Plotino - Tratado 41,2 (IV, 6, 2) — Percepção e outros sentidos

2. ¿Cómo, si no es así, se produce la sensación? Digamos que se refiere en realidad a objetos que ella no posee, porque es propio de toda facultad del alma no sufrir impresiones sino utilizar su poder con objetos para los que esté dispuesta. En este sentido, puede distinguirse perfectamente por el alma el objeto visible del objeto sonoro, lo cual no sería posible si ambos fuesen improntas. Y no lo son, sin duda alguna, como tampoco afecciones o pasiones del alma, sino actos referentes al objeto con el que se corresponden en el alma. Nosotros, sin embargo, ponemos en entredicho que cada facultad sensitiva pueda conocer si no sufre un choque con el objeto. Y creemos que sufre, en efecto, como consecuencia de este choque y no que conoce verdaderamente ese objeto que le ha sido dado dominar, pero no ser dominada por él.

Otro tanto conviene pensar en lo que respecta al oído. Pues la impronta se da en el aire, conformada por los choques sucesivos, esto es, como si las letras fuesen dibujadas por quien produce el sonido para que luego la facultad correspondiente y la sustancia misma del alma puedan reconocer los caracteres impresos en el aire, una vez que éstos se han acercado al órgano, condición natural para que se verifique la sensación.

En cuanto al gusto y al olfato, es claro que se dan impresiones pasivas. Pero las sensaciones, y el conocimiento de los gustos y de los olores, son nociones que se tienen de las impresiones pasivas, y no las impresiones mismas. Con mayor razón, el alma queda libre de impresiones y de improntas en el conocimiento de las cosas inteligibles. Aquí, al contrario de lo que ocurre en la sensación, el alma inclina hacia lo interno, en tanto en la sensación contempla lo que viene de fuera. Por algo los seres inteligibles son actos, en mayor medida y en sentido más preciso que las sensaciones. Cada uno de ellos se conoce a sí mismo y es también como el acto mismo de conocer.

¿Acaso deberemos hablar de un alma que se desdobla, como si una parte de ella viese a la otra cuando contempla la inteligencia una, y ambos, el sujeto y el objeto, son una sola y la misma cosa? Pero dejemos esto para otra ocasión.

II. Il en est pour l’ouïe de même que pour la vue. L’empreinte 428 est dans l’air : les sons consistent dans une suite de vibrations distinctes, semblables à des lettres tracées par celui qui parle. L’âme, en vertu de sa puissance et de son essence, lit les caractères figurés dans l’air quand ils se présentent à la faculté qui doit les percevoir (08).

Enfin, pour le goût et l’odorat, il faut également distinguer la passion et la connaissance de la passion, connaissance qui est la sensation, le jugement de la passion, et qui en diffère complètement (09).

Quant à la connaissance des choses intelligibles, elle admet encore moins une passion, une empreinte (10) : car c’est en elle-même que l’âme trouve les choses intelligibles, c’est hors d’elle-même qu’elle contemple les choses sensibles. Aussi les notions des premières sont-elles des actes d’une nature supérieure aux autres : ce sont les actes mêmes de l’âme, les actes produits par elle (11).

Quant à savoir si l’âme se voit elle-même comme double, se contemplant comme un autre objet en quelque sorte, tandis qu’elle voit l’intelligence comme une de telle sorte que les deux choses ne tassent qu’une, c’est une question que nous traiterons ailleurs (12).

SENSATIONS ARE NOT EXPERIENCES, BUT RELATIVE ACTUALIZATIONS.

2. After denying that sensation consists of such an operation, it is our duty to point out the true state of affairs. Though it be objected that thus the soul would be considered as judging of things she does not possess, it is nevertheless plain that it is the characteristic of a power, not to experience or suffer, but to develop its force, to carry out the function to which it is destined. If the soul is to discern a visible or audible object the latter must consist of neither images nor experiences, but actualizations relative to the objects which naturally belong to the domain of these actualizations of the soul. Those who deny that any faculty can know its object without receiving some impulsion from it imply that the faculty suffers, without really cognizing the object before it; for this soul-faculty should dominate the object instead of being thereby dominated.

THIS IS TRUE NOT ONLY OF SIGHT BUT OF HEARING, TASTE AND SMELL.

The case of hearing is similar to that of sight. The impression is in the air; the sounds consist in a series of distinct vibrations, similar to letters traced by some person who is speaking. By virtue of her power and her being, the soul reads the characters traced in the air, when they present themselves to the faculty which is suitable to reception of them. As to taste and smell also, we must distinguish between the experience and the cognition of it; this latter cognition constitutes sensation, or a judgment of the experience, and differs therefrom entirely.

COGNITION OF INTELLIGIBLE OBJECTS STILL LESS ADMITS OF AN IMPRESSION.

The cognition of intelligible things still less admits of an experience or impression; for the soul finds the intelligible things within herself, while it is outside of herself that she contemplates sense-objects. Consequently the soul’s notions of intelligible entities are actualizations of a nature superior to those of sense-objects, being the actualizations of the soul herself, that is, spontaneous actualizations. We shall however have to relegate to another place the question whether the soul sees herself as double, contemplating herself as another object, so to speak, and whether she sees intelligence as single in a manner such that both herself and intelligence seem but one.

2. But if perception does not go by impression, what is the process?

The mind affirms something not contained within it: this is precisely the characteristic of a power - not to accept impression but, within its allotted sphere, to act.

Besides, the very condition of the mind being able to exercise discrimination upon what it is to see and hear is not, of course, that these objects be equally impressions made upon it; on the contrary, there must be no impressions, nothing to which the mind is passive; there can be only acts of that in which the objects become known.

Our tendency is to think of any of the faculties as unable to know its appropriate object by its own uncompelled act; to us it seems to submit to its environment rather than simply to perceive it, though in reality it is the master, not the victim.

As with sight, so with hearing. It is the air which takes the impression, a kind of articulated stroke which may be compared to letters traced upon it by the object causing the sound; but it belongs to the faculty, and the soul-essence, to read the imprints thus appearing before it, as they reach the point at which they become matter of its knowledge.

In taste and smell also we distinguish between the impressions received and the sensations and judgements; these last are mental acts, and belong to an order apart from the experiences upon which they are exercised.

The knowing of the things belonging to the Intellectual is not in any such degree attended by impact or impression: they come forward, on the contrary, as from within, unlike the sense-objects known as from without: they have more emphatically the character of acts; they are acts in the stricter sense, for their origin is in the soul, and every concept of this Intellectual order is the soul about its Act.

Whether, in this self-vision, the soul is a duality and views itself as from the outside - while seeing the Intellectual-Principal as a unity, and itself with the Intellectual-Principle as a unity - this question is investigated elsewhere.