MacKenna-Plotinus: Difference

If the Alienism is to be understood as meaning only that Matter is differentiated, then it is different not by itself [since it is certainly not an absolute] but by this Difference, just as all identical objects are so by virtue of Identicalness [the Absolute principle of Identity]. Enneads   II,4,

Are not Being and Reality (to on and he ousia) distinct; must we not envisage Being as the substance stripped of all else, while Reality is this same thing, Being, accompanied by the others – Movement, Rest, Identity, Difference – so that these are the specific constituents of Reality? The universal fabric, then, is Reality in which Being, Movement, and so on are separate constituents. Enneads: II VI.

It must at once, be at once something in the nature of unity and yet a notion compact of diversity, or a Kind, a Nature, that waits upon the Existents of that Other World, either associated with them or known in and upon them, they collectively being this Nature which, with all its unity, is yet diverse in power and essence. Considering this multifarious power, we declare it to be Essence in its relation to this sphere which is substratum or underlie to it; where we see life we think of it as Movement; where all is unvaried self-identity we call it Repose; and we know it as, at once, Difference and Identity when we recognize that all is unity with variety. Enneads III,7,

Thus the Primals [the first "Categories"] are seen to be: Intellectual-Principle; Existence; Difference; Identity: we must include also Motion and Rest: Motion provides for the intellectual act, Rest preserves identity as Difference gives at once a Knower and a Known, for, failing this, all is one, and silent. Enneads: V I

So too the objects of intellection [the ideal content of the Divine Mind] – identical in virtue of the self-concentration of the principle which is their common ground – must still be distinct each from another; this distinction constitutes Difference. Enneads: V I

Difference everywhere is a good, and so there must be differing archetypes, though only to evil could be attribute any power in Matter to thwart nature by overmastering the perfect Reason-Principles, hidden but given, all. Enneads V,7,

We have caught the radiance of Being, and beheld it in its three manifestations: Being, revealed by the Being within ourselves; the Motion of Being, revealed by the motion within ourselves; and its Stability revealed by ours. We accommodate our being, motion, stability to those [of the Archetypal], unable however to draw any distinction but finding ourselves in the presence of entities inseparable and, as it were, interfused. We have, however, in a sense, set them a little apart, holding them down and viewing them in isolation; and thus we have observed Being, Stability, Motion – these three, of which each is a unity to itself; in so doing, have we not regarded them as being different from each other? By this posing of three entities, each a unity, we have, surely, found Being to contain Difference. Enneads VI,2,

Again, inasmuch as we restore them to an all-embracing unity, identifying all with unity, do we not see in this amalgamation Identity emerging as a Real Existent? Thus, in addition to the other three [Being, Motion, Stability], we are obliged to posit the further two, Identity and Difference, so that we have in all five genera. In so doing, we shall not withhold Identity and Difference from the subsequents of the Intellectual order; the thing of Sense has, it is clear, a particular identity and a particular difference, but Identity and Difference have the generic status independently of the particular. Enneads VI,2,

Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual Being [Being-in-Act], since it is its life; with Motion, Stability too gained its foothold in Reality; with these are associated Difference and Identity, so that they also are seen in conjunction with Being. But number [the basis of Quantity] is a posterior. It is posterior not only with regard to these genera but also within itself; in number the posterior is divided from the prior; this is a sequence in which the posteriors are latent in the priors [and do not appear simultaneously]. Number therefore cannot be included among the primary genera; whether it constitutes a genus at all remains to be examined. Enneads VI,2,

How then do the four genera complete Substance without qualifying it or even particularizing it? It has been observed that Being is primary, and it is clear that none of the four – Motion, Stability, Difference, Identity – is distinct from it. That this Motion does not produce Quality is doubtless also clear, but a word or two will make it clearer still. Enneads VI,2,

The truth is not that Being first is and then takes Motion, first is and then acquires Stability: neither Stability nor Motion is a mere modification of Being. Similarly, Identity and Difference are not later additions: Being did not grow into plurality; its very unity was a plurality; but plurality implies Difference, and unity-in-plurality involves Identity. Enneads VI,2,

As we survey this Magnitude with the beauty of Being within it and the glory and light around it, all contained in Intellect, we see, simultaneously, Quality already in bloom, and along with the continuity of its Act we catch a glimpse of Magnitude at Rest. Then, with one, two and three in Intellect, Magnitude appears as of three dimensions, with Quantity entire. Quantity thus given and Quality, both merging into one and, we may almost say, becoming one, there is at once shape. Difference slips in to divide both Quantity and Quality, and so we have variations in shape and differences of Quality. Identity, coming in with Difference, creates equality, Difference meanwhile introducing into Quantity inequality, whether in number or in magnitude: thus are produced circles and squares, and irregular figures, with number like and unlike, odd and even. Enneads VI,2,

Being, thus, exhibits every shape and every quality; it is not seen as a thing determined by some one particular quality; there could not be one only, since the principle of Difference is there; and since Identity is equally there, it must be simultaneously one and many. And so Being is; such it always was: unity-with-plurality appears in all its species, as witness all the variations of magnitude, shape and quality. Clearly nothing may legitimately be excluded [from Being], for the whole must be complete in the higher sphere which, otherwise, would not be the whole. Enneads VI,2,

This intellect, then, to which we ascribe perception, though not divorced from the prior in which it originates, evolves plurality out of unity and has bound up with it the principle of Difference: it therefore takes the form of a plurality-in-unity. A plurality-in-unity, it produces the many intellects by the dictate of its very nature. Enneads VI,2,

Why not resort to analogy? Admitted that the classification of the Sensible cannot proceed along the identical lines marked out for the Intellectual: is there any reason why we should not for Intellectual-Being substitute Matter, and for Intellectual Motion substitute Sensible Form, which is in a sense the life and consummation of Matter? The inertia of Matter would correspond with Stability, while the Identity and Difference of the Intellectual would find their counterparts in the similarity and diversity which obtain in the Sensible realm. Enneads VI,3,

In the higher realm Identity and Difference presuppose a unity at once identical and different: a thing in the lower is different only by participation in Difference and in relation to some other thing; Identity and Difference are here predicated of the particular, which is not, as in that realm, a posterior. Enneads VI,3,

But what is the constant element in alteration, in growth and birth and their opposites, in local change? What is that which makes them all motions? Surely it is the fact that in every case the object is never in the same state before and after the motion, that it cannot remain still and in complete inactivity but, so long as the motion is present, is continually urged to take a new condition, never acquiescing in Identity but always courting Difference; deprived of Difference, Motion perishes. Enneads VI,3,

Thus, Difference may be predicated of Motion, not merely in the sense that it arises and persists in a difference of conditions, but in the sense of being itself perpetual difference. It follows that Time, as being created by Motion, also entails perpetual difference: Time is the measure of unceasing Motion, accompanying its course and, as it were, carried along its stream. Enneads VI,3,

Then again, just as in the case of "On the right" or other such affirmation of relation, the mind does not affirm in some caprice but from observation of contrasted position, so here it affirms unity in virtue of perceiving something real; assuredly the assertion of unity is not a bare attitude towards something non-existent. It is not enough that a thing be alone and be itself and not something else: and that very "something else" tells of another unity. Besides Otherness and Difference are later; unless the mind has first rested upon unity it cannot affirm Otherness or Difference; when it affirms Aloneness it affirms unity-with-aloneness; thus unity is presupposed in Aloneness. Enneads VI,6,

A simplex moving retains its character; either there is no change, movement has been null, or if there has been advance it still remains a simplex and at once there is a permanent duality: if the one member of this duality is identical with the other, then it is still as it was, there has been no advance; if one member differs from the other, it has advanced with differentiation, and, out of a certain identity and difference, it has produced a third unity. This production, based on Identity and Difference, must be in its nature identical and different; it will be not some particular different thing but Collective Difference, as its Identity is Collective Identity. Enneads VI,7,

Being, thus, at once Collective Identity and Collective Difference, Intellectual-Principle must reach over all different things; its very nature then is to modify into a universe. If the realm of different things existed before it, these different things must have modified it from the beginning; if they did not, this Intellectual-Principle produced all, or, rather, was all. Enneads VI,7,

The Intellectual-Principle is the Intellectual Act; its movement is complete, filling Being complete; And the entire of Being is the Intellectual Act entire, comprehending all life and the unfailing succession of things. Because this Principle contains Identity and Difference its division is ceaselessly bringing the different things to light. Its entire movement is through life and among living things. To a traveller over land, all is earth but earth abounding in difference: so in this journey the life through which Intellectual-Principle passes is one life but, in its ceaseless changing, a varied life. Enneads VI,7,

Yet, is not God what He is? Can He, then, be master of being what He is or master to stand above Being? The mind utterly reluctant returns to its doubt: some further considerations, therefore, must be offered: In us the individual, viewed as body, is far from reality; by soul which especially constitutes the being we participate in reality, are in some degree real. This is a compound state, a mingling of Reality and Difference, not, therefore reality in the strictest sense, not reality pure. Thus far we are not masters of our being; in some sense the reality in us is one thing and we another. We are not masters of our being; the real in us is the master, since that is the principle establishing our characteristic difference; yet we are again in some sense that which is sovereign in us and so even on this level might in spite of all be described as self-disposing. Enneads VI,8,