Plotino - Tratado 43,5 (VI, 2, 5) — Partir da unidade e da multiplicidade da alma

5 Ahora bien, lo primero que hay que tener en cuenta es que, como los cuerpos, por ejemplo los de los animales y las plantas, son cada uno de ellos múltiples por sus colores, tamaños y variedad de partes, como uno está en un sitio y otro en otro, pero como todos provienen de un uno, provendrán o de un uno que sea absolutamente uno o de un uno que sea más uno que su producto y, en consecuencia, más ente que su producto. Porque cuanta es la distancia en unidad, tanta es la distancia en ser. Pues, puesto que provienen de un uno, pero no de un uno que sea absolutamente o el Uno en sí —de lo contrario constituirían una multiplicidad distanciada—, queda que provengan de un uno múltiple. Ahora bien, el principio creativo era el alma. Luego el alma es unimúltiple.10

—¿Qué significa esto? ¿Que la multiplicidad consiste en las razones de sus productos? ¿Es que el alma es una cosa y sus razones otra?

—No, el alma misma es una Razón y un compendio de razones. Las razones son actividad del alma actuando según su esencia, y su esencia es potencia de razones. La multiplicidad de esta unidad queda, pues, demostrada, de este modo, por lo que produce en otros.

—¿Y si no produce? ¿Si uno la considera como no productiva remontándose a la parte de ella que no es productiva?

—¿No es verdad que aun aquí hallará una multiplicidad de potencias? En efecto, todo el mundo concederá que el alma es. Pero ¿es eso lo mismo que si uno dijera que una piedra es? No, no es lo mismo. Pero así y todo, en la piedra, el ser de la piedra no es el ser, sino el ser piedra. Pues así también, aun aquí, el ser del alma comporta, junto con el ser, el ser alma.

—Entonces, ¿una cosa es el ser y otra lo restante, lo que completa la esencia del alma, y lo primero es ente mientras que lo segundo es una diferencia constitutiva del alma?

—Sí, el alma es un ente, pero no, sin embargo, en el sentido en que un hombre es blanco, sino en el de que el alma es tan sólo una esencia; quiere decir que lo que tiene, no lo tiene fuera de su esencia.

V. La première considération qui se présente à notre esprit, c’est que chaque corps soit d’animal soit de plante est multiple par les couleurs, les formes, les grandeurs, les espèces des parties, la diversité de leur position, et que toutes ces choses cependant proviennent de l’unité, soit de l’Un absolument simple, soit de l’habitude de l’unité universelle, soit d’un principe qui ait plus d’unité, par conséquent plus d’être que les choses qu’il produit, parce que, plus on s’éloigne de l’unité, plus on s’éloigne aussi de l’être. Le principe qui forme les corps doit donc être un sans être absolument un ni identique à l’Un ; sinon, il ne produirait pas une pluralité qui fût aussi éloignée de l’unité : reste qu’il soit unité-pluralité (πλῆθος ἕν). Or ce principe, c’est l’âme: elle est donc unité-pluralité. Et en quoi consiste celte pluralité? Dans les raisons [séminales] des choses qui procèdent de l’âme. Les raisons ne sont pas autres que l’âme : car l’âme est elle-même raison, principe des raisons ; les raisons sont l’acte de l’âme qui agit selon son essence, et cette essence est la puissance des raisons (9). L’âme est donc pluralité en même temps qu’unité : l’action qu’elle exerce sur les autres choses le démontre clairement.

Mais qu’est l’âme si on la considère en dehors de toute action, si on examine en elle la partie qui ne travaille pas à former les corps (10)? N’y trouvera-t-on pas encore pluralité de puissances? Quant à l’être, il n’est personne qui le refuse à l’âme. Mais l’être qu’on lui accorde est-il celui qu’on accorde à une pierre? Non sans doute. D’ailleurs, même dans l’être de la pierre, être et être pierre sont choses inséparables; ainsi, être et être âme ne sont qu’une seule et même chose dans l’âme. Faut-il donc en elle regarder comme différents d’un côté l’être et de l’autre ce qui constitue l’essence, en sorte que ce soit la différence [propre à l’essence] qui en s’ajoutant à l’être fasse l’âme? Non : l’âme est sans doute un être déterminé, non comme homme blanc, mais seulement comme essence particulière (ὥς τις οὐσία) : en d’autres termes, ce qu’elle a, elle l’a par son essence même (11).

THE SOUL IS A PLURAL UNITY OF SEMINAL REASONS.

5. The first consideration that meets us is that each body, whether of animals or plants, is multiple, by virtue of its colors, forms, dimensions, the kinds of parts, and diversity of their position; and that nevertheless all things derive from unity, whether from toe absolutely simple Unity, or from the habituation of the universal Unity, or from some principle having more unity — and consequently more essence — than the things it produces; because, the further the distance from unity, the less the essence. The principle which forms the bodies must therefore be one, without either being absolutely one, nor identical with the One; otherwise, it would not produce a plurality that was distant from unity; consequently, it must be a plural-unity. Now this principle is the soul; therefore she must be a plural unity. This plurality, however, consists of the ("seminal) reasons" which proceed from the soul. The reasons, indeed, are not other than the soul; for the soul herself is reason, being the principle of the reasons; the reasons are the actualization of the soul which acts according to her being; and this being is potentiality of the reasons. The soul is therefore plurality simultaneously with unity; which is clearly demonstrated by the action she exerts on other things.

THE SOUL IS A DEFINITE ESSENCE AS PARTICULAR BEING.

But what it the soul considered apart from all action, if we examine in her the part which does not work at formation of the bodies? Will not a plurality of powers still be found therein? As to world-Essence, nobody even thinks of depriving the soul of it. But is her acknowledged essence the same as that predicated of a stone? Surely not. Besides, even in the essence of the stone, "being" and "being a stone" sre inseparable concepts, just as "being" and "being a soul" are, in the soul, but one and the same thing. Must we then regard as different in her essence on one side, and on the other the remainder (what constitutes the being); so that it would be the difference (proper to being) which, by being added to her, constituted the soul? No: the soul is no doubt a determinate essence; not as a "white man," but only as a particular being; in other words, she has what she has by her very being.

5. A first point demanding consideration:

Bodies - those, for example, of animals and plants - are each a multiplicity founded on colour and shape and magnitude, and on the forms and arrangement of parts: yet all these elements spring from a unity. Now this unity must be either Unity-Absolute or some unity less thorough-going and complete, but necessarily more complete than that which emerges, so to speak, from the body itself; this will be a unity having more claim to reality than the unity produced from it, for divergence from unity involves a corresponding divergence from Reality. Since, thus, bodies take their rise from unity, but not "unity" in the sense of the complete unity or Unity-Absolute - for this could never yield discrete plurality - it remains that they be derived from a unity Pluralized. But the creative principle [in bodies] is Soul: Soul therefore is a pluralized unity.

We then ask whether the plurality here consists of the Reason-Principles of the things of process. Or is this unity not something different from the mere sum of these Principles? Certainly Soul itself is one Reason-Principle, the chief of the Reason-Principles, and these are its Act as it functions in accordance with its essential being; this essential being, on the other hand, is the potentiality of the Reason-Principles. This is the mode in which this unity is a plurality, its plurality being revealed by the effect it has upon the external.

But, to leave the region of its effect, suppose we take it at the higher non-effecting part of Soul; is not plurality of powers to be found in this part also? The existence of this higher part will, we may presume, be at once conceded.

But is this existence to be taken as identical with that of the stone? Surely not. Being in the case of the stone is not Being pure and simple, but stone-being: so here; Soul’s being denotes not merely Being but Soul-being.

Is then that "being" distinct from what else goes to complete the essence [or substance] of Soul? Is it to be identified with Bring [the Absolute], while to some differentia of Being is ascribed the production of Soul? No doubt Soul is in a sense Being, and this is not as a man "is" white, but from the fact of its being purely an essence: in other words, the being it possesses it holds from no source external to its own essence.