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Plotinus: Man
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Emanating from the Unity or One is the Intellectual-Principle (nous), which Plotinus identifies with the demiurgos of Plato's Timaeus (III. 9.1; V. 9.9). Plotinus explains that the Unity or One overflowed, as it were, as a result of its fullness, "and its exuberance has produced the new"; this overflow or emanation from the One establishes Being, and its vision of the One, that from which it originated, establishes the Intellectual-Principle. He writes, "That station towards the one [the fact that something exists in presence of the One] establishes Being; that vision directed upon the One establishes the Intellectual-Principle; standing towards the One to the end of vision, it is simultaneously Intellectual-Principle and Being" (V. 2.1). From the Unity or One first arises (in an ontological sense, not a temporal sense) Being, by which he means the Forms or Ideas, the Authentic Existences, and that which knows these, the Intellectual-Principle. Thus being and the Intellectual-Principle are one, being two aspects or phases of the same emanation. In this first emanation from the Unity or One does multiplicity first appear, but it is a multiplicity held in unity. The unity consists in the fact that the multiplicity of Being, the Forms or Ideas, are actually the contents of one mind or consciousness, the Intellectual-Principle. The Intellectual-Principle, therefore, contemplates not only the Unity or One, thereby "first" establishing itself as Intellectual-Principle, but itself, which is to say the contents of its own consciousness, Being. It should be noted that contained in the Intellectual-Principle are individual things, not simply the general Forms or Ideas that include many individual things. For example, not only is the Form or Idea of Human Being in the Intellectual-Principle, but every individual person, such as Socrates; in Plotinus's judgment, there are as many Forms or Ideas as there are individual beings that differ from one another other than in being deficient in some way (V. 7.1-3)
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The ecstasy which Plotinus claimed to have experienced was one step further. It was a complete union with God, the infinite, unitary, and beneficent One. This experience was impossible to describe. Since God is completely self-sufficient and has no need to be conscious of anything, so the man who reaches the height of ecstatic union with Him finds himself in a state of totally indescribable self-sufficiency and oneness. It is an experience equivalent to the mystical union with God described by Christian mystics.
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Like Johnson, Plotinus was lazy and energetic and short-sighted. He wrote a very large number of treatises, but he never took the trouble to read through them when once they were written, because his eyes were weak. He was superstitious, like Dr. Johnson, yet he had lucid intervals of common sense, when he laughed at the superstitions of his disciples. Like Dr. Johnson, he was always begirt by disciples, men and women, Bozzys and Thrales. He was so full of honour and charity, that his house was crowded with persons in need of help and friendly care. Though he lived so much in the clouds and among philosophical abstractions, he was an excellent man of business.
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Plotinus did not address this but virtuous deeds (ethics) are often a prudent matter. It is vital to business that management be ethical… a few missteps could spell doom for a company. Dishonesty is ... social suicide. In this respect, virtue is not attached to self-serving acts… not in the strict sense of the word. Virtue, true virtue, are those good deeds for which nothing in return is expected. like a lost wallet returned to the owner (absolute integrity).
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This identification of knower and known leads Plotinus to make the unusual assertion that the Intellectual Objects are the Intellectual-Principle and vice versa. He says that the objects of the Intellectual-Principle are in possession of Intellect (V. 5.1), which implies, presumably, they actually know themselves. He attempts to explain how there can be no division between subject and object in the Intellectual-Principle, with the result that "The Intellectual-Principle entire is the total of Ideas, and each of them is the [entire] Intellectual-Principle in a special form" (V. 9.8). One cannot separate subject and object, so that the Ideas (intellectual objects) are the Intellectual-Principle in a special mode or form of being. Likewise, he says of the Intellectual-Principle that the Beings are its actual content and that intellection, the act of the Intellectual-Principle, is inherent to the Beings: "The Beings contain the Intellectual-Principle as one and the same with themselves, as their own activity. Thus Being is itself an activity: there is one activity, then, or, rather, both are one thing" (V. 9.8). Finally, he writes, "The Intellectual Beings... are multiple and one; in virtue of their infinite nature their unity is a multiplicity, many in one and one over many, a unit-plurality. They act as entire upon entire; even upon the partial things they act as entire" (VI. 5.6).
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The main reason is certainly that here again the part which is not related to intellect is underlined, even though Plotinus wants to say that the spoudaios is not a man of such mixture. Another point is that this chapter takes up the metaphor of the lyre-player, which had already been given by Aristotle (NE 1098a9), the interesting point being that Aristotle uses that example precisely for the spoudaios…
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