On Friendship

I just noticed something. In his Life of Plotinus, Porphyry notes that he became suicidal after some years in Rome:

I myself at one period had formed the intention of ending my life; Plotinus discerned my purpose; he came unexpectedly to my house where I had secluded myself, told me that my decision sprang not from reason but from mere melancholy and advised me to leave Rome. I obeyed and left for Sicily, which I chose because I heard that one Probus, a man of scholarly repute, was living there not far from Lilybæum. Thus I was induced to abandon my first intention but was prevented from being with Plotinus between that time and his death.

Plotinus mostly only wrote his essays because Amelius and Porphyry nagged him so, but Porphyry indicates that he continued to mail essays to him while he was in Sicily:

The following five [essays] Plotinus wrote and sent to me while I was living in Sicily, where I had gone about the fifteenth year of Gallienus:

46. On True Happiness [I 4]
47. On Providence (1) [III 2]
48. On Providence (2) [III 3]
49. On the Knowing Hypostases and the Transcendent [V 3]
50. On Love [III 5]

Do you notice anything about these? The first three are encouragement for Porphyry, and the latter two are a reminder of what work remains ahead of him.

This seems to me to be a reminder that Plotinus—certainly no intellectual weakling—believed Reason is, and ought to be, in the service of Love.

A Quick Note on Proclus

I was whining a few weeks ago about how trying to build a metaphysical system is stupid, since any given system cannot be powerful enough to prove itself, let alone more powerful systems: that is, metaphysics, being more powerful than physics by definition, can't be apprehended physically. In particular, I expressed frustration with modern commentators who criticized the Neoplatonists for failing to build a system or indeed assuming that's what they were up to. Since those commentators usually pointed to Proclus' Elements of Theology, I wondered whether Proclus himself considered that the goal.

I dug a little ways into the Elements to see for myself, and it seems obvious to me that Proclus was to teach rather than prove. One who wants to prove works bottom-up, from irrefutable axioms rooted in everyday experience; but the one who wants to teach works top-down, from simple to complex. That Proclus has borrowed the form of Euclid's Elements doesn't mean he has borrowed the means; his references to prior propositions seem to me to be an aid to the student, rather than a mathematical demonstration.

I keep getting frustrated with all the mistakes I make in trying to understand Plotinus—perhaps Proclus will be illuminating, when I get there.