1.2 Plotinian Cosmologico-theology:
The Tripartite Structure of Higher Reality
In the preceding section, I sketched the two primary formulations of dependence fundamental to understanding not only Plotinus’s negative theology, but also his view of the basic structure of sensible reality. Distributively and collectively, however, all of sensible reality derives from, and is dependent on, a higher, divine reality. On the one hand, the distinction between a lower reality and a higher one resolves into the Platonic distinction between sensible and intelligible realities, where intelligible reality consists in the realm of the eternal, immutable Forms, which is also to say, the realm of true being. On the other hand, the picture is somewhat complexified at this point because, for Plotinus, all paradigmatic Forms exist in and are unified in a transcendent, divine mind: Nous.57 In fact, Plotinus understands this “higher reality” in terms of three different but nonetheless related realities:58 in ascending order of independence, simplicity, value/excellence, and reality are Psyche (Soul), Nous (Intellect/Mind), and the One/Good.59 The One is the ultimate source and arche of all reality: from the One “flows” Nous, Psyche, and then everything else whose being/existence is ultimately grounded on the One.
These three realities are metaphysical principles with relatively distinct explanatory roles, accounting for various features and facts of the sensible world.60 Plotinus believes, for example, that Psyche is the proximate source and principle of life and animation of the world “below” it.61 Nous, as I mentioned previously, is the divine Mind, which contains and theorizes—i.e., engages in theoria of—the eternal Forms even as it contemplates itself.62 It is also the principle and proximate source of everything below it, including Psyche. Because Nous “contains” the immutable Forms, it is the realm of true being: “Intellect and being are one and the same thing; for Intellect does not apprehend objects which preexist it—as sense does sense objects—but Intellect itself is its objects.”63 The objects of Nous are the intelligibles—that is, the Platonic Forms—which “give” being to individual entities by giving form and determinacy to them. The eternal Forms themselves, like the things they inform, are defined, delimited, and determinate.64 Furthermore, it is the reflexive, cognitive activity of Nous—which includes theorizing the Forms—that somehow brings about the existence of all entities derivative of it.65 For Plotinus, anything that exists and has being is also defined and determinate; conversely, anything that is defined and determinate exists and has being. Hence, not only the Forms themselves, but Nous as well, understood now as Being itself, is determinate.
Unlike Psyche, which relates to things sequentially,66 Nous abides eternally, and eternally “thinks” itself and the Forms totum simul.67 In just this respect, Nous is less complex than Psyche, and therefore, “superior to [S]oul which is of such great excellence.”68 Plotinus conceives of Nous as a kind of self-enclosed unity: a divine mind contemplating itself as it contemplates the eternal Forms, which are somehow one with itself. It is not entirely clear whether the unity of Nous and the Forms is grounded on the fact that the Forms exist, so to speak, “in” Nous, or whether there is a condition approaching ontological identity between thinker, thinking, and object of thought.69 In the end, Plotinus seems to want to understand the unity of Nous in both respects. More importantly, however, Plotinus continually emphasizes that Nous and its eternal contemplation are, with one specific exception, self-directed (reflexive) and self-enclosed.70 Because it does not look to anything outside of itself in order to “accomplish” or “achieve” its eternal [self-]contemplation, Nous can be understood to be self-sufficient.71
An important consequence of this view is that all knowledge and truth are ultimately grounded in and derivative of the self-enclosed unity of Nous, its self-contemplation, and its intelligible objects.72 For Plotinus, Nous is the supreme knower, precisely because it is everything it knows.73 Because all of its objects of knowledge—i.e., the intelligibles/Forms—persist “in,” and ontologically coincide with, itself, Nous knows immediately itself as well as anything and everything that truly is.74 Several other, significant implications follow from this conception of Nous. First, extreme skepticism regarding truth, knowledge and their basis is averted, because the objects of Nous’s eternal contemplation are “internal” to Nous: there is no epistemic gap to be bridged between knower and object known. Second, as I mentioned previously, Nous’s mode of cognition is immediate and comprehensive, and with respect to its objects, totum simul. Third, because Nous and its objects—that is, the Forms—are determinate, all knowledge is likewise determinate in character. Therefore, because everything/anything that has being or exists is determinate—whether it be Nous, the Forms, or some particular entity—all genuine knowledge is knowledge of what exists/has being. The final, key implication is that, strictly speaking, what is not determinate (i) does not exist/has no being, and (ii) cannot be known.
If Plotinus postulates Nous as a source that accounts for the existence and kind(s) of entities in the world, why is it necessary to locate a source of reality explanatorily prior to Nous? After all, Nous, its contemplation, and its intelligible objects are a self-directed, self-enclosed unity. Has Plotinus not arrived at the conclusion that Nous is self-sufficient? In various ways, everything derivative of Nous is dependent upon Nous. Psyche, for example, is produced as the outflow of Nous, and thus possesses a derivative mode of intellection because it participates in Nous. Particular entities exist because they flow from Nous—via Psyche—and are what they are because they participate in the Forms “internal” to Nous (as well as, in some cases, participating in Psyche and Nous themselves—e.g., human beings). Here, however, a few concerns need to be raised. Most important is Plotinus’s conviction that the self-sufficiency attributed to Nous be qualified.
But that which is altogether simple and self-sufficient needs nothing; but what is self-sufficient in the second degree, but needs itself, this is what needs to think itself; and that which is deficient in relation to itself achieves self-sufficiency by being a whole, with an adequacy deriving from all its parts, intimately present to itself and inclining to itself. For intimate self-consciousness is a consciousness of something which is many.75
It turns out that Nous’s self-sufficiency is relative to several factors. First, while it is not a compound of components—for example, the way in which a particular human being is composed of various, ontologically distinct constituents—Nous is nonetheless something complex. Depending on the question at issue, Plotinus characterizes the multiplicity or complexity of Nous in a number of ways. As Plotinus explains in the passage above, it is the reflexive, noetic activity of Nous itself that somehow “makes” it complex: in the eternal act of self-contemplation, Nous as knower is distinct from itself as object of knowledge.76
Second, the fact that Nous looks to itself, so to speak, in self-contemplation implies that, qua knower, Nous depends on itself as object of knowledge: the rationale, simply put, is that in order to think/know itself, Nous needs itself to be an intentional object of self-knowledge. Although Nous does not need an external object to “achieve” or engage in self-contemplation—and is, on this account, self-sufficient “in the second degree”—it nevertheless needs itself, as it were, to be and do what Nous is and does. Hence, because it is not absolutely simple, Nous is neither unqualifiedly independent nor “altogether” self-sufficient.77 Consequently, only what is absolutely simple can be absolutely independent and unconditioned;