Plotino - Tratado 13,3 (III, 9, 3) — A Alma total permanece no inteligível

3. El alma universal no nació en ninguna parte ni vino a ningún lugar, porque no hay lugar donde pueda encontrarse. El cuerpo participa de ella en razón a su vecindad. Por ello Platón   no dice que el alma se dé en el cuerpo, sino que el cuerpo se da en el alma. En cuanto a las almas, tienen un lugar del que proceden, que es el alma universal; pero tienen también un lugar al que descienden y al que pasan, del cual habrán de partir para ascender.

El alma universal radica siempre en lo alto, que es donde por su naturaleza le corresponde estar. A continuación de ella viene el universo, una parte del cual es vecina del alma mientras Ja otra se halla por debajo del sol. El alma particular se ilumina cuando se dirige a lo que está por encima de ella, porque es entonces cuando toca el ser; en cambio, al dirigirse a lo que está por debajo de ella, marcha directamente hacia el no-ser. Esto es también lo que hace cuando se dirige hacia sí misma, porque, al querer ir hacia sí misma, produce por debajo de ella una imagen de sí, que carece en absoluto de seres como si cayese en el vacío y perdiese totalmente su determinación, volviéndose su imagen por entero indeterminada y oscura. Por su falta total de razón y de inteligencia, esta misma imagen se halla a mucha distancia del ser. Digamos que en este momento el alma aparece en su morada propia, que es, ciertamente, un lugar intermedio; ahora bien, al lanzar de nuevo una mirada sobre la imagen, la conforma con su segunda ojeada y, ya a su gusto, se dirige hacia ella.

3. De la descente de l’âme dans le corps (09).

III. L’Ame universelle n’est venue en aucun lieu, ne s’est portée nulle part : car il n’y avait pas de lieu où elle pût se porter ; seulement, le corps qui était voisin de l’Ame a participé d’elle ; aussi, celle-ci n’est-elle pas dans un corps. Platon ne dit pas en effet que l’âme soit dans un corps ; il place au contraire le corps dans l’âme (10).

Quant aux âmes particulières, elles viennent de quelque part : car elles procèdent de l’Ame universelle (11) ; elles ont aussi un lieu où elles peuvent soit descendre, soit passer d’un corps dans un autre (12) ; elles peuvent également remonter de là au monde intelligible. L’Ame universelle, au contraire, habite toujours la région élevée où la retient sa nature; et l’univers placé au-dessous d’elle participe d’elle comme participe du soleil l’objet qui en reçoit les rayons (13). L’âme particulière est donc éclairée quand elle se tourne vers ce qui est supérieur: car alors elle rencontre l’Être; au contraire, quand elle se tourne vers ce qui est inférieur, elle rencontre le non-être (14). C’est ce qu’elle fait quand elle se tourne vers elle-même : en voulant s’appartenir à elle-même, elle tombe en quelque sorte dans le vide, devient indéterminée et produit ce qui est au-dessous d’elle, c’est-à-dire une image d’elle-même qui est le non-être [le corps]. Or, l’image de cette image (15) [la matière] est indéterminée et tout à fait obscure : car elle est entièrement irraisonnable, inintelligible et aussi éloignée que possible de l’Être même (16). L’âme occupe [entre l’intelligence et le corps] une région intermédiaire, qui est son domaine propre ; quand elle regarde la région inférieure, en y jetant un second coup d’œil, elle donne une forme à son image [au corps], et, charmée par cette image, elle y entre (17).

OF THE DESCENT OF THE SOUL INTO THE BODY. THE SOUL IS NOT IN THE BODY; BUT THE BODY IS IN THE SOUL.

3. The universal Soul has not come into any place, nor gone into any; for no such place could have existed. However, the body, which was in its neighborhood, participated in her, consequently, she is not inside a body. Plato, indeed, does not say that the soul is in a body; on the contrary, he locates the body in the soul.

INDIVIDUAL SOULS, HOWEVER, MAY BE SAID TO COME AND GO.

As to individual souls, they come from somewhere, for they proceed from the universal Soul; they also have a place whither they may descend, or where they may pass from one body into another; they can likewise reascend thence to the intelligible world.

THE UNIVERSAL SOUL EVER REMAINS IN THE INTELLIGIBLE.

The universal Soul, on the contrary, ever resides in the elevated region where her nature retains her; and the universe located below her participates in her just as the object which receives the sun’s rays participates therein.

HOW THE SOUL INCARNATES.

The individual soul is therefore illuminated when she turns towards what is above her; for then she meets the essence; on the contrary, when she turns towards what is below her, she meets non-being. This is what happens when she turns towards herself; on wishing to belong to herself, she somehow falls into emptiness, becomes indeterminate, and produces what is below her, namely, an image of herself which is non-being (the body). Now the image of this image (matter), is indeterminate, and quite obscure; for it is entirely unreasonable, unintelligible, and as far as possible from essence itself. (Between intelligence and the body) the soul occupies an intermediary region, which is her own proper domain; when she looks at the inferior region, throwing a second glance thither, she gives a form to her image (her body); and, charmed by this image, she enters therein.

3. (A)... How, then, does Unity give rise to Multiplicity?

By its omnipresence: there is nowhere where it is not; it occupies, therefore, all that is; at once, it is manifold - or, rather, it is all things.

If it were simply and solely everywhere, all would be this one thing alone: but it is, also, in no place, and this gives, in the final result, that, while all exists by means of it, in virtue of its omnipresence, all is distinct from it in virtue of its being nowhere.

But why is it not merely present everywhere but in addition nowhere-present?

Because, universality demands a previous unity. It must, therefore, pervade all things and make all, but not be the universe which it makes.

(B) The Soul itself must exist as Seeing - with the Intellectual-Principle as the object of its vision - it is undetermined before it sees but is naturally apt to see: in other words, Soul is Matter to [its determinant] the Intellectual-Principle.

(C) When we exercise intellection upon ourselves, we are, obviously, observing an intellective nature, for otherwise we would not be able to have that intellection.

We know, and it is ourselves that we know; therefore we know the reality of a knowing nature: therefore, before that intellection in Act, there is another intellection, one at rest, so to speak.

Similarly, that self-intellection is an act upon a reality and upon a life; therefore, before the Life and Real-Being concerned in the intellection, there must be another Being and Life. In a word, intellection is vested in the activities themselves: since, then, the activities of self-intellection are intellective-forms, We, the Authentic We, are the Intelligibles and self-intellection conveys the Image of the Intellectual Sphere.

(D) The Primal is a potentiality of Movement and of Repose - and so is above and beyond both - its next subsequent has rest and movement about the Primal. Now this subsequent is the Intellectual-Principle - so characterized by having intellection of something not identical with itself whereas the Primal is without intellection. A knowing principle has duality [that entailed by being the knower of something) and, moreover, it knows itself as deficient since its virtue consists in this knowing and not in its own bare Being.

(E) In the case of everything which has developed from possibility to actuality the actual is that which remains self-identical for its entire duration - and this it is which makes perfection possible even in things of the corporeal order, as for instance in fire but the actual of this kind cannot be everlasting since [by the fact of their having once existed only in potentiality] Matter has its place in them. In anything, on the contrary, not composite [= never touched by Matter or potentiality] and possessing actuality, that actual existence is eternal... There is, however, the case, also in which a thing, itself existing in actuality, stands as potentiality to some other form of Being.

(F)... But the First is not to be envisaged as made up from Gods of a transcendent order: no; the Authentic Existents constitute the Intellectual-Principle with Which motion and rest begin. The Primal touches nothing, but is the centre round which those other Beings lie in repose and in movement. For Movement is aiming, and the Primal aims at nothing; what could the Summit aspire to?

Has It, even, no Intellection of Itself?

It possesses Itself and therefore is said in general terms to know itself... But intellection does not mean self-ownership; it means turning the gaze towards the Primal: now the act of intellection is itself the Primal Act, and there is therefore no place for any earlier one. The Being projecting this Act transcends the Act so that Intellection is secondary to the Being in which it resides. Intellection is not the transcendently venerable thing - neither Intellection in general nor even the Intellection of The Good. Apart from and over any Intellection stands The Good itself.

The Good therefore needs no consciousness.

What sort of consciousness can be conceived in it?

Consciousness of the Good as existent or non-existent?

If of existent Good, that Good exists before and without any such consciousness: if the act of consciousness produces that Good, then The Good was not previously in existence - and, at once, the very consciousness falls to the ground since it is, no longer consciousness of The Good.

But would not all this mean that the First does not even live?

The First cannot be said to live since it is the source of Life.

All that has self-consciousness and self-intellection is derivative; it observes itself in order, by that activity, to become master of its Being: and if it study itself this can mean only that ignorance inheres in it and that it is of its own nature lacking and to be made perfect by Intellection.

All thinking and knowing must, here, be eliminated: the addition introduces deprivation and deficiency.