Plotinus on the Appearance of Time and the World of Sense

246 Pages·2007·1.89 MB·English

by  Deepa Majumdar

PLOTINUS ON THE APPEARANCE OF TIME AND THE
WORLD OF SENSE
Dr. Majumdar provides the most thorough, rigorous, precise, organized, and
insightful account I have read of Plotinus’ many remarks and discussions
regarding soul and some related concepts. She thoroughly identifies every (so far
as I can tell) significant distinction and discussion pertaining to the nature and
function of soul found in the Enneads. She discerns beyond previous scholars
certain overlooked, subtle linguistic and conceptual representations of soul and its
activities in Plotinus’ treatises. And her like treatment of Plotinus’ conception of
Self is unique in the contemporary literature on Plotinus.
Michael F. Wagner, Professor of Philosophy,
The University of San Diego, USA
Dr. Majumdar’s knowledge and command of the sources, both primary and
secondary, is particularly impressive. Her argument throughout the book is
presented with a remarkable vigour and intensity, and yet in a very clear way,
which also makes the book accessible to non-specialists. Overall, this book can be
not only a nice introduction to Plotinus but also of much help to anyone interested
in the problem of time and temporality as related to the structure of the self.
Professor Dimitri Nikulin, Department of Philosophy, New School University,
New York, USA
This book will add to our knowledge of one of the most important Neoplatonic
thinkers. Future scholars will refer to and build on what Majumdar has written.
John F. Finamore, Professor and Chair of Classics at the University of Iowa, USA
In her book, Plotinus on the Appearance of Time and the World of Sense: A
Pantomime, Dr. Majumdar takes a sophisticated approach to Plotinus, displaying
very thorough familiarity with both the works of Plotinus himself and all the major
secondary literature in the area, including the work of some often neglected
scholars.
Eric D. Perl, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Loyola Marymount University,
USA
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Plotinus on the Appearance of
Time and the World of Sense
A Pantomime
DEEPA MAJUMDAR
© Deepa Majumdar 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or
otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Deepa Majumdar has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be
identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Majumdar, Deepa
Plotinus on the appearance of time and the world of sense :
a pantomime
1.Plotinus 2.Time - Philosophy 3.Sense (Philosophy)
I.Title
115
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Majumdar, Deepa, 1956-
Plotinus on the appearance of time and the world of sense / Deepa Majumdar.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 978-0-7546-5523-7 (hardcover) 1. Plotinus. Enneads. 2. Time.
I. Title
B693.E6M35 2007
186'.4--dc22

2006026858
ISBN: 978-0-7546-5523-7
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wiltshire.
Contents
Preface vii
1. Introduction 1

Part I The Hermeneutic Scene
2. Truth, Method, and Originality 13
3. Heritage and Legacy 27

Part II The Architectonic Scene
4. Edifice of Soul 43
Hypostasis Soul and World Soul 44
Genus-Species Structure: Consubstantiality and Holism 47
Levels of Individuation of Souls 50
Differences among Souls 54
Levels of Discursion in Soul 56
5. Levels of Self 61
Tacit Presence of Self 63
Existential Trajectory of Self 65
Interior Range of Self 69
6. The Logic of Poiesis 77
“Emanation” and Laws of Poiesis 77
Procession from the One 82
Logos 87
Contemplation 90
7. Demiurge, Nature, and Matter 97
Demiurge, Nature, and the Sequence in which Nature and Matter
Appear 97
The Matter of the Sense-World and its Appearance 107
vi Plotinus on the Appearance of Time and the World of Sense
Part III The Cosmological Scene
8. The Making of the World of Sense in the Enneads 117
Intellect Makes through Parts of Soul 118
Intellect Makes through Soul and Nature 125
Intellect Makes through “Every Soul”, Purified “Man”, Soul,
World Soul, or Directly 132
How the Ensouled Body arises from Matter – a Sketch 137
9. Conjoint Appearance of Time and the World of Sense (III.7(45).11) 141
Time – Fore-Life, Rest, and Genesis 142
The Role of Soul 151
10.The Nature and Role of the Self (“We”) in III.7(45).11 165
What the “We” means in the Enneads 165
The Nature of “We” in III.7(45).11 169
How “We” make Time in III.7(45).11 173
11.Tolma,Polupragmatic Nature – Historical Roots and the Noetic Level 183
Historical Antecedents 184
Tolma and Otherness of Intellect 188
12.Tolma, Polupragmatic Nature, Unquiet Power, and the Descent of Soul
in III.7(45).11 199
Polupragmatic Nature and Unquiet Power of Hypostasis Soul 201
Polupragmatic Nature of World Soul 209
Polupragmatic Nature and Tolma of Individual Souls 214
13. Pantomime 225
Select Bibliography 227
Index 231
Preface
What bearing do the Enneads of Plotinus (ca. 204–270 A.D.) have for our times?
What hortative message would the philosopher of Lycopolis bring to us today?
What sparks a tryst between this seminal thinker and scholars from the twenty first
century? Is contemporary internationalism a magnificent extrapolation of third
century Alexandrian and Roman cosmopolitanism, yet of the same essence? Can
the gulf between the two be surmounted in the solitary confines of the scholar’s
mind? Notwithstanding the historicity that ushers Plotinus to our century, perhaps
all ultimate answers lie in the mystery of noetic inspiration, for the abode of the
perpetual muse is the Plotinian intelligible world – the ultimate source of
inspiration.
The thirteen chapters in this book were written over a period of four years,
beginning in 2003. They were inspired by the tacit connections between chapters
eleven through thirteen of the seventh tractate of Plotinus’ Ennead III (“On
Eternity and Time”) and the rest of the Enneads.1They were written with two main
foci: an application of Plotinus’ genus-species structure of soul to his cosmology
and an exploration of tolma, the restlessness of soul, and the risk of apostasy in
Plotinian emanation.
I am grateful to Professors John Finamore, Michael Wagner, Eric Perl, Dimitri
Nikulin, and Silvia Dapia for reading my manuscript. I am indebted to Purdue
University North Central for supporting me with generous summer research grants
and travel grants. I thank the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies for their
conferences. Finally, I remain grateful to the silent community of Plotinian
scholars, who taught me to quieten the hermeneutic eye, let the text be its own lens,
and allow Plotinus to speak for himself. I tried to listen and serve as a still medium
for this unfiltered voice resonating through the centuries.

1 All references to the Enneads are in standard form. Thus III.7(45).11 indicates the
eleventh chapter of the seventh tractate of Ennead Three, the forty-fifth treatise in
Porphyry’s chronological ordering of the Enneads.
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Chapter 1

Introduction

In the tumult of our times – amidst the rational exchange and ruthless haste evident
in the aura of measure governing us and the proliferation of clocks reminding us of
such measure – time and the visible cosmos are denigrated to lowly tools. So great
is the discord, it nearly cleaves the pairs of opposites, whipping their contrariety to
a deafening roar and wrenching them apart. The chaos of the one is magnified even
as it is tethered by the subjective order of the other. Thus the cacophony of the
market is escalated by the very instrumental order that regulates it – the commotion
of the former nearly sundered from the incoherence of the latter. In such a world,
the dissonance of the outer drowns the silence of the inner and expresses itself
through the arrhythmic schedules and artificial seasonality of a people exhausted
by their externalization. Where the light of the objective is placed in the outer and
the inner unquestioningly held mired in subjectivity, where few can afford the
inward turn, how can the experience of time be deemed worthy or objective? The
temporal regimes of science and business convince us that the time of physics is
the only true and objective time – an antinomy to inner time, which must be
aligned to the former and resurrected from subjectivity. Its high exchange value
has so distended the dominion of the world of sense that even time – which has no
sensible form – has become an analogy for the sensible object. Indeed, our
intoxication with forms of matter is so keen, that the cosmos no longer seems
immersed in time. Instead, time is reified to the near tangible flow of manicured
moments we grasp fecklessly, more with our senses than intellect. Ever better
clocks and watches demarcate this time with meticulous precision and subject us
entirely to the discipline of the time of physics.
Yet, beneath the scurrying moments of this discordant and objectified
universe, there flows that constant contemplation, transporting us unremittingly to
the One. No human artifice can thwart this flow, which pulsates with a quietude
that averts our attention from the outer, to the idealistic inner roots of time. Amidst
the richness of a growing silence, we align the time of physics to the truer rhythm
of discursive thought and experience the auspicious seasonality of an ideal time
that mandates a right moment for every activity of soul – until we realize the
evanescence of time. As the silence deepens, we reach that crowning moment
when the universe becomes our corpus mysticum. The opacity dims, we leave
behind the clamor and dust of time, awaken to the eternal forms, then discard the
apparel of the two hypostases – Intellect and soul – and stand unmasked before the
One, which dissolves us in its light.