My paper takes as the starting point for its argument the traditional interpretation
(and classic criticism) of Platonic metaphysics as a two worlds view of reality: one
world, that which includes this room of people, i.e., the here and now which is
characterized by change, disorder, conflict, coming to be and passing out of being,
corruption, etc.; and another world, located who knows where, but certainly not identical
to what we see around us at present, the realm of changelessness and order, ontological
perdurance, harmony, unity: Plato's "plain of Truth", the residence of the
forms. In light of these two worlds, the Platonic philosopher's wisdom, whatever it may
be, must be a wisdom not of this world. Indeed, did not Plato's Socrates himself say that
his life— the philosophical life— was the art of practising death? Should that
Socrates— or anyone who professes to be a Platonic philosopher— show up at, let
us say, the World Congress of Philosophy, we should, if we allow entry at all, offer such
a person only a seat in the back row. For the Platonist, we must say, does not and cannot
educate us on the here and now: Platonic wisdom is for the next world, not this one.(1)
Here I argue that this view of Platonic philosophy is not a necessary one. Using the
thought of one particular Platonic — perhaps I should say, Neoplatonic —
philosopher, namely, Plotinus, I argue that one may accept the metaphysics of Platonic
forms, of perfect eternals, of unchanging being, without labeling it and its wisdom as
otherworldly. Focusing upon Enneads VI.4-5, I begin by noting Plotinus' own
distinction in these treatises between on the one hand, lower, sensible, here, instance,
and higher, intelligible, There, form, on the other. Such distinctions for Plotinus are
philosophically necessary because, as certain of Plato's dialogues argue, what is sensible
(i.e., what comes exclusively from or through the five senses) is on its own lacking in
the order, identity, stability, unity, etc. which are characteristics of being. Thus what
is sensible (lower, etc.) can only be said to be insofar as it stands under or
participates in the intelligible or higher, etc. So, two worlds? No. Within these same two
treatises, Plotinus offers at least three separate arguments that such a distinction (as
is called for similarily in, e.g., Plato's Theaetetus) does not necessarily
presuppose any duality of body and mind, let alone two compartmentalized realms of bodies,
on the one hand, and ideas, on the other. After reviewing these arguments, I close with
several possible objections to this interpretation of Plotinus, concluding that such a
metaphysics is and can and must be a wisdom of this world, not some other. The full range
and meaning of the consequences of such an argument are not explored here; rather, it is
intended to promote general discussion of Plotinus, (Neo)Platonists, and philosophers as
educators of humanity.
I. 'Lower' and 'Higher' in Plotinian Metaphysics
In chapter five of treatise VI.4, Plotinus establishes a rather remarkable metaphysical
priority. To this point in the essay, he has been talking about a number of weighty
philosophical problems which center on the nature of being in itself or in relation to
body.(2) Now he describes the special nature of Being:
And its greatness is to be understood in this way, not consisting in bulk; for
bulk is a little thing, going to nothing if one takes away from it. ... But we must not
say that this is less, nor, because we assume that it is less in bulk, lose confidence at
this stage because it is impossible for the less to extend to what is greater than itself.
For "less" should not be predicated of it, nor should one set bulk and the
bulkless side by side by measuring them...nor on the other side should one think that [the
true All] is greater in the sense of quantitative measurement, since this does not apply
to the soul either: this is how the great and small of body is. But there is evidence of
the greatness of soul in the fact that when the bulk becomes greater the same soul reaches
to the whole of it which was in the lesser bulk. For it would be ridiculous in many ways
if one added bulk to soul as well.(3)
That which has bulk — that which is bodily, visible, extended — is contrasted
here with what does not, namely, what is intelligible, invisible, concentrated. For
Plotinus, the latter, not the former, is primary; it is 'more', not less, than what is
extended. But some persons consider the intelligible to be less real and less important
than body — understandably: 'body' is very immediate to one's senses, sensible
impressions strongly dominate human awareness, one is taught to locate being in the bodily
range of experience.(4) Nevertheless, it is a metaphysical
mistake:
For each and every primary reality is not what is perceived by the senses: for
the form on the matter in the things of sense is an image of the real form, and every form
which is in something else comes to it from something else and is a likeness of that from
which it comes. ... [A]nd this All shows by its participation in appearances that the real
beings are other than they; the real beings are unchanging, but the appearances change,
the real beings are set firm on themselves and need no place: for they are not magnitudes;
they have an intelligent existence sufficient to themselves. For the nature of bodies
wants to be preserved by something else, but Intellect upholds by its wonderful nature the
things which fall down by themselves, and does not look for a place to be set in.(5)
The classic Platonic doctrine of participation here manifests itself in Plotinian
metaphysics: that which is intelligible (i.e., 'form'), since it is one, stable,
self-identical, unlike that which is sensible, truly exists; and it provides that which is
sensible with whatever being it has. Thus, form or being is power;(6)
it is true existence and true life;(7) it is the source of
all that which does not exist from itself. Conversely, whatever comes into and passes out
of existence cannot be said to be fully or truly; it exists only by virtue of its
(temporary) participation in that which always is the same, that which is "unbounded
in power":
If, then, time is related by analogy to that which abides in the same in
substance, but that nature is not only unbounded because it is always but unbounded in
power, one must also grant besides this unboundedness of power a nature running along over
against it, swinging alongside that nature as it hangs from it; this nature runs, somehow
in step with time, to the abiding power which is greater [than it] by making [it], and
whatever it is is somewhat extended along it and participates in this nature as far as it
is possible for it to participate....(8)
There is, then, in the Plotinian cosmos, a higher "nature" of unboundedness,
and beside it or under it, a lower "nature" which relies on that higher
principle. The true existent is the higher; that which participates is the lower;(9)
it is in the higher(10) and depends on the higher,(11)
while the higher produces (somehow) what is lower,(12) and
is present, but not confined, to it.(13)
II. The Unity of the World
Thus far, we have an apparent duality: sensibles and intelligibles are both accorded
existence (of some sort) by Plotinus. But it is only apparent, for elsewhere within Enneads
VI.4-5, Plotinus gives (at least) three explanations that this duality is a unity. First,
the lower half of the metaphysical equation (i.e., 'body') exists only as an image, thus
it is not independent. Second, what a 'body' is— what any visible 'object' is—
comes from Being; its meaning, or definition, or truth, or rational essence, is its
form; hence it is able to lay no claim, in and of itself, to being, i.e. to being
what it is because in itself it is nothing— no 'what'. Third, Being (the
'intelligible world') is not confined to a specific place in space and time; it is
incorporeal, hence fully present everywhere.
Let us begin with the first explanation. One helpful metaphor which Plotinus frequently
refers to in order to explain the relation of 'bodily reality' and 'intelligible reality'
is that of an image and its source. For example, in VI.4.10, he compares this metaphysical
relation of form and particular to the relation between a painter and a painting, though
emphasizing an important difference:
....[F]or what made the painting was not the body of the painter or the [bodily]
form which was represented; and it is not the painter, but this particular disposition of
the colours, which should be said to make this particular likeness. This is not in the
strict and proper sense the making of likeness and image as it occurs in pools and
mirrors, or in shadows-- here the image has its existence in the strict and proper sense
from the prior original, and comes to be from it, and it is not possible for what has come
to be to exist cut off from it.(14)
Unlike a painting which, once made, remains in being despite the absence of the
painter, 'things becoming', as images of Being, do not exist if cut off from it. The
sensible, in other words, does not exist outside of Being. It is not independent:
And then further, just as the image of something, like the weaker light, if cut
off from that from which it is, would no longer exist, and in general one cannot cut off
and make exist [separately] anything at all which derives its existence from something
else and is its image, these powers also which came from that first could not exist cut
off from it.(15)
This quotation corrects the view that there are two ontologically separate and
equivalent worlds: in the Plotinian cosmos we have only one existing thing— namely,
Being. It is the sort of thing which gives of itself: like a sun, it radiates light; like
an object in front of a mirror, it gives itself to be reflected; like a fire, it gives off
heat. But it does not thereby create an ontologically independent 'thing'. The sensible
image (i.e., that which is body or that which 'becomes')(16)
exists only in the manner of an object in a mirror,(17) or
heat from a fire,(18) or light from a sun.(19)
There are not, then, two things in the Plotinian world: there exists only one thing, and
then there is that thing's shadow.(20) The shadow does not
add to existence; it (only) reflects it.(21) Thus the
Plotinian world is one, not two.
The second explanation or defense of unity is that the sensible derives its meaning
from Being: what each particular sensible 'object' is comes from Being, thus it is as
dependent on Being epistemologically(22) as ontologically.
Hence, to identify a tree as a tree is to identify the form, Tree, in the particular; the
senses report 'brown', 'green', 'barky', 'strong', 'tall', but do not and cannot yield
identity or existence as there is no meaning in, no identification of, thought in absence
of definition: "Whenever then you say it [i.e., form] is in many things, you are not
saying that it has become many, but you are fitting what happens to the many to that one
when you see it all at once in the many."(23) Plotinus
prioritizes Being (or form) over becoming by contrasting our many sensorial impressions of
objects in the world with our intellectual grasp of the 'one' (or form) "in
them". He is ordering these impressions underneath our intellectual sight of clear,
distinct, stable definitions, insofar as the one form or being can be seen in its many
instances while not being simply identical to any one of them. It remains above or beyond
even as it is within them; i.e., it is undeniably in them, but "it belongs to itself
and is itself."(24)
An example will be helpful here; say, ten wooden chairs and the form, Chair. The form
is in each— how else could each be the chair it is? But it is not confined to
each— how else could there be more than one instance? Still, the multiplicity of the
instances remains to be explained. The ten chairs, for instance, are undeniably many; they
are, then, somehow other than the form which is in each, making each to be what it is. But
do they then have some 'knowability' on their own? Asking the same question more
generally, is that which is 'lower' (or 'below') capable of being known apart from its
participation in what is higher— apart from its being in the higher? The answer is
no: for Plotinus, the sensible can only be as the intelligible in a dim way. To see ten
different chairs is to see the form, Chair, in ten different appearances. Being many,
then, is itself a dim way of seeing (and of imitating) unity, and seeing the sensible is a
dim way of seeing what is intelligible— and vice versa. Plotinus puts the point
clearly in what follows:
But our discussion was about how the power of sense-perception belongs to man
and how those intelligible realities do not look to coming to birth; and it appeared to
us, and our argument showed, that those realities do not look to the things here below but
these are dependent on those and imitate those, and that this man here below has his
powers from that intelligible man and looks to those realities, and these sense-objects
are linked to this man and those others to that; for those sense-objects, which we called
so because they are bodies, are apprehended in a different way; and that this
sense-perception here below is dimmer than the apprehension there in the intelligible,
which we called sense-perception because it is of bodies and which is clearer. And for
this reason this man here has sense-perception, because he has a lesser apprehension of
lesser things, images of those intelligible realities; so that these sense-perceptions
here are dim intellections, but the intellections there are clear sense-perceptions.(25)
And elsewhere:
For even here below a thoughtful life is majesty and beauty in truth, though it
is dimly seen. But there it is seen clearly; for it gives to the seer sight and power to
live more, and by living more intensely to see and become what he sees. For here below
most of our attention is directed to lifeless things.... But when you contemplate the
substance running through them, giving them a life which does not move by changing, and
the thought and the wisdom and knowledge in them, you will laugh at the lower nature for
its pretension to substantiality. For by this substance life abides and intellect abides,
and the real beings stand still in eternity; nothing puts it out of itself or alters it or
makes it deviate; for there is nothing beside it to get a grip on it; but if there was
anything, it would exist because of it.(26)
We do not, in this view, have two kinds of knowable things. Any apprehension of the
sensible, any sensorially perceived image, is a communication of Being, for all is form
and nothing is known except form. But one can catch hold of form, as it were, in different
ways, some of which are more, some less, comprehensive.(27)
Thus there are not two competing groups of objects to be known in the world, not a world
of sensibles here, a world of intelligibles there. Rather, the range of knowable objects
is one; that which is clearly knowable and meaningful is Being, that which derives its
meaning from Being is the sensible.(28) There may be two
kinds of apprehension, and our different capacities for knowing may in fact lead to the appearance
of two separate kinds of objects;(29) but Plotinus sees the
many as existing as what they are (only) in their 'ones': what each is can only be traced
back to their forms. Hence again there is for Plotinus only one world— though one
that may be apprehended diversely.
There is one final defense of one world, one that is concerned with the incorporeal
nature of Being. Plotinus speaks candidly in what follows concerning Being's
incorporeality:
For, I think, it is probable, and indeed necessary, that the ideas are not
placed separately on one side and matter a long way off on the other and then illumination
comes to matter from somewhere up there: I am afraid this would be empty words. For what
would "far off" and "separately" mean in this context? ... But now we
must speak more precisely and not assume that the Form is spatially separate and then the
Idea is reflected in matter as if in water, but that matter, from every side grasping (and
again not grasping) the Idea, receives from the Form, over the whole of itself, by its
drawing near to it all that it can receive, with nothing between....(30)
The point here is that form is not separate from the instance in space, for the simple
reason that anything which is incorporeal has no magnitude nor is located at certain
spatial coordinates. In other words, there is no spatial 'here and there' in incorporeal
reality:
Now if this is real being and remains the same and does not depart from itself
and there is no coming-to-be about it and, as was said, it is not in place, it is
necessary for it, being in this state, to be always with itself, and not to stand away
from itself; one part of it cannot be here and another there, nor can anything come out of
it; [for if it did] it would already be in different places....(31)
Whatever is not bodily has no here and there to speak of; it is not confined to one
location precisely because it has no body, which by its nature is here and not there.(32)
Thus all intelligibles are present here and now; i.e., that which is sensible is permeated
by what is intelligible; the invisible saturates the visible. Plotinus celebrates this
remarkable presence throughout Ennead VI.4-5: "we are not cut off even
now" and "it must be present whole if it is present at all";(33)
"we are in the same with the Good", "we are within them", "we
have not then departed from being, but are in it", "for it is presence".(34)
He celebrates it elsewhere, as well,(35) and thus concludes
that all things, visible or not, knowable and otherwise, sensible and intelligible, all
the levels of the universe, are present as we speak:
But when in this kind of enquiry you adopt a rational approach to these things
and get into difficulties and enquire where you should put them, put away these things
which you regard as majestic on the second level, and do not add the seconds to the first
or the thirds to the seconds, but set the seconds around the first and the thirds around
the second. For thus you will leave each of them as they are and will make the things
which come after depend upon those higher realities which exist in independence as the
later things circle round them. This is why it is rightly said in this regard also
"All things are around the King of all and all are for the sake of that King";
Plato is speaking of all the real beings and says "for the sake of that King",
since he is the cause of their being and they, we may say, strive after him....(36)
There is, therefore, just one world for Plotinus, just one throne room, as it were, in
which all things are ordered and ranked in relation to their divine source, which is
present to all of them. There is only one world, not two; one reality, all of it always
fully present— even though not always fully apprehended by all.(37)
III. Objections
Thus far, we have given three arguments on behalf of a single world interpretation of
Plotinus. His is not a double world view, wherein all that is seen— 'the sensible
world'— might stand in some kind of independence relative to an incorporeal world.
Rather, there is only one world, one set of truly existing objects, which however is able
to be seen more or less unitively. In striving to make this argument, however, we have
left at least three objections unanswered. Each objection is rightly asked of the
Plotinian world-view, and each, in demanding a response (however brief), will help to draw
out more clearly the one-world view of Plotinus.
The first objection runs something like this: we keep talking about 'the sensible' and
'the intelligible' as if they were two separate things despite our arguments that they are
not two separate things. Plotinus himself speaks in the same way in a number of the
excerpts above: in VI.6.18, he speaks of "lifeless things"; in VI.5.11, he
posits the "nature" which hangs below Being; in VI.6.18 again, he speaks of the
sensible as having pretensions. Granted that the sensible is less or lower than true
Being: but 'less' and 'lower' still constitute the sensible as 'something', no?
There are several easy answers to this critical question— and a very difficult
one. The easy ones follow from the first two demonstrations above. We are able to talk
about 'the sensible' as if it were something on its own, separate from its intelligible
source, in the same manner that we are able to speak of a mirror-reflection as if it were,
not simply a reflection, but another, independent object in the world. We know that our
reflection in the bathroom mirror is not truly another self; it is one's self reflected.
Still, we are able to talk of it as if it were separate.
More expansively, we are in fact able to speak of appearances as if they actually
constituted being— indeed, as if they actually constituted an entire world. This
point was examined above; another way of looking at it is in comparison with the written
word. One looks at words— say, in a book— in order to see through them, of
course. That is how one reads; that is how one enjoys a favorite book. But one can of
course look at the surface of a word just as easily as its inner meaning. A child—
i.e., one who cannot read— can have great fun playing with words to the complete
exclusion of actually reading them.
We can think about sensibles (or, the words in themselves) and intelligibles (or, the
meaning) in the same way and thus offer another answer to the objection. But this answer
sheds light on a disturbing, and difficult-to-answer, dimension to the original problem,
namely, what is a word (i.e., the image or the sensible) in the absence of its meaning
(i.e., the intelligible)? Because the sensible is not simply or strictly identical to its
form (i.e., to what it really is), what is it on its own, or, what is it apart from the
form? It must be something, states the objection, because multiplicity is a fact of life
(and, for that matter, of thought).
For Plotinus, there is only a difficult and problematic answer to this question. The
answer would appear to begin and end with matter.(38) It is
through matter that the unity of a form can be extended into multiplicity; it is through
the influence of matter that bodies are generated— even though all production begins
from what is higher, and any coming into being below Intellect is in fact a "fading
away"(39) or a lessening by addition.(40)
But does he not say, or suggest, that matter itself is a kind of form?(41)
Moreover, we do not solve the problem even if we liken matter to the surface of a mirror
on which objects (forms) are reflected (thereby creating sensible likenesses). For in this
case, matter itself is a 'something'— which itself could only be what it is by
participating in form; hence we find ourselves right back where we started. The only
conclusion that can be drawn at this point, then, is that we can talk about the sensible
as if it were something on its own within the framework of Plotinian metaphysics; what the
answer is to the deeper mystery of multiplicity in itself, however, must await further
study.(42)
There is a second objection. This one would state plainly that in the Enneads
Plotinus himself speaks of two worlds, or at least of two objects, inasmuch as he makes
frequent grammatical use of the term ko/smon, or simply
uses ai)/sqhto/j and nohtoj/
(or any of their variants), or e)kei=noj when speaking of intelligibles and sensibles. The
objection is thoughtful, but any fruitful discussion would demand first of all a thorough
textual survey of the actual terms which Plotinus employs in speaking of intelligibles,
sensibles, and their relation, and second, a comparison of his use of these terms with
their use in Plato and other Platonic (among other) predecessors of Plotinus. In the
absence of such groundwork, suffice to limit a response to what follows. First, the actual
use by Plotinus of the demonstrative pronouns mentioned above (among others) and of ai)sqhto/j and nohto/j, in
addition to pa=n or fu/sij
(both sometimes used in reference to sensibles and intelligibles), does not necessarily
demand that he is referring to two worlds. None of these terms inherently includes the
concept of 'world'— not, at least, in the sense of ontologically independent level or
dimension of reality. Second, in an informal survey of Enneads V and VI, I am able
to find only a small handful of actual references to ko/smon
ai)sqhto/n. (43) In looking at Armstrong's
translation in the Loeb library, however, there is frequent — almost constant—
substantification of such terms as those listed above. Must Armstrong's translation
of e)n t%= ai)sqht%= be "in the perceptible
world"?(44) Third, Plotinus' use of 'here' and 'there'
as referents to sensibles and intelligibles is perfectly justified by what we outlined
above in his metaphysics. One can point to the sensible without necessarily making it an
object, without opposing it to its form. Again, it does not seem necessary to translate
demonstrative pronouns into ontological realms.(45) Fourth,
in reference to those places where Plotinus would seem to be making a mistake, i.e., where
he is not doing grammatical justice to his metaphysics, it is by no means unreasonable to
remind ourselves that Plotinus was not a rhetor, nor even a teacher of Greek. He was, in
fact, a sloppy writer;(46) hence we should not expect to
find that his writing matches his thought completely. Fifth, any use of the term 'world'
in respect to sensibles is in fact not wholly nor always out of place: we can use
"sense world" to refer to the sphere of experience which is multiple and
spread-out so long as we stop short (though it may be difficult to do) of seeing sensibles
as completely other than and independent of intelligibles. Finally and most importantly,
in the above working-out of Plotinian metaphysics, we have reasoned our way into the unity
of Plotinus' world; we have demonstrated the rational necessity of one world in Plotinus.
While close attention to how this philosopher communicates is to be expected of any
interpretation of his thought, nevertheless, any investigation into grammar or specific
word-choice should bear in mind the overall metaphysical structure of Plotinian thought.
One final objection remains. Has not Plotinian philosophy made its deepest impression
on western philosophy, religion, and literature in its moving pleas to ascend beyond all
sensible and intelligible levels of experience with the aim of attaining union with the
mystical One which lies beyond all else? I.e., these explanations of 'one world' do not
seem to do justice to the infamous Plotinian exhortations for the soul to take its
mystical journey into the ineffability beyond being. Are we not forced by such
exhortations to see at least two worlds in Plotinus, one the ordinary, the other the
mystical and extraordinary?
Plotinus, it is true, advises that all is not well with life here and now. Improvement
or redemption is in order; i.e., there is a journey that must be taken in order for human
beings to achieve true life and happiness (and for the metaphysician to achieve true
insight into the nature of reality). This much is true. Yet the journey is not away from
temporal concerns and things and affairs as such, but rather, from excessive attentiveness
to the temporal and, even more importantly, from inattentiveness to all that lies within
our grasp at the moment.(47) Two passages alone may suffice
to illustrate the Plotinian thinking about the character of this journey. First, from the
treatise "Against the Gnostics":
But if any of the parts of the universe is moved according to its nature, the
parts with whose nature the movement is not in accord suffer, but those which are moved go
on well, as parts of the whole; but the others are destroyed because they are not able to
endure the order of the whole; as if when a great company of dancers was moving in order a
tortoise was caught in the middle of its advance and trampled because it was not able to
get out of the way of the ordered movement of the dancers: yet if it had ranged itself
with that movement, even it would have taken no harm from them.(48)
Here the cosmos is seen as a great ballroom, within which creatures dance together to
divine music. The difficulty is that some do not pay attention to the music, some have
forgotten the correct steps, some bump into each other, stumble over their own feet, and
(thereby) fail to participate in the harmonious movement of the whole. But lack of
participation does not mean spatial separation: those who are out of harmony with the
universe are not locked into some universe other than that in which the King— the One
or Good, and Being, etc.— rule. Nothing ordinary is separated from the center of
reality as if by a brick wall or heavy door. Reality's dance is ongoing, here and now, for
Plotinus, although some of the participants have the stumbling feet of a tortoise, not of
ballet-artists. The solution, however, is to take dancing lessons, not to reject the
dancing or the music.(49)
In the next excerpt, Plotinus makes the same point with a more focused emphasis:
That One, therefore, since it has no otherness is always present, and we are
present to it when we have no otherness; and the One does not desire us, so as to be
around us, but we desire it, so that we are around it. And we are always around it but do
not always look to it; it is like a choral dance: in the order of its singing the choir
keeps round its conductor but may sometimes turn away, so that he is out of their sight,
but when it turns back to him it sings beautifully and is truly with him; so we too are
always around him-- and if we were not, we should be totally dissolved and no longer exist
--but not always turned to him; but when we do look to him, then we are at our goal and at
rest and do not sing out of tune as we truly dance our god-inspired dance around him.(50)
Clearly, then, for Plotinus we dwell presently in the presence of divinity (all of
reality) but are turned away from it. We are facing the wrong direction, thus
experience the same sort of trouble faced by an orchestra or choir which is not paying
attention to the conductor. In order to gain sound knowledge and truer life— greater
order, rest, stability— the questing soul needs to re-orient, thereby seeing what was
always there but which was not seen previously: "But if you went away, it was not
from it— for it is present— and you did not even go away then, but were present
and turned the opposite way.(51)
In sum, then, Plotinus does advocate a journey, but it is not spatial:
"Let us fly to our dear country." What then is our way of escape and
how are we to find it? ... How shall we travel to it, where is our way of escape? We
cannot get there on foot; for our feet only carry us everywhere in this world, from one
country to another. You must not get ready a carriage, either, or a boat. Let all these
things go....(52)
One moves without moving, journeys without changing place, because it is not the
present world which is bad but a lack of attentiveness to the whole of reality and the
subsequent disordering of one's life and thought; i.e., disordered involvement with the
world is the problem, not the world itself. Human beings have let secondary things serve
as principles to the first; we let the surface obscure the depths; we allow time to stand
in the place of eternity; indeed, we look only to what is visible, thinking that it alone
is present and relevant, thus overlooking the great beauties which are here and now right
in front of us:
For if a man runs to the image and wants to seize it as if it was the reality
(like a beautiful reflection playing on the water, which some story somewhere, I think,
said riddlingly a man wanted to catch and sank down into the stream and disappeared) then
this man who clings to beautiful bodies and will not let them go, will, like the man in
the story, but in soul, not in body, sink down into the dark depths where intellect has no
delight, and stay blind in Hades, consorting with shadows there and here.(53)
Perhaps Plotinus is thinking here of Aesop's dog, squatting on the edge of a bridge
with his teeth locked onto a juicy bone but with his eyes focused on the bone's deceptive
reflection in the water. What the dog smells comes from what already lies between his
lips; what he can almost taste is already balanced in his mouth; what he anticipates
eating is in fact ready for the feasting. With his eyes focused on the shadow of the meal,
however, he mistakes the image for the reality. The solution is to learn to to refocus our
eyes on that which has been present from the start but, as far as Plotinus is concerned,
to which we have not properly attended. For Plotinus, it is only then that, having learned
to see everything present at once instead of relegating reality and our happiness to
another, distant world, we shall live fully under and by the whole of reality, thereby
achieve a metaphysical wisdom of this world— and avoid going hungry, as well.(54)
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