CONTEMPLATION () AND FORM () IN PLOTINUS:

CONTINUITY OR OVERCOMING GREEK THOUGHT?

ABSTRACT
Using an analytical and hermeneutical development, this work is part of the discussion
that questions the widely held view of placing Plotinus philosophy as a mere continuation of
ideas already raised by the ancient Greek metaphysics. In order to do so, two relevant topics
for Greek philosophical thought will be retrieved and reviewed: contemplation and form, as
well as their respective treatment within the Plotinian system.

KEYWORDS
Plotinus, contemplation, form, Greek metaphysics

It is well known that Greek thought conceives the vision of forms and accompanying
knowledge as one of its tasks . Thus philosophy is born, as a disinterested con-
templation and, therefore, as an activity proper to free man. Even when provoking the Thra-
cian slaves laughter at Thales fall into the well, philosophical comprehension rises like an
act of self-admiration ( ), first at whatever is simple and then at things of greater
importance, a kind of self absorption that impels fleeing from ignorance toward pure know-
ledge and without any zeal for utility.
All of Greek art represents, in fact, a cult to form, it being exaltation of the aurea medio-
critas over whatever lacks measure or proportion. Heraclitus himself admonishes that invisi-
ble harmony is superior to the visible one and considers this principle above any other. The
formal unity of opposites definitely hangs from this harmony, which is always and in each
case worthy of being seen, heard and known ( .
, , B 54-55). If we follow Parmenides, the goddess receives
the young coachman, takes his right hand and says: Be joyful because no mournful Fate has
sent you along this path away from men, but rectitude and justice (,
/ , , /
, 1, 26-28). What is the reason for this? Precisely because it is neces-
sary that you should know this: on the one hand, the unyielding heart of persuasive truth; on
the other, the opinions of mortals that do not shelter true convictions (
, / / ,
, 1, 28-30). Only he who welcomes the goddess destination may be favored by such
an augury. And that is merely what should be understood and what will be (
, 4, 3 DK). Those who miss this, far from enlightenment, wander in blind-
ness because their intellect remains absent in the presence of what is firmly established.1 And
this blindness is such that it may be represented through Oedipus words to Tyresias in Sop-
hocles Oedipus Rex: You are blind in your ears, your thinking and your eyes (
, 371).
Platonic ideas are forms and in the contemplation of these forms (subjective and objective
genitive) lies true and luminous knowledge. In Aristotle, form is the determining principle
and, therefore, of knowledge of the essence of the thing. This happens every time that on de-
fining something or limiting a gender according to its specific difference, its essence or natu-
re in an affirmative and universal way is declared (Anal. post. 90b 3-4; Met. 1037b 25-27).
Thus does the Stagirite explain (Met. 1038a 28-29), when saying that definition is the state-
ment formed by differences, and that one of the convenient meanings of the concept of limit
corresponds to that of entity (), that is to say, the essence of each thing: this is, in fact,
limit of knowledge and if it is limit of knowledge so it is of the thing (Met. 1022a 8-10). In
nature, form has a significant relationship with the end; for since nature can be understood as
matter and form, given that the latter is the end, while all the rest has the end as function,
form as Aristotle says must be the cause closely related to the final cause (Phys. II, 8).
Finally, the vision constitutes a determining element for the transformation of the soul to-
ward the good. As the famous allegory of the cave teaches, the idea of Good is seen only at
the end of the knowledgeable ascent and not without difficulty. This is the cause of everyt-
hing right and beautiful: in the visible environment it has engendered light and its master, in
the intelligible environment it is mistress and productrice of truth and intelligence, and it is
necessary to keep it in sight in order to act with wisdom not only individually but also as a
community.2 Aristotle himself appeals to the judgement of as the norm of behaviour
enabling to see good for itself and for others, in the measure as it incarnates a quality proper

1Fr. 6 (4 DK): / /
.
2Resp. 517b 7-517c 5: ' ,
, ,
, ,
.
of administrators and politicians (Eth. Nic. 1140b 9-11). In this environment, Aristotle thinks
that exhortations or of the elders are a certain manifestation, fruit of practical wis-
dom, for experience has given the sages an eye to see with rectitude.3 This judgement does
not depend on the subjects arbitration of desires, nor on social conventions because pruden-
ce is normative, because its end is what must or must not be done (
, , 1143a 8-9).
I could pursue this subject with concrete examples and delve in multiple considerations,
though it is not my intention to exhaust the theme. My intention is just to warn in what way
both contemplation () as well as what is seen by it () is relevant for the Greek
world. In Plotinus philosophy, the subject referred to as contemplation becomes a key stone
to understanding not only the systematic unity present in the taxonomy of hypostases, but
also the dynamic and continuous structure of the whole processional movement.4 However,
the more the virtualities contained in this category of eminently Greek mold, the more does
Plotinus seem to carry it to its extreme possibility aiming at another comprehension, which
would no longer be conceived by ancient philosophy. In what sense?
In order to elucidate this question, I will make use of certain authors contributions who
speak about Plotinian metaphysical principles. His peculiarity consists in discussing a great
number of essential connotations that allow differentiating Neoplatonism with respect to the
preceding philosophy, even if Plotinus may have used and in fact did use Greek cultural
elements. Through this proceeding, the sensus communis is questioned when seeing in Neo-
platonism a mere continuation of notions already found in Plato in a more or less accentuated
manner.5 Some contributions highlight the confluence in Neoplatonism of a synthesis of Pyt-
hagorean, academic and Aristotelian concepts, together with gnostic and stoic projections that
make of Plotinus philosophical system a form of constitutive structural unity that differs
from the former Platonic tradition. To this is added a strong mystical tendency, where the su-
preme One is marked by a numinous transcendence. He is reached only through extasis and
such an assimilation that it becomes unification (), that is to say, by becoming one
with the One.6 Despite these features, such aspects even if correct are not sufficient for they

3Cf. Eth. Nic.1143b 11-14:

.
4 M. L. Gatti (1996) passim; J. Deck (1991) passim; D. Hunt (1981) 71-79.
5 Ph. Merlan (1953) cp. VIII.
6 F. Garca Bazn (2011); A. Uzdavinys (2009); Ll. P. Gerson (1994); A. H. Armstrong (1940).
do not elucidate the nucleus of the theoretic novelty that places the Plotinean doctrine within
the history of philosophy.
On dealing with this difficulty, the larger number of specialists on the subject of Neopla-
tonism appoint Plotinus as one of the last representatives of ancient philosophy, presupposing
clearly the bipartite scheme set up by Hegel in his Lessons on the history of philosophy
to organize that comprehension in bulk. However, concerning this way of designing the
whole history of the love of wisdom, other authors insist on linking the figure of Plotinus to
Medieval Philosophy.7 In the field of historiographic research, the relationship of Plotinus
with Christianity has had its defenders and its slanderers. Among the latter, v. gr., is no lesser
than Brhier,8 always determined to see Plotinus as a representative of ancient paganism. So
that to speak of Plotinus Christianity, far from being a novelty may sound even like an is-
sue already dealt with and settled by specialists. Even if this can be argued, certain produc-
tions of a hermeneutical character deal less with the historical philological discussion than
with understanding the speculative nature of the movement followed by the Plotinean reflec-
tion all along his work. These last contributions recognize their debt toward not a few schol-
ars of Plotinus thought but they are placed in another field that does not originate in the same
historiographic research, in that they precede it, justify it and make it possible.9
At this point it is worth bringing to mind a series of observations by G. Reale outstanding
in their thematic clarity. He says that in Plato, as well as in the ancient academics, the expla-
nation of the structure of the real prevails following two supreme principles: the principle of
unity and the principle of multiplicity, the One and the indefinite Dyad, present in Greek in-
telligence as couples of opposing principles. This is a couple of opposites between each other
whose disposition answers to a structure where one acts only in agreement and related to the
other. Clearly, this structure of a polar nature is not reduced to a dualism, even less to a
monism, where opposites would mutually exclude, or conciliate with, each other to such an
extent that they would cease to exist as opposites. In the form of polar thinking, opposites in a
couple are indissolubly joined and, at the same time, in their most intimate logical existence
they are conditioned by their opposition; if one of the poles is lost, the very sense of what
they are a principle of is lost. The cosmic order becomes evident for Greek culture under this

7 H. Boeder (1971) 111-133.

8 . Brhier (1958) passim.
9 H. Boeder (2009); M. Zubiria (2012) passim.
form by organizing the world as a unity, a unity resulting from the harmony between oppo-
sites.10
But not only does the Platonic reflection abide by this scheme, Aristotle also speaks of the
being and not being as antithetic and necessary principles. In that sense, the one is ne-
cessary because the multiple exists and the entity is not said in one but in several ways (
, 1028a 10). So much so that Aristotle determines the diversity of theore-
tical sciences turning comprehensible his taxonomy through the constitution of his selfsame
entity as such, determined by two and only two decisive moments, together with their
selfsame opposites: movable-immovable / joined-separated (Met. 1025b 3-1026a 32).
However, on the basis of this scheme of polar sense, typical of Greek philosophy, the Plo-
tinian novelty may be synthesized in Reales opinion from three constitutive notes: 11
a) Monopolarity of the One. The One is placed as an absolute and transcendent vertex
found above all polarity. Even more, the One founds every other type of polarity. Therefore,
the couple of opposites that act as explanatory forms of the structure of reality derive from
the One and represent, in a last instance, a reflection of its supreme irradiation.
b) The One-Good is not only a first and supreme principle but it also constitutes an infinite
strength overflowing with light and life that makes everything existing to be. This absolute
vertex also implies the notion of production, concretely, of self-production and self-position-
ing in a much more conclusive sense than the one sketched by Plato in the Parmenides or Re-
public dialogues when speaking about the respective ideas of the One and the Good.
c) With the One thus conceived we are facing an inefable, unspeakable, undefinable prin-
ciple, of whom it is only possible to have more of a negative knowledge than a positive one
and whose experience occurs at the price of a soul transformation once philosophy opens the
way to mysticism and the concept takes on silence, 12 since the One is found as within a tem-
ple: being and resting himself, he remains in silent calmness beyond all things as a supreme
measure of them.13

10 G. Reale (2000) 163-168.

11 G. Reale (2000) 167-168.
12En. VI 9, 9, 50-53: , ,
; VI 9, 10 y 11. I follow the Greek text established by P. Henry &
H.-R. Schwyzer (editio minor 1964-1983). For the translation I am primarily guided by the English version of
A. H. Armstrong (vol. I: 1989, vol. II: 1966, vol. III: 1967, vol. IV: 1984, vol. V: 1984, vol. VI: 1988, vol. VII:
1988). Although I have also consulted the following editions: J. Igal (vol. I: 1982, vol. II: 1985, vol. III: 1998);
. Brhier (vol. I: 19542, vol. II: 19562, vol. III: 19562, vol. IV: 1927, vol. V: 1931, vol. VI: 1942); V. Client
(vol. I: 1947, vol. II: 1948, vol. III: 1949).
13 G. Reale (1997) 409 ss., 449-453, 567-582, 672 ss., 710 ss.
 Such considerations about the derivation of hypostases as from an absolute principle
allows us to name the Plotinian system as a mysticism of the immanence framed within a
metaphysics of transcendence. 14 This characterization may be fully understood through the
notion of , for in it is found the key of access to this system: the possibility of a pre-
sence manifested to all beings but without exhausting itself in any of them, since everything
that follows the One is its own image and, therefore, capable of apprehending it.15
Related to this latter, Plotinus follows Espeusipius line of thought and draws away from
Aristotelian metaphysics that conceives the first principle as a pure act.16 Intelligence and its
inherent duality already represents a certain activity rising from the One-Good as from an
infinite potency since he is immovable and life-giving.The One is perfect since he seeks not-
hing, has nothing, lacks nothing, his overabundance has placed the other. The One is not, for
the purpose of whatever is generated from him to be. If this were not so, the absolute simpli-
city of the One would make everything disappear in an indifferentiation. In this sense the In-
tellect comes after the One in that it participates in him, Intellect only has unity after having
received it, after having found it.17 And this is thus because all experience of self-knowledge
includes a division between the known and the knowing but, even more between the lack of
unity and the yearning that seeks filling this insufficiency. Precisely, in self-knowledge, Inte-
llect is not in itself but has its unity only in participating in the One.18
Before continuing with this analysis, I would like to stress that this basic question is dif-
ferent in either Greek or Neoplatonic metaphysics. Once multiplicity is evidenced and the
issue concluded that the multiple is explained due to a principle or rather principles that have
a unitarian function in an analogical sense, the fundamental Greek question runs as follows:
Why and how from the One does the multiple derive? This is one of the most exacting prob-
lems in Greek metaphysics: That the multiple is one and that the one is multiple is an ad-
mirable thing ( , Phileb. 14c).
Plotinus in no way ignores this matter, he takes it up and states that this problem so reitera-
ted, even among ancient sages: how from one who is just as we say that it is the One, can

14 H.-Ch. Puech (1938) 31.

15 P. Ciner (2000).
16 F. Garca Bazn (1992) 189 ss., 268-280.
17 J. Rist (1973) 75-87.
18 H. Boeder (1971) cp. III.
anything be determined, that is to say a multiplicity or a Dyad, or a Number.19 However, in
spite of this acknowledgement, the Neoplatonic teacher proposes an argument even more ra-
dical: Why is there a One itself and is what it is? This question implies placing oneself not in
the cause that explains the multiple and derivative, but rather in the Absolute as such and in
its reason for being. It means questioning the why of the principle, the why of the ultimate
why. It is true that in Aristotelian terms this argument is an absurdity, intrinsically absurd it
offenses the first and most evident principle and leads fatally toward a regressus ad infini-
tum.The first principle per definitionem is unconditioned and, therefore, not susceptible to
being submitted to demonstration, rather it constitutes the necessary condition for any other
possible demonstration of proof.
In Reales opinion, the novelty introduced by Plotinus consists on leading this issue to-
ward a protological higher plane. The problem of hetero-production the foundation of other
things from one principle is introduced within the frame of another question even more
radical, that should be known, that of self-production accounting for the exercise of the
first principle in and by itself. 20 This is why it becomes necessary to carefully go over both
fundamental questions of the Plotinean system.
Why the One? The solution to this first and serious concern is a necessary condition for
answering the second. Likewise, at the moment of arguing and settling the problem of self-
founding of the principle, Plotinus uses a vocabulary that might compare, saving the histori-
cal differences, in certain German idealism developments as well as in specific Carmelite and
Medieval sayings.
One of the answers found to this why of the One is the following: because the One is abso-
lute freedom. All things are free in the same proportion as their love of the good. However,
the One being the Good itself need not move toward anything ulterior to be fulfilled; as he is
absolute freedom. And he is so since he does not tend toward anything ulterior because he
needs nothing else but himself. The One as Good is producer of himself, in the sense of being
a self-founding activity. Being absolute freedom, the One places himself as the loved of and
by himself. So that he is absolute freedom for being creator of freedom itself and because be-
ing a self-founding activity, he founds as a consequence his own being. That is to say, the
One is such an activity that his being is not a condition of or for its working, rather he is

19 En. V 1, 8.
20 G. Reale (2000) 169-176.
a form of activity in which, being absolute and absolutely free, there is coincidence between
being and working.
In the One, hypostases and self-producing activity coincide. The One explains his produc-
ing action by willing it lovingly. In such a way that it could be said that his will and his es-
sence coincide in a willing to be and at the same time is loving. Plotinus says: as he
willed, so also he is ( , , VI 8, 13, 8-9), and also: it is nec-
essary for the choice and willing of itself to be included in the existence of the Good (
, VI
8, 13, 44-45). Thus, as to what he wants and wishes to be what he is, he is his own self-pro-
ducer. And this is expressed in Plotinus following fragment:

If then the Good is established in existence, and choice and will join in establishing it for
without these it will not be but this Good must not be many, its will and substance must
be brought into one; but if its willing comes from itself, it is necessary that it also gets its
being from itself, so that our discourse has discovered that he has made himself (

,
[ ] <> , ,
, VI 8, 13, 50-55).

The One is also called love by Plotinus and, with greater precision, amor sui (
, VI 8, 15, 1). He not only attracts as beloved but is also the one who
loves. As operating force and producer of himself, he also forges himself as object of love
himself, he donates to himself. Plotinus teaches this, in among other fragments, through these
words:

But he, since he has the highest place, or rather does not have it, but is himself the highest,
has all things as slaves; he does not happen to them, but they to him, or rather they happen
around him; he does not look to them, but they to him; but he is, if we may say so, borne to
his own interior, as it were well pleased with himself, the pure radiance, being himself this
with which he is well pleased; but this means that he gives himself existence, supposing him
to be an abiding active actuality and the most pleasing of things in a way rather like Inte-
llect. But Intellect is an actualisation; so that he is an actualisation. But not of anything else:
he is an actualisation of himself. He is not therefore as he happens to be, but as he acts. And
then, further, if he is supremely because he so to speak holds to himself and so to speak
looks to himself, and this so-called being of his is his looking to himself, he as it were ma-
kes himself and is not as he chanced to be but as he will, and his willing is not random nor
as it happened; for since it is willing of the best it is not random ( ' ,
, ' , , ,
, , , '
' ,
 , , ' ,
. .
. , '
. , ,
, ,
, ' , ' '
, VI 8, 16, 8-24).

The hypostases of the One does not coincide with the being or the substance, but with the
activity that puts the same substance. His act is not submitted to his substance, but is pure
freedom and, therefore, he is by himself. Actually, if he was conserved in another existence,
he would not be first by himself; one does indeed say that he is precisely contained in him-
self:

Nor should we be afraid to assume that the first activity is without substance, but posit this
very fact as his, so to speak, existence. But if one posited an existence without activity, the
principle would be defective and the most perfect of all imperfect. And if one adds activity
one does not keep the One. If then the activity is more perfect than the substance, and the
first is most perfect, the first will be activity. In his activity, therefore, he is already this first,
and it cannot be that he was before he came to be; for then he was not before coming to be,
but already altogether was. Now certainly an activity not enslaved to substance is purely and
simply free, and in this way he himself is himself from himself. For indeed, if he was kept in
being by another, he would not be first self from himself; but if he is rightly said to hold
himself together, he is both himself and the bringer of himself in to being, granted that what
he by his nature holds together is what from the beginning he has made to be (
,
. ,
. , .
, , . ,
, .
, .
,
, , ,
, VI 8, 20, 9-23).

The second question consists in asking for what reason, from the One, does the multiple
originate. The genesis of Plotinus intelligible universe is characterized by two principal
movements: the first refers to a procession towards the exterior from an absolutely transcen-
dent unity; the second, to an ascent or return of beings toward their source. The effusion pro-
ceeding from the One is responsible for the generation or production of the lower hypostatic
levels, as also of the inferior grades of reality that include nature and the material cosmos. 21

21 A. Ua Jurez (2002) 99-128.

 But the generation of alterity, which is nothing else than the otherness of the One, consti-
tutes the major problem in Plotinean metaphysics. Although he explicitely states that no alter-
ity is present in the One, he also maintains that what is diverse derives from a supreme prin-
ciple. At the beginning of En. V 2 Plotinus asks: How then do all things come from the One,
which is simple and has in it no diverse variety, or any sort of doubleness? (
, ; V 2, 3-5). He
answers: It is because there is nothing in it that all things come from it: in order that being
may exist, the One is not being, but the generator of being ( ,
, , , , V 2, 5-8). It is
impossible for everything to be found in him, everything must be outside him, as an exterior-
ization and manner of the One, that is to say, as a unity in multiplicity and like an identity or
a dual nature.
One of the fundamental passages is found in a fragment of En. V 4 (2, 19-38). Here the
activity proper to a being is distinguished ( ) and the activity that springs
and derives from a being ( ). The first form of activity corresponds to
the very act of the thing; it forms a something with the essence of the thing. The activity itself
that springs from a thing, must of necessity follow each thing and, therefore, it is separated
and is different from the proper activity of the thing itself and of its essence. The first points
necessarily to an activity of permanence in its being; the second from what emerges outside
as an activity derived from that permanence and that unitive intensity.
Thus, if the Ones activity consists in wanting to be that which he is, that is to say, in the
freedom of being that which is, it is inferred that the One necessity for activity is a necessity
that follows a free activity and, so, the procession of all things from the One will also be a
type of non ineluctable necessity, but one that will follow a free activity, a kind of necessity
freely wanted. In the Enneadic corpus a positive concept of necessity is perceived, different
from the necessity understood as an external restriction. According to this comprehension of
the necessity in the procession, whatever is born through necessity is at least superior to what
could be born through a discursive reasoning. Because the necessity that presides over the
generation of something ontologically inferior to its progenitor, preserves a greater possible
similarity between the inferior product of the procreation and the ontological superiority of its
procreator. 22

22 G. Lekkas (2004) 553-561.

 This same refutes the emanationist thesis so sadly attributed to Plotinus and his epigones.
The derivation of beings from the One is a process that springs from permanence, led at the
same time by the intention of a necessity that answers to an act of freedom. With respect to
the generation of intelligible hypostases and also of the physical world, it is worth adding that
apart from the principle of double activity already mentioned, the appearance of a hypostases
as a self-constitutive reality and different from its progenitor implies an ulterior activity just
as necessary as the former. I refer to the act of turning to contemplate the One who preceded
it, fill itself with content and in this way engender its immanent offspring: archetypical ideas
in the case of Intelligence, the world of superior or inferior in the case of the Soul. It
must be made clear that contemplation as such does not correspond only to one of the mo-
ments of the procession, the return, but all three moments of the procession (permanence,
progression and reversion) are equally three moments of contemplation. 23
Regarding the second hypostases, as an activity springing from the One, Intelligence is not
generated in an immediate manner; rather what is generated at first is a sort of otherness simi-
lar to indetermination or lacking in form, determined and becoming world of forms once it
returns to the One to see It. It is, in fact, an attempt to re-think the Greek undetermined Dyad:
what is undetermined (intelligible matter) is the antithetical principle that is determined and
formed through turning to face the One in order to contemplate him. Due to the contempla-
tive vision of the One, the undetermined otherness determines itself. This contemplative
coursing is not yet the Nos or Intelligence, but the condition that makes it be. Plotinus dis-
criminates two moments: (1) In the first place, the contemplative coursing from potency to
progenitor occurs. In this case, potency is made fruitful and overflowing in the contemplation
through the work of the One; (2) next comes the moment of self-reflection of this potency, as
made fruitful through the vision of the One, or because it has been made fruitful in the space
of a vision, it can be and in fact is a vision, only on a lower grade than the One. 24
From this biphasic genesis, multiplicity and all the forms are deduced; even if Intelligence
contemplates the One and is made fruitful by him, it does not see the One in an immediate
manner just as the One is in himself, but that on reflecting over its substance and knowing
itself conceived by the One it sees itself in the One, being born from him, generated from
him, depending on him, and turning eternally to him. It is for this same reason that the nature
of Intelligence is uni-multiple: an eternal and effective desiring that wholly possesses life

23 G. Reale (2000) 176-183.

24 G. Reale (2000) 183-187.
without term or rate and that, when desiring it, achieves in fact the loving permanence in its
being, but at whose base there remains a first difference with respect to the absolute principle:
it begins as one but ends as multiple. 25
Intelligence is of a uni-multiple nature, although with an underlying primordial otherness
(), it desires and achieves what is desired.26 The Soul, however, is one and multiple, it
desires but this attainment is a synthesis elaborated at the price of understanding the intelligi-
ble paradigm reflected in it. And this does not mean yet an actually intelligible activity but
intellective, an action through which the Soul always contemplates the Intellect at the same
time as it cares for its body present in itself and inseparable from it. This is the cause for the
Soul not to be Intelligence but a different hypostasis. If Intelligence is susceptible of being
qualified as the pure reign of the essence, the Soul endures a distancing and a dimension lin-
ked to the factic, precisely to the sensitive world. 27 The following passage summarizes it sa-
ying that:

Intelligence possesses, while the Soul of the world receives forever and has already recei-
ved, and in this consists its life: in an understanding as it follows its intelligible way accor-
ding to what it is always shown; on the contrary, what is reflected by it in matter is Nature,
in which, or even before this reflection, the beings halt ( ,
, ,
, ,
, IV 4, 13, 17-21).

Despite its higher exterior degree with respect to the Soul of the world, the product of Na-
ture may be qualified as an overflowing of peaceful and calm contemplation. Due to its fruit-
fulness, the physic theory corresponds to an act of posis rather than prxis.28 Nature does
not search because the action of searching implies not yet having. It possesses and, since it
possesses, it produces. Plotinus characterizes his knowledge like a comprehension and a kind
of such self-conscience that he possesses his object intimately within himself. This object is

25En. III 8, 8, 32-40: , ' ,

, ,

, , . '
, ' ' ' .
26 N. J. Torchia (1993) cp. 2.
27 F. Garca Bazn (2011) cp. 2 y 3.
28 R. Arnou (1921) passim.
something proper, something of Natures own self. 29 Therefore, Nature possesses itself as the
object of contemplation, and in the same proportion as it possesses itself, it produces the sen-
sitive universe as a work born of its own making. 30
With the intention of closing this work, I would like to determine that, in the processional
development, the risen form is the product of an intense state of unitive contemplation. Due
to the fact that the hypostases (Intelligence or Soul) return to their progenitor and, seeing him,
engender their own content, this same form carries in itself the trace of what is unformed and
absolutely lacks any limit, as being unlimited activity that conditions all limits.
However, if the form is a trace of what is formless, the form seems to be not yet something
ultimate and deternining, but a sign of remission to something preceding: to whatever is
formless, of which the form is a trace. And here is one of the greatest differences between
Plotinus and Greek thinking; the latter has always privileged the finite and determined over
the infinite or lacking in limit. Arguing that what is finite is trace and remission of a supreme
principle, beyond any categorical order, is to argue the reference to a first potency, productive
and immaterial, that even places matter. And when Plotinus speaks of potency, he does not
understand by potency a real potency in the Aristotelian sense of the term, but the same
immaterial activity characterized by a creative and limitless energy coinciding with a first act,
sovereign and free.31 The overabundance of the One is absolutely inconceivable and of the
same worth as a symbol of transcendence with respect to every intellection. In Plotinus, the
form as reflection of the infinite attains a maximum triumph but as Reale correctly indica-
tes while crowning the Helenic past, Plotinus system closes it and discovers completely
new horizons that go beyond Greek spirit.32 The Plotinean principle, in its transcendence, is
found abysmally separated from the principle of a first science like the one Aristotle had
pointed out. If Plotinus thought moves in essence under the form of allusion by metaphors or
images, it is no less rigorous or consistent than the Aristotelian argument; rather it has the au-
dacity to utter an henological discourse which up to its consequences excludes the possibility
of refering to it in an immediate manner. 33

29 J. Deck (1991) 83-92.

30 En. III 8, 3, 10-23; 4, 19-20.
31 J. H. Sleeman & G. Pollet (1980) s. v. , c: 273, 60-274, 12.
32 G. Reale (2000) 187-191.
33 G. Reale (2004) IX, 50.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

Armstrong, A. H. vol. I: 1989, vol. II: 1966, vol. III: 1967, vol. IV: 1984, vol. V: 1984, vol.
VI: 1988, vol. VII: 1988. Porphyry, On the life of Plotinus-Plotinus, Enneads. Cam-
bridge: Harvard University Press.

Armstrong, A. H. 1940. The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of

Plotinus. Cambridge: University Press.

Arnou, R. 1921. et . Paris: Librairie Flix Alcan.

Boeder, H. 1971. Weshalb Sein des Seienden?. Philosophisches Jahrbuch 78, 111-133.

Boeder, H. 2009. Topologa de la Metafsica: la poca Media, trad., notas y eplogo de M.

Zubiria. Pamplona: Eunsa.

Brhier, . 1958. The Philosophy of Plotinus, trad. by J. Thomas. The University of Chicago
Press.

Brhier, . vol. I: 19542, vol. II: 19562, vol. III: 19562, vol. IV: 1927, vol. V: 1931, vol. VI:
1942. Plotin, Ennades. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.

Cilento, V. 1947-1949. Plotino, Enneadi, vol. I-III. Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli.

Ciner, P. 2000. El amor y la unin mstica en Plotino y Orgenes. Mendoza: Fac. Fil. y Letras,
UNCuyo.

Deck, J. N. 1991 (19671). Nature, Contemplation, and the One. A study in the philosophy of
Plotinus. New Yor: Larson Publications.

Garca Bazn, F. 2011. Plotino y la mstica de las tres hipstasis. Buenos Aires: El hilo de
Ariadna.

Garca Bazn, F. 1992. Plotino. Sobre la trascendencia divina: sentido y origen. Mendoza:
FFyL-UNCuyo.

Gatti, Ma. L. 1996. Plotino e la metafisica della contemplazione. Miln: Vita e Pensiero.

Gerson, Ll. P. 1994. Plotinus. London: Routledge.

Henry, P. & H.-R. Schwyzer. 1964-1983 (editio minor). Plotini opera. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.

Hunt, D. P. 1981. Contemplation and hypostatic procession in Plotinus. Apeiron: A Journal

for Ancient Philosophy and Science 15-2, 71-79.
Igal, J. 1982-1998. Porfirio, Vida de Plotino y Plotino, Enadas I-II, III-IV, V-VI, vol. I-III.
Madrid: Gredos.

Lekkas, G. 2004. Le concept positif de la necessit et la production des tres chez Plotin.
Les tudes philosophiques 4, 553-561.

Merlan, Ph. 1953. From Platonism to Neoplatonism. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

Puech, H.-Ch. 1938. Position spirituelle et signification de Plotin, Bulletin de lAssoc. G.

Bude 61, 31 (1978. Enqute sur la Gnose, t. I. Paris: Gallimard, 69).

Reale, G. 2004. Storia della filosofia greca e romana. Milano: Bompiani.

Reale, G. 2000. Fundamentos, estructura dinmico-relacional y caracteres esenciales de la

metafsica de Plotino. Anuario Filosfico 33, 163-191.

Reale, G. 1997. Per una nuova interpretazione di Platone. Rilettura della metafsica dei
grandi dialoghi alia luce delle Dottrine non scritte. Milano: Vita e Pensiero.

Rist, J. 1973. The One of Plotinus and the God of Aristotle. The Review of Metaphysics 27-
1, 75-87.

Sleeman, J. H. & G. Pollet. 1980. Lexicon Plotinianum. Leiden: Brill.

Torchia, N. J. 1993. Plotinus, Tolma, and the Descent of Beings. An Exposition and Analysis.
New York: Peter Lang.

Ua Jurez, A. 2002. Plotino: el sistema del Uno. Caractersticas generales. Anales del Se-
minario de Historia de la Filosofa 19, 99-128.

Uzdavinys, A. 2009. The Heart of Plotinus. Bloomington: World Wisdom.

Zubiria, M. 2012. El amor sapientiae ante la diferencia absoluta (Plotino, VI 9). Mendoza:
SS&CC Ediciones.