86. On Plotinus’s view, the soul’s reversion to the One can be temporarily achieved while still living an embodied existence. This temporary return is what takes place in the soul’s mystical union with the One.
However, it is, as I put it, only one modality of reversion, since mystical union nonetheless represents an anticipation of the final, post-mortem separation of the soul from the body. It is not clear whether or how Plotinus would have us distinguish the actual state of union with the One as achieved in via as opposed to that achieved post-mortem. See Ennead I.7.3: 273: “But if life is a union of soul and body, and death is their separation, then the soul will be adapted to both. But if life is good, how can death not be an evil? Life is good to those for whom it is a good, not in so far as it is a union but because by virtue it keeps away evil; and death is a greater good. We must say that life in a body is an evil in itself, but the soul comes into good by its virtue, by not living the life of the compound but separating itself even now.” Italics mine. See also Ennead I.8.7: 299, where Plotinus recalls Plato’s recommendation to win virtue and separate oneself from the body as a way to escape evil and be among the gods.
87. VI.7.36: 199, note 1: I cite Armstrong’s reference here to Plato’s Republic 505a2 (on the Idea of the Good). See: Plato, Plato: Complete Works, 1125–26.
88. Although the specific question of Plotinian negative theology in the present chapter deals primarily with the three ways enumerated above in connection with mystical union, it will nevertheless be helpful to understand something of the role of the other forms of practice that comprise—“beforehand” as it were—conditions for the soul’s ascent to and [hopefully] eventual union with the One. In the passage above, the various [what I call] practices serve to move one along the path of ascent toward eventual union with the One. Although he does not schematize the practices he enumerates in that passage, there is reason to think that there is a kind of pattern or order to the movement of ascent. This order, I believe, can be viewed from two points of view. Based on his statements above, the first perspective can be described as more ordered and linear, incorporating all of the practices above—both stated and implied—to the following, schematic effect. On the one hand, one learns about the One through rational discourse, by means of the three ways outlined above. But on the other hand, rational discourse is primarily discursive and “theoretical,” and thus is to be distinguished from a form of practice which is in fact a form of praxis: the life of purification and virtue (see Ennead I.2.6: 143, where Plotinus distinguishes between theoretical wisdom and practical wisdom). By cultivating the life of purification and virtue, says Plotinus, one is actually “put on the path to it [the One]” (bracketed gloss mine). Of course, rational discourse ostensibly puts one on the path to it as well. How so? Like other Platonists, Plotinus’s basic conviction is that one becomes like unto divine things by doing divine things: one participates in, and becomes like, Justice by performing just actions. The deeper principle operative here, as well as in Plotinus’s overall conception of the ascent to the One, is Platonic: like is known by like. Hence, in order to “know” or “touch” the One, one must become like the One. What this implies is that the process of ascent towards the One involves/entails a progressive simplification, so to speak: very crudely put, one proceeds from (1) studying about the One in rational discourse and [and=in conjunction with] living the life of purification and virtue to (2) contemplation (theoria) of the eternal Forms by way of Nous’s self-contemplation, and finally to (3) mystical union and contact with the One.
The second perspective can be described, for want of a more felicitous term, as pluralistic. By “pluralistic,” I intend to highlight the diversity and plurality of ways in which Plotinus, in other passages, seems to suggest that one might ascend to the One. For example, Plotinus’s statements in Ennead I.2 intimate that one might ascend to the One by pursuing the life of purification and virtue to its ultimate source and goal: which is also to say, becoming the One. Likewise for the lover of beauty (See Ennead I.6). One may begin by an appreciation of sensible beauty through aisthesis. As s/he seeks genuine beauty, s/he moves from appreciating copies to a contemplation of originals—that is to say, to Nous and the eternal, intelligible Forms (See Ennead V.8). To pursue beauty to its source, however, requires a shift from contemplating the Forms to “touching” the One. Somewhat humorously, Plotinus seems to think, however, that philosophers are “by nature” in the best position both to begin and finish the ascent to the One (See Ennead I.3, esp. I.3.3: 157). On the one hand, Plotinus observes that there are, for instance, lovers of beauty who remain captivated by—and so, in “bondage” to—visible beauty, and thus never rise above the sensible realm. On the other hand, the philosopher’s inquiries into and reflections on the principle(s)/origin of things inevitably lead him/her beyond the sensible to the intelligible, and finally to the One/Good.
89. VI.8.11: 261. Plotinus speaks of his “investigation” and “enquiry,” respectively in Ennead V.3.10: 105 and V.3.15: 123. See also V.1.9: 43, where Plotinus criticizes Anaxagoras for failing to give an “accurate account.”
90. VI.8.13: 267. See V.1.10: 45: “It has been shown that we ought to think that this is how things are, that there is the One beyond being, of such a kind as our argument wanted to show, so far as demonstration was possible in these matters.” See also VI.9.5: 319–21: “This multiplicity all together, then, the intelligible universe, is what is near to the First, and our argument says that it must necessarily exist, if one says that the soul exists.”
91. On the latter issue, see Enneads VI.9 and V.3.
92. III.8.10: 397. See also VI.7.39: 209: “But he [the One] will stand still in majesty” (bracketed gloss mine).
93. VI.9.4: 317.
94. Clearly, what I propose here applies equally to Plotinus’s statements about “touching” the One.
95. VI.9.4: 315–17.
96. Clearly for Plotinus, unlike Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment views, there is no impermeable boundary between, for example, the order of being and the order of knowledge.
97. Two key points.
[I] Clearly, the notion of presence (parousia) raises again certain difficulties, some of which were addressed previously. On the notion of participation in the One, see Ennead VI.8, where Plotinus says, “all the other things that exist are held together by this [the One]; for they exist by some kind of participation in him, and it is to this that their origin