Míguez
39. Si no guarda distancia ni diferencia consigo mismo, ¿quién sino él mismo tendrá esta intuición? Es por ello por lo que (Platón) descubre la alteridad allí donde se da la inteligencia y la esencia. Porque la Inteligencia, en cuanto piensa, debe hacer aparecer siempre lo mismo y lo otro 1 . No hay otra diferencia entre la inteligencia y lo inteligible que la que proviene de la apariencia de lo inteligible, pues es claro que, de otro modo, la Inteligencia no contemplaría todas las cosas; no las contemplaría si no se diese la alteridad en todas las cosas. Sin esta diferencia, incluso no podría hablarse de la existencia de dos cosas. Por otra parte, si la Inteligencia piensa, no podrá pensarse únicamente a sí misma si su pensamiento es general. Porque, ¿cómo pensaría entonces todas las cosas? Lógicamente, sería incapaz de ello. Además, no podríamos considerar como un ser simple el que sólo se piensa a sí mismo; pues es indudable que el pensarse a sí mismo implica el establecer la alteridad. Ya decíamos, en efecto, que no hay pensamiento de sí mismo si no se quiere contemplarse como alteridad. Y es así como la Inteligencia, al pensarse, se hace múltiple, esto es, viene a ser algo inteligible, pensante y en movimiento. Tiene ya, pues, todos los caracteres que se asignan a la Inteligencia. Por otra parte, conviene hacer notar, como se ha dicho en otra ocasión, que cada pensamiento, si realmente es un pensamiento, ha de poseer una cierta diversidad. De un movimiento que es siempre simple e idéntico hasta el punto de que puede decirse que es un contacto, no cabe afirmar el carácter intelectual.
¿Pues qué, entonces? ¿No se conocerá a sí mismo, ni conocerá igualmente a las otras cosas? Permanecerá inmóvil con todo su carácter venerable. Todas las demás cosas vendrán después que él y él, a su vez, ya era lo que era con anterioridad a ellas. Su pensamiento será, por tanto, algo adquirido y no conservará identidad consigo mismo. No se refiere a algo inmóvil y de ahí su multiplicidad. Porque no puede admitirse que unos seres posteriores a la Inteligencia posean a ésta y a la sustancia, si admitimos a la vez que los pensamientos de la Inteligencia son sólo contemplaciones vacías de realidad. En cuanto a la providencia le basta este carácter de ser idéntico, del cual derivan todas las demás cosas. ¿Qué relación guarda este ser consigo mismo si no se piensa a sí mismo? Seguirá inmóvil con ese carácter venerable.
Platón decía de la esencia que es ella precisamente la que piensa y la que no permanece inmóvil y venerable. Es, pues, la esencia el ser pensante, en tanto lo que no piensa permanece inmóvil con su carácter venerable. Y cuando decimos que permanece inmóvil afirmamos realmente algo que no se puede traducir en palabras de cualquier otro modo. Pensamos, por tanto, que lo que está por encima del pensamiento tiene una realidad más venerable que la del pensamiento, e incluso la única venerable.
Bouillet
XXXIX. Il résulte de là que le Bien ne se pense lui-même ni en tant que bien, ni sous aucun autre rapport : car il ne possède rien de différent de lui-même. Il a seulement une intuition simple de lui-même par rapport à lui-même (ἁπλῆ τίς ἐπιβολὴ αὑτῷ πρὸς αὑτόν] ; mais comme il n’y a aucune distance, aucune différence dans cette intuition qu’il a de lui-même, que peut-être cette intuition sinon Lui ?
Voilà pourquoi il n’y a proprement différence que là où il y a Essence et Intelligence. Pour penser, l’Intelligence doit admettre à la Ibis identité et différence (142). En effet, elle ne peut ni se distinguer de l’intelligible en le considérant comme différent d’elle, ni contempler toutes choses, s’il n’y a pas en elle une différence en vertu de laquelle elle est toutes les essences; sans cela, elle ne serait pas même dyade. Ensuite, puisque l’Intelligence pense, elle ne doit pas se penser elle seule, si elle pense réellement. Pourquoi en effet ne penserait-elle pas toutes choses? Serait-ce par impuissance? En un mot, le principe qui se pense cesse d’être simple, parce qu’en se pensant il doit se penser comme quelque chose de différent; c’est la condition nécessaire pour se penser soi-même (143). Nous avons dit que l’Intelligence ne peut se penser sans se contempler comme quelque chose de différent. Or, en se pensant, elle devient multiple, elle devient objet intelligible et sujet intelligent, mouvement (144) et toutes les choses qui sont le partage de l’Intelligence. En outre, il faut remarquer, comme nous l’avons fait ailleurs, que toute pensée, pour être pensée, doit offrir une variété (145); mais [en Dieu] ce mouvement simple et identique, qu’on peut comparer à une espèce de tact (οἷον ἐπαφή), n’a rien d’un acte intellectuel [il ne faut donc pas attribuer à Dieu la pensée]. — Quoi! Dieu ne connaîtra ni les autres ni lui-même, et il demeurera immobile dans sa majesté? — [Oui, sans doute.] Toutes choses sont après lui ; il était ce qu’il est avant elles. La pensée de ces choses est adventice, n’est pas toujours la même, ne s’applique pas à des objets permanents; et, s’appliquât-elle à des objets permanents, elle serait encore multiple : car on ne saurait admettre que dans les êtres inférieurs la pensée fût jointe à l’essence, tandis que les pensées de l’Intelligence ne seraient que des notions vides. Pour l’existence de la Providence, il suffit que Dieu soit celui dont procèdent tous les êtres. Quant aux êtres qui se rapportent à lui, comment Dieu pourrait-il les penser, puisqu’il ne se pense pas lui-même, qu’il demeure immobile dans sa majesté? C’est pourquoi Platon dit, en parlant de l’Essence, qu’elle pense, mais qu’elle ne demeure pas immobile dans sa majesté (146). Il veut faire entendre par là que l’Essence pense, sans doute, mais que ce qui ne pense pas demeure immobile dans sa majesté, expression qu’il emploie dans l’impossibilité où il est de rendre autrement sa conception. Ainsi Platon regarde comme possédant plus de majesté, comme possédant la majesté souveraine, le principe qui est supérieur à la pensée.
Guthrie
THE GOOD IS A SIMPLE PERCEPTION OF ITSELF; A TOUCH.
39. Consequently, the Good does not think itself either as good, nor as anything else; for it possesses nothing different from itself. It only has “a simple perception of itself in respect to itself”; but as there is no distance or difference in this perception it has of itself, what could this perception be but itself? That is why it perceives a difference where being and intelligence appear. In order to think, intelligence must admit identity and difference simultaneously. On the one hand, without the relation between the Intelligible and itself, the (mind) will not distinguish itself from (the intelligible); and on the other, without the arising of an “otherness” which would enable it to be everything, it would not contemplate all (earthly) entities. (Without this difference), intelligence would not even be a “pair.” Then, since intelligence thinks, if it think really, it will not think itself alone, for why should it not think all things? (Would it not do so) because it was impotent to do so? In short, the principle which thinks itself ceases to be simple, because in thinking itself it must think itself as something different, which is the necessary condition of thinking itself. We have already said that intelligence cannot think itself without contemplating itself as something different. Now in thinking, intelligence becomes manifold (that is, fourfold): intelligible object (thing thought) and intelligent subject (thinker); movement (or, moved), and everything else that belongs to intelligence. Besides, it must be noticed, as we have pointed out elsewhere, that, to be thought, any thought, must offer variety; but (in the divinity) this movement is so simple and identical that it may be compared to some sort of touch, and partakes in nothing of intellectual actualization (therefore, thought cannot be attributed to the divinity). What? Will (the divinity) know neither others nor Himself, and will He remain immovable in His majesty? (Surely). All things are posterior to Him; He was what He is before them. The thought of these things is adventitious, changeable, and does not apply to permanent objects. Even if it did apply to permanent objects, it would still be multiple, for we could not grant that in inferior beings thought was joined to being, while the thoughts of intelligence would be empty notions. The existence of Providence is sufficiently accounted for by its being that from which proceed all (beings). How then (in regard to all the beings that refer to Him) could (the divinity) think them, since He does not even think Himself, but remains immovable in His majesty? That is why Plato, speaking of “being,” says that it doubtless thinks, but that it does not remain immovable in its majesty. By that he means that, no doubt, “being” thinks, but that that which does not think remains immovable in its majesty; using this expression for lack of a better one. Thus Plato considers the Principle which is superior to thought as possessing more majesty, nay, sovereign majesty.
MacKenna
39. Since the Supreme has no interval, no self-differentiation what can have this intuitional approach to it but itself? Therefore it quite naturally assumes difference at the point where Intellectual-Principle and Being are differentiated.
Intellect, to act at all, must inevitably comport difference with identity; otherwise it could not distinguish itself from its object by standing apart from it, nor could it ever be aware of the realm of things whose existence demands otherness, nor could there be so much as a duality.
Again, if the Supreme is to have intellection it cannot know only itself; that would not be intellection, for, if it did know itself, nothing could prevent it knowing all things; but this is impossible. With self-intellection it would no longer be simplex; any intellection, even in the Supreme, must be aware of something distinct; as we have been saying, the inability to see the self as external is the negation of intellection. That act requires a manifold-agent, object, movement and all the other conditions of a thinking principle. Further we must remember what has been indicated elsewhere that, since every intellectual act in order to be what it must be requires variety, every movement simple and the same throughout, though it may comport some form of contact, is devoid of the intellective.
It follows that the Supreme will know neither itself nor anything else but will hold an august repose. All the rest is later; before them all, This was what This was; any awareness of that other would be acquired, the shifting knowledge of the instable. Even in knowing the stable he would be manifold, for it is not possible that, while in the act of knowing the laters possess themselves of their object, the Supreme should know only in some unpossessing observation.
As regards Providence, that is sufficiently saved by the fact that This is the source from which all proceeds; the dependent he cannot know when he has no knowledge of himself but keeps that august repose. Plato dealing with essential Being allows it intellection but not this august repose: intellection then belongs to Essential Being; this august repose to the Principle in which there is no intellection. Repose, of course, is used here for want of a fitter word; we are to understand that the most august, the truly so, is That which transcends [the movement of] Intellection.