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Sorabji  

Proclus   comments in two works on the passage of Plato’s Timaeus   43B-44B, in which it is said that in newborn babies, and in humans when first created by the Demiurge, the bodily fluidity caused by growth and sensation suppresses the rational movements of the soul. Galen   had cited this in his treatise That the Capacities of the Soul Follow the Blends of the Body. Proclus replies to Galen, but in a way that Galen had already anticipated and answered (QAM 64,19-65,1; 70,11-13 that the body cannot help the soul, but only impede it, like a chattering neighbour, and the soul is not really disturbed; it is merely seeing, as it were, its reflection in the troubled waters of the body. The passages are Proclus in Alc. 1 226,12-227,2; in Tim. 349,21-350,8; 330,9-331,1.

Proclus wants to steer a middle course concerning the independence of soul from body, since he does not want to veer over to Plotinus  ’ view that there is an undescended soul free of emotion. The protests in Proclus in Alc. 1 226,12-227,2 and 227,2-7 against the two opposite views come from a continuous passage translated below. Proclus’ own view is that the soul moves between perfection and imperfection because its activities (unlike it itself) are temporal. [SorabjiPC1:289]

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[...] only the activities of the soui are disturbed, not its substance. But he gives the un-Plotinian reason that the soul itself is non-temporal, and he compares a light that is not extinguished, but cannot shine out. I. Hadot   points out that in a late treatise Plotinus after all allows that a bad human soul changes to another nature, 1.8 [51] 13 (18-26). [SorabjiPC1:290]

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Plotino

[The good man’s independence of and care for his body and bodily life.]

If anyone does not set the good man up on high in this world of Noûs, but brings him down to chance events and fears their happening to him, he is not keeping his mind on the good man as we consider he must be, but assuming an ordinary man, a mixture of good and bad, and assigning to him a life which is also a mixture of good and bad and of a kind which cannot easily occur. Even if a person of this sort did exist, he would not be worth calling happy; he would have no greatness in him, either of the dignity of wisdom or the purity of good. The common life of body and soul cannot possibly be the life of well-being. Plato was right in maintaining that the man who intends to be wise and happy must take his good from There, from above, and look to that Good and be made like it and live by it. He must hold on to this only as his goal, and change his other circumstances as he changes his dwelling-place, not because he derives any advantage in the point of well-being from one dwelling-place or another, but considering how the rest of his environment will be affected if he lives here or there. He must give to this bodily life as much as it needs and he can, but he is himself other than it and free to abandon it, an he will abandon it in nature’s good time, and always plans for it with independent authority. So some of his activities will tend towards well-being; others will not be directed to the goal and will really not belong to him but to that which is joined to him, which he will care for and bear with as much as he can, like a musician with his lyre, as long as he can use it; if he cannot use it he will change to another, or give up using the lyre and abandon the activities directed to it. Then he will have something else to do which does not need the lyre, and will let it lie unregarded beside him while he sings without an instrument. Yet the instrument was not given to him at the beginning without good reason. He has used it often up till now. (Armstrong   Selection and Translation, Ennead I. 4. 16)

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Plotin poursuit ici sa polémique avec l’Éthique à Nicomaque d’Aristote   engagée au chapitre 1, concernant la détermination de ce qu’on est libre d’accomplir. Aristote avait lui-même croisé le fer avec Platon   en ces termes : « sans doute en effet, est-ce à tort que l’on soutient qu’ont été accomplis involontairement (akousia) les actes faits par colère ou par désir physique (dia thymon [thymos] he epithymian [epithymia]). D’abord à ce compte-là, on ne pourrait plus dire qu’un animal agit volontairement, ni non plus un enfant » (III 2, 1111a24-26). Comme le souligne Tricot dans la note qu’il consacre à ce passage, c’est Platon et l’Académie qui sont visés par l’expression « sans doute est-ce à tort que l’on soutient… ». Plotin, par conséquent, ne pouvait que prendre le contre-pied d’Aristote en faisant une hypothèse polémique : si l’on accorde le tò eph’ hemin aux enfants et aux animaux, alors qu’ils sont gouvernés par la colère et le désir physique mais non par la raison, pourquoi ne pas l’accorder aussi aux fous ou à ceux qui sont sous l’emprise de drogues et n’ont plus aucune maîtrise d’eux-mêmes ? Il est à noter cependant que Plotin glisse du concept d’ekousion, « volontairement », employé par Aristote, vers celui de tò eph’ hemin, « ce qui dépend de nous », alors même qu’il soutenait dans le chapitre 1 qu’il ne fallait pas confondre ces deux concepts. Rien d’étonnant à cela cependant si le concept de tò eph’ hēmîn est à ce stade du texte de Plotin moins déterminé (puisqu’il le définit simplement par le fait d’« être maître » de son acte, 1, 34 et 36) que celui d’hekoúsion, qui suppose l’apport de la connaissance des circonstances de l’action. Dès lors, si l’on refuse le tò eph’ hēmîn aux enfants et aux animaux, a fortiori faudra-t-il nier qu’ils possèdent l’action accomplie volontairement, hekoúsion. Il est probable en outre qu’interféré ici l’influence d’Alexandre d’Aphrodise   qui dans le Traité du destin, souligne que si les animaux privés de raison peuvent agir de leur plein gré (hekousios), ils sont en revanche incapables de faire dépendre quelque chose d’eux-mêmes, puisque cette dernière capacité est le propre de l’homme rationnel (183, 30-32, Bruns). Le rapport entre les différents textes est donc on ne peut plus complexe. Alexandre tente de sauver la lettre d’Aristote en accordant l’action accomplie volontairement aux animaux, mais en réservant la capacité de faire dépendre des choses de soi aux hommes (selon une distinction hekousíōs / tò eph’ hēmîn qui n’est pas explicitement dans Aristote). Plotin à son tour prend vraisemblablement appui sur le texte d’Alexandre pour critiquer Aristote : il affirme comme Alexandre qu’il faut refuser le tò eph’ hēmîn aux enfants et aux animaux, mais en escamotant la distinction hekousíōs / tò eph’ hēmîn telle que l’introduit l’auteur du Traité du destin. Plotino - Tratado 39,2 (VI, 8, 2) — A que faculdade da alma reportar o que depende de nós?

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independente