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Plotino - Tratado 42,9 (VI, 1, 9) — A relação

sexta-feira 17 de junho de 2022, por Cardoso de Castro

  

Igal

9 Es menester, pues, en los casos anteriormente citados, como son el del agente y el de la ciencia, concebir la relación como operativa, de acuerdo con su operatividad y con el enunciado basado en esta operatividad, y, en los demás casos, como participación en una forma y una razón. Porque si los seres tuvieran que ser cuerpos, habría que decir que las relaciones predicadas de los relativos carecen de entidad. Pero si el puesto primario se lo asignamos a los seres incorpóreos, síguese que también se lo asignamos a los enunciados con que decimos que las relaciones son razones y que la causa de la relación es la participación en una forma. Efectivamente, la causa de que una cosa sea doble o mitad es lo Doble o la Mitad. Y así, de unos decimos que son correlativos en virtud de una misma forma; de otros, en virtud de formas opuestas. Fue, pues, simultáneo el advenimiento, en el uno, de lo Doble y, en el otro, de la Mitad; en el uno, de la Grandeza y, en el otro, de la Pequeñez. O bien, ambas Formas opuestas están presentes en cada cosa, la Semejanza y la Desemejanza y, en general, la Identidad y la Alteridad. De ahí que una misma cosa sea semejante y desemejante, idéntica y diversa.15

—¿Y si dos individuos son el uno feo y el otro más feo en virtud de su participación en una misma Forma?

—Si los dos son totalmente feos, son iguales a causa de la ausencia de la Forma. Pero si la fealdad es mayor en el uno y menor en el otro, el menos feo lo es por su participación en una Forma que no domina, y el más feo, por su participación en una Forma que domina todavía menos, o por su mayor privación, si uno quiere compararlos como si la privación fuera una forma. La sensación, por otra parte, es una forma proveniente de ambas fealdades, y el conocimiento es, asimismo, una forma proveniente de ambas. La posesión es una especie de actividad controladora, una especie de acción, relativa a lo poseído; y la medición, una actividad del mensurante, una especie de cálculo, relativa a lo medido.

Pues bien, si lográremos reducir la relación de lo relativo a una sola forma genérica, habrá un solo género, esto es, una sola entidad nocional, en todos los casos; pero si las nociones son incluso opuestas y presentan las variedades dichas, no es fácil que haya un solo género; los relativos serán reductibles a una cierta analogía, esto es, a una sola categoría. Pero aun cuando sea posible reducir a unidad los relativos mencionados, es imposible, empero, reducir a un solo género los que ellos incluyen en una misma categoría. Porque incluyen en el mismo género que los relativos a sus negaciones y sus parónimos, por ejemplo, lo doble y la duplicación. Ahora bien, ¿cómo es posible incluir en un mismo género lo relativo y su negación, lo doble y lo no-doble, lo relativo y lo no-relativo? Es como si uno, tras poner el género «animal», incluyera en él el no-animal. Y la duplicación y lo doble, como la blancura y lo blanco, no son exactamente lo mismo.

Bouillet

IX Il faut donc admettre qu’il y a dans les choses dont nous avons parlé d’abord, telles que la science et l’être actif, une efficacité, un acte, une raison active, et, dans les autres choses, une participation à la forme et à la raison. En effet, s’il n’y avait d’êtres que les corps, les habitudes appelées relatives ne seraient rien de réel. Si nous assignons au contraire le premier rang dans l’existence aux choses incorporelles et aux raisons, et si nous définissons les habitudes des raisons qui participent aux formes, nous devons dire que ce qui est double a pour cause le double, et ce qui est moitié, la moitié; que les autres choses sont ce qu’on les nomme par la présence de la même forme ou des formes contraires. Or, ou bien deux choses reçoivent simultanément l’une le double et l’autre la moitié, Tune la grandeur et l’autre la petitesse; ou bien les contraires tels que la ressemblance et la dissemblance se trouvent dans chaque chose, aussi bien que l’identité et la différence, et chaque chose se trouve être à la fois semblable et dissemblable, identique et différente. — Mais, dira-t-on, si un objet est laid et qu’un autre soit plus laid encore, dirons-nous qu’ils sont tels parce qu’ils participent à une forme? — Non. Si ces deux objets sont également laids, ils sont égaux par l’absence delà forme. S’ils sont inégalement laids, celui qui est moins laid est tel parce qu’il participe à une forme qui ne maîtrise pas suffisamment la mati  ère, et celui qui est plus laid est tel parce qu’il participe à une forme qui maîtrise encore moins la matière. On peut encore les juger au point de vue de la privation, en les comparant l’un à l’autre comme si quelque forme se trouvait en eux. La sensation est une forme qui résulte de deux choses [de celle qui sent et de celle qui est sentie] ; il en est de même de la connaissance. La possession est à l’égard de la chose possédée un acte qui contient, qui a une espèce d’efficacité. Quant au mesurage, qui est un acte de la mesure par rapport à l’objet mesuré, il consiste dans une raison.

Si donc, considérant la manière d’être des relatifs comme une forme générique, on admet qu’elle constitue une unité, elle est un genre; par conséquent, elle est dans toutes choses une existence et une forme. Mais, si les raisons [les relations] sont opposées les unes aux autres, si elles ont entre elles les différences que nous avons signalées ci-dessus, il n’y a pas là un genre, et tout se ramène à une sorte de ressemblance, à une catégorie. Or, en admettant que les choses dont nous avons parlé puissent être ramenées à une unité, il ne s’ensuit pas qu’on puisse ramener à un seul genre les choses que les Péripatéticiens placent dans la même catégorie. Ils placent en effet dans le même genre les choses elles-mêmes et leurs privations, ainsi que les objets qui reçoivent d’elles leur dénomination, comme le double même, par exemple, et l’objet double. Or, comment ramener à un même genre une chose et sa privation, comme le double, par exemple, et le non-double, le relatif et le non-relatif? C’est comme si l’on mettait dans le même genre l’être vivant et l’être non-vivant. Enfin, comment ranger ensemble le double et l’objet double, la blancheur et l’objet blanc, puisque ces choses ne sauraient être identiques?

Guthrie

HABITUATIONS ARE REASONS THAT PARTICIPATE IN FORMS.

9. It must therefore be granted that in the things of which we first spoke, such as knowing and doing (active being), there is an actualization, an habituation, and an actualizing reason; while in the other things there is a participation in form and reason. For indeed, if the bodies were the only essences, the relative habituations would bear no reality. If, on the contrary, we assign the first rank in existence to incorporeal things, and to the reasons, and if we define the habituations as reasons that participate in the forms, we should say that what is double has the double for its cause, and what is half, has the half as its cause; and that other things are what they are named because of the presence of the same, or of the contrary form. Now either two things simultaneously receive one the double, and the other the half, and one greatness, and the other smallness; or contraries such as resemblance and dissimilarity are to be found in each thing, as well as identity and difference; and everything finds itself simultaneously similar and dissimilar, identical and different. It might be objected that if one object were ugly, and another uglier still, they are such because they participate in a form. Not so; for if these two objects be equally ugly, they are equal in the absence of the form. If they be unequally ugly, the least ugly is such because it participates in a form which does not sufficiently subdue matter, and the uglier is such because it participates in a form which does so still less. They could, besides, be judged from the standpoint of deprivation, comparing them to each other as if they contained some form. The sensation is a form that results from two things (of that which feels, and that which is felt); so also with knowledge. In respect to the thing possessed, possession is an act which contains, which has a kind of efficacity. As to mensuration, which is an actualization of measure, in respect of the measured object, it consists in a reason.

WHILE SOME ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES ARE LOGICALLY POSSIBLE. THE OBJECTS SUBSUMED ARE IMPOSSIBLE.

If then, considering the constitution of the relative relations as a generic form, it be admitted that it constitutes an unity, it forms a classification; consequently it constitutes an existence and a form in all things. But if the reasons (or, relations) be opposed to each other, if the above-mentioned differences obtain among them, they do not constitute a class, and everything must be reduced to a resemblance, or category. Now, even if we admit that the things of which we have spoken can be reduced to a unity, it does not follow that all the things gathered under the same category by the Aristotelians, could be reduced to a single sort. Indeed, they lump together into the same classification, both objects and mere statements of their absence, as well as the objects which derive their appellation from them; as, for instance, doubleness itself, and the double object. Now how is it possible to reduce to the same classification both a thing and the mere lack of it, as, for instance, doubleness and the non-double, the relative and the non-relative? This is as absurd as it would be to gather into the same classification the living "being," and the non-living "being." Worse yet, how could one assort together duplication and the double object, whiteness and the white object? Such things could not possibly be identical.

MacKenna

9. It follows that in the cases specified above - agent, knowledge and the rest - the relation must be considered as in actual operation, and the Act and the Reason-Principle in the Act must be assumed to be real: in all other cases there will be simply participation in an Ideal-Form, in a Reason-Principle.

If Reality implied embodiment, we should indeed be forced to deny Reality to these conditions called relative; if however we accord the pre-eminent place to the unembodied and to the Reason-Principles, and at the same time maintain that relations are Reason-Principles and participate in Ideal-Forms, we are bound to seek their causes in that higher sphere. Doubleness, it is clear, is the cause of a thing being double, and from it is derived halfness.

Some correlatives owe their designations to the same Form, others to opposite Forms; it is thus that two objects are simultaneously double and half of each other, and one great and the other small. It may happen that both correlatives exist in one object-likeness and unlikeness, and, in general, identity and difference, so that the same thing will be at once like and unlike, identical and different.

The question arises here whether sharing in the same Form could make one man depraved and another more depraved. In the case of total depravity, clearly the two are made equal by the absence of a Form. Where there is a difference of degree, the one has participated in a Form which has failed to predominate, the other in a Form which has failed still more: or, if we choose the negative aspect, we may think of them both as failing to participate in a Form which naturally belonged to them.

Sensation may be regarded as a Form of double origin [determined both by the sense-organ and by the sensible object]; and similarly with knowledge.

Habit is an Act directed upon something had [some experience produced by habit] and binding it as it were with the subject having [experiencing], as the Act of production binds producer and product.

Measurement is an Act of the measurer upon the measured object: it too is therefore a kind of Reason-Principle.

Now if the condition of being related is regarded as a Form having a generic unity, Relation must be allowed to be a single genus owing its reality to a Reason-Principle involved in all instances. If however the Reason-Principles [governing the correlatives] stand opposed and have the differences to which we have referred, there may perhaps not be a single genus, but this will not prevent all relatives being expressed in terms of a certain likeness and falling under a single category.

But even if the cases of which we have spoken can be subsumed under a single head, it is nevertheless impossible to include in a single genus all that goes with them in the one common category: for the category includes negations and derivatives - not only, for example, double but also its negative, the resultant doubleness and the act of doubling. But we cannot include in one genus both the thing and its negative - double and not-double, relative and not-relative - any more than in dealing with the genus animal we can insert in it the nonanimal. Moreover, doubleness and doubling have only the relation to double that whiteness has to white; they cannot be classed as identical with it.


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