Plotino - Tratado 49,2 (V, 3, 2) — As faculdades da alma

2. Comenzaremos la inquisición por el alma y nos preguntaremos si debe concedérsele el conocimiento de sí misma, constatando en tal sentido qué es lo que en ella conoce y cómo conoce realmente. En cuanto a la facultad sensible, podremos decir que, por sí misma, conoce tan sólo las cosas exteriores; porque, aunque exista un conocimiento de los hechos que acontecen en el interior de nuestro cuerpo, la percepción sigue siéndolo de algo exterior, ya que lo que en realidad percibe son afecciones que se dan en el cuerpo.

En cuanto al razonamiento que acaece en el alma verifica su juicio y procede por composición y división, tomando como base para ello imágenes que provienen de la sensación; y si se trata de cosas que derivan de la Inteligencia, contempla sus improntas y actúa sobre ellas del mismo modo. A lo cual añadirá el conocimiento y aún el ajuste armonioso entre las imágenes que son de otra época y las nuevas imágenes acabadas de llegar. Hecho que consideraremos como la reminiscencia que se da en el alma. Pero, ¿se detiene aquí el poder de la inteligencia del alma, o puede ésta volverse hacia sí misma y llegar a conocerse? Pensemos si no habrá que remontar para ello hasta la Inteligencia. Porque sí concedemos el conocimiento de sí misma a esta parte del alma, afirmaremos ya de ella que es inteligencia, con lo cual tendríamos que averiguar en qué se diferencia de la inteligencia de lo alto. Y si no le concedemos ese conocimiento, progresando en nuestro razonamiento tendremos que llegar necesariamente a la inteligencia superior, en cuyo momento deberemos examinar en qué consiste el conocimiento de sí mismo. Si lo damos por existente en la inteligencia de rango inferior tendremos que averiguar cuál es, entonces, la diferencia con respecto al conocimiento de sí mismo. Porque, si no hay diferencia alguna, la inteligencia inferior será ya la inteligencia pura.

¿Deberemos concluir, en consecuencia, que el conocimiento discursivo del alma se vuelve realmente hacia sí mismo? No, sino que obtiene tan sólo la comprensión de las improntas que recibe. Cómo se verifica esa comprensión es, precisamente, lo que hemos de investigar.

Commençons par considérer l’Âme. Possède-t-elle la connaissance d’elle-même? Par quelle faculté et comment l’acquiert-elle ?

Il est dans la nature de la puissance sensitive (τὸ αἰσθητικόν) de ne s’occuper que des objets extérieurs : car, dans le cas même où elle sent ce qui se passe dans le corps, elle perçoit encore des choses qui lui sont extérieures, puisqu’elle perçoit les passions éprouvées par le corps auquel elle préside (03).

L’âme possède en outre la raison discursive (τὸ λογιζόμενον) : celle-ci juge les représentations sensibles, les combine et les divise; elle considère aussi sous forme d’images les conceptions qui lui viennent de l’intelligence,et opère sur ces images comme sur les images fournies par la sensation ; enfin, elle est encore la puissance de comprendre, puisqu’elle discerne les nouvelles images des anciennes, et qu’elle les accorde entre elles en les rapprochant, d’où dérivent nos réminiscences (04).

Voilà jusqu’où va la puissance intellectuelle de l’âme. Est-elle capable en outre de se tourner vers elle-même et de se connaître, ou faut-il s’élever jusqu’à l’intelligence pour trouver cette connaissance? Si nous accordons cette connaissance à la partie intellectuelle de l’âme, nous en ferons une intelligence, et nous aurons alors à chercher en quoi elle diffère de l’intelligence supérieure. Si nous refusons cette con ·-naissance à cette partie de l’âme, nous nous élèverons par la raison à l’intelligence, et nous examinerons en quoi consiste la connaissance de soi-même. Enfin, si nous attribuons cette connaissance à la fois à l’intelligence inférieure et à l’intelligence supérieure, nous aurons à établir les différences qu’offre la connaissance de soi-même selon qu’elle appartient à l’une ou à l’autre : car, s’il n’y avait pas de différence entre ces deux espèces d’intelligence, la raison discursive serait identique à l’intelligence pure. La raison discursive se tourne-t-elle donc vers elle-même ? ou bien se borne-t-elle à avoir la compréhension des formes qu’elle reçoit des sens et de l’intelligence, et dans ce second cas, comment en a-t-elle la compréhension? C’est ce dernier point que nous allons commencer par examiner.

THE SENSE-POWER OF THE SOUL DEALS ONLY WITH EXTERIOR THINGS.

2. Let us begin by a consideration of the soul. Does she possess self-consciousness ? By what faculty ? And how does she acquire it? It is natural for the sense-power to deal only with exterior objects; for even in the case in which it feels occurrences in the body, it is still perceiving things that are external .to it, since it perceives passions experienced by the body over which it presides.

FUNCTIONS OF THE DISCURSIVE REASON OF THE SOUL.

Besides the above, the soul possesses the discursive reason, which judges of sense-representations, combining and dividing them. Under the form of images, she also considers the conceptions received from intelligence, and operates on these images as on images

furnished by sensation. Finally, she still is the power of understanding, since she distinguishes the new images from the old, and harmonizes them by comparing them; whence, indeed, our reminiscences are derived.

CAN DISCURSIVE REASON TURN UPON ITSELF?

That is the limit of the intellectual power of the soul. Is it, besides, capable of turning upon itself, and cognizing itself, or must this knowledge be sought for only within intelligence? If we assign this knowledge to the intelleciual part of the soul; we will be making an intelligence out of it; and we will then have to study in what it differs from the superior Intelligence. If, again, we refuse this knowledge to this part of the soul, we will, by reason, rise to Intelligence, and we will have to examine the nature of self-consciousness. Further, if we attribute this knowledge both to the inferior and to the superior intelligences, we shall have to distinguish self-consciousness according as it belongs to the one or to the other; for if there were no difference between these two kinds of intelligence, discursive reason would be identical with pure Intelligence. Does discursive reason, therefore, turn upon itself? Or does it limit itself to the comprehension of the types received from both (sense and intelligence); and, in the latter case, how does it achieve such comprehension ? This latter question is the one to be examined here.

2. We begin with the soul, asking whether it is to be allowed self-knowledge and what the knowing principle in it would be and how operating.

The sense-principle in it we may at once decide, takes cognisance only of the external; even in any awareness of events within the body it occupies, this is still the perception of something external to a principle dealing with those bodily conditions not as within but as beneath itself.

The reasoning-principle in the Soul acts upon the representations standing before it as the result of sense-perception; these it judges, combining, distinguishing: or it may also observe the impressions, so to speak, rising from the Intellectual-Principle, and has the same power of handling these; and reasoning will develop to wisdom where it recognizes the new and late-coming impressions [those of sense] and adapts them, so to speak, to those it holds from long before - the act which may be described as the soul’s Reminiscence.

So far as this, the efficacy of the Intellectual-Principle in the Soul certainly reaches; but is there also introversion and self-cognition or is that power to be reserved strictly for the Divine Mind?

If we accord self-knowing to this phase of the soul we make it an Intellectual-Principle and will have to show what distinguishes it from its prior; if we refuse it self-knowing, all our thought brings us step by step to some principle which has this power, and we must discover what such self-knowing consists in. If, again, we do allow self-knowledge in the lower we must examine the question of degree; for if there is no difference of degree, then the reasoning principle in soul is the Intellectual-Principle unalloyed.

We ask, then, whether the understanding principle in the soul has equally the power of turning inwards upon itself or whether it has no more than that of comprehending the impressions, superior and inferior, which it receives.

The first stage is to discover what this comprehension is.

II. In the first place, however, we must inquire concerning the soul, whether the knowledge of itself is to be attributed to it, what the gnostic power of it is, and how it subsists. With respect to the sensitive power, therefore, of the soul, we must immediately say that its energy is directed to externals alone. For though there is a co-sensation of things which inwardly take place in the body, yet here the apprehension is of things which are external to sense: for then there is a sensation of the passions which are in the body. But the power in the soul which reasons, and which forms a judgment of the phantasms adjacent from sense, collects and divides them, surveys the impressions as it were which are derived from intellect, and possesses about these the same power [as intellect]. It likewise assumes intelligence, as knowing and adapting new and recently acceding impressions to those in itself which are ancient. And this knowledge and adaptation, we say, are the reminiscences of the soul. The intellect of the soul, also, stops as far as this in its power. [It must be investigated, therefore, whether the reasoning power also,] is converted to, and knows itself, or whether this must be referred to intellect. For if we attribute a knowledge of itself to this part, we must admit that it is intellect; and in this case, we must investigate in what it differs from a superior intellect. But if we do not grant that it has a knowledge of itself, by a reasoning process we must proceed to the intellect which is superior, and we must consider what it is for this to know itself. And if we grant that this is also the province of the reasoning power, we must investigate what the difference is between the two in self-knowledge. For if there is no difference, then this our intellect is the highest. This dianoetic part, therefore, of the soul, is it converted to itself, or not ? Or has it [only] a knowledge of the impressions which it receives both from intellect and sense ? And in the first place, it must be investigated how it possesses this knowledge.