intellect), we may have a feeling of not knowing, because we keep looking for the kind of awareness that goes with sense-impressions. Plotinus' argument is remarkable because it is in line with the experiences described in the literature of the mystics, and because it is founded on an analysis of the act of knowledge.

So the human soul has a divided existence. Part of the soul is always in the spiritual realm, emerging as it were from the inhabited world, part of her is occupied with the body and its functions. Hers is an ‘amphibious’ life, and the cause of this divided existence must be attributed to the body. This, however, is not the only reason why the soul in this world is only half herself. The soul has come down from the spiritual realms through her own decision. That gives rise to one of the most fundamental problems in the philosophy of Plotinus: should the soul be deemed guilty for having undertaken this downward journey, and is her embodied existence to be explained as a punishment, or was the soul driven by a noble creative impulse? The process, and accordingly the problem, is described in many places in the Enneads, on one occasion in the form of an inner experience of the philosopher (IV 8 [6] 1), in a passage which serves as introduction to the famous treatise on the downward journey of the soul. Plotinus here describes his return from what must be called an ecstasis, and how he is amazed at finding that his soul, while being what she appeared to be when in the spiritual realm, takes up abode in the body.² Another description; this time in dramatic form, is found at the beginning of V 1 [10].

The souls have left the region where they were with the universal soul, and have moved into a body as into a prison. The description is modelled on Plato's Timaeus and on the image of the charioteer in the Phaedrus, where the soul cannot maintain herself in the higher spheres and falls down, losing her wings. Between Plato and Plotinus there is, however, a fundamental difference in the use of the image. In the Phaedrus the ascent of the soul by means of philosophical contemplation is described. Those failing in their purpose are like the mythical Phaethon, crashing down with his chariot. In the Enneads the image serves to explain, not a failing ascent, but just the reverse, the descending creativity of the soul and the problem of her coming down from the higher regions in order to give life to a body. The descent implies a diminishing of status and happiness, and the description abounds in expressions stressing the humiliated condition of the soul. Some have a Gnostic flavour, such as: “being severed from the Whole” (IV 8 [6] 4, 13 and 18), reminiscent of the Gnostic pleroma, and: “her sin is twofold: going the downward journey, though being a god, and being given to evil-doing in this world”, reminiscent of the self-willed fall and creative activity of the Gnostic Sophia (IV 8 [6] 5, 16-27). This is the condition in which the soul, the human as well as the world-soul, finds herself when she descends from her heavenly life, driven by the impulse to create. Within the context of this situation the human person finds its place. How, then, is the human person to be defined?

Plotinus rather often raises this question, and always in the form: “what are we … ?” or “what are the things that are in our reach … ?”. The absence of a proper term for the concept of personality is an indication that hitherto the problem had not been a fundamental one in ancient philosophy.

Antiquity did not possess any clear terminology for our concept of ‘person’ or ‘personality’,³ though the idea is present in a number of ethical theories. The Stoic school was the first to work out a theory of the human person. This was a natural consequence of their philosophical position, because the Stoics were essentially occupied with the problem of man's place in this world. The Platonic and Aristotelean schools had worked with a superabundance of abstract and generic distinctions. The question where we are to locate our true personality is found already in the dialogue Alcibiades (129E-133C), possibly a work not by Plato himself, but at any rate coming from his school. In the dialogue, as a topic of conversation the problem is introduced of how we should take good care of ourselves. If we do so, the result should be that we make better men of ourselves. This, however, implies that we must know what we are as human beings, a knowledge also hinted at in the Delphic maxim “know yourself”. The discussion proceeds on the lines of Plato's established philosophical position. The two friends, Socrates and Alcibiades, agree on the conclusion that the body should be considered as our possession and as a thing we use, whereas our real self is identical with our soul, and indeed with the best part of our soul, our mind or reason. Plato's view on this point is repeated by Aristotle in the tenth book of the Nicomachean ethics. Aristotle speaks of our reason as the most important and central part of ourselves, and even as a “god within us”. The expression has been variously interpreted, but in the context of Aristotle's text we should probably understand it in the sense that, of all that is within us, reason is the priceless highest faculty and therefore in the highest sense characteristic of our human person. Reason reigns as a god in our smaller universe.

Both the Platonic and the Aristotelean view leave little room for attention to individual characteristics. They give a definition of a general rule, valid for all human beings. It may be objected that in the Nicomachean ethics several books are devoted to special virtues and to descriptions of individuals exercising these virtues. But even these descriptions are given as explanations of an ideal valid within a certain area. In the tenth book we read about the most general and ultimate goal to be attained by human beings, contemplation. This ideal is described in a general form, and as a rule valid for every human person. The highest perfection is in the activity of contemplation. The term itself should not put us on the wrong track. For Aristotle contemplation does not denote a kind of religious meditation, as it does for Plotinus. Aristotle is most happy when he exercises his intellectual faculties.

To the end of antiquity the trend persists of defining the human person in general terms, valid for every human being. There is no indication that individual characteristics may imply individual duties or responsibilities. The famous definition by Boethius of the human person as naturae rationabilis individua substantia⁴ is given in the context of a theoretical discussion on the problem what should be understood by “person”. Though Boethius has the intention of defining the individual person, there is no indication that he saw any special task or design laid down by the Creator in every individual person as such. There is, however, one philosophical school in antiquity where the concept of an individual did get its due attention.

When, only a few years after Aristotle's death, Stoicism took the field, new prospects opened. A kind of elementary genetic psychology was developed. In the analysis of human behaviour attention was paid to the biological instincts, first of all that of self-preservation⁵

In their ethical theory the Stoics brought into play the qualities which could be empirically observed in the society of human beings. The first clear statement of the importance of the individual features in human persons is found in Cicero's account of Panaetius' philosophy.⁶ Panaetius distinguished two types of Persona: person in a general sense, defined by reason, common to all humans and distinguishing them from animals; secondly person taken as the characteristic quality of an individual. The distinction gave rise to an interesting development in the field of ethics. Panaetius, and Cicero in his trail, consider it as everyone's first duty to follow his individual nature rather than try to conform to a general pattern of perfection. “We must be careful not to offend against our universal nature, but, safeguarding in this general sense our humanity, we must, when taking action, keep to the standard of our individual nature.”⁷

The theory of individual responsibility stood in opposition to the Stoic's fundamental conviction about the divine guidance of the universe. There was a conflict between the all-pervading power of Fate and Providence on the one hand, and the necessity of having our own power of decision, if a personal responsibility was to be developed. Having a personality of our own becomes uninteresting when individual decisions are being precluded by a superior power. This argument may have been a factor in a development, even within Stoicism, in which general ideals of humanity came to prevail over the importance of being an individual. Plotinus was well acquinted with Stoic literature, as may be seen from the discussions on morality in his later works.⁸

To a certain extent he continued the Stoic line of thought, but with a difference as to the theoretical description of what a human person is. In this respect Plotinus is decidedly a Platonist. When describing the inner ascent to the realms of Soul and Intellect he leaves our individual features aside as simply unimportant. These features mark us off from our fellowhumans, but they play no role in the contemplation by means of which we must reach the goal of our most essential vocation. He stresses, however, our personal responsibility, and he does so, significantly, in the treatises where he criticizes and opposes the excessive stress laid by some Stoics on the inescapable power of Fate. Plotinus sees the return to our origin as our most essential responsibility. We should give all our energies to authenticating our existence by finding the right way back to our origins. As we shall see, the danger of making the individual personality disappear occurs in Plotinus' philosophy at the opposite end of the spectrum, when we compare his theory to the Stoic one. In the world-view of the Stoics our initiatives in this world are in danger of being paralyzed by the doctrine of Fate. In the Enneads it is not on the level of this world that the human person has a precarious existence. When the soul finds her way back to the One, the question arises if she will not lose her individuality just because of her identification to the universal Intellect.

The description of what a human person is coincides in the Enneads still to a large extent with the description of what man essentially is. Plotinus recognizes the problem of individuality, and even develops a short argument on the question whether there are forms of individuals in V 7 [18], a treatise which has only three chapters. The point is touched upon in passing in a few other texts, so at V 9 [5] 12 and II 4 [12] 4, 1-5. It is interesting that he does not consider the individual characteristics to be a result of the resistance of matter to the perfection of the form. In his view, when there are differences in the realization of a form, and if the differences are in themselves good, the explanation should be that more than one form is at play (V 7 [18] 2, 15 …). The resistance of matter to the form can at most explain the disfigurement or ugliness of an individual, not his positive qualities. this theory, though quite an original one, is not any further developed or made into a fundamental statement.

At first sight, an argument to affirm the role of matter as principium individuationis seems to be present at various places in the Enneads, where Plotinus says that the existence in a body causes the soul to be divided and to fall short of her perfections, so e.g. IV 2 [4] 1, 55-57. But the argument does not follow the trail of the Aristotelean theory.⁹ Plotinus does not even mention matter, but he does mention bodies. When Soul gives herself to bodies, she acquires a condition which she did not experience before. She now has a divided existence, distributed as it were over many bodies, but nevertheless she does not leave behind her oneness. Plotinus sees the body as an unwelcome addition, hemming in the soul as an obstacle to her proper activity. He does not use the Aristotelean argument of matter entering into a metaphysical union with the soul and so hemming in her very being.

What he does use is the Platonic terminology: the soul (or: Soul) is, at the same time, divided in the bodies and indivisible. By herself she has no dimension, but nevertheless she is present in every dimension (IV 2 [4] 1, 62-70). The terminology comes from Plato's Timaeus (35 A). In Plato's text soul is seen as the universal life-giving force, distributed by the Creator in unequal parts to the various kinds of being. Undivided being (i.e. pure Form) and the divided being which is split up into the existence of many bodies, these two ingredients go into the mixture from which the universal soul-stuff is to emerge. Plato's explanation proceeds on theoretical lines and is intended to bring the metaphysical categories of the Parmenides and the Sophistes into play. It still lacks the features which were added to the picture by Plotinus, features intended to make it clear that creation was a vital process, set in movement by a personal decision of the soul. More or less in the whole of his work, but predominantly in the early treatises, Plotinus describes the beginning of the creative process as being due to the soul's desire to be on her own and by herself. She starts on a journey of descent and leaves her heavenly fatherland, urged on by this (more or less) deplorable impulse to go and seek independence. So she comes to live in a lower sphere, being bound up with the body in a divided existence as a part of this universe. She has “ceased to be all in order to be human”, as Plotinus puts it (V 8 [31] 7, 33).

So it is because of the soul's decision that a partial existence and individual characteristics are given to her. Inevitably the explanation makes use of the argument of the bodily nature, but it is not matter in the Aristotelean sense that is summoned to account for the soul's captivity in this lower world. It is not very probable that Plotinus saw the problem in terms of a form receiving individuality through matter as principium individuationis. Moreover, he more than once stresses that with her higher part the soul “stays above”, though our consciousness may fail to realize this (IV 8 [6], 8, 2-7 and 16-24). In a veiled manner, even the descended soul maintains her universal existence. Our very being is universal: “we are, all of us, the spiritual world; when we are united to the universe of being, then we are that universe; so we are at the same time all things together and one being” (VI 5 [23] 7, 7-8).

With the above theories in the background we could hardly expect to find in the Enneads a description of the human person in terms of character-formation or adaptation to the social environment. Plotinus does give a description of the human person, but the human character and social adaptation to be achieved are not those of his citizenship in this world. Our real home is “yonder”, our most real personality, the “we” as Plotinus calls it, is in our spiritual existence. He points out in many places that even in our own inner experience we may find sure signs that the better half of our existence stays away from our consciousness. However, once we open our minds to the spiritual world, it is impossible that our real nature should remain hidden to us (IV 4 [28] 45, 17-18).

In the edition of the Enneads by Prophyry the order of the books was established in the form in which we still have it. As a kind of entrance to the building, Porphyry placed as number one in the first Ennead a late treatise on the question how to define the human person. The same question underlies the argument at the end of the last treatise of the sixth Ennead, where the soul, striving to realize her most essential being, is described as in search of herself (VI 9 [9] 9, 22 and 10, 17). Obviously Porphyry thought it a central problem. The message of the whole of the Enneads could not be well understood unless the reader is aware that his human person in the deepest sense was involved. Realising our real self is dependent on the inward journey back to the life of mind and to the origin, the One.

The treatise that stands at the beginning of the Enneads is chronologically one of the last. It offers remarkable parallels to a really early one, IV 7 [2], a parallelism which indeed proves that some of the theories remained unchanged through the whole of Plotinus' writing career. In the late treatise, I 1 [53], the distinction is stressed between the body with its sense-perception, and the principal and dominant part of our being. The argument makes use of an Aristotelean concept about the soul's essence (Met. H.). Plotinus says (ib. 2.8) that the soul possesses within herself her own actuality, i.e. the soul is for her existence not dependent on other beings. The soul is eternally what she is in herself (ib. 2, 24). This is, in Aristotelean concepts, Plato's doctrine of the soul as the ultimate creative force, giving life to all beings, and herself not in need of higher powers for her subsistence.¹⁰ In passing Plotinus mentions the theory corresponding to the second phase of development of Aristotle's doctrine of the soul: the soul makes use of the body as an instrument (ib. 3, 3). He adds that, when using a tool, the craftsman is not affected by what the tools experience, so soul stays free from the passions of the body. He also uses his favourite light-metaphor. Radiating through a material universe, the light itself is not subject to change (ib. 4, 16). Soul does not really give up herself to a union with the body. What she gives is a kind of creative light, which, together with a well-disposed body, calls to life the living being (the animal …) (ib. 7, 4).

Having explained all this, more or less in the form of a discussion, Plotinus comes to the central point, that of the human person. The human person is where argument and intuition are found. In that part of ourselves our conversation is with the forms, undisturbed by what the senses bring in from the world around us. Here is our most real “we.” … What is on this side is just ours, but from that point onwards (i.e. in the world of thought) our real self is found, holding supervision over the animated body (the “living being”) (I 1 [53] 7, 14-21).¹¹

In the early treatise, IV 7 [2], the discussion also moves on Aristotelean lines. The real man may be considered as a form in opposition to matter, or as user to tool, but in either case “the soul is the self” (… ib. 1, 22-25). An analysis is given of sense-perception and knowledge, ending in a beautiful description of the inner experience as the surest ground for our certainty as to the spiritual nature of the human soul (IV 7 [2] 10, and cf. VI 4 [22] 14 and 15). Both the late and the early treatise have the arguments started from Aristotelean distinctions, and both have the formula “the soul is the self”. The expression is found at various places in the Enneads, so e.g. II 3 [52] 9, 21-30, where Plotinus says that we should try to exist according to what we are in reality, and “not to be the compound”. In II 1 [40] 5, 21 and in I 1 [53] 10, the expression is accompanied by a remark on the use of the term. The terms “we” and “the man” … have two meanings, accordingly as we include the beast or take only what is above it. But “man” in the true sense is the man who has freed himself from the animal passions and possesses the intellectual virtues (I 1 [53] 10).

Plotinus does not show much interest in a theory of individual differentiation caused by matter. He says repeatedly that the human soul, when coming into this world, suffers an addition …, which prevents her becoming conscious of her original nature (IV 7 [2] 10, 29. Also II 3 [52] 9, 30-31; VI 4 [22] 14, 25; VI 5 [23] 12,21; I 1 [53] 12, 20).

It is as if at birth we were overpowered by a body (VI 9 [9] 9, 8). The individual substance of the human person as appearing in this world is not the result of the interference of matter in the projection of a form. Already in the spiritual realm and before our birth we existed as human beings. We were even as a kind of gods, because we were pure souls and intellect, and as such in union with universal being (VI 4 [22] 14, 16-31). But now a second human person, a “second man” has associated himself to that original human being, investing with itself our real self. The addition has diminished our real being, because, instead of partaking in universal life, one has become an individual (VI 5 [23] 12, 22 …).

The real human self is virtually identical with our intellectual and spiritual characteristics. The “real man” and the reasonable soul always “walk together” (I 1 [53] 7, 21). In the spiritual world, where our origin lies, pure souls live in union with the universal Intellect (VI 4 [22] 14, 19-20). The human intellect, with which the essential human person is identified, is called in one place the “god within us” (VI 5 [23] 1, 3), in clear allusion to Aristotle's view on man's highest faculty (EN X 7, 1177a 12-1178a 8 and EE VIII 2, 1248a 26; VIII 3, 1249 b 15-23). Even when the lower part of the soul is absorbed in this world of sense-perception, the higher part stays above, in contemplation of the spiritual world (IV 7 [2] 13, 8-18; IV 8 [6] 8, 3; III 4 [15] 3, 24).

The higher contemplation is a function of the higher part of our soul. It does not enter into our consciousness because the lower part is not taken up into this higher way of life. Sometimes the difference between the two is emphasized to such a degree that it seems that Plotinus is talking about two souls, so e.g. IV 3 [27] 27, 1-3. Nevertheless, the union between the two parts of soul is strong enough to make it possible for us to withdraw into the better part of ourselves. When we do so, we know by experience that contemplation cannot be led astray. In contemplation it becomes unmistakable where our real nature lies (IV 4 [28] 44, 1 and 45 10-18).

In the constitution of our personality a wide range of variations is possible, depending on the level of existence of each individual. Persons living the life of the senses have forgotten their origin and homeland (V 1 [10] 1, 1-17). But every soul has within herself the creative principles of all things (V 7 [18] 1, 7-10). Every soul is an intelligible universe (III 4 [15] 3, 23). The value of any personality is proportional to the place where he is living in the great chain of being. He is tied to the lower world by his bodily life, and to the higher world he stands in union through his intellectual faculties. He should try to reach the level which is immediately superior to the level where he finds himself. In one of the few treatises where Plotinus makes use of the traditional symbols of Greek mythology, he calls this contiguous level a person's daemon (III 4 [15]). Everyone should try to live up to the standards of his daemon, because, as the text has it:

We must take the view that in our soul not only there is an intelligible universe, but even an inner disposition of the same kind as that of the world-soul

(III 4 [15] 6, 22-24).

The parallelism between the microcosmos of our soul and the macrocosmos of the world-soul reaches back to Plato's Timaeus. We may note that Plato's rather theoretical explanation of the soul's inner structure here becomes the ground-pattern for her inner ascent.

The description of the independent self of the human person is not without its ethical component. The definition of the human person is at the same time a program of living. It points out what human beings have to do in order to fully realize their human existence and set it free from unwanted additions. The human person is a being of two worlds, living more or less as an amphibian, as Plotinus drastically puts it in one place (IV 8 [6] 4, 31). We should strive to live with that better part of our human person which is, through knowledge and contemplation, in union with the intelligible universe. Maintaining this union means at the same time realizing one's own most real personality.

This last point is made by Plotinus in practically every treatment of the question. In V 9 [5] 5, explaining the contemplative act of the Intellect, he points out that the Intellect thinks all things and by doing so makes them exist. So Intellect is itself all beings. This is, says Plotinus, what was meant by Parmenides, when he stated the identity of knowing and being, as well as by Aristotle, who said that the knowledge of immaterial things is identical with the object of that knowledge. (De An. III 4, 430a 3). All this, says Plotinus, amounts to the same thing as Heraclitus' dictum (B 101) “I was in search of myself”.

Finding the intelligible universe is the same as finding one's true self. This is the key-note in the treatise that was placed at the end of the Enneads by Porphyry, in order to bring out what it was all for. When a person turns in upon himself, he turns in upon his origin (VI 9 [9] 2, 35). God is omnipresent to every part of the universe, though most people have no awareness of his presence. They flee away from him, or, more correctly, they flee away from themselves. If a man comes to know himself, he comes to know also from where he is. Part of our self is dominated by the body, but with that part of us which is not submerged … we may rise up into the spiritual world, making the centre of our being become one with the centre of universal being (VI 9 [9] 8, 16-20). In a treatise of the middle period the same note is heard. Every nature hastens to where it shall find its own self (VI 5 [23] 1, 17).¹²

There is one point at which the mysticism of the Enneads seems to contradict the ideals of a personal development. When reaching the level of spiritual existence where our truest being is found, we are identified to and absorbed into the universal Intellect. The self in its ascent to the intelligible universe gains wider visions and is identified more and more to the object of its vision. Shall not its individuality gradually lose its special marks and finally disappear? As W.R. Inge put it in his work on the Philosophy of Plotinus (vol. I, p. 250), “personality aspires to be all-embracing and is potentially all-embracing; but if it could realize this aspiration, it would cease to be individual”.

The problem in this form probably did not occur to Plotinus. It is never mentioned as a problem, and as to a possible annihilation of our personality we find just the opposite. In the treatise on our ascent to the spiritual realm, at the end of the sixth Ennead, Plotinus says that, though standing in union with the intelligible universe, we do not always contemplate it. It is only by turning inward that we enter into contact with the universe, sharing in the chorus of the creation and finding the “still point of the dance” (T.S. Eliot). Then the text has: “when we cease to be turned towards Him, that will mean the end of us” (VI 9 [9] 8, 41-42). A modern reader may remark that the opposite question is not asked: when we are turned towards Him, is that the end of us as individuals?

The answer could possibly be found in some remarks in the treatise on the liberty and will of the One, VI 8 [39]. The problem in discussion there is, in a sense, analogous to the problem about the human person's individuality. If the One can only desire what is perfect and best, it has no liberty, and so, if we want to be perfect, we have no individuality. The One, in this view, is doomed to be the One and perfect. Now Plotinus gives an argument which also for our problem can show a way out:

Every being, in its search for the Good, wants to be rather that Good than what it is itself. It feels that it has the highest degree of being only when it partakes of the Good, because it is plain that the nature of the Good is by far and foremost preferable

(VI 8 [39] 13, 12-17).

It sounds as a paradox if one should suppose a gradual disappearance of individuality as the soul climbs higher in the hierarchy of being. It is just the reverse. The soul's individuality is only heightened by the intense joy which she experiences on this way of return to her own self. What could she possibly wish at that moment, except to be what she is, says Plotinus (ib. 13, 32). The dominant joy does not leave room for afterthoughts. It may be compared to the experience we have when we are intensely occupied with thought or with work of art, and being absorbed in it because it makes us happy. In the experience the reflexive consciousness ceases and we forget ourselves. So Plotinus writes:

Whosoever has had the vision, he knows what I say, that our soul then receives another kind of life as she goes further and comes nearer and partakes of Him

(VI 9 [9] 9, 47).

There is a ring of personal experience in the description of this inner state. These descriptions are predominantly found in the earlier treatises. In a treatise already mentioned, the same appeal to personal experience is found:

Everyone of us who has attained to this state is hardly on a lower level than the spiritual beings.—If everybody, or a great mass of people, should have a soul with this quality, then everybody would feel certain about the soul's immortality

(IV 7 [2] 10, 14-31).

There is still another context in which Plotinus stresses the independent quality of the human person together with the certainty to be found in our inner consciousness. This context is not the other-worldly one of the soul's ascent. The problem is now stated in the field of our consciousness as human persons in this world. In the early ethical treatise ‘On destiny’ and the late ones ‘On Providence’ (III 1 [3] and III 2-3 [47-48]) we find a wealth of arguments against the Stoic doctrine of Fate. The first of these is a logical one. If all our actions were completely determined by some kind of Providence, the very concept of causality would have to be abolished. Then follows an appeal to an elementary experience. The absolute rule of Providence cannot be taken for granted because it runs counter to our consciousness of being active subjects when doing things and making decisions (III 1 [3] 4, 21-28).

The argument is remarkable because its value is made to rest upon the irrefutable certainty of personal experience. We feel certain about our personal involvement when making decisions. We have no doubts about our being responsible as human persons. If it were otherwise, Plotinus says, the we would not be we, and no action could be said to be our own (ib. 21-22). The reasoning contains a kind of cogito which is exceptional in the history of ancient philosophy. With it goes the ethical component. We should allow every individual to be an individual in his own right. Our individual soul must be considered as a primordial cause, not to be subordinated to other powers (ib. 8, 7-9). This argument is developed throughout the early treatise and is found again in the late treatise on Providence (III 2-3 [47-48]). The parallelism between a very early and a very late treatise is once more a point to be noted, as it was in the case of I 1 [53] and IV 7 [2].

In III 2 [47] 9, 2 a fine remark is found:

We should not suppose Providence to be of a kind such as to make our existence dwindle away. If Providence should be all, there would be no need of Providence because there would be no individuals to be guided by Providence.

There is an English proverb about the necessity of there being a parish if being a clergyman is to have any sense: “If everyman should be the clergyman, who would be the parish?” With a variation on the proverb we could say: “If Providence should be All, who would be the individual?”

Our conclusions can be summarized as follows. In the Enneads the human personality is a variable entity, depending on the level of existence (in the metaphysical sense) on which the individual is living. The metaphysical description of the levels of being is at the same time an ethical scale of values. The human person is measured on this scale of values and defined as the best part of ourselves. We should try to live in accordance with what is best in us, taking guidance from the guardian spirit representing the spiritual level immediately superior to ours. In the field of ethics there is a peculiar stress on an independent personal responsibility.

Notes

1. The argument given here is part of a theory which has received small attention in the literature on the Enneads. The activity of thinking is, according to this theory, not necessarily bound up with our being conscious of thinking. In IV 3 [27] 30, 13-16 Plotinus says that our processes of thinking are going on uninterruptedly, but we are not at every moment aware of these processes. He may have had in mind the autonomous character of thought going on in our minds even during sleep, or the well-known phenomenon of a problem being solved as a result of unconscious energies when we have put it “off our minds”. The point is that, to Plotinus, the analysis of our acts of knowing and thinking makes us discover an independent activity of our mind, going on even without our intervention. Elsewhere he says that any consciousness of our spiritual activities requires their being reflected in the mirror of our faculties of perception. But even without the mirror, or when the mirror is not quiet and clear, thought is going on (I 4 [46] 10, 6-19, cf I 1 [53] 11, 5-6). Consciousness may even be detrimental to the energy of thinking (ib. 28-29).

2. The problem has a Gnostic colouring, as may be clear from the expressions used. On this point see the author's contribution on “Gnostic influences in Plotinus and Augustine” in: David Runia (ed.), Plotinus amid Gnostics and Christians, Amsterdam 1984, p. 73-90.

3. C.J. de Vogel, The Concept of Personality in Greek and Christian Thought, in: Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy 2, 1963, 20-60 (Washington DC). C.J. de Vogel, Plotinus' Image of Man, in: Studia Verbeke, Leuven 1976, 147-168. A.H. Armstrong, Form, Individual and Person in Plotinus, Dionysius 1, 1977, 49-68. Danièle Letocha, Le statut de l'individualité chez Plotin ou le miroir de Dionysos, Dionysius 2, 1978, 76-99.

4. Boethius, Contra Eutychen et Nestorium, ed. E.K. Rand and S.J. Tester, London-Cambridge Mass 1973, Ch. III, (Loeb Class. Libr. Nr. 74, p. 84).

5. Diog. L. VII 85-87. S.G. Pembroke, Oikeiosis, in A.A. Long (ed.), Problems in Stoicism, London 1971, 114-149. Th.G. Sinnige, Eigenheid en saamhorigheid in de stoïsche ethica, Lampas 11, 1978, 24-42.

6. Cicero, De off. I 30-31, 107-114. See C.J. de Vogel, Greek Philosophy, Vol. III, Leiden 1973, Nr. 1163.

7. De off I 31, 110: ut contra universam naturam nihil contendamus, ea tamen conservata propriam nostram sequamur.

8. Enn. III 2 and 3 ([47-48]), to be compared with the early treatise III 1 [3]. Willy Theiler, Plotin zwischen Plato und Stoa, in: Les Sources de Plotin, Entretiens sur l'antiquité, tome V, Vandoeuvres-Genève 1960, p. 65-103. A.H. Armstrong (ed.), The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge 1967, p. 129-131 (Ph. Merlan). A. Graeser, Plotinus and the Stoics, Leiden 1972. P. Boot, Plotinus over voorzienigheid, Amsterdam 1984 (diss.).

9. For the many perplexities arising from Aristotle's theory, see W.D. Ross, Aristotle, London 1949, pp. 169-173. John Rist, Forms of Individuals in Plotinus, Classical Quarterly, 13, 1963, 223-231.

10. To be sure, this is the earlier version of Plato's doctrine of the soul, as found in the Phaedrus. In the Timaeus, which is a late work, the souls are a product of a kind of metaphysical process of mixing, and distributed by the Demiurge to the various parts of the universe.

11. Plotinus is rather drastic in his expressions. The “living being”, our bodily existence, is in this context no more than an “animal”. In 7, 20-21 his words contain an allusion to Plato's Republic (588 CD): “the lion-like part and the composite monster”, descriptions used by Plato for the inferior part of our human existence.

12. This again has a Gnostic ring. In the Mandaean Ginza and in the Hymn of the Pearl the soul on returning to her homeland is welcomed by her spiritual counterpart: “my own self comes to greet me”. See for further parallels my remarks in D. T. Runia (ed.), Plotinus amid Gnostics and Christians, p. 79-81, Amsterdam 1984.

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