Plotino - Tratado 49,4 (V, 3, 4) — A alma pode se conhecer ela mesma

4. Pero también nosotros alcanzamos la categoría de reyes cuando seguimos las huellas de la Inteligencia. Lo cual puede ocurrir de dos maneras: porque, o bien por sus mismos caracteres, que son como leyes escritas en nosotros, nos llenamos plenamente de ella, o bien podemos llegar a verla y a sentirla presente en nosotros. Entonces sí que nos conocemos a nosotros mismos, ya que con esta visión aprendemos todas las demás cosas. O acaso aprendemos a conocer el poder que conoce este objeto inteligible, valiéndonos para ello de este poder o haciéndonos, incluso, este poder mismo. De modo que se da un doble conocimiento de sí mismo, esto es: o se conoce la naturaleza de la razón discursiva del alma, o realmente se la sobrepasa, conociéndose uno así mismo como ser parejo de la Inteligencia. Pero quien así se conoce no lo hace ya como hombre, sino más bien como un ser completamente diferente que se ha elevado hasta lo alto arrastrando tan sólo consigo la parte superior del alma, que es la única que puede volar hasta el pensamiento para hacer confesión de lo que ha visto .

¿Diremos que la razón discursiva no se conoce a sí misma y que, por el contrario, está hecha para comprender las cosas exteriores y para formular sus juicios de acuerdo con reglas que tiene en sí misma, provenientes de la Inteligencia, e igualmente, que hay algo mejor que ella, que no necesita buscar la verdad porque la posee desde siempre? ¿Se trata, pues, de algo que no conoce lo que es, pero que conoce, en cambio, cuáles son sus cualidades y sus actos? Porque si nos dice que proviene de la Inteligencia, que ocupa el segundo lugar después de ella y que es a la vez una imagen suya, que contiene en sí misma todos sus caracteres a la manera como los grabó el supremo escribano, ¿podrá verdaderamente detenerse aquí, luego de conocerse a sí misma de este modo? ¿Y qué ocurrirá entonces: nos valdremos de otra facultad para conocer a la Inteligencia que se conoce a sí misma, o participaremos realmente en ella, en esa inteligencia que hay entre nosotros y que nosotros somos, para conocer de hecho a la Inteligencia y conocemos, a la vez, nosotros mismos? Necesariamente tendrá que ser así, puesto que nosotros estamos en condiciones de conocer lo que en la Inteligencia se conoce a sí mismo. Y, en tal sentido, nos convertimos nosotros mismos en Inteligencia, dejando a un lado todo lo demás para verla a ella por sí misma, o mejor, para vernos a nosotros mismos. Nos vemos, por tanto, como la Inteligencia se ve a sí misma.

IV. Nous sommes nous-mêmes rois quand nous pensons conformément à l’intelligence. Or cela peut avoir lieu de deux manières : ou bien nous avons reçu de l’intelligence des impressions et des règles qui sont pour ainsi dire gravées en nous, nous sommes remplis en quelque sorte par l’intelligence ; ou bien nous pouvons en avoir la perception et l’intuition parce qu’elle nous est présente (08). En la voyant, nous connaissons que par sa contemplation nous saisissons nous-mêmes les autres choses intelligibles, soit parce que nous saisissons la puissance qui connaît les intelligibles, à l’aide de cette puissance même, soit parce que nous devenons intelligence. L’homme qui se connaît lui-même de cette manière est double : ou bien il connaît la raison discursive, qui est propre à l’âme; ou bien, s’élevant à un état supérieur, il se connaît lui-même et il est uni à l’intelligence; alors il se pense par elle, non plus comme étant homme, mais comme devenu supérieur à l’homme, comme transporté dans la région intelligible et y attirant avec lui la partie la meilleure de l’âme, celle qui seule est capable de prendre son essor vers la pensée et de recevoir le dépôt des connaissances que donne son intuition (09). Mais la raison discursive ne sait-elle pas qu’elle est la raison discursive et qu’elle a la compréhension des objets extérieurs? Ne sait-elle pas qu’elle juge quand elle juge? Me sait-elle pas qu’elle juge au moyen des règles qu’elle a en elle-même et qu’elle tient de l’intelligence? Ne sait-elle pas qu’il y a au-dessus d’elle un principe qui possède les choses intelligibles au lieu de chercher à les connaître? Mais que serait cette faculté, si elle ignorait ce qu’elle est et quelles sont ses fonctions? Elle sait donc qu’elle dépend de l’intelligence, qu’elle lui est inférieure et qu’elle en offre l’image, qu’elle a ses règles en quelque sorte gravées en elle-même, telles que l’intelligence les grave, ou plutôt les a gravées en elle (10). Celui qui se connaît ainsi lui-même s’arrêtera-t-il là? Non, sans doute. Faisant usage d’une autre faculté, nous aurons l’intuition de l’intelligence qui se connaît elle-même; ou bien, nous emparant d’elle, puisqu’elle est nôtre et que nous sommes siens, nous connaîtrons ainsi l’intelligence et nous nous connaîtrons nous-mêmes. Cela est nécessaire pour que nous connaissions ce qu’est dans l’intelligence la connaissance de soi-même. L’homme devient intelligence, quand, abandonnant ses autres facultés, il voit l’intelligence par l’intelligence, et il se voit lui-même de la même manière que l’intelligence se voit elle-même.

WE CAN THINK IN CONFORMITY WITH INTELLIGENCE IN TWO WAYS.

4. We ourselves are kings when we think in conformity with intelligence. This, however, can take place in two ways. Either we have received from intelligence the impressions and rules which are, as it were, engraved within us, so that we are, so to speak, filled with intelligence; or we can have the perception and intuition of it, because it is present with us. When we see intelligence, we recognize that by contemplation of it we ourselves are grasping other intelligible entities. This may occur in two ways; either because, by the help of this very power, we grasp the power which cognizes intelligible entities; or because we ourselves become intelligence. The man who thus knows himself is double. Either he knows discursive reason, which is characteristic of the soul, or, rising to a superior condition, he cognizes himself and is united with intelligence. Then, by intelligence, that man thinks himself; no more indeed as being man, but as having become superior to man, as having been transported into the intelligible Reason, and drawing thither with himself the best part of the soul, the one which alone is capable of taking flight towards thought, and of receiving the fund of knowledge resulting from his intuition. But does discursive reason not know that it is discursive reason, and that its domain is the comprehension of external objects? Does it not, while doing -so, know that it judges? Does it not know that it is judging by means of the rules derived from intelligence, which itself contains? Does it not know that above it is a principle which possesses intelligible entities, instead of seeking (merely) to know them? But what would this faculty be if it did not know what it is, and what its functions are? It knows, therefore, that it depends on intelligence, that it is inferior to intelligence, and that it is the image of intelligence, that it contains the rules of intelligence as it were engraved within itself, such as intelligence engraves them, or rather, has engraved them on it.

MAN IS SELF-CONSCIOUS BY BECOMING INTELLIGENCE.

Will he who thus knows himself content himself therewith? Surely not. Exercising a further faculty, we will have the intuition of the intelligence that knows itself; or, seizing it, inasmuch as it is "ours" and we are "its," we will thus cognize intelligence, and know ourselves. This is necessary for our knowledge of what, within intelligence, self-consciousness is. The man becomes intelligence when, abandoning his other faculties, he by intelligence sees Intelligence, and he sees himself in the same manner that Intelligence sees itself.

IV. "We also reign when we energize according to it. But we energize according to it in a twofold respect; either because letters as it were, which are as laws, are inscribed in us by intellect; or because we are filled with it; or when it is present, are able to see and be sentient of it. We also know by such a spectacle, that we are able to learn other things, through a thing of this kind; so that we either learn the nature of the power which knows such an object as this, learning by the power itself; or we become a thing of this kind. [1] Hence, that which knows itself is twofold; one indeed being the dianoetic part of the soul, but the other being superior to this. And, therefore, that which knows itself has a subsistence conformable to pure intellect itself. It also intellectually perceives itself through this, not as any longer man, but as having entirely become something else; and hastily withdrawing itself to that which is on high, it alone draws upward together with itself, the more excellent part of the soul, which is alone able to be winged with intelligence, in order that he who possesses it may there deposit what he knew. Does not the dianoetic part, therefore, know that it is dianoetic, and that it receives the knowledge of things external; that it forms a judgment also of the things which it investigates, and this by the rules in itself which it derives from intellect? Does it not also know that there is something better than itself which does not investigate, but possesses every thing in itself ? If, therefore, it says that it is from intellect, and is the second after, and the image of intellect, having all things as it were written in itself, as there he who writes and has written, will he, who thus knows himself, stop as far as to these things ? Shall we, however, employing another power, survey intellect knowing itself, or shall we assuming it, since it also is ours, and we are of it, thus both know intellect, and ourselves ? Or is not the latter of these necessary, if we are to know what that is in intellect, for itself to know itself ? Then, however, some one becomes himself intellect, when dismissing other things pertaining to himself, he beholds intellect through intellect, and by it also surveys himself, just as intellect likewise beholds itself.

4. But we, too, are king when we are moulded to the Intellectual-Principle.

That correspondence may be brought about in two ways: either the radii from that centre are traced upon us to be our law or we are filled full of the Divine Mind, which again may have become to us a thing seen and felt as a presence.

Hence our self-knowing comes to the knowing of all the rest of our being in virtue of this thing patently present; or by that power itself communicating to us its own power of self-knowing; or by our becoming identical with that principle of knowledge.

Thus the self-knower is a double person: there is the one that takes cognisance of the principle in virtue of which understanding occurs in the soul or mind; and there is the higher, knowing himself by the Intellectual-Principle with which he becomes identical: this latter knows the self as no longer man but as a being that has become something other through and through: he has thrown himself as one thing over into the superior order, taking with him only that better part of the soul which alone is winged for the Intellectual Act and gives the man, once established There, the power to appropriate what he has seen.

We can scarcely suppose this understanding faculty to be unaware that it has understanding; that it takes cognisance of things external; that in its judgements it decides by the rules and standards within itself held directly from the Intellectual-Principle; that there is something higher than itself, something which, moreover, it has no need to seek but fully possesses. What can we conceive to escape the self-knowledge of a principle which admittedly knows the place it holds and the work it has to do? It affirms that it springs from Intellectual-Principle whose second and image it is, that it holds all within itself, the universe of things, engraved, so to say, upon it as all is held There by the eternal engraver. Aware so far of itself, can it be supposed to halt at that? Are we to suppose that all we can do is to apply a distinct power of our nature and come thus to awareness of that Intellectual-Principle as aware of itself? Or may we not appropriate that principle - which belongs to us as we to it - and thus attain to awareness, at once, of it and of ourselves? Yes: this is the necessary way if we are to experience the self-knowledge vested in the Intellectual-Principle. And a man becomes Intellectual-Principle when, ignoring all other phases of his being, he sees through that only and sees only that and so knows himself by means of the self - in other words attains the self-knowledge which the Intellectual-Principle possesses.