Plotino – Tratado 10,4 (V, 1, 4) — O Intelecto e as realidades inteligíveis nada mais são que “pensar” e “ser”

4. Podría comprobarse esto del modo siguiente: admiramos, en efecto, el mundo sensible en razón de su grandeza, de su belleza, del orden de su movimiento eterno, o considerando los dioses que hay en él -dioses visibles e invisibles-, los demonios que lo habitan, los animales y las plantas; y, sin embargo, deberíamos remontarnos a su modelo y a su realidad verdadera, elevando nuestra mirada a todos esos inteligibles que tienen en este modelo la eternidad, el conocimiento de sí mismos y la propia vida. Deberíamos contemplar, en definitiva, la pura Inteligencia que los conduce, la extraordinaria sabiduría, la verdadera vida bajo el dominio de Cronos o del dios que es saciedad e inteligencia ¹. Porque en él están contenidos todos los seres inmortales, toda inteligencia, toda divinidad, toda alma, como en algo que es siempre inmóvil. Si es, pues, realmente bueno, ¿por qué tratar de cambiarlo? ¿A dónde tendría que dirigirse si ya todo se encuentra en él? Ni siquiera cabría intentar aumentarlo siendo como es perfecto. Porque todo lo que hay en él es ya perfecto, para que él lo sea en su totalidad. No hay nada en él que no lo sea, ni hay nada en él que no piense. La Inteligencia piensa sin necesidad de búsqueda alguna, dado que posee en sí misma lo que piensa. Su felicidad no es algo adquirido, puesto que en ella se dan ya eternamente todas las cosas y ella misma es la verdadera eternidad, a la que imita el tiempo que rodea el alma y que abandona el pasado para alcanzar el porvenir ². Así, encontramos en el alma unos y otros seres, y, por ejemplo, unas veces se nos aparece como Sócrates, otras como un caballo, y siempre desde luego como un cierto ser particular. La Inteligencia, en cambio, es a un tiempo todas las cosas y contiene en sí misma todas las cosas, que permanecen inmóviles y en el mismo lugar. Basta decir de ella que es, y que es siempre, puesto que para ella no cuenta en modo alguno el futuro ³. Aún entonces es, porque nunca puede dejar de ser. Y no se encuentra en el pasado, porque en ella nada transcurre y todos los seres que en ella se den habrán de estar siempre presentes, en identidad consigo mismos y como complaciéndose en este estado. Cada uno de ellos es también una inteligencia y un ser, y su conjunto constituye toda la Inteligencia y todo el Ser, la Inteligencia que pone el Ser con sólo pensarlo y el Ser que, al ser pensado, da a la Inteligencia su pensamiento y su misma existencia. Con todo, el pensamiento tiene una causa que le es extraña y que es igualmente la causa del ser. Lo cual quiere decir que uno y otro tienen una causa diferente de ellos mismos. Porque existen conjuntamente y no se rechazan el uno al otro, sino que ambos forman esa unidad a la que llamamos Inteligencia y Ser, pensamiento y cosa pensada, Inteligencia en razón a su pensamiento, Ser en razón a que es pensado. Ya que no podría haber pensamiento sin alteridad e identidad. Los términos primitivos habrán de ser, por tanto, la Inteligencia, el Ser, la Alteridad y la Identidad; si acaso, convendrá añadir a ellos el Movimiento y el Reposo, el Movimiento por la razón de que hay pensamiento, el Reposo para que el pensamiento permanezca tal cual es. En cuanto a la Alteridad resulta verdaderamente necesaria para que se den el ser que piensa y el objeto que es pensado; si se la suprime, nos quedaremos tan sólo con la unidad y el silencio. Tendrá que existir, pues, la Alteridad para que las cosas pensadas puedan distinguirse unas de otras. E, igualmente, habrá de existir la Identidad, porque todas las cosas constituyen una unidad y encierran en sí mismas algo que les es común: su diferencia específica es, precisamente, la Alteridad ⁴. Toda esta variedad de términos da origen al Número y a la Cantidad, y, a su vez, el carácter propio de cada uno de los seres constituye la Cualidad. De todos estos términos, considerados como principios, vienen todas las demás cosas.

[4] Veut-on arriver par une autre voie à reconnaître la dignité de l’Intelligence? Après avoir admiré le monde sensible en considérant sa grandeur et sa beauté, la régularité éternelle de son mouvement, les dieux visibles ou cachés, les animaux et les plantes qu’il renferme, qu’on s’élève à l’archétype de ce monde, à un monde plus vrai ; qu’on y contemple tous les intelligibles qui sont éternels comme lui et qui y subsistent au sein de la science et de la vie parfaite. Là préside l’Intelligence pure, la Sagesse ineffable (16); là se trouve le vrai royaume de Saturne (17), qui n’est autre chose que l’Intelligence pure. Celle-ci embrasse en effet toute essence immortelle, toute intelligence, toute divinité, toute âme; et tout y est éternel et immuable. Pourquoi l’Intelligence changerait-elle, puisque son état est heureux ? A quoi aspirerait-elle, puisqu’elle a tout en elle-même? Pourquoi voudrait-elle se développer, puisqu’elle est souverainement parfaite? Sa perfection est d’autant plus complète qu’elle ne renferme que des choses qui sont parfaites et qu’elle les pense; et elle les pense, non parce qu’elle cherche à les connaître, mais parce qu’elle les possède (18). Sa félicité n’a rien de contingent : l’Intelligence possède tout dès l’éternité; elle est elle-même l’Éternité véritable, dont le Temps offre la mobile image dans la sphère de l’âme. En effet, l’âme a une action successive, divisée par les objets divers qui attirent son attention : elle se représente tantôt Socrate, tantôt un cheval ; elle ne saisit jamais qu’une partie de la réalité, tandis que l’Intelligence embrasse toujours toutes choses simultanément. L’Intelligence possède donc toutes choses immobiles dans l’identité. Elle est : il n’y a jamais pour elle que le présent (19); point de futur : car elle est déjà ce qu’elle peut être plus tard; point de passé : car nulle des choses intelligibles ne passe; toutes subsistent dans un éternel présent, toutes restent identiques, satisfaites de leur état actuel. Chacune est intelligence et être; toutes ensemble, elles sont l’Intelligence universelle, l’Être universel.

L’Intelligence existe [comme Intelligence] parce qu’elle pense l’Être. L’Être existe [comme Être] parce que, étant pensé, il fait exister et penser l’Intelligence (20). Il y a donc une autre chose qui fait penser l’Intelligence et exister l’Être, et qui est par conséquent principe commun de tous deux : car ils sont contemporains dans l’existence, ils sont consubstantiels et ne peuvent se manquer l’un à l’autre. Comme l’Intelligence et l’Être constituent une dualité, leur principe commun est cette unité consubstantielle qu’ils forment et qui est simultanément l’Être et l’Intelligence, le sujet pensant et l’objet pensé : l’Intelligence, comme sujet pensant; l’Être, comme objet pensé : car la pensée implique à la fois différence et identité. Les premiers principes sont donc l’Être, l’Intelligence, l’Identité et la Différence; il faut y joindre le Mouvement et le Repos (21). Le repos est la condition de l’identité; le mouvement est la condition de la pensée, puisque celle-ci suppose la différence du sujet pensant et de l’objet pensé, et qu’elle est muette si on la réduit à l’unité. Les éléments de la pensée [le sujet et l’objet] doivent ainsi être dans un rapport de différence, mais aussi dans un rapport d’identité, parce qu’ils forment une unité consubstantielle, et qu’il y a quelque chose de commun dans tout ce qui dérive d’eux. La différence d’ailleurs n’est pas ici autre chose que la distinction. La pluralité que forment les éléments de la pensée constitue la Quantité et le Nombre (22); et le caractère propre à chaque élément, la Qualité (23). De ces premiers principes [qui sont les genres de l’être] dérivent toutes choses.

THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD IS THE ARCHETYPE OF OURS.

4. The dignity of Intelligence may be appreciated in still another way. After having admired the magnitude and beauty of the sense-world, the eternal regularity of its movement, the visible or hidden divinities, the animals and plants it contains, we may (taking our direction from all this), rise to this world’s archetype, a more real World. There we may contemplate all the intelligible entities which are as eternal as the intelligible world, and which there subsist within perfect knowledge and life. There preside pure intelligence and ineffable wisdom; there is located the real Saturnian realm, which is nothing else than pure intelligence. This indeed embraces every immortal essence, every intelligence, every divinity, every soul; everything there is eternal and immutable. Since its condition is blissful, why should Intelligence change? Since it contains everything, why should it aspire to anything ? Since it is sovereignly perfect, what need of development would it have? Its perfection is so much completer, since it contains nothing but perfect things, and since it thinks them; it thinks them, not because it seeks to know them, but because it possesses them. Its felicity is not in any way contingent on anything else; itself is true eternity, of which time furnishes a moving image of the sphere of the soul. Indeed, the soul’s action is successive, and divided by the different objects that attract its attention. Now it thinks Socrates, and then it thinks a horse; never does it grasp but one part of reality, while intelligence always embraces all things simultaneously. Intelligence, therefore, possesses all things immovable in identity. It is; it never has anything but the present; it has no future, for it already is all it could ever later become; it has no past, for no intelligible entity ever passes away; all of them subsist in an eternal present, all remain identical, satisfied with their present condition. Each one is both intelligence and existence; all together, they are universal Intelligence, universal Existence.

ABOVE INTELLIGENCE AND EXISTENCE IS THEIR SIMULTANEOUS PRINCIPLE.

Intelligence exists (as intelligence) because it thinks existence. Existence exists (as existence) because, on being thought, it makes intelligence exist and thinks. There must therefore exist something else which makes intelligence think, and existence exist, and which consequently is their common principle. In existence they are contemporaneous and substantial, and can never fail each other. As intelligence and existence constitute a duality, their common principle in this consub-stantial unity that they form, and which is simultaneously existence and intelligence, the thinking subject and the object thought; intelligence as thinking subject, and existence as object thought; for thought simultaneously implies difference and identity.

THE SIX CATEGORIES FROM WHICH ALL THINGS ARE DERIVED.

The first principles, therefore, are existence and intelligence, identity and difference, movement and rest. Rest is the condition of identity; movement is the condition of thought, since the latter presupposes the differences of the thinking subject and of the object thought, and because it is silent if reduced to unity. The elements of thought (subject and object) must thus stand in the relation of differences, but also in that of unity, because they form a consubstantial unity, and because there is a common element in all that is de- rived therefrom. Besides, here difference is nothing else than distinction. The plurality formed by elements of thought constitutes quantity and number; and the characteristic of every element, quality. From these first principles (the categories, that are the genera of being) all things are derived.

IV. This also will be evident to him who admires this sensible world; who surveys its magnitude and beauty, and the order of its perpetual motion; the Gods it contains, some of whom are visible, and others invisible; and the daemons, animals and plants, with which it is replete; and who ascends from these to its archetype, and the more true world [of which this is the image]. For there he will behold all intelligibles, which together with the intelligible world are eternal, and subsist in an appropriate intelligence and life. An undecaying intellect, likewise, and immense wisdom preside over this intelligible world; and a life which is in reality under Saturn, flourishes there; Saturn being a God, and a pure intellect. For he comprehends in himself all immortal natures, every intellect, every God, and every soul, all which subsist in him with invariable stability. For why should he seek after change, since he possesses an excellent condition of being ? Or whither should he transfer himself, since he possesses all things with himself Y But neither, being most perfect, will he seek to be increased. Hence, all things that are with him are perfect, in order that he may be entirely perfect, having nothing which does not partake of perfection ; and possessing nothing in himself which he does not intellectually perceive. But he intellectually perceives, not investigating, but possessing.1 Its blessedness, also, is not adventitious to it, but it possesses all things in eternity. And it is itself truly eternity, which time running round soul imitates, omitting some things, but applying itself to others. For other and again other things are about soul; since at one time the form of Socrates, and at another the form of horse present themselves to its view ; and always one certain thing among the number of beings. But intellect has all things. Hence, it possesses in the same all things established in the same. It likewise alone is, and is always, but is never future; for when the future arrives, it then also is; nor is it the past. For nothing there has passed away, but all things abide in the present now ; since they are things of such a kind, as to be satisfied with themselves thus subsisting. But each of them is intellect and being. And the whole is every intellect, and every being. Intellect, therefore, derives its subsistence as intellect, from the intellection of being. But being subsists as being, through becoming the object of intellectual perception to intellect, and through imparting to it, intellection and existence. There is, however, another cause of intellection, which is also the cause of existence to being. Of both therefore at once, there is another cause. For both these are con-subsistent, and never desert each other. But being two, this one thing [resulting from both] is at once intellect; and is being, intellective, and intelligible. It is intellect, indeed, so far as it is intellective; but being, so far as it is intelligible [or the object of perception to intellect]. For intellectual perception could not subsist, difference and sameness not existing. Intellect, therefore, being, difference and sameness, are the first of things. But it is likewise necessary to assume together with these, motion and permanency. And motion, indeed, is necessary if being intellectually perceives ; but permanency in order that it may remain the same; and difference, in order that it may be intellective and intelligible. For if you take away difference from it, then becoming one it will be perfectly silent. It is necessary, however, that intellective natures should be different from each other; and that they should also be the same with each other, since they subsist in the same thing, and there is something common in all of them. Diversity, likewise, is otherness. But these becoming many produce number and quantity. And the peculiarity of each of these produces quality, from all which, as principles, other things proceed.

4. But there is yet another way to this knowledge:

Admiring the world of sense as we look out upon its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march, thinking of the gods within it, seen and hidden, and the celestial spirits and all the life of animal and plant, let us mount to its archetype, to the yet more authentic sphere: there we are to contemplate all things as members of the Intellectual – eternal in their own right, vested with a self-springing consciousness and life – and, presiding over all these, the unsoiled Intelligence and the unapproachable wisdom.

That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of Kronos, who is the Intellectual-Principle as being the offspring or exuberance of God. For here is contained all that is immortal: nothing here but is Divine Mind; all is God; this is the place of every soul. Here is rest unbroken: for how can that seek change, in which all is well; what need that reach to, which holds all within itself; what increase can that desire, which stands utterly achieved? All its content, thus, is perfect, that itself may be perfect throughout, as holding nothing that is less than the divine, nothing that is less than intellective. Its knowing is not by search but by possession, its blessedness inherent, not acquired; for all belongs to it eternally and it holds the authentic Eternity imitated by Time which, circling round the Soul, makes towards the new thing and passes by the old. Soul deals with thing after thing – now Socrates; now a horse: always some one entity from among beings – but the Intellectual-Principle is all and therefore its entire content is simultaneously present in that identity: this is pure being in eternal actuality; nowhere is there any future, for every then is a now; nor is there any past, for nothing there has ever ceased to be; everything has taken its stand for ever, an identity well pleased, we might say, to be as it is; and everything, in that entire content, is Intellectual-Principle and Authentic Existence; and the total of all is Intellectual-Principle entire and Being entire. Intellectual-Principle by its intellective act establishes Being, which in turn, as the object of intellection, becomes the cause of intellection and of existence to the Intellectual-Principle – though, of course, there is another cause of intellection which is also a cause to Being, both rising in a source distinct from either.

Now while these two are coalescents, having their existence in common, and are never apart, still the unity they form is two-sided; there is Intellectual-Principle as against Being, the intellectual agent as against the object of intellection; we consider the intellective act and we have the Intellectual-Principle; we think of the object of that act and we have Being.

Such difference there must be if there is to be any intellection; but similarly there must also be identity [since, in perfect knowing, subject and object are identical.]

Thus the Primals [the first “Categories”] are seen to be: Intellectual-Principle; Existence; Difference; Identity: we must include also Motion and Rest: Motion provides for the intellectual act, Rest preserves identity as Difference gives at once a Knower and a Known, for, failing this, all is one, and silent.

So too the objects of intellection [the ideal content of the Divine Mind] – identical in virtue of the self-concentration of the principle which is their common ground – must still be distinct each from another; this distinction constitutes Difference.

The Intellectual Kosmos thus a manifold, Number and Quantity arise: Quality is the specific character of each of these ideas which stand as the principles from which all else derives.