The Six Enneads
contributor: Eric Lease Morgan (Infomotions, Inc.)
creator: Plotinus
date: 0000-00-00
extent: 1764497
format: text/plain
language: en
publisher: Eris Etext Project
rights: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/GPL/2.0/
source: 1
subject: soul
subject: matter
subject: unity
subject: body
subject: affections
subject: experiences
subject: seat
subject: plotinus
subject: six
subject: enneads
subject: western
subject: philosophy
type: text
local mirror: plotinus-six-415.txt
concordance: http://infomotions.com/alex/cgi-bin/concordance.pl
plain html: plotinus-six-415.htm
sort title: Six Enneads, The
full text: 250 AD THE SIX ENNEADS by Plotinus translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page THE FIRST ENNEAD. FIRST TRACTATE. THE ANIMATE AND THE MAN. 1. Pleasure and distress, fear and courage, desire and aversion, where have these affections and experiences their seat? Clearly, either in the Soul alone, or in the Soul as employing the body, or in some third entity deriving from both. And for this third entity, again, there are two possible modes: it might be either a blend or a distinct form due to the blending. And what applies to the affections applies also to whatsoever acts, physical or mental, spring from them. We have, therefore, to examine discursive-reason and the ordinary mental action upon objects of sense, and enquire whether these have the one seat with the affections and experiences, or perhaps sometimes the one seat, sometimes another. And we must consider also our acts of Intellection, their mode and their seat. And this very examining principle, which investigates and decides in these matters, must be brought to light. Firstly, what is the seat of Sense-Perception? This is the obvious beginning since the affections and experiences either are sensations of some kind or at least never occur apart from sensation. 2. This first enquiry obliges us to consider at the outset the nature of the Soul- that is whether a distinction is to be made between Soul and Essential Soul [between an individual Soul and the Soul-Kind in itself]. * * All matter shown in brackets is added by the translator for clearness' sake and, therefore, is not canonical. S.M. If such a distinction holds, then the Soul [in man] is some sort of a composite and at once we may agree that it is a recipient and- if only reason allows- that all the affections and experiences really have their seat in the Soul, and with the affections every state and mood, good and bad alike. But if Soul [in man] and Essential Soul are one and the same, then the Soul will be an Ideal-Form unreceptive of all those activi…