D'Ancona Costa Separation and The Forms: A Plotinian Approach

Separation and the Forms: A Plotinian Approach
by Cristina D'Ancona Costa
I.
In Zeller's Die Philosophie der Griechen we find a broad account of

Plotinus' philosophy. Faced with the same problem as everyone from
Porphyry onwards who had to distill a systematic account from the
complex (and often dialogical) trend of Plotinus' writing, l Zeller took a
way completely different from that of Porphyry. True, the Porphyrian
rearrangement of Plotinus' treatises into the enneadic scheme follows a
precise pattern which counts as an interpretation of his philosophy, as
Pierre Hadot has pointed out in a masterly essay.2 As extrinsic as the
order Porphyry imposed on Plotinus' writings might have been, it does
nevertheless reproduce the ascent from the world of our experience
(Enneads 1-111) to the Soul (Ennead IV) and the intelligible world
(Ennead V), gathering in a final step the treatises devoted to the peak
of philosophical research, namely, the One-Good (Ennead VI). On the
contrary, when we turn to Zeller's account we meet the One itself as the
1 As noticed in the Vita Plotini (now available in a splendid commented edition

cum French translation), the treatises of the Master often sprung from class
discussions. See M.-O. Goulet-Caze, "L'arriere-plan scolaire de la Vie de Plotin,"
in L. Brisson, M.-O. Goulet-Caze, R. Goulet, D. O'Brien, Porphyre. La Vie de
Plotin I Travaux preliminaires et index grec complet (Paris: Vrin, 1982),
231-327.
2 See P. Hadot, "La metaphysique de Porphyre," in Porphyre. Entretiens sur
l'Antiquite classique XII, Vandoeuvres-Geneve 30 aout-5 septembre 1965
(Geneve: Foundation Hardt, 1966), 125-57 and P. Hadot, "Les divisions des
parties de la philosophie dans l'Antiquite," Museum Helveticum 36 (1979):
201-23. On the Porphyrian edition of the Enneads see also H.-D Saffrey,
"Pourquoi Porphyre a-t-il edite Plotin? Response provisoire," in L. Brisson, J.-L
Charlonneix, M.-O. Goulet-Caze, R. Goulet, M.D. Grmek, J.-M. Flamand, S.
Matton, D. O'Brien, J. Pepin, H.-D. Saffrey, A.-Ph. Segonds, M. Tardieu, P.
Thillet, Porphyre. La Vie de Plotin 11 (Paris: Vrin, 1982).
Copyright 1997, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. LXXI, No. 3

368 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
starting point of the systematic exposition of Plotinus' thinking. Zeller

emphasizes at the very beginning the distance separating this abso-
lutely simple principle not only from Aristotle's divine mind, but also
from Plato's Idea of Good, which counts for Zeller as identical with the
göttlic1len Vernunft. 3
This approach governs the subsequent stages of his exposition, since
he is understandably led to deal with the topic of the One's superiority
to the intelligible world and the connected topic of negative theology.
Having stated what he calls the "negative determinations" of the First
Principle, Zeller turns to its "positive determinations," and sums them
all up in one feature, namely, the active power to give rise to the entire
universe. Understandably again, the next step in his account is the
arising of multiplicity from the One, and the focus of Zeller's discussion
comes to be the problem of whether the One gives rise to the many by
necessity or because of an act of free will, that is, whether or not the
Plotinian System is to be understood as an Emanationssystem. 4 Having
discussed this point-which will be conceived of in later scholarship as
the crucial one in Plotinus' philosophy-Zeller offers a picture of the
Intellect and turns subsequently to the Soul and to the world of our
experience. Ethics and the other topics concerning the human life in this
world-that is, the entire set of questions Plotinus dealt with in the
treatises gathered by Porphyry in Enneads 1-111-will appear at the end
ofthe chapter. 5
It comes as no surprise that such a deductive picture has a distinct
non-Platonic ring for the readers of the books on Plato from the first
decades of our century.6 In fact, a common thread runs through them,
despite their differences of purpose and inspiration. This renewal of
Platonic studies was ultimately rooted, on the one hand, in Schleier-
macher's hermeneutics of Plato's writings-involving the idea that the
philosophical content of Plato's thought cannot be conceived of apart
from the dialogical form he gave to it7-and, on the other, in the
3 E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung,

III.2 (Leipzig: 19235). Hereafter cited as Zeller.
4 Zeller, Die Philosophie, 50.
6 Such a picture of Plotinus is clearly inspired by Hegel's approach to Plotinus:
see below, note 14. That areal gulf existed between Neoplatonism and Plato's
own philosophy was stated by Zeller himself, Die Philosophie, 475-80.
6 For instance, P. Shorey, The Unity of Plato's Thought (Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1903; reprint, Archon Books, 1968); P. Shorey, What Plato
Said (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1933); A. E. Taylor, Plato. The Man
and His Work (London: Methuen & Co., 1909); J. StenzeI, Platon der Erzieher
(Leipzig: F. Meiner, 1928); P. Friedländer, Platon; 1 Eidos, Paideia, Dialogos.
11 Die platonishen Schriften (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1928-29); L. Robin, Platon
(paris: F. Alcan, 1935).
SEPARATION AND THE FORMS 369
"Neo-humanist" version of the German Altertumswissenschaft-involv-

ing the thesis of an intrinsic educational and political purpose in Plato's
philosophy.8 Coupled with the approach to the doctrine of Ideas pro-
pounded by P. N atorp within the framework ofneo-Kantian philosophy, 9
this attitude conveyed a·picture of Pla1o's main thought which was as
far as possible from the contemporary parallel picture ofNeopla1onism.
In all the influential works on Plato from the beginning of our century,
the emphasis on one side is on the dialogic structure of Plato's thought
as a search for truth necessarily involving doubt and scrutiny, and, on
the other, on the ethical and political commitments as inspiring the
whole ofPlatonic philosophy.l0 No need 10 stress that in Zeller's account
7 On the influential interpretation of Plato's thought made by Schleiermacher

in his translation of the dialogues (published between 1804 and 1828) see H. J.
Krämer, Platone e i fondamenti della metafisica. Saggio sulla teoria dei principi
e sulle dottrine non scritte di Platone (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1982), 33-75, who
conceives of it as the starting point of the misleading account of Plato's
unwritten doctrines as marginal, and belonging only to his old age. According
to Krämer ibid., 81-85, the account of Plato's philosophy given by Zeller is
completely under the influence of Schleiermacher's interpretation. On the
picture of Plato's philosophy in the context of German Idealism see
Vieillard-Baron, Platon et l'idealisme allemand (1770-1830) (Paris:
Beauchesne, 1979). Hereafter cited as Vieillard-Baron, Platon.
8 The German "Neo-humanism" of the beginnings of our century-whose
prominent personalities are Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Werner
J aeger and Julius Stenzel----is characterized by the idea that the
Altertumswissenschaft failed to recognize the intimate connection between the
classical ethic, theoretic and esthetic values, and the living historical
community to which they belonged. On the "Neo-humanist" approach to Plato
see F. Franco-Repellini, "Note sul P1atonbi1d deI terzo umanesimo," 11 Pensiero
17 (1972): 91-122 and Margherita Isnadi Parente, "Rileggendo il Platon di
Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff," Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore.
Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, s.III, 3, no. 1 (1973): 147-67, hereafter cited as
Isnadi Parente, RPUWM. See also E. Berti, Aristotele nel Novecento
(Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1992), 15-43, (who also provides a sharp account of the
"Neo-humanist" background of Jaeger's Aristotles), hereafter cited as Berti.
9 Natorp's, Platons Ideenlehre. Eine EinfühlUng in den Idealismus (Meiner:
1903 [1912 2]) deals with Plato's Ideas as apriori laws (Gesetzen) of our
knowledge. On the school ofMarburg's approach to Plato see A. Zadro, Platone
nel Novecento (Roma-Bari: Laterza, 1987). In a similar vein, W. Lutoslawski,
The Origin and Growth ofPlato's Logic (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1897,
19055), who recognized a development in Plato's philosophy, and interpreted it
as an increasing shift from metaphysical realism to logical conceptualism.
lOConversely, according to E. N. Tigerstedt, The Decline arid Fall of the
Neoplatonic Interpretation of Plato. An Outline and Some Observations
(Helsinki-Helsingfors: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 1974), the Neoplatonic
interpretation ofPlato's though has its distinctive feature preciselythe abandon
ofthe "Socratic" and "aporetic" side ofPlatonism. See also R. T. Hataway, 'The
Neoplatonie Interpretation of Plato: Remarks on its Decisive Characters,"
Journal ofthe History ofPhilosophy 7 (1969): 12-26. On the ethical and political
commitments of the European Platonbild at the beginning of our century see
the reader is presented with exaetly the opposite way of thinking, not
only in so far as the entire set of ethieal problems appears as a bloodless
appendix,11 hut, more suhstantially, in so far as the Neoplatonie uni-
verse is eoneeived of as a harely deduetive strueture whose starting
point-the One-Good-is taken for granted, and by no means reaehed
as a goal of philosophieal analysis. 12
Strangely enough, the admittedly more sympathetie attitude to-
wards Neoplatonism whieh eharaeterizes German Idealism with respeet
to the Illuministie evaluation ofit13-and whieh elearly inspires Zeller's
aeeount ofPlotinus' philosophy,14 even though some aspeets of differen-
tiation are notieed in eontemporary seholarship15-had as one of its
Isnardi Parente, RPUWM.

llNo less a scholar than W. Theiler, Plotin zwischen Plato und Stoa, in Les
sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur l'Antiquite classique V, Vandoeuvres-Geneve
21-29 aoiit 1957 (Geneve: Foundation Hardt, 1960), 65-86, calls Plotinus, in this
respect, a Plato dim idiatus, deprived ofthe entire political dimension of Platonic
thought ("ein Platon ohne Politik").
12A deductive pattern leading from the One to the Intellect, to the Soul and
finally to the individual soul and its life is followed also by the valuable works
of A. H. Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the
Philosophy ofPlotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940; reprint
Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967) and J. M. Rist, Plotinus. The Road to Reality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967). On the contrary, the series of
lectures on Plotinus by W. R. Inge, The Philosophy of Plotinus. The Gifford
Lectures 1917-18, 1-11 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1929; Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1968) parts company with Zeller's scheme, starting, after a
survey on the forerunners of Plotinus, from his doctrine of the visible world and
matter, and dealing in sequence with Soul, Intellect and the One.
13 Such a sympathetic attitude has been emphasized by Beierwalters, Platonism
und Idealism (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1972), especially
chapter 11, hereafter cited as Beierwalters PI.
14The very structure of Zeller's chapter on Plotinus is quite revealing. It falls
into two main parts, the first devoted to the suprasensible world----called
Urwesen----and the second to the "world of manifestation," the
Erscheiunungswelt. The originary reality, existing before any "manifestation,"
is primarily the One, but is also Nous and Soul; so, Zeller's paragraph on the
Urwesen deals with the three principles. The paragraph devoted to the
Erscheinungswelt begins with an account of the "general kind of being which
characterizes the world of manifestation, die Erscheinungswelt ihrem
allgemeinen Wesen nach betrachtet." A second section deals with the structure
and parts of the "world of manifestation": man considered in his pre-existing
state, man considered in his temporal life, man as soul accomplishing its
"return" to the suprasensible world. The final section of this part deals with the
"rising of the Spirit from the world of manifestation to the suprasensible world,
die Erhebung des Geistes von der Erscheinung in die übersinnliche Welt." Such
an Erhebung is described by means of three steps: the goal of human activity,
the moral activity (sittliche Thätigkeit), the religion. The structure of this
chapter is clearly inspired not only by the general stages ofthe development of
Hegel's Spirit, but, more precisely, by Hegel's account of Plotinus' philosophy
in his Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie.
major results the deepening of the gulf between Plotinus and Plato. If
we turn, however, to the contemporary approach to Plotinus' philosophy
and Neoplatonic thought, a glance suffices to lead to the conclusion that
the Idealistic framework ultimately inspiring Zeller's picture has been
generally abandoned, or is surviving in a merely residual manner,
deprived of areal relevance in its interpretation. 16 Obviously, the
relationship and analogies between Neoplatonism and German Ideal-
ism remain as an important question from the viewpoint of the history
of philosophical ideas. 17
Again, a look at the contemporary scholarship on Plotinus suggests
that the main strategy in approaching his philosophical thought consists
in dealing with single treatises, devoting to them a careful textual and
philosophical analysis in precisely the same way as to a Platonic dia-
logue or an Aristotelian treatise. This fact shows on its own account the
abandonment of the two hidden assumptions that made scholars in the
past refrain from considering late Platonism as a proper philosophical
subject matter, namely, its picture as a counterfeit of Plato's thought,
and its interpretation as a barely deductive apriori chain whose ulti-
mate principle escapes rational analysis.
The modification of the old-fashioned idea of a sharp contrast be-
tween Plotinus and Plato, however, is by no means one of chance. On
the contrary, it appears to be the result of aseries of scholarly accom-
150n Zeller's account of Neoplatonism and its relationship with the Idealistic
understanding of Neoplatonism, see Beierwalters, ''Der Neuplatonismus in
Eduard Zellers Philosophie der Griechen" in Seminario su Eduard Zeller, Annali
della scoula Normale Superiore di Pisa, Classe di Lettere e filosofia 19 (1989):
1179-91.
16See for example the two recent monographs on Plotinus, by D. O'Meara,
Plotinus. An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) and
L. P. Gerson, Plotinus (London-New York: Routledge, 1994), where the
expository scheme "One-Intellect-Soul-man's world" is squarely abandoned by
Dominic O'Meara, who deals initially with the Platonic distinction between the
"two worlds," and examines subsequently the set of problems concerning soul,
the Intellect, and Forms. Only at this point, does O'Meara deal with the problem
of the relationship between hypostatic Intellect and the One, and with the One
itself. The recent book on Plotinus by Lloyd Gerson falls into two main parts,
ontology and epistemology, dealing in the first part with the First Principle of
the Plotinian universe and its attributes, as weIl as with Forms and the
structure of the intelligible world, and in the second with the psychological,
epistemological, and ethical problems. Gerson's first chapter aiming as it does
at providing the reasons Plotinus must posit his First Principle, counts as a
strong confirmation ofthe abandonment in the contemporary scholarship ofthe
picture of Plotinus' philosophy as a chain of apriori deductions.
17 See Beierwaltes, PI. It is useful to put Beierwaltes's evaluations of the
relationship between German Idealism and Neoplatonism into the framework
ofthe general attitude ofGerman Idealism to Plato as it is examined by Vieillard
Baron (Platon).
372 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOsoPHICAL QUARTERLY
plishments within a wide range of different fields: the history of ancient

Platonism, especially in view of the problem of Aristotle's account
concerning Plato's "unwritten doctrines"; the analysis of the develop-
ments of Platonism during the Imperial Age; and, finally, the entire set
of anecdotical, historieal and philosophical items connected with the
critical edition of the Enneads. The accounts Plotinus gave of Plato's
philosophy, the way he chose to deal with the main problems of Plato-
nism and to face the objections against the crucial tenets of his school
of thinking, do appear to our eyes as a part of one and the same tradition,
a picture which implies both continuity and transformation. 1B
In what foliows, I shall examine the continuity and the transforma-
tion, in Plotinus' approach, of a classic question of Platonism, the
"separation" ofthe Forms. First, I shall provide some pieces of evidence
for the fact that, even though Plotinus conceived of himself as an
interpreter of Plato, and Plato as the philosopher who went as near as
possible to truth, he did nevertheless believe in the necessity of forging
arguments in order to accept the hypothesis of Ideas. Second, I shall
compare Plotinus' reasoning in favour of Forms with an example of the
Middle PIatonie approach to the same problem. In the third section, the
main features of Plotinus' conception of intelligible items will be exam-
ined, focusing on the distinction between Forms and immanent proper-
ties. Finally, I shall try to disentangle what the separation of Forms
amounts to, in Plotinus' account.
11.
In one of his first treatises according to the chronologieal ordering,19

devoted to the Intellect, Forms and Being, Plotinus presents the reader
with the picture of a man who, having arisen "above the clouds and the
mist of this lower world,"2o is in a position to see his fatherland and
18 Stephen Gersh, dealing with the transmission and transformation of the

Platonic heritage, speaks of Neopla1onists as "making an individual response
10 the fundamental set of philosophical problems" Plato was the first 10 focus
on: see Gersh, Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. The Latin Tradition, 1-11
(Notre Dame: Notre DameUniversity Press, 1986), I, 45. On Plotinus' attitude
as an interpreter of Plato see J.-M. Charrue, Platin, lecteur de Platon (Paris:
Les Belles Lettres, 1978) and Th. A. Szlezak, Platon und Aristoteles in der
Nuslehre Platins (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1979).
19See Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 4.30-31.
2OV.9(5).1.18-19. All the quotations from the Enneads are from the editio minor
by Henry-Schwyzer Plotini Opera, eds. P. Henry and H.-R. Schwyzer,
Scrip10rum Classicorum Bibliotheca Oxoniensis, (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1964, 1977, 1982), and all the English translations quoted are from Plotinus,
trans. A. H. Armstrong, in seven volumes (Cambridge-London: Loeb Classical
appreciate its well-ordered beauty. Plotinus reminds one here, as else-

where, of the Homeric image of "Odysseus" journey home,21 an image
fitting weIl with his own favoured understanding of intellectual activity
in terms of the (ultimately Platonic) allegories of movement, be it of
ascent, as in this case, or descent, as in the case of those souls confining
themselves to sense-perception and the unreflected evaluations of daily
life. 22 This treatise is devoted, as is the shortly following one, V.l(lO)
On the Three Primary Hypostases, to a logos-a "reasoning"-which
aims at teaching what is the nature of that reality such a man is longing
for. 23 The first step of the reasoning counts as a summary of the Platonic
approach to knowledge of what really is, or at least of the Platonic
approach as Plotinus understands it.
[W]hat reasoning will guide this Love on his way? This one:
this beauty which rests on bodies comes to the bodies from
elsewhere (epakton esti tois somasi); for these beauties are
forms of bodies which rest upon them as if on their matter.
At any rate what underlies them changes, and becomes ugly
instead of beautiful. Its beauty comes by participation, then,
the reasoning says.24
The familiar argument of the exclusion of opposites coming from

Plato's Phaedo and Republic clearly lies in the background of this first
Library, 1966; Harvard University Press - William Heineman LTD, 1989).

21The quotation is from Odyssey 5, 37. See Pepin, "The PIatonie and Christian
Ulysses,"inNeoplatonism and Christian Thought, ed. D.J. O'Meara, Studies in
Neoplatonism: Ancient and Modern, 111 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1982), 3-18.
22 See for instanee, the famous beginning ofV.1.(10). See also Pepin, "Plotin et
les mythes," Revue Philosophique de Louvain 53 (1955): 5-27 and V. Cilento,
"Mito e poesia nella Enneadi," in Les Sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur
l'Antiquite elassique V, Vandoeuvres-Geneve 21-29 aout 1957, Geneve, 1960
(Geneve: Foundation Hardt): 243-323; V. Cilento, "Stile, linguaggio, poesia," in
Saggi su Plotino (Milan: Mursia. Biblioteea di filosofia, 1973), 201-39 on
Plotinus' relationship to Greek poetry and tragedy, and L. P. Gerson,
"Epistrophe pros heauton: History and Meaning," Documenti e studi sulla
tradizione filosofica medievale 8 (1997): 1-32, on Plotinus' relationship to the
tradition of the Soeratie doetrine that "the unexamined life is not worth living."
23Compare V.9(5).2.10-12: "But how will he ascend, and where will his power
eome from, and what reasoning will guide this Love on his way? [Kai tis logos
touton ton erota paidagogesetai]" and V.1(10).1.22-29: "One must therefore
speak in two ways [dio dei ditton gignesthai ton logon] to men who are in this
state of mind.... What, then, are the two ways? One shows how eontemptible
are the things now honoured by the soul ... but the other teaehes and reminds
the soul how high its birth and value are, and this is prior to the other one and
when it is elarified will also make the other obvious."
24 V.9(5).2.11-16.
move: 25 there are individual people and things, say, many beautiful
items, bearing a characteristic, namely, beauty; but, since they can also
be ugly, in order for them to bear the beauty there must be beauty in
itself, namely, that beauty which does not accept in any way its opposite.
Such an "unqualified bearer" of that characteristic, "precluding its
opposite,,,26 is credited both in Plato's and in Plotinus' accounts with the
capacity to be the cause of the presence of the given characteristic in
individuals, that is, its qualified bearers. 27 In Plotinus' account, we are
explicitly told that this causal relationship is "participation."28 That
beauty which is an epakton in individuals derives by participation,
methexei, from beauty itself. This standard Platonic account is followed
by three more peculiar moves. First, Plotinus asks what is the principle
responsible for the existence of instantiated beauty in its bearer,29 and
he presents two candidates which, in different ways, are entitled to do
so, namely, the parousia ofbeauty itself, and soul. 30 Second, he observes
that soul cannot coincide with beauty itself, again on the Platonic ground
of distinguishing between what bears a characteristic but can bear its
contrary also, and what cannot be otherwise than it iso Since soul can
be wise and beautiful, but also stupid and ugly, soul cannot be in itself
beauty.31 In other words, soul imparts to the body beauty, consisting in
25Phd. 102b10-103e9; Rep. 478e7-480a4.

26 See J. Annas, An Introduetion to Plato's Republie (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1991), 207.
270n the meaning of "eause" in this eontext see R. S. Bluek, "Forms as
Standards," Phronesis 2 (1957): 115-27; C. C. W. Taylor, "Forms as Causes in
the Phaedo," Mind 78 (1969): 45-59; VIastos, "Reasons and Causes in the
Phaedo," The Philosophie Review 78 (1969): 291-325; also in Platonie Studies
(Prineeton: Prineeton University Press), 76-110, hereafter eited as VIastos,
RCP; C. L. Stough, "Forms and Explanations in the Phaedo," Phronesis 21
(1976): 1-30, and note 87 below.
28Plato does not use methexis in the passages of Phaedo and Republie inspiring
Plotinus' way of thinking here. In Phd. 102b1 Plato distinguishes between ti
ekaston ton eicWn and talla metalambanonta auton, but his favoured term for
their relationship in this eontext is eponumia: see 102b1, e10, and 103e7.
29V.9(5).2.16: "What then is it whieh makes a body beautiful? [ti oun to poi"esan
soma halon];" I take here to poiesan as meaning "the prineiple responsible for
the existenee of an instantiated eharaeter in its bearer," whieh amounts to
exeluding both the meaning of effieient eause-in so far as this involves
deliberation and ehange-and the one of ereative eause-in so far as this
eonveys the idea of a beginning out ofnothing. None ofthese meanings fits weIl,
with Plotinus' aeeount of the eausality of the intelligible prineiples.
3OV.9(5).2.16-18: "In one way is the presenee of beauty [kallous parousia], in
another the soul, whieh moulded it and put this partieular form in it [he eplase
te hai morphen toiande eneke]."
V.9(5).2.18-20: "WeIl, then, is the soul beautiful of itself [par hautes halon]?
31
No, it is not. For [ifit was] one soul would not be wise and beautiful and another
stupid and ugly."
rational arrangement, which comes to it from another principle, which

is in itself beauty and rational arrangement. This principle is Intellect
and the intelligible world, the unqualified bearer of the characteristic
which, by means of soul, comes to the individuals of our experience as
an epakton. 32 Third, Plotinus gives a hint of the opportunity to go beyond
this principle too. 33
After this survey of his most general tenets, reminding us of the
familiar picture he will give in the treatise VI.9(9)-a treatise devoted
to the ascent from multiplicity to the soul, from soul to the Intellect, and
from the Intellect to the One-Plotinus focuses on the status of the
intelligible. In fact, this ascent teIls us that true reality is precisely the
intelligible nature or Intellect, which in turn coincides with such a
nature. 34 Intelligible nature and Intellect, however, need examination
to be accepted as really existent.
We must consider the nature of this Intellect, which our

reasoning teIls us is the genuine reality and true substance
(to on ontos kai ten alethe ousian) when we have first con-
firmedby following a different course that something of the
sort must exist (hoti dei einai tina toiauten).35
Plotinus is here committed to the idea that it is necessary to argue

for the existence of intelligible reality. We should, I think, resist the
temptation to assign an exclusive existential meaning to this einai, as
if it were confined to implying that intelligible nature is one among the
facts of the world. A better meaning is obtained with the "overdetermi-
nation" of the verb einai detected by C. Kahn in Greek prose, and
32V.9(5).2.20-23: "So, beauty in the soul comes by wisdom. And what is, then,
which gives wisdom to the soul? Intellect, necessarily, an intellect which is not
sometimes intellect and sometimes unintelligent, but the true Intellect. This,
then, is beautiful of itself [nous de ou pote men nous, pote de anous, ho ge
alethinos par hautou ara kalos]."
33V.5(9).23-27: "Should we then stop at Intellect as the First, or must we go
beyond Intellect, and does Intellect stand from our point of view in front of the
first principle, as if in the porch of the Good, proclaiming to us a11 that is in it,
like an impression of it in greater multiplicity, while the Good remains
altogether in one?" This passage combines a quotation from the Philebus,
(hosper en prothurois tagathou, that is, the Intellect, in Plotinus; epi men tois
tou gathou ... prothurois in Phil. 64c1) and an echo from the well-known status
of the Good "beyond" Being of Republic 509b9.
34 See A. H. Armstrong, "The Background of the Doctrine that the Intelligibles
are not Outside the Intellect" in Les sources de Plotin. Entretiens sur I'Antiquite
classique V, Vandoeuvres-Geneve 21-29, aout 1957 (Geneve: Foundation Hardt,
1960): 391-413.
36 V.9(5).3.1-4.
especially in Plato. 36 If Kahn is right in describing it, for intelligible

substance here einai is "to be really," not only in appearence, and to be
forever, that is, not to cease to be what it is, giving room to something
different. In other words, what Plotinus thinks is necessary to argue is
the fact that a reality such as intelligible nature, or the world of Forms,
is really (and not only as amental state) and meets the requirements
for being truly and reliably what it is assumed to be in the hypothesis
he is committed to, namely, the Platonic one. As a matter offact, Plotinus
combines these two meanings in his account, since he starts by mention-
ing the question whether or not intelligible nature is really (en tois
ousi)~ven though he dismisses this question as ridiculous 37 but turns
immediately to the more crucial question of what it is:
But it is more disputable if it is the sort of Intellect we say it

is, and if it is aseparate one [ei chöristos tis], and if it is the
real beings and if the nature of the Forms is there: this is our
present subject. 3B
To answer this threefold question, namely, (i) if Intellect is really

what it is assumed to be in Platonic philosophy (ii) if it is "separate" (iii)
if it coincides with the Forms themselves, Plotinus turns to the exami-
nation of the objects of sense-experience. His opening moves might be
summarized as foliows:
I. (1) objects in our experience are always compound.
(2) compounds are what they are because of their [immanent] form.
(3) immanent forms require separate Forms. 39
This summary provides Plotinus with the grounds to answer (i) in
36 See C. H. Kahn, "The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Concept of Being,"
Foundations ofLanguage 2 (1966): 245-65, C.H. Kahn, "The Verb 'Be' in Ancient
Greek," in The Verb 'Be' and its Synonyms. Philosophical and Grammatical
Studies, ed. J.W.M Verhaar (Dordrecht-Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company,
1973), 331-70, and C. H. Kahn, "Some Philosophical Uses of To Be' in Plato,"
Phronesis 26 (1981): 105-34.
37V.9(5).3.4-6: "It is perhaps ridiculous to enquire whether there is inte11ect in
the world ren tois ousi]; though there are, it may be, people who would dispute
even this."
38 V.9(5).3.6-8.
39V.9(5).3.9-37: "We certainly see that aH the things that are said to exist are
compounds, and not a single ofthem is simple; [this applies to] each and every
work of an, and a11 things compound by nature. For the works of an have bronze
or wood or stone, and they are not brought by completion from these until each
art makes one astatue, another a bed, and another a house by putting the form
which it has in them. And again you will be able to resolve the things put
together by nature, those of them which are multiple compounds and are caHed
compositions, into the form imposed on all the elements of the composition....
And one will transfer these same observations to the whole universe, and will
the affirmative. It is, in fact, on this basis that he will argue in favour
of a principle prior and more important than soul in order to explain the
world of our experience, even though he is convinced that soul is
responsible for the connection of immanent form with its relevant
matter, both in the case of arlificial objects as weIl as in that ofnatural
ones. Soul explains the connection of immanent form and matter; but it
is by no means sufficient to explain the existence of this form, namely,
of the principle of rational organization, be it of arlificial objects (the
individual soul) or of natural ones (the cosmic soul). It is true that soul
possesses in itself such principles: as Plotinus repeatedly says, it pro-
duces its effect-life, in all its modes and degrees-by means of its
rational organization of matter according to the patterns it has in itself.
But precisely in so far as it possesses them, it cannot be identified with
them. Neither the individual nor cosmic soul coincides with the forming
principles with which it provides the matter. Consequently, there must
be another principle prior to soul, as Plotinus argues in the immediately
following section of this treatise. 40
Questions (ii) and (iii) will be answered in the remaining part of the
treatise, and must be set aside here as not directly relevant to our
purpose. But, in the course of Plotinus' arguing in favour of an affirm-
ative answer to (ii)-namely, to the question whether the Intellect we
are talking about is to be understood as "separate" or not-we meet
"reasoning" whose aim is to show that Intellect, in the true sense of the
word, cannot receive its objects from sense-perception and whose struc-
ascend there also 10 Intellect and suppose it to be the true maker and craftsman,
and will say that the underlying matter receives the forms, and part of it
becomes fire, and part water, and part air and earth, but that these forms come
from another: and this other is soul; then again that soul gives 10 the four
elements the form of the universe, but Intellect provides it with the forming
principles.... The things which Intellect gives 10 the soul are near to truth; hut
those which body receives are already images and imitations [eggus men
aletheias ha didosi, psuche; ha de to soma dechetai, eidOla eM kai mimemata]."
I take this last sentence as licensing the distinction between immanent
properties and true Forms; also, I take them here to be "separate," as meaning
both 10 be "independently existent" and "on1ologically prior" with respect to the
immanent properties. I am borrowing the definition of "separation" for Platonic
Forms as meaning "capacity for independent existence" connected with "the
natural priority of substance" from Gail Fine, "Separation," Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 31-87, hereafter cited as Fine, "Separation,"
especially, 35-36. I shall deal more extensively with this definition in section 5
of this paper.
4OV.9(5).4.1-19.
378 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILosOPHICAL QUARTERLY
ture is worth considering here. It runs as folIows:

11. (1) the form immanent in the objects of sense-perception is not
primary; it is, on the contrary, secondary and derived.
(2) it is in fact in something else.
(3) everything which is in something else comes to be in it from
another reality and depends upon the reality from which it comes.
(4) consequently, the form immanent in the objects of sense-percep-
tion comes to be in them from another reality and depends upon the
latter.
(5) conversely, everything which is primary is not perceived by
sense-perception.41 .
As in the passage I quoted at the beginning of this section, Plotinus
here argues for the existence of separate Forms by means of an analysis
of the status of immanent form. As the immanent beauty of the passage
quoted above, the eidos epi hute of our present passage is received in
something else, and this suffices, in Plotinus' eyes, to indicate its
secondary and derivative nature. One cannot deny that things possess
properties; but their properties, in so far as they are [eide] epi hute share
the derivativeness of anything which is en aZZo. On the grounds of I.,
we know that separate Forms are required, in Plotinus' .analysis, to
explain the world of our experience, whose inhabitants are all compound
and are what they are thanks to their immanent forms. 11. counts, to
my mind, as the argument supporting 1.(3), namely, the assertion that
immanent forms require separate Forms. They do so precisely because
they are received in something else, and consequently are not primary,
as the reasoning summarised in 11. aims at showing. In turn, II.-and
especially the key clause 11.(3)-is supported by another reasoning
Plotinus presents a few lines later, a reasoning which runs as foliows:
111.(1) real beings are always in themselves and undergo no alteration
or destruction.
(2) beings which are in something else and undergo alteration or
destruction come from something else.
(3) were real beings in something else, or undergoing alteration/de-
struction, they would come from something else.
(4) that reality from which they were coming would be, in turn, the
41V.9(5).5.16-19: "For each and every primary reality (to proton hekaston) is
000
not what is perceived by the senses: for the form on the matter (to eidos epi
000
hure) in the things of sense is an image ofthe real form (eioolon ontos) and every
form which is in something else (en alli5) comes to it from something else and is
a likeness of that from which it comes."
real heing.
(5) to avoid infinite regression, it is necessary to endorse (1).42
The necessity Plotinus sees to derive the immanent characteristics-
which are en allo-from their models-which are aei en hautois~e
pends upon the status ofthe immanent characteristics themselves. They
are conceived of, as is made clear from 11.(3), as not self-sufficient: in so
far as they are properties of something else, or epakta,43 they are
dependent on the corresponding principle which is "in itself," in precisely
the same way as, in the Phaedo, ta megala are megala not in virtue of
having the size they actually possess, hut in virtue of Largeness,
megethei. 44 In turn, the reason why immanent characteristics cannot
depend upon other non self-sufficient characteristics lies in the fact that
this would imply an infinite regression, a quite recurring scheme in
42V.9(5).5.32-36: "[F]or no one of the real beings is outside, or in place, but they
remain always in themselves and undergo no alteration or destruction: that is
why they are truly real [ontOs onta}. I{ they come into being and perish, they
will haue their being {rom outside themselues [epakto chresetai to onti], and it
will not any more be they, but that being which will be reality." The first
sentence in Greek runs as folIows: ouden gar exo ton onton oude en topa, menei
de aei en hautois metabolen oude phthoran dexomena, and Armstrong construes
it as having ouden ... ton onton as its subject, and so do Harder ("Nichts vom
eigentlich Seienden ist außerhalb, noch überhaupt räumlich, sondern es
beharrt ewig in sich selbst und unterliegt keiner Veränderung und keiner
Vernichtung"), and Brehier ("NuI etre n'est au dehors, dans l'espace; mais les
etres subsistent eternellement en eux-memes et n'admettent ni changement ni
corruption"); Cilento, on the contrary, construes the sentence as having only
ouden as its subject, and makes ton ontan, acting as a complement to exo ("nulla
sconfina fuori dall'essere, neppure in senso spaziale; ma gli esseri perservarano
eternamente in loro e non sono suscettibili di mutamento e di corruzione.") The
translation of Armstrong-Harder fits better, to my mind, with the general
meaning of the passage, even though I acknowledge that the ordering of the
words in the sentence supports better Cilento's translation.
43 See p. 373 and note 24.
44Phd. 100e5-6. Plotinus has recourse to the pattern ofthe Phaedo also in VI.6
(34).14.27-33: "A thing is one by the presence [parousia] of the one and two by
the presence of the dyad, just as it is white by the presence of the white and
beautiful by that of the beautiful and just by that of the just. Otherwise, one
would not be able to maintain that these exist either, but would have to make
relations responsible for these two, as ifthe just was so because ofthis particular
relation to these particular things, and the beautiful because we are so disposed,
with nothing existing in the underlying reality of a kind to dispose us, and
nothing coming from outside [epaktou] to what appears beautiful." See also
VI.6(34).10.27-33: "It is, then, as when someone speaks of good things: he either
speaks of them as good of themselves, or predicates the good incidentally of
them [kategorei to agathon hos sumbebekos autan.] And if he is speaking of
primary goods, he is speaking of the first real existence [hupostasin legei ten
proten]; but if of things to which the good is incidental, there must be a nature
of good in order for it to be incidental to other things, in that the cause which
produces good also in another must be either the Good Itself or something which
has generated the good in its own nature."
380 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHlLOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY
Plotinus' way of thinking. 45

Items 1-111 provide us with an example of the "reasoning" Plotinus
uses to argue in favour of Forms. We saw at the beginning of this section
that he maintains that it is necessary to give a satisfactory account in
order to accept Forms as really being and as possessing the charac-
teristics with which Platonic tradition credits them. Also, we have been
led from the consideration of the compound nature of all the objects of
our experience to the causal role of the immanent characteristic, and
from the latter to the causal role of Form (I). In turn, we have been led
to the necessity of proceeding backward from immanent characteristics
to Form in itself, by considering the intrinsically dependent nature of
immanent characteristics (11). Finally, we have been told that such a
move from immanent characteristics to self-sufficient and changeless
Form is required in order to avoid that unnecessary multiplication of
beings which would follow if the entity from which the immanent
characteristic comes were not self-sufficient and changeless Form (111).
In a later treatise, VI.6(34),46 Plotinus presents us with another
reasoning about Forms, whose starting point is again the question about
their nature and mode of existence (tis an eie he phusis auton kai pos
sustasa).47 After having recalled that even though we can ask how Forms
"come into being," we do not use this expression in its usual meaning
but do so just for the sake of argument and for a sort of didactical
purpose,48 Plotinus addresses himself to the question of whether or not
Forms are to be conceived of as the result of a process of abstraction. He
argues that Forms, in fact, cannot be derived from abstraction:
IV.(I) the thought of something is posterior to the thing itself.
(2) if something comes into existence as a result of a thought, the
thought is prior to it.
(3) so, if Forms come into existence as a result of the thinking activity
of a thinker, they would be at one and the same time prior and posterior
to the thinking activity of the thinker. 49
This reasoning is intended to support the "substantial nature" of
46 See section 4 below.

46 See Porphyry, Life of Plotinus, 5.35-36.
47VI.6(34).6.4.
48VI.6(34).6.4-5: "But we must understand that we make them come into being
(ten genesin auton) only in thought (logo)." Compare with the more famous
statement ofV.l(lO), "When we are discussing eternal realities we must not let
coming into being in time be an obstacle to our thought [ekpodOn de hemin esto
genesis he en krono ton logon peri ton aei onton poioumenois]; in the discussion
we apply the word "becoming" to them in attributing to them causal connection
and order." Plotinus is clearly reminiscent in both passages of the exegesis
didaschalias heneka of the "gegone" which is said of the universe in the Timaeus.
49VI.6(34).6.5-14: "First, then, we must comprehend the substantial nature of
Forms, and rests on the assumption that "thought of something" in-
volves the priority of the "something" whieh is thought. Plotinus elearly
does not mean that anything whatsoever, ineluding ehimeras and mer-
maids, must be eredited with substantiality onee that they are thought
by a thinker. As a matter of fact, IV is addressed to those who assume
that thought grasps the nature, essenee or definition of the realities it
is direeted 10 but, at one and the same time, are eonvineed that this
nature, essenee or definition does not possess independent existenee
apart from our aet ofthinking. This is the way Plotinus understands the
Aris10telian position, and IV aims at showing that if one assumes that
thinking is the grasping of the real essenee of a thing, and at the same
time assumes that preeisely this essenee comes to be as a result of the
aet of thinking, he opens the way 10 assuming that thought is both prior
and posterior 10 its objeet. Within the Aristotelian framework with
whieh Plotinus is eonfronted in this passage, there is, of course, a
possibility of eseaping this unsatisfae10ry eonelusion, namely, by assum-
ing that the eoneept of a Form we possess is not the grasping of the
essential nature of the thing whieh bears the eorresponding eharae-
teristie, but an aet of thinking whieh produces adefinition. Plotinus'
further move aims at showing that in this ease we must assume that
the essential nature of a thing is just amental state, and does not
eorrespond 10 anything real. His reasoning in fact runs as foliows:
V. (1) if a Form is nothing else than [our] thinking ofit, it would eoineide
with the definition produeed by [our] thinking.
(2) the definition produeed by our thinking is amental aet.
(3) the eoneept [we possess] of a Form is the grasping of its essential
nature.
(4) the essential nature is areal being and not only amental aet.
(5) were the eoneept we possess of a Form the definition produeed by
our thinking, it would eorrespond 10 amental aet and not 10 areal being.
(6) in this ease, the eoneept [we possess] of a Form would be the
grasping of something not existent, and this is impossible. 5O
So, 10 identify Form with the definition-a mental aet-would imply,
the Forms in general [ten ousian katholou ton eidOn], that it does not exist
beeause the thinker thinks eaeh of them and so by that very thinking gives them
their existenee laute te noesei ten hupostasin auton paraschomenou, seil. tou
nenoekotos]. For it is not beeause the thinker thought out what righteousness
is that righteousness existed, or beeause he thought out what movement is that
movement existed. For in this way this thought [noema] would be both posterior
to the thing itself whieh was thought-the thought [noesis] of righteousness
posterior to righteousness itself-and on the other hand the thought would be
prior to what existed as a result of thought, if it eame into existenee by thinking
[kai palin au ne noesis protera tou ek noeseOs hupostantos, ei tö nenoekenai
hupestij."
in Plotinus' eyes, that nothing outside the mental act would be the object
of "grasping," or, that "grasping" would have as its object something
which does not possess being or existence, me huphestotos pragmatos
logon labein. When in V.(3) Plotinus defines thinking of this or that
Form as "grasping their essential nature," to ti estin auton labonta, he
is in fact paving the way for the following alternative: either to ti estin
labein is really 10 grasp the essential nature of the thing considered, and
in this case the object of that "grasping" must be conceived of as real; or
to ti estin labein is nothing but amental act, and the object which is
"grasped" does not belong 10 the set of real beings, a quite uncomfortable
conclusion 10 draw for those-Aris1otle and his followers-who main-
tain that to ti estin does represent not only the content of the definition,
but also, in each and every thing, the primary condition for existing and
bearing predicates. 51
Items 1-111 were intended to show that Forms cannot be identified
with immanent properties; items IV-V, in turn, are intended to show
that they cannot be identified with universals of abstraction either.
Before turning from these two arguments, in favour of the hypothesis
of Forms, to the set of features Plotinus credits them with, it is worth
considering the originality of his approach.
111.
From Porphyry's Life of Plotinus, 14, we know that the master was
weIl acquainted with the Platonism of his age, even though Porphyry
mentions, among the Platonic philosophers read in the school, mostly
the representatives of the so-called "anti-Aristotelian" stream of
thought, namely, those who resisted the tendency 10 conflate the Aris-
totelian and Platonic tenets in10 a unitary account. 52 From this passage,
6OVI.6(34).6.14-19: "But if righteousness is the same as the thought of

righteousness, first of a11 it is absurd that righteousness should be nothing
except something like its definition: for what is thinking righteousness or
movement except grasping their essential nature (ta ti estin auton labonta)?
And this is the same as grasping the conception of a non-existent thing, which
is impossible [touto de tauton to me huphestotos pragmatos logon labein, hoper
adunaton]."
61See also VI.7(38).4.23-30, where Plotinus addresses himself directly to the
Aristotelian doctrine of definition as presented in Metaph. 7 4-5, saying that
once the definition is given, it is still necessary to trace back to the primary
esssential condition for the thing defined to be what it is [ton logon auton ton
pepoiekota,1.25]. Plotinus adds that "this applies especia11y to those who claim
to define the essential nature in each case [hosoi to ti en einai axiousin eph'
hekastou horizesthai], when they define strictly and properly."
62Life of Plotinus, 14.10-16: "In the meetings of the school he used to have the
commentaries read, perhaps of Severus, perhaps of Cronius or Numenius or
as weIl as from the one concerning the alleged dependence of many

Plotinian doctrines on Numenius,53 we can safely infer that he was
acquainted with the accounts of Forms in what we are accustomed to
call "Middle Platonism."54 Due partly to the fragmentary state of many
of the surviving Middle-Platonic works, and partly to the looseness of
Porphyry's allusions, we cannot properly compare the way in which
Plotinus argues in favour of the hypothesis of Forms with a specific
Middle Platonic writing or set of writings. Notwithstanding this, it
seems quite promising to compare Plotinus' approach to the question of
what Forms are, and what reasons we have to posit them, with the
account of Forms we find in some remains of school Platonism of the
Imperial age. I shall focus exclusively on the status of Forms, leaving
aside the problem of their allocation inside or outside the divine mind,
a problem which the present purpose does not compel us to take up.
Alcinous' Didaskalikos,55 one of the largest surviving Middle Pla-
Gaius or Atticus, and among the Peripatetics, ofAspasius, Alexander, Adrastus,

and others that were available. But he did not just speak straight out of these
books but took a distinctive personalline in his consideration, and brought the
mind of Ammonius to bear on the investigation in hand." On the role of
Ammonius and in general on Plotinus' education, see J. Whittaker, "Plotinus at
Alexandria: Scholastic Experiences in the Second and Third Centuries,"
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 8 (1997): 159-90. On the
Platonists quoted by Porphyry, see J. M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists. A Study
ofPlatonism 80 B.C to A.D. 220 (London: Duckworth, 1977), chapter V, and L.
Brisson, "Prosopographie," in L.Brisson, M.-O Groulet-Caze, R. Goulet, D.
O'Brien, Porphyre. La Vie de Platin, I. Travaux preliminaires et index grec
complet (Paris: Vrin, 1982). In addition, see on Cronius the Notice by
J.Whittaker, "Cronios," in Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques publie sous la
direction de R. Goulet, 11 (Paris: Editions du CNRS, 1994): 527-28, and, on
Numenius, the chapter by M. Frede, "Numenius," in Aufstieg und Niedergang
der Romanischen Welt, hrsg. von W. Haase - H. Temporini, 11 36.2 (Berlin-New
York: De Gruyter, 1987), 1034-75.
63Life of Plotinus, 17.1-6: "When the people from Greece began to say that
Plotinus was appropriating the ideas of Numenius, and Trypho the Stoic and
Platonist told Amelius, the latter wrote a book to which we gave the title On the
Difference between the Doctrines of Plotinus and Numenius."
64 In addition to the works cited at note 52, see J. Whittaker, "Platonie Philosophy
in the Early Century of the Empire," in Aufstieg und Niedegang der
Romanischen Welt, hrsg. von W. Haase - H. Temporini, 11 36.1 (Berlin & New
York: De Gruyter, 1987), 81-123, hereafter cited as Whittaker, PPECE, and L.
Deitz, "Bibliographie du platonisme imperial anterieur a Plotin," in Aufstieg
und Niedergang der Romanischen Welt hrsg. von W.Haase - H. Temporini, 11
36.1 (Berlin-New York: De Gruyter, 1987), 124-82.
66See Whittaker, Alcinoos. Enseignement des doctrines de Platon, Introduction,
texte etabli et commente par J. Whittaker et traduit par P.Louis (paris: Les
BeIles Lettres, 1990), hereafter cited as Whittaker, Alcinoos. The reasons given
by M. Giusta, "Albinou Emitome 0 Alkinoou Didaskalikos?", Atti dell'Accademia
delle Scienze di Torino 95 (1960-61): 167-94, and by Whittaker in his
introduction to the edition as weIl as in his studies on the Didaskalikos and its
tonic works which contain an account of Forms, does not discuss explic-
itly the reasons for the belief in their existence. Nevertheless, we find
there at least two passages which can count as an indication of the way
Alcinous understands their nature and status.
The fIrst passage, which I shall refer to as (A), belongs to chapter IV,
whose aim is to examine the faculty of judgement (kriterion) before
discussing Platonic dialectic. 66 Alcinous proceeds to distinguish two
kinds of logos, which he assumes to be the instrument for judging: the
divine and the human. According to a diairetic pattern, he subdivides
in turn the human logos into that which concerns intelligibles, and that
which concerns sensible objects (00 men peri ta noeta 00 de peri ta
aisth:eta).57 The reasoning concerning intelligible objects is said to be
scientific (epistemonikos logos), and is kept apart from the doxastic. 58
The faculty providing science is intellection, noesis, which is defined as
the "activity of the intellect as it contemplates the fIrst intelligibles," nou
energeia theorountos ta prota noeta. 59 Alcinous distinguishes "fIrst intel-
ligibles," called hai ideai, from "second" ones, which he calls ta e~ ta
epi te hute acoorista onta tes hul:es. 60
He clearly does not think it necessary to provide a proof supporting
such a distinction between Forms and immanent properties. On the
contrary, he is content with an argument from analogy, reminiscent of
the Divided Line of Republic IV: since-besides intellection and sense-
perception-there are two faculties, namely, scientific and doxastic
reasoning, there must be also objects falling under the faculties, namely,
intelligible and perceptible entities. Conversely, since there are intelli-
gibles of two sorts, primary and secondary, the intellection will be
twofold. There will be a kind of intellection concerning primary intelli-
gibles, namely, a simple and non-discursive apprehension accompanied
by scientific reasoning, and another kind, concerning immanent prop-
manuscript tradition (see Whittaker, "Parisinus gr. 1962 and the Writings of
Albinus," Phoenix 28 (1974), and Whittaker, PPECE invite us to ascribe the
work to Alcinous, and not-as it has been done in the past century and at times
also more recently-to Albinus, the author ofthe Introduction (Prologos) to the
PIatonie philosophy edited by F. Hermann, Platonis Dialogi VI (Leipzig: 1853),
xv-xviii. (On Albinus, see the Notice by J. Whittaker, "Albinos," in Dictionnaire
des philosophes antiques publie sous la direction de R. Goulet I (Paris: Ed. du
CNRS, 1989), 96-97.
66Didaskalikos, IV, 4.6-9 Whittaker (= 154.6-9 Hermann.)
57Didaskalikos, IV, 5.21-26 Whittaker (=154.21-26 Hermann.)
68Didaskalikos, IV, 5.26-32 Whittaker (=154.26-32 Hermann.)
59 Didaskalikos, IV, 6.20-21 Whittaker (= 155.20-21 Hermann.) I am borrowing
the English translation of this expression from L. P. Schenk, "A Middle Platonic
Reading ofPlato's Theory ofRecollection," Ancient Philosophy 11 (1991): 103-10.
6ODidaskalikos, IV, 7.39-41 Whittaker (= 155.39-41 Hermann.)
erties, namely, the scientific reasoning, accompanied by intellection. 61

In this way, Alcinous turns the correspondence Plato established
between faculties and their objects in the Divided Line into a sort of
ground for his distinction between true Ideas and immanent properties.
The result of this move is a sort of "piling up" of two degrees among the
objects of intellection, namely (i) the immanent properties grasped by
scientific reasoning helped by intellection, and (ii) the true Ideas,
grasped by intellectual intuition helped by scientific reasoning. 62 The
last step in Alcinous' passage (A) will be to identify the kosmos nOetos
with the primary intelligible object, and the visible world with the
concrete compound or athroisma, so that the faculty enabled to "judge"
the kosmos noetas ends with being the noesis meta logou of the Timaeus;
and the faculty enabled to "judge" the world of our experience ends with
being the doxastic reasoning accompanied by sense-perception. 63
The second relevant passage, which I shall refer to as (B), belongs to
61Didaskalikos, IV, 7.36-38 Whittaker (=155.36-156.8 Hermann): "Since, then,

there is the scientific reasoning and the doxastic one, and since there is the
intellection and the sense-perception, there are also the objects falling under
these faculties (esti kai ta toutois hupopitonta), namely, the intelligible and the
perceptible objects. And since among the intelligible objects some are primary,
as the Ideas, and some secondary, as the forms immanent in the matter and not
separable from matter, the intellection too will be twofold, namely, the one
conceming the primary intelligible objects, and the other conceming the second
ones. As for the primary intelligible objects, the intellection judges them not
without the scientific reasoning, by means of an apprehension and not by
discursive process (noesis krinei ouk aneu tou epistemonikou logou, perilepsei
tini kai ou diexcxro); in turn the secondary intelligible objects, the scientific
reasoning Gudges them) not without the intellection."
62 This "piling up" corresponds 10 the "piling up" ofthe objects ofsense-perception,
which Alcinous distinguishes as (i) primary perceptible objects, that is, qualities
like colour and white; (ii) secondary perceptible objects, that is, the predicates
(ta ... kata sumbebekos); the example given is "the white" as the "the coloured
object"; (iii) the concrete compound (to athroisma), whose examples are fire and
honey, see Didaskalikos, IV, 7.42-5 Whittaker (=155.42-156.5 Hermann.)
Alcinous maintains that the primary and secondary perceptible objects are
"judged" by sense-perception helped by the doxastic reasoning, and the concrete
compound is "judged" by the doxastic reasoning helped by sense-perception
(ibid., lines 8-10 both in Whittaker and Hermannpages). So from the bottom to
the top, we have the following series:
objects judged faculties judging them
ta athroisma doxastikos logos plus aisthesis
ta... kata sumbebekos (= deutera aistheta) aisthesis plus doxastikos logos
hai poiotetes (= prota aistheta) aisthesis plus doxastikos logos
ta eide ta epi te hule (deutera noeta) epistemonikos logos plus noesis
hai ideai (= protanoeta) noesis plus epistemonikos logos
This series of objects and faculties conflates the Divided Line of Rep.
509d6-511e5 and the definition ofthe faculties respectively grasping Being and
becoming in Tim. 27d6-28a4.
the "theologieal" seetion of the Didaskalikos,64 and presents us with a

series of definitions of idea, eonsidered in its relationship 10 several
other realities and finally in itself. We are 10ld that idea in relationship
to God is its intelleetion (noesis autou); in relationship to us, it is the
first intelligible; to matter, it is the prineiple ofmeasurement (metron);
10 the visible world, it is a paradigm; finally, in itself it is substanee
(ousia).65 Aleinous fails to direetly take in10 aeeount the question of the
mutual eonsisteney of all the definitions he links together. In partieu-
lar-what is more relevant 10 the status of Forms-he does not find it
neeessary to explain how on earth amental aet of God ean be at one and
the same time our own first intelligible objeet, and a prineiple of
measurement of matter. A bit later, after having briefly dealt with the
extensional side of the doetrine of Ideas,66 he embarks on a diseussion
of the reasons the PIatonie sehool has to believe in. the existenee of Ideas,
whieh throws light on this question too. Aeeording to Aleinous, the
Platonists support their belief in Ideas by means of three arguments: a
theologieal, a eosmologieal and an epistemologieal one. First, God-be
it a proper Intelleet (nous) or an intelligent prineiple in general (no-
eron)-possesses a set of intelleetual eontents (noemata). These eontents
63Didaskalikos, IV, 7.11-14 Whittaker (= 156.11-14 Hermann.)

64 In chapter 111 Alcinous distinguishes knowledge from practical and dialectical
(Didaskalikos, 111, 3.28-30 Whittaker [= 153.28-30 Hermann] and again the
theoretical part in theology, physics and mathematics (ibid., 4.43-5 Whittaker
= 153.43-154.5 Hermann). In Chapter VIII he beings to deal with the
theological part, whose objects are matter, the paradigm and God, according to
the common Middle Platonic pattern: "Besides the matter which possesses the
status of a principle, Plato conceives of other principles too, namely, the
paradigmatic one-I mean, the principle of the Ideas-and the principle of the
God father and cause of the universe." (IX, 20.11-14 Whittaker [= 163.11-14
Hermann.]
66Didaskalikos, IX, 20.14-17 Whittaker [= 163.14-17 Hermann].
66Didaskalikos, IX, 21.23-31 Whittaker [= 163.23-31 Hermann]. The question
about the so-called "canon of the Ideas," namely, the extensional description of
the set of the entities credited with a corresponding Idea, appears as early as
Parm. 130c-d, where Socrates is forced to admit that the correspondence he has
just established between things bearing a predicate and their separate Forms
is invalid for realities such as hair or mud. Alcinous follows the Academic
tradition (see Margherita Isnadi Parente, "Platone e la prima Accademia di
fronte al problema delle idee degli artefacta," Rivista critica storia della filosofia
19 [1964]: 123-58, and Margherita Isnadi Parente, "Per l'interpretazione della
dottrina delle idee nella prima Accademia platonica," Annali dell'[nstituto per
gli Studi Storici 1 [1967]: 9-33) in excluding from his canon the artifacts and
does not admit Ideas of entities like illness, individuals, nonvaluable objects,
relative notions. So does Plotinus: there are neither Ideas of entities para
phusin (V.9[5].10.1-6; see also 14.7-17), nor of evil or negative items
(V.9[5].10.17-20); there are Ideas of artifacts only in the sense that the human
productive skill is "a part of the power which also in the higher world considers
and contemplates universal proportion in the intelligible." (V.9[5].11.8-10).
are eternal and changeless.. Consequently, they meet the criteria for
Ideas: so, there are Ideas. 67 Second, the cosmos does not possess its
actual order by chance. This means that it has, in addition to a material
cause (eh tinos esti gegonos), an efficient cause (hupo tinos) and some-
thing in relationship to which it is shaped (pros ti.) The latter cannot
but be an Idea: so, there are Ideas. 68 Third, intellect and opinion differ;
consequently, their objects must differ too, so that the noeta will be
different from the doxasta. But there are the primary perceptible ob-
jects; consequently, there must be also the primary intelligible objects:
so, there are Ideas. 69 To the theological argument Alcinous appends a
corollary intended to establish that Ideas are not only the intellections
of God, but also immaterial measurements of matter. The corollary runs
as foliows: matter in itself is deprived of measurement (ametron; see
Tim. 53a8.) Consequently, it receives its measurements from something
superior and immaterial. This implies that Ideas are immaterial criteria
ofmeasurement (metra tina aula).70
The passage (B), with its threefold argument in favour ofthe doctrine
of Ideas and its corollary, indicates that Alcinous wants to establish
Ideas as immaterial and transcendent principles both of the organiza-
tion ofthe world and of our knowledge. In particular, the "epistemologi-
cal" argument the Platonists are credited with in Alcinous' account
recalls the results of his own way of reasoning in the passage (A), when
the existence of the first intelligibles was established on the grounds of
the correspondence between the faculty and its object. Both the passages
(A) and (B) in Alcinous' account of Ideas license the conclusion that he
was convinced of the existence of Ideas--or at least convinced that
Platonist philosophy did maintain the existence of separate, immaterial
and changeless Ideas 71 apart from immanent properties. This is made
clear not only from his own distinction between hai ideai and ta eiere ta
epi te hule in passage (A), but also from the mention of their substanti-
ality as the distinctive feature the Platonists ascribed to them, and from
the attempt to provide grounds for the distinction between immanent
67Didaskalikos, IX, 21.32-34 Whittaker (= 163.32-34 Hermann).

68 Ibid., lines 38-42.
69 Ibid., 21.42-22.6 Whittaker (= 164.1-6 Hermann). As for the distinction
between primary and secondary perceptible objects and primary and secondary
intelligible objects, see note 62.
7oDidaskalikos, IX, 21.34-38 Whittaker (= 163.34-38 Hermann).
71 See Whittaker, Alcinous X: "nous constatons qu'il ne se qualifie ni de Stolcien
ni de Platonicien, et que s'il ne precise pas jusqu'ou les doctrines qu'il expose
dans le Didaskalikos correspondent a ses propres convictions, il emploie
toutefois la troisieme personne en parlant des Platoniciens."
and trascendent metra, in passage (B).

This short glance at the relevant texts of a representative of the
Middle Platonic approach to the doctrine ofldeas gives the impression-
partly to our surprise-that the originality of Plotinus' own approach
does not, or does not only, consist in the strong claim of their transcen-
dence, as it is at times said. A much more profound difference seems to
lie in the fact that Plotinus is convinced of the necessity of arguing in
favour of Forms, and in particular is aware of the necessity of proving
their distinction both from instantiated properties and abstracted uni-
versals. On the contrary, there is no hint in this direction either in
passage (A) or in passage (B) of Alcinous' Didaskalikos. It is true, one
ought to test this impression on the entire set of Middle Platonic
accounts of Forms. My own hunch is that in this way one would reach
the conclusion that what distinguishes the Plotinian way of thinking,
and turns it into a really new reading of Plato, a new Platonism, is
precisely an attempt to rethink the crucial tenets of Plato's philosophy
in the light of the objections they were confronted with in the course of
the history of thought, an attempt unprecedented in the Platonism of
his age. 72 Such a complete survey clearly lies beyond the scope of this
paper, but some observations may be made about the originality of
Plotinus' own understanding of the doctrine of Ideas by comparing the
items I-V of the previous section with Alcinous' treatment of Forms I
have just summarized.
If I have correctly analyzed them, items 1-111 aim at establishing that
Forms are not immanent properties on the grounds of a discussion of
what an immanent property is. The discussion led us to conclude that
since an immanent property is not self-sufficient, it must depend on
something else which is, in turn, self-sufficient. The comparison be-
tween Plotinus' items 1-111 and Alcinous' passage (A) shows that both
the Neoplatonic and the Middle Platonic accounts distinguish between
72The Platonists, who, abandoning the Skeptic reading ofPlato, maintained that
Plato "held doctrines," seem to agree on the existence of transcendent Ideas,
outside or inside the Divine Mind. It has been maintained by Dörrie, "Die
Stellung Plutarchs im. Platonismus seiner Zeit," in Philomates. Studies and
Essays in the Humanities in Memory of Ph. Merlan, ed. R.B. Palmer - R.
Hamerton Kelly (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1971), 36-56, that this is not true for
Plutarch, whose Platonism can do without transcendent Ideas; but Dörrie's
contention has been challenged by C. J. De Vogel, "Der sog. Mittelplatonismus,
uberwiegend eine Philosophie der Diesseitigkeit?" in Platonismus und
Christentum. Festschrift für H. Dörrie, hrsg. von H. Dieter Blume - F.Mann
(Munster: Aschendorff, 1983), 277-302. See, in particular on Plutarch's theory
of the intelligible world, F. Ferrari, Dia idee e materia. La struttura del cosmo
in Plutarco di Cheronea Strumenti per la ricerca plutarchea, 3 (Napoli: D'Auria,
1995).
true Forms and instantiated properties. Both passage II in Plotinus and
passage (A) in Alcinous, in fact, keep Forms and eiM epi hule apart, and
the continuity between the Middle PIatonie view and the Neoplatonic is
reinforced also by the similarity in the vocabulary. 73 Alcinous, however,
shows no concern for the way in which we can eventually support this
distinction, and fails consequently to provide any argument whatsoever
in order to account for his "secondary intelligibles" being in fact secon-
dary, limiting himself to operating with the supposition that there are
two sorts of intelligible objects, primary (Forms) and secondary (imma-
nent properties). On the contrary, Plotinus submits to trial his own
distinction between immanent properties and self-sufficient (or sepa-
rate) Forms and provides an argument whose validity can of course be,
in turn, submitted to trial, but leaves no doubt about his firm conviction
that it is necessary to argue in favour of such a distinction, instead of
taking it for granted. In particular, II (and especially its key clause 11.[3])
was supported by the analysis developed in 111. This passage is in fact
both crucial for the reasoning developed in 11, and intended to isolate
what separation (self-sufficiency) of Forms means, a fact which creates
a drift towards the conclusion that separation, or self-sufficiency, of
Forms is precisely the central issue at hand in the entire Plotinian
reasoning of 1-111.
Similarly, if we compare Alcinous' passage (B) and Plotinus' in IV-V,
we observe that the threefold argument about Forms he credits the
Platonists with fails to take into account the reasons they have, or
Alcinous might find valid, for positing Forms as separate. True, in the
last of the definitions he enumerates at the beginning of (B) Alcinous
says that a Form, considered in itself, is an ousia-a tenet which implies,
from Aristotle onwards, that it does not exist as a property of anything
else, but rather, that it is separate. 74 Moreover, the corollary appended
to the threefold argument provides at least an attempt to prove that
Forms are, and are such as the Platonists maintain that they are. In
particular the corollary, in so far as it has recourse to the necessity of
deriving the immanent criteria of measurement from something supe-
rior and immaterial, seems at first glance very similar to the Plotinian
reasoning in 1-111. Again, however, a closer examination shows this not
to be the case. Alcinous fails to submit to examination the crucial point,
namely, why must we admit that the immanent metra, depend upon the
immaterial ones, limiting himselfto the assessment that since there are
73Compare Plotinus' distinction in 11.(3), between the real Form and to eidos epi
hufe (see above, note 42), and Alcinous' distinction in A, between hai ideai and
ta eiiU ta epi te hure (see Note 62).
74 See section 5 below.
the immanent metra, they depend upon the transcendent ones. I cannot
see another reason for that, except the very fact that he does not conceive
of the separateness of the true ideal of his scale of beings as a contro-
versial issue, while Plotinus does.
In IV-V too, the distinction between Forms and universals of abstrac-
tion appears to be supported by a reasoning about what separation
means. Either to ti estin labein means "to grasp the essential nature of
something," or it means "to produce adefinition." If so, its object is a
mental act, not a·real nature. Such reasoning operates with the assump-
tion that to be a real nature implies separation, again in the sense taken
into account in 1-111 namely, being an independent entity, not a property
of something else or a status affecting something else. Plotinus' origi-
nality on the panorama of the Platonism of his age seems to lie mostly
in the fact that he thinks it necessary to argue in favour ofthe hypothesis
of Forms by re-working the notion of their separateness, especially in
the light of the Aristotelian objections against it.
In the following section, I shall try to isolate the main features which
Plotinus credits to Forms. I will do this in order to disentangle, in
section V, what separation means in his eyes.
IV.
The reader of the Enneads often meets comparisons between the

features of intelligible and visible items. One of the most developed
passages of this kind appears in the second half of the long treatise On
the presence ofBeing, one and the same, everywhere as a whole, split by
Porphyry into treatises 22 and 23. 75 The section this passage belongs to
deals directly with the topic of the omnipresence of intelligible reality,
a doctrine which counts as an answer to the puzzles about participation
raised in Plato's Parmenides. 76 Having recalled the necessity ofproceed-
ing in the inquiry about the nature of intelligible substance from the
principles proper to it,77 Plotinus goes on to explain why the principles
76POrphyry, Life ofPlotinus, 5.8-11.

76 See J .H. Fielder, "Chronismos and Emanation in Plotinus," in The 8igni{icance
of Neoplatonism, ed. R. Baine Harris International Society for Neoplatonic
Studies (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1976), 101-20; J.H. Fielder, "Plotinus
Copy Theory," Apeiron 11 (1977):1-11; J.H. Fielder, "Plotinus' Reply to the
Arguments of Parmenides 130a-131d," Apeiron 12 (1978): 1-5; J.H. Fielder, "A
Plotinian View on Self-predication and TMA," The Modem Schoolman 57
(1980): 339-48; F. Regen, Formlose Formen. Plotins Philosophie als Versuch das
Regressproblem des platonischen ttparmenides" zu lösen (Göttigen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), hereafter cited as Regen, Formlose Formen;
D'Ancona, "Amorphon kai aneideon. Causalite des formes et causalite de rUn
chez Plotin," Reveu de philosophie ancienne 9 (1992): 69-113.
of the two kinds of substance, visible and intelligible, are different. He
says:
For since one [nature] is carried about and accepts every kind
of change and is continually divided in10 every place, which
it would be appropriate 10 call becoming, not substance, but
the other [nature] is being, always in exactly the same state
(hosautDs kata tauta echon), neither coming 10 be nor perish-
ing nor having any space or place or base (oude tina choran
oude topon oude tina 'hedran), nor going out from anywhere
nor entering in10 anything, but remaining in itself, when one
was speaking about those things [of the lower world] one
would reason logically from that nature and from what is held
10 be true about it and, reasoning probably by means of
probable principles, would frame syllogisms which are also
[only] probable. But when, on the other hand, one engages in
reasonings about the intelligibles, the right way would be to
take the nature of substance about which one is concerned....
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, and, in general, would be in something and
not on its own or unaffected (ouk eph' 'heautou oude apat'hes);
for it would be affected if it was in something else (pathoi gar
an, ei en aZZD); but if it is going to be in astate of freedom from
affection, it will not be in something else (ei d'en apat'hei estai,
ouk en aZZD).78
This passage echoes directly the distinction between being and
77VI.5(23).2.1-8: "But the reason which tried to make the investigation of what
we are talking about, since it is not one thing but something divided and brings
along to its inquiry the nature ofbodies and takes its principles from them, both
divided substance, thinking that it was of this (bodily) kind, and disbelieved in
its unity, because it did not take the starting-point of its enquiry from the
principles proper to substance (hate me ex archon ton oikeion ten hormen tes
zeteseos pepoiemenos). But we must take for our reasoning about the one and
altogether existent principles which, being proper to it, will lead to convinction:
that is, intelligible principles of intelligibles and those which belong to true
substance (noetas [seil. archas) noeton kai tes alethines ousias echomenas)." The
allusion to the proper principles comes of course from Aristotle, An. post. I. 2,
72b23, 72a6.
becoming drawn by Plato in Timaeus 27d6-28a4, as weIl as the parallel

account given in Sophist 248a10-12. But besides the Platonic heritage
leading Plotinus to credit the intelligible being with immutability
(hosautos kuta tauta echon, with slight differences, in the three texts,
Timaeus, Sophist, and treatise 23), another way ofthinking-ultimately
Aristotelian-is here at work, namely, the distinction between what
exists as a property of something else, and what exists in itself, inde-
pendently of any oase" whatsoever. Plotinus' description of the true
onta conflates the Platonic criteria of being "always in exactly the same
state, neither coming to be nor perishing," with the ultimately Aristote-
lian criteria of "not having any space or place or base ... but remaining
in itself. ,,79 The exclusion from the status of the intelligible items of
spatiallocalization strictly speaking-to be nere" instead of "there"-is
just apart, and not the most relevant to my mind, of this idea. As a
matter of fact, to the expression quoted, Plotinus attaches precisely the
same meaning involved in the distinction between what is "in itself' and
what is "in another," at work in passage 111 examined above. At the end
of the passage just quoted, in fact, he links self-standingness (eph'
heautou) and immutability (apathes,) in reasoning that, for the sake of
the present argument, can be analysed as folIows:
VI.(l) true Being is changeless.
(2) true Being does not need any base whatsoever in another.
(3) true Being cannot stand away from itself.
(4) true Being cannot be subdivided into parts.
(5) true Being cannot have anything of it coming out of it.
Note that clauses (3)-(5) are explicitly treated by Plotinus as conse-
quences of (1) and (2). This set of features, consisting in two assump-
tions, (1) and (2), and three implications of these assumptions, is aimed
at providing the grounds for the proof that if one assumes the contrary
of (5), an impossibility will follow. The second step in Plotinus' reason-
ing, in fact, starts from the temporary assumption of the contrary of (5),
namely, from the assumption that something comes out of true Being:
VII.(l) were something coming out of true Being, true Being would be
78VI 5(23).2.9-21 and 3.1-8.

79 In turn, this expression conflates the basic Aristotelian criterion for
substantiality, that is, to exist independently from a ground in another (Meta.
5. 8, 1017a24; 7.3, 1028b36-1029a2) with the Platonic echo coming from Tim.
42e5-7, a passage which lies in the background of a11 the Plotinian (and
Neoplatonic) descriptions of the intelligible principles as "remaining" in
themselves or in their own status. On Aristotle's criteria for substantiality see
Gail Fine, "Plato and Aristotle on Form. and Substance," Proceedings of the
Cambridge Philological Society 28 (1983): 23-47.
in different places.
(2) if (1), true Being would be in something.
(3) if (2), true Being would not be on its own.
(4) if (3), true Being would not be unaffected, against VI (1).
(5) but VI (1).
(6) so, VII (1) entails a contradiction.
If one asks what this reasoning aims at disproving, that is, what is
temporarily assumed in VII (1), the answer is: an account admitting for
Forms the possibility 10 be in many participants. In fact, Plotinus wants
to disprove that it might be the case that the true (intelligible) Being,
still remaining what it is assumed to be (that is, VI [1] and [2], were also
a property immanent in many individuals. A better understanding of
Plotinus' point is obtained by considering his reaction 10 the aporias
about participation in Forms raised in the fIrst half of Pla1o's Par-
menides.
It has already been observed that Plotinus' attempt at solving the
puzzles about the one and the many in Platonic participation is based
on his idea that a Form, precisely in so far as it is a Form, cannot be
divided among its participants, as the objection raised both by Par-
menides in Plato's dialogue and by Aristotle assumed it to be. so AForm.,
Plotinus says in the treatise On the presence ofBeing, one and the same,
everywhere as a whole, is not "in" its participants. If one takes to be "in"
something as meaning "belongs to this thing and depends upon it,,,sI a
Form is not in its participants, precisely in so far as it does not collapse
in10 immanent property. In Plotinus' eyes, the immanent property
which is "in" the individual bearing it cannot be conceived of as apart
of the corresponding Form., detached from it and allocated into an
individual. In no way can we produce a set like the one Parmenides
produces in order 10 face the young Socrates with his incapacity for
arguing in favour of the hypothesis of Ideas-namely, a set containing
the eidos megethous besides talla ta megala. 82 Form., as Plotinus under-
stands it, is the principle of immanent property, and precisely in so far
soSee note 76 above.

81 See Cat. 1a24-25 and G.E.L. Owen, "Inherence," Phronesis 10 (1965): 97-105;
J. Driscoll, 'The Platonic Ancestry of Primary Substance," Phronesis 24, (1979):
253-69, and "Inherence," Phronesis 10 (1965): 97-105. On Plotinus's approach
10 Aris1otle's treatment of inherence, see K. Wurm, Substanz und Qualität. Ein
Beitrag zur Interpretation der plotinischen Traktate VI 1, 2 und 3, Quellen und
Studien zur Philosophie, 5 (Berlin & New York: De Gruyter, 1973). Gail Fine,
"Immanence," Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 4 (1986): 71-97, hereafter
cited as Fine, "Immanence"), argues that according 10 Pla1o, Form.s are in the
individuals as properties of them, so that Forms are in them in that sense. I
shall discuss this interpretation in relationship 10 Plotinus in Section 5.
82Parm. 132a1-11.
as it generates, say, triangularity, heaviness, humanity, it is hardly

triangular, heavy, human. Like the equation which generates a curve,
that is, a visible shape on the Cartesian axes, but is not a curve nor does
it possess a visible shape, a Form does not possess in itself, as a property,
the property it generates. 83 If so, there is no point in deriving from the
erroneous premise of a set containing (i) Form and (ii) the individuals
sharing the related immanent property, the absurd consequence Par-
menides and Aristotle-did derive, namely, that such a set would need
another principle as the cause ofthe community between (i) and (ii), and
so in infinitum. 84 Such a consequence, drawn as it is from an erroneous
conception of what Form is and in which way it is a cause, does not
undermine, for Plotinus, the hypothesis of Forms, simply because it is
not directed against it, but against its caricature, which pretends Form
to be like a sail whose capacity to cover many men obviously implies
that only one part of it actually covers one man. Plotinus is committed
to an interpretation of participation which resembles the one Gail Fine
describes as a possible Platonic rejoinder to the objections against
participation: "[P]roperties or universals are not like physical objects;
and one crllcial difference between them is just that, unlike physical
objects, they can, in their entirety, simultaneously be in different
places."ss At variance with Fine's reading of Plato, Plotinus would just
add he is not willing to describe such a presence as "immanence," if this
means that Form itself is "in" the individual for any sense of "in" which
involves community of nature with the individual, or ontological de-
pendence upon it. Plotinus would probably say also that this is precisely
why he does distinguish between properties immanent in a concrete
83In a similar vein Plotinus maintains in VI.6(34).17.23-26 that the "natural

figures in the things which exist by nature (phusika schemata en tois phusei
ousin)" depend on the "unfigured" and "primary figures" which are in the
intelligible (aschematista ekei kai prota schemata). Compare this account with
what Fine, "Immanence," 83-85, calls "broad self-predication," and lucidly
describes as folIows: "[T]he Form of F can be F in virtue of making its possessors
F; the Form of Large is large, not because of its size (it has no size, not being
extended) but because it is the property that makes things large." (85) I agree
with Fine that what she calls "the Phaedo's constraints on adequate
explanations," namely, "that nothing can be made F by something that is not F'
(83) offer a strong support for the idea that Plato must, in the last resort, admit
that Forms are in the sensibles they have to explain. Still, I think the Plotinian
distinction between the Form as the principle possessing the capacity to
generate the property, and the property itself, both is in itselfworth considering,
and develops Plato's own distinction (Phd. l02d6-7) between the Form in itself
(auto to megethos) and the Form considered in its participants (to en hemin
megethos).
See Regen, Formlose Formen.
84
Fine, "Immanence," 80. See also T. F. Morris, "How Can One Form Be in Many
86
Things?" Apeiron 19 (1985): 53-56.
individual-ta eiM epi te huZe-and Forms. This argument lies in the
background of the Plotinian insistence on the fact that Forms are not
"in" something.
If this is the general framework of VI-VII, however, it is also worth
noting that the assumptions Plotinus is working with, namely, VI (1)
and (2), do conflate a Platonic and an Aristotelian line of reasoning.
When Plotinus compares the status of intelligible principles with the
status of things submitted to coming-to-be and passing away, he does
nothing but endorse a general tenet of the Platonic school, shared in
differing degrees by all the Platonists who maintained that Plato (to use
this Hellenistic expression) "held doctrines," instead ofbeing a skeptical
philosopher. "Transcendence" of Forms, meaning their changeless and
atemporal status, is hardly a discovery, or re-discovery, of Plotinus
alone, even though the emphasis he puts on these features, and mostly
the role they play in his argumentations, are unprecedented in the
Platonism of his age. When, on the contrary, he conceives of the inZo-
caZitas of intelligible items as the feature which accompanies immuta-
bility and enables them to escape puzzles about participation, he is
working on the assumption that to be in itself, not as a property of
something else, is the decisive feature of ontological priority, an Aristo-
telian thought which, to my knowledge, nobody had put into the service
ofPlatonism until Plotinus. It is true, the Platonic distinction ofthe kath'
hauto and pros aZZo lies in the background of this way of thinking. But
the very language of inherence Plotinus uses when he maintains the
dependence of what is en aZZo upon what is in itself denotes that the
Aristotelian assumption of the priority of what does not need a oase"
in another is at work. 86 This is, at least, the most natural reading ofboth
86Fine "Separation," 70-71 argues that in Aristotle's view Plato moves invalidly
from the claim that Forms, in so far as they alone escape flux, are basic to
knowledge, to the claim that they are substances: "Aristotle's criticism is
justified-given his account of substance. That is, one of Aristotle's criteria for
being a subsance is being separate; since flux fails 10 show that Forms are
separate, it fails 10 show that they are substances-as Aris10tle understands
the notion of substance. But Aristotle's criteria for substance are controversial,
and it is not clear Pla10 accepts, or is committed 10, them.... [U]nlike Aristotle,
Pla10 never makes it a defining feature of ousia to be separate. Whenever he
characterizes the realm of ousia, he mentions----not separation
but~hangelessness, everlastingness, inaccessibility to sense-perception,
being basic to knowledge and definition, and the like. As we have seen, none of
these features requires separation." Leaving aside the discussion of Fine's main
point, namely, whether or not separation is required for Plato's Forms, her
analysis counts as a confirmation of the fact that Aristotle's criterion of
separateness as basic for substantiality plays an important role in Plotinus's
contention that true Forms need not be "in" anything else. On flux as an
argument for separate Forms see R. G. Turnbull, "Zeno's Stricture and
396 AMERICAN CATHOLIC PHILOsoPHICAL QUARTERLY
the final part of the passage quoted above from the treatise 23, as weIl
as of the item III discussed in the previous section, where to reach a
reality standing in itself, and not being en allo, was the condition to avoid
regression in infinitum.
Many other passages might be quoted to support the claim that this
is a crucial feature of Plotinus' understanding of Forms. More relevant
to the present purpose is to observe that, even though Plotinus credits
his intelligible items with the criteria of self-standingness and inde-
pendence inherited from the Aristotelian way of thinking, he is wary of
endorsing all the features that the distinction between substance and
properties involve in Aristotle. Standing in itself in approximately the
same way as an Aristotelian ousia, in so far as it does not need a ground
in anything else, a Plotinian Form still cannot be conceived of as an
immaterial tode ti. Its self-sufficiency and independence from any"base"
is always coupled with its capacity to be present to the many, as the
principle of that immanent property which comes in them as an epakton.
Throughout the treatise On the presence of Being, one and the same,
everywhere as a whole, Plotinus maintains that, besides the inlocalitas
just discussed, a Form. possesses also omnipresence, that is, the capacity
to be causally present to the many bearing the instantiated property
which is named after the Form. It is in fact because of the existence of
the separated Form. that an individual possesses a property, and this
means for Plotinus that the Form, precisely in so far as it is not
immanent in the individual, is the cause of the presence of the given
characteristic in the entire set of its bearers. So, it is universal not by
means of being universally predicated, as Aristotle assumes, but by
means of its causality. I certainly do not want to claim that Plotinus'
separate Forms "do" anything for the individual bearer of a property to
bear it. Plotinus' Forms meet the criteria some contemporary interpret-
ers of Plato establish for Plato's Forms to be "causally relevant factors,"
though no one would agree they are causes of events. 87 Such Forms are
Predieation in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus," in How things are Studies in

Predication and the History of Philosophy and Science, eds. J.Bogen and J.E.
MeGuire (Dordreeht: D. Riedei, 1984), 21-58.
87The deseription of Platonie Forms as "eausally relevant factors" though not
eauses of events is propounded by Gail Fine, "Forms as Causes: Plato and
Aristotle," in Mathematics in Aristotle, ed. A Graeser, Akten des X Symposium
Aristotelieum (Bern and Stuttgart: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1987): 69-112. Fine
diseusses and develops an interpretation of PIatonie Forms propounded by
VIastos RCP. See also J. M. Moravesik, "What Makes Reality Intelligible?
Refleetions on Aristotle's Theory of Aitia," in Aristole's Physics: A Collection of
Essays, ed. L. Judson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 31-47 and C.A. Freeland,
"Accidental Causes and Real Explanations," in Aristotle's Physics: A collection
of Essays, ed. L. Judson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991),49-72.
needed in the explanation ofthe fact that an individual bears a property,

as we are told in passage I quoted above; and Forms are, in this sense,
universally present 10 all the individuals bearing the immanent prop-
erty, even though-in fact, precisely because-they are not immanent
in any one of them.
Plotinus meets Aristotle's main objection against the independent
existence of intelligible principles-namely, the claim that under no
circumstances can a universal, that is, a predicable, be subsistent in
itself without a subject 10 be predicated of-by precisely rejecting that
Forms in themselves are predicable. The immanent property, which
comes 10 be in an individual as an epakton, is a predicate of the
individual which bears it. On the contrary, the separate principle from
which such a property derives, and which we must assume if we want
10 s10p regressing in infinitum in the search for the reason why the
individual bears that property, will never be predicated of anything
whatsoever. Its universality does not consist in being said of many, but
rather in its capacity 10 be the cause of one and the same property in
the many, a property which will take the same status ofthe individual
it is said of, share its mode ofbeing, and continue or cease 10 be according
to the destiny of its bearer, which can acquire or lose it. None of these
features, perfectly suitable 10 immanent property, is consistent with the
status ofForm, which Plotinus maintains 10 be apathes. The final clause
of the passage quoted above establishes that it is precisely in so far as
it is apathes that a Form cannot be immanent in another, and must, on
the contrary, remain eph' heautou. This is, roughly speaking, the
Plotinian understanding of the separateness of Forms, as far as I can
see. I shall devote the last section of this paper to a discussion of this
notion.
v.
An entire treatise of the Enneads deals with the topic of the impas-
sibility ofthe bodiless; namely, treatise 26, which is chronologically near
to the treatise on the omnipresence of the intelligible. SB Its chapter 6
aims at proving that the intelligible substance is apathes and can count
as an argument supporting the just-recalled tenet of VII.(4)-namely,
the claim that were true Being not unaffected, it would not be on its
own-by providing the reasons why true Being, or intelligible substance,
must be unaffected. By the same token, this chapter helps us in under-
88Plotinus' treatise On the Impassibility ofThings without Body, 111.6(26), has

been recently translated into English and commented upon by B. Fleet, Plotinus
Ennead 111.6. On the Impassivity ofthe Bodies (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).
standing the separation of Forms, as Plotinus conceives of it. The

relevant passage runs as foliows:
It has already been said that the intelligible reality, which is

all of the order of form, must be thought to be free from
affections (apathe).... But first, as we address ourselves to
this and state what sort of nature it has, we must grasp that
the nature of being and substance and existence are not as
most people think they are. For .being, what one could truly
call being, is real being, and this is that which has nothing
lacking to its existence (touto de h:o meden apostatei tou einai).
Since it is completely (teleos), it has no need of anything for
its preservation and existence (oudenos deitai hina sozoito
kaie) but is cause to other things, which seem to exist, of their
seeming existence. 89
This account moves from the premise of the changelessness of Forms

to the claim of their self-sufficiency, and from their self-sufficiency to
their causality. On the assumption of apatheia as a defining feature of
intelligible substance, the consequence follows for Plotinus that such an
entity must be conceived of as not in need of anything whatsoever, and
being able to be the cause of other entities indeed. I do not want to
discuss here the validity of this move, nor the course of reasoning to
which this passage belongs and which, roughly speaking, is related to
the account of true Being as provided with life and intellect given in
Plato's Sophist. What I want to do is to ask whether or not this inference
from the changelessness of Forms to their self-sufficiency licenses
separation, and can count as an item related to Plotinus' argument in
favour of the existence of Forms as distinct from immanent properties.
At first glance, one would agree that self-sufficiency, as Plotinus
describes it-recalling through the Sophist the very notion of the full-
ness of Being introduced in western thought by Parmenides-undoubt-
edly involves, and even surpasses, separation. How might we accept that
what is described as lacking nothing and giving to others does not stand
on its own? This seems to be the most obvious conclusion to draw,
namely, that Plotinus' intelligible substance, in so far as it is apathes,
is assumed to be teleos, and that settles the issue. In the light of this
passage, item I examined near the beginning of this paper finds its most
natural complement: true Forms, whose existence is involved in the very
existence of immanent properties, are to be understood as separate.
89111.6(26).6.1-2; 7-14. Plotinus' expression hO meden apostatei tou einai comes

from Parm. 144b2.
There is however a point which deserves attention, namely, the fact that
there is no agreement on what "separation" means, at least in so far as
Platonic Forms are concerned. This invites us to insist on the question,
"does Plotinus' account of Forms license separation?" more accurately
than I have done until now.
According to Gail Fine, "separation" means "capacity for independent
existence," and as a feature of PIatonie Forms derives from their inter-
pretation provided by Aristotle. Aristotle is right to think that at least
some PIatonie Forms are separate; what he says about the reasons of
their separation, however, is wrong. Neither did Plato link substanti-
ality and separation in the way Aristotle does, nor did he derive the
separation of his Forms from the observation of the flux which affects
the world of coming-to-be and passing away. According to Aristotle,
Plato invalidly moved from the observation of flux, which actually
licenses Forms as basic principles for knowledge and different from the
visible world, to their separation. In her analysis of Aristotle's argumen-
tation, Fine points sharply to the fact that according to Aristotle, Plato
correctly infers from the flux the difference between Forms and visible
things; but, Aristotle adds, Forms are substances in Plato's account; so,
they are separate, a tenet he clearly disagrees with. 90 So, Plato's move-
an invalid one, to Aristotle's mind-consists in deriving independent
existence from difference in nature, and, one might also add, in deriving
ontological priority from the fact that Forms are basic to knowledge. I
have already argued in favour of the view that Plotinus' interpretation
of self-standingness in terms of independence from any ground in
another owes something to Aristotle's elaboration of "separation" as a
basic criterion for substantiality91 and am consequently ready to admit
that Plotinus' understanding of Plato's expressions like "themselves by
themselves" and "separatelyn92 in terms of "no need of a base in another"
rests on the grounds of an Aristotle-shaped reading of Plato's doctrine
of Forms. 93 What I want to add now is that the passage just quoted from
treatise 26 credits Plotinus with precisely the same assumption Fine
denies being at work in Plato, namely, the assumption that flux ulti-
mately licenses the separation of Forms. This idea derives in Fine's
analysis, as we have just seen, from the connection Aristotle made
90See Fine, "Separation" 37-55.

91 See note 86 above.
92 Vlastos, "Separation in Plato," in Oxlord Studies in Ancient Philosophy 5
(1987): 187-96, argues that in Plato "itself by itself [auto kath' hauto]" and
"separately [chans]" enunciate the same metaphysical claim, namely, the
"strongly antisymmetrie" relation between copies and model (190).
930n Plotinus' reading of Aristotle see Th. A. Szlezak, Platon und Aristoteles in
der Nuslehre Plotins (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1979).
between the Platonic statement that flux requires the existence of

changeless principles of knowledge, and Aristotle's own tenet that
Platonic Forms, in so far as they are substances, are separate. According
to Fine, Plato's argument of flux licenses no more than difference in
nature between Forms and visible things. In Plotinus' passage, on the
contrary, flux 94 licenses precisely the separation ofForms, provided that
we assume "separation of the Forms" in the sense of: (i) capacity for
independent existence and (ii) ontological priority; and provided that we
supply the hidden assumptions which are at work in it, namely (iii) that
the distinction of the two levels of being which is alluded to is precisely
the one drawn in the Timaeus between true Being and becoming, and
(iv) that the relationship between true Being and becoming is an
antisymmetric one, with the apparent being ofthe world of coming-to-be
and passing away depending on true Being, and not the converse. 95
It has also been denied, however, that "separation" means primarily
"capacity for independent existence." Donald Morrison argues in fact
that it means distinction of one substance from another, and counts as
a reworking Aristotle made ofthe literal meaning-spatial separation-
in the sense of the distinction between two entities, each of them being
conceived as a "strong numerical unity." In this sense, to be "separate"
means, to put it in Morrison's own words, "to be outside ofthe ontological
boundaries of." This is the reason why Forms, according to Aristotle,
cannot be "separated": in so far as they are said ofmany, they cannot be
conceived of as being outside the ontological boundaries of the many of
which they are said. 96 The Platonists, Morrison argues, would reply to
Aristotle that Forms, in so far as they are true substances, do not allow
of describing their relationship with individuals in terms of "inher-
ence"-taking this term as meaning both "being said 01 and "being in"
something else. This move recalls to us the Plotinian move I tried to
describe above. 97 There is, however, according to Morrison, a possible
94 "Flux," in Plotinus' passage, is implied both in the mention of the "true" being
and in the allusion to the "seeming existence," both tracing back to the
distinction between Being and becoming drawn in the Timaeus.
95This is the kind ofrelationship implied in the separation ofthe Platonic Forms,
according to the interpretation of it in, VIastos, "Separation in Plato." He
commits himself to: Taking "X exists separately from Y" to express the modal
claim that X may exist when Y does not, it should be obvious that while, say,
trees may "exist separately" from their shadows (they are there day and night,
hence, regardless of whether or not they are casting shadows), their shadows
cannot exist separately from them (no tree, no shadows)." (191)
96D. Morrison, "Separation in Aristotle's Metaphysics," Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 3 (1985): 125-57, hereafter cited as Morrison, SAM,
especially 149-50.
97 See pp. 394-95.
Aristotelian reply to this Platonist rejoinder. Leaving aside the obvious
denial Aristotle would oppose to the Platonist contention that Forms are
ontologically prior to the individuals, he would also contend that, were
the Forms prior to them, they would neverlheless always be the sub-
stance of them, a fact that Platonists cannot deny on the pain of
renouncing to their crucial tenet of the causality of Forms, and that, by
the same token, prevents Forms being separate from the individuals of
which they are the substance. A "sufficiently daring Platonist" would
reply, in turn, to this reasoning that between Forms and individuals the
same relationship exists as between Aristotle's substance and accidents,
but with the priorities reversed. Instead of making the Form depend on
the individual, such a Platonist would maintain that "the Idea is not
separate from the particulars, any more than in your theory the particu-
lar substance is separate from its accidents." He would add also that
"[t]he Idea is the ontological core-the 'substratum' ... - for the many
particulars that fall under it, just as your 'substance' is the ontological
core for its many accidents. n98
Is Plotinus such a daring Platonist? I answer in the affirmative, in
asense. The reader of Plotinus' treatise on The Categories is familiar
with his arguments against Aristotle's notion of primary substance,
running-roughly speaking-in the same direction as those of Morri-
son's Platonist. 99 Plotinus, however, would resist Morrison's suggestion
that "the Idea Red and all the bits of red throughout the world have a
status analogous to the one that Socrates and all of his accidents have
for [Aristotle]. ,,100 He would hardly commit himself to the view that the
Idea Red possesses all the red apples as its accidents. His reply to
Aristotle's claim that the causality of Forms implies their intimate
connection with individuals of which they are causes is, as I have tried
to show in section IV, another way round. In Plotinus' eyes, causality,
in the case of Forms, is completely different from causality in the sense
of an event producing another event101 and requires omnipresence. In
98Morrison SAM, 151.

99Morrison, ibid., makes the "daring Platonist" teIl Aristotle that 'The universal
'red' causes you trouble, because it is scattered across many substances and
hence is not a substance, and does not have the strong numerical unity that
either Socrates or his particular accidents have. You cope with this by appealing
to 'unity of definition: which the universal has even though it is scattered across
the many. My problem lies with items like Socrates. On my view, he is scattered
across many substances: the Idea Wise, the Idea Man, and so on." In a similar
vein, Plotinus criticises Aristotle's doctrine of primary substance: see R.
Chiaradonna, "Ousia ex ouk ousion. Forma e sostanza sensibile in Plotino (Enn.
VI.3(44).4-B)," to be published in Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica
medievale 10 (1999).
100 Morrison, SAM 151.
turn, omnipresence requires separation both in the senses of "capacity

ofindependent existence" and "ontological priority."The "daring Platon-
ist" which Plotinus really is would reply to Aristotle in this vein:
[Als if [the Form ofj Man came to a particular man and

became a particular man though being on the other hand [the
Form ofj Man. For the man in the matter made from the one
man according 10 the Idea (aph' henos tou anthropou tou kata
ten idean) many men, all the same, and the same thing is one
in the many in a way like that in which there is one seal-im-
print in many things. But the thing itself, Man, and each
thing in itself (autoekaston), and the [intelligible] All are not
in many in this way, but the many are in the thing itself, or
rather around it (ouk houtos en pollois alla ta polla en auto
mallon de peri auto).102
For the reasons given in 1-111, the presence of an immanent property

in a set of individuals requires, according to Plotinus, the existence of
the changeless and separate principle the immanent property is named
after. For the reasons given in IV-V, such a principle cannot be conceived
of as amental state, but has to be understood as areal being. For the
reasons given in VI.-VII., such areal being must be conceived of as
separate, both in the sense of independently existent and ontologically
prior to the individual bearers of the property which is named after it.
Plotinus' elaboration of the puzzles about participation gives rise to a
picture of the relationship between the individual bearers of a property
and the principle of this property in which the principle is conceived of
as both separate from and causally present to them. But, the present
passage invites us to resist the temptation to construe the separate
principle as a seal repeatedly imprinted in wax. This can count as an
image of the presence of an immanent property in its many individual
bearers, by no means as an image ofthe relationship between individu-
als and their true and separate principle. Their dependence upon it, and
the causal presence of the principle in them, requires a different anal-
ogy, namely, the logically-shaped analogy ofthe inclusion of individuals
101 111.1(3).26-36 and 2.1-9. See M. F. Wagner's dissertation, Concepts and

Causes: The Structure ofPlotinus' Universe. (Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1979;
U.M.I. Service, 1990) and M. F. Wagner, "Vertieal Causation in Plotinus," in
The Structure of Being. A Neoplatonie Approach ed. R. Baine Harris (Albany,
New York: International Soeiety for Neoplatonic Studies, 1982), 51-72.
102 VI.5(23).6.6-13.
under the prineiple, or better, as Plotinus says, of their being "around"
it.
The evaluation of the philosophieal validity of sueh an argument, as
weIl as its exhaustive analysis as a post-Aristotelian plea in favour of
the doetrine of Ideas, lies beyond the limits of this paper. It is neverthe-
less striking to see Plotinus entertain sueh a dialogue with the eontem-
porary interpreters of Plato's and Aristotle's most deeisive and
eontroversial issues; a pieture whieh, in aillikelihood, would have been
quite surprising for the readers of Zeller's Plotinus.
Livorno, Italy

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Separation and the Forms: A Plotinian Approach

by Cristina D'Ancona Costa

In Zeller's Die Philosophie der Griechen we find a broad account of

1 As noticed in the Vita Plotini (now available in a splendid commented edition

Copyright 1997, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. LXXI, No. 3

starting point of the systematic exposition of Plotinus' thinking. Zeller

3 E. Zeller, Die Philosophie der Griechen in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung,

"Neo-humanist" version of the German Altertumswissenschaft-involv-

7 On the influential interpretation of Plato's thought made by Schleiermacher

Isnardi Parente, RPUWM.

plishments within a wide range of different fields: the history of ancient

In one of his first treatises according to the chronologieal ordering,19

18 Stephen Gersh, dealing with the transmission and transformation of the

appreciate its well-ordered beauty. Plotinus reminds one here, as else-

The familiar argument of the exclusion of opposites coming from

Library, 1966; Harvard University Press - William Heineman LTD, 1989).

25Phd. 102b10-103e9; Rep. 478e7-480a4.

rational arrangement, which comes to it from another principle, which

We must consider the nature of this Intellect, which our

Plotinus is here committed to the idea that it is necessary to argue

especially in Plato. 36 If Kahn is right in describing it, for intelligible

But it is more disputable if it is the sort of Intellect we say it

To answer this threefold question, namely, (i) if Intellect is really

ture is worth considering here. It runs as folIows:

Plotinus' way of thinking. 45

46 See section 4 below.

6OVI.6(34).6.14-19: "But if righteousness is the same as the thought of

as weIl as from the one concerning the alleged dependence of many

Gaius or Atticus, and among the Peripatetics, ofAspasius, Alexander, Adrastus,

erties, namely, the scientific reasoning, accompanied by intellection. 61

61Didaskalikos, IV, 7.36-38 Whittaker (=155.36-156.8 Hermann): "Since, then,

the "theologieal" seetion of the Didaskalikos,64 and presents us with a

63Didaskalikos, IV, 7.11-14 Whittaker (= 156.11-14 Hermann.)

67Didaskalikos, IX, 21.32-34 Whittaker (= 163.32-34 Hermann).

and trascendent metra, in passage (B).

The reader of the Enneads often meets comparisons between the

76POrphyry, Life ofPlotinus, 5.8-11.

This passage echoes directly the distinction between being and

becoming drawn by Plato in Timaeus 27d6-28a4, as weIl as the parallel

78VI 5(23).2.9-21 and 3.1-8.

soSee note 76 above.

as it generates, say, triangularity, heaviness, humanity, it is hardly

83In a similar vein Plotinus maintains in VI.6(34).17.23-26 that the "natural

Predieation in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus," in How things are Studies in

needed in the explanation ofthe fact that an individual bears a property,

88Plotinus' treatise On the Impassibility ofThings without Body, 111.6(26), has

standing the separation of Forms, as Plotinus conceives of it. The

It has already been said that the intelligible reality, which is

This account moves from the premise of the changelessness of Forms

89111.6(26).6.1-2; 7-14. Plotinus' expression hO meden apostatei tou einai comes

90See Fine, "Separation" 37-55.

between the Platonic statement that flux requires the existence of

98Morrison SAM, 151.

turn, omnipresence requires separation both in the senses of "capacity

[Als if [the Form ofj Man came to a particular man and

For the reasons given in 1-111, the presence of an immanent property

101 111.1(3).26-36 and 2.1-9. See M. F. Wagner's dissertation, Concepts and

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