Neoplatonism

Phronesis 51,4_f5_408-422I 10/23/06 3:38 PM Page 408

PETER ADAMSON

I begin, fittingly, with the first treatise in the Enneads of Plotinus. A volume devoted to this treatise – one of the last Plotinus wrote, despite Porphyry’s decision to use it as the opening for the Enneads – is the seventh installment in the series Les écrits de Plotin, overseen by Pierre Hadot.1 As with other volumes in the series, the author Gwenaëlle Aubry provides an introduction, translation with textual notes (but no Greek text), and a detailed commentary. In fact the commentary threatens to become a general study of the self in Plotinus, since A. brings in many passages from elsewhere in the Enneads. She is good on Plotinus’ use of Plato, seeing I.1 as responding above all to the First Alcibiades. That dialogue poses the question of discovering who “we” are: the soul, the body, a combination of the two? For A., Plotinus’ treatise falls into two halves (with the dividing point at I.1.7.6), the first devoted to the question of soul’s relation to body and the second devoted to the more general question of identifying what is “us” (hêmeis). The first part moves through various proposals before settling on the notion that soul is a dunamis (here better translated as “power” than “potentiality”) which is able to remain unaffected even as its act proceeds to the body. The “composite” or “animal” is not a mixture (krasis) of soul with body, but rather the result of the soul’s emanated act giving form to body. With regard to the second part, A. emphasizes the dynamic character of Plotinus’ hêmeis. “We” are neither the animal (that is, animated body) nor the undescended soul that engages always in intellection; nor are “we” straightforwardly to be equated with the level of discursive reasoning (dianoia). Rather, the hêmeis is the subject of a choice between possible objects of identification. Because I.1 focuses on this funda- mental choice, it is ultimately an ethical work (p. 286) – suggesting that Porphyry did well to place it at the head of the first Ennead. The following passage summarizes much of A.’s interpretation: “Ultimement, le sujet plotinien appa- raît comme cette liberté par laquelle la conscience se donne tel ou tel objet. Puissance de choix entre deux actualisations et deux identifications possibles,

* Book Notes discuss books on ancient philosophy which are sent to the journal for review. 1 G. Aubry, Plotin: Traité 53 (I,1). Paris: Cerf, 2004. Pp. 396. €44 (pb). ISBN 2 204 07414 4.

BOOK NOTES 409

puissance d’orientation vers un devenir-animal ou un devenir-humain, il se dévoile comme étant avant tout le sujet d l’éthique” (p. 308). Staying with the first Ennead, let us turn to Alexandrine Schniewind’s study of the notion of the sage (spoudaios) in Plotinus.2 The book focuses on Enneads I.4 (“On Happiness”), and places this treatise in the context of Plotinus’ ethical thought in general. S. emphasizes the idea of the sage, an ethically paradigmatic figure whose attainment of intellection guarantees his happiness. The connection between intellection and happiness raises familiar difficulties having to do with the relation between the higher, intellective self, and the lower, embodied self. As S. points out in her ch. 4, Plotinus emphasizes that the higher man is “other (allos)” than the lower man. On what basis can we say that these two “men” are still one and the same individual? This metaphysical question is not central to the book, but S. does discuss some related issues, for instance the question of whether the sage has any practical role to play in this world. S. argues that for Plotinus the practical role of the spoudaios lies in bringing others to virtue, in part by serving as an example. The educative role of the spoudaios is echoed in the pedagogical purpose S. detects in Enneads I.4 itself. Plausibly, she sees the treatise (and Plotinus’ writings in general) as addressing those who are not yet sages. She even sug- gests (ch. 2) that I.4 is intended for three kinds of readers: those correspond- ing to casual “auditors” of Plotinus’ teaching sessions, initiated disciples, and Plotinus’ inner circle of assistants (i.e. Porphyry and Amelius). For S., the treatise addresses each group in turn, gradually expressing an ever more demand- ing ethical teaching, though she admits that of course any reader of the text would read it from beginning to end. Though the second grouping of treatises in the Enneads is perhaps the one that receives least attention in the scholarly literature, James Wilberding’s fine translation and commentary on II.1 shows that there is important philosophi- cal material to be found here.3 The book begins with a very useful overview of issues in Greek cosmology, covering Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics as well as Plotinus. This introduction anticipates points discussed in more detail in the commentary to the text (here we do get a Greek text, which is basically that of the most recent Henry and Schwyzer edition). As W. shows, this treatise (for which he adopts the title Peri tou Kosmou, rather than Peri Ouranou) is essentially a discussion of the world’s eternity. But Plotinus takes it for granted that the universe has always existed, and in its current arrangement; the only question is whether the cosmos is everlastingly numerically identical,

2 A. Schniewind, L’Éthique du sage chez Plotin: le paradigme du spoudaios. Paris: J. Vrin, 2003. Pp. 238. €32 (pb). ISBN 2 7116 1616 9. 3 J. Wilberding, Plotinus’ Cosmology. A Study of Ennead II.1 (40). Text, Translation and Commentary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Pp. 269. £60 (hb). ISBN 0 19 927726 5.