Plotino - Tratado 28,19 (IV, 4, 19) — O prazer e a dor

19. Lo que llamamos placer y dolor puede ser definido del modo siguiente: el dolor como un conocimiento del retroceso del cuerpo, privado ya de la imagen del alma; el placer como un conocimiento del ser animado de la imagen del alma instalada nuevamente en su cuerpo. He aquí, por ejemplo, que el cuerpo experimenta algo; el alma sensitiva, que se halla próxima a el, conoce la sensación y la da a conocer, a su vez, a la parte del alma en la que concluyen las sensaciones. Pero es el cuerpo el que siente el dolor; y digo que lo siente porque realmente es él quien sufre. Así, cuando se produce un corte en el cuerpo, su masa también se divide. La irritación que con ello se produce no proviene del hecho de que sea una masa, sino una determinada masa. Tal ocurre con la quemadura que se da en el cuerpo; el alma la siente porque recibe inmediatamente su impresión, contigua como está al cuerpo. Toda ella, en efecto, siente la misma impresión que el cuerpo, pero sin que por esto experimente cosa alguna. Lo que el alma hace cuando siente es declarar el lugar de la impresión, allí donde el cuerpo ha recibido el golpe, causa de su sufrimiento. Si fuese el alma la que sufriese, el alma que está toda ella presente en todo el cuerpo, no podría dejar de manifestarlo, sino que sufriría también toda ella y se vería por entero presa del dolor. Pero, sin embargo, no podría decir ni declarar en qué punto se da ese dolor que, para ella, se daría allí donde se da el alma, esto es, en todas partes. Ahora bien, es realmente el dedo el que sufre, y si ocurre lo mismo con el hombre es porque el dedo le pertenece, como suyo que es. Se dice que el hombre siente dolor en su dedo, como se dice que es de color claro porque así lo son sus ojos. Pero el hombre sufre verdaderamente en el punto donde se da el dolor, si es que no se toma como sufrimiento la sensación que acompaña al dolor. Más, evidentemente, lo que quiere indicarse con esto es que no hay sufrimiento que pase inadvertido a la sensación. La sensación, por tanto, no ha de considerarse como sufrimiento, sino como conocimiento del dolor. Pero al ser conocimiento es ya de suyo impasible, para conocer y dar a conocer íntegramente lo que ella percibe. Porque un mensajero que se deja llevar por la emoción, no cumple ciertamente con su cometido, ni es un mensajero en la verdadera acepción de la palabra.

XIX. Voilà pourquoi il y a du plaisir et de la douleur. Voilà pourquoi l’on dit que la douleur est une perception de la dissolution, quand le corps est menacé de perdre l’image de l’âmee [d’être désorganisé en perdant l’âme irraisonnable], et que le plaisir est une perception produite dans l’animal quand l’image de l’âme reprend son empire sur le corps. C’est le corps qui éprouve la passion ; c’est la puissance sensitive de l’âme qui perçoit la passion par ses relations avec les organes; c’est à elle que viennent aboutir toutes les sensations. Le corps seul est lésé et pâtit: par exemple, quand un membre est coupé, c’est la masse du corps qui est coupée ; mais ce n’est pas simplement comme masse, c’est comme masse vivante qu’elle éprouve la douleur. Il en est de même de la brûlure: l’âme la sent, parce que la puissance sensitive par ses relations avec les organes en reçoit en quelque sorte le contre-coup. Elle sent tout entière la passion produite dans le corps sans que pourtant elle l’éprouve elle-même (55).

En effet, sentant tout entière, elle localise la passion dans l’organe qui a reçu le coup et qui souffre. Si elle éprouvait elle-même la souffrance, comme elle est présente tout entière dans tout le corps, elle ne pourrait localiser la souffrance dans un organe; elle éprouverait tout entière la souffrance ; elle ne la rapporterait pas à telle partie du corps, mais à toutes en général : car elle est présente partout dans le corps. Le doigt souffre, et l’homme sent cette souffrance, parce que c’est son doigt. On dit que l’homme souffre du doigt, comme on dit qu’il est bleu parce que ses yeux sont de cette couleur. C’est donc la même chose qui éprouve la passion et la souffrance, à moins que, par le mot souffrance, on ne désigne à la fois la passion et la sensation qui en est la suite ; dans ce cas, on veut dire uniquement par là que l’état de souffrance est accompagné de sensation. La sensation même n’est pas la souffrance, mais la connaissance de la souffrance. La puissance qui connaît doit être impassible pour bien connaître et bien indiquer ce qui est perçu (56). Car si la faculté qui doit indiquer les passions pâtit elle-même, ou elle ne les indiquera pas, ou elle les indiquera mal.

THE SOUL FEELS THE PASSIONS WITHOUT EXPERIENCING THEM.

19. That is why there is pleasure and pain. That is why grief is said to be a perception of dissolution, when the body is threatened with the loss of the image of the soul (of being disorganized by losing the irrational soul). That is why it is said that pleasure is a perception produced in the animal when the image of the soul reassumes its sway over the body. It is the body which undergoes passion; but it is the sense-potentiality of the soul which perceives the passion by its relation with the organs; it is she to which all the sensations ultimately report themselves. The body alone is injured and suffers; for example, when one member is cut, it is the mass of the body which is cut; the soul feels pain not merely as a mass, but as a living mass. It is likewise with a burn: the soul feels it, because the sense-potentiality as it were receives its reaction by its relations with the organs. The soul entire feels the passion produced in the body without however herself experiencing it.

UNLESS THE SOUL WERE IMPASSIBLE SHE COULD NOT LOCALIZE AND MANAGE PAIN.

Indeed, as the whole soul feels, she localizes the passion in the organ which has received the blow, and which suffers. If she herself experienced the suffering, as the whole of her is present in the whole body, she could not localize the suffering in one organ; the whole of her would feel the suffering; she would not relate it to any one part of the body, but to all in general: for she is present everywhere in the body. The finger suffers, and the man feels this suffering, because it is his finger. It is generally said that the man suffers in his finger, just as it is said that he is blond, because his eyes are blue. It is therefore the same entity that undergoes passion and suffering, unless the word "suffering" should not here designate both the passion, and the sensation which follows it; in this case no more is meant than that the state of suffering is accompanied by sensation. The sensation itself is not the suffering, but the knowledge of the suffering. The potentiality which knows must be impassible to know well, and well to indicate what is perceived. For if the faculty which is to indicate the passions itself suffer, it will either not indicate them, or it will indicate them badly.

19. Thus what we know as pleasure and pain may be identified: pain is our perception of a body despoiled, deprived of the image of the soul; pleasure our perception of the living frame in which the image of the soul is brought back to harmonious bodily operation. The painful experience takes place in that living frame; but the perception of it belongs to the sensitive phase of the soul, which, as neighbouring the living body, feels the change and makes it known to the principle, the imaging faculty, into which the sensations finally merge; then the body feels the pain, or at least the body is affected: thus in an amputation, when the flesh is cut the cutting is an event within the material mass; but the pain felt in that mass is there felt because it is not a mass pure and simple, but a mass under certain [non-material] conditions; it is to that modified substance that the sting of the pain is present, and the soul feels it by an adoption due to what we think of as proximity.

And, itself unaffected, it feels the corporeal conditions at every point of its being, and is thereby enabled to assign every condition to the exact spot at which the wound or pain occurs. Being present as a whole at every point of the body, if it were itself affected the pain would take it at every point, and it would suffer as one entire being, so that it could not know, or make known, the spot affected; it could say only that at the place of its presence there existed pain - and the place of its presence is the entire human being. As things are, when the finger pains the man is in pain because one of his members is in pain; we class him as suffering, from his finger being painful, just as we class him as fair from his eyes being blue.

But the pain itself is in the part affected unless we include in the notion of pain the sensation following upon it, in which case we are saying only that distress implies the perception of distress. But [this does not mean that the soul is affected] we cannot describe the perception itself as distress; it is the knowledge of the distress and, being knowledge, is not itself affected, or it could not know and convey a true message: a messenger, affected, overwhelmed by the event, would either not convey the message or not convey it faithfully.