Plotino – Tratado 12,1 (II, 4, 1) — Considerações iniciais sobre a matéria

1. Lo que llamamos materia es el sujeto y el receptáculo de las formas; ésa es la opinión general de todos los que han tratado la cuestión, y hasta aquí el acuerdo es unánime, pero, en lo que atañe a la naturaleza de tal sujeto; las opiniones ya difieren. ¿Cuál es realmente la naturaleza de este sujeto y cómo es capaz de recibir las formas? ¿Qué es, en verdad, lo que recibe? Sobre todos estos puntos las opiniones son contrapuestas.

Los unos, aceptando que los cuerpos son las únicas realidades y también la única sustancia, afirman que la materia es una, que subyace a los elementos como su sustancia; todas las demás cosas, y aquí cuentan los elementos, son para ellos fenómenos y maneras de ser de la materia. Se atreven incluso a extenderla a los dioses y dicen, en fin, del mismo Dios que es como un modo de la materia. Conceden un cuerpo a la materia y la consideran corno un cuerpo sin cualidades, pero admiten para ella la magnitud.

Los otros dicen que la materia carece de cuerpo, aunque, de entre éstos, unos afirman que existen dos clases de materia: una, como subyacente a los cuerpos y de la cual ya hablaban los primeros; otra, anterior a ésta y que, en lo inteligible, es el substrato de las formas y de las esencias incorpóreas.

I. La Matière est un sujet ¹ et un réceptacle de formes (ὑποκείμόν ἐστι καὶ ὑποδοχὴ εἰδῶν) : telle est l’assertion commune de tous les auteurs qui ont traité de la Matière, et qui sont arrivés à se faire une idée de cette nature d’être ; mais là s’arrête l’accord. Quant à savoir quelle est cette substance (ὑποκείμενη φύσις) ²; quelles essences elle reçoit et comment elle les reçoit, ce sont là des questions sur lesquelles les opinions diffèrent.

Les uns ³, n’admettant pas d’autres êtres que les corps, ne reconnaissant pas d’autre essence que celle que les corps contiennent, prétendent qu’il n’y a qu’une seule espèce de matière, qu’elle sert de sujet aux éléments, qu’elle est l’essence même ; que toutes les autres choses ne sont que des passions (πάθη) de la matière, que la matière modifiée (ὕλη πως ἔχουσα) : tels sont les éléments (στοιχεῖα). Les parti sans de cette doctrine n’hésitent pas à introduire cette matière dans l’essence des dieux mêmes, en sorte que leur Dieu suprême n’est que la matière modifiée ⁴. En outre, ils font de la matière un corps, et disent qu’elle est un corps sans qualité (ἄποιον σῶμα) ; ils lui attribuent aussi la grandeur (μέγεθος) ⁵.

D’autres ⁶ admettent que la matière est incorporelle. Quelques-uns de ces derniers en distinguent de deux espèces : l’une est la substance des corps, cette substance dont parlent les premiers [les Stoïciens] ; l’autre, d’une nature supérieure, est le sujet des formes et des essences incorporelles.

[b]MATTER AS SUBSTRATE AND RESIDENCE OF FORMS.[/b]

1. Matter is a substrate (or subject) underlying nature, as thought Aristotle, and a residence for forms. Thus much is agreed upon by all authors who have studied matter, and who have succeeded in forming a clear idea of this kind of nature; but further than this, there is no agreement. Opinions differ as to whether matter is an underlying nature (as thought Aristotle), as to its receptivity, and to what it is receptive.

THE STOIC CONCEPTION OF MATTER.

(The Stoics, who condensed Aristotle’s categories to four, substrate, qualityynode and relation), who admit the existence of nothing else than bodies, acknowledge no existence other than that contained by bodies. They insist that there is but one kind of matter, which serves as substrate to the elements, and that it constitutes “being”; that all other things are only affections (“passions”) of mattter, or modified matter: as are the elements. The teachers of this doctrine do not hesitate to introduce this matter into the (very nature of the) divinities, so that their supreme divinity is no more than modified matter. Besides, of matter they make a body, calling it a “quantityless body,” still attributing to it magnitude.

MATTER ACCORDING TO THE PYTHAGOREANS, PLATONISTS AND ARISTOTELIANS.

Others (Pythagoreans, Platonists and Aristotelians) insist that matter is incorporeal. Some even distinguish two kinds of matter, first, the (Stoic) substrate of bodies, mentioned above; the other matter being of a superior nature, the substrate of forms and incorporeal beings.

1. By common agreement of all that have arrived at the conception of such a Kind, what is known as Matter is understood to be a certain base, a recipient of Form-Ideas. Thus far all go the same way. But departure begins with the attempt to establish what this basic Kind is in itself, and how it is a recipient and of what.

To a certain school, body-forms exclusively are the Real Beings; existence is limited to bodies; there is one only Matter, the stuff underlying the primal-constituents of the Universe: existence is nothing but this Matter: everything is some modification of this; the elements of the Universe are simply this Matter in a certain condition.

The school has even the audacity to foist Matter upon the divine beings so that, finally, God himself becomes a mode of Matter – and this though they make it corporeal, describing it as a body void of quality, but a magnitude.

Another school makes it incorporeal: among these, not all hold the theory of one only Matter; some of them while they maintain the one Matter, in which the first school believes, the foundation of bodily forms, admit another, a prior, existing in the divine-sphere, the base of the Ideas there and of the unembodied Beings.

I. All those who have spoken concerning what is called matter, and who have arrived at a conception of its nature, unanimously assert, that it is a certain subject and receptacle of forms. They dissent, however, from each other, in investigating what this subject nature is; and after what manner, and of what things, it is a recipient. And those, indeed, who alone admit bodies to be beings, and who contend that essence is in these, say, that there is one matter, which is spread under the elements, and that it is essence; but that all other things are, as it were, the passions of matter, and are matter subsisting in a certain way, and thus also are the elements. They, likewise, dare to extend matter as far as to the Gods. And, lastly, they make even the highest1 God to be this matter, subsisting in a certain way. They, likewise, give a body to matter, calling it, body void of quality; and attribute to it magnitude. But others say, that matter is incorporeal; and some of these do not admit that there is only this one matter, but assert that this is the subject of bodies, and that there is another matter prior to this in intelligibles, which is spread under the forms that are there, and under incorporeal essences.