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Plotinus' Use of Early Greek Philosophers: the Case of Ethics

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Plotinus' Use of Early Greek Philosophers: the Case of Ethics Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of ethics Giannis Stamatellos, Post Doc Department of Media, Cognition and Communication Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 1 Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics Plotinus and the Presocratics [Table 1] Key areas of reference Presocratics Plotinus Heraclitus The flux of becoming The flux of the heavenly bodies Unity of the opposites Soul’s ascent and descent Unity and plurality Unity of cosmos Alterations of Soul Soul’s ascent and descent Logos The universality of logos Self-knowledge Self-knowledge: soul’s ascent Empedocles Love and Strife The unity of cosmos The cycles of Soul The descent of soul The Four Roots Theory of Matter Parmenides The ‘signs’ of being The properties of intelligible Being Thinking and Being Self-thinking Intellect Timelessness of Being Timelessness of Eternity Anaxagoras Nous Purity of Intellect The original mixture Theory of matter Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans The unity of the One The Monad Plotinus’ Virtue Ethics [Table 2] Level State Virtues Wisdom Justice Self-Control Courage Practical Civic Reason Minding its Harmony Emotions own business between where ruling passion- and being reason ruled are concerned Purification Body- Soul acts Ruled by Not being Not afraid Soul alone reason and affected by of intellect the body departing without from the opposition body Contemplation Soul- Soul has Soul’s activity Soul’s inward Free of Nous immediate towards turning to affections contact with intellect intellect intellect Intelligible Nous Pure Soul follows Self- Abiding Prototypes intellection: its own proper concentration pure in soul become activity itself divine intellect Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 2 Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics Presocratic Ethics Xenophanes B11: Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods everything that is blameworthy and disgraceful among humans theft and adultery and mutual trickery. Heraclitus B119: “A person's character ( ethos ) is his destiny” B112: “The greatest virtue is to be prudent, and wisdom is to speak the truth and with understanding to act according to nature”. B116: “All humans are able to know themselves and be prudent” B78: “Human nature has no understanding but the divine has”. B101: “I searched myself” B49: “ One man is as ten thousand, if he is the best”. Empedocles B110: “If you push them firmly under your crowded thoughts, and contemplate them favourably with unsullied and constant attention, assuredly all these will be with you through life, and you will gain much else from them, for of themselves they will cause each thing to grow into the character ( ethos ), according to the nature of each. But if you yourself shall reach out for the countless trivialities which come among men and dull their meditations, straightaway these will leave you as the time comes round, longing to reach their own familiar kind; for know that all things have consciousness and a share of intelligence.” Translations: M. R. Wright Fragments: Diels, H. (1951-2) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker , 6 th ed. Revised with additions and index by W. Kranz, Berlin: Weidmann. Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 3 Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics The case of ethics [D1] Ennead IV.8.1.11-23: 1 Heraclitus, who urges us to examine this, positing ‘necessary changes’ from ‘opposite to opposite’, and saying ‘way up and down’ and ‘changing it is at rest’, and ‘weariness to toil for and be ruled by the same’, left us guessing, since he has neglected to make clear to us what he is saying, perhaps because we ought to seek by ourselves, as Heraclitus ‘himself sought and found’. And Empedocles, when he said that it is a law that sinful souls should fall into this world, and that he himself has come here as ‘an exile from god’ who ‘puts his trust in raving strife’, he reveals just as much as the riddling statements of Pythagoras and his followers about the descent of the soul and many other matters. But he is unclear because of his poetic language. [trans. Armstrong modified] Heraclitus B60: Way up, way down: one and the same B101: I searched myself B84a: Changing it rests B84b: It is weariness to labor and subject to rule Empedocles B115: … I too am now one of these, an exile from the gods and a wanderer, having put my trust in raging strife. [D2] Ennead IV.8.1.33-36: …and his cave [sc. Plato], like the den of Empedocles, means, I think, this universe, where he says that the soul’s journey to the intelligible world is a “release from fetters” and an “ascent from the cave” [trans. Armstrong] Empedocles B120: We have come under this roofed cavern. 1 In this passage I am following the reading maintained by Harder (1956) Plotins Schriften , Hamburg: Felix Meiner and Roussos (1968) instead of maintained by Henry and Schwyzer in the OCT. Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 4 Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics [D3] Ennead IV.8.5.1-8: There is no contradiction between the sowing in birth and the descent for the perfection of the All, and the judgment and the cave, and necessity and free-will - since necessity contains free-will – and the being in the body as an evil. Nor there is anything inconsistent about Empedocles’ flight from god and wandering nor the fault upon which judgment comes, nor Heraclitus’ rest on the flight, nor in general the willingness and also the unwillingness of the descent. [trans. Armstrong modified] [D4] Ennead V.9.5.26-32: Intellect therefore really thinks the real beings, not as if they were somewhere else: for they are neither before it, nor after it; but it is like the primary lawgiver, or rather is itself the law of Being. So they are correctly the statements ‘the same is for thinking and for being’ and ‘knowledge of immaterial is the same as its object’ and ‘I searched myself’; so are also ‘the recollections’; [trans. Armstrong modified] Parmenides B3: … for what can be thought of is the same as what can be Heraclitus B101: I searched myself [D5] Ennead I.6.6.1-6: For, as was said in old times, self-control, and courage and every virtue, is a purification, and so is even wisdom itself. This is why the mysteries are right when they say riddlingly that the man who has not been purified will lie in mud when he goes to Hades, because the impure is fond of mud by reason of its badness; just as pigs, with their unclean bodies, like that sort of thing. [trans. Armstrong] Heraclitus B13: Pigs enjoy mud rather than clean water. Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 5 Centre for Neoplatonic Virtue Ethics University of Copenhagen Plotinus’ use of early Greek philosophers: the case of Ethics Selected Bibliography Armstrong, A. H. (1966-1988) Plotinus, Greek text with English translation in 7 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Heinemann. Diels, H. (1951-2) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker , 6 th ed. Revised with additions and index by W. Kranz, Berlin: Weidmann. Dillon, J. M. (1996) "An ethic for the late antique sage", in The Cambridge companion to Plotinus , ed. L. P. Gerson, 315-335. Harder, R. (1956) Plotins Schriften , Hamburg: Felix Meiner Henry, P., and H. R. Schwyzer. (1964, 1976, 1982). Plotini Opera 3 vols. ( editio minor ) Oxford: Clarendon Press (v.1, Enneads I-III); (v.2, Enneads IV-V); (V.3, Ennead VI). Kahn, C. H. (1979) The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —, (1992) ''Presocratic Greek Ethics,'' in A History of Western Ethics , edited by Kalligas, P. (1994) Plotinus’ Ennead I: Ancient Greek text, translation and commentary [in modern Greek], Athens, Centre of Edition of Ancient Greek Authors, Athens Academy. —, (2009) Plotinus’ Ennead IV: Ancient Greek text, translation and commentary [in modern Greek], Athens, Centre of Edition of Ancient Greek Authors, Athens Academy. Kirk, G. S., Raven, J.E. and Schofield, M. (1983) The Presocratic Philosophers , 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Long, A. A. (1999) The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacIntyre, A. (1985) After Virtue . 2 nd ed. Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press. Plass, P., (1982) "Plotinus' ethical theory", Illinois Classical Studies (7, 2), 241-259. Roussos, E. N. (1968) Ο ΗΡΑΚΛΕΙΤΟΣ ΣΤΙΣ ΕΝΝΕΑ∆ΕΣ ΤΟΥ ΠΛΩΤΙΝΟΥ, Dissertation at the University of Thessalonica, Athens. Stamatellos, G. (2007) Plotinus and the Presocratics , SUNY Press. Wright, M. R. (1981) Empedocles: The Extant Fragments , New Haven: Yale University Press. —, (1985) The Presocratics , Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Giannis Stamatellos (Post Doc) – May 2010 6 .
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