This document discusses Aristotle and Plotinus' differing views on intellect (nous). It notes that Plotinus subordinates Aristotle's metaphysics and categories to Plato's, positioning Aristotle below Plato. This is seen in Plotinus' account of the divine nous. The document also mentions that Plotinus critiques Aristotle's view of separate and autonomous Forms and Numbers. It states the problem is the attempt to harmonize Plato and Aristotle within Neoplatonism often results in subordinating Aristotle to Plato.

1. Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect

3. Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect
Monism and Dualism Revisited
Mark J. Nyvlt
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Nyvlt, Mark J., 1969–
Aristotle and Plotinus on the intellect : monism and dualism revisited / Mark J. Nyvlt.
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ISBN 978-0-7391-6775-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-7391-6776-2 (electronic)
1. Plotinus. 2. Aristotle. 3. Intellect. 4. Monism. 5. Dualism. I. Title.
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5. To my children, Hannah and Gabriel,
and
to the loving memory of my father, George

7. vii
Foreword by Klaus Brinkmann ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Part I
Chapter 1 Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine:
The One and the Indefinite Dyad 11
Chapter 2 Aristotle and Speusippus 39
Chapter 3 Aristotelian Henology 57
Chapter 4 The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 73
Chapter 5 The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and
Priority of nou:V: Metaphysics L 7, De Anima
III.4–5, and Metaphysics L 9 97
Part II
Chapter 6 The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 131
Chapter 7 Plotinus on Phantasia: Phantasia as the Home
of Self-Consciousness within the Soul 165
Chapter 8 Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 187
Contents

8. viii Contents
Chapter 9 Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V: An Appropriation
and Critique of Aristotle’s Noetic Doctrine 215
Conclusion 233
Bibliography 241
Index 259
About the Author 263

9. ix
Mark Nyvlt’s book Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect: Monism and Dualism
Revisited is a remarkable study that doesn’t fall into the usual categories of schol-
arly publications. Hence, a foreword may offer some useful orientation to the
reader. As we might expect from a scholarly contribution, Nyvlt has submitted
a work of expert textual exegesis. But already the scope of the primary sources
discussed is unusual, ranging from key Platonic dialogues and their Pythagorean
motives to Aristotle’s doctrine of nous and his reports about (and criticism of)
Plato’s unwritten doctrine in the Metaphysics, to Speusippus’s theory of the One
(as presented by Iamblichus), the noetic doctrines of Alcinous and Alexander of
Aphrodisias, to Plotinus’s metaphysics in the Enneads. Nor does the argument
of the book unfold in a merely chronological progression. It is comparative in
nature, taking its bearings from two fundamental systematic problems to do with
the explanatory structure of these theories themselves and their foundational
principles. As the subtitle of the book indicates, the focus of Nyvlt’s study is the
problem of a satisfactory combination of a monistic principle or archē with the
derivation of a pluralistic ontology in one coherent metaphysical system. Plural-
ism seems to require a dualistic principle at the very least, whose derivation from
a strictly monistic principle seems, however, a hopeless undertaking. This is, of
course, the time-honored problem of the One and the Many that presents any
systematic thinker with serious difficulties. In this situation, perhaps the most
remarkable feature of Nyvlt’s study, and the aspect in which it differs mark-
edly from standard scholarly analyses, is its creative approach. Nyvlt not only
compares and contrasts the various formulations of the internal structure of the
Foreword
Klaus Brinkmann

10. highest principle and its connection with the Many from Plato to Plotinus, but
he also critiques, reinterprets, and recombines them so as to arrive at his own
original solution to this foundational problem.
The challenges of deriving all of being from a monistic archē are already ad-
umbrated in Plato’s Idea of the Good, itself a response to the Parmenidean One
that in negating all multiplicity is tautologically identical with itself and thus an
ultimate ground without a grounded. The Good is supposed to function both
as principle of intelligibility and as a real ontological ground giving rise to and
sustaining all beings and all life. As ground of all being, however, the principle
must be “beyond being” (epekeina tēs ousias) and thus beyond determinability,
a fact that seems to threaten its intelligibility. Moreover, in transcending be-
ing, the Good’s causal role with regard to finite reality becomes problematic.
Aristotle therefore tries to address both these concerns by making the very
paradigm of intelligibility itself (i.e., divine nous) the highest principle and by
attributing to it at least final causality. As Nyvlt argues, however, he also creates
a discontinuity between divine nous (which remains eternally self-enclosed in
self-contemplation) and the rest of the cosmos—nous hovers at the periphery of
the first heaven, as Aristotle tells us in the Physics. And there are other problems
with Aristotle’s thinking on thinking. If the object of this thinking is the pure act
of thinking itself, it seems to lose all content and to become a vacuous, perhaps
even a paradoxical, thinking about nothing. This problem seems initially to be
averted by Aristotle’s admission in Metaph. XII 9 that there is always a formal
difference between the act of thinking and its object, a difference that need not,
however, amount to a material difference as long as the object can exist self-
sufficiently without any matter. In the case of the divine nous, to maintain a
formal distinction within nous that is no “real” distinction seems to preserve both
the intelligibility and the immanence of this highest substance that is purely es-
sence. Let us assume that the object of this thinking could be called the concept of
self-contemplation, whereas the divine noēsis is the act of self-contemplation. Act
and object would then be different in form but the same in content, and a tau-
tological identity or a thinking about nothing would thereby have been avoided.
If, however, we accept Plotinus’s critique of Aristotle’s divine nous, the self-
reflective structure of noēsis noēseōs, in harboring at least a formal distinction,
thereby also includes potentiality, thus making this thinking less than divine
and unsuitable to function as an absolutely first principle. This is where Nyvlt
disagrees, and he may well be correct. The way I see it, since the concept of
divine noēsis consists in its being thought, and being thought eternally without
interruption, there is no transition into or out of potentiality here ever. The
concept never becomes either a mere abstraction or opposed to another concept
that would limit it. It is always and continuously enacted, realized through the
x Foreword

11. activity of self-contemplation. While there is a distinction within noēsis noēseōs,
there is no gap between act and concept, and so no potentiality. Nor is the divine
noēsis an empty thinking about nothing. We have thus successfully identified a
suitable first principle that does not contain dualism within itself, and yet we
have avoided the problem of the unintelligibility of this principle, a problem that
the Plotinian One cannot escape, since it is explicitly not only beyond being but
also beyond reason.
What is really remarkable about Nyvlt’s book is the fact that in his view the
matter concerning the highest principle cannot end here. Two more conditions
would have to be fulfilled by the first principle of everything, if it is to be fully
explanatory and a truly grounding principle rather than merely the summit
in the order of beings. To be the first substance (or the “primary essence,” as
Aristotle puts it once in Metaph. XII 8) is not enough, even if this substance
is a non-vacuous pure activity. We would also want the principle on which the
heaven and the earth depend to contain the intelligible forms of all beings. For
if the content of the divine noēsis consists of the concept of self-contemplation
alone, what do beings that are not self-contemplative, or only partially so, derive
their intelligibility from? And furthermore, if the divine noēsis remains forever
self-enclosed, how can it assume a genuine causal role vis-à-vis the cosmos? Must
not a first principle also be shown to be able to generate what depends on it? To
be sure, the general is not the same as his army, but is a general without an army
that he actively leads and commands truly a general?
It seems, then, that in addition to a minimalist concept of the divine noēsis
as self-contemplation, we need a richer content for this thinking on thinking,
a multiplicity of forms to function as paradeigmata of the finite beings. (As
an additional bonus of these considerations, we can now also appreciate the
real urgency of Aristotle’s question in Metaph. VII and VIII as to whether the
essence of materiate forms really does or does not contain a reference to their
matter: if it doesn’t, then all Aristotelian eidē may be no different from Platonic
ideai.) As objects of divine noēsis, these forms will still be without matter, thus
not introducing potentiality into the first principle. Here, Nyvlt takes his lead
from Alcinous and Alexander rather than the Plotinian intellect and follows
Alexander in attributing efficient causality to this highest principle in addition
to its final causality. Multiplicity of the content of noēsis does not prevent the
divine nous from remaining simple, he argues, because we are dealing with a
multiplicity-in-unity. Once again, the need for a Plotinian One beyond being
and reason falls away and the causal efficacy of the highest ground lets it be a
ground with a grounded.
Whether all these requirements for a highest explanatory principle that caps
a monistic account of being as a whole can be fulfilled in one coherent concep-
Foreword xi

12. tion the reader will have to decide for him- or herself. Nyvlt’s study shows us the
magnitude of the challenge we are up against in tackling these most fundamental
of fundamental issues, as it also contributes creatively toward their resolution.
Nyvlt’s book grew out of the dissertation he submitted as a PhD student in
philosophy at Boston University. To my deep regret, the co-mentor of the thesis,
John Cleary, professor of philosophy at Boston College and the National Uni-
versity of Ireland, Maynooth, is no longer among us to witness the publication
of a work that owes a lot to his care, insight, and support.
June 2011, Bonn, Germany
xii Foreword

13. xiii
The completion of this book is due to the involvement of many hands. My first
acknowledgment is to Jim Lowry and Francis K. Peddle, who opened my mind
to the ubiquitous activity of speculative philosophy. The result was a philosophi-
cal friendship (cf., Plato’s Theaetetus, 146A) that has since propelled me into
many new philosophical horizons.
I am deeply indebted to Klaus Brinkmann and John Cleary for their steady
guidance, intellectual honesty, and serious scholarship, all of which have inspired
me. John’s untimely death meant the loss of an excellent scholar, dear friend, and
colleague. As always, I am grateful to my colleagues at the Dominican Univer-
sity College for their speculative intellects, vivified philosophical conversations,
and unfailing intellectual support in this project; to Fr. Michel Gourgues, O.P.,
for awarding me with the Saint-Albert-Le-Grand fund, which financed part of
the production of this book; to Yves Bouchard and Gabor Csepregi, who never
ceased to encourage me in its publication; to Janina Muller, my research assistant
and a very promising researcher, who helped me considerably to develop my bib-
liography; to David Roochnik and Rémi Brague for their invaluable comments
on an earlier version of the book; to the anonymous reader for his or her very in-
sightful comments, which helped refine my argument; to my many friends, too
many to mention here, who have always provided me with support throughout
the writing process; to the editors of Ancient Philosophy (“Plotinus on Phanta-
sia: Phantasia as the Home of Self-Consciousness within the Soul,” in Ancient
Philosophy 29 [2009]: 139–56) and the Journal of Classical Studies Matica Srpska
(“Plotinus on the Generation of the Intellect: The Transformation of the Inher-
Acknowledgments

14. ited Platonic and Aristotelian Two Principles Doctrine,” Journal of Classical Stud-
ies Matica Srpska 12 [2010]: 101–19) for their permission to reprint my articles
in chapters 6 and 7 of this book; to Princeton University Press for the permission
to cite Aristotle from The Complete Works of Aristotle; and to Jana Hodges-Kluck,
associate editor of ancient philosophy and classics at Lexington, for her patience
and steady communication with me throughout the editing process.
Special gratitude is owed to my family in Ottawa, Montréal, and the Czech
Republic. To my mother, Josette; my brother, Carl; my sister, Monica, and her
husband, Ariel—thank you for your constant support. The death of my father,
George, prevented him from seeing the publication of this book, but he is to
be acknowledged as having provided me with the positive attitude and force
to complete this project. With equal gratitude, I would also like to thank my
children, Hannah and Gabriel. I dedicate this book to my children and to the
loving memory of my father.
xiv Acknowledgments

15. 1
If its intellectum were something extraneous to it, [this intellectum] would be
nobler and more excellent [than the Intellect]. For it would be the cause of
Intellect’s intellecting. . . . Everything that exists in consequence of [having]
something other than itself as its cause is inferior to the thing that is posited
as being its cause. Thus the intellect would be in potentia. . . . We shall say
that He intellects the things that are of the utmost excellence. If He were to
intellect inferior things, He would derive His nobility from inferior things.
This [conclusion] must be avoided.
Themistius, in CAG 5.4
The Problem
The attempt to harmonize Plato and Aristotle within the school of Neopla-
tonism has all too often resulted in the subordination of Aristotle’s metaphysics
and categories to Plato’s. The reason given for such subordination is clear: Aris-
totle concerns himself with the natural, physical world and its causes, while Plato
deals with the divine world. Consequently, there can be no overlapping of their
respective set of categories of each sphere. Plotinus has given Plato’s metaphysical
system precedence over Aristotle’s, and the subsequent generations of Neopla-
tonists have generally followed this positioning of Aristotle below Plato.1 This
reading of Aristotle and Plato is, naturally, manifest in all of Plotinus’s work, but
it is most noticeable in his account of the status and nature of the divine nou:V
(intellect).
Introduction

16. A corollary to this account of nou:V is a critique of Aristotle’s account of
the separate and autonomous nature of Forms and Numbers. In the Meta-
physics, Aristotle opposes the Neopythagorean and Platonic doctrine of the
separability of Forms and Numbers from their material counterparts, a doc-
trine allegedly expressed in Plato’s lecture, On the Good, and developed by
Speusippus. It is my conviction that within Aristotle’s criticism of Platonism,
one can see, in germ, what Aristotle’s response would be to Plotinus and the
subsequent Neoplatonists, should he have had the opportunity of confront-
ing Plotinus. I wish to argue that Aristotle’s noetic doctrine provides an ade-
quate response to Plotinus’s philosophical move of subordinating nou:V to the
One. I wish to take as my starting point Aristotle’s criticism of the Platonists
and then proceed to examine the doctrine of actuality and potentiality, to
demonstrate the Plotinian justification for such a subordination, and to pro-
vide an Aristotelian response to such a philosophical move. While I adhere
to the Aristotelian position of the supremacy of nou:V, I wish, however, to
emphasize the Neoplatonic originality of introducing into the first principle
not only final causality, as is the case with the Aristotelian presentation of
nou:V, but also efficient causality. Plotinus’s account of the inner “qualities”
of the One can enrich the Aristotelian concept of nou:V, regarded here as the
first principle. Moreover, I wish to acknowledge Plotinus’s astute recognition
of a formal duality within Aristotle’s divine nou:V, as object of itself and as
thinking subject.
In order to elucidate Plotinus’s originality, it will be imperative to illustrate
the difference between Plotinus, on the one hand, and Plato and Aristotle, on
the other: Plotinus’s project is, in part, to overcome the cwrismovV (separation)
between the first principle and the multiplicity of the cosmos; his monistic
system attempts to overcome the intrinsic duality in Plato’s and Aristotle’s cos-
mologies. According to Plato, the Forms remain absolutely separate from their
sensible counterparts, and according to Aristotle, the divine nou:V is separate
from the material world. Plotinus, however, attempts to unify the diversity into
a totality. The One, by exercising an efficient causal role, unifies by governing all
that is other than itself, by functioning as the ajrchv and the tevloV of a multiple
world. Whereas Plato and Aristotle maintain a strict duality between Forms and
matter and divine nou:V and the material world, respectively, Plotinus wishes to
harmonize the diversity into one system. The One is the efficient and final cause
of the cosmos, and is, therefore, the causal agent responsible for this harmony.
Whereas Plotinus preserves a duality and transcendence between the One and
the multiplicity, he asserts that the One “influences” the multiplicity via the
logos. Thus, in this way, the minimal chorismoi are overcome and the unity-in-
diversity is preserved.
2 Introduction

17. Structure
This book contains two parts and nine chapters, each of which highlights a
specific theme related to the Aristotelian and Plotinian doctrines of nou:V. Each
chapter may be summarized in the following way.
In part I, the first chapter attempts to demonstrate the Pythagorean and
Platonic two-principles doctrine and Aristotle’s presentation and philosophical
reaction to this tradition. Chapter 2 exposes part of this philosophical reaction,
which is perceived in his analysis of Speusippus’s doctrine of the One, of which
we know very little apart from Aristotle’s testimony, and of Iamblichus’s De
communi mathematica scientia, chap. 4. More specifically, in chapter 1, I first
examine the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, the Limited and Unlimited, and
the two-principles doctrine of the One and the Indefinite Dyad for the purposes
of providing the conceptual background against which Plato develops his two-
principles doctrine, the Great and the Small and the esoteric teachings of the
Ideal Numbers, which we read about in Aristotle’s writings and which is echoed
in other testimonies. The final section of this chapter consists of Aristotle’s
analysis and harsh criticism of Speusippus’s doctrine of the One. Throughout
this section, I have accepted Philip Merlan’s original thesis that Iamblichus’s
De communi mathematica scientia, chap. 4, is an excerpt of Speusippus’s writ-
ings and, as a result, should be read in light of Aristotle’s remarks. We soon see
certain discrepancies between Aristotle’s account and Speusippus’s doctrines.
Nonetheless, we equally see Aristotle’s response to a Neoplatonic metaphysics,
which specifically consists of subordinating the Aristotelian divine nou:V to the
One and, moreover, of asserting that because divine nou:V is plural, it must con-
tain potentiality and cannot be simple. I will argue that in Aristotle’s response to
Speusippus, whether he is accurate or not, we can detect a rationalist and intu-
itionist position that is aware of the possibilities of proposing a principle above
and prior to nou:V. Aristotle, as we see in chapter 3, did not accept this position
and argued vigorously against it.
Chapter 2 concludes with a discussion of Aristotle’s interpretation of Speusip-
pus, with the intention of determining the exact teaching, if possible, of Speusip-
pus and of demonstrating Aristotle’s recognition of theories that argue for the
subordination of divine nou:V to an ultimate principle. One reason why Aristotle
cannot accept either Speusippus’s model of the cosmos or a Plotinus-like model
is that neither of these models provides an adequate reason for the derivation of
multiple levels of being. As for the exact teaching of Speusippus, we must exam-
ine Iamblichus’s De communi mathematica scientia, chap. 4, in order to account
for what could possibly be the correct status of the Speusippean One. We know
from Aristotle that Speusippus’s first principle, the One, is not a being (i.e., is not
Introduction 3

18. an individual substance), but it is unclear whether this principle is above Being
or is inferior to Being. Clearly, Aristotle argues that it is comparable to a seed
and is inferior to its final product. As a result, it is not deemed worthy of being a
first principle; for, Aristotle asks, how can form and actuality derive from a first
principle that is no greater than a pure potentiality? This section explores Aristo-
tle’s analysis and critical judgment of the Speusippean One and draws out from
his response a conjecture about Plotinus’s doctrine of the One prior to nou:V.
In chapter 3, I emphasize Aristotle’s henology and noetic doctrine, with the
purpose of demonstrating that Aristotle accepts a multiplicity of intelligibles
within nou:V and that this multiplicity does not compromise in any way the
very integrity of the simplicity of nou:V. I first present Aristotle’s doctrine of the
“one,” considered first as a reaction to Plato’s account of the One. Aristotle, sub-
sequently, presents the “one” not as a transcendent and univocal substance, but
rather as a pros hen equivocal, which cannot be considered as a transcendent and
universal substance (see Met. D and I). The subsequent section highlights Aris-
totle’s alternative solution to Plato’s two-principles doctrine, as we read in Meta-
physics L 4–5. Aristotle, in lieu of Plato’s principles, proposes three analogous
principles of sensible substances: form, privation, and matter. Like the many
senses of the “one,” Aristotle asserts that these principles are not homogeneous,
but can be applied universally to all sensible substances. These principles are,
however, applied differently to separate substances, which are depicted as purely
simple and actual substances. Aristotle’s discussion of this realm of the cosmos
provides an effective transition into his account of the simplicity of divine nou:V
and its nature as a final cause.
Prior to the discussion of Aristotle’s doctrine of nou:V, however, I provide, in
chapter 4, a middle section that highlights the complexity of Aristotle’s usage of
duvnamiV, ejnevrgeia, and ejntelevceia in order to appreciate the concepts em-
ployed by Aristotle in his account of nou:V. In chapter 5, I examine closely Aristo-
tle’s doctrine of the absolute simplicity and priority of nou:V as presented in Meta-
physics L 7 and 9, and De Anima III. 4–5. The most salient theme that I wish
to emphasize in this section is that divine nou:V is not a composite substance, in
spite of its possession of multiple intelligible objects. To admit of a composition
within nou:V would be to admit of a degree of potentiality, thereby demoting
nou:V to a status subordinate to an ultimate and simpler principle. In my analysis,
I have accepted Jackson’s and Merlan’s positions, along with the general tenets of
the immanentist tradition, regarding the multiple intelligibles that function as
the content of divine nou:V. This doctrine influenced not only Alcinous but also
Alexander of Aphrodisias, from whom Plotinus received and refined his doctrine
of nou:V, according to his doctrine “That the Intelligibles are Not Outside the
Intellect” (see Enn. V.5). However, I have argued, contrary to the immanentist
4 Introduction

19. school, that divine nou:V exercises, according to Aristotle, only final causality
and not efficient causality. Nevertheless, I submit, divine nou:V knows the formal
structure of the world, but without it being infected with potentiality, for divine
nou:V is fundamentally separate and distinct from the world. Plotinus introduces
efficient causality into the first principle through the mediation of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, both of whose doctrines will be discussed in chapter 8. Plotinus,
however, does so at the cost of the ultimate position of divine nou:V; divine nou:V
becomes the second rank in this new monistic metaphysics.
In part II, chapter 6, I discuss the Plotinian derivation of nou:V from the One,
considered as a monistic system. Whereas Plato and Aristotle have asserted a
dualistic principle as their starting point, Plotinus proposes a monistic starting
point, thereby asserting the One above Being, Life, and nou:V. This chapter es-
sentially discusses the reasons why Plotinus is compelled to assert a single causal
principle in lieu of the Platonic two-principles doctrine, and how these lower
levels of being are derived from the One.
More specifically, I discuss one of the most controversial passages in Plotinus’s
account of the derivation of nou:V, as seen in Enneads V.4[7].2, V.1[10].6–7.
Multiplicity entails the radical Otherness between the One and the multiplicity
of the cosmic hierarchical system. The Dyad is characteristic of an infinite desire,
and this desire or longing is rooted in nou:V. These passages reveal that nou:V is
derived from the One through a conversion of the One toward itself. The result
is the derivation of the Indefinite Dyad and of inchoate nou:V, thereby transform-
ing the two-principles doctrine of Plato and Aristotle and affirming his strict mo-
nistic framework of the cosmos, which, according to Plotinus, is an attempt to
overcome the “gap” between the Aristotelian first principle, divine nou:V, and the
world. However, although Plotinus makes a fundamental distinction between
the One and the first effluence from the One, he also depicts the One as a final
and efficient causality—a causal role that can successfully overcome the separa-
tion or gap between the first principle and its effects. Therefore, Plotinus’s meta-
physics can confidently be called minimally dualistic, unlike Aristotle’s strict and
firm duality. The emanation of the first effluence of the One establishes a causal
continuity of the first principle and its effects.
This fluid continuity of causality from the One to its first effluence is illus-
trated in the derivation and generation of the Indefinite Dyad, which Plotinus
has interpreted as intelligible matter—the intelligible substrate that cooperates
in the production and generation of inchoate nou:V and the multiple intelligibles
within nou:V. I demonstrate in chapter 7, moreover, that intelligible matter shares
many similar characteristics with Imagination and, more specifically, with the
higher Imagination. Both intelligible matter and Imagination are ambiguous and
lack definition. As a result, the ambiguity of Imagination further allows us to
Introduction 5

20. make a better comparison between it and inchoate nou:V, which is also ambigu-
ous, for it is not yet formed, and its indefinite and potential nature keeps “it”
out of the reach of scientific inquiry.
Moreover, the separation of nou:V from the One is a result of the tovlma,
which allows for the first effluence to assert itself and its unique activity, thereby
daring to assert itself and to affirm its identity-in-difference (i.e., the unity of
the multiple intelligibles within nou:V). The doctrine of the tovlma clearly indi-
cates a tension within the nature of nou:V. One sees the Plotinian-Aristotelian
tension here: on the one hand, nou:V wishes to remain self-sufficient, but, on the
other, it is dependent upon the One for its activity and even for its impetus to
affirm itself. The Indefinite Dyad is essential for Plotinus, if this transition from
simplicity to multiplicity, from the One to nou:V, is to occur successfully. This
tension within the nou:V is symptomatic of its self-assertion over and against the
One. This procession of nou:V from the One is for Plotinus a spurious activity
of self-assertion, radically rupturing itself from the One, with the intent of fully
actualizing itself independently of the One. The Plotinian doctrine of the tovlma,
moreover, appears to be a transformation of the Neopythagorean doctrine of
the Indefinite Dyad, emerging and separating itself from the monad. It will be
stressed, however, that the dyad is not multiplicity itself, but the very condition
of multiplicity (see Enn. V.4.2).
Chapters 8 and 9, finally, discuss Plotinus’s transformation of the Aristotelian
and Alexandrian noetic doctrines. Plotinus will propose his own noetic doctrine,
which consists of a duality (formal and material) and multiplicity within nou:V. I
also discuss Plotinus’s philosophical justification for asserting such a composition
within nou:V. Prior to this discussion, which is located in chapter 9, however, I
first consider the two philosophers who had a great impact on Plotinus’s transfor-
mation of the nature of nou:V: namely, Alcinous and Alexander of Aphrodisias, a
topic covered in chapter 8. In the first section, I concentrate on Alcinous’s theory
of nou:V, which attempts to synthesize Plato’s and Aristotle’s metaphysics into a
unified noetic doctrine. In the course of this presentation, I also highlight for
the reader the conundrum around Alcinous’s statement of an Intellect superior to
the cosmic nou:V. For Alcinous’s proposal of a superior Intellect clearly influenced
Plotinus to propose a principle—namely, the One—above and prior to nou:V.
According to Alcinous, the Aristotelian doctrine of the intelligibles or the mul-
tiple content within divine nou:V plays a fundamental role in the development of
first principles of the cosmos, as seen in the second section, in our discussion of
Alexander of Aphrodisias.
Alexander of Aphrodisias, like Aristotle, proposes the doctrine that the ulti-
mate principle of the cosmos is the productive nou:V in its absolute simplicity. By
introducing efficient causality into the first principle, Alexander seems to have
6 Introduction

21. developed the Aristotelian doctrine of the intelligibles within the productive
nou:V, which orders and participates within the cosmos, in which, moreover, we
find the material nou:V, which is raised to the level of nou:V in habitu through the
participation and causal influence of the productive nou:V.
Following this discussion, I discuss the nature of the productive nou:V as it is
compared to the metaphor of light, according to Alexander. I concentrate on this
analogy for the purpose of demonstrating a common trait between Alcinous and
Alexander—namely, that nou:V is superior to all other principles and is purely
actual and simple, even if the content within nou:V is multiple—a general accep-
tance of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine in Met. L 7 and 9. The nature of this mul-
tiplicity with nou:V, however, is challenged by Plotinus, as I show in chapter 9.
In chapter 9, I wish to show that Plotinus transforms the nature of nou:V.
The One generates nou:V, due to its dual (formal and material) and multiple
nature. We explore the dynamic within nou:V. I show that, on the one hand,
Plotinus agrees with Alexander that the intelligibles are within nou:V, but, on the
other, Plotinus disagrees with Alexander about the absolute simplicity of nou:V.
According to Plotinus, nou:V is derived from the One—that is, it is subordinate
to the One, because its content is really distinct and multiple, thereby render-
ing it potential. Thus, nou:V must contain a degree of potentiality within it, for,
once again, the intelligibles are really distinct from one another, and, moreover,
the intelligibles define and actualize nou:V. Prior to the definition of nou:V, nou:V
remains purely potential with respect to its intelligibility. Therefore, although
the intelligibles operate within nou:V, they are independent of nou:V, and this in-
dependence introduces “otherness” within nou:V. As a result, Plotinus can reject
the Aristotelian and Alexandrian claims for the simplicity of nou:V and of the
identity of the intelligible content of nou:V and of nou:V proper. Therefore, nou:V
is subordinate to a superior principle—namely, the One—because the novhsiV of
nou:V is ajovristoV and is determined by the intelligible objects which it receives.
Moreover, it is argued that Plotinus subordinates nou:V to the One not only be-
cause of the multiplicity of content found in nou:V, but also because of its formal
duality, as object of itself and as a thinking subject.
My conclusion recapitulates much of the content of the book but also em-
phasizes the central theme that Aristotle was aware of the philosophical attempt
to subordinate divine nou:V to a prior and absolute principle. I have argued that
Aristotle transforms the Platonic doctrine of Ideal Numbers into an astronomi-
cal account of the unmoved movers, which function as the multiple intelligible
content of divine nou:V. Thus, within Aristotle’s philosophy, we have in germ the
Plotinian doctrine that the intelligibles are within nou:V. While the content of
divine nou:V is multiple, it does not imply that divine nou:V possesses a degree of
potentiality, given that potentiality entails otherness and contraries. Rather, the
Introduction 7

22. very content of divine nou:V is itself; it is novhsiV nohvsewV novhsiV. The pure
activity of divine nou:V, moreover, allows for divine nou:V to know the world, and
the acquisition of this knowledge does not infect divine nou:V with potentiality.
The status of the intelligible object(s) within divine nou:V is pure activity that is
identical with divine nou:V itself, as Th. De Koninck and H. Seidl have argued.
Therefore, the intelligible objects within divine nou:V are not separate entities
that determine divine nou:V, as is the case in Plotinus. Based on his argument in
Met. L 9, I wish to argue that Aristotle succeeds in demonstrating that divine
nou:V is a unity-and-plurality within the cosmos, but that this does not admit
of any potentiality within its being, thereby stamping divine nou:V with the title
of the ultimate principle of the cosmos. The ultimate principle, then, must be
purely active and simple and, given Aristotle’s argument, must be nou:V. As I wish
to show, this conclusion is best developed and expressed by Alexander of Aphro-
disias, who has identified the productive nou:V of Aristotle’s De Anima with the
unmoved Mover of Met. L 7–9. We see in Alexander the limitation of Aristotle’s
own noetic doctrine, that it lacks efficient causality, which Alexander provides in
order to complete the Aristotelian project of preserving the unity-and-diversity
within the cosmos.
Note
1. This can be seen in Syrianus’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and in Pro-
clus’s Elements of Theology and Commentary on the Parmenides.
8 Introduction

23. P a r t I

25. 11
Introduction
The question of the One and the Indefinite Dyad is intimately related to the
twin theme of monism and dualism. In this chapter, I will essentially concentrate
on Aristotle’s interpretation of the (allegedly) Platonic teaching of this two-
principles doctrine. In order to proceed in this analysis, I will discuss the con-
troversy surrounding Aristotle’s credibility as a witness and authentic source of
Plato’s philosophy. This discussion will inevitably lead us in the direction of the
debate found within the Academy between Aristotle and the Platonists (notably
Speusippus, whom we shall study in chapter 2). I wish to defend the view that
the philosophical motivation behind this debate about the status of first prin-
ciples revolves around Aristotle’s attempt at explaining the derivation of plurality
from the first principle, whether the first principle be singular or dual in nature.
The dualistic framework of the cosmos, represented by philosophies of the Hel-
lenic age and also the Hellenistic age, especially Neoplatonism, allows for Greek
philosophers to entertain the possibility of a monistic conception of the cosmos,
since these philosophers attempt to preserve unity amid the multiplicity per-
ceived within the cosmos. Each philosopher must answer the question, “What
is the nature of this principle (or these principles) that allows for the multiple
degrees of being to exist within a unified cosmos?” Depending on how this ques-
tion is answered, the philosopher may be inclined toward dualism or monism.
The trajectory from dualism to monism will be the overarching theme and will,
as I hope to show, characterize much of our discussion of the simplicity of nou:V
c h a pte r one
Aristotle on the Platonic
Two-Principles Doctrine
The One and the Indefinite Dyad

26. (intellect) in both Aristotle’s and Plotinus’s philosophical systems. We shall, as
a result, read and interpret Aristotle’s philosophical concepts and doctrines in
light of the backdrop of the debate about the two-principles doctrine within the
Academy in order to equip ourselves with the conceptual tools to study Plotinus’s
reading and critique of Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity of nou:V.
In this chapter, I will discuss Aristotle’s interpretation of the Pythagorean Ta-
ble of Opposites, for this interpretation provides the lens through which Aristotle
discusses Plato’s two-principles doctrine of the One and the Indefinite Dyad.
This doctrine was significantly reformed by Aristotle, as we shall see in chapter 3.
Given that Aristotle highlights salient doctrines that both the Pythagoreans and
Plato share, I will explore Aristotle’s interpretation of the Pythagoreans in order
to configure the medium through which we can perceive Aristotle’s interpreta-
tion of Plato. This will also help in Aristotle’s own metaphysics, which is in part
generated as a reaction to Platonism.
Aristotle and the Pythagoreans
In Metaphysics A 6, 987b14–35, Aristotle highlights the similarities and differ-
ences between the Pythagoreans and Plato with respect to their doctrines of first
principles. The preeminent philosophical problem plaguing the Pythagoreans
and Plato—and Aristotle and Plotinus—is the derivation of multiplicity in the
cosmos. Very little is known about the Pythagorean society, apart from the few
fragments remaining from Philolaus. Most of our knowledge is derived from
Aristotle’s account and his critique of their central doctrines. I wish primarily
to concentrate on the theme of the dual principle doctrine, the Limited and
Unlimited, or the One and the Indefinite Dyad, as it was later called. I am
not concerned with the exact teachings of the Pythagoreans, nor, incidentally,
with Plato, but I wish to concentrate on Aristotle’s presentation of both the
Pythagoreans and Plato. For it will be Aristotle’s interpretation (accurate or not)
that will influence subsequent peripatetics, such as Theophrastus and especially
Alexander of Aphrodisias, and ultimately Plotinus (who can also be called, with
qualification, a Neoaristotelian) in his formulation—or reformulation—of the
key philosophical problems of the nature or status of nou:V.1 What needs to be
discussed first or established is the first-principles doctrine of the Pythagoreans,
for Plato’s general metaphysics of first principles is widely influenced by the
Pythagoreans, with several differences, as Aristotle notes. To begin with, the
analysis of the Pythagoreans is and, with some exception, must be mediated by
Aristotle’s presentation of this society. Plato is in many ways indebted to the Py-
thagoreans, regarding the harmony of the cosmos, mathematics, musical ratios,
and so forth. However, for the purposes of this chapter, I will concentrate solely
12 Chapter 1

27. on the rapport between the Pythagoreans and Plato regarding the first principles,
a relation of which Aristotle spoke on many occasions.
The Pythagoreans and Plato on the Two-Principles Doctrine:
The Aristotelian Interpretation
According to Aristotle, the Pythagoreans attempted to understand the cosmos
numerically (i.e., that the nature of reality consists in numbers). Aristotle says,
“[T]hey supposed the elements of numbers to be the elements of all things,
and the whole heaven to be musical scale [harmonia] and a number” (Met. A
5, 986a2). Numbers play a central role in the cosmos for the Pythagoreans, as
Aristotle reminds us in Met. A 5, 986a16–21. This rich text captures one of the
most salient themes of the Pythagorean philosophy: that the One is both even
and odd and that number is derived from the One, which is a composite of the
even and odd, or, using other terminology, the Limited and the Unlimited.
Aristotle, furthermore, illustrates the Pythagorean Table of Ten Opposites,
which characterizes the One as consisting of two principles2 (see Met. A 5,
986a21–26). The table begins with the limited/unlimited as a representation
of the basic dual nature of the One and the Indefinite Dyad, out of which is
derived number and the whole cosmos. Elsewhere, Aristotle reaffirms the link
between the One and the limited (see Met. N 3, 1091a16–17). The One is
equated with the limited here and imposes itself on the unlimited, such that the
One represents the active principle influencing the opposite principle—namely,
the undifferentiated Dyad—the combination of which results in the production
of number and multiplicity or plurality. Given that the two principles are the
first principles, one can also legitimately assert that the unlimited is limited by
the limited. The result of such cooperation is a harmonious cosmos, in which all
elements and principles are proportionately balanced. Only in this regard can the
Pythagoreans admit of endorsing a monistic doctrine; however, the foundation
of such a cosmos is dualistic, for the two coequal principles produce number
from the One’s influence on the Indefinite Dyad, a production which is a com-
posite of the limited and unlimited.3 “For the universe is composed of limited
[pevraV] and unlimited [a[peiron]” (Fr. 6, Philolaus). From this dual principle,
therefore, results the plurality of beings in the cosmos.
Cornford, however, suggests something different. According to Cornford, the
Table of Opposites entails the priority of the One, regarded as the Monad or
as a principle of Unity, from which plurality is derived. Cornford states that in
“this interpretation of the Monad in the tetractys I have taken the view that the
Monad is prior to, and not a resultant or product of, the two opposite principles,
Odd or Limit, and Even or Unlimited.”4 This view, however, is not the view that
will be upheld in this chapter. Rather, I wish to maintain, along with Aristotle,
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 13

28. that the Pythagoreans, notably Philolaus, advanced a two-principles doctrine,
the Limited and the Unlimited, or the One and the Indefinite Dyad, in order to
explain the harmony of the cosmos.
Aristotle considers the Pythagorean principles of Limited, Unity, and Good-
ness and Unlimited, Plurality, and Badness to be strange principles (see Met. A
8, 989b29). Is it the case that the left-hand column is ontologically prior to the
elements of the right-hand column? The scientific aspect of the Pythagorean
doctrine, I argue, maintains an equal priority of both opposite principles. The
dual first principles—the One and the Dyad—are, moreover, attested by Aë-
tius. There appears to be more evidence to assert, contra Cornford’s claim of a
monistic system, that the original Pythagorean philosophy is dualistic, that it is
expressed best by a two-principles doctrine of the Limited and the Unlimited.
These “strange” principles, as Aristotle calls them, are extended throughout the
cosmos, creating order and intelligibility. Aristotle’s reading of the Pythagoreans,
and the Table of Opposites, represents essentially the scientific strand of the
society, as opposed to the religious one.
I begin my discussion of Plato, therefore, with the assumption that this scien-
tific strand of the Pythagorean society influenced Plato and his advancement of
a two-principles doctrine, which is confirmed by Aristotle’s testimony. Even in
the Academy there was great discussion and disagreement about the derivation
of Forms and Ideal Numbers out of the One and the Indefinite Dyad. Unity
remained the primary principle out of which were derived the Ideal Numbers,
whereas the second principle, the Indefinite Dyad, as Aristotle describes it, or
the Great-and-Small (or the Great and the Small), is the boundless material
upon which the One or the Unity impresses itself in order to create order and
finitude. Unity appears to be identified with the Good, within the Table of
Contraries in the Pythagorean society5 (see Phil. 25e–26b). Plato, to be certain,
does not articulate this in his writings, but according to Aristotle, he held it in
his private teachings within the Academy (see Met. A 6, 988a13–15). However,
in the Philebus, as Cleary points out, Unity is associated with the Pythagorean
principle of Limited (pevraV).6
The second Pythagorean principle of the Unlimited or the Indefinite is what
Plato calls the Great-and-Small in order to discuss the two extremes of indefinite
increase and decrease (see Phys. V 12, 220b27–28). The principle is characterized
differently according to the multiple aspects of Being. The Many and the Few
represent the plastic material that generates the integral numbers, by the limit-
ing activity of Unity (see Met. N 1, 1087b16, 987b34–5); as Long and Short,
referring to lines; as Broad and Narrow, referring to planes; and as Deep and
Shallow, referring to solids7 (see Met. A 9, 992a10–15). According to Findlay,8
each of these pairs, representing the Great and the Small, are not reducible to the
14 Chapter 1

29. sensible realm; rather, they belong to the ideal configurations of arithmetic and
geometry. There is one exception, however: the Great-and-Small, according to
Aristotle, operates within the instantial or sensible realm as cwvra or space (see
Phys. IV 2, 209b11–17), as will be discussed below.
Aristotle’s Reading of Plato: The Controversy Surrounding the Esoteric
Teaching of Plato
The question related to the teachings of Plato on critical matters such as the
two-principles doctrine and the proper status of the Ideas and Numbers is this:
How credible is Aristotle’s testimony about Plato’s teaching when certain philo-
sophical accounts of Plato’s teaching found in Aristotle are not found in Plato’s
dialogues? Depending on how this question is answered, either one can discard
Aristotle’s account as that of an untrustworthy witness and align oneself with
“conventional” Platonists, who claim that all of Plato’s teachings are found in his
dialogues, or one can accept Aristotle’s testimony as credible, leaving little doubt
that Plato had an oral teaching, which is not reflected in his writings—a teaching
to which only Plato’s students and close colleagues were privy.9
It should be noted at the outset that the Platonic elements presented by Ar-
istotle were accepted by Plotinus and were instrumental in developing Plotinus’s
original interpretation of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. In order to appre-
ciate this very rich synthesis of Plato and Aristotle, it is crucial to discuss Aristo-
tle’s presentation of Plato’s philosophy, giving special importance to the doctrine
of the One and the Indefinite Dyad, the One being the active principle that
imposes a limit or defines the opposite and dual principle, the Indefinite Dyad.10
According to Aristotle, Plato, being influenced by the Pythagoreans, pro-
duced a system that includes the pair of opposite principles—namely, the
One and the Indefinite Dyad—and a triple division of being (the intelligible,
mathematicals,11 and physicals or sensibles).12 This reading can be seen in
two passages of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: firstly, in A 6, 987b14–29, which also
highlights the similarities and differences between Plato and the Pythagoreans,
as Aristotle understands them; and secondly, in Z 2, 1028b18–32 (a passage
to be studied later).
It is clear from Met. A 6, 987b14–35 that, according to Aristotle, Plato
developed the doctrine of the Pythagoreans about the One and the Indefinite
Dyad (or the Great-and-Small, as Plato calls it).13 Once again, the One is the
active principle that imposes a limit (pevraV) on the indefiniteness (a[peiron)
of the Dyad or the opposite principle. The Indefinite Dyad is a dual principle,
given that it can be indefinitely large or small—that is, infinitely extensible or
divisible.14 As a result of such a duality, the Indefinite Dyad exercises an influ-
ence over the entire cosmos.15 The Indefinite Dyad is essentially the limitless or
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 15

30. otherness on which the One acts, and it is also the irrational dimension of the
soul and the “material” substrate, as Aristotle labels it, of the physical cosmos,
likening it to the receptacle of the Timaeus.
Deriving from the interaction of the One and Indefinite Dyad are the Ideal
Numbers,16 out of which are then produced the Forms, which, in turn, func-
tion as the cause of all other beings. Aristotle identifies these two principles as
formal and material causes.17 To be more specific, only by limiting and acting
on the Indefinite Dyad can the One generate the order of natural numbers, as
can be see in a rudimentary form in the Parmenides (143a–144a),18 and of Ideal
Numbers.19 There is clearly a Pythagorean influence on Plato’s account of the
generation of Ideal Numbers, which resemble the tetraktys or the primal num-
bers—one, two, three, and four, all amounting to the number ten, the Decad.
The primal numbers appear to be inherent in the One and are actualized on
the occasion of the One’s limiting of the Indefinite Dyad. In Metaphysics N 7,
1081b10 ff., Aristotle accounts (rather obscurely) for the generation and deriva-
tion of these primal numbers by the Dyad producing the number two when it
doubles the One, and then producing the subsequent numbers through the ad-
dition of two to each number or doubling either the One or itself.20 From this
production of the Ideal Numbers through the Indefinite Dyad, Aristotle tells us
that Plato’s unwritten teachings entail the identification of the Ideal Numbers
with the Forms. (Whether this is an accurate or tendentious account of Aristo-
tle’s presentation of Plato’s unwritten teachings is difficult to assess.)
These two principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad, account, therefore,
for the plurality and provide a feasible (Platonic) solution and a feasible solu-
tion to the Parmenidean conundrum that plurality or multiplicity cannot exist
or be derived from the One (i.e., Being). The Indefinite Dyad, to be specific,
accounts for plurality. For it is the very condition for the existence of plurality in
the cosmos.21 Aristotle makes this point in Met. N 1088b29–1089a6 but refers
to the Indefinite Dyad here as nonbeing (mh; o[n).22 According to Aristotle, the In-
definite Dyad, or the Great-and-Small, is identified with the material principle,
thereby identifying the One with the formal principle.23 This identification is
clearly contested by Cherniss,24 who is followed by Tarán, whose thought will be
examined below. Several passages either allude to or make explicit reference to
Plato’s unwritten teaching or private lectures.
The first text is De Anima 404b8–30,25 and the second, and undoubtedly the
most controversial, passage fueling this debate is found in Phys. IV 209b11–20:
This is why Plato in the Timaeus says that matter (u{lh) and space (cwvra) are
the same; for the “participant” and space are identical. (It is true, indeed, that
the account he gives there of the “participant” is different from what he says in
16 Chapter 1

31. his so-called unwritten teaching. Nevertheless, he did identify place and space.)
I mention Plato because, while all hold place to be something, he alone tried to
say what it is. In view of the facts we should naturally expect to find difficulty in
determining what place is, if indeed it is one of these two things, matter or form.
They demand a very close scrutiny, especially as it is not easy to recognize them
apart. (Phys. IV, 209b11–20, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye)
Cherniss claims with confidence that Aristotle’s interpretation can be controlled
by juxtaposing Aristotle’s account here with that of the Timaeus itself. This inter-
pretation contains three flaws, which discredits Aristotle’s testimony, according to
Cherniss. First, Aristotle identifies space (in the Timaeus) with position (one of Ar-
istotle’s categories); second, the “participant” in question is said to be identical with
Aristotle’s own “material principle”; and third, he confidently asserts that Plato
has said that matter and space are identical.26 These are sufficient grounds, argues
Cherniss, to reject Aristotle’s testimony as unreliable, for nowhere in the Timaeus
does Plato write any of these three claims. As a result, Aristotle’s reference to the
unwritten teachings of Plato must also be considered to be fallacious.27
C. J. de Vogel, however, rightly refutes Cherniss. She acknowledges that Plato
does not say exactly in the dialogues that matter and space are identical. The ejn-
decovmenon (Tim. 48e–49a) or cwvra is described as “the space in which all things
are formed.”28 Nevertheless, there are similarities between the cwvra and Aris-
totle’s material principle. Space (cwvra), as matter, is immutable, and is a “pre-
existing something, which has, by the very fact of its perfect indetermination, a
vague and shadowy existence.”29 This point of view is corroborated by Findlay.30
Thus, it is clear that in the Timaeus dialogue, Plato does not write that the
cwvra is identical with matter, in the way that Aristotle interprets the cwvra in
light of his own conception of u{lh. The resemblances are clear, however: both
have a permanent character to them. Cherniss’s claim is that the Forms are in-
stantiated in and through space, but space itself is not matter; it shares rather the
indefinite characteristic of matter.
It is reasonable to sympathize with Aristotle’s interpretation, for in the Ti-
maeus, the cwvra is presented with a vague and evanescent existence, which is
only “apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning (logismw:/ tini novqw/) by
the aid of non-sensation” (Tim. 52b), and which is said to be identical with mh;
o[n, or rather the Great and the Small, is identified with nonbeing (see Phys. I.9,
192a6–8, which will be discussed below). The cwvra resembles mh; o[n, but not,
of course, in the sense given in the Sophist. In this dialogue, mh; o[n is e{teron
(otherness), which, in turn, is an Idea. However, e{teron in the Timaeus, mak-
ing up one of the aspects of the world-soul (see Timaeus 35a–b), is later in the
dialogue—in the “creation” account of the material or physical world—not to
be regarded as a Form31 (see Tim. 48e).
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 17

32. A second attempt to control Aristotle’s account draws our attention to the
passage found in Phys. I, 192a6–8: “They, on the other hand, identify their Great
and Small alike with what is not being (mh; o[n), and that whether they are taken
together as one or separately.” The mh; o[n is not to be interpreted as absolute
nonbeing. Aristotle states here that Plato identifies the Great-and-Small with
mh; o[n. This interpretation is contested by some. Plato did not intend mh; o[n to
mean absolute nonbeing; rather, he attributes to it a positive significance, char-
acterizing it as e{teron32 (see Soph. 257b–259b). In Physics I, 192a6–8, therefore,
Aristotle identifies the Great and the Small with nonbeing, and, moreover, he
states, in response to Parmenides, that the material principle “was conceived and
explains the absolute genesis of things from nonbeing” (Phys. I, 191b35–192a1).
The reference to Parmenides in this passage attests to Aristotle’s claim that Plato
identifies the Great-and-Small with mh; o[n, an identification said to be made in
the Metaphysics (1088b35–1089a6), where Aristotle argues that the Platonists
were led astray in their pursuit for the ultimate principles of the cosmos by the
mistaken manner in which they framed the problem.33 The reference here is to
the Sophist 237a:
Stranger: The audacity of the statement lies in its implication that “what is not”
has being, for in no other way could a falsehood come to have being. But, my
young friend, when we were of your age the great Parmenides from beginning
to end testified against this, constantly telling us what he also says in his poem,
“Never shall this be proved—that things that are not are, but do thou, in their
inquiry, hold back thy thought from this way.” (Soph. 237a)
Yet, to ensure that there is no misunderstanding, Plato emphatically asserts
that nonbeing does not stand in opposition to Being. Rather, nonbeing is to
be regarded as e{teron34 (see Soph. 257b–259b). Thus, according to Cherniss,
Aristotle has (perhaps intentionally) misunderstood this passage in the Soph-
ist by defining nonbeing as absolute nonbeing, “a notion which Plato expressly
dismisses as meaningless.”35 Again, the controversy surrounds Aristotle’s claim
that the Great-and-Small is identified with the nonbeing (see Soph. 258c and
259a–b). Space, then, and its (alleged) identification with the Great-and-Small
does not make contact with the sensible objects that emerge into being alongside
it. Space is not a Form, nor does it approximate the Forms.36
According to Cherniss, however, this Aristotelian account of Plato is simply
(and grossly) inaccurate, since Aristotle’s account admits of contradictions in
his interpretation of the key points in the dialogues—namely, on the doctrines
of mh; o[n (Sophist), the participant (Timaeus), and the infinite (Philebus).37 If it
were possible to control Aristotle’s account on these key points, then this would
allow for the possibility of controlling his interpretation of the so-called Ideal
18 Chapter 1

33. Numbers and would show that here his claims are inconsistent with one another
and do not reflect any teaching of Plato found in the dialogues. Thus, according
to Cherniss, Aristotle’s (mis)interpretation is motivated by his polemical method.
It is evident, according to Cherniss, that the participant of the Timaeus and the
nonbeing of the Sophist are not identical, and because Aristotle “identifies them
both with ‘the great and small,’ we are in duty bound to suspect the truth of his
general statement in the Metaphysics that this same principle was at once the
substrate of phenomena and of the Ideas.”38 Even Simplicius39 recognizes the
impossibility of Aristotle’s statement that the Great and the Small is identical
with the so-called material principle of the Timaeus.
J. Stenzel, fully aware of Simplicius’s work, however, attempts to save Aristotle
from the accusation of misunderstanding Plato’s teachings.40 Stenzel rightly at-
tempts to systematize Aristotle’s comments about Plato’s oral teachings and the
date we have from the dialogues.41 Stenzel argues that the Indefinite Dyad of the
Great-and-Small is not to be understood as being identified with the cwvra in
the Timaeus, but rather, it is to be regarded as the universal extension, through
which the participant of the Timaeus and “otherness” of the Sophist operate.42
Stenzel, therefore, is suspicious of Simplicius’s report regarding Aristotle’s testi-
mony; Simplicius, it would appear, did not fully grasp the wider implications of
Aristotle’s testimony.43
Returning to Metaphysics N, 1088b29–1089a6, the Platonic emphasis is on
the intermediary status of mathematicals, with the Forms influencing the sen-
sible counterparts. While, on the one hand, mathematicals share the common
feature of the Forms in being immutable, they are, on the other hand, also
akin to the sensibles in that they are plural or multiple.44 If, then, the Forms
were identical with Numbers, they would have to be different in nature from
the mathematical numbers. The concept of the Ideal Number may insinuate
this difference, as is seen in Aristotle’s Metaphysics M 9, 1086a4–5: “For those
who make the objects of mathematics alone exist apart from sensible things,
seeing the difficulty about the Forms and their fictitiousness, abandoned ideal
number and posited mathematical.”45 One unique feature of the Ideal Num-
bers is that each one is individual and unique and is not constituted of unities.
As a result, the Ideal Numbers are “qualitative rather than quantitative and
therefore inaddible.”46
Trendelenburg’s work on the Ideal Numbers of Plato47 initiated the guiding
question of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Platonic scholarship: Are all of
Plato’s teachings contained in his dialogues? At several passages in his corpus,
Aristotle makes reference to the doctrine of the Ideal Numbers and attributes this
doctrine to Plato. There is not a word written in the Platonic dialogues about
this doctrine. This “inconsistency” has caused Trendelenburg and other classical
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 19

34. scholars to infer a Platonic oral teaching, to which Aristotle, as a member of the
Academy, had access and was privy.48
In addition to this discrepancy between the written word of Plato and Aris-
totle’s presentation about Platonism, we are informed by the author of Ep. VII
(allegedly Plato) that Plato expresses a certain disdain—specifically in the case of
these subjects—for the writing of books. Moreover, Plato discredits all reports
by others on this doctrine.
One statement at any rate I can make in regard to all who have written or
who may write with a claim to knowledge of the subjects to which I devote
myself—no matter how they pretend to have acquired it, whether from my
instruction or from others or by their own discovery. Such writers can in my
opinion have no real acquaintance with the subject. I certainly have composed
no work in regard to it, nor shall I ever do so in future, for there is no way of
putting it in words like other studies. Acquaintance with it must come rather
after a long period of attendance on instruction in the subject itself and of
close companionship, when, suddenly, like a blaze kindled by a leaping spark,
it is generated in the soul and at once becomes self-sustaining.49 (Epistle VII,
341c–d, trans. B. Jowett)
Epistle II, 314c, is a parallel passage to this: “I have never written anything about
these things (peri; w|n ejgw; spoudavxw), and why there is not and will not be
any written work of Plato’s own. What are now called his are the work of a
Socrates embellished and modernized”50 (Epistle II, 314c). Finally, we read in
the Phaedrus 274e–275b an echo of Plato’s suspicion of the effectiveness of the
written word, as King Thamous responds to the Egyptian Theuth regarding the
art of writing:
This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learner’s souls, because they
will not use their memories; they will trust to external written characters and not
remember of themselves. The specifics which you have discovered is an aid not
to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only
the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned
nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the
reality. (Phaedrus 274e–275b, trans. B. Jowett)
If this is an accurate portrayal of Plato’s views about the general function of the
activity of writing, then the authority of the dialogues, as an expression of Plato’s
teachings, is clearly undermined and the credibility of Aristotle’s testimony of
Plato’s teachings is fortified.51
This position, taken by J. Burnet, J. Stenzel, L. Robin, E. Frank, and de Vo-
gel, is reinforced most recently by J. Findlay, K. Gaiser, H.-J. Krämer, T. Szlezák,
20 Chapter 1

35. and J. Dillon. In a lengthy but significant passage that generated an entire tradi-
tion of Platonists of the unwritten doctrines, J. Burnet asserts that Plato
did not choose to commit it [sc. Plato’s central doctrine] to writing, and we are
almost entirely dependent on what Aristotle tells us. . . . One thing, at any rate,
seems clear: Aristotle knows of but one Platonic philosophy, that which identified
the forms with numbers. He never indicates that this system had taken the place of
an earlier Platonism in which the forms were not identified with numbers, or that
he knew of any change or modification introduced into his philosophy by Plato
in his old age. That is only a modern speculation. Aristotle had been a member of
the Academy for the last twenty years of Plato’s life, and nothing of the kind could
have taken place without his knowledge. We may be sure too that, if he had known
of any such change, he would have told us. It is not his way to cover up what he
regards as inconsistencies in his master’s teaching. If the “theory of Numbers” had
been no more than a senile aberration (which appears to be the current view), that
is just the sort of thing Aristotle would have delighted to point out. As it is, his
evidence shows that Plato held this theory from his sixtieth year at least, and prob-
ably earlier. It is certain, then, that Plato identified forms and numbers; but, when
we ask what he meant by this, we get into difficulties at once.52
These difficulties were to produce a radical schism between interpreters of
ancient philosophy, as was seen in the twentieth century. Burnet had few im-
mediate followers, but Stenzel and Robin can be counted as the few who did
find Burnet’s thesis compelling. They wished to attach a greater importance to
Aristotle’s testimonial account of Plato’s teaching, rather than portraying the
Plato of the dialogues alone. Aristotle’s testimony was to complement what was
presented in writing by Plato, in spite of some discrepancies.
This thesis, as can be expected, faced serious opposition by Teichmüller, and
later by P. Shorey, C. Ritter, and H. Cherniss, and most recently by Tarán, as seen
below with regard to the Aristotelian presentation of the identification of the
cwvra with his conception of the material principle. This school asserts unequiv-
ocally that Plato’s true and only teaching is found in his writing, repudiating any
account by Aristotle that Plato had a secret or oral teaching. As a result, Aristo-
tle’s testimony about Plato’s teaching of Ideal Numbers is to be considered utterly
worthless and merely a symptom or expression of his polemical methodology.53
P. Shorey is an even more severe critic of Aristotle. Not only does he discard
Aristotle’s testimony, but he also asserts that Aristotle’s Metaphysics is confusing
and, thus, hardly contains a coherent account of Aristotle’s own philosophy. In his
review of Stenzel’s Zahl und Gestalt, Shorey writes the following: “We do not re-
ally know what Aristotle’s testimony is. The Metaphysics, as it stands, is a hopeless
muddle.”54 H. Cherniss, though aligning himself with Shorey and this tradition,
is a little more sympathetic to Aristotle’s Metaphysics than Shorey; however, he still
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 21

36. regards it as containing grave misinterpretations of Plato’s teachings. Cherniss’s
central claim is that Aristotle, by his polemical method, misinterprets Plato and
criticizes him for a doctrine that Plato never expressed in his writings. As an
advocate of “true Platonism,” Cherniss assumes the responsibility of controlling
Aristotle’s interpretation of Plato; Cherniss hopes to demonstrate the misguided
direction of the various Greek scholars who place their great confidence in Aristo-
tle’s testimony about an unwritten teaching of Plato within the Academy regarding
the prior status of Ideal Numbers before the Forms. Cherniss’s book The Riddle of
the Early Academy is a fierce attack on and “rejection” of Aristotle’s testimony and
of scholars sympathetic with Aristotle’s interpretation.
The thesis that there is an oral teaching of the theory of Ideal Numbers is
said to be found in the Philebus, a thesis which Cherniss firmly denies.55 In the
Philebus, Plato affirms four classes: the limited, the unlimited or infinite, the
mixture of the two, and the cause of the mixture56 (see Phil. 23c–27c). Aristotle
says in Met. A 6, 987b25–27 that the Great-and-Small is equivalent to the un-
limited or infinite. A parallel passage is also found in Phys. I 6, 189b8–16:
All, however, agree in this, that they differentiate their One by means of the
contraries, such as density and rarity and more and less, which may of course be
generalized, as has already been said, into excess and defect. Indeed this doctrine
too (that the One and excess and defect are the principles of things) would appear
to be of old standing, though in different forms; for the early thinkers made the
two the active and the one the passive principle, whereas some of the more recent
maintain the reverse. (Phys. I 6, 189b8–16, trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye)
This passage is not primarily about Plato. However, its reference to the physicists
who argued that the ajrchv is to be reduced to one element echoes in part the
Platonic line of thought, according to Aristotle.57
Modern scholars,58 who wish to give credibility to Aristotle’s testimony, claim
to have identified this Aristotelian account in the Philebus, where pevraV is iden-
tified with the One (the formal principle, according to Met. A 6) and a[peiron
with the material principle, the Great and the Small. Once again, Cherniss
dismisses this account, for a[peiron in the Philebus does not signify the material
principle, but rather the multiplicity of phenomena, and the One (pevraV) “is
any given Idea, the Ideas being called monads, and being described as eternally
immutable and unmixed.”59 The third class in this dialogue—namely, the mix-
ture of the two—signifies that pevraV and a[peiron are identified with the Ideas,
which is an utterly misconstrued interpretation, according to Cherniss. Finally,
Cherniss states that there is not one mention of the identification of Ideas and
Numbers in the Philebus, and as a result, Aristotle’s account must be rejected and
branded as a false and inaccurate (and gross) misinterpretation.
22 Chapter 1

37. Cherniss comments about the alleged isomorphism between the limited with
the pevraV:
If this classification in the Philebus corresponds to the theory of principles as
Aristotle reports it, however, the class of the limit must be identifiable with “the
One” and the class of the mixture with the ideas; unfortunately for all attempts to
maintain the correspondence, the class of the mixture in the dialogue is distinctly
and unequivocally equated with the objects and events of the phenomenal world,
the things that are in process of becoming and never really are (Phil. 27a11–12
(also 59a), while the ideas are called “monads” (Phil. 15a–b) and are described as
“eternally immutable and unmixed” (Phil. 59c). Here, then, the classes of the limit
and the unlimited are not ultimate principles from which the ideas are derived,
and no identification of ideas and numbers is involved in this classification, just
as no such theory is implied by Plato’s admonition to observe the exact number
between the unlimited and the One.60 (see Phil. 16d–e)
With this last claim regarding the Philebus, scholars cite this passage as a
reference to the doctrine of the Ideal Numbers.61 However, Cherniss replies that
here, too, “the unlimited” is not a principle of the ideas but the phenomenal mul-
tiplicity, “the One” is any given idea, and the number referred to is not an idea but
just the number of specific ideas which there may be between any more general
idea and the unlimited multiplicity of particulars which reflect or imitate any one
idea in the sensible world.62
This is but one attempt to control Aristotle—to obviate the problem by asserting
that Aristotle fabricated such a doctrine of Ideal Numbers in order to later reject
and discard the Plato of the dialogues.
However, the subsequent testimonies to Aristotle’s presentation of the doctrine
of Ideal Numbers by Hermodorus, Sextus Empiricus, Theophrastus, and Alexan-
der of Aphrodisias confirm that Aristotle’s testimony is legitimate and is to be taken
as a credible source of Plato’s philosophy. In the Republic, 509d–511e, Plato, as
reported by Aristotle in the Metaphysics A 6, 987b14–18, locates the mathematical
objects as alleged intermediates between the Forms and the sensibles, but in this
same passage Aristotle furthermore highlights Plato’s theory of first principles, the
One and the Indefinite Dyad, which are contextualized within the doctrine of
Ideal Numbers. This is confirmed in Hermodorus, the alleged Pythagorean source
of Sextus, Math. X, 363 ff. and in Theophrastus’s Metaphysics 6 B 11–14:
Now Plato in reducing things to the ruling principles might seem to be treating of
the other things in linking them up with the Ideas, and these with the numbers,
and in proceeding from the numbers to the ruling principles, and then, following
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 23

38. the order of generation, down as far as the things we have named; but the others
treat of the ruling principles only.
In this passage, Theophrastus reiterates the Aristotelian testimony of Plato’s
teaching of the priority of Ideal Numbers over the Forms.63 At the summit of
this hierarchical order, Plato positioned the One and the Indefinite Dyad, the
two polar extremes of this hierarchical cosmos, in which are situated the Forms,
the mathematicals, and the sensibles, in descending order. What is most contro-
versial, however, is the status of Ideal Numbers vis-à-vis the Forms. The Ideal
Numbers are not identified with Mathematical objects; they are prior to them.
And while there is a link between the Ideal Numbers and the Forms, they are not
identical, either, nor can each Form be reduced to a particular Ideal Number.64
Aristotle’s passage and other testimonies (i.e., those of Hermodorus and Theo-
phrastus) confirm that the Ideal Numbers may precede the Forms within the
cosmological structure of polar principles, the One and the Indefinite Dyad.65
These themes, as we will see, dominate Neoplatonism and will have direct im-
plications for our continued remarks of Plotinus’s reading and transformation of
Aristotle’s doctrine of nou:V.
Other Sources Supporting Aristotle’s Presentation: Hermodorus,
Sextus, and Alexander of Aphrodisias
Hermodorus of Syracuse (who was a student of Plato) testifies in his book about
Plato (a testimony that is independent of Aristotle’s) to the unwritten teachings
of Plato. A fragment of this book in question was passed down to Simplicius
(Phys. 247[30]–24[15]) from Porphyry, and to Porphyry from Dercyllides (a
middle Platonist). Simplicius prefaces this fragment in which Hermodorus’s
writings are cited:
As Aristotle often mentions that Plato called matter the great-and-small, the
people must know that Porphyry communicates that Dercyllides in the eleventh
book of his “Philosophy of Plato,” where he speaks about matter, cites a passage
of Hermodorus, the disciple of Plato’s, from which it appears that Plato admitted
matter in the sense of the infinite and indeterminate, and that he showed with this
that it belongs to things which admit of a more and less, to which belongs also the
great and small. (Trans. de Vogel)
The fragment of Hermodorus runs as follows:
Plato states that of the things that are (ta onta), some are said to be absolute (kath’
hauta), such as “man” or “horse,” others alio-relative (kath’ hetera), and of these,
some have relation to opposites (enantia), as for instance “good” and “bad,” others
to correlatives (pros ti); and of these, some to definite correlatives, others to indefi-
24 Chapter 1

39. nite ones . . . and those things which are described as being “great” as opposed to
“small” are all characterized by more and less; for it is possible to be greater and
smaller to infinity; and in like manner what is broader and narrower, and heavier
and lighter, and all that can be described in similar terms, will extend to infinity.
Those things, on the other hand, which are described as “equal” and “stable” and
“harmonious” are not characterized by more and less, whereas the opposites to
these have this character. For it is possible for something to be more unequal than
something else unequal, and more mobile than something else mobile, and more
unharmonious than something else unharmonious, so that, in the case of each of
these pairs, all except the unitary element (in the middle) possess moreness and
lessness. So (hoste) such an entity [sc. any given pair of such opposites] may be
described as unstable and shapeless and unbounded and non-existent, by virtue
of negation of existence. Such a thing should not be credited with any originat-
ing principle (arkhē) or essence (ousia), but should be left suspended in a kind of
indistinctness (akristia); for he shows that even as the creative principle (to poioun)
is the cause (aition) in the strict and distinctive sense, so it is also a first principle
(arkhē). Matter (hylē), on the other hand, is not a principle. And this is why it is
said by Plato and his followers (hoi peri Platōna) that there is only a single first
principle.66 (Trans. J. Dillon)
With this text, we are referred to Phil. 24c, where a[peiron is defined as “that
which has a more and less in itself.” Hermodorus, therefore, appears to identify
a[peiron with the Great-and-Small, which Aristotle identifies with the mate-
rial principle. The Great and the Small did, in fact, fall under the subclass of
a[peiron—that is, it remains one characteristic or aspect of a[peiron, as it is
predominantly called by Plato.67 If Plato did identify a[peiron with the Great-
and-Small, then he intended to apply the term to the entirety of the infinite and
indefinite aspect of the cosmos.68 Hermodorus’s testimony is, therefore, a clear
and independent (of Aristotle’s) account of the unwritten doctrines of Plato and
of the identification of a[peiron with the Great-and-Small or matter.69
Cherniss, however, argues that Hermodorus’s testimony about Plato’s doctrine
is only an inference. In the last sentence, beginning with w{ste, the inference is
drawn that, apart from the first principle, “which is equal and unchangeable,”
everything else is unequal, unstable, formless, infinite, and nonbeing, “because
being is denied of it.” According to Cherniss, this claim contradicts Plato’s doc-
trine of nonbeing, considered as Otherness (e{teron) and not absolute nonbeing,
as seen in the Sophist.70 Consequently, continues Cherniss, Hermodorus’s testi-
mony is suspect and cannot be accepted as proof of Plato’s doctrine of a material
substrate.71
The passage in question is Metaphysics M 7, 1081a14: “But if the Ideas are
not numbers, neither can they exist at all. For from what principles will the
Ideas come? It is number that comes from the One and the indefinite dyad, and
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 25

40. the principles or elements are said to be principles and elements of numbers,
and the Ideas cannot be ranked as either prior or posterior to the numbers.”72
It is possible, as Cherniss argues, that Hermodorus is not the author of the
passage cited by Simplicius, but does this disapproval warrant Cherniss’s con-
clusion that the One and the Indefinite Dyad is not a Platonic teaching? The
passage indicates that the two ultimate principles, the One and the Indefinite
Dyad, are derived from the initial triple classification of being, and that this
derivation is a Platonic teaching, whether the passage quoted was written by
Hermodorus or not.
Nevertheless, this testimony of the triple classification of being is confirmed
to be that of Hermodorus by Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. X, 4, ¶¶248–82.73
In this text by Sextus, one perceives the same triple division of being as seen in
Hermodorus. The first group entails things that are conceived absolutely and
that are given enough independence such that they can subsist by themselves,
such as man, horse, plant, and so on; for each of these is regarded absolutely and
not in respect of its relation to something else. The second group entails “those
[things] which are regarded in respect of their contrariety one to another, such
as good and evil, just and unjust, advantageous and disadvantageous, holy and
unholy, pious and impious, in motion and at rest, and all other things similar to
these” (¶264). Finally, the third group entails the things conceived as standing
in relation to something else, such as right and left, above and below, double
and half, such as correlatives (see ¶265). Sextus continues to explain that each
class contains a genus. “Above the first class ‘the sons of the Pythagoreans pos-
tulated the one (see ¶270), above the second the equal and unequal . . . (¶271),
above the third they put excess and defect” (¶273). The last one reminds one of
ma:llon kai; h|tton of the Philebus and in the fragment of Hermodorus. All this
finally reduces to two principles in Hermodorus, and now also in Sextus, who
answers in the affirmative the question of whether these genera can be reduced
to others. For, “equality (ijsovthV) is brought under the One (for the One first
of all is equal to itself), and inequality (ajnisovthV) is seen in excess and defect
(uJperoch; kai; e[lleiyisV), things of which the one exceeds and the other is
exceeded being unequal.” Sextus continues, “But both excess and defect are
ranked under the head of the Infinite Dyad, since in fact the primary excess and
defect is in two things, that which exceeds and that which is exceeded. Thus as
the highest principles of all things there have emerged the primary One and the
Indefinite Dyad” (¶275).
With these passages by Sextus Empiricus, we once again revisit one of the
leitmotifs of this book, that of monism and dualism. The discussion in question
here is whether Sextus is presenting a monistic or dualistic paradigm in 248–84.
At 261–62, Sextus tells us that the Indefinite Dyad is generated by the One,
26 Chapter 1

41. leaving aside the One itself to be the sole ajrchv. This is clearly a presentation of
a monistic doctrine. At 276, however, no mention of the derivation of the Indefi-
nite Dyad from the One is made. The ambiguity in 248–84 leads us to consider
two conclusions: that we are to assume either that Sextus is drawing on a single
source when representing the Pythagoreans or Plato and that at 276, the omis-
sion of the Indefinite Dyad as an offspring of the One is due to his assumption
that this theme, from 261–62, need not be reiterated (for the whole reflection
consists of one unit); or that in 263–76, Sextus is presenting a dualistic doctrine
but failed to recognize the discrepancy between the dualistic doctrine in 261–62
and the monistic doctrine in 276.74
Sextus gathers this information and relates it to the Pythagorean doctrine. Yet,
when compared with Aristotle’s testimony in Met. A 6, 987b18–27, in addition
to Hermodorus’s account of what is said in the Philebus, it becomes clear that
this is not a Pythagorean teaching, but rather a Platonic one.75 As mentioned
above, Aristotle emphasizes the similarities and dissimilarities between Plato and
the Pythagoreans.76 They are similar in that both the Pythagoreans and Plato
accepted the One as the ultimate principle, and not as an accident or a property
of another principle, and also that Numbers were the causes of the beings. As
for the dissimilarities, Aristotle highlights three. First, whereas the Pythagoreans
advance a single a[peiron, Plato accepts the dyad of the Great-and-Small. In this
light, if a[peiron, in the sense of the Philebus (i.e., as something admitting of
more or less, etc.), is characterized as an Indefinite Dyad, then we can perceive a
Platonic, and not a Pythagorean, teaching.
In response to Ross’s comment (in Metaphysics II, p. 434), Cherniss counter-
argues by asserting that “there is no mention of this phrase [sc. “the evidence of
Hermodorus” for ascribing to Plato “the indefinite dyad”] in the fragment,”77
which, when literally taken, is confirmed by the lack of such wording in the
dialogues. In general, however, Cherniss’s claim is proven to be questionable.
De Vogel writes, very compellingly, that if Hermodorus finally puts the $En as
the one principle opposite to all that admits of the more and the less, and if in
this last qualification we find back Plato’s own description of what he calls (in
the Philebus) the apeiron, which contains, according to Robin’s right expression,
“all that oscillates between two extremes,” then, without any doubt, we must
acknowledge that by these words a description is given of that principle which,
according to the testimony of Aristotle and his commentator Alexander of Aph-
rodisias, was called by Plato also the ajovristoV duavV.78
This passage by Sextus and the fragment of Hermodorus are treated again by
Wilpert. Wilpert compares the text of Sextus, where the three groups are reduced
to the two highest principles, with the short compendium that is given by Alex-
ander of Aphrodisias, in Metaph, 56 [13–21]:
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 27

42. Again, thinking he was proving that the equal and the unequal are the principles
of all things, both of those that exist independently and their opposites (for he
tried to reduce all things to these as their simplest elements), Plato assigned the
equal to the unit and the unequal to excess and defect; for inequality involves two
things, a great and a small, which are respectively excessive and defective. For this
reason, he also called it the “indefinite dyad,” because neither of the two, neither
that which exceeds nor that which is exceeded, is, of itself, limited, but indefinite
and unlimited. But he said that when the indefinite dyad has been limited by the
One, it becomes the numerical dyad; for this kind of dyad is one in form.79
Wilpert, moreover, concludes that the account of Sextus and Alexander “ap-
parently must be traced back to the same source: Aristotle’s account of Plato’s
lecture peri; tajgaqou:.” Sextus, however, used a source in which this doctrine
was qualified as Pythagorean.80
Conclusion
In this chapter, I discussed the Pythagorean Table of Opposites, the Limited and
Unlimited—that is, the two-principles doctrine of the One and the Indefinite
Dyad. This is the background to Aristotle’s presentation of Plato’s ultimate prin-
ciples, the One and the Great and the Small, which we have generically called
the Indefinite Dyad for the sake of continuity. Aristotle’s presentation of Plato is
most enigmatic in passages such as Met. A 6, 987b14–29 and Phys. IV 209b11–
20, where Aristotle makes explicit reference to an unwritten Platonic doctrine,
relating to Ideal Numbers. The doctrine in and of itself does not centrally con-
cern me in this book. Rather, it is Aristotle’s transformation of this doctrine, in
his noetic theory in Met. L 7–9, that has sustained my interest and discussion.
The two-principles doctrine of the Pythagoreans, Plato (and Speusippus,
as we shall see in the next chapter) provoked a strong response from Aristotle.
The ultimate question behind this doctrine is, “How can plurality be derived
from unity?” This question, however, can make sense only within a dualistic
conception of the cosmos, as Aristotle repeatedly confirms in his exegesis and
presentation of each philosopher’s interpretation of the two-principles doctrine.
The purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to elucidate Aristotle’s philosophical
response to this dualistic doctrine, with the ultimate intention of drawing out
Aristotle’s own philosophical principles.
The doctrine of the One and the Indefinite Dyad was altered by subsequent
generations of Platonists, notably by Speusippus and Xenocrates.81 However,
the dualistic paradigm of the cosmos was always maintained and assumed as an
unquestionable starting point for any Platonic reform. It is Speusippus to whom
I now turn in order to perceive the transformation of the two-principles doc-
28 Chapter 1

43. trine, now classified as the One and plh:qoV. In the next chapter, I shall discuss
how Speusippus’s doctrine fundamentally challenged Aristotle to respond with
his conception of the One and his conception of first principles of the cosmos.
Notes
1. For the Pythagoreans, as Proclus claims, and especially the Neopythagoreans, such
as Alexander Polyhistor, the roles and natures of nou:V and the Indefinite Dyad are closely
related to the doctrine of the tovlma (tolma). Cornford writes that “later mysticism [i.e., the
Neopythagorean philosophers] regards the emergences of the dyad as an act of rebellious
audacity” (F. M. Cornford, “Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition,” Clas-
sical Quarterly 17 [1923]: 6, fn.3). See Plotinus, Enn. V.1.1., and Proclus, on Plato, Alib
I. 104E, who explicitly recognizes this use of the tovlma to come from the Pythagoreans
(see Cornford, “Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition,” 6, fn.3). The pre-
cise impact that the Neopythagoreans had on Plotinus will be discussed in greater detail
below. Suffice it to say that the doctrine of the tovlma does not seem to be apparent in the
early Pythagorean school, simply because, as I argue, the two-principles doctrine does not
provide enough room for an audacious act of nou:V to repel itself from a single principle,
for the tolmic action presupposes a repulsion from a single principle—namely, the One.
2. F. M. Cornford, Plato and Parmenides: Parmenides’ Way of Truth and Plato’s Par-
menides (London: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1939), 7, says that this table represents “ten
different manifestations of the two primary opposites in various spheres; in each pair
there is a good and an answering evil.”
3. It will be shown later, however, that to interpret the Pythagoreans as monistic
philosophers will have significant ramifications for the development of Plotinus’s “revo-
lutionary” transformation of Greek philosophy.
4. Cornford, “Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition,” 3. Here, Corn-
ford adds a significant footnote: “Hence in the above passage from Aristotle (Met. A 5,
986a 19) I translate to; de; e}n eJx ajmfotevrwn einai touvtwn ‘the One consists of both of
these’ (odd and even), not (with Ross, e.g.) ‘the 1 proceeds from both of these.’ . . . It is
true that ‘proceeds’ is appropriate to the following words, to;n d’ajriqmo;n ejk tou: eJnoV,
but in any case the relation here expressed by ejk cannot be the same as in ejx ajmfotevrwn
einai. It may, however, be doubted whether Aristotle himself clearly understood.” He
continues, “In favour of this view the position of the Monad at the head of the tetractys
seems to be decisive. . . . The Pythagorean Monad similarly symbolizes the primal undif-
ferentiated unity, from which the two opposite principles of Limit (physically, light or
fire) and the Unlimited (space, air, ‘void’) must, in some unexplained and inexplicable
way, be derived. The union of the two opposite, as Plato explains in the Philebus, gen-
erates to; miktovn, when ‘the equal and the double and whatsoever puts an end to the
mutual disagreement of the opposite, by introducing symmetry and concord, produce
number’ (25D)” (Cornford, “Mysticism and Science in the Pythagorean Tradition,”
3–4). This interpretation, ultimately, will justify his view that the tovlma was an earlier
Pythagorean doctrine, as Proclus proclaims.
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 29

44. 5. “In short, the principle of Unity seems to have been linked with the principle of
the Good, which appears briefly in the Phaedo and Republic” (J. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criti-
cism of Plato’s First Principles,” in Pensée de l’‘ Un’ dans l’histoire de la philosophie: Études
en hommage au professeur Werner Beierwaltes, eds. J.-M. Narbonne et A. Reckermann.
(Laval, Canada: Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2004), 73.
6. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 74. See also J. Cleary,
“Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s Theory of Form Numbers,” in Platon und Aristoteles—sub
ratione veritatis. Festschrift für Wolfgang Wieland, zum 70. Geburststag. Herausgegeben
von Gregor Damschen, Rainer Enskat und Alejandro G. Vigo (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
Ruprecht, 2004), 3–30, esp. 12–16.
7. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 74.
8. J. N. Findlay, Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines (London, New York:
Humanities Press, 1974), 43.
9. For an excellent survey of the research done in the area of Plato’s Unwritten
Teachings, see C. J. de Vogel, Rethinking Plato and Platonism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986),
chapter one, “Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, Fifty Years of Plato Studies,
1930–1980,” 3–56; see also T. A. Szlezák, Reading Plato, trans. G. Zanker (London and
New York: Routledge, 1999); and especially J. Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 16–29, and J.
Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 2nd ed. (London and Cornell: Cornell University Press,
1996), 2–11. For a discussion of Plato’s school or Academy, see J. Dillon, “What Hap-
pened to Plato’s Garden?” Hermathena 133 (1983): 51–59; Dillon, The Heirs of Plato,
2–16; and M. Baltes, “Plato’s School, the Academy,” Hermathena 155 (1993): 5–26.
10. See K. Gaiser, Platons ungeschriebene Lehre (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1963) for
key passages of Aristotle’s presentation of Plato’s philosophy. Gaiser is primarily interested
in Aristotle’s account of Plato. See also H. J. Krämer, Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles (Am-
sterdam: P. Schippers, 1967); see also R. Heinze, Xenokrates. Darstellung der Lehre und
Sammlung der Fragmente (Leipzig; repr. Hildescheim: G. Olms, 1965), 10–47.
11. For an excellent discussion of the Pythagorean influence on Plato’s mathematical
paradigm of the cosmos, see D. H. Fowler, The Mathematics of Plato’s Academy: A New
Reconstruction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987); C. Mugler, Platon et la recherche mathé-
matique de son époque (Strasbourg and Zurich: P. H. Heitz, 1948); and E. Cattanei, Enti
matematici e metafisica: Aristotele, Platone e l’Accademia antica a confronto (Milano: Vita
e pensiero, 1996).
12. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 17–18: “To begin with first principles, it seems
clear that Plato, at least in his later years, had become more and more attracted by the
philosophical possibilities of Pythagoreanism, that is to say, the postulation of a math-
ematical model for the universe. . . . He arrived at a system which involved a pair of
opposed first principles, and a triple division of levels of being. . . . Reflections of these
basic doctrines can be glimpsed in such dialogues of the middle and later periods as the
Republic, Timaeus, Philebus, and Laws, but could not be deduced from the dialogues
alone.” See P. Merlan, “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus,” in The Cambridge
History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1967), 14–132. Merlan also writes on p. 15 that the “interaction of these principles
30 Chapter 1

45. ‘produces’ the ideas (themselves in some way designated as numbers), and, as the ideas
are the causes of everything else, the two principles become universal causes.” See also P.
Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 2nd ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960).
13. For an interesting discussion of Aristotle’s presentation and interpretation of Pla-
to’s Great and the Small and the mathematical background to this doctrine, see K. Sayre,
Plato’s Late Ontology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, c1983), 95–112.
14. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 18.
15. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 18. See also H.-J. Krämer, Arete bei Platon und
Aristoteles. Zum Wesen und zur Geschichte der platonischen Ontologie (Amsterdam: P.
Schippers, 1964).
16. See J. Cleary, Aristotle and Mathematics: Aporetic Method in Cosmology and Meta-
physics (Leiden; New York; Köln: E. J. Brill, 1995), 346–65.
17. See parallel passages: Met. A 6, 988a7–15; L 10, 1075a35–36; N 4, 1091b32.
18. See R. Turnbull, The Parmenides and Plato’s Late Philosophy (Toronto: Toronto
University Press, 1988).
19. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 19, fn.37.
20. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 19.
21. As Merlan says, “without the assumption of the Indefinite Dyad as one of the
supreme principles, all being, they thought, would be frozen in the Parmenidean One”
(Merlan, “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus,” 16).
22. For further reading of Aristotle’s discussion of the first principles in Metaphysics M
and N, see I. Mueller, “Aristotle’s Approach to the Problem of Principles in Metaphysics
M and N,” in Mathematics and Metaphysics in Aristotele/Mathematik und Metaphysik bei
Aristoteles: Akten des X. Symposium Aristotelicum, Sigriswil, 6.–12. September 1984 (Bern,
Stuttgart: Berlag Paul Haupt, 1987), 241–59, especially 246–49.
23. This will serve as the background of Plotinus’s theory of intelligible matter, the
intelligible substrate for the plurality of Forms within nou:V.
24. K. Sayre captures Cherniss’s central criticism against Aristotle very well: “The up-
shot of Cherniss’ argument is that Aristotle’s claims about Platonic doctrine are not based
on oral teachings at all, but instead are based upon the written dialogues which Aristotle
frequently misinterprets” (Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology, 79). According to Cherniss, whom
Sayre cites, the idea of an esoteric or unwritten doctrine is nothing but a “hypothesis
set up to save the phenomena of Aristotle’s testimony,” which “has come to be treated
as if it were itself part of the phenomena to be saved” (Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early
Academy [New York: Russell Russell, 1962], 29). Essentially, Cherniss concludes, as
Sayre writes, that neither Aristotle nor any other member of the Academy “had resources
for the interpretation of Plato’s thought beyond the dialogues themselves upon which
we also rely” (See Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early Academy, 82). The single reference to
“unwritten teachings” at Physics 209b15 is to be read instead as referring either to the lec-
ture on the Good itself or just to opinions Plato may have expressed in conversation with
his associates. (See Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early Academy, 15; and Sayre, Plato’s Late
Ontology, 80.) Cherniss’s and Tarán’s reading of Plato and Aristotle will not, of course,
go unchallenged. In fact, Dillon calls Cherniss’s and especially Tarán’s reading of Plato
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 31

46. and of Speusippus “legalistic” (Dillon, “Speusippus in Iamblichus,” Phronesis 24 [1984]:
326). See E. Cattanei, Enti matematici e metafisica: Aristotele, Platone e l’Accademia antica
a confronto, 130–41, esp. 130–31, for a counterargument to Cherniss’s thesis.
25. See H. D. Saffrey, Le PERI FILOSOFIAS d’Aristote et la Théorie Platonicienne
des Idées Nombres (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971); see also Cherniss’s compte rendu appended
to Saffrey’s book, 71–89.
26. See H. Cherniss, The Riddle of the Early Academy, 18. The parallel passage is
Met. A 6, 988a11–14, where Aristotle indicates “an underlying matter of which the
Forms are predicated in the case of sensible things, and Unity in the case of the Forms,
[it is evident] that this is a dyad, the Great and the Small” (trans. Sayre). Prior to the
Philebus, we do not perceive any reference to the identification of the Great and the
Small and the underlying matter. K. Sayre is more moderate in his criticism of Aristotle
than Cherniss. According to Sayre, “Aristotle’s conviction that this principle [sc. the
Great and the Small] played the role of matter for Plato may be behind his remark at
Physics 209b35–210a2 that the Great and (the) Small is the space of the Timaeus, which
(he says) Plato there called u{lh. Among several anomalies associated with this remark is
that the Timaeus does not contain the term u{lh in the sense of matter at all (compare
696a6). It is of course possible that Aristotle saw an earlier (or later) version of the
Timaeus than the one we have which did employ the term in that sense” (Sayre, Plato’s
Late Ontology, 285, fn.34).
27. Related to this passage is Met. A.6, where Aristotle states that the Great-and-Small
(the Indefinite Dyad) is identical to the material principle and that the One is identical
to substance, or the formal principle. While Sayre sympathizes in part with Cherniss’s
overall critique, he, nevertheless, prudently abstains from adhering to Cherniss’s exagger-
ated view of Aristotle’s testimony. (See Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology, 81.) I, however, wish
to argue that there is sufficient evidence to support the unwritten doctrine thesis. Sayre,
in all fairness, admirably attempts to find a middle ground between Cherniss and his
reconstructionist adversaries. “A middle ground is accessible by rejecting this common
supposition, and in effect denying that there is any major discrepancy between writ-
ten and alleged ‘unwritten teachings’ that requires explanation. For this middle course
to be defensible, certainly, we must be able to find passages in the later dialogues that
lend themselves to interpretation in terms of Aristotle’s description” (Sayre, Plato’s Late
Ontology, 82). The later dialogue that Sayre has in mind is clearly the Philebus, which he
proceeds to study on pp. 118–86.
28. C. J. de Vogel, “Problems Concerning Later Platonism I,” Mnemosyne 4 (1949):
203, referring to the Timaeus 50b–d.
29. de Vogel, “Problems I,” 204.
30. See Findlay, Plato, 466 ff., on this particular topic, and for Findlay’s central criti-
cism of Cherniss’s thesis.
31. In Timaeus 48e ff., we are introduced to the receptacle. In this light, one cannot
agree with Cherniss that Aristotle is an untrustworthy source. The conclusion we come
to is this, as de Vogel articulates: “That it would be neither reasonable to reject this
testimony nor to accept it without any critical reserve. As to the agrapha, finally, it has
32 Chapter 1

47. no other sense than that Plato in his unwritten teaching used to denote his decovmenon
(Aristotle says, less correctly, his metalhptikovn) with another term (sc. the great-and-
small)” (de Vogel, “Problems I,” 205).
32. See de Vogel, “Problems I,” 202. She moreover comments, “The mh; o[n is in the
Sophist an Idea, which pervades all the Ideas, including that of being, by which it is per-
vaded in turn” (Soph. 258c, 259a–b). For a very interesting discussion of the nature of
nonbeing in the Sophist, see S. Rosen, Plato’s Sophist (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 1983), 269–90, esp. 289–90.
33. See Cherniss, Riddle, 19.
34. The theme of Otherness will occupy our study of Plotinus’s doctrine of the One
and the One’s relation with nou:V.
35. Cherniss, Riddle, 19; see Sophist, 238c and 258e: “Stranger: You see the inference
then. One cannot legitimately utter the words or speak or think of that which just simply
is not; it is unthinkable, not to be spoken of or uttered or expressed”; 258e: “Stranger:
Then let no one say that it is contrary of the existent what we mean by ‘what is not,’
when we make bold to say that ‘what is not’ exists. So far as any contrary of the existent
is concerned, we have long ago said good-by to the question whether there is such a thing
or not and whether any account can be given of it or none whatsoever.”
36. “Moreover it is utterly impossible that Plato admitted of a ‘material principle’ with
regard to the Ideas, for this would destroy the very character of Idea itself” (de Vogel,
“Problems I,” 203). The theme of material principle in Aristotle is important, as is its rap-
port with space and with the One and Indefinite Dyad. It will be seen in the subsequent
chapters how Aristotle’s doctrine of intelligible matter profoundly influenced Plotinus’s
conception of the intelligible substrate within nou:V. (See also Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology,
92–93, and 285, fns. 34–37; and Z. Bechler, Aristotle’s Theory of Actuality [Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1995], 177–79).
37. See de Vogel, “Problems I,” 203.
38. Cherniss, Riddle, 20. See Aristotle, Metaphysics A 6, 988a11–14.
39. In Aristotelis Physica Commentaria (H. Diels, ed., Commentaria in Aristotelem
Graeca, Vols. IX–X, Berlin, 1882–1895), 151, 12–19.
40. K. Sayre also moves in this direction of saving Aristotle’s testimony of Plato’s
doctrines. See Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology, 76–77.
41. J. Stenzel, Zahl und Gestalt bei Platon und Aristoteles, 2nd ed. (Darmstadt: Wis-
senschaftlich Buchgesellschaft, 1959), 45–46.
42. See Stenzel, Zahl und Gestalt bei Platon und Aristoteles, 86–89.
43. Stenzel, Zahl und Gestalt bei Platon und Aristoteles, 70.
44. Plotinus, as will be discussed below, is fully aware of the perennial problem of the
derivation of plurality or multiplicity and will propose an ingenious solution, using the
central tenets of Pythagorean, Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neopythagorean metaphysics,
which will allow Plotinus to transform the dualistic doctrine into a radically monistic one
(see Enn. VI 3 [44] 3).
45. See Met. A 8, 990a19–32; M 6, 1080b22; M 7, 1081a18–21; M 8, 1083a30–31;
M 8, 1083b3; N 2, 1088b34; N 3, 1090b33–1091a5; N 3, 1099b33; N 4: All of chapter.
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 33

48. 46. Merlan, “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus,” 16.
47. F. A. Trendelenburg, Platonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina ex Aristotele Illustrata
(Lipsiae: Vogelli, 1826).
48. Aristoxenus—a member of the Lyceum—reports, in the second book of his
Harmonics, Aristotle’s account of Plato’s presentation on the Good. Many commoners
attended, but they were disappointed by the esoteric content of the lecture, dealing with
topics of mathematics, numbers, geometry and magnitude, astronomy, and, finally, with
an account of the Good as the One. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Prin-
ciples,” 72–73; Cherniss, Riddle, 1–2. With respect to the nature of the Ideal Numbers—
as best as it can be represented—see G. Reale, Toward a New Interpretation of Plato, trans.
from tenth edition by J. R. Catan and R. Davies (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press), chapter 8, “The Ideal Numbers and the Ideas, Mathematical Numbers
as Intermediates, and the Hierarchical Structure of Reality.” For an opposing view, see
Cherniss, Riddle, 1–30, and also L. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens: A Critical Study with a
Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981), 12ff.
49. Plato, Plato: Collected Dialogues, ed. E. Hamilton and H. Cairns (New York:
Pantheon Books), 1963, 1588–89, Letters VII, trans. L. A. Post, 341c–d. On the topic
of the authenticity of Plato’s Letter VII, see L. Edelstein, Plato’s Seventh Letter (Leiden:
E. J. Brill, 1966), who doubts that Plato was the author; A. E. Taylor, Plato, 6th edition
(London: Methuen, 1955), p. 295, who argues that Plato was the authentic author of
this Epistle; B. Stenzel, “Is Plato’s Seventh Epistle Spurious?,” A.J.P. 74 (1953), 394; and
J. Harward. “The Seventh and Eighth Platonic Epistles,” Classical Quarterly 22 (1928),
143–54, where it is reaffirmed that Plato is the genuine author of these Epistles.
50. Plato, Letters II, trans. L. A. Post, 314c.
51. There are, of course, other ways of interpreting Plato’s attitude to the written
works. See Platonic Writings, Platonic Readings, ed. C. L. Griswold (New York: Routledge,
1988). It is beyond the scope of this project, however, to discuss this alternative reading
of Plato’s works.
52. J. Burnet, Greek Philosophy: Thales to Plato (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968),
312, 313–14.
53. See Cherniss, Riddle, 29–30.
54. See also Cherniss, in his foreword to Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy,
I (New York: Russell and Russell, 1962), xxi.
55. Cherniss, Riddle, 17.
56. “To this, consequently, appeal all those critics who desire to find in the dialogues
some corroboration of Aristotle’s report that the ideas were identified with numbers and
derived from ‘the One’ and ‘the great and small’ as ultimate principles,” says Cherniss.
Cherniss, Riddle, 18, referring to Stenzel, Zahl und Gestalt bei Platon und Aristoteles, iii–iv,
8–69; M. Gentile, La dottrina platonica delle idee numeri e Aristotele (Pisa: Pacini-Mariotti
1930), 39–41; J. Chevalier, La notion du nécessaire chez Aristote et chez ses prédécesseurs,
particulièrement chez Platon (Paris: F. alcan, 1915), 88–90; and L. Robin, La Théorie
Platonicienne des Idées et des Nombres d’Après Aristote: Étude Historique et Critique (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France), 154–56.
34 Chapter 1

49. 57. de Vogel aptly summarizes this issue: Thus, in Aristotle’s time, there is “a doctrine
which makes the One and excess and defect the principles of being; namely, in this way
that the One is the active (or formal) principle, the other passive or material principle.
Recognize here two ultimate principles of Plato’s later doctrine: the One or péras on
the one hand, and on the other the Infinite which is called the Great and Small or also
the Infinite Dyad. Aristotle finds this latter principle foreshadowed in the mano;n kai;
puknovn of the older physicists. This thought is also expressed in Meta A. 9, 992b1–7.
This confirms that Aristotle is greatly influenced by this two-principles doctrine of the
One and the Indefinite Dyad. One can also see this in his interpretation of Anaxagoras in
Meta I 8, 989a30–b21. . . . From this it follows, then, that he must say that the principles
are the One (for this is simple and unmixed) and the Other, which is of such a nature as
we [oi|on tivqemen we in the school of Plato] suppose the indefinite to be before it is de-
fined and partakes of the same form. Therefore, while expressing himself neither rightly
nor clearly, he means something like what (the later thinkers say) and what is now more
clearly seen to be the case. . . . Therefore, one must infer that Sextus with his uJperoch;
kai; e[lleiyiV, like Hermodorus with his ma:llon kai; h{tton, did speak indeed Platonic
language, and that the term qavteron as well as that of a[peiron could be used to indicate
the ‘other’ principle which, according to Plato’s later doctrine, stands opposite to the
One” (de Vogel, “Problems I,” 216). See also Robin, La Théorie Platonicienne des Idées et
des Nombres d’Après Aristote, 645 ff. This, furthermore, attests to the fact that he finally
accepted the two-principles doctrine, all other things being mixed with one another and
nou:V only being unmixed and pure.
58. See Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology; Turnbull, The Parmenides and Plato’s Late Philoso-
phy; and Dillon, The Heirs of Plato.
59. de Vogel, “Problems I,” 202. See also an exceptional article by de Vogel. “La théo-
rie de l’apeiron chez Platon et dans la tradition platonicienne,” Revue Philosophique de la
France et l’Étranger 149 (1959), 21–39.
60. Cherniss, Riddle, 18.
61. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 16–21; P. Natorp, Platos Ideenlehre. Eine Einfüh-
rung in den Idealismus, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Dürr, 1921), p. 434; J. Chevalier. La Notion du
nécessaire chez Aristote et chez ses prédécesseurs, particulièrement chez Platon, p. 94.
62. Cherniss, Riddle, p. 18.
63. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, p. 21, who corroborates this view. See also M. van
Raalte, Theophrastus Metaphysics (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 271–75.
64. See G. Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. II, ed. and trans. J. R. Catan
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1987), 74; see also M. Isnardi Parente,
“Théophraste, Metaphysica 6a23 ss.,” Phronesis 16 (1971b): 49–64.
65. See C. J. de Vogel, “On the Neoplatonic Character of Platonism and the Platonic
Character of Neoplatonism,” Mind 62 (1953): 52–54.
66. See L. Robin, La Théorie Platonicienne, 645: “En outre d’Ar. de Théoph., d’Alex.
et de Simplic., que nous avons cités plus haut, Zeller mentionnne un intéressant témoi-
gnage de Hermodore, disciple immédiat de Platon, dans lequel nous retrouvons, plus
explicitement exposée, la division qu’Hermod. attribue à Platon. Mais elle y est rapportée
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 35

50. aux Pythagor., du moins à des Pythagor. qui faisaient de la dua;V ajovristoV un genre
comprenant comme espèce subordonnées l’Excès et le Défaut, puis l’Inégal.” We shall
discuss the rapport between Sextus Empiricus ad Hermodorus below (Robin, La Théorie
Platonicienne, 645–47; see fn.15 for a discussion on Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math. X, 263
sqq, and Adv. Phys. II, 529, 11 sqq Bekk).
67. de Vogel rightly refutes Cherniss’s thesis. See de Vogel, “Problems I,” 208, fn.28.
See also Cherniss, Criticism, 169 ff and fn.96.
68. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 202.
69. Moreover, while Hermodorus identifies the a[peiron with the Great-and-Small
or with matter, he also states that matter is not a principle equal to the One, due to the
fact that matter is not active or creative. This claim lends itself to a monistic reading of
Plato’s metaphysics, which would appear to be at odds with Speusippus’s account of the
derivation of the various levels of being through the One’s accession of the Indefinite
Dyad. (See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 202–3.)
70. See Sophist, 258b.
71. Cherniss, Riddle, p. 13, to which de Vogel rightly responds: “Therefore,” con-
tinues de Vogel with her summary of Cherniss’s argument, “if Hermodorus says in this
passage that it is not fitting to such like things (tw:/ toiouvtw/) to participate of being,
he is in flat contradiction with Plato’s own words, and cannot be taken as evidence for
Plato’s doctrine of the ‘material substrate’” (de Vogel, “Problems I,” 209). See Cherniss’s
response: Cherniss, Criticism, 171; see also 284 ff., fn.192.
72. See Ross’s illuminating commentary, p. 434, Met., II, 1081a14. Moreover, Ross,
p. 434, Met., II, comments on line 1081a1. Pp. 434–45, on passage 14, makes it clear
that Indefinite Dyad (and even if distinguished from Great-and-Small) means the same
thing—the material principle. See also Findlay, Plato, 445–47: “Aristotle is saying that,
on Plato’s theory of Principles, the Eide must be Numbers of some sort, and that, as being
Mathematical Numbers would violate their uniqueness, they must be Eidetic Numbers”
(p. 446); see also Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 198–204.
73. Sextus Empiricus, Adv. Math, trans. R. G. Bury, Vol. III (Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb
Classical Library, 1983–1990), 331–61. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 203–4, for a brief
but helpful account of these passages by Sextus; M. Isnardi Parente, “Speusippo in Sesto
Empirico, Adv. Math, VII 45–146,” La Parola del Passato 24 (1969), 203–14; Krämer,
Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles, 284–87; and see A. Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkennt-
nis—Sein, 59–60, and fns.63–66.
74. Rist provides merely one solution to this conundrum: “He is talking here of an
upward path of investigation leading toward first principles (cf. Phaedo 109D, Phaedrus
249C and Ennead 6.7.9.45 for ajnevkuyani), and, once he had reached the stage of the
two ajrcaiv, he may have thought that he was now back to the position he had described
in 261 and that there was therefore no need for further elaboration on the theme of the
ultimate derivation of the Dyad from Unity. (Cf. Syrianus, in Met. 925B27ff, where an
ultimate unity is attributed to Archaenetus and Philolaus)” (J. Rist, “Monism: Plotinus
and Some Predecessors,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 69 [1965]: 336, including
fn.24). The discussion about the Hellenistic interpretation of Platonic first principle(s)
36 Chapter 1

51. will be critical in our study of the transition from a dualistic to a monistic doctrine in
the Neopythagoreans, notably in the writings of Alexander Polyhistor, with his emphasis
on the doctrine of the tovlma, and, ultimately, on Plotinus—a transition that will have
great implications for the reform of the Aristotelian doctrine of the simplicity of nou:V.
75. See de Vogel, “Problems I,” 211.
76. See also Sayre, Plato’s Late Ontology, 89–91.
77. Cherniss, Criticism, 171, end of fn.96.
78. de Vogel, “Problems I,” 212. See also Alexander of Aphrodisias, who likewise
attributes this doctrine to Plato, Metaph, 56 H, 1.18–20; Simplic Phys. 151.6D; and
P. Merlan in Philologus 89 (1934), who argues that Sextus in Adv. Math X echoes an
Academic doctrine, rather than a Pythagorean one, and this is confirmed in the writings
of Hermodorus (P. Merlan, “Beiträge zur Geschichte des antiken Platonismus, I., Zur
Erklärung der dem Aristoteles zugeschriebene Kategorienschrift,” Philologus 84 [1934]:
35–53); see also Dillon, The Heirs of Plato.
79. Alexander of Aphrodisias, in Metaph. (Hayduck) 56[13–21]; esp. 1.16–17.
80. Wilpert also refers to Divisiones Aristoteleae. See especially Florilegium of Stobaeus
(preserved by Diogenes Laertius).
81. On Xenocrates’ rich development of the One and the Indefinite Dyad, see the
excellent section of Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 89–155, esp. 98–136; see also M. Baltes,
“Zur Theologie des Xenokrates,” in Knowledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World, eds. R.
van den Broek, T. Baarda, and J. Mansfeld (Leiden: Brill, 1988); Baltes, “Plato’s School,
the Academy,” 5–26; H. J. Krämer, Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik. Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte des Platonismus zwischen Platon und Plotin (Amsterdam: P. Schippers, 1964)
(see chapter 1, “Die Nus-Monas als Weltmodel”); and J. Dillon, “‘Xenocrates’ Metaphys-
ics: Fr. 15 (Heinze) Re-examined,” Ancient Philosophy 5 (1986): 47–52.
Aristotle on the Platonic Two-Principles Doctrine 37

53. 39
c h a pte r t w o
Aristotle and Speusippus
Introduction
The two-principles doctrine was transformed significantly by Speusippus,
Plato’s pupil and nephew. A full exposé of Speusippus’s philosophical doctrine
is, undoubtedly, difficult, if not impossible.1 Yet the fragments remaining from
his work are largely contained in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and (possibly) in Iam-
blichus’s De communi mathematica scientia (Universal Math.), chapter IV. The
purpose of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive and systematic account
of Speusippus’s doctrines, but rather to explore and focus on Aristotle’s inter-
pretation and critique (legitimate or illegitimate) of Speusippus’s philosophical
position. This critique will furnish us with the conceptual framework in which
to understand Aristotle’s conception of the One and his contribution to the two-
principles or dualistic doctrine. This chapter will be divided into two sections: 1)
Metaphysics Z 2, and 2) Metaphysics N 4–5 and L 7. Each section will, inevitably,
cross-reference other passages throughout the Aristotelian corpus.
Metaphysics Z 2: Degrees of Speusippus’s Cosmos
In Metaphysics Z 2, 1028b8–14, Aristotle articulates several candidates that may
be called substance (oujsiva). Aristotle favors perceptible entities, such as “ani-
mals, plants, their parts” (1028b8–13), and so on, but he arrives at this conclu-
sion through the (Aristotelian kind of) dialectic, by listing the various reputable
opinions and then (satisfactorily) classifying these positions accordingly. Aristotle
challenges the Pythagoreans, who claim that the “limits of a body, e.g., surface,

54. 40 Chapter 2
line, point, and unit, are thought by some to be substances, and more so than the
body and the solid” (b15–18). This is a claim Speusippus would have, undoubt-
edly, reaffirmed (see Met. Z 2, 1028b15–20). In Met. Z 2, 1028b18–27, Aris-
totle continues to challenge Plato and then Speusippus. Aristotle levels several
criticisms at what he takes to be Speusippus’s metaphysical doctrine.
In Met. Z 2, 1028b18–27, Aristotle makes reference to the degrees of sub-
stance in Speusippus’s cosmology. There is controversy surrounding the specific
number of levels in his cosmology.2 A central passage in this text, which will be
discussed in detail below, is at line b22, where Aristotle states, “and Speusippus,
who, starting from the one . . .” ajpo; tou: eJno;V ajrxamenoV.3 The question re-
lated to this passage is, “What is the status of the One?”
As mentioned and confirmed in this passage, Aristotle claims that Plato ad-
vances three levels of reality or substance, whereas Speusippus advanced many
more. Aristotle has reported that Speusippus rejected Plato’s theories of Forms and
Ideal Numbers. Limiting the Platonic intelligible world to Plato’s lowest common
denominator—namely, mathematicals—Speusippus approximates to the Py-
thagorean standpoint of the ajrchv of the cosmos (see Met. M 8, 1083a20ff; Frags.
42d Lang). Aristotle, furthermore, argues that Speusippus arrived at this position
because he was unable to overcome the Platonic aporia inherent in the theory
of Forms (see Met. M 9, 1086a2ff). The mathematical and geometrical entities,
which in the Platonic schema are considered to be the intermediaries between the
Forms and the sensibles, are the sole intelligibles, now that the Forms and the Ideal
Numbers have been rejected. Moreover, these entities remain separate from their
sensible counterparts (see Met. L 1, 1069a30ff). This separation is the lasting Pla-
tonic element retained in Speusippus, and it is enough to distinguish Speusippus
from the Pythagoreans, who did not uphold any such separation.4
Speusippus’s grades of reality also reveal an alteration to Plato’s general philos-
ophy, an alteration that Aristotle criticizes again. According to Speusippus, there
are two principles governing each level of substance (see Met. Z 2, 1028b21–27).
The problem Aristotle sees with this is quite clear: the episodic character of this
cosmos reflects a poorly governed cosmos. It is imperative, therefore, according
to Aristotle, to retain the Platonic position that the cosmos circulates or pivots
around a dual principle—namely, the One and the principle of multiplicity or
plurality (plh:qoV)5 (see Met. L 10, 1075b36ff).
Domenico Pesce has argued that Speusippus does retain the Platonic meta-
physical foundation and, contrary to what Aristotle says about Speusippus, ap-
pears to have maintained a unified cosmos.
The One and multiplicity . . . though identical in themselves, by acting on every level
of reality on different materials give rise to successive levels of reality. With greater

55. Aristotle and Speusippus 41
precision, it could be said that multiplicity and matter are the same thing, and so only
the One remains exactly identical, because the other principle is multiplicity at the first
level, extension at the second, movement at the third, and corporeity at the fourth.6
According to Reale, however, Pesce’s derivation of such a conclusion is unwar-
ranted, for no text provides such evidence. Moreover, Aristotle explicitly claims
that Speusippus makes a fundamental distinction between the material principle
of the various levels of the cosmos and their respective formal principles, which
differ from these levels of reality7 (see Met. N 3, 1090b13ff).
The question at hand, however, is twofold: Is the One counted as a substance,
and how are the subordinate substances derived from the One? Little is known
about the nature of the One—that is, its attributes—and, as a result, such scant
information may entail the priority of the One over the levels of substances—
namely, number, magnitudes, soul, and finally perceptible objects. Merlan and
Krämer disagree on the levels of Speusippus’s cosmology. Whereas Krämer argues
that there are four kinds, although admitting of a five-stage classification, Merlan
acknowledges five kinds or levels, which excludes the One as a level. Table 2.1
compares both accounts, as Tarrant illustrates.8
Each level, according to Aristotle, contains a different principle: one for
Numbers, one for magnitudes, one for soul, and finally, one for perceptible
bodies. For the purposes of this thesis topic, however, the puzzle of the various
stages of substances or being in either Plato or Speusippus can be forgone, for
our current concern is with respect to the status of the One in Speusippus and,
ultimately, Aristotle’s response to the doctrine of the One and of first principles
in general, as will be seen in our study of Metaphysics I in chapter 3.
Metaphysics N 4–5 and L 7: One is neither a
Being nor the Good and the Beautiful
More critically, Aristotle takes issue with the two-opposites-principle doctrine,
the One and plh:qoV (Plurality). This can be seen in Met. N 4 and 5 (1091a29–
Table 2.1.
Merlan Krämer
Level Class Attributes Level Class Attributes
1 Numbers Being, Beauty 1 The One None
2 Geometricals Being, Beauty 2 Numbers Being, Beauty
3 Soul Goodness 3 Geometricals Being, Beauty
4 Body Baseness, evil 4 Soul Goodness, evil
5 Inferior bodily entities Baseness, evil 5 Body Goodness, evil

56. 1092a21).9 The problem is twofold: Speusippus claims that the two-opposites
principle is (a) concurrently a principle of the Good and Evil and (b) that the
two-opposites principle generates numbers.
Moreover, in Metaphysics N 4–5, Aristotle reports that Speusippus’s doctrine
of the One implies that the One is not a being (oujde; o[n), which can either
mean that the One is inferior to Being or that the One is beyond Being (see
Metaphysics N 4, 1091a29–1091b3). In this text, Aristotle states that the Good
and the Beautiful are posterior to the first principle—namely, the One—for
they are introduced simultaneously in the generation of Being.10 This confirms
the Speusippean doctrine that the One is not a being. According to Aristotle,
Speusippus discusses the One as that first principle that precedes Being, likening
it to a seed out of which emerges more completion and perfection (Fr. 34A, E,
F Lang).11 The particular “thinker” to whom Aristotle refers in Metaphysics N 5,
1092a11–17 is most likely Speusippus. The doctrine illustrated here, assuming
it is Speusippus’s, entails the exclusion of Being from the One. However, with
such a status of the One, we are not given much information on the status of
the plh:qoV, as Speusippus expresses it.12 What happens to what is traditionally
known as the opposite supreme principle? Does it also precede Being? Is Speusip-
pus advocating a monistic system?13 These are questions which will be discussed
in the course of our study.
In Metaphysics L, Aristotle introduces the derivation of the degrees of sub-
stance by way of a seed analogy, which also attests to the Speusippean claim
that the One is not the Good nor the Beautiful.14 In the seed analogy, Aristotle
asserts that the seed is not the plant itself, but rather that it is the principle of
the plant, and that the principle of a thing is not the thing itself (see Met. L 7,
1072b30–1073a3). Aristotle, therefore, claims that Speusippus’s One is identi-
cal neither with the Good nor the Beautiful.15 In light of line 1072b32, that
the Pythagoreans and Speusippus assume that the Beautiful and the best are not
in the principle, Aristotle, referring to his first principle, the unmoved mover,
claims that the Pythagoreans and Speusippus are incorrect in this assumption.
Aristotle’s first principle—which will be discussed in the next chapter—is the
best and most beautiful. Reference to a first principle does not entail a temporal
beginning. The question of the derivation of the substances, especially the sub-
stance or level of Numbers, must not be seen as a temporal process, for given the
account of Speusippus’s cosmology in Z 2, Numbers, along with the Forms of
Plato, are considered to be eternal substances.16
Speusippus, however, introduces a serious fissure between Plato’s philosophy
and his own. In the Republic and the Timaeus, and also in the unwritten teach-
ings, it is said that the Good is the first principle, whereas Speusippus argues
that the Good and the Beautiful are derivatives of the first principle. Speusippus
42 Chapter 2

57. likens the first principle to a seed, which, as Reale says, “is not good or beauti-
ful, neither is the source which would correspond to the principle, but only the
developed organism, that is the completed being.”17 Speusippus upheld this
position in order to obviate the problem of identifying the principle of plh:qoV
with evil18 (see Met. N 4, 1091b30 ff).
Speusippus also distinguishes between the first principle, the One, and nou:V.
Aëtius testifies that “Speusippus said that God is Intelligence, which is neither
identical with the One nor with the Good, but it has an individual nature of
its own.”19 Intelligence, furthermore, is explained as being a dynamic and “vital
force which rules things.20 The Intelligence must be identical, therefore, with
the world-soul, a position which distinctly prefigures one of the most famous
doctrines of the Stoics.”21 The theme of the relation between the One and nou:V
was entertained by the Middle Platonists, especially Alcinous, the Stoics, and
primarily Plotinus. I must, however, reserve the discussion of this rich theme for
chapters 8 and 9.
The process of derivation or generation in Speusippus is only with regard to
the proofs of eternal, notably mathematical, objects. Derivation has less to do
with the coming into being of sensible objects than it does with eternal objects
that we come to know. In his commentary on Euclid, Proclus writes:
Again, the propositions that follow from the principles he divides into problems
and theorems, the former including the construction of figures, the division of
them into sections, subtractions from and additions to them, and in general the
characters that result from such procedures, and the latter concerned with dem-
onstrating inherent properties belonging to each figure. Just as the productive
sciences have some theory in them, so the theoretical ones take on problems in a
way analogous to production. Some of the ancients, however, such as the followers
of Speusippus and Amphinomus, insisted on calling all propositions “theorems,”
considering “theorems” to be a more appropriate designation than “problems”
for the objects of the theoretical sciences, especially since these sciences deal with
eternal things. There is no coming to be among eternals, and hence a problem
has no place here, proposing as it does to bring into being or to make something
not previously existing—such as to construct an equilateral triangle, or to describe
a square when a straight line is given, or to place a straight line through a given
point. Thus it is better, according to them, to say that all these objects exist and
that we look on our construction of them not as making, but as understanding
them, taking eternal things as if they were in the process of coming to be.22
A mathematical construction, therefore, illuminates the eternal mathematical
objects and their dependence on other objects, such as lines for the equilateral
triangle. In light of the Timaeus’s “creation” account, if Proclus is correct, gen-
eration or derivation is to be interpreted pedagogically, with the intention of
Aristotle and Speusippus 43

58. elucidating the eternal structures of the intelligible realm. Speusippus subscribes
to the Platonic doctrine that mathematicals are eternal and unchanging, and,
therefore, that coming-to-be and passing-away (i.e., generation or derivation) are
to be understood analogously, for these terms, which refer to the mathematical
propositions, contain theorems—that is, the objects of contemplation (qewrhv-
mata). Derivation, then, is closely related to causality, what one appeals to when
explaining the why of something, which excludes a temporal dimension. Thus,
Speusippus, when discussing derivation, refers to causality in a construction.23
Metaphysics L emphasizes the Seed analogy. In his criticism of Speusippus, Ar-
istotle states that, according to Speusippus, the causes of animate objects, plants
and seeds, are not Beautiful or Good in themselves, for Beauty and Goodness
are products of these causes; they are posterior to the principles and are derived
from their principles. According to Aristotle, however, the cause must itself be
a complete and self-sufficient­reality, and therefore, it must contain Beauty and
Goodness. In other words, Aristotle disagrees with Speusippus that the first
principle does not contain Goodness and Beauty, for the principle is prior to the
result, and if Beauty and Goodness are in the principle, then they assume the
priority of the cause of the objects in question. The seeds, according to Aristotle,
are derived from an agent that precedes them, that is actually prior to them. This
echoes his metaphysical doctrine that actuality precedes potentiality. Given that
the One is likened to the seed, the One, according to Aristotle, must, if it is to
be a principle, contain Goodness and Beauty, for the products necessarily inherit
these attributes from the principle. So, Goodness and Beauty must be located in
the principles. The true cause of anything is the actual agent, not the product
in germ. A. C. Lloyd calls this the Transmission Theory of causality.24 It implies
that every cause transmits its power to another object. Dancy spells it out in the
following way: “(T) c causes x to be F inasmuch as c is itself F.”25 In this light,
Speusippus does not adhere to the Transmission Theory, for the One, while it
causes objects to be Beautiful and Good, itself does not contain these attributes.
(This point will be essential to retain for our examination of Plotinus’s discus-
sion of the One and its relation to nou:V.) As a result, Speusippus concludes that
the One is not a being. This appears to be Aristotle’s conclusion or inference.26
His argument is clearly in line with the Transmission Theory and has little to
do with an ontological argument about the status of the One, as articulated in
Metaphysics L.27
As was brilliantly argued by Philip Merlan, the doctrine of the One above
Being is also confirmed in Iamblichus’s book On Universal Mathematical
Science (Universal Math.).28 Universal Math. IV contains many Speusippean
leitmotifs: that the generation of Numbers is due to a dual principle—namely,
the One and plh:qoV, the latter of which is responsible for division (diaivre-
44 Chapter 2

59. siV)29 and is also compared to pliable matter, which, furthermore, assures the
generation of the level of magnitude. In fact, it is the combination of the One
and u{lh, the source of Plurality, that is the generative cause of Numbers. The
co-principle of Plurality or the hyletic principle is not equivalent to the evil,
for this principle is the receptacle of the One’s causality, and a receptacle in
and of itself does not possess qualitative value, such as good or evil. Moreover,
in Universal Math. IV, the content states clearly that the first principles are not
equivalent to the good or evil, nor to the Good or the Beautiful, which emerge
later in the emanationist system. The exact source of Iamblichus remains ques-
tionable, whether it is an interpolation of Aristotle’s account of Speusippus or
whether it recapitulates Plotinian themes. There is evidence to demonstrate,
however, that this chapter is an extract of Speusippus’s work On Pythagorean
Numbers, which has been lost.
The first and foremost distinction between Aristotle’s presentation and Uni-
versal Math. IV pertains to the problem of the status of the One. According to
Aristotle, as we have seen, the One is given an inferior status, it is nonbeing in
the sense of “something” that is only potentially a being; it is not a being yet.
Universal Math. IV, however, echoes the similar formulation that the One is
oujde; o[n, but interprets it as being above being.30 The significance of these words
should be interpreted in the same manner in which it is said that the One is not
the Beautiful or the Good. The two questions which must be asked, then, are
1) did Aristotle understand the Speusippean doctrine correctly? and, if so, 2)
did Aristotle “depict” Speusippus’s doctrine accurately? With regard to the first
question, Aristotle asserts that the One is inferior to Being, and out of the One
emerge increasing levels of perfection. Thus, Merlan makes it very clear that
this question must be answered in the negative. Aristotle, according to Merlan,
neglected to take into account the second superior principle—namely, the prin-
ciple of Plurality or the material principle—and accentuated his critique of the
One at the expense of the dual nature of the first principles. We are given the
fleeting impression that Aristotle views Speusippus as a monist. It would appear,
however, that Speusippus is operating within a dualistic framework, in which the
One and plh:qoV cooperate to produce the subsequent levels of Being, and that
plh:qoV is not reducible to the One. Given this dualistic starting point, Aristo-
tle’s reference to the evolution of the One, as a seed in development, must entail
also the evolution of the material principle. The Aristotelian reference to the
first principle as a seed, therefore, must be taken only as a metaphor. Aristotle’s
statement mhde; o[n ti einai to; e|n aujtov must be translated as either “so that
the One itself is not any being either” or “so that we should not even say of the
One itself that it is some being.”31 Following Dodds’s interpretation of Aristotle’s
presentation of Speusippus,32 Merlan declares that Aristotle’s intention was to as-
Aristotle and Speusippus 45

60. sert that the Speusippean One is not to be considered as a being, but rather that
the One is uJperouvsion, or, rather, ajnouvsion.33
However, if the traditional interpretation of Aristotle’s view of Speusippus’s
One, being inferior to Being, were correct, the second question would still have
to be answered in the negative. It would seem, in light of Universal Math. IV,
that Speusippus would not have agreed with Aristotle’s evaluation of the One in
light of Aristotle’s duvnamiV-ejnevrgeia metaphysical principles, a dual concept
that positions the One as a potential Being.34 Merlan writes, “It seems that
Speusippus would not have admitted that the seed is inferior to the plant; it
seems he would have compared their relation with the relation between the four
and the ten. Full perfection appears only in the ten; but is the four inferior to
the ten? Or else Speusippus would have protested against pressing his simile too
far; the One may be like the seed—does it have to be so in every respect?”35 (See
W. Jaeger, Aristoteles [1955] 233.) Merlan, therefore, argues, in light of Universal
Math. IV, that Aristotle overextended his duvnamiV-ejnevrgeia principles in evalu-
ating the status of the Speusippean One.36 In this light, it is apparent that Univ.
Math. IV could not have drawn its source solely from Aristotle, for there remain
fundamental differences between both presentations on the status of the One.
Moreover, Merlan adds a very compelling piece of evidence by noting that
Theophrastus, after having articulated the Aristotelian theory that Nature does
not act in vain, reaffirms that this is particularly to be seen in what is
first and most important—a seed being what is the first and most important (De
causis plant. I 1, v.II 1 Wimmer). By “first and most important” Theophrastus
designates the ultimate principles—here and also in his Metaphysics I 3, p. 4 Ross
and Fobes, where he says that some consider number to be that which is the first
and most important. Clearly, Theophrastus makes a distinction between what is
undeveloped and what is inferior (or imperfect in the ordinary sense of the word).
While the seed is in his opinion the former, it is not the latter. Indeed, the idea
that what is undifferentiated and undispersed is higher than the differentiated
and spread out, so that the seed is higher than the organism, seems like a rather
natural one.37
According to Merlan, because Speusippus argues that mathematical principles
are derived from the supreme principles, he has in mind a descending movement
from the One to multiplicity, rather than the ascending movement that Aristotle
describes. It would appear, therefore, that Aristotle “expressed himself ambigu-
ously and that the One in Speusippus was meant to be non-being in the sense
of better (higher) than being.”38 Speusippus would appear, in fact, to inherit the
allegedly Platonic doctrine of a principle beyond Being—as it was interpreted by
Plotinus and the subsequent Neoplatonists—and to transform this doctrine into
46 Chapter 2

61. his two-opposites-principle doctrine.39 According to Proclus, Speusippus elevates
the One above Being, governing the subordinate levels of reality. Proclus writes
in his commentary on the Parmenides, giving the impression that Speusippus
reflected the general sentiments of the ancients:
For thinking the one better than being and that from which the being [derives],
they even deliver it from the status that accords with a principle. But, judging that
if one posits the one itself conceived as separate and alone, without [the?] others, in
its own right, adding no other element to it, nothing of the others would be made,
they introduced the indefinite duality as principle of the beings.40
Aristotle, of course, is claiming that the One is not a principle, and that the One
is not the Good, in a Platonic sense. If the One were the Good, then Plurality,
the counterpart of the One, would be the Ugly or the Bad, which, according to
Aristotle and to Iamblichus, would be absurd (see Met. N 1091b30–35). Pro-
clus’s assertion is confirmed in Iamblichus’s Universal Math., chapter IV, in which
the doctrine of the One transcends Being. According to Merlan, we should read
Speusippus’s doctrine of the One in this light, contrary to Aristotle’s interpre-
tation. If Merlan is correct, then we can perceive a doctrinal continuity from
Speusippus to Plotinus. Plotinus’s doctrine of the One is, according to Plotinus,
to be found in Plato’s Parmenides, along with the doctrine that the intelligibles
are within the Intellect,41 and we can assume that Plotinus interpreted Aristotle’s
presentation of Speusippus’s One in this way.
Speusippus’s One is irreducible to the Good (see Fr. 35 A, B, D, E Lang)
and to Intelligence or nou:V (see Fr. 35D Lang). The theme of the subordina-
tion of nou:V to the One is clearly echoed in the philosophy of Plotinus and
has raised the possibility of reading Speusippus’s philosophy as monistic, which
would be a radical rupture from the Platonic legacy, which, according to Ar-
istotle, he apparently tacitly accepted. Plotinus also accepts the Speusippean
line that the One is not equivalent to the Good. Although Plotinus generally
accepts Plato’s teaching that the ultimate metaphysical principle is the Good,
he is reticent to accept this isomorphism. Plotinus is much more inclined to
uphold the position that the Good is the condition or source of all goodness in
the cosmos. Moreover, Speusippus did not claim that the One is co-principled
with evil (Fr. 35D, Lang), which allows for an interpretation of a monistic
two-opposites-principle doctrine.42
Regarding Plotinus’s conception of the One, which will be further discussed
below, and the conception of the One in Universal Math. IV, the most funda-
mental difference is that, according to Plotinus, the One is equivalent to the
Good, whereas for Universal Math. IV, the One is neither the Good nor the
Ugly nor Evil, for it remains above these latter stages of being. Merlan concludes,
Aristotle and Speusippus 47

62. “Thus, we repeat: according to both Isc and what Aristotle either reported or
should have reported Speusippus said of his One that it is not even being in pre-
cisely the same sense in which Plotinus said of his One that it is oujde; o[n (Enn
VI 9, 3, 38 Bréhier).”43 In Universal Math. IV, the One is clearly presented as
superior to the Beautiful and the Good, and as the highest principle of the cos-
mos (duvo ta;V prwvtistaV kai; ajnwtavtw . . . ajrcavV, tou: ajgaqou: uJperavnw
einai, 16.11).44
Tarán disagrees strongly with Merlan’s thesis. According to Tarán, Iambli-
chus’s text disproves the hypothesis that Speusippus is the source for Universal
Math. IV. Tarán writes, “The preceding arguments conclusively prove, I trust,
that DCMS IV cannot go back to Speusippus and also that this text cannot be
used as a source for the reconstruction of its thought.”45 Tarán has argued against
the claim in Met. N 5, 1092a11–17 that the One is not a being, for Aristotle
does not include the verb phrase he says.46 Tarán is of the opinion that Aristotle
interpolates Speusippus’s doctrine and misconstrues it in order to confirm his
(Aristotle’s) own theory of causality and of first principles.47 Thus, according to
Tarán, Aristotle’s claim that Speusippus upheld the doctrine that the One is not
a being is merely an inference on the part of Aristotle. As a result, Tarán asserts
that Speusippus did not argue this point. In the Universal Math. IV, however, the
author explicitly states that the One is not a being. Tarán concludes, therefore,
that Universal Math. IV is not a text by Speusippus, nor does it express a doctrine
that Speusippus himself advanced.
However, Tarán has not disproven the possibility that Speusippus did infer
the doctrine that the One is not a being. Tarán claims to have concluded that
because Aristotle did not include the proper grammatical signals to indicate
the thought of Speusippus, Speusippus could not have affirmed the very claim
that Aristotle makes regarding Speusippus’s doctrine. While Aristotle may be
tendentious and sarcastic about Speusippus’s conclusion, the essential structure
of Aristotle’s representation may be correct, as J. Dillon has argued.48 In fact,
in Universal Math. IV, we read the following claim, which, in fact, echoes what
would almost conclusively be Speusippus’s doctrine:
But it is fit to call the one neither beautiful nor good, because of the fact that it
is above the beautiful and the good; for it was when nature proceeds farther away
from the things in the principle that, first, the beautiful appeared, and, second,
when the elements had an even longer distance, the good.49 (Universal Math. IV,
16.10–14)
This contains all the elements of Aristotle’s presentation of Speusippus in Meta-
physics N 4, 1091a33–36, although in the Universal Math., the Beautiful and
the Good do not emerge simultaneously, for the Beautiful precedes the Good.
48 Chapter 2

63. But the elements out of which the numbers [are produced] do not yet obtain there
as either beautiful or good; but out of the combination of the one and the matter
that is [the] cause of plurality number subsists, and first in these being and beauty
appear, while next out of the elements of lines geometrical substance appears,
in which in the same way there is being and the beautiful, but in which there is
nothing ugly or bad; but at the extreme, among the fourths and fifths, which are
combined from the last elements, [it is possible] for badness to come-to-be, not
directly, but from something’s falling away from the failing to retain possession of
that which accords with nature.50 (Iamblichus, Universal Math. IV, 18.1–2)
In this light, Beauty and Being emerge at the level of Number, whereas Goodness
emerges posterior to this stage. Moreover, we can confidently assert that the One
is not a being, in light of this passage, which carries Speusippean overtones or
which may be an excerpt of Speusippus’s writings.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I discussed Aristotle’s scathing criticism of Speusippus’s doc-
trine of the One, as Aristotle presents it, and I viewed this doctrine in light
of Iamblichus’s De communi mathematica scientia, chapter 4, which P. Merlan
convincingly identifies as a fragment of Speusippus’s writings. The purpose of
this section was to 1) determine Speusippus’s exact doctrine of the One, and
2) demonstrate Aristotle’s overt awareness of theories proposing to subordinate
nou:V to an ultimate principle. According to Aristotle, Speusippus’s alternative
solution to the aporia of Plato’s first principles is no better than Plato’s in that it is
unable to demonstrate how the principles causally influence and derive the vari-
ous levels of being. We know through Aristotle’s account and from chapter 4 of
Iamblichus’s De communi mathematica scientia that Speusippus’s first principle,
the One, is not a being. What remains ambiguous, however, is the exact status of
Speusippus’s One: Is the One not a Being because it is so much more complete
and self-sufficient that it is superior and prior to Being and nou:V; or, is it, by
contrast, not a Being in the sense that it is not even worthy of being considered a
Being, for it is analogous to a “seed,” a pure potentiality with no causal influence
on any being or substance whatsoever? The first claim of the disjunct reflects
Iamblichus’s (i.e., the Neoplatonists’) position, whose presentation elevates the
One to a superior principle, over and above nou:V and Being. The latter part of
the disjunct is Aristotle’s scathing rebuke of Speusippus and of any philosopher
whose reflex it is to elevate a principle above nou:V, for, according to Aristotle,
nou:V is self-sufficient and an independent substance or being.
What is clear, in light of chapters 1 and 2, is this: Aristotle refuses to accept
the Pythagorean, Platonic, and, especially, Speusippean doctrine of first princi-
Aristotle and Speusippus 49

64. ples, for the two-principles doctrine fails to account for a causal continuity in the
derivation of levels of Being subsequent to the first principle. Aristotle attempts
to provide this account of derivation from a first principle by transforming the
two-principles doctrine into a brilliant account of the superiority of nou:V, con-
sidered as the ultimate principle of the cosmos.
Up to this point, I have not discussed Aristotle’s official position on the One
and the Indefinite Dyad and his response to this doctrine. Essentially, Aristotle
does not reject duality within the first principles—for he is not a monist—but
he does preserve multiplicity and plurality within divine nou:V, or the unmoved
Mover, as we shall see in our examination of Metaphysics L 7–9.
In chapters 3, 4, and 5, I will discuss Aristotle’s solution to the two-principles
doctrine by examining his conception of the One and his philosophical reasons
for upholding the unity-in-diversity doctrine. I will argue that Aristotle preserves
the plurality of the cosmos, despite his assertion of a singular substance—
namely, divine nou:V—which orders the entire cosmos and is responsible for its
movement. Aristotle’s henology and noetic doctrines are philosophical reactions
to a central problem in the Pythagorean, Platonic, and Speusippean doctrines
of the One and the Indefinite Dyad, the problem being that these doctrines fail
to provide the final causality of the ultimate principles. Only by asserting final
causality in the ultimate principles can Aristotle preserve unity-in-plurality, by
taking into account the purpose of the parts within the whole, which Aristotle
succeeds in demonstrating in Metaphysics L 8. Moreover, Aristotle’s preservation
of plurality within unity, and his admission of final causality within the ultimate
principles, provides a fuller and more satisfying account of the (causal) derivation
of individual substances that we find within the cosmos. While not fully suc-
ceeding in eliminating the “gap” between divine nou:V and the world, Aristotle
manages to identify a continuity of substances through the causal influences of
the principles prior in simplicity to the lower orders of the cosmos. Chapters 3,
4, and 5 are, therefore, not only a response to the Pythagoreans, Plato, and Speu-
sippus, but also an effective transition into Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity
of divine nou:V—a doctrine that profoundly influenced subsequent Aristotelian
commentators, notably, Plotinus.
Notes
1. For a recent commentary of Speusippus’s fragments, see M. Isnardi Parente, Speu-
sippo: Frammenti; Edizione, traduzione e commento (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1980); Tarán,
Speusippus of Athens. Prior to these commentaries, scholars consulted P. Lang, De Speu-
sippi Academici scriptis (Bonn, 1911), reprinted (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965); and
F. Čáda, “Platonuv nástupce v Akademii,” Listy filologické XLIV (1917): 1–15, 81–95,
and 161–75.
50 Chapter 2

65. 2. See H. A. Tarrant’s excellent article, “Speusippus’ Ontological Classification,”
Phronesis 19 (1974): 130–45.
3. See R. M. Dancy’s translation: “taking off from the one as principle,” R. M.
Dancy, Two Studies in the Early Academy (Albany: State University of New York Press,
c1991), 78.
4. See Aristotle, Met. M 6, 1080b16ff; and G. Reale, History of Ancient Philosophy,
vol. 3, 68.
5. See A. Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein (Bern; Stuttgart; Wien: Verlag
Paul Haupt, 2002), 125–29.
6. D. Pesce, Idea, Numero e Anima (Padua: Libraria Gregoriana Editrice, 1953), 57,
trans. by Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. III, 69.
7. See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, 70. See L. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens:
A Critical Study with a Collection of the Related Texts and Commentary (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1981), 49ff., for a discussion against Aristotle. J. Dillon, however, disagrees with Tarán
here. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, vii and 41–42. In this light, Dillon wishes to defend
Speusippus against Aristotle’s charge of incoherency in Speusippus’s philosophy. If it is
the case that Speusippus’s writings are retained and reproduced in Iamblichus’s De com-
muni mathematica scientia, ch. 4, which, contrary to Cherniss and Tarán’s claims, there
is sufficient evidence, as Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 98–140, has proven,
then it stands to reason that Aristotle clearly exaggerates and perhaps misrepresents Speu-
sippus in his criticism. Nevertheless, Aristotle still recognizes the philosophical reflex to
subordinate nou:V to a superior principle, which, in this case, is the One, and attempts to
demonstrate (in Metaphysics L 7–9) that this “gap” is unwarranted, for the most simple
principle of the cosmos, according to Aristotle, is the intelligible object of nou:V—namely,
nou:V itself. (This theme will be discussed in detail in chapter 5.) See also J. Dillon, “Speu-
sippus in Iamblichus,” Phronesis 29 (1984), 325–32. M. Wilson argues that it is Aristotle
who, in fact, should be charged with the same charge of an episodic tragedy, given that
Aristotle does not explain sufficiently the passage from genus to species. “Aristotle once
accused Speusippus of representing nature like an episodic tragedy, on the grounds that
he had made each hypostasis independent and isolated from every other (Met. N.3,
1090b19–20). His own theory of the subject-genus, however, was perhaps even more
vulnerable to this charge” (M. Wilson, Aristotle’s Theory of the Unity of Science [Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 2000], 239).
8. See Tarrant, “Speusippus’ Ontological Classification,” 134. See Metry, Speusippos:
Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 112–24.
9. See also Met. L 7, 1072b30–34 and 10, 1075a36–37. This will be discussed below.
10. See Dancy, Two Studies, 161, fn.143. Without reference to Universal Math. IV,
however, it is difficult to perceive the Neoplatonic character in Speusippus. This, how-
ever, will be discussed below.
11. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 43. Dillon claims that Aristotle is being tendentious
here, for the seed analogy can only be related to the One insofar as the seed is appar-
ently simple, unlike the One, which is actually simple—“there could be no implication
of incompleteness or imperfection in the case of the One.” For a contrasting view, see
Aristotle and Speusippus 51

66. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, 33–34. Tarán clearly discredits Aristotle’s testimony. Also see
A. H. Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), 22, for a comparison between Speusip-
pus and the Neopythagoreans. The Neopythagorean introduction of a monistic system
must be studied separately in chapters 5 and 6.
12. See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 42; see also M. Isnardi Parente, “Proodos in Speu-
sippo?,” Athenaeum 53 (1975) 88–110; and Robin, La théorie Platonicienne, 654 ff.
13. Speusippus attempts to explain what Aristotle calls his episodic cosmos (Met. Z
1028b21–4) by postulating some “mechanism. . . . The best he [sc. Speusippus] could
come up with,” says Dillon, “is the theory that the (logically) first product of the union
of the two ultimate principles should then become a principle in its turn, mating, so to
speak, in an incestuous union, with its mother (which Speusippus has been careful to
characterize . . . as ‘a totally fluid and pliable matter’), and producing the next level of
being.” Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 46. Speusippus, it would seem, was concerned with
the derivation of a multi-leveled cosmos from a “pair of totally simple first principles.”
Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 47. See also Metaphysics M 9, 1085a34–b4. In light of this
passage, one witnesses an explanation, albeit weak, for the derivation and production of
the varying levels of being within the cosmos and the derivation of principles governing
each level of the cosmos. (See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 46–47.) Dillon, moreover, states,
when discussing Aristotle’s unjust critique of Speusippus’s alleged abandonment of the
Ideal Numbers that Speusippus held a monistic metaphysical system (i.e., two-principles
doctrine, the One and the Indefinite Dyad). (See Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 51.) Clearly,
Aristotle was not satisfied with Speusippus’s explanation of the transition to plurality from
unity, for this transition does not seem to preserve a fluid continuity between the causal
influence of the ultimate principles and the subsequent diverse levels of being. Once
again, we shall see that the two-principles doctrine was radically transformed by Plotinus
and the subsequent Neoplatonists. However, it should be stated that Aristotle’s criticism,
strictly speaking, of the episodic stages of principles does not directly attack Speusippus’s
dualistic starting point, of the One and plh:qoV. While Aristotle does have reservations
about the transition from unity to plurality, he does not directly associate his criticism of
the One and the Plethos with the episodic stages of principles.
14. See Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 129–32.
15. See Ross’s Commentary, vol. II, 381, with respect to the derivation of perfect from
imperfect in the Pythagoreans.
16. E. Cattanei, Enti matematici e metafisica: Aristotele, Platone e l’Accademia antica a
confronto (Milano: Vita e pensiero, 1996), 148–55.
17. Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 3, 70.
18. See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 3, 70. See also L. Elders, Aristotle’s
Theory of the One: A Commentary on Book X of the Metaphysics (Assen, Netherlands:
Koninklijke Van Gorcum Comp., 1960), 10. See Met. M 9, 1085b4–34, where Aristo-
tle employs terms such as “one,” “number,” and “multiplicity,” when criticizing Speusip-
pus. Dillon is correct, however, to state that Aristotle is being tendentious and polemical
here. Aristotle interprets (it would seem intentionally) these terms in light of his own
52 Chapter 2

67. philosophical system and, consequently, reduces Speusippus’s philosophical claim into
an incoherent absurdity. “What he [sc. Aristotle] does not allow for is that Speusippus
is postulating first principles of unity, multiplicity, and number which are not subject
to Aristotelian definitions” (Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 47). See also A. Falcon, “Aristo-
tle, Speusippus, and the Method of Division,” Classical Quarterly 50 (2000), 402–14;
J. Barnes, “Homonymy in Aristotle and Speusippus,” Classical Quarterly 21 (1971),
65–80; L. Tarán, “Speusippus and Aristotle on Homonymy and Synonymy,” Hermes 106
(1978), 73–99; and Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 102–10.
19. Aëtius, quoted in Stobaeus Anth. 1.1; Diels DG 303b; frag. 38 Lang; frag. 89
Isnardi Parente; frag. 58 Táran. (Found in Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, 392,
fn.19.)
20. See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, Vol. 3, 70, and see Cicero De natura
deorum 1.13.32; LCL 35; Minucius Felix Octav. 19.7; frags. 39a–b; frags. 90–91 Isnardi
Parente; frags. 56a–b Táran.
21. Reale, 70, and fn.21: “With regard to the human soul, it would seem that Speu-
sippus maintained the immortality of all its parts, as Olympiodorus says in his commen-
tary on the Phaedo (frag. 55 Lang; frag. 99 Isnardi Parente; frag. 55 Táran).”
22. Proclus, A Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, trans G. R. Morrow.
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), 63–64, corresponding to Friedlein
(1873), 77.7–78.6.
23. See Dancy, Two Studies, 85.
24. A. C. Lloyd. “The Principle that the Cause is Greater than its Effect,” Phronesis
21 (1976), 146–56. See also Dancy, Two Studies, 86.
25. Dancy, Two Studies, 85.
26. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, 338, fn.141: “Some scholars, e.g., Krische, Forschun-
gen, 253, fn.1 and Ross in his note on 1092 A 13–15, say that this sentence is probably
an inference of Aristotle, but they say nothing about the fact that its syntax shows it is
merely an inference. It is at the very least ambiguous and misleading to translate this
clause of intended result as ‘so that the One itself is not even an existing thing’ (Ross;
similarly Annas).”
27. Dancy is correct to remind us of Aristotle’s treatment of Leucippus and Democri-
tus, both of whom discussed being that did not “exist,” and Aristotle did not conclude
that their theories were absurd, contrary to Aristotle’s assessment of Speusippus’s phi-
losophy. Dancy writes, “Recall his [Aristotle’s] treatment of Leucippus and Democritus:
theirs was a theory to be reckoned with despite its Meinongianism, and Aristotle did
not profess to find anything absurd in it because of that Meinongianism. Aristotle is, no
doubt, an Actualist at heart, but his Actualism is not so well-entrenched that he can see in
Meinongian consequences an obvious refutation of their antecedents” (Dancy, Two Stud-
ies, 88). It must be assumed, in light of the given evidence, that Speusippus did uphold
the doctrine that the One is not a being.
28. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism. See also J. Dillon, The Heirs of Plato, 41
ff., and 41, fn.28; and see Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 26–46.
29. See Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 73–110.
Aristotle and Speusippus 53

68. 30. See J. Dillon’s very interesting remark in The Heirs of Plato, 42 and fn.30. See also
J. Halfwassen, “Speusipp und die metaphysische Deutung von Platons ‘Parmenides,’”
365–72; and G. Bechtle, The Anonymous Commentary of Plato’s Parmenides (Bern: P.
Haupt, 1999), 111–17.
31. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 105.
32. E. R. Dodds, “The Parmenides of Plato and the Origin of the Neo-Platonic One,”
Classical Quarterly 22 (1928): 129–42, esp. 140, fn.5. For a counter-claim, see J. Rist,
“The Neoplatonic One and Plato’s Parmenides,” Transactions of the American Philological
Association 93 (1962), 389–401. See also J. Halfwassen, “Speusipp und die metaphy-
sische Deutung von Platons ‘Parmenides,’” in EN KAI PLHQOS: Einheit und Vielheit.
Festschrift für Karl Bormann, eds. L. Hagemann and R. Glei (Würzburg: Oros Verlag,
1993), 339–73, especially 343–57.
33. See also C. Sandulescu-Godeni, Das Verhaeltnis von Raionalitaet und Irrationalitaet
in der Philosophie Platons (1938) 25; G. Nebel, Plotins Kategorien der intelligiblen Welt
(Tübingen: Mohr, 1929), 32 f. For the opposite point of view, see, for example, A. H.
Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy of Plotinus, 18 and
22; see also his Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (Lanham, MD: A Littlefield, Adams Qual-
ity Paperback, 1981), 67. See also H. R. Schwyzer, art. Plotinus, RE XXI/1 (1951): 559 ff.
34. This Aristotelian response to Speusippus will be crucial to our discussion of Ploti-
nus’s critique of Aristotle’s first principle of nou:V. More striking, and strongly related to
the topic of the simplicity of nou:V in both Aristotle and Plotinus, is the following passage
in Universal Math. IV, which attributes simplicity to the One, confirming the status of
nonbeing of the One and of the principle of plurality, both of which are responsible for
the generation of mathematical numbers.
For the mathematical numbers one must posit two [things], the first and highest principles,
the one (which indeed one ought not yet even call a being, because of the fact that it is simple
and because of the fact that it is a principle for the things that are, while the principle is not
yet such as are the things of which it is a principle), and again another principle, that of plu-
rality, which can by virtue of itself provide division as well. (Iamblichus, Universal Math. IV,
15.6–12, trans. Dancy, Two Studies, 90–91)
With regard to Speusippus’s reform of the Platonic singular principle of the One and
the Indefinite Dyad, Speusippus retains the doctrine of the One but replaces the Indefi-
nite Dyad with the principle of Plurality, for the reason that once the Ideal Numbers and
the Forms have been eliminated in his cosmology, and, consequently, explaining the di-
versity of the cosmos through the derivation of mathematical entities, multiplicity rather
than the Indefinite Dyad appears to have better explained the plurality of the cosmos.
(See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, 69.) Two passages from the Metaphysics best
articulate this insight: Metaphysics N 1, 1087b4ff and N 5, 1092a33ff. The simplicity of
the One can be identified in Plato’s Parmenides (137c–142a). It has even been suggested
by two prominent scholars that Plato, who is allegedly aware of Speusippus’s metaphysi-
cal doctrine, is responding to Speusippus in the Parmenides. See A. Graeser, “Platon gegen
Speusipp: Bemerkungen zur ersten Hypothese des Platonischen Parmenides,” Museum
54 Chapter 2

69. Helveticum 54 (1997), 45–47; A. Graeser, “Anhang: Probleme der Speusipp-Interpreta-
tion,” in Prolegomena zu einer Interpretation des zweiten Teils des Platonischen Parmenides
[Berner Reihe philosophischer Studien 25] (Bern: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1999), 41–53; J.
Halfwassen, “Speusipp und die metaphysische Deutung von Platons ‘Parmenides,’”
357–73; and J. Halfwassen, Jens, “Speusipp und die Unendlichkeit des Einen: Ein neues
Speusipp-Testimonium bei Proklos und seine Bedeutung,” Archiv für Geschichte der
Philosophie 74 (1992), 43–73. In the first hypothesis of the Parmenides (137c–142a),
Parmenides (137c) states that the One cannot be identified with the Many and is without
parts (137c–d). As a result, the One cannot in any way be predicated, for to predicate
anything of the One would be to introduce into the One multiplicity (141e). Nor can we
predicate Being of the One (141e). For this reason, Plato (followed by Speusippus) asserts
that the One is not. (See also R. S. Brumbaugh, Plato on the One: The Hypotheses in the
Parmenides [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1961]; and B. Mates, “Identity and
Predication in Plato,” Phronesis 24 [1979]: 211–29.)
35. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 105.
36. See also Metry, Speusippos: Zahl—Erkenntnis—Sein, 139–57 and 162–67.
37. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 105–6.
38. Merlan, “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus,” 31.
39. See Proclus’s commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, in R. Klibansky, C. Labowsky,
Procli Commentarium in Platonis Parmenidem (1953), 38, 33–41, 10. See also Dillon,
The Heirs of Plato, 42, fn.30.
40. See Proclus’s commentary on Plato’s Parmenides, in R. Klibansky, C. Labowsky,
Procli Commentarium in Platonis Parmenidem (1953), 40.1–5.
41. Frag. 5, Diels; Enn. V 1 [10] 8; V 9 [5]; see also A. H. Armstrong, “The Back-
ground of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not outside the Intellect,’” in Les Sources
de Plotin, Tome V (Vadoeuvres-Genève: Fondation Hardt, 1960), 391–413, which will
be discussed in greater detail in chapter 9.
42. Merlan, “Greek Philosophy from Plato to Plotinus,” 32 including fn.2. However,
see also Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, 356–58, where it is held that Speusippus’s One is not
exactly a precursor to the Plotinian doctrine of the One.
43. Merlan, From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 106.
44. According to Dancy, there is no discrepency between Aristotle’s and the Universal
Math’s account of the One. In the latter, the One is above (uJperavnw) the Good, the
Beautiful, and Being, but with Aristotle, what is meant is that the One is first and re-
sponsible for every other Being, it is the cause of beings. See Dancy, Two Studies, 94. This
debate is anchored in the interpretation of Republic VI 509b2–10, whether the Good is
beyond Being or substance. The Neopythagoreans and later Platonists accepted the claim
that the Good is beyond Being. Moderatus of Gades “shows that the first one is above
being and all substances” (Simplicius, In Physica 230.36–37; see Dancy, Two Studies, 165,
fn.174). Plotinus accepted this doctrine (see Enn. VI.9.3.36–38 and also VI.9.3.52). In
this light, the Good is not Being, but rather beyond Being. According to Dancy and
others, this latter claim is not what Plato meant (see also N. P. White, A Companion
to Plato’s Republic [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979], 180–81), and I
Aristotle and Speusippus 55

70. do not think that Aristotle understood it this way either. Plato’s phrase “beyond being”
(ejpevkeina th:V oujsivaV) does not mean the transcendence of Being, for the Good is ap-
parently still an object of knowledge. ejpevkeina th:V oujsivaV can mean “on the far side
of it” (Dancy, Two Studies, 96)—that the Good is on the far side of Being. (Although,
admittedly, this expression does not amount to any further clarification of the status of
the One to Being.) Moreover, the Good here is mentioned as one type of Form, which is
within the realm of Being (see Rep V 474a4 and also VI 484c6 and d4, where is it indi-
cated that Being is parallel with things that are Good). “There is no room in the Republic
for Meinongianism about the Good,” says Dancy (Two Studies, 96). There do not seem to
be any Platonic overtones in this respect in Speusippus, for Speusippus clearly, according
to the testimony of Aristotle and of Universal Math., did not equate the first principle
with the Good. Dancy makes reference to a very significant passage found in Simplicius,
which relates directly to our topic, whether or not there is a principle that precedes nou:V.
(See also Dancy, Two Studies, 165, fn.182.) This will be discussed in greater depth in the
subsequent chapters.
45. Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, 107.
46. Not just Tarán, but also Ross (1924), vol 2, 489 ad 1092a13–15: “Speusippus’
argument is represented as follows: (1) The One is the beginning of all things. (2) All
beginnings are imperfect. Therefore the One is imperfect. From this Aristotle draws a
consequence of his own probably not drawn by Speusippus: (3) What is imperfect cannot
be said really to be. The One is imperfect. Therefore the One is not. Aristotle denies the
premise numbered (2) above.” (See Dancy, Two Studies, 162, fn.146.)
47. See Tarán, Speusippus of Athens, 338–39.
48. See J. Dillon, “Speusippus in Iamblichus,” Phronesis 24 (1984), 326. Aligning
himself with P. Merlan’s thesis of the inclusion of Speusippus in Iamblichus’s Universal
Math. ch. IV, Dillon, on p. 332, states clearly his disagreement with Tarán.
49. Dancy, Two Studies, 115.
50. Dancy, Two Studies, 90.
56 Chapter 2

71. 57
c h a pte r t h r ee
Aristotelian Henology
Introduction
Aristotle’s criticism of Plato’s conception of the One raises the question, what is
Aristotle’s solution to this aporia? This chapter will attempt to provide an answer
to this question—an answer and analysis that will lead us to Aristotle’s doctrine
of the simplicity and priority of nou:V.
Chapter 3 will essentially discuss Aristotle’s transformation and renewed con-
ception of Plato’s doctrine of the One. As with his doctrine of Being, Aristotle
asserts that the “one” is a pros hen equivocal; the “one” is not to be considered a
universal substance, as it is considered in Plato’s metaphysics. I will concentrate
on books D and I of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and will give more emphasis to Aris-
totle’s account of the “one” from Metaphysics I.
Aristotelian Henology: Aristotle’s Many Senses of the One
How does Aristotle understand the principle of the “one”? It is clear, as with
his interpretation of Being, that the “one” is a pros hen equivocal, rather than
a univocal substance. The One, then, cannot assume the same operation as it
does in Plato’s metaphysics. Metaphysics I recapitulates Aristotle’s discussion of
the many senses of the “one,” as expressed in Metaphysics D 6, and also makes
reference to the aporetic question as to whether the “one” (and Being) are sub-
stances of entities, as was discussed in Metaphysics B. It is clear that Aristotle
is taking issue here with Plato, the Pythagoreans, and especially the Platonists,
like Speusippus.

72. 58 Chapter 3
Briefly, Aristotle recapitulates his conception of the “one” per se in Metaphys-
ics I 1: Things are one when 1) they are continuous in general or by nature; 2)
they are whole; 3) the things in question are one by definition; and 4) they are
individuals. Moreover, these things are one due to their indivisibility regard-
ing their movement, conception, and definition. In order for something to be
one, it must be considered as the first measure of a kind, and this measure is of
quantity. In addition to this, measure has an epistemological dimension, for it
is depicted as that by which something is known. Knowledge presupposes an
adequate standard or measure of objects, and this assertion will further advance
and determine the course of our study on the topic of the simplicity of nou:V.
And nou:V has itself for its sole object; nou:V is indivisible and identical or homo-
geneous with the object that it measures—namely, itself. In the case of the “one,”
the “one” is indivisible just because the first of each class of things is indivisible.
Unity, then, is a measure, “more properly of quantity, and secondly of quality”
(Met. I 1, 1053b4–9).
It has been argued that within the Academy discussions were held not only
about the nature of the “one” as a principle, but also about the theories of predi-
cation of unity, thereby interconnecting the ontological with the logical orders.
Initially, Aristotle limits his study to the theme of the predication of the “one,”
but subsequent to this, he discusses the multiple ways in which the one can be
predicated by appealing to the theory of measure. This method is clearly of the
logical order, as we also see in Met. D 6, 1016b8 ff. The language used to itemize
the many senses of the “one” differs slightly in Met. D 6 and I 1. Aristotle con-
tinues to itemize four senses of the “one” per se, but there are subtle differences.
In Met. I 1, 1052a33, Aristotle includes a new sense of the “one,” that the object
is indivisible in kind or in number. This sense is omitted in Met. D; whereas, the
“one,” by considering the genus as a unity in D 6, 1016a25ff, is no longer re-
tained in Met. I: w|n to; gevnoV e{n. Metaphysics I appears to be a later work, for it
abandons the genus-concept theory and adopts rather the more refined theory of
individual unity, which was omitted in Met. D 6.1 The omission is indicative of
a possible progression in Aristotle’s conception of the “one.” In Met. I, Aristotle
appears to have abandoned the doctrine of the natural unity of the genus, while
placing a greater emphasis on his conception of the individual. Because Met. I
appears to be a progression in Aristotle’s thought of the doctrine of the “one,” it
is a more natural starting point for our discussion of his conception of the “one.”
In Met. I, Aristotle essentially defines the one or unity as a measure, first and
foremost a measure of quantity and, subsequently, of one quality (see Met. I 1,
1053b4–9). Clearly, Aristotle here wishes to overthrow any Platonic claim that
the “one” is a transcendent principle of the cosmos. In Met. I 1, Aristotle reca-
pitulates the four fundamental ways in which the “one” is said per se (essentially).

73. Aristotelian Henology 59
I begin with the first of the four fundamental ways in which the “one” is said
per se (i.e., the continuous). That which is continuous is so generally and abso-
lutely or by nature, because its self-motion is indivisible, simple, and one: “and
of these, that has more unity and is prior, whose movement is more indivisible
and simpler” (Met. I 1, 1052a20). Aristotle states that the “one” is continuous
“either in general, or especially that which is continuous by nature and not by
contact nor by being tied together” (h[ aJplw:V h] mavlista ge to; fuvsei kai;
mh; aJfh:/ mhde; desmw:/). Elders claims that 1056a19 specifically does not have a
“full disjunctive value.”2 He opts to translate this passage in the following way:
“‘The continuous in general, and especially the continuous by nature.’”3 This
characterization of the “one” as continuous was stated in Met. D 6, 1016a1–17,
where Aristotle distinguishes between the continuous in a general way, by either
external contact or by internal unity (see Met. D 6, 1016a5–6). This double as-
pect of the continuous is not, however, articulated in De Caelo 306b23–25. Here,
Aristotle does not articulate the continuous by composition, for he is discussing
organic unity (see Phys. III, 227a7–17). It would appear here that Aristotle is
accentuating the unity of a natural sort over and against the atomistic viewpoint
of Democritus (see De Caelo I 7, 275b29 and De Gen. et Cor. I 8, 325a6).
The second participant in his list of four entails the “one” that is seen as a
whole4—a whole with respect to its movement as being one and indivisible in
place and time. That which is whole and contains a determinate form is also
considered to be one in a more superior way (see Met. I 1, 1052a23–32).
By considering the “one” per se as a whole, Aristotle appears to be alluding to
the first heaven, whereby the stars or unmoved movers move according to one
single motion, whereas the subsequent spheres move according to a different
arrangement of movement (see De Caelo II 12, 291b29–32; 292b25–26; and
II 4, 287a23 ff.). Aristotle, moreover, writes in the De Anima that Democritus
was of the opinion that the indivisible spheres—the spherical atoms—put the
entire cosmos into motion. Democritus “says that the spherical atoms, as they
move because it is their nature never to remain still, draw the whole body with
them and so move it” (DA I 3, 406b20–23). Contra Democritus, Aristotle ad-
vances a different sense of the indivisible, referring to the external sphere. This
is confirmed in De Caelo II 6, 288a24 ff. Furthermore, Aristotle adds that the
first heaven is to be considered as a divine substance, unlike the lifeless qualities
of inanimate matter: “We think of the stars as mere bodies, and as units with a
serial order indeed but entirely inanimate; but we should rather conceive them
as enjoying life and action” (De Caelo II 12, 292a18; see also lines 20 ff). The
movement of the outer sphere is whole, homogeneous, and simple, for the outer
sphere does not require place and, as a result, the limitations of a body5 (see Phys.
IV 5, 212b11–22). Similarly, the outer sphere or first heaven is beyond time and,

74. as a result, eternal. To say, then, that the movement of the first heaven or the
whole is indivisible in time, is to assert that it possesses nothing prior or posterior
to it (see De Caelo II 8).
Finally, the circular movement of the first heaven functions as a measure of
the other subordinate moving arrangements in the cosmos. “Again, if the motion
of the heaven is the measure of all movements in virtue of being alone continu-
ous and regular and eternal, and if, in each kind, the measure is the minimum,
and the minimum movement is the swiftest, then the movement of the heaven
must be the swiftest of all movements” (De Caelo II 5, 287a23–26). The concept
of measure is central to Aristotle’s philosophy and will prove to be important in
our study of the unity and plurality of the cosmos and of his doctrine of nou:V.6
Regarding the third characterization of the “one,” Aristotle writes, “ta; me;n
dh; ou{twV e}n h|/ sunece;V h] o{lon, ta; de; w{n a]n oJ lovgoV ei|V h/, toiau:ta
de; w|n hJ novhsiV miva, toiau:ta de; w|n ajdiaivretoV, ajdiaivretoV de; tou:
ajdiairevtou ei[dei h] ajriqmw:/.” “Of this sort [sc. a thing’s definition is one]
are the things the thought of which is one, i.e. those the thought of which
is indivisible” (Met. I 1, 1052a29–30). That which is one qua indivisible in
number is considered to be the individual: “In number, then, the individual is
indivisible”7 (Met. I 1, 1052a33). In Met. D 6, Aristotle includes in his list of
characterizations of the “one” per se the aspect of intuition or novhsiV, which is
indivisible: “In general those things the thought of whose essence is indivisible,
and cannot separate them either in time or in place or in definition, are most
of all one, and of these especially those which are substances” [o{lwV de; w|n hJ
novhsiV ajdiaivretoV hJ noou:sa to; tiv hn einai, kai; mh; duvnatai cwrivsai
mhvte crovnw/ mhvte topw/ mhvte lovgw/] (Met. D 6, 1016b1–3).8 Only the intel-
lectual content of an examined substance is novhsiV—a term that closely re-
sembles Plato’s conception of intuition.9 This doctrine of novhsiV is also found
in Anal. Post. II 19, where it is said that novhsiV guarantees the emergence of
scientific thought, that it provides the conditions for the emergence of univer-
sals, whereby the indivisibles (ta; ajmerh:)—that is, the One and its species (see
Met. D 6, 1014b6 and 1084b14) are grasped by novhsiV. In 1052a33, however,
Aristotle rejects the affiliation with a transcendental One in order to guarantee
indivisibility and unity.10
Finally, the fourth characteristic states that those objects that are indivisible
in kind are also indivisible in intelligibility and in knowledge (tw:/ gnwstw:/) or
in science (th:/ ejpisthvmh/), such that what causes a substance to become one—
namely, the form—“must be one in the primary sense”11 (Met. I 1, 1052a34).
Cleary also highlights the parallel definition of the one with “cause” and “ele-
ment,” as is discussed in Met. I, 1052b15 ff. Here it is essential to note that what
is called one refers primarily to the
60 Chapter 3

75. first measure of each genus and, most properly, of quantity; for it is from this that
it has been extended to others. . . . Now in all these the measure (metron) and
principle (arche) is something which is one and indivisible (hen ti kai adiaireton),
since even in lines we treat the length of one foot as indivisible. For everywhere we
seek as a measure something which is one and indivisible, and this is something
which is simple either in quality or in quantity. The measure of a number is the
most accurate (akribestaton) because the unit is posited as indivisible in all respects
(1053a1). In conclusion, Aristotle claims (1053b4ff) that it is evident that to be
one, if we describe it according to name, is to be some measure, most properly of
quantity, and then of quality. And it will be such if, in the first case, it is indivis-
ible with respect to quantity, and in the second, indivisible with respect to quality.
Hence the one is indivisible, either simply (haplos) or qua one (hei hen).12
In Met. I 2, Aristotle expands his reflection of the “one” as a measure to a dis-
cussion of the “one” as being undivided, as having a general meaning.13 In this
chapter, Aristotle clearly articulates his opposition to the Pythagorean and Pla-
tonic conceptions of a transcendent One (see Met. I 2, 1053b9–16). The “one”
is, rather, an attribute or property of a substance. This assertion was alluded to in
Aristotle’s critique of Speusippus but is spelled out in greater detail in Met. I I. 2.
The “one,” as with being, is a universal, and no universal can assume the status of
a substance. As a result, the “one” is not a substance (see Met. I 2, 1053b17–23;
1054a10–19). Paramount in this section is Aristotle’s denial of substantiality
to the “one.” Rather, he assigns to the one the status of a predicate. The one is
as universal as being, and, as a result, it is not a separate substance.14 Thus, the
“one” is a definite thing for each genus, but the unity is not unity in itself, “but
just as in colours we must seek that unity as one colour; so in substances we
must seek it as one substance.”15 Once again, in every genus, the unity contains
a certain nature.16
In Met. I 2, 1054a5–6, Aristotle states that numbers and one are included in
various items, including movement. The theme of movement plays an important
role in our study of Aristotle’s doctrine of nou:V and of Plotinus’s interpretation of
Aristotle’s doctrine. Plato’s conception of motion consisted of otherness (e{teron),
as discussed in chapter 1. “This is evident,” says Aristotle, “from what people say.
Some call it otherness and inequality and the unreal; none of these, however is
necessarily moved, and further, change is not either to these or from these any
more than from their opposites” (Met. K 9, 1066a10–12). The Indefinite Dyad
and matter, moreover, are involved in the activity of movement in the cosmos,
for in his work On the Philosophy of Archytas (frag. 2 Ross), Aristotle states that
according to Plato, movement is defined as otherness within matter (see On
Gener. and Corrup. I 3, 319a). In this light, Aristotle correlates movement with
matter (see De Caelo II 12, 293a9). Each sphere or body generates its own par-
Aristotelian Henology 61

76. ticular kind of movement, which is simultaneously affected by the movement
of the first heavenly sphere, which is characterized by the causal influence of
nou:V.17 The transcendence of these Platonic principles, however, is further con-
tested and challenged by Aristotle in Met. L, to which I now turn. The purpose
of this brief discussion on Aristotle’s conception of the one is to demonstrate
Aristotle’s departure from the Platonic two-principle doctrine and to prepare for
our discussion of Aristotle’s alternative to this two-principle doctrine.
Aristotle’s Alternative to Plato’s First Principles
As seen in Met. I, Aristotle takes issue with the Platonic doctrine of a transcen-
dent principle—namely, the One—but he has not yet provided an alternative
account to Plato’s first principles. In Met. L 4–5, Aristotle provides such an
account. In the early books of Met. L, we witness Aristotle once again argu-
ing against Plato and the Platonists. Aristotle’s focus in these books is on the
principles, causes, and elements of sensible, changeable substances. “Sensible
substance is changeable,” says Aristotle (Met. L 2, 1069b3). This teaching echoes
his doctrine in Physics I, where Aristotle states that the precise principles are those
that are the contraries and a stable subject that is permanent amid all change.
Strictly speaking, these various principles are different for each type of change
regarding essence, quality, quantity, and place. However, all changing entities
share the same principles in a general and analogical sense.18
In Met. L 2, 1069b15 ff., Aristotle reemphasizes his teaching that “being”
is spoken of in two ways. In this light, Aristotle avoids the Parmenidean sanc-
tion against the generation from nonbeing by providing an account of change
in terms of “that which is potentially to that which is actually,” or, using an
example of the category of quality, “from potentially white to actually white”
(Met. L 2, 1069b16, 17). Matter remains the constant subject throughout the
change. Nonbeing, which includes matter, is furthermore expressed under three
categories: potential being, privation, and matter (see Met. L 2, 1069b27–34).
Each one of these senses of nonbeing is not, however, a self-subsistent entity, for
each refers to actual being or form “which is a primary reality for Aristotle just as
much as it was for Plato, even though they disagree about how this form should
be defined and understood.”19
In the passage just cited, Aristotle refers to his conclusions in Physics I 7
regarding the causes and principles of changing substances. Privation and form
or definition are contraries, leaving matter as the third principle and cause.20
In other words, the one and the same form suffices to explain change through
its absence or its presence, so that something both does and does not come to
be from what is not. The three kinds of substances mentioned in Met. L 1 in-
62 Chapter 3

77. clude sensible substance, which further undergoes change, and change implies
matter, form, and privation—a subject that is adequately summarized at the
end of Met. L 2.
Aristotle’s discussion of first principles takes a significant turn in Met. L 4 and
5, where he discusses his account of first principles and seeks a solution to the
Platonic problem of first principles. Met. L 4 recapitulates Aristotle’s conclusions
from Met. L 3 about the diverse roles of matter and form at multiple levels of
reality. On the one hand, the causes and principles of entities are distinct, but, on
the other hand, they are the same, when considered universally and analogically
(see Met. L 4, 1070a31–32). This theme is also a recapitulation of his discus-
sion of the aporia in Met. B, where Aristotle poses the question of whether or
not the principles and elements of substances and of the subsequent categories
are the same or different. Strictly speaking, it is not possible that substances and
the other categories share the same principles and elements, for, if this were the
case, then the principles and elements would have to be common like Platonic
Forms. This cannot be the case, since nothing precedes substances and the
other categories. This first argument is, indeed, directed at Plato (see Met. L 4,
1070a33–1070b3).
Aristotle’s second argument (1070b3–4) entails the priority of substance over
relations. He asserts that substances cannot be reduced to elements of relations, nor
is it possible for relations to be elevated to elements of substance, as the Platonists
advocate. If the latter were possible, then the elements of relations would exist prior
to a substance, which is absurd, for the relation is one category among others that
are dependent on substance.21 Aristotle writes, “But again (b) substance is not an
element in relative terms, nor is any of these an element in substance.”
In his final argument, Aristotle begins by asking, “How can all things have
the same elements?” (Met. L 4, 1070b4). He makes reference to the principles of
Unity and Being, which are intelligible, precisely because they are universal and
unable to be perceived by sense-perception.22 Aristotle argues that if it were the
case that Unity and Being were elements of a compound, then the compound (BA)
must be distinguished from each of the independent elements—namely, A and B.
However, the compound in itself forms a unity and is, by implication, a kind of
being. It would appear, therefore, that the compound (BA) becomes an element.
For an element can be neither a substance nor a relation: “[B]ut it must be one or
other. All things, then, have not the same elements” (Met. L 4, 1070b8).
Aristotle, however, attempts to obviate the problem by way of accommodat-
ing both positions, that things have and do not have the same elements: “in a
sense they have and in a sense they have not” (Met. L 4, 1070b10). In Met. L
4, 1070b10 ff., Aristotle advances what is perhaps the most brilliant solution to
the problem—namely, that the principles and elements are the same, but only
Aristotelian Henology 63

78. by way of analogy. The specific principles, such as hot and cold, apply solely to
sensible entities, whereas they are inapplicable to entities of a mathematical na-
ture, except by way of analogy. Thus, these elements and principles are not the
same and are the same, only by analogy. The physical principles—form, matter,
and privation—are applicable to all sensible entities, but even within the physical
realm, they differ with respect to different genera; such as in the case of colors,
they are white, black, and surface, whereas in the case of day and night, they are
light, darkness, and air23 (see Met. L 4, 1070b15–21). Accidents, moreover, are
affected by change and are also influenced by three principles.24
In Met. L 4, 1070b22, Aristotle makes a formal distinction between three
elements and four principles. The three elements are different when they func-
tion as different genera, “as indeed is the ‘first cause’ which functions as a distinct
moving cause for different things; e.g., the medical art is the moving cause in
cases where health, disease, and the body are the elements.”25 The analogous
principles indicate that form, privation, and matter are not homogeneous prin-
ciples. The form appears to be the primary principle, whereas privation and
matter retain their status as principles insofar as they relate to the principle of
form26 (see Met. L 4, 1070b22–29). In this passage, Aristotle makes the distinc-
tion between internal and external causes. In any generation there is an external
moving cause, such as a man, who produces a man a horse a horse, and so forth.
(Although this passage refers to external and internal causality, one can anticipate
Aristotle’s discussion of an external cause that moves all things. This external
cause, or ontologically prior substance, would seem to make implicit reference to
the First Mover, “which is the ultimate mover of everything in the universe.”)27
In his subsequent discussion of the nature and causal role of the moving cause,
Aristotle curiously omits any mention of the final cause, though he admits to the
identification of the proximate efficient cause with the formal cause of sensible
substances. From the vantage point of oujsiva, Aristotle, therefore, emphasizes
the three principles active in becoming—matter, form, and efficient cause—to
the exclusion of final causality and privation (see Met. L 4, 1070b30–35). In
addition to the specific type of causality in which the efficient causality coalesces
with the formal and final causalities, Aristotle makes reference to a causality that
differs fundamentally from the previous causes (see Phys. II). This reference is to
the causality of the First Mover of all the cosmos, a subject to which Aristotle
will return in the subsequent chapters.
Met. L 5 reverts to the initial question in Met. L 4, but now in light of the
doctrine of separate substances. Given the high premium on substance in gen-
eral, Aristotle argues differently now for the sameness of principles and causes
of all entities. “Some things can exist and some cannot, and it is the former that
are substances. And therefore all things have the same causes, because, without
64 Chapter 3

79. substances, modifications and movements do not exist. Further, these causes will
probably be soul and body, or reason and desire and body” (Met. L 5, 1070b36–
1071a4). As Cleary states, the ontological priority of substance over accidents
entails the “criterion of non-reciprocal dependence,” which justifies “the claim
that the causes of substances are the causes of accidents.”28
Significant to our discussion of the inner nature of nou:V is Aristotle’s sub-
sequent attempt at accounting for the analogical sameness of principles in all
things: that of actuality and potentiality. “And in yet another way, analogically
identical things are principles, i.e., actuality and potency” (Met. L 5, 1071a5–6).
However, Aristotle is quick to assert that the same entity in question is, on the
one hand, actual, while, on the other hand, potential: “but these are not only
different for different things but also apply in different ways to them. For in
some cases the same thing exists at one time actually and at another potentially,
e.g. wine or flesh or man does so”29 (Met. L 5, 1071a6–7). The subsequent lines
contrast form and the composite of form and matter as states of actuality versus
matter, which is always in a state of potentiality, for it is only matter that has the
capacity to be formed or to become anything by virtue of the form or its priva-
tion. “For the form exists actually, if it can exist apart, and so does the complex
of form and matter, and the privation, e.g. darkness or disease; but the matter
exists potentially; for this is that which can become qualified either by the form
or by the privation”30 (Met. L 5, 1071a8–11).
Aristotle provides another example of the manner in which potentiality and
actuality differ—that is, for entities “whose matter is not the same.”31 Neither is
the form the same, given Aristotle’s new development of the argument. It would
appear that Aristotle is suggesting that actuality can be different in kind (see Met.
L 5, 1071a11–17). The same kind of matter—namely, flesh and bones—exists,
on the one hand, in a state of potentiality, such as in the case of an embryo or a
young child, whereas, on the other hand, it is in a state of actuality, as is seen in
the adult. In (3), Aristotle wishes to preserve the hierarchy of causes in the Scala
Naturae; the man in question is a moving cause, and the sun and its oblique
course are distant moving causes on the man’s activities, contrasting within the
man the material and formal causes, which consist of the proximate moving (ef-
ficient) cause of man. The actuality of the sun and its oblique course, therefore,
is different in kind from the actuality of the man.32
The subsequent section of chapter 5 (1071a17 ff.) highlights the necessity of
specifying the way in which causes are spoken of universally. This theme relates
to Aristotle’s general question, which is whether or not the principles and causes
of all entities are the same or different. While in Met. L 4 Aristotle asserts that
the principles and causes are spoken of universally and analogically, in Met. L
5 Aristotle refines his notion of universality, which is his attempt at obviating
Aristotelian Henology 65

80. the Platonic problem of the sameness of causes when speaking of first principles
universally. Universally, a primary principle is a “this” (tode ti), which is always
actual and also potential. Actuality and potentiality are the primary principles
in every case.33
Essentially, as Aristotle’s subsequent section (1071a24 ff.) demonstrates, indi-
viduals within a genus are not specified by their species but rather by their indi-
viduality: “[A]nd those of things in the same species are different, not in species,
but in the sense that the causes of different individuals are different, your matter
and form and moving cause being different from mine, while in their universal
definition they are the same” (Met. L 5, 1071a27–29). While it may appear,
however, that Aristotle’s solution to first principles has fallen short of provid-
ing a “unifying vision of the cosmos which we might have expected from a first
philosophy that is also a theology,”34 the passages 1071a29–1071b2 provide the
elements of a global or unifying vision of the cosmos (see Met. L 5, 1071a29–
1071b2). In this passage, according to Cleary, Aristotle provides two and perhaps
three attempts at a general inquiry into the principles and elements of all entities,
which can overcome the lacunae mentioned above. In the first attempt, Aristotle
recapitulates his claim that principles and elements of all things are the same by
way of analogy only. In this manner, one can speak about “matter, form, priva-
tion, and the moving cause” in diverse genera. The principles of each category
alter, but as Cleary rightly expresses, the “identity of the relationship is retained
just as the same proportion may be said to hold between ratios that are filled
out in different ways.”35 In the second attempt, Aristotle again places a high pre-
mium on substance, to which the categories are attached and subordinate. In a
sense, says Aristotle, the causes of substances can be considered to be the causes
of all entities, which leads Aristotle to discuss briefly his third attempt, that of
the ontological priority of substance or “that which is first in respect of complete
reality is the cause of all things,” as cited above.
Although it still remains ambiguous as to how substances are the causes of all
things, Cleary provides
a plausible conjecture by linking the priority of substance with the fact that terms
like “principle” and “element” are said in many ways. . . . Therefore, I think that
the third possibility hinted at by Aristotle here is that terms like “principle” and
“element” can have logical structure of pros hen equivocals or “focal meaning.”
The principal or primary meaning of such terms as form, privation, and matter,
is given with reference to substance and this, in turn, determines their application
within other categories. In the present context, the significance of focal meaning
is not simply its unifying linguistic function but rather its deep metaphysical
implications for Aristotle. With regard to the question of XII 4 5, it provides
an alternative way (other than proportional analogy) in which the principles and
66 Chapter 3

81. causes of all things can be the same. Since the inquiry is about being, whose central
and focal meaning is substance, then the principles and causes of substance range
over all the categories of being.36
Met. L 5 ends the first section of book L, in which the principles and elements
are discussed in light of sensible substances. Met. L 6 makes a swift transition
into a discussion and an account of suprasensible substances—a transition that
has caused much controversy among commentators with respect to Aristotle’s
justification for such a transition.37 Prior to discussing the essential nature of
suprasensible substance, especially of divine nou:V, the questions of causality
and duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia must be examined in order to set up the conceptual
framework for our discussion of nou:V as a simple substance and final cause.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I emphasized the Aristotelian rejection of Plato’s transcendent
conception of the One. Aristotle affirms, rather, that the “one” is a pros hen
equivocal. This led my discussion to Aristotle’s alternative solution and the re-
placement of Plato’s principles. In light of Met. L 4–5, we find that Aristotle, in
analyzing the principles of sensible substance, concludes that these are analogous
principles, which consist of form, privation, and matter. However, for separate or
suprasensible substances, simplicity and actuality characterize these substances.
That is, in Met. L 4–5, Aristotle presents the three principles—form, privation,
and matter—as analogous principles of all sensible substances. These principles
can be applied universally to all sensible substances. The application of these
principles to separate substances will lead to an analysis of Aristotle’s doctrine of
the simplicity of nou:V. Prior to this discussion, which will be presented in chap-
ter 5, the conceptual framework of Aristotle’s metaphysics must be established.
In chapter 4, I will present the question of Causality, the four causes, and the
twofold doctrine of Being according to actuality and potentiality. Chapter 5 will
analyze in detail Aristotle’s doctrine of the absolute simplicity and priority of
nou:V as presented in Met. L 7 and 9, and De Anima III. 4–5. The main purpose
of this fourth section is to dismiss any claim that divine nou:V is composite—a
claim that would admit a degree of potentiality within nou:V. Divine nou:V has
immediate knowledge of itself. I wish to argue, however, that this claim does not
preclude nou:V from having knowledge of the world. While nou:V exercises final
causality and possesses knowledge of the world, this kind of knowledge does not
introduce multiplicity or a composition within nou:V. This latter claim will be
essential for our analysis of Plotinus’s criticism of Aristotle’s doctrine, which we
will see in the subsequent chapters. In his noetic doctrine, Aristotle wishes to
preserve a unity of nou:V, while maintaining a strict duality between nou:V and
Aristotelian Henology 67

82. the world, in spite of the commendable efforts of the Immanentist tradition of
Aristotelians, who argue that nou:V operates as the soul of the world, introducing
formal causality into nou:V.
Notes
1. Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 59–60. See also Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism
of Plato’s Theory of Form Numbers,” 16–25.
2. Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 61.
3. Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 61.
4. In Met. D 6, Aristotle writes, as the second characteristic of the “one,” that things
are called one when their undergirding substratum does not differ in kind (see Met. D
6, 1016a18–24).
5. See V. Goldschmidt, La Théorie Aristotélicienne du Lieu, in Mélanges A. Diès (Paris:
Vrin, 1956), 97 and 104, where it is remarked that the outer sphere is to the observer
merely a “potentia divisibilis.” See Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 62, fn.3.
6. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 63, fn.1, for an insightful connection
between Aristotle’s use of the term kukloforiva (circular movement). This term, used
in Met. I, indicates further his departure from the Platonic cosmology, for in his earlier
work, such as in De Caelo, Aristotle employed the expression hJ kuvklw/ periforav, which
approximates more to platonic terminology. Elders suggests that “the ‘whole’ here stands
in the first place for the first heaven. . . . Aristotle uses elsewhere ‘whole’ with the same
sense, e.g., in Meteor. 341a2 th:/ tou: o{lou perifora:/.”
7. In D 6, Aristotle states as his third characteristic that a thing is called one when the
genus is continuous, even if it differs by “opposite differentiae” (1016a26), or, as Cleary
articulates it, “[T]hings are called one if the formula of their essence cannot be divided
into another formula which also signifies the same essence” (J. Cleary, Unpublished ver-
sion of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles”). (I am very grateful to Professor
Cleary for having allowed me to survey and cite from his unpublished work on this
topic.) Finally, the essence of what is to be one is to be an ajrchv or principle of Number,
for it functions as the ultimate measure: “The essence of what is one is to be some kind
of beginning of number; for the first measure is the beginning, since that by which we
first know each class is the first measure of the class; the one, then, is the beginning of
the knowable regarding each class. But the one is not the same in all classes” (Met. D
6, 1016b18–22). Cleary adds, “[T]he first measure in each genus is that by which we
know its number” (Cleary, unpublished version of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First
Principles”). Cleary concludes, “Therefore, the one is the principle of the knowable in
each case, although the one is not the same in all genera” (Cleary, unpublished version
of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles”). (See Met. D 6, 1016b32–1017a3.)
8. H. G. Apostle makes a very helpful suggestion regarding this passage. To perceive
the substance at different angles is to lose sight of its oneness or unity. This claim is
comparable to Aristotle’s assertion that the highest species of substances are the highest
beings that there are in nature. “Just as the ultimate species of substances are beings in the
68 Chapter 3

83. highest degree above all, so they are indivisible (or are one as stated) in the highest degree.
If one thinks of each part of a substance at different times, then he does not think of the
substance itself as one at any of those times, and so he does not think of the substance as
one at all” (Aristotle’s Metaphysics, trans. and commentary H. Apostle [Bloomington and
London: Indiana University Press, 1966], 302, fn.23).
9. See F. Cornford, “Mathematics and Dialectic in the Republic VI-VII,” Mind 41
(1932): 37–52, 173–190: 37 ff., for further discussion of the significance of novhsiV in
the work of Plato. One characteristic of novhsiV is its upward movement of the intellect,
its inductive pathway, which is contrary to a deductive or downward movement from
an initial principle. (Plotinus will, however, adopt both, and this inclusion of novhsiV as
possessing an upward and downward motion will furnish us with greater insight into his
conception of nou:V.)
10. Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 65. This original position of Aristotle’s, as
was mentioned, is articulated transparently in his doctrine of novhsiV in Anal. Post. II.
19, 100b10–17. For further information on this topic, see J. M. Le Blond, Logique et
méthode chez Aristote: Étude sur la recherché des principes dans la physique aristotélicienne
(Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1970), 131–39; O. Hamelin, Système d’Aris-
tote, 3rd ed. (Paris: Vrin, 1976), 258; H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, 2nd ed. (Berlin:
Akademische Druck- U. Verlagsanstalt Graz, 1955), 490b45–491b34; C. H. Kahn,
“The Role of NOUS in the Cognition of First Principles in Posterior Analytics II.19,”
in Aristotle on Science: The “Posterior Analytics,” Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium
Aristotelicum, ed. E. Berti (Padua: Antenore, 1981), 385–414; L. A. Kosman, “Un-
derstanding, Explanation, and Insight in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics,” in Exegesis and
Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, ed. E. N. Lee, A. P.
D. Mourelatos, and R. M. Rorty (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum Comp.
B.V., 1973); and J. H. Lesher, “The Meaning of NOUS in the Posterior Analytics,”
Phronesis 18 (1973): 44–68.
11. Cleary further writes in his unpublished version of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s
First Principles”: “In summary (1052a33–6), those things are one which are continuous
by nature (to suneches phusei), and the whole (to holon), and the individual (to kath
hekaston) and the universal (katholou). All these are one in view of the fact that they are
indivisible (toi adiaireton); some in motion, and others in thought or in their formula
(ton logon).”
12. Cleary, unpublished version of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles.”
13. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 80.
14. As Cleary says, it “cannot be a substance which is one and apart from the many
(hen ti para ta polla)—for it is common to all—so it must be a predicate” (Cleary, “Aris-
totle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 13).
15. Cleary, unpublished version of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles.”
16. Cleary concludes, “Aristotle resists the Pythagorean-Platonic tendency to make
numbers the substances of things because they can be counted, and insists that they are
always the numbers of something; i.e. predicates not substances” (Cleary, unpublished
version of “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles”). Cleary adds, “In the jargon of
Aristotelian Henology 69

84. medieval philosophy, we can conclude that for Aristotle both one and being are transcen-
dental predicates and not independent substances. Unity, as with Being, is related to each
category within a genus and, as a result, it and they are not located within the category
of whatness (ti esti) only, nor inequality only” (Cleary, unpublished version of “Aristotle’s
Criticism of Plato’s First Principles”).
17. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theory of the One, 87–89, for further discussion of this topic.
Elders rightly concludes his remarks about Plato’s conception of motion by saying that
“it would seem that motion pervades all being with the exception of the first principle,
and that we must distinguish sharply between two degrees of being, the material and the
immaterial, each of which possesses its own characteristic movement.”
18. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 84.
19. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 84.
20. See Metaphysics N 1–2, especially 1089a25 and Met. Q 10, 1051a34.
21. Cleary captures this brief argument well when he writes, “The implicit rationale
seems to be that, if relations were the elements of substance (as the Platonists held?),
then they would be prior in existence to substances, which is impossible according to his
categories because relations are dependent attributes of substance. On the other hand,
relations cannot be composed of substances because such a composite would be itself
a substance, which is again contrary to his categories” (Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of
Plato’s First Principles,” 86).
22. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 86.
23. See also L. Elders, Aristotle’s Theology: A Commentary on Book L of the Metaphysics
(Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum Comp. N.V., 1972), 118: “Sensible bodies
(touvtwn) have the same elements (viz. the hot and the cold and matter), but we cannot
say that all categories (substances, qualities, activity . . .) have identical principles: their
principles (form, privation, matter) are the same by analogy.”
24. “He substantifies them,” says Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 119.
25. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 87.
26. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 119. See also the excellent chapter by J. Vuillemin,
De la logique à la théologie; cinq études sur Aristote (Paris: Flammarion, 1967), 12–22,
especially 19–21.
27. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 87.
28. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 89. See also Cleary’s re-
construction of this argument on page 89.
29. With respect to this example, see Cleary: “The examples given of such cases are
wine, flesh, and man, but I think that the last two are to be taken as distinct entities,
each of which is at one time potential and at another time actual. Thus, prior to the
constitution of flesh from its material elements, they are potentially flesh and then they
become flesh when these elements have been structured according to the appropriate
ratio” (Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 90).
30. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 126–27. Moreover, actuality is predisposed to
become its opposite (i.e., another actuality). It is, therefore, both actual and potential at
the same time.
70 Chapter 3

85. 31. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 90.
32. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 91.
33. However, these principles are universals. See Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of
Plato’s First Principles,” 91. See also Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 130–31.
34. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 92.
35. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 93.
36. Cleary, “Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 94.
37. I give Cleary the last word on this topic. His suggestion at explaining such a tran-
sition is extremely helpful and insightful.
A parallel can be found in Metaphysics VI 1 (1026a30–31) where Aristotle claims that first
philosophy is both a special science and also universal precisely because it is first. It is a pecu-
liar characteristic of the logical structure called a pros hen equivocal that its primary instance
is both particular and universal. This has an important bearing on the perennial problem in
Aristotelian scholarship about whether the special science of theology can be integrated into
a general science of being qua being. Despite the absence of this description of metaphysics
from Lambda, I think there is some evidence that such a conception is present in both the
analogical and focal meanings of being. For instance, these two meanings are presented as two
ways in which we can say that the principles and causes of all things are the same. While the
analogical sameness of the principles seems to hold only in a general manner, it would appear
that pros hen sameness holds for both particular and universal. The latter kind of sameness
provides the crucial connection between theology and general ontology, even though Aristotle
does not here spell out the details. Still I think that this is the perspective from which we
should view XII 6 with its sudden transition to an inquiry into supersensible substance. Since
Aristotle does not stop to explain this transition, commentators have often been puzzled as
to how the previous inquiry into the principles of sensible substance fits with what follows.
The conclusion of XII 5 contains a typical survey of his results about the principles of sensible
things—what they are and how many, how they are the same and how they are different. The
challenge for Aristotelian scholars is to make sense of the fact that he uses these conclusions
as if they were stepping-stones into the realm of supersensible substances. (Cleary, “Aristotle’s
Criticism of Plato’s First Principles,” 94–95)
Aristotelian Henology 71

87. 73
c h a pte r f o u r
The Anatomy
of Aristotle’s Metaphysics
Introduction: The Question of Causality
Aristotle’s cosmology is governed and ordered by material and formal causality,
which, when analyzed, consists of a fourfold causal doctrine: material, formal,
efficient, and final causality.1 Aristotle’s doctrine of four causes is his answer to
the perennial question, “What are the causes of the cosmos?”2 In Metaphysics
A, Aristotle claims that, contrary to his predecessors, only he has completely
captured all the causes of the cosmos.3 The Greek terms aijtiva and ai[tioV refer
to Aristotle’s notion of cause. The term aijtiva is an adjective that is used sub-
stantively, and it means “that on which legal responsibility for a given state of
affairs can be laid.” In its substantive use, ai[tion refers to the “ ‘credit’ for good or
bad, the legal ‘responsibility’ for an act.”4 With respect to Aristotle’s cosmology,
aijtiva refers to the rational explanation of the factual structure of the cosmos,
and of why particular objects in the cosmos come into being and can be defined
by the intellect.5 Causes are not merely conceptually based; they relate to the
real events in the cosmos. Each of the four Aristotelian causes provides partial
explanations for the order of the cosmos. An analysis of the twofold causality of
matter and form creates the conceptual framework for the subsequent analysis
of the fourfold causal doctrine.
For both Plato and Aristotle, all scientific inquiry requires the study of causes,
the reason why Nature is structured the way it is. Moreover, to know causes
entails a degree of stability of form, which the intellect apprehends from the
sensible object. However, the difference between Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories

88. 74 Chapter 4
of science rests upon the status each one gives to the intellect’s object. Accord-
ing to Aristotle, Plato taught that real objects of knowledge can be defined, yet
remain separate, from the perceptible objects. The Forms maintain a transcen-
dent, immutable, and eternal status in relation to the physical world’s transient
objects, each of which has a correlating Form;6 the Forms are eternal patterns
against which the natural world is fashioned by the dhmiourgovV (Demiurge) and
preserved by the causes of Nature.
Aristotle’s main charge against Plato, which was seen in chapter 1, is that
Plato’s theory of Forms is ineffective: “Again, it must be held to be impossible
that the substance, and that of which it is the substance, should exist apart; how,
therefore, can the Ideas, being the substance of things, exist apart?” (Met. A 1,
991b1–3; see also Met. M 9, 1086b5–10). The controversy surrounds Aristotle’s
interpretation of Plato’s rendering of the term cwrismovV and, thus, concerns the
status of the Forms. Does the Forms’ cwrismovV necessarily entail merely their
conceptual independence, or strictly their ontological independence? In the Par-
menides, 130b, Plato clearly argues for the separability of the Forms. However, he
does not provide a detailed explanation of this proposed doctrine. (Nor, in fact,
does Aristotle provide an explanation for his criticism of Plato.)7
This debate also is widespread in the French-speaking world. Yannis Pré-
lorentzos asserts that when referring to the Rep. 509d–511e, it is inappropriate
to speak of two “Worlds.” Rather, one should speak of “deux domaines d’un
seul et même monde (Socrate parle de deux ‘lieux’ ou ‘genres’).”8 Monique
Dixsaut sympathizes with this view; the Forms are not separate in another
world, but the separation entails two dimensions of a same world.9 Luc Bris-
son, however, does not endorse this theory. It is clear for him that Plato makes
a radical, ontological separation between the Forms and the sensible world,
since only an intelligible principle distinct from the sensible thing can provide
a proper measure of the thing’s intelligibility.10 Yvon Lafrance follows the
interpretation of Brisson.11 In fact, both Brisson and Lafrance follow Harold
Cherniss.12 According to Cherniss, Brisson, and Lafrance, the cwrismovV is
the heart of Plato’s philosophy of transcendence. It is difficult for analytic
philosophers, such as Vlastos, Kraut, and Fine, to accept this transcendent
status of the Forms, since analytic philosophy itself does not permit such a
dimension to philosophy. Aristotle’s critique of Plato is of Plato’s assertion of
the real and universal status of Forms. In the early part of Plato’s Parmenides,
Plato argues that the Form is not a concept as such, novhma, but is beyond a
concept. Analytic philosophers, however, tend to view Plato’s Forms as con-
cepts and, therefore, deny the transcendent nature of the Forms. It is, however,
beyond the scope of this project to explore further the ramifications of either
position. In this section, I wish merely to accentuate Aristotle’s conviction that

89. The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 75
Plato advances a doctrine of the separation of the Forms and that, according to
Aristotle, Plato’s theory is ineffective.
The Aristotelian legacy consists of affirming the intelligibility of the transient,
physical world. Aristotle’s comments on Plato’s description of the Forms are clear:
they are but “empty words and poetic metaphors,” since they do not contribute
to the scientific inquiry of knowledge.13 Although Aristotle refutes the cwrismovV
of Plato’s Forms, he steadfastly adheres to Plato’s vision of the universe as an or-
ganized hierarchy of beings, and of the grades of perfection that ensue from the
ontological development and surpassing of one stage to another.14
Aristotle maintains that philosophy is the attempt to explain the causes
of Nature not by reference to a transcendent, separate cause (i.e., the Pla-
tonic Forms), but to the immanent activity of form in matter. Every sensible
substance is characterized by the causal unit of matter and form. In reality,
form and matter in sensible substances are inseparable, in that the form is the
intrinsic, universal principle that defines a sensible substance, and must “co-
operate” with matter, since matter individualizes form. The sensible substance
is the matter organized and determined by the formal principle. Thus, to posit
a separation between form and matter is absurd, since one would have to ac-
count for the unity of a thing by first asserting its divisible components. Only
logically is form separable, since it can be abstracted and considered apart
from matter by the human intellect. However, Aristotle remains sympathetic
to the Platonic teaching that scientific knowledge is possible, but is attained
by the intellect’s apprehension of the form inherent in the transiency of mat-
ter. Ultimately, Aristotle labored to explain the phenomenon of motion or
change,15 which, he claims, Plato’s Forms were unable to account for (see Met.
A 1, 991a8–10). Within the fluctuating material cosmos, form is the stable,
intelligible principle. The Aristotelian form, then, is unchangeable and respon-
sible for the intelligibility of each individual sensible substance in the natural
world. Thus, the universal principle, form, is located within the individual
substance.16 Although form has its logical inherence in the human mind, it
must exist extra-mentally in the material object itself; otherwise, the material
object cannot be considered as an individual unity of matter and form. Insofar
as the material object is informed, it is a real thing. Thus, contrary to Plato’s
claim that the Form is transcendent to the object, Aristotle argues that form is
inherent and immanently operative within it, and accounts for the intelligibil-
ity and realness of the material object.
Aristotle’s sensible universe is characterized by substances that are in change
or fluctuation in four ways: change of substance, of quality, of quantity, and of
place.17 Change entails a beginning, an end, and a subject that endures through-
out the change (see Phys., V 1, 224a34–b4).

90. With respect to changes of quality, of quantity, and of place, a substance per-
sists throughout the change. Yet the substance cannot evidently persist through-
out its change when change means generation or destruction; Socrates cannot
persist throughout his own birth and death. Thus, in the Scala Naturae, Aristotle
presents the generation and destruction of substance as a unique type of change.
Aristotle presents a formless matter at the bottom of the cosmos, and at the
farthest extreme of the cosmos, he posits a matterless form. Prior to the com-
plexity of material beings, prime matter (prwvth u{lh), at the lowest level of the
cosmos, remains the simplest matter and, ultimately, the primary condition of
change in the fluctuating world.18 Uninformed matter cannot exist per se. In
other words, prime matter, matter in itself, is a logical inference that Aristotle
postulates in order to consider an indeterminate condition for change to take
place in beings.19 Therefore, its priority is at the level of logic. Indeterminate as
it is, prime matter is the underlying substrate of changing substances, logically
considered. Yet, although indeterminate, prime matter is determinable, since it is
potentially any thing. Prime matter merely requires the impression of a universal
principle—namely, form—to enable matter to become some particular thing.
Thus, matter and form are correlative terms that must cooperate to create the
unity of a sensible thing.20
After prime matter there appear the four elements, and then the mixtures of
these elements: earth, water, air, and fire. (This relationship between proximate
matter and remote matter also exemplifies such an increasing level of determi-
nation.) Yet these elements are not indeterminate, as their simple nature would
suggest, but they are already determined bodies through the activity of form.
Collectively and duly proportioned at the lowest level of the cosmos, they form
minerals, which become the material for plants and animals. Ascending the
hierarchy, the human being presupposes the material and formal complexity of
the preceding stages. The human is the most highly organized being of animals,
because of the human’s capacity to reason, especially active reason. Surpassing the
human being are the pure intelligent substances devoid of matter. At the summit
of the hierarchy stands a single, simple substance of pure form—nou:V—which
will be discussed in the next chapter.21
The Four Causes
As mentioned above, the sensible substance is composed of the inseparable causal
unit of matter and form. In the cosmos, the composite level of matter and form
is located in the concrete, transient conditions of sensible reality (i.e., earth), a
stage below that of the sublunary sphere that contains only rotating, immaterial
forms—the “gods.” Whereas the material cause (u{lh)22 is the material fabric
76 Chapter 4

91. out of which something is produced,23 the formal cause (ei[doV) is the inner,
animating principle of change that clearly defines a sensible substance as such
and distinguishes it from another kind of substance—namely, the species. The
status of matter correlates to the four levels of change, and change itself corre-
lates to four kinds of matter: local matter or matter for locomotion, matter for
alteration, matter for change of size, and matter for generation and destruction.
Change presupposes matter. Matter is the indeterminate dimension of a sub-
stance that acquires more determination in proportion to the increase of formal
influence. With respect to the formal cause, Aristotle, in Phys. II 3, 194b27,
considers form as the “archetype, i.e., the definition [logos] of the essence, and
its genera, [which are] called causes” (Phys. II 3, 194b27). The form of a thing,
as the inner, animating principle of alteration, provides the essence of a thing.
The logos of the essence is what Aristotle refers to as the structure or “order” of
the essence, which is particularized, or “instantiated,” in matter, thus rendering
the thing intelligible.24 Both the form and the essence are required to provide an
intelligent account of things.
The subsequent two causes, efficient (to; o{qen hJ kivnhsiV) and final, are two
necessary dimensions to the causal order of the cosmos, establishing, in relation
to the material and formal causes, a fourfold causal doctrine. They coalesce in
that “the changer will always introduce a form . . . which, when it moves, will be
the principle and cause of the change. For instance, an actual man makes what
is potentially a man into a man” (Phys. III.2, 202a9–12). The formal cause is
inseparable from the efficient and final causes.25 These causes are conceptually
separable, and, in fact, the efficient cause is usually separate from the formal,
final cause at the level of the individual, though this is not the case at the level
of species. The efficient cause refers to the being in actuality that initiates move-
ment; it refers to the primary source of change (see Phys. II 3, 194b29–30), the
agent of change in a substance26 (see Phys. II 1, 193b2). Again, the efficient and
formal causes are not mutually exclusive. The principal agent of change is, there-
fore, identified with that which introduces the form. As a primary principle of
change, the efficient cause is fully actual. Only form is actual. Therefore, efficient
cause coalesces with, and is an expression of, formal causality, logically speaking.27
The final cause, “that for the sake of which” [to; ou{ e{neka] (Phys. II 3,
194b32–3), is the end or purpose (tevloV) for which the thing is brought into be-
ing,28 or the goal to which the growth development is directed.29 The final cause
rightly characterizes Aristotle’s philosophy as teleological, since the emphasis is
on the purpose or end, which is immanently operative in the thing during its
development. Aristotle alludes to the fact that the final cause is not logically, but
really, different from the formal cause and is an expression of form (see Phys. II
8, 199a30–2).
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 77

92. Although the form is necessarily a realized state (i.e., the necessary condition
of its assuming the role of the primary principle of motion), it is a state relatively
realized in relation to a higher, simpler stage with less matter. Of course, such a
form is fully realized in the appropriate matter and not in a separate state, which
is another point all together. However, the separate form, and its distance from
the form/matter composite, provides the comprehensive view of causality within
the cosmos. The separate form provides the measure of the status of each level
of form and the final cause. Physical forms like man may clearly reach their end,
but in the comprehensive view of form and final causality, this man’s form is not
absolute, but rather is relative to the form of a separate substance. (This is clearly
seen in Aristotle’s De Anima, in which Aristotle presents an ascending scale of
actuality and form within substances. This will be discussed below.)
Each stage yearns or strives for a higher form.30 At each stage of the sensible
substance’s development, its form is achieving increasingly full actualization,
moving toward its end (tevloV). Paradoxically, the end to which each thing aspires
is inherent in the thing itself from the very beginning. The end is not severed
from the growth process of the natural object. It is form that is the propelling
force or power inherently operative in each thing, and as its moving principle,
it is considered the thing’s end. It is form in its actual state that functions as the
final cause. As actuality precedes potency (Met. H 1, 1049b5), the end (tevloV)
precedes the actualized state of the thing, absolutely speaking. The tevloV is the
force actualizing the substance’s potencies. Again, the end is the form in its real-
ized state.31 Therefore, to render the process intelligible, form must be expressed
as a final cause.32 With respect to matter, form is actual; however, in relation to
the final tevloV, form is, in this present state of development, potential. Hence,
whereas form in the process of self-actualization is potential, form realized (tevloV)
is form fully actual.33 The end is only present potentially, as an oak is potentially
present in the acorn, and actually present when the acorn becomes an oak.
Development or growth entails the emergence of the actualization from that
which is potential. Yet development does not imply the emergence of something
new, since the end is already inherent in the thing itself; the tevloV already gov-
erns the developing process of the thing’s actualization. Development does not
entail the changing of one infima species into another. In the Categories, Aristotle
argues that each genus includes its unchanging infima species, and that develop-
ment occurs only within the particular specimen, the substance, of the species.
However, in his later works, Aristotle suggests that the infima species, and not the
specimen, is the true substance. The genus alone is too abstract, indeterminate,
and universal to be a substance. Yet its development—its concrete determination
through the admixture of diverse differentiae—enables the genus to become in
the infima species an “indivisible (‘atomic’) unity of universal and individual.”34
78 Chapter 4

93. duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia
The original meaning of the concept of ejnevrgeia, and, moreover, its rapport
with duvnamiV and ejntelevceia, have been discussed philosophically and philo-
logically for many generations, resulting in a lively debate that has yet to see
closure. The debate centers around the fact that the concept of ejnevrgeia has
different meanings. It is generally accepted by scholars that the Protrepticus is
Aristotle’s earliest work and that it is a reflection of his adherence to Plato’s meta-
physics. In the Protrepticus, Aristotle makes a significant distinction between two
kinds of “living,” one with respect to power (kata; duvnamin) and also to activity
(kat= ejnevrgeian):
Things are said to be alive in two senses, in virtue of a potentiality and in virtue of
an actuality; for we describe as seeing both those animals which have sight and are
naturally capable of seeing, even if they happen to have their eyes shut, and those
which are using this faculty and are looking at something. Similarly with knowing
and cognition: we sometimes mean by it the use of the faculty and contemplation,
sometimes the possession of the faculty and having knowledge. If, then, we dis-
tinguish life from non-life by the possession of perception, and perceiving has two
senses—properly of using one’s senses, in another way of being able to use them (it
is for this reason, it seems, that we say even of a sleeping man that he perceives)—it
is clear that living will correspondingly be taken in two senses: a waking man must
be said to live in the true and proper sense; as for a sleeping man, because he is
capable of passing into the activity in virtue of which we say that a man is waking
and perceiving something, it is for this reason and with reference to this that we
describe him as living. When, therefore, each of two things is called by the same
term, the one by being active the other by being passive, we shall say that the
former possesses the property to a greater degree; e.g., we shall say that a man who
uses knowledge knows to a greater degree than a man who possesses knowledge,
and that a man who is looking at something sees to a greater degree than one who
can do so. (See Iamblichus Protrepticus 56.13–59.17 Pistelli, in Barnes; [B79 and
81] or 14, Ross)
The distinction prepares the ground for Aristotle’s development of the concept
of ejnevrgeia, which, as we shall see, was originally meant to signify “activity” but
was later altered to signify “actuality.”35
With respect to the concept duvnamiV, Aristotle explains in his philosophical
lexicon (Met. D 12) that duvnamiV has various meanings. With respect to ejnevr-
geia, the attempt at defining the concept becomes more complicated. In his
Index Aristotelicus, H. Bonitz writes about the concept ejnevrgeia:
Quoniam potentiae vel opponitur is motus et actus, quo res ad perfectionem natu-
rae suae perducitur, vel ipsa illa perfectio ejnergeiva/ levgetai ta; me;n wJV kivnhsiV
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 79

94. pro;V duvnamin, ta; d= wJV oujsi;a provV tina u{lhn (Met. Q 6, 1048b8). Quod
discrimen quamquam non potest ubique accurate observari, tamen ad perlustran-
dam varietatem usus aptum est. (Vol. V 251a-21–27)
While this distinction remains useful, it does not reflect the various ways in
which ejnevrgeia is used in the Aristotelian corpus.36
In Met. Q, Aristotle introduces the terms duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia as corollar-
ies to the matter-form distinction in order to further explain real development
(i.e., change) in the cosmos.37 The concept of ejnevrgeia in this case is used in the
sense of the traditional term, actuality. As a result, ejnevrgeia corresponds with
the concept duvnamiV, taken as potentiality. Thus, ejnevrgeia and duvnamiV are a
pair of principles that are applicable to the entire range of being analogously, as
we have seen above (see Met. L 4–5). However, ejnevrgeia (actuality) and duvna-
miV differ from matter and form in that the latter pair does not properly analyze
the real movement of a thing, whereas the former pair relates to the dynamic
changes occurring in real, particular substances and their modes of existence.
The concepts of ejnevrgeia as actuality and duvnamiV include teleological aspects,
which the matter-form pair does not include.38 As one considers the ascending
order of the cosmos, one can only conceptually perceive an increase in form and
a decrease in matter. Whereas when the sensible thing changes, matter and form
per se do not change, since matter and form remain abstract causal principles in
any sensible substance. Consequently, the matter-form distinction remains an
abstraction from the changing, sensible thing, and insofar as the distinction is an
abstraction, it is reduced to a static representation of the sensible phenomena.39
Thus, ejnevrgeia and duvnamiV render a more precise account of change in real
sensible substances, for they include a teleological aspect.40 More specifically,
ejnevrgeia and duvnamiV are two senses of being, whereas matter and form are
two kinds of cause.41
Aristotle is, in fact, the inventor of the distinction between ejnevrgeia and
duvnamiV. While Aristotle credits Plato for the matter-form distinction, as seen
at Physics I 9, where Aristotle provides a solution to Parmenides’ challenge to the
possibility of generation and states that “some others [Plato] have also touched
on [matter], but not sufficiently” (Physics I 9, 191b35–36, trans. Menn), he
does not credit Plato for the ejnevrgeia-duvnamiV distinction.42 In fact, Aristotle
does not even credit Plato for the Aristotelian (nominative) use of the concept
duvnamiV. Plato appears to have used the concept dunavmei adverbially in the
Statesman 266b3 and in the Timaeus 54b4–5.43 Aristotle’s use of to; o]n dunavmei
does not refer back to the adverbial sense, but rather to the noun duvnamiV. Plato
uses the concept to mean active and passive powers (see Sophist 247e3–4), and
Aristotle appears to accept these powers to move and to be moved as the initial
80 Chapter 4

95. meaning of the concept duvnamiV (see Met. Q 1, 1045b35–1046a2). However, in
his philosophical lexicon, Met. D 12, where Aristotle discusses the many senses of
duvnamiV, Aristotle does not mention to; o]n dunavmei. There must, then, be an
original and primary (nominative) meaning of to; o]n dunavmei to which Aristotle
refers, if at all.
Aristotle’s reflections on the concept duvnamiV, considered as an ability to do
or suffer, elucidates the more central concept of an ability in general and, Menn
proposes, “extends duvnamiV and the dunatovn by analogy, from the ability (or
what is able) to do or suffer, to the ability (or what is able) to be.”44 However,
this explanation does not provide an adequate reason for the correlation between
duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia. Aristotle’s use of the correlative concept, ejnevrgeia, may
provide the necessary clue to the Aristotelian picture of the doctrine of duvnamiV
and ejnevrgeia.
The concept of ejnevrgeia is not found in the pre-Socratics or in Plato, and
we may conclude, then, that Aristotle invented the concept.45 However, the ety-
mology of the concept does not correspond with what is traditionally translated
as “actuality.” Rather, it refers to “activity.” To complicate matters even more,
in addition to using the concept ejnevrgeia, Aristotle uses yet another term to
designate “actuality”—namely, ejntelevceia, which is used sparingly throughout
the Aristotelian corpus, but which always means “actuality” when it is employed,
whereas ejnevrgeia can mean either “activity” or “actuality,” depending on the
context. The question that has been raised is this: “Why does Aristotle invent
two concepts for ‘actuality’ and, subsequently, why did he, on the one hand, in-
vent a new concept for ‘actuality,’ and, on the other, employ the concept of ejnevr-
geia for what can be translated into English as ‘activity’?”46 Within his works,
Aristotle appears to be ambiguous about the meaning of ejnevrgeia, whether it
translates as “actuality” or “activity,” but by the concept ejntelevceia, Aristotle
always means actuality.
At Met. Q 3, Aristotle states that in addition to its application to ejntelevceia,
ejnevrgeia is extended to motion or change, since motion or change appears to be
ejnevrgeia [hJ pro;V th;n ejntelevceian suntiqemevnh] (see Met. Q 3, 1047a30–32).
However, Aristotle states that ejnevrgeia are also in the activity of, for example,
God’s acting on the heavens, and this involves no motion in the ejnergou:n. Thus
ejnevrgeia, according to Aristotle, is applicable to actual existence (ejntelevceia)
within the categories of substance and its accidents, which are not said to be in
motion. Aristotle, however, claims that the most obvious reflections of ejnevrgeia
are motions. As a result, Aristotle’s starting point is that of the concept of ejnevr-
geia considered as activity—the kind of activity that indicates motion and by
analogy incorporates all the categories. However, ejntelevceia is always employed
for “actuality.”47 Nor can Bonitz’s explanation help, as I have cited it above, for he
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 81

96. fails to reveal how the different meanings of ejnevrgeia, of actuality and activity,
are related, and he states only that, like ejnevrgeia, ejntelevceia opposes duvnamiV,
and that these concepts are interchangeable. There is, however, a firm relation-
ship between Aristotle’s conception of activity and of actuality, given Aristotle’s
liberal employment of the concept of ejnevrgeia for these two terms, and the
unique concept of duvnamiV as their correlative.48 There are two ways in which
we can reconstruct this connection. On the one hand, we can affirm that activity
is a derivative of actuality and that ejnevrgeia is better translated as “actuality,” for,
in this case, activity would be an instantiation or a unique extension of actuality.
On the other hand, we may assert the opposite claim, that actuality is a derivative
of activity, rendering “activity” the better translation of ejnevrgeia, and by doing
so, we interpret the “actual existence of a thing (in any category including sub-
stance) as itself an activity, in the Thomist phrase of an “act of being,” as Kosman
has argued. The problem is expressed very well by Menn:
either (i) Aristotle recognizes by reflection on the concept of activity that this is
a special application of the more abstract modal concept of actuality, which may
be called ejnevrgeia from its most obvious case; or (ii) Aristotle recognizes, by re-
flection on the existence of different kinds of things, that actual existence in each
case consists in the appropriate activity, that “to be for living things is to live” (De
Anima 415b13), so that every actuality is an instance of ejnevrgeia.49
We can track, therefore, the origins of Aristotle’s concept of ejnevrgeia, beginning
with the assumption that the concept of ejnevrgeia was first understood as “activ-
ity” and then, as Menn states, developed into a
new conception of the opposition of being-in-potentiality and being-in-actuality.
The concept of activity remains fundamental, and never becomes a specialization
of an abstract concept of actuality; at the same time, while the concept of actuality
is derivative from the concept of activity, actuality is not an instance of activity, and
there is no “act of being.”50
As mentioned above, Aristotle makes a subtle distinction between ejnevrgeia and
ejntelevceia—a distinction that has caused controversy in Aristotelian scholar-
ship, due to the lack of a precise definition of ejntelevceia. Several recent at-
tempts by scholars have been made to clarify this difference, but no consensus
has been reached. By way of approaching this topic, G. Blair,51 for instance, has
disputed and rejected the traditional argument that Aristotle introduced the dis-
tinction between duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia as an explanatory theory of change.52
He argues that Aristotle invented the concept ejnevrgeia, rather, because the
activity of thinking is not a type of process (i.e., no change is involved in the
82 Chapter 4

97. activity of thinking, but only in the states leading up to thinking).53 Therefore,
kivnhsiV only explains the active essence of ejnevrgeia, but it cannot replace it, for
kivnhsiV corresponds properly to duvnamiV, as we shall see in more detail below.
Thus, Blair54 attempts to define and interpret ejnevrgeia not as actuality, but
rather as “internal activity.” In Met. Q 3, Aristotle argues against the Megarians,
who assert that only when an entity is in activity can it be said to be capable.55
Aristotle disputes this assertion and defends the reality of duvnamiV, for duvnamiV
explains change (kivnhsiV), unlike the Megarians’ position, which attempts at
denying reality to change and generation, for it entails the incapacity of that
which is not fully and actually occurring (see Met. Q 3, 1047a10–23). In order
for philosophy adequately to reflect our commonsense experience, Aristotle
draws the fundamental distinction between duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia, against the
Megarians, who make potentiality and actuality the same. Line 24 provides a
tentative definition of duvnamiV as that which is “capable of doing something if
there will be nothing impossible in its having the actuality of that of which it is
said to have the capacity” (Met. Q 3, 1047a24).
Prima facie this definition seems to be circular, for it presupposes a third
term—namely, activity—in order to render it intelligible.56 What remains
interesting from the standpoint of the distinction between duvnamiV and
ejnevrgeia is Aristotle’s qualification or introduction of a new concept—namely,
ejntelevceia. Lines 30–32 highlight a distinction between ejnevrgeia and ejn-
televceia, and in this distinction, Aristotle aligns ejnevrgeia with kivnesiV. “The
word ‘actuality’ [ejnevrgeia], which we connect with ‘complete reality’ [ejn-
televceia], has, in the main, been extended from movements to other things;
for actuality in the strict sense is thought to be identical with movement”;
ejlhvluqe d= hJ ejnevrgeia tou[noma, hJ pro;V th;n ejntelevceian suntiqemevnh,
kai; ejpi; ta; a[lla ejk tw:n kinhvsewn mavlista` (Met. Q 3, 1047a30–32). In
this light, Aristotle argues against thinkers, possibly Plato, who do not ascribe
movement (kinei:sqai) to nonexisting entities (see Met. Q 3, 1047a33–35).
Only the Megarians would claim that entities that move (kinouvmena) do
not possess existence. Again, Aristotle introduces at this point the distinction
between ejnevrgeia and ejntelevceia in order to provide the correlative terms
for duvnamiV.57 Aristotle’s reason is given in the next line: “For of non-existent
things some exist potentially; but they do not exist, because they do not exist
in complete reality”; tw:n ga;r mh; o[ntwn ei[nia dunavmei ejstin` oujk e[sti
dev, o{ti oujk ejnteleceiva/ ejstivn (Met. Q 3, 1047b1–2). This does not provide
us, however, with a clear definition of ejntelevceia.
Once again, scholars are divided over the exact meaning of Aristotle’s concept
ejntelevceia. D. Graham has argued that Aristotle mistakenly derives ejntelevceia
from ejntevlwV e[cein.58 G. Blair, however, has made a strong case for the inter-
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 83

98. pretation of ejntelevceia in light of the meaning of ejnevrgeia, the en- signifying
“having the end within,” as opposed to self-sufficiency or completeness. As a re-
sult, Blair prefers to translate ejntelevceia as “internal-end-having” or “having the
end within,” contrary to having the end from without.59 Given that duvnamiV has
two meanings, the capacity to do something and the capacity to be something,
Blair argues that the invention of ejntelevceia was to account for the second cor-
relate of duvnamiV, and to provide a justification for how a thing is capable of
changing into another.60
This argument caught the eye of some scholars, such as J. Cleary, who writes
of this that it “is an attractively clear and testable hypothesis because it implies
that Aristotle should use the term ejnevrgeia in contexts where he is discussing
the active sense of duvnamiV associated in particular with living things, while
using the term ejntelevceia where the topic is the passive sense of duvnamiV that
is linked with change.”61 Both Blair and Cleary agree that Aristotle, however,
does not use ejntelevceia in any consistent way that would reveal a pattern of
his thought. We continue to be at a loss as to what ejntelevceia can mean, since
Aristotle provides no definition of the concept.
S. Menn, however, provides a viable solution to this problem. According
to Menn, ejntelevceia has always meant “actuality,” whereas ejnevrgeia initially
meant “activity” and meant “actuality” only later, in his mature works—an ana-
logical extension that was not discussed in the Physics or in the first seven books
of the Metaphysics. In Met. Q and L, however, Aristotle uses ejnevrgeia in place
of ejntelevceia in order to account for actuality.62 Aristotle’s intention behind
such a strategy, according to Menn, is to demonstrate that ejnevrgeia is prior to
duvnamiV, thereby establishing the ontological priority of the unmoved Mover,
considered as the first principle, pure ejnevrgeia free of any duvnamiV, which will
be discussed below.63
Aristotle prefaces his discussion of being in Met. Q 1 by considering the two
central modes of being: potentiality and actuality (ejntelevceia, 1045b35). His
primary task is to highlight the various ways in which potentiality is used (see
Met. Q 1, 1045b33–1046a4).
Aristotle provides two senses of the term duvnamiV64 (see Met. Q 1, 1045b35–
1046a11, and Met. D 12). The first sense of duvnamiV refers to the power that
one substance possesses in order to influence the movement of another. “For
one kind is a potency of being acted on, i.e., the originative source, in the very
thing acted on, of its being passively changed by another thing or by itself qua
other” (Met. Q 1, 1045b35). The second sense refers to the capacity of a material
substance to receive a form. “[A]nd another kind is a state of insusceptibility to
change for the worse and to destruction by another thing or by the thing itself
qua other by virtue of an originative source of change” (Met. Q 1, 1046a13–15).
84 Chapter 4

99. The first sense may be called an active potency, and the latter a passive potency.65
An active potency entails the actualization or realization of a potency, prior to
which state it remained passive. Thus, the active potency can effect change in
individual substances by actualizing their potencies. Potency, then, cannot be
defined by abstract concepts: it is merely observed in a particular, individual sub-
stance.66 Potency characterizes the real change or development of a substance.67
However, potency alone cannot fully explain change, since nothing develops
from passive potency to active potency without the agency of an actual thing.68 A
being’s full development into maturity entails not only two states of potency, but
also an agent already fully actual that is responsible for influencing movement in
the substance. Therefore, the actual state of the agent is the necessary condition
for the actualization of the two states of potencies in any sensible substance. (The
three ways in which Aristotle identifies the priority of ejnevrgeia over duvnamiV
will be discussed more carefully below.)
With this distinction of potency and actuality, Aristotle now provides a
stricter definition of change. It is the actuality of the potential qua potential.
“[I]t is the fulfillment of what is potential as potential that is [change]. So this,
precisely, is [change]”; hJ tou: dunatou: h: dunatovn ejntelevceia fanero;n o{ti
kivnhsivV ejstin` (Phys. III 1, 201b4–5; see 401a10–12). Change is commonly in-
terpreted as the development or process by which the potentiality of the elements
of a substance are actualized or realized, according to the tevloV of the substance.
Ross69 has argued that ejntelevceia must signify actualization, as opposed to ac-
tuality, given that change refers to the transition or passage from potentiality to
actuality. A. Kosman, however, disagrees with Ross, and rightly so. According to
Kosman, Ross’s reading renders the definition circular, given that it presupposes
the very concept of the process of actualization in its definition of change. More-
over, Kosman states, Aristotle uses ejntelevceia, as opposed to ejnevrgeia, which
he could have used in order to emphasize the process of change as opposed to a
completed condition.70 The challenge, therefore, is to interpret the “as such” or
“qua” in Aristotle’s definition so as to circumvent circularity. R. Heinaman has
challenged Kosman’s criticism of Ross and argues in favor of Aristotle’s definition
being circular.71 Cleary highlights the problem very well:
If we are to avoid circularity, this cannot be understood as the actuality of the po-
tentiality for being in motion; e.g., the process by which bricks and stones begin
to be built into a house. For one thing Aristotle always insisted that the beginning
of motion cannot itself be a motion, since there is no period of time in which mo-
tion begins. Furthermore, he thinks of change as the potentiality to be something
rather than to become something. For example, it is the bronze qua potentially a
statue that is change rather than the bronze qua potentially being made into a
statue. But then the problem becomes one of identifying some actuality that is
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 85

100. not identical with the result of the change, which later only comes into existence
when the change is finished.72
Moreover, Cleary takes issue with Kosman’s claim that change is the activity
manifested by a subject at the first level with regard to its goal—that is, “the
activity of an object that is potentially other than it actually is. But in that case
Aristotle’s definition would not apply to the subject at rest, which is not exercis-
ing its potentiality to be other than it is.”73 By “first level,” Cleary refers to the
first level of duvnamiV as presented in Aristotle’s De Anima II 5, which refers, for
example, to a human being, who has from birth the capacity for language, in
contrast to the second level of duvnamiV, which entails the process of habituation
for this person to become a native speaker of a particular language.
The second level of duvnamiV is no longer a capacity, but is rather a disposi-
tion, a e{xiV. With respect to the qua-phrase in the definition of change, there-
fore, we must understand the potentiality of the deprived subject in Phys. III 1
alongside the second-level knower in De Anima II 5. M. L. Gill has also criticized
Kosman’s argument on the grounds that, given that the subject undergoing the
change is deprived of the essential trait that orientates the subject to overcome
that lack, the subject itself cannot initiate this change. Thus, an external agent
must provide this orientation toward her goal—that is, the change implies that
there is an external mover. In this light, Gill has argued that Phys. III 1 is an
incomplete account of the nature of change. Only in Phys. III 3 do we find the
complete account of change, for in this chapter, Aristotle indicates that change
is due to the common actuality of a moving agent and the recipient patient,
which is found in the patient. Change occurs, therefore, when the external agent
provides the tevloV for the patient, whose development depends on its reaction
and orientation toward this tevloV74 (see Phys. III 3, 202a12–22). Thus, there
is only a single actuality of both the mover and the patient. Change, then, is
perceived as an active production or a passive reaction, but remains a single
actuality.75 It is especially for this reason that Cleary cannot accept Blair’s defini-
tion of ejntelevceia as “having its end within,” for change is not an end in itself
and is, therefore, incomplete, since change is defined by an external limit, by
an external mover. Change must be seen as an incomplete ejnevrgeia, unlike the
complete ejnevrgeia of seeing and thinking. There is, therefore, an eminent type
of ejnevrgeia that precedes duvnamiV and that must be considered in order to ap-
preciate Aristotle’s noetic doctrine in the De Anima III 4–5 and Metaphysics L
7–9, which will be discussed below.
The nature and role of duvnamiV was discussed in Met. Q 1–5 and D 12, but
at Q 6, Aristotle begins to discuss the nature (tiv e[sti) and the sort of ejnevrgeia
(activity) in relation to duvnamiV and kivnhsiV76 (see Met. Q 6, 1048a25–30).
86 Chapter 4

101. In this preface, Aristotle proposes to examine potentiality as a different kind of
duvnamiV, in addition to his previous examination of duvnamiV, whose nature it is
to change another or to be changed by another.
Aristotle attempts to explain this new sense of duvnamiV by examining particu-
lar instances by way of grasping the analogy, because we are not able to grasp its
meaning by definition, given its universality (see Met. Q 6, 1048a35–1048b5).
Each of these five examples illustrates the second schema of duvnamiV that Ar-
istotle relates to kivnhsiV, by contrast with the first schema of duvnamiV, which
consists of two kinds of actualities: 1) the complete actuality or the result of the
activity, and 2) the incomplete actuality or the change that produces this result.
With respect to the first schema, some actualities relate to potentiality in the
same way that change is related to potentiality, and, moreover, as substance (i.e.,
the product) is related to preexisting matter. Given this, Gill has argued that
Aristotle’s presentation of the second schema was refined by employing aspects
of the first schema.77 The second schema entails two sorts of actualities: the
first pertains to actuality as it is related to potentiality, as seeing is to that which
has sight but whose eyes are shut; and the second pertains to substance that is
related to a kind of generic matter, or, for example, that which has been isolated
from matter as it is related to its generic matter. Thus, kivnhsiV refers not to the
strict and narrow technical sense, but rather to the general sense, for it refers to a
substance awake and seeing, and as a result, it is a general concept that pertains
to change in the strict sense and to activity in the sense of motion in the second
schema. Aristotle appears to be arguing that as in the first schema, the second
one emphasizes an actuality that is characterized as a kivnhsiV and another that
is the product. What makes the second schema different, among other factors,
is that kivnhsiV is not equivalent to change in the strict sense, but is rather an
activity. However, given that these schemata are parallel, the second schema pre-
supposes a motion and a product qua actualities, in addition to the two kinds
of potentialities, the one active and the other passive.78 This is expressed in Met.
Q 6, 1048b6–9. In Met. Q, the relation between the different senses of duvnamiV
is less cohesive than in Met. D 12, given Aristotle’s new distinction between a
complete and an incomplete ejnevrgeia.79
In Met. Q 8, Aristotle discusses the various ways in which activity (ejnevrgeia)
is prior to duvnamiV, in the general sense of potentiality as the origin of change
in another or in itself as other and as “one primary kind,” as he highlights in
chapter 180 (Met. Q 8, 1046a11). Most specifically, ejnevrgeia precedes duvnamiV
in three ways: 1) in formula or definition and 2) in substance; whereas 3) in
time, it is only prior in one way and not in the other way. With respect to the
priority in formula (tw:/ lovgw/) of ejnevrgeia to duvnamiV, Aristotle states that what
is potential in the primary sense is potential given that it possesses the possibil-
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 87

102. ity to become active. The example he gives is that the “capability of building”
entails that which can build, “capable of seeing” signifies that which can see,
and “visible” signifies that which can be seen. Therefore, the formula and the
knowledge of each activity must precede the knowledge of the other (see Met.
Q 8, 1049b13–18).
With respect to the priority in substance, ejnevrgeia is prior to duvnamiV in two
ways. First, it is prior because of those things that are posterior in coming to be
in form and in substantiality, such as a man who is prior to a child and a human
being to seed. And second, it is prior because these things that come into being
move toward a principle, an end (tevloV), and the ejnevrgeia is this end, “and it
is for the sake of this that the potency is acquired” (Met. Q 8, 1050a9). Cleary
summarizes this argument very well: “Since the final cause is a first principle
and the coming-to-be is for the sake of the completion, and the activity is the
completion, it is for the sake of this that the potentiality is acquired.”81
Given these two levels of priority, Aristotle concludes (1050b2) that substance
and form are activity (ejnevrgeia). “According to this argument, then, it is obvi-
ous that ejnevrgeia is prior in substantial being to potency; and as we have said,
one ejnevrgeia always precedes another in time right back to the ejnevrgeia of the
eternal prime mover” (Met. Q 8, 1050b3–5).
Thus, ejnevrgeia is prior to duvnamiV in the sense that that which is active (to;
ejnergou:n)—which is identical with the species (tw:/ ei[dei)—is prior to the thing
that it can produce. Only with respect to time does Aristotle acknowledge that
duvnamiV is prior to ejnevrgeia, in the sense that the particular, already existing
man, for instance, is in actuality, but the matter that exists potentially, but not yet
actually, is prior in time (see Met. Q 8, 1049b18–23). This final claim reinforces
Aristotle’s ultimate claim that, generally speaking, ejnevrgeia precedes duvnamiV.
Conclusion
The anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and the clarification of terms enable us to
grasp the causal relation among the four causes and the precedence of ejnevrgeia
to duvnamiV, which have created the conceptual horizon against which we are
better able to study Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity of nou:V. This priority
on the levels of formula and substance is clearly manifested and illustrated in the
De Anima and Metaphysics L, to which I turn now.82
Notes
1. See Physics II 3, 194b17–195a4.
2. The question in Greek philosophy originated with the Ionians (Thales,
Anaximander, and Anaximenes) and the Pythagoreans. The speculative inquiries
88 Chapter 4

103. concerned the general structure of the cosmos. Whereas the Ionians, in the east of
Greece, sought for scientific foundations upon which the cosmos is established, the
Pythagoreans, in the west of Greece, aspired for a religious fraternity based on the
mathematical principles inherently operative in the cosmos. These two complemen-
tary beginnings to philosophy were bequeathed to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. See
W. K. C. Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers: From Thales to Aristotle (New York: Harper
Row, 1975), 22.
3. In Met. A.1, Aristotle analyzes at length the trajectory of the four causes. He
concludes that no other philosopher prior to himself has systematically captured the four
causes that furnish the cosmos: matter, form, efficient, and final.
4. A. E. Taylor, Aristotle (New York: Dover Publications, 1955), 50; Liddell Scott
define aijtiva as follows: “the occasion of something bad, a charge, accusation, blame, a
fault,” and, moreover, as “causing, occasioning; hence chargeable with a thing: but mostly
in bad sense, causing ill, blamable, guilty . . . the party to be blamed, the culprit” (Liddell
Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, abridged [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958]).
5. A. H. Armstrong, An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy (repr., Lanham, MD:
Rowman Littlefield Publishers, 1989), 82.
6. Plato, Republic, trans. P. Shorey (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1987), 596a ff: “We are in a habit, I take it, of positing a single idea or form in the case
of the various multiplicities to which we give the same name”; see also Rep., 507a–b:
“We predicate ‘to be’ of many beautiful things and many good things, saying of them
severally that they are, and so define them in our speech. . . . And again, we speak of a
self-beautiful and of a good that is only and merely good, and so, in the case of all the
things that we then posited as many, we turn about and posit each as a single idea or
aspect, assuming it to be a unity and call it that which each really is. . . . And the one
class of things we say can be seen but not thought, while the ideas can be thought but
not seen.” See also Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers, 88.
7. For a short summary, see R. Kraut, “Introduction to the Study of Plato,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Plato, ed. R. Kraut (New York: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 41, fns.34 and 123. For a more detailed discussion of this debate, see G. Fine,
“Separation,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 31–87; G. Vlastos, Socrates,
in The Philosophy of Socrates, ed. G. Vlastos (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1971),
256–65. Sir David Ross questions Aristotle’s criticism of Plato:
It may be doubted whether Plato thus “separated” the universal from its particulars. To dis-
tinguish the universal from its particulars is in a sense to separate it. It is to think of it as a
distinct entity. Whether Plato also thought of it as a separately existing entity, it is hard to say.
Much of his language lends itself to the charge, but it is possible that he may only be putting
in an emphatic and picturesque way the doctrine that particulars always imply a universal.
(D. Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. [London: Methuen Co, 1964], 158)
8. Y. Prélorentzos, La République (Livre VII) (Paris: Hatier, 1993), 13.
9. M. Dixsaut, Le naturel philosophe, Essai sur les dialogues de Platon (Paris: J. Vrin,
1985).
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 89

104. 10. L. Brisson, “Une nouvelle interprétation du Parménides de Platon,” in Platon et
l’objet de la science. Textes réunis et présentés par P.-M. Morel (Bordeaux: Presses Univer-
sitaires de Bordeaux, 1996), 80.
11. See Y. Lafrance, La Théorie Platonicienne de la Dovxa (Montréal: Bellarmin, 1981).
12. H. Cherniss, Aristotle’s Criticism of Plato and the Academy (Baltimore: Johns Hop-
kins University Press, 1944).
13. Met. A 1, 991a12–13: The Forms “help in no wise towards the knowledge of the
other things (for they are not even the substance of these, else they would have been in
them)”; see also Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers, 125.
14. The hierarchy of stages is primarily seen in Met. A.1 and De Anima II.
15. See Guthrie, The Greek Philosophers, 128; Guthrie elucidates the problem: “How
to bring within the compass of philosophic knowledge a world of unstable phenomena,
always changing, never the same for two instants together? Where is that stability which
. . . the human mind demands?”
16. As aforementioned, Plato’s Forms are universal but separate from the sensible
object, whereas Aristotle’s are, while still universal, operative within the sensible object.
According to Aristotle, the universal form renders a substance into an individual thing—
a this. Generally, Aristotle speaks of substances as sensible things composed of matter and
form. However, in the De Anima and Metaphysics, he speaks of nou:V as an unperceived,
albeit individual, substance, since it is devoid of matter, a topic that will be addressed later
in this chapter. See J. Barnes, Aristotle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 45–46. It
should be noted that this is one of the most debated issues among Aristotelian scholars.
It is beyond the scope of this book to explore and develop this theme.
17. Change in substance entails the birth and death of a natural organism and includes
the generation and destruction of an artifact; change in quality means the alteration of
the properties of a substance (i.e., water alters when it is exposed to freezing or boiling
conditions); change in quantity refers to the growth and diminution of a substance; and
change in place refers to motion. See Barnes, Aristotle, 46–47.
18. It should be noted that Aristotle rarely uses the concept of prw:th u{lh. His
disciples, however, considered it to be one of the most important doctrines in Aristotle’s
philosophy. See Ross, Aristotle, 168. It should be noted that W. Charlton and M. L. Gill
question the existence of such a doctrine in Aristotle. See W. Charlton, Aristotle’s Physics
I and II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992); and M. L. Gill, Aristotle on Substance: The
Paradox of Unity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989).
19. Prime matter is logically postulated in order to understand the added and juxta-
posed properties or accidents in a substance. See Phys. I.8, 191a31–2 and II.1, 193a29.
20. See Ross, Aristotle, 168.
21. Ross, Aristotle, 168–69.
22. In fact, u{lh literally means timber, the timber of a boat. See Taylor, Aristotle, 45.
23. The material substance that is produced is a configuration of the four material
elements—earth, air, water, and fire—which are duly proportioned by the formal cause.
This teaching is found in Plato’s works, especially the Timaeus, where the four elements
are duly proportioned into a determinate measure by the dhmiourgovV. See Timaeus,
90 Chapter 4

105. 31c–32c, especially 32c, which provides the reason for the activity of the dhmiourgovV
to harmonize the elements of the cosmos—namely, to ensure the cosmos’s unity: “For
these reasons and out of these materials, such in kind and four in number, the body of
the Cosmos was harmonized by proportion and brought into existence. These conditions
secured for it Amity, so that being united in identity with itself it became indissoluble by
any agent other than Him who had bound it together” (Plato, Timaeus, trans. R. G. Bury
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987]). The four elements in the Timaeus
are derived from Empedocles.
24. Jonathan Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1988), 28. J. Lear captures the relation between formal cause and the essence
of a thing very well: “Because the form of a natural organism or artifact gives us what
it is to be that thing, the why and the what converge . . . for the why of something is its
essence” (Lear, Aristotle, 29).
25. See Lear, Aristotle, 28.
26. See also Lear, Aristotle, 29.
27. “Therefore,” Lear concludes, “the primary source of change is form. The actual
primary source is an active state” (Lear, Aristotle, 35).
28. Armstrong, Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, 82. For a discussion on the tevloV
of Nature, see Henri-Paul Cunningham, “Téléologie, nature et esprit,” in La question
de Dieu selon Aristote et Hegel. Published under the direction of Th. De Koninck and
G. Planty-Bonjour (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991), 25–35.
29. Aristotle, Selections, trans. Terence Irwin and Gail Fine (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company, 1995), Glossary, 564–622, especially 582; see Phys. II.3, 194a35
and Met. L 7, 1072b2.
30. In fact, Aristotle will say that movement in Nature is caused by the Prime Mover,
which functions as an object of love, toward which the whole of Nature aspires. The
Prime Mover is the unmoved Mover. “On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and
the world of nature” (Met. L 7, 1072b14). This will be discussed below.
31. ”The end, the form in its realized state,” comments Lear, “is none other than a
successful striving” (Lear, Aristotle, 35).
32. ”For Aristotle,” continues Lear, “the reason one has to cite the form in its final,
realized state is that it is only by reference to that form that one can understand teleologi-
cal behavior” (Lear, Aristotle, 36).
33. Lear further writes that the “form of a developing organism . . . is not merely its
achieved structure, it is a force in the organism for attaining even higher levels of organi-
zation until the organism achieves its mature form” (Lear, Aristotle, 39).
34. G. R. G. Mure, Foreword to F. W. Weiss, Hegel’s Critique of Aristotle’s Philosophy
of Mind (Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague, 1969), xiv.
35. The question concerning many scholars is, how reliable is the Protrepticus with
respect to expressing the duvnamiV-ejnevrgeia distinction, as we see it in Met. D 12. See
P. Gohlke, Die Entstehung der aristotelischen Prinzipienlehre (Tübingen: Mohr, 1954),
7–8; M. Wundt, Untersuchungen zur Metaphysik des Aristoteles (Stuttgart: W. Kohlham-
mer Verlag, 1953), 18–19; and recently D. W. Graham, Aristotle’s Two Systems (Oxford:
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 91

106. Clarendon Press, 1987), 203, fn.41, who responds to Gohlke and Wundt. The dis-
tinction can, moreover, be accepted based on the evidence of the Protrepticus and still
maintain that this evidence (i.e., the absence of a definition of duvnamiV of the kind that
correlates with ejnevrgeia in Met. D 12) indicates an early period in Aristotle’s career, when
the concept of ejnevrgeia was not created. On this topic, see A. Smeets, Act en Potentie
in de Metaphysica van Aristoteles (Louvain: Leuvense Universitaire Uitgaven, 1952). This
claim, however, was challenged by Graham, Aristotle’s Two Systems, 204–5 and fn.48; and
D. W. Graham, “The Development of Aristotle’s Concept of Actuality: Comments on a
Reconstruction by Stephen Menn,” Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995): 553–54.
36. See C.-H. Chen, “Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy
of Aristotle,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17 (1956): 57 ff. Chen has un-
covered ten different ways in which Aristotle employs the concept of ejnevrgeia. I will,
however, limit my discussion to a couple of meanings, insofar as they pertain to our
theme—namely, was the concept of ejnevrgeia first used by Aristotle to mean “activity”
or “actuality”?
37. For an excellent discussion of the use of duvnamiV as far back as Homer and Hes-
iod, and its usage in epic poetry and in Plato’s philosophy, see J. Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’:
The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” Méthexis 11 (1998): 19–64, esp. 19–25;
see also P. Pritchard, “The Meaning of ‘Dunamis’ at Timaeus 31c,” Phronesis 335 (1990):
182–93; S. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duv-
namiV,” Ancient Philosophy 14 (1994): 73–114, esp. 81–82, who has argued that Plato an-
ticipated Aristotle’s distinction between duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia through a corresponding
distinction between possession and use in the Euthydemus (277e–278a and 280b5–282a6)
and Theaetetus (197a8–b1); and Z. Bechler, Aristotle’s Theory of Actuality (Albany, NY:
SUNY Press, 1995), 23–25. For further research on the distinction between duvnamiV
and ejnevrgeia, see G. Blair, “Unfortunately, It Is a Bit More Complex: Reflections on
=Enevrgeia,” Ancient Philosophy 15 (1995): 565–80, who has challenged both Menn and
Graham on their recent reflections on ejnevrgeia; W. Charlton, “Aristotle and the Uses
of Actuality,” Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 5 (1989):
1–22; C.-H. Chen, “Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy of Ar-
istotle,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 17 (1956): 56–65; and L. A. Kosman,
“Substance, Being and Energeia,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 2 (1984): 121–49.
38. Chen, “Different Meanings of the Term Energeia in the Philosophy of Aristotle,” 57.
39. See Taylor, Aristotle, 47.
40. C.-H. Chen adds to the concept of duvnamiV as potentiality: “In the Aristotelian
concepts of dynamis . . . at least the following teleological moments are involved: 1.
Matter is according to [Aristotle] the carrier of dynamis in this sense. If something is
potentially something else, its dynamis is owing to its material constituent. Matter has
then a natural tendency towards form; it aims at being actually so and so determined as
the form is. So in his concept of potentiality finality is an important moment. 2. This
actual determination is the end of the matter. A seed of a certain tree, for example, aims
at becoming such a tree actually. If the conditions required for this change are fulfilled, it
develops into such a one. Thus the basis of the development is the dynamis in the sense
92 Chapter 4

107. of potentiality. It forms the second important moment of his concept of potentiality.
The same teleological moments are involved in his concept of actuality. For actuality is
that state in which potentiality is actualized” (Chen, “Different Meanings of the Term
Energeia in the Philosophy of Aristotle,” 57, fn.8).
41. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and
DuvnamiV,” 73.
42. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and
DuvnamiV,” 74.
43. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duvna-
miV,” 74; see also Pritchard, “The Meaning of ‘Dunamis’ at Timaeus 31c,” 182–93, esp.
190–92; and Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
20–25.
44. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and
DuvnamiV,” 75.
45. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duv-
namiV,” 75 and fn.3. Graham, however, does suggest that Aristotle’s concept of ejnevrgeia
is developed out of the metaphysical foundation prepared by Plato. See Graham, “The
Development of Aristotle’s Concept of Actuality,” 553–55.
46. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duvna-
miV,” 75.
47. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and
DuvnamiV,” 76, and fn.5.
48. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duvna-
miV,” 77.
49. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duvna-
miV,” 77–78.
50. Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and Duvna-
miV,” 78.
51. See G. Blair. Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle (Ottawa: University of Ot-
tawa Press, 1992), 18–20. See also his article “The Meaning of ‘Energeia’ and ‘Entelech-
eia’ in Aristotle,” International Philosophical Quarterly 7 (1967): 110–17. See also D. Gra-
ham, “The Etymology of ejntelevceia,” American Journal of Philology 110 (1989): 73–80,
who has aligned his interpretation with that of the philologist H. Diels, while rejecting
the interpretation of K. von Fritz. Diels is known for rejecting R. Hirzel’s claim that
Aristotle invented the word ejntelevceia as a contrast with Plato’s ejndelevceia (74–76)
(H. Diels, “Etymologica: 3. =Entelevceia,” Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung 47
[1916]: 200–203; R. Hirzel, “Über Entelechie und Endelechie,” Rheinisches Museum 39
[1884]: 169–208). See G. Blair, “Aristotle on Entelecheia: A Reply to Daniel Graham,”
American Journal of Philology 114 (1993): 91–97, where Blair reacts against Graham’s in-
terpretation of ejntelevceia. See also Graham, “The Development of Aristotle’s Concept
of Actuality,” 551–64. In his evaluation of Menn’s argument, Graham has praised Menn’s
accurate analysis that in the earliest appearance, ejnevrgeia and its opposition to duvnamiV
refer to “activity” (553). Moreover, Menn is correct, according to Graham, to attribute
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 93

108. this earliest evidence for the concept ejnevrgeia to Plato—a claim that has been ignored
by many modern scholars but was first developed by Jaeger in “Review of P. Gohlke,”
Varia Gnomon 4 (1928): 625–37, arguing that the concept of ejnevrgeia was already used
in the Protrepticus. See also J. Rist, The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 105–6. However, Graham highlights and
develops his detailed criticism of Menn’s argument on pp. 555–63.
52. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle, 24–25: “Something, therefore,
to erase from one’s mind here is the all-to-common notion that Aristotle’s theory of Act
and Potency was developed as a way to explain change. What he is after is a distinction,
not how one gets from one condition into the other.”
53. See Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle, 27.
54. See Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle, 18–19.
55. It should be noted that many scholars have leveled a serious criticism about Ar-
istotle’s authenticity in reporting the exact teachings of the Megarians. As a result, his
“solution” appears, according to them, at best, dubious. See B. Calvert, “Aristotle and the
Megarians on the Potentiality-Actuality Distinction,” Apeiron 10 (1976): 277–89; and S.
Rosen, “Dynamis, Energeia and the Megarians,” Philosophical Inquiry 1 (1979): 105–19.
See also Bechler, Aristotle’s Theory of Actuality, 21–23, who perhaps exaggerates by arguing
that Aristotle’s discussion of potentiality and actuality is reducible to and resembles the
general position of the Megarians.
56. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
27, and also R. Heinaman, “Is Aristotle’s Definition of Change Circular?,” Apeiron 27
(1994a): 25–37.
57. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Aristotle and Plato,” 28:
“The reason . . . is that some things which are not (yet) in energeia will be in energeia; and
among non-beings some things are in potency (dunavmei) but are not (yet) beings because
they are not in entelecheia. It is still not clear what this means in plain English. . . . But
what is clear is that for Aristotle the problem of being and non-being can only be resolved
satisfactorily by means of the distinction between dynamis and energeia.”
58. See Graham, Aristotle’s Two Systems, 184, fn.5.
59. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle, 79.
60. Blair, Energeia and Entelecheia: “Act” in Aristotle, 31.
61. Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 29.
62. See Menn, “The Origins of Aristotle’s Concept of =Enevrgeia: =Enevrgeia and
DuvnamiV,” 105.
63. This hypothesis, incidentally, is accepted and is approved by Cleary, “‘Powers that
Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 30. Incidentally, Taylor has argued
that ejnevrgeia refers to the completed process of growth of the form itself in a substance
(i.e., the realization of form), whereas ejntelevceia strictly refers to the appearance or
manifestation of the realized form. See Taylor, Aristotle, 49. See also C. Witt, Ways of
Being: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).
64. On the two senses of duvnamiV in Aristotle, see M. Frede, “Aristotle’s Notion of
Potentiality in Metaphysics Q,” in Unity, Identity, and Explanation in Aristotle’s Meta-
94 Chapter 4

109. physics, ed. T. Scaltsas, D. Charles, and M. L. Gill (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1994), 173–93; M. Wiener, “Potency and Potentiality in Aristotle,” New Scholasticism 44
(1970): 515–34; Bechler, Aristotle’s Theory of Actuality, 11–23; and Cleary, “‘Powers that
Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 19–64.
65. It should be noted that Met. D 12 does not mention ejnevrgeia and ejntelevceia as
correlates to the two uses of duvnamiV, but it does highlight these uses of duvnamiV in a
similar way to Met. Q 1. The first kind of potency is characterized as an active potency, for
it refers to a principle of motion or of change, which operates within a being that is differ-
ent than the moved or altered being or is in the same being qua other. “‘Potency’ means
(1) a source of movement or change, which is in another thing than the thing moved
or in the same thing qua other; e.g., the art of building is a potency which is not in the
thing built, while the art of healing, which is a potency, may be in the man healed, but
not in him qua healed. ‘Potency’ then means the source, in general, of change or move-
ment in another thing or in the same thing qua other” (see Met. D 12, 1019a15–20).
The second sense of potency is characterized as a “capacity,” for it refers to the principle
of being moved or of being changed by another being or by the being itself qua other.
“[A]nd also, (2) the source of a thing’s being moved by another thing or by itself qua
other. For in virtue of that principle, in virtue of which a patient suffers anything, we call
it ‘capable’ of suffering; and this we do sometimes if it suffers anything at all, sometimes
not in respect of everything it suffers, but only if it suffers a change for the better” (Met. D
12, 1019a20–24). Thus, this second sense of duvnamiV possesses a disposition (diavqesiV)
to function as a cause or principle of being affected. (See also Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’:
The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 33.)
66. Aristotle, says Ross, “sees clearly that the notion of potency is indefinable; he can
only indicate its nature by pointing to particular instances” (Ross, Aristotle, 176).
67. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
34: “Even though Aristotle subsequently develops and extends the notion of dynamis to
make it more compatible with his theory of substance, he always insists that its primary
meaning is related to change.”
68. Ross, Aristotle, 177.
69. Ross, Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics (1936), 537.
70. See A. Kosman, “Aristotle’s Definition of Motion,” Phronesis 14 (1969): 41. Kos-
man is in clear disagreement with Ross. Ross writes that motion is “the actualization of
that which is potentially, as such. That is, if there is something which is actually x and
potentially y, motion is the making actual of its y-ness” (Ross, Aristotle, 81). Moreover,
Ross writes in his commentary of Aristotle’s Physics, 537: “[E]jntelevceia must here mean
‘actualization’, not ‘actuality’: it is the passage from potentiality to actuality that is kivnh-
siV.” Kosman is clear: “But this answer is wrong. I do not mean that Aristotle would have
been unhappy with the description of motion as the actualizing of a potentiality, but only
that this is not the definition which he offers at the beginning of Book III of the Physics”
(Kosman, “Aristotle’s Definition of Motion,” 41).
71. See Heinaman, “Is Aristotle’s Definition of Change Circular?,” 25–37.
72. Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 36–37.
The Anatomy of Aristotle’s Metaphysics 95

110. 73. Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 38.
74. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 38;
see also M. L. Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 194.
75. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 38.
76. For further research on this relationship, see J. L. Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Distinction
between Energeia and Kinesis,” in New Essays on Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough
(London: Routledge K. Paul, 1965), 121–41; C. Hagen, “The Energeia-Kinesis Dis-
tinction and Aristotle’s Conception of Praxis,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 22
(1984): 263–80; R. Heinaman, “Kosman on Activity and Change,” Oxford Studies in An-
cient Philosophy 12 (1994b): 207–18; R. Heinaman, “Aristotle on Activity and Change,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 13 (1995): 187–216; Kosman, “Aristotle’s Definition
of Motion,” 40–62; M.-Th. Liske, “Kinesis und Energeia bei Aristoteles,” Phronesis 36
(1991): 141– 59; P. S. Mamo, “Energeia and Kinesis in Metaphysics 6,” Apeiron 4 (1976):
24–34; A. P. D. Mourelatos, “Aristotle’s kinesis/energeia Distinction: A Marginal Note on
Kathleen Gill’s Paper,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 23 (1993): 385–88; M. A. Stone,
“Aristotle’s Distinction between Motion and Activity,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 2
(1985): 11–20; and M. J. White, “Aristotle’s Concept of qewriva and the =Enevrgeia-
KivnhsiV Distinction,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 18 (180): 253–63.
77. Gill, Aristotle on Substance, 172–83 and 214–18.
78. For a summary of this argument, see Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of
Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 41.
79. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
42. See also R. Polansky, “Energeia in Aristotle’s Metaphysics IX,” Ancient Philosophy 3
(1983): 162–63.
80. For further research on Aristotle’s conception of the priority of ejnevrgeia, see
J. Cleary, Aristotle on the Many Senses of Priority (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1988), 75–85; and C. Witt, “The Priority of Actuality in Aristotle,” Apeiron 27
(1994): 217–28, and her Ways of Being: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2003).
81. Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 45.
82. Potency does not ensure the eternity of a substance. The substance that is po-
tentially a being is also potentially a nonbeing, while the eternal substance, that which
is always actual, never ceases to be. Aristotle refers to the immaterial substances in the
sublunary sphere (Met. L 8) and to nou:V (Met. L 7 9).
96 Chapter 4

111. 97
c h a pte r f i v e
The Unmoved Mover and
the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V
Metaphysics L 7, De Anima III.4–5, and Metaphysics L 9
Introduction
The question concerning the content of the knowledge of nou:V has remained
troublesome for centuries, and the Aristotelian texts in Book L are not clear
about this content. However, there is enough evidence to demonstrate that nou:V
does know the world, while remaining purely actual and unaltered by its content.
This presentation will weigh heavily when we discuss the simple nature of nou:V
and Plotinus’s general critique of Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity of nou:V.
J. Lear introduces this problem with the following statement:
What does God’s thinking himself consist in? Is this a totally empty conception, a
mere solution to a puzzle? If so, how could Aristotle have believed that God was
an unmoved mover of the world? . . . It is incredible that Aristotle should allow
the bare solution to a dialectical puzzle to serve as one of the foundations of his
entire metaphysical outlook. We do have before us a rich conception of God’s
relation to the world.1
The question before us is this: Can Aristotle successfully eliminate the duality
between nou:V and nohtovn, and, ultimately, of the self-knowledge that nou:V
possesses and its knowledge of the world? According to Plotinus, whose argu-
ments we will encounter in chapter 9, Aristotle’s attempt fails to overcome the
duality within his own highest and most actual being—namely, nou:V—thereby
leaving nou:V with a residue of potentiality. Plotinus argues that only the simplest
(aJplouvstaton) principle is immune to multiplicity and potentiality.2 The Ar-

112. 98 Chapter 5
istotelian challenge, therefore, is to prove that nou:V, while contemplating itself,
remains one and indivisible.3 This topic concerns us greatly, and it will be impor-
tant in this section in order to 1) set up the foundations of Aristotle’s conception
of divine nou:V, and 2) properly understand Plotinus’s very rich interpretation
and critique of Aristotle concerning the limitations of the divine nou:V. I wish
to argue, however, that Aristotle is not unfamiliar with the argumentative step
Plotinus makes, for Aristotle even discusses and anticipates the consequences of
a Plotinus-like move of rendering nou:V subordinate to a more simple principle.
(This will be discussed below.)
Metaphysics L 7
Metaphysics L 7 is concerned with the singular source of all movement, a source
that moves without itself being moved and that must be an “eternal, substance
and actuality” (Met. L 7, 1072a25–6). As seen above, the prime Mover has been
mentioned by Aristotle in L 4, where Aristotle writes, “[B]esides these there is
that which as first of all things moves all things” (Met. L 4, 1070b34–5). More-
over, chapter 6 demonstrates that every motion implies a cause, which must be
an actual substance [hJ oujsiva ejnevrgeia] (see Met. L 6, 1071b20) and which is
devoid of matter [a[neu u{lhV4] (see Met. L 7, 1071b21).
Met. L 6 provides the necessary assumptions for his argument for the absolute
priority of the unmoved Mover. He first states in this chapter that substances are
prior to all things, and as a result, if they cease to be, then everything ceases to be.
However, he adds, motion cannot be either generated or corrupted, given that
it always exists, which he has argued in the Physics. Moreover, time cannot be
generated or corrupted, otherwise there could never be a before and after, which
would be absurd. Time cannot be generated (i.e., come into being and cease to
be), for that would entail a time prior to time, or that there will be a time after
time has ceased to be, which is an absurd claim. Moreover, given that time is
related to motion, they are continuous and eternal in the same manner. In this
light, Aristotle affirms that there must be an eternal circular motion (see Met.
L 6, 1071b2–11; see also Phys. 219b1; 261a31–263a3; and 264a7–265a12).
Moreover, he continues, if there is a substance that only possesses the capacity of
moving things or of causally influencing them, but is not actually doing so (mh;
ejnergou:n), then there could be no movement, “for that which has a potency
need not exercise it” (Met. L 6, 1071b13–14). In this light, Aristotle reaffirms
his criticism of his predecessors who have claimed that matter—potency—can
be prior, for nothing could ever emerge out of such potential states (see Met.
L 6, 1071b12–20). Therefore, Aristotle must affirm a principle that is prior in
actuality, unlike Plato’s Forms, for this active principle must be responsible for

113. The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 99
movement, for without it there can be no motion in the cosmos. More specifi-
cally, the critique of Platonic Forms is not directed against their being less actual,
but rather against their lack of causal power. Finally, this first principle cannot
possess any potentiality, “for,” as cited above, “there will not be eternal move-
ment, since that which is potentially may possibly not be. There must, then,
be such a principle, whose very essence is actuality,” argues Aristotle (Met. L 6,
1071b18–20). This first principle is nothing other than the unmoved Mover.5
“There must, then, be such a principle, whose very substance is actuality. Fur-
ther, then, these substances must be without matter; for they must be eternal,
at least if anything else is eternal. Therefore they must be actuality” (Met. L 6,
1071b20–22).
However, if it is the case that “everything that acts is able to act, but that
not everything that is able to act acts, so that the potency is prior” (Met. L 6,
1071b23–25), then potentiality would appear to be prior to actuality. And, if
this is the case, then how can this principle be the source of movement in the
cosmos? Aristotle quickly dismisses the claim that potentiality precedes actuality,
as we have seen above, in our analysis of Met. Q. Thus, Aristotle must affirm a
kind of motion that is primary (see Met. L 6, 1071b37), and this primary mo-
tion is the unchanging eternal cycle of the heavens (see Met. L 6, 1072a9–18,
22–23). At this stage of his argument, Aristotle still argues in a similar way to
Plato’s argument for motion, which is known as the cycle of the Same and the
Different. Aristotle believes that there is a substance that always moves with
perpetual motion—namely, the circular motion of the first heaven, as we have
just seen. However, Aristotle must move beyond Plato here and stipulate a prin-
ciple that moves even the heavenly bodies. Given that the first heaven is moved
and also moves other substances, there is an intermediate, which leads Aristotle
to affirm the unmoved Mover, which is an eternal and purely active substance
(ajidion kai; oujsiva kai; ejnevrgeia, 1072a25). This is best captured at the con-
clusion of Met. L 6 (see Met. L 6, 1072a5–18). Aristotle’s alternative solution to
the Platonic argument for motion is to introduce desire in objects and the cosmos
for their first principle—namely, divine nou:V—which is their ultimate good. He
will add in his argument that the primary objects of desire and of thought are
one and the same, but this will be discussed below.6
Once again, unlike this presentation of and argument for a circular movement,7
Aristotle, in L 7, 1072a21–23, does not provide any demonstrative proofs for the
existence of a circular movement (see De Caelo I 9, 279b1 and II 4, 288a10–11;
and especially Phys. VII and VIII). In the De Caelo, the attribute of eternity is
a deduction from the argument that circular movement is devoid of contraries,
whereas in a21–23, Aristotle claims that what is circular is that which is pure, ac-
tual movement, implying that circular movement alone can be eternal.8 Aristotle’s

114. assertion (a25) of an unmoved Mover who moves the world is bold and original.
This unmoved principle was undoubtedly derived from Plato’s insights into his
theory of principles, that while immutable, they simultaneously remain active ac-
cording to the various degrees of the scale of Being in the cosmos.9
Physics VII and VIII also provide an account of the unmoved Mover. Whereas
Phys. VII suggests the doctrine of the unmoved Mover and briefly alludes to the
content of VIII, Phys. VIII discusses in great detail the source of movement and
the immanent activity of the unmoved Mover within the spheres. The unmoved
Mover, in light of Phys. VIII, would exercise not only final causality but also ef-
ficient causality (see Phys. VIII 10, 267b 6–9). In Metaphysics L 7, then, there is
no indication of a specific topos or place that the unmoved Mover must occupy
in order to create motion. In Phys. VIII 10, however, the unmoved Mover must
be in a specific location (i.e., the circumference of the cosmos) in order to cause
motion within the cosmos10 (see Phys. VIII 10, 267a21–b9).
With respect to the problem at hand—namely, how the unmoved Mover or
first cause moves the world without itself being moved—Aristotle provides an
answer (see Met. L 7, 1072a26–1072b1). Aristotle clearly wishes to stress the
fact that the prime Mover is object of thought and object of desire concurrently:
touvtwn ta; prw:ta ta; aujtav, “the first among the objects of desire and intellect
are the same.” Aristotle preserves the ontological hierarchy of objects, as is seen
by his term ta; prw:ta, whereby the first or more actual objects are ontologi-
cally prior to the subsequent level of objects in this hierarchy.11 The unmoved or
prime Mover is reaffirmed here as a simple substance.12
Line a32, kai; tauvthV hJ aJplh: kai; kat= ejnevrgeian, expresses a fundamen-
tal Aristotelian transformation of Plato’s principle of the One. As seen above,
Aristotle makes clear his opposition to a transcendent and univocal principle,
such as the One, and reduces this principle to merely a quantifiable measure. The
term aJplou:V is discussed by Aristotle in the De Anima I 2, 405a16, where it is
couched in the context of Anaxagoras’s theory of the intellect: with the excep-
tion of the intellect, all entities are composites. Only the highest and ultimate
elements of the cosmos are considered to be simple atoms, said the atomists.13
In the metaphysical system of Plato, however, the term aJplou:V rarely makes an
appearance, with the exception of two passages in the Republic (380d and 382e),
where Plato asserts that God is said to be aJplou:V. For Plato, the entire cosmos,
as we have seen in chapter 1, is produced from two—that is, dual—principles:
the One and the Indefinite Dyad. Only the Platonic One is aJplou:V, and entities
in proximity to the One partake in the simplicity of the One.14 Aristotle states
that the simple ontologically precedes the composite.15
Concerning line a32 (e[sti de; to; e{n ktl.), as mentioned, Plato’s metaphysics
entails the two-principles doctrine, and, moreover, comments Aristotle, the One
100 Chapter 5

115. and the simple are closely affiliated16 (see Met. I 8, 989b16). Aristotle, however,
departs from Plato’s metaphysics in that the One is replaced by the activity of
divine nou:V.17
This first object of thought is the first object of desire, which entails that it is
the beautiful or the good, for only the beautiful and the good are desired in and
for themselves and, as a result, are aligned with the same series (ejn th/: aujth:/;
sustoiciva; a35). The prime Mover is a simple intelligible principle, and that
which is the best and most perfect in the cosmos. This accentuates Aristotle’s
teleological causality of goodness (see Met. L 7, 1072b1–4). The final cause
does not govern by way of providing commands, but rather by functioning as a
self-sufficient end, a tevloV.
Aristotle adamantly stresses the point that there is one pivotal source of move-
ment, which moves the cosmos by acting as a desirable being. As a result, as lines
b3–4 articulate, the prime Mover does not function directly as an efficient cause,
for it does not have immediate contact with the cosmos.18 Line b4 now asserts
that the substance that changes is a substance that is moved. This implies that
the first heaven, while remaining purely actual, is affected by a form of change,
for its movement is due to its local position.
This simple, perfect, and unmovable substance, therefore, functions as the
highest type of causality. Aristotle writes:
But the eternally noble and that which is truly and primarily good, and not good
at one time but not at another, is too divine and too honorable to be relative to
anything else. The first mover, then, imparts movement without being moved, and
desire and the faculty of desire impart movement while being themselves moved.
(De Motu Animalium 6, 700b32–701a1)
The principle upon which depend the heavens and the world of nature
(1072b13–14) entails the primacy of this substance, that it exists actually
(ejnergeiva/ o[n)—that is, it exists of necessity19—and given this fact, “its mode
of being is good, and it is in this sense a first principle (kai; ou{twV ajrchv)”
(b11). This substance is prw:ton, first—this is an important term that we shall
encounter later.20
Lines b14–18 introduce a new section, which discusses the human intellect’s
activity in comparison to that of God’s or of the divine nou:V.
On such a principle, then, depend the heavens and the world of nature. And it
is a life such as the best which we enjoy, and enjoy for but a short time (for it is
ever in this state, which we cannot be), since its actuality is also pleasure. (And
for this reason are waking, perception, and thinking most pleasant, and hopes and
memories are so on account of these.) (Met. L 7, 1072b14–18)
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 101

116. The life of nou:V, in contrast to ours, entails within it an unceasing activity or
actuality and a complete joy. This heightened level of pleasure is not temporal
or procedural, but is described rather as “complete at any given moment” (EN X
4, 1174b5–6), likening this activity to the act of seeing, which is also “regarded
as complete at any moment of its duration, because it does not lack anything
that, realized later, will perfect its specific quality. Now pleasure also seems to
be of this nature, because it is a sort of whole”21 (EN X 4, 1174a14–17). As
Aristotle says in Physics III 2, 291b31–2, process or noncircular movement is an
imperfection (ajtelhvV) of the form of actuality, and is no longer active when it
has been exhausted, whereas that which possesses its own end and lacks nothing
is in complete actuality—the kind of actuality that is referred to in this passage22
(see Met. Q 8, 1050a21–3). This echoes Aristotle’s statement of God’s pleasure
in the Nicomachean Ethics: “If any being had a simple nature, the same activity
would always give him the greatest pleasure. That is why God enjoys one simple
pleasure for ever. For there is an activity not only of movement but also one of
immobility; and there is a truer pleasure in rest than in motion” (EN VII 14,
1154b24–8). De Koninck summarizes this very well:
In a word, the higher the actuality, the more perfect and the greater the joy. The
primary cause, we have just seen, is substance, actuality and nothing but actual-
ity (cf. Metaphysics, 1071b20). The highest actuality is that of the intellect or of
thought (nou:V), since it is thinking, we have also just seen (see ajrch; ga;r hJ novh-
siV; 1072a30), that understands the simple, the actual, the first object of thought
and the first object of desire, the beautiful or the real good. Hence the lines that
follow at 1072b18–19: “And thinking in itself deals with that which is best in
itself, and that which is thinking in the fullest sense with that which is best in the
fullest sense.”23
The activity of thinking at the highest level possesses as its object the most per-
fect and self-sufficient being (kai; hJ mavlista tou: mavlista).
Lines b19–24 (b19. auJto;n de; noei: oJ nou:V kata; metavlhyin tou: nohtou:)
provide significant characteristics of nou:V, with the intention of accounting for
the nature of the thinking activity of nou:V. Most notably, Aristotle accentuates
the doctrine that nou:V itself becomes its own intelligible object in the process of
thought. Aristotle continues to write:
And thought thinks on itself because it shares the nature of the object of thought;
for it becomes an object of thought in coming into contact with and think-
ing [qigga;nwn kai; now:n; 1072b21] its objects, so that thought and object of
thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiving the object of thought,
i.e., the essence, is thought [kai; th:V oujsivaV nou:V; b22]. But it is active when
102 Chapter 5

117. it possesses this object. Therefore the possession rather than the receptivity is the
divine element which thought seems to contain, and the act of contemplation is
what is most pleasant and best. If, then, God is always in that good state in which
we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet
more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality
of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and God’s self-dependent actuality is
life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal,
most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belong to God; for
this is God. (Met. L 7, 1072b19–30, Ross)
The theme of contemplation is prevalent in this passus. The activity of knowl-
edge presupposes some actual knowing. This position is also maintained in the
EE VII 3, 1249b13–21 and EN X 7, 1177b26–1178a8, where Aristotle discusses
the contemplation of God: “For while the whole life of the gods is blessed, and
that of men too in so far as some likeness of such activity (oJmoivwmav ti) belongs
to them, none of the other animals is happy, since they in no way share in con-
templation.”24 Thus qewriva tou: qeou: best applies to divine nou:V, as seen in
Metaphysics L 7 and 9.25
The theme of the reflectivity or self-reflectedness of nou:V is echoed and de-
veloped in Aristotle’s De Anima. “Actual knowledge is identical with its object”
and “In general, the intellect in activity is its objects,” says Aristotle in the De
Anima (DA III 5, 430a19–20 and III 7, 431a1–2; III 7, 431b17). That which
does the thinking—namely, nou:V—is entities or things (pravgmata). DA III 4
emphasizes the fact that nou:V can “think itself” (auJto;n noei:n), only when it
“has become each thing in the way that one who actually knows is said to do
so”26 (DA III 4, 429b5–9).
In his De Anima (DA), Aristotle defines the soul as an “actuality of the first
kind [ejntelevceia] of a natural body having life potentially in it”27 (DA II.1,
412a27). As the actuality of a living body,28 the soul operates as the form and
final cause of the body. Analogously, as the body assumes developmental stages
of growth, so, too, does the soul. Aristotle asserts three grades of psychical
life, each including activities in the human soul that are organized within an
ontogenetic order: the nutritive, the sensitive, and the rational29 (see DA II.2,
413b11–13). This hierarchy or order of the soul’s activities further entails the
grades of actuality or form operative within the body (swvma). The sensitive
activity of the soul presupposes and includes the activity of the nutritive capac-
ity, whereas the rational activity presupposes and includes the preceding two.30
The nutritive soul can operate independently of the sensitive and rational ca-
pacities of the soul: “For the power of perception is never found apart from the
power of self-nutrition, while—in plants—the latter is found isolated from the
former” (DA II.3, 415a1–2). The highest capacity of the soul is the rational,
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 103

118. human intellect, which is discussed in DA II.2, 413b25–30 and, especially,
III.4–5. Within the rational soul, Aristotle makes a fundamental distinction
between the passive and active intellects, the latter enigmatically characterized
as independent and separable from all potency because of its active, purely
self-reflective, and simple nature.
De Anima III.4–5: The Simplicity and Priority of nou:V
In DA III.4, Aristotle associates the passive intellect’s activities with those of the
sense organs. As the sense organ receives the form of its object, which subse-
quently affects the organ by the qualities of the object, the passive intellect also
receives and contains the form of its object, which affects the passive intellect.
However, given that the passive intellect is not a sense organ, it is incumbent
upon Aristotle to explain how the passive intellect is akin to sense organs.31 To
explain this kinship, Aristotle will employ the language of potency and actuality.
Due to the fact that the passive intellect is unmixed with any object, it has the
potential to become identical with whatever form is impressed upon it.32 Only
upon the reception of a form is the intellect awakened from its dormant state
(see DA III.4, 429a13–24).
Thus, the passive intellect is potentially identical with its object (i.e., the
intelligible form of the sensible object) but is “actually nothing, until it thinks”
(DA III.4, 429b30). The passive intellect is a potency of the whole person and
is dependent upon the sense organs of the body. In this way, Aristotle maintains
a continuity of potency and actuality of prior grades of being.33 As with the
power of sensation, which “has no actual but only potential existence” (DA II.5,
417a6), the passive intellect per se does not exist—is not active—until it thinks.
Prior to this point, it is potentially everything.34 This claim is similar to Aristo-
tle’s other claim, made later in the De Anima, that the “soul is in a way all things”
[hJ yuch; ta; o[nta pwvV e[sti pavnta] (DA III.8, 431b21). The passive intellect
must not contain any forms within it, if it is to think everything.
The received and contained form becomes conceptualized by the active intel-
lect, which enables the intellect to become identical with the form of the object.
Paradoxically, in becoming identical with the object, the intellect becomes an
object to itself, and knows itself. This self-reflective activity characterizes the
nature and function of the active intellect, which Aristotle presents in DA III.5.
“Since in every class of things,” begins Aristotle,
as in nature as a whole, we find two factors involved, a matter which is poten-
tially all the particulars included in the class, a cause which is productive in the
sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e.g., an art to
104 Chapter 5

119. its material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul.
(DA III.5, 10–14)
The coprinciples of nature—matter and the efficient cause that makes all things
and includes the formal cause—are paradigmatic in Aristotle’s discussion of the
nature of the rational soul. He asserts two central ideas. First, the active and
passive intellects, though distinct from each other, operate in the soul (ejn th/:
yuch:/). The distinction, then, between the active and passive intellects entails
their separate, yet cooperative, activities. (This will be discussed below.)
Second, the active intellect does not make all things ex nihilo. The active in-
tellect operates on preexisting “material” furnished by the passive intellect. The
active intellect assumes the role of raising that which is potential to a state of ac-
tuality. It is a causally prior principle that “makes” a thing intelligible and allows
the intellect to be identical with the form of its object.35 Thus, lines 10–14 of
DA III.5 express two interactive states of intellect operative within a human soul.
The subsequent lines of the text explain adequately the nature of these two
distinct intellectual activities. “And in fact Thought, as we have described it, is
what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what
it is by virtue of making all things” (DA III.5, 15–17). The role of the passive
intellect is to assimilate the form of its object, resulting in its identification with
the form. Thus, while the passive intellect becomes all things, the active intel-
lect “makes all things.” The nature of the active intellect is to enable the passive
intellect to apprehend and become its object (i.e., to be affected or determined
by the form of the object). The active intellect is the condition for the passive
intellect’s grasping its object. In part, Aristotle bases this claim on his teaching
in the Metaphysics (see Met. Q 8, 1049b24–29).
In DA III.5, 15–17, therefore, the passive intellect is analogous to matter
by becoming all things, and the active intellect is analogous to the efficient
cause by making all things (poiei:n pavnta). That is, the active intellect makes
all things by raising the form of the object in question to an intelligible and
actual state. As mentioned above, the active intellect does not make things
out of nothing. Rather, as Hicks paraphrases, its activity operates by “making
things of one kind into things of another,”36 which accounts for the movement
of the passive intellect.37
The active intellect is described as a “sort of positive state like light; for in
a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours” (DA III.5, 430a17).
Like efficient causality, the active intellect makes all things as a light illuminates
that which is potential to actual; potential colors become actual by virtue of the
light.38 The active intellect is related to the intelligible as light is to the visible.39
Whereas light is defined, however, as an actual and effective transparent medium
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 105

120. (see DA II.7, 418b11–21), through which colors and objects may be seen by
the eye, the active intellect is not a medium between the passive intellect and
its object. Rather, the active intellect has immediate apprehension—or an intui-
tive grasp—of its object, since the object of its knowledge is itself. The analogy
between the active intellect and light is accurate only in this way: both the active
intellect and light are a third element in relation to the passive intellect and its
object, like the organ (i.e., the eye) to its visible object (see DA II.7, 418b12).
DA III.5, 18–19, and 22 are undoubtedly the most aporetic passages of this
chapter. These lines characterize the intellect in the following way: “Thought in
this sense of it is separable (cwristovV), impassible (ajpaqhvvV), unmixed (ajmighvV),
since it is in its essential nature activity (for always the active is superior to the
passive factor, the originating force to the matter).” Moreover, in line 22, Aristo-
tle describes the active intellect as cwrisqeivV.40 The separate nature of the active
intellect is also discussed in Aristotle’s De generatione animalium II.3, 736b28.
Here, the activities of the body operate independently of the activities of nou:V.41
In DA III.4, 429a15, Aristotle argues that the intellect in general is not mixed
with the body and is ajpaqhvvV (impassible), but has the capacity of “receiving
the form of an object, that is, must be potentially identical in character with its
object without being the object” (DA III.4, 429a15). In DA III.5, cwristovV and
ajpaqhvvV undergird the preeminence of the active intellect over the passive: “for
always the active (poiou:n) is superior to the passive factor, the originating force
to the matter.” Strictly speaking, then, the passive intellect is not ajpaqhvvV, as the
active intellect is, but paqhtikovV, the receptor of forms. As a result, the passive
intellect remains affected by these forms, whereas the active intellect is clearly
unaffected by the reception of forms. Only in DA III.5, however, does Aristotle
make this fundamental distinction within the intellect. (This claim, moreover, is
implied at DA II, 413a4 ff.) The intellect is now said to possess passive and active
powers. Aristotle’s use of cwristovV and ajpaqhvvV in DA III.5 asserts the separa-
tion of the active intellect not only from the body, but also from the passive
intellect. Therefore cwristovV must mean separable from the passive intellect.42
Moreover, the aorist participle cwrisqeivV indicates that the active intellect is
separated after the death of the soul. Aristotle recapitulates this teaching in Meta-
physics L 3, 1070a25–26, in relation to the degree of separation involved: “But
we must examine whether any form also survives afterwards. For in some cases
this may be so, e.g., the soul may be of this sort—not all soul but the reason; for
doubtless it is impossible that all soul should survive.” In this passage, to be sure,
Aristotle does not make the distinction between the active and passive intellects,
but speaks only of the intellect tout court that survives death, whereas in DA
III.5, the distinction is apparent: the passive intellect belongs to the soul, which
is the actuality of a living organism. Consequently, the passive intellect is unable
106 Chapter 5

121. to survive this organism’s death.43 The passive intellect, therefore, is relegated to
the part of the soul that does not survive death, while the active intellect does
survive. Again, the implication of this claim is that the active intellect is not sepa-
rated insofar as the soul remains alive, but is separated at death: “When separated
(cwrisqeivV) [from the passive intellect], it is alone just what it is, and this above
all is immortal and eternal.”44
Rist captures the inevitable conclusion with respect to Aristotle’s two terms
cwristovV and cwrisqeivV: “Since then there is a time when the Active Intellect is
not separated but linked in some way to the Passive, as efficient cause to matter,
and since, however, separation does occur at death, then during a man’s lifetime
his Active Intellect must not be separated but separable.”45 Mansion’s conviction,
however, is that Aristotle upholds the view that the active intellect is not divine
and immortal.
il ne s’agit plus de l’intellect agent ou actif, mais uniquement . . . de la pure essence
de l’intellect. De la sorte, de même qu’Aristote y oppose l’intellect potentiel ou
passif, fonction caractéristiquement humaine et donc périssable avec l’homme, de
même aurait-il pu dire et doit-on dire pour l’interpréter correctement, que l’intel-
lect actif est périssable de la même façon et pour la même raison.46
In other words, Mansion asserts that the passive and active intellects are only
features of the essence (oujsiva) of the intellect in se. However, Aristotle does not
mention anywhere in DA III.5 that he is speaking of the essence of the intellect,
as he speaks of essences so often in various other texts. Consequently, cwris-
qeivV must, then, refer to the active intellect, which is characterized as immortal
and divine, and which is, therefore, separate from the passive intellect at death.
However, it must be stressed that the active intellect cooperates with the passive
intellect in the soul until they are separated.
Both cwristovV and cwrisqeivV indicate a tentative union of both states of
intellect in one person. That is, both terms imply a time when the active intellect
is not separated from the passive intellect. Thus, if the active intellect is operative
ejn th:/ yuch:/, then it cannot be completely transcendent.47 The active intellect
is not a single transcendent intellect governing the plurality of passive intellects,
as Avicenna advocates. The brief mention of art to its material in line 12 of DA
III.5 supports this claim. As a particular man is the father of this particular son
(see Met. L 3, 1071a20–21), so, too, a form of art in the mind of a particular
artist is the efficient cause of this particular product. Thus, Aristotle argues that
a particular active intellect is operative in a particular soul, and its function is to
“make all things,” as the sculptor makes a product.48
Aristotle continues: “Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the indi-
vidual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but absolutely
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 107

122. it is not prior even in time. It does not sometimes think and sometimes not
think” (DA III.5, 20–22). The active intellect’s self-knowledge is not akin to that
of the passive intellect, which is affected by the transient passions of sensation.
Furthermore, the active intellect’s self-knowledge is unable directly to inform the
passive intellect. Thus, Aristotle clearly perceives a boundary that distinguishes
the passive and active intellects, such that the passive intellect cooperates with
the lower powers, while the active intellect in se self-operates.
Aristotle concludes DA III.5 with the following claim: “When it has been sepa-
rated (cwrisqeivV) it is that only which it is essentially, and this alone is immortal
and eternal (we do not remember, however, because this is impossible and the pas-
sive reason is perishable); and without this nothing knows” (DA III.5, 23–25). The
active intellect is unaffected, immovable, and simple in its nature. Aristotle seems
to argue that the active intellect is immortal when separated from the passive intel-
lect and the soul in which the passive intellect operates.49 The passage in brackets,
“we do not remember (ouj mnhmoneuvomen dev),” is a reference to a passage found
earlier in the De Anima (see DA I.4, 408b24–32). Memory does not survive death
for two reasons: 1) given that the active intellect is impassible, it cannot account
for or apprehend the particular, factual data of everyday life, whereas 2) the passive
intellect, which does apprehend data, perishes at the death of the individual. In this
light, the last five words of DA III.5, and without this nothing thinks, offer at least
four different possible interpretations:50 1) without the passive intellect, the active
intellect knows nothing; 2) and without the active intellect, the passive intellect
knows nothing;51 3) without the passive intellect, nothing knows; and 4) without
the active intellect, nothing knows. Ross, followed by Hamlyn, ultimately adheres
to the last interpretation, granting the active intellect an eternal status. Hamlyn
states that the active intellect is an “absolute entity which has only a metaphysical
role to play as a necessary condition of the functioning of the soul.”52 Both Ross
and Hamlyn agree that as a pure actuality, the active intellect exercises a role similar
to that of the First Cause, or nou:V, in Met. L 7 and 9.53
At the end of III.4, Aristotle discusses briefly two aporiae that concern us here
in Metaphysics L. First, Aristotle asks (DA III 4, 429b22–5), “Since it is aJplou:n
(simple, indivisible) and ajpaqhvV (impassible), and since it has nothing in common
with anything (as Anaxagoras says), how will the intellect think?” Second, Aristotle
asks in b26, “Can it itself be thought?” to which he responds, “And it is itself an
object of thought, just as its objects are. For, in the case of those things which have
no matter, that which thinks and that which is thought are the same; for contem-
plative knowledge and that which is known in that way are the same” (DA III 4,
430a2–5). This answer is captured and echoed in Metaphysics L 7, 1072b19–21.
The intellect and its object are one in the activity of thinking, and, as a result, the
“intellect itself becomes intelligible in that same act.”54
108 Chapter 5

123. The object of thought in Metaphysics L 7 is oujsiva, or substance.55 In
1072b26–30, Aristotle characterizes this most noble activity of God as life, and
the life that is the best and is eternal. This doctrine is also expressed in De Anima
II 4.415b13: For living things it is living that is existing (to; einai, their being).56
The question of the identity of the self-thinking human and self-thinking divine
nou:V is difficult to answer in Aristotle’s corpus. On the one hand, Aristotle sug-
gests that human intellection, as the highest activity under the genus animal,
properly belongs to the human, that it is an activity independent of divine self-
thinking nou:V. On the other hand, the condition allowing the human to think
speculatively or philosophically is the influence of the agent intellect, which, as I
have argued, resembles divine nou:V. Consequently, if the agent intellect operates
in the human soul, then one can infer that is the activity of divine self-thinking
nou:V. This would, moreover, result in limiting the human’s highest capacity to
the passive intellect. The latter approach was adopted by Alexander of Aphrodi-
sias, whom I will discuss in chapter 8. From the Aristotelian text, however, an
answer to this question cannot be derived, though there are indications, as I have
mentioned, that the agent intellect does not belong to the individual human
proper, unlike Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of the intellect, which argues in favor
of each individual human possessing an agent intellect.
Aristotle ends chapter 7 with the claim that there exists an eternal unmoved
substance, which is imperceptible to the senses (see Met. L 7, 1073a3–11).
In Physics VIII 10, 267b17–26, Aristotle concludes that this eternal unmoved
substance does not have any magnitude, that it is indivisible, and that no finite
substance can possess an unlimited power [duvnamin a[peiron] (1073a8; see
Phys. 267b22–3). It is not possible, then, that this substance be a finite sub-
stance, for it possesses infinite power; nor can this substance be infinite in a
qualitative manner, for “no infinite magnitude can actually exist” (see Phys. III
5; Met. Q 6, 1048b14–17: “[I]t exists potentially only for knowledge. For the
fact that the process of dividing never comes to an end ensures that this activity
exists potentially, but not that the infinite exists separately”). It must, therefore,
be indivisible and without parts (ajdiaivretovn ejsti kai; ajmere;V kai; oujde;n
mevgeqoV; Phys. VIII 10, 267b25–6), all the while preserving an infinite power.
The characterization of this eternal unmoved substance is best expressed in Met.
L 9, to which I now turn.
Metaphysics L 9: The Simplicity and Priority of nouV
Metaphysics L 9 presents what is perhaps the most essential argument for the
absolute simplicity and priority of nou:V in Aristotle’s metaphysics. Aristotle
attempts to demonstrate that nou:V, while it has knowledge of itself—a knowl-
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 109

124. edge that may appear dual or divided—remains purely simple and devoid of
all potentiality. If this were not the case, then nou:V would be dependent upon
a higher, more actual, and divine principle in the cosmos. But nou:V can only
think itself; it is thinking thinking itself. The object of nou:V is immaterial and
eternally indivisible.
What remains to be discussed is the following: how can the content of nou:V
be simple and not composite—a state that is clearly characterized as purely sim-
ple and actual? We will see that Plotinus disagrees with Aristotle on this point.
We will, then, agree with the consequences that Aristotle highlights as a result
of introducing composition and plurality in nou:V, for this composition alone
will allow Plotinus to assert a single principle above nou:V, thereby subordinating
nou:V and rendering it dependent upon another principle—namely, the One.
We find the famous statement novhsiV nohvsewV in Met. L 9: “Therefore it
must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of
things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking” [kai; e[stin hJ novhsiV no-
hvsewV novhsiV] (Met. L 9, 1074b33–5). Prior to this assertion, however, at the
beginning of this chapter, Aristotle highlights significant problems with the nature
of divine nou:V: “The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for
while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us (dokei: me;n
ga;r einai tw:n fainomevnwn qeiovvtaton), the question of how it must be situated
in order to have that character involves difficulties. For if it thinks of nothing, what
is there here of dignity?” (see Met. L 9, 1074b15–17). The phrase dokei: me;n ga;r
einai tw:n fainomevnwn qeiovvtaton refers to the perception of visible and observ-
able objects.57 However, given that the first principle of the cosmos is nou:V, which
is itself its own object, this phrase would appear to indicate that nou:V is one among
many other entities in the cosmos. This interpretation, however, is representative
of the immanentist doctrine of Aristotle’s nou:V—a doctrine that will be taken very
seriously by Plotinus, as we shall see.
For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who
sleeps. And if it thinks, but this depends on something else, then (since that which
is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a potency, ajlla; duvnamiV) it cannot
be the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it. (Met.
L 9, 1074b17–20)
Aristotle begins chapter 9 with the presupposition that there is a supreme
principle of the cosmos—namely, nou:V—and that the supreme activity of this
principle is to be purely actual and to think itself. It would appear that line b18
states that nou:V cannot know any other substances but itself, for if it were to
know anything outside itself as its object of contemplation, it would become
dependent on these objects and so would be made potential.
110 Chapter 5

125. It thinks, then, “either itself or something else; and if something else, either
the same thing always or something different” (Met. L 9, 1074b22–3). Aristo-
tle argues that this first substance, the divine nou:V, must think necessarily that
which is most divine and of the greatest worth (b25–6).58
Lines b27–34 apparently indicate that nou:V precludes any knowledge of
substances outside itself. This claim, however, must be qualified, which I shall
proceed to do.
First, then, if “thought” is not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be rea-
sonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. Secondly,
there would evidently be something else more precious than thought, viz. that
which is thought of. For both thinking and the act of thought will belong even to
one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided
(and it ought, for there are even some things which it is better not to see than to
see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it must be of itself
that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its
thinking is a thinking on thinking. (Met. L 9, 1074b27–34)
If it were true to say that nou:V did not know anything outside of itself, then it
would follow that nou:V would not know the world. Moreover, if nou:V were to
think of substances other than itself, it would be in a state of change and potential-
ity, and if the latter, then it would be impossible for its activity to be continuous,
undivided, and self-sufficient. Aristotle mentions at the beginning of the chapter
that the activity of nou:V is a continuous activity, and, therefore, nou:V cannot
think intermittently. Finally, to say that nou:V is potential would imply that it is
determined by its corresponding object of thought—a claim that Aristotle clearly
rejects. Aristotle’s argument naturally leads us to the famous philosophical state-
ment: kai; e[stin hJ novhsiV nohvsewV novhsiV59 (Met. L 9, 1074b34).
Aristotle clearly wishes to argue that nou:V is determined by no objects other
than itself. For in keeping with his doctrine in the De Anima (429a13ff), Aristo-
tle states that the reception of an object exterior to the intellect implies that the
intellect is potential, which only becomes actual upon the reception of the exte-
rior form. Thus nou:V is purely actual, for its object—namely, itself—is identical
with nou:V itself, considered as the subject.60
If it were the case that the divine nou:V did not think actually, but only
potentially, then it would grow fatigued (b29), and more importantly for our
purposes, as we will see with Plotinus, it would require a principle “above” it in
order to be actualized, and this principle would be an object of thought that is
different and other than the divine nou:V itself.
Aristotle, then, asserts that the divine thought thinks itself, that it is the most
excellent of things and that its thinking is a thinking on thinking. The subordi-
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 111

126. nate levels of thought, including discursive thought, necessarily entail a separate
and distinct object of thought [ejn parevrgw/] (b36) (see EN IX 9, 1170a32).
The final question that Aristotle poses in chapter 9 is of critical importance to
our study of Plotinus’s reading and transformation of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine:
Is the object of divine thought composite (suvnqeton)? If it were composite, then
divine nou:V would “change in passing from part to part of the whole” (Met. L 9,
1075a6), a claim Aristotle cannot accept, given his argument that the first sub-
stance cannot be affected by any change whatsoever. In addition to this, Aristotle
states “everything that has not matter is indivisible” (a7).
A further question is left—whether the object of the divine thought is composite;
for if it were, thought would change in passing from part to part of the whole. We
answer that everything which has not matter is indivisible—as human thought, or
rather the thought of composite being, is in a certain period of time (for it does not
possess the good at this moment or at that, but its best, being something different
from it, is attained only in a whole period of time), so throughout eternity is the
thought which has itself for its object. (Met. L 9, 1075a5–10)
The prevailing question in this section is this: Are the contents of nou:V com-
posite? To suggest that the object of nou:V is composite would be to admit to a
multiplicity of elements within nou:V. The human intellect enjoys intermittently
what the divine nou:V enjoys eternally: the thinking of itself, the thinking of the
best thing in the cosmos (see Met. L 9, 1075a7–10). Aristotle, however, is ada-
mant that nou:V, considered as the first being, is prior to change and movement.
Thus, its thinking activity cannot consist of an object that is composite.61
In the earlier section on causality, it was mentioned that formal causality is
expressed via efficient and final causality. This can, however, only be the case in
sensible substances. In Met. L 7 and 9, Aristotle presents nou:V as final causality,
the unmoved Mover. Although it is a pure form devoid of matter, it cannot be a
formal cause, since nou:V is wholly transcendent to sensible substances and not an
immanent principle animating the development of Nature. (It can, in fact, only
be a formal cause of itself, but not the world.) So, nou:V moves Nature by being
its object of desire, while nou:V itself remains unmoved. Nor is nou:V an efficient
cause per se: nou:V is an agent of movement, but only as a final cause.62 Follow-
ing Ross, Rist adds that nou:V is an ejnevrgeia that is “an efficient cause only in
the odd sense of being a final cause, that is, indirectly.”63 Thus, nou:V remains a
transcendent final cause in relation to the transient and sensible world of Nature.
There are a few passages in Met. L, however, where Aristotle possibly alludes
to an immanent activity of nou:V guiding the cosmos—an activity which would
confer formal causality upon divine nou:V.64 In Met. L 9, 1075a15, 1076a4,
and 1075a19, Aristotle analogously describes the relation of nou:V to Nature as
112 Chapter 5

127. a captain’s relation to his army. The captain knows his army and thus orders it
according to his knowledge. Likewise, nou:V is said to have knowledge of Nature
and to order it according to its knowledge. This would further imply that nou:V
has foreknowledge or foresight (provnoia) of Nature, as Plato believed (see Plato,
Timaeus 30c and 44c). Ross, however, draws the conclusion that, as a separate
final cause, nou:V is ignorant of Nature, since apart from these obscure and
ambiguous passages, Aristotle generally uses language of transcendence when
he speaks about nou:V. The only object of knowledge that belongs to nou:V is
itself, not as a thought, but rather as a thinking activity: it is novhsiV nohvsewV
novhsiV, a thinking of thinking. As a self-reflecting substance that moves the
sensible world from without, it remains a pure form devoid of matter (see Met.
L 7, 1073a4–5, 11–12).
Aristotle confirms the simplicity and separability of nou:V by denying the
claim that nou:V is a substantial extension of the Scala Naturae. If nou:V were to
contain a degree of potency, it would, like all substances containing potency,
grow fatigued and think intermittently, as seen above.65 Consequently, nou:V
would require a prior principle upon which to depend for its activity. First,
then, if nou:V is not the act of thinking, but a potency, it would be reasonable
to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. Secondly, there
would evidently be something else more precious than nou:V—viz., that which is
thought of. For both thinking and the act of nou:V will belong even to one who
thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it
ought, for there are even some things that it is better not to see than to see), the
act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore, it must be of itself that
the divine nou:V thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking
is a thinking on thinking (see Met. L 9, 1074b27–34). The act of intellection
must be generated from within itself, because not only is it devoid of potency,
but it is also purely simple. If it were not simple—if it were composite—then
it would depend upon some other (simple) principle external to it, as Plotinus
has argued. (Plotinus argues that Aristotle’s divine nou:V is dual in form and
content, because it is complex and composite. As a result, we must ascend to
a higher and simple principle—namely, the One—upon which divine nou:V is
dependent. Plotinus’s critique of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine will be discussed in
detail in chapter 9.)
Ross’s interpretation of the separate nature of nou:V and its exclusive self-
knowledge was upheld by Joseph Owens.66
Does God know the world for Aristotle? The text is at pains to show that separate
substance is a knowing of its own self. It implies that for a separate substance to
know anything else would mean a change, and a change for the worse. How liter-
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 113

128. ally is this reasoning to be taken? If as with Aristotle a separate substance is a finite
form, it is obviously not all other things or any other thing. It is limited to itself. To
become and be anything else in cognition, it would have to undergo change. But it
has no potentiality for change whatever. Accordingly it is unable to know anything
other than itself. Unlike a human knower, it does not have the capacity to receive
new forms without matter and with them as instruments to issue into new acts of
cognition [see An. III. 8, 432a1–3. and I 4, 408b14–15]. Because of its complete
actuality it is limited to its own form and consequently to cognition of itself alone.
. . . But is not separate substance the primary instance of Being? In knowing itself,
then, should it not thereby know all the secondary instances that exemplify it and
imitate it? Does it not as primary instance contain all the perfection that is merely
shared by the secondary instances? This reasoning would hold if Aristotelian sepa-
rate substance were infinite in being. As infinite, it would contain within itself all
other beings. In knowing itself it would know them [see his fn.26]. But in point
of fact it is finite. It contains only its own perfection, not the perfections of other
things. In knowing itself it does not know them.67
According to Owens, the perfection of nou:V excludes knowledge of other forms
in Nature. Owens’s claim is based on the principle that in order to be a perfect
substance, this actual substance must be a being limited to itself: a perfect sub-
stance is one that is limited and finite, whereas an imperfect substance is one
that is unlimited and infinite. As a finite substance, nou:V is more perfect and,
consequently, does not know the infinite number of substances of Nature. If it
were an infinite, imperfect substance, nou:V would know Nature. “But in point of
fact,” contends Owens, “[thought] is finite. It contains only its own perfection,
not the perfections of other things. In knowing itself, it does not know them.
The reverse does hold. . . . From sensible things one can attain to knowledge of
the supersensible substances. But one cannot reason vice versa.”68 Thus, Owens
develops Ross’s conclusion that as a transcendent, separate, self-reflecting sub-
stance, nou:V knows nothing of Nature, since it is finite (i.e., perfect).69
However, according to De Koninck, one “could not . . . be more completely
mistaken.”70 De Koninck argues that as form becomes more perfect, the more
it includes other forms. Analogous to the human intellect, which apprehends
the forms of sensible objects, the divine nou:V apprehends the posterior levels of
form in Nature.71 To be perfect is to be complete and self-sufficient.72 That is, it
is “that from which nothing is wanting” (Phys. III 6, 207a8–150). Perfection in
nou:V does not exclude knowledge of what is posterior to nou:V. The knowledge
that nou:V possesses of one object does not exclude the knowledge of another:
nou:V knows the other object “concomitantly,”73 for “the more perfect the form,”
argues De Koninck, “the less it excludes and the more perfections, or other
forms, it contains.”74 Rather, it is matter that excludes perfections, since matter
114 Chapter 5

129. entails contraries, and contraries, in turn, entail potency and imperfection. The
subject of contraries is matter itself.75 Form, as the universal principle infinitely
correlated with a plethora of individuals, is inclusive, whereas matter receives
one form at a time, in a successive order,76 allowing for change, and admitting
a degree of potency. To suggest nou:V is ignorant of the forms located in Nature
is to suggest that nou:V possesses a degree of potency and, consequently, cannot
be perfect. “To attribute ignorance under any form to God,” says De Koninck,
“would clearly on Aristotle’s principles be to introduce back into God what he
has denied, namely, potency—imperfection, a contradiction in terms when
speaking of the most perfect being.”77 Thus, nou:V, considered as the form of
forms par excellence, must necessarily include and know other more imperfect
forms, due to its perfect nature. Exclusion is always posterior to inclusion. As De
Koninck says, “You can only divide what was previously one; prior to separat-
ing one thing from another in your mind, you must have them both together
somehow. Here again it leaps to the eye that inclusion is prior to division or
exclusion,”78 that actuality, or form, is prior to potency, or matter (see Met. L
10, 1075b19–24). Thus, nou:V is not ignorant of other forms, since nou:V does
not possess any contraries as matter does, and so is most perfect.
It is not form, then, that excludes, but rather it is matter or potency that ex-
cludes, in addition to privation (see Met. L 10, 1075b21–4). Only the material
substance excludes contraries: hot excludes cold from my body, but this exclu-
sion does not occur in my mind.79 One ought not to be misled by the connota-
tions of the word “finite” or its equivalents in modern languages. If one translates
tevleion or its synonyms here as “finite,” one must keep in mind that what is
meant is “perfect”80—namely, again, that which lacks nothing. “The infinite
turns out to be the contrary of what it is said to be. It is not what has nothing
outside it that is infinite but what always has something outside it” (Phys. III 6,
207a33–b2). In this sense of the word, then, “infinite” means deprived, wanting,
in potency—the opposite of the perfection that defines actuality as such.
Thus something is infinite if, taking it quantity by quantity, we can always take
something outside. On the other hand, what has nothing outside it is complete
and whole. For thus we define the whole—that from which nothing is wanting, as
a whole man or a box. What is true of each particular is true of the whole properly
speaking—the whole is that of which nothing is outside. On the other hand that
from which something is absent and outside, however small that may be, is not
“all.” (Phys. III 6, 207a7–12)
However, actuality does not separate, as Aristotle elsewhere speculates (see Met.
Z 13, 1039a7, hJ ga;r ejntelevceia cwrivzei). “One substance cannot be made up
of several actual substances.” Aristotle continues:
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 115

130. Substance number two is a new form, undividedly one, provided of course that the
two units which make it up are two only potentially. Two actually existing things
never do make one actual thing, though one thing may be potentially two, as this
continuum which I now divide into two halves. To be actually one something
can be multiple only virtually: actuality separates in that sense. (See Met. Z 13,
1039a3–14)
This implies that the activity of nou:V and its intelligible object constitute one,
indivisible, simple, and actual substance. If separation and division are to occur,
and they must, then it is due to the initial unity and indivisibility of nou:V, within
which the subject and object are identical. In this light, all that is composite, po-
tential, and imperfect is known by that which is purely simple, actual, and per-
fect—namely, divine nou:V.81 Perfection, therefore, lacks nothing.82 Moreover,
Themistius, “as well as from contemporary scholars and philosophers such as
those already mentioned,” confirms this reading of Aristotle’s divine nou:V. The-
mistius writes, “The First Intellect intellects, in intellecting His own Self, all the
intellecta together. . . . It has become evident from all this that God is the First
ajrchv, and that He intellects together His own Self and all the things of which
He is the ajrchv. In possessing His own Self, He also possesses all things, whose
substance is due to Him. . . . Now the First Intellect intellects the world. . . .
From His own Self He intellects that He is the cause of the ajrchv of all things.”83
In this light, divine nou:V is not ignorant of the world, for to claim that nou:V is
ignorant is to admit a degree of potency and imperfection within nou:V. On the
contrary, that which is perfect and whole (tevleion kai; o{lon) is “that which
has nothing outside it” and is “that from which nothing is wanting” (Phys. III 6,
207a8–15). Therefore, the self-thinking activity of divine nou:V does not exclude
from itself otherness and difference. “We must resist the temptation of represent-
ing God as a pure actuality that is limited to itself by its very perfection!”84 So,
it would seem, therefore, that nou:V has knowledge of itself and of the world, in
which case there seem to be a number of intelligibles within nou:V, but without
rendering nou:V composite. I wish to argue that this reading of Aristotle provides
the seminal argument for Plotinus’s doctrine of the intelligibles within nou:V, as
found in his Enneads V.5: “That the Intelligibles are Not Outside the Intellect,
and on the Good.”
Conclusion
The discussion of Aristotle’s response to the two-principles doctrine and Aris-
totle’s doctrine of Causality and Potentiality and Actuality naturally invites an
analysis of the structure and inner constitution of divine nou:V, considered as a
purely actual and an absolutely simple substance—that is, a separate substance
116 Chapter 5

131. that is not composite and does not consist of a duality within itself. Divine nou:V
intuits itself, for it possesses immediate self-awareness. Nevertheless, as was seen,
there still exists a strict duality between it and the world, even though divine
nou:V has knowledge of the world.
However, as we shall see in part II, Plotinus argues that this level of self-
knowledge or self-awareness is not absolutely simple. Divine nou:V, according
to Plotinus, is dual85 in nature and requires a more prior and simple principle,
which he calls the One. The One is, therefore, responsible for preserving unity
and difference within the cosmos. The derivation of divine nou:V comes at a cost,
however. While Plotinus preserves the unity and attempts to minimize the strict
Aristotelian duality between divine nou:V and the world, he subordinates nou:V
to the One. The next chapter will analyze in detail Plotinus’s argument and jus-
tification for the subordination and derivation of nou:V. Chapter 9 will conclude
with Plotinus’s account of the structure and constitution of nou:V, a doctrine that
was not widely shared by the post-Aristotelian tradition. Nevertheless, it will be
emphasized in the subsequent chapters that Plotinus advanced a new doctrine
that successfully overcame the Aristotelian problem of the strict duality between
divine nou:V and the world. Moreover, there is a formal duality within divine
nou:V as object of itself and as a thinking subject, as Plotinus astutely recognized.
(Once again, Plotinus’s reading of Aristotle will be discussed in chapter 9.) One
of the ways in which Plotinus accomplishes this task is to assert a monistic con-
ception of the cosmos. While the One remains absolutely simple and transcen-
dent, its influence on the subsequent hypostases minimizes the rigid duality seen
in Aristotle’s cosmology and approximates a unified system—a system that one
may see, for example, in a Spinoza or a Hegel.
Notes
1. J. Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), 300.
2. Plotinus writes, “If anything is the simplest [aJplouvstaton] of all, it will not pos-
sess thought of itself: for if it is to possess it, it will possess it by being multiple. It is not
therefore thought, nor is there any thinking about it” (Enn. V.5.3[49].13). This doctrine
will be discussed in the subsequent chapters.
3. For a rich discussion on the problem of indivisibility in Aristotle’s noetic doctrine
in DA III.6 and Metaphysics L 9, see Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand, 303–6; Th.
De Koninck’s excellent article “La Noêsis et L’Indivisible selon Aristote,” in La naissance
de la raison en Grèce: Actes du Congrès de Nice Mai 1987, ed. J. F. Mattéi (Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1990), 215–28; E. Berti, “The Intellection of Indivisibles
According to Aristotle,” in Aristotle on Mind and the Senses: Proceedings of the Seventh
Symposium Aristotelicum, ed. G. E. R. Lloyd and G. E. L. Owen (Cambridge: Cambridge
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 117

132. University Press, 1978), 141–63, esp. 151–54; G. E. L. Owen, “TIQENAI TA FAI-
NOMENA,” in Aristote et les problèmes de méthode (Louvain: Publications Universitaires,
1961), 83–103, esp. 92–103; and, most recently, Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept
of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 51–54.
4. See C. Kahn, “On the Intended Interpretation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” in Ar-
istoteles, Werk und Wirkung (hereafter, AWW), ed. J. Wiesner (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
1985), 1:325.
5. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
55–56.
6. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,”
56–57.
7. As we see in Physics VIII.
8. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 161.
9. See Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 165, fn.20, and also 10, 163, and 175.
10. See also Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 10, 163, and 175.
11. See background to chapter 7 in Theophrastus’s Metaphysics 4b18ff.: “Such being
the principle that we are looking for, if it is true that it connects with the objects of sense,
and nature is, generally speaking, in movement and that this is its distinctive property,
it is evident that we should hold that principle to be the cause of movement, toiauvthV
d= ou[shV th:V ajrch:V, ejpeivper sunavptei toi:V aijsqhtoi:V, hJ de; fuvsiV (wJV aJplw:V
eijpei:n) ejn kinhvsei kai; tou:t= aujth:V to; i[dion, dh:lon wJV aijtivan qetevon tauvthn
th:V kinhvsewV.” See also M. van Raalte’s commentary on this passage in Theophrastus
Metaphysics, introduction, translation, and commentary by M. Van Raalte (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1993), 137–39.
12. See also P. Aubenque, “La pensée du simple dans la Métaphysique (Z 17 et Q 10),”
in EMA, 69–88, esp. 74–76.
13. See Met. A 8, 989b16; 1059b35. H. J. Krämer, “Über den zusammenhang von
Prinzipienlehre und Dialektik bei Platon,” Philologus 110 (1966): 35ff. and 51ff.
14. See Ross, Metaphysics II, 376, lines 32–34.
15. See Met. 1015b12, where Aristotle states that the first being is said to be aJplou:V,
and also in 1059b35, Aristotle reasserts that the governing principle of all things is and
always will be more simple than the composite substances it governs. As Elders says,
“The words kat= ejnevrgeian remind the reader that Aristotle is not returning without
more ado to Plato’s theory of the One, but proposes his own doctrine” (Elders, Aristotle’s
Theology, 170).
16. See H. J. Krämer, Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik. Untersuchungen zur Ge-
schichte des Platonismus zwischen Platon und Plotin (Amsterdam: P. Schippers, 1964),
155–59, where he discusses the affinity between Aristotle’s First Principles and Plato’s
One; see also Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 171.
17. See Bonitz, 498; see also Ps. Alexander, 695, 10–14.
18. The contact accounted for here is not a physical contact, for divine nou:V is imma-
terial. The divine nou:V makes contact with the cosmos by exercising a causal influence.
See De gener. et corr. 323a33. It is interesting to note that in Met. L 7, the prime Mover
118 Chapter 5

133. does not operate in a particular location, whereas in Physics VIII, Aristotle provides a dif-
ferent account, that the prime Mover is at the periphery or circumference of the physical
world and also exercises final causality (see Phys. VIII, 267a21–b9).
19. In Met. 1015b11–14, Aristotle relates the necessary with aJplou:V. Strictly speak-
ing, the necessary in the fundamental sense is the simple, given that the necessary is that
which can only be and which cannot incorporate the characteristics into itself, for this
would admit a degree of potentiality by rendering it composite (see Elders, Aristotle’s
Theology, 179, b11–13).
20. See Günter Patzig, “Theologie und Ontologie in der ‘Metaphysik’ des Aristoteles,”
Kant-Studien 52 (1960/61): 198–200, citing from the English translation in Articles
on Aristotle, vol. 3, Metaphysics, ed. J. Barnes, M. Schofield, and R. Sorabji (London:
Duckworth, 1979), 43–45. Patzig emphasizes Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation
of Aristotle’s ontological project. On the topic of prw:ton kinou:n (the prime Mover);
see also Düring, Aristoteles, 210–15, 220–24; also J. Cleary, Aristotle on the Many Senses
of Priority (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), especially 78–85. The
philosophical question raised by Aristotle in Met. E of first philosophy is manifested
in Met. L, where it is questioned whether or not Metaphysics is a special science and
whether theology is a supreme expression of Metaphysics. In light of Cleary’s subsequent
research, as seen above, we are alerted to the analogous use, albeit limited in one regard,
in which Aristotle depicts the prime Mover in light of the four causes and the principles
of actuality and potentiality. Cleary writes:
At the metaphysical level, the natural priority of the Prime Mover means that it is the paradigm
case of substance. But, since “being” is a pros hen equivocal, the principles of the paradigm case
should be applicable to all other things insofar as they are beings. Perhaps this is what Aristotle
has in mind when he says that the causes of substances are the causes of all things. This is easy
enough to understand if we take the primary instance of substance to be an individual living
thing, since its four causes can be applied analogically to entities falling under the other catego-
ries. But it is much more difficult to see how this can be the case if we take the Prime Mover
as the paradigm instance of being. It does not have either a material or a moving cause, for in-
stance, and hence is atypical with respect to our ordinary experience of substance in the sensible
world. Furthermore, it is not usual for corruptible things to have formal and final causes that are
identical in every respect and at all times. Still, in spite of these difficulties, I think that Aristotle
does consider the Prime Mover to be definitive for the concept of being and this is the key to
understanding his description of first philosophy as “theology.” (78–79)
21. See C. Kahn, “Sensation and Consciousness in Aristotle’s Psychology,” Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie 48 (1966): 43–81; J. Brunschwig, “Aristote et l’effet Perrichon,”
in La passion de la raison: Hommage à F. Alquié, ed. J.-L. Marion and J. Depran (Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France, 1983), 361–77, esp. 375–76; R. Brague, Aristote et la
question du monde (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France), 57–110 and 135–48, con-
cerning the experience of the self.
22. See V. Goldschmidt, “Un tel acte est d’emblée tout ce qu’il peut être. Sa fin lui est
immanente, et lui-même est immanent à l’agent” [Temps physique et temps tragique chez
Aristote] (Paris: J. Vrin, 1982), 179.
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 119

134. 23. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 485.
24. See C. Kahn, “Intended Interpretation,” 327 n.24, where Kahn states that nou:V
does know the world and its inner dynamics. Kahn states, “The more completely a hu-
man being engages in noetic contemplation, the more fully he grasps the formal structure
of the cosmos. If the divine represents the goal to which human thought at its best aspires,
surely the divine must grasp the whole of this structure rather than none of it!” (Kahn,
“Intended Interpretation . . . ,” 327 fn.24). See also J. A. Dudley, “The Love of God in
Aristotle’s Ethics,” in Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie
25, fn.2 (1983): 126–37, for an account of the moral theory according to Aristotle.
25. The intellect, over and above all the other senses, takes pleasure in its perceptions,
as Themistius argues in his commentary on Lambda: “[I]t is evident that the Intellect
has much greater joy and delight than the senses (rejoicing) in their perceptions. For
(the Intellect) intellects that which is more excellent than the other perceptions (namely)
Himself and His own existence” (trans. Salomo Pines, from the Arabic and the Hebrew
version, in his “Metaphysical Conceptions,” 181).
26. See J. Lear. “Active Episteme,” in Mathematics and Metaphysics in Aristotle: Akten
des X. Symposium Aristotelicum, ed. Andreas Graeser (Berne and Stuttgart: Paul Haupt,
1987), 149–74, esp. 152–60. The theme of reflectivity or self-reflectedness will be dis-
cussed in detail below, in the sections on De Anima III.4–5 and Metaphysics L 9.
27. Trans. J. A. Smith, in McKeon, The Basic Works of Aristotle.
28. A living body is made up of its diverse organic parts. See Met. L 10, 1035b20–21
and Generation of Animals, I.1, 715a10. The definition of an organ depends upon the
living status of a body of which it is a part; knowledge of the function of an organ presup-
poses its operation within a living body. See S. Everson. “Psychology,” in The Cambridge
Companion to Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),
168–94, esp. 184; also for a fuller discussion, see J. L Ackrill, “Aristotle’s Definitions of
psuchê,” Articles on Aristotle, vol. 4, ed. J. Barnes, M. Schoefield, and R. Sorabji (London:
Gerald Duckworth Company Limited, 1979), 70ff.
29. This ascension is comparable to Aristotle’s famous passages in An. Post. II.19 and
Met. A, where he explains the ascending degrees of knowledge: the passage from sensation
through memory, experience, and art to theoretical knowledge.
30. More specifically, the passive intellect presupposes the phantasia (imagination) of
the sensitive soul in order that it may operate conceptually (see DA I.1, 403a8–9 and
III.7, 431a16–17).
31. See D. W. Hamlyn, Aristotle: De Anima, Books II and III, trans. and intro. D. W.
Hamlyn (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 136.
32. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 49,
who reminds us that the aporetic question of “how nou:V, if it is simple and impassive,
and yet has nothing in common with anything else, then how is it possible for it to think
anything at all?” is an old “Presocratic intuition that it is only insofar as there is some-
thing in common between two things that the one is said to act (poiei:n) and other is said
to suffer (pavscein). For his proposed solution, Aristotle once again draws on the previous
distinction between potency and act by saying that, in a way, nous is potentially identi-
120 Chapter 5

135. cal with intelligible objects, though it is actually nothing before it thinks. (o{ti dunavmei
pwvV ejsti ta; nohta; oJ nou:V, ajll= ejntelecevia oujde;n, pri;n a}n noh:/—429b30–1)”
(“‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 49). This topic will
be discussed below.
33. Aristotle’s language of dependence enforces his thesis that there is an ontological
ascension of activities: the power of sensibility depends upon the vegetative power, and
the intellect depends upon not only its proximate matter, the sense powers, but also the
vegetative power (see DA III.4, 429b14–18). As with the form’s dependence on a particu-
lar matter, the passive intellect is dependent on sense data.
34. See Hamlyn, Aristotle, 136.
35. See Lear, Aristotle: The Desire to Understand, 137.
36. R. D. Hicks, Aristotle’s De Anima (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1907), 499; see also Rist: “All the objects of thought are ‘made’ into characteristics of the
Passive Intellect which thus ‘is made’ or ‘becomes’ all things. Thus when one thought
gives way to the next, the Passive Intellect, now ‘made’ of one kind of thought, is made
into another” (J. M. Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” Classical Philology 61
(1966): 8–20: 10).
37. See also DA III.5, 430a1, regarding the writing tablet metaphor.
38. Reference to light as a metaphor of active intellect seems to be a reminiscence of
Plato’s depiction of the Idea of the Good through the symbolic use of the Sun (cf,. Rep.
507b–509d).
39. Ross, Aristotle, 150.
40. It is Hicks’s contention that cwristovV does not mean separable, but “‘actually
separate,’ i.e., ‘not involved in physical life’” (Hicks, Aristotle, 502). Hicks also observes
that the three predicates characterizing the active intellect in DA III.5 “were applied to
nou:V in [DA III.4] before any mention had been made of the distinction between active
and passive intellect.” His central claim is that these three predicates first apply to the
passive intellect before they can be applied to the active intellect in DA III.5.
41. See DA I.4, 408b29: “Thought is more divine and impassible [than the body, or
vehicle].” Also see DA II.1, 413a4–8: “From this it is clear that the soul is inseparable
from its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts)—for the actuality of
some of them is the actuality of the parts themselves. Yet some may be separable because
they are not the actualities of any body at all. Further, we have no light on the problem
whether the soul may not be the actuality of its body in the sense in which the sailor is
the actuality of the ship.”
42. See Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” 13–14.
43. See Ross, Aristotle, 150.
44. DA III.5, 20. E. Barbotin remarks that the active intellect “retrouve à la mort la
simplicité de son essence” (E. Barbotin, La Théorie Aristotélicienne de l’intellect d’après
Théophraste [Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1954], 166). Rist, how-
ever, thinks that Barbotin’s claim could be misleading. According to Rist, the “Active
Intellect is always simple. During life, however, it not only exists in itself, but also affects
the Passive Intellect” (Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” 19, fn.17).
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 121

136. 45. Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” 14.
46. A. Mansion, “L’immortalité de l’âme d’après Aristote,” Revue Philosophique de
Louvain 51 (1953): 468. Mansion is emphasizing that passive and active intellects are
ways of speaking of the intellect in itself when the intellective soul cooperates with an
organized body. The intellect in itself is to be seen as immortal. However, when one
considers the intellect as an activity within the union of soul and body, one can identify
passive and active states to the intellect. Whereas the intellect in itself is the genus, the
passive and active intellects are the species, in which case they could hardly be states.
47. See Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” 8.
48. See Rist, “Notes on Aristotle, de Anima III.5,” 8: “Every soul therefore contains
its own individual Active and Passive Intellect.”
49. ”Hence too,” says D. W. Hamlyn, “like God, it [the active intellect] can have
separate existence and is eternal, just because of its lack of potentiality” (Hamlyn, Aris-
totle, 141).
50. Ross, Aristotle, 152; see also Hamlyn, Aristotle, 142.
51. It is interesting to note that T. Irwin and G. Fine have opted for this interpreta-
tion, though they admit that Aristotle could also be referring to the passive intellect: “And
without this productive [active] intellect nothing understands” (Aristotle: Selections,
trans., intro., notes, and glossary by T. Irwin and G. Fine (Indianapolis: Hackett Publish-
ing Company), 202 and fn.32.
52. Hamlyn, Aristotle, 142. Opposing Ross, however, Hamlyn argues that the active
intellect is not a separate form, exclusive of the subordinate activities of the soul. Rather,
Hamlyn claims that Aristotle is briefly trying to explain why humans forget while an
active intellect is perpetually thinking in us. The active intellect is unable to be affected,
whereas the passive intellect, which is responsible for the general cognitive functions,
such as memory, is affected, and thus perishes at death. In fact, the passive intellect is
dependent on not only the body, within which operate various powers, but also on the
active intellect, which enables the passive intellect to think.
53. See Ross, Aristotle, 152–53, and Hamlyn, Aristotle, 142. However, this was not
the view of many of Aristotle’s followers. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to discuss
the significant contribution made by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Plotinus with regard
to the promoting of the identification of active nou:V and the cosmic nou:V—an inter-
pretation of Aristotle against which St. Thomas Aquinas vehemently argues. Suffice it to
say—for now—that for both Alexander and Plotinus, active nou:V is a cosmic activity,
animating each particular human intellect (i.e., the passive intellect). Both claimed that
active nou:V, as accounted for in De Anima III.5, is not personal. The passive intellect re-
mains the highest capacity of the human soul, and the active intellect acts upon it. In his
Against the Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect, Thomas argues against the Alex-
andrian and Neoplatonic tradition, captured and expressed by Averroes and his followers.
Thomas reacts against the Averroist’s thesis that 1) passive nou:V, or, as Averroes calls it,
material nou:V, is a substance that can exist apart from the body, and, as such, cannot be
united with the body; and 2) that passive nou:V is one for all peoples. The error in this
thesis, according to Thomas, is that the diversity of intellect in humanity is assimilated
122 Chapter 5

137. into one intellect, incorruptible and immortal, which governs humanity. Consequently,
each person loses his individuality and must necessarily abdicate self-responsibility of a
personal moral development. Thus, the unity of the person is at stake by dividing the
intellect into passive and active substances. Averroes attempts to maintain a continuity
between the One (the cosmic or active nou:V) and the Many (the diversity of human
beings), but instead he, according to Thomas, divides the human nature by separating
the active intellect from the passive intellect and from the body. For Thomas, then, the
passive and active intellects are but two aspects of one intellect, for the unity of the person
is at stake, if the intellect is really divided into passive and active intellects. The human
belongs to a species by virtue of its form. The proper activity of the human is understand-
ing, and understanding is an activity in the intellect, which is united to the body as its
form. If the intellect and the will are separate forms from the human, then the human
loses its moral power and cannot be, therefore, morally accountable for its actions. Thus,
the unity of the person, which entails the unity of the aspects of the intellect, ensures the
proper moral development of individuals. (See Alexander of Aphrodisias, Commentary
of Aristotle’s De Anima, 109, 22–23, trans. A. P. Fotinis [New York: University Press of
America, 1980], 143–44; Plotinus, Enneads, V.3.5, V.4, and V.6, trans. A. H. Armstrong
[Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987]; and St. Thomas Aquinas, Against the
Averroists: On There Being Only One Intellect, trans. R. McInerny [West Lafayette, IN:
Purdue University Press, 1993], I.11, 16, 26, 27; II.51–59; III.62, 63, 72, 76–85, IV.86,
89, 96, 98; V.99, 104, 106, 108, 112–13, 116; see also Aquinas, Summa Theologica I.76.1
resp, I.76.2 resp, I.79.5.)
54. See G. Patzig, “Theology and Ontology in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” 40–42.
55. D. M. MacKinnon, “Aristotle’s conception of Substance,” in New Essays on Plato
and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965), 103 and
112. As D. M. MacKinnon rightly says, “It is impossible to understand at all Aristotle’s
conception of God without some grasp of what he means by substance”; here Aristotle is
“stressing the fact that God in a way unique among substances exists of himself.” See also
A. Kosman, “Divine Being and Divine Thinking in Metaphysics Lambda,” in BACAP,
vol. 3. ed. J. Cleary (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988), 165–201, esp.
182–88.
56. See C. Kahn, The Verb ‘to Be’ in Ancient Greek (Dordrecht and Boston: Reidel,
1973), 240–45. See also R. Brague, Aristote, 99–102. De Koninck also comments,
“The activity of intellect is a form of life (cf. DA 2.2.413a22–3); in fact its best form
is perpetual wakefulness, uninterrupted qewriva, as we saw. The very being of the first
substance of which we were speaking, since it must be the best life, has to be the very
act of uninterrupted thinking . . . for we say of God that he is a living being, eternal,
most good, or perfect. In other words, life itself and ‘duration continuous and eternal’
belong to Him. To repeat, then, ‘God is perpetual life’ means God is undivided thought,
forever actual.” See also Richard Bodéüs: “Aristote entend établir ici que la nature de la
première substance, telle qu’il vient de la décrire, correspond exactement à la conception
qu’un chacun possède de l’être divin” (R. Bodéüs, “En marge de la théologie aristotéli-
cienne,” Revue philosophique de Louvain 73 [1975]: 22–23). See also I. Düring, Aristoteles;
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 123

138. Darstellung und Interpretation seines Denkens (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1966), 210: “Seine
Staatstheorie wächst aus dem Nachdenken über das Leben in einem Haushalt hervor.
So vereinigt er in seinem Denken immer nüchternen ‘common-sense’ mit einer zu den
äußersten Grenzen getribenen Abstraktion” (He thus unites in his thought an invariably
sober “common sense” with an abstraction pushed to its extreme limits).
57. See Owen, “TIQENAI TA FAINOMENA,” 85–86.
58. See R. Bodéüs, Theology of the Living Immortals, trans. J. Garrett (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2000), 22–23, esp. 227, fn.64, where Bodéüs comments,
“Aristotle describes the pure thinking as (to;) qeiovtaton (L 9.1074b16 and 26), but for
the philosopher, ‘all beings . . . by nature have something divine’ (pavnta . . . fuvsei
e[cei ti qei:on: NE vii 13.1153b33) to the extent that they tend toward eternity” (see
Bodéüs 1975, 7 and 17). This description does not, therefore, imply that first substance
is the supreme god, but that it is the most sublime being. In the same passage, Bodéüs
provides a critique of contemporary commentators: “In its literal commentary, Elders
1972, 196, does not even note these peculiarities. Pépin 1971, 235, for its part, is con-
tent to mention without comment the first appearance of the word qeovV in the text.” See
Merlan 1946, 17.
59. This text, of course, will be a source of inspiration not only for Alcinous, but
also and especially for Plotinus (Enn V 3, 7, 18–19), although the latter will be critical
of the Aristotelian implications of such a doctrine, as we will see in chapter 9. See also
J. Halfwassen, Geist und Selbstbewusstsein: Studien zu Plotin und Numenios (Stuttgart:
F. Steiner, 1994), 9–30.
60. See Cleary, “‘Powers that Be’: The Concept of Potency in Plato and Aristotle,” 58:
“Aristotle argues that divine nous cannot be simply a capacity, otherwise the continuation
of its thinking would be wearisome to it, and there would be something else more pre-
cious than nous, namely, the object of thought. Therefore, divine nous must be an activity
and it must think only itself, since there is nothing better to think. Consequently, its
thinking is a thinking on thinking (hJ novhsiV nohvsewV novhsiV).”
61. Elders, Aristotle’s Theology, 266, commentary on lines a5–10.
62. Ross, Aristotle, 181.
63. J. M. Rist, The Mind of Aristotle: A Study in Philosophical Growth (Toronto: Uni-
versity of Toronto Press, 1989), 16.
64. See Met. B 4, 1000b3–6, which implies that the first Being must know all sub-
ordinate forms; and also see Met. A 2, 983a8–10, where Aristotle asserts that God is
the primary cause and principle of all things. Given that God has self-knowledge and
is the principle of all things, God must know, in addition to himself, all things. The
immanentist tradition attempts to overcome the duality between the divine nou:V and the
world. As early as 1904, Jackson proposed a very compelling thesis that the forty-seven or
fifty-five unmoved movers were essentially the thoughts of nou:V (J. Jackson, “On Some
Passages in Aristotle’s Metaphysics,” in Journal of Philology, 29 [1904]: 14). He writes:
Now without question, the prw:ton kinou:n ajkivnhton, which, by attraction (kinei: de; wJV
ejrwvmenon 1072b3) sets in motion the sphere of the fixed stars, is qeovV or nou:V, who ‘energies
124 Chapter 5

139. continually (ejnergei: de; e[chwn 1072b22) in the contemplation of his own thoughts. What
then are the kinou:nta ajkivnhta? They are—for there is nothing else with which they can be
equated—the thoughts of qeovV or nou:V. But this nou:V and its nohtovn are identical: eJauto;n
de; noei: oJ nou:V kata; metavlhyin tou: nohtou:` nohto;V ga;r givgnetai qiggavnwn kai;
now:n, w{ste taujto;n nou:V kai; nohto;n 1072b20. Hence, in virtue of the identity of the
divine mind and its thoughts, there is but one koivranoV, although, inasmuch as it and they,
by attraction, severally and independently set in motion the spheres of the fixed stars and of
the planets, they are all of them kinou:nta ajkivnhta. In a word, whereas as ajkivnhta it and
they are a unity, as kinou:nta they perform distinct functions. (144)
Jackson goes on to say that Aristotle, however, wishes to maintain a strict separation
and duality between nou:V and the world, but attempts to unify the mind only.
Manifestly, here, as often, Aristotle Platonizes. For the kinou:nta ajkivnhta of Aristotle are
related to the prw:ton kinou:n ajkivnhton in precisely the same way in which the qeoi; qew:n
of the Timaeus are related to the dhmiourgovV: that is to say, both the kinou:nta ajkivnhta of
Aristotle which set in motion the planetary spheres, and the qeoi; qew:n of Plato which, when
they receive from the dhmiourgovV body and position in space, become stars, are the thoughts of
the one supreme mind. But we must not overlook the fundamental difference between the two
philosophers. Whereas Plato seeks to express what is material in terms of mind, and in virtue
of his idealism is a “monist,” Aristotle regards the mind which attracts and the matter which is
attracted as distinct entities, and never professes to be anything but a dualist. Indeed we find him
at A ix 992b9 sharply criticizing Plato’s pretensions. Accordingly, whereas Plato at the end of the
Timaeus pronounces his unification of mind and matter to be complete, here, at the end of book
L, distinguishing between them, Aristotle claims to have established the unity, not of mind and
matter, the governor and the governed, but of governing mind only. (144)
65. See DA III.5, 23: “[Thought in its active state] does not sometimes think and
sometimes not think.”
66. J. Owens, “The Relation of God to World in the Metaphysics,” in Études sur la
Métaphysique d’Aristote: Actes du Ve Symposium Aristotelicum, ed. P. Aubenque (Paris:
J. Vrin, 1979), 207–22.
67. Owens, “The Relationship of God,” 219–20. Owens also adds, “For Aristotle
the finitude of pure actuality does not allow even the knowledge of something else that
might serve as the basis for a real relation to that thing” (229, fn.26); 213: “In any case,
an immaterial form is regarded by Aristotle as something finite, not infinite (referring,
for instance, to Metaphysics 1.5.986b18–21).”
68. Owens, “The Relationship of God,” 219–20.
69. Incidentally, it should be noted that limitedness and infinity need not exclude
one another, according to Melissus. For Parmenides, however, Being is finite and com-
plete tetelesmevnon. So, even though it is limited, nothing is lacking from it, just as in
Aristotle.
70. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 496.
71. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 492.
72. Perfection entails the senses’ proper orientation toward the best and highest of its
objects. For the human cognitive activity, thought and contemplation will be “most per-
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 125

140. fect and pleasurable” when it is directed toward the “worthiest of its objects . . . and the
pleasure perfects the activity” (Nicomachean Ethics [EN] X.4, 1174b20 and 1174b21–3,
vol. 2, trans. W. D. Ross, revised by J. O. Urmson).
73. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 495.
74. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 496.
75. Aristotle’s references to privation as an aspect of change are found in Phys. 1.7–9,
189b30–192b4; see also De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 497.
76. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 498.
77. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 495.
78. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 499.
79. The physical changes in Aristotle’s account are well described by R. Brague, Ar-
istote, 346–47:
La forme que l’âme reçoit ne peut pas être privée de matière simplement au sens obvié. En
effet, le fait que les sens reçoivent la forme sans la matière ne les distingue pas des processus
physiques, dans lesquels la forme est elle aussi transmise sans la matière. . . . La forme reçue
dans la génération informe la matière de ce à quoi elle est transmise, la pénètre sans reste et
fait de celle-ci un composé concret nouveau. Ce faisant, elle lui retire sa forme originelle,
même si celle-ci n’était que cette forme en attente qu’est la privation, par exemple lorsque la
plante dépouille le froid pour recevoir la forme du chaud (Bonitz, 700 a 54–56, 40). Dans
tous les cas, que la forme qui survient soit substantielle (générations physique ou technique)
ou accidentelle (échauffement, etc.), une forme cède la place à une autre forme qui la chasse
de la matière qu’elle occupait auparavant. . . . L’âme ne devient pas chaude, elle devient la
chaleur—laquelle n’a rien de chaud. (346–47)
See Physics I 7–9, 189b30–192b4, on the question of matter and privation (stevrh-
siV), esp. 190a17–18, where Aristotle states that the subject subsists throughout the
process of change, whereas the privation ceases to exist after the change. As Irwin says,
“There is always both a persisting subject and a non-persisting contrary. . . . The subject
has different property-instances that are one in number, since they belong to the same
particular subject, but different in ‘being’ (191a1–3) or ‘form’ (190a13–17), allowing us
to refer to that subject in different ways” (Irwin, Aristotle’s First Principles, 85–86). For
further information on the passage Phys. 190a10–17, see A. Code, “Aristotle’s Response
to Quine’s Objections to Modal Logic,” Journal of Philosophy of Logic 5 (1976): 180ff.; G.
B. Matthews, “Accidental Unities,” in Language and Logos, ed. M. Schofield and M. C.
Nussbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 225; and C. J. F. Williams,
“Aristotle’s Theory of Description,” PR 94 (1985): 63–80.
80. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 498: “To claim that perfection excludes is hence
to attribute to form the properties of the matter in which it finds itself. Imagination
must be transcended for full perfection to be conceived.” See Jacques de Bourbon Bus-
set, La force des jours (Paris: Gallimard, 1981), 33, where Busset speaks of perfection as
refined work: “Nous confondons à tort finitude et imperfection. Le language pourtant
nous éclaire. Ce qui est fini est achevé, donc parfait.” See EN II 6, 1106b9–11: “It is
customary to say of well-executed works that nothing can be added to them or taken
126 Chapter 5

141. away, the implication being that excess or deficiency alike destroy perfection, while the
mean preserves it.”
81. See S. R. L. Clark: “The Prime’s thinking Itself should not be taken as narcissism
but as the contemplation of the principles of being—a contemplation which, being per-
fect and eternally actual, is (i) indistinguishable from the Prime’s own being and (ii) leaves
nothing uncontemplated in its objects” (S. R. L. Clark, Aristotle’s Man: Speculations upon
Aristotelian Anthropology [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975], 217).
82. It can be shown that Plotinus’s critique of Aristotle rests on a false and distorted
presentation of novhsiV nohvsewV, as Horst Seidl says and shows very well. “Gehen wir
zu dem Versuch über, Plotins Kritik an Aristoteles bzw. den Peripatetikern zu beurteilen,
so ist festzustellen, daß sie auf einer falschen Darstellung der novhsiV nohvsewV beruht”
(see Horst Seidl, in AWW, 2: 157–76; I quote from 171). See also R. M. Berchman,
“Nous and Geist: Aristotle, Plotinus and Hegel on Truth, Knowledge and Being,” in
Perspectives sur le néoplatonisme, International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Proceed-
ings, ed. M. Achard, W. Hankey, and J.-M. Narbonne (Québec, Québec: Les Presses de
l’Université de Laval, 2009), 193–239, especially, 208–23.
However, this critique will be spared of commentary for the moment; it will be dis-
cussed in detail in chapter 9, where I will also present De Koninck’s excellent analysis of
Plotinus’s critique of Aristotle via Alexander of Aphrodisias. See “La ‘pensée de la pensée’
chez Aristote,” in La Question de Dieu selon Aristote et Hegel, published under the direc-
tion of Th. De Koninck et G. Planty-Bonjour, 1991, 131–35:
La marque d’Aristote sur Plotin est un lieu commun depuis Porphyre (Vie, 14, 4–7). Mais il
semble tout aussi évident que Plotin dépendait de commentateurs, et probablement, pour la
question qui nous occupe, du Liber Mantissa. Sa critique de la noêsis noêseôs n’en demeur pas
moin éclairante, ne fût-ce que par le relief qu’elle ajoute. Pour la comprendre, il faut savoir qu’à
son dire l’intellect est simple, certes, mais qu’il n’est pas l’“absolutement simple” (to; pavnth
aJplou:n), “la première de toutes choses” qui doit être “au-delà de l’Intellect (ejpevkeina nou:)” (cf.
V, 3, [49], 11, 28–29). Il est “multiple” en comparaison (ibid., 26 et 31). Toute pensée implique
en effet pour Plotin “une dualité minimale: se penser soi-même est se penser comme un autre,
devenir multiple, pensant et pensé” (cf. VI, 7 [38], 39, 12–15; cf. 40, 5 sq.). Il faut bien qu’ “être
pensant et être pensé ne fassent qu’un. D’autre part, s’il était un et non pas deux, il n’aurait rien
à penser et ne serait pas un être pensant. Il faut donc à la fois qu’il soit simple et qu’il ne soit
pas simple” (V, 6 [24], 1, 11–14). Plotin précise même, d’autre part, que “penser est un certain
mouvement” (to; noei:n kivnhsiV tiV: VI, 7 [38], 35, 2). Le Bien “n’a pas de pensée, pour qu’il
n’y ait pas en lui d’altérité” (VI, 9 [8], 6, 42). . . . Compte tenu, par conséquent, du sens des
termes chez Plotin, il est difficile de ne pas lui donner raison tout autant qu’à Aristote. L’un et
l’autre recherchent le simple absolu et tous deux situent la pensée au sommet (même si l’intellect
doit se contenter de la seconde hypostase chez Plotin). Il ne fait aucun doute qu’Aristote aurait
rejeté la noêsis comme convenant à Dieu si celle-ci lui avait paru receler une dualité; son insis-
tance sur sa simplicité et son indivision le montre assez, tout comme la logique de sa position.
(De Koninck, “La pensée de la pensée chez Aristote,” 131–33)
The latter statement will be reemphasized and embellished in the subsequent chap-
ters. See also D. O’Meara, “The Hierarchical Ordering of Reality in Plotinus,” in The
The Unmoved Mover and the Simplicity and Priority of nou:V 127

142. Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. L. P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 76–77: “In arguing that Intellect is not absolutely prior, Plotinus is reject-
ing Aristotle’s fundamental ontology in which divine intellect, the unmoved mover, is
what is first by nature. Plotinus claims that this cannot be the case, since intellect is not
merely a multiplicity of objects of thought, but also a duality of thinking and of object of
thought. Intellect is therefore a composite and as such must be posterior by nature (see,
for example, VI.9.2; III.8.9).” It is imperative, however, to make the distinction between
two kinds of duality with respect to divine nou:V. On the one hand, the multiple intel-
ligibles, the intellecta, form a duality of content between itself and divine nou:V. While
the content is multiple, it does not render divine nou:V into a state of potentiality. On
the other hand, divine nou:V possesses a formal duality, which consists of itself as object
of thought and also as subject of thought. While Aristotle does not acknowledge this
latter kind of duality, Plotinus bases his entire criticism of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine on
this Aristotelian weakness. This kind of duality in Aristotle allows Plotinus to advance a
novel henology, which promotes the One above the Intellect—a philosophical move that
altered the course of Greek philosophy.
83. Trans. Salomo Pines, in his “Metaphysical Conceptions,” 2:185, AWW.
84. De Koninck, “Aristotle on God,” 496.
85. Again, it should be emphasized that although there is a duality between the world
and divine nou:V, there is also a duality within divine nou:V itself, as an object of thought
and as a thinking subject. This formal duality is the basis for Plotinus’s criticism of Aris-
totle’s assertion of the absolute simplicity of divine nou:V.
128 Chapter 5

143. P a r t I I

145. 131
c h a pte r S ix
The =Epistrofhv of the
One and the Derivation of nou:V
Introduction
Throughout part I, it is stated and restated that Plotinus rejects the Aristotelian
claim of the absolute simplicity of nou:V, leading to his assertion that nou:V is
not the ultimate and prior principle of reality. This upward ascent to the ul-
timate cause, however, presupposes a downward procession from the ultimate
cause to the multiplicity of the world that derives from this ultimate cause. The
constitution of things and stages in the universe is referred to here as a process
of derivation and is related to the Plotinian conception of emanation (see Enn.
III.4[15].3.25–27). Key passages in Plotinus’s Enneads indicate that the process
of derivation is one of the most problematic philosophical themes.
But [soul] desires [a solution] to the problem which is so often discussed, even
by the ancient sages, as to how from the One, being such as we say the One is,
anything can be constituted, either a multiplicity, a dyad, or a number; [why] it
did not stay by itself, but so great a multiplicity flowed out as is seen in what is.
(Enn. V.1[10].6.3–8)
Plotinus is clearly referring to his predecessors who, according to Aristotle,
attempted to construct the complex cosmos from a simple starting point,
such as in the case of Plato, who, in Aristotle’s view, asserts two ultimate prin-
ciples—namely, the One and the Indefinite Dyad—as being responsible for
the Forms and the cosmos, that the Forms and the cosmos are derived from
these principles. Plotinus, however, introduces a monistic reading of Aristotle’s

146. 132 Chapter 6
presentation of Plato’s teachings, in that Plato, according to Plotinus, seems to
suggest that the Indefinite Dyad is derived from the One. The transformation of
the two-principles doctrine into a monistic doctrine is a significant shift in Greek
philosophy and is pertinent to our study of Plotinus’s reading of Aristotle’s noetic
doctrine, which will be discussed in the following chapter. The present chapter
will attempt to respond to this question: Why does Plotinus feel compelled to
affirm a single causal source in lieu of Plato’s two principles? A derivative ques-
tion also needs to be asked: How are the subsequent levels of reality or hypostases
derived from this singular principle (i.e., the One)? This latter question will lead
our discussion into the theme of minimizing the duality between the first prin-
ciple and the world, which is a product of the first principle.1
My concern in this chapter is, more specifically, to explore the derivation of
nou:V, as Plotinus discusses it in two central passages in the Enneads: Enneads
V.4[7].2, V.1[10].6–7. The question to ask is this: How can the complexity and
diversity of reality be derived from an absolutely simple principle and without
affecting this principle in any way, for, if the One were affected by or involved in
any change, it would cease to be the first cause? Aristotle responds to this ques-
tion by asserting that divine nou:V is unaffected and is absolutely simple, such
that it moves others by being an object of desire, but without itself moving or
altering. Plotinus, however, affirms that nou:V is the first stage of the derivation
of reality posterior to the One, and it is here that we must examine the nature
of this derivation and the implications of this derivation for the nature of nou:V.
Strictly speaking, the most proximate stage to the One is the Indefinite Dyad,
but Plotinus alters the meaning of the Indefinite Dyad, which is now considered
to be an unspecified potentiality that becomes determined and actual by the ob-
jects of nou:V. Moreover, the object of nou:V that renders nou:V indeterminate and
potential is itself the One. The One, however, is not a definite object of nou:V,
for “it” is indeterminate and simple. As the secondary activity of the One, the
Indefinite Dyad must turn toward the One and think it as a thinkable object.
The result of such a conversion is the derivation of the self-thinking substance or
hypostasis of divine nou:V, which knows the One as a determinate plural expres-
sion of the One.
In this chapter, we shall discuss the how of derivation of nou:V from the One
and the Indefinite Dyad, the how of the Indefinite Dyad’s turn toward the One,2
and how this conversion renders the One thinkable. We should be reminded that
this dynamic relation between the One and nou:V is not temporal, for it is not
an occurrence within the framework of time and space, within a succession of
temporal moments. Rather, the dynamic is metaphysical and eternal, and serves
to express in an approximate way the simplicity of the One. In addition to study-
ing the derivation and nature of the Indefinite Dyad, we would be remiss if we

147. The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 133
did not examine the correlating themes of intelligible matter, Imagination, the
tovlma, and monism. These themes will be discussed in this order, again, for the
purposes of preparing our discussion of the dual nature of nou:V for Plotinus,
which will be examined in chapter 9.
The Question of the Subject of the ejpistrofhv in Enn. V.1
[10].7.5–6.1–26 and Other Passages: P. Hadot’s Thesis
and the Ensuing Scholarly Debate
In Enn. V.1.6, Plotinus discusses the procession of nou:V from the One, and in
our present chapter, Enn. V.1.7, Plotinus discusses the return of nou:V to the
One. (Enn. V.1.6 will be discussed throughout my presentation and analysis of
Enn. V.1.7.) Enn. V.7.1 immediately sets the framework of this chapter. nou:V
is an image and the product (genovmenon) of the One.3 The image leitmotif is
prevalent throughout the Enneads and expresses the metaphysical structure of
Plotinus’s universe. (The topic of images and imagination will be discussed in
the next chapter.) Each hypostasis posterior to the One attempts to approximate
the nature of the One but fails due to its predetermined limitation.
The production of nou:V introduces exegetical and philosophical problems.
In Enn. V.7.1.5–6, Plotinus introduces this reflection about the generation of
nou:V using the binary series ajlla;—h[ to indicate a question-answer format to
the problem. The question is raised: ajll= ouj nou:V ejkei:no` pw:V oun nou:n
genna:/; h] o{ti th/: ejpistrofh:/ pro;V auJto; eJwvra` hJ de; o{rasiV au{to nou:V` The
translation of this passage has given rise to numerous polemics within Plotin-
ian scholarship. The crucial debate centers around the question of whether the
subject of the ejpistrofhv (and eJwvra) is nou:V or the One.4 Armstrong’s transla-
tion of this passage assumes the subject to be nou:V: “How then does it generate
Intellect? Because by its return (ejpistrofhv) to it, it sees (eJwvra): and this seeing
is Intellect.”
The problem was first raised by Pierre Hadot, in his review of Henry and
Schwyzer II. If it is the case, Hadot hypothesizes, that nou:V should be the
subject of the ejpistrofhv, then the text becomes very difficult and confusing.
First, doctrinally, in order to turn or convert toward the One, nou:V must have
already been engendered. This current passage indicates nothing of the genera-
tion of nou:V. Second, exegetically, Plotinus would lack precision if he were to
assert the subject of the ejpistrofhv. Hadot writes, “[O]n ne comprend pas bien
la précision: ‘Cette vision, c’est l’Intelligence’, si ‘Intelligence’ est déjà sujet de
eJwvra.”5 Given that nou:V has not yet been generated, it cannot be the subject of
the ejpistrofhv, according to Hadot. In part, Hadot is arguing against V. Cilento
(in his Italian translation of the Enneads) and K. H. Volkmann-Schluck.6 Their

148. interpretation produces the following translation, says Hadot: “‘Comment l’Un
engendre-t-il l’Intelligence? C’est parce que l’Intelligence voit en se tournant vers
lui; cette vision, c’est l’Intelligence” (my emph.). (This claim might make sense,
however, if prior to the ejpistrofhv, nou:V is potential or passive, as is the case
with Aristotle.) Finally, in the context of this chapter of the Enneads (as well as
in chapter 6.17–19), if nou:V were the subject of the ejpistrofhv, then we should
witness a radical and drastic change of subject—the One as subject of genna:/ in
line 5 to nou:V, which is referred to as to; genovmenon in line 3, and to which is
attributed the subject of eJwvra in line 6. Hadot substantiates his interpretation
that the One is the subject of ejpistrofhv by arguing that the previous passage,
Enn. V.1.6.8, where the One’s ejpistrofhv is discussed, sets the indisputable
claim that the One is the subject of ejpistrofhv. In this new passage, Henry and
Schwyzer suggest that the subject of ejpistrafevntoV ajei; ejkeivnou pro;V aujtov
is “ce qui vient après l’Un”—the undefined nou:V. That which comes after the
One is always engendered and remains perpetually turned toward the One. In
the preceding line, Plotinus’s use of the word ejkeivnw/ refers to the One itself, and
the shift in the sense of the pronoun is already troubling. Agreeing with Harder,7
Hadot argues that in the context, the development of the intelligibles cannot
allow for such an interpretation. Rather, Plotinus stresses here the immobility of
the One, even once nou:V has been engendered, as is highlighted in the principle
that “everything which is moved must have some end to which it moves. The
One has no such end, so we must not consider that it moves. If anything comes
into being after it, we must think that it necessarily does so while the One re-
mains continually turned towards itself ” (Enn. V.1.6.16–19). Nothing can be
generated unless the One is always turned toward itself, and all that is generated
also turns toward, and returns to, the One.8
According to Plotinus, the nature of nou:V consists of two moments: generation
and then conversion. The generation of nou:V refers to the inchoate or unfinished
nou:V, a kind of intelligible matter that requires a form from the One in order to
then turn toward the One and become conscious of itself and its desire for the One.9
(The topic of intelligible matter will be discussed below.) All levels of generated
reality receive their respective forms not at their generation, but rather at their re-
turn or conversion to the One, the generator. Thus, nou:V does not turn toward the
One once it is generated, but rather it turns toward the One after (metaphysically
posterior) it has been generated in order to become actualized. As for the conver-
sion of the One toward itself (aujtov), it must be conceived as being identical with
“remaining in itself,” as Plotinus discusses in Enn. V.4.2.19ff. (This would appear
to imply a duality within the One, but the distinction is used only for explanatory
purposes of the generation of nou:V.) This reference to Enns. V.1.6 and V.4.2 suf-
ficiently supports the claim, according to Hadot, that
134 Chapter 6

149. l’Un n’avait de mouvement que dans la conversion vers lui-même, de même, ici,
l’Un n’a de vision que tourné vers soi: autrement dit, sa vision reste indéterminée,
en puissance, parce qu’elle est absolute. L’Intelligence, au contraire, est vision en
acte (o{rasiV, cf. V.1,5,19: hJ novhsiV o{rasiV oJrw:sa). Alors que la vision propre
à l’Un consiste en sa conversion vers lui-même, la vision propre à l’Intelligence
suppose une séparation entre l’Intelligence et son objet.10
In his Porphyre et Victorinus, Hadot clarifies this last claim: “La vision de l’In-
telligence représente en quelque sorte un acte second qui suit nécessairement la
présence de l’acte premier qu’est l’Un.”11
Hadot’s interpretation generated much controversy, for it was recognized as
being a reflection that expressed a lacuna in the Neoplatonic literature, one that
could not at that point go unnoticed.12 Enn. V.1.6.15–19 is a passage often cited
by advocates who claim that nou:V is the subject of the ejpistrofhv, for, they ar-
gue, Plotinus remains consistent throughout the Enneads in his teaching that the
One does not turn upon itself (i.e., is not conscious of itself). This is Armstrong’s
and, more forcefully, O’Daly’s and Atkinson’s position. Enn. V.1.6.15–19 re-
mains an obscure passage fraught with significant difficulties, and depending on
how one interprets this passage, one will be inclined to interpret either the One
or nou:V as the subject of the ejpistrofhv. The passage runs as follows: panti; tw:/
kinoumevnw/ dei: ti einai, pro;V o} kinei:tai` mh; o[ntoV de; ejkeivnw/ mhdeno;V mh;
tiqwvmeqa aujto; kinei:sqai, all= ei[ ti met= aujto; givnetai, ejpistrafevntoV
ajei; ejkeivnou pro;V aujto; ajnagkai:ovn ejsti gegonevnai (“Everything which is
moved must have some end to which it moves. The One has no such end, so
we must not consider that it moves. If anything comes into being after it, we
must think that it necessarily does so while the One remains continually turned
toward itself”). It is not clear whether the One or nou:V is the subject of the
ejpistrofhv. The dilemma is best expressed in this way, as Atkinson articulates
it: “The problem . . . is quite simple, and basically concerns the reference of
ejkei:nou and aujtov in 6, 18. Either (a) ejkei:nou refers to the One and aujtov13 is
reflexive or (b) ejkei:nou: refers to the subject of Ch. 6.17–18 (to; meta; to; e{n)
and aujtov to the One.”14
Again, the question in 7.5–6 is, “What sees?” and, subsequently, “What does
it mean to say that this kind of seeing manifests the nature of Intellect?” Some
have argued that to assert the One as the subject of eJwvra is to violate a basic
Plotinian principle that each hypostasis is independent and autonomous from
the other.15 Consequently, nou:V would then be internal to the One, for nou:V
would be the self-vision of the One (h] o{ti th/: ejpistrofh:/ pro;V aujto; eJwvra`).
If nou:V were the subject of the imperfect eJwvra, Plotinus cannot mean the fully
actualized nou:V, but rather the inchoate (or not fully formed) nou:V. o{rasiV
refers to nou:V fully formed, unlike the nou:V that returns to the One, referred
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 135

150. to in Enn. V.3.[49]11.12 as ajtuvpwtoV o[yiV. Given that o{rasiV is the fully
developed nou:V, the subject of the imperfect eJwvra can only be the undefined
or inchoate nou:V—that which is defined and sees only upon its conversion or
turning toward the One.16
Moreover, the preceding sentence, 7.1–4, discusses only the nature of nou:V
as the image of the One, and the following two sentences (i.e., ajll= ouj—
nou:n genna:/) interrupt this, indicating that the following sentence, h] o{ti th/:
ejpistrofh:/ pro;V aujto; eJwvra, has as subject nou:V, or inchoate nou:V, to be
specific.17 The essential question behind this controversy is highlighted in Enn.
V.5–6: “How then does it generate Intellect?” That is, how can the One, which
is not nou:V, generate nou:V? The transition does not occur at the point of the
full formation of nou:V, for the full actualization of nou:V occurs as a result of
inchoate nou:V turning toward the One. Rather, the transition occurs at the level
of the turning toward the One of the inchoate nou:V. While nou:V contemplates
the products of the One’s duvnamiV, only upon its return to and contemplation of
the One does the unformed or the inchoate nou:V become engendered, for it now
sees, and this fulfilled vision is what Plotinus calls nou:V, due to its actualization
and its plurality. The vision of nou:V is not of the One in itself, but rather of the
One’s potentiality, which has been conceptualized and rendered abstract.18
Enn. V.1.7 is a difficult passage, then, that accentuates the second moment
of nou:V, its return to the One in order to fulfill its potential. Only upon its
return is nou:V fully actual, o[yiV.19 The emphasis of chapter 6, on the genesis or
emanation of nou:V from the One, is reinforced in lines 1–4 in order to discuss
the similarities and differences between nou:V and the One. nou:V is an image of
the One, just as soul is an image of nou:V (see Enn. VI.4.6–8). “But we say that
Intellect is an image of that good; for we must speak more plainly; first of all we
must say that what has come into being must be in a way that Good, and retain
much of it and be a likeness of it, as light is of the sun” (1–4, my emphasis). It
should be noted that the priority of the original to the product, which is a copy
of the original, has a biological basis, as is seen in Aristotle.20 The theme of light
is also paralleled in Enn. VI.8.18.32 ff., where nou:V is made to compare with
light that is derived from a first principle (i.e., a source). Thus nou:V appears to
be a continuity of the One, for it is not a Form foreign from the One, ouj mh;n
ajlloeide;V to; skedasqe;n oJ nou:V.21
In a detailed analysis of Enn. V.1, J. Igál22 provides an interpretation of the
context in which lines 4–5 are written. According to Igál, the context of this pas-
sage suggests a dialogue with an objector or interlocutor. The conjunction ajllav
and h[ gives the framework for a question-and-answer discussion. The fictional
opponent interrupts the previous discussion; Plotinus’s response begins at 7.5,
with h[. Hadot, however, appears to dismiss this reading. Rather, says Hadot,
136 Chapter 6

151. the question pw:V oun nou:n genna:/ is an invitation to elaborate the similarities
and resemblances between nou:V and the One, which Plotinus mentioned in the
previous sentence. Clearly, Hadot wishes to attenuate the difficulty here of the
generation of nou:V by demonstrating sufficiently the resemblances between nou:V
and the One, and he claims that these resemblances are clearly found in 7.5–6
(h] o{ti . . . nou:V), which, in his reading, implies that nou:V is essentially the
One’s self-ejpistrofhv. This objection is more polemical in nature than Hadot
assumed. The objector appears to return to the question posed in chapter 6,
“How can multiplicity come from unity?” and, in so doing, dismisses the present
discussion of similarity and resemblances between nou:V and the One. Igál and
Beutler-Theiler (see t. vi. 110) claim that the phrase pw:V oun is not a request to
reveal information, so much as it is an answer to an aporia. This phrase, there-
fore, is equivalent to the sense of the colloquial question in English: “How on
earth can the One generate Intellect?”23
To recapitulate, the aporia of lines 7.5–6 is similar to that of 6.18–19
(eJpistrafevntoV ajei; ejkeivnou pro;V aujto; ajnagkai:ovn ejsti gegonevnai). At-
kinson highlights the dilemma very clearly: “Is the subject of the reversion (a) the
One or (b) Intellect? In the former case aujtov will be reflexive, and in the latter
case it will refer to the One.”24
If it were the case that the present discussion concerns the One’s ejpistrofhv,
then the actual self-vision of the One would be nou:V itself. This would, more
explicitly, imply that Intellect is internal to the One—a contradiction of the
Plotinian doctrine that the three hypostases are distinct and separate from their
originative cause and are external to the One (see Enn. V.3.9–10). Igál states that
the demonstrative au[th ensures that o{rasiV attaches itself to the subject of the
verb eJwvra.25 Moreover, argues Atkinson, sight that belongs to nou:V is generally
aligned with the full actualization and genesis of nou:V,26 and in 7.5–6, the pas-
sage nou:V from its inchoate state to the fully formed or actualized state as the
second hypostasis is ensured by the use of the imperfect eJwvra, contrasted with
the word o{rasiV. For o{rasiV is the full actualization of o[yiV.27 The current ref-
erence, then, is to the product or offspring of the One turning toward the One
and looking toward the One, and this renewed and actualized vision amounts to
the genesis of what Plotinus calls nou:V or Intellect.
The word oi|on in the phrase regarding the self-vision of the One (kai; to;
oi|on ei|nai tou:to aujtw:/ to; pro;V aujto;n blevpein` [Enn. VI.8.16.19–21])
refers to the internal activity of the One, without any reference to the genesis of
nou:V. In this light, we can conclude that in 7.5–6, the vision of inchoate nou:V
of the One is the subject of the sentence. The change of subject in the context
is not, therefore, as harsh or drastic if we interpret 7.4–5 (all= ouj nou:V . . .
genna:/) as a dialogue or an interruption by an objector. Thus, the answer to our
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 137

152. query and to the interruption is this: the present sentence and the sentence prior
contain the same subject.28 (I will discuss below what implication this has on the
relationship of nou:V to the One.)
Hadot also provides, in addition to his exegetical reasons for asserting the One
as subject, a philosophical reason, basing it upon 6.17–19. The passage cannot be
an explanation of the generation of nou:V, for in order to convert and turn toward
the One, nou:V would already have to be formed and defined, but Plotinus is clear
in stating that at this stage, the subject of the ejpistrofhv is not as yet determined
(see 6.17–19). This is elucidated by the use of the imperfect in this passage.29
This is captured by Hadot, who states the following: “On ne comprend pas la
précision: ‘cette vision, c’est l’Intelligence’, si ‘Intelligence’ est déjà sujet de eJwvra.
On ne voit pas comment le second membre de la phrase s’oppose au premier.”30 If
the subject of ejpistrofhv, however, is undefined, and if we recognize that o{rasiV
signifies fully actualized sight, then the problem would be eradicated.31
O’Daly also takes issue with Hadot’s thesis regarding the subject of the
ejpistrofhv. According to O’Daly, the context in which Hadot finds a harsh
change of subject “would appear to make the text meaningless. For, one might
argue, Plotinus would then be asking, ‘How does the One produce nou:V?’ and
answering by saying ‘Because nous looks upon the One’—in other words assum-
ing an act of conversion on the part of an already produced nous, instead of ac-
counting for the latter’s production.”32 O’Daly, nevertheless, wishes to maintain
that nou:V is still the subject of the sentence, and to show this, he proposes an
alternative reading of the sentence.
The question pw:V nou:n genna:/; can be seen to mean more than “How does the
One produce nous?”: by reason of the emphatic position of nous one can translate
it as follows—“How is it that the One produces nous?” or “How is it that what is
produced, to; gennwvmenon—Ficino’s genitum—is nous?” seeing—as the context
has just told us—that the One is not nous? This alters the meaning of the passage
radically. We are not now dealing with the creative act of the One per se, but with
the fact, subsequent to creation (which remains unexplained), that the created is
intelligence. And Plotinus accounts for this by saying that it is intelligence because
of its conversion towards the One.33
Whereas Hadot’s claim is that the generation of nou:V in this passage is unaccounted
for, O’Daly now wishes to restate the problem in order to show a new meaning for
the passage. Bussanich, however, finds this new meaning to be erroneous. For it
only continues with the original problem of the generation of nou:V from the One.
Nevertheless, O’Daly’s intention of upholding, along with Armstrong et al., the
doctrine that what is produced or generated turns toward the One is well received
by Bussanich, who clearly is a partisan of this school of thought.
138 Chapter 6

153. As mentioned above, Atkinson also upholds this position, but he develops it
further. Atkinson argues that it is inchoate nou:V that returns to the One (i.e.,
that the inchoate nou:V is the subject of the sentence). “In our present passage
the use of the imperfect eJwvra, contrasted with the word o{rasiV, emphasises
the transition of Intellect in its inchoate state to the fully actualised Intellect
which is the second hypostasis.”34 Understanding this transition is of paramount
importance, if one is to justify the harsh change of subject and maintain the
argument that (inchoate) nou:V is the subject of this sentence. Atkinson, once
again, claims that lines 4–5 are an interruption by an objector, which called for
a response by Plotinus. The first six lines require Atkinson to justify a shift in
the meaning of to; gennw;menon, which, in line 3, refers to the developed and
actualized nou:V, unlike the passage at 7.5, where it must refer to inchoate nou:V.
Schroeder35 agrees with this.36 However, Bussanich is wary of overstressing
Plotinus’s use of words to distinguish the inchoate and actualized nou:V in rela-
tion to the One. While Bussanich agrees with Atkinson that inchoate nou:V is
the subject of the ejpistrofhv, he also recognizes the difficult position in which
Atkinson put himself regarding the justification of this subtle nuance of nou:V
in our current passage. Atkinson is forced to appeal to later treatises in order to
“distinguish between the two phases of Intellect’s life qua vision.”37 He appeals
to Enns. II.8[30].11.1ff; V.3[49].11.10; VI.7[37].15.16 and 16.10.38
Essentially, Bussanich agrees with Atkinson that Plotinus generally makes the
distinction between the two expressions of nou:V according to the potential and
actual vision: that o{rasiV refers to the fully actualized o[yiV.39 At this point,
Atkinson appeals to Enn. V.5.18–19 (e[sti ga;r hJ novhsiV o{rw:sa a[mfw te
e{n) for supportive evidence—a text, incidentally, to which Hadot also appeals,
though he concludes the opposite from that of Atkinson. Bussanich stresses,
therefore, that in the early treatises, of which Enn. V.1 is one, Plotinus does not
make any explicit distinction between the two aspects (potential and actual) of
nou:V. We must be leery, then, of such a forceful reading of the early treatises to
find a distinction in nou:V.
Atkinson firmly argues that it would be inconsistent with Plotinian teach-
ing to attribute an ejpistrofhv to the One, for ejpistrofhv is predicated as a
movement in Enn. VI.7[38].16.16, and should the ejpistrofh; pro;V auJtov be
responsible for the generation of nou:V, then this ejpistrofhv ought to be con-
sidered without motion.40 Hadot claims, then, that the self-ejpistrofhv of the
One is equivalent to a “repos en soi-même” and, furthermore, that the One’s
ejpistrofhv is a “vision en puissance,”41 which would entail motion. However,
Plotinus does not attribute kivnhsiV to the One. It is true, however, that in Enn.
VI.8[39].16, Plotinus attributes certain internal activities to the One. (See es-
pecially lines 12–13: oJ [sc. to; e{n] d= eivV to; ei[sw oi|on fevretai auJtou: oi|on
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 139

154. eJauto;n ajgaphvsaV. This passage would indicate that Plotinus has advanced the
claim that certain activities may imply a kind of motion of the One.) In light of
Enns. VI.8[39].16.12–13 and VI.9[9].7.17–18, one may conclude that Plotinus
advances a theory that there is an ejpistrofhv that occurs in the One, but this
does not imply (nor should it) that the One is in motion.42
Atkinson admits, moreover, that Plotinus allegedly claims that the One pos-
sesses self-vision in Enn. VI.8[39].16.19–21: oi|on pro;V auJto;n blevpei kai;
to; oi|on einai tou:to aujtw:/ to; pro;V auJto;n blevpei; However, Atkinson
disregards this passage as admitting of the One’s self-vision, for the One’s vision
“is qualified by the word oi|on . . . and is in any case an internal activity of the
One.”43 Bussanich disagrees with Atkinson on the first point. Plotinus, Bus-
sanich argues, uses the word oi|on to alert the reader to the importance of the
passage, with respect to the One.44
Moreover, Atkinson’s second objection, according to Bussanich, is misguided:
if it were the case that in the present passage Plotinus ascribes an ejpistrofhv to
the One, then it would entail an intrinsic and internal activity to the One, but
this self-seeing is not aligned with the production of nou:V. His ultimate claim,
of course, is that the One is not the subject of ejpistrofhv. However, in Enn.
VI.8[39].16, Plotinus ascribes internal movement and self-vision to the One,
but, as mentioned above, Plotinus does appear to attribute some modes of activ-
ity in the One’s “inner life that are quasi-, pre-, or hyper-intellectual.”45 Plotinus
states that the Good is “an abiding active actuality and the most lovable of things
in a way rather like Intellect. But Intellect is an actualization, so that he [sc. the
Good] is an actualization” [ejnevrgeia mevnousa kai; to; ajgaphtovtaton oi|on
nou:V` nou:V de; ejnevrghma`] (Enn. VI.8[39].16). Furthermore, in chapter 18 of
the same Ennead, Plotinus argues that that which is generated and emanates or
flows out from the One is “evidence of something like Intellect in the One which
is not Intellect: for it is one. . . . For something like what is in Intellect, in many
ways greater, is in that One” [marturei:n to;n oi|on ejn eJni; nou:n ouj nou:n o[nta`
e]n gavr. . . . oi|on ga;r to; ejn nw:/ pollach:/ mei:zon h] toiou:ton to; ejn eJni;
ejkeivnw] (Enn. VI.8[39].16.21–22, 32–34).
However, if it were the case that the One could turn toward itself, two problems
remain unresolved: that 1) the One sees in its self-reversion, and 2) its self-vision,
this seeing, is nou:V. Atkinson adheres to Igál’s analysis on these points by arguing
that the demonstrative au{th ties o{rasiV to the verb eJwvra, which would imply, if
the One’s ejpistrofhv is doubted, that the fully formed and actualized vision of the
One is nou:V itself—that is, nou:V would be an intrinsic attribute of the One, elimi-
nating any strict duality between the One and nou:V.46 This claim, however, does
not appear to conform to the general Plotinian principle that each hypostasis is
wholly and really distinct and separate from the other and especially from the One,
140 Chapter 6

155. their primary and external cause.47 Yet Enns. V.2[11].2.13 and also V.5[32].9.5–7,
33, suggest that the lower realities are within “their principle” (Enn. V.2.[11].2.13)
and that the “last and lowest things, therefore, are in the last of those before them,
and these are in those prior to them, and one thing is in another up to the First,
which is the Principle” (Enn. V.5[32].9.5–7). This principle, then, may allow for
the One’s self-reversion or self-seeing and can, moreover, be an attempt by Plotinus
to overcome the strict duality established by Aristotle, for Plotinus is, after all, at-
tempting to establish a unified monistic conception of the cosmos, in which the
One exercises not only the role of final causality, but also of efficient causality.48
Only at lines 10–11 does Plotinus discuss the transition from potential to
actual nou:V. Potential nou:V, which is characterized as novhsiV,49 commences
the process of splintering its conception and representation of the One. Here,
the inchoate nou:V gazes at the items or entities (tau:ta, line 10) from the One’s
productive power.50 The potential nou:V receives the One’s duvnamiV and, unable
to contain it, disperses it.51
All of the above has created the conceptual landscape for interpreting lines
Enn. V.1.7.11–13, which remain difficult to understand. Depending on how
one interprets lines 5–6, one may argue that lines 11–13 introduce a level of con-
sciousness within the One or limited consciousness to nou:V. The passage reads as
follows: ejpei; kai; par= aujtou: e[cei h[de oi|on sunaivsqhsin th:V dunavmewV,
o{ti duvnatai oujsivan` (Armstrong’s translation: “For Intellect also has of itself a
kind of intimate perception of its power, that it has power to produce substantial
reality”). The two pressing questions, however, are these: What are the subjects of
e[cei and duvnatai, and what is the referent of th:V dunavmewV?52
Schwyzer53 first argued and defended the view that attributed oi|on suna-
ivsqhsiV to the One by comparing it with the passage of Enn. V.4[7].2.18. Hadot,
however, claims (1963b 95) that the One’s reversion and self-vision in lines 5–6 are
evidence enough that the One is the subject in lines 12–14.54 Opposing Hadot,
Igál55 and Atkinson56 argue that sunaivsqhsiV refers solely to the inchoate nou:V,
and consequently, oi|on sunaivsqhsiV can only attest to the inchoate nou:V.57
Thus nou:V is affirmed as possessing consciousness (sunaivsqhsiV), both in this
text and in other texts in the Enneads58 (see Enn. VI.7.19–20, 7.35.1–2). It is true,
however, that neither one of these passages discusses sunaivsqhsiV or inchoate
nou:V. The term sunaivsqhsiV applies to nou:V only in Enn. VI.7[38]16.19, where
it specifies the fully formed or actualized self-consciousness of the nou:V.59 Rist,
who is followed by Schroeder on this point, suggests that making the One subject
only leads to the absurd position that the One is dual in itself.60 Henry does not
agree that such a consciousness would not necessarily constitute “une conscience
d’une activité tournée vers le dehors.”61 Henry’s claim is challenged by Schroeder,
who argues that the One does not require any element external to itself in order to
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 141

156. generate or produce nou:V.62 Bussanich, however, claims that each of the objections
is insufficient to counter the main thrust of Schwyzer’s argument. What is going
against Schwyzer, says Bussanich, is that this reading implies a radical shift in the
subject, from nou:V in the previous passage (line 11) and then back to nou:V in the
following sentence (aujtovV: 13).63
Regarding lines 7–9, Schroeder rephrases the question in light of the geo-
metrical analogy: “How can the One (corresponding to the centre of the anal-
ogy of the circle) as indivisible, produce nou:V (answering to the circle) which is
divisible?” According to Schroeder, the exact reference of tou:to is the inchoate
nou:V, rather than the center of the circle (i.e., that which is analogously the
One). In lines 6–7, Plotinus says that inchoate nou:V differs from sensation and
nou:V proper. Inchoate nou:V is neither a circle nor divisible, for until inchoate
nou:V has turned to “look” at the One, circularity, division, and intuition will not
have been formed or actualized—only then can the geometrical analogy of the
center and the circle be defined. “At this point,” says Schroeder, “it is no longer
the inchoate nou:V, but nou:V fully formed.”64
It is important to note that inchoate nou:V is not exactly parallel with poten-
tial and divisible being. For Plotinus’s language is spatiotemporal, and inchoate
nou:V is not a historical development.65 “The inchoate nou:V,” says Schroeder,
“is a phase or aspect of nou:V, not an historical epoch in its evolution. Qua this
potential phase of nou:V it is in itself neither divisible nor divided.”66
Schroeder, like many other scholars, claims to be able to defend his interpre-
tation of Enn. V.1[10].7.6–9 with a parallel text, Enn. VI.7[38].16.10–16. The
following citation is Schroeder’s translation:
Now when it [sc. nou:V] was looking (eJwvra) toward the Good, was it thinking
(ejnovei) that One as many, dividing (merivzwn) it unto itself, because it could not
think it altogether as an entirety? But it was not yet as nou:V (ou[pw nou:V) that it
was looking upon that [sc. the One], but it was looking without thought. Then it
must be said that it was not yet seeing (eJwvra), but it was living toward it [sc. the
One] and depended from it and was turned toward it.
Moreover, in Enns. VI.7[38].16, and in V.1[10].7, reference to vision, intel-
lection, and division are not aligned with inchoate nou:V.
Lines 10–11 account for the vision that nou:V has of the One: w|n oun ejsti
duvnamiV, tau:ta ajpo; th:V dunavmewV oi|on scizomevne hJ novhsiV kaqora:/` h]
oujk= a[n h nou:V` [The act of thought separates off, as it were, from the poten-
tiality the items of this potentiality and sees them (otherwise it would not have
become intellect)] (trans. Atkinson).67
Lines 11–13, along with lines 5–6, are, therefore, perhaps the most difficult
to translate and decipher, for, again, the subject of the sentence is of paramount
142 Chapter 6

157. importance to understand the significance of the One and its relation to nou:V,
and to decipher the Plotinian doctrine of consciousness of the One: ejpei; kai;
par= auJtou: e[cei h[dh oi|on sunaivsqhsin th:V dunavmewV, o{ti duvnatai ouj-
sivan` [For Intellect also has of itself a kind of intimate perception of its power,
that it has power to produce substantial reality] (Armstrong’s translation). This
sentence contains several difficulties: Is the subject of e[cei the One or nou:V? Is
the subject of duvnatai the One or nou:V? Is the referent of th:V dunavmewV the
One or nou:V?68
To recapitulate, once it has already been established that the conversion in
lines 5–6 is of nou:V, rather than the One, toward the One, then lines 11–13
cannot be interpreted to signify the One’s self-consciousness.69 Once again, to
assert the One as the subject of e[cei is to acknowledge a harsh change of subject
from the previous sentence. Moreover, nou:V has just been described in terms of
its self-constitution. We are now to discover more about this self-constitution of
nou:V. It would be most odd if, in this context, the One were suddenly advanced
as a reason for the genesis of nou:V. Schroeder also argues that the term oi|on
does not qualify the One as possessing sunaivsqhsin, for the term admits of
duality and complexity, but rather the term “is appropriate for the awareness of
the inchoate nou:V which has not advanced to the full degree of consciousness.”70
Henry argues that the subject of e[cei must be nou:V, for the One is not conscious
of its own duvnamiV, “which,” as Schroeder states, “is related to externs. Indeed
it is true that the One, for its creative power (duvnamiV) produces all things.71
It is not, however, necessary to conclude that the duvnamiV of the One is to be
understood only in its relation to externs.”72 Plotinus distinguishes between
the act of a substance and the act from a substance. The One contains its own
internal act in the production of inchoate nou:V, which clearly proceeds from the
One and is considered a secondary or subsequent act. Therefore, the One does
not need access to an external principle in order to generate nou:V73 (see Enn.
V.4[7].2.26–39).
The referent th:V dunavmewV in line Enn. V.1.7.11 is problematic, as men-
tioned above. In the context of the passage, one would be inclined to attribute
duvnamiV to nou:V (as do Igál, Armstrong, and Atkinson), but this would require
a radical shift in the referent. For, in line 10, it would make more sense to accept
that nou:V separates74 from the One’s duvnamiV, through which nou:V becomes
formed (line 14)75 (see Enn. V.1.7.9–11; 14). It is nou:V, then, that possesses a
oi|on sunaivsqhsiV of the One’s productive power, which once again confirms
the view that the One is the subject of duvnatai.76 It is a standard Plotinian
leitmotif throughout the Enneads. This is also asserted in a later treatise, Enn.
V.3[49].7.3–4: “For it [sc. nou:V] will know all that it has from him, and what he
gives, and what his power is (a} duvnatai ejkeivnoV)” (see also Enn. VI.8[39]18.16,
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 143

158. where duvnasqai is used with the simple accusative). If the One were not the
subject, then we would have to admit that nou:V would be capable of separating
itself from the One by its own power, which does not appear as a doctrine in the
Enneads, even as a doctrine of tovlma, which will be discussed below.77
This is the controversy around the passage Enn. V.1.7, but what is important
for our purposes is to note the manner in which nou:V, both inchoate and actual,
is generated from the One, and also the status of nou:V, once it has been gener-
ated. What is omitted in this present passage, however, is a discussion of the role
and function of the Indefinite Dyad and intelligible matter in the formation of
inchoate and actual nou:V. For this reason, it is imperative that a study be done
of Enn. V.4.2, which carries many of the thematic overtones discussed thus far.
The One as an Intelligible Object, the Derivation of nou:V,
and the Emergence of Intelligible Matter: Enneads V.4.[7].2
It is widely agreed that in Plotinus’s early treatise Enn. V.4.[7].2, the One is
perceived as an intelligible entity or object (nohtovn), that the One has a kind of
perception of itself, and, moreover, that it has a thinking activity of itself, which
differs from nou:V. (See Enn. V.4.2.15–19: “[A]ll things belong to it and are in it
and with it. It is completely able to discern itself; it has life in itself and all things
in itself, and its thinking of itself is itself, and exists by a kind of immediate self-
consciousness, in everlasting rest and in a manner of thinking different from
the thinking of Intellect.”)78 This theme reappears in two other earlier treatises
in the Enneads: V.6.[24].2 and V.1.[10].7.5–6. With respect to Enn. V.6.[24].2,
Plotinus concludes that the One is elevated to an intelligible object, but it does
not think, for he argues that the One, as a thinking subject of itself, does not
require an intelligible object external to itself to stimulate its activity.79 As seen
above, the second passage, Enn. V.1.[10].7.5–6, is perhaps one of the most con-
troversial passages in the Enneads and remains the most obscure. It is related to
the generation of nou:V: ‘H o{ti th/: ejpistroqh:/ pro;V aujto; eJwvra` hJ de; o{rasiV
aujthv nou:V` MacKenna translates this in the following way: “How does the One
generate nou:V? Simply by the fact that in its self-quest it has vision: this very
seeing is the Intellectual-Principle.” Once again, the controversy over this passage
is whether or not the One converts or returns to itself. Whereas Hadot concludes
that the subject is the One,80 Corrigan, following Henry and Schwyzer, asserts
that it is nou:V that is the subject—that is, “the simple identification of the One
and the intelligible object is not the most probable interpretation of the evidence
before us.”81 Corrigan argues that in Enn. V.4.2.20, Plotinus refers to the intel-
ligible object as ejkei:no, “that”; however, in lines 37–38, the referent is now the
Transcendent One: “For That was transcendent of substance?” The dilemma is
144 Chapter 6

159. this: “How then can an object which contains everything in lines 12–19 also be
transcendent of everything in lines 37ff?”82
According to Corrigan, Henry-Schwyzer wrongly identify the nohtovn of line
4 with the One. Lines 3–7 run as follows:
If, then, the generator itself is Intellect, what is generated by it must be more defec-
tive than Intellect, but fairly close to it and like it; but since the generator is beyond
Intellect, it is necessary that what is generated should be Intellect. But why is the
generator not Intellect, whose active actuality is thinking?
The very question itself concerns an already formed nou:V and, as a result, cannot
make immediate reference to the One.83 It is also observed that nou:V presup-
poses the Indefinite Dyad and the One, which are prior causes of nou:V.
Thinking, which sees the intelligible and turns towards it and is, in a way, being
perfected by it, is itself indefinite like seeing, but is defined by the intelligible.
This is why it is said; from the Indefinite Dyad and the One derive the Forms and
Numbers: that is, Intellect.84 (Enn. V.4.2.7–10)
In Plotinian metaphysics, that which is indefinite or indeterminate reveals or de-
termines itself. In this light, the posterior subject to the One remains undefined
until it becomes fully actualized.
The ambiguity in the account of the second subject is essential to Plotinus’s
argument, for unformed and undefined inchoate nou:V and the One appear
indistinct, save by an unformed otherness,85 at this early stage of the genesis
of actual nou:V. Again, the quintessential Plotinian question is this: “How does
the One generate nou:V? Simply by the fact that in its self-quest it has vision;
this very seeing is nou:V” (Enn. V.1.[10].7.5–6). The ambiguity in this passage
is essential, for the subject of this question has not as yet been formed and, as a
result, remains undefined, unspecified, and, therefore, ambiguous. The question
itself reflects the metaphysical production of nou:V. In this light, the subject of
the sentence is neither the One nor, strictly speaking, nou:V.86
Enneads V.4.2 articulates the transition from the One (unity) to the genera-
tion of nou:V (plurality) via the Indefinite Dyad. Contrary to Aristotle, Plotinus
asserts that the first principle is not nou:V, but is rather the One, a principle prior
to nou:V. The question in line 12 concerns the duality of nou:V and its genera-
tion from a unified principle. From the standpoint of nou:V, the generation and
process of itself begins from a nohtovn but articulates eventually the distinction
between the nohtovn and the One, for, prior to the derivation of the first stage
of nou:V, nohtovn and the One are indistinguishable. Lines 25–26 and line 37
articulate the clear and unambiguous divide between the One and the nohtovn,
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 145

160. for only when the full subject of nou:V is generated can the distinction between
the One and the intelligible object or the nohtovn be transparent. While Plotinus
speaks of the nohtovn, it is important to note that the One is not perceived as an
intelligible object, for it transcends intelligence. Rather, lines 12–19 articulate
and express the summit of the intelligible object, which is only an approximation
of the nature of the One.
Plotinus, moreover, makes a distinction in Enn. V.4.2 between nou:V at rest
and nou:V, derived from the former, in actuality. This distinction will remain
useful for our purposes in chapter 9, when analyzing the nature of nou:V in
Plotinus’s studies. In Enn. V.4.2.8–10, Plotinus argues, “This is why it is said:
from the Indefinite Dyad and the One derive the Forms and Numbers: that is,
Intellect. For this reason Intellect is not simple but many; it manifests a composi-
tion, of course an intelligible one, and already sees many things.”87 Here nou:V is
presented as a duality, constituting a thinking subject and an intelligible object.
Again, the problem of the duality of nou:V remains the primary topic of chapter
9, but suffice it to say that, in this passus, nou:V is presented as an identity-in-
difference—that its identity of two “elements” is derived from a greater and
simpler unity—namely, the One. “It is, certainly, also itself an intelligible, but it
thinks as well: so it is by being posterior to the One itself”88 (Enn. V.4.2.10–12).
Essentially, Plotinus is arguing that the produced “subject-seeing Intellect” is re-
ally distinct from the prior duality, the inchoate nou:V, but, nevertheless, remains
an Intellect. In this light, the subject is paradoxically the intelligible object
(15–17), for aligning himself with Plato (Timaeus 39 E 7–9), Aëtius, and Nu-
menius, Plotinus asserts that an intelligible object is not without nou:V as subject.
Plotinus continues to maintain that the highest or more prior nou:V is in absolute
rest and is fully conscious of the intelligibles, which remain within nou:V. Lines
12ff. state that the intelligible object remains independent and within itself, free
of any need, as is described in the seeing or the thinking subject that requires
an intelligible object (see Enns. V.8.[31].11.17ff. and VI.7.[38].35.12–15). This
heightened level of intellectual activity or “seeing” is constituted by a kind of
self-consciousness, a katanovhsiV, which is a novhsiV, but one that differs from
that of nou:V.
Again, the One is above and distinctly prior to nou:V, as Enn. VI.9.6.50–55
expresses. The One remains, therefore, kata; th;n novhsin (see Enn. VI.9.6.50–
55; see Enn. V.6.6.8–11). In these passages, the novhsiV is not the thinking
subject, but rather is the primary cause of the thinking activity, for, in true
Aristotelian fashion, the cause remains distinct from the effect. In this light, the
novhsiV transcends the novhsiV of nou:V.89 In Enn. V.4.2, therefore, the One’s con-
sciousness is perceived as a nohtovn, as an object of thought, but the ambiguity of
the transition of the One to the complete development of nou:V via the Indefinite
146 Chapter 6

161. Dyad remains intentional. For the ambiguity paradoxically captures the inde-
termination of the transition—a transition that attempts to overcome the strict
duality between the first principle (namely, the One) and the posterior levels of
the cosmos. The relation between the One and nou:V is based on a duality, but a
minimal duality, unlike Aristotle’s relation between nou:V and the world, which
creates a fundamental divide, as was seen in chapter 5. One manner in which
Plotinus reduces the gap between the two levels of reality is to assert a monistic
cosmology, one that resonated greatly in the cosmology of his immediate prede-
cessors—namely, the Neopythagoreans.
As was just mentioned, Forms and Ideal Numbers, which constitute nou:V,
are derived from the Indefinite Dyad and the One. We must pause to analyze
the status and function of the Indefinite Dyad and contextualize it within the
doctrines of intelligible matter and Imagination (chapter 7), the tovlma (chapter
7), and the larger theme of Monism.
Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter
With respect to his account of matter of the physical bodies, Plotinus appeals
directly to Plato and to a certain extent to Aristotle.90 Plotinus states in his con-
sideration of matter that matter is equivalent to nonbeing, mh; o[n (Enn. II.5.5.9
sqq.; see Plato, RP 382a; Soph. 254d), as something formless (ajneivdeovn ti fan-
tazomevnh; Enn. II.5.4.10–18). Matter, therefore, is presented as
a kind of unmeasuredness in relation to measure, and unboundedness in relation
to limit, and formlessness in relation to formative principle, and perpetual needi-
ness in relation to what is self-sufficient; always undefined, nowhere stable, subject
to every sort of influence, insatiate, complete poverty. (Enn. I.8.3.12–16)
Given that matter is indeterminate, it cannot be known scientifically, but it can
be conceived as a “spurious reasoning” [logismo;V novqoV)]91 (Enn. II.4.10.11;
see Enn. II.4.12.27–33; III.6.13.46; see Plato, Tim. 52b, as in a dream). Knowl-
edge of matter is akin to gazing into darkness, for we do not perceive anything
positive, but rather we perceive by a unique type of reasoning (see Enn. I.8.4.31).
Once the above attributes of matter, however, are abstracted and eliminated,
then what is left is not a subject, for a subject entails definition, and matter is
pure negativity. However, the negativity of the nonbeing of matter is, strictly
speaking, a necessary dimension of the cosmos and cannot be dissolved due to
its unintelligibility.92 (This will be discussed below.)
When speaking about matter as privation and negation [a[riV . . . hJ
stevrhsiV] (Enn. II.4.13–2223), Plotinus is appealing to Aristotle (see Phys.
192a4ff.), but he transforms the meaning of the term93 (see Enn. II.4.14; see
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 147

162. I.8.11.1ff.). Matter, then, is indefinite and without bounds [to; a[peiron (Enn.
II.4.15.17.33–34; Enn. II.4.16.9–10; cp. Enns. I.8.3.13; VI.6.3.3ff.).94 “Matter
is indefinite and not yet stable by itself, and is carried about here and there into
every form, and since it is altogether adaptable becomes many by being brought
into everything and becoming everything” (Enn. II.4.11.40–42). Consequently,
matter is devoid of form and needs form, and, so, is purely receptive95 (see
Enns. II.4.8.23–24; III.5.9.54; VI.5.8.15–22). Finally, intelligible matter, as
with bodily matter, is characterized in the Enneads as pure potentiality, with no
possibility of becoming actual. Intelligible matter is only potentially (dunavmei)
all “real things” (Enn. II.5.5.36). However, this kind of potentiality is not to be
equated with the potentiality of the One.
What is (tivV ousa:) intelligible matter, apart from its characteristic as a
shapeless substrate, allowing for determinate shapes to exist? Intelligible mat-
ter is depicted as the Indefinite Dyad, the ajovristoV duavV, which is further
characterized not as multiplicity itself, but rather as the condition for and
potentiality of multiplicity (see Enns. VI.3.12.2–6; VI.6.3.29; Aristotle, Phys.
III 4, 203a15–16; Met. A 6, 987b26). Intelligible matter or the Indefinite
Dyad is a catalyst in the generation of inchoate nou:V, which is produced by
the conversion of the Indefinite Dyad, which will be discussed below, or its
offering of itself to the One96 (see Enn. III.8.11). The Indefinite Dyad, then,
in its failed attempt to grasp the simplicity of the One, manages only to ap-
prehend it as indefinite multiplicity and plurality, and the entire movement
of contemplating the One generates the collective whole of the forms and
intellect.97 Thinking emerges as a result of this multiplicity of forms, and it
is for this reason that intelligible matter is similar to the indefinite novhsiV as
capacity or potentiality of “seeing.”98 Nikulin articulates this process very well:
“That is why the dyad represents the material aspects of the intellect and thus
may be considered intelligible matter, for before the act of turning back and
‘looking’ to the One and the subsequent (. . . not temporal) definition by the
noetic forms, it is indefinite.”99
Enn. II.4.3 best characterizes the indefinite nature of the first effluence, the
Indefinite Dyad, or, as Plotinus also calls it, intelligible matter.
First, then, we must say that we should not in every case despise the undefined or
anything of which the very idea implies shapelessness, if it is going to offer itself
(parevcein) to the principles before it and to the best beings. . . . And in the intel-
ligible world the composite being is differently constituted, not like bodies: since
forming principles, too, are composite, and by their actuality make composite the
nature which is active towards the production of form. The matter, too, of the things
that came into being is always receiving different forms, but the matter of eternal
things is always the same and always has the same form. (Enn. II.4.3.1–5, 7–13)
148 Chapter 6

163. In this passage, the Indefinite Dyad is identified with intelligible matter, for
they share the same characteristic of indeterminacy or shapelessness. In its
return to the One, the Indefinite Dyad is said to offer itself (parevcein) to that
which is prior to itself, and this return to the One further characterizes the
Indefinite Dyad as a type of potentiality. The term Plotinus uses to account
for the activity of the Indefinite Dyad is o[yiV—sight—a term that was seen in
our analysis of Enn. V.4.2, where nou:V is depicted as an indeterminate o[yiV,
an indeterminate preparedness to receive all determinate forms—objects that
determine nou:V, as Aristotle says in the De Anima. Thus, the raw nature of
the Dyad resembles the faculty of seeing within a dark, enclosed space or as a
potentiality (see Enn. V.3.11) and unconscious contemplation of the One, a
contemplation that resembles but is far superior to the striving of the sensible
world (see Enn. V.8.3). This contemplative desire, found also in intelligible
matter or the Indefinite Dyad (Enn. II.4.5), is determinate and is intellectual
(wJrismevnhn kai; noeravn)—a drive that characterizes, in fact, the entire dy-
namic activity that occurs in the whole reality of what is collectively named
nou:V. “The divine matter when it receives that which defines it has a defined
and intelligent life” (Enn. II.4.5.17–18).
In Enn. V.8.11 and 12, Plotinus discusses nou:V as a being generated prior
to the Forms, and notes that it is given the power to generate the Forms, the
intelligibles, within itself. Enn. III.8.11 also recapitulates the theme of nou:V as
analogous to sight and emphasizes the doctrine that nou:V, in both its potential
and actual aspects, is prior to the intelligibles
since Intellect is a kind of sight, and a sight which is seeing, it will be a potency
which has come into act. So there will be a distinction of matter and form in it,
but the matter will be [the kind that exists in] the intelligible world (u{lh de; ejn
nohtoi:V): since actual seeing, too, has a doubleness in it, it was, certainly one
before seeing. So the one has become two and the two one. (Enn. III.8.11.1–7)
This double aspect of potentiality and actuality in nou:V, as in the activity of see-
ing, entails the relationship between Form and Matter. The statement u{lh de; ejn
nohtoi:V confirms the Plotinian doctrine that nou:V is prior to the intelligibles, for
it expresses the material component of the second hypostasis as residing within
the Forms as objects of perception or sight. The material component, however,
is not identified with the intelligibles, as MacKenna’s translation appears to
indicate: u{lh de; ejn nohtoi:V, “the matter in this case being the Intelligibles.”
Matter is not the intelligibles, but rather, matter is found in the intelligibles. This
amounts to saying that the Indefinite Dyad, which is prior to the formation of
nou:V, is pure actuality and maintains the status of a subject rather than an object
of contemplation.100
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 149

164. The Forms, then, are generated by intelligible matter or the Indefinite Dyad.
Plotinus does not merely accept Aristotle’s notion of u{lh nohthv, but rather
introduces it as a significant constituent in his philosophy, one that, for our
purposes, allows for the generation of nou:V and its plural intelligibles. In Enn.
II.4.2.2–1, Plotinus presents his project of discussing the nature and role of in-
telligible matter, questions its existence (eij e[sti), what its nature is (tivV ousa:),
and how it exists (pw:V e[stin).
With respect to the question of its existence, intelligible matter must be
inferred to exist because of the mimetic argument (see Enn. II.4.8.8–11). The
physical cosmos must imitate that of the intelligible order or cosmos (kovs-
moV nohtovV). This implies, moreover, that intelligible matter acts as a substrate
(uJpokeivmenon) for the forms [ei[dh] (see Enn. V.9.3–4). The existence of forms,
in other words, presupposes an intelligible substrate. The forms are individuated
by shape (morfhv), which is a unique feature of the forms, whereas intelligible
matter proves to be the common aspect to all the diverse forms in nou:V, for it
functions as an unformed substrate of the first effluence from the One, and gath-
ers the intelligibles into a whole and unifies them.101 Though the intelligibles
are multiples, they each form a whole (i.e., they are partless [ajmerevV]). There-
fore nou:V is a one-many and is intrinsically a whole, in which each form is an
individual, but which concurrently includes the other Forms.102 The Indefinite
Dyad can only attempt to apprehend the One as a complexity or multiplicity,
and the generated Forms, making up the realm of Forms, provide definition to
what was previously called the Indefinite Dyad. In Enn. II.4.4, the Forms share
one unique feature: they have shape (morfhv)—a determination that presupposes
a substratum that is capable of receiving shape, and this substratum is called
matter. The presence of Forms in the intelligible world, therefore, presupposes
the function and operation of Matter also. Essentially, the diversification and
multiplicity of Forms assumes an indeterminate foundation that can guarantee
the unity-in-diversity of the intelligible realm. This unity must be intelligible
matter. In Enn. II.4.3, Plotinus writes, “But in the intelligible world matter is
all things at once; so it has nothing to change into, for it has all things already.”
Influenced by Aristotle, Plotinus argues that the role of matter is to unify the
intelligible realm; it is the principle of unity.
Intelligible matter is a fully determined substance.
The divine matter when it receives that which defines it has a defined and intelli-
gent life, but the matter of this world becomes something defined, but not alive or
thinking, a decorated corpse. Shape here is only an image; so that which underlies
it is also only an image. But There the shape is true shape, and what underlies it
is true too. So those who say that matter is substance must be considered to be
speaking correctly if they are speaking of matter in the intelligible world. For that
150 Chapter 6

165. which underlies form There is substance, or rather, considered along with the
form imposed upon it, it makes a whole which is illuminated substance. (Enn.
II.4.5.15–24)
However, while Plotinus states that the intelligible world is exclusively actual,
that no potentiality affects it (Enns. II.5.3; V.9.4; 10, 15), he nevertheless
seems to maintain that potentiality, desire (Enns. III.8.8; 11; V.3.11; V.6.5),
indefiniteness (Enns. II.4.5; V.3.11; V.1.5–7; V.4.2.4ff.), and a durationless
motion (Enns. VI.7.13; VI.6.9–10; V.8.3–4; VI.2.21) are characteristics of the
generation of the intelligible world.103 It is important to note that Plotinus
excludes all potentiality that can result in an actualization of a substance (see
Enn. II.5.3.15–17), especially the generation of the Aristotelian and Stoic in-
tellect, as a capacity deriving from a material potentiality into an actual activ-
ity. “For intellect does not move from a potentiality consisting in being able
to think to an actuality of thinking—otherwise it would need another prior
principle which does not move from potentiality to actuality—but the whole
is in it” (Enn. II.5.3.26–8, trans. Armstrong).
As mentioned above, intelligible matter is generated as a result of the first
effluence from the One—namely, Otherness and Movement (see Enn. II.4.5.32–
35). The first effluence from the One, then, is the Indefinite Dyad, but, more
specifically, it is Otherness (eJterovthV),104 which, in Enn. II.4.5, Plotinus char-
acterizes as the Indefinite [ajovristoV] (see Enn. II.4.5.29–37). In the Enneads
eJterovthV and ajovristoV are frequently discussed (see Enn. VI.9.8). They are
depicted and perceived as neither a simple substance, for only the One is simple,
nor as composite, for nou:V, in its full development, is composed of multiple in-
telligibles. The Indefinite Dyad, therefore, is not plurality (plh:qoV) in itself, but
rather is the condition of plurality’s occurrence in nou:V and for the subsequent
hypostases. It is, essentially, that which minimizes the strict duality between
the first principle and its effects. The effluence consists of the generation of an
unspecified potentiality105 and the return of this indefinite offspring of the One
to the One in order to be actualized. Yet, as also mentioned, there is a returning
movement of nou:V toward the One.106
The movements from and to the One are both essential in order to under-
stand the potential and unformed characteristic of the first effluence from the
One. The potentiality and indefinite nature of the inchoate nou:V is, therefore,
a necessary aspect of the emerging cosmos. The generation of nou:V is illustrated
as a Neopythagorean Indefinite Dyad from the One: “The One is prior to the
dyad, but the dyad is secondary and, originating from the One, has it as definer,
but is itself of its own nature indefinite”107 (Enn. V.1 [10] 5.7–8). The Dyad is
indefinite like sight, as mentioned above, which requires its object in order to
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 151

166. be defined108 (see Enn. V.4.2.7–9). According to Aristotle, thought entails the
thinking subject and the apprehended object, and this combination consists of
a single active moment in which the potential intellect and the object to be ap-
prehended are united. The activity, however, remains on the side of the subject,
and not the object (see Aristotle Phys. III 3; DA II.5; III.3–8; see also Plato,
Rep. VI 507–9). While the subject perceives the apprehended object as part of
itself, the object, in reality, remains separate and distinct from the subject. The
subject, then, is defined by both the object and the form of the object that the
intellect apprehends.
This Aristotelian doctrine clearly influenced Plotinus’s theory of the genera-
tion and formation of nou:V, and of the role of the Indefinite Dyad. The In-
definite Dyad and its “reception of form” are viewed, as Corrigan states, “as the
deployment of a single intelligible activity.”109
So when its life was looking towards that it was unlimited, but after it had looked
there it was limited, though that Good has no limit, for immediately by look-
ing to something which is one the life is limited by it, and has in itself limit and
bound and form; and the form was in that which was shaped, but the shaper was
shapeless. But the boundary is not from outside. (See Enns. VI.7[38]17.14–19; see
V.1[10]6.48–53; V.6[24]5.16–6.11)
Thus, nou:V is a singular substance, albeit intrinsically complex and multiple, for
in its thinking activity and movement, its object provides the limit to its nature:
“for movement does not begin from or end in movement. And again the Form
at rest is the defining limit of intellect, and intellect is its movement” (Enn.
VI.2.8.22–24).
How does all this apply to the problem of intelligible matter as seen in
Enn. II.4.5? The intelligible realm is an eternal and living organism, a unified,
yet diverse, active substance that is concurrently indefinite and definite, due
to the power of the One, in which both aspects are established. The infinite,
Plotinus argues in Enn. VI.7.14, “is present in intellect ‘not as one lump’ or as
a series of units or moments (14.1–3), but rather like a face with all its organic
relations already included or like a logos which is simultaneously one-many so
that one cannot grasp one feature without the other (14.1–18; cf. VI.6.3).”110
As a result, it is incorrect to suggest that intelligible matter possesses no light,
for Plotinus’s intention is to argue for the generation of nou:V, that it consists
of the Indefinite and the Definite aspects, and is a “single eternal movement
which multiplies the One’s superabundant unity into the teeming variety of
intelligible life. Such a life is difficult to conceive, and the notion of an eternal
living organism may seem implausible, but the ‘idea’ of two eternal moments
is not even thinkable.”111
152 Chapter 6

167. The concept of intelligible matter is borrowed from Aristotle. In Met. H 6,
1045a36, Aristotle discusses intelligible matter within the context of the generic
makeup of geometrical figures. In 510.3 (Hayduck), Alexander of Aphrodisias
interpolates Aristotle’s discussion of intelligible matter. According to Alexander,
Aristotle’s doctrine of intelligible matter is aligned with his doctrine of exten-
sion.112 This identification of intelligible matter with extension perhaps confirms
Aristotle’s scant mention of intelligible matter in the two passages in Met. Z
(1035a9 and 1037a4). Met. H, however, provides a different account of intel-
ligible matter from the other two passages. In this passage, intelligible matter is
depicted as the genus of a definition, and the example given by Aristotle is that of
the intelligible matter of a circle, which is a plane figure. In this light, intelligible
matter covers the rational basis for the species and the individuals.113 Most likely,
the role of u{lh nohthv in Plotinus is understood better in light of the relation
between the Aristotelian philosophy of genus and species and will clarify how the
Forms in Plotinus’s metaphysics resemble more closely the species rather than the
individual in Aristotelian metaphysics.114
In Categories 13, 15a4 (“So those things resulting from the same division of
the same genus will also be simultaneous by nature”), Aristotle affirms that the
genus is prior to the species, establishing a transitive relation in that a genus can
affirm an intelligible independently of a species, but the species always requires
the genus. In this passage, the genus “animal” is recognized as intelligible inde-
pendently of whether or not there is a corresponding species “aquatic animal.”
However, the species is not intelligible independently of the genus “animal” (see
Topics 4.1., 121a12; Topics 4.5., 126a18). (Similarly, in the Topics, species is said
to partake of genus, while genus does not partake of species.) This entails the
priority of the genus.
This doctrine is paradoxical, for the priority of genus over species must also
extend to the priority of genus over the individuals. If genus is prior because it
is prior in definition, one might suppose that it is prior not only to species but
to individuals as well, and yet the individual does not allow of definition (see
Aristotle, Met. Z 10, 1036a1–1).
According to Aristotle, the genus precedes the species, but both the genus and
species do not precede the individual. The priority of definition does not apply
to the individual, for definitions apply only to universals. Whereas Aristotle dis-
tinguishes between the individuals, Plotinus makes a distinction between the in-
dividual intelligibles or the Forms. Intelligible matter, in Aristotle, is the generic
aspect within the species, and given that the genus is prior to species, in a way
the intelligible matter precedes the species and functions as the foundation or
substrate for the species.115 The u{lh nohthv of Aristotle’s philosophy entails the
priority of genus to species, whereas, in Plotinus’s metaphysics, the u{lh nohthv is
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 153

168. transformed by establishing a new relation between it, considered as the first ef-
fluence from the One and the foundation of the Forms, the intelligibles.116 Thus,
according to Ross and Rist, intelligible matter in the Aristotelian corpus entails
the generic aspect in both the species and the individual, which leads Plotinus to
transform the notion of intelligible matter into the first moment from the One,
which will function as the foundation of the intelligibles or Forms.117
Again, Alexander of Aphrodisias interpreted Aristotle’s conception of u{lh
nohthv as extension [diavstasiV] (in Met. 510.3 Hayduck). Happ, unlike Rist
and Ross, accepts Alexander’s interpretation, for he translates u{lh nohthv as “re-
ine Ausdehnung.”118 Rist and Ross, however, do not accept this interpretation.
Aristotle, once again, refers to intelligible matter as geometrical figures, which
is characterized as the instantiation of intelligible matter.119 However, intelligible
matter can also be instantiated in Imagination, as is seen in the Enneads. Intelli-
gible matter is, more specifically, represented as something irrational, as something
mathematical, and as something containing a kind of extension. The Alexander-
Happ thesis, therefore, need not be in contradiction with the Ross-Rist thesis, in-
sofar as intelligible matter can be represented also as Imagination, for Imagination
is an enclosed space or plenum of geometrical figures. As the generic element of
geometrical species, by functioning in the geometrical extension, intelligible mat-
ter, according to both groups, Ross-Rist and Alexander-Happ, in both Plotinus
and Aristotle are not different as Ross-Rist would like them to be.120
The Indefinite Dyad or intelligible matter, as mentioned above, possesses a
contemplative force within itself, an activity, but one that is related to the gaze of
total darkness through the venue of the irrational dimension of Imagination.121
Moreover, Enn. III.8.11.23–24 is a significant passage that highlights the dynamic
urge and yearning of nou:V. While nou:V eternally desires, it is satisfied only by the
presence of the One. Thus, the indefinite nature of nou:V is based on the condition
that it be necessarily formed and defined by the One, due to the desire of nou:V
to understand and grasp the nature of the One. This leads to an intellectual dis-
satisfaction, due to the inability of nou:V to penetrate into the absolute simplicity
of the One. The intellectual dissatisfaction, however, creates the fecund condi-
tion for the rise of the very rich activity of the imagination (see Enns. V.3.11-6-7;
V.3.17.15–38; see Enn. V.5.12.15),122 a topic to which I now turn.
Conclusion
The derivation of the Indefinite Dyad and of inchoate nou:V is indicative of Ploti-
nus’s radical distance from the classical position of a two-principles doctrine. The
monistic framework of Plotinus’s cosmology is an ardent attempt to overcome
the strict duality of the first principle(s) and the world. While Plotinus admits
154 Chapter 6

169. to a clear distinction between the One and the first effluence from the One, the
One is portrayed as a final and efficient causality, characterizing the Plotinian
duality as a minimal duality. The emanation of the first effluence and of the
subsequent moments of the One, in other words, establish a fluidlike continuity
of the first cause and its rapport with the posterior moments of the One.
Notes
1. The Principle of Prior Simplicity explains the significance of the process of
derivation. See D. J. O’Meara, Introduction to Plotinus (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1996), chap. 4. See also D. J. O’Meara, “The Hierarhical Ordering of Reality in Ploti-
nus,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. L. P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 66–81.
2. This “turning” activity is parallel to Aristotle’s presentation of cosmic move-
ment from the nou:V: that nou:V remains an object of thought and love, which is further
characterized by an urge to emulate the heavenly bodies, as is discussed in Metaphysics
L 7–9. It should be noted, furthermore, that Alcinous also accepts this Aristotelian doc-
trine, for his first god functions as a final cause, an object of desire, to the lower levels
of the cosmos, which “turn” toward this god and attempt to imitate it by contemplating
it (see Alcinous, Didaskalikos, chaps. 10, 14). Both Aristotle and Alcinous have clearly
influenced Plotinus’s henology: The One is responsible for the multiplicity in the cosmos
without itself becoming multiple, and this generated product of the One turns toward the
One in contemplation. By doing so, the cosmos further produces, or, rather, coproduces,
different degrees of reality, resembling a multitude of concentric circles within the larger
cosmos (see O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, chap. 4).
3. Most editors prefer to; gennwvmenon, whereas Henry and Schwyzer (henceforth
H-S), followed by Armstrong and Bussanich, prefer to; genovmenon. H-S argue that in
the previous chapter, Plotinus uses gevgonen and to; genovmenon to prepare the ground for
the discussion of the twofold aspect of nou:V, the inchoate and actual nou:V. Bussanich is
right, however, to conclude that neither edition of the term alters the sense of the sen-
tence (J. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus [Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1988], 36). Atkinson comments that H-S’s claim is incomplete, for in chapter 6.22, to;
genovmenon refers “not to Intellect proper, but to Intellect in its inchoate state” and given
that to; genovmenon or to; gennwvmenon in line 3 illustrates Intellect tout court, Plotinus
may be making the distinction between two aspects of the life of nou:V by these two terms
(M. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases [Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985], 156).
4. If it is the case that the One is the subject, then aujtov will necessarily be reflexive.
5. P. Hadot, “Revue de Plotini Opera,” Tomus II: Enneads IV–V, ed. Paul Henry
and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, Plotiniana arabica ad codicum fidem anglice vertit Gef-
frey Lewis (Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1959) (Museum Lessianum, series philosophica
XXXIV), 1 vol. in 8, LIV-504, 95.
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 155

170. 6. K. H. Volkmann-Schluck, Plotin als Interpret der Ontologie Platos (Frankfurt:
Klostermann, 1941), 122.
7. R. Harder, Plotins Schriften, vol. 1 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1956), 501.
8. This latter assertion is very important for understanding the significant role and
development of nou:V in its constitution and its relation to the One. The generation of
nou:V is explained in light of Aristotle’s metaphysics and psychology.
9. See Enn. V.2.1.7–13 and also Enns. II.4.5.33 and III.4.1.8.
10. P. Hadot, “Review of H-S2,” in Revue de l’Histoire des Religions 164 (1963):
92–95: 95.
11. P. Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus, vol. 2 (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1968),
I.321 fn.4; also see V.4[7].2.35–36.
12. Once again, the controversy relates to the possible answers to the question
“How does the One generate Intellect?” Two answers have been given: 1) “[b]ecause
by turning to itself the One sees” or 2) [b]ecause by its [sc. Intellect’s] return to it [sc.
the One] it [sc. Intellect] sees” (trans. Amrstrong). Those supporting answer 1 are
Hadot, Porphyre et Victorinus, Vol. I.320–21 fn.4; Santa Cruz, “Sobre la generación de
la inteligencia en las Eneadas de Plotino,” Helmantica 30 (1979): 287–315: 312–13;
A. Graeser, Plotinus and the Stoics (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), 133–34; W. Beierwaltes,
Plotin über Ewigkeit und Zeit (Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1967), 14–15, and
Denken des Einen: Studien zur neuplatonischen Philosophie und ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte
(Frankfurt: Vittorio Klostermann, 1985), 45, 52–53. Those supporting answer 2 are
the following: J. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 267 fn.44; K. Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4 [7], 2 and Related Passages:
A New Interpretation of the Status of the Intelligible Object,” Hermes 114 (1986):
195–203: 196–98; F. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’
5,1[10],7,” Hermes 114 (1986): 186–95: 187; A. C. Lloyd, “Plotinus on the Genesis
of Thought and Existence,” Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, ed. J. Annas, vol. 5
(1987), 155–86: 160.
13. Atkinson is not following H-S2 in this reading, which would read aujtov, but
rather H-S1. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 157;
and also see Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 38.
14. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 135. While
most commentators accept the consistent position that the subject of ejpistrofhv is ei-
ther nou:V or the One in 7.5–6 and its preceding counterpart text 6.17–19, Armstrong,
J. Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino V.1.7.4–35,”
Emerita 39 (1971): 129–57; Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘En-
neads’ 5,1[10],7,” and A. C. Lloyd, “Plotinus on the Genesis of Thought and Existence,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 160, argue for a dramatic change in subject between
both passages. Enn. V.1.6.17–19, they assert, discusses nou:V as the subject of eJwvra,
while V.1.7.5–6 highlights the One as subject. See Armstrong, Plotinus: The Enneads
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 34–35, fn.1.
15. See Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,”
187.
156 Chapter 6

171. 16. See Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,”
187; see also Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino
(V.1.7.4–35),” 129–57.
17. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 187.
18. See Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’
5,1[10],7,” 190.
19. See Aristotle, De Anima, 426a13–14; see also Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on
the Three Principal Hypostases, 18–19, fn.5.
20. See Aristotle, De Anima 415a28: to; poih:sai e{teron o|ion aujtov.
21. See Enn. I.7.1.24–28; V.3.12.40 and 6.28–30 for further references to the One
as analogously described as the sun and nou:V as its light.
22. Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino
(V.1.7.4–35),” 135.
23. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 157.
24. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 157. H-S have
changed their interpretation of this passage since they first commented on it. They now
argue that the One is the subject of the sentence and that aujtov is reflexive. Atkinson
remarks that “[a]ll those who take 6.18–19 to refer to the One’s self-ejpistrofhv take a
similar view of our present passage.” The only exceptions are Fic., Bouillet, and Igál (who
is not mentioned by H-S). Igál and Armstrong consider these two passages differently, for
they believe that their contexts differ (see Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage
de las Eneadas de Plotino [V.1.7.4–35],” 135). According to Igál, 6.18–19 discusses the
generation of nou:V—the first moment of nou:V, that is—while 7.5–6 discusses the defin-
ing of the Intellect due to its vision of the One. Atkinson is in disagreement with Igál on
this point. According to Atkinson, 6.17–19 discusses the reversion of inchoate Intellect
toward the One, as it is discussed in the current passage.
25. Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino
V.1.7.4–35,” 132.
26. See also 5.18; Enns. III.8.11.1ff.; V.3.11.10; VI.7.15.16. 16.10ff.
27. See Aristotle, De Anima, 426a13–14.
28. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 159.
29. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 159.
30. Hadot, “Review of H-S2,” 95.
31. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 160. At-
kinson opposes Wallis, who claims that the One is the subject of eJwvra and that this
entire section is a residue of Numenius’s provscrhsiV (see R.T. Wallis, “Review of H. R.
Schlette’s Das Eine und das Andere,” Classical Review 84 [1970]: 181–83: 183; see also
Numenius, fr. 22). Numenius claims, rather, that the first and second gods descend to
a lower metaphysical stage by using the gods “subordinate to them. Thus, the first god
‘thinks’ (noei:) by making use of the second god whose characteristic activity noei:n is. In
our present passage, however, there is no question of the One’s making use of Intellect; it
is the genesis of Intellect which is under discussion” (Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on
the Three Principal Hypostases, 160). See also E. R. Dodds, “Numenius and Ammonius,”
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 157

172. in Les Sources de Plotin, 1–62: 14; J. Halfwassen. Geist und Selbstbewusstsein: Studien zu
Plotin und Numenios (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1994), 34–57; and Bechtle, The Anonymous
Commentary of Plato’s Parmenides, 78–86.
32. G. J. P. O’Daly, Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self (Shannon: Irish University Press,
1973), 71.
33. O’Daly, Plotinus’ Philosophy of the Self, 72.
34. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 158.
35. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 187.
36. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 40. However, what
concerns Bussanich regarding this analysis is the
tendency to overstress the precision with which P. is supposedly defining the stages of Intel-
lect. We are being asked to accept an implicit reference to the inchoate Intellect by reading
back from the end of the sentence: hJ de; o{rasiV au{th nou:V. It is not impossible that this
o{rasiV is code for “actualized Intellect” as Atkinson argues. But if the fully actualized Intel-
lect is now on the scene, then why do lines 10–19 seem to provide significant detail on differ-
ent aspects of the transition from potential to actualized Intellect? (The objection is even more
cogent given Atkinson’s interpretation of lines 12–13; see below ad loc.) In sum, throughout
the chapter P. oscillates back and forth between the two aspects of Intellect or is unclear as to
which he is referring to.
37. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 40.
38. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 136–38.
39. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 158.
40. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 136–37.
41. P. Hadot, “La distinction de l’être et de l’étant dans le De Hebdomadibus
de Boèce,” in Miscellanea Mediaevalia, ed. P. Wilpert (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter,
1963b), 94.
42. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 41–42.
43. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 159.
44. See Enn. VI.8[39].13.1–5, 47–50, in order to perceive the full explanation of the
manner in which Plotinus uses the term oi{on to characterize the One.
45. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 42.
46. See Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino
V.1.7.4–35,” 132.
47. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 158.
48. See J. Bussanich’s excellent article “Plotinus’ Metaphysics of the One,” in The
Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, ed. L. P. Gerson (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 38–65: 46–55.
49. See W. Theiler, “Plotin zwischen Platon und Stoa,” in Les Sources de Plotin, 295.
50. This is in contrast to V.4[7].2.4–5, where novhsiV “looks at and reverts to the
One.” See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 48.
51. There is a controversy over the translation of the sentence. Should we read
scizomevne as “middle” or “passive”? Armstrong, Atkinson, and Bussanich each claim
158 Chapter 6

173. that scizomevne is the middle: “The things, then, of which it is the productive power are
those which Intellect observes, in a way cutting itself off from the power” (Bussanich,
The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 48). Hadot, however, claims it is passive:
“Ces choses donc, l’Un est la puissance, l’intellection les voit, comme si elle était séparée
de cette puissance” (“Revue,” 95). Bussanich prefers “middle,” for if it were “passive,” it
would “attribute to the inchoate Intellect’s vision rather more discriminatory power than
it has in other accounts of procession and reversion” (Bussanich, The One and its Relation
to Intellect in Plotinus, 48). For a discussion of the One as duvnamiV, see Bussanich, The
One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, commentary on III.8[30].10.1ff.
52. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 49. See also
Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino V.1.7.4–35,”
149–50, and Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 167, for
a list of scholars who adhere to one or the other position. Bussanich helpfully clarifies
the different schools of thought regarding this question: “(i) the One as subject of both
verbs: Becker, Cilento, Harder, Hadot, O’Daly, Theiler (1970) 296, fn.2 and H-S1; (ii)
Intellect as subject of both verbs: Ficino, Bouillet, Bréhier, Volkmann-Schluck, Trouil-
lard, Igál, Armstrong, Atkinson, and Lloyd (1987) 161; (iii) Intellect as subject of e[cei
and the One as subject of duvnatai: Rist, Deck, Schroeder (1986), 191–93, and H-S2.
In my view (iii) is correct, but there are many issues to consider” (Bussanich, The One
and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 49).
53. H.-R. Schwyzer. “Bewusst und Unbewusst bei Plotin,” in Les Sources de Plotin,
343–90: 375 and 389.
54. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 49.
55. Igál, “La Genesis de la Inteligencia en un pasage de las Eneadas de Plotino
V.1.7.4–35,” 152.
56. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 168.
57. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 49.
58. See Lloyd, “Plotinus on the Genesis of Thought and Existence,” 161.
59. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 49.
60. See J. Rist, Plotinus: The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press), 45–46.
61. P. Henry, “Une comparaison chez Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin,” in Les Sources
de Plotin, 387.
62. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,”
191.
63. Bussanich adds, “The force of ejpeiv is clearly retrospective and h[dh indicates
a temporary modality that would be inappropriate to the One; thus Atkinson and
Schroeder (1986) 191” (Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 50).
Lloyd further adds that if the One were positioned as the subject “the ejpeiv which gov-
erns the clause would be wrong because the clause would not be explaining the relative
independence of Intellect that is being attributed to it; and if what was to be explained
was rather the power of the One, whatever Intellect is conscious of would not be a good
explanation of that” (Lloyd, “Plotinus on the Genesis of Thought and Existence,” 161).
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 159

174. 64. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 189.
65. This very point will be discussed below. Plotinus’s discussion of history in nou:V
via the influence of the Stoics will be briefly discussed. Suffice it to say now that Plotinus
adopts a metaphysical viewpoint of the generation of nou:V—that is, it contains no tem-
poral (i.e., historical) dimension.
66. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 189.
67. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 190.
68. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 190
and see 188. These four are his list of questions. The rest of the article explains why he up-
holds the thesis that in lines 6–7 he wants to construe a[llo as nominative, unlike Harder,
who interprets it as an accusative and does not take the One as the subject of eJwvra.
69. See Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’
5,1[10],7,” 191.
70. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,” 191.
71. See Enn. V.3[49].15.32–35; V.8[30].10.1; V.1[10].7.9.
72. Schroeder, “Conversion and Consciousness in Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,1[10],7,”
191.
73. See Schroeder, “Synousia, Synaisthaesis and Synesis: Presence and Dependence
in the Plotinian Philosophy of Consciousness,” in Aufstief und Niedergang der Römischen
Welt, vol. 2, ed. W. Haase and H. Temporini (Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter,
1987), 677–99, esp. 682–93.
74. This act of separation is a reference to the tovlma and will be discussed below.
75. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 50.
76. Rist, The Road to Reality, 46–47, and Bussanich both argue that all this passage
means is that the “One’s productive power causes Intellect’s substance” and nothing more
(Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 50).
77. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect in Plotinus, 50–51.
78. Corrigan states, “The One, in its perfect immobility (reminiscent of the Nu-
menian first nou:V), has a sort of conperception of itself and of its entire content and
even possesses a ‘thinking different from nou:V’ (Lines 15–19)” (K. Corrigan. “Plotinus,
‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages: A New Interpretation of the Status of the Intel-
ligible Object,” 195). G. Bechtle also agrees with Corrigan on this point. See G. Bechtle,
The Anonymous Commentary of Plato’s Parmenides, 259–60; see also Dodds, “Numenius
and Ammonius,” 3–61; and Armstrong, Enneads V, 146, fn.1.
79. Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 195.
80. Hadot, “Revue of Harder,” in Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 36 (1958):
159–60.
81. Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 196.
82. Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 196.
83. See Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 196.
84. For a parallel passage, see Enn. V.1[10]5.6–8. Thus, these two passages may show
a coincidence of First Principle and nohtovn, but the natural emphasis of discourse rests
upon the first moment of nou:V.
160 Chapter 6

175. 85. “[W]hich is also an indefinite identity,” Corrigan reminds us. “Plotinus, ‘En-
neads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 197.
86. The subject of the second sentence must be ambiguous, because in the order of
thought its implicit duality becomes explicit as nou:V only at the end of the third sentence.
It is precisely for this reason that in my view it makes no sense to say that the subject of
the second sentence is the One (with Hadot) or that it is nou:V (with Henry-Schwyzer).
87. See Armstrong, Plotinus: Enneads V, trans., chap. 5, 26–27, fn.1.
88. Again, it is important to recognize a double duality within nou:V. On the one
hand, nou:V is a duality of subject and object of itself, and on the other, the intelligible
content is multiple and renders nou:V dual. In other words, qua thinking itself, nou:V is
already a duality, regardless of what the contents of its object-thought are/is.
89. See Corrigan, “Plotinus, ‘Enneads’ 5,4[7],2 and Related Passages,” 201.
This power proceeds together with the highest substantial moment of the nou:V—
that—will—be and brings into being the substance of nou:V hypostasis (Enn. VI.7
[38].40.5–18). Again, these passages from earlier and later works present clear parallels
with Enn. V.4.2. All the language of Enn. V.4.2.4–19, therefore, can be explained more
satisfactorily within the “Enneads” as applying to an intellectual or pre-intellectual
sphere of discourse.
90. Plotinus provides an account of matter as a receptacle and nurse (Enn.
III.6.13.12), as space (Enns. III.613.19; cf, III.6.7.1–3; III.6.10.8). See Plato, Tim. 49a,
where matter is uJpodochv, tiqhvnh; 51a, mhvthr, pandecevV; 52a, cwvra; 50c, ejkmagei:on;
Matter as substrate, uJpokeivmenon; see II.4.1.1 ff.; II.4.11.22–23; see also Aristotle, Phys.
192a31, and H.-R. Schwyzer, “Plotinos,” RE bd. XXI.1, col. 471–592, col. 568. Accord-
ing to Narbonne, new features of matter introduced by Plotinus are impassibility and
inalterability. See J.-M. Narbonne, La métaphysique de Plotin (Paris: Vrin, 1994), 41–42.
See the discussion in D. J. O’Meara, Structures hiérarchiques dans la pensée de Plotin
(Leiden: Brill, 1975), 71 sqq. (85). See also D. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,”
Dionysius 14 (1998): 85–114: 85, fn.2.
91. See C. Baeumker, Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen Philosophie. Eine
historischkritische Untersuchung (repr., Frankfurt: Minerva Verlag, 1963); see also L. J.
Esliek, “The Material Substrate in Plato,” in The Concept of Matter in Greek and Medieval
Philosophy, ed. E. McMullin (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963),
39–54, 45–46; see also Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 86, fn.3.
92. See Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 86.
93. See J.-M. Narbonne, who recognizes that privation in Aristotle’s ontology is
nothing in itself, but is always to be regarded in relation to another substance, for priva-
tion is always a privation of another “thing.” As a result, whereas privation always entails
a contrary, matter is free of such contrariety. With Plotinus, however, the negative entails
the potential of containing and expressing a definite substance, whereas matter in itself
is not the subject of such a process of definition. Plotinus’s theory of matter differs from
Aristotle, for Plotinus understands matter as privation with respect to nihil negativum
(see Enn. II.4.16). (See Narbonne, La métaphysique de Plotin, 43–49; see also Nikulin,
“Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 86–87.)
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 161

176. 94. See E. Bréhier, La philosophie de Plotin (Paris: Boivin, 1928; 1961; repr., Paris: J.
Vrin, 1982, from the 3rd ed. of 1961), 206.
95. Intellect, unlike matter, is not receptive (a[dekton—Enn. III.6.6.20). See J. S.
Lee, “The Doctrine of Reception According to the Capacity of the Recipient vi.4–5,”
Dionysius 3 (1979): 79–97; also M. W. Wagner, “Plotinus’ Idealism and the Problem of
Matter in Enneads vi.4 5,” Dionysius 10 (1986): 57–83, 64ff.
96. See Armstrong, The Architecture of the Intelligible Universe in the Philosophy
of Plotinus, 66; Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 104.
(Plotinus appears merely to identify Aristotle’s doctrine of intelligible matter with the
Indefinite Dyad of Plato, according to Rist.) The Cambridge History of the Later Greek
and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1967), 241; see also Iamblichus, Theol. arithm, 7.19 de Falco.
97. See Merlan, “Aristotle, Met 987b20–25 and Plotinus, Enn. V.4.2.8–9,” Phronesis
9 (1964): 45–47, 45.
98. See J. Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” Classical
Quarterly, 99–107: 100–102. See also W. Theiler, “Einheit und unbegrenzte Zweiheit
von Plato bis Plotin,” Isonomia (Berlin: Akademie-Verl., 1964), 89–109.
99. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 92. See V.1.7; V.3.11; V.4.2; Plato,
Phil. 23c ff.; Aristotle, Met. 987b20ff.; Diog. Laert. VIII 25.
100. While the discussion of the plurality within nou:V will be dealt with in more
detail in chapter 9, we may cite J. Rist’s reflection of the emergence of plurality in nou:V
in light of our current theme—namely, the generation of the Indefinite Dyad. See Rist,
“The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 102–3. In chapter 9, we will
also examine Alexander of Aphrodisias’s influence on Plotinus’s noetic doctrine.
101. See Armstrong, The Architecture, 67–68; Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intel-
ligible Matter in Plotinus,” 104–5; and Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 90.
102. See Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 91. See also Dodds, “The Par-
menides of Plato and the Origin of the Neoplatonic One,” Classical Quarterly 22 (1928):
129–42; B. Darrell Jackson, “Plotinus and the Parmenides,” Journal of the History of Phi-
losophy 5, fn.4 (1967): 315–27. The question of the plurality of the intelligibles in nou:V
will be discussed in chapter 9.
103. See A. H. Armstrong, “Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of
NOUS,” in Le Néoplatonisme (Paris: Édition du Centre National de la Recherche Scien-
tifique, 1971), 70–72.
104. See J. Rist, “The Problem of ‘Otherness’ in the Enneads,” in Le Néoplatonisme,
81–82; see also M. Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 7.
105. For a discussion of Plotinus’s acceptance of potentiality in nou:V, see C. Baümker,
1890, 410, fn.7; P. Merlan, 1968, 116; A. H. Armstrong, 1971, 67–76; T. A. Szlezák,
1979, 79ff.; A. Smith, 1981, 99–107; and Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and
the Question of Substance, 276, fn.47: “After the early treatises which treat of intelligible
matter as such (II, 4 [12]; V, 1 [10]; II, 5 [25], etc.), the notion of intelligible matter
does not disappear entirely from Plotinus’ thought (III, 8 [30] 11, 4 and VI, 7 [38] 40,
6–10, on which see below, section 6.5.5), but Merlan, 1953, 116, is right to think that
162 Chapter 6

177. it is never again accorded explicit or ‘serious’ consideration.” Again, this topic will be
discussed in detail below.
106. See Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance,
276–77.
107. Below, we will discuss the relationship between the Indefinite Dyad and the
tovlma. See N. Baladi, 1970 (in Le Néoplatonism); A. J. Festugière, La Révélation d’Hermès
Trismégiste (Paris: Lecoffre, 1944–1954), II, 83ff.; J. Zandee, The Terminology of Ploti-
nus and of some Gnostic Writings, Mainly the Fourth Treatise of the Jung Codex (Istanbul:
Nederlands Historisch-Archaeologisch Insituut in het Nabije Oosten, 1961), 26–28; and
Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance, 277, fn.49.
108. Corrigan, furthermore, states, “In being defined by its object ‘intellect is shaped
in one way by the One and in another by itself, like sight in actuality; for intellection is
seeing sight and both are one’ (V.1 5.15–19)” (Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil
and the Question of Substance, 277).
109. Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance, 278.
110. Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance, 280.
111. Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance, 281,
also fn.58.
112. Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 107, of course,
disagrees with Alexander’s interpretation.
113. Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 106–7.
114. According to Rist, it is imperative to understand the genus and species relation
in order to understand Plotinian intelligible matter.
115. See Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 106.
116. See Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 107, and
see 106–7.
117. See W. D. Ross, A Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, 2nd ed. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1953), 199; and Rist, “The Indefinite Dyad and Intelligible Matter in
Plotinus,” Classical Quarterly 12 (1962): 99–107, 106–7.
118. H. Happ, Hyle: Studien zum Aristotelischen Materie-Begriff (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1971), 581ff.
119. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 89.
120. See Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 89.
121. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 92. See also Rist, “The Indefinite
Dyad and Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 103: “nou:V sees the One as the Forms but the
intelligibility of those Forms is supplied by the One.”
122. Cf., Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance,
282–83.
The =Epistrofhv of the One and the Derivation of nou:V 163

179. 165
c h a pte r se v en
Plotinus on Phantasia
Phantasia as the Home of
Self-Consciousness within the Soul
The cosmic procession of the causal stages, from the One to matter, and the
returning movement, remain paradigmatic in Plotinus’s discussion of phantasia,
albeit sporadic. On the one hand, phantasia is affected by the higher faculties,
while, on the other, it is affected by the lower (i.e., by sense-perception) when
considered from the point of view of the return to the One. The cosmic proces-
sion and returning movements, then, are paralleled in the psychic life. Yet, while
the twofold cosmic and psychic orders permeate the whole of reality, the role of
the faculty of phantasia remains particular and unique. Phantasia not only uni-
fies sensible data and multiplies intelligible objects but also functions as a center
point at which the sensible and intelligible converge and find their end. Gener-
ally, Plotinus speaks of phantasia as a single faculty.
However, with his affirmation of two souls, the irrational and the rational,
within which function two faculties of memory, Plotinus introduces the doctrine
that two faculties of phantasia—a lower and a higher—function within their
respective souls. Plotinus’s discussions of phantasia first as a single faculty and
then as a double faculty, according to his doctrine of duplicity, are essentially
subsidiary accounts of phantasia, which, taken by themselves, render it diffi-
cult to grasp Plotinus’s thesis of the function of phantasia. It is my contention
that paramount to Plotinus’s discussion of phantasia, human consciousness is
uniquely engendered through the activity of phantasia, an activity that is subor-
dinate to the unconscious activity of nou:V, but that is, nevertheless, an essential
and valued faculty for the attainment of higher knowledge and eventual assimila-
tion into the One.

180. 166 Chapter 7
The structure of this chapter will be as follows: after briefly describing Ploti-
nus’s cosmology, along with the cosmological and psychological dimensions to
phantasia, I will expound Plotinus’s discussion of the role of phantasia, consid-
ered first as a single faculty, which actively apprehends sensible and intelligible
data. In the very enigmatic passage of Enneads IV.3.31, Plotinus introduces
a distinction between the lower and the higher faculty of phantasia, with the
intention of explaining the cooperation of both the irrational and rational souls
within our temporal or earthly existence. This Plotinian theme is exemplified by
the doctrine of the duplicity of phantasia. Although Plotinus admits of a dual-
ity between both faculties, he attempts to establish a continuity of the powers
via his reflections on phantasia and opinion. Plotinus places an emphasis on
phantasia as the condition for human consciousness, which is inferior to the
internal and unconscious activity of nou:V. While Plotinus does not provide a
systematic account of phantasia, he clearly considers this faculty to be necessary
for the acquisition of human knowledge and for human consciousness. Finally, I
will end this chapter by relating the phantasia to the Indefinite Dyad and to the
doctrine of the tovlma.
As mentioned above, Plotinus’s cosmology entails two movements: a
procession from simplicity to complexity, and a return from complexity to
simplicity. At the summit of the cosmos is the One, the ultimate simple
principle, responsible for the varying degrees of complexity within the lower
stages of the cosmos: nou:V, Soul, Nature, and Matter. The ascending level of
simplicity is a movement generated by the One. Thus, the One is not only
the final cause, but also the efficient cause; it is the beginning and end of
the complex array of causal activities. Each lower stage is an image of the
higher, with the exception of the One, of course.1 In this cosmic chain of
causal stages, the lower, more complex stages assume the role of an image or
idol, or even a shadow, of the higher, simpler stages.2 As a result, each lower
stage remains dependent upon the higher. In fact, Plotinus will say that the
lower is in the higher. By the term in, Plotinus refers to the general principle
that the lower is always in the higher. That one entity is in another implies
that the former is dependent upon the latter.3 This definition of in is clearly
a reversal of the standard view of relationships. For example, the soul is not
in a body as such, but the body is in the soul, for the body “depends en-
tirely for its organization and life on soul.”4 As nature lacks creative power,
it requires Soul to perceive nou:V operative in nature. Nature remains at the
lowest reaches of Soul and, as such, is the furthest away from the influence
of nou:V.5 Nevertheless, the intelligence in nou:V reaches even to nature (see
Enn. IV.4.13). In Plotinian metaphysics, the soul is not said to be in nature,
but nature is said to be in the soul.

181. Plotinus on Phantasia 167
The Two Faces of Phantasia
Phantasia exercises a privileged role within the human soul. Its activity affects
human consciousness and remains the center point or the pivotal faculty in
which the sensible and intelligible realms converge and in which they find their
end: phantasia is Janus-faced.6
For the most part, phantasia is preoccupied with the sensible realm.7 It appre-
hends and unifies the sense percepts and represents them in image form. Sense-
perception finds its end in phantasia, which elevates the sensible object to an
intelligible, unified object.8 Plotinus clearly adheres to Aristotle’s assertion that
phantasia is the culmination of sensation.9 Plotinus, furthermore, recapitulates
Aristotle’s assertion that phantasy is both the result of sensation and the founda-
tion of conceptual thinking10 (see Enn. IV.4.28). Phantasia is, therefore, a power
that is related to sensation and to the intellect (see Enn. IV.3.22–31).
Clearly, if phantasia is above sense-perception, then it necessarily surpasses
nature, the locus of sensible objects. In Enn. IV.4.13, Plotinus asserts that phan-
tasia surpasses nature not only due to phantasia’s power to unify the sensible
impressions, which are retained by the memory and apprehended conceptually
by the intellect, but also due to the apprehensive power (ajntivleyiV) particular
to phantasia, which allows for consciousness (parakolouqei:n) to emerge.11
[I]ntelligence is primary but nature is last and lowest. For nature is an image of
intelligence, and since it is the last and lowest part of soul [it] has the last ray of the
rational forming principle which shines in it. . . . For this reason it does not know,
but only makes; for since it gives what it has spontaneously to what comes after it,
it has its giving to the corporeal and material as a making. . . . For this reason na-
ture does not have an imaging faculty either; but intellect is higher than the power
of imaging: the imaging faculty is between the impression of nature and intellect.
Nature has no grasp or consciousness of anything, but the imaging faculty has
consciousness of what comes from outside (hJ mevn ge oujqeno;V ajntivleyin oujde;
suvnesin e[cei, hJ de; fantasiva suvnesin ejpaktou); for it gives to the one who
has the image the power to know what he has experienced; but intellect itself is ori-
gin and activity which comes from the active principle itself. (Enn. IV.4.13.3–17)
Nature, therefore, lacks this apprehensive power and the resulting consciousness
of phantasia’s activity.
As mentioned, the faculty of memory is served by phantasia, in that memory
retains the images conjured up by phantasia. Phantasia and memory are so
closely affiliated that memory is said to be a part of phantasia.12
Memory’s retention of images of the sensible realm, however, does not al-
low for freedom in the human agent.13 As a representative faculty of the soul,
responsible for unifying sensible impressions, phantasia is too closely connected

182. to the bodily appetites, which prevent one from controlling and dominating
one’s phantasia, as Aristotle claimed.14 The following passage is the closest Plo-
tinus comes to defining phantasia, and is, by the way, inspired by the Stoics.
“[B]y . . . ‘phantasy’ we mean the phantasy excited within us by the passions of
the body; for it offers us different phantasies according as the body has need of
food, of drink, or of sensual pleasures. . . . We ascribe free will only to him who,
enfranchised from the passions of the body, performs acts determined solely by
intelligence” (Enn. VI.8.3).
Up to now, Plotinus has presented phantasia in its relation to the sensible
realm, which renders the human captive to its passions. Yet Plotinus is eager
to redeem the soul from its fallen and imprisoned state. Phantasia, as Plotinus
will now assert, is necessary for the soul’s attainment of immortality. Phantasia’s
upward gaze to the intelligible realm enables phantasia actively to apprehend,
by virtue of the lovgoV,15 the otherwise indivisible ideas, which are made spatial
and extended by phantasia. Phantasia, in this light, is described and likened to a
mirror, a similar description to that made by Plato in his Timaeus.
The intellectual act (lovgoV) is without parts and has not, so to speak, come out
into the open, but remains unobserved within, but the verbal expression (lovgou)16
unfolds its content and brings it out of the intellectual act into the image-making
power, and so shows the intellectual act as if in a mirror, and this is how there is
apprehension and persistence and memory of it. Therefore, even though the soul is
always moved to intelligent activity, it is when it comes to be in the image-making
power that we apprehend it. (Enn. IV.30.8–14)
Enn. IV.3.30.15–16 emphasize the necessity of ideas being converted into im-
ages. This transition is a condition for one’s self-consciousness, which is, in turn,
a condition for memory. In Enns. IV.8.8 and I.4.9–10, Plotinus asserts that good
health and the release from the disturbing activities of the body are presupposed
for a successful transition of ideas to images.17 What is paramount here, however,
is that in Enn. IV.3.30, Plotinus speaks of the faculty of phantasia as a single fac-
ulty that, on the one hand, receives sense data and transmits the representation
of the object to the intellect, when the soul is gazing downward; and, on the
other hand, receives or apprehends ideas, which are spatialized by the phantasia,
for ideas in se are indivisible18 (see Enn. I.4.10.14–23). Plotinus, therefore, as-
serts the necessity of the harmony of the body and soul for the effective trans-
mission or communication of the ideas into mental representation of the ideas.
The movement from sensation to phantasia is a process of unification,
whereas the movement from the idea to phantasia entails a diffusion or process
of multiplication. This psychic movement is perfectly in accord with Plotinus’s
cosmic dynamic of the procession of the One to matter.19
168 Chapter 7

183. The Duplicity of Phantasia
In Enn. IV.3.31, Plotinus introduces the distinction between the lower and
higher faculties of phantasia. The duplication is related to the duplication of the
capacities of memory, one in the lower soul, and another in the higher. In Enn.
IV.4.31, Plotinus recapitulates his assertion in Enn. IV.3.27 that the rational and
irrational soul each have a memory and, consequently, a faculty of phantasia.20
Briefly, in Enn. IV.3.25, Plotinus argues that two types of memory must exist,
which must belong respectively to the two types of soul. Memory belonging to
the higher soul is an activity that precludes time. This form of memory is akin to
the Platonic notion of recollection, which recalls to the intellect the soul’s activ-
ity prior to its animation of a body. The memory of events within time belongs
to the irrational, lower soul, as mentioned earlier, whereas memory of ideas is a
prior activity, belonging to the rational soul.21
In Enn. IV.3.31, Plotinus recapitulates his claim that the two forms of mem-
ory remember differently. However, due to their dependence on phantasia, the
two forms of memory experience one common element: they each remember in
representational form.22 This common element leads Plotinus to conclude that
if there are two forms of memory, there must be two corresponding forms of
phantasia, for, as Plotinus has established, the activity of memory presupposes
the activity of phantasia. “But if memory belongs to the image-making power,
and each of the two souls remembers, as has been said,23 there will be two image-
making powers” (Enn. IV.3.31.1–3). Phantasia is, then, concerned not only with
memories of our passions and appetites, but also with the soul’s life in the intel-
ligible world. Since phantasia becomes what it perceives (see Enn. IV.4.3), and
since phantasia is the basis of memory, the souls become what they are able to
remember via memory.24 Phantasia, then, not only transmits the form of the sen-
sible or intellectual object to reason, but also remains the foundation of memory.
Plotinus states that the lower and higher faculties of phantasia are indepen-
dent living beings (zw:/a), sharing no common element, for the lower is a deriva-
tive of the higher.25 The question of the cooperation of each faculty of phantasia
concerns Plotinus only while the two souls are together in one’s earthly life, for
after death, as Plotinus has indicated in Enn. IV.3.24, the higher, rational soul
separates from the lower, irrational soul. Once separate, each has its own faculty
of phantasia, wherein neither one cooperates with the other. However, it is the
question of the earthly or temporal cooperation of both faculties with which
Plotinus concerns himself.26 Since memory belongs to each of the souls, and if
phantasia necessarily belongs to each, then the images produced by the phantasia
will be duplicated, for it is not possible, and is contrary to our own experience,
that the higher and lower forms of phantasia produce different images simultane-
Plotinus on Phantasia 169

184. ously.27 “If it [i.e., memory] is in both of them, the images will always be double;
for one certainly cannot suppose that the power of one soul has images [only] of
intelligible things and the power of the other images [only] of perceptible things;
for in this way there will be two living things with nothing at all in common with
each other” (Enn. IV.3.31.5–9). To consider both faculties of phantasia bereft
of mutual interaction is to posit a static universe that renders possible only a
scientific study of phantasia.28
However, when considering the duplicity from a dynamic point of view, the
cosmic motion of procession is clearly paralleled within the psychic order, in
which the lower soul, and all its faculties, are mere images and shadows of the
higher: that is, that the lower soul is in the higher.29 In this light, the lower soul
is dependent on the higher, and the same holds for the two forms of phantasia:
the higher phantasia is a condition of the functioning of the lower. The higher
image is communicated to the lower and is recognized as a shadow of the higher
object; the activities of the higher are obscurely operative in the lower. In this
light, a tentative continuity between both souls is established.30 However, the
connection is uniquely due to the downward procession of the cosmic order.
The lower is connected with the higher insofar as the higher transmits, as it must
necessarily do, its activity to the lower.31 The connection disintegrates when one
considers the motion upward, for the higher soul has no need of the lower for
its operation.
This latter claim, however, must be qualified: it is not the case that the higher
has no need of the lower per se, but rather that it has no need of the affections
of the lower.32 In this light, the connection is only tentative; both souls are
connected only according to the downward movement. Plotinus asserts that
we experience or perceive only one image when the two images, one from the
higher faculty of phantasia and the other from the lower, are harmonious. The
higher one, however, must maintain control over the lower. In other words, this
harmony allows for a single image to occur, when in reality two images, the lower
copying the higher, are appearing. Plotinus, however, does not make it explicit
that the rational faculty of phantasia is always the highest.33
While both faculties of phantasia are separate, the image produced is to be
found in both souls through the act of imaging. Yet the two questions Plotinus
raises are very pertinent: 1) What is the difference “between the two images?”
and 2) “Why do we not recognize [the difference]?” (Enn. IV.3.31.9–10). In
one’s experience, one perceives only one image, but in reality, according to
Plotinus, there are two. There are two reasons why we experience one image:
1) the lower and higher souls are in accord with each other, and 2) the better
soul is higher in actuality, which implies that the lower soul reflects and follows
the higher one. “Now when one soul is in tune with the other, and their image-
170 Chapter 7

185. making powers are not separate, and that of the better soul is dominant, the im-
age becomes one, as if a shadow followed the other and as if a little light slipped
in under the greater one” (Enn. IV.3.31.10–13). It is not clear from this analogy
to light whether Plotinus argues for the full assimilation or annihilation of the
lesser soul (i.e., the shadow), in the case of this analogy. However, regarding his
doctrine that each stage in the overall system retains its identity, Plotinus remains
consistent throughout the Enneads. In this light, therefore, one can assume that
the lower soul does not lose itself in the higher. The shadow remains a shadow
only because of the presence of the light. The analogy appears to present, rather,
the movement or transition from one level of soul to the higher.
However, when both souls are in discord, each capacity of phantasia operates
independently of the other. In this light, the higher faculty is ignorant of the
activities of the lower.
[B]ut when there is war and disharmony between them, the other image becomes
manifest by itself, but we do not notice what is in the other power, and we do not
notice in general the duality of the souls. For both have come together into one
and the better soul is on top of the other. This other soul, then, sees everything,
and takes some things with it which belong to the others. (Enn. IV.3.31.13–18)
Whereas in the harmonious relationship one perceives one image, produced
by the higher phantasia and followed by the lower, the dissonance prevents the
lower image from being observed, and as a result, dissonance is effected. The two
souls become disconnected, as the unifying principle can no longer maintain a
harmony between both souls. In other words, no longer will the lower faculty
of phantasia be perceived as in the higher.34 We are rarely conscious of the dual-
ity of our souls, simply because harmony usually abides between the two, with
the higher leading the lower—that is, with the lower in the higher (see Enn.
IV.3.31.8–16). In other words, we are not conscious of the difference between
both souls, insofar as there is harmony between them. Thus, according to Ploti-
nus, unconsciousness of the duplicity of phantasia is a virtue that is conditioned
by the harmony of both phantasiai.
Phantasia and Opinion
In the Aristotelian spirit to preserve the continuity of the lower powers with
the higher powers of the soul, Plotinus parallels his discussion of phantasy and
sensation with phantasia and opinion. While sensation belongs to the lower soul,
opinion belongs to the higher. In light of the two faculties of phantasia, the lower
form functions by representing the sense data, while the higher by representing
opinion.35 As mentioned, while the higher retains images of the lower, it retains
Plotinus on Phantasia 171

186. them without the passions and affections associated with the lower phantasia (see
Enns. IV.3.30 and IV.3.32). In Enn. III.6.4, Plotinus further clarifies that phan-
tasia in general is but a production of opinion and is not identified with opinion.
As matter is not identical to form, phantasia is not identical to opinion. In the
following passage, Plotinus likens phantasia to matter, and opinion to form (see
Enn. III.16.15.11–24). Phantasia is affected by opinion in the higher soul, while
in the lower, by sense data.
It should then be obvious to anyone that the mental picture is in the soul, both the
first one, which we call opinion, and that which derives from it, which is no longer
opinion, but an obscure quasi-opinion and an uncriticised mental picture, like the
activity inherent in what is called nature in so far as it produces individual things
. . . without mental image. (Enn. III.6.4.18–23, my emphasis.; see also Enn. I.4.10)
Plotinus’s doctrine of the duplication of phantasia was, in one sense, an attempt
to reconcile and maintain continuity between the lower and upper souls. How-
ever, that a fundamental distinction exists between phantasia and opinion (i.e.,
that opinion is irreducible to phantasia) indicates a real severance between the
two souls, a severance which becomes evident at death (see Enn. IV.3.24).
As mentioned above, nature lacks the apprehensive power and the resulting
consciousness produced by phantasia’s activity. However, nature’s privation
of consciousness is not identical to the lack of consciousness found in nou:V.
Contrary to nou:V, whose object is itself, phantasia differs from its proper
object. The sensible or intelligible object is fundamentally distinct from phan-
tasia. In Plotinian metaphysics, the immediate apprehension of nou:V of itself,
which renders nou:V unconscious to its object, surpasses the dual condition of
phantasia, within which consciousness is born. Thus, phantasia, as the agent
of consciousness, is inferior to nou:V, which can operate without the medium
of images.36 Nevertheless, phantasia exercises a crucial function within the
soul. Consciousness is the result of phantasia’s active apprehension of sensible
and intelligible data, and of phantasia’s cooperation with memory, which is an
essential faculty that functions as a receptacle of the sense-image represented
by phantasia, and as a medium through that the lovgoV communicates the
idea to phantasia, which spatializes and extends the otherwise indivisible idea.
Although phantasia joins both the worlds of sensibility and intelligibility, it
itself is neither, but only becomes like each. That is, the soul becomes like its
object via the faculty of phantasia, which has the object imperfectly (see Enn.
IV.4.3.8–12). Human knowledge, which requires phantasms, operates within
the realm of opinion as opposed to truth, which is in nou:V. Only in that which
possesses the perfect adequatio between the subject and object, as nou:V does,
can truth be said to exist in it.37
172 Chapter 7

187. The activity in nou:V is clearly intuitive. It is the lovgoV that “accompanies
the act of intelligence” (Enn. IV.3.30.6), but as an accompaniment to the act of
intelligence, lovgoV does not represent the idea or concept in picture form, as is
the case with sensation. Rather, this higher phantasia is an apprehension of the
dynamics in Soul and fixes its object as an image. This process results in self-
consciousness. In other words, lovgoV unfolds its content into phantasia, which
apprehends it and represents it as an image.38
Plotinus expounds in lines 1–5 of Enn. IV.3.30 the Aristotelian principle that
every thought is accompanied by an image. Here, however, he denies this prin-
ciple. According to Plotinus, as he argues in Enn. IV.3.30, and especially in Enn.
I.4.10, dianoetic thoughts can occur independently of images. The effect of the
conflict between the two faculties of phantasia not only alters their cooperation,
but also allows thought activity to operate without images, for, at this stage, the
higher images have become abstracted by the intellect and have attained a status
of concept. In Enn. I.4.9.29–30, Plotinus concludes that in essence, “we are the
activity of the intellect; so that when that is active, we are active.” In Enn. I.4.10,
Plotinus will affirm that while our minds function with sense-perception, which
allows for awareness or consciousness (parakolouqei:n), they must also func-
tion without sense-perception (i.e., without images). As a result, this heightened,
intellective activity precedes consciousness.
But why should not intellect itself be active [without sensation], and also its at-
tendant soul, which comes before sense-perception and any sort of awareness?
There must be an activity prior to awareness if “thinking and being are the same.”
It seems as if awareness exists and is produced when intellectual activity is reflexive
and when that in the life of the soul which is active in thinking is in a way pro-
jected back, as happens with a mirror-reflection when there is a smooth, bright,
untroubled surface. In these circumstances when the mirror is there the mirror-
image is produced, but when it is not there or is not in the right state the object
of which the image would have been is [all the same] actually there. In the same
way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which mirrors the images
of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them in a way parallel to sense-
perception, along with the prior knowledge that it is intellect and thought that are
active. But when this is broken because the harmony of the body is upset, thought
and intellect operate without an image, and then intellectual activity takes place
without a mind-picture. (Enn. I.4.10.4–23)
The verb parakolouqei:n expresses the consciousness that arises when
phantasia seizes its object, whether sensible or intelligible; it is human con-
sciousness that arises from the imaginative faculty. In contemplating the
forms in nou:V, the human becomes unconscious to itself, but becomes its
true self in nou:V.39
Plotinus on Phantasia 173

188. To conclude this section on phantasia, I want to show that the structure of
Plotinus’s psychology parallels the structure of his cosmology. More specifically,
the triadic relation among the human nou:V, the soul, and the body clearly re-
flects the cosmic rapport among nou:V, the world-soul, and nature. However,
phantasia, albeit a faculty within the human soul, is an activity that is elevated
above nature. Phantasia, then, remains a unique faculty in which the sensible
and intelligible converge, as do the cosmic and psychic activities. With this
conferred status, phantasia is not depreciated by Plotinus, the metaphysician
who seeks to surpass the consciousness attained by phantasia, and, especially,
discursive reason. Plotinus’s novel advancement of a dual faculty of phantasia is,
in fact, his response to a reductionist theory of phantasia, which merely reduces
phantasia to the sensible realm and thus eliminates all possibilities of attaining
immortality, as the higher faculty of phantasia is claimed to attain. The higher,
rational phantasia surpasses our temporal existence and functions as a medium
through which we can attain immortality and contemplate the forms in nou:V.
Both phantasiai remain crucial faculties through which the sensible and intel-
ligible converge. Thus, Plotinus does not depreciate phantasia but confers upon
it its unique, albeit relative, value through which human consciousness is born
and the acquisition of human knowledge, either of sensible data or of the indi-
visible ideas or forms, is made possible. Phantasia, therefore, remains paramount
in Plotinus’s cosmology and psychology, for through it, the human being can
paradoxically attain the highest and most cherished activity: the contemplation
of the One, into which the human is assimilated, and in which the conjuring up
and producing of images is impossible and unnecessary. Nevertheless, the human
mind does fabricate images of the One, and these images have their foundation
in the intelligibles, which, in turn, have their foundation on the substrate of
intelligible matter, a topic to which I now return.
Phantasia and Intelligible Matter
In Enn. II.4 and in the many other passages where matter is discussed, Plotinus
states consistently that matter is ubiquitous and is present, in addition to the no-
etic realm, in both physical entities and in geometrical figures. Intelligible mat-
ter, therefore, is related to the higher phantasia as a first movement, made up of
Sameness and Otherness. Intelligible matter is characterized as the potentiality of
indefiniteness and, as a result, contains no real separation of otherness. Plotinus
expresses this best when he states that given that the first effluence from the One
is indefinitely infinite, it contains opposites and
it could be imagined as either. . . . But if you approach any of it as one it will ap-
pear many; and if you say that it is many, you will be wrong again: for each [part]
174 Chapter 7

189. of it is not one, all of them cannot be many. And this nature of it according to
one and the other of your imaginations is movement, and, according as imagina-
tion has arrived at it, rest. And the impossibility of seeing it by itself is movement
from intellect and slipping away; but that it cannot run away but is held fast from
outside and all around and is not able to go on, this would be its rest; so that it is
only in motion. (Enn. VI.6.3.33–43)
The shape or figure of the phantastic images may not be perceived in reality but
is nevertheless approximations and shadows of the intelligible forms, after which
the images are modeled.40 As a result, phantasia shares characteristics with both
nou:V and matter. It is also distinct from the latter two, however, in that by its na-
ture of containing the plenum of psychic phantasms, which are quasi-extended,
it becomes foreign to them. This is unlike intelligible matter, which is related to
the Indefinite Dyad, as that which has not yet been defined but yet which yearns
to grasp the One, and in grasping the One, it “(mis)represents it.”41 In other
words, it represents it as a plurality of intelligibles, which are further expressed
as images. Plotinus states that when we think of the One,
we first assume a space and place (cwvran kai; tovpon), a kind of vast emptiness
(cavoV), and then, when the space is already there we bring this nature into that
place which has come to be or is in our imagination, and bringing it into this kind
of place we inquire in this way as if into whence and how it came here, and as if it
was a stranger we have asked about its [One’s] presence and, in a way, its substance,
really just as if we thought that it had been thrown up from some depth or down
from some height. (Enn. VI.8.11.15–22)
It is not possible, then, for nou:V to think the One, for the One is absolutely
simple. Therefore, nou:V can “think” of the One only by appealing to images, for
images represent a peculiar intermediary place between nou:V and the Soul and
can, as a result, participate only in the One or the Good. This status of images
is akin to the intelligible objects, to; nohtav, which, as Nikulin reminds us, “are
satisfied with themselves by their participation in or imagination of the Good”42
(see Enn. VI.8.13.46). The thinking and imagining of the One, then, takes place
in a location that is not real, for the place has not as yet been defined. Phantasia,
as intelligible matter, is related with both nonbeing—that which is beyond be-
ing—and being qua thinking. Given that this plenum is not nonbeing, absolutely
speaking, and is but a potentiality of becoming defined, it is also closely related
with cwvra, Tim. 52a. The plenum is, on the one hand, a kind of potency and,
on the other, a model for the posterior levels of being. The “place” of psychic
images (i.e., images of the One), which is above being, cannot be considered
real, in the strict sense. In this light, the plenum is quasi-spatial.43 Plotinus aligns
his view of chaos with Aristotle’s view, regarding it as an empty receptacle that
Plotinus on Phantasia 175

190. receives entities.44 Therefore, Alexander’s interpretation of uJlh nohthv as exten-
sion (diavstasiV) may well capture the similarities between intelligible matter
and phantasia. Empty space is not an extension in itself, but rather is that which
“may be put into space as an empty receptacle,” as Nikulin rightly says.45
Intelligible matter resembles, therefore, phantasia in four ways. First, like
phantasia, intelligible matter is creative, given that in its pursuit of grasping the
One, it generates a multiplicity of finite Forms. Although the One remains the
real source of creativity in intelligible matter, the One remains prior to being
and beings and can never be accurately represented, such that intelligible matter
and the Dyad remain indefinite and pure potentiality of Being, which will be
discussed below. Intelligible matter and phantasia are creative, then, only insofar
as they remain paradigms of physical matter and lower phantasma, respectively,
both of which remain in the realm of nonbeing. Second, intelligible matter and
phantasia both share the common feature of irrationality. “Imagination is from
a stroke of something irrational from outside (fantasiva de; plhgh:/ ajlovgou
e[xwqen)” (Enn. I.8.15.18). The images of phantasia are also depicted as vague
and ambiguous (ajmudrai fantasivaiV) (Enn. I.8.14.5), in the same manner in
which Plato depicts matter: calepo;n kai; ajmudro;n eidoV (Tim. 49a). Intel-
ligible matter is indefinite, pure potentiality, and alogical prior to its formation
by the One and the finite Forms. Third, as with phantasia, intelligible matter is
intermediary. The intelligible matter mediates between the One and the intelli-
gibles; it also mediates between the Forms and the physical matter. Finally, intel-
ligible matter, as with phantasia, is a plenum and a cwvra, an empty place, lacking
definition that can generate the forms or nohtav and geometrical figures.46
However, one of the most striking features connecting intelligible matter and
phantasia is the ambiguity that characterizes them both. The mediating role of
phantasia does not consist solely in its position between the intelligibles and the
sensible cosmos, but rather occupies both places, in that there is a higher and a
lower phantasia, a capacity that is both Here and There. Nevertheless, ambiguity
aptly characterizes phantasia, with respect not only to its representation of the
intelligible object but also to its representation of the physical entity, whose form
is apprehended through the five senses.47 With respect to intelligible matter,
therefore, as with phantasia, it consists of fluctuating “forms,” strictly speaking.48
tovlma
The emergence or effluence of the second moment from the One is, according to
Plotinus, due to the activity of illicit self-assertion: tovlma.49 If seen in this way,
then all existence, all being, is a result of a type of drastic original sin, or a desire
to separate and affirm one’s autonomy from the One (Enn. III.8.8.32–36; see
176 Chapter 7

191. VI.9.5.2). Plotinus, however, does not seem to overcome an intrinsic problem
regarding his presentation of the generation of nou:V from the One.
On the one hand, Plotinus presents this unformed desire in a negative man-
ner, for it represents a movement away or a radical separation from the One. The
concept of tovlma is used in the traditions of the Pythagoreans and the Gnostics.
In Neopythagoreanism, tovlma was normally aligned with the Indefinite Dyad,
which represents that which has separated from the monad.50 It is important to
note, however, that Plotinus does not explicitly identify the Dyad with tovlma.
Strictly speaking, tovlma entails an unruly or “misplaced” desire, which is the
ultimate cause of its separation from the monad. Separation from the ultimate
principle is what most concerns Plotinus (see Enn. IV.9.5.29, where nou:V is
characterized as “ajposth:nai . . . pwV tou: eJno;V tolmhvsaV”). In addition to
the tovlma, Plotinus also uses terms such as eJterovthV (Enn. V.1.1.4), which was
discussed above, and ajpovstasiV (Enn. V.1.1.7–8). Unlike the Gnostics, Ploti-
nus uses the tovlma to account for the separation of nou:V from the One (see Enn.
VI 9.5.29), and this separation is the cause of the generation of the intelligible
world, the plhvrwma. Thus tovlma is not a necessary stage in the unfolding of
the cosmos, but rather it is an act of free will.51
On the other hand, Plotinus presents us with an exuberance of desire for life,
flowing from the spontaneous and creative act of the One, after which this desire
is converted back toward the One, creating the conditions for its definite forma-
tion of content. This movement of creating multiplicity is portrayed in a positive
manner. Plotinus regards the One as possessing infinite power, and as a result,
its product will be eternally infinite. The initial effluence from the One, intel-
ligible matter or the Indefinite Dyad, was not generated by its own free will, but
rather as a free activity of the One. Thus, tovlma, in the Plotinian sense, does not
carry any of the Neopythagorean negative connotations, which entail the sinful
activity of the posterior stages of the monad in order to break away from the
monad for the sake of its own autonomy. Rather, in the Plotinian metaphysics,
multiplicity arises not strictly due to tovlma, but rather by the infinite generative
nature of the One.52 Unlike Sextus Empiricus (Adv. Math 10.261), who claims
that the One creates the Dyad in its otherness, Plotinus adopts an emanative
conception of the cosmos and affirms, rather, the One’s infinite power. The
One, in other words, does not have otherness within it, since otherness is found
only in finite beings, but it is, rather, the cause of otherness, for its effects are
finite, unlike the One, which is infinite.53 The essential claim about tovlma is
that it is perhaps less concerned about the generation of nou:V as such as it is
with the general attitude or disposition of nou:V once it has been generated. Its
daring movement, ajposth:nai tou: eJnovV, does not mean that it “recklessly broke
away, but that it has ‘faced up’ to living apart after its generation—indeed it had
Plotinus on Phantasia 177

192. no option.”54 The tovlma of nou:V, therefore, is a result of the One’s abundant
infinite generosity.55 This procedural development of nou:V from an initial prin-
ciple, within a monistic context, moderates the duality found in Aristotle and
Plato, establishing a rather weak, not a strict, duality. The procession from the
One and the generation of the first effluence, therefore, consists of a fluid activ-
ity. The Plotinian doctrine of the tovlma, then, does not, as Armstrong strongly
asserts, “break the even, inevitable flow, without change or passion, of eternal
reality from the One; it is the necessary condition for its taking place.”56 Proces-
sion from One is fluidlike. There remains, of course, a clear distinction between
the One and its products, but the generative movement of intelligible matter,
the Indefinite Dyad, and the whole collective dynamic of nou:V is connected by
a fluidlike connector, which enables the posterior stages of the One to carry and
testify to the One’s infinite power.57
Although Plotinus does not explicitly reconcile these two views, the doctrine
of tovlma can provide us with this reconciliation and with the clarification of his
attempt to minimize the Aristotelian duality between the first principle and the
rest of the cosmos. Influenced by the Neopythagoreans’ doctrine of the Dyad,
which is not multiplicity itself, but the condition or principle of multiplicity
and Ideal Numbers, Plotinus asserts that multiplicity refers to otherness from
the One, and this Dyad is, according to Plotinus, the unformed desire, which
establishes the foundation for nou:V. By examining the object of this unformed
desire, the two streams of Plotinus’s thought can be differentiated at this stage.
The two can be reconciled in this way. While the desire to achieve a separate and
autonomous existence is, at times, unfortunate, for it entails a turning away from
the One and a movement toward what is posterior and inferior to the One or the
Good; the desire to exist also entails a conversion or return toward the One or
the Good, a return that generates nou:V.58 In this light, the One, as the genera-
tor of the Indefinite Dyad, must of necessity also generate the dyadic volition
to Otherness, and this dyadic volition is characteristically called the tovlma, the
immediate principle and cause of plurality.59
Conclusion
Plotinus’s psychology is paradigmatic of his cosmology. More specifically, the
triad relation among the human intellect, the soul, and the body clearly re-
flects the cosmic rapport among nou:V, the world-soul, and nature. However,
phantasia, albeit a faculty within the human soul, is an activity that is elevated
above nature, according to Plotinus. Thus, phantasia remains a unique faculty
in which the sensible and intelligible converge, as do the cosmic and psychic
activities. With this unique status, phantasia is not depreciated by Plotinus, who
178 Chapter 7

193. is not only a metaphysician, but also a rational mystic, who seeks to surpass the
consciousness attained by phantasia, and, especially, discursive reason, which his
doctrine of the duplicity of phantasia attempts to demonstrate. Plotinus’s novel
advancement of a dual faculty of phantasia is, in fact, his response to a reduction-
ist theory of phantasia, which merely reduces phantasia to the sensible realm and
thus eliminates all possibilities of attaining immortality, as the higher faculty of
phantasia is acclaimed to attain. The higher, rational phantasia clearly surpasses
our temporal existence and functions as a medium through which we can attain
immortality and contemplate the Forms in nou:V. Both phantasiai remain crucial
faculties through which the sensible and intelligible converge. As a rational mys-
tic, Plotinus did not depreciate phantasia, but conferred upon it a unique, albeit
relative, value through which human consciousness is borne and the acquisition
of human knowledge, either of sensible data or of the indivisible ideas or forms,
is made possible, as I accentuated throughout this chapter. Phantasia, therefore,
remains paramount in Plotinus’s cosmology and psychology, for through it, the
human being can paradoxically attain the highest and most cherished activities:
the contemplation of the One, into which the human is assimilated, and in
which the conjuring up and producing of images is impossible and unnecessary.
The continuity of causality from the One is depicted clearly in the One’s
generation of the Indefinite Dyad, which, if we accept Plotinus’s endorsement
of Aristotle’s presentation of Plato’s Indefinite Dyad as the (intelligible) material
cause, establishes the conditions for the generation of the inchoate nou:V and the
intelligibles within nou:V. The Indefinite Dyad or intelligible matter, moreover,
shares characteristics similar to those of phantasia, for, strictly speaking, both are
characterized as being ambiguous. Ambiguity of the inchoate nou:V and of phan-
tasia is critical to our understanding of the “nature” of inchoate nou:V. It is nou:V,
not yet formed, and its indefinite and potential nature, that keeps “it” out of
the reach of scientific inquiry, for it remains an elusive and ambiguous “object.”
Thus, the derivation of multiplicity from the One, which is a significant re-
sponse to Parmenides, allows for, on the one hand, a continuity of the One and
its influence, but is, on the other, an attestation of the clear distinction between
the One and the posterior levels of the hypostases. With respect to nou:V, the
Plotinian doctrine of nou:V attests to this overabundant influence of the One.
The tovlma allows for the first effluence to assert itself and, by so doing, dares
to affirm its separability and identity. However, Plotinus is clear: the separation
or the emergence of multiplicity is an act that assumes the One’s initial move-
ment to generate multiplicity. Plotinus’s entire philosophical project, therefore, is
wholly monistic and consists of a totality, in which differences (i.e., multiplicity),
find their place. This first grade of multiplicity is found in Plotinus’s doctrine of
nou:V, for within nou:V are located the many intelligibles. In this light, Plotinus,
Plotinus on Phantasia 179

194. while accepting Aristotle’s claim that nou:V is actual, cannot accept Aristotle’s
subsequent claim that it is simple. It is to the topic of the doctrine of the nature
of nou:V interpreted by Plotinus’s predecessors, to which I now turn.
Notes
1. See Plato’s simile of the line.
2. See M. W. Bundy, The Theory of Imagination in Classical and Medieval Thought
(Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1927), 118–19: “Being, the image of the One,
is unknowable. Nou:V or the cosmic mind is the image of being; the soul is the image of
Mind; and nature is the image of the soul. Finally, matter is merely a substratum having
no reality save it is informed.”
3. See O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 26–27. When consider-
ing the duplicity of phantasia, this notion of in may properly capture the relationship
between the lower faculty and the higher faculty of phantasia: that is, the lower faculty of
phantasia is in the higher because it is dependent upon it. This will be discussed below.
4. O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 27.
5. Matter remains completely formless and, as such, is devoid of intelligibility. See
O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 78. See also J.-M. Narbonne, Plotin:
Les deux matières (Paris: Vrin, 1993) and Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the
Question of Substance: Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, 1996.
6. Brann is correct to call phantasia “Janus-faced,” for it “looks below to receive im-
ages of matter, and above to receive images of thought” (E. T. H. Brann, The World of
the Imagination: Sum and Substance [Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield Publishers,
1991], 49).
7. See G. Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought (Officina Typographica: Galway
University Press, 1988), 98: “Phantasia makes its appearance in connection with the
sensitive soul.”
8. “And soul’s power of sense-perception need not be perception of sense-objects, but
rather it must be receptive of the impressions produced by sensation on the living being;
they are already intelligible entities” (Enn. IV. 9.7.9–12).
9. “[F]or it is in [the imagination] that the perception arrives at its conclusion, and
what was seen is present in this when the perception is no longer there” Enn. IV.3.29.24–
27 and Aristotle, De Anima 426b, 17–19. See also Enns. IV.4.19.4–7 and IV.7.6.10–11.
10. As Bundy says, “phantasy is described as both the product of sensation and the
basis of conceptual thought” (Bundy, The Theory of Imagination, 122).
11. T. Whittaker rightly says that the “higher and lower powers of the soul meet in the
imaginative faculty . . . which is the psychical organ of memory and self-consciousness”
(T. Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928], 51).
12. “[A] part of one’s phantastic nature,” says Bundy (Bundy, The Theory of Imagi-
nation, 126). Brann supplements Bundy’s general claim: “[M]emory is a super-sensory
capacity for holding the images of bodies in their absence” (Brann, The World of Imagi-
nation, 49.)
180 Chapter 7

195. 13. See J. Dillon, “Plotinus on the Transcendental Imagination,” in Religious Imagina-
tion, ed. J. P. Mackey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986), 55–64.
14. See Bundy, The Theory of Imagination, 123.
15. H. J. Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology (Martinus Nijhoff: The Hague, 1971), 88.
16. The word lovgou is difficult to translate in this passage and has generated many
contentious debates. Armstrong’s translation of lovgou as “verbal expression” is indicative
of his agreement with Bréhier, who translates lovgou as “formule verbale” (E. Bréhier,
Notes, in Plotin: Les Ennéades [Paris: Les belles lettres, 1924–1938]). Whittaker and G. H.
Clark also share Bréhier’s translation (see Whittaker, The Neo-Platonists, 51; G. H. Clark,
“FANTASIA in Plotinus,” in Philosophical Essays in Honor of Edgar Arthur Singer Jr.,
ed. F. P. Clarke and M. C. Nahm [Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1942], 306,
fn.33). S. MacKenna, however, translates lovgou as “reason principle” (S. MacKenna,
Plotinus: The Enneads, rev. B. Page, 3rd ed. [London: Faber, 1962]). According to Clark,
this translation is inaccurate. Based on the cognate to; logizovmenon, the translation “rea-
son,” in Enn. IV.3.30 is impossible and inconsistent with the employment of the cognate
in other passages. In Enn. I.4.2.15 and 17, divine reason is referred to; Enn. I.4.3.17
refers to species, which approximates to the Ideas or Forms, mentioned in the subsequent
lines, with the intention of demonstrating a lovgoV in se (i.e., nou:V), which is indepen-
dent of any posterior or composite entities; finally, Enn. I.4.2.25–27 insinuates that this
higher form of lovgoV or nou:V is a capacity that judges. Thus, in these passages, “reason”
is the most appropriate translation for lovgoV. Yet, in Enn. IV.3.30, reason itself cannot be
apprehended or received in phantasia. MacKenna’s mistranslation, according to Clarke,
is due to his omission of the gar in line 7. The gar indicates “some result of discursion
to be received into the faculty of imagination or representation” (Clark, “FANTASIA
in Plotinus,” 306, n.33). MacKenna, then, seems to have identified the verbal expression
of lovgoV with lovgoV itself. Agreeing with Clark, Bréhier is correct in translating lovgou
as “formule verbale,” for phantasia does not receive reason or the indivisible ideas per se,
but receives their expression and represents them in spatial images. See also Brann, The
World of Imagination, 49.
17. Enn. IV.30.14–16, and see also Enns. I.4.9–10 and IV.8.8: “The awareness of our
thinking which makes memory possible can only take place when pure thought is trans-
lated into images. The success of the transition depends on the health of the body. Ordi-
nary consciousness with memory is secondary, depending on its own physical condition,
and relatively unimportant” (A. H. Armstrong, Plotinus’ Enneads, vol. 4 [Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1984], 130–31).
18. The further implications of Enn. I.4.10 will be discussed below.
19. “[W]hen the rational principle is moved in a sort of picture-making imagination,
either the movement which comes from it is a division, or, if it did remain one and the
same, it would not be moved, but stay as it was, and matter, too, is not able to harbour
all things gathered together, as soul is; if it could, it would belong to the higher world; it
must certainly receive all things, but not receive them undivided” (Enn. III.6.18.30–37).
20. For an excellent discussion on the two souls, and their rapport not only with
one another, but with the other faculties and hypostases, see W. Helleman-Elgersma,
Plotinus on Phantasia 181

196. Soul-Sisters: A Commentary on Enneads IV. 3. (27), 1–8 (Amsterdam: North-Holland
Publishing Co., 1988).
21. “This [higher form of memory] is another kind of memory and therefore time is
not involved in memory understood in this sense” (Enn. IV.3.25.34–35).
22. See H. J. Blumenthal, “Neoplatonic Interpretations of Aristotle on Phantasia,”
Rev. of Metaphysics 31 (1977): 249: “Since memory depends on phantasia, and is a func-
tion of the phantastikon, the imaginative faculty, phantasia must be attached to the higher
soul as well.”
23. See Enn. IV.3.25.
24. See Watson, Phantasia in Classical Thought, 101–2.
25. Blumenthal, however, does not agree with this statement. He argues that “Plotinus
rejects the idea that the imaginative faculty of one soul should be concerned with the in-
telligible, that of the other with sensible objects. His reason is that this would involve the
co-existence of two living beings (zw:/a) with nothing in common (see 4.3.31.1–8)” (H.
J. Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 89). Based on the text, however, it would seem that
Plotinus does hold the view that there are separate faculties that cooperate within the soul.
26. “Well, then, when the souls are separate we can grant that each of them will have
an imaging power, but when they are together, in our earthly life, how are there two
powers, and in which of them does memory reside?” (Enn. IV.3.31.3–7). This question,
however, is his immediate question. In the backdrop, Plotinus has clearly another agenda.
As mentioned above, Plotinus wishes to save the higher, rational soul from the composite
activities of the body and the lower soul. The “higher level of the soul,” says Blumenthal,
“does not require the body for its activities, even though it may deal with stimuli arising
from the life of the synamphoteron.” In this light, Plotinus “wishes to preserve the impas-
sibility of the higher soul, and so tries to detach it as far as possible from the lower, and
thus from a faculty of imagination which is closely connected with the body’s needs and
activities” (Blumenthal, “Neoplatonic Interpretations . . . ,” 248).
27. In fact, Plotinus’s assertion of the two faculties of phantasia is in part the result
of his interpretation of Aristotle’s Movement of Animals 702a. See H. J. Blumenthal, Soul
and Intellect: Studies in Plotinus and Later Neoplatonism (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publish-
ing, 1993), V. 361–62. Although Plotinus is inspired by Aristotle, Plotinus differs from
Aristotle. Whereas Plotinus asserts two faculties of phantasia, Aristotle asserts only two
sources of phantasia, as one faculty.
28. See Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 89, and also Blumenthal, Soul and Intellect,
360.
29. See Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 90: “‘In’ in the sense that lower entities are
always regarded by Plotinus as being in higher ones.”
30. Bundy is sensitive to the duality of the souls and, by implication, of the phan-
tasiai, imposed by Plotinus. According to Bundy, this duality is enforced by Plotinus
in order to attain a mystical union with the One. That Plotinus resorts to Aristotle to
describe the nature of phantasia is indicative, however, of Plotinus’s metaphysical attempt
to in some way overcome the chasm between both souls and both faculties of phantasiai.
See Bundy, The Theory of Imagination, 124.
182 Chapter 7

197. 31. The lower soul, says Blumenthal, exists “only as an outflowing of the higher while
its attention is directed downwards . . . [and so] the lower soul would have access to the
higher only by becoming re-identified with it” (Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 89).
32. See Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 91, and Blumenthal, Soul and Intellect, V.
360–61.
33. It is interesting to note, as Warren and Brann have, that in Enn. IV.3.31.13–18,
Plotinus does not identify the higher with the better. Nowhere in this passage does Ploti-
nus indicate that during the moment of conflict between the two souls, the higher soul
dominates over the lower; hJ ejtevra does not refer to either the higher or lower soul. In
conflict, a single, uniform image is not produced. We are not conscious of the difference
between the two phantasiai, because “when they are in harmony one of the two leads the
other, and when at odds, one eclipses the other” (Brann, The World of Imagination, 49).
According to Warren, the stronger or the “better” (Enn. IV.3.31.12) is not necessarily
identified with the rational, higher soul. “When [Plotinus] stated that the stronger imagi-
nation dominates, he was indicating that it was possible for either soul to be the stronger
one; it is for the individual to determine its course. The imagination that becomes clear
in itself does not engage the attention of the soul; the other imagination provides for
our conscious experience as men. This interpretation denies that conflict produces the
inevitable conquest of the higher by the lower or the lower by the higher” (E. W. War-
ren, “Imagination in Plotinus,” Classical Quarterly 16 [1953]: 283). Thus, he says in an
earlier statement, “[w]hen there is conflict, the soul has to identify itself with the higher
or the lower” (283). Blumenthal, however, identifies the better phantasia with the higher
phantasia: “[Plotinus] suggests that while there is concord between the two images, with
the higher imaginative faculty in control, there is only one mental picture (favntasma),
presumably of any given object” (Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 89, my emphasis).
See also Watson, who follows Blumenthal (Phantasia in Classical Thought, 101–2). In
this section, I will adopt Blumenthal’s thesis that the higher is identified with the better.
Blumenthal, furthermore, disagrees with Warren that there is even an ajntivlhyiV power
at all that is characteristic of phantasia. Warren’s assertion of this apprehensive power
may be his attempt to compensate for the insignificant space allotted to the duplicity of
phantasia. Warren “says little about why there are two imaginative faculties, for which he
finds Plotinus’ reasons difficult to understand: the same might be said of his suggestions
for an explanation” (Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 99, n.28). Blumenthal, however,
does not develop this critique.
34. See Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology, 90.
35. “The higher,” says Bundy, “is a power giving concrete expression to thoughts; the
lower a similar power of representing sensations” (Bundy, The Theory of Imagination, 127).
36. As Warren says, “Imagination has a new dimension now: that of providing for the
consciousness of the thinking process” (Warren, “Imagination in Plotinus,” 281).
37. “If then the things contemplated are in the contemplation, if what are in it are
impressions of them, then it does not have them themselves; but if it has them themselves
it does not see them as a result of dividing itself, but it was contemplator and possessor
before it divided itself. But if this is so, the contemplation must be the same as the con-
Plotinus on Phantasia 183

198. templated, and Intellect the same as the intelligible; for, if not the same, there will not
be truth; for the one who is trying to possess realities will possess an impression different
from the realities, and this is not truth” (Enn. V.3.5.21–27).
38. Again, see Enn. IV.3.30.8–12: “The intellectual act is without parts and has not,
so to speak, come out into the open, but remains unobserved within, but the verbal
expression [lovgoV] unfolds its content and brings it out of the intellectual act into the
image-making power, and so shows the intellectual act as if in a mirror, and this is how
there is apprehension and persistence and memory of it.”
39. Warren expresses this insight well when he says the following: “Human conscious-
ness is largely dependent upon images in imagination. Deprived of images man, as a
human being, is unconscious to himself. The state of consciousness, parakolouqei:n, in
which life really exists, is one where there is no longer any need of conscious life, for life
is now self-conscious. It is precisely the need of the image in the human soul that marks
its decline in cognitive power. Remove the image and become what is known! and then
you are unconscious to man, the imaginative creature, but you are self-conscious as your
true, noetic self” (Warren, “Imagination in Plotinus,” 284).
40. “[S]ince everything which is shaped is finally determined by the measure of the
participation of every thing in the ideal paradigm, for it is only bodily matter that does
not absolutely have no form” (Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 96).
41. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 98.
42. Nikulin writes, “In other words, participation, metousiva, provides (noetic) things
with form while imagination, fantasiva, provides them with matter” (Nikulin, “Intel-
ligible Matter in Plotinus,” 97).
43. See Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 98. Nikulin adds, “[S]patiality is
not anything positive or something which could have an essence. It is just a potential
capacity to acquire form which, however different, is both present in bodily spatiality and
imaginary quasi-spatiality” (Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 98).
44. See Plotinus: Enneads VI.6–9, vol. 7, trans. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1987), 262–63. See Hesiod, Theog., 116; see Phys. 208b31–33.
45. Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 98.
46. See Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 99. For further research on the
rapport between intelligible matter and Imagination, see Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in
Plotinus,” 93–103.
47. See Warren, “Imagination in Plotinus,” 278; and Blumenthal, Plotinus’ Psychology,
89–95, and Blumenthal, “Plotinus’ Adaptation of Aristotle’s Psychology,” in The Sig-
nificance of Neoplatonism, ed. R. B. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press,
1976), 51–55; and Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter in Plotinus,” 101–2.
48. Nikulin expresses this very well: Intelligible matter is “not a form in proper
sense, for it is only the potentiality of all the forms. Therefore, we have to conclude
somewhat paradoxically that we cannot treat matter as one single subject, but we
also cannot say that it really differs from itself in the distinction between intelligible
and bodily matter. Thus matter should be recognized as fundamentally ambiguous.
Moreover, ambiguity may be even found in intelligible matter, for it is represented
184 Chapter 7

199. not only as the indefinite dyad but also as imagination. And the imagination is itself
double as directed toward both intelligible and sensual” (Nikulin, “Intelligible Matter
in Plotinus,” 103).
49. For an excellent discussion of the origin and difference between Plotinus’s and the
Gnostics’ usage of the concept tovlma, see N. Baladi, “Origine et signification de l’audace
chez Plotin,” in Le Néoplatonisme, 88–97; and also J. Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some
Predecessors,” in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 69 (1965): 32–344: 340–42.
50. See Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases, 4.
51. “This idea is stressed in our present passage by the use of to; boulhqh:nai and to;
aujtexouvsion in 1,5” (Atkinson, Plotinus: Ennead V.1 on the Three Principal Hypostases,
5; see also Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some Predecessors,” 340).
52. See Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some Predecessors,” 340. See also Merlan, From
Platonism to Neoplatonism, 124, fn.35, where Merlan stresses Plotinus’s use of the rise of
plurality in reality due to the overflowing of the One.
53. “The One is quite unaffected by and unlike its products (including ‘otherness’).
Cf., 6.8.19.18, when the One had created Being, he left it outside himself for he had no
need of it” (Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some Predecessors,” 341).
54. Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some Predecessors,” 341.
55. Rist adds, “The producer must for Plotinus be greater than the product. Hence
the second Hypostasis is inferior to the First and in that sense a falling away from the
First. But its generation is not the deliberate generation of something bad; rather it is the
generous production of the best possible product. Nou:V must stand apart from the One,
but it does not will to be separate. Its tovlma is thus not a guilty will for separation but a
‘facing up’ to necessity” (Rist, “Monism: Plotinus and Some Predecessors,” 342).
56. A. H. Armstrong, “The One and Intellect,” in The Cambridge History of Later
Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1967), 244.
57. Though Plotinus attempts to overcome the strict Aristotelian duality, he does not
seem to succeed fully. Merlan writes in From Platonism to Neoplatonism, 113, “Perhaps
neither monism nor dualism can unqualifiedly be asserted of Plotinus. First, even if he
was a metaphysical monist, he still had to find a place for ethical dualism in his system.”
See also C. J. de Vogel, “The Monism of Plotinus,” in her Philosophia: Studies in Greek
Philosophy (Assen: van Gorcum, 1970), 399ff.; also A. Alexandrakis, “Neopythagorean-
izing Influences on Plotinus’ Mystical Notion of Numbers,” in Philosophical Inquiry 20
(1988): 101–10.
58. “[I]t is,” comments Armstrong, “the return upon the Good in desiring contem-
plation which makes Intellect exist as what it is, real being possessed of all the goodness
and unity which anything that is not the One, which has any multiplicity in it at all, can
receive. It is a desire to be as close as possible to the One, as good and unified as possible,
while remaining other than it” (Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and
Early Medieval Philosophy, 243).
59. Armstrong states, “And it is because this ‘dyadic’ will to separateness which is prin-
ciple of multiplicity is there, and must be there if Intellect is to remain distinct from the
Plotinus on Phantasia 185

200. One, that Intellect, as long as it remains itself, can only receive the One in multiplicity”
(Armstrong, The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, 243).
186 Chapter 7

201. 187
c h a pte r eig h t
Alcinous and Alexander
on the Intelligibles within nou:V
Introduction
In this chapter, I wish to emphasize not only the philosophical influences
on Plotinus’s noetic doctrine of the duality and multiplicity of nou:V but also
his philosophical reasons for admitting such composition within nou:V, which
allows him to justify his position of subordinating nou:V to the One. With re-
spect to the first great influence, as will be presented in section one, Alcinous
proposes an ingenious theory of nou:V, in which he creatively amalgamates
Plato and Aristotle. In Alcinous’s work, moreover, we begin to perceive the
doctrine of the content of nou:V as existing within nou:V—that is, that the intel-
ligibles coexist within nou:V. In this regard, Alcinous differs from Aristotle in
that the content of nou:V consists of the Platonic forms. The prevailing ques-
tion concerning Alcinous’s noetic doctrine is this: Did Alcinous suggest or even
argue for a principle prior in simplicity to nou:V? This question will be dealt
with below in the first section.
The second section will examine closely the noetic doctrine of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, who, clearly, did not advance a doctrine suggesting that a principle
precedes the productive intellect in simplicity. Alexander, it will be seen, clearly
influenced Plotinus in formulating his doctrine of the intelligibles within nou:V.
Unlike Alexander, however, Plotinus did not accept the claim that nou:V is the
first principle, for nou:V—and here Plotinus agrees with Aristotle—is purely ac-
tual, when considered as a whole but, due to the plurality of intelligibles, is dual
and multiple. These two characteristics evidently disqualify nou:V from being the

202. 188 Chapter 8
first principle, for the first principle must be absolutely simple, free of all internal
distinction or division.
This chapter will, therefore, proceed in the above-mentioned format. Section
one will examine Alcinous’s doctrine of multiplicity of content within nou:V, and
section two will examine in depth Alexander’s appropriation and advancement
of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine in De Anima III.4–6 and Metaphysics L 7 and 9.
Alcinous: The Superiority of nou:V or
the God above nou:V?
We must begin our inquiry with the doctrine of Ideas or Forms in Alcinous, for
this doctrine, we can surmise, influenced Plotinus’s doctrine “that the intelligibles
are not outside the Intellect”1 (Enn. V.5.5). Alcinous describes the Ideas as intel-
ligibles, and by so doing, he fuses together Plato’s eidetic and Aristotle’s noetic doc-
trines. We see in Alcinous an appropriation of Aristotle’s doctrine of divine nou:V,
but it is assimilated into Platonism, and furthermore, it is a critical rethinking of
that doctrine along Platonic lines, which anticipates the more subtle and elaborate
criticism and rethinking of it in Plotinus.2 Alcinous identifies the separate intel-
ligibles (separate from matter) with Plato’s Forms (see Epitome ch. 4). Alcinous,
moreover, converts the Aristotelian doctrine of immanent form in matter, which
was proposed by Aristotle as an alternative to Plato’s doctrine of separate Forms,
by characterizing the immanent forms and the Platonic Forms as simply two types
of Ideas or intelligibles,3 which correspond to two types of intelligizing—discur-
sive and intuitive—the latter of which is also subdivided into two—namely, an
intuition prior to the embodiment of our soul and after embodiment. This latter
type of intelligizing admits of a gradual union between the act of thinking and its
object. However, Alcinous, in contrast to the Stoics, clearly does not accept the Ar-
istotelian theory of abstraction, for the intelligibles qua common properties cannot
be abstracted from the infinite and indefinite array of particulars.4
In chapter 9, Alcinous reiterates a now-accepted doctrine that the intelligibles
or Forms are God’s thoughts, but with a greater emphasis on their paradigmatic
role, which is itself unclear, for Alcinous does not clarify whether he is saying
that the intelligibles or Forms are separate entities that God perceives in order
to fashion and form the cosmos, or whether the intelligibles are efficient causes
in themselves.
They [sc. the Platonists, with whom Alcinous sides] justify the existence of forms
in the following way also. Whether God is an intellect or is possessed of intellect,
he has thoughts, and these are eternal and unchanging; and if this is the case, forms
exist. . . . [F]orms exist as a type of immaterial measure. (Ch. 9.3, trans. Dillon)

203. Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 189
What is also clear from this chapter is Alcinous’s rejection of the existence of intel-
ligibles or Forms of individuals. This claim of Alcinous and this school of thought
was, it should be known, rejected by Plotinus himself, who states that the Forms
are individuals (see V 7 [18]; Epitome, chaps. 9 and 12). Alcinous appears to accept
Xenocrates’ definition of Forms, as paradigmatic causes of natural genera.5 Conse-
quently, Alcinous rejects Forms of artificial objects and individuals.
Form is defined as an eternal model of things that are in accordance with nature.
For most Platonists do not accept that there are forms of artificial objects, such as a
shield or a lyre, nor of things that are contrary to nature, like fever or cholera, nor
of individuals, like Socrates and Plato, not yet of any trivial thing, such as dirt or
chaff, nor of relations, such as the greater or the superior. For the forms are eternal
and perfect thoughts of God. (Ch. 9.2, trans. Dillon, my emphasis)
It must be assumed, then, that a discussion of Forms as individuals took place
within the Academy, prior to Alcinous, for Alcinous states in this chapter that
he aligns his philosophical view with the majority of Platonists, who deny that
the Forms are individuals, but not of individuals. Again, this argument will be
taken up by Plotinus and used to justify the claim that the Forms are, in fact,
individuals.
Drawing from Aristotle’s noetic doctrine, Alcinous enriches his doctrine of
intelligence, a doctrine that influenced Plotinus’s account of the nature of nou:V.
Generally speaking, Alcinous, in chapter 10, accepts Aristotle’s distinction be-
tween the potential and actual intelligence, the latter of which thinks eternally
and concurrently. However, Alcinous remains ambiguous with respect to the
status of the actual intelligence. On the one hand, Alcinous identifies the active
intelligence with the ultimate deity, but on the other, he separates this ultimate
deity from the active intelligence, which, during this characterization, appears to
be subordinate to the deity, who is now seen as the cause of intelligence. At this
point, Alcinous alters the triadic pattern from god-intelligibles-matter to god-
intelligence-soul. The latter pattern is clearly endorsed by Plotinus, who, as we
have seen, subordinates Intellect to the One—that is, the deity. Alcinous appears
to argue that the ultimate deity is prior to Intellect, but, in the same chapter, he
once again identifies this supreme deity with intelligence6 (cf,. ch. 10; see also ch.
27). Alcinous moreover states that the supreme deity cannot even be given the
attribute of goodness—a claim that Plotinus also accepted from Alcinous—for
this would entail a participation in goodness (see ch. 10).
More specifically, Alcinous, in 10.1, states, when discussing the existence of
God, that this principle is beyond descriptive accounts. The statement itself has
provoked much discussion, but I wish only to isolate one aspect of this enigmatic
statement: namely, is the first principle beyond description because it is over and

204. above nou:V or because it is nou:V itself and cannot be accounted for by discursive
reason? Chapter 10 in its entirety will serve as our guide into this aporia.
Chapter 10.1 begins by referring to Timaeus 28c: “We must next discuss
the third principle, which Plato declares to be more or less beyond description”
(trans. Dillon). The Timaeus passage Alcinous refers to reads as follows: “Fur-
ther, we maintain that, necessarily that which comes to be must come to be by
the agency of some cause. Now to find the maker and father of this universe is
hard enough, and even if I succeeded, to declare him to everyone is impossible”
(Timaeus 28c). In this passage—namely, “more or less beyond description”—
Plato could be making one of two claims: either it is not possible to convey the
content of the “maker and father of the universe” to everyone, that only a few can
know this content, or it could mean that this cause (i.e., the maker and father of
this universe) cannot be described in words, for it remains ineffable. It is most
likely the case that Plato refers to the former option of the disjunct. However,
Alcinous does not seem to accept the former option; he appears, in fact, to in-
terpret the Timaeus passage in light of the latter option, of the ineffability of the
first cause.7 (This will be discussed below in our discussion of chapter 10.4–6.)
In 10.1, Alcinous accounts for the paradigmatic intelligibles of the sensible objects:
If there exist objects of intellection, and these are neither sense-perception nor
participate in what is sense-perceptible, but rather in certain primary objects of
intellection, then there exist primary objects of intellect in an absolute sense, just
as there exist primary objects of sense-perception. But the former is true; therefore
so is the latter. (trans. Dillon)
With respect to the second proof for the existence of the principle (i.e., God),
Alcinous argues from our observation of degrees of nobility or value. Given that
we can perceive the degrees of dignity between the Soul and nou:V, and between
the potential and actual intellects, we must posit a superior principle to actual
intellect, which is responsible for the various degrees of dignity in the cosmos.8
This argument, however, can only be valid, if the potential intellect is operative
within the human being (see De Anima III.5, 430a10ff.), whereas the active in-
tellect is considered to be identified with the universal, cosmic intellect.9
The more serious problem that concerns us is, as was asked above, what Al-
cinous means by the following phrase: “and whatever it is that would have its
existence still prior to these.” It would appear that Alcinous is proposing three
levels of reality: 1) a first cause that is above, 2) Intellect (cosmic), which, in turn,
is above, 3) Soul. Alcinous writes in 10.2:
Since intellect is superior to soul, and superior to potential intellect there is actual-
ized intellect, which cognizes everything simultaneously and eternally, and finer
190 Chapter 8

205. than this again is the cause of this and whatever it is that has an existence still prior
to these, this it is that would be the primal God, being the cause of the eternal
activity of the intellect of the whole heaven. It acts on this while remaining itself
unmoved, as does the sun on vision, when this is directed towards it, and as the
object of desire moves desire, while remaining motionless itself. In just this way
will this intellect move the intellect of the whole heaven.
Alcinous’s characterization of the First Cause is clearly in line with Aristotle’s ac-
count of the unmoved Mover or divine nou:V. Alcinous, furthermore, refers here
to the Sun simile in the Republic VI, “in describing it as acting on the cosmic
intellect in the way that the sun acts on the faculty of vision.”10
Paragraphs 10.2–3 are particularly enlightening with respect to 1) Alcinous’s
doctrine of the identification of Aristotle’s divine nou:V and the first principle,
and also 2) the origin of the intelligibles, a doctrine that has clearly influenced
Plotinus’s doctrine of the immanent activity of intelligibles within nou:V. Alci-
nous writes:
Since the primary intellect is the finest of things, it follows that the object of its
intelligizing must also be supremely fine. But there is nothing finer than this intel-
lect. Therefore it must be everlastingly engaged in thinking of itself and its own
thoughts [the intelligibles], and this activity of it is Form. (ch. 10.3, trans. Dillon,
my emphasis)
This statement, in light of ch. 9.1, reaffirms that the intelligibles or Forms are
the thoughts of God. One perceives the Aristotelian doctrine of the identity of
the object and nou:V within divine nou:V, in Metaphysics L 9, 1074b33ff. Divine
nou:V has knowledge of itself, for it alone is the ultimate intellect of the cosmos,
and its activity is self-generated.11
Thus, the first god is itself the ultimate cause that is eternally active and
intelligizes itself eternally (ch. 10.3). The second god is the intelligence that
intelligizes the whole of the heavens (oujranovV). The former remains unmoved
but moves the cosmos by acting as an object of desire, whereas the second god
or intellect moves by intelligizing intelligible objects outside of itself (i.e., in the
heavens). The first god is called cause (ai[tioV) of the entire cosmic order and
governs the cosmic intellect and the cosmic soul. The latter two appeal to this
initial principle and its activity of intelligizing (nohvseiV) for their governance
and activity12 (ch. 10.3).
At 10.4, Alcinous writes, “God is ineffable and graspable only by the intellect
. . . since he is neither genus, nor species, nor differentia, nor does he possess
any attributes.”13 This method is a “negative” method that attempts to grasp the
essence of God. Alcinous begins his treatise by reaffirming God’s unknowability
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 191

206. (see 164, 8.31) and further claims that God can be grasped “only by the intel-
lect,” which is a clear reference to the Phaedrus 247c and Timaeus 28a. Alcinous,
moreover, echoes this passage in the Timaeus in that the nou:V in Alcinous’s
system is an intuitive intellection that surpasses discursive reasoning and it is
through nou:V that the first principle can be grasped, for the first principle is not
reduced to a logical category or definition, but is rather an intuitive principle
that is prior and is the condition of scientific knowledge. There is no scientific
knowledge of the first principle (namely, God) for this knowledge surpasses
discursive reasoning—the very reasoning required in the attainment of scientific
truth. For only intuition can grasp the first principle.14
The doctrine of ineffability of God in Alcinous clearly influenced Plo-
tinus.15 This doctrine is best expressed in chapter 10.5–6. Here, Alcinous
enumerates the three ways or methods of approaching a conception of God.
The first way is that of negation or abstraction (ajfairevsiV). Both Alcinous and
Plotinus mention negation as one of the ways of predicating God. According
to Alcinous, “[t]he first way of conceiving God is by abstraction [sc. negation]
of these attributes, just as we form the conception of a point by abstraction
from sensible phenomena, conceiving first a surface, then a line, and finally
a point”16 (ch. 10.5). The mathematical statement at the end of this passage
appears to be a common example—one that may go as far back as the Old
Academy—of a method of grasping an immaterial being.17 Moreover, the
use of the term ajfairevsiV by Alcinous and Plotinus resembles the technical
sense of Aristotle’s term (ajfairevsiV), in the sense of a “negation” of a logi-
cal proposition. This Aristotelian term is in contrast to the term “privation”
(stevrhsiV) (see Met. G 2, 1004a14–16; G 6, 1011b18ff.; I 5, 1056a15–18).
The term ajfairevsiV refers to negation of a proposition, which is negative in
quality. Thus, neither Alcinous nor Plotinus suggests stevrhsiV is equivalent to
ajfairevsiV; rather, ajfairevsiV is closest to the sense of ajfairevsiV. This usage
is evident in Alcinous’s statement that “God . . . is neither bad . . . nor good”18
(ch. 10.4; see also Enn. VI.9.3.42).
The second way of generating a concept of God is by way of analogy (ajnalogiva):
The second way of conceiving him [sc. God] is that of analogy, as follows: the sun
is to vision and to visible objects (it is not itself sight, but provides vision to sight
and visibility to its objects) as the primal intellect is to the power of intellection
in the soul and to its objects; for it is not the power of intellect itself, but provides
intellection to it and intelligibility to its objects, illuminating the truth contained
in them. (ch. 10.5)
This analogy clearly refers to Plato’s analogy between the Form of the Good and
the “cause of knowledge and truth” (Rep. 508e, trans. G. M. A. Grube and C.
192 Chapter 8

207. D. C. Reeve). Plato has in mind the manner in which we can actually attain the
proper knowledge of the existence of the Form of the Good, and not in the way
we can speak of the Form of the Good. Alcinous, however, appears to use anal-
ogy in order to illustrate how one can speak of God. In other words, Alcinous
appears to argue that, although we can neither know nor speak of the essence of
God, we can speak of God’s causal relation to the world. By implication, we can
speak of God’s actions and existence, for the analogy of sight and visibility and
the sun indicate the existence of God and God’s rapport with the world. Thus,
we are able, according to Alcinous, to capture in language God’s existence and
God’s action in the world; that is, we can capture in language God’s actual rap-
port with the world.19
Finally, the third way of conceiving God is by contemplating the degrees of
beauty. Through the successive levels of our knowledge, we are able to speak of
an absolute Beauty, which gives rise to an intuition of the Good:
The third way of conceiving him is the following: one contemplates first beauty
in bodies, then after that turns to the beauty in soul, then to that in customs and
laws, and then to the “great sea of Beauty,” after which one gains an intuition of the
Good itself and the final object of love and striving, like a light appearing and, as
it were, shining out to the soul which ascends in this way; and along with this one
also intuits God, in virtue of his pre-eminence in honour. (ch.10.6, trans. Dillon)
More specifically, this passage explains how we arrive at the knowledge of the
existence of absolute Beauty, and, by implication, as a kind of speech of God.20
Alcinous and, especially, Plotinus, then, adopt various ways in which to speak of
God, none of which resemble the scientific, positive approach. For the “object” of
one’s speech and knowledge (i.e., God) remains ineffable and free of predication.
This conclusion leads us to the aporia of the status of God as an Intellect.
Thus, at 10.4–6, we find in Alcinous some texts that identify the supreme
intellect with intelligence, but in other texts, we find Alcinous stating the op-
posite claim, that the supreme intellect is above and transcends intelligence or
the intelligible objects. The former is clearly an affirmation of the identity of
intelligible objects and nou:V in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, as mentioned above, but
the latter appears to suggest a novelty in the long tradition of Greek specula-
tive philosophy. It is precisely this latter suggestion by Alcinous, if interpreted
to mean a principle that is superior to intelligence, that Plotinus takes hold of
and appeals to in his criticism of Aristotle, which will be seen below. However,
it is clear that Alcinous’s doctrine of the intelligibles existing within nou:V in-
fluenced Alexander of Aphrodisias, who systematized this doctrine and drew
out its implications, creating a fertile ground for the eventual development of
Plotinus’s treatise of the dual and multiple intelligibles existing within nou:V,
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 193

208. as is seen in Enn. V.3.5. (This presentation of Plotinus’s will be discussed in
greater detail below. Suffice it to say at the moment that while Plotinus accepts
the claim of a principle prior in simplicity to nou:V, he also accepts Alcinous’s
claim that the intelligibles are God’s nohvmata [see also Enn. VI.5.1].)21 More-
over, Alcinous appears to have suggested another doctrine, which significantly
influenced Plotinus (namely, that of the ejpistrofhv—of the turning of the
intelligibles and of nou:V to the first principle, which, as was seen in chapter
6, results in the actualization and definition of Intellect, the entire result of
which is named nou:V [see Enn. V.2.1.10–11, 19]). This ejpistrofhv is found
in Alcinous’s presentation of the first principle’s ordering and governing of
the heavens, or of the second intellect, which, by turning toward the prior
intellective principle, is ordered and structured. As Merlan aptly states, “God
orders the cosmic soul, he awakens her and turns her as well as her intelligence
to himself.”22
In light of the above, it is evident that Alcinous is doing much more than
merely superficially attaching the Aristotelian conception of divine nou:V to
the doctrine of the Ideas as the thoughts and intelligibles of God. While
Alcinous clearly expresses great admiration and appreciation for Aristotle, he
attempts to reevaluate Aristotle’s doctrine of divine nou:V in light of Plato’s
metaphysics, in particular Plato’s theory of Forms. More specifically, whereas
Aristotle’s conception of divine nou:V remains a significant advance in meta-
physics and a clear affirmation of the supremacy of nou:V over the different
degrees of reality, divine nou:V alone remains insufficiently fleshed out and
incomplete as a first principle. Alone, it remains a restricted and an impotent
concept. In order to reform the Aristotelian doctrine, Alcinous introduces
Plato’s doctrine of the Ideas as the thoughts of God and argues that the ac-
tivity of God thinking himself (of the identity of thought and its object in
the case of immaterial beings) (see Met. L 9, 1074b38–1075a5) entails the
contemplation of Ideas, which consists of the entire intelligible cosmos.23
This brilliant admixture of Aristotle and Plato in the second century, there-
fore, furnished Plotinus with the very rich and complex doctrine “That the
Intelligibles are not Outside the Intellect,” as found in Enneads V.5, a topic
that I shall discuss below.24
Once again, the Ideas are paradigms of the cosmos, as is the case in Plotinus’s
system, but they are not the design in the mind of the Demiurge or god, for the
orderer of the cosmos is intelligence in the soul. The former (i.e., intelligence) is
awakened from its potential state by the prior activity of actual nou:V. This pat-
tern and movement in Alcinous’s system is comparable to Plotinus’s presentation
of the formation of actual nou:V from the actual presence of the intelligibles at
the higher level.
194 Chapter 8

209. Alexander of Aphrodisias: The Intelligibles
Within Productive Intellect (nou:V)
Those who care to have something of the divine in themselves ought to be con-
cerned with being capable of thinking something like it. (Alexander, De Anima
91, 5ff.)
The [human] mind which knows the productive [divine] mind becomes, in a
certain sense, this, since knowing consists in the reception of the intelligible form
and in becoming similar to it. (Alexander, De Anima 89, 2ff.)
As I argued above, Aristotle was familiar with the argument for a first principle
prior to and more simple than nou:V, as was seen in his argument for the sim-
plicity of divine nou:V in Metaphysics L 7 and 9. Two other passages show that
Aristotle may have seriously considered the possibility of a first principle or god
to be prior in simplicity to nou:V: 1) Fr. 49R: Peri; eujch:V` +O qeo;V h] ejpevkeinav
ti tou: nou: Fr. 49 R3 (Simplicius, Commentarius in de Caelo, 485.19–22):
“That Aristotle has the notion of something above mind and substance is shown
by his saying clearly at the end of his book On Prayer that god is either mind
or something else beyond mind”; and 2) Eudeumian Ethics q 14, 1248a27–29:
lovgou d= ajrch; ouj lovgoV ajllav ti krei:tton` tiv oun a[n krei:tton kai;
ejpisthvmhV ei[V kai; nou: plh;n qeovV; “The starting-point of reasoning is not
reasoning, but something greater. What, then, could be greater even than knowl-
edge and intellect but god?”25 In any case, Aristotle’s official doctrinal verdict is
that no principle rises above or is absolutely prior in simplicity to divine nou:V.
Plotinus, of course, argues that Aristotle has lapsed by treating the first principle
as an Intellect, and it is for this reason that Plotinus assumes the responsibility
of correcting what he believes to be the Aristotelian and Peripatetic, especially
Alexander’s, misconceptions of the first principle. Plotinus, however, is slow to
condemn all of Alexander’s theological adaptations and clarifications of Aristo-
tle’s teachings, as we will see below. What is worth emphasizing at this point is
the serious attention Plotinus and his school paid to the writings and teachings
of Alexander of Aphrodisias, the formidable Aristotelian commentator, who
lived in the second century C.E., and to whom I turn now.
The Three Kinds of nou:V
1 nou:V uJlikovV
Alexander’s account of nou:V is found in 1) the De Anima 80–92, and 2) in the
De Intellectu (the Mantissa), and both accounts are distinct in significant doctri-
nal themes. The Alexandrian noetic doctrine was very influential in Neoplatonic
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 195

210. circles and in the development of Western thought.26 The Alexandrian noetic
doctrine consists of three dimensions. First, Alexander introduces the material
intellect, which is characterized as pure potency to know all sensible and intel-
ligible objects. Alexander, however, adamantly refuses to identify nou:V uJlikovV
with prime matter.
According to Aristotle, there are three intellects. One of these is the material intel-
lect; but “material” in this context does not mean that [the material intellect] is a
subject of inherence as matter is. (“‘Matter’ I define as that substrate which can
become this or that particular being through the presence of some form” [Aristotle,
Metaphysics VII: 3, 1028b36, 1029a20–21].) Since however the reality of matter
consists essentially in its capacity [to become all things], anything which possesses
the capacity [to become something else] is “material” inasmuch as it has this poten-
tiality. The material intellect is therefore that intellect which, although not actually
knowing, is able to become a knower; as such, this material intellect is a power of
the soul. (De Intellectu 106, 19–25)
Thus, nou:V uJlikovV, as a power of the soul, is not identical with prime matter,
the material uJpokeivmenon, which has the capacity of becoming “anything.”
Rather, only by analogy can we argue for a resemblance between the two, for
both function as a potential to be all things.27 In fact, the term “potential” as a
translation of duvnamiV is perhaps inaccurate. For, the Alexandrian conception
of duvnamiV or e{xiV is closer to the Aristotelian conception of first entelechy and
should properly be translated as “power.”28 In fact, Donini is inclined to translate
duvnamiV as “action.”
More specifically, Donini is responding and attempting to answer Moraux’s
perplexity about the Alexandrian account of material intellect, which should, by
all accounts, be completely passive but seems to possess the capacity to act ab-
stractly and to know the intelligible object. According to Moraux, the De Anima
of Alexander contains an underlying contradiction. The dunavmei nou:V, uJlikovV
nou:V, the potential or material intellect, is perceived as absolutely passive, for it
is compared to a blank writing tablet. “We must say, then, that the material intel-
lect is only a kind of propensity suitable for the reception of intelligible forms;
it is like a tablet on which nothing has been written, or (to express this better)
more like the blank condition of the tablet than the tablet itself, since the writ-
ing surface is an existent” (De Anima 84, 24–26). Yet, in spite of this, Alexander
characterizes the material intellect as a faculty, with the capacity to abstract and
know intelligible objects. It possesses, therefore, a complete intellective activity,
but, of course, only in potentiality, in dunavmei. The numerous sensory experi-
ences imprint a stabler image in the imagination, which later serves as a medium
through which the potential or material intellect can grasp (lh:yiV, perivlhyiV)
196 Chapter 8

211. the universal from the particular, material substrate, and this apprehension is
due to the prior activity of intellect.29 Alexander writes in De Anima 83, 2–13,
especially 11–13:
[W]hen a man is born, he possesses sense powers; and through the use of his
senses he acquires imaginations. Thus he has countless individual sensory expe-
riences of seeing, of hearing, and of the other senses; all these sensations leave
their impressions in him, and in his effort to preserve these impressions he gains
first the habit of memory. Thereupon, starting from memory and continuous
sensory activity, and aided by experience, he takes a kind of step upward from
“this particular something” to the “something of this general kind”—as when,
from a number of perceptions wherein sight perceives that this particular thing
is white, the viewer suddenly grasps that a color of this kind is white And the
same process takes place in each of the other senses. This comprehensive percep-
tion, which lays hold of the universal by means of the likeness that exists among
particular objects, is an intellective act; for to bring like things together in unity
is already a function of intellect.
Alexander’s account of the material intellect is not a simple name attributed
to the sensory faculties, but rather is described as a single and separate mental
faculty.
However, his account of the material intellect is very poor, as Moraux argues,
during his brief commentary of 83, 11–23:
Now just as actual sensation takes place by means of the apprehension of the
forms of sensible objects without their matter, so intellectual activity is the ap-
prehension of forms without matter. But it differs from sense perception in that
sensation, even though it does not grasp sensible forms as matter [receives form],
nevertheless perceives them as existing in matter. The common sensibles that are
everywhere interwoven with our perception of proper sensibles are witnesses to
the fact that in sensation we perceive the object under its material conditions;
for when we see color we apprehend along with it, and in the same sensory act,
extension and shape, motion and rest, and the like, and these added qualities
are evidence that color exists in a subject. Intellect, however, not only grasps its
forms in a different way than matter [receives form], but has for its object forms
that do not exist in matter nor under any material conditions. (See also Aristotle,
De Anima III.8, 432a1–2)
The intellectual act, according to Alexander, is not reduced to a simple reception
of forms. In fact, Moraux comments, “abstraction, réception et connaissance
constituent, dans la pensée de l’Aphrodisien, une opération unique, indivisible.
. . . [C]ette opération émane toute entière de l’intellect humain, et . . . d’un aspect
unique de cet intellect.”30 The central concern at this junction is this: How can the
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 197

212. initial stage of intellect’s development, which is characterized as being absolutely
passive, begin to assume an active part in its development?
Once again, Donini, followed by Schroeder, in order to respond properly to
these charges against Alexander, alters the translation and meaning of duvnamiV to
mean not “potency,” but “power,” and as resembling in the greater part the first
entelechy of Aristotle, rather than prime matter or pure material potentiality.
Bazán attempts to defend Alexander from these charges of contradiction by
arguing that in the De Intellectu, Alexander presents the potential or material
intellect as being actualized prior to its capacity to abstract the intelligible object.
nou:V uJlikovV is first influenced by the productive intellect, which is pure form,
independent of matter, as will be discussed below, and the causal influence of the
productive intellect subsequently produces an active dimension to nou:V uJlikovV,
enabling it to abstract the intelligible object from matter.
Étant l’intelligible par nature (fuvsei nohtovn) il est ‘l’agent de la pensée qui mène à
l’acte l’intellect matériel’ (De Intellectu 108, 19–22), non pas par une action directe
sur cet intellect réceptif, mais plutôt comme source d’intelligibilité, qui baigne les
formes dans une lumière qu’il possède au plus haut degré et qui s’est imposée à
l’intellect matériel comme sa perfection première, à laquelle cet intellect matériel
lui-même réfère toutes les formes engagées dans la matière. L’activité abstractive
appartient toujours à l’intellect humain, mais le fondement métaphysique de la
pensée est l’intellect divin, suprême intelligible et cause de l’intelligibilité et de
l’intellection. C’est pourquoi l’intellect matériel doit rapporter les formes (qu’il
sépare et par conséquent qui dépendent de lui) à cette perfection intelligible ‘venue
du dehors’ (et par conséquent indépendante de lui). Pour les rendre intelligibles,
l’homme doit établir entre les formes immergées dans la matière et ce ‘intellect par
nature’ une relation d’imitation (mimei:sqai) qui s’accomplit précisément par la sé-
paration (cwrivzein) (les formes sont rendues immatérielles comme l’intelligible en
acte). Une même idée est exprimée tant dans le De anima que dans le De Intellectu
et cette idée est très profonde: l’intellect humain, tout en étant la faculté abstrac-
tive (la cause efficiente), n’est pas le fondement dernier de la pensée et de la vérité.
Ce rôle (qui n’est pas idéogénésique mais métaphysique) revient à l’intellect divin
comme lumière, modèle et source de l’intelligibilité à laquelle toutes les formes
doivent être subordonnées.31
Schroeder paraphrases Bazán’s argument as follows: “Because the human intellect
is thus already actualized by the Active or productive Intellect before it abstracts
form from matter, the doctrine of the De Anima, that the potential or material
intellect may, although utterly passive, of itself abstract form from matter, is cor-
rected in the De Intellectu.”32
Aligned with Aristotle’s noetic doctrine, Alexander states that the human
intellect apprehends the forms of the material objects, independently of the mat-
198 Chapter 8

213. ter. The intellect and the intelligible object, the form, are identical in this case.33
This implies that our intellect must be devoid of form in order to apprehend and
receive form34 (see De Anima 84, 13–22; De Intellectu 106, 19–107.19; Aristotle,
De Anima III.4, 429a18ff).
nou:V ejn e{xiV
Second, the intellect in habitu or the acquired intellect suggests that it is a habi-
tus, an e{xiV, of knowing sensibles and intelligibles, and through the actualiza-
tion of its potentiality, it acquires the perfection and actualization necessary to
apprehend the form within matter. The human intellect subsequently ascends to
a stage of its development that enables it to function independently of external
form, “not merely abstracting its objects from their material embodiments when
these are presented to it, but considering them as already contained within it-
self”35 (see De Anima 85, 20–6, 6 and De Intellectu 107, 21–28). The intellect,
then, passes from the material intellect to the nou:V ejn e{xiV (see De Anima 82,
1) or nou:V ejpivkthtoV. “All men possess the potentiality for this development,
but it is not fully realized in all” (see De Anima 81, 13–83, 2). The intellect as
habitus, then, knows itself incidentally or per accidens when it knows its object.
It remains independent of the object, but in the act of knowing the object, the
intellect as habitus forms a unified reality. Alexander argues that “the intellect as
a habitus is capable of intellectual activity, and that it can apprehend intelligible
forms in their own reality, since it has ultimately the ability to know itself” (De
Anima 86, 16–20).
However, once the intellect as habitus becomes actualized by the acquired
formal object, it is capable of intuiting the universal according to its own capac-
ity—that is, independently of the sensible stimuli. Only when the intellect as
habitus knows the intelligible object can it identify itself with this object, for
these objects have now become its objects. Consequently, the objects, after they
have been apprehended by the knower as the thoughts of the knower, become the
knower, and are therefore raised to the intellect in act.36
The intellect which is a habitus is able to know itself, at least when it is actively
knowing [something else], but it does not know itself inasmuch as it is simply
intellect—in such a way, I mean, that the act both of its knowing and of its be-
ing known would be simultaneous acts wherein the knowing subject and the
thing known are identical. Its mode of self-knowledge is rather to be explained
by the fact that the intellect in act is identical with the intelligible object that is
being actually cognized. When therefore [the intellect that is habitus] knows the
intelligibles, it knows itself—with the qualification, of course, that it becomes an
intellect only in the act of knowing these intelligibles. For if the intellect in act is
the things which it knows, then in knowing these objects it becomes a knower of
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 199

214. itself. Thus by its act of knowing it comes to be identical with the objects of its
knowledge, but when it is not actually knowing then it is something other than
they. (De Intellectu 109, 4–20)
Whereas the forms within matter are rendered intelligible by the human intel-
lect, which apprehends them from their sensible counterpart, the forms inde-
pendent of matter are to be considered intelligible in themselves, not potentially,
but actually. The intelligible object is identical with the productive intellect only
insofar as the intelligible is in actuality (see De Anima 87, 24–88, 16, especially
88, 2–5).
nou:V ejnevrgeian or nou:V poihtikovV
Alexander proposes, finally, what is perhaps the most novel interpretation of
Aristotle’s noetic doctrine, especially of its aspects of causality: the productive in-
tellect, nou:V poihtikovV, which is the absolute condition for the abstraction and
separation of form by the intellect in habitu.37 Alexander’s doctrine of the pro-
ductive intellect differs from that of Aristotle in that while the latter appears to
include the productive intellect within the soul, Alexander advances the doctrine
of an absolutely separate and single substance, the productive intellect, which
governs the human mind and which is perceived as identical with the unmoved
Mover or divine nou:V (see Aristotle’s Met. L 7 and 9; and Alexander’s De Anima,
89, 11ff.). Our query concerns the process by which the productive intellect or
divine nou:V causes the material intellect to become intellect in habitu—that is,
how the material intellect can acquire the capacity to abstract the intelligible
from its material counterpart.38
The productive intellect is simultaneously the 1) ultimate intelligible and 2)
ultimate Intellect. Moreover, Alexander argues that it is the primary cause of the
material intellect’s capacity to abstract the intelligibles from matter. Alexander,
then, discusses the nature of the productive intellect in these two manners.
As mentioned above, the productive intellect qua ultimate intelligible is the
primary cause of the material intellect’s transition of material intellect to intel-
lect in habitu and to abstract form39 (see Alexander’s De Anima 88, 24–89, 8).
Alexander is clearly appealing to the Platonic doctrine of participation and is also
anticipating the Plotinian conception of causality—namely, that which possesses
such an attribute at the highest ontological level is the ultimate cause of the other
degrees of reality that possess that same attribute.40
The productive intellect’s preeminent influence on the material intellect and
intellect in habitu is ubiquitous, and it reflects an external causal source, for
divine nou:V, as Aristotle held, is outside of the human soul, and is considered
by Alexander as the third Mind (see Alexander’s De Intellectu 107, 29–108, 7).
200 Chapter 8

215. This line of thought, as mentioned, not only echoes Aristotle’s doctrine of divine
nou:V, but also Aristotle’s presentation of nou:V in De generatione animalium B 3,
736b27ff., the “mind which comes from outside, nou:V quvraqen,” and it is this
intellect that influences and leaves the intelligible impression of the transcendent
intelligibles in the human intellect, which occurs only when the human intel-
lect contemplates the ultimate intelligence, which is identical with the ultimate
intelligible. It is this productive intellect and its intelligible nature that create
the conditions for the ascension of material intellect into intellect in habitu (see
Alexander’s De Intellectu 111, 27ff.). The participation of the productive intel-
lect within us, which is an intellect that is simultaneous with the intelligible and
which allows the human mind to abstract and separate the forms from material
entities, remains an absolutely prior causal influence in every way (see Alex-
ander’s De Intellectu 108, 19–25). Thus, the intelligibility or forms of entities
are dependent on the productive intellect and the human intellect’s capacity to
abstract the intelligibles.41
Alexander presents two noetic functions of the productive intellect, whose
activity influences the material intellect. First, Alexander presents in the De
Intellectu 107, 29–108, 7, but especially 107, 33–34, the productive intellect
as assuming the role of producing within the material intellect an intelligent
propensity (e{xin evmpoiw:n aujtw thvn nohtikhvn) and as capable, as a result, of
influencing the intelligibles on the occasion of its participating in the material
intellect (see De Intellectu 107, 29–108, 7).
Second, however, in the De Anima 85, 3–5, Alexander argues that the role of
the productive intellect is to influence the intelligibles directly, independently of
its involvement with the material intellect, for it retains a propensity or disposi-
tion on which to be written:
As the surface of a tablet in which there inheres a disposition for being written
on would be affected if it were inscribed, but the disposition itself would undergo
no change by being actualized, since it is not the subject [of the writing]; so the
intellect is not a subject which is acted upon because it is none of the things which
actually exist. (De Anima 85, 3–5)
The material intellect is not a subject acted upon, for “it is none of the things
which actually exist” (85, 5).
While there is a discrepancy between both accounts of the role of produc-
tive intellect, the contradiction is merely apparent. The noetic function of the
productive intellect, rather, has a twofold function, for, on the one hand, it
assumes the causal responsibility of converting the material intelligibles into
actual intelligibles and is responsible for producing the intellectual capacity
within the material intellect, which converts it into an intellect in act. This
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 201

216. double function is also seen in the productive intellect’s influential activity
in the abstraction of forms from matter. In the De Anima 86, 4–6, Alexander
states that the intellect in habitus remains identical with its concepts, accord-
ing to its habitual state: “When the intellect as habitus is performing acts of
understanding, it becomes intellect ‘in act,’ but when it is simply in its habitual
state, it is, so to speak, [all] its concepts, which lie grouped together and at rest
[within it].” However, in the De Intellectu 107, 21–22, Alexander argues that
the intellect inherently possesses a habitus of intellecting (e{xin tou: noei:n),
which is the abstractive activity of the productive intellect acting immediately
upon the material intellect, actualizing it.42
Alexander’s Account of the Causal Role of
Productive Intellect: The Analogy of Light
The principle of prior simplicity is expressed in Alexander’s interpretation and
doctrine of the causal nature of the productive intellect, as evinced in his De
Anima and De Intellectu. In these two texts, Alexander of Aphrodisias presents
what would appear to be an ambiguity about how the productive intellect func-
tions and causes the material intellect, but in Alexander’s De Anima 88, 26–89,
11, one finds a possible solution to the aporia by examining the theme of light
and its causal role on the illuminated. This lengthy passage likens the productive
intellect to the activity of light. In so doing, Alexander appeals to the Platonic
doctrine of participation and, moreover, anticipates the Neoplatonic notion of
causality.43 Alexander attempts to explain the role of light as a relation between
the presence of the source of light and the illuminated. For example, in De
Anima 43, 4–11, Alexander explains the presence of the source of light and the
illuminated by way of relation (skevsiV) (see Alexander’s De Anima 42, 19–43,
11). This passage is significant for our examination of the role of the produc-
tive intellect, for Alexander is now putting forth a doctrine that asserts that the
cooperation of the source of light and the illumined is together the condition for
light44 (see also 46, 1–7).
The analogy of light exemplifies a similar relationship between the productive
intellect and its objects. On the one hand, the account of the productive intellect
as being the cause of intelligibility—an alternate notion of causality, one that
influenced Plotinus through a form of Platonic participation—is emphasized
in 88, 26–89, 1, while Alexander, on the other, also suggests that the effect that
is caused must also play a significant role in the illumination of intelligibility.45
Thus, the illuminated contributes to the process of illumination when it co-
operates with the source of light. With respect to the productive intellect and
the intelligible, Alexander accounts for the generation of intellection by way of
202 Chapter 8

217. their cooperation, by way of a natural and a metaphysical account, as Moraux has
highlighted. Moraux, in fact, suggests that the productive intellect is unnecessary,
for the naturalistic account of intellection operates independently of a metaphysi-
cal account, or the direct influence or operation of the productive intellect upon
the material intellect. However, Moraux appears to appeal also to a metaphysical
model in the account of intellection, for he argues that the productive intellect, as
the absolute intelligible, is the primary cause of the intelligibles.46 It is not, there-
fore, simply the productive intellect that generates intellection. As the absolute
intelligible, the productive intellect is the primary cause that influences the abstrac-
tion of the immanent intelligibles by the human intellect.
Merlan further qualifies this by asserting that the productive intellect is also
the cause of their existence or being.47 In De Anima 89, 7–11, Alexander writes:
In all cases in which one principle is primarily and another secondarily, that which
is secondarily derives its being from that which is primarily. What is more, if such
an Intellect should be the First Cause, which is cause and principle of being for
all others, it would be active in the sense that it is the cause of being to all the
intelligible.
In light of this famous passage, Alexander explicitly identifies the productive
intellect, as expressed in Aristotle’s De Anima III 5, with the unmoved Mover of
his Metaphysics.48
The intelligible objects of the productive intellect are eternal, Alexander as-
serts, and as a result, the productive intellect itself is eternal. If their existence
is not interrupted, then the intellective activity of the productive intelligence is
also uninterrupted. This is expressed in De Anima 90, 4–14, and especially 89,
21–90, 11 to 90, 11–19. With this doctrine, Alexander argues that the produc-
tive intellect thinks eternally, and asserts that the secondary intelligibles or the
transcendental intelligibles are identical with the activity that is intelligizing
them—that is, with the productive intellect—characterizing this intelligence
as self-intelligence. In line with Aristotle’s doctrine, Alexander asserts that the
productive intellect’s being is identical with and cooperates with its intellection
or intellective activity.
Alexander argues that the productive intelligence, as has been said, is a
“cause” (ai[tioV) of the transformation of material intelligence in order to raise
it to the intellect in habitus, as light is the superior cause of visibility. We find
degrees of light in the hierarchy of the cosmos, for the illuminated carried less
light than light itself. In this manner, the productive intellect is the superior in-
telligible (to; mavlista nohtovn) and all other intelligibles of a lower order are
inferior to the productive intellect.49 As was seen, Alexander clearly advances
a doctrine of causality that influenced Plotinus greatly.50 Moreover, at 88,
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 203

218. 26–89, 11, Alexander refines his notion of causality, that the productive intel-
lect not only elevates the material intellect to the intellect in habitu, but also
generates or produces the intelligibles into existence through the intellection
of them.51 This process has less to do with the question of their preexistence
than with their appearance into existence as a result of the relation between
the material intellect and the intellect in habitu and the immanent intelligibles,
which do not exist independently of their being intelligized by the productive
intellect, unlike the transcendent intelligibles, which are identical with the
productive intellect in its eternal activity of intellection.52
Moreover, Merlan highlights two grades of intelligibles—namely, transcen-
dent and immanent intelligibles. He states that the transcendent intelligibles
are caused by the productive intellect’s contemplating them eternally. With
respect to the immanent intelligibles, Merlan states that the preeminence of the
transcendent intelligibles is the primary cause of the immanent intelligibles—of
both their being and their intelligibility.53 Upon the human’s contemplation
of these intelligibles from its potential intellect, the human potential intellect
becomes actualized. Only upon the intellection of potential intellect within the
human can these intelligibles pass into actuality. The primary cause of human
intellection, therefore, is the productive intellect. In fact, the immanent intel-
ligibles have their being through the act of intelligence, which raises them from
their dormant state within matter. That is, as intelligibles, they exist only in
and through the activity of thinking them. Schroeder astutely recognizes a mild
dilemma in this line of thinking and poses the question in the following way:
“How are these two notions, that the Active Intellect qua supreme intelligible
is the cause of the intelligibility and existence of the immanent intelligibles and
that these exist through the address of human intellection, to be reconciled?”54
The answer to this dilemma, according to Schroeder, is to be found in
Alexander’s De Anima 88, regarding the analogous comparison of light to the
productive intellect. The productive intellect, which is analogous to the supreme
source of light qua luminous, is the supreme source of intelligibility. Moreover,
its status as the preeminent intelligible renders it the primary cause of the intel-
ligibles in the intelligible within the productive intellect—the second order of
intelligibles—as compared to the generator of light, the preeminent visible, be-
ing the ultimate cause of visibility to other visibles.55 Yet, just as the product of
light is a result or effect of a cooperation between the source of light and that
which is transparently potential at the moment of their juxtaposition or union,
so, too, a unique dynamic occurs in the human soul. While the immanent intel-
ligibles possess no existence or intelligibility prior to the judgment of the human
intellect, their existence and intelligibility are raised into “juxtaposition with
the Active Intellect,” as Schroeder states, “in an act of intellectual illumination
204 Chapter 8

219. and they are brought into being and rendered intelligible. This illumination is
a joint effect proceeding from the immanent intelligibles abstracted from their
material substrate and the Active Intellect.”56 Upon the contemplation of the
second order of intelligibles, the human mind becomes identical with them and
thus participates in the life of the productive intellect.57 Moreover, the first order
of intelligibles, the immanent intelligibles, are equally raised to the level of the
second order through the human intellect’s participation in and contemplation
of the transcendent intelligibles of the second order in the productive intellect.
Thus, prior to the actual event of unification with the productive intellect, the
intelligibles within the productive intellect, the intelligibles of the second order,
are related to both the productive intellect and the immanent intelligibles (i.e.,
the second order intelligibles). Only through this interactive dynamic are the im-
manent intelligibles raised to a level of existence, enabling the intellect to abstract
the intelligibles from their material foundation, by which the mind becomes
illuminated.58 The productive intellect, therefore, plays a prominent causal role
in the existence and intelligibility of immanent intelligibles and, by implication,
of human intellection.59
It is traditionally claimed that Alexander’s noetic and metaphysical doctrines
are naturalistic—that the material intellect “evolves” into the intellect in habitu,
culminating in the divine nou:V, the productive intellect or god. This naturalistic
position is untenable in light of recent interpretation. The renewed interpretation,
in fact, resembles the doctrine of priority of simplicity. The human mind can make
the transition from a material intellect to an intellect in habitu because of their
contact with the productive intellect (i.e., of the productive intellect’s participation
and presence in the lower levels of intellect).60 Alexander, influenced by the Middle
Platonists, suggests that the human intellect is eventually assimilated into the intui-
tive activity of the productive intellect, of “our minds becoming equal to the divine
Mind” (De Anima 89.2ff). In this way, Alexander attempts to overcome the strict
duality between first principle and its effect. The event of assimilation amounts
to an immediate participation in the whole. However, Alexander still upholds the
Aristotelian position of the mortality of the soul. Upon the immediate grasping of
the productive intellect, our intellect becomes this Intellect and is therefore raised
to an immortal realm61 (see De Anima 90, 13–23).
Alexander attempts to overcome the Aristotelian duality between the divine
nou:V and the world or the human intellect. Human cognition remains the
most viable link to the totality and universality of the cosmos and is an expres-
sion of the continuity of causality from the productive intellect to the lower
levels of intellection.
However, this assimilation entails the full contemplative union of the human
intellect with the transcendent intelligibles—in the plural.62 The plurality of the
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 205

220. intelligible realm has generated much controversy, but it would appear that Al-
exander remains true to the Aristotelian doctrine of divine nou:V and its content.
The plurality of intelligibles within the productive intellect greatly influenced
Plotinus, as will be seen below, in spite of the skepticism around this claim. Ar-
istotle admits to the existence of such substances (see Met. Z 17, 1041a8), which
are identified as the unmoved movers of the heavenly spheres.63 The intelligibles
are expressed as eternal objects of the productive intellect,64 a doctrine that
clearly anticipates Plotinus’s doctrine of nou:V, as Donini has shown.65 Plotinus
differs, however, from Alexander in that he concludes that the intelligibles are
not perceptible intelligibles within the celestial heavens, but that they are indi-
vidual intelligibles, nonetheless.
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined the general philosophical tenets of Alcinous’s
metaphysics and theology, and the ambiguity of Alcinous’s statement of an
intellect superior to the cosmic intellect. This superior principle clearly fur-
nished Plotinus with the conceptual tools to argue for a principle superior to
nou:V. However, what Plotinus retains from Alcinous is the germinal insight of
multiple content, the intelligibles, operating within nou:V. Only with Alexander
of Aphrodisias do we see a thorough argument justifying the doctrine of the
intelligibles operating with the productive intellect, which functions as final and
efficient causality, for it governs the world and participates within the natural
world, in which is found the material intellect. And, upon the activity and
participation of the productive intellect, the material intellect is raised to nou:V
in habitu. Nevertheless, with Alexander and (qualifiedly) Alcinous, nou:V is the
highest and most superior principle in the cosmos. No principle can supersede
nou:V. Alcinous, Alexander, and Plotinus share a common goal: to argue philo-
sophically for and to justify an absolutely simple principle, which functions as
a final and efficient cause.
Notes
1. This would make better sense, of course, if nou:V were not limited to an indi-
vidual’s intellect.
2. Alcinous, in fact, does not actually speak of God as novhsiV nohvsewV, but he does
admit a final causality in the supreme Intellect, which is an adherence to Aristotle’s doc-
trine of divine nou:V. Moreover, Alcinous does write that God thinks himself and his own
thoughts. This is a clear reference to Metaphysics L 9, 1074b15–1075a11 (see Epitome,
ch. 10, which will be discussed below). Alcinous, rather, wishes to stress the line of Plato’s
theory that the ideas are the thoughts of God.
206 Chapter 8

221. 3. See P. Merlan, “Aristocles and Alexander Aphrodisias,” in The Cambridge History
of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy, ed. A. H. Armstrong (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1967), 54 and 117.
4. With respect to the relation between the Stoics and Alcinous, see Merlan, “Aris-
tocles and Alexander Aphrodisias,” 65–66. For further research on Aristotle’s discussion
of abstraction, see J. Cleary, “On the Terminology of ‘Abstraction’ in Aristotle,” Phronesis
30 (1985), 13–45, esp. 26–30.
5. See Merlan, “Aristocles and Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 66, fn.2; see Xenocrates
(=Fr. 30 Heinze); and J. Dillon, Alcinous. The Handbook of Platonism, translated with
introduction and commentary by J. Dillon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993),
96. The discussion about what things have forms continued well into later Neoplatonic
thought, appearing especially in the thought of Proclus. In his Parmenides Commentary,
815, 15ff., Proclus provides an index of introductory questions regarding this theme.
“What things have forms and what things do not? We ought to consider this question
first so as to have a general theory of forms from which to follow Plato’s thought in this
passage (sc. Prm. 130c–d). And it is no slight matter to deal with these ‘hackneyed top-
ics,’ as they have been called (Phlb. 14d), especially if one does so in the following way:
(1) Is there a paradigm of intelligent being in the Demiurge? (2) Is there a form of soul,
and are they one or many? Are there paradigms of irrational life, and if so, how? (3) And
of natural objects (physeis), and how many? (4) And of body, qua body, and if so, is it
one or many? (5) And of matter? And if so, is it of the matter of perishable things only,
or of the heavenly bodies as well? (6) If there are forms of animals, are they generic only,
or do they include the individual species? And of plants likewise? (7) Are there forms of
individuals along with these? (8) Or forms of the parts of animals, as the eye, the finger,
or suchlike? (9) And forms of attributes, or of some and not of others? (10) Are there also
forms of the products of art and of the arts themselves? (11) And finally, forms of evil
things? If we take each of these questions in turn, we shall be enabled thus to discover
Plato’s thought.” With this list of introductory questions to Proclus’s Commentary on the
Parmenides, we are given a clear confirmation that these questions were discussed within
the Academy and during the time of Alcinous, for Proclus takes up many of the themes
discussed in Alcinous.
6. See Merlan, “Aristocles and Alexander Aphrodisias,” 66–67.
7. See A. Wlosok, Laktanz und die philosophische Gnosis: Untersuchungen zu Ge-
schichte und Terminologie der gnostischen Erlösungsvorstellung (Heidelberg: C. Winter,
1960), 252–56.
8. See Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 102.
9. See Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 102.
10. Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 103.
11. Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 103.
12. See P. Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness: Problems of the Soul in
the Neoaristotelian and Neoplatonic Tradition (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1963), 63ff.; and
also Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1977), 280–85.
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 207

222. 13. See A. H. Wolfson, “Albinus and Plotinus on Divine Attributes,” Harvard Theo-
logical Review 45 (1952): 115–30.
14. See Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 107.
15. In fact, it has been argued that Alcinous was directly influenced by Philo. See
H. A. Wolfson, “The Knowability and Describability of God in Plato and Aristotle,”
Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 56–57 (1947): 233–49; and “Albinus and Ploti-
nus on Divine Attributes,” Harvard Theological Review 45 (1952): 115, 117–30. See
also H. Dörrie, “Article ‘Albinos,’” in RE Suppl. 12 (1970): 14–22; K. Kleve, “Albinus
on God and the One,” Symbolae Osloenses 47 (1972): 66–69; J. H. Loenen, “Albinus’
Metaphysics: An Attempt at Rehabilitation,” Mnemosyne 9 and 10 (1956–1957):
296–319 and 35–56; J. Mansfeld, “Three Notes on Albinus,” Theta-Pi 1 (1972):
61–80; E. Orth, “Les oeuvres d’Albinos le platonicien,” Acta Classica 16 (1947):
113–14; A. N. M. Rich, “The Platonic Ideas as Thoughts of God,” Mnemosyne 4
(1954): 123–33; J. M. Rist, “Albinus as a Representative of Eclectic Platonism,” in his
Eros and Psyche (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1964); D. T. Runia, “A Note on
Albinus/Alcinous Didaskalikos XIV,” Mnemosyne 39 (1986): 131–38; R. W. Sharples,
“The Criterion of Truth in Philo Judaeus, Alcinous and Alexander of Aphrodisias,”
in The Criterion of Truth, ed. P. Huby and G. Neal (Liverpool: Liverpool University
Press, 1989), 231–56; A. Spanier, “Der Logos Didaskalikos des Platoniskers Albinus”
(diss., Freiburg, 1920); H. A. S. Tarrant, “Alcinous, Albius, Nigrinus,” Antichthon 19
(1985): 87–95; R. E. Witt, Albinus and the History of Middle Platonism (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1937).
16. The term ajfairevsiV is also used by Plotinus, Enn. VI.7.36.7ff.: “We are taught
about it [sc. the Good] by comparisons and negations [ajfairevsiV] and knowledge of the
things which come from it and certain methods of ascent by degrees.”
17. See Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 110.
18. See Wolfson, “Albinus and Plotinus on Divine Attributes,” 120–21, for the
rapport between negation and privation in the tradition of Neoplatonism and in Mai-
monides.
19. This is also expressed in Plotinus (see Enns. VI.7.36.7, and also V.3.14.7–19). See
also O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 54–55; F. M. Schroeder, “Saying
and Having in Plotinus,” Dionysius 9 (1985): 75–82; and F. M. Schroeder, “Plotinus and
Language,” in The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus, 336–55, esp. 336–39 and 349–50.
20. See Wolfson, “Albinus and Plotinus on Divine Attributes,” 123–25, for a discus-
sion of Alcinous’s third way and of Plotinus’s similar discussion to the grades of ascension
(see Enn. VI.7.36.7–8). See Dillon, The Handbook of Platonism, 110.
21. See Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 64ff.
22. Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 68.
23. See Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not
Outside the Intellect,’” 404. For further reading on the appropriation of Aristotle and
Plato in the mid-fourth century C.E., see Aristotle and Plato in the Mid-Fourth Century.
Symposium Aristotelicum 1. Studia graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia XI, ed. I. Düring and
G. E. L. Owen (Göteborg: Elanders Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1960).
208 Chapter 8

223. 24. See Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not
Outside the Intellect,’” 404.
25. See Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 7–8. These two pas-
sages indicate that Aristotle was familiar with the theory that a first principle can
transcend divine nou:V. However, Aristotle resolved the dilemma in the manner sug-
gested in chapter 5, that divine nou:V is the ultimate principle of prior simplicity, for
its object is not different than itself—unlike Plotinus’s allegation of Aristotle’s noetic
doctrine. Plotinus, therefore, takes it upon himself to “correct” Aristotle and the Neo-
aristotelians, such as Alexander, from what appears to be, from the Plotinian view, a
philosophical heresy. See also J. Rist, “The End of Aristotle’s On Prayer,” American
Journal of Philology 106 (1985): 110–13.
26. See R. Sharples, “Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation,” in
Aufstief und Niedergang der Römischen Welt, vol. 2, ed. W. Haase and H. Temporini
(Berlin/New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1987), 1204–25, esp. 1204, fn.85. See in par-
ticular, A. Fotinis, Alexander of Aphrodisias. Commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima, trans.
A. P. Fotinis (New York: University Press of America, 1980), 285–339; J. Rist, “On
Tracking Alexander of Aphrodisias,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 48 (1966):
82–90; G. Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 4 (Albany: State Unversity of
New York Press, 1987), 27–33 and 461–63; and P. Henry, “Une Comparaison chez
Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin,” Les Sources de Plotin, Entretiens Hardt V (Vandoeuvres-
Génève: Fondation Hardt, 1960): 429–49, esp. 429–38, 443–44. Henry has dem-
onstrated that Plotinus’s writings reflect the writings and doctrines of Alexander on
the question of nou:V. While Plotinus accepts Alexander’s teachings, he also rejects a
number of them and appeals to Aristotle’s writings directly instead. For example, while
Alexander’s doctrine of u{lh nohthv did not seem to satisfy Plotinus, Plotinus is happy
to accept Alexander’s interpretation of nou:V poihtikovV, within which is contained
the intelligibles coexisting and cofunctioning in order causally to influence the intel-
ligibles of the immanent order. Henry’s thesis was challenged by J. Rist, “On Tracking
Alexander of Aphrodisias.” According to Rist, while Alexander speaks of the first cause
as a nohtovn, which would explain Plotinus’s reference to the “object of intellection of
nou:V not as the Forms but as the One” [84] (see Enns. III.8.11 and V.4.2), Plotinus,
at Enn. VI.9.6.53 ff., is severely critical of Alexander’s conclusion that the productive
intellect is a nou:V now:n. Rather, the first principle—namely, the One—cannot admit
of such an identification, as Alexander states in De Anima 89.4–5, for the One is
prior in simplicity to nou:V and cannot admit of any content or multiplicity. This is a
clear affirmation of his strict monistic system. Plotinus is, furthermore, critical of the
“heterodox” Peripatetics, who claim that divine nou:V can know the world and itself
[see Enn. VI.7.39.8–15] (Rist, “On Tracking Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 85–86). The
Aristotelian first principle can know only itself, for it is aJplou:V, and knowledge of
the world would admit of potentiality within nou:V. (This critique of Plotinus’s would
naturally, by implication, extend itself to De Koninck’s thesis that the divine nou:V can
know the world and itself. However, I have shown in chapter 5 that it is philosophi-
cally reasonable for Aristotle’s divine nou:V to know the world and itself concurrently.)
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 209

224. See also K. Corrigan’s exceptional reflection on the admission of power and poten-
tiality within the activity of nou:V in Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of
Substance: Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander of Aphrodisias (Leuven: Peeters, 1996), 283–89.
27. See P. Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète de la Noétique d’Aristote (Paris: Les
Belles Lettres, 1942), 110–19, for a discussion of the problems inherent in Alexander’s
presentation of nou:V uJlikovV—a subject that is beyond the scope of this book.
28. Schroeder writes, “We might observe that dynamis in Aristotle (Met. 1046A) may
have the sense of power to act, as well as the power to be acted upon” (“The Potential or
Material Intellect and the Authorship of the de Intellectu: A Reply to B. C. Bazán,” Symbolae
Osloenses 57 [1982]: 117). Earlier, Schroeder writes that his intentions are to show that “the
term dynamis in Alexander may bear the sense of ‘first entelechy’ in Aristotle” (117). This
has been especially argued by P. L. Donini, “L’anima e gli elementi nel de anima di Ales-
sandro di Afrodisia,” Atti della Academia delle Scienze del Torino 105 (1970): 85.
29. See Schroeder, “The Potential or Material Intellect and the Authorship of the de
Intellectu,” 116.
30. See Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète de la Noétique d’Aristote, 71, 74–75,
173. On the question of abstraction of universals in Alexander of Aphrodisias, see
M. M. Tweedale, “Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Views on Universals,” Phronesis 29 (1984):
279–303.
31. B. C. Bazán, “L’authenticité du ‘De intellectu’ attribué à Alexandre d’Aphrodise,”
Revue philosophique de Louvain 71 (1973): 468–87: 481–82.
32. Schroeder, “The Potential or Material Intellect and the Authorship of the de Intel-
lectu,” 115–25: 117.
33. See Alexander’s De Anima 84.22–24: pro; ga;r tou: noei:n oujde;n w[n ejnergeiva,
o{tan noh/: ti, to; noouvmenon givnetai, ei[ ge to; noei: aujtw:/ ejn tw:/ to; eidoV e[cein
to; noouvmenon; 86.14ff.: ejstin oJ kat= ejnevrgeian nou:V oujde;n a[llo h] to; eidoV to;
noouvmenon` See also 86.29ff.; 90.1ff.; 90.10ff.; 91.7ff.; and De Intellectu 108.3–15. See
Aristotle, De Anima III.4, 430a2 ff. See also Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète de la
Noétique d’Aristote, 82–87, especially 83, where Moraux reminds us that after Alexander
of Aphrodisias, all Aristotelian commentators assumed the tripartite distinction of intel-
lect: nou:V dunavmei, nou:V ejn e{xei, and nou:V ejnevrgeian. “Ce sont donc ces quelques
lignes qui on déterminé la charpente de la noétique alexandriste, laquelle est demeurée
classique dans toute la scolastique grecque.” See also 174ff.; and R. Norman, “Aristotle’s
Philosopher-God,” Phronesis 14 (1969): 72.
34. “[A]nd so our intellect,” comments Sharples, “as it is at our birth, is likened to
matter and referred to as the ‘material’ or ‘potential’ intellect (see De Anima 81, 22–25,
84, 28; De Intellectu 106, 19–26). Alexander goes so far as to say that it should be likened,
not to a tablet not yet written on, but to the absence of writing on the tablet (see 84,
24–27)” (Sharples, “Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation,” 1204–5).
The conception of the material intellect as pure potentiality endowed with some capacity
to abstract the intelligible from matter possesses certain difficulties, as Moraux has stated
(Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète de la Noétique d’Aristote, 75ff. and 110–19).
However, Schroeder and Donini, as mentioned above, attempt to resolve this problem by
210 Chapter 8

225. defining the potency in the material intellect as a first entelechy or actuality, which would
justify the material intellect’s capacity for abstraction, for it is only potential in relation to
nou:V ejn e{xei (Schroeder, “The Potential or Material Intellect and the Authorship of the
de Intellectu,” 117). See also P. Thillet, “Matérialisme et Théorie de l’Âme et de l’Intellect
chez Alexandre d’Aphrodise,” Revue philosophique 171 (1981): 5–24: 14–17, where he
states that the potential intellect is similar to matter by virtue of its function and not its
nature or essence, and 19–20.
35. Sharples, “Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation,” 1205.
36. See A. P. Fotinis, The De Anima of Alexander of Aphrodisias: A Translation and
Commentary (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979), 316–17.
37. The productive intellect is the ultimate efficient cause that allows for the mate-
rial intellect to separate the intelligibles from the material objects and that becomes the
condition that raises the material intellect to the intellect in habitu.
38. Alexander furnishes two different replies to the problem, which are not inconsis-
tent with one another. This will be discussed below.
39. See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 4, 30.
40. In this sense, Alexander has appropriated the Platonic doctrine of causality and
has also anticipated the Plotinian doctrine of causality (see Reale, A History of Ancient
Philosophy, vol. 4, 31).
41. This resembles the theory of being and causality in Plato’s Republic rather than the
theory found in Aristotle’s De Anima and Metaphysics. On the doctrine that nou:V comes
from outside, see Alexander in De Intellectu 110, 4. See Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise,
exégète de la Noétique d’Aristote, 144 ff., and his article, “Aristoteles, der Lehrer Alexanders
von Aphrodisias,” Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 49 (1967): 169–82.
42. See Fotinis, Alexander of Aphrodisias. Commentary of Aristotle’s De Anima, 323.
43. Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 39, referred by Schroeder,
“The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of Alexander of Aphro-
disias,” Hermes 109 (1981): 215.
44. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 218–19.
45. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 219.
46. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 221–22, referring to Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète
de la Noétique d’Aristote, 88–92 and Bazán, “L’authenticité du ‘De intellectu’ attribué à
Alexandre d’Aphrodise,” 471, fn.2 and 478–79.
47. Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 39.
48. See Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not
Outside the Intellect,’” 406; and Moraux, Alexandre d’Aphrodise, exégète de la Noétique
d’Aristote, 93–94.
49. In this way, it influences the material intellect to become intelligible, in that it
can abstract the form embedded in matter. (See also Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism,
Metaconsciousness, 39.)
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 211

226. 50. “It is obvious that Alexander presents a very particular type of causation. It is as
close to what is causality in Neoplatonism as possible” (Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism,
Metaconsciousness, 39).
51. See Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 39.
52. “They are coeternal with their being intelligized. (88.3–5) And this kurivwV nou:V
Alexander designates as prw:ton ai[tion (89.17–18),” says Merlan (Merlan, Monopsy-
chism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 39).
53. Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 38–39.
54. Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 223.
55. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 224.
56. Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 224.
57. See De Anima 87, 29–88, 10; 90, 2–4; 84, 22–24; Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysti-
cism, Metaconsciousness, 16ff.; G. Movia, “Allesandro di Afrodisis tra naturalismo e mis-
ticismo,” in Saggi e ricerche su Alessandro di Afrodisia, Avicenna, Miceli, Brentano, Jaspers,
Ingarden, Carr, storiografia filosofica italiana, ebraismo (Padova: Antenore, 1970), 15–23.
58. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 224.
59. See Schroeder, “The Analogy of the Active Intellect to Light in the ‘de Anima’ of
Alexander of Aphrodisias,” 225.
60. The human intellect, therefore, possesses the capacity to abstract the intelligibles
or forms from the sensible object, but it is incapable of operating this abstractive capacity
by itself, for it requires the participation of the productive intellect, which, as we have
seen, enables the material intellect to rise to the intellect in habitu. The productive intel-
lect, the intellect that comes from “outside,” is, therefore, the necessary condition for the
acquisition of scientific knowledge.
61. See Reale, A History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. 4, 30–31.
62. See Sharples, “Alexander of Aphrodisias: Scholasticism and Innovation,” 1209–
10; Merlan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 14–17; Fotinis, The De Anima
of Alexander of Aphrodisias, 317–19.
63. See Aristotle, Metaphysics L 6, 1071b21; Alexander, in metaph. 179.1ff.; and Mer-
lan, Monopsychism, Mysticism, Metaconsciousness, 17, 47 and fn.1. In Aristotle’s writings, it
would appear that the active Intellect is another kind of pure form, whereas for Alexander
it is identical with the unmoved Mover. See P. Donini, Tre studi sull’Aristotelismo nel II
secolo d.C. (Torino: Turin, 1974), 34 and fn.78, who highlights the fact that Aristotle uses
the term oujsiva and not ei[dh by referring to the unmoved Movers in Metaphysics L 8,
1073a34ff. See also Ross, Commentary on the Metaphysics, 1924, ci.
64. See H. J. Krämer, Der Ursprung der Geistmetaphysik: Untersuchungen zur Ge-
schichte des Platonismus zwischen Platon und Plotin (Amsterdam: Verlag P. Schippers,
1964), 159–73. Merlan further suggests, “Aristocles and Alexander Aphrodisias,” 118, by
grasping the essence of the divine nou:V, our intellect simultaneously grasps the eternal
212 Chapter 8

227. intelligible objects—a claim which anticipates Plotinus’s theory of nou:V. See also A. C.
Lloyd, Form and Universal in Aristotle (Liverpool: ARCA: Classical and Medieval Texts,
Papers and Monographs 4, 1980), 19–20, fn.1. However, while Alexander in his com-
mentary on the Metaphysics affirms the subordination of the unmoved movers to the
unmoved Mover (in metaph 721.32), he stresses in the De Anima 89.9–11 that the intel-
ligibles, the unmoved movers, are identical with the productive intellect.
65. Donini has shown that the singular and plural inversions in De Anima 87–90 are
indication enough that Alexander subscribed to the doctrine of a multiplicity of intel-
ligibles within the productive intellect—each distinct, yet identical with the other intel-
ligibles (see Donini, Tre studi sull’Aristotelismo nel II secolo d.C., 29–35).
Alcinous and Alexander on the Intelligibles within nou:V 213

229. 215
c h a pte r nine
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V
An Appropriation and Critique
of Aristotle’s Noetic Doctrine1
Introduction
In this chapter, I will discuss Plotinus’s philosophical reasons for admitting of
a duality and multiplicity within nou:V. We have seen in chapters 6 and 7 that
the Indefinite Dyad constitutes the condition for the multiplicity to arise in the
inchoate nou:V, after which nou:V becomes defined or actualized.
However, what we must compensate for now is the very dual and multiple
nature of nou:V. After our discussion of Alcinous and Alexander of Aphrodisias,
Plotinus’s presentation of the nature of nou:V will give context to this discussion.
For nou:V, as Plotinus argues repeatedly, is not the first principle, since its content
is multiple and its form is dual. It is obvious from Plotinus’s appropriation of
the central tenets of Alcinous and especially of Alexander, that the intelligibles
exist within nou:V and are not determinable objects imposed from without. This
self-generation of intelligibility and determination renders nou:V subordinate to
the One, for nou:V must be a complex substance, according to Plotinus. However,
while the intelligibles exist within nou:V, they are independent of nou:V and can,
as a result, modify and determine nou:V according to their structure. This claim
clearly echoes Plotinus’s firm rejection and critique of Aristotle’s and Alexander’s
argument for the simplicity of nou:V and of the identity of the content of nou:V
with nou:V itself. In other words, while Aristotle and Alexander claim that the in-
telligible objects are purely actual and cannot pose a formal distinction between
themselves and nou:V, Plotinus sees a real distinction between these two and, in
this light, must posit a principle prior in simplicity to nou:V, distancing himself

230. 216 Chapter 9
from the Aristotelian and Neoaristotelian doctrine of the absolute simplicity of
nou:V. Plotinus states this principle in Enn. V.4[7].1.5–15:
For there must be something prior to all things which is simple, and this must be
different from all that comes after it, being by itself, not mixed with those that
come from it, and yet being able to be present in the others in a different way, be-
ing truly one, and not something else which is then one. . . . For what is not first
is in need of what is prior to it, and what is not simple is in need of those which
are simple in it so that it may be from them.
Once again, Plotinus argues that the activity of nou:V, its novhsiV, is ajovristoV
and, consequently, is determined by the intelligible objects that it receives.2
It should be emphasized that Plotinus’s notion of nou:V and the unity of nou:V
and the intelligibles are not directly responsible for the fabrication and ordering
of the sensible cosmos, and in this light, they do not correspond to a Demiurge.
Only the logoi from the intelligible realm are responsible for creating order in
the sensible cosmos, for they alone have the power to model the sensible cos-
mos in approximation to the intelligible realm. The logoi, then, depend on the
intelligible world to the same degree to which the Demiurge, as Plato presents
it in the Timaeus, depends on the paradigmatic intelligibles for organizing and
fabricating the sensible cosmos. (This is also Cornford’s interpretation of the
Demiurge.) When Plotinus declares that nou:V is “the true Demiurge and maker”
(Enn. V.9.3.26 [see II.3.18.15]), he does not intend to identify nou:V with Plato’s
Demiurge. Rather, in this context, nou:V as a “Demiurge” merely provides the
Soul with the logoi or the forms of the sensible realm, in order to allow the soul
to organize the sensible cosmos into a whole. The doctrine that the intelligibles
are within nou:V relates not to the question about the paradigm that God may
have used in order to order the cosmos, but rather to two different questions
altogether: namely, what is the nature of the relationship between the absolute
intuitive nou:V and its intelligible objects, and how are we to conceptualize this
relationship?3
Plotinus’s Noetic Doctrine
Plotinus was able to formulate his doctrine of nou:V and of the One, in part,
because of his reading and acceptance of many of the teachings of Alexander of
Aphrodisias. Alexander’s Aristotelian metaphysics and psychology, especially of
the productive nou:V and its identification with the unmoved Mover—namely,
nou:V—were studied in considerable depth within Plotinus’s school. Alexander’s
interpretation of and commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima III. 4–6 are an at-
tempt to make explicit what seemingly appears to be an ambiguous and cryptic

231. Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 217
reflection on the nature of nou:V and its relation to its object. More specifically,
his interpretation of productive nou:V impressed and influenced Plotinus, as can
be seen in Plotinus’s argument for the immanent and universal or ubiquitous
activity of nou:V as it apprehends its objects, which are not outside of nou:V (see
Enn. V.3.5).
This resembles Aristotle’s assertion in Metaphysics L 9 that nou:V is simple
because its object of thought is itself, and that they are one. However, whereas
Aristotle argues that part of the soul is separable and unmixed, without which
the passive nou:V could not think, Alexander suggests the whole soul is passive
(or material) and thus asserts a universal, cosmic productive nou:V that actualizes
the human passive nou:V.
But the first intellect is superior to [our] intellect, in that it knows nothing other
than itself. . . . [It] knows itself as intelligible object, inasmuch as it is an intellect;
that it is constantly in the act of knowing itself, inasmuch as it is both intellect
and intelligible in act; and that it knows only itself, inasmuch as it alone is simple
[intellect and intelligible]. As the uniquely simple intellect, it is oriented to the
knowledge of some simple object; as uniquely simple among the intelligible, it is
itself this simple object. (Alexander, De Intellectu 109, 22–23)
The productive nou:V alone enables us to think, for it is self-sufficient and
simple. This reformulation of nou:V (Mantissa 112, 18–113, 2 Bruns) as the
identification of the first cause with the productive nou:V in De Anima III.5,
and Alexander’s treatment of intuitive activity (De Anima 87, 43–88,5; Mantissa
108, 7–9, 16–19, 109, 23–110, 3), enables Plotinus to express the dynamic rela-
tion between cosmic nou:V and the individual nou:V (see Enns. I.1.7–8; V.3.3–4;
VI.4–3; V.5.12). However, Plotinus differs from Alexander in that he will only
admit a relative simplicity within nou:V, thereby putting nou:V in second place.
Not only is the content of nou:V distinct and plural but nou:V also remains rest-
less and agitated, due to its inability to grasp conceptually the One as its object
of thought, for the One is indeterminate and, as a result, cannot be reduced to
an object of thought. The One is impredicable (see Enn. V.4.2.13–20). What
is essential to note here is Plotinus’s recognition of 1) Alexander’s identification
of the first Cause and the productive nou:V, and 2) the doctrine that the intel-
ligibles of nou:V are not outside nou:V—that is, that the intelligible content (i.e.,
the Forms) are intrinsic to nou:V. While the intelligible objects are multiple, they
are, nevertheless, located within nou:V.
In my view, Alexander’s interpretation of nou:V adds a new dimension, or at
least makes explicit what remains latent within the Aristotelian text: that nou:V is
not only a final cause, but also an efficient cause. This observation by Alexander
will not go unnoticed by Plotinus, as is seen in his exposé of the One.4

232. Plotinus writes in Enn. V.4.2 that nou:V
is not a simplex; it is a manifold; it exhibits a certain composite quality—within
the Intellectual or divine order, of course—as the principle that sees the manifold.
It is, further, itself simultaneously object and agent of intellection and is on that
count also a duality: and it possesses, besides, another object of intellection in the
order following upon The First. (Enn. V.4.2)
On the one hand, Plotinus asserts that nou:V is not simple and, as a result, is
subordinate to a prior and simple principle—namely, the One—while on the
other hand, he also asserts that nou:V is itself “simultaneously object and agent of
intellection.” The claim that “it is on that count also a duality” relegates nou:V to
a position subordinate to the One.
The focus of the debate centers around, on the one hand, the nature of the
object of nou:V, and, on the other, the formal distinction between the fundamental
subject-object duality. Plotinus is aware of Aristotle’s argument that the object of
thought is the act of thinking. However, Plotinus concludes that nou:V remains
dual.5 The Intellectual principle, as an unchangeable Being, produces its Intel-
lectual Act—its proper object—which, because it derives its source from the Intel-
lectual principle, is “another intellectual being, resembling its source, a reproduc-
tion and image of that” (Enn. V.4.2). The thinking principle is one with its first
produced object of thought, but this unity is composite in nature. The thinking
principle could not be first, since it admits a degree of plurality (i.e., a duality [of
novhsiV and novhma]), and thus it cannot, by its very nature, be responsible for
ordering the world of multiplicity: Only a single principle that does not admit of
complexity or duality can be responsible for the hierarchical order of the hypostases
and can sustain the multiplicity of the cosmic world as a whole body.6
Plotinus’s argument is based on Aristotle’s presentation of the process of
thinking, found in the De Anima III. 4–6. Aristotle recognizes thinking as an
immaterial potential that is actualized by its reception of forms. In the appre-
hension of forms, nou:V and the forms become unified. Yet it is only upon the
reception of these forms that nou:V begins to think actively. Aristotle develops,
therefore, two types of intellects: passive and active. The preliminary step in
demonstrating the process of thinking in De Anima III. 4–6 enables Aristotle to
explain the divine simplicity and indivisibility of nou:V in Metaphysics L 7 and
9, although the connection between the active nou:V and nou:V as the unmoved
Mover is not explicitly drawn out. (Establishing this connection will require the
astute reading of Alexander of Aphrodisias.)
The claim that the elements of the compounds are self-sufficient and inde-
pendent of the compounds and, therefore, differ from them can be found in
Enn. V.6[24].3–4, speaking about the One:
218 Chapter 9

233. But it must be single, if it is to be seen in others. Unless one were to say that it
has its existence by being with the others. But then it will not be simple, nor will
what is made up of many parts exist. For what is not capable of being simple will
not exist, and if there is no simple, what is made up of many parts will not exist.
(Enn. V.6.3.10–15)
This principle is clearly found in Aristotle, whose divine nou:V possesses no po-
tentiality, complexity, or matter, for it is absolutely simple and is constituted by
pure actuality, as was seen in part I.
Plotinus advances two reasons for why nou:V is not the absolute first principle.
Again, we read in V.4.2 that nou:V is complex in two manners: first, it consists
of an admixture of the activity of thinking and the object of thinking, which,
as a result of their necessary cooperation, produces nou:V;7 and, second, nou:V is
complex because its object of thought is multiple.8
Regarding the first reason, nou:V is a dual substance, which is character-
ized by the act of thinking and the object thought. In Aristotle’s presenta-
tion of divine nou:V, these two “components” are identical, for “they” are
indistinguishable. According to Plotinus, however, they are really distinct
and, as a result, characterize nou:V as a dual substance. As will be recalled,
in the De Anima III.4–6, Aristotle argues that the potential nou:V is made
actual by the apprehension of the object (i.e., the form), which defines and
determines nou:V. The potential nou:V and the forms it apprehends, and by
which it becomes actual, generate a unity. This interaction is analogous to
the unity established in divine nou:V, whose object is identical with itself, an
identity clearly missing in discursive reasoning.9 Plotinus argues, however,
that Aristotle’s divine nou:V is dual, for it consists of thinking and its object
of thought (see Enn. V.6.1–2).
We are now in a better position to understand the context of Plotinus’s
argument. As was seen, the generation of nou:V presupposes the priority of the
potentiality of nou:V over the determination and actualization of nou:V. The object
of thought, in other words, precedes the activity of thinking and is the condi-
tion for the actualization of nou:V. In this light, the object of thought preexists
nou:V but also paradoxically exists in nou:V. In part, Plotinus accepts Aristotle’s
claim that nou:V thinks itself, but rejects Aristotle’s claim that it is simple, for
nou:V must also be thinking something different than itself. The Plotinian claim
is fundamentally that nou:V consists of a double duality, one of act and one of
content—that is, one of form and one of content.10 Moreover, nou:V cannot be
the first principle, for it desires self-sufficiency, and its desire characterizes it as
deficient: “And this is thinking, a movement to what is good, desiring it. For the
desire generated thinking and produces it with itself. For seeing is the desire of
sight” (Enns. V.6.5.8–10; V.3[49],10.49–50).
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 219

234. With respect to the second reason, nou:V contains a multiplicity of intel-
ligibles, which, as in the first case, characterizes nou:V as a composite substance.
The primary cause, therefore, cannot be nou:V, for it is divided and, in principle,
must contain a degree of potentiality,11 which should lead our search to a prior
principle that is purely and absolutely simple, one that is radically different from
nou:V. Yet Plotinus, paradoxically, asserts that nou:V is a unity made up of the
thinking activity and its object of thought. In this light, nou:V appears to be a
purely actual substance, albeit dual in nature. (Arguments showing that divine
nou:V is composite can be found in Enneads V.4 and V.6.) According to Ploti-
nus, nou:V thinks the intelligibles, or the forms, which are themselves multiple.
Therefore, nou:V cannot be absolutely simple, for it is composed of a multiplicity
of diverse intelligibles.12
More specifically, Enn. VI.7.37–42 expresses Plotinus’s critique of the novhsiV
nohvsewV as falsely identified as pure actuality and simplicity. In these chapters,
Plotinus is anxious to show that the One is free of predication, which implies
that the One cannot be reduced to a thinking substance, as Aristotle affirms (see
Enn. VI.7.38, 24–26 and 39, 1–2). The One remains beyond the novhsiV and
actuality of nou:V13 (see Enn. VI.7.40, 26, and 40, 41–42).
If it is the case that nou:V is a movement, as Plotinus suggests in Enn.
VI.7.35.1–3 (“And the soul is so disposed then as even to despise intelligence,
which at other times it welcomed, because intelligence is a kind of movement,
and the soul does not want to move”), then Plotinus is seen here to have trans-
formed the Aristotelian theory of motion, as it is expressed in the Physics V,
224b1, where Aristotle writes, “[A]ll motion is from something and to some-
thing.” In Enn. VI.7.40.6, however, Plotinus slightly alters this definition, but by
altering it, he radically transforms the meaning of absolute simplicity in Aristo-
tle’s doctrine of divine nou:V. In this passage, Plotinus writes that “all thinking is
from something and of something.” Plotinus is aware of the Peripatetic principle
that “every form and entelechy is of something” (Alexander of Aphrodisias, De
Intellectu 103, 20–1, and 21, 22–4) and uses at various places in the Enneads
the language of final causality (see Enns. III.8.39–40; VI.2.8.11–13; 11.25–26;
V.3.11.15–20).
Moreover, his reference to the analogy of light (see Enn. IV.5.6.26–7) reaf-
firms his position that potentiality in the sense of power precedes actuality, for
that which is actual is derived “from some substrate” and is not a motion “to” a
substrate, for only in this way can this actuality become a defined and determi-
nate aspect of the substratum. Finally, if it is the case that nou:V is motion, and
that all motion is a derivative of something, then Aristotle’s doctrine of the sim-
plicity of nou:V, which is a thinking of thinking, cannot retain its self-sufficiency,
as Plotinus has argued14 (see Enn. VI.7.40).
220 Chapter 9

235. The Aristotelian and Middle Platonists’ position, held by Numenius15 and Al-
cinous, who adhere to the position that the first and ultimate principle is divine
nou:V, is challenged by Plotinus’s scathing attack and adoption of the Principle of
Prior Simplicity.16 In the case of Alexander of Aphrodisias, it is clear that divine
nou:V is the ultimate causal principle; it requires no prior cause to claim its exis-
tence and operation. Yet, as we have seen, Plotinus does claim that an ultimate
principle—the One—must precede nou:V. It is the nature of nou:V as a dual and
multiple substance that causes Plotinus to infer a prior cause, and it is to the
topic of the inner dynamics of nou:V that we now turn.17
Plotinus’s conclusion that the content of nou:V is diverse and distinct is
confirmed in Enn. V.6.1–2, where he argues that nou:V is dual in reality but
conceptually is one: “Now we in our discourse have made one out of two; but
[in reality] the reverse is true and two came from one, making itself two because
it thinks, or, better, because it thinks it is two and because it thinks itself, one”
(Enn. V.6.1). The One causally precedes nou:V, since the One is self-sufficient,
and thus, it does not desire, nor is it in need, as nou:V necessarily is: the One,
then, will not think, since it is causally prior to thinking, and is simple (see Enn.
V.6.2). Since nou:V is a composite, according to Plotinus, it is in potentiality; if it
is in potentiality, then it is dependent upon a prior principle, which nou:V yearns
to intellectualize; and, in its act of intellection of the One, which is impossible,
since the One is inexhaustible and nothing can be predicated of it, nou:V scatters
its thought, rendering it composite (see Enn. V.3.11). Thus, the act of intellec-
tion and the object of nou:V are separate and distinct. However, in spite of the
numerous arguments in V.6 against the absolute simplicity of the Aristotelian
divine nou:V in Met. L 9, Plotinus’s central claim is that it is the One that imparts
being and that the One alone is purely simple and the ultimate Good of all be-
ings18 (see Enn. V.6.6.20–23, 27–36).
Having emphasized the originality of Plotinus’s doctrine of nou:V, it must be
shown that Plotinus’s account of nou:V is not as uniform as it first appears. The
Enneads emphasizes both the eternally changeless character of nou:V as well as
the vital power intrinsic to nou:V.19 The former affirms the ubiquitous presence
of nou:V, while the latter affirms the diversity, or rather a unity-in-diversity. The
former depicts the static nature of nou:V, while the latter emphasizes the dynamic
vitality of nou:V, as an activity posterior to the One that disperses the intelligibles
within nou:V, but simultaneously unifies the intelligibles in its return to the
One in contemplation. The tension occurs between two sets of passages. The
first set characterizes the changeless nature of nou:V: Enns. I.1.8.4–6; I.3.4.16–
19; I.8.2.8ff.; II.9.1.24–30; V.1.11; V.3.9.23–25; I.4.3.24ff.; III.2.4.13–16;
V.2.1.16–27; VI.4–5; IV.3.25.13–17; IV.4.7–9. These passages seem directly to
contrast with the doctrine of a vital nou:V, as expressed in the following passages:
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 221

236. Enns. VI.7.35.20ff.; II.4.5.31–35; V.3.11.1–12; V.4.2.4–10.20 This passage
(Enn. III.8.11) has indeed raised several questions concerning the consistency—
or perhaps inconsistency—in Plotinus’s doctrine of nou:V. What concerns us in
this section is Plotinus’s discussion of the vital dynamism admitted in nou:V.21
In his article,22 Armstrong presents two strains of Plotinus’s doctrine of the
nature of nou:V. On the one hand, nou:V is presented as having the characteristics
of an absolute substance, and static intuitions, but on the other, he presents nou:V
as a dynamic and vital activity, having a history, and a life emerging from the
One.23 In each of the presentations, Plotinus remains consistent about one point:
nou:V remains multiple and dual, for the intelligibles within nou:V are singular
forms, consisting of a plurality within nou:V.
With respect to the presentation of nou:V as a dynamic and vital substance,
Plotinus appears to have the Stoics in mind in his attempt at refuting the re-
duction of the divine nou:V to a material intelligence, whose history consists of
recurring patterns of its life cycle. Whereas the Stoic god possesses a history,
Plotinus’s second god—namely, nou:V—ought not to possess a history, with an
eternal cycle, for it is characterized as a static and eternal substance.24
With respect to the initial presentation of nou:V as an absolute and static sub-
stance, Plotinus emphasizes the fact that nou:V is universal and eternal, and yet is
accessible to the human nou:V25 (see Enn. I.1.8.4–6), and that its static intuition
differs from the intellection of the Soul. At Enn. III.8.8.40–50, Plotinus reem-
phasizes the universal and eternal character of nou:V:
And, to put it another way, Intellect is not the intellect of one individual, but is
universal; and being universal and of all things, its part must possess everything
and all things: otherwise it will have a part which is not intellect, and will be
composed of non-intellects, and will be a heap casually put together waiting to
become an intellect made up of all things. Therefore, too, it is unbounded in this
way and, if anything comes from it, there is no diminution, neither of what comes
from it, because it, too, is all things, nor of that from which it comes, because it is
not something made out of pieces put together.
Once again, this passage highlights a recurrent and perennial theme in the En-
neads, that of the relation between the individual intellects and the universal
nou:V. The ultimate claim made here is that the parts are included in the whole,
that the individual intellects and each segment of the cosmos are included in
the ubiquitous, universal nou:V26 (see Enns. V.9.8.2–4; V.8.4.21–24). A change-
less and timeless substance cannot simultaneously admit of being in a state
of potentiality, and then developing into a state of actuality, both of which
“states” would mark two significant historical moments in the life of nou:V, as
moving away from the One and returning to the One. However, we should be-
222 Chapter 9

237. ware of not interpreting the return of nou:V toward the One (Enns. III.8.11.23;
V.3.11.12; V.6.5.9–10) as a temporal movement. Enn. III.8.11.14–15ff. best
captures this attitude:
Therefore you must not even add thinking, in order that you may not add some-
thing other than it and make two, intellect and good. For Intellect needs the
Good, but the Good does not need it [transitive relation]; hence, too, when it at-
tains the Good it becomes conformed to the Good and is completed by the Good,
since the form which comes upon it from the Good conforms it to the Good.
This is also expressed in Enn. III.8.11.22ff.:
The Good, therefore, has given the trace of itself on Intellect to Intellect to have
by seeing, so that in Intellect there is desire, and it is always desiring and always
attaining, but the Good is not desiring—for what could it desire?—or attaining,
for it did not desire [to attain anything]. So it is not even Intellect. For in Intellect
there is desire and a movement to converge with its form. Intellect is, certainly,
beautiful, and the most beautiful of all; its place is in pure light and pure radiance
(see Phaedrus 250c4) and it includes the nature of real beings.27
The relation between the individual parts to the whole (see Enn. III.8.8.40–50)
expresses in theory Plotinus’s admission of potentiality into the intelligible
world, in the realm of nou:V. Plotinus, as Smith says, applies the term “potential-
ity” to the intelligible world in two different ways: on the one hand, Plotinus
states that the whole possesses the parts potentially, and, on the other, each
individual or part possesses the whole potentially.28 In fact, when discussing the
particular or individual, Plotinus states that it is we alone who recognize the
particular intelligibles within nou:V, when in reality nou:V does not constitute an
amalgam of parts, but is rather a whole (see Enn. VI.7.9.30–40). In this light,
Plotinus is reaffirming his notion of potentiality within nou:V. Potentiality in
nou:V occurs only when the human observer perceives it from the point of view
of the particular plurality of the intelligibles, whereas in reality this plurality is
to be considered only as a whole.29
Moreover, this pair is also assigned to the genus-species pair, or the generic
and specific knowledge, as is seen in Enn. VI.2.20.10ff., which makes reference
three times to the whole as duvnamiV pavntwn, after which, on line 21, Plotinus
refers to dunavmei in reference to the actuality of the whole and the potentiality
of the particular. Thus, Plotinus uses freely the expression duvnamiV pavntwn as
a way of capturing the particular vision of nou:V.30 Plotinus, then, applies the
term “potentiality” to the intelligible world in two ways, to the whole and to the
parts, although he rarely applies the term to the whole.31 Essentially, Plotinus is
asserting that nou:V is an organic whole, comprised of individual parts—namely,
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 223

238. individual intelligibles or Forms.32 Nowhere does this doctrine resonate more
than in Enn. V.9.6. Thus, while the content of nou:V coheres together, they each
remain separate and individual intelligibles, characterizing the plurality-whole
and potential-actual nature of nou:V.33
In this passage, Plotinus makes reference to the power of the seed. One per-
ceives a reminiscence of Speusippus’s doctrine, according to Aristotle, that the
seed possesses all determinative forms and is, as a result, a pure potentiality that
precedes actuality.34 Clearly, this adherence is a significant defiance and rejection
of Aristotle’s critique of Speusippus, and is an acceptance of the Speusippus that
Aristotle presents in the Metaphysics. The larger implications of Speusippus’s
doctrine are seen in Plotinus’s assertion of the One as a pure potentiality, but
a potentiality of power. Thus, we see here Plotinus’s reevaluation of Aristotle’s
critique of Speusippus’s doctrine of the One, as a potency, containing all forms,
albeit indistinguishable, which are to be realized and actualized.
Discussion of the nature of nou:V, however, remains inaccessible to human
discursive reasoning, for nou:V is, as Aristotle explains, characterized as divine
intuition.35 Although universal, Plotinus adds, nou:V is complex. Enneads III.8.9
states that nou:V is not first, for it contains a multiplicity of numbers, a category
Aristotle reduced to mere quantity. Plotinus clearly disagrees with Aristotle and
concludes, in Enn. III.8.9.45–50, that the One is simpler than nou:V.36
Lines 5–11 recapitulate the Aristotelian theme of the unity of subject (nou:V)
and intelligible object (nohtovn) within the whole of nou:V (see Enn. V.4.2.43–44).
This transcendent unity37 reasserts the Aristotelian principle that actuality precedes
potentiality, and this is the case for nou:V, when considered fully formed and de-
fined. Enn. V.3.5.21–48 is an exemplary passage that articulates Plotinus’s partial
acceptance of the identity and unity of nou:V and nohtovn as the condition for true
intellection.38 The unity Plotinus speaks of is, of course, in contrast to the duality
implicit in discursive reasoning,39 which always requires a middle term. For the
unity of nou:V is, once again, characterized purely as an actual substance.
The unity of nou:V, however, is radically different from the unity of the One.
The subsequent lines of the passage affirm that the One cannot be a nohtovn
(see also Enns. V.6.5.2–7; VI.7.41; and V.3.13). In Enn. III.8.9, Plotinus reca-
pitulates this doctrine but expresses it in alternative terms. Although Plotinus
states that the One is unintelligent, he does not mean to attribute ignorance to
the One. Plotinus clearly has Aristotle’s rhetorical question in mind, ei[te ga;r
mhde;n noei:, tiv a]n ei[h to; semnovn, ajll= e[cei w{sper a]n eij oJ kaqeuvdwn`
[For if it thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who
sleeps] (Met. L 9, 1074b17). Clearly, Plotinus is making attempts to remove the
One from this damning remark, which suggests that any principle above nou:V is
meaningless, for the highest object of intellection is the intelligible object itself—
224 Chapter 9

239. a claim that Plotinus, as seen above, transparently disputes. Plotinus, then, while
denying intellection to the One, more importantly denies any claims suggesting
that the One is unintelligent—a clear attempt at counterattacking Aristotle’s
ridicule of such a position. Plotinus is attempting, therefore, to employ Aristo-
tle’s thought against Aristotle’s doctrinal position in order to affirm that while
the One is semnovn, “it” is not nou:V.40
Lines 32–39 are significant passages that echo the depiction of nou:V as so-
journing to its primary source—namely, the One. The depiction of the inner,
dynamic movement of nou:V is preeminently discussed in Enn. VI.7.13. The em-
phases in these lines are on the otherness (eJterovthV) and movement (kivnhsiV) of
nou:V, considered here as a one-many. Derivative terms characterizing nou:V are
ejnevrgeia and zwhv. Enn. VI.7.13, however, unmistakably highlights the restless
movement of nou:V, which appears to entail duration and alteration of conscious-
ness.41 The movement and otherness of the life of nou:V entail history within
the eternal life of nou:V42 (see Enn. VI.7.13.11–12 and 24–34). Other passages
discuss the internal movement, or kivnhsiV, of nou:V, a movement that is concur-
rently discussed with stasis in the texts where Plato’s categories characterize nou:V.
However, in these passages, it would appear that Plotinus suggests that duration
and history characterize the nature of nou:V. In Enn. VI.2.21, however, this du-
rational rhetoric, when discussing nou:V, does not, in fact, imply such a history.
This process language is, rather, didactic and expository, for the movement does
not occur within nou:V, but rather within our own intellects.43
The difficulty, of course, is to reconcile this dynamic and sojourning nou:V
with the timeless and absolutely stable depiction of nou:V, which other passages
highlight, as seen above. At Enns. II.5.3 and V.9.4 and 6–10, Plotinus curiously
asserts that nou:V is pure activity and admits of no potency whatsoever, that there
is no admission of any Aristotelian potentiality within the intelligible world.
This claim is to be contrasted with the claim made at Enn. III.8.11.1–2, where
Plotinus presents nou:V as having first been a potency but one that has been
actualized: “And again, consider it this way, for since Intellect is a kind of sight,
and a sight which is seeing, it will be a potency which has come into act.” How-
ever, Plotinus is clear: with respect to his position of the absolute and timeless
character of nou:V, nou:V is eternal and has no history, for it does not come into
being, nor does it pass away.44
Thus, in light of the above analysis, Plotinus asserts that nou:V, whether it is
stable and absolute or is fluctuating and has a history, is insufficiently simple to
be the first principle of the cosmos. It is not only formally dual but also materi-
ally (i.e., dual in its content). Its dynamic nature, moreover, attests to this formal
duality, for the agitation and inner movement of nou:V are due to its inability to
assimilate absolutely its object into itself. It remains formally distinct from itself,
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 225

240. thereby causing determination and multiplicity to arise. Given this analysis,
therefore, Plotinus is convinced that he has identified the most singular flaw in
Aristotle’s doctrine of the simplicity of divine nou:V.45
Conclusion
In this chapter, I have examined Plotinus’s appropriation of Alcinous’s metaphys-
ics and theology, and the ambiguity of Alcinous’s statement of a nou:V superior
to the cosmic nou:V. This superior principle clearly furnished Plotinus with
the conceptual tools to argue for a principle superior to nou:V. However, what
Plotinus retains from Alcinous is the germinal insight of multiple content, the
intelligibles, operating within nou:V. Only with Alexander of Aphrodisias do we
see a thorough argument justifying the doctrine of the intelligibles operating
with the productive nou:V, which functions as final and efficient causality, for it
governs the world and participates within the natural world, in which is found
the material nou:V. And, upon the activity and participation of the productive
nou:V, the material nou:V is raised to nou:V in habitu. Nevertheless, with Alexander
and (qualifiedly) Alcinous, nou:V is the highest and most superior principle in
the cosmos. No principle can supersede nou:V. Alcinous, Alexander, and Ploti-
nus share a common goal: to argue philosophically for and justify an absolutely
simple principle, which functions as a final and efficient cause.
Plotinus, however, disagrees fundamentally with Aristotle and Alexander in
that the content (i.e., the intelligibles) are really distinct from the intellection
of nou:V. As a result, we must admit a degree of potentiality within nou:V. Ac-
cording to Plotinus, nou:V itself is formed and defined by the separate body
of intelligibles, but nou:V, prior to this formation, remains potentially intel-
ligible, for the intelligibles have not as yet formed and defined nou:V, which
only then renders it actual. Plotinus also recognizes the formal duality within
the Aristotelian divine nou:V. Thus, Plotinus, as P. Hadot astutely recognizes,
has reversed the Aristotelian principle of actuality preceding potentiality by
admitting that the actualization of nou:V is preceded by its potentiality: thus,
potentiality precedes actuality, even though, in the case of Plotinus, the One
still precedes everything.
Is it the case, however, that the Peripatetic intelligibles are really different from
the novhsiV of nou:V? Is it the case that the absolute actual nature of the intelli-
gibles and the absolute actual nature of nou:V amount to an admission of poten-
tiality, due to the diverse content, within nou:V? I wish to argue that the novhsiV
of nou:V is not different in its actual nature from its objects and that, in all cases,
the ultimate principle must be prior in simplicity, as both Aristotle and Plotinus
affirm, and purely actual, which only Aristotle and the Peripatetics affirm.46
226 Chapter 9

241. Notes
1. See also J. Dillon, “Plotinus, Enn. III 9, 1 and Later Views on the Intelligible
World,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 100 (1969), 63–70, in The
Golden Chain: Studies in the Development of Platonism and Christianity (Aldershot, UK:
Variorum, c1990).
2. See P. Merlan, “Aristotle, Met. A 6, 987b20–25 and Plotinus, Enn. V 4, 2, 8–9,”
Phronesis 9 (1964): 45–47: 45.
3. See A. H. Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles
are not Outside the Intellect,’” in Les Sources de Plotin, vol. 5 (Vadoeuvres-Genève: Fon-
dation Hardt, 1960), 401.
4. See Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not
Outside the Intellect,’” 407–10, for the argument that Plotinus was influenced by Alex-
ander’s discussion of the plurality of intelligibles within the Intellect. (See De Intellectu
112, 18–113, 2; Enn. I.4.16.20–29; see also Alexander, De Anima 87, 43–88, 5; Enneads
VI.7.40–41; also, Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance,
285–89, esp. 285 and fn.68.)
5. Once again, the fact that Aristotle makes the object of divine nou:V the activity of
divine nou:V means that there is no real “object” in the strong sense at all, for “it” is a pure
identity. Plotinus, of course, rejects this move.
6. See Jens Halfwassen, Hegel und der Spätantike Neuplatonismus: Untersuchungen
zur Metaphysik des Einen und des Nous in Hegels spekulativer und geschichtlicher Deutung
(Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1999), 350–57; and his Der Aufstieg Um Einen: Untersuchungen
zu Platon und Plotin (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1992), 17–33, and esp. 210–14.
7. Strictly speaking, nou:V is complex because it is simply a fundamental fact of re-
flection, viz., that reflection objectifies what it reflects upon and thus turns itself into an
other, distinct from the activity of reflecting.
8. See D. J. O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1996), 49.
9. See A. C. Lloyd, “Non-Discursive Thought—An Enigma of Greek Philosophy,”
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 70 (1969–1970): 261–74.
10. See O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 50.
11. The notion of potentiality in Plotinus must be qualified. See below.
12. Plotinus develops a line of thought that is clearly a refutation of the Aristotelian
doctrine of absolute simplicity of the divine nou:V. Aristotelians could not accept Ploti-
nus’s critique, for the very object of nou:V, they would argue, is identical with nou:V itself,
unlike Plotinus’s claim that suggests a real distinction between the two. This argument
is developed at Enn. V.3.10, which is a brief treatise on the limits of language (see Enn.
V.3.10.31–43). In light of this passage, therefore, Plotinus argues that intuition at the
level of Intellect is composed of a distinction between nou:V and its objects, as well as a
multiplicity in the object itself (or on the object-side), which are diverse and multiple,
just as speech requires differences and multiplicity in order to communicate. This pas-
sage, moreover, appears to summarize both reasons for the nonsimplicity of nou:V.
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 227

242. 13. See De Gandillac, “Plotin et la ‘Métaphysique’ d’Aristote,” Etudes sur la Métaphy-
sique d’Aristote: Actes du VIe Symposium Aristotelicum, pub. P. Aubenque (Paris: J. Vrin,
1979), 247–64, esp. 256 ff. See de Gandillac’s excellent chapter, “La Dialectique Intellec-
tuelle,” in his La sagesse de Plotin, 2nd ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1966), 185–210.
14. See K. Corrigan’s excellent treatment of this topic in his Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-
Evil and the Question of Substance, 285, fn.68.
15. See E. R. Dodds, “Numenius and Ammonius,” in Les Sources de Plotin, 3–22; P.
Merlan, “Drei Anmerkungen zu Numenius,” Philologus 106 (1962): 137ff.; P. Merlan,
“Numenius,” in The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy,
96–106; M. Frede, “Numenius,” in ANRW, 1054–70; and J. Halfwassen, Geist und
Selbstbewusstsein: Studien zu Plotin und Numenios (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 1994), 36–55.
16. See O’Meara, Plotinus: An Introduction to the Enneads, 48–49, 51–52.
17. It is to be remembered that Plotinus’s affirmation of the One as the sole principle
of the cosmos is equally an affirmation of a radical monism, through which Plotinus
subordinates the Indefinite Dyad to the One and renders the entire multiplicity of the
cosmos subordinate and dependent upon solely the one principle—namely, the One.
18. See also De Gandillac, “Plotin et la ‘Métaphysique’ d’Aristote,” 259. De Gandillac
is also right to note Plotinus’s curious omission about the attraction of love, as Aristotle
characterizes the divine nou:V with respect to the world.
19. For a stimulating discussion of the notion of infinity and potency in Plotinus,
see the discussion between Clark and Sweeney. W. N. Clarke, “The Limitation of Act by
Potency: Aristotle or Neoplatonism,” New Scholasticism 26 (1952): 167–94; L. Sweeney,
“Infinity in Plotinus,” Gregorianum 38 (1957): 515–35, 713–32; and Clark, “Infinity in
Plotinus: A Reply,” Gregorianum 40 (1959): 75–98.
20. See especially Enn. III.8.11.1–2. On the relationship between intellection and
sight, see K. Corrigan, Plotinus’ Theory of Matter-Evil and the Question of Substance,
284–85, fn.65. Sight is an internal activity, which expresses a need for its object, and in
the case of nou:V, it requires the satisfaction of grasping the One, its “object” and source of
life. However, because the One is inexhaustible and too great for nou:V, nou:V splinters or
splits it up (Enn. VI.7.15.20–22) and pluralizes (Enn. V.3.11) the One into a multiplicity
of intelligibles, which, even as a totality, are incapable of grasping the whole of the One.
21. This tension within nou:V is symptomatic of its self-assertion over and against the
One, a doctrine otherwise known as the tonic movement, or the tovlma. This proces-
sion of nou:V from the One is for Plotinus a spurious activity of self-assertion, radically
rupturing itself from the One, with the intent of fully actualizing itself independently
of the One. The Plotinian doctrine of the tovlma appears to be a transformation of the
Neopythagorean doctrine of the Indefinite Dyad, emerging and separating itself from the
monad. It should be stressed, however, that the Dyad is not multiplicity itself, but the
very condition of multiplicity, as expressed in Enn. V.4.2. Multiplicity entails the radical
Otherness between the One and the multiplicity of the cosmic hierarchical system. The
Dyad is characteristic of an infinite desire, and this desire or longing is rooted in nou:V.
Yet the doctrine of the tovlma clearly indicates a tension, not within Plotinus’s text, but
rather within the nature of nou:V. One sees the Plotinian-Aristotelian tension here: on the
228 Chapter 9

243. one hand, nou:V wishes to remain self-sufficient, but, on the other, it is dependent upon
the One for its activity and even for its impetus to affirm itself. The Indefinite Dyad is
essential for Plotinus, if this transition from simplicity to multiplicity, from the One to
nou:V, is to occur successfully. See also P. A. Meijer, Plotinus on the Good or the One (En-
neads VI, 9): An Analytical Commentary (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1992), 175 and 514.
22. Armstrong, “Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of NOUS,” in Le
Néoplatonisme, ed. M. P. M. Schuhl and M. P. Hadot (Paris: Éditions du Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique, 1969), 67–68.
23. For an excellent discussion of Plotinus’s transformation of Aristotle’s theory of life
within divine nou:V as a form of vitality within nou:V, see P. Hadot, “Être, Vie, Pensée
chez Plotin et avant Plotin,” in Les Sources de Plotin, 107–57, esp. 115–16, 133, 139–40:
“Mais on sait que si Plotin refuse de faire de l’intelligence aristotélicienne la première
hypostase, c’est à cause de la multiplicité qu’implique l’acte d’intelligence. . . . La vie sort
immédiatement de l’Un et c’est à partir d’elle que l’Intelligence se constitue. Inversement,
‘le déploiment des nombres et des idées,’ dans l’Intelligence, est ‘pour la vie, la seule façon
de médiatiser son contact avec l’Un’ (J. Trouillard, “Vie et pensée selon Plotin,” dans La
vie, la pensée: Actes du VIIe Congrès des Sociétés de philosophie de langue française [Grenoble
12–16 septembre, 1954], [Paris: PUF, 1954], p. 354). . . . Ainsi la pensée plotinienne
exige en quelque sorte que, dans la triade être-vie-pensée, la vie précède, de quelque
manière, les deux autres termes, être et pensée apparaissant ainsi comme l’aboutissement
d’un processus par lequel la matière intelligible se donne à elle-même sa forme en se
tournant vers l’Un. S’il y a une sorte de préexistence de l’être et de la pensée au sein de
la vie, il y a aussi un déploiement de la vie au sein de l’Intelligence constituée, au sein de
l’Essence délimitée. Cette ‘puissance universelle’ (VI, 7, 17, 32) qu’est la vie préintellec-
tuelle, qui porte en elle toute la surabondance issue de l’Un, devient dans l’Intelligence
constituée, ce mouvement perpéptuel, cette ‘course vagabonde’ (VI, 7, 13, 30) de l’In-
telligence en elle-même qui assure la richesse et la variété du monde intelligible. La vie,
finalement, n’est rien d’autre que cette continuité de mouvement qui, sortant de l’Un,
tend à revenir vers lui, pour ‘revivre sa propre genése’ (H. Bergson, Evolution créatrice, p.
209). Au fond de cette conception des rapports entre l’être, la vie et la pensée, il y a une
intuition fondamentalement anti-aristotélicienne: celle de la supériorité de la puissance
sur l’acte: la forme intelligible, l’acte intellectuel ne parviennent jamais à épuiser l’infinité
de la puissance qu’ils cherchent à exprimer. La vie est l’image la moins imparfaite de l’Un,
parce qu’elle est un mouvement qui garde en lui-même cette infinité de la puissance.”
24. See Armstrong, “Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of NOUS,”
67ff. One possible influence on Plotinus’s doctrine of the dynamic vitalism of nou:V,
which comes from the Stoics and Plotinus’s reflection of the Stoic doctrine in light of
Aristotle’s doctrine of life within divine nou:V. See also A. Graeser. Plotinus and the Sto-
ics: A Preliminary Study (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972); see also P. Hadot, “Être, Vie, Pensée
chez Plotin et avant Plotin,” 140; and his Porphyre et Victorinus (Paris: J. Vrin, 1968),
I, 225–34; see also de Gandillac, “Plotin et la ‘Métaphysique’ d’Aristote,” 249–50;
see also P. Henry, “Comparaison chez Aristote, Alexandre et Plotin,” 440–44; and
V. Goldschmidt, Le système stoïcien, 154.
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 229

244. 25. Enn. I.1.8.4–6 states the fundamental point that nou:V is universally available to
us, because it is eternal and unchanging.
26. See J. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect, 88.
27. Clearly, to introduce desire into nou:V is to introduce a dynamism that is absent
in the eternal and static nou:V. This inconsistency has, indeed, troubled many scholars
and Neoplatonists, such as Proclus, for to introduce desire into nou:V is to introduce a
degree of potency and history into what should appear to be an actual, albeit complex,
intellective substance.
28. See A. Smith, “Potentiality and the Problem of Plurality in the Intelligible World,”
in Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought, ed. H. J. Blumenthal and R. A. Markus
(London: Variorum Publications, 1981), 101.
29. See Smith, “Potentiality and the Problem of Plurality in the Intelligible
World,” 101.
30. See Werner Beierwaltes, Plotin über Ewigkeit und Zeit (Frankfurt: Klostermann,
1967), on Enns. III.7.6.10 and 7.5.23. See also Proclus, Th. Pl. 137; Proclus, ET 78—
passages that highlight the distinction between two types of potentiality, a passive and
an active. See also K. Wurm, Substanz und Qualität: Ein Beitrag zur Interpretation der
plotinischen Traktate VI 1, 2 und 3 (Berlin, New York: Walter De Gruyter 1973), 235,
fn.24, which refers to the ambiguity of the term duvnamiV in Plotinus, as is seen in Enn.
VI.2.20, where Plotinus first speaks of duvnamiV pavntwn and then dunavmei pavnta. The
ambiguity is also carried over in Enn. VI.5.9.34. (See Smith, “Potentiality and the Prob-
lem of Plurality in the Intelligible World,” 105–6, fns.6–8.)
31. Smith convincingly captures another aspect of the unity and plurality paradox of
nou:V at Enn. V.9.9, where Plotinus discusses three analogies, especially the genus-species
analogy, expressing his general doctrine that nou:V possesses all particular or individual
forms potentially, but that each form exists actually as an individual (see Enn. IV.8.3). In
this sense alone can Plotinus ever admit to a degree of potentiality in the intelligible world
(see Armstrong, “Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of NOUS,” 71). It is
clear that Plotinus, as seen in II.5, does not admit of potentiality in the intelligible world.
Several other passages highlight this doctrine. See Enn. V.9.10.15: “For each real being is
actual, not potential”; also Enn. VI.4.4.39 ff., “For the many are already in the whole, not in
potency, but each and every one in active actuality; for neither does the one and whole hin-
der the many from being in it, nor do the many hinder the one”; and also Enns. V.3.5.39ff.;
VI.2.20 and VI.4.4.39. See also Berchman, “Nous and Geist,” 214–16.
32. See Wurm, Substanz und Qualität, 1973.
33. See Smith, “Potentiality and the Problem of Plurality in the Intelligible World,”
99. The unity of nou:V is perceived by the intuitive level of nou:V, whereas the separateness
of nou:V, in which the human intellect can perceive the individual intelligibles, occurs at
the level of discursive reasoning (see Smith, “Potentiality and the Problem of Plurality in
the Intelligible World,” 99–100).
34. Again, see P. Hadot, “Être, Vie, Pensée chez Plotin et avant Plotin,” 140.
35. It is imperative that in order to ascend to the intuitive level of nou:V, we must
first experience nou:V at the level of our being. See R. T. Wallis, “NOUS as Experience,”
230 Chapter 9

245. in The Significance of Neoplatonism (Norfolk, VA: International Society for Neoplatonic
Studies, 1976), 121–53.
36. See Enn. III.8.9. See also Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect, 90, for a
commentary on these lines; and Atkinson, Plotinus: Enneads V.1, On the Three Principal
Hypostases, 110–11.
37. Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect, 91.
38. See also T. A. Szlezák, Platon und Aristoteles in der Nuslehre Plotins (Basle and
Stuttgart: Schwabe, 1979), 126–29.
39. For an excellent discussion of the nondiscursive thinking in Plotinus, see Lloyd,
“Non-Discursive Thought—An Enigma of Greek Philosophy,” 261–74. See also R. Sor-
abji’s response to Lloyd in his Time, Creation and the Continuum (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1983), 152–53; and J. Bussanich’s evaluation of Lloyd’s and Sorabji’s
discussions, The One and its Relation to Intellect, 102.
40. See Bussanich, The One and its Relation to Intellect, 93; see also J. Rist. Plotinus:
The Road to Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 41.
41. See Enn. V.8.3–4 and especially Enn. VI.7.13, where the life of the Intellect is
characteristically dynamic.
42. See Armstrong, “Eternity, Life and Movement in Plotinus’ Accounts of NOUS,” 73.
43. See Armstrong, “The Background of the Doctrine ‘That the Intelligibles are not
Outside the Intellect,’” 72.
44. For a discussion of the eternity of the Intellect, see Enn. III.7.
45. In Enn. III.8.10, Plotinus reiterates the point that the One is above or prior to
life, comparing the relation between the One and life to a stable spring and the deriva-
tive rivers.
46. While the One, according to Plotinus, is prior to all other levels of being, because
of its absolute simplicity, it is not actual (see Enn. V.3.28–33). See Berchman, “Nous and
Geist,” 213–16.
Plotinus on the Simplicity of nou:V 231

247. 233
Conclusion
During the course of my discussion of Plotinus’s transformation of Aristotle’s
henology and noetic doctrines, in light of the influence of Alcinous and Alex-
ander of Aphrodisias, I have arrived at what is perhaps the most salient turn-
ing point in Hellenistic philosophy: that of the monistic doctrine affirming a
supreme principle over and above nou:V.
The purpose of part I, chapter 1 was to show the dual principle that eventu-
ally led to a monistic doctrine in Plotinus, who subordinates the divine nou:V
to the One. Aristotle’s response to this dual principle in chapters 1 and 2 (his
henology and his noetic doctrine) indicates his concern over such a subordina-
tion and hierarchical ordering. In chapter 1, I discussed the Pythagorean Table
of Opposites, the Limited and Unlimited—that is, the two-principles doctrine
of the One and the Indefinite Dyad. This is the background to Aristotle’s pre-
sentation of Plato’s ultimate principles, the One and the Great and the Small,
which we have generically called the Indefinite Dyad for the sake of continuity.
Aristotle’s presentation of Plato is most enigmatic in passages such as Met. A 6,
987b14–29 and Phys. IV 209b11–20, where Aristotle makes explicit reference
to an unwritten Platonic doctrine, relating to Ideal Numbers. The doctrine in
and of itself does not centrally concern me in this project. Rather, it is Aristotle’s
transformation of this doctrine, in his noetic theory in Met. L 7–9, that has
sustained my interest and discussion.
In chapter 2, I discussed Aristotle’s scathing criticism of Speusippus’s doctrine of
the One, as Aristotle presents it, and I viewed this doctrine in light of Iamblichus’s
De communi mathematica scientia, chapter 4, which P. Merlan convincingly identi-

248. 234 Conclusion
fies as a fragment of Speusippus’s writings. The purpose of this section was to 1)
determine Speusippus’s exact doctrine of the One, and 2) demonstrate Aristotle’s
overt awareness of theories proposing to subordinate nou:V to an ultimate principle.
According to Aristotle, Speusippus’s alternative solution to the aporia of Plato’s first
principles is no better than Plato’s, in that it is unable to demonstrate how the prin-
ciples causally influence and derive the various levels of being. We know through
Aristotle’s account and from chapter 4 of Iamblichus’s De communi mathematica
scientia that Speusippus’s first principle, the One, is not a being. What remains
ambiguous, however, is the exact status of Speusippus’s One: Is the One not Being
because it is so much more complete and self-sufficient that it is superior and prior
to Being and nou:V; or is it, by contrast, not being in the sense that it is not even
worthy of Being considered a being, for it is analogous to a “seed,” a pure poten-
tiality with no causal influence on any being or substance whatsoever? The first
claim of the disjunct reflects Iamblichus’s (i.e., the Neoplatonists’) position, whose
presentation elevates the One to a superior principle, over and above nou:V and
Being. The latter part of the disjunct is Aristotle’s scathing rebuke of Speusippus
and of any philosopher whose reflex it is to elevate a principle above nou:V, for, ac-
cording to Aristotle, nou:V is self-sufficient and an independent substance or being.
What is clear is this: Aristotle refuses to accept the Pythagorean, Platonic,
and, especially, Speusippean doctrine of first principles, for the two-principles
doctrine fails to account for a causal continuity in the derivation of levels of Be-
ing subsequent to the first principle. Aristotle attempts to provide this account
of derivation from a first principle by transforming the two-principles doctrine
into a brilliant account of the superiority of nou:V, considered as the ultimate
principle of the cosmos.
Chapter 3 provided the account of Aristotle’s henology and noetic doctrine.
Aristotle’s doctrine of the “one” is a reaction to the transcendent and homoge-
neous presentation of the Platonic One. Aristotle argues that as the “one” is a pros
hen equivocal, it cannot be considered as a transcendent and universal substance
(see Met. D and I). The second section emphasized Aristotle’s alternative solution
to the Platonic first principles, as Met. L 4–5 illustrates. The three Aristotelian
principles—form, privation, and matter—are analogous principles of sensible
substances, and these principles, like the multiple accounts of the “one,” are
not homogeneous, but can, nevertheless, be applied universally to all sensible
substances. Aristotle’s gradual discussion of separate substances, which are char-
acterized as purely simple and actual substances, and the principles applicable to
these substances, makes for a natural transition to his account of divine nou:V,
with respect to its simplicity and final causality—a discussion that was preceded,
in section three, by a presentation of Aristotle’s account of causality and of actu-
ality and potentiality.

249. Conclusion 235
Chapter 4 examined Aristotle’s notion of Causality and the relationship be-
tween duvnamiV and ejnevrgeia, in order to prepare our discussion of Aristotle’s
doctrine of nou:V, in chapter 5. Chapter 5 preserved the conceptual continuity of
Aristotle’s argument for an alternative solution to the Platonic principles. In this
section, I examined carefully Aristotle’s noetic doctrine of the absolute simplic-
ity and priority of nou:V as presented in Metaphysics L 7 and 9, and De Anima
III. 4–5. The point that I wished to emphasize in this section is this: that divine
nou:V, while it possesses knowledge of itself and of the world, is not composite,
for if it were, it would admit a degree of potentiality, thereby demoting nou:V to
a secondary principle under a prior and more simple principle. Agreeing with
Jackson and Merlan, along with the general tenets of other Aristotelian imma-
nentists, I have argued that the unmoved Mover has as intelligible content the
multiple unmoved movers, a claim that, I submit, greatly influenced Alexander
of Aphrodisias and, especially, Plotinus, who has presented us with the doctrine
“That the Intelligibles are not Outside the Intellect.” I have argued that divine
nou:V exercises final causality and has knowledge of the world, but this kind of
knowledge does not introduce potentiality or composition within nou:V. It is the
case, however, that there is multiplicity in divine nou:V, but, again, this multi-
plicity does not threaten the pure actuality and absolute priority of divine nou:V,
contrary to Plotinus’s presentation of Aristotle.
It remains the case, however, that while Aristotle’s first principle can know the
world and exercise final causality over the world, it is radically separated from the
world and cannot exercise efficient causality over the world. The admission of
efficient causality in the first principle by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Plotinus
is a significant contribution to the field of metaphysics, but in order for Plotinus
to introduce efficient causality into the first principle, he will have to introduce
concurrently a new principle at the cost of demoting the Aristotelian first prin-
ciple to a lower rank. Whereas Aristotle asserts that divine nou:V intuits itself,
for it possesses immediate self-awareness, Plotinus argues that this self-awareness
is not absolutely simple, and as a result, we must ascend to a prior principle of
simplicity—namely, the One. This is due to the fact that Aristotle’s divine nou:V
is formally dual, as object of itself and as thinking subject. The One is responsible
for preserving unity and difference within the cosmos. Chapter 9 continued with
the Plotinian theme of demoting divine nou:V to a subordinate level under the
One and provided a (Plotinian) justification for such a hierarchy.
In part II, chapter 6 discussed the derivation of nou:V from the One. Contrary
to Plato and Aristotle (and the Pythagoreans, as I argued in chapter 1), Plotinus
argues that the Indefinite Dyad is a derivative of the One, thereby introducing
a monistic metaphysics. Plotinus has transformed the two-principles doctrine
into a monistic doctrine. This chapter answered the questions of why Plotinus

250. is compelled to affirm a single causal principle in the place of the Platonic two
principles, and how these subsequent levels of being are derived from the One.
These questions led our discussion into Plotinus’s account of the derivation
of nou:V, as seen in Enneads V.4[7].2, V.1[10].6–7. It appears that nou:V was
derived from the One and the Indefinite Dyad by a radical turning or conver-
sion of the One to itself. The derivation of the Indefinite Dyad and of inchoate
nou:V demonstrates Plotinus’s transformation of the two-principles doctrine and
his adherence to a monistic framework of the cosmos, which is reflective of his
attempt at overcoming the Aristotelian “gap” between the first principle and the
world. While it is the case that Plotinus emphasizes a distinction between the
One and the first effluence from the One, he also presents the One as a final
and efficient cause. This “gap” or duality between the first principle and the first
effluence is, therefore, characterized as a minimal duality, unlike Aristotle’s strict
and firm duality. The emanation of the first effluence of the One establishes a
causal continuity of the first principle with its effects.
Moreover, this (fluid) continuity of causality from the One is presented in the
generation of the Indefinite Dyad, which Plotinus characterizes as the Aristotelian
intelligible matter. This intelligible substrate, in turn, creates the fecund condition
for the generation of inchoate nou:V and the intelligibles within nou:V. Intelligible
matter, as we have seen, shares many common traits with phantasia (chapter 7),
and it is for this reason that I discussed at length the role and nature of phantasia,
especially the higher phantasia, in Plotinus. One of the salient traits of both the
intelligible matter and phantasia is that they share the same kind of ambiguity
and lack of definition. The ambiguity of phantasia enables us to compare it with
the elusive nature of inchoate nou:V. Inchoate nou:V is not yet formed, and its in-
definite and potential nature keeps “it” out of the reach of scientific inquiry. The
separation of nou:V is also due to the tovlma, which allows for the first effluence to
assert itself, thereby permitting it to dare and affirm its identity-in-difference. The
condition for this self-assertion, however, is clearly an act preceded by the One’s
act of generating multiplicity within the cosmos, and this act is an assertion of
Plotinus’s monistic system. Therefore, as we have presented it, the derivation of
multiplicity from the One is a causal continuity of the One into the cosmos, but
it also involves a clear statement indicating the fundamental distinction between
the One and the subsequent levels of being. It is in this light that Plotinus cannot
accept Aristotle’s claim for the absolute simplicity and priority of divine nou:V, a
topic that was discussed in detail in chapter 9.
In chapter 8, I presented Alcinous’s intriguing theory of nou:V, in which he
harmonizes the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle into a single doctrine. I further
examined the ambiguity surrounding Alcinous’s statement of an intellect su-
perior to the cosmic nou:V. This superior principle furnished Plotinus with the
236 Conclusion

251. conceptual tools to argue for a principle superior to nou:V. In Alcinous, we see
more explicitly the Aristotelian doctrine of the intelligibles within nou:V. The
intelligibles coexist and cooperate within nou:V, and these intelligibles are the
Platonic Forms, as opposed to the multiple unmoved movers.
The second section discussed the noetic doctrine of Alexander of Aphrodisias,
who, like Aristotle, concluded that no principle precedes the productive nou:V
in its simplicity. Alexander develops the Aristotelian doctrine of the intelligibles
within nou:V by introducing efficient causality into the first principle. For the
productive nou:V governs the world and participates within the natural cosmos,
in which we find the material intellect, which is raised to the level of Intellect
in habitu through the participation and causal influence of the productive nou:V.
This reflection prepared the ground for my discussion of the productive nou:V as
compared to light in Alexander’s treatment of nou:V. This was discussed in order
to conclude that Alexander and Alcinous share the common trait that nou:V is
superior to all other principles and is purely actual and simple, in spite of the
multiple content within itself. The multiplicity of content is, once again, an echo
of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine in Met. L 7–9. The multiplicity of content within
nou:V, however, is also shared by Plotinus.
In chapter 9, I discussed the Plotinian noetic doctrine of a multiplicity of con-
tent and a formal duality within nou:V, and Plotinus’s philosophical justification
for admitting such a composition within nou:V. Plotinus’s discussion, however,
was influenced by Alcinous and Alexander of Aphrodisias. Plotinus argues that
nou:V is a derivative of and is subordinate to the One, because it is dual (formally
and materially) and multiple. For this reason, Plotinus fundamentally disagrees
with Aristotle and Alexander in that the content and the formal duality do not
introduce potentiality within nou:V. According to Plotinus, nou:V must be sub-
ordinate to the One, since the content or the intelligibles and the formal dual
structure of divine nou:V are really distinct from the intellection of nou:V. As a
result, nou:V must necessarily possess a degree of potentiality. If it is the case that
the intelligibles are distinct and independent from nou:V, and that the intelligibles
are the defining and actualizing principles that vivify nou:V, then prior to this
formative moment, nou:V remains purely potentially intelligible, thereby revers-
ing the Aristotelian principle that actuality precedes potentiality. Thus, while the
intelligibles exist within nou:V, they appear to be self-sufficient and independent
of nou:V, thereby introducing “otherness” within nou:V. In this light, Plotinus feels
confident in rejecting Aristotle’s and Alexander’s arguments for the simplicity of
nou:V and for the identity of the intelligible content of nou:V and of nou:V as a
thinking subject. Given that the novhsiV of nou:V is ajovristoV and is determined
by the intelligible objects that it receives, nou:V necessarily is subordinate to a su-
perior and simpler principle, which is free of predication and otherness.
Conclusion 237

252. The heart of the Aristotelian and Plotinian doctrines of the simplicity of
nou:V is related to the kind of status of the intelligible object(s) and the formal
structure of divine nou:V. Aristotle formulates the problem very well in Met. L 9,
1074b17–20; 1075a3–5; and a10–11:
And if it [sc. divine nou:V], thinks, but this depends on something else, then (since
that which is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be
the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it. . . . Since,
then, thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things that
have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e., the think-
ing will be the object of its thought. . . . [S]o throughout eternity is the thought
which has itself for its object.
This Aristotelian declaration of the simplicity of nou:V clearly plagued and
haunted Plotinus throughout much of his writings in the Enneads. However, be-
cause Plotinus wished to overcome the strict divide between the Aristotelian first
principle and the world by introducing efficient causality into the first principle,
he felt obliged to demote the Aristotelian first principle to a secondary or de-
rivative being. The Aristotelian divine nou:V, according to Plotinus, is no longer
in possession of itself as its proper object, for the intelligibles are precisely that
which determines the divine nou:V and gives it actuality. The Plotinian monistic
system, moreover, preserves the causal continuity of the One to the first effluence
from the One (i.e., nou:V), and the subsequent and posterior hypostases.
I have argued in this book, especially in chapter 5, that Aristotle was fully
aware of this philosophical move to subordinate divine nou:V to a simpler prin-
ciple, but succeeded in overcoming the difficulties inherent in such a philo-
sophical position. I have argued that Plotinus is correct to perceive a plurality
of intelligibles within divine nou:V, for, as we have seen, Aristotle transforms
the Platonic doctrine of Ideal Numbers into an astronomical presentation of
the unmoved movers, which, as Jackson brilliantly argues, is the very content of
nou:V. Moreover, Plotinus is correct to recognize a formal duality within divine
nou:V. Thus, within Aristotle we have in germ the Plotinian doctrine that the
intelligibles are not outside nou:V. Moreover, divine nou:V is knowledgeable of
the world and of itself, but this knowledge does not render it potential, as I
have argued, for it is first determined by its very own content, the intelligibles,
which are/is in essence itself. This self-knowledge, which is pure actuality, allows
divine nou:V to know the lower and derivative levels of being without losing its
actuality. Otherness and plurality within nou:V, then, are not sufficient grounds
to introduce potentiality within divine nou:V, which would simply imply that
divine nou:V was derived by an ultimate principle—namely, the One—as Ploti-
nus has argued. I asserted, therefore, that the status of the intelligible object in
238 Conclusion

253. Aristotle is sufficiently actual and is sufficiently identical with divine nou:V itself,
as Thomas De Koninck1 and Horst Seidl have argued. Thus, like Plotinus, I see
in Aristotle’s noetic doctrine a plurality of intelligibles, which resembles the two-
principles doctrine of Plato, but, unlike Plotinus, I argue in favor of Aristotle
that the noetic objects, the intelligibles, are not separate or superior to divine
nou:V, such that they may determine divine nou:V, as if it were first an inchoate
nou:V and then actual. The intelligible objects and divine nou:V are identical, and
we may assert with full confidence that Aristotle has succeeded in establishing a
unity-and-plurality within the cosmos, by preserving a multiplicity within divine
nou:V, but not with any potentiality in it. Divine nou:V, therefore, remains purely
actual and self-sufficient.
The mediation of Alexander of Aphrodisias’s interpretation of Aristotle,
however, clearly brought out a limitation of Aristotle’s noetic doctrine and his
attempt to preserve a continuity of causality within the cosmos: namely, that
Aristotle’s divine nou:V seems unable to extend its causality directly to influence
the world, though it may know the world. His identification of the productive
nou:V in De Anima and divine nou:V in Metaphysics Lambda is a crucial turning
point in Western philosophy, one that clearly influenced Plotinus, and one that
resolved a fundamental Aristotelian problem: the radical distance between the
first principle and the world. We see in Alexander the introduction of efficient
causality in divine nou:V, a combination of Platonism and Aristotelianism. Only
through the introduction of efficient causality by Alexander of Aphrodisias
can we complete the Aristotelian project in antiquity of preserving unity-and-
plurality within the cosmos by asserting the ultimate principle as nou:V, an
intuitive and intellective principle.
Plotinus’s monism is, in part, a response to Aristotle’s dualism, formal and
material, within nou:V. The implications of such a philosophical move is to af-
firm that nou:V is not the ultimate principle of the cosmos, that the source of the
cosmos is not intelligible in itself, since it is not an Intellect; “it” is beyond nou:V.
By denying nou:V as the highest (dual) principle of the cosmos, Plotinus must
also admit that actuality is not the highest and most prior principle of reality. I
have attempted to curtail this philosophical position. Aristotle’s dualism does not
imply a degree of potentiality within the divine nou:V and can, in my view, sat-
isfy all the criteria of standing as the ultimate principle of the cosmos. Plotinus,
however, as I have argued, is correct in pointing out the formal duality within
Aristotle’s first principle—namely, object of thought and thinking subject. This
formal duality creates a significant gap between the first principle and the rest of
the cosmos. Plotinus is right, therefore, to have introduced a fluid movement—a
strong influence—of the first principle onto the subsequent and posterior levels
of the cosmos. By so doing, Plotinus has transformed Aristotle’s strict duality
Conclusion 239

254. between the first principle into a minimal duality, one that still recognizes the
ultimate superiority and integrity of the supreme principle—namely, the One—
but that recognizes efficient causality in the One. To suggest, however, that we
must rise above nou:V and above actuality in order to secure a first principle of
the cosmos appears to be an erroneous philosophical move. For while Plotinus
clearly demonstrated the limitations of the causal influence of divine nou:V,
Plotinus seems to deny the contributions made by Neoaristotelians, such as
Alexander, who have amended the Aristotelian position by introducing efficient
causality into the first principle, thereby minimizing the radical “gap” between
the first principle and the cosmos that was present in Aristotle’s metaphysics.
Thus, I wish to reaffirm the very claim made by Themistius, who asserts that
actuality must always precede potentiality and that divine nou:V must precede all
other levels of reality found in the cosmos:
If its intellectum were something extraneous to it, [this intellectum] would be no-
bler and more excellent [than the Intellect]. For it would be the cause of Intellect’s
intellecting. . . . Everything that exists in consequence of [having] something other
than itself as its cause is inferior to the thing that is posited as being its cause.
Thus the intellect would be in potentia. . . . We shall say that He intellects the
things that are of the utmost excellence. If He were to intellect inferior things, He
would derive His nobility from inferior things. This [conclusion] must be avoided.
(Themistius, in CAG 5.4)
It is with this statement that I wish to conclude this book. I believe that to
further our research in the area of first principles, we should and must explore
the uncultivated field of insights in Alexander of Aphrodisias. Much has been
written on Alexander’s interpretation of Aristotle, but much more needs to be
written about his influence on Plotinus and subsequent thinkers (such as, in
modern times, Spinoza and Hegel) who have clearly marked and influenced
contemporary philosophy and culture by having convincingly introduced formal
causality into the first causal principle.2
Notes
1. See also Thomas De Koninck, Aristote, l’intelligence et Dieu (Paris: PUF, 2008).
2. For a discussion of Hegel’s influence of Alexander and Plotinus, for example, see
the excellent work of Jens Halfwassen, Hegel und der Spätantike Neuplatonismus: Unter-
suchungen zur Metaphysik des Einen und des Nous in Hegels spekulativer und geschichtlicher
Deutung (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1999), 221–385. See also R. Berchmann, “Nous and
Geist,” 193–239, for a discussion on Hegel’s appropriation and critique of the Aristote-
lian, Plotinian, and Neoaristotelian noetic doctrines.
240 Conclusion

255. 241
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273. 259
Alcinous, ix, xi, 4, 6, 7, 43, 124n59, 155n2,
187–94, 206, 206n2, 207n5, 208n15,
215, 221, 226, 233, 236–37. See also
intellect (nou:V)
Alexander of Aphrodisias, ix, xi, 4, 6–7, 8,
23, 27–28, 109, 119n20, 122n53, 233,
235; intelligible matter, 153, 154, 176,
187–88, 195–206; intelligibles within
nou:V, 215, 216–17, 220–21, 226, 237.
See also intellect (nou:V)
analogy, 7, 64, 66, 70n23, 81, 87, 106, 142,
170–71, 192–93, 196; seed analogy, 42,
44, 51n11; analogy of light, 202–6
apprehensive power (ajntivleyiV), 167
ajrchv, 2, 22, 27, 40, 68n7, 101, 116
Averroes, 122n53
The Beautiful/Beauty, 41–49, 55n44, 89n6,
101–2, 193, 223
Being, x–xi, 3–4, 5, 11, 14, 15–16, 18,
26–27, 31n21, 33n32, 35n57, 36n69,
36n71, 39–50, 57, 61, 62, 63, 67,
69n16, 71n37, 77, 80, 82, 84–86,
88, 94n57, 95n65, 96n82, 98, 100,
104, 109, 112, 114, 118n15, 119n20,
123n56, 124n58, 124n64, 125n69,
126n79, 127n81, 134, 135, 136, 142,
148, 149, 169, 173, 175–77, 180n2,
180n8, 185n53, 203, 205, 211n41, 218,
222–23, 230n35, 231n46, 234, 236, 238
Burnet, J., 20–21
Cherniss, H., 16–17, 18–19, 21–23, 25–26,
27, 31n24, 32nn26–27, 32n31, 34n48,
34n56, 36n71, 51n7, 74
Cleary, J., xii, 14, 60, 65, 66, 68n7, 69n11,
69n16, 70n21, 70n29, 71n37, 84,
85–86, 88, 94n57, 119n20, 120n32,
124n60
consciousness (parakolouqei:n), 141, 143,
146, 165, 166, 167, 172, 173–74, 179,
181n17, 183n36, 184n39, 225. See also
self-consciousness (katanovhsiV)
Cornford, F. M., 13, 29n1, 69n9, 216
circular movement, 60, 68n6, 83, 85,
98–100, 142
De Amina (Aristotle), 4, 8, 16, 59, 67, 78,
82, 86, 88, 90n14, 90n16, 100, 103–9,
111, 121nn40–41, 122n53, 125n65,
Index

274. 260 Index
149, 188, 195, 196–97, 198, 199,
200, 201–2, 203, 204, 205, 209n26,
213nn64–65, 216–17, 218, 219, 235,
239
De communi mahematica scientia /
On Universal Mathematical Science
(Iamblichus), 3, 39, 44–49, 51n7,
51n10, 54n34, 55n44, 233–34
De Koninck, Th., 8, 102, 114–15, 123n56,
126n80, 127n82, 209n26, 239
demiurge (dhmiourgovV), 74, 90n23,
125n64, 194, 207n5, 216
derivation, ix, 3, 5, 11, 12, 13–14, 16,
26–27, 33n44, 36n69, 41, 42–44, 50,
52n13, 54n34, 117, 131–55, 179, 234,
235–36
Dillon, J., 21, 30n12, 31n24, 48, 51n7,
51n11, 52n13, 52n18, 54n30
dualism, xi, 11–12, 26, 185n57, 239
efficient causality, xi, 2, 5, 6, 8, 64, 100,
105, 141, 155, 206, 226, 235, 237, 238,
239–40
ejnevrgeia, 4, 46, 67, 79–88, 91n35,
92nn36–37, 93n45, 93n51, 95n65,
96n80, 98, 99, 100, 112, 118n15, 140,
200–202, 210n33, 225, 235
ejntelevceia, 4, 79, 81–84, 85, 86, 93n51,
95n65, 103, 115
Enneads (Plotinus), ix, 4, 5, 48, 116, 117n2,
124n59, 131–32, 133–52, 154, 161n89,
166, 167–71, 172–73, 174–77, 180nn8–
9, 181nn16–17, 181n19, 182n21,
182n26, 183n37, 184n38, 188, 194,
208n16, 209n26, 216, 218–25, 227n12,
228nn20–21, 230n31, 236, 238
ejpistrofhv, 131–55
evil, 26, 29n2, 41–42, 43, 45, 47, 207n5
final causality, x–xi, 2, 5, 50, 64, 67, 73,
77–78, 100, 112, 119n18, 141, 155,
206, 206n2, 220, 234, 235
Findlay, J. N., 14, 20, 36n72
first effluence, 5–6, 148, 150, 151, 154,
155, 174, 178, 179, 236, 238
four causes, 67, 73, 76–78, 88, 89n3,
119n30
genus, 26, 51n7, 58, 61, 66, 68n7, 70n16,
78, 109, 122n46, 153, 163n114, 191,
223, 230n31
The Good, x, 2, 14, 30n5, 31n24, 34n48,
41–49, 55n44, 101, 102, 112, 116,
121n38, 140, 142, 178, 185n58, 192–
93, 208n16, 223
Great-and-Small, 3, 14–15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 32nn26–27, 33n31,
34n56, 35n57, 36n69, 36n72, 233
henology, 4, 50, 57–68, 155n2, 233, 234
Hermodorus, 23–27, 35n57, 36n69,
36n71, 37n78
Ideal Numbers, 3, 7, 14, 16, 19, 21–22,
23–24, 28, 34n48, 40, 52n13, 54n34,
147, 178, 233, 238
Indefinite Dyad (ajovristoV duavV), 3–6,
11–29, 50, 52n13, 54n34, 61, 100,
131–55, 175, 177, 178, 179, 185n48,
215, 228n17, 228n21, 233, 235–36
intellect (nou:V), 1–8, 11–12, 24, 29n1,
31n23, 33n34, 33n36, 35n57, 37n74,
43, 44, 47, 49, 50, 51n7, 54n34, 56n44,
57, 58, 60, 61–62, 65, 67–68, 69n9, 76,
88, 90n16, 96n82, 233–40; derivation
of, 131–55; intelligibles within, 187–
206; phantasia and, 165–80; simplicity
of, 97–117, 215–26
intelligible matter (u{lh nohthv), 5, 31n23,
33n36, 133, 134, 144–54, 174–76, 177,
178, 179, 184n48, 209n26, 236. See also
matter
Jackson, J., 4, 124n64, 235, 238
Krämer, H.-J., 20, 41

275. Index 261
Limited (pevraV), 3, 12, 13–14, 15, 22, 23,
28, 114, 125n69, 141, 152, 233
lovgoV, 60, 168, 172–73, 181n16, 184n38,
195
mathematics, 12, 19, 34n48
matter, x, xi, 2, 4, 16–17, 24, 25, 32n26,
36n69, 41, 45, 49, 52n13, 59, 61–63,
64–65, 66–67, 70n23, 73, 75, 80, 87,
88, 89n3, 90n16, 92n40, 98–99, 104–5,
106–7, 108, 112–13, 114–15, 121n33,
125n64, 126n79, 161n90, 161n93,
162n95, 165, 166, 168, 172, 180n2,
180nn5–6, 181n19, 184n40, 184n42,
184n48, 188, 189, 196, 197–99, 200,
202, 204, 207n5, 210n34, 211n49, 219,
234, 238. See also intelligible matter (u{lh
nohthv); prime matter (prwvth u{lh)
Merlan, P., 3, 4, 30n12, 31n21, 37n78,
41, 44–48, 49, 51n7, 56n48, 162n105,
185n57, 194, 203, 204, 212n50,
212n52, 212n64, 233–34, 235
Metaphysics (Aristotle), ix, x, xi, 2, 4, 12, 15,
16, 18, 21, 23, 25–26, 27–28, 39–50,
54n34, 57–58, 71n37, 73, 74, 78,
79–80, 83, 84, 86–88, 89n3, 90n13,
91n30, 92n35, 95n65, 96n82, 98–104,
105, 108–16, 118n15, 118n18, 119n19,
124n64, 153, 154, 155n2, 188, 191,
193, 195, 196, 203, 217, 218, 224, 233,
234, 235, 237
monism, 11, 26, 133, 147, 185n57,
228n17, 239
movement (kivnhsiV), 77, 79, 83, 85,
86–87, 95n70, 127n82, 139, 225
multiplicity, xi, xi, 2, 4, 5–7, 11, 12, 13,
16, 19, 22, 23, 33n44, 40–41, 46, 50,
52n18, 54n34, 67, 89n6, 97, 112,
128n82, 131, 137, 148, 150, 155n2,
168, 176, 177–78, 179, 185nn58–59,
187–88, 209n26, 213n65, 215, 218,
220, 224, 226, 227n12, 228n17,
228nn20–21, 235–37, 239
novhsiV, 7–8, 60, 69nn9–10, 102, 110, 111,
113, 124n60, 127n82, 135, 139, 141,
142, 146, 148, 158n50, 206n2, 216,
218, 220, 226, 237
nohtovn, 97, 125n64, 144, 145–46, 160n84,
198, 203, 209n26, 224
novhsiV nohvsewV novhsiV, 8, 110, 111,
113, 124n60
nonbeing (mh; o[n), 16, 17–19, 25, 33n32,
45, 54n34, 62, 94n57, 96n82, 147,
175–76
The One, ix, 2–7, 11–29, 39–50, 57–68,
79, 81–82, 87, 100–101, 110, 113, 117,
118n15, 120n32, 123n53, 128n82,
131–55, 165–68, 174–78, 179, 180n30,
185n52, 186n59, 187, 189, 209n26,
215–26, 233–40
otherness (e{teron), 5, 7, 16, 17–18, 19,
25, 33n34, 61, 116, 145, 151, 157n20,
174, 177–78, 185n53, 225, 228n21,
237, 238
phantasia (imagination), 5, 120n30, 165–
80, 236
potentiality (duvnamiV), 4, 46, 67, 79–88,
91n35, 92n37, 92n40, 93n51, 94n64,
95n65, 110, 136, 141–42, 143, 159n51,
196, 198, 223, 230n30, 235
prime matter (prwvth u{lh), 76, 90n19,
196, 198
Proclus, 8n1, 29n1, 29n4, 43, 47, 207n5,
230n27, 230n30
pros hen equivocal­, 4, 57, 66–67, 71n37,
119n20, 234
Protrepticus, 79, 91n35, 94n51
Pythagoreans, 11–29, 39–40, 42, 50,
52n11, 52n15, 55n44, 57, 88n2, 147,
177, 178, 235
receptacle, 16, 32n31, 45, 161n90, 172,
175–76
Robin, L., 20, 21, 27, 35n66

276. 262 Index
Seidl, H., 8, 127n82, 239
seed analogy, 42, 44, 51n11. See also
Speusippus
self-consciousness (katanovhsiV), 141, 144,
146, 165–80, 189n11
Sextus Empiricus, 23–28, 35n57, 37n78,
117
Shorey, P., 21
space (cwvra), 15, 16–17, 18, 33n36,
161n90, 175, 176
species, 51n7, 60, 66, 68n8, 77, 78, 88,
122n46, 123n53, 153–54, 163n114,
181n16, 191, 207n5, 223, 230n31
Speusippus, ix, 2, 3, 11, 28–29, 36n69,
39–50, 57, 61, 224, 233, 234
Stenzel, J., 19, 20, 21,
substance (oujsiva), x–xi, 4, 32n27, 39–40,
41, 42, 49, 50, 55n44, 57, 59, 60–61,
62–63, 64–65, 66–67, 68n8, 69n14,
69n16, 70n21, 70n23, 70n37, 71n37,
74, 75–78, 80, 81, 82, 84–85, 87–88,
90n13, 90nn16–17, 90n19, 90n23,
94n63, 95n67, 96n82, 98, 99, 100,
101–2, 107, 109, 110–11, 112, 113–14,
115–16, 118n15, 119n20, 122n53,
123n53, 123nn55–56, 124n58, 132,
141, 143, 144, 150–51, 152, 160n76,
161n89, 161n93, 175, 195, 200, 206,
212n63, 215, 219–20, 221, 222, 224,
230n27, 234, 238
sunaivsqhsiV, 141, 143
Table of Opposites, 3, 12, 13–14, 28, 233
Timaeus, 16–17, 18–19, 30n12, 32n26,
32n31, 42, 43, 80, 90n23, 113, 125n64,
146, 168, 190, 192, 216
tovlma, 6, 29n1, 29n4, 37n74, 133, 144,
147, 160n74, 163n107, 166, 176–78,
179, 185n49, 185n55, 228n21, 236
two-principles doctrine, 3–5, 11–29, 39,
49–50, 52n13, 100, 116–17, 132,
154–55, 233–34
the Ugly, 47, 49
unity, xi, 2, 6, 8, 11, 13–14, 28, 29n4,
30n5, 32n26, 36n74, 50, 52n13, 53n18,
58–59, 60, 61, 63, 67, 68n8, 70n16, 75,
76, 78, 89n6, 91n23, 116, 117, 123n53,
125n64, 137, 145, 146, 150, 152,
185n58, 197, 216, 218, 219, 220, 221,
224, 230n31, 230n33, 235, 239. See also
The One
Unlimited (a[peiron), 3, 12, 13–14, 15, 22,
25, 27, 35n57, 36n69, 109, 148, 152,
233
unwritten (esoteric) teachings of Plato,
3, 15–24, 28, 31n24, 32n27, 33n31,
34n48, 42, 233
cwristovV, 106–7, 121n40

277. 263
About the Author
Mark J. Nyvlt is assistant professor at the Dominican University College,
Ottawa. He specializes in ancient philosophy, and researches and teaches in the
areas of medieval philosophy, German idealism, and human rights. He is the
father of two and is also a musician.