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Plotinus on Self PLOTINUS ON SELF Plotinus, the founder of the Neoplatonic school of philosophy, conceptualises two different notions of self (or ‘us’): the corporeal and the rational. Personality and imperfection mark the former, while goodness and a striving for understanding mark the latter. Dr Remes grounds the two selfhoods in deep-seated Platonic ontologi- cal commitments, following their manifestations, interrelations and sometimes uneasy coexistence in philosophical psychology, emotional therapy and ethics. Plotinus’ interest lies in what it means for a human being to be a temporal and a corporeal thing, yet capable of abstract and impartial reasoning, of self-government and perhaps even invulnera- bility. The book argues that this involves a philosophically problematic rupture within humanity which is, however, alleviated by the psycho- logical similarities and points of contact between the two aspects of the self. The purpose of life is the cultivation of the latter aspect, the true self. pauliina remes is a lecturer and postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Philosophy at Uppsala University and the University of Helsinki. PLOTINUS ON SELF The Philosophy of the ‘We’ PAULIINA REMES cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao˜ Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521867290 C Pauliina Remes 2007 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2007 Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library isbn-13 978-0-521-86729-0 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Note: The pronouns ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘himself’ have been used to indicate both masculine and feminine gender. Contents Acknowledgements page vii Note on editions and abbreviations ix Introduction 1 part i the endowed structures of selfhood 1 Tw o lives, two identities: the ontological and anthropological setting 23 1.1 Eternal entities and temporal particulars 32 1.2 Human individuals and individuality 59 2 The conscious centre 92 2.1 From proprioception to self-awareness 96 2.2 Mental connectedness 110 3 The rational self and its knowledge of itself 125 3.1 The powers of intellect and reason 126 3.2 Self-knowledge of the thinking thing 156 part iiconstructing the self: between the world and the ideal 4 Sculpting your self: self-determination, self-control and self-constitution 179 4.1 Freedom and self-determination 180 4.2 Therapy of emotions and what is up to us 185 5 Action and other people: the self as a citizen of two communities 213 v vi Contents 6 Losing the limits of the self? 239 Conclusion 254 Bibliography 258 Index locorum 269 General index 280 Acknowledgements This book has two motherlands, England and Finland. Encouraged by my MA supervisor Juha Sihvola, I spent my graduate years 1997–2001 in King’s College, London, under the guidance of Richard Sorabji. Richard’s benign but intellectually unyielding thesis supervision, the gathering attending his graduate seminar and his continued interest in my work have been of the greatest value to me. I wish to thank him and Kate Sorabji as well as Anja Burghardt, Amber Carpenter, Jonardon Ganeri, Gianmatteo Mameli, Finn Spicer, Margareta Steinby and Pekka Suhonen for all their benevo- lence during my stays in England. The helpful suggestions and approval of my thesis examiners, John Dillon and Gerard O’Daly, made a significant contribution to my decisions on how to revise the thesis and, in general, to write a book based on it. On the whole, philosophy at King’s had its effect on this work through its seminars as well as the philosophical interests and tuition of its past and present staff. For this I thank especially Mary Margaret McCabe, Verity Harte, Peter Adamson and Raphael Woolf. Since my final return to Finland in 2002,Ihave enjoyed the scholarly companionship provided particularly by two different institutions, the His- tory of Mind Unit (at the Academy of Finland), headed by Simo Knuuttila and Juha Sihvola, and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, managed during this period especially by professors Gabriel Sandu, Matti Sintonen and Jan von Plato. I shall have to confine myself to naming, with gratitude, those of my colleagues who have read and commented on sections of this book: Lilli Alanen, Maarit Kaimio, Taneli Kukkonen, Juha Sihvola, Miira Tuominen and Mikko Yrjonsuuri.¨ Dif- ferent audiences have commented upon my work in Helsinki, Jyvaskyl¨ a,¨ Tu rku, Uppsala (Sweden), Oslo (Norway), and Reykjavik (Iceland), includ- ing particularly the members of the History of Mind Unit as well as the participants in the meetings of the Scandinavian project ‘The Hellenistic Schools and their Influence on Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy’ (led by Eyjolfur´ K. Emilsson) and those of the International Society for vii viii Acknowledgements Neoplatonic Studies (Maine, New Orleans, Liverpool and the session of the American Philological Association held at San Francisco, organised by Svetla Slaveva-Griffin). Belonging to these communities has been an important part of my scholarly development. In addition to those already mentioned, let Sara Heinamaa,¨ Tuomas Nevanlinna and Martina Reuter stand for those who have graciously invited me to take part in the philo- sophical circles of Helsinki, and Minna Koivuniemi, Kalle Korhonen and Laura Werner for all those I have shared the academic life with. Along with my former supervisor and examiners, my greatest debt, how- ever, is to those scholars who, more recently, have read and discussed the whole or most of the manuscript with me: Eyjolfur´ Emilsson, Simo Knu- uttila, Havard˚ Lokke¨ and Holger Thesleff. Holger Thesleff has, further, gone through the effort of commenting on my translations of Plotinus’ Greek. The book has also distinctly benefited from the observations and criticism provided by the anonymous readers of the press. I shall remem- ber with appreciation the efficient efforts of my editor Michael Sharp, his team and Anssi Korhonen, as well as Michael Griffin’s and Lisa Muszynski’s work towards the improvement of my English. I wish, further, to grate- fully note that Lloyd P. Gerson, Eyjolfur´ Emilsson, Richard Sorabji and Miira Tuominen all let me see their books or chunks of them before their publication. The research and writing of this book were made possible by scholarships from several institutions and organisations: The Finnish Academy, Nordic Research Council for the Humanities, Osk. Huttunen Foundation, Alfred Kordelin Foundation and The Cultural Foundation of Finland. A different order of thanks is due to Wolfson College, Oxford, for an intense period of writing and research in Hilary 2003 as their visiting scholar. Tw o chapters (1.1 and 6)ofthe book have been previously published in journals. I thank Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy and the Journal of the History of Philosophy for permission to republish the same material here. Finally, while providing much-needed diversion from scholarly activities, my parental family has always recognised the value of what I attempt to do. Special thanks go to my mother, Tellervo Walther, for all her support. The book is dedicated to Jukka Relander, for his intellectual sunousia and for the life shared with him and, since 2004, our son Eemeli. Note on editions and abbreviations The edition of Plotinus’ Enneads used is: Henry, P. and Schwyzer, H.-R. (eds.) (1951–73) Plotini Opera.Vols. 1–3. Oxford. Very useful has also been the Loeb Classical Library translation of Plotinus: Armstrong, A. H. (trans.) (1966–88) Plotinus. Cambridge, Mass. and London. Abbreviations of Greek and Latin texts follow the system of the Oxford Classical Dictionary, with some exceptions listed in the Index locorum, the most notable being the customary Arist. EN (Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics) and EE (Eudemian Ethics). Abbreviations of journals follow the system of L’Ann´ee philologique. In addition, the following abbreviations have been used: LS = Long, A. A. and Sedley, D. (1987) The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vols. I and II. Cambridge. SVF = von Arnim, H. (ed.) (1905–1924) Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Leipzig. ix Introduction Who am I? This question continues to trouble us. The somewhat cryptic three-word sentence breaks up into various queries: What kind of being am I? What essential features do I share with animals or with other human beings? What differentiates me from them? What or who is this thing now sitting or writing this introduction, thinking these thoughts? Why do I often experience myself as a single subject of experience, or believe myself to be an autonomous agent capable of causing changes in the world, but at others feel a divided and inconsistent creature, or a powerless slave of circumstances? Do those experiences reveal anything about my true nature? What in the midst of all this is particular only to me, as this one individual, this person with
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