Plotinus, Epicurus, and the Gnostics: on Plotinian Classification of Philosophies

PLOTINUS, EPICURUS, AND THE GNOSTICS: ON PLOTINIAN CLASSIFICATION OF PHILOSOPHIES Andrei Cornea 1. When we try to figure out what Plotinus might have looked like, it is a Byzantine icon that usually comes up in our mind: a slim, tall, highly- spiritualized figure, floating in out-of-this-world space, intensively gazing upon us, totally detached from the things below. Yet such an image over- simplifies this philosopher’s life. For instance, although one does not expect a Byzantine icon to be involved in heavy polemic, polemic plays an impor- tant role in Plotinus’ life and philosophy. So the icon has got cracks. In fact, because Plotinus, like many in his epoch, denied that his ideas had any basic originality,1 considering them (despite obvious and essential innovations) to be but the unfolding of one master’s ultimate truth, polemic mainly con- cerned the question of whether or not his own interpretation of this master, Plato, was the most faithful of all. Besides, Plotinus believed, Plato had to be defended against all misinterpretation and outright contestation which were never in short supply. So Plotinus had a lot of potential adversaries; but of course he could not afford to take on all of them at once. Therefore, he needed politics. In fact, there is no polemic without some politics, and that prompts me to invoke Carl Schmitt’s famous definition: The political is the art of distinguishing friends from enemies. In other words, politics usually establish a divide between the former and the latter that must be appropriate to the occasion. If this is the case, then even a philosopher cannot avoid pursuing a certain policy about who his friends and his enemies in philosophy should be at a certain moment. So he needs to be “opportunistic” to some extent, regardless of how unpolitical his philosophy in itself may be. Therefore, it is meaningful to ask: (1) where did Plotinus consider fit to draw the major 1 See Enn. 5.1 [10] 8. The Gnostics, his enemies, were not different in this respect, for they claimed to be the interpreters of some old savior like Zoroaster. The real trouble for someone like Plotinus would not have been a lack of originality with respect to Plato but with respect to some more recent philosophers. To emulate a wise man of old was considered noble and necessary, while to emulate a “modern” was paramount to plagiarism. Plotinus was actually accused of plagiarizing Numenius of Apamea (Porphyry, Vit. Plot. 17). 466 andrei cornea dividing line between “we” (his friends and allies) and “they” (his major adversaries) in philosophy? (2) Did these “we” and “they” remain the same throughout his whole career? (3) In case we answer “no” to the second point, how can we account for the resulting shift in terms of Plotinus’ policy on alliances in philosophy? 2. Plotinus speaks rarely explicitly about how philosophy in general should be divided up into major trends or schools, or about the number of these trends and the criteria for the most appropriate classifications of them. In fact, there are just two places within the whole corpus Plotinianum where such a discussion occurs—the former in Enn. 5.9 [5] 1 (from now on, classification A), and the latter in Enn. 2.9 [33] 15 (classification B).2 Let us examine both: (a) At the beginning of his early fifth treatise (Enn. 5.9 [5] 1), Plotinus por- trays three kinds of philosophers (unnamed but easy to identify) and likens each of them to a species of bird. The most despicable “birds” are the Epi- cureans who have only a pretense of rationality (οἵ γε λόγου μεταποιούμενοι). Because they hold, like the common people, that pleasure is the τέλος (the end) of life, they are “like the heavy sort of birds who have taken much from the earth and are weighed down by it and so are unable to fly high, although nature has given them wings.” The next kind of “birds” (the Stoics) are said to be better, still not good enough: “they have risen a little from the things below, because the better part of their soul has urged them on from the pleasant to a greater beauty; but since they are unable to see what is above … they are brought down, with the name of virtue, to practical actions …” Only the third kind is really perfect: so these philosophers are thought to be “divine”: “they see the glory above and are raised to it as if above the clouds and the mist of this lower world …”3 Of course, these “high-flying birds” are the Platonists like Plotinus himself. A.H. Armstrong rightly remarks that this classification of philosophical schools has nothing original, except, possibly, for the image itself.4 It has all 2 Plotinus comments on solutions introduced by other philosophies elsewhere as, for instance, in Enn. 4.7 [2] 2–8; yet, apart from those two places there are no others where he produces any classification as such of philosophies. 3 Trans. Armstrong 1966–1988. 4 Armstrong 1966–1988, 5:286–287n1. Bréhier (1924–1938, 5:154) had commented in the same vein: “Il est visible que Plotin suit d’assez près les commentaires platoniciens clas- siques …”.

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