NEOPLATONISTS

 

Proclus On Self-Knowledge

 

There are ancient commentaries on this dialogue which expand its central theme of Self Knowledge. The one from Proclus, mentioned above, is one of the most religious, in a Pagan manner:

“So that the pure and genuine Knowledge of Ourselves, subscribed in scientific boundaries, must, as we have said, be considered as the most proper principle of philosophy, and of the doctrines of Plato. For, where is it proper to begin, except from the purification and perfection of ourselves, and whence the Delphic god exhorts us to begin?...so the inscription Know Thyself, on the Delphic temple, manifests, as it appears to me, the mode of returning to a divine nature, and the most useful path to purification.”[1]

He describes the process;

“Looking therefore at God, we should make use of Him as the most beautiful mirror, and among human concerns we should look at the virtue of the soul; and thus, by so doing, shall we not especially see and Know our very Selves?”[2]

 

When Proclus speaks of Plato and his philosophy he returns to the “Delphic mandate”:

“Everything in the dialogues of Plato, on the same manner as the mysteries, is referred to the whole perfection of the particulars which are investigated. Agreeably to this, Plato in the very beginning of this dialogue appears to me to indicate in a beautiful manner the scope of the whole composition. For his design, as we have said, was to unfold our nature, and the whole essence according to which each of us is defined; and to unveil the Delphic mandate Know Thyself through demonstrative methods.”[3]

 

The Soul of the World

 

The soul of the world, says Proclus (in Tim. p.234) comprehends all sensibles, together with every thing which they either do or suffer. For, since the universe is one animal, it sympathizes with itself, so that all generated natures are parts of the life of the world, as of one drama. Just as if a tragic poet should compose a drama in which Gods make their appearance and heroes and other persons speak, and should permit such players as were willing, to utter heroic speeches, or the speeches of other characters, he is at the same time comprehending the one cause of all that is said. Thus we ought to conceive respecting the whole soul; that giving subsistence to all the life of the world, this life being one and various, and speaking like a many-headed animal with all its heads, partly in Grecian and partly in barbaric language, it comprehends the causes of all generated natures; knowing particulars by universals, accidents by essences and parts by wholes but all things simply by the divinity which it contains. For a God so far as a God knows things partial contrary to nature and in short all things even though you should say matter itself. For everything, what ever it may be, is one, so far as it proceeds from the one. The knowledge, therefore of all things simply and directly is divine.[4]

 

Plato here evidently evinces[5] that the conversion of the soul to herself is a knowledge of herself of everything which she contains and of everything prior to and proceeding from her. For all knowledge may be said to be a conversion and adaptation to that which is known; and hence truth is an harmonious conjunction of that which knows with the object of knowledge. Conversion, however, being twofold, one as to the good, and the other as to being, the vital conversion of all things is directed to the good, and the gnostic to being.[6]

 

Plato calls the gnostic motions of the soul ‘touchings’ indicating by this their immediate apprehension of the objects of knowledge and their impartible communion with them. For, in as much as the soul is one essence, she possesses this one gnostic energy, which he calls reason; and hence we simply say that the whole soul is rational. This reason then is the one knowledge of the soul,..[7]

 

Apollonius and the Indian Sages

 

And when Apollonius had taken his seat, the Sage said; “Ask whatever you like, for you find yourself among people who know everything.”

 

Apollonius then asked him whether they knew themselves also, thinking that he, like the Greeks, would regard self-knowledge as a difficult matter. But the other, contrary to Apollonius’ expectations, corrected him and said; “We know everything, just because we begin by knowing ourselves; for no one of us would be admitted to this philosophy unless he first knew himself.”

 

And Apollonius remembered what he had heard King Phraotes say, and how he who would become a philosopher must examine himself before he undertakes the task and he therefore acquiesced in this answer, for he was convinced of its truth in his own case also. He accordingly asked a fresh question, namely, who they considered themselves to be; and the other answered, “We consider ourselves to be Gods.”

 

Apollonius asked afresh; “Why?”

“Because,” said the other, “We are good men.”[8]

 

“Am I,” said Apollonius, “to regard the universe as a living creature?”

“Yes,” said the other, “if you have a sound knowledge of it, for it engenders all living things.”

 

“Shall I then,” said Apollonius, “call the universe female, or of both genders?”

“Of both genders,” said the other, “for by commerce with itself it fulfils the role both of mother and father in bringing forth living creatures, an it is possessed by a love for itself more intense than any separate being has for its fellow, a passion which knits it together into harmony,... And the subject is so vast and so far transcends our mental powers, that I do not  know of any example adequate to illustrate it,...”

 

Damis says that Apollonius alone partook of the philosophic discussion together with the Sage, and that he embodied the results in four books concerning divination by the stars,..[9]

 

On the Mystical Experience

 

Even those who know nothing else of Neoplatonism are aware that Plotinus was a mystic. ‘Mystic’, it must be stressed, is here used not in the sense of ‘irrationalist’, ‘occultist’ or ‘teacher of esoteric doctrine’, but in its strict sense of one who believes himself to have experienced union with God or Ultimate Reality.

 

Plotinus’ experience of union with the One corresponds to the experience which W. T. Stace [Mysticism and Philosophy, London 1961] calls the ‘undifferentiated unity’, a state in which sensuous imagery and conceptual thought are transcended, the mind becomes perfectly unified and individual limitations are felt to be abolished. Porphyry states that Plotinus experienced this state four times during the six years of their acquaintance and that he himself had in his old age once attained it, while Plotinus, in a work written before he met Porphyry, describes himself as having often experienced it. Where Plotinus differs from most mystics is that for him, as for Plato, the soul’s purification is accomplished primarily through philosophy, though like other mystics he regards moral self-discipline as essential and regards abstract reasoning as of limited value unless it culminates in intuitive vision and finally in mystical union.[10]

 

Harmonisation of Neoplatonism’s metaphysical and religious aims was facilitated by the association, both in Pythagorean-Platonic tradition and in mystical discipline, of degrees of unity with degrees of perfection. Hence the One of the Greek philosophical tradition could be identified with the mystics’ ‘undifferentiated unity’ and the philosopher’s ascent, whether through contemplation of the external world or by turning his attention within, could be seen as traversing the same stages. Yet the result of Plotinus’ approach to religious experience was the transposition of Greek philosophy into a new key. This was due not so much to the introduction of the mystical experience itself, which, if not certainly to be found in the Classical Writers, is present in religious writings of the pre-Neoplatonic period, notably some of the Hermetica (Ch. X. 4-6) and perhaps (though this is disputed) in the Hellenising Jewish Philosopher Philo of Alexandria. The decisive step was rather Plotinus’ identification of metaphysical realities with states of consciousness.[11]

 

For Plotinus, as we shall see, not all thought is conscious; more precisely, our surface consciousness is only one of several levels of awareness and many elements in our mental life normally escape our notice. In fact Plotinus’ observations on unconscious mental states form some of the most fascinating and modern sounding passages of his works. [12]

 

Neoplatonism thus stands not as an abandonment of Greek rationalism, but as an adaptation of the categories of Greek thought to the world of inner experience.[13]

 

 

Plotinus On Self-Knowledge [14]

 

Yes, we must so know, if we are to know what “Self-Knowledge” in Intellect means. A man has certainly become Intellect when he lets all the rest which belongs to him go and looks at this with this and himself with himself; that is as Intellect he sees himself... “But it contemplates God”, we might say. But if anyone is going to admit it knows God, he will be compelled to agree that it also knows itself, for the soul will know all that it has from him, what he gives, and what his power is. But when it has learnt and knows this, then in this way also it will know itself; for itself is one of God’s gifts, or rather, itself all of his gifts. If then it comes to know that, learning by its powers, it will come to know itself; for it is itself one of His gifts, or, rather, itself all of His gifts. If then it comes to know that [Good], learning by his powers, it will come to know itself since it comes from there and has received what it can; but if it cannot see Him clearly, since perhaps that seeing is the sight itself, then especially in this way it will remain for it to see and know itself, if this sight is being the sight itself. For what else should we give it? Peace and quiet of course.[15]

 

 

On the Knowing Hypostases

 

The soul runs over all truths and all the same shuns the truths we know if someone tries to express them in words and discursive thought; for discursive thought, in order to express anything in words, has to consider one thing after another; this is the method of description; but how can one describe the absolutely simple? But it is enough if the intellect comes into contact with it; but when it has done so, while the contact lasts, it is absolutely impossible, nor has it time, to speak; but it is afterwards that it is able to reason about it. One must believe one has seen, when the soul suddenly takes light; for it is from him and he is it; we must think that he is present when, like another god whom someone has called to his house, he comes and brings light to us; for if he had not come, he would have not brought the light. So the unenlightened soul does not have him as a god; but when it is enlightened it has what it has sought, and this is the soul’s true end, to touch that light and see it by itself, not by another light, but by the light which is also its means of seeing. It must see that light by which it is enlightened; for we do not see the sun by another light than its own. How can this happen? Take away everything![16]

 

 

On the Light

 

Intellect therefore sees one light with another, not through another. Light then sees another light; it therefore sees itself. And this light shining in the soul illuminates it; that is, makes it intelligent; that is, it makes it like itself, the light above. For if you consider that it is like the trace of light that comes to be in the soul and still more beautiful and greater and clearer, you will come near to the nature of Intellect and the intelligible and again, this illumination gives the soul a clearer life, but a life which is not generative; on the contrary it turns the soul back upon itself and does not allow it to disperse, but makes it satisfied with itself; and it is certainly not a life of sense-perception either; for sense-perception looks outside and perceives the external world; but he who has received that light of true realities sees, so to speak, the visible things no better, but their opposite. The remaining possibility, then, is for the soul to have received an intelligent life, a trace of the life of Intellect; for the true realities are there.[17]

 

“I awakened out of the body into myself and came to be external to all other things and contained within myself, when I saw a marvellous beauty and was confident, then if ever, that I belonged to the higher order, when I actively enjoyed the noblest form of life, when I had become one with the Divine and stabilised myself in the Divine.”[18]

 

In his ‘Life of Plotinus’ Porphyry, his disciple, wrote of his master;

“Plotinus lifted himself to the primal and transcendent God by meditation and by the methods Plato indicated in the Symposium.”[19]... “To Plotinus ‘the goal ever-near was shown’; for his end and goal was to be united to, to approach God who is over all things. Four times while I was with him he attained to that goal.”[20]

 

 

Know Thyself

 

Since also “Know Thyself” is said to those who because of their selves’ multiplicity have the business of counting themselves up and learning that they do not know all of the number and kind of things they are, or do not know any one of them, not what their ruling principle is or by what they are themselves.[21]

 

Plato says the One is not outside anything, but is in company with all without their knowing. For they run away outside it, or rather outside themselves. They cannot then catch the one they have run away from, nor seek for another when they have lost themselves. A child, certainly, who is outside himself in madness will not know his father; but he who has learnt to know himself will know from whence he comes.[22]

 

And we know ourselves by learning all other things by such a vision, either learning a vision of this kind according to the knowing power, or by that very power itself, or ourselves becoming it; so that the man who knows himself is double, one knowing the nature of the reasoning which belongs to soul, and one up above... who knows himself according to Intellect because he has become that Intellect;...[23]

 

Yes, we must so know, if we are to know what “self knowledge” in Intellect means. A man has certainly become Intellect when he lets all the rest which belongs to himself go and looks at ‘this with this’ and ‘himself with himself’; that is, it is as Intellect he sees himself.[24]

 

“But it [the soul] contemplates God,” we might say. But if anyone is going to admit that it knows God, he will be compelled to agree that it also knows itself. For it will know all that it has is from Him, and what He gives, and what His power is.[25]

 

 

Plotinus Select Passages

 

Select Passages [26]

 

When thou dost meditate, cast not outwards thy thought. For the Supreme has not its abode in some one place, leaving all others destitute. Whatever man has power to touch it, to him it is present,.. The man must not incline toward any of the things outside him, but as he is already aloof from them in feeling so now he must withhold himself from knowledge even of their Forms, nay, from the very knowledge of himself, before he shall come to vision.

 

But when he has been with the Supreme, and has held sufficient “converse” with it, then must he return and carry back to his fellows such report as he may of that celestial companionship...

 

God, then, as said our Master [Plato], is not strange to any creature, but dwells with all men unawares. By their own will they make themselves stranger to Him, or rather to themselves.[27]*

 

* The knowledge of God and the knowledge of the self are the same, God being at the centre of all consciousness: cf. XXXIV and XXXVIII (E.R. Dodds).

 

What is it that has caused our souls to forget God, who is their father, and no more to know either themselves or Him,...?

 

Their evil state had its beginnings from forwardness [assertion of individuality], from entry into birth, from the primal otherness, from the will to be their own and not His. So soon as they had clearly known the pleasure of free choice they hastened by the road that leads outward; and when they had carried the defection to its utmost they lost knowledge even of their origin from God... Their wonder, their reverence was given to anything rather than themselves...

 

So it is that our utter ignorance of God lies in the price we put upon sensible things, the small account we make of ourselves.[28]

 

Vision and the visionary power is not reason, but a greater thing, reason’s prior and crown, even as its object of vision... That sight is hard to put into words. For how should a man bring back report of the Divine, as of a thing distinct, when in the seeing he knew it not distinct but on with his own consciousness?

 

This  was the truth intended in the injunction of our earthly Mysteries, “Publish not to the initiate”; because the Divine is incommunicable, we must not seek to reveal it to any not blest with the vision. Since the Seer and Seen were not two but one... He was then himself One, without inward difference, without difference from the rest of Being;... For the self of a man in respect of its fellowship with God, is not Being but beyond Being. He that sees himself made one with that supreme Self, possesses in himself the counterpart of the Supreme; can he but pass over himself to God, the image to the Original,...This is the life of the godlike and happy among men; a quittance from things alien and earthly, a life beyond earthly pleasure, a flight of the alone to the Alone.[29]

 

But now we should call to mind the Spindle [Myth of Er, Rep. X. 616], which according to the ancients the Fates spin; but for Plato the Spindle is the wandering and the fixed parts of the heavenly circuit, and the Fates and Necessity, who is their mother, turn the Spindle and spin a thread at the birth of each one of us, and what is born comes to birth through Necessity. And in the Timaeus the God who makes the world gives the ‘first principle of the soul’, but the gods who are borne through the heavens ‘the terrible and inevitable passions’, ‘angers’ and desires and ‘pleasures and pains’ and the ‘other kind of soul’, from the passions of this kind. These statements bind us to the stars, from which we get our souls...[30]

 

The man who censures the nature of the universe does not know what he is doing, and how far this rash criticism of his goes. This is so because the Gnostics do not know that there is an order of firsts, seconds and thirds in regular succession, and so on to the last, and that the things are worse than the first should not be reviled; one should rather calmly and gently accept the nature of things, and hurry on oneself to the first, ceasing to concern oneself with the melodrama of the terrors, as they think, in the cosmic spheres, which in reality ‘make all things sweet and lovely’ for them. For what is there terrible about the spheres, which make them terrify people who are unpractised in reasoning and have never heard of anything of a cultured and harmonious “Gnosis”?[31]

 

The union with God through the Intellect was this ‘goal’ of Plotinus. This was the ultimate Self Knowledge. His formulation of the mystical doctrine was taken up by St. Augustine, and through him entered the Church as a metaphysical foundation on which Christianity was to develop. In his Confessions Augustine asks the questions which lead to Self Knowledge;

 

“This memory of mine is a great force, a vertiginous (dizzy) mystery, my God, a hidden depth of infinite complexity; and this is my soul, and this is what I am. What, then, am I God? What is my true nature?”[32]

 

In his ‘City of God’ he resolves the question;

 

“We do indeed recognize in ourselves an image of God, that is of the Supreme Trinity...We resemble the Divine Trinity in that we exist; we Know we exist; and we are glad of this existence and this Knowledge.”[33]