Plotinus On Matter and Evil

Plotinus on Matter and Evil Author(s): John M. Rist Source: Phronesis, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1961), pp.
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Plotinuson Matterand Evil

JOHN M. RIST
et les Gnostiques",1 DISCUSSION which followed his paper"Plotin M. Puech suggested that the language and thought of Plotinus concerning matter could be said to have developed. Before the break with the Gnostics which is revealed in Enneads 3.8, g.8, s,5, and 2.9, thinks M. Puech, Plotinus conceived of matter as a kind of evil substance, whereas he later came to regard it as "imaginee comme un miroir". After questioning, he explained that he inclined to the view that Plotinus had the pessimistic dualism that can be found in his earlier treatises, refornmed if not abandoned it altogether, and he was ready to accept the implication that after the break with the Gnostics, Plotinus tended to abandon the suggestion that matter is evil. The two treatises which appear in places to teach most clearly the inherent evil of matter are Enn. 2.4 and i.8. The former of these is the twelfth in Porphyry's list of the treatises in chronological order, and was therefore written between 2S4 and 263 A.D.; the latter is number fifty-one and was composed almost at the end of Plotinus' life, probably in 269. The treatises against the Gnostics are numbers thirty to thirtythree in chronological order, all therefore having been written after 265; and those containing expressions suggesting that matter is mere negativity include 2.6 (I7th in chronological order), 2.5 (25), 3.6 (26) and 6.3 (44). Enn. 2.4, which, as has already been noticed, appears to contain the theory of matter as evil, also supports the view of it as negativity. We can at once conclude, therefore, that Plotinus appears to the doctrine that nmatteris evil soon after he began to have nmaintained write and again at the time of his death, and that his break with the Gnostics did not, at least ultimately, affect his thought on this issue. We explain this by suggesting that the view of matter as negativity, which nmay appears along-side the apparently more dualistic view in the early tract 2.4, obtained complete supremacy in Plotinus' min(d for a period when his opposition to Gnosticism was at its most intense, but if this is so, (and I do not think it can be proved), then apparently dualist views on this particular issue returned when the main struggle with Gnosticism was over.
x
IN THE
de Plotin (Geneva Hardt S, LesSources H. C. Puech, "Plotin et les Gnostiques," Entretiens

1 84.
i 960)
154
All this - if true - seems rather confusing, and makes it very difficult to understand Plotinus' process of thought, let alone the reason for that process. It would appear then that talk of development in Plotinus' doctrine of matter does not help very much in understanding him unless we assume the unlikely hypothesis of a very brief change of view which was almost immediately reversed. More progress can almost certainly be made by taking up a few of the statements of Plotinus himself and attempting to decide whether his apparently contradictory views are in fact contradictory. I propose therefore to examine what he has to say about matter and evil, especially in Enneadsi.8 and 2.4, and to show that these tracts are both internally consistent and produce a coherent picture when placed side by side. In his Philosophyof Plotinus,' Dean Inge has recognized that the apparent difficulties in the Plotinian doctrine of matter arise from "the interrelation of the two kinds of judgement - that of existence and that of value". This observation will serve as the basis of our own enquiry, and if eventually we find that the "two kinds" have merged again, this is not to disown Inge's dichotomy, but to stress that it is only a useful guide to the teaching of Plotinus and would not have been acceptable as more than that to Plotinus himself. Just as for Plotinus there are two worlds, the world of particulars and the world of Forms "yonder", so there are two kinds of matter, one "in this world" and the other "intelligible"2. Matter here is an image of intelligible matter which stands to it as an archetype (2.4.S.). As is normal in the model-copy relationship, the copy is more vague and indefinite since it is farther away from true Being. Thus in this passage, although matter in the Intelligible World stands for Indefiniteness (aicep6c), matter "here" is more indefinite. Intelligible and sensible matter are both involved with "otherness" (Vreporrlq).In the case of spiritual Beings, difference is the result of "otherness" (6.9.8). "Otherness" is present in every reality, except the One. As Arnou has written3: "II (the One) est autre sans doute, mais l'alterite c'est dans les autres." All Beings, that is everything associated with any kind of matter, possess "otherness"; intelligible inatter is
W. R. Inge, The Philosophyof Plotinuss (London 1929) Vol. x, 131. This dichotomy excludes from the discussion the celestial matter that forms the heavens above the level of the moon. This matter is eternal and devoid of evil (Enn. 2.1.4.6-13. CJ. 2.9.8.33-6), since it is, as Plotinus puts it, nxpop Oeoi3,while its sublunary counterpart is only Trmp& rcovycvo[i6vcov OcCv (Enn. 2.1.5. Cf. Tim. 69C). 3 R. Arnou, aLa Separation par simple Alteritet dans la 'Trinite' plotinienne," Gregorionum X (1930) 189.
2
55
"other" than the One, that is than what is "beyond Being", matter "here" is other than Being (2.4. I 6). Matter "here", therefore, is not the same as "otherness"; it is a particular kind of "otherness". It is "otherness" than Being, or "privation" (artp-qam) of Being. Nevertheless, although it is privation, it is not Quality or a quality. It is not Quality, but rather a negation of Quality, and negations of qualities are not for Plotinus to be regarded as qualities themselves. Noiselessness, he maintains, is not a quality of noise or of anything else (2.4. 13), rather it is an absence of quality (eplC ). Thus, since Quality is always a positive factor ('r 8' 7rowEV eV xocrocypcaeL). other than mere of it as speak is hard to it matter is without qualities, potentiality without potency. It is qualityless (&ToLoqi .8. i o), non-being (,u' 6v 2.j.4), only a potentiality of Being (2. .S). Nevertheless, although without qualities and "other" than Being, matter has an individual distinction (1L6?-vJ 2.4. I3), which is, of course, not its shape (for the possession of shape would involve at least a slight connection with Limit), or its qualities, but simple its relation of "othera nature ness" than other things. This "otherness" is its nature (cp6aLq), which is not essentially qualified but continually admits a flux of changing qualities. Plotinus finds no difficulty in the idea of entities being unIf qualified, for, he says: "Is not Quality itself unqualified?" (2.4.13). this is so - and nobody disputes the existence and "discussability" of Quality - then the mere absence of qualities does not rule out the potential "existence" of matter, or prevent its "possessing" a nature. Inge has suggested 1 that Plotinus' attempt to define matter as without qualities, yet in possession of a nature implies that in some passages he "invests Matter with powers of resistance to Form", and that this is unjustified. If, however, by "resistance" he means anything more that the non-cooperation of something completely inert, he has been led farther than is correct in attributing metaphysical as distinct from ethical dualism to Plotinus, by the latter's use of rhetorical terminology. This will become apparent from what follows. Since then matter is seen to possess a nature, it is no great advance to the concept of its still having some sort of "existence", although it is "other" than Being. Plotinus here makes use of the work on negation done by Plato in the Sophist. Plato had found it necessary to begin to distinguish the kinds of negation. His conclusion was that "not being some thing" is not the same as absolute non-existence. Thus when we say that non-being is not "being", we do not mean that it does not exist, but
I
W. R. Inge, op. cit. I 34.
I56
that it is "other" than "being". In this way Plotinus can say that matter ' but rather is so etvocL9X?L 7 i.8.g), has no "being" (ouRa yocp non-being (t elvmoc),and that "non-being" has some kind of existence in that it is identical with privation (2.4. i 6). Since matter then has this strange kind of existence, it is recognizable by a strange kind of reasoning; Plotinus refers to the "bastardreasoning" of the Timaeus. It is a kind of reasoning which does not originate from ou'x xx vou, &X?cx Xoym,uc& the Mind, but in some illogical way XXoc its object. In order nature of spurious the which shows I 2) 2.4. XeV&q of a kind of use make we must to see matter, says Plotinus (i.8.9), "counter-mind", a mind totally devoid of all Form and Being. Mind must leave its own light, go out into an outside realm and suffer "the opposite of its own nature". Mind must become mindless to recognize what exists in some sense outside Being. It is evident that although Plotinus rejects the Aristotelian distinction his conception of matter bears a (2.4.I4), and a-e'pYaL5 between u'XTh certain resemblance to that which we can form of the "prime matter" of Aristotle. For Aristotle, the most fundamental existents in the sublunary world are the four Empedoclean elements: fire, air, earth and water. Each element, however, is theoretically divisible into "prime matter" and two of the "prime contraries". "Prime matter" does not exist by itself and can be regarded as analogous to Plotinian matter. We can say that it does not exist, and yet that it is not a complete non-entity. Matter then for Plotinus is the formless, indeterminate substratum of things (2.4.6). It is compared with a mirror (3.6.13), but has not the "real" existence that a mirror has over and above the appearances in it. The qualities of bodies that appear in it only enter it "falsely into falsity" (+eua eq + uaoq). It is not visible like a mirror, and must not be thought of as an object in the way that a mirror is an object. The mirror is an analogy only so far as it too is the "receptacle" in which images appear. In the early treatise 4.8, Plotinus mentions two theories current among the Platonists concerning the origin of matter. Either matter has always existed, or its generation is the necessary consequence of its causes which were "before" it (4.8.6). The 7tpo omueqhere certainly refers to the temporal creation of matter as opposed to its eternal existenice. It is quite certain that Plotinus' final view is that matter exists eternally and is not in any sense a temporal creation, and it is highly probable that his support, even at this comparatively early date, was given to this view.
1 57
Nevertheless, as a teacher in the Platonic tradition, it plainly suited hinm very well to mention both views, if such a general difference of opinion did not affect the specific teaching he was trying to illustrate, namely that even matter is not outside the scheme of emanation from the grace of the One. This being so, Brehier's suggestion I that, if matter (X&pLq) has always existed, "It is a term distinct from the realities which proceed progressively from the One", is unfounded, at least as far as this passage is concerned. Plotinus is not concerned here with the question: "Is matter the last term in the procession of the realities?" or with its alternative: "Does matter lie outside the schemiie of emanation as a substratum?" He is mentioning, though here not attempting to resolve, the problem of whether matter has always existed and is created from eternity, or whether it only exists in time. Either way, it is not apart from the procession of the hypostases. As Plotinus writes of the second
alternative: ou8'&g BeL
elvavL.
II At this point, we must turn from "existential" judgements to judgements of value. For Plotinus, the Fornmsare perfect examples of Being, and Being is good. The Forms, therefore, are perfect examples of Goodness and, like all that is good, are so constituted as to give of their Goodness or "overflow" into creation. All that overflows is good, and all that does not is evil. Evil is impotence, that inability to create which is the existence and creativity. negation of existence in a system which equLate Thus Plotinus can speak of a cause of evil. This cause is quite outside the Ideal World, the World of Being; it arises below Being out of need, privation and deficiency (j.9. io). Not however that any deficiency is evil, for evil is absolute deficiency. What is to a limited degree deficient in Goodness is not evil; rather it can be perfect so far as its own nature will permit (i.8.5). Turning to the so-called dualist passages, we begin to see Plotinus' thought more clearly. Starting from Plato's Theaetetus,2 Plotinus quotes with approval (i.8.6) the view that evil exists by necessity since there must be an opposite to the Good. To the objection that, since the GoodI is unqualified, it cannot have an opposite, he asserts that, in the case of two particular substances, there can be no contradiction in essence since they both possess a conimon element in matter - thus fire is conmpoun(de(d of matter, warmth and dryness, and water of matter, coldness and wetness
1 2
E. Br6hier (trans. J. Thomas), The Philosophyof Plotinuis(Chicago i958) Theaet. 176A.
8o.
I 58
- but in the case of the Absolute and matter, their contrariety does not depend on quality or on genus, but on their extreme separation from each other, on their contrary conmpositionand on their contrary effects. Thus we have a scale of values. At the one end is the One, which overflows and is good; at the other there is evil which is impotent and therefore the cause, not of good, but of absence-of-good. Both are causes, as Plotinus says, although to make his paradox the more striking, he declines to make explicit the fact that their "causation" is quite different. where apyn means "extreme", but one is a They are both &pXoL, beginning that causes the rest, while the other is a "beginning" that marks the end of reception rather than the commencement of giving. there is no evidence Thus although the Good and evil are opposing &p;(ou', here of evil's having any active power to promote itself. Such language is only the strongest way of saying that evil is unable to produce and that production is good. The problem of the so-called "necessity" of evil, which Plotinus struggles to explain non-dualistically despite Plato's Timaeus, can be resolved by his theory of emanation, a solution not open to Plato. For in a theory of enmanation,as there is a First, there must be a last. This last is the "farthest separated" from the Good and can be said to have contrary effects. There, as Plotinus says, is the "necessity" of evil (i.8.7). It is a "necessity" very different from Plato's expressed thought in the Timaeus, though a legitimate and perhaps essential descendant of it. In Ennead I.8.3, Plotinus faces the question: "What is the relation of evil to Being?" If evil exists, he says, it is analogous to some "form" of non-being and involved with sonmeof the things mingled with non-being or in some way associated with non-being. Evil is not absolute non-being (ro mxv.?XxCo pq) ov) but only "other than Being" and 'v Totq [f oUGV. In this passage it is clear that "the things mingled with non-being or in some way associated" vith it are such primary physical existents as the four elements. To speak of evil as analogous to their form is to explain how it comes about that they are so low in the scale of realities. It is as though their existence were governed from the bottom rather than from the top, since they are in a sense as near to non-being and evil as they are to Being, the Fornms and the Good. Since Being is related to Goodness, it is obvious that evil must reside with ro' [LA ov. Evil for Plotinus has no qualities, since it is the negation of Forml. Just as there is-Goodness itself and "accidental" goodness (i.8.3), so there is Absolute Evil and "accidental evil". As we know from many passages, the Good cannot be said to have qualities, since any attribution of
quality involves the attribution of defect. Nevertheless, this denial of qualities to the One does not remove it from the realm of realities, or from the sphere of philosophic thought. Similarly, although evil is it has a quasi-reality, or rather a denial of formnless (&vr8sov Ia.8.3), such is the extent to which reality. Such is its nature (yp'L5 I.8.6), positive terminology - and the word cpatq again suggests a paradoxically positive character - can be applied to it. III It must now be quite clear that there are marked similarities for Plotinus between matter and evil. Both are a kind of non-being, although not absolutely non-existent. Both are totally devoid of Form and quality, though they may be said to have a nature or character which is known by its "effects". Both are at the lowest remove from Being: one in the scale of existence, the other in the scale of value. Finally, these two scales are different ways of looking at the same metaphysical facts, for metaphysics in the Enneads is, strictly speaking, an indivisible synthesis of ontology and ethics. When speaking from the ethical point of view, Plotinus takes up the powerful, if perhaps slightly rhetorical, position that the cause of evil is itself evil. Evil is judged by its effects, or rather lack of them, just as Goodness is judged by its overflowing abundance. Hence we can easily understand Plotinus' insistence that the unqualified impotence of "utter lack" is itself evil (I.8.3). Since matter is in this impotent condition, it is evil (I.8.3; etc.). Thus matter is not only veWdo; but 5.9.IO, equal 8uae8eoq, and 8ae[8eo;, ALaXpO, xkX6c.Plotinus has made &vecWo; equated utter negativity with positive harm. As he says in the closing words of 2.4. I6: "Matter is not poverty of wealth or strength; it is poverty of sense, virtue, beauty, strength, shape, form and quality. This is surely malignant lack of form (8uaeE&o~), ugly and evil." If matter lacked certain qualities and possessed others, it might attain a neutral state between good and evil. Since, however, it is absolutely destitute and possesses nothing (thus having no creative power), it must be evil. For Plotinus, what is not good, is evil. "He who is not for me is against me." It is "positively" evil not to be good. Plotinus' metaphysic can be likened to a descending number series from infinity to zero. The One is infinity and matter is zero. Although zero is nothing, it is not "absolutely non-existent" and it can, paradoxically, have positive effects. X, when raised to the power of zero, for
i6o
example, is not completely unaffectedby the process even though zero is nothing, for x? equals one. IV We must now return to the great treatise against the Gnostics to see what Plotinus has to say there about basic matter, and to discover whether his opposition to Gnosticism has any connection with the equation of matter with evil. It has often been assumed that since the Gnostics can frequentlybe called dualistsand the notion that matter is evil is "dualistic",there must be a connection between these two facts. It is accordinglysurprisingto find that while Plotinus has a very great deal to say about Gnostic views of the phenomenalworld, there is little about "basic matter".His chief objection is to the Gnosticview thatmatter is isolated from the procession of hypostases- an objection which our exposition of Enneads i.8 and 2.4 would lead us to expect. If matter is outside the cosmic chain derived from the One, says Plotinus (2.9.3), the conclusion must be that the divine hypostases, the One, Noiq and Soul are limited in space. This is intolerable to a man whose view it is that the One is present everywherein its transcendentfashion. Any kind of spatial limitation seems to him like an impossible walling-in of the Divin'- Beings and quite unacceptable. Plotinus, refusing to accept the limitations of the Divine, insists that Matter must not be separatefrom the chain of realities, but must constitute the final link. Again, duringhis polemic againstthose who spoke of the "decline"(ro' v6i3ao) of the Soul and Sophia(2.9. I off.), Plotinus attacks their account because it leads to the assumption that the phenomenal world is an original principle. If this were true, he retorts (2.9.I2), matter in the phenomenal world is also a "primal",which is impossible. According to some of the Gnostics, when the Soul "declined",it sawand illuminated the darknessthat was alreadyin existence. To those who may have been willing to accept Plotinus' objection to the independentexistence of matter in eternity, but were still defending their view of the Soul's "decline" by the suggestion that it did not "decline"into a pre-existent darkness, but created this darknessby its "decline", Plotinus replies that their own theory has shown that the cause of the "decline"is nothing but the nature of Soul, and that they are thus not justifiedin using the word "decline"is any derogatorysence. Since Soul itself is the causeof "decline",the world or mattercan not be. Thus either "declining"is unnatural- which is impossible since this would imply attributing evil in the world not to the world (as the
Gnostics wished), but to the Supreme - or the "declining" is good and at the same time ultimately productive of matter. Thus, contrary to the Gnostic view, the world cannot be evil, and - which is more relevant to our argument - even the matter at which the series of emanations comes to an end is good so far as it is viewed as the product of a superior. It is only evil when looked at in itself and seen to be that final term of the scale of Being which is totally impotent. Plotinus is also aware (2.9.5) of a view which makes matter the bestower of some kind of life. Here again we have a truly dualistic conception; here again the view rejected by Plotinus in his treatise against the Gnostics bears no similarity to any Plotinian statements about matter and evil such as to lend support to the notion that his views on the nature of matter had changed as a result of his struggle with Gnosticism. Plotinus protests that the Gnostics' introduction of a second soul, presumably an evil soul, which they "put together" (auvLa-tci) fromi the elements is irrational. This combination of the elements, according to the Gnostics, has some kind of life, while for Plotinus any blending of the elements can only produce something hot, coid, or intermediate between hot and cold, or again something dry, wet, or intermediate between dryness and wetness. Furthermore, comments Plotinus, if this "soul" arises later from the elements, how can it be the bond which holds them together as elements? Plainly a bond must be at the least contemporaneous with the objects it binds. In short, the Gnostics are in error once again because they make matter a "primal"or at any rate prior to this kind of "soul". In fact, they should admit that soul is prior if they wish it to be any kind of "bond" for matter. The Gnostics, by setting up matter as a First Principle, rather than as the last creation of Soul in the way that both i.8 and 2.4 teach, are thus led into these logical difficulties. Such are the objections to metaphvsical dualism that Plotinus sees; they clearly do not apply to the relationship in his own system between matter and evil, even if no development of his views on this theme be assumed. For Plotinus, the whole sensible world is controlled by the world of Even matter is represented. Forms. Every thing has its prototype "*there". There is a Form of matter, although matter is lowest in the scale of things (5.8.7). Nothing is outside the donminionof' creative Form. The Gnostics are wrong to separate matter in order to account for evil when there is no need to do so. Tlhe existence of matter in the Intelligible World is evidence of the connection of all matter with th-e hierarchy of Being.
I 62
It may be objected that Intelligible Matter and sensible matter have nothing in common but the name. Intelligible Matter is based on Being (2.4. S), and has a "definedand intellectual"life; matter in the sensible world is a mode of non-being, has no life or intellection and is of itself a "corpseadorned".IntelligibleMatteris eternal; sensible matter has no permanence other than that of adnmitting permanent change. Since, however, as Plotinus always asserts, this world is an image of the Intelligible World, and at the same timneis based on nmatter (' {"X2.4.4), there must be Matter in the IntelligibleWorld as well as here. Not only must Matter exist "there",but it must be different in all the ways mentioned above, since it is the archetype and sensible nmatter is only the copy. Any copy is for Plotinus inferior in all respects to its archetypeand source. A just act might be described as "having nothing in common with Justice itself but a similarity of name", yet for any Platonist its derivation is from the Form of Justice. Similarly, matter in the phenomenalworld may in a sense be comparedwith, and certainly derives from, its counterpartin the World of Forms.
V
A Source of Confusion Throughout the Enneads, Plotinus draws heavily on the Platonic writings. It is only rarelythat he is willing openly to oppose his Master. This reliance, coupled with the fact that Plotinus is innocent of the suspicion that Plato's views may have developed, is frequentlya cause of confusion; not least is this so in his discussionsof matter. When Plato firstpostulatedthe Forms,he was almostcertainlythinking of giving an account of ethical qualities. From these, he passed to a consideration of mathematicalentities and only later did he come to examine the possibility of their being Forms of substances. In the dialogues up to and including the Theaetetus,at least, he seemed to find no difficultyin the view that there are Formsnot only of good qualities, but of bad. In the Republic1 we find a reference to Formsof justice and Injustice, Good and Evil, and it seems almost certain that the xcoxXov x0tl x-xt&yxO6v xot'xax6v which Theastetus and Socratesdiscuss in acaxpov the Theaetetus and whose substance (o5al) is there described as viewed by the soul without the use of bodily facultiesare Forms too.2 Although Plato finds no difficulty with the Forms of qualities such as
I Rep. 5. 476A.
2 Theaet. i 8 6A.
163
Socrates baulks at recognizing Forms of mud, "evil", in the Parmenides hair and dirt. Sir David Ross 1 believes that this hesitation "was presumably due to the suggestion of unpleasantness or else of triviality which such words suggested". Why, however, should Socrates find the Form of an evil thing, i.e. dirt, objectionable, when he has already been prepared to tolerate a Form of Evil itself? What in fact is the difference between an accepted Form of Evil and a proposed Form of Dirt? Only, it appears, that one involves some kind of matter. In the Parmenides 2 itself, Socrates has already been in difficulties with Forms of more reputable substances, such as man, fire and water. When he is brought face to face with Dirt itself, his difficulties become acute although he is troubled why he should worry more about the Form of Dirt than about the Form of Man. He seems to fear that if he admits the Form of Man, he has admitted Forms needing "extensionality" and should therefore follow the same principle and admit Formls of all substances despite the absurdities which this appears to entail. In the dialogues following the Parmenides,as we know, Plato camiieto admit Forms of "reputable" substances without hesitation.3 It seems likely that he admitted Forms of Mud, Hair and Dirt also. It has been suggested that his analysis of negation in the Sophist enabled him to dispense with such Forms as Evil itself and to account for all evil as imperfection and negativity. However, as Ross remarks: 4 "There is nothing to show that he ever took this line." In interpreting all this Platonic theory without any notion of Platonic development, Plotinus was faced with a colossal task. Furtlhermore, his misinterpretation of the Forms as not only perfect exanmplesbut also as Active Minds made his task very much more difficult, for if he were to posit a Form of Evil, he would be immediately involved with a dualism of the extreme type in which good and evil minds struggle for control of the universe. Perhaps it mav be alleged that Laws i o, 896E would support 'r such a view, but it must always be remembered that the phrase TrrJ does not explicitly sirpycrEa 8uVoczLv74 xcXL 'r5 T&vovTC e"epyrTt8Oo speak of an evil soul, but only of soul capable of producing effects that are the opposite of beneficial. Our discussion of the Plotinian docW. D. Ross, Plato's Theoryof Ideas2 (Oxford 1953) 169. 2 Parm. 13oCS-Dg. Substantial Fornms had, of course, been introduced in dialogues earlier than the Parmenides,e.g. the Form of Bed in Rep. 597, but it appears that only later did
I
to his general theory. Plato realize the difference their existence miiade 3Cf. Tim. siB; Phil. ISA. 4 W. D. Ross, op.cir. 169. I 64
trine of evil should suggest that such a phrase certainly need not involve metaphysical dualism. No will to evil need be assumed. Since then Plotinus' Forms are Active Minds, there is no question of mud and dirt having their own Forms if dualism is to be avoided. Plotinus then takes advantage of the fact that Socrates' confusion in the Parmenides about such entities is never explicitly cleared up to interpret the passage as a straightforward denial of such Forms. Two seemingly contradictory reasons are given to account for the appearance of mud and dirt in the phenomenal world (g.9. i4). First, we are told that they do not derive from the One, as do the Forms, and that there is no No5q in them, but that Soul, deriving from Noiuq and "taking other things from matter" receives them from this latter source. A little below, we read that they are the products of the Soul when it has reached the level of being unable to produce anything better; matter this time is not mentioned. By the phrase "taking other things from matter", Plotinus means no more than that mud and the rest are nearer to "absolute otherness than Being" than to the Forms. It is interesting to notice however that, although he has to neglect the Platonic passages suggesting that Evil may have a place in the World of Forms, he also finds it necessary completely to forget his Master's doubts about matter. It is primarily because of their quasimaterial aspect, we remember, that Socrates in the Parmenides is hesitant about the Forms of substances. To admit any kind of "extensionality" into the Ideal World was a step which Plato apparently took with considerable reluctance, for "extensionality" must have seemed liable to confuse Forms with particulars. When Plato finally introduced his Unlimited Dyad as an element in the Ideal World, he had revolutionized his own theory and abandoned his fear of any kind of material principle. Plotinus' taking over the Dyad and his interpretation of it as Intelligible Matter 1 thus provides a solution to the question of matter at the base of the phenomenal world without the need to resort to dualism, since matter in this world is the image of Matter "yonder". Plotinus thus avoids two varieties of dualism; firstly, he rejects the notion of a Form of Evil, which for him must involve an Evil Mind, and goes so far as to
In Met. A. 988Ai4, Aristotle tells us that Plato made the One the cause of good and the Great and Small the cause of evil. This can be brought into harmony with the Plotinian doctrine of Intelligible Matter if we remember that for Plotinus it is Intelligible Matter of which matter "here" is an image. In the special sense which we have described, matter in this world is the quasi-cause of evil, and thus, indirectly, the origin of evil is Intelligible Matter, although this in no way diminishes the latter's goodness. Some similar doctrine of Plato would be sufficient to call forth Aristotle's remark in the Metaphysics.
i6S
explain Plato's treatment of this subject as though the latter were a Plotinian; secondly, and this time following Plato's later work on the Dyad, he is able to account for matter without making it an evil principle as the Gnostics wished to do. By this achievement he produces the consistent doctrine of the relation between evil and matter which can be found throughout the Enneads.1 UniversityCollege, Toronto
1 am particularly indebted for criticism of this paper in its original draft to Mr. F. H. Sandbach and Professor A. H. Armstrong. Any remaining errors are my own.
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Plotinus On Matter and Evil

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Plotinus on Matter and Evil Author(s): John M. Rist Source: Phronesis, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1961), pp.

Plotinuson Matterand Evil

de Plotin (Geneva Hardt S, LesSources H. C. Puech, "Plotin et les Gnostiques," Entretiens

W. R. Inge, op. cit. I 34.

alternative: ou8'&g BeL

E. Br6hier (trans. J. Thomas), The Philosophyof Plotinuis(Chicago i958) Theaet. 176A.

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